Ritual humiliation and humiliation humilitation A couple of social media posts about the ongoing fascist follies. The inferiority complex runs deep. Followers will, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat (“Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present“) observes, debase themselves to win the Leader’s approval and bask in any glimmer of reflected glory. Here’s the clip so you don’t have to hunt it. Like Donald Trump has for decades, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders dutifully regurgitates that people “on the other side of the world are laughing at us.” Trump the Insecure has always craved the respect of people he never felt took him seriously (like his father), and not just in New York City. It’s why Trump fawns over Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and North Korea’s “hereditary communist monarch” Kim Jong-un. They’ll never let you into their club, Donald. You’ll never have their respect. How much more pathetic that MAGA cult members crave Trump’s? Like loyalty with him, respect is a one-way street.
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Bye bye Ron. It’s been real. Who would ever have guessed that the latest Republican Great Whitebread Hope would crash and burn even before the New Hampshire primary? It’s not as if they always end up being losers. Well, actually they do. Every cycle some highly touted GOP Governor is built up to be the second coming of Ronald Reagan and they inevitably come to a ignominious end that generally spells the end of their political future. (When’s the last time you heard anything about former heartthrobs Scott Walker of Wisconsin or Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota?) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who quit the race on Sunday rather than face another primary drubbing, is no exception. The man from Florida turned out to be a dud, just like so many who have come before him. Despite all the hype he never stood any chance of dethroning Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination and it actually had little to do with him. It’s because Donald Trump has had the nomination in the bag since January 21, 2021. Even zombie Reagan wouldn’t be able to beat him.
Depends on which war you mean The race is on to see who burns out on Donald Trump first, Trump Himself or the rest of us. With his shuttling furiously between court apearances and campaign appearances, Trump can no longer tell his Nikkis from his Nancys. “I am your retribution” has turned into “IMMUNITY NOW, IMMUNITY TOMORROW, IMMUNITY FOREVER.” Although neither as smart nor as clever nor as intellectually agile as George Wallace, Jamelle Bouie nonetheless believes Wallace’s “legacy in national politics … is very clearly Trump.” I need a break. Make that “break.” The Russians are still bombing Ukraine. The Israelis are still bombing Gaza. Vladimir Putin is still directing the former and Benjamin Netanyahu, the latter. Al Jazeera provides a rundown of events on Day 697 of the war on Ukraine: “Meat grinder” (Business Insider): Russian marines and paratroopers are refusing to launch certain types of assaults due to concerns over the huge losses other troops are suffering, a Ukrainian official said, the Kyiv Post reported.
A quick refresher People don’t know what they don’t know. That’s tautological, but true. One reason I publish ForThe Win every two years (the 5th edition isn’t quite ready) is to give less-experienced Democratic county chairs in under-resourced counties a “cookbook” for assembling a countywide get-out-the-vote program in support of their candidates. State parties assume chairs have already learned the nuts and bolts by the seat of their pants. They instead provide sometimes overly thick manuals focused mainly on party administration. “Where’s the part about electing Democrats?” is my usual reaction. In presidential years, people unfamiliar with local party operations start calling the headquarters here in West Cackalacky (or your Cackalacky). Some have basic election questions. Others want to discuss policy or something they just saw on the news. Angry others want to chew the ears of retiree volunteers who answer the phone as though local committees are part of the Collective with a subspace connection to decisions made in the West Wing. That’s not how this works.
The Biden campaign is out with a stark new ad featuring a woman talking about traveling out of state to receive an abortion due to Texas’ strict abortion ban. It’s the latest in their push to put reproductive rights front and center in the 2024 race. It will be playing: -during the The Bachelor season premiere -on HGTV, TLC, Bravo, Hallmark, Food Network & Oxygen -during NFL championships – on digital This is very good. But it’s just a start. They need to keep it up.
Trump is not an improvement in any way I hear a lot on my social media these days about how Trump is better than Biden on the Gaza war. That’s utter nonsense. It’s true that Trump isn’t particularly fond of Netanyahu (neither is Biden, actually) but that does not mean that he would ever be an ally of the Palestinians or the Palestinian allies. Donald Trump promised on Monday that if elected president again he will bar immigrants who support Hamas from entering the U.S. and send officers to pro-Hamas protests to arrest and deport immigrants who publicly support the Palestinian militant group. Trump, president from 2017-2021, said that if elected to a second White House term he will ban entry to the U.S. of anybody who does not believe in Israel’s right to exist, and revoke the visas of foreign students who are “antisemitic.” He also vowed to step up travel bans from “terror-plagued countries.” He did not explain how he would enforce his demands, including the one requiring immigrants to support Israel’s right to exist under what he called “strong ideological screening.” … Promising to drastically tighten U.S.
Daniel Uhlfelder went through the FEC reports and found all money paid to law firms by Donald Trump’s Super PAC in the first 6 months of last year. FEC records show that between January 1, 2023, and June 30, 2023, Donald Trump’s Super PAC, SAVE AMERICA, made payments to the following law firms in these amounts:BALLARD SPAHR LLP – $109,174.55 BEDELL, DITTMAR, DEVAULT, PILLANS & COXE, P.A. – $351,040.77 BINNALL LAW GROUP – $1,031,788.33 BLANCHE LAW – $353,090.03 BRAND WOODWARD LAW – 201,948.00 BRITO PLLC – $68,194.50 CADWALADER, WICKERSHAM, & TAFT LLP – $344,950.21 CONTINENTAL PLLC – $1,929,207.90 DHILLON LAW GROUP INC. – $734,730.8 EARTH & WATER LAW, LLC – $347,820 HABBA MADAIO & ASSOCIATES LLP – $1,503,915.14 IFRAH LAW PLLC – $720,009.28 FINDLING LAW FIRM – $541,456.25 KELLOGG, HANSEN, TODD, FIGEL & FREDERICK PLLC – $1,042,479 CHRIS KISE & ASSOCIATES, P.A. – $2,148,536.58 JOHN F. LAURO, P.A.
He’s out. Thank God. Yes, he is the most worthless politician in America: It seems only minutes ago that the whole political world was agog at his tremendous political talent. Well… The lesson? Never assume that the next GOP Great Whitebread Hope is as fantastic as the press corps thinks he is. The other lesson? If you’re going to run as the biggest asshole in politics you’d better have a lot of money and celebrity that makes people think you must be really great anyway. Ron is just an asshole. I am so happy to see the end of him. It’s been a real horror covering his disgusting campaign. Let’s hope we never see him on the national stage again. This massive flame-out argues for him joining Scott Walker and Tim Pawlenty in the Loser Hall of Fame. What does it all mean? We’ll unwind all that in the next few days. But Greg Sargent is right that it spells the end of the big post-pandemic “woke” war. That battle in the culture war is coming to an end, but never fear, the war isn’t over.
Sixty years ago today, Capitol Records issued the “Meet The Beatles!” album, which was the American version of the “With The Beatles” LP that had been issued the previous November in the U.K. I actually didn’t get to listen to … Continue reading
LOLOLOLOL!!! Onstage at a New Hampshire campaign event on Wednesday night, former president Donald Trump bragged about many things: his immigration policies, his passage of a tax cut, the unemployment rates during his administration. He also bragged that he correctly identified a whale on a cognitive test when he was president. “I think it was 30, 35 questions,” the former president said of the test, which he said involved a few animal-identification questions. “They always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, or this, or that, and then: a whale. ‘Which one is the whale?’ Okay. And that goes on for three or four [questions], and then it gets harder, and harder, and harder.” Trump, 77, said he aced the exam, which he said he took to silence the critics who claim he may be too old or cognitively incapable to run for president. Chief among those critics is former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who — to gain ground on Trump ahead of the New Hampshire primary — has sharpened her pitch against him by doubling down on questioning his age and cognitive abilities.