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I assume you’ve heard that ABC is reporting that Meadows got an immunity deal with Jack Smith and has told them that he knew the election wasn’t rigged and told Trump that many times (among other things.) If you haven’t seen it, here’s a link to that article. Nobody is sure who may have leaked this or why but I think it’s pretty clear that it wasn’t Trump’s team. He does not sound pleased.

Is how it will go on Boos … “Shut up! Shut up!” … “Next question” when Rep. Mike Johnson is asked about efforts to overturn 2020 presidential election results … pic.twitter.com/H1O0drK6SE — Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) October 25, 2023 As Stuart Stevens said, Johnson is Jim Jordan with a jacket. Congresswoman Virginia Fox screaming “shut up, shut up” says it all.

File under ‘Sunk-cost fallacy’ Jenna Ellis this week is the fourth Trump attorney to learn the hard way that loyalty to Donald Trump is a fool’s game. David Graham writes in The Atlantic, “Loyalty to Trump is seldom returned, with disastrous results for those who offer it.” Ellis pleaded guilty to a single felony in an Atlanta courtroom and offered a tearful apology: “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.” Another former Trump attorney who received jail time in exchange for his years of fealty to Trump testified against him in the New York fraud trial yesterday in Manhattan. Graham observes: If Ellis and Cohen are not in good company, they are at least in big company.

Their plan to gum up the election might as well be coming from the RNC As the saga of the House Speaker’s race continues into   week, it’s obvious that this Republican House majority is more dysfunctional than at any time in history. This week was supposed to yield a new crop of candidates, among them at least one or two who could bring about a consensus among the moderates (sic)who hail from Biden districts, the institutionalists who allegedly care about maintaining the US system of government and the nihilists who just want to blow everything up. It’s not going well. There have been a number of shifting demands from these various factions but we now know that the one inviolate criterion is that any new Speaker must be an election denier. Yesterday, their leader Donald Trump made it very clear that he will not allow anyone who has ever crossed him in that way or any other can be allowed to have gavel.

He’s just been more quiet about it than the showboaters The Republicans finally found a Speaker: Mike Johnson, 51, has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2016, and is currently serving his fourth term in the House. He represents Louisiana’s fourth congressional district, which includes nearly 760,000 residents. Johnson won the seat with the largest margin of victory in his region in more than 50 years, according to a biography on his website. Of note: After earning both a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Louisiana State University, Johnson spent nearly 20 years practicing constitutional law. Johnson then served in the Louisiana Legislature from February 2015 to January 2017. He and his wife, Kelly Johnson, have been married since 1999 and have four children. Where does he fit into the GOP landscape? Johnson was unanimously re-elected as as vice chair of the House Republican Conference for a second time last year. He also serves as a deputy whip for the 118th Congress, and currently sits on the House Judiciary Committee and on the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Our magazine, Beatlefan, was born on a walk through my parents’ neighborhood on the night of Oct. 21, 1978. Actually, the gestation period for the magazine had begun about five and a half years earlier, when I did a handful … Continue reading →

Trump vs. Cohen today Donald John Trump won’t be armed and he won’t be standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue when he and his former fixer Michael Cohen meet today at the former president’s state fraud trial in Manhattan. Trump plans to be there, mug-shot glare at the ready (The Guardian): “I look forward to the reunion,” Cohen, once Trump’s lawyer, said. “I hope Donald does as well.” Now in its fourth week, Trump, his adult sons and their family business have been found liable for inflating the value of Trump’s assets to routinely and repeatedly deceive banks, insurers and others. Judge Arthur Engoron is using the hearings to decide on punishment, which could include a huge fine and probably means the dissolution of the Trump’s New York property empire. Over a dozen witnesses, many former Trump Organization employees, have testified in the trial so far. But Cohen’s testimony is seen as crucial to the case. Trump has a schedule full of court cases, indictments, and a lengthy list of complaints about how unfairly he’s being treated.

It’s only straight talk when the press doesn’t do it Sen. John McCain dubbed his campaign bus the “Straight Talk Express” during his 2000 presidential run. Voters claim to prefer straight talk to mealy-mouthed answers from their politicians. Donald Trump, the MAGA cult claims, “tells it like it is.” “He’s outspoken. Other candidates wouldn’t tell you how it is, but he does.” – Betty Tully, August 2015 But straight talk is in the eye of the beholder. Straight talk from popular Fox News celebrities consists of xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and branding anyone to the left of Germany’s WWII dictator as hating America. Shy about being branded the enemy of the people, the straight press often shuns straight talk. Maybe that’s one of the many reasons the news business is in such a slump. The press danced around calling Trump’s lies lies for years. When finally they began, of course, and whenever he didn’t like his coverage, Trump declared them the enemy of the people and invited his cult to hurl invective at reporters. Voters are fickle about what they consider straight talk.

Political Scientist Rachel Bitecover: The first time I posted about the harsh reality of America’s collapsing democracy, it seemed like many folks were genuinely surprised to see that America is not actually the Greatest Democracy on Earth. According to the democracy index compiled by the EIU and published annually by The Economist, America is actually a “flawed” democracy. The United States was downgraded from “full” to “flawed” democracy after half of America handed the keys to the White House to a wannabe dictator-con man who immediately began to roll back civil liberties and ignore the rule of law. That’s why the very second I saw the topic Steve Levitsky’s and Daniel Ziblatt’s latest book, Tyranny of the Minority I knew I had to get them onto the show.