The massively corrupt Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton was acquitted in his impeachment trial today. They just can’t quit him. But the Texas GOP is at each others’ throats and it’s going to be a bloodbath. But that’s not unusual. The inmates are running the asylum everywhere and even the power brokers and the money men seem to be impotent in the face of it. Even among those Party leaders who cast their lot with Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 election, very few are still with him: NBC News surveyed forty-four of Trump’s former Cabinet members and found that just four supported his reëlection.
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On Thursday morning NBC News reported that the FBI has created a stand-alone unit to investigate all the threats being made against FBI agents and Federal Prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden. You will be forgive for thinking that this must mean there has been a spate of left wing terrorism we haven’t heard about but, in fact, the threats are coming from right wingers who are convinced that these federal officials have been too soft on the younger Biden. Apparently, there has been “a dramatic uptick in threats against FBI agents that has coincided with attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department by congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump.” And let’s not forget the right wing media which has been hammering this for months, and in the process encouraging their febrile audience to believe that everything coming out of the FBI and the Justice Department is being manipulated by the White House and the career FBI officials and prosecutors are all Democratic operatives.
Greg Sargent calls it the “MAGA doom loop” : For almost three years now, Republicans have defended or embraced Donald Trump’s authoritarianism — from lies about his 2020 loss to inciting an insurrection — which backfired as Americans proved unexpectedly eager to vote in defense of democracy in the 2022 elections as well as in contests this year. But Republicans aren’t giving up — they’re going even further. To an unappreciated degree, they have responded to these electoral losses with even more flagrantly anti-democratic maneuvers all around the country. The pattern is becoming clear: Even as voters are mobilizing to protect democracy at the ballot box, Republicans are redoubling their commitment to the former president’s anti-majoritarian mode of politics. And this, in turn, is motivating voters even more. Call it the “MAGA doom loop.” It’s playing out in state after state.
“They did it to me. Had they not done it to me…you wouldn’t have it being done to them.” Trump reveals impeaching Biden is revenge for his impeachments. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Trump talked about the Republican's "impeachment inquiry" against Biden, suggesting it's all about retribution for his impeachments: "They did it to me. Had they not done it to… pic.twitter.com/5eVlXNKdPN — Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 14, 2023 He’s posted this before on Truth Social. But now he’s on tape saying the same thing. It’s revenge, pure and simple. Unfortunately, at least half the country thinks that’s perfectly normal.
Why do I have the feeling that Marge Greene leaked this story to the Daily Mail? A rising Republican star tipped by many to be Donald Trump‘s running mate should he win the presidential nomination has been involved in a clandestine affair for years, multiple sources tell DailyMail.com. Married South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, 51 – who stresses her belief in ‘family values’ – and Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, who is also married, began carrying on in 2019, if not before. Now news of the relationship threatens to wreck Noem’s chances of joining Trump’s ticket in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. Glamorous Noem – who served four terms as her state’s only member of the US House of Representatives – won the governorship in 2018 promising to uphold the wholesome family values that she said South Dakotans have ‘long embraced’. Defending ‘traditional marriage’, which she defined as ‘a special, God-given union between one man and one woman’, was particularly important to her.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo calls the mRNA vaccines “an unsafe medication”. This is incorrect and irresponsible. Someone should ask Ron DeSantis if he would consider Dr Ladapo for US Surgeon General because that by itself would be a reason not to vote for him. https://t.co/tXPli0EFWZ — Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) September 15, 2023 Irresponsible isn’t the word for it. It’s medical malpractice and will cause untold suffering and death among Florida’s vulnerable populations. The state is full of old, white Republicans who watch Fox, some of whom are going to believe this and get very sick and possibly die. And there are plenty of others who will hear this from the state Surgeon General and believe him too. Ron DeSantis is no better than Donald Trump and in this instance is actually worse. We must fervently hope that this campaign will have destroyed his political career. The grotesque bad judgement (or cynical calculation) in hiring this quack to be the surgeon general of the state totally disqualifies him from ever having lives in his hands again.
Earlier this month, officials from Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah shared a post highlighting the unique behavior of one of the region’s most adorable and little-known species — the American pika. These tiny animals, a diminutive species related to rabbits, spend their days in rocky outcrops at higher altitudes, where they forage for their favorite food: wildflowers. But pikas don’t just nibble as they go. To ensure they have food enough to last them through the frigid winter, during which fresh flowers are in short supply, pikas get to gathering and preserving colorful bouquets when there are plenty to be found. “[Pikas] do not hibernate and will collect wildflowers and grasses in the summertime and lay them out on the rocks in the sun to dry them,” the Park Service wrote. “They do that so their food does not go moldy during the winter. These are called ‘haystacks’ and they are stored in their dens [until] wintertime.” Because pikas are so small and swift, capturing their flower-gathering behavior on camera can be quite tricky to say the least.
Nobody’s calling for mask mandates. That doesn’t mean the right wingers aren’t having a hissy fit anyway. They just love to whine and they love it so much they even make up things to whine about: As Americans fend off a late summer COVID-19 spike and prepare for a fresh vaccine rollout, Republicans are raising familiar fears that government-issued lockdowns and mask mandates are next. It’s been a favorite topic among some of the GOP’s top presidential contenders. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that people are “lurching toward” COVID-19 restrictions and “there needs to be pushback.” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott posted online that the “radical Left” seeks to bring back school closures and mandates. And former President Donald Trump urged congressional Republicans to stop the Biden administration from bringing back COVID-19 “mandates, lockdowns or restrictions of any kind.” “The radical Democrats are trying hard to restart COVID hysteria,” Trump told supporters in Rapid City, South Dakota, during a recent campaign stop. “I wonder why.
WOW! KELLY: But once you get a subpoena you have to turn them over. TRUMP: I know this. *pauses* I don't even know that. pic.twitter.com/X4zbcTUaqh — KevinlyFather 🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇼🇸🇿 (@KevinlyFather) September 14, 2023 And yet tens of millions of people think this guy is a genius,
Sabotuers of Democracy unite A friend with roots in the theater once told a Netroots audience about his journey from the closet to being authentically himself. When finally he came out to actress Bea Arthur, she replied, “Joel, are you the last to know?” Joel died of pancreatic cancer several years ago. “Are you the last to know?” comes to mind because spread across the internet today is a quote from retiring Utah Sen. Mitt Romney that may wind up on his tombstone: “A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” Commenting on Romney’s remarks to The Atlantic‘s McKay Coppins, Jamelle Bouie writes, “Faced with a conflict between partisan loyalty and ideological ambition on one hand and basic principles of self-government and political equality on the other, much of the Republican Party has jettisoned any commitment to America’s democratic values in favor of narrow self-interest.” Republican commitment to the Constitution is highly situational.