If they win the presidency get ready for a revolution Picture if you will, it’s January 21st 2025 and Donald Trump has just been inaugurated for his second term after the Biden interregnum. Yes, it would be a horrific time, not unlike those first horrible weeks in 2016 when over half the country struggled to grasp how it was possible that an ignorant, bombastic, game show host had eked out a win through an electoral college fluke. But those feelings of despair are where the similarities will end. The next Trump administration will be ready to hit the ground running with their leader’s Retribution Agenda and it won’t be because Trump is any more effective at presidential leadership. It will be because right wing institutions will have spent their four years in the wilderness preparing for their chance to enact a radical overhaul of the federal government unlike anything we’ve ever seen in this country. Even some members of the GOP establishment are getting nervous: There was always talk of this among the original Trumpers, even though the president himself didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
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Just thought I’d share this because it’s very cool:
Back in January, I wrote this: Democrats are supremely confident that the Republicans will be blamed for the standoff and that this will benefit them in the 2024 election. In fact, many of them didn’t even try to convince Sinemanchin to raise it in the lame duck because they are so sure that everything will turn out all right and the GOP will be blamed for any fallout from the hostage taking. Wherever did I get that idea? Democratic leaders have signaled that they don’t intend to address the borrowing limit in the current lame-duck session of Congress, when their majorities in the House and the Senate would theoretically give them a shot at raising or even eliminating the cap entirely without the help of Republican votes.
Including in the Washington Post It’s obvious that right wingers did not read the report. They have been relying on each other’s interpretations and it’s all wrong. Here’s the very trustworthy NY Times’ Charlie Savage: Marc Thiessen wrote a shoddy Washington Post column using as a foil the headline of my piece yesterday assessing how the Durham inquiry fell flat after years of political hype. (He didn’t engage with its substance, of course.) A dissection follows. As an initial matter, Thiessen got his start at a lobbying firm that included two named partners – Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – who were convicted of felonies in the Russia investigation & pardoned by Trump. He does not disclose that conflict to the WP’s readers. Thiessen opens by insinuating that I am downplaying Durham bc I’m implicated in (his tendentious portrayal of) the media’s Trump-Russia coverage. Aside from whether he is accurately describing Mueller’s complex findings, I wasn’t part of the NYT’s Trump-Russia coverage team. He links a screenshot, not the piece nyti.ms/3pSTil6, then moves goalposts.
Good ad. You can donate to his campaign here. Here’s the best review of Hawley’s “Manhood” For practically as long as men have existed, they have been in crisis. Everything, it seems, threatens them with obsolescence. As far back as the 1660s, King Charles II warned English men that a new beverage called coffee would destroy their virility, and in the early 1900s, opponents of coeducation worried that feather beds, dancing and even reading might emasculate little boys. Men were in peril at the turn of the 20th century, when the founder of the Boy Scouts cautioned that “we badly need some training for our lads if we are to keep up manliness in our race instead of lapsing into a nation of soft, sloppy, cigarette suckers,” and they had not recovered by 1958, when the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. reported in Esquire that “something has gone badly wrong with the American male’s conception of himself.” A dispatch from the journalist Susan Faludi confirmed that manliness remained “under siege” in 1999. No wonder there is such a chorus of complaints about the dearth of male role models.
You’d think Kevin would have warned Comer not to screw the pooch like he did James Comer, who is leading the GOP’s probe as chair of the House oversight and accountability committee, appeared to say the quiet part out loud during a “Fox & Friends First” interview. “We have talked to you about this on the show, about how the media can just not ignore this any longer. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, it says, ‘Millions Flowed to Biden Family Members. Don’t Pretend It Doesn’t Matter,’” said the show’s host, Ashley Strohmier, referring to a piece last week by conservative columnist Jim Geraghty. “So do you think that because of your investigation, that is what’s moved this needle with the media?” “Absolutely. There’s no question,” Comer replied. “You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is 7 points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward.
The assumption is that if only Biden will give the Freedom Caucus everything they want — in other words, destroy all of his accomplishments and more — then they will allow the government to pay its debt. No. They. Will. Not. Once they realize Biden will give them anything there will be no end to it, even if the country defaults. Krugman asks the right questions here: So much writing on the debt ceiling right now seems utterly behind the curve. The question now is what does Biden do if Rs refuse any deal that doesn’t effectively give them complete control of US policy? Or maybe even actively seek financial crisis? Unilateral actions might fail — or be blocked by a partisan Supreme Court. But what are people pointing out these risks saying that Biden should do? Capitulate completely? (Even that might not be enough). If that’s the plan, say it clearly. That is the plan but it won’t be enough. The only legislative way out of this is for the Senate to pass a bill and send it back to the House.
Sadly, I’m sure his vacuous followers think this is just great: Russia has expanded its list of sanctioned Americans in a tit-for-tat retaliation for the latest curbs imposed by the United States. But what is particularly striking is how much President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is adopting perceived enemies of former President Donald J. Trump as his own. Among the 500 people singled out for travel and financial restrictions on Friday were Americans seen as adversaries by Mr. Trump, including Letitia James, the state attorney general of New York who has investigated and sued him. Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia who rebuffed Mr. Trump’s pressure to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, also made the list. And Lt. Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot the pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, was another notable name. None of those three has anything to do with Russia policy and the only reason they would have come to Moscow’s attention is because Mr. Trump has publicly assailed them.
Since when do you need ID to go into a bathroom? (That apparently happened some years ago but you can bet it’s happening today.) Take a look at these horrible people who are institutionalizing more of this grotesque nonsense: Members of the conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty are known for making impassioned and sometimes spicy speeches to school boards to complain that teachers are supposedly indoctrinating students. This can include mothers, often in the group’s trademark tee, standing at a lectern reading sex scenes from books they deem inappropriate to have near their children. Supporters post videos of these speeches, some of which have gone viral. And the group has claimed success, pointing to growing membership nationwide as well as policies and elections going their way. But because Moms for Liberty is working on such a local level, opponents have found plenty of opportunities to take action. “I just got back from forcibly re-closeting myself for 90 minutes to infiltrate a Moms for Liberty meeting. … I got so much juice!” a TikTok user who goes by Morgan Howls said in a video.
This has an air of desperation to it, I’m afraid. They are flailing around with one investigation after another, now this nonsense based on the Durham dud. But it does serve one purpose. it keeps the Trump cult conspiracy nuts excited. But I’m fairly sure that if they launch yet another crusade against Hillary Clinton the general public will not be amused.