What a mess. The border bill is dead, Mike Johnson’s proposal for a stand-alone Israel bill will be vetoed by the president (if it even gets out of the House), and the fate of Ukraine and potentially Europe, as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza, hangs in the balance. These people are unrepentant chaos agents. Here’s a report from Manu Raju of CNN from the smoldering ruins of the GOP Senate caucus: McConnell, Cornyn and other top Rs say now the Senate should move ahead with the other aspects of the emergency aid package — Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan funding — and leave border provisions behind given deep divisions in the ranks. Schumer wouldn’t say how he would proceed after tomorrow’s failed vote. McConnell on his handling of talks: “I followed the instructions of my conference who were insisting that we tackle this in October. I mean, it’s actually our side that wanted to tackle the border issue. We started it.” Even he admits that his senate Republicans are perfidious liars. Will they end up passing those foreign aid bills? Who knows?
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Remember how Republicans used to spend lavishly at the Trump Hotel when he owned it while he was in office. For some reason they aren’t doing that anymore now that the hotel isn’t owned by Trump anymore: [S]ince becoming a Waldorf Astoria in 2022, GOP spending at the largely unchanged luxury hotel in the Old Post Office building has all but disappeared. This directly conflicts with how Republicans explained their choice of venue at the time. When questions arose about their patronage of the then-president’s business, Republicans brushed off concerns of corruption saying that Trump’s DC hotel was simply a convenient location near Capitol Hill for lawmakers and political operatives to socialize, that they would be there regardless of who owned it. As such, it would be reasonable to expect that Republicans would continue to frequent the hotel after Trump sold it and it rebranded as a Waldorf Astoria in June 2022, leaving many of the building’s luxury public spaces largely unchanged from its time as a Trump property.
And it’s probably going to cost him Trump’s former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, has been caught committing perjury in the earlier Trump Organization trial and is negotiating a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors. The Judge in Trump’s fraud trial wants to know the details because Weisselberg was a major witness on the same topic in the civil fraud trial over which he presides. He does not seem happy: In an email on Monday sent to attorneys for Trump, Weisselberg, the Trump Organization, as well as counsel for New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office, New York Justice Arthur Engoron explained he wanted answers before issuing his verdict. “As the presiding magistrate, the trier of fact, and the judge of credibility, I of course want to know whether Mr. Weisselberg is now changing his tune, and whether he is admitting he lied under oath in my courtroom at this trial,” Engoron wrote. “I do not want to ignore anything in a case of this magnitude,” Engoron added. Engoron has asked the legal teams to respond by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
A republic imperiled Elie Mystal captured the tenor of our times in a single Formerly Twitter post Monday afternoon: On the first ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday thankfully and logically ruled unanimously that former U.S. presidents, Donald “91 Counts” Trump specifically, are not immune from criminal prosecution. “SAVE PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY!” the would-be potentate declared immediately on his social network. You first have to have it to save it, Donald. Yes, Trump will appeal to “his” justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, and must by Monday, the Appeals Court ruled. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write at Slate: The justices must now decide whether to halt the new ruling—an act that seems likely to push Trump’s criminal trial past the 2024 election—or allow proceedings at the trial court to move forward at a pace that might affect the election’s outcome. In theory, this call is purely procedural; in reality, due to the compressed timeline here, it may well determine Trump’s fate.
‘None of these candidates’ wins Nevada The presidential candidacy of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was never exactly soaring. She nonetheless hit a downdraft when a majority of voters in Tuesday’s nonbinding Nevada Republican primary chose “none of these candidates.” Donald “91 Counts” Trump, the indicted former president and Haley’s only serious opponent, was not even on the ballot. ABC News: “None of these candidates,” Haley, a number of long shot challengers and two former GOP candidates — Mike Pence and Tim Scott — were on Nevada’s primary ballot. Pence and Scott received a few thousand votes combined and some of the minor candidates garnered several hundred in total. The Haley campaign did not respond directly to a question about their loss, instead releasing a statement where they called Thursday’s competing caucuses a “game rigged for Trump,” an allegation the Nevada Republican Party has repeatedly denied. Even so, Haley was never eligible to win convention delegates on Tuesday.
Uhm… He told Bongino, “I won 77 out of 77 counties [in Oklahoma]. Ronald Reagan is second with 56.” Bush ’04, McCain and Romney swept all 77 as well. The GOP hasn’t lost a county in Oklahoma since the 20th Century. In other words, Trump is nothing special in Oklahoma. It is a dyed in the wool red state. It appears that Lankford, a far right GOPer, has decided that he wants to do the job of being a far right legislator instead of a full time MAGA sycophant. I wonder how well that’s going to work out for him. CNN’s Manu Raju spoke with Sen. James Lankford about the GOP opposition to his border deal. “I’m frustrated when people put out intentionally false information. I expect more. There are policy disagreements on that, I get that,” he said. “If people think that politics are wrong, and now we’re in a presidential year, so let’s not help Biden in the process, we’re just going to disagree on that.
Or better yet, terrorism These people are very stupid, so you can’t expect most of them to know history or understand basic governing requirements. The ones that do obviously don’t give a damn. They’ve been taking hostages for years on budget deals. Now they are using the security of the United States and the world as a weapon to get their way: It is not unusual for Washington Republicans to receive visitors — candidates, lobbyists, political donors — who boast about their commitment to securing the border and cutting taxes. It’s not every day that one of those visitors used to run Denmark. Yet on a recent Thursday afternoon, several hard-line members of the House found themselves listening to Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the former Danish prime minister emphasized his small-government values. As a head of government, Rasmussen told them, he had restricted migration and held down taxes — stances even the conservative Freedom Caucus might admire. “He was trying to draw parallels with Republican ideology,” recalled Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who helped convene the meeting.
The border convoy is getting crispy
Trump’s GOP won’t take yes for an answer The French famously supported Americans’ fight to win freedom from England and its king. But Republicans won’t support Ukraine’s fight to secure theirs against invading Russians. Republicans won’t take yes for an answer on a bill to enhance U.S. border security after hissing and spitting about it for years. They don’t want to govern, they want to rule, yet have no idea how to do it. But kowtowing before Donald “91 Counts” Trump? They’re hell at bowing and scraping. Christian conservatives make up a sizable percentage of the GOP base. They are conditioned from childhood to serve a heavenly king and to long for his return. But since Jesus Christ has been delayed now for two thousand years, they’ve grown impatient. They are ready to settle. For Trump. With President Joe Biden’s economy going gangbusters (even Fox News admits it); with the inflation Republicans expected to run on falling; with unemployment at historic lows and the stock market at historic highs; with the end of Roe following him like a dark cloud; and with the U.S.
Repent at leisure? Hell, no. It’s rare that I bother with a Thomas Friedman column. He’s usually full of himself and his breathless “deepisms.” But the headline on his piece today grabbed me. It’s bumper-sticker messaging about Republican efforts to kill the border security deal, and it’s absent Friedman’s usual verbal filigree. The G.O.P. Bumper Sticker: Trump First. Putin Second. America Third. Every so often there is a piece of legislation on Capitol Hill that defines America and its values — that shows what kind of country we want to be. I would argue that when it comes to the $118.3 billion bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate to repair our broken immigration system and supply vital aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, its passage or failure won’t define just America but also the world that we’re going to inhabit. There are hinges in history, and this is one of them. What Washington does — or does not do — this year to support its allies and secure our border will say so much about our approach to security and stability in this new post-post-Cold War era.