And you need to hear it too Greg Gutfeld says “elections don’t work” and “society is in peril and chaos because our elections don’t matter” while urging for a new American civil war. In the following tweets, I will transcribe everything he says in this clip, because it goes into some very dark territory. pic.twitter.com/2FLCz5ptCP — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 5, 2023 This is not a joke, even though Gutfeld presents himself as a comedian. It’s not funny. It’s terrifying. And it’s exactly what the Trump cult is being fed day in and day pout. It’s not just him. It’s the entire right wing media universe. Between Trump, Fox, the lesser cable newsers, the internet, Steve Bannon and his ilk etc., they’re managing to brainwash tens of millions of Americans.: “Only certain people get criminal mulligans and Jan. 6 protestors, they don’t get criminal mulligans and here’s why. They’re the oppressor. So the oppressed get criminal mulligans.
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Democrats were the adults in the room when they agreed to vote for a CR without Ukraine funding. Saving McCarthy was a bridge too far. Greg Sargent on this irritating notion among much of the punditocracy that the Democrats are at fault for the mess in the House because they failed to step up and save Kevin McCarthy from the monster he helped create: Because Republicans are such firm believers in benevolence toward political foes, they are furious with Democrats for failing to save Kevin McCarthy. After Democrats voted en masse this week to remove the California Republican as House speaker, his fellow Republicans responded by revoking some of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Capitol office privileges. They are reportedly planning more acts of retaliation. But Democrats were right not to save McCarthy. With the forces unleashed by former president Donald Trump and the MAGA movement damaging the House GOP caucus, Democrats absolutely shouldn’t have stepped in, because so doing would help Republicans erase their own culpability for nourishing those forces for so long.
The dynamics in the House make it very difficult to see how they get the funding bill passed. The best hope may be that Trump wants to save the issue for himself. It’s been quite a week in the US House with MAGA superstar Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., leading a small band of incoherent revolutionaries to topple Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy just to show they could. Then all day Thursday the media was overwhelmingly excited at the rumor that Donald Trump was going to heroically run to the rescue of the House Republicans and save them from themselves by stepping in as the House Speaker. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene enthusiastically endorsed him and it was announced that he would be travelling to the Capitol for the first time since January 6th, 2021 within days. Sadly, late last night, Trump himself stuck a shiv in that trial balloon by announcing that he was endorsing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for the job which will likely assure his victory.
He’s been spilling even more nuclear secrets but his hand-picked judge in Florida continues to protect him by slow-walking the trial A delay to consider how long to delay the trial. Trump’s documents case, in Judge Cannon’s hands, is going nowhere fast. https://t.co/GxcTZhkqK0 — Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) October 6, 2023 We just learned that Donald Trump has been whispering American nuclear secrets in the ears of his Mar-a-lago members and they’ve been spreading them around to anyone who will listen. Torri Otten at TNR reminds us of all the other times he’s done this: Trump allegedly told Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt in April 2021 that Australia should start buying its submarines from the U.S. Trump then told Pratt the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads a U.S. sub can carry, and how close it can supposedly get to a Russian sub without being detected, ABC News reported late Thursday, citing anonymous sources.
When he was mocked on the cable networks for getting the lowest vote count in history, he pulled the plug. ABC’s Jonathan Karl writes: In reporting for my upcoming book, “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,” I learned that Trump had secretly plotted to be elected speaker back in January, when he was publicly supporting Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was struggling to get the votes he needed. The idea of Donald Trump serving as speaker was first proposed on the day he left the White House — Jan. 20, 2021 — by a pro-Trump activist named Rogan O’Handley, who went by the name “@DC_Draino” on social media. The idea was soon aggressively pushed by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House. At first Trump had no interest in the job, but that all changed as he watched McCarthy fail in vote after vote on the House floor in early January of this year. The prime-time drama surrounding the seemingly endless voting for House speaker in January caught the attention of the former president, who was soaking up every minute of coverage from his perch in Mar‑a‑Lago.
What Republicans did and what it really means A lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill have no use for Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and the seven others from the Republican caucus whose votes the other day sank Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. MAGA reactionaries lobbing grenades at Democrats is one thing. Lobbing them into the Republican caucus is quite another. As predicted, Republicans are trying to pin McCarthy’s ouster on Democrats. Reality check: It was Gaetz’s resolution. His alone. For reasons including his initiating an impeachment inquiry against President Biden and his reversal on condemning Donald Trump for precipitating a violent insurrection, Democrats saw no benefit in bailing out McCarthy. Now comes the aftermath. Giving McCarthy the boot is not a good look either for Republicans or for the U.S.A. as a whole. After a quick review of the week’s events and Donald Trump’s “burn-the-house-down” antics at his New York trial, Peter Baker (take with a grain of salt) writes that the foundations of our democracy appear shaky both to scholars and average Americans. Also, foreign adversaries are watching closely: Robert M.
Did Lincoln lose his soul or save a nation? And you don’t need to win over 100 percent of the people on the other side or on any side. In a democracy, what you need is a majority. — NPR’s Steve Inskeep to Anand Giridharadas at The.Ink Aggressive gerrymandering by GOP-led legislatures means in many places it takes much more than a simple majority to win power. Otherwise, Inskeep is correct. What Democrats must do in such places is shave the other side’s vote margins. That’s doable. Non-Democrats are not monolithic, nor are Trump supporters, as John Russell of The Holler found in Erie, Pennnsylvania. Democrats campaigning conservatively by avoiding all contact with such voters won’t cut it. Nor will giving potential allies the side-eye when they move in our direction. The left is too liberal with sticks and way too stingy with carrots. Inskeep (“Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America“) makes a case for political frenemies in conversation with Giridharadas: I don’t know if you’ve read Frank Foer’s new book on the Biden presidency.
Oh great I’ve argued that he is more likely to take votes from Trump than Biden. But it appears that at this point in the cycle anyway, I’m wrong. He does take more from Biden. Dan Pfeiffer writes about it in his newsletter today: Politico also reports that American Values 2024, a Super PAC supporting Kennedy Jr., has commissioned polling and is preparing for an independent bid. While multiple polls demonstrated that the No Labels and West candidacies could hurt Biden, the initial speculation was that Kennedy would hurt Trump more. On its face, Kennedy Jr. has been running as MAGA’s favorite Democrat. He is a regular on Fox News and other MAGA media outlets, where he mostly attacks Biden, spouts anti-vax conspiracy theories, and toes the Trump line on Russia. If West pulls disaffected liberals from Biden, and the No Labels ticket is a place for Republicans and independents that disapprove of Biden, shouldn’t RFK Jr. take votes from Trump? What the Polls Say Most of the polling shows Kennedy Jr. getting 10% and 20% of the vote against Biden in the primary.
Lol: Former President Donald Trump is considering a visit to the Capitol next week where he is open to pitching himself as a speaker candidate, according to a Republican familiar with internal discussions. If it happens, Trump would come speak to the House GOP sometime before lawmakers’ internal speaker election, which is set to happen on Wednesday, that person said. A final decision hasn’t yet been made. The full GOP will meet Tuesday for an internal “candidate forum.” It’s not clear if Trump — the frontrunner in the 2024 presidential primary — would actually run for speaker. Winning would require near-unanimity from the House GOP, a difficult hurdle for the controversial former president. One of his closest Hill allies, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, is already in the race. (Jordan told NBC that he discussed his speakership bid with Trump this week.) It remains a longshot idea: The House has never elected a speaker who wasn’t a member of Congress, though it is not technically a constitutional requirement.
Say it ain’t so… It’s been obvious that Rudy Giuliani drinks to excess for a long time. He’s shown up on Fox News inebriated more than once, as was obvious to anyone watching. In the infamous interview “Over Bloody Mary’s with NY Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi” he was described like this: His ex-wife had implied, in an interview with New York, that he was an alcoholic. Others anonymously question his mental state. “Oh yeah, yeah — I do a lot of drugs,” Giuliani said sarcastically. “There was one I was addicted to. I’ve forgotten what it is. I don’t know where the drug things come from — I really don’t. The alcohol comes from the fact that I did occasionally drink. I love Scotch. I can’t help it. All of the malts. And part of it is cigars — I love to have them with cigars. I’m a partyer.” Here’s some evidence.