I have some strong feelings about the social web (aka “the fediverse”) right now. I don’t aways communicate them well, because they feel so essential to me, which can be frustrating for my friends, colleagues and allies. I want to set out some steps for my reasoning. A lot of people don’t agree with me … Continue reading ActivityPub, the SocialCG, and the social web
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I’m running out of W’s T’s and F’s Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) last night responded to a Daily Mail article. (Yeah, I’m wondering about that too.) The post: BREAKING: While IRS was pursuing felony charges against addict Hunter Biden, they were pursuing a mere lien against addict Rudy Giuliani. I’m sorry, what? The IRS has placed a lien on Rudy Giuliani’s $4.5 million penthouse after accusing the fallen attorney of owing more than half a million dollars in unpaid taxes, DailyMail.com can reveal. The federal tax agency claims the 79-year-old former New York City mayor owes $549,435.26 in unpaid income taxes for 2021, according to a notice filed in court in Palm Beach County, Florida. The IRS placed a lien on Giuliani’s penthouse in Palm Beach, just three miles north of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. If Giuliani doesn’t pay up, the September 1 lien allows the IRS to seize some of the profits from Giuliani’s condo if it were to be sold. Surely Venezuelan software in the IRS machines is responsible. There are “rich and famous” photos of the apartment included. Who cares?
Set down your coffee cup before reading Daily Beast: The judge who doomed Donald Trump’s family business last week took an aggressive and preemptive step on Wednesday to ensure the former president can’t secretly shift assets to salvage his real estate empire. In an order that was posted on the fourth day of the former president’s bank fraud trial, Justice Arthur F. Engoron commanded that the Trumps identify any corporations they have—and come clean about any plans to move around money in an attempt to hide or keep their wealth. Seriously? And Engoron expects Trump to comply? Sure, it’s something the case demands. But this is Donald J. Trump and family we’re talking about. It’s a powerful maneuver meant to counter the sort of underhanded moves Trump has displayed so far during the three-year investigation. Trump, sons Don Jr.
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.
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.