Yep, it’s the deep state You knew the Republicans were going to say this. I’m surprised it took so long. But the fact that he was indicted before the GOP took over the House makes this absurd. And it makes the House Majority MAGAs look like gullible idiots once again. *Sigh*. Philip Bump at the Washington Post. “Anyone offering criticism of President Biden instantly becomes credible on the right”: The Justice Department on Monday announced that it had unsealed an indictment against Gal Luft, a director at a think tank in the Washington area. According to federal prosecutors, he is also someone who violated Iranian sanctions, trafficked weapons and aided the Chinese government without registering as a foreign agent. The specific allegations included in the indictment were not known before Monday, but the fact that Luft had been indicted was. He was arrested in Cyprus in February, which Luft immediately suggested was a response to his having information incriminating President Biden and members of his family.
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“He was always telling me that we need to use the FBI and IRS to go after people,” Kelly told the Times last year, adding that “it was constant and obsessive and is just what he’s claiming is being done to him now.” This lawsuit by Lisa Page and Peter Strzok is focusing attention once again on Trump’s abuse of power. Former Chief of Staff John Kelly testified that he wanted him to use the IRS to go after them, his political enemies. His abuses were extensive and a lot of it was right out in the open. I’m not talking about the rank corruption — running his business out of the White House, signing hush money checks in the oval office, accepting unlimited graft and access in the form of both foreign and domestic money at his hotels and resorts. Nobody seems to care about that at all. I’m talking about the abuse of his power as president. Aaron Blake has a short, incomplete, list: Trump also wanted the IRS to investigate former FBI director James B.
Can he keep it together or are we in for another round of crazy? I’m betting on crazy: Speaker Kevin McCarthy is working furiously to prevent another House floor takeover by his hardest-right conservatives as the GOP prepares to tackle some of the year’s biggest bills. With the House back for a final stretch before its August recess, McCarthy on Tuesday afternoon summoned a group of leaders from multiple corners of his conference to shape a strategy for staving off further right-wing revolts — which his team can’t afford this summer. Underscoring the urgency of their task, the group of GOP lawmakers met in the shadow of what could become a new right-flank rebellion over the rule for debating a must-pass Pentagon policy bill. “The speaker has called these meetings so we can get things hopefully worked out before it blows up on the floor, so there’s no surprises,” said Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the 11 Republicans who held up the floor last month during an ongoing rift with leadership.
He only cared about himself while thousands were dying Take the time to watch that and remind yourself of Trump’s most grotesque failure. I can’t believe it’s going down the memory hole but at least there is this documentation — Trump running his mouth on tape — that proves his horrifying misconduct.
Notice from the editors.
The post Notice appeared first on The Intercept.
There’s something amiss in the whistleblowers’ tale CNN reports: US Attorney David Weiss, who is overseeing the Hunter Biden criminal probe, says in a letter obtained by CNN that he did not ask to be named as a special counsel and was never refused authority to bring charges anywhere in the country, refuting two key allegations from IRS whistleblowers. Weiss’ comments, in a letter sent Monday to GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, go against claims from IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley and one of his deputies, who said they witnessed political interference in investigation of President Joe Biden’s son. They testified to Congress that during an October 2022 meeting, Weiss said he had requested to be named as a special counsel but was denied by Justice Department leadership. But Weiss said in the new letter that he never requested special counsel status, but rather explored becoming a “special attorney” under a different statute. “I have not requested Special Counsel designation,” Weiss wrote to Graham on Monday. “Rather, I had discussions with Departmental officials regarding potential appointment under 28 U.S.C.
In fact, Trump won every voter in the country both times he ran. It’s just the Deep State rigged it so it looked like he didn’t I hope they have that on tape. I think it could be useful in an ad, don’t you?
Inculcating hate A friend from the reddest part of my county once described how GOP candidates there rally support. In every group of voters, find out what issue pisses them off, then wedge the hell out of it. As the late Howard Phillips put it, “We organize discontent.” It’s just that on the right, wedge issues come and go (for those of a certain age) like fad products by Wham-O or their support for the U.S. Constitution. The issues are not the issue. Organizing discontent is. Tess Owen at Vice News examines the controversy du jour in Los Angeles schools. Recognition of Pride Month that touched off parent protests: This was grooming, said the protesters, many of whom were parents wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Leave Our Kids Alone.” The June 2 protest quickly turned violent. Videos show parents and their right-wing supporters brawling with pro-LGBTQ counterprotesters, beating them, and kicking them. It was hardly an isolated incident in the LA-area. Fights also broke out at two more protests in June, both outside Glendale School Board meetings.
Delay, delay, delay Mentor Roy Cohn taught Donald Trump well. Basic Rules for the Unscrupulous for defeating all enemies, according to one documentary: “Deflect and distract, never give in, never admit fault, lie and attack, lie and attack, publicity no matter what, win no matter what, all underpinned by a deep, prove-me-wrong belief in the power of chaos and fear.” Delay, delay, delay is not in there explicitly. Perhaps it is a Trumpian riff on deflect and distract. But it is by now a familiar Trump tactic. Run out the clock or else bleed out an opponent’s funds for fighting. Hard to do the latter when the opponent is the federal government. So delay, it is. Thus (Politico): Donald Trump on Monday called for a lengthy delay before he goes to trial for allegedly hoarding military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, contending that proceeding while he remains a candidate for president would make it virtually impossible to seat an impartial jury.
“I did that” Being on the field and in the game (rather than a heckling spectator) means that, even if you get politically run over sometimes, you don’t feel like road kill. Small consolation, maybe, but it’s something. And sometimes you get personal credit for the wins. Keep hope alive, Jesse Jackson might say. E.J. Dionne suggests that hope is more than a sop, but “a demanding virtue, not a sunny disposition.” Also, it’s practical, he writes. (It gets me up every morning.) Meaning it’s not naive to seek out “a rendezvous with hope“: Carol Graham, my colleague at the Brookings Institution, has made the study of well-being her life’s work as an economist.