Equalizers on retainer Anticipating Donald Trump’s “promised revenge tour,” Josh Marshall floated the idea of about ten days ago that anti-Trumpers with deep pockets assemble a big pile of money for the legal defense of women and men on his enemies list. Marshall is back to report there is movement on this effort in a good-news, bad-news sort of way. Since then, he’s become aware of “groups or consortia that are organizing to be the place that Trump targets can go when they get their subpoena or their lawsuit,” but for now they are keeping their identities below the radar: For very real reasons these groups don’t want to draw a lot of attention to themselves. They don’t want themselves to become the targets of harassment and lawfare when they’re trying to defend others from it. If they themselves get run out of business who’s going to be around to help everyone else? So I can’t give websites for these operations that you’d want to look up if you’re a target or show you how to contribute money. They’re not set up that way and they don’t want the attention.
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The NY Times reports: With all due respect, the look that Prince William sported at the starry reopening of Notre-Dame in Paris this month was nothing special: a well-tailored overcoat, a dark blue tie, a pressed white shirt. And, naturally, his new beard. But that simple outfit did not fail to wow one luminary. “He looked really, very handsome last night,” President-elect Donald J. Trump said about the future king of England, according to The New York Post. “Some people look better in person? He looked great. He looked really nice, and I told him that.” His praise was just the latest instance in which Mr. Trump, 78, had complimented another man’s looks, part of a larger pattern of obsession he has with the personal appearance of individuals. That includes during the presidential campaign, when Mr. Trump often waxed poetic about the pilots posted to Air Force One, during his first term, likening them to taller versions of Tom Cruise. “These guys are specimens,” he said during a late October interview with Joe Rogan. “Like perfect specimens.” […] In the last three months alone, Mr.
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep — Neville Chamberlain How’d that work out? As you no doubt recall, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia the next day. For decades, the Republicans accused the Democrats of being Neville Chamberlains every time they suggested that the right’s bellicose saber rattling was over the top. They are still saber-rattling — against our allies like Canada, Mexico, Panama and Greenland, as we have seen during the Trump transition. Trump seems to have decided that threats of territorial expansion and invasion is going to be a cornerstone of his new administration. But when it comes to Russia, the GOP has become Neville Chamberlain on steroids: Accountability is only for people the Republicans don’t like. For his friends, (like Vladimir Putin) no act of provocation and violence is worthy of condemnation. It’s always a reason for Putin’s enemies to capitulate and give him whatever he wants. What could go wrong?
A Boxing Day survey of storm devastation off the beaten path Ridgetops look like they’ve been bombed. Riverbeds are scoured, banks ripped open and lined with trash. Trees that once obscured the views are uprooted, toppled and lying in ranks. You’ve likely seen post-Helene images from western North Carolina. Many are of the River Arts District in Asheville and of devastation in nearby Swannanoa to the east. The Washington Post this week profiled Swannanoa flood victims from a row of mill houses left over from the days of the Beacon blanket factory, long gone. A month ago, I told readers the region was out of the news but not out of the woods. That’s still true. Except on Boxing Day I surveyed some of the worst damage myself for the first time and came home stricken. The photos cannot convey the impact of the storm where news crews don’t go. The bottom fell out of the sky on Sept. 25, two days before the remnants of Hurricane Helene even reached WNC. The rainfall was torrential and the ground saturation thorough.
You love to see it I wrote a bit about this yesterday so there’s no need to go into detail. (If you want it, just check into Twitter today…) But the little brouhaha did open the eyes of some of the MAGA folk who now realize that Musk has no respect or regard for them, is in it for himself, and his “free speech” yammering is all BS. Imagine that. I think one of the sleeper hit sideshows of this next year is going to be MAGA on MAGA infighting. We’re seeing it here on social media and we’ve already seen it in the US Congress. Democrats are impotent and these people aren’t alive unless they’re going after someone so it stands to reason they’d start eating their own. I suppose Dear Leader could do something. Unfortunately: Buy popcorn futures.
MAGA Farmers wondering who’s going to pick those damn crops: The country’s largest agricultural constituency backed Trump in November, bucking California’s deep-blue electorate over his campaign promises to “open the faucet” and deliver more water to the state’s parched, conservative-leaning Central Valley. But now it’s reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction: Trump also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up at least half of the state’s agricultural workforce. That’s left California’s agricultural barons, who employ the most farm workers of any state in the nation and grow half the produce consumed in the United States, nervously parsing Trump’s rhetoric. “To say it would have an impact on California would be an understatement,” said Chris Reardon, vice president of policy advocacy at the industry group California Farm Bureau Federation. Reardon, who declined to say who he voted for, has been fielding calls from members asking him what exactly will happen to workers. “We just don’t know yet,” he’s told them.
Once again, thank you everybody for your kind generosity. I am so incredibly grateful and feel more motivated than ever to keep forging ahead. We’re facing some stiff political headwinds but I believe that with all of you at our backs we’ll be able to come through even stronger on the other side. The MAGA cult is feeling its oats right now but reality is going to bite very soon. We’ll be here to document the victories and the atrocities and I hope you’ll all stop by frequently to see what we’ve dug up, analyzed or otherwise just observed with dismay or delight. Barring a round-up to the camps we’ll be here 7 days a week doing that thing we do. I’m going to leave this up until New Year’s just in case there are any stragglers. And thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. cheers, digby
The ballot counting is over but not the litigation Welcome to the Great State of North Carolina (ProPublica): Months before voters went to the polls in November, a group of election skeptics based in North Carolina gathered on a call and discussed what actions to take if they doubted any of the results. One of the ideas they floated: try to get the courts or state election board to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots cast by voters whose registrations are missing a driver’s license number and the last four digits of a Social Security number. But that idea was resisted by two activists on the call, including the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network. The data was missing not because voters had done something wrong but largely as a result of an administrative error by the state. The leader said the idea was “voter suppression” and “100%” certain to fail in the courts, according to a recording of the July call obtained by ProPublica.
If you have time to read one long story today, I recommend this one about the South Korea coup attempt in the Washington Post. I’m including a gift link so you can read the whole thing. Let’s just say the echoes are deafening: Piecing together their accounts shows that Yoon’s plan had probably been months in the making and that he intended to use martial law to target political opponents and pursue baseless election fraud claims — a much more extensive agenda than he has claim […] There was Yoon’s increasingly sharp rhetoric about his opponents. Then came the surprise appointment of his friend as defense minister. Then that minister surrounded himself with loyalists at the top of the chain of command. It seemed as if something as extreme as martial law could be in the works, said Park, formerly the nation’s deputy intelligence chief. “We knew they were an extremely right-wing force, and they would do things we cannot imagine,” he said.
Yes, we have all accepted the horrific results of the November election, But that doesn’t mean January 6th won’t be a shitshow. The following was tweeted by right wing reporter Chad Pergram: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Failing to Elect a House Speaker Quickly The problem has been percolating for a while. It’s been subterranean. Lurking underneath the surface. Not necessarily perceptible. Except to those who follow Congress closely. But the issue gurgled to the top since the House stumbled badly trying to avert a government shutdown last week. To wit: Congress spasmed between a staggering, 1,500-page spending bill. Then defeated a narrow, 116-page bill – which President-elect Trump endorsed. Things got worse when the House only commandeered a scant 174 yeas for the Trump-supported bill and 38 Republicans voted nay. Circumstances grew even more dire when the House actually voted to avert a holiday government shutdown – but passed the bill with more Democrats (196) than Republicans (170). 34 GOPers voted nay.