You think he doesn’t mean it? As president, Donald Trump weighed bombing drug labs in Mexico after one of his leading public health officials came into the Oval Office, wearing a dress uniform, and said such facilities should be handled by putting “lead to target” to stop the flow of illicit substances across the border into the United States. “He raised it several times, eventually asking a stunned Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether the United States could indeed bomb the labs,” according to a new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. White House officials said the official, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, often wore his dress uniform for meetings with Trump, which led him to falsely think Giroir was a member of the military. Sadly, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Ron DeSantis and others agree with this one, at least in the campaign.
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As I write this McCarthy is still losing. And the numbers haven’t moved. He has 20 hardcore insurrectionists voting against him and one nutball voting present for her own reasons. There is little sign that this is going to end well for McCarthy but he just keeps going. This is happening: If the Dems do this (which I doubt) they’d better extract some serious concession, particularly on things like the debt ceiling. Unfortunately, the Republicans are all liars so how do you ensure that they keep their word? I just don’t know … I think Alexandra Petri’s take is the best: Wow, this is embarrassing! No, not the once-in-a-century mess around electing a speaker of the House! Not the fact that, on Tuesday, after three ballots, none of which succeeded in putting Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in charge, the House had to adjourn speakerlessly. Not the fact that, again, failing to elect a speaker on the first vote has not happened since 1923!
As I have written before, Trump has never had as much juice with the congress as people said he did. After all, he had both the House and the Senate in his first two years and basically only got tax cuts for the rich done, which was the GOP’s Holy Grail. Everything else was just rescinding and withdrawing Obama’s policies and executive orders. They really don’t care about him now. After Kevin McCarthy failed to win enough votes to become House speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump held a call with Mr. McCarthy and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, one of the key Republican members of Congress blocking Mr. McCarthy’s bid. Mr. Trump’s goal was to break the logjam. But if Mr. Trump had wanted Mr. Perry to quickly flip, it wasn’t to be: The next day, Mr. Perry voted against Mr. McCarthy three more times. Mr. McCarthy’s inability to corral enough votes this week has underscored the limits of Mr. Trump’s political potency inside a party that has not controlled the Senate since 2018, lost the White House in 2020 and failed, so far, to identify the next leader of their narrow majority in the House. Even if Mr.
Ron DeSantis’ Surgeon General is a liar Surprise: Joseph A. Ladapo, a professor of medicine at the University of Florida and the state’s surgeon general, relied upon a flawed analysis and may have violated university research integrity rules when he issued guidancelast fall discouraging young men from receiving common coronavirus vaccines, according to a report from a medical school faculty task force. But the university says it has no plans to investigate the matter. Ladapo recommended inOctoberthat men younger than 40 not take mRNA vaccinations for covid, pointing to an “abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death.” Doctors and public health officials swiftly pounced, dismissing the underlying research for its small sample size, lack of detail and shaky methodology.
from Lars Syll A critique yours truly sometimes encounters is that as long as I cannot come up with some own alternative to the failing mainstream theory, I shouldn’t expect people to pay attention. This is however to misunderstand the role of philosophy and methodology of economics! As John Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human […]
A whole lotta unitin’ goin’ on … or something Amidst the chaos of the first days of Republican “control” in the House, none of the members have yet been sworn into office. Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) appeared last night with Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC’s 11th Hour. Boebert and her fringiest Republican pals want Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy to withdraw from the Speaker’s race. Who would she accept instead? Who would her faction accept who could possibly win the support of 218 Republicans? She can’t say. Boebert insists she and her bloc want to unite the American people, etc., etc., and address the border, energy, and inflation, but not until they get their way first, whatever that is. “We will handle these issues and conduct real oversight real soon …” The line recalls a motivational speech from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984). John Lithgow plays a Mussolini-esque “Red Lectroid” from another dimension. Lord John Whorfin: Where are we going? Red Lectroids: Planet Ten. Lord John Whorfin: When? Red Lectroids: Real soon. They might as well be from another dimension.
Never did If it was not clear before, it is clear now. The Republican Party, fueled since the Newt Gingrich revolution by the insecurities and grievances of white, Christian males in a changing world is reduced at long last to its essence (New York Times): After two days of chaos and confusion on the House floor, Republicans have made it abundantly clear who is leading their party: absolutely no one. From the halls of Congress to the Ohio Statehouse to the back-room dealings of the Republican National Committee, the party is confronting an identity crisis unseen in decades. With no unified legislative agenda, clear leadership or shared vision for the country, Republicans find themselves mired in intraparty warfare, defined by a fringe element that seems more eager to tear down the House than to rebuild the foundation of a political party that has faced disappointment in the past three national elections. Revanchism is all that’s left. There is no positive GOP agenda. No vision of a better tomorrow. No city on a hill. Just power for power’s sake, power enough to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
As we watch the GOP’s far right rabble destroy their party from within, I would like to draw your attention to a Representative who is commonly seen as the equivalent on the Democratic side. As you will see, the wingnuts are all immature jackasses by comparison. AOC, the avatar of the left wing of the Democratic party, is very, very good. The Democrats are the adults in the room who see what’s happening with the Republican Party and understand the stakes. And if you look at what they accomplished in the last congress, it’s a testament to how much you can do if you keep your eyes on the prize. “Conservatives in chaos” supplanted “Democrats in disarray” some time ago. It would be very nice if the media could at least acknowledge this from time to time.
Now they’re eating their own…
As the GOP House majority implodes … And a plaintive cry arises from a distant outpost: Yeah, that didn’t work.