12.28.21-ANOTHER SENATE QUACK? -Dr. Mehmet Oz, Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, and his wife ranted about a “girl reporter” in a profanity-laced conversation overheard by Olivia Nuzzi, the “girl reporter” about whom they were complaining. Nuzzi called Oz’s wife Lisa Oz, who is also a television personality, while working on a profile of Oz for New York Magazine. Oz’s wife answered the phone and had a short conversation with Nuzzi before trying — and failing — to hang up. Nuzzi listened as the couple called her a “liar” and a “fucking girl reporter." When reached for comment about Oz’s remarks, Nuzzi told HuffPost she would let her story “speak for itself for now.” Oz, who spent years promoting potentially dangerous and questionable practices on “The Dr. Oz Show,” announced his candidacy for Senate in November. He’s running for a seat in Pennsylvania, despite maintaining a longtime residence in New Jersey.
12.24.21-GREASY GARBAGE GIULIANI-Two election workers who counted votes for the 2020 presidential election filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against the parent company of One America News, senior staff at the far-right TV network and Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as a personal lawyer to Trump. Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who worked in Fulton County, Ga., allege that One America News and Giuliani, who frequently appears on the network, knowingly spread misinformation about them, including falsehoods that they logged illegal ballots for Joe Biden in the election. The two women “have become objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment … because of a campaign of malicious lies,” their attorneys wrote in the suit.
12.23.21-THE ONLY PRESIDENCY THIS WOULD DAMAGE IS HIS-Trump turned to the Supreme Court Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. A federal appeals court ruled against Trump two weeks ago, but prohibited documents held by the National Archives from being turned over before the Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in. Trump appointed three of the nine justices. Trump is claiming that as a former president he has right to assert executive privilege over the records, arguing that releasing them would damage the presidency in the future.
12.22.21-WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE JOE-In a rare moment of anger, President Joe Biden castigated social media users and cable news outlets that spread false and misleading information about coronavirus vaccinations, saying at a press conference Tuesday that the behavior is not only “immoral” but deadly. “The unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices, but those choices have been fueled by dangerous misinformation on cable TV and social media,” he said while addressing the need for unvaccinated Americans to protect themselves against the fast-spreading new omicron variant “You know, these companies and personalities are making money by peddling lies and allowing misinformation that can kill their own customers and their own supporters. It’s wrong, it’s immoral,” he said, his voice rising. “I call on the purveyors of these lies and misinformation to stop it. Stop it now.” Biden did not identify any of his targets by name.
12.21.21-FOX NEWS HAS GONE COMPLETELY EVIL-Dr. Anthony Fauci is calling for Jesse Watters to be fired after the Fox News personality suggested people should "ambush" him and "go in for the kill shot." On Tuesday, CNN host John Berman asked Fauci for his reaction to Watters telling a conservative crowd to "ambush you with what he said was some kind of rhetorical kill shot." President Biden's chief medical adviser called the comments "horrible" and "such a reflection of the craziness that goes on in society." He also called for Fox to fire Watters.
12.20.21-IS THERE REALLY A QUESTION? Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Sunday that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is looking into whether former Trump committed a crime by trying to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election results. Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the committee, said that he wasn’t prepared to say yet if he believed Trump had broken the law, however, “by the end of our investigation, and by the time our report is out, [we’ll] have a pretty good idea.” “We’ll be able to, you know, have out on the public record anything Justice Department needs maybe in pursuit of that,” he added. “Nobody is above the law. And if the president knowingly allowed what happened on Jan. 6 to happen, and in fact was giddy about it, and that violates a criminal statute, he needs to be held accountable for that,” he said. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the panel, signaled at a hearing last week that Trump could have acted criminally.
12.19.21-HOTEL EVIL-Trump raked in payments from foreign interests at his Pennsylvania Avenue hotel in an operation that was the “epicenter” of a corrupt presidency, the head of a citizen watchdog organization says. “Anyone looking to curry favor with his administration could simply walk over to his namesake hotel a couple blocks from the White House and flash cash,” Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote in an opinion piece for NBC published Saturday. Bookbinder slammed the operation in the wake of a scathing report issued by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The report, released Thursday, asserts that Trump received payments ― unfettered and unmonitored ― through his hotel from foreign entities. The General Services Administration, in charge of monitoring the landmark Old Post Office property that the Trump Organization leases from the public, was found to have “ignored glaring constitutional issues.” The report also stated the administration “allowed for conflict of interest” when Trump refused to divest from the property while serving as president.
12.16.21-DEMOCRACY ON THE ROPES- Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) branded Rep. Jim Jordan a “traitor to the Constitution” after he admitted to sending a text to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 5 suggesting then-Vice President Mike Pence should stop the certification of the 2020 election. “Look, Jim Jordan is a traitor. He’s a traitor to the Constitution of the United States. He has been a traitor to the Constitution of the United States for quite a while, and now we actually have it in text,” Gallego told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Wednesday night on “The Last Word.” “Why is anybody surprised?” Gallego asked and pointed to Jordan’s lies on the House floor on Jan. 6 about voter fraud in states like Arizona. However, Gallego said Jordan was not his biggest concern. “My biggest issue is the fact that there’s a lot of people out there that are not taking this seriously,” Gallego said. “The fact that there is a slow-moving coup that is happening right now all over this country that are led by the Jim Jordans and other people.” Gallego described an insidious process whereby instead of people storming the Capitol to overthrow an election, supporters of former Trump’s “Big Lie” were trying to win state House and Senate seats and election administration roles so they could “actually overturn the future election.”
12.15.21-THE REAL FRAUD IS TRUMP HIMSELF-A team of Associated Press reporters spent months reviewing every possible voter fraud case in six battleground states disputed by former Trump, and they found "fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election," The cases are bipartisan. Some of those charged with fraud are registered Republicans or told investigators they were supporters of Trump." In fact, every specific case written up in the AP report involved a Trump supporter voting twice or casing a ballot illegally. Three apparent Trump supporters were recently arrested in Florida and charged with casting more than one vote, The Washington Post reports. The three residents of The Villages are charged with having voted in Florida and also another state — Michigan, New York, and an undisclosed state, the Post says, and they were arrested after the county elections supervisor ordered an investigation. All these cases "underscore that suspected fraud is both generally detected and exceptionally rare," AP reports, but "Trump's false claims of a stolen election fueled the deadly Jan. 6 attempted insurrection at the Capitol, have led to death threats against election officials, and have become deeply ingrained within the GOP, with two-thirds of Republicans believing Biden's election is illegitimate."
12.14.21-PATHETIC ONLY BEGINS TO DESCRIBE TRUMP-Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Trump “pathetic” and “crazy” for profanely attacking Benjamin Netanyahu because he recognized Biden’s presidential victory in November. Netanyahu, who was the Israeli prime minister throughout the Trump administration, did what most world leaders do: He recognized and congratulated the duly elected president of the United States, Olmert suggested in the opening session Monday of the Annual Leadership Dialogue on Israel-UK-Australia Relations. Yet Trump reportedly was furious that Netanyahu congratulated Biden after he won the election. “I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him,” Trump reportedly told Israeli journalist Barak Ravid in an interview earlier this year for Ravid’s new book, “Trump Peace.” Trump added: “I like Bibi [Netanyahu] ... but I also like loyalty.” He “could have stayed quiet. He made a terrible mistake.” Olmert called Trump’s reaction “absolutely crazy.” He accused Trump of judging everything according to his own “personal interest.” “Trump says the fact that Bibi congratulated Biden is a betrayal, as if the relationship of Israel and America rests entirely on the personal desires of Trump. This is absolutely crazy. I think he’s a pathetic person,” Olmert said. He pointed out that, contrary to Trump’s claims that Netanyahu congratulated Biden “very early,” he in fact waited so long that it “became embarrassing” from the “friendliest nation to America.”
12.13.21-A TYPICAL JAN. 6 MORON-A Trump supporter who bragged about her “infamy” after storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 didn’t even vote in the 2020 election, her lawyer said in a filing ahead of her sentencing on Friday. Gracyn Courtright, who went around the Capitol holding a wooden “Members Only” sign she swiped, was “caught up in the hysteria of the day” and responded on social media “without thinking about what she was saying” when she wrote on social media that “Infamy is just as good as fame. Either way I end up more known. XOXO” and that she couldn’t wait to “tell my grandkids” she was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, her lawyer wrote.
11.17.21-THE FEMALE GULIANI-Ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell reportedly fell for 'far-fetched' QAnon conspiracy theory that claimed then-CIA director was in German custody. The Trump attorney believed Haspel had been injured while completing a secret CIA operation aiming to seize and destroy evidence of vote tampering on an election-related computer server, Karl reports. She thought the CIA was complicit. None of it was true. But Powell believed it, and wanted the Defense Department to immediately "send a special operations team over to Germany," locate the server, and "force Haspel to confess," Karl writes. Cohen, for his part, "thought Powell sounded out of her mind," and soon reported the call up the chain, according to Karl. A CIA spokesperson later further debunked any conspiracies, having told news outlets, "I'm happy to tell you that Director Haspel is alive and well and at the office."
11.16.21-OF COURSE HE KNOWS HE IS A LOSER-Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah riled up Trump by telling CNN that he admitted his election defeat to Joe Biden was legitimate. “He told me shortly after that he knew he lost, but then folks got around him,” she told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Saturday. “They got information in front of him, and I think his mind genuinely might have been changed about that, and that’s scary because he did lose.” Trump predictably snapped back at Farah on Monday, calling her a “clown,” a “nobody” and an “inglorious lightweight.” The recently married Farah, who also was a spokesperson for former Vice President Mike Pence and the Pentagon, reacted to Trump’s venom with a sense of humor. “I see I have honeymoon well wishes from my former boss! Too kind!” Farah tweeted.
11.15.21-THIS WOMAN IS CREEPY-Maria Bartiromo, among Fox Corp.’s biggest on-air enablers of Trump’s falsehoods about election fraud, used her media clout to vent to then-Attorney General William Barr after Trump’s defeat, according to a new book. In mid-November 2020, the Fox News and Fox Business host “called Barr to complain that the DOJ hadn’t done anything to stop the Democrats from stealing the election,” journalist Jonathan Karl recounted in “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.” Karl, the ABC News chief Washington correspondent, confronted Bartiromo about Barr’s assertion because “after all, it’s highly inappropriate for a journalist to call the attorney general and demand he do something related to a criminal investigation.”
11.14.21-HOW MANY LUNATICS DOES THE FAR-RIGHT HAVE?-Michael Flynn Demands 'One Religion Under God' At Far-Right Rally. In his latest journey to the edge of extreme, Trump’s former national security adviser and felon called for a single religion in America. “If we are going to have one nation under God — which we must — we have to have one religion,” Flynn said in San Antonio at a stop for the far-right “ReAwaken America” tour. Such a vision is completely contrary to the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state. The ReAwaken America tour features Flynn and other Trump allies, such as Roger Stone and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell. It also highlights anti-vaccine doctors ―including controversial Stella Immanuel, who believes that some medical conditions are caused by demonic sperm when “demons” have sex with humans in their dreams. Flynn — who was pardoned early this year by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI — has made several jaw-dropping comments in the past. In May he called for a Myanmar-like deadly military coup in America. In July, when he was gifted a new AR-15-style rifle at a church, he said: “Maybe I’ll find somebody in Washington.” In September he was worried about COVID-19 vaccines being added to salad dressing. But critics appeared especially appalled at his latest position. Retired Gen. Mark Hertling called Flynn an “embarrassment to the U.S. Army,” and his words “disgusting.”
11.13.21-FOX WON'T STOP ITS DECEPTION- Fox News edited video of President Joe Biden on Friday to remove context from remarks that some could judge as racially insensitive. In Veterans Day comments made Thursday, Biden told an anecdote that referenced baseball player Satchel Paige, who had pitched in the Negro Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. On “Fox & Friends,” Rachel Campos Duffy said Biden was “facing backlash” for comments at Arlington National Cemetery. In his comments, Biden said he had “adopted the attitude of the great Negro, at the time pitcher in the Negro Leagues, went on to become a great pitcher in the pros in Major League baseball after Jackie Robinson, his name was Satchel Paige.” But when Duffy played the clip, it was edited so Biden was heard saying he had “adopted the attitude of the great Negro at the time, pitcher, name was Satchel Paige.” Duffy said Biden’s remarks were “landing him in hot water.” While “Negro” was once a common way to refer to Black people and still appears in organization names, the terms “Black” and “African American” are more widely used today.
11.12.21-TOTAL MADNESS-The White House was quick to set the record straight on Thursday after Trump claimed he had sent an “envoy ambassador” to the Kosovo-Serbia border. “Outside of his very active imagination, Trump is no longer president and doesn’t have any ‘envoy ambassadors’ representing the United States,” a White House official told reporters. Trump released a statement earlier claiming his “envoy ambassador” Richard Grenell, a former ambassador and staunch ally, had visited the countries Thursday to highlight an economic normalization agreement his administration brokered in 2020. It’s not the first time Trump or his allies have acted as though he is running some kind of shadow presidency. His ongoing denial and delusions over his 2020 election loss have extended to the point where he has reportedly continued to hold “Cabinet” meetings, though it’s unclear who has participated in them.
11.11.21-SHADES OF 1984 AND OF NAZI GERMANY-WHO DECIDES AND HOW DO THEY? Virginia's Spotsylvania County School Board voted 6-0 earlier this week to order public school libraries to remove and catalog all "sexually explicit" books from their libraries, after a parent at one high school complained about "LGBTQIA" fiction prominently displayed in the school's digital library app, Two of the board members wanted to go farther. "I think we should throw those books in a fire," said one member, Rabih Abuismail. He said one young adult book about homeless teenagers trying to escape troubled pasts, 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp, proved public schools "would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Christ." Fellow board member Kirk Twigg said he'd like to "see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff." But the Virginia case isn't unique, and advocates say the coordinated effort to cancel certain types of books is unusually strident. "Particularly when taken in concert with the legislative attempts to control school curricula, this feels like a more overarching attempt to purge schools of materials that people disagree with," the National Coalition Against Censorship's Nora Pelizzari told the Post. Many of the books being challenged and removed from shelves (sometimes temporarily) — in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and especially Texas — have to do with racism. Texas state Rep. Michael Krause (R) launched a review last month targeting books that "might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress" due to their "race or sex."
11.10.21-THEY JUST KEEP LYING AND LYING-The subject of a false claim is a Democratic early childhood initiative designed to make decent, affordable child care available to all Americans who want it. To hear some conservatives tell it, churches and other religious organizations offering child care couldn’t be part of the program. This is simply not true. The primary way it would help families would be through subsidies, which families could use to defray their child care costs. And a passage on Page 163 of the bill states: “Nothing in this section shall preclude the use of such [subsidies] for sectarian child care services if freely chosen by the parent.” This passage is not especially hard to spot. It is the third full sentence of the legislation’s child care section. But several conservatives seem to have missed it.
11.09.21-REPUBLICANS-THIS IS YOU-More than half a dozen House Democrats, one House Republican and scores of critics have condemned and called for action against Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) Monday after he posted a doctored anime video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Gosar tweeted an edited version of the opening credits of the Japanese anime series “Attack on Titan” showing himself as the main character who then slashes the neck of a foe with Ocasio-Cortez’s face. He also swings his swords at an enemy with President Joe Biden’s face superimposed on it. Gosar, whose own family members have taken out ads decrying his behavior in the past, has repeatedly been linked to the planning of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and once defended the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the building as “peaceful patriots.” Ocasio-Cortez responded to the incident by highlighting Gosar’s white nationalist ties. She tagged House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, saying that Gosar would “face no consequences” because the Republican leader “cheers him on with excuses.”
11.08.21-MTG-MOST TEDIOUS GIBBERISH-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Saturday slapped down colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), reminding her that federal infrastructure funds she called “communist” built the nation’s highway system. Greene viciously slammed the 13 House Republicans (including Kinzinger) who voted to pass the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act on Friday. She claimed in a tweet late Friday after the vote that they “handed over their voting cards ... to pass Joe Biden’s Communist takeover of America via infrastructure.” She named all 13 Republicans — with their phone numbers in a separate tweet — in the bipartisan effort. (Some on Twitter said they were grateful for the list so they could call in their thanks.) A later tweet by Greene characterized the infrastructure package as “socialist,” not communist. Kinzinger schooled Greene on “communism” and the American government’s role in helping to build a nation. “Infrastructure=communism is a new one,” Kinzinger mocked. Republican President Dwight D. “Eisenhower’s interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive! Red Dawn in real life,” he quipped.
11.07.21-CHIEF CLOWN AWARD GOES TO-Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani — who has relentlessly, baselessly railed against a rigged presidential election — admitted in a videotaped deposition that he didn’t actually verify certain claims he made about election fraud and Dominion Voting Systems because he didn’t “have the time.” “It’s not my job, in a fast-moving case, to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that was given to me.” “Otherwise, you’re never going to write a story. You’ll never come to a conclusion.” In the sworn deposition from August, Giuliani recalled: “We had a report that the heads of Dominion and Smartmatic ... went down to Venezuela for a get-to-know meeting with [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro so they could demonstrate to Maduro the kind of vote fixing they did for [former President Hugo] Chávez.” As for any verification of that report actually being true, Giuliani said: “Sometimes I go and look myself, online — when stuff comes up. This time, I didn’t have the time to do it.” Giuliani said he “was told” the Dominion information before his press conference a year ago where fellow extremist attorney Sidney Powell railed about Dominion’s unsubstantiated Venezuela connection. Dominion has also sued her for $1.3 billion for defamation.
11.05.21-THIS FROM A FLIP-FLOPPER ON MANY ISSUES-SHE SHOULD HAVE THIS TEST. WHO CHAGES POSITION THAT MUCH? CRAZY PEOPLE? -Nikki Haley suggested this week that older candidates for political office should have to undergo cognitive tests, and was mocked for saying it would be very similar to candidates having to release their tax returns. “If you’re going to have anyone above a certain age in a position of power — whether it’s the House, whether it’s the Senate, whether it’s vice president, whether it’s president — you should have some sort of cognitive test. Just like you have to show your tax returns, you should have some sort of health screening so that people have faith in what you’re doing,” she said Thursday. “Right now, let’s face it, we’ve got a lot of people in leadership positions that are old. And that’s not being disrespectful. That’s a fact,” added Haley, 49, a potential 2024 presidential candidate. “And when it comes to that, this shouldn’t be partisan. We should be looking at the ages of the people who are running our country.”
11.04.21-OF COURSE THIS HAPPENED-AND TAKE AWAY THEIR NON-PROFIT STATUS-A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the gun control advocacy group Giffords alleges the NRA used a network of shell companies to funnel millions of dollars to Trump and other Republicans. “Over the past seven years, the NRA has engaged in an ongoing scheme to evade campaign finance regulations by using a series of shell corporations to illegally but surreptitiously coordinate advertising with at least seven candidates for federal office,” the complaint reads. Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog, filed the suit on behalf of Giffords. Giffords, a nonprofit group, was founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head in 2011 at a meeting with constituents in a shooting that left 13 people dead. “Through this scheme, two NRA affiliates made up to $35 million in illegal, excessive, and unreported campaign contributions across the 2014, 2016 and 2018 elections, including up to $25 million to the Trump campaign in 2016,” the lawsuit alleges. “These coordinated contributions violate the Federal Election Campaign’s Act’s (‘FECA’) contribution limits, corporate contribution ban, and disclosure requirements.” Lawmakers named in the suit who are accused of receiving campaign money from the gun group’s alleged scheme are Republicans Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), as well as Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and former Sen. Cory Gardner (R- Colo.).
11.02.21-MORON ALERT!-Trump demonstrated virtually no knowledge of the conduct of modern elections procedures in a long and rambling phone call with Georgia’s top elections administrator as he ticked off a host of debunked and fanciful conspiracy theories he blamed for his electoral defeat. The man on the other end of that call in early January, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), details months of mistruths and disinformation perpetuated by the Trump campaign that led up to their conversation in a new book out Tuesday, “Integrity Counts.”
11.01.21- WHAT IS HE HIDING?-Trump is trying to block documents including call logs, drafts of remarks and speeches and handwritten notes from his chief of staff relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection from being released to the committee investigating the riot, the National Archives revealed in a court filing early Saturday.
10.31.21-HEY FLORIDA-DO SOMETHING!-The Orlando Sentinel editorial board slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as a “fraud” in a new column, ripping him as “Orwellian” for now trying to take credit for low COVID-19 case numbers in the state. “Florida led the nation in case rates for much of the summer, and our governor was silent. Well, not totally silent. He did rail against mask and vaccine mandates, measures intended to prevent people from falling ill,” the board noted in the damning essay published Friday. “Now, a governor whose sole contribution to fighting the outbreak was to expand antibody treatments for people after they got infected is taking full credit for the decline in cases,” it charged. DeSantis was hammered in the editorial as a “fraud” and a “phony” for having “the gall, the nerve, to take a victory lap.” The board listed just some of the things he didn’t do in a bid to thwart the pandemic. “And now, the do-nothing governor is trying to claim credit for this surge coming to an end,” the editorial concluded. “It is DeSantis’ final and most essential command — to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. How Orwellian.”
10.30.21-Republican 'Cowards' Are Empowering The 'Crazies,' Rages Paul Krugman.
"Republicans who clearly know better ... reliably swallow their misgivings and go along with the party line," the economist wrote in The New York Times. Conspiracy theorists railing about “rigged” elections and calling climate change a “hoax” are bad enough. Just as threatening are Republican “cowards” who empower the frightening fringe, economist Paul Krugman argued Thursday in an opinion piece for The New York Times. “When we talk about the GOP’s moral descent, we tend to focus on the obvious extremists, like the conspiracy theorists who claim that climate change is a hoax and Jan. 6 was a false flag operation,” Krugman wrote. “But the crazies wouldn’t be driving the Republican agenda so completely if it weren’t for the cowards, Republicans who clearly know better but reliably swallow their misgivings and go along with the party line,” he added. “And at this point crazies and cowards essentially make up the party’s entire elected wing.”
10.29.21-DANGER-MORONIC FOX NEWS VIEWERS WILL BELIEVE THIS CRAP- Fox News veteran Geraldo Rivera Blasts Tucker Carlson For 'Inflammatory,' 'Outrageous' Jan. 6 Riot Denial "The record to me is pretty damn clear that there was a riot that was incited and encouraged and unleashed by Trump,” Rivera told The New York Times. Rivera slammed Carlson on Thursday over “inflammatory” and “outrageous” claims in Carlson’s upcoming series claiming that the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was secretly orchestrated by the government against itself.
10.28.21-BLOCKHEAD BOEBERT BLUNDERS-Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) tweet of a biblical passage about secrets could come back to haunt her, critics predicted. On Wednesday, the conspiracy theory-endorsing lawmaker shared Luke 8:17, which in the Bible’s New King James Version reads: “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.” Tweeters mockingly suggested Boebert ― a Donald Trump acolyte who often self-owns on the social media platform ― may have been talking about her alleged involvement in the planning of the Jan. 6 insurrection, as reported by Rolling Stone on Sunday. Boebert denied the report. Other detractors proposed what they suggested were more suitable Bible verses: Proverbs 6:16-19 – For there are six things the Lord hates—no, seven: haughtiness, lying, murdering, plotting evil, eagerness to do wrong, a false witness, sowing discord among brothers. Is your soul clean Rep? Think on it tonight…
10.27.21-Stephen Colbert’s team has uncovered what it’s calling “Fox News’ craziest Trump lie yet.” It happened this week, when Fox News personalities Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino claimed Trump “enjoyed the White House” and not only spent his weekends there, but worked through those weekends. Neither Trump nor Biden have been especially fond of spending weekends at the White House. A new CNN analysis found that Biden spent all or part of 108 of his first 276 days in office away from the White House (including partial days, such as when he was in the White House on Friday but left for Delaware in the evening). Most of those days away were on weekends. Trump’s tally was 70 at this point his presidency. However, he ultimately spent more than half of his weekends at one of his own resort properties, with The Washington Post tallying 240 out of 418 weekend days ― 57% ― spent at a Trump resort. Trump spent 428 days of his presidency at a Trump Organization property, or 1 out of every 3.4 days, that analysis found.
10.25.21-ANOTHER LUNATIC IN THE MAKING-Just as Florida’s COVID situation is improving after leading the nation in cases and deaths, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is now offering bonuses to anti-vax cops in other states to work in Florida and interact with the public. “On a scientific basis, most of those first responders have had COVID and have recovered,” DeSantis told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. He offered no evidence that police refusing to comply with their local vaccine mandates have contracted and recovered from the disease.
10.23.21-MARJORIE TAYLOR GHOUL-CNN’s Jake Tapper came down hard on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Friday, declaring she has “real issues” and is “not tethered to reality.” He was referring to Greene’s outburst Thursday when, as described by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), she “started screaming” at Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). The House was voting to support the criminal contempt resolution against Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon after Bannon ignored a subpoena to testify before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Greene blasted fellow lawmakers for not punishing Black Lives Matter protesters and singled out Cheney by calling her a “joke.” Cheney, in turn, said Greene was a “joke” who has pushed the wild claim that Jewish-funded “space lasers” were responsible for wildfires. “Congressman Raskin and Congresswoman Cheney are talking on the floor and, according to my sources .... Congresswoman Greene goes over to them and she starts screaming at them,” Tapper said to his CNN co-hosts. “Look, I’m not a licensed psychologist, I don’t know her, but her behavior suggests somebody that has real issues, that is not tethered to reality or basic standards of decent behavior,” Tapper said. He also referred to Greene’s conspiracy theory that “wealthy Jewish Americans were using laser technology to cause fires in California for some financial incentive.” “I mean, it is a deranged anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and yet that is somebody with whom many Republicans are siding,” Tapper added. “Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney really represent the two doors for the Republican Party right now. Which one does the Republican Party want to emulate?” he asked. Greene is known for her outbursts. Last month, she yelled at a group of Democrats as they held a press conference on the steps of the Capitol about legislation to guarantee the right to an abortion. Greene loudly interjected that “unborn women” have a “right to life.”
10.22.21-ANOTHER REPUBLICAN DISTORTION-Biden doesn’t want the IRS scrolling through your bank records The IRS would be gathering more information from Americans’ bank accounts under President Biden’s plan to discourage tax-dodging and round up more money for his “Build Back Better” agenda. But there’s a difference between what Democrats have proposed — reporting the total inflow and outflow for any account with more than $10,000 in annual transactions, excepting all wages and federal benefits — and what Republicans say about it. “Under this proposal, the intimate financial details of everyone in this room, at a minimum of every American who has a job, will be turned over on a daily basis to the IRS,” said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), one of several GOP senators who claimed at a news conference this week that the IRS would be snooping on Americans’ bank records. This level of scrutiny does not appear anywhere in the Democrats’ proposal, as confirmed by tax experts from the center-left and center-right. Banks would report once a year, not daily. The IRS would not be monitoring individual transactions under Biden’s plan. The new reporting requirement would cover the totals for money coming in and money going out, not the blow-by-blow of how people spent their money.
10.21.21-BELIEVE THIS!-Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson owe him credit after taking his racist ideas about "white replacement” to the mainstream. On Wednesday, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters shared audio clips from Duke’s podcast (yes, even he has a podcast) in which the former KKK grand wizard boasted that his own failed political campaigns inspired ideas Trump championed during his presidency. “Trump really knows what his movement is based on,” Duke said. “You know, [Trump] had to know that I ran my campaigns primarily on the immigration issue, on fair trade issues, on the issues of preserving American culture, on stopping the replacement of European Americans — which people are all talking about now.”
10.20.21-THIS IDIOT IS DANGEROUS AND OUT OF CONTROL-GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn's Unhinged Parenting Advice Panned As 'Dangerous.’ Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) urged mothers to raise their sons to be monsters in an off-the-rails speech slammed on social media as “dangerous” and sociopathic. The extremist first-term lawmaker said society wants to “de-masculate young men” because “they don’t want people who are going to stand up” in footage shared online Monday by activist group Right Wing Watch. It’s unclear where the video was filmed, but it’s now going viral. “All you moms here — the ones who I said are the most vicious in our movement — if you are raising a young man, please raise them to be a monster,” added Cawthorn, who’s pushed Trump’s election lies, warned “bloodshed” will be inevitable if “our elections continue to be rigged,” and once posed for pictures at Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s vacation retreat. Cawthorn has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by former classmates at a Northern Virginia Christian college. Four women told BuzzFeed News Cawthorn was aggressive, misogynistic, or predatory toward them. Cawthorn’s comments on the video were cheered by those in his audience. But he was denounced by many on Twitter. “America is an exceptional nation precisely because we don’t raise monsters,” responded Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “Radical Republicans are dangerous.” Others accused Cawthorn of wanting to “create a culture of toxic masculinity” and suggested he “be censured and expelled from Congress.”
10.19.21-I AM NO FAN OF POWELL BECAUSE OF IRAQ, BUT THIS IS DISGUSTING!-Trump was one day late in sharing a tribute to former secretary of state Colin Powell, who died Monday at age 84. But when he did decide to share his thoughts, he didn't have anything kind to say at all, instead choosing to attack Powell in an emailed statement. "Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the fake news media," Trump wrote Tuesday. The ex-commander in chief then went on to call Powell a "classic RINO, if even that" who was always the first to attack other Republicans. "He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!" Trump concluded. Critics immediately rebuked Trump and his classless missive. "No decent human being will defend Trump's malevolent, spiteful, narcissistic statement on Gen. Powell," wrote political scientist Larry Sabato.
AND
Personalities on Fox News were slammed for using the death of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell from complications of COVID-19 to question the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines. Hosts Tucker Carlson, Will Cain and John Roberts each faced backlash for their commentary. Powell, 84, was fully vaccinated, but had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that attacks the immune system, making him more susceptible to the effects of the virus.
10.18.21-LET'S HOPE DISASTER STRIKES!-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said Sunday that Trump’s ongoing comments about the 2020 election are “not constructive” and could spell disaster for the GOP in the 2022 midterms. “Relitigating 2020 is a recipe for disaster in 2022,” Hutchinson said. “Let’s talk about the future. The election is past. It’s been certified. The states made decisions on the integrity of each of their elections and made improvements where need be.” He added: “It’s about the future. It’s not about the last election. And those kinds of comments are not constructive.”
10.17.21-FOX NEWS AGAIN!-CLICK-Native Americans Demand Fox News Apology, Firings Over Outrageously Racist Comments
10.16.21-FOX FOOLS “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Thursday debuted a new World War II-themed nickname for the Fox News personalities railing against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The conservative network’s hosts and guests were branded a “Band of Bullshitters” in the bit. “The Daily Show’s” spoof trailer shows the conservative network’s guests and hosts — including prime-time anchors Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — likening the battle against the mandate to “our generation’s World War II” and praising holdouts as heroic and brave. (Vaccine holdouts, actually, are allowing the pandemic to persist.)
The spoof is cut with this text: “In the 1940s, America stormed the beaches to unseat a genocidal dictator. Now their descendants are waging a new, equally heroic war ... against a life-saving vaccine. This winter, meet a new Band of Brothers fighting totalitarianism from the studios of Fox News. Band of Bullshitters, Freedom is Contagious.” Watch the video here.
10.15.21-ANOTHER GOP HYPOCRITE-Trump’s former White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was hammered for hypocrisy after attacking successor Jen Psaki on Twitter. McEnany on Thursday suggested Psaki, President Joe Biden’s press secretary, violated the Hatch Act, which bans government employees from political campaigning, when she said: “We’re going to do everything we can to help” Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe “and we believe in the agenda he’s representing.” Psaki has faced other Hatch Act-related criticism as well. McEnany, however, was reminded of her own outrageous conflicts of interest, such as serving as White House press secretary at the same time she was a Trump 2020 campaign adviser. People on Twitter also dredged up other ways the Trump administration used public resources for politics, like hosting 2020 Republican National Convention events on the White House lawn. “Seriously? Fuck off,” responded Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump who has become one of her uncle’s loudest critics.
10.14.21-KRAZY KEVIN KATASTROPHE KOMING?(sorry)- Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) did not hold back in how he feels about the possibility of a House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tenure as House speaker. During a Tuesday appearance on CNN's New Day, Schiff said McCarthy is "absolutely" an "insurrectionist in a suit and tie," and warned of "disaster" should he takeover for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2022. "He will do anything that [former President Donald Trump] tells him" if that happens, asserted Schiff to co-host John Berman. "We cannot have someone with absolutely no reverance for the truth, no willingness to uphold this oath in that position, in line to the presidency." He added, "Donald Trump doesn't need to be appointed speaker if Kevin McCarthy is because, essentially, Donald Trump will control whatever he does."
10.13.21-WELL SAID-Conservative columnist Max Boot wished Fox News anything but a happy 25th birthday in his latest column for The Washington Post. Boot argued that America’s COVID-19 death toll — which currently stands at 716,000 — “is higher than it would have been if Fox did not exist” because of the misinformation peddled by its personalities. Hosts and guests on the network initially dismissed the threat of the coronavirus as a hoax, Boot noted. They later attacked social distancing, mask mandates and vaccines. Prime time personality Tucker Carlson has in recent weeks railed against President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates, which are less stringent than those imposed by his own employer. “Fox is poisoning the minds of millions of Americans,” Boot charged. “Facebook may be catching up, but I can’t think of any company that has done more damage to American democracy over the past quarter-century than Fox “News,’” he concluded. “That’s nothing to celebrate.”
10.12.21-ANOTHER TRUMP SELF-OWN-Trump delivered a curious gripe, given his own position on the events of Jan. 6, writing: What happened to the Capitol would have never happened if the people in charge did their job and looked at the intelligence. They abandoned the officers on the ground, just like Biden abandoned Americans in Afghanistan. Instead of holding bad leaders accountable, the Democrats are going after innocent staffers and attacking the Constitution.
Rep. Adam Schiff was quick to fire back on Twitter, complete with an accurate title for Trump that those around the former president never use: Thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Former President. As for your statement that the attack on the Capitol would never have happened if “the people in charge had done their job. You do realize that you were in charge on January 6th? Right? Just checking."
10.10.21-BE PREPARED TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY-MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said on Sunday night that Democrats could face a nightmare scenario in 2024 if Republicans control the House Trump runs again for president. “We are in the midst of a rolling coup,” Hasan said. “Almost every day, Republicans pass more voter suppression laws. They purge more and more election officials and they entrench the Big Lie that the election was stolen.” Hasan also played a supercut video of Republican leaders repeating those talking points and vowing more changes ahead of the next presidential election. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House’s second-ranking Republican, even falsely claimed that some states didn’t follow the Constitution during last year’s election. “It’s the words of GOP Congressman Steve Scalise there that are the most chilling to me,” Hasan said. “He’s carefully foreshadowing what the GOP position is likely to be come 2024.” Hasan said the Republican goal was to ensure that GOP-led state legislatures will have the power to ignore their states’ election results and certify their own electors instead. “Mark my words: If Donald Trump is the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and Republicans control the House of Representatives, they will not certify a Democratic victory in 2024,” Hasan said.
10.09.21-THE SCUM SPEAKS-Trump embraced familiar fearmongering rhetoric about migrants on Fox News on Thursday, warning against accepting Haitian asylum-seekers because “many of those people will probably have AIDS.”
10.08.21-IF TRUMP SPEAKS IT WILL BE A LIE-Documents released by the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Friday show Trump’s hotel in the Old Post Office Building in downtown Washington, D.C., was losing tens of millions of dollars a year while he was in office, despite his public claims to the contrary. In federally mandated public financial disclosures from 2016 through 2020, Trump reported that the Trump Hotel generated more than $150 million in revenue. In reality, the property accumulated losses in excess of $70 million, according to the committee. The losses forcedTrump to pull at least $24 million out of a holding company to boost the struggling property, and, in 2018, obtain favorable terms in a deal with Deutsche Bank that allowed him to delay making payments on a $170 million loan he’d personally guaranteed. At the same time, according to an analysis by the committee, foreign governments were spending millions of dollars to rent rooms at the hotel, totaling 7,400 nights from 2017 through 2020 at the average daily rate, bringing in roughly $4 million. While Trump claimed to have donated the foreign payments to the Treasury, the committee said Friday that the donations represented only a small portion of the actual figures.
10.07.21-AMEN-Washington Post columnist Max Boot lamented the GOP’s transformation into the “stupid-and-proud-of-it party” in his column published on Monday. “In the 1980s, when I became a Republican, the GOP took pride in describing itself as the ‘party of ideas,’” Boot wrote. “But under Trump’s leadership, Republicans have reclaimed their old reputation, dating back to the 1950s, as the ‘stupid party.’” “What’s even more telling: This is not a source of shame or embarrassment for the party’s populists.” Boot, who left the GOP following Trump's takeover of the party, named and shamed a number of Republican lawmakers (and their inane and sometimes dangerous comments) as evidence — from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) Jewish space laser conspiracy theory to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) ridiculous “Imeach Biden” gaffe. The dumbing down of the GOP shows no sign of stopping, he argued.
10.06.21-DUMP Trump-A top GOP donor said Monday he wouldn’t back Trump if he ran for president again in 2024. “I think it’s time for America to move on,” hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin said during an interview with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker at the Economic Club of Chicago. Griffin spent more than $60 million to boost conservatives in the 2020 elections, placing him among the top five political donors in the election cycle, though he has never directly supported Trump’s campaigns, a point he noted during Monday’s discussion. “The four years under President Trump were so pointlessly divisive it was not constructive for our country,” he said.
10.05.21-THIS MAN TERRIFIES ME-If a violent riot intended to keep a president in power weren’t enough, there have been plenty of other instances since Jan. 6 offering evidence of Republicans’ historic anti-democratic assault on the country. On Sunday, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., added to the list of examples when he tweeted a video calling on “American Christians” to “stand against tyranny” and join a battle for “God’s inherent truths that predate any version of government.” The video featured remarks he made last month at the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Salt & Light Conference. Cawthorn is a Trump loyalist who has repeatedly targeted Democrats with violent language. He spoke at the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally shortly before some attendees attacked the U.S. Capitol. At that event, he falsely claimed that Democrats were engaged in “fraud” to win the 2020 election. In August, he said there would be “bloodshed” over any future elections that Republicans claim were rigged. Cawthorn’s dangerous rhetoric signals the urgency of a party that is misaligned with the will of most Americans — and willing to court autocrats such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Last month, the Hungarian state news agency reported that the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference would be held in Budapest next year. The Republican Party, having lost the popular vote over the last four presidential elections, has embraced outright authoritarianism to achieve the conservative society of its dreams. And we should take seriously the risk that it and its followers can pose.
10.04.21-THIS WOULD BE END TIMES-Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump's most senior and longest-serving advisers, says she is "terrified" that her former boss may run for office again in 2024. Grisham served as both Trump's press secretary and First Lady Melania Trump's Chief of Staff. "I don't think he is fit for the job," Grisham told "Nightline" co-anchor Juju Chang in a wide-ranging exclusive interview on the eve of the publication of her new book, I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House. "I think that he is erratic. I think that he can be delusional. I think that he is a narcissist and cares about himself first and foremost," Grisham said. She describes a White House in perpetual chaos, where "casual dishonesty" flowed through the air "as if it were in the air conditioning system." "I think [Trump] would foment more violence," she said, adding "I think he will line his pockets. I think his family will line their pockets. I believe that he wanted to help the country in the beginning; ... he wants to help himself now." (ABC News)
09.30.21-PLAYING THE FOOL, BUT IT'S NO ACT-In a defamation case, attorneys sat down with Rudi Giuliani last month and asked about the origins of the Republican conspiracy theories, specifically related to voting machines — a core element of the GOP's anti-election push. As part of the deposition process, Giuliani, among others, was required to answer questions under oath, which in turn offers the public a window into how the nonsense became an animating principle for the former president and his allies. The core question for the former New York City mayor was simple: Where did all this weird stuff come from? Giuliani was asked, for example, about media reports in which he said he'd relied on some media accounts and social media posts in order to go after a Dominion Voting Systems executive. Giuliani responded that he couldn't remember if it was Facebook or some other platform. "Those social media posts get all one to me," he said. Giuliani added that he couldn't think of anything else "that I laid eyes on." This was itself amazing: Before going public with anti-election conspiracy theories, Giuliani's due diligence involved reading some stuff via social media — though he's not sure which platform.
09.29.21-TRUMPS CONTINUE TO LIE-Largest U.S. police group appears to counter Sen. Tim Scott's argument that Democrats sought to defund police in reform negotiations. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has suggested that his police reform talks with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) fell apart primarily because Democrats sought to defund the police by making departments ineligible for funding if they failed to meet certain criteria. But a pair of prominent police organizations, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, appeared to push back against Scott's argument in a statement on Tuesday, though the senator wasn't mentioned by name. "Despite some media reports, at no point did any legislative draft propose 'defunding the police,'" the statement reads. "In fact, the legislation specifically provided additional funding to assist law enforcement agencies in training, agency accreditation, and data collection initiatives." Those provision would have helped strengthen law enforcement improve community police engagement "without compromising management and officers' rights, authorities, and legal protections," the statement continues.
09.28.21-THE BIGGEST LOSER-Trump has lost in an effort to enforce a nondisclosure agreement against former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, The New York Times reports. Manigault Newman is also the author of Unhinged, an unfavorable tell-all about her time in the Trump administration. "Donald has used this type of vexatious litigation to intimidate, harass and bully for years," said Manigault Newman in a statement. "Finally the bully has met his match!" The decision, handed down on Monday, calls for the former aide to collect legal fees from the Trump campaign, which filed the case soon after Unhinged was published. The campaign claimed Manigault Newman had violated a nondisclosure agreement signed during the 2016 campaign "stipulating that she would not reveal private or confidential information about [trump's] family, business or personal life," per the Times. However, the arbitrator in the case claimed "the definition of the type of comment protected by the nondisclosure agreement was so vague that it had been rendered meaningless," writes the Times. He went on to argue that the information Manigault Newman had shared was barely privileged, and said the agreement "effectively imposes on Respondent an obligation to never say anything remotely critical of Mr. trump, his family or his or his family members' businesses for the rest of her life." Trump cannot appeal the decision "other than on the basis of fraud" against the case arbitrator, leaving him with little additional recourse.
09.27.21-JUST SAY HIS NAME, COWARD-Former head of the Department of Education and one-time Trump ally Betsy DeVos threw some major shade at the former president at a Republican event in Michigan on Saturday. DeVos didn’t mention Trump by name, but her target was clear when she warned Republicans against becoming hung up on “one person.” “Ours is not a movement dependent on any one person,” DeVos said in a speech at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, The Detroit Free Press reported.
09.26.21-WORSE THAN SATAN-Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) blasted Trump in a searing CNN opinion piece Friday, comparing the former president to the devil, “looking for a party’s soul to steal.” Duncan referred to the late Southern rocker Charlie Daniels’ song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” ahead of trump’s rally in the state this weekend. “This weekend, former President Trump is hosting a rally in my neck of the woods,” Duncan wrote. Then, evoking Satan, he added: “If the legendary Southern rocker Charlie Daniels were still with us today, his hit song could be re-written as, ‘A president went down to Georgia; he was looking for a party’s soul to steal.’” Daniels’ song tells the story of a devil desperate for souls to collect in Georgia. But Satan loses a fiddle-playing contest in a deal with a phenomenal musician and doesn’t win his soul. As for trump, he “continues to be painfully comfortable peddling his baseless conspiracy theories of widespread election fraud. Last week, he fired off a disjointed and juvenile letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to ‘decertify’ the results of the election,” Duncan wrote.
09.25.21-THIS WON'T STOP THIS LYING BEAST-trump’s desperate efforts to cast doubt on the result of the 2020 election are having detrimental effects on his party, according even to some former allies. Trump suffered an embarrassment on Friday when the so-called audit of votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County, backed by supporters of the former president, in effect affirmed that the results were legitimate. In fact, the audit — carried out by the Cyber Ninjas group — indicated that President Biden’s margin of victory in the state’s most populous county was slightly wider than first recorded.
09.23.21-WHY EVEN ASK?-Conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot flipped a quote from Benjamin Franklin to call out Republican reluctance to tackle the three biggest crises facing the United States. Boot recalled Franklin’s fire-prevention advice to Philadelphians that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Republicans today “seem to think an ounce of cure is worth a pound of prevention,” he wrote, slamming the GOP for allowing the “calamities” of COVID-19, global warming and gun violence “to rage out of control — and then hoping for the best.” “Why won’t the GOP do more to avert so many foreseeable tragedies?” asked Boot, a longtime anti-Donald Trump Republican who left the party following the former president’s rise to power. “Because it is afraid to take on anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers, oil and gas interests, and the gun lobby,” he concluded. “Due to a combination of extremism and expedience, Republicans are allowing problems to fester at great cost rather than dealing with them at the source.”
09.22.21-TRUMP'S LIE-MEMO SHOWS Trump CAMPAIGN KNEW HE WAS LYING Although trump’s camp has claimed the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud, a newly uncovered memo shows that his campaign knew soon after Election Day that many of his claims were baseless. It appears the Trump campaign allowed lawyers, including Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, to continue spreading fake news and filing lawsuits despite no evidence to support conspiracy theories about voting machines.
09.21.21-HITLER VS. SATAN-If you've been wondering about Sen. Mitch McConnell's standing in the eyes of former President trump—well, it doesn't appear to be too high. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has been gunning for the Senate minority leader from Kentucky, working behind the scenes to find candidates to boot McConnell from the leadership role he's held for almost 15 years. Sources tell the paper that Trump has been having discussions with senators and other allies to see if there are any takers in that bid. The development is a "funny thing," notes the Week, considering "trump's presidency would have been nearly bereft of accomplishment without the senator's efforts," including in placing three conservative justices on the Supreme Court and passing a $1.9 trillion tax cut.
09.20.21-LET'S HOPE DESANTIS IS NEXT-Support for Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has taken a dive in the state, according to a new poll released Sunday.A 54% majority of Texans believe the state is headed in the wrong direction, while just 45% think the state is on the right track, according to a survey conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler. Abbott’s approval rating before the COVID-19 crisis began to grip the nation in March 2020 stood at 59%, the newspaper noted.
09.19.21-THANK YOU MITT-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) bashed Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s meeting with Hungary’s power-grabbing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, in a speech Friday marking the 234th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution at Brigham Young University. The senator didn’t called out Carlson by name in his remarks, but instead referred to him as a “prominent TV pundit” who visited Hungary to “extol” the prime minister “as a model for us to emulate.” Last month, the Fox News host broadcast his show from Budapest, where he spoke at a right-wing conference. During an interview with Orbán, Carlson praised his leadership. “Orbán censors the media in his country, ignores the will of the people in elections, amasses wealth for himself and his cronies,” Romney said. “Hungary is ranked as one of the least free, least democratic countries in the developed world. Hungary? A model for America?” Romney brought up Carlson’s meeting with Orbán as he warned his audience that democracy was at risk in the United States. He also slammed the Capitol insurrection. “Our resolve to follow the Constitution’s path, avoiding the perils of authoritarianism ... that’s wavering,” he said. “No more stunning evidence of that was the attempt to prevent the lawful and constitutional transfer of power on Jan. 6.”
09.18.21-THEY ARE STILL RIPPING US OFF-In June, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin visited Israel to scout investments for his new company, then flew to Qatar for a conference. At the time, Mnuchin had been out of office for five months. But, because of an order given by President Donald Trump, he was still entitled to protection by Secret Service agents. As agents followed Mnuchin across the Middle East, the U.S. government paid up to $3,000 each for their plane tickets, and $11,000 for rooms at Qatar’s luxe St. Regis Doha, according to government spending records. In all, the records show U.S. taxpayers spent more than $52,000 to guard a multimillionaire on a business trip. These payments were among $1.7 million in additional government spending triggered by Trump’s highly unusual order — which awarded six extra months of Secret Service protection for his four adult children and three top administration officials — according to a Washington Post analysis of new spending documents.
09.17.21-RIGHT WING WING-NUT-A Newsmax host flipped out when a guest committed a cardinal sin on the right-wing network: He criticized Trump. Iraq War veteran Joe Saboe, who has been working to rescue Americans in Afghanistan, wasn’t especially blunt in his appraisal but simply disagreed with host Grant Stinchfield’s assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. “This didn’t happen under President Trump,” Stinchfield declared. “He wanted out of Afghanistan real bad... but he didn’t pull out because he knew this would happen.” In reality, Trump had planned a much earlier withdrawal from the country. Saboe noted that Trump wasn’t particularly aggressive about getting Americans out of the country. “With due respect, Grant... we followed this closely for multiple administrations and we know that Trump’s administration’s efforts here were fairly weak, that they were trying to limit the number of people that would get out, and so there were coordination problems.” Stinchfield couldn’t take it. “Cut him off, please,” he said, then raised his voice. “Cut him off now! Cut him off now! You’re not going to blame this on President Trump on my show!”
09.16.21-COURAGE-New Hampshire state Rep. William Marsh said he quit the Republican Party to protest the state GOP’s COVID-19 vaccine policies, slamming them as “a bridge too far.” “I can’t sit by in silence,” Marsh, an ophthalmologist, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. The New Hampshire state GOP’s push to ban businesses from mandating vaccinations for staff and customers, and schools from mandating masks, prompted Marsh’s jump to the Democratic Party, he said. “We all know what’s happened in states that have followed that path,” warned Marsh of the GOP’s agenda. “People are getting sick. People are dying, including an increasingly high percentage of children.”
09.15.21-PENCE EXPOSED-Ever since Mike Pence announced on Jan. 6 that he lacked power to help Trump overturn the 2020 election in Congress, it’s been widely suggested that the vice president was one of the few heroes in this ugly tale. The key details concern Trump’s relentless pressure on Pence to help subvert the electoral college count on Jan. 6, pursuant to the vice president’s role as president of the Senate. The day before, in the Oval Office, Trump angrily told Pence that various people believed he did have the power to somehow derail the count." I’ve done everything I could and then some." That’s at odds with the portrayal of Pence as a heroic defender of the Constitution and the rule of law who bravely rebuffed Trump’s corrupt pressure on him to help destroy them both. Obviously Pence might have been exaggerating his efforts to placate Trump. But notably, the book also reports that Pence privately said the same to former vice president Dan Quayle, who basically had to persuade him he had no power to help Trump: Over and over, Pence asked if there was anything he could do. “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,” Quayle told him. So we need to know how far Pence actually did try to go. Which raises a bunch of other questions. For instance, did Trump try to pressure the Justice Department to develop a fake legal rationale for Pence to somehow derail the electoral count? Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the 9/11 commission, has suggested another line of inquiry: What was Pence’s own understanding of the plot Trump was trying to set in motion?
09.14.21-NO KIDDING!-Email exchanges obtained by the House's select subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic "add to the growing body of evidence that the Trump administration knew the significant risk posed by the coronavirus but failed to execute an effective strategy to reduce the loss of American lives," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) wrote in a letter to former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro on Tuesday, per The Washington Post. In one email dated Feb. 29, 2020, Steven Hatfill, a virologist advising the administration, told Navarro that "we do not have a clue how many people are infected" in the United States, and warned that the first wave of cases "will be accompanied by a massive loss of credibility" for the White House. He urged "frank honesty" and "decisive direct actions" from the federal government just hours after former President Donald Trump had publicly undersold the threat of the virus and praised his team's response. Navarro went on to tell Trump the next day that their response was "not fast enough" and a "very serious public health emergency" was coming, but public rhetoric didn't change much in the aftermath.
09.13.21-DOUBLESPEAK-Chris Wallace tore into Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) on Sunday for coming out against mandatory COVID-19 vaccination, even though his state has mandates in place for several other vaccines. “You say it’s a personal choice,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday.” “In fact, to attend school in your state of Nebraska, children must be vaccinated against a number of diseases. They must be vaccinated against diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella, hepatitis B and chickenpox.” “Why are those mandates that parents in your state must comply with — and do comply with routinely — why is it that they’re not so objectionable and such a violation of personal freedom, but [President Joe] Biden’s vaccine mandates are?” he asked. Ricketts responded that people “don’t know who to trust right now” and that “we have trust in those other vaccines” due to their “long history.” Wallace pointed out that the polio vaccine was also developed quickly — and that people “viewed it as a blessing” when it first became available — and that the Food and Drug Administration has given full approval to a COVID-19 vaccine.
09.12.21-IT'S A LITTLE LATE CHRIS!-No leading Republican did more to legitimize Trump, as he was battling to secure the party’s nomination in 2016, than Chris Christie. And yet this week, the former New Jersey governor took dead aim at both Trump and his more ardent followers. Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Christie compared Trump’s conspiracy-minded supporters to the John Birch Society in the 1960s, likened the former president himself to an authoritarian and flatly rejected the myth of a stolen election.
09.11.21-JUST GET THE SHOT!-GOP Senate Candidate Flips Out At Vaccine Mandates In ‘Deeply Offensive’ Video. Ohio Republican Josh Mandel’s cornfield rant about tyranny and the Gestapo was condemned as “beyond the pale” by Jewish advocacy groups. Josh Mandel, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, railed against President Joe Biden’s new COVID-19 vaccine mandates in a video that’s been slammed as “beyond the pale” by Jewish advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League. Mandel said his blood was “boiling in rage” and Biden was “trampling on our freedom” with the additional measures the president announced this week in a bid to end the pandemic. Mandel urged Americans not to comply “with the tyranny” in the clip, which was filmed next to a cornfield with a gigantic “TRUMP” sign. “And when the Gestapo turn up at your door, you know what to do,” he added, a line that critics suggested was inciting violence.
09.09.21-TYPICAL TRUMPER HYPOCRISY-Kellyanne Conway’s reason for refusing to resign from her U.S. Air Force Academy board role drew howls of derision on Twitter. Conway, like some of the others, rejected the request. In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden that Conway shared on Twitter, she claimed the request to resign or be dismissed was “a break from presidential norms,” “petty” and “political.” Critics called out Conway’s hypocrisy, reminding her that pettiness and breaks from the norm were ever-present features of the Trump presidency.
09.08.21-DISGUSTING-Trump and his son, mini-Trump, will spend the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks cashing in on a boxing match in Florida. While Trump is marking the 20th anniversary of the attacks by charging fans to listen to him talk about boxing, President Joe Biden will visit all three crash sites: New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
09.07.21-SICK!-HE COMPARES HUNGRY PEOPLE TO DOGS-On Fox News last month, Laura Ingraham asked Bar Rescue host Jon Taffer: "What if we just cut off the unemployment? … Hunger is a pretty powerful thing." He responded: "They only feed a military dog at night, because a hungry dog is an obedient dog. Well, if we are not causing people to be hungry to work..." Taffer was okay with cutting off the cash flow to his fellow citizens, even though he personally had no problem accepting two PPP loans totaling $60,858 from the Small Business Association, according to FederalPay.org.
09.06.21-REPUBLICANS WANT TO ERASE HISTORY-Members of the House Armed Services Committee forcefully debated the role of teaching critical race theory at military educational institutions for more than an hour late Wednesday night, with Democrats sharply pushing back against Republican efforts to include a ban on the concept as part of an annual defense spending bill. GOP lawmakers -- including Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks of Indiana and Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee -- backed amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a sweeping defense bill that authorizes spending levels and outlines priorities for the US military. Critical race theory recognizes that systemic racism is part of American society and challenges the beliefs that allow it to flourish. While the theory was started decades ago as a way to examine how laws and systems promote inequality, it has taken on new urgency since a series of killings last year of African Americans by police officers, which led to a national reckoning on race. Conservatives, including Banks, have criticized the concept as un-American.
09.05.21-BLOOD ON HIS HANDS-A 30-year teaching veteran was one of 15 Miami-Dade County public school staff members who died of COVID-19 in just 10 days as Florida continues to reel amid the continuing, overwhelming toll of an unfettered pandemic. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has dismissed the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations and signed an executive order banning mask mandates at schools, issued no comment on the astounding death rate in the county schools system.
09.04.21-MORE LIES-The top members of the select committee investigating the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill refuted recent claims by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that Trump has been cleared by the Justice Department of any role in the insurrection. "(McCarthy) has suggested, based on an anonymous report, that the Department of Justice has concluded that Trump did not cause, incite, or provoke the violence on January 6th," the statement read. "When this anonymous report was first published, the Select Committee queried the Executive Branch agencies and congressional committees involved in the investigation. We've received answers and briefings from the relevant entities, and it's been made clear to us that reports of such a conclusion are baseless."
09.03.21-THIS DISGUSTING PERSON IS TRYING TO OUT-DIGUST TRUMP-Tucker Carlson on Thursday defended unvaccinated people buying fake vaccination cards as the delta variant continued to fuel the COVID-19 pandemic. Fox News’ prime-time peddler of vaccine skepticism used Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s depiction of ID card fraud as a “serious crime” for his jumping-off point. (Vance announced forgery charges this week in a COVID-19 card conspiracy involving several health care workers.). “Buying a fake vaccination card is not a, quote, ‘serious crime,’” Carlson said. “It’s not even close to a serious crime. Buying a fake vaccination card is an act of desperation by decent, law-abiding Americans who have been forced into a corner by tyrants.” “You know what’s a serious crime?” the host continued. “Forcing Americans to take drugs they don’t need or want. That’s a very serious crime. And let’s hope, in the end, someone is punished for it, severely.”
09.02.21-HISTORYS GREATEST HYPOCRITE COMPLAINS-Trump Accuses Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley Of Hypocrisy. “Well, every time she criticizes me, she uncriticizes [sic] me about 15 minutes later,” the former president told Vanity Fair.
09.01.21-DIRTY THREATS BY A DIRTY PERSON-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is threatening telecommunications and social media companies that comply with a request by the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, declaring that Republicans “will not forget” their actions. McCarthy spoke with Trump on the day of the attack and is a potential witness in the select committee’s probe. The panel on Monday asked 35 companies to retain phone records and other information related to the attack as it ramps up its investigation ahead of the return of Congress next month. Several of the companies indicated this week that they intend to comply with the panel’s requests, while only one so far has publicly said it will not do so.
08.31.21-THIS GUY IS ALREADY A PROVEN LIAR-(see above)-At a local GOP political event in his home state on Sunday, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) warned of “bloodshed” over the 2020 election and called people arrested and charged for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “political hostages.” The far-right lawmaker made the comments during an event hosted by the Macon County Republican Party in Franklin, North Carolina, that the group streamed to Facebook. The post has since been removed. During his speech, Cawthorn repeated Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was “rigged” and warned that it would result in violence.
08.30.21-HE'S RIGHT ABOUT THE HATE-WRONG ABOUT WHO IS DERANGED-Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) claimed that animosity against Trump is hindering studies of ivermectin — a drug approved to treat some parasitic worms and often administered to livestock — and its supposed potential to treat or prevent COVID-19 in humans. “The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they’re unwilling to objectively study it,” Paul said.
08.28.21-SICK EGOMANIAC-With just weeks to go before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Trump suggested the man behind them, Osama bin Laden, wasn’t that bad and only had “one hit.” Trump made the callous and false comment during an interview about the crisis in Afghanistan. After trashing President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from the country, Trump bragged about two terror chiefs killed under his own administration: ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. He claimed that both men were much bigger targets than bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 under former President Barack Obama’s leadership. “Now, just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden,” Trump said. “The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi, than Osama bin Laden.” “Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center,” Trump said, ignoring Bin Laden’s other deadly attacks. “But these other two guys were monsters. They were monsters.” “And I kept saying for years, why aren’t they getting them? For years, I said it,” Trump continued. “I got them. The press doesn’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it because they don’t want to talk about it.”
08.26.21-Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is coming under fire for tweeting a meme showing an arm tattooed with a concentration camp identification number as a way to complain about coronavirus vaccine mandates.
A Twitter user said this: Wait until Rep Massive reads the ID requirements to vote that his party wants to enforce.."
08.25.21-I GUESS SHE IS BLIND AND DEAF-Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confounded critics Tuesday when she claimed the nation did not see “crisis after crisis” under Trump, who was impeached twice and oversaw the management of a devastating coronavirus pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
08.24.21-IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!-Alex Jones Flips On Trump, Decides Maybe ‘He’s A Dumbass.’ The Infowars conspiracy theorist raged at the former president for recommending the COVID-19 vaccines.
08.23.21-YES, IT'S A MESS IN AFGHANISTAN-
Read this for some perspective........... And this
08.22.21-DISGUSTING!-Under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ watch, the state has seen the largest explosion in coronavirus cases of any state in the nation this summer, with horrifying reports of packed hospitals that look far worse than they did even at the beginning of the pandemic. In light of Florida’s fiasco, a new exposé by the Tampa Bay Times about DeSantis’ fixation on appearing on Fox News has some statistics that help explain the crisis — and condemn DeSantis’ handling of it. The report, based on four months of emails that capture the intimate relationship between Fox News and DeSantis, found that his commitment to appearing on the network seems to rival, if not overshadow, his basic duties of governance:
08.19.21-SHE WAS ONCE A REPUBLICAN, NOW A TRUMPER-TOO BAD-Nikki Haley insulted the intelligence of her fellow Americans on Wednesday and once again found herself soaking in her own hypocrisy. On Wednesday, the former ambassador to the United Nations under Trump attacked the Biden administration’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan ― and especially, the administration negotiations with the Taliban, which Haley compared to “dealing with the devil. Granted, negotiating with a terrorist organization has bad optics ― which is why the Trump administration was also criticized when it decided to invite Taliban leaders to meet with the president at Camp David just days before the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Haley either forgot that or decided to ignore it when she attempted to own those danged libs with her tough-talking tweet. Luckily, many Twitter users were happy to remind her that Republicans have done the same thing she’s upset at Democrats for doing. And some brought receipts in the form of an infamous photo of Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posing for a photo with a Taliban leader.
08.18.21-WORKING HIS WAY UP THE 'WORST PEOPLE' LADDER-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who has been criticized for opposing mask mandates and vaccine passports — is now touting a COVID-19 antibody treatment in which a top donor’s company has invested millions of dollars. DeSantis has been flying around the state promoting Regeneron, a monoclonal antibody treatment that was used on Trump after he tested positive for COVID-19.
08.17.21-WORD VOMIT-Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, used his primetime slot to claim Afghanistan's fall is a result of a "grotesque," American-imposed "neoliberal program" in which "men can become pregnant" and Afghan women can serve in government roles. "It turns out that the people of Afghanistan don't actually want gender studies symposium," said Carlson. He seems to be saying that allowing women to serve in the Afghanistan government is the reason why the country is in chaos and he praises the Afghan people who didn't like it: "Why would they?"
08.16.21-MORE DIRTY TRICKS-FIRST WE MASSACRE THEM, NOW THIS-After turning out to vote in record numbers in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Native Americans are now one of the biggest targets of Republican-backed voter suppression efforts in states where their votes mattered the most. Republicans in states with significant Native populations like Arizona, Kansas, Montana and more have enacted new laws that limit voter access in ways that disproportionately impact Native voters. Imposing strict time limits on correcting a mail-in ballot, prohibiting third-party ballot collection, implementing strict voter identification requirements and making it harder to pay for election resources all negatively impact Native Americans in these states, largely due to specific circumstances on reservations where many of them live.
08.15.21-TYPICAL THUG-A chilling statement by Trump attacking the police officer who fatally shot Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt is obviously a “threat,” warned former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. In an interview on CNN Thursday, McCabe blasted Trump’s comments as “incredibly dangerous.” “We know this for a fact. This isn’t something we’re theorizing about,” he added, noting the effect Trump’s “words have on his most diehard and emotional supporters.” Trump said in a statement posted to Twitter by his paid aide Liz Harrington on Wednesday that “we know who he is,” referring to the unidentified officer who killed Babbitt. He added: “The Radical Left haters cannot be allowed to get away with this. There must be justice!” McCabe noted: “Let’s face it, when he says, ‘We know who you are,’ that’s a threat. That’s the same sort of language that a mob boss or a drug kingpin would use to threaten a subordinate. So you have the former president of the United States threatening members of law enforcement. It’s just outrageous.”
08.14.21-MORE TRASH-A conservative group draws damning comparisons between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the late Joseph McCarthy, the GOP senator who fueled anti-communist fears in the 1950s, in its new ad. Joseph McCarthy “deceived America, pushing a lie that our government was being taken over by communist spies,” says the voiceover of the 60-second video — titled “The New McCarthyism” — that was released by the Republican Accountability Project on Friday. “He gaslit America to advance his own political career,” it continues. “Now McCarthyism is back, with a new McCarthy: Kevin McCarthy. Just like Joe, Kevin McCarthy is gaslighting Americans.” The narrator then calls out current top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, a staunch defender of Trump, for protecting “white nationalists, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists while he whitewashes Jan. 6 all to advance his political power.”
08.13.21-THAT'S NOT ALL HE IS-Mary Trump has delivered a scathing critique of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a new essay, describing the Kentucky Republican as “the most dangerous Republican enabler” of her uncle, Donald Trump. In a lengthy article for The New Republic published Thursday, Trump's niece slammed McConnell as “the greatest traitor to this country” since Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee. But “with the difference that McConnell has been trying to take our country down from within,” she wrote.
08.12.21-LUNATIC LOSER-MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s online “Cyber Symposium” promoting Trump’s election lies continues to go south. Lindell vowed ahead of the 72-hour event that began in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Tuesday to show conclusive proof that China hacked voting machines in the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden — thus costing Trump victory. But after the second day on Wednesday, there was no such evidence. Instead, a cyber expert hired by Lindell to decrypt and analyze what the pillow peddler called “irrefutable” data reportedly said it was unrecoverable in its current state and could not prove hacking. “So our team said, we’re not going to say that this is legitimate if we don’t have confidence in the information,” Josh Merritt told The Washington Times, adding that Lindell has now canceled his $5 million reward for anyone who can disprove his wild claims. Lindell also found out Wednesday that his attempt at dismissing Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against him had been shot down by a federal judge. Oh, and the symposium wasn’t being covered by Fox News— which Lindell was less than happy about.
08.09.21-FOOL SPEAKS-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had an apparent lapse in self-awareness on Monday night, during a Fox News appearance in which he accused congressional Democrats of having a "herd mentality" and only accepting orders from one person. "It's a weird thing. There is a herd mentality among congressional Democrats that they obey [Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)], and their only answer is 'sir, yes sir,'" said Cruz while ignoring the Trump-sized elephant in the room.
08.08.21-THIS STUFF DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN-Former Newsmax host and right-wing Florida radio commentator Dick Farrel — who mocked vaccines, the “scamdemic” and “lying freak” Dr. Anthony Fauci — has died of COVID-19.
08.07.21-WHEN WILL WE DUMP THIS GUY? The U.S. Postal Service has secured a $120 million, five-year deal with XPO logistics, a major logistics contractor with financial and personal ties to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, The Washington Post reports. The contract, which was awarded in April, will have XPO oversee operations at two "crucial" sorting and distribution facilities in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
08.06.21-THE DISGUSTING PIG SPEAKS-Conspiracy theory-endorsing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) faced backlash after she told an audience in Alabama that door-to-door outreach vaccination workers “might not like the welcome they get” because “in the South, we all love our Second Amendment rights,” reported Al.com. Guests at an Alabama Federation of Republican Women event in Dothan cheered when the radical right-wing lawmaker praised their state for having one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, according to a video secretly recorded at the private July 23 event that radio host David Pakman shared on Twitter Tuesday.
08.05.21-ANOTHER DOUCHEBAG-Louisiana has the country’s highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita and one of the lowest vaccination rates right now. And the situation for hospitals and health care workers has never been worse. State Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) is doing his part to keep it that way. On Monday, as the state’s coronavirus death toll topped 11,000, Landry sent an email to state Department of Justice employees informing them how to avoid complying with school mask mandates for children. He also advised how to circumvent K-12 vaccine requirements, though the state doesn’t have any. “Louisiana law offers broad and robust protections for students’ and parents’ religious and philosophical objections to certain state public health policies,” Landry wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by the Louisiana Illuminator. “I support your religious liberties and right to conscientiously object.”
08.04.21-FLORIDA SCUM-Officials like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are getting in the way of people trying to do the right thing, As COVID conditions worsen in the Sunshine State, the Republican has prevented the private sector from requiring proof of vaccinations, while also blocking mask requirements. Indeed, the governor recently delivered out-of-state remarks to a conservative group, insisting his state say "no to restrictions and no [to] mandates." DeSantis has taken these steps while simultaneously trying to undermine public confidence in public-health authorities. Yesterday, he decided the smart move would be to blame news organizations. The Orlando Sentinel reported: Despite a record number of COVID-19 patients at hospitals across the state and dire warnings from the Florida Hospital Association, Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed capacity concerns as news media "hysteria" and insisted "our hospitals are open for business." His comments came Tuesday as people hospitalized with the coronavirus in Florida rose to an all-time high of 11,515, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He added, "Obviously the media does hysteria, you try to fear monger."
08.02.21-UNHINGED IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT-GOP Rep. Paul Gosar’s Siblings Tell Him To Resign: ‘Have You No Sense Of Decency?’ The far-right lawmaker’s brothers and sister said in a blistering op-ed that he betrayed his family and his country. They have called for action from the GOP against their brother, citing his links to white nationalists, his COVID-19 denial and role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, among other wrongdoings. “Although his colleagues in Congress and others in the media seem to only recently be paying attention, we have been aware of his unhinged behavior for years,” wrote Jennifer, Dave and Tim Gosar in an op-ed published by NBC News on Sunday. “Have you no sense of decency, Paul?” they continued, pointing to his false claims about coronavirus while it was ravaging his state, his repeated participation in and involvement with white nationalist events, support for the racist “birther” conspiracy theory and dedicated efforts to spread former president Trump’s big lie.
08.01.21-WHAT COUNTRY DO WE LIVE IN?-Nonprofit groups run by a crew of radical right-wing conspiracy theorists are paying millions of dollars to fund much of the sham Arizona vote audit launched by Republican state senators, according to records released following a lawsuit demanding transparency in the process. Groups headed by former Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn (nearly $1 million), conspiracy lawyer Sidney Powell ($550,000) and two correspondents from One American News Network ($605,000) — who gushed about the audit operation while paying for it — are among the top funders of the controversial recount by the inexperienced Cyber Ninjas company, according to the records. The unveiling of the people bankrolling the audit appears to further undermine any remaining credibility in the operation.
07.30.21-CRIMINAL CHARGES COMING SOON?-The Treasury Department must turn over copies of Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled on Friday.
07.29.21-MORON MCCARTHY-House Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have frequently suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her fellow Democrats are dodging the question of why the Capitol Police force was unprepared for the Jan. 6 riot as they try to get to the bottom of the events of that day. Banks, whom McCarthy recommended to serve on the Jan. 6 select committee before Pelosi rejected him, said Tuesday that if he were at the committee's hearing, he'd ask why the Capitol was "unprepared and vulnerable to attack." He then questioned why Pelosi "would want to block me from asking that question," insinuating that she's responsible for the failures. But HuffPost's Arthur Delaney thinks Banks' allegations are all for show, noting Wednesday that the prepared question was the first thing "everyone asked" during the hearings. Plus, as Delaney points out, a bipartisan Senate committee held multiple public hearings in an attempt to find the answer. For any Republican members of the House who actually care about the answer to the question of why the Capitol was so vulnerable, reading this report might be a good start. Click for report.
07.28.21-IDIOT-SPEAK-Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) stood by his comments comparing the riot that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to what happens during a “normal tourist visit.” Clyde made his initial comments at a committee hearing in May. He said that he helped his colleagues barricade a door to prevent a mob from breaking in — but, he added, it wasn’t that bad, because “the House floor was never breached.” While there were “some rioters,” he said it was a “bold-faced lie” to call it an insurrection.
07.25.21-TURNS OUT SHE LOVES THE TRAITORS-Arizona Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers defied belief with her rallying cry on Twitter Friday for people to “stand up for our culture!” In what appeared to be a response to the Cleveland baseball team’s decision to move away from racist stereotypes by changing its name from the Indians to the Guardians, the Trump apologist tweeted: I like Indians and I like Redskins. I like Aunt Jemima and I like Uncle Ben. I like Robert E Lee and I like Stonewall Jackson. I don’t like traitors who hate America. Stand up for our culture!
07.24.21-TRUE!-Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan lashed out Friday at Republicans who are “whitewashing” the U.S. Capitol insurrection. “We have to get to the bottom of exactly what happened there, and there’s no whitewashing,” Hogan told Major Garrett of CBS News on “The Takeout Podcast” on Friday. “There’s no way to just overlook this and say it didn’t happen,” Hogan said. “The nonsense about ‘these were just peaceful tourists’ is completely absurd. Talk about major disinformation and lies. That’s exactly what that is.”
07.23.21-FISCAL FOOLS-Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have teamed up and formed a joint fundraising committee. Unfortunately for them, they’re losing money. Since Gaetz and Greene kicked off their joint fundraising committee with a May 7 event at The Villages in central Florida, their campaigns and joint fundraising committee have posted a combined loss of $342,000. And according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, that joint fundraising effort, “Put America First,” reported only $59,345.54 in contributions. That sort of meager haul would be fine for a dinner or one-time event, but Gaetz and Greene have repeatedly held high-profile events and spent a whopping $287,036.19 to hold them—meaning they’re in the hole by more than $225,000.
07.22.21-TYPICAL CRAP-Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) just broke the first rule of whataboutism — don't ask questions you don't know the answers to. During a GOP doctors press conference on Thursday, Jackson erroneously accused the media of unfairly neglecting to ask Democratic lawmakers about their vaccination status the way they do Republicans. But what Jackson seems to have forgotten, noted writer James Surowiecki, is that liberal lawmakers across both chambers of Congress have a 100 percent vaccination rate, per CNN. Jackson went on to say "I highly doubt" all six of the Texas Democrats who tested positive for COVID-19 (and appear to have started a small Capitol outbreak) are vaccinated. Unfortunately for him, all reportedly are. Better luck next time, Jackson.
07.20.21-IS THIS A DREAM?-Fox News anchor Bret Baier threw facts at Trump on Monday after the former president went on a tirade against him for reporting that President Joe Biden fairly won Arizona in the 2020 election. “Trump put out a statement this weekend insisting voter fraud and irregularities cost him Arizona’s Electoral College votes,” Baier said. “He actually pointed to the reporting on this show.” Baier then walked through and debunked each of Trump’s claims from the statement.
AND:
Former Fox News reporter Carl Cameron on Monday called out Tucker Carlson’s doubtful diatribes against COVID-19 vaccines, saying his ex-colleague at the conservative network was “gaslighting” viewers for ratings and revenue. “It’s about ratings and ratings ultimately become revenue, and that’s the name of the game,” Cameron told CNN’s “New Day” about personalities on Fox and other hyperpartisan media outlets that have questioned the shots. Vaccine resistance has now become a GOP rallying cry, even though the shots have been shown safe and effective.
07.19.21-FOX SPEAKS?-Doocy: 99% of people who are dying are unvaccinated. Kilmeade: That's their choice! Doocy: They don't want to die. The admin and gov't says mask mandates are to protect the unvaccinated. Kilmeade: That's not their job, it's not their job to protect anybody!
07.18.21-NOW LETS DUMP GAETZ-Matt Gaetz’s ‘America First’ Rally Dumped By Third California Venue Hours Before Event.
07.17.21-GOP blows smoke blaming Biden for higher gas prices.Here we go again: Gasoline prices have spiked, and politicians are spinning attack lines and pointing fingers of blame. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted in June: “Average gas price: June 2020: $2.21 June 2021: $3.07 President Biden’s economy!” “As millions of Americans travel this holiday weekend, they are feeling the cost of Biden’s policies at the pump,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted this month. “Gas prices are at their highest level in 7 years.”
The Washington Post Fact Checker has been looking into similar attack lines for years — and they never quite add up. So far in 2021, gasoline prices have risen 88 cents, or a 40 percent increase, to $3.13 a gallon on July 6.
But what has Biden got to do with it? The biggest factor in the price of gasoline is crude oil. Well over 50 percent of the price at the pump is directly tied to the cost of crude oil. About 18 percent of the cost relates to state and federal taxes — the latter of which have not increased under Biden. About 15 percent stems from distribution and marketing, while 13 percent comes from refining costs and profits. (These figures are from AAA.) The world is emerging from a pandemic that sent oil prices tumbling. Now the price of crude oil is going up. Simple as that. The Republicans who made these claims earned Four Pinocchios. (LIARS)
07.16.21-WARNING-A former Homeland Security official under Trump says his own party is a national security threat. Miles Taylor, who served as the agency’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, told MSNBC’s Jason Johnson that he’s not a political operative, just someone who works in national security. “And the number one national security threat I’ve ever seen in my life to this country’s democracy is the party that I’m in, the Republican Party,” Taylor said on Thursday, adding: “If my party retakes the House of Representatives in the next cycle, it’s going to become a haunted house. And the ghoul and the specter haunting that house is going to be Donald Trump.” Taylor called out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for continuing “to pay homage to a twice-impeached presidential loser,” and warned that if McCarthy becomes speaker, it’ll really be Trump’s hand on the gavel. That notion, he said, should give all Americans pause.
07.15.21-YOU GO LIZ-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) reportedly called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to his face on Jan. 6 as the insurrection unfolded and lawmakers were forced to flee as supporters of Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol. “You fucking did this,” she told him, according to an upcoming book, “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
(Liz, come over to our side!)
07.14.21-CARLSON AND INGRAHAM-DISGUSTING TRASH-Fox News Hammered With How Its Vaccine Coverage Will Go Down In History. CNN “New Day” anchors Brianna Keilar and John Berman hammered home the same point over and over on Wednesday — that 99% of people who are now dying from COVID-19 in the United States are unvaccinated. They also called out Fox News personalities including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, other conservative media outlets and GOP lawmakers who have sown doubt about the COVID-19 vaccines that have been declared by scientists worldwide to safely slow the spread of the coronavirus.
07.13.21-TRUE!-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) urged Americans to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19 on Tuesday, calling the rising politicization of vaccines within his party “moronic.” “It’s grossly misfortunate and a huge human cost to have made vaccination political,” Romney told HuffPost when asked about attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas over the weekend cheering when a speaker noted the U.S. is having trouble reaching its vaccination goals.
07.12.21-PUNISH THE LIARS-Michigan’s AG, State Police Investigating Conspiracists Peddling Election Lies For Profit. State residents can be assured Joe Biden’s victory was legitimate, and should be wary of those pushing lies, warned a report backed by GOP lawmakers.
07.11.21-BATTY BOEBERT-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slashes Lauren Boebert For Call To End Government Benefits. AOC (D-N.Y.) came out with rockets blasting at Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) Saturday after the right-wing lawmaker called for the end of government benefits at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We’re here to tell government: ‘We don’t want your benefits. We don’t want your welfare,’” Boebert shouted as she marched back and forth across the stage in Dallas. “Don’t come to us with your Fauci ouchie. Leave us the hell alone!” AOC fired back: “Tell ’em loud and proud girl! GOP will strip your unemployment protections and dismantle any semblance of a public safety net we have left! Then make working people pay way more for everything on low wages while Wall St gets a meal ticket!” AOC sarcastically crowed: “Good ol conservative values baby!”
07.10.21-MORON ALERT-As the overheated Conservative Political Action Conference inspires increasingly zany claims. along comes uber-right Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) with a warning Friday that health care workers coming to homes to vaccinate people could also be out to grab Americans’ guns and Bibles. “Now they’re talking about going door-to-door to take vaccines to the people,” Cawthorn complained in an interview with the Right Side Broadcast Network at CPAC in Dallas, adding that the plan would require a “massive” operation. “Then think about what those mechanisms could be used for,” Cawthorn darkly warned. “They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could then go door-to-door to take your Bibles.” Cawthorn — who has lied about being accepted to the Naval Academy and about the car crash that partially paralyzed him — was apparently appalled when President Joe Biden earlier this week pushed for a COVID-19 vaccination outreach program as the delta variant surges and the U.S. coronavirus death toll nears 607,000.
07.09.21-THE WITCH HUNT SHOULD START WITH THESE TWO-Conspiracy theory-endorsing and frequent outrage-generating GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.) shouldn’t expect an endorsement from one major PAC that seeks to elect Republican women. Julie Conway, executive director of the Value In Electing Women group, dismissed both lawmakers as “carnival barkers” in an interview with Insider. Greene and Boebert were the only Republican women in Congress not being supported by the group, Conway said, and they won’t receive its backing during the 2022 midterms. “While we rightfully celebrate the number of GOP women serving in the House, I’ve always professed quality over quantity,” said Conway, whose committee says it has raised more than $20 million for female Republican candidates since its inception in 1997. “The work of Congress is not a joke or reality show,” she added. Conway said Republican women have “fought too hard for too long to be respected and taken seriously as legislators, policymakers and thought leaders.” “We cannot let this work be erased by individuals who chose to be shameless self-promoters and carnival barkers,” she added. “I think that they would rather draw attention to themselves, and really Marjorie Taylor Greene more than Boebert, but they’re cut from the same cloth.”
07.08.21-CRIMINAL ACTS-Arizona’s secretary of state has called for a criminal investigation into whether Trump and his political allies tried to illegally influence the results of the 2020 election in the days before Congress certified President Joe Biden’s White House win. There were “clear efforts to induce supervisors to refuse to comply with their duties” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) said in a letter to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) on Wednesday. Evidence referenced by Hobbs includes text messages and phone calls that were placed to Republican members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors as Trump’s campaign attempted to prevent the certification in key battleground states.
07.07.21-CRAZED LUNATIC-Trump praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during a 2018 trip to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, a new book claims. “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things,” the then-president told White House chief of staff John Kelly, according to passages from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender’s “‘Frankly, We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost” that were published by The Guardian on Wednesday. Trump reportedly made the observation while Kelly was reminding him “which countries were on which side during the conflict” and connecting “the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler’s atrocities,” said Bender. Kelly was “stunned” by Trump’s remark, told the then-president he “was wrong,” argued “the German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide” and said “you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can’t.” But Trump was “undeterred,” said Bender, and pointed to the recovery of Germany’s economy under Hitler in the 1930s as proof.
07.06.21-ALWAYS KNEW THEY ARE COWARDS-Terrified White Supremacists Run Away After Philadelphia March Goes Awry. A Patriot Front march in Philly didn’t go the way the group hoped when they had to flee angry counter-protesters.
07.07.21-ANOTHER REPUBLICAN SPEAKS-Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) on Tuesday rejected the idea that there’s currently “a fight for the soul of the party” between moderate Republicans and sycophants of Trump. “There is nothing left of this Republican Party other than a party that’s able to embrace and to elevate an undemocratic, anti-republic theme that somehow we can engage in a fraud on the American people as long as it supports our guy winning an election,”
07.06.21-MORE BIG LIES-Six months after their leader tried to overturn the election he had lost by more than 7 million votes, Republicans have settled on a message about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol: Insurrection? What insurrection? From calls to let bygones be bygones, to punishing dissidents who dare criticize Trump for instigating that day’s attack, to literally describing the mob as no different from everyday “tourists,” the Republican Party ― with notable exceptions ― has pushed the idea that the unprecedented attempt to overthrow American democracy was really no big deal.
07.05.21-GOOD SISTER ACT-Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who has espoused conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 insurrection and defended those who attacked the U.S. Capitol as “peaceful patriots,” is being called out publicly by his own sister. “He uses it ... to fundraise, and I find that even more despicable and disgusting,” Jennifer Gosar said on CNN over the weekend. She said her brother should be held “criminally accountable” if reports of his involvement with the organizers of the insurrection are true. CNN’s Pamela Brown asked Jennifer Gosar what she would say to her bother. “I wouldn’t communicate with him,” she said.
07.04.21-ON A DAY WHEN WE SHOULD BE CELEBRATING DEMOCRACY, THE RIGHT IS TEARING IT APART. Read this editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.07.03.21-GET THIS DEMON CARLSON OFF THE AIR. PLEASE!-CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner on Friday took Tucker Carlson to task over his often-criticized, irresponsible coverage of COVID-19. And the cardiologist asked a damning question of the Fox News personality. “Is the coronavirus one of his sponsors?” tweeted Reiner. Carlson seems hellbent on letting COVID go on as long as possible. He’s “questioned” the safety of vaccines. Now he says masks are unsafe. Somehow he never seems to have an actual expert on his show to discuss.
07.02.21-BIGGEST UGLY HYPOCRITE-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday he was “certainly looking” at running for president in 2024. But the Trump-supporting politician’s reasoning for another presidential campaign caused much mirth on Twitter. “I’ll tell you, 2016 was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” Cruz, who washed out in GOP primaries that year, said on Newsmax. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump attacked the looks of Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, baselessly claimed Cruz’s father was somehow involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and gave Cruz the disparaging nickname “Lyin’ Ted.’” Trump also suggested the Canadian-born senator “may not even have a legal right to run.” Cruz, in turn, called Trump a “sniveling coward.” After Trump’s victory, Cruz cozied up to him and became one of his most loyal defenders.
06.30.21-ANOTHER CRAZED REPUBLICAN-South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) will deploy up to 50 National Guard troops to the southern U.S. border, her office said Tuesday, with a highly unusual caveat — the mission will be funded by a “private donation” from an out-of-state GOP megadonor billionaire. Privately funding a military mission is an affront to civilian oversight of the armed forces, said military and oversight experts, describing the move — a Republican governor sending troops to a Republican-led state, paid for by a Republican donor — as likely unprecedented and unethical.
06.28.21-STILL TOO FEW REPUBLICANS-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) criticized former Trump on Sunday for continuing to recycle the same old talking points about the 2020 election and urged Republican leaders to tell voters the truth. At a rally in Ohio Saturday, his first since leaving office, Trump reprised his grievances about losing the 2020 election and falsely blamed it on voter fraud. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) likened the spectacle to WWE wrestling, saying it was “entertaining, but not real.” “I hope he’s right,” Kinzinger said of Romney’s take. “There’s a lot of people, though, that I’ve talked to, you know that are mad at me for just telling the truth, which used to be a pretty basic, you know, low bar, that really truly believe that Donald Trump was elected president again.” “It was a rally of a loser president,” Kinzinger added. “I mean, he’s the first president to lose reelection in decades.”
06.27.31-JUST ANOTHER HYPOCRITE-Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace sparred with Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) over Banks's vote against an emergency relief bill that would have allocated funds to police and first responders. "Can't you make the argument that it's you and the Republicans who defunded the police?" Wallace asked Banks, who is the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. Wallace said "that President Biden's American Rescue Plan, which Banks voted against, would have given localities more money to hire police officers, invest in new technology and create new crime intervention programs. But you and every other Republican voted against this $350 billion."
06.27.21-EVEN CHUMP'S LACKEY-Former Attorney General William Barr reportedly called Trump’s false claims of election fraud “bullshit,” according to a new book on the final days of the Trump administration.
06.25.21-THIS NETWORK IS A CESSPOOL-Fox News host Laura Ingraham went after Gen. Mark Milley, the Pentagon's top military commander, on her show Wednesday night after he waved off Republican complaints about a West Point seminar that taught critical race theory and, more generally, defended the practice of studying and trying to understand things you don't necessarily agree with. Her colleague Tucker Carlson joined in Thursday, calling the four-star general "a pig," "obsequious," and "stupid."
Fox News host Sean Hannity tore into The New York Times and its recent coverage of the behind-the-scenes drama at the right-wing cable network. But his harshest words may have been aimed at his colleague, Tucker Carlson. This week, New York Times columnist Ben Smith said Carlson dishes out off-the-record gossip about the network, Trump and other topics to reporters, calling his willingness to spill tea “one of Washington’s open secrets.” Sixteen journalists at other news outlets confirmed to Smith that Carlson had been a source.
06.24.21-NOW CANCEL HIM-Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in the state of New York. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and the former head prosecutor for the federal Southern District of New York, was suspended for making “false and misleading statements” about the election loss of his client, Trump.
06.23.21-IT'S ABOUT TIME-The Biden administration has forced out the head of the U.S. Border Patrol, Rodney Scott, clearing a path for a leadership overhaul at an agency strained by a 20-year-high in illegal border crossings, and whose top officials were broadly sympathetic to President Trump. AND-A new Supreme Court ruling could clear the way for President Joe Biden to fire the Trump appointees running the Social Security Administration.
06.23.21-JUST THINK IF THIS MANIAC HAD BEEN REELECTED-Trump railed against “Saturday Night Live” and actor Alec Baldwin, and fueled an unhinged conspiracy theory while attacking a report in The Daily Beast on Tuesday. The website reported that the former president had attempted to sic federal agencies, including the Justice Department, on late-night comedians who made fun of him. Trump called the story “total Fake News,” but added that “Baldwin has no talent, certainly when it comes to imitating me.” Trump added that late-night comedy was an “illegal campaign contribution” to Democrats. But it was the conclusion of his message where Trump really went off the rails. Trump closed his statement with “2024 or before!” ― a nod to a conspiracy theory that claims he will overthrow the elected government and again take office before the next election in 2024.
06.21.21-HATE IS MUTUAL-Fox News’ Juan Williams wrote Monday that Republicans lack substance and a plan as they mimic the “lowball strategy” of Trump. In an essay for The Hill titled “Trump’s GOP Descends Into Farce,” Williams conceded that the twice-impeached ex-POTUS still has a hold on the GOP and remains a legitimate party hopeful for 2024. “The problem for Trump is that while his candidacy is the tallest tree in the GOP jungle, it has shallow roots in the soft, shifting soil of a cult of personality,” he wrote. “At his maximum political power, Trump is a towering idol for a fickle crowd that agrees on only one thing — hating Democrats.”
06.20.21-TODAY'S DUNCE-MIKE PENCE-He keeps forgetting that the Jan 6 insurrectionists wanted to murder him. They even constructed a set of gallows outside the capital building. Say's he is tired of cancel culture, after they tried to cancel him.
06.19.21-CARLSON=SCUM! The conspiracy theory — that the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was a false flag event orchestrated by the FBI — traveled the way so many conspiracy theories do in America: from a fringe far-right site run by a white nationalist to this country’s most-watched cable news show. “Strangely, some of the key people who participated on Jan. 6 have not been charged,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson told millions of viewers on Tuesday. “Look at the documents. The government calls those people ‘unindicted co-conspirators.’ What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case, they were FBI operatives.”
06.18.21-JAIL TIME?-Trump faces RICO exposure in two separate probes and that’s putting legendary mafia prosecutions back in the spotlight. Legal experts see RICO as a powerful tool in these Trump probes. The Manhattan District Attorney has the power to indict an entire company.
06.17.21-SOME GOOD NEWS-The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are both struggling to bring in money and hold onto members, as the far-right organizations deal with the repercussions of being connected to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
06.17.21-ANOTHER UGLY REPUBLICAN-A DC Metropolitan Police officer who defended the US Capitol on January 6 blasted GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde on Wednesday evening for what he called "disgusting" behavior during a tense exchange. Michael Fanone, who was stun-gunned several times and beaten with a flagpole during the riot, told CNN's Don Lemon that he had come across Clyde in the Capitol and had been dismissed by the congressman after approaching him outside an elevator Wednesday afternoon.
06.14.21-DEFINITION OF A LIAR-Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insists she never lied when she worked for then-president Donald Trump and suggested she can’t because of her faith. In comments she said: “As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world’s hardest institutions, I never lied. I sourced my information, but that will never stop the press from calling you a liar.” McEnany took the job in April 2020 with her now-infamous vow to never lie. However, she had such a long and extensive history of falsehoods that CNN’s Jake Tapper refused to have her on his show, saying McEnany “lies the way that most people breathe” and “can’t acknowledge reality.” Out of seven McEnany claims reviewed by PolitiFact, just three were rated as “mostly true.” The rest were listed as either “half true,” “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire.” Last year, for example, she claimed Trump “never downplayed the virus” despite audio of him admitting to doing exactly that, in those exact words. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Bob Woodward. McEnany’s new claim that she had never lied caused her name to trend on Twitter, mostly due to disbelief:
06.11.21-DIRTY TRICKS-Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced Friday that his office is launching a probe following reports that the department had sought the records of journalists and prominent critics of former president Donald Trump on the House Intelligence Committee.In a statement, Horowitz said the review “will examine the Department’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations.”
06.09.21-MORON ALERT-During a House Natural Resources Hearing with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) asked, apparently earnestly, if there was anything the two government agencies could do to combat global warming by changing "the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun?" He then stated that such an interstellar overhaul would obviously have "profound effects" on the Earth's climate.
06.08.21-LISTEN TO OBAMA-Barack Obama on Monday lamented the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s election lies, saying the Republican Party has been “cowed into accepting” conspiracy theories that would have been unacceptable previously. “I think we have to worry when one of our major political parties is willing to embrace a way of thinking about our democracy that would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,” the former president told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
06.07.21-TRAITOR-Manchin Says He’ll Vote Against Voting Rights Bill, Dooming Dems’ Election Overhaul Efforts. The West Virginia senator’s unwillingness to back legislation without Republican support could jeopardize Democrats’ ability to pass key bills.
06.06.21-SICKENING!“Blood may be thicker than water, but apparently it’s not thicker than Kool-Aid.” So said CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Friday as she showed how prominent Republicans are more than happy to throw their relatives under the bus when it comes to proving their support for Trump. The “New Day” anchor examined how Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Rep. Greg Pence and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have all put fealty to Trump over family. “Even if he calls your wife ugly. Mocks your dad. Puts a target on your brother’s back or rips your uncle,” said Keilar. “In the age of Trump, truly, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.”
06.04.21-PENCE'S ONLY MODE IS GROVELING-Sometimes, you wish Mike Pence would just stand up for himself. The former vice president earned something of a reputation as a lapdog while serving under Donald Trump, repeatedly making it clear during their four years together that there was "no daylight" between the two — no matter how extreme and awful the president's behavior became. The Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol should have changed everything. Pence rightly refused Trump's demand that he attempt to block certification of the 2020 election. Trump, in turn, incited the crowd that broke into the House and Senate chambers, with some rioters chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" If you can't be angry at the guy who almost got you killed, who can you be mad at?
06.03.21-LOSER TRUMP-Trump’s blog, celebrated by advisers as a “beacon of freedom” that would keep him relevant in an online world he once dominated, is dead. It was 29 days old. Upset by reports from outlets highlighting its measly readership and concerns that it could detract from a social media platform he wants to launch later this year, Trump ordered his team Tuesday to put the blog out of its misery, advisers said.
06.01.21-A REPUBLICAN SPEAKS-Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich) blasted conservatives “salivating for civil war” in a series of messages on Memorial Day, saying they are “treacherous snakes” who “can go straight to hell.” Meijer, an Iraq War veteran who assumed office earlier this year, has made a name for himself as one of the few members in his party to buck the whims of Trump. On Twitter, he said he struggled with Memorial Day this year:
05.31.21-GETTING SCARIER EVERY DAY-Avowed QAnon disciple and confessed felon retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has called for a Myanmar-like military coup in America. “It should happen,” Trump’s former national security adviser said in an astonishing declaration at a QAnon conference Sunday. Myanmar’s military violently seized control of the country from its civilian government in late January, detained democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and top party members, and killed more than 700 protesters as of early this month. The military justified its action by claiming unproven “election fraud.”
05.30.21-MAFIA FAMILY-Experts Believe Prosecutors Are Mulling ‘Little RICO’ Mob Law Against Trump Org: Report. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. may be looking at Trump’s business as a possible criminal enterprise. “No self-respecting state white-collar prosecutor would forgo considering the enterprise corruption charge,” veteran Manhattan defense attorney Robert Anello told Politico, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s probe into Trump and the Trump Organization. “I’m sure they’re thinking about that.”
05.28.21-I LOVE A GOOD FIGHT AMONG MORONS-Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) offered a veiled criticism of Trump in a speech Thursday night in which he urged the Republican Party not to rely on the “appeal of one personality.” But Ryan, according to his prepared remarks, did not explicitly name Trump in his critique. When Ryan did name Trump, it was to praise him for advancing “practical conservative policy.” The comments drew a rebuke from Trump. “Paul Ryan has been a curse to the Republican Party,” the former president said in a statement Friday morning. “He has no clue as to what needs to be done for our country, was a weak and ineffective leader, and spends all of his time fighting Republicans as opposed to Democrats who are destroying our country.”
05.27.21-DITCH MITCH-It has long been obvious that Mitch McConnell puts party before country, but this week he actually admitted it. He told Republican colleagues that they should oppose the creation of a Jan. 6 commission, no matter how it is structured, because it “could hurt the party’s midterm election message,” as Politico’s Burgess Everett reported. And so, as early as Thursday, McConnell will use the filibuster to thwart a bipartisan effort to prevent further attacks on the U.S. government by domestic terrorists — because he thinks it’s good politics for Republicans.
05.27.21-NO SURPRISE-Trump allegedly attempted to stop a congressional probe of the Spygate case involving the New England Patriots by offering a bribe to then-Sen. Arlen Specter, the late senator’s son claimed Wednesday.
05.24.21-PLEASE, REPUBLICANS, MORE OF YOU SPEAK UP-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday tore into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for “not telling the truth” about their party’s role in the deadly insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol in January. During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Kinzinger told host Chris Wallace that forming a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack — like the commission formed after 9/11 — is critical and that efforts to block its creation by McCarthy and other GOP leaders are reprehensible. “What we need is a comprehensive look of what happened that led up to Jan. 6,” Kinzinger said. “Who was talking to who? What were the lies?” “The American people deserve the truth,” he continued, “and my party to this point has said things like it was hugs and kisses, it was antifa and [Black Lives Matter], it was anything but what it was, which was a Trump-inspired insurrection on the Capitol.”
05.21.21-SIGNS OF FASCISM-The Justice Department in 2020 secretly obtained phone and email records from CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, CNN reported and the Justice Department confirmed Thursday night. The Justice Department's May 13 letter to Starr informing her it had obtained her 2017 records follows a May 3 letter to three Washington Post reporters with similar notifications.
05.21.21-MORE LUNACY-ARIZONA VOTING MACHINES NOW UNUSABLE DUE TO RECOUNT Arizona's secretary of state told Maricopa County officials that hundreds of vote-tabulating machines should no longer be used because of their handling by the "amateur, uncertified" company hired by state Senate Republicans to recount ballots cast in November's presidential election. Cyber Ninjas broke the "chain of custody" for machine possession, Katie Hobbs said.
05.18.21-SHEER LUNACY-The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Monday denounced an ongoing audit of the 2020 election vote as a “sham” and a “con,” calling on the GOP-led state Senate to end the controversial recount that has been championed by former president Donald Trump. In a fiery public meeting and subsequent letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, the board members said the audit has been inept, promoted falsehoods and defamed the public servants who ran the fall election. Calling the process a “spectacle that is harming all of us,” the five members of the board — including four Republicans — asked the state Senate to recognize that it is essential to call off the audit, which officials have said is only about one-quarter complete. “It is time to make a choice to defend the Constitution and the Republic,” they wrote. “We stand united together to defend the Constitution and the Republic in our opposition to the Big Lie. We ask everyone to join us in standing for the truth,” they added, using a term that refers to the false claim that the election was stolen. In a calculated show of unity, they were joined by Maricopa’s other elected officials: the sheriff, a Democrat; and the Republican county recorder, who leads the elections office.
05.16.21-REPUBLICANS SPEAK-Arizona’s Republican chair of the Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors has slammed the partisan, highly controversial GOP-launched recount there as “dangerous.” And a GOP county election official ripped Donald Trump on Saturday as “unhinged” for parroting false complaints about the ballots. “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer tweeted. Board of Supervisors Chair Jack Sellers blasted the Cyber Ninjas company hired by the GOP-dominated state Senate to scrutinize the 2.1 million county ballots as being in “way over their heads,” reported the local Daily Independent.
05.15.21-ANOTHER SICK REPUBLICAN-The furor over Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) treatment of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has sparked new worries that lawmakers could be in danger from their own colleagues. The concern has reached a different order of intensity since the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, when members of Congress literally feared for their lives. Greene’s encounters with some of her Democratic colleagues, along with a confrontation between a Greene staffer and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), show just how febrile the atmosphere on Capitol Hill has become. In an exchange witnessed by The Hill’s Scott Wong on Friday morning, a Greene staffer challenged Swalwell over the Democrat wearing a mask. Swalwell retorted, “You don’t tell me what to f---king do.” Soon afterward on Twitter, Swalwell said Greene’s aide had attempted to bully him, adding: “I told the bully what I thought of his order. Predictably, he went speechless. I regret I wasn’t more explicit.”
05.13.21-DISGUSTING AND SICK-Several House Republicans on Wednesday tried to recast and downplay the events of Jan. 6, comparing the mob that breached the Capitol to tourists, railing against law enforcement for seeking to arrest them and questioning how anyone could be sure the rioters were supporters of Trump. The Republicans’ distortions about the most violent attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812 defy the well-documented reality of what occurred that day — 140 police officers were injured, some bludgeoned with flagpoles and baseball bats, with one officer’s eye gouged out; rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and erected a gallows on the Capitol grounds; and members of the House and the Senate were rushed to safety in secure locations for several hours. The attack resulted in five dead.
05.11.21-WE NEED MORE OF THIS-There was no shortage of prominent Republican voices questioning the direction of their party over the weekend. For example, Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, said on MSNBC yesterday that his party has "sunken to the lowest of lows" by treating Donald Trump as its "savior." Around the same time, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) told NBC News his party is becoming a "circular firing squad." He added, "It bothers me you have to swear fealty to the Dear Leader or you get kicked out of the party." And then there was Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), appearing on CBS, offering a memorable analogy about the state of the contemporary GOP. "I mean, right now it's basically like we're the Titanic. We're in the middle of this slow sink, there's a band on deck telling everyone it's fine, meanwhile Donald Trump is looking for women's clothing trying to get on the first lifeboat," he said. The Illinois Republican, who supported Trump's impeachment in January, added, "I think there's a few of us that are just saying, 'Guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country."
05.09.21-WAKE UP REPUBLICANS-House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday slammed the Republican Party, saying the GOP is “losing its way on all fronts” while pointing a finger at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).In an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Clyburn responded to remarks made by McConnell last week when the Kentucky Republican said that 100 percent of his focus is standing up “in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country.” When asked by host Jake Tapper what those comments mean for bipartisanship in the Senate, Clyburn blamed McConnell for the current posture of the Republican Party. “Mitch McConnell has some personal animus toward Democrats that ought not be. We are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let's operate like that. This Republican Party is losing its way on all fronts, and Mitch McConnell is contributing to that in a big way,” Clyburn said.
05.08.21-PARADE OF COWARDS-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Friday that only a handful of his Republican colleagues in the House actually believe Trump’s election lies. The vast majority of House Republicans, Kinzinger told CNN’s Jake Tapper, were simply boarding the Trump train in a desperate bid to preserve their jobs. “How many actually believe it? Five, probably, if that, maybe? I don’t know, but it’s in the single, it’s low,” said Kinzinger, a vocal critic of Trump who defied his party to vote for the impeachment of the former president for inciting the deadly U.S. Capitol riot. “People don’t believe it,” he continued. “But what they are doing is they’re sitting around saying, ‘I need to continue to exist in this job so that I can make an impact. I don’t have the courage or the strength or the ability to swing this party, so I’m going to just kinda put my head down and go along.’”
05.06.21-STEALING CREDIT-Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said it pained her to vote against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. But in the weeks that followed, the first-term Republican issued a news release celebrating more than $3.7 million from the package that went to community health centers in her district as one of her “achievements.” She said she prided herself on “bringing federal funding to the district and back into the pockets of taxpayers.” Malliotakis is far from alone. Every Republican in Congress voted against the sweeping pandemic relief bill that President Joe Biden signed into law three months ago. But since the early spring votes, Republicans from New York and Indiana to Texas and Washington state have promoted elements of the legislation they fought to defeat.
05.05.21-THIS FOOL IS ACTUALLY THE 'BIG LIE'-One day after launching his new “communications platform, Trump used it to launch an attack on Mike Pence, Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell. Trump’s grievance-filled post ripped into the three prominent Republicans for failing to back his 2020 election lies and help him cheat his way to reelection, using run-on sentences like this one attacking Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican:
05.04.21-TAX TRUTH-If all of Biden’s proposed tax increases passed — on the corporate tax, as well as on investment taxes and income taxes for top earners — the total federal tax rate on the wealthy would remain significantly lower than it was in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. It would also remain somewhat lower than during the mid-1990s, based on an analysis that Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley, did for The Morning.
05.03.21-MORE FOX FOLLIES-Back in 2015, Dan Price of Gravity Payments shocked the business world by slashing his own $1.1 million pay package to help fund a minimum “living wage” of $70,000 for all workers at his credit card processing company Gravity Payments. Of course FOX News and some conservatives criticized him as a “socialist” on Fox News and Fox Business......
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05.02.21-REPUBLICAN MADNESS-Cindy McCain on Sunday called the GOP-backed election audit in Arizona "ludicrous." McCain, a prominent Arizona Republican and the wife of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" and was asked by host Jake Tapper about the audit. "Listen, this whole thing is ludicrous, quite frankly. It's ludicrous. And this also comes from a state party in Arizona that refused to be audited themselves on votes that were cast within their own party communications," Cindy McCain said.
04.30.21-THIS HAPPENS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY-As federal investigators searched the phone records of a violent extremist in California last August, they discovered an unexpected voice of authority joining in a group chat with racist slurs and threats. In texts with a group that called itself “Shadow Moses,” a Georgia sheriff’s deputy boasted about beating a Black man during an arrest, threatened to falsely charge Black people with felonies so that they could not vote and advocated for killing politicians and others he viewed as political enemies, the FBI said in court documents.
04.29.21-THIS IS REALLY TRUMP SPEAKING-MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace made quick work of Sen. Tim Scott’s Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. “This is a speech delivered from a planet where facts don’t matter, which is where the current Republican Party resides,” said Wallace. “It’s really not his fault, but it is his responsibility to get his facts straight.” Scott (R-S.C.) claimed in his speech that the “tide had already turned” against coronavirus before Biden took office and credited Trump for that. Wallace wasn’t buying it. “He said that Biden inherited a country that had already rounded the bend on COVID,” she said. “Four thousand people a day were dying in January, so I don’t know, again, on what planet we rounded the bend.” She said Scott’s speech contained “a lot of disinformation” that felt “almost scripted” by someone close to Trump.
04.28.21-WILL THIS EVER STOP?-A longtime New York Post reporter said she has resigned after being “ordered” to write a false story that claimed undocumented minors were being welcomed to the United States with copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Harris. “The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point,” Laura Italiano tweeted Tuesday afternoon, several hours after her viral article about the books had been deleted from the Post’s website and replaced with corrected versions.
04.27.21-WHAT IDIOT WOULD BELIEVE THIS? OH, YEAH.-On Friday, FOX anchor John Roberts told viewers about a University of Michigan study that suggested cutting back on eating red meat would decrease harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Although the study was first presented in 2020 and wasn’t connected to Biden in anyway, Fox News decided to connect nonexistent dots with a graphic, “Up in Your Grill: Biden’s Climate Requirements,” of data from the Michigan study, according to Forbes.com. Over the weekend, other Fox personalities ran with the false claim, especially Larry Kudlow, Donald Trump’s former White House economic adviser, who ridiculously insisted Biden’s next step would be to ban burgers and steaks on the Fourth of July. The claims got enough traction that a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture told The Hill on Monday that the claims made by Fox News were “a fabrication” and said any burger ban is “not a part of the climate plan nor the emissions targets. It is not real.” On Monday, Roberts then walked back Friday’s false claim with a correction.
04.26.21-MORE REPUBLICAN WHITE SUPREMACY-During a talk last week former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum offered his views on the founding of America, which he ties to the Judeo-Christian principles of persecuted Europeans who crossed the Atlantic and "created a blank slate ... birthed a nation from nothing. I mean there was nothing here." Critics decried Santorum's remarks as not only historically inaccurate, but also as an example of white supremacy and the erasure of Native American history and culture.
04.25.21-REPUBLICAN PARTY FUTURE-No one should be surprised that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), one of the instigators behind the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has refused to break ties with True Texas Project, a MAGA-type group that is so divisive that other conservatives have distanced themselves from it. The Post reports: “As Trump’s presidency normalized and elevated far-right, anti-immigrant voices, TTP’s messaging grew more extreme, at times echoing white-supremacist talking points.”
04.24.21-SMACK DOWN-Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tried to sneak through a stealth phrase of praise for white people, but it got taken down — hard — in the House on Thursday. Cotton, the man who has called slavery a “necessary evil,” was attempting to make a case for why Wyoming deserves to be a state but Washington, D.C., which has a larger population, does not. Wyoming, incidentally, has a population that is 92.5% white and 1.3% Black, according to census figures. The District of Columbia is 45.4% Black and 42.5% white. Cotton hailed Wyoming over the District of Columbia, which is seeking statehood, because he said Wyoming has “three times as many workers in mining, logging and construction, and 10 times as many workers in manufacturing. In other words, Wyoming is a well-rounded, working-class state,” apparently inferring D.C. couldn’t match up. Freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) later observed on the House floor: “One Senate Republican said that D.C. wouldn’t be a, quote, well-rounded, working-class state. I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word ‘white.’”
04.23.21-SURPRISE!-NOT-When first announced in 2017, Foxconn's plan to build a massive electronics factory in Wisconsin was hailed by Trump as a sign of the rebirth of American manufacturing. But nearly four years later, the complex that promised to create a Silicon Valley in the industrial Midwest is essentially a white elephant, a collection of mostly empty buildings without any high-tech products to build. And this week it became official: The pledged investment of up to $10 billion to create as many as 13,000 jobs is not coming.
04.22.21-LOUDMOUTH CALLED OUT-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) seemed to admit Wednesday that she hasn’t read the climate change bill she wants to debate about with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
04.22.21-ANOTHER DUMBASS-Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) railed against public health advice on Wednesday with a warped suggestion for how President Joe Biden could boost uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. “If you want more people to get vaccinated, Joe Biden should go on national TV, take his mask off and burn it,” the Kentucky Republican told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “Light a torch to it and burn his mask and say, ‘I’ve had the vaccine, I am now safe from this plague. If you get the vaccine, you can be safe, too,’” he added.
04.22.21-MORE MCCARTHY HYPOCROSY-A conservative organization is calling out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for hypocrisy after he tried to censure Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) this week. He accused Waters of using “violent rhetoric” when she told protesters to “stay on the street” and “get more confrontational” if former police officer Derek Chauvin wasn’t found guilty in the George Floyd murder case. But as the new video from the Republican Accountability Project shows, McCarthy has ignored far more violent rhetoric from inside his own conference. The spot includes clips from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) urging people to “go to the streets and be violent,” and Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) telling supporters to “lightly threaten” their lawmakers. McCarthy has not moved to censure them. The ad also includes some violent rhetoric from Trump, who McCarthy continues to support. “If Kevin McCarthy really opposes dangerous rhetoric, he can start by cleaning up his own house,” states the voiceover in the video, which will air on Fox News during “Hannity” in Washington, D.C. next week:
04.21.21-PRETTY, HYPOCRITICAL MORON-Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany was called out for hypocrisy on Tuesday for her latest attack on President Joe Biden, which completely ignored the behavior of her previous employer, Trump. “I think it’s the role of the president of the United States to stay back, to not inflame the tensions,” McEnany said on the air after Biden offered an opinion on Derek Chauvin’s trial.
04.20.21-THE FOOL PROVES HE IS A FOOL!-Mike Lindell has had some problems launching his social network , including being pranked by Trump impersonators. One caller got through by claiming to be Trump-a very foul-mouthed Trump. “Hello everyone,” the fake Trump said. Lindell, who bent his body over the speaker where the voice was emanating, got excited. “Aw, we have the president here-our real president everyone,” Lindell exclaimed. “Hello, Mr. President!” Sadly for Lindell, the person claiming to be the president didn’t respond in kind. “MacronShow.com, bitches! MacronShow.com!” Ron Blackman, who hosts the British podcast “The Macron Show,” later took credit on Twitter for the prank call, and told HuffPost that Lindell deserves whatever he gets.
04.20.21-THE WAR CRIMINAL SPEAKS-Former President George W. Bush called today's GOP "isolationist, protectionist, and to a certain extent, nativist," during an interview with NBC's "Today.
04.18.21-JOHN BOEHNER WANTS US TO FORGET HE WAS TAKEN DOWN BY THE FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER HE HELPED CAUSE-Boehner called Trump “a little crazy,” said former President Bill Clinton is “the best politician I’ve ever met” and praised President Joe Biden as “a really good guy.” But his tone shifted when Colbert asked about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). “Lucifer in the flesh,. The most miserable son of a bitch I ever had to deal with.”
04.17.21-HITLER WOULD BE PROUD!-Several House Republicans, led by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.), are forming a caucus that calls for a "common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions." A policy platform for the group, which calls itself the America First Caucus, declares that "a certain intellectual boldness is needed" in order to "follow in Trump’s footsteps, and potentially step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows for the good of the American nation." The seven-page document, first obtained by Punchbowl News, is explicit in its nativist rhetoric and describes American culture as dominated by "Anglo-Saxon" and European influences
04.15.21-IF ONLY!-In 2015 and 2016, Trump's Republican primary rivals and other GOP officials tried to dodge his withering personal insults "while hoping that external events and news media coverage would ultimately lead to his downfall," Maggie Haberman recalls at The New York Times. That strategy obviously failed. But many Republican leaders are once more hoping, mostly in private, that time or some heaven-sent deus ex machina makes Trump fade into retirement, despite his clear intention to retain control over the GOP.
04.14.21-DANGEROUS TUCKER AGAIN-In a Tuesday night segment, Carlson questioned why those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are still advised to wear masks and avoid large gatherings, proceeding to baselessly suggest of the vaccines, "Maybe it doesn't work and they're simply not telling you that." Asked to comment on these remarks on CNN on Wednesday, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dismissed them as "crazy." "That's just a typical crazy conspiracy theory," Fauci said. "Why would we not tell people if it doesn't work? Look at the data. The data are overwhelming." Fauci added that "I don't have any idea what he's talking about." Asked by CNN's John Berman how "dangerous" these comments by Carlson are, Fauci said they're "certainly not helpful to the public health of this nation or even globally."
04.13.21-MORE FOX CRAP-Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson is calling out her one-time employer for defending current network star Tucker Carlson, who has repeatedly spewed white supremacist talking points on the air. After the Anti-Defamation League urged the network to drop its top-rated host, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch defended him, saying “we respectfully disagree” and claiming the company “abhors antisemitism, white supremacy and racism of any kind.” But Gretchen Carlson wasn’t buying it. "This is a crock of s--- Lachlan."
04.10.21-TALK ABOUT FAKE NEWS-‘Yippee!’ Trump Officials Gloated After They Manipulated CDC Reports And Advice. House panel on COVID-19 accuses aides of “overruling and bullying scientists and making harmful decisions that allowed the virus to spread more rapidly.”
04.08.21-MORE DIRTY WORK-The National Republican Congressional Committee threatened donors that it will tell Trump that they are defectors if they opt out of giving recurring monthly funds to the campaign arm for the House GOP. After donating to the NRCC, donors are shown a yellow box with a small pre-checked box that warns: “If you UNCHECK this box, we will have to tell Trump you’re a DEFECTOR.” Left checked and the supporter will be agreeing to contribute every month.
04.08.21-DIRTY WORK-During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) said the new voting restrictions are "the fallout from the 10 weeks of misinformation that flew in from Trump. I went back over the weekend to really look at where this really started to gain momentum in the legislature, and it was when Rudy Giuliani showed up in a couple of committee rooms and spent hours spreading misinformation and sowing doubt across, you know, hours of testimony."
04.07.21-THE SENATE'S BIGGEST HYPOCRITE-McConnell defends corporations when it comes to donating money but wants to keep them from speaking out about Republican attempts to silence voters.
04.04.21-TYPICAL TRUMP FRAUD-Former President Trump's reelection campaign had to return $122.7 million to donors after they realized they were being charged repeatedly. People who donated, say, $500 were being charged that amount not just once, but every month—or even every week—until the election. To avoid being overcharged, donors had to get through the fine print and uncheck a box, the New York Times reports. A second box, which arrived already checked, doubled contributions. In time, lines of bold type were added that drowned out the fine print about opting out, and the wording about unchecking the box was no longer in bold. The practice fits the definition of "deceptive design," a user-experience designer said. "It should be in textbooks of what you shouldn't do," he said. The head of the National Association of Consumer Advocates said, "It's unfair, it’s unethical and it's inappropriate."
04.03.21-WE DON'T NEED DOUCHE BAGS LIKE THIS IN THE U.S. CONGRESS-Rep. Matt Gaetz repeatedly boasted to people involved in Florida politics about women he met through a county tax collector who has since been charged by federal authorities with sex trafficking of a minor, according to two people who heard his comments directly. They said the Republican congressman, first elected in 2016, also showed them videos on his phone of naked or topless women on multiple occasions, including at parties with Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector for Seminole County. The women appeared to be adults, and could be seen dancing, hanging out by a pool and, in one case, using a hula hoop without clothing, the people said.
04.02.21-GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL-DO NOT PASS GO-The last time Vanity Fair checked in on the legal comings and goings of Donald Trump, things were not looking so hot for the former president of the United States. In addition to being the defendant in no fewer than 29 lawsuits, per The Washington Post, he was the subject of numerous criminal investigations, including one in which attorneys had obtained access to his tax returns—documents that for some reason he spent the last four years fighting tooth and nail to keep secret. Now, two and half months after leaving the White House, have Trump‘s legal fortunes miraculously improved? In a word, no. In 19 words, the 45th president of the United States should probably just resign himself to the prospect of going to prison. (Will Allen Weisselberg flip?)
04.01.21-TRUMP'S QANON PROTECTS ONE OF HIS OWN-You'd think adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory would feel vindicated by leaked allegations of sexual misconduct toward a minor by a sitting member of Congress. After all, abuse of children by powerful people, especially federal officials, is one of the movement's biggest purported concerns. But Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is the subject of just such a leak, and the QAnon response is not crows of vindication. QAnon followers have already reached a verdict: innocent.
04.01.21-ANOTHER IGNORANT REPUBLICAN-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) was ridiculed on Twitter after appearing to show that she doesn’t really know what infrastructure is. Noem, touted by Trump as a possible 2024 presidential candidate, was asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for her take on President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill. The bill seeks to overhaul the country’s roads and bridges, counter the climate crisis and revitalize the eldercare and housing sectors. But Noem drove herself straight into a ditch. “I was shocked by how much doesn’t go into infrastructure,” she said. “It goes into research and development, it goes into housing and pipes and different initiatives, green energy, and it’s not really an honest conversation that we’re having about what this proposal is.”
03.31.21-ANOTHER LIAR ADDED TO FOX-Kayleigh McEnany, who peddled and defended Donald Trump’s lies during her time as White House press secretary, has a plum new gig at Fox News. McEnany joined the conservative network — where for the last few years many personalities have openly stumped for Trump ― as a paid on-air contributor last month.
03.30.21-ALWAYS THE FOOL!-Trump took the microphone at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night, to praise a couple getting married at his Florida resort. Nearly 400 words later he did so, according to video published by the website TMZ, after a rambling complaint about Joe Biden’s policy towards Iran and China, the situation at the border with Mexico and the supposed fraud he claims caused his election defeat.
03.28.21-REALLY, JUST SAYING 'LYING FOX NEWS' WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH-Fox News personalities on Friday complained about CNN’s fact-checking of President Joe Biden — and were sharply fact-checked in response. Fox’s Dan Bongino and contributor Joe Concha falsely suggested fact-checkers in the press who held Trump to account for his thousands of lies have suddenly vanished since Biden took office. CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy responded on Twitter, noting how the network’s fact-checking reporter Daniel Dale continues to scrutinize Biden ― and even appeared on TV on Thursday to debunk some of the claims that Biden made during his first press conference as president.
03.28.21-MORE BLOOD ON TRUMP'S HANDS-Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator under Trump, said most coronavirus deaths in the United States could have been prevented if the Trump administration had acted earlier and more decisively.
03.27.21-SICK EXTREMISTS-"Far-Right Extremists Move From ‘Stop the Steal’ to Stop the Vaccine," the N.Y. Times' Neil MacFarquhar reports. "Bashing of ... vaccines is occurring in chatrooms frequented by all manner of right-wing groups including the Proud Boys; the Boogaloo movement, a loose affiliation known for wanting to spark a second Civil War; and various paramilitary organizations."
03.26.21-JIM CROW LIVES!-When Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) shared a photo of himself signing a new bill to restrict voting access in the state, it featured Republican lawmakers gazing fondly upon him, as well as a prominent painting in the background.
The bill has been criticized as a measure that will largely affect Black voters and other voters of color, with groups like the ACLU arguing it amounts to voter suppression among already-disenfranchised groups. Kemp has denied that the bill seeks to suppress votes. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch agreed, calling it the state's "new, new Jim Crow." Bunch also reports that the painting centered in Kemp's photo is actually a painting of "a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County."
03.25.21-HEY TRUTH-WATCH OUT!-Trump is coming back to social media -- but this time with his own network, a Trump spokesperson told Fox News on Sunday.
03.25.21-SAD NEWS-The US has fallen to a new low in a global ranking of political rights and civil liberties, a drop fueled by unequal treatment of minority groups, damaging influence of money in politics, and increased polarization, according to a new report by Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group.
The US earned 83 out of 100 possible points this year in Freedom House’s annual rankings of freedoms around the world, an 11-point drop from its ranking of 94 a decade ago. The US’s new ranking places it on par with countries like Panama, Romania and Croatia and behind countries such as Argentina and Mongolia. It lagged far behind countries like the United Kingdom (93), Chile (93), Costa Rica (91) and Slovakia (90).
03.24.21-TODAY'S DISGUSTING PERSON-Attorney Sidney Powell, you may recall, was the Madame Defarge of the recent attempt to overturn the election results. She knitted elaborate lawsuits from the yarns of unreliable witnesses, patterned with a vast conspiracy to rig voting machines, as the partisans she inflamed rolled their tumbrels toward the Capitol in search of such supposed traitors as then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Sued for defamation by the voting-machine vendor in question, Powell is now scoffing in federal court at the idea that anyone could have taken her seriously. “Reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact,” Powell averred in her motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Instead, the allegations that helped to fuel the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol were mere “claims that await testing by the courts.
I took a break at this point but found that I needed to resume posting, in order to have a record of all the Republican/Trump crap that will follow.
02.27.21-Former CPAC Chair Minces No Words Slamming What The Event, GOP Have Now Become. This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference attendees “are living in an alternate reality in which facts don’t matter,” said former GOP Rep. Mickey Edwards.
02.26.21-NO CONSCIENCE SCUM-CPAC attendees boo and yell 'freedom' after being told to wear a mask
02.25.21-THIS IS WHAT IT HAS COME TO-QANON REP TAUNTS COLLEAGUE WITH TRANSPHOBIC SIGN Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene mocked her neighbor at the U.S. Capitol — Rep. Marie Newman — by erecting an anti-transgender sign outside her office. Newman, whose daughter is transgender, is an advocate of the Equality Act, a bill that would ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week.
02.24.21-ANOTHER RIGHT WING NUT-On Tuesday, the former leaders of the Capitol Police and other authorities entrusted with protecting the Capitol building testified about the Jan. 6 attack, telling conflicting stories about what happened that day. One thing that clearly didn't happen was what Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) shared during his chance to question the law enforcement leaders: An account of the day published in the conservative publication The Federalist alleging those who broke into the Capitol were seemingly professional provocateurs and not the "working-class" people seen protesting outside early in the day.
02.22.21-HOORAY! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL!-Trump just suffered a huge Supreme Court defeat. The Court on Monday allowed Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance to obtain Trump's tax returns, CNN reports. The court decided not to intervene and prevent the records from being turned over, according to The Associated Press.
02.21.21-WACK JOB-Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, still won’t say the 2020 presidential election wasn’t “stolen,” a claim Trump has falsely ― and dangerously ― peddled for months. Scalise, the House minority whip, was asked Sunday during an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” to confirm President Joe Biden’s legitimacy. “Clear this up for me: Joe Biden won the election,” said host Jon Karl. “He is the legitimate president of the United States. The election was not stolen, correct?” Scalise acknowledged that “Biden’s the president” but didn’t say flat out that the election wasn’t stolen.
02.20.21-EVIL PEOPLE-The Justice Department and FBI are investigating whether high-profile right-wing figures — including Roger Stone and Alex Jones — may have played a role in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach as part of a broader look into the mind-set of those who committed violence and their apparent paths to radicalization, according to people familiar with the investigation.
02.19.21-SWAMP-GOP Congressional Staffers Say They’re Furious At Their Bosses — Privately, At Least. Shaken by the actions of Republican lawmakers before and after Jan. 6, many aides say they feel trapped.
02.18.21-INSULT-Ted Cruz called Austin's mayor a 'hypocrite' for fleeing to Mexico during the pandemic. It's coming back to bite him. As his state suffered days of widespread blackouts and other dire consequences of a deep freeze, Cruz and his family were spotted boarding a plane to Cancun on Wednesday night.
02.17.21-HATEMONGER-Rush Limbaugh Made America Worse. The racist, sexist radio host played a pivotal role in injecting cruelty and conspiracy into conservative mass media.
02.17.21-TEXAS LIAR-Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is using his state's overwhelming blackouts as a deceptive excuse to attack the Green New Deal. More than 2.5 million Texas power customers remain in the dark after unprecedented winter storms froze several of the state's power sources. While some of the state's unweatherized windmills did freeze up, most of the blame lies with natural gas shortages. That's exactly what Abbott told Dallas-area ABC affiliate WFAA on Tuesday night, describing how natural gas has frozen up and prevented manufacturers from extracting and shipping it to power plants and customers.
02.15.21-BIG FRAUD-The Trump campaign and the Republican Party collected $255 million in two months, saying the money would support legal challenges to an election marred by fraud. Financier Fred Eshelman gave $2.5 million to True the Vote, a group seeking to press the case in court. Now he wants his money back.
02.14.21-GRAHAM-THE MOST TWO-FACED SENATOR-Prosecutors Will Investigate Lindsey Graham’s Post-Election Call To Georgia Official: Report. The call will reportedly be part of a probe into whether Donald Trump or his supporters broke state laws in trying to overturn his loss.
02.13.21-LYING LAWYERS-Trump lawyer said the Jan. 6 rally had been “hijacked” by extremists, including antifa activists from the far left. But Republican leaders have dismissed that claim. “Some say the riots were caused by antifa,” the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said last month. “There is absolutely no evidence of that, and conservatives should be the first to say so.” (For context, here’s how Mr. Trump used false statements about antifa as a smoke screen for a growing right-wing threat.)
02.12.21-WELL SAID!-Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said Thursday the presidency of Donald Trump was “indelibly stained” by his misconduct during his final weeks in office. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, added that he hoped Trump’s presidency would eventually be remembered as a “historical aberration.”
02.14.21-GRAHAM-THE MOST TWO-FACED SENATOR-Prosecutors Will Investigate Lindsey Graham’s Post-Election Call To Georgia Official: Report. The call will reportedly be part of a probe into whether Donald Trump or his supporters broke state laws in trying to overturn his loss.
02.13.21-LYING LAWYERS-Trump lawyer said the Jan. 6 rally had been “hijacked” by extremists, including antifa activists from the far left. But Republican leaders have dismissed that claim. “Some say the riots were caused by antifa,” the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said last month. “There is absolutely no evidence of that, and conservatives should be the first to say so.” (For context, here’s how Mr. Trump used false statements about antifa as a smoke screen for a growing right-wing threat.)
02.12.21-WELL SAID!-Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said Thursday the presidency of Donald Trump was “indelibly stained” by his misconduct during his final weeks in office. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, added that he hoped Trump’s presidency would eventually be remembered as a “historical aberration.”
02.11.21-REPUGNENT-Trump publicly attacked Pence during the Capitol riot knowing Pence was in trouble, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) suggests.
02.10.21-HUH?-Trump impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor declared that impeachment was the wrong remedy for the ex-president, who is accused of incitement of insurrection. “After he’s out of office, you go and arrest him,” Castor suggested hypothetically. Castor was attempting to argue that a president can’t be impeached after leaving office, that the proper legal remedy was via the criminal justice system. “So there is no opportunity where the president of the United States can run rampant in January in the end of his term and just go away scot-free,” Castor said. “The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people.”
02.10.21-JAIL TIME!-Georgia Prosecutors Open Criminal Probe Into Trump Efforts To Overturn Election. The investigation follows Trump’s call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to reverse Joe Biden’s win in the state.
02.09.21-TYPICAL RELIGIOUS CRAP!-Despite calls from fellow Southern Baptists, two Texas pastors have yet to apologize for comparing Vice President Kamala Harris to Jezebel, a Biblical queen whose name has become shorthand for a woman who is manipulative, seductive, and wicked.
02.07.21-WE CAN ONLY HOPE-GOP Rep. Liz Cheney says Trump ‘does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.’
02.06.21-YA THINK?-President Biden said Friday that former president Donald Trump should not have access to classified information in the form of the briefings usually given to ex-presidents, citing Trump’s “erratic behavior” and the risk that he might recklessly reveal sensitive information.
02.05.21-I WISH WE COULD KICK HER OUT OF CONGRESS-House votes to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee assignments. Greene, a vocal supporter of Trump's unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, has been condemned by Democrats and many Republicans for embracing numerous conspiracy theories in videos and social media activity before she took office this year.
02.04.21-A conservative group is calling out members of the Republican Party by name for promoting “lies, violence and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” in a scathing new ad that will air on Fox News during “Hannity” in Washington, D.C. next week. The spot from the Republican Accountability Project ― part of Defending Democracy Together, a never-Trump conservative group ― praises the members of the party who turned on Trump after the violent insurrection carried out by his supporters in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
02.04.21-LAUGHABLE-Trump’s legal defense against his second impeachment is filled with “absurd constitutional arguments,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager, reportedly told fellow Democrats on Wednesday. And Democrats are prepared to refute all of them.
02.03.21-GUTLESS-McCarthy announces no disciplinary actions against Greene
02.03.21-SICKO-Tucker Carlson sprang to the defense of QAnon-backing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on his Fox News show Monday, the same day Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) condemned the first-term lawmaker’s support for conspiracies as a “cancer” on the GOP. Greene has backed Trump’s election fraud lies, claimed school shootings were staged and liked social media posts calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be killed. Carlson suggested she was only being criticized for having “bad opinions.”
02.01.21-GOOD NEWS!-GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger Launches Anti-Trump ‘Country First’ PAC
“I think the Republican Party has lost its moral authority in a lot of areas” during the last four years, said the Illinois lawmaker.
01.30.21-HORRIBLE-GOP Lawmakers Seek Tougher Voting Rules After Record Turnout, Election Losses. Many Republican lawmakers at the state level are engaged in a widespread effort to restrict access to the vote after high turnout helped defeat their preferred candidates in 2020.
01.29.21-JUST THE BEGINNING-Lifelong Republican Donor Quits GOP: 'Absolutely' Now The Party Of QAnon.
Jacob Monty revealed this week he has quit the GOP and joined the Democratic Party, citing the deadly U.S. Capitol riot incited by
"Trump owns the party and Trump has always loved the conspiracy theories and this is Trump’s party now.”
“I tried for four years to be a Never Trumper in the Republican Party but it’s obvious now, everyone is paying homage to this ex-president,” he added. “No one will stand up to him.”
01.28.21-KEEP GOING-Thousands have dropped their Republican voter registration after the Capitol insurrection.
01.28.21-THEN THEY GIVE HER A COMMITTEE SEAT! Republicans disavow Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'disgusting' comments.
01.28.21-Don't Let Anyone Tell You That The Economy left by Trump Is Great!-Economists are forecasting that the U.S. economy shrank by as much as 3.6 percent in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged businesses, Reuters reported Thursday. The contraction would amount to the country's worst economic performance since 1946.
01.26.21-Coservative Christian Russell Moore says this about the insurrection: “If you can defend this, you can defend anything,” wrote Russell Moore, a theologian who is also the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), in an excoriating editorial to his fellow evangelicals about the breach of the Capitol. The intruders displayed Jesus Saves signs next to those calling for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence and, once in the building, thanked God for the opportunity “to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors” within the U.S. government. “If you can wave this away with ‘Well, what about …'” added Moore, “then where, at long last, is your limit?”
01.26.21-Quotable Quote: Trump himself suggested ex-presidents could be tried a year ago. Per The Washington Post, when Trump was impeached for the first time, he complained that Congress should be going after former President Barack Obama instead over comments he made about health care. "We should impeach him for that," Trump said. "Why aren't we impeaching him?"
01.25.21-Crazy Josh Hawley
complained of being “muzzled” and a victim of “cancel culture” in his New York Post editorial. Observers from across the political spectrum united to call him out: "Never forget his clenched fist salute to the mob that would soon sack the Capitol. And now he’s assuming the victim posture after American citizens use their free speech to disassociate from a man who tried to break America for Donald Trump, and himself."
01.24.21-DESPERATE LUNATIC-Trump reportedly pressed the Department of Justice to take his bid to overturn the results of the presidential election all the way to the Supreme Court, but the effort hit a dead end after opposition from the agency’s leadership.
01.23.21-SCUMMY CARLSON AGAIN!-Last night on his program he again lied to his audience about CNN, stating we’d “dutifully removed” the COVID-19 tracking graphic from our coverage now that President Biden has taken office. That is false. We look forward to his correction
01.23.21-IF THIS IS TRUE IT IS ANOTHER COUP ATTEMPT-Trump in early January entertained a plan to replace the acting attorney general with a different Justice Department lawyer who was more amenable to pursuing his unfounded claims of voter fraud, nearly touching off a crisis at the country’s premier federal law enforcement institution, people familiar with the matter said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive matter. The move was first reported by the New York Times. Legal analysts said it amounted to a disastrous attack on the Justice Department’s independence, and perhaps something worse. “Before the insurrectionist assault on the US Capitol, there was an attempted coup at the Justice Dept. — fomented by the President of the United States,” former Justice Department official David Laufman wrote on Twitter.
01.22.21-TYPICAL FOX CRAP-MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough tore into Fox News on Friday, rebuking the widely watched conservative network over two recent segments in particular — one of which he described as “especially sick and damaging.”
The co-host of “Morning Joe” first slammed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for falsely asserting Thursday that President Joe Biden’s team is made of “radicals who believe if they could exterminate the Republicans, that would be one way to get to unity.”
“Let me say that again for Fox News sponsors,” Scarborough said. “They’re getting people who are Fox News contributors, who are saying that Democrats — Joe Biden and Democrats want to, quote, ‘exterminate all Republicans.’”
Scarborough then called out a claim from Tucker Carlson. Earlier this week, Carlson said that the thousands of troops sent to secure Washington ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration (and following the U.S. Capitol riot by pro-Trump supporters incited by the former president) were just a political weapon being used by the Democrats to say, “We’re in charge now.”
“This is sick,” Scarborough said of Carlson’s declaration. “It’s especially sick and damaging. Here we are, what, a couple weeks after an insurrection against the United States of America?”
01.22.21-A NO BRAINER-A national group of lawyers filed an ethics complaint against Rudy Giuliani on Thursday, calling on the state of New York to suspend his law license following the efforts to undermine the 2020 election and spread lies from Trump about widespread voter fraud causing his presidential reelection loss.
01.21.21-SCUM-Hannitty (not as scummy as Tucker Carlson)-called Biden’s speech “forgettable” and akin to that of a high school president’s acceptance speech “from a guy who was desperately craving a nap.” He dismissed Biden’s calls for unity as “hollow” and “total and complete BS” and said he spouted “worn-out, liberal socialist clichés.” But that’s not what really ticked off supporters of the president. It was when Hannity called him “the weak, the frail, the cognitively struggling Biden.” Given how the commander in chief conquered a full day of ceremonies, speeches, signing executive orders and more, those were fighting words. One Twiiter user: "Biden's day began at 6am, ended at 12am. He gave 4 speeches, signed 17 EOs, swore-in 1k workers, walked down PA Ave to the WH, and more."
01.20.21-Syncophant Pence fails to mention Trump in farewell statement.
Dear Ivanka, It’s been horrible having you here. Although you’ve been just a couple of miles down the road, I could always feel your stone cold heart. I look forward to defrosting the ice cold clutch your family has had on my city. Don’t come back! Signed, 93% of DC.
01.19.21-REWRITING HISTORY-Monday the so-called 1776 Commission released its "definitive chronicle of the American founding." The chronicle consists of 20 pages of text and another 26 pages of Appendixes. It contains no footnotes, end notes, or recognizable English grammar. It contains a staggering blizzard of cockamamie conservative talking points and right-wing conjuring words.
01.19.21-‘Sycophant-In-Chief’ Lindsey Graham will double-cross anyone. Falsely claims that "Trump is trying to heal the nation." This, after Footage of Graham blasting Trump as a “jackass,” “kook,” “crazy” and “unfit for office” before the 2016 election is juxtaposed with clips of him later lavishing praise on the president, even calling for him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
01.18.21-DIGUSTING!-Trump’s friends and allies are profiting from wealthy felons who are paying them to lobby the president for pardons, The New York Times revealed in a bombshell report Sunday. The “market” for pardons — which cuts out the poor and those not politically connected — reflects the “access peddling that has defined” Trump’s presidency, as well as his unorthodox use of his clemency powers to reward friends, the Times noted.
01.17.21-KARMA-After losing a book deal and political contributions, Sen. Josh Hawley has now had the rug pulled out from a fundraiser over his support for overturning the results of the presidential election. Loews Hotels said Saturday that it has canceled the event planned for next month at its Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando, Forbes reports. The company tweeted that it was "horrified and opposed to the events at the Capitol." The Missouri Republican stuck to his position when Congress returned to work after the Jan. 6 attack, even as other GOP members dropped their opposition to certifying President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Loews cited the safety of employees and guests in adding that it was canceling the fundraiser "in light of those events."
01.16.21-TRAITORS-THE storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 has brought to the fore a host of activists on the extreme right whose violent rhetoric helped to create the conditions for an assault that left five dead. One of the most prominent of those activists is Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward. On December 19, Ward fired off a tweet urging President Donald Trump to “cross the Rubicon,” referring to the historical event that led to Julius Caesar declaring a dictatorship in ancient Rome. The tweet was shared by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. On January 4, Ward’s Arizona Republican Party retweeted Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the event that culminated in the Capitol siege, who said that he was “willing to give my life for this fight”; the Arizona GOP said, “He is. Are you?” Later that day, the Arizona GOP tweeted, “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”
01.15.21-FUBAR-The White House said it was unlocking a vaccine reserve — but it was reportedly already empty. As officials soon learned, the federal government had stopped stockpiling second dose vaccines weeks ago, they tell the Post. Both first and second doses were instead taken right off the manufacturing line. That meant Azar's announcement reportedly released a stockpile that didn't exist. The U.S. had already reached its maximum distribution capacity, and new doses distributors were expecting next week weren't coming, the Post reports.
01.14.21-Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) ― infamous for his hypocrisy when it comes to Trump ― is no longer the “most ludicrous senator,” according to longtime conservative commentator George Will. That title now belongs to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Will wrote in his latest column for The Washington Post, published Wednesday. Hawley had “seemed certain to be a presidential candidate in 2024” before he “immolated his brief political career” by helping to incite the violent mob of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, Will said.
01.13.21-This is typical-GOP Refuses To Follow New Capitol Safety Rules In Aftermath Of Riot. Several Republican members of Congress threw a fit at the idea of going through metal detectors to keep the Capitol safe after an insurrection.
01.12.21-Trump administration reverses stance, will no longer hold back second shots of coronavirus vaccine. The change comes several days after Biden said he planned to release nearly all available doses to speed protection for more Americans.
01.12.21-Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had a "tense, 30-minute-plus phone call" Monday morning, during which Trump ranted about election fraud and McCarthy cut him off, saying: "Stop it. It's over. The election is over," Axios reported Monday night, citing a White House official and another source familiar with the call. Trump also tried to deflect responsibility for his role in inciting a deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, telling McCarthy "antifa people" were responsible for the violence, Axios reports. McCarthy reportedly shot back: "It's not Antifa, it's MAGA. I know. I was there."
01.11.21-More Bullying-Trump was prepared to "do a number" on outgoing Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) last week on stage during the president's final pre-runoff rally in Georgia, a source familiar with the events told The Washington Free Beacon's Eliana Johnson, per Politico. The implication is that Trump told Loeffler what he said about her on stage was contingent upon whether she backed the Electoral College challenge.
01.09.21-REP. MO BROOKS, R-Ala., one of the most outspoken lawmakers in support of Trump’s false claim that the presidential election was stolen, floated the possibility of violence as a reasonable form of political resistance while speaking on local Alabama talk radio January 7.
01.08.21-Trump tweeted a defense of those who voted for him as he remained publicly silent about the death of a police officer at the hands of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol at his urging. Trump applauded the “great American Patriots” who voted for him, saying Friday “they will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” The tweet comes just 14 hours after Trump released a video condemning Wednesday’s riot, which he long encouraged and then praised.
01.07.21-Trump reportedly spent much of Wednesday "cocooned" at the White House as his supporters stormed the Capitol, and his aides say he has become "mentally unreachable."
01.07.21-The three repulsive architects of Wednesday’s heartbreaking spectacle — mobs desecrating the Republic’s noblest building and preventing the completion of a constitutional process — must be named and forevermore shunned. They are Donald Trump, and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.
Kid glove treatment of pro-Trump mob contrasts with strong-arm police tactics against Black Lives Matter, activists say.
01.06.21-Trump goons unleashed. In July, Trump said Capital racial justice protesters who damage buildings should get 10 years in jail.
01.04.21-BE SCARED!-Op-Ed From 10 Former Secretaries of State Is Scary for What It Doesn’t Say. What it says is bad. You couldn’t get these guys together to sign off on a breakfast order, let alone an op-ed in which they tell the incumbent president* to get stuffed. Unless, of course, one or several of them know something that scares the daylights out of them. And if you start putting the context together—the decapitation of the civilian leadership at the Pentagon in favor of unqualified cronies, the current blustering centered on Iran, the simple fact that Trump is capable of anything—it's easy to concoct scenarios that are halfway between Seven Days In May and Duck Soup. This group did not get together in order to defend some vague love for the constitutional order. Something made them go cold down to their toes.
01.03.21-Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions. The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
01.03.21-More of Trump's Fake News-US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams on Sunday said he has "no reason to doubt" the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Covid-19 death toll, contradicting President Donald Trump's claim that the agency has "exaggerated" its numbers.
01.02.21-Trump promised 20 million vaccines administered by year end. Only 2.8 million. Surprised?
01.01.21-Typical Trump Supporter-Lawyer L. Lin Wood — whose attempts to overturn the 2020 election have repeatedly failed — claimed falsely that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is still alive despite his death in custody. Wood tweeted the Epstein claim Thursday in response to criticism he faced over his tweets falsely saying that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was involved in the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide. Scalia died of natural causes at the age of 79.
12.24.21-GREASY GARBAGE GIULIANI-Two election workers who counted votes for the 2020 presidential election filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against the parent company of One America News, senior staff at the far-right TV network and Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as a personal lawyer to Trump. Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who worked in Fulton County, Ga., allege that One America News and Giuliani, who frequently appears on the network, knowingly spread misinformation about them, including falsehoods that they logged illegal ballots for Joe Biden in the election. The two women “have become objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment … because of a campaign of malicious lies,” their attorneys wrote in the suit.
12.23.21-THE ONLY PRESIDENCY THIS WOULD DAMAGE IS HIS-Trump turned to the Supreme Court Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. A federal appeals court ruled against Trump two weeks ago, but prohibited documents held by the National Archives from being turned over before the Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in. Trump appointed three of the nine justices. Trump is claiming that as a former president he has right to assert executive privilege over the records, arguing that releasing them would damage the presidency in the future.
12.22.21-WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE JOE-In a rare moment of anger, President Joe Biden castigated social media users and cable news outlets that spread false and misleading information about coronavirus vaccinations, saying at a press conference Tuesday that the behavior is not only “immoral” but deadly. “The unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices, but those choices have been fueled by dangerous misinformation on cable TV and social media,” he said while addressing the need for unvaccinated Americans to protect themselves against the fast-spreading new omicron variant “You know, these companies and personalities are making money by peddling lies and allowing misinformation that can kill their own customers and their own supporters. It’s wrong, it’s immoral,” he said, his voice rising. “I call on the purveyors of these lies and misinformation to stop it. Stop it now.” Biden did not identify any of his targets by name.
12.21.21-FOX NEWS HAS GONE COMPLETELY EVIL-Dr. Anthony Fauci is calling for Jesse Watters to be fired after the Fox News personality suggested people should "ambush" him and "go in for the kill shot." On Tuesday, CNN host John Berman asked Fauci for his reaction to Watters telling a conservative crowd to "ambush you with what he said was some kind of rhetorical kill shot." President Biden's chief medical adviser called the comments "horrible" and "such a reflection of the craziness that goes on in society." He also called for Fox to fire Watters.
12.20.21-IS THERE REALLY A QUESTION? Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Sunday that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is looking into whether former Trump committed a crime by trying to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election results. Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the committee, said that he wasn’t prepared to say yet if he believed Trump had broken the law, however, “by the end of our investigation, and by the time our report is out, [we’ll] have a pretty good idea.” “We’ll be able to, you know, have out on the public record anything Justice Department needs maybe in pursuit of that,” he added. “Nobody is above the law. And if the president knowingly allowed what happened on Jan. 6 to happen, and in fact was giddy about it, and that violates a criminal statute, he needs to be held accountable for that,” he said. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the panel, signaled at a hearing last week that Trump could have acted criminally.
12.19.21-HOTEL EVIL-Trump raked in payments from foreign interests at his Pennsylvania Avenue hotel in an operation that was the “epicenter” of a corrupt presidency, the head of a citizen watchdog organization says. “Anyone looking to curry favor with his administration could simply walk over to his namesake hotel a couple blocks from the White House and flash cash,” Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote in an opinion piece for NBC published Saturday. Bookbinder slammed the operation in the wake of a scathing report issued by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The report, released Thursday, asserts that Trump received payments ― unfettered and unmonitored ― through his hotel from foreign entities. The General Services Administration, in charge of monitoring the landmark Old Post Office property that the Trump Organization leases from the public, was found to have “ignored glaring constitutional issues.” The report also stated the administration “allowed for conflict of interest” when Trump refused to divest from the property while serving as president.
12.16.21-DEMOCRACY ON THE ROPES- Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) branded Rep. Jim Jordan a “traitor to the Constitution” after he admitted to sending a text to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 5 suggesting then-Vice President Mike Pence should stop the certification of the 2020 election. “Look, Jim Jordan is a traitor. He’s a traitor to the Constitution of the United States. He has been a traitor to the Constitution of the United States for quite a while, and now we actually have it in text,” Gallego told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Wednesday night on “The Last Word.” “Why is anybody surprised?” Gallego asked and pointed to Jordan’s lies on the House floor on Jan. 6 about voter fraud in states like Arizona. However, Gallego said Jordan was not his biggest concern. “My biggest issue is the fact that there’s a lot of people out there that are not taking this seriously,” Gallego said. “The fact that there is a slow-moving coup that is happening right now all over this country that are led by the Jim Jordans and other people.” Gallego described an insidious process whereby instead of people storming the Capitol to overthrow an election, supporters of former Trump’s “Big Lie” were trying to win state House and Senate seats and election administration roles so they could “actually overturn the future election.”
12.15.21-THE REAL FRAUD IS TRUMP HIMSELF-A team of Associated Press reporters spent months reviewing every possible voter fraud case in six battleground states disputed by former Trump, and they found "fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election," The cases are bipartisan. Some of those charged with fraud are registered Republicans or told investigators they were supporters of Trump." In fact, every specific case written up in the AP report involved a Trump supporter voting twice or casing a ballot illegally. Three apparent Trump supporters were recently arrested in Florida and charged with casting more than one vote, The Washington Post reports. The three residents of The Villages are charged with having voted in Florida and also another state — Michigan, New York, and an undisclosed state, the Post says, and they were arrested after the county elections supervisor ordered an investigation. All these cases "underscore that suspected fraud is both generally detected and exceptionally rare," AP reports, but "Trump's false claims of a stolen election fueled the deadly Jan. 6 attempted insurrection at the Capitol, have led to death threats against election officials, and have become deeply ingrained within the GOP, with two-thirds of Republicans believing Biden's election is illegitimate."
12.14.21-PATHETIC ONLY BEGINS TO DESCRIBE TRUMP-Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Trump “pathetic” and “crazy” for profanely attacking Benjamin Netanyahu because he recognized Biden’s presidential victory in November. Netanyahu, who was the Israeli prime minister throughout the Trump administration, did what most world leaders do: He recognized and congratulated the duly elected president of the United States, Olmert suggested in the opening session Monday of the Annual Leadership Dialogue on Israel-UK-Australia Relations. Yet Trump reportedly was furious that Netanyahu congratulated Biden after he won the election. “I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him,” Trump reportedly told Israeli journalist Barak Ravid in an interview earlier this year for Ravid’s new book, “Trump Peace.” Trump added: “I like Bibi [Netanyahu] ... but I also like loyalty.” He “could have stayed quiet. He made a terrible mistake.” Olmert called Trump’s reaction “absolutely crazy.” He accused Trump of judging everything according to his own “personal interest.” “Trump says the fact that Bibi congratulated Biden is a betrayal, as if the relationship of Israel and America rests entirely on the personal desires of Trump. This is absolutely crazy. I think he’s a pathetic person,” Olmert said. He pointed out that, contrary to Trump’s claims that Netanyahu congratulated Biden “very early,” he in fact waited so long that it “became embarrassing” from the “friendliest nation to America.”
12.13.21-A TYPICAL JAN. 6 MORON-A Trump supporter who bragged about her “infamy” after storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 didn’t even vote in the 2020 election, her lawyer said in a filing ahead of her sentencing on Friday. Gracyn Courtright, who went around the Capitol holding a wooden “Members Only” sign she swiped, was “caught up in the hysteria of the day” and responded on social media “without thinking about what she was saying” when she wrote on social media that “Infamy is just as good as fame. Either way I end up more known. XOXO” and that she couldn’t wait to “tell my grandkids” she was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, her lawyer wrote.
11.17.21-THE FEMALE GULIANI-Ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell reportedly fell for 'far-fetched' QAnon conspiracy theory that claimed then-CIA director was in German custody. The Trump attorney believed Haspel had been injured while completing a secret CIA operation aiming to seize and destroy evidence of vote tampering on an election-related computer server, Karl reports. She thought the CIA was complicit. None of it was true. But Powell believed it, and wanted the Defense Department to immediately "send a special operations team over to Germany," locate the server, and "force Haspel to confess," Karl writes. Cohen, for his part, "thought Powell sounded out of her mind," and soon reported the call up the chain, according to Karl. A CIA spokesperson later further debunked any conspiracies, having told news outlets, "I'm happy to tell you that Director Haspel is alive and well and at the office."
11.16.21-OF COURSE HE KNOWS HE IS A LOSER-Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah riled up Trump by telling CNN that he admitted his election defeat to Joe Biden was legitimate. “He told me shortly after that he knew he lost, but then folks got around him,” she told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Saturday. “They got information in front of him, and I think his mind genuinely might have been changed about that, and that’s scary because he did lose.” Trump predictably snapped back at Farah on Monday, calling her a “clown,” a “nobody” and an “inglorious lightweight.” The recently married Farah, who also was a spokesperson for former Vice President Mike Pence and the Pentagon, reacted to Trump’s venom with a sense of humor. “I see I have honeymoon well wishes from my former boss! Too kind!” Farah tweeted.
11.15.21-THIS WOMAN IS CREEPY-Maria Bartiromo, among Fox Corp.’s biggest on-air enablers of Trump’s falsehoods about election fraud, used her media clout to vent to then-Attorney General William Barr after Trump’s defeat, according to a new book. In mid-November 2020, the Fox News and Fox Business host “called Barr to complain that the DOJ hadn’t done anything to stop the Democrats from stealing the election,” journalist Jonathan Karl recounted in “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.” Karl, the ABC News chief Washington correspondent, confronted Bartiromo about Barr’s assertion because “after all, it’s highly inappropriate for a journalist to call the attorney general and demand he do something related to a criminal investigation.”
11.14.21-HOW MANY LUNATICS DOES THE FAR-RIGHT HAVE?-Michael Flynn Demands 'One Religion Under God' At Far-Right Rally. In his latest journey to the edge of extreme, Trump’s former national security adviser and felon called for a single religion in America. “If we are going to have one nation under God — which we must — we have to have one religion,” Flynn said in San Antonio at a stop for the far-right “ReAwaken America” tour. Such a vision is completely contrary to the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state. The ReAwaken America tour features Flynn and other Trump allies, such as Roger Stone and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell. It also highlights anti-vaccine doctors ―including controversial Stella Immanuel, who believes that some medical conditions are caused by demonic sperm when “demons” have sex with humans in their dreams. Flynn — who was pardoned early this year by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI — has made several jaw-dropping comments in the past. In May he called for a Myanmar-like deadly military coup in America. In July, when he was gifted a new AR-15-style rifle at a church, he said: “Maybe I’ll find somebody in Washington.” In September he was worried about COVID-19 vaccines being added to salad dressing. But critics appeared especially appalled at his latest position. Retired Gen. Mark Hertling called Flynn an “embarrassment to the U.S. Army,” and his words “disgusting.”
11.13.21-FOX WON'T STOP ITS DECEPTION- Fox News edited video of President Joe Biden on Friday to remove context from remarks that some could judge as racially insensitive. In Veterans Day comments made Thursday, Biden told an anecdote that referenced baseball player Satchel Paige, who had pitched in the Negro Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. On “Fox & Friends,” Rachel Campos Duffy said Biden was “facing backlash” for comments at Arlington National Cemetery. In his comments, Biden said he had “adopted the attitude of the great Negro, at the time pitcher in the Negro Leagues, went on to become a great pitcher in the pros in Major League baseball after Jackie Robinson, his name was Satchel Paige.” But when Duffy played the clip, it was edited so Biden was heard saying he had “adopted the attitude of the great Negro at the time, pitcher, name was Satchel Paige.” Duffy said Biden’s remarks were “landing him in hot water.” While “Negro” was once a common way to refer to Black people and still appears in organization names, the terms “Black” and “African American” are more widely used today.
11.12.21-TOTAL MADNESS-The White House was quick to set the record straight on Thursday after Trump claimed he had sent an “envoy ambassador” to the Kosovo-Serbia border. “Outside of his very active imagination, Trump is no longer president and doesn’t have any ‘envoy ambassadors’ representing the United States,” a White House official told reporters. Trump released a statement earlier claiming his “envoy ambassador” Richard Grenell, a former ambassador and staunch ally, had visited the countries Thursday to highlight an economic normalization agreement his administration brokered in 2020. It’s not the first time Trump or his allies have acted as though he is running some kind of shadow presidency. His ongoing denial and delusions over his 2020 election loss have extended to the point where he has reportedly continued to hold “Cabinet” meetings, though it’s unclear who has participated in them.
11.11.21-SHADES OF 1984 AND OF NAZI GERMANY-WHO DECIDES AND HOW DO THEY? Virginia's Spotsylvania County School Board voted 6-0 earlier this week to order public school libraries to remove and catalog all "sexually explicit" books from their libraries, after a parent at one high school complained about "LGBTQIA" fiction prominently displayed in the school's digital library app, Two of the board members wanted to go farther. "I think we should throw those books in a fire," said one member, Rabih Abuismail. He said one young adult book about homeless teenagers trying to escape troubled pasts, 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp, proved public schools "would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Christ." Fellow board member Kirk Twigg said he'd like to "see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff." But the Virginia case isn't unique, and advocates say the coordinated effort to cancel certain types of books is unusually strident. "Particularly when taken in concert with the legislative attempts to control school curricula, this feels like a more overarching attempt to purge schools of materials that people disagree with," the National Coalition Against Censorship's Nora Pelizzari told the Post. Many of the books being challenged and removed from shelves (sometimes temporarily) — in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and especially Texas — have to do with racism. Texas state Rep. Michael Krause (R) launched a review last month targeting books that "might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress" due to their "race or sex."
11.10.21-THEY JUST KEEP LYING AND LYING-The subject of a false claim is a Democratic early childhood initiative designed to make decent, affordable child care available to all Americans who want it. To hear some conservatives tell it, churches and other religious organizations offering child care couldn’t be part of the program. This is simply not true. The primary way it would help families would be through subsidies, which families could use to defray their child care costs. And a passage on Page 163 of the bill states: “Nothing in this section shall preclude the use of such [subsidies] for sectarian child care services if freely chosen by the parent.” This passage is not especially hard to spot. It is the third full sentence of the legislation’s child care section. But several conservatives seem to have missed it.
11.09.21-REPUBLICANS-THIS IS YOU-More than half a dozen House Democrats, one House Republican and scores of critics have condemned and called for action against Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) Monday after he posted a doctored anime video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Gosar tweeted an edited version of the opening credits of the Japanese anime series “Attack on Titan” showing himself as the main character who then slashes the neck of a foe with Ocasio-Cortez’s face. He also swings his swords at an enemy with President Joe Biden’s face superimposed on it. Gosar, whose own family members have taken out ads decrying his behavior in the past, has repeatedly been linked to the planning of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and once defended the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the building as “peaceful patriots.” Ocasio-Cortez responded to the incident by highlighting Gosar’s white nationalist ties. She tagged House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, saying that Gosar would “face no consequences” because the Republican leader “cheers him on with excuses.”
11.08.21-MTG-MOST TEDIOUS GIBBERISH-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Saturday slapped down colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), reminding her that federal infrastructure funds she called “communist” built the nation’s highway system. Greene viciously slammed the 13 House Republicans (including Kinzinger) who voted to pass the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act on Friday. She claimed in a tweet late Friday after the vote that they “handed over their voting cards ... to pass Joe Biden’s Communist takeover of America via infrastructure.” She named all 13 Republicans — with their phone numbers in a separate tweet — in the bipartisan effort. (Some on Twitter said they were grateful for the list so they could call in their thanks.) A later tweet by Greene characterized the infrastructure package as “socialist,” not communist. Kinzinger schooled Greene on “communism” and the American government’s role in helping to build a nation. “Infrastructure=communism is a new one,” Kinzinger mocked. Republican President Dwight D. “Eisenhower’s interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive! Red Dawn in real life,” he quipped.
11.07.21-CHIEF CLOWN AWARD GOES TO-Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani — who has relentlessly, baselessly railed against a rigged presidential election — admitted in a videotaped deposition that he didn’t actually verify certain claims he made about election fraud and Dominion Voting Systems because he didn’t “have the time.” “It’s not my job, in a fast-moving case, to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that was given to me.” “Otherwise, you’re never going to write a story. You’ll never come to a conclusion.” In the sworn deposition from August, Giuliani recalled: “We had a report that the heads of Dominion and Smartmatic ... went down to Venezuela for a get-to-know meeting with [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro so they could demonstrate to Maduro the kind of vote fixing they did for [former President Hugo] Chávez.” As for any verification of that report actually being true, Giuliani said: “Sometimes I go and look myself, online — when stuff comes up. This time, I didn’t have the time to do it.” Giuliani said he “was told” the Dominion information before his press conference a year ago where fellow extremist attorney Sidney Powell railed about Dominion’s unsubstantiated Venezuela connection. Dominion has also sued her for $1.3 billion for defamation.
11.05.21-THIS FROM A FLIP-FLOPPER ON MANY ISSUES-SHE SHOULD HAVE THIS TEST. WHO CHAGES POSITION THAT MUCH? CRAZY PEOPLE? -Nikki Haley suggested this week that older candidates for political office should have to undergo cognitive tests, and was mocked for saying it would be very similar to candidates having to release their tax returns. “If you’re going to have anyone above a certain age in a position of power — whether it’s the House, whether it’s the Senate, whether it’s vice president, whether it’s president — you should have some sort of cognitive test. Just like you have to show your tax returns, you should have some sort of health screening so that people have faith in what you’re doing,” she said Thursday. “Right now, let’s face it, we’ve got a lot of people in leadership positions that are old. And that’s not being disrespectful. That’s a fact,” added Haley, 49, a potential 2024 presidential candidate. “And when it comes to that, this shouldn’t be partisan. We should be looking at the ages of the people who are running our country.”
11.04.21-OF COURSE THIS HAPPENED-AND TAKE AWAY THEIR NON-PROFIT STATUS-A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the gun control advocacy group Giffords alleges the NRA used a network of shell companies to funnel millions of dollars to Trump and other Republicans. “Over the past seven years, the NRA has engaged in an ongoing scheme to evade campaign finance regulations by using a series of shell corporations to illegally but surreptitiously coordinate advertising with at least seven candidates for federal office,” the complaint reads. Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog, filed the suit on behalf of Giffords. Giffords, a nonprofit group, was founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head in 2011 at a meeting with constituents in a shooting that left 13 people dead. “Through this scheme, two NRA affiliates made up to $35 million in illegal, excessive, and unreported campaign contributions across the 2014, 2016 and 2018 elections, including up to $25 million to the Trump campaign in 2016,” the lawsuit alleges. “These coordinated contributions violate the Federal Election Campaign’s Act’s (‘FECA’) contribution limits, corporate contribution ban, and disclosure requirements.” Lawmakers named in the suit who are accused of receiving campaign money from the gun group’s alleged scheme are Republicans Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), as well as Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and former Sen. Cory Gardner (R- Colo.).
11.02.21-MORON ALERT!-Trump demonstrated virtually no knowledge of the conduct of modern elections procedures in a long and rambling phone call with Georgia’s top elections administrator as he ticked off a host of debunked and fanciful conspiracy theories he blamed for his electoral defeat. The man on the other end of that call in early January, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), details months of mistruths and disinformation perpetuated by the Trump campaign that led up to their conversation in a new book out Tuesday, “Integrity Counts.”
11.01.21- WHAT IS HE HIDING?-Trump is trying to block documents including call logs, drafts of remarks and speeches and handwritten notes from his chief of staff relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection from being released to the committee investigating the riot, the National Archives revealed in a court filing early Saturday.
10.31.21-HEY FLORIDA-DO SOMETHING!-The Orlando Sentinel editorial board slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as a “fraud” in a new column, ripping him as “Orwellian” for now trying to take credit for low COVID-19 case numbers in the state. “Florida led the nation in case rates for much of the summer, and our governor was silent. Well, not totally silent. He did rail against mask and vaccine mandates, measures intended to prevent people from falling ill,” the board noted in the damning essay published Friday. “Now, a governor whose sole contribution to fighting the outbreak was to expand antibody treatments for people after they got infected is taking full credit for the decline in cases,” it charged. DeSantis was hammered in the editorial as a “fraud” and a “phony” for having “the gall, the nerve, to take a victory lap.” The board listed just some of the things he didn’t do in a bid to thwart the pandemic. “And now, the do-nothing governor is trying to claim credit for this surge coming to an end,” the editorial concluded. “It is DeSantis’ final and most essential command — to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. How Orwellian.”
10.30.21-Republican 'Cowards' Are Empowering The 'Crazies,' Rages Paul Krugman.
"Republicans who clearly know better ... reliably swallow their misgivings and go along with the party line," the economist wrote in The New York Times. Conspiracy theorists railing about “rigged” elections and calling climate change a “hoax” are bad enough. Just as threatening are Republican “cowards” who empower the frightening fringe, economist Paul Krugman argued Thursday in an opinion piece for The New York Times. “When we talk about the GOP’s moral descent, we tend to focus on the obvious extremists, like the conspiracy theorists who claim that climate change is a hoax and Jan. 6 was a false flag operation,” Krugman wrote. “But the crazies wouldn’t be driving the Republican agenda so completely if it weren’t for the cowards, Republicans who clearly know better but reliably swallow their misgivings and go along with the party line,” he added. “And at this point crazies and cowards essentially make up the party’s entire elected wing.”
10.29.21-DANGER-MORONIC FOX NEWS VIEWERS WILL BELIEVE THIS CRAP- Fox News veteran Geraldo Rivera Blasts Tucker Carlson For 'Inflammatory,' 'Outrageous' Jan. 6 Riot Denial "The record to me is pretty damn clear that there was a riot that was incited and encouraged and unleashed by Trump,” Rivera told The New York Times. Rivera slammed Carlson on Thursday over “inflammatory” and “outrageous” claims in Carlson’s upcoming series claiming that the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was secretly orchestrated by the government against itself.
10.28.21-BLOCKHEAD BOEBERT BLUNDERS-Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) tweet of a biblical passage about secrets could come back to haunt her, critics predicted. On Wednesday, the conspiracy theory-endorsing lawmaker shared Luke 8:17, which in the Bible’s New King James Version reads: “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.” Tweeters mockingly suggested Boebert ― a Donald Trump acolyte who often self-owns on the social media platform ― may have been talking about her alleged involvement in the planning of the Jan. 6 insurrection, as reported by Rolling Stone on Sunday. Boebert denied the report. Other detractors proposed what they suggested were more suitable Bible verses: Proverbs 6:16-19 – For there are six things the Lord hates—no, seven: haughtiness, lying, murdering, plotting evil, eagerness to do wrong, a false witness, sowing discord among brothers. Is your soul clean Rep? Think on it tonight…
10.27.21-Stephen Colbert’s team has uncovered what it’s calling “Fox News’ craziest Trump lie yet.” It happened this week, when Fox News personalities Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino claimed Trump “enjoyed the White House” and not only spent his weekends there, but worked through those weekends. Neither Trump nor Biden have been especially fond of spending weekends at the White House. A new CNN analysis found that Biden spent all or part of 108 of his first 276 days in office away from the White House (including partial days, such as when he was in the White House on Friday but left for Delaware in the evening). Most of those days away were on weekends. Trump’s tally was 70 at this point his presidency. However, he ultimately spent more than half of his weekends at one of his own resort properties, with The Washington Post tallying 240 out of 418 weekend days ― 57% ― spent at a Trump resort. Trump spent 428 days of his presidency at a Trump Organization property, or 1 out of every 3.4 days, that analysis found.
10.25.21-ANOTHER LUNATIC IN THE MAKING-Just as Florida’s COVID situation is improving after leading the nation in cases and deaths, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is now offering bonuses to anti-vax cops in other states to work in Florida and interact with the public. “On a scientific basis, most of those first responders have had COVID and have recovered,” DeSantis told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. He offered no evidence that police refusing to comply with their local vaccine mandates have contracted and recovered from the disease.
10.23.21-MARJORIE TAYLOR GHOUL-CNN’s Jake Tapper came down hard on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Friday, declaring she has “real issues” and is “not tethered to reality.” He was referring to Greene’s outburst Thursday when, as described by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), she “started screaming” at Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). The House was voting to support the criminal contempt resolution against Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon after Bannon ignored a subpoena to testify before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Greene blasted fellow lawmakers for not punishing Black Lives Matter protesters and singled out Cheney by calling her a “joke.” Cheney, in turn, said Greene was a “joke” who has pushed the wild claim that Jewish-funded “space lasers” were responsible for wildfires. “Congressman Raskin and Congresswoman Cheney are talking on the floor and, according to my sources .... Congresswoman Greene goes over to them and she starts screaming at them,” Tapper said to his CNN co-hosts. “Look, I’m not a licensed psychologist, I don’t know her, but her behavior suggests somebody that has real issues, that is not tethered to reality or basic standards of decent behavior,” Tapper said. He also referred to Greene’s conspiracy theory that “wealthy Jewish Americans were using laser technology to cause fires in California for some financial incentive.” “I mean, it is a deranged anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and yet that is somebody with whom many Republicans are siding,” Tapper added. “Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney really represent the two doors for the Republican Party right now. Which one does the Republican Party want to emulate?” he asked. Greene is known for her outbursts. Last month, she yelled at a group of Democrats as they held a press conference on the steps of the Capitol about legislation to guarantee the right to an abortion. Greene loudly interjected that “unborn women” have a “right to life.”
10.22.21-ANOTHER REPUBLICAN DISTORTION-Biden doesn’t want the IRS scrolling through your bank records The IRS would be gathering more information from Americans’ bank accounts under President Biden’s plan to discourage tax-dodging and round up more money for his “Build Back Better” agenda. But there’s a difference between what Democrats have proposed — reporting the total inflow and outflow for any account with more than $10,000 in annual transactions, excepting all wages and federal benefits — and what Republicans say about it. “Under this proposal, the intimate financial details of everyone in this room, at a minimum of every American who has a job, will be turned over on a daily basis to the IRS,” said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), one of several GOP senators who claimed at a news conference this week that the IRS would be snooping on Americans’ bank records. This level of scrutiny does not appear anywhere in the Democrats’ proposal, as confirmed by tax experts from the center-left and center-right. Banks would report once a year, not daily. The IRS would not be monitoring individual transactions under Biden’s plan. The new reporting requirement would cover the totals for money coming in and money going out, not the blow-by-blow of how people spent their money.
10.21.21-BELIEVE THIS!-Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson owe him credit after taking his racist ideas about "white replacement” to the mainstream. On Wednesday, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters shared audio clips from Duke’s podcast (yes, even he has a podcast) in which the former KKK grand wizard boasted that his own failed political campaigns inspired ideas Trump championed during his presidency. “Trump really knows what his movement is based on,” Duke said. “You know, [Trump] had to know that I ran my campaigns primarily on the immigration issue, on fair trade issues, on the issues of preserving American culture, on stopping the replacement of European Americans — which people are all talking about now.”
10.20.21-THIS IDIOT IS DANGEROUS AND OUT OF CONTROL-GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn's Unhinged Parenting Advice Panned As 'Dangerous.’ Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) urged mothers to raise their sons to be monsters in an off-the-rails speech slammed on social media as “dangerous” and sociopathic. The extremist first-term lawmaker said society wants to “de-masculate young men” because “they don’t want people who are going to stand up” in footage shared online Monday by activist group Right Wing Watch. It’s unclear where the video was filmed, but it’s now going viral. “All you moms here — the ones who I said are the most vicious in our movement — if you are raising a young man, please raise them to be a monster,” added Cawthorn, who’s pushed Trump’s election lies, warned “bloodshed” will be inevitable if “our elections continue to be rigged,” and once posed for pictures at Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s vacation retreat. Cawthorn has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by former classmates at a Northern Virginia Christian college. Four women told BuzzFeed News Cawthorn was aggressive, misogynistic, or predatory toward them. Cawthorn’s comments on the video were cheered by those in his audience. But he was denounced by many on Twitter. “America is an exceptional nation precisely because we don’t raise monsters,” responded Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “Radical Republicans are dangerous.” Others accused Cawthorn of wanting to “create a culture of toxic masculinity” and suggested he “be censured and expelled from Congress.”
10.19.21-I AM NO FAN OF POWELL BECAUSE OF IRAQ, BUT THIS IS DISGUSTING!-Trump was one day late in sharing a tribute to former secretary of state Colin Powell, who died Monday at age 84. But when he did decide to share his thoughts, he didn't have anything kind to say at all, instead choosing to attack Powell in an emailed statement. "Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the fake news media," Trump wrote Tuesday. The ex-commander in chief then went on to call Powell a "classic RINO, if even that" who was always the first to attack other Republicans. "He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!" Trump concluded. Critics immediately rebuked Trump and his classless missive. "No decent human being will defend Trump's malevolent, spiteful, narcissistic statement on Gen. Powell," wrote political scientist Larry Sabato.
AND
Personalities on Fox News were slammed for using the death of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell from complications of COVID-19 to question the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines. Hosts Tucker Carlson, Will Cain and John Roberts each faced backlash for their commentary. Powell, 84, was fully vaccinated, but had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that attacks the immune system, making him more susceptible to the effects of the virus.
10.18.21-LET'S HOPE DISASTER STRIKES!-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said Sunday that Trump’s ongoing comments about the 2020 election are “not constructive” and could spell disaster for the GOP in the 2022 midterms. “Relitigating 2020 is a recipe for disaster in 2022,” Hutchinson said. “Let’s talk about the future. The election is past. It’s been certified. The states made decisions on the integrity of each of their elections and made improvements where need be.” He added: “It’s about the future. It’s not about the last election. And those kinds of comments are not constructive.”
10.17.21-FOX NEWS AGAIN!-CLICK-Native Americans Demand Fox News Apology, Firings Over Outrageously Racist Comments
10.16.21-FOX FOOLS “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Thursday debuted a new World War II-themed nickname for the Fox News personalities railing against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The conservative network’s hosts and guests were branded a “Band of Bullshitters” in the bit. “The Daily Show’s” spoof trailer shows the conservative network’s guests and hosts — including prime-time anchors Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — likening the battle against the mandate to “our generation’s World War II” and praising holdouts as heroic and brave. (Vaccine holdouts, actually, are allowing the pandemic to persist.)
The spoof is cut with this text: “In the 1940s, America stormed the beaches to unseat a genocidal dictator. Now their descendants are waging a new, equally heroic war ... against a life-saving vaccine. This winter, meet a new Band of Brothers fighting totalitarianism from the studios of Fox News. Band of Bullshitters, Freedom is Contagious.” Watch the video here.
10.15.21-ANOTHER GOP HYPOCRITE-Trump’s former White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was hammered for hypocrisy after attacking successor Jen Psaki on Twitter. McEnany on Thursday suggested Psaki, President Joe Biden’s press secretary, violated the Hatch Act, which bans government employees from political campaigning, when she said: “We’re going to do everything we can to help” Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe “and we believe in the agenda he’s representing.” Psaki has faced other Hatch Act-related criticism as well. McEnany, however, was reminded of her own outrageous conflicts of interest, such as serving as White House press secretary at the same time she was a Trump 2020 campaign adviser. People on Twitter also dredged up other ways the Trump administration used public resources for politics, like hosting 2020 Republican National Convention events on the White House lawn. “Seriously? Fuck off,” responded Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump who has become one of her uncle’s loudest critics.
10.14.21-KRAZY KEVIN KATASTROPHE KOMING?(sorry)- Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) did not hold back in how he feels about the possibility of a House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tenure as House speaker. During a Tuesday appearance on CNN's New Day, Schiff said McCarthy is "absolutely" an "insurrectionist in a suit and tie," and warned of "disaster" should he takeover for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2022. "He will do anything that [former President Donald Trump] tells him" if that happens, asserted Schiff to co-host John Berman. "We cannot have someone with absolutely no reverance for the truth, no willingness to uphold this oath in that position, in line to the presidency." He added, "Donald Trump doesn't need to be appointed speaker if Kevin McCarthy is because, essentially, Donald Trump will control whatever he does."
10.13.21-WELL SAID-Conservative columnist Max Boot wished Fox News anything but a happy 25th birthday in his latest column for The Washington Post. Boot argued that America’s COVID-19 death toll — which currently stands at 716,000 — “is higher than it would have been if Fox did not exist” because of the misinformation peddled by its personalities. Hosts and guests on the network initially dismissed the threat of the coronavirus as a hoax, Boot noted. They later attacked social distancing, mask mandates and vaccines. Prime time personality Tucker Carlson has in recent weeks railed against President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates, which are less stringent than those imposed by his own employer. “Fox is poisoning the minds of millions of Americans,” Boot charged. “Facebook may be catching up, but I can’t think of any company that has done more damage to American democracy over the past quarter-century than Fox “News,’” he concluded. “That’s nothing to celebrate.”
10.12.21-ANOTHER TRUMP SELF-OWN-Trump delivered a curious gripe, given his own position on the events of Jan. 6, writing: What happened to the Capitol would have never happened if the people in charge did their job and looked at the intelligence. They abandoned the officers on the ground, just like Biden abandoned Americans in Afghanistan. Instead of holding bad leaders accountable, the Democrats are going after innocent staffers and attacking the Constitution.
Rep. Adam Schiff was quick to fire back on Twitter, complete with an accurate title for Trump that those around the former president never use: Thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Former President. As for your statement that the attack on the Capitol would never have happened if “the people in charge had done their job. You do realize that you were in charge on January 6th? Right? Just checking."
10.10.21-BE PREPARED TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY-MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said on Sunday night that Democrats could face a nightmare scenario in 2024 if Republicans control the House Trump runs again for president. “We are in the midst of a rolling coup,” Hasan said. “Almost every day, Republicans pass more voter suppression laws. They purge more and more election officials and they entrench the Big Lie that the election was stolen.” Hasan also played a supercut video of Republican leaders repeating those talking points and vowing more changes ahead of the next presidential election. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House’s second-ranking Republican, even falsely claimed that some states didn’t follow the Constitution during last year’s election. “It’s the words of GOP Congressman Steve Scalise there that are the most chilling to me,” Hasan said. “He’s carefully foreshadowing what the GOP position is likely to be come 2024.” Hasan said the Republican goal was to ensure that GOP-led state legislatures will have the power to ignore their states’ election results and certify their own electors instead. “Mark my words: If Donald Trump is the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and Republicans control the House of Representatives, they will not certify a Democratic victory in 2024,” Hasan said.
10.09.21-THE SCUM SPEAKS-Trump embraced familiar fearmongering rhetoric about migrants on Fox News on Thursday, warning against accepting Haitian asylum-seekers because “many of those people will probably have AIDS.”
10.08.21-IF TRUMP SPEAKS IT WILL BE A LIE-Documents released by the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Friday show Trump’s hotel in the Old Post Office Building in downtown Washington, D.C., was losing tens of millions of dollars a year while he was in office, despite his public claims to the contrary. In federally mandated public financial disclosures from 2016 through 2020, Trump reported that the Trump Hotel generated more than $150 million in revenue. In reality, the property accumulated losses in excess of $70 million, according to the committee. The losses forcedTrump to pull at least $24 million out of a holding company to boost the struggling property, and, in 2018, obtain favorable terms in a deal with Deutsche Bank that allowed him to delay making payments on a $170 million loan he’d personally guaranteed. At the same time, according to an analysis by the committee, foreign governments were spending millions of dollars to rent rooms at the hotel, totaling 7,400 nights from 2017 through 2020 at the average daily rate, bringing in roughly $4 million. While Trump claimed to have donated the foreign payments to the Treasury, the committee said Friday that the donations represented only a small portion of the actual figures.
10.07.21-AMEN-Washington Post columnist Max Boot lamented the GOP’s transformation into the “stupid-and-proud-of-it party” in his column published on Monday. “In the 1980s, when I became a Republican, the GOP took pride in describing itself as the ‘party of ideas,’” Boot wrote. “But under Trump’s leadership, Republicans have reclaimed their old reputation, dating back to the 1950s, as the ‘stupid party.’” “What’s even more telling: This is not a source of shame or embarrassment for the party’s populists.” Boot, who left the GOP following Trump's takeover of the party, named and shamed a number of Republican lawmakers (and their inane and sometimes dangerous comments) as evidence — from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) Jewish space laser conspiracy theory to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) ridiculous “Imeach Biden” gaffe. The dumbing down of the GOP shows no sign of stopping, he argued.
10.06.21-DUMP Trump-A top GOP donor said Monday he wouldn’t back Trump if he ran for president again in 2024. “I think it’s time for America to move on,” hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin said during an interview with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker at the Economic Club of Chicago. Griffin spent more than $60 million to boost conservatives in the 2020 elections, placing him among the top five political donors in the election cycle, though he has never directly supported Trump’s campaigns, a point he noted during Monday’s discussion. “The four years under President Trump were so pointlessly divisive it was not constructive for our country,” he said.
10.05.21-THIS MAN TERRIFIES ME-If a violent riot intended to keep a president in power weren’t enough, there have been plenty of other instances since Jan. 6 offering evidence of Republicans’ historic anti-democratic assault on the country. On Sunday, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., added to the list of examples when he tweeted a video calling on “American Christians” to “stand against tyranny” and join a battle for “God’s inherent truths that predate any version of government.” The video featured remarks he made last month at the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Salt & Light Conference. Cawthorn is a Trump loyalist who has repeatedly targeted Democrats with violent language. He spoke at the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally shortly before some attendees attacked the U.S. Capitol. At that event, he falsely claimed that Democrats were engaged in “fraud” to win the 2020 election. In August, he said there would be “bloodshed” over any future elections that Republicans claim were rigged. Cawthorn’s dangerous rhetoric signals the urgency of a party that is misaligned with the will of most Americans — and willing to court autocrats such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Last month, the Hungarian state news agency reported that the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference would be held in Budapest next year. The Republican Party, having lost the popular vote over the last four presidential elections, has embraced outright authoritarianism to achieve the conservative society of its dreams. And we should take seriously the risk that it and its followers can pose.
10.04.21-THIS WOULD BE END TIMES-Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump's most senior and longest-serving advisers, says she is "terrified" that her former boss may run for office again in 2024. Grisham served as both Trump's press secretary and First Lady Melania Trump's Chief of Staff. "I don't think he is fit for the job," Grisham told "Nightline" co-anchor Juju Chang in a wide-ranging exclusive interview on the eve of the publication of her new book, I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House. "I think that he is erratic. I think that he can be delusional. I think that he is a narcissist and cares about himself first and foremost," Grisham said. She describes a White House in perpetual chaos, where "casual dishonesty" flowed through the air "as if it were in the air conditioning system." "I think [Trump] would foment more violence," she said, adding "I think he will line his pockets. I think his family will line their pockets. I believe that he wanted to help the country in the beginning; ... he wants to help himself now." (ABC News)
09.30.21-PLAYING THE FOOL, BUT IT'S NO ACT-In a defamation case, attorneys sat down with Rudi Giuliani last month and asked about the origins of the Republican conspiracy theories, specifically related to voting machines — a core element of the GOP's anti-election push. As part of the deposition process, Giuliani, among others, was required to answer questions under oath, which in turn offers the public a window into how the nonsense became an animating principle for the former president and his allies. The core question for the former New York City mayor was simple: Where did all this weird stuff come from? Giuliani was asked, for example, about media reports in which he said he'd relied on some media accounts and social media posts in order to go after a Dominion Voting Systems executive. Giuliani responded that he couldn't remember if it was Facebook or some other platform. "Those social media posts get all one to me," he said. Giuliani added that he couldn't think of anything else "that I laid eyes on." This was itself amazing: Before going public with anti-election conspiracy theories, Giuliani's due diligence involved reading some stuff via social media — though he's not sure which platform.
09.29.21-TRUMPS CONTINUE TO LIE-Largest U.S. police group appears to counter Sen. Tim Scott's argument that Democrats sought to defund police in reform negotiations. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has suggested that his police reform talks with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) fell apart primarily because Democrats sought to defund the police by making departments ineligible for funding if they failed to meet certain criteria. But a pair of prominent police organizations, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, appeared to push back against Scott's argument in a statement on Tuesday, though the senator wasn't mentioned by name. "Despite some media reports, at no point did any legislative draft propose 'defunding the police,'" the statement reads. "In fact, the legislation specifically provided additional funding to assist law enforcement agencies in training, agency accreditation, and data collection initiatives." Those provision would have helped strengthen law enforcement improve community police engagement "without compromising management and officers' rights, authorities, and legal protections," the statement continues.
09.28.21-THE BIGGEST LOSER-Trump has lost in an effort to enforce a nondisclosure agreement against former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, The New York Times reports. Manigault Newman is also the author of Unhinged, an unfavorable tell-all about her time in the Trump administration. "Donald has used this type of vexatious litigation to intimidate, harass and bully for years," said Manigault Newman in a statement. "Finally the bully has met his match!" The decision, handed down on Monday, calls for the former aide to collect legal fees from the Trump campaign, which filed the case soon after Unhinged was published. The campaign claimed Manigault Newman had violated a nondisclosure agreement signed during the 2016 campaign "stipulating that she would not reveal private or confidential information about [trump's] family, business or personal life," per the Times. However, the arbitrator in the case claimed "the definition of the type of comment protected by the nondisclosure agreement was so vague that it had been rendered meaningless," writes the Times. He went on to argue that the information Manigault Newman had shared was barely privileged, and said the agreement "effectively imposes on Respondent an obligation to never say anything remotely critical of Mr. trump, his family or his or his family members' businesses for the rest of her life." Trump cannot appeal the decision "other than on the basis of fraud" against the case arbitrator, leaving him with little additional recourse.
09.27.21-JUST SAY HIS NAME, COWARD-Former head of the Department of Education and one-time Trump ally Betsy DeVos threw some major shade at the former president at a Republican event in Michigan on Saturday. DeVos didn’t mention Trump by name, but her target was clear when she warned Republicans against becoming hung up on “one person.” “Ours is not a movement dependent on any one person,” DeVos said in a speech at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, The Detroit Free Press reported.
09.26.21-WORSE THAN SATAN-Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) blasted Trump in a searing CNN opinion piece Friday, comparing the former president to the devil, “looking for a party’s soul to steal.” Duncan referred to the late Southern rocker Charlie Daniels’ song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” ahead of trump’s rally in the state this weekend. “This weekend, former President Trump is hosting a rally in my neck of the woods,” Duncan wrote. Then, evoking Satan, he added: “If the legendary Southern rocker Charlie Daniels were still with us today, his hit song could be re-written as, ‘A president went down to Georgia; he was looking for a party’s soul to steal.’” Daniels’ song tells the story of a devil desperate for souls to collect in Georgia. But Satan loses a fiddle-playing contest in a deal with a phenomenal musician and doesn’t win his soul. As for trump, he “continues to be painfully comfortable peddling his baseless conspiracy theories of widespread election fraud. Last week, he fired off a disjointed and juvenile letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to ‘decertify’ the results of the election,” Duncan wrote.
09.25.21-THIS WON'T STOP THIS LYING BEAST-trump’s desperate efforts to cast doubt on the result of the 2020 election are having detrimental effects on his party, according even to some former allies. Trump suffered an embarrassment on Friday when the so-called audit of votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County, backed by supporters of the former president, in effect affirmed that the results were legitimate. In fact, the audit — carried out by the Cyber Ninjas group — indicated that President Biden’s margin of victory in the state’s most populous county was slightly wider than first recorded.
09.23.21-WHY EVEN ASK?-Conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot flipped a quote from Benjamin Franklin to call out Republican reluctance to tackle the three biggest crises facing the United States. Boot recalled Franklin’s fire-prevention advice to Philadelphians that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Republicans today “seem to think an ounce of cure is worth a pound of prevention,” he wrote, slamming the GOP for allowing the “calamities” of COVID-19, global warming and gun violence “to rage out of control — and then hoping for the best.” “Why won’t the GOP do more to avert so many foreseeable tragedies?” asked Boot, a longtime anti-Donald Trump Republican who left the party following the former president’s rise to power. “Because it is afraid to take on anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers, oil and gas interests, and the gun lobby,” he concluded. “Due to a combination of extremism and expedience, Republicans are allowing problems to fester at great cost rather than dealing with them at the source.”
09.22.21-TRUMP'S LIE-MEMO SHOWS Trump CAMPAIGN KNEW HE WAS LYING Although trump’s camp has claimed the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud, a newly uncovered memo shows that his campaign knew soon after Election Day that many of his claims were baseless. It appears the Trump campaign allowed lawyers, including Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, to continue spreading fake news and filing lawsuits despite no evidence to support conspiracy theories about voting machines.
09.21.21-HITLER VS. SATAN-If you've been wondering about Sen. Mitch McConnell's standing in the eyes of former President trump—well, it doesn't appear to be too high. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has been gunning for the Senate minority leader from Kentucky, working behind the scenes to find candidates to boot McConnell from the leadership role he's held for almost 15 years. Sources tell the paper that Trump has been having discussions with senators and other allies to see if there are any takers in that bid. The development is a "funny thing," notes the Week, considering "trump's presidency would have been nearly bereft of accomplishment without the senator's efforts," including in placing three conservative justices on the Supreme Court and passing a $1.9 trillion tax cut.
09.20.21-LET'S HOPE DESANTIS IS NEXT-Support for Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has taken a dive in the state, according to a new poll released Sunday.A 54% majority of Texans believe the state is headed in the wrong direction, while just 45% think the state is on the right track, according to a survey conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler. Abbott’s approval rating before the COVID-19 crisis began to grip the nation in March 2020 stood at 59%, the newspaper noted.
09.19.21-THANK YOU MITT-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) bashed Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s meeting with Hungary’s power-grabbing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, in a speech Friday marking the 234th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution at Brigham Young University. The senator didn’t called out Carlson by name in his remarks, but instead referred to him as a “prominent TV pundit” who visited Hungary to “extol” the prime minister “as a model for us to emulate.” Last month, the Fox News host broadcast his show from Budapest, where he spoke at a right-wing conference. During an interview with Orbán, Carlson praised his leadership. “Orbán censors the media in his country, ignores the will of the people in elections, amasses wealth for himself and his cronies,” Romney said. “Hungary is ranked as one of the least free, least democratic countries in the developed world. Hungary? A model for America?” Romney brought up Carlson’s meeting with Orbán as he warned his audience that democracy was at risk in the United States. He also slammed the Capitol insurrection. “Our resolve to follow the Constitution’s path, avoiding the perils of authoritarianism ... that’s wavering,” he said. “No more stunning evidence of that was the attempt to prevent the lawful and constitutional transfer of power on Jan. 6.”
09.18.21-THEY ARE STILL RIPPING US OFF-In June, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin visited Israel to scout investments for his new company, then flew to Qatar for a conference. At the time, Mnuchin had been out of office for five months. But, because of an order given by President Donald Trump, he was still entitled to protection by Secret Service agents. As agents followed Mnuchin across the Middle East, the U.S. government paid up to $3,000 each for their plane tickets, and $11,000 for rooms at Qatar’s luxe St. Regis Doha, according to government spending records. In all, the records show U.S. taxpayers spent more than $52,000 to guard a multimillionaire on a business trip. These payments were among $1.7 million in additional government spending triggered by Trump’s highly unusual order — which awarded six extra months of Secret Service protection for his four adult children and three top administration officials — according to a Washington Post analysis of new spending documents.
09.17.21-RIGHT WING WING-NUT-A Newsmax host flipped out when a guest committed a cardinal sin on the right-wing network: He criticized Trump. Iraq War veteran Joe Saboe, who has been working to rescue Americans in Afghanistan, wasn’t especially blunt in his appraisal but simply disagreed with host Grant Stinchfield’s assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. “This didn’t happen under President Trump,” Stinchfield declared. “He wanted out of Afghanistan real bad... but he didn’t pull out because he knew this would happen.” In reality, Trump had planned a much earlier withdrawal from the country. Saboe noted that Trump wasn’t particularly aggressive about getting Americans out of the country. “With due respect, Grant... we followed this closely for multiple administrations and we know that Trump’s administration’s efforts here were fairly weak, that they were trying to limit the number of people that would get out, and so there were coordination problems.” Stinchfield couldn’t take it. “Cut him off, please,” he said, then raised his voice. “Cut him off now! Cut him off now! You’re not going to blame this on President Trump on my show!”
09.16.21-COURAGE-New Hampshire state Rep. William Marsh said he quit the Republican Party to protest the state GOP’s COVID-19 vaccine policies, slamming them as “a bridge too far.” “I can’t sit by in silence,” Marsh, an ophthalmologist, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. The New Hampshire state GOP’s push to ban businesses from mandating vaccinations for staff and customers, and schools from mandating masks, prompted Marsh’s jump to the Democratic Party, he said. “We all know what’s happened in states that have followed that path,” warned Marsh of the GOP’s agenda. “People are getting sick. People are dying, including an increasingly high percentage of children.”
09.15.21-PENCE EXPOSED-Ever since Mike Pence announced on Jan. 6 that he lacked power to help Trump overturn the 2020 election in Congress, it’s been widely suggested that the vice president was one of the few heroes in this ugly tale. The key details concern Trump’s relentless pressure on Pence to help subvert the electoral college count on Jan. 6, pursuant to the vice president’s role as president of the Senate. The day before, in the Oval Office, Trump angrily told Pence that various people believed he did have the power to somehow derail the count." I’ve done everything I could and then some." That’s at odds with the portrayal of Pence as a heroic defender of the Constitution and the rule of law who bravely rebuffed Trump’s corrupt pressure on him to help destroy them both. Obviously Pence might have been exaggerating his efforts to placate Trump. But notably, the book also reports that Pence privately said the same to former vice president Dan Quayle, who basically had to persuade him he had no power to help Trump: Over and over, Pence asked if there was anything he could do. “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,” Quayle told him. So we need to know how far Pence actually did try to go. Which raises a bunch of other questions. For instance, did Trump try to pressure the Justice Department to develop a fake legal rationale for Pence to somehow derail the electoral count? Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the 9/11 commission, has suggested another line of inquiry: What was Pence’s own understanding of the plot Trump was trying to set in motion?
09.14.21-NO KIDDING!-Email exchanges obtained by the House's select subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic "add to the growing body of evidence that the Trump administration knew the significant risk posed by the coronavirus but failed to execute an effective strategy to reduce the loss of American lives," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) wrote in a letter to former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro on Tuesday, per The Washington Post. In one email dated Feb. 29, 2020, Steven Hatfill, a virologist advising the administration, told Navarro that "we do not have a clue how many people are infected" in the United States, and warned that the first wave of cases "will be accompanied by a massive loss of credibility" for the White House. He urged "frank honesty" and "decisive direct actions" from the federal government just hours after former President Donald Trump had publicly undersold the threat of the virus and praised his team's response. Navarro went on to tell Trump the next day that their response was "not fast enough" and a "very serious public health emergency" was coming, but public rhetoric didn't change much in the aftermath.
09.13.21-DOUBLESPEAK-Chris Wallace tore into Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) on Sunday for coming out against mandatory COVID-19 vaccination, even though his state has mandates in place for several other vaccines. “You say it’s a personal choice,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday.” “In fact, to attend school in your state of Nebraska, children must be vaccinated against a number of diseases. They must be vaccinated against diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella, hepatitis B and chickenpox.” “Why are those mandates that parents in your state must comply with — and do comply with routinely — why is it that they’re not so objectionable and such a violation of personal freedom, but [President Joe] Biden’s vaccine mandates are?” he asked. Ricketts responded that people “don’t know who to trust right now” and that “we have trust in those other vaccines” due to their “long history.” Wallace pointed out that the polio vaccine was also developed quickly — and that people “viewed it as a blessing” when it first became available — and that the Food and Drug Administration has given full approval to a COVID-19 vaccine.
09.12.21-IT'S A LITTLE LATE CHRIS!-No leading Republican did more to legitimize Trump, as he was battling to secure the party’s nomination in 2016, than Chris Christie. And yet this week, the former New Jersey governor took dead aim at both Trump and his more ardent followers. Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Christie compared Trump’s conspiracy-minded supporters to the John Birch Society in the 1960s, likened the former president himself to an authoritarian and flatly rejected the myth of a stolen election.
09.11.21-JUST GET THE SHOT!-GOP Senate Candidate Flips Out At Vaccine Mandates In ‘Deeply Offensive’ Video. Ohio Republican Josh Mandel’s cornfield rant about tyranny and the Gestapo was condemned as “beyond the pale” by Jewish advocacy groups. Josh Mandel, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, railed against President Joe Biden’s new COVID-19 vaccine mandates in a video that’s been slammed as “beyond the pale” by Jewish advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League. Mandel said his blood was “boiling in rage” and Biden was “trampling on our freedom” with the additional measures the president announced this week in a bid to end the pandemic. Mandel urged Americans not to comply “with the tyranny” in the clip, which was filmed next to a cornfield with a gigantic “TRUMP” sign. “And when the Gestapo turn up at your door, you know what to do,” he added, a line that critics suggested was inciting violence.
09.09.21-TYPICAL TRUMPER HYPOCRISY-Kellyanne Conway’s reason for refusing to resign from her U.S. Air Force Academy board role drew howls of derision on Twitter. Conway, like some of the others, rejected the request. In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden that Conway shared on Twitter, she claimed the request to resign or be dismissed was “a break from presidential norms,” “petty” and “political.” Critics called out Conway’s hypocrisy, reminding her that pettiness and breaks from the norm were ever-present features of the Trump presidency.
09.08.21-DISGUSTING-Trump and his son, mini-Trump, will spend the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks cashing in on a boxing match in Florida. While Trump is marking the 20th anniversary of the attacks by charging fans to listen to him talk about boxing, President Joe Biden will visit all three crash sites: New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
09.07.21-SICK!-HE COMPARES HUNGRY PEOPLE TO DOGS-On Fox News last month, Laura Ingraham asked Bar Rescue host Jon Taffer: "What if we just cut off the unemployment? … Hunger is a pretty powerful thing." He responded: "They only feed a military dog at night, because a hungry dog is an obedient dog. Well, if we are not causing people to be hungry to work..." Taffer was okay with cutting off the cash flow to his fellow citizens, even though he personally had no problem accepting two PPP loans totaling $60,858 from the Small Business Association, according to FederalPay.org.
09.06.21-REPUBLICANS WANT TO ERASE HISTORY-Members of the House Armed Services Committee forcefully debated the role of teaching critical race theory at military educational institutions for more than an hour late Wednesday night, with Democrats sharply pushing back against Republican efforts to include a ban on the concept as part of an annual defense spending bill. GOP lawmakers -- including Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks of Indiana and Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee -- backed amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a sweeping defense bill that authorizes spending levels and outlines priorities for the US military. Critical race theory recognizes that systemic racism is part of American society and challenges the beliefs that allow it to flourish. While the theory was started decades ago as a way to examine how laws and systems promote inequality, it has taken on new urgency since a series of killings last year of African Americans by police officers, which led to a national reckoning on race. Conservatives, including Banks, have criticized the concept as un-American.
09.05.21-BLOOD ON HIS HANDS-A 30-year teaching veteran was one of 15 Miami-Dade County public school staff members who died of COVID-19 in just 10 days as Florida continues to reel amid the continuing, overwhelming toll of an unfettered pandemic. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has dismissed the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations and signed an executive order banning mask mandates at schools, issued no comment on the astounding death rate in the county schools system.
09.04.21-MORE LIES-The top members of the select committee investigating the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill refuted recent claims by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that Trump has been cleared by the Justice Department of any role in the insurrection. "(McCarthy) has suggested, based on an anonymous report, that the Department of Justice has concluded that Trump did not cause, incite, or provoke the violence on January 6th," the statement read. "When this anonymous report was first published, the Select Committee queried the Executive Branch agencies and congressional committees involved in the investigation. We've received answers and briefings from the relevant entities, and it's been made clear to us that reports of such a conclusion are baseless."
09.03.21-THIS DISGUSTING PERSON IS TRYING TO OUT-DIGUST TRUMP-Tucker Carlson on Thursday defended unvaccinated people buying fake vaccination cards as the delta variant continued to fuel the COVID-19 pandemic. Fox News’ prime-time peddler of vaccine skepticism used Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s depiction of ID card fraud as a “serious crime” for his jumping-off point. (Vance announced forgery charges this week in a COVID-19 card conspiracy involving several health care workers.). “Buying a fake vaccination card is not a, quote, ‘serious crime,’” Carlson said. “It’s not even close to a serious crime. Buying a fake vaccination card is an act of desperation by decent, law-abiding Americans who have been forced into a corner by tyrants.” “You know what’s a serious crime?” the host continued. “Forcing Americans to take drugs they don’t need or want. That’s a very serious crime. And let’s hope, in the end, someone is punished for it, severely.”
09.02.21-HISTORYS GREATEST HYPOCRITE COMPLAINS-Trump Accuses Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley Of Hypocrisy. “Well, every time she criticizes me, she uncriticizes [sic] me about 15 minutes later,” the former president told Vanity Fair.
09.01.21-DIRTY THREATS BY A DIRTY PERSON-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is threatening telecommunications and social media companies that comply with a request by the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, declaring that Republicans “will not forget” their actions. McCarthy spoke with Trump on the day of the attack and is a potential witness in the select committee’s probe. The panel on Monday asked 35 companies to retain phone records and other information related to the attack as it ramps up its investigation ahead of the return of Congress next month. Several of the companies indicated this week that they intend to comply with the panel’s requests, while only one so far has publicly said it will not do so.
08.31.21-THIS GUY IS ALREADY A PROVEN LIAR-(see above)-At a local GOP political event in his home state on Sunday, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) warned of “bloodshed” over the 2020 election and called people arrested and charged for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “political hostages.” The far-right lawmaker made the comments during an event hosted by the Macon County Republican Party in Franklin, North Carolina, that the group streamed to Facebook. The post has since been removed. During his speech, Cawthorn repeated Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was “rigged” and warned that it would result in violence.
08.30.21-HE'S RIGHT ABOUT THE HATE-WRONG ABOUT WHO IS DERANGED-Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) claimed that animosity against Trump is hindering studies of ivermectin — a drug approved to treat some parasitic worms and often administered to livestock — and its supposed potential to treat or prevent COVID-19 in humans. “The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they’re unwilling to objectively study it,” Paul said.
08.28.21-SICK EGOMANIAC-With just weeks to go before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Trump suggested the man behind them, Osama bin Laden, wasn’t that bad and only had “one hit.” Trump made the callous and false comment during an interview about the crisis in Afghanistan. After trashing President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from the country, Trump bragged about two terror chiefs killed under his own administration: ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. He claimed that both men were much bigger targets than bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 under former President Barack Obama’s leadership. “Now, just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden,” Trump said. “The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi, than Osama bin Laden.” “Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center,” Trump said, ignoring Bin Laden’s other deadly attacks. “But these other two guys were monsters. They were monsters.” “And I kept saying for years, why aren’t they getting them? For years, I said it,” Trump continued. “I got them. The press doesn’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it because they don’t want to talk about it.”
08.26.21-Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is coming under fire for tweeting a meme showing an arm tattooed with a concentration camp identification number as a way to complain about coronavirus vaccine mandates.
A Twitter user said this: Wait until Rep Massive reads the ID requirements to vote that his party wants to enforce.."
08.25.21-I GUESS SHE IS BLIND AND DEAF-Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confounded critics Tuesday when she claimed the nation did not see “crisis after crisis” under Trump, who was impeached twice and oversaw the management of a devastating coronavirus pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
08.24.21-IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!-Alex Jones Flips On Trump, Decides Maybe ‘He’s A Dumbass.’ The Infowars conspiracy theorist raged at the former president for recommending the COVID-19 vaccines.
08.23.21-YES, IT'S A MESS IN AFGHANISTAN-
Read this for some perspective........... And this
08.22.21-DISGUSTING!-Under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ watch, the state has seen the largest explosion in coronavirus cases of any state in the nation this summer, with horrifying reports of packed hospitals that look far worse than they did even at the beginning of the pandemic. In light of Florida’s fiasco, a new exposé by the Tampa Bay Times about DeSantis’ fixation on appearing on Fox News has some statistics that help explain the crisis — and condemn DeSantis’ handling of it. The report, based on four months of emails that capture the intimate relationship between Fox News and DeSantis, found that his commitment to appearing on the network seems to rival, if not overshadow, his basic duties of governance:
08.19.21-SHE WAS ONCE A REPUBLICAN, NOW A TRUMPER-TOO BAD-Nikki Haley insulted the intelligence of her fellow Americans on Wednesday and once again found herself soaking in her own hypocrisy. On Wednesday, the former ambassador to the United Nations under Trump attacked the Biden administration’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan ― and especially, the administration negotiations with the Taliban, which Haley compared to “dealing with the devil. Granted, negotiating with a terrorist organization has bad optics ― which is why the Trump administration was also criticized when it decided to invite Taliban leaders to meet with the president at Camp David just days before the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Haley either forgot that or decided to ignore it when she attempted to own those danged libs with her tough-talking tweet. Luckily, many Twitter users were happy to remind her that Republicans have done the same thing she’s upset at Democrats for doing. And some brought receipts in the form of an infamous photo of Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posing for a photo with a Taliban leader.
08.18.21-WORKING HIS WAY UP THE 'WORST PEOPLE' LADDER-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who has been criticized for opposing mask mandates and vaccine passports — is now touting a COVID-19 antibody treatment in which a top donor’s company has invested millions of dollars. DeSantis has been flying around the state promoting Regeneron, a monoclonal antibody treatment that was used on Trump after he tested positive for COVID-19.
08.17.21-WORD VOMIT-Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, used his primetime slot to claim Afghanistan's fall is a result of a "grotesque," American-imposed "neoliberal program" in which "men can become pregnant" and Afghan women can serve in government roles. "It turns out that the people of Afghanistan don't actually want gender studies symposium," said Carlson. He seems to be saying that allowing women to serve in the Afghanistan government is the reason why the country is in chaos and he praises the Afghan people who didn't like it: "Why would they?"
08.16.21-MORE DIRTY TRICKS-FIRST WE MASSACRE THEM, NOW THIS-After turning out to vote in record numbers in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Native Americans are now one of the biggest targets of Republican-backed voter suppression efforts in states where their votes mattered the most. Republicans in states with significant Native populations like Arizona, Kansas, Montana and more have enacted new laws that limit voter access in ways that disproportionately impact Native voters. Imposing strict time limits on correcting a mail-in ballot, prohibiting third-party ballot collection, implementing strict voter identification requirements and making it harder to pay for election resources all negatively impact Native Americans in these states, largely due to specific circumstances on reservations where many of them live.
08.15.21-TYPICAL THUG-A chilling statement by Trump attacking the police officer who fatally shot Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt is obviously a “threat,” warned former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. In an interview on CNN Thursday, McCabe blasted Trump’s comments as “incredibly dangerous.” “We know this for a fact. This isn’t something we’re theorizing about,” he added, noting the effect Trump’s “words have on his most diehard and emotional supporters.” Trump said in a statement posted to Twitter by his paid aide Liz Harrington on Wednesday that “we know who he is,” referring to the unidentified officer who killed Babbitt. He added: “The Radical Left haters cannot be allowed to get away with this. There must be justice!” McCabe noted: “Let’s face it, when he says, ‘We know who you are,’ that’s a threat. That’s the same sort of language that a mob boss or a drug kingpin would use to threaten a subordinate. So you have the former president of the United States threatening members of law enforcement. It’s just outrageous.”
08.14.21-MORE TRASH-A conservative group draws damning comparisons between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the late Joseph McCarthy, the GOP senator who fueled anti-communist fears in the 1950s, in its new ad. Joseph McCarthy “deceived America, pushing a lie that our government was being taken over by communist spies,” says the voiceover of the 60-second video — titled “The New McCarthyism” — that was released by the Republican Accountability Project on Friday. “He gaslit America to advance his own political career,” it continues. “Now McCarthyism is back, with a new McCarthy: Kevin McCarthy. Just like Joe, Kevin McCarthy is gaslighting Americans.” The narrator then calls out current top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, a staunch defender of Trump, for protecting “white nationalists, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists while he whitewashes Jan. 6 all to advance his political power.”
08.13.21-THAT'S NOT ALL HE IS-Mary Trump has delivered a scathing critique of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a new essay, describing the Kentucky Republican as “the most dangerous Republican enabler” of her uncle, Donald Trump. In a lengthy article for The New Republic published Thursday, Trump's niece slammed McConnell as “the greatest traitor to this country” since Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee. But “with the difference that McConnell has been trying to take our country down from within,” she wrote.
08.12.21-LUNATIC LOSER-MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s online “Cyber Symposium” promoting Trump’s election lies continues to go south. Lindell vowed ahead of the 72-hour event that began in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Tuesday to show conclusive proof that China hacked voting machines in the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden — thus costing Trump victory. But after the second day on Wednesday, there was no such evidence. Instead, a cyber expert hired by Lindell to decrypt and analyze what the pillow peddler called “irrefutable” data reportedly said it was unrecoverable in its current state and could not prove hacking. “So our team said, we’re not going to say that this is legitimate if we don’t have confidence in the information,” Josh Merritt told The Washington Times, adding that Lindell has now canceled his $5 million reward for anyone who can disprove his wild claims. Lindell also found out Wednesday that his attempt at dismissing Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against him had been shot down by a federal judge. Oh, and the symposium wasn’t being covered by Fox News— which Lindell was less than happy about.
08.09.21-FOOL SPEAKS-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had an apparent lapse in self-awareness on Monday night, during a Fox News appearance in which he accused congressional Democrats of having a "herd mentality" and only accepting orders from one person. "It's a weird thing. There is a herd mentality among congressional Democrats that they obey [Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)], and their only answer is 'sir, yes sir,'" said Cruz while ignoring the Trump-sized elephant in the room.
08.08.21-THIS STUFF DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN-Former Newsmax host and right-wing Florida radio commentator Dick Farrel — who mocked vaccines, the “scamdemic” and “lying freak” Dr. Anthony Fauci — has died of COVID-19.
08.07.21-WHEN WILL WE DUMP THIS GUY? The U.S. Postal Service has secured a $120 million, five-year deal with XPO logistics, a major logistics contractor with financial and personal ties to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, The Washington Post reports. The contract, which was awarded in April, will have XPO oversee operations at two "crucial" sorting and distribution facilities in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
08.06.21-THE DISGUSTING PIG SPEAKS-Conspiracy theory-endorsing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) faced backlash after she told an audience in Alabama that door-to-door outreach vaccination workers “might not like the welcome they get” because “in the South, we all love our Second Amendment rights,” reported Al.com. Guests at an Alabama Federation of Republican Women event in Dothan cheered when the radical right-wing lawmaker praised their state for having one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, according to a video secretly recorded at the private July 23 event that radio host David Pakman shared on Twitter Tuesday.
08.05.21-ANOTHER DOUCHEBAG-Louisiana has the country’s highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita and one of the lowest vaccination rates right now. And the situation for hospitals and health care workers has never been worse. State Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) is doing his part to keep it that way. On Monday, as the state’s coronavirus death toll topped 11,000, Landry sent an email to state Department of Justice employees informing them how to avoid complying with school mask mandates for children. He also advised how to circumvent K-12 vaccine requirements, though the state doesn’t have any. “Louisiana law offers broad and robust protections for students’ and parents’ religious and philosophical objections to certain state public health policies,” Landry wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by the Louisiana Illuminator. “I support your religious liberties and right to conscientiously object.”
08.04.21-FLORIDA SCUM-Officials like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are getting in the way of people trying to do the right thing, As COVID conditions worsen in the Sunshine State, the Republican has prevented the private sector from requiring proof of vaccinations, while also blocking mask requirements. Indeed, the governor recently delivered out-of-state remarks to a conservative group, insisting his state say "no to restrictions and no [to] mandates." DeSantis has taken these steps while simultaneously trying to undermine public confidence in public-health authorities. Yesterday, he decided the smart move would be to blame news organizations. The Orlando Sentinel reported: Despite a record number of COVID-19 patients at hospitals across the state and dire warnings from the Florida Hospital Association, Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed capacity concerns as news media "hysteria" and insisted "our hospitals are open for business." His comments came Tuesday as people hospitalized with the coronavirus in Florida rose to an all-time high of 11,515, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He added, "Obviously the media does hysteria, you try to fear monger."
08.02.21-UNHINGED IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT-GOP Rep. Paul Gosar’s Siblings Tell Him To Resign: ‘Have You No Sense Of Decency?’ The far-right lawmaker’s brothers and sister said in a blistering op-ed that he betrayed his family and his country. They have called for action from the GOP against their brother, citing his links to white nationalists, his COVID-19 denial and role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, among other wrongdoings. “Although his colleagues in Congress and others in the media seem to only recently be paying attention, we have been aware of his unhinged behavior for years,” wrote Jennifer, Dave and Tim Gosar in an op-ed published by NBC News on Sunday. “Have you no sense of decency, Paul?” they continued, pointing to his false claims about coronavirus while it was ravaging his state, his repeated participation in and involvement with white nationalist events, support for the racist “birther” conspiracy theory and dedicated efforts to spread former president Trump’s big lie.
08.01.21-WHAT COUNTRY DO WE LIVE IN?-Nonprofit groups run by a crew of radical right-wing conspiracy theorists are paying millions of dollars to fund much of the sham Arizona vote audit launched by Republican state senators, according to records released following a lawsuit demanding transparency in the process. Groups headed by former Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn (nearly $1 million), conspiracy lawyer Sidney Powell ($550,000) and two correspondents from One American News Network ($605,000) — who gushed about the audit operation while paying for it — are among the top funders of the controversial recount by the inexperienced Cyber Ninjas company, according to the records. The unveiling of the people bankrolling the audit appears to further undermine any remaining credibility in the operation.
07.30.21-CRIMINAL CHARGES COMING SOON?-The Treasury Department must turn over copies of Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled on Friday.
07.29.21-MORON MCCARTHY-House Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have frequently suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her fellow Democrats are dodging the question of why the Capitol Police force was unprepared for the Jan. 6 riot as they try to get to the bottom of the events of that day. Banks, whom McCarthy recommended to serve on the Jan. 6 select committee before Pelosi rejected him, said Tuesday that if he were at the committee's hearing, he'd ask why the Capitol was "unprepared and vulnerable to attack." He then questioned why Pelosi "would want to block me from asking that question," insinuating that she's responsible for the failures. But HuffPost's Arthur Delaney thinks Banks' allegations are all for show, noting Wednesday that the prepared question was the first thing "everyone asked" during the hearings. Plus, as Delaney points out, a bipartisan Senate committee held multiple public hearings in an attempt to find the answer. For any Republican members of the House who actually care about the answer to the question of why the Capitol was so vulnerable, reading this report might be a good start. Click for report.
07.28.21-IDIOT-SPEAK-Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) stood by his comments comparing the riot that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to what happens during a “normal tourist visit.” Clyde made his initial comments at a committee hearing in May. He said that he helped his colleagues barricade a door to prevent a mob from breaking in — but, he added, it wasn’t that bad, because “the House floor was never breached.” While there were “some rioters,” he said it was a “bold-faced lie” to call it an insurrection.
07.25.21-TURNS OUT SHE LOVES THE TRAITORS-Arizona Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers defied belief with her rallying cry on Twitter Friday for people to “stand up for our culture!” In what appeared to be a response to the Cleveland baseball team’s decision to move away from racist stereotypes by changing its name from the Indians to the Guardians, the Trump apologist tweeted: I like Indians and I like Redskins. I like Aunt Jemima and I like Uncle Ben. I like Robert E Lee and I like Stonewall Jackson. I don’t like traitors who hate America. Stand up for our culture!
07.24.21-TRUE!-Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan lashed out Friday at Republicans who are “whitewashing” the U.S. Capitol insurrection. “We have to get to the bottom of exactly what happened there, and there’s no whitewashing,” Hogan told Major Garrett of CBS News on “The Takeout Podcast” on Friday. “There’s no way to just overlook this and say it didn’t happen,” Hogan said. “The nonsense about ‘these were just peaceful tourists’ is completely absurd. Talk about major disinformation and lies. That’s exactly what that is.”
07.23.21-FISCAL FOOLS-Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have teamed up and formed a joint fundraising committee. Unfortunately for them, they’re losing money. Since Gaetz and Greene kicked off their joint fundraising committee with a May 7 event at The Villages in central Florida, their campaigns and joint fundraising committee have posted a combined loss of $342,000. And according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, that joint fundraising effort, “Put America First,” reported only $59,345.54 in contributions. That sort of meager haul would be fine for a dinner or one-time event, but Gaetz and Greene have repeatedly held high-profile events and spent a whopping $287,036.19 to hold them—meaning they’re in the hole by more than $225,000.
07.22.21-TYPICAL CRAP-Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) just broke the first rule of whataboutism — don't ask questions you don't know the answers to. During a GOP doctors press conference on Thursday, Jackson erroneously accused the media of unfairly neglecting to ask Democratic lawmakers about their vaccination status the way they do Republicans. But what Jackson seems to have forgotten, noted writer James Surowiecki, is that liberal lawmakers across both chambers of Congress have a 100 percent vaccination rate, per CNN. Jackson went on to say "I highly doubt" all six of the Texas Democrats who tested positive for COVID-19 (and appear to have started a small Capitol outbreak) are vaccinated. Unfortunately for him, all reportedly are. Better luck next time, Jackson.
07.20.21-IS THIS A DREAM?-Fox News anchor Bret Baier threw facts at Trump on Monday after the former president went on a tirade against him for reporting that President Joe Biden fairly won Arizona in the 2020 election. “Trump put out a statement this weekend insisting voter fraud and irregularities cost him Arizona’s Electoral College votes,” Baier said. “He actually pointed to the reporting on this show.” Baier then walked through and debunked each of Trump’s claims from the statement.
AND:
Former Fox News reporter Carl Cameron on Monday called out Tucker Carlson’s doubtful diatribes against COVID-19 vaccines, saying his ex-colleague at the conservative network was “gaslighting” viewers for ratings and revenue. “It’s about ratings and ratings ultimately become revenue, and that’s the name of the game,” Cameron told CNN’s “New Day” about personalities on Fox and other hyperpartisan media outlets that have questioned the shots. Vaccine resistance has now become a GOP rallying cry, even though the shots have been shown safe and effective.
07.19.21-FOX SPEAKS?-Doocy: 99% of people who are dying are unvaccinated. Kilmeade: That's their choice! Doocy: They don't want to die. The admin and gov't says mask mandates are to protect the unvaccinated. Kilmeade: That's not their job, it's not their job to protect anybody!
07.18.21-NOW LETS DUMP GAETZ-Matt Gaetz’s ‘America First’ Rally Dumped By Third California Venue Hours Before Event.
07.17.21-GOP blows smoke blaming Biden for higher gas prices.Here we go again: Gasoline prices have spiked, and politicians are spinning attack lines and pointing fingers of blame. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted in June: “Average gas price: June 2020: $2.21 June 2021: $3.07 President Biden’s economy!” “As millions of Americans travel this holiday weekend, they are feeling the cost of Biden’s policies at the pump,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted this month. “Gas prices are at their highest level in 7 years.”
The Washington Post Fact Checker has been looking into similar attack lines for years — and they never quite add up. So far in 2021, gasoline prices have risen 88 cents, or a 40 percent increase, to $3.13 a gallon on July 6.
But what has Biden got to do with it? The biggest factor in the price of gasoline is crude oil. Well over 50 percent of the price at the pump is directly tied to the cost of crude oil. About 18 percent of the cost relates to state and federal taxes — the latter of which have not increased under Biden. About 15 percent stems from distribution and marketing, while 13 percent comes from refining costs and profits. (These figures are from AAA.) The world is emerging from a pandemic that sent oil prices tumbling. Now the price of crude oil is going up. Simple as that. The Republicans who made these claims earned Four Pinocchios. (LIARS)
07.16.21-WARNING-A former Homeland Security official under Trump says his own party is a national security threat. Miles Taylor, who served as the agency’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, told MSNBC’s Jason Johnson that he’s not a political operative, just someone who works in national security. “And the number one national security threat I’ve ever seen in my life to this country’s democracy is the party that I’m in, the Republican Party,” Taylor said on Thursday, adding: “If my party retakes the House of Representatives in the next cycle, it’s going to become a haunted house. And the ghoul and the specter haunting that house is going to be Donald Trump.” Taylor called out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for continuing “to pay homage to a twice-impeached presidential loser,” and warned that if McCarthy becomes speaker, it’ll really be Trump’s hand on the gavel. That notion, he said, should give all Americans pause.
07.15.21-YOU GO LIZ-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) reportedly called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to his face on Jan. 6 as the insurrection unfolded and lawmakers were forced to flee as supporters of Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol. “You fucking did this,” she told him, according to an upcoming book, “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
(Liz, come over to our side!)
07.14.21-CARLSON AND INGRAHAM-DISGUSTING TRASH-Fox News Hammered With How Its Vaccine Coverage Will Go Down In History. CNN “New Day” anchors Brianna Keilar and John Berman hammered home the same point over and over on Wednesday — that 99% of people who are now dying from COVID-19 in the United States are unvaccinated. They also called out Fox News personalities including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, other conservative media outlets and GOP lawmakers who have sown doubt about the COVID-19 vaccines that have been declared by scientists worldwide to safely slow the spread of the coronavirus.
07.13.21-TRUE!-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) urged Americans to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19 on Tuesday, calling the rising politicization of vaccines within his party “moronic.” “It’s grossly misfortunate and a huge human cost to have made vaccination political,” Romney told HuffPost when asked about attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas over the weekend cheering when a speaker noted the U.S. is having trouble reaching its vaccination goals.
07.12.21-PUNISH THE LIARS-Michigan’s AG, State Police Investigating Conspiracists Peddling Election Lies For Profit. State residents can be assured Joe Biden’s victory was legitimate, and should be wary of those pushing lies, warned a report backed by GOP lawmakers.
07.11.21-BATTY BOEBERT-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slashes Lauren Boebert For Call To End Government Benefits. AOC (D-N.Y.) came out with rockets blasting at Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) Saturday after the right-wing lawmaker called for the end of government benefits at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We’re here to tell government: ‘We don’t want your benefits. We don’t want your welfare,’” Boebert shouted as she marched back and forth across the stage in Dallas. “Don’t come to us with your Fauci ouchie. Leave us the hell alone!” AOC fired back: “Tell ’em loud and proud girl! GOP will strip your unemployment protections and dismantle any semblance of a public safety net we have left! Then make working people pay way more for everything on low wages while Wall St gets a meal ticket!” AOC sarcastically crowed: “Good ol conservative values baby!”
07.10.21-MORON ALERT-As the overheated Conservative Political Action Conference inspires increasingly zany claims. along comes uber-right Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) with a warning Friday that health care workers coming to homes to vaccinate people could also be out to grab Americans’ guns and Bibles. “Now they’re talking about going door-to-door to take vaccines to the people,” Cawthorn complained in an interview with the Right Side Broadcast Network at CPAC in Dallas, adding that the plan would require a “massive” operation. “Then think about what those mechanisms could be used for,” Cawthorn darkly warned. “They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could then go door-to-door to take your Bibles.” Cawthorn — who has lied about being accepted to the Naval Academy and about the car crash that partially paralyzed him — was apparently appalled when President Joe Biden earlier this week pushed for a COVID-19 vaccination outreach program as the delta variant surges and the U.S. coronavirus death toll nears 607,000.
07.09.21-THE WITCH HUNT SHOULD START WITH THESE TWO-Conspiracy theory-endorsing and frequent outrage-generating GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.) shouldn’t expect an endorsement from one major PAC that seeks to elect Republican women. Julie Conway, executive director of the Value In Electing Women group, dismissed both lawmakers as “carnival barkers” in an interview with Insider. Greene and Boebert were the only Republican women in Congress not being supported by the group, Conway said, and they won’t receive its backing during the 2022 midterms. “While we rightfully celebrate the number of GOP women serving in the House, I’ve always professed quality over quantity,” said Conway, whose committee says it has raised more than $20 million for female Republican candidates since its inception in 1997. “The work of Congress is not a joke or reality show,” she added. Conway said Republican women have “fought too hard for too long to be respected and taken seriously as legislators, policymakers and thought leaders.” “We cannot let this work be erased by individuals who chose to be shameless self-promoters and carnival barkers,” she added. “I think that they would rather draw attention to themselves, and really Marjorie Taylor Greene more than Boebert, but they’re cut from the same cloth.”
07.08.21-CRIMINAL ACTS-Arizona’s secretary of state has called for a criminal investigation into whether Trump and his political allies tried to illegally influence the results of the 2020 election in the days before Congress certified President Joe Biden’s White House win. There were “clear efforts to induce supervisors to refuse to comply with their duties” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) said in a letter to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) on Wednesday. Evidence referenced by Hobbs includes text messages and phone calls that were placed to Republican members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors as Trump’s campaign attempted to prevent the certification in key battleground states.
07.07.21-CRAZED LUNATIC-Trump praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during a 2018 trip to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, a new book claims. “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things,” the then-president told White House chief of staff John Kelly, according to passages from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender’s “‘Frankly, We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost” that were published by The Guardian on Wednesday. Trump reportedly made the observation while Kelly was reminding him “which countries were on which side during the conflict” and connecting “the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler’s atrocities,” said Bender. Kelly was “stunned” by Trump’s remark, told the then-president he “was wrong,” argued “the German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide” and said “you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can’t.” But Trump was “undeterred,” said Bender, and pointed to the recovery of Germany’s economy under Hitler in the 1930s as proof.
07.06.21-ALWAYS KNEW THEY ARE COWARDS-Terrified White Supremacists Run Away After Philadelphia March Goes Awry. A Patriot Front march in Philly didn’t go the way the group hoped when they had to flee angry counter-protesters.
07.07.21-ANOTHER REPUBLICAN SPEAKS-Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) on Tuesday rejected the idea that there’s currently “a fight for the soul of the party” between moderate Republicans and sycophants of Trump. “There is nothing left of this Republican Party other than a party that’s able to embrace and to elevate an undemocratic, anti-republic theme that somehow we can engage in a fraud on the American people as long as it supports our guy winning an election,”
07.06.21-MORE BIG LIES-Six months after their leader tried to overturn the election he had lost by more than 7 million votes, Republicans have settled on a message about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol: Insurrection? What insurrection? From calls to let bygones be bygones, to punishing dissidents who dare criticize Trump for instigating that day’s attack, to literally describing the mob as no different from everyday “tourists,” the Republican Party ― with notable exceptions ― has pushed the idea that the unprecedented attempt to overthrow American democracy was really no big deal.
07.05.21-GOOD SISTER ACT-Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who has espoused conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 insurrection and defended those who attacked the U.S. Capitol as “peaceful patriots,” is being called out publicly by his own sister. “He uses it ... to fundraise, and I find that even more despicable and disgusting,” Jennifer Gosar said on CNN over the weekend. She said her brother should be held “criminally accountable” if reports of his involvement with the organizers of the insurrection are true. CNN’s Pamela Brown asked Jennifer Gosar what she would say to her bother. “I wouldn’t communicate with him,” she said.
07.04.21-ON A DAY WHEN WE SHOULD BE CELEBRATING DEMOCRACY, THE RIGHT IS TEARING IT APART. Read this editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.07.03.21-GET THIS DEMON CARLSON OFF THE AIR. PLEASE!-CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner on Friday took Tucker Carlson to task over his often-criticized, irresponsible coverage of COVID-19. And the cardiologist asked a damning question of the Fox News personality. “Is the coronavirus one of his sponsors?” tweeted Reiner. Carlson seems hellbent on letting COVID go on as long as possible. He’s “questioned” the safety of vaccines. Now he says masks are unsafe. Somehow he never seems to have an actual expert on his show to discuss.
07.02.21-BIGGEST UGLY HYPOCRITE-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday he was “certainly looking” at running for president in 2024. But the Trump-supporting politician’s reasoning for another presidential campaign caused much mirth on Twitter. “I’ll tell you, 2016 was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” Cruz, who washed out in GOP primaries that year, said on Newsmax. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump attacked the looks of Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, baselessly claimed Cruz’s father was somehow involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and gave Cruz the disparaging nickname “Lyin’ Ted.’” Trump also suggested the Canadian-born senator “may not even have a legal right to run.” Cruz, in turn, called Trump a “sniveling coward.” After Trump’s victory, Cruz cozied up to him and became one of his most loyal defenders.
06.30.21-ANOTHER CRAZED REPUBLICAN-South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) will deploy up to 50 National Guard troops to the southern U.S. border, her office said Tuesday, with a highly unusual caveat — the mission will be funded by a “private donation” from an out-of-state GOP megadonor billionaire. Privately funding a military mission is an affront to civilian oversight of the armed forces, said military and oversight experts, describing the move — a Republican governor sending troops to a Republican-led state, paid for by a Republican donor — as likely unprecedented and unethical.
06.28.21-STILL TOO FEW REPUBLICANS-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) criticized former Trump on Sunday for continuing to recycle the same old talking points about the 2020 election and urged Republican leaders to tell voters the truth. At a rally in Ohio Saturday, his first since leaving office, Trump reprised his grievances about losing the 2020 election and falsely blamed it on voter fraud. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) likened the spectacle to WWE wrestling, saying it was “entertaining, but not real.” “I hope he’s right,” Kinzinger said of Romney’s take. “There’s a lot of people, though, that I’ve talked to, you know that are mad at me for just telling the truth, which used to be a pretty basic, you know, low bar, that really truly believe that Donald Trump was elected president again.” “It was a rally of a loser president,” Kinzinger added. “I mean, he’s the first president to lose reelection in decades.”
06.27.31-JUST ANOTHER HYPOCRITE-Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace sparred with Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) over Banks's vote against an emergency relief bill that would have allocated funds to police and first responders. "Can't you make the argument that it's you and the Republicans who defunded the police?" Wallace asked Banks, who is the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. Wallace said "that President Biden's American Rescue Plan, which Banks voted against, would have given localities more money to hire police officers, invest in new technology and create new crime intervention programs. But you and every other Republican voted against this $350 billion."
06.27.21-EVEN CHUMP'S LACKEY-Former Attorney General William Barr reportedly called Trump’s false claims of election fraud “bullshit,” according to a new book on the final days of the Trump administration.
06.25.21-THIS NETWORK IS A CESSPOOL-Fox News host Laura Ingraham went after Gen. Mark Milley, the Pentagon's top military commander, on her show Wednesday night after he waved off Republican complaints about a West Point seminar that taught critical race theory and, more generally, defended the practice of studying and trying to understand things you don't necessarily agree with. Her colleague Tucker Carlson joined in Thursday, calling the four-star general "a pig," "obsequious," and "stupid."
Fox News host Sean Hannity tore into The New York Times and its recent coverage of the behind-the-scenes drama at the right-wing cable network. But his harshest words may have been aimed at his colleague, Tucker Carlson. This week, New York Times columnist Ben Smith said Carlson dishes out off-the-record gossip about the network, Trump and other topics to reporters, calling his willingness to spill tea “one of Washington’s open secrets.” Sixteen journalists at other news outlets confirmed to Smith that Carlson had been a source.
06.24.21-NOW CANCEL HIM-Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in the state of New York. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and the former head prosecutor for the federal Southern District of New York, was suspended for making “false and misleading statements” about the election loss of his client, Trump.
06.23.21-IT'S ABOUT TIME-The Biden administration has forced out the head of the U.S. Border Patrol, Rodney Scott, clearing a path for a leadership overhaul at an agency strained by a 20-year-high in illegal border crossings, and whose top officials were broadly sympathetic to President Trump. AND-A new Supreme Court ruling could clear the way for President Joe Biden to fire the Trump appointees running the Social Security Administration.
06.23.21-JUST THINK IF THIS MANIAC HAD BEEN REELECTED-Trump railed against “Saturday Night Live” and actor Alec Baldwin, and fueled an unhinged conspiracy theory while attacking a report in The Daily Beast on Tuesday. The website reported that the former president had attempted to sic federal agencies, including the Justice Department, on late-night comedians who made fun of him. Trump called the story “total Fake News,” but added that “Baldwin has no talent, certainly when it comes to imitating me.” Trump added that late-night comedy was an “illegal campaign contribution” to Democrats. But it was the conclusion of his message where Trump really went off the rails. Trump closed his statement with “2024 or before!” ― a nod to a conspiracy theory that claims he will overthrow the elected government and again take office before the next election in 2024.
06.21.21-HATE IS MUTUAL-Fox News’ Juan Williams wrote Monday that Republicans lack substance and a plan as they mimic the “lowball strategy” of Trump. In an essay for The Hill titled “Trump’s GOP Descends Into Farce,” Williams conceded that the twice-impeached ex-POTUS still has a hold on the GOP and remains a legitimate party hopeful for 2024. “The problem for Trump is that while his candidacy is the tallest tree in the GOP jungle, it has shallow roots in the soft, shifting soil of a cult of personality,” he wrote. “At his maximum political power, Trump is a towering idol for a fickle crowd that agrees on only one thing — hating Democrats.”
06.20.21-TODAY'S DUNCE-MIKE PENCE-He keeps forgetting that the Jan 6 insurrectionists wanted to murder him. They even constructed a set of gallows outside the capital building. Say's he is tired of cancel culture, after they tried to cancel him.
06.19.21-CARLSON=SCUM! The conspiracy theory — that the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was a false flag event orchestrated by the FBI — traveled the way so many conspiracy theories do in America: from a fringe far-right site run by a white nationalist to this country’s most-watched cable news show. “Strangely, some of the key people who participated on Jan. 6 have not been charged,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson told millions of viewers on Tuesday. “Look at the documents. The government calls those people ‘unindicted co-conspirators.’ What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case, they were FBI operatives.”
06.18.21-JAIL TIME?-Trump faces RICO exposure in two separate probes and that’s putting legendary mafia prosecutions back in the spotlight. Legal experts see RICO as a powerful tool in these Trump probes. The Manhattan District Attorney has the power to indict an entire company.
06.17.21-SOME GOOD NEWS-The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are both struggling to bring in money and hold onto members, as the far-right organizations deal with the repercussions of being connected to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
06.17.21-ANOTHER UGLY REPUBLICAN-A DC Metropolitan Police officer who defended the US Capitol on January 6 blasted GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde on Wednesday evening for what he called "disgusting" behavior during a tense exchange. Michael Fanone, who was stun-gunned several times and beaten with a flagpole during the riot, told CNN's Don Lemon that he had come across Clyde in the Capitol and had been dismissed by the congressman after approaching him outside an elevator Wednesday afternoon.
06.14.21-DEFINITION OF A LIAR-Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insists she never lied when she worked for then-president Donald Trump and suggested she can’t because of her faith. In comments she said: “As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world’s hardest institutions, I never lied. I sourced my information, but that will never stop the press from calling you a liar.” McEnany took the job in April 2020 with her now-infamous vow to never lie. However, she had such a long and extensive history of falsehoods that CNN’s Jake Tapper refused to have her on his show, saying McEnany “lies the way that most people breathe” and “can’t acknowledge reality.” Out of seven McEnany claims reviewed by PolitiFact, just three were rated as “mostly true.” The rest were listed as either “half true,” “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire.” Last year, for example, she claimed Trump “never downplayed the virus” despite audio of him admitting to doing exactly that, in those exact words. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Bob Woodward. McEnany’s new claim that she had never lied caused her name to trend on Twitter, mostly due to disbelief:
06.11.21-DIRTY TRICKS-Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced Friday that his office is launching a probe following reports that the department had sought the records of journalists and prominent critics of former president Donald Trump on the House Intelligence Committee.In a statement, Horowitz said the review “will examine the Department’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations.”
06.09.21-MORON ALERT-During a House Natural Resources Hearing with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) asked, apparently earnestly, if there was anything the two government agencies could do to combat global warming by changing "the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun?" He then stated that such an interstellar overhaul would obviously have "profound effects" on the Earth's climate.
06.08.21-LISTEN TO OBAMA-Barack Obama on Monday lamented the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s election lies, saying the Republican Party has been “cowed into accepting” conspiracy theories that would have been unacceptable previously. “I think we have to worry when one of our major political parties is willing to embrace a way of thinking about our democracy that would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,” the former president told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
06.07.21-TRAITOR-Manchin Says He’ll Vote Against Voting Rights Bill, Dooming Dems’ Election Overhaul Efforts. The West Virginia senator’s unwillingness to back legislation without Republican support could jeopardize Democrats’ ability to pass key bills.
06.06.21-SICKENING!“Blood may be thicker than water, but apparently it’s not thicker than Kool-Aid.” So said CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Friday as she showed how prominent Republicans are more than happy to throw their relatives under the bus when it comes to proving their support for Trump. The “New Day” anchor examined how Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Rep. Greg Pence and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have all put fealty to Trump over family. “Even if he calls your wife ugly. Mocks your dad. Puts a target on your brother’s back or rips your uncle,” said Keilar. “In the age of Trump, truly, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.”
06.04.21-PENCE'S ONLY MODE IS GROVELING-Sometimes, you wish Mike Pence would just stand up for himself. The former vice president earned something of a reputation as a lapdog while serving under Donald Trump, repeatedly making it clear during their four years together that there was "no daylight" between the two — no matter how extreme and awful the president's behavior became. The Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol should have changed everything. Pence rightly refused Trump's demand that he attempt to block certification of the 2020 election. Trump, in turn, incited the crowd that broke into the House and Senate chambers, with some rioters chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" If you can't be angry at the guy who almost got you killed, who can you be mad at?
06.03.21-LOSER TRUMP-Trump’s blog, celebrated by advisers as a “beacon of freedom” that would keep him relevant in an online world he once dominated, is dead. It was 29 days old. Upset by reports from outlets highlighting its measly readership and concerns that it could detract from a social media platform he wants to launch later this year, Trump ordered his team Tuesday to put the blog out of its misery, advisers said.
06.01.21-A REPUBLICAN SPEAKS-Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich) blasted conservatives “salivating for civil war” in a series of messages on Memorial Day, saying they are “treacherous snakes” who “can go straight to hell.” Meijer, an Iraq War veteran who assumed office earlier this year, has made a name for himself as one of the few members in his party to buck the whims of Trump. On Twitter, he said he struggled with Memorial Day this year:
05.31.21-GETTING SCARIER EVERY DAY-Avowed QAnon disciple and confessed felon retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has called for a Myanmar-like military coup in America. “It should happen,” Trump’s former national security adviser said in an astonishing declaration at a QAnon conference Sunday. Myanmar’s military violently seized control of the country from its civilian government in late January, detained democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and top party members, and killed more than 700 protesters as of early this month. The military justified its action by claiming unproven “election fraud.”
05.30.21-MAFIA FAMILY-Experts Believe Prosecutors Are Mulling ‘Little RICO’ Mob Law Against Trump Org: Report. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. may be looking at Trump’s business as a possible criminal enterprise. “No self-respecting state white-collar prosecutor would forgo considering the enterprise corruption charge,” veteran Manhattan defense attorney Robert Anello told Politico, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s probe into Trump and the Trump Organization. “I’m sure they’re thinking about that.”
05.28.21-I LOVE A GOOD FIGHT AMONG MORONS-Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) offered a veiled criticism of Trump in a speech Thursday night in which he urged the Republican Party not to rely on the “appeal of one personality.” But Ryan, according to his prepared remarks, did not explicitly name Trump in his critique. When Ryan did name Trump, it was to praise him for advancing “practical conservative policy.” The comments drew a rebuke from Trump. “Paul Ryan has been a curse to the Republican Party,” the former president said in a statement Friday morning. “He has no clue as to what needs to be done for our country, was a weak and ineffective leader, and spends all of his time fighting Republicans as opposed to Democrats who are destroying our country.”
05.27.21-DITCH MITCH-It has long been obvious that Mitch McConnell puts party before country, but this week he actually admitted it. He told Republican colleagues that they should oppose the creation of a Jan. 6 commission, no matter how it is structured, because it “could hurt the party’s midterm election message,” as Politico’s Burgess Everett reported. And so, as early as Thursday, McConnell will use the filibuster to thwart a bipartisan effort to prevent further attacks on the U.S. government by domestic terrorists — because he thinks it’s good politics for Republicans.
05.27.21-NO SURPRISE-Trump allegedly attempted to stop a congressional probe of the Spygate case involving the New England Patriots by offering a bribe to then-Sen. Arlen Specter, the late senator’s son claimed Wednesday.
05.24.21-PLEASE, REPUBLICANS, MORE OF YOU SPEAK UP-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday tore into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for “not telling the truth” about their party’s role in the deadly insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol in January. During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Kinzinger told host Chris Wallace that forming a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack — like the commission formed after 9/11 — is critical and that efforts to block its creation by McCarthy and other GOP leaders are reprehensible. “What we need is a comprehensive look of what happened that led up to Jan. 6,” Kinzinger said. “Who was talking to who? What were the lies?” “The American people deserve the truth,” he continued, “and my party to this point has said things like it was hugs and kisses, it was antifa and [Black Lives Matter], it was anything but what it was, which was a Trump-inspired insurrection on the Capitol.”
05.21.21-SIGNS OF FASCISM-The Justice Department in 2020 secretly obtained phone and email records from CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, CNN reported and the Justice Department confirmed Thursday night. The Justice Department's May 13 letter to Starr informing her it had obtained her 2017 records follows a May 3 letter to three Washington Post reporters with similar notifications.
05.21.21-MORE LUNACY-ARIZONA VOTING MACHINES NOW UNUSABLE DUE TO RECOUNT Arizona's secretary of state told Maricopa County officials that hundreds of vote-tabulating machines should no longer be used because of their handling by the "amateur, uncertified" company hired by state Senate Republicans to recount ballots cast in November's presidential election. Cyber Ninjas broke the "chain of custody" for machine possession, Katie Hobbs said.
05.18.21-SHEER LUNACY-The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Monday denounced an ongoing audit of the 2020 election vote as a “sham” and a “con,” calling on the GOP-led state Senate to end the controversial recount that has been championed by former president Donald Trump. In a fiery public meeting and subsequent letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, the board members said the audit has been inept, promoted falsehoods and defamed the public servants who ran the fall election. Calling the process a “spectacle that is harming all of us,” the five members of the board — including four Republicans — asked the state Senate to recognize that it is essential to call off the audit, which officials have said is only about one-quarter complete. “It is time to make a choice to defend the Constitution and the Republic,” they wrote. “We stand united together to defend the Constitution and the Republic in our opposition to the Big Lie. We ask everyone to join us in standing for the truth,” they added, using a term that refers to the false claim that the election was stolen. In a calculated show of unity, they were joined by Maricopa’s other elected officials: the sheriff, a Democrat; and the Republican county recorder, who leads the elections office.
05.16.21-REPUBLICANS SPEAK-Arizona’s Republican chair of the Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors has slammed the partisan, highly controversial GOP-launched recount there as “dangerous.” And a GOP county election official ripped Donald Trump on Saturday as “unhinged” for parroting false complaints about the ballots. “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer tweeted. Board of Supervisors Chair Jack Sellers blasted the Cyber Ninjas company hired by the GOP-dominated state Senate to scrutinize the 2.1 million county ballots as being in “way over their heads,” reported the local Daily Independent.
05.15.21-ANOTHER SICK REPUBLICAN-The furor over Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) treatment of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has sparked new worries that lawmakers could be in danger from their own colleagues. The concern has reached a different order of intensity since the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, when members of Congress literally feared for their lives. Greene’s encounters with some of her Democratic colleagues, along with a confrontation between a Greene staffer and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), show just how febrile the atmosphere on Capitol Hill has become. In an exchange witnessed by The Hill’s Scott Wong on Friday morning, a Greene staffer challenged Swalwell over the Democrat wearing a mask. Swalwell retorted, “You don’t tell me what to f---king do.” Soon afterward on Twitter, Swalwell said Greene’s aide had attempted to bully him, adding: “I told the bully what I thought of his order. Predictably, he went speechless. I regret I wasn’t more explicit.”
05.13.21-DISGUSTING AND SICK-Several House Republicans on Wednesday tried to recast and downplay the events of Jan. 6, comparing the mob that breached the Capitol to tourists, railing against law enforcement for seeking to arrest them and questioning how anyone could be sure the rioters were supporters of Trump. The Republicans’ distortions about the most violent attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812 defy the well-documented reality of what occurred that day — 140 police officers were injured, some bludgeoned with flagpoles and baseball bats, with one officer’s eye gouged out; rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and erected a gallows on the Capitol grounds; and members of the House and the Senate were rushed to safety in secure locations for several hours. The attack resulted in five dead.
05.11.21-WE NEED MORE OF THIS-There was no shortage of prominent Republican voices questioning the direction of their party over the weekend. For example, Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, said on MSNBC yesterday that his party has "sunken to the lowest of lows" by treating Donald Trump as its "savior." Around the same time, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) told NBC News his party is becoming a "circular firing squad." He added, "It bothers me you have to swear fealty to the Dear Leader or you get kicked out of the party." And then there was Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), appearing on CBS, offering a memorable analogy about the state of the contemporary GOP. "I mean, right now it's basically like we're the Titanic. We're in the middle of this slow sink, there's a band on deck telling everyone it's fine, meanwhile Donald Trump is looking for women's clothing trying to get on the first lifeboat," he said. The Illinois Republican, who supported Trump's impeachment in January, added, "I think there's a few of us that are just saying, 'Guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country."
05.09.21-WAKE UP REPUBLICANS-House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday slammed the Republican Party, saying the GOP is “losing its way on all fronts” while pointing a finger at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).In an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Clyburn responded to remarks made by McConnell last week when the Kentucky Republican said that 100 percent of his focus is standing up “in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country.” When asked by host Jake Tapper what those comments mean for bipartisanship in the Senate, Clyburn blamed McConnell for the current posture of the Republican Party. “Mitch McConnell has some personal animus toward Democrats that ought not be. We are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let's operate like that. This Republican Party is losing its way on all fronts, and Mitch McConnell is contributing to that in a big way,” Clyburn said.
05.08.21-PARADE OF COWARDS-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Friday that only a handful of his Republican colleagues in the House actually believe Trump’s election lies. The vast majority of House Republicans, Kinzinger told CNN’s Jake Tapper, were simply boarding the Trump train in a desperate bid to preserve their jobs. “How many actually believe it? Five, probably, if that, maybe? I don’t know, but it’s in the single, it’s low,” said Kinzinger, a vocal critic of Trump who defied his party to vote for the impeachment of the former president for inciting the deadly U.S. Capitol riot. “People don’t believe it,” he continued. “But what they are doing is they’re sitting around saying, ‘I need to continue to exist in this job so that I can make an impact. I don’t have the courage or the strength or the ability to swing this party, so I’m going to just kinda put my head down and go along.’”
05.06.21-STEALING CREDIT-Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said it pained her to vote against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. But in the weeks that followed, the first-term Republican issued a news release celebrating more than $3.7 million from the package that went to community health centers in her district as one of her “achievements.” She said she prided herself on “bringing federal funding to the district and back into the pockets of taxpayers.” Malliotakis is far from alone. Every Republican in Congress voted against the sweeping pandemic relief bill that President Joe Biden signed into law three months ago. But since the early spring votes, Republicans from New York and Indiana to Texas and Washington state have promoted elements of the legislation they fought to defeat.
05.05.21-THIS FOOL IS ACTUALLY THE 'BIG LIE'-One day after launching his new “communications platform, Trump used it to launch an attack on Mike Pence, Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell. Trump’s grievance-filled post ripped into the three prominent Republicans for failing to back his 2020 election lies and help him cheat his way to reelection, using run-on sentences like this one attacking Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican:
05.04.21-TAX TRUTH-If all of Biden’s proposed tax increases passed — on the corporate tax, as well as on investment taxes and income taxes for top earners — the total federal tax rate on the wealthy would remain significantly lower than it was in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. It would also remain somewhat lower than during the mid-1990s, based on an analysis that Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley, did for The Morning.
05.03.21-MORE FOX FOLLIES-Back in 2015, Dan Price of Gravity Payments shocked the business world by slashing his own $1.1 million pay package to help fund a minimum “living wage” of $70,000 for all workers at his credit card processing company Gravity Payments. Of course FOX News and some conservatives criticized him as a “socialist” on Fox News and Fox Business......
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05.02.21-REPUBLICAN MADNESS-Cindy McCain on Sunday called the GOP-backed election audit in Arizona "ludicrous." McCain, a prominent Arizona Republican and the wife of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" and was asked by host Jake Tapper about the audit. "Listen, this whole thing is ludicrous, quite frankly. It's ludicrous. And this also comes from a state party in Arizona that refused to be audited themselves on votes that were cast within their own party communications," Cindy McCain said.
04.30.21-THIS HAPPENS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY-As federal investigators searched the phone records of a violent extremist in California last August, they discovered an unexpected voice of authority joining in a group chat with racist slurs and threats. In texts with a group that called itself “Shadow Moses,” a Georgia sheriff’s deputy boasted about beating a Black man during an arrest, threatened to falsely charge Black people with felonies so that they could not vote and advocated for killing politicians and others he viewed as political enemies, the FBI said in court documents.
04.29.21-THIS IS REALLY TRUMP SPEAKING-MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace made quick work of Sen. Tim Scott’s Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. “This is a speech delivered from a planet where facts don’t matter, which is where the current Republican Party resides,” said Wallace. “It’s really not his fault, but it is his responsibility to get his facts straight.” Scott (R-S.C.) claimed in his speech that the “tide had already turned” against coronavirus before Biden took office and credited Trump for that. Wallace wasn’t buying it. “He said that Biden inherited a country that had already rounded the bend on COVID,” she said. “Four thousand people a day were dying in January, so I don’t know, again, on what planet we rounded the bend.” She said Scott’s speech contained “a lot of disinformation” that felt “almost scripted” by someone close to Trump.
04.28.21-WILL THIS EVER STOP?-A longtime New York Post reporter said she has resigned after being “ordered” to write a false story that claimed undocumented minors were being welcomed to the United States with copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Harris. “The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point,” Laura Italiano tweeted Tuesday afternoon, several hours after her viral article about the books had been deleted from the Post’s website and replaced with corrected versions.
04.27.21-WHAT IDIOT WOULD BELIEVE THIS? OH, YEAH.-On Friday, FOX anchor John Roberts told viewers about a University of Michigan study that suggested cutting back on eating red meat would decrease harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Although the study was first presented in 2020 and wasn’t connected to Biden in anyway, Fox News decided to connect nonexistent dots with a graphic, “Up in Your Grill: Biden’s Climate Requirements,” of data from the Michigan study, according to Forbes.com. Over the weekend, other Fox personalities ran with the false claim, especially Larry Kudlow, Donald Trump’s former White House economic adviser, who ridiculously insisted Biden’s next step would be to ban burgers and steaks on the Fourth of July. The claims got enough traction that a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture told The Hill on Monday that the claims made by Fox News were “a fabrication” and said any burger ban is “not a part of the climate plan nor the emissions targets. It is not real.” On Monday, Roberts then walked back Friday’s false claim with a correction.
04.26.21-MORE REPUBLICAN WHITE SUPREMACY-During a talk last week former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum offered his views on the founding of America, which he ties to the Judeo-Christian principles of persecuted Europeans who crossed the Atlantic and "created a blank slate ... birthed a nation from nothing. I mean there was nothing here." Critics decried Santorum's remarks as not only historically inaccurate, but also as an example of white supremacy and the erasure of Native American history and culture.
04.25.21-REPUBLICAN PARTY FUTURE-No one should be surprised that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), one of the instigators behind the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has refused to break ties with True Texas Project, a MAGA-type group that is so divisive that other conservatives have distanced themselves from it. The Post reports: “As Trump’s presidency normalized and elevated far-right, anti-immigrant voices, TTP’s messaging grew more extreme, at times echoing white-supremacist talking points.”
04.24.21-SMACK DOWN-Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tried to sneak through a stealth phrase of praise for white people, but it got taken down — hard — in the House on Thursday. Cotton, the man who has called slavery a “necessary evil,” was attempting to make a case for why Wyoming deserves to be a state but Washington, D.C., which has a larger population, does not. Wyoming, incidentally, has a population that is 92.5% white and 1.3% Black, according to census figures. The District of Columbia is 45.4% Black and 42.5% white. Cotton hailed Wyoming over the District of Columbia, which is seeking statehood, because he said Wyoming has “three times as many workers in mining, logging and construction, and 10 times as many workers in manufacturing. In other words, Wyoming is a well-rounded, working-class state,” apparently inferring D.C. couldn’t match up. Freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) later observed on the House floor: “One Senate Republican said that D.C. wouldn’t be a, quote, well-rounded, working-class state. I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word ‘white.’”
04.23.21-SURPRISE!-NOT-When first announced in 2017, Foxconn's plan to build a massive electronics factory in Wisconsin was hailed by Trump as a sign of the rebirth of American manufacturing. But nearly four years later, the complex that promised to create a Silicon Valley in the industrial Midwest is essentially a white elephant, a collection of mostly empty buildings without any high-tech products to build. And this week it became official: The pledged investment of up to $10 billion to create as many as 13,000 jobs is not coming.
04.22.21-LOUDMOUTH CALLED OUT-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) seemed to admit Wednesday that she hasn’t read the climate change bill she wants to debate about with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
04.22.21-ANOTHER DUMBASS-Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) railed against public health advice on Wednesday with a warped suggestion for how President Joe Biden could boost uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. “If you want more people to get vaccinated, Joe Biden should go on national TV, take his mask off and burn it,” the Kentucky Republican told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “Light a torch to it and burn his mask and say, ‘I’ve had the vaccine, I am now safe from this plague. If you get the vaccine, you can be safe, too,’” he added.
04.22.21-MORE MCCARTHY HYPOCROSY-A conservative organization is calling out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for hypocrisy after he tried to censure Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) this week. He accused Waters of using “violent rhetoric” when she told protesters to “stay on the street” and “get more confrontational” if former police officer Derek Chauvin wasn’t found guilty in the George Floyd murder case. But as the new video from the Republican Accountability Project shows, McCarthy has ignored far more violent rhetoric from inside his own conference. The spot includes clips from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) urging people to “go to the streets and be violent,” and Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) telling supporters to “lightly threaten” their lawmakers. McCarthy has not moved to censure them. The ad also includes some violent rhetoric from Trump, who McCarthy continues to support. “If Kevin McCarthy really opposes dangerous rhetoric, he can start by cleaning up his own house,” states the voiceover in the video, which will air on Fox News during “Hannity” in Washington, D.C. next week:
04.21.21-PRETTY, HYPOCRITICAL MORON-Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany was called out for hypocrisy on Tuesday for her latest attack on President Joe Biden, which completely ignored the behavior of her previous employer, Trump. “I think it’s the role of the president of the United States to stay back, to not inflame the tensions,” McEnany said on the air after Biden offered an opinion on Derek Chauvin’s trial.
04.20.21-THE FOOL PROVES HE IS A FOOL!-Mike Lindell has had some problems launching his social network , including being pranked by Trump impersonators. One caller got through by claiming to be Trump-a very foul-mouthed Trump. “Hello everyone,” the fake Trump said. Lindell, who bent his body over the speaker where the voice was emanating, got excited. “Aw, we have the president here-our real president everyone,” Lindell exclaimed. “Hello, Mr. President!” Sadly for Lindell, the person claiming to be the president didn’t respond in kind. “MacronShow.com, bitches! MacronShow.com!” Ron Blackman, who hosts the British podcast “The Macron Show,” later took credit on Twitter for the prank call, and told HuffPost that Lindell deserves whatever he gets.
04.20.21-THE WAR CRIMINAL SPEAKS-Former President George W. Bush called today's GOP "isolationist, protectionist, and to a certain extent, nativist," during an interview with NBC's "Today.
04.18.21-JOHN BOEHNER WANTS US TO FORGET HE WAS TAKEN DOWN BY THE FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER HE HELPED CAUSE-Boehner called Trump “a little crazy,” said former President Bill Clinton is “the best politician I’ve ever met” and praised President Joe Biden as “a really good guy.” But his tone shifted when Colbert asked about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). “Lucifer in the flesh,. The most miserable son of a bitch I ever had to deal with.”
04.17.21-HITLER WOULD BE PROUD!-Several House Republicans, led by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.), are forming a caucus that calls for a "common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions." A policy platform for the group, which calls itself the America First Caucus, declares that "a certain intellectual boldness is needed" in order to "follow in Trump’s footsteps, and potentially step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows for the good of the American nation." The seven-page document, first obtained by Punchbowl News, is explicit in its nativist rhetoric and describes American culture as dominated by "Anglo-Saxon" and European influences
04.15.21-IF ONLY!-In 2015 and 2016, Trump's Republican primary rivals and other GOP officials tried to dodge his withering personal insults "while hoping that external events and news media coverage would ultimately lead to his downfall," Maggie Haberman recalls at The New York Times. That strategy obviously failed. But many Republican leaders are once more hoping, mostly in private, that time or some heaven-sent deus ex machina makes Trump fade into retirement, despite his clear intention to retain control over the GOP.
04.14.21-DANGEROUS TUCKER AGAIN-In a Tuesday night segment, Carlson questioned why those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are still advised to wear masks and avoid large gatherings, proceeding to baselessly suggest of the vaccines, "Maybe it doesn't work and they're simply not telling you that." Asked to comment on these remarks on CNN on Wednesday, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dismissed them as "crazy." "That's just a typical crazy conspiracy theory," Fauci said. "Why would we not tell people if it doesn't work? Look at the data. The data are overwhelming." Fauci added that "I don't have any idea what he's talking about." Asked by CNN's John Berman how "dangerous" these comments by Carlson are, Fauci said they're "certainly not helpful to the public health of this nation or even globally."
04.13.21-MORE FOX CRAP-Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson is calling out her one-time employer for defending current network star Tucker Carlson, who has repeatedly spewed white supremacist talking points on the air. After the Anti-Defamation League urged the network to drop its top-rated host, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch defended him, saying “we respectfully disagree” and claiming the company “abhors antisemitism, white supremacy and racism of any kind.” But Gretchen Carlson wasn’t buying it. "This is a crock of s--- Lachlan."
04.10.21-TALK ABOUT FAKE NEWS-‘Yippee!’ Trump Officials Gloated After They Manipulated CDC Reports And Advice. House panel on COVID-19 accuses aides of “overruling and bullying scientists and making harmful decisions that allowed the virus to spread more rapidly.”
04.08.21-MORE DIRTY WORK-The National Republican Congressional Committee threatened donors that it will tell Trump that they are defectors if they opt out of giving recurring monthly funds to the campaign arm for the House GOP. After donating to the NRCC, donors are shown a yellow box with a small pre-checked box that warns: “If you UNCHECK this box, we will have to tell Trump you’re a DEFECTOR.” Left checked and the supporter will be agreeing to contribute every month.
04.08.21-DIRTY WORK-During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) said the new voting restrictions are "the fallout from the 10 weeks of misinformation that flew in from Trump. I went back over the weekend to really look at where this really started to gain momentum in the legislature, and it was when Rudy Giuliani showed up in a couple of committee rooms and spent hours spreading misinformation and sowing doubt across, you know, hours of testimony."
04.07.21-THE SENATE'S BIGGEST HYPOCRITE-McConnell defends corporations when it comes to donating money but wants to keep them from speaking out about Republican attempts to silence voters.
04.04.21-TYPICAL TRUMP FRAUD-Former President Trump's reelection campaign had to return $122.7 million to donors after they realized they were being charged repeatedly. People who donated, say, $500 were being charged that amount not just once, but every month—or even every week—until the election. To avoid being overcharged, donors had to get through the fine print and uncheck a box, the New York Times reports. A second box, which arrived already checked, doubled contributions. In time, lines of bold type were added that drowned out the fine print about opting out, and the wording about unchecking the box was no longer in bold. The practice fits the definition of "deceptive design," a user-experience designer said. "It should be in textbooks of what you shouldn't do," he said. The head of the National Association of Consumer Advocates said, "It's unfair, it’s unethical and it's inappropriate."
04.03.21-WE DON'T NEED DOUCHE BAGS LIKE THIS IN THE U.S. CONGRESS-Rep. Matt Gaetz repeatedly boasted to people involved in Florida politics about women he met through a county tax collector who has since been charged by federal authorities with sex trafficking of a minor, according to two people who heard his comments directly. They said the Republican congressman, first elected in 2016, also showed them videos on his phone of naked or topless women on multiple occasions, including at parties with Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector for Seminole County. The women appeared to be adults, and could be seen dancing, hanging out by a pool and, in one case, using a hula hoop without clothing, the people said.
04.02.21-GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL-DO NOT PASS GO-The last time Vanity Fair checked in on the legal comings and goings of Donald Trump, things were not looking so hot for the former president of the United States. In addition to being the defendant in no fewer than 29 lawsuits, per The Washington Post, he was the subject of numerous criminal investigations, including one in which attorneys had obtained access to his tax returns—documents that for some reason he spent the last four years fighting tooth and nail to keep secret. Now, two and half months after leaving the White House, have Trump‘s legal fortunes miraculously improved? In a word, no. In 19 words, the 45th president of the United States should probably just resign himself to the prospect of going to prison. (Will Allen Weisselberg flip?)
04.01.21-TRUMP'S QANON PROTECTS ONE OF HIS OWN-You'd think adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory would feel vindicated by leaked allegations of sexual misconduct toward a minor by a sitting member of Congress. After all, abuse of children by powerful people, especially federal officials, is one of the movement's biggest purported concerns. But Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is the subject of just such a leak, and the QAnon response is not crows of vindication. QAnon followers have already reached a verdict: innocent.
04.01.21-ANOTHER IGNORANT REPUBLICAN-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) was ridiculed on Twitter after appearing to show that she doesn’t really know what infrastructure is. Noem, touted by Trump as a possible 2024 presidential candidate, was asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for her take on President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill. The bill seeks to overhaul the country’s roads and bridges, counter the climate crisis and revitalize the eldercare and housing sectors. But Noem drove herself straight into a ditch. “I was shocked by how much doesn’t go into infrastructure,” she said. “It goes into research and development, it goes into housing and pipes and different initiatives, green energy, and it’s not really an honest conversation that we’re having about what this proposal is.”
03.31.21-ANOTHER LIAR ADDED TO FOX-Kayleigh McEnany, who peddled and defended Donald Trump’s lies during her time as White House press secretary, has a plum new gig at Fox News. McEnany joined the conservative network — where for the last few years many personalities have openly stumped for Trump ― as a paid on-air contributor last month.
03.30.21-ALWAYS THE FOOL!-Trump took the microphone at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night, to praise a couple getting married at his Florida resort. Nearly 400 words later he did so, according to video published by the website TMZ, after a rambling complaint about Joe Biden’s policy towards Iran and China, the situation at the border with Mexico and the supposed fraud he claims caused his election defeat.
03.28.21-REALLY, JUST SAYING 'LYING FOX NEWS' WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH-Fox News personalities on Friday complained about CNN’s fact-checking of President Joe Biden — and were sharply fact-checked in response. Fox’s Dan Bongino and contributor Joe Concha falsely suggested fact-checkers in the press who held Trump to account for his thousands of lies have suddenly vanished since Biden took office. CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy responded on Twitter, noting how the network’s fact-checking reporter Daniel Dale continues to scrutinize Biden ― and even appeared on TV on Thursday to debunk some of the claims that Biden made during his first press conference as president.
03.28.21-MORE BLOOD ON TRUMP'S HANDS-Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator under Trump, said most coronavirus deaths in the United States could have been prevented if the Trump administration had acted earlier and more decisively.
03.27.21-SICK EXTREMISTS-"Far-Right Extremists Move From ‘Stop the Steal’ to Stop the Vaccine," the N.Y. Times' Neil MacFarquhar reports. "Bashing of ... vaccines is occurring in chatrooms frequented by all manner of right-wing groups including the Proud Boys; the Boogaloo movement, a loose affiliation known for wanting to spark a second Civil War; and various paramilitary organizations."
03.26.21-JIM CROW LIVES!-When Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) shared a photo of himself signing a new bill to restrict voting access in the state, it featured Republican lawmakers gazing fondly upon him, as well as a prominent painting in the background.
The bill has been criticized as a measure that will largely affect Black voters and other voters of color, with groups like the ACLU arguing it amounts to voter suppression among already-disenfranchised groups. Kemp has denied that the bill seeks to suppress votes. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch agreed, calling it the state's "new, new Jim Crow." Bunch also reports that the painting centered in Kemp's photo is actually a painting of "a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County."
03.25.21-HEY TRUTH-WATCH OUT!-Trump is coming back to social media -- but this time with his own network, a Trump spokesperson told Fox News on Sunday.
03.25.21-SAD NEWS-The US has fallen to a new low in a global ranking of political rights and civil liberties, a drop fueled by unequal treatment of minority groups, damaging influence of money in politics, and increased polarization, according to a new report by Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group.
The US earned 83 out of 100 possible points this year in Freedom House’s annual rankings of freedoms around the world, an 11-point drop from its ranking of 94 a decade ago. The US’s new ranking places it on par with countries like Panama, Romania and Croatia and behind countries such as Argentina and Mongolia. It lagged far behind countries like the United Kingdom (93), Chile (93), Costa Rica (91) and Slovakia (90).
03.24.21-TODAY'S DISGUSTING PERSON-Attorney Sidney Powell, you may recall, was the Madame Defarge of the recent attempt to overturn the election results. She knitted elaborate lawsuits from the yarns of unreliable witnesses, patterned with a vast conspiracy to rig voting machines, as the partisans she inflamed rolled their tumbrels toward the Capitol in search of such supposed traitors as then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Sued for defamation by the voting-machine vendor in question, Powell is now scoffing in federal court at the idea that anyone could have taken her seriously. “Reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact,” Powell averred in her motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Instead, the allegations that helped to fuel the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol were mere “claims that await testing by the courts.
I took a break at this point but found that I needed to resume posting, in order to have a record of all the Republican/Trump crap that will follow.
02.27.21-Former CPAC Chair Minces No Words Slamming What The Event, GOP Have Now Become. This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference attendees “are living in an alternate reality in which facts don’t matter,” said former GOP Rep. Mickey Edwards.
02.26.21-NO CONSCIENCE SCUM-CPAC attendees boo and yell 'freedom' after being told to wear a mask
02.25.21-THIS IS WHAT IT HAS COME TO-QANON REP TAUNTS COLLEAGUE WITH TRANSPHOBIC SIGN Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene mocked her neighbor at the U.S. Capitol — Rep. Marie Newman — by erecting an anti-transgender sign outside her office. Newman, whose daughter is transgender, is an advocate of the Equality Act, a bill that would ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week.
02.24.21-ANOTHER RIGHT WING NUT-On Tuesday, the former leaders of the Capitol Police and other authorities entrusted with protecting the Capitol building testified about the Jan. 6 attack, telling conflicting stories about what happened that day. One thing that clearly didn't happen was what Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) shared during his chance to question the law enforcement leaders: An account of the day published in the conservative publication The Federalist alleging those who broke into the Capitol were seemingly professional provocateurs and not the "working-class" people seen protesting outside early in the day.
02.22.21-HOORAY! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL!-Trump just suffered a huge Supreme Court defeat. The Court on Monday allowed Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance to obtain Trump's tax returns, CNN reports. The court decided not to intervene and prevent the records from being turned over, according to The Associated Press.
02.21.21-WACK JOB-Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, still won’t say the 2020 presidential election wasn’t “stolen,” a claim Trump has falsely ― and dangerously ― peddled for months. Scalise, the House minority whip, was asked Sunday during an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” to confirm President Joe Biden’s legitimacy. “Clear this up for me: Joe Biden won the election,” said host Jon Karl. “He is the legitimate president of the United States. The election was not stolen, correct?” Scalise acknowledged that “Biden’s the president” but didn’t say flat out that the election wasn’t stolen.
02.20.21-EVIL PEOPLE-The Justice Department and FBI are investigating whether high-profile right-wing figures — including Roger Stone and Alex Jones — may have played a role in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach as part of a broader look into the mind-set of those who committed violence and their apparent paths to radicalization, according to people familiar with the investigation.
02.19.21-SWAMP-GOP Congressional Staffers Say They’re Furious At Their Bosses — Privately, At Least. Shaken by the actions of Republican lawmakers before and after Jan. 6, many aides say they feel trapped.
02.18.21-INSULT-Ted Cruz called Austin's mayor a 'hypocrite' for fleeing to Mexico during the pandemic. It's coming back to bite him. As his state suffered days of widespread blackouts and other dire consequences of a deep freeze, Cruz and his family were spotted boarding a plane to Cancun on Wednesday night.
02.17.21-HATEMONGER-Rush Limbaugh Made America Worse. The racist, sexist radio host played a pivotal role in injecting cruelty and conspiracy into conservative mass media.
02.17.21-TEXAS LIAR-Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is using his state's overwhelming blackouts as a deceptive excuse to attack the Green New Deal. More than 2.5 million Texas power customers remain in the dark after unprecedented winter storms froze several of the state's power sources. While some of the state's unweatherized windmills did freeze up, most of the blame lies with natural gas shortages. That's exactly what Abbott told Dallas-area ABC affiliate WFAA on Tuesday night, describing how natural gas has frozen up and prevented manufacturers from extracting and shipping it to power plants and customers.
02.15.21-BIG FRAUD-The Trump campaign and the Republican Party collected $255 million in two months, saying the money would support legal challenges to an election marred by fraud. Financier Fred Eshelman gave $2.5 million to True the Vote, a group seeking to press the case in court. Now he wants his money back.
02.14.21-GRAHAM-THE MOST TWO-FACED SENATOR-Prosecutors Will Investigate Lindsey Graham’s Post-Election Call To Georgia Official: Report. The call will reportedly be part of a probe into whether Donald Trump or his supporters broke state laws in trying to overturn his loss.
02.13.21-LYING LAWYERS-Trump lawyer said the Jan. 6 rally had been “hijacked” by extremists, including antifa activists from the far left. But Republican leaders have dismissed that claim. “Some say the riots were caused by antifa,” the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said last month. “There is absolutely no evidence of that, and conservatives should be the first to say so.” (For context, here’s how Mr. Trump used false statements about antifa as a smoke screen for a growing right-wing threat.)
02.12.21-WELL SAID!-Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said Thursday the presidency of Donald Trump was “indelibly stained” by his misconduct during his final weeks in office. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, added that he hoped Trump’s presidency would eventually be remembered as a “historical aberration.”
02.14.21-GRAHAM-THE MOST TWO-FACED SENATOR-Prosecutors Will Investigate Lindsey Graham’s Post-Election Call To Georgia Official: Report. The call will reportedly be part of a probe into whether Donald Trump or his supporters broke state laws in trying to overturn his loss.
02.13.21-LYING LAWYERS-Trump lawyer said the Jan. 6 rally had been “hijacked” by extremists, including antifa activists from the far left. But Republican leaders have dismissed that claim. “Some say the riots were caused by antifa,” the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said last month. “There is absolutely no evidence of that, and conservatives should be the first to say so.” (For context, here’s how Mr. Trump used false statements about antifa as a smoke screen for a growing right-wing threat.)
02.12.21-WELL SAID!-Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy said Thursday the presidency of Donald Trump was “indelibly stained” by his misconduct during his final weeks in office. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, added that he hoped Trump’s presidency would eventually be remembered as a “historical aberration.”
02.11.21-REPUGNENT-Trump publicly attacked Pence during the Capitol riot knowing Pence was in trouble, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) suggests.
02.10.21-HUH?-Trump impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor declared that impeachment was the wrong remedy for the ex-president, who is accused of incitement of insurrection. “After he’s out of office, you go and arrest him,” Castor suggested hypothetically. Castor was attempting to argue that a president can’t be impeached after leaving office, that the proper legal remedy was via the criminal justice system. “So there is no opportunity where the president of the United States can run rampant in January in the end of his term and just go away scot-free,” Castor said. “The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people.”
02.10.21-JAIL TIME!-Georgia Prosecutors Open Criminal Probe Into Trump Efforts To Overturn Election. The investigation follows Trump’s call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to reverse Joe Biden’s win in the state.
02.09.21-TYPICAL RELIGIOUS CRAP!-Despite calls from fellow Southern Baptists, two Texas pastors have yet to apologize for comparing Vice President Kamala Harris to Jezebel, a Biblical queen whose name has become shorthand for a woman who is manipulative, seductive, and wicked.
02.07.21-WE CAN ONLY HOPE-GOP Rep. Liz Cheney says Trump ‘does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.’
02.06.21-YA THINK?-President Biden said Friday that former president Donald Trump should not have access to classified information in the form of the briefings usually given to ex-presidents, citing Trump’s “erratic behavior” and the risk that he might recklessly reveal sensitive information.
02.05.21-I WISH WE COULD KICK HER OUT OF CONGRESS-House votes to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee assignments. Greene, a vocal supporter of Trump's unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, has been condemned by Democrats and many Republicans for embracing numerous conspiracy theories in videos and social media activity before she took office this year.
02.04.21-A conservative group is calling out members of the Republican Party by name for promoting “lies, violence and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” in a scathing new ad that will air on Fox News during “Hannity” in Washington, D.C. next week. The spot from the Republican Accountability Project ― part of Defending Democracy Together, a never-Trump conservative group ― praises the members of the party who turned on Trump after the violent insurrection carried out by his supporters in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
02.04.21-LAUGHABLE-Trump’s legal defense against his second impeachment is filled with “absurd constitutional arguments,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager, reportedly told fellow Democrats on Wednesday. And Democrats are prepared to refute all of them.
02.03.21-GUTLESS-McCarthy announces no disciplinary actions against Greene
02.03.21-SICKO-Tucker Carlson sprang to the defense of QAnon-backing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on his Fox News show Monday, the same day Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) condemned the first-term lawmaker’s support for conspiracies as a “cancer” on the GOP. Greene has backed Trump’s election fraud lies, claimed school shootings were staged and liked social media posts calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be killed. Carlson suggested she was only being criticized for having “bad opinions.”
02.01.21-GOOD NEWS!-GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger Launches Anti-Trump ‘Country First’ PAC
“I think the Republican Party has lost its moral authority in a lot of areas” during the last four years, said the Illinois lawmaker.
01.30.21-HORRIBLE-GOP Lawmakers Seek Tougher Voting Rules After Record Turnout, Election Losses. Many Republican lawmakers at the state level are engaged in a widespread effort to restrict access to the vote after high turnout helped defeat their preferred candidates in 2020.
01.29.21-JUST THE BEGINNING-Lifelong Republican Donor Quits GOP: 'Absolutely' Now The Party Of QAnon.
Jacob Monty revealed this week he has quit the GOP and joined the Democratic Party, citing the deadly U.S. Capitol riot incited by
"Trump owns the party and Trump has always loved the conspiracy theories and this is Trump’s party now.”
“I tried for four years to be a Never Trumper in the Republican Party but it’s obvious now, everyone is paying homage to this ex-president,” he added. “No one will stand up to him.”
01.28.21-KEEP GOING-Thousands have dropped their Republican voter registration after the Capitol insurrection.
01.28.21-THEN THEY GIVE HER A COMMITTEE SEAT! Republicans disavow Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'disgusting' comments.
01.28.21-Don't Let Anyone Tell You That The Economy left by Trump Is Great!-Economists are forecasting that the U.S. economy shrank by as much as 3.6 percent in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged businesses, Reuters reported Thursday. The contraction would amount to the country's worst economic performance since 1946.
01.26.21-Coservative Christian Russell Moore says this about the insurrection: “If you can defend this, you can defend anything,” wrote Russell Moore, a theologian who is also the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), in an excoriating editorial to his fellow evangelicals about the breach of the Capitol. The intruders displayed Jesus Saves signs next to those calling for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence and, once in the building, thanked God for the opportunity “to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors” within the U.S. government. “If you can wave this away with ‘Well, what about …'” added Moore, “then where, at long last, is your limit?”
01.26.21-Quotable Quote: Trump himself suggested ex-presidents could be tried a year ago. Per The Washington Post, when Trump was impeached for the first time, he complained that Congress should be going after former President Barack Obama instead over comments he made about health care. "We should impeach him for that," Trump said. "Why aren't we impeaching him?"
01.25.21-Crazy Josh Hawley
complained of being “muzzled” and a victim of “cancel culture” in his New York Post editorial. Observers from across the political spectrum united to call him out: "Never forget his clenched fist salute to the mob that would soon sack the Capitol. And now he’s assuming the victim posture after American citizens use their free speech to disassociate from a man who tried to break America for Donald Trump, and himself."
01.24.21-DESPERATE LUNATIC-Trump reportedly pressed the Department of Justice to take his bid to overturn the results of the presidential election all the way to the Supreme Court, but the effort hit a dead end after opposition from the agency’s leadership.
01.23.21-SCUMMY CARLSON AGAIN!-Last night on his program he again lied to his audience about CNN, stating we’d “dutifully removed” the COVID-19 tracking graphic from our coverage now that President Biden has taken office. That is false. We look forward to his correction
01.23.21-IF THIS IS TRUE IT IS ANOTHER COUP ATTEMPT-Trump in early January entertained a plan to replace the acting attorney general with a different Justice Department lawyer who was more amenable to pursuing his unfounded claims of voter fraud, nearly touching off a crisis at the country’s premier federal law enforcement institution, people familiar with the matter said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive matter. The move was first reported by the New York Times. Legal analysts said it amounted to a disastrous attack on the Justice Department’s independence, and perhaps something worse. “Before the insurrectionist assault on the US Capitol, there was an attempted coup at the Justice Dept. — fomented by the President of the United States,” former Justice Department official David Laufman wrote on Twitter.
01.22.21-TYPICAL FOX CRAP-MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough tore into Fox News on Friday, rebuking the widely watched conservative network over two recent segments in particular — one of which he described as “especially sick and damaging.”
The co-host of “Morning Joe” first slammed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for falsely asserting Thursday that President Joe Biden’s team is made of “radicals who believe if they could exterminate the Republicans, that would be one way to get to unity.”
“Let me say that again for Fox News sponsors,” Scarborough said. “They’re getting people who are Fox News contributors, who are saying that Democrats — Joe Biden and Democrats want to, quote, ‘exterminate all Republicans.’”
Scarborough then called out a claim from Tucker Carlson. Earlier this week, Carlson said that the thousands of troops sent to secure Washington ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration (and following the U.S. Capitol riot by pro-Trump supporters incited by the former president) were just a political weapon being used by the Democrats to say, “We’re in charge now.”
“This is sick,” Scarborough said of Carlson’s declaration. “It’s especially sick and damaging. Here we are, what, a couple weeks after an insurrection against the United States of America?”
01.22.21-A NO BRAINER-A national group of lawyers filed an ethics complaint against Rudy Giuliani on Thursday, calling on the state of New York to suspend his law license following the efforts to undermine the 2020 election and spread lies from Trump about widespread voter fraud causing his presidential reelection loss.
01.21.21-SCUM-Hannitty (not as scummy as Tucker Carlson)-called Biden’s speech “forgettable” and akin to that of a high school president’s acceptance speech “from a guy who was desperately craving a nap.” He dismissed Biden’s calls for unity as “hollow” and “total and complete BS” and said he spouted “worn-out, liberal socialist clichés.” But that’s not what really ticked off supporters of the president. It was when Hannity called him “the weak, the frail, the cognitively struggling Biden.” Given how the commander in chief conquered a full day of ceremonies, speeches, signing executive orders and more, those were fighting words. One Twiiter user: "Biden's day began at 6am, ended at 12am. He gave 4 speeches, signed 17 EOs, swore-in 1k workers, walked down PA Ave to the WH, and more."
01.20.21-Syncophant Pence fails to mention Trump in farewell statement.
Dear Ivanka, It’s been horrible having you here. Although you’ve been just a couple of miles down the road, I could always feel your stone cold heart. I look forward to defrosting the ice cold clutch your family has had on my city. Don’t come back! Signed, 93% of DC.
01.19.21-REWRITING HISTORY-Monday the so-called 1776 Commission released its "definitive chronicle of the American founding." The chronicle consists of 20 pages of text and another 26 pages of Appendixes. It contains no footnotes, end notes, or recognizable English grammar. It contains a staggering blizzard of cockamamie conservative talking points and right-wing conjuring words.
01.19.21-‘Sycophant-In-Chief’ Lindsey Graham will double-cross anyone. Falsely claims that "Trump is trying to heal the nation." This, after Footage of Graham blasting Trump as a “jackass,” “kook,” “crazy” and “unfit for office” before the 2016 election is juxtaposed with clips of him later lavishing praise on the president, even calling for him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
01.18.21-DIGUSTING!-Trump’s friends and allies are profiting from wealthy felons who are paying them to lobby the president for pardons, The New York Times revealed in a bombshell report Sunday. The “market” for pardons — which cuts out the poor and those not politically connected — reflects the “access peddling that has defined” Trump’s presidency, as well as his unorthodox use of his clemency powers to reward friends, the Times noted.
01.17.21-KARMA-After losing a book deal and political contributions, Sen. Josh Hawley has now had the rug pulled out from a fundraiser over his support for overturning the results of the presidential election. Loews Hotels said Saturday that it has canceled the event planned for next month at its Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando, Forbes reports. The company tweeted that it was "horrified and opposed to the events at the Capitol." The Missouri Republican stuck to his position when Congress returned to work after the Jan. 6 attack, even as other GOP members dropped their opposition to certifying President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Loews cited the safety of employees and guests in adding that it was canceling the fundraiser "in light of those events."
01.16.21-TRAITORS-THE storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 has brought to the fore a host of activists on the extreme right whose violent rhetoric helped to create the conditions for an assault that left five dead. One of the most prominent of those activists is Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward. On December 19, Ward fired off a tweet urging President Donald Trump to “cross the Rubicon,” referring to the historical event that led to Julius Caesar declaring a dictatorship in ancient Rome. The tweet was shared by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. On January 4, Ward’s Arizona Republican Party retweeted Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the event that culminated in the Capitol siege, who said that he was “willing to give my life for this fight”; the Arizona GOP said, “He is. Are you?” Later that day, the Arizona GOP tweeted, “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”
01.15.21-FUBAR-The White House said it was unlocking a vaccine reserve — but it was reportedly already empty. As officials soon learned, the federal government had stopped stockpiling second dose vaccines weeks ago, they tell the Post. Both first and second doses were instead taken right off the manufacturing line. That meant Azar's announcement reportedly released a stockpile that didn't exist. The U.S. had already reached its maximum distribution capacity, and new doses distributors were expecting next week weren't coming, the Post reports.
01.14.21-Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) ― infamous for his hypocrisy when it comes to Trump ― is no longer the “most ludicrous senator,” according to longtime conservative commentator George Will. That title now belongs to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Will wrote in his latest column for The Washington Post, published Wednesday. Hawley had “seemed certain to be a presidential candidate in 2024” before he “immolated his brief political career” by helping to incite the violent mob of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, Will said.
01.13.21-This is typical-GOP Refuses To Follow New Capitol Safety Rules In Aftermath Of Riot. Several Republican members of Congress threw a fit at the idea of going through metal detectors to keep the Capitol safe after an insurrection.
01.12.21-Trump administration reverses stance, will no longer hold back second shots of coronavirus vaccine. The change comes several days after Biden said he planned to release nearly all available doses to speed protection for more Americans.
01.12.21-Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had a "tense, 30-minute-plus phone call" Monday morning, during which Trump ranted about election fraud and McCarthy cut him off, saying: "Stop it. It's over. The election is over," Axios reported Monday night, citing a White House official and another source familiar with the call. Trump also tried to deflect responsibility for his role in inciting a deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, telling McCarthy "antifa people" were responsible for the violence, Axios reports. McCarthy reportedly shot back: "It's not Antifa, it's MAGA. I know. I was there."
01.11.21-More Bullying-Trump was prepared to "do a number" on outgoing Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) last week on stage during the president's final pre-runoff rally in Georgia, a source familiar with the events told The Washington Free Beacon's Eliana Johnson, per Politico. The implication is that Trump told Loeffler what he said about her on stage was contingent upon whether she backed the Electoral College challenge.
01.09.21-REP. MO BROOKS, R-Ala., one of the most outspoken lawmakers in support of Trump’s false claim that the presidential election was stolen, floated the possibility of violence as a reasonable form of political resistance while speaking on local Alabama talk radio January 7.
01.08.21-Trump tweeted a defense of those who voted for him as he remained publicly silent about the death of a police officer at the hands of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol at his urging. Trump applauded the “great American Patriots” who voted for him, saying Friday “they will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” The tweet comes just 14 hours after Trump released a video condemning Wednesday’s riot, which he long encouraged and then praised.
01.07.21-Trump reportedly spent much of Wednesday "cocooned" at the White House as his supporters stormed the Capitol, and his aides say he has become "mentally unreachable."
01.07.21-The three repulsive architects of Wednesday’s heartbreaking spectacle — mobs desecrating the Republic’s noblest building and preventing the completion of a constitutional process — must be named and forevermore shunned. They are Donald Trump, and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.
Kid glove treatment of pro-Trump mob contrasts with strong-arm police tactics against Black Lives Matter, activists say.
01.06.21-Trump goons unleashed. In July, Trump said Capital racial justice protesters who damage buildings should get 10 years in jail.
01.04.21-BE SCARED!-Op-Ed From 10 Former Secretaries of State Is Scary for What It Doesn’t Say. What it says is bad. You couldn’t get these guys together to sign off on a breakfast order, let alone an op-ed in which they tell the incumbent president* to get stuffed. Unless, of course, one or several of them know something that scares the daylights out of them. And if you start putting the context together—the decapitation of the civilian leadership at the Pentagon in favor of unqualified cronies, the current blustering centered on Iran, the simple fact that Trump is capable of anything—it's easy to concoct scenarios that are halfway between Seven Days In May and Duck Soup. This group did not get together in order to defend some vague love for the constitutional order. Something made them go cold down to their toes.
01.03.21-Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions. The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
01.03.21-More of Trump's Fake News-US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams on Sunday said he has "no reason to doubt" the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Covid-19 death toll, contradicting President Donald Trump's claim that the agency has "exaggerated" its numbers.
01.02.21-Trump promised 20 million vaccines administered by year end. Only 2.8 million. Surprised?
01.01.21-Typical Trump Supporter-Lawyer L. Lin Wood — whose attempts to overturn the 2020 election have repeatedly failed — claimed falsely that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is still alive despite his death in custody. Wood tweeted the Epstein claim Thursday in response to criticism he faced over his tweets falsely saying that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was involved in the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide. Scalia died of natural causes at the age of 79.