The Legacy of a Man Desperate for Relevance

Update: thanks again to Steve In Manhattan for including this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up this morning. Keep on raging.

Lot of crazy political stuff to write about, but this bit of news overnight dominated today's thoughts: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, longtime figure among the Republican leadership, died at the age of 71.

He did not leave behind a good or kind legacy: He attacked immigration policies, tried to end asylum laws, fought to end "sanctuary cities," and committed to other Far Right stances against women and minorities much like any other Republican blowhard.

This was a man who wanted to be the most important person in the room... and never could (via Mark Liebovich, at the Atlantic):

Senator Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly last night, was a pivotal citizen of the Washington conversation. He loved being in the mix, slapping bipartisan backs off camera, and then, when the lights came on, cracking wise, weighing in, and, yes, currying favor with a certain Audience of One.

What could be more fitting, then, for Graham—unable to be a participant on this fateful Sunday morning—to actually become the only thing better: the main topic of the news. He died as he lived...

It is perfectly on the nose that Graham’s departure would occur just a few hours before he was supposed to appear on Meet the Press. It would have been his 64th appearance on America’s longest-running public-affairs program. In the Meet the Press greenroom there used to be a prominent photo of Graham yapping away alongside his Senate sidekick, John McCain. McCain, for his part, appeared 73 times on Meet the Press, more than any other guest in history—something McCain was especially proud of.

In early 2019, a few months after McCain died, Graham joked to me that his main goal in his remaining time on God’s green Earth (or God’s greenroom) was to beat McCain’s record. He never will...

“Try to be relevant,” Graham told me in that same 2019 conversation when I asked how he became such a relentless and essential lapdog to Trump (okay, I didn’t use quite those words). This was an ongoing mystery around Washington, especially given how critical of Trump Graham had been when he (briefly) ran for president against him in 2016...

Graham was always a first-class political shape-shifter, easily darting between the smarty-pants of Official Washington and the bare-knuckled MAGA Populists of South Carolina. This dynamic extended to the on- and off-camera Lindseys: One minute, he would be chumming it up with a Democratic colleague before their “hit,” and then, when the lights came on, he would be breathing partisan fire on behalf of the White House or Trump’s supporters back home...

It is a pity - in some way - that all of that glad-handing and back-patting - and ass-kissing - never really translated into anything substantive, especially considering how trump as president undid every foreign policy objective or ignored every policy suggestion that Graham tried to support.

Anne Applebaum (also at the Atlantic) took note of how Graham identified how dangerous trump could be as president... and accepted him anyways as his lord and master:

When Donald Trump first appeared in U.S. politics, Graham recognized him immediately for what he was: the spokesman for an alien ideology, one radically different from the idealistic patriotism that Graham had practiced and preached since childhood. Trump privately mocked the military that Graham loved as nothing but “suckers and losers.” He put falsehoods, cynicism, and personal greed at the center of his politics, while expressing disdain for transparency, accountability, and democracy itself. In 2015, Graham described Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who should “go to hell.” Also as a “nutjob.”

When Trump won, Graham understood, as did so many others, that he would have to make some important choices. For a while, he went silent. In the spring of 2016, I saw him at one of those conferences in Europe. He seemed too depressed to speak.

But then, like many other Republicans—and, more important, like many other people who have lived under political occupation or experienced radical regime change—he made the decision to abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunistic collaborator. Graham went out of his way to telegraph his closeness to the president. He played golf with Trump, made excuses for him on television, and supported him as he slowly destroyed the alliances that Graham had defended all his life, even as he undermined the institutions of democracy at home. In 2021, Graham refused to vote to convict Trump, even after he assaulted the Capitol and tried to reverse the results of the election...

The simplest thing to say about Lindsey Graham is that he sold his soul to donald trump and he sold it cheap. Whatever morals or personal values he held, he gave it up for access to power and retaining relevancy within a political party that spiraled downward into its own hell of racism, greed, and incompetency. Anything Graham could have stood for got flattened, and he never showed any sign of regret for what he'd lost.

That can be said for any of the Republican leadership that could have chosen integrity over dishonor, that is if any of the aging-out Republican leaders are still alive. We need actual proof of life regarding Mitch, you cowards.

That's Not the Best of Health, Y'all

I normally don't want to watch donald trump gaslighting / bloviating / spewing lies on national television, so I didn't watch this morning's Meet the Press to see this happen (via Laura Esposito at the Daily Beast):

The president, 79, furiously stormed off an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press after journalist Kristen Welker confronted him on his election conspiracies.

Trump began to sour on Welker after she pointed out in the interview that aired Sunday that there’s “no evidence” of rigged elections in the United States.

“Do you have evidence?” she asked after Trump slammed California’s elections as “rigged.”

The president then fired back: “All I have to do is look.”

When Welker replied: “That’s not evidence,” the interview took a turn.

“You’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN one-sided crooked networks. Let’s call it quits, because I’ve had enough,” Trump raged. “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”

Confronted with questions he can't answer, confronted with even the simplest requirement that he present evidence of voter fraud - something he's NEVER been able to do since 2016 or 2020 - trump would rather attack his interviewer - especially when it's a woman - and later claim he "won" the argument even though he fled like a coward.

But that's not the thing that should be troubling today.

If you watch that video clip, as trump tries to get up to flee the scene, he cannot stand upright on his own. he has to put a hand on Welker's shoulder to maintain any balance, and as he shuffles away he's bent over like he's got back pain.

Add to this the reality that trump's had his third "annual" medical checkup in 13 months, trump keeps falling asleep at Oval Office gatherings to where Congress members are questioning Cabinet members about it, and growing rumors about CHF (congestive heart failure) and we're dealing with a clear constitutional crisis that nobody among the Republican ranks wants to deal with.

The moment where IT HAPPENS is coming closer by the minute.

Just a Quick Observation or Five About the Current House Situation

Well, since last I blogged, the situation with the House Republicans have gotten crazier and with 87 percent more schadenfreude, so let's go to the hits:

Jim "Scandals Aplenty" Jordan's second attempt at a floor vote lost him two more supporters, indicating how any further attempts to push him through the caucus will worsen. Realizing that every vote won't make him a martyr - more of a clownish loser - Jordan is now trying to avoid future votes with his name on the ballot. But he might not be able to, since the only thing the House can do right now is hold votes for Speakerships.

Meanwhile, reports got out how the Republican representatives who voted against Jordan - and their families - are getting harassed with texts and phone calls, highlighting the brute-force tactics of the Freedom Caucus and their media followers. Jordan apparently told his backers to stop the bullying, but enough congresscritters are upset about the abusive tactics that they're not going to deal with Jordan at all.

At one point, a suggestion that various Democratic congresspersons made to make the Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry a "temporary Speaker" with enough authority to manage the House to conduct select business got some support from Jordan and other Republicans, but the deal fell through when nobody could be certain how it would work, and enough Democrats became concerned that Jordan would undermine McHenry as "Speaker Designate" (whatever the hell that is) to rule from the shadows.

Stories got out about the in-fighting going on behind closed doors between the more exasperated Republican leaders, especially fun stories about ex-Speaker McCarthy screaming at Matt Gaetz (you know, the moran who started this whole mess) while another congresscritter threatened to punch the shiznit out of Gaetz.

Per a source in the room, McCarthy screamed at Matt Gaetz to sit down when he went to the mics, with the source saying Rep. Bost “almost lunging at him.”

— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) October 19, 2023

Brufke by the by is a Capitol Hill reporter for Axios. 

This is where the popcorn GIFs would be real helpful. Especially with the current reports that McHenry is threatening to quit the Pro Tem job and throw the entire House into chaos.

SCOOP w/@RebeccaRKaplan:

In private meeting, McHENRY said he might RESIGN as speaker pro tem if Rs push him to move legislation without a formal vote to expand his powers, multiple lawmakers in the room said. https://t.co/rBUwe6W12x

— Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) October 19, 2023

Wong reports for NBC, by the by.

There's more reports McCarthy is trying to negotiate for the Speakership again, bolstered by the reality that the Republicans are now embarassed to hell and beyond by this clown show and would desire going back to how it was.

But there is no going back. The wingnuts wanted this breakdown of functional government and now they're going to make the rest of us suffer with them.

This is not going to end until enough Rational members of the House Republicans realize the only way forward is to deal with the Democrats and kick the Freedom Caucus bomb-throwers out of power.

And that's not going to happen because all the House Republicans are cowards, too terrified of their MAGA voting base to make that move.

If there's any joy to be had, it's that trump is facing multiple civil and criminal trials and suffering at each one.

Speaking of... (FORESHADOWING next blog article)

Chaos Agents In the House

Steve Scalise didn't even have one day of pretending he was going to be a Real Boy uh Speaker of the House. Via Lisa Mascaro, Farnoush Amiri, and Stephen Groves with AP News:

Republican Steve Scalise ended his bid to become House speaker late Thursday after hardline holdouts refused to back the party’s nominee, throwing the GOP majority into deeper chaos with the chamber unable to function.

Scalise told GOP colleagues at a closed-door meeting late Thursday of his decision and pointedly declined to announce backing for anyone else, including his chief rival, Rep. Jim Jordan, the hardline Judiciary Committee chairman backed by Donald Trump who had already told colleagues he no longer would seek the job.

Next steps are uncertain as the House is essentially closed while the Republican majority tries to elect a speaker after ousting Kevin McCarthy from the job.

As noted yesterday, Scalise already had enough No votes among Republicans that he wasn't going to clear the 217 total threshold to secure a majority of Representatives.

There wasn't much hope for his Speakership if he had gotten it, as the rules that Vacated McCarthy were still in place and likely in use to get Scalise removed down the line.

What happened here was that the demagogues / bomb-throwers among the extremist factions still wanted to hold Congress hostage to prevent any budget deals or further continuing resolutions that a replacement Speaker would be compelled to support. Instead of rallying to unite their party in a moment of public division, those "Freedom Caucus" / "Gym Jordan Or Bust" congresscritters insisted that either they Rule or they Ruin the rest of the nation. 

There is some schadenfreude to be had here as we watch a political party that's risen to power through partisan bullshit tears itself apart applying that partisan bullshit to themselves. However, there is little joy to savor. This is all happening as the planet faces multiple global crises - not just the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East but also increasing climate change disasters and also economic instability with China - that creates an urgency to fill the Speaker's role so that our government can function and respond to these crises.

Which is exactly what the Freedom Caucus / "Government Is Bad" / pro-Russian / racist-sexist bastards want to prevent. They WANT government to fall so they can build their Utopia on the ashes.

An argument could be made that Jordan's supporters now have no opposition to assume the Speakership nomination for the House Republicans... except for the facts that A) he wasn't their first (or second or even third) choice, B) that he's still wildly unpopular outside of his own faction, C) that the party is fully aware Jordan is covered with fleas scandals, and D) that Jordan can easily be denied the nomination the same way Scalise was by those Congresspersons still loyal to McCarthy or Scalise AND still livid at the naysayers for making them look bad.

If the anti-Jordan (Rationalist) factions decide to roll over/surrender to the bomb-throwers now, they have to realize that Jordan will push for a government shutdown anyway, crippling the nation at a moment we should be working. They have to know they'll regret putting that ignorant demagogue in the high chair sooner instead of later. And they'll have to know that if they surrender now, they'll surrender to even more insane demands by the wingnuts to the point the Rationalists will have no power in their own party.

None of this looks good. The chaos is not going to go away because there are too many GOP wingnuts who profit from that chaos.

That all said: We need to change the animal motifs of our major parties. It's turning out that the Republicans are the party made up of asses.

Who Dares to Be the Next Speaker of the Asylum?

So with the GOP House lunatics having successfully purged their own party's Speaker last week, who would even consider the self-immolation of taking on that hot seat?

For the most part, the Beltway media is seeing it as a two-person contest. Ben Jacobs over at the New York Intelligencer has the weigh-in reports (paywalled): 

Though it will decide who is second in line for the presidency, this week’s battle for the Speaker’s gavel among House Republicans won’t be like a normal election...

Instead, the competition for support among the 224 members of the House Republican conference will play out more like a student-government election. While the final vote on the House floor will take place in full public view like much of the political dysfunction on Capitol Hill has over the past year, the vote to pick the Republican standard-bearer will take place behind closed doors via secret ballot. The candidates are campaigning as much on personal ties as ideology and form coalitions based on far more idiosyncratic factors than the factionalism on display in Washington of late.

The process also will take place with real uncertainty over what the rules will be. Although rules of the House Republican Conference currently require the party’s nominee to be Speaker to receive a simple majority, they can always be changed by a two-thirds vote, and there is the likelihood that they will be changed in order to minimize the chance of a revolt like the one Kevin McCarthy faced in January when he needed 15 ballots to become Speaker.

Here’s an overview of top candidates Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, their unique strengths and weaknesses — as well as the long-shot contenders should everything somehow go haywire.

The Louisiana Republican is a longtime member of House leadership. Scalise, a conservative from the white-flight suburbs of New Orleans, was first elected to be whip, the No. 3 position in the House majority, in 2014 after beating out then-Representative Peter Roskam of Illinois in a ferocious intraparty race. He has since risen to post of majority leader under McCarthy and is hoping to take the next step up the ladder.

...Scalise has since faced a new health challenge with a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. Though he has been undergoing chemotherapy, Scalise has described his ailment as “very treatable” and no obstacle to a leadership bid...

Scalise will benefit from long-standing relationships across the Republican conference and his strong track record as a fundraiser. However, he does not have the best relationship with McCarthy and allies of the former Speaker have reportedly been making calls discouraging Republican members from backing Scalise...

...Infamously branded a “legislative terrorist” by then-Speaker John Boehner, Jordan was one of the ringleaders of the right-wing clique (which eventually became the Freedom Caucus) that constantly stymied Boehner in the nearly half-decade he held the Speaker’s gavel and eventually forced him to step down.

With Trump’s rise to power, Jordan has since transformed himself into a key ally of the former president and was rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the days after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Not only was the Ohio Republican a top defender of Trump around the Russia probe and the first impeachment; he has continued to do so since then overseeing a select committee on “the weaponization of government” and playing a key role in the impeachment inquiry recently opened against Joe Biden...

Prior to serving in Congress, Jordan was a champion wrestler in high school and college, a record that Trump emphasized in his late-night endorsement of the Ohio Republican on Thursday. This fact also comes with some baggage. While Jordan was the assistant coach of the Ohio State wrestling team, a team doctor was sexually abusing members of the team. Jordan has denied knowing of the abuse, while some of those on the team have said he knew...

Neither of major contenders should be viewed as sane or respectable options for the Speakership.

Jim Jordan in particular is a vile piece of work, a grandstanding bomb-thrower whose destructive actions in Congress tended to kneecap his own leadership in a mad pursuit of party purity (or his own rise to power at the expense of everyone else's). He shares a lot of behavior and self-righteousness hypocrisy of Newt Gingrich, but lacking the intelligence and the long-term planning. Jordan is impulsive and reckless, jumping into one manufactured scandal and staged attack on liberals without care to the facts or to the lives he ruins in the process. That Ohio State scandal can well blow wide open if he becomes Speaker and it becomes newsworthy - and enough victims raise a stink in the courts - to compel Jordan out of that office.

It doesn't help Jordan that he's a major player in the January 6th insurrection planning, and he can well be weeks away from a grand jury indictment for his role in that.

With Scalise you're getting a guy from the Southern Conservative brand, which is obsessed with re-establishing Jim Crow rules and ending every civil rights gain from the 1960s. Despite his apologies and disavowals, he's been routinely tied to the Klan and other White Supremacist organizations, and he would definitely push for Culture War objectives that would sink the Far Right rot deeper into our national soil.

That these are the two most prominent figures to challenge for the Speakership now that McCarthy has been cast aside - and considering that McCarthy is offering himself back up as though he's the only sane option in a chaotic moment (again) in spite of the rejection he just suffered - tells you how devoid of genuine leadership the House Republicans are at right now.

If there were any other Rational choices for the Speaker's job, I'm guessing that those candidates are rational enough to understand the job is a death trap. Whatever ambitions and desire for making the history books they may have, they have to see the reality that the current ease of making Motions to Vacate creates weakness for a Republican Speaker. The second that Speaker falls out of favor with a wingnut, WHAMMO they will depart from that seat and the caucus goes right back to choosing another sucker to take the job.

Even an extremist like Jordan will be vulnerable. He could well grant the Far Right / Freedom Caucus / Tea Party / MAGA factions everything they wish, but if they're still not satisfied one of them will Motion and then the vote of No Confidence will happen and that career will be toast. Jordan could well gain the ire of one of the Rational factions saying "to hell with it, I will risk the primarying" and see himself vacated by six to nine of those members voting against him like the wingnuts voted against McCarthy.

It might even be funny to watch. Jordan winning the Speakership, and then a week later he does something blatantly sexist / racist / stupid - or worse, makes an anti-Semitic remark concerning Israel especially given the circumstances - to where the GOP Congresscritters decide to Vacate him and make Jordan's tenure as Speaker shorter than that guy who died from tuberculosis.

It would only add to the chaos, however, if the House Republicans can't decide on a proper Speaker to lead government. Other than the reality that the House Republicans WANT THAT CHAOS because they want to force that government shutdown on Biden and the Dems and make everyone suffer so they can lie to voters about who's really responsible for this mess and lie their way to electoral victory in 2024.

The best option for America is that sanity prevails, that the Far Right agenda of making Congress into an insane asylum get overturned by a number of Rational Republicans bucking the party and caucusing with the Democrats to make Jeffries the Speaker of a plurality House.

But that will never happen. House Republicans are a group of cowards, willing to surrender their pride and responsibility to constituents to let the Far Right Irrational players drive the bus over those cliffs.

This will be a messy week of watching a bad actor get promoted to a high seat of office, and then a messy month of watching that bad actor press for a shutdown at the worst possible time as the world gets engulfed in the madness of war.

The 2024 Republican Dash to Suck Up to MAGA Voters In Case trump Ends Up In Cell Block Six

There's a Republican presidential primary debate tonight and I don't wanna watch. NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE ME WATCH I DON'T WANNA. /pout 

I do, however, feel an obligation to rate and review the idiotic Republican pretenders to trump's dark throne that are placing themselves on the floor tonight for public humiliation. Only because I did this for the Democratic candidates back in 2019 who were running for 2020, and I ought to maintain a balance of sorts.

Much like I said back then, I am tired already of the constant horse-race mentality of mainstream media that has us overwhelmed with all this partisan posturing in public. We need laws in place to force the political parties - and the goddamned hacks who jump out two years early to start fundraising to fill their pockets with millions in campaign cash - to keep these election campaigns to the calendar year the election takes place (January 2nd, not a damn thing happens before then upon pain of permanent blockage from elected or nominated office). It's the only way to keep this goddamned pandering to a goddamned minimum.

Tonight's debate arguably isn't even going to have the biggest draw for the Far Right Republican voting base: trump decided to avoid attending, partly because he doesn't even need to show up to win (his polling lead is that huge) and partly because he's due in Fulton County Georgia tomorrow for his mug shot and arraignment on his FOURTH pending criminal indictments. This slogfest is going to be made up of the second-tier half-dead wannabes who think they have a shot at the nomination should trump actually be in a jail cell by the time the 2024 RNC Convention takes place. As Mark Leibovich at the Atlantic (paywalled) notes, this will be a tedious affair made up of 'listless vessels':

So why should the rest of us bother? Would anyone watch a Mike Tyson fight if Iron Mike wasn’t actually fighting? Or The Sopranos, if Tony skipped the show for a therapy session (with Tucker Carlson)?...

Tonight’s pageant of also-rans must go on too. The Republican National Committee has decreed this kickoff debate to be a landmark event, sanctifying August 23 as a key date in the 2024 cycle. (“Cycle” feels like an especially apt cliché here—events spinning hypnotically in circles.) Never mind that Trump upended the traditional presidential campaign cycle years ago, and that it is now dictated by whatever whim he decides to follow at a given moment. No matter how much thunder Trump steals from this proceeding—by skipping it, counterprogramming it with Tucker, and potentially following it up with a morning-after mug shot—everyone else is still required to treat this spectacle as some big and pivotal showdown.

As such, the media will swarm into town—because this is what we do and what we love (and because datelines impress). The host network, Fox News, will hype the clash—the “Melee in Milwaukee,” or some such. One-liners are being buffed, comebacks polished, and umbrage rehearsed. And no matter how effective certain gambits are deemed to be in practice, the absence of the GOP’s inescapable front-runner will only underscore how impotent the rest of the field has made themselves...

Even so, tonight’s contest will inevitably suffer from two basic structural flaws. The main point, theoretically, of a political debate is to try to persuade voters to support your campaign instead of the other candidates’. But that presupposes a constituency of voters who can be persuaded by hearing a set of facts, or are open to being educated. This, on the whole, is not the audience we have here. A large and determinative and still deeply committed portion of the GOP electorate—the MAGA sector—has been more or less a closed box for seven years now...

The other structural defect involves the likely self-neutering of tonight’s putative gladiators. Ideally, a debate features participants who actually want to win. That generally requires a willingness to attack their biggest adversary, whether he’s participating in the event or not, and especially when he holds a massive lead over them. Other than Kamikaze Christie, whom Republicans will almost certainly not nominate, most of the remaining “challengers” on the stage seem content to play for second place—running mate or 2028...

Seriously, none of these suckers will be trump's running mate: trump reportedly wants a woman Veep candidate to counter Kamala Harris, and most of these candidates already know working for trump will put them in the crosshairs with trump AND the MAGA base should they step out of line to protect their own asses like Pence did on January 6th. Haley, the only woman on-stage tonight, ought to be too smart to volunteer for that shit-job. I also doubt Pence will volunteer a second go-around as a whipping boy. Back to Leibovich:

Whether intentionally or not, DeSantis actually coined something memorable the other day when he chided Trump’s supporters for mindlessly following his every pronouncement—“listless vessels,” he called them. (He later said that he was referring to Trump’s endorsers in Congress, not voters.) This struck me as sneaky eloquence from DeSantis, or whoever wrote the line for him. But again, the phrase carried a strong whiff of projection as DeSantis prepared to lead the real parade of listless vessels to Milwaukee, content to bob along in the wake of the Titanic.

DeSantis has truly been a terrible campaigner, losing financial backers and stunning his few attendees with unsettling, almost-inhuman behavior at his rallies. He's performing much in the same way the flame-outs of 2016 performed, like Scott Walker and Jeb! Bush before him: Lacking any true charisma and unable to generate enthusiasm. The rest of the field has been equally unmemorable save for Christie - whose bullying always delights the punditry - and newbie businessman Vivek Ramaswamy - whose conspiracy-addled gaslighting has made him into this year's Mini-trump.

In the meantime, here's a scorecard of the likely Republican assholes candidates (the highest office currently known, and the state they represent) vying for their party base's vote when the state-by-state primaries do take place. Doing this in alphabetical order because HAHA trump you're in last.

Doug Burgum: Governor, North Dakota

Role as: The Guy Who Bribed Republican Voters Into Donating To His Campaign With Gift Cards So He Could Qualify For This Debate (no, seriously).

Funny thing is, Burgum has to call in sick with a "leg injury" during a basketball pick-up game (???) and may not attend his own political funeral, uh this debate. Otherwise, he'd have to spend most of the evening explaining where North Dakota even IS on the map. Update: Burgum decided to show up after all, so he's not THAT cowardly.

Burgum Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Burgum Can Win It All If: The gift cards he promised to voters in the general election were all $5000.00 per person Actually, that would be illegal. And it's unlikely he'll ever get a general voting population defending the conservative agenda he's pushed at the state level and will threaten to inflict on America.

Chris Christie: Governor, New Jersey

Role as: The Guy Who Claims He Likes Bruce Springsteen (but doesn't seem to understand the lyrics railing against HIM and his fellow greed-heads).

Christie is the one most prepped and pumped for the debate stage if only because it gives him the chance to play out his role as Bully, one of the few things he does well. The last time he primaried in 2016, he was the one who nuked Marco Rubio from orbit and destroyed the Beltway Media's fair-haired alternative to trump. If the audience is tuning in tonight, it's to see how quickly Christie gives the likes of DeSantis an atomic wedgie. 

Christie Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Christie Can Win It All If: He can successfully recall Bruce's lyrics to "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and tearfully recant his un-Boss-like ways. Otherwise, the general voting population is going to reject his bully tactics for the more congenial Biden.

Ron DeSantis: Governor, Florida

Role as: Anti-Woke Thin-Skinned Racist Sexist Disney Villain

DeSantis is the candidate who has done the most damage to his own state in pursuit of MAGA voter support, and the candidate who's done the least to actually get any MAGA voters to flip to him. His ROI is terrible. Any early lead he's had at the beginning of this horse race has dwindled to where a virtual noob like Ramaswamy is neck-and-neck. And Christie's going to be there to pounce and make DeSantis grind his teeth like never before.

DeSantis Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

DeSantis Can Win It All If: Gods help us if he does. DeSantis' behavior governing Florida - the mismanagement masquerading as leadership, the self-destructive micromanaging, the short-sighted mistakes - will all be transferred to the federal level where his governing style of harassing critics and destroying institutions to give his cronies power and leverage will be on a Jacksonian scale. While any of the Republican candidates will be ideological nightmares if they get into the White House, DeSantis is genuinely terrifying in that he will replicate trump's efforts to seize and maintain power no matter what, with a better idea of how to actually succeed at it.

Nikki Haley: Governor, South Carolina

Role as: The Pollyanna Trying to Campaign as Reagan But Messaging Like Ann Coulter

Haley is jumping into this campaign arguably to present a figure who is known for a certain level of competence and savvy, but she's still saddled with a GOP platform that will force her to support incompetence, fearmongering, and tax cut greed. She's also campaigning to a political party that still can't handle any woman in a legitimate leadership role, which is going to force her into some uncomfortable public stances if she can make it to the general election stage.

Haley Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Haley Can Win It All If: She can truly motivate a dying, out-of-power moderate base that she could appeal to. Problem is, there are no true moderates left in the modern Republican Party, and she's not going to rally enough of them to a primary race that's been alienating them since 2008.

Ada Hutchinson: Governor, Arkansas

Role as: The Guy From Arkansas Who's Not as Creepy As Mike Huckabee

Hutchinson is someone who barely made the cut for tonight's debate, which tells you how low in the rankings he's already playing at. While he can appeal to those who like experience in their presidential candidates, Hutchinson doesn't have as great a national profile as the others and will suffer as a result. He's not going to offer anything any different from what Christie, DeSantis, Haley, Burgum, or Scott are going to offer.

Hutchinson Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Hutchinson Can Win It All If: Somewhere between winning the GOP primary (or the emergency RNC vote) and the November general election he can somehow gaslight his way past the anti-abortion, racism, tax-cut deregulatory bullsh-t he's been selling as both governor and primary candidate.

Robert Kennedy Jr: Democratic Asshole, New York

Role as: Conspiracy-driven Anti-Vax Trojan Horse sent by Republicans to undermine Biden's incumbency run

I know Kennedy's running as a Democrat and he's not on tonight's debate list, but if you're getting most of your campaign funding from REPUBLICAN backers then goddamn you: You're running as a Republican. Go to hell, Junior.

Mike Pence: Vice President, Indiana

Role as: The Scapegoat who can't admit he got suckered and victimized by trump 

Pence is either genuinely clueless that most of the Republican voting base views him as a traitor for failing to cheat the Electoral count for trump back on January 6th, or he's running to validate his own self-worth convinced he's the true future of the Republican party once trump is behind bars. Either way, Pence has no true charisma that appeals at a national level: Another Scott Walker leading himself to primary humiliation.

Pence Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. Seriously, if this emergency vote happens, Pence is one of the few party leaders with any backroom power to get the party to risk it all on him (if the leadership convince themselves the betrayed MAGA base will change their minds).

Pence Can Win It All If: This is one of the most unlikely things even if Pence navigates his way to the top of the GOP ticket. As mentioned before, Pence is a laughing stock to the voting public at large, and either has to carry the baggage of being associated with trump's ill-run presidency or coping with an angry MAGA voting base that will refuse to turn up next November.

Vivak Ramaswamy: Businessman, Ohio

Role as: The Next CEO Galtian Asshole Who Thinks He Can Run Government Like a Business

Ramaswamy is coming from a proud Republican tradition of at least one financial figure - Forbes, Cain, Foriana, in some respects Dubya and Mitt - jumping into the primary race thinking he's reinvented the wheel when it comes to governance. Instead, he's shilling the same deregulatory tax-cutting damage as before campaigning on a top-down Unitary Executive agenda to turn the White House into a dictatorship (gee, we've heard that before), while making a hard case of going "anti-woke" in ways that make DeSantis look like he's mumbling.  

Ramaswamy Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. Or if he can sway the MAGA base with his 9/11 Truther, anti-abortion, racist, sexist, fearmongering messaging to back him before the party leaders can choose among their own.

Ramaswamy Can Win It All If: he can make voters look past the reality he's a first-generation son of immigrants bashing the very system of multicultural that allowed him to become a businessman and presidential candidate in the first place. The scary thing is that his rise in the polls this cycle mimics the similar rise that trump enjoyed in the 2016 primaries: Meaning if trump is truly eliminated from the ballot due to a slight case of JAIL, Vivak could replace him among MAGA voters willing to look past his ethnicity and embrace his conspiracy-driven gaslighting.

Tim Scott: Senator, South Carolina

Role as: The Anti-Obama Beard

Arguably one of the few candidates on the stage tonight who actually HAS a political career of some success (and none of the baggage that Christie has), Scott is most often the GOP figurehead that the racists in their ranks point to and say "Look, we vote for him, clearly we're not racist!" even though Scott parrots many of the same anti-affirmative action talking points and supports many of the same social conservative issues that most voting Blacks don't.

Scott Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. If Pence doesn't appeal to the backroom party bosses looking to replace a convicted trump, Scott is the next most likely who will.

Scott Can Win It All If: Scott can actually appeal to general voters in spite of his conservative bona fides. In my humble but ill-informed opinion, he might actually be the one candidate who could give Biden some trouble in the general election on matters of race relations. Scott will have problems appealing to voters if abortion is the major topic, and he is going to get stuck defending a GOP platform that will be racist towards immigrants and sexist towards women.

Donald Trump: Indicted Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice), Ugh do I HAVE to List Him as Florida

Role as: The Eternal Shitgibbon. If you prefer, The Guy On Four (AND COUNTING) Criminal Trials Involving His Misconduct in Both Business And the Presidency

Trump Can Win the Party Nomination If: Gods help us, he's already polling in the lead, and there is still solid evidence that Republicans will vote for a convicted trump. However, if trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024, the Party has every reason to hold an emergency vote to field a replacement choice.

Trump Can Win It All If: he cheats. Again. If he can get the Russians to meddle like he did in 2016, if he can get the FBI to spring another October Surprise like Comey did on Hillary weeks before the general election, if he can get Red state legislatures in states voting for Biden to nullify the Electoral count like he wanted to in 2020, if he can get a Republican-controlled branch of Congress to refuse a Biden Electoral win... Then it's chaos. And trump is ALL ABOUT THE GODDAMN CHAOS.

Among these choices, I dare not make a recommendation. My track record predicting these things have been horrendous: Backing Edwards in 2008 (before knowing his adultery), Backing Harris (and then Warren) over Biden in 2020), Thinking Romney had the nomination in 2008 (instead of McCain, whom I did favor but didn't think would win primaries), Thinking Walker had it sewn up in 2016 (he didn't even make it through the 2015 debates).

If I can say anything, it's that above all DO NOT VOTE trump. He's not worth it. He's going to get convicted one way or another and it will - fairly - drag the rest of the Republican ticket down with him. In general, I've been screaming to NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN at all for decades now, but you've seen how little influence I've had there (grrr).

In the meantime, don't watch any of the debates. They're boring and dull and the highlight reel on YouTube easier to digest. Gnight, krewe.

P.S. Cmon Tampa Bay Rays reclaim the AL East lead into the postseason!!!

All Of This Could Have Been Avoided

All of this could have been avoided if the right people in the positions of power made the honest, honorable decisions.

This all could have been avoided if enough Republican voters recognized they were offered a choice to support and defend a known business fraud and unrepentant liar like donald trump, and said No.

This all could have been avoided if enough Republican Party leaders - the elected Senators, Congressperons, Governors, esteemed elders, deep-pocket funders - admitted the trap that donald trump put them in back in 2016, when he threatened to run a third party vanity campaign that could have split Far Right voters and guaranteed a Hillary Clinton victory, and decided that Hillary was the devil they could deal with instead of trump.

This all could have been avoided if that Republican leadership admitted to themselves their Culture War bullshit that they've fed to their voter base - the racism, the sexism, the rage towards immigrants, the violence towards those they deemed Other - created a toxic situation where sensible, practical conservative leadership (yes, that can exist) was untenable, and washed themselves clean of that destructive dogma in order to deny trump his racist/sexist platform.

This all could have been avoided if the political parties - not just the Republicans but also the Democrats and Libertarians and Greens and other parties out there - set for themselves ethical standards for their Presidential candidates to swear to before allowing them to campaign. If they had a screening process where the candidate had to release all their tax returns to public review for the past 20 years, where the candidate had to sell all properties and businesses that would violate the Emoluments Clause before a single primary vote took place, where the candidate had to accept the legitimate results of any vote if they lost. Any single one of those requirements would have stopped trump before he could even start a fake fundraiser for himself.

This all could have been avoided if the Republicans gave up their fetish / worship of business leaders as potential Presidents. The idiotic belief that "Government can be run like a business," which is false as the objectives of a government - uphold laws and serve the public trust - goes against the objectives of a business - to sell products/services and build a profit. That false belief helped trump bluff his way onto the political stage even as a failed businessman.

This all could have been avoided if our American legal system took financial fraud and other white collar crimes more serious. There had been reports and allegations of trump committing money laundering well back into the 1980s. His near-constant appearances in bankruptcy court should have triggered red flags to federal investigators that trump was committing some kind of fraud with all his property developments and failed marketing schemes. There should have been greater effort to track down all the lawsuits and settlements that followed trump everywhere as he bilked and bullied other companies and contractors out of their fair earnings. Instead of going after trump on his fraudulent tax filings today, the district and federal prosecutors should have been doing all this back (1980s) before trump even threatened (1990s) to make a political run.

This all could have been avoided if all the allegations since the 1990s of sexual assault and misconduct trump inflicted towards women were taken more serious. trump should have been a confirmed sex offender well before 2016, and it would have made a reasonable excuse then for the Republican Party to deny him a spot.

This all could have been avoided if enough Americans said "Enough" and denied donald trump even the opportunity to scam and grift us. If enough of us set aside partisan bias - both conservative and liberal - and just recognize the lump of inhuman soulless flesh that trump really is.

Gods help us. This all could have been avoided.

When the Cougar-Eating-People's-Faces Party Starts Eating Their Own

There is an article by Jonathan Chait at New York's Intelligencer, it is behind a paywall, but it is considered already one of the best insights into the self-destruction of the House Republicans as they repeatedly vote (and fail) on the Speakership well into the third day: 

Reporters attempting to discern the conflict have taken to describing the competing factions as “conservatives” (the far-right members opposed to Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker of the House) and “moderates” (the much larger faction of Republicans loyal to him). But these labels do very little to clarify the strange mania devouring the House Republican caucus. If you define conservative in traditional terms — meaning loyal to the conservative movement of Goldwater and Reagan and opposed, in principle, to any new taxation or social-welfare benefits — the entire Republican caucus is composed of conservatives. McCarthy’s loyalists aren’t moderates and don’t describe themselves as such.

Indeed, the division has barely any real ideological content at all. What Republicans are fighting over is whether to accept the limits of sharing power.

One of the key differences between the two major parties is that Democrats accept the reality that their agenda is not going to move forward when the opposing party occupies the White House. Democratic partisans might grow angry at their leaders for failing to stop it, but members of Congress generally understand that there are limits to the power of the opposition, and even the most unrealistic Democratic rank-and-file voters don’t expect their leaders to actively advance liberal policy in the face of a Republican president. Progressive Democrats wanted to defend Obamacare from Donald Trump’s repeal attempt. They weren’t demanding that Nancy Pelosi somehow force Trump to enact Medicare for All.

Republican voters, by contrast, expect and demand that the conservative agenda be advanced even — perhaps especially — under Democratic presidents. The Republican caucus is routinely gripped by frenzied efforts to compel Democratic presidents to roll back the welfare state. Newt Gingrich shut down the government to pressure Bill Clinton to sign a capital-gains tax cut and reductions to Medicaid and Medicare. Republicans used both shutdowns and the debt ceiling to try to blackmail Barack Obama into repealing his signature health-care plan...

Do note that in 2017 when Republicans had enough control to repeal Obamacare, they fought amongst themselves so viciously that in the end they couldn't agree to any replacement for it, and the whole effort collapsed on itself. The only thing the Republicans could do was the one thing they all agreed on: massive tax cuts for the rich.

Half the reason why Republicans want Democrats to do their dirty work for them is because in some respects they know they're too incompetent to do it properly. The other half of the reason is that Republicans are sadistic freaks looking to force Democrats to kill their own ideals. It drives Republicans crazy when Democrats refuse to break themselves, and it makes the Far Right believe they need to become even crazier about "Owning The Libs" when there are better things they can do with their time. Back to Chait:

This is why Democrats tend to splinter when they hold power but unify in opposition while the reverse holds true for Republicans. Democratic demands expand when the party holds full control of government and contract in opposition. Republican aspirations paradoxically become more grandiose during Democratic presidencies, which draw Republican minds deeper into the fever swamps of hysteria, making them more insistent on demands for maximal confrontation. These demands are inevitably impossible, causing Republicans to turn, again and again, against their own leaders...

Because this anger has no productive channel, it returns again and again in the form of internal recriminations. The House caucus during Democratic presidencies for the last quarter-century has been an endless procession of coup attempts. Gingrich was deposed for failing in his holy mission of forcing Clinton to slash government. John Boehner and Paul Ryan were driven into retirement. The House Republican caucus will be a cauldron of rage, because the party, at its core, does not believe it should be forced to share power...

What the Freedom Caucus is doing right now - the three straight days of foiled voting for McCarthy to the Speakership - is for multiple reasons. Above all, the insurgents genuinely do not trust McCarthy as he is the Establishment figure they fear would compromise with Liberal Dems on any issue. They are 20 nihilists in the face of 200 other Republicans who actually do want government to work (because it would help their rich business allies the most). The Freedom Caucus wants to squeeze every last bit of power - with none of the accountability - they can get from McCarthy and the other Republicans so that the Freedom Caucus holds all veto power to punish everyone - even the eventual Speaker - for infidelity to the Far Right dogma. 

One more reason they're doing this: This vote standoff is preventing the US House from doing anything else. They are delaying their rules getting voted on, they are delaying committee assignments, they are delaying any legislation getting passed quickly to the floor to send to the Senate and thence to the White House for signing. The Freedom Caucus is getting the government shutdown of their dreams, and they barely have to lift any finger to do so.

The terrifying thing is that this was the perfect year for the extremists to hold the entire House hostage. If the Republicans HAD won the midterms with a massive Red Wave takeover - with 30 or more seats as projected - the overwhelming number of Republicans would have crossed the 218 threshold for McCarthy to win without conceding a thing to his haters. Because the Republicans hold a meager 5-seat advantage, there are enough Far Right wingnuts willing and able to block McCarthy from winning outright.

This is now a purity test by the Freedom Caucus on the rest of the House Republicans. If McCarthy tries to break the impasse by making a deal with Democrats to let him win - either by supporting him or by voting "Present" to lower the 218 threshold - the Far Right MAGA voting base will crucify him and primary his ass in 2024. If any other Republicans break the deadlock by voting "Present" to let the Democratic leader Jeffries win a plurality count, those Republicans will be the ones crucified and ousted in 2024 primaries as well. There aren't enough promises McCarthy can make to flip enough wingnuts, so that's not an option. The only other end is for McCarthy to drop out and let another - someone only the Freedom Caucus can trust to be their puppet - more extremist candidate win, with the implied threat to "moderate" Republicans not to oppose.

There is an option out: There are at least 14 Republican representatives who come from districts that voted for Biden instead of trump. Several of their districts went for Biden by double digits, to where if they did flip first to the Democratic party they would avoid the threat of 2024 primary removal and win over enough Democratic voters to stay in office. That would shift majority control to the Democrats, letting Jeffries win the Speaker spot, and negate everything the Freedom Caucus is trying to impose.

The Freedom Caucus - and their media allies, when they wake up from sleeping through the intraparty fighting - will raise holy hell if that happens, and those congresspeople will be under severe harassment by MAGA voters declaring them traitors to America the party. But it will break the deadlock.

It will also break the Republican Party, with a fracturing that would spread not only to the Senate but to the state legislatures and to the lobbyist SuperPACs forced to take sides.

It all depends on if there's enough Republicans sitting on the Centrist/Moderate fence to grow a collective spine and make a move against the wingnuts. This is a fight that has been long in the making, ever since the 1990s Culture War shifting of the GOP to further conservative extremism. 

This is going to depend on who rusts first.

The Undignified Surrender of Hollow Republicans

Oft times, I share a big read from another's online article because of how good and impactful that article is.

This time, I'm pointing y'all if you haven't read it already to Mark Leibovich's article in The Atlantic titled "The Most Pathetic Men In America." The introductory artwork to the article ought to clue you right away to whom he's accusing (it is paywalled): 

I will admit I never loved the Trump story. This sometimes surprises people. I have been covering Washington for many years; I’ve been accused of being a “keen observer” of the capital. Surely, I must have been thrilled to have such a ridiculous piece of work at the center of it all, right?

Well, no. I never found Donald Trump to be remotely captivating as a stand-alone figure. He’d been around forever and his political act was largely derivative. His promise to “drain the swamp” was treated as some genius coinage, though in fact the platitude had been worn out for decades by both parties. Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” in 2006, just as the Reagan-Bush campaign had vowed to “Make America Great Again” in 1980.

Trump said and did obviously awful and dangerous things—racist and cruel and achingly dumb and downright evil things. But on top of that, he is a uniquely tiresome individual, easily the sorest loser, the most prodigious liar, and the most interminable victim ever to occupy the White House. He is, quite possibly, the biggest crybaby ever to toddle across history’s stage, from his inaugural-crowd hemorrhage on day one right down to his bitter, ketchup-flinging end. Seriously, what public figure in the history of the world comes close? I’m genuinely asking...

Better objects of our scrutiny—and far more compelling to me—are the slavishly devoted Republicans whom Trump drew to his side. It’s been said before, but can never be emphasized enough: Without the complicity of the Republican Party, Donald Trump would be just a glorified geriatric Fox-watching golfer. I’ve interviewed scores of these collaborators, trying to understand why they did what they did and how they could live with it. These were the McCarthys and the Grahams and all the other busy parasitic suck-ups who made the Trump era work for them, who humored and indulged him all the way down to the last, exhausted strains of American democracy...

It's been noted elsewhere and here at this blog that trump simply wouldn't have gotten as far as he had if only the Republican Party leadership had enough spine and enough self-respect to kick him to the curb before the first round of 2016 primaries took place. They could have arguably denied him a spot on the ballot on ethical concerns alone (not just his failed businesses - he was facing fraud charges over his "Trump University" when the primaries began! - but also ongoing complaints of sexual misconduct), his refusal to accept certain guidelines and requirements demanded of other candidates, anything.

But the GOP failed to stop him. They feared trump's threat to run an independent campaign much like Ross Perot in 1992 would split the Far Right vote and guarantee a Hillary Clinton win. trump had them in a terrible Catch-22. The Republicans dreaded trump's corruption but outright hated the possibility Hillary could become President: Not out of any fear Hillary would wreck the nation, but that Hillary out of basic competence would prove that all the hathos and fearmongering about her was a big lie. 

So the Republicans let trump play. Worse, the party leadership indulged trump in 2016, allowing him to bully his way across the debate stages and drag the Republican brand into a toxic mud pit of open racism and ignorance.

But back to Leibovich:

What would you do to stay relevant? That’s always been a definitional question for D.C.’s prime movers, especially the super-thirsty likes of McCarthy and Graham. If they’d never stooped this low before, maybe it’s just because no one ever asked them to...

Early on, when wary Republicans were still publicly dreading where the Trump experiment might lead, you’d hear flashes of concern over how it—or they—might be adjudicated by those ever-hovering future historians. As his own presidential campaign was ending in 2016, Marco Rubio predicted that there would one day be a “reckoning” inside the GOP. “You mark my words, there will be prominent people in American politics who will spend years explaining to people how they fell into this,” Rubio told The New York Times (Update: Rubio cleaned up his act, became a stalwart Trump patron, and we’re still waiting on that reckoning.)...

Two decades on and many rungs up the org chart, McCarthy can be sensitive to perceptions that he is a lightweight whose career trajectory is owed purely to his Olympian brownnosing and backslapping capabilities. “I like that reputation,” McCarthy claimed to me, not persuasively, “because it helps people underestimate me.” McCarthy had come close to becoming speaker before, in 2015, but a Benghazi-related gaffe knocked him out of the running. Now the ultimate job is again within reach. Blinders on. Legacies are for losers. McCarthy learned from the master.

“My legacy doesn’t matter,” Trump told his longtime aide Hope Hicks a few days after the 2020 election, according to an account in Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. “If I lose, that will be my legacy.” This became the essential ethos of Republican nihilism. By lashing themselves so tightly to Trump, Republicans could act as if the president’s impunity and shamelessness extended to them. His strut of cavalier disregard became their own...

trump not only bought the souls of most leading Republicans who all proved to be hollow ambitious vessels, he bought them cheap.

trump defeated the Republican Party when he became so openly racist and sexist that the Far Right voter base rallied to him like no other, compelling these ambitious hollow Republican officials to bend the knee to their own mobs. It's been said before: trump gave the Far Right base license to be rude, violent, and racist, and they will worship him forever for it.

And that Far Right base will go to war for trump because there's nothing left to Republican ideology but cruelty, greed, and power.

Read all of Leibovich's article (again, paywalled), to see in full just how far gone the Republicans have fallen.

And then for the LOVE OF GOD never vote Republican again.

What To Say About Afghanistan In the Aftermath

Me, I'm just a lowly blogger with no direct military, national intelligence, or foreign policy creds.

But I read a number of people on the Intertubes who ARE well-credentialed, and sometimes it's best to just link straight to them to get an idea of 1) what might have happened that led to Afghanistan's government swift fall to the Taliban, and 2) who's accountable for what happened in Afghanistan.

I've quote Adam L. Silverman here before, with his intel analysis and experience that he posts at Balloon Juice, and here he is going into detail about what led up to this past weekend's collapse:

...The agreement negotiated by Ambassador Khalilzad, the Special Representative for Afghan Reconstruction working under the direction of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the direct orders of then President Trump makes the Treaty of Versailles look like strategic genius.

The abject surrender is in part one and sections 2 and 3 of part 3. Part 2, which is the Taliban’s responsibilities as a result of the agreement, are not enforceable by the US once the US and its Coalition allies complete the withdrawal from Afghanistan and because of what the US agreed to in part 1: to never again threaten to use force, use force, or interfere in any way in Afghanistan.

What did the US agree to:

1. Release of Taliban prisoners,

2. Lifting of all sanctions,

3. Complete withdrawal from Afghanistan,

4. To never again threaten to use force, use force, or interfere in any way in Afghanistan

5. To seek positive relations with the Taliban

6. To establish economic reconciliation with the new post occupation Islamic government of Afghanistan...

Essentially, the great deal-maker donald trump traded away an entire pro football roster for the sake of getting a Third Round draft pick to snag the best-available college punter. 

Back to Silverman, who noted that the Afghan President Ghani issued a stand-down order that basically made the nation's military surrender, and also noted strong evidence that the manpower of the Afghan military and police were overstated with no-shows and payroll grifts:

We have four documentable, verifiable reasons for why the Taliban were able to so quickly and easily retake Afghanistan and not a single one of them was the result of something the Biden administration did...

Which leads to the second part of what we need to discuss, and I'd like to link to Stonekettle - whose bio has him with an extensive military background - at his blog Stonekettle Station to quote a few words from his article "Bitter Pill" (you should follow the link to read the article in full. It is bitter and brutal and honest and factual about all the follies our nation's done from Vietnam to now in the name of war):

The ragged American forces left in-country are in full retreat, falling back and back to the airplanes that will maybe get them out of the carnage. No time to destroy their equipment. No time to destroy classified materials. No time to save our allies. No time left but to run. And it's the fall of Saigon all over again. All it needs is a sad Billy Joel ballad and some helicopters being pushed into the sea on the Six-O-Clock news. If Joel was still writing ballads and we still had such a thing as the evening news anyway. 

And it's all Joe Biden's fault.

Yes it is. 

But that's not surprising, is it?

No, that's not surprising at all. 

Because that was the plan...

It enraged Trump that the military experts and the diplomats wouldn't kiss his ass like the rest of his cabinet. Wouldn't do what he wanted, just get out of Afghanistan, quit the war and bring the troops home. You're so smart, Sir! So handsome and brilliant! 

No, instead the military experts told Trump what would happen if we just pulled out. They told him how it would go, just like it's going right now. He didn't care ...until his handlers, Bannon, Miller, maybe Ivanka, told him how it would look. 

It would be a disaster, it would be Saigon, and it would be all on him.

He couldn't keep his promise. 

Now, all presidents learn this. 

All presidents discover pretty quickly that they aren't going to be able to keep their campaign promises. 

It happened to Obama. He promised to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He couldn't. Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, wouldn't let him. He had to eat it and he did. Obama learned, like the presidents before him, that the political realities of the office are vastly different when you're actually sitting behind the Resolute Desk. 

But not Trump...

But then, Trump lost the election.

Joe Biden won.

Trump lost the White House and Republicans lost the Senate. 

And that's when Donald Trump could finally make good on his promise. 

As soon as it became certain that he would have to leave office, Trump ordered American forces out of Afghanistan. Trump and Pompeo invited the Taliban to Camp David -- not the actual government of Afghanistan and our alleged allies, but the Taliban. And he turned thousands of Taliban prisoners loose, one of which is now the de facto president of Afghanistan...

And now, Joe Biden owns this disaster. 

Because that's how it works. 

I didn't say it was right. I didn't say it was fair, because it most assuredly is not.  I said that's how it is. That's how public perception and politics work. The buck stops at the Resolute Desk and America will remember this as Joe Biden's disaster. 

Trump, with the support of the most radical elements of the Republican party, finally made good on his promise and left Joe Biden holding the bag. 

That was the plan...

If everyone in the mainstream media is mad at Biden (and a lot of them are), that's by their own design. Many pundits do not care for the history or causes of why our foreign invasions/occupations seem to collapse upon themselves, they only care to defend their own world-views ("Here's how I'm right and everyone else is wrong") and place blame on those leaders who fail in their (flawed and partisan) judgment.

If the Republicans are mad at Biden - and that's a fucking given thanks to their decades-long partisan rancor and obstructionism - it's a means to deflect the blame for Afghanistan's failures away from the bastards and warhawks who drove us into that nation in the first place after 9/11: The Republicans don't want the pundits or historians to remember that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld sent in our armed forces without a realistic Exit Strategy; and then fucked up the end game even more by dividing our focus and military strength into a needless occupation of Iraq.

The Republicans are desperate to blame anyone else in order to avoid the blame they truly deserve.

And so here's Joe Biden, who has been tossed this hot potato, this live grenade of an ongoing Afghanistan occupation for the United States closing in on twenty goddamned years, all because NOBODY ELSE sitting in the White House - Bush the Lesser, Obama, trump - wanted to fall on that grenade and end the war, because they all knew it would end like Vietnam with the local bad guys in control and American prestige in tatters (although thanks to that prolonged indecision, our prestige already suffered).

And yet Biden has the courage to fall on that grenade. We ought to recognize that.

In Biden's own words, he did not want to pass this burden onto another generation of men and women in a military already fatigued by decades of fighting. In other moments he's quoted saying "I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take that criticism than pass this on to a fifth president," said Biden. “I am the president of the United States, the buck stops with me."

With that, Biden defers to Harry S Truman, a President who made hard choices and stuck by them, even as the public opinion soured and when history proved he made the best possible moves.

These are the things we need to remember when we talk now about Afghanistan.

We also need to act and do what our nation can do to provide sanctuary for the thousands of Afghani civilians and government officials who aided the United States in their desire to rebuild a nation that is no longer safe for them.

The Occupation of Afghanistan is over. The fight to save people is still ongoing.

House Hearing on trump's Insurrection Begins

After all the drama of the Republicans playing "Chicken" with the committee process, and Pelosi telling McCarthy and his trumpian lackeys to get bent, we're finally getting some public hearings on what happened on January 6:

The select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is holding its first meeting Tuesday. Four police officers are giving testimony about the physical and verbal assaults they faced responding the the riot that day.

The four officers — Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell of the Capitol Police, and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Metropolitan Police — each gave opening statements and are answering questions from committee members.

Gonell recounted the events of that day and the impact it has had on law enforcement officers: "For most people, Jan. 6 happened for a few hours," he said. "But for those of us who were in the thick of it, it has not ended..."

NPR should provide live links to the hearings, as well as other websites.

As I wrote earlier about the need for hearings:

It's that kind of evidence that if confirmed by committee would establish trump's refusal at the very least to take the riot seriously, which could lead to charges of negligence on the then-President Loser of the Popular Vote (especially from Capitol Police who survived that day and the family members of those who died). Any additional evidence confirming how trump egged that mob into action against Congress could lead to charges of insurrection...

These are things the Republican leadership do not want happening, because trump still has his mob at his beck and call and if becomes clear he's getting handcuffed over this he will incite that mob again, and again against fellow Republicans who won't bow to him...

The committee only would have the merit of documenting the atrocities for the public who still need to know what happened... and for future history, as long as it aids rather than blocks the ongoing criminal investigations that have already arrested a sizable number of rioters... and the committee can add to the already-overwhelming proof that insurrection happened. It all becomes a question of if (sadly not when) the people truly responsible for the violence that day (trump trump and more trump) gets held accountable...

trump and his Republican allies would rather whitewash and ignore the violent events of that day, because it clashes with their Grand Narrative of libruls and minorities as the violent rioters. trump would rather pretend it was all fun and games, while giving enough freedom to his brownshirt army of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to prepare for the next round of violence he'll want to commit to keep his own corrupt ass out of a New York jail cell.

This committee - with any luck - will remind the majority of Americans of how craven and desperate and violent trump's own side has been, and how trump and his people threaten to get worse.

We shouldn't be watching these hearings for entertainment, everybody.

We should be watching these hearings to find out how we fight back.

 

They're Taking an Awful Big Risk

The Republicans are doubling down on trump, as they push trump's Big Lie of the 2020 election being "stolen" and as they exile any Republican official who dares defy that Narrative.

But is that really a good idea?

Consider:

• There has been no evidence that trump aided Republicans in mid-terms or off-cycle elections in 2018 - he kind of broke even, and overall the Republicans lost control of the House - to where he would be of any help this upcoming 2022 cycle. As the electorate overall tracks further Left into the near future, there's no sign being all-in on trump will be a boon. If all trump has to bring to a rally are his grievances and Big Lie bullshit, it'll be easy service to the trump faithful but not a damn bit of good winning over other voters who'll have the same reasons they had in 2020 to side with the Democrats. The only thing the Republicans will have an advantage in this situation are their voter suppression laws... which may backfire and suppress too many Republican voters instead.
• trump is facing a number of civil court cases (there's so many there's a dedicated Wiki page for them) - he's currently (May 2021) facing three sexual harassment and defamation lawsuits that may see him compelled to give testimony on the stand, and a number of contractual fraud cases involving the trump Corporation - as well as a number of criminal investigations involving state-level tax fraud (New York) and election interference (Georgia) that could well see him on trial by 2022 and in jail by 2024.
• There's still the ongoing legal matter of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking empire with serious ties to trump and a number of trump allies.
• trump is facing legal scrutiny and possible conspiracy charges involving the January 6 Insurrection. As the Justice Dept. and FBI are rounding up more of the trump-led rioters and presenting evidence of conspiring between the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other pro-trump groups - follow Emptywheel for more info on all that - there's more and more evidence of trump's closest handlers - hi, Roger Stone! Hi, Michael Flynn! - involved in the planning and staging, increasing the odds the prosecutors can establish links to trump himself. There are good odds trump may not be available to help Republicans if he's tied up with all these legal matters, especially if even one of these cases ends up with him behind bars. Granted, trump has survived avoiding any serious legal punishment in the many years of court cases and bankruptcies and harassment accusations, but he's running out of favors and legal protectors and any cover he once had. trump's facing serious cases now, and his lawyers are running out of tricks.
• Speaking of running out of tricks, trump is also running out of allies. All of the legal nightmares affecting trump are also affecting his inner circle. Who is going to help trump in 2024 if Roger Stone is out of the picture on his current legal battles over back taxes, Steve Bannon is facing a fraud case this year, and Rudy Giuliani under investigation for shenanigans in Ukraine and here at home. There's still Michael Flynn, but he's a serious liability and will be under tight scrutiny if he ever shows up running anything on a future trump campaign.
• For all of trump's bragging about how popular he is, the facts are he's one of the least popular political figures of the last 20-30 years, and both elections - 2016 and 2020 - he LOST the popular vote (by 3 million to Hillary and 6 million to Biden). He only won in 2016 due to the failings of the Electoral College. If trump were going to run again in 2024 - which he could, and like 2016 he'll mow down any opposition in the primaries because his ONLY popularity is with the rabid Far Right base of the GOP - he's going to try something that hasn't happened since Grover Cleveland ran three times and won two separate terms. And Cleveland got away with it because HE was more popular than his opponents all three times: he lost the Electoral College in 1888, in reverse to how trump pulled it off in 2016. There is no sane way trump could pull his EC flip if he's facing the overwhelmingly popular Biden again in 2024.
• One last thing: trump is old and getting older. Yes, he's actually a few years (74) younger than President Biden (78) now, but trump is not in the best of shape, never had been. There still hasn't been a satisfactory answer about his unscheduled visit to Walter Reed in 2019, fueling speculation he's had "mini-strokes" or at least a heart attack. By 2024, trump will be 78, and he's doing nothing as of now to cut back on a lot of his bad habits. By all signs, Biden's doing a better job taking care of himself if he's looking at re-election when he's 82.

Any one of these things under normal political conditions would be a death-knell for the political candidate. Then again, trump has made it a habit of defying the norms and the many ways of crashing due to political gravity.

But the odds can't keep favoring him. trump is too toxic and prone to self-destruction: we've seen that already.

For the Republicans to keep their faith in such a toxic person highlights their party's own toxic nature. This is how far they've sunk. For the Republican Party since 2015 and well into the 2020s, it's been and it's going to be nothing but trumps all the way down. 

The Big Lie And the One Truth (w/ Update)

(Update: Many thanks again to Batocchio for adding me to Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Round Up! As always, you're invited to leave a comment and visit the rest of the blog. Today (Wed. May 12) is looking like it's going to be an insane day...)

So the Republican downward spiral seems to be gaining speed. Via Zach Beauchamp at Vox: 

Remaining in the GOP’s good graces requires that elected officials either actively embrace lies about 2020 or, at very least, refuse to condemn them. As a result, 2020 conspiracy theories are exerting a dominant influence on the party — shaping both legislation and the base’s worldview...

From top to bottom, the GOP has been conquered by the Big Lie (note: trump claiming the 2020 results were stolen and that he won both the Popular Vote and the Electoral College). Much as North Korean state press proclaims that Kim Jong Il invented the hamburger, Republicans must now proclaim that was something fishy about Joe Biden’s victory...

Trump’s pronouncements, endorsed and spread by a number of prominent Republicans, radicalize the base — undermining faith in democracy itself. Republicans inclined to challenge this view realize they’re out of step with the party and mostly stay quiet; those that do speak up publicly, like Cheney or Raffensperger, get marginalized or stripped of their power. This weakens the constituency to challenge any future lies from Trump and other like-minded Republicans.

It’s a one-way ratchet, where a faction of the GOP elite led by Trump pushes the party further and further down an anti-democratic road. And there’s no obvious way to stop it...

What is happening now is that the Republican Party and all of its apparatus - not just the elected officials but the party handlers and above all their media punditry allies at Fox Not-News and elsewhere - are stuck defending an incredibly Big yet easily-disprovable Lie. 

They got stuck partly because they got stuck with a Big Lying Bullshitter in trump placing himself at the head of their table. trump came in lying on Day One, proclaiming himself the most popular and most beloved even at the emptiest Inauguration in memory, and forced not only his underlings to shill that lie but got the rest of the GOP to either buy in or stay silent (which re-enforced the lie's power).

I said it before: Once you become trump's Bitch you will ALWAYS be trump's Bitch. Once he gets you lying for him to prove your worth, he will make you lie even more with even flimsier bullshit until your reputation is worthless.

But this isn't entirely trump's fault the Republican Party has caught itself trapped defending an indefensible Big Lie.

The Republicans are stuck with the Big Lie because it happens to fit this One Truth:

The Republican Party cannot and will not share power with a Democratic Party they view as un-American and thus illegitimate.

Somewhere back in time - you can argue happening between the rise of the conservative Southern Strategy in the late 1960s or the rise of Saint Ronnie in the 1980s or the corruption of Newt's Contract On America in the 1990s - the Republican Party bought into the idea that only they were true God-fearing God-chosen Gun-worshiping patriots. (Letting the Far Right Christian forces take control of the Party had a lot to do with that mindset winning out)

The ongoing slander of accusing liberal Democrats of being Socialists or Communists or both from the 1940s grew like a cancer into the belief - even as Socialism faded and Communism collapsed in the 1990s - that Democrats are destructive and anti-American. It doesn't help that a lot of liberalism brought Blacks and Jews (and slowly among more Women) in large numbers into the Democratic ranks to where the Republican paranoia fell even more into racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism.

All of that fuels the fear and anger and paranoia of not only the Republican voting base but also a Republican leadership that has driven out any moderating voices and replaced them with more rabid and aggressive haters. It's gotten harder and harder for the GOP to even reconsider its world-view against Democrats because it keeps adding more members to their ranks who will never change their hatred of the Dreaded Other Democrats.

This Republican Truth - Democrats Should Never Hold Power That Rightfully Belongs To Us - fits easily into trump's Big Lie - Democrats Stole My God-Given Rightful Power - and now those two parts have fused into one.

But the Republicans have a problem. Where their One Truth was merely a world-view that did not expose itself to self-destructive implosion (Republicans could keep believing it and still function rationally in polite society), the Big Lie is a direct attack on the Real World that sooner rather than later is going to hit the Brick Wall of Unbreakable Facts. The Big Lie compels trump's believers into direct action - SEE the January 6th Insurrection - and these actions have legal consequences where the Big Lie has not and cannot prevail.

The Republicans are betting on their Big Lie carrying them forward into the future. But it's a Big Lie stuck in the past of a failed 2020 election, pushed constantly by a Big Liar in trump who cannot avoid his impending fate either in civil or criminal courts.

The Republicans' One Truth has become their Big Lie.

It's just a question now of when they pay for that lie, because it's too big to avoid.

Republican Party Won't Truly Die. It'll Just Keep Purging

So in the moment right now, the Republican Party has a bit of drama with Liz Cheney - Dick's kid who bought her way into a Congressional seat in Wyoming - trying to carve out a spot as The Voice Of Reason in a party that's long gone batshit insane. Per Mistermix at Balloon Juice: 

I’ve said it before, but Cheney is in a weak position at home and in Congress. She didn’t have the political backing to run for the Senate seat vacated by Mike Enzi — instead, the absolutely terrible Cynthia Lummis won it. The fact that Cheney didn’t even try shows how little pull she has in Wyoming, despite her name. Her dad has been out of the state for 30 years, and she’s a carpetbagger herself in a state where almost every pickup has a “native” bumper sticker. My guess is that another Republican like Lummis, who voted against impeachment and against certifying the election, will give Liz a run for her money in the 2022 primary. Losing her job as conference chair is just the beginning...

Cheney's leadership position with the House Republicans is pretty much taken from her, even with all the whispered rumors that a sizable number of fellow Republicans agree with her that trump's Big Lie of a stolen election will wreck the Republican Party's reputation (if not their party's ability to gerrymander and suppress votes to stay in power anyway).

But to anyone (like Beltway pundit Jennifer Rubin) thinking that Liz Cheney - or Mitt Romney, or Joe "What Child Support" Walsh, or David Jolly - can become a beacon of a Third Party to rise up and save True Conservatism from themselves, forget it. I've said it before: There is no GOP Savior coming to rescue a party that's been consumed by rage and lies for the last three decades.

What we're getting is this ongoing fantasy, this wish fulfillment, among the Far Right pols and pundits desirous for The Return Of The Reagan Heir: the Prince That Was Promised. We're talking about a set of people pining for the days when it was 1985: when Reagan stomped the hell out of Mondale and his dirty hippie librul army of Electoral College no-shows, Bipartisanship meant Democrats paid for the bar tabs, Capitalism was ascendant, Soviets were getting blown up in Afghanistan, Wall Street was peaking, Grenada was pacified, MTV gave us endless loops of "Money For Nothing", and it was safe for decent honest hard-working folk to openly declare they were proud to be Republicans Americans.

These pundits and pols still don't get it: that was all an illusion...

When the modern Republican Party is pining for a Savior, they're really pining for a candidate who can be this Passive-Positive person, someone likable and pleasing to the audience. Which was why a lot of pundits kept falling in love with these photogenic types like Marco Rubio or Scott Walker. But that person doesn't exist anymore. And for one very good reason.

The Republican Party doesn't HAVE anyone anymore who is genuinely likable or congenial. The Far Right has driven everyone out who can be open-minded and receptive and appealing on a personal level. They've created an environment within their party ranks that every member HAS to support a dogmatic agenda - restrict or kill a federal government they view as "bad" - that can only be backed by Active-Negative types of dour and sour politicians. That type of agenda can only attract that type of candidate, no matter how hard they try to fake empathy.

This is it, Republicans. This is it, Bill Kristol and Erick Erickson and David Brooks and others raging against the oncoming storm that is Trump. No more lies, no more illusions. The reason you're getting Trump as your banner-carrier is because all your efforts the last 30 years to build a new Reagan has instead built a toxic stew of racism, sexism, anti-Establishment anarchy, and failure of leadership within your own ranks...

I am not seeing anything now that changes my mind. The current party leadership still kowtows and worships at the foot of the man who staged an insurrection that almost got themselves killed. Minority Leader McCarthy isn't leading anything but a mob of wingnuts who spew every QAnon conspiracy at the TV cameras any chance they get.

This is not a Republican Party that is in the mood to change its mind. They have spent the last thirty years shilling a Narrative that Democrats are Socialist-Commie criminals worse than child molesters (even when those molesters are other Republicans), and they're so dug into that world-view they dare not admit how much of a lie that is. They've become so calcified in their political ideology that they don't even need to post a party platform to campaign on anymore.

There is no GOP Savior coming to save them because there's nothing left of the Republican Party to save.

If there is any real, honest way for the Republican Party to regroup and rethink itself, it has to happen through straight-up implosion: Enough of the Party elected officials across the board giving up on the madness and walking away. Much in the same way the Whigs of the 1850s fell apart when their party collapsed over their failures to combat the slavery issues made worse by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Problem with that scenario is that any disaffected Republican leaders in this situation will have nowhere else TO go. There is no standing Third Party of repute - sorry, Libertarians, you don't count - where these ex-GOP apostates can regroup. These ex-Republicans would have to form a new party by scratch, and I've blogged before about how hard that can be. 

The biggest issue would be money: the Sensible GOP Faction - they'll need to come up with a name if they do split off - are going to need a massive bankroll to get on state-level ballots and set up campaigns. While these ex-parrots ex-Republicans can reach out to corporations and rich folk to help out, there's no guarantee enough of them will abandon the existing Republican Party and risk it all on a brand-new Third Party. How many deep-pocket SuperPACs support the fearmongering against minorities, feminists, and immigrants? Too many, alas...

A lot also depends on how this anti-trump GOP Savior Party identifies itself: Are they going to dismiss a lot of the Culture War hysteria, the racism and sexism that has been the meat-and-potatoes of the modern Republican Party? They could form themselves as a pro-business faction and denounce the wingnuttia that has consumed the Republican base... but would enough voters swing away from that madness? When you have 70 percent of the existing GOP base believing trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, there's a good bet your new anti-trump party isn't getting that 70 percent bloc and you'd be damn lucky even to get the 30 percent that still live in the Real World.

In the end, like I keep saying, there IS NO Savior coming to rescue the Republican Party from itself.

All we're going to get is a fresh new cycle of purges, similar to the RINO hunts of the 1990s that began the party's descent into the madness we see today.

It will only be a purge of any elected officials who oppose the Far Right Narrative. The Republican voters themselves won't get purged, with every sign the base will gleefully stay with a party that plays to their fears and nothing else.

Gods help us. Always.