Punch What Is On the Menu

Violence is not in good taste, but sometimes punch is what's on the menu.
-- Alyssa Cole

Most of today was news about the British government moving forward in their criminal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein's abuse and trafficking of underage girls at a global level... by arresting someone who was at the top of the British government (via Lucy Campbell, Nadeem Badshah, Tom Ambrose, and Taz Ali at The Guardian):

Here’s a brief recap of a shocking and dramatic day that could have profound ramifications for the royal family.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office by police investigating the former prince’s dealings with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Photographs showed unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate at about 8am (GMT). They searched the Norfolk property as well as his former home in the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.

Police had been assessing allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was a UK trade envoy. The allegations stem from documents released by the US justice department relating to Epstein and his links to the rich and powerful. Emails released appeared to show Mountbatten-Windsor sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. Another email appeared to send Epstein a confidential brief on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing or accusations against him, but has not directly responded to these latest allegations...

There is a painful irony in that Andrew - no longer a prince in the royal family - is facing criminal charges for the financial shenanigans that Epstein and that circle of elites committed over the decades, instead of the sexual abuse charges that deserve greater focus (and hopefully punishment).

But these charges against ex-Prince Randy Andy (yes, that was his nickname) highlight one of the dirty truths regarding everything crooked in Jeffrey Epstein's world. There is a terrifying connection between the powerful elites - those with wealth, those with political office, those with social connections, those with the authority to hide the crimes of others - when it comes to abusing their elite status towards everyone else... especially young women without any power or protection of their own.

Each release of Epstein files - recently the thousands of emails detailing Epstein's connections to other men who shared the same misogyny and racism - exposes how everything wrong with our society and culture tie into each other. The greed driving our economic inequality, the fear driving the hatred towards immigrants and "the Other", the rage driving the attacks both physical and emotional towards women: All of it tied into this twisted patriarchal sociopathy that demands obedience to whichever wannabe Alpha Male flexes his ego the most.

We need a full release of the Epstein Files: not the names of the victims but the names of the perpetrators, so that we can drive those sons of bitches out of power before they cause more harm (because they are).

Reading Between the Redacted Lines

Update: Many thanks to tengrain for including this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. A joyous Io Saturnalia to all and a safe Christmas and... and... is trump threatening Greenland again???

This weekend was meant to be a revelation about the scale and horror of the crimes Jeffrey Epstein committed as a sex trafficker of teen girls to the rich elites. Instead this weekend revealed just how inept and desperate trump and his lackeys are in trying to hide the depth of his involvement (via CK Smith at Salon): 

The initial chunk, made public Friday, includes thousands of pages of documents and photographs related to Epstein’s sex trafficking case. But large portions are heavily redacted, and officials have acknowledged that additional material is still under review, drawing criticism from lawmakers and victims’ advocates who say the disclosures fall short of promised transparency.

According to public records and investigative reporting over the years, complaints and law-enforcement awareness of Epstein’s conduct date to at least 1996, years before his first high-profile arrest in Florida in 2006. Advocates argue the newly released files underscore that Epstein was not operating unnoticed, raising fresh questions about why early warnings failed to trigger sustained investigations.

The Justice Department said redactions are necessary to protect victims’ identities and avoid releasing unverified or sensitive information. But critics contend that the scope of the blacked-out material makes it difficult to assess how authorities handled the case across multiple jurisdictions and decades.

The document dump arrives amid bipartisan pressure on the department to provide fuller disclosure and explain gaps in enforcement that allowed Epstein to maintain wealth, influence and access to young women for years. Lawmakers have also questioned whether the staggered release risks obscuring institutional responsibility rather than clarifying it...

Sarah Fitzpatrick over at the Atlantic makes the observation how these redactions are an injustice to the many women who were victimized over the decades:

Just over 24 hours earlier, on the eve of the deadline for the files’ release, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had placed a call to a group that supports survivors of Epstein’s abuse, according to multiple people briefed on the outreach. On the call, the officials previewed what would and wouldn’t be in the disclosure: photographs, yes; videos, no. Victims’ names would be redacted. At one point, according to a person familiar with the conversation, the officials suggested that if video exists, it may still be in the possession of the Epstein estate—an assertion that raised alarms among survivors who have long believed that recordings were used as leverage and blackmail.

(That) morning, the Justice Department indicated via email to the group that Bondi would try to speak with survivors and expressed support for them, according to people familiar with the correspondence. But soon after, they were told that the attorney general would not be available after all, due to a medical appointment. One DOJ official familiar with Bondi’s schedule told me the attorney general “was at Walter Reed today for a prescheduled routine appointment,” and emphasized that “no call was missed,” because “that meeting was never scheduled.”

Meanwhile, Blanche appeared on Fox News and announced that the administration wouldn’t be hitting its deadline from Congress. Some files would be released, but many would not—at least not yet. Survivors were left with familiar feelings of disappointment and disillusionment, as well as unresolved questions: Why did the Trump administration change course last month on its promise to release all of the Epstein files if it wasn’t going to actually follow through? What was the government holding back—and why?

The failure to schedule a call with victims was only one piece of a broader, frantic rush inside Donald Trump’s Justice Department as it approached the final hours of its congressionally mandated deadline. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump on November 19, requires the attorney general to make public, within 30 days, “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in the DOJ’s possession that relate to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The cache was believed to include flight logs, internal DOJ communications, and even records concerning the “destruction, deletion, alteration, misplacement, or concealment” of Epstein-related evidence.

The law tries to preempt a possible work-around by the DOJ. It explicitly bars the department from withholding, delaying, or redacting records because of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity,” even for “any government official [or] public figure.”

Members of Congress and staff for the House Oversight Committee told me that they were alarmed by the DOJ’s silence in the days and hours before the release. Staff for Senator Jeff Merkley and Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie had repeatedly sought guidance from DOJ officials on what would be released and how the department was preparing. The lawmakers never got a response.

Victims said Bondi’s failure to talk with them prior to one of the most significant releases to date made them feel that those most harmed by Epstein’s crimes were just an afterthought. Marijke Chartouni was among the victims who had been hoping to talk with the attorney general before the files were made public. “Today marks a long-awaited moment for many of us,” Chartouni told me. “This is about truth, accountability, and confronting law-enforcement failure.”

Instead of truth, most of what the Justice Department released were blacked-out pages, entire paragraphs covered up to where you couldn't even tell what was being reported in the first place (via David Smith at the Guardian (US)):

Illustration: Guardian Design/Images via US Justice Department

But it soon became apparent that, once again, Donald Trump had over-promised and under-delivered. Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said: “What they have released is clearly incomplete and appears to be over-redacted to boot.”

The documents extensively featured photos of former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicized friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Far Right - not just trump - would like everyone to think the only one culpable in this scandal is Clinton, as though trying to get liberals to defend him as a way of making it easier for them to defend trump. Little realizing that nearly everyone on the Left knows Clinton is a sex pervert, came to terms with that years ago, and if Bill does get directly linked to anything criminal with Epstein's sex ring Democrats will be the first to throw him into the jail cell.

Moreover, Friday’s release was far from complete. US deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said “several hundred thousand” documents would be made public on Friday, but the need to protect the victims meant thousands more would be released over the next couple of weeks. The initial release also appeared to include far less than Blanche promised.

It smelled of a cover-up. And the rare reticence of Trump did little to dispel that notion... The president had spent much of this year resisting disclosure and denouncing the files as a “Democratic hoax”. But a rare bipartisan uprising in Congress forced him to cave and sign legislation last month mandating release of all unclassified Epstein records to be released by the end of 19 December in a searchable and downloadable format. His administration blew past that deadline and Democrats cried foul.

It's not the Democrats, though. At least one Republican in the House is upset by the delays and redactions and is teaming up with House Dems to bring Pam Bondi to account (via Andrea Hsu at NPR):

Two lawmakers are threatening a seldom-used congressional sanction against the Department of Justice over what they say is a failure to release all of its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by a deadline set in law.

Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie spearheaded the effort to force the Epstein files' release by co-sponsoring the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but both have said the release had too many redactions as well as missing information.

"I think the most expeditious way to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi," Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, told CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday. "Basically Ro Khanna and I are talking about and drafting that right now."

It's questionable if anything to pressure Bondi is going to do anything to make trump relent on this cover-up. Don't forget, he brought in William Barr to be a replacement Attorney General just as the Mueller investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election was getting closer to trump's sons, forcing a shutdown of that probe and a Mueller Report heavily redacted into uselessness.

We need to remember that after the first attempt by trump and his people to "release" the full Epstein Files turned into a debacle (because they basically rehashed everything already released) trump ordered the FBI to "flag any material mentioning trump in the Epstein Files" essentially for this moment when he's terrified of getting caught in acts he kept telling his MAGA base he never did.

With nearly every page blacked out - hidden behind more walls thrown up by trump and his lackeys - what else SHOULD we do? We can accept as fact: That every redacted line IS referring to donald trump and his good buddy Jeffrey Epstein committing illegal acts with young girls (and also possible money laundering). I mean, what can trump do, call us liars without exposing what's really behind those black lines?

There is one other thing we're able to read between all the redacted lines: This is all part of the horrifying culture among the political and wealthy elite that has existed for centuries abusing, molesting, destroying young women as part of a patriarchal mindset that they - rich, connected, untouchable - can do whatever they want without answering to any form of justice.

"If you're a star they let you do it" trump said in the moment he showed the whole world how vulgar he is, and it may be the only true thing he's ever said about the sordid world he and his fellow power elites live in.

We as a nation need to hold such corrupt people like trump to account. When the hell will any of those 77 million who voted for him in 2024 realize that and denounce that monster for the good of all?

In The Matter of Allegations Relating to Gaetz

Update: Io Saturnalia to Steve In Manhattan for tagging this article for Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. I hope everyone's safe and healthy and enjoying whatever there is of the holiday spirit. Except for Matt Gaetz. I hope he rots.

I need to get back into the blogging mindset, and what better way to get at it than to report on the nastiness of Florida's Worst Scuzzbucket (AKA Matt Gaetz)?

After all the storm and fury over the House Ethics' investigation into his misconduct with underage women - where the House voted to suppress the committee's report while trump was offering Gaetz control of the Justice Department, all of it rendered moot when Gaetz dropped out after a disastrous meeting with angry Senators poised to deny him the post - the committee decided to leak that report this week anyway.

Going by the summary, here are the things that Gaetz did that crossed a whole bunch of lines (skip to page two):

In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following:

• From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.

• In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl.

• During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions.

• Representative Gaetz accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.

• In 2018, Representative Gaetz arranged for his Chief of Staff to assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.

• Representative Gaetz knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.

• Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.

Based on the above, the Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.

This is the stuff that the House Ethics committee uncovered in spite of a Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz's criminal behavior back in 2021 that ended up going nowhere. The DOJ argued at the time that they couldn't proceed to criminal charges on Gaetz because their witnesses were either unreliable on the stand or unwilling to testify. You can see that as well in the committee's work where most of the teenage girls claimed their Fifth Amendment rights to avoid self-incrimination, but even then the congresscritters and their staffs were able to put the pieces together that would have made a legitimate criminal case. Goddamn.

One of the horrifying elements of these reports is how much of Gaetz's misconduct was openly known. Not so much the prostitution, but his eagerness to sex women far younger than his own age range and his often drunken (now allegedly drugged) state of mind. Stories were rife about fellow legislators at both the state house and congressional levels how Gaetz would brag about and share pictures of his sexual exploits in the public forums. For all that his fellow congresscritters were bothered by his vulgarity, none of them cared enough to stop him until his business buddy Joel Greenberg got caught and revealed the nastier stuff hiding under the Florida GOP's foundations. 

While a solid number of our Republican elected officials DO care about their own personal conduct and ethics, they do happily turn a blind eye to a lot of this bad behavior because of two reasons: Some of them fear "rocking the boat" and disrupting their party's access to power; and Some of them honestly don't see the harm of sexually exploiting / abusing young women - even underage - because their own conservative philosophy - that women and the young are not part of their elite status and thus exploitable by their laws - allows it.

Granted, Democrats in power get caught in their own sex scandals and misconduct towards young women as well, but on this scale? With this level of disdain and disregard that Gaetz kept displaying towards his targets? You can feel from just reading the report the contempt he had, the lack of emotional connection to most of the girls he manhandled.

When you expand your view to examine the sexual misconduct we've seen over the years, you should notice that when it comes to Republican sex scandals there's an open display of misogyny and toxic masculinity driving most of that behavior. It's at a point where a more nonpartisan government would require full drug testing and ID checks of women under 40 at every Republican-based country club and convention gatherings just to make sure they're not violating laws.

And we STILL haven't seen a full accounting of Jeffrey Epstein's Client List containing the names of Men Of Power - both Republican and Democrat and CEO billionaire alike - who "flew the Lolita Express" engaging in sexual misconduct with seriously underaged girls.

Do us a huge favor, Joe Biden: Just before you leave office this January 20th 2025 PLEASE release the Epstein Client List (redacting the names of victims ONLY) not only to the general public but to every law enforcement agency on the planet.

Women remain abused as long as Men of Power retain that power to abuse them. THIS NEEDS TO END.

And ship Gaetz to the nearest prison for breaking drug use and statutory rape laws, please and thanks this Saturnalia season.

This Isn't Entirely Good News, But For the Moment We'll Take It (w/ Update)

So I've been struggling over the past week trying to write up about the dangers of trump's incoming Cabinet picks - a number of them absolutely unqualified for their positions and arguably dangerous in those offices - when the most notorious and ill-advised pick - Matt Gaetz for Attorney General - found out this morning how screwed his chances were and opted to withdraw his name (via Elena Moore, Deidre Walsh, and Lexie Schapitl at NPR):

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is withdrawing his candidacy to be President-elect Trump's attorney general, after sex trafficking and drug use allegations threatened to imperil his confirmation.

After meeting with Republican senators to discuss his nomination, Gaetz, a conservative firebrand from Florida and a loyal Trump defender, wrote on social media Thursday that "it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition."

Trump's pick to lead the Department of Justice has faced concern and questions from Republicans all week. His decision to bow out puts some of those to rest.

When trump announced Gaetz as his Attorney General pick, the original response from most congresscritters - the ones who knew Gaetz and knew full well how much of a scuzbucket he is (allegedly) - was a mixture of shock and horror. Never mind how he had absolutely zero experience in law enforcement or legal jurisprudence to serve as the top federal prosecutor: Gaetz was facing a major ethics probe ordered by former Speaker McCarthy of his own party - the details of which kept leaking even as the Republicans on the committee voted not to release it to the public - which made it difficult for the Republican senators to happily back the move.

One horrifying thing is that while Gaetz is no longer up for an important Cabinet position - one that trump wanted twisted to serve his plans for revenge - he is still going to sit in the same U.S. House of Representatives that investigated him for his sexual and drug abuses. He had resigned once trump offered him the AG post as a means of squashing that incoming ethics report, but because he'd been re-elected by a Florida district that doesn't fucking care that their representative is an alleged sex offender Gaetz is going back to get sworn in to the next session. Surrounded by colleagues who know how much of a pervert he is.

(Revised Update 11/27: It turned out Gaetz will not return at all. Apparently he did read the room and realized he was doomed if he went back to Congress. DeSantis ordered up a speedy special election in 30 days, as the GOP hold on the House is insanely slim and they need every wingnut they can forcibly gerrymander into Congress. Gods help us though, there's rumors Gaetz is going to run for Florida Governor next cycle...)

The other horrifying thing is that trump still has a roster of loyalist Republicans willing to do his dirty work of turning the Department of Justice into his personal Department of Vengeance. Deciding to stick with picking someone from the Insanity State, trump tabbed former Florida AG Pam Bondi for the spot. While Bondi has the legal experience to serve at that job, she's better known as one of the state attorney generals who refused to pursue fraud charges on Trump University even after it became known she solicited trump to donate to her re-election campaigns. This cost the victims in Florida a chance to recover their money from the $25 million settlement trump agreed to avoid the court ruling. She is bought and paid for, America, and trump will insist she prove her loyalty by attacking everyone he wants destroyed.

If there's any good news from all this chaos, it's how the Senate Republicans made it clear they weren't going to roll over and beg for mercy the way trump and his MAGA supporters wanted. Befitting his role as the bully, trump had been signaling he wanted all of his Cabinet selections - as bad as they are, Gaetz was just the most noticeable disaster - regardless of any senatorial objections. he's out there threatening to use an obscure recess maneuver to circumvent the Senate's role of approving appointments. he tried getting his loyalist Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott elected to Senate Majority Leader (if there's any real good news, Scott didn't even make it out of the first round of ballots). One of trump's loudest lackeys, Sen. Tuberville, tried to threaten retaliation on his fellow senators should they refuse to accept trump's picks.

But if there's anything about U.S. Senators - regardless of party - it's that senators enjoy the power they wield within the federal system. Being a senator is almost as good as being a President, with just about the same number of perks and with fewer headaches. Those powers to "advise and consent" on things like Cabinet/Judicial appointments and foreign policy are things senators will not give up willingly.

While a Republican-controlled Senate will likely grant trump most of what he's asking - much like they did when they approved the likes of Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court - even they have to abide by their own standards, to which many of trump's other Cabinet appointments - some of them like Pete Hegseth getting exposed with their own scandals as I write this - are going to face a hard public review.

This isn't going to get easier. It's going to get crazier, as trump keeps looking for ways to blow this all up.

Gods help us. Again.

Every Culture War Warrior a Hypocrite

I am no longer surprised by the sexual or violent hypocrisy of the Republican Party - especially here in the Sunshine State - I am only saddened by the lives broken by their misdeeds. That the Florida GOP chair is under criminal investigation for sexual battery shouldn't surprise anyone (via Emily L. Mahoney at the Tampa Bay Times): 

The Sarasota Police Department is investigating an allegation of sexual battery made against Christian Ziegler, the chairperson of the Republican Party of Florida.

In response to a request for a complaint filed against Ziegler, the Sarasota police provided the Tampa Bay Times with a heavily redacted report from early October that only revealed a few words, including “raped” and “sexually battered...”

That it took until the end of November to get this story out is troubling. The follow-up details - via Max Greenwood also with Tampa Bay Times - get messier:

A search warrant affidavit and 911 audio released to news outlets on Friday shed light on a recently surfaced allegation that Florida GOP chairperson Christian Ziegler sexually assaulted a woman with whom he and his wife had had a previous sexual encounter.

The affidavit, obtained by the Orlando Sentinel and ABC Action News in Tampa, offered the most detailed public account yet of the incident, which has roiled Florida GOP leadership and led to calls for Ziegler to resign...

That the state Republicans - who usually circle the wagons to defend their own - are already calling for their chairman to resign should be a huge red flag that what they already know (or suspect) is going to get much worse. Back to Greenwood:

The woman, a longtime friend of Ziegler’s, told Sarasota police she “was sexually involved one time over a year ago” with Ziegler and his wife, and had agreed to have a second sexual encounter with the couple on Oct. 2, according to an excerpt of the affidavit posted online by ABC Action News. But when Bridget Ziegler was unable to make it, the woman told investigators she canceled the plans, texting Christian Ziegler that she was “mostly in it for” his wife.

Minutes later, when the woman opened her front door to walk her dog, Christian Ziegler was standing in the hallway outside of her apartment, according to ABC Action News’ reporting on the affidavit. He then proceeded to enter her apartment, where he allegedly raped her.

According to both reports on the affidavit, the woman said Ziegler did not use a condom during the encounter and told the victim, “I’m leaving the same way I came in.”

By this allegation, we can determine that Ziegler held expectations that HE was to get sexually pleasured, it was all for himself and his ego and his power, and to hell whatever the woman or his wife wanted. Christ, what an asshole.

ABC Action News reported that, after the alleged assault, the victim called her sister and went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where a sexual assault kit was performed.

The alleged assault was reported to police two days after the encounter, on Oct. 4. Audio of a 911 call from that day reveals that a friend of the victim had asked law enforcement to perform a wellness check on the woman after she reportedly failed to show up to work for two days...

There is a lot of physical and eyewitness testimony here, enough to underscore that something happened to the woman and it traumatized her.

For all the tragedy that this alleged rape is, this is also high drama considering who Ziegler's wife Bridget is. Bridget Ziegler just happens to be a co-founder of a Far Right censorship group calling themselves Moms for Liberty, who are not about liberty they are going after books and literature they claim are "woke" and "sexually deviant" in our public schools and libraries. Not only the positive LGBTQ+ books but books about racism and our nation's history with slavery.

Bridget is someone who openly railed against transgender people as well as gays and lesbians, yet here she is enjoying a ménage with another woman with the implications they were both into each other (which must have gnawed at Christian's ego). As Zac Anderson at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune quotes ex-Republican pundit Ron Filipkowski, "The hypocrisy is off the charts:"

Filipkowski has known both Zieglers for years. He remembers when Christian Ziegler was a young party activist just starting to make appearances at Sarasota GOP meetings...

Bridget Ziegler had joined the Sarasota County School Board in 2014 and occasionally waded into polarizing issues in the years leading up to the pandemic, including a hot button debate about transgender bathroom use in Sarasota schools.

The pandemic led to a wave of conservative activism around schools, and both Zieglers – who have young children they often highlight in debates about education policies – became leading advocates for the education culture war agenda championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which attracted the most national attention with a bill limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.

Bridget Ziegler stood behind DeSantis as he signed the legislation, derided by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill – a nickname that still irks its supporters. The governor later appointed her to a board overseeing the special district that governs Disney’s properties in Central Florida. Disney has been battling with DeSantis over the company’s opposition to the measure, now in state law.

Along the way, the Zieglers often clashed with Democrats, LGBTQ activists and other critics of their agenda. Those critics have been quick to bash the Zieglers in the wake of the latest allegations, often pointing to alleged hypocrisy...

What we're seeing with the Zieglers is what Frank Wilhoit observed about conservatism: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. The Zieglers are clearly behaving as the In Group, a part of the state Republican power structure now running things since the 2000s, and eager to enforce a culture war against sexual-identity minorities - gays, lesbians, trans, poly, the Out Groups - to maintain their power status. 

Bridget is more than happy to kick one trans kid off a sports team (if not out of school altogether), more than happy to ban any talk of gay/lesbian relationships (with an eye towards banning such relationships for real), all the while penciling in on her calendar a sexual tryst that violates the religious sanctity of "family values" she and her husband publicly trumpet.

Whether she and the rape victim originally consented to an affair with the husband is not at issue here. What are at issue is Christian's violence towards that woman in the trio, and the hypocrisy of both Christian and Bridget pushing a Family Values agenda they themselves did not respect.

But that hypocrisy is what drives the Far Right in the first place. Their Culture War isn't about what consenting adults - or young adults growing into who they feel they are - are doing. The Culture War is about the power, of maintaining a status quo where only the elites can indulge themselves and everyone else will get punished for "deviancy".

It's not just the Zieglers. The more you look at the holier-than-thou Far Right, you see far too many "religious leaders" and "youth pastors" getting charged as sex offenders towards children, you see far too many elected officials bragging and showing off about their conquests, and you see far too many other elected officials refusing to do what needs doing to protect rape and assault victims or to reform a legal system that doesn't handle rape cases seriously.

Hypocrites everywhere among the Far Right. Any sane nation would express their outrage by voting every last one of those wingnut hypocrites out of office.

Anniversary: Saturday Night's Alright For Obstructing

Update: Thank you driftglass for including this article in Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-up! Stick around everybody, enjoy the cheesecake! (whispering noises) Wait, WHO ate all the cheesecake?! Dammit, man! Quick! To the nearest Cheesecake Factory!!!

Get a little action in
- "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," by Bernie Taupin / Elton John

With all the current political craziness happening in the U.S. - the House Republicans stuck in a corner punching themselves in the face over who gets to lose the Speakership vote next, donald trump's Big Lie attempts to overturn the 2020 elections starting to see his co-conspirators plead out - it's high time to remember one of the biggest plot twist moments in political scandal history.

October 20, 1973 is when Richard Nixon committed the Saturday Night Massacre (via History Channel):

On October 20, 1973, solicitor General Robert Bork dismisses Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox; Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus resign in protest. 

Cox had conducted a detailed investigation of the Watergate break-in that revealed that the burglary was just one of many possible abuses of power by the Nixon White House. Nixon had ordered Richardson to fire Cox, but he refused and resigned, as did Ruckelshaus when Nixon then asked him to dismiss the special prosecutor. Bork agreed to fire Cox and an immediate uproar ensued...

Just as a refresher: By early 1973, more details about the Watergate break-in of June 1972 ensnared more of President Nixon's aides to where AG Richardson - having replaced John Mitchell, one of Watergate's main participants - promised the House Judiciary Committee of an independent counsel in order to avoid any taint from a potentially compromised Justice Department.

Cox took the duties of the special prosecutor seriously, and dug into a lot of the rot inside Nixon's administration. When it got out that Nixon taped his Oval Office conversations, Cox issued subpoenas to get the tapes and transcripts. Nixon refused, citing Executive Privilege. A legal battle ensued to where the Courts sided with Cox, denying Nixon's privilege claims.

Nixon then tried a compromise deal to have Senator John Stennis - not only a hard-line Southern conservative but also hard of hearing - to listen and transcribe what he heard on those tapes, but Cox refused such an obvious diversion.

That offer was made and rejected by October 19th, which was a Friday that year. Everyone expected the weekend to pass and the legal battles to continue that Monday.

Thing was, also that Friday in another courtroom, John Dean was pleading guilty to obstruction in his role during the Watergate coverup. As Nixon's legal counsel following the administration's shakeup following the break-in, Dean was privy to a lot of discussions - plotting, would be another word for it - regarding the handling of the affair and any ties between the campaign, the West Wing, and the federal agencies investigating the scandal.

The likelihood Dean had to share what he knew to Cox, combined with the likelihood that Cox was going to get those tapes sooner or later, had to trigger a fight-or-flight response in the increasingly paranoid Nixon.

And so that Saturday, Nixon pulled the trigger to fight.

Richardson, having promised Congress under oath not to interfere, refused and resigned. Ruckelhaus had made the same promise under oath and when Nixon tried to pressure him to do it, Ruckelhaus also went out the door. As the next in line at Justice, Bork found himself promoted up to Acting Attorney General and - because nobody thought he would ever be asked to interfere - having made no promise under oath he was fully capable of "doing my job" and firing Cox.

I dunno what Nixon was thinking, committing so open an act of obstruction. The only thing within reason was his fear that Dean knew too much, that his recordings exposed too much - not just what he knew of Watergate, but many other illicit and illegal topics Nixon would rather the public not know - and that Cox was getting too close to proving criminal acts.

Nixon may not have gauged how widespread the condemnation would be. Telegrams - this was before Twitter, DAMN YOU ELON MUSK - flooded the White House in outrage, and polling a week after the incident revealed the public flipped their views supporting impeaching Nixon over his actions. The House Judiciary was noticeably livid, and they continued their hearings while crafting articles of impeachment they would approve nine months later.

Rather than saving his ass, the Massacre accelerated the race towards Nixon's doom.

From what I've read of the moment - although I was living at the time, I was three and barely even watching cartoon shows on the telly - this was one of those pivotal moments in American history where the public mood shifted, as chaos undermined the national faith - built up by decades of New Deal policy, the great War Effort of World War II, and the ongoing Cold War fight against Global Communism - in the honesty and devotion of our institutions.

We witness the fallout of Nixon's actions to this day. The sins of Reagan's administration culminating in the Iran-Contra scandals. The failures of Dubya's War on Terror including a horrifying torture regime. Above all, we see the legacy of Nixon in trump's own criminality: Ranging from firing FBI Director Comey; obstructing his ties to Russia; extorting Ukraine to use Hunter Biden as scandal to harm Joe Biden's campaign; and above all trump's election denials that led to violent insurrection in the halls of the Capitol.

It was this event - this open act of obstruction - that led to all of the chaos we're seeing today.

Damn you, Tricky Dick. We are never going to forget nor forgive you for this.

Anniversary: When Doonesbury Dropped the GUILTY Bomb On The National Discourse

On May 29, 1973, in the midst of the then-ongoing investigations into the Watergate DNC headquarters break-in by Nixon's campaign (and dirty works) handlers, a singular comic strip appeared in the daily newspapers crossing the lines from objective observation to subjective opinion when artist Garry Trudeau focused on John Mitchell - one of the key players in the overall Watergate scandals - and pre-judged the man with the conclusion that he was "GUILTY! GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!" (Yes, CAPS LOCK was even a thing before the Internet, kiddos)

the strip that defined not just a moment, but 
altered how we perceive political commentary to this day

The Doonesbury comic strip was merely three years young in 1973, having been bought up by a comic strip syndicate as part of an effort to infuse the four-panel humor sections of daily newspapers with younger, more college-oriented (in those days, Boomer generation) artists appealing to similar audiences.

The artwork itself was pretty basic, "fresh out of art school" kind of linear inking, with static bodies and "camera placement" with distance (and no shifting of angles or position) to set the scenes for characters to interact. There was also more dialogue than most strips worked with.

What creator Trudeau brought to the comics readership was a brash willingness to discuss modern-day topics - the political upheaval happening across college campuses in those days, the then-ongoing Vietnam War (which ended in 1972) and its immediate post-war consequences, the growing feminist movement, and the struggles to integrate schools and society as a whole in the wake of the 1960s Civil Rights battles - whereas most strips were mild observations of daily life and struggles of quiet desperation.

There'd been other daily comic strips that delved in politics with as much fervor and impact: Pogo by Walt Kelly, for example, was a "cute animal" strip that discussed issues - even political topics - of the day. Kelly famously attacked the Red Scare baiting of McCarthyism of the 1950s by exposing Joe McCarthy himself as a gaslighting bullying character Simple J. Malarkey (some scenes of Malarkey hunting down several Pogo characters are considered the scariest moments in comic strips history). Modern-day political satirists - Trudeau among them - openly claim Pogo as their inspiration. 

But where Pogo could hide on the "funny pages" by being animal characters playing out allegory and metaphor in a cartoon swamp, Doonesbury is a strip about humans in real-life environments, tackling issues with real-life ramifications, and making commentary directly on people - not a ink-suited representative, but directly named like Mitchell - who could hire lawyers and sue for defamation.

That "Guilty!" strip is the moment when Trudeau crossed a line in journalism ethics - as much as cartoon strips could be considered journalism. After all, the comics page was part of the whole daily newspaper package: Front page news, Local news, Sports, Lifestyles, and Classifieds. (With crossword puzzles and comics stuck in either the Lifestyles or Classifieds. Such was the glory years of print media. I digress)

As Paul Hebert notes on his Reading Doonesbury blog about this strip:

In response to the 1973 strip, a dozen newspapers dropped Doonesbury. The Washington Post – now (in 2017), ironically, Doonesbury’s online home – argued that guilt or innocence should be adjudicated by “the due process of justice [and] not a comic strip artist,” and maintained that it could not “have one standard for the news pages and another for the comics.” Kerry Soper, in Garry Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire, frames the Post’s “discomfort” with the “GUILTY!” strip as a product of the “problematic” fact that Trudeau blurs the line between “comic strip storyteller, journalistic muckraker, and political watchdog...”

It's the ethical dilemma in journalism between being Subjective or Objective when reporting on an event (or a person). Subjective meaning "based on personal opinion" with an emotional or judgmental bias, Objective being more "based on facts and evidence" with an eye towards informing the audience. It's a struggle that is ongoing: Especially with the rise and domination of 24/7 cable news needing to fill all those hours with more Subjective punditry discussing topics at an emotional biased level, as well as social media overwhelming the discourse with Twitter (or YouTube) bites and badly written blog essays (stares at self in the mirror). 

This ethical conflict is what I studied as a Journalism student at University of Florida, even taking a class on Journalism Ethics. Hell, my term paper was on Doonesbury's place in print media, whether it belonged in the daily comics pages or if it belonged in the Op-Ed/Letters to the Editor sections where commentary and subjective essays were permitted. I got an A for that paper, I was very proud of that fact, although I ended up with a B for the class grade (I did poorly on a mid-term exam). It's why I joke semi-seriously that I got a B in Ethics but a D in Reporting, which is how I ended up as a librarian.

The solution a lot of newspapers took was to make that move, taking Doonesbury from the less-partisan comics pages and placing it in the more opinionated Editorial pages, as a compromise whenever facing some of the more boundary-breaking storylines Trudeau illustrated, such as introducing a gay character for the first time in comics, or showing a man and woman in the same bed post-coitus, or any of the political attacks Trudeau aimed at Reagan or conservatives in general. 

Trudeau was an unabashed liberal, and it often showed in his works. However, Trudeau did his homework: On the scales of Subjective vs. Objective, when he skewered a political figure or public celebrity, he did it based on the facts he could uncover through basic research. Although he'd reach into levels we'd consider slander - such as the series of strips he inked pointing out how Frank Sinatra had questionable connections to mobsters - he at least based the attacks on provable facts. It still made for interesting reads.

I grew up as a pre-teen - I was eight or nine years old - reading Doonesbury collected paperbacks in the Young Adult section of the Dunedin Public Library (back when the library occupied a refurbished Publix storefront). I was a bit ahead of my fellow classmates having gotten bored with the juvenile lit (stop killing puppies, you damn juvenile writers!) and preferred the sci-fi and humor novels for the teens where my older brother hung out. It surely disappointed my dad somewhat as part of my left-leaning ideology comes from that exposure, but I still remember Trudeau's work being more of a gentle skewering of ideologies of the 1970s and 1980s. He would attack liberals - more of a chiding out of disappointment - for some of their follies - obsessing over symbolism more than the issues needing work - as much as attacking conservatives for their disdain and self-serving actions.

One thing that Trudeau excelled at was being sympathetic, even empathetic, towards the targets of his criticism. Even at their worst, the harshest Republican characters - especially the real-life figures like both Bush Presidents - received some level of bathos that made them human to readers (even as they didn't appear on-screen except as floating hats, waffles, or air bubbles). Save for donald trump: Even in the 1980s, his excessive greed and narcissism was on full display whenever he appeared in a Doonesbury story arc.

Compare Trudeau's character building to the likes of Bruce Tinsley's Mallard Fillmore, which never rose above caricature and attacked only one side of the political spectrum (liberals) with ire and excessive outrage. That strip essentially devolved into an Author Tract instead of any kind of running commentary. Whereas Trudeau aims for a punchline at the end of every strip, Tinsley often has no punchline, just punches.

Doonesbury itself is rarely in the papers anymore, as much as there are any newspapers still surviving. It's a question of how soon Trudeau will retire for good instead of the extended vacations he's been known to take. It may depend on whenever donald trump ends up physically in jail after all the appeals on his felony convictions are exhausted a few years from now, at which point Trudeau might put up a final Sunday strip of a large banner reading "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

We'll see.

In the meantime, Trudeau just keeps rolling with the hits.

from October 22, 2017
History does repeat, first as tragedy and then as farce...

The Difference Between Two Scandals

Over the last couple weeks, a new scandal arose that echoed the trumpian scandals of last August, where reports emerged of how classified documents - from his tenure as Vice President under Obama - were found in President Biden's possession. As Becky Sullivan and Elena Moore note over at NPR:

President Biden is facing a Department of Justice investigation after his lawyers found classified documents at his Delaware residence and an office in Washington, D.C.

They were found in multiple instances, with a White House lawyer announcing on Saturday that five more pages had been found at Biden's home.

On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former Justice Department official Robert Hur to lead the DOJ probe.

"This appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law," Garland said Thursday.

The announcement came just a few days after news broke that classified documents had been found at Biden's private office less than a week before the midterm elections in November — a discovery that led the DOJ to launch an initial inquiry.

This is all coming on the heels of the large-scale investigation into donald trump's mishandling - in some regards, the outright theft - of classified and other White House documents he took with him when he left office in January 2021. Indeed, trump's political and media allies quickly jumped on this story, attacking Biden for hypocrisy at the least and criminal misdeeds at the worst:

Critics of Biden, including many Republicans, have seized on the revelations to raise new complaints about the Biden administration's handling of the Trump classified document saga, including the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

"Another faux pas by the Biden administration by treating law differently based upon your political beliefs. Treats President Trump one way but treats President Biden a whole different way," said Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a press conference Thursday...

Republicans have already vowed to use their new House majority to probe Biden's handling of the classified documents and how federal agencies responded.

On Friday, Republican House Judiciary members sent a letter to the attorney general announcing their inquiry into the handling of the documents and the appointment of Hur. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., demanded "all documents and communications" between the DOJ, FBI and White House related to the "mishandling of the classified documents" and the appointment of the special counsel.

So as this scandal turns political, are the Republicans right to claim unfair treatment?

No. There are clear differences between what's happening with Biden and what's happening with trump. Above all, trump's own misconduct in his mishandling of documents:

In Trump's case, the National Archives was the first to identify the missing documents and request their return.

Trump initially resisted returning them, and his lawyers at times misled federal investigators. After months of back-and-forth between the government and Trump aides, 15 boxes of documents were returned in January 2022. According to the FBI, the boxes included 184 classified documents, including 25 marked "Top Secret," as well as others denoted with labels indicating they contained national security information, such as "FISA." But more documents still remained at Mar-a-Lago, and ultimately the FBI raided the resort in August to retrieve the rest.

By contrast, Biden's team appears to have found a smaller number of documents, and returned them to the federal government promptly.

There's no evidence yet if Biden's people were guilty of any intentional removal of classified documents, but they are clearly abiding by the laws to ensure those documents are returned and no others left out there. trump and his people are kicking and screaming and refusing to respect the laws at all.

The scale of trump's scandal is far greater than anything yet pinned to Biden, and yet trump and the Republicans - looking for any excuse to punch Biden and hurt his 2024 re-election chances - would have us believe trump is a victim and Biden the crook. That's nowhere near the truth, and nowhere near the severity of damage trump committed, according to Donald Ayer, Mark S. Zaid, and Dennis Aftergut over at The Atlantic (paywall):

Even if, at some point, evidence of potential criminal conduct develops in the Biden case, in no proper prosecutorial universe should that affect or deter Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump. In the unlikely event that both men did commit crimes, that would be no reason not to prosecute Trump—or Biden, for that matter, once he is out of office. No person is above the law.

But these two cases are not equivalent. For starters, let’s consider the two stories through the lens of the statutes cited in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant approved by a federal court.

Individuals violate the Espionage Act when, among other things, they willfully retain national-defense documents and fail to return them to a proper government official upon request. In November, Biden’s personal lawyer discovered the classified documents and returned them to the government without a request. So that statute does not apply. Biden has denied knowing that he had the documents.

The contrast with Trump is stark. The National Archives and Records Administration first asked him to return missing documents in May 2021. The following January, Archives officials retrieved 15 boxes of government records, and on June 3, 2022, his lawyer signed a sworn statement that all documents responsive to a grand jury subpoena were being returned after a “diligent” search...

In August, a federal court was provided evidence that the lawyer’s statement was likely false, and the court issued the search warrant that allowed the FBI to seize upwards of 11,000 documents from Mar-a-Lago. They included more than 70 documents marked “Secret” or “Top Secret,” some apparently containing information whose disclosure could conceivably endanger the lives of American intelligence sources overseas.

The apparent obstruction of justice—with evidence pointing to Trump’s direct involvement—makes up the serious misconduct here, more serious than a former president simply having removed documents from their proper place. Trump’s lawyers repeatedly asserted in court that the Mar-a-Lago documents were “personal,” effectively admitting that Trump took them and kept them.

The centrality of concealment to the case is made even clearer by the second statute cited in the Mar-a-Lago affidavit. It subjects to prosecution anyone who “knowingly … conceals [or] covers up … any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede [or] obstruct … the investigation or proper administration of any [federal] matter.”

In short: trump took documents knowingly, and then lied about having those documents, got other people to lie for him, and refused to give up what he had for more than a year, and it all ended up requiring a warrant to search and retrieve those documents that could well be harmful to our nation's security. 

Both Biden and trump can end up in trouble violating the Presidential Records Act, but trump is on the hook for Espionage and Obstruction charges on top of that. The fact that Biden and his people are willingly returning the documents to National Archives without a fight lessens the possibility of getting charged on the Presidential Records Act, as the special counsel may well determine the matter settled. In trump's case, the open contempt he's displayed towards the Records Act would establish a good reason to charge him for violating it (the special counsel investigating trump may have to include those charges to justify the espionage and obstruction charges).

There's other cases that establish how intent to conceal and remove documents is a serious matter threatening trump's situation (back to the Atlantic article):

In 2005, Sandy Berger, a former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing government documents. In 2003, years after his government service, he had gone to the National Archives to review files, and as he left, a staffer spotted what appeared to be paper protruding from Berger’s pant leg. Stuffing documents into his trousers to hide them, along with his later attempt to throw the records into a construction site, was powerful evidence of willful and unlawful intent.

In 2015, David Petraeus, a former general and CIA director under President Barack Obama, pleaded guilty to having given his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell, classified material that he had improperly retained. Petraeus had falsely attested to having no classified material in his possession. Like documents taken and concealed in clothing, false statements are compelling evidence of a guilty mind and a cover-up.

One of us (Mark S. Zaid) has represented many clients who have accidentally taken classified documents home or unintentionally left them in unsecured environments. Those cases involved no deliberate flouting of law but rather negligent or reckless conduct. These situations are routinely resolved through administrative proceedings, such as suspension or revocation of security clearances or other sanctions short of prosecution.

Those first two stories are similar to trump's misconduct, whereas the third relates much to how Biden is handling things. You can spot the difference there: Intent and getting caught in lies will get you charged; Working with investigators and admitting mistakes will keep you out of courthouses.

It would be nice if the mainstream media would recognize that what's happening to Biden does not excuse what trump did, nor should Biden face the same legal punishments awaiting trump. This is not a Both Sides scandal: trump's misconduct is clearly more dangerous to the national well-being.

I would even argue there's a third scandal at play here, one far greater than anything Biden or trump are directly at fault. We are witnessing repeated failures of national security when it comes to current and previous Presidential administrations concerning the mishandling of classified documents. This is something going back even before 2005, there's been breaches of security - some of them intentional like Dick Cheney's office exposing CIA operatives for partisan retribution - that are happening at the expense of domestic and foreign policies. 

Granted, part of the scandal is how far too many agencies have the power to classify anything as secret, which expands the likelihood of both accidental and intentional taking of documents that people shouldn't be taking. Still, this is all serious harm to both policies and people. If any other special counsels need hiring, AG Garland better have someone investigating how to stop such damaging leaks from happening (again and again). 

I do want both special counsels investigating Biden and trump to do their jobs, do them effectively, and assign fault to those who mishandled our government's classified information. I do hope that Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating trump, reaches the proper conclusion of prosecuting trump for his willful misconduct throughout the whole affair.

And I do hope people recognize that not all scandals are equal. They all depend on the intent - sincere versus scheming - of the persons violating the laws.

Where the Grifting Takes the GOP

You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you.
-- Lester Freamon, The Wire

In a followup to last week's bombshell that a New York Republican Representative-Elect was a gaslighting fraud, I need to note that the authorities are finally paying attention to George Santos and opening criminal investigations on him. O the irony of grifting your way into elected office letting prosecutors find out you were grifting in the first place.

While the mainstream media is busy assigning blame on who's responsible for Santos getting as far as he has - blaming Democrats for not doing enough Oppo Research, blaming local press for not digging into Santos' bogus resume - the most blame should be aimed at Santos himself for setting himself up for this exposure and ridicule (if not future jail time). After that, most of the blame should be aimed at a Republican Party that is not only vulnerable to con artists buying their way into their ranks, but happily defending the grifters even when their scandals threatens to expose all the other corrupt sins hiding in the GOP closets.

As Jill Dennison notes at her blog:

I could point to so many, such as Marge Greene who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives despite being a follower of QAnon, despite believing that Jewish space lasers (hint, in case any Republicans are reading this, there ain’t no such thing as Jewish space lasers) started the California wildfires.  Or the pistol-totin’ barhop, Lauren Boebert who proudly put a photo of all her children holding big guns on her Christmas cards.  And then, there’s Kevin McCarthy, vying to be the next Speaker of the House, whose only platform is revenge against any and all liberal democratic policies and those of us who support those policies.  But for now, I want to focus on one incoming member of the House, a person who will be seated in the House of Representatives next Tuesday, a person who has broken the boundaries of dishonesty:  George Santos...

This is a new low even for the Republican Party and if, in fact, they allow him to be seated in the House on Tuesday, it will be the most definitive statement yet that there is no conscience, no morals, no values, and no integrity within the Republican Party.  One lie of any substance would have disqualified any Democratic candidate, but Mr. Santos told lies about every single aspect of his entire 34 years!!!  I imagine there are some Republicans who are wishing they could crawl under a rock right about now – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney – but the rest seem to be scratching their heads and wondering how to get this out of the news, how to make it disappear.  Not a single word from the otherwise garrulous Kevin McCarthy… funny that.

This is, for the Republicans, as bad a nightmare as the former guy, an egomaniac, planning to run for the Oval Office again.  I would pity the Republicans, but … they brought this mess on themselves when they first began letting unqualified circus clowns run for office.  It seems to me that a person who cannot even be relied upon to tell the truth about where he went to college (he didn’t), property he claims to own (but doesn’t), where he has worked, his ancestry, his criminal past, where he lives, cannot possibly be trusted to be an honest lawmaker!  I thought Herschel Walker told some mighty big lies, but Santos even makes him look like an amateur.  Santos is right up there with the former guy, who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it smacked him upside the head!  This is NOT what this nation needs … lawmakers who cannot ever be trusted, whose words and actions must always, always be fact-checked!  But alas, this is the new GOP – which, by the way, no longer stands for “Grand Old Party”, but rather for “Gaslight Or Perjure...”

Dennison - and others - are calling on the Republican leadership to do the right thing, the ethical thing, but the likes of Kevin McCarthy cannot afford to kick Santos to the curb because their control of the US House is on a precarious - 5-seat margin - footing already. McCarthy himself is facing an unheard-of fight of his life for the Speakership, and he needs all the grifters he can find to save his own ass in this moment. Even though Santos will condemn McCarthy - and the rest of the GOP - down the road.

This scandal with Santos is exposing the reality that the Republican Party for all historic purposes is no longer a political party, it's an ongoing criminal conspiracy. As Amanda Marcotte points out at Salon, entire decades of lusting after power has turned a once-proud Party into a haven for grifters: 

One thing was dead certain within moments of the New York Times publishing its exposé on the many lies of George Santos: There was zero chance that this brand new Republican congressman-elect from New York would be shamed into giving up his seat. Perhaps that didn't seem obvious to everyone at first, especially those with lingering memories of the pre-Trump era, when we all pretended to believe that Republican voters cared about hypocrisy, lying, overt racism, sexual abuse or any of the other personal or professional scandals that used to take politicians down routinely. But I never doubted for a moment that Santos would move onward toward being seated and that the incoming Republican House majority would allow it...

Despite all this, the only way he doesn't join Congress as an esteemed member of the Republican caucus is if New York prosecutors can nail him for something first. I believe this in the way I believe that chocolate is delicious and cats are cute. After all, what is the modern GOP, if not a holding station for every two-bit criminal and grifter who wants the job security that can only come with exploiting the endlessly credulous Republican base? The party can no more start kicking out the fraudsters than it can stop trying to cut taxes for the rich. This is just who they are and what they do. George Santos is in no sense an anomaly. He is the Republican present and, even more to the point, the Republican future...

This is what gets delicately described as "negative partisanship" in mainstream media and political science textbooks, and all too often treated as an equal problem on both sides. Of course it's true that both parties include some voters who are more motivated by dislike of the opposing party than by support for their own. But with Democrats, that at least has some basis in real-world concerns, given that Republicans are the party of abortion bans and the Jan. 6 insurrection. But on the other side, Republican voters mostly coast on hyperbolic vitriol about the evils of Democrats, which are at best vague insinuations of corruption, and at worst outright lies and QAnon-style conspiracy theories. 

Convincing Republican voters to believe that Democrats are literally the worst people imaginable certainly helps Republicans win elections. But it's also destabilizing the party from within, because shady characters of all flavors now understand that no sin or crime is so great that it cannot be wiped away by running for office as a Republican. The result is a party full of cranks, chronic liars and petty criminals, a situation that gets worse every election cycle, as demonstrated by the Santos fiasco...

We still don't know where George Santos got the money that allowed him to run and win a congressional election in a pivotal swing district. But he's still likely to be seated next week with no serious impediment, offering America's swindler class another reason to believe that going into Republican politics is like getting a license to commit fraud. There's no real chance of political backlash in a situation like this, with the GOP voter base heavily dosed up on Fox News hate. Worse yet, it seems increasingly clear that federal law enforcement is too afraid of looking "partisan" to prosecute Republican politicians over anything, so there are no serious legal consequences either. Sam Bankman-Fried may be kicking himself for getting into cryptocurrency instead of GOP politics, if what he wanted was the ability to defraud whoever you like with impunity...

I wrote in 2015 that the Republican Party was dead in spirit, with only a decaying body shambling about going through the motions of politics in order to keep all the money and power in their undead uncaring hands. With the 2016 election of donald trump, the Republicans were stuck with the reality that he paved the way for all the other grifters to yell and scream enough on Far Right media outlets to win offices in safe gerrymandered districts (or safe Red states full of Culture War angst). 

With these political offices in their hands, they can con their way to put more government funds in their own pockets. They can then campaign and fundraise to their hearts' desires, sucking up every last penny from the suckers who buy their vitriol and eat it like caviar. This is the new con game, where the liars can make money even if they lose by declaring themselves victims and fundraising off of that.

This is where the modern GOP is. A party filling up with George Santos and a hundred other grifters. Now literally "trumps all the way down." 

trump can't go to jail for his crimes fast enough. Here's hoping he shares a cell block with Santos sooner rather than later. Along with the other Republican grifters thriving off of fear and hate and greed.

Republicans Will Vote For the Devil When It Suits Their Purpose

"He may be a bastard, but he's OUR bastard!"
- standard excuse given by political cynics whenever they justify supporting a terrible, scandal-plagued candidate

It's come up again that the Republican Party has no morality when it comes to selecting their candidates. The Georgia Senate race involving Herschel Walker - a well-proven domestic abuser with an insane history of fabricating his history - just got exposed with reports from the Daily Beast that he paid a number of former girlfriends to have abortions. All of this highlighting the hypocrisy of the GOP running on a pro-life anti-abortion platform.

Just like Alabama's Roy Moore back in 2017, when he was exposed as a pedophile chasing after teen girls in shopping malls and stalking them to their high schools, the Republicans are publicly and perfectly fine with Walker paying for abortions, because GOD FORBID the political power should ever go to those radical evil Democrats instead.

As Steve M. notes at his No More Mister Nice Blog, the cruelty AND hypocrisy are the ever-constant focal points of an unhinged power-mad minority party:

Right-wing thought leaders are making it clear that they don't care whether Walker was an accessory to what they normally regard as murder -- only power matters in this case...

We all know what Frank Wilhoit said: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” But we need to realize that conservatives believe that this applies not just to what's legally permitted, but also to what's regarded as moral. If a conservative does it, that means it's not immoral. And the corollary: Liberals are immoral even if they don't commit immoral acts.

So Bill Clinton's marital troubles make him a moral degenerate, but Donald Trump's don't -- in fact, he's widely regarded on the right as a good Christian. Barack and Michelle Obama are depraved even though they've had a long, sturdy marriage. Similarly, Hunter Biden's past transgressions damn him for life, no matter how thoroughly he cleans up -- but Herschel Walker's past is irrelevant to the right.

What's the right's definition of a good person? A Republican in good standing. What's the right's definition of an evil person? Anyone who isn't a Republican in good standing, or on the way to becoming one. (Democrats who attack the "Democrat Party" get a special exemption.) So no one on the right is calling Herschel Walker an accessory to murder. It's only murder -- with, increasingly, the risk of real legal penalties -- if we do it...

Republicans keep proving that they don't care if the elected official or candidate they're backing is an imbecile, if that person is racist or anti-Semitic or misogynistic to hell and back, or if that person has so many ethical red flags they should never be trusted.

Republicans want emotionally broken, ethically vacant people among their ranks to ensure they are loyal only to themselves (and their rich deep pocket sugar daddies) and not to the states and districts they are sworn to serve. They know they are not truly representative of the needs of the majority, and they know they can't find people who are ethical and honest to run as Republicans. So they'll run the crooks they do draft into service, and use mudslinging attacks on Democrats as "leftist radicals destroying America" to rile up their base to show up and vote (while discouraging independent voters from paying attention) while doing everything to rig the midterms to discount/disqualify every Democratic vote they can.

Every Republican action exposes their gaslighting and hypocrisy as damaging to our national well-being. These midterms matter, people. For the LOVE OF GOD and for honest representation in OUR government, please show up to vote this November and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE FOR EVERY DEMOCRAT YOU CAN. Do not let the Herschel Walkers and the Matt Gaetzes and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the GOP win a damn thing.

What The Hell We Waiting For?

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for offering this blog to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Don't forget, kiddos, November is coming up and that means NaNoWriMo writing challenge! Please read through the blog and leave comments!

You may notice this blog as a certain... philosophical viewpoint when it comes to donald trump.

Mostly that he's a lying, crooked, bankrupt, racist, sexist, brain-dead, ill-read, ill-tempered, Russian-bought, law-breaking Shitgibbon of the lowest order.

I admit I've kind of been calling for trump's immediate arrest and placement in handcuffs and perp-walked to the nearest SuperMax for awaiting his trial dates without bail, probably even before I started blogging in 2006 (The sonofabitch killed the USFL and the Tampa Bay Bandits back in the 1980s). It's been frustrating to sit here - even as more criminal misdeeds go public and he's practically bragging he's getting away with shit - and wonder what the hell is taking so long.

Rude Pundit is with me on being frustrated with the failure of the legal system so far:

This is the kind of shit that plagues my brain at 3 a.m. when the whiskey is wearing off and the drugs just aren't holding the bullshit at bay anymore. Right now, a plague of lawsuits and investigations ought to be making Trump wonder if he'd rather live the rest of his miserable life in the UAE, Russia, or Indonesia when it comes to places without extradition treaties. And I know, I know, I fucking know that you want to be optimistic, even gleeful, thinking, "There's no fucking way he gets out of all of this." I mean, c'mon. If nothing else, E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit accusing Trump of raping her has to bring him down. She's got DNA evidence, after all. 

It's not just that we've been burned before (although I'll brag that I stopped leaping at every "We got him!" moment a long time ago). It's that when Trump gets away with it, the story shifts. The Mueller Report has become nothing more than a failed witch hunt (which it wasn't). The impeachment over Ukraine has become part of the "Russia hoax" (it's not a hoax and the phrase has become so broad as to encompass anything that even mentions Russia and Trump). Trump prances all around his red state yahoo fests, lying about this shit with extravagant abandon as he pushes closer and closer to simply saying, "Kill everyone not like you..."

And it's not just that Trump's gotten away with so much throughout his life. How many regular, working and middle class stiffs does he have to dick over before the rest understand they're being conned? How the fuck did it take so long for some entity in New York to seriously go after his entire ass? And why do they always stop short of actually arresting someone who has blatantly flouted the law? I'm honestly pissed as hell at Cyrus Vance and every AG and DA who allowed Trump and his shit children to remain free to fuck over more people...

It's been noted before, that the legal system favors the rich over the poor: Partly because the rich can afford better lawyers, but mostly because the legal system is all about "who owns what" and favors the rich in the first place.

trump's benefitted from a legal system that makes it hard to prove financial fraud, that creates a number of loopholes and exemptions that let him "do business" because we dare not overburden our Capitalism with regulations. he's benefitted from laws that give bankrupt businessmen like himself chances to file for Chapter 7-11-whatever and evade accountability to his creditors, and to keep doing that over and over even though by the third time he filed for bankruptcy someone should have noticed the trend and held him criminally liable before he ruined more businesses.

It's nice that there's NOW a criminal trial trump is facing this October for his company's acts of fraud, although it's just the company facing sanction and trump could walk away from jail time. It's nice that's there a slew of civil court trials trump is facing for tax evasion, acts of fraud, and defamation regarding his slandering of women he's sexually assaulted. It's nice that trump and his electoral fraud lackeys are facing likely state criminal charges in Georgia (and maybe also Arizona and Michigan). It's nice that there's NOW federal investigations into trump's overt refusal to abide by laws regarding Presidential records and illegal possession of CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS. But where the fuck was everybody back in the 1990s when trump's bankrupt malfeasance - and possible ties to Russian mobs - went public... and still nobody did anything before he got worse?

I am also with Drew Magary over at SFGate (maybe paywalled). Just indict him already: 

And so we come to said special master, Judge Raymond (British accent) Dearie, whose appointment has not stopped the Department of Justice from poring over some of the most sensitive documents they seized earlier this fall from Mar-a-Lago: documents that Trump definitely accidentally absconded from the White House with after his term as president came to an end.

Dearie has not been kind to Trump’s lawyers and even tried to force Trump to appear in court under oath. These plans were scuttled by a federal judge Thursday, but the special master’s moves are just one of many signs that the walls are closing in around our beloved Don-Don. The Department of Justice is still actively engaged in a criminal investigation of Trump. One of Trump’s most vocal defenders in the past is currently arguing that the former president’s attempts to ward off the probe may in fact be aiding it. I love it, unironically, when Trump hires people who he assumes will protect him and then they’re like, “Actually, f—k this guy.” And there are so many people like this out there! Fantastic...

It is time, both procedurally and metaphorically, to f—k Donald Trump. After all, if the guy who defended Trump against presumed white knight Robert Mueller thinks that Trump is in a highly f—kable position, let’s go ahead and take advantage of that.

It’s well past time, really. If you disdain Trump as much as I do, you’ve been on a six-year-long catharsis hunt in which every victory — even the 2020 election! — has felt hollow. I thought Trump was finished when he fired James Comey. I thought he was finished when Mueller was drafted to investigate him. I thought he was finished when he got COVID-19. You get the idea. It’s been an agonizing stretch in which all of us have had to live through Donald Trump being president, Donald Trump violently refusing to stop being president and then Donald Trump threatening to become president again. All Americans deserve a break from his bulls—t. We voted Joe Biden into office for this very reason.

And yet, here Trump remains. Still here. Still not officially f—ked. For six years, I’ve been waiting for a cavalry that always arrives unarmed. I’ve been counting on Democrats to put Trump’s head on the chopping block when that party’s leaders all share a bizarre reticence to prosecute him because they believe that indicting Trump is an indictment of the American Idyll or something. It’s possible that Trumpism is a fad and will die out on its own. Perhaps as soon as November, when a red wave that the dreaded polls supposedly once foretold fails to materialize. But given the damage that Trump and his cohorts have wrought, it feels wrong, IS wrong, to hope nature takes its course with this movement. I’ve done the hope thing. I did it in 2008. It only got me here, so you’ll excuse me if hope and I aren’t on the best of terms right now. 

What I require, and what is there for the taking at last, is action. All of this due diligence has to be for something, and not just for due diligence’s sake. If Democrats want me to have faith in their precious institutions, then what I need is for those institutions to do what the label on the “Institutions” box promises and indict this man. I’m as sick as you are of the “Today would be a good day to charge Donald Trump with high treason” brand tweets that have polluted the internet since his inauguration, but the receipts are flooding in and the excuses have all sunk to the bottom of the sea in a beautiful, idiot boat. Truly, today WOULD be a good day for the hammer to drop.  Don’t wait until after the election, when Republicans will have f—ked with an election that they have already pledged to f—k with. Don’t gimme some bulls—t about how there’ll be another civil war if we dare to prosecute Trump because I already watched the insurrectionists try to start that war and fail miserably. Most of those people thought they were going to a furry convention or something. And don’t put on your law degree and tell me about dangerous precedents and how fluid the definition of “crimedoing” is. I’ve been watching this s—tshow for six years now. I know what I’m looking at. I’m looking at robbery, treason, fraud and awful nutrition habits. Everyone knows what went down, what is going down and what Republicans WANT to go down. And I think I’ve had enough of the down parts...

To all the expectation that trump's rabid fanbase will rise up in acts of violence, we seen a part of that already back on January 6th. Yes, there will be violence, but that's going to happen no matter what we as a nation do to hold trump accountable for his crimes. Even if the legal system steps back, says to itself "oh dear we shouldn't do this, it'll set a terrible precedence for future assholes to abuse the law for partisan hackery," it's too late. trump's rabid fanbase will turn violent even if they get their way, because they will believe the legal system will let them get away with anything now. The Far Right wants their civil war, because they need the blood of their enemies to fulfill their Turner Diaries utopia. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

trump keeps thinking he's protected, that he's safe, that he's one of the beautiful elite and that he's not a sucker who can ever lose. trump is running on that because Gods help us for 50 years the legal system let him run free even as the damage in his wake piled up higher than Trump Tower.

It is way past time to throw donald trump in a jail cell, take away his smartphone and shut down his social media accounts, slam that door shut, and call him a "sucker" as the guards walk away. Let trump brood in the darkness of his own making, because he's been such an inept con artist who only benefitted from fellow corrupt cronies and a lax legal system.

He's been leaving the clues to his follies and failures everywhere for decades, taunting our legal system and threatening to commit more crimes. Just stop him. Just fucking stop him, will you?

Seriously. We jailed Martha Stewart for less.