Grift in politics is nothing new, but in the last few years has blossomed into widespread corruption and lies. The biggest flood came from Donald Trump, who during his tenure in the White House told an estimated 30,573 lies (which comes out to over 20 whoppers a day). Trump turned on a spigot of grift, even overcharging Secret Service agents for hotel stays while they were protecting the first family.
It seems like Trump has normalized these things in the Republican Party. Let’s just pick a few recent examples.
I’m sure everyone has heard about the misdeeds of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who received lavish gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow who Thomas claimed is a “close friend”, except that Crow only became his buddy after Thomas became a Supreme. And the gifts just keep on giving. A new article in the NY Times exposed even more lavish gifts, vacations, parties and more — which were never disclosed. Even worse, another new article in The Guardian has discovered that Thomas accepted money from lawyers who had business before the court. Sheesh!
Another example may not count as grift, but is about money, and is suspiciously close to money laundering and maybe even bribery. The GOP is attempting to limit the number of candidates who can participate in the Republican debates. One of their rules is that candidates must have 40 thousand unique donors, and at least 200 donors in 20 different states or territories. This posed a problem for presidential candidate and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, who as a billionaire is simply self funding his presidential campaign. In a move that looks a lot like buying an election, anyone who sends him a donation of $1 will receive a $20 gift card. And it worked! Burgum just qualified for the first debate. And he isn’t the only GOP presidential candidate who is trying to buy donations. I guess it helps to be filthy rich to get into this club.
But it isn’t just bigwig politicians who are doing the grift. ProPublica, the same group that broke the news about Judge Thomas, has an article about right-wing websites that scam their readers with phony celebrity stories.
Some of the scams being pulled off by Republican candidates are just stupid. For example, Tim Sheehy is a GOP Senate candidate for Montana. On his website, he touts his support for agriculture in Montana with a photo standing out in a field. There’s just one problem, the photo was taken in Kentucky, nowhere near Montana!
First time I’ve ever heard anything from her that makes any sense!
UPDATE: Just to make things clear, MTG is now complaining that the Biden campaign took her words out of context. Well, of course they took her words out of context! Anyone who thinks that MTG has had a change of heart and is now supporting Biden is drinking the Krazy Kool-Aid! (Not that she isn’t famous for changing her heart on a dime, which recently got her booted from the Freedom Caucus!)
The whole point of the ad is that MTG is giving a fairly accurate account of Joe Biden’s accomplishments, investing in public infrastructure and environmental programs, and completing FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. This includes (in her words) programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, and labor unions. But she thinks what Biden is doing is a bad thing. MTG is railing against education, better medical care, solving urban problems and rural poverty, improving transportation, and (worst of all) Medicare and Medicaid. She also hates labor unions.
In context, what MTG said is that if you elect Republicans, they will work to destroy all of these things. In effect, she is stupidly saying the quiet part out loud.
Yesterday, the ongoing feud between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert spilled out onto the floor of the house. Both are far-right “Freedom Caucus” members. What they are fighting about is hilarious. They are competing with each other about who gets to impeach Joe Biden first.
In the floor scuffle, Greene called Boebert “a little bitch” (according to reps who witnessed it), and Greene later doubled down to media, saying, “I told her exactly what I think about her”.
So not only is the nutso Freedom Caucus causing problems for the House of Representatives, impeaching Joe Biden will likely cause damage to more moderate Republicans (as it did for the GOP impeachment of Bill Clinton), but the Freedom Caucus itself is stupidly fighting amongst themselves. Who elected these idiots and gave them the power to run the government?
The ironic thing about this is that I have to agree with Greene, something I never thought I would do. Of course, if I agree that Boebert is “a little bitch” I would also have to agree that Greene is “a big bitch”. It is only fair.
If this clip is not being aired in digital ads by liberal groups by later tonight they are not doing their jobs. Just brutal. pic.twitter.com/l16rOAMOLp
Bret Baier – on Fox News no less – points out that most of the “best people” who Donald Trump claimed he hired, have now come out against him, and he has himself attacked them as bad people. In addition, by the end of his term, eleven of his closest associates (Steve Bannon, Tom Barrack, Elliot Broidy, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, George Nader, Roger Stone, Allen Weisselberg) had been charged with crimes.
Trump totally deflects by claiming that he created a great economy, and that he “defeated ISIS in 4 weeks”. Never mind that Trump is the only recent president who lost jobs (2.9 million of them!) during his administration.
During his presidency, the US trade deficit, which Trump promised to reduce, went up by over 40%. The national debt went from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, because of Trump’s huge tax cut for the wealthy. Illegal immigration into the US increased. The production of handguns increased by over 12%, and the murder rate went up.
As for his ISIS claim, if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Besides his crazy tax cut for the wealthy (which drove up inflation), Trump’s only other accomplishment was overturning Roe v. Wade by getting 3 hard line conservatives into the Supreme Court, something that the majority of Americans are against.
To be honest, I’m surprised that any decent lawyers would ever agree to work for Donald Trump. It can’t be worth any amount of money Trump might pay. And that’s assuming that they actually get paid at all. Even so, Trump won’t ever shut up, and will likely ruin any case.
Maybe a fake lawyer is the best Trump can expect. Or a lawyer who is nuts, like Rudy.
I was wondering when someone would do a nice rant about Donald Trump and the indictment. This one is pretty good, and as an added bonus, is fairly short and to the point.
This morning, just hours after his indictment, two of Donald Trump’s main defense lawyers in the classified documents case decided to cut bait, announcing that they would no longer be representing TFG. According to Politico, “Though Trump has had shakeups of his legal teams before, the current changes deprive Trump of some of his most seasoned legal hands at the most perilous moment of his legal travails.” Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Trump lost another one of his lawyers working on the same case. You know what they say about rats on a sinking ship.
Trump will now be represented by the attorney who is currently representing Trump in the hush money case related to Stormy Daniels. Trump also claims he is hiring another firm, to be named later. Maybe it will be Four Seasons Law, Landscaping and Lies, headed by Rudy Giuliani?
And it isn’t just lawyers abandoning, as right-wing cartoonist Lisa Benson posted the following cartoon:
On a slightly lighter note, Hillary Clinton is bringing back merchandise from the 2016 presidential election. Trump repeatedly claimed that for mishandling classified information, Clinton should be locked up.
Trump also promised at a campaign rally, “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”
"In my administration, I'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law."
— Donald Trump August 18, 2016 (Charlotte NC rally)
Trump, of course, went on to not only mishandle classified information, but he also lied repeatedly about it. While Clinton turned the information over to the government when it was requested, just like Mike Pence and Joe Biden.
Donald Trump just can’t help panicking and pissing all over himself, even when he is being asked questions by someone like Sean Hannity, who is totally on his side. No wonder Trump’s lawyers are trying to shut him up, but to no avail. Trump has become what he hates — a LOSER. And all the Republicans throwing their hats into the presidential ring know it.
I haven’t posted for a few weeks, but I’ve been closely watching the US inching closer to a disastrous dumb default. Listening to popular news media, you would have been bombarded by continuous bullshit from the “Freedom Caucus” and Donald Trump saying that a default would be a good thing (TM). And complaints that Joe Biden wasn’t doing anything to solve the problem.
And yet, somehow magically, the problem was solved. Done. Biden has signed the bill, a whole two days before the world economy would start crashing on Monday.
Most importantly, the Freedom Caucus showed that it just wants attention, but was a paper tiger, “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The good news? Bipartisan government is back. And Biden knew what he was doing. The far-right Republicans won’t be able to pull this stunt again for at least 2 years.
A civil court jury, including at least one vocal Trump supporter, unanimously declared Donald Trump liable for both sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, and defaming her, awarding her $5 million dollars. Trump then stupidly, on national television, defamed her again. He also says he will appeal. Yes please, keep being an unrepentant misogynist bastard and keeping this in the news during your political campaign, that will really help. After all, only half the voters are women.
It is more likely that Fox News ends up with a replacement for Tucker Carlson who is just as bad as him, and maybe even worse. It’s just locked into the genes of Fox News. They need toxic lies, in order to keep their rabid base watching.
Florida is the state where tin-pot dictators go to die. Just ask Ronald D. DeSantis, who is about to have his future completely destroyed by Disney (the very model of a Mickey Mouse outfit). You don’t mess with the mouse!
You have almost certainly heard about the fight between DeSantis and Disney.
DeSantis got Florida to pass a law prohibiting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, popularly called “Don’t say Gay”. Did DeSantis miss the memo that gays now have rights?
Under pressure from their employees, Disney criticized that law.
DeSantis makes a mistake, writing, “If Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy.” He also started calling the company names, like “Woke Disney”.
At the behest of DeSantis, the Florida legislature — which was previously heavily gerrymandered by DeSantis, so much so that the Republican-controlled legislature balked but was overruled by the governor — started targeting Disney with extremely hostile measures. First they took away Disney’s special tax district, something that is common in Florida (including Daytona speedway, The Villages, and hundreds of others).
Then DeSantis pushed through an “oversight board” to control Disney World, which was filled with his lackeys.
Disney quietly did an end-run around that board, which enraged DeSantis. The governor then went ballistic, threatening to reappraise the value of Disney World to raise its property taxes, imposing tolls on the roads that go there, and developing the surrounding land with annoying businesses, including a new state prison.
So today, Disney sued DeSantis. In their complaint, they point out that the First Amendment means “In America, the government cannot punish you for speaking your mind.”
Let me just point out that Disney is the linchpin that turned Orlando into an international tourist destination. Disney World is the largest private employer in the state with 75,000 employees, paid $1.2 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, and they are very popular in Florida.
And yet, DeSantis went on the warpath against Disney simply because they dared to criticize DeSantis for passing an unpopular law. Like I said, DeSantis is a tin-pot dictator. He wants to control what teachers can say, what books can be read, and to destroy the freedom of speech. Republicans are supposed to be for small government, not taking over private businesses.
The lawsuit says that DeSantis created a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint.” And all the evidence for this came right out of his mouth and pen.
I also want to point out that Disney is a huge company, and has some of the best corporate lawyers in the world. They held back to let DeSantis hang himself, and the governor and hopeful presidential candidate took the bait.
I can’t imagine any way that Disney doesn’t absolutely win this case, and on top of that, makes DeSantis look like the drooling idiot he is. Indeed, DeSantis is now taking heat from other Republicans. Even Trump wrote last week, “This is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!” And (using a pejorative name), “DeSanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney.” Whatever you call him, I believe that he will be out of politics entirely in a few years (partly because he is term limited as governor).
And all the other insidious menaces that vie for your attention, now including Nuclear Warming! Trans Athletes (because we can’t complain about gay people anymore)! Disney World! You can learn to love Putin and Russia! And you’ll need to buy yourself an AR-15 before Biden takes them away from you!
