Slouching Towards Oblivion

Jan 17, 2025

Today's Today

They're expecting to weather to fuck it up for Trump.

He's already getting a little roasted for running inside to avoid the cold. Should be interesting to hear how he spins the crowd size on this one.

Granted, it's pretty fucking cold with a wind chill down around 9ºF, but y'know what - it was pretty fuckin' cold in '77 when Jimmy and Rosalynn walked it - when JFK stood up to it in '61, with 8" of snow on the ground - when Obama managed not to pussy out in '09.

But, oops - Reagan took it inside in '85. Kinda looks like Republicans can't stand the heat or the cold.

Where is this hyper-macho alpha bro we keep hearing about?




Questions

  1. How much did that cost me?
  2. How much does Elon put in his pocket per failure?
  3. How do you spell boondoggle?

Today's Nerdy Thing


Jan 16, 2025

Adam Kinzinger



United We Prevail

Staying Strong, Vigilant, and Courageous in the Face of Adversity


I wish this were a good news post. Truly, I do. Lately, I've begun to question whether my words help bring clarity or simply contribute to a collective sense of despair. But I've made a commitment—to be honest with you. This post is a continuation of that commitment. The truth is, the situation is grim, and MAGA hasn't fully taken control yet. I'm warning you: this path will not end well if we don't take a stand.

This week kicked off with the profoundly disappointing Senate hearing involving Pete Hegseth, the weekend morning show personality turned far-right political figure. The Republicans on the panel made it painfully clear from the outset that they were there not for constitutional oversight but to shield Hegseth and amplify Donald Trump's agenda. Their questioning wasn't about accountability—it was about currying favor with someone they believe could soon control the Department of Defense. The message was unmistakable: stay on Pete's good side, and your district might just get that new fighter jet or upgraded training facility.

Unfortunately, the Democratic response fell short of what the moment demanded. While there were some solid moments and good questions raised, too much time was spent focusing on Hegseth's controversial statements about women in the military. Don't get me wrong—I fully support women serving in our armed forces, and Hegseth deserves scrutiny for his past remarks. But when his position on the issue shifted recently, the line of questioning should have pivoted: What changed, and why? Instead, it seemed more about getting soundbites than achieving clarity.

More troubling still was the missed opportunity to press Hegseth on the core principles of military ethics. He wasn't asked whether he would refuse an illegal order until the very end—and when the question finally came, he dodged it. The only acceptable answer in our defense establishment is a resounding "absolutely." Yet, the questioning concluded without holding him to that standard, a failure I can only describe as oversight malpractice.

We must be clear-eyed about what this hearing represents: a test case. There are far more alarming nominations on the horizon. Tulsi Gabbard, a known Assad apologist and pro-Putin figure, is being considered to lead the coordination of all intelligence agencies. Rumors suggest Trump may nominate Joe Kent, a far-right extremist rejected even by MAGA voters, to head the National Counterterrorism Center—the agency responsible for identifying domestic and international threats. Imagine the implications of someone linked to extremist groups overseeing domestic terror assessments.

And it doesn't stop there. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal vaccine skeptic and proponent of conspiracy theories, could be tapped to lead Health and Human Services. His views on public health are not just controversial—they're dangerous, particularly for a position requiring sound scientific judgment.

I don't share this to spread despair. I share it to ignite a sense of urgency and action. This is not the time for resignation. This is the time for unyielding resistance. History reminds us that battles can feel lost just before victory emerges. During the Battle of the Bulge, the situation seemed utterly hopeless for the Allied troops, yet mere months later, they were in the heart of a defeated enemy's capital. The tide turned because they refused to give up.

This isn’t the time to obsess about difference in our coalition. The Brits and American’s fought together despite their past wars, and different governments. Yes there were Egos leading the armies, and those people sometimes clashed. But they never forgot the mission. We are in Act Three of this political struggle. The forces of extremism and authoritarianism want us demoralized. But we still have power. We still have voices. And most importantly, we still have each other. If we stand together, stay vigilant, and fight with clarity and courage, we can turn the tide. This battle is far from over—and together, we can win. It will take time (hopefully just four years) but when we look back in a decade, it will seem like a blink of time, and a victory well earned, as we stand in OUR capitol restoring Democracy to it’s pure form, “with malice towards none and charity for all.”

Katagelasticism


Something To Do

And something to remember:
A saint is just a sinner who fell and then got up again.




js@jeremysherman.com

Slippery

I guess it's pretty easy to say Merrick Garland fucked this up. Sure looks like it.

It's just hard to tell how much damage Trump did at DOJ in his first term, and how much of a headwind Garland had against him from inside the department because of that damage.

That may be one of those things we just never get to know. Maybe it'll come out in somebody's memoir down the road.

But this is where we are, and this is what we've got, and we have no choice but to move forward - trying to keep track of all the Trump shit as we go - taking whatever solace there is to be found in the knowledge that some sunny morning, we're going to wake up to the ringing of bells because his obituary is all over the news.

MIllions of MAGA rubes will cry, as billions of normal people cheer.


Special counsel report says Trump would’ve been convicted for Jan. 6 ‘unprecedented criminal effort’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith said his team “stood up for the rule of law” as it investigated President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, writing in a much-anticipated report released Tuesday that he stands fully behind his decision to bring criminal charges that he believes would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.

“The throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud — and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process,” the report states.

The report, arriving just days before Trump is to return to office on Jan. 20, focuses fresh attention on the Republican’s frantic but failed effort to cling to power in 2020 after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to Trump’s 2024 election victory, the document is expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries, and complements already released indictments and reports.

Trump responded early Tuesday with a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming he was “totally innocent” and calling Smith “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election.” He added, “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

Trump had been indicted in August 2023 on charges of working to overturn the election, but the case was delayed by appeals and ultimately significantly narrowed by a conservative-majority Supreme Court that held for the first time that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. That decision, Smith’s report states, left open unresolved legal issues that would likely have required another trip to the Supreme Court in order for the case to have moved forward.

Though Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.

“The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind,” the report states. “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

The Justice Department transmitted the report to Congress early Tuesday after a judge refused a defense effort to block its release. A separate volume of the report focused on Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, actions that formed the basis of a separate indictment against Trump, will remain under wraps for now.

The report is unsparing in its details about schemes undertaken by Trump to undo the presidential contest, accusing him of an “unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”

It recounts his role in trying to force the Justice Department to use its law enforcement authorities to advance his personal interests and in participating in a scheme to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by Biden, and it says he directed “an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters’ violence to further delay it.”

And it documents his fallout with his vice president, Mike Pence, over Trump’s demands that he refuse to certify the electoral count before Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. It says that just before he left the White House to deliver a speech at the Ellipse that day, he called Pence one last time and that when the vice president told him that he planned to issue a public statement that he lacked the authority to do as Trump had requested, “Mr. Trump expressed anger at him. He then directed staffers to re-insert into his planned Ellipse speech some language that he had drafted earlier targeting Mr. Pence.”

Though most of the details of Trump’s efforts to undo the election are already well established, the document includes for the first time a detailed assessment from Smith about his investigation, as well as a defense by Smith against criticism by Trump and his allies that the inquiry was politicized or that he worked in collaboration with the White House — an assessment he called “laughable.”

“While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,” Smith wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland attached to the report. “I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters.”

The special counsel also laid out the challenges it faced in its investigation, including Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to try to block witnesses from providing evidence, which forced prosecutors into sealed court battles before the case was charged.

Another “significant challenge” was Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors,” which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Smith wrote.

“Mr. Trump’s resort to intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as demonstrated by his actions during the charged conspiracies,” Smith wrote.

“A fundamental component of Mr. Trump’s conduct underlying the charges in the Election Case was his pattern of using social media — at the time, Twitter — to publicly attack and seek to influence state and federal officials, judges, and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election had been stolen or who otherwise resisted complicity in Mr. Trump’s scheme,” he added.

Smith also provided fresh analysis about his team’s prosecution decisions, writing that his office decided not to charge Trump with incitement in part because of free speech concerns, or with insurrection because he was the sitting president at the time and there was doubt about proceeding to trial with the offense — of which there was no record of having been prosecuted before.

Jan 15, 2025

Oh, Elmo


I like to believe that someday, we'll start to think real people doing real things is what's admirable, and not just this week's PT Barnum. But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Jan 14, 2025