The Chaos Caucus

And the Press Poodles at WaPo are at it again - diligently ignoring the obvious.

Republicans nominate Jordan for House speaker after Scalise withdrawal

But the Ohio congressman faces a steep hill in getting the 217 votes needed in the full House

By Amy B Wang, Marianna Sotomayor, Jacqueline Alemany and Leigh Ann Caldwell

House Republicans on Friday elected Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) as their new speaker-designate, yet he faces the same daunting mathematical conundrum that bedeviled the brief attempt of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) to claim the gavel.

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In an hours-long closed-door session Friday, GOP lawmakers — many of them visibly frustrated after a week of infighting — heard pitches from Jordan and Rep. Austin Scott (Ga.), who launched a last-minute bid for the speakership Friday morning.

Jordan — who narrowly lost to Scalise in a GOP vote earlier this week before the Louisiana Republican withdrew from the race a day later — emerged this time as the conference’s nominee with 124 votes, while Scott received 81 votes. Jordan’s vote tally was marginally higher than Scalise’s 113 count, suggesting he has much work ahead of him in getting to the 217 votes required to get elected by the full chamber.

Jordan’s elevation would cement the Republican Party’s shift to the far right — especially in the House — and would install as speaker someone who was a key ally in former president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and a leading defender against Trump’s impeachment for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

⬆︎⚠️ It's obvious that the GOP is sprinting (ie: not "shifting") to the far right. How does that little nugget get buried in the 4th paragraph - like it's an afterthought.

Going hard right is kinda the whole fucking point here.🚨

Jordan’s nomination was less a celebratory breakthrough and more of an unsteady mile marker for a Republican conference that has been plunged into chaos this week amid deep divisions. GOP lawmakers’ inability to unite around a single candidate has left the House without a permanent speaker for more than a week after Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) was removed from the job — paralyzing the chamber even with another government funding deadline looming and a war breaking out in the Middle East.

After Jordan was nominated Friday, Republicans immediately held another vote within the conference, also a secret ballot, on whether they would support him as the nominee on the floor. The aim was to see if Jordan would be able to win with at least 217 Republicans to avoid the debacle that befell Scalise. In that second vote, Jordan received 152 yes votes and 55 no votes, while one lawmaker voted present.

Afterward, lawmakers were told they would reconvene Monday. Rep. Garland “Andy” Barr (R-Ky.) said Jordan asked for the weekend to win over more support ahead of a Monday floor vote.

“Who the speaker ultimately ends up being is less important to me than a functioning majority. That’s what I want members to keep in mind,” Barr said. “Steve wasn’t able to get there, so I’m hoping Jim can.”

Minutes after the House convened Friday morning, Republicans went into a closed-door session to consider proposed conference rule changes aimed at ensuring future nominees would have the support necessary to win the speakership in a floor vote. However, all the proposals were eventually withdrawn, according to three lawmakers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private session.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) arrives for a House Republican gathering at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Complicating Jordan’s path, Scott announced Friday that he, too, would run for House speaker. The dean of the Georgia Republican delegation told reporters that he had “no intention” of launching a last-minute bid for speaker but said Republicans were not doing things “the right way.”

“We are in Washington to legislate, and I want to lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people,” Scott wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Friday morning.

McCarthy — who supported Jordan for the speakership after he was ousted — said he was encouraging others to do the same, though he couched it with the fact that members needed to make their own decisions. In Friday’s conference meeting, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) again raised his proposal to vote to condemn last week’s motion to vacate McCarthy and renominate him for the speakership.

Many Republicans were cheering, according to people in the room, but McCarthy then approached the microphones and told the conference to support Jordan.

Someone tried to “make a motion to bring me back, and I just [said], ‘No, let’s not do that,’” McCarthy said after the meeting.

Jordan will spend the weekend calling allies to help him shore up support from 56 Republicans who did not vote for him in the conference.

Several Scalise supporters remain hesitant about voting for Jordan, particularly after Jordan did not give an immediate and full-throated endorsement of Scalise. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Friday that he still had concerns about Jordan following his treatment of Scalise and didn’t want to “reward bad behavior.”

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a staunch Scalise ally, said no pressure would change his mind to support Jordan on the floor next week. If Jordan couldn’t persuade people to follow him on something as basic as a speaker vote, Diaz-Balart argued, then it did not bode well for more complicated matters down the line like negotiating appropriations bills, the debt limit or national security issues.

“This is, frankly, I hate to say this, the simplest thing we do, right? And if you can’t get your own people to follow you on a very simple thing like this, then I think you have an issue,” he said.

Some vulnerable Republicans who represent districts President Biden won in 2020 were also nervous about what a Jordan speakership could mean for them electorally. Jordan is known nationally as one of Trump’s strongest allies, and Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) admitted Thursday night that recognition could hurt him in his district. But he also echoed a position some governing moderates have taken, which is that he would support Jordan because Republicans need a speaker to get back to legislative business.

“I have absolutely no objection” to Jordan becoming speaker, Rep. Marcus J. Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said. “No one cares about how we get there. They just want us to get back to governing.”

What isn’t helping Jordan in terms of garnering support is how his allies have behaved: They have threatened some of those vulnerable Republicans, telling them that if they didn’t vote for Jordan behind closed doors, they would get primary challenges in their elections, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private conversations.

Another House Republican said those lawmakers who vote against Jordan on the second ballot may soon feel the wrath of “the Trump effect” unleashed on them to get them to bend toward Jordan. A Trump aide said the former president and his team are unlikely to be involved in whipping the vote — though they are tracking the status of the speaker’s race.

Asked about allegations that Jordan’s allies were threatening lawmakers who did not vote for Jordan, Russell Dye, a Jordan spokesman, said: “That is totally untrue.”

Concerns about Jordan’s past controversies also started to surface this week. The lawmaker has been accused by several Ohio State University wrestlers of knowing about sexual abuse allegations against the team’s doctor when he was a coach but doing nothing about it. An Ohio State independent investigation into the abuse did not make “conclusive determinations” about whether particular employees knew about the abuse by Richard Strauss, but a report issued later in 2019 said coaches did know.

Dye said in a statement this week that “Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it.”

The earliest the House could vote for speaker is Monday evening. Several Republicans were not in attendance at their conference Friday — because they were either physically no longer in Washington or because they were so angered by their own colleagues that they are now viewing these gathering as pointless — and it is unlikely the GOP will hold a vote with several absences. All week, Republicans publicly described their unproductive gatherings as “therapy sessions” or Festivus, a fictional holiday from the show “Seinfeld” that requires an airing of grievances.

Minutes after Jordan was chosen as speaker-designate, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the House Freedom Caucus co-founder had now become the “chairman of the chaos caucus” and “an extremist extraordinaire.” Jeffries also pointed at Republicans who have back-channeling with Democrats about a bipartisan solution to electing a consensus speaker to step up and vote against Jordan on the floor.

“Republicans can continue to triple down on the chaos, the dysfunction and the extremism,” Jeffries said on the Capitol steps. “On the other hand, traditional Republicans can break away from the extremism, partner with Democrats on an enlightened, bipartisan path forward so we can end the recklessness.”

Missing The Point

There may in fact be some Republicans who still want to govern - who want to make the thing work. And there's more than a fair probability that some of these clowns are indeed just interested in the clicks and the fund-raising opportunities, and the chance to keep a very lucrative gig.

But there are plenty - the MAGA gang, and the "quietly complicit moderate institutionalists" - who want dysfunction as a means to an end.

They've been telling us for 50 years:

• "to err is human, but if you really wanna screw things up, call the government"
• "government is the problem"
• "less government is better government and the best government is no government"

They're telling us they want to shit-can our little experiment in democratic self-government and start over with a shiny new coin-operated corporate-style plutocracy.

More dysfunction = more cynicism and dissatisfaction = higher likelihood that people will support a major shift to authoritarian rule.

I could be wrong, but could we at least acknowledge the possibility, and then have the balls to ask a few fucking questions about it?

Creeping Authoritarianism

Israel-Gaza Conflict
Israel Battles Militants as Netanyahu Warns of Long War

More than 30 hours after militants from Gaza surged across the border, Israel’s military said its forces were still battling gunmen on Israeli territory. Around 600 Israelis are believed to have been killed and more than 370 Palestinians are dead.

So ya wanna be a dictator while not admitting you're a dictator, and you wanna stay in power forever while not admitting you're shit-canning the principles of democracy that might limit your tenure?

Find a really great crisis you can pimp to the masses so they won't notice how you're actually fucking them with their pants on, and you'll have a lot of them standing in line to volunteer to get fucked with their pants on - several extra times.

The best crisis? Invasion - terrorists - enemies from without and from within.

And if you can get one that puts a nice rosy glow of racist assholery on it - jackpot.

Spark It Up

He won't stop on his own. He won't be stopped by the people around him - or the ones who may only be tangential to his "positions", but who see an opportunity to benefit from the shit he's doing.

Since forever, this shit ends in one of only two ways

1. The normal people get their heads outa their asses and push the Overton Window back to where it belongs before it's too late
2. Smoke and ash and blood and misery

The Problem

We're watching the process of a small minority taking power in a country where we've spent too much time patting ourselves on the back for being all big-time democratic, and not enough time making sure everybody understands that the whole fucking thing operates on the honor system.

In the various writings of the founders, they expressed fear that eventually, someone without honor would come along and use those writings as a guide book to pull down the republic and install himself as a new monarch.

This whole 'democratic republic' thing depends entirely on people behaving in an honorable way.

We make promises. We take an oath that says we'll honor the rulings of the courts, we'll honor the system of checks and balances, we'll conduct elections in an honorable way, and that we'll honor the outcomes of those elections. Honor.

Enter Donald Trump. And don't get me wrong here - this did not start when Trump came on the scene. He just recognized the opportunity to cash in on what many before him had laid the groundwork for.

There can't be anyone with a living thinking brain who believes the fairy tale that it's all good and peachy here in USAmerica Inc - that all you have to do is work hard, and play by the rules, and save your money, and you'll be livin' in high cotton before you know it - not with legacy admissions to the elite universities coupled with a totally unbalanced public school system, and militarized cops, and "right to work", and and and. This is not what meritocracy looks like.

We've got some bad problems with a system that becomes more corrupt and unfair with practically every passing day.

So there's a kernel of truth in what Trump and all the other dog-ass demagogues have been peddling. The problem is that Trump is in on the scam that was created by - and is now propagated by - people who seek to rule rather to serve. IOW, he's got priority #1 handled. ie: the rubes are completely buffaloed.

So there's been a hostile takeover of the GOP, and now we're seeing the next installment of the ongoing bloodless coup being fronted from a minority position by a guy who has no intention of ever doing anything that could ever be considered honorable.

And his minions are busy. They're always very busy.

The small group of House Republicans who might force a government shutdown

Roughly 10 lawmakers have at various times thwarted Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s proposals for both short- and long-term funding

Moments after a majority of House Republicans hammered out a plan to fund the government in the short and long term last week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) stood up.

Throwing cold water on the discussion in a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol, Gaetz defiantly declared that he and several other House Republicans remained staunchly against a short-term funding solution — and there were enough of them to block it. As frequently as they needed to.

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Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who until then had been on the side of the holdouts, stepped up to counter Gaetz’s claim, saying this new stopgap proposal — known as a continuing resolution — had earned his support. For a moment, there was hope among leadership that maybe others could be swayed, too.

Roughly 10 Republicans have dug in on their opposition to any short-term funding deal, blocking the House majority from delivering a bill chock full of their legislative priorities to the Democratic-led Senate in hopes of negotiating a more conservative solution to avoid a government shutdown.

Combined, these hard-right holdouts represent about 2 percent of the U.S. population, but account for 100 percent of the votes halting plans of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to keep the government open. Variations of the group have thwarted McCarthy at every turn during the months-long fiscal fights, turning their distaste for how the House functions and McCarthy’s leadership into a multimedia sideshow of bullhorns, pithy tweets, declarations on the House floor, and live streams from the gym.

The confrontation has left the government only days away from shutting down — closing certain federal agencies, immobilizing several anti-poverty programs, and delaying paychecks to thousands of government employees as well as members of the military.

“If you care to reduce spending, if you care to close the border, then every single day you wait, you are taking away our opportunities for leverage there,” said Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a McCarthy ally, stressing that the holdouts will be blamed if conservatives don’t get anything out of a shutdown. “It results in you being responsible for spending more money, you being responsible for the southern border being open, you being responsible for giving federal employees a paid holiday.”

Gaetz, who is McCarthy’s toughest critic, has been the most vocal of the group, quick with a quotable dig or a bombastic floor speech. Still, the small band of holdouts has no real leader or unifying worldview.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has remained a loyal McCarthy ally until recent spending disputes, has been largely alone in saying her support is solely contingent on funding for Ukraine being excluded from any stopgap bill. While House Republicans have offered a short-term bill with some broad funding cuts, some money for Ukraine is still included because a continuing resolution, by definition, is a continuation of existing funding.

To appease Greene, GOP leaders at one point floated removing Ukraine provisions from any short- or long-term funding measure. But Greene has balked, noting she had asked leadership to do this, but they did not take her demand seriously until she shockingly switched her vote last week to block a bill funding the Pentagon for a full year.

Asked if she would be open to voting for a CR if it didn’t include Ukraine funding, she said, “It depends on what’s in it.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks in opposition to funding for the war in Ukraine on the House steps of the Capitol on Tuesday. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post)
A broader group of holdouts are just fed up with how the House functions. They blame leadership for following a decades-old formula to fund the government: Fail to pass 12 individual bills that fund a variety of government departments, then wait until the last minute to pass a short-term bill that keeps the government open long enough for both chambers to hash out a deal to pass a package of long-term spending bills, known as an omnibus.

“Lather, rinse, repeat. The Washington wash cycle,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, who has opposed past CRs.

Congress has been unable to pass all 12 appropriations bills on time through each chamber since 1997, which many House conservatives consider a contributing factor to the federal government spending much more than it takes in, leading to the country’s ballooning debt.

That failure of process is why many of the holdouts insist they will never vote for any stopgap measure out of protest for the status quo. They blame McCarthy for continuing to follow the well-worn funding path, even though he is said to have promised otherwise earlier this year in his quest to gain the speaker’s gavel.

“I’ve been very consistent about opposing a CR,” Rep. Matthew M. Rosendale (R-Mont.) said. “It’s not the way to fund government. It simply extends [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi’s spending and Joe Biden’s policies. I voted against them for two years, so I’m not going to begin voting for them right now.”

House Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans who lost reelection last year, approved a $1.7 trillion funding package in December 2022 to keep the government open until Sept. 30 of this year. Many conservatives dislike a stopgap bill because it continues existing funding levels for a short time, meaning they would have to vote for levels they voted against last year.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who hasn’t voted for a CR since he took office in 2019, didn’t rule out voting for a CR, but said on Tuesday he couldn’t see himself supporting one “at this point.”

Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) board an elevator after leaving a House Republicans meeting on Sept. 20. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post)
Asked whether he’d rather vote for a CR or trigger a shutdown, he responded, “That’s kind of like saying, would I rather have a pencil stuck in my eye or in my ear?”

There is also a group of freshman Republicans — Reps. Eli Crane (Ariz.), Cory Mills (Fla.), Andrew Ogles (Tenn.) and Wesley Hunt (Tex.) — who have self-identified as “Never CR” voices, saying their constituents elected them last year to change how the process works.

“I’m opposed to it because, in principle, it’s what happens up here consistently,” Crane said. “Even as a freshman, I know that, right? It’s the old, ‘Oh, we’re going to do a CR.’ As if we haven’t had nine months to do what we’re supposed to do and pass the appropriation bills.”

Most of the holdouts have specifically called for the passage of all 12 long-term appropriations bills — but those lawmakers have also contributed to inhibiting that process. Roughly 20 holdouts initially blocked leadership from scheduling a vote on a procedural hurdle, known as the rule, to fund the Defense and Agriculture departments for a full year. Those bills eventually moved forward for debate on the House floor as part of a broader package Tuesday, in a win for Republican leaders.

Some in the “Never CR” group also intimate “never say never” when it comes to them possibly supporting a stopgap bill. But that support largely depends on the contours of a bill, and not all are on the same page of what those contours are.

Ogles said he would support a stopgap measure only when the House passes their remaining 11 appropriations bills, especially if they defund the Department of Justice’s investigation of former president Donald Trump — a provision that does not have the full support of the Republican conference.

“At the end of the day, leadership procrastinated and created a mess,” Ogles said. “Now we’ve got to find our way through it. And if that means staying [in Washington] a couple of extra weeks with a shutdown, that’s fine.”

Bishop said Wednesday he remains open to a short-term deal, but cautioned that he would need to see a clear path forward for House Republicans to pass an “acceptable package of appropriations bills.” Three Republicans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations and decisions, said that McCarthy chose to have the House focus on passing full-year funding bills this week in large part because it could show Bishop and possibly others that Republicans are committed to significantly curbing spending.

But not all holdouts agree.

For some like Gaetz — who, alongside holdouts Rosendale, Crane, and Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), never voted for McCarthy in the speaker’s race in January — the opposition at times feels personal. Gaetz has threatened to trigger a vote to depose McCarthy as speaker if he relies on Democrats to help pass a CR, and several other holdouts have suggested they might support such a move.

McCarthy and his allies have denounced the holdouts — though not by name — for remaining so fervently against a CR that it undercuts their goal of passing year-long appropriations bills.

“It’d be concerning to me that there would be people in the Republican Party that will take the position of President Biden against what the rest of Americans want,” McCarthy said Tuesday. “I don’t understand how, at the end of the day, they would stay in that lane.”

But several far-right holdouts and others who support keeping the government open for at least a week or two at a time remain largely in agreement that their relentless pressure on Republican leaders has made it less likely that they’ll try to fund the government this way next year.

“Among Republicans, there are those who don’t think we should make a change to anything that happens up here,” Bishop said. “And I am going to cast every single vote to see to it that the direction changes. We’re going to change the way this institution functions, so far as I have any control of it.”

Democrats understand they're called to serve

Republicans believe they're entitled to rule

Well, Duh

Sentient beings - humans in particular - cannot survive long without being at least somewhat self-aware.

Kevin McCarthy seems unable to grok this concept.

Speaker McCarthy is giving hard-right Republicans what they want. But it never seems to be enough.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Staring down a fast-approaching government shutdown that threatens to disrupt life for millions of Americans, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has turned to a strategy that so far has preserved his tenuous hold on House leadership but also marked it by chaos: giving hard-right lawmakers what they want.

In his eight months running the House, McCarthy has lived by the upbeat personal mantra of “never give up” as he dodges threats to his speakership and tries to portray Republicans as capable stewards of the U.S. government. He has long chided Washington for underestimating him.

But with the House GOP majority in turmoil, all but certain to hurl the country into a shutdown, McCarthy has set aside the more traditional tools of the gavel to keep rebels in line. Instead, he has acceded to a small band led by those instigating his ouster, even if that means closing federal offices.

It’s an untested strategy that has left McCarthy deeply frustrated, his allies rushing to his side and his grip on power ever more uncertain with the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government a week away.

“We still have a number of days,” McCarthy said Saturday as he arrived at the Capitol.

McCarthy struggles to pass a temporary spending bill to avoid a shutdown as others look at options

“I think when it gets crunch time people will finally, that have been holding off all this time blaming everybody else, will finally hopefully move off,” the California Republican said. “Because shutting down — and having border agents not be paid, your Coast Guard not get paid — I don’t see how that’s good.”

Governing with a narrow House majority, the speaker is facing a more virulent strain of the hard-right tactics that chased the two most recent Republican speakers before him, Reps. John Boehner of Ohio and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, into early retirement. Like them, McCarthy has tried various tactics to restore order. But more than ever, McCarthy finds himself swept along as far-right lawmakers, determined to bend Washington to their will, take control in the House.

McCarthy tried to win conservatives’ support by agreeing to their demand for impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and then by meeting their calls for spending cuts, only to be turned back whenever a few of them hold out for more concessions.

All the while, McCarthy has retreated from his budget deal with Biden months ago that established the spending threshold for the year. Instead, he is trying to reduce spending more in line with the level he promised the right flank during his tumultuous fight to become the House speaker.

Yet all the concessions seem to never be enough.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who is leading the fight, crowed to reporters Thursday that, “if you look at the events of the last two weeks, things seem to be kind of coming my way.”

Gaetz said he was delivering a eulogy for short-term funding legislation known as a continuing resolution — a mechanism traditionally used to keep the government functioning during spending debates.

Democrats have been eager to lay blame for the impending shutdown on McCarthy and the dysfunction in the House. Biden has called on McCarthy to stick to the annual spending numbers they negotiated to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.

“He handed over the gavel to the most extreme in his party,” said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, a senior Democrat.

With the House at a standstill and lawmakers at home for the weekend, McCarthy has turned to the plan advanced by Gaetz to start processing some of the nearly dozen annual spending bills needed to fund the various government departments and shelving for now the idea of stopgap approach while the work continues.

It’s a nearly impossible task as Congress runs out of time to find a short-term spending plan.

“We can in no way pass 11 bills in eight days,” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat appropriator, referring to the number of bills the House would have to approve before Sept. 30.

DeLauro, a veteran lawmaker, estimated it would take at least six weeks to pass the bills in both chambers of Congress, then negotiate them between the House and Senate. She urged Republicans to embrace a continuing resolution to allow government agencies to stay open.

Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, one of McCarthy’s closest allies, has pointed out that the Senate has advanced legislation at spending levels above those in the deal reached with Biden. He argues that House Republicans need to pass their own bills at the lower numbers to strengthen their hand in negotiations.

For Congress to solve the current impasse, many expect that it will take a bipartisan coalition that leaves McCarthy’s right flank behind. That would be certain to spark a challenge to his leadership.

In the Senate, Democratic and Republican leaders are working on a package that would fund the government at levels far higher than the House Republicans are demanding and include emergency disaster aid and money for Ukraine, which some GOP House members oppose.

“Eventually, we’re going to get something back from the U.S. Senate and it’s not going to be to our liking,” said Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack, a leading Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. “Then the speaker will have a very difficult decision.”

You can't appease these assholes, Kev. This is a stomp-or-be-stomped situation. Get with the fuckin' program.

A Small (ish) Win

Republicans continue their mighty struggle to beat back the forces of creeping democracy.

Seriously - I can't think of a shittier thing to do than to say you're serving the interests of your constituents by doing things that take away their right to choose their leaders - degrading democracy and claiming you're protecting it.

Our little experiment in democratic self-government seems to be hanging by a thread, even as we get a few faint glimmers of hope from a SCOTUS that has also seemed inclined to fuck us over.

But I'll take a win anywhere any time.

US Supreme Court won't halt ruling that blocked Alabama electoral map

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request by Alabama officials to halt a lower court's ruling that rejected a Republican-crafted electoral map for diminishing the clout of Black voters, likely clearing the way for a new map to be drawn ahead of the 2024 congressional elections.

The court's action leaves intact a Sept. 5 decision by a federal three-judge panel in Birmingham that the map approved by the state's Republican-led legislature to set the boundaries of Alabama's seven U.S. House of Representatives districts was unlawfully biased against Black voters and must be redrawn.

That map was devised after the Supreme Court in June blocked a previous version, also for weakening the voting power of Black Alabamians.

President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats are seeking to regain control of the House in next year's elections. With Republicans holding a slim 222-212 majority, court battles like this one are helping to shape the fight for control of the chamber.

Black people make up 27% of Alabama's population but are in the majority in only one of the seven House districts as drawn by the state legislature in both the maps it has approved since the 2020 census.

Electoral districts are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes as measured by a national census. In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain. Voting rights litigation that could result in new maps of congressional districts is playing out in several states.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 June ruling affirmed a lower court order requiring state lawmakers to add a second House district with a Black majority - or close to it - in order to comply with the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Black voters tend to favor Democratic candidates.

Following that ruling, the legislature adopted a plan that increased the portion of Black voters in a second House district from around 30% to 40%, still well below a majority. The three-judge panel ruled that this new map failed to remedy the Voting Rights Act violation present in the first map and directed a special master - an independent party appointed by a court - to draw a new, third version of the map ahead of next year's elections.

The latest Republican-drawn map drew swift objections from Black voters and civil rights activists. They said the plan failed to fix the Voting Rights Act violation identified by the Supreme Court, and that it raised concerns under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The Alabama map concentrated large numbers of Black voters into one district and spread others into districts in numbers too small to make up a majority.

The Supreme Court's June ruling was authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and joined in full by the court's three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the judgment in a separate opinion.

Conservative litigants had succeeded in persuading the Supreme Court to limit the Voting Rights Act's scope in some important previous rulings.

The Supreme Court's 2013 ruling in another Alabama case struck down a key part that determined which states with histories of racial discrimination needed federal approval to change voting laws. In a 2021 ruling endorsing Republican-backed Arizona voting restrictions, the justices made it harder to prove violations under a provision of the Voting Rights Act aimed at countering racially biased voting measures.

Steve Schmidt

The party of personal responsibility is scrambling mightily to avoid taking any responsibility for their cowardice in the face of real threats to democracy.

That's true enough in perhaps most cases, but I'll diverge slightly from Schmidt's assessment, and say that a lot of Republicans aren't being cowardly at all. They aren't "standing up to Trump" precisely because they think he's getting them closer to their goal of toppling our system of democratic self-government.

Today's Karens

Honest - I'm not advocating for violence.

There are times though when circumstances require a guy to step up and sock that clown right on the jaw.

Charlottesville - Aug 2017

Indiana - because of course Indiana - gave us another good example of authoritarian bullshit wrapped in a flag and toting a bible.

If these assholes aren't the new Nazis, then they wouldn't keep quoting Hitler to bolster their arguments.

Moms for Liberty chapter apologizes for quoting Hitler in its newsletter

An Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit that advocates for “ parental rights ” in education and was recently labeled as “extremist” by an anti-hate watchdog, is apologizing and condemning Adolf Hitler after using a quote attributed to the Nazi leader in its inaugural newsletter.

The group’s Hamilton County chapter on Thursday posted a revised version of its newly launched newsletter, “The Parent Brigade,” on Facebook after it had previously shared a version that featured the Hitler quote on its front cover.

“We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history,” read a statement from chapter chair Paige Miller on the cover of the revised newsletter. “We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and express our deepest apology.”

The first version of the newsletter included the quote, “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future,” and cited Hitler. While the origin of the quote is not entirely clear, it has been attributed in numerous historical texts to a 1935 rally speech by the Nazi leader.

“The quote from a horrific leader should put parents on alert,” the updated version read. “If the government has control over our children today, they control our country’s future. We The People must be vigilant and protect children from an overreaching government.”

By Thursday morning, the chapter had removed those versions and posted its new copy of the newsletter, replacing the Hitler quote with the chair’s apology.

The quote has frequently been used by conservative Christian groups as a warning of “what they experience as liberal or left-wing attempts to indoctrinate children,” said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

In 2014, for example, a church group in Alabama removed a billboard after using the quote next to images of children. And last year, a Colorado school board member faced calls to resign after posting the quote on Facebook.

“They use it as a way to get people’s attention,” Pitcavage said. “Regardless, you should never use Adolf Hitler quotes to get your point across.”

Some who encountered the newsletter interpreted Moms for Liberty’s use of the quote as a tacit endorsement for Hitler and his beliefs. Moms for Liberty has faced criticism for its activism against school inclusion, including trying to remove books related to race and gender identity from school libraries.

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the largest anti-student inclusion movement organization has allegedly used a quote from one of the appalling figureheads in history,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research, reporting and analysis for the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The center labeled Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist” group in its 2022 annual report.

Moms for Liberty has come under increasing national scrutiny as it has become a power player in Republican politics. Five presidential candidates plan to speak —- and several grassroots groups plan to protest —- at the group’s annual summit in Philadelphia next week.

The national Moms for Liberty chapter took to Twitter to call the Star’s reporting “intentional dishonesty,” even while issuing a statement that condemned the chapter’s decision to quote Hitler.

“They should not have quoted Hitler. Period,” read the statement from co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice. “Parents are passionate about protecting future generations from tyranny, but Hitler did not need to be quoted to make that point.”

A Status Report

Dictionary

 

free·dom

noun
➡︎ the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

"we do have some freedom of choice"

➡︎ absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.

"he was a champion of Irish freedom"

➡︎ the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

"the shark thrashed its way to freedom"

Opinion

Dictators’ dark secret: They’re learning from each other

In the spring of 2012, Vladimir Putin was feeling the pressure.

For months, anti-Putin protests had surged through the streets of Moscow and other cities following fraudulent parliamentary elections the previous December. Mr. Putin, who was about to be sworn in for a third term as president, harbored a fear of “color” revolutions — the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine — as well as other popular revolts like the 2010-2012 Arab Spring, in which four dictators were overthrown. Until his inauguration in May, Russian authorities had tolerated the demonstrations. But when street protests broke out again, some marred by violence, the police moved in aggressively and hundreds were arrested.

On July 20, Mr. Putin signed legislation — rushed through parliament in just two weeks — to give the government a strong hand over nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which he suspected were behind the protests. He had long been apprehensive about independent activism, especially by groups that were financed from abroad. Under the new law, any group that received money from overseas and engaged in “political activity” was required to register as a “foreign agent” with the Justice Ministry or face heavy fines.

The law crippled these groups, the backbone of a nascent civil society that had blossomed in the 1990s in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Such organizations are the heartbeat of a healthy democracy, providing an independent and autonomous channel for people to voice their desires and aspirations. One of the first groups to be targeted was Memorial, founded during Mikhail Gorbachev’s years of reform to protect the historical record of Soviet repressions and to defend human rights in the current day. Mr. Putin was determined to squelch it and others like it.

Soon, similar laws began to crop up around the world. In the following years, at least 60 nations passed or drafted laws designed to restrict NGOs, and 96 carried out other policies curtailing them, imposing cumbersome registration requirements, intrusive monitoring, harassment and shutdowns. The wave of repressive measures offers a revealing look at the titanic struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. In the past decade, dictators have forged transnational bonds, sharing methods, copying tactics and learning from one another. They are finding new ways to quash free speech and independent journalism, eradicate NGOs, silence dissent and suffocate criticism.

In previous editorials in this series, we examined how young people who posted freely on social media were wrongly imprisoned by authoritarian regimes. We also described how Russia created and exploited disinformation about biological weapons. This editorial looks at how autocracies are reinforcing themselves by swapping methods and tactics.

The dictators want most of all to survive. They are succeeding.

A cascade of restrictions

The Russian “foreign agent” law hung an albatross around the neck of NGOs and, later, independent journalists and bloggers — anyone who received any money from abroad, even payment for a single freelance article. All were required to post a label on their published material identifying it as the work of a “foreign agent,” which in Russia has traditionally been associated with spying. When many organizations refused to oblige, the law was amended so the Justice Ministry could put them in the registry without their consent. Then in 2015, Russia added a new law designating any organization “undesirable” if the government deemed it a threat to national security — effectively a ban. One of the organizations so labeled was the Open Society Foundations established by financier George Soros, which had been, among other things, a lifeline of personal subsidies for Russian scientists in the lean years after the Soviet collapse.

Azerbaijan was the first among former Soviet republics to copy Russia’s 2012 law in 2013 and 2014. Then came Tajikistan in 2014 and Kazakhstan in 2015 with legislation directly limiting foreign funding to NGOs or sharply increasing bureaucratic burdens on them. The laws were largely borrowed from Russia. The cascade of laws has been documented in the Civic Freedom Monitor of the International Center for Not-for-profit Law.

Egypt also put NGOs in the crosshairs. In 2013, the courts convicted 43 NGO workers, including Americans, Egyptians and Europeans, many in absentia, on charges of operating without required government approval. The notorious criminal prosecution, Case 173, dragged on for years. Although the 43 were later acquitted in a retrial, the harassment continues. Under President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, Egyptian authorities have frozen the assets of human rights activists, banned them from traveling abroad and regularly called them in for questioning on suspicions of “foreign funding.” This included Hossam Bahgat, founder and director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, one of Egypt’s most well-known rights organizations. Egypt replaced a draconian 2017 law on NGOs with a new one in 2019 but retained many harsh restrictions. The new law banned activities under vaguely worded terms such as any “political” work or any activity that undermines “national security.”

Cambodia, ruled by strongman Hun Sen for decades, in 2015 imposed a law under which NGOs can be disbanded if their activities “jeopardize peace, stability, and public order or harm the national security, culture and traditions of Cambodian society.” Uganda, which has an active community of NGOs, imposed a restrictive law in 2016; the groups have faced suspensions, freezing of accounts, denial of funding and restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly. In Nicaragua, the dictatorship led by former Sandinista guerrilla Daniel Ortega adopted a “foreign agent” law in 2020 and a law restricting NGOs in 2022. It has canceled the legal registration of more than 950 civil society organizations since 2018.

China, which originally permitted NGOs to exist in a legal gray zone, took a harder line after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. A new NGO law went into effect in 2017, increasing state control over foreign and domestic funding to civil society groups. While Russia operated with blacklists, China created a whitelist, rewarding some NGOs whose interests it approved, as it sought to punish those in sensitive areas such as media, human rights and religion. Lu Jun, co-founder of one of the early successful NGOs, the Beijing Yirenping Center, which fought discrimination, recalled the ways in which the state turned against his group. For seven years, it was allowed to grow. But then, he recalled, “Between 2014 and 2019, in four separate crackdowns, nine of my colleagues were jailed and five of our offices were repeatedly searched until they were shut down.”

A secret school — or ‘mad scientists’?

How did so many countries come to do the same thing in the same decade? The answers are difficult to find — dictatorships are shrouded in secrecy. But Stephen G.F. Hall, a professor at the University of Bath, in Britain, uncovered evidence that the dictators copy, share and learn from one another. His new book, “The Authoritarian International,” looks at how this works.

According to Mr. Hall, authoritarian regimes must constantly maintain the illusion of steadfast control. Relax for a minute, and the illusion could vanish. “Protest is like a run on the bank,” Mr. Hall told us. “The protesters only have to get it right once.” For autocracies, protest and dissent are an existential threat.

“They’ve all seen what happens to autocrats generally — the Gaddafi moment, being dragged through the streets and beaten to death with a lead pipe. … They seem to know that if one country becomes democratic in a region, the rest will almost certainly follow. … And the best way to ensure that survival is to learn, to cooperate and to share best practices because you constantly have to stay one step ahead.”

Mr. Hall says much “authoritarian learning” is indirect, diffused through like-minded networks and emulation. When he began his research, he thought he might find an actual school of dictatorship, with Mr. Putin or other despots as “either star pupils or teachers telling other autocrats how to establish best survival practices.” But Mr. Hall did not find contemporary evidence of such a school. “I think it is primarily a case of trial and error,” he said, with the dictators more like “mad scientists” who run experiments and then share the results. which are passed around in the shadows, through security services and old-boy networks.

And there are traces of collaboration. According to Mr. Hall, Russia has frequently looked to Belarus as a proving ground and source of authoritarian methods. In 2002, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko created the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, a pro-regime, patriotic organization that could take control of the streets in Minsk in the event of an attempted color revolution. After the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Kremlin quickly created its own groups of “patriotic youths.” Years later, when Mr. Lukashenko was facing massive protests after stealing the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Putin came to his rescue. For instance, when Belarusian television workers quit their jobs in protest of the election fraud, Mr. Putin sent in Russians to keep the broadcasts going. (For Russia, the help is also driven by security concerns, given Belarus’s proximity to NATO.) Belarus also cooperates with China, which has long provided it with facial recognition technology. China’s telecommunications giant Huawei set up research centers in Belarus and brought Belarusian students to China for training.

Some authoritarian learning has its origin in history books. Magnus Fiskesjö, a professor at Cornell University, has shown how China in the past decade or so has brought back show trials, with staged, coerced confessions, borrowing both from the Mao era and reaching back to Joseph Stalin’s show trials of the 1930s. The extrajudicial show trials have been used against journalists, bloggers, academics, lawyers and entertainers, among others. The forced confessions go a step further than just silencing dissent; they are used to “shape reality” and create a more “predictably obedient society.”

The digital censors

In the world of authoritarian tactics, Russia and China are the center of gravity. They share know-how for policing the internet and generate sheaves of propaganda and disinformation, sometimes broadcasting identical sets of lies at the same time. Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, but closer cooperation to squelch free speech on the internet was already well underway.

A glimpse of how it works was provided recently in a trove of internal documents, emails and audio recordings disclosed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an April 5 report by Daniil Belovodyev, Andrei Soshnikov and Reid Standish. The materials depict Russia and China working closely to help each other more tightly control the internet in two high-level meetings in 2017 and 2019.

The first meeting, on July 4, 2017, was a two-hour session in Moscow between Ren Xianling, who was then-deputy minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, and Aleksandr Zharov, then-head of Roskomnadzor, the Russian government agency that censors the internet. According to the documents and other materials, the Russians wanted expertise from China about “mechanisms for permitting and controlling” mass media, online media and “individual bloggers,” as well as China’s experience regulating messenger apps, encryption services and virtual private networks. The Russians asked to send a delegation to China to study its vast domestic surveillance system and the “Great Firewall” that blocks unwanted overseas information. The Chinese visitors were particularly interested in methods used by the Russian agency to control the media coverage of public protest. The Chinese visitors’ questions were prompted by public demonstrations just a few months before, organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny in March 2017. Mr. Zharov reportedly responded that the Kremlin wasn’t worried because the protests were small-scale and Mr. Putin’s public support was at a “very high level.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in March. (Washington Post illustration; Alexey Maishev/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images)
The discussion came just as Russia was looking at how to install more sophisticated controls over the internet. The government attempted in 2018 to block the popular messaging platform Telegram but failed to do so. In May 2019, Mr. Putin signed new legislation requiring that Russian companies install more intrusive controls, and also envisioning the creation of an entirely isolated Russian internet. Outside researchers have found that the new controls gave the Kremlin “fine-grained information control” over internet traffic.

In July 2019, the Russian and Chinese teams met again in Moscow, according to the RFE/RL report. Mr. Zharov asked the Chinese for advice about how to deal with platforms that successfully evade Russia’s blocking. The failure with Telegram was brought up as an example. The Russians also asked the Chinese how they used artificial intelligence to identify and block “prohibited content.” RFE/RL disclosed this year that Roskomnadzor has been using sophisticated techniques to track Russians online, searching for posts that insult Mr. Putin or call for protests.

Then in October 2019, on the sidelines of the World Internet Conference in China, Russia and China signed a cooperation agreement on counteracting the spread of “forbidden information.” In December 2019, China sent requests to Russia, in three separate letters, with censorship requests to block articles and sites, such as the Epoch Times, a newspaper with ties to the Falun Gong movement that is persecuted in China, and links on GitHub, the software development website, that describe ways to bypass China’s firewall inside the country.

The dictators have clung to power

Of course, the United States and other democracies also cooperate and spend billions of dollars annually promoting the values of open societies and rule of law around the world. Like the dictators, the democracies share tactics and methods with one another. But there is one important difference: Diffusion of democracy appeals to — and relies upon — individuals and free thinking, while autocrats pursue their own survival by suffocating individual voices.

The latest Freedom in the World report shows a decline in freedom for the 17th year in a row. Many autocrats are proving resilient. In the nearly 11 years since Mr. Putin signed the “foreign agent” law, most of the world’s leading dictators have held on. Rarely have they been toppled by popular protests. They are building new means of repression along with the old. In China, tech companies have invented an electronic surveillance system that can automatically recognize a protest banner and demonstrators’ faces — and alert the police.

In Russia, Mr. Putin is unrestrained. The “foreign agent” and “undesirable” laws were revised again in 2022, making them significantly more draconian. While the earlier version singled out those who received money from abroad, now a “foreign agent” can be anyone who receives any kind of support from overseas or comes “under foreign influence in other forms.” New names are added every Friday to the registry compiled by the Justice Ministry.

As of June 16, the registry listed 621 groups and people.

“Authoritarian regimes are much more brazen than before,” said William J. Dobson, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and author of “The Dictator’s Learning Curve,” published in 2012. “They are not sitting still.”

At the same time, autocracies are racked with challenges and setbacks. Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might yet doom his rule. In China, Mr. Xi demands obedience, but protesters defy him, as they did last winter over “zero covid” restrictions. And one example of successful protest came recently in Georgia. The ruling Georgian Dream party advanced yet another “foreign agent” bill to require any organization receiving more than 20 percent of its funds from foreign sources to register as “agents of foreign influence.” But the bill was widely criticized, and after mass protests around the Parliament building in March, it was dropped.

All who believe in democracy must find new ways to advance it. This is especially important now, when democracy has lost luster around the globe.

Democracy’s greatest strength is openness. It should be harnessed to tell the truth loudly and widely.

Birds Of A Feather

We hear from "conservatives" all the time about how they consider themselves to be paragons of virtue, and others (the 'others du jour') are less worthy etc etc. We all know that tune, we all know it's bullshit, and we can all see examples of its bullshit-ness practically every day.

You could reasonably expect normal people to be shamed into better behavior, but these Daddy State assholes can't be - because they aren't fuckin' normal.

They are without honor, and so they can only be dealt with by rejecting them and their bullshit pronouncements outright, giving them no quarter and no audience. They have to be driven back - away from normal decent people. I was going to say 'back to the rock they live under', but that elevates them to the status of worms and blind venomous centipedes, and I have too much respect for lowly creatures to consider these assholes on a par with the creepy-crawlies.

Anyway - 

by way of

Married Putin Stooge Accused of Hiding Kids With Secret American Lover

Vladimir Solovyov is one of Russia’s top-tier propagandists, omnipresent on the airwaves of the state media and twice decorated by Russian President Vladimir Putin for his service to the Kremlin. He often derides the West as “satanic,” and refers to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war.” Scarcely a broadcast goes by without Solovyov calling for nuclear strikes against the United States and its allies.

As it turns out, the 59-year-old TV host might be hiding an explosive secret himself.

A bombshell report from Alexei Navalny’s FBK team on Monday, called “Vladimir Solovyov’s American secret,” claims that Solovyov—who is married with eight children—is suspiciously linked to another family.

While investigating properties in Russia with obscure ownership records, the Navalny group reportedly tied Solovyov to a villa in Sochi and an apartment in Moscow reportedly owned by 42-year-old Svetlana Abrosimova, a retired basketball player and U.S. citizen.

Records obtained by the team allegedly show that Abrosimova traveled to the U.S. with the Russian propagandist in 2016. Abrosimova reportedly stayed in the U.S. through 2017, during which she gave birth to twin girls. According to the investigation, Solovyov made almost monthly visits to the U.S. until Abrosimova and her newborn twins moved back to Russia in June 2017.

The details of the trips were reportedly gleaned from paperwork filed for a coronavirus test the pair took in November 2021, which listed them as sharing the same address. The document reportedly featured Solovyov’s passport details, including travel information. The Navalny team also concluded that the pair share a driver and have made several doctor’s visits together, including one where they filed paperwork for the coronavirus test.

Photos of the pair—including one where they are standing side by side and another where they appeared to be chatting to each other while seated at a sport’s game—were also published in the documentary investigation.

In the report, the Navalny team alleges that multiple anonymous sources close to the couple have confirmed that Solovyov is the father of Abrosimova’s two children. The twins reportedly share the middle name “Vladimirovna,” in what appears to be a derivation of the propagandist's first name. Solovyov’s daughter, Yekaterina, is likewise a citizen of the U.S.

Kremlin TV Star Erupts After His Son Is Accused of Dodging War

Solovyov did not immediately respond to a comment request from The Daily Beast about the allegations. Neither did Abrosimova.

During his shows, Solovyov often bemoans the loss of his Italian villas, but gleefully points out that he is yet to be sanctioned by the United States.

Given his patriotic fervor and theatrical desire for the destruction of the West, news that Vladimir Solovyov may be secretly nurturing an American dream of his own has many Kremlin critics blasting him as a hypocrite on social media.

The Navalany team investigation has also uncovered luxury homes in the same Sochi neighborhood where Ambrosimova reportedly lives, allegedly owned by General Sergey Surovikin and Andrei Patrushev, the son of Nikolai Patrushev, who serves as Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

Stop wondering why American MAGA clowns can't bring themselves to support NATO and Ukraine publicly.

More from

Former Moscow Officials Reveal Why They’re Laughing at Putin Now

Outlandish rhetoric from Russian officials has turned the Kremlin into a laughing stock—with potentially serious consequences for Vladimir Putin, according to some former insiders.

Citizens of Russia have become the captive audience of a dystopian “comedy club” run by the government, according to some former Moscow officials.

And the Kremlin, it appears, is not in on the joke.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared last week that beer in Prague, where a summit between Kremlin critics recently took place, contains “female sex hormones” and called the opposition officials who met there “half-wits.” On the same day, his best friend Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Council and former KGB hardliner, warned of a deadly “radioactive cloud that is now moving towards Western Europe” from Ukraine.

The bizarre propaganda lines—apparently meant to evoke fear among Russian exiles of cognitive decline by way of drinking beer, or death via the enriched uranium supplied to Ukraine by the West—fell flat. Putin's remarks were widely mocked on social media, while experts at Russia’s own State Atomic Agency said that “the story with the approaching cloud is somehow exaggerated.”

The outpouring of ridiculous rhetoric in Moscow has gotten so out of hand that some former Kremlin insiders have resorted to creating memes inspired by the words and actions of Russian officials.

How Killer Birds and ‘Evil’ Forces Helped Putin Sell His War

That includes Putin’s former speechwriter, Abbas Galyamov, who put together photos of Putin drinking beer in response to the “female sex hormones” remarks, captioned with the sentence: “The president knows what he is talking about.”

Galyamov worked as a speechwriter for Vladimir Putin from 2008 to 2010, later taking on positions in the regional government and the Russian federal election agency. He made the decision to leave Russia in 2018, when he says he became disillusioned by “the fascistization” of the regime.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Galyamov elaborated on his affinity for making jokes about the Kremlin—and the privilege of being able to do so.

“There is much less respect for them now than before,” he told The Daily Beast. “If not for the political repression, all Russians would have thought of them as inhumane and mocked them.”

The Best Medicine

Though men like Putin’s ideologist, Vyacheslav Volodin, have long been feared across Russia, critics appear to have become increasingly bold in their public mockery of them.

In a push to get more Russians to learn Chinese earlier this month, Volodin said that the English language, which is taught in every Russian school and university, is “dead”—triggering yet another wave of jokes.

- more -

Daddy State Awareness

THE BASICS:

• The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating power.
• The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
• Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to dictate reality to us.