The Enemy Within

What's taking that Merrick Garland guy so long? Why doesn't he make some moves?

First you have to make sure you know who the good guys are, and since some of the bad guys could be working in the office right down the hall from you, it makes sense to go with caution.

Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated

NEW YORK — The former head of FBI counterintelligence in New York has been charged in two separate indictments that accuse him of taking secret cash payments of more than $225,000 while overseeing highly sensitive cases, and allegedly breaking the law by trying to get Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska removed from a U.S. sanctions list, officials said Monday.

Charles McGonigal, 54, who retired from the FBI in September 2018, was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on money laundering, sanctions-violation and other charges in connection to his alleged ties to Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal had been tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose own indictment on sanctions-violation charges was unsealed in September.

Separately, McGonigal was accused in a nine-count indictment in federal court in Washington of hiding his receipt of $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence agent living in New Jersey. McGonigal was also accused of hiding foreign travel and contacts with senior leaders in countries including Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia where the former Albanian agent had business interests.

McGonigal’s alleged involvement with Deripaska may impact a significant push by the Justice Department to hit wealthy Russians with economic sanctions for conducting business in the United States, an effort that accelerated last year with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The twin indictments are also a black eye for the FBI, alleging that one of its most senior and trusted intelligence officials was taking secret cash payments and undermining the bureau’s overall intelligence-gathering mission.

McGonigal’s lawyer, Seth DuCharme, said his client plans to plead not guilty. “Charlie served the United States for decades in positions of public trust and leadership, so this is a distressing day for him, but we’re going to litigate the case in the courtroom,” DuCharme said.

Skepticism before a search: Inside the FBI's Mar-a-Lago documents investigation

Prosecutors alleged that from at least August 2017 and beyond his retirement from the FBI, McGonigal failed to disclose to the FBI his relationship with the former Albanian security official, described as “Person A” in charging papers. He also allegedly failed to disclose that he had an “ongoing relationship with the Prime Minister of Albania,” the indictment said.

In late 2017, authorities charge, McGonigal received packages of cash totaling $225,000 from Person A — the first time, in a parked car outside a New York City restaurant, the next two times at the person’s New Jersey home. According to the indictment, McGonigal “indicated to Person A that the money would be paid back.”

Months later, at McGonigal’s urging, the FBI opened an investigation into an American lobbyist for an Albanian political party that is a rival of the Albanian prime minister, an investigation that used Person A as a source of information, authorities said.

Current and former U.S. officials who know and have worked with McGonigal said they were shocked by the indictments. As a senior FBI counterintelligence official, McGonigal had access to an extraordinary amount of sensitive information, potentially including investigations of foreign spies or U.S. citizens suspected of working on behalf of foreign governments, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the work McGonigal did. One former official said that McGonigal had worked with the CIA on counterintelligence matters.

According to the New York indictment, a law firm retained McGonigal to work as a consultant and investigator on the effort to get Deripaska removed from the sanctions list. He was listed as a consultant and arranged for $25,000 monthly payments to be sent to an account controlled by another person, a government interpreter who was a former Russian diplomat. The interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, was also charged.

McGonigal’s FBI role gave him access to classified information including a then-secret list of Russian prospects for sanctioning by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Justice Department said. That list included Deripaska before the sanctions were actually imposed.

The Russian billionaire next door: Putin ally is tied to one of D.C.'s swankiest mansions

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that McGonigal and Shestakov “should have known better” given their experience in government service. Both defendants were expected to appear in federal court in New York Monday afternoon.

U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves of D.C. called the alleged coverup of foreign contacts and financial relationships a “gateway to corruption” and credited the FBI with its handling of the “delicate and difficult” investigation of a former senior assistant director.

“McGonigal is alleged to have committed the very violations he swore to investigate while he purported to lead a workforce of FBI employees who spend their careers protecting secrets and holding foreign adversaries accountable,” said FBI Los Angeles Field Office Director Donald Alway, who announced the charges along with Graves and the leaders of the Washington FBI and Justice Department National Security Division.

McGonigal faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the two D.C. counts of falsification of records and documents, and up to five years in prison for each of seven counts of concealing material facts or making false statements. The most serious charge in the New York indictment also carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

When A Bad Idea Sounds Pretty Good

It sounds a lot like the little band of Republican crazies in the House are really stoopid, and maybe they are, but when you leave the other side with a chance to blow up your whole scheme, you may need to rethink one or two things.

On the other hand, if I come at this from the perspective of my belief that Radical Libertarians are always looking for ways to torpedo every institution that keeps a democratic republic afloat, then it makes more sense.

"Why not leave the tools of destruction in the hands of the Democrats, and let them do what we need never to admit to doing?"

paranoia strikes deep

into your life it will creep

it starts when you're always afraid

step outa line, men come and take you away

Fact Check: Can House Democrats Bring Motion to Vacate House Speaker?

After a protracted battle between House Republicans, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has finally begun settling in as Speaker following a series of concessions to a faction on the right of his party.

McCarthy, whose ascension above the dais was halted for several days by representatives from the GOP's Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), has spent his first week in the role introducing committee and rule changes following his deal with party colleagues.

One important concession included reducing the threshold for triggering a vote to remove the Speaker at any given time. However, social media posts now suggest that this new change might make him vulnerable not just to fellow Republicans, but even to the minority opposition.

The Claim

A post published on Reddit on January 11, 2022, which received more than 45,000 engagements, highlighted that under new House rule changes, a Democratic representative could initiate a "recall vote" for House Speaker.

The post included a tweet about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), claiming she opposed the "compromise to allow one House Member to bring a Motion to Vacate to remove the Speaker because even one Democrat can do it, and she heard Democratic Rep. Al Green is getting ready to do it already."

The Facts

It's true that under rules changes made for the 118th Congress, it will now only take one member to motion for the Speaker to vacate their seat.

The privilege was introduced under early House rules set out in Jefferson's Manual, a book of parliamentary procedure written by Founding Father and former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson, stating: "A Speaker may be removed at the will of the House."

Jefferson's Manual didn't stipulate the number of members required to begin a motion. This remained the case until 2018, when changes enacted by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lifted the threshold requiring "that a resolution causing a vacancy in the Office of the Speaker will be privileged if offered by the direction of a major party caucus or conference."

The motion to vacate has rarely been used. But the changing of its wording back to what existed before 2018 may remind McCarthy of the House's tools of accountability.

And it's not just the Republican House members that pose such a threat. As pointed out on social media, the re-wording of the 118th House Rules does not prohibit a minority party from bringing such a motion.

The likelihood of any such motion succeeding is another matter, but, in principle, under the current wording, the Democrats could begin a motion to vacate (without any restrictive threshold) and then with a simple majority (requiring some Republican rebels) remove McCarthy.

As Dr. David Andersen, assistant professor of United States Politics at Durham University, told Newsweek, the new rules put McCarthy in an "awful position," leaving it a possibility that Democrats would only need five Republicans to pass a motion to vacate.

"The really interesting scenario is whether five Republicans will get so frustrated with McCarthy that they would do the unthinkable—work with Democrats to oust the Speaker," Andersen said.

"If just five Republicans in the House join together with a united Democratic caucus, the Speaker will be ousted and nothing can be done until a new Speaker is elected.

"Given that 20 Republicans worked to deny McCarthy the seat, once the GOP starts attempting to legislate—and more importantly, once certain members start competing for media attention—this possibility will become very interesting to watch.

"McCarthy can't change the rules now that they have been passed so this is something that he will have to live with for the next two years.

"Honestly, the one person rule doesn't matter too much other than for grandstanding by individual legislators. It is the risk of a 5-member GOP defection that is more interesting."

How long it might take for such an alliance to form is another matter.

For now, McCarthy appears to be meeting some of the wishes of the Freedom Caucus, with Gaetz saying that he had nearly run out of "stuff to ask for" from the Speaker during the negotiations.

This suggests McCarthy may face less pressure from his party, at least in the short term.

Furthermore, the vote for Speaker took so long to pass—a situation described as "embarrassing" to CNN by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT)—that it may be some time before any Republicans would side with Democrats, in fear of the political repercussions.

But Boebert told Fox News: "I'm proud that we took a few extra days to make sure that we get this right. It may look like chaos and dysfunction, but I'm a mom of four boys that's a part of my everyday life.

"And really last week was the most productive week I have experienced in Congress."

Given the disruptive power motion to vacate could wield, why hasn't it been used more?

A 2015 fact check by Ballotpedia found that the rule has only been used in 1910, to remove Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon, and in 2015 against Republican Speaker John Boehner (although in Boehner's case, he retired before the motion could even reach a vote).

As mentioned, a motion brought by the Democrats, unless orchestrated with support from a sufficient number of Republicans, would be unlikely to succeed. As for Republicans, McCarthy still has the majority of support from GOP House members.

In theory, there may be little to stop a series of motions to vacate (particularly now the privilege is fresh in the mind of House members), perhaps as a way to frustrate the GOP's legislative efforts.

Notably, there is little indication at the moment that this strategy is being explored by the Democrats, including Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who was mentioned in the original comment.

A representative of Green told Newsweek by email that the congressman "has no such plans and has never discussed any aspect of such plans with anyone," adding that this publication's inquiry "is the first time Congressman Al Green has ever heard of this."

Still, if that were to change, such a move could trigger the introduction of rules or changes to better protect the Speaker (including altering or reversing rules on the motion to vacate). This might make it harder for Democrats to change the Speaker (should they wish to) and weaken the hand of McCarthy's opponents.

"We are sailing into uncharted waters. The reversion to former institutional rules takes place amid unprecedented partisanship and bitter intra-party divisions within the GOP," Morgan said. "No one knows for sure what may happen, but we can speculate.

"McCarthy is between a rock and a hard place. Whatever procedural maneuvers he comes up with, the bigger picture remains the same in terms of the dilemma he faces. He has to keep his far-right Republicans on side, but this may cost him any hope of cutting deals with the opposition Democrats to keep government going.

"GOP right-wingers tend to target the deficit and the public debt when they face a Democratic president (less so when one of their own is in the White House) and may demand huge spending cuts. If McCarthy bowed to their demands, the Democrats would come out swinging.

"Such cuts would have little hope of getting through the Senate, of course, and would face a presidential veto if they did. So, we may get into a position of government shutdowns early in the Congressional year.

"We could be back into Clinton-era standoffs over the budget as in 1995-96, but then it was the GOP Congress vs. a Democratic president. This is a much more complex political situation and therefore harder to resolve."

Newsweek has contacted the House Conference Chair, House Republicans, House Democrats and Kevin McCarthy for comment.

Sausage-Making

It takes a lot of practice to watch the process, and not be disgusted or become cynical.

And even then it can be a futile endeavor. It will effect you.

McCarthy makes fresh concessions to try to woo hard-right Republicans in speaker bid

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has made fresh concessions to a group of 20 GOP lawmakers in hopes of ending their blockade of his speakership ahead of votes Thursday, a stunning reversal that, if adopted, would weaken the position of speaker and ensure a tenuous hold on the job.

During late-hour negotiations Wednesday, McCarthy (R-Calif.) agreed to the proposed rule changes, according to four people familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

In a major allowance to the hard-right Republicans, McCarthy offered to lower from five to one the number of members required to sponsor a resolution to force a vote on ousting the speaker — a change that the California Republican had previously said he would not accept.

McCarthy also expressed a willingness to place more members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus on the House Rules Committee, which debates legislation before it’s moved to the floor.

And he relented on allowing floor votes to institute term limits on members and to enact specific border policy legislation.

These Republicans voted against Kevin McCarthy for House speaker

1. Rep. Andy Biggs
2. Rep. Dan Bishop
3. Rep. Lauren Boebert
4. Rep. Josh Brecheen
5. Rep. Michael Cloud
6. Rep. Andrew Clyde
7. Rep. Eli Crane
8. Rep. Matt Gaetz
9. Rep. Bob Good
10. Rep. Paul Gosar
11. Rep. Andy Harris
12. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna
13. Rep. Mary Miller
14. Rep. Ralph Norman
15. Rep. Andy Ogles
16. Rep. Scott Perry
17. Rep. Matt Rosendale
18. Rep. Chip Roy
19. Rep. Keith Self
20. Rep. Byron Donalds

(asked Trump for a pardon)

It remained unclear early Thursday whether the concessions could move the holdouts, several of whom have said they will not support McCarthy no matter what. The House is scheduled to reconvene at noon Thursday for more voting. But some moderates have grown irate at the moves, after pledging last month they would never support a rules package that gives one House member the power to vacate the speaker.

McCarthy emerged from the Wednesday night meeting bluntly telling reporters that the impasse continued, but suggested that progress was being made.

“I don’t think a vote tonight will make a difference,” he said. “But a vote in the future will.”

McCarthy has failed six times to secure the necessary votes to become speaker over two days of voting, a stalemate for majority Republicans that highlighted deep divisions within the party and raised questions about whether the GOP can run the House with a slim advantage.

Amid the humiliating defeats in floor votes, McCarthy has struggled to win over the defectors. Through three rounds of voting Wednesday, he failed to gain any support — and in fact lost a vote from one lawmaker, Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who switched her vote to “present” as a message to her colleagues to reach a compromise.

In another bid to woo holdouts, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC endorsed by McCarthy, and the conservative Club for Growth, which had initially signaled opposition to McCarthy as speaker, announced a deal Wednesday to stay out of open House primaries for safe Republican seats.

“Kevin McCarthy has effectively led House Republicans from the Minority to the Majority and we want to see him continue to lead the party so we can pick up seats for the third cycle in a row,” Conservative Leadership Fund President Dan Conston said in a statement.

During the midterm elections, the McCarthy-endorsed group worked to elect more moderate Republican candidates considered more willing to govern, an intervention that alienated staunch hard-liners in the House Freedom Caucus.

Club for Growth President David McIntosh said Wednesday that the agreement not to interfere with “safe-seat primaries” fulfilled a major concern they had pressed for.

“We understand that Leader McCarthy and Members are working on a rules agreement that will meet the principles we have set out previously,” McIntosh said in a statement. “Assuming these principles are met, Club for Growth will support Kevin McCarthy for Speaker.”

Notable Firsts

Hakeem Jefferies was elected House Minority Leader - the first POC to hold that job.

Patty Murray was elected President Pro Tempore in the Senate - the first woman to hold that job.

America Loves to Celebrate ‘Firsts’ Like Hakeem Jeffries. It Doesn’t Always Make It Easy for Them to Lead

In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the anthropologist turned storyteller Zora Neale Hurston wrote that there are years that ask questions and those that answer them.

Take 1972: an annum that asked. Better known as the year of the Watergate break-in and bungled cover-up that unraveled the Nixon Administration, 1972 was also the year that nearly 10,000 Black Americans—elected officials, policy wonks, community organizers, and ordinary citizens—convened in Gary, Ind., for what was dubbed the National Black Convention. Among the central questions before the group in Gary: Should Black voters remain loyal to the Democratic Party and try to wrest from it more influence, or should they break away and form their own political alliance?

Fifty years later, in the final weeks of 2022, one data point suggested the remain-and-influence strategy had its merits: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, was elected the first Black House Minority Leader, making him the first Black person to lead a major party’s caucus in either chamber of Congress.

“Hakeem, in some ways, is an heir of all of that,” says historian Komozi Woodard, author of Want to Start a Revolution?, speaking of the Gary meeting and what followed, especially the movement of grassroots Black activists into electoral politics in places like Jeffries’ hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y..

As the new Congress begins its work on Tuesday, he will take up a key role in everything from setting caucus priorities to making committee assignments. Had Democrats won just a few more seats in the midterms, Jeffries might have been elected the first Black Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency and one of the most influential roles in American politics—a position it seems he is likely to pursue should Democrats gain a majority in the next election.

So it is perhaps reasonable to assume that 2023 will prove to be the year of yet another question: What, precisely, does it mean to be a “first”?

Americans will no doubt hear Tuesday lots of talk about Jeffries’ relatively rapid rise during his decade in Congress, an institution that Spencer Overton, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says is one in which seniority typically dominates. But Jeffries’ rise, Overton tells me, comes as no surprise to those who have been watching the man some like to call the Brooklyn Obama. Jeffries, 52, comes from socially and politically engaged people, and was a feature of the New York civil-rights scene during his career as a corporate lawyer. He brings a GenXer’s ability to walk in many worlds, physical and digital, and, having come of age during some of the most difficult decades in America’s major cities, he is part of what Woodard describes as the hip-hop generation—a group skilled at making a way out of no way.

It’s also likely that people will speak of Jeffries’ assent as a testament to the power of ability and drive in modern America, and opine about the country’s progress in breaking down racial boundaries. But there are as many reasons to celebrate the Jeffries breakthrough as there are reasons to consider the complex truth about what his personal success may produce. Fifteen years after President Barack Obama broke what was considered the ultimate political barrier, and 51 years after that gathering in Gary, America should know better than to assume that changes in the face of leadership automatically produce real political change too.

In fact, research and political experience tell us that people who are the “firsts” get there precisely because of their facility for what their supporters call consensus building and their detractors are more likely to describe as accommodation. Others more rigid in their ideas about policy and process risk offending those who like things the way they are. Boundary-breaking leaders are most often installed in times of crisis, making leadership even more challenging and success at least a little less likely. And there remains the simple fact that just because a barrier has been broken, doesn’t mean that everyone is happy about it.

There are, of course, significant differences between Obama and Jeffries—and their political stories, the moments that brought them to power, and the roles they have held—as well as ways that the two men are, in fact, similar. Obama was elected after the global economy nearly collapsed. By his second term, he was met with public foot-stomping from the left about his alleged failure to move progressive dream policies through a Republican-controlled Congress. (Which is not to say Obama didn’t manage to accomplish anything—Julian Zelizer, a professor of political history at Princeton, cites the Affordable Care Act as a once-in-a-generation change.) On the right, he was constantly confronted with a strain of racial paranoia that painted his very presence as a threat to the proverbial American way.

Jeffries too is a product of crisis: His rise was long-planned but ended up coming about after nearly three years of pandemic, amid rising levels of political violence and extremism, including the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“Like President Obama, the image of Hakeem Jeffries, leader, could represent to some that they are losing what they think is their country—as opposed to our, in the collective sense, country,” says Overton, who is also a professor at George Washington University’s Law School. Look out, he and several other people I spoke with in December say, for the ways this alone will create license for Jeffries detractors to develop false claims about what the era of his leadership may bring, including attempts to recast Jeffries as a threat, an outsider, an other with secret aims. It’s worth noting that, like Obama, Jeffries is a Christian and Black American with an Arabic name. “He could be racialized and demonized by some on the far right to stoke their base,” Overton says, “especially if Leader Jeffries becomes Speaker Jeffries in a couple of years.”

- more - (good stuff, BTW)

Patty Murray makes history as first female Senate pro tem

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) was elected Senate president pro tempore Tuesday, becoming the first woman to hold the job since its inception and putting her third in the line of presidential succession.

Murray, who was elected to the Senate in 1992 as a self-proclaimed “mom in tennis shoes,” was selected for the role after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) declined to seek it. In recent years, the job has gone to the senior-most member of the majority party, which is the 89-year-old Feinstein. Murray, 72, is the second in line.

Murray in an interview Tuesday recalled joining the Senate when there were only two women in the chamber. “When I was elected, it was called ‘the year of the woman,’ and we were six. And I think a lot of the men, although they wouldn’t tell you this, were just sort of like, ‘Oh my God, what are those women going to do when they’re here?’” she joked. “And I think over time we have earned the respect of not only them but people around the country that we are serious about our roles.”

Murray, wearing her signature tennis shoes, was sworn in by Vice President Harris on Tuesday afternoon to the role.

The ceremonial job of presiding over the Senate and signing legislation comes with a security detail and increased funding for staff. Murray said she would also like to use it to be a “problem solver in the Senate” and help craft bipartisan solutions, including with the newly Republican House, to keep the government functioning — as she did in 2013, when she helped land a budget agreement with then-Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). Murray, who won reelection to a sixth term in November, is also set to lead the Senate Appropriations Committee this year — marking the first time the powerful committees is likely to be led by four women from the majority and minority parties in the House and Senate.

A 90-something in line of presidential succession? Experts say it’s time for a change.

While Murray ascended to her new role, House Republicans were locked in an ugly battle on the other side of the Capitol that foreshadowed what could be a new era of gridlock and infighting after two years of unified Democratic control of Congress. “If the House chooses to be dysfunctional amongst themselves and just not want our country to work, that puts us all in peril,” Murray said. “I hope they see above that. I think our country really does not want to see chaos or any kind of dysfunction.”

Murray said she’s brought a different perspective to Congress. When she became the first female chair of Veterans' Affairs Committee, she widened its focus to veterans’ caregivers, as well. And she sought to include reproductive rights and child care into budget conversations. “I think often we bring a voice to the table that would be missed when it was men only,” she said. “I’m not the only woman on that committee [now]. There are other women who echo my viewpoint, and who are respected for who they are.”

When Murray won the nomination for the role last month in a meeting of Senate Democrats, her colleague Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said she shared a bittersweet moment with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

“I just looked at Amy Klobuchar and just said, ‘Historic,’” Hirono said. “It’s taken women this long — ‘Yikes,’ that’s all I can say.”

Hirono recalled when Murray was elected to Congress in the 1990s with a wave of “soccer moms,” and said she believes the Senate has changed significantly since that time. She said a male colleague whom she would not name recently told her he had taken Hirono’s feedback to men during the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Brett M. Kavanaugh to “shut up and step up” and worked to get women of color elected in his state.

“I’m going to be celebrating Patty,” Hirono said.

Kevin's Big Day

Kevin McCarthy scrambles to firm up his speaker bid as vote looms

McCarthy and colleagues have spent the weekend working the phones and negotiating with the holdouts who threaten to keep the gavel away from the California Republican

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and his allies have spent the holiday weekend working the phones and meeting with members, trying to salvage his career goal of becoming speaker on Tuesday as Republicans continue to argue over whether he deserves the top spot.

While an overwhelming majority of Republicans want to elect McCarthy (Calif.) as speaker, roughly 15 have put the outcome in serious doubt. McCarthy can afford to lose only four Republicans in Tuesday’s floor vote, and the razor-thin margin has emboldened staunch conservatives within the House Freedom Caucus, who have made specific demands in exchange for their votes.

If McCarthy fails to win the gavel on the first ballot Tuesday, it would be a historic loss: No leader vying for speaker has lost a first-round vote in a century.

“Two trains are going 100 miles per hour and everyone is wondering: Which one will survive?” one senior GOP aide said in trying to capture the mood within the conference.

Five Republicans have remained firm in their opposition to McCarthy, or are leaning toward no, since the midterms. They include Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), who lost to McCarthy in a conference vote behind closed doors in November but will challenge him publicly on the floor Tuesday.

McCarthy met with key lawmakers across the ideological spectrum Monday evening to walk through what to expect Tuesday. No breakthrough occurred, as the holdouts emerged reiterating to reporters that they were still against his candidacy.

While McCarthy has made numerous concessions in an effort to win the holdouts’ votes, including changes to a provision that could limit his time as speaker, nine additional Republicans signed a letter late Sunday calling McCarthy’s proposal “insufficient,” further signaling that his ascent remains unassured.

“The times call for radical departure from the status quo — not a continuation of the past, and ongoing, Republican failures,” the nine wrote about McCarthy.

In response, McCarthy pledged in a letter to colleagues to “work with everyone in our party to build conservative consensus,” but stressed the need for the conference to unite around a proposed rules package that will dictate how the House governs over the next two years.

“It’s time for our new Republican majority to embrace these bold reforms and move forward as one,” McCarthy wrote. “That’s why on January 3 — and every day thereafter — I stand ready to be judged not by my words, but by my actions as Speaker.”

Privately, McCarthy remains defiant, keeping some final tactics available as he intends to stay on the floor Tuesday as long as it may take to get elected, according to several lawmakers who, like others for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private and ongoing deliberations.

“To use his words, if they’re playing a game of chicken, he’s ripped the steering wheel out of the dashboard and he’s got his foot to the floor,” one Republican lawmaker said, paraphrasing a recent quip by McCarthy.

Building the coalition

McCarthy’s potential failure to clinch the necessary 218 votes to become speaker could derail the 16-year congressional career that he has paved to reach this moment. Although he is known for his ability to trade favors in hopes of gaining trust, his quest could be for naught if he is unable to overcome the demands by some who seek to weaken the power of the speakership.

McCarthy, who entered the rungs of leadership just two years after he was first elected, in 2007, had a front-row seat to how the Freedom Caucus influenced the demise of the speakerships of John A. Boehner (Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (Wis.). Seeing how both men tried to ostracize the Freedom Caucus from the mainstream Republican Party, McCarthy instead embraced the group, even after Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) in 2015 led the group in opposition to McCarthy succeeding Boehner as the chamber’s top Republican.

“[McCarthy is] a very strong relationship guy,” said Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster who is close friends with McCarthy. “Most congressional leaders, the higher they climb, the less they listen. Kevin’s been exactly the opposite, and that’s been the secret of his success.”

McCarthy has earned Jordan’s trust, as well as that of others in the Freedom Caucus, after including their ideological viewpoints into broader conference conversations over the years and giving some lawmakers key committee assignments. He pledged to continue that commitment, telling colleagues, “I will use my selections on key panels to ensure they more closely reflect the ideological makeup of our conference, and will advocate for the same when it comes to the membership of standing committees.”

Most recently, McCarthy has gathered key lawmakers from all ideological factions in the conference to discuss how the House should function and held numerous conference-wide discussions ahead of voting to incorporate specific rules.

He also incorporated demands from holdouts in the rules package, including measures to cut spending, and endorsed the creation of a select committee modeled after the 1975 Senate “Church committee” that investigated the federal government post-Watergate, or as McCarthy wrote, the “weaponization of government against our citizens.”

But the promises, whether on paper or pledged behind closed doors over the past two months, have yet to move the handful of Republicans who oppose him.

Rep. Ralph Norman (S.C.), one of the five Republican members who have banded together to say they will vote against McCarthy, said Monday afternoon that he is still going to vote against him unless McCarthy adopts a seven-year balanced budget amendment.

“Miracles happen. Could he all of a sudden have a change of course?” Norman said. “I don’t know that that would be now. I know that my first vote is no and as it goes down the line, unless something dramatically happens.”

The Freedom Caucus of today now includes more fervent allies of former president Donald Trump, who consider McCarthy part of the “establishment” problem, while others have concerns that the House will continue to function in a manner that strengthens leadership and weakens membership. But even Trump has endorsed McCarthy as his choice for speaker.

The Freedom Caucus’s hold over Boehner and Ryan was a key reason that McCarthy and the House GOP’s largest super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, worked to elect in this year’s midterms more-moderate candidates considered more willing to govern. But that intervention, as first reported by The Washington Post, only added to the skepticism staunch hard-liners in the Freedom Caucus already had about McCarthy’s purely conservative credentials.

In reference to the rules package GOP leadership proposed, the nine conservatives noted in their letter Sunday that it “fails completely to address the issue of leadership working to defeat conservatives in open primaries” as a reason they are withholding their support from McCarthy.

In an op-ed published last week, Rep. Bob Good (Va.) said his no vote goes beyond reforming House procedure because McCarthy did not “use every procedural tool at our disposal to thwart the radical Democrat agenda,” like whip against bipartisan bills that came from the Senate.

And there it is - Bob Good is against McCarthy because he didn't strong-arm Republicans to vote against the bi-partisanship that Republicans are always making such big noise about.

🤬 

“The upcoming speaker vote is about more than defeating McCarthy and electing a better leader in January. This is about striking a blow against the uni-party swamp cartel, and defeating a Republican system that is hostile to conservatives, resents its base voters, and resists empowering individual members in order to retain power in the hands of an elite few,” Good wrote.

Moderates and institutionalists have banded together to act as McCarthy’s front line of defense against the most fringe in their conference, refusing to entertain any other potential consensus candidates, such as incoming Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), and pledging to vote only for McCarthy no matter how many ballots it takes, according to several lawmakers.

“I can’t see any other possible outcome other than Kevin winning this in the end,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) said. “I just can’t, for the simple fact that no one else can get 218 other than him.”

Over the weekend, McCarthy and his allies worked the phones to try to assuage Freedom Caucus members that their demands, largely surrounding concerns over how the House functions, could be met through compromise. McCarthy ultimately broke his own pledge not to change the “motion to vacate” rule to try to win over the five, deciding to include in the House rules that any five members can demand a vote to vacate, or oust, the speaker.

Moderates have privately pledged to vote against any rule package that would reverse the vacate rule, which previous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) changed from allowing any member to demand a vote to recall the speaker to requiring that a member of leadership do so.

Support for McCarthy across the conference remains strong, with rank-and-file members growing more infuriated toward their colleagues who continue to oppose his candidacy. But on a call Sunday, the “Only Kevin” group appeared to cool on that demand — but only if it would ensure that McCarthy becomes speaker, which remains unclear.

“In any negotiation, the term itself means there’s give and take. And this has so far only been take and this has so far been give, give, give,” said Rep. David Joyce (Ohio), who chairs the pragmatic GOP Governance Group. “That’s the constant game that they played for the 10 years I’ve been here, that whenever you get to the goal line, they move the goal posts.”

Expecting the unexpected

Yet the concessions appear insufficient to appease those who remain skeptical that McCarthy is conservative enough to lead them, according to people familiar with the discussions. McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Monday that while his rules proposal has won some Republicans over, he would not say whether he’s considering lowering the motion-to-vacate rule back to one vote, as several staunch people in the “no” camp are demanding.

“His greatest skill is his ability to negotiate, and some have used that skill against him, saying that there should be no negotiation,” Luntz said of McCarthy. “But that’s not how you get things passed. That’s how you lose. If you refuse to negotiate, that’s how you lose.”

While McCarthy’s loss on a first ballot would be historic — the first since 1923 — it is not unprecedented. Out of respect for McCarthy, Republicans are expected to approve holding a second round of votes. But what happens after that is anyone’s guess.

McCarthy is adamant about staying on the floor until his critics cave, according to several lawmakers and aides familiar with his thinking.

If McCarthy is unable to secure the necessary votes, Republicans speculate that at some point he will either recognize he can’t clinch the support and pull out or members will privately bring up that reality to him. Those in the “Only Kevin” group are not entertaining the idea of another speaker, and would do so only if McCarthy decides to drop out of the race.

“At the end of the day, if they’re going to be intellectually honest, they’ll stop playing this game and just say, ‘We’re not voting for Kevin, just don’t like him and we’ll never vote for him.’ People will then be able to make intelligent decisions from there, including Kevin,” Joyce said.

Without a speaker in place, basic House functions such as swearing in members and voting on a package dictating House rules would be delayed indefinitely. It’s a warning that McCarthy allies have routinely given their Freedom Caucus counterparts, and have emphasized that without McCarthy, a consensus candidate would have to emerge between the GOP and Democrats, ruining Republican chances of influencing anything in the next Congress.

“With Kevin, he’s much more open to you guys. He’s bending over backwards to get your rules changes in,” one lawmaker said about how he has approached negotiations with colleagues. “With a consensus candidate, you’re going to have to compromise on subpoenas, on impeachment of any officials, all of that. And then you’re going to get absolutely nothing of what you want.”

Notice how the Press Poodles never use their favorite phrasing when describing the dysfunction of the GOP.

Republicans In Disarray!

Because that shit's supposed to be reserved for the Democrats - Murc's Law dontcha know.

This struggle is in keeping with my Project Plutocracy thing.

I think the point of this little drama is to tear down the institution - to make democracy look bad so people will be more inclined to move towards the Daddy State.

Into The Weeds

I don't know what it is about the internal politics of the Legislative Branch that makes me all nerdy and shit, but I just can't seem to help myself when the subject is the actual machinery of a representative democracy.

Everybody's always trying to read the tea leaves, and I try to stay away from that part of it. But sometimes, there's a kind of inevitability to things that happen that even I can see coming if I look closely. And boy, do I fucking love looking closely at some of the weird shit that passes for "the learned discourse of sausage-making".

So here's a bit of a breakdown on Kevin McCarthy's Very Tough Row To Hoe.

House Republicans Face a Triple Threat

By Matthew N. Green

Mr. Green has written extensively about the Republican House Freedom Caucus and is an author of “Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur.”

In the new year, Republicans will hold a majority in the House of Representatives. They will have the opportunity to set the chamber’s agenda, conduct oversight of the White House and amplify their platform in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

That’s the good news for the G.O.P. The bad news is that Democrats will still hold the presidency and control of the Senate. Also, with the new Congress in January, there will be no more than 222 Republicans in the chamber, just four more than a bare majority.

A narrow majority is not in itself sufficient to cripple a majority party. In the past two years, Democrats in the House and Senate proved that.

But House Republicans face low odds of success because of a triple threat: a fragile majority, factional divisions and untested leadership. Still, there are steps that party leaders should take to improve their chances of avoiding a partisan circus and perhaps even preside over a productive two years in power — and real risks if they defer instead to extremists in their ranks.

The House Freedom Caucus, an assertive faction of 40-odd lawmakers, includes the likes of Jim Jordan of Ohio, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Generally, the caucus embraces confrontation over compromise, is disdainful of party loyalty — which extends to the selection of its leaders — and has a track record of killing its party’s own bills. In a slim majority, it holds greater leverage over any legislation.

Kevin McCarthy has made assiduous efforts to court the caucus over the past few years to become speaker, yet the caucus members’ skepticism of him in that role remains: In a recent vote for the party’s nominee for speaker, over 30 Republicans voted against him, and at least five conservatives have said that they will oppose him when the full House votes for its next speaker in January. That is more than enough to deny him the speakership, since the nominee must get a majority of the entire House, and no Democrat is expected to vote for Mr. McCarthy.

This makes Mr. McCarthy vulnerable. Freedom Caucus members are making demands that could ultimately be fatal to any hope of Republican success in the House. They want rules changes that, among other things, would weaken the speakership by making bipartisan coalitions harder to build, allowing only bills supported by a majority of the G.O.P. to come to the floor. Such a rule would constrain the speaker’s agenda-setting power and make it extremely hard to pass much-needed legislation unpopular with Republicans, like raising the debt ceiling.

Mr. McCarthy should not empower the Freedom Caucus at the expense of his own influence. Yes, he has to navigate a delicate path. But if he is elected speaker but gives away the store in the process, it will be a Pyrrhic victory.

At the moment, he seems inclined to give away the store. By not refusing caucus demands, he has most likely put himself along a troubled path similar to those of his predecessors Newt Gingrich and John Boehner. Mr. McCarthy has vowed to block an increase in the debt limit unless Democrats agree to spending cuts and suggested that the Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, could face impeachment.

These ill-conceived pledges create false hopes among Republican lawmakers and voters of what the party can accomplish. It’s true that in seeking the speakership, Mr. McCarthy cannot simply ignore the Freedom Caucus, since it commands more than enough votes to torpedo his quest for speaker and any partisan Republican bill in the next Congress.

What happens if no one has enough votes to become Speaker?

To be elected speaker, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes cast. If no candidate wins a majority, the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected.

And that leaves plenty of room for shenanigans. (you heard it here first, kids)

But political power comes in part from perceptions. If Mr. McCarthy surrenders too much to the caucus, it will reinforce the impression that he is less a leader than a follower and erode the clout he will need to lobby lawmakers on tough votes.

Furthermore, if as speaker he consistently defers to the Freedom Caucus, he risks alienating more moderate or swing-district Republicans (or both). Only a handful of these lawmakers would need to cross party lines in order for the minority party to get its way.

Republicans have made it clear that we should expect a buzz of activity in oversight hearings and committee-led investigations — possibly of elements of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department and a heavy dose of Hunter Biden.

Republican leaders can avoid making Congress look like a space exclusively for partisan show trials by being flexible in their agenda and seeking out majorities wherever they can find them. That could include partisan measures from the party’s Commitment to America platform, like funding for the police as well as some symbolic, non-consequential legislation that will please the party’s base. (Think resolutions that declare lawmaker opposition to “woke” teaching and illegal immigration.)

The G.O.P. might also try to pursue bipartisan legislation in areas like health or family care, since securing the votes of minority-party members on bills can make up for any defections within their own ranks. Bipartisan bills also have at least a plausible chance of getting the approval of the Democratic-led Senate and White House that they will need to become law.

When it comes to bills that the House must pass, like appropriations and an increase in the debt ceiling, Mr. McCarthy might have to follow in the footsteps of Speaker Boehner, who let party conservatives resist the passage of such measures until, facing economic catastrophe, he deferred to Republican moderates to pass them with Democrats.

If McCarthy tries the Boehner gambit, the crazies just might be crazy enough to call him.

Imagine what a gleeful little bunch the Chaos Caucus would be if they could "own the libs" and publicly spank the RINOs - even as the economy goes straight into the shitter.

Because don't forget the real probability that they'd be willing to tank the whole thing if it finished off American democracy and gave the plutocrats the vacuum they need to step in and take over. (a probability Mr Green seems to be ignoring)

And again - you heard it here first.

None of these strategies is a guarantee of success. And with such a slim majority, there is also the possibility, if remote, that the Republican Party loses power altogether because a few of its members resign or die in office or one or more members leave the party. In 1930, enough of the G.O.P.’s lawmakers passed away and were replaced by Democrats in special elections that the party was robbed of its majority.

In 2001, Senate Republicans failed to heed the warnings of Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont that he would leave the Republican Party. When he did, control of the Senate flipped to Democrats.

Even if Republicans don’t lose power this way, the conditions are far from ideal for House Republicans to take advantage of being a governing party. Don’t be surprised if the next two years in the House of Representatives are more soap opera than substance.

But if the party remains in charge in the House and can assuage its right flank, its leaders should take steps to temper expectations, protect their authority and be open to working with Democrats if they hope to build a record of legislative success in what will be a challenging political environment.

Seven Score And Nineteen Years Ago

Abe Lincoln delivered the greatest political speech ever - except possibly for most of his other speeches.

The guy could speechify.

We could prob'ly do with a few more like The Gettysburg Address, since way too many people are expecting (ie: fearing) another American civil war, and the same number seem to be eagerly anticipating (ie: fomenting) it, convinced it's just something we need to do once in a while to give ourselves a good "cleansing" - or whatever fuckin' rationalization they've cooked up today.

Enter the brewing power struggle between Article 1 and Article 3.

Shit just gets weirder.

Senior Democratic lawmakers demand answers on alleged Supreme Court leak

Whitehouse and Johnson warn chief justice that if he won’t investigate, Congress will.

Two senior Democrats in Congress are demanding that Chief Justice John Roberts detail what, if anything, the Supreme Court has done to respond to recent allegations of a leak of the outcome of a major case the high court considered several years ago.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) are also interested in examining claims about a concerted effort by religious conservatives to woo the justices through meals and social engagements. They wrote to Roberts on Sunday, making clear that if the court won’t investigate the alleged ethical breaches, lawmakers are likely to launch their own probe.

The pair of lawmakers also criticized the high court’s response to a letter they sent Roberts in September, seeking information about the court’s reaction to reports in POLITICO and Rolling Stone about a years long campaign to encourage favorable decisions from the justices by bolstering their religiosity.

A Supreme Court ethics attorney replied on Roberts’ behalf earlier this month, recounting some of the court’s policies and practices in the area, but offering no specifics about the lobbying drive.

“A response pointing out the existence of rules is not responsive to questions about whether those rules were broken,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote in their new letter Sunday, which was obtained exclusively by POLITICO. “It seems that the underlying issue is the absence of a formal facility for complaint or investigation into possible ethics or reporting violations. …. If the Court, as your letter suggests, is not willing to undertake fact-finding inquiries into possible ethics violations that leaves Congress as the only forum.”

A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message Sunday evening seeking comment on the letter.

The lawmakers said their latest missive to Roberts was triggered in part by a report Saturday in the New York Times about a former anti-abortion activist’s claim that he got advance word about the outcome in 2014 of a case of acute interest to social conservatives. The case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, led to a ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito that religious owners of closely held businesses did not have to comply with all of the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for contraception coverage.

Rev. Rob Schenck, a former evangelical minister who has since switched denominations, said he was alerted to the outcome of the case and Alito’s authorship of the opinion several weeks before the opinion was released by the court. Schenck said his information came from a dinner a wealthy couple had with Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, at the Alitos’ Virginia home after making significant donations to the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Alito adamantly denied that he or his wife were responsible for any leak. One member of the couple who dined with the Alitos that night, Gayle Wright, has also denied she conveyed the outcome of the case to Schenck. Her husband, Ohio real estate developer Don Wright, died in 2020.

POLITICO investigated the alleged leak for several months and was unable to locate anyone claiming direct knowledge of a premature disclosure of the outcome of the Hobby Lobby case from Justice Alito or his wife. However, there is circumstantial evidence that Schenck had, or believed he had, advance word about the outcome of the case and who was writing it.

Schenck wrote to Roberts in July, conveying word of the alleged leak eight years ago. He said the court might wish to evaluate that episode as it considers how to deal with the far more publicized disclosure in May by POLITICO of a draft Alito opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

The court has not commented on Schenck’s letter or whether any investigation was conducted into the 2014 leak, but the new letter from Whitehouse and Johnson asks Roberts to explain whether the court has “reevaluated any of its practices, procedures, or rules related to judicial ethics, or the justices’ receipt and reporting of gifts and travel” as a result of the recent news reports and Schenck’s letter.

Whitehouse and Johnson also expressed concern that some donors to the Supreme Court Historical Society, a nonprofit educational organization with close ties to the court, have tried to use the society’s events to cozy up to the justices.

“Who is responsible for policing the relationship between the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Historical Society to ensure that paid membership in the Society is not used as a means of gaining undue influence?” the lawmakers asked.

A society official did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday evening.

Whitehouse, a strident critic of what he contends is politicization of the Supreme Court, is positioned to pursue those concerns in his capacity as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights

Johnson heads up a similar subcommittee on the House side, but his ability to probe the matters may soon be limited with Republicans set to take over control of House committees in January due to the outcome of the midterm elections earlier this month.

Listen Up

From @DanteAtkins

"Lol we don't need Warnock" is what people say who haven't worked in Congress and don't know how it works. Here are the differences that a 51st Senator can make, just off the top of my head:

• A 51st Dem means no power-sharing in the organizing resolution. Dems have a majority on committees. no more deadlocks, no more discharge petitions for floor votes. That massively accelerates both the legislative process and the confirmation process.
• The individual power of the two chaos muppets (Manchin and Sinema) is drastically reduced. Both of them will now need to be opposed to whatever Dems are trying to do in order to block progress.
• The Senate is a gerontocracy. These guys are not healthy a lot of the time, or not present a lot of the time. We could have a death in a state with a Republican governor. A lot of things could happen. 51-49 versus 50-50 means you can have up to 2 absences/noes.
• A 51-49 majority means that VP Harris won't be required to be in DC to babysit the Senate all of the time, and can actually be a much more effective VP who can be deployed for both policy and campaigning.

So the upshot is, work for Warnock just as hard as you would if you thought Schumer's gavel depended on it. Because as far as you know, at some point in the next two years, it just might.

Shit Keeps Rollin'

Some politicians and certain officials know how to play the politics so they can skate while all the legal issues work their way thru the court system, and by the time the decision comes down that says they're a buncha lyin' sacks of shit, the public has "moved on" and we have a hard time even remembering why we were pissed off about it in the first place.

AP:

Russia probe memo wrongly withheld under Barr, court rules

The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr improperly withheld portions of an internal memo Barr cited in announcing that then-President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, a federal appeals panel said Friday.

The department had argued that the 2019 memo represented private deliberations of its lawyers before any decision was formalized, and was thus exempt from disclosure. A federal judge previously disagreed, ordering the Justice Department to provide it to a government transparency group that had sued for it.

At issue in the case is a March 24, 2019, memorandum from the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and another senior department official that was prepared for Barr to evaluate whether evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation could support prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice.

Barr has said he looked to that opinion in concluding that Trump did not illegally obstruct the Russia probe, which was an investigation of whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

A year later, a federal judge sharply rebuked Barr’s handling of Mueller’s report, saying Barr had made “misleading public statements” to spin the investigation’s findings in favor of Trump and had shown a “lack of candor.”

Friday’s appeals court decision said the internal Justice Department memo noted that “Mueller had declined to accuse President Trump of obstructing justice but also had declined to exonerate him.” The internal memo said “the Report’s failure to take a definitive position could be read to imply an accusation against President Trump” if released to the public, the court wrote.

The Justice Department turned over other documents to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as part of the group’s lawsuit, but declined to give it the memo. Government lawyers said they were entitled under public records law to withhold the memo because it reflected internal deliberations before any formal decision had been reached on what Mueller’s evidence showed.

Sitting presidents are generally protected from criminal charges on grounds it would undermine their ability to perform the office’s constitutional duties. The Justice Department, like Mueller, “took as a given that the Constitution would bar the prosecution of a sitting President,” the appeals court wrote, which meant the decision that Trump wouldn’t be charged had already been made and couldn’t be shielded from public release.

Had Justice Department officials made clear to the court that the memo related to Barr’s decision on making a public statement about the report, the appellate panel wrote, rulings in the case might have been different.

“Because the Department did not tie the memorandum to deliberations about the relevant decision, the Department failed to justify its reliance on the deliberative-process privilege,” wrote the panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Appellate judges also noted that their ruling was “narrow,” saying that it should not be interpreted to “call into question any of our precedents permitting agencies to withhold draft documents related to public messaging.”

Attorneys for the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email message seeking comment. The department can appeal the ruling to the full appeals court.

Get It Straight

Don't fall for the Press Poodles' bullshit.

Don't ever say "The GOP refuses to act..."

Don't ever say "The Dems failed to pass..."

Republicans are doing everything they can think of to block everything the Democrats are trying to get done for us.

Senate Republicans voted to continue their filibuster, blocking the House-passed bill expanding access to VA Healthcare and Disability Benefits for Veterans exposed to toxins during their military service (PACT Act) - the Republicans actively prevented the bill from advancing to final passage.

Today's Brian

Brian Tyler Cohen - getting our panties all knotted up because of Merrick Garland's memo.

Or maybe Garland is inoculating DOJ from charges of "political motivation" by reiterating the department's commitment to being apolitical - so when they finally get down to it (and the memo may actually portend to something imminent), they can point back to the memo and countervail those accusations.

Not that any of this is going to cut any ice with "conservatives", but process does matter.

And believe me, I get frustrated as fuck with what seems like a really slow pace. But while I wish Mr Garland would pick it up a little, I have to believe he's the guy who can do what we need done.

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

The story about the little scrap in the SUV is not the bombshell.

And the story about the story is not the fucking story.

Trump always surrounds himself with people who're less than thoroughly professional. He needs flunkies who will do what he wants done without getting specific instructions, and without getting hung up on trivialities like "is this legal?" and "is this something my mom would be proud to see me doing?".

You don't overthrow American democracy all by yourself.

We don't know what all Trump had in mind for that day. And we don't know everything that was going on with any of his lackeys either.

Was Mark Meadows sitting on the couch casually fuckin' around with his phone because he was just waiting to see how it played out? Cuz he figured on Trump triggering the kind of crisis that makes it easier for him and his gang of Freedom Caucus terrorists to hang Trump for his crimes while seizing power for themselves?

We're in this mess because we've allowed ourselves to be convinced that honor just isn't something we value anymore - it's not something we insist on having our political leaders demonstrate or even talk about.

We've put some very dishonorable people in high positions of great power, and somehow we're shocked to see them behaving dishonorably.

And what's even harder for me to watch is so many "regular Americans" who seem to be OK with it.

A nation of placid uninvolved Eloi

will come to be dominated by a government

of viciously predatory Morlocks.