Relaxful day fishing
by u/wunderbread1234 in yesyesyesyesno
Mar 26, 2023
Today I Learned
"The lost secrets of the ancients" is kind of an all-time favorite fantasy for an awful lot of people. I can admit having been sucked into that shit back when I was maybe 20 years old, reading Von Daniken's collection of fairy tales in Chariots Of The Gods.
And while you have to be careful not to lose your sense of wonder, and the willingness to believe there may be something way bigger than anything you've been taught before, you do have to grow up, and you do have to apply a little healthy skepticism to everything people are telling you.
Because people will fool you. Because people know we all want to be fooled some of the time.
We go to 'magic shows'.
We pay 20 bucks to watch 2 hours of super heroes prancing about in their PJs doing impossible things.
We go to church.
The willing suspension of disbelief is a warm and fuzzy thing in a world of harsh realities.
It's important to stay open to new ideas. It's important-er to check things out. ☯
Today's Tweet
Narcissism and Authoritarianism are hand-in-glove.
He makes a point of saying he doesn't like using the word 'stupid', and then he calls people stupid - because, like all egocentric self-obsessed assholes, he's deathly afraid people will recognize him for the empty suit that he is, so he acts out and attacks everybody everywhere all at once (see what I did there? 👀 )
Donald Trump on his mental competency test: "I aced it...It was after that that nobody called me stupid anymore." pic.twitter.com/avst1a9joh
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) March 26, 2023
Dissent In Russia
I just hope the guy doesn't get slammed too hard.
Mar 25, 2023
Summing Up
Not that House Republicans give fuck - they'll ride their little unicorn pony until it's heart explodes - but if they want a budget that gets the government to live within its means while leaving Trump's TaxScam2017™ in place, and not touching Defense or Social Security & Medicare, then we'll just have to do without:
- Border Patrol
- Dept of Homeland Security
- Veterans' Healthcare
- Air Traffic Control
- FBI
- Coast Guard
- Ag Programs
- Food Programs
- Education
- Disaster Relief
- Housing Programs
- Space Exploration
- Cancer Research
- Courts
- Diplomats
And that's just the budget shit that Speaker McCarthy is having to ignore &/or make up a whole new language to fumble with.
Trump makes suckers of House Republicans. Again.
Be honest: Who among us has not had an extramarital affair with a porn star?
It is the rare person who can truthfully say he or she has not. And that is why I admonish you: Let he who has not lied about using campaign funds to pay hush money cast the first stone!
In the race by MAGA World to circle the wagons around Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels case, a special prize must go to those who not only attack those investigating the former president but also defend his behavior with the adult-film actress as totally and completely normal.
“Settlements like this, whatever you think of them, are common both among famous people, celebrities and in corporate America,” one of our winners, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, misinformed his viewers. “Paying people not to talk about things, hush money, is ordinary in modern America.”
A couple of weeks ago, old text messages came out in which Carlson called Trump “a demonic force, a destroyer” and said “I hate him passionately.” Now he’s back to defending some of Trump’s seediest behavior as utterly routine.
It would never be just Carlson, of course. Elected Republican officials also collectively decided this week that it was in their interest to bring Trump back from the political dead. Once again, Trump used a fabrication to revive his flagging standing. And once again, congressional Republicans fell for it.
Just a week ago, leading Republicans were daring to hope that Trump’s sway was ebbing, as Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence took him on directly. Then Trump changed all that with just one post on his social media site Saturday morning. He announced his expectation that he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY.” He wrote: “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
In reality, he wasn’t arrested Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or the rest of the week. Maybe he’ll yet be indicted in New York, Georgia or Washington. Maybe he won’t. Regardless, he already notched a significant victory. House Republicans didn’t wait to see whether Trump was speaking the truth about his imminent arrest. They did as he commanded, leaping to his defense — and, in the process, returning him to his previous place of dominance atop the Republican Party. It’s all about Donald Trump — again.
Within just a few hours of Trump’s claim that he was about to be arrested, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced that House Republicans were launching investigations into the “outrageous abuse of power” by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his attempt “to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”
On Monday, three House committee chairmen fired off a letter to Bragg summoning him to testify before Congress and demanding that he produce six years’ worth of documents — all because he was “reportedly about to engage” in “the indictment of a former president.” Never mind that Bragg hadn’t (yet) done so.
Things only deteriorated from there.
By the dozen, House lawmakers and their Fox News allies denounced Bragg by calling him “a hired hit man by George Soros” (Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo.) or by saying Bragg, who is Black, is “listening to his master, George Soros” (Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy).
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) called on DeSantis to “stop any sort of extradition of President Trump from the state of Florida.”
Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, apparently mistook Bragg’s criminal investigation of state law for a federal case. “Daniel Ortega arrested his opposition in Nicaragua and we called that a horrible thing,” he said. “Mr. Biden, Mr. President, think about that.”
House GOP conference chief Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) likewise called the investigation by a county D.A. “the epitome of the weaponizing of the federal government.”
Inevitably, Republicans found themselves not only denouncing the prosecutor but also defending Trump’s behavior. McCarthy vouched for Trump by saying that the hush money paid to Daniels “was personal money” and that Trump “wasn’t trying to hide” it — claims that are challenged by the available facts. (Fox News host Jesse Watters did McCarthy one better in Trump’s defense, telling viewers: “There’s no proof Trump slept with Stormy. There’s no baby.”)
Even Senate Republicans voiced public concern that their House counterparts had gone too far in their prosecutorial meddling. “I would hope they would stick to the agenda they ran on,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.). He might offer the same advice to Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who called for Bragg to “be put in jail” for unspecified offenses.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) put it best when she told Punchbowl News: “The House is gonna do what the House is gonna do.”
And what it did this week was to put Trump back in unquestioned command of the Republican Party.
The California Republican promised right-wing holdouts that he would deliver a budget that balances within 10 years. But he also promised not to touch Social Security and Medicare. Republicans are likewise committed not to allow cuts to defense spending and veterans’ pensions, nor to allow the Trump tax cuts to lapse.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers on those promises at Democrats’ request, and the results are in. To keep all those pledges, Republicans would literally have to eliminate everything — everything — else the government does. No more Homeland Security, no more Border Patrol or FBI, no more Coast Guard, air traffic control or federal funds for education or highways, no agricultural programs, no housing, food or disaster assistance, no cancer research or veterans’ health care, no diplomacy or space exploration, no courts — and no Congress.
Defund the police? This is defund America. Even then, Republicans would still be in the red after 10 years.
Unsurprisingly, McCarthy’s lieutenants are attempting some rapid backtracking. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.) said this week that the 10-year balanced budget is now merely an “aspirational” target — much like my diet. He’s instead touting a separate House GOP proposal to set 2024 spending at 2022 levels, which would require smaller (though still severe) cuts but wouldn’t come close to balancing the budget.
Apparently, the 20 holdouts who almost denied McCarthy the speakership didn’t get the memo, for several of them assembled before the cameras Wednesday and declared they weren’t budging. “We’re going to present a budget that actually balances in the 10-year time frame,” proclaimed Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). He has said McCarthy’s promise of a 10-year balanced budget was “the whole thing” that led him to drop his opposition to McCarthy’s speakership in January.
Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) hosted Norman and several other anti-McCarthy holdouts, all members of the House Freedom Caucus, in the Senate television studio. There, they proclaimed their determination not to increase the debt ceiling without large spending cuts — even if that means the United States goes into a catastrophic default.
Lee revived the dangerously dubious idea that failing to raise the debt ceiling “is not a default.” “You can blow past the debt-ceiling increase deadline,” Lee said. “Yes, that causes problems … but that is not itself a default.”
The federal debt is causing “more suffrage for the American people,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who presumably meant “suffering.”
And Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) contributed this patriarchal take on Biden’s budget: “Every wife in America would shudder if that was her husband.”
The hard-liners, confused though they were, made clear that they weren’t wavering on the debt ceiling. “This is not the Republican Party of the past that will surrender,” said Rep. Bob Good (Va.). “We made history in January,” he said of the anti-McCarthy holdouts. “You’re going to see us make history again.”
Only this time, it would be the historic collapse of the American economy.
Can anybody here play this game?
Be honest: Who among us has not had an extramarital affair with a porn star?
It is the rare person who can truthfully say he or she has not. And that is why I admonish you: Let he who has not lied about using campaign funds to pay hush money cast the first stone!
In the race by MAGA World to circle the wagons around Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels case, a special prize must go to those who not only attack those investigating the former president but also defend his behavior with the adult-film actress as totally and completely normal.
“Settlements like this, whatever you think of them, are common both among famous people, celebrities and in corporate America,” one of our winners, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, misinformed his viewers. “Paying people not to talk about things, hush money, is ordinary in modern America.”
A couple of weeks ago, old text messages came out in which Carlson called Trump “a demonic force, a destroyer” and said “I hate him passionately.” Now he’s back to defending some of Trump’s seediest behavior as utterly routine.
It would never be just Carlson, of course. Elected Republican officials also collectively decided this week that it was in their interest to bring Trump back from the political dead. Once again, Trump used a fabrication to revive his flagging standing. And once again, congressional Republicans fell for it.
Just a week ago, leading Republicans were daring to hope that Trump’s sway was ebbing, as Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence took him on directly. Then Trump changed all that with just one post on his social media site Saturday morning. He announced his expectation that he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY.” He wrote: “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
In reality, he wasn’t arrested Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or the rest of the week. Maybe he’ll yet be indicted in New York, Georgia or Washington. Maybe he won’t. Regardless, he already notched a significant victory. House Republicans didn’t wait to see whether Trump was speaking the truth about his imminent arrest. They did as he commanded, leaping to his defense — and, in the process, returning him to his previous place of dominance atop the Republican Party. It’s all about Donald Trump — again.
Within just a few hours of Trump’s claim that he was about to be arrested, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced that House Republicans were launching investigations into the “outrageous abuse of power” by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his attempt “to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”
On Monday, three House committee chairmen fired off a letter to Bragg summoning him to testify before Congress and demanding that he produce six years’ worth of documents — all because he was “reportedly about to engage” in “the indictment of a former president.” Never mind that Bragg hadn’t (yet) done so.
Things only deteriorated from there.
By the dozen, House lawmakers and their Fox News allies denounced Bragg by calling him “a hired hit man by George Soros” (Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo.) or by saying Bragg, who is Black, is “listening to his master, George Soros” (Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy).
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) called on DeSantis to “stop any sort of extradition of President Trump from the state of Florida.”
Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, apparently mistook Bragg’s criminal investigation of state law for a federal case. “Daniel Ortega arrested his opposition in Nicaragua and we called that a horrible thing,” he said. “Mr. Biden, Mr. President, think about that.”
House GOP conference chief Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) likewise called the investigation by a county D.A. “the epitome of the weaponizing of the federal government.”
Inevitably, Republicans found themselves not only denouncing the prosecutor but also defending Trump’s behavior. McCarthy vouched for Trump by saying that the hush money paid to Daniels “was personal money” and that Trump “wasn’t trying to hide” it — claims that are challenged by the available facts. (Fox News host Jesse Watters did McCarthy one better in Trump’s defense, telling viewers: “There’s no proof Trump slept with Stormy. There’s no baby.”)
Even Senate Republicans voiced public concern that their House counterparts had gone too far in their prosecutorial meddling. “I would hope they would stick to the agenda they ran on,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.). He might offer the same advice to Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who called for Bragg to “be put in jail” for unspecified offenses.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) put it best when she told Punchbowl News: “The House is gonna do what the House is gonna do.”
And what it did this week was to put Trump back in unquestioned command of the Republican Party.
The California Republican promised right-wing holdouts that he would deliver a budget that balances within 10 years. But he also promised not to touch Social Security and Medicare. Republicans are likewise committed not to allow cuts to defense spending and veterans’ pensions, nor to allow the Trump tax cuts to lapse.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers on those promises at Democrats’ request, and the results are in. To keep all those pledges, Republicans would literally have to eliminate everything — everything — else the government does. No more Homeland Security, no more Border Patrol or FBI, no more Coast Guard, air traffic control or federal funds for education or highways, no agricultural programs, no housing, food or disaster assistance, no cancer research or veterans’ health care, no diplomacy or space exploration, no courts — and no Congress.
Defund the police? This is defund America. Even then, Republicans would still be in the red after 10 years.
Unsurprisingly, McCarthy’s lieutenants are attempting some rapid backtracking. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.) said this week that the 10-year balanced budget is now merely an “aspirational” target — much like my diet. He’s instead touting a separate House GOP proposal to set 2024 spending at 2022 levels, which would require smaller (though still severe) cuts but wouldn’t come close to balancing the budget.
Apparently, the 20 holdouts who almost denied McCarthy the speakership didn’t get the memo, for several of them assembled before the cameras Wednesday and declared they weren’t budging. “We’re going to present a budget that actually balances in the 10-year time frame,” proclaimed Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). He has said McCarthy’s promise of a 10-year balanced budget was “the whole thing” that led him to drop his opposition to McCarthy’s speakership in January.
Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) hosted Norman and several other anti-McCarthy holdouts, all members of the House Freedom Caucus, in the Senate television studio. There, they proclaimed their determination not to increase the debt ceiling without large spending cuts — even if that means the United States goes into a catastrophic default.
Lee revived the dangerously dubious idea that failing to raise the debt ceiling “is not a default.” “You can blow past the debt-ceiling increase deadline,” Lee said. “Yes, that causes problems … but that is not itself a default.”
The federal debt is causing “more suffrage for the American people,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who presumably meant “suffering.”
And Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) contributed this patriarchal take on Biden’s budget: “Every wife in America would shudder if that was her husband.”
The hard-liners, confused though they were, made clear that they weren’t wavering on the debt ceiling. “This is not the Republican Party of the past that will surrender,” said Rep. Bob Good (Va.). “We made history in January,” he said of the anti-McCarthy holdouts. “You’re going to see us make history again.”
Only this time, it would be the historic collapse of the American economy.
Can anybody here play this game?
There is, theoretically, a deal to be had on the federal debt. It would have to be, as in years past, a “grand bargain” that would cut both domestic and military spending, raise taxes on the wealthy, and reform entitlement programs. But ruling out changes to all but the 15 percent of the federal budget known as nondefense discretionary spending, as House Republicans have promised, is a fool’s errand, destined to fail.
Problem is, this is a caucus full of fools — or at least a caucus of the clueless. They don’t know what they don’t know.
The median tenure for a House Republican right now is just four years. Most don’t know a time before Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the American political system. McCarthy himself acknowledged this week that “we have to retool and rethink” because of the inexperience: “About half the conference has never served in the majority."
Problem is, this is a caucus full of fools — or at least a caucus of the clueless. They don’t know what they don’t know.
The median tenure for a House Republican right now is just four years. Most don’t know a time before Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the American political system. McCarthy himself acknowledged this week that “we have to retool and rethink” because of the inexperience: “About half the conference has never served in the majority."
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) had a similar observation this week, as members of the House Freedom Caucus blasted what they called a “bailout” of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank — even though the government’s guarantee of deposits prevented a broader banking panic. “It’s complicated and takes a little time for people to understand," he said of his wet-behind-the-ears colleagues.
Their on-the-job training is off to a slow start. Three months into this new House majority, only two minor bills have become law: one rejecting the District of Columbia’s criminal code, and another declassifying what the federal government knows about the pandemic’s origins. As Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, a (rare) moderate Republican, told the Wall Street Journal: “We haven’t passed one of the must-pass bills this year.”
Yet the speaker claims that “we have changed Congress on its head in less than three months.”
In a way, he has changed Congress on its head — by executing a face plant.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
This week was the House GOP retreat at a J.W. Marriott in Orlando, an annual gathering in which Republicans talk the same nonsense about a “woke” and “weaponized” government that they do in Washington, only they do it wearing khakis, L.L. Bean fleece vests and Ritz-Carlton logo sweaters.
These gatherings are not called “retreats” anymore (that sounds a bit too Ritz-Carlton) but rather “issues conferences.” This is appropriate, because they’ve got a lot of issues.
Trump has just taken over the party again. The same 20 zealots who denied McCarthy the speakership until he gave them the keys to the car are now about to drive the vehicle off a cliff and into default. Republicans don’t agree on Ukraine, bank bailouts, border legislation or much of anything else.
As if real life weren’t hard enough, GOP leaders decided to spice things up at their retreat issues conference by playing a war game. Politico’s Olivia Beavers reported that they pretended China had invaded Taiwan, McCarthy was president and “committee chairs got a fictional promotion to cabinet secretaries.”
President McCarthy and Secretary of War Jim Jordan? God help us all.
Informed by his war gaming, McCarthy waxed eloquent with reporters about his foreign policy views when asked a question about Ukraine. “I have a real concern of the aggression of Russia. I have a more greater concern of this axis of power coming together of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,” he announced. “I watched this happen in the world another time before I was ever born.”
Without explaining how that was possible, he continued: “I think it is utmost important that Russia lose. I think it’s utmost important that China does not think to go capture Taiwan now that President Xi changed his constitution and is now serving another five terms and believes to go in there. … I think it’s a very responsibility that yes Russia loses in this aggression.”
Well, okay then.
Two days later, McCarthy, asked a question about China, offered some high-level thoughts … on the Second World War.
“What should they have done when they first saw Hitler, Mussolini and Japan getting together?” he asked. “What dependencies did they become weak upon? What aggressions did they look the other way? On building up a military of Hitler even though it went against the Treaty of Versailles. Or the movement in of Czechoslovakia and Austria. Or the movement into Crimea. Or the desire to take Taiwan. So walking through the pandemic thinking about where was America waking up to medical supplies?”
I think I know the name of the war game House Republicans were playing: Mad Libs.
These gatherings are not called “retreats” anymore (that sounds a bit too Ritz-Carlton) but rather “issues conferences.” This is appropriate, because they’ve got a lot of issues.
Trump has just taken over the party again. The same 20 zealots who denied McCarthy the speakership until he gave them the keys to the car are now about to drive the vehicle off a cliff and into default. Republicans don’t agree on Ukraine, bank bailouts, border legislation or much of anything else.
As if real life weren’t hard enough, GOP leaders decided to spice things up at their retreat issues conference by playing a war game. Politico’s Olivia Beavers reported that they pretended China had invaded Taiwan, McCarthy was president and “committee chairs got a fictional promotion to cabinet secretaries.”
President McCarthy and Secretary of War Jim Jordan? God help us all.
Informed by his war gaming, McCarthy waxed eloquent with reporters about his foreign policy views when asked a question about Ukraine. “I have a real concern of the aggression of Russia. I have a more greater concern of this axis of power coming together of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,” he announced. “I watched this happen in the world another time before I was ever born.”
Without explaining how that was possible, he continued: “I think it is utmost important that Russia lose. I think it’s utmost important that China does not think to go capture Taiwan now that President Xi changed his constitution and is now serving another five terms and believes to go in there. … I think it’s a very responsibility that yes Russia loses in this aggression.”
Well, okay then.
Two days later, McCarthy, asked a question about China, offered some high-level thoughts … on the Second World War.
“What should they have done when they first saw Hitler, Mussolini and Japan getting together?” he asked. “What dependencies did they become weak upon? What aggressions did they look the other way? On building up a military of Hitler even though it went against the Treaty of Versailles. Or the movement in of Czechoslovakia and Austria. Or the movement into Crimea. Or the desire to take Taiwan. So walking through the pandemic thinking about where was America waking up to medical supplies?”
I think I know the name of the war game House Republicans were playing: Mad Libs.
The Inciter In Chief
Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he’s charged in hush-money case
Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.
The posting after midnight on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, was his latest — and most explicit — allusion to violence that could follow an indictment stemming from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whom Trump called a “degenerate psychopath.”
Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”
In a post on Thursday, Trump criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful. Over the weekend, Trump urged a “PROTEST” over his potential arrest in the case, which he wrongly predicted would happen Tuesday.
The messages have all had echoes of the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Trump had urged his followers to assemble in Washington that day, saying “Be there, will be wild!” as he pushed to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win.
The attack resulted in five deaths, and 140 police officers were injured. The House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection; the Senate acquitted him.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) castigated Trump on Friday for his latest comments, echoing criticism from other Democrats.
“The twice-impeached former president’s rhetoric is reckless, reprehensible and irresponsible,” Jeffries said at a news conference. “It’s dangerous. And if he keeps it up, he’s going to get someone killed.”
“We’ve already seen the consequences of incitement from the former president,” Jeffries added. “He is principally responsible for inciting the violent insurrection that happened on Jan. 6, but clearly he has not learned his lesson.”
Trump has been commenting frequently on the hush-money case as a Manhattan grand jury weighs evidence against him. The panel is not scheduled to meet again until at least Monday, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss proceedings that are secret.
Prosecutors from Bragg’s office have been presenting grand jurors with evidence related to hush-money payments to Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. The payments were aimed at keeping her from airing her claim that she had a sexual relationship with Trump years earlier, prosecutors say.
According to prosecutors, Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. Trump reimbursed him after becoming president, in installments that were designated as legal fees.
Hours after Trump’s tweet, Bragg said an envelope with a white substance was sent to the district attorney’s office, according to an email to staff Friday afternoon. The material was determined not to be dangerous.
“Your safety is our top priority,” Bragg wrote in the email, in which he also described the staff receiving “offensive or threatening phone calls or emails.”
As he did in a message to staff this past week, Bragg indicated that the office would press ahead. “We will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, which is what each of you does every single day,” he said.
The New York Daily News first reported on the Bragg message to staff.
During his social media barrage of the past two days, Trump shared a right-wing publication’s image of him holding a baseball bat alongside a picture of Bragg’s head. Almost instantly, extremism trackers say, supporters were cracking jokes about physically attacking Bragg. “Batter up!” one post said.
“You take the image of him with the bat and now the next day it’s followed with actual words: violence, destruction. His base of supporters are connecting the dots,” said Pete Simi, an extremism scholar who studies threats to public officials with the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, or NCITE, a Homeland Security research outpost in Omaha.
Several Republicans rejected political violence but were careful not to specifically criticize Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
On Friday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said he had not heard Trump’s comments, but he said, “There’s no place in America for political violence of any kind.”
“I’ve been saying that for years, and I think everybody ought to take that position,” said Scalise, who was seriously injured in a politically motivated shooting in 2017 at a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game.
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), chairman of the Republican Main Street caucus, said, “In our system of government … you should never call for violence. So, you know, we need to do better.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “I’m all for peaceful protests, but peaceful protests. No violence.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), when asked about Trump’s latest comments Friday, said he had spoken about the issue already previously, and proceeded to talk about an upcoming House vote on education legislation.
McCarthy has slammed Bragg’s investigation, but he said Sunday that supporters of Trump should not protest if the former president is indicted.
“Nobody should harm one another,” McCarthy said, following Trump’s call for protests. “We want calmness out there.”
For his part, Trump resumed commentary on the case on Truth Social about eight hours after his overnight post.
“PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!” he wrote in all caps shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern time.
Trump will have another opportunity to criticize Bragg and other state and federal prosecutors investigating his conduct on Saturday when he appears at a rally scheduled in Waco, Tex.
Nearly 30 years ago, a lengthy standoff between a religious cult and federal agents in Waco ended on April 19, 1993, when the group’s compound near the city was destroyed in a fire. Nearly 80 people were killed.
Extremism monitors said the attacks on Bragg are alarming even against Trump’s long record of whipping up outrage among supporters and then directing that fury toward his enemies. Together with the “apocalyptic” symbolism of choosing Waco as a rally site, analysts said, Trump’s already thin veneer of plausible deniability is vanishing into unmistakable calls for violence.
Steven Windisch, assistant professor of criminal justice at Temple University in Philadelphia, is co-author of another NCITE research project that aims to pinpoint where political speech crosses into threats of violence. He tracked Google searches for Bragg before and after he landed in Trump’s crosshairs and found sharp increases timed to the publication of Trump’s most incendiary posts.
“The fact that (Bragg) is trending is not surprising,” Windisch said. “What’s surprising is the combination of what’s being searched: his address, his home and his phone, and general contact information. We even saw one spike where it was his family.”
Kevin McCarthy Is One Of Them
Jim Jordan (R-Pitstain OH) says he needs to see what the Manhattan DA is doing, and Mr Braggs office told him to fuck off.
Republicans need us to think an attempt to overthrow the government is just something we do now.
Asshole MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy are trading on a mother's grief as a means to further their dreams of Daddy State minority rule.
The question is: How does McCarthy square going out of his way to meet with a seditionist's mom, and make a point of not meeting with the parents of a school shooting?
Answer: He doesn't. And one reason is that cruelty is the point when it serves GOP ambitions.
Do ya get the feeling, Mr Jordan is flirting with Obstruction Of Justice?
Who's Doin' What?
Kentucky floodwaters receded six months ago. For many, the crisis goes on.
‘People need housing now,’ says the head of one local nonprofit. ‘They need to know there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.’
HAZARD, Ky. — Gerry Roll lets out a sigh when she thinks about the endless pleas that have poured into her inbox over the past six months.
“I am desperately seeking help,” one man wrote this winter, saying the floods that devastated Eastern Kentucky in late July had knocked out his heating system. “Are there any resources that can help me out with that? I am cold and freezing at times.”
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“Myself and my daughter both lost our homes. … We would be so grateful for any assistance,” wrote another woman, explaining that there was no money to rebuild.
Every extreme weather disaster leaves a lasting mark, often displacing people in its path. But the biblical floods in Eastern Kentucky have highlighted a deepening reality that many communities face as climate change fuels catastrophes of greater intensity and frequency: a housing crisis that persists long after the immediate disaster has faded.
A flood-damaged home in Ary, Ky., last month. (Arden S. Barnes for The Washington Post)
“I just don’t think people can grasp what a huge issue housing is,” says Roll, the chief executive of the nonprofit Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky. “People need housing now; they need a place to live now. They need to know there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.”
For many, that light has been hard to find.
Mile after mile, county after county, the hills and hollers of Eastern Kentucky are littered with reminders of the floods that unleashed sudden and staggering suffering, killing more than 40 people and leaving hundreds of families homeless.
Spray-painted orange X’s left by search teams are still visible on waterlogged, abandoned homes. Front steps still stand after the houses to which they were once attached were ripped away by the rushing water. Vehicles lie twisted and mired in mud. Tree branches are littered with pieces of lives upended — basketball hoops and tricycles, toilets and Christmas decorations, headboards and books and pieces of metal roofs.
Research shows that particularly in low-income rural communities with limited housing supply and a population that is often uninsured or underinsured, residents can end up in a perpetual state of limbo after disasters. That reality is unfolding in Eastern Kentucky.
Without the means to repair damaged homes, obtain mortgages or scrape together rent, some people here are living in homes without electricity or running water, doubling up with relatives, staying in camping trailers or even tents — often with no end in sight. Some have moved away.
Between cash-strapped local governments, under-resourced nonprofit organizations and slow-moving federal recovery efforts, many residents have concluded that they are largely on their own.
“We already had a housing crisis,” said Scott McReynolds, the executive director of the Housing Development Alliance in Hazard, Ky. The floods made the problem far worse. “It’s staggering,” he said. “Folks are having to make hard decisions.”
One recent analysis found that 6 in 10 Kentucky families with homes damaged in the floods have annual incomes of $30,000 or less, a reality that makes recovery only more daunting, said Eric Dixon, a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a think tank that conducted the study.
“It’s very difficult to see how the folks who lost their homes are going to find the money to rebuild,” he said.
‘Housing, housing, housing’
“We already had a housing crisis,” said Scott McReynolds, the executive director of the Housing Development Alliance in Hazard, Ky. The floods made the problem far worse. “It’s staggering,” he said. “Folks are having to make hard decisions.”
One recent analysis found that 6 in 10 Kentucky families with homes damaged in the floods have annual incomes of $30,000 or less, a reality that makes recovery only more daunting, said Eric Dixon, a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a think tank that conducted the study.
“It’s very difficult to see how the folks who lost their homes are going to find the money to rebuild,” he said.
‘Housing, housing, housing’
It’s dark by the time the meeting of the Breathitt County Long Term Recovery Team convenes in the basement room of a Methodist church just off Main Street in Jackson.
The two dozen people sipping coffee from paper cups represent numerous groups — the Red Cross, nonprofit groups, faith-based organizations, local government — working to help flood victims navigate a sea of ongoing needs six months after the unprecedented disaster.
But one issue rises to the top again and again.
“Housing, housing, housing,” says Jackson Mayor Laura Thomas.
On this night, group members mull over some of the hundreds of cases they are managing. One asks if anyone knows a contractor who can repair foundations wrecked by floodwaters. Another offers mold spray to anyone who can use it.
Another shares that a Catholic charitable group is donating building supplies and air-conditioning systems. A church in New Jersey wants to provide 300 refrigerators to people who need them. A humanitarian group has committed to building 20 houses nearby. There’s talk of how to prepare to apply for federal disaster grants, and of drafting a letter to state lawmakers.
Even as the group is desperate to build and rebuild housing, everyone agrees that another aim is equally important. “Ultimately,” says Jamie Mullins-Smith, the group’s co-chair, “the goal is to get people out of the flood plain.”
Not long ago, Roll’s foundation surveyed thousands of families to which it had offered assistance.
Fewer than half of the respondents were back in their homes at the time, and even then many were left to tackle mold and other damage. More than a quarter said they were living with relatives. Others were scattered among camping trailers and hotels. Some said they were living in tents, vehicles, storage buildings and barns.
A University of Kentucky ribbon wreath outside a camper in Carr Creek State Park campground in Sassafras, Ky., last month. (Arden S. Barnes for The Washington Post)
Debris and items damaged by floodwaters outside a home on the outskirts of Hindman, Ky., last month. (Arden S. Barnes for The Washington Post)
Thousands of people will need help for a long time, Roll said. “We know how to do this work,” she said. “What we don’t have is enough capacity to do it fast enough.”
The recent report from the Ohio River Valley Institute, which collaborated on it with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, estimated a cost of $450 million to $950 million to rebuild roughly 9,000 homes damaged by the floods, the bulk in the hard-hit counties of Breathitt, Knott, Letcher and Perry.
The lower figure is for repairing or rebuilding homes largely where they stood before the disaster. Relocating and replacing homes to less-flood-prone areas would cost far more in the short term, the group wrote, but could prevent more damage and death in the long run.
Any recovery will rely in no small part on outside funding and resources.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, said in an update this month that the government had approved $158 million in grants and low-interest disaster loans in the region.
That includes money intended for temporary housing, replacing personal property and meeting other immediate needs. Awards for housing assistance are generally capped at $37,900 — many people received far less — leaving a gap between sums awarded and what is required to repair many damaged homes.
“FEMA assistance is designed to meet a survivor’s basic needs. It will not fully compensate someone for the loss of their home and personal property,” the agency has written.
Last week, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge traveled to Eastern Kentucky to announce $300 million of aid — part of nearly $3.4 billion in grants set aside by Congress for disaster recovery in Florida, Puerto Rico and elsewhere. The funds are intended to help with numerous challenges, including economic revitalization, infrastructure repair and housing.
“I think that people feel left out and forgotten, when month after month they see no real progress, and only through the help of their own family or friends are they able to get by,” Fudge said in an interview during her visit. She said she came to impart a simple message: “We have not forgotten.”
Kentucky must create a plan for spending the money. But if that happens quickly and HUD approves it, Fudge said, money could begin to flow in as few as 60 days — unusually quickly for the federal government.
“What I want to see is us building housing that is going to be resilient, that is going to be able to stand up to the next storm,” she said. “We don’t want to build the same housing they have now. We don’t want to build in the same locations, in some instances.”
For its part, Kentucky’s legislature allocated $213 million of disaster funding in August but did not designate money specifically for housing. The bulk of the funds were aimed at shoring up key infrastructure such as bridges and roads, and helping to get schools functioning again.
Housing advocates have pushed state lawmakers to create an emergency affordable-housing fund — with an initial $150 million investment — that could be tapped after disasters to expedite repairs, elevate homes and build new houses. That idea has not yet succeeded, but the legislature last week voted to reallocate $20 million toward a rural-housing trust fund that will prioritize disaster recovery.
Even before the most recent floods in Eastern Kentucky, parts of the state endured another episode of severe flooding and devastating tornado damage in 2021. As the prospect of more compounding disasters looms in the future, advocates worry that recovery will only become harder.
“We are having more and more extreme weather events,” said Adrienne Bush, the executive director of the Homeless & Housing Coalition of Kentucky. “And our housing built in the 20th century is not up to the task.”
In recent months, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has announced plans to build hundreds of new homes on higher ground — using a 50-acre parcel in Perry County, a 75-acre spot in Knott County and possibly other places to be designated — with construction partly funded with flood-relief money.
Finding usable land can be difficult in Eastern Kentucky, where narrow valleys and steep mountain terrain complicate building. It remains unclear how soon new housing would be available under those projects.
In the meantime, McReynolds said, “Every day, people are spending the resources they have on partial solutions or less-than-ideal solutions.”
Shannon Van Zandt, a professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University who studies the intersection of affordable housing with disasters, has seen how a catastrophe can affect low-income communities. When a tornado or hurricane or wildfire strikes, those who lack adequate insurance or steady incomes or have little savings lose their homes. And so begins a struggle that can last for years.
She and other researchers have found that housing in higher-income neighborhoods bounces back faster, and that at nearly every stage of recovery, populations that begin with fewer resources encounter more obstacles, often exacerbating existing inequities.
“It really is a long-term thing, especially for really vulnerable populations,” Van Zandt said. “We see a disaster and we think, ‘Well, it’s over.’ But it’s really just beginning for the people that experience it.”
‘One day at a time’
For many residents here in Eastern Kentucky, an ending seems far away.
“I expected to be out no more than two months. Six months later, we are still here,” Megan Hutson, a 33-year-old hospital employee, said one afternoon at Carr Creek State Park, one of the spots where Kentucky once housed hundreds of flood victims.
The numbers have dwindled, but some families still are navigating where to go next. Hutson has lived here since August with her young daughter after their mobile home was knocked from its foundation and destroyed.
“I’m blessed to have a place to go,” said Hutson, who has worked to secure a loan on a new home. Even so, she said, “I worry when it rains.”
Thirty-five miles north in Lost Creek, Lena Shouse also is trying to rebuild her home and her life. The fast-rising waters inundated the brick house where she has lived since 2004, ruining everything in the basement and first floor, and destroying the mobile home where her son lived on the property.
Shouse had been sleeping in her car some days by the time President Biden stopped on her street and met with her family as he surveyed flood damage on Aug. 8.
“It’s going to take a while to get through this, but I promise you we’re not leaving,” Biden said that day a couple of blocks away. “As long as it takes, we’re going be here, and we are committed.”
Six months later, Shouse was spending a Tuesday afternoon sanding the drywall she had recently installed. Debris still sat piled in her yard. Water from broken gutters dripped into plastic buckets.
Family members and co-workers had helped her shovel mud from her basement and rip out sopping insulation. She had lived for a while with her daughter and had received financial help from the Red Cross and FEMA, she said, although not enough to replace all that was destroyed.
“I’ve pretty well done everything by myself,” said Shouse, who did not have flood insurance.
Despite the work that remained, she said she felt lucky still to have a home, unlike so many other people nearby.
“I’m just concentrating on getting everything back together,” she said. “I just take it one day at a time.”
- Understanding our climate: Global warming is a real phenomenon, and weather disasters are undeniably linked to it. As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are becoming too hot to survive.
- What can be done? The Post is tracking a variety of climate solutions, as well as the Biden administration’s actions on environmental issues. It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts of climate change, but there are ways to cope with climate anxiety.
- Inventive solutions: Some people have built off-the-grid homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas rise, others are exploring how to harness marine energy.
- What about your role in climate change? Our climate coach Michael J. Coren is answering questions about environmental choices in our everyday lives. Submit yours here. You can also sign up for our Climate Coach newsletter.
Seemingly Simple
Meltdown In Dixie - Trailer
P is for public, but apparently, an awful lot of the content on our "public" broadcast system is buried so deeply behind pay walls, that it's practically impossible to find a link to the shit that airs on "my publicly-funded local PBS station".
You're on your own. Good luck.
Free, my dyin' ass.
Today's Tweet
Jon Stewart says it better than I can.
— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) March 25, 2023
It’s pick-a-side time, and it’s pretty obvious which side is for the American people.
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