Today's Tweext

Practice practice practice

What the heck is going on? 😳 pic.twitter.com/ryXIfTTRs1

— Eugene (@Democracy1stE) October 2, 2023

Today's Anti-MAGA

Texas Paul

Marge The Impaler Greene is not a nice person.

Big Doin's Down Georgia Way

There has to be some probability that this Scott Hall character is kind of a keystone - that if he's rolled over on Powell, then a significant section of the coup plot (that hasn't gotten a lot of play) will come to light, which could easily lead to a cascade of damning revelations about how wide and deep this fucked up mess really is.

• Georgia
• Michigan
• Wisconsin
• Pennsylvania
• Arizona
• Nevada
• New Mexico

If we get lots of shit hitting lots of fans, then I have to hope that more than just the politicians and operatives get spattered. Somebody had to bankroll the thing, and there has to be any number of wealthy wannabe-plutocrats who should not be left unspattered.

Random Quote(s)

I'm almost done with "The Second" - which is the kind of real history that assholes like Ron DeSantis won't allow to be taught.

And guess what - not teaching kids the real history of USAmerica Inc is not a new thing.

I think I may have cause to raise a class action suit against the Jefferson County School System of the 60s and 70s. Which I thought did pretty fucking great by me - and they didn't. Not by a long shot.

None of this was taught in any of the many American History classes I took - and I had every right to expect that my teachers would let me know about it.

I will never not be pissed off about this.

"It is impossible to be unarmed when your blackness is the weapon that they fear."

It's A Wonderment

Melania wants a new contract. So how's the smart money betting on this thing?

Does she and her legal gang see something coming down the road that makes them believe she needs to get a better while she still can?

Is it the mercenary shit we've always thought it was?

Sure hope she's good and careful around staircases and windows and stuff.

Why Melania Trump may want to revisit her prenup with Donald Trump

• Melania Trump is reportedly renegotiating the terms of her prenuptial agreement with Donald Trump, per Page Six.
• The former first lady previously revisited the terms in 2017, according to a biography.
• Lawyers told Insider renegotiating may be smart amid the legal troubles Donald Trump faces.

Melania Trump spent the first few months of her husband's presidency in New York renegotiating the terms of their prenuptial agreement, Mary Jordan, a Washington Post reporter wrote in her book, "The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump."

Now, as Donald Trump maintains his position as the top GOP contender for the 2024 Republican nomination, all the while besieged by a mountain of growing legal troubles, Melania Trump could be wise to revisit those terms yet again, two lawyers told Insider.

A dishy report from Page Six on Thursday said that the former first lady has already done just that, citing two anonymous sources who told the outlet Melania Trump "quietly" renegotiated the terms of a new "postnup" agreement with her husband over the last year.

Insider was unable to independently confirm the report. Representatives for Donald Trump and several acquaintances of Melania Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Renegotiating a prenup isn't solely reserved for couples experiencing marital woes, attorneys told Insider. Reevaluating the legal agreement is common among those who anticipate future financial turbulence, as well.

Trump is facing four criminal indictments and a civil action in Manhattan, in which a judge ordered that the Trump Organization's New York corporate charters be revoked.

"She may well want additional protections for herself and her son," said Bill Beslow, a high-powered New York City divorce lawyer who represented Marla Maples in her 1999 split from Trump.

Beslow could not confirm any details of the current Trump couple's prenup, but said generally, protecting your stake in the marital assets is important, he said, "if you think the whole roof may fall in on you."

Melania Trump may also want to take advantage of the leverage she has at this moment, according to Beslow, whose clients include Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Al Pacino, Linda Evangelista, and Mia Farrow.

"She may be saying 'this is what you need to do, if you want me on your side, if you want me on the campaign trail, if you want me in the courtroom,'" he said.

"And he may need her not to do certain things," Beslow added. "What's that worth for him, for example, for her not to write a book?"

Melania Trump has thus far removed herself from her husband's 2024 presidential campaign, forgoing public appearances alongside Donald Trump on both the trail and in court.

As Donald Trump's litany of legal troubles mount, so too do his likely legal fees, Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Insider.

"There's a possibility that when it's all said and done, Trump isn't going to be in a good financial state," Rahmani told Insider.

"She may be trying to protect herself," he added.

Beslow, however, cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that a prenup-renegotiation means the Trump marriage is on the rocks.

Spouses in high-power, high-asset marriages do renegotiate their prenups for benign reasons — such as a gesture of generosity, he said.

But more nefarious motivations can also come into play. A prenup can be changed to keep marital property out of the hands of creditors.

"The spouse who is having financial difficulties, or facing financial difficulties, may want to transfer assets out of his or her name," Beslow said.

"That would be all with the view toward avoiding the seizure of those assets," he added.

Regardless of what happens come 2024, Melania Trump is wise to renegotiate the agreement now, Rahmani said.

"To the extent that you can get money from the marriage now, before his creditors get to him, that's something you should consider," he said.

Today's Reddit

Jasmine Crockett is a fire-breather.

Omg wow this
byu/Rollyman1 inNewsAroundYou

Secrets

SEASON 2 EPISODE 45: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

9 of the secret documents Trump stole - and had stashed in the shitter at Mar-A-Lardass - are considered so super secret that they can't be kept in any SCIF outside DC.

Why isn't that prick in prison right fucking now?

TRUMP MAKES ANTISEMITIC THREAT TO "STRIKE GLOBALISTS" - 9.29.30

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:

"Join the ultimate strike against the globalist class," Trump shouted at his crowd in Michigan. And of course that is a double dogwhistle because to antisemites like Trump, "Globalist" means Jews, but also has a CLEAN meaning: dealing with the interconnections of the modern world, internationally. And he got away with “strike” there because he was nominally addressing the labor action by the United Auto Workers. Of course if you think he was telling his cult of thugs to take labor action against those dealing with the interconnections of the modern world, congratulations on awakening from your nine-year coma. Trump began to covertly attack Jewish people as soon as his presidential campaign began, he threatened globalists at the United Nations, this is nothing new.

But the use of the term “ultimate strike” should set off any remaining alarm bells that have not been ringing continuously all this time. This is not a complicated calculation: if Trump determined that he could get elected by beginning a full-fledged attack on Jewish people, Jewish influence, he’d do it. When we speak of him as having the soul of a mass murderer, that’s what we mean. People do not have any actual VALUE to him. Re-enact the holocaust in whole or in part? To get re-elected? To stay out of jail? Of course he’d do that. And to any group you could name. If he became convinced that he could regain the White House by rounding up and killing all the… left-handed people, he’d do it.

There is also more to the attack on the news media for "country-threatening treason." The former editor of The Washington Post confirms are worst fears. When Trump and Kushner demanded they meet to discuss how they could 'make it up' to Trump for reporting on Russia, the executives went as summoned, and negotiated. There is the danger in how the media has treated Trump and will treat him: it's all a negotiation for him, and it's all a negotiation for them.

Speaking of which, Melania has reportedly re-done her pre-nup. Which Tee Box did she get in the new deal? And as House Republicans prepare to sack Kevin McCarthy and replace him with Tom Emmer, who best represented their hilarious 'Impeachment Inquiry' launch? Jonathan Turkey saying he didn't see any evidence worthy of an impeachment? Or Congressman Chuck Edwards, who couldn't pronounce any of the names or words in the sentence they gave him to read - particularly: "Oligarch."

B-Block (25:22) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD:

Stew Peters and guest demand execution of Taylor Swift and Travis Kielce for vaccine advocacy. Hey, Matt Gaetz? Why the long face? And Curt Schilling - Scumbag - reveals a former teammate is fighting cancer even though the former teammate wanted to keep it private. (30:42) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, PART 1: Saturday is Stevie Day. You've heard this story before? Well here's your chance to hear it again. A boy and his first dog (ok, the boy was 53).

C-Block (46:17) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, PART 2:

Stevie makes her cameo.

One Of These Is Not Like The Other

The Problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays.
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who until then had been on the side of the holdouts, stepped up to counter Gaetz’s claim, saying this new stopgap proposal — known as a continuing resolution — had earned his support. For a moment, there was hope among leadership that maybe others could be swayed, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not all holdouts agree.

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

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

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

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

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

Democrats understand they're called to serve

Republicans believe they're entitled to rule

Well, Duh

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

Kevin McCarthy seems unable to grok this concept.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet all the concessions seem to never be enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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