Today's Tweext

GOP Activist Who Couldn't Wait For RBG To Die Shoots Wife, Kills Self https://t.co/OYaVCe7O5Z

— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) October 14, 2023

The story:

Political activist Steven Alembik was identified as the man who shot his wife twice. He then turned the gun on himself in a West Delray Beach, Florida, BurgerFi parking lot earlier this week. Political attention-seeker and whacko Laura Loomer is mourning his death. Fun fact: Alembik first received national attention after he tweeted that "Ruth Bader Ginsburg can't die soon enough," and of course, now he's dead.

I'm not reveling in the fact he died (well, that's a lie), but he did call our country's only Black President, Barack Obama, the n-word. He deleted those tweets and ultimately blamed the media.

A staunch Republican activist, Alembik was considered to be a major donor to several GOP candidates, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

United States Senator Rick Scott, who at the time of Alembik's tweets was Governor of Florida, donated Alembik's donations to other charities, according to Haaretz which profiled Alembik here. Laura Loomer, the failed Boca Raton Congressional Candidate — and extreme right-wing activist — remembered Alembik this way on X, formerly known as Twitter: "Sadly, those of us who knew Steve understood that he struggled with his mental health at times, which he ultimately succumbed to when he died this week, but he always put on a smile for those around him and never complained."

Police responded en masse to the BurgerFi parking lot near Atlantic Avenue and the Florida Turnpike Monday evening for the report of a gunman. They found a woman identified by sources as Alembik's wife with gunshot wounds to her back and arm. She was rushed to Delray Medical Center where she remains in critical condition. He was found dead in his car.

Alembik, 72, lived in Boca Raton on SW 16th St.

Despite the fact that he was a racist and xenophobe, fellow bigot Laura Loomer described him as "kind-hearted."

Steve Alembik was on Project Veritas's board of directors and voted to oust O'Keefe.

I'm glad his wife was not killed. Btw, we need common sense gun laws. Everyone in his orbit seemed to know that he was struggling with mental health issues -- and he had a gun. In fact, he had a concealed carry permit, or at least he did in 2007. I've been detective-ing!

A Short Litany

Jared Moscowitz (D - FL23) torching Republicans

The Chaos Caucus

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

Republicans nominate Jordan for House speaker after Scalise withdrawal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"... but ..."

It's a universal truth - as well as an immutable internet meme - that the opening phrase "I'm not a racist, but..." will always be followed by some scorchingly obvious racist shit. (obvious usually to everyone but the speaker, and to those who either share his beliefs or haven't quite thought it through)

So think it through, dammit

Opinion by Alexandra Petri

The word ‘But’ asks that it not appear in these sentences

INTERNET, October 2023 — The word “But” has been stunned to find itself appearing in an increasing number of sentences that begin “The killing of children is never acceptable ... ”

After finding itself in yet another Instagram comment, preceded by the phrases “I am devastated to read about the loss of life” and “I deplore the killing of civilians, especially children,” the word “But” described itself as “horrified” to be included. Although it did not specify what sentiment came after it — possibilities included the phrases “should have had different parents,” and a reference to making omelets and breaking eggs — “But” took to social media to beseech other posters to avoid making this mistake.

The coordinating conjunction begged that those phrases be added to the list of sentences in which it would not appear under any circumstances, a list that already includes: “You never have to compliment Stalin for any reason”; “I don’t want to suggest that slavery wasn’t an unmitigated evil”; and “Genocide is always bad.” The words “Nevertheless,” “Still” and “However” jointly concurred in “But’s” statement, though “Nevertheless” looked visibly tired and strained.

“‘I am against the killing of children, regardless of who their parents are or where they live,’ is a set of words that never should be accompanied by any of us,” their statement read. “If you notice that you are putting us in, please, we beg you, reconsider.”

“But” also asked to be left out of sentences that start with “Of course, I condemn the deaths of innocent civilians,” and, especially, “I object to war crimes.”

“‘I believe in the inherent dignity of human life’ is a sentence that is getting along just fine without me,” “But” observed, a sentiment with which “Nevertheless” said it concurred “a thousand times.”

In a separate statement, the noun “Collateral Damage” and the adjective “Inevitable” asked to stop being forced to appear together.

“But” concluded its statement by saying it would return to anxiously watching someone compose a post that began “There is no excuse for antisemitism” and praying not to be called into service.

Missing The Point

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

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

They've been telling us for 50 years:

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

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

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

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

Today's Keith

It's not Iran (not yet anyway). It's Russia. Hamas leaders have met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at least twice, that we know of, in Moscow, in the last couple of years - which is about how long it would have to take to plan, and train for, the kind of breaching operation Hamas pulled off.

It's the Russians, stupid.

Anyone who advocates pulling US support for Ukraine is, in effect, working as a Russian operative against Israel.

To hurt Ukraine is to help Russia. To help Russia is to help Hamas. And to help Hamas is to hurt Israel.

TRUMP ATTACKS ISRAEL; GOP IS SPEAKER-LESS - 10.12.23

SERIES 2 EPISODE 53: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:

Well, could YOU choose between Rep. Beelzebub or Rep. Lucifer? Jordan and Scalise both eminently define different kind of evils of the Republican Party. But the knives are out and they're steak knives: Jordan's allies are trying to sink Scalise by revealing his campaign has spent half a million dollars at DC's Capital Grille since 2011 (unfortunately that amounts to a nightly purchase of just two Filet Mignons, a side of spinach for the table, and no tip).

While Trump's lawyers file their latest delay against Jack Smith by claiming there are "missing documents" from he January 6th Committee, and his Colorado lawyers explain Trump isn't subject to the 14th Amendment because the president doesn't have to "support" the Constitution, Trump goes off the deep end on Israel. He claims that Israel was attacked because of the 2020 election "rigging," keeps repeating "Barack Hussein Obama," and attacks Prime Minister Netanyahu claiming Israel was neither smart nor tough. The cheese whiz is slipping off the cracker - again.

B-Block (20:00)THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD:

The internet is not kind to Tommy Tuberville: never joke about POTUS falling down if there's video of YOU falling down. Clouds begin to gather around Gary Bettman after he caves to the homophobes and Russians. And there's a shooting war between Israel and Hamas so what's exactly the right thing for a Charlie Kirk Turning Point USA "ambassador" to do? Compare "zionism to communism."

C-Block (29:43) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL:

I missed the anniversary, but to be fair - so did ESPN. 30 years ago on the 1st of this month we debuted ESPN2. Nobody noticed this month. EVERYBODY noticed then. We were voted the 7th worst thing in sports for 1993!

A Thought

Hamas is the problem,

not normal everyday Palestinians

- just like -

MAGA is the problem,

not normal everyday Americans

Today's Reddit

It's obvious that the video has been selectively edited, but the truth is there.

Matthew 6:5

Keep your religious shit to yourself, bitch.

Your book, not mine.

Texas state representative James Talarico explains his take on a bill that would force schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom
byu/follople inPublicFreakout

Today's Tweext

I just can't help but think she did this specifically for Titty Tuesday.

I know - I'm a bad person.

Mace: I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week I had being a woman and being demonized for my vote and voice. pic.twitter.com/guVpxGHUq7

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2023

Today's Keith

Josh (Running Man) Hawley and Marge The Impaler Greene are on the wrong fucking side - again - as always.

Less US and NATO support for Ukraine means more Russian and Iranian support for Hamas.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 52: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

SMITH PROMISES TO PROVE WHY TRUMP STOLE DOCUMENTS - 10.11.23

A-Block (1:44)
SPECIAL COMMENT: It is nearly impossible to be shocked by anything bubbling up in Jack Smith's prosecutions of Donald Trump, and yet Smith has pulled it off. He has promised the court that during the trial of the United States vs. Trump for the stolen documents and secrets: "Why it occurred, what Trump knew, and what Trump intended in retaining them – all issues that the Government will prove at trial, primarily with unclassified evidence."

It's a stunning guarantee, buried deep in Smith's filing, answering why Trump should to get his wish to delay the trial until after the election. And he tantalizes us: because nothing else in the motion even REFERS to it, let alone explains it.

But it does dovetail with the latest grim details from Israel - and the awful echoes from Washington.Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, has now demanded that American aide to Ukraine be CUT OFF and sent instead to Israel, as if there were a reason for such a false either/or choice, and apparently unaware that people can see that his own performance and that of the rest of the Republican anti-Ukraine caucus is not in support of Israel but actually in support of Hamas and Iran. Twice in the last year the Kremlin invited Hamas to send delegations to Moscow and the terrorist group’s leadership met with Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in September 2022 and this past March. There is considerable analysis being done in Europe that the Russians encouraged – even bribed – Hamas, to undertake the full-scale attack that began from the Gaza Strip on Saturday and continues even at this hour. The Russians, this analysis reasons, wanted this because they are Iran’s leading ally and because a Middle East conflict of almost any size would amount to a second front, in which Western resources being dedicated to fighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, might be re-directed TO Israel. In other words, Josh Hawley is doing exactly what the Russians want: degrading western support for Ukraine on the false excuse that the money must go instead to defend Israel. THAT would just give Russia a freer hand in Ukraine, and more money and materiel, to send to Hamas, to DEFEAT Israel, as Iran wants.

It MUST not be forgotten, especially not at this hour, that on May 10th, 2017, in the Oval Office, Trump disclosed classified intelligence – classified intelligence obtained by the Israelis – about an ISIS plot the Israelis unraveled in a town in Syria. Trump gave the information, directly, to Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The same man who twice met with the Hamas delegations in Moscow.

PLUS: not only confirmation that Egypt warned Israel about an attack from Gaza, but a reason to suspect that somebody in the Netanyahu government has thrown the defense services under the bus to protect the troubled Prime Minister.

B-Block (26:12)
IN SPORTS: Steve Garvey? Running for Senator? The baseball hero whose political career died in 1988 when he became "The Father Of Our Country"? His old team underscores baseball's playoff crisis. Hockey dives further into homophobia. And one of that game's best ambassadors has to quit to attend to his own health. (39:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Has-been Aaron Rodgers says nasty things about Taylor Swift's boyfriend who they still pay to make commercials, there's a 1/6 defendant worried about "chest-feeding" and the Murdoch empire inadvertently reveals that if the Democrats were to switch candidates, there's one alternate choice with all the name recognition in the world.

C-Block (45:00)
THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The words were spoken by the best Communications professor I ever had, 44 or 45 years ago. And every week since - and literally yesterday - it's been ignored. "Whatever you do: DON'T SAY THIS."