Feinstein Dies, Shutdown Continues

Senate icon Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has died after 30 years in the chamber and 50 years in public office. Ninety years old, she the longest-serving woman in the Senate and considered for vice-presidential candidate while mayor of San Francisco almost four decades ago. The accolades are rolling in after years of criticism about her refusal to resign because of her developing dementia. The accolades may be more important.

A gun-control advocate, she was a key figure in passing ban the sale and manufacture of assault-style weapons with 91 Senate votes in 1994, an act that saved many lives until it wasn’t renewed ten years later.

The first woman to be top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, she helped shape “policy on criminal law, national security, immigration, civil rights and the courts,” according to her Senate office biography.

She helped extend the Violence Against Women Act until 2027.

She led the intelligence committee when it spent five years investigating CIA interrogation techniques under George W. Bush’s administration, including waterboarding, and released a 500-page public report on the secret interrogation program.

To safeguard California’s environment, she sponsored the West Coast Ocean Protection Act in 2021 before reintroducing it in 2023 to protect the Pacific Northwest from offshore oil and gas drilling. In 1994, she advocated the passage of the California Desert Protection Act to help preserve areas like Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley National Park, and Mojave National Preserve.

To slow global warning, her bipartisan bill in 2001 helped set fuel economy standards for cars, trucks, and SUVs. She also backed the first bipartisan bill to offer legal protection to forests by expediting the reduction of hazardous fuels.

Her initiative for Breast Cancer Research Stamps, postal stamps that help raise money over $100 million since 1998 for breast cancer research.

While on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, she held a press conference after the killing of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. She was a few feet away in her office from the shooting and found the body of Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in the state. Feinstein also named the accused killer, Dan White. A leader for her gender, Feinstein was the first woman to serve as president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, mayor of the city, senator (along with Barbara Boxer), chair of Rules and Administration Committee allowing her to chair the 110^th Congress, chair of the Intelligence committees, and member of the Judiciary Committee. She was also the first woman to chair the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and presided over President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

People were angry with Gov. Gavin Newsom when he said he wouldn’t name anyone running for senator as Feinstein’s temporary replacement. Current Democratic candidates include Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff.  Newsom said he would appoint a Black woman.

And then there were 18. The first co-defendant in the Fulton County (GA) RICO case about attempts to overturn the election has pled guilty. Bail bond business owner Scott Hall, facing seven charges for participating in the breach of a Coffee County election office on January 7, pled guilty to five charges. He was sentenced to five years’ probation and agreed to “testify truthfully in this case and all further proceedings.” DA Fani Willis has a history of shrinking the number of defendants; in her RICO case about teachers, 35 defendants dropped to 12 as the others pled guilty.

Prosecutors in the RICO case may also offer plea deals to co-defendants Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell. Their trial is scheduled to begin on October 23 with jury questioning starting on October 20.

On September 28, President Joe Biden delivered a speech in Arizona praising former Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) called a loser for being captured, on the importance of democracy, and former chair of the Joint Chief s of Staff Mark Milley,appointed by retiring Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), supports his position. In his farewell speech, Milley may have referred to DDT who had called for Milley’s execution as a dictator. Speaking of the bravery of U.S. service members, Milley declared:

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Milley’s replacement, Gen. C.Q. Brown, called out “a single senator” for holding up confirmation votes for over 300 military leaders. The reference is to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who lives in Florida, for causing serious national security issues.

Tuberville is representative of how the U.S. is suffering from the tyranny of the minority. Another example is how three anti-LGBTQ+ groups—Moms for Liberty, Citizens Defending Freedom (CDF), and Parents’ Rights in Education—are responsible for 86 percent of all U.S. book bans. Their actions have nothing to do with “liberty,” “freedom,” and “rights.”

GOP tyranny is based on cruelty, giving people paint. Currently, the worst current tyranny  is the GOP trajectory with a government shutdown aimed at hunger, bankruptcy, and homelessness.

What Republicans want:

• An 80 percent cut in public education funding, taking 40,000 teachers from poor students and students with disabilities with 100,000 kids removed from preschool.
• A 70 percent cut in funding for 5 million low-income families to heat their homes.
• Food assistance cut for millions of low-income women and children.
• Loss of support services for nearly 1 million people facing a suicidal or mental health crisis and thousands with opioid use disorder.
• Elimination of one-third of all housing choice voucher funding for poor families, causing a risk of eviction and homelessness.
• Increase the wait time for Social Security disability benefits applicants by two months.
• More expensive fruits and vegetables for 5 million pregnant mothers.
• Cuts of almost 50 percent of federal wildfire prevention funds.
• No pay for Head Start programs.
• No training for new air traffic controllers with 1,000 trainees furloughed.
• No help from the Education Department for student loan payments that resume Sunday.

The far-right GOP blackmail tactic is to force minority ultra-rightwing beliefs on everyone in the nation by withholding federal funds in exchange for the so-called “anti-woke” philosophy. Even the most radical beliefs won’t satisfy hardline Republicans in the House: 21 of them voted against a continuing resolution in a 232-198 vote to extend funding by 30 days and avert the shutdown. The Senate bill would reject its slashing funding and restricting immigration, but the sill couldn’t even get a majority conservative House vote.  

By Friday night, a desperate Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested a “clean” continuing resolution with no Ukraine aid but didn’t commit to putting it on the House floor. His attempts to work only with Republicans are almost exhausted. The Senate already has its own plan that includes Ukrainian assistance and has no reason to change after clearing two procedural hurdles. Earlier in the week, McCarthy had said that the House won’t be allowed to consider the Senate version of stopping the shutdown.

McCarthy’s indecision plus dissension among the 221-212 GOP majority in the House shows that no Republican has a strategy to continue pay for government workers, including the military along with services and benefits for people. Hardliner intransigents plan to designate “essential workers” in continuing their hearings focused on electing DDT in 2024. And House members continue to get their $174,000 or more annual salary. 

Two GOP House members are responsible for the chaos—McCarthy and Florida’s Matt Gaetz. McCarthy is so terrified of losing his Speaker position that he won’t use any Democratic votes to pass a bill, and Gaetz is determined to destroy McCarthy and control the House. Gaetz said:

“What does work is rolling up our sleeves and getting onto these single subject bills and moving them.”

But those bills have the same poison-pill amendments as the House stopgap bills, alienating 70 percent of the population and making them DOA in the Senate. In the past several months, the House has managed to pass only four of the 12 appropriations bills for the budget: Veterans, Defense, Homeland Security, and State-Foreign operations. Agriculture failed with a “poison pill” reversing the FDA regulations allowing mifepristone, a medical abortion method proven safe and effective for decades, to be sent in the mail. Only 191 Republicans voted for the amendment. The House also refuses money to help Ukraine, another tyrannical minority position.

In a closed-door meeting with his caucus, McCarthy announced that House GOP leaders cancelled a scheduled two-week recess because of his failure in blocking the shutdown and announced votes on Saturday. He didn’t say what they would be.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said:

“Coddling the hard right is as futile as trying to nail Jello to a wall, and the harder the speaker tries, the bigger mess he makes. And that mess is going to hurt the American people the most. I hope the speaker snaps out of the vice grip he’s put himself in and stops succumbing to the 30 or so extremists who are running the show in the House. Mr. Speaker, time has almost run out.”

McCarthy still refuses to consider the Senate bill with fewer than 24 hours before the shutdown deadline.

GOP Shutdown, Impeachment

Shutdown:

The Senate made another move toward a stopgap spending bill in passing a procedural rule by 76-22. Another one is scheduled for Saturday “if not sooner,” according to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Without consent by all 100 senators, however, the shutdown starts Sunday before a vote on the bill’s final passage extending government funding through November 17.

To make life better for U.S. people, the Senate did pass a two-page resolution reinstating business dress attire mandatory for the chamber floor so that everyone will respect senators. Senators failed the necessary two-thirds vote to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a bill that would eliminate protections for two animal species, the lesser prairie-chicken and the northern long-eared bat.

On the House side, 27 Freedom Caucus members signed a letter demanding answers from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to “reasonable questions” and denouncing the Senate bipartisan stopgap proposal. 

McCarthy’s closed-door meeting members weren’t quiet about the verbal fight between him and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) after Gaetz’s complaints about McCarthy contributing $5 million to the RNC and key members for 2024 reelection and conspiracy-laced accusations about former crypto entrepreneur, now charged with stealing clients’ money, giving McCarthy money. Rep. French Hill (R-AR) shouted, “Oh, f–k off.”

Wealthy Republicans can afford to donate even more money to DDT and other Republicans: the GOP 2017 tax cut gave them $2.2 trillion in under six years. Elon Musk went from $20.4 billion in December 2017 to nearly $270 billion in September 2023. Part of the current GOP shutdown goal is to lower taxes for the wealthy.

Impeachment:

A majority of voters, 56 percent, oppose impeachment hearings for Biden with only 39 percent supporting the inquiry so of course, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) began the process on September 28 in the Oversight Committee. The purpose is to find evidence, thus far lacking, for abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption.

The first hearing went as might be expected: with no evidence, Republicans tried to demonstrate the need for the investigation by concentrating on Biden’s son Hunter Biden who isn’t a subject of the impeachment. Comer said the committee had found “a mountain of evidence” against Biden without presenting any before he said that the committee was still looking for wrongdoing.

Even Comer’s legal witness, the conservative Jonathan Turley, told the committee that the current evidence doesn’t support an impeachment and that some details they gathered “really do gravitate in favor of the president.” Fortunately for Republicans, hearings will continue in the midst of a shutdown. Another GOP witness, forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, said that no evidence of wrongdoing has been presented.

Ranking committee member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said:

“If Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today. They’ve got nothing on President Joe Biden. All they can do is return to the thoroughly demolished lie that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump launched five years ago. The Burisma conspiracy theory, a fairytale so preposterous that one of the main authors, Lev Parnas, has now disowned and repudiated it.”

GOP witnesses who didn’t support Comer’s impeachment claims weren’t even “fact witnesses” to the alleged conduct, and GOP insiders privately admitted that the hearing was an “unmitigated disaster.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (R-NY) pointed out that a text image displayed by Rep. Bryon Donalds (R-FL) omitted crucial context about the subject of Hunter’s alimony, not his business dealings, calling the attempted distortion an embarrassment.

Although Rudy Giuliani is behind some of the lies about the Biden family that Republicans use, they refuse to call him as a witness. They also won’t call Giuliani’s associate working with him to look for “dirt” on Joe Biden. Comer initially refused to allow testimony from one of his earlier witnesses, Hunter’s former business partner, into the record. The testimony contradicts the GOP narrative because the partner said that Hunter only wanted “an illusion of access to [Joe Biden].” No influence peddling, Joe Biden wasn’t directly involved, and GOP attempted rejection of the information. Rep Robert Garcia (D-CA) succeeded in outlining Jared Kushner’s receiving $2 billion after directly influencing Saudi policies as a Senior White House Advisor while DDT was in the Oval Office.

Rep. Gerry Connally (D-VA) sarcastically referred to “all those Biden towers all over the world where foreign partnerships were formed and influence was used here in the US,” and a witness corrected him saying he meant Trump. Connally continued by agreeing with Turley that the committee might want to look into criminal activity like obstruction, fraud, and abuse of power.” His sarcasm continued by referencing Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), asking about a New York judge finding President Biden’s organization committing fraud every year for the last 10 or 15 years.” GOP legal witness Michael Gerhardt replied, “That should be of concern to Mr. Trump.” Connelly responded with Gerhardt agreeing:

“Mr. Trump again! in this case, we’re not speculating, a judge actually made that ruling?”

With Gerhardt’s agreement, Connelly asked him if the committee should be concerned about “the personal behavior of the President, for example, President Trump or President Biden, being found guilty of sexual assault and defamation associated with that activity, again in a civil court?”

Connally continued:

“I just think that one of the reasons we’re here is because somebody has been indicted in four different locales, on four different sets of concerns, with I think 81, 91 actual counts, and has been found guilty in two civil proceedings, one involving sexual behavior and one on actual corporate fraudulent activity. And we don’t want to talk about any of that. We want to speculate about discredited testimony from discredited witnesses.”

In desperation, Comer has subpoenaed Hunter’s bank records as well as those of Biden’s brother James Biden and Hunter Biden partner Eric Schwerin. Republicans had been counting on Schwerin to help their impeachment accusation, but he told GOP investigators last week that Biden wasn’t part of his son’s private-sector work.

Much of the allegation against Biden is the GOP’s description about Biden urging Ukrainian officials to fire their prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, when Biden was vice president and following the direction of the federal government. Republicans maintained that Biden wanted Shokin out because it would help his son with his Burisma involvement, but non-Fox watchers have heard that Shokin was forced out because the prosecutor wouldn’t investigate Burisma’s corruption.

Fox tried to repeat their lie by talking to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who confirmed that Fox’s clip about Biden protecting his son had “not one single word of truth.” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, who was interviewing Poroshenko, looked stunned.

Republicans say they have the goods on Hunter Biden. What they know thus far:

• He tried to make money off his family name with foreign business deals—but not nearly as much DDT’s children did.
• His father didn’t benefit financially or make policy decisions based on his son’s finances, according to the lack of evidence after Republicans reviewed thousands of bank records.
• When Hunter put his father on speaker phone while doing business, the two Bidens never talked business on the calls.
• Joe Biden said Hunter never worked in China although he did—perhaps without Joe Biden’s knowledge.

The GOP-claimed conspiracy can’t be found in the Republican scrutiny in Joe Biden’s 40+ years in public office, two decades of tax returns he released, a five-year federal criminal investigation into his son, and a 2020 GOP-led Senate report into the Biden family plus deep reporting by the Washington Post.

Another problem from Comer’s search are at least 19 “mistakes” or misleading details such as wrong dates or non-existent meetings in the GOP timeline that also shows no wrongdoing. The Oversight Committee claims it contains “important dates as to when Joe Biden knew and lied to the American people about his family’s business schemes.” Some errors:

• Of 106 dates, only four list meetings supposedly with Hunter’s business dealings. Biden’s 2013 trip to China with his son was official on behalf of the White House. He also took one of his grandchildren and several reporters. He only shook hands with Jonathan Li, the CEO of Chinese company Bohai Harvest.
• Biden’s 2015 attendance at a dinner Hunter hosted in D.C. was misdated, and Biden spoke only to a retired leader of the Greek Orthodox Church. Biden didn’t even sit down.
• Republicans have no evidence that Biden attended a 2017 meeting for Chinese energy company CEFC in D.C., also misdated on the GOP timeline.
• Payments to Hunter identified on the timeline are misdated, and reasons are not identified.

GOP-recruited witnesses, erroneously called “whistleblowers,” testified that Biden had no involvement with Hunter’s business affairs. Thus far, the committee’s only only fact is that Biden is Hunter’s father. Republicans admit they have no evidence, that their accusations are not based on legitimate information, and that they don’t care. Criticism of the committee’s activities call it “a solution in search of a problem.”

While Comer led a “mitigated disaster,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) continued another one with Fulton County (GA) DA Fani Willis. Previously, he demanded all documents from the investigation that led to the indictments of at least 19 defendants, including DDT, in a RICO case for attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. She rejected Jordan’s demands, and he responded to what he called a “hostile response,” accusing her of turning it down because powerful federal officials are secretly pulling strings and orchestrating prosecutions across many jurisdictions. As always with no evidence. Jordan kept bullying her with letters, demands, and deadlines, searching for imaginary proof. His newest deadline to Willis is October 11.

WGA Settles, Media Focuses on GOP

Today had good news and bad news.

The five-month screenwriters’ strike may be over. The Writers Guild of America leadership unanimously voted for a tentative three-year contract agreement, and WGA members will vote whether to ratify the deal. It includes higher pay than studios had been willing to offer, improved healthcare benefits, viewership-based streaming residuals, minimum staffing requirements for television writers’ rooms, and regulations restricting studios’ use of artificial intelligence. The vote is scheduled from October 2 to October 9. More details about the agreement will be available when the contract has been prepared.

The WGA benefited from public support: 67 percent of all likely voters backed the strike in a Data for Progress poll. The Gallup poll was even stronger with public sympathy at 72 percent and only 19 percent opposed. SAG-AFTRA actors will stay on the picket lines, and the union has no scheduled dates to meet with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the major studios.

Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers, who formed the podcast “Strike Force Five,” announced the return of their shows by October 1 with Oliver’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver back the Sunday before. They are also ending their podcast with a few more broadcasts.  Real Time host Bill Maher comes back on Friday and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show on October 16.

The next strike is against video game makers: striking actors expanded their walkout to include that market with a 98 percent membership approval. Acting in video games comprise a number of roles from voice performances to motion capture work and stunts. Their last strike in 2016 lasted almost a year. Issues are the same as other actors: wages, safety measures, and protections on the use of artificial intelligence. For the first three-fourths of 2023, U.S. people have spent $34.9 billion on video games, consoles, and accessories.

Then there’s the problem with ultra-conservative Republicans in the House under the non-leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). McCarthy refuses to govern, a big problem as the entire U.S. faces a shutdown because he won’t even put a bill on the floor that could pass. Maybe Democrats would vote for it! Instead, he blames President Joe Biden for not giving him every cut he wants after shaking hands on another agreement four months ago.

Republicans did successfully pass proposals to their spending bills while they avoided dealing with the shutdown. One of them was to drop the salary of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III from $235,600 to $1. (No, that’s not a typo; it came from Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.) And in the usual “anti-woke” movement, another vote stripped funding for the Pentagon’s office of diversity, equity, and inclusion. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) accused Republicans of trying to use the specter of a shutdown “to jam your right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), recently thrown out of a Denver theater for inappropriate behavior, some of it sexual, followed the salary decrease trend by introducing an amendment to lower it to $1 for Assistant Secretary of Defense Shawn Skelly, a trans woman. In her speech, Boebert misgendered Skelly, calling her “a delusional man thinking he is a woman.” Claiming she knows her science, Boebert stated that she knew “his chromosomes are still XY” although she didn’t offer any proof. Many people don’t know that they have chromosomes different from their gender presentation at birth.  

GOP amendments in the $886 billion defense bill would defund gender-affirming healthcare for service members and their families, ban drag shows and the flying of Pride flags on military installations, and block the Department of Defense’s (DOD) educational arm from purchasing any books on “gender ideology” (that is, gender identity and transgender issues).

Basically, one person—McCarthy—is responsible for shutting down a country of over 330 million people. Even if the Senate approves the bill advancing through its chamber, McCarthy said he would not allow it on the House floor for a vote although some Republicans, such as Don Bacon (NE), said they would support the legislation. According to McCarthy’s rules, Democratic votes can’t be used to pass any legislation, a serious problem because at least ten of his caucus claim they won’t vote for a continuing resolution no matter what’s in it.     

The Senate even sent McCarthy a lifeline by moving forward on a bipartisan six-week continuing resolution which he immediately batted away. A Republican who attended a closed-door McCarthy session said the Speaker “told [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell he’s going to fight what the Senate sends over.”

Even McConnell, a conservative from Kentucky, is disgusted about McCarthy’s determination to burn the country down. On the Senate floor, McConnell said:

“The choice facing Congress, pretty straightforward: We can take the standard approach and fund the government for six weeks at the current rate of operations, or we can shut the government down in exchange for zero meaningful progress on policy. Shutting down the government isn’t an effective way to make a point. Keeping it open is the only way to make a difference on the most important issues we are facing.”

That is what a grownup would say, but teenager McCarthy has only one goal—keeping the Speaker position. Biden, on the other hand, is following McConnell’s lead. About McCarthy’s approach, the president said, “Why the House Republicans would want to defund Border Patrol is beyond me.”

Suffering from serious delusion, McCarthy plans to pass a short-term resolution combined with the GOP hard-right immigration bill passed earlier in the year and then expect the Senate Democrats to fall all over themselves in accepting it. McCarthy wants Biden to bail him out as he did with not defaulting on the debt ceiling, but that won’t happen. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was clear on that point when she addressed McCarthy’s agreement in early summer.

“A deal is a deal. The president made a deal with the speaker and a bipartisan deal that was voted by two-thirds of House Republicans back in June.”

To appease the lowest denominator of his caucus, however, McCarthy reneged on the agreement he made with Biden, and he’s still trying to appease hardliners by sacrificing tens of millions of people in the U.S.

On the good news side, the second GOP primary debate is over and done. It was uglier than the first one with lots of snarky remarks, petty faultfinding, squabbling, and shouting over each other. No one wanted to address policy; it was just an hours-long one-up-man-ship. Their only criticism of the missing candidate Deposed Donald Trump (DDT)—who has been convicted by a summary judgment of fraud and faces at least five more trials, all of them with indictments—is that he didn’t come play with them at their debate.

To demonstrate how shallow the debate was, here are the biggest takeaways as reported by a Sacramento (CA) station:

• Ron DeSantis started out by aggressively attacking DDT.
• Nikki Haley, daughter of Indian immigrants, called for cutting off all aid to Latin America until the border is secured (whatever that means).
• Vivek Ramaswamy, also the son of Indian immigrants, agreed and wants to revoke U.S. citizenship for children born to undocumented parents. (Forget that this right is enshrined in the Constitution.)
• Haley responded to one tirade by Ramaswamy, telling him, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”
• Ramaswamy did start out by trying to be gentler, but he kept trying to shout over everyone.
• Tim Scott, working to be more aggressive, tried to criticize VP Kamala Harris, who is of Black and South Asian descent before he talked about personal prejudice again himself. He finished by saying, “American is not a racist country.”
• Chris Christie spent most of his time slamming DDT, nicknaming him “Donald Duck” because he “ducked” the debate. He did take time out of criticizing DDT to attack Biden for “sleeping with a member of the teachers union.” As a community college teacher, she is a member of the National Education Association. [Note: Christie’s wife was an investment banker while he was a governor and now partner with her husband in a lobbying firm.]
• VP Mike Pence commented that he’s “been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years.”

A remarkable argument between Scott and Haley, which went on for a couple of minutes, was her spending money on drapes in her house when she was UN ambassador. He blamed her for the cost, and she blamed him for not stopping the purchase because he was in the Senate.

In another oddity, Pence vigorously talked at length about how, as president, he would support civil rights for all before he said, “We’re going to pass a federal ban on transgender chemical or surgical surgery anywhere in the country.” Much was said by Pence and the others about parents’ rights, but they didn’t specify which parents. Pence also wants an “expedited” death penalty for mass shooters, eliminating due process in both the 5^th and 14^th Amendments. But no mention of guns.

Average of polls on September 27 before debate:

• Trump – 54.0%
• DeSantis – 13.8%
• Haley – 6.3%
• Ramaswamy – 6.3%
• Pence – 4.6%
• Christie – 2.9%
• Scott – 2.7%
• Burgum – 0.9%
• Hutchinson – 0.6%
• Hurd – 0.4%

And even uglier. DDT spoke at a non-union shop to get union members to vote for him. As usual, he made many promises with no specifics. One woman at the address held a sign “union members for Trump,” but she admitted she isn’t a union member. A man with a sign “auto workers for Trump” said he wasn’t an autoworker.

Yom Kippur Ends, Government Action Returns

Conservative Republicans in the House remain determined to burn the country—and their party—down with a shutdown, but other news marches on.

Reagan-appointed Judge David Hittner ruled Texas law prohibiting drag shows is unconstitutional because it “impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech.” He wrote that its language could make “activities such as cheerleading, dancing, live theater, and other common public occurrences … a civil or criminal violation.” Hittner temporarily blocked the law last month and now made that ruling permanent. The new ruling came four days after another federal judge, DDT-appointed Matthew Kascymaryk U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk blocked a drag show at a Western Texas A&M University student group fundraiser.

A New York judge ruled that Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) committed fraud while he built his real estate empire through deceiving banks, insurers, and others in overvaluing his assets and net worth to make deals and secure financing. The opinion also calls for some of DDT’s business licenses to be revoked along with an independent monitor to oversee the business’ operations and sanctions on attorneys representing him, two of his adult children, two other company executives, and the business for repeating arguments failing multiple times previously and called “borderline frivolous.” Five attorneys were ordered to pay $7,500 each to a state organization reimbursing clients whose attorneys misused funds. Christopher Kise, a sanctioned attorney, represents DDT in his Florida indictment regarding classified documents.

Arthur Engoron delivered his decision days before AG Letitia James’ civil non-jury trial on October 2 for $250 million in penalties and a ban on DDT doing business in New York. DDT’s lies gained him favorable loan terms and lower insurance premiums, according to the judicial opinion.

President Joe Biden appeared today on a UAW picket line at a GM plant in Detroit (MI), the first time a sitting president has ever taken with action. Tomorrow, DDT plans a speech at the same time as the second GOP presidential candidate debate. He will speak to workers at a non-union shop. Union leaders asked Biden to join them but warned DDT to stay away. 

Alabama’s GOP legislators and leaders took pride in refusing to follow the Supreme Court’s order to create new redistricting maps, but they lost again. For the second time in four months, the high court sided with a 11^th Circuit Court three-judge panel, two appointed by DDT and the other by Reagan, requiring the state to create a second district “where Black voters have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice by the 2024 elections.” With no public dissents, the high court refused to intervene in a ruling that the new unconstitutional map approved by the GOP legislature diluted Black voting power with only one Black-majority district in seven. Alabama has over one-third voters of color, and a redrawn map still failed to produce the mandated two Black-majority congressional districts. The panel of judges scheduled an October 3 hearing to consider three maps, all with two Black-majority districts, from a special master to choose one for the 2024 elections.

Under the guidance of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida followed Alabama’s discriminatory redistricting practice. A state judge made the same decision that it was an unconstitutional dilution of Black voters’ ability to vote for the legislator of their choice and ordered the map redrawn. The case goes to the state Supreme Court with its majority of DeSantis appointees.

Conspiracy theorists have leached onto the indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). In Menendez’s 2015, indictment, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed that the indicted senator might be targeted because he was a skeptic of President’s policy about Iran. The media in Menendez’s second indictment purport that the DOJ is prosecuting the senator to “create the appearance of impartiality so that they can continue their jihad against Donald Trump.” From the far-right, indict him, you’re biased; don’t indict him—you’re biased. Legal issues no longer have any value in prosecutions. Democrats’ calls for Menendez’s resignation increased the more he talked. Claiming he is innocent, Menendez said all the cash was his own, drawn from his savings account during the past 30 years for emergency and his “history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”

Hunter Biden is suing Rudy Giuliani for his accessing and disseminating his laptop information while House Republicans use the laptop, not verified as fact, for its impeachment against President Joe Biden. The lawsuit against Giuliani and his lawyer Robert Costello accuses them of “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over” material on Hunter’s laptop, resulting in the destruction of his privacy. It alleges that Giuliani and Costello violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Hunter is also suing the IRS for disclosing information about his taxes.

Notorious Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), legally representing Alabama, may live in Florida; U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick, running in Pennsylvania, may not have moved from Connecticut; and Derrick Anderson, planning to run for Congress from Virginia, may live in Alexandria (VA) instead of the district where he has registered to vote. Virginia law doesn’t require him to live in a district, but potential voters might want to know that he bought his $852,000 house with assistance from a Veterans Affairs loan “only available for a primary residence.” In 2022, Anderson lost the primary to Yesli Vega, who then lost to Democrat Abigail Spanberger.

But back to the upcoming shutdown:

To avoid a government shutdown on Saturday, the Senate voted, 77-19, to advance a short-term funding measure until November 17 and may vote for a Continuing Resolution later this week. Two Democrats and two Republicans did not vote, and all opposing votes came from GOP senators. The legislation provides about $6.15 billion in funding for Ukraine and $5.99 billion in domestic disaster assistance. FEMA will be down to $550 million by the end of September. The bill also temporarily extends the expiring Federal Aviation Administration authority. The legislation’s provisions correspond to the law passed earlier this year with a budget agreement that also raised the debt ceiling until January 2025. Majority Leader Chuck Schmer pointed out that it was a bipartisan effort.

In the House, conservative Republicans refused to vote in favor of any bill with Democratic support, requiring a majority with only GOP votes. Their proposals all break the law they passed last spring regarding the budget. A shutdown would delay federal loans to farmers, limit Food and Drug Administration inspections of food products, and furlough staff at the Environmental Protection Agency who inspect drinking water facilities. It could also jeopardize WIC funds for almost 7 million women, infants and children. Shutdown chaos for the Transportation Security Administration could delay and disrupt domestic air travel as well as undermining enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Last week, McCarthy and his caucus proved they couldn’t govern. They announced their impeachment inquiry into Biden with no evidence, said that “everybody knows” is the evidence in their wrongdoing hearing against AG Merrick Garland, snubbed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and refused to halt a government shutdown. This week, far-right House members are testing how far they can make McCarthy bend over to keep his beloved position. Some proposals to stop a shutdown:

• Cut housing subsidies for the poor by 33 percent in the midst of soaring rents.
• Force over 1 million women and children onto a wait list for food.
• Reduce federal spending on home heating assistance for low-income families by 70 percent as energy prices rise in the increasing cold of winter months.
• Eliminate $150 billion in funding for childcare, education, medical research, and hundreds of other federal operations.

Proposed GOP cuts would drop spending on domestic programs as a share of the economy to the lowest point in 60 years. McCarthy, as usual, gave in to members of the House Appropriations Committee who advanced legislation cutting spending by approximately 9.5 percent. The plan means that 300,000 households, including 20,000 veterans, would lose housing support, 6.6 million students would see their Pell Grants cut, 60,000 seniors would lose help from services like Meals on Wheels, and 2.1 million women would be waitlisted due to the cuts to the program for poor women who are pregnant or mothers. Right-wing activists from the Freedom Caucus complained these cuts spent too much money.

Somehow House Republicans managed to advance four full-year spending bills, but it does little to stop a shutdown. The 216-212 vote will begin consideration to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, Agriculture, and Food and Drug Administration. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was the only GOP “no” vote; two of the bills include funding for Ukraine which she adamantly rejects. McCarthy backtracked after promising to remove Ukraine aid from the Pentagon when he found other Ukrainian assistance in the appropriations bill for the Department of State and foreign operations. He said stripping out that money was “too difficult.”

Even if the House is successful in passing the appropriations bills, they have no chance of passing the Senate.

Wednesday night at 9:00 pm EST, seven GOP presidential candidates will participate in the second debate of the year. Asa Hutchinson, who appeared in the first debate, didn’t make the cut, and DDT refuses to participate again. Broadcast by the Fox network and Business Network, the event is scheduled for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley (CA).

Menendez, Courts – Corruption

The indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) gave Republicans an excuse to exercise their hypocrisy muscles. “You know why I’m standing by him? Because his constituents voted for him,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said. “I believe in the rule of law,” the House speaker added. “A person’s innocent until proven guilty.” No, the Speaker wasn’t talking about Menendez. He was defending Rep. George Santos (R-NY) in January after he was indicted with 13 charges. Nine months later, McCarthy said Menendez should resign, “very much so” and what prosecutors presented “seems pretty black and white.”

With a small margin in the House, McCarthy needs Santos’ vote. The Senate has a smaller margin, but McCarthy doesn’t care—it’s Democratic.

Democrats may be right in calling for Menendez to resign, but the Supreme Court might consider him innocent. In 2016, a unanimous court found Bob McDonnell, former Virginia GOP governor, and his wife innocent of bribery and corruption because they didn’t take the money in a direct exchange for an “official act.”

Dangers for Menendez:

• Democrats are not eager to defend him.
• The corruption is obvious. 
• Menendez hasn’t bothered with a defense other than he’s not guilty and that accusations come from racism toward his being “a first generation Latino American” to become a senator.

Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), has been stalling the trial regarding his concealing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago for over six weeks. Now she agreed to a DOJ request for hearings on October 12 about conflicts of interest: two DDT attorneys representing his co-defendants represent other clients who may be witnesses against Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. Stanley Woodward, Nauta’s attorney represented “at least seven other individuals who have been questioned in connection with the investigation,” including those who testified about Nauta, according to the DOJ. Nauta should be told of “potential conflicts and attendant risks,” the DOJ wrote.

The Georgia RICO case with 19 defendants including DDT keeps plugging along as three more of them, fake electors illegally signing a certificate for the Electoral College, requested a move from state to federal court. DDT’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark made the same request;  Meadows was refused. They all claim trying to overturn the election is legal because they were federal officers. Chesebro’s defense is that GOP electors weren’t false because the Republican Party elected them. Federal Judge Steve Jones did not give a time when he would rule; Meadows is appealing his rejection.  

Clark maintains DDT told him to write the letter to top Georgia officials accusing election fraud in the state. He said that DDT had “ratified” all his actions dealing with the elections in a three-hour meeting in the Oval Office. Clark is charged not only with the state RICO act but also attempting to create a false statement—the draft letter.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has listed former MAGA lawyer Lin Wood as a state witness, raising conflicts of interest for several defense attorneys. He recently retired to avoid professional discipline. Lawyers include Harry MacDougald representing Clark; McDougald had represented and was co-counsel to Wood in a failed 2020 election-related petition to the Supreme Court. Another lawyer, Scott Grubman, had represented Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his wife, Patricia Raffensperger, state witnesses; Grubman represents Ken Chesebro.

Judge Scott McAfee will permit attorneys for two co-defendants, Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell, to interview jurors returning the RICO indictment with some restrictions. Their trial is scheduled for October 23. McAfee said the Court would “guide and maintain oversight” of the process to ensure that “privileged matters remain protected.” He also emphasized the importance of secrecy surrounding grand jury deliberations. Defense attorneys are to file a list of proposed questions, and the state can file any objections. 

Peter Navarro, DDT’s former trade adviser found by Jared Kushner on Amazon, has stayed loyal to his boss. As part of his protection, Navarro called female aides who formerly worked at the White House—Cassidy Hutchinson, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Stephanie Grisham, Kayleigh McEnany, Olivia Troye—the “pimp ladies” because they testified against Deposed Donald Trump (DDT). He was especially vicious about Hutchinson’s narrative of Rudy Giuliani sexually molesting her at the rally on January 6, 2021. Navarro finished his angry tweet with “Rudy Giuliani hero, Cassidy trash.” McEnany is an odd name to include because the former press secretary hired as Fox network pundit has not spoken out against DDT. The Supreme Court will likely hear the case, Moore v. U.S., in December with Alito’s interviewer the case’s petitioner.    

With the Supreme Court going back into session next week, the subject of recusal has been popular, especially after new corruption scandals surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas. As he proceeds to participate in rulings for cases in which he has received favors from some of the principals, people are questioning why Republicans believe he shouldn’t need to recuse himself in a case dealing with government regulations after he benefits from the Koch network. In part of its report on the situation, ProPublica recounts when Republicans, including than Indiana’s Rep. Mike Pence, asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to recuse herself from all abortion-related cases because she spoke at a lecture cosponsored by a women’s rights group that filed Supreme Court briefs.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has recused herself from the government regulation case, nicknamed Chevron because of a prior ruling with that name. She sat on the case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, while on the D.C. Circuit Court.

Justice Samuel Alito has excused himself from any need for recusal with his rule, that recusal is simply the “personal decision of each justice.” Therefore, he isn’t recusing himself from a “major tax case” involving an attorney who interviewed him for a newspaper article and helped him “air his personal grievances.”   Regarding the interviews, Alito said “he did so as a journalist, not an advocate.”

The Mississippi Supreme Court has come out on the side of democracy—at least a little. It struck down part of a 2023 state law authorizing some circuit court judges in Jackson and surrounding county to be appointed rather than elected. The area is majority Black, and concerns came from the majority-white legislature trampling voting rights. Most judges are elected in the rest of the state. The chief justice can appoint justices for such reasons as a case backlog, but the court stated it saw no special circumstances to require appointments in this situation. The NAACP has been fighting the legislature for almost a year while it decided to appoint judges and expand the state police role in Jackson.

Gov. Tate Reeves has worked since 2020 to put Jackson citizens under his thumb by allowing the water disaster in the state capital, ending the federal pandemic rental assistance program, and returning the $130 million in aid. The city population, 83 percent Black, was without water for six weeks before the thick brown water barely emerging from the pipes cost $40 a month. In 2021, Reeves refused federal Covid unemployment benefits in the state with no minimum wage and the highest poverty and child poverty rates in the U.S. Food stamp funding was used for athletics; 90 percent of those applying for that help are denied.

In reporting about the retirement of Rupert Murdoch from his leadership position, MSNBC host Medhi Hasan wrote:

“Three of the most destructive events of my lifetime could not have happened without the toxic influence of Fox Corp. and News Corp.”

The Iraq War: An examination by The Guardian of 175 Murdoch-owned papers before the war showed all of them supported the invasion. Over half of Fox’s viewers thought WMDs were discovered in Iraq even as late as 2015, 12 years after the invasion and long after the lie was uncovered. While former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair hadn’t decided on the country’s involvement, he thought a phone call promoting the war from Murdoch “was prompted by Washington.”

Brexit: News Group Newspapers, parent of The Sun, registered as an official “leave E.U.” campaign group and spent over 96,000 euros on the newspaper’s “BeLEAVE in Britain” posters. The slim majority for separation between the UK and the EU in 2016 sent the UK into a tailspin with the resignation of four prime ministers and resulted in economic havoc. From an undermined EU came an increasing rise in domestic far-right populists and an expansionist Putin Russia.

DDT and the Big Lie: Fox provided the foundation for DDT’s 2016 presidential victory by building a conservative audience incensed by “birther” conspiracies and anti-immigrant anger. Murdoch provided DDT with free airtime with the weekly segment Mondays with Trump in 2011. After DDT’s nomination, Fox was his propaganda arm and then transitioned into state TV after DDT moved into the White House. After DDT lost in 2020, Fox stayed with DDT, blasting DDT in private but still profiting from pushing his big lie about having won the election.

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said:

“No individual alive has done more to divide America than Murdoch.”

All three of the above, plus far more violations of democracy, weren’t done for principle or ideology, only for power and wealth. Murdoch agreed with this position when he said during the Dominion lawsuit against Fox that he agreed his platforming conspiracy theorists was “not red or blue, it is green.”

Sunday News for the DDT Cult

Judge Tanya Chutkan is still deliberating a  request to restrict Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) from statements encouraging violence and intimidation, but a Colorado judge issued a protective order prohibiting threats and intimidation. Her case is the first to block DDT from the primary ballot, using the 14^th Amendment preventing candidates who participated in insurrections. The district judge stated that the order was to protect the safety of herself and her staff. An October 13 hearing will deal with two motions to dismiss the lawsuit on the basis of DDT’s free speech rights, and an October 30 hearing will discuss DDT’s removal. The state set January 5 as the deadline for its 2020 presidential primary ballot. A similar Minnesota case will be heard that the state’s Supreme Court on November 2.

Gag orders limiting statements by trial participants outside the court are common, especially in high-profile cases. In 1991, the Supreme Court ruled them constitutional to avoid prejudicing a jury, but that covered only the defense lawyers as officers of the court. It did not address standards for a defendant’s gag order, but the 5^th Circuit Court upheld a gag order in 2000 for a defendant who used the 1991 case to oppose the order. The order was lifted two months later, however, to avoid interfering with the defendant’s election campaign and reimposed after the election was over.

The gag request for DDT is based on the concern that his angry, vengeful statements put people in danger now with “multiple threats” to special counsel Jack Smith. A Texas woman also threatened to kill Chutkan, perhaps because of DDT’s violent statements. The gag order request used the theory of stochastic terrorism, the belief that demonizing someone with mass communication increases the possibility of “lone wolf” attacks. DDT, however, could use a gag order as an excuse if he loses in 2024.  

DDT might refuse to follow a gag order and not pay any fines. Another possibility would be to jail him, but that would be bad publicity. Chutkan, however, has said that she could move the trial up if he didn’t follow directions.

Nine California Democratic legislators asked AG Rob Bonta to fast-track a state court ruling to remove DDT from the ballot because his inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021, makes him ineligible to participate in the GOP presidential primary. Bonta, who may run for governor in 2016 after Gavin Newsome is termed out, said he is reviewing the request.

Good news for President Joe Biden means bad news for DDT:

• Rupert Murdoch, who is trying to woo DDT and is antagonistic toward Biden, may be out of the decision-making process for the Fox network.
• Elon Musk’s decisions for X, formerly Twitter, is causing millions of people in the U.S. to drop his social media platform. A mandated subscription fee for all would lose more millions.
• The death of Rush Limbaugh in early 2021 has caused his loyal listeners to abandon AM talk radio for their primary news source.
• Tucker Carlson, fired from Fox, has not found another powerful audience.
• Project Veritas, far-right political group editing videos to smear individuals and groups, may have disappeared.

An Atlantic profile of Gen. Mark Milley, outgoing chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, may have destroyed veterans’ votes for DDT. The former occupant of the White House has always expressed disgust for disabled, going so far while campaigning in 2015 to mock Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition that limits movement in his arms, by supposedly imitating him (left).  Milley shared an anecdote about his choice of veteran Luis Avila to sing “God Bless America” for Milley’s welcoming ceremony as chair. During his five combat tours, Avila had lost a leg and suffered brain damage, two heart attacks, and two strokes. His wheelchair almost fell over on the rain-softened ground, and several people kept him from falling.

After Avila finished singing, DDT congratulated him before multiple people heard him say to Millay:

“Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”

Milley said DDT told him to never let him appear in public again. Avila will again perform at Milley’s retirement ceremony.

DDT wanted wounded veterans excluded from a 2018 military parade because “Nobody wants to see that.” DDT’s decision to not visit U.S. military in a French cemetery was because it was “filled with losers”—1,800 Marines who lost their lives in a World War I battle. Senior advisers said that DDT didn’t understand the government value of finding soldiers missing in action because they were caught and deserved their treatment after performing poorly. In 2020, he announced “no Americans were harmed” in an Iranian missile attack although 11 military members with brain injuries were transported to hospitals.

Last weekend, he unleashed his ire on Truth Social by posting that Milley should be executed for treason. Milley had communicated with his Chinese counterparts about security concerns during DDT’s last days in the White House when he appeared to become more and more unhinged. If Milley is a witness regarding DDT’s indictment, DDT’s statement could be considered intimidation.   

In another posting, DDT, who rolled back over 100 environmental policies, praised UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for scrapping environmental legislation against “fake climate alarmists that don’t have a clue.”

On Sunday afternoon, DDT responded to the alleged corruption of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) by demanding, “EVERY DEMOCRAT SHOULD RESIGN FROM THE SENATE!”

When suggestions appeared shortly before DDT’s time in the White House about removing him with the 25^th Amendment, he had to ask Steve Bannon, “What’s that?” Now he’s calling for Republicans to remove Joe Biden from the presidency through “extraordinary constitutional measures.” DDT still doesn’t understand the 25^th Amendment. It is not used for “incompetence”; the criteria are mental or physical incapacitation, with no evidence of Biden suffering from these.

DDT also wants a government shutdown, believing that his GOP House campaigners can “defund” special Jack Smith and save him from prosecution. He also doesn’t realize that DOJ prosecutions are not defunded with a shutdown.

A new name from DDT’s orbit has hit the media when Molly Michael told the FBI about his to-do lists—that were written on classified documents. These were notecards from his high-level classified briefings, and she saved them. The FBI didn’t find them in the search because they didn’t look at Michael’s desk. DDT faces 37 charges in the Southern District of Florida connected to his mishandling of classified documents. Starting to work for DDT in 2018, Michael, his former special assistant and Oval Office operations coordinator, can confirm every part of this mishandling, including his direct involvement in hiding these documents. She was the only member of still-trusted assistants who DDT took to Mar-a-Lago and follow his to-do lists on the classified documents.

Michael also knew where all the boxes were going, and Walt Nauta sent her a photo of the box spilling classified documents across the floor. She sent DDT a photo of how boxes were stored. Michael wasn’t indicted, perhaps because she willingly cooperated, testifying extensively to investigators. She told them that DDT ordered her not to tell them about the classified files he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

In her new book, Enough, another aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, wrote about destruction of government documents, massive numbers of them that former chief of staff Mark Meadows burned in his office fireplace—so many that his wife complained about dry-cleaning bills for the “bonfire” smell. Meadows is one of 19 defendants in the Georgia RICO case about DDT and his team trying to overturn election results. Some of the destroyed documents related to meetings with Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) who was in the forefront of DDT’s election fraud campaign and linked to efforts to install Jeffrey Clark as attorney general who would then use the DOJ to overturn the election.  

In her confirmation hearing to Connecticut’s state Supreme Court, Nora Dennehy explained she abruptly resigned from special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the special counsel’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election because the DOJ’s political nature during DDT’s administration. DDT and his loyalists selected Durham to prove a “deep state” conspiracy against DDT, and his AG Bill Barr at the time appeared to be working to support that evidence-free fantasy. Barr violated DOJ guidelines in his public statements about the probe and considered releasing an interim report before the 2020 election. Durham’s investigation, however, failed.

As part of his campaign, DDT has used the Heritage Foundation and Mark Meadows for his Project 2025, that erases any visibility democracy. Instead, DDT, if elected, would have “total control” of the federal government. The U.S. would be similar to the authoritarianism of Turkey or Hungary. Basics of Project 25, according to Politico:

“Defund the Department of Justice, dismantle the FBI, break up the Department of Homeland Security and eliminate the Departments of Education and Commerce….  Give the president complete power over quasi-independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies…. [And ensure the remainder] of this slashed-down bureaucracy is reliably MAGA conservative … and that the White House maintains total control of it.”

The 2024 presidential election is even more important than the one in 2020 for the U.S. safety.

GOP Promates Disinformation, Democratic Senator Indicted

Thanks to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his leadership in the promotion of weaponization, disinformation inundates the United States in the conservative campaign opposing research programs to block its spread. Stanford University, facing litigation, is searching for ways to track election-related disinformation through the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP). After legal threats, the National Institutes of Health froze a $150 million program to advance the communication of medical information including topics of nutritional guidelines. Employees were told to not flag misleading social media posts and limit communication to answering medical questions.

Probing an imaginary collusion between the Biden administration and Big Tech, Jordan issued subpoenas and demands for researchers’ communications between the government and social media platforms regarding the Russian disinformation for the 2016 election. Ironically, a claim of free speech prevents the scientific community from speaking. As Russia, China, and Iran expanded influence campaigns, social media platforms stopped content moderating. Twelve major media accounts from those countries had likes and reposts on X almost double since owner Elon Musk removed the label government-affiliated, and artificial intelligence produced widespread voter manipulation.

In Missouri v. Biden, now before the Supreme Court, the current administration seeks to block a 5^th Circuit ruling that the White House, the FBI, and top federal health officials violated the First Amendment by improperly influencing tech companies’ decisions to remove or suppress posts on the coronavirus and elections. Judge Terry Doughty, appointed by former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) made a broader ruling that also barred government officials from working with academic groups, including the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Jordan has also sent a new round of record threatening requests to at least two grant recipients, and researchers face online death threats. Disinformation scholars, many of them tracking both covid-19 and 2020 election-rigging conspiracies, face an onslaught of public records requests and lawsuits from conservative sympathizers echoing Jordan’s probe. As George Orwell wrote in his 1949 book, 1984, about his vision:

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Again thanks to Jordan’s leadership, the burgeoning conspiracy theories about Covid will result in far more deaths. Anti-vaxxers with fear of masks increased as cases spiked since early July. Alex Jones, who refuses to pay court-ordered awards and fees for his lies about the Sandy Hook massacre of small children and their children, originated the evidence-free theories about the return of strict precautions.

Far-right activists are selective, however, in their First Amendment rights. They support undemocratic lies about elections, death-causing medical information, and threats calling for violence, but Matthew Kasmaryk, a DDT-appointed federal judge in Texas, has made another un-Constitutional ruling since blocking the use of abortion drug mifepristone for the entire U.S. This one blocks drag shows, never seen to cause any problems, after West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled a campus drag show raising funds for The Trevor Project, a nonprofit to reduce LGBTQ+ youth suicides. In a lawsuit, students stated that Wendler violated their free speech rights by banning the show. Federal judges, even one appointed by DDT, in Florida, Montana, and Tennessee have blocked laws banning or limiting drag shows from going into effect, meaning that Kacsmaryk made an extreme departure from precedent.

While Jordan pushes disinformation across many topics, Elon Musk has become the king of climate change disinformation after purchasing Twitter. A report gave him one point out of 21 in assessing policies to reduce inaccurate information, the worst of the five major tech platforms. His one point was for an accessible and readable privacy policy, but X, the new name for Twitter, is the only platform to lack a clear reporting process for flagging harmful or misleading content for higher review.

Musk is using Texas as his personal dumping ground for wastewater. SpaceX wants to dump 200,000 gallons of treated wastewater into the South Bay at Port Isabel. Although contaminants are supposedly removed, the wastewater can destroy the salt balance of the bay, a popular fishing place and unique ecological location.

In another Texas location, Musk wants to dump 142,000 gallons of wastewater every day until he finishes a nearby Bastrop water treatment in 2025. The dump would go into the threatened Colorado River, the primary water source for nearby communities, including farms and ranches producing food. Musk’s Boring Company bought the land to build his company town near Austin, Snailbrook, like those in the 19th century for industries such as mining, textiles and steelworks.

Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are investigating the accusation that Musk blocked Ukraine from Starlink, the satellite network he gave them, preventing Ukraine from attacking Russian warships. Committee chair Jack Reed also said that the committee is probing recent revelations related to Starlink that exposed “serious national-security liability issues.”

Using records obtained from Musk’s Neuralink implant tests on monkeys, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is investigating the trials. Musk denies that any monkeys died, but a dozen previously healthy monkeys, with average ages of 7.5 years, were euthanized in “gruesome” trials. Rhesus macaques can live to 40 years. PCRM described the process:  

“Neuralink staff drilled holes into Animal 15’s skull, removed part of her skull and skin to expose her brain, and implanted two electrodes, one in each hemisphere of her brain. The surgery lasted five hours.”

After the surgery, medical problems included excessive itching, bloody discharge, and loss of balance as well as signs of pain or neurological impairment. Her eyes swelled half-shut, lab tests showed multiple bacterial infections on her implants, and a necropsy after her euthanizing found her brain “focally tattered” with “remnant electrode threads” in her brain. This investigation would be the third into Musk’s Neuralink testing.

Other Musk activities:

Musk plans to charge subscription fees for all X users.

Last weekend, Musk joined DDT to “celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, with strong antisemitic social media posts. Musk’s attack was on “the Soros organization [that] appears to want nothing less than the destruction of western civilization.” He is currently battling the Anti-Defamation League in an evidence-free accusation of destroying his ad revenue. Antisemitic tweets increased by 106 percent from June 2022 to February 2023, compared to the three months before and after Musk’s purchase of the company.

Anyone subscribing to X, formerly twitter, can count on his taking their data, including their face photograph plus employment and educational history to be used for advertising. In the future, X and AI may determine who gets a job.

Musk loves X for names. Other uses for the letter are a slang term for the drug MDMA also known as ecstasy; “the end” or “danger.” Labels of harmful and toxic substances throughout Europe; wrong answers, cancellations requiring a do-over; and other concepts of error and rejection.

With no shouts of “government weaponization,” Bob Menendez has been federally indicted for the second time. The New Jersey senator is a Democrat so Jordan doesn’t care. This time, his wife has also been indicted, both for bribes from three New Jersey businesspeople. Federal prosecutors accused them of accepting $480,000, gold bars worth over $100,000, a Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, and home mortgages in exchange for benefitting the businesspeople, also indicted, and the Egyptian government between 2018 and 2022.

Menendez went on trial in 2017 for helping an eye doctor with federal officials in exchange for vacations at the doctor’s Dominican villa, flights on his private jet, and campaign donations. He went free because a hung jury resulted in a mistrial. In 2006, Menendez was investigated for allegedly doing favors for a nonprofit that paid him $300,000 in rent. He was reelected in 2018 and plans to run again in 2024 although he was dropped as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee    because of Democratic bylaws.

[If Senator Bob Menendez and his wife can be indicted on bribery and corruption charges, why do Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, go free?]

GOP legislators in several states are determined to overturn democracy. Alabama refused to redistrict after the Supreme Court sent the case back to the 5^th Circuit Court. The state is re-appealing the case, hoping the high court will change its mind. North Carolina passed a law to permit GOP legislators to overturn the popular vote in elections. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled five times against the gerrymandered legislative maps, but the bipartisan commission assigned to draw fair maps hasn’t met since May 2022. The current conservative-led state high court will likely rubber-stamp whatever GOP lawmakers decide. Florida now has a study commission intended to change how prosecutors and judges are elected.   

A classic rejection of democracy comes from Wisconsin as GOP legislators are considering the impeachment of both the state’s top election official and a state Supreme Court judge who has stated that the legislative districts are rigged. A 2020 Harvard study ranked Wisconsin’s legislative maps the worst, on par with Jordan, Bahrain, and the Congo.

One example of gerrymandering is the shift from a rectangular blob of the 73^rd district in the northwest Wisconsin corner to a shape that locals called it the “T.rex.” It elected  the first Republican in 50 years, an onion-shipper who never before held public office. She blasted the Black Lives Matter movement and cheered on January 7 insurrectionists. Of the 99 state Assembly districts, 55 contain “disconnected pieces of territory,” according to a recent complaint, and 21 of the 33 Senate districts have the same problem. A GOP state senator threatened to impeach the newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz before she won by 200,000 votes and again after she was sworn in if she didn’t recuse herself from the maps case.

Republicans Still Try to Control U.S., Sometimes Fail

The Government Accountability Office reported that ongoing maintenance delays make stealth F-35 fighter jets “mission capable” only 55 percent of the time. Over its lifespan the F-35 program will cost $1.7 trillion—maintaining and operating the fighter costing $1.3 million. Lockheed creates delay and ordering of needed parts, removing ready access. The Air Force, Marines, and Navy use the F-35.

Rupert Murdoch has handed the Fox media empire control to his conservative son Lachlan after a 70-year career operating a global conservative media empire. Paddy Manning, an Australian journalist who wrote Lachlan’s The Successor, wrote that Lachlan shares “a kind of philosophical bent” with Tucker Carlson, who Rupert fired after losing $787.5 in a defamation settlement with Dominion voting equipment after lies from Fox presenters. Manning also claimed that Lachlan was responsible for the Fox network not broadcasting a live broadcast the January 6, 2021, congressional hearings that led to the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

President Joe Biden plans to walk the UAW picket line in Michigan the day before Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) plans a speech to a primetime speech to workers in Detroit while other GOP presidential candidates are debating. https://www.politico.com/2024-election/presidential-debate-gop-candidates-schedule-moderators-polls-tracker/    Seven candidates have thus far qualified for the September 27 debate, but DDT has said he won’t attend.

The UAW plans to expand its strike to 38 GM and Stallantis distribution facilities holding spare parts and accessories often sold at significant markups. UAW president Shawn Fain exempted Ford at this time, saying that the company has made significant in talks and is determined to reach a good-faith deal. Details are here.

Founded by James O’Keefe in 2010, the conservative right-wing Project Veritas is indefinitely suspending all operations. Its mission has been to smear progressive groups by using hidden cameras for videos which are then edited to lie about their activities. One of Veritas’ donors was the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

Voting laws:

Ten months after she lost the election for county judge of Harris County (TX) by 18,000 votes, Alexandria del Mealer admitted her loss.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has become the 24^th state to automatically register people for voting when they obtain a driver’s license or identification. People can opt out of being registered if they request. A 1993 federal law mandated optional voter registration. Oregon and California were the first state to implement the process in 2015.

In another Pennsylvania voting success, a Pennsylvania court blocked Republicans from limiting mail-in voting access. A state 2019 law had expanded the opportunities with the support of 11 of 14 GOP legislators beginning its lawsuit to strike down the law in 2021. Plaintiffs argue that the law should be struck down if any provision is held invalid. Migliori v. Lehigh County Board of Elections prohibited two provisions requiring voters to date their outer secrecy envelopes for mail-in ballots. The court disagreed with their position.

North Carolina GOP legislators have taken control of elections with the power to overturn results and cut early voting in Democratic areas. The governor cannot appoint a majority of members to state and county election boards, giving the gerrymandered GOP legislature influence on the elections and certification processes. Legislative leaders choose these members and allow Republicans in the legislature to settle gridlock. Only five of eight members on the new state board need to vote in “redoing” (overturning) an election, compared to four of the former five members. Deadlock can also restrict the number of voting sites, possibly only one for counties with over a million people. In 2020, Wake County, home to Raleigh, had 20 early voting sites for 374,000 voters. Over half the North Carolinians used early voting with a majority of Democrats casting the ballot in that way.

GOP legislators can also fire the current executive director of the state board of elections, Karen Brinson Bell, targeted by election deniers for extending the deadline for returning mail ballots during the pandemic. If the board doesn’t agree on filling her position by July 15, 2024, Republicans will decide on a GOP-leaning person for the position. The GOP also cut back the time to cast ballots by mail and expanded voter challenges. Gov. Roy Cooper said he will veto the bill, but the Republicans have enough vote to override him. Previously, the state Supreme Court blocked GOP legislative control of elections, and 61 percent of voters rejected the plans in 2018 through a ballot referendum. Conservatives have now taken over the Supreme Court.

Oakland County (MI) Circuit Judge Phyllis McMillen ruled that the Secretary of State’s office authorization or a court order is mandatory for anyone to take possession of a voting machine. The judge determined that a Michigan law barring “undue possession” of a tabulator is not limited to an ongoing election or to the period before results were tallied. The case concerned DDT’s supporters allegedly taking voting machines after the 2020 election with claims of widespread voter fraud.

Just as Republicans thought that the U.S. Supreme Court scandals settled down, another scandal explodes. Another non-profit ProPublica investigation reveals how Justice Clarence Thomas secretly participated in the Koch network donor events. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-RI), who has been probing the Supreme Court justices’ corruption said:

“More undisclosed private jet travel, more fingerprints of the billionaire-funded court fixer Leonard Leo [rightwing activist linked to Thomas], more engagement with billionaire-funded organizations scheming to influence the court.”

Dick Durbin (D-IL), chair of the Senate judiciary committee, said:

“The Koch brothers are the architects of one of the largest, most successful political operations in history, aimed at influencing all levels of government and the courts. Justice Thomas hid the extent of his involvement with the Koch political network and never reported gifts associated with these engagements.”

Thomas attended Koch events at least twice as a fundraising draw for the network bringing cases before the Supreme Court. One of them, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, deals with whether federal agencies can regulate labor rights and environmental and consumer protection in businesses. Durbin said:

“The Koch network has invested tremendous capital to overturn longstanding legal precedent known as Chevron deference, which would handcuff regulators and serve the interests of corporate fat cats.

“As more details are revealed of Justice Thomas’s undisclosed involvement with the Koch political network, there are serious questions about his impartiality in cases squarely confronting the Chevron doctrine. For these reasons, I’m calling on Justice Thomas to recuse himself from consideration of Loper Bright v Raimondo.”

Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer between 2005 and 2007 for George W. Bush, said the report showed Thomas “violated: 1) financial disclosure laws, 2) laws prohibiting judges from participating in partisan fundraising (the Kochs have a super PAC), and 3) recusal laws for judges. 28 U.S.C. 455. He simply does not understand or care about the law.”

Defense from Republicans and former clerks by saying Thomas is a “decent” person and not the kind of person who does bad things. He is also a person of greatest intellect, of greatest faith, and of greatest patriotism, … a man of great humor and warmth and generosity. … His integrity is unimpeachable.” They don’t say the allegations are false.

Above the law, Supreme Court justices govern themselves. Chief Justice John Roberts refused to testify in Congress about reports about Thomas and rightwing donors involving Samuel Alito. GOP megadonor Paul Singer flew far-right Justice Alito on his private jet for a secret luxury fishing trip, a trip Alito didn’t report, and Singer’s hedge fund holds a $90 million stake in financial companies that could benefit from a SCOTUS ruling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Alito won’t be recusing himself. In a co-authored op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Alito said Congress ha no constitutional grounds to impose ethics rules on the court.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) may have sent his members home a day early, but he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a visit to the U.S. that “we just didn’t have time” to meet with Zelensky in a joint congressional session. The entire Senate met with Zelensky, but only a few House members attended the meeting.

McCarthy’s failures last week came as a surprise to him; he thought he had the votes to put a debate on the defense appropriation bill on the House floor. He created a new plan which he thought he could pull off. It failed. McCarthy had more meetings and was optimistic. The bill failed again. Far-right hardliners were confident they had enough votes when they left a closed-door conference, but Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Eli Crane (R-AZ) opposed it after voting in favor of the bill earlier in the week. McCarthy accused his caucus of wanting “to burn the whole place down.”

Steve Benen questioned McCarthy’s competence after bringing the bill to floor, not knowing he had the votes after thinking he did, although he knew it wouldn’t pass the Senate. McCarthy is a “SINO,” Speaker in Name Only. Now he’s sinking further into the pit: he promised Greene he will remove the $300 million for Ukraine from the Pentagon spending bill to get her vote.

Democrats Win Elections, Republicans Block Government

This week’s elections indicated a trend toward Democratic wins in both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

Democrats kept their one-vote majority in the Pennsylvania House, 102-101, with the election of Lindsay Powell by 65 percent to 35 percent. Republicans have a 28-22 majority in the Senate. The election resolved a two-month tie after progressive state Rep. Sara Innamorato resigned to run for Allegheny County executive. The division created stalemates, including education funding from the voucher debate. The state legislature, which needs to finish the budget, goes back into session on September 26.  

In New Hampshire, Democrat Hal Rafter flipped a state House seat formerly held by a Republican. Rafter beat James Guzofski by 12 points, 56 to 44 percent. The GOP House member resigned last April. Republicans now have only a one-seat advantage in the state House: 198 Republicans, 197 Democrats, two independents, and three vacancies.  

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) continues to fail in a struggle to keep the government open past September 30. On Thursday, he sent House members home after his caucus, for the second time, wouldn’t even vote for a debate on an appropriation bill for the Defense Department. McCarthy warned House members they might be called back on Friday or Saturday for votes, awkward if they are already on their flights home. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote:

“What you need to understand is that chaos is the point for a big chunk of House Republicans. They came to congress to BURN THE GOVERNMENT TO THE GROUND. Their goal is a shutdown.”

One of his concessions in his struggle to get votes for Speaker from far-right members was separate votes on each of the 12 budget bills; the failed defense budget would have been the second. The far-right had written a continuing resolution proposal “doomed to fail” because of draconian tax cuts and border restrictions during the month it would be in effect. They wouldn’t pass either the Senate or the president’s signature. The cuts also conflicted with McCarthy’s debt ceiling law, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, that the House had passed with a bipartisan 314-117 margin to set the budget outlines for the next two years. McCarthy reneged on the agreement he made with Biden, ordering over $100 billion cuts from agency budgets that he had previously approved and declared an impeachment inquiry against Biden. The tiny right-wing demanded “regular order” for spending bills but shut them down through threats of sabotage and actual sabotage after they didn’t like the budget numbers.

House leadership planned to pass the defense bill late Wednesday before moving on to a CR on Saturday and then next week trying to pass the other ten appropriations bills—all dead on arrival in the Senate. The fiasco is reminiscent of the three-day, 15-ballot voting in January to put McCarthy into his much-desired Speaker position. In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that McCarthy is increasing the probability of a shutdown “by wasting time on extremist proposals that everyone knows he knows cannot become law.” Even Republicans are now admitting that any shutdown will be a GOP responsibility. The House didn’t even have votes to adjourn; McCarthy just sent them home.

Naysayers for even a debate are GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Dan Bishop (NC), Andy Biggs (AZ), Eli Crane (AZ), and Matthew M. Rosendale (MT). McCarthy has insisted he will pass funding measures with only GOP votes, and he insists on passing funding measures with only Republican votes, another demand from right-wingers. 

Saying it’s hard to pass bills with only a five-seat majority, McCarthy might want to get advice from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who had the same majority and passed the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure & Jobs Act, CHIPS & Science Act, Pact Act, and Bipartisan Safer Community Act. He could easily pass a clean CR if he allowed Democrats to pass a bill.

With its filibuster and a rule allowing one person to block anything, the Senate appears to be more tyrannical than the House, but House rules give a small group of Republicans to make the chamber almost completely dysfunctional. Five members from 435 districts can force the speaker to pull funding for the Agriculture Department—and the Defense Department. The same faction can sabotage any rules vote unless they are happy with the way legislation has been drawn. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said he couldn’t remember such weak speakership in his 27 years elected to Congress.

In four years of leadership with Pelosi, Democrats never lost a procedural rule vote and never called for her to be expelled as Speaker. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said the Democrats “didn’t have any nihilists, … any people who are anarchists, or people who didn’t care about government operating on behalf of the American people, and thought that their cause was superior to anybody else’s, and therefore the rest be damned.”

A motion to recall the speaker hasn’t been used since 1910 when Speaker Joe Cannon created the motion. Cannon kept the Speaker position won by almost 40 votes. A motion to oust McCarthy from Speaker was found in a House bathroom. It was dated September 15 after McCarthy exploded in a closed-door caucus after the threats and told the Republicans, “If you want to file a motion to vacate, then file the fucking motion.”

To congressional members traumatized by Sen. John  Fetterman (D-PA) wearing a hoodie and shorts on the chamber floor, he said:

“If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.”

In the Senate, Schumer started a path for a clean CR by filing a cloture on the motion to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as a starting point to fund the government beyond September 30. Senators will debate and vote on the legislation, hopefully sending it to the House by the middle of next week. After adjourning Friday, the Senate won’t reconvene until 3:00 on Tuesday to observe Yom Kippur ending sundown Monday. They can then vote on the motion to proceed at 5:30 Monday afternoon.

Schumer also defeated Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) blockade against military officers’ promotions when Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. was confirmed by 83-11 as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The current chair, Mark Millay, leaves at the end of September. The votes against Brown, all GOP, came from Mike Braun (IN), Ted Cruz (TX), Josh Hawley (MO), Mike Lee (UT), Roger Marshall (KA), Eric Schmitt (MO), J.D. Vance (OH), Ron Johnson (WI), Cynthia M. Lummis (WY), Marco Rubio (FL), and Tuberville. Schumer followed that by confirming Gen. Randy George as chief of staff of the Army by 96-1 majority and Gen. Eric Smith commandant of the Marine Corps, 96-0. Mike Lee was the only no vote for George. 

Another 300 senior officers are in limbo because of Tuberville’s control tactics in which one senator can block any action in the chamber. Senior officer promotions are usually approved by unanimous consent to avoid lengthy floor debates and politicization of military commanders. Tuberville pointed out that Democrats could follow this individual process for each of the blocked promotions, saying it would only take “four hours” for each one. His idea would require one week per ten promotions that he has withheld, totaling 30 weeks of the 38 senatorial session, about 80 percent of their time for the year, in which the Senate could do no other work. At a salary of $174,000 for each of the senators, taxpayers would be charged almost $14 million for Tuberville’s stunt.  

While a few GOP hardliners are trying to shut down the federal government, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) campaigned for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) with his attacks on AG Merrick Garland in a hearing. Garland denied the six-year investigation into Hunter Biden was stalled or limited by political considerations. Republicans complained about the appointment of Delaware AG David Weiss, a DDT nomination, as special counsel for the probe after they asked for him. Garland responded:

“Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate. As the president himself has said, and I reaffirm here today: I am not the president’s lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress’s prosecutor….

“We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside interference.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) told the committee that the January 6 insurrection was an innocent family affair with “strollers and kids.” Born in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, she compared the U.S. government to the Soviet KGB, responsible for millions of deaths through assassinations. Earlier this week, Spartz, who announced she won’t be running for reelection, blasted the “worthless Congress” and called Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) a “weak Speaker.”

Lacking evidence of any malfeasance on Hunter’s part, Jordan said “everyone knows” he’s guilty—of something. Alleged sex trafficker Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wants Garland to tell the president that his son cannot be allowed in the White House and invited to state dinners. Nothing unusual about Jordan’s weaponization of the government.

Republicans Still Struggle

More pieces from the past few days, starting with Alabama’s senator.

The Tuberville news won’t stop. While Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was blocking hundreds of military nominations and promotions, he bought $250,000 of stock in a telecommunications technology company Qualcomm Inc., a federal defense contractor. He is also a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services which has jurisdiction over “military research and development.” Over the past two decades, Qualcomm and its subsidiaries received several dozen defense and homeland security contracts for “the intelligence community’s large-scale data-analytic applications.” Tuberville also has five-figure stock holdings in defense contractors Honeywell International and Lockheed Martin Corp. In 2021, he violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 by failing to properly disclose more than 130 stock trades that, taken together, were worth as much as $3.56 million.

Perhaps understanding that he has gone too far with his blockade against military officer confirmations, Tuberville is trying to force a vote to confirm Gen. Eric Smith as commandant for the Marine Corps while preventing the other 300+ other military promotions. Seventeen GOP senators, mostly conservatives, signed a petition to back a cloture motion on the chamber floor. The Marines have been without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in over 150 years because of Tuberville’s refusal to permit promotions of military officers.   

To protect himself, Tuberville blames Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for the blockade by saying that Schumer could bring each nomination to the floor separately for debate and confirmation. That process would require over three months of Senate time without doing any other business. Republicans are also blaming the Democrats because they have the majority with 50 percent of the membership. Senate rules permit one person to block anything in the Senate, and the filibuster means that any vote must have at least 60 percent of the vote.

Five ways that Tuberville is damaging the military with his intransigence:

National security strains: Filling senior Pentagon positions on an acting basis is comparable to hiring substitute teachers. They can’t hire staff or enact any meaningful changes during a dangerous time with tensions related to North Korea, Iran, and China. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps have acting chiefs of staff, and soon that problem will include the Air Force chief of staff and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also delayed are confirmations for the undersecretary of defense and heads of the Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the Navy’s 7th Fleet and 5th Fleet (which oversee the Pacific and Middle East), and the U.S. Military Representative to NATO. Important decisions regarding national security can be made only by Senate-confirmed leaders.

Turmoil for military families: Over 300 individuals and their families are in limbo, waiting for raises, moves to new locations, enrollment of children in permanent schools, jobs for spouses, etc.  

Loss of top officers: At least 61 top officers reaching their 20-year service commitment can retire with full benefits and move to jobs in the private sector. To keep these valuable personnel, the Pentagon has put them into more highly regarded and important roles. Twenty-two officers selected for their first star are losing $2,600 per month, and another 20 selected for two stars lose almost $2,000 per month. The blockade started seven months ago. Tuberville said that these officers will receive back pay, but the military ties pay to their rank with no mechanism for back pay. Some of the potentially lost personnel have received costly training, for example pilots, who may retire to fly for commercial airlines.

Recruiting issues: Struggling to meet goals, the military is suffering from a greater lag in numbers because of the Tuberville’s turmoil. For the first time since 1999, the military branch will not hit its active-duty recruiting goals this year.

Lasting effects on military: Adm. Lisa Franchetti, nominee for chief of naval operations, said that the Navy won’t recover for years from promotion delays, and deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Franchetti’s assertion applies throughout the military.

On 9/11/2023, the twenty-second anniversary of foreign attacks on the U.S., Tuberville said that “our military leadership should be fired for failing to defeat the Taliban.”

NBC News may be internally investigating whether Meet the Press staffers with Kristen Welker and executive producer David Gelles violated the guidelines failing to fact-check or provide warnings when airing Welker’s “interview” with Deposed Donald Trump (DDT). The rules prohibit broadcasting or publishing provable falsehoods in a format with sufficient time for confirmation of falsehoods and preparation of fact-checking, caveats, etc. The network had three days for this process before airing the program last Sunday. Another part of the investigation could be whether the problems may have been part of the arrangement for NBC persuading DDT to appear on air for the first time in four years. Keith Olbermann has listed multiple missing fact-checks about DDT’s lies in the program.

On their fifth day, the UAW continues its strike after Ford and General Motors’ retaliated by laying off thousands of nonstriking workers. The union negotiators and Big Three automakers returned to the bargaining table with no indication of a breakthrough, but the UAW threatens to expand the strike with no substantive progress by Friday. Currently the companies are offering about 20 percent over the next four years, the same amount that workers sacrificed to keep the manufacturers functioning in recent years. According to a Gallup survey, union support has been rising since 2009 with 67 percent of respondents approving of labor unions. In the current strike, 75 percent side with the workers.

Conservatives such as Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) verbally support the auto workers’ need for a raise while making Democrats and Biden the villains. According to Hawley and Vance, Gene Sperling, senior White House adviser acting as liaison to the UAW, has officiated a White House deal to protect Michigan’s economy with the intent to win the battleground state through strikes in two red states.

Another wedge that the two conservative senators are pushing comes from the $4,500 credit for electric vehicles built by union labor. The Department of Energy gave Ford and its south Korean partner, SK On, a $9.2 billion loan to build two battery plants in Kentucky and another in Tennessee which aren’t covered by Ford’s agreement with UAW. The plants won’t be required to use union labor or provide a living wage.

To win over autoworkers, DDT plans a speech to them on the same night as the second GOP presidential candidates debate on August 23. Last Sunday in his Meet the Press, DDT said:

“The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump.”

While in the White House, DDT returned the five-person National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to a majority of Republicans. They immediately reversed several pro-labor rulings from President Obama’s administration. Biden rescinded several DDT rulings, including those related to voting procedures and independent contractors. More of John Cassidy’s New Yorker piece here. 

Texas lost at least two cases this week:

A federal judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, extended the temporary order blocking the state from enforcing its ban on drag shows from going into effect on September 1. The extension lasts another two weeks or on a date set by the U.S. District Court.

Another federal judge, this one appointed by DDT, blocked Texas’ book rating law requiring book vendors to review and rate all books for sexual content using vague standards. Without marking all the books, the vendors would lose the right to do business with the state’s public schools. Books rated “sexually explicit” and deemed “patently offensive” would be banned from the schools; those marked “sexually relevant” would require parental permission for access. The judge wrote in his opinion:

“[The law] misses the mark on obscenity with a web of unconstitutionally vague requirements. And the state, in abdicating its responsibility to protect children, forces private individuals and corporations into compliance with an unconstitutional law that violates the First Amendment.”

A federal judge in Arkansas blocked key provisions in a law making librarians and booksellers criminally liable for having allegedly inappropriate or “harmful” books accessible to minors. Similar suits are also pending in Missouri and Florida.

In early 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took over a small state liberal arts school, New College of Florida, and made it conservative by appointing his friends to the leadership and the board. The transformation was to create a school hostile to education about social inequality. Students departed in droves, and over a third of its faculty left. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating the school for discriminating against people with disabilities in the second civil rights complaint, the first an allegation that New College leaders created a hostile and discriminatory environment for LGBTQ students, ethnic minorities, and students of religious minorities.

The stealth fighter jet has earned its name: after its crash earlier this week, the Marines issued a public Facebook message, including a telephone number to call, asking if anyone had seen the $80 million plane. For some reason, the transponder, which should locate the aircraft, wasn’t working. This style of plane has suffered from multiple disasters: nine crashes, multiple groundings including lack of oxygen for pilots, machine guns hat can’t shoot straight, and the need to cap the length of time for flying at top speed. Despite its debacles, the Defense Department signed a $30 billion contract with Lockheed earlier this year for 398 more planes.

After 24 hours, the plane, worth $140 million, was found in southern South Carolina after it hit a wooded area.