GOP Problems – DDT, Flooding, Biden’s Improvement

Democrats are turning the insult of “Let’s go, Brandon” toward President Joe Biden into a campaign cry of “Dark Brandon,” complete with a visual showing him as a superhero, mocking Republicans. The vulgar slur from conservatives started in October 2021 and continued to sell political products. According to the Daily Beast:  

“In Dark Brandon lore, Biden only seemed to be incompetent; underneath the images of stumbling senility is a cold, calculating, sinister Machiavelli.”

Don Caldwell, the general manager of the meme-tracking website Know Your Meme, said:

“It’s revealed that he’s pulling the strings behind the scenes and that everything’s going to plan. Sometimes it’s that he’s appearing to be senile and he’s actually completely with it.”

Conservatives tried to maintain that the eagle behind Biden in one image represents Nazis, but that message hasn’t taken off. And the eagle is the national bird of the United States.

The greater the frustration, the more the fury—and opposition. And the need to hide …

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) is losing his refusal to turn over his IRS returns to the House Ways and Means Committee. After DDT appealed a lower court opinion, the three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court ruled that the IRS give them to the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) first made the request in 2019. DDT’s next stop is the U.S. Supreme Court.

The party of “lock her up” is in a rage about the search warrant on DDT’s Mar-a-Lago home. Six years ago, DDT asked Russia to find former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “missing emails” when he campaigned against her for the 2016 election. Within a few months, the crowds started chanting “lock her up” and never stopped.

In November 2016, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said, “Look, there’s a tradition in American politics that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you … to unite the nation.” Four years later, he sang a different song. Six years ago, Republicans at least pretended to want politicians to disqualify themselves from positions of authority when there was a suspicion of their putting documents at risk. Six years later, Republicans are furious, or silent, about the DOJ and FBI’s audacity in trying to retrieve classified documents, known to be at Mar-a-Lago.

GOP comments in the past day have surpassed the usual irony of criticizing Democrats for actions they themselves perform. Republicans’ new chant, “Defund the FBI” comes from the party campaigning on law and order who were enraged about individuals who wanted to “defund the police.” People with those chants wanted to transfer some law enforcement funds to mental health professionals to stop the police practice of killing unarmed people in the streets.

Sleeping through the past six years, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) claimed that the U.S. had never before used political power to persecute opponents. 

The GOP anger also revealed the truth. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted about the search warrant, “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.” Rep. Elise Stefanik echoed Jordan’s comment. The anger comes from the DOJ position that no one is above the law, not even someone who was elected to the U.S. presidency. Responses to Jordan agreed the position that DDT is not above the law.

“The fact that the law applies to the president, and not just the rest of us, is a feature of democracy, not a bug.” – The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg

“Thank you, House Judiciary GOP, for summarizing succinctly the principle of ‘the rule of law’: the law applies to everyone, even a former President.” – Julia Loffe, Puck News

“When I try to overthrow the government, invalidate a free and fair election, illegally steal classified documents, and engage in lavish corruption as President, I’ll expect them.” – Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson

“Yes, if you break the law and steal top secret documents from the White House and commit some of the most heinous crimes in American history, this too can happen to you,” the organization tweeted. “That’s a GREAT precedent! That’s called justice.” – Government watchdog organization Medias Touch

“In which the GOP members of the Judiciary committee take a brave stand against the 4th Amendment. Motherfuckers, do you think any of us thought the FBI *couldn’t* search our homes if they had sufficient probable cause to convince a judge to sign a warrant?” – Reference to how the warrant was likely obtained from a tweet

“If I stole classified documents from the White House (allegedly), I certainly hope they’d do it to me. Please explain why they shouldn’t, a-holes.” – Bob Cessa  

Instead of legislating, the GOP focuses on planning retaliation with multiple congressional committees to put Democrats who oppose DDT in prison.

QAnon followers are delighted with the search warrant; they believe the search at Mar-a-Lago was part of the “plan” that favors DDT. The conspiracy posts told believers to “trust Ray,” interpreting that as FBI Director Christopher Wray. The theory is that “Biden set out to completely destroy the trust and confidence of our country,” and the “raid [has] done just that.” They think DDT will now expose the secret cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles, known to QAnon as Democrats.

Details are slim about the background for the search. DDT issued a 340-word rant but didn’t claim to be innocent. The one person who doesn’t seems to be attacked yet is the magistrate judge who signed the warrant, perhaps because DDT appointed him to the position in 2018.

Texas officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, joined the hue and cry about the unfairness of the search. The bipartisan Mothers against Greg Abbott trying to oust him from office had an answer for the man behind the state’s draconian anti-abortion law, tweeting, “Try being a woman in Texas.”

The FBI search came from concern that DDT had not produced all the government documents covered by the Presidential Records Act he took from the White House, perhaps ones from the January 2021 insurrection, when he gave up 15 boxes of them in February. Therefore, the FBI removed another twelve boxes from the search. Last February, FBI officials spoke to DDT’s representatives, his appointed loyalists including former chief of staff Mark Meadows and whose job was to keep his records from Congress. In June, the FBI padlocked the storage area where the documents were stored, but DDT had added another padlock which had to be broken.

While Republicans focus on the search of DDT’s home, they ignore the ongoing tragedies in Kentucky from the flooding. Thus far 37 people have died in the disaster, and an 18-year-old boy died after helping flood victims for three days.  Cause of death was not established, but he had no prior health conditions. Rain is due to return with additional flooding. Heavy rains are predicted on August 9 and 10 in central and eastern Kentucky with more flash flooding that will block cleanup.  

The area most hard-hit is also has a large number of low-income families. Only 17,250 Kentucky property owners have federal flood insurance, the vast source of U.S. flood policies, and just 2,485 property owners in the ten counties with recent significant flood damage have this FEMA coverage. That’s 2.3 percent of households in the area. Flood insurance costs about $1,000 a year, and the media household income in Knott County is $32,500, half the national median of $65,000. FEMA maps may have vastly underestimated eastern Kentucky’s flood risk, citing 8.6 million properties in flood Zones instead of 14.6 million properties in reality. Maps are especially inaccurate in eastern Kentucky, three times the number in seven of the ten flooded counties identified by FEMA.

A major cause of the flooding comes from strip mining and the condition of the mines because the areas have been heavily logged and strip-mined for coal during the past decades. First the trees go, then the soil, and finally hundreds of feet of rock are blasted away from the tops and/or sides of mountains to reach underground seams of coal. The result is no water retention, resulting in flash floods. More runoff comes from loggings, gas wells, gas well roads, and power lines along with the climate change. With drainage around valley fills, the ponds and ditches break and more easily carry rocks and trigger dangerous debris flows.

Kentucky also permitted financially unstable or bankrupt mining companies to fall far behind on reclamation requirements, and even fully reclaimed surface mines are significantly likely to have experienced landslides. Yet the anti-regulation Kentucky will probably not even bother to do any studies.

Everything seems to be going wrong for Republicans, which can be a major reason for their anger. They are even discouraged about taking over the Senate next year. Biden has had more successes in less than two years than previous presidents for several decades—major legislation including delaying climate changes and gun reform, the killing of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a booming economy with more manufacturing, and more. Maybe the U.S. is turning around.

Politics – July 28, 2022

January 6, 2021 was a popular time for missing texts. The Secret Service can’t find any because of a “migration,” and messages for acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are also missing for a period of time leading up to the insurrection. A problem with a “reset” of their phones. Joseph Cuffari, appointed by Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), didn’t seem concerned about the missing texts, didn’t alert Congress about the problems with its request, and didn’t try to recover the lost data. Wolf was DDT’s favorite DHS Secretary and would likely be called back to work for DDT if he came back to the White House.

In a court filing, DDT’s attorneys asked a judge to grant him total immunity against any civil law lawsuits connected to the insurrection. DDT is attempting to ask all lawsuits to be dismissed. Previously, DDT claimed his January 6 speech was “protected by presidential absolute immunity.” The newer filing said DDT’s “statements were on matters of public concern.” Lawyers insist “impeachment is the only means of punishing a president for abuse and that attempts by Democrats and others to sue Trump after he emerged victorious in his impeachment trial are tantamount to ‘harassment.'” In February, the judge ruled the speech was likely “words of incitement not protected by the First Amendment.” [Right: the man who considers running for re-election in two years.]

The DOJ probe into the insurrection, ongoing since April, is building, and AG Merrick Garland said he may charge DDT. Prosecutors are willing to go to court to get DDT’s White House officials to testify about conversations on and around January 6m, 2021. No former president has ever been criminally charged in U.S. history, but Garland hasn’t ruled out indicting DDT.  

Lawyers passing through DDT’s White House are adding themselves to the vast number of witnesses testifying about the January 6 insurrection, including DDT’s participation in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Last week, former VP Mike Pence’s aide Marc Short, a DDT accuser, and Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob testified before the DOJ grand jury investigating these events. Emmet Flood, briefly acting White House counsel, is Short’s lawyer. In 2019, DDT tweeted his “friend” Flood did a “GREAT JOB.”

Ty Cobb, Flood’s predecessor and overseer of the White House’s response to the Mueller investigation, said DDT’s declaration of candidacy “serves no interest but his self-defeating and overwhelming need for relevance, attention and money. Such an announcement also does not inoculate him from criminal investigation.” Cobb also listed DDT’s possible crimes on CNN. Pat Cipollone, DDT’s last White House counsel, confirmed earlier testimony and stated that everyone in the White House except DDT wanted people to leave the Capitol on January 6. At Cipollone’s side during his testimony was Michael Purpura, deputy White House counsel during the DDT’s administration.

Russian State Duma member Evgeny Popov is bragging about a close connection with DDT by calling him “our own Donald Trump” and lamenting the DOJ criminal investigation into DDT’s actions. He insinuated that DDT belongs to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Popov also echoed the lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and DDT’s complaints about Joe Biden and the current state of the U.S. The Russian also ranted:

“Didn’t we write a cool speech for Donald Trump? The best is yet to come. It won’t be surprising if DOJ adds Trump’s speech to the materials of their criminal case. Donald says he is an agent of Russia, which is true.”  

In a bipartisan act, the Senate voted 84-14 in favor of the Honoring Our Pact Act (HOPA), passed in the House with a 256-174 vote, that expands health care and benefits to veterans suffering from exposure to unsafe practices, such as “burn pits,” while in the military. The typical conservative senators as well as Mitt Romney (R-UT) criticized the bill for mythical budgetary reasons. The bill moved to the House which supported it by a 256-174 vote and a tweak to make some spending mandatory.  When the bill was returned to the Senate for final approval, 42 Republicans voted against a procedural vote, leaving the bill in question. Jon Stewart gave an impassioned speech about the GOP abandonment of veterans in retaliation for Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) supporting a bill delaying climate change, lowering drug prices, and slightly raising corporate taxes,.

The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) bill passed the Senate by 64-33 and moved onto President Joe Biden’s desk after a 243-187 vote in the House. Despite more attempts at retaliation for any action by Democrats, 24 House GOP members voted for the bill.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), the biggest joke in the House before the onslaught of QAnon representatives, is irate because Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) put fact-checking articles about GOP lies from the past year into the congressional record, such as the false claims that AG Merrick Garland was investigating parents speaking at school boards and calling them “domestic terrorists.” In response to Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) misrepresentation of a DOJ whistleblower memo, Cicilline read the memo into the record. When Republicans objected, Cicilline asked that “the Republicans were afraid for the document to be in the record.” The incensed Gohmert said Cicilline isn’t permitted “to impugn false statements by this side.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) laughed at Gohmert, and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) first put his head in his hand and then went to using his cell phone.

Kentucky’s GOP senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, do their constituents a great disservice if they continue to ignore the dire consequences of climate change. In the past week, the catastrophic flooding in the mountainous eastern part of the state has killed at least eight people and left many others missing or trapped. Gov. Andy Beshear said, “We expect double-digit deaths.” He added, “Hundreds will lose their homes.” One county received 11 inches in rain in two days and expects more in the stalled weather front that caused historic flooding in St. Louis last Tuesday from over 12 inches of rain. In Kentucky, the hardest place hit, Hazard with 5,000 population, had over nine inches in 12 hours, and the terrain funnels more water down into the valley towns. Rock and mudslides also cut off populated areas. Heavy rainfall is now 20 to 40 percent more likely in the area than in 1900.

Remember when Republicans opposed regulations? Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis disagrees with his party’s approach. He is notorious for blocking mask mandates during the worst of the pandemic, delaying COVID vaccinations for children, eliminating LGBTQ mention in classrooms while mandating Christian nationalism in the curriculum, countermanding constitutional separation of church and state, preventing protest gatherings of more than two people, removing the right to discuss race in the workplace, redrawing the state’s Congressional map to increase the number of Republicans Florida sends to Congress, establishing his own personal state army with no federal oversight, and permitting bullying of LGBTQ students.

In Florida, teachers are ordered to dedicate 45 minutes of instruction about the suffering of people around the world on November 7, “Victims of Communism Day.” Mandated subjects are Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro along with “poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech” endured under those regimes. Teaching materials will be prepared by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Teachers are fleeing Florida, the state needs 10,000 teachers, and DeSantis accuses elementary school teachers, lying how they “instructed” children they may be transgender and anyone disagreeing with him is “lying.”

DeSantis latest regulation is blocking his administration from investments in “woke” corporations by prohibiting the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings for these decisions. Doing so would allow recipients of pensions to receive funds from companies with similar funds. DeSantis said, “The inmates are running the asylum.” Yet the State Board of Administration stated it didn’t use these ratings for overseeing the $250 billion in funds. DeSantis’ revoking Disney’s zoning agreement for criticizing his “Don’t Say Gay” law has already cost Florida taxpayers $1 billion.

In the past, Republicans objected to being surveiled; now they promote it. With the approval of a Supreme Court majority, Texas’ anti-abortion law turns all citizens into vigilantes, reporting anyone supporting abortion and creating a society reminiscent of a totalitarian state. Tennessee and Florida allow students to sue transgender students for using the “wrong” bathroom. Anyone in New Hampshire can sue a school for violating vague rules regarding teaching about race, sex, gender, and other sensitive issues, and teachers lose their licenses. Only Democratic governors in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—up for re-election this fall—protect people from totalitarian surveillance. And only the six Supremes can protect others in the U.S., and they aren’t likely to do so.

Outrage by students at George Washington University has caused Justice Clarence Thomas to cancel his plan to teach a seminar there, something he has done since 2011. Thomas is threatening to overturn a large number of human rights after participating in overturning the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade.

Primaries – May 17, 2022

If it’s Tuesday this summer, there might be primaries. This week they were in my home state of Oregon along with Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Unlike in past years, the former occupant of the White House is trying to control the elections. This year he has pushed 176 far-right candidates thus far, 26 of them this week. Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) upped his total by endorsing several candidates who ran unopposed or faced little-known, poorly-known opponents. A few of them haven’t been announced, specifically Mehmet Oz for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, because Lancaster County ballot barcodes were too poorly printed to be tallied, affecting about 21,000 ballots. That race is so tight that a recount may be needed. Thus far, Oz hasn’t followed DDT’s direction to “declare victory” before all the votes are counted, but court cases will probably ensue.  

Status of the five states voting on May 17:

Idaho:

This state may not be as crazy as I feared: incumbent Brad Little won the GOP gubernatorial race against his DDT-endorsed lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin. She made the media by issuing executive orders the minute he left the state such as sending the state national guard to the Mexico border and rescinding COVID protections, orders that Little had to overturn when he returned. 

Incumbent Rep. Mike Simpson won, claiming DDT’s endorsement, but that one was two years ago. 

Kentucky:

Incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie, one Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest assets in the U.S. for his 16-for-16 anti-Ukrainian votes, won with DDT’s endorsement. Massie overcame DDT’s insults that he should be thrown out of the GOP, calling him a “third rate Grandstander” for trying to stall DDT’s $2.2 trillion COVID aid package. DDT endorsed the state’s other four heavily-favored GOP house members. Massie’s current excuse to not expand healthcare comes from the statistics that 70 percent of people dying of COVID are over the age of 70. He insinuated that Medicare is the reason for all these deaths. He earlier attributed a quote by a neo-Nazi convicted for child porn to Voltaire while trying to smear Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

North Carolina:

Fellow Republicans wiped out DDT’s endorsement, 26-year-old incumbent Rep. Madison Cawthorn, with the help of billionaire Art Pope. The media attributed the loss to Cawthorn’s myriad scandals, but his big mistake was trying to take a district Pope wanted for another politician. Cawthorn has repeatedly endorsed violence in case of a rigged election (aka one that elects Democrats) and promised to break insurrectionists out of custody. He did, however, concede the election.     

 DDT got himself another 26-year-old, football player Bo Hines, for a congressional district where he doesn’t live. Local conservatives ran ads about his being a carpetbagger, and he raised only $120,000 in the first quarter with no contributions over $50 in the district he wants to represent. The misnamed House Freedom Caucus gave him $2 million, and Club for Growth gave him $1.5 million. The anti-government PAC couldn’t remember what position he wanted, however, running an ad stating he’s a senatorial candidate.

Rep. Ted Budd’s win for U.S. senatorial candidate was buoyed by DDT’s endorsement and $12 million from the Club for Growth. Budd voted to overturn the election after the insurrectionists were removed from the Capitol on January 6.

DDT’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows won’t be voting in the North Carolina primary. He’s been dropped from the rolls after the discovery he registered there illegally because he’s never lived there. At that time, he was also registered in both South Carolina and Virginia. A great believer in “election integrity,” he gave the keynote speaker at a CPI Election Integrity Summit in Atlanta on February 19 and said, “What you’re doing is investing in the future of our country and making sure only legal votes count.”

Pennsylvania:

Doug Mastriano, the Democrats’ pick for the general election GOP candidate, won the gubernatorial GOP primary in Pennsylvania just days after DDT endorsed him.  The state senator has been subpoenaed by the House January 6 investigative committee because of his participation in the plan to provide an alternative slate of electors for DDT instead of the electors selected by the state’s voters. He was also at the Capitol for the January 6, 2021 insurrection, employs 3 Percenters and Proud Boys for security, and has ties to QAnon conspiracy theorists. Later he denied he went into the Capitol although he was filmed going through the breached barricades. The press is banned from his rallies, and even Fox’s Sean Hannity disagreed with DDT’s endorsement. Republicans wanted former Rep. Lou Barletta and are very lukewarm about their new “Christian nationalist” after his win. Mastriano is everything that MAGAites could want and more.

Teddy Daniels, the GOP gubernatorial candidate for the 2022 general election, didn’t get DDT’s endorsement, but he did join the insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He posted a video 90 minutes after the Capitol was breached and stated, ‘I’m here. God bless our patriots.”

Still unsettled is the GOP race for the U.S. Senate. By Wednesday, Mehmet Oz, DDT’s endorsement, was ahead of wealthy former hedge fund owner David McCormick by about 1,240 votes, waiting for the remainder ones. For a brief time, the third candidate, Kathy Barnette, rose as a competitor because of the smears between the top two. She out-MAGAs both of them with her anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ bigotry and her being seen with the Proud Boys just before they were at the insurrection. Opposed to Roe v. Wade, Barnette claims she was “the byproduct of rape” after her molested mother was pregnant at the age of 11. Questions to Barnette’s campaign manager about her background went unanswered. Her supporters come from those who think that DDT is not far enough right-wing; her GOP opposition calls her “crazy” and “Pennsylvania’s wackiest candidate.” Barnette lost her 2020 try against Democrat Madeleine Dean in an area heavily won by Hillary Clinton four years earlier but still refuses to concede the race, which she lost by almost 20 percent.

Another carpetbagger, “Dr. Oz” moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey after DDT lost his first choice for the U.S. senate, Sean Parnell, who resigned after his domestic violence was made public. Oz used his in-laws residence for his address, and DDT’s audience booed his name at a rally. Part of his recommended “cures” on his Oprah-endorsed TV show are hydroxychloroquine for COVID (doesn’t work) and lose-weight-fast methods such as raspberry ketones “the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat.” According to Oz, astrological signs “may reveal a great deal about our health,” and umckaloabo root extract relieves cold symptoms. (It doesn’t.) 

Trying to look more MAGA, Dr. Oz held a pro-gun rally with Ted Nugent pro-gun rally less than 24 hours after a teenager killed at least 10 people in Buffalo last weekend. Nugent called for the audience to go “berserk on the skulls of the Democrats.”

If Oz doesn’t win by at least 0.05 percent of the vote, about 7,000, state law requires an automatic recount by June 1, 2022, unless the second-place candidate declines. Second-place McCormick has an antagonistic anti-immigrant position and hired Stephen Miller, DDT’s architect of anti-immigration policies aimed at people of color to advise him.

Oregon:

DDT made no endorsements in the state, but President Joe Biden supported incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader, who has moved to a new district after Oregon needed a new map for an additional House representative. In his former district, Blue Dog Schrader was disliked for his GOP-like votes, and his opponent, Jamie McLeod Skinner, is almost 10,000 ahead with about 21,000 votes outstanding from a bad print job on the barcodes. Deadline for confirmation is June 13. There have also been questions about Schrader’s residency. 

Money didn’t seem to buy Carrick Flynn a Democratic candidacy in the state’s new congressional district, despite the $13 million support from a cryptocurrency billionaire living in the Bahamas and another $1 million from the House Majority PAC. Of Carrick’s $817,254 itemized individual campaign contributions, 55 percent came from California and New York, with only 2.5 percent from Oregon donors. Flynn’s sunny ads for most of the campaign changed to smears against his winning opponent, Andrea Salinas, in the last few days. Because of the printing problem in Clackamas County, this election has also not been formally announced. Salinas is about 9,000 votes ahead. In the 6^th District GOP primary, Mike Erickson has not been declared the winner, and the runner-up, Ron Noble, has not conceded although he is over 7,000 votes behind.  

After Gov. Kate Brown was term-limited, the race was wide open. By the time ballots were mailed, Democrats were down to 15 while Republicans stayed at 19. Democrat Tina Kotek got 58 percent, and GOP Christine Drazen came in at 23.5 percent. The fall election will have a wildcard in a three-race that adds former Democrat Betsy Johnson who frequently voted with the Republicans. She has moved to unaffiliated, and her ads, already running, merely say she will be for all the people in Oregon. Johnson has yet to show up with the approximately 24,000 signatures necessary for her to run, but her war chest is over $8 million, almost one-fourth of it from Nike-founder Phil Knight.  

DDT: Week 204 – More of the Same

News of the week may include Senate coming to terms with a stimulus bill keeping the government from shutting down, but details are uncertain because Republicans change their minds hour to hour. More after a final vote. Instead of working to help people and stop a government shutdown by passing a budget, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) uses Senate time to pass more right-wing, inexperienced judges.

Will Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) blow up democracy? He still wants to leave himself in the White House by ordering the military to throw out swing state election results for a new vote favoring himself. Career Pentagon officials are also horrified by acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller’s refusal to allow cooperation between President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team and his department. DDT’s only event last Friday was a meeting with Miller. The Pentagon said it is “taking a knee for two weeks” because of the “holidays.”

One month before he leaves the White House, DDT, obsessing about his legacy, tweeted the SPACE FORCE, as he cites it in a tweet, will be one of his “great achievements.” VP Mike Pence proudly announced “guardians” will be used for its members, along with Marines, sailors, and soldiers, after a year-long search for a name. James Gunn, director of the Marvel franchise Guardians of the Galaxy, tweeted, “Can we sue this dork?” The logo looks like Star Trek’s insignia for the StarFleet.

DDT’s obsession overrides any great concern about the hacking in government agencies and private businesses. Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Russia is behind the hack, “a very significant effort.” For the first time, DDT mentioned the hack, only to declare China may have been responsible and claimed “everything is well under control.” He accused the media of exaggerating the damage and proposed the real issue is his belief elections results have been compromised. His claim again brings up the question of what Russian president Vladimir Putin is holding over DDT. Privately, he calls the hack a “hoax” and told others to give alternative theories—such as China—for the responsible party instead of Russia. John Bolton, DDT’s third national security adviser, did away with the strong cybersecurity team in the White House. The newly passed National Defense Authorization Act recreates the team with a “cyber czar” with direct access to the president, but DDT has promised to veto the bill.

Biden, currently shut out by the Pentagon, faces a difficult task because the U.S. hacks other countries and a military response violates international law. Within 16 days of Biden’s inauguration, he must also address the renewal of New Start, the nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of media entities such as Fox network leading the war against health, received his vaccine for COVID-19 the day before Tucker Carlson promoted anti-vaccine theories. While Carlson and other Fox notables killed people by supporting the lies the virus is a hoax, Murdoch and his wife isolated themselves in the UK.

The three most recent U.S. presidents are offering to get the vaccine live on TV, and VP Mike Pence got his “jab” on Friday, in time for a second shot before his departure from the U.S. after he accepts the vote on January 6, forcing him into new housing. DDT won’t commit. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to see his arm.

Fox programs, such as the one hosted by Lou Dobbs is backing down on their conspiracy theories about election fraud. At least three programs played clips from Smartmatic debunking fraud accusations by DDT’s personal lawyer and his other supporters against its technology company after Smartmatic sent a 20-page legal demand to Fox, Newsmax, and One American News. One of the conspiracy theories is that former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who died seven years ago, designed the software to rig elections used to fix the 2020 U.S. election. In addition to lies on his program by Giuliani about Smartmatic owning Dominion voting software and other lies by attorney Sidney Powell, Dobbs accused Smartmatic of being controlled by “left-wing radicals.” The debunking video was also played over the weekend on conspiracy theorist programs hosted by Jeanine Pirro (Justice with Judge Jeanine) and Maria Bartiromo (Sunday Morning Futures). The clip didn’t go over well with Bartiromo’s watchers.

Antrim County in Michigan has been the center of conspiracy theories about a stolen election because the voting machines originally gave Biden more votes than DDT in the traditionally GOP county. Correcting updating the software brought DDT in ahead by 4,000 votes over Biden out of 16,000 ballots. The lies have a life of their own, but Antrim has paper ballots, providing evidence about the accurate vote in the county. A hand tally of all 15,962 votes gave DDT more votes—12 to be exact. Losing one vote in Antrim County, Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes.

Republicans have cited proof of election fraud because people wouldn’t vote for Biden. They might find more fraud in GOP Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky reelection to the Senate, 57.8 percent over Democratic Amy McGrath’s 38.2 percent:

• McConnell won large vote leads in Democratic strongholds, ones he never before carried.
• Wide discrepancies between DDT and down-ballot candidates were not explained.
• Along with other states, Kentucky’s vote tabulation by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) reported down-ballot race result significantly different from pre-election polls.
• Forty percent of Kentucky’s counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens; in November 2017, right-wing Judicial Watch sued Kentucky for its “Dirty Voter Rolls” and failure to maintain voter registration lists.
• (Details here.)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also won by a comfortable 10 percent lead after a squeaker election; his votes were tabulated on ES&S machines. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who never had a polling lead in the four months before the election, won by almost nine points. Yup, ES&S machines counted the votes for Collins. Maybe the polls about their losing weren’t wrong.

McConnell and Russian president Vladimir Putin may have admitted DDT lost the election, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is staying silent. Asked if Biden won, he ducked into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office. McCarthy was one of the seditious 126 House members trying to overthrow the election results in the Supreme Court. Newsmax’s Greg Kelly thinks DDT will be inaugurated because Biden coughed during his speech on Monday. Bad news for Kelly: VP-elect Kamala Harris is second in line for the president, according to the 20^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. DDT isn’t in line.

DC visitors can’t go to the Washington Memorial for a few days after Interior Secretary David Bernhardt took people on a private tour after hours last week and tested positive for COVID-19. He also caused a staffing shortage at the monument: National Park Service staff near Bernhardt are under quarantine. His virus also caused the cancellation of a large Interior Department party—perhaps lucky for those who planned to attend—and concerns about Deputy Secretary Katharine MacGregor’s plans to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Staff was supposed to drive her between the two parks and give her tours for four days. She still plans the trip. Despite the possibility of contagion, agencies are still hosting large parties, and both Bernhardt and MacGregor do not consistently wear masks.

The Supreme Court will allow people in Kansas to vote without presenting a birth certificate or passport. The former state’s secretary of state, anti-immigrant Kris Kobach, succeeded in putting this requirement into law, but a trial court and the 10^th Circuit Court both declared the mandate unconstitutional. The high court declined to address those rulings. Kobach briefly led DDT’s “election integrity” commission when DDT lied that three million immigrants voting against him caused him to lose the 2016 popular vote. About 30,000 people in Kansas couldn’t vote because of the punitive law.

DDT has come to the last month of pardoning capability, and Bill Barr has left the DOJ. New acting AG Jeff Rosen has continually demonstrated his unswerving loyalty to DDT. He quashed the investigation into DDT’s extortion scheme against Ukraine, tried to force an indictment against former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, and reviewed career prosecutors’ work in an attempt to save Roger Stone. Rosen also saved former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from prosecution for his scandals and led the case against John Bolton in DDT’s attempt to keep his book from being published. In other actions, Rosen kept Paul Manafort out of Rikers Island when he was arrested and encouraged prosecutors to aggressively prosecute activists, even with the charge of “sedition,” to satisfy DDT. The month of pardons is beginning. Let DDT pardon himself? To Rosen, it’s a piece of cake.

In the White House, DDT always had his priorities. He has succeeded in getting the Energy Department to finalize a rule increasing shower pressure to rinse his “beautiful head of hair,” in his own words. Part of his “energy dominance” policy, it’s one of his biggest talking points at rallies.  Another achievement for the people starving in the country is “Freedom” cherry pie. DDT’s administration is persuading the persuadable FDA to remove regulations from frozen cherry pie—like requiring cherries. In deregulating vegetable oil and an acid in French dressing, the FDA said the agency doesn’t need “to promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers.” DDT can leave the White House, secure in the knowledge he can always have a good hairdo. And Freedom “Cherry Pie.” DDT’s priorities in his last month during massive hacking and a deadly pandemic.  

Week 187: DDT Faces More Crises

Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) has had a hard few days this week with the backlash to his post office sabotage and the successful Democratic convention. He’s had other vexing problems too.

In the courts:

A federal judge in New York denied DDT’s request to stop a grand jury subpoena for his tax returns from taking effect after dismissed DDT’s attempt for a grand jury subpoena requesting eight years of DDT’s financial documents. DDT wanted time to appeal to the federal appeals court which agreed to a September 1 hearing while refusing an emergency stay on the subpoena. Jay Sekulow, DDT’s personal lawyer, said he will go to the Supreme Court for a stay.

A court ordered DDT to pay Stormy Daniels’s legal fees of $43,000, tied to the 2016 payoff agreement.

“It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime.” A federal judge referenced Harper Lee’s classic novel to uphold the 102-year Migratory Bird Treaty Act and block DDT’s order to permit people and corporations to unintentionally kill scores of birds. Oil companies have paid the majority of fines for the act’s violation; i.e., BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed an estimated one million birds.

Despite the Supreme Court declaring people are covered “on the basis of sex” for nondiscrimination laws, DDT had declared trans people are covered by the Affordable Care Act on the basis of “biological birth.” A federal judge blocked doctors’ permission from DDT to discriminate against trans people on the day it was to go into effect, stating the administration acted “arbitrarily and capriciously.” He added a major decision by the Supreme Court could benefit from “pause and reflect” on its impact. “Since HHS has been unwilling to take that path voluntarily, the Court now imposes it.”

At least 21 states plan lawsuits this week against the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, to block service changes intended to block mail-in ballots. DeJoy’s promises to keep delivery rolling has not affected the intent from attorneys general who said they want binding action to reverse DeJoy’s actions.

Salmon and steelhead in Oregon’s Willamette River won their case when a judge found the Army Corps of Engineers violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to ensure their survival and recovery for over a decade. Dams on four key tributaries of the Willamette River block between 40 and 90 percent of spawning habitat because small fish can’t surmount the heights to swim downstream and adults can get upstream. Parties will provide a briefing schedule within 14 days for determining a remedy.

A county circuit judge determines the title for the new GOP redistricting plan, attempting to overturn the two-year-old voters’ Clean Missouri ballot measure, “misleading, unfair, and insufficient” because it doesn’t state it would eliminate a law passed by voters. An amendment in the new law creating a nonpartisan state demographer replacing two partisan legislative commissions to map out new legislative districts.

In the federal government:

The HHS are changed direction in collecting data about COVID-19: hospitals will again report information to the CDC instead of DDT’s secret private information service.

The House Ethics Committee unanimously admonished Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a speaker at the RNC convention, for his attempt to intimidate Michael Cohen shortly before his testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Later, Gaetz apologized. A Florida Bar review panel also told Gaetz he was “unprofessional, reckless, insensitive, and demonstrated poor judgment” in his tweet at Cohen. Last month, apparently in violation of House rules, it was revealed that Gaetz may have violated House rules when he paid $28,000 to a speechwriter who worked for Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller and was reportedly fired by the White House after he attended a white nationalist conference.

In the states:

The Kentucky Board of Elections has agreed voters will benefit from early voting for six days a week, absentee ballots, and drop boxes. They can also sign a document explaining why they couldn’t get an ID because of COVID-19—closed county clerk’s office or fear of contracting the virus—and cast their ballots. Kentucky was the only state this year to make voting more restrictive by requiring IDs, despite the closure of state offices. With New York moving to no-excuse absentee voting for this fall, only ix six states don’t permit all voters to vote by mail: IN, MS, SC, TN, TX, WV.

After six years, Michigan is paying $600 million to Flint victims of lead-contaminated drinking water. Eighty percent goes to residents younger than 18 years when they were exposed with almost half that amount to children younger than six—between 18,000 and 20,000 children and adolescents. The other 20 percent goes for issues such as property damage, loss of revenue, and diseases like Legionnaires.

DDT’s grand plan to have Kanye West siphon off Biden’s votes is failing. West missed the deadline for the Wisconsin ballot, and was rejected by Ohio’s secretary of state because the signature and information on West’s nominating petition and statement of candidacy did not match the documents used for petitions signed by voters. 

Jared Kushner has been talking almost daily with West, and his involvement in West’s campaign could be a violation of federal law for Kushner. If Kushner asked West to spend money on West’s candidacy to siphon votes from Biden, he is soliciting in-king contributions from West to DDT in excess of the $2,000 contribution limit. Every dollar West spends on his campaign with Kushner’s encourage is in-kind. Even worse, Kushner is taking advantage of West’s mental instability.

And in other areas:

Top businesses stated they are unlikely to defer employees’ payroll taxes, and 30 industry groups called DDT’s executive action “unworkable.”

DDT appealed to the Commission on Presidential debates to hold the presidential debates sooner: Joe Biden refused. A letter from Rudy Giuliani to the commission claimed Biden might not appear at debates after the first one.

The most delicious irony this week was the arrest of former DDT campaign manager and adviser Steve Bannon by the postal service for fraud and money laundering with a GoFundMe site for DDT’s wall. It brings together both DDT’s scandals—the USPS and the border wall perhaps the most visible investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), functioning for over 100 years to protect employees, the public, and infrastructure “from fraud and other illegal activity.” Prosecutors for the case are led by Audrey Strauss, Southern District of New York’s acting AG who DDT’s fixer AG Bill tried to fire when he got rid of her boss, Geoffrey Berman. Brian Kolfage coordinated the con to rip off thousands of DDT’s wall-loving base and took over $350,000 for luxuries and tax payments. Bannon skimmed over $1 million from the donations. 

As always, DDT tried to separate himself from the project, but his son had described the project as “private enterprise at its finest.” DDT’s associate Kris Kobach said DDT had given the project his “blessing.” DDT added, “You can tell the media that.” Another of the “We Build the Wall” team who DDT can’t remember is Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater and sister of Education Secretary Betsy Devos along with other shady characters.

DDT claims to be the “law and order” president; Bannon is his third campaign manager to be arrested. Cory Landowski’s assault charge was dropped, and Paul Manafort is in prison. Three other campaign workers have been charged, as have close friend Roger Stone and fixer Michael Cohen as have four men close to the campaign along with 24 Russians and two companies. Charges include money laundering, false tax returns, conspiracy against the U.S., obstruction of justice, lying under oath, bank fraud, tax evasion, identity theft, and more. https://abcnews.go.com/US/prosecutors-reinstate-indictment-trump-campaign-chairman-paul-manafort/story?id=72499540    The Manhattan District Attorney’s office also wants to reindict Manafort for a yearlong residential mortgage fraud.

Leading up to the RNC convention, quotes from former Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, DDT’s sister:

“The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy sh-t.” (about his administration since DDT was elected)

“He has no principles. All he wants to do his appeal to his base.”

“He doesn’t read.”

“Donald is cruel.”

“He was a brat.” (about Barry doing DDT’s homework and his paying someone to take his SAT exams for him)

“You can’t trust him.” (about his six bankruptcies)

“It was all about him. Donald was the only one who didn’t speak about Dad,” (about DDT’s speech at their father’s funeral)

Get some sleep—the Republican convention starts tomorrow!

DDT: Week 146 – Disaster

Last week was miserable for Dictator Donald Trump (DDT). The transcripts from witnesses for the Impeachment inquiry consistently contradicted him, but the statement from Fiona Hill, who served until July as the White House’s top expert on Russia and Europe, may have been the most devastating. She testified, “We found disparaging remarks made by pretty much every world leader and official at different points about the President.”

DDT’s level of confusion may be rapidly increasing. On 11/9 (today) he retweeted a tweet from John Bolton about 9/11 that begins “as we reflect this week on the horrific 9/11 attack ….”

After being booed at a World Series game, DDT had the same experience last Saturday when he attended the main fight of the mixed martial arts UFC 244 at Madison Square Garden. Tonight he got mostly cheers in the Deep South at the football showdown between Louisiana State and Alabama.

A few weeks ago, Shep Smith left Fox; this past week Catherine Herridge, chief intelligence correspondent abandoned her 23-year career at Fox for a move to CBS. Her reason:

“CBS News has always placed a premium on enterprise journalism and powerful investigations. I feel privileged to join a team where facts and storytelling will always matter.”

Yesterday, DDT went to Atlanta to help launch Black Voice for Trump, the grassroots’ attempt to increase the black vote for him in 2020. He has a ways to go after he got 8 percent of the black vote in 2016 and now polls at 7 percent approval rating among blacks. [Left: two of the few hundred people who turned out for his speech.]

The Pentagon said that DDT doesn’t have the right to take oil revenue out of Syria, but it’s still claiming its authority over the oil fields. Officials declared U.S. military authority over the oil fields by saying that they would shoot any Representative of the Syrian government who tries to retake control of their fossil fuel resources. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has already said that the U.S. will decide what to do with the oil “in the future.”

A New York judge ordered DDT to pay $2 million out of his own pocket to nonprofit organizations in a civil lawsuit resolving DDT’s bogus fundraiser for veterans as part of his 2016 campaign. The lawsuit filed by the state’s AG accused DDT and his children Donald Jr, Eric, and Ivanka of repeatedly using charitable donations for personal, political and business gains including legal settlements and campaign. DDT, who said he would never settle the lawsuit, settled by admitting his wrongdoing. Other parts of the settlement subject DDT to ongoing supervision by the New York AG and compulsory training for his children to guarantee that their illegal activity “never takes place again.”

Another woman has filed a lawsuit against DDT: E. Jean Carroll who is a prominent writer, media figure, and advice columnist. When the accusation first became public, DDT said that she is a “liar” and not his “type.” The suit is for his lying that “inflicted emotional pain and suffering, they damaged her reputation, and they caused substantial professional harm.” Carroll explained that she can’t hold DDT accountable for his sexual assault but she “can hold him accountable for lying about it.”

A similar case against DDT by Summer Zervos has a deadline of December 6 for depositions. DDT may have to answer questions under oath. 

DDT has lost other court cases in the past week or two:

In a unanimous decision from a three-judge panel, the 2^nd Circuit Court ordered DDT’s tax returns to be turned over to a state grand jury. The panel also rejected the argument that DDT is immune from criminal investigation (aka above the law). DDT plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Usually, the few cases that SCOTUS takes come from disagreement among courts. In this case, four judges have adamantly ruled against DDT, making the move to SCOTUS questionable.

A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked DDT’s requirement that immigrants prove they have U.S. health insurance within 30 days of arrival or enough money for “reasonably foreseeable medical costs.” The restraining order is for 28 days. Immigrants without insurance used under 0.1 percent of U.S. medical expenditures in 2017. 

Using the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal judge voided DDT’s rule allowing health-care provides to refuse any health care that they opposed on religious or moral grounds after over 20 states, municipalities, and health advocacy groups filed a lawsuit. One part of the lawsuit was that the rule disproportionately harmed specifically groups of patients such as Q patients. DDT’s rule could have allowed medical “professionals” to deny a wide variety of procedures such as in-vitro fertilization, gender-affirming surgeries, or assisted suicide and even refuse referrals if they chose not to perform these procedures.

A second federal judge, this one in Spokane, blocked the same “religious beliefs” rule a day later. DDT’s rule would also cut federal health funding to employers and states if DDT believed they were not following health care workers’ beliefs.  

Another federal judge ruled the government must provide mental health services to thousands of migrant parents and children who experienced psychological harm because of DDT’s separation of families. Hundreds of these separations still occur. Counseling and other services are mandated to compensate for the families’ trauma. The ruling referred to federal decisions that governments can be held liable when they place people in dangerous situations with “deliberate indifference.”

Thanks to a court decision, DDT extended Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from six countries through early 2021. Migrants running from natural disasters have lived in the U.S. without controversy for up to two decades, but DDT’s aide Stephen Miller prioritized an attack on TPS.  

In a speech at the annual Judge Thomas A. Flannery Lecture, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman of the District of Columbia said that DDT’s rhetoric “violates all recognized democratic norms.” He explained:

“We are witnessing a chief executive who criticizes virtually every judicial decision that doesn’t go his way and denigrates judges who rule against him, sometimes in very personal terms. He seems to view the courts and the justice system as obstacles to be attacked and undermined, not as a coequal branch to be respected even when he disagrees with its decisions.”

Friedman talked about Thomas Jefferson, who tried to make federal judges’ seats elected positions, and Dwight Eisenhower, who called the appointment of Earl Warren as the Supreme Court’s chief justice one of his biggest mistakes. No other man sitting in the Oval Office, however, has attacked the judiciary in the same way that DDT does, using incivility and political scorn, according to Friedman. He finished by saying, “Unlike the other two branches of government, the courts are charged with making decisions grounded in facts, never on alternative facts.” Friedman is a senior judge and secretary of the American Law Institute.

Russia picked DDT for U.S. president and interfered in the election to win him the White House, according to Tamir Pardoto, the former chief of Israeli intelligence Mossad.

DDT’s businesses continue their decline, in tandem with his reputation. He keeps getting paid for GOP fundraisers and by foreign leaders, but the figures shrink. Profits at his Chicago hotel fell 89 percent between 2015 to 2018, $16.7 million to $1.8 million, while other Chicago hotels stayed steady or increased their profits. In 2018, a small-time investor defined DDT’s effect on his buildings: “Then the Embarrassment Came.” Even Trump Organization’s lawyers admit that DDT’s hotel is suffering from “political backlash.” DDT’s solution in Chicago is to cut costs such as cheaper housekeeping products and leaving jobs open. The one surefire profit for his properties, however, comes from his over 200 visits in less than three years, money to DDT paid by taxpayers. He faces other losses, for example the vacant street level floor at New York’s Trump Towers and the losses of contracts to manage three hotels.

At a Halloween party for children in the White House on October 25, DDT worked to brainwash his young guests by persuading them to build a construction paper wall by writing their names on brick-colored paper cards and tape them to the wall. Next to the wall were signs with the Ku Klux Klan and pro-Nazi saying, “America First.” In 2017’s Halloween party, DDT repeatedly made derogatory comments about their journalist parents. 

Update on Kentucky’s GOP idea of stealing the governor’s seat:  an increasing number of Republican lawmakers are asking Gov. Matt Bevin to give evidence of the alleged voting “irregularities” or concede the election to Democratic Gov.-elect Andy Beshear, who defeated Bevin by 5,189 votes. The GOP House Speaker said the House won’t have anything to do with the election unless Bevin files a complaint.

Although 88 percent of Republicans think that a president can be impeached for enriching himself, only 22 percent think that using presidential power to force foreign countries to investigate a political rival is impeachable. And 65 percent of Republicans think that presidents do that “all the time.” It’s the new normal for the GOP.

GOP Votes Shrinking

Yesterday was Election Day across the United States, mostly in small sections of different states. One state, however, elected state officials, another one chose its entire upcoming legislature, and a third picked both. The results are making some Republicans nervous.

 Mississippi:

The election of a Republican governor and state legislature majority here was pretty much a given. But with the current governor term-limited out, GOP Tate Reeves won his gubernatorial race by only seven points, far less than the 17-point win for Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) in 2016. Democrats get about one-third of the seats in the state Senate and did a bit better in the state House with approximately 40 percent. Luckily for Reeves got the at least 62 of the 122 House districts mandated for him to win. Considering the polls that supported his opponent for almost the entire past year, Reeves was lucky to win the majority vote, but a loss wouldn’t have given governor to his Democratic opponent. 

“The Mississippi Plan,” put in the state’s 1890 constitution, was “to secure to the State of Mississippi ‘white supremacy,’ ” according to the journal of the proceedings. Blacks, who tend to vote Democratic, are about 38 percent of Mississippi’s population, but the state has not had one black statewide office holder since 1890. Four blacks are suing Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn and Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman to have the requirement changed. Gunn and Hoseman want the case dismissed but wrote: “Neither the speaker nor the secretary wish to defend the motivations behind a law allegedly enacted with racial animus.” The Mississippi Republican Party doesn’t oppose removing the elections requirements from the constitution but called Eric Holder’s interest in the case a “continuation of national Democrats’ attempts to delegitimize elections they do not win.”

Virginia:

A huge turnout in Virginia flipped their General Assembly from red to blue for the first time in 26 years, largely with Democratic support in the suburbs. Democrats took at least five additional seats in the House of Delegates and two in the state Senate, including one Democratic woman who lost in the last election in a tie. This legislature will establish the new voting districts after the 2020 U.S. census. Both U.S. senators, a majority of U.S. House representatives, and all three statewide office holders are Democrats.

When DDT took office, Republicans held a 66-34 majority in the General Assembly. As of yesterday’s election, Democrats hold a 55-45 majority, and DDT’s approval rating in the state is below 30 percent. Republican incumbents tried to separate themselves from DDT and be more moderate about guns and expanding Medicaid after their former radical-right votes in the past. House Speaker Kirk Cox was re-elected but gives up his position after only two years. He refused to answer questions about the GOP loss. Later he issued a statement promising to work with Democrats “where we can” and to block them from overreaching. House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert, back again but without his leadership position, warned of Democrats’ “extreme agenda” and pledged to “fight it at every turn.” Tim Hugo, the last GOP legislator in the Northern Virginia suburbs thought he could keep his place by concentrating on local issues such as potholes. Although No 3 in the House GOP leadership, Hugo avoided the word “Republican” on both his campaign website and at voter forums. He still lost the district by seven points, a district that was solidly GOP six years ago.

Top issues for the Virginia election were gun safety, women’s rights, and clean energy. Gun laws came into play after the May 31 mass shooting in Virginia Beach that killed twelve people. Gov. Ralph Northam had called a special legislative session in July for gun safety measures, but Republicans adjourned after 90 minutes with no debates on any of the 30 filed bills. In Virginia, home of the NRA, over 20 percent of gun sales have no background check, making the state a pipeline for illegal gun trafficking along the East Coast. Last summer, a poll found that gun policy was the top issue for 75 percent of respondents. In 2018, pro-gun safety Democrats won in suburban districts across the United States.

A June court decision required district remapping in southeastern Virginia where districts were gerrymandered. About 425,000 voters in 25 districts were moved to more evenly distribute black voters.

The woman fired for a photo of her flipping a bird at DDT’s motorcade was elected to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors over a GOP incumbent. DDT has a golf course in that county.

Kentucky:

At a rally in Kentucky for the GOP gubernatorial candidate on the night before the election, DDT said, “If you lose, they will say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can’t let that happen to me.” Andy Beshear, the Democratic candidate for governor, beat incumbent Matt Bevin by over 5,000 votes in this state that DDT won by 30 points in 2016. Beshear said last night that he expects Bevin will “honor the election that was held tonight.” He’s wrong. Bevin refuses to concede the election because of voting “irregularities,” although he didn’t cite any,

Because Kentucky has no provision for an automatic recount, Bevin’s campaign announced today it will attempt a “recanvassing” to ensure that all machines accurately calculated vote totals and transferred them to the state. In 2015, James Comer, Bevin’s opponent in the GOP primary, requested a recanvass of the contest that Bevin won by 83 votes with no change in vote totals. Although canvasses are commonly requested in close Kentucky races, they have never produced a different election outcome and rarely produce a different vote total. Between 2000 and 2015, only three of 27 nationwide recounts changed the result on Election Day.

Bevin can get a recount only by filing a contest of the election and then paying for it. And the state doesn’t make recounts easy to do. Republicans are so desperate to keep Bevin as governor that state Senate leader Robert Stivers claimed that the state lawmakers, with a majority of Republicans, would determine the winner, a process not used to settle an election since 1899. Last night, Stivers said that Bevin would have won if Libertarian candidate John Hicks had not received 1.97 percent of the vote.

The first step in the GOP’s attempt to overturn the election cannot start until after a recanvassing and certification of the results by the State Board of Elections. Bevin then has 30 days to contest these results although he would need specific reasons, i.e., campaign finance rules violation or methods of casting ballots. Following that, Stivers would call a special session in which lawmakers would assign an 11-person panel to hear arguments and give a verdict. The contest for the results would also start a recount. The full legislature would evaluate the panel’s decision; both Houses of the General Assembly would have to determine the outcome.

On the campaign trail, DDT promised to increase coal jobs, but instead they’re disappearing. Almost 6,600 Kentuckians work in coal, down about 80 percent in three decades. In 2019, five big mining companies declared bankruptcy, threatening the United Mine Workers of America pension fund, which supports over 100,000 retired miners and fully vested workers. Kentucky’s GOP senator, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has stalled on protection of the pension until today. In one county, 41 percent of the population live in poverty, over three times the national average, and the state is almost 20 percent, ranking fourth in the nation. The number of votes for Bevin shrank from four years ago when he won by almost nine points. The state had expected about a 30-percent voter turnout the same as four years ago; instead it was over 42 percent.

Bevin has many reasons to lose his seat. Many people lost health care with Bevin’s work requirements when he defended his personal policy by suing his constituents. He wanted to cut taxes, like the failed program in Kansas; make taxes regressive; and weaken public education. Early actions were to cost the state $23 million by dismantling “kynect,” the Medicaid provision in the state, and cut Medicaid dental and vision coverage for up to 460,000 people in Kentucky. Bevin blames school shootings on video games and accused teachers of children being sexually assaulted, physically harmed, or exposed to poison and drugs when educators were on strike. Teacher salaries and spending per pupil are down about 6 percent, adjusted for inflation, since the 2008 recession. When Bevin took health care and education away from people in Kentucky, he called them “socialism.

In addition to criticizing his social and fiscal policies, many Kentuckians consider Bevin a “jerk.” In a visit a chess club at a majority-black and -Latino school in West Louisville, he said that chess was “not something you necessarily would have thought of when you think of this section of town.” While opposing a mandatory vaccine program, Bevin bragged about taking his children to a chickenpox party.

Signs were not good for Bevin throughout his campaign. Only about 200 people turned out for the Bevin event last August at the Appalachian Wireless Arena with a capacity of 7,000. In a county that DDT took by 80 percent. At a rally where Donald Trump Jr. was a speaker. [visual Bevin] 

More election news from across the United States.

New SCOTUS Justice Nominee, Continuing Lawsuits

The suspense is over, and the work begins. Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) has nominated Brett Kavanaugh, anti-abortion activist, as his choice for a Supreme Court Justice, perhaps because the sitting judge on the D.C. Circuit Court believes that a sitting president should not be indicted. I will write more about him later. In the meantime, U.S. courts keep chewing away at federal injustices:

The U.S. Supreme Court, soon to be reconfigured to the right, delivered a final statement for 2018 on gerrymandering when it kept the redrawn legislative districts by returning the case to a North Carolina court that tried to reduce racial gerrymandering. Democrats are the majority voting bloc in the state, but the GOP controls ten of the 13 seats in the House of Representatives and a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly. The Supreme Court could still hear the case again if an appeal from Republicans returns the issue to the higher court. Legislators are also trying to move the court to the right by increasing the number of judges. But they can’t finish this process by the fall election—I hope!

Today DDT lost another round in the separation of children and families when a judge refused long-term detention of migrant families except in cases when parents are detained on criminal charges. Judge Molly M. Gee said the administration’s attempt to change the 1997 Flores agreement requiring the release of children within 20 days was “a cynical attempt” to shift immigration policymaking to the courts in the wake of “over 20 years of congressional inaction and ill-considered executive action that have led to the current stalemate.” In another federal case, 54 migrants under the age of six, scattered from California to New York, will be secretly returned to their parents tomorrow, half the number who were removed from their parents. Tomorrow is the court’s deadline for all the youngest migrants to be returned to their parents. The court has mandated that the remainder of children over five years old, perhaps 2,900, must be reunited by July 27.

The DOJ dropped charges against the last 38 protesters of the 200 arrested at the inauguration of DDT. Prosecutors managed to get one guilty plea to a felony and another 20 to misdemeanors in 18 months after turning the lives of hundreds of people upside down.

A federal judge has ruled against a Tennessee law that suspends or revokes driver’s licenses of people too poor to pay court costs or traffic fines because the law violates constitutional due process and equal protection clauses. The ruling does not affect other states, but it sets a precedent for other similar rulings. Over four million drivers have lost their licenses for failure to pay these charges in only five states—Texas, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.

A judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that the lawsuit opposing the citizenship question in the 2020 census can go forward amid “strong” evidence DDT acted in bad faith. Also granted was the request for discovery that will bring to light the background for this decision. Judge Barbara Underwood wrote:

“By demanding the citizenship status of each resident, the Trump administration is breaking with decades of policy and potentially causing a major undercount that would threaten billions in federal funds and New York’s fair representation in Congress and the Electoral College.”

ICE cannot systematically detain migrants fleeing persecution from their home countries, according to a judge in the Federal District Court of D.C. who pointed out that the U.S. government requires these applicants to be freed when appropriate. Under DDT, parole rates have gone from over 90 percent to “nearly zero.” Judge James Boasberg has ordered individualized reviews for all asylum seekers before denying parole in a case affecting over 1,000 asylum seekers denied parole in Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Newark, and Philadelphia. ICE has held one of the plaintiffs for over 18 months after he fled Haiti and passed his credible fear interview and then a judge granted him asylum in April 2017.

A ballot initiative already passing review for the fall ballot by the Michigan Court of Appeals will go to the state’s Supreme Court. A Republican and business-backed group are challenging the initiative to create an independent commission to draw legislative districts with advice of consultants and public hearings. Gerrymandering in Michigan, as in a majority of other states, has caused Republicans to take over state legislatures despite a majority of Democrat voters in some states.

A federal judge blocked Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements because they did not consider whether these would violate the provision of health care to the most vulnerable people. The disagreement comes from whether the requirement furthers the program’s goals. Up to 95,000 people could lose Medicaid coverage within five years with these requirements. Kentucky was the first state to create these work requirements, and three other states—Indiana, Arkansas, and New Hampshire—had received federal approval. Seven other states have submitted proposals.

Gov. Matt Bevin retaliated against people on Medicaid by cutting Medicaid dental and vision benefits to almost 500,000 people, some of them children. In Kentucky, Medicaid covers about 1.4 million people, almost half of them children. Federal funding provides for 80 percent of the $11 billion dollars for the program. Bevins’ order may violate the judge’s ruling about Medicaid.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been named as a possible witness in the federal corruption trial of an Alabama coal executive and two politically connected attorneys in Alabama. The case is about an alleged conspiracy to bribe a state legislator to limit the EPA’s cleaning up a Superfund site. The legislator, Oliver Robinson, has already pled guilty to taking bribes from Drummond Coal that were facilitated by the two attorneys at a major Birmingham law firm. Other witnesses include several state legislators as well as Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), recently returned from a PR trip to Russia, and Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL). As a senator, Sessions tried to intervene with the EPA to stop the cleanup at the Superfund site after conferring with the Drummond lawyers; the law firm and coal company were Sessions second- and third-largest contributors to his senate campaign, a great deal after Sessions intervened. The DOJ has been overseeing the case while Sessions is AG.

After a number of losses in court, including being sent to take remedial law classes, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will no longer represent himself in court during his appeal for contempt in court and a ruling of unconstitutional for requiring people to show proof of citizenship in voter registration. Kobach’s office will be lead counsel. Furious because he lost a straw vote to gubernatorial competitor Gov. Jeff Colyer, Kobach accused his opponent of voter fraud by paying 106 people to vote.

A federal judge issued an injunction against a 2015 Arkansas law that bans abortion pills. Earlier the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear a case against the law. After Planned Parenthood presented new evidence, the judge indicated that it may prevail in the case. A federal judge also blocked Indiana’s new requirement that medical providers report patient information to the state after treating women for complications from abortions.

Last week, people celebrated the separation of the United States from the reign of George III. In another eight years, the U.S.—if it still exists—will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of this document. Until then, consider the similarity between the actions of George III and DDT:

• DDT ignores laws and court decisions he doesn’t like—anti-nepotism, Russia sanctions, emoluments clause, the Affordable Care Act—the list goes on.
• DDT blocks laws in the Congress, such as ones about immigration, if he disapproves.
• DDT wants to be a dictator like China’s Xi Jinping, while a majority of Republicans want to postpone the next presidential election.
• DDT demonizes immigrants with extreme punishment. Consider the Declaration’s complaint about George III: “he has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither….”
• DDT tries to prevent a legal investigation into ties between Russia and his campaign through attempts to weaken U.S. confidence in the FBI, the intelligence services, and the justice system as a whole.
• DDT “has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
• DDT has ordered “Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures” by sending National Guard troops to the border with Mexico.
• DDT is stopping “Trade with all parts of the world” and “imposing Taxes on us without our Consent” with tariffs and alienation of allies.
• DDT “has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people” through expanding offshore drilling, risking wildlife and oceans, and destroying economies of states bordering oceans.
• George III also suffered from a mental illness.

DDT has just nominated a Supreme Court justice while he is being investigated not only for his involvement in Russian election meddling but also for illegal payoffs to women with whom he had affairs, defamation, and his illegal activities with his personal charitable foundation. He might also be charged, both civilly and criminally, with perjury by signing at least four annual federal tax returns swearing that the organization wasn’t used for political and/or business purposes although evidence shows that he lied. Yet DDT thinks he’s above the law, and his new Supreme Court justice may agree with him.

Say No to Medicaid Work Requirements

While the media obsesses about the coarse language of Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), the GOP has found ways to destroy the health and lives of people throughout the United States. Republicans claim that they don’t have enough money for nine million children’s health care in the CHIP program after they gave over $1 trillion to big corporations and the wealthy. A growing number of people are going uninsured after DDT’s work to ruin the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Now they want work requirements and payment for Medicaid, a program created in 1965 to help people with limited income obtain health benefits that includes nursing home care. The only eligibility for participation was the level of income. The last few years of expanded Medicaid in some states has shown remarkable advantages to everyone–$3.4 billion of reduced unpaid bills in its first two years. Healthier people are better able to pay more taxes, and the increased treatment for substance abuse greatly reduced rates of robbery, aggravated assault, and larceny theft.

A major problem for tens of millions of people in the past week is the decision to allow states to impose a work requirement for people on Medicaid, primarily minorities. Seema Verma, the person in charge of this plan, helped design the Indiana Medicaid expansion that required recipients to make monthly payments. The basis for this decision is not to improve health—although that is the claim—but to siphon more money from the poor to the wealthy. Behind this plan are the Koch brothers, the Mercers, the Ricketts, and other multi-billionaire families, already benefiting from millions of dollars after the GOP tax plan.

These decision-makers ignore the fact that at least half of all non-disabled adults with Medicaid already work, and 80 percent of them live in households where at least one adult works. Of those who don’t work, 36 percent are ill or disabled; 30 percent are caregivers; 15 percent are students; and nine percent are retired. Of all the Medicaid recipients, only one-third are non-elderly adults and spend under twenty percent of total costs.

The new guidelines make “suggestions” for these classifications other than the “able-bodied adult” but don’t mandate them. To continue getting health care, these people, many of whom have trouble navigating the system, will be forced to get a doctor’s letter proving that they are within the requirements for exemptions. Doctors are responsible for deciding who lose their insurance in many cases because they must determine who is “medically fragile.” As for pay, those who cannot meet the monthly payments will then lose their coverage.

DDT’s administration announcement about the loss of Medicaid based on lack of “work” was preceded by the Treasury Department’s proposal to reduce federal rules requiring banks to provide mortgage financing in minority neighborhoods. Rules will be expanded to businesses and infrastructure projects that don’t serve the poor.

Ten states have already applied for waivers: Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin. Kentucky was the first to be accepted. Until Kentuckians elected a GOP governor, its Medicaid program was a shining example for the nation, and people loved it. The state’s adult uninsured rate fell from 18.8% in 2013 to 6.8% in 2015. Unfortunately, voters didn’t connect the program with “Obamacare” and rejected the Democrats in the 2014 election, much to their current disappointment. The result is this Medicaid proposal with these mandates:

• Monthly charges from $1 to $15 that increase in the third year, as much as four percent of income;
• Loss of insurance with a six-month hiatus before requesting enrollment following failure to pay for two months unless the person completes a financial or health literacy course;
• Disenrollment for not timely reporting changes to income or employment or making false statements regarding work for six months unless the person completes a health or financial literacy course;
• Requirement of 20 hours weekly of employment activities for most adults;
• Waiver of non-emergency medical transportation for adults;
• Addition of a high deductible health savings account (funded by the state) to existing capitated managed care coverage with an incentive account to purchase extra benefits by specified health-related or employment activities (aka quitting smoking, losing weight, and/or exercising);
•  and/or up to half of any remaining annual deductible funds;
• Mandatory Medicaid premium assistance to purchase cost-effective employer sponsored insurance after the first year of Medicaid enrollment and employment for adults and their Medicaid and CHIP-eligible children;
• Use of federal Medicaid matching funds for short-term Institution for Mental Disease (IMD) services for non-elderly adults in certain counties;
• Removal of a proposed expansion of presumptive eligibility sites to county health departments and certain safety net providers.

If, like me, your eyes have glazed over at the complexity of these mandates, you will understand that the waiver’s goal is to greatly decrease the number of people on Medicaid and manage their personal behavior, not to make their health better. The huge cost of administering such convoluted regulations puts the money into administration instead of helping people with no money for the government to help pay for program administration.

Kentucky expects to save almost $500,000 a year with the new program, but that comes from making 95,000 people uninsured. Those are the people who will get their health care in hospital emergency rooms that will cost the state more than they save. In typical GOP doublespeak, Verma said, “We see moving people off Medicaid as a good outcome because that means they do not need the program anymore and have transitioned to a job or can afford insurance.” In the same way, the Clinton administration said changes to welfare would encourage “needy” people to find work, move out of poverty, and up the economic ladder. None of those advantages happened. TANF assistance dropped, and more people moved into poverty.

Gov. Matt Bevin said that he will drop 400,000 people off Medicaid if he doesn’t get his way to require work for the health insurance plan for the poor. Kentucky is already one of the unhealthiest states in the nation, ranking worst in cancer death rates, the second-highest smoking rate, and seventh highest obesity rate. Eight of the 13 counties in the U.S. with the largest declines in life expectancy are in Kentucky.

People who support the waivers staunchly declaim that only “able-bodied” people will be affected. Yet the exception in the new rules apply only to those who have gone through the rigorous and restrictive process of obtaining Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Their definition of disability:

“The inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity (SGA) by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment(s) which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months.”

Seriously disabled people who fail this stringent definition are considered healthy and able to work, according to Republicans. Left out of the disabled definition are people with cancer, substance abuse, mental health disabilities, and other health issues. Last year, 10,000 people died while they waited for their appeals to be processed. The waivers would stop any Medicaid help for wheelchairs and other medical equipment, caregivers, and—of course—“non-emergency medical transportation.”

White people will benefit from the waivers because states can provide exemptions from work requirements in areas of high unemployment. Thee areas tend to be rural, more likely populated with white people, because they have fewer job opportunities, less reliable transportation, and fewer social services. Black people living in cities will be more burdened in the waivers.

Moms Rising listed more serious problems in a work requirement for Medicaid, a program that composed of 62 percent female and one-third children:

“This misguided policy punishes the most vulnerable members of our society and has the potential to cause millions of people to lose their health coverage just when they need support the most. It will perpetuate poverty and inequality, jeopardize the health of families, disproportionately harm women, undermine our economy, and do little to help anyone find or keep a job.

“[Work requirements] push people to accept low-paying, short-term jobs that provide no long-term stability, and they punish seasonal and hourly workers who may lose health coverage if their hours change suddenly….

“Ultimately, the only outcome of implementing work requirements will be that tens of thousands of low-income people will lose access to health care, making it that much harder for them to find jobs. Not to mention that this is just the first of many anticipated cuts to Medicaid and other essential programs that Republicans in Congress and the White House will put forward to pay for their outrageous tax law….”

As with most DDT dictates, the waivers will face court cases because the goal of the Medicaid program is to encourage work. The argument that “work promotes health” is as twisted as the German statement “Arbeit macht frei” (“work sets you free”) above the entrances to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.

“Small Government” in Kentucky, Alabama

When GOP Matt Bevin ran for Kentucky’s governor, he promised to save the people by doing away from the dreaded “Obamacare” in the state. Republicans elected him, and he kept his promise. Under the former governor, the state’s health care, KYNECT, was a model for the country in its coverage for over 500,000 people.

Here is what happened with the Tea Party’s new state computer system:

• Benefind—Bevin’s new system to replace KYNECT for—has shut people out of their online accounts or entirely eliminated their health coverage with no warning and no explanation.
• Children have been cut off from Medicaid coverage.
• People who visit overcrowded state offices where they are forced to wait hours—sometimes an entire day—to see anyone. Or they are forced to come back the next day after the computers crash.
• The helpline is available only from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, limiting access for people who work those hours.
• The recorded message sends people to a website which has many glitches, is hard to use, and provides no help for people without computers or Internet access.
• People looking for help in public benefits now are forced to wait hours or days as they repeatedly call the helpline that gives them only a recorded message before hanging up.
• People who can’t get coverage are cutting back on their medications and ending up in the hospitals’ emergency rooms multiple times.
• Over 500 workers statewide trained to help people sign up for health coverage cannot access Benefind and thus cannot help people to apply for coverage or fix problems with their coverage.
• People who formerly provided proof of citizenship can no longer get health coverage until they resubmit the documentation.

Bevin’s answer? On YouTube, he says, “I’m aware of and sensitive to your frustrations.”

Republicans who say that big government doesn’t work may be right—when they’re trying to operate it.

[Personal comment: Today I spent over two hours on the telephone with insurance companies and pharmacies on behalf of my partner. One of her medications cannot be generic; therefore she needs prior approval from her insurance company to pay for the brand medication. She has prior approval, but the insurance company will not send her anything in writing to prove it. Even after that, the cost of the medication with differs from $87 to $1500 for a ninety-day supply—with insurance.

I called three pharmacies multiple times to find the prices. All of them started out by stating that they couldn’t do that without the prescription although one of them said on the opening telephone message that it would give the prices of medications for Medicare. The cheapest pharmacy, gave three different prices on three different calls, but refused to give any written verification. It will take faxes for the prescription but won’t send a fax to request the prescription from the pharmacy that holds the prescription. That pharmacy will fax the prescription on but only after it is asked. Another prescription will require a doctor’s visit.

I’m retired—sort of—and have the time to make the calls during the daytime when these places are open. I’m also determined and willing to take on the problems of these calls. After a drastic increase in my blood pressure over the two hours, I can’t imagine the pain that people in Kentucky are now enduring—just because the GOP doesn’t like “big government” and probably people. Then there’s the issue of a different in almost $6,000 for a prescription from a local pharmacy and the “mail-in” part of a huge insurance company. These problems are something that could be changed by single-payer or universal health care, but it might violate our freedom. Big business loves our freedom because it gives them trillions of dollars.]

Did I mention that Republicans hate “big government”? Here’s a fine example of how they legislate it. Mississippi just passed the “Religious Liberty Accommodations Act,” yet to be signed by GOP Gov. Phil Bryant, allowing discrimination against sex by anyone except a male/female couple after marriage. According to the language, an unmarried couple having sex in their personal bedroom is breaking the law if signed by Bryant.

In another Southern state, the big story out of Alabama less than two weeks ago showed GOP Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley governing the state by giving an 80 percent increase in salary to four cabinet members, an extra $73,405 each, after signing a bill banning all cities from raising the minimum wage—the federally mandated $7.25 an hour. These salary increases were the biggest, but dozens of other people—cabinet and staff members—also got sizeable raises.

Last August Bentley defunded Planned Parenthood in the state before a federal judge overturned his move. Taxpayers had to pay for the legal fees. Last December Bentley diverted funding from the 2010 BP oil spill recovery effort to renovate a second Governor’s mansion on the Gulf Coast. In January he took 45,000 people off food stamps if they weren’t supporting minor children. Each of these people had received only $194 a month.

This month, however, things got very bad for Robert Bentley after it was revealed that he is having phone sex—and maybe more—with his top aide, Rebecah Mason, on “burner” phones bought at Best Buy. (To find details, just Google the situation.) Rumors have been swirling about his infidelities for quite a while, but they became much more open after his wife of 50 years filed for divorce. He first denied the accusations, despite the tapes played on the media, and then asked for forgiveness. Just for his infidelity and not for refusing poor women health care, causing people to go hungry, appropriating funds for his own personal use, and trying to block LGBT rights in the name of “family values.” Bentley supporters complain that the emphasis in the country shouldn’t be on sex—no problem as long as conservative laws don’t prioritize sex in their “big government” prohibitions.

Although some lawmakers talk about impeaching Bentley, he says he won’t quit. His former Baptist pastor talked about “church discipline” and said that Bentley is no longer a member of the Tuscaloosa congregation where he was once a deacon. The subject of Bentley’s desire has resigned, wanting to spend more time at home with her family, but her husband, state director of the state faith-based initiative office, remains at his job.

Mason’s company was paid over $328,000 during the past three years, more than his cabinet members before their 80 percent raise. She may have been received much more than this. Although Mason served as Bentley’s top aide, she didn’t have to file financial disclosure forms because she wasn’t designated as a state employee.

Alabama has trouble with politicians: a former governor is in prison for corruption, and the speaker of the State House of Representatives is to stand trial this year on 23 felony charges of ethics violations.

Bentley is using his position to investigate two men for blogging about his alleged affair with political adviser Rebekah Mason. He ordered the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the Law Enforcement Tactical System (LETS) to find incriminating evidence against attorney Donald V. Watkins, and Legal Schnauzer blogger, Roger Shuler. Some people question whether Bentley broke any laws in his love fest, but Watkins claims investigations will find “wire and mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and racketeering violations under federal law, among other charges …[in circumventing] public oversight, transparency and competitive bid laws by channeling millions of public dollars into entities like the Workforce Councils of Alabama and others legitimate agencies and then directing the recipient agency to execute vendor contracts with certain special friends and supporters.”

The U.S. House Freedom Caucus, each making an annual salary of $174,000, is working toward “small government”by not going to work. Despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’s claim that the entire last year of the presidential term is a “lame-duck session,” the HFC understands that this time is only the approximately 75 days between the general election and the new president’s inauguration. Members hope to not go into session for this time, causing only 17 days in session after July 15 and  zero days after September 30. They have to wait until April 12 to do this because they aren’t in session.

Conservative House members have already killed the budget and the appropriations process for the year, and the government can’t operate after September 30 without a continuing resolution to maintain last year’s spending levels. HFC board member Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) described the lame-duck session as “a bunch of people who have already either quit, retired or been fired by their constituents decide they still want to vote on major stuff.” He admitted that quitting work that early this year wouldn’t look good for the legislators. He also said, “When you’re one of the people who tends to think most of what we do here is screwed up in the first place, then the less we do, maybe the better.”

That’s life in the world of conservatives who want “small government.”