Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Books are my comfort food!

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

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War for Ukraine Day 733: The Ukrainians Continue to Fall Back

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Have I mentioned that there are only four more shopping days until the federal government begins to shut down to the dysfunction and extremism of the House GOP majority caucus?

The Ukrainians are continuing to fall back to secondary positions as a result of the ammunition and material famine thay are in because the US has stopped resupplying them.

And the US has stopped resupplying them because the Republican majority that took over the House in January 2023 does not want to resupply them.

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, despite his statements of support for Ukraine to the contrary, is prepared to sacrifice them on the bonfire of his political ambitions:

From The New York Times:

Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell haven’t said a word to each other since December 2020.

But people close to both men are working behind the scenes to make bygones of the enmity between them and to pave the way for a critical endorsement of the former president by the one Republican congressional leader who has yet to offer one, according to three people familiar with both teams’ perspectives who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly.

Assuming it happens, Mr. McConnell’s endorsement of Mr. Trump would have enormous symbolic value to the former president, giving him the embrace of the last holdout of Republican power whose rejection of him represents the final patch of unconquered territory in Mr. Trump’s march to the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

The support of Mr. McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and the chamber’s minority leader, would also carry huge value in signaling to an entire class of donors and Trump-resistant Republican elites that it’s acceptable to get behind the party’s expected nominee — no matter their misgivings. This is no small thing, given that Mr. Trump has been forced to spend more than $50 million already on legal bills, and the groups supporting him are expected to be vastly outspent by President Biden’s operation.

The secretive conversations between the Trump and McConnell camps have been happening between key advisers to both men who have known and worked with each other for more than 20 years: Chris LaCivita, a top campaign adviser to Mr. Trump, and Josh Holmes, a confidant and longtime political strategist for Mr. McConnell.

Since around the time of the Iowa caucuses last month, Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Holmes started making more of a concerted effort to trade information — particularly about Mr. Trump’s Senate endorsements — and to create an opening for a more productive working relationship.

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell were made aware of this back channel between the two camps. By late January, Mr. Trump had told people close to him that he expected Mr. McConnell would endorse him.

You may ask yourself why, at this point, McConnell would do this. The answer is simple: Sonya Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas. Associate Justice Sotomayor is not in the best of health and Associate Justice Thomas is the oldest justice currently on the court. McConnell would like to be able to place at least one if not two more young, Federalist Society reactionaries on the Supreme Court. If the price to replace both the oldest Justice, who is a Republican appointee and one of the three remaining Democratic ones, with two young Federalist Society reactionaries that will lock the court even further into its current composition for another forty years, then that’s a price he’s happy to pay.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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New Jack Smith Filing in the MAL Documents Case (A Thing of Beauty)

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DC Indictment News

GOVERNMENT’S SURREPLY IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY

This is the MAL case in Florida, with Judge Loose Cannon, but I am pleased to have this all on the record, in such clear and concise terms.

What the filing is about.

As set forth below and in the Government’s forthcoming opposition to defendant Donald J. Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment based on selective and vindictive prosecution, the defendants’ request for discovery should be denied.

The fun part!  I’ll bet it felt good to get this out.  (bolding is mine)

None of the purported comparators the defendants identify is similarly situated. There have been many government officials who have possessed classified documents after the ends of their terms in office—often inadvertently, sometimes negligently, and very occasionally willfully.

There have also been a very small number of cases in which former government officials who havebeen found in possession of classified documents have briefly resisted the government’s lawful efforts to recover them.

But there has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct remotely similar to Trump’s. He intentionally took possession of a vast trove of some of the nation’s most sensitive documents—documents so sensitive that they were presented to the President—and stored them in unsecured locations at his heavily trafficked social club.

When the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) initially sought their return (before learning that they contained classified national defense information), Trump delayed, obfuscated, and dissembled.

Faced with the possibility of legal action, he ostensibly agreed to comply with NARA’s requests but in fact engaged in additional deception, returning only a fraction of the documents in his possession while claiming that his production was complete.

Then, when presented with a grand jury subpoena demanding the return of the remaining documents bearing classification markings, Trump attempted to enlist his own attorney in the corrupt endeavor, suggesting that he falsely tell the FBI and grand jury that Trump did not have any documents, and suggesting that his attorney hide or destroy documents rather than produce them to the government.

Failing in his effort to corrupt the attorney, Trump enlisted his trusted body man, codefendant Waltine Nauta, in a scheme to deceive the attorney by moving boxes to conceal his (Trump’s) continued possession of classified documents. As a result, Trump, through his attorney, again returned only a portion of the classified documents in his possession while falsely claiming that his production was complete.

The obstructive conduct even persisted from there. In June 2022, knowing that he had arranged for Nauta to move boxes to conceal them from Trump’s attorney, and knowing that the government had subpoenaed the security video footage that would reveal that surreptitious box movement, Trump, now joined by not only Nauta but also codefendant Carlos De Oliveira, attempted to have the information-technology manager at Mar-a- Lago delete the video footage that would show the movement of boxes.

The defendants have not identified anyone who has engaged in a remotely similar suite of willful and deceitful criminal conduct and not been prosecuted. Nor could they.

It goes on from there, but that’s the money quote – full filing  (PDF)

New Jack Smith Filing in the MAL Documents Case (A Thing of Beauty)Post + Comments (230)

Repub Venality Open Thread: “Dim, or Disloyal?” — Why Not Both?

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family is set to appear in a California federal court on Monday as a judge considers whether he must remain behind bars while he awaits trial.

Special counsel David Weiss’ office is pressing U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Alexander Smirnov in jail, arguing the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country.

A different judge last week released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be re-arrested after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention. Wright said in a written order that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him was “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”…

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said. Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.

While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Republicans pursuing investigations of the Bidens demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.

 
Repubs insist being hoist on their own petard has greatly improved their viewing angle!…

Another banger from Jen Rubin, at the Washington Post — “Dim or disloyal? Republicans again ensnared in possible Russian plot”: [gift link]

Are Republicans easy marks or willing participants in Russian anti-Biden operations? That’s a troubling question raised by the Feb. 14 grand jury indictment of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, on charges of concocting a tale about President Biden’s supposed involvement in his family members’ business dealings.

Allegations by Smirnov — who appears to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the federal indictment — have formed the backbone of the House Republicans’ laughable attempt to build an impeachment case against the president. They championed him as their star witness. Now the Republicans’ fact-deficient storyline has been shredded.

The Post reported that Smirnov, who has not entered a plea yet, is accused of “making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record” by trying to implicate Biden in corruption related to his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukraine energy company Burisma. “The charges,” the article said, “amount to a stark rebuke of conservatives, particularly Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, who touted Smirnov’s claims as he and other Republican lawmakers tried to build a corruption case against the president and his family.”

Even more damning, The Post subsequently reported that “Smirnov’s indictment and detention memo suggest the allegations were not only false, but possibly a Russian-inspired smear.”…

Now Republicans are pretending that Smirnov wasn’t so important after all. They’re vowing to plow ahead on this cock-and-bull mission that never got off the ground. Not only did multiple witnesses testify that Biden had no involvement with his son’s business dealings, but previous allegations that Biden acted on his son’s behalf had also already been thoroughly repudiated.

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It’s Hard to Convince People that You’re Killing Them for Their Own Good

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I was going through a box of papers this afternoon, and I was ruthless – maybe too ruthless – in throwing away papers that they say you should keep.

But I found one gem that was bittersweet.

A bumper sticker, in the words of Molly Ivins: “It’s hard to convince people that you’re killing them for their own good.”

It was true back when she said it all those years ago, and I wonder if it’s ever been more true than it is today.

Open thread.

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President Biden and the Orange Guy on the Issues: Higher Education

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President Biden and the Orange Guy on the Issues: Higher Education!
The University of Virginia campus is seen on October 12, 2022 in Charlottesville, Virginia. – Seven university students were dead and at least one gunman was on the run November 14, 2022 following weekend violence that struck two US campuses in the states of Idaho and Virginia, authorities said. (Photo by Daxia ROJAS / AFP) (Photo by DAXIA ROJAS/AFP via Getty Images)

Bharat Ramamurti has launched a recurring feature that is right up my alley – Trump v. Biden, but not as a cage match or a horse race.  You know, actual policies!

This week, higher education!

Federal Pell Grants help address the cost of attending college. The typical student receiving a Pell Grant comes from a family making under $30,000 a year.

Pell Grants used to cover ~80% of public college costs. Over time, it dropped to only ~25%. 2/

As President, Trump repeatedly tried to slash funding from the Pell Grant program.

That included a proposal to take $1.9 billion in Pell Grant funding and send it to NASA to fund trips to the moon (seriously). 3/

While Trump tried to cut Pell Grant funding, Biden wanted to double the size of the Pell Grant over time so that it would go back to covering most of the cost of college. 4/

Biden has been able to secure multiple Pell Grant increases in the last few years, totaling about a 15% increase in their value. Progress towards his goal of doubling these Grants by 2029. 5/

What about student debt relief?

Let’s start with Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF): a program created in 2007 to give debt relief to borrowers who spend ten years in the military, as a teacher, as a police officer, or in other forms of public service. 6/

Trump repeatedly proposed eliminating Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 7/

While Trump failed to kill Public Service Loan Forgiveness by law, his administration effectively killed it in practice — denying relief to 99% of public service applicants on their watch. 8/

Biden vowed to fix Public Service Loan Forgiveness — and did. His Administration has now provided more than $50 billion in relief to 800,000 members of the military and other public servants. 9/

Another important debt relief program is income-based repayment (IBR), which has been around for decades.

IBR caps monthly payments at a percentage of a borrower’s income, and forgives the loan balance after the borrower makes 20 years of payments. 10/

Just like with Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the Trump Administration failed to fix problems with income-based repayment plans, resulting in borrowers not getting the relief they deserved even after making all their payments. 11/

Biden directed his administration to fix the IBR program so people could get the relief they had earned. Thanks to those efforts, nearly a million borrowers have gotten almost $50 billion in relief. 12/

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-nearly-5-billion-additional-student-debt-relief
In addition, Biden created a new income-based repayment plan that’s much more generous. Many people will see their monthly payment cut in half. Others will see it cut all the way to $0. 13/

One other important note about Biden’s track record on student debt relief. Working with Congress, he changed the law so that student debt relief would be tax free. No one getting relief now faces a big one-time tax payment. 14/

Biden tried to provide debt relief of at least $10,000 to 40 million borrowers. Six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court – including three appointed by Trump — blocked that plan. Now Biden is pursuing other legal avenues to broad-based relief. 15/

So what would a second term look like for Biden and Trump on higher education?

Republicans want to kill Biden’s new generous income-based repayment plan. With Trump’s support, millions of borrowers could see their monthly payments jump. 16/

Trump is also likely to take another run at eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, denying benefits to members of the military, teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public servants. 17/

Biden has made clear in his budgets that he wants to continue to expand Pell Grants so they double by 2029. A second Biden term would likely mean more progress towards that goal. 18/

https://www.ncan.org/news/600417/President-Biden-Pushes-for-Another-Historic-Pell-Grant-Increase-in-New-Budget-Proposal.htm
And a second Biden term would mean more progress towards getting public servants and middle-class borrowers the relief they are entitled to under existing debt relief programs. 19/
Those are the differences between Biden and Trump on higher education. Another area with stark contrasts between the two leading candidates.

If you want to see the many links in the twitter thread, check out the ThreadReader version.

Next week on Biden v. Trump on the issues: Manufacturing and America’s industrial base.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Never A Slow News Week

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In case you’re wondering about the shrieking noises from the FreeDumb Carcass and the Wingnut Wurlitzer… Per the Associated Press, “Biden is summoning congressional leaders to the White House to talk Ukraine and government funding”:

… The top four leaders include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

During the meeting, the president will discuss the “urgency” of passing the aid package, which has bipartisan support, as well as legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of September, said the White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet publicly confirmed.

The Republican-led House is under pressure to pass the $95 billion national security package that bolsters aid for Ukraine, Israel as well as the Indo-Pacific. That legislation cleared the Senate on a 70-29 vote earlier this month, but Johnson has been resistant to putting up the aid bill for a vote in the House …

Separate from the national security package, the first tranche of government funding is due to expire Friday. The rest of the federal government, including agencies such as the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires on March 8.

In a letter to his colleagues sent Sunday, Schumer said there was not yet an agreement to avoid a partial shutdown of the agencies whose funding expires this week. That includes the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.

“While we had hoped to have legislation ready this weekend that would give ample time for members to review the text, it is clear now that House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out,” Schumer wrote in the letter. The Senate majority leader called on Johnson to “step up to once again buck the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing” by greenlighting funding to keep the government open…

… Speaker Johnson is just coming back from meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, followed by a “leadership conference” in Miami, which some of his Members grumbled to reporters that he turned into an evangelical revival rather than political strategy session. With a Senate border bill killed at Trump’s insistence, a foreign aid package ignored, and appropriations bills languishing, Johnson has left himself just three days before the government will shutdown when they return unless there is another Continuing Resolution.

Johnson is already playing games trying to blame Chuck Schumer and Democrats for his inaction, intransigence and inability to get anything done as a leader…

But McHenry, one of the most respected Republicans in the House, told CNN’s Manu Raju that he isn’t buying the nonsense that Mike Johnson is selling:

“We need to get in the mode of getting things done, not punting things and putting off into the future. It’s time to get on with the deal rather than dither.” Raju then asked McHenry if Johnson has been too indecisive. McHenry said, “We need the Speaker to be better.” He then criticized Johnson for killing the border deal…

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On The Road – Albatrossity – The Bighorns – 1

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We’re traveling all over this week; it should be fun!

If you’ve been thinking of submitting some pictures, now would be a great time to do it.  We’re filled up next week, but wide open after that, so this is your chance to have your stuff show up within a week or two.

(click on the schedule below for a bigger, non-blurry version)

On The Road - Albatrossity - The Bighorns - 1 10

Albatrossity

Today’s excursion started back in 2007, with a trip to the Bighorn Medicine Wheel on Medicine Mountain in Wyoming. Elizabeth was researching an essay for her next book, and I was, per usual, along for the ride. We wanted to see the summer solstice sunrise at the site of the Medicine Wheel, so we headed up there in June 2007. Her essay about this experience, entitled “Geochronicity”, appears in Horizon’s Lens: My Time on the Turning World; a shorter version of that essay was also published in Orion in 2008, and is available online. If you want some background about the site and its history, I’d suggest reading the essay before proceeding. Her words illuminate and magnify the experience far better than mine, but I can at least offer some photographs and my own perspective.

Exactly 8 years later we found ourselves in the Bighorns again, enroute to a literary conference in Moscow, Idaho. So this will be a two part experience; today’s and next week’s posts about the 2007 trip, and then several posts about the second visit, as part of a longer road trip travelogue. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed going back through the images, processing them with more modern software tools, and re-living those experiences anew.

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On The Road - Albatrossity - The Bighorns - 1 9
Bighorn Medicine Wheel, WyomingJune 20, 2007

As noted in Elizabeth’s essay, we explored the site (accessible via a 1.5 mi trail from a parking area to the 10,000 ft summit), and then camped nearby. It was a lovely streamside campsite, with lots of wildflowers; at this altitude, late June was basically springtime. Thus these first two posts will have lots of flower images and only a few birds. But one of the birds was this Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), the iconic raptor of the West, soaring over the Medicine Wheel when we arrived there. This bird would have been very familiar to the folks who constructed this ceremonial site on the mountaintop. Click here for larger image.