Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

This really is a full service blog.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

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

White supremacy is terrorism.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The National Guard is not Batman.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

People are weird.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

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Threat or a Promise? Open Thread

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My first thought on seeing this is to wonder if this is a low-key offer of availability in case The Squeaker is starting to look more appealing to anyone now that he’s out.

Okay, so I wrote that before clicking the Politico article:

At the same time, some Republicans are reviving his name as a speaker candidate, even as it remains unclear whether he’d accept it.

They argue no one else could get the 218 Republican votes needed to be speaker, they argue, as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise enter next week’s race as frontrunners that still might not be able to get over the top.

The “only workable outcome is to restore Kevin McCarthy as Speaker under party rules that respect and enforce the right of the majority party to elect him,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said in a statement on Thursday. “This depends entirely on several of the dissidents to disenthrall themselves from their decision and to repair the damage before it is too late. I appeal to them to act while there is still time.”

McCarthy is still expected to be active in GOP matters, whether he’s in the House or out.

“I’ll do anything I can to help almost all of you. Don’t worry, I’ve raised a helluva lot of money in the last hour,” he told his members during the Tuesday closed-door conference meeting, when he made clear he would not seek the gavel again.

Update at 5:20 pm

UPDATE 5PM ET Friday:

Kevin McCarthy has denied the original Politico story and says he will be staying in Congress.

McCarthy told news outlets Friday afternoon that he plans to run for re-election and will make announcements about his political future himself.

⭐️

Here are Judge Chutkan’s rulings on Trump multiple motions for extentions of time:

1. Motion to get redacted copy of govt’s ex parte motion to provide defense with redacted version of some classified discovery: DENIED.

2. Motion for opp to raise procedural objections before she rules on that ex parte motion: GRANTED, but on short deadline. Trump must file by 10/11.

3. Motion to postpone next CIPA deadline–notice of classified docs defense wants to use. DENIED.

4. Motion to extend deadline to file pretrial motions to dismiss by 60-days. DENIED, but she’ll allow 14 day extension.

That first ruling described above may have been confusing. Govt typically files ex parte motion (defense doesn’t see it) to provide redacted discovery of certain sensitive classified docs to defense. Trump wants to see redacted copy of govt’s ex parte motion. Judge denied that.

Long story short on Chutkan’s rulings on motions for extension: She granted two short extensions and denied two big, unusual asks that would have caused major delays.

⭐️

What else is going on in the news today?

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Happy Birthday Momo! + Garden Update

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According to her paperwork, it’s Momo’s birthday! Twelve months, the big one-nothing! So let’s all wish a happy birthday to this squeaky little cuddle monster, vicious huntress of moths, and all-around great addition to the household! 🥳🎉🎊

She and Samwise are mostly getting along now, after eight months. We got two Feliway Multicat diffusers, which seems to have helped, unless that was a coincidence. I’d been wary of it, because it sounded too much like expensive nonsense, but I looked it up and they actually did a real study of Multicat and found that it usually works. Whatever the reason, I’ll take it–Samwise is very tolerant now, occasionally even friendly.

As you can see, Momo still hasn’t quite figured out how to carry herself with dignity.

Bonus Samwise below the fold, and some bonus garden pictures.

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Grifter On Trial Update: SBF, Hapless Smol Bean

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After reading her newsletter today, I subscribed to Molly White’s substack. (Even though I can’t keep up with reading all the subscriptions I already have… )

According to Sam Bankman-Fried’s defense attorneys, he was just following the move fast and break things mantra that has led the technology industry for decades. “Sam and his colleagues were building the plane as they were flying it,” explained lead defense lawyer Mark Cohen. He was “a math nerd who didn’t drink or party”, Cohen went on, apparently hoping the jurors believe teetotalers to be inherently incapable of crime.

Sure, maybe Bankman-Fried hadn’t hired a Chief Risk Officer — a piece of information Cohen bafflingly decided to offer up himself — but hey, it was a new company! Well okay, maybe not that new (Alameda Research was five years old when the companies collapsed). Oh, and Caroline Ellison had refused to hedge trades over at Alameda Research, he said, previewing the argument that everything was her fault, not Bankman-Fried’s. “Sam didn’t steal from anyone,” said Cohen. “There was no theft.”

I’m not sure if “well, sure, they built their empire out of gasoline-drenched toothpicks and duct tape and then were shocked when $8 billion went up in flames, but he didn’t really mean to light fire to everyone’s money”, is a case-winning strategy to put in front of a jury, but hey, I’m not the superstar defense attorney here.

The government’s story goes a little differently. “All of it was built on lies,” declared Assistant U.S. Attorney Thane Rehn. FTX told customers their money was safe, even paying American celebrities to repeat the claim in multi-billion dollar television advertisements.

Instead, customer money went into one big piggybank, shared between FTX and all the other companies under his control, from which Bankman-Fried pulled fistfuls to spend on venture investments to political and charitable donations to sports sponsorship deals to luxury Bahamian real estate…

The big question on everyone’s mind is: will Bankman-Fried testify? I doubt his lawyers want him to, as he is both abrasive and evasive even on his best days. He likes to try to talk circles around interviewers — a tactic that may pay off with friendly tech journos or the crypto crowd, but is less likely to work for sworn testimony in front of an experienced cross-examiner.

Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, has shown nothing but conviction that he can talk his way out of this, if he just gets the chance. He spent weeks after the collapse talking to anyone who would listen, from journalists like Andrew Ross Sorkin to random people on Twitter like me [I13]. That’s been muted lately, but more likely due to the gag order [I35] and subsequent return to jail [I36] rather than any change of heart on his part. Meanwhile, the judge has told him that he has the right to testify, even if his lawyers don’t want him to. That temptation may ultimately prove too strong for Bankman-Fried.

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Scammers & ‘Slingers (Open Thread)

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TPM reports that the mystery of where Repub Rep. George Santos got all that money to donate to his own campaign has been solved. Santos never had the money. He lied about a $0.5M personal donation to scam the National Republican Congressional Committee into funding his campaign:

According to his campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission, Santos helped power his House bid with personal loans of more than $500,000. Santos’ financial disclosures suggested the sum came as he enjoyed a massive surge in income with a seven-figure salary and more than one million in the bank. It was never quite clear how Santos went from making $55,000 to having a vast personal fortune in the span of a matter of months.

But on Thursday, as Nancy Marks, Santos’ campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge related to her work on his team, we got an answer. Federal prosecutors said Santos’ fortune never existed at all.

The criminal information filed by prosecutors on Thursday accused Marks of working with Santos on a “scheme” to qualify for “financial and logistical support” from a program run by an unnamed party committee (the NRCC) by inflating the amount of money his campaign had taken in. The court filing alleged that Santos’ supposed loans were crucial to furthering the plan. And not only did he not make a $500,000 loan which he claimed to, but he “did not have the funds necessary to make such loans at the time,” the filing said…

Santos and Marks allegedly conducted much of the scheme over text and email, messaging each other the names and amounts that relatives would be marked as contributing, with Santos complaining at one point to Marks that he was “lost and desperate.” His anxiety apparently turned to relief once he was accepted for the program.

“I GOT [THE PROGRAM]!” he purportedly texted Marks on Feb. 23, 2022.

Good lord, that’s comedy gold! The only reason the possibility that Santos was lying about the money never occurred to me was that I assumed campaign contribution deposits would be verified by…someone. Apparently the whole thing is as regulated as a fictional Nigerian prince’s email fundraising campaign.

Anyhoo, the kicker is that even though they now know Santos blatantly ripped them off, House Repubs almost certainly won’t expel him. They can’t even govern with the narrow majority they have.

***

Here’s a screenshot for the “wonders never cease” file — the current online cover of Politico Magazine:

The Santos Scam

Why yes, Yes, it is. (Also, welcome to 1995.) Some of the featured takes are worth a look, but I think my favorite is from Norm Ornstein, who traces the roots of the party’s modern-day dysfunction back to Newt Gingrich and then provides a fitting epilogue for his gunslinging successors:

But the current chaos was triggered, ironically, by the self-proclaimed “Young Guns” — Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy — when they went around the country in 2009 recruiting tea party radicals, exploiting their anger after the financial collapse and the backlash against Barack Obama, promising to blow up the establishment in Washington with the hopes that they could use that anger to catapult themselves into the majority. Their expectation was that once these tea party radicals were in the House, they could co-opt them. Instead, of course, they were co-opted. John Boehner was the first victim of the Young Guns, but now all three of the Guns have been shot down by their own gang.

Bang-bang!

Open thread.

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Angel Match #3 for our 2 Virginia Delegates!

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We are trying to get each of these two candidates $10,000 to help in their fight to win these seats in Virginia.

Our first Balloon Juice Angel match for Virginia helped get us to $5,000!   The second one helped get us to $8,200!  Hoping this Angel Match can get us closer to $15,000.

On Wisconsin!

Patrick is our Balloon Juice Angel today – let’s see what we can get to with this one.  Big thanks to Patrick and all of our angels, and to everyone who is able to donate!

Patrick will match up to $25 per person, for a total of $500.

Let’s get this Angel Match started!  As we kick off the match, the thermometer is at $8,776.

The two Virginia candidates we are supporting are:

  •  Michael Feggans
  • Kimberly Pope Adams

Why these two in particular?

The seats they are running for are held by two rabid anti-choice women.  The two white Republicans who hold these seats replaced black delegates who had held the seats previously.  Let’s take them back! One of the incumbents ran one of the “fake clinic” that are so despicable, and the other has been involved in the fake clinic scams.

There are other pro-choice candidates for delegates, but these two really need the funds, and many of the other candidates who are in toss-up elections have plenty of cash – and if they don’t win, it won’t be because of money.

There are 4 more folks that we have our eye on, and Q3 fundraising figures should be available very soon, at which point we will reassess which candidates can most use our help.

Open thread.

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TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Dems in Array!

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Squishable Morning Thread: Unspeakerable!

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This happened overnight:

(CNN) On a day of drama that recalled the pandemonium inside the Trump White House, the ex-president’s camp floated rumors of his potential first visit to the US Capitol since his mob ransacked it on January 6, 2021. Then Trump teased the possibility that he could even step in as speaker himself on an interim basis.

But the ex-president’s biggest bombshell was still to come – shortly after midnight, he endorsed Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan for the job.

“He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network in a post that spent more time lauding Jordan’s prowess as a student wrestler than his political career.

Jordan as speaker would be embarrassing for America and damaging to our allies, especially Ukraine since Jordan is a Putinist. But in crass political terms, a Jordan speakership might be good for Democrats because Jordan is a histrionic moron — a lumbering, shouting, jacketless illustration of the “extreme MAGA Republicans” the president has been campaigning against for the past two years.

If the House GOP obeys Trump and elevates Jordan, perhaps even normies will begin to understand that one of our two viable political parties is a cult. Do you think this endorsement will put Jordan over the top?

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