Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

This really is a full service blog.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

T R E 4 5 O N

In my day, never was longer.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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Late Night Open Thread: Hard Out Here for Mar-A-Lago’s Premier Stenographer

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Late Night Open Thread: Hard Out Here for Mar-A-Lago's Premier Stenographer

Haberman knows her behavior is, at best, unethical… but who’s gonna pay her the big advance dollars if she gives up her hard-earned insider info for a reporter’s salary?

… For much of the past decade, reporting on Trump has been my full-time job as a correspondent for The New York Times. To fully reckon with Donald Trump, his presidency, and his political future, people need to know where he comes from. The New York from which Trump emerged was its own morass of corruption and dysfunction, stretching from seats of executive power to portions of the media to the real-estate industry in which his family found its wealth. The world of New York developers was filled with shady figures and rife with backbiting and financial knife fighting; engaging with them was often the cost of doing business. But Trump nevertheless stood out to the journalists covering him as particularly brazen…

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Repubs in Disarray Open Thread: Bill Barr & the GOP’s ‘One Bad Apple’ Excuse

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The serious grown-ups of the Permanent Republican Party have decided that TFG is now a liability for them. Bill Barr, Esq, takes leadership in the talk-show brigading, hoping to convince enough voters for his team to thimble-rig another electoral cycle with the argument that Trump was a singular, uniquely horrible exception to True GOP Decency — a human cancer that can be cut away cleanly without impugning the rest of the GOP body.

Barr has the experience. He has the gravitas. He has the amoral lack of conscience required to make this argument. But those useful traits have been seriously devalued since TFG rode down the golden escalator…

Author Donald Ayer “served as United States attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and as deputy attorney general under George H. W. Bush.” As I said, the Permanent GOP is *not* happy with TFG’s semi-ex-spokesmen:

… Barr’s recent trashing of Trump in a manner likely to greatly impair his presidential prospects makes perfect sense when one understands the driving convictions and objectives that have guided him throughout his adult life.

Remember that Barr sought out the opportunity to serve as Trump’s attorney general by submitting a memorandum in June 2018, expanding upon his long-held, breathtaking vision that the Founders created an all-powerful president immune from virtually any limitation on his powers. Those views had occupied Barr’s mind since the 1980s. In the memo, Barr applied that vision to Trump’s then-current obsession, arguing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was a wholly illegitimate intrusion on those powers…

The nature of those changes, and Barr’s determination to pursue them, were carefully spelled out in a major speech delivered to the Federalist Society on November 15, 2019, in which Barr argued that, contrary to “the grammar-school civics-class version” of the Founders’ government as one of checks and balances, the founding generation actually meant for the president to wield essentially unchecked authority.

Barr’s aggressiveness in defending Trump against those who would second-guess his actions is best known in connection with the lies he told about the Mueller report, while keeping the report itself under wraps so people could not see how inaccurate his statements were. His interventions in ongoing cases—including the criminal cases against Roger Stone and Michael Flynn—to substitute outcomes that were politically desirable for the president for those arrived at in routine course based on the facts and the law also drew widespread objections…

During 2020, Barr misused his official authority in many ways calculated to help Trump secure reelection. He sent law-enforcement officers to cities around the country to “suppress violent rioters and anarchists” who he said had “hijacked legitimate protests”—thus echoing Trump’s own calls for a crackdown. He oversaw the law-enforcement action to deny the right of peaceful protest in Lafayette Square so Trump could have a photo op at St. John’s Church. His department unsuccessfully attempted to enjoin the publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, which disclosed facts embarrassing to the president…

For all of Barr’s abuses of authority in an effort to keep Trump in office, it became clear to Barr by early December 2020, when zero evidence of serious fraud could be found, that Trump had run out his string. So Barr resigned. Since then, Trump has made things infinitely worse for himself, by engaging in a conspiracy to overturn the election by deception and violence, which culminated in the events of January 6, 2021. Were that not enough, the saga of the Mar-a-Lago documents reveals beyond doubt that Trump illegally retained, and apparently actively resisted returning, a very large number of highly classified documents, with who knows what grave consequences for national security.

As a result of these events, Barr has realized that Trump, far from being the indispensable person for the realization of his vision of an autocratic president, has become perhaps the greatest obstacle to its achievement. In a party where Barr’s bizarre ideal of an unfettered president holds tremendous sway, Trump can’t win in the general election, and if nominated he would likely take the banner of autocracy down with him. Barr feels the need to remove Trump from serious consideration so that another standard-bearer for that cause can pick up where Trump left off. Who knows? Perhaps Barr can come back for a third turn as attorney general to finish the job.

America is a republic, not a democracy monarchy! One is not supposed to discuss singular autocracy in front of the rubes voters — leave that to the quiet rooms where properly educated men of good background can discuss it amongst themselves, dammit!

Well, Grima Wormtongue is always a favorite in what passes for the popular media…

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Friday Evening Softballs Open Thread: Point! Mock!

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Win the morning!

… “Here’s how you can spread the word and help make this a huge success,” the memo read, before suggesting that employees post a photo of the book on social media with the hashtag #axiossmartbrevity, write (presumably positive) reviews of the book on Amazon and Goodreads, and buy six copies, each, of the book. The memo stressed that employees could expense the cost of those six copies to the company itself. With around 500 employees, and books at $24.30 a piece, this puts the company on the hook for about $72,500 if every employee decides to follow the memo’s instructions…

Sweaty attempts to juice book sales and get on bestseller lists are nothing new in publishing… Politics writers-cum-media barons attempting to astroturf support for their book by turning their own workers into an army of lightly coerced marketers, however, is a neat twist on the theme. Axios said in its post launching the book that all proceeds from sales will go to the Axios fellowship program. Of course, writing a bestseller doesn’t just mean making more money in sales; it also affords authors more opportunities, prestige, and influence. It’s clear that the better the Axios book sells, the better things are for the people who wrote it. Less clear is what exactly Axios employees have to gain from the book doing well.

In response to Defector’s questions about the employee-centered marketing push and the amount of money the company set aside to buy copies of books for itself, Axios spokesperson Yolanda Brignoni said the book was a “team effort” and emphasized the fellowship program for journalists from underrepresented groups. “We, of course, wanted the team to have books for themselves and family,” she added. Defector followed up to ask how the company decided on six (6) books per employee, and if the amount of money the company set aside to buy these books was greater than what it expected to earn from book sales (and then put towards the fellowship program). Brignoni said: “We are extremely invested in equipping this next generation of journalists with the skills and expertise to take their careers to the next level. So, we hope to sell a lot of books this week and moving forward.”…

Defector also excerpts some reviews of Smart Brevity, which are — like Defector — not kind!

Meanwhile: At a rally far, far (not far enough) away: Wrestlemania!

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Oh Dearie!

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This Dearie fella isn’t working out so well for Team Shitgibbon:


Trump opened his big fat yap on the Hannity show last night and again suggested the FBI planted docs during the search of his tacky Florida dump. Sounds like Judge Dearie was unamused.

Trump also said presidents can telepathically declassify documents. Seriously — all they have to do is think it, and the documents are declassified, according to Trump.

That suggests Biden could telepathically reclassify them too. Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

When the DOJ accepted Trump pick Dearie in the “special master” matter, some legal analysts said have no fear, Dearie is a nonpartisan straight shooter. I was skeptical because a lot of establishment types said the same of Barr, who turned out to be worse than the bullet-headed hot tub salesman.

But so far, it looks like they were right about Dearie. The Trump lawyer who recommended him must be covered in tantrum ketchup.

Open thread.

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Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: “11th Circuit” Trending on Twitter…

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Donnie’s Doll Hands Caught In Cookie Jar

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Letitia James, the Attorney General this country needs, has nailed fuckboy’s finances to the wall for everyone to see, and it ain’t pretty\:

For 20 years, Donald Trump and his family enriched themselves through “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations,” New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges in a new lawsuit that accuses the Trumps of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.

The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.

“We found that Mr, Trump, his children, and the corporation used more than 200 false asset valuations over a ten year period,” James said at a press conference announcing the charges.

I’m sure inflating assets is par for the norm, but you know this fucking douchebag did whatever the norm is times one hundred and was careless in the way he did it.

Truth Social is going to be a hoot today, I bet.

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Repub Trumpery Open Thread: The Mills of the DoJ, Grinding

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The Justice Department has issued about 40 subpoenas over the past week seeking information about the actions of former President Donald J. Trump and his associates related to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to people familiar with the situation.

Two top Trump advisers, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman, had their phones seized as evidence, those people said.

The department’s actions represent a substantial escalation of a slow-simmer investigation two months before the midterm elections, coinciding with a separate inquiry into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive documents at his residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.

Among those the department has contacted since Wednesday are people who are close to the former president and have played significant roles in his post-White House life.

Those receiving the subpoenas included Dan Scavino, Mr. Trump’s former social media director who rose from working at a Trump-owned golf course to one of his most loyal aides and has remained an adviser since Mr. Trump left office. Stanley Woodward, one of Mr. Scavino’s lawyers, declined to comment…

Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who promoted baseless claims of voter fraud alongside his friend Rudolph W. Giuliani, was issued a subpoena by prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, his lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said on Monday. Mr. Parlatore said his client had initially offered to grant an interview voluntarily.

The subpoenas seek information in connection with the plan to submit slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump from swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 election. Mr. Trump and his allies promoted the idea that competing slates of electors would justify blocking or delaying certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a new line of inquiry, some of the subpoenas also seek information into the activities of the Save America political action committee, the main political fund-raising conduit for Mr. Trump since he left office.

For months, associates of Mr. Trump have received subpoenas related to other aspects of the investigations into his efforts to cling to power. But the fact that the Justice Department is now seeking information related to fund-raising comes as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has raised questions about money Mr. Trump solicited under the premise of fighting election fraud…

Elsewhere, Tiger Beat on the Potomac is *very* disappointed that there haven’t been more THEATRICS!!! recently…

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