In Trump’s White House, who exactly was in on the con?
The movement and business conservatives around him seemingly got what they wanted: cemented control over the federal judiciary, the Supreme Court for a generation, while scoring tax cuts and lax regulation in the short-term.
Corrupt as all fvck! They all need a front-row seat at the January 6 Committee to answer yes/no questions about what awful fvcks they are. That and a free investigation. Who knows what the investigations will turn up. And enough probable cause everywhere. Lots of people have made enemies that will help out.
With Hutchinson’s and Cipollone’s testimony, as well as the Secret Service admitting that they’re rotten to the core and gleefully will sacrifice democracy for a mob boss ---- well, I think the January 6 Committee will get another season. (But that’s no reason for J6C not to work like they’re trying to “beat the clock.”)
People who are power hungry and condone fascist tactics are power hungry fascists.
Stories like this make a compelling argument for the “fuck em” approach to dealing with inequality, warming and pollution. What this bit shines light on is they knew Trump was hurting America but they were getting richer because of it. They were employing the “fuck em” option. You and me being the folks getting fucked. So… do unto other as you’d have them do unto you…and they’ve already done their part. Regulate them. Tax them. Fuck em.
Who cares about the lawyers? They are small time players at best. I want to know more about the Republican elites who enabled and encouraged Trump. I want the curtain pulled away so we can examine the people who pulled the strings. They are still there with an agenda to destroy our democracy.
Of course they knew, they set the agenda!. Trump was not a political animal, he had no policies, he was just a puppet but unfortunately for them, he began to believe he was in charge and that led to the chaos that is at his core.
These things are stated as though they are revelations. … as though it is a surprise…
Seriously - Trump has never been a clever stealthy crafter of schemes! Virtually everyone around him was cognizant of the hare-brained shady crap that he was attempting … it was simply that
A. They felt the they were not directly implicated
B. They - or the interests they favored would benefit
C. They felt that if the absurd schemes actually happened - they would never be untangled in away to force accountability
Of course they knew Trump was violating every ethical norm and standard of decency - but these bastards stood to gain - and gain big - so they kept their mouths shut … and … important point - these stupid bastards let their attraction to potential personal gain get them sucked into the point where they would “get stitches” if they were “snitches” …
But why is any of this any sort of surprise? Trump has always been this sort of psychopath.
I think it is worthwhile to look at the Trump era as a joint enterprise, one that Trump himself sort of fell into. The GOP inherited the racist small-minded legacy of Southern Democrats after Johnson booted them and Nixon and Billy Graham had to figure out how to divvy up the spoils. But the alliance never was great as long as the GOP pretended legitimacy and was reluctant to say out loud how they really felt. Trump changed that, claiming that these nativists were now “his people”, just as Roger Ailes had created his Fox nation. This alliance won the presidency back from from Obama coalition, effectively exploiting social media and tossing all pretense of political manners to the wind. “We’re gonna shoot and hang those democrat motherfuckers,” became a thing you could say at city council meetings. Unfortunately, the traditional Nixonian wing of the GOP (elites here) thought that they could control these people, while Trump inducted them into his cult. And these cultists are now very much in office and using their office. TPM gets a lot of electrons out of the perennial favorites, but you also have these cringe-worthy crazies masquerading as serious people. A good example is the GOP’s latest Ukraine mouthpiece, Victoria Sparz. Indiana, but still. The woman is nuts, which makes for fun tv. For example, the normally unflappable Stephen Sacher of BBC’s Hardtalk was quite at a loss on how to deal with her in his car-wreck interview with her.
What bothers me most is the large number of us uneducated working class white folk who still back Trump and his kind.
We are simply pawns being used to keep Trump types in power and we get nothing in return except we get to keep our guns.
Excerpt.
Trump’s latest Federal Election Commission report indicates that payments from his political committees to firms representing Jan. 6 witnesses are now approaching $2 million.
But even before this number emerged, Trump’s patronage was already raising concerns among Democrats and legal experts that the ex-president is—once again—trying to exert influence over witnesses who could have information implicating him in possible criminal activity.
Some of those witnesses sat for interviews with the committee as the investigation was heating up this spring. And according to a disclosure filed last week, around that same time, Trump’s old campaign committee made a curious, and major, payment—a flat $1 million to a law firm called Elections, LLC.
Elections, LLC was founded by three Trump alums. Two of them have given testimony that the Jan. 6 panel aired in public videos, and the third has represented a star witness against the president—former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
As others have pointed out, of course they knew. McConnell and his backers used Trump to get everything they wanted. Well, not everything; they still haven’t got their hands on Social Security, and though they’ve done much to compromise Medicare it still works.
I’ve been reading Tacitus’ Annals chronicling the end of the Roman Republic and the slide into empire and despotism, and the behaviors are all so eerily similar. I’ve always thought that Trump was most like Nero - minus the culture and intelligence - and still think it. Fortunately he’s not in a position to execute people who look at him funny on whim but the same impulses are there.
I don’t think that’s all the culture war base gets - they get the same things the business elite get: a weak federal government, unable to use regulatory power to protect civil rights against cultural tyranny of the majority. This generally means, an exemption from public accommodation laws and a right to discriminate - even at a systemic level - where they can cobble together a majority. It really is on so many levels an attempt to undo the Civil War, which really established Federal Supremacy.
Another topic that should have all of the incredulity stripped away and be starkly exposed as the colossal criminal cover-up that it is -
1.The destruction of the Secret Service communications
2. The 7+/- hours of Trump communications
3. Other communications related to the attempted overthrow.
THIS WAS AN ATTEMPTED COUP !
Isn’t it time for John Judis to publish a retort explaining that if we had been nicer to Putin
all this unpleasantness could have been forestalled? Kind of feels like Obama’s fault.
Republicans are always bargaining with devils.
Why would they ever think that Trump was a devil too far?
Interesting. Election law is defeating Trump’s SOP to leave no fingerprints of his illicit activities.
Wonder if there are any plans to change election law to forbid this kind of payment.
Slightly OT but related:
Wonder how much longer old Ronna is gonna be happy to see millions disappear from GQP coffers to try to protect FatAss who is no longer pulling in the massive sums from small donors that he used to…
ETA: Oops, I see @garrybee posted this above. GMTA…
Well, he has one policy, self enrichment thru self aggrandizement.
The Goppers used his name just like all those hotels use his name, well, that brand needs to become radioactive and all those “hotels” razed to the ground. And that includes McConnell and Abbott and ALEC and the Supreme Court and the NRA and the US Chamber of Commerce and all the rest.
And maybe Dejoy can be removed from the Post Office?
Anything good on TV tonight?