Al, no

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ratchet

Moscow has been targeted with a large-scale drone attack for the first time in its 15-month-old war in Ukraine, marking a new inflection point in a conflict that the Kremlin said would never threaten the lives of ordinary Russians.

Russia continues to pummel Ukraine with deadly missile and drone strikes on a near-daily basis. Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, faced its third air raid in 24 hours on Tuesday morning.

[...]

The Russian defence ministry said eight drones targeted the city overnight but Russian media close to the security services wrote that the number was many times higher, with more than 30 drones participating in the attack.

[...]

In a television appearance on Tuesday, Putin praised Moscow’s air defences and said Kyiv was trying to scare Russians by striking civilian targets. Putin also claimed Russian forces were only striking military facilities in Ukraine using “high-precision weapons”.

  Guardian

Precisely striking schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, libraries, and other civilian targets.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said Vladimir Putin had no immediate plans to address the country and claimed there was “no imminent threat to residents of Moscow and the Moscow region either”.

The people who live in these apartments might have a different opinion.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Compare and contrast

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

For profit insurrection

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there’s nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

  AP

The grifting business is booming in this country.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money.

[...]

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP’s tally.

[...]

Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other Jan. 6-related expenses.

[...]

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her site’s decision to allow legal defense funds for Capitol riot defendants “is rooted in our society’s commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys.”

But some didn't hire private attorneys. They're just grifters. Who would have imagined people who plotted to overthrow the government would be grifters?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We've still got a long way to go

Memorial Day 2023

Where is Mark Meadows?

[Former Chief os Staff for Trump, Mark] Meadows has maintained a lucrative perch in the conservative world as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute, the pro-Trump think tank that pays him more than $500,000 and has seen its revenues soar to $45 million since Meadows joined in 2021.

[...]

A founding member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, Meadows spent years in the House agitating against GOP leadership, trying to move his party increasingly to the right.

[...]

Sources tell CNN that in recent weeks Meadows has also been advising right-wing lawmakers on negotiations over the nation’s debt ceiling, where McCarthy’s right-flank may try to stand in the way of any concessions made in a compromise with President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.

[...]

Meadows is viewed as a critical first-hand witness to the investigations of both special counsel Jack Smith and Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He’s been ordered to testify before the grand jury in both investigations, and to provide documents to the special counsel after a judge rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege.

[...]

There’s been a flurry of grand jury activity, as anticipation builds for any sign that Meadows is cooperating.

It is unclear whether Meadows has responded to the special counsel’s requests or appeared in front of that grand jury in Washington. In front of the grand jury in Georgia, Meadows declined to answer questions.

[...]

Rep. Jim Jordan, one of Meadows’ closest confidants when they served in Congress together, said he still considers Meadows one of his “best friends” and talks to him “at least” once a week. But when it comes to legal matters, Jordan said: “We make a point not to talk about that.”

[...]

A source close to Trump’s legal team said Trump’s lawyers have had no contact with Meadows and his team and are in the dark on what Meadows is doing in the investigation, fueling speculation about whether Meadows is cooperating with the special counsel’s probe – or if Meadows himself is a target of the investigation.

  CNN

What does it say that Trump's Save America PAC made a $900,000 payment last year to Meadows' lawyers?

Meadows was also the key point of contact for dozens of people trying to get through to the president as the attack was unfolding.

[...]

In its final report last year, the January 6 House select committee said that Meadows appeared to be one of several participants in a criminal conspiracy as part of Trump’s attempt to delay and overturn the results of the 2020 election. The report paints Meadows as an integral part of that effort, as documented by the more than 2,000 text messages Meadows turned over to the committee before he stopped cooperating.

If he stopped cooperating, is that a sign that he's now a target?

While less-and-less frequently since Trump left office, Meadows has been known to attend fundraisers and events at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where he also helped organize a donor retreat for CPI last year.

I'm assuming he may see himself (or even been assured) as being Trump's Chief of Staff again should Trump get back in office.

Allies say Meadows – who fashioned himself as a savvy political operator during his time in Congress and the White House – is motivated by a desire to help steer the direction of the country. But some people who worked closely with him are more skeptical, and think Meadows is driven by a desire for power.

I'd bet on the latter.

“He is all about getting information so he can be seen as important to donors, other members, the media,” said a senior GOP source close to Trump world, who used to work for a Freedom Caucus member. “People don’t trust him.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10/24/2023:  Meadows was given immunity to testify, and did.

Make 'em work

I'm going to assume Dusty is talking about people who are born into poverty, and not, say, people like the Trumps and many members of Congress who were born into wealth.  Escape, meaning get out of, versus meaning avoid.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another day ....

[On] May 15 [Gwendolyn Dean] Schofield and her daughter [Melodie Ivie] pulled over on a residential street in the northwestern New Mexico city of Farmington to help a woman [Shirley Voita] who was shot at random, and they, too, were hit by gunfire and died.

[...]

They were laid to rest this week during two days of memorial services in a community still grieving from the impacts of a rampage by an 18-year-old on the eve of his high school graduation that left six others wounded, including two police officers. Officers shot and killed the gunman.

[...]

Police have said the gunman did not appear to be targeting anyone. Rather, he shot indiscriminately from outside his home before walking around the neighborhood, perforating cars and houses using three different guns.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Sunday

Dems fold - again

Republicans want the public to believe they are pushing for work-promoting social-welfare policies through ordinary bipartisan negotiations. What they are actually doing is threatening to deliberately induce an economic crisis unless Biden helps them cut off aid to hundreds of thousands of hardworking low-income Americans.

  Intelligencer

Because the Democrats care if the country defaults and the world goes into a crisis, whereas, the Republicans don't. So it's a no-win situation for Democrats.

[W]ork requirements serve their actual purpose perfectly well. Cutting aid to the indigent to sustainably fund tax cuts for the rich is an extremely unpopular economic program. In a 2019 Pew poll, only 17 percent of Americans endorsed cutting “assistance to the needy.” [...] In 2018, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 70 percent of Americans supported Medicaid work requirements.

[W]ork requirements reframe the debate over soaking the poor. Rather than presenting a trade-off between helping the needy and pampering the wealthy, work requirements appear to aid the industrious at the indolent’s expense.

[...]

The president will not acquiesce to work requirements for health-insurance coverage but is more open to the GOP’s proposals for limiting eligibility for food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

The neediest people and their most basic human needs.

It is worth taking a moment to underscore the perversity of this situation. [...] In an ordinary negotiation between two parties that each enjoy a democratic mandate, both sides make concessions to the other’s agendas: If Democrats must acquiesce to social-spending cuts, Republicans would then reciprocate by accommodating some liberal priority, such as progressive tax increases.

But McCarthy isn’t interested in horse trading. He’s interested in extortion. Republicans are not offering a single concession to the Democratic agenda. They are merely offering not to plunge the U.S. into a financial crisis by blocking the Treasury from financing spending that Congress has already ordered. [...] Republicans’ being manifestly willing to sabotage the economy for partisan gain should be a scandal for the party. Yet much of the press is intent on portraying the GOP’s indifference to its most basic obligations to the public as a banal political reality that Democrats are duty bound to accept.

[...]

Yes, all of the executive branch’s unilateral options for disarming the debt ceiling are freighted with risk, particularly in a context in which conservatives control the Supreme Court. But rewarding Republican extortion means harming various Democratic constituencies in the first instance and ensuring further debt-ceiling crises in the long run.

[...]

The ostensible purpose of these [GOP] policies is to liberate the poor from dependence on welfare while increasing labor-force participation, but all available evidence indicates that the GOP’s proposals would yield negligible impacts on employment at the cost of cutting off health care and food aid to hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of working, low-income Americans because of missed paperwork and bureaucratic errors.

[...]

Their aim is not merely to strip welfare from the idle poor but to slash social-welfare spending in general. They are quite explicit about this intention.

Work requirements allow them to make progress on this objective precisely because such rules reliably deny benefits to the working Americans who comprise the vast majority of prime-age social-welfare recipients.

[...]

The House GOP’s most egregious proposal is to append work requirements to Medicaid. On a theoretical level, it is difficult to see why denying someone access to basic medical care would render them more capable of contributing to the economy.

[...]

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 93 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries ages 19 to 64 are either working, attending school, caregiving, or suffering from a disabling ailment. As for that remaining 7 percent: Giving people access to health-care coverage makes them more likely to obtain and maintain employment. Thus, Medicaid is itself a work-promoting policy.

But has anybody tried implementing the reasonable-sounding "work requirements"?

In 2018, Arkansas imposed work requirements on its Medicaid beneficiaries, and the policy accomplished none of its ostensible objectives. Not only did the requirements fail to increase employment, but they actually cost the state and federal government $26.1 million in the short term because of the administrative burdens of implementing the new requirements. Meanwhile, nearly 16,000 low-income Arkansans lost their health coverage. Only 1,232 of those individuals were actually nonworking. In other words: Roughly 92 percent of those who lost health insurance owing to Medicaid’s work requirements did so because of paperwork problems, not because they were neglecting to contribute to the economy.

[...]

Arkansas’s rules initially required Medicaid recipients to submit documentation of their work on a complex website that required both access to the internet and skill at navigating it. The website also shut down between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. each day. And if Medicaid enrollees failed to complete their submission by the fifth day of every month, they lost their coverage.

That sounds intentional. Nine pm to seven am would likely be the only time a poor working person - especially one with two or more jobs to make ends meet - could have the time to submit the required forms. Not to mention, much of the working poor do not have computer skills, much less computers.

[I]f the GOP actually wanted to deny health insurance to the working poor — both out of an ideological hostility to social welfare and a desire to free up fiscal space for cutting taxes on the wealthy in the long term — then you would expect them to deem Arkansas a success story and push to take its policy national. They have, of course.

[...]

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, already has strict work requirements and time limits for Americans under 50. The House GOP’s proposal would extend these requirements to those between the ages of 50 and 55.

[...]

The labor-force participation rate among workers ages 25 to 54 is currently at its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. And even if Americans in their early 50s were shirking work en masse, there is no evidence that appending work requirements to SNAP would significantly increase their workforce participation. Research from the Urban Institute shows the past imposition of work requirements and time limits did not meaningfully increase beneficiaries’ earnings or employment. Work requirements do reliably deny SNAP benefits to working Americans, however. Projections suggest that McCarthy’s proposal would cut off food aid to hundreds of thousands of people, a total far larger than the number of nonworking, able-bodied SNAP recipients between 50 and 55.

[...]

Currently, a SNAP recipient who participates in a workforce-training program that offers a stipend or financial support risks suffering a reduction in food aid or loss of eligibility altogether. This gives some SNAP recipients a short-term financial incentive to forgo such training programs. Congress could eliminate this perverse incentive by exempting income earned during training from SNAP eligibility calculations. This would make the program more supportive of work. But it would also increase its fiscal cost. Since the GOP’s actual concern is for reducing spending on the poor, not improving their employment outcomes, it has no interest in the training issue.

[...]

There is little reason to believe that denying anti-poverty funds to the parents of young children will improve their employment prospects. Meanwhile, research indicates that providing direct cash assistance to needy families increases the future labor-force participation of their children.

But it doesn't punish them for their sin of being poor.

UPDATE 05/28/2023:

The (tentative) "deal" in part: 

Raises debt ceiling for 2 years;

Rolls back non-defense, discretionary spending to fiscal 2022 levels;

No budget caps after 2025;

Defense spending as Biden requested: $886 billion;

Fully funds veterans medical;

Phased-in age increase for SNAP benefits from 49 to 54 sunset in 2030;

Some additional work requirements for temporary assistance;

No changes to work requirements for Medicaid;

"Claws back" unused Covid funds;

Rescinds $1.9 billion in (newly funded $80 billion) IRS money;

No new taxes or closing of loopholes for the rich;

Mandates spending reductions tied to spending increases

Floor vote in the House on Wednesday.  Then to the Senate if it passes.

Expect the most extreme MAGA representatives to vote no.  As well as some Democrats.

UPDATE 05/29/2023:

 

Where are the Republicans?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Not a democracy

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Anybody still think DeSantis wouldn't be just as bad as Trump?

Or maybe worse?

Add this to your list.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Going hard for the MAGA vote

Two points:

1) "Consider" is the key word. 

2) No matter how MAGA he goes, he won't pull off any Trump voters.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Apparently the Texas GOP does have a line

It's very low, but it's there. And Ken Paxton has crossed it. 

Maybe it's not the depth of the line, but the number of times you cross it. Anyway...

In an unanimous decision, a Republican-led House investigative committee that spent months quietly looking into [Texas AG Ken] Paxton recommended impeaching the state’s top lawyer on 20 articles, including bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust.

  Politico

You remember Ken Paxton.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, but has yet to stand trial.

[...]

The move sets up what could be a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Only two officials in Texas’ nearly 200-year history have been impeached [Gov. James Ferguson in 1917 and state Judge O.P. Carrillo in 1975].

[...]

Paxton suggested it was a political attack by the House’s “liberal” Republican speaker, Dade Phelan. He called for Phelan’s resignation and accused him of being drunk during a marathon session last Friday.

[...]

“The RINOs in the Texas Legislature are now on the same side as Joe Biden.”

Yes, Republicans are famously "liberal".

Impeachment requires a majority vote of the state’s usually 150-member House chamber, which Republicans now control 85-64, since a GOP representative resigned ahead of an expected vote to expel him over the finding that he had inappropriate sexual conduct with an intern.

It’s unclear how many supporters Paxton may have in the House. Since the prospect of impeachment suddenly emerged Wednesday, none of Texas other top Republicans have voiced support for Paxton.

The articles of impeachment issued by the investigative committee, which include three Republicans and two Democrats, stem largely from Paxton’s relationship with one of his wealthy donors. They 20 counts deal heavily with Paxton’s alleged efforts to protect the donor from a FBI investigation and his own attempts to thwart whistleblower complaints brought by his own staff.

[...]

Unlike in Congress, impeachment in Texas requires immediate removal from office until a trial is held in the Senate. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott could appoint an interim replacement. Final removal would require two-thirds support in the Senate, where Paxton’s wife’s, Angela, is a member.

[...]

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law over not registering as an investment advisor while soliciting clients. A year later, Paxton was indicted on felony securities charges by a grand jury in his hometown near Dallas, where he was accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts that carry a potential sentence of five to 99 years in prison.

[...]

Paxton’s aides accused him of corruption and were all fired or quit after reporting him to the FBI. Four sued under Texas’ whistleblower laws, accusing Paxton of wrongful retaliation, and in February agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. But the Texas House must approve the payout.

This is the state ATTORNEY GENERAL. Any wonder justice is what it is in Texas? 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 08:51 am:

UPDATE 05/28/2023:  Impeached.  121-23 vote.  Paxton has to step down until his case is adjudicated.  Governor Abbott will appoint someone to take his place in the interim.  Trump, Cruz, and other crooks are indignant.

About those documents

Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious.

  WaPo

You think?

Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena.

Oh?

Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others.

Of course he did. He's a consummate braggart.

John Irving, a lawyer representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said the worker did not know what was in them and was only trying to help Trump valet Walt Nauta, who was using a dolly or hand truck to move a number of boxes.

“He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt Nauta move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nauta moving the boxes and volunteered to help him,” Irving said. The next day, he added, the employee helped Nauta pack an SUV “when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer.”

[...]

On the evening of June 2, the same day the two employees moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Department and said officials there were welcome to visit Mar-a-Lago and pick up classified documents related to the subpoena. Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.

[...]

Prosecutors also have gathered evidence that even before Trump’s office received the subpoena in May, he had what some officials have dubbed a “dress rehearsal” for moving government documents that he did not want to relinquish, people familiar with the investigation said.

Is it just me, or is that weird?

The term “dress rehearsal” [...] was used to describe an episode when Trump allegedly reviewed the contents of some, but not all, of the boxes containing classified material.

Not sure I'd call that a dress rehearsal, but merely his lazy ass got hungry for a cheeseburger, so they had to quit.

Prosecutors separately have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said, and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors.

Depending on the strength of that evidence, such accounts could severely undercut claims by Trump or his lawyers that he did not know he possessed classified material. Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trump’s attorneys have taken steps — including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general — that suggest they believe a charging decision is getting closer. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently has not met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. That is the panel’s longest hiatus since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the probe.

A grand jury’s defining function is to indict. But for prosecutors, the grand jury also has an indispensable investigative function, issuing subpoenas and hearing testimony from any relevant and available witness the prosecution chooses to call. For Smith, it’s an opportunity to probe Trump’s anticipated defenses, lock in witnesses’ stories and pursue investigative avenues that might or might not pan out.

All these investigative functions dry up once a grand jury returns an indictment.

Through this prism, the purpose of Smith’s maneuvers becomes clear. He has gone beyond building his basic case to gather all the information he can before asking the grand jury to return an indictment and losing its investigative powers.

Hence this week’s New York Times report that Smith had served a subpoena for information about the Trump Organization’s business dealings in seven foreign countries. The subpoena appeared designed to get at the possibility that Trump used the classified documents to strike deals with foreign governments, which would be still another serious crime, but it reportedly produced no new information.

[...]

But the charges Smith is likely to bring don’t require any proof of motive, and they are grave regardless of what Trump did with the documents.

[...]

The same goes for reports that Smith sent agents to interview much of the housekeeping and maintenance staff at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. I doubt he was desperate to bolster his case with a nugget of information from an unlikely source; rather, I think he wants to leave no stone unturned while he’s still able to turn stones.

[...]

Records that the National Archives recently handed over to him apparently show that Trump’s advisors told him he could not simply declassify documents with a wave of his hand as he continues to ridiculously claim.

[...]

Smith has also reportedly obtained 50 pages of [Evan] Corcoran’s contemporaneous handwritten notes documenting not just the advice lawyers gave Trump but also the former president’s reactions, down to his hand gestures. The notes are likely to be more compelling evidence that Trump was clearly informed of his legal obligation to produce all the classified documents the government sought.

[...]

Trump’s lawyers fired off a letter Tuesday night seeking a meeting with U.S. Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland, typically the final arrow in the quiver of a defendant trying to stave off indictment.

  LA Times

Good luck with that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The MAGA SCOTUS scourge continues

As access to water at all shrinks with global warming, the amount of potable water will shrink along with it.  Nice going, SCOTUS.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04:59 pm:

Well!

He'll have lots of time to think about what he's done.

He's lucky.  The feds asked for 25 years.

Thread starts here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 05:49 pm:  Meggs sentenced.

Meanwhile in Florida

Amanda Gorman, the American poet who shot to international stardom when she recited The Hill We Climb at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, has vowed to defeat book bans in Florida after the poem was removed for reading by elementary school children in an educational institution in Miami-Dade county.

Gorman, 25, said she was “gutted” to learn that a complaint from a single parent led to her inaugural poem being banned from Bob Graham education center in Miami Lakes.

The poem was one of five books challenged by a parent of children at the school, including The ABCs of Black History and books on Cuba.

In the complaint, the parent mistakenly listed Oprah Winfrey as the author of The Hill We Climb, and said she objected to the poem because it was “not educational and have indirectly hate messages”.

Gorman hit back in a lengthy social media post.

“So they ban my book from young readers, confuse me with Oprah, fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives … Unnecessary book bans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back,” she said.

  Guardian

Yes, we must.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 05/25/2023:

What's going on?

The Pentagon is downplaying a Tuesday incident in which a Russian jet intercepted two U.S. bombers over the Baltic Sea, calling it “nothing significant.”

[...]

“My understanding is that it was a safe and professional interaction with Russian aircraft. So nothing significant to report on that front,” [Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat] Ryder said.

  The Hill

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

“As the Pentagon Press Secretary, Brig Gen Patrick Ryder, said during his news briefing today, two U.S. B-1 bomber aircraft operating in Europe as part of a scheduled bomber rotation were interacted with safely and professionally by Russian aircraft. At this time, we have no additional details to add,” U.S. European Command said in an emailed statement.

[...]

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced earlier Tuesday it detected two air targets approaching the country’s border and sent up a Su-27 fighter to investigate.

“The crew of the Russian fighter classified the air targets as two US Air Force B-1B strategic bombers and occupied the established air watch zone,” the National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation said in a statement on Telegram.

[...]

[T]ensions reached a fever pitch in March when Russian jets damaged a U.S. MQ-9 in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, causing the drone to crash into the water.

So this time we'll send bomber planes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Florida Man

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) issued what he described as a “formal travel advisory for socialists visiting Florida,” on Tuesday, warning that the state was “openly hostile” to socialists and their enablers.

“The state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by Socialists and others who work in the Biden Administration,” Scott, who is also the state’s former governor, said in a press release.

“Let me be clear – any attempts to spread the oppression and poverty that Socialism always brings will be rebuffed by the people of Florida,” he added. “Travelers should be aware that attempts to spread Socialism in north Florida will fail and be met with laughter and mockery.”

  The Hill

Who wants to tell him?

Scott’s statement is a mocking response to recent travel issued by social justice groups declaring Florida an unsafe state for certain minority groups.

Over the weekend, the NAACP issuing a travel advisory warning that Florida has become “hostile to Black Americans” under Gov. Ron DeSantis. The League of United Latin American Citizens (a civil rights organization) and Equality Florida (an LGBTQ rights group) also issued travel warnings in recent weeks.

MAGA is a terrorist organization

Target is removing certain items from its stores and making other changes to its LGBTQ merchandise nationwide ahead of Pride Month, after an intense backlash from some customers including violent confrontations with its workers.

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement Tuesday. ”Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.

[...]

The moves come as beer brand Bud Light is still grappling with a backlash from customers angered by its attempt to broaden its customer base by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bud Light’s parent company said it will triple its marketing spending in the U.S. this summer as it tries to restore sales it lost after the brand partnered with the transgender influencer.

[...]

[T]he backlash has turned hostile.

  The Hill

And should be dealt with appropriately by law enforcement.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 05/24/2023:  Yes.

Trump trials

In the past few days alone, one of Trump’s top lawyers departed, citing internal friction, the special counsel has intensified his investigation into the former president’s conduct and writer E. Jean Carroll has filed for more damages after Trump mocked her sexual assault allegations at a CNN town hall.

Meanwhile, a New York judge called a hearing Tuesday to reiterate to Trump that rules surrounding his hush money prosecution bar him from using evidence in the case to attack any witnesses.

[...]

Jack Smith, a Justice Department special counsel, is investigating his handling of classified information and his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. A Georgia prosecutor is probing attempts to overturn the state’s election results in 2020.

[...]

Smith’s case against Trump, especially on the Mar-a-Lago front, appears to be accelerating.

[...]

In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis signaled in recent days that charges in her investigation could come in early August. That case is focused on a “fake electors” scheme hatched by Trump allies after the 2020 election.

[...]

A Manhattan judge Tuesday tentatively set the trial date for Trump’s hush money case for March 2024, which would be right in the thick of primary voting.

Also in that case, Justice Juan Merchan agreed to a request from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) to schedule a Tuesday hearing reviewing the limitations on how the former president may use the evidence he has access to during the trial.

Merchan has said Trump will remain free to speak about the “vast majority of the evidence” but that he may not directly post evidence to social media nor reveal information about witnesses involved in the case.

[...]

The steady stream of news began in recent days when Timothy Parlatore, one of Trump’s attorneys handling the document case, resigned and went public with some of his concerns about the influence of some in the former president’s inner circle.

[...]

Parlatore told The Hill last week that Smith appeared to be wrapping up his presentation to the grand jury assembled in the case.

“I think that they’re just about done with all the grand jury witnesses at this point. And moving into the report writing phase,” he said.

  The Hill

Well, it seems they've issued at least one more subpoena...

Smith issued a subpoena for records of business deals that former President Trump’s company made with seven countries since he took office in 2017: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

UPDATE 05/25/2023:

Hands up.  We've got you surrounded.

Lauren Boebert vying for title of dumbest person in Congress

She has stiff competition, but she's working at it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Unbelievable

Or it would be, if it weren't for the people involved.  And yes, I looked this up, because like you, no doubt, I wondered if it could possibly be true.  

The GOP is well and truly a cult of personality.  But, Kevin McCarthy?

Oh, well, then.  Who wouldn't?

Eyeroll.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Must be getting close to closing time

Attorneys for Donald Trump fired off a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to request a meeting to complain about how the Department of Justice has treated the former president and request a meeting.

The letter comes amid reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith is finishing his investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence after he left the White House. Smith has also been probing the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

[...]

Dear Attorney General Garland:

We represent Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, in the investigation currently being conducted by the Special Counsel’s Office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter, and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly. No President of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated by your Special Counsel and his prosecutors.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 [...] 

  Mediaite

Always the victim.

UPDATE 05/26/2023:

Kirschner calls out the lawyers for writing to Garland and not Smith, but as Weissmann points out, they may have written a letter - and possibly (my opinion) a sensible, appropriate one - to Smith that was rejected, thus prompting this ridiculous letter to Garland, most likely composed by Trump himself.

He's gonna lose big on this one

And he'll no doubt appeal to the Supreme Court. I don't think they'll hear it.

Federal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump was put on notice that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year, as they examine whether the subsequent failure to fully comply with the subpoena was a deliberate act of obstruction by the former president.

The previously unreported warning conveyed to Trump by his lawyer Evan Corcoran could be significant in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump’s handling of classified materials given it shows he knew about his subpoena obligations.

[...]

The federal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith has recently focused on why the subpoena was not compiled with, notably whether Trump arranged for boxes of classified documents to be moved out of the storage room so he could illegally retain them.

In particular, prosecutors have fixated on Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, after he told the justice department that Trump told him to move boxes out of the storage room before and after the subpoena. The activity was captured on subpoenaed surveillance footage, though there were gaps in the tapes.

  The Guardian

Who is Trump's Rose Mary Woods?

To resolve the issue about the gaps in the surveillance footage, the special counsel most recently subpoenaed Matthew Calamari Sr, the Trump Organization’s security chief who became its chief operating officer, and his son Matthew Calamari Jr, the director of corporate security.

Both Calamaris testified to the grand jury earlier this month, the Guardian previously reported, and were questioned in part on a text message that Nauta had sent asking Calamari Sr to call him back about the justice department’s request for the tapes last year.

[...]

The warning was one of several key moments that Corcoran preserved in roughly 50 pages of contemporaneous notes.

One of Trump's wiser attorneys.

The notes revealed how Trump and Nauta had unusually detailed knowledge of the botched subpoena response, including where Corcoran intended to search and not search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, as well as when Corcoran was actually doing his search.

[...]

The justice department interviewed Nauta several times last year until prosecutors grew concerned that he failed to provide them with a complete and accurate account of his role in moving boxes that contained classified documents, according to two people familiar with the situation.

To force his cooperation, prosecutors threatened to charge him with lying to the FBI after he gave differing accounts over several interviews. But that incensed Nauta’s lawyer, who told the justice department his client would not talk again unless he was charged or offered an immunity deal.

After losing Nauta, investigators have turned to other witnesses who could shed light on his role.

[...]

Although ordinarily off limits to prosecutors, the notes ended up before the grand jury in Washington hearing evidence in the case after a US appeals court allowed attorney-client privilege to be pierced because judges believed Trump might have used Corcoran’s legal advice in furtherance of a crime.

There is no executive privilege for committing crimes.

The notes also suggested to prosecutors that there were times when the storage room might have been left unattended while the search for classified documents was ongoing, one of the people said, such as when Corcoran needed to take a break and walked out to the pool area nearby.

I'm going out for 20 minutes, and the door's not locked. Hint, hint.

In addition to his exchange with Trump, Corcoran described Trump’s facial expressions and reactions whenever they discussed the subpoena. The unusually detailed nature of his notes is said to have irritated Trump, who only learned about them after the notes themselves were subpoenaed.

Yes, I believe we've heard before how Trump didn't like his attorneys taking notes. 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Everything Trump touches

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Yep

Pathetic.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Weisselberg under more pressure

One of Donald J. Trump’s longtime lieutenants, Allen H. Weisselberg, was recently released from the notorious Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to a tax fraud scheme.

[...]

As a trusted financial gatekeeper to Mr. Trump’s family for nearly a half-century, Mr. Weisselberg was privy to behind-the-scenes machinations that could make him a valuable witness on several fronts.

[...]

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is now considering a new round of criminal charges against Mr. Weisselberg, 75, and this time he could be charged with perjury.

[...]

The threat of new charges represents the latest effort in a two-year campaign to persuade Mr. Weisselberg to testify against Mr. Trump.

[...]

The potential perjury charges stem from statements Mr. Weisselberg made under oath during a 2020 interview with the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who was conducting her own separate civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. It is not clear which part of his testimony raised red flags for prosecutors and Ms. James, or how Mr. Bragg might prove that Mr. Weisselberg intentionally made a false statement.

[...]

In the coming months, prosecutors and defense lawyers will exchange documents and evidence and file motions. The next hearing in the case is set for Dec. 4. Prosecutors said they would like a trial to begin in early January 2024, but Mr. Trump’s lawyers have said that is too soon and that they are looking toward a date later in the spring — in the thick of the Republican primary. The judge, Juan M. Merchan, has not yet set a date.

If Mr. Weisselberg refuses to cooperate, he could face a range of new charges. In addition to pursuing the perjury case, the prosecutors have indicated to his lawyers that they are considering unrelated insurance fraud charges against him.

[...]

The district attorney’s first pressure campaign against Mr. Weisselberg peaked in the summer of 2021, when Mr. Vance, unable to secure Mr. Weisselberg’s assistance, brought criminal charges against him and the Trump Organization in the tax fraud case. Despite refusing to implicate Mr. Trump personally, Mr. Weisselberg ultimately pleaded guilty and testified against the Trump Organization at its trial last year.

The company, which continues to pay for his lawyers, was convicted. And Mr. Weisselberg, as part of a plea deal, served 100 days in the Rikers Island jail.

[...]

While the hush [money] case [against Trump] is moving ahead with [former Trump attorney Michael] Cohen as the prosecution’s star witness, Mr. Bragg has been reluctant to charge Mr. Trump for his financial statements without Mr. Weisselberg on board.

[...]

There is no sign that Mr. Weisselberg, who recently retired from the Trump Organization with a hefty payout, is close to breaking, or that charges are imminent. But the latest prosecutorial pressure campaign may raise questions about the fairness of threatening a man of advanced age who just got out of jail.

  NYT

So, old and did a few months already means you don't have to pay for other crimes you committed?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Still Fox

The better question is why Fox would report it without checking it out first.

Also, check that chyron.  More proof that with Republicans, "every accusation is a confession."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.