SCOTUS making nice with Trump

 

Gavin Newsom interviews....Steve Bannon??

 

"Controversial salute"

 I'm surprised at the Daily Beast.  They misspelled Nazi.

Hard to believe I'm agreeing with Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon roasted Musk over Neuralink and other issues in new interview: “Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiment and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, tradition or values.”

[...]

Bannon then said Musk is a fraud: "DOGE is sitting there with the budget, but where the fuck are the DOGE cuts? We are 30 days away from approving a budget for the entire year with $2 trillion already baked in, and not one penny of anything that DOGE found. It's ludicrous. Performative. There's hesitancy to take on the Pentagon. I want $100 billion cut from its $900 billion budget."

  Meidas Touch

MAGA icon goes after Elon Musk

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

UPDATE 01/13/2025:

Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office.

  New Republic

MAGA unhappy with Musk

Do they think Trump has any concern for conflicts?

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

UPDATE 11:00 am:

Bullies are such snowflakes.

UPDATE 11:44 am:

Third time's a charm?

A handful of conservative critics of Elon Musk are alleging censorship and claiming they were stripped of their verification badges on X after challenging his views on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

[...]

Trump's conspiracy-minded ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax and InfoWars host Owen Shroyer all said their verification badges disappeared after they criticized Musk's support for H1B visas, railed against Indian culture and attacked Ramaswamy, Musk's DOGE co-chair.

[...]

The H-1B issue and an X post by Musk ally Vivek Ramaswamy about America's culture of "mediocrity" have sparked an online MAGA civil war over immigration and race. Some supporters of President-elect Trump are now turning on Musk and the tech bros Trump has tapped for key administration roles.

[...]

Musk has a history of punishing news organizations and journalists he doesn't like, ostensibly for policy violations.

He threatened to reassign NPR's account handle last year and marked some links to the site as "unsafe" when users click through.

Musk also removed the verification badge of The New York Times in 2023.

X also suspended independent journalist Ken Klippenstein's account after he shared Sen. JD Vance's vetting document from the alleged Iranian hack of Trump's campaign.

  Axios

UPDATE 12/28/2024:

And not just Musk...

It's starting to seem like these guys don't know how to read the room.

UPDATE 12/28/2024:

UPDATE 12/29/2024:  I don't know.  I'm beginning to think that Trump and MAGA never actually understood each other.

Bannon appeals to SCOTUS

So another case they can hear instead of releasing a decision on Trump's immunity case.

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

UPDATE 06/26/2024:

GOP got themselves a Supreme Court, and by golly, they're gonna use it.

UPDATE 06/28/2024:

Can't imagine why this is a problem, when the past two days of decisions have been one outrage after the next.

Finally

Denied

How long with the Supreme Court dither before deciding?

Another election crook to be held accountable

Former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro has been ordered to report to a Miami prison on March 19 to begin serving a four month sentence for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee.

[...]

Navarro, 74, was convicted last year on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents and testimony to congressional investigators probing the root causes of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

[...]

Navarro, who is urging a federal appeals court to stay the sentence while he attempts to overturn his conviction, faces the prospect of becoming the first top adviser to Donald Trump to serve jail time for an offense related to the effort to subvert the 2020 election.

[...]

Navarro, an economist who advised Trump on trade issues, was the second former Trump aide convicted for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 panel. Steve Bannon was convicted by a jury in July 2022 for similarly blowing off a subpoena from the committee.   Politico

Everybody but the crook at the top.

And Bannon is out while his conviction is on appeal, so I imagine this court will grant the same to Navarro.

Courts rarely permit convicted defendants to remain free while they appeal. However, Navarro contends that, like Bannon, his case presents unusual circumstances because of the complex intersection of his refusal to testify with executive privilege and immunity principles that have rarely been tested in court.

Bannon should already be in jail.

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

UPDATE 03/14/2024:  Apparently Navarro doesn't have Bannon's pull.

UPDATE 03/15/2024:

Sad to say it could be that simple.

UPDATE 03/15/2024 09:47 pm:

Very little justice in our justice system

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

In case you've been wondering...

Shameless

It was pretty stupid in the first place to hire a lawyer when he could have just gone on Sean Hannity's show.

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

Now do Bannon

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

UPDATE 07:35 pm:

Ask and ye shall receive.

Steve Bannon interviewed Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein said in an unaired interview that he distanced himself from former President Donald Trump after realizing Trump was "a crook," according to his brother, Mark Epstein.

  Business Insider

Funny. Trump said the same about Epstein.

Mark Epstein told Insider he viewed a clip of the interview, conducted by Trump's former White House advisor Steve Bannon, after his brother forwarded it to him in the spring of 2019.

[...]

Insider has not been able to independently view the video. Bannon could not be reached for comment.

[...]

Epstein and Trump were reportedly acquaintances between the 1980s and 2000s. The two ran in elite Manhattan social circles, and Epstein's home in Palm Beach was a short drive from Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, where he was a frequent guest.

[...]

The Miami Herald reported that Epstein was booted as a member from Mar-a-Lago in 2007 after he harassed the daughter of a member.

[...]

"Steve Bannon was working with Jeffrey to try to help Jeffrey rehabilitate his reputation," Mark Epstein told Insider.

Bannon and Epstein had become close in 2017, after Bannon left the White House, according to the journalist Michael Wolff. Bannon lived lavishly off Epstein's vast wealth, using his Paris apartment and butler in 2018.

[...]

Bannon released a trailer in 2021 for his apparent documentary about Epstein, titled "The Monsters." The entire documentary has not yet been released.

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

In Trump's image

Some idiot will always work for Trump, but it may not be so easy for Bannon to get new lawyers.  

Empathy for Brazil

Bolsonaro was handily out of the country.  And where?  Why, Mar-A-Lago, of course.

Flashback to November...

UPDATE:

And Bannon is still online/on air fomenting uprisings.

UPDATE 1/9:  You wouldn't extradite a sick man, would you?

Young Republicans Conference

“We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets,” NYYRC president Gavin Wax declared to a room full of supporters at 538 Park Ave., an event venue on New York’s Upper East side.

“This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power,” Wax added.

  Southern Poverty Law Center

Steve Bannon - who should already be in jail - was there. And Don Jr - who may find himself one day in jail - was, too. Alsoattending - no surprise here - Majorie Taylor Greene and Rudy Giuliani - who may also one day find himself behind bars.

Republican speakers repeatedly voiced an anti-democracy, authoritarian ideology, and extremists in the audience cheered wildly. White nationalists such as the Brimelows of VDARE and leaders from extreme far right European parties like Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD), whom German officials placed under surveillance for their ties to extremism, and Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), ate and drank in the same room as newly elected Republican congresspeople, such as Long Island and Queens-based George Santos, Georgia-based Mike Collins and Florida-based Cory Mills.

[...]

Multiple recently elected GOP congresspeople applauded Marjorie Taylor Greene, who told the NYYRC crowd in the event’s closing remarks that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol would have succeeded.

[...]

“I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I organized that, we would have won,” she said, as attendees erupted in cheers and applause. “Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

Wow.

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

UPDATE:  WTF is Marjorie Taylor Greene's precise diagnosis?  Because, she's not well.

Bannon sentenced

Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted with criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.

The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

  Guardian

Hang on. You just said "suspended pending appeal" - he hasn't been incarcerated yet.

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

January 6 hearing, October 13, 2022 - 9th hearing

The possibly (probably) final public hearing today was essentially a recap.  No witnesses.  The information provided from Secret Service emails wasn't new, but of course, so many of the phones - those that could have been useful - were wiped.  I'd like to think those people responsible will pay a price for that, but I very much doubt it.  

Congressman Adam Schiff did say that they are still investigating previous testimony by people at the White House and Secret Service that they had no prior intelligence about the intention of violence against any of the "protectees".  Obvious bullshit.  

In the second hour, there was new video of senators trying to get help on the phone while the Capitol was under attack, and that was worth watching.  During his time at the mic, it was obvious Jamie Raskin is still incensed, and rightly so.

The hearing ended with a vote from Committee members to subpoena Donald Trump for records and testimony, to which he will no doubt file objections and various delays, hoping to hold out for an eventual Republican takeover in November that will see the subpoena withdrawn.  Or perhaps he'll just outright refuse to answer any subpoena.*

No date was given for the Committee's report, but I assume it will come before the end of the year.  Unless the Dems hold the House in November, and then, who knows?  According to Liz Cheney, it will contain referrals to the DOJ for criminal charges against several people.  I'll be interested to see that list.  I expect it will include Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, and John Eastman, at least, all of whom appeared before the Committee but refused to answer any questions, based on their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.  

Steve Bannon has already been charged, tried and found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at all.  His sentencing is scheduled for October 21.  He has other problems.

Nancy Pelosi is getting a lot of good mileage out of this for her poise and command during the rioting.**  Here's just one article from The Guardian.  Conversely, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy can't be too thrilled at having this hearing remind people of their immediate stands against Trump and his army of insurrectionists when they're doing their best to be well thought of by the same people after reversing their positions and going all in with Trump.

You can watch the entire hearing here at CSPAN.

Previous hearing.

FINAL HEARING: 12/19/22

UPDATE:

And, of course, we're dying to know who gave that advice.  I, for one, would be happy for another hearing.

*UPDATE:  I heard a reasonable idea for why the Committee would subpoena Trump even knowing they'd not likely get anything out of him.  Remember how he and his allies complained loudly in the impeachment process that he wasn't given a chance to personally appear and defend himself against the charges?  Well, now he can't use THAT complaint about this investigation.  They're giving him a chance.

**  Ha.  They left this part out of the hearing:

In a separate part of the recording obtained by CNN, Pelosi’s chief of staff tells her that the Secret Service have dissuaded Trump from coming to the Capitol. Pelosi responds by saying, “if he comes, I’m going to punch him out.”

  Guardian

UPDATE:  Trump responded to the hearing with a long letter to Chair Bennie Thompson.

“This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt, and despite strong and powerful requests, you have not spent even a short moment on examining the massive Election Fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election, and have targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself,” Trump wrote in the letter, which is dated Oct. 13.

The document includes numerous photos meant to demonstrate the crowd size at his Jan. 6 rally, as well as a state-by-state breakdown renewing baseless claims of election fraud in five states Trump lost to President Biden.

  The Hill

Again, not what the Committee was formed to do. That job was up to Trump-appointed John Durham, and after all this time, he still has found no fraud to show that the election would have come out any other way.

Trump’s letter rehashes many of the same claims he’s made in the more than 18 months since the riot. He claimed he had authorized thousands of National Guard troops to defend the Capitol, a claim that his former acting Defense secretary has refuted in testimony to the committee.

And he repeated his claims that election results in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were all dubious because of reports of irregularities or suspicion about movement of ballots. But in each state, officials certified the results after audits and recounts. Testimony from Justice Department officials to the committee laid out how the department looked into each of Trump’s claims and was able to debunk or explain each of them.

[...]

Trump closed his letter to Thompson by defending the rioters as “great American patriots” who questioned the election results, even as the Justice Department has prosecuted numerous members of the mob for their actions that day.

“The people of this Country will not stand for unequal justice under the law, or Liberty and Justice for some. Election Day is coming. We demand answers on the Crime of the Century,” Trump wrote.

Well, that's rich.

UPDATE:

FINAL HEARING: 12/19/22