Committed a crime in his "summation and the summation of lawyers."
Ranting like the fucking nutjob he is.
Isn't Ali Alexander due for some jail time over January 6?
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Thursday, January 5, 2023
Rudy's troubles (continued)
She's representing herself. Mistake number two.A New York woman[, Noelle Dunphy,] who claims she had a romantic relationship with Rudy Giuliani is now suing the former mayor—alleging that he sexually harassed her while she was working under toxic conditions at his company.
She also alleges that Giuliani fired her last year and then warned her to keep quiet, noting his ties to former President Donald Trump. Giuliani’s attorney said he “categorically denies all of the allegations of this frivolous complaint,” but did not comment on whether his client and the woman were romantically entangled.
[...]
She noted that Giuliani’s alleged “abuse of alcohol” was fueled by his divorce and mounting political and legal controversies.
[...]
“At these times, Giuliani threatened [Dunphy] with further retaliation if she did not stay silent, stating that his private investigators and political connections to President Trump enabled him to retaliate in other ways, express and implied,” Dunphy wrote in the summons.
[...]
“It began with Rudy as my boss and lawyer and later turned romantic,” Dunphy wrote, later calling him a “manipulative abuser” to echo her allegations in the summons.
“Seeking justice against a powerful man is terrifying. Even many lawyers are intimidated by Rudy, and by the idea of taking him on,” she wrote. “I can’t be silent any longer.”
Daily Beast
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Day 3 of Kevin McCarthy's humiliation by GOP renegades
In effect, as of noon, January 5, 2023, there has been no House of Representatives in the US Government since 12:00am January 3. And counting.
That he would agree to such an insane demand is reason enough to keep him out of the Speaker's seat.
I will say this about John Boehner - his was the GOP iteration that thought it could subsume the Tea Party and make it work to their advantage. So, he has some responsibility in his own demise as Speaker and the chaos that exists to threaten democracy now.As John Boehner wrote in his 2021 memoir, the end game now is chaos itself:What they’re really interested in is chaos … They want to throw sand in the gears of the hated federal government until it fails and they’ve finally proved that it is beyond saving. Every time they vote down a bill, they get another invitation to go on Fox News or talk radio. It’s a narcissistic – and dangerous – feedback loop.Governance is not the point, it’s the enemy.
Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate
It may yet.In 2021, that was on display in what we could all recognize as violence and threats of bodily harm. In 2023, it’s being done with speeches and backroom negotiations [...]. None of it will lead to a better, healthier, more functional or stable government, even if the week doesn’t end with feces smeared on the walls.
The thing these people trade on IS attention.In 2021, Donald Trump was demonstrably on the side of the insurrectionists. This week, Trump called for his followers to support Kevin McCarthy. This time, they ignored him. Because he’s irrelevant now, a vestige of the Crazypants era of lawlessness and nihilism. We’ve moved on to the next era, the post-Crazypants era, in which various unqualified gun nuts and racists vie for the empty throne, without either the purse or the limited vision of the reality show star who came before them. None of the disruptors care about much of anything at this juncture.
[...]
The hope right now is that January 2023 is the caboose on the Jan. 6 train, and not the café car, but if the thing these people trade on is attention, I don’t see any real reason for optimism.
Give him time.To be elected speaker in this new Congress with just Republican votes, any Republican can only lose four votes. Because of how narrow Republicans' majority is after the midterm election results, a small cadre of intransigent members on the party's far right have a lot of leverage — and they're showing they're willing to use it.
What it boils down to for these members is three things:[...]
- wanting to see less government spending,
- more power to them and less power for the speaker, and
- mistrust and personality differences
McCarthy backed the hard-right faction's proposal for a five-vote threshold to remove the speaker, but he wouldn't accept other demands, like putting more restrictions in place from members earmarking spending on unrelated bills for their own projects, or committing to bringing a bill to the floor to impose term limits.
NPR
I have to agree with them. This is absolutely true and absolutely a problem. It's just too bad that only the nuts are complaining about it.Most were endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and many are election deniers, but even Trump's influence is only going so far in this fight.
[...]
Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C. [...] was one of seven members to sign a "Dear Colleague" letter outlining concerns, like "increasingly centralized decision-making power" that result in "massive, multi-subject bills that are unable to be amended or fully read, all driven by supposedly must-pass defense and appropriations measures" that amass large debt.
(The other six to sign the letter were: Republican Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; Paul Gosar of Arizona, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Eli Crane of Arizona.)
And that's just as stupid as she is...Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. [...] narrowly won reelection by only hundreds of votes. She and others want a single member to be able to bring a motion to vacate the speaker.
OK. Here we go. It's fifteen minutes until noon.
Hahahahahahahahaha. "Clarifications". They won't "misuse" the motion to vacate. Just using it will fuck up McCarthy. He's just this desperate. They have him by the balls whether he gets the votes or not. Pathetic.
Also, two seats to 20 hardliners reflects the makeup of the GOP conference of 220+? Are there 20+ seats on the Rules Committee? Maybe with subcommittees included.
They've been at it longer than that.
One can only hope they're not.
Aaaaaaaaaand...they're off.
Vote Number 7: Looks like the Never Kevin bunch is nominating Byron Donalds again. I guess they decided Jim Jordan wasn't going to get them any switched votes from the McCarthy faction.
UPDATE:
And, once again, Hakeem Jeffries got more votes than McCarthy. Nothing is shaking loose. No matter what McCarthy concedes to the MAGA caucus.
Gaetz cast a vote for Trump. Can't wait to see him and Marjorie TG fight over who will get on the GOP ticket with Trump.
On to Vote #8.
From both parties!
Bishop (Republican, obviously) doesn't seem to recognize what they're chanting, as he urges them on!
UPDATE 12:45 Central: Vote #8 underway.
I wonder how they decide who gets to nominate McCarthy. It's a different person each time, each giving their little speech. What fame they'll be able to claim!
Lauren Boebert is giving a speech when called on for her vote. All they want is the attention.
UPDATE: 8th vote down. McCarthy still not picking up any votes, but still grinning and looking totally unconcerned. Gaetz voted for Trump again.
Are they going to have three votes per day until somebody talks some sense into six Republicans who'll vote for Jeffries?
UPDATE 2:30pm: The votes have no sooner been announced for the 8th vote than another idiot comes forward to nominate McCarthy again. The Dems nominate Hakeem Jeffries for the ninth time, and the MAGA Republicans nominate Byron Donalds for the fifth Time. No, you haven't heard of Donalds. He switched his vote from McCarthy on the third round to himself because he was nominated. (I wonder if he'd switch back if they nominated someone else.) Donalds was elected to the House in 2020, making him an unlikely prospect for Speaker, but here we are.
Vote #9 underway.
The whole thing takes an hour and a half to get through. Will they adjourn at the end of this ninth round (thirdtoday)? (UPDATE 4:00pm: No they will not.)
The clown wars continue...
Lauren Boebert, perhaps the biggest attention hound of all, is now making a speech to nominate Kevin Hern. "I voted for my friend Jim Jordan. I voted for my friend Byron Donalds. I am now voting for Kevin Hern." JFC. WTF?
"We have been accused of not having any plan. We have presented many, many plans. We are presenting two plans simultaneously right now for speaker of the people's house."
What a freaking idiot.
This should be playing in the background as they vote again...
Or maybe he got a call from Trump to stop showing Trump as loser over and over when they read out the votes, and his name comes last with "one vote." Or from Tucker Carlson.
UPDATE: Stuck on repeat.
UPDATE 3:50pm: Here we go again. Vote #10
UPDATE 5:15pm: Christ, they've decided to be proud of it: "I rise in the spirit of 1923!" Making America Great Again has found its way a full century into the past.
Round #11 underway. Gaetz is actually nominating Trump now. Will Boebert drop Hern? Will Byron Donalds' voters dump him? Stay tuned.
Boebert clapped four times for Gaetz' speech, in which he called McCarthy a squatter. She's the only one who clapped at all. She and Gaetz walked out of the hall together after the last vote. I guess they decided this would be the way to go.
Nutjobs. Chaos agents and clowns.
Bob Good (R-VA) is now shouting about the horrors of Democratic leadership in his nomination speech. He hasn't yet said who he's nominating. He did ask for applause after making some statement he thought merited it!
UPDATE: In the end, Good nominated Kevin Hern. And Boebert voted for him after all. Can't wait to see Trump's tally total. The roll call is just through the Gs, and already McCarthy has failed again.
Boebert and Gaetz keep flitting around the hall, and Santos keeps finding his way to Marjorie Taylor-Greene's side.*
UPDATE:
Trump got the one vote.
CSPAN is making noises about a deal being made. Reporters have been talking about deals all day. So far, no deal has made any difference.
I would truly love to see Hakeem Jeffries as both Speaker of the House and Opposition Leader.
Assume he posted this when Gaetz nominated him...
Will he now claim that, frankly, he DID win.
Motion to adjourn was made and shouted down by the Democrats. An electronic device vote was called for, and Republicans won.
See you tomorrow.
They've been at it longer than that.
The Republican Party isn’t really a governing party anymore. It’s an incubator for right-wing celebrities.
~ Molly Jong-Fast
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
*UPDATE:
Laugh now, fool. Your past is nipping at your heels. If the GOP won't hold you accountable, Brazil might.
Jamie! Two birds, one stone tweet.
Working around Dobbs
Assume GOP state legislatures will go to work to stop that ASAP, if they haven't already.This week, the Food & Drug Administration made a small legal change in its classification of the drug mifepristone, and the Department of Justice confirmed that the drug can be sent through the mail.
Mifepristone is a drug that can be used for the treatment of high blood sugar, but it can also be used off-label to inhibit the hormone progesterone, which is necessary for maintaining pregnancies. Along with another drug, misoprostol, which causes contractions, it can be used to medically induce abortions. The mifepristone-misoprostol combination is already used in over half of abortions performed in the United States, with demand only increasing since the Supreme Court adopted Christian fundamentalist theory crafting and revoked the right to abortion last June.
Mifepristone has been used in Europe since the 1980s (my generation called it “RU-486,” and every sex-ed teacher reminded us that it “does not prevent AIDS”). [...] But until now it had only been available in-person at a clinic or doctor’s office.
This week, the FDA abandoned that restriction and instituted a change that will allow the pill to be obtained at local pharmacies, or by mail, with an ordinary prescription.
Elie Mystal @ The Nation
Sounds like mail order will be the best way to get the drug.In forced-birth states, many of the bans targeting abortion providers also prohibit the use of abortion drugs like mifepristone. One challenge for the big-chain pharmacies that might carry the drugs, like CVS or Walgreens, is that they will likely need to have different rules for different states.
[...]
Part of the agreement with the drug’s manufacturers includes pharmacies’ not publishing the names of doctors who prescribe the medication, to protect those doctors’ safety. But that also means that pharmacies cannot list the names of prescribing doctors in their nationwide databases, which they commonly do. And that doesn’t even get into the threats that these companies might face if they provide the medication, including in states where it is legal.
I fully expect this Supreme Court to accept a lawsuit that will attack Griswold.The Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo at the request of the DOJ saying that shipping abortion medication through the mail is legal, even after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs. The memo related to a provision of the Comstock Act that prohibits the mailing of any “article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use.” The Comstock Act was passed in 1873 at the behest of a self-styled anti-vice crusader named Anthony Comstock. It’s essentially an anti-“obscenity” law—because Comstock was one of those dudes who was willing to throw away freedom and liberty every time he saw an exposed nipple—but it has been regularly used by conservative forces to curtail access to abortion and contraceptive medications. The Comstock Act was once used to prevent the distribution of birth control pills, but it was defanged by the Supreme Court case that recognized a right to privacy and a right to contraception, Griswold v. Connecticut.
[...]
The OLC memo provides some cover to out-of-state activists who are trying to get medicine into the hands of those who need it.
[...]
No legal workaround can replace a constitutional right. Women and pregnant people will be at risk as long as the fundamentalist Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers are allowed to be in charge of reproductive health. But after decades of Republican politicians restricting abortion access and Democratic politicians failing to do enough to restore them, it feels like the Democrats have at least joined the battle.
UPDATE 1/11: Alabama AG plans to prosecute women who use these pills under an Alabama chemical-endangerment law intended to protect children from meth lab fumes.
Accountability in American politics is essentially nonexistent
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
France steps up aid to Ukraine
Of course, the big winner when the war drags out is the "defense" industry. As always.The French Defense Ministry said Thursday it will soon hold talks with its Ukrainian counterpart to arrange for the delivery of armored combat vehicles in what France’s presidency says will be the first time this type of Western-made wheeled tank destroyer will be given to the Ukrainian military.
[...]
It’s primarily designed for reconnaissance missions and has enough armor to protect against light infantry weapons, according to the French defense ministry. They have wheels rather than tracks, allowing it to be more mobile than heavy tanks.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to Twitter to thank France the weapons and for “intensifying work with partners in the same direction.”
[...]
Paris has supplied Ukraine with a substantial chunk of its arsenal of Caesar cannons, as well as anti-tank missiles, Crotale air defense missile batteries and rocket launchers. It is also training some 2,000 Ukrainian troops on French soil.
U.S. President Joe Biden said his administration is considering sending to Ukraine Bradley Fighting Vehicles, a medium armored combat vehicle that can serve as a troop carrier.
The Hill
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
While Republicans fuck around
Not good.
I wonder if there are people who voted for Republicans in November who'd like to change their votes now. I guess I hope there are.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
"Parental rights"
Yeah, well, the new MAGA Supreme Court just took a case with the exact same problem of standing and injury, 303 Creative, involving a woman who wants to create a website excluding gays, so I wouldn't put any hopes on that.Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee to a federal court in Texas, spent much of his career trying to interfere with other people’s sexuality.
A former lawyer at a religious conservative litigation shop, Kacsmaryk denounced, in a 2015 article, a so-called “Sexual Revolution” that began in the 1960s and 1970s, and which “sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults.”
[...]
The plaintiff in Deanda v. Becerra is a father who says he is “raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality, which requires unmarried children to practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage.” He claims that the program must cease all grants to health providers who do not require patients under age 18 to “obtain parental consent” before receiving Title X-funded medical care.
[...]
Deanda plaintiff’s legal argument “would undermine the minor’s right to privacy” which the Supreme Court has long held to include a right to contraception.
[...]
Kacsmaryk handed down a decision claiming that “the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”
[...]
[L]itigants who want their case to be decided by a judge with a history as a Christian right activist, with a demonstrated penchant for interpreting the law flexibly to benefit his ideological allies, can all but ensure that outcome by bringing their lawsuit in Amarillo.
[...]
The Constitution [...] does not permit litigants to file federal lawsuits challenging a government program unless they’ve been injured in some way by that program — a requirement known as “standing.” [... Plaintiff] does not allege that his daughters have ever sought Title X-funded care. And he does not even allege that they intend to seek Title X-funded care in the future.
Thus, this case should have been dismissed for lack of standing. [T]he Supreme Court held in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), the plaintiff in a federal lawsuit must show that they’ve been injured in a manner that is “actual or imminent” and not “conjectural” or “hypothetical.”
Vox
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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