Author: condor

Et Tu, Scott “Brutus” Johnson?! Et… Tu…?!

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Let me be clear: I. Like. It.

Even if over five years late.

I love that these doddering, infirm idiots have finally realized Tangerine will be the death of them all — and whatever they thought the GOP… once was.

Very near dead — already.

This noon-time, Scott Johnson calls Tangerine out, for attacking Mr. Younkin. [And again, yet another Powerliner — with the clichéd headline, equates Trump to a bad movie version of a New York mobster. Cheeky.]

He puts the xenophobia / racism of Baby T. to one side (maligning Youngkin’s surname, wrongly conflating Korean for Chinese, in the stultifyingly false process!) — that is all to be expected, standard Trump operating procedure — and Scott doesn’t even mention it.

The reason I note it at all, is to say here — over two years late — Johnson finds the stones to gently condemn Trump’s delayed responses on 01.06.21.

People died because of his willful attacks — on an unbroken 240 year line of peaceful transitions of power in the US. [That only a few died is only a testament to his… ineptitude.]

But Scott only now draws his dagger to knife Trump in the spleen. Only from behind. After Trump has essentially killed himself in the mid-terms. Cowardice, that.

Charming Scott — just… charming.

But it is good to know Tangerine will soon be off the national GOP stages.

Scant thanks here, then — to the Powerliners / codgers.

[U] So… Barbara S. Jones Is Likely To Be The Trump Org. Supervising Monitor In NY AG’s Civil Frauds Suit…

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Both sides named some names, last night. Three from the NY AG’s office; Tangerine put forward only two.

But the one common name is one Trump also offered down in the Mar-a-Lago stolen top secret documents warrant execution case. She is a retired federal judge named Barbara Jones. She is extremely well qualified and very fair.

I think it highly likely the able NY state court judge will appoint her. And… here are some details, from Leticia James’ cogent overnight letter:

…OAG respectfully proposes that the precise terms of the monitorship be set forth in a detailed monitorship order. Such an order would be consistent with the practice in other matters, would avoid ambiguity concerning the role of the monitor and would address any concerns that the monitorship could disrupt the day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization.

OAG anticipates a monitorship order in this case would address a number of issues including: (i) Authority for the monitor, with the Court’s approval, to retain appropriate professional services, such as accounting expertise; (ii) The terms of and process for compensation for the monitor and his or her agents; and (iii) The timing of any reports to the Court and OAG on the results of the monitor’s review. OAG is in the process of preparing such an order for the Court’s consideration and can review the terms before submission with the monitor and the Trump Organization….

Pop the popcorn.

And now… down in the top secrets case in federal court in Miami, Team Tangerine complains (natch’!) that the guy that he got appointed (the very able and impartial former USDC Judge Dearie) is doing his job… “too well.”

HILARIOUS!

He intends to interview NARA officials — but Trump has complained to Aileen Cannon. Trump thinks all NARA officers are out to get him. Nope. They just want the law… obeyed.

Update — here is Tangerine’s turgid overnight brief in the Eleventh Circuit — just for a complete record. It badly mis-states applicable law. Now you know.

नमस्ते

John Hinderaker Means To “Brutus” Old Caesar Tangerine… He’s Positively… Desperate About It, Now.

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I think it has finally dawned on Hinderaker (and several others, of his prior cheerleading crew, like Candace Owens)… that based on what they saw in the midterms (generally anemic turnout, even among hard core GOP — and repudiation from both independents and single women, almost to a person)… this GOP — if led by Tangerine… will not, and cannot win another national election.

Ever.

So — out come the daggers. Hinderaker called him “Dementia Don”, tonight. That is a mafia reference BTW. Strictly Coppola “The Godfather” stuff.

That is apt — as he is in fact a movie style crook. And the GOP, in his thrall has become (as under Nixon) the party of grifters.

I suspect John is too late to save any national election before 2028.

Elections… have consequences. Just as crimes do, John.

Tonight, Word Of Another Texas Tangerine Appointee Who Cannot Find A Case To Support His “Unusual” Reading Of Congressional Appropriations Authority.

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A minor glitch. This idiot will be overruled very shortly, perhaps even before the Eighth Circuit case is finally decided.

Yes, that’s right — the Supremes have already passed once on his sort of a… truly goofy notion (the Executive cannot do “big things“, even if authorized by Congress?!)… C’mon, man!

But Pittman, a Team Tangeriner to the core, decided to dump a post mid-terms mess into the laps of his upper chamber, the Fifth Circuit. He knows full well (like Drew Bruce Tipton in Dallas before him) that he will get handed his head upstairs… but he can say to his political handlers “I did my part“.

I link his 26 pages of nonsense here — but I will only quote the government’s argument — as it is clearly correct on the law, thus:

…In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Secretaries from two Administrations invoked that authority to suspend interest accrual and payments on federally held student loans. As those protections wind down, the Secretary reasonably determined it necessary to provide targeted debt relief to federal student-loan borrowers affected by the pandemic. Six States seek to enjoin the Secretary’s action, but the district court correctly held they lack standing.

Plaintiffs cannot establish the need for injunctive relief. Plaintiffs do not have Article III standing, and even if they did, they are unlikely to succeed on their claims given Congress’s authorization for the Secretary’s action and the Secretary’s explicit consideration of the relevant factors….

The statutory phrase “deems necessary” (which plainly appears in the HEROES Act)… ”exudes deference” to the Secretary; see Webster v. Doe, 486 U.S. 592, 600 (1988) — that precluded judicial review altogether….

Now you know. We should expect decades of wasted time — in the upper chambers — correcting these young ideologues’ trial-level (ill-informed) rulings. Thanks, Il Trumpimisimo…. but it ultimately won’t matter. The real law will prevail. Out.

नमस्ते

“You Love To See It” Dept.: Trump Told To Name A Monitor Over His Affairs In NY By TODAY.

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Overnight, Team Tangerine lost a bid to stay (or stop) the NY trial court judge’s order from taking effect. Trump may appeal to the highest court in NY… but he will lose there too. He has until 5 PM EST to put forward three names for the monitor, as does the NY AG’s office.

This will be the next cut, in a long line of paper cuts, that will ultimately see him indicted, tried, convicted and jailed. Here’s the latest, courtesy our erstwhile anonymous commenter — with the order itself imaged — at right:

…Engoron, a Manhattan trial court judge, gave both sides a Nov. 10 deadline to recommend three candidates for the job.

The order bars the defendants from transferring assets without court approval, and requires that the monitor receive a “full and accurate description” of the Trump Organization’s structure and assets.

Engoron called appointing a monitor “the most prudent and narrowly tailored mechanism to ensure there is no further fraud or illegality,” citing misrepresentations in Trump’s statements of financial condition from 2011 to 2021….

Now you know — 70s and sunny here, so off we go — for a lake-side bike ride, with my lovely adult daughter. She’s home from various haunts all over Europe, Morocco, Colombia and Colorado for a month, now — enjoying every minute of the time with her. Be excellent to one another… Smiling, ear to ear.

नमस्ते

The Long Knives Are Out, For Tangerine Dotard Inside GOP After Midterm Debacle…

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It is an utterly… fascinating coincidence, isn’t it?

The NY Post satirizes Tangerine on tomorrow’s front page, as Humpty Dumpty (who could not build a wall!), giving Doughy Pantload (John Podhoretz) and Hinderaker and Candace Owens the cover they need… to attack, claiming high ground as they do so.

I genuinely hope the Dotard tries for a third party / Ross Perot gambit. But unlike Perot, Tangerine will siphon only from the GOP base. No independent wants him; and Democrats will never vote for him again (if any of them ever did, out of hatred for HRC).

All in all — it is a lovely time… to sell, buy, pop and eat… popcorn.

The Irony Here Is… Delicious. Hinderaker Berates Hayward For His Preposterously 1950s Views… Ones Hinderaker Widely, And Repeatedly Endorses.

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Now (finally!) at lunch time, Hinderaker (in Eeyore mode) weighs in — on what a hopeless mess the GOP faces, here forward, through 2028 minimum.

If it even survives, if/when Tangerine fails at the GOP convention to get a nomination — and declares that a third party exists — to support his 2024 lie-fest nightmare [no clue as to the name he’ll use… “Truth Social Amurrikkka“? I am betting he may make the claim he is the real GOP — and the others (like DeSantis) must find a new party name].

Pop the popcorn for later this week (and his 2024 bid announcement) when Tangerine claims this was a “victorious” midterm showing, for his brain dead fealty to a criminal enterprise candidates. Hilarious.

I do want to laugh heartily (and in the memory/name of Paul M.), at Steve and John sniping at each other — for falling for / propagating the lie that whyte GOP suburban women (mostly college educated) do not understand that their MAGA whyte nationalist husbands and fathers and sons cannot see how they ACTUALLY vote. The women have spoken, and not by party affiliation.

They’ve spoken — as human rights activists, against the Supremes’ radical right wing, in Dobbs. [And that’s why no pollster sees it in advance, because few GOP women want the private dissent to be known to the hubbies.]

“…But this year, if anything the polls may have understated Democratic support, not Republican. What — to cite just one instance — happened to the 26-point swing among suburban women toward the GOP, which led Steve to dub this the “Desperate Housewives Election.”

They were desperate, all right — desperate to vote in favor of abortion and against Donald Trump. But how could so many polls be so wrong?….”

Charming, boys.

It is also true that ALL pollsters are under-sampling the mobile, non tethered but now very motivated 18-24 age group. Four million reached voting age since 2020 — and They. SHOWED. UP.

Many of these humans voted for the first time, last night. And they, in the main… voted for human rights and equity — they voted… blue.

So — smoke that, boys.

Steve Hayward Is Right About This Much: Tangerine = Nixon’s “Overhang” Circa 1978. [But 1980 Won’t Roll The Same In 2024.]

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All the Powerline codgers are crying this morning.

They act as though… telling women that men OWN their bodies… would be a some form of a surprising motivating force (to vote for… choice), in even GOP households, when the various daughters and wives pull the privacy curtain of the voting booth closed. That suburban white GOP women’s vote… just… mostly vanished, into a sea of blue… rage.

It will turn out (as the finer details of voting patterns emerge) that Clarence Thomas gave Democratic candidates a vast advantage in energy transfer, to anger — over the ludicrous Dobbs holding. It will also turn out that the over four million young people who’ve turned 18 since 2020… won’t vote for MAGAts, in the main. That will be seen in the coming weeks.

And Hinderaker has vastly overstated the claim that Latin voters are leaning mostly GOP (nation-wide). That is clearly only true in some parts of Texas, and parts of Florida. [But we Democrats do have work to do, here — to be sure. We must help each person see that the GOP will never actually support the goals of any non-whyte new arrival, in any way. Other than as… gardeners, and nannies, on GOP landed estates.]

So in sum, we may just substitute a few words… in Steve’s own pull-quote / conclusion, of the morning — to remove his… projection — and make it fully factual:

“…I can guarantee you that there are many old-line [Republicans] who secretly hoped [MAGAt candidates] would get crushed, so they could ease [Tangerine] out and clean out the crazy [xenophobes] who have hijacked the party….”

Steve hopes that DeSantis rises, come 2024, as Saint Ronnie did — in 1980, after the debacle of 1978, with the Carter White House burying terrible GOP House candidacies. The part about ’78 is accurate: just as Nixon had cast a pall over the GOP, top to bottom, as the party of crooks… so too, Tangerine has accurately selected these GOP House candidates
primarily for fealty to a criminal enterprise.

And he’s seen it all come out in the wash. But… DeSantis is no Reagan.

And Trump will not go quietly — he’s going to start dumping private dirt, in public on DeSantis — as he thinks the dirt (all truthful, BTW) will clear his own path to the GOP nomination for 2024.

All it will do… is again hobble the GOP.

See ‘ya Steve. 1980 is not coming. 2024 is NOT 1980.

Out.

Georgia Sen. Warnock — Squeaking It Out, Over Herschel Walker Will Not Be Called For A Few Days…

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But the whole “red wave-let” theory has died tonight, already. Oz loses in Pennsylvania, with Mr. Fetterman headed to DC… and many a Trump endorsed candidate losing. As a point of pride, Pitkin County (i.e., Aspen, Colorado) looks like it fired Lauren Boebert, tonight!

Hinderaker laments thus — near midnight:

“…Well, that didn’t go the way I expected! What a horrible night. I will try to assess the carnage in the morning and will have more to say tomorrow. For now, just this: if there is a silver lining, it may be that we have seen the last of Donald J. Trump.…”

Hilarious — he was (again) wildly wrong. You know full well Tangerine will not go away quietly… so the GOP is in trouble (blame gaming / fights erupting between the new Nazi / DeSantis wing — and the moron MAGAts): a house divided. Consequently, 1600 Penn. likely to slip away for another four years minimum.

Lovely!

Personally, I’ll candidly admit to being pained that Stacey Abrams and Beto O’Rourke didn’t pull off the upsets… but on balance, seeing Trump candidates crushed has been… a glorious trade-off.

Out, grinning… in a perverse way Justice Thomas can be credited, with Alito, Barrett, Kavanaugh and Roberts: their Dobbs opinions (overruling Roe v. Wade) gave our blue wave a deeply resonant rallying cry — it proved the GOP’s goal is to control women, not empower them.

Thanks, idiots.

School Kids In Certain Ugandan Districts To Go Home For The Holidays A Full Two Weeks Early — To Help Arrest The Current Ebola Outbreak…

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This is a very sensible move, as now at least eight school-aged kids have died in the current outbreak around the capital city of Kampala.

We continue to await early word on how that experimental Sabin Institute Sudan variant-specific vaccine candidate is fairing in contract / ring settings, on the ground, there.

And the latest, via Reuters reporting this morning:

…Uganda will shorten the school term by two weeks to reduce daily contact amongst students and help curb the spread of Ebola, the education minister said on Tuesday….

As of Monday, the country had recorded a total of 135 confirmed cases and 53 deaths, according to the health ministry….

And… please… please do go vote. Let your voice be… heard. And take your kids, let them see that this… matters! I’m headed there, now.

नमस्ते