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babylonsister

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Hometown: NY
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Current location: Florida
Member since: Mon Sep 6, 2004, 09:54 PM
Number of posts: 170,200

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The Senate GOP is spilling its dirty laundry all over the place, and it couldn't be more fun

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/7/2121331/-It-s-knives-out-time-in-the-Senate-GOP-conference-and-it-s-delicious

The Senate GOP is spilling its dirty laundry all over the place, and it couldn’t be more fun
Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday September 07, 2022 · 11:39 AM EDT
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The feud in the Senate Republican conference gets juicier by the day, with more and more senators feeling the need—when pressed by reporters—to take sides. The tension between Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who is heading up the election arm of the party at National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC), and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been simmering for months, reaching the knives-out point this week when The New York Times published its investigation into all the millions of dollars Scott has blown this cycle.

August was already bad enough. In an attempt to set low expectations for Republicans taking the majority this election, McConnell suggested that there’s a problem of “quality” in the candidates who advanced in the primaries. Scott answered in an op-ed, not mentioning McConnell by name, saying it was tantamount to “treason” to question any Republican candidate. That’s after other public spats involving Scott’s decision to release a radical and frightening platform for Republicans, which McConnell then trashed.
Farmworkers toil amid heat as bill strengthening union rights continues to sit on Newsom's desk

After what must have been a really fun Republican leadership meeting Tuesday, Scott emerged to insist that he wasn’t talking about McConnell in the op-ed, it was the other traitorous Republicans. He insisted that he and McConnell “are in the same position, we want to win the races and he’s working hard. … He’s committed to win, I’m committed to win.” McConnell, on the other hand, “simply raised his eyebrows when asked if he and Scott were now on the same page.”

McConnell apparently thinks it’s time to just freeze Scott out. He has taken on the task of fundraising for his big super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, to make sure it has enough funding to make up for all the NRSC losses. He’s also, according to CNN’s sources, told fellow Republican senators to transfer money from their PACs to his instead of giving it to the NRSC. “McConnell decided rather than fight this to focus all his efforts on SLF,” one source told CNN.

The sides-taking is clear here. Asked about how the NRSC is burning through money with little to show for it, Texas Sen. John Cornyn told CNN, “Well, it concerns me a lot.” He’s on McConnell’s leadership team and formerly served as NRSC chairman. “The Democrats are going to vastly outspend Republicans across the board. But as long as we have enough money to tell our story and to defend our opposition, I think we’ll be fine.” McConnell’s number two, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, has been talking directly with candidates, bypassing the NRSC, to set up joint fundraising committees.

There are those on Scott’s side, too, even though Scott has insisted that he’s not taking on McConnell. “McConnell’s comments hurt Republican candidates,” a source close to Scott said. “Anyone who disagrees with that is either an idiot or on McConnell’s payroll.”

A strategist on McConnell’s side fired back: “If you don’t know the difference between how House and Senate campaigns are financed, you probably shouldn’t advertise that in September of an election year if you’re in charge of Senate elections.” That was in reference to Scott’s decision to appear at a fundraiser for a House candidate in Iowa, a likely indication of his own 2024 presidential aspirations.

Meanwhile, the “nothing to see here” ploy isn’t working at all as Republican senators fall over themselves to talk about how bad it is that they’re fighting in public.

“I think we need to be united in our message,” West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Tuesday. “We have a great opportunity here and so I don’t think it’s a good strategy to be feuding two months before the election.”

“It’s clear to me that Republicans need to rally around their candidates if we are ever going to have success, and we can’t afford to have divisions within our conference,” said Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran.

“It’s always best to stand behind Mitch McConnell,” Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told CNN.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said this is all “a distraction from what voters are going to be motivated by,” and says he thinks Scott is doing a fine job. “I don’t think it ever makes sense—I’ve been doing this since 2007—and it always makes sense to focus on who you want to defeat in November, not each other,” he said.

As they all continue to dish to reporters about the feud. Too, too delicious.

Add on a nuclear secrets-stealing former president to whom Republicans are supposed to still be declaring fealty and an electorate fired up about the loss of abortion rights at the hands of Republicans, and now is a bad time to be a Republican in the Senate.
Posted by babylonsister | Wed Sep 7, 2022, 08:16 PM (4 replies)

David Rothkopf: We Need to Know Trump's Motive For Taking Classified Documents



We Need to Know Trump’s Motive For Taking Classified Documents
TAKE THE GLOVES OFF
It’s well past time for the Justice Department to stop coddling the rogue ex-president, and get to the bottom of his assault on U.S. national security.
David Rothkopf
Published Sep. 07, 2022 3:29PM ET
opinion

snip//

The story, should it be proven to be true, appears to confirm many of the worst fears national security experts have had with regard to the risks associated with Trump’s illegal relocation of the documents to his Florida home/country club. It makes it absolutely clear that this is not merely a dispute about “document storage”—as Republican defenders of Trump like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would have you believe.

Rubio, as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, ought to know better than to so willingly transform himself into a political parrot, demonstrating such little regard for the vital interests of the United States.
The documents found at Mar-a-Lago are highly classified because they would cause grave damage to our country—and potentially to individuals working on our behalf—should they fall into the wrong hands. Storing them in Trump’s desk, or a closet at a country club that is already known to be a favored stop for foreign spies, certainly raises the likelihood that could have happened.

And that is to say nothing of the damage that could result had Trump—or anyone with access to the documents— shared them with the wrong people.

That is why it is vitally important that, contrary to the impulses of Judge Aileen Cannon, the last minute Trump appointee whose ruling that the investigation be put on hold pending the appointment and review of a special master, is not only wrong-headed from a legal perspective as experts have argued, it is also profoundly dangerous.

Lives are at stake. We and our allies have been put at risk as a direct consequence of the actions of the former president. And we all will remain at risk until we know not just what he did—but why he did it.


more...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-need-to-know-trumps-motive-for-taking-classified-documents?ref=home
Posted by babylonsister | Wed Sep 7, 2022, 04:02 PM (10 replies)

Trump Declares Himself a 'Perfect Physical Specimen'

Proof positive he's suffering from dementia.

https://politicalwire.com/2022/09/07/trump-declares-himself-a-perfect-physical-specimen/


Trump Declares Himself a ‘Perfect Physical Specimen’
September 7, 2022 at 10:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard


Donald Trump’s attacks on the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago took an unusual turn this morning when he bragged about his body.

Said Trump: “Not only did the FBI steal my Passports in the FBI Raid and Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago, but it has just been learned through court filings that they also improperly took my complete and highly confidential medical file and history, with all the bells and whistles (at least they’ll see that I’m very healthy, an absolutely perfect physical specimen!), plus personal Tax Records (Illegal to take), and lawyer/client/privileged information, a definite NO, NO.”

He concluded: “Days of the Soviet Union!”
Posted by babylonsister | Wed Sep 7, 2022, 10:36 AM (30 replies)

Steve Doocy rips Trump: Nuclear secrets not 'the kind of thing you should have' in a desk drawer

https://www.rawstory.com/steve-doocy-trump-desk/


Steve Doocy rips Trump: Nuclear secrets not 'the kind of thing you should have' in a desk drawer
David Edwards
September 07, 2022


Fox News host Steve Doocy chided former President Donald Trump for reportedly storing nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago.

The Washington Post reported this week that “foreign government’s nuclear-defense readiness” documents were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this year. Other reports said that some classified documents were found in desks used by the former president.

During an interview with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Doocy suggested that nuclear secrets should not be stored in an unsecured desk drawer.

"You can understand why when you first heard about this stuff, you heard, well, maybe it's things like a note from Kim Jong-un to President Trump," Doocy said. "But then, if true, this Washington Post report, highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago that only a cabinet-level officer or higher could even look at!"

"That doesn't seem like the kind of thing you should have in your post-presidential desk drawer," he added.


But Rubio refused to acknowledge the substance of the report.

"We really don't know because let's go back and understand that all of this information is coming from one side and one place," the senator opined. "And that is sources with knowledge of the investigation. Well, who are the sources with knowledge of the investigation? The FBI and the Justice Department and they are leaking to the media."


Rubio argued that the leaks indicate that the investigation is about "politics."

"I'm skeptical," he griped.
Posted by babylonsister | Wed Sep 7, 2022, 10:13 AM (7 replies)

Jim Jordan: MAGA Should Brag About Overturning Roe

Just do it!

https://crooksandliars.com/2022/09/jim-jordan-maga-should-brag-about-taking


Jim Jordan: MAGA Should Brag About Overturning Roe
Sorry Gym, your colleagues have read the poll numbers and are failing to scrub their websites of abortion lingo fast enough.
By John Amato — September 6, 2022


Rep Jim Jordan told Fox and Friends Tuesday that Republicans should "lean into" the Supreme Kangaroo Court's decision to overturn 49 years of Roe V Wade and deprive women from making health choices for their bodies.

Closing out their segment, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked the Ohio lawmaker what Republican messaging should be on the controversial decision.

"Lean into It!" Jordan proclaimed. "We're the pro-life party," he said.

snip//

Jordan said Republicans shouldn't shy away from their positions, but that's what's happening as women all across the country are registering to vote.

The increase varied greatly across the 10 states — Kansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina, Idaho, Alabama, New Mexico and Maine — with some states showing a pronounced surge in the share of new registrants who were women and others showing little change at all.

The total number of women registering to vote in those states rose by about 35 percent after the decision, compared with the month before the leak. Men had an uptick of 9 percent.

--

But the increase in registration among women is nonetheless consistent with a broader constellation of evidence suggesting that the court’s ruling has motivated voters, to the advantage of Democrats.


Christian nationalists have hijacked women's rights after Republicans led by Mitch McConnell stole the court.

Women know it. And Republican candidates who've read polls know it, too, as they fail to scrub their websites of anti-choice tough talk fast enough.


more...

https://crooksandliars.com/2022/09/jim-jordan-maga-should-brag-about-taking
Posted by babylonsister | Tue Sep 6, 2022, 07:34 PM (12 replies)

Trump Went Judge Shopping and It Paid Off in Mar-a-Lago Case


Trump Went Judge Shopping and It Paid Off in Mar-a-Lago Case
CANNON IN T
Trump got the judge he wanted in the Mar-a-Lago case: One he appointed. And she just gave him the first decision he wanted.
Jose Pagliery
Political Investigations Reporter
Published Sep. 06, 2022 4:44AM ET


When former President Donald Trump summoned up years of bubbling resentment and sued Hillary Clinton and everyone else involved in Russiagate earlier this year, he naturally filed his lawsuit in South Florida—home to his oceanside estate.

And yet, when his attorneys formally filed the paperwork, they selected a tiny courthouse in the sprawling federal court district’s furthest northeast corner—a satellite location that’s 70 miles from Mar-a-Lago. They ignored the West Palm Beach federal courthouse that’s a 12-minute drive away.

Trump’s legal team, it seemed, was specifically seeking out a particular federal judge: one he appointed as president.


snip//

Months later, Trump is once again suing in the Southern District of Florida, this time seeking to hamper the FBI investigation into the way he kept hundreds of classified records at Mar-a-Lago. Except this time, he got Cannon.

The strategy is already paying off.


more...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-went-judge-shopping-and-it-paid-off-in-mar-a-lago-case?ref=home
Posted by babylonsister | Tue Sep 6, 2022, 08:09 AM (12 replies)

Politico's New Owner Invited Colleagues to 'Pray' for Trump's Re-Election

https://www.thedailybeast.com/politcos-new-owner-mathias-dopfner-invited-colleagues-to-pray-for-trumps-re-election?ref=home

Politico’s New Owner Invited Colleagues to ‘Pray’ for Trump’s Re-Election
GOD ALMIGHTY
Dan Ladden-Hall
News Correspondent
Updated Sep. 06, 2022 7:33AM ET /
Published Sep. 06, 2022 6:53AM ET


The new German owner of Politico sent an email to his closest executives asking if they should meet up to pray for Donald Trump’s re-election, according to a report. Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner sent the message in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, according to The Washington Post, a year before his company’s acquisition of Politico in October 2021. “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Döpfner wrote, inspired by an article about the Trump administration taking legal action against Google for abuse of market dominance. Döpfner went on to argue that Trump had made the right call on five of the six biggest issues of the last century—including pursuing peace in the Middle East and “defending the free democracies” from Russia and China—only falling short on climate change. “No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” he added. When asked about the message, Döpfner initially denied it existed, going so far as to say: “It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.” When confronted with a printout of the email, he explained that he may have sent it “as an ironic, provocative statement in the circle of people that hate Donald Trump.” “That is me,” he added. “That could be.”
Posted by babylonsister | Tue Sep 6, 2022, 08:01 AM (13 replies)

GOP Consultant Says Biden's Anti-MAGA Speech Made Her Cry, Gave Her Hope


GOP Consultant Says Biden's Anti-MAGA Speech Made Her Cry, Gave Her Hope
"To be very honest with you, it made me cry like a child," Rina Shah said of the president's speech condemning Republican extremism.
By Josephine Harvey
Sep 4, 2022, 08:46 PM EDT


A GOP strategist said she was moved to tears by President Joe Biden’s recent speech condemning extremist election-denying Republicans for the risks they pose to American democracy.

“Everything feels really dark. Really heavy. We’re in uncharted territory,” Rina Shah told MSNBC on Saturday, citing the discovery of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. “We are in [an] absolutely unbelievable moment right now, where we have a person who wants to hijack the country for his own gain.”

“So what I heard from Joe Biden last night gave me tremendous hope,” she continued. “Actually, to be very honest with you, it made me cry like a child. Because it reminded me of my late father, who came to America in 1970 and my mother, who came in 1980. And as a daughter of those two immigrants, who was raised to believe in the goodness of America, not just as a concept, but I was raised to believe in the goodness of American people.”


more...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-strategist-biden-maga-speech_n_6315251ee4b046aa022b51ee
Posted by babylonsister | Sun Sep 4, 2022, 09:46 PM (26 replies)

Trump and Consequences: After an Amazing Series of Unforced Errors, Indictment Is Coming

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/lucian-k-truscott-iv/103051/trump-and-consequences-after-an-amazing-series-of-unforced-errors-indictment-is-coming

Trump and Consequences: After an Amazing Series of Unforced Errors, Indictment Is Coming
by Lucian K. Truscott IV | September 4, 2022 - 7:43am
— from Salon

snip//

Here's the upshot of all this, folks. There are consequences when you willy-nilly have your lawyers file motions in federal court demanding stuff like special masters. One of those consequences is that you allow the government to reveal to the public all sorts of damaging information about you. Judge Cannon said in court on Thursday that she will probably order the government to provide Trump's lawyers, and the public, with a more detailed list of the materials seized in the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Trump's lawyers demanded the expanded inventory of the seized materials, (which was in fact released by the court on Friday) and even demanded the return of the documents the FBI took from Trump.

In a word, notgonnahappen.

What will happen, however, in all probability, is an indictment of Donald Trump for violating the laws discussed here. Legal experts and former DOJ officials predict that the department will wait until after the midterm elections in November, to observe that somewhat-famous DOJ policy about not interfering with politics during an election season.

We all learn as little kids that it's wrong to take stuff that isn't yours and it's wrong to lie about it when you get caught. All of us, it seems, except spoiled brats who have gotten away with not paying their bills, welching on their debts and lying practically every time they open their mouths. The Republican Party enabled Donald Trump to beat two impeachments for crimes that would have driven any other president from office. But he is about to learn, rather late in life, that there are consequences when you take something that isn't yours and refuse to give it back.

This time, there will be no one in the White House to pardon him.
Posted by babylonsister | Sun Sep 4, 2022, 11:02 AM (0 replies)

Letter to the local paper: Dear MAGAs

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/3/2120669/-Letter-to-the-local-paper-Dear-MAGAs

Letter to the local paper: Dear MAGAs
wren
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Saturday September 03, 2022 · 9:11 PM EDT
Dark Brandon's message to MAGA Republicans
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Dear MAGAs,

MAGA world is ringing with lamentations about how Dark Biden hurt your feelings. He called you out for the violent attack on Congress, for your willful refusal to accept election results, for the on-going harassment of election boards, and for your decision to give loyalty to a man, rather than to America and the rule of law.
Mehmet Oz thinks if the election were held today, he'd win. Who wants to tell him?

You deserve every word he said. You made yourselves party to the worst attack on representative government since the Civil War. You tried to overturn an election.

MAGA folks, like most people, are decent people with decent values and ethics within the context of their daily lives: loving family members, good neighbors and friends, good employees. However, in terms of your political lives, none of those positive values are present.

You tried to disenfranchise the rest of us by negating our votes. You justified that by disrespecting election officials and slandering them with nonsense “evidence” like: Dead people voting! People voting twice! Chinese bamboo ballots! People are voting by using PO addresses in multiple states! The Chinese are controlling the computers! Etc. Didn't it ever occur to you that election officials might be decent, competent people who can catch that kind of clumsy, obvious maleficence? None of the “evidence” trumpeted in rightwing media resulted in a prosecution because none of it was remotely possible without getting caught. People can't just walk into a polling place and dump a bunch of ballots to be counted. No, thousands of illegals are not registered to vote. No, you can't stuff a drop-in ballot box with fake ballots. Why didn't it occur to you that maybe you should learn something about how elections are run before jumping to the conclusion that margins of over twenty thousand votes could be achieved by those kinds of ridiculous tactics?

Why did you believe that crap?

Trump had no chance of winning because he went into the election year with a fifty-five percent disapproval rating. He lost swing states by margins uphill from twenty thousand votes. The race wasn't even close. Also:

He also lost all sixty-two of his lawsuits spread across six states.

Every challenged state had official recounts, and some had more than one.

The Pennsylvania Republicans had hearings which turned up nothing but a bunch of flakes saying things like “How can you tell if an Asian has voted more than once when they all look alike?”

Trump supporters in Nevada hired a professional to do a forensic analysis of their election and the only fraud he found was a group of Tea Party Republicans in Reno who tried to vote both by mail and in person.

Arizona Republicans hired a firm to do an audit and they found nothing actionable.

The governor of Texas offered a substantial reward for evidence leading to a conviction and the only evidence he got was a PA Republican who got caught voting on his dead mother's ballot.

Another group of Trump supporters hired an investigator to find fraud, but the investigator found nothing, and the effort disintegrated into a welter of lawsuits by donors against the leaders of the group.

Individual election officials accused by Trump or others have successfully sued the MAGA accusers for making false claims.

Faux and Newsmax are facing lawsuits for the lies they spread about a computer company.


Bottom line: Trump lost six swing states by more than twenty thousand votes per state and Trump supporters have not found any cases of election or voter fraud beyond the actions of an individual here and there.

He lost. Please try to handle that reality with the same dignity and decency shown by voters in our previous 200 years of elections.

Here's the problem: People who give their loyalty to a Dear Leader will refuse all information that contradicts what they want to believe. Polling shows that seventy percent of Republican voters are still pushing the Big Lie. Election officials nationwide have been subjected to harassment and intimidation in order to force them out of their jobs so that Trump loyalists can politicize the election process. Right here in Mason County a man who has no qualifications at all is running for auditor based on false claims about our election process which he got from something he read on the Internet.

That's why Biden called you out. You have it coming. You tried to disenfranchise your fellow citizens and overthrow our election because you believed stupid stuff. Your behavior has been disrespectful of the law, of other Americans, and is a threat to our nation's elections which are the foundation of our freedom.

You betrayed the decent values that you show in other aspects of your life. You betrayed your decent values on behalf of a self-proclaimed p---y-grabbing, three-time adulterer with two fraud convictions and a history of bankruptcies, who routinely stiffed his creditors, who used your campaign donations to pay off a porn star, who buried his first wife in a golf course to collect a 150,000 fee and a tax write-off, who laundered bribes through the Trump Tower, who deserved his two impeachments, and who topped his career off by stealing top secret documents. Yeah, that guy. The one who incited an attack on Congress but didn't give one nickel of support to help his loyal devotees with their legal bills when they got themselves in trouble on his behalf.

So...Biden hurt your feelings by calling you out. I am sorry when anyone's feelings are hurt, but frankly I think the integrity of our elections is more important than the injured feelings of people who made the mistake of believing slanderous BS about election officials and other voters. You are not the victims. We are. If you don't like being called out for your attacks on our elections, then stop making those attacks.

The rest of us will be grateful and forgiving. Truly, we will. Rejoin America, quit the cult, restore your decent values to the way you participate in politics. Please. You will be happier and so will the rest of us.
Posted by babylonsister | Sun Sep 4, 2022, 09:19 AM (5 replies)
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