Open Thread: Cuellar, Collared
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
It’s Friday afternoon and we’re much in need of an open thread.
Centrist Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX-28) gave us something to talk about to start off this thread. The Department of Justice announced today Cuellar and his wife Imelda have been indicted:
An indictment was unsealed today in the Southern District of Texas charging U.S. Congressman Enrique Roberto “Henry” Cuellar, 68, and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, 67, both of Laredo, Texas, with participating in two schemes involving bribery, unlawful foreign influence, and money laundering. Congressman Cuellar and Imelda Cuellar made their initial court appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dena Palermo in Houston.
As DOJ notes in its press release, An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
That said, you’d think a guy with a J.D. would at least avoid the appearance of bribery and money laundering, let alone foreign influence after the last nine years of Trump-y foreign influenced corruption.
Maybe Cuellar thought his firm grip on his House seat over the last 19 years was a permission slip. Maybe his DINO status and the inability of the state of Texas to hold corrupt asshats like state AG Ken Paxton fully accountable assured Cuellar he wouldn’t have to deal with the DOJ.
Whatever the case, Cuellar and his spouse are going to go through something and TX-28 Democrats are unfortunately going to have to come up with a backup plan if Cuellar ends up proven guilty, especially since Cuellar was uncontested in the March primary.
Again, this is an open thread.
Looks like I need to publish this reminder again:
A reminder to all new and existing community members participating in comments:
— We’ve adopted a minimum standard to support community security. Usernames must be unique and a minimum of 8 letters.
— We do not require a valid, working email, but you must use the same email address each time you publish a comment here. **Single use disposable email addresses do not meet this standard.**
— If you have been commenting here but have less than 1000 comments published and been participating less than 10 years as of October 2022, you must update your username to match the new standard.
Thank you.
I have been waiting for the last anti-abortion Democratic Congressman to fall. This has been an awful week. Joe Biden appears to have thrown the election with his dismissal of all Democratic voters under the age of 40 yesterday. But seeing Cuellar get indicted is a good thing. This has been a long time coming. Any regrets backing him, Nancy? Probably not.
The media fucked your understanding of what Biden said, further amplified by the usual disinformation purveyors.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/05/02/remarks-by-president-biden-on-recent-events-on-college-campuses/
Seriously, read his remarks c a r e f u l l y and consider the context of not only protests on campuses but the fucking January 6 assault on the Capitol. If any group of Americans should have been checking themselves, it’s those who are source of violence — like the cop who fired a weapon.
Now get a grip on yourself and quit amplifying bullshit.
ADDER:
See: https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/112378920755451817
Amazing how Brown, Northwestern, and Wesleyan managed to peaceably deal with campus protests.
And the media does a spectacularly shitty job holding other universities accountable for failing to protect students’ and staff members’ First Amendment rights by not doing what those three schools did.
I live in dread of another Kent State because of this lousy reporting fanning both administrators’ and police hostility, amped up by morons who reflexively live on crappy reporting and hyperbolic social media which may be manipulated.
I’m in Austin and I watched the UT protests and Abbott calling in the State Troopers to break up the protests. Juxtaposed with Abbott signing a bill protecting free speech on campuses, it’s quite the contrast.
Columbia is still smarting from 1968. Remember the old West End Cafe? where the students organized in 1968? The cafe was under lease from Columbia, and the admin tried repeatedly to evict them after that. They finally got the cafe out in 1989 (on a public health charge, I believe). The admin was so satisfied to give them the boot. They are haunted by 1968. Of course, Eric Adams is too happy to indulge them with armed LE.
A behavior preference of management not helped by the past four decades of corporatizing higher education. Corporations have less tolerance for dissent than the academy, and less tolerance for insubordination than the military. Columbia’s current president is a poster child for how appeasing the right does not work.
Good piece by Gareth Fearn — London Review of Books Blog for May 32nd, “Liberalism Without Accountability” — addressing this point. (I don’t think it’s behind a paywall.)
I remember vividly the first hint of the stink of monetization as it hit Univ Stony Brook when I was working there in the early ‘nineties.
We have a friend who is helping a group of students at Columbia who all got kicked out and home is the West coast. They are from families struggling for funds to move their student back cross country. Friend is moving them to their home, offering free housing as they figure out next steps. Pretty generous considering the move is an 8 hour drive.
Please tell your friend she or he is an angel and the world is a better place for their good deed.
You can’t change, by peaceful means, what capitalists and oligarchs will rain death to preserve.
[Moderator’s note: do not advocate violence here. /~Rayne]
The history of civil disobedience proves that wrong.
Rayne,
Nowhere in Joe Biden’s statement did he acknowledge WHY the young people in his base are upset. He could have said, “I get it. You’re upset because you see starving families being bombed. No one wants to see that.” Instead, as far as I can tell, he condemned his base. He didn’t say there should be no protests, but he didn’t acknowledge that they were 99.9% peaceful. He ended up condemning the protests in a blanket statement, under pressure from his side of the party. The older half. The adults in the room.
Just wait for Chicago. I know when a president is finished. I saw it, sadly, with Jimmy Carter in the summer of 1980. I saw it again when George H.W. Bush had no answers for the far more charismatic Bill Clinton. I saw it again with Donald Trump, totally losing control of the world in the spring and summer of 2020. And I see it now happening to Joe Biden. He is not winning in November.
I can’t help but be skeptical about nearly every single thing you publish here in comments because it consistently trashes Democrats and it does so using outrage cycles rather than reading c l o s e l y any materials here or elsewhere.
You think that Biden’s speech was solely meant to denigrate youth protesters when it wasn’t. It was a stake in the sand about ANY ***VIOLENT*** PROTEST as well as preserving the right to First Amendment protected protest. You’ve completely ignored that this speech didn’t happen in a vacuum, that its audience included Netanyahu and his administration, Israel, and Jewish Americans who’ve been under increasing attack in spite of their efforts to protest against Bibi’s genocide.
If you think Trump is the answer you’re fucked, and yes, that’s what you’re advocating when you spew this kind of demoralizing shallow crap.
By the way, use the same goddamned username and email each time you comment. Yet again I have to backtrack and figure out what you fucked up this time that caused auto-moderation and I’m a little too pissed off right now to do it.
Democratic voters under 40 understand that two or more things can be true at the same time. They don’t like our country’s approach to Israel, but know it would be worse with trump. The kids are alright. I don’t trust anything coming out of Texas as it pertains to the rule of law.
I am more concerned about the campus unrest turning off that thin sliver of Republicans in battleground states who are persuadable Biden voters because Trump offends their innate decency. If they sit it out or hold their nose and vote for Trump, he wins.
This election may well be decided by the nose holders.
While I can’t speak to the veracity of the 14 charges, as someone who boosted Jessica Cisneros’ primary runs against him, and as a woman incensed by his privileged opposition to reproductive rights…I’m not sad.
h/t to balloon-juice ($8 blue check mistermix): “You know what you call an anti-abortion Democrat like Cuellar? A fucking Republican.”
That is an apt riff on Cuellar’s repetitive fondness for paraphrasing LBJ:
“Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar is today fond of quoting a famous Lyndon Johnson line: “You know the difference between cannibals and liberals? Cannibals only eat their enemies.”
Kimberly Stassel
WSJ
August 17, 2007
Cuellar rarely misses an opportunity to employ DARVO, imho.
Jessica Cisneros lost by a mere 281 votes. Coulda had a progressive Texas rep to pair up with the excellent Jasmine Crockett, but the DCCC funded Cuellar instead.
No bueno.
We can’t hold DCCC accountable for this or any time they support an incumbent Democrat, because that’s what the DCCC is designed to do. The funds DCCC receives aren’t just from individual voters they pester, but from fundraising by the incumbent Dems themselves. We’d be expecting Democrats to fund their primary opponents and themselves if we expected DCCC to fund primary opponents.
It’s on unhappy constituents in district and on concerned citizens out district to fund solid opponents. It says something about progressives’ ability to do this that Democracy for America went broke.
The DCCC has been a good ole boys network. In 2022, then Chair Sean Patrick Maloney vacated NY’s 18 district to run in the 17th, forcing out progressive Mondaire Jones, who had grown up in the district. Jones ran in NY 10, but finished third. Four NY seats went to Republicans, including Maloney’s; one of those seats went to George Santos. It seems no one on the DCCC’s part did due diligence on Santos, and the GOP was able to claim the majority.
A couple of weeks ago, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a donation of $260,000 to the DCCC. She cited changes in leadership. The Squad used to be outsiders, but looks like time for the inside game.
The Squad’s members are Democrats. They’re entitled to DCCC support. AOC has done what other Democrats have done, financially supporting the organization which is supposed to protect incumbent congressional Democrats.
It’s not just a matter of leadership though AOC says that. DCCC’s composition itself — the pool from which it draws leadership — only changes if concerned citizens commit to recruiting, funding, and electing different, better candidates to replace unacceptable incumbents or to flip GOP seats.
There’s a profile of Ocasio-Cortez in today’s NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez.html
The journo who wrote that has been covering AOC for six years, and yet that piece still comes off like a beat sweetener for the purpose of access. *sigh*
Most of the kids are all right–they sympathize with the Palestinians, despise Bibi, and slightly distrust Biden. But as usual, the kids drawing media attention are the craziest. I call them “America Worsters.” To them, America can do no right, and the enemies of America (or interchangeably, Israel) can do no wrong.
Biden has to navigate between the Americans who sympathize with the plight of Palestinians and the many Americans who rather like Israel. It’s a tough job. But he’s old enough to remember the 1960’s, and draw a sharp line between the friends of Palestine and the America Worster crowd.
Criticizing the perpetrators of this utter humanitarian failure, whether it’s this extremist Israeli government or fellow Americans, does not make one an “American Worster”, any more than it makes both Israeli and American citizens who have been ringing alarm bells for years “Anti-Semitic”, as the House majority recently proclaimed.
Yes, and Bernie Sanders lays it out really well (link via dailykos so you don’t need to use the xitter):
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/2/2238558/-Senator-Bernie-Sanders-Schools-His-Colleagues-on-The-First-Amendment
Indeed, as did Rep Nadler.
Only one of my Senators of eleven in total, voted to advance Senator Sander’s attempt to hold Israel even mildly accountable to U.S. and International Law back in January.
Sadly, that was Senator Butler. I won’t count on my other Senator or the candidate favored to win her place-marked seat for any basic acts of courage or morality.
My Rep is excellent, though.
P.S.
Thanks for the excellent link.
Smirnov not going anywhere for a while https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden-alexander-smirnov-informant-detention-2a16e676657f32778b3efb31f259f109
To bad Weiss is staying on
I look forward to the incessant arguments about the predication for the DOJ investigation, the hearings, the dismissal of “whistleblowers” as axe-grinders, and the ignored subpoenas.
Oh, wait, that’s only if a Republican is being investigated. Sorry, my bad.
Sigh.
It won’t be long before MAGA says this is part of a psy-op. When this drama is over, whether he’s found guilty or not guilty, they’ll revisit the pay-op claim.
Jimmy Kimmel’s been killing his opening monologues lately. Hilarious.
Joining Sen. Bob Menendez in the *Collared: green* Club. Allegedly.
*snerk*
Wonder if Cuellar’s going to blame his spouse as Menendez has.
Did anyone check Imelda’s shoe collection?
Noice!
My first thought, too.
My German-heritage grandfather told many a story about friends of his, born in the 1910s and 20s, who had the first name passed down through the generations in their families of Adolph. At various times in the 30s, almost all of them began going by their middle names.
Turns out the bribing was happening inside the Capitol. All for $600k. Hope it was worth it moron.
In other tax cheat news, a retired football player and his wife owe $15.5 million in back taxes and filed for bankruptcy. They were hiding their money in another account from the IRS. It was nice of the IRS to just file a lawsuit against them. Good thing they aren’t related to the President.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10119319-former-nfl-lb-bill-romanowski-files-for-bankruptcy-allegedly-owes-15m-in-back-taxes
Couldn’t happen to a “nicer” guy: Bill Romanowski was a raging, violent, presumably ‘roided up a-hole . For some reason Bay Area sports radio tolerated him as a guest commentator for way too long.
I think he did admit to using HGH a while ago. He’s an insane hothead. It’s shocking he ended up being a fraud. I didn’t realize he had a career in the media.
What’s a little 10 years of not paying millions in taxes between friends?
But my favorite part of that story is this:
Glad to see he didn’t let retirement change him.
Yes, Bill Romanowski embodies pretty much everything that caused me to cut football dead from my life.
In different–worse–ways than Aaron Rodgers, Romanowski gave football and especially players in general a bad name. And he didn’t care. (I know; there was and is a class of fan who gravitates towards thuggery, especially of the implicitly racist variety. I’m talking about the rest of us who just love the game.)
He was truly repulsive on and off the field. Seems inherent to his personality.
David Dayen, American Prospect editor, up with his read it and rage Cuellar update:
“The court case will play out over years; the court of public opinion is another matter. Cuellar has already won the Democratic nomination for Texas’s 28th Congressional District; this year he ran unopposed..That makes it somewhat likely that Democrats will be running an indicted public official in TX-28 this year, when they had every opportunity to toss him out of office two years prior, with the explicit knowledge of the possibility of a corruption scandal. The Democratic leadership lined up in his favor instead, and now this seat—which as everyone has said is not a slam dunk—is clearly in play for Republicans to flip.”
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-03-house-leaderships-support-henry-cuellar/
A-yup. Democrats in that district need to think long and hard about their failure to field a reproductive rights candidate this year, even if it looked like they would lose against Cuellar.
Anti abortionists, ie anti womens rights should not be part of the Democrat party.
They shouldn’t but this is how our democracy works — qualified candidates who’ve submitted necessary paperwork and raised enough funds get to run for office. The public makes the choice at the polls.
There are Never Trumpers who say the same thing about the orange-tinted bawbag but again, that’s how our democracy works. It’s up to us to organize and mobilize to elect better candidates. In TX-28 they didn’t even field an opponent for 2024. What does that say?
Mehdi Hasan interviews Naomi Klein – re student protests, Zionism etc. (long-form interview, 42 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjt9M1CS9Qs
On a more serious note, Luke Skywalker pays tribute to Joe-B-Wan-Kenobi.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/03/mark-hamill-joe-biden-hollywood
During discovery for my civil case, my attorney was given an email from one administrator to another discussing me. They ended the email with the phrase, “May the Force be with you.”
At trial, when asked what they meant by that they claimed they didn’t remember. Subsequently, my attorney said there may be a good case for perjury. However, we settled instead.
Both those administrators took early retirement. I’m sure they would claim it had nothing to do with me. I’m also certain that they would never admit that the Force was actually with me, not them. These people were not Republicans. But they were authoritarians. Go figure.
Some use a play on words: May the 4th be with you, instead of “May the Force be with you.” But I was at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. It is part of what makes me who I am. It will always be with me.
Maybe that is why the Force was with me, and not those misguided administrators who chose to enable white supremacist militia members who abused staff.
Mark Hamill is right about individuals being able to make a difference. Anyone can step up to do the right thing. You don’t have to be anybody special to do that. And that is why democracy is so precious.
Attempts to equate student unrest today with student unrest in 1968 are, at best, premature.
In ’68, buildings were burned, professors had all their research files destroyed and (probably) a military recruiter was murdered.
(I say probably because the perp was never identified but it seemed likely at the time it was closely linked to the student unrest.)
Provide a citation to a report on that recruiter’s death, thanks. There are just enough readers here who may be too young to recall 1968-1970.
Get off my lawn!
I might take you seriously if I was still seven years old, old man, as I was in 1968. LOL
Sorry, cannot find one. I recall that it happened in Oakland, when a man rushed out of the night and stabbed an Air Force (?) recruiter.
It was the subject of editorial comment in Rolling Stone, so later than November 1967.
A recruiter was stabbed in Harlem, 2008, according to WNYC’s Gothamist.
Rolling Stone archives show nothing remotely similar to your claim.
I bring this up because I find the innuendo offensive.
I remember “Stop The Draft” protests at the Oakland induction center but no violence against recruiters. The cops were too heavy-handed with protesters, I remember that. No stabbing though.
https://www.douglaswachter.com/1967-stdw-oakland-1
Let’s hope we don’t get there. But O, Cruel Irony that the convention’s in Chicago again. Somebody keep a lid on Graham Nash until it’s over!
“We can chaaaaaaaange the world
Rearraaaaaaaaange the world”
It looks a lot worse to you, but what I remember is that the students had reason to protest. The cops weren’t nice guys then, either.
ETA: Do you know what the BofA in Isla Vista got burned? It was literally the only bank there. Which the media didn’t mention.
The Real “Outside Agitators” of These Protests Are Members of Congress There’s blame to go around here, but this started because a showboating GOP congresswoman lit the match that started this fire. https://newrepublic.com/article/181213/outside-agitators-campus-protests-members-congress Aryeh Neier May 3, 2024 [Aryeh Neier is president emeritus of the Open Society Foundations and was the founding executive director of Human Rights Watch.]
That “showboating GOP Congresswoman” is Virginia FOXX of NC.
Her side-kick is Elise STEFANIK of NY.
FOXX is otherwise known as: Virginia [SHUT UP! SHUT UP!] FOXX, [R-NC].
That was when she didn’t want Rachel Scott of ABC to ask
newly minted House Speaker Mike JOHNSON questions about
his support for TRUMP and the Insurrection.
See: https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/10/25/leave-the-rest-to-mike-johnson-republicans-prepare-to-elect-key-jan6-figure-as-speaker/#comment-1022018
STEFANIK was there, too.
Letters from an American, May 2, 2024, Heather Cox Richardson https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-2-2024 […]
Her reference:
Johnson looks to unify GOP with crackdown on college campus protests https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/02/politics/johnson-gop-agenda-college-campus-protests/index.html 5/2/24
Lacking a legislative agenda and no votes to pass any he might have, Johnson is left with making hay out of whatever events of the day come to pass, regardless of there being a legion of more worthwhile things he might do.
President Biden cannot win. Either he is too much of a hard ass telling these poor college students that they should stfu or…he is the ultimate helicopter grandpa handing out participation trophies and sending them cases of Ramen on the taxpayers dime.
This country has diverged. Much like Israel and The Palestinians the issues that affect us (infect us?) here in the US have been ongoing for centuries . I doubt that President Biden or anyone has THE answer to stop it. The best we can hope for is some mitigation, but we seem to always revert to the historical mean. The biggest guns win.
LOL. Makes a Readers’ Digest synopsis seem deep.
I don’t understand the point of your comment.
At least I hope I don’t.
The history, descriptions, and conclusions are thinner and more superficial than a Reader’s Digest synopsis.
Aren’t the comments here SUPPOSED to be brief, because I could swear I see Rayne mention this often.
Did you expect me to recount the entire history of the Middle East since 3000 b.c. in my comment? What a dumb ass…try Encyclopedia Britannica it might help.
You people here are so condescending (not all) that it’s just astonishing, and for no apparent reason.
Perhaps I have stumbled into some kind of private circle jerk here and if so I am terribly sorry…please continue fisting each other and I will see myself out.
Maybe this is the odd site that requires less readers? That would be an unusual business model and not one I would support, but if that’s the case the mods can let me know.
Was that better? Oh, and go fuck yourself.
First, I’ll address your closing line: that’s unacceptable. The replies you received didn’t merit vituperative language.
Second, this site expects more than emotional dumping, always has. Comments should be concise if they are not educational or informative. Was your comment educational? No. Was it informative? Only to those who care to know what your personal opinion is — which, by the way, only amplifies attacks on Biden.
This isn’t a site for newbies or shit posting. It’s been successful for approaching two decades because it offers deeper examination of issues at the intersection of civil liberties and national security, both by contributors and commenters. If you don’t like the community’s expectations, our feelings won’t be hurt if you depart for more comfortable venues.
You need a lot more practice before you comment here. That’s pitiful, not pithy.
There’s a passage in the book of Proverbs I believe, about a sharp rebuke honing the countenance. I joined FDL in 2010 and was always way too intimidated to join emptywheel but the more you follow the closer you get to deeper understanding. I say the honing you may endure here is well worth it.
I’ll bite – I am hoping that, in all things, Biden is operating with much more information than the rest of us. He indicated from the get-go that he wanted Israel to modernize their approach in their response to terrorism – to learn from our mistakes – and I will be continuing to watch to see if and how that happens. Similarly, I think he has handled regional issues behind-the-scenes and well.
While I find comparisons with 1968 to be compelling, history continued after that – and it wasn’t marked by peace and prosperity, in Vietnam or here. Many of the young activists today are probably, rightly, motivated by the protests after George Floyd’s murder, an inflection point whose long-term outcome is still up in the air. The 2024 election will affect where it lands.
When I read/heard about the Cueller indictment earlier today, specifically that it involves yet another energy company, I started to envision that maybe we are actually moving away from fossil fuels, the producers are starting to feel it, and the fighting to keep us hooked is going to get worse before it gets better. In reading the history of the last 100 years of conflict over, about, and with Palestine, western conflict over and about OIL tends to get neglected. Here’s post WWII article that seems to encapsulate what I’m talking about Oil, Palestine and the Powers (Commentary Mag 1947) The history of the magazine is interesting, too.
What really, REALLY bothers me about the American public’s response to the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza: nearly everyone consumes the tidy clickbait served by clickbait-driven media, failing to follow and examine closely the entirely of the administration’s efforts. They do not demand better of media, particularly better analysis; they really know nothing of Biden admin’s foreign policy work.
This is in no small part why there are protests on campuses, most of which are about as effective as the massive antiwar demonstrations ahead of March 2003. Or the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement. Unless their organizing gets its act together and focuses its effort, it will merely serve as the impetus for a GOP blowout in 2024 especially if that far-right propagandist fuckhead Rufo sinks his teeth into this mess.
100% correct. I think the 2011 OWS reference is especially apt, which Aaron Sorkin appropriately portrayed in The Newsroom’s Will McEvoy’s interview of OWS “non-spokesperson” Shelly Wexler.
You also aren’t wrong about Rufo – love or hate the guy, he’s the most successful propagandist I’ve seen in years both in terms of the tightness of his messaging and his use of social media.
I’ve said this from Day 1: Biden is in possession of more information than almost anyone else. Also, policy makers always have to ask: if this apparently good thing is made to happen, what next? And next next? Because there always is a next.
I’m quite sure that the overarching consideration is to stop Iran from taking over the entire region. Because that would move the level of suffering from really bad to much worse.
Netanyahu’s desperation and prior footsie with Hamas now have him in lockstep with rabid defense advisors who indeed favor what is essentially genocide. My Israeli relatives say the majority of the public is horrified too–even apart from fear for the hostages.
Gaza has become a horror show. Biden is acutely aware of this. But as you say, David, he is indeed playing three-dimensional chess: on the board above (both dimensionally and temporally) lurks Iran. And Iran threatens connections to Russia, at least. In other words, much worse possibilities in the future.
He must makes his moves mindfully, something Trump is incapable of doing on his best day.
I would think the overarching consideration is Israel.
There’s a load of information at this new website tracking SCOTUS Amicus briefs:
Covering the Friends of the Court The Supreme Court’s corruption scandals will not soon be forgotten, but many already fail to appreciate their full implications. https://prospect.org/justice/2024-05-02-covering-friends-of-the-court/
JAMISON FOSER, WILL ROYCE MAY 2, 2024
There is also a lot of information at the NPR story Marcy mentioned the other day:
When judges get free trips to luxury resorts, disclosure is spotty
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/01/1247512187/federal-judges-disclosures-luxury-trips
MAY 1, 20245:08 AM ET
We had more discussion about it in the comments there.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/05/01/aileen-cannon-liberates-details-of-trump-and-melanias-mar-a-lago-bedrooms/#comment-1050282
As AndTheSlithyToves says there:
Donors to right-wing / libertarian Scalia Law School, Law and Economics Center, which sponsors the colloquia: https://masonlec.org/donors/
Includes 3 anonymous Individuals and 2 anonymous Foundations + Koch, Scaife [all the other usual suspects]. Also, among the corporations, Chamber of Commerce, of course.
All the usual radical right suspects.
Here’s the Supreme Transparency page on [one of thirty!]
frequent “Amicus Filer” Chamber of Commerce:
https://supremetransparency.org/powerbrokers/chamber-of-commerce/
KOCH is the major donor listed. [Also, there’s the Horatio Alger Association.] They list 19 SCOTUS Amicus briefs Chamber of Commerce is involved in.
wrt: Horatio Alger Ass. and Clarence [Insurrectionist Spouse] THOMAS:
“AT the Court…EACH year.”
harpie, thank for keeping this firehose open. The SCOTUS influence operation (ongoing) is critical to everything that affects our daily lives.
Politicians who call out that connection (thank you, Sheldon Whitehouse) are doing an enormous public service. But so are you.
Not reported on Fox:
BF Borgers, Trump Media & Technology Group’s independent accounting firm, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday with widespread fraud and accused of operating a “sham audit mill.”
1500 alleged fraudulent SEC filings is a tidy sum. One might ask what other kind of now former accountants would represent Trump.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump.”
–Jenna Ellis
I’m not so sure about that.
Agreed. That doesn’t seem true of most of Trump’s aides. You join the cult first, and then do whatever you’re qualified to do, or not, in Alina Habba’s case.
From what I’ve seen/read about Jenna Ellis, she really doesn’t know what she’s up to past, present, or future. Amazing that someone of her caliber can fool so many fools.
Not sure Ellis was competent to even try the traffic tickets she once did.
Jenna Ellis was a lawyer for traffic court?
Geez, even I can handle traffic court (& IANAL)!
Yep, she did!
IDK, the Wikipedia article on her paints a rather more complex view of her than I held before I read it. She’s an extremely Christian right-wing lawyer, who is against the government interfering in speech – she said that Disney had a right to speak and support or oppose legislation without government consequences, in an open break with DeSantis, despite herself being extremely anti-LGTBQ, and she’s also very pro-libel laws. She seems to view most things through the eyes of a right-wing Christian first, democracy second, and everything else only a little. She was virulently anti-Trump before he won the Republican nomination in 2016, in part because she did not believe he was a true Christian. She fell for Donald Trump after she met him (not in the romantic sense of the phrase), and I can well believe that as more and more has come out about him, she’s changed her mind again, back to her earlier strongly-held opinions. She was also the victim of a “violent crime” at age 16, which, given the usual sorts of “violent crimes” perpetrated against 16-year-old girls, could well make her even more sensitive to, e.g., the whole E. Jean Carroll mess than most. She changed her party registration from Republican to Independent in 2021.
Not saying I think she’s on the side of good here, but I’m inclined to believe her.
I think she is saying from a purely practical point of view if she had known what the future held for her negatively in representing Donald Trump (as with anyone else who has made a decision/mistake with significant personal repercussions and is not a fool), she wouldn’t have made the same decision.
Reuters posted the BF Borger story on May 3 at 10:48 A.M. It is now May 5 12:01 P.M. and Fox News and Newsmax still have not reported it (I searched their sites with their search engines for “BF Borgers” and got 0 results). They’ve done the same thing with other news that makes Trump look bad.
Everyone talks about how the MAGA media lies and distorts but not enough about their lies of omission. Silence and NDAs seem to be their idea of free speech and “telling it like it is”.
BF Borgers sounds like a fictional company from an I Think You Should Leave sketch
May 4, 1970 I had been released from bondage as an unwilling slave for less than a month. Your service number as a draftee began with US, (unwilling), whereas as a enlistee your number began with RA, (regular army). During my time in Vietnam just the news that something like Woodstock could happen back in the real world literally kept me going, maybe even alive.
Then came Kent State. One of the lowest points of my life. Then it got worst: Jackson State, May 15, 1970 ( https://time.com/5836466/jackson-state-shooting-history/). We hear a lot about the former; little about the latter.
Apropos of developments regarding the governor of South Dakota: Say, Governor Noem, what you do het up about? Gov. Noem: “Had to shoot my dog!” “Well, was he mad?” Gov. Noem, “Weren’t so damned pleased!” Courtesy of Bert and I
I just want to share this account at BlueSky…I think it’s pretty amazing.
Art, but make it Sports [Bio: “We turn Art into Sports (and vice versa) | NO AI USED | “Everything I didn’t know I needed” – follower testimonial | See inspiration? DM/tag us”]
https://bsky.app/profile/artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social
For a taste, here’s a link to yesterday’s post on a Kentucky Derby photo:
https://bsky.app/profile/artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social/post/3krpeneoyac2n
May 4, 2024 at 9:12 PM
And here’s the post on Caitlin Clark’s WNBA signing day:
https://bsky.app/profile/artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social/post/3kqb434aaqb24
Apr 16, 2024 at 11:36 AM
And here is a screenshot of a 5/1/24 Mike Luckovich cartoon,
NoOne is Above the Lawhttps://mstdn.social/@TomSullivan/112365662227204372
May 01, 2024, 07:45
Disappointing in how all this has gone down with Cuellar, given that he ran unopposed this cycle in the Democratic primary a scant 2 months ago. While I understand that investigations move on their own time scale, had voters been aware even 4 months ago that the investigation was still active or that they were bringing charges they might have been able to get Cisneros to run again and beat him.
Speaking of Cisneros, the news silence around her is deafening. I’ve searched many different ways on many different search engines and cannot find anything about her since mid-2023. She has not posted on any of her social media since then, either. Certainly if she does not want to be in the news, that’s certainly her choice, but in these circumstances I always wonder why. Kind of wild to go from national news to nothing in a year, especially in a way where everything just stops one day in a binary way.
Regarding the move forward, if Cuellar is dumb enough to keep going, which it sounds like he is given his Menendez-like protestations that he and his wife are completely innocent, I don’t see how this seat stays in Democratic control in November, which is truly a bummer.
Here’s a little story (of many) that shows why I despise Republicans.
My county’s board of elections met on May 3 to discuss primary election results.
About 1300 mail-in/absentee ballots had problems.
Naked ballots: 84
Unsigned: 136
Undated: 164
Invalid date: 155
No ID: 166
No correspondence ID: 9
Returned as undeliverable: 282
All above ballots were deemed invalid and not counted.
So far so good.
Then the solicitor explained that 474 ballots had the correct day and month but missing or incorrect year (137 Repub, 337 Democrat). He explained that the PA supreme court has ruled that each county should determine whether to accept or reject such ballots but that it is reasonable to accept them since the missing/incorrect year does not change the fact that they were completed and returned within the allowable time period (i.e., after ballots were sent out and before end of election day).
The two Democrat commissioners voted to accept the ballots, commenting “I could not go to these voters and tell them we’re gonna throw out your ballot over something inconsequential…” The lone Republican commissioner interrupted and said “I can. The law says ballots must be properly dated” and voted to reject them. Thankfully he was outvoted. He and his supporters continue to push the “there’s no election integrity” narrative.
Apparently (see WaPo) at the MAL fundraiser this weekend ($40k per head, with 4000 in attendance), Trump lamented the arrest of Cuellar, claiming it was because Cuellar “is tough on the border”.
Also
In short: cray-cray. Just think: someone spent more than the life-savings of the average US retiree to preach that shit to the choir.
Four thousand attendees? At $40K a pop, that’s $160 million. Please check your math, and add a cite for that quote. Thanks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/04/trump-indictments-attacks-democrats-gestapo/
Thanks, but as Rayne would say, it’s best to let the original commenter come up with it.
Pretty sure that the alleged “4,000” attendees is really “400,” which still seems inflated, especially at $40,000/head minimum.
Yeah, this is bullshit math from the original source.
The article now, indeed, says “400”.
The 400 who wasted 40k were able to get a picture, which leaves the other ~3,600 (who didn’t fork over enough cash) getting nothing. Plus the two who paid a million each for the privilege of getting up on stage and talk to the fellow groupies.
Hard to say what the actual figures really are since it’s Donald’s math.
Interesting how so many MAGAs have a sixth sense that lets them hear what God says and how it always seems to confirm what they want.
Reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon: a football player facing the press and saying “First, I’d like to blame God for making us lose today.”
Check out Jesus and Mo cartoon for hilarious satire.
“Anyone who gives me $1 million right now… I will let you come up and speak.”
Way to fight for free speech.
Corollary: “Anyone I pay $150,000 to…I won’t let you speak.”
Susie Wiles? I recommend Micheal Kruse’s recent (4/26/24) profile at Politico.
A few things stood out, but the top(s) is the leaks for leaks’ sake and the personal needs of those who power play in the campaign. Not a short click bait or cable “here is why”, but a worthwhile (I think) deep dive on both a look back and look ahead.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/26/susie-wiles-trump-desantis-profile-00149654
Like many here I am aware of the psych of the candidate (and other distractions) for chaos and content creation, however, I have only seen bits to which Kruse’ nuance adds a new dimension. Tough read for some.
asking rayne’s advice directly: to donate to groups pointed at WI, MI, & PA voter registration and turnout, where should i go?
I can’t spend the time on this right now *waves around at the flames in the background* especially since I don’t know anything about WI or PA.
May I suggest using this site to identify organizations focusing on GOTV: https://movement.vote/groups/
And this study which identified the kinds of orgs most likely to spend more time and effort on voter engagement: https://www.nonprofitvote.org/americasnonprofitsgotv/
Thank you
Quick add here -I trust the Wikler (Ben) crew for Wisconsin to direct your donation. Couldn’t get rid of Johnson last senate round b/c of Dianne Hendricks and Uihlein’s- spread out dark money* (and Bradley foundation) – but Ben knows the state well for those who can not cast a physical vote for upcoming Reps state and national.
(*The dark money folks there – but helps others to know when/where “contractors” for beer, boxes, or home material.)
Good luck.
RNC chief lawyer resigns:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/05/politics/rnc-chief-counsel/
See last paragraph for speculation on Spies not being seditionist enough.