In Case You Missed It (v103)

I'll be honest, gang - I wasn't much into writing last week. 

Was it the barrage of news from Trumpworld? The never-ending proclamations of obsequious devotion to Trump from frightened pols on the right? The attempts at a graceful retreat from supporting him by the pundits who have shamelessly promoted him for the past seven years? Was it the weather? I don't know... 

Here's your recap of the two posts I squeezed out of my head.

For your Sunday School, I offered up dueling senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Rounds (R-SD), who were in the MTP classroom with Andrea Mitchell. We'll start with Klobuchar, who described the process for viewing documents labeled SCI, which stands for sensitive compartmented information.

...special room, no staff, no phone, not even a Fitbit, both because of the information in them, and because we don't want them to fall into enemy hands, in any way. And, she noted, that's why they shouldn't be removed from secure spots.

And Mar-a-Lago, where you can check out croquet sets and tennis rackets and golf clubs, that's not one of them.

Later in the interview, she talked about the former president's supporters, including elected officials.

...This is the kind of thing that result(s) when you've got a president that attacks law enforcement and attacks the law. I thought in the old days the Republican Party used to stand with law enforcement. And I hope some of them do today because this kind of rhetoric is very dangerous to our country... These are career men and women that are simply doing their job... this is beyond politics. 

Rounds, for his part, did what the good RINOs do: he questioned the move to search the former president's home, and doubted AG Merrick Garland's statement that they exhausted all other options. 

... you know, this is a very historic attempt and a challenge really in, with regard to looking at a former president, and whether or not they want to bring any kind of charges against him. This is a change, and this is something that will go down in history, and it will be studied for years to come. 

I hope Rounds understands that not only will the search of Mar-a-Lago be studied for years to come, but so will the fealty of politicians like him, the elected officials that sold their souls (and assorted other body parts) to a man singularly undeserving of their devotion. 

Another official RINO attack? (And yes, here at veritable pastiche, the RINOs are the Trumpers), there was the whole gamut of 'concern,' and of 'trust' that they themselves have been shattering in defense of the Orange Menace. For example,

...there's concern out there. And believe me, Republicans out there are questioning, "Why in the world are you going after a former president right now, but you didn't go after other individuals who clearly had classified documents or information that was sensitive and you did not do that in the previous administration?"

Here's the thing about that part: folks on the Right (and others, to be sure) screamed from the rooftops that Hillary Clinton got a pass from the FBI and the DOJ. But the FBI is led by a Trump appointee, and there's a new AG, and they're doing exactly what everyone said should have been done last time out. But now, of course, it's somehow wrong to do the right thing? 

Yeah, we'll be studying this stuff for years...

My other post was what a post-search Trump fundraising letter would have looked like. The letter, Let's Fight This - TOGETHER!  led us down the twisted, tangled mess of excuses we've heard from the horse's mouth. And, of course, he attacked everyone close to him. Well, almost everyone close to him...

Those worthless sons of mine were probably out golfing or something, or maybe Donny Jr was home waiting for what's her name, the "The Best is Yet To Come!" girl I paid $60,000 to for introducing Don Jr. to the crowd at the Ellipse on January 6th - what a waste of money she is! And how on earth was she married to that incompetent commie nutjob in California, Gavin Newsom? And now she's my son's fiancé? What did I do to deserve this?

And my beloved Ivanka was home with those Beautiful grandchildren of mine, aren't they Beautiful? They are the most beautiful grandchildren a man could have, right? Just Beautiful, through and through.

And toilets. Don't forget the toilets. 

And then, when they reached out to me last year, I had no idea there was anything being stored at my beloved Mar-a-Lago that I wasn't supposed to have. I thought I had taken care of most of the stuff anyone would worry about; that was ripped up and disposed of at the White House. 

And what about that Crooked Hillary flunky, Maggie Haberman, the third-rate NY Times reporter - half the kid her parents were, for sure, sharing those pictures... who takes pictures of other peoples' toilets?

And remember when I complained about having to flush and flush and flush? Yeah, well now you understand right? Damn 'green' toilets. You gotta flush and flush and flush them, it's a mess. Horrible.

There was more, of course - lots more - in the fake mother of all fundraising letters. The sad part is, the real letters will include much of what I had in the fake one - maybe not the part about the kids and the toilets. The worst part? The real letters will be damned effective - he'll take in a few nother million bucks from the faithful, for sure, like all good cult leaders do.

So - you're all caught up with last week; we'll see what this week brings. 

Quick Takes(v59): GOP Pride, Swallowed (Again)

Remember last week when it was reported that former president Donald Trump had ordered the 'official' Republicans - the RNC, the NRCC and the NRSC- to stop using his name and likeness in their communications?

According to an article in Politico, The Donald was "furious that his name has been bandied about by organizations that help Republicans who voted to impeach him - without his permission." However, an advisor made clear,

...Trump remains committed to the Republican Party and electing America First conservatives, but that doesn't give anyone - friend or foe - permission to use his likeness without explicit approval.

Well, the RNC responded, telling Trump's lawyer that it

 has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech. 

Not only that, but the attorney said that Trump had 'reaffirmed' with Ronna McDaniel that it was OK for the RNC to use his name to raise money - which the organization did on Sunday, in an email urging supporters to "DEFEND President Trump's America First policies."

Then, we learn from the WaPo that the RNC will hold an event at Mar-a-Lago next month when it brings big donors to Florida, instead of at a hotel as originally scheduled. Trump will speak at the dinner, while others, including Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis (he came in second in the CPAC straw poll), and former Secretary of BS Mike Pompeo will speak at the hotel.

The RNC will pay to rent the club and for the meals; that's typical for events like this. It's almost required to get Trump to appear. When he was president, the chances of getting his participating increased if the event was at one of his properties, where he'd make money off his supporters while accepting their adoration.

According to HuffPo, "That type of self-serving arrangement had become somewhat standard the Trump era, with his properties collecting some $10.5 million from various political and campaign funds.

 Grifters gotta grift, you know.

But what - there's more! Late last night,  Former Guy sent a direct message to his supporters. In it, slammed the Rs for supporting people who don't support him - the RINOS, he called them (adding an S to the acronym) - and asking that his real supporters send money to him, not to the RNC. He used that same tactic to raise millions for his alleged legal defense fund.

As one Twitter user noted, "this whole suicide pact could not be more explicit."

It's hard to imagine that the RNC could debase themselves any more than this - paying Trump for the privilege of having him bash their members, and then standing back and standing by as he tries to gut their fundraising efforts - but I suspect they'll find a way. They always do.

Sidebar: Ranting and Raving (v4): It's not the Impeachment, Stupid

I wanted to share some additional information related to my earlier post on how it's not impeachment that's messing up the president's response to the coronavirus crisis.  

That post was prompted by a Henry Olsen column from about a week ago in the Washington Post. One of Olsen's points was that the impeachment process was slogging along back in January and February, and that was the same time China was in the thick of battle with the virus, and (emphasis added)

Despite the near certainty that Republicans would not vote to convict the president, Democrats and most of the major media were almost entirely focused on impeachment. As a result, the White House was focused on addressing this threat to its survival, not on preparing for a threat from China that might never even materialize.

I wanted to see if what Olsen suggested - that the White House was basically consumed with trying to survive, and so couldn't also focus on the potential COVID-19 threat, so I did a little digging. Here's what I found.

I reviewed the activity just on the president's primary Twitter account (there's also the White House account, the @POTUS account, his campaign account, and others who reliably talk about whatever he wants them to) and found that he tweeted or retweeted 1,834 times in January and February - around 30 times a day. I searched that activity for a few keywords, to see what was on his mind.

In case you were wondering, he mentioned coronavirus/virus 28 times, and COVID-19 once.  When it comes to topics likely related to impeachment, he was much more active: 

• 197 mentions of impeach/impeachment
• 197 mentions of Democrats
•  99 mentions for Adam Schiff
•  65 mentions of some kind of hoax
•  65 mentions of Nancy/Nancy Pelosi
•  60 mentions of Dems
•  49 mentions of fake (most of them fake news)
•  29 mentions of Biden (Joe or Hunter)
•  26 mentions of Russia
•  24 mentions of Ukraine
•  15 mentions of FISA
•  14 mentions of whistleblower
•  12 mentions of Romney

But, it's not like he was slacking on other subjects, including calling Democratic presidential candidates names, endorsing Republicans, and other presidential things:

• 57 mentions of Bernie/Bernie Sanders
• 40 mentions of debate/debates
• 37 mentions of poll/polls/polling
• 35 mentions of Michael Bloomberg (including Mini Mike)
• 25 mentions of China
• 25 mentions of endorsement (my complete and total endorsement, e.g.)
• 11 mentions of Stone/Roger Stone
• 10 mentions of Pocahontas/Warren

As expected, whether he was talking about impeachment things or non-impeachment things, he was definitely focused on himself. But here's the thing: when you have over 57,000,000 legitimate Twitter followers (and another 15,000,000 fake ones) you can push any message you want, and before you know it, what you are talking about becomes what the media is talking about. 

Would you be surprised that, as the White House was fighting for its very survival, the president managed to attend 10 rallies - or, on average, one every six days? 

During this very trying time for White House, the president managed to make nine trips to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, which averages just under one trip every seven days.  

He also attended four fundraisers, two each month, or one every 15 days, on average. These were important to the president's own survival instincts, and raised tens of millions of dollars. One of them would have cost me and My Sweet Baboo a pretty $580,600 to attend, if we wanted the full treatment. One of the fundraisers was all the way across the country in California, not at all near his beloved Palm Beach. 

And finally, I looked at media coverage, just from Olsen's own paper, the WaPo. Would it surprise you that, in January alone, there were over 200 articles or posts that included the word 'coronavirus', and in February, there were over 600?  Or that the articles and videos were across all categories of the news spectrum? Politics, health, technology, finance, the economy, opinion, travel/leisure, lifestyle, entertainment and more?

That's an average of just over 13 mentions a day, compared to the president's average of around 2 per day.

Olsen can say that the focus was on impeachment, but I'd say that, as always, Trump was focused on his favorite subject: the one he sees in the mirror. The one who likes to golf, who likes to visit his own properties (and charge us dearly for the privilege), who likes to raise money for his own political survival, and who loves to be the center of attention.

And, of course, who loves to make everything bad good again, or at the very least, point the blame fingers in someone else's directions.

Again, it's not impeachment that drags him down. It's him.

The Irony Board: AOC's Not Paying Dues?

I love me some good irony, don't you?

And that's just what we have today, with this article from The Hill about how progressive favorite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC as she's known - the very pro-union AOC -  is apparently going to refuse to do the one thing almost all union members do: pay their dues.

According to The Hill's reporting,

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Friday defended her decision not to pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) saying she would seek to funnel money directly to Democrats in tough races. 

Asked by The Hill if she intended to pay dues to the House Democratic campaign arm this cycle, Ocasio-Cortez replied, "I don't think so." 

Huh?  How's that again?

Ocasio-Cortez, who "has emerged as one of the Democratic Party's most prolific fundraisers in the House," outraised all other House Dems in Q3 2019, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She and the Speaker have clashed in the past, and according to the article, she's had issues with the DCCC as well,

particularly after it began sidelining vendors who work with candidates seeking to challenge incumbent Democrats in primaries. 

Instead of paying the ~$250K dues, she's hoping to raise that money and give it to other candidates - House Dems, and "non-incumbent candidates." And, her behavior is not making other members of her union happy. Rep. Gregory Meeks, also from NY, said this in an interview on Fox.

Sometimes the question comes: 'Do you want to be in a majority or do you want to be in the minority? And do you want to be part of a team?'

An unnamed Dem was, according to Fox, "less diplomatic."

Deadbeat Cortez should pay her bills. She's always whining about people paying their fair share and here she is, leaving her friends with the bill. 

And, of course, helping progressive candidates in battles against incumbents like Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas (who has paid his dues) is not sitting well with her fellow Dems. Cuellar said of AOC supporting his primary opponent,

Certainly, these are new times, which is something that we certainly don't agree with. To have people try to purify the caucus because they don't agree with them - 100%, I certainly don't agree with that. Hopefully we will start to get away from this circular firing squad.

 For her part, AOC says she's "happy to support some incumbents, but it's not just a blanket rule."

And speaking of a 'blanket rule', I always thought that everyone in the union was supposed to pay the dues - even people who disagreed with what the union was doing, right? That doesn't get you a pass - not according to politicians, anyway. Some courts have ruled in favor of the 'don't want to pay' crowd, but you won't find a lot of Democrat pols taking that position.

And I thought that union members didn't attack their own? I get that you can support a different slate of candidates for union leadership roles than the incumbents, for example - free and fair elections being part and parcel of the union construct, and all. But refusing to support your fellow members?  That goes against everything the labor movement and the pro-labor politicians stand for, doesn't it? I always thought it did.

I wonder what would happen if all the folks who are in unions today, or who get all the union jobs proposed under the Green New Deal all the sudden decided that paying dues was for the birds? I'm pretty sure a certain congresswoman would have something to say about that...