Democrat News

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Some are wondering why South Dakota’s Governor included her animal killing spree in her upcoming memoir. “She includes her story about the ill-fated Cricket, she says, to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it simply needs to be done.” There is also a story about a wayward aggressive goat that was dealt with decisively, that is to say with a bullet to the brain.

On Trump’s shortlist for running-mate, Noem must think such anecdotes paint in a good light. They don’t. Far from it.

Source: The Guardian

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.

What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.

Noem’s book – No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward – will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.

And why did Noem shoot her hunting dog? In her own words: “I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.

By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.

Noem describes calling Cricket, then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control. Nothing worked. Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another”.

Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like “a trained assassin”.

When Noem finally grabbed Cricket, she says, the dog “whipped around to bite me”. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime”.

I suspect the chicken-killing spree story is made up, tagged on later to somehow absolve herself of blame, and that in reality Noem was just inept at training the dog and took the easiest route to getting rid of a problem. I don’t know that, but politicians like Noem bring out my cynical side. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter anyway. The dog didn’t need to die.

So why would Noem include the dog-killing story?

She includes her story about the ill-fated Cricket, she says, to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it simply needs to be done.

Now think about that for a second. She’s not blaming herself, because the dog was “untrainable.” She’s blaming the dog. But no dog is completely untrainable. That’s what tens of thousands of years of interaction and conditioning by humans have bred into dogs. She was simply shit at training so she took the ugly and quickest exit route, unfortunately for Cricket.

She got her gun and then led Cricket to a gravel pit. And it seems we know about these incidents (the dog and the goat) because a construction crew had watched her kill both animals.

Rick Wilson’s take echoes my own opinions of Noem, which were already negative, now even lower.

Cruelty is indeed the point.

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Trump’s political operatives are putting together a plan that would give him input into the Federal Reserve, including making him an “acting” central bank board member, according to the Wall Street Journal. Via CNBC:

The plans, which the Journal report described as highly secretive, are part of a 10-page document that suggests Trump — if elected — would be consulted on interest rate decisions. In addition, the Treasury Department would be used as an added check and balance to oversee the Fed’s bond-buying activities.

Along with those proposals, the draft contends that Trump could remove current Fed Chair Jerome Powell from office and require that Fed policy be aligned with the administration’s goals. While in office, Trump harshly criticized Powell and his fellow central bankers as they were raising interest rates and reportedly considered ousting him.

Trump campaign officials told the Journal that the draft proposals shouldn’t be considered “official.” It’s unclear what authority the president would have to take such bold steps on a Fed that traditionally has sought to protect its activities from outside political pressure.

I’m not going to pretend the Fed isn’t political. Of course it is! But to allow a greedy crook like Trump to manipulate the markets at will? Not good.

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Jamie Raskin hilariously suggested that the RNC headquarters could host the Supreme Court after wingnut justices appeared open to recognizing some form of presidential immunity yesterday. Via HuffPost:

Host Joy Reid, who noted that Trump’s federal election interference case could be remanded back to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and thus further delay the trial past Election Day, called the Supreme Court majority “so clearly politicians” before looping in Raskin.

“Well, they’re politicians who are not even subject to popular election unlike me. They should move the Supreme Court over to the RNC headquarters because they’re acting like a bunch of partisan operatives,” Raskin said.

He went on to refer to a question from Justice Samuel Alito, who suggested democracy could be at risk if a president could be criminally prosecuted by a political opponent after leaving office.

Raskin called that the “most astonishing” observation from the hearing and the question buys into Trump’s “narcissistic, criminal world view.”

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Politico’s magazine did a cover story on the New York Times and their feud with the Biden White House, and boy, was it enlightening. Well, maybe not. There wasn’t much we didn’t already guess, it was just weird to hear them say it out loud.

I find it so puzzling when the people who work there don’t understand how much bad faith coverage it took to lose the support of liberal Democrats. After all, the Times was held in high regard for a really long time.

But they’ve pretty much beaten our expectations out of us. From the piece:

In Sulzberger’s view, according to two people familiar with his private comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency. Beyond that, he has voiced concerns that Biden doing so few expansive interviews with experienced reporters could set a dangerous precedent for future administrations, according to a third person familiar with the publisher’s thinking. Sulzberger himself was part of a group from the Times that sat down with Trump, who gave the paper several interviews despite his rantings about its coverage. If Trump could do it, Sulzberger believes, so can Biden.

“All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,” one Times journalist said. “It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.”

And there we have it. When it comes right down to it, the New York Times is nothing more than a Mean Girls burn book. (Sure, Sulzberger graduated from Brown, but it’s forever high school at the Times.)

There was no risk to Trump in sitting down for interviews, because the Times doesn’t gun for Republicans with the same delight and enthusiasm they reserve for the Blue team.

I give Biden points for understanding that trying to court the Times is a no-win game and deciding to do an end run. Their last minute exoneration of Trump’s ties to Russia, what, the week before the 2016 election? Their breathless coverage of the Clinton Cash book, which turned out to be funded by Steve Bannon’s foundation? The constant refrain of “But her emails!” That is the payoff.

There’s so much more that I’ve suppressed for my own sanity.

Doug Balloon’s New York Times Pitchbot sums it up:

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During the Supreme Court hearing that will likely determine whether or not Donald Trump is tried before the next presidential election over his attempt to steal the last one, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked a question that should alarm everybody.

Speaking of President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, Kavanaugh correctly noted that it was “very controversial in the moment” and probably why Ford lost the 1976 presidential election. Then Kavanaugh claimed that the pardon is “Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history, I think by most people.”

Actually, there’s a good argument that it was one of the worst. If nothing else, it has allowed Trump and the MAGA Supreme Court to stall the prosecution of his coup attempt and gotten us into the exact pickle we are in today.

Journalist Garrett M. Graff wrote in a New York Times column that there’s “clear evidence” Ford’s pardon “seems to have paralyzed a half-century of prosecutors.” He noted that while Department of Justice policy makes presidents immune from prosecution while they’re in office, the pardon has made them “politically untouchable” after they leave the White House. As an example, he cites Robert Mueller’s report that investigators could not conclude there had been no criminal conduct from Trump, yet no prosecutor has picked up the Russia investigation since. “Everyone seems afraid to be the first to make the first move and break the Nixon precedent,” he wrote. Graff went on to suggest that if Nixon had gone to prison, and Trump knew he could very well have met the same fate for breaking the law, he may well have behaved differently.

Or maybe not. But at least Trump probably would not have been able to delay his trial by claiming he’s immune from prosecution and have that seriously considered by the Supreme Court.

During Thursday’s hearing on Trump’s immunity issue, Kavanaugh used the Nixon pardon to suggest that Trump deserves at least some immunity. It signaled Kavanaugh wants to grant Trump a defacto victory either by causing a delay while the high court determines how much immunity he should be granted or telling the trial court to figure it out, thus opening the door to further delays by Trump’s inevitable appeals.

Kavanaugh argued that if Ford had been subject to prosecution, he might not have granted that pardon because he would have had the worry of being investigated for obstruction of justice “on the theory that I’m interfering with the investigation of Richard Nixon.” That’s probably another good argument for why Trump’s immunity claim should be immediately denied, but I digress.

Of course, there’s no sure way to know how the Supreme Court will rule. But this was not a good omen.

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After 15 months of trying to pull a Biden family crime spree out of thin air, lead impeachment zealot James Comer has watched his dreams of MAGA glory crumble into dust. Comer, the House Oversight Committee chair, told a Republican colleague that he’s ready to be “done with” the whole fiasco, according to CNN. 

“Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out. He is fed up,” another GOP lawmaker said.

There’s just so much humiliation one man can take, I guess. The effort by Comer and co-zealot Jim Jordan, chair of the Judiciary Committee, to find dirt on President Joe Biden and his son Hunter has ended up with the two coated in mud. It’s become so pathetic that even Sean Hannity has stopped propping it up.

But how did it come to this? 

Start with the fact that a full year ago, even Comer had to admit that there wasn’t any evidence of Biden crimes. But that didn’t stop him and Jordan from plowing on and making it all more ridiculous. They brought in IRS whistleblowers who produced nothing but hot air. The biggest news story to come out of that hearing was extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s porn stunt, displaying nude photos of Hunter Biden—not the usual C-SPAN fare.

Despite those early fiascos, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy decided he’d try to save his own bacon by making the impeachment effort official. (The extent to which that didn’t work is a whole other story.) The first official hearing proved to be another complete farce. 

“Through the course of the day, not only did Republicans showcase their lack of interest in facts, they also demonstrated that they are absolutely terrified of anything that looks like a fact witness,” Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner wrote.

It didn’t get any better for Comer and Jordan. They were played by Hunter Biden when he showed up to testify on camera despite their efforts to do it in secret. Comer still plowed on with the hearings only to be embarrassed again in the infamous Russian mole and sawdust debacle. He then tried moving the goalposts, suggesting that impeachment wasn’t their goal after all. Rather, they were gathering evidence for future prosecutions in a would-be Trump administration, Comer claimed.

That was after they tried to pivot the story to a classified documents scandal, featuring a report on Biden’s old age, which was another total flop. They even tried to impeach a Cabinet secretary in another debasing disaster for Republicans.

All of which has served primarily to turn extremist Republicans against Comer for not working hard enough at impeaching Biden. 

“I feel like this was slow-rolled, and it’s been very frustrating for me as a new member because I feel like there’s way more that we could have done, and it just hasn’t been done in a timely fashion,” a frustrated GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told CNN.

“I don’t even want to talk to you. … If you don’t think they were influence-peddling, there’s nothing to say. My God,” Comer responded to CNN. 

Officially, a House Oversight Committee spokesperson says that “the impeachment inquiry is ongoing, and impeachment is 100% still on the table.” Uh-huh.

All Comer has gotten out of this is the animosity of colleagues and showing himself to be a fool in front of a national audience. Oh, and the unearthing of a few of his own little scandals. 

The perfectly hilarious cherry on top of all of this? The Kentucky Republican’s dream of redemption.

“Comer, a five-term congressman, has another matter on his mind: ambitions to run for higher office one day,” CNN reports, “including potentially running for governor, according to lawmakers who have spoken to him.” 

Sure, dude. Sure.

Republished with permission from Daily Kos.

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan briefly stunned John Sauer, Donald Trump’s attorney, by asking if the president could stage a coup.

The confrontation came Thursday during oral arguments before the high court about whether Trump enjoys presidential immunity for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump is fighting charges of election interference from special counsel Jack Smith.

Sauer repeatedly argued that the president could not be charged unless he was first impeached and convicted by the Senate.

“Well, he’s gone,” Kagan proposed. “Let’s say this president who ordered the military to stage a coup, he’s no longer president. He wasn’t impeached. He couldn’t be impeached. But he ordered the military to “That’s immune?” Kagan pressed.

“I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said cautiously. “If it were an official act, again, he would have to be impeached…stage a coup, and you’re saying that’s an official act.”

“What does that mean: depend on the circumstances?” Kagan asked. “He is the commander-in-chief. He talks to his generals all the time, and he told the generals, I don’t feel like leaving office. I want to stage a coup. Is that immune?”

Sauer argued there was a “very low risk” of the president staging a coup.

“If it’s an official act, is it an official act?” Kagan asked again.

“If it’s an official act, it’s impeachment,” Sauer stated.

“Is it an official act?” Kagan demanded.

“On the way you’ve described that hypothetical, it could well be,” Sauer remarked. “I just don’t know.”

“That answer sounds to me as though it’s like, yeah, under my test, it’s an official act, but that sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan observed.

“Well, it certainly sounds very bad, and that’s why the framers have a whole series of structural checks that have successfully, for the last 234 years, prevented that very kind of extreme hypothetical,” Trump’s attorney said.

The question was met with silence from Trump’s normally fast-talking lawyer.

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Courtesy of TP USA, Killer Kyle Rittenhouse has been doing a tour of campuses to talk about something, but no one was sure quite what it was he wanted to speak about because he kept getting run off of campus, time and time again.

But when Killer Kyle went to Kent State – the most offensive of his stops thus far – the campus cooperated by shutting down the voices of the students that actually go there in favor of the emotionally stunted social outcast. And thus, the purpose of his campus tours was revealed and, honestly, if it wasn’t so funny, it would be just sad.

Kyle was trying to recruit students to join in in Hitler’s Youth, er, I mean, TP USA. He was also pushing the usual NRA talking points on why we should all go back to the 1800s and the wild, wild west days:

At Kent State, Rittenhouse implored students to fight to be allowed to carry guns at school.

“We have these blue boxes that are on the campus – we’ve all seen them, you push a button, it calls the police, and you get connected to a dispatcher,” he said. “How long does it take a cop to show up, though? When somebody is trying to kidnap you or somebody is threatening your life, is that the quickest option to be able to protect yourself?”

He encouraged students to join conservative groups like Turning Point USA and said elected officials don’t care about them.

“What makes me really scared, and I get really upset that people, especially young campus students, aren’t allowed to carry firearms, just because I’m scared that what happens if these Hamas, Palestinian terrorists come to the U.S. and try to attack us?” Rittenhouse said. “Are we supposed to be left defenseless? Are you supposed to be left defenseless because you’re not allowed to have a gun in your dormitory?”

Does Killer Kyle understand that his presence on campus is a greater threat than any number of imgainary Hamas terrorists running around targeting accounting students.
We all know that Killer Kyle killed two men and injured a third in an effort to kill him. I have not heard of any reports of Hamas taking credit for wiping out an Accounting 101 class.

And while we’re talking about being a danger, please, for pity’s sake, surrender your dog before you hurt or kill it too.