An attorney representing the family of a man murdered when police used their Tasers on him more than 50 times in 2019 is making an important call of federal investigators investigating police brutality, and that is not to overlook rural America. Former Oklahoma police officers Brandon Dingman and Joshua Taylor were convicted on Nov. 8 of murdering Jared Lakey, 28, in the second degree when they used their Tasers in a manner the court determined was both “dangerous and unnecessary,” according to The Washington Post. The officers targeted Lakey in Wilson, Oklahoma, a city about 100 miles south of Oklahoma City with a population of 1,399, according to U.S. Census results from 2020.
”These officers didn’t violate their policy or training, they tortured Jared precisely because that’s how Wilson, Oklahoma, decided to police the community,” Spencer Bryan, the Lakey family’s attorney, told The Washington Post. In calling for justice in rural America, he referenced the high-profile police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, whose deaths led to Department of Justice investigations of the police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky. “Southern Oklahoma isn’t a major metropolitan area, but the people here are just as important as those in Minneapolis or Louisville,” Bryan said in a statement the Post obtained. “The DOJ needs to take seriously its duty to protect all Americans and investigate what’s happening to rural America.”
Warning: This video contains police violence that may be triggering for some viewers.
Taylor and Dingman were called to investigate Lakey on July 4 after a caller described him “acting in a disorderly way,” The New York Times reported. When officers arrived, they said Lakey, who was naked and unarmed, wouldn’t comply with their commands. So they shocked him with Tasers, and eventually a Carter County deputy sheriff took Lakey into custody. He stopped breathing, the State Bureau of Investigation told the Times. He was taken to a hospital in Healdton and later transferred to OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City, where he died on July 6 of multiple heart attacks.
Bryan has filed a civil rights lawsuit on the family’s behalf. The Wilson Police Department, which Bryan said did not immediately fire the officers, has not responded to The Washington Post‘s request for comment.
Shannon McMurray, a lawyer for Dingman, told The New York Times on Monday that her client planned to appeal his conviction. “It’s just a tragedy for everybody,” McMurray said. “In my opinion, they acted within policy.” She also claimed the officers were trying to avoid using other force on Lakey. “They were truly, truly concerned for his safety and theirs if they had gone hands-on,” McMurray said.
Attorney Warren Gotcher, who represented Taylor, also told the Times his client would file an appeal and that preexisting health issues were to blame for Lakey’s death. “We’re very disappointed in the verdict,” Gotcher said. “No one could look at him and tell that he had that much of a diseased heart.”
Craig Ladd, the district attorney, told The New York Times on Monday that officers were trained to limit Taser exposure to 15 seconds or less, but that Lakey was subjected to 3 minutes and 14 seconds of electrical connection from the Tasers. “They Tased Jared because he was lying naked in a ditch and wouldn’t put his hands behind his back when they asked him to, even though it wasn’t clear whether Jared truly understood what was going on or what he was being requested to do,” he said. “He never made any aggressive moves towards the officers, swung at them, lunged at them, or kicked at them.”
It’s not the first time a police officer has deemed a naked man so much of a threat that he was killed. Robert “Chip” Olsen was sentenced to 12 years in a Savannah prison after he shot and killed a Black Afghanistan War veteran in Georgia on March 9, 2015. Anthony Hill, a 26-year-old Air Force veteran, was naked at the time, a fact Olsen knew before arriving at the scene because it’s what prompted a witness to call 911, according to Atlanta Black Star. Olsen said when he arrived Hill started running toward him, which the cop of seven years with the DeKalb County Police Department interpreted as a threat.
“I remember thinking when he started sprinting to me … I’m thinking, ‘This guy is big,’ ” Olsen said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This guy looks like he’s muscular, like a football player. Kind of built. I noticed that when he was running I saw muscles pumping.”
As it turns out, Olsen’s jury didn’t consider the mere presence of a Black body in motion as much of a threat as the cop did.
In the case of Lakey’s death, Kevin Coley, chief of the Wilson Police Department, initially placed Dingman and Taylor on administrative leave and the officers weren’t charged until July 2020, almost a year after Lakey was killed. Coley testified in court that the officers were hoping to trigger neuromuscular incapacitation, which would cause a victim’s muscles to stop working, according to Fox-affiliated KXII. But Lakey kept moving, and Coley interpreted that movement as actively resisting.
“To have a police chief tell the family in open court that torturing Jared was consistent with policy is just too barbaric for words,” Bryan told The Washington Post.
The police chief’s position is, however, telling, adding an emphasis to Bryan’s warning that although the Lakey family is “grateful to the jury and the District Attorney for the convictions,” the “risk to the public remains.”
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●MT Redistricting: Montana’s bipartisan redistricting commission adopted a final congressional map on Friday, identical to the one it passed a week earlier. As before, the panel’s independent tiebreaker sided with the commission’s two Republican members to pick the GOP’s plan, which yields a western 1st District that would have gone for Donald Trump by a 52-45 margin last year, according to Dave’s Redistricting App, and a much redder 2nd District in the east that would have voted 62-35 for Trump.
In most respects, the map resembles the one the state used 30 years ago, the last time it had two congressional districts—and that includes the numbering. Many people, including ourselves and some would-be candidates, had been referring to the new district as “the 2nd,” but in fact it’s the 1st: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale, who currently represents the state’s lone at-large district, is sure to seek re-election in the 2nd, which includes his home in Great Falls.
The open 1st, by contrast, ought to see contested June primaries on both sides, even though the district is unlikely to be competitive except in particularly strong years for Democrats. The most prominent Republican running in the western Montana seat is Rosendale’s two-term predecessor, former Rep. Ryan Zinke. Zinke gave up his statewide seat in 2017 to serve as Trump’s secretary of the interior only to resign from the cabinet the following year in the face of 18 federal investigations, though he was never legally implicated in anything.
Since then, even after launching his comeback campaign, Zinke appears to have spent most of his time in Santa Barbara, California, where his wife is originally from and owns both real estate and a 41-foot yacht. However, it remains to be seen if this will give any Republicans an opening against the well-known former congressman, especially since he has Trump in his corner.
The only other notable Republican who has announced so far is former state Sen. Al Olszewski, who badly lost primaries for Senate and governor during the last two cycles. Zinke has a big financial edge for this latest campaign, but Olszewski still has enough to run a credible campaign: Zinke outraised Olszewski $615,000 to $290,000 during the third quarter (Olszewski self-funded an additional $10,000), and he ended September with a $405,000 to $225,000 cash-on-hand lead.
A few other Republicans made noises about running in the months before the new map was passed, and we’ll find out in the coming weeks and months if any of them are still interested. Montana’s filing deadline isn’t until March, so it could be some time before the race fully takes shape.
Four Democrats, meanwhile, are already competing for the 1st District. The best-funded contender at the end of September was public health expert Cora Neumann, who raised $465,000 during the last quarter and had $475,000 in the bank; she previously ran for Senate in 2020 but dropped out after former Gov. Steve Bullock launched his bid.
Next up was Monica Tranel, an attorney who previously rowed in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. Tranel, who has former Gov. Brian Schweitzer in her corner, brought in $240,000 and had $150,000 on-hand at the end of September. Tranel was on the ballot last year for a seat on the Public Service Commission, a contest she lost by a close 52-48 margin for a district in the western part of the state that voted for Donald Trump 51-46 and Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte by 49-47.
The only sitting elected official in the race is state Rep. Laurie Bishop, though redistricting left her in the 2nd District. Bishop brought in $115,000 for the quarter, but she only had $25,000 on-hand when it concluded. Finally, former state Rep. Tom Winter entered the contest in early November: Last year, he campaigned for what was then the state’s lone, at-large House seat but was defeated in the primary by 2018 nominee Kathleen Williams in an 89-11 landslide.
●VA Redistricting: The Virginia Supreme Court, which recently took over the redistricting process after the state’s new redistricting commission failed to produce any maps, has ordered Republicans to submit a new slate of proposed experts to assist the court in drawing new districts, disqualifying one pick due to a conflict of interest and casting doubt on the other two.
Under Virginia law, the court must appoint two such experts, known in legal parlance as special masters. However, the justices specifically rejected the nomination of Thomas Bryan, who had been paid $20,000 in consulting fees by the Virginia Senate GOP caucus in September—a fact Republicans failed to disclose in putting forth Bryan’s name and was only highlighted publicly in a letter that Democratic Sen. Dick Saslaw sent to the court just days ago. The justices further said they have unspecified “concerns” about the GOP’s two other candidates, both of whom are also partisan Republican operatives, and told Republicans to provide a new set of proposals by Monday.
Democrats, by contrast, suggested three nonpartisan professors who are well-known in the field and have served as court-appointed experts in past redistricting cases. The court did, however, order Democrats to come up with one substitution, saying that one unnamed person on their list “has asserted a condition or reservation” indicating he might not be willing to work in tandem with whomever the justices choose as the second special master.
●WI Redistricting: Wisconsin’s Republican-run Assembly passed the GOP’s new congressional and legislative maps on a party-line vote on Thursday, following similar action in the Senate earlier in the week. The maps now head to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has promised to veto them. Since there’s virtually no chance Republican leaders will try to pass compromise maps, redistricting will, as expected, be handed over to the courts. The question, though, is which court: Democrats have already filed suit in federal court while Republicans have a case pending in state court, with each side hoping for more favorable treatment in their preferred forum.
Senate
●AK-Sen: Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday morning that she would seek re-election in a contest that, thanks to Alaska’s new top-four primary system, will be unlike any other in American history. Murkowski’s main foe so far is former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka, a fellow Republican who has the enthusiastic backing of Donald Trump, but other candidates have plenty of time to get in before the June 1 filing deadline.
Sarah Palin, who won the 2006 gubernatorial primary by decisively unseating none other than the senator’s father, Frank Murkowski, said in early August that she’d run for Senate “[i]f God wants me to do it.” We haven’t heard any updates, divinely inspired or otherwise, from the former reality TV star over the last three months, though. Another potential opponent is Democratic state Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, who also expressed interest over the summer.
Murkowski ended September with a massive $3.2 million to $295,000 cash-on-hand lead over Tshibaka, and she may benefit from some of the unfavorable headlines that have been dogging her opponent. Last month, the Alaska Department of Public Safety fined the challenger $270 for “commercial fishing without a commercial fishing crew license,” following the release of a July campaign video that showed her retrieving fish from a net and selling them to a tender boat.
Officials declined to charge Tshibaka over a separate 2019 incident in which she obtained a sport fishing license reserved only for those who’ve lived in the state for 12 months, at a time when Tshibaka had only recently returned from living in Maryland.
All of this may help Murkowski define Tshibaka as an outsider, but that may not matter much to an ultra-conservative base that distrusted Murkowski long before her repeated clashes with the Trump administration. Back in 2010, tea partier Joe Miller pulled off one of the biggest upsets in American political history when he defeated the senator 51-49 in the Republican primary. But Murkowski managed to keep her seat that fall by convincing enough Republicans, Democrats, and independents to pick her as a write-in candidate: Murkowski ended up turning back Miller 39-35, with Democrat Scott McAdams taking 23%.
The senator will likely need to put together a similar coalition to win re-election in 2022, but, thanks to the narrow passage of Measure 2 last year, this time she won’t need to rummage around for the “Murkowski” wristbands and temporary tattoos her campaign utilized more than a decade ago so voters could correctly spell her name. That’s because all candidates for congressional, legislative, and statewide races will each face off on one August primary ballot, where contenders will have the option to identify themselves with a party label or be listed as “undeclared” or “nonpartisan.”
The top four vote-getters will advance to the general election, where voters will be able to rank their choices using instant-runoff voting. All of that means that Murkowski can very well secure another term next November even if a majority of voters initially prefer someone else as long as she can convince enough of them to list her as their second or third choice.
P.S. Politico notes that, now that Murkowski has made her plans known, only three senators remain publicly undecided about running for re-election in 2022: Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson, South Dakota Republican John Thune, and Democrat Pat Leahy of Vermont.
●CO-Sen: Former El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn ended whatever speculation there was about another Senate campaign on Thursday when he announced that he’d compete in the 2023 race to succeed termed-out Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, a fellow Republican.
Glenn lost the 2016 Senate contest to Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet by a 50-44 margin. Glenn then campaigned for 5th Congressional District two years later, but Rep. Doug Lamborn held him off in the primary 52-20.
Governors
●NJ-Gov: Republican Jack Ciattarelli used his Friday concession, which very belatedly came over a week after it was clear he’d lost to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy 51-48, to announce that he planned to run for this post again in 2025. That’s an absurdly early start, though Ciattarelli, who lost the 2017 primary, is certainly no stranger to the permanent campaign.
●NY-Gov: WAMC asked Westchester County Executive George Latimer on Thursday about his interest in entering the Democratic primary, to which he replied, “I think it’s pretty unlikely at this stage of the game.” Latimer added, “Never say never. But, you know, I think it’s pretty clear to me that the candidacies of Governor [Kathy] Hochul and Attorney General [Tish] James are the major candidacies.”
He may be about to say never, though, as News 12 reported the following day that James was strongly considering selecting Latimer as her candidate for lieutenant governor, an idea he seemed to like when asked. Latimer said, “If I can offer a viable team to New York and voters just like we did in Westchester County twice, I would seriously look at it going forward.”
Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor of New York compete in separate nomination contests before running as a ticket in the general election, but they can choose to campaign together in the primary. Primary voters, however, are under no obligation to pick both the gubernatorial candidate and their informal running mate.
Axne’s current seat, which is also numbered the 3rd District, makes up about 85% of the new constituency, so the congresswoman will be campaigning in turf she knows well. The new version of this Des Moines area seat went for Trump 49.3-48.9, which makes it very similar to his 49.1-49.0 showing in the existing 3rd. Axne has been preparing for another competitive fight since she won in 2020, and she ended September with $1.6 million in the bank.
Several Republicans were campaigning against Axne before the new maps were drawn. Her most high-profile foe appears to be state Sen. Zach Nunn, who had $215,000 on-hand, while businesswoman Nicole Hasso had $135,000 to spend. A third Republican candidate, former state Rep. Mary Ann Hanusa, had a mere $45,000 in the bank, and she learned last month that the new map moved her to Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra’s 4th District. Hanusa recently told the Des Moines Register, “I will look at the situation and consider everything. For right now, the campaign’s still on.”
●NC-14: Republicans in North Carolina’s mountainous western region, for the second cycle in a row, have an open seat congressional primary ahead of them thanks to Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s decision to run for re-election in the new 13th District, which he barely represents, instead of in the 14th District. The new seat backed Donald Trump by a 53-45 margin last year while Cawthorn’s current 11th supported Trump 55-43, a shift to the left that still likely puts the 14th out of reach for Democrats outside of an unusually strong Democratic year.
While Cawthorn’s district switch surprised most people, he did give potential candidates considerably more time to decide whether to run than his predecessor did. Then-Rep. Mark Meadows announced his departure a mere day before the filing deadline in 2019 when it was too late for anyone who had already filed to seek a different office to switch races.
Dallas Woodhouse, a former executive director of the state GOP notorious for his voter suppression efforts but who these days serves up political commentary, relays that a trio of Republican state senators are interested: Deanna Ballard, Chuck Edwards, and Ralph Hise. Hise, interestingly, co-authored this new gerrymandered congressional map, though he may not have known he’d have an opportunity to run here anytime soon. Business North Carolina’s Colin Campbell also writes that the legislative map paired Ballard and Hise together, so it may make sense for one to run for Congress.
Edwards, for his part, has been one of Cawthorn’s loudest intra-party critics. Notably, he put out a statement days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol taking Cawthorn to task for trying to delegitimize the 2020 election, declaring, “Congressman Cawthorn’s inflammatory approach of encouraging people to ‘lightly threaten’ legislators not only fails to solve the core problem of a lack of confidence in the integrity of our elections system. It exacerbates the divisions in our country and has the potential to needlessly place well-meaning citizens, law enforcement officers, and elected officials in harm’s way.” The Mountaineer said back in March that Edwards was even interested in challenging Cawthorn, though there were no new public developments since then.
Local GOP official Michelle Woodhouse, meanwhile, didn’t rule out her own campaign in the hours before Cawthorn announced his move. The Smoky Mountain News writes that she’s “related to Dallas Woodhouse through her husband.”
A few Democrats were also already in the race back when they assumed they’d be running against Cawthorn. The best-funded of the group was Buncombe County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who had $345,000 on-hand. Pastor Eric Gash, by contrast, had $100,000 to spend.
Judges
●PA Commonwealth Court: Democrats are on the verge of flipping a Republican-held seat on Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court, one of the state’s two intermediate appellate courts whose members are elected statewide. Democrat Lori Dumas, a judge in Philadelphia, currently leads Republican Drew Crompton by more than 17,000 votes in the race for the crucial second slot (the top two vote-getters both win), though the contest will head to an automatic recount since the margin is under 0.5%. Given the large gap in raw votes, however, it would be almost impossible for the outcome to change.
Two spots on the court were up for election earlier this month: Crompton’s, since he was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2019, and one held by another Republican, Mary Hannah Leavitt, who chose to retire. Heading into the election, the GOP held a 7-2 advantage on the court; because Republican Stacy Wallace finished in first place, once Dumas’ victory is confirmed, that advantage will drop to 6-3.
It will soon shrink further, though, because one of the court’s other members, Republican Kevin Brobson, narrowly won a seat on the state Supreme Court on Nov. 2. That means Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf will be able to fill the impending vacancy, though since anyone he nominates would need to be confirmed by the Republican-held state Senate, he might prefer to leave the seat open rather than accede to a compromise candidate (which is precisely what Crompton was two years ago).
While most traditional appeals in Pennsylvania are handled by the state’s other intermediate court, known as the Superior Court, the Commonwealth Court hears cases brought against the state and other governmental bodies. Its most crucial area of jurisdiction is election law, where it often acts as a trial court—meaning lawsuits must be brought there initially—rather than an appellate court. Its rulings therefore tee up cases for the state Supreme Court, which Democrats control 5-2 and has frequently acted to guarantee voting rights in recent years.
●NY-AG: Two Democrats have announced bids this month to succeed Attorney General Tish James, who is giving up this post to run for governor: state Sen. Shelley Mayer and law professor/2018 candidate Zephyr Teachout. Plenty of other Democrats could also run, and the New York Times lists Daniel Goldman, who was the lead Democratic counsel in Donald Trump’s first inquiry, as a possibility.
Grab Bag
●Site News: Friday was a bittersweet day at Daily Kos Elections, since it marked Matt Booker’s last day with the team. Matt joined us as our elections research coordinator just before the wild 2018 midterms and has spent the last three years performing every imaginable task around our little shop. If you’ve ever perused our special elections Big Board, consulted one of our election calendars, read our coverage of local races, or relied on any of our many, many data sets, you have Matt to thank for making it possible—and making it better. Above all, he’s a true mensch and a delight to work with. We’re very sorry to see him go, but we’re excited for the next chapter in his career … which he’ll tell you all about very soon. Good luck, Matt!
Yes, yes, I know — obviously people on all sides of the ideological spectrum get angry about things. But the things right-wingers get performatively angry about are so contrived! And so dumb!
As always, if you enjoy this work, please help keep it sustainable by joining my weekly subscription newsletter, Sparky’s List! You can choose to have it delivered to your inbox or sign up via Patreon, the content is exactly the same! And since Fox News informs me that Joe Biden is going to cancel Christmas, it’s probably not too early to check out the store!
And that, friends, is why the anti-vaxxers can, now and forever, go eff themselves.
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 15, 2021
Note: This note is sponsored by silence. If you’re still hearing these words in your head as you read them, you should probably try new extra-strength silence. If that doesn’t work, sorry but we’re all out of ideas. Maybe go through your neighbor’s trash for some unused ivermectin, which is not a sponsor of this note but golly we’re just trying to be helpful? —C&J Sales Dept.
Percent of American adults now at least partially vaccinated: 81%
Number of Americans who quit their jobs in September as the sheer volume of available jobs is empowering workers to take their pick: 4.4 million
Percent of Americans who are likely to travel this year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, respectively, versus 21% and 24% last year, according to a new Morning Consult poll: 29%, 33%
Among parents with children under the age of 12, percent who say the availability of vaccines for kids ages 5-11 will make them more likely to travel: 41%
Miles that Pingu the Antarctic penguin had traveled when he was discovered waddling along the coast of New Zealand:1,800
CHEERS to a BFD in BFD Land. President Biden will put his signature on a major piece of his agenda today the usual way presidents do: O.N.E. L.E.T.T.E.R. A.T. A. T.I.M.E. When he’s done six hours later, we can finally fire off the confetti cannon and celebrate our nation’s first Infrastructure Week since he attended the signing (as vice president) of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 a generation ago. Unlike that mishmash of projects that no one can remember, this time things are different because someone thought up the brilliant idea of keeping it simple. The major components are so simple, in fact, that they can be scribbled on a cocktail napkin, which I did Saturday night:
To answer your question: Jose Cuervo margarita mix. (Michael’s, not mine.)
Y’know…infrastructure! And while Democrats are celebrating the achievement, Republicans who in any way supported the bill will be cowering in a corner as they deal with death threats from the cult they helped create. Because as everybody knows, fixing potholes is just one step away from tyranny. Or something.
CHEERS to the long arm of the lerr. He’s not larger than life. He’s not a super genius. He’s not dedicated to anything other than hedonistic pleasure for himself and chaos for everyone else. No, he’s just a stupid Breitbart dropout who briefly glommed onto the orange-stained coattails of a guy simultaneously America’s #1 grifter and #1 mark. And today the bum finally poses for his official mug shot:
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday, charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions from the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. […]
Preview of today’s arraignment.
He was charged Friday with two contempt counts—one for refusing to appear for a deposition and another for declining to produce documents requested by the committee. If convicted, Bannon could face up to a year behind bars and a fine of up to $100,000.
But I do admit that when I think about Steve Bannon rotting in a rat-infested jail cell for an entire year, I feel bad. For the rats.
CHEERS to America’s first shusher. 289 years ago this week, in 1732, the first paid librarian, Louis Timothee, took his place behind a desk after getting hired for the job by none other than Ben Franklin. Other than that, all I know is what Wikipedia tells me:
Timothee was born (in 1699) in Holland to French Huguenot parents. Franklin arranged for Timothee to serve as a part-time librarian for the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of Franklin’s first philanthropic projects.
“Shh!” “Don’t shush me!” “I WILL shush you, it’s a library!” “Well, say it don’t spray it.”
(Needless to say, there was a bit of a settling-in period for Mr. Timothee.)
Franklin started the library July 1, 1731. There was no librarian until November 14, 1732, when Timothee was hired as the first salaried librarian in the American colonies. He was paid three pounds sterling every trimester.
He worked every Wednesday from two to three o’clock and every Saturday from ten to four.
Or as the Republican Freedom Caucus calls him: a workaholic.
CHEERS to Mary Had A Little Lamb. Back in the day, you could play that tune with the buttons on your touch-tone phone, which was invented on this date in 1963. It was almost as awesome as being able to spell out BOOBIES with your calculator by punching in 5318008 and turning it upside down. Man, we were wild back then. You kids have no idea.
Your first name is Get. Your middle name is Me. Welcome to the Abier family, kid.
CHEERS to naming rights. Lost in all the hoopla about trivial issues like infrastructure, abortion bans, and Republicans throwing America into the toilet and flushing, is the most pressing issue of the day: what parents are naming their spawn, of course. So allow me to terminate the suspense: the most popular baby boy names of 2021 were Liam, Noah, and Oliver. Top baby girl names were Olivia, Emma and Amelia. I went through a period of confusion when I was young, thanks to my mom and dad. For the first eighteen years of my life I thought my middle name was Billy and my first name was Dammit.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 15, 2011
CHEERS and JEERS to getting’ the hell outta dodge. The good news: a Russian Soyuz rocket successfully launched two cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut towards the International Space Station. The bad news: a Russian Mars probe is still hanging over the earth’s head this morning, full of 12 tons of toxic rocket fuel, and they’re having no success communicating with it. But not everyone’s upset about it. When Michele Bachmann heard there was all that fuel in space, she immediately tweeted: Drill There, Drill Now!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to cleansing your cosmic soul. Speaking of space: cast your eyes heavenward this week and you might see some wowee-zowee fireworks in the sky. The Leonid Brezhnev meteor shower—which happens every time Earth plays footsies with Comet Tempel-Tuttle and its debris field—is entering its most Leonidinicious period tomorrow and Wednesday night:
In ideal conditions you can see 10 to 15 meteors at the peak of the shower, according to EarthSky. In 2021, unfortunately, we will have to deal with a waxing gibbous moon, which will make it hard to see fainter meteors. The best time to look it just before dawn Nov. 17 after the moon has set. […]
Leonids are fast: They travel at 44 miles per second and are considered to be some of the fastest meteors out there, NASA said.
Thunder is God bowling. Meteor showers are God playing Atari’s ‘Missile Command.’
In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors. Be patient—the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse
As I like to say, everyone loves meteor showers because they’re beautiful, unite Americans in a common activity, and make lots of people happy and curious about the universe and the wonders of science. Which explains why Republicans in Congress plan to introduce a constitutional amendment banning all future meteor showers.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to Daily Kos’s shrill lefty front-page blogger Mark Sumner…and many blessings on your camels. Have a tolerable Monday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial
“As a private citizen, Mr. Moulitsas sent former ad guy, of all people, Bill in Portland Maine into the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool in what he is calling a rubber-ducky ambassador. A guy I would not send to 7-11 to get a Slurpee.”
The fight over January 6 is about much more than the law.
Does anyone still remember the Chicago Seven?
They were a disparate group of radicals—some who knew each other, some who didn’t—who went to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 to spark trouble. Trouble did indeed erupt, although maybe not the exact trouble they had wanted. They were indicted and prosecuted. And then things went terribly wrong for the government.
The prosecution thought it was running a trial, a legal proceeding governed by rules. The defendants decided that they would instead mount a new kind of media spectacle intended to show total contempt for the rules, and to propagandize the viewing public into sharing their contempt. The prosecution was doing law; the defense countered with politics.
The indictment of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress is the opening bell of a similar kind of fight over law, justice, and authority.
In abandoning peaceful transfer of power, Trump and his allies reject 224 years of history. https://t.co/DJtN6NbS89
Among the Covid experts I regularly talk with, Dr. Robert Wachter is one of the more cautious. He worries about “long Covid,” and he believes that many people should receive booster shots. He says that he may wear a mask in supermarkets and on airplanes for the rest of his life.
Yet Wachter — the chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco — also worries about the downsides of organizing our lives around Covid. In recent weeks, he has begun to think about when most of life’s rhythms should start returning to normal. Increasingly, he believes the answer is: Now.
Not well received:
Which precautions should stay and which should go? Many experts have many opinions on this, but you should know that David Leonhardt is not one of them. Actual experts/responsible journalists don’t cherry-pick quotes & data to justify the conclusion they want to be true. https://t.co/P4WNhj0FQ5
Biden’s bill isn’t a celebration of bipartisanship. It’s the funeral.
When President Biden signs the infrastructure bill into law on Monday, it will be pitched to the public as a bipartisan accomplishment. In fact, the bill is probably the dying gasp of cross-party cooperation for the foreseeable future.
The hints are already there. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) helped pass the bill, but he will skip the signing ceremony on Monday. The bill might bring some dollars home to Kentucky — and probably averted the destruction of the filibuster — but McConnell won’t allow himself to be seen on camera cooperating with a Democratic president. Politics is politics.
Quick thread: There is, finally, good news from the anti-vaccine beat. It’s wrapped in some bad news. The good: Mandates are working. Anti-vaxxers are exhausted, giving in and getting the shot. The bad: They’re running home to “detox” in weird ways, hoping to “undo” it.
That’s where the good news comes in: Antivaxxers realize that they’re losing the war. They’re attempting to adapt to a largely vaccinated world with ludicrous post-shot remedies. But the outcome is not terrible: more vaccinated people, taking very itchy borax baths.
Steve Bannon’s indictment reveals a dangerous congressional dependency
Real reform requires more than just periodic indictments from the president of the moment.
But whatever happens in Bannon’s criminal case — he is reportedly expected to appear in court next week — what the indictment really underscores is how dependent Congress has become on the executive branch to carry out even the most basic aspects of its oversight function and how dangerous that dependency can be when the oversight is directed toward, or even near, the executive. If the Biden administration really wants to make congressional subpoenas effective broadly, it should not just indict in the obvious cases like Bannon’s; it should support statutory reforms like the Protect Our Democracy Act — which includes provisions to make it easier for Congress to enforce its own subpoenas.
Minnesota now has the highest number of cases per capita in the country. Florida, the lowest. But don’t rush to conclusions. Florida paid a price with a high loss of life in its recent wave, the highest since the start of vaccinations. #GetVaccinatedpic.twitter.com/X6HLWYY86m
She helped her husband start a far-right militia group. Now the Oath Keeper’s wife says she has regrets
With congressional committees and federal investigators examining the threat posed by domestic extremists and their contribution to the insurrection, Adams has been conducting an exploration of her own life and culpability in the forming of the Oath Keepers. Her journey provides behind-the-scenes insights into how a Las Vegas car valet transformed into the leader of an organization that sought to overturn a presidential election.
CLAIM: Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch says Biden’s vaccine mandates violate “religious liberty.” CONTEXT: Biden’s federal COVID vaccine mandates allow religious exemptions. But Mississippi’s own longtime childhood vaccine requirements do not.https://t.co/MOAvZWC373
A Twin Cities doctor spread misinformation about COVID-19. Then he died from it
The circumstances of Foley’s life and death reveal a problem that’s vexed the medical profession throughout the pandemic: some licensed practitioners are fueling COVID’s spread, seeding doubts about widely accepted research and medical practices, including vaccinations, that have been saving millions of lives for decades.
Doctors can be particularly potent sources of misinformation, said Rachel Moran, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public.
“Vocal opposition is especially damaging when it comes from these medical professionals because we ask the general public when they’re feeling hesitant about the vaccine to go and discuss their concerns with a doctor,” she said.
Patients, she said, trust their doctors with their lives.
Attorneys general are attorneys, not generals. The FBI does not prosecute, they investigate. Prosecutors do not arrest. Indictments are handed up, not down. pic.twitter.com/T14ZJb6dys
Can Biden revive his popularity in time for midterm elections?
Now the coronavirus has plateaued, job growth has picked up, Afghanistan has fallen from headlines and Congress has passed a major infrastructure bill. It all hasn’t boosted Biden’s standing yet, but political advisers predict it will in the next few months.
“When the bell rings for the 2022 election season,” says his pollster John Anzalone, “things are going to look a lot different than today.”
The kinds of voters who’ve grown disaffected give Biden some hope. Comparing CNN polls from April to November, his largest declines in approval came among Democrats and Democratic-leading independents.
But Democratic inclinations hardly guarantee those voters will swing back in Biden’s direction. Regaining the allegiance of former supporters may be tougher than winning them over in the first place; presidential approval ratings fall more easily than they rise.
In the news today: It’s redistricting time, when politicians attempt to sabotage elections by crafting districts meant to ensure the people in power stay that way. As “critical race theory” becomes the new rallying cry for conservative racists who insist America’s actual racism is directed mostly towards them, you’ll note that Black parents aren’t being quoted with the same gusto as livid white ones. How mysterious. And Florida continues to be a case study in how to make everything worse for everybody out of, apparently, raw spite.
As the bipartisan panel to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues gathering evidence, many in the GOP are starting to feel increasingly nervous—but there is no time to waste in getting to the bottom of what happened that day, as Daily Kos senior political writer Kerry Eleveld recently explained to Michelangelo Signorile on his radio show.
So much is at stake with the investigation into this violent attack, and so many Republicans are invested in hiding the truth of that day. Eleveld pressed upon the audience the urgency of moving this investigation along in a timely manner: “This Jan. 6 commission has to get it done. I mean, they have to get the truth out because if Republicans take over—if they win next November, and they take over in January, they are going to shut this down, right?”
As she elaborated, it’s clear GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy is desperate for the truth not to come out:
[He wants to cover up] any of what happened and any connections between the Republican Party, some GOP congressional members, and Trump’s involvement in potentially stoking a coup—an attack on the U.S. government. He’s so desperate for none of that information to come out. Mitch McConnell is, too, by the way.
Signorile added that GOP leadership is getting more and more nervous about the investigation because so many key witnesses are being called in to testify:
They’ve interviewed a lot of people who we know have information. They’re people who, either because they really finally got a conscience, or they’re worried about how it’s going to affect them, they’re people who were on the inside, they were, you know, former Trump officials. There’s the White House communications aide, Alyssa Farah, there’s former Trump Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark, he was subpoenaed and he spoke today. And then Richard Donoghue, I think he voluntarily went, as well as with Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general, so they are probably spilling all kinds of information.
Eleveld noted that “[that congressional committee has] the benefit of an administration that has decided that they’re prioritizing the truth coming out over some sort of institutional ‘protect the White House’ mentality, which is oftentimes what you get with even a subsequent chief executive.”
She urged the Department of Justice to move forward with its criminal contempt complaint against Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
The “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was somehow stolen from Trump continues to be dangerous as well, as conservatives are now running with it and using it to sow distrust in the electoral process. “They say it in every election unless their person wins,” Eleveld said, expressing exasperation with the boldfaced nature of their lie. “But [when] Republicans [win], nobody is crowing about dead people voting. So basically, what they’re going to keep doing is keep trumpeting this and keep putting this in peoples’ minds until a perfect storm happens … it happened on Jan. 6th, but it could happen again.”
The pair also discussed polling that shows low confidence among Republicans in the belief that their ballots will be counted if they vote, and how conservative lawmakers continue fomenting violence and advocating for the use of force to shore up their waning power.
A recent government report showed that job openings and hires are falling, which is not surprising given the delta variant’s rise. What is significant is that 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in just one month. But perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising either since many of these jobs often pay low wages and offer few workplace benefits or support. For many workers, these conditions are not worth it, especially if it means putting themselves at higher risk of exposure to COVID-19. The fact is that Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) workers disproportionately pay the high cost of low-wage labor.
Across economic booms and busts, BIPOC workers are persistently over-represented in low-wage, less stable, and often physically tasking jobs, while underrepresented in positions that offer higher wages, opportunities for upward mobility, and fewer physical risks. The inverse is true for white workers. White workers make higher hourly wages at every education level and have lower unemployment rates than the BIPOC workforce. The effects of COVID-19 exacerbated these gaps.
Last year’s uprisings against racism, anti-Blackness, and police brutality reignited calls for racial equity from scores of companies, boosting public understanding of the systemic obstacles facing BIPOC workers in the job market. And while corporate pledges may result in efforts to dismantle racial inequality within those companies, progress at a societal level requires meaningful policy change.
That means occupational segregation and labor market discrimination can’t be understood without internalizing the effects of systemic racism on BIPOC workers. Racial gaps in education and wealth are reflected in the laws, rules, and practices that maintain whiteness in our economic system. Despite growing recognition that racial bias has a structural basis, policy change must recognize the ways white supremacy in workforce development normalizes job training shaped to address the needs and perspectives of English-speaking white workers—and how BIPOC workers and workers for whom English isn’t their primary language are expected to conform to those needs instead of receiving training that integrates their experiences, as well.
The employment outcomes of the public workforce system illustrate how current laws privilege whiteness. In 2019, low-income adults earned around $29,000 before participating in public workforce programs. While some results were positive—around 70% who completed a program were employed, continued to hold a job, or earned a credential—we saw differential returns when race is considered. Where salaries barely moved for white workers, the average salary for Black workers dropped to $24,000.
In other words, when a job seeker completes a training program and earns a credential, they are likely no better off in the labor market, and in fact, BIPOC workers may end up worse off. Imposing a skills-based framework without also addressing racial disparities in education and employment in workforce policy has effectively kept people of color, including immigrant workers, churning in low-wage work. These sobering results show why the public workforce system must promote job quality.
Federal workforce policy is premised on a prevailing narrative that individuals don’t have jobs because they don’t have the skills that employers need. If they want to change jobs, then they need to get trained. Current workforce law is structured so that employers have most decision-making power over job training programs. It incentivizes the public workforce system to match job seekers to any high-demand job without equal consideration to the work conditions.
Policymakers can confront institutionalized white supremacy in workforce development with these three steps.
First, BIPOC communities should define solutions for themselves. For lawmakers, that means prioritizing funding for the direct participation of BIPOC communities in the policy process from program design to implementation. Codifying BIPOC engagement affords that community the same respect that for too long has been given to whiteness. Importantly, requiring local community engagement, especially among immigrant and refugee leaders and BIPOC-led organizations, ensures that community-specific needs are addressed and their strengths reflected in program design.
Second, racial equity should be the first and most important measurement. Just as the Department of Labor (DOL) promotes “[c]entering relief and recovery policies around the needs of Black women and other vulnerable workers,” it should standardize the employment outcomes of the BIPOC workforce as guiding performance metrics of the public workforce system.
DOL could also take a “multiple measures” approach and lead a new engagement initiative that enables the public workforce system to develop a shared definition of what job quality looks like in BIPOC communities. Linking workforce equity metrics to good job outcomes for BIPOC workers would create positive feedback loops that engage communities of color.
Third, do not simply do more of the same skills training. Spending more money alone will not promote equity. Instead, federal funding for job training should be conditioned on proven interventions such as targeted or local hire and community workforce agreements that place BIPOC workers into good jobs and work with employers to turn bad job conditions into good ones.
Labor-management partnerships (LMPs) are another specific example of a proven workforce model. LMPs offer skills training and raise employment standards across industries, especially in caregiving, where pay is low, and most of the workforce comprises women of color. Consider the SEIU 775 Benefits Group in Washington state, an LMP that provides over 45,000 long-term care workers with registered apprenticeship and creates better job conditions with access to higher wages, health and retirement benefits, safer working conditions, predictable work schedules, and the freedom for workers to voice concerns in the workplace.
Without equitable policy intervention, the labor market will perpetuate gaps between BIPOC and white workers, which will further weaken the economy. Many solutions to quality job creation go beyond workforce policy. Improving job quality is one piece of advancing equity, and a full accounting of whiteness in workforce development is required. But doing away with white supremacy in workforce development requires our institutions and leadership to acknowledge that it exists first.
Marie Kurose is CEO at the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County and calls on decades of policy expertise and strategic partnerships across government, community, and philanthropy, including at the Port of Seattle, city of Seattle, and Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
Bob Giloth is former vice president at the Center for Economic Opportunity and Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Prism is a BIPOC-led non-profit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. We’re committed to producing the kind of journalism that treats Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other invisibilized groups as the experts on our own lived experiences, our resilience, and our fights for justice. Sign up for our email list to get our stories in your inbox, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion regarding deep canvassing, with political scientists introducing studies and commenting on this “newly discovered” technique. Many political activists, especially those in the reddest districts in America, have come to understand deep canvassing, not through political theory but through life experience. They have no other choice. Is it possible to move the needle and change minds about complex issues through discussion? How exactly does deep canvassing work? Where and when is deep canvassing successful? What kind of tool is deep canvassing?
This week on Nuts & Bolts, I want to talk about deep canvassing and where Democratic efforts missed out on opportunities we have to reclaim.
Republicans own deep canvassing.
To understand deep canvassing, you have to recognize both the method and the end goal. The technique is straightforward:
In a conducive, non-judgmental environment, you sit and listen openly as another person expresses their views, and then you find common ground.
That’s it.
The more common ground you find, the easier it is to reach an understanding of why your beliefs differ, so you can stop yelling at each other and begin to find ways to work together.
If your goal is to help someone be less transphobic or racist, long discussions over prolonged periods of time can open the door to lower discomfort and broader acceptance, and make people feel as though they are respected as part of the process. It is the method that lets them consider your viewpoint without feeling first that you are attacking theirs.
Frankly, Republicans have dominated this process in bright red states—and too often in contested state environments. The Republican practice of deep canvassing has made its home in church organizations, Rush Limbaugh-type radio hosts, the NRA, anti-choice organizations, and community groups; the culminating effect is that these subtle efforts over years and years are now seeing widespread reinforcement without prompting from the party itself.
In contrast, a big part of Democratic canvassing comes during last-minute pushes to get self-educated potential voters to show up on Election Day and vote accordingly. These efforts are not lacking in educational materials, of course; candidates provide overviews of their positions in speeches and printed materials, alongside website and media appearances, as well. But the Democratic canvass has essentially turned over deep canvassing to issue advocates entirely, and this gave Republicans a decades-long headstart on the conversations that must happen to attract new voters.
With Democratic organizations playing catch-up, how do we instill this kind of discussion into the party itself and make understanding of complex issues an ongoing conversation that can open doors?
Opportunities for Deep Canvassing
I want you to choose a major issue you care about—an issue that has created a deep division in the country. I’m going to choose one, but you can choose any other issue you like; the way we talk about these issues should look the same.
I’m going to talk about guns.
In the Midwest, gun ownership is a huge issue. While we have several Democratic members in urban areas that would like to see some limits, in Republican areas of the state—the larger portion of all or nearly all Midwestern states—almost no issue flares voter intensity like the discussion over guns, gun safety, gun control, or (as the Republicans have branded this discussion) the Constitutional right to bear arms.
Many Democratic candidates will wait until three or four months before an election to say, “I’m a gun owner, too!” I hate to tell you this, and apologies to support staff, but: That does not work.
The conversation has to begin a significant time before. While research talks about three months, I would tell you true deep canvassing revolves around an ongoing conversation that should be measured in years. Handling gun issues can be seen in that way.
My father, as an example, collects guns—he has quite a few of them. I wouldn’t consider him a radical at risk. Most of the guns he owns would be laughable as defense weapons, but as artifacts or as objects with unique histories, they can be appreciated. Many Midwestern farmers will tell you the same. One could have a shotgun he received from his father when he passed away, or another might own a beloved hunting rifle they use for ducks. Another owner you meet is a range shooter who owns an AR-15 because he loves going to the range and target shooting.
Where is the common ground?
Even if you have positions against their beliefs in gun ownership, you can understand why someone would want to keep a family heirloom. You could have a discussion without judgment with the duck hunter about what duck hunting means to him, and what kind of skill it takes to be a duck hunter. With the person who owns an AR-15, you can talk about what it is they enjoy about shooting at the range. Be interested. Don’t make judgments and immediately walk away. There are often stories here that you can’t sum up in a simple stop at the door.
Taking that conversation on gives you the chance to find the nuance that allows people to find ground that makes things OK. I know a large number of gun owners who want more sensible gun ownership. They take seriously the dangers of owning or having a gun available in a household. They’ve only been sold the idea of someone taking their guns away from them. Prepare for a long conversation that listens, learns, relates, and lets them talk. Explain your viewpoint in the same way with no judgments and no perceived superiority that just says: “I’m 100% right, you’re 100% wrong.” There may be some cases like that in practice (and unfortunately in elected officials that can be true), but in talking in communities, people are much more willing to listen and share the conversation. Even I’ve been out to shoot an AR-15 at a range in a controlled environment, and I will admit I enjoyed both. When I talk to gun owners, I say exactly that, and we can talk about the good and the bad.
Complex issues deserve a complex conversation, an ongoing conversation, and a conversation that is far more about changing the view of Democratic ideology than about a specific candidate.
If you’re registered Democratic, show you CARE
One of the best ways to help keep that conversation going is by putting Democratic efforts into social groups that specifically work to care for a community. Local Kiwanas? Join it. An effort to clean up the city parks? Get your Democratic Party to be a part of it. If the local Republican party is part of it, go over, shake their hands, and say: we all want our town to look nice. Be the better person at times. The Republican deep canvass has gone on for years and at this point looks like indoctrination that self carries inside of families. Break that image by showing Democratic registered voters and future candidates can be good people, and that they care about the community.
In some districts, you may still lose your race, but you will begin that long conversation that helps change minds about what exactly the Democratic party stands for in their community. Keep it going. If you commit to it, show that this isn’t a once-off that occurs only immediately before an election and disappears right after; that reeks of being fake and will set you back, much farther back than where you originally started.
The work in carrying that conversation can make a change to building the Democatic party possibilities for two years from now, four years from now, six years from now. We cannot just assume the future will be with the Democratic party on issues and ideas. We have to be role models for the generations that come, and for the communities who feel left out that we are here to talk to them and we can listen and we are big enough to talk about our issues and help everyone learn more about each other.
Well, well, well. Looks like someone has wandered away from the Branch Covidian compound, and Dear Leader is none too pleased. Somewhere between running against Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and using the jaws of life to nestle inside Trump’s sigmoid colon like an overgrown baby wallaby, Chris Christie lost his Happy Meal toy of a soul. Of course, after Christie endorsed Trump in what was itself a humiliating spectacle, Trump missed few opportunities to further debase Christie, whose spastic genuflecting didn’t even earn him an administration job—thanks to the overweening influence of sentient Axe spray nebula/Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
But now Christie is once again on the outside looking in at the clown show, as he had the temerity to suggest the Republican Party should move past the 2020 election to focus on the future. Meaning, Donald Trump lost and he should just fucking get over it already.
Christie, a former Trump ally, made the remarks at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s conference in Las Vegas, during which he urged the GOP to present a “plan for tomorrow, not a grievance about yesterday.”
“Winning campaigns are always the campaigns that look forward, not backwards,” he said, warning that Republicans would pay a political price if they continue to dwell on the 2020 presidential election.
That’s a pretty bland statement, but judging by Trump’s reaction you’d think Christie had told him that Ivanka just isn’t that into him.
“Chris Christie, who just made a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) in Las Vegas, was just absolutely massacred by his statements that Republicans have to move on from the past, meaning the 2020 Election Fraud,” stable genius-man said in a statement. “Everybody remembers that Chris left New Jersey with a less than 9% approval rating—a record low, and they didn’t want to hear this from him!”
Well, Christie is now counterpunching. In a teaser for a new interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, scheduled for Nov. 14 on HBO, Christie felt perfectly free to taunt Goofus. It was almost as if he wasn’t even afraid of him. Hmm. Watch:
ALLEN: “You said that the elections for Republicans need to be about the future, not the grievances of the past. Donald Trump put out a statement saying you’d gotten absolutely massacred.”
CHRISTIE: “Well, look. I’ve made the conscious decision, Mike, that I want to spend my time combating the policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and trying to help Republicans win governorships and the House and the Senate in 2022. This is not an argument that I’ll walk away from.”
ALLEN: “And then he went for it. He said, ‘Everybody remembers that Chris left New Jersey with a less than 9% approval rating.’ What do you make of him, like, saying you had a less than 9% approval rating?”
CHRISTIE: “Mike, look, I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth with Donald Trump, but what I will say is this: When I ran for reelection in 2013, I got 60% of the vote. When he ran for reelection he lost to Joe Biden. I’m happy to have that comparison stand up, because that’s the one that really matters.”
Oh, snap. In other words, Trump is a bigger loser than Christie. And that’s saying something.
Of course, emancipation from the logorrheic mouth of Mar-a-Lago is available to all Republicans—and to all other Americans, for that matter. And unless you have an unnatural fear of unnecessary capitalization, there’s really no reason to worry about the big humid ape’s response. And yet he somehow still has most GOPsters by the short ones.
But not Christie. No more. Is this guy thinking of running for president again or something? Because that would be really entertaining.
