A jury’s refusal late last week to convict four Michigan militiamen for plotting to kidnap and assassinate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—with two men acquitted outright, while the jury was hung on the other two—may have come and gone from the national media radar already. But it’s a decision that will have long-term ramifications for public safety and national security, particularly law enforcement’s ability to effectively deter and prevent domestic terrorism.
The verdict was disturbing in no small part because nearly the entirety of the evidence in the case was presented by prosecutors. The defense rested after only a relative handful of witnesses, arguing throughout that the whole affair was a case of entrapment—and it was disturbing and damning, showing a group of men who not only freely indulged in violent fantasies but set about making them realities.
But the outcome did not happen in a vacuum. It was only the latest in a string of similar verdicts in which prosecutors have failed to bring right-wing extremists to justice, revealing both how deeply these beliefs and behaviors have become normalized as well as how poorly equipped law enforcement is to deal with the challenges they present.
Evidence in the trial included audio of the men setting off explosives and discussing how they hoped to hogtie Whitmer across a table and make a video. There was also abundant evidence showing the men’s real-world preparations for making their violent fantasies a reality, including creating a mockup of Whitmer’s summer house for practicing extraction, running reconnaissance on that residence, and taking preparatory steps to blow up a local bridge to cover their escape.
Defense attorney Michael Hills insisted after the verdict that this was nothing but “rough talk.” He told reporters that he considered calling a defense witness to assert that he’s “heard worse from pregnant mothers up on the Capitol.”
“If I don’t like the governor and it’s rough talk, I can do that in our country. That’s what’s beautiful about this country. That’s what’s great about it,” Hills said. “So hurrah, freedom in America. It’s still here.”
Unsurprisingly, it was celebrated widely by the right, including Donald Trump himself.
Trump talked about the verdict in his Saturday rally in Selma, North Carolina, inverting reality in his usual fashion: “And in the quite famous Michigan trial, where people were supposedly going to kidnap the very unpopular governor … two were just found not guilty and two others just ended in a hung jury,” he said. “So there is something going on down there. There is something going on. The radical Democrat party will do anything to stop our movement no matter how illegal, immoral or insane.”
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green saw the verdicts as an opportunity to attack the FBI, tweeting:
The FBI and DOJ need a complete and total cleansing.
It must be one of our top priorities.
All the rot must be removed and these agencies must be restored.
Setting up people, like in the Whitmer alleged kidnapping plot, doesn’t appear to be a solo event.
Democrats voiced their concern about the consequences of the verdict. JoAnne Huls, Whitmer’s chief of staff, issued a statement decrying the outcome: “Today, Michiganders and Americans—especially our children—are living through the normalization of political violence. The plot to kidnap and kill a governor may seem like an anomaly. But we must be honest about what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is all too common across our country. There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened.”
A Democratic Michigan legislator, state Sen. Dayna Polehanki of Livonia, voiced her dismay in a tweet: “They also allegedly wanted to storm the Michigan Capitol, take out police officers, and execute my colleagues and me on live TV. Looks like I’ll be keeping my bulletproof vest under my desk on the senate floor,” she wrote.
Residents of the community near where the plotters planned to abduct Whitmer were disturbed. “My biggest concern is that a non-guilty verdict may embolden some far-right activists, and at this point at what is happening in the world, I feel as Americans we all need to come together,” said Jeffery Herman of Elk Rapids.
Herman was particularly disturbed by the plan to blow up a local bridge: “It is a shot right to the heart to me because I’ve been up here my whole life,” said Herman. “To me, that is like a strike against our own country and our state, and the amount of hatred a person must have to attack ourselves is really something as a nation we need to look at.”
However, the location of the trial in the Trumpist stronghold of Grand Rapids, with a jury comprising rural Michiganders with a record of antipathy to Whitmer—as well as a Bush-appointed judge who insisted that politics-related evidence, including any discussion of the ideology the “Boogaloo” movement to which the men subscribed, be excluded—played a powerful if not decisive role in the outcome.
Bill Swor, a veteran criminal defense attorney, observed to the Detroit Free Press: “The jurors may have known people like this, who are a lot of talk. And the jury may have decided that these guys were just running around being busy, and didn’t have any focus.”
The defendants had a lot of material to work with in constructing an entrapment defense. The FBI deployed 12 undercover informants in its investigations, and at least one of them—a man nicknamed “Big Dan”—played a key role in providing the group with paramilitary training as well as acting as a second-tier leader for the “Watchmen.” Three of the FBI agents involved in the case are no longer part of the prosecution’s witness lineup in large part because they have run afoul of the agency for behavior mostly unrelated to the militia case.
It’s just the latest in a series of failures, mostly by federal prosecutors, to deliver convictions of far-right extremists planning or perpetrating political violence, dating back at least to the 2016 acquittals of Ammon Bundy and his cohort for leading the armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by a jury of Oregonians who found credible the defendants’ insistence that they didn’t believe they were doing anything illegal.
Similarly, prosecutors in Seattle in 2019 were unable to overcome the presence of pro-Trump jurors who declined to convict a husband and wife, both alt-right Milo Yiannopoulos fans, who were charged with the January 2017 shooting of an antifascist. More recently, jurors acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of murder in the shooting deaths of two people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.
The latter case was widely celebrated on the right as a vindication of their politics of menace. The Whitmer kidnapping verdict was also seen as evidence supporting the right-wing conspiracy theory that the FBI orchestrated the Jan. 6 insurrection: “Whitmer Kidnapping plot concocted by the FBI,” tweeted one Patriot. “Now let’s do Jan. 6th events.”
Prominent Trump supporters tried to claim the whole thing was an election-year smear of Trump. “The Whitmer ‘kidnapping’ caper was the 2020 version of Russiagate, the FBI interfering in a presidential election to sabotage Trump and help a Democratic nominee for president,” tweeted right-wing pundit Julie Kelly.
More responsible voices expressed concern that as with the Rittenhouse verdict, violent extremists will interpret it as a green light. Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan called for an end to “the hatred and division in this country,” adding that she is “deeply concerned that today’s decision in the Whitmer kidnapping trial will give people further license to choose violence and threats.”
Certainly the trend of juries seeming to bend over backwards to acquit white men in terrorism cases reflects an unfortunate reality about Americans’ susceptibility to stereotyped perceptions that struggle to conceive of such crimes being committed by someone who looks like the guy next door. Heidi Beirich, executive director of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, says that reality is in many ways a hangover of the “War on Terror” years of the early 2000s, when Americans were conditioned to think of terrorists as Arab radicals.
“Prosecutors should pay more attention to this, but of course the mainstreaming of antigovernment sentiments and hate ideologies could be playing a role here,” she told Daily Kos. “Large parts of the conservative, or Trump base, share the ideas now of these groups, such as the Great Replacement or Stop the Steal, etc. The frame around this type of extremism is so radically different than the beliefs of ISIS or Al Qaeda, which were never going to find a home among even a tiny fraction of Americans. But white supremacy and antigovernment ideas are deeply rooted in our history and culture, and now among many conservatives, and that can potentially affect juries. We saw it during the civil rights movement obviously.”
The War on Terror approach also infected the law enforcement handling of domestic terrorism cases, says Michael German, a national security analyst with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. German, a former FBI agent, had himself played a central role in a well-known case in the 1990s involving a militia group in western Washington state that also claimed entrapment after he had provided the men with a meeting space that doubled as a bomb-building classroom—and was filled with cameras that recorded everything.
Although German had scrupulously followed FBI rules, the entrapment defense had some effect in that case—several defendants walked on the conspiracy charge after a mistrial in the first round—but the central players eventually were all convicted on various charges.
He’s followed the trial of the Wolverine Watchmen closely, and told Daily Kos via email that “the Michigan case was undermined by misconduct committed by the agents assigned to the investigation, and the misuse/overuse of informants.”
More broadly, though, German is concerned that the strategies the FBI developed after 9/11 and found effective against Islamist radicals—which problematically reflected distorted priorities by federal law enforcement on domestic terrorism as they ignored and deprioritized political violence by white right-wing extremists for over two decades—no longer work.
“The tactics of an FBI undercover operation have changed significantly in that the agents and informants manufacture plots and provide the weaponry necessary to achieve them,” German explained. “In the 1990s that wasn’t allowed. But the FBI had increasing success with these tactics in targeting Muslims after 9/11 and have broadened their use.”
He notes that “the Michigan case wasn’t nearly as egregious as the Liberty City 7 case or the Newburgh sting, which were successful I believe because the defendants belonged to groups the public was taught to fear after 9/11. With white supremacist or far-right militant groups, the FBI has been less successful with this technique, but agents continue to use them, I think because they forgot how to do proper undercover operations.”
German says the Michigan case—particularly the heavy use of informants—reflects these misbegotten strategies. “So what the FBI seemed to have learned from the difficulty they had winning convictions in the Liberty City 7 case was that they should spice up these sting operations with more elaborate plots that could only be achieved by the government introducing and providing more dangerous weapons,” he said.
“In the Washington case the investigation focused on the criminal activity the group was already engaged in, namely possessing, manufacturing, and trafficking in illegal weapons and explosives for use in a prospective conflict with federal law enforcement,” he explained. “There wasn’t a government effort to generate a more elaborate plot, and the defendants made, possessed, and transferred the illegal weapons and explosives themselves, the government didn’t provide them.
“I think if the FBI agents stayed focused on investigating the crimes that were occurring, rather than trying to manufacture an elaborate plot, they would have been more successful. I think the overuse of the extreme tactics now typical of terrorism sting operations has generated some public backlash that undermined the government’s credibility. The general loss of credibility for the FBI has been a growing problem as well, both because of true errors and abuse and because of the Trump administration’s less factual campaign against its leadership.”
Beirich warns, however, that there is also an undeniable component involving ethnic prejudice that affects how juries behave. “Speaking generally, there is obviously a huge difference in how juries viewed the treatment of people accused of Islamic-inspired terrorism and how they view white supremacists,” she told Kos. “There were dozens of cases in the early ‘00s where entrapment by federal agents seemed more obvious of such suspects than what has happened with juries dealing with cases of antigovernment and/or white supremacist extremists. The domestic extremists seem to get more of a break from juries than folks associated with other forms of extremism, a situation that likely has a racial element or at least an ‘othered’ element to it.”
Beirich foresees a continuation of the right-wing gaslighting campaign around these issues, “as is happening right now in Congress over the domestic terrorism bill.”
“It seems that only when there is serious violence, usually with mass casualties, is this issue taken seriously on the right, which is really unfortunate,” she said. “Look how Jan. 6 is being minimized among elected officials and others on the right. It’s a tragedy that there is little consensus over what our government calls the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat: white supremacists and militia types.”
Michigan state House member Laurie Pohutsky, a Democrat, noted on Twitter that the threatening environment has long-term consequences for democracy as well.
“The next time you ask why we can’t get good people to run for office, consider today’s verdict. The man that threatened to kill me in 2020 was acquitted,” she said, adding, “This won’t be taken seriously until someone dies.”
Jurors reached a verdict late Monday in the trial of Thomas Robertson, a former police officer from Virginia who intended to stop the certification of the 2020 election when he stormed the complex on Jan. 6, 2021 with fellow off-duty cop Jacob Fracker.
Fracker, who entered a guilty plea just before Robertson’s week-long trial in Washington, D.C., began, agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s gigantic probe of the attack in exchange for leniency at sentencing. That decision forced Fracker to testify against Robertson, a man he considered a “mentor” and “father figure” who is now facing up to five years in prison.
Robertson did not testify on his own behalf and though his defense attorney Mark Rollins conceded that the ex-Rocky Mount, Virginia, cop was “absolutely guilty” of entering the Capitol illegally, he argued Robertson never came to D.C. with plans to stop Congress from doing its duty on the path to a peaceful transfer of power.
U.S. attorney Lisa Berkower told jurors before they sequestered themselves that just wasn’t so.
They agreed.
Robertson, Berkower successfully argued, put himself in the thick of it on Jan. 6 because he believed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and arrived armed and ready to fight.
Robertson’s trial was the second-ever jury trial for Jan. 6 defendants and the verdict Monday marks the second time that the Justice Department has successfully reached a conviction on all counts.
“I absolutely hate this,” Fracker said as questioning opened last week. “I never thought it would be like this. I’ve always been on the other side of things. The good guys’ side, so to speak.”
Robertson, he told jurors, urged him and an unidentified neighbor to travel to D.C. on Jan. 6. Robertson brought a large wooden stick and a trio of gas masks. They went first to the Washington Monument to listen to speeches and then to hear Trump’s speech at the Ellipse before marching to the Capitol.
Once there, things devolved quickly, according to Fracker. As they prepared to breach police barricades around the building’s exterior, they were separated. Fracker got in first and before long the men were reunited inside, where they proudly snapped a selfie.
Fracker told jurors he saw police try to stop rioters when they were outside. He also admitted that he was aware in the moment that he was trespassing. But once inside, he was “full of adrenaline,” and believed if they and other rioters would “make a big enough fuss,” Congress would be forced to stop the proceedings.
The men did not come to any sort of “verbal agreement” to obstruct proceedings that day, Fracker said.
But there was no need to spell it out or say it aloud, he added.
According to NBC, Fracker said the entire mob “pretty much had the same goal” in mind when they arrived, and their group was no exception.
Defense attorney Rollins insisted during closing arguments that Robertson never had an organized plan to stop Congress from certifying the vote. As for the large wooden stick prosecutors say Robertson used to keep Metropolitan Police at bay as he forced his way in, that, according to the defense, was just his walking stick.
A U.S. Army veteran who served as a private contractor in Afghanistan, he was shot in the thigh over a decade ago. Robertson needed it to get around, Rollins said.
But during an earlier point in the trial, when prosecutors heard testimony from officers who were on the scene, they said Robertson wasn’t using the stick to brace himself.
Instead, he was seen holding it in a defensive stance known as the “port arms position” before wielding it against officers.
DOJ shows Officer Duckett a picture of Thomas Robertson standing with his stick in the port arms position. “Do you remember this man’s demeanor?” AUSA Aloi asks. “Yes… he was not trying to help us,” Duckett says.
Fracker said neither he nor Robertson wanted to help the police that were desperately overwhelmed and outnumbered by the mob.
“I think, as a cop, I felt they should have been on our side. Like, marching with us,” Fracker said during examination by Berkower.
There were also questions posed about a generous sum of $30,000 that Robertson sent to Fracker after their initial arrest.
Fracker insisted it was not given to him to keep quiet or secure his testimony. It was meant to keep him afloat after he lost his job with the Rocky Mount Police Department.
The department fired both Robertson and Fracker after their arrests.
Prosecutors also showed jurors several messages Robertson sent long after the insurrection unfolded. One message undercut the claim that Robertson brought the wooden stick to help his mobility.
Describing his physical fitness in a text three months after Jan. 6, Robertson boasted: “I’m 48. My kids are adults and I can still run a 16 minute 2 mile with a 30lb pack. I am as dangerous as I’ll ever be.”
“I’m 48… I can still run a 16 minute 2 mile with a 30lb pack. I am as dangerous as I’ll ever be.” pic.twitter.com/43KWbLXniG
Robertson’s trial was the second Jan. 6 jury trial to unfold. Guy Reffitt went first in early March and was found guilty on all counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, transporting firearms amid a civil disorder, being in a restricted area while armed, interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder, and obstructing justice.
Robertson not only faced charges related directly to his conduct on Jan. 6 but for conduct occurring well after he breached the Capitol.
After his arrest and indictment and while he was on pretrial release, Robertson ordered more than two dozen firearms through a dealer in Virginia, dropping $50,000 on the stash. This violated terms of his release and prosecutors threw him back in jail in July.
It was not immediately clear on Monday night when Robertson would be sentenced.
Heavy rains have arrived across the two remaining axes in Ukraine—Kherson in the south and Donbas in the east. And with that, don’t expect much territory to change hands. This Canadian volunteer in the Ukrainian foreign legion is fighting around Kherson.
It was a quiet day here, not a lot going on other than tactical regrouping. It’s raining, it’s muddy, gloomy and grey. The upside is that we’re going to enjoy complete cloud cover tonight, and I bet the #Russians are feeling real uncomfortable and wet. See you all soon ✊🏻🇺🇦
— Canadian Ukrainian Volunteer 🇺🇦🇨🇦✊🏻 (@CanadianUkrain1) April 11, 2022
The rain is going to do a number on Russian morale, already rock bottom.
Izyum weather for the next eight days. Kherson region is just as rainy.
That Canadian’s unit has night-vision gear, and they do their thing under the cover of darkness. No moon means it’ll be even darker. It’s a great way to degrade Russian equipment and morale, and the weather will certainly contribute, but no territory is changing hands. We’re seeing Ukraine’s core deficiencies in action—it now has the tools to defend itself against Russian attacks, and it can certainly harass the hell out of the enemy, but it lacks the air and heavy armor to go on the offensive against entrenched Russians.
I’m in the “armor is mostly obsolete” camp, but that assumes air superiority and massed artillery. If you can’t take out the big enemy guns from the air, or suppress them from afar, you have to charge them on the ground—and you need armor to make that happen. NATO is definitely talking about it, but dear god, there’s nothing left to discuss. Just f’n do it. Western weapons have already killed and maimed tens of thousands of Russian soldiers as Vladimir Putin stands helplessly by. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin literally released a photo of him video chatting with Ukrainian special forces training in Mississippi on the Switchblade killer drone system. We’re already rubbing their nose in our indirect involvement. There’s not much escalation left in sending more and bigger guns at this point.
Meanwhile, out east, guess what Russia did? Yup. The same ineffective shit they’ve been doing. Drip-drip-drip attacks with one to two battalion tactical groups (BTG) because they are unable to turn on the full spigot and attack en masse.
The enemy tried to launch an attack in the directions of Dovgenke and Dmytrivka settlements with the forces of two battalion tactical groups, without success and returned to previously occupied positions.
Russia repeated this doomed and wasteful approach in three other places. This is what I just can’t square—we know Russia is massing its troops in the region, but if they really planned one major all-out assault, why are they willfully feeding men and equipment to the Ukrainian wood chippers today, instead of resting those soldiers, servicing their equipment, resupplying them, and planning something that might actually work. Given Russia’s inability to deploy more than a small number of BTGs at any given time, is this the future of this front? A handful of daily “probes” every day until Russia burns through all their BTGs or Ukraine runs out of anti-tank missiles, whichever comes first?
The rains over the next week will make a muddy mess of the battlefield, swallowing any vehicle stupid enough to go off road. Artillery won’t be affected however. A clever ambush would drop a few random artillery shells in front of a convoy, wait for the vehicles to veer into those muddy fields in a panic, and then helpfully take them off Russia’s hands, intact, for Ukrainian army requisition. Tractors would be helpfully standing by.
The mud will make it even easier for this kind of raid by Ukrainian special forces.
Ukrainian SSO claims they destroyed a BTG from the 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division) in Donetsk Oblast, including killing the battalion commander and chief of staff in their BMP-3.https://t.co/K720SntwK3pic.twitter.com/YgotOS6HPI
That’s the sanitized, cropped version of those pictures. Others show a field littered with Russian corpses. However, it’s dubious the entire BTG was eliminated. On paper, they have 10 tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles, and 800-1,000 soldiers. On the other hand, given how undermanned these BTGs seem, maybe a couple dozen corpses was truly all that was left of that unit.
Regardless, if Russian armored vehicles are this vulnerable to guerilla-style attacks now, when they have at least some mobility, imagine when they’re unable to move. Men on foot or SUVs, with night-vision goggles in the dark, will have a huge advantage over blind Russians without air or direct artillery support.
As flashy as those special forces raids are, Ukrainian artillery is even more impactful. Remember, Izyum’s supply lines run perilously near Ukrainian-held territory around Kharkiv, within easy artillery range.
That’s a lot of yellow Ukrainian-held territory on the western flank of that supply road down to Izyum, allowing artillery to set up and use both drone-guided and precision-guided munitions to wreak havoc on those roads. Look what artillery managed to do in just the last 24 hours:
Ukraine’s 54th Mechanized Brigade ambushing a Russian military column in the Donetsk region. Not much remains after the Ukrainian artillery is done with the Russians. pic.twitter.com/vTDuTAom43
Video from Ukraine’s 30th Mechanized Brigade showing Stugna-P ATGM strikes on a Russian BTR-80 and tank and what looks like artillery strikes at the end.https://t.co/SMAN2nzI2bpic.twitter.com/01IhfrI6Qw
This intercepted report from a Russian officer in Izyum says it all: “Once again, I would like to note the very precise work of the Ukrainian artillery and mortars. It is their worth that is the main deterrent. 99 percent of our losses are the result of artillery work. There are no bullet wounds at all.” The same officer begs his superiors to stop “the Syrian experience of traveling in kilometer-long dense columns along the roads.”
Who wants to place bets on whether anyone listens to this guy’s sage advice?
Before you ask, there is an online site from the Ukrainian government to sell these stamps. However, as of Tuesday morning in the U.S. that site was so swamped with visitors that it can’t actually operate.
A Telegram post from the commander of Ukrainian forces at Kryvyi Rih indicates that Ukraine has retaken “more then 15” villages and towns west of the Dnipro in that area north of Kherson. It also says they are working to restore services, in particular electricity, to the area.
However, it’s not clear exactly which villages are involved or when they were recaptured. Likely these are the cluster of locations reported as being taken by Ukrainian forces last week.
Not clear how many people are involved in this unit, but it’s a welcome development.
Russian soldiers who have defected in Ukraine have now set up a new military unit called “Free Russia”. They will fight for Ukraine under the new white-blue-white Russian flag. Great decision guys. pic.twitter.com/Ks5arwf6RL
In both Poland and Turkey, Ukrainian refugees have been voluntarily cleaning local parks and roadways to express their gratitude for being allowed into the country, and to make it clear they want to be “good guests.”
Ukrainian refugees in Antalya, Turkey, organised a clean up. One of the organisers, Kate Semerich says they did it: -to thank Turkey for the hospitality -to remind Ukrainians they are only guests and to treat Turks with respect -to show Ukrainians are a European nation 🇺🇦🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/ZVB4KK76VC
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
●TN-05: The latest bad news for Trump’s endorsed candidate, former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, came Saturday when the Tennessee Republican Party’s executive committee removed her, as well as music video producer Robby Starbuck and businessman Baxter Lee, from the August primary for not meeting the party’s definition of a “bona fide” Republican. However, Tennessee Lookout’s Holly McCall explains that this isn’t necessarily the end for any of them, as they’ll soon have the chance to appeal their ejections in this newly gerrymandered seat.
But just why did the state GOP throw them off the ballot in the first place? The GOP’s bylaws say that, in order to be a bona fide party member, a candidate must have voted in at least three of the last four statewide primaries or been “actively involved” in state or county Republican activities; Democrats have a similar requirement, except candidates only need to have participated in three of the last five nomination contests.
There’s a considerable amount of flexibility to this rule, though. Party leaders can vote to classify a candidate as bona fide if someone vouches for them, and they can also act if a contender appeals the initial rejection. The parties even have the choice not to pursue objections, as Democrats showed over the weekend after someone filed a challenge to gubernatorial candidate Jason Martin for voting in the 2016 GOP presidential primary. Martin defended himself by saying he’d cast that vote so he could oppose Trump, and the challenge was dropped after party leaders recommended he remain on the ballot.
Additionally, the parties can bar someone over ideological issues. In 2020, for instance, Democrats punished state Rep. John DeBerry for supporting too many Republican policies. DeBerry, who angrily responded that Democrats just wanted him “sitting there like a brainless idiot and letting them tell you what to do,” tried to keep his seat by running as an independent, but he lost the general election to Democrat Torrey Harris.
Ortagus herself only moved to Tennessee last year from D.C., so she certainly hasn’t voted in enough state primaries to count as bona fide. The GOP-dominated legislature also put a different obstacle in her way last month by passing a bill that would impose a requirement that House candidates reside in their districts for three years before becoming eligible to run, a move that observers widely saw as aimed at blocking her. The legislation, which Gov. Bill Lee hasn’t acted on, is already being challenged in court by a well-financed group called Tennessee Conservative PAC.
Starbuck, on the other hand, relocated to the state three years ago, and while he says he meets the residency requirements of the legislature’s new bill, he didn’t survive the weekend’s bona fide test either. It’s not clear why Lee was rejected, though the right-wing Tennessee Star says he voted in the 2016 Democratic primary. McCall writes that state law gives state party executive committees until Thursday to formally notify candidates that they were rejected, and that these contenders will have another seven days to appeal.
TN-05: Morgan Ortagus (R): $600,000 raised (in six weeks), $550,000 cash-on-hand
WY-AL: Liz Cheney (R-inc): $2.94 million raised, $6.8 million cash-on-hand
Redistricting
●FL Redistricting: State legislative leaders said Monday that they would allow their fellow Republican, Gov. Ron DeSantis, to draft a new congressional map rather than try again themselves, a move CNN interpreted as a “cave to DeSantis.” Former GOP strategist Mac Stipanovich went further, saying, “What we’re witnessing is a mile marker on the road to one-man rule in Florida, at least for the time being.” The governor has spent the last few months putting forth maps to aggressively gerrymander the state, and he vetoed the boundaries the legislature sent to him last month.
Senate
●CO-Sen, CO-Gov: The Colorado Republican Party held its convention (known locally as the party assembly) Saturday, and the event dramatically winnowed the June primary field for both U.S. Senate and governor. State Rep. Ron Hanks, a vocal Big Lie proponent who won the party’s Senate endorsement, will take on construction company owner Joe O’Dea for the right to challenge Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. The gubernatorial race will pit the convention winner, former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, against University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl, and the winner will face Democratic incumbent Jared Polis.
As we’ve written before, candidates in Colorado can reach the primary ballot by either taking the support of at least 30% of the assembly delegates or by collecting the requisite number of signatures ahead of last month’s deadline. Candidates can opt to try both methods, but doing so still doesn’t offer a guarantee: If a contender takes less than 10% of the vote at the convention, then their campaign is over no matter how many signatures they turned in.
Hanks, who was depending on the convention to advance, used his address to the assembly to once again proclaim his fealty to the Big Lie, saying, “I fully expected Donald Trump to win in 2020—and he did.” Delegates responded by awarding Hanks 39% of the vote, which gets him the top spot on the primary ballot. Former talk radio host Deborah Flora was in second with 29%, which was just below what she had to hit in order to keep her campaign going: Four other Senate candidates also saw their campaigns come to an end including Air Force veteran Eli Bremer and real estate developer Gino Campana. O’Dea, though, previously collected enough signatures to make the ballot and was thus able to avoid the assembly.
Over in the race for governor, Lopez, the former mayor of the Denver suburb of Parker, won 34% of the delegates. Ganahl was just behind with 32%, though because she’d already turned in the requisite number of petitions, she just had to take at least 10% to keep her campaign going. It was the end of the road, however, for real estate broker Danielle Neuschwanger, who fell just short of the 30% she needed and didn’t have signatures to fall back on. Neuschwanger responded to her elimination by claiming the count was fraudulent and vowing to challenge it, though the Colorado Sun says that “it’s not clear how she could do that.”
Ganahl is the one Republican left in statewide office, while Lopez didn’t come anywhere close in his last two quests. He sought to challenge Bennet in 2016, but he ended his little-noticed campaign after his father died. Lopez had more luck in the 2018 race for governor when he took a surprisingly strong second place at the convention; several delegates acknowledged that they knew nothing about him when the day began, but that his speech won them over. He had a far more difficult task swaying primary voters, though, and he ended up earning a distant third place with just 13%.
●IA-Sen: A state judge ruled late Sunday that former Rep. Abby Finkenauer could not appear on the June Democratic primary ballot to take on Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley because she’d failed to meet Iowa’s signature requirements, a decision that reverses a recent State Objection Panel ruling that allowed her to advance. Finkenauer, who is the frontrunner for Team Blue’s nomination against retired Navy Vice Adm. Mike Franken, soon said she would appeal, while the state attorney general’s office also said it would challenge the verdict on behalf of the Panel.
The state requires Senate candidates to submit at least 3,500 valid signatures, with at least 100 petitions each coming from 19 different counties. (Iowa has 99 counties total.) Finkenauer turned in more than 5,000, and the Panel ruled in late March that the former congresswoman had just barely met the 19-county requirement because she’d gathered 100 valid signatures for Allamakee County and 101 in Cedar and Muscatine counties.
A pair of Republicans responded by filing a lawsuit: They argued that a total of three signatures from Allamakee and Cedar should not be counted because the petitioners had not provided the date as required, and the GOP-appointed judge agreed. The secretary of state’s office says it needs a final resolution to this matter by April 15 so that it can send ballots to military and overseas voters in time to comply with federal law.
●MO-Sen: Rep. Vicky Hartzler has publicized an internal poll from OnMessage that gives her a narrow 23-22 edge over disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens in the Aug. 2 GOP primary to succeed retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, with state Attorney General Eric Schmitt in third with 16%. This is the first survey we’ve seen from a credible pollster giving Hartzler the edge, though previous polls have shown her in a close third place against Greitens and Schmitt.
Indeed, the attorney general’s supporters at Protect Missouri Values in turn have released numbers from NMB Research giving their man a 25-23 edge over Greitens, with Hartzler close behind with 20%. Fellow Rep. Billy Long takes a distant fourth with 7%, while wealthy attorney Mark McCloskey and state Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz are at just 3% and 2%, respectively. No one else will be joining or leaving the crowded race at this point, though, as April 8 was finally the filing deadline for Senate: You can find a list of contenders here. (We recently explained why the deadline was automatically extended from March 29.)
These twin polls come as Hartzler and Schmitt seek to position themselves as the strongest alternative to Greitens, whom Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies have long fretted could threaten Team Red’s hold on this seat if he wins the nomination. Their worries took on a new urgency last month when Greitens’ ex-wife, Sheena Greitens, accused him of physically abusing both her and their children in 2018.
However, as both polls indicate, anti-Eric Greitens forces have yet to consolidate behind anyone. Hartzler, for her part, sports an endorsement from Missouri’s other GOP senator, Josh Hawley, while outside groups so far have spent $1.7 million to promote Schmitt. Gov. Mike Parson, meanwhile, is supporting Schatz, while Long is hoping that a recent supportive not-Tweet from Donald Trump will turn into an actual endorsement. Greitens has one big ally in his corner, as mega donor Richard Uihlein last year financed a super PAC to aid him.
●NC-Sen: Former Gov. Pat McCrory’s latest commercial for next month’s GOP primary features the candidate standing in front of a wheelbarrow filled with excrement as an image of Rep. Ted Budd flashes by, and … you know what, just watch it yourself if you absolutely must. And no, you’re not imagining it: There are a lot of ads this cycle filled with dung. Politico, meanwhile, reports that Budd’s allies at the Club for Growth’s total spending for this primary will hit $15 million.
●NV-Sen: Army veteran Sam Brown’s new ad goes negative on former Attorney General Adam Laxalt ahead of the June GOP primary, though not very aggressively. It opens with photos of Laxalt and Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto as Brown argues, “Political elites have all the money and Washington’s agenda.” The candidate goes on to portray himself as a conservative outsider who can “make real change.”
●PA-Sen: Mehmet Oz received Trump’s backing on Saturday, which makes him the second former TV personality to earn a Trump endorsement in as many weekends. Former hedge fund manager David McCormick, who is Oz’s main opponent in the May 17 GOP primary, responded days later with yet another negative ad that opens with footage of Oz smooching his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before he’s shown praising Hillary Clinton and Anthony Fauci.
Meanwhile, McCormick on Monday earned the backing of a politician from yesteryear, while Oz picked up the endorsement from someone who is about to go there. In McCormick’s corner is former Sen. Rick Santorum, while retiring Rep. Fred Keller is supporting Oz.
Governors
●NE-Gov: NBC reports that Trump-endorsed self-funder Charles Herbster has outspent University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen, who is termed-out Gov. Pete Ricketts’ choice, $3.9 million to $2.8 million so far on advertising ahead of the May 10 Republican primary, while state Sen. Brett Lindstrom had deployed $1.2 million.
Plenty of that spending, as you might guess, includes negative ads. An offering from Hebster argues that Pillen “illegally released feces, waste filled with pathogens, heavy metals, and bacteria into our water supply.” The narrator, in a line you’d rarely expect to find in GOP ads in this day and age, then exclaims, “Pillen even polluted a protected wildlife refuge.” A different Hebster spot is more of what you’d anticipate coming from Team Red, declaring, “Under Jim Pillen, our university became a sanctuary campus, giving scholarships to illegals.”
A Ricketts-funded group called Conservative Nebraska, meanwhile, has been running spots portraying Hebster as a “Missouri millionaire.” Meanwhile, a group known as Restore the Good Life has been airing ads attacking Lindstrom on taxes, though there’s far less information about who is behind it. Last month the Nebraska Examiner reported that the organization was incorporated by a banker named Tanner Lockhorn, whom Ricketts appointed to the Judicial Nominating Commission. The governor, however, denied he had anything to do with this organization, saying, “I don’t typically criticize Republican senators during the session as I always want to give them the chance to do the right thing.”
●NY-Gov: Data for Progress (D): Kathy Hochul (D-inc): 51, Lee Zeldin (R): 36
House
●AK-AL: The GOP firm Remington Research, polling on behalf of the conservative website Must Read Alaska, is out with the first survey we’ve seen of the special June top-four primary, a race that’s extremely difficult to poll in part because there are 48 different candidates on the ballot. Remington’s approach to that challenge is to ask respondents about six choices, with an unnamed “Another candidate not listed” also included:
Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R): 31
2020 Democratic Senate nominee Al Gross (I): 26
Businessman Nick Begich (R): 21
Anchorage Assembly member Chris Constant (D): 7
State Sen. Josh Revak (R): 3
Former state Interior Department official Tara Sweeney (R): 2
Another candidate not listed: 4
The four candidates with the most votes will advance to the August instant runoff general election, which Remington did not poll. The story notes that the firm’s parent company, Axiom Strategies, works with Begich’s campaign.
●CA-22 (special): The Associated Press has called a June 7 special general election between Republican Connie Conway and Democrat Lourin Hubbard, neither of whom are running for a full term in Congress anywhere this year. Conway took 35% in last week’s all-party primary to succeed former Rep. Devin Nunes, while Hubbard, who is a California Department of Water Resources official, outpaced Republican Matt Stoll 19-16 for second.
●NC-04: State Sen. Valerie Foushee has received an endorsement from EMILY’s List ahead of the May 17 Democratic primary for this open seat.
●NC-11: While freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s failed district swap, pro-Putin declarations, and evidence-free “orgy” allegations have motivated several prominent North Carolina Republicans to try to beat him in next month’s primary, the party’s biggest name is still very much in his corner. Donald Trump used his Saturday rally in the state to praise the congressman, telling his acolytes, “[m]an, I love him.” Cawthorn’s own speech at that event featured him proclaiming, “We will investigate Anthony Fauci and send him to jail for lying to Congress.”
●NE-01: Republican leaders unsurprisingly have nominated Mike Flood in the June 28 special election to succeed former GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, while Democrats chose fellow state Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks. Flood faces only minor opposition in next month’s primary for the full term now that the convicted Fortenberry has ended his re-election campaign and resigned, while Brooks is similarly situated.
●NY-01: Democrats Serve PAC, which backs Democrats “with public service backgrounds,” has announced that it will spend $600,000 on digital ads and mail to support Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn in the June primary for this open seat. The group explained it was supporting her because her “background as a social worker, legislative aide, and legislator gives her a unique perspective and expertise on the frontlines of policy delivery.”
Mayors
●Los Angeles, CA Mayor: UC Berkeley, polling on behalf of the Los Angeles Times, gives billionaire developer Rick Caruso the lead with 24% in the June nonpartisan primary, while Rep. Karen Bass outpaces City Councilman Kevin de León 23-6 for the second spot in the all-but-assured November runoff. Caruso, the paper wrote last week, has already spent about $7 million on TV ads, while none of his opponents have gone on the air yet.
●Washington, D.C. Mayor: AFSCME has endorsed Councilmember Robert White’s June Democratic primary challenge to Mayor Muriel Bowser.
A final reminder that the clock is ticking down to this Thursday’s deadline for panel, workshop and training submissions for the 2022 Netroots Nation convention in lovely Pittsburgh PA August 18-20. (Click here for the guidelines and submission form.) Grand poobah Mary Rickles says the goal is to highlight hot topics in the progressive community by bringing activists, analysts, political leaders and audiences together for 90 minutes of discussion and Q&A.
Below the fold are some topics they’re looking for this year:
Continued…
Conversations about protecting democracy both here and abroad
Discussions about the upcoming 2022 midterms and strategies to win
Sessions about current events and issues (examples: the war in Ukraine, COVID, the economy, addressing climate change, attacks on reproductive justice, and racial justice)
Pittsburgh Aug. 18-20.
Trainings that help newer activists grow into successful organizers
Advanced trainings that focus on cutting-edge tools and techniques
As always, we ask you to consider inclusivity as well as how your panel will empower others to take what they’ve heard and use it in their own work
If you missed one of the submission Q&A webinars we hosted and want to know more about the submission process, check out the slide deck here. And if you still have questions, feel free to email us at [email protected].
The link for all the panel submission info is here. Deadline isThursday and I believe the final list will be announced next month. On a related note: we regret that the cocaine-fueled orgy we had planned for the final night has been canceled, as the Republicans already booked the pleasure palace and pre-purchased all the blow. (Thank you, Madison Cawthorn, for that helpful but disappointing information.)
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Note: Due to a sinus infection, the Easter Bunny is unable to deliver candy and eggs this year. For your safety, please lock your family in the bathroom until the Easter Rhino has left. We also recommend you put your homeowner’s insurance agent on speed dial.
Estimated number of lives that the Covid-19 vaccine saved so far: 2.2 million
Number of workers now fueling the U.S. economy: 151 million
Rank of South Korea, China, and Italy among most expensive countries for raising a child from birth to age 18, according to data from Yuwa Population Research: #1, #2, #3
Percent chance that Volkswagen rejected a shareholder push to make the company “explain how its lobbying activities align with its climate goals”: 100%
Rank of Fremont, California in WalletHub’s latest assessment of the happiest cities in America (5 California towns are in the top 10): #1
JEERS to today’s Covid-19 update. We promised we would only do these sporadically, and guess what? My Garfield-Eating-Lasagna-Ha-Ha wall calendar says today is Sporadic Day, so we must obey. But we’ll keep it quick:
» The Covid dashboard says there have been 82 million cases in the U.S., meaning one-in-four of us have contracted the virus. Total U.S. deaths: 1,012,151. Actual number of both cases and deaths: much higher.
» Interesting article on how smart ventilation is getting more attention as a way to reduce covid particles, especially in schools. It could turn out to also be an effective way to get kids to behave. (“If you little brats don’t settle down, I’m turning off the HEPA filter.”)
And in other news: a 97 percent plunge in the popularity of spiky red hair raises fake eyebrows in the salon industry. Film at 11.
» Vaccines and boosters remain the best way to defend yourself from “The Rona.” Masking up is also a good idea in indoor public spaces or crowded outdoor public spaces. The worst ways to defend yourself remain ivermectin, drinking your own pee, and Jesus.
JEERS to barbarians at the gate. The madman responsible for killing countless civilians is planning a major invasion, during which hedonistic nutballs bristling with guns, who speak more in grunts than words, will be tasked with completely destroying the country in the pursuit of money, power, racial purity, and ideological zealotry. The freedom fighters opposing them, who want to preserve democracy, are bracing for the assault, but nothing is guaranteed. All we know is that no rule will go unbroken, no norm of civilized behavior will remain intact, and if the unwashed horde prevails, it’ll be virtually impossible to recover. But enough about the Trump death cult’s planned takeover of the legislative branch in 2022 and executive branch in 2024. Anyone know how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going?
JEERS to days we’d like to forget. On April 12, 1861, in one of the most tragic mix-ups in American history, Confederate troops accidentally fired cannonsloaded with giant lead balls—instead of the “prank” cannons loaded with confetti—at Fort Sumter, thus igniting the Civil War. Northerners…so touchy.
JEERS to cerebral hemorrhages. They suck. President Franklin Roosevelt died from one 77 years ago Today down in Warm Springs, Georgia. His private Secretary Grace Tully recounts what happened here. A snip:
The shock was unexpected and the actuality of the event was outside belief.
The bed in Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR died.
Without a word or a glance toward the others present, I walked into the bedroom, leaned over and kissed the President lightly on the forehead. Then I walked out on the porch and stood wordless and tearless. In my heart were prayers and, finally, in my mind came thoughts, a flood of them drawn from seventeen years of acquaintance, close association and reverent admiration. Through them, one recurred constantly—that the Boss had always shunned emotionalism and that I must, for the immediate present at least, behave in his pattern.
I did, for a matter of hours.
While FDR’s generation got a rendezvous with destiny, ours got a rendezvous with a fuckup named Dubya and, eight years later, another fuckup named Dampnut, and we’ll be paying for it the rest of our lives—thanks a lot, fate. Now comb your hair and go pay your respects. As always, regards to Eleanor.
CHEERS to today’s edition of Was It Something We Said? Courtesy of Twitter:
This has been today’s edition of Was It Something We Said?
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 12, 2012
CHEERS and JEERS to Google glasses. You put ’em on and it distracts you with the internet while you’re walking down the street. A lot of people will be investing in their success. Me? I’ll be investing in my local forehead-lamppost collision specialist.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the master of the mashie. The 2022 wearer of the Green Technicolor Dreamcoat was decided at the Masters golf tournament Sunday: Scottie Scheffler from USA! USA! USA! won all the marbles—2.7 million of them, to be precise. There were a lot of good shots made, as usual, but this from Sir Rory will be one of the enduring moments of the tournament:
Despite that amazing lesson in propulsion, gravity, and aerodynamics, our condolences go out McIlroy, who finished second and limps away from Augusta with only $1.62 million in his pocket. Some days it’s all you can do to pay the rent.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial
”I’m trying to think of a blog post that thinks less of its audience than Cheers and Jeers, and I am failing. ”
We begin today’s roundup with an analysis of the latest developments from the January 6th Committee from Ben Jacobs at New York magazine:
After a quiet few months, some of the committee’s investigation has begun to leak out to the public, such as the seven-hour gap in White House call logs on the day of the attack on the Capitol and the revelation that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had been directly lobbying White House officials on how to overturn the 2020 election. Behind the scenes, the committee has heard testimony from about 800 people and is getting ready to present its findings to the public in televised hearings as soon as next month.
A Washington, D.C., jury on Monday found former Rocky Mount, Virginia, police officer Thomas Robertson guilty on six counts related to his involvement in the January 6, 20201, attack on the Capitol, including impeding law enforcement, disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon, and obstructing Congress’ certification of the electoral college votes.
Daniel Strauss at The New Republic explores Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party and his endorsement of Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s Senate Race:
Trump likes to brag about how his endorsement can win a candidate just about any primary and boost that candidate “like a rocket” in the general election. But he’s shown that getting his endorsement requires a high level of fealty to him and how he campaigns. The assumption among Republican campaigns has been that having Trump allies on the campaign creates a serious pathway to getting Trump’s endorsement. Except that’s not always true. And even when candidates do get Trump’s endorsement, recent developments in major primaries across the country show that doesn’t necessarily end the contest.
Trump has an uncanny ability to find the most unqualified crackpots, dissemblers and candidates with histories of alleged abuse for his endorsements. Shocking, I know, that Trump would gravitate to such candidates.
Meanwhile, David French at The Atlantic examines Republican attacks on free speech:
As the Republican Party evolves from a party focused on individual liberty and limits on government power to a party that more fully embraces government control of the economy and morality, it is reversing many of its previous stances on free speech in public universities, in public education, and in private corporations. Driven by a combination of partisan animosity and public fear, it is embracing the tactics that it once opposed.
On a final note, Philip Bump at The Washington Post analyzes how the Republican Party fully embraced Donald Trump’s Big Lie as a foundation of its ideology:
Trump’s continuation of months of rhetoric alleging that mail ballots were suspect became weeks of complaining about counting those ballots became months of elevating any accusation about wrongdoing that came across his transom, however obviously false. An ecosystem arose around his claims — “stop the steal” — that generated a lot of money by propagating the narrative. Trump’s most loyal supporters believed (and still believe) that the election was stolen.
So the right got to work. As with the Russia investigation, it needed to come up with a way to agree that the election was stolen without embracing the junk that was obviously false or deranged. The result? Maybe there was rampant fraud, maybe there wasn’t. But everyone could agree that the election was rigged against Trump by the very elites he was trying to disempower.
Over the weekend, U.S. intelligence analysts warned that Russia was massing forces for a large offensive out of now-captured Izyum all the way to Dnipro, a distance of over 200 kilometers. U.S. intelligence has been on point throughout the war, but to outside observers the move seems utterly implausible. It would be an operation equal in scope to the Russian attack on (and retreat from) Kyiv, but facing even longer supply lines, routed through even less defensible territory, in the face of stiffer potential Ukrainian resistance and utilizing battalions that have suffered heavy losses since the first days of the war. There’s no part of that calculation that works out well for Russia, even taking Ukraine’s own heavy casualties into account.
That doesn’t mean Russia won’t try, and what we’ve seen from U.S. intelligence so far seems to hint that they have a much easier window into what Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s inner circle believes than what Russian military realities actually are. It’s very possible that Russia will attempt the unfathomably risky move because Putin and whatever generals still have Putin’s favor are demanding that their underlings do it. And it’s very possible that it could end in a shredding of those Russian forces that makes the Russian losses elsewhere pedestrian in comparison. The latter possibility is even more likely as NATO countries abandon their previous reticence at providing so-called “offensive” weaponry to Ukraine and are now opening the equipment floodgates.
That newest NATO equipment mostly hasn’t arrived yet, but Ukraine has been receiving a steady stream of the sort of anti-armor weapons that were used to such devastating effect elsewhere in the country. New armored vehicles to replace lost ones are now on the way as well. And hanging above it all, literally, are the region’s infamous spring rains. Our most recent news updates:
Richard Grenell was a terrible choice for acting director of national intelligence—which is precisely why Donald Trump chose him. It’s like when Trump is rudely confronted with a salad bar and has to choose between piling fresh greens on his plate or bobbing for stray croutons in the ranch dressing trough. His squishy id will wail like a toddler until he picks the most immediately gratifying option.
In the case of Grenell, Trump liked the way he looked on the teevee. Normally, that would be reason enough for Trump to pull the trigger, but Grenell was also a reliable flunky-in-waiting—which was something the ocher abomination simply couldn’t resist.
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S campaign to purge the government of anyone not blindly loyal to him continued Wednesday with the appointment of Richard Grenell as acting director of national intelligence. Mr. Grenell, who currently serves as ambassador to Germany, is manifestly unqualified for the job, even in an acting capacity. He has no experience in intelligence or in managing large organizations — like the 17 agencies that will now report to him.
Mr. Grenell has nevertheless won the president’s favor in a familiar way: by loudly praising him and his agenda on Fox News programs and social media. Probably, he has convinced Mr. Trump he can be counted on to put the president’s personal and political interests above those of national security — something the two previous DNIs would not reliably do.
Well, yeah, that tracks. Another reason Trump liked him? Grenell is likely a white supremacist.
Amidst a Twitter squabble with Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu and Eric Swalwell on Friday, former Mike Pence aide and born again anti-Trumper Olivia Troye spilled the tea on Grenell’s extremist leanings.
The exchange started with a racist jab at Lieu and ended with me wondering why Vladimir Putin has yet to act to de-Nazify the United States.
Dear @RichardGrenell: I served on active duty to defend your right to say stupid stuff. To the extent you now randomly mention China because of my race, then you’re saying stupid, racist shit. Also, did you come up with LIEu all by yourself? Impressive. https://t.co/OrsMYt3B2b
GRENELL: “Ted LIEu spent years delivering the Beijing line that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.
“China celebrated his lies. @tedlieu”
LIEU: “Dear @RichardGrenell: I served on active duty to defend your right to say stupid stuff.
“To the extent you now randomly mention China because of my race, then you’re saying stupid, racist shit.
“Also, did you come up with LIEu all by yourself? Impressive.”
Grenell’s take is a little ironic, of course, given that Donald Trump spent years delivering the Moscow line that … well, pick one. He delivered every conceivable Moscow line at one time or another. But, hey, maybe Putin was actually a good guy all along until President Biden pushed him too far by refusing to pull the U.S. out of NATO as Trump had promised.
Before long, Rep. Swalwell entered the fray with some genuinely astonishing info about Grenell, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany.
SWALWELL: “Hey @tedlieu, did you know @RichardGrenell used to hang out with Nazis when he was supposed to be representing us in Germany?”
Okay, well, that’s alarming. A U.S. ambassador to Germany was allegedly rubbing greasy elbows with bona fide Nazis? That’s not a good look.
Oh, but it gets better. Enter Troye, who broke with the Trump administration before the 2020 election over its shambolic and unserious response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I do. While in his role as Ambassador, Grennell tried to get Mike Pence to attend a white supremacist gathering during one of his overseas trips.
LIEU: “To be honest, I don’t really know much about Grennell [sic]. (I just view him as a boring internet troll). Do you have proof of this?”
TROYE: “I do. While in his role as Ambassador, Grennell tried to get Mike Pence to attend a white supremacist gathering during one of his overseas trips.”
Wait, is Pence white enough for a white supremacist gathering? (I’m only kidding, of course. If he were any whiter, Elmer’s Glue might sue him for trademark infringement.)
I assume Mother put the kibosh on any Nazi picnics Pence might have wanted to attend, so the only story here is that one of the Trump administration’s top intelligence advisers may very well have been a Nazi sympathizer. You know, regular stuff.
But hey, this country has some totally made-up Republican crises to attend to—like critical race theory and Mr. Potato Head’s unceremoniously french-fried schwanzstucker—so we’ll get to purging Nazis from our government a bit later.
After more than a year of avoiding jail time related to the murder of a pedestrian, South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg may finally be held accountable for his actions. Calls for his resignation are increasing nationwide as he faces an impeachment inquiry.
Investigations into his actions were opened up to the public by Ravnsborg’s Republican colleague, Gov. Kristi Noem. According to Daily Kos, new evidence in the case was shared in March by a Noem appointee.
The GOP attorney general was driving home from a political fundraiser on Sept. 12 when he struck a man, who was walking on the side of a highway. In a 911 call after the crash, Ravnsborg claimed he hit a deer. He said he didn’t realize he struck a man until he returned to the crash scene the next day and discovered the body of Joseph Boever. He failed to mention that the victim’s glasses were in his car. Claiming he did nothing wrong, Ravnsborg insisted he remains the state’s top law enforcement officer.
At the time, many Republicans supported this decision, but his popular predecessor Marty Jackley has gathered even more support, causing GOP officials to slowly “turn” on Ravnsborg and rethink his driving accident.
According to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the South Dakota House of Representatives will decide whether or not Ravnsborg can stay in office on Tuesday. The vote could end as the state Capitol’s first-ever impeachment of a constitutional officer.
The move follows an investigation recommended to the House Select Committee last month. Despite investigations and new evidence being introduced, the chamber decided not to vote to impeach following a secret closed meeting on March 28. Since then, resolutions have pushed representatives to rethink their decision.
“This is long overdue, and hopefully, we can get the situation resolved for the betterment of the people of South Dakota,” Rep. Sydney Davis told the Argus Leader.
Others “on the fence” expressed similar concerns, including Republican State Rep. Charlie Hoffman, who was swayed after a presentation by South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers last Wednesday, in which Ravnsborg was proven to be a reckless driver.
“After seeing the length of time Mr. Boever’s body was on the AG’s car with his head inside of the AG’s car’s window, and then flying off hitting the middle of the lane behind the AG’s car, leaving bone fragments on the road and skidding into the ditch at 65 mph, my mind has changed,” he told The Daily Beast on Friday. “I now have irrefutable evidence the AG knew exactly what he hit and lied to investigators and the Hyde County sheriff.”
The presentation confirmed multiple speeding tickets and other driving violations Ravnsborg had received.
According to the Dakota Free Press, investigations have found various discrepancies and issues in how the case was handled. The sheriff who allegedly gave Ravnsborg a ride after the incident not only failed to investigate the accident but ignored scenes of the crime, including Boever’s flashlight, which he assumed was from Ravnsborg’s car.
The decision to impeach now lies in the hands of the full House. Given the new details the Department of Public Safety provided this week to prove Ravnsborg was distracted the night he killed Boever, one can hope the House will make the right decision.
