Representative Robert Garcia: Calling a Dick a Dick

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Derik Schneider

“FINALLY: Elon Musk gets public HUMILIATION he DESERVES”

Source:Brian Tyler Cohen with a look at President Donald J. Trump’s senior partner in slime, Elon Musk.

From Brian Tyler Cohen

“Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Ca.) made a dick joke about Elon Musk during a House hearing on the Department of Government Efficiency, on Wednesday — and later had to defend the insult to a CNN anchor who wondered if it was “effective messaging.”

During the House Oversight subcommittee hearing on DOGE, Garcia tried to troll Musk while also taking a dig at the subcommittee’s chair, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Since Greene once showed Hunter Biden’s “dick pics” at a July 2023 House Oversight Committee hearing, Garcia decided to follow that precedent.

“I find it ironic, of course, that our chairwoman, Congresswoman Greene, is in charge of running this committee. Now, in the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a dick pic in our oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I’d bring one as well,” Garcia said, before setting up his bit.

Garcia then showed a photo of Musk in a tuxedo, and some of the people in attendance laughed at the joke.

“Now this, of course, we know, is President Elon Musk,” he said. “He’s also the world’s richest man. He was the biggest political donor in the last election. He has billions of dollars in conflicts of interest, and we know that he’s leading a power grab also abided by and encouraged by Donald Trump, and, of course, the chairwoman, Congresswoman Greene…

From The Huffington Post

“Rep. Robert Garcia said he was going to show “a dick pic” in the DOGE Subcommittee hearing this morning and then displayed a photo of
@elonmusk
.
Why’d he do it?

“Well, he is a dick.”

From Brianna Keilar

Before some political escaped mental patient (also known as a MAGA member) goes off on me for comparing Elon Musk to a serial murderer, I’m not doing that. But this discussion leads me to a hypothetical.

Imagine a true crime documentarian was doing a documentary about a serial killer, who is currently in prison, either on death row, or serving life without the possibility of parole and that person (because they get TV in their cell, or watch TV in the day room…) not only finds out about this documentary, but gets angry about it because in the documentary the murderer keeps being referred to as a serial killer or serial murderer. So then this inmate sues the filmmaker for libel because he referred to him a serial killer, or serial murderer. How far in court do you this convicted killer would get? Well, unless the judge is either drunk or high, (perhaps both) it would get thrown out of court very quickly.

As Representative Garcia told CNN anchor Brianna Keilar:

Brianna Keilar: Do you think that calling Elon Musk a dick is effective messaging?
Congressman Robert Garcia: Well, he is a dick.

From U.S. Representative Robert Garcia

As my colleague Fred Schneider  said about this story the other day:

Calling a “dick”, a “dick”, is like calling a horse a horse. If you don’t want to be called a “dick”, don’t be a “dick”.

Political decorum in Washington and in American politics in general, escaped the Republican Party and Washington politics in general, when the Republicans nominated Donald John Trump for President in 2016. Not only did it escape the Republican Party and Washington politics, but it’s never been seen, or heard of again. Just a lot of Elvis sightings from people sort of acting like wee need it back. The Democrats have just been slow to react to that and have been late to this political party, as if they couldn’t find a date, but managed to get their cousin to be their date. And 1 thing I agree with Brian Tyler Cohen here that the mainstream media holds the Democrats to a higher standard than the Republicans on this issue. Maybe thats because they tend to be Democrats as well and expect better from their own party. I don’t know.

The situation as it relates to decorum that we are in now thanks to Donald and MAGA, is where Congressional hearings and press conferences, can sound like an HBO original series or Cinemax late move, a “reality TV show”, where it becomes about landing the last, big, vulgar, verbal shot, at your opponent, so you can “go viral” on social media. And where serious government events, like a Congressional hearing or press conferences, can look like a completely unserious “reality TV show”.

My final point here, if you get up every morning to see how many times you can kiss Donald Trump’s feet, (to put it mildly) or bullshit (to be frank) the American people by denying that he did exactly what he did, or said exactly what he said, you are 1 of the last people in the world to be complaining about vulgarity in American politics.

Source:The New Democrat

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The Lincoln Project: This is NOT Conservatism. This is a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS!

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Rik Schneider

“If you feel like you’re in a constitutional crisis, you are.”

Source:The Lincoln Project‘s Rick Wilson.

From The Lincoln Project

Rick Wilson talking about President Trump’s White House staff:

“You should be telling him the optics are bad, the impact is bad. What you’re doing is bad, but they don’t really care to. I’ll tell you why, because everyone there now knows they live or die literally and politically, by Donald Trump’s pleasure. Every single of those people around Donald Trump right now knows that if they say one word, if they say boo.

By the way, Donald, if you flip that switch, a thousand babies die. I wouldn’t flip the switch. I like that switch. It’s a good switch.

No one’s ever seen a switch like this. He doesn’t care. And they’ll just disappear, They’ll go away. They will be fired, they will be exiled, they will be stoked, they will be harassed.

That’s it. These lawyers in the White House and the DOJ, they understand that the actions being taken by Doge and by Elon and by his team of boy geniuses are illegal. They understand that statutory requirements for monies to be spent harkened back to Article one and Article two of the Constitution. These describe the separation of powers of three co equal branches of government.

It is not Trump HQ, Trump Capitol Hill Division, and Trump Court’s Inc. That’s not how it works. That’s not how a system in America that any conservative should want because believe you me, what you are stacking up right now is a series of awful precedents. No one believes that the abuse of power ever ends well.

But the abuse of power is what you are witnessing right now. The constitutional crisis you are witnessing is because of an abuse of power. It is going to accelerate. We are going to reach a moment of crisis very very very very soon…

From Speaker

According to Wikipedia:

“In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this definition…

From Wikipedia

I just want to take issue with 1 thing that Rick Wilson said first and then I’ll get into my broader point here.

I don’t even pretend to be a lawyer, because I’m not that good of an actor. What I know about the law, is what I read myself about it, as well as listening to good lawyers. But if you want my definition of a “constitutional crisis”, I will it to you anyway: a constitutional crisis would be when President Trump decides not to enforce a court decision that he lost.

Rick Wilson gave us a list of terrible’s that he think are possible… the President ordering his Attorney General Pam Bondi to arrest a Federal Judge for ruling against him and the Attorney General carrying out that order, would be what a “constitutional crisis” could look like. Both of those actions would be impeachable offenses. Now could either the President or Attorney General be arrested for that… what did I tell you about me not being a lawyer? But that would put the country I believe in a “constitutional crisis”.

But Rick Wilson is damn right about MAGA not being a conservative movement. Now I think the best definition of a Conservative is: “averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values”. Now move that up into an America political sense, that would mean someone who believes in conserving the American form of government, our individual rights, American tradition, etc.

A Conservative based on the definition that I just gave you, is not someone who is always talking about:

taking down the establishment

or taking down the deep state

maybe America needs a dictator

or using the rule of law against their political opponents, simply because they are their political opponents, or ruled against them in court, investigated you for possibly being involved in illegal activities, or even breaking the law.

If you are a Conservative, you are not intentionally breaking the law to begin with. No one is perfect, but these MAGA folks talk about breaking laws, like Ronald McDonald talks about cheeseburgers: it’s an everyday activity for them that they can’t get away from. .

So of course MAGA is not conservative. They are not “Make America Great Again” either. There’s a real limit to how much someone can talk about how great their own country is, before it becomes counter-productive and you are like a general manager of a sports franchise, who’s just won a few championships and you are now thinking this is as good as you’ll ever be. So you lose the incentive to improve and be better.

But the average American would probably tell you back in 2015-16 and even before that, well before Donald John Trump even represented a threat to becoming President of the United States, that America was not just a great country, but probably the greatest in the world. As much as MAGA talks about American patriotism and being American patriots… they are not calling themselves MAGA, if they already thought America was great. I mean, isn’t that obvious? If you think America is already great, then what’s the need to call yourself “Mage America Great Again”?

It’s hard to treat MAGA seriously as a political movement because a lot of their members look completely unserious. You don’t believe me, attend a CPAC conference at some point. What they really look like to me in a political sense… they look like whacked out hippies, (no offense to whacked out hippies) who ran away from home, ended up on a beach somewhere, got drunk and high for weeks and were never able to return to mainstream American society, mentally.

But somehow MAGA physically made it back to American mainstream society, but only to find themselves seeing an America that’s completely foreign to them and wondering what the hell happened to their country, before they ran away from home. And they are the people who think they’ll bring their America back.

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote yesterday:

If you are Kamala Harris right now… I doubt she’s home right now with her husband Doug laughing their heads off (to keep this clean) at the American voters. At least, the American voters who were too dumb, too blind, too death, (perhaps they flipped a coin in the voting booth to decide who to vote for in 2024) or simply don’t give enough of a damn about the United States, to make an intelligent decision in who to vote for. But only because I believe she loves her country and is still willing to do everything that she can to make America as great as it can be…

From The New Democrat

And this is who 49% of the American voters who actually gave enough of a damn about American democracy, to get to the polls, voted for in 2024. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. And that was enough for him to win the Electoral College.

So now the rest of the country, including the people who love America, need to do what we can, what is left for us to do, which is really just using our First Amendment rights to talk about how dangerous this whacked-out from the 1950s, (if not 1800s) far-right political movement is, that’s not just an insult to American conservatism, but the American form of government. As well as relying on the Federal courts, to hold this President and his movement accountable. And hope American voters wake up in 2025-26 and give this movement and President what it deserves, which is a real check on their abuses of power.

Source:The New Democrat

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The View: ‘Gulf of the Price of Eggs’ With Ana Navarro

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Erik Schneider

“Navarro joins executive producer Brian Teta to weigh in on Pres. Trump naming himself the chair of the Kennedy Center, his plans to cut the Department of Education and she discusses her experience attending the Miami Heat Gala.”

Source:The View with Ana Navarro & Brian Teta.

From The View

I must start off by saying (and I don’t care who is offended and who thinks I’m a sexist for saying this) Ana Navarro is so adorable and funny. That little girly face and that adorable accent, is just too much and then she’s so funny as well. She just cracks me up with her babydoll persona and sense of humor.

As far as the Super Bowl: I gave up that event full-time after the 2008 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Phoenix Cardinals. It’s no longer even a game, let alone a Super Bowl. It’s a super, long, pop culture show, with a game somewhere in between, that’s generally remembered for the halftime show or something. But not the game itself. But, I did see the highlights of the game… well, there was only 1 real highlight of that game. Actually, there were 2: President Donald Trump being booed at the freakin Super Bowl and leaving early because of that.

I went grocery shopping Wednesday in the Brookmont section of Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside of Washington, about 2 miles from my home. The Safeway at the Fort Sumner Center, is in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. It’s a huge grocery store, easy for me to get to, and they had almost no eggs on their shelf. They have an entire section in that store just for their eggs, and that shelf was almost empty.

I could’ve swore that grocery prices and the price of eggs, was 1 of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected President again in 2024. And hearing about how grocery prices would fall on day 1 of Donald Trump’s presidency. Next week, President Trump will have completed his 1st month of his presidency and there will still be an egg shortage in this country and grocery prices will be hire now, then the day he won the presidency in November.

But, when you only run for President of the United States just to stay out of Federal prison, avoid bankruptcy, complete your revenge tour from your first term that you promised and you promised that you would be a dictator on day 1, I guess there are just more important things going on in your life, whether people can afford to buy groceries and not just eggs, and keeping the country protected from foreign adversaries. I mean the man has to know his priorities and average Americans are obviously not 1 of President Trump’s priorities.

Source:The New Democrat

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Jim Acosta: Charlie Sykes On The News in Washington

Posted on February 12, 2025 by FredSchneiderUS

“Many thanks to Charlie and Alex who came on to discuss Trump tariffs, inflation, Russia and Ukraine. Two terrific explainers of the most important issues of the day. Please watch.”

Source:Jim Acosta talking to blogger/podcaster Charlie Sykes.

From Jim Costa

“Hope you stayed until the end for the Duke cameo and the debut of one of my planned occasional segments: “The Dear Leader Files” Which you can guess dealt with the Gulf of America. Thank you Charlie Sykes, Alexander Vindman, J Dziak, Jonathan Brownson, Teer Hardy, and many others for tuning into my live video with Charlie Sykes and Alexander Vindman! Join me for my next live video in the app.”

From Jim Acosta

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this today:

If you are Kamala Harris right now… I doubt she’s home right now with her husband Doug laughing their heads off (to keep this clean) at the American voters. At least, the American voters who were too dumb, too blind, too death, (perhaps they flipped a coin in the voting booth to decide who to vote for in 2024) or simply don’t give enough of a damn about the United States, to make an intelligent decision in who to vote for. But only because I believe she loves her country and is still willing to do everything that she can to make America as great as it can be.

But, for the people who did vote for Donald Trump because they think he’s a cool, wealthy, reality TV star, who hangs out with cool, wealthy, celebrities, who has a gorgeous wife and daughter, who was going to Washington “to shake things up” and “take on the establishment”, I have less than zero sympathy for you…

From The New Democrat 

guess have a few responses to this.

Charlie Sykes compared the so-called trade war between America and Canada (that our Dear Leader Donald Trump launched) a couple weeks ago a “South Park episode”. Obviously meaning it isn’t serious. I would’ve described it 2 weeks ago as a WWE pro wrestling match. Or a Whose Line is it Anyway skit. Meaning it’s not serious, it’s not real, etc. But it is now. Prices are up in America, the supply chain looks weaken and it’s not just about eggs, but if this “trade war” goes forward, it will affect a lot more groceries as well.

Jim Acosta who also has a very quick, dry, very good political wit, called President Trump’s Ova Office press conferences with his senior partner (and perhaps dear leader Elon Musk) “open mic night at The White House”. Meaning everyone has their say. There’s no preparation, no script. That it’s just basically an actually reality TV show. But the difference being that this is The White House. This is not supposed to be some messed up, reality TV show, that anyone with 1/2 of a brain (and no more than 1/2 of a brain) thinks is the coolest show in the history of the world. Until the next “reality TV show” comes along.

As Kire Schneider was getting too earlier and I’ll put it more simply: we get the politicians that we voted for. At least when we win. And Donald Trump simply had more voters than Kamala Harris in 2024. So his side won and these are just some of the consequences of a Donald Trump presidency. If you voted for Donald Trump in 2024, you have nobody to blame (assuming you don’t like the job that he’s doing) than the person that you see in the mirror.

Source:The New Democrat

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Maybe It’s Not The Politicians Fault

Posted on February 12, 2025 by kireschneider

“Jesse talks about reporting from the Washington Post about Venezuelan refugees who supported the election of Donald Trump, who are now realizing he doesn’t care even a little bit about them and that they are now going to be deported despite not being criminals and being in the United States legally.”

Source:Jesse Dollemore with his take on this subject.

From Jesse Dollemore

“Rick Wilson is NOT here for the shock from Trump voters. It was an open book test!”

Source:The Lincoln Project with Rick Wilson’s take on this subject.

From The Lincoln Project

As I wrote about this back in December:

“In Defense of Politicians”, that would never be 1 of my lines. Not even if I was a defense lawyer defending a politician. I would be in there in court telling the judge:

“I’m here to defend the politician”. But if I win this case, as soon as it’s over, I’ll be the first person telling the public how big of an asshole I think this person is. And why I’ve never voted for this politician. Well, not after the first time…

My point here is it’s not just the politicians. It’s not just the voters either. It’s just mostly the voters. As George Carlin said:

“Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from some other reality.

They come from American parents, American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, American universities, and they’re elected by American citizens.

This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces. Garbage in…garbage out…

If voters took voting as seriously as buying I don’t know, their latest smartphone, their latest smart TV, which coffee house to buy their coffee and what coffee drinks that they want, (just to throw out a few examples) I could guaran-damn-tee you that voting would be a helluva lot better in America. For the simple reason because then American voters would become American consumers of politics and government and would take it seriously. It’s not that Americans are stupid by-en-large, (with a lot of exceptions) it’s that they tend to be mentally lazy and don’t like doing their homework and taking risks. Unless that’s what their pop culture icons are doing and they think that’s the cool thing to do.

But as long as American democracy is like some realty TV game show, or something, where the winner is the person who is the coolest, the best looking, knows the best and most catch phrases, is hanging out with fabulist people, (so to speak) voting in American democracy will never be any better than voting for the NBA or MLB All Star Game. And to paraphrase George Carlin: it will just continue to be garbage in, garbage out, in our government.”

From The New Democrat

If you are Kamala Harris right now… I doubt she’s home right now with her husband Doug laughing their heads off (to keep this clean) at the American voters. At least, the American voters who were too dumb, too blind, too death, (perhaps they flipped a coin in the voting booth to decide who to vote for in 2024) or simply don’t give enough of a damn about the United States, to make an intelligent decision in who to vote for. But only because I believe she loves her country and is still willing to do everything that she can to make America as great as it can be.

But, for the people who did vote for Donald Trump because they think he’s a cool, wealthy, reality TV star, who hangs out with cool, wealthy, celebrities, who has a gorgeous wife and daughter, who was going to Washington “to shake things up” and “take on the establishment”, I have less than zero sympathy for you.

American democracy is a serious thing. It’s not a high school class presidential election. (No offense to high school class presidential elections) This is not a reality TV show where the winner gets 1 million dollars or, wins a record label, or something.

Voting for President of the United States, is the major leagues of American citizenship. Except in this major league, we all get to play. Which means people who don’t take voting seriously, who don’t do their homework, who don’t know who they’re voting for before they actually vote for their candidates of choice, have the same right to vote as the people who not just watch and read the real news on a daily basis, but who go to PTA meetings, and town meetings, who’ve worked on campaigns themselves. And because of all that education and knowledge, generally make the right decisions in who to vote for themselves and their kids.

This is literally what Donald Trump ran for President on in 2024, other than to stay out of prison, of course:

“SEAL THE BORDER AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION

CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY

END INFLATION, AND MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AGAIN

MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR!

STOP OUTSOURCING, AND TURN THE UNITED STATES INTO A MANUFACTURING SUPERPOWER

LARGE TAX CUTS FOR WORKERS, AND NO TAX ON TIPS!

STOP THE MIGRANT CRIME EPIDEMIC, DEMOLISH THE FOREIGN DRUG CARTELS, CRUSH GANG VIOLENCE, AND LOCK UP VIOLENT OFFENDERS

KEEP THE U.S. DOLLAR AS THE WORLD’S RESERVE CURRENCY

CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDREN”

From Donald Trump 2024

And if you think about it, the only issue and promise that President Trump hasn’t addressed yet, is dealing with inflation and cutting taxes for everyone. I keep hearing, especially during the fall, when grocery prices were actually coming down, about how voters were concerned about inflation and rising prices, the cost of eggs in particular and Donald Trump saying that he would, “cut prices on day 1”.

If you walk into a hospital cafeteria, or school cafeteria, are you expecting a gourmet meal?

If you walk into a used car lot that just sells old Chevy’s and Ford’s that people sold to the lot, are you expecting to buy a car that’s as nice as a brand new Mercedes SE, or Jaguar sedan?

If you are looking for a home in Compton, Los Angeles, California, are expecting to even find a mansion there, let alone be able to buy 1 for what it could cost to rent a 1 bedroom rent-controlled apartment?

American voters criticize politicians all the time. And in many cases for good reasons. But Donald Trump, except as it relates to inflation and middle class tax relief, is literally doing as President, what he campaigned on. He literally said he would “just be a dictator on day 1”. He literally said he wouldn’t enforce court orders that he didn’t agree with. He also literally said when the Feds were still trying to prosecute him, that he literally had the authority to do whatever he wanted to as President. And he got elected anyway.

And now even people who voted for Donald Trump for President, are angry about what he’s doing. Even though at his campaign rallies, he talked all the time about what he wanted to do as President again. Including deporting Haitians in Ohio “for eating our pets”.

If a guy says he will take everything you own and shoot you, if you let him in your home, but you let him anyway and he does exactly what he said he would do, after you let him in your home: aren’t you at least partially at fault there? Maybe if you were drunk or high when he told you he would do those things to you, you might be able to plead insanity on that 1. I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.

My only point here is don’t blame the politicians that you voted for, for doing exactly what they told you that they would do, if they got elected. Because you already surrendered your right to credibly complain.

Source:The New Democrat

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Glenn Kirschner: Steve Bannon Pleads Guilty to First Degree Felony Fraud!

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Ederik Schneider

“One of Donald Trump’s long-time associates Steve Bannon just pleaded guilty to a criminal scheme to defraud in the first degree. As CBS News reported, “Steve Bannon pleads guilty to defrauding donors in private border wall scheme.” This felony conviction comes after Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison.”

Glenn Kirschner_ Steve Bannon Pleads Guilty to First Degree Felony Fraud!Source:Glenn Kirschner talking about two-time convicted felon Steve Bannon.

From Glenn Kirschner

From MSNBC:

“Steve Bannon has pleaded guilty to defrauding donors in a border wall scheme, reversing an earlier not-guilty plea after landing on an agreement with New York prosecutors that will see him avoid a prison sentence.

In a New York courtroom on Tuesday, Bannon pleaded guilty to one count of scheme to defraud in the first degree. He was sentenced to a three-year conditional discharge and waived his right to appeal as part of the plea deal.

“Under the agreement with prosecutors, Bannon cannot serve as an officer or director of a charity or not-for-profit group in New York state, nor can he hold assets for any charitable organizations.

Bannon, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in 2022 on charges of money laundering, scheming to defraud and conspiracy over his alleged role in the “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign. Prosecutors accused Bannon and three others of pocketing donors’ money instead of using all of the funds to build a wall along the southern U.S. border as promised.

Bannon had faced up to 15 years if convicted. Like the president, he has claimed without evidence that the criminal charges against him are politically motivated.

He had also faced federal charges over his role in the scheme but was pardoned by Trump in 2021. Unlike federal charges, the president can’t pardon state charges, so Trump can’t pardon Bannon in the New York state case.

Bannon served four months in prison last year for being in contempt of Congress after he defied a congressional subpoena to testify in the House select committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. He repeatedly sought to appeal his sentence in that case, and even brought his appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was ultimately rejected.”

From MSNBC

I guess I have a few responses to this.

1. As much as the Left (or left-wing) in America might say they don’t like our form of government, with all it’s checks and balances, the devolution of power, our decentralized form of government… this is 1 reason why we have it.

When you have don’t just have crooks and criminals, but crooks and criminals who have powerful political allies, (take Steve Bannon) and your allies at 1 level of government decides to either not prosecute you, or pardon you, (like with President Trump pardoning Mr. Bannon) we still have criminal accountability and liability in this country.

Because a state where your crimes were committed (in this case New York) could just decide to prosecute you with the same evidence that the Feds had. Which I think might happen with Mayor Eric Adams. But we’ll see.

2. If there is any doubt left about whether MAGA stands for the “common man” in America, this should put that to rest. (Assuming there’s any room left in America for reason and evidence) Glenn Kirschner was right about that. Safe bet that the people that Mr. Bannon was taking money from for his border wall scheme, were Donald Trump’s own voters.

MAGA is not a “working man’s” political movement. That’s just their political front. They just use these blue-collar voters to gain political power and make themselves wealthy. But most of their backers, where they get most of their resources, comes from the richest people in the country, who believe they have to right to live and operate above the law. And shouldn’t be held accountable by anyone. Other than perhaps their own allies.

3. I guess Glenn Kirschner doesn’t like the sentence that Mr. Bannon got. But that’s not for him or me to decide. He won’t be able to operate in New York again, most likely and not be able to do business there again, because he is a two-time convicted felon. And is now out of the charitable business there all together.

4. And my final reaction here is: I wonder if pleading guilty to criminal charges, especially in a deep, blue state, like New York, will cost Steve Bannon any “street cred” with his MAGA Bros. I mean they advertise themselves as the toughest and strongest, of antiestablishment political warriors. And 1 of their biggest and most known players, not just admits in court that he’s guilty, but pleads guilty as well.

Source:The New Democrat

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CBS News: Eric Adams Could Still Face Charges in The Future

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Derik Schneider

“New York City Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the Department of Justice dropping charges against him, but his legal saga could be revived in the future. CBS News’ Anna Schecter reports.”

Source:CBS News with a look at New York City Mayor and crook Eric Adams.

From CBS News

Also from CBS News:

“Since his indictment, Adams has cozied up to President Trump and members of his administration, meeting with Mr. Trump in Florida before he took office and attending his inauguration in Washington, D.C. The mayor also attended the National Prayer Breakfast in the capital last week. Adams said that he did not discuss his corruption case with Mr. Trump in their Florida meeting.

Federal immigration agents have stepped up enforcement operations across the country, including in New York. But the city has largely avoided being targeted by the Trump administration, which sued Chicago and the state of Illinois over their immigration policies last week. City Hall sources recently told CBS News New York that they believed the city was spared because of the mayor’s relationship with the White House.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently said that Adams has been cooperative with DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Adams has stressed that DHS operations in the city are targeting violent criminals, and said in late January that he had directed the NYPD to assist federal law enforcement with a “targeted operation” to arrest a suspected gang member.

“As I have repeatedly said, we will not hesitate to partner with federal authorities to bring violent criminals to justice — just as we have done for years,” he said in a statement on Jan. 28. “Our commitment to protecting our city’s law-abiding residents, both citizens and immigrants, remains unwavering.”

But his willingness to cooperate with federal authorities has raised alarms among some state lawmakers and advocacy groups, who have criticized a memo Adams issued before Mr. Trump’s inauguration detailing how city officials should interact with federal immigration agents. The memo included a line that said: “[If] you reasonably feel threatened or fear for your safety, you should give the officer the information they have asked for or let them enter the site…

From CBS News

So what CBS News crime reporter Anna Schecter was talking about in the CBS News video, was what back in the day was called a “pro-quid-quo”.

Another way of phrasing that would be: “I’ll scratch my back, if you scratch mine. You know, platonically”.

Or: “You need me to do something for you. I need you to do something for me.”

So if Mayor Adams goes to trial in Manhattan, there might be 1 holdout who says: “He’s my Mayor. I won’t vote to convict him on anything. I don’t care what the evidence is”. Which has happened before. But based on what SDNY had against him:

“As a reminder, the Adams indictment, which dropped in September 2024, charges Adams with federal crimes including conspiracy, bribery, and solicitation of foreign campaign contributions. Prosecutors allege that Adams solicited and accepted two types of improper benefits from Turkish officials and nationals: (1) free or heavily discounted luxury travel, and (2) illegal foreign campaign contributions, funneled to the Adams campaign through “straw donors.” In return, Adams allegedly used his official power to shortcut the safety-inspection process on a skyscraper known as “Turkish House,” to the satisfaction of his foreign benefactors.

The evidence looked solid, if not quite overwhelming. Among many texts cited in the indictment, at one point Adams instructed a campaign staffer to accept a donation from a wealthy Turkish national (in violation of federal campaign finance law): the foreign businessman “is ready to help. I don’t want his willing to help be waisted [sic],” Adams texted.

Still, this wasn’t a smoking-gun case — few are, and most corruption cases lend themselves to some variation of “this is how politics works” and “there was no quid pro quo” defenses. I wouldn’t predict that Adams was surely cooked had he gone to trial, but the odds would’ve been stacked against him, as they always are in federal court (especially in the SDNY). Now, we’ll never know…

From Ellie Honig

As someone who is pushing 50, I’m old enough to remember when corruption was not just considered a weakness for a politician, but something that could end their political careers:

We all know about Richard Nixon.

But there’s Representative Mark Foley (Republican, Florida) who had to give up his House seat because of affairs that he had with his male interns, back in 2006.

And during that same year, Representative Bill Jefferson (Democrat, Louisiana) was indicted on bribery charges and later convicted in 2009 and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

And of course the most recent case of political corruption in Congress, that being with Senator Bob Menendez (Democrat, New Jersey) who was just convicted of bribery as well.

And I’m not arguing that Donald Trump’s MAGA Party has a monopoly on corruption. But since they’re in power, corruption is not a problem for them. Just as long as you are on their team and play ball with them.

My question going forward is: is this really end the of corruption case against Eric Adams?

The people at SDNY aren’t stupid, obviously. (Hopefully that’s not breaking news for anyone) They follow politics about as closely as anyone because politics can always interfere into what they’re doing, especially when they go after people in power.

SDNY indicted Mayor Adams back in September. They knew that Donald Trump might win the presidential election.

So my other question here: has SDNY been sharing evidence and information in the Adams case, just in case they were ordered to drop their case against the Mayor, regardless of how good their case was. Which is what exactly what happened here. They have more than enough evidence to convict the Mayor. But DOJ dropped the case against him anyway.

And the other question, if the answer is yes, that they have been sharing their evidence with let’s say the Manhattan District Attorney, perhaps NY State’s Attorney for New York City: (which is part of the New York Attorney General’s Office) could the Manhattan DA or NYAG, bring their bribery case against Mayor Adams and just pick the case where SDNY dropped off?

Source:The New Democrat

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Sam Stein & Ryan Goodman: JD Vance Defends DOGE Over Judges & The Rule of Law

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Rik Schneider

“Sam Stein is joined by Ryan Goodman, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Just Security, to discuss JD Vance’s assertion that executive power could overrule a judge’s decision.”

Source:The Bulwark with Ryan Goodman & Sam Stein.

From The Bulwark

Apparently Joe Scarborough trying to sound relevant again:

“A federal judge on Friday paused a midnight deadline for the U.S. Agency for International Development to be stripped down to a few hundred workers from a workforce of more than 5,000. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance posted Sunday on social media saying federal judges aren’t allowed to control a president. The Morning Joe panel discusses.”

Source:MSNBC with a look at President Donald J. Trump (MAGA, Florida) 47th President of the United States & 1st wannabe dictator.

From MSNBC

From Vice President JD Vance:

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.

If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.

Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

From Vice President JD Vance

I guess 1 could interpret what the Vice President is saying here as: “The Federal courts don’t have the constitutional authority to interpret what the President (meaning Donald J. Trump) can do or not do. Only President Trump can do that.”

Now imagine if Joe Biden was still the President, or Kamala Harris won in November and was the President right now, and JD Vance was still Senator JD Vance, instead of Vice President Vance and a Federal court ruled against the Democratic President… I’m willing to bet anything that Senator Vance’s interpretation of what the court ruled against the President, would be a helluva lot different.

Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their army of MAGA allies, (which at times looks and sounds like an escaped mental patients convention getting together for a reunion) talk all the time about they don’t want to be dictators, they’re not authoritarians. But every time someone, or something holds them accountable, they always claim that the person or agency, or organization, doesn’t have the authority to do what they legally and constitutionally just did.

As Ryan Goodman told Sam Stein: if the Vice President doesn’t like the court’s ruling, The White House can always appeal it. But what they do instead, is just question whether the court even has the authority to even interpret what the President did. Even though that’s 1 of the main functions of our court system which is to interpret the laws of Congress and the executive actions of the President.

Source:The New Democrat

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Catherine Rampell: When The Arsonist Demands Praise For His Firefighting Skills

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Erik Schneider

“Donald Trump is great at creating problems — and then pretending to fix them.

Donald Trump has made a habit of ginning up crises and then declaring victory when he “solves” them. We in the media must stop giving this arsonist credit for his firefighting skills.

The past two weeks have been fraught with international emergencies of the president’s own making — either problems that he pretends already plague us, or those he manifests into existence. This is the best way to understand his trade-war brinkmanship with Canada and Mexico…

Source:The Washington Post with a good look at Donald J. Trump (MAGA, Florida) 47th President of the United States & 1st wannabe dictator.

If you have a paid subscription to The Washington Post, you can see the rest of Catherine Rampell’s article over there.

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this last Tuesday:

“As Ederik mentioned yesterday and what Jesse Dollemore talked about today, is that Donald Trump creates all these man-made disasters (generally unintentionally, I believe, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing) and gets leaders of other countries to make some announcement announcing that they’re doing what they already agreed to do years ago, or at least weeks ago…

My point here is President Trump when he announced his tariffs on Canada and Mexico over the weekend, got burned by that. The Stock Market took a tumble and what mostly likely happened is that his oligarch backers got on him about that and told him that he needs to retreat (or something to that affect) and end, or at least pause these tariffs.

So what the President did on Monday was try to save his face by announcing that he he reached new border agreements with Mexico and Canada, that were already in place. And tried to take a victory lap on that. But as much as President Trump might hate this, we still have free speech and a free press in America. And Catherine Rampell and a lot of others, including The New Democrat, called him out on that.”

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Fred Schneider talked about last Tuesday:

“I give Catherine Rampell credit for willing to be on the same CNN panel with Scott Jennings to discuss anything with him and not just being able to beautifully (in more ways than 1) deliver her key points about an issue, but then just sit there and be able to take his garbage (to put it mildly) and just laugh it off as if she’s thinking: “He can’t be serious”. Which is how Scott Jennings has really sounded for about a year now every time he’s on CNN talking about anything related to Donald Trump…

Donald Trump as President of the United States, (which is a big enough American nightmare right there) is like a stocker at a grocery store, who is a bit of a klutz, who just made another mess, cleans up all the apple sauce, or tomato sauce, the milk, that he just knocked over on the floor, who then cleans up that mess and expects extra credit for cleaning up his own mess, that he should’ve never created in the first place…

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Ederik Schneider mentioned last Monday:

“Sorry, but I don’t give credit to people for:

Not jumping off the bridge.

Not breaking into my house.

Not hitting my car when they’re parking.

I don’t give cabbies a bigger tip from dropping me off at the right location.

When you almost create a trade war and you are just pausing that trade war, you don’t deserve credit for almost blowing up your house, but putting pause on that. Perhaps you really want to look at the consequences of that. Will the insurance company be fooled. That sort of thing.

The CTV News piece is correct:America gets 0.2% of its fentanyl from Canada. So where is the victory here? How is Canada putting more of their own troops on their border with us, a victory for America? If anything, Canada with its unpopular and outgoing Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, caved. And Donald Trump takes a victory lap for not blowing up his own house.”

From The New Democrat

No offense to Catherine Rampell and The Washington Post: The New Democrat was on this line of thinking about how Donald Trump handles his own problems that he creates for himself last week. How he politically shoots himself in the foot and sees a doctor about that and acts like he repaired the damage to his own foot himself and claims to be a world class surgeon, or something. But we’re glad that Catherine Rampell picked up about this as well. Her CNN appearance last week when they were talking about the President’s tariffs, suggests that she was already thinking about this for her column as well.

I don’t have much to add to what Ederik, Kire, and Fred have already said about this.

The only thing that I would add is that Donald Trump is both an incompetent, as well as a narcissist when it comes to governing. He’s simply not qualified to be President of the United States as far as actually doing the job. And you combine with the fact that he has way too much overconfidence and probably doesn’t trust the people around him that he should actually listen to. So as a result, he simply ends up making a lot of bad decisions.

The North American tariffs from last week are a perfect example of what I’m talking about. But then if that’s too much for you, being the narcissist that he is, he can’t mentally handle ever admitting that he’s ever made a mistake about anything. So after he does the political version of spilling the milk that he dropped, or the tomato sauce that he bumped into and knocked over to the floor, and unintentionally creates a political cleanup in isle 9 fiasco for himself, he looks for someone else to blame for it, (generally someone or something that had nothing to do with his own crisis) or acts like he’s a some political superhero, who comes in and saves day.

Blaming DEI for the plane colliding with the helicopter from 11 days ago, when he was already cutting staff at the Federal Aviation Administration the week before the collision, is a perfect example of looking for someone else to blame for his own faults.

And acting like Canada and Mexico agreed to do something new, when he postponed his tariffs last week, when the fact is that both country’s had already agreed to do what they announced last week… 3 years before the Mexican tariffs and weeks before Donald Trump became President again, are the perfect examples of the President simply trying to dishonestly save political face from a political crisis that he created all by himself.

Source:The New Democrat

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The Source With Kaitlan Collins: Elie Honig On Donald Trump’s Executive Strategy

Posted on February 7, 2025 by FredSchneiderUS

“CNN’s Kaitlan Collins discusses the Trump administration’s response to judges blocking some of his executive orders and Trump’s tactics toward federal employees with senior legal analyst Elie Honig and political analyst Astead Herndon.”

Source:CNN legal analyst Elie Honig talking about President Donald J. Trump (MAGA, Florida) 47th President of the United States & 1st wannabe dictator.

From CNN

A very important part of what Elie Honig told CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins last night:

“Yes, this is the only resistance that Donald Trump is facing. And thus far, he’s 0 for all of these lawsuits. I mean, thus far, every judge to have considered one of these lawsuits has at least put Donald Trump’s actions on hold.

And if I could sort of, to digest what we just heard in that very interesting interview. The position of the workers here is essentially, yes, of course, the President runs the Executive branch. However, that does not mean he gets to do everything and anything he wants within the Executive branch. And what we just heard Ms. Perryman say is there are limits put on that, by Congress, that have to ultimately prevail.

Now, the counterargument there is going to be something we call the unitary executive theory, which is this old, popular notion of the conservative-right that says, The President isn’t just the head of the Executive branch, he is the Executive branch. Congress be darned, he can do whatever he wants. So, that’s the clash we’re headed towards. COLLINS: Which seems to be one that the White House is embracing. I mean, you see how they’re responding to the judge pushing this deadline…

And let me go even farther back in Donald Trump’s history. He came up as a real estate baron in this city, by stiffing his contractors, right?

His theory was, Well, I owe this concrete supplier a $100,000 for this job. How about I just pay you nothing? And then you, concrete supplier, who has less resources than me, less time than me, you go hire a lawyer, you go sue me, and you know what’s going to probably happen? Probably settle for a fraction of it.

So, it’s really that same litigation tactic brought to the White House…

From CNN

From what my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this earlier today:

“Senator Kaine was on top of this last week the day that President Trump announced the Federal buyout plan. If you are a Federal worker and you take that plan, you just prove the stereotype that government workers just show to collect their paychecks, but don’t actually work for them. And then you are proving another stereotype about government workers that you are so incompetent and lazy, as well as schmucks who makes deals with conmen at their own expense.

As Senator Kaine said, this Federal buyout plan is not even legal and probably not constitutional either. Congress hasn’t and probably wouldn’t authorize it. And the Administration could cancel the buyout payments at anytime, with no one to stop them. So these Federal workers would juste be quitting, or retiring, without their buyouts and perhaps without their pensions as well, depending on how long they were in the Federal Civil Service.”

From The New Democrat

I guess my take here is that even though I would be 1 of the last people to ever say that Donald Trump is dumb, or stupid, or call him a pejorative like a moron, or idiot, etc, but only because he isn’t those things… but he’s very ignorant. Or, at the very least he doesn’t care about our form of government, our Constitution, and how those things work. He’s not a businessman, but 1 one-man businessman, who is not in business for his company and his workers. Donald is in business simply for himself. And when it comes to government, just like how he sees his company and his employees, the government are just tools that he can use to further enrich himself.

We’ve had plenty of wealthy people who became President of the United States and made a lot of money in the private sector. George H.W. Bush and his son George W. are the perfect examples of that. Ronald Reagan before the Bush’s. The difference between Reagan and the Bush’s is that they understood that their private business interests and government’s interests, and the people’s interests are different things. So they separated their own business interests from the government’s.

In case this isn’t obvious enough: (Perhaps you are brand new to America, or just awakening from a coma) Donald Trump doesn’t play by the same rules as everyone else. He does what he wants, whenever he wants to do it and then dares the opposition and the rule of law to stop and catch him. Elie Honig’s point about Mr. Trump and his construction workers and how he treated them, which is exactly how he’s treating Federal workers today… is an excellent example of that.

So this is why President Trump is running into stiff opposition from the Federal Courts because his business is not government. When you are in government, you have to follow the same rules as everyone else, or you get obstructed and even stopped. And that’s what’s been happening to the President the last 2 weeks.

Source:The New Democrat

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