Stochastic Terrorism and GOP Cowards

Republicans are bending their knees because of fear of Musk and MAGA:

Fear of Musk's digital stormtroopers, who, unlike the original ones, are pimply-assed cowards who are hiding behind VPNs. But they are having an effect nonetheless.

Fucking Republican cowards. They could have fixed this for good four years ago, but led by Spineless Mitch, they did nothing then and they won't now.

(BTW, fuck that guy. Everybody hates him.)

The FOFF Wants to Put Political Opponents on Trial

Former President Donald Trump amplified posts on social media calling for a televised military tribunal for former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and the jailing of top elected officials, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” one post created by another user that Trump amplified on his social media website Truth Social on Sunday reads. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”

Cheney responded on X, “Donald - This is the type of thing that demonstrates yet again that you are not a stable adult—and are not fit for office.”

"Treason", in this case, is opposing the wannabee dictator.

You should take note that Republicans, from Moscow Mitch on down, are silent. Their candidates is treatening to destroy American democracy and, in this time of celebration of American freedom, they continue to reveal themselves to be disloyal Americans. Republicans are loyal to their party first, not their country, not to the Constitution.

And there is the contrast between the parties. Biden is aging and Democrats are panicking. Trump is showing his desire to be a tyrant and Republicans are not only silent, they're falling into line.

What you can do this November, to honor those who have served and who have been killed defending our freedoms, is to not for for a Republican, for any office whatsoever.

A Valid Point, but

Moscow Mitch's only duties, right now, are enabling Christiofascism. It's not as though he's been entrusted with the nuclear codes.

The Problem is in Your Own House, Mitch

Sen. Mitch McConnell has written an opinion piece in the NY Times saying that we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s. This is a non-paywalled link to the piece.

What McConnell only hints at is that the difficulty in the 2020s when it comes to resisting Russian aggression comes from within his own party, just as it did in the 1930s, when the isolationists (and the Nazi sympathizers) were also in his own party.

The recent gains on the battlefield by the Russians were as a direct result of Republicans delaying aid to Ukraine for nearly half-a-year. Of course, you won't hear McConnell acknowledging that fact, either.

So his opinion peace is pretty weak sauce.

Freezin' Mitch (and Putzim Rudy)

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared to briefly freeze up and was unable to answer a question from a reporter at an event in Kentucky on Wednesday, weeks after he had a similar episode in Washington.

According to video from a local news station, the 81-year-old McConnell was asked whether he would run for reelection in 2026. The senator asked the reporter to repeat the question before trailing off and staring straight ahead for about 10 seconds.

A woman standing at the front of the room with McConnell asked him whether he heard the question and she repeated it. When McConnell did not answer, she announced to the room that “we’re going to need a minute.” McConnell eventually answered two additional questions — though not the one about a 2026 campaign — and was halting and appeared to have some difficulty speaking. The woman then ended the news conference and McConnell left the room, walking slowly.

This all seemed to begin after he fell and hit his head. Concussions can really mess up a person.

Meanwhile, Rudy was playing fuck-around games with the case in which he is being sued for defamation. Today, he found out:

A federal judge on Wednesday held Rudy Giuliani liable in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers who say they were falsely accused of fraud, ruling that the former New York city mayor gave “only lip service” to complying with his legal obligations while trying to portray himself as the victim in the case.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the punishment was necessary because Giuliani had ignored his duty as a defendant to turn over information requested by election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss, as part of their lawsuit.

Most practicing lawyers are smart enough not to get caught in a discovery dispute. But Rudy isn't a practicing lawyer and, when he was doing law over three decades ago, he was a glory-hogging prosecutor. He has no business driving the bus on a case in which he's being sued. Like his Orange Overlord, he apparently let his ego get in the way. And it's going to cost him, bigly.

The One Person Most Responsible for the Current Brouhaha With the TOFF

Good old Moscow Mitch McConnell. If he had signed on to impreaching the TOFF in 2021, there would be no issue of whether ornot it was legal for the Traitor of Orange to have classified documents. There would be no question of his right to have any government documents whatsoever.

And, even though he might still be out beating the bushes for his batshit-crazy, election theft conspiracy theory, he'd not be eligible for office.

McConnell knows what happened on 1/6/21. His reticence to hold Dolt-45 accountable was nothing more than knee-wobbling gutlessness. It was his shining example of loyalty to his party over loyalty to his country.

His is, and will always be, a prime candidae for a new book: Profiles in Cowardice.

Is Mitch Beginning to Find His Spine?

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is criticizing the Republican National Committee for censuring two House GOP lawmakers investigating the “violent insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, saying it’s not the party’s job to police the views of lawmakers.

It's pretty clear that Moscow Mitch regards Cadet Bone Spurs's fixation on the 2020 election and the labelling of the Insurrection as "legitimate political discourse" to be impediments with regard to the mid-term elections.

I'll bet Kevin McCarthey is in hiding, for he has the fortitude of a jellyfish.

Moscow Mitch Has the Back of the Dark Lord of Mar-a-Lago

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he is “pushing the pause button,” on the legislation to form the commission, which is expected to pass the House this week despite the opposition of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. That means the bill is likely to have a more difficult path when it reaches the Senate, where majority Democrats will need at least 10 GOP votes to pass it.

The very last thing that the Party of Trump wants is for there to be a detailed examination of the Jefe de Covfefe's failed self-coup. Their party has increasingly become an authoritarian party. Republicans, more and more, have given up on the idea of winning elections by persuading the electorate that their ideas are better. Their route to power, in their minds, is to keep people from voting.

In short, they don't believe in democracy.

And, like this guy:

They are willing to deny the truth of what happened on January 6th.

But we know.

Mitch Threatens Corporations

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says it’s a “big lie” to call the new voting law in Georgia racist and he warned big business to “stay out of politics” after major corporations and even Major League Baseball distanced themselves from the state amid vast public pressure.
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McConnell warned companies not to get involved in voting issues or other upcoming debates on environmental policy or gun violence heading to Congress.

And yes, he threatened them:

“Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order,” McConnell told a news conference in his home state of Kentucky.

Oooh, big words. What's McConnell going to do, take away their tax breaks?

Get real. That's not going to happen.

Worse is that McConnell knows full well that it is his party's long-standing positions that corporations have legal personhood and have the right of free speech. Giving unlimited amounts of money is speech, or so the Supremes held over ten years ago. If money is speech, then speech is speech. CEOs and companies have the right to take a stand on any issue that catches their fancy. Just as you do. If you don't like what a company is saying, buy someone else's products. Stop watching baseball and get interested in soccer.

So what McConnell is saying that companies can practice free speech so long as what they say pleases him. That's quite in keeping with the beliefs of the conservative crowd, which have been consisten in believing that the right to practice a religion only applies to those religions that they approve of.

The reality of the situation is that McConnell's threat is toothless and he knows it. If he tries to take action against companies that have displeased him, that'll probably fail once it gets to court.

Moscow Mitch is the Most Cowardly Man on the North American Continent

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell excoriated Donald Trump on Saturday for being “morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and suggested he could face future criminal liability, but said he voted to acquit him at the impeachment trial because lawmakers had no jurisdiction over a former president.

First off, McConnell could have begun the trial on his watch as Senate Majority Leader, when Trump was still in office. He could have called the Senate back into session. It was his choice not to do it.

Second, if he truly believes that Trump was responsible, he had the power to fucking do something about it. But hell, he's a coward and the last thing he wants to do is take a stand for anybody other then the rich and corporations, so he didn't.

Punting to the criminal justice system was nothing but proof that there is a foot-wide yellow stripe down his back. McConnell is happy to run his mouth, but that's all he does, now.

McConnell will have to ooze along the ground, leaving a trail of slime wherever he goes, because one thing is certain: He has even less of a backbone than did his predecessor as majority leader.

Russian Hacking

The Justice Department announced charges Monday against Russian intelligence officers in cyberattacks that targeted a French presidential election, the Winter Olympics in South Korea and American businesses. The case implicates the same Kremlin unit that interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections, but is not related to the November vote.

The indictment accuses the six defendants, all said to be current and former officers in the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU, of hacks that prosecutors say were aimed at furthering the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests and in destabilizing or punishing perceived enemies. All told, the attacks caused billions of dollars in losses and disrupted a broad cross-section of life, including health care in Pennsylvania, a power grid serving hundreds of thousands of customers in Ukraine and a French election that saw the late-stage disclosure of hacked emails.

The Russians were hacking into the 2018 and 2020 Olympics because they were mad that they had been caught and punished for widespread doping thier athelites.

And this:

Washington imposed sanctions on Friday on a Russian research institute tied to the development of a dangerous computer program capable of causing catastrophic industrial damage, a move that Russia called illegitimate.

The U.S. Treasury Department alleged that the Russian government-backed Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics - also known by its Russian acronym, TsNIIKhM - was responsible for “building customized tools that enabled the attack” on an unidentified petrochemical facility in the Middle East in 2017.

The attack electrified the cybersecurity community when it was made public by researchers that year because - unlike typical digital intrusions aimed at stealing data or holding it for ransom - it appeared aimed at causing physical damage to the facility itself by disabling its safety system.

One might wonder why it took the State Department three fricking years to react to this.

As for the rest, has it not become clear to everyone, by now, that whether or not Trump and McConnell cozy up to Putin, that we are back to being in a cold war with the Russians? The hacking is not that much different from when the Russians were providing support to the Red Brigades (Italy) and the Red Army Faction (West Germany) terrorist groups.

Russia will never be a partner with the West. At best, it's an adversay. At the worst, it's an enemy.

Of Course Trump is Lying About the Russians

Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.

The assessment was included in at least one of President Donald Trump’s written daily intelligence briefings at the time, according to the officials. Then-national security adviser John Bolton also told colleagues at the time that he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.

Trump, through his Duty Liar, has denied any knowledge of this.

One might wonder when the Republicans are going to start asking why Trump is so soft on Putin; soft enough that the question should be asked just what Putin has on Trump.

If Lindsey Graham starts asking hard questions, then you'll know Trump's done.

Trump's Buddy/Boss Is Paying People to Kill Americans

American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.
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The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

Of course Trump isn't going to do anything. Putin is, in essence, Trump's boss. Almost everything that Trump does with regard to foreign affairs can be predicted by asking yourself "what benefits Russia?" That's what Trump will do.

So Trump will do nothing about this.

(And neither will Moscow Mitch.)

Moscow Mitch Does Not Approve

Moscow Mitch from Moscow Mitch on Vimeo.

Apropos of Nothing In Particular

The whole story.

And this:

Can Moscow Mitch Be Bought?

You can read this story about how a backer of Mitch McConnell persuaded McConnell to do what he could to lift some sanctions against Russia and come to your own conclusions.

Whether McConnell is serving Trump, Putin or doing things that only benefit Mitch is a question worth pondering.

Does Moscow Mitch Use Russian-Based Servers?

Apparently he does. So do other Republicans.

I tried to look at the website (civicmerit) and my browser lit up with security warnings.

We'll see what develops on this story.

Moscow Mitch is Upset

Ol' Mitch is upset and denies that he's a Russian asset. But his actions, well, they tell a different tale.

Last week, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified to Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry. Casting Russian sabotage as a serious threat to the United States, Mueller warned that interference efforts were happening “as we sit” in the hearing rooms.

Hours after Mueller’s testimony, Democrats tried to get the Senate to vote on bipartisan election security legislation. Republicans objected. The next day, Democrats tried to get a vote on a bill that would have authorized hundreds of millions of dollars to update voting equipment. McConnell objected.

Everyone knows that Trump can't countenance discussions of improving election security and counteracting Russian meddling. The benign explanation is that Trump is still suffering butthurt from his victory in 2016 and believes that any discussion of Russian meddling and interference taints his win. The less-benign explanation is that Trump is Putin's asset and his doing everything he covertly can to make life easier for his handler.[1]

Whether McConnell is so unpatriotic that he is willfully closing his eyes to Russian interference because it benefits his party or he is willfully closing his eyes to Russian interference because he is doing Trump's bidding is an open question. In either event, the result is the same.
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[1] That article is sarcastic. But sarcasm has to be rooted in the truth in order to have its sting.

Shorter McConnell/Trump: Russia's Meddling In Our Elections Is No Big Deal (Because We Benefit)

The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Thursday that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia in 2016, an effort more far-reaching than previously acknowledged and one largely undetected by the states and federal officials at the time.
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Some administration officials have suggested that the issue is not getting enough high-level attention because President Trump equates any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory.

There are GOP senators, notably Ricahrd Burr, the chairman of the committee, who are not buying that they should close their eyes to Russian meddling because it benefits Trump, but McConnell is not one of them.

You can bet your farm that if a true Trumpist senator was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that this first report would never have seen the light of day. More are coming.

I Hereby Nominate Rand Paul's Neighbor For Some Sort of Nobel Prize

The Senate will vote Tuesday on a bipartisan bill to ensure a victims’ compensation fund related to the Sept. 11 attacks never runs out of money, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.

The announcement came after Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both of New York, reached an agreement with Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky to bring up the bill with two amendments sponsored by the GOP senators.

Paul and Lee had been blocking a vote. Paul was concerned about its effect on the deficit, while Lee wanted to ensure the fund has proper oversight in place to prevent fraud and abuse.

Concerns about the deficit didn't stop Paul from voting for Trump's budget-busting tax cut. Because busting the deficit doesn't matter if all it does is benefit the rich.

Raising the deficit to help the rich like Trump and Epstein-- Rand says yes. Raising the deficit to help the 9/11 responders-- Rand says no.

Which is about what one might expect from a dude named after the Goddess of Selfishness.