Trump's Congressional Warriors-- Untouchable?

Trump has the worst and most incompetent cabinet of any American president. And the most corrupt. By far. The fish rots from the head, right? And his supporters in Congress! What a bunch! We've talked a lot about Devin Nunes here... but there are others just as bad. Kyle Cheney did a little round up for Politico readers Monday. Short version: Matt Gaetz (FL), Ron DeSantis (FL), Jim Jordan (OH) and Mark Meadows (NC). DeSantis is running for governor of Florida in November-- more on that below-- and the 3 others don't have serious challenges for re-election. Here's are 4 with the PVIs of their districts and the percentage of votes Hillary got in each:

• Gaetz (FL-01) R+22 (28.2%)
• DeSantis (FL-06) R+7 (39.9%)
• Jordan (OH-04) R+14 (30.7%)
• Meadows (NC-11) R+14 (34.0%)

Trump calls them his "warriors": a band of four House Republicans defending Trump with a relentless counterattack against the Justice Department’s Russia investigation that thrills the president even as it unsettles some House GOP colleagues who think they’re going too far.

This crew of hard-charging conservatives, whom Trump singled out by name in late April, have emerged as some of Washington’s most prominent Republicans, enjoying direct lines to the Trump White House and flights on Air Force One.

"Look, we have some absolute warriors," Trump told Fox News on April 26 when asked about his relationship with Congress, name-checking "Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows and Matt Gaetz and [Ron] DeSantis.”

Their emergence underscores a reality of the Trump era: power and prominence on Capitol Hill these days often flow not to the most senior lawmakers but to Republicans who display allegiance to a president who prizes loyalty. None of the four holds a powerful committee chairmanship, but they have something just as important: regular airtime on Fox News. And their pressure campaign against the Justice Department and FBI has put Mueller’s boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on the defensive.

The scorched-earth approach by the relatively junior members-- only Jordan has served more than three terms-- is in some ways reminiscent of the way a young GOP congressman named Newt Gingrich, joined by a group of back bench House colleagues, shocked Washington in the mid-1980s with their theatrical attacks on Democratic leaders.

It has similarly enraged liberals today, who say that Trump’s “warriors” care only about protecting the president-- and may even be conspiring with him to create a pretext for firing Rosenstein.

On Thursday, the left-leaning public watchdog group Democracy21 accused Meadows and Jordan of “colluding to obstruct and potentially give Trump control over” Mueller’s probe. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, says they are “trying to sabotage” Mueller, and “want to force a confrontation with the Deputy Attorney General.”

It all helps explain why Gaetz, a 35-year-old freshman from Florida, routinely gets calls from the president, including critiques of his Fox News appearances, and has flown at least twice on Air Force One. In a November House floor speech, Gaetz called on Mueller to resign, warning of the “risk of a coup d'état in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly-elected president of the United States.”

The 39-year-old DeSantis, who last week called for criminal investigations of former FBI director James Comey and his former deputy Andrew McCabe, won Trump’s early endorsement in Florida’s contested GOP primary for governor. He has also proposed cutting off funding for Mueller’s investigation.

Meadows, 58, a North Carolinian who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, speaks with Trump on a regular basis and has been floated as a potential successor for the beleaguered White House chief of staff, John Kelly.

He and Jordan, who is vice chairman of the Freedom Caucus, have led the charge against Rod Rosenstein, against whom they have drafted articles of impeachment in response to what they call Rosenstein’s unacceptable delays in turning over documents related both to Mueller’s investigation-- as well as the 2016 FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, which they suspect should have resulted in criminal action against Clinton. The two men even visited the Justice Department last month for a tense face-to-face meeting in which they demanded a faster response to their document requests.

...Jordan, a 54-year-old fifth-term congressman from Ohio who has been particularly loyal to Trump-- he drew national attention last month for telling CNN he has never heard the president lie-- said he believes the Justice Department is biased against the president and has lost sight of the principle of “equal treatment under the law."... The four House Republicans have taken the lead on Russia in the weeks since the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by the Trump-friendly Rep. Devin Nunes, wrapped up its probe into Russian election interference, which featured aggressive GOP questioning of the Justice Department.

Jordan, Gaetz and DeSantis sit on the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Justice Department. Meadows, Jordan and DeSantis are also on the House Oversight Committee, which has broad authority to question the executive branch and has probed the FBI's handling of the 2016 Clinton investigation and other decision-making by the bureau as the Trump-Russia probe was launched.

...Gaetz and his allies said they are stepping up the pressure now, for fear that Justice Department officials like Rosenstein are playing a long game, hoping that-- with midterm elections coming and Republicans lagging in the polls-- time is on their side.

"I worry that there may be some people at the Department of Justice and the FBI who think they can wait us out, who think that Democrats will retake the majority and that oversight will fizzle to a burnt ember," he said. "We’ve got to keep the fire going now.”

Gaetz has raised $597,891 and his Democratic opponent, Phil Ehr has raised $127,253. Jordan has raised $327,443 and his Democratic opponent, Janet Garrett has raised $57,510. And Meadows has raised $519,911 and his likeliest Democratic opponent, Scott Donaldson, has raised $47,853.

The most likely of the quarter to suffer at the hands of voters for his extremism is DeSantis, the far right candidate for Florida governor. It's an open seat and DeSantis has to first face a crowded primary including establishment Republican Adam Putnam. Most polls show Putnam beating DeSantis, even though Trump has endorsed DeSantis, as have Sheldon Adelson the Mercers and neo-fascists Sean Hannity, David Bossie, Foster Friess and Mark Levin. Every poll shows evert Democrat beating DeSantis. Blue America has endorsed Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, easily the best of the Democratic field, and you can contribute to his very grassroots campaign at the ActBlue gubernatorial thermometer on the right.

When Extremist Online Recruiters Get Close To Home

My neighbor is in synch with Bernie's views but she's a personal friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and she voted for Hillary in 2016. So did her son. Her son, who's in his 40s, is sorry he did. After the election he changed his mind and is now firmly committed to Trump. How firmly? He's a well-educated and talented guy and believes Trump is using the things he writes in his speeches. Writes? Yes, he halted his cable connection-- thinking mainstream TV is controlled by liberals-- and now gets all his info from some very extreme right/extreme Trump internet sites. And he writes for them.

He told his mother she's brain-washed because she rejected some of the things he's found out and keeps telling her. Like Obama has sex with 10 year old girls. Like the Clinton's run a sex island featuring minors. Like Hillary drinks human blood.

As far as his mother knows, he doesn't have a gun, but he's very dangerous. He stopped paying for insurance (ObamaCare) and is waiting for Trump to offer much less expensive insurance. That sounds dangerous, especially because he's walking arounds L.A. with a red MAGA hat and could-- hopefully not-- wind up with broken body parts.

Ever read how ISIS recruits online? I always thought people susceptible to that were pathetic people with low IQs. My friend's son is anything but. He's very intelligent, went to college and speaks several languages. And it isn't only ISIS that recruits on-line, of course. Neil Johnson, writing for the New Republic looked at the problem of self-affirming virtual communities in 2016. "[A]ny of us might join online groups focused on some common interest," wrote Johnson. "The videos, audio messages, letters, chatter and know-how that they then share are much more sinister than typical online hobbies, though. They may ultimately inspire terrorist acts by individuals who have no prior history of extremism, no formal cell membership, no direct links to leadership."

Do you have a crackpot brother-in-law who send this out?

This isn't about supporting Trump; obviously anyone is entitled too and millions of Americans do. 62,984,828 Americans voted for him (46.1% of the voters), almost as many as voted for Hillary. Even in California he had 4,483,810 votes (31.62%). Hard to believe! Even in L.A. County 620,285 people voted for him (23.4%); hard to imagine! But that's their prerogative, right? But Hillary drinking human blood? Obama screwing 10 year olds? Now we're getting into serious delusion that could easily lead to something more than just voting for Trump in 2020 or do other fascists in the future. Maybe it's worth figuring out how ISIS does it and how that relates to Americans. Johnson and his colleagues are attempting to "decode the online 'ecology' of ISIS supporters."

Our research revealed an ultrafast ecology of self-organized aggregates that share operational information and propaganda, and whose rapid evolution drives the online support.

...[P]ro-ISIS aggregates are leaderless, self-organized entities that change rapidly over time. But now that we’ve identified a rather precise mathematical equation that describes their evolution, we can start to think about how to intervene.

To start, the main implication of our work is that once you identify the aggregates, you have your hand on the pulse of the entire organization. Instead of having to sift through millions of internet users and tracking specific individuals, an anti-ISIS agency can simply follow the relatively small number of aggregates to gauge what is happening in terms of hard-core global ISIS support.

As these ISIS supporters coalesce over time into aggregates, anti-ISIS agencies have an opportunity to step in and break up small aggregates before they develop into larger, potentially powerful ones. One concern is that if anti-ISIS agencies-- be they government-based, private hackers or online moderators-- aren’t active enough in their countermeasures, pro-ISIS support could quickly grow from a number of smaller aggregates into one superaggregate.

...[O]ur research also suggests that any online “lone wolf” actor will truly be alone only for short periods of time. Since we observed that people with serious interest in ISIS online tend to coalesce into these aggregate groups, any such lone wolf was likely either recently in an aggregate or will soon be in one.

This year Meghan Keneally, reporting for ABC News, wrote that American racist and alt-right hate groups are using similar online recruiting methods as ISIS. John Cohen, an ABC News consultant and former acting Homeland Security undersecretary, told her that "many of these groups appeal to the same type of person in the same type of way."

"All of these extremist groups promote an agenda that focuses on fighting those who are victimizing them and that resonates with these individuals who all believe that they have personally been victimized in their own lives," Cohen said in an interview.

..."When you see someone falling off the grid, what happens is they have less and less connection to what you and I know as reality. They become more and more connected to other people who fall off the grid. And that’s why it’s not a surprise that when you got nothing you end up in some, you know, skinhead Aryan Nazi hate-Jew group. So it fits the picture that everybody should have seen here."

Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation League’s center on extremism, reiterated that the online propaganda for hate groups mirrors the way that ISIS and other extremist groups, who, he says "were sort of early adopters to technology," have been trying to approach Americans for years.

"What we have seen in, I’d say the last two years, is the white supremacists and in particular the alt-right finding new ways to exploit social media platforms [and] recruit adherents to make use of the tools that are pretty much available to anyone," Segal said.

The Internet "has never been the sole domain of ISIS or al Qaeda. White supremacist propaganda has been available the way that ISIS and al Qaeda propaganda has been available online for years," Segal said, noting "there’s more accessibility… than ever before."

Cohen pointed to slickly produced videos, almost like music videos or movie trailers, that ISIS and similar groups create with the "underlying message [of] 'join our cause, you will be a part of our family and your life will have meaning.'" Cohen said that thematically similar videos featuring footage of protesters carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville were "posted throughout the white supremacist social media world" after the August protest.

Ryan Lenz, a spokesperson for hate group watchdog organization the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, told ABC News "the Internet is a place of both passive and active radicalization."

"ISIS as an organization has a very deliberate and systematic means of reaching out to people online. The alt-right does so in a very different fashion. More often than not, people stumble into an ideology on the far right," Lenz said.

Both Segal and Lenz pointed to Dylann Roof, the Charleston church shooter who killed nine people in 2015, as another example of a young American man who became fascinated with racist ideologies. During a police interview that was later shown in court, Roof said that he was reading about the Trayvon Martin case online and "for some reason I typed in ‘black on white crime’ and ever since then" he had looked into race issues.

The SPLC released its annual report called "The Year in Hate & Extremism" last month and noted how large online audiences for white supremacist groups had grown. Specifically looking at The Daily Stormer, which the SPLC called "rabidly racist and anti-Semitic," the report stated that the site averaged 140,000 unique page views a month in the summer of 2016 but had reached 750,000 unique monthly views in August of 2017, before the violent rally in Charlottesville.

"When you look at how the white nationalist movement has evolved in the United States in the last, say five years, there is no doubt that the Internet has become a principle grounds for recruit and radicalization," Lenz said.

Some technology companies took action to curb the spread of hate groups online. Web hosting service GoDaddy gave The Daily Stormer 24 hours to find a new provider after the Charlottesville rally and when it switched to Google Domains the site was rejected based on the company’s terms of service. Similarly, certain crowdfunding sites have rejected campaigns that raise money based around hateful beliefs.

Cohen said young male attackers can be easily influenced by whatever material they see first online.

"In some cases, they find material posted by ISIS and that's what resonates with them and they connect with that cause. In other cases, these individuals come upon materials posted by white supremacists, anti-government militia or other extremists groups and they self-connect with that cause instead, but the result is the same," Cohen said.

As far back as 2014, Wired warned that far-right extremists were using Twitter as a recruitment tool and spreading extremism. Wire reported some bad news: "The most influential Twitter followers among the sample are 'highly committed white nationalists unlikely to be swayed by intervention.' Influential users are also 'actively seeking dialogue with conservatives' through hashtags #tcot (or top conservatives on Twitter), #teaparty and #gop, as well as frequently linking to mainstream conservative websites. But only 4 percent of users identified as mainstream conservatives, which suggests the hashtags 'are driven more by white nationalists feeling an affinity for conservatism than by conservatives feeling an affinity for white nationalism.'"

As The Congressional GOP Falls Apart, The Party Is Looking More And More Like TRUMP

We've been commenting lately about how mainstream Republicans are starting to announce their retirements from Congress earlier and in greater numbers than normal. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Charlie Dent (R-PA) and David Trott (R-MI) have already announced they've had it and won;'t be returning to Congress in 2019.  None of them specifically mentioned the new report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, a study that shows hate crimes-- crimes targeting people based on their race, religion, sexuality, disability or national origin-- rose about 5% since Trump was installed in the White House. States with the biggest rates of increase were Indiana (+123%), Minnesota (+27%), Michigan (+22%), New York (+20%), California (+11%) and Kentucky (6%). Cities with the biggest increases in hate crimes are Portland, Oregon (+200%), Phoenix (+46%), NYC (+28%), Seattle (22%), DC (+22%), Cincinnati (22%), Los Angeles (+13%), Philadelphia (+9%) and Chicago (+8%).

Professor Brian Levin, who directed the study, says that attacks against Muslims and transgender people have been rising rapidly and he attributes the rise in general to Trump's rhetoric, which appears to Nazis and racists to be offering them unintentional permission to go on the offense, even violently.

That said, Charlie Dent was interviewed by Andrew Desiderio for the Daily Beast and he seemed to be blaming the retirements on Trump's "isolationism, protectionism, and nativism" plus the nihilism and dysfunction that have marked his first half year in the Oval Office. Dent admitted he didn't vote for Trump last year, neither in the primary nor in the general election.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Dent has clashed with Trump on a host of issues. He criticizes the president’s “economically isolationist tendencies on trade” and his “restrictionist approach” on immigration. He calls the president’s travel ban “ill-considered and horribly executed,” for example, and fought hard against Trump when he was pushing for the passage of the American Health Care Act-- the House version of an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill.

Ahead of the AHCA’s eventual passage, Dent took his concerns straight to Trump-- a man who he believes focuses too heavily on personalities in his approach to politics, rather than substantive policy.

“I was in two meetings with the president. One went well, the other not so much,” Dent said with a laugh. “We just came down on different sides of that. I was opposed to the House bill, and he spoke negatively of the House bill after the fact-- said it was mean. So I don’t know. Go figure.”

Dent was suggesting that Trump decided to lobby support for the bill when he thought it was in his own interest, and soured on it when he realized it could be more of a political ticking time-bomb.

Dent’s pushback against the president on the merits of the AHCA was something that would earn most elected Republicans a primary challenger at their next election. In his meetings with Trump, Dent suggested fixes to the AHCA that went entirely against Republican orthodoxy: that some of the Obamacare taxes remain in place, that the Medicaid aid cuts be softened, and that a provision defunding Planned Parenthood be scrapped.

“He wasn’t happy that I was not supporting the bill, and he let me know it,” Dent said. “He said it was pretty clear it would undermine tax reform if we didn’t pass that bill and that I was going to cause great damage to the Republican party. And he blamed me. OK, but it didn’t change my opinion.”

Unlike Trump, Dent doesn’t make his criticisms personal. He decries the shift toward personality-based politics that he believes predates Trump, but has taken center stage in the Trump era-- and when he agrees with the president, he does so enthusiastically.

Dent applauded Trump’s recent agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to combine Hurricane Harvey relief funds, a debt ceiling increase, and a government funding mechanism into one piece of legislation. The deal was met with disgust from conservatives.

“It was absolutely the right call,” Dent said. “There are not 218 republican votes to extend the debt ceiling for three months, six months, 18 months. So clearly the Democrats had some leverage and the president recognized that. So for the guys in my party that are complaining about the deal… the reason why we got the deal that we got is because a lot of our guys wouldn’t vote for a debt ceiling anyway.”

Dent, who hails from what he calls the GOP’s “governing wing,” was referring to the party’s ideological purists-- those who, in his view, are “very good at telling us what they can never do because it violates their principles.” In recent years, for example, Republican lawmakers have demanded that modest spending cuts be tied to any increase in the federal debt ceiling.

...[T]he conservative hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus have gained immense power and leverage over the years. They successfully forced out embattled House Speaker John Boehner in 2015, and have threatened to shut down the government if their demands for spending cuts aren’t met. Their votes were critical for the passage of the AHCA, which many of them threatened to vote against on the grounds that it wasn’t conservative enough. Dent refers to them as obstructionists who remain “cohesive as a unit” to derail any negotiations with the other side.

“They can’t pass what they want, but they can stop things from happening,” Dent said, referencing the government shutdown in 2013 as the first incident that sparked his consideration of retirement.

“Some of the frustrations predated Donald Trump,” Dent added. “The difficulty of enacting just the most basic fundamental items of governance-- from keeping the government open to not defaulting on our nation’s obligations, and other similar things like budget agreements and just necessary bills that had to be enacted or re-authorized-- these types of matters were becoming extraordinarily difficult to enact.”

Still percolating is the uptick in internecine warfare that will manifest itself in destruction, ideological (and careerist) primaries. We've been reading about Bannon's and Mercer's plans to finance neo-Nazi extremists against mainstream GOP Senate incumbents in Alabama, Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and Mississippi. The likeliest result will be candidates less able to compete for the votes of independents in general elections-- and seriously depleted campaign war-chests. Even Paul Ryan has a Republican opponent from the Trump wing of the party, one who Bannon is trying to persuade to run as a third party candidate in the general election where he can do Ryan the most harm. Crazy Republicans, huh?

Will The GOP National Convention In Cleveland Turn Into A Gun Battle?

When asked if he would support Herr Trumpf if Herr wins the GOP nomination, Paul Ryan was ready to cast aside concerns for the well-being of the country in favor of naked narrow partisanship. He told Matt Lauer Wednesday morning, without much enthusiasm, that "Yes, I will. I'll support whoever our nominee is." Tuesday night, though, it was Ryan and his brain trust that crafted the anti-Trump messaging for Nikki Haley's SOTU rebuttal, in which she warned Republicans against following the anti-immigration rhetoric that has propelled Donald Trump to the lead in GOP presidential election polls.

"During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices," she said, without mentioning Mr. Trump or other 2016 candidates by name. "We must resist that temptation."

The first I saw of the anger headed Nikki Haley's way after-- actually during-- her SOTU response came from Ann Coulter, who has attacked her before and, in fact won a PolitiFact Pants on Fire designation for smearing her last summer. In a series of xenophobic and islamophobic tweets, she was enraged at the premise behind Haley's compassionate conservatism approach. Coulter concluded that President Trumpf should deport her. This morning Kasie Hunt was reporting that the backlash from the far right fringe was heating up. And it went beyond just Trumpf fan-girl Coulter. Laura Ingraham condemned Haley because her speech was praised by Van Jones and accused her of missing an opportunity to move the right-wing agenda forward.

The quickly evolving sentiments underscore the deepening divide in the Republican Party-- one that has many so-called "establishment" Republicans increasingly convinced that Trump is on his way to winning the nomination. It's a reality, many believe, that will fundamentally reshape the GOP as it's now known.

Even right-wing Members of Congress, like Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Steve King (R-IA) and Dave Brat (R-VA) were critical of the Haley-Ryan approach. Jeb Bush, Ryan and the establishment brand Republicans-- who are increasingly being called RINOs by the neo-fascist Trump/Cruz end of the party, lauded Haley, as did many independents and Democrats, while the right exploded with their usual vitriol. Establishment shill David Jolly (R-FL): "This isn't a fight for the soul of the party, This is a fight for the dignity of the party and I admire what she did." Herr Trumpf, of course, immediately called Fox and Friends to vent.

"No. 1, she's very weak on illegal immigration. I've known that for a long time. And she certainly has no trouble asking me for campaign contributions. Because over the years, she's asked me for a hell of a lot of money in campaign contributions. So it's sort of interesting to hear her. Perhaps if I weren't running, she'd be in my office asking me for money. But now that I'm running, she wants to take a weak side on immigration. I feel very strongly about illegal immigration. She doesn't."

In his SOTU speech last night, the president made more than one veiled warning about a rise of incipient fascism in the country. Most Americans have no idea what that means. Ryan Grim tried explaining it soon after the speech was completed. Trumpf-- a Willy Loman-meets-P.T. Barnum character who addresses audiences on a 4th grade reading level-- was tweeting that the president's speech was "really boring, slow, lethargic-- very hard to watch!" Of course he had to dismiss it. He understood some of the president's warnings were a little close for comfort.

"Those with money and power will gain greater control over the decisions that could send a young soldier to war, or allow another economic disaster, or roll back the equal rights and voting rights that generations of Americans have fought, even died, to secure. As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background... We can’t afford to go down that path. It won’t deliver the economy we want, or the security we want, but most of all, it contradicts everything that makes us the envy of the world"

The irony to all this attention Trumpf is getting is that it has largely allowed an equal-- if not greater threat-- to largely slide under radar scrutiny. Trumpf is primarily a self-serving blowhard with no real political agenda. Cruz is a demented ideologue with a truly dangerous agenda. And there are some inside the Republican Party who are awakening to how badly a Cruz nomination could hurt the party in November. Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan reported at Politico that GOP pollster Dave Sackett of the Tarrance Group privately told Ryan and his leadership team at an NRCC retreat in Annapolis that "Cruz would be the biggest drag on House Republicans should he win his party’s nomination."

After the presentation to the group of elected Republican leaders, Ryan (R-Wis.) asked Sackett which of the Republican presidential hopefuls would be most detrimental to GOP House candidates on the ballot this year. Sackett replied that Cruz would have the biggest negative effect, citing the Texas senator’s starkly ideological positions, according to six sources who were in the meeting. Sackett told the group that the public’s perception of Cruz could shift if he becomes the nominee.

...Ryan, McCarthy and Scalise have not endorsed in the race, and the speaker did not indicate he was looking to wade into the contest or attempt to change the direction of the primary, according to sources present. Ryan’s office declined to comment, as did the NRCC and Sackett.

But the private comments indicate for the first time Ryan’s active interest in the presidential race and its potential bearing on his House majority. Senior Republican lawmakers such as NRCC Chairman Greg Walden of Oregon have publicly expressed concern that Trump could damage the House GOP’s electoral prospects should he become the nominee.

Sackett’s presentation confirmed those worries. His poll showed that a plurality of respondents-- 48 percent to 40 percent-- would be less likely to vote for a Republican congressional candidate or incumbent if Trump were the nominee. The business mogul and former reality TV star, who has been leading in most GOP polls for months, was the only candidate surveyed on that question, the sources said.

Bottom line: whichever extremist the Republicans nominate-- whether Herr or Cruz-- it's going to kill them down-ticket. And they know it. Ryan sees this as part of the rationale for the brokered convention scenario that hands him the nomination as a "unifier."

Pawn In Their Game: Y'allQaeda, Baronial Land Grabs & the Very Very Wealthy

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used
In the hands of them all like a tool ...
He's only a pawn in their game.
(h/t Peter Sinclair for the video)

by Gaius Publius

Much is being made of the ginned-up "uprising" in Oregon — ginned up by outsiders like Ammon Bundy and other supposed yahoos too dumb or crazy to use spell-check or even engage their brains in working their prose. A sample of the Bundy brain at work:

"Mr. Obama has portrayed himself as hope and change, the only hope he gave me was gay rights with dildo enhancements. Thank you Mayor Rob Ford and Philadelphia Parole officer Agent Fletcher they give a good warm tickle when performing tooth extracts on my genital area. Mr. Obama is a phycosomatic [sic] sex freak. Mr. Obama had me and agent Fletcher perform oral sex on Sunny + Bo in the Oval office."

Don't think of this as a yahoo rebellion, however. There's a lot of money to be extracted exploiting reprivatized public lands. The excellent Peter Sinclair tells us all about it at ClimateCrocks,com:

Y’allQueda, YeeHawd, and Climate Change

The jokes are coming fast and furious as social media tears up the pathetic, but heavily armed, yahoos occupying federal buildings in Oregon – but they are part of a multi-decade effort by powerful right wing forces to destroy the system of public lands and parks meant to preserve America’s, and the world’s, natural heritage, and deliver them to billionaire developers, coal barons, and oil cartels.

That last is all you need to know. Again, this yahoo rebellion is "part of a multi-decade effort by powerful right wing forces to destroy the system of public lands and parks ... and deliver them to billionaire developers, coal barons, and oil cartels." And should be seen that way whenever you look at it.

More from Sinclair:

Since the 70s, it has taken the form of phony “grassroots” campaigns known as the “Wise Use” movement, a reaction to the first generation of environmental legislation. In the Reagan era, it became the “sage brush rebellion”, fanned by reactionaries like Interior Secretary James Watt (who famously found the Grand Canyon to be a crashing bore..)

In the current era, those most vulnerable to recruitment to the Land Baron cause are lower middle class white men, who perceive themselves on the losing end of a number of social and economic changes that have displaced them from their assumed primary place in the American Dream. Their anger and resentment, fed by a steady stream of disinformation and invective from Fox News and Talk radio, has boiled over in the standoff at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada, which lead to the murder of two Las Vegas police officers by would-be revolutionaries.

Not to mention our friends, the climate destroyers:

Adding fuel to the fire, coal and fracking barons are more motivated than ever to take over federal lands...

There's much more in Sinclair's article — he's done some research and I want to send you there. Let me leave you, though, to ponder two ideas, both from longer quotes in the article. First, from InsideClimate News:

A coalition of more than 400 groups have signed a letter to President Obama they will send on Tuesday urging him to stop the sale of new oil and gas drilling leases on public land to combat climate change. The signees include indigenous groups, labor unions, scientists, religious leaders and environmental organizations. ...

The campaign comes four days after the Obama administration announced it would open nearly 40 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to new oil and gas drilling leases...

Next, from John Borowski at Counterpunch:

In reality: from Ted Cruz to powerful extractive industries: they are desperately seeking ways to give these lands, our lands: back to the states. Then: let the extraction begin with sales of our prized lands to the highest bidder.

Yahoo rebellion or baronial land grab? If the very very wealthy are beneficiaries, I'd say the yahoos are just pawns ... but don't tell them. They think they're in charge.

Yahoos At Work for the Anti-Climate Cause

Like lemmings to the climate chaos sea, our lovable yahoos are helping show the way. We can march with them, you and I, or apply an Easter Island solution to the problem — ignore the other villagers and confront the chief. The choice really is ours, and the time really is now. It's not too late ... yet.

Oh, and the only candidate not beholden to carbon interests is waiting for your support. That would be Bernie Sanders, and he alone. A win in Iowa would go a long way to dispel the false "electability" narrative. If you'd like to help him, click here. This page also lists every progressive incumbent and candidate who has endorsed him. You can adjust the split in any way you wish. And thanks!

GP

If Ted Cruz Is A Real Conservative, Why Isn't He In Burns, Oregon With That Engraved Shotgun Of His?

Right-wing terrorist Ammon Bundy loves showing off his taser "wounds"

What are we to make out of this episode of domestic terrorism in Burns, Oregon? Maybe Ammon Bundy's crackpot father should have been dealt with more like the law deals with terrorists in places other than Nevada? He still owes a million dollars to the American taxpayer and his lenient treatment-- to put it mildly-- seems to have enabled the even crazier son (we'll get to what precisely "crazy" means in a moment). A little background: Ammon Bundy and a few pals, armed and ready to kill or be killed, according to their own words, took over a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service building 30 miles from Burns in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday to protest that two local ranchers were given jail sentences that they feel are too long. Bundy admits having planned this and he unsuccessfully tried recruiting some local folks as well. All schools in Harney County are closed while the terrorists are holding the building.

As you would expect, Fox News was on-air pouring gasoline on an already explosive situation and one of their regular contributors, crackpot Deneen Borelli, either didn't understand what was happening or was purposely lying to stir up an incident. "What people need to understand what is going on in Oregon, it is really an overgrowth of government. Government gone wild is outreach of government. You have these individuals who are trying to save their property, save their ranch because the overrun of government is not doing that. Government own as substantial amount of property in the west. These individuals were trying to save their property." Not just incoherent, but devoid of facts, utterly and completely. Fits the ideology but wrong page in the talking points. That's Fox! Yesterday, Kasich, who has heard of Oregon, claimed in Des Moines that he hadn't heard anything about a standoff with the right-wing terrorists. Maybe if they had turbans...

Last time the Bundy family decided to try a little armed insurrection, they were supported by Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Dr. Ben, Mike Huckabee and Herr Trumpf. Trumpf was on with Sean Hannity while the Cliven Bundy insurrection was in full swing, saying "I like him, I like his spirit, his spunk and the people that are so loyal… I respect him... He’s in a great position to cut a great deal and I think that’s what he should do." Can't wait to see what these 5 clowns have to say about Oregon. So far they're all ducking the questions. Now about the explanation of "crazy" I promised... [Oh, wait.... we have an UPDATE: Cruz said "naughty, naughty... no violence please before the election." Actually, what the Texas dipshit said was "Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds. But we don't have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others. And so it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation." I wonder if Trumpf takes the opportunity to bury him in Iowa now.]

Buzzfeed reporter Mary Ann Georgantopoulos shared a documents from a Bundy lawsuit against the government. It's virtually impossible to read this stuff and come away thinking these are sane, rational people. Here's a taste:

Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen therefore he has no authority to take over peoples land under imminent domain. Mr. Obama blackmailed and covertly threatened Donald Trump with building code regulation violations, property tax fraud, illegally operating offshore tax havens for betting with Federal indictments unless he shuts up and stops the Birther movement because Mr. Obama fears he will be exposed for his covert and sinister ties to Iran’s Hezbollah network.

The suit claims "all Americans are in danger" and demanded investigations into the "atrocities" committed by "these orgie, sex deviants." These are the lunatics Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Trumpf were championing. The suit also claims, somewhat bizarrely, that the Benghazi attack was "implemented so George Bush could somehow feel vindicated for 9/11." I'm sure it all makes sense if you watch enough Fox News and Alex Jones, preferably at the same time, although the strangest part of the suit was a claim by Bundy that President Obama invited him to the Oval Office and forced him to perform oral sex on Sunny and Bo, the Obama family's dogs. No, really: "Mr. Obama has portrayed himself as hope and change, the only hope he gave me was gay rights with dildo enhancements. Thank you Mayor Rob Ford and Philadelphia Parole officer Agent Fletcher they give a good warm tickle when performing tooth extracts on my genital area. Mr. Obama is a a phycosomatic [sic] sex freak. Mr. Obama had me and agent Fletcher perform oral sex on Sunny + Bo in the Oval office.

Bundy thinks he's a whistleblower and warned that if his claims aren't brought to light, America will "be the new Africa and are [sic] citizens will be sleeping in tents and washing clothes in puddles by 2022 while China donates rice to us on a camel drone from Pakistan why we are celebrating Kwanza with pet turtles." Sounds perfect for a Trumpf or Cruz cabinet secretary.

Rep. Donna Edwards, the candidate Blue America endorsed for the open Maryland Senate seat, looked a little more deeply into this incident of domestic terrorism and violent extremism than Ted Cruz did. Labeling this "Radical Mormon Terrorism" isn't going to do anything to solve this, although it's the Republican way to view this kind of reactionary violent outburst. Like many in Congress, Donna said she is "deeply troubled." But then she started looking at the asymmetry of the response from law enforcement. Keep in the back of your mind how the Cleveland police responded to 12 year old Tamir Rice playing with a toy gun compared to how law enforcement is dealing with these heavily armed insurrectionists. Donna:

"Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, activists protesting the deaths of an unarmed 18-year-old on a city street or the tragic death of a 25-year-old in the back of a police van, have been referred to variously as 'thugs,' 'criminals,' and 'drug users.' To the contrary, most of these protests and protesters have been peaceful, and organizers have sought and obtained permission to peaceably assemble in exercise of their Constitutional rights. But in Oregon, a group of armed men illegally occupying a federal building have been referred to as an 'armed militia,' or simply 'occupiers,' as though that behavior is acceptable in a nation of laws. What is happening in Oregon is not protest sanctioned by the Constitution, it is lawbreaking.

"Our nation's press has a long history of shining a light on tough truths and asking tough questions. At this moment, the media have a responsibility to avoid language that paints these armed militants in a positive light. They are breaking the law. Moreover, the media do great injustice to our Constitution by equating that lawlessness with the legitimate exercise of Constitutional rights by unarmed citizens who have come together to peacefully protest an end to violence in cities like Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. One could not imagine a group of armed black men taking over an unoccupied federal building in one of our nation's cities as they have in Oregon. It is time to tell that tough truth.

"These moments cry out for leadership-- by political leaders, the media, and the public. It is time for those of us who value our Constitution to end that silence."

And by leaders, Blue America isn't looking at partisan hacks, whether Ted Cruz, and Mike Huckabee or visionless humbugs like Chris Van Hollen and Chuck Schumer. Think about helping to elect Donna to the U.S. Senate. We need her point of view there as well as her passion, energy and sense of Justice.

Ammon Bundy always sports a Black Lives Don't Matter insignia

UPDATE: Grijalva Resolution Against Armed Insurrectionists

This afternoon Raúl Grijalva will be introducing a congressional resolution condemning the illegal armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, calling on the Bundy people to put down their weapons and surrender to law enforcement officials immediately (without the "let's make a deal" bargaining Trumpf has suggested in the past). Grijalva: "This is not a romantic instance of Western self-reliance or an excusable moment of heated rhetoric. This is armed occupation of public property by people who have threatened deadly force. No one should play the game of publicly wringing their hands at these criminals' tactics even as they cheer on their 'message,' least of all Congress. The refuge is public land bought and paid for by the American people for public benefit and enjoyment. No one is entitled to demand it for themselves or steal it by force. I call on every one of my colleagues to support this resolution and work closely with responsible people in their home districts to make sure this isn’t repeated."

Seriously, Did Satan Send Ted Cruz To Earth To Destroy Humanity?

Thursday John Podesta, Hillary's campaign chair, told a group of the rich stakeholders in the campaign that he thinks Cruz will be the candidate, although he feels Herr Trumpf and Rubio each also has a shot. He didn't mention anything about a fixed convention giving the nomination to Ryan. But Cruz is a good idea and it's been who DWT has called it for since the beginning of time. You can always count on the GOP base-- and this was clearly going to be their election cycle-- to go for the ugliest of all possibilities. The Iowa poll released Saturday seems to confirm that Cruz is well on his way. That reminds me to remind you of something Senator Cruz told his supporters. After Troy Newman had endorsed him, Cruz said that, "He has served as a voice for the unborn for over 25 years, and works tirelessly every day for the pro-life cause. We need leaders like Troy Newman in this country who will stand up for those who do not have a voice."

Do we? Most normal people have never heard of Troy Cruz. But, luckily, People for the American Way's RightWingWatch has been keeping track of dangerous extremists like him for years. Newman is the head of Operation Rescue and Rachel Maddow reads RightWingWatch and spreads the word, as you can see in the video up top.

The corporate media will never explain how Ted Cruz is building his campaign on the shoulders of dangerous extremists like Troy Newman. Much easier to just talk about polling numbers.

In his statement, Cruz made clear that he was touting Newman’s endorsement because of the activist’s role in creating the hoax videos smearing Planned Parenthood for selling “baby parts” for profits. Following the shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday, the shooter reportedly told authorities “no more baby parts” after he was apprehended.

Newman has not only opined on the governments duty of “executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people,” but once even claimed that the murderer of an abortion doctor and his bodyguard was a “political prisoner” and victim of “judicial tyranny,” since he was deprived of his “right to present a defense that claimed that the killing of the abortionist was necessary to save the lives of the pre-born babies that were scheduled to be killed by abortion that day.”

Newman coauthored his book calling for the execution of abortion providers and the statement defending the anti-abortion terrorist with his Operation Rescue colleague Cheryl Sullenger, who served “time in jail for conspiring to bomb a California abortion clinic in the 1980s” but who has since renounced violence.

Newman denounced the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs, but his extremist rhetoric towards abortion providers speaks for itself. For example, “Newman has claimed that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and AIDS were both warnings from God about legal abortion in America and attributed a drought in California to the state’s liberal abortion laws, insisting that ‘weather patterns’ and economic instability are connected to legal abortion.”

Another activist whose endorsement Cruz’s campaign recently touted, Flip Benham, was convicted of stalking an abortion provider “after passing out hundreds of ‘wanted’ posters with the physician’s name and photo on it.” As Rachel Maddow explained in a recent program, Cruz must explain why he would hail an activist like Newman, a point that speaks volumes following last week’s Planned Parenthood attack.

Cruz embodies a different and more profound brand of evil than Herr Trumpf. No one dismisses him as a buffoon, and he doesn't make the childish gaffes that endear Trumpf to the low IQ-morons who worship at his alter of hateful gibberish. Cruz, unfortunately, has more of an agenda.

GOP (+ The DCCC's BlueDog Collin Peterson) Vote To Gut The Affordable Care Act... For The 61st Time

Blue Dog Collin Peterson was the only Democrat who voted Friday to defund Planned Parenthood and wreck the Affordable Care Act-- and the DCCC loves him for it

As the crackpot House Republicans got ready to call it a week and scurry off for the weekend, they voted on Georgia nut case Tom Price's latest attempt to take health insurance away from millions of working families-- and to defund Planned Parenthood, all rolled up into one ugly bill, H.R.3762. It passed 40-189, 7 Republicans voting with the Democrats-- mainstream conservatives Bob Dold (IL) and Richard Hanna (NY); libertarian Walter Jones nervous about a primary challenge from an extremist teabagger; and 4 lunatics who didn't find it sufficiently extreme, Mark Meadows (NC) and Matt Salmon (AZ), Ken Buck (CO) and Mark Walker (NC). Crossing the aisle in the other direction was Minnesota Blue Dog, Collin Peterson, who votes with the Democrats when questions of naming post offices comes up but is otherwise a safe bet for the GOP on everything from refusing to increase the minimum wage and shutting down Planned Parenthood to trying to force gays back into the closet.

It's worth mentioning that Peterson is on financial life-support from the DCCC and that if they didn't pump money into his miserable campaigns he would retire immediately. Last cycle alone the DCCC spent $3,611,284 to prop up Peterson's failing career and Pelosi's related House Majority PAC spent another $332,439. They can be safely expected to waste as much money on his this cycle, money that could be used to elect actual Democrats who vote with the Democrats, not with the Republicans.

Right after the vote, Donna Edwards explained to Maryland voters what was at stake and why this ostensibly silly vote-- which will fail in the Senate or be vetoed by President Obama-- matters. "Today's vote," she wrote, "was the 61st Republican vote to repeal or dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has helped more than 16.4 million Americans gain health care coverage. I agree that we need to address our budget deficit, but this bill does the exact opposite. H.R. 3762 undermines the ACA and is another unpaid-for GOP permanent tax cut that would significantly increase the federal deficit over the next ten years, while actually reducing by 14 million the number of Americans with health insurance coverage.

"This Budget Reconciliation bill is not a serious proposal. Instead of voting on another fiscally irresponsible ACA repeal and defunding or restricting access to Planned Parenthood, House Republicans should be addressing issues that impact Maryland families, especially with looming expirations of the Highway Trust Fund next week, the debt limit that directly impacts the full faith and credit of the United States the following week, and government funding and budget agreement that invests in our nation’s future in December."

This morning, writing editorially for the NY Times economist Paul Krugman explained just how successful Obamacare has been so far, despite GOP sabotage.

Sometimes you almost have to feel sorry for Mitt Romney. He has one great achievement in life: the Massachusetts health reform, which acted as a template for the Affordable Care Act. If he were a member of a sane political party, he’d be boasting about that record. But he wanted to be president, which meant having to accommodate himself to his party; and in Iowa, 81 percent of Republicans say that Ben Carson’s statement that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery makes him more attractive as a candidate. So he has to trash the best thing he’s done.

Sometimes, it turns out, he can’t maintain the facade. The other day he took credit for setting the stage for Obamacare. Then he tried desperately to walk it back, claiming that Obamacare has failed-- which is literally and figuratively the party line.

...Obamacare has led to a rapid drop in the number of uninsured, especially in states that have fully implemented its provisions. It hasn’t covered everyone, but it wasn’t expected to: it doesn’t cover undocumented immigrants, and the relative complexity of the program always meant that some eligible people would fall through the cracks. The original CBO estimates were that eventually 92 percent of non-elderly residents would have coverage, and in Medicaid expansion states we’re getting there.

Meanwhile, the whole thing has come in well below projected costs; insurance premiums will rise for 2016, but after two years of remarkably small rises that still leaves things cheaper than expected. And overall health care spending has come in far below expectations.

None of the other terrible things that were supposed to happen-- job loss, destruction of full-time employment, a surge in the budget deficit-- have happened either.

But to be a good Republican you have to insist that it has been a disaster. And Mitt Romney is therefore in the position of trashing his own life’s work. Sad. But he has nobody but himself to blame.

Just like the 4 crazy Republicans who voted against it in the House because it didn't go far enough-- Mark Meadows, Matt Salmon, Ken Buck and Mark Walker-- 3 of the most extreme Republicans in the House are already saying they're not voting for it for the same reason-- and two neo-Nazi groups, Heritage Action and Freedom Works are cheering them on. Anti-health care, anti-women right-wing fanatics Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) claim Boehner and McCarthy reneged on their promise to completely repeal Obamacare and that this bill only repeals most of it. So now it's part of a filibuster-proof reconciliation package and if McConnell loses one more Senate Republican-- maybe Susan Collins who sometimes votes in favor of women or one of the vulnerable members who have to face the voters next year, like Mark Kirk, Lisa Murkowski or Dean Heller or one of the other far right extremists, say a Sasse, Ernst, Perdue, Tillis, Lankford, Sullivan, Grassley, Cotton or Inhofe-- the bill will fail... unless of course Miss McConnell can round up a right-wing Democrat like Joe Manchin or Joe Donnelly to "save" the day.

Democrats like Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly are far from the kinds of Democrats we're backing at Blue America. Ours are very progressive and very motivated by progressive ideals and values. Like Ruben Kikuen in Nevada. Right after the vote he told us that "Congressman Hardy once again voted today to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood against the interest of millions of Americans and particularly women in the 4th Congressional District. I know women who use Planned Parenthood's excellent services and have seen first-hand how the Affordable Care Act has improved the lives of individuals, especially those in the low-income neighborhoods of North Las Vegas that I grew up in. Congressman Hardy's attacks on Planned Parenthood and the ACA make me angry and frustrated with his reckless disregard for the struggles of every day Nevadans. He should be ashamed and we must continue to work hard to defeat him next November... With another debt ceiling disaster looming and military funding on the line, Congress should be working overtime. Instead, they've just voted for the umpteenth time to repeal Obamacare and to defund a critically important public health program.It is embarrassing that our current representative in Congress is so blind to the struggles of working Nevadans. Congressman Hardy should be ashamed of today's vote.

Former Marine and LAPD officer Lou Vince is the independent-minded progressive running for a newly blue L.A.-Ventura seat held by extremist Tea Party bigot Steve Knight. After the vote yesterday, he posed some questions he hopes Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and Antelope Valley residents will take to heart. " Steve Knight is full of nothing but empty promises and bad decisions. He made a campaign promise not to vote to repeal Obamacare. Yet there have been countless votes to repeal Obamacare and who has voted to repeal it? Steve Knight. Republicans have waged a long war on women and their reproductive health. Who continues to lead the war on women? Steve Knight. He just voted to defund Planned Parenthood so that women can’t get vital health services like cancer screenings and important preventative healthcare. Who does Steve Knight represent? Not the voters of the 25th District. We are going to take back this district for the residents and stop Steve Knight’s divisive war on healthcare and women. Enough is enough!"

Back in Michigan Paul Clements is running against Boehner/Ryan ally Fred Upton. "Why," he asked rhetorically, "is Congressman Upton trying to take our health care away from us? Today he voted for the 61st time to defund the Affordable Care Act, and, adding insult to injury, he also voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Maybe he doesn’t know that millions of women in America, one of them in my family, depend on Planned Parenthood for contraceptive services. Maybe he doesn’t know that millions of Americans have gained health insurance for the first time from the Affordable Care Act. But if not, someone this ignorant of the consequences of their votes certainly doesn’t deserve to be in Congress. If he does know, well, someone who would bring this much harm and disruption to the lives of so many millions certainly doesn’t deserve to be in Congress. It’s bad enough for House Republicans to be so dysfunctional that they take America once again to the brink of defaulting on our debt. That they should also try to tear down institutions that underpin basic well-being for so many of us is criminal."

And Pat Murphy, former Speaker of the Iowa House, is running for Congress in the first congressional district. He was just as passionate about the vote yesterday as Paul and Ruben. "Congressman Blum is a proud member of the 'Freedom Caucus' which in the last month has taken down the Speaker of the House and his heir apparent, Kevin McCarthy, to create gridlock in Congress. Now he wants to create gridlock in middle class America by repealing the Affordable Care Act which would take away healthcare to 11 million Americans. But, he didn't stop there; he wants to deny millions of American women from having access to basic healthcare by the defunding Planned Parenthood. He wants to make government leaner and meaner at the expense of women, children and families. This is not what Americans want out of Congress. This is the month of Halloween, but Congressman Blum is the one that is the real life scary."

Do you want to help stop these kinds of brutal and unjustifiable right-wing incursions against American families? Here's where you can pitch in.

The Republicans Have Something To Offer Even Worse Than Boehner-Cantor-McCarthy-Ryan

Paul Ryan Dodging the Liberty Caucus Whack-A-Mole Mallet 

I could be wrong but I'm guessing Rachel Maddow never met Kevin McCarthy in person. But it only took her 15 minutes to figure out that he was a dope incapable of even filling John Boehner's tiny slippers let alone shoes of legendary Speakers like Henry Clay, Sam Rayburn, Tip O'Neill, or Nancy Pelosi. Maddow was the first to point out, at least in the national media, what an unaccomplished cloddish doofus McCarthy is. Even before McCarthy's speakership was sabotaged by the extremists in the Liberty Caucus and before one of his colleagues-- probably Tim Huelskamp (R-KS)-- blew the whistle on his affair with Renee Ellmers, and even before McCarthy's accidental revelations that the Benghazi Committee was just a partisan witch hunt to harm Hillary Clinton's chances to win the presidency blew up into an avalanche of national outrage, Maddow had helped make McCarthy into a national laughing stock. She introduced the country to... Hungria.



McCarthy was the personification of the Peter Principle, likely chosen by Boehner as his number two primarily because it was inconceivable he could ever be a threat. Paul Ryan isn't a dummy and he didn't find out that McCarthy is by watching Maddow's show on MSNBC. He knew and he knew the Speakership was his for the taking. That taking looks like its coming faster than he expected or wanted. Even Liberty Caucus chair, Jim Jordan, called off his snarling dogs on Sunday by saying the 40 extremists who forced Boehner's and McCarthy's political deaths would look on Ryan favorably. Maybe:

The demands on Ryan to run are coming from all quarters, most intensely from the top of the congressional wing of the Republican Party. According to sources familiar with the efforts to get Ryan to move from an extremely reluctant “maybe” to a grudging “yes,” he has been in extensive contact with Boehner, McCarthy, and Oregon Congressman Greg Walden.

...Boehner... has been making the case to Ryan that as speaker he could continue to work on the policy issues, such as tax and entitlement reform, that have been his passion on Ways and Means. Boehner and other Ryan proponents eager to get him to "yes" are telling him his role as speaker could be largely confined to crafting a long-term vision for the party, shaping a policy agenda, and delivering a public message through television appearances.‎

Echoing Boehner and McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader McConnell has reportedly told Ryan that he sees no other alternative for the speaker job, and has painted a somewhat apocalyptic short-term future if Ryan won’t accede. A failure to efficiently deal with the debt ceiling in November, or pass a resolution to fund the government in December could have serious repercussions for the party, McConnell argues, that could imperil the GOP's hold on the Senate. It could also have an adverse impact on the party’s chances to win the White House, according to McConnell and other leading Republicans, who have talked to Ryan.

All the GOP leaders who are pressing Ryan say they see no alternative and worry that a weak or interim speaker would be a disaster, leaving the GOP balkanized with power devolving to committee chairs, whose rise would only highlight the absence of a clear message or strategy to navigate the party’s complexities in a presidential year.

...All of Ryan’s associates agree that he definitively does not want to be speaker, although they are split on what the outcome will be. Some believe the conservatives are not going to unite in joining the draft movement, and that alone will be enough to keep Ryan from taking the job. Others say the absence of any other alternative will prey on Ryan’s sense of obligation to the party, forcing him to accept a job he’s never wanted.

This morning Krugman examined what he termed the chaos of the crazies with an eye towards how the mess they created can get resolved. The answer isn't Paul Ryan, who Krugman recognizes as a con man, even if the Beltway media foolishly still has him on a pedestal. Ryan's "success in hoodwinking the news media and self-proclaimed centrists in general," wrote Krugman, "is the basis of his stature within his party. Unfortunately, at least from his point of view, it would be hard to sustain the con game from the speaker’s chair. To understand Mr. Ryan’s role in our political-media ecosystem, you need to know two things. First, the modern Republican Party is a post-policy enterprise, which doesn’t do real solutions to real problems. Second, pundits and the news media really, really don’t want to face up to that awkward reality... [M]ost of the news media, and most pundits, still worship at the church of 'balance.' They are committed to portraying the two big parties as equally reasonable. This creates a powerful demand for serious, honest Republicans who can be held up as proof that the party does too include reasonable people making useful proposals. As Slate’s William Saletan, who enthusiastically touted Mr. Ryan but eventually became disillusioned, wrote: 'I was looking for Mr. Right-- a fact-based, sensible fiscal conservative.' And Paul Ryan played and in many ways still plays that role, but only on TV, not in real life. The truth is that his budget proposals have always been a ludicrous mess of magic asterisks: assertions that trillions will be saved through spending cuts to be specified later, that trillions more will be raised by closing unnamed tax loopholes. Or as the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center put it, they’re full of 'mystery meat.'"

Which brings us back to the awkward fact that Mr. Ryan isn’t actually a pillar of fiscal rectitude, or anything like the budget expert he pretends to be. And the perception that he is these things is fragile, not likely to survive long if he were to move into the center of political rough and tumble. Indeed, his halo was visibly fraying during the few months of 2012 that he was Mitt Romney’s running mate. A few months as speaker would probably complete the process, and end up being a career-killer.

Predictions aside, however, the Ryan phenomenon tells us a lot about what’s really happening in American politics. In brief, crazies have taken over the Republican Party, but the media don’t want to recognize this reality. The combination of these two facts has created an opportunity, indeed a need, for political con men. And Mr. Ryan has risen to the challenge.

Frank Bruni termed this The Republicans' Ugly Revolt and he seems fascinated that the GOP has something far worse in store for America than Paul Ryan's ascension to the Speakership. He's one of the few political writers who realizes the probably Republican presidential nominee is going to be the reincarnation of Joe McCarthy: Ted Cruz. The party establishment has nothing to say about it anymore and the base will not be denied this time. It's the twilight of the Republican elite. He points to the he ascendance of Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina as proof that the establishment has lost its grip, "a season of rebellion, as the chaos in the House of Representatives vividly illustrates. A consequential share of the Republican majority there have made it clear that they will not bow to precedent, not follow any conventional script, not have anyone foisted on them. No, they’ll do the foisting themselves." But how does this lead to the Texas fascist?

This isn’t a mere replay of four years ago, when Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum had their moments. They were middle fingers raised one at a time, in succession (even if Santorum was really more a pinkie). Trump, Carson and Fiorina are parallel, simultaneous phenomena, constituting a gesture of more profound rebuke.

I still don’t believe that any of them will be the nominee. Each has too many peculiarities and too big a potential to crash and burn. Carson seems to be on the verge of doing that right now.

But then who? If the electorate really is more defiant than ever, Bush is done. Scott Walker and Rick Perry are already gone. Voters, it appears, prefer someone brattier.

Someone like Ted Cruz.

“He’s perfectly positioned himself to own that space when Trump and Carson disappear,” said a Republican operative who is among the smartest analysts I know. “He’ll be a force to be reckoned with. I think that he has a very clear path to the nomination, as much as that horrifies me.”

This is a strange season, in which old rules and truths seem to be going up in flames. It’s a bonfire of the verities.

...Cruz is more like Trump, outrageous and unyielding, than like the governors. And in a radio interview on Thursday, he predicted that he’d inherit Trump’s supporters because he’d “stood up to Washington” and “taken on leaders” of his own party.

A day earlier in National Review, Eliana Johnson called Cruz “the most under-covered serious candidate in the race-- and the most underestimated.” Johnson noted that he’s a good fit for voters in primaries in the South, where he’s been diligently organizing and spending time.

In Politico, the conservative soothsayer Rich Lowry recently observed that Cruz, who is not yet halfway through his first Senate term, just needs “voters to become slightly, and only slightly, more desirous of political experience” and he’s “sitting pretty,” as the headline on Lowry’s column read.

Ted Cruz sitting pretty?

This could get even uglier than I’d feared.

Hard to imagine Tailgunner Ted in the White House? Who's going to stop him, Hillary Clinton? There is only one way: we, the people, a real mass movement.

Meanwhile... OMEN: the next generation of Paul Ryans is being produced right now: