The latest potential government shutdown looming over Washington could outlast its predecessors unless congressional lawmakers quickly figure out how to transcend their ideological schisms. But as Ed Kilgore writes in New York Magazine's Intelligencer on Monday, United States House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) managing to successfully resolve the impasse is a longshot.

"Twelve days before fiscal year 2023 ends," Kilgore explains, "the odds of a shutdown are very high, and this one could last a while (of the ten government shutdowns since 1980, six lasted no more than three days). Divided party control of Washington is only one factor. The bigger problem is confined to the narrowly Republican-controlled House, where Speaker Kevin McCarthy is perpetually being held hostage by hard-core conservatives who have the power to take away his gavel via a motion-to-vacate-the-chair maneuver (a device McCarthy was forced to sanction in order to win his initial election as Speaker). With both alleged 'runway spending' and alleged McCarthy/RINO coziness with Democrats being huge causes célèbres on the far right, the Speaker's four-vote majority dooms him to a perpetual choice between losing his position and behaving irresponsibly."

Kilgore says that "the situation is more dire than ever because House rebels are making both substantive and procedural demands, not only insisting on deep domestic spending cuts and draconian immigration legislation as part of any deal but also opposing the 'omnibus' packaging of appropriations that makes it possible to keep the government open (1996 marked the last time Congress was able to complete individual appropriations bills in their entirety, in no small part because of policy battles over individual bills conservatives regularly launch). With time running out, McCarthy is struggling to come up with a stopgap spending formula that unites his conference while giving it a bit of leverage for negotiations with Senate Democrats and the White House. It’s not looking good."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Kilgore also assesses that partisan bickering is one of many factors in play.

"It's not just a matter of time running out before September 30th, either," Kilgore states. "It's unclear what will change in October or November to make a deal more likely, as both parties hunker down for a highly contentions 2024 election year. Yes, some Republicans fear inviting blame for a government shutdown. But in an atmosphere where the GOP's presidential candidates are casually batting around proposals to permanently close multiple federal agencies and gut the 'deep state,' it could take a while for public unhappiness with a shutdown to have any effect. Certainly Kevin McCarthy's not going to throw away his gavel in an act of patriotic self-sacrifice when waiting out an extended shutdown might present more promising opportunities."

Kilgore concludes that the American public should "get ready for images of a darkened Capitol and locked gates at parks and other federal facilities, along with furloughs of federal employees and speculation as to when or whether they will be made whole."

READ MORE: 'Powerless' Kevin McCarthy held hostage by 'far-right bomb throwers' as shutdown looms

Kilgore's full column continues at this link.

Former President Donald Trump could "lose the popular vote, lose the electoral college, lose all his legal cases and still end up president of the United States in an entirely legal manner" in 2024, The Guardian’s Stephen Marche warns in a Monday opinion column. "It's called a contingent election."

Marche explains, "A contingent election is the process put in place to deal with the eventuality in which no presidential candidate reaches the threshold of 270 votes in the Electoral College. In the early days of the American republic, when the duopoly of the two-party system was neither desired nor expected, this process was essential.

Marche notes, "There have been two contingent elections in US history. The first was in 1825. The year before, Andrew Jackson, the man from the $20 bill, had won the plurality of votes and the plurality of Electoral College votes as well, but after extensive, elaborate negotiations, John Quincy Adams took the presidency mostly by offering Henry Clay, who had come third in the election, secretary of state. Jackson, though shocked, conceded gracefully. He knew his time would come. His supporters used the taint of Adams' 'corrupt bargain' with Clay to ensure Jackson's victory in 1828." According to Marche, a similar scenario could play out next year.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"The possibility of the Electoral College releasing a confusing result, or being unable to certify a satisfying result by two months after the election, is quite real," Marche writes. "The Electoral College, even at its best, is an arcane system, unworthy of a 21st-century country. Maine and Nebraska don't necessarily have every elector go to the party that won the state as a whole. There have been, up to 2020, 165 faithless electors in American history – electors who didn't vote for the candidate they had pledged to vote for."

Marche recalls, "In 1836, Virginia faithless electors forced a contingent election for vice president. If the 270 marker has not been reached by 6th January, the contingent election takes place automatically. And the contingent election isn’t decided by the popular votes or the number of Electoral College votes. Each state delegation in the House of Representatives is given a single vote for president. Each state delegation in the Senate is given a single vote for vice president."

Marche adds, "All that would be required, from a technical, legal standpoint, is for enough Electoral College votes to be uncounted or uncertified for the contingent election to take place, virtually guaranteeing a Republican victory and hence a Trump presidency. It would be entirely legal and constitutional. It just wouldn't be recognizably democratic to anyone. Remember that autocracies have elections. It doesn't matter who votes. It matters who counts."

If this were to occur, Marche concludes, "The real danger of 2024 isn't even the possibility of a Trump presidency. It's that the electoral system, in its arcane decrepitude, will produce an outcome that won't be credible to anybody. The danger of 2024 is that it will be the last election."

READ MORE: Here's why Trump finally met his match with the Georgia judge overseeing that trial: report

View Marche's editorial at this link.

Fulton Couty Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee's decision to allow former President Donald Trump's criminal 2020 election subversion trial to be televised suggests that Trump may have finally met his media "spectacle" match," The New Yorker's Charles Bethea writes.

"A review of his body of work reveals an entertainer with a knack for surprising his audience," Bethea says. "See, for example, the What-A-Man pageant, for performative young men, held annually in the early two-thousands, at North Cobb High School, in Kennesaw, Georgia. Contestants offered their best pickup lines and revealed other talents. The quarterback usually won. But, in 2007, a self-described 'orch dork' took home the honor. That dork? Scott McAfee. Tall and decked out in black, he wore a Stars-and-Stripes-patterned bandanna around his blond hair as he performed Jimi Hendrix's version of The Star-Spangled Banner on an electrified cello. His classmates screamed for him to toss his shirt into the crowd."

McAfee studied music before becoming a lawyer and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, and Bethaa notes that "after getting his law degree, he worked as a state prosecutor and a federal prosecutor, and then became the inspector general of Georgia."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Bethea continues, "Earlier this year, McAfee, who is thirty-four, was appointed to the Superior Court of Fulton County. In August, he was chosen for the Trump case by a random selection process. The decision to televise the proceedings was in keeping with his typical courtroom rules."

McAfee said, "I have no aspiration to become the next Judge Ito,' referring to Lance Ito, the bearded and bespectacled judge who presided over the OJ Simpson trial, in 1995, as a hundred and fifty million Americans tuned in to watch," Bethea adds. "'Or the next Judge Judy, for that matter.' The Trump trial will surely surpass both Ito's and Judy's ratings. He went on, 'The idea with my job, in general, is to keep your head down. Stay even-keeled and manage expectations. This is not What-A-Man North Cobb 2007. It'll be mission accomplished if I personally bore everyone to death during my trials.'"

READ MORE: Judge randomly assigned to Georgia Trump case once worked for Willis: report

Bethea's full analysis is available at this link.

Former Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Jeffrey Clark on Monday will seek to reassign his 2020 election subversion trial to federal court, CNN's Marshall Cohen and Katelyn Polantz report.

Clark was indicted along with ex-President Donald Trump and seventeen others in August by District Attorney Fani Willis for allegedly conspiring to steal Georgia's sixteen Electoral College votes after Trump lost the state to President Joe Biden.

CNN notes that "Clark and other defendants seeking to move their cases to federal court say they were acting on behalf of the federal government after the election, thus they should be able to have their state charges tried before a federal judge. They could also potentially have somewhat friendlier trial settings or get the charges dropped entirely by invoking immunity protections afforded to federal officials."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

CNN explains, "The hearing at the federal courthouse in Atlanta will take place in front of US District Judge Steve Jones, who issued a major ruling earlier this month rejecting a similar request from another co-defendant: Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows."

CNN adds, "It is unknown whether Clark will take the stand Monday to testify about his role at the Justice Department, as Meadows did at his own hearing in an unexpected, high-risk attempt to expand the court's view of his role as chief of staff."

READ MORE: 'Stop being stupid': Ex-RNC chair slams Clark and other 'flat out wrong' alleged Trump co-conspirators

View Cohen's and Polantz's analysis at this link.

Tony Morton, a former South Park writer, is on a mission to "lampoon" right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, which "has been at the forefront of a national movement to ban books (or even yearbooks) containing race, gender, LGBTQ themes, and sexual content," The Daily Beast's Kate Briquelet reports.

Briquelet writes "For Morton, what started as comic relief is morphing into a fundraising campaign, one that will create pages for each state. 'My plan is to disrupt this hate group for as long as possible with billboards, pamphlets, background information and other tactics,' Morton said. 'They have no interest in truly educating children and would rather actively prevent them from learning the true history of our country. I have a lot of support around the country so I'll continue updating my website about this group in each state so people are fully aware.'"

Morton's website, MomsForLiberties.com, features "swastikas encircling the 'parental rights' juggernaut's logo, a leadership page that boasts Hercules actor turned conservative pundit Kevin Sorbo as their minivan driver, and a listing of items the moms have 'banned for fun' including the board game Sorry. 'Those who are taught to say 'sorry' are weak,' the fake site for the far-right group declares. 'NEVER apologize for your actions because your actions are probably warranted if you're white.'"

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Briquelet notes that MomsForLiberties states, "We are an extremist organization that prides itself on making sure that freedom of speech and choice only applies to those who believe gays are demonic. Hitler actually wasn't that bad so Jews should stop overreacting, any transgender are considered trash and need to be disposed of, current teachers in this society should be under the control of fascists who know better, and that any teachers who disobey deserve to be handled by any means necessary and this includes physical control."

Morton's overall objective, Briquelet adds, is to "combat the growth of Moms for Liberty across the country, as concerned parents assemble groups of their own including Stop Moms For Liberty, Our Schools USA, Defense of Democracy, and Red Wine and Blue. In Pennsylvania, citizens launched an organization Grandmas For Love."

READ MORE: DeSantis appoints Moms for Liberty founder to Florida Ethics Commission: report

Briquelet's full article is available at this link (subscription required).

Former President Donald Trump seeks to "bury" Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 2024 Republican presidential primary campaign as candidates stump their way through Iowa, Politico's Meredith McGraw and Sally Goldenberg report.

"Building on his seven visits to Iowa so far this year, Trump is embarking on a 'Team Trump Caucus Commitment' organizing event in Iowa with campaign volunteers at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Maquoketa, and remarks at the Grand River Conference Center in Dubuque this Wednesday," Politico explains. "Trump plans to make three more stops in Iowa during the first half of October, and again in the final days of the month, his team said. The Trump campaign is also bringing on Alex Meyer, who was recently part of the RNC’s political data team, as a senior adviser to focus on both Iowa and Missouri."

Politico continues, "It's a remarkable investment of time from a candidate who has, through the summer, left a light footprint on the trail. And it's being supplemented with an air attack by Trump world as a pro-DeSantis PAC advertises aggressively in the state. MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting Trump, is spending over $700,000 on advertising this week in Iowa, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Trump's Iowa team is focused on educating and training Trump supporters on the caucus process, and the Trump campaign has boasted of 27,500 signed caucus pledge cards and 1,500 local volunteers in the state."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?'

Meanwhile, "DeSantis, for his part, is betting much of his political fortune on Iowa. He has been out-working Trump in the Hawkeye State, which comes with just 40 delegates but the potential for immeasurable momentum when it kicks off the grueling primary season on Jan. 15, 2024," Politico notes. "He's received 40 endorsements from state legislators, visited 58 of the state's 99 counties and campaigned alongside the popular governor, Kim Reynolds, whom Trump has publicly admonished. DeSantis' team says it has secured some 13,000 written commitments from caucus-goers."

After spending millions on ads and "acknowledging they would be satisfied with a strong second-place finish in Iowa," Politico adds, "DeSantis' team is signaling confidence in the state. He has teamed up repeatedly with Reynolds and appears to be a lead contender to receive the endorsement of high-profile evangelical Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader. (Vander Plaats has praised DeSantis and criticized Trump, but would not confirm last week whom he plans to endorse)."

READ MORE: 'Who is your God?' Trump, DeSantis, other GOP candidates battle it out on Christian Right conference stage

McGraw's and Goldenberg's scoop continues at this link.

The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) ended with an acquittal by the State Senate on Saturday, with lawmakers deciding nearly "along party lines" that Paxton was innocent of the corruption allegations contained in the sixteen articles that were filed against him earlier this year. But as Daily Beast opinion columnist Joe Jaworski explains on Sunday, Paxton remains the Lone Star State's top law enforcement official "thanks largely to a multi-million dollar juror intimidation campaign paid for by Defend Texas Liberty, a Texas campaign PAC funded largely by oil and gas millionaires Tim Dunn and Faris Wilks."

Jaworski writes, "Dunn and Wilks, through their PAC, made generous contributions to decision-makers, paid for old-school mailers and billboards to intimidate rural Texas senators sitting as jurors in the Texas Senate Court of Impeachment, and set aside a handsome budget to pay $50 a tweet to eligible social media trolls who tweeted or posted pro-Paxton propaganda. It was common in the weeks leading up to and during the two-week trial to see hundreds of freshly enrolled members of the X community (with fewer than ten followers) who robustly defended their martyred MAGA attorney general."

Jaworski recalls that "Presiding Judge Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (he's neither a lawyer nor a judge) collected a $1 million dollar campaign contribution and a $2 million forgivable loan from Defend Texas Liberty back in June before the trial, and inquiring minds want to know what the loan terms are. Whatever the terms, one thing is for sure: If the campaign contribution was made by its donors to encourage a certain outcome, and to advertise the power of their purse for any senators who stray off script, the contributions seem to have had the desired effect."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Paxton's troubles are far from over, however. Although he survived politically, Paxton still faces indictments for alleged "felony securities fraud and will be tried for those crimes next year in Harris County," Jaworski notes. Paxton is "being investigated by a federal grand jury in San Antonio for felony bribery and abuse of office based on the same facts as those the Texas Senate considered; and the Texas State Bar has sued to disbar him."

Nonetheless, Jaworski continues, Paxton's plan is to emulate former President Donald Trump "to become the Make America Great Again hero he aspires to be."

Paxton intends "to partner with his donors and punish anyone who supported his impeachment," Jaworski observes. "The Texas Republican Party's civil war, which began in earnest two cycles ago, will take on a new, more obnoxious tone. The need to pronounce oneself as fully aligned with MAGA conservative culture warrior dogma will be a prerequisite to success in Republican primary politics. No longer will this extremism be merely an internecine political affair, it will, for the immediate future, become state policy and do great damage to the Texas government and its people. The product of this extremism will have consequences for all our public affairs in Texas and nationally."

With that in mind, Jaworski believes that "Elections cannot come soon enough. It will be important to test how the voters feel about restoring a man like Paxton to office. Democrats will do well to remind independent-minded voters of the facts," adding, "Paxton's behavior that led to his impeachment wasn't about promoting conservative values or beating the Democrats at the ballot box. It was about concealing his corrupt relationships. Paxton wasn't fighting for you or me; he was fighting to save his political career."

READ MORE: 'Corrupt thug': Host lays out ways Republicans 'tolerated' Ken Paxton’s 'despicable' ways for years

Jaworski's editorial is available at this link (subscription required).

Former United States Secretary of Labor and Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley Robert Reich told MSNBC host Ali Velshi on Sunday that "even Henry Ford understood" that businesses cannot be profitable if employees are so underpaid that they have no disposable income.

Reich's remarks come on the third day of the United Auto Workers Union strike. Big Three employees are demanding higher wages and better workplace conditions as manufacturers rake in massive profits.

"It's shocking when you look at 1969 — 1969, the average weekly non-supervisory wage — that's the wage for people who are not managers and not supervisors, was higher adjusted for inflation than it is today," Reich said. "And so you have an economy that over the last forty to forty-five years, fifty years, has done wonderfully well overall, has exploded. It's about two and a half times what it was then. But the typical worker, the non-supervisory worker, the worker on the frontline is actually worse off, in terms of real purchasing power, in terms of, you know, non-inflationary, adjusted for inflation."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Reich continued, "Well, this is ridiculous. We used to have an economy that worked for everybody. Now we have an economy that works for people at the top — the big investors and the CEOs and the top executives. That's not only unfair — it doesn't even sustain itself because where are all of the consumers going to come from if people don't have money in their pockets? Even Henry Ford understood this, you know, at the start of the last century. That's why he gave everybody in Ford a raise. Because he understood that, 'Where are the people gonna come from to buy the new Model T Fords if they don't have money in their pockets?'"

Reich added, "I think that we have gone totally off course. We now have a two-tiered structure of the economy. And this is not only unfair, it's bad for the economy overall."

Watch below or at this link.

MSNBC 09 17 2023 11 47 18 www.youtube.com

READ MORE: Auto worker strike 'likely' due to 'insulting' offers from Big Three car companies: ex-labor secretary

Former President Donald Trump "flubbed numbers, misstated facts, or omitted critical context" after boasting that he had "all the facts" to NBC News moderator Kristen Welker during her debut as the new host of Meet the Press on Sunday, according to NBC News correspondent Jane C. Timm's fact-check.

"Trump made a spate of false and misleading comments about immigration, foreign policy, abortion, and more" on "at least" eleven occasions, Timm writes. "Trump's presidency was marked by repeated false, exaggerated, and misleading claims. Some of those claims drove policy, while another triggered an impeachment. Trump's false view that the election was stolen helped land him and dozens of others in legal trouble in Georgia. One senior aide — during a Meet the Press interview — even coined the phrase 'alternative facts' in defense of the president."

Below are four of Trump's most notable whoppers.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Immigration:

• Trump: "Millions of illegal immigrants coming into our country, flooding our cities, flooding the countryside. I think the number is going to be 15 million people by the time you end this, by the end of this year. I think the real number is going to be 15 million people."
• Timm: "There's no evidence that 15 million people will cross the border this year. That's more than the total number of people, 11.4 million, that the U.S. government estimates are here without legal authorization."

The January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol:

• Trump: "These people on January 6th — some of them never even went into the building, and they're being given sentences of many years."
• Timm: "This is missing critical context. Some of the defendants who received some of the longest sentences of any January 6th participants — including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — did not enter the Capitol building themselves but received lengthy sentences after they were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Some of the most vicious assaults of the Capitol attack were committed by January 6th participants who never stepped foot in the building, and some of those individuals received significant sentences, too."

• Trump: "If this were ever before a court, we would win so easy. There is so much evidence that the election was rigged."
• Timm: "Trump and his supporters brought more than 50 lawsuits aimed at overturning the results of the election; none were successful in overturning the results."

Bacon:

• Trump: "Things are not going right now very well for the consumer. Bacon is up five times. Food is up horribly — worse than energy."
• Timm: "Inflation has absolutely raised the cost of many consumer goods, including food. But Trump's exaggerating the the price of salt-cured pork: In U.S. cities on average, the cost of sliced bacon is up by about 12% from the end of Trump's term in office, though at one point in 2022, it was 30% more expensive than it was at the end of 2020."

READ MORE: Pelosi: Republicans 'treating impeachment' with 'frivolity' after Trump 'committed acts of high treason'

Explore Timm's analysis at this link.

American fossil fuel giant Halliburton has been selling millions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas equipment to Russia, whose President, Vladimir Putin, launched his illegal conquest of neighboring Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, Daniel Boffey of The Guardian reports.

"Amid pressure on all US companies to cease their trade" with Moscow, Boffey reveals, "Russian customs records seen by The Guardian show that despite this move to sell up on 8th September, Halliburton subsidiaries exported equipment of a value of $5,729,600 to its former operation in Russia in the six weeks that followed the sale."

The items, Boffey notes, were "largely shipped from the US and Singapore although the records show it originated in a range of countries, including the UK, Belgium and France. The bulk of exports from the subsidiaries ended on 6th October but the last shipment to Russia from a Halliburton company, recorded as Halliburton MFG in the records, was of a sealing element priced at $2,939.40 on 24 October 2022 from Malaysia to a firm called Sakhalin Energy, a consortium that is developing the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in eastern Russian. Its investors include Gazprom. Shell disinvested from the consortium after the invasion of Ukraine. The products were imported from Turkey, bringing the total value of exports of Halliburton equipment to Russia since the company closed its operations to at least $7,163,317."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Boffey continues, "Of all the exports to Russia made since last September, 98% were supplied to Halliburton's newly independent former operation, known as BurService, whose clients have included Gazprom, Rosneft, TNK-BP, and Lukoil. According to customs records, exports to Russia of Halliburton equipment, which range in type from pumps, to wrenches for the drilling of wells, and cement additives, continued until at least the end of June this year. More recent records are yet to be made available."

Boffey notes that "there is exasperation in Ukraine at the lethargy of many large industrial players in the West in extracting themselves from the Russian economy. The findings illustrate the difficulties multinational companies have had in unpicking their trading relationships and in controlling the distribution of their products via third parties."

Boffey adds, "Some of the world's largest US oil and gas field service companies are already facing questions over their conduct. The Kremlin is heavily dependent on its oil and gas sector for the revenue that funds its military. Earlier this month, the head of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez [D-New Jersey], wrote to Halliburton and their competitors SLB and Baker Hughes, after reports that the companies had continued to trade with Russia to various degrees after the invasion of Ukraine in February last year."

Boffey also pointed out, however, that "there is no suggestion that any of the companies breached the sanctions regime of the US or its Western partners."

READ MORE: The axis of authoritarianism

Boffey's entire exclusive scoop is available at this link.

United States Representative and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-California) implied MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart on Sunday's edition of The Saturday/Sunday Show that congressional Republicans under the leadership of incumbent Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) are abusing the Constitution by impeaching President Joe Biden, against whom the GOP has presented no evidence of wrongdoing.

To make her point, Pelosi recalled why, after she was elected as the first woman to hold the gavel, she refused to grant Democrats' demands for the impeachment of then-President George W. Bush over his ill-conceived invasion of Iraq.

"What is the frivolity of how they're treating impeachment? You know, when I first became speaker in '07, January, I was so deluged with requests to impeach the president, Bush, for the War in Iraq," Pelosi stated. "I've strenuously opposed the war in Iraq. I said at the time as the top Democrat on intelligence, 'The intelligence does not support the threat. It was a misrepresentation to the American people.'"

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Pelosi explained that while Bush's incursion was a catastrophe, it "was a policy matter, and I was not going to impeach the president, even though there was, as Senator Graham, who was the top Democrat in the Senate, and actually the chairman of the [Judiciary] Committee — Bob Graham, Bob Graham of Texas — called for the president to be impeached. But I wasn't going to do that because I just think that it was, you know, a terrible, this War in Iraq was the worst mistake a country ever made and the consequences continue. But nonetheless, just because people were calling for it didn't mean I was going to do it."

Pelosi then fast-forwarded to ex-President Donald Trump, who was impeached and acquitted twice during his single four-year term.

"So when it came time for the former occupant of the White House, I don't use his name," Pelosi quipped, "it was unavoidable because the facts were so overwhelming that he committed acts of high treason."

Watch below or at this link.

MSNBC 09 17 2023 09 16 18 www.youtube.com

READ MORE: 'Blood and carnage': Columnist torches the 'inescapable sameness' of Republican 'Trump alternatives'

The Republican Party is facing "a bigger and more claustrophobic reality" than "passively sliding into the inevitability" of next year's anticipated showdown between President Joe Biden and his embattled predecessor Donald Trump, Katherine Miller opines in Sunday's New York Times.

GOP presidential primary contenders, Miller writes, "have constructed their identities as Trump alternatives and ended up all the same" as their beleaguered frontrunner.

"It can be hard to remember what made Trump distinct eight years ago, because it has become the texture of our lives. The 1980s tabloid dimension of his language — weeping mothers, blood and carnage, rot and disease in institutions, brutal action — crushed the antiseptic piety and euphemisms of the post-Bush Republican Party. The lurid, fallen vision of American life that implicitly casts critics as naïve chumps or in on the corruption is the one we still occupy," Miller observes. "Now they all sound kind of like that. Politicians' impulse to shorthand and flatten major policies and controversies is eternal, but it's not just that they use similar words. The way these politicians talk takes the old, once-novel Trump themes, aggressive energy, and promises and packages them into indoctrination and the administrative state."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Miller continues, "Practically every candidacy right now is about Trump: The protest candidates exist to oppose Trump; the alternatives basically seem constructed in the negative (Trump but nice, Trump but we've got to win the suburbs again, Trump but competent) and grown inside the Trump concerns lab. Here and there, the candidates talk about healthcare, education costs, the economic changes with artificial intelligence, or anything that might be kitchen table — things that exist beyond Trump's reach — but it's amazing how little some of this stuff is emphasized beyond inflation and energy costs."

Miller notes that despite attempts by Republican White House hopefuls to distinguish themselves from the ex-commander-in-chief, "None of them are winning! It might be the indictments that have firmed up Trump's support, but the inescapable sameness of the candidates, especially when they should sound and seem different, is real."

Miller adds that Trump's rivals "were never distinct figures" because "like all the others who have defined themselves by being an alternative to an individual who is still always present," those individuals nonetheless "ended up talking about the same things and sounding the same."

Trump, Miller concludes, "created the air that everyone now breathes."

READ MORE: 'Dark days ahead': Ex-WSJ editor warns time is running out to 'apply the brakes' to 'trainwreck' Trump

View Miller's editorial at this link (subscription required).

Former Wall Street Journal Washington Bureau Chief and Bloomberg Washington Executive Editor Al Hunt warned in a dire opinion column in The Messenger on Sunday that criminally indicted ex-President Donald Trump "is the only candidate that I think poses an existential threat to Democracy" even though Hunt has "covered presidential politics for more than half a century."

Next year's contest will "be one of the darkest races in memory and "is shrouded in several myths," Hunt explains. "One is that Joe Biden is the best candidate to save the country from Donald Trump: Actually, he may be among the more vulnerable. If another Democrat such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer were the nominee, I believe she would beat Trump like a drum. The Republican myth is that Trump, who dominates GOP polls, is their best horse: Actually, he is a weak general election candidate. I have little doubt that former South Carolina governor and United Nationals [sic] ambassador Nikki Haley would pound a rival almost 30 years older."

Hunt fears that while "the Biden team may hope to take the high road and focus on his many accomplishments," Trump securing his party's nomination could result in a scenario in which the "bad drives out the good."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Hunt writes, "This isn't ideological: Ronald Reagan and others were far more conservative on economic, social, and national security matters. Trump has said — and shown — that he simply doesn't believe in democracy and that the Constitution should be ignored, if necessary, to give him the presidency. He has learned from his first term: He will try to dismantle civil service, overreach on executive actions, use the IRS and Justice Department to go after political opponents, disrupt international alliances, gut NATO, and embolden Vladimir Putin. There will be no Jim Mattis, John Kelly, or Gary Cohn to occasionally apply the brakes on Trump's darker impulses. There will only be loyalists and second-tier sycophants."

Hunt predicts that "Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party will deepen into semi-permanence" and that "The Republican Club on Capitol Hill can take down the pictures of Eisenhower, Bush, and Reagan" because "Trump doesn't like to share attention."

Moreover, although "Biden still is sharp and conversant in important policy matters," Hunt laments that "another four years of Biden looks good only compared to the unimaginable Trump return."

Hunt worries that time is running out to nip the accelerating "trainwreck" in the bud, especially since "there won't be a serious challenge to the president, despite rising fears in the party that in a race with a third-party candidate, even Cornel West, Trump today would be the favorite," adding, "If Biden unexpectedly pulls out, say October 20th, it's hard to find any Democratic politician, donor, or operative who thinks Kamala Harris would clear any field. Under this remote scenario, the top choice might be Governor Whitmer. The most ready to jump in is California Governor Gavin Newsom."

READ MORE: Trump to ditch Iowa evangelical gathering after GOP gov said 'voters expect him' to attend events

Hunt's full editorial is available at this link.

United States Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) told MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Thursday's edition of All In that working-class Americans are "sick and tired" of the extreme wealth disparity between themselves and corporate titans as auto workers are poised to strike against the Big Three car manufacturers.

Hayes and Sanders also commended United Auto Workers Union President Shawn Fain for standing in solidarity with industry employees who are demanding higher pay as their companies rake in massive profits and their bosses earn gigantic salaries.

"Do you have a kind of rooting interest here of the outcome you want to see?" Hayes asked Sanders.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"Yeah, the outcome I want to see is that the UAW workers get the kind of contract they deserve," Sanders responded. "You know, the corporate media hasn't covered this very well, but the reality is over the last twenty years, real wages for automobile workers has gone down by thirty percent when you account for inflation. So what the workers are saying is at a time when the CEOs of Ford — he makes $21 million, the guy who's head of Stellantis, he makes $25 million a year, the woman who's head of General Motors, $29 million — their salaries have gone up by forty percent over the last four years. They have billions of dollars for dividends and stock buybacks. And what the workers are saying is, 'Hey, we made you those profits. We gave you those salaries. Pay attention to our needs.' We don't want to see a situation where workers at the low end make it all of $17 an hour. And I'll tell you something, Chris. You mentioned that all over this country we're seeing strikes, and you're right. And I think what's happening is working people all across this country are sick and tired of the corporate greed they are seeing every day. They see it when they go to the grocery store. Food prices, incredibly high. Gas prices, incredibly high. Companies making money hands over fist. And I really applaud the courage of Shawn Fain and the workers at the UAW for standing up and saying, 'You know what? Enough is enough. We need an economy that works for everybody, not just the people on top.'"

Hayes continued, "I want to just show some of the demands: UAW, thirty-six percent wage increase over four years. One of the things I want to do — this is actually a key one and there's a little in the weeds, but it's important for people to recognize. There are sort of these tiers that have emerged in successive rounds of organizing where newer workers aren't working at the same tier as others. It's a way of kind of breaking up the solidarity of the union. It's something that Shawn Fain has been opposed to and the folks that elected him. So we'll see how that goes. I want to ask you this question on that context. We have seen all of this union activity at Starbucks and Amazon, the Teamsters, you know, and UPS, this, this. What — you said workers are waking up. But it strikes me that part of the issue here is that you've got tight labor markets and employees have more choice now than they did during that long period after the Great Recession where you had a lot of slack in the labor market, six, seven, eight percent unemployment. People were worried they were replaceable. This, it seems to me this environment has given workers more say and more power in their negotiations with ownership."

Sanders opined, "I think there is truth to that, Chris, but I think it really goes deeper. I think COVID, the pandemic, was a real emotional wake-up for the American people. You know, the rich people, the CEOs could stay at home and work in their fancy offices or in their homes behind their computers. Working people, people at the UAW, bus drivers, people working in warehouses, nurses, doctors, they had to go out to work. And tens and tens of thousands of them died. And meanwhile, during that whole pandemic, we saw an explosion of wealth increases for the people on top. So yeah, the tight labor market is a factor, Chris. But I really think that people are becoming sick and tired of the massive levels of income and wealth inequality that they're seeing today. No one thinks that three people on top should own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, that CEOs are making four hundred times more than their workers. That's not what this country is supposed to be about. That's what the UAW is telling the American people, and I think there's massive support for what they're trying to do."

Hayes added, "I wanna play this clip that got a lot of play. It sort of went viral. It's a sort of random clip because it's just an Australian property developer. But what he's articulating at this conference with other property developers is a view that I think some — a lot of people in management or ownership at least have about exactly this awakening that's happened post-COVID, right? That people have this sort of idea that like, they want to be treated with dignity. They want fairness. This is him saying we need unemployment to rise to knock the arrogance out of these workers. Take a listen."

READ MORE: Auto worker strike 'likely' due to 'insulting' offers from Big Three car companies: ex-labor secretary

Hayes rolled footage of Gurner Group Chief Executive Officer Tim Gurner stating that "we need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump forty, fifty percent in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around."

Repeating Gurner's remarks, Hayes queried, "We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around. What do you think of that?"

Sanders was characteristically blunt.

"I think it's disgusting," Sanders replied. "And it's, you know, hard to believe that you have that kind of mentality among the ruling class in the year 2023. You know, this is the richest country in the history of the world and yet we still have sixty percent — sixty percent of our people living paycheck to paycheck. People can't afford housing. People can't afford health care. They can't afford child care, can't afford to send their kids to college. And what these guys are saying, 'Hey, this is all great working classes and disarray. Let's have more unemployment. We can get richer and richer. Make them more and more desperate.' That is the kind of greed and arrogance that the UAW and unions all over this country are standing up to. I applaud them and I would hope that all of us as Americans stand with the UAW in their struggle."

Watch the full segment below or at this link.

MSNBC 09 14 2023 20 54 48 www.youtube.com

READ MORE: UAW president: Union is ready to strike selected plants at all Detroit automakers

Former President Donald Trump told NBC News moderator Kristen Welker on this Sunday's edition of Meet the Press that he could have pardoned himself at the end of his term but chose not to.

"Mr. President, if you are reelected, would you pardon yourself?" Welker asked.

"I could have pardoned myself," Trump replied. "Do you know what? I was given an option to pardon myself. I could have pardoned myself when I left. People said, 'Would you like to pardon yourself?' I had a couple of attorneys that said, 'You can do it if you want.' I had some people that said, 'It would look bad if you do it,' cause I think it would look terrible."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Trump continued, "I said, 'Here's the story.' These people are thugs, horrible people fascists, Marxists, sick people. They've been after me from the day I came down the escalator with Melania, and I did a great job as president. People are acknowledging — great economy, great jobs, great this, great that. I rebuilt the military, Space Force, everything. I could go on forever. Let me just tell you."

Trump added, "I said, 'The last thing I'd ever do is give myself a pardon.' I could have given myself a pardon. Don't ask me what I would do. The last day I could have had a pardon done that would have saved me all of these lawyers and all of these fake charges, these Biden indictments — they're all Biden indictments, political — they indicted, they want to arrest their political opponents. Only third-world countries do that. Banana republics. So, ready? I never said this to anybody. I was given the option. I could have done a pardon of myself. You know what I said? 'I have no interest in even thinking about it.' I never even wanted to think about it. And I could have done it. And all of these questions you're asking me about the fake charges you wouldn't be asking me because it's a very powerful, it's a very powerful thing for a president. I was told by some people that these are sick lunatics that I'm dealing with. 'Give yourself a pardon, your life will be a lot easier.' I said, 'I would never give myself a pardon.'"

Welker followed up, "Even if you were reelected in this moment?"

Trump responded, "Oh, I think it's very unlikely. What did I do wrong? I didn't do anything wrong. You mean because I challenged an election they want to put me in jail?"

Watch the segment below via NBC News or at this link.

READ MORE: 'I’m not going to answer that': Trump loses it when Fox News asked about classified documents

Former United States Labor Secretary Robert Reich predicted on Thursday that "it seems likely that the United Auto Workers will go on strike against the Big Three automakers" as the midnight deadline rapidly approaches.

"Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (Chrysler and Jeep) have presented their latest offers, including a 9 or 10 percent raise for most workers, more paid time off, and increased benefits. The union has called both offers 'insulting,'" writes Reich.

Tom Krisher and David Koenig of the Associated Press note that "the UAW is demanding a 36% boost in pay over four years, and the automakers, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, have countered with offers that are roughly half of that increase. The chasm between the two sides threatens to ignite the first simultaneous strike by the United Auto Workers against all three Detroit companies in the union's 88-year history, a potential shock to a U.S. economy already under strain from elevated inflation. It's also a test of President Joe Biden’s treasured assertion that he’s the most pro-union president in US history."

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Krisher and Koenig recall that "the UAW started out demanding 40% raises over the life of a four-year contract, or 46% when compounded annually. Initial offers from the companies fell far short of those figures. The union later lowered its demand to around 36%. The UAW also is seeking restoration of cost-of-living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, pension increases for retirees and other items."

Asking, "Why is the United Auto Workers taking such a hard line in its negotiations with America's Big Three automakers?" Reich, a long-established champion of labor rights, cites "five big reasons" for the impasse.

Reich highlights that "outsized profits" and "out of sight" executive compensation have not been shared with workers, whose "wages have risen only six percent" in nearly half a decade.

Reich further points out that there is a "two-tier system" at play — one which "pays new hires substantially less than old ones" and another stemming from the fact that "the Big Three have been quietly siting new plants to supply batteries for electric vehicles in non-union states."

READ MORE: 'The risk is enormous': DC insider issues a warning about voting for third-party candidates

Reich's complete Substack post is available at this link. Krisher's and Koenig's full analysis is here.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday "temporarily paused" a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling barring President Joe Biden's administration from "contacting social media firms" over "online posts that pose a danger to public health or safety," Politico's Josh Gerstein and Rebecca Kern report.

"Alito's action followed an emergency filing from the Justice Department Thursday that asked the court to block an earlier injunction previously set to kick in Monday that would make it difficult for officials at the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to mitigate digital threats, Politico explains.

"Alito granted an administrative stay pausing the underlying injunction issued by US District Court Judge Terry Doughty from taking effect until September 22," Gerstein and Kern write. "Alito also gave the Republican attorneys general from Louisiana and Missouri — who brought the case against the administration — until Sept. 20 to respond."

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Politico continues, "The Justice Department claims allowing the lower court ruling to stay in effect would 'impose grave and irreparable harms on the government and the public.' It asked the Supreme Court to immediately block the 5th Circuit's injunction placed on the administration while it files a formal petition for the justices to take up the case."

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued in her petition, "Under the injunction, the Surgeon General, the White House Press Secretary, and many other senior presidential aides risk contempt if their public statements on matters of policy cross the ill-defined lines drawn by the Fifth Circuit," adding, "CDC officials run the same risk if they accurately answer platforms’ questions about public health. And FBI agents risk being hauled into court if they flag content posted by terrorists or disinformation disseminated by covert malign foreign actors."

Gerstein and Kern recall, "The GOP-led lawsuit claims the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by pressuring companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to remove content falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen, anti-vaccine posts, and topics involving Hunter Biden's laptop. The Missouri- and Louisiana-led lawsuit claimed the administration threatened the platforms with antitrust enforcement and reforms to tech platforms' liability shield, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, if they didn't comply with the government's takedown requests."

READ MORE: Why Republicans are 'disproportionately credulous about health-related misinformation': analysis

Gerstein's and Kern's analysis is available at this link.

Convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh was presented with the "anticipated start date of his first white-collar crime trial" on Thursday, The Daily Beast's Pilar Melendez reports.

Murdaugh was found guilty by a jury of killing of his wife Maggie and son Paul on June 7th, 2021 and was sentenced to two life terms in prison.

"Donning an orange prison jumpsuit and a buzzed haircut, a shackled Murdaugh smiled and greeted each of his lawyers before he sat at the defense table in Beaufort County Court for the status hearing in connection with state charges alleging he stole upward of $4.3 million in insurance money intended for the family of his late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield," Melendez writes.

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"During the fiery hearing, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian argued for a delay of the trial and change of venue on the state charges, arguing that his team needs to prepare after Murdaugh's February murder trial," Melendez explains. "The lawyer also alleged that the South Carolina attorney general's office is attempting to make this latest case a national spectacle and noted there is still too much pretrial publicity, asking, 'Where are you going to get a jury? Mars?'"

Melendez continues, "Prosecutor Creighton Waters pushed back on the allegations, calling the request for a delay an assault on the judiciary. Judge Clifton Newman, who also presided over Murdaugh's murder trial, ignored the defense’s protests and scheduled the Satterfield trial for November 27th."

Melendez further adds, "Prosecutors say that in 2018, after Satterfield died from a fall at Murdaugh's home, the former lawyer urged her two sons to file a claim against him to collect on his homeowner's insurance policy. Then, instead of handing them the payout as agreed, Murdaugh allegedly conspired with his longtime friend Corey Fleming to divert the funds for his financial gain. The Satterfield sons did not learn about the payout until after the 2021 double homicide of Murdaugh's wife, Maggie, and son Paul. (Murdaugh has since agreed to pay the Satterfields the missing money and apologized for the scheme). Fleming was sentenced to 46 months in prison last month after pleading guilty to federal charges for his role in the Satterfield theft. On Thursday afternoon, Fleming was also sentenced to 10 years in prison on similar state charges."

READ MORE: Alex Murdaugh claims new 'mystery evidence' entitles him to a new murder trial

Melendez's full article is available at this link (subscription required).

Illegal drugs "produced in Mexico and sold in the United States" are the top national security threat facing the American people, according to a Department of Homeland Security assessment released on Thursday.

"While terrorists pose an enduring threat to the Homeland, drugs kill and harm far more people in the United States annually," DHS states, stressing in its report that the flow of illicit substances is "supporting violent criminal enterprises, money laundering, and corruption that undermines the rule of law."

ABC News correspondents Luke Barr and Sarah Beth Hensley note that "DHS said it expects illegal drugs produced in Mexico and sold in the United States will continue to kill more Americans than any other threat" and that "in the past year, traffickers have contributed to more lethal mixes of fentanyl — an already deadly drug — on the market and driving an increase in overdose deaths in the US. It is expected that fentanyl will remain the leading cause of narcotics-related deaths in the US in 2024."

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Barr and Hensley explain that "more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the US during the last year, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75% of those overdose deaths are from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl."

They add, "DHS said it has invested in stopping these dangerous and illegal drugs from entering the country — seizing more fentanyl, and arresting more people for fentanyl-related crimes in the last two years than in the previous five years combined, DHS said in a statement to ABC News."

Meanwhile, DHS warns that "during the next year, we assess that the threat of violence from individuals radicalized in the United States will remain high, but largely unchanged, marked by lone offenders or small group attacks that occur with little warning. Foreign terrorist groups like al-Qa'ida and ISIS are seeking to rebuild overseas, and they maintain worldwide networks of supporters that could seek to target the Homeland."

DHS also cited domestic terrorists as a risk to public safety, pointing out, "These actors will continue to be inspired and motivated by a mix of conspiracy theories; personalized grievances; and enduring racial, ethnic, religious, and anti-government ideologies, often shared online."

READ MORE: 'Be realistic': Conservative slams Republicans calling for military action against Mexico

View Barr's and Hensley's analysis at this link.

Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential primary contender Ron DeSantis is causing "harm" to "public education as we know it in part by letting Christian Nationalists run the show," reports the Friendly Atheist's Hemant Mehta.

"Florida's public university system announced that it would accept results from the Classic Learning Test (CLT) for students applying to places like the University of Florida or Florida State University. Incoming freshmen can submit their CLT scores instead of the more traditional SAT or ACT tests," Mehta explains.

He writes, "The problem with the CLT is that there's very little evidence that it's a good indicator of college preparedness. The test, which launched in 2015, has only been taken by about 21,000 students total. By comparison, 1.7 million students took the SAT and 1.3 million took the ACT in 2022 alone. Both of those latter tests are constantly revised and updated. There's no similar track record for the CLT. Furthermore, 85% of the students who've taken the CLT are white and 99% of test-takers attend private schools and charter schools or are home-schooled. The 'C' may as well stand for 'Christian.'"

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Mehta explains that "conservatives" are "eager to push the CLT as a valid alternative to the ACT and SAT despite that lack of information" because "the Republican base loves it."

Mehta adds, "The CLT is the test of choice for several conservative Christian colleges (like Michigan's Hillsdale College) while the SAT has become a bogeyman for conservatives because it's run by the College Board, which they see as too liberal. (The College Board oversees AP testing.) The CLT's Board of Academic Advisors reads like a laundry list of faith-based school leaders, conservative activists (e.g. Christopher Rufo), and (hey why not) Cornel West."

Although "the CLT looks very familiar, with sections devoted to math, writing, and verbal reasoning," Mehta notes that "the topics are much more narrow—and much more religious. It highlights the 'centrality of the Western tradition' at the expense of all other ones, which means there's a preference for works that are white, Western European, and Judeo-Christian. If you think Dead White Guys represent the pinnacle of education and modern writers who cover a wider range of topics can be ignored, this is the test for you."

Moreover, while "the questions aren't exactly tough to figure out," Mehta stresses that the CLT is "a way to shove religion in public schools without explicitly endorsing a specific brand of Christian beliefs. It's not that the CLT directly promotes religion, but it indirectly sends the message that understanding religious writing can be beneficial. For now, it also limits the options of where high school students who take the exam can go to college since most schools—the ones with a good reputation—don't take the CLT seriously."

READ MORE: 'Steal this deal for God': Nebraska pastor reneges after asking worshipers to give $3M for land purchase

Mehta's post is available at this link.

A legal expert told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur on Thursday that Georgia criminal defendant Kenneth Chesebro's attorneys were out of line when they demanded that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee allow them to question the grand jurors who voted to indict Chesebro, former President Donald Trump, and seventeen of their associates for allegedly attempting to steal the 2020 election.

District Attorney Fani Willis charged the individuals under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for their efforts to nullify President Joe Biden's landslide Electoral College victory over Trump.

"What is he talking about?" Tur asked about Chesebro's counselor.

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"He's really talking about the DA's team raising prior conduct by Mr. Chesebro's lawyer, Manny Arora, saying that he asked the court for permission to talk with the grand jurors," legal analyst Lisa Rubin said. "Why? Because in a prior case, he was admonished by a judge in a different county for having done exactly that without asking court permission first. And that's when Scott Grubman, who is Ken Chesebro's other lawyer, got up and accused the DA's lawyer, Daysha Young, of lying, and things got very heated until Scott McAfee, who's the judge here, basically said, 'It's over. I'm not hearing that.''

She continued, "What I think you can see here, though, Katy, coming down the road, if we just want to take a broader lens here, is, you know, litigators say, 'If you have the facts, you emphasize the facts and avoid the law. And if you don't have the facts on your side, you really emphasize the law. But here they don't have the facts or the law. And so what are they going to do? They are threatening to derail this by charging the DA's team with prosecutorial misconduct."

Tur noted that "we hear that a lot."

Tur's guest concurred that "we do, but they want to explore here what happened during the grand jury proceedings and have insinuated that people who are with the DA's team were inappropriately inside the grand jury proceedings."

READ MORE: 'I’ve said it’s over': Judge cautions Chesebro lawyer over rant about 'PowerPoint' and 'personal attacks'

Tur observed, "So that's why they want to talk to the grand jurors."

Rubin added, "And they want to talk to the grand juror and the state really doesn't want that to happen. Number one, they have a concern about the grand jurors' privacy and security. We already know that Fulton County has been making provisions for the privacy and security of their grand jurors, all of whom were listed by name on that indictment. But they also say grand jury deliberations are off-limits. What could they possibly want to talk to these people about? That's within the scope of what's legal, and the judge is going to allow them to talk about, talk to these grand jurors, but he wants to put some guardrails around it. He wants to know, 'What are the questions you want to ask? What are the topics you want to explore?' And most importantly, 'Give me a brief and show me the relevance of those topics and questions to the defense you want to advance for your client.'"

Watch below or at this link.

MSNBC 09 14 2023 15 40 04 www.youtube.com

READ MORE: Trump-supporting sheriff likens himself to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: report

Republicans in the United States House of Representatives are concerned that Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-California) impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden could be a "self-inflicted wound," The Daily Beast's Deputy Politics Editor Sam Brodey reports.

"The politically dangerous impeachment quest could, at last, represent a bargain that McCarthy cannot afford," Brodey writes.

Congressman Ken Buck (R-Colorado), for instance, believes that "the decision to move forward with the inquiry—without holding a full floor vote to authorize it" is a potential blow that McCarthy cannot afford to take, Brodey explains.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"When he used the term impeachment inquiry… now we have set expectations with the activists who are expecting an impeachment. When he used the term impeachment inquiry… now we have set expectations with the activists who are expecting an impeachment," Buck said. "It doesn't matter what the facts are," Buck added. "They want us to move forward."

Buck stressed, however, that McCarthy is "under a lot of pressure to act" and that “he's the one that raised the issue of impeachment. Everybody on the outside wants to talk about it, let them talk about it—we have an institution and we have to keep it moving."

But Buck's primary worry, per Brodey, is, "How do you go to Democrats and say, 'I need your vote on the [continuing government funding resolution],' right after I've said, 'I'm going to beat your president?' It's crazy."

Brodey notes that "the deep irony of the GOP's impeachment push is that McCarthy and Republicans themselves made many of the arguments against Democrats in [former President Donald] Trump's first impeachment that they are fielding now."

READ MORE: 'Hogwash': Pelosi dismisses McCarthy’s attempt to blame Biden impeachment inquiry on her

Yet Buck is not the only conservative lawmaker openly doubting McCarthy's strategy.

House Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma) told the Beast that "if there's no there there, then there's no there there," adding, "Then we say 'Hey, you were right, we were wrong, let's move on down the road.'"

Congressman Dan Bishop (R-North Carolina) also expressed skepticism about impeaching the incumbent commander-in-chief.

"I wouldn't be pre-committed to a course of action," Bishop conceded. "Most of my base voters that I encounter want me to do something up here, but nobody's ever told me you just do it, regardless what the facts are. I haven't heard it that way. They'd like to have an explanation why nobody's doing anything, apparently, about a number of things, from their perspective."

Meanwhile, Buck called a potential Biden impeachment trial in the Senate "a joke," asking rhetorically, "What evidence do you present that there is a connection between Hunter Biden's activities and Joe Biden at this point? It's a joke."

READ MORE: 'Not afraid': McCarthy dares Republicans to oust him as his frustration with House GOP grows

View Brodey's analysis at this link (subscription required).

Republicans in the United States House of Representatives on Wednesday "failed to move forward on a procedural vote advancing a bill to fund the Defense Department after it became clear they did not have enough votes to secure its passage," adding to concerns that Congress will miss the September 30th deadline to fund the federal government and prevent a shutdown, The Washington Post's Mariama Sotomayor reports.

The latest impasse "offered an example of just how difficult it will be for [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy [R-California] and the ideologically fractured Republican majority to find consensus, keep the government open, and avert blame if a shutdown is triggered," Sotomayor explains.

"A handful of staunchly conservative lawmakers announced they would not vote to move the defense funding bill forward because of an unmet demand they made of leadership months ago," Sotomayor writes. "Several members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus said they have yet to receive a top-line number for how much all 12 appropriations bills would cost once passed, and where offsets to curtail spending would be made across the 11 proposals the House has yet to consider on the floor."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Sotomayor continues, "The House Appropriations Committee already has not been able to overcome competing demands between moderate and far-right Republicans on the labor and justice appropriation bills, which have historically been the most controversial proposals to complete. As a result, fulfilling the Freedom Caucus' demands — including passing all 12 appropriation bills individually — may be impossible."

Sotomayor notes that "it remains unclear when the House will consider the defense funding bill — or any appropriation bill. Given the myriad requests and leadership's inability thus far to provide a top-line budget number, lawmakers had little insight into how Republicans break themselves from the logjam before the House leaves Washington for the weekend Thursday."

Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, said that "there currently is not an appetite to just, I would call it, blindly move forward with any one piece of the puzzle until we can actually look at the picture of the puzzle that we’re actually trying to assemble. I have no interest in grabbing a piece and just sticking it on a board and hoping."

Sotomayor adds that "several absences within the conference — including Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), who is battling cancer — are making the math tricky for Republicans. Complicating it further is the expected retirement of Representative Chris Stewart (R-Utah) later this week, which will bring the Republicans' already razor-thin majority down to four. His replacement, generally expected to be a Republican, would not arrive in the House until late November."

READ MORE: Republicans in disarray as government shutdown fight looms: report

Sotomayor's analysis is available at this link (subscription required).

Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters drew ire from both parties during a United States Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday after she refused to answer questions about the dire state of American corrections facilities, the Associated Press' Michael Sisak reports.

"Senators complained that Colette Peters appears to have reneged on promises she made when she took the job last year that she'd be candid and open with lawmakers, and that 'the buck stops' with her for turning the troubled agency around," writes Sisak.

Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sisak explains, "said Peters has forced them to wait more than a year for answers to written follow-up questions they sent her after she first appeared before the committee in September 2022, leaving them without information critical to fully understanding how the agency runs."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Sisak notes that although senators concede that "the clock is still ticking" for "Peters to commit to a firm deadline for responding," Peters "also irked senators by claiming she couldn't answer even the most basic questions about agency operations — like how many correctional officers are on staff — and by referring to notes and talking points on a tablet computer in front of her."

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) reportedly told Peters that "Senators really take it personally when you don't answer their questions" and "more than almost any other thing that I would recommend I'd make that a high priority."

Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) echoed Durbin's statement, telling Peters that "you've now been in the post for about a year and Congress expects results."

Meanwhile, according to Sisak, "The Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department's largest law enforcement agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates, and an annual budget of about $8 billion, has been under increasing scrutiny from Congress amid myriad crises, many of them exposed by AP reporting. They include rampant sexual abuse of prisoners by staff and other staff criminal conduct, escapes, high-profile violence and inmate deaths, chronic understaffing that has hampered emergency responses."

READ MORE: 'Two-tiered justice': Republican presidential candidates slammed for floating MAGA rioter pardons

Sisak's full scoop is available at this link.

A parent and grandparent of slain Robb Elementary School students told MSNBC host Joy Reid on Wednesday's edition of The ReidOut that the pervasive epidemic of gun violence throughout the United States has profound effects on how survivors and family members of people killed in mass shootings live their lives.

Reid's guests also lamented that in the eighteen months since the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, lawmakers have done little to protect the public.

"What is the action that you expected to happen after Uvalde? What did you think would happen?" Reid asked.

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"I thought for sure there was going to be a change," said Berlinda Arreola, who lost her granddaughter Amerie Jo Garza in the attack. "We all thought that our loved ones were going to be important enough to make that change. After Sandy Hook and Santa Fe and Southern Springs and so many prior, we just thought that we would be that one, and we immediately took charge and began coming to Washington. Within a month's time, we started fighting for the children, and unfortunately, we haven't gotten anywhere yet."

Reid continued, "Yeah, I mean the one change that has happened in the state of Texas where you both live is that now there's a requirement that every school has to have an armed, armed security guard, but to me, that seems, you know, there were 317 police that responded to Uvalde and they did nothing. So, do you feel safer? Do you think that kids are safer with one armed security guard in every school?"

Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter Alexandria was among the nineteen children killed, replied, "Absolutely not. Guns have no place in a school. The obvious solution is a complete ban on assault weapons. And instead, we decide, 'Hey, it's this. Let's try this. And it's this.' We're just making our schools look like prisons. For what reason?"

Reid observed that "the thing is, is that the public overwhelmingly supports the idea of gun reform, of common sense gun reform, not anything crazy, not confiscation or anything like that, but just the idea of background checks, the idea of not having assault weapons being legal and on the streets. And it's just hard for me to put my, wrap my mind around the idea that people think people need assault weapons to just walk around. You were saying to me, Berlinda, before we started that, you know, you walk around now as a different human being, you know, having lost a family member, it's happened to you and it changes the way you live your life. You're afraid to go places that you would normally go."

READ MORE: New Uvalde body cam video shows cops vomiting and sobbing after looking inside the classroom

Arreola confirmed, "That's correct. It's anywhere you go. Anywhere a new foundation or wherever it goes to, you look for your exits and you know, you go to a parade and you're looking on the rooftops and seeing if there's anybody there. You know, you, you walk into a grocery store and you're looking around just making sure that somebody doesn't look suspicious or doesn't have, you know, a big long coat and what's underneath there. You know, it's just, it changes your whole way of thinking and it makes you more aware of your surroundings."

Reid recalled, "I mean and Kimberly, I was telling you, you know, I was just overseas. Never thought about it. Away for ten days in two different countries, one in Europe, one on the African continent. It never crossed my mind that I was not safe and that there would be guns somewhere and that I would be shot. And yet, children can't feel that way when they go to school and this is back to school."

Mata-Rubio added that gun violence is "a uniquely American problem."

Watch below or at this link.

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READ MORE: Biden calls for a 'new Congress' if this one refuses to stop gun violence

Indicted ex-President Donald Trump released a new campaign video on Wednesday in which he calls for abolishing the United States Department of Education, CNN's Kate Sullivan and Katie Lobosco report.

"We're going to end education coming out of Washington, DC. We're going to close it up – all those buildings all over the place and people that in many cases hate our children. We're going to send it all back to the states,” Trump said in a four-minute address posted to Rumble.

Trump, CNN notes, also "outlined several other education priorities for a potential second term, including introducing prayer in public schools, teaching children to 'love their country' and increasing access to internships for students. Trump has said he wants to allow parents to control where their child goes to school and give parents and local school boards the ability to hire and fire school principals."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Although scrapping federal education standards has been a "long-held Republican goal that has been endorsed by several other 2024 GOP candidates," CNN explains that "eliminating" the DOE "would not necessarily give any more power to states over K-12 schools. While the federal agency helps the president execute education policies, the power to set curriculum, establish schools, and determine enrollment eligibility already lies with the states and local school boards."

CNN recalls that "Trump has been floating the idea of eliminating the Department of Education since his 2016 presidential campaign. When Trump was president, his administration proposed merging the Education and Labor departments into one federal agency as part of a larger plan to restructure the government. The proposal needed approval from Congress and was never implemented. Trump, as president, also tried to cut billions of dollars from the Education Department's budget."

CNN adds that "various Republicans have called for eliminating the Education Department since its establishment as a Cabinet-level agency in 1980. Among Trump's rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum have endorsed the idea."

READ MORE: The scientific reason why Trump's supporters won't believe any evidence

Sullivan's and Lobosco's analysis is available at this link.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley is retiring on September 29th. But before he departs, Milley told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Wednesday that a story about his time serving under former President Donald Trump never happened.

Milley, CNN's Jeremy Herb recalls, was "Trump's chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the final 16 months of his time in office. He had an outsized role in some of the most consequential events of Trump's presidency, including the response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and actions he took after January 6, 2001, when he was concerned that Trump could go 'rogue.'"

Herb continues, "Milley also became a significant figure in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, when Trump claimed to have a plan to attack Iran authored by Milley. Trump was captured on audio tape talking about the plan with biographers for Meadows in July 2021 at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort, acknowledging he had not declassified the document."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Milley pushed back against Trump's recollection.

"I don't know the document they're talking about. I've never seen – no one's presented me with what it is they're talking about. So, I really still can't comment on it," Milley said. "But I can assure you that, you know, a military attack on Iran is a very, very serious undertaking. We have capabilities. We have plans – that's not particularly unusual – to comment on that. But I am not going to go further and discuss any of the details."

Herb notes that "in a superseding indictment filed against Trump in July, the special counsel's team alleged that Trump willfully retained a top-secret document that was a 'presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country,' which CNN reported was Iran." Herb also writes that Trump's final White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows crafted a "four-page report" that "contained the general's own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency. President Trump denied those requests every time."

Milley explained to Zakaria that Meadows' account, too, is false:

I can tell you with certainty that this chairman never recommended a wholesale attack on Iran. And to do that, I think would require a significant degree of risk that we may or may not want to take given the circumstances, but that that part of it didn't happen. And I'm not sure I don't know the exact quotes that Mr. Meadows said, but I can assure you I know what I've done and it's not to recommend an attack on Iran.

READ MORE: Tuberville 'doesn't know what the hell he's talking about' after missing Joint Chiefs chair retirement date: analysis

Herb's scoop is available at this link.

United States Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) deflected during an MSNBC segment on Wednesday when The Beat host Ari Melber grilled him about a supposed policy agreement Gaetz struck with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) back in January.

The conversation stemmed from the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that McCarthy initiated on Tuesday. Republicans allege that Biden engaged in "bribery" but have offered no evidence to support those accusations.

"Wouldn't it be better to finally and fully, transparently release the whole thing so both your constituents, Republicans, and the public could see what now you claim is his violation of these assorted pledges?" Melber asked.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"Yeah, I have no problem with that," Gaetz replied, claiming that Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) "keeps my copy. Tim Reitz of the Freedom Caucus has copies as well. But keep this in mind, Ari. No one is disputing the authenticity of the terms that I have laid out. You know, Kevin McCarthy has two hundred allies in Congress."

Melber cut Gaetz off.

"I'll let you finish on that..." he said.

"It's important. It's really important..." Gaetz fired back.

READ MORE: 'We own you': Morning Joe marvels at the 'bizarre dynamic' between McCarthy and Matt Gaetz

"I'll let you get it. But Chip Roy? This is up to Chip Roy release your agreement?" Melber reiterated.

"Well, I don't have a copy of it," Gaetz said. "I know it exists, and no one is disputing the terms. So, you are, you are picking a fight here that not even Kevin McCarthy and his top allies quibble about. Someone in the press should ask Kevin McCarthy, 'Did you commit to a term limits vote? Did you commit to a balanced budget vote?'"

Melber responded. "We'll, we're asking everybody who will come on. Are you calling on Congressman Chip Roy to release the agreement tonight?"

Gaetz continued, "Well, I leave that up to him. I have no problem with it. If Chip Roy releases the agreement, you will find it is entirely consistent with what I've said. Matter of fact, Chip Roy was asked about the agreement at a press conference earlier this week, and he said, in fact, that all of the claims that I'd made about term limits, balanced budgets, and single-subject spending bills were, in fact, reduced to writing. Again, you're, you're, let's get to something that you, that people are actually quibbling about so we can have a more interesting discussion."

Melber answered, "Well, we're, yeah, we're going back and forth, but if it's your copy, as you say, if it's part of the agreement, you and this group reached, and we showed the sound, and you're talking about how important this all has been, why don't you get your copy released again?"

Gaetz said, "I just told you I don't have a copy. But no one is disputing this. And by the way, you don't even have to look at a written agreement because back in January of this year, these things didn't just emerge."

Watch below or at this link.

MSNBC 09 13 2023 18 07 07 www.youtube.com

READ MORE: 'Matt is upset about an ethics complaint': Rep. Gaetz smacked down by Speaker McCarthy

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a compelling case for President Joe Biden's foreign policy successes in a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, The Daily Beast's David Rothkopf explains in an editorial on Wednesday.

Blinken, Rothkopf writes, "asserted America had embarked on an entirely new era in foreign policy during the Biden years. He argued that the current period is 'now is more than a test of the Post-Cold War order. It is the end of it.' He described it as 'a hinge moment in history' or, citing the president, 'an inflection point' when 'one era is ending and a new one is beginning.'"

Blinken, Rothkopf recalls, then "laid out how the US is strengthening its alliances and its relations—even with nations with which we have substantial differences—in order to remain strong in the face of competition from China and Russia and looming technological and economic challenges."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Rothkopf explains, "It is not unusual for secretaries of state to give such speeches. All seek to frame the work of the administrations in which they serve as consequential. Most suffer from 'doctrine envy,' the deep desire of foreign policy policymakers and presidents to define a moment in history with their ideas and even their names. But when it comes to concrete actions, or to actually successfully addressing the difficult moments faced by all administrations most come up short—or worse, they oversee the kind of disastrous mistakes that have marked so much of US foreign policy history, from Vietnam to Iraq, from the secret war in Cambodia to [former President Donald] Trump's decisions to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal or to canoodle with Vladimir Putin."

Unlike his twice-impeached quadruply criminally indicted predecessor, Rothkopf continues, the Biden administration has "actually walked the walk. They have actually done the difficult, often invisible work of remaking not just our foreign policy but our role in the world, our alliances, our priorities, even the ways in which we link our foreign policy to our domestic concerns—or to our investments in and approaches to critical technologies, from the manufacture of chips to AI."

Rothkopf notes that "had Blinken's speech come at a different time, perhaps it would not have as effectively resonated as a statement of what has been done and is being worked on. It might have seemed as abstract and disposable as the largely rhetorical exercises of so many of his recent predecessors. But it comes just as President Biden has returned from an ambitious, active, and successful round-the-world trip and Vice President Kamala Harris has returned from playing a central role in the ASEAN Summit in Indonesia. It comes as US and allied support in Ukraine is producing meaningful progress in that war, and as historic Biden administration investments in green energy seem more critical in the face of a deepening climate crisis."

Blinken's address, Rothkopf adds, "therefore was as notable for the concrete accomplishments it enumerated as it was for the intellectual framework for this new era in US foreign policy that it described."

READ MORE: Analysis reveals why Trump and Putin 'started reading from the same script' on 2024 messaging

Rothkopf's full commentary is available at this link (subscription required).

United States Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced this week that he will retire at the end of his term, which concludes on January 20th, 2025. On Wednesday, Atlantic correspondent and Romney: A Reckoning author McKay Coppins reveals what Romney told him about his decision to retire.

"It begins with a text message from Angus King, the junior senator from Maine: 'Could you give me a call when you get a chance? Important,'" Coppins recalls. "Romney calls, and King informs him of a conversation he's just had with a high-ranking Pentagon official. Law enforcement has been tracking online chatter among right-wing extremists who appear to be planning something bad on the day of Donald Trump's upcoming rally in Washington, DC. The president has been telling them the election was stolen; now they're coming to steal it back. There's talk of gun smuggling, of bombs and arson, of targeting the traitors in Congress who are responsible for this travesty. Romney's name has been popping up in some frightening corners of the internet, which is why King needed to talk to him. He isn't sure Romney will be safe."

Afterward, Coppins writes, "Romney hangs up and immediately begins typing a text to Mitch McConnell [R-Kentucky], the Senate majority leader. McConnell has been indulgent of Trump's deranged behavior over the past four years, but he's not crazy. He knows that the election wasn't stolen, that his guy lost fair and square. He sees the posturing by Republican politicians for what it is. He'll want to know about this, Romney thinks. He'll want to protect his colleagues, and himself."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Romney then texted McConnell, “In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require."

McConnell, however, "never responded," Coppins continues.

Coppins notes that he was struck by Romney's willingness to stand up to his colleagues.

"I had never encountered a politician so openly reckoning with what his pursuit of power had cost, much less one doing so while still in office. Candid introspection and crises of conscience are much less expensive in retirement. But Romney was thinking beyond his own political future," Coppins states. "Earlier this year, he confided to me that he would not seek reelection to the Senate in 2024. He planned to make this announcement in the fall. The decision was part political, part actuarial. The men in his family had a history of sudden heart failure, and none had lived longer than his father, who died at 88. 'Do I want to spend eight of the 12 years I have left sitting here and not getting anything done?' he mused. But there was something else. His time in the Senate had left Romney worried—not just about the decomposition of his own political party, but about the fate of the American project itself."

READ MORE: 'Not suited to be president': Mitt Romney uses Trump verdict to deliver clear warning to GOP

Coppin's full column is available at this link.