Crooked Media - What A Day: Liar, liar, Vance on fire

The GOP’s true colors are shining through particularly bright today, and what they reveal is a party awash in violent hatred and shameless self-dealing.
 

• The new three-legged stool of Republican politics are fascism, cronyism (though that one’s kind of a classic), and lawlessness. We have known for a while that Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, a former news anchor and Trump disciple, is a full-blown conspiracy theorist who campaigns on the Big Lie daily. She also just endorsed Oklahoma state Senate candidate Jarrin Jackson. Jackson isn’t a high-profile name, but his soundbytes have garnered attention for their full-throated fascism. He has said being gay is “disgusting,” and called it “a gateway to pedophilia.” He said he’s not “beholden to Jews” and in February posted that “The Jews, Illuminati, Covid shots kill. Rothschilds. Communists. Woke pastors. Social gospel. Christ will chuck a bunch of stuff in the fire.” The woman who endorsed this could be the highest-ranking state official in Arizona.
   

• New disclosures show that faux-populist and guy-who-thinks-women-aren’t-people Ohio Republican senate nominee JD Vance has structured his income almost entirely to exploit the carried-interest tax loophole, a provision that solely benefits the super-rich. This from the guy who has spent the past five years railing against “elites.” Drain! The! Swamp! As we covered the other day, Vance and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) plan to force all press at their upcoming rally to turn over their recordings to be “inspected” by Charlie Kirk’s journalistic gestapo Turning Points Action before leaving the event.
   

• The Fulton County, GA, special grand jury investigation into Trump and his allies tampering in the 2020 election in Georgia is running into a big obstacle in the form of highly uncooperative Republican witnesses. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has defied his subpoena. A federal judge recently ruled he must testify so he filed an emergency request with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to put his subpoena on hold while he appeals the ruling and/or runs out the clock. What a rule-of-law hero! Lawyers for Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) also filed a motion yesterday to quash a subpoena for his testimony. John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who aided Trump’s quest to overturn the election, pulled the same shit. Nothing screams “We have nothing to hide!” like doing everything in your power not to testify under oath.

As bad as it is now, it’ll be even worse if they win power
 

• The House Oversight Committee has demanded that social media companies take “immediate action” to address a massive influx of violent online threats against law enforcement following the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. The Florida judge who signed off on the FBI search warrant for Mar-a-Lago had his personal information including his address and the names of his wife and children smeared across pro-Trump forums, and his synagogue even had to cancel Sabbath services following a wave of antisemitic threats. Florida Republican House candidate Luis Miguel was permanently suspended from Twitter after posting, “Under my plan, all Floridians will be able to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF, and all other federal troops on sight.” Normal politician stuff!
   

• As direct as the incitement against federal law-enforcement agents are the direct GOP threats of retribution against Democrats for investigating Trump (because he is a criminal). Republicans have laundered their threats to seek “revenge” against Democrats for their January 6 investigation through Beltway press, and it is becoming commonplace for them and their allies in right-wing media to assert that if Trump faces legal accountability for his well-documented crimes, a GOP administration will gin up false pretexts to imprison leading Democrats. 

America appears to be awakening slowly to how radical the GOP is, and the fact that Dems promise something better. But the truth is worse than it seems, and we’d be better off not learning the hard way: If the GOP wins it’ll be open season on everyone who’s tried to stem the tide of Trumpism.

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Trader Joe’s abruptly closed its extremely-popular wine store in New York City last week, and new information shows that it likely was because employees were planning to call a union election and go public with their campaign. Not unlike Two-Buck-Chuck, union busting is disgusting.

Following complaints from Republican lawmakers and online conservative lunatics activists, the school board in North Dakota’s most populous school district reinstated recitation of the pledge of allegiance. 

President Biden will host a White House summit next month aimed at combating a spate of hate crimes and other attacks of violence in the U.S. that have marked his presidency and the ones before it. 

The European anti-vaxx group “V_V”, which harasses doctors and public-health officials and has even vandalized government buildings, continues to thrive on social media platforms due to insufficient regulatory efforts.

A New York judge refused to grant bail yesterday to the man accused of trying to kill Salman Rushdie last week and has barred news publications from interviewing him. 

The environmental-conservation charity founded by Prince William keeps its money in JPMorgan Chase, one of the world’s biggest backers of fossil fuels. Bit of a crack-handed clanger, if you ask me. 

In the final days before the invasion of Ukraine, Russian security officers sent cryptic instructions to informants in Kyiv to pack up and get out of the capital to ensure the decapitation of the Ukrainian government and oversee the installation of a pro-Russian regime. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was so certain that they would soon control Kyiv that they spent the days before the war began arranging safe houses or accomodations in informants’ apartments for the planned influx of Russian personnel. We know this because Ukrainian security services and others obtained a treasure trove of sensitive FSB materials. The FSB has spent decades spying on Ukraine in an attempt to co-opt its institutions by paying off officials and working to impede even the slightest perceived drift towards the rest of the West. By either incompetence or hubris, or some combination of the two, the agency failed to put down Ukraine’s government or interrupt President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hold on power. They were unable to drum up even a whiff of pro-Russian sentiment in the country. The humiliating failures of the Russian intelligence agencies may have been even more consequential than those of their military.

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A Michigan judge has blocked county prosecutors from enforcing the state’s 1931 abortion ban for the foreseeable future after two days of witness testimony from abortion experts, providers, and the state’s chief medical officer. 

Instagram and Facebook suspended Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaxx propaganda machine “Children’s Health Defense” from their platforms for repeatedly violating rules prohibiting misinformation about COVID-19. 

After a video depicting Finland’s Prime Minister dancing and lip-synching to music leaked, she took a drug test to quiet the conservative backlash, but it’s clear the only thing she was guilty of is Being Too Cool. 

The Pennsylvania Senate race between Republican New Jersey bajillionaire TV doctor Mehmet Oz and Lt. Gov John Fetterman (D-PA) looks to be tipping in Fetterman’s favor. Hoodies and neon gym shorts FOR ALL.