1/ Since the Secret Service "surprisingly" "lost" and "can't recover" and "let the dog eat" all of its text messages for a totally coincidental window of time on the days around the single most calamitous threat to our constitutional republic and long tradition of...
2/ ...the peaceful transition of power after free and fair democratic elections, the 1/6 committee, DOH, and the Department of Homeland Security must absolutely step the hell up.
This isn't whether Steve Bannon is a scabrous scrapegallow or Mook Meadows...
3/ ...was deeply involved in facilitating the legal and organizational lunacy or that Trump's team both desired frothed the violent elements of his cadre of Orange Shirts.
It matters that a Federal agency given sweeping powers of action and discretion has...
4/ ...engaged in an activity that is quite robustly a coverup. Several thoughts obtain.
First, the long-rumored and discussed cadre of Trump Praetorians in the USSS needs to get aired the hell out. This reeks like leftover ass.
Second, the leadership and every...single...
5/ ...person on the detail and uniformed service that day needs to have their personal and work devices of every kind subpoenaed and examined. They must also be deposed.
Remember...this is the Federal agency on the tip of the spear against cybercrime. LOL.
6/ The 1/6 Committee Presents The Long Hot Summer series is recommended. They can skip vacation this once and crack some skulls.
I've noticed many Republicans get very livid lately when this whole scandal gumbo is compared to Watergate.
Stop doing Watergate shit, then.
7/ The Secret Service is a vital agency. Their unchallenged bravery at being the last line between violence and assassination of U.S. Presidents and protectees is storied and written at times in blood.
It is a brave and honorable duty.
8/ The core of their reputation wasn't a fearsome readiness to defend the President.
It was also a cool, detached professionalism that served the office, not simply the political whims of the man who held it.
For months, Mike Pence's refusal to enter the VP limo...
9/ ...has pinged the edges of my radar. I couldn't quite sort his reluctance. He's not a physically brave man, to my knowledge, so what was it?
What else did he know or sense?
I think Pence knew the Service was compromised and put Trump's politics over duty.
10/ I'm no Presidential staff historian, but Trump's elevation hyper-loyalist Tony Ornato from Secret Service into the role of Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations might have been a tell.
I suspect he's rather a key element here.
11/ We know Biden felt compelled to rotate out USSS details members from this @CarolLeonnig piece:
1/ You'll notice "sources close to DeSantis" (Pushaw, cough cough. Cox, cough cough) are becoming bolder in their framing of the 2024 race.
They're confident that've got the mojo to raise both the large $ corporate money (the do) and the small-dollar grassroots $.
2/ They've gotten so much love from the Fox world (and yes, Donald, the decision is made...they're just going to ignore you and give Ron sloppy blowjobs 24/7), from the gentry GOP media (National Review's 39th "Ron is God" article is coming any time now)...
3/ ...and from the DC consultant class ("Ron, you're the future. You're the cure. You're inevitable. You're the tallest, handsomest, smartest man in the room. Your farts smell like rainbows and flowers spring from your footprints.") that he feels inevitable.
1/ When the gentry Republicans (Mitch, Kevin, Elise, NRO, et al) tell you the party is past Trump and that the glittering future of the GOP is Youngkin or DeSantis or McCormick (ha!), they're either lying to themselves or lying to you.
2/ Particularly at the state level, this is the future; rigid adherence to a lie not because the candidates believe it (though some certainly do), but because one man controls the GOP from top to bottom.
The demand that leaders embrace and promise to act...
3/ ...to overturn 2020 (even now) and to restrict voting rights across the board (but mostly for Those People) will fundamentally reshape the country.
Parties lead, mobs demand.
The 1/6 mob *is* the GOP, it's just not evenly distributed yet. They demand adherence to the lie.
1/ A couple quick notes on the hearings tonight...
First, the "ignore it and it will go away" show today from McCarthy, Scalise, and Gretchen Weiners (R-Dress Barn) won't be their only attempt at detailing the hearings.
2/ The idea that no MAGA GOPers are on the committee and therefore won't disrupt the hearing is unlikely to deter the Mutant Parade -- Bad Touch Matt (Gaetz), Gosar, Margie Sloth-Toes, Boebert et al from trying to storm the committee room.
3/ Everything about their political culture incentivizes it.
The Human Centipede of MAGA media stunts: do something outrageous, transgressive, cruel or stupid.
Get checked for it. Run to Fox and complain about being cancelled. Email fundraising to follow.
The witnesses from the Trump world will filibuster, bullshit, evade and jerk themselves off on live TV for roughly 40% of the hearings. Everyone will have a long statement at the opening.
3/ This is like .05 Benghazis.
"Six hearings as we can be done! Yay!"
Come ON people. This is the big one. You know, the people who tried to OVERTHROW the government? WEEKS not DAYS.
1/ In the before times, before the MAGA Republican Troll Party, @EliseStefanik would have pulled the tweet down and moved on with a discreet “I mispoke.”
But the ethos of the emergent authoritarian is a mulish refusal to admit the lie, the mistake, the grand and petty indecency.
2/ She knows — and her staff knows — and her lawyers sure as HELL know that she looks terrible and that the last 48 hour news cycle has been a dumpster atop a mountain of toxic waste.
All her corporate donors wanted the Elise she played behind closed doors still.
3/ Because when she’s raising hedge fund and tech world cash, she doesn’t talk about white replacement or pedos or the rest of the sewage sluice of alt-reich filth.
She abases herself on Steve Bannon’s show, mewling and giggling far right agitporn as his rheumy eye ogles her.
I didn't send that card to you, not did I direct anyone else to, either.
I haven't been in Seattle in over a year, that's not my handwriting, and most importantly, I don't have a single fuck to give about you and haven't bothered to follow your race.
2/ But since you decided to work this trite and rather boring little campaign stunt for a campaign that's under fire, I will offer you a few notes.
I get why you'd tell this little lie. You're struggling. You're flailing.
Oh, and Alabama media is full of stories that...
3/ ...about your family life that can't be helping your campaign.
If you were smart, you'd have asked me if it was real...but it's rather evident your advisors at Jamestown Associates (Jason Miller's old firm) aren't that sharp.