Why is the Supreme Court giving us this excellent ruling on House districts? I don't know. When they do this, I always think it's to provide cover for some corrupt unrelated ruling the next week. But when you win in politics, you have to take the win. And this is a HUGE win.
When you're handed a win in politics, you have to seize it, run with it, put it to good use, so it counts for something.
If you just fret, and try to spin that win into a negative, you're blowing the opportunity, which means YOU have turned it into a loss. You don't want that.
Jun 8 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Today’s surprise Supreme Court ruling has shifted a bunch of House races in the Democrats’ direction. Once these races heat up we’re gonna go put in the work and win every House race in the toss up column, and take the House majority. Who’s with us? 💪💪💪💪💪
We’re not accustomed to having competitive House races in states like Alabama or Louisiana. Black voters are all gerrymandered into one district, and the Republicans win all the rest easily. But as of today that changes. There will be some actual toss up races in these states.
Jun 8 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Lawrence O’Donnell is refusing to hype the “Trump 2024” nonsense for ratings. He’s refusing to coddle horrible ratings-friendly guests. He’s doing cable news like it should be done. Which is why I worry about how much longer he’ll last on the air.
His ratings are fine. He’s proving that if you’re insightful, you don’t need to rely on the ratings formula stuff to get people to tune in. But by doing the job honestly, he’s making life harder for his network’s less talented hosts.
Jun 8 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
One of the things that’s still not sinking in for many of you is that there are no magic wands for evading *grand jury* subpoenas. Can’t just drag them out in court. Can’t just lie. Can’t just plead the fifth. Can’t just say “I don’t recall.”
There. Are. No. Magic. Wands.
What's throwing so many of you off is that you're trying to use *congressional* subpoenas as a frame of reference, when there's almost no frame of reference.
For instance, you can drag out a congressional subpoena in court for years, because the courts don't take them seriously.
Jun 7 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
When trying to figure out Mark Meadows’ testimony, keep in mind that under the law there are only two possible scenarios:
1) He has no deal and thus testified only about Trump crimes he witnessed but did not participate in
2) He has a cooperation deal and gave up EVERYTHING
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled back in April that scenario #1 had to happen. If Meadows had refused, the courts would have hauled him away for contempt by now.
So at the least, scenario #1 has happened.
Jun 6 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
BREAKING: Mark Meadows has already testified against Donald Trump to Jack Smith’s 1/6 grand jury, per the NYT. It didn’t happen today, it happened at some unknown point in the past. This means Trump’s 1/6 indictment process could be complete, along with the Trump docs indictment.
This does not tell us if Meadows has “flipped” on Trump. Meadows was already under court order to testify to testify about every Trump crime that Meadows witnessed but did not participate in.
If Meadows has flipped, he would also testify about Trump crimes he participated in.
Jun 6 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There’s understandably a lot of confusion about the two Jack Smith grand juries in the classified documents case. To be clear, they’re both federal. When bringing federal charges you still have to do it in the state relevant to the crime. But it has nothing to do with state law.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
A federal grand jury in Florida would have zero connection to the state government of Florida, zero to do with Florida prosecutors, zero to do with anything Ron DeSantis oversees.
Jun 6 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The next person who comes into my replies and begins angrily ranting about how Trump is getting "special treatment" is getting blocked so fast their head will spin. Stop making shit up just so you can feel outrage about it. If you must be that insane, don't do it in my replies.
I have seen this nonsensical "Trump is getting special treatment" narrative literally thousands of times in my replies today. Over and over again, from you hordes of mindless broken losers who just sit around all day inventing chants that let you feel defeatist outrage.
Jun 6 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What happens if George Santos’ defiant court filing today does get his bail revoked? He’d sit behind bars until his trial. He presumably would no longer be able to cast votes, so House Republicans would probably reluctantly expel him and take their chances in a special election.
House Republicans could try to make extreme changes to the rules to allow him to vote remotely from prison, but this would generate precisely the kinds of headlines connecting them to Santos that they’re trying to avoid. So this stems unlikely.
Jun 6 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
George Santos told the courts today that he’d rather rot in prison while awaiting trial than give up the name of the people who paid his bail. In that case lock him up 😁
And no, Santos isn’t getting any “special treatment” in any of this. His case is being handled exactly like it would if he weren’t in Congress.
Don’t be the dummies who keep invading my replies and cluelessly yelling “special treatment” just so they can feel outrage.
Jun 5 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
No, the DOJ is not giving Trump “special treatment” by meeting with his attorneys before indictment. It’s standard procedure. It’s used by the DOJ to bait defense attorneys into giving away their trial defense in advance.
Don’t just make shit up so you can feel outrage about it.
Based on everything that’s been reported to date, the DOJ has not given Trump even a single instance of “special treatment” in this probe.
Yet the outrage addicts on here just keep yelling that nonsense. It’s maddening.
Jun 4 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Trump is now so desperate, he has his former lawyer out there claiming Trump won't be indicted for classified documents because Hillary Clinton supposedly did the same thing. And the media is running with this bullshit as if it were plausible. The media makes me want to vomit.
First of all, it's a defense attorney's job to go out there and pretend that his client is going to get off the hook. And the media knows that.
It's the media's job to PUSH BACK against this kind of bullshit for the sake of the truth, not amplify it for ratings.
Jun 4 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
DeSantis’ approval rating in Florida is back below 50%.
National media spent all of 2022 hyping DeSantis as unstoppable, because it wanted him reelected, so he could run in 2024 and it could get ratings out of him.
If the media hadn’t propped him up, he’d have lost reelection.
DeSantis’ approval rating in Florida was underwater for much of his first term. He was not on track to win reelection until the national media (on the left and right) bailed him out by portraying him as unstoppable and inevitable. So Democratic voters in Florida simply gave up.
Jun 4 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Remember, Merrick Garland already declined Trump team’s request for a meeting.
If a meeting is happening, it would be Smith informing them that Trump is being indicted.
BUT Smith wouldn’t leak such a thing, so this is probably coming from Trump’s lawyers, making it unreliable.
Not questioning the reporter’s credibility. Just pointing out that if this came from Trump’s team, it’s as unreliable as anything else that comes from Trump’s team.
If this is coming from Smith, then indictment is imminent.
But what are the odds this is coming from Smith?
Jun 4 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Chris Licht's downfall is a timely reminder that for major news outlets, only ratings and revenue matter. Doesn't matter about political ideology or what "side" you're on. Ratings and revenue were in freefall under Licht, so CNN's corporate overlords demoted him. That simple.
Recent reporting suggests that Licht is one of those amoral zombies who wants to force everyone to believe the left and right are morally equivalent, and that he's also an asshole to everyone. But none of that would have hurt him, if he'd been able to boost ratings and revenue.
Jun 3 • 27 tweets • 5 min read
Right wingers are, simply put, society's losers. Their life didn't turn out like they hoped and they're bitter about it, which makes it easy for the wealthy and powerful to convince them that progress, or some other group that wants equality, is at fault for their unhappy life.
Right wingers are so broken, so far removed from thoughtfulness or empathy, it takes almost nothing to convince them to get on board with every revenge plot against mainstream America that the Republicans cook up in any given election cycle.
Jun 2 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Why is MSNBC allowing Trump’s former lawyer to spew wall to wall bullshit about Jack Smith’s case with minimal pushback? This isn’t journalism. It’s not even entertainment. It’s the platforming of disinformation.
At one point Trump’s former lawyer suggested the recording of Trump isn’t conclusive because it’s possible Trump was lying about having the document. This is the kind of absurd reasonable doubt nonsense a defense attorney is supposed to come up with – but that’s why you don’t…
Jun 1 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Can't stop laughing at these Twitter pundits who are saying "this Trump recording puts pressure on Jack Smith to indict Trump." Uh, no. Jack Smith is the one who uncovered the recording. He's built his Trump indictment around it. What are these pundits even talking about?
They're still portraying this as Jack Smith and the DOJ, scared to death to indict Trump, trying to find "courage" to do it, and now feeling "pressure" due to this recording.
These types always have it 180 degrees backwards from reality.
May 31 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
1) I said all along that if Bedminster ended up being part of the story, it would turn out Jack Smith was all over of from the start. Sure enough, Smith long ago obtained an incriminating recording of a conversation that Trump had at Bedminster, and partly built his case on it.
2) This is why all the simplistic chants of “search Bedminster” were so silly and pointless. As if Jack Smith wasn’t aware that Trump had a secondary residence and forgot to investigate there.
May 31 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Joe Manchin is an asshole but he votes with us 70% of the time. If he loses in 2024, Republican candidate Jim Justice will vote against us 100% of the time. That race will be a toss up. Absurd as it seems now, we may all end up wishing we’d held our noses and donated to Manchin.
This is not in any way a defense of Manchin. I hate the guy. But the point is, you take allies where you can get them. And as a sad statement of fact, we will never get a better Senator out of West Virginia than Manchin. Any other Democrat unelectable. Any Republican far worse.
May 31 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Merrick Garland and his DOJ just brought a civil case against Jim Justice, even though he’s a declared candidate for Senate in 2024.
The notion that Garland’s DOJ will somehow let Trump slide, just because he’s a 2024 candidate, is laugh out loud silly. Trump is going down.
Jim Justice is already claiming he’s being targeted for political persecution. He’s full of it. But the DOJ knew he would make this claim, and it brought this solid case against him anyway. The DOJ doesn’t care about these kinds of optics one way or the other.