Deplorables, Deplorables, Deplorables
Deplorables, Deplorables, Deplorables
A special edition
Our cup overfloweth this week. So, let’s get to it.
A quick reminder that our weekly list often missing the usual suspects because… they are the Usual Suspects. But we had to bend the rules a bit today in our post-Labor Day special edition.
Who made the list?
Tommy Tuberville (again)
America’s dumbest senator (and we acknowledge the stiff competition) took to the airwaves to justify his hold on promotions in the military by singling out the dangers of “wokeism” in the Armed Forces.
His evidence? There are “people doing poems on aircraft carriers”.
Poems.
Because nothing makes us more vulnerable to the Chinese and Russians than an outbreak of literature in the ranks. More reading can follow and who knows where that could lead? Tuberville shudders at the thought.
We hesitate to venture too deeply into the vast empty spaces of the senator’s mind but, apparently, he seized on the menace of poetry as a short-hand for pointy-headed elitism, or effeminacy, or something. ‘There is no second place in war,” he explained and, I suspect would argue that we can’t defeat the Chinese Navy with the works of Maya Angelou. Or at least that’s what he would argue if he had ever heard of Angelou or, for that matter, had ever read a book.
But he seems certain that there is absolutely no place for poetry in war.
Except of course for the Mahabharata. The Iliad. The Odyssey. The Aeneid.
It also seems safe to assume that he has never heard of Henry V’s speech:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
Or In Flander’s Fields.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Or Wilford Owen, or Rupert Brooke, or Philip Larkin. Or the fact that even this guy wrote poetry:
Peter Navarro
Peter Navarro, a senior Trump White House aide and vocal election denier who has said he helped hatch a legislative scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race, was found guilty Thursday of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It went downhill from there. “Peter Navarro's Press Conference Spirals Into Chaos; ‘He Just Stuck a Flag Pole Between My Legs!’
Tucker and Ben
… get pwned by a serial scammer. My colleague Tim Miller brought the receipts.
WEDNESDAY ON X, THE NAZI SAFE SPACE formerly known as Twitter, Tucker Carlson conducted an exclusive interview with a man who is currently going by the name Larry Sinclair to discuss his two-decade-old—and widely debunked—claims that then-State Senator Barack Obama hired Sinclair for two raucous nights of crack smoking and gay treetop lovemaking.
In a sane world everyone of all political identities would point and laugh at the sad former TV host pretending to be titillated by the fantastical lies of a disgraced hooker in a Wayne’s World-style public-access livestream in his basement. So we wouldn’t need to fact-check it.
Sadly we don’t live in that world.
The cool kid philosopher of the right, Ben Shapiro, also jumped on the story, and I regret to tell you that it did not go well.
Ken Paxton
How odious is the Texas AG? Too awful even for MAGA, and that’s really saying something. We simply don’t have the space to list all of the charges against him, but David French takes a crack at it here: “The Contagious Corruption of Ken Paxton.”
Paxton faces impeachment in large part because seven of his top deputies blew the whistle on him in 2020, claiming that he had engaged in bribery and abuse of office. The charges against Paxton, to which he pleads not guilty, center primarily on his relationship with an investor named Nate Paul. Paxton is accused of providing favors to Paul, including using the power of his office in an attempt to stop foreclosure sales of Paul’s properties, ordering employees not to assist law enforcement investigating Paul and even providing Paul with “highly sensitive information” about an F.B.I. raid on his home.
And what did Paxton get in return? Paul reportedly helped Paxton remodel his home and employed Paxton’s mistress. (Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, is a Republican state senator who is attending the hearings but is barred from voting on the charges against her husband.)
But that’s hardly the complete list of Paxton’s misdeeds. He’s still facing criminal charges — which I’ve long considered questionable — stemming from a 2015 state indictment for securities fraud, and his treatment of the whistle-blowers is also under public scrutiny. Soon after coming forward, every whistle-blower either resigned, was fired or was placed on leave. When they sued for retaliation and improper firing, Paxton attempted to use $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to settle the lawsuit.
Elon Musk
Where do we start? The antisemitism? The erratic narcissism that has destroyed Xitter?
Or here? “Musk cut internet to Ukraine’s military as it was attacking Russian fleet.”
Of course, there is also this: “ADL chief fires back at Elon Musk for waging campaign of harassment against the group.”
And this: “Elon Musk's Ridiculous Threat to Sue the ADL for Defamation (mediaite.com)”
And the least shocking story of the week: “Inside Musk’s Twitter Transformation: Impulsive Decisions, Favors for Friends.”
After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, he promised users fairness and transparency. Since then, the platform designed to be the world’s public square is being driven in large part by Musk’s impulses. He has ordered the reinstatement of controversial users and done favors for friends, according to people familiar with his actions
The Proud Boys
…are about to do hard time. The group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio got 22 years for his seditionist conspiracy on January 6. And his buddy, Joe Biggs, got 17 years.
Fresh off some performative contrition in front of the judge, Biggs called into Alex Jones’s show and bragged that Donald Trump would pardon him.
He said that he hopes Mr Trump wins in 2024 - because he is certain that the Republican will pardon him. "I know he'll pardon me. I believe that with all my heart," Biggs told Jones.
Scott Adams
The Dilbert cartoonist continues to beclown.
Mike Huckabee
WWJD? Apparently, threaten massive bloodshed if we don’t get moar Trump. Here’s Huckabee this week:
In the latest episode of his show on TBN, Huckabee argued the legal woes now facing Trump are part of a politically motivated scheme from the Biden administration, an argument touted by many in the former president’s orbit.
“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” Huckabee warned in his opening monologue.
George Santos
They knew.
Portions of the report, published here for the first time, show that long before Santos' election, questions had surfaced about his marriage, his family's claimed link to the Holocaust, and his alleged ties to "companies that have been accused of fraud and scamming customers." …
A top House Republican, Elise Stefanik, campaigned with Santos well after the report was compiled.
Asked by CBS News about the report, a spokesperson for Stefanik declined to comment.
Vivek
His moment of post-debate hotness now gone, Vivek went from pratfall, to blunder, to humiliation this week.
How it started: “Ramaswamy hosted by podcaster who says Jews 'own almost everything'.”
Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on the podcast of an influencer known for his broadsides against the Jews, including accusing them of owning “almost everything,” in the upstart Republican presidential candidate’s latest dustup involving Jewish issues.
How it went: “MSNBC Host Mehdi Hasan’s ‘Masterclass’ Takedown of Vivek Ramaswamy Draws Praise Even From Conservatives.”
We’d like to report a homicide:
Jim Jordan
The House Judiciary chair was on the receiving end of an epic and eminently deserved smackdown from Fulton Conty DA Fani Willis, who accused Jordan of lacking even “a basic understanding the law.”
After Jordan threatened to investigate her charges against Donald Trump, Willis responded Thursday, writing that Jordan’s letter “contains inaccurate information and misleading statements” and that its “obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations.”
The committee’s probe “offends principles of state sovereignty” that give states power over criminal cases and “transgresses” separation of powers by infringing on the Justice Department, Willis wrote, among other legal issues, and she argued “settled constitutional law clearly permits me to ignore your unjustified and illegal intrusion into an open state criminal prosecution.”
Willis also said Jordan’s letter “makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice, and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically,” providing an explanation of a prosecutor’s “basic obligations.”
She advised the lawmaker—whom she called a “non-member of the bar”—to pay $249 for a copy of a book that explains RICO statutes, as she said his understanding of the indictment against Trump and his allies is “misinformed.”
The DA also emphasized Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution and called Jordan’s suggestion the former president and his allies should not have been prosecuted “offensive,” writing, “Here is another reality you must face: Those who wish to avoid felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia … should not commit felonies in Fulton County, Georgia.”
Ouch.
This rando
This is a picture of Montpelier, Vermont. Which joe Biden won with 88% of the vote.
Jeez, are you all that young? Palin was a blip. The original was Newt Gingrich, "The Man Who Broke Politics" (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/ - by McKay Coppins, the same author who has written the new Mitt Romney book. The article doesn't do his damage justice; in Dana Milbank's book "The Destructionists", Gingrich gets the first 3 chapters, a sickening litany of everything from circulating a list of 65 pejoratives for Republicans to use to demonize Democrats (How to Talk Like Newt, 1990) to routinely making up damaging stories about people he wanted to take down, including throwing his weight behind the ridiculous narrative that the Clinton's had had Vince Foster killed - which ended up with sufficient legs that Republicans, including Trump, were still using it in 2016. He introduced government shutdowns and impeachment as political weapons, among other "innovations".
Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh were contemporaries and complementary, and there's a steady growth of the right-wing alternate-reality echo chamber from their day to now.
Reading Milbank's account of Gingrich's escapades, the parallels with Trump are sobering. Oh, and BTW - while Newt was rabidly publically moralizing about Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, he was having his own affair with a 22-year-old house staffer (in 1999 he divorced his second wife, and married the staffer in 2000).
Thanks for the mention of Wilfred Owen - one of my favorites and who I immediately thought of upon hearing Senator Stupid's take.