All the Littlest Speakers and the Biggest Mouths offer little more than noise
The chart below provides some info on the 9 GOP candidates who will vie for support Monday night to be the next House Speaker. It makes the case for those least likely to win enough support from both sides of the polarized GOP members.
So I expect the least objectionable for them will be Sessions, Bergman, Hern and Meuser. Here’s additional background on those four.
Pete Sessions (TX): longest serving member of the 9 running for Speaker. Son of a former FBI Director. Voted against the 2nd impeachment of Trump after the insurrection and was one the 147 Republicans voting to overturn the 2020 election. Like Steve Scalise, he was a Tea Party member, the precursor to the Freedom Caucus extremists. He’s been a longtime ally of Rudy Giuliani and recommended the firing of US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch after Trump got in trouble for illegally suspending aid to the country and on the same day he met with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman who illegally funneled foreign money into US election campaigns. He’s also anti-abortion with the same exceptions as defined for Dan Meuser, below.
Jack Bergman (MI): A lesser known Republican representing the conservative Upper Peninsula of Michigan, he retired from a long military career as a Lieutenant General in the Marines. He voted against the certification of the 2020 election, against the Respect For Marriage Act, against the Affordable Care Act, and 94% of the time against the positions of President Biden. He’s anti-abortion except to save the lives of mothers and supported the effort to impose a federal ban. Cutting spending is one of his anchor positions. Despite his hostility towards LGBTQ people, he does recognize the threat of climate change and is a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus.
Dan Meuser (PA): A highly successful businessman and philanthropist who made his fortune selling motorized wheelchairs (with his brother and father), he has big credibility as a disability advocate and extensive experience with public revenues. He’s anti-abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. Of these 4, only Meuser and Sessions grant an exception for rape/incest. Though he also signed the amicus brief that tried to block the 2020 election results in Texas, his overall profile and record is one of a fiscal conservative more than any other extremist concern.
Kevin Hern (OK): In his early bid for the Speakership, he finished behind both Jordan and Scalise, suggesting he still faces an uphill battle of these four most likely. A highly successful businessman with different businesses, He opposed the certification of the 2020 election. He has supported antitrust legislation. He’s anti-abortion except to save the lives of mothers and has sponsored a bill to block presidential efforts to authorize the online dispensation of chemical abortion pills. He’s been in the House for nearly 5 years so as the least experienced guy running, I rank him below the other 3. (Meuser is tied for shortest House tenure, but had prior state political revenue experience, unlike Hern)
Though I have no role or influence with the Republicans in the House, I’d call Meuser the least objectionable as he’s mainly a fiscal conservative not heavily invested in conservative fundamentalist social issues.
As regards the ongoing effort to bring the Trump crime family to justice, Ivanka is trying to block a subpoena by saying she’s a Florida resident now so NY lacks the juridiction to issue it. That’s likely to fail.
The ex-president, meanwhile, is claiming the guilty Sidney Powell was not his attorney, resorting to his usual compulsive lying. Quotes by him and Rudy back in late 2020 say the opposite. I’m surprised that he clearly fears her more than Chesebro. Also be aware he still owes payment for legal services rendered to some on his team of lawyers.
This week, another former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, is scheduled to testify against him. Here’s a reminder of the role he’s played in bringing Trump to justice and why. He was the first to learn that Trump’s demand for loyalty was a one way street; Trump offered no help when Cohen got in trouble for the hush money payments to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. Cohen’s paid a bigger price for trying to protect Trump, then himself, than anyone else in Trump’s inner circle. Only the violent January 6th insurrectionists have faced worse penalties.
The current case about Trump’s bank fraud actions only occurred because of Cohen’s revelations, but the string of revelations were initially instigated by a lawsuit filed by the good-government group Common Cause. I’ll emphasize part of the NY Times’ story in that link above:
Cohen’s not the only one to mention Trump’s speaking ‘code’. A lot of times, Trump will talk in circles, avoiding direct orders, to infer what he wants done. If he’d been more explicit, it’d be easier to pin him down for legal culpability. He believes he can dance around the law that way but in 2023 he’s finally learning that he’s not as smart about that as he thought and that throwing loyalists under the bus is always a crap strategy.
Had he assisted Cohen or Powell or Jenna Ellis better with their legal defenses, he might still have their silence. As every good Mafia movie makes clear, if an underling goes to jail for you, you take care of their finances and their family. But as should be clear, Trump has a long history of incompetence in his dealings. He’s a mob boss, but he’s quite the profound failure at that too.
Four NY Times reporters teamed up for a story that came out today about the Australian billionaire Trump reportedly displayed national security documents to.
It lays out in detail how Pratt (and others could easily mimic) bought increasing access to Trump before and after his election. In a message Anthony Pratt wrote to an associate just before the 2020 election, he made his motives clear. He was renting all available Mar A Lago suites because “it will be good for business.”
He paid well over the asking price for tickets to a New Year’s gala there, spending a million dollars total for them. Trump has denied revealing the classified secrets to Mr. Pratt.
The Times article links to an Australian 60 Minutes show that obtained secret recordings of things Mr. Pratt said about Trump. Such as:
”He’s outrageous. He just, ah, says whatever the fuck he wants. And he loves to shock people.” (no big reveal there)
He also revealed to Pratt details about a bomb attack he made on Iraq before the news was revealed publicly. And recalling his ‘perfect’ phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky where Trump tried to blackmail him to conduct an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden (the call that resulted in his first impeachment), Pratt said:
”Yeah and Trump said, ‘You know, that Ukrainian phone call? That was nothing compared to what I usually do.’ “
After Trump provided details about our US nuclear submarine fleet, Pratt passed on the info to at least 45 others, including 6 journalists, 11 employees, 10 Australian officials and 3 former Australian Prime Ministers. And Pratt again:
”He knows exactly what to say and not to say so that he avoids jail, but gets so close to it that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law. Like he won’t go up to someone and say ‘I want you to kill someone.’ He’ll say, he’ll send someone, to tell someone, to kill someone.”
This reinforces what Michael Cohen meant when he spoke of Trump speaking in ‘code’.
To further cement his ties to Trump, he also cultivated a relationship with Rudy Giuliani saying he once invited Rudy to be a celebrity guest at his 60th birthday party and as an offset for the long travel time, paid Rudy nearly a million bucks. Covid prevented Rudy from making it to the event, but he said Rudy now calls him once a week.
Also:
”All of these guys are like the Mafia. Trump, Rupert, Rudy… You want to be a customer, not a competitor.”
Pratt also described payments to then-Prince Charles and former Aussie leaders as ‘networking’ in pursuit of future payouts.
As the FBI has interviewed Pratt about the classified info, it’s not yet known if he’ll be called as a witness in the DOJ classified documents case.
Via the Detroit Free Press:
The Detroit Audubon will adopt the name Detroit Bird Alliance, Chicago Audubon Society will adopt Chicago Bird Alliance, and Madison Audubon will adopt Badgerland Bird Alliance, according to a news release from the Detroit chapter.
The three organizations desire a more inclusive name to create unity and collaboration amongst the bird community following the national organization’s decision to retain the current name, despite research showing the 19th century naturalist was a racist who kept slaves and was an anti-abolitionist, the release said.
Um, what? Fresh news to me.
According to the Detroit Audubon website, the once positive association with Audubon’s name drastically shifted in recent years after research was released on his support of the eugenics movement, his involvement in the anti-abolitionist movement, and his use of slaves to help with his artwork.
I recall one big Audubon book we had as kids. I was fascinated with the pictures. But I’m always pleased with historical corrections and with organizations able to change to keep their focus on the positive works they do.