Hot and heavy this near-noon Friday here in California’s Central Valley — although one degree short of triple figures, the ‘feels like‘ gauge on my local weather site cites 102-degrees, which when I was outside a just a short while ago, is an understatement.
We’re in a multi-day, statewide/region-wide ‘heat dome’ experience where baking-hot is near-about normal.

Also hot in a nationwide, political sense was Joe Biden’s speech last night in Philadelphia, starting with the location, and then nailing the horror of Republicans — snips from the speech:

So, tonight, I’ve come to this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats and about the incredible future that lies in front of us, if only we choose it.

We must never forget, we, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began more than two centuries ago.

…

But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.

Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.

Now, I want to be very clear, very clear up front. Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know, because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.

And continued in that vein. Joe was direct and straight-on in lashing the fire of chaos to the MAGA Republican mantle, though, the virus of the T-Rump is a party-wide, full-blown corruption of democracy at every conceivable level. Biden could have been harder on the assholes, but instead left a loophole: ‘“Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans.”‘
Anyone who votes Republican is a MAGA hatter, can’t be helped, part of the sordid agenda.

Of course, right-nutters pulled the classic playground bully act, first whine about how terrible and hurtful Biden’s words — the old ‘can dish it out, but can’t take it’ routine — and then just run away:

https://t.co/ydg6h0EWjO pic.twitter.com/MFAuXXfKYa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 2, 2022

And it’s total, pure-100-percent bullshit. Republicans haven’t a real leg to stand on as their entire apparatus is based on negative emotions, hate, envy, spite, cruelty, and all of these favorite things. An empty folder of life.
This morning, Digby hit the nail on its head — the lede says it all: ‘I have often referred to what I call “The Art of the Hissy Fit,” defined as the right using “faux outrage to get the media to press the Democrats to disavow or apologize for something they were perfectly entitled to say or do. Most often, it’s something extremely mild compared to what Republicans say and do every day.”‘

Go read the whole post as it carefully examines the asinine reaction of malignant GOPers to Joe’s words — and present nothing at all.

Amanda Marcotte at Salon, also this morning, calls out the media for being too easy on the asshole Republican party, and start calling asshole as asshole:

The president reiterated that point later, noting that it is “my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.”

Presumably, it is also the duty of the mainstream media to level with the American people, to tell these truths, no matter how painful and regardless of how much whining they get in response from Republicans. So too, it is the media’s duty to set aside the cynical “horse race” coverage that can reduce existential issues to little more than political game-playing. And to admit that the typical “both sides” and “partisanship” frameworks don’t apply in a situation where one party has embraced a fascist assault on democracy, while the other party is trying to stop them. It is on the media to prioritize the truth over some ill-fitting “balance” between two parties in an era when one of those parties rejects democracy itself.

…

Yet, once a Democrat opens his mouth and speaks, the bone-deep terror of Republicans’ bad faith whining kicks in, and far too many mainstream media outlets hide behind chatter about “partisanship” and “optics” and “both sides,” unable to speak the plain truth to their readers.

Spinning a stark message about the future of democracy into little more than a political gambit may feel “fair” to journalists, but it’s actually very unfair to readers. It signals to readers that they shouldn’t take the threat seriously, but should simply tune this all out as political hyperbole. But the opposite is true. Readers need to understand that Biden is telling the truth and, if anything, he understated the case. (Mostly by underestimating how many Republicans are, in fact, fully on board with Trump’s authoritarian agenda.) That this isn’t about partisan politics at all, but about whether democratic politics as we know it will exist after the next two election cycles, or whether Trump will succesfully destroy it.

Indeed, that’s the call — T-Rump is doing his freaking best. In the context of that shit, the FBI/Mar-a-Lago/document scandal reared its ugly head again this morning with another frightful disclosure.
How about some possibly ‘missing’ classified documents, huh? So it is with ’empty folders’ turned up:

DOJ says it found "43 Empty Folders with 'CLASSIFIED' Banners" — were those documents just moved around, or are those documents gone? https://t.co/dA0p5PvqXX

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 2, 2022

Details via The New York Times late this morning:

The F.B.I.’s search of former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida club and residence last month recovered 48 empty folders marked as containing classified information, a newly disclosed court filing shows, raising the question of whether the government had fully recovered the documents or any remain missing.

The filing, a detailed list of items retrieved in the search, was unsealed on Friday as part of the court fight over whether to appoint an independent arbiter to review the materials taken by federal agents from Mr. Trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago, on Aug. 8.

Along with the empty folders with classified markings, the F.B.I. recovered 40 more empty folders that said they contained sensitive documents the user should “return to staff secretary/military aide,” the inventory said. It also said that agents found seven documents marked as “top secret” in Mr. Trump’s office and 11 more in a storage room.

The list and an accompanying court filing from the Justice Department did not say whether all the contents of the folders had been recovered. But the filing noted that the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s handling of the documents remained “an active criminal investigation.”

The court records also show how T-Rump and his yokels were pack-rat slobs: ‘The inventory also sheds further light on how the documents marked as classified were stored haphazardly in boxes or in containers, mixed among news clippings and “other printed media,” articles of clothing, books and “gift items.”‘

And Republicans whine about reality. WTF! Of course, such a situation with a shitload of missing files could be one horrendous national security problem — GOPers don’t care. They’re offended Joe talked harshly at them.
Fuck the assholes.

Hissy fit or not, here we are once again…

(Image out front by illustrator and portrait painter, Tim O’Brien, and can be found here)