Bright sunshine in hot air just past the noon hour Tuesday here in California’s Central Valley — we were hoping to make it to Wednesday before the heat set in this week, but no way.
Temps are at triple digits for already today, and not a stir-wisp of a breeze either.
Weather the heat with asshole Republicans:
Did they each do a line before walking out? https://t.co/67DFHg504E
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 4, 2024
Sidney Blumenthal, the former advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton, notes in the Guardian yesterday the Republican party is really no longer — it’s morphed into the horror of T-Rump’s delusional shit way-far removed from the ‘normal,’ way-back Nixonian years of at least some shame:
On 6 August, at the Senate Republican Conference lunch, Goldwater exclaimed: “There are only so many lies you can take, and now there has been one too many. Nixon should get his ass out of the White House – today!” The next day, Goldwater, the House Republican leader John Rhodes and the Senate Republican leader Hugh Scott traveled down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House to deliver the message to Nixon that he was doomed. In his memoir, Goldwater wrote that Nixon “knew beyond any doubt that one way or another his presidency was finished. None of us doubted the outcome. He would resign.” On 9 August, Nixon wrote a letter of one sentence: “I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States.”
Within minutes of the jury delivering its verdict in the trial of The People of the State of New York versus Donald J Trump, convicting him of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to coverup hush-money payments in order to suppress information about his illicit adulterous affairs to win the election, the Republican leaders released their prepared statements of support. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who played a leading role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, went on Fox News to assure its viewers that the supreme court would soon overturn the conviction: “I think that the justices on the court – I know many of them personally – I think they are deeply concerned about that, as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the charges “never should have been brought in the first place”, and predicted the conviction would “be overturned on appeal”. One after another, Republicans lined up to denounce the verdict, the judicial system and New York – “the Manhattan kangaroo court”, according to Congressman Jim Jordan. They hate New York.
“I am a political prisoner,” Trump protested in a fundraising email. But, “the good news”, he said in his press conference the day after the verdict, was that he had raised millions. He said he had wanted to testify in the trial, as he promised he would, but that was a lie. If he had testified, he and his lawyers knew, he would have lied, like he lied in his press conference. His cowardice saved himself from a perjury rap.
Trump’s self-image as a martyr was embraced by more than his Republican acolytes. Now, three months after the murder of Alexei Navalny, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov stated: “The fact that a de facto elimination of political rivals by all possible legal and illegal means is going on there is obvious.” Trump supporter, the representative Nancy Mace, echoed Peskov’s remark, tweeting: “There’s no difference: Putin silences Navalny, Biden’s DOJ targets Trump. The left’s outrage over Navalny is hypocritical as they cheer on Biden’s tyranny.”
The Republican party of Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes and Hugh Scott is not even a flickering shadow of a memory. Both Nixon and Trump succeeded during their campaigns in covering up their sordid transactions through bribery. When Nixon’s perfidy was finally exposed the Republican leaders accepted the truth. His party support crumbled. He had no alternative to leaving. But when Trump’s conviction on all counts was announced, the Republican leaders rallied ‘round his upside-down flag. None of them remembered the events of 50 years ago, or cared if they did. The party still carries the name of “Republican”, but it is a party transformed. It is the Trump Maga party.
And the drugs of choice for these assholes is cruelty and lies. More good Blumenthal at the link.
And flashback nearly 50 years to now seemingly unreality Republicans:
GOP no longer, or not, yet here we are once again…
(Illustration out front by Daryl Cagle and found here)