Well. if we ever need a gas lamp lit, we'll know where to look

Because certain folks are very accomplished at one thing - gaslighting.

From Daily Beast, via Yahoo! -

GOP Leader Now Claims He Didn’t Make Ugly Comment About Biden’s Dead Son

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the new House Oversight Committee Chairman who lamented this week that President Joe Biden’s dead son was never prosecuted in a long-settled campaign financing case, has now tried to claim he said no such thing.

In an appearance on former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs’ podcast on Tuesday, Comer bemoaned that U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, a Trump-era appointee, never indicted Beau Biden in a campaign financing scandal in which Biden was cleared of wrongdoing.

Short Attention Span Musing - hypocrisy and heartlessness edition

First, for the Christians out there, I should probably cite the relevant section of the Bible

From BibleGateway.com, Matthew 7:12 (New International Version) -

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

In other words, don't lie, don't hold others to higher standards that you are prepared to meet yourself, and don't be evil.

Speaking of lying.....from ABCNews -

Tennessee GOP congressman was 'mistaken' on college degree

Tennessee U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles says he was “mistaken” when he said he graduated with an international relations degree after a local news outlet raised questions over whether the Republican had embellished his education.

Ogles said this week he wasn't made aware of the mistake until he requested his transcript from Middle Tennessee State University to verify his degree.

“When I pulled my transcript to verify, I realized I was mistaken. My degree is in Liberal Studies. I apologize for my misstatement," Ogles said in a statement released Sunday.

Earlier this month, Nashville-based WTVF-TV reported that Ogles has also called himself an “economist" even though he only took one community college economics course. The station then raised questions over Ogles' claims that he has law enforcement experience and handled “international sex crimes.”

Speaking of higher standards...from the website of the AZ House Democrats -

House Democratic Leader Andrés Cano issued the following statement today after Democratic members with bills ready for a floor vote were told they must obtain signatures from at least 16 of 31 Republican members in order for their bills to get a full vote. In protest, Democrats voted no on all bills moving through the chamber throughout the afternoon.

"Democrats in this Chamber have had enough. Today a number of our bills cleared Committee of the Whole debate -- meaning they should be put on the board of truth to see if they have support from a majority of this body – but now we find that the goal posts have been moved yet again.

Our members did the hard work, getting stakeholders on board, gaining bi-partisan support to get these bills through committee. But apparently, a new and completely arbitrary rule has been imposed upon Democratic members.

That rule, which is written nowhere because it's completely antithetical to representative government, is that our members must get at least 16 Republican signatures on one of these green sheets – a majority of the majority – or else their bill will not be on third read.

That means if all 29 members of our caucus support one of our colleague's bills, but only 15 of 31 Republicans like the idea, then it's dead. A bill with a literal Super Majority plus four extra votes, will not move out of this chamber!

For example, one of the bills debated today has our full caucus support plus 12 Republican signatures. Over and over, this member was told by Republican on this floor 'I'll be the 16th signature, come to me when you have 15 signatures.'

That is wrong. That is not the process. Any bi partisan Democratic idea, no matter how valid, no matter how important to the future of our state, can be stopped because in this chamber the tail wags the dog.

We will not be taken for granted. Until this process is once again deliberative and representative, I vote no."

So unless a majority of Republicans in the AZ House support something, House R leadership deems it dead.

Wonder how loud their screams will be if/when their rule is applied TO them rather than BY them.

Speaking heartless and evil...from Politico (emphasis added by me)-

Why one state’s plan to unwind a Covid-era Medicaid rule is raising red flags

President Joe Biden is giving states a year to check whether millions of low-income Americans are still eligible to receive health insurance through their government’s Medicaid program.

Arkansas is planning to do it in half that time.

GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former President Donald Trump’s press secretary, is pushing to remove people from “government dependency,” and this month her Medicaid agency started sending letters to tens of thousands of Medicaid recipients asking for proof of income and a host of other details to show they are still eligible for the insurance program.

She should probably forego her contempt for her constituents and tell that to the AR Senate.

From a press release dated 6/2/2021 -

American Rescue Plan to Send Billions in Federal Aid to Arkansas

State and local governments are preparing to receive a large infusion of federal aid, under the American Rescue Plan of 2021. Schools and universities in Arkansas also are receiving federal funds.

The amount of federal funding is unprecedented. State government will get $1.57 billion. The 75 counties in Arkansas will get $586 million. Arkansas cities will get about $425 million. Each city’s allocation will depend on its population. Arkansas schools are set to receive $1.25 billion. Universities and colleges will receive $363 million.

USASpending.gov has data how much different states receive from the federal government.

Shipping containers as shelters for the homeless? Betcha I know where there are a few serving no good purpose.

First, from 12 News, dated 12/16 -

Shipping container homeless shelter plan approved by Phoenix City Council

Refurbished shipping containers will be turned into shelter units in the City of Phoenix after the Council approved a plan on Wednesday.

The $3 million contract with Steel & Spark LLC will create private units on a city-owned lot near 22nd Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road that will house 80 individuals or family units in ‘X’ shape pods of four 40-foot-tall containers.

I know where Doug Ducey has left some.

From The Guardian (UK). dated 12/11 -

Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of office

A makeshift new barrier built with shipping containers is being illegally erected along part of the US-Mexico border by Arizona’s Republican governor – before he has to hand over the keys of his office to his Democratic successor in January.

Doug Ducey is driving a project that is placing double-stacked old shipping containers through several miles of national forest, attempting to fill gaps in Donald Trump’s intermittent border fencing.

His successor, Governor-elect Katie Hobbs, doesn't support Ducey's scheme.

From the Ahwatukee Foothills News, written by Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, dated 12/16 -

Hobbs vows to stop shipping container border wall

Incoming Gov. Katie Hobbs plans to halt any further work on building a wall of storage containers on the state’s southern border.

“It’s not our land to put things on,’’ she told Capitol Media Services.

Hobbs said this isn’t just a matter of the state acting illegally. She said the maneuver by lame-duck Gov. Doug Ducey in August to put a double-high wall of containers along stretches of the border after incoming President Joe Biden halted the wall being built by former President Trump makes no sense.

Neither do the Feds.  Not hardly.

From AP, via NPR, dated 12/15 (emphasis added by me) -

The U.S. is suing Arizona over shipping containers on the border with Mexico

The U.S. government sued Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and the state Wednesday over the placement of shipping containers as a barrier on the border with Mexico, saying it is trespassing on federal lands.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court comes three weeks before the Republican governor steps aside for Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs, who has said she opposes the construction.

Ducey told U.S. officials earlier this week that Arizona is ready to help remove the containers, which he says were placed as a temporary barrier. But he wants the U.S. government to say when it will fill any remaining gaps in the permanent border wall as it announced it would a year ago.

Maybe Ducey should set a good example by calling a special session of the legislature in order to fix the aggregate expenditure limit looming over public education, as he promised he would.

But won't.

Short Attention Span Musing

 - First up: A mea culpa.  A few days ago, I wrote that the election-denying counties in AZ wouldn't follow through on their threat to not certify the election results.

I was wrong.

From AP -

GOP-controlled Arizona county refuses to certify election

Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused Monday to 

certify the 2022 election despite no evidence of anything wrong 

with the count, a decision that was quickly challenged in court by the 

state’s top election official.

The refusal to certify by Cochise County in southeastern Arizona 

comes amid pressure from prominent Republicans to reject results 

showing Democrats winning top races.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who narrowly won the 

race for governor, asked a judge to order county officials to canvass 

the election, which she said is an obligation under Arizona law. 

Lawyers representing a Cochise County voter and a group of retirees 

filed a similar lawsuit Monday, the deadline for counties to 

approve the official tally of votes, known as the canvass.

Turns out that for certain people, ideology trumps public service.

- Dear Florida educators,

Move to AZ.  We have our problems (not least of which is that we don't pay public school teachers and administrators anywhere near enough) but we have one advantage over FL: we don't have Ron DeSantis.  

From Politico -

DeSantis-backed school boards begin ousting Florida educators

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.

New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their school superintendents over the span of one week. The ousters were spurred by how the superintendents carried out local policies like efforts to support the rights of parents, an issue inflamed by schools imposing student mask mandates last fall in defiance of DeSantis.

- Apparently, politics is a family enterprise.

From The Hill -

Capito’s son announces run for West Virginia governor

Moore Capito, the son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), announced his candidacy Tuesday to become governor of West Virginia, running as a Republican to lead the same state his mother represents in the Senate.  

“Join me as I seek my party’s nomination for Governor of West Virginia in ‘24. Together, we can build a West Virginia that makes our young people proud to call home and champions freedom to conduct business how you want,” Moore Capito said on Twitter.

Anyone want to speculate on how long before primogeniture becomes a Republican political plank?

- Cheeto has proven, yet again, that he doesn't care about elections...especially ones that don't go his preferred way.

From Rolling Stone, via Yahoo! -

Trump, Done with Democracy, Calls on Kari Lake to Be

 

‘Installed’ as Arizona’s Governor

Donald Trump on Monday declared the Arizona midterm election “yet another criminal voting operation” and demanded that defeated gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake be “installed Governor of Arizona.”

Much of Lake’s Trump-backed campaign was centered around bolstering unfounded claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 election, and the former TV anchor has lived up to her commitment to only accept election results if she won.

Double standards - are they taught to all lawyers or just to Supreme Court justices?

Like Samuel Alito.

In 2014, he (allegedly) leaked a decision involving Hobby Lobby and contraception to a GOP megadonor.

From CNN, dated 11/19 -

New York Times: Former evangelical activist claims he knew of 2014 Supreme Court decision before it was released

A former evangelical activist claimed in a letter to the Chief Justice of the United States that he knew about the outcome of a 2014 Supreme Court decision involving contraception and the Affordable Care Act by the court prior to the formal announcement, according to The New York Times.

Rev. Rob Schenck wrote in the letter this summer to Chief Justice John Roberts, which was originally obtained by the Times, that he was informed by a wealthy political donor, Gayle Wright, about the verdict of the ruling prior to it coming out.

According to the letter dated in June of this year but not sent until the following month, Wright had dinner with Justice Samuel Alito and his wife and spoke of the upcoming ruling at the time.

Yet, no outrage from Alito.

Yet, leaking an anti-choice decision to the public inspires lots of outrage from Alito.

Also from CNN, dated 10/25 -

Alito calls leak of Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe a ‘grave betrayal’ that endangered some justices

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday called the leak of his draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last spring a “grave betrayal” and “shock,” saying that it put the lives of some of the high court’s conservative justices at risk.

In his most extended and direct comments about the leak to date, Alito said it made the justices who were thought to be in the majority “targets for assassination” because it gave some people a reason to think they may be able to prevent the release of the final opinion “from happening by killing one of us.” He also noted officials have charged a man with attempting to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

He did not offer an update on the leak investigation, but his comments suggested the court has yet to find out who breached its inner sanctum.

Well, at least we know what to get him for Christmas.

From ULine -

Cheeto has a rather self-serving, and one way, definition of "loyalty"

He expects "loyalty" (his definition) from others, but he doesn't exhibit any loyalty, or even simple humanity, toward others.

From The Hill, via Yahoo! -

Trump: ‘Very disloyal’ if Pence, other Cabinet members run in 2024

Former President Trump said he would find it “very disloyal” if former Vice President Mike Pence or other members of his former Cabinet sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, seeking to send a warning to a number of figures weighing potential White House bids.

“Many of them have said they would never run if I run, so we’ll see if that turns out to be true,” Trump said Friday during a brief phone interview with Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade. “I think it would be very disloyal if they did, but that’s OK, too.”

Apparently, to him, campaigning for a nomination that he wants is "disloyal."

Killing, on the other hand, doesn't bother him.

From Slate, dated 11/12/2021 -

Trump Says Rioters Wanting to Kill Mike Pence on Jan. 6 Was “Common Sense”

Donald Trump was banned from the major social media services after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. On that day, instead of de-escalating the situation, he used Twitter to denounce then Vice President Mike Pence because Pence, in his capacity presiding over the Senate, had refused to overturn election results. Some of Trump’s supporters, while they were breaching Capitol security, chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” It was a loud and sustained chant, and not just one or two people—you can see a video here. One eventually found Pence’s seat on the Senate dais and left a note reading, “It’s only a matter of time, justice is ­coming.” (According to the Washington Post, this person later told law enforcement that Pence is a “child-trafficking traitor.”)

At least he's consistent.

From NBC, dated 6/18/2021 -

Trump digs in on Central Park 5: 'They admitted their guilt'

The president, who once called for the five to get the death penalty, offered no apology even though the convictions were vacated.

He called for them to get the death penalty after they were arrested and their criminal convictions were later vacated, but President Donald Trump on Tuesday wasn't offering any apologies to the so-called "Central Park Five."

"Why do you bring that question up now? It's an interesting time to bring it up," Trump told a reporter who asked if he would apologize to the five who were wrongly convicted of beating and raping a jogger in New York's Central Park in 1989.

Their convictions, based on confessions they said were coerced, were vacated in 2002, after DNA evidence linked a serial rapist to the brutal crime. The city later agreed to a $41 million settlement with the four black men and one Latino man, all of whom who were 16 or younger at the time of their arrest.

Dear ticket splitters: Don't lie to yourself. You may think that you will vote only for "sane" Republicans...

....but there's no real space between extremist Republicans like Kari Lake and Mark Finchem and establishment (presumably saner) Republicans.

Ticket splitting, by definition, happens when a voter votes for candidates of more than one political party.

From Yahoo! (emphasis added by me)-

Pence support for election deniers raises question of where GOP stands on 2020 lies

As he lines up a possible bid for the White House in 2024, former Vice President Mike Pence is campaigning with the strangest of political bedfellows, throwing his name and his money behind candidates who supported the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that put the Indiana Republican’s life in danger.

On Wednesday, Pence raised money for a former aide now running for Indiana’s secretary of state, who called the 2020 election a “scam.” On Thursday, Pence will headline a fundraiser for one of the fake electors enlisted by Donald Trump and his allies in Georgia. And Pence has recently given his endorsement to top Republican candidates in New Hampshire and Arizona, despite their prior support for Trump’s 2020 election lie.

Yes, Pence is supporting those that wanted him dead on January 6, 2021.

Guess for him anyway, being called "Mr. President" is more important than being called "Mr. Alive", 

It's not just national Republicans who are kissing up to extremists, either.  It happens here in Arizona, too.  From the website of the FEC -

Ragan was a staffer for Jon Kyl, has close ties to Kirk Adams and/or Doug Ducey, and was even the treasurer for Karrin Taylor Robson in the R primary.

In short, she's as "establishment GOP" as establishment gets.

Yet, now she's tied to The Center for Arizona Policy, which was extreme long before Cheeto came along.

It's even fronted by a Cheeto-like bigoted grifter.

In short, supporting any Republican means supporting means supporting vileness and extremism, no matter how much that Republican says that they're one of the "good" ones.