Jan. 29, 2024 - Trucker convoy launches today

Jan 29, 2024

… Trucker convoy rolls for border today … Biden vows response for U.S. deaths … border deal due this week … Trump biz ruling coming …

NEW, exclusive reporting coming today about Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast.

Watch your inbox for my report and catch me sharing details on tonight’s Nicole Sandler Show!

“Army of God” Trucker Convoy Converges on Border To Do … Something

Thousands of armed, white, Christian nationalists are mustering today at their staging area for their mission to strike at the U.S. border against undocumented migrants and, potentially, against federal Border Patrol officers. At least, that’s what you can be forgiven for thinking this morning…

After all, the convoy headlines so far are true freakout fodder:

But remember all those post-Jan. 6 trucker convoys that turned into nothing but vast, highway-clogging parking lots, despite all the hype? Well, let’s take a closer look at today’s convoy, shall we?

Their staging area isn’t Omaha Beach, it’s Virginia Beach.

The trucker convoy isn’t making a beeline for the allegedly embattled border, despite its alleged embattledness. First they’re trucking for Jacksonville, FL, much like Washington’s Continental Army didn’t before crossing the Delaware. Then they’re gonna keep on truckin’ to other destinations on the way to the border.

And it’s individual participants claiming Jesus handed them a map and the keys to the 18-wheelers. In reality, they’re crowdfunding online and had raised only $50,000 by Friday.

The convoy could be heading for a standoff with the same federal Border Patrol agents already at odds with Texas National Guard troops over accessing a state park used to reach the Rio Grande, except…

…The trucker rallies are all being held on private property…
…The Texas site is 30 miles from the Texas/federal standoff, and the convoy is more likely to be dangling truck nutz than hauling long-range artillery…
…When explicitly asked about the Texas standoff, organizer Scotty Saks told Vice that “We’re not really focused on that.”
…And Saks said that the organizers themselves will crack down on anyone who gets violent. “We realize we may have infiltrators. There may be some people who try to subvert us, who jump in the convoy—provocateurs. We may have some, and they’re going to have to deal with our security team, they'll be asked to leave.”

Here’s my favorite part, the last of the three subhed bullet points from Business Insider:

The convoy is convoying because right-wing media have freaked out their audiences to believe the U.S. is being invaded by a hostile swarm of … landscapers and day laborers, I guess? Which means now it’s our job to resist the sweet, righteous siren call of our own media … and not freak out. Godspeed, non-freaking newsfuckers!

Border/Ukraine Deal Expected This Week

Republican congressional leaders are expected to announce a deal this week to connect military aid for Ukraine against Russia with military aid for the U.S. border against poor, desperate humans.

The only hitch: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) isn’t on the same page as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The other only hitch: Johnson isn’t on the same page with House Republicans and McConnell isn’t on the same page as Senate Republicans. The third only hitch: Republicans aren’t on the same page as Democrats.

In other words, no matter how many undocumented migrants Pres. Joe Biden agrees to headlock, and how often he agrees to betray the fucking beautiful aspirations inscribed at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, whatever deal emerges this week may not have the votes to pass … and may not have the votes to pass without significant changes.

Defending America’s Other Border … the One Between Jordan and Syria.

For the first time since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the U.S. has suffered combat deaths. Pres. Joe Biden yesterday announced that three U.S. troops were killed defending the U.S. border between Syria and Jordan.

The nation of Jordan, apparently wanting none of this escalating shit, originally said the attack didn’t happen in Jordan, but on the border, which is really implausible since borders don’t actually have dimensions in the physical universe. The attack was a drone strike on a U.S. military base known as Tower 22, which is located in Jordan for some reason despite being a U.S. military base.

The attack killed three Americans and wounded at least 34 more. U.S. troops defending the U.S. in Syria have been attempting to help Kurdish militants defeat ISIS, which was previously defeated by then-Pres. Donald Trump.

Biden blamed yesterday’s attack on “radical Iran-backed militant groups” and said “we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner [of] our choosing.” This morning, Iran’s mission to the UN said, “Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the US base.”

The group claiming responsibility for the attack cited U.S. support for the death and devastation Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, but as Juan Cole points out because Juan Cole always points out, there is history and blood and beef here.

The real danger now is that Biden lets the right and the media pressure him into escalating in response to the escalation.

DE-ESCALATION CELEBRATION Earlier this month, Iran and Pakistan traded airstrikes that killed at least 11 people. This morning, they agreed on a new security deal which will let them work together to prevent the kinds of awkward misunderstandings that kill at at least 11 people.

No estimates yet on how many people were just saved by diplomats and talking and rationality.

Trump Faces Possible End of Potemkin Business Empire

D4FRFP1 Donald Trump, facing the imminent symbolic removal of his groin-mushroom, threw a tantrum yesterday on social media.

New York Judge Arthur Engoron said last week that he could decide as soon as Wednesday — no promises, party planners! — whether to bar Trump from ever doing “business” in his home state again, forcing him to dismember his real-estate company, the Trump Organization.

On Sunday, Trump went after Engoron and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who has so far resisted pressure by Trump and his allies to stop being a Black woman.

Trump complained that James “sat comfortably and confidently in Court with her shoes off, arms folded, a Starbucks Coffee, and a BIG smile on her face.” When everyone knows Black people are supposed to uncomfortable and nervous in court, NO smile, wearing shoes and preferably handcuffs, with only shitty jailhouse coffee or maybe a Snapple.

Much more seriously, Trump suggested that James was confident “JUST LIKE SHE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT THE DECISION WILL BE!” The implication, of course, is that the fix is in, and James knows it. And Trump has a point: There is reason to suspect that James knows what the decision to be.

But Trump is unfamiliar with a non-corrupt reason James might be confident of the decision. It’s just possible that her confidence is based on her legal experience and high-level empirical understanding of the case and the evidence and precedent and facts and stuff and shit and things. We’ll see!

BUT SPEAKING OF PRECEDENT… In a new hand-wringer this morning, the AP frets that the prosecution of Trump is historically unique in the 70 years of cases they looked at. “It’s the only big business found that was threatened with a shutdown without a showing of obvious victims and major losses,” the AP laments.

First of all, poor defendants — who stupidly fail to cloak their crimes in the fiction of incorporation or other legal paperwork — are threatened every day with spending the rest of their lives in cages for stealing less money than Trump has. That’s Spare Me #1.

Secondly, maybejustmaybe the Trump Organization is facing unprecedented punishment because the nature of its crimes and the lack of remorse / admission of guilt by the boss are equally without precedent.

Finally, because Engoron has raised the prospect of total corporate annihilation —which even prosecutors aren’t seeking — the AP sets its hair on fire and runs in circles metaphorically yelling “woo-woo-woo” and literally writing “with that worst-case scenario, it could make it easier for courts to wipe out companies in the future.”

Your honor, let the record show that “companies” — aka rich people who have created fictional entities in the eyes of the law — have for centuries revealed themselves as engines of war marshaled for the sole and explicit purpose of depriving workers of their labor and the population of their remaining dollar bills and coins and credit scores and retirement plans and the prosperity of their progeny. The rich literally invented things called “limited liability companies” which are literally named for their immunity from justice.

So if one judge in one extreme case dares to tip the balance however slightly the other way just for onfuckingce, I say thee, have at it.

FLASHBACK Remember on Friday I floated the possibility of — and explained the rationale for — a massive penalty against Trump for defaming E. Jean Carroll after she dared reveal that he raped her? Yeah, it was $83.3 million.

Five Quickies

Israel has released details of the accusations against employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) who allegedly took part in or enabled the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas. The U.S. and other countries have suspended funding to the UNRWA, the key source of relief and aid for literally besieged Palestinians — even though there’s no definitive proof that the agency itself was in any way complicit. Remember, plenty of military and law enforcement took part in the Jan. 6 attacks, which doesn’t meant thaokay bad example.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday said she wants the FBI to investigate the funding behind protests demanding a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, citing an absolute total lack of any shred of evidence whatsoever that Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin is behind them. History buffs may recall that Putin personally voted for Donald Trump using a forged Bryn Mawr college ID and also personally disposed of the bodies of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s girlfriends.
House Republicans yesterday released two articles of impeachment against Homeland [sic] Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas stands accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and of being named Alejandro Mayorkas.
Climate/food activists threw pumpkin soup at the Mona Lisa on Sunday, prompting ridicule and scorn from people who aren’t doing shit about the climate and/or food.
French farmers are blockading highways into Paris today, protesting government policies that are squeezing them economically.

TCB

ORIGINAL REPORTING I’ve got new reporting coming today on the secretive Christian group behind the National Prayer Breakfast. Please watch your inbox for it, and thank you for supporting my reporting!

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Go get ‘em, kids…

D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President