The Right Is Trying to Steal the Election…from Trump
June 24: MAGA’s MAGA … Jesus vs. preventive care … Protest charges dropped … Squad pushes for Bowman …
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Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reached a deal last week to put down a secret rebellion within the ranks. On the right.
And the campaign reportedly is concerned more outbreaks may, uh, break out.
The Washington Post reports this morning that earlier this month the head of the Arizona Republican National Convention (RNC) delegation, Shelby Busch, led a group of America Firsters in plotting to steal the nomination from Trump at next month’s convention. Because that’s what they do.
The idea was to get enough states to support a rules suspension, which would let the rebel delegates assume control of the convention from the floor.
Because we’re talking about the MAGA of MAGA, no one seems too sure what the hell the point was of their secret revolution-planning meeting earlier this month. But the Post pieced together some guesses ventured by people who were there and would, in theory, have at least some idea wtf they were all talking about at their tragically not-capture-on-video meeting.
Once in control of the convention, their possible plans may or may not have included:
Maybe release delegates at the convention…somehow…from their commitment to nominate Trump.
Possibly block Trump’s vice presidential candidate if they’re deemed too America Second for the America Firsters or otherwise not MAGAy enough for the MAGA of MAGA.
Hypothetically nominate former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as president because if you’re gonna nominate a felon for president, you want to ensure that they’re convicted of federal crimes.
According to the Post, the far right — that is, the far right of the far-right Republican party — now suspects that Trump has been co-opted by, wait for it, the Deep State. Which means Trump won’t Make America Great Enough Again, so now the far right’s far right must Make America More Great Enough Again, or at least Make Make America Great Again Great Again.
One Republican told the Post they believe some of the rebels want to lose because losing is great marketing for their real hustle: Grifting petulant MAGA donors. And that won’t stand because that’s Trump’s job.
When the Trump campaign got wind of the rebellion, they lined up — of course — alternate delegates to replace the rebel delegates.
But then, on Thursday, in perfect Trump style, both sides sold out their rank and file.
Busch struck a deal agreeing to drop the rebellion. She’d get to keep her rebel delegates, who had to promise to kiss the ring, but she had to jettison her top deputy, throwing him under the bus even though they all oppose mass transit. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, agreed to drop their slate of alternate delegates, leaving those gullible bastards in the same spot as everyone else used up and tossed aside by Trump World: Holding their pud.
The upshot: The secret rebellion died before it was revealed. And the Trump campaign is now permanently skittish about threats to democratic processes from the far right.
Welcome to the fucking club.
Jesus Blocks Some Preventive Care, To Meet You Sooner
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a Texas company that believes a magic guy did magic stuff 2,000 years ago does not have to include in its healthcare plan some preventive coverage, including HIV drugs, because of a book some people wrote about the magic guy to explain why He hadn’t come back yet after super-swearing that He would.
The ruling is narrowly written — by a panel of two Donald Trump appointees and one Joe Biden appointee – but sets the stage for radical, drastic upheaval by the Supreme Court, which enjoys a good radical, drastic upheaval.
The suit and the ruling are both based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Democrats gave us to carve out special exceptions in the law for people who have magic reasons for breaking the law. (Although its current usage by the Christian right focuses on Jesus, the original, Democratic intent was to protect native Americans from prosecution for ritual peyote use, which one might also have done by decriminalizing peyote use.)
The appeals court found that the panel the federal government relies on to determine what counts as covered preventive care is unconstitutional. The scenario we’re looking at now over the coming years of legal battles is not just massive erosion of preventive-care coverage, but also increasing tolerance for discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, women, and possibly even white dudes and/or bros by companies where the C in C-suite stands for Christian and Jesus is on the corporate governance team.
The case is Braidwood Management v. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, but what the corporate-media coverage of this corporate healthcare story didn’t seem to mention is who Braidwood Management is.
Meet Dr. Steven Hotze!
Braidwood’s owner is a dubiously credentialed, anti-LGBTQ+, Christian fundamentalist, and a believer in religious freedoms. Like the freedom for landlords to reject tenants who are too gay and for bosses to fire employees for being excessively gay. As in, any.
Other Hotze takes include:
Wives need hubby’s permission to work outside the home
Wife-beating is okay if the marks are temporary
Hotze’s political campaigns to elect godly men violated the law. He was indicted in 2022 on felony charges for election-denial bullshit that led to some poor mistaken-identity bastard held at gunpoint for stealing the White House from Trump. Hotze sued Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for being part of the Deep State and deploying contact tracing to combat COVID, which was a hoax, just like its vaccines.
And Hotze’s scholarly work has been published in journals such as the in-flight magazine for Southwest Airlines, which is not peer reviewed. Ironically, he has prescribed all kinds of made-up “alternative” medicine, which isn’t covered by insurance. Also not covered by insurance: Self-inflicted Democratic political injuries.
Big Execs Actually Don’t Want Trump to Win
With all the rich tech bros falling over themselves to fawn over Donald Trump, it’s easy to forget that these people — technically skilled as they may be with ones and zeroes — are so politically dimwitted and emotion-driven that self-driving train wreck Elon Musk is their spirit animal.
In the broader business world — where executives are also emotion-driven but constrained by the real world’s superior understanding of what the fuck they’re doing/supposed to be doing — business leaders recognize Trump as a festering sore on the butt of the least funny clown at a roadside carnival in the dingiest backwater of the lowest ring of Hell.
In a new opinion piece guaranteed to lose him Trump-worshiping CEO clients, Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute CEO Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld spills the oolong about what execs really think about Trump. (Spoiler: See previous paragraph.)
Sonnenfeld claims 1,000 chief executives as clients. And he says at least 60% of them are Republicans. In general, he says, execs “aren’t entirely comfortable with either Mr. Trump or President [Joe] Biden. But they largely like — or at least can tolerate — one of them. They truly fear the other.” Trump, of course, isn’t just the other, he’s about as other as it gets.
Obviously, the execs have plenty of gripes with Biden. For one thing, the federal government doesn’t let them do whatever they want, which makes execs feel bad. However, it turns out that preventing corporate overlords from literally consuming everything has an upside: preserving the system that makes them obscenely rich/immorally wealthy.
So, these butt-hurt execs grudgingly like infrastructure improvements, the resulting improvements in the supply chains, and taxpayer money for making chips and EVs. And they really like smashing records in corporate profits, stock markets, and oil production.
What execs don’t like about Trump — other than his beautiful, majestic, sublime tax cuts — include how his semi-legitimate economic advisors from Trump I are gone, replaced by even clownier stooges than Steven Mnuchin and Jared Kushner.
Sonnenfeld cites the unworshipful reception Trump got earlier this month from the Business Roundtable. And the fact that not a single Fortune 100 chief executive has donated to Trump.
Career Criminal Expands Crime Wave to Europe
European prosecutors this morning filed charges against one of the largest crime cartels in the world: Apple Inc. Technically a corporation, the really-well-organized-crime operation is accused of rubbing out the competition.
Apple today was charged with violating Europe’s Digital Markets Act, which is intended to protect Mom and Pop digital creators from the white-shoe goons who serve as muscle for Apple and the other crime families.
The law allows for a fine of up to 10% of global revenue, or 20% for repeat offenders. In this case, that means Apple’s looking at a fine of $38 billion. The fine, of course, would not be paid by the individual executives who committed the crime; they’ll be punished with bonuses pegged to quarterly stock performance.
Apple allegedly totally blocks apps from telling their users that there is a world beyond the confines of Apple. A company spokesperson said Apple has made changes in its protection racket to comply with the new European law, but in a shocking turn of events, that spokesperson may have been paid by Apple to say those things, casting their veracity in grave doubt.
Apple’s criminal rampage has so far not received hyperbolic media coverage as its executives have yet to be caught on camera running roughshod over small software companies. In other crime news, the Justice Department is suing Apple for its allegedly illegal smartphone monopoly, and developers are suing to stop Apple from taking 27% of app sales that go through third-party payment systems, which is a vig1 rate explicitly forbidden in The Bible.
Crime Watch
PROTESTS New York City prosecutors on Thursday dropped most of the charges against 46 Columbia University protesters and 22 City College protesters due to lack of evidence.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said there was not enough video evidence to charge most of them. It’s almost as if Bragg doesn’t think juries will take the word of the cops! Hell, it’s not like lack of video kept Bragg from nailing Donald Trump.
Another factor in the lack of evidence: many of those who were caught on camera were wearing masks. See? Masks do help!
Also still lacking evidence this morning, New York Mayor Eric Adams’s lie that the protests were due to outside agitators, which, even if true, so the fuck what? Where the fuck else are agitators gonna agitate if not outside?
Campaign Watch
BOWMAN The Squad showed up this weekend to try to save one of their own, who may this week become the first of their own to go down. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was accompanied on Saturday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), but his opponent has been accompanied by googol-tons of money.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer is challenging Bowman in Thursday’s Democratic primary. It’s the most expensive primary in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has spent $14 million to oust Bowman in this cycle. That’s because Bowman has voted to arm Hamas criticized the Israeli government for killing 38,000 people.
Bowman was 17 points behind Latimer in the one poll we’ve got, but with no big races further up the ballot to bring out voters, Bowman’s allies say Thursday won’t come down to popularity, but turnout. As Bowman pointed out, he was trailing by almost 15 points prior to his election in 2020.
“[O]ur issues are popular,” said Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell. “Even at a spending disadvantage, we can win.”
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids. You got this.
Vigorish: Excessive, usurious, typically criminal interest rates. Like banks charge in the absence of heavy-handed, overweening regulation by unelected government bureaucrats.
Sent a one time donation from PayPal, a German account so you might spot it although it is in my husband's name rather than mine. Donation-wise, that's all I can manage right now but I do hope you can go on with your news round-up and analyses. You were the first to bring Project 2025 into focus for me. Not that I like having the shit scared out of me but I live abroad and rely on a variety of web-based news sites to keep up with U.S. news. Thanks.
Hell, evey corporation is a criminal racket. Why we continue, by we I mean us little people, to tolerate their existence is beyond me. We need protections from them as consumers and we need protections from them as employees. Sounds like a lose/lose for us🫤