MAGA

The general attitude among Texas Republicans toward the impeachment report prepared against Attorney General Ken Paxton is that they didn’t just already know some of it — they knew all of it. Paxton is the most Trumpian figure in statewide politics in Texas. He is widely known for his ethics problems and all manner of lawsuits and investigations, but he is also a reliable transactional conservative — the sort to ask the conservative base, “is this the thing you want? Then I’ll do it, with gusto.” But his current travails, where he faces the real risk of impeachment for a litany of breaches, deceptions and inappropriate donations, are actually part of a broader, long-simmering war between Texas donor bases whose priorities often clash in Austin.

Why Feinstein’s intransigence will worry the White House I’m not quitting! Dianne Feinstein was channeling her inner Jordan Belfort this week when she refused to cave to calls from fellow Democrats to retire. The eighty-nine-year-old senator has been a headache for her party for some time now, with colleagues seemingly convinced that she is no longer mentally capable of executing her duties as senator and hoping for a speedy, low-key and dignified departure. The Democrats’ Feinstein problem looked like it was solved when, in February, she announced her retirement at the end of her term in 2024. But in early March Feinstein announced she had contracted shingles. Her staff said she’d only be away from the Senate for a few weeks.

Is this the best video to grace the internet today? Cockburn thinks yes. Check out Abel and Ola Osundairo, the Nigerian brothers who allegedly perpetrated a fake hate crime against Empire actor Jussie "Juicy" Smollett, re-enacting how they carried out the staged attack: https://twitter.com/foxnation/status/1635332394159939593 The clip is from Fox Nation's new documentary on the Jussie Smollett hate hoax crime, Anatomy of a Hoax — and is pure comedy. The Osundairo brothers previously testified that Jussie paid them to stage an anti-black, anti-gay attack against him so that he could gain sympathy and clout on social media. Jussie told police that he was physically attacked by two white men wearing "Make America Great Again" hats who recognized him from the show Empire.

You have to wonder what Liz Cheney feels her relationship to the Republican Party to be today. Having spent years denouncing Donald Trump as a faux Republican and a disgrace to the party, much of the past year implicitly accusing him of treason as vice-chair of the January 6 Committee and the two months since her defeat in the Wyoming primary characterizing half (at least) of the GOP as “very sick,” she is co-sponsoring a bill with Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, to reform the Electoral Count Act in order to “protect the rule of law and ensure that future efforts to attack the integrity of presidential elections can’t succeed.” Representative Lofgren was one of seven impeachment managers in President Trump’s trial for his first impeachment in 2020.

In a primetime television address on September 1, President Joe Biden declared that a large share of the nation’s voters threatened the “very soul of America.” This creepy, unprecedented presidential alert opened the midterm elections, which are now going into their mail-in phase. Waving his arms, the presidential simulacrum barked imprecations at teleprompters. His spooky, dark, red-and-blue tableau with stiff Marines in parade dress was ominous and intentionally staged. To hear a president talk and act this way was one of the political shocks of a lifetime. Make America Great Again Republicans, it was indicated, constituted an enemy within, Merrick Garland’s domestic terrorists writ large. Be very afraid.

Joe Biden’s speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Thursday was one of the most remarkable in living memory. By “remarkable,” I hasten to add that I do not mean “good.” On the contrary, it was a breathtaking act of what the psychoanalysts call “projection,” blaming others for the bad things you do yourself. The speech itself was a malignant act of demagoguery that will have colonels and generalissimos everywhere catching their breath with envy. The neo-totalitarian stage set, replete with red lighting effects and military personal flanking the shouting, gesticulating Biden, was right out of central casting. Next time, perhaps Biden will wear epaulettes along with his signature aviators. The speech was billed as a reflection on the “soul of the nation.

Pittsburgh Fresh off the campaign stage in Arizona, where he stumped for gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Florida governor Ron DeSantis made his way to Pittsburgh for another Turning Point Action rally. This one was supposedly for Doug Mastriano (DeSantis was headed to Ohio for J.D. Vance right afterward), who’s challenging state attorney general Josh Shapiro to replace Democratic governor Tom Wolf — but his address sounded every word a DeSantis 2024 presidential speech. The polls suggest Mastriano needs all the help he can get, as Shapiro — who has already spent $12 million on ads — leads Mastriano — running a “shoestring campaign” — by a healthy margin (one recent poll has Shapiro leading by fifteen points). But DeSantis hardly mentioned Mastriano at all.

"I am 'Ultra MAGA'," House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik defiantly told a reporter Wednesday, "and I'm proud of it." Republicans should be embracing the badass nickname Biden bestowed upon them, just like Trump should accept being crowned the "great MAGA king." The only problem is that Stefanik is not "Ultra MAGA." Far from it. Just one day before Stefanik declared herself part of the cool kids' lunch table, she voted with 149 other tone-deaf Republicans to send an additional $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. Congress had already approved $13.6 billion in emergency spending after the Russian invasion back in March.

Conversations about 2024 usually center on whether former President Donald J. Trump is going to run again. But regardless of whether 45 throws his hat into the ring, there is another important question the left should be pondering: can they recreate the Orange Man magic? It isn’t just the “ultra-MAGA” crowd that needs to worry about whether Trump can cast his spell on the country in 2024. Since the 2020 election, Democrats have been trying to rekindle the hatred their base felt for the braggadocious billionaire and direct it at new targets. Unfortunately it is not as easy as it seems. For example, just last week, the legacy media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) were painting Elon Musk as the Stalin du jour.

Being something of a barfly, Cockburn is used to overhearing tall tales, braggadocious orations, and outlandish accusations, also known as “fightin’ words.” So imagine his astonishment in learning that what he heard over his breakfast stout this afternoon was not the consequence of some riled-up Hill staffer who’d had a few too many, but was really and truly uttered by the (presumably sober) president of the United States. “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history,” President Biden said. “Recent history,” he clarified. “Recent” is a relative term. Perhaps the explosive hate crimes of the Ku Klux Klan that reached their height in the 1920s are not “recent” enough for Biden.