<Former President Donald Trump and his allies are truly gearing up to silence their political critics, attorney and MSNBC commentator Katie Phang warned on Friday evening.

This comes after pro-Trump Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding a criminal investigation of Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan for writing an article about the risk of a Trump dictatorship — which he claimed was a tongue-in-cheek way of protesting the absurdity of Trump facing deprivation of rights charges for the plot to overturn the 2020 election.

"You have a republican senator saying go after Kagan, and [Attorney General] Merrick Garland's not listening to J.D. Vance," said anchor Alicia Menendez. "If it is a Trump-appointed AG, the story is then very different."

"Absolutely," said Phang. "We saw what happened with Bill Barr. We've seen what can happen when you have somebody in a position like the attorney general, and there was a piece recently that just came out within the last 24 hours, talking about people that might be the attorney general. One name prominently: Jeffrey Clark. How do we know that name? ... he's been indicted, right? He's been charged criminally, for helping the insurrection, for helping overturn the results, lawfully, of an election."

"The problem we have here is J.D. Vance, senator, United States senator ... he's a Yale-educated lawyer," said Phang, adding that it's her own alma mater and they don't approve of him. "A Yale-educated lawyer thinking tongue-in-cheek this is funny? This is not funny. Why? Because this is something that Donald Trump said himself he was going to do. He put on Truth Social. He will put you and I in a cell if he wins. He's going to go after his critics. That's a dictator by definition. I'm going to silence my critics, I'm going to put them in jail, I'm going to get them prosecuted. I'm going to take the people that have something negative to say about me, that want to speak truth to power, and I'm going to silence them in ways that they've never seen."

This would not even be new, noted Phang.

"What about people that were anti-Trump during the Trump administration?" she said. "They had the same thing happen to them. This is truly that moment ... if someone shows who they are, believe them. I don't know why people are so casual about this. I don't know why people poo-pooh it when we cover it. I don't know why people don't care more, because they need to. This is very serious. The fact that J.D. Vance is now echoing and parroting what Donald Trump says, should make all of us concerned.">

<Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., continues to draw the ire of his Republican colleagues in the House weeks after he led the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from the speakership, and some of his detractors have privately floating expelling him from Congress.

Several Republican House members, many of whom are still angry at Gaetz for his antics that impeded McCarthy and the majority of the conference from passing legislation, have begun to discuss Gaetz’s ongoing investigation by the House Ethics Committee in the wake of the expulsion of embattled former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y.

Leading up to Santos’ expulsion, multiple opponents of his removal publicly voiced their concerns about expelling a member who had not been convicted of a crime, which would overturn the precedent set by Congress in modern times.

One of those members was Gaetz himself, who openly defended Santos on the House floor.

“I rise not to defend George Santos whoever he is, but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter,” Gaetz said last week.

One House Republican, who spoke to USA TODAY on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about conversations between their colleagues, said GOP members were well aware of the future consequences of expelling Santos.

“There were a number of people who voted to expel Santos with the express intent of thinking through the precedent there on what happens next,” the member said. “There was a lot of forethought about the precedent and what would happen when a report on Gaetz comes out.”

Gaetz led the handful of Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy from the top job in the House earlier this year. After the lawmakers voted with Democrats to boot McCarthy, it led to weeks of infighting in the fractured Republican conference to select another leader. Though lawmakers eventually rallied around now-Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., it used up weeks of time as lawmakers tried to reach a temporary agreement to avoid a government shutdown.

GOP lawmakers, the Republican said, are much more “excited” to expel Gaetz than Santos if the House Ethics Committee releases a report that is just as damning for Gaetz as it was for the Long Island Republican.

The House Ethics Committee is investigating various allegations against Gaetz, including accusations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and misuse of campaign funds. The committee has reached out to at least one witness in its investigation in a sign the panel is turning to Gaetz after concluding its investigation into Santos, CNN reported. The Justice Department investigated Gaetz over sex trafficking allegations but decided not to pursue charges against him in February....>

<....The House Ethics Committee, a bipartisan panel evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, has been criticized for being slow-moving and having limited options for punishment if it finds wrongdoing.

However, after Santos' expulsion following the committee's scathing report showing substantial evidence he broke federal law members had renewed hopes it could act swiftly and promptly to address congressional wrongdoing.

“One of the complaints that you often hear is that things often go to the ethics committee and it takes an extended period of time,” Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., chair of the committee, said last week. “I think that’s unfair for members of Congress and for members of this body.”

“It’s important that the ethics committee do their work, that they return their reports in a timely fashion,” so members could face the proper repercussions, Guest said.

Another House Republican who spoke to USA TODAY on the condition of anonymity to speak about the conference’s attitude towards Gaetz, said members are waiting for any ethics report on Gaetz to be released before publicly calling for his ouster.

“If there’s anything in there that’s bad, I can guarantee people will have their fangs out. He is hated in our conference,” the House Republican said. “If he comes back as guilty in this ethics thing, I think he’s in trouble.”

In a recent closed-door conference meeting, the Republican recalled, Gaetz stood up to speak but was yelled at by members “to sit down and shut up,” reflecting the animosity GOP lawmakers still harbor for Gaetz.

But other Republicans are raising concerns their peers may be weaponizing the ethics committee against members with whom they may just have political disagreements.

Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, a member of the House Ethics Committee who led the investigation into Santos, declined to comment about the investigation into Gaetz but told USA TODAY that “every case is independent of one another” and cautioned against linking the inquiries into the two lawmakers.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who has openly criticized Gaetz over his politics, also warned against using the committee as a “political weapon or a bludgeon against somebody just because you don’t like them.”

Other GOP members are trying to strike a middle ground between immediately pushing for Gaetz’s ouster to avoid predetermining judgment and leaving the door open to expelling Gaetz if the ethics committee comes out with damning findings.

Two other House Republicans said lawmakers would take a serious and thorough look at the committee’s report on Gaetz when it is released and make their determination of what they consider a proper punishment then.

When asked by USA TODAY about his thoughts on members’ call to expel him over his ousting of McCarthy, Gaetz, who has taken the vitriol his colleagues have thrown at him in stride, smiled: “Which members?”>

Brian would win the next round for 3.5/4 but lose in the last to Jim Rizzitano, leaving him out of a first-place tie:

<[Event "32nd New Hampshire Open"] [Site "Manchester NH"]
[Date "1982.07.31"]
[EventDate "1982"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Warnock, Brian"]
[ECO "A95"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "New England Masters"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1988.05.29"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "6"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Bauer, Richard N"]
[Black "Gurevich, Ilya"]
[ECO "A72"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Former President Donald Trump on Thursday sought to stop all proceedings in his D.C. election subversion case after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected his presidential immunity claim.

Trump’s lawyers in a filing argued that Chutkan no longer has any power over the case while he appeals her ruling, a process that could take weeks or months, according to Politico. Trump’s lawyers argue that Chutkan must delay all deadlines because the former president is entitled to an “automatic stay.”

“The filing of President Trump’s notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro wrote. “Therefore, a stay of all further proceedings is mandatory and automatic.”

Trump’s lawyers also indicated that they plan to ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to grant a stay if Chutkan does not do so. Unless Chutkan rules otherwise, the lawyers wrote, they plan to ignore all upcoming pretrial deadlines in the case.

The Trump filing says that special counsel Jack Smith’s team has acknowledged that Trump can’t be forced to go to trial while the appeal is pending but plans to oppose the stay on proceedings such as pretrial motions, hearings and trial planning, according to Politico.

Trump’s lawyers rejected the special counsel’s argument, writing that Trump is entitled to avoid “the burdens of litigation” while his appeal is pending.

“Concerns regarding judicial resources and costs from continued litigation during the pendency of the appeal — including financial, reputational, and political costs to President Trump and this country — are significant,” Blanche and Lauro wrote.

Chutkan on Thursday ordered Smith’s team to file their response by Sunday.

Trump’s “goal is clear: prevent this case from making it to trial before the election,” tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss.

“Trump knows his only way out is making sure the trials never happen,” agreed former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained on Thursday that it is "not just an appeal to the D.C. Circuit, but potentially an appeal to the Supreme Court."

"So when you talk about running out the clock, it's certainly possible that we could get through this appellate process and give Judge Chutkan time before the 2024 election to try this case," she said. "But Donald Trump is going to try every play in the book, both to stay the case pending appeal, and then to delegate that appeal and not expedite it so that he doesn't have to be tried before November, in the hopes that by January he can stop this case dead in its tracks."

Chutkan last week rejected Trump’s presidential immunity argument, writing that the office of the president "does not confer a lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass."

"Former Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability," Chutkan wrote. "Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office."

Chutkan also rejected Trump’s claims that the indictment violates his free speech rights, writing that "it is well established that the First Amendment does not protect speech that is used as an instrument of a crime."

"Defendant is not being prosecuted simply for making false statements ... but rather for knowingly making false statements in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy and obstructing the electoral process," she wrote.

Former federal prosecutor Denis Aftergut wrote on Monday that Chutkan’s opinion is “meticulously crafted with the Supreme Court in mind.”

“The decision deploys every methodology of constitutional interpretation, including textualism, each variety of so-called originalism, attention to constitutional structure and underlying premises, functional considerations, and history,” he wrote in Slate op-ed. “All point ineluctably to her conclusion.”>

<[Event "Boston Met League"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1985.03.08"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Mataga, Peter"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<....perfidious musta been in a hurry again - he blundered again before Moussard did:

<Dec-07-23 perfidious: The kind of mistake that could well haunt Moussard for a long while; 31.Rxf7 was far stronger.>

Nothing wrong with 31.Bxf7+ as actually played. White had a win with some effort, but no mate after exchanges.

Notes by Stockfish give the correct follow up to 31.Bxf7+: 32.f4 Qg4 33.Rb8+ Rf8 34.Qd5+ Kh7 35.Rxf8 Qe2+ 36.Kh3 +- +10.61 (37 ply)....>

<[Event "US Amateur Team East"] [Site "Somerset NJ"]
[Date "1985.02.17"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Oberholzer, Neal"]
[ECO "E84"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 0-0 6.Be3 Nc6 7.Qd2 a6 8.Nge2 Rb8 9.Nc1 Bd7 10.Nb3 Qe8 11.Be2 e5 12.0-0 Nh5 13.Nd5 Qd8 14.Rad1 f5 15.dxe5 Nxe5 16.Bg5 Bf6 17.Nxf6+ Nxf6 18.exf5 Bxf5 19.c5 Nf7 20.Bc4 Kg7 21.Bxf7 Rxf7 22.cxd6 Qxd6 23.Qxd6 cxd6 24.Rxd6 Re8 25.Nd4 h6 26.Nxf5+ gxf5 27.Bd2 Ng8 28.Bc3+ Kf8 29.Rfd1 Rfe7 30.Rd7 Kf7 31.Bb4 1-0>

New Jersey must be another of those Vermont counties that I have visited; after all, the narrative, according to <fredmentiroso>, is that I was afear'd of leaving Vermont--even when I lived elsewhere.

<[Event "Harvard Open"]
[Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1988.05.07"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Ivanov, Alexander"]
[Black "Shipman, Joseph L"]
[ECO "C64"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.c3 f5 5.d4 fxe4 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.Nxe5 Bd6 8.0-0 Qh4 9.Nd2 Nf6 10.f3 0-0 11.fxe4 Bg4 12.Qb3+ Kh8 13.Qxb7 Bxe5 14.dxe5 Nxe4 15.Nf3 Bxf3 16.gxf3 Rad8 17.Qxc7 Rd3 18.e6 Rdxf3 19.Bf4 R3xf4 20.Rxf4 Qg5+ 21.Kh1 Qxf4 22.Qxf4 Rxf4 23.e7 Nf6 24.Re1 Ne8 25.Re6 Rf6 26.Re4 Rf7 27.Re6 Kg8 28.Rxc6 Rxe7 29.Ra6 Kf7 30.b4 Nf6 31.c4 Ne4 32.c5 Nf2+ 33.Kg2 Nd3 34.a3 Rc7 35.Rd6 Ne5 36.Kg3 Nc4 37.Rd3 Ne5 38.Rc3 Ke7 39.b5 Kd7 40.a4 g6 41.Kf4 Rxc5 42.Rxc5 Nd3+ 43.Kg5 Nxc5 44.a5 Nb3 45.Kh6 Nxa5 46.Kxh7 Ke6 47.Kxg6 Nb7 48.h4 Nd6 49.h5 Nxb5 0-1>

For that most faithful follower: you want a source for this, ask another admin. It is not being listed here.

<[Event "Cambridge Chess Classic"] [Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.05"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Kelleher, William"]
[ECO "D48"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "US Amateur Team East"] [Site "Somerset NJ"]
[Date "1985.02.18"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "5.16"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Thomas Jr, Leonard"]
[ECO "D48"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Cambridge Chess Classic"] [Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.05"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "3.2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Belopolsky, Boris"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "E15"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Met League Playoff"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1988.04.22"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Turnbull, Murray"]
[Black "Cherniack, Alex"]
[ECO "C02"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Cambridge Chess Classic"] [Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.05"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "4"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Gurevich, Ilya"]
[ECO "E84"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Cambridge Chess Classic"] [Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.05"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "5"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Fang, Joseph"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Boylston CC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.17"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "7"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Chase, Christopher"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "A07"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "US Amateur Team East"] [Site "Somerset NJ"]
[Date "1985.02.16"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "1.48"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Crawford, Clayton"]
[ECO "A56"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.Nc3 a6 6.a3 0-0 7.Be2 b6 8.0-0 Bb7 9.d5 exd5 10.cxd5 d6 11.a4 Nbd7 12.e4 Ng4 13.Nd2 Nge5 14.f4 Ng6 15.Nc4 f6 16.Bg4 Bc8 17.g3 Rb8 18.Be6+ Kh8 19.e5 fxe5 20.f5 b5 21.axb5 axb5 22.Na5 c4 23.fxg6 Rxf1+ 24.Qxf1 Nf8 25.Nc6 Qb6+ 26.Qf2 Qxf2+ 27.Kxf2 Bxe6 28.Nxb8 1-0>

<A Christian minister has accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of doing the work of the devil by “creating division through fear.”

In a scathing op-ed for Salon, Nathaniel Manderson said evangelical Christians have long “pointed to the devil outside in the world” but that “the devil is the one doing the pointing.”

Mike Johnson says God will punish “depraved” U.S. because more teens identify as LGBTQ+ “God is mocked openly in the public square,” he said this past Sunday.

Before turning to Johnson specifically, Manderson expounds on what he sees as the overall evil of the evangelical viewpoint. He also establishes his wholehearted belief (and fear of) the devil, while at the same time acknowledging that “it’s embarrassing” and that “I understand, intellectually, how stupid this fear is.”

Manderson said he sees the devil “much more at home within the evangelical movement than in most liberal causes,” despite what Christian extremists would have their followers believe. “It is well understood in Christian history that the best place to disrupt goodness is through the church itself,” he wrote. “Consider the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the history of American slavery, the attempted genocide against Native Americans and the oppression of women. All these evils are or were firmly backed by biblical theology — at least, as many Christians understand it — and, in my opinion, are all fully endorsed by the devil himself.”

“This is now true of the evangelical political movement, which I believe is led by the devil and his followers.”

He explained that Johnson is advancing the “evangelical agenda,” which involves supporting Donald Trump and “ignoring the needs of the poor, the sick and immigrants from foreign lands.”

Manderson emphasized his belief that progressive causes are really not of concern to the devil: “If the devil is real I am pretty sure he doesn’t care about same-sex marriage, taxes on the wealthy, building a wall along the Mexican border, denying health insurance to poor and working-class people or even abortion. The devil isn’t about issues. He wants to control and mislead people and get them to do evil things.”

And in this case, Manderson believes the devil is controlling and misleading Johnson and the evangelicals. He even says Trump himself “should be enough evidence the devil is real.” He added that “people who loudly claim to be pure and good,” people like Johnson, are more likely to be evil.

“Jesus gave his sternest warnings against the religious hypocrites of his day — those who misuse the word of God to oppress or subjugate people and restrict their rights,” he continued. “Jesus knew, as we must know too, that the real evil, the genuine devil, is often found in the pulpit. The devil has many followers. He sells many books. He runs for president. He misleads God’s people.”

Johnson, who once worked for the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, has previously said that same-sex marriage will lead to “chaos and sexual anarchy” and “place our entire democratic system in jeopardy by eroding its foundation.”

He claimed legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to “pedophiles” seeking legal protections for having sex with kids and people trying to marry their pets. He has also said, “Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural… ultimately harmful and costly for everyone.”

More recently, as a member of Congress, Johnson introduced a federal version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, falsely accused President Joe Biden of breaking federal law by displaying the Progress Pride flag outside the White House, and claimed that parents do not have the right to provide their children with access to gender-affirming healthcare.

Johnson still sits on the board of a conservative Christian publishing company that says MPOX is the “appropriate penalty” for being gay. His wife, Kelly, runs a Christian counseling service that compared LGBTQ+ identities to bestiality on its website. In an October 3 call with the World Prayer Network, Johnson said that America is “dark and depraved” because there are too many LGBTQ+ people.>

<Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida needs to find a way to quickly and quietly get out of the Disney quagmire he created by undoing the old Reedy Creek district that Disney controlled and replacing it with the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District that the governor controls. Recent accusations of a sexual nature involving one of his appointees, Bridget Ziegler, and her husband, Florida GOP chair Chris Ziegler, are causing DeSantis some embarrassment. But as bad as Ziegler’s troubles may be, they are just the most recent in a long list of problems DeSantis and the board have faced in trying to challenge the way Disney does business in Florida.

By now most people following either the Walt Disney Company or DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate, know about the kerfuffle playing out in Central Florida. The fight centers around how much control Disney has over its resort, Walt Disney World. In 2022, then-Chairman of Disney Bob Chapek, feeling pressure from Disney employees, came out against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, or what critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. In what some saw as retaliation, DeSantis subsequently convinced the state legislature to undo the special Reedy Creek district that Disney World occupied.

Reedy Creek — more properly, the Reedy Creek Improvement District — was a neat trick that the Walt Disney Company negotiated in 1966 to gain complete political control over the area where Disney World sits. Not exactly a “great moment in democracy,” Disney was allowed to run a government that oversaw zoning, fire and police, and other government functions in the area where Disney World is located. The company could control who could run for and sit on the district’s oversight board.

This arrangement served Disney well, and the huge tax revenues that Disney brings to Florida — over $1 billion in 2022 — made it easier for the state of Florida to accept this little bit of political trickery. But if we’re being honest here, Disney’s Reedy Creek district was a classic example of corporate political overreach.

So, DeSantis’s decision to dismantle the district and replace it with one state-controlled was met with some ambivalence. Sure, Disney had too much political power over its own affairs, but the move also felt like a clear case of retaliation against a company just because it had disagreed with the governor.

We are now about a year out from the start of all of this and almost nothing has gone well for DeSantis or the state of Florida. The Florida legislature quickly passed a bill terminating all agreements similar to the Reedy Creek district that had been approved before 1968.

Conveniently, Reedy Creek was the only one that met this date criteria [sic]. Disney did try to outmaneuver the new law by setting up a long-term (very long-term) agreement that the old board approved of as it left, and that the new board had little power to change. A series of still-in-process lawsuits between Florida and Disney followed....>

<....The new board, which was surprised to find a recently passed comprehensive agreement blocking most of their ability to govern the district, was appointed by DeSantis under the new law. DeSantis made appointments to the oversight board that appear to be political. Looking at the five-member board, some of the new members evidently were chosen either as part of political back-scratching by DeSantis or as a thumb in the eye at Disney. All five of the appointees have political connections to DeSantis.

The first problematic board member was Michael Sasso, who resigned from the board just four months into his term. Sasso never explained why he resigned, but DeSantis appointed Sasso’s wife, Meredith Sasso, to the Florida Supreme Court just before the resignation. The Sassos and DeSantis have a long history of traveling in the same circles. Having the chair abruptly resign four months in portended the trouble ahead.

Other board members have generally kept a lower profile, although none seemed to have any previous experience in working with a multibillion-dollar resort. Ron Peri runs The Gathering, a Christian ministry aimed solely at men. Martin Garcia, now the board chair, was a large donor to the DeSantis campaign.

This brings us to the most recent troubles, the very public flameout of board member Bridget Ziegler. On Dec. 6, Ziegler missed a meeting of the board. Ziegler is the veritable thumb in Disney’s eye. She helped found Moms for Liberty, the organization that was instrumental in getting the Parental Rights in Education Act through the Florida legislature, the very “Don’t Say Gay” law that Disney objected to in the first place. Subtle, DeSantis is not.

Missing a meeting is typically not a huge deal, but Ziegler’s absence happened after a woman accused Ziegler’s husband of rape, which he has denied; Ziegler has acknowledged that the woman alleging misconduct was once involved with Ziegler and her husband in an affair. Generally, this unfolding scandal is not a great look for DeSantis if he is trying to embarrass Disney.

So, to summarize the short — but by no means exhaustive — details: Since DeSantis decided to take on Disney, the largest private employer in Florida, he has incurred several lawsuits from Disney; the state has itself started several lawsuits against Disney; the state has been out-maneuvered by Disney despite undoing Disney’s political advantage in the district; the new board had one chair resign for unknown reasons, and a second board member is now swept up in a tawdry, unfolding scandal. I have not even mentioned the problems with employees, including firefighters and law enforcement, in the district, the potential for Florida taxpayers to end up paying for the old district’s debt, or other issues involving the new board.

It is clear that, at this point, DeSantis needs to move on. Whatever bounce he might have gotten in public opinion polls from taking on a “woke” Disney has evaporated and the more time that passes, the worse the situation seems to get.>

<For months, Democrats hounded Sen. Tommy Tuberville to drop his blanket hold on hundreds of senior military promotions over the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy. In November, Tuberville’s fellow Republicans joined in.

The Alabama Republican wouldn’t budge. Then a member of his own party threatened to whip votes against him.

During a closed-door Senate Republican lunch on Nov. 28, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) gave a fiery 10-minute speech, the latest in a series of attempts to get Tuberville to relent. In remarks that haven’t been previously reported, Sullivan announced that he had exhausted all of his options and that it was time to join Democrats in a vote to undo the blanket holds.

Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, leaned on his status as the Senate’s only serving military officer. He warned that an exodus of military officers was coming if the nominees weren’t confirmed before the end of the year. If that happened, they would have to be renominated.

“One [commanding officer] I know personally told me: ‘I’m apolitical but one group of elected officials always had our backs — Republican senators. Now you guys hate us — the world has been turned upside down,’” Sullivan said, according to remarks obtained by POLITICO.

At that point, it had been more than seven months without a breakthrough despite the opposition of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senior Republicans to Tuberville’s hardball tactics. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was playing hardball too, refusing to hold individual votes on nominees — until he was forced to — and repeatedly arguing this was a problem for Republicans to fix.

The standoff, which centered on a Defense Department policy to reimburse and provide leave for service members who need to travel to receive abortions, largely ended this week when Tuberville abandoned most of his holds and allowed their immediate confirmations.

This account is based on more than a dozen interviews with senators and aides closely involved in or tracking the dispute.

While Sullivan was among the most visible and forceful of his GOP colleagues, a bloc of Republican senators — including several military veterans — had been actively plotting a way to end the blockade.

Senate Republicans were caught between Tuberville’s hold and a resolution by Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to undo it. The resolution would have allowed all but a few of the stalled military promotions — which Tuberville was holding up in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy — to be approved in one big bloc. Reed’s measure would need nine or 10 Republicans.

At the Nov. 28 meeting, Sullivan announced he’d back the Democratic-led resolution, urging other Republican colleagues to join him.

“Like being pro-life, this is a core principle that distinguishes Republicans from Democrats,” he told senators. “For that reason, if we’re forced to take this vote on the Reed [resolution], a number of us will feel compelled to support it. My hope is that instead of a vote of nine or 10 of us, that this could be a vote of 30 or 40.”

Tuberville, known throughout his conference as “Coach,” after his college football days, said in response at the conference meeting: “Listen, everyone. I got y’all into this mess. I’m gonna get you out.”

After the meeting, he gave the first public hints that he might relent. Then on Tuesday, he announced he was backing off his hold of nominees for three-star posts and below — the solution Sullivan proposed to him.

Tuberville told reporters he decided to back down when he saw he had no recourse through the annual defense authorization bill, which was in negotiations, and that Democrats had enough Republican votes to pass the Reed resolution.

Sullivan hadn’t acted alone. Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and retired National Guard officer who served in Iraq, was among the senators pressing him privately to find an off-ramp.

“Dan and I had worked with Coach for a very long time — months and months — and we were just racking our brains trying to offer him different off-ramps,” Ernst said in an interview. “We're all very pro-life. But we just wanted for these [nominations] to move.”

Ernst, who said there was no bad blood between her and Tuberville after the dispute, said she spoke up during weekly GOP lunches “many times” over many months on the holds.

This fall, Sullivan raised the matter at every Republican lunch, to a degree some colleagues, Sullivan admits, thought it was grating or even counterproductive. While he says he never enjoyed putting a colleague on the spot, pointing to the impact on readiness amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war against Hamas had to be done — and it was working, he argues....>

<....“I think in the fall, when we started to bring it up in the conference, a lot, starting in October, it did raise the issue with a number of senators who were like, ‘whoa,’” Sullivan said in an interview after the hold was lifted. “It was the combo of readiness and the very dangerous world that we're in right now.”

Plus, there was the role played by Reed and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who crafted the resolution allowing senators to sidestep the regular process, giving Sullivan and others a stick if Tuberville didn’t take their carrot.

Reed, an Army veteran himself, said the dam began to break when five Republicans confronted Tuberville on the Senate floor. All but Utah Sen. Mitt Romney are veterans: Ernst, Sullivan, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who served in the Air Force as a lawyer, and Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, who served as a Marine officer.

Tuberville objected to confirmation and blocked each one of them. The pattern repeated itself several weeks later when the Alabama Republican and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) objected into the wee hours of the morning to again prevent the confirmation of promotions.

“I think Sen. Sullivan did a remarkable job of reminding everyone in the [Republican] caucus of their duties to military personnel,” Reed said in an interview. “They're men and women who risk their lives constantly and they’re not just political chits.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who was working to gather Republican supporters for Reed’s resolution, likewise credited that group. Early on, Kelly held several private conversations with Tuberville to explain, from Kelly’s perspective as a 25-year Navy veteran, the damage Tuberville was doing to national security and to the careers and families of service members.

“And that didn't work,” Kelly said in an interview. “The thing that obviously worked was the political pressure from his own colleagues, just their strategy of putting this pressure on him is what got it done.”

Tuberville talked about that pressure in Senate floor remarks on Wednesday, and indicated repeatedly this week that he had no regrets about his gambit.

“Unfortunately, last month, even some of my Republican colleagues attacked me — and attacked me personally — here on this floor," he said. "They are currently in the military, and they were standing up for their colleagues, which is fine. But I can stand and we all can stand for the life of the unborn and for our military. You can do both.”

Multiple lawmakers described the months of fierce and emotional internal GOP discussions before the breakthrough, characterizing the dispute as one over strategy rather than disagreement over opposition to the Pentagon abortion policy.

However, senators are wary as to whether Tuberville has set a troubling precedent for other members to hold up nominations without a credible path toward success amid their policy disagreements with any administration.

“There was no endgame. There's no strategy,” Romney said in an interview. “It was not a plan that thought about how to actually succeed.”>

Ya died alone on that hill, Tommy Tubesteak--see ya, hate ta be ya!!

<Former President Trump's allies in Congress are pushing a series of bills that reflect part of his 2025 agenda, including plans to crack down on mask mandates, affirmative action and who can become a U.S. citizen.

The proposals also reflect Trump's influence on Congress' GOP caucus — despite losing the 2020 election, his not-so-stellar record endorsing other Republicans, and the prospect of facing four felony trials as he runs for president next year.

Trump's been endorsed by at least 83 House Republicans and 16 GOP senators for the 2024 election, when Republicans will try to take over the Senate while Democrats will seek to regain control of the House.

Zoom in: Sen. J.D. Vance's (R-Ohio), one of Trump's most loyal backers in Congress, introduced a bill over the summer to bar the Department of Transportation from enforcing mask mandates, a popular cause in Trumpworld.

The bill, an echo of conservative criticisms of pandemic-era restrictions, passed the Senate with votes from 10 Democrats. Trump has promised to "use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school, college, airline or public transportation system" imposing a mask or vaccine mandate.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Vance this week introduced a bill to create a federal office to investigate any claims of colleges using affirmative action in admissions — essentially an agency to police a Supreme Court ruling this year that Trump and other Republicans cheered.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), another Trump loyalist, has joined Vance in proposing bills that would make gender-affirming care for minors a felony, another priority on the far right's social agenda.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), meanwhile, introduced legislation to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants after Trump vowed to sign an executive order to do the same on his first day back in office day.

Vance also introduced a bill to eliminate EV subsidies shortly after Trump railed against them at an auto plant in Detroit.

The intrigue: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Greene have put forward a pair of legally dubious bills that would aim to "expunge" Trump's two impeachments — an idea Trump talks about frequently and would favor, people familiar with his thinking tell Axios.

Legal analysts largely agree, though, that Congress has no such authority.

Between the lines: One of the biggest issues Trump had as president was a lack of ideological allies in the Senate even though it was controlled by the GOP, a person close to Trump's campaign tells Axios.

If Trump were to win a second term, he'd hope for another GOP majority in the Senate and count on Vance and a few other like-minded Republicans senators such as Eric Schmitt (Missouri), Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) and Roger Marshall (Kansas) to be "bulldogs" for his policies, the source close to the campaign tells Axios.

In the House, Trump enjoys a close relationship with new Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). During Trump's first impeachment hearings, Johnson, then a member of the House Judiciary Committee, defended the president on TV.

Reality check: In today's Democrat-controlled Senate — and as long as both chambers of Congress aren't under total GOP control — the vast majority of the legislation proposed by Trump allies has no chance becoming law.>

For the record, it is well known that perfidious is the full-fledged pervert and proud of it as so many of his lurid posts repeatedly show.>

Yet you have nothing to say when your bosom buddy from <mASSachusetts> posts of homoerotic imagery.

Don't like to hear the truth? Don't read my posts.