<Fulton county prosecutors in Georgia have approached several defendants about plea agreements in the sprawling criminal racketeering case dealing with Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Tuesday.

Plea agreements are common in such cases accusing defendants of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act, where prosecutors will often try and get individuals at the lower level of a criminal enterprise to “flip” and assist the prosecution in exchange for a lighter sentence or immunity. The district attorney’s office has already reached immunity plea agreements with at least half of the fake set of electors in Georgia.

Michael Roman, the head of election day operations for the Trump campaign in 2020, rejected a plea agreement, a person involved in his defense told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. One of his lawyers told the paper that his legal team had sought to negotiate for dismissal of the charges against him in exchange for truthful testimony. An attorney for Roman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several people who were involved in the breach of Coffee county election equipment as well as a scheme to harass the election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman have also been approached, the paper reported. The Fulton county district attorney’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who was involved in efforts to breach voting equipment in Coffee county, became the first of the 19 defendants to plead guilty last week. He received five years of probation, a $5,000 fine and 200 hours community service, and he agreed to write a letter of apology after pleading guilty to five counts of intentional interference of performance of election duties, a misdemeanor. Before pleading guilty, he gave a recorded statement to prosecutors, which they are likely to use as they make a criminal case against Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s attorneys.

Trump and 18 of his associates were charged earlier this year on 41 counts of various crimes in Georgia, including racketeering and forgery, for their efforts to overturn the election. Two of the defendants, Powell and Ken Chesebro, have successfully severed their cases from the others and will be tried together soon after requesting a swift timetable. Jury selection is expected to begin in that case on 20 October.>

<Rep. Kevin McCarthy had support from 208 members of his conference to remain as House speaker. But it took only eight dissenters in his party to boot him from the job.

A handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to make history as McCarthy became the first speaker in U.S. history to be voted out of the position by his colleagues.

Most of the eight have never been members of the McCarthy fan club. They chafed at the deal McCarthy made with President Joe Biden to avoid a federal default. They voted against the bill Congress passed Saturday to keep the federal government operating at current funding levels through mid-November.

Most are also fiscal hardliners who opposed McCarthy's candidacy for speaker early on. But, McCarthy, soon after announcing he would not seek to run again for the speaker's job, countered that he did not view the eight as conservatives.

“They don't get to say they're conservative because they're angry and they're chaotic,” McCarthy said. “That's not the party I belong to. The party of Reagan was if you believed in your principles, that you could govern in a conservative way. They are not conservative and they do not have the right to have the title.”

While each has their reasons, the eight lawmakers generally voiced frustration with how McCarthy has moved priority legislation through the chamber, namely spending bills. Some have also described him as untrustworthy and failing to living up to various agreements he made to become speaker back in January, something he hotly disputed Tuesday when he announced he would not seek the post again.

A look at the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy from office, against the overwhelming wishes of their colleagues.

REP. ANDY BIGGS
Biggs is serving his fourth term in the House representing a strongly Republican-leaning district in Arizona. He is a former chairman of the hardline House Freedom Caucus. He threw his hat into the ring in the race to become speaker back in January, but won only 10 votes in the first of 15 rounds of voting.

Biggs serves on two of the committees leading up the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden and has long called for his impeachment. He also has been a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and describes him as the leader of the Republican Party.

Biggs complained Tuesday that lawmakers were promised the House would pass 12 annual funding bills in a timely manner, but that wasn't accomplished before the end of the fiscal year, requiring a stopgap spending bill to avoid a shutdown. He said the annual spending bills are critical to cutting spending and getting rid of duplicative programs.

“Why didn't we get this stuff done?” he asked at one point in Tuesday's debate.

"Yes, I think it's time to make a change," Biggs said.

REP. KEN BUCK
Buck is serving his fifth term representing a Colorado district that includes much of the eastern part of the state and some Denver suburbs. He's got a penchant for being a wildcard as a fiscal conservative, but also someone willing to push back against party leaders when he feels like it.

Most recently, Buck has spoken out against McCarthy's launch of an impeachment inquiry into Biden, saying that House Republicans itching for impeachment are relying on flimsy evidence.

He also has pointed to concerns about the process for approving spending and complained about stopgap spending bills like the one McCarthy came up with Saturday to keep the government running.

“We are $33 trillion in debt and on track to hit $50 trillion by 2030," he tweeted after the vote. "We cannot continue to fund the government by continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. That’s why I voted to oust @SpeakerMcCarthy. We must change course to sensible budgeting and save our country.”

REP. TIM BURCHETT
Burchett is serving his third term representing a district in east Tennessee. Burchett served 16 years in Tennessee’s legislature as well as eight years as a mayor before entering Congress.

He said while explaining his vote to oust McCarthy that the House took off the whole month of August despite knowing they needed to get the spending bills done before the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

“At some point, we've just got to say enough is enough, folks,” he said in a Twitter video. “I hate losing Kevin as a friend, but I worry about losing our country.”

REP. ELI CRANE
Crane represents an Arizona district. He is also a former Navy SEAL who served in the military for 13 years. In November, he defeated a Democratic incumbent, Tom O’Halleran, who had held the seat since 2017. He was the lone Republican freshman back in January to come out against McCarthy's bid to become speaker.

“Each time our majority has had the chance to fight for bold, lasting change for the American people, leadership folded and passed measures with more Democrat support than Republican,” Crane tweeted Tuesday....>

<.....REP. MATT GAETZ
Gaetz is serving his fourth term representing a Florida district. He is a close Trump ally who filed the motion to vacate the chair, the procedure used to oust McCarthy, and he led the debate on the House floor for those seeking to pass the motion.

He was also a holdout in January when McCarthy ran to become speaker. The defining moment during that showdown came when Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican ally of McCarthy, angrily confronted Gaetz on the House floor before being pulled back by a colleague.

Gaetz could face political repercussions for his actions, as many Republican lawmakers blame him for this week's chaos and view him as looking out for himself rather than for the good of the party.

“Look, you all know Matt Gaetz. You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending," McCarthy said. “It all was about getting attention from you. I mean we were getting e-mail fundraisers as he's doing it.”

Gaetz said McCarthy didn't follow through on many of the commitments he made to win the speaker's job, and that's what drove him.

“Kevin McCarthy is a feature of the swamp. He has risen to power by collecting special interest money and redistributing that money in exchange for favors,” Gaetz said. “We are breaking the fever now, and we should elect a speaker who’s better.”

REP. BOB GOOD
Good of Virginia won office in 2020 after GOP voters ousted the Republican incumbent, Denver Riggleman, who had angered social conservatives by officiating a gay marriage.

Good said Tuesday that back in January he helped persuade a handful of colleagues to switch their votes to present so that McCarthy could become speaker.

But Good has been harshly critical of the deal to avoid a default and voiced alarm as Republicans prepared to ensure a partial government shutdown did not occur last weekend.

He said that if you're not willing to endure any kind of shutdown to get the changes you seek, “it’s a recipe to lose, it’s a recipe for surrender.”

“We need a speaker who will fight for something, anything, besides just staying or becoming speaker," Good said on the House floor Tuesday.

REP. NANCY MACE
Mace is serving her second term representing a South Carolina district. She graduated from The Citadel, where she was the first female to graduate from its Corps of Cadets. She served as a state representative before coming to Congress.

Mace tweeted her vote to oust McCarthy wasn't about ideology. “This is about trust and keeping your word. This is about making Congress do its job," she said.

McCarthy said he called Mace's chief of staff on Monday saying he didn't understand how he had not kept his word. He noted that he had helped get Mace elected to Congress.

REP. MATT ROSENDALE
Rosendale is serving his second term in the House representing a Montana district. He's a hardliner on fiscal issues who also has voted against U.S. support for Ukraine in repelling Russia's invasion, citing what he said are more pressing security needs along the southern U.S. border.

“Our country is facing $33 trillion of debt. Our border is facing an unprecedented invasion. And instead of being energy dominant, we are now energy reliant. The House of Representatives and the American people deserve a leader who can challenge the status quo and put an end to this ruin," Rosendale said following Tuesday's vote.>

<The right-wing legal world has been salivating in advance of Tuesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments, eager for the conservative supermajority to get a chance to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Gutting the agency’s funding would check two big boxes: (i) kill off an entity that is the brainchild of political enemy Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); and (ii) eliminate an important institution in the post-financial crisis regulatory landscape.

They likely came away from the arguments dissatisfied.

The liberal justices had a field day, engaging in many bruising colloquies with the attorney for the payday lender trade groups, Noel Francisco, the former solicitor general under Donald Trump.

Justice Elena Kagan accused Francisco of making an argument “that has been decisively rejected by history.”

A very congested Justice Sonia Sotomayor lamented: “I’m trying to understand your argument, and I’m at a total loss.”

Francisco found little help from the conservative justices, with only Justice Samuel Alito as his constant defender. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett both sounded skeptical of the legal basis for the attack on the agency.

The CFPB may ultimately be saved due to its challengers’ reliance on the rightward lean of the Court, hoping their ideological brethren will slide complacently into supporting an argument with the structural integrity of a doily. To do otherwise would require some especially awkward pretzeling after this morning’s argument.

Francisco struggled mightily with fielding questions about gaping holes in the argument, which boils down to a thesis that the CFPB is unconstitutionally funded. Rather than getting an annual appropriation from Congress, it gets its funding via requests from the agency’s director to the Federal Reserve (which is, in turn, funded by member bank fees) and is subjected to a cap of 12 percent of Federal Reserve’s 2009 operating expenses with annual adjustments. A Fifth Circuit panel, composed of three Trump appointees, found that the funding stream is unconstitutional and zeroed out the Payday Lending Rule, which the agency had passed in 2017 and began enforcing in 2020.

On Tuesday, Francisco was faced with the task of explaining why that funding structure is unconstitutional, despite the fact that analogous funding mechanisms have persisted since the country’s founding. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar leaned into the historical argument, increasingly framing her arguments in an originalist lens to appeal to the right-wing justices....>

<.....Francisco also had to find some way to explain why it’s unacceptable for the CFPB to function this way, but fine for other, less Elizabeth Warren-y agencies — the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — to get their funding outside the annual appropriations process. Or, as Prelogar put it, his attempt to “gerrymander a rule” to fit the CFPB and nothing else.

Kagan pressed him on the Federal Reserve in particular: “You state a test and then an agency clearly fails under that test, you say ‘no I don’t mean that.’”

She emerged dissatisfied.

“It’s just too important and whatever,” she said dismissively, continuing the pummeling until Alito stepped in with help.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also homed in on the absurdities of the argument, asking why Congress determining that, for the foreseeable future, an agency will get a certain amount of money to spend on general purposes is risking “tyranny.”

Francisco pivoted to a separation of powers argument, saying that the CFPB’s structure imbues the executive with the legislature’s spending power.

“You’re saying a provision of the Constitution is unconstitutional!” Jackson said incredulously.

She dug in further, getting to the heart of not just this case, but the entire swath of cases like it, in which right-wing litigants have been eagerly handing the Supreme Court chances to unravel the regulatory state, with particular fervor since the conservative supermajority was installed.

“How do we avoid the judiciary becoming suddenly a super-legislator, just telling the Congress, agency by agency, whether it’s a thumbs up or thumbs down from our perspective about these things?” she asked.

It’s the part of these arguments that goes unsaid. Litigants like Francisco on Tuesday argue that agencies have overstepped their bounds, that Congress erred in giving them too much power, or that Congress never meant to give them power in the first place. And the happy remedy to this intractable problem, which apparently infects agencies from the CFPB to the EPA to OSHA, is to send the question back to Congress, the people’s branch.

The reality, with a Congress constrained from most major legislative action even during unified party control by the Senate filibuster, is that such decisions empower the Supreme Court to knock down regulation or even whole agencies it doesn’t like.

It’ll get many more opportunities to do so this term — including with a case that would let the Court overturn the agency-empowering Chevron doctrine once and for all, a blow against the administrative state that’s been years in the making.>

<Shortly after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became the first Speaker of the House to be removed by a vote of Congress in U.S. history, some of the more bipartisan members of the GOP caucus turned their anger on Democrats for not giving him the votes to survive — and are threatening to mass resign from a key bipartisan working group in protest, reported CNN's Melanie Zanona.

"Republicans on the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus are considering quitting the group “en masse” after Democrats in the group voted to oust McCarthy, per a GOP member of the group," wrote Zanona on X. "Latest sign of fallout after the historic removal of the speaker."

One Republican Problem Solver, Zanona wrote, complained to her that “Dem PSC members only want problem solvers to work when they are in the majority.”

The Problem Solvers Caucus is a centrist group that focuses on pushing legislation that breaks through gridlock.

According to Zanona, some of the Democratic members of PSC had been "considering" a vote to help McCarthy, but ultimately, zero Democrats cast a vote to save him — possibly driven by the fact that McCarthy and never offered any tangible concessions in return, and even made the rounds on TV blaming Democrats for the standoff over the last few weeks that nearly led to a government shutdown.

McCarthy's ouster comes following protest by far-right Republicans, chiefly Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who accused him of violating some of the promises he made to hardliners as a condition of securing their Speakership vote. What happens next is unclear, with the House unable to do regular business until a new Speaker is seated and Republicans left to decide who to nominate for a new potential round of voting.>

<The judge presiding over former President Donald Trump's New York civil fraud trial shut down Trump's assertion to reporters at the end of the trial's opening day Monday that he had suddenly reversed himself on the statute of limitations. To start Tuesday's proceedings, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron clarified that Trump's comments were not true, according to The Messenger, explaining that his ruling last week ordering the dissolution of several of Trump's businesses found the former president had committed fraud every time he submitted a false statement of financial condition (SFC) to insurers and banks.

Though Trump's defense argued that the relevant conduct is when the loan "closed," Engoron rejected that theory, reiterating his reasoning again in court. "Every use of a [false] statement of financial condition in business starts the statute of limitations running again," Engoron said Tuesday morning, noting that he understands that Trump's attorneys "strongly" disagree with his argument and will likely appeal the ruling.

Trump's Monday remarks stemmed from the judge's exchange with his attorneys following hours of testimony from Donald Bender, a former accountant Trump's businesses had used whose examination largely hinged on documents from 2011 while an appellate court warned that only events from three years later fall within the applicable state of limitations. Later that day, Engoron declared that Bender's testimony must connect to events on or after 2014 in order to be relevant, which prompted the former president's remarks. But Engoron's recent decision finding Trump liable for fraud cited actions after 2014 and found that the relevant issue is when they were "completed," which includes the moments when Trump "still obligated to, and did, annually submit current SFCs to comply with the terms of the loan agreements.">

<A Washington Post profile on Special Counsel Jack Smith walks through his history of work in the courtroom and gives examples of why Donald Trump should be concerned as he prepares to go up against the prosecutor.

It began describing Smith's work inside the Justice Department in the early 2010s reigning in [sic] wayward prosecutors throughout the country.

"You definitely have a corruption problem," he told one at a 2011 legal conference.

So, as eyes turn to Trump's federal trials, Americans are learning more about Smith's style of "psyching out adversaries."

While he may have "lost some high-profile battles," Smith has been undeterred as he took on Senators, a governor – and even a Staten Island clown.

"He’s saddled, fairly or unfairly, with the stigma of not being able to win the big ones. Yet there’s a feeling among his confidants, some of whom reflected on him as long as their names were kept out, that what matters to him isn’t just the final outcome but the message it sends to would-be wrongdoers, that someone is watching," said the report.

The report said that what Smith might see in Trump is more than an everyday criminal who broke the law.

He "sought to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power by overturning the 2020 election results, and who endangered the nation by sloppily hoarding secret papers and other documents that belong in the National Archives or secure government facilities," the piece continued. "He sees a man who knew full well that he was committing those crimes."

A key piece of the Trump case is interpreting his intent. "And intent is a concept Smith has internalized; he has called it his 'battleground.'"

"On that field of combat, Smith is faced with an adversary whose mastery of shaping public opinion and skewering opponents might be unrivaled. This caustic joker with messianic political appeal has labeled Smith a 'rabid wolf,' 'deranged,' a 'psycho,'" the Post said.

The piece goes on to list a number of strange ways that Smith and Trump's paths have already crossed.

Former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) was convicted by Smith for "extortion, bribery, insurance fraud, money laundering, and racketeering." Trump pardoned Renzi on his final day in office.

"The same day Trump was pardoning Renzi, boxes of documents were being removed from the White House at the president’s behest to be sent to Mar-a-Lago," said the Post. "No one knew it at the time, but the stage had just been set for the showdown between Jack Smith and Donald Trump."

In another incident, Smith may have saved Trump from a huge international blunder. The ex-president was hosting Kosovo's President Hashim Thaçi in a summit. Smith has become a specialist in investigating Kosovo war crimes while at the International Criminal Court.

While Thaçi was flying to the U.S., Smith dropped his indictment "on war crimes charges dating back to his time as a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army." Thaçi turned the plane around.

"Smith said the indictment — which normally would have been kept under seal for months — had to be released, because Thaçi was trying to evade justice by secretly working to overturn the law that created the Kosovo war crimes prosecution office," said the report.

Realistically, it saved Trump from a photo-op with a war criminal. Trump has bragged that Thaçi is a "Trump positive person" and his indictment was proof of Smith's long-standing obsession to bring him down.

Trump's logic is that Smith's long history at The Hague prosecuting Kosovo war criminals shows he was lying in wait for Trump to become president and then strike out to get him through a photo-op. Then, years later, he anticipated Trump would try to overthrow the election and he would ultimately be appointed a special counsel.

The piece closed with the cable news obsession with Smith sightings, recalling CNN's "exclusive footage" of Smith buying a Subway sandwich. While the cameras followed his every move from the door to the car, Smith said nothing.>

<Tea Pain
@TeaPainUSA
GOP (Sunday): “Dems are pedophiles!”
GOP (Monday): “Dems are Communists!”

GOP (Tuesday): “Dems are fascists!”

GOP (Today): “Why didn’t Dems help us?”>

<Jeff Tiedrich
@itsJeffTiedrich·2h
"why didn't the Democrats help us" is pretty f..cking hilarious coming from the party that calls Democrats "communist groomers" Jeff Tiedrich

One small snag in all this hullabaloo:

<The recent House GOP infighting that led to a blow up in the removal of Kevin McCarthy's speakership can reportedly be traced to an ally of the ex-president.

Steve Bannon has been orchestrating several aspects from his "cavelike" podcast studio, the New York Times reported Wednesday. Bannon is a former Trump adviser whose associate was recently sentenced to prison time for a "Build the Wall" scheme they worked on together.

The Times says Bannon "has spent years promoting the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump, railing against coronavirus mandates and what he refers to as a 'criminal invasion of the southern border.'"

"His obsession of late was toppling Mr. McCarthy and taking out what he describes as 'uniparty' Republicans who have become indistinguishable from Democrats," it reported.

With Mr. McCarthy’s historic downfall this week, the article states, "his wing of the party has claimed its most prominent trophy."

"Mr. Bannon represents a clear through line from the grievance-driven MAGA base to Congress. And his role in the meltdown that played out this week in the House helps explain why the Republican Party appears to be eating its own. He is a vital part of a feedback loop of red-meat media hits and social media posts, online fund-raising and unfettered preaching to an often angry and fervently right-wing base that rewards disruptions and detests institutions."

The report also describes some of the key players in ousting McCarthy, including Matt Gaetz, taking regular treks to Bannon's studio.

"Representatives Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Matt Gaetz of Florida joined Mr. Bannon on his podcast the morning after voting to oust Kevin McCarthy from his speaker post," according to the Times piece. "In past decades, right-wing rebels on Capitol Hill have encountered trouble getting real traction — shunned by lobbyists and big-money political action committees, excluded from leadership suites in the Capitol and disregarded by Fox News. But with the help of Mr. Bannon, who streams live for four hours every weekday, Mr. Gaetz and others don’t need to rely on any of that.">

<Trumpism is a public health crisis.

In his role as cult leader, Donald Trump's direct threats and incitements of violence, terrorism, and mayhem – which include killing people – have encouraged the MAGA people and other members of the white right to engage in the same behavior. In the most recent high-profile example of right-wing violence and terrorism, last Thursday a Trump MAGA cultist went to a protest in a suburb of Albuquerque against the decision by the local government to reinstall a statue "honoring" a Spanish conquistador, Juan de Oñate. While there, the MAGA cultist attempted to provoke a fight and then pulled out his pistol and shot one of the protesters, who is an environmentalist and member of the Hopi tribe. The MAGA hat-wearing Trumpist reportedly laughed and smirked during his police interview.

On Monday, Trump threatened and raged at the judge presiding over his civil trial in New York for fraud and other financial crimes. Trump also verbally attacked and threatened New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling her a "racist" and "a horror show." James is a Black woman. While in court, Trump scowled like an adult toddler and looked like he was having murderous thoughts of revenge and suffering. Trump's performance was generally pompous and detached from reality, as the ex-president lied and claimed that he was being "persecuted" and is a type of victim-martyr for the MAGA cause. On Tuesday, the judge barred him from making personal attacks on court staff after the former president disparaged a law clerk. In all, Trump's behavior was that of a cult leader and demagogue who is finally facing some type of serious accountability for his criminal behavior.

None of this really matters to Trump's MAGA cultists and other followers. Trump's hold over them remains very strong and appears to be largely immune to any outside intervention. Moreover, Trump's power and control over the MAGA cult endures – despite and even more likely because of his criminal trials and escalating violence and other destructive and dangerous behavior.

To that point, last week New York Times political reporter Jonathan Swan highlighted an attempt by a group of anti-Trump conservatives to stop the ex-president by weakening his support among the MAGA cultists.Their efforts failed; Trump's dark charism and cult-leader power is that great.

A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states.

The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump's support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.

But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, "all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective."

The memo will provide little reassurance to the rest of the field of Mr. Trump's Republican rivals that there is any elusive message out there that can work to deflate his support.

"Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it," Mr. McIntosh states in the "key learnings" section of the memo.

The article continues:

For the polling underpinning its analysis, Win It Back used WPA Intelligence — a firm that also works for the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump's chief rival in the race for the presidential nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

Examples of "failed" ads cited in the memo included attacks on Mr. Trump's "handling of the pandemic, promotion of vaccines, praise of Dr. Fauci, insane government spending, failure to build the wall, recent attacks on pro-life legislation, refusal to fight woke issues, openness to gun control, and many others." (Dr. Anthony S. Fauci led the national response to the Covid pandemic.).....>

<.....The list of failed attacks is notable because it includes many of the arguments that Mr. DeSantis has tried against Mr. Trump. The former president leads Mr. DeSantis by more than 40 points in national polls and by around 30 points in Iowa, where Mr. DeSantis's team believes he has the best shot of defeating Mr. Trump.

Mr. McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman who co-founded the Club for Growth and the Federalist Society, makes it clear in the memo that any anti-Trump messages need to be delivered with kid gloves. That might explain why Mr. DeSantis's super PAC, Never Back Down, has treated Mr. Trump gingerly, even in ads meant to contrast his character and his record unfavorably against Mr. DeSantis's accomplishments.

Swan's reporting reinforces how Trumpism and American neofascism constitute a political, cultural, and moral crisis for the country and world. It is true that tens of millions of Americans correctly view Trump with contempt and understand that is an extreme threat to the country's democracy and society. Unfortunately, tens of millions of other Americans view that same foul and evil behavior by Donald Trump as something admirable, evidence that he is "strong" and a "fighter" who is willing to break the law and undermine democracy to get things done for people like them. And perhaps even more troubling for what it reveals about the health of American society, there are tens of millions of other Americans who are indifferent to Trump's evil and wrongdoing and the existential danger that he and the Republican fascists and MAGA movement represent to the country.

In an attempt to make better sense of the enduring power of the Trump MAGA cult, I asked a range of experts for their insights and reactions to this important new reporting by the New York Times.

Dr. Lance Dodes is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

The recent finding that Trump supporters will rationalize and ignore even sophisticated ads produced by Republicans against Trump — ads showing him saying things that are opposed to the very values of the Republican audience — is strong evidence of the cult-like nature of at least the most committed of his followers. Cults have exactly this characteristic: unquestioning worship of a charismatic leader and inability to hear or consider opposing or even differing views, especially about the leader who must remain godlike. Trump's personal primitive psychology, in which he believes himself to be godlike and has contempt for others as valuable human beings, makes him a perfect candidate to surround himself with a cult. In turn, members vulnerable to joining the cult seek just such a godlike figure in a regressive wish to be protected, cared for, and told how to think. The irony of course is that the leader, Trump in this case, cares only about his grandiosity and nothing at all about them or their welfare.

It's been impossible to draw these regressed followers away from the cult not only because of their wishful belief in their charismatic god, but also because leaving the cult would mean the loss of support and identity from the other cult members who, like Trump himself, would condemn them as evil.

To enable cult members to leave they would have to have a significantly large enough number of others to create a new inclusive, protective group to which they could attach themselves. That might happen if a new charismatic leader arose to lead them away in large enough numbers to feel safe rebelling from the old leader. It would help for there to be a major event that a new leader within or outside the group could seize upon to redirect the members, like the honest child in the fable who finally spoke up to say the emperor had no clothes. There probably are figures within the Republican Party who could serve in that role, but it would require more moral and political courage than we have seen so far......>

<.....Jen Senko is the director of the documentary "The Brainwashing of My Dad."

Yes, Trump COULD stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and they would still be devoted. Dare I say he could even claim he's a woke lib and his followers wouldn't even hear it. It no longer matters what he says.

We all know by now; this is classic cult behavior. It's all about the leader, not the ideology or what the person they follow represents—they might represent nothing. Cult followers abdicate their reasoning, and their own ideas of what is good or bad to a leader. Giving themselves over to a leader absolves them of any guilt or responsibility. If confused by all the stuff flooding the zone and the contradictions in the news, it's almost a relief to just hand it over to a leader who says He Knows.

Marcel Danesi is Professor Emeritus of linguistic anthropology and semiotics at the University of Toronto. His new book is Politics, Lies and Conspiracy Theories: A Cognitive Linguistic Perspective.

Oppositional messaging in the case of a "culture war leader" will never work, because it is seen as the words of enemies against Trump and his followers. Trump's lies are thus not interpreted as destructive words but as part of a clarion call to arms to overturn the deep state that must be defeated to restore America to its purported roots, which, incidentally, Trump has never specified what he means by them, in true Orwellian fashion. Any message against him is thus filtered out as an attack from opposing warring armies in the ongoing cultural war, and thus discarded as tactics. Trump's lies are perceived to be verbal weapons in that war. There is nothing Trump could say or do that would erode support from his followers, because he is seen as the leader of the greater cause of taking down the enemies that he and his blind followers see as the source of America's and their own troubles, and as eroding the fabric of American society. Outside of Trump's influence, the same people can be compassionate, empathic, generous, but in their Trump-aligned echo chamber they become antisocial toward outsiders. It is somewhat ironic to observe that Trump and his followers portray their battle as a counterculture one, as did the hippies in the 1960s and 1970s, portraying the government as the "establishment" and the liberal democratic state—again quite ironically—as the enemy of freedom and true American values.....>

<.....Dr. Justin Frank is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and the author of "Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President."

I have always believed that an important part of psychic development is the ability to face, feel, and think about loss. Trump never had that capacity, nor was allowed to have it, growing up. He immediately transformed loss into blaming others, into triumphant denial (refusing to accept that he lost), or into acts of revenge. All three characteristics dominated the January 6 insurrection.

What I learned in my psychiatric residency – as well as in my own life – is that sorrow is the vitamin of growth. Does that make denial the vitamin of autocracy? During the 2016 election Trump said that if he lost, the entire campaign would have been a waste of time and energy. Denying and dismissing loss led us to January 6. Just remember Abe Lincoln's statement after he lost an election: "I feel like a 16-year-old who stubbed his toe: I'm too old to cry but it hurts too much to laugh" Facing the painful process of renunciation leads also to emotional growth and maturity. So, how does the GOP win back MAGA followers? It seems impossible, even if Trump goes to prison and is completely discredited.

To me, the operative word is not "win," but wean. Trump supporters are attached to him at the mouth, at the lips, at the heart and soul. He is their divine leader, much the way an evangelical preacher becomes more important to his congregation – as the personification of God's power – than the scriptures they recite. Trump has a similar deep effect on his flock. The only way they could be brought back to the GOP hymnal is to gently, persistently, non-judgmentally help them discover for themselves Trump's genuine contempt for them, our country and its health and wellbeing.

Rich Logis is a former right-wing pundit and high-ranking Trump supporter. He describes himself as "a remorseful ex-Trump, DeSantis and GOP voter". Logis is the founder of Perfect Our Union, an organization that is dedicated to healing political traumatization; building diverse, pro-democracy alliances; and perfecting our Union.

I understand the fatigue from coverage of Trump; constant MAGA/Trump trauma is exhausting and soul-draining. But it remains necessary, because our nation must be continually reminded that there is nothing Trump could do, or say, to lose the support of most voters who identify as MAGA or Ultra-MAGA. And, as a one-time, zealously devout MAGA voter, I mean "nothing" literally, not figuratively. The country club conservatives, über-wealthy GOP donors and Ronald Reagan mythologizers haven't accepted that they no longer run the party, as evidenced by myriad Republican focus groups — whose attendees affirm their commitment to voting Trump—and the millions spent in ads intended to weaken Trump — but have the opposite intended effect.

$1 trillion in anti-Trump would help—not hurt—Trump. Electorally defeating MAGA is non-negotiable; our democratic republic, almost certainly, would not survive a second Trump presidency (which I also fear could be a permanent presidency). It's important to be candid with the American people: electorally winning, however, is the start—not the finish—of de-traumatizing our nation from MAGA.

Joe Walsh was a Republican congressman and a leading Tea Party conservative. He is now a prominent conservative voice against Donald Trump and the host of the podcast "White Flag with Joe Walsh."

It is a cult. How many times must that be said. One of America's two major political parties has become completely radicalized and has given up on democracy. Trump is their cult leader. Each and every evidence of his corruption and criminality only strengthens his support within his cult. Our only job now is to defeat them.>

<Last night was the night a lot of bills came due for Kevin McCarthy.

The bill came due for pandering to his party’s extremes, for desperate deals and broken promises. Most of all, the bill came due for the House Republicans’ failure in the elections of 2022.

Republicans have had a lot of bad elections since Donald Trump took over the party. They lost the popular vote for president in 2016, they lost the House in 2018, they lost the presidency in 2020, and they lost the Senate in 2021.

The 2022 election cycle was supposed to break the Trump curse. It was supposed to be the year of the red wave that would sweep away Joe Biden’s woke mob in Congress. Instead, Republicans posted net losses of one seat in the U.S. Senate, two governorships, and four state legislative chambers. Amid all of the defeats, there was one piece of good news: They reclaimed the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But that seeming victory proved deceptive. Democrats had lost the majority, but Republicans had not won a functioning majority of their own.

They tried to act otherwise. They tried to advance a big agenda, even tried to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. To propel that agenda required their tiny majority to march in unison, each member subordinating his or her own wishes to the collective will.

Predictably, that did not happen.

Which left Plan B: Accept reality; acknowledge that the GOP had not won a functioning majority; and reach across the aisle, make deals, and do your business that way.

That’s what McCarthy did in May with the debt-ceiling deal and tried to do again with the budget this past weekend. The first foray wounded him. The second finished him....>

<....The rules of contemporary Republican politics make it hard to accept reality. Reality is just too awkward.

In reality, Trump has been a big vote loser for Republicans. He fluked into the presidency with a Dukakis-like share of the vote in 2016, then lost his party its majority in the House in 2018. Trump got decisively booted from the presidency in 2020; rampaged illegally on January 6, 2021; and then cost his party its Senate majority in the January 2021 runoff elections. His election-denier message damaged his party further in the elections of 2022. His demand for a Biden investigation and impeachment in 2023 is producing an embarrassing fiasco. But no Republican leader dares say these things out loud.

Most taboo of all is working with Democrats, on any terms other than total, one-sided domination: We win, you lose. So McCarthy just had to press ahead, acting as if he commanded a majority when he did not; insulting and demeaning the minority, even though he had to know that he might need their help at any minute.

That minute came. McCarthy sought Democratic votes to save him from his own refractory members, and in return he offered nothing. Not even politeness.

That proposition did not produce the desired results, and so here we are.

Where we are is a country with a solid anti-Trump majority confronting a pro-Trump minority that believes it has a right to rule without concession or compromise.

The only way to produce a stable majority in the House is for the next Republican leader to reach a working agreement with the Democrats to bypass the nihilists in the GOP caucus. But that agreement will have to be unspoken and even denied—because making agreements that show any respect for the other side will be seen by Republican partisans as betrayal. The price of GOP leadership is delivering delusions and fantasies: the delusion and fantasy that Trump won in 2020, the delusion and fantasy that the Republicans did not lose in 2022.

The Republican so-called majority in the House survives by perpetual self-hostage-taking. McCarthy secured his speakership in January by allowing any one member to trigger a vote to get rid of him. He stopped a default in May by agreeing to face a government shutdown in October. He avoided a shutdown with a 47-day extension, and by wrecking his own leadership.

The next leader will have to manage another set of delusions and fantasies—those being trafficked via the Biden impeachment inquiry. The reality is: Republicans have made a lot of angry accusations, but they have scant evidence that the president is guilty of anything other than fathering a troubled son. The fantasy is: They’ll discover proof of a huge criminal scheme that implicates President Biden.

For seven years, Republicans have protected and enabled Trump, the most corrupt and lawless president in American history. They crave to believe that Biden is as bad or worse, and they won’t be denied that craving by pesky details such as its crazy untruth. The next ringmaster will have to deliver a more exciting act to the most frenzied fans in the circus seats.

For the rest of the country, all of this threatens more crisis, more drama, more misgovernment, until one of two things happens. Either Republicans will overcome their taboo against reality and find some way to strike deals with their opponents, or voters in November 2024 will replace this dysfunctional majority that lives by lies with a functional majority that can work with facts.>

<House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)—a close Trump ally best known for his dogged, partisan investigations into Democratic opponents—became the first House Republican to launch a bid for speaker in the wake of Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s historic removal from the post after less than nine months, but is so conservative he could struggle to gain enough moderate Republican votes.

Key Facts

Jordan, an outspoken ally of former President Donald Trump, told CNN Wednesday that as speaker he would object to military aid for Ukraine, a key demand of far-right Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, telling CNN the “most pressing issues on Americans’ mind” is not Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the U.S.-Mexico “border situation” and “crime on the streets.”

Jordan was elected to Congress in 2006 and has championed GOP causes, including his opposition to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and his failed efforts for it to be repealed, as well as his opposition to climate change measures, becoming the first representative to sign the so-called No Climate Tax pledge in 2008 against climate-related taxes that would increase government revenue.

Along the way he has been the most consistently conservative representative in Congress, with a record 14 years of notching a perfect 100% rating with the American Conservative Union.

In recent years, Jordan—a former member of the House Oversight Committee and former chair of the House Freedom Caucus—has risen in the party as a prominent defender of Trump in his two impeachments and four indictments this year, posting in August that Trump “did nothing wrong!” regarding Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Ohio Republican also stood by Trump throughout a House investigation into the January 6 riot, and was one of four House Republicans referred to the House Ethics Committee last December for rejecting congressional subpoenas in its investigation—House January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) had sent a letter to Jordan in December 2021 asking for his cooperation in an investigation into alleged talks between Trump and Jordan on January 6.

Jordan also chairs the recently created Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which the House created in a vote along party lines after the GOP regained control of the chamber in January—though Jordan has faced pushback from Democrats who argued the committee’s investigative work into alleged Biden Administration weaponization is a sham and has not amounted to any findings, with Democrats doubting the credibility of former FBI officials tapped by Jordan to provide testimony, arguing they provided little knowledge and instead peddled conspiracy theories.

In August, Jordan led an investigation into Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis following Trump’s indictment in a separate case stemming from his alleged efforts to meddle in the 2020 election, accusing Willis of potentially coordinating with federal DOJ officials in a state investigation—Willis rejected the claim and slammed Jordan over the probe, arguing he “lack[s] a basic understanding of the law, its practice, and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally.”

That same month, Jordan also issued a subpoena to FBI Director Christopher Wray over a leaked anti-violence plan to monitor “radical-traditionalist” Catholics in a plan to identify potential violent threats—Wray said the documented plan did “not reflect FBI standards.”

Jordan has also accused social media companies of conspiring with the Biden Administration to censure right-wing speech online, threatening to hold billionaire Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress for allegedly stiff-arming a subpoena as part of a committee investigation into the platform, which he nicknamed the “FACEBOOK FILES”—Jordan’s claim that Meta bowed to pressure from the Biden Administration was not backed up by internal emails from Meta executives, who called for the company to “regroup and take stock of” its ties to the White House.....>

<.....Tangent

He faces a challenge from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who also threw his hat in the ring for speaker on Wednesday.

Jordan, a former Ohio State University wrestling coach, was accused in 2020 by a group of former wrestlers of both knowing and failing to come forward with information about alleged sexual abuse committed by late team physician Richard Strauss. Jordan denied allegations that he knew about the abuse, with his office releasing a statement saying Jordan “never saw any abuse” or “heard about any abuse.”

News Peg

Jordan announced his speaker bid Wednesday morning, seeking to replace temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). The Ohio Republican told CNN and other outlets he has “strong” support from House colleagues.

What We Don’t Know

Whether Jordan could muster enough support to win the speakership, and whether any other Republicans will challenge him and Scalise. Speculation had mounted after McCarthy’s ouster on Tuesday that House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) would announce a bid, though Emmer voted against McCarthy’s removal and stood in solidarity with McCarthy. Among Jordan’s possible other challengers: former President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday did not rule out a potential run. House rules do not prohibit non-Congress members from running for speaker, though GOP conference rules indicate his four criminal indictments could make him ineligible.

Key Background

A group of eight far-right Republicans—including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who filed the motion to vacate the speaker—joined all present Democrats on Tuesday to oust McCarthy in an unprecedented vote, making the California Republican the first House speaker to be removed from the post. McCarthy had been at loggerheads with far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus over his eight-plus-month tenure as speaker, following his historic 15 rounds of votes in January to become speaker, when far-right House members refused to support him and demanded sweeping spending cuts. Gaetz even nominated Jordan in the thirteenth round of voting in January, though Jordan said he had no interest at the time in challenging McCarthy for the speakership. In order to win over enough Freedom Caucus members to win the position, McCarthy agreed to a list of concessions, including an agreement to reduce the number of House members necessary to initiate a motion to vacate from five to one. After months of threatening to file a motion to vacate, Gaetz made the motion on Monday—two days after the House passed a resolution to temporarily avert a dreaded shutdown—arguing McCarthy failed to address the sweeping cuts that Freedom Caucus members demanded.>

Real macho.

<Former President Donald Trump’s high-profile criminal defense attorneys in the Mar-a-Lago case have asked the judge to push trial past the 2024 election, claiming special counsel Jack Smith’s “ongoing discovery failures” are to blame.

The memo from lawyers Christopher Kise and Todd Blanche, filed Wednesday in Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s court, continued wrangling with Smith over the trial date in the willful retention of classified information case, bashing the “accelerated schedule that the prosecutors have not followed and that in all likelihood will require multiple rounds of CIPA litigation.”

Related Coverage:

CIPA — the Classified Information Procedures Act — and its § 4 outlines rules for discovery of classified information by defendants, such as Trump and his Mar-a-Lago co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

Trump and his team asked Judge Cannon to push the trial past the election — “until at least mid-November 2024, in light of additional, ongoing discovery failures by the Special Counsel’s Office” — noting that Trump’s Jan. 6 federal trial in Washington, D.C., is on the horizon in March and that Trump’s civil fraud trial is currently causing “scheduling challenges” for Kise, who is currently representing the former president in the New York case.

“[Kise] has therefore had no opportunity to review any of the CIPA materials or to participate in the preparation of the defense,” a footnote said. “President Trump should not be denied the assistance of core counsel in a matter of this significance due to the Government’s delayed discovery process.”

Trump lawyers asserted that Jack Smith is in “non-compliance” with his representation to Cannon that “‘all’ discovery would be available on ‘day one,'” claiming “discovery is not complete in this case—including with respect to the classified documents at issue in more than 25% of the § 793(e) counts in the Superseding Indictment. ”

Before reiterating their demand for a post-2024 election trial date in the Mar-a-Lago case, Trump’s lawyers also accused the special counsel of making “an empty threat”:

The Office also argues that, if the Court does not grant the CIPA § 4 motion under the Office’s preferred conditions, it “cannot produce the documents at all.” (Opp’n at 8 (emphasis in original)). That is an empty threat. If the Office cannot use CIPA in a permissible fashion to comply with its discovery obligations, the appropriate remedy will be dismissal.

In closing, the Trump’s lawyers said that the former president’s “lack of access” to “basic discovery” up to this point, combined with the challenges of litigating numerous pending cases in multiple jurisdictions, should push the Mar-a-Lago trial past the 2024 election.

“These are not mere ‘complaints,'” Kise and Blanche emphasized. “The Special Counsel’s Office has not provided some of the most basic discovery in the case. Given the current schedule, we cannot understate the prejudice to President Trump arising from his lack of access to these critical materials months after they should have been produced.”

Back in July, Judge Cannon preliminarily set the Mar-a-Lago trial to begin on May 20, 2024.>

Pro tip for the Orange Poltroon--hire more lawyers.