Tag: scandal

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Happy Slappy gets Sloppy — Thomas is the face of the GOP’s moral bankruptcy

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 16th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

There was plenty of ‘silly season’ news this week. For instance, we had videos of enraged rednecks standing in their backyards and shooting cases of beer with AR-15s after Budweiser had an online video featuring transgender advocate Dylan Mulvaney. No, they weren’t promoting drag queens or litter boxes in school bathrooms. It was to promote the NCAA basketball tournament. But the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues have devoted many, many “minutes of hate” against transgenders, so their brownshirt followers promptly lost what little in the way of minds they had and started shooting beers, and not in a good way.

Normally the GOP views such antics with a self-satisfied smirk. But then one of them noticed that the maker of Bud Lite, Anheuser-Busch, was a major GOP contributor, and the morons were violating the prime directive of the GOP, which is “You don’t piss on the money.” Suddenly they realized how idiotic the whole thing was. It was so idiotic that descendant of stable geniuses, Donald Trump the Lesser, suddenly noticed it was idiotic. This resulted in another civil battle between the two branches of the GOP: those who felt hate should be pure, and those that feel love of money should be pure.

Maggie Armpits weighed in on climate change. Rather than trying to describe it, let me just quote her: “If you believe that today’s ‘climate change’ is caused by too much carbon, you have been fooled,” she wrote. “We live on a spinning planet that rotates around a much bigger sun along with other planets and heavenly bodies rotating around the sun that all create gravitational pull on one another while our galaxy rotates and travels through the universe. Considering all of that, yes our climate will change, and it’s totally normal!”

OK then. That sorts that. Maggie should ask for letters of apology from Michael Mann, Al Gore, and Daniel Swain for all that fear mongering. It was all just gravitational pull.

When last seen, Maggie was complaining about ‘marijuana zombies’ in New York City. Apparently it’s quite a problem. Perhaps one of them bit her. That would explain a few things.

On a more serious note, the widening corruption of Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence “Slappy” Thomas continued to spread like a sinkhole in a septic tank. Today’s revelation (and they are coming on a daily basis now) is that he reported up to $750,000 in income from an outfit called “Ginger, Ltd., Partnership” that was owned by himself and his toxic wife, Ginni. The operative word there is “was.” Ginger, Ltd., Partnership was dissolved in 2006, so Thomas was reporting income from a company that doesn’t exist.

Well, it sorta doesn’t exist. It was replaced by another company, Ginger Holdings, LLC. But Slappy and Ginni don’t run it. It’s run by one Joanne Elliot, who is Ginni’s sister. But even though they have no formal association with this company, they’re still receiving considerable amounts of money from it for who-knows-what.

And what does Ginger Holdings, LLC do? Well, that’s one of life’s little mysteries then, isn’t it? Whatever it is, it pays well. I need to get me one of those Ginger Holdings LLC for myself. Then I can feed the cats the fancy cat food instead of the usual slop. As far as I can tell, you don’t have to do jack shit, just watch the money roll in. My kind of job!

In any other developed nation, a judge with the kind of malfeasance Slappy is displaying would have been in prison by now. In less developed countries, the mob might have got him.

But Slappy is vital for keeping the fascist contingent in control of the court. He’s one of six conservative justices, but one of them, Roberts, has shown that he puts law before ideology sometimes, and that makes him totally unfit for purpose. So if Slappy is impeached, that leaves the Court at the mercy of Joe Biden and a Democratic Senate, which means they might nominate an actual jurist with an interest in the law, rather than what the Federalist Society and the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues want. And worse, that uppity public might not vote Republican in ‘24, meaning it could be six years before they get to continue eviscerating the Courts.

So the GOP aren’t going to impeach Thomas, and he sure isn’t going to retire. He thinks it’s his god-given duty to screw over the public in the name of owning the libs.

Well, you can’t really expect a healthy emotional outlook on life and society from a man who willingly turned himself into a lawn jockey, can you?

We may get a better look at the one group that could force Slappy off the bench, the rest of the Court, this coming week. They will be ruling on whether to maintain the stay on mifepristone that that religious nut Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas imposed on the country. I expect Roberts to side with the three liberal justices, since the ruling is so blatantly and egregiously unconstitutional. I think there’s a decent chance Brett Kavanaugh might also jump the leads. He’s basically the swing vote on this. Gorsuch could go either way. Amy Coney Barrett is another religious nut and feels a divine need to impose her psychosis on the rest of us. Alito, of course, is the author of Cobb and depends on 16th century witchfinders for his legal lodestar.

Normally it would be a slam-dunk for the religious loons. But I think that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch might bolt simply to cut Slappy loose. He’ll probably head up the ban-the-pill contingent, and the size of that contingent will speak volumes about Slappy’s clout within the Court.

As Rachel Maddow says, “watch this space.”

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Gaeteradez — Right Wingers drink from wrong cup

Gaeteradez

Right Wingers drink from wrong cup

April 10th 2021

Could Joel Greenberg end up destroying the American right for a couple of generations?

It’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Greenberg is a real piece of work. He came to public attention when hit with 14 charges on federal felonies, including trafficking of children. If just half of the things alleged against him could be proven in court, he would never get out of jail. The first charge, framing a political opponent and thus winning a campaign, was pretty awful. The second, even sleazier indictment, states that Greenberg “used his access to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office to take surrendered driver licenses before they were shredded. [He] also used his access to DAVID to run searches that were not for any permissible use .. . As a result of those searches [he] obtained, disclosed transferred, and used personal information of individuals whose personal information was in a motor vehicle record, including individuals with whom [he] was engaged in “sugar daddy” relationships.”

Matt Gaetz, the besieged Congressman, and Greenberg were close associates (Gaetz contributed the maximum allowed to Greenberg’s sleazy campaign for the tax collector’s job) and there’s at least one eye witness account that the two were seen together in the tax collector’s office (Greenberg was its elected department head) rummaging through various state IDs that had been turned in and were intended for shredding.

But for all his apparent viciousness, Greenberg isn’t exactly the rock of Gibraltar when it comes to personal courage and resoluteness. When he violated bond following his arrest on all those charges, according to the Tampa Bay Times, “Former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg claimed to have explosive devices and threatened to harm himself while negotiating his surrender with deputy sheriffs in early March, which delayed for hours his arrest for violating his bond conditions, newly released records state.” Well, isn’t that exactly the sort of situation you would want to see your tax collector in? Even for Tampa Bay it seemed a bit over the top. The county tax office motto isn’t “Come and git me, coppers! You’ll never take me alive!”

In the meantime, the number of charges against him rose to 33, which according to the Times included “stalking, identity theft, wire fraud, bribery, theft of government property, conspiracy to bribe a public official, creating fake IDs and sex trafficking of a minor.” The Tax Collector’s office under his purview handed out three million in contracts to people who had attended Greenberg’s wedding.

At this point, it’s all somewhat minor. Greenberg would still be unknown outside of Florida were it not for the fact that Gaetz was in any way involved. (Gaetz steadfastly maintains his innocence.)

Now it seems Greenberg is going to cop a plea, and given the number and size of the charges against him, he’s going to have to give up the whole zoo if he wants to see daylight again.

But Greenberg isn’t the only buddy of Gaetz who is involved in all this. Dr. Jason Pirozzolo, a hand surgeon and marijuana advocate, traveled with Gaetz to the Bahamas. The trip was on Pirozzolo’s dime, and allegedly included escorts, including some who may have been underage.

Again, not that significant a story, except for this: soon after, then-President Trump made an unscheduled trip to Florida. The only people to greet him on this unpublicized trip were…Gaetz and Pirozzolo. Why would Trump want to meet with those two? Did he perhaps have a bunion on his thumb?

And there’s Roger Stone. Granted, pick any significant Republican scandal over the past 50 years and his name is likely to pop up in there somehow. He should be fighting to stay out of jail right now except Trump gave him a preemptive pardon.

There are reports that Gaetz asked Trump for a blanket pardon sometime before January 20, but no actual evidence has emerged, and both men deny it. Trump may even be telling the truth, since the aides who handled pardons were keeping the more politically disastrous away from Trump’s attention.

So Greenberg is copping a plea, and it’s one likely to completely engulf Gaetz, who’s already in a position where his political career is toast and he’s just fighting to stay out of federal prison.

Now, Gaetz doesn’t strike me as the sort who is going to take one for the team. He could conceivably be facing a future of being a rich white boy who is a child sex offender in federal prison, which by all accounts is not an admirable situation to be in. So he may decide to cop a plea, as well?

Against whom?

Well, Pirozzolo is a possibility. He hasn’t been formally accused of anything yet, other than being a buddy to Gaetz and a mover and shaker in Florida politics. Ron DeSantis appointed him to Greater Orlando Airport Authority on the recommendation of Gaetz.

But for a man in Gaetz’ position, Pirozzolo may be a rather small fish to fry for the feds. He’s going to need a bigger shark, to coin a phrase.

This in turn leads to Stone and Trump. What did they know and when did they know it?

Stand by. This whole thing could get much bigger.

And how would it destroy the right? Well, for years they’ve been screaming that the rest of America were involved in child sex slave operations, were corrupt, lied, and were criminals.

Now, it seems, the calls were coming from inside the house. How is Qanon going to react to the news that the people they (sometimes literally) worshipped were the same one they were warning us all about?

More to come.

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Mattgates and Jim Crow — And how Faux News is massaging them

Mattgates and Jim Crow

And how Faux News is massaging them

April 3rd, 2021

Three items this week show the problems with the fascist right in America: Matt Gaetz, the Georgia State Government, and how Fox News has reacted to those two.

Gaetz and the Georgia lege have these things in common: both are despicable, dishonest, have scant regard for the rights of their victims, and are part of a larger pattern.

Gaetz, of course, is at the heart of a mushrooming sex-and-corruption scandal, one that has allegations of sexual child abuse, whoremongering, mass identity fraud and a host of other items. Gaetz himself is a well-known scumbag who liked to show images of his sexual conquests in the halls of Congress and had a long history of being a wastrel playboy who was bailed out of various types of legal trouble by his rich and powerful Daddy, escaping two DUIs and racking up 15 speeding tickets in 12 years.

Georgia was the first to pass voter restriction laws that effectively restored Jim Crow to Georgia. It was introduced in the State House at 9 am, passed in minutes without debate, sent to the state Senate at 1pm, passed in minutes, again without debate, and signed by the contemptible and corrupt Governor Brian Kemp by 4pm. A black legislator was arrested for daring to protest the signing.

Then there is the Fox News reaction to each of those stories.

For 48 hours Fox simply didn’t mention Gaetz at all. They did have a story about a drummer in some southern rock band who was involved in some sort of sex scandal, but that was as close as they came to discussing any possible scandal involving a Republican Congressmen. Few drummers have the temperament to be Republican congressmen. They lack the necessary wildness, dementia and psychosis the job requires.

It was only this morning, three days after the story broke, that far down on their website they had a squib reading, “Matt Gaetz says he won’t resign as pressure mounts” The story made it clear they were writing old Matty off, with a featured quote from former GOP congressman David Jolly, “”These scandals hit a certain point where there’s no escape. We’ve clearly hit that point for Matt in Florida politics.”

The message is clear: Matt fucked up massively and got caught, so let’s wash our paws of him and hope he goes away quickly. I’m guessing there’s a lot of Fox viewers who still aren’t even aware of the scandal, despite it being headline news everywhere else for three days. It reminded me of nothing so much as the fates of politicians in the old USSR who fell out of favor with Stalin: they simply were disappeared, airbrushed out of state photos, their families ordered not to discuss them on pain of 20 years in the Gulag on a charge of Anti-Soviet Agitation.

In any case, Fox can say that they’ve written him off and thus have no more reason to discuss him. Not even if his scandalous behavior reaches out to other Republicans, including at least one possible ex-President. And quite possibly Fox’s own Tucker Carlson, who was scandalized when Gaetz tried to drag him into the middle of the whole thing.

To swipe an analogy from Robert Heinlein, the whole thing is as futile as a cat trying to cover up a mistake on a linoleum floor. The only reason they mentioned it at all was it was now impossible to hide, and now they’re just trying to wave it away.

Their response to the reinstatement of Jim Crow laws in Georgia is slightly more nuanced. Georgia, it seems, has nothing but the best interests of their voters at heart. Why, they even had a provision permitting counties to extend voting hours to 7 am to 7:30 pm, although the counties that (heh, heh) wanted to keep their hours to 9 to 5 to accommodate working people were free to do so. And they forbade giving water to people in line to vote because that could be possibly construed as bribery, and in this age of Trump, Republicans are horrified at the concept of bribery. And above all, we mustn’t have voter fraud. There was vast voter fraud in the presidential election, you know. Over 60 court cases had rulings about that. That’s right, 60. What does that tell you?

And now that major corporations based in Georgia and Major League Baseball have reacted in horror, and in MLB’s case pulled the All-Star game and draft scheduled for Atlanta this year, Fox’s reaction is that this is the rise of Corporate “Cancel Culture” designed to thwart democracy. That’s right: protesting onerous voting restrictions is “thwarting democracy.”

Only fascists could tell a lie that big and that bare-faced.

One Republican defended the Georgia law, stating he was “proud to oppose the will of the American people.” I’m sure it sounded better in his head.

Unlike the Gaetz situation, there’s no pretending this won’t expand to engulf the party. Republicans have introduced a staggering 338 bills in 46 states designed to hinder people’s ability to vote. They can’t wave it away because it is the heart and soul of how they want to stage a bloodless coup and stage a fascist takeover of the land.

To that end, they’ve taken up attacking…corporations. Any student of political history knows that the main feature of fascism is that corporations and governments become one, and rule the people to their own benefit. Instead of E Pluribus Unum, the motto is “Make it Pay.” You might guess who does the paying.

So they’re attacking corporations because of “cancel culture” – you know, masks, vaccine passports, Mister Potatohead, Dr. Seuss, all that. Corporate decisions all of them. Only they don’t mention that they’re corporate decisions, but create the impression that liberals and democrats are abusing government to deprive people of their rights to outdated commercial products and the right to ignore a pandemic.

Now they’re doing the same with the Jim Crow movement, pretending the poor beleaguered white race is being downtrodden by people who want to vote for someone else because it benefits them. Can’t have that, you know.

With any luck at all, by summer we’ll see SR1 (a national voting rights act already passed by the House) become the law of the land, and Matt Gaetz will get his just reward.

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