His sycophants come out for blood

Mark Anderson of the Daily Kos community offers an explanation of why the nasty guy will probably not be removed from office. He answers the question: Why are Republicans defending him?

One reason congressional Republicans are defending Trump is that he is their useful idiot. Now, this worked better when they held both the House and the Senate. But the fact of the matter is that they just need him to push their agenda without question. Trump is not smart enough to know what he is signing, and he is easily manipulated. He is the perfect patsy to sign anything they put in front of him, and will push any agenda he is given: All it takes is to praise him and stroke his ego. Feed his narcissistic fire, and he will do whatever you wish.

They fear him. Look at how quickly Trump turns on anyone who speaks out against him; and when Trump turns on someone, his sycophants also come out for blood. Congressional Republicans fear this, as it could put them in the position of being primaried for their seats, or losing their seats to a Democrat in a general election. Looking at Trump’s polling numbers, I do question why they continue to fear him: He is increasingly unpopular across the country, and his lack of popularity is hurting Republicans more than it helps them.

Another example of why the GOP fears him – consider Rep. Justin Amash, when he called for impeachment, how quickly he was pushed out of the GOP. He’s now running as an independent with lots of GOP candidates running against him.

And another. Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida was troubled by the Mueller Report and even more troubled by the Ukraine scandal. Rooney talked about his feelings to colleagues. That prompted House GOP leaders to deputize fellow lawmakers to monitor Rooney, meaning they started spying on him. They also started a whispering campaign that made Florida GOP officials mad at him. That’s even though Rooney hasn’t said anything official about impeachment yet.

More from Anderson:

Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans are compromised by foreign actors just as badly as Trump is.

Anderson follows that with the news that Devin Nunes is compromised. Olga Lautman wonders why the mainstream media is surprised by the news that Nunes is dirty. Lautman concludes her Twitter thread with:

Bigger question is why Graham, McConnell, and others involved in protecting Trump/Putin have not been exposed. Peeling away Trumps loyalist layers would have left him vulnerable and defenseless to destroy America and democracy.

Sara Kendzior, responding to Devin Nunes being caught in the Ukraine scandal, tweeted:

They don't mind being caught, they mind being punished. Learn the difference. Trump and his backers have been committing crimes with impunity for decades. They get off on it.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat responded:

Exactly. Breaking the law openly is part of the thrill of holding power. It is a different mindset- the authoritarian ruler’s mindset.

Through it all what is the vice nasty guy doing? Hunter of Daily Kos has a colorful way of putting it. The VNG is “the master bootlicker” for the reelection campaign. He’s to be the opposite of the hate being spewed at nasty guy rallies. Hunter wrote:

Relax, Mike Pence is there to say. I am as holy as Jeebus Himself, and if I can put up with all Trump's criminal acts, grotesque public behavior, and lifetime of treating anyone and everyone with open, seething contempt, then you can swallow the jagged shards of your folksy pride, put on your best brown shirt, and vote for Team Asshole. He's rude, but he's racist. What more do you people want?

There’s another reason why the VNG be kept at a distance – in case the nasty guy really is removed, he is Plan B.

He's been there the whole time, but didn't see a thing and didn't know about any of the, you know, unpleasantness. He's spent the entire administration polishing himself as Plan B, should Plan B ever become needed.

Getting him out of Washington strengthens his bogus claim that he didn’t see a thing.

Obedient or self-reliant

After a few days of big posts doing big explorations of big issues today I’ll do little stories to clean out browser tabs.

Sarah Kendzior is puzzled by the mainstream media. Why aren’t they telling the truth about the nasty guy? She tweeted:

That's been the irony all along. The truth is popular. The truth sells. The truth is full of horrifying scandals the MSM usually loves -- but now they bury it out of fear of Trump. When greedy MSM works against its own profit margin, that's how you know something is deeply wrong.

A follower asked why the MSM is afraid of him. Kendzior replied:

It's a transnational crime syndicate. That means there are serious threats both to individuals and to nations and infrastructure. I will add though that some in the media don't need to be threatened or blackmailed; they are complicit volunteers.

Francisco Taveira quotes Kendzior discussing the key witnesses in the public part of the impeachment hearings:

Trump’s ability to pull off another election heist relies on silencing people such as Ms. Hill, Col. Vindman, and Ms. Yovanovitch who have seen his machinations from the inside and can explain them to the American public.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted a thread about the nasty guy again holding up foreign aid that had been approved by Congress. This time the money is for Lebanon. Murphy explains why that freeze is a really bad idea. Much of the money is to go to the Lebanese Armed Forces. The LAF is the most important multi-ethnic institution in the country. Only the LAF can protect the protesters. A weakened LAF means either (1) Hezbollah, backed by Iran, will take over, or (2) Russia will step in to back the LAF. Both options are awful. Both are exactly opposite of official policy goals in Lebanon.



Olga Lautman has some questions about Devin Nunes. He is the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and made a big show every day of advancing some weird conspiracy theory in attempts to discredit the impeachment hearings before that committee. Lautman links to a CNBC report that Nunes is a part of the Ukraine scandal. Lautman tweeted:

Why is Nunes allowed to be on the committee w access to our intel?

Why was this not brought up during impeachment hearings? How was Nunes allowed to spew GRU disinfo with no one stopping him and stating his personal involvement? Why wasn’t Nunes forced to recuse since he personally was involved in searching for Biden fabricated info re the mafia?

One of the big bits of testimony that came from the impeachment hearings came from Dr. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council Russia expert. She said, “Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them.”

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos says that’s a big problem because, “We are also running out of experts in the government to do so.” McCarter lists a couple departures from Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. At least a dozen top officials have left and taken their experience and expertise with them.



Alexander Kaufman at HuffPost writes that that the world’s top ten fossil fuel producers are on track to extract (which we would presumably burn) far more oil, gas, and coal by 2030 than the planet can handle without catastrophic warming. There is a big discrepancy between national climate change policies and fossil fuel production policies.



Anders Aslund, an economist with a focus on Russia and Eastern Europe tweeted that he’s amazed at how many Americans are unaware that our democracy is in great danger.

What caught my attention and prompted me to include the tweet is a reply from Kerri Boxx who quoted an excerpt from an article from Political. A pollster (not named in the excerpt) says that four questions in a poll will tell whether a person is very highly invested in enforcing the social hierarchy:

These questions pertain to child-rearing: whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Respondents who picked the first option in each of these questions are strongly authoritarian.