March 14, 2024

Trump's MAGA movement is causing Republicans in Congress to hate each other

Trump's MAGA movement is causing Republicans in Congress to hate each other
Fewer than half of House Republicans bothered to attend Speaker Mike Johnson's retreat

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MARCH 14, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) It's wild what a few short months of actually getting to know a person can do to your opinion of them. That's what House Republicans seem to have learned since October, when they replaced the glad-handing Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., with smarmy fundamentalist Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., for the Speaker of the House role. Johnson's election was treated like a big win at the time. Republicans were unified in cheering and chanting "Mike! Mike!" like they were celebrating a championship-winning quarterback, instead of a guy who serves creepy youth pastor vibes.

....(snip)....

No pity for people who elected a Puritan as their leader, only to find out he's serious about taking away everyone's good time. These same people were griping to Politico last month that Johnson's presentation at the last weekend retreat ignored pertinent-to-members issues like how to win re-election and grow their majority. Instead, "Johnson effectively delivered a sermon" about "declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity." They're just mad that they have to suffer the lives they're seeking to forcibly inflict on the rest of us.

....(snip)....

Authoritarians romanticize order, imagining a society where everyone falls in line without quarrel. In the real world, however, it's hard to communicate, much less organize, without some tolerance for disagreement. When authoritarians get together, it's a clash of big egos of people who all think everyone else should unquestioningly obey them. It's not just that they fight, they have no capacity to work through disagreements. Skills like listening, empathizing, or compromising run counter to the MAGA mindset. So instead resentments and anger fester and grow.

....(snip)....

The whole debacle underscores another reason why the perverse incentive structure of the MAGA movement conflicts with a party's need to maintain unity in the ranks. The right-wing media ecosystem favors loudmouthed trolls over boring workhorse politicians. To get name recognition, fundraising, and support, Republicans must compete with each other to see who is most "MAGA," which usually means being the most willing to alienate others with grotesque stunts. Even when, as they often do, those stunts run counter to what is good for the party. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/14/maga-movement-is-causing-in-congress-to-hate-each-other/

March 14, 2024

In a MAGA vs. MAGA House Primary, Matt Gaetz Is Out for Revenge

(Slate) On Oct. 19 last year, more than a couple of weeks into the House’s speakerless, post–Kevin McCarthy era, Republicans held a feisty meeting trying to chart a way forward. When McCarthy tried to address his fellow Republicans, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz—the instigator of McCarthy’s defenestration—interrupted him. McCarthy reportedly “screamed” at Gaetz to sit down. But Illinois Rep. Mike Bost was even angrier.

What exactly did Bost do in that meeting? Contemporaneous accounts are unclear. Axios had reported that Bost was “almost lunging” at Gaetz in a rage. Gaetz, after the incident, said that Bost “was pretty animated, but I don’t know if I would describe it as a ‘lunge.’ ”

What is a lunge? Who’s to say? What Bost was reported to have said to Gaetz, in his fury, though, was: “If you don’t sit down, I’ll put you down.” Bost wasn’t in a good place to begin with. He said he was so stressed during the speakership ordeal that it led to stomach pain and occasional vomiting.

Bost and Gaetz had a history. This wasn’t their first highly publicized spat during a speaker’s race; it wasn’t even the first of 2023. That January, Gaetz had led the group that sought to deny McCarthy the gavel. During that saga, Bost had risen on the House floor to shout down Gaetz after the Floridian had called McCarthy’s pursuit of the speakership an “exercise in vanity.” ................(more)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/republican-primary-gaetz-trump-illinois-bost-bailey.html

March 13, 2024

Why metro Detroit skies have been sunnier than normal

(Detroit Free Press) No, that's not a massive spotlight or an errant rocket burst you've seen over the metro Detroit skies the last few days.

Believe it or not, skeptical Michiganders, that's the sun. In March.

Yes, that might sound peculiar, especially if you've long endured the gloom and glum of the typical winter season in Michigan. But especially this week, metro Detroiters and others in the region enjoyed warmer days and partly sunny (or partly cloudy, if you're a pessimist) conditions.

"Just because you objectively think it’s sunnier … the sky is very difficult," acknowledged Steve Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in White Lake Township. ...........................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/weather/2024/03/13/sun-in-detroit-in-march-thank-michigans-historically-warm-winter/72948297007/

March 13, 2024

Wayne County seeks to wipe away up to $700M in medical debt for 300,000 residents

(Detroit Free Press) A new program aims to relieve medical debt for up to 300,000 Wayne County residents.

The county is partnering with the national nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to eliminate as much as $700 million in medical debt for those who are eligible. Last week, Wayne County Commissioners approved a contract to work with the organization.

"We just believe that you shouldn't be strapped with a debt that will ruin your credit, will take away your financial opportunities and create the kind of anxiety that medical debt does for too many people," said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services.

One in 12 American adults — or 12 million people — owe medical debt, according to an analysis from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF. Despite the vast majority of the population having some form of health insurance, medical debt is an ongoing problem, forcing people to cut back on how much they spend on food, clothing and household items, researchers said. The report found that about 690,000 people in Michigan, or 9% of adults on average, reported having medical debt in a given year. .................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2024/03/13/a-wayne-county-program-aims-to-wipe-away-up-to-700m-in-medical-debt/72941740007/

March 13, 2024

Trump's fragile ego could be his undoing

Trump's RNC purge: His obsession with "loyalty" is as dumb as it is evil
Trump admires Hitler's control over underlings. But the Nazi dictator died in shame, with his country in ruins

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MARCH 13, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump's infatuation with Adolf Hitler is both well documented and profoundly disturbing. What's often overlooked is how painfully stupid it is. The latest round of stories about this phenomenon underlines why: Trump doesn't seem to understand that Nazi Germany lost World War II. John Kelly, Trump's former White House chief of staff, told CNN in a recent interview that Trump praised Hitler for doing "good things," including that the Nazi dictator had "rebuilt the economy" and also the demonstrably false claim that German generals were "loyal" to Hitler.

....(snip)....

Trump's rejection of history isn't just about his apparent innate faith that fascism is more efficient. It's also a manifestation of his limitless narcissism and his obsessive belief that he is owed unquestioning loyalty from the people around him, although he'd happily throw every single one of them under the bus for a nickel. He publicly indulged this fantasy late last week, when hosting Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago. Amid his slobbering praise of the Hungarian prime minister, Trump said, "He’s a non-controversial figure because he says this is the way it’s going to be, and that’s the end of it. Right? He’s the boss."

....(snip)....

Trump may believe that always watching your back and lashing out at anyone who questions you is "strength," but it's really a sign of a weak and pathetic leader. That's evident in this week's startling purge at the Republican National Committee. As Politico reports, "more than 60 RNC staffers who work across the political, communications and data departments will be let go." This comes is after Trump already pushed out the RNC leadership, replacing them with perceived loyalists, including Lara Trump, his own daughter-in-law.

....(snip)....

There's good news here for those who want to defeat Trump: His preference for sycophants means that he shuts himself off from actual feedback and sensible advice. That's evident when you look at his legal team, which is built around his hunger for flattery, instead of competent lawyering that might help him in court. During his first civil trial for the sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, Trump reluctantly took his lawyer's advice to stay away from the courthouse. In the second trial, he dumped that lawyer and went with Alina Habba, who barely even tries to win cases in court and endlessly indulges her client's desire to throw tantrums and preen for the cameras. Yes, he lost both cases in the face of overwhelming evidence. But the first trial resulted in a $5 million judgment, while the second will cost him more than $83 million. Trump's desire for ego-fluffing over legal competence is proving expensive. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/13/rnc-purge-his-obsession-with-loyalty-is-as-dumb-as-it-is-evil/

March 12, 2024

Republican women don't care about rape victims

Republican women don't care about rape victims
Forget the theatrics of Katie Britt, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene — supporting Trump means backing abusers

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MARCH 12, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) It can be confusing, tracking the multiple lawsuits journalist E. Jean Carroll filed against Donald Trump, who sexually abused her in the 90s and then lied about it. This is no doubt why U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote a brief that bluntly laid out the main takeaway: Trump raped Carroll, as the word "rape" is commonly understood.

....(snip)....

When she was confronted — surprisingly — by a Fox News host over her dishonesty, Britt signaled that she intends to keep exploiting this rape victim's tragedy to stir up racist fears of migrants. She denied lying, claiming that a 20-year-old story was necessary to illustrate "what is happening now at an astronomical rate." (Then why not use a more relevant — and recent — example?) The depths of Britt's depravity are only more obvious when one considers how vulnerable migrants are to sex trafficking if they are denied safe harbor in the U.S.

....(snip)....

Mace sounded like the ridiculous caricature of feminists propped up in right-wing media. She acted as if having been raped gives one a lifetime pass to abuse and mistreat whoever you wish. And she is absolutely mistreating Carroll, who is not a "potential rape victim," as Mace said, but a woman who has been suffering from trauma for nearly three decades due to this assault. Mace should be ashamed. Not of being raped, but of her willingness to throw other victims under the bus, and acting like a brat when held accountable for supporting a system that protects and rewards sexual predators like Trump.

It would be better if Republican women just admitted they don't care about rape victims. Fake concern that is selectively employed is much worse, especially in service to Trump, a man who does everything he can, personally and politically, to inflict more suffering on women. Last week, journalist Kelly Weill wrote about how disgusting the feigned outrage can get, in an article for her MomLeft newsletter. She noted that anti-abortion activists and Republican politicians keep accusing reproductive health care providers of "trafficking." In-vitro fertilization is called "trafficking of human embryos." Abortion provision is routinely equated with sex trafficking. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/12/women-dont-care-about-rape-victims/

March 12, 2024

The pure emptiness of Katie Britt

The pure emptiness of Katie Britt
The Republican way of life has emptied her of anything even marginally recognizable as real

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
Columnist
PUBLISHED MARCH 12, 2024 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) If there’s one thing the last 72 hours have taught us, it’s how hard it is to be a woman and a Republican these days. Take the woman who has dominated the news over the weekend, Alabama Senator Katie Britt. She appeared on national TV to give the Republican rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union Thursday and for her efforts was famously lampooned by Scarlett Johansen on Saturday Night Live.

The phrase “deer caught in the headlights” seemed to have been invented to describe Britt as she posed in front of what appeared to be a greenscreen image of her own kitchen. She went from weepy to ecstatic to inordinately sincere and back again, zig-zagging her way through a script some committee of Trump campaign staffers had lashed together for her to act her way through. The disconnect between the words she read off the teleprompter and her voice and expression was, uh…how can I put this? Jarring isn’t quite right. Annoying? Well, yes, there’s that.

What’s that feeling I’m reaching for, hovering just out of reach of my consciousness? Okay, I’ve got it. Watching Britt’s face and listening to her whisper her way through the introduction of her remarks, I felt embarrassed for her. Really, I did. She had no sense at all of what she was saying, or how to say it, because she was just reading words, not expressing them, or feeling what she said. She whispered, “our country is less secure,” and then smiled widely into the eye of the camera. That is simply not the way you say those words, and having said them, how you react to what you’ve said. It doesn’t even rise to the level of fake. It’s just…nothing, a pure emptiness knowable only to, yes, Katie Britt.

....(snip)....

It's hard to capture just how blatantly studied and overacted and false Britt’s entire spiel was. But the thing that kept coming across to me was how learned her delivery was. She was good at it in a way that bad actors are – they deliver lines with what they’ve been taught is just the right emphasis on certain words, with just the right turn of the head, flutter of eyelids, pursing of lips, and in the case of Britt, smile after smile so posed and automatic, any emphasis a real smile would have afforded to an alleged thought or fact in an individual line is lost in a glare of teeth and lips. Following her whispered secrets of what she and her husband Wesley say at their kitchen table, Britt settles into a mock-confidence you can only attain if pretty much everything in your life has been given to you by connections and powerful friends and whispered confidences that began in college dorms or sorority bedrooms: “Because the truth is, we’re all worried about the future of our nation.” Delivered by a woman who probably has yet to feel an actual worry beyond having forgotten to pick up diapers from the store or empty the cat box, the line had all the force of a snowflake landing on a gloved hand. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/12/the-pure-emptiness-of-katie-britt/

March 12, 2024

Metro Detroit ski resorts end season early due to lack of snow

BRIGHTON, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Michigan has seen record-breaking temperatures this winter.

In February, Detroit reached a high of 73 degrees on February 27 making it the hottest day in February in recorded history dating back to 1874.

For local ski resorts, the back and forth with Mother Nature has not been ideal, leading them to wrap up their season early because there's not enough snow.

After many snow-making attempts at Mt. Brighton, the staff was unable to repair and rebuild the slopes saying in a post on social media that their talented Mountain Ops team did their best to piece the hill back together but ultimately determined there was no longer enough snow to remain open. ...................(more)

https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/metro-detroit-ski-resorts-end-season-early-due-to-lack-of-snow/

March 12, 2024

The GOP can't leave MAGA -- "Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party"

The GOP can't leave MAGA — "Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party"
An ex-MAGA activist warns "no civic savior is coming" as Donald Trump's cognitive decline becomes undeniable

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MARCH 11, 2024 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) What if Donald Trump defeats President Biden and takes control of the White House in 2025? He has already announced his plans to become the country’s first dictator, and to launch a reign of terror and revenge against his so-called enemies. As detailed in documents such as Project 2025, Agenda 47, and elsewhere, the infrastructure is being created right now to put Trump's neofascist plans to end multiracial pluralistic democracy in effect on “day one." The so-called resistance will not have the courtesy of ramping up or mobilizing to stop Dictator Trump’s onslaught. It will be a “shock and awe” campaign visited upon the American people.

....(snip)....

In an attempt to make better sense of Donald Trump’s obvious cognitive challenges and related behavior in the context of the country’s democracy crisis and the 2024 election, and what may happen next, I recently asked a range of experts for their thoughts and suggestions.

Norm Ornstein is emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and contributing editor for the Atlantic. He is also co-author of the bestselling book "One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported."

..... If this were a healthy democracy, we would have a healthy Supreme Court. We don’t. It is corrupt and not to be trusted when it comes to Trump. If this were a healthy democracy, we would have a press corps that would put a spotlight on what is real and not “both sides” everything while focusing on the horse race instead of the consequences of the election. President Biden needs to use the power of his bully pulpit to focus, over and over and over again, on the consequences of electing this monster for our democracy and the fundamental health of our country.

.....(snip)....

Rich Logis is an ex-MAGA activist and Founder of Leaving MAGA.

.....Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party; not because we should desire a one-party nation, but because one of America’s two major parties will nominate someone who helped orchestrate a coup d'état against the Constitution—which Trump swore to defend and protect—and the American people—whom he swore to defend and protect—to remain in power. Yes, I admit: I’m catastrophizing. I also did so in 2016, when I thought the Democrats and Hillary Clinton posed existential threats to our nation, and to my family, my livelihood and I. Ignorant I was; now, I’m clearer-minded, and acutely understand MAGA because I actually lived it. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/11/the-cant-leave-maga--americans-must-electorally-mercy-the-party/

March 11, 2024

The GOP can't leave MAGA -- "Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party"

The GOP can't leave MAGA — "Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party"
An ex-MAGA activist warns "no civic savior is coming" as Donald Trump's cognitive decline becomes undeniable

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MARCH 11, 2024 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) What if Donald Trump defeats President Biden and takes control of the White House in 2025? He has already announced his plans to become the country’s first dictator, and to launch a reign of terror and revenge against his so-called enemies. As detailed in documents such as Project 2025, Agenda 47, and elsewhere, the infrastructure is being created right now to put Trump's neofascist plans to end multiracial pluralistic democracy in effect on “day one." The so-called resistance will not have the courtesy of ramping up or mobilizing to stop Dictator Trump’s onslaught. It will be a “shock and awe” campaign visited upon the American people.

....(snip)....

In an attempt to make better sense of Donald Trump’s obvious cognitive challenges and related behavior in the context of the country’s democracy crisis and the 2024 election, and what may happen next, I recently asked a range of experts for their thoughts and suggestions.

Norm Ornstein is emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and contributing editor for the Atlantic. He is also co-author of the bestselling book "One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported."

..... If this were a healthy democracy, we would have a healthy Supreme Court. We don’t. It is corrupt and not to be trusted when it comes to Trump. If this were a healthy democracy, we would have a press corps that would put a spotlight on what is real and not “both sides” everything while focusing on the horse race instead of the consequences of the election. President Biden needs to use the power of his bully pulpit to focus, over and over and over again, on the consequences of electing this monster for our democracy and the fundamental health of our country.

.....(snip)....

Rich Logis is an ex-MAGA activist and Founder of Leaving MAGA.

.....Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party; not because we should desire a one-party nation, but because one of America’s two major parties will nominate someone who helped orchestrate a coup d'état against the Constitution—which Trump swore to defend and protect—and the American people—whom he swore to defend and protect—to remain in power. Yes, I admit: I’m catastrophizing. I also did so in 2016, when I thought the Democrats and Hillary Clinton posed existential threats to our nation, and to my family, my livelihood and I. Ignorant I was; now, I’m clearer-minded, and acutely understand MAGA because I actually lived it. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/11/the-cant-leave-maga--americans-must-electorally-mercy-the-party/