Cassandra, Congress, DeMoron, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks

Something To Read While You Wait For Indictment News

Here are a few things that I’ve been reading but don’t have the time to do longer pieces on at the moment.

On Wednesday I wrote about increasing chaos among House Republicans. Then this happened on Wednesday:

These are not serious people. And while I did laugh at that tweet, it’s also infuriating. We pay those jerks a lot of money to serve us in Congress, and this is how they spend their time. I know that MAGAts are all about sticking it to the libs, but lots of them get paid far less and are under a lot more pressure to actually get shit done at work and this is their money at work too.

On a related note, I was both surprised and was not surprised that Kevin McCarthy took a deal to end the debt ceiling standoff (I mean, the people who own him weren’t about to lose their fortunes to appease the Freedom Caucus). But I didn’t know how much heat the entire party was taking:

I know November 2024 is a long way off, but I also know that Republicans are incapable of change.

One last update—last fall I wrote about Ron DeSantis flying a group of migrants from Texas to Massachusetts. Well it happened again this week, when he flew another group of migrants from Texas to California as a stunt. Concurrent with that nonsense (it’s human trafficking, right?), DeSantis is about to sign a new immigration bill:

The law provides $12 million for DeSantis’ migrant relocation initiative, which drew national attention last year when the governor flew a group of South American migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a move intended to protest federal immigration policy.

It also expands requirements for businesses with more than 25 staffers to use E-Verify, a federal system that determines if employees can legally work in the U.S. And it prohibits local governments from providing money to organizations that issue identification cards to immigrants lacking permanent legal status in the country and invalidates out-of-state driver’s licenses held by people living in the country illegally.

Another provision requires hospitals that accept Medicaid to include a citizenship question on intake forms, which critics have said is intended to dissuade immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from seeking medical care.

In response, immigrants aren’t showing up for work and the construction industry has dramatically slowed down. Actions have consequences.

And on that subject, on Tuesday a Texas sheriff filed criminal charges against DeSantis related to last year’s stunt which stranded migrants on Martha’s Vineyard:

Salazar has said that DeSantis’ operation lured the migrants from San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center under false pretenses, promising them jobs in another city.

“The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has officially filed a completed criminal case with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office regarding the incident from September 2022 where 49 migrants were flown to Martha’s Vineyard,” Salazar’s office said in a statement to TPR. “The charge filed is Unlawful Restraint and several accounts were filed, both misdemeanor and felony.”

The unlawful restraint charge would be a felony for five of the migrants who were under the age of 17.

Let’s hope the charges stick.

Oh and Chris Licht might be out at CNN, but its rightward shift won’t be abandoned in the near future. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is fascist-curious and will not be denied his moment.

I return you to your regularly scheduled indictment tenterhooks after this fine and fitting song by Michael Penn: