This was not in the briefing

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Secret Service reportedly fed-up with VP Vance and family. {MS NOW 15 July}

https://www.ms.now/news/veeps-security-detail-fed-up-with-hastily-arranged-personal-and-family-travel-requests

Blatantly entitled, brazenly so, and only a heartbeat away from the presidency. Taking a young boy to a golf lesson aboard a military helicopter at taxpayer expense, reportedly costing more than $24,000. Meanwhile, JD Vance and his wife — ever the natalists — are expecting their fourth child soon. 

Vance is not fit for the office he holds, and certainly not the presidency: too young, too self-assured, too many contradictions about him, and too aloof in nature. Alas, thanks largely to his boss, standards no longer apply to most Republican office-holders, provided they remain in Trump's good graces.

White Americans and much of the mainstream media — generally speaking, of course — do not hold Republicans to the same standards they apply to Democrats. I believe this has been true for decades, beginning with the political realignment that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but more acutely so since 2016, when a third or so of the overall American population decided what a wonderful idea it would be to join a political cult led by a foul-mouthed real estate mogul and ‘reality television’ star with closets full of skeletons. 

At the dawn of his political career, Donald Trump could have attempted to run as a Democrat. After all, he spent roughly a decade registered with the party in the 2000s. Yet he understood that his chances of success were far greater as a Republican. He needed the white working-class vote, and that constituency had been drifting away from the Democratic Party since the 1960s, a process completed with the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008.

Just look at the number of state legislative seats Democrats lost during Obama's presidency, particularly across the South. The scale of the decline is staggering. Trump was taking note. Trump could not have won as a Democrat, nor could he have gotten away with everything he has gotten away with as a Republican. No demographic group has proven more willing to overlook — or even embrace — his corruption, incompetence, and ethical failings than the coalition that now comprises #MAGA. 

So long as JD Vance remains Trump’s trusted VP, he shall be Teflon. Ask Mike Pence what happens, however, when one falls out of good graces. The best thing that can happen between now and the scheduled presidential election of 2028 (and I use the word ‘scheduled’ as there is no guarantee there will be any election in 2028) is for Trump to throw Vance under the bus and fire him, for he would be a horrible president (yes, worse).

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Junior GOP presidential hopefuls make noise about slashing Social Security and Medicare

AI generated image

As I have grown older and further away from the absurd right-wing populism and conspiracism of my younger years, I see more clearly that one need not be a Communist or a Marxist - or even think of oneself as any variant of a ‘socialist,’ which I never have and still do not - to understand that rich and civilized nations should have basic safety nets in place to prevent its citizens from going into poverty. European nations typically take far better care of their seniors and vulnerable, and their living standards (by and large) only continue to rise or stay at a high level, while America’s living standards have been plummeting in recent decades. In this country, we have only the most basic of social safety nets for citizens, and even that is far too much for many Republicans and their enablers. Earlier this year, during the contentious debt ceiling negotiations, more than a few House Republicans and especially those in the ‘freedom caucus’ were growing quite bold in their proposals to suffocate and drain Social Security and Medicare. Three of Donald Trump’s 2024 GOP rivals - namely, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley - are again testing the waters in hopes of bringing public opinion around to incrementally ending these vital programs. 

Younger Americans are already having an extremely harder time, all across the board, in getting ahead in life than previous generations, and they are going to have nothing to fall back upon when they reach their senior years. And I hate to say it, but I sense that many in the ‘Boomer’ generation (so long as they are still getting theirs), along with some of the more callous among my generation (Gen X) and even among the ‘millennial’ generation (who will suffer themselves) are quite okay with all that. That callousness is what the likes of Pence and DeSantis are counting on. And Donald Trump as well, even if he at least has enough sense to know it is still bad for business to hint at anything that would threaten senior citizens and the vulnerable. {WP 7/22: Trump's GOP rivals open door to cutting Social Security for younger people}

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS.

Our darkest days grow colder: Shooting at elementary school in Texas leaves 18 small children dead, Trump wanted to hang his own VP for not cooperating with the J6 insurrection, and the dangerous despot in Hungary seizes more power for himself

Jacob Langston/NYT

Testimony before the House January 6 committee reveals that Trump allegedly stated that Mike Pence needed to hang - Nothing is shocking anymore with Donald Trump, and this revelation is no exception. In normal times this one anecdote alone would have been the scandal of the decade, and there would be widespread outrage. America has undergone a ‘shock treatment’ of sorts for the past twenty-one years, and desensitization has set in for many. And others are embracing the evil lurking inside them, as we will see in the next paragraph. Welcome to Hell. (New York Times 5/25)

Reuters

Another f**king school shooting, another bloody day in #Murica - Mass shootings are now an almost-daily occurrence in this sick country. No hyperbole, people everywhere are cracking. Eighteen kids, and one adult dead; the shooter, probably another one of these teenage incel types, killed by police. Americans are once again horrified, and once again no action will be taken. Guns are only part of the problem, and guns are an effective deterrent when used responsibly and lawfully by qualified individuals - no, many of these kids are being doped up on Ritalin, overstimulated on video games and electronics, most are not reading, they are largely not allowed to play outside. They are no longer taught manners, seeing as so many of the grown-ups around them are rude and stupid individuals, and genuine role models are few and far between. Even most of those in #Murica who present themselves as upright and full of wisdom turn out to be scam artists and charlatans; wolves in sheep’s clothing. I’ve long had a vague suspicion that the new Babylon spoken of in prophecy is the United States of America. At this moment, I am not suspecting anything; this may as well be Babylon, and it deserves to die. All of that good, patriotic stuff about America that people still cling to is simply gone, long past us in all but facade. May the Lord Jesus have mercy on us. (BBC News 5/24)

Olivier Hoslet/AP

Hungarian despot Viktor Orban seizes more power for himself with ‘state of danger’ declaration - Using the war in neighboring Ukraine as a pretense, the populist strongman and Putin ally erodes democracy further. Remember, this is the model the GOP is openly praising and emulating. (AP 5/24)

Sen. Mitt Romney warns that the United States must be prepared for Russia to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (KSL 5/23)

The U.S. supplies Ukraine with lethal ‘Switchblade’ drones that can target Russian tanks and artillery from miles away (Ukraine 24 5/24)

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House January 6th Committee determines that Trump was part of criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election

Jim Bourg/Reuters

While the world focuses on Ukraine – as we must – the January 6th Committee is continuing its work. In an ideal world, Trump would be in a Siberian gulag by now. What am I saying, though? If this were an ideal world, the son-of-a-bitch would never have existed to start with. Lock him up. - 

(CNN) Former President Donald Trump and a right-wing lawyer were part of a "criminal conspiracy" to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot alleges in a court filing Wednesday. 

The filing is part of an attempt to convince a judge to allow the panel access to emails from lawyer John Eastman, who is claiming attorney-client privilege. The committee said he helped to orchestrate the plot. 

The filing is the most extensive release to date from the House's January 6 investigators as they try to obtain Eastman's emails -- and comes well before the House select committee releases its final report on its findings on Trump. House members have also signaled they may make a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Trump, depending on their findings, and the House's arguments Wednesday could be seen as a preview of a case that could be made by federal prosecutors. 

In the 61-page court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for the House wrote: "Evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts, and that Plaintiff's legal assistance was used in furtherance of those activities." 

Eastman and Trump have not been accused of any crime by federal or state prosecutors, and no top advisers around Trump have been charged for January 6-related crimes. 

The House has no ability to bring criminal charges. A judge overseeing the civil lawsuit will review the emails himself and decide whether they should stay protected. (Read more)

Copyright 2022, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here. DONATIONS - click here.

Trump's madness knows no boundaries, as he calls for his own VP to be investigated for the crime of following the law

AFP/Getty Images

Trump knows it is a lie – the Big Lie. ‘Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth,’ as Joseph Goebbels is reputed to have said, and absolutely put into practice in Nazi Germany. Trump knew Vice-President Pence did not have the constitutional authority to overturn the results of a presidential election, but will go to any lengths to keep the Big Lie going and rally the people to his cause. His cause being declared President for Life. How much further is this going to be allowed to go before this would-be dictator is locked up? The White House better have a damn good plan in place to contain the certain revolt of Trump’s most dangerous supporters when/if justice is finally served. Know this much: America – if it even survives, a big 'if’ - will be severely divided for at least a generation or two to come, in large part because of one power-hungry cult leader and the madness he has inflicted upon a country that really was not doing so great before he came along. The American people and their media overlords have only made it too easy for this evil man to take over. Trump now says he wants Mike Pence investigated for not sending back votes -  

President Donald Trump on Tuesday resumed his criticism of former Vice President Mike Pence for failing to 'overturn' the election results – and is now saying his former VP should be probed for failing to 'send back' votes in states where Trump was claiming fraud. 

Trump fired off comment in a statement from his Save America PAC – a day after a stunning statement where Trump wrote that Pence 'did have the right to change the outcome' and added 'he could have overturned the Election!' 

Now, a day after it was revealed that Pence's former chief of staff Marc Short testified before the House Jan. 6th Committee, Trump is calling for an investigation of Pence as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who accuses of failing to protect the Capitol.    

'So pathetic to watch the Unselect Committee of political hacks, liars, and traitors work so feverishly to alter the Electoral College Act so that a Vice President cannot ensure the honest results of the election, when just one year ago they said that “the Vice President has absolutely no right to ensure the true outcome or results of an election,” wrote Trump. He was referencing the Electoral Count Act, the subject of election reform negotiations. (Read more)

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The supreme irony of the mindless, anti-intellectual, nationalist populist movement: Its ideological underpins are being set by academia

John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani. Photo: Reuters

In spite of #Cult45’s endless disdain for academia or anything intellectual in nature, it is the ‘conservative’ think tanks – looking to countries such as Hungary for inspiration - that are putting the final death nails in America’s coffin. Via the New Republic -  

Since 2016, an array of little-known conservative intellectuals and think tank sorts have emerged as powerful voices in Trump’s Republican Party. Zealous opposition to immigration and so-called woke culture stoked their political ambition. They lent a veneer of much-needed respectability to the Trump administration. And now, despite some genuine theoretical differences, the group is coalescing around an illiberal political project—not just espousing typical conservative policy preferences, but standing against liberal, constitutional democracy in the traditional, nonpartisan sense. Some of the most prominent intellectual voices on the right are openly consolidating around the notion that America needs a radical political transformation, away from rule by and for “We the People” and toward something more top-down and monolithic. At its essence, NatCon II is an opportunity for the big names in this movement to offer a dressed-up, sublimating version of Trumpism. 

Today, the conservative intellectuals who first came together in defense of Trumpism and under the banner of National Conservatism are preparing the ideological terrain for a post-liberal America. Not to take them seriously betrays a historical naïveté and a fetishization of the intellect—as if intelligence has never walked alongside moral and political horror—as well as a dreadful overconfidence in the immediate appeal of the liberal democratic worldview. (Read more)

Copyright 2021, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.

Washington Post report details Trump team meeting prior to January 6 to determine how to deny the lawfully elected president from taking office

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post

Every single one of these people, beginning with Trump, needs to be locked up. America is a joke so long as it doesn’t enforce its own laws and allows sedition to go unpunished -  

They called it the “command center,” a set of rooms and suites in the posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election. 

The Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and the ensuing attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob would draw the world’s attention to the quest to physically block Congress from affirming Joe Biden’s victory. But the activities at the Willard that week add to an emerging picture of a less visible effort, mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term. 

They were led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as the effort’s senior political adviser. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. 

They sought to make the case to Pence and ramp up pressure on him to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within his powers, three people familiar with the operation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Their activities included finding and publicizing alleged evidence of fraud, urging members of state legislatures to challenge Biden’s victory and calling on the Trump-supporting public to press Republican officials in key states. 

The effort underscores the extent to which Trump and a handful of true believers were working until the last possible moment to subvert the will of the voters, seeking to pressure Pence to delay or even block certification of the election, leveraging any possible constitutional loophole to test the boundaries of American democracy. (Read more)

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