Ron DeSantis wants to "slit throats" but I'm sure it's just a metaphor

No, I'm not.

This is the same type of violent rhetoric that Trump started with that eventually led to the Capitol riot and brought the country within the shadow of a coup attempt.

DeSantis calls for ‘slitting throats’ in government, escalating rhetoric

The two largest federal employee unions on Thursday denounced Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s recent vow that as president he would “start slitting throats” in the federal bureaucracy — the latest escalation in intensifying Republican attacks on government operations they want to slash or eliminate.



DeSantis, whose campaign for the GOP nomination has included promises to downsize agencies and fire bureaucrats, made the comments this weekend in New Hampshire while criticizing the “deep state,” echoing a term regularly used by former president Donald Trump to deride Washington.

“On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on Day One and be ready to go,” DeSantis said at a barbecue in Rye, N.H., on Sunday hosted by former senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.). “You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.”

The governor also mused last week about the possible need for the Defense Secretary to “slit some throats” while discussing changes he’d make at the Pentagon as president.

On Thursday, as those comments drew more attention, two prominent unions representing tens of thousands of federal workers called on DeSantis to retract his words. Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union — which represents about 150,000 employees at the Internal Revenue Service and 30 other federal agencies — called the comments “repulsive and unworthy of the presidential campaign trail” in a statement.

Trump's Plan to Save Himself: Scapegoat His Coup Lawyers

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Trump’s Plan to Save Himself: Scapegoat His Coup Lawyers
"John {Eastman} and Rudy {Giuliani} gave a lot of counsel," one Trump advisor says ominously. "Other people can decide how sound it was"

Donald Trump’s attorneys are preparing a legal plan to shovel blame onto the lawyers who aided his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, two sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone.

Trump has now been indicted over Jan. 6 and its surrounding events, and if the case goes to trial, his current legal team is preparing an “advice of counsel” argument, attempting to pull blame away from the former president for any possible illegal activity. Plans for such a defense have been percolating since last year, the two sources say.

Several lawyers in Trump’s ever-shifting legal orbit spent time both this and last year quietly studying past high-profile cases involving this particular line of defense. The attorneys tried to game out how such an argument would fare in front of a judge or a jury.

In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, Trump had an armada of lawyers — some officially representing him, and some simply aligned with him — spreading unhinged conspiracy theories and pushing states to reverse the results: Rudy Giuliani. Sidney Powell. John Eastman. The list goes on and on. (Jack Smith’s indictment on Tuesday identified six co-conspirators, and while names aren’t mentioned, the list clearly includes Giuliani, Powell, and Eastman.)

the entirety of paragraph 91...

via TPM:

Just over two weeks after the FBI discovered classified documents in the Storage RoomZ and TRUMP’s office, on August 26, 2022, NAUTA called Trump Employee 5 and said words to the effect of, “someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good.” In response, Trump Employee 5 told NAUTA that DE OLIVEIRA was loyal and that DE OLIVEIRA would not do anything to affect his relationship with TRUMP. That same day, at NAUTA’s request, Trump Employee 5 confirmed in a Signal chat group with NAUTA and the PAC Representative that DE OLIVEIRA was loyal. That same day, TRUMP called DE OLIVEIRA and told DE OLIVEIRA that TRUMP would get DE OLIVEIRA an attorney.

The colugo. It's closest living relative species is primates

And yet they are sooooo different...

What the heck happened to Dennis Kucinich?

I always knew he was on the far left of the Dem caucus and consistently thought outside the box. I never supported him, but I always kind of admired his ballsiness. He always brought a fresh critique of American policy into the debates. Even when I disagreed with him I valued the points he raised in terms of opposing corruption, over militarization of foreign policy, and body checking the influence of large corporations.

But since leaving office he's become steadily lunar, I'm going from opposing Obama's military actions (which is understandable, if overly idealistic), to becoming the token lap dog liberal prop on Fox News, to going whole hog anti-vaxxer as he manages Bob Kennedy Jr's quixotic presidential campaign.

His most recent snafu involved trying to play off BKJ's anti-vaxxery as "just wanting to be more cautious about vaccines" only to turn into a stammering mess when asked "Can you name one vaccine that Kennedy supports?"

I'm struggling to come up with an explanation of this political trajectory that doesn't involve him being on the take from the Russian FSB. But Occam's razor suggests he's either declining mentally or really needed the money.

Classroom discipline in 1947

Mr Grimes is probably still traumatized by the living hell he witnessed on Guadalcanal.

Not only am I certain there's a little plot to this story here, I think I've figured it out

Why is Pat Sajak so angry?

full article ==> https://slate.com/culture/2023/06/pat-sajak-replacement-wheel-of-fortune-host-ryan-seacrest.html

I want to take a break from all the hair-pulling malicious attacks on vulnerable Americans and just have a good old fashioned laugh at the ridiculousness that is Pat Sajak.

When Pat Sajak announced he’d be retiring from Wheel of Fortune after the show’s 41st season, he included a perfectly diva-ish swipe in his farewell message. “It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months,” Sajak wrote. “If nothing else, it’ll keep the clickbait sites busy!”

Seriously? At 76 Pat Sajak thinks his vanilla face (sorry, vanilla) is clickbait? Duuuude.

And it kind of says it all that Sajak—who has spent decades directing people to spin a wheel and has recently been making a reported $15 million a year for the privilege—took the bittersweet moment of his retirement as an opportunity to air a bit of grievance. Over the years, that became his brand...

I guess that's true. And if you'll excuse the spoiler, the simple answer to why Pat Sajak is so angry, with his lotteryish 15 round a year for, you might wanna sit down for this, 48 days of work per year is because in the other 317 days per year he putters around his I'm guessing McMansion watching Fox News on every wide screen in the house.

Of course, Sajak is not beloved—or at least not in the way that men are supposed to become beloved after 40 years of screen time. The archetypical game show host is warm, convivial, and an advocate for the contestants, someone who has fully internalized the agony of a bad buzzer and the ecstasy of a savvy play. Sajak, meanwhile, consistently cut the silhouette of a man who stumbled into the easiest gig on television but never seemed to appreciate his good fortune.

It seems that Sajak... Wait, it doesn't feel right calling him only by his last name. It seems that Pat Sajak suffers from a lifelong comparison to Alex Trebek. He's Trebek minus testosterone. Also missing a sense of human warmth. But where Trebek dedicated his game show to the retention of academic knowledge and cultural literacy, Pat Sajak was the guy who made sure Americans could still recall the full alphabet.



The article goes on to explain that Pat Sajak is mad about being the only Republican in Hollywood. Which is, first off, pretty damn insulting to Kelsey Grammar (who might also be a tad cranky sometimes, but at least manages to have a sense of humor about it -- probably because he actually earned his living). Maybe crankiness is just being on brand as a conservative. Let's call it Scrooge syndrome. But also, can you imagine bumbling into a golden gig, anointed by Merv fucking Griffin no less, and not being pleased every day you wake up?

Sajak’s Twitter feed is a trove of your typical conservative death-cult stuff—most of the highlights are from around 2014 or so, and all of them provide an eerily prescient snapshot of where political discourse was headed. (A choice quote from the Sajak files: “I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends.” Not quite sure what that means!) Sajak also flirted with some early anti-woke ideation, once remarking that the next big “cause du jour” will be “Plants Rights”

I'm just kidding. Being Pat Sajak means you don't have to wake up. I get why my neighbors here on Houston's east side might get angry. They struggle with house payments, kids' college costs, record breaking summer droughts for 15 of the last 20 years, inexplicable crime rates amid an elusive economic recovery, and inflation rates sucking all the fun out of that recovery. But anger doesn't seem to fit Pat Sajak, a guy who makes Dan Quayle look downright spicy. I can't help but get a chuckle out of how a guy who has every reason to live a life full of joy and gratitude would with an Elmer Fuddish stubbornness absolutely refuse to be happy.

Good Lord, son, take your victory lap and try not to kick the poodle when you round the corner.

Scientists have finally figured out how orcas are teaching each other to attack yachts.

They're using pod casts

Who's the one Republican candidate you *don't* want to get the nomination?

I'm pretty sure Trump will get the nomination... unless his legal troubles actually catch up to him. In that's case, it's anyone's game. Most of them are unelectable loonies (Ramaswamy, Larry Elder), or untested lightweights who've never had to run for a purple voter (Tim Scott, Doug Burgum), or antiTrump lepers (Christie, Will Hurd).

But if Trump is somehow out of contention by next summer, which candidate would you least like Biden to be running against? Who's the biggest threat to the Biden recovery (and climate change legislation, and fair taxation, and campaign finance reform, and progressive healthcare policy, etc)?

The one that I think would have the best chance at picking up enough swing states to be a threat is Asa Hutchinson. He can talk the crazy monkey language of Right Wing resentment politics, but he also has distanced himself from Trumpism without pissing off the loons the way Pence and DeSantis have. But that's based on just seeing him a few times on Foxy-type news interviews.

Who is your nightmare fuel on the right? '