Andy Borowitz: Giuliani Praises George Santos: “The G.O.P. Must Pass the Torch to a New Generation of Liars”

Offering his full-throated support for Representative George Santos, Rudolph Giuliani said that “it’s time for Republicans to pass the torch to a new generation of liars.”

“I get why some Republicans are knocking the kid—they’re envious of his raw talent,” Giuliani told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity. “But we should be showing him our respect. I mean, look at this kid’s body of work. He could turn out to be the Michael Jordan of lying.”

“When I watch him lie, he reminds me of me at his age,” Giuliani said. “Like poetry in motion. But he’s taking his game to a whole new level. The inventiveness, the audacity. Personally, I can’t wait to see what he does next.”

“I still like to think that I can lie with the best of them, but I know I’ve lost a step,” he added. “What can I tell you? I had a good run. But now it’s George Santos’s time to shine. Just put him out there and watch the magic happen.” https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is seeking information on university students who have sought gender-affirming treatment.

In a request sent to 12 state universities, top officials with the Republican governor requested data on the number of students who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who have received treatment in university clinics across the state.

It’s not immediately clear why the DeSantis administration is after transgender students’ personal information, but some Democrats say the move might signal a plan to scale back on health services offered to trans individuals. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-desantis-information-trans-students-universities-florida-20230119-riheb4hpfvbldf4b4unccsfckq-story.html

Trump Sanctioned Nearly $1 Million by Judge

A federal judge on Thursday imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on former President Donald Trump and his lawyer for filing a since-dismissed “frivolous” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and many others, which had claimed they tried to rig the 2016 presidential election in her favor by smearing Trump.

“We are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” wrote Judge John Middlebrooks in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in his order sanctioning Trump and his attorney Alina Habba.

“He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer,” Middlebrooks wrote. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/trump-and-lawyers-sanctioned-almost-1-million-for-frivolous-lawsuit-against-hillary-clinton.html

McCarthy hands detractors critical posts to influence legislation

Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced his picks for the Rules Committee on Monday evening, awarding his group of detractors another powerful perch: The ability to influence nearly everything that will come to the House floor.

McCarthy’s decision will give the House GOP’s right flank the ability to put their stamp on everything — from what bills advance to the full chamber to the structure of floor debates and amendments — and they’re much less likely to go along with leadership.”

Importantly, if Roy, Norman or Massie hang together they can effectively block legislation, including bills that McCarthy supports, from getting to the floor, as minority party members usually vote no on the 9-4 split panel. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/23/mccarthy-detractors-critical-posts-rules-00079136

Trump Resort to Host Pro-QAnon Speaking Tour

A resort owned by Donald Trump is set to host a conference this spring headlined by QAnon promoters and other conspiracy theorists, marking a new connection between the ex-president and his party’s far-right fringe. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-resort-to-host-pro-qanon-speaking-tour-led-by-michael-flynn

DOJ reserves right to not cooperate with certain House GOP requests

The Justice Department is signaling that it has the right to not cooperate with Hill Republicans’ requests to peek into their ongoing investigations.

The Justice Department letter cites a 1982 directive from President Ronald Reagan, stressing that the administration would try to respond to congressional oversight requests and avoid invoking executive privilege, reserving it for use ‘only in the most compelling circumstances.’ https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/20/doj-gop-house-investigations-00078805

Trump trounces DeSantis in potential GOP primary match-up, new poll finds

Former President Trump holds at 17-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a hypothetical GOP primary match-up, according to a new poll.

A Morning Consult poll  released  Just over a year out from the Republican Party’s first presidential nominating contest, Trump holds at 17-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a hypothetical GOP primary match-up. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3817804-trump-trounces-desantis-in-potential-gop-primary-matchup-new-poll-finds/

Trump Maintains Lead over DeSantis in GOP Primary

In the Emerson College 2024 Republican Primary poll, Donald Trump holds a 26-point advantage over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, leading 55% to 29%. Other candidates to receive support include Mike Pence at 6% and Nikki Haley at 3%. Since the November national poll, Trump’s support has held at 55% while DeSantis’s support increased by four percentage points, from 25% to 29%. https://emersoncollegepolling.com/national-poll-bidens-approval-recovers-two-years-into-term-trump-maintains-lead-over-desantis-in-gop-primary/

Trump thought photo of accuser was of ex-wife during deposition

Donald Trump mistook his sexual assault accuser E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when shown a photograph from the 1990s in a deposition at Mar-a-Lago last year, potentially undermining one of the common defenses he has used to deny an attack.

Trump, who is being sued by Carroll, an author and advice columnist, for defamation and sexual assault stemming from the same alleged encounter, has repeatedly said Carroll is not his “type,” suggesting an assault could not have occurred because he would not have pursued her romantically. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/18/trump-deposition-carroll-photo/

Florida Says AP African American Studies Program ‘Lacks Educational Value’

The state used Ron DeSantis’ “Stop WOKE Act” to block the College Board from testing a pilot Advanced Placement African American Studies curriculum in the state saying the curriculum “is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ron-desantis-blocks-ap-african-american-studies-course-1234663155/

Washington’s little secret: ‘Spillage’ of classified information is a common occurrence

What is known in intelligence circles as ‘classified spillage’ is, in fact, incredibly common, according to former intelligence officials and attorneys who specialize in cases involving classified information.

Most of these cases are simple mistakes that aren’t charged as crimes: a government employee accidentally takes a document home in their briefcase or fails to follow the correct protocol for handling a particular piece of information. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/classified-documents-spillage/index.html

Judge refuses to dismiss Peter Navarro’s contempt of Congress case and clears the way for trial

A federal judge declined Thursday to dismiss the criminal contempt of Congress charges brought against former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro for his failure to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

In his opinion, US District Judge Amit Mehta dismantled a wide variety of arguments that Navarro had brought trying to get the case thrown out. Mehta’s decision clears the way for the contempt of Congress case – the second such prosecution that the Department of Justice has brought stemming from the now-defunct House January 6 probe – to go to trial at the end of the month. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/peter-navarro-contempt-of-congress-case/

In Debt-Limit Fight, Trump Wants Republicans to Play a Dangerous Game of Chicken

Donald Trump is egging on Republicans already intent on using the federal debt limit as leverage to extract concessions from Democrats, potentially pushing the country further toward the brink of default as the former president seeks to reassert his grip on the GOP. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-19/trump-bucks-up-gop-s-debt-hard-liners-as-his-star-in-party-fades

Russia sends drug addicts to war to up mobilization numbers

"The information about the massive mobilization of drug addicts was confirmed by one of the Russian soldiers who surrendered to the Resistance Movement,” the Ukrainian Center for National Resistance reported. “According to him, he was not cured of addiction and continued to use drugs while fighting in Zaporizhzhia. The man took the drugs with him as medicine." https://www.jpost.com/international/article-729122

Inside the Supreme Court Inquiry: Seized Phones, Affidavits and Distrust

Last spring and summer, employees of the Supreme Court were drawn into an investigation that turned into an uncomfortable awakening.

As the court marshal’s office looked into who had leaked the draft opinion of the decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, law clerks who had secured coveted perches at the top of the judiciary scrambled for legal advice and navigated quandaries like whether to surrender their personal cellphones to investigators.

Inside the court, justices are treated with such day-to-day deference that junior aides assist them in putting on their black robes. As staff members were grilled, some grew concerned about the fairness of the inquiry, worried that the nine most powerful people at the court were not being questioned rigorously like everyone else. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/us/supreme-court-investigation.html

Former Senior F.B.I. Official in New York Charged With Aiding Oligarch

A former senior F.B.I. official who oversaw some of its most secret and sensitive counterintelligence investigations in New York was accused on Monday of taking money from a former Albanian intelligence employee and from a representative of a Russian oligarch.

Before he retired in 2018, Charles McGonigal had been the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence division in New York. In that post, he supervised investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Oleg V. Deripaska, the oligarch whom the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan on Monday charged him with aiding. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/nyregion/fbi-money-laundering-charles-mcgonigal.html

Jeffries says GOP has “double standard” on committee assignments

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) nominated Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to the Intelligence Committee in a letter to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Saturday first obtained by Punchbowl News.

McCarthy has said he will deny Schiff's and Swalwell's nominations to the committee, though Jeffries told McCarthy in the letter that doing so would run "counter to the serious and sober mission of the Intelligence Committee" and would lay bare Republican's "apparent double standard" in designating committee assignments.

While McCarthy has said he plans to oust Schiff and Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee, embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who has been facing calls to resign from Republicans and Democrats for fabricating details about his background throughout his campaign, received two committee assignments last week.

Far-right Republicans Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) also received committee assignments again — reversing 2021 bipartisan votes to remove their assignments for either making or promoting violent and inflammatory rhetoric against their political opponents.

“At the same time that Republicans have threatened to deny seats on the Intelligence Committee to clearly qualified democratic members, serial fraudster George Santos has been placed on two standing committees of the House and welcomed into your conference," Jeffries letter to McCarthy reads. https://www.axios.com/2023/01/23/jeffries-gop-double-standard-committee-assignment

Fox News' defense in defamation suit invokes debunked election-fraud claims

Dominion's attorneys have deposed people throughout the Fox hierarchy, from junior producers to stars, to executives, to most recently, controlling owner Rupert Murdoch, who sat for questioning under oath at the Fox Studio lot last Thursday and Friday. Its case relies on the theory that there was an effort - from top to bottom of Fox hierarchy - to appease viewers angered that Fox had been the first television network to call the key state of Arizona for Joe Biden in November 2020. (The Murdochs and Fox refused to reverse the projection despite intense pressure from Trump and his campaign.) That explains the sustained embrace of unsustainable claims, Dominion's legal team argues. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/23/1150213311/fox-news-dominion-voting-system-election-fraud-claims

George Santos Admits 500K Personal Loan to Campaign Wasn’t 'Personal'

Rep. George Santos (R-NY) filed a flurry of amended campaign finance reports, telling the feds, among other things, that a $500,000 loan he gave to his campaign didn’t, in fact, come from his personal funds as he’d previously claimed.

However, while the new amended filing told us where the funds did not come from, it also raised a new question—where did the money come from? https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-santos-admits-500k-personal-loan-to-campaign-wasnt-persona

South Dakota Gov. threatens charges for abortion pills

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, along with the state's Republican attorney general, said Tuesday the state will prosecute pharmacists who dispense abortion-inducing pills following a recent Food and Drug Administration rule change that broadens access to the pills.

The FDA earlier this month formally updated labeling for abortion pills to allow many more retail pharmacies to dispense them. https://www.startribune.com/south-dakota-gov-noem-threatens-charges-for-abortion-pills/600246087/

McHenry Warns Fellow GOP Leaders to Be Reasonable in Debt-Ceiling Talks

Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry on Tuesday privately warned fellow House Republican leaders to be reasonable and realistic as they demand federal spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

McHenry, who has emerged as a critical player in the House’s narrow GOP majority, warned Republicans of the ramifications of a catastrophic debt default, arguing that behaving recklessly could lead to the US losing its position as the world’s dominant reserve currency.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-24/mchenry-warns-republicans-to-be-sensible-in-debt-ceiling-talks

The Doomsday Clock was moved forward on Tuesday to 90 seconds to midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock ticked forward largely, though not exclusively, because of the nuclear dangers posed by the war in Ukraine.

"Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict – by accident, intention, or miscalculation – is a terrible risk. The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high," the Bulletin said. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2023/01/24/doomsday-clock-2023-time-announced/11026446002/

There is no easy escape from America’s debt-ceiling mess

Most games of chicken do not have trillion-dollar stakes. But such a spectacle is common in America when Republicans in Congress face off with a Democratic president over the debt ceiling. This legal limit on the amount of debt held by the Treasury is periodically raised—but never by enough to avoid a repeated stalemate. Without a bipartisan political deal to raise the ceiling America would be in uncharted and dangerous territory, bumbling into pointless default.

The last close call, in 2011 when Barack Obama was president and Joe Biden was vice-president, was resolved with only days to spare, spooking stock markets and leading one ratings agency to downgrade the federal government’s credit. The impasse of 2023 may well be just as dramatic.

At the moment, neither side has any incentive to back down. Impending market cataclysm might be the only motivating factor, though it will not arrive for several months. Trillion-dollar chicken has a while yet to go. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/01/23/there-is-no-easy-escape-from-americas-debt-ceiling-mess

Twitter Reinstates Nick Fuentes, Kanye’s Hitler-Loving Muse

Twitter has reinstated the account of white nationalist Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Fuentes was permanently banned from the platform in July 2021, and attempted to skirt the ban following Elon Musk’s October takeover of the social media platform. The decision to reinstate Fuentes is the latest digital pardon the billionaire has granted to extremist figures looking to re-establish themselves on Twitter.

The return of extremist figures to Twitter has been a hallmark of Musk’s early tenure at the platform. He has granted near-blanket amnesty to prominent neo-Nazi’s, white nationalists, and conspiracy theorists. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/nick-fuentes-reinstated-twitter-1234667137/

The Obscure NY Law That Could Dismantle Trump’s Empire

Donald Trump's riches are being threatened by a powerful law enforcement tool that AG Letitia James is wielding like a sledgehammer. Her civil lawsuit against him and his family—which accuses them of rampant bank and tax fraud—relies on the state’s Executive Law 63 (12). Its potential to deal serious damage is evident by how desperately the former president has tried to avoid fighting it head-on.

Rather than present an actual defense, Trump has questioned for nearly a year whether that law even gives AG Letitia James the authority to target his family company. He’s failed miserably. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-obscure-new-york-law-that-could-dismantle-trumps-empire

‘Liberal’ May Finally Be Shedding Its Political Stigma

More than half of Democrats now identify as liberal, suggesting that the long-vilified L-word may be losing its potency as political kryptonite. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3828958-liberal-may-finally-be-shedding-its-political-stigma/

Why Kyrsten Sinema is in deep trouble

There’s no shortage of Democratic senators in danger of losing their seats in 2024. Joe Manchin in ruby-red West Virginia. Jon Tester in solidly Republican Montana. Sherrod Brown in ever-more-conservative Ohio. And their colleagues in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan — four of the purplest places on the map.

But if the latest polls are to be believed, no Senate incumbent is in as much trouble as Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema. https://news.yahoo.com/why-kyrsten-sinema-is-in-deep-trouble-190030007.html

Democrats hammer GOP plan to impose national sales tax, abolish IRS

Democrats are seizing on a Republican proposal to impose a national sales tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service as a cudgel against the GOP, even though the bill has few fans even among Republican lawmakers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/25/gop-national-sales-tax-irs/

G.O.P. State Lawmakers Push a Growing Wave of Anti-Transgender Bills

Over the past three years, Republican state lawmakers have put forward a barrage of bills to regulate the lives of transgender youths, restricting the sports teams they can play on, bathrooms they can use and medical care they can receive.

But even by those standards, the start of the 2023 legislative season stands out for the aggressiveness with which lawmakers are pushing into new territory.

The bills they have proposed — more than 150 in at least 25 states — include bans on transition care into young adulthood; restrictions on drag shows using definitions that could broadly encompass performances by transgender people; measures that would prevent teachers in many cases from using names or pronouns matching students’ gender identities; and requirements that schools out transgender students to their parents. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/us/politics/transgender-laws-republicans.html

‘I felt like we were in “Goodfellas’’’: How George Santos wooed investors for alleged Ponzi scheme

Collectively, the accounts gathered by The Washington Post offer a detailed picture of Santos’s efforts to recruit investors for Harbor City. In two instances, he inflated his own academic or professional credentials… In addition, Zoom recordings of workplace meetings show Santos offering anecdotes about his purported interactions with wealthy people — stories disputed by those involved — for potential inclusion in marketing materials or to impress prospective clients.

Two of the people he pitched said they did not realize until being contacted by a reporter that the man they’d known as ‘George Devolder’ was the newly elected congressman who among other things falsely claimed that his mother was working in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/01/25/george-santos-ponzi-scheme-harbor-city/

Independent Sinema Courted by GOP as Democrat Raises $1 Million

Newly independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is being courted by Senate Republicans, as the Democrat running to take her seat next year raked in $1 million the day after announcing his candidacy.

Rep. Ruben Gallego has capitalized on Sinema’s unpopularity with Democrats in Arizona and nationwide, pulling in donations from 27,000 people after making his much-anticipated 2024 bid for the Senate seat official on Monday. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-24/independent-sinema-courted-by-gop-as-democrat-lines-up-challenge

Dems mobilize to defend Omar in face of GOP defections

Democratic leaders are working to have no defections on the vote to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee when it comes up for a full House vote as soon as next week. And even Democrats who have vocally taken issue with her stance on Israel are now urging colleagues on both sides of the aisle to allow her to remain on the panel.

Taking Omar off panels only requires a simple majority vote, but even that could prove difficult for a House GOP with a historically slim margin — and a second public defector emerging Tuesday, as Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) joined Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in declaring that she wouldn’t vote for yanking Omar. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/24/democrats-ilhan-omar-house-committees-mccarthy-00079319

McCarthy names GOP members to run sweeping investigative panel

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, on Tuesday evening, appointed a dozen GOP lawmakers, including Jordan, to a select subcommittee on the “weaponization” of the federal government. Republicans are expected to use it to probe, among other targets, the FBI, Justice Department and the intelligence community — agencies at the center of some of their biggest recent gripes. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/24/house-government-weaponization-subcommittee-members-00079341

THE DAILY GRILL

McCarthy made good on his threat to oust two California Democrats from the House Intelligence Committee — former Chair Schiff and member Eric Swalwell — in promised payback for Democrats’ sanctions of Gosar and Greene in 2021. Of Swalwell, McCarthy told reporters on camera, “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee.”

He also baselessly claimed that Schiff “openly lied to the American public” to engineer Trump’s first impeachment, for suggesting to Ukraine’s president that his country would lose U.S. military aid unless it produced dirt against presidential candidate-to-be Biden. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/18/mccarthys-specious-attacks-adam-schiff-eric-swalwell/

VERSUS

Schiff has consistently maintained he did not know the identity of the whistleblower — and no evidence has emerged to the contrary, despite McCarthy’s claim that he lied about it. As for Swalwell, there is no evidence he did anything wrong, despite McCarthy’s claim that a classified briefing suggested something nefarious. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/18/mccarthys-specious-attacks-adam-schiff-eric-swalwell/



“Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has claimed that reports and videos documenting him performing in drag are both ‘outrageous’ and ‘categorically false,'” Politico reports. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/20/george-santos-appears-to-admit-drag-queen-past-in-wiki-post-00078812

VERSUS

Meanwhile, Rio drag queens found this video of George Santos in drag. https://twitter.com/wesleybonner/status/1616429324550426625