Oversight

When Donald Trump isn't bragging about how stupendously awesome he thinks he is, he is disparaging everyone that he regards as being insufficiently worshipful of him. It's a textbook example of the malignant narcissism that he's been suffering from for decades. Click here to Tweet this article The past couple...

More
  • January 16, 2023

When Donald Trump isn't bragging about how stupendously awesome he thinks he is, he is disparaging everyone that he regards as being insufficiently worshipful of him. It's a textbook example of the malignant narcissism that he's been suffering from for decades. Click here to Tweet this article The past couple...

More
  • January 16, 2023

The parents of Republican politicians must have taught their kids not to make the bed, sweep the dirt under the carpet, and that a little dried egg on the corner of the plate is okay. In the intervening days, since the Republican party was literally at each other’s throats on...

More
  • January 9, 2023

It's only Tuesday, and yet this has already been been a terrible week for Donald Trump. It's week that follows several wherein he has been brutally and deservedly chastised for having dined with racists and anti-Semites, and for calling for the “termination” fo the Constitution, and for hawking his ridiculous...

More
  • December 20, 2022

Congressman James Comer Jr. (R-KY) is the current ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. In January, when the 118th Congress is seated, he is set to become the Chairman of the committee when Republicans take control of the House. The proposed new Chair of the Oversight Committee has already...

More
  • November 28, 2022

Yet another mass shooting happened overnight near my sister’s home in Virginia. After the body counts, the gnashing of teeth, and the solemn looks of talking heads interviewing the survivors and grieving family members, the right-wingers will step in and victim blame. The Alex Jones(s), Marjorie Taylor Greene(s), and Lauren...

More
  • November 23, 2022

CNN’s David Gergen: The Only Thing That Can Stop Donald Trump From Running in 2024 is a Prison Sentence From the Insurrection, we know that conspiring to commit felonies is also a felony. We know with greater certainty that Trump knew what was going to happen, despite Pence’s resistance and...

More
  • October 24, 2021

Arizona still is a paradigm case in attempts to overthrow governments. Apparently elections are now auctions and any idiot with money and a legislature in their pocket can demand election audits. Lawfare will ensue as democracy and information will become more rather than less opaque. The politicized “audit” of Maricopa County, Arizona’s...

More
  • May 28, 2021

The addition of the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act was a turning point in terms of minority representation. Redistricting is the process of drawing electoral district lines every ten years intended to bring about racially proportional representation. While its purpose was to give weight to minority votes, it...

More
  • May 27, 2021

Even in Arizona, the Fraudit continues, now interrupted by high school graduations. “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country” This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5. If we don’t call this out… Wow. The Republican who took over Maricopa County...

More
  • May 16, 2021

In testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller and former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, sought to defend their response to the deadly insurrection. This did not address the obvious positioning of them and others by previous guy to overturn election results....

More
  • May 12, 2021

No voter fraud! Tomorrow (Wednesday), while the Cult of the Former Guy (a/k/a the Republican party) House members meet to excommunicate Liz Cheney from the leadership for the sin of heresy — as in, telling the truth that Former Guy lost fair and square, the Former Guy’s acting Attorney General,...

More
  • May 11, 2021

Shedding Facebook becomes more necessary as awareness of disinformation and propaganda effects forces editorial action by Facebook. The problem is that ad revenue can and has come from malign forces beyond the usual influence operations of capitalism. This comes as its Oversight Board asks more questions about Facebook’s role in...

More
  • May 11, 2021

Previous guy added a page to his website, one which mimics Twitter and Facebook in its appearance, because the grift needs to be fed. In a related story, Bloomberg reports that demand for butt implants rose during the pandemic. “Knowingly repeating a lie — an act of immorality — is...

More
  • May 5, 2021

The Facebook Oversight Board sustained the ban on Trump — for now. Previous guy added a page to his website, one which mimics Twitter and Facebook in its appearance, because the grift needs to be fed. In a related story, Bloomberg reports that demand for butt implants rose during the pandemic....

More
  • May 5, 2021

GQP, the “radical cult that used to be a political party” now attacks “wokeness” to divert attention from their retribution against Liz Cheney’s vote against previous guy during the insurrection. x Rep. Kevin McCarthy: “The movement in this country about wokeness has got to stop.” pic.twitter.com/Vnrkm0N1bx — The Hill (@thehill) May...

More
  • May 4, 2021

Likely Trump will continue to be banned from Facebook, but just in case, it is worth speculating what would happen if he returns. His general laying-low these days is probably in hopes of getting a reprieve. Facebook’s oversight board will announce its ruling on whether former President Donald Trump’s account should...

More
  • May 3, 2021

Likely Trump will continue to be banned from Facebook, but just in case, it is worth speculating what would happen if he returns. His general laying-low these days is probably in hopes of getting a reprieve. Facebook’s oversight board will announce its ruling on whether former President Donald Trump’s account should...

More
  • May 3, 2021

Previous guy always expects the loyalty of mob silence Omertà, even when he throws everyone under the bus, it’s part of his personality disorder. The real goal for his relative silence might be the return to social media when Facebook reconsiders their suspension. He has a Parler account but doesn’t use...

More
  • April 29, 2021

Previous Guy has been desperate for a regular social media channel to wreak his nonsense. Likely he’ll violate the rules again because we’ve seen his poor impulse control and then there’s the Big Lie. Tech experts are skeptical about plans for a Trump social media platform, if only because justice...

More
  • April 7, 2021

Truly a tool, as the Inspector General reports are coming and Previous Guy’s going to be in the barrel. Donald Trump was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States. That’s been documented in Republican-led investigative reports, and now it has been updated with new evidence, thanks to the U.S....

More
  • March 24, 2021

What’s funnier than Mike Pence being sent to the doghouse after spending four-plus years as Donald Trump’s captive purse poodle? I honestly can’t think of anything—though if Ted Cruz falls down an open manhole while looking at My Little Pony furry porn on his phone, I may have to reassess.  Months...

More
  • March 22, 2021

Trump wants his fast food and his social media fix in his own private Bizarro-World. The Facebook Oversight Board could reinstate Trump’s privileges on the platform as early as May after conducting an independent review. Trump submitted an appeal directly to Facebook’s Oversight Board, which will rule whether he’s allowed back...

More
  • March 22, 2021

Trump wants his fast food and his social media fix in his own private Bizarro-World. The Facebook Oversight Board could reinstate Trump’s privileges on the platform as early as May after conducting an independent review. Trump submitted an appeal directly to Facebook's Oversight Board, which will rule on whether he's allowed...

More
  • March 22, 2021

Remember when Brett Kavanaugh was embroiled in controversy during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing and we all thought the powerful and seismic testimony of Christine Blasey Ford would move the needle, but then Lindsey Graham started screaming his head off like an absinthe-besotted wood elf, Kavanaugh did his whole oppressed...

More
  • March 16, 2021

Equality for a lot of white Americans means acknowledging that black people are human. The difficulty comes when applying equity because that paradigm strikes at the heart of privilege. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) made that abundantly clear with the questions he put to the Biden administration’s nominee for Attorney General,...

More
  • February 24, 2021

We must make the Texas Catastrophe the nail-in-the-coffin for post-Reagan failed economics. Economist Paul Krugman is not sure. I am! Why? Post-Reagan failed economics must end See full episodes here. Conservative economic policies hurt the poor and middle-class as it transfers wealth to a few. The Texas Electric grid catastrophe is...

More
  • February 24, 2021

Sorry but having lived a long time is Pinko Commie Europe this morning I was gobsmacked by this piece of news. Mr. Willoughby is among scores of Texans who have reported skyrocketing electric bills as the price of keeping lights on and refrigerators humming shot upward. For customers whose electricity...

More
  • February 21, 2021

Texas is the coalmine canary of failures in the GQP’s industrial policy. The “clusterfuzzle” appears to be only in Texas: perhaps they skimmed on costs and failed in winterizing their plants. The structural failure comes from the anti-federal, deregulatory policy of the Texas grid which reveals itself in the disinformation...

More
  • February 18, 2021

The “Arctic is already under such threat from so many angles, and while production there is expensive, it is also very, very high risk. It requires absolutely the strongest levels of global oversight.” Phoebe Barnard, Professor at Washington’s Conservation Biology Institute Putin’s Russia made history today when the Christophe de Margerie, the enormous...

More
  • February 16, 2021

Wow: Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) was caught on tape making cracks about physical violence against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who last year was the target of a kidnapping plot by right-wing militia extremists. He was also recorded spreading lies about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S....

More
  • February 10, 2021

'GQP' – Republicans announce themselves as a Trumpist party We cannot ignore the growing threat of right-wing extremism and its enablers any longer. x “McCarthy claims he has received private assurances from Greene that she no longer wishes death on Pelosi.“ -Washington Post — Cheri Jacobus (@CheriJacobus) February 5, 2021...

More
  • February 5, 2021

Remember Mellissa Carone? Of course you do. She’s the crucial election witness who was so unhinged that Rudy Giuliani—who on a good day makes marginally less sense than a paint fumes hallucination—attempted to shush her while she spun her cray-cray stolen-election theories. Many people thought she was drunk. When I...

More
  • January 26, 2021

Howie Klein writes that Katie Porter was denied a waiver in order to serve on the financial services committee. There certainly will be plenty to do on the Oversight and Natural Resources committees, especially with post-Trump excesses and the climate initiatives, but she will be missed. On Thursday evening, I...

More
  • January 15, 2021

This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx. Outline of Marx’s Analysis Chapter 16 The Historical Relation Between Absolute and Relative Surplus Value – in capitalism, social labor produces surplus-value – early on: formal subsumption of labor produces absolute surplus-value by extending the working...

More
  • December 20, 2020

#PoliceThePolice Civil asset forfeiture is manifestly unfair, loaded with perverse incentives, based on a legal fallacy and opposed by an overwhelming majority of the public (once they know what it actually is). It’s also typically carried out with little transparency or oversight, and it’s a policy that, when we do have data,...

More
  • December 6, 2020

With a Biden lead of nearly 15,000 ballots, 180 have been challenged in Arizona and a claim of postal interference in Pennsylvania debunked as an employee recants. x Postal worker featured by Republicans as evidence of vote tampering admits he made it up; GOP donors gave him $130,000 https://t.co/UlOqChJN5j— Timothy Burke...

More
  • November 11, 2020

The media love their political horse races, which is why an eminently qualified Democratic candidate managed to lose the presidency to a surly, KFC-besotted yam in 2016. Of course, this year’s presidential election isn’t so much a horse race as a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome death match to determine whether we...

More
  • September 24, 2020

So the guy who says nearly any kind of malarkey accuses his opposition of “massive disinformation”. Firehose of gaslight projected on an entire nation. x #SundayThoughts: The word “trumpery” appeared in the 15th century with the meanings “deceit” or “fraud”. 100 years later, it was being applied to objects of...

More
  • September 6, 2020

The are numerous attempts to make the election closer, few credible. Trump’s accelerationism is like Emilio LIzardo hitting a wall with a faulty overthruster in the film Buckaroo Banzai. This remains the path to the bunker on scorched earth, as Trump raves on… x ….His problem is interesting. He must always...

More
  • August 31, 2020

When Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, famously created the television sensation of the late 1980s Seinfeld, they hyped it as the show about nothing.  The resulting enigma of laughter about nothing resulted in some famous flashes of comedic brilliance known as, Seinfeld moments. Well, the Republican National Committee announced its’...

More
  • August 26, 2020

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy answered the leading question by Republican Congressman Paul Gosar in a manner that flattened his accusation against Democrats. Postmaster General embarrassed Congressman x x YouTube Video Watch the full episode here. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is at Congress testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee,...

More
  • August 24, 2020

​By now, it’s painfully obvious that Donald Trump and the Republicans are blatantly sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service in order to deliberately delay mail-in ballots for this upcoming election, despite an ongoing pandemic. Trump even admitted to it. His administration is literally collecting mailboxes. But they also have plans for those who want...

More
  • August 15, 2020

Fortunately, Trump has telegraphed one of his tactical options to remain in power. x For nearly 90 years, the Constitution has contained a built-in safeguard against presidents who try to retain power beyond the end of their term: presidential power automatically passes to the House Speaker at noon on January...

More
  • July 31, 2020

In his presser, Trump blamed Portland violence on “professional anarchists” because of course they carry cards noting their memberships, rather than those awful amateur anarchists. There are so darn many of them, so many moms and vets. Too many pro-tips for Trump, because when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro....

More
  • July 31, 2020

Community policing can happen even if it’s been talked about for half a century against a backdrop of paramilitary enforcement and military intelligence. Sadly, the change must be serious and even more radical, requiring even greater defunding/retraining and anti-corruption. x LA Mayor Eric Garcetti is speaking right now about police reforms....

More
  • July 28, 2020

From Newsweek: Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler publicized her disapproval of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) openly supporting Black Lives Matter again on Saturday. The Republican lawmaker's latest criticism came after New York Liberty and Seattle Storm players staged a national anthem walkout during an earlier game. Loeffler described the...

More
  • July 26, 2020

Some more big news today: x Endorsement Alert 🚨 I want to thank the @DSCC and Chair Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. This endorsement signals to my opponent that our grassroots movement to put this country back on track by prioritizing people over politics is a winning solution come November #IDSen...

More
  • July 24, 2020

Cartoon characters without pants might have to drop drawers as SCOTUS finally rules on Trump’s financial records today. There will be an over/under and perhaps even a split difference, but regardless there will be strong, powerful, or even strongly or powerfully Trump distractions. Bigly matters will at least be referenced...

More
  • July 9, 2020

The placing of 90 op-eds in a range of 40+ media outlets signals some real disinformation problems at work. One guess is that one of many (Saudi/UAE/Russia?) intelligence services have been doing this. This Daily Beast article shows how deep the information battle operates. http://www.thedailybeast.com/… Badani is part of a...

More
  • July 8, 2020