emptywheel

@emptywheel.bsky.social

Coverage of American authoritarianism with a focus on legal cases. An American-Irish in Limerick, Ireland. Legendary potty mouth!

@emptywheel.bsky.social

Also note: there are two OTHER stories about GOP male abusiveness that are making news. There's the claims of INSANE abuse by Max Miller, House Rep from OH, who stands accused of abusing Bernie Moreno's daughter. www.signorile.com/p/is-rep-max...

signorile.comIs Rep. Max Miller threatening to out Sen. Bernie Moreno for having sex with men?Moreno won’t call for the resignation of Miller, his son-in-law, accused by Moreno’s daughter of domestic abuse. Is it MAGA loyalty, or is it Miller’s threat to uncover something about the senator?
@emptywheel.bsky.social

And an archived link. Again, this thing will take an hour and it will make you furious. But please do read it and if you have a REPUBLICAN MoC on the Judiciary, Homeland Security, or Oversight committees call and ask why they're doing nothing. bsky.app/profile/free...

@emptywheel.bsky.social

FWIW, this is me recommending people set aside time to read Blake's piece, the same day it came out--the screen cap I included happened to focus on Barron's role. bsky.app/profile/empt...

@emptywheel.bsky.social

Virtually EVERY SINGLE time someone says, "Dems haven't done X," a simple Google search will show that, in fact they did, and the speaker was just too lazy to check. Yes, communication is broken. That's a two-way street, always, especially now.

@emptywheel.bsky.social

ProPublica on how far right Paul Ingrassia forced FBI to return phones to the Tates. www.propublica.org/article/andr... Donegan: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

propublica.orgThe White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal InvestigationFederal authorities were chided for seizing electronic devices from Tate and his brother, and told to return them, records and interviews show. Experts said the intervention was highly inappropriate.
@emptywheel.bsky.social

Then in a piece that confessed he had not read June 8 Heidi Blake profile of Tates, Brian Beutler claimed Ansari was speaking up alone. W/no apparent irony, Beutler blamed lack of reading & weak oppo, apparently by OTHER people, that it was not yet a scandal. www.offmessage.net/p/andrew-tat...

I want to be generous here and note that Democrats don’t control oversight committees in either chamber. So they can’t do much more than make a stink. But Ansari shouldn’t be demanding answers alone. Among many thoughts I had reading the article was that this reporting ought to be an existential emergency for the American right-wing elite, MAGA, Inc., and even elements of the international far right. But the reaction is eerily mute due (I’d hypothesize) to the decline of reading and (yes) weak political opposition.
@emptywheel.bsky.social

A simple Google search says Jamie Raskin, Richard Blumenthal, & Gary Peters all took oversight actions last year re treatment of Tate brothers. Then Yassamin Ansari wrote a letter on July 23--again more oversight. None of those efforts made Moira Donegan's July 27 column claiming Dems were "silent."

@emptywheel.bsky.social

I mostly shared it bc the concept of "stabilizing" a kid feels pretty distant from the usage of "training wheels" in the states. So now I'm contemplating what that means as kids grow up.

@emptywheel.bsky.social

Learned a new Hibernian English word today: stabiliser. With an s. [The 6 year old in the shop was MUCH more excited about getting a bike than his slightly older brother, who looked more bookish.]

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