Failures of Intelligence, starring Bibi Netanyahu

By Intelligence Editor Husband Kimmel (Adm., U.S.N. Ret.) in Tel Aviv

The Financial Times, a newspaper not known for publishing garbage, had a report today accusing the Netanyahu Regime of ignoring specific actionable intelligence pointing to a Hamas attack before October 7 (a report confirmed by the Israel Broadcasting Corporation):

Those ladies and their hyperactive imaginations, amirite people?  We'll never know for sure because lots of them were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7 due to the failure of the Israeli Government to take their eyewitness reporting seriously.

As with most other grievous intelligence failures, the question is why the information was ignored.

Fortunately the FT has the answer:

And who runs that Government and came up with genius strategies like bribing Hamas to weaken their rival, the Palestinian Authority, and thereby frustrate any progress toward a durable peace in the region based on a two-state solution?

He's known by his supporters as Bibi, Melech Yisrael, but you know him as Benjamin Netanyahu, King of Israel.

For decades he has devoted himself to two causes: (1) perpetuating his corrupt rule and (2) making it impossible for Palestinians to ever obtain a state of their own.  Until October 7, he was thought to be succeeding on both counts.

The pro-Zionist advocacy group J Street summed up Bibi's effort in this pre-war analysis:

Speaking of prophecy, their concern about an “intensifying cycle of violence” seems to have aged pretty well.

Fun game: find the two-state solution! (Courtesy, PBS)

Prior to October 7, Netanyahu seemed to be well on his way to succeeding in writing the Palestinians out of his crackpot hard right “peace” plan:

Netanyahu has often seemed to revel in using the podium of the General Assembly to lambast Israel’s enemies.....

This year, his map made no reference to the West Bank, Gaza or east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for their future state. The map appeared to show Israel encompassing all three.

The chamber was largely empty during his address this year,...

Bibi had concocted this absurd plan to bury Palestinian hopes for their own state by dealing directly with various murderous Arab regimes, like Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bone Saw, with the connivance of Mr. Sara's equally corrupt loathsome and incompetent ally, the 91-times indicted former President of the United States.

Our purpose is not just to rubbish Bibi as a corrupt incompetent anti-democratic hatemonger (well, not just), but to offer his grotesque failure to protect his country against Hamas atrocities as an example of a larger historical phenomenon: the inability of white men to comprehend and act upon intelligence that doesn't comport with their preconceived world view.

With the United State and its Allies hours away from being blown to bits by the Empire of Japan from Manila to Pearl Harbor to Singapore to Hong Kong, here's how The New York Times assessed the security situation on December 7, 1941:

In this case, the temporary maintenance of the status quo lasted about three hours after the great and good of Washington read this over their Sunday morning breakfast.

Or, within living memory, during the days when the Republican Party was run by moderates bursting with new ideas and wisely guided by hacks doing business today as our Wonderful Republican Allies wondering what happened to their beloved party, this colossal intelligence failure:

Speaking of intelligence failures that cost lives...

What's clear is that [CIA Director George] Tenet, for months, had been doing everything he could think of to sound the alarm and get Bush focused on Al Qaeda. So had Richard A. Clarke, who handled domestic counterterrorism in the Bush White House, and reported up to Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor. "We agreed that Tenet would ensure that the President's daily briefings would continue to be replete with information on Al Qaeda," Clarke wrote in his memoir. The day after the September 11 attacks, according to Clarke, Bush told him to "see if Saddam is involved" and "look into Iraq." Clarke famously claimed that he tried and failed to get past Rice so his concerns about Al Qaeda would reach Bush. Clarke wanted counterterrorism to be taken seriously as its own issue at the cabinet level; the record shows it was treated with less urgency, as an extension of US policy in the Middle East and South Asia. Clarke's inability to make domestic counterterrorism a policy focus for the White House tends to implicate Rice, but it does not absolve Bush. It's clear that Bush received the same sorts of urgent warnings that Clarke was seeing regularly, from Tenet and the CIA. He just doesn't seem to have responded, as both Clarke and Tenet did, with a sense of alarm.

A few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Bush paid a visit to the counterterrorism center at the CIA. He walked through the corridors, making small talk and shaking hands. "Go get 'em!" someone shouted to Bush, according to a former CIA employee who was there at the time. Bush looked stunned for a moment. Then came his reply: "That's your job."

Yeah, the buck always stops with somebody else. At least Bibi and George W. agree on something.

What can we learn from these debacles, other than the folly of entrusting hollow shameless men like Netanyahu and George W. Bush with responsibility over their lives and deaths of the citizens of their country?

Lesson one: when a white man is determined to do something stupid, it's impossible to persuade them with intelligence.

The second lesson is borrowed from the MeToo movement: When women tell you something bad is happening, believe them.

Because whether it's a case of domestic violence here or Hamas atrocities elsewhere, if you don't believe women, they have a way of ending up dead.

The First Rule of Capitol Hill Fight Club: Pretend It's Funny!

By Spy Boxing Correspondent Subway Sam Silverman with
Meta-content Generator A.J. Liebling

After doing the bare minimum to avoid a collapse of government in the United States in wartime, Congress went home for a well-undeserved two week vacation, but not before indulging in gratuitous violence and threats under the Capitol dome.

We saw one preposterous Republican from Oklahoma rise from his seat to punch out a witness who had the temerity to post a Tweet showing the wrestler-turned-Senator standing on a box.  (Had he been as politically-savvy as Ron DeSantis, he would have known to wear cowboy boots with hidden lifts!)

We saw another Republican hack, who until recently had been second in the line for the Presidency, punch a political opponent in the corridor, apparently because the victim had voted to oust him as Speaker.  Later we learned that Sucker Puncher Kevin McCarthy had previously attacked another political opponent, Adam Kinzinger.

The reaction from your media was to variously regard all of this as a bit of boys-will-be-boys hilarity and explain it away because Congress was exhausted from working for 10 straight weeks.

Do you think that it would be OK for surgeons to brawl in the operating rooms of Mass General Hospital after being on duty for 10 weeks?  Or teachers?  Or home health care aides?  Or anyone else who doesn't get a respite from a high-pressure job?

To his credit, Philip Bump of The Washington Post saw something more dire:

But there’s an undeniable thread that links them, an acceptance, however slight, of the idea that physical violence has a place in the resolution of disputes. Should this pattern continue — or accelerate — it would mirror other countries in which democracy is eroding. Including, at one point, the United States. 

Bump went on to give some historical background, including the disturbing fact that 60% of Republicans approve of the attempted violent overthrow of the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021, an insurrection that continues today.

Let's look at a couple of other examples and see if we can find the thread.

Just a few years ago, a then-obscure Congressional candidate named Greg Gianforte responded to a legitimate question from an accredited reporter as if he were pledging the Hell's Angels:

Gov. Gianforte: “Any questions?”

Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate in Montana's special congressional election, has been charged with misdemeanor assault after he allegedly body slammed a reporter and broke his glasses on Wednesday night.

The altercation took place at Gianforte's campaign headquarters in Bozeman, Montana, the night before the state's special election. It sent political shock waves rippling through the race, with two local newspapers rescinding their support for the GOP candidate.

Ben Jacobs, a political reporter for the Guardian, said he had been asking Gianforte about the Republican healthcare plan when the candidate "body slammed" him and began shouting, "Get the hell out of here."  

This outrageous and unprovoked attack on a defenseless reporter doing his job represented a clear and loathsome effort to intimidate the press and thus undermine a pillar of democracy.  The outraged citizens of Montana, wanting no part of this nasty business, sent Gianforte packing and he was never heard from again.

We're just s****ing you:

Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed on Wednesday a collection of bills restricting access to abortion, triggering legal action and challenging a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling on the procedure.

Of course, he's especially proud of his effort to pummel his state's women as if they were pesky reporters.

His vicious attack on a journalist turned out to be a real vote-winner in white, well-armed Montana, who elected him governor in 2020 by 13 percentage points. Hmmm.

But let's go back to the great granddaddy of political beat downs, in 1856.  At that time, American democracy was under attack by white Southerners who were willing to sacrifice it to preserve their right not only to enslave other human beings, but also to take their enslaved humans with them anywhere in the United States regardless of whether slavery was legal in the state or territory.

It's back

To preserve their power, they hatched what was essentially a violent coup in Kansas Territory to override the wishes of the locals, which was that Kansas would enter the Union as a free state. 

In response, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts rose on the floor of Senate to condemn this pro-slavery anti-democratic violence.

Whereupon “ Congressman Preston Brooks [of South Carolina, which has since given us great defenders of democracy like Lindsay Graham, Tim Scott, and Nikki Haley] approached the desk where Sumner was writing letters [on the Senate Floor]. ...As Sumner started to rise, the frenzied Brooks beat him over the head thirty times or more with a gold-headed cane [until] Sumner...collapsed with his head covered in blood.”  J. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom at 150. 

It took years for Sumner to recover.  The pre-Civil War Union never did.

According to McPherson, the brutal assault was wildly popular in the pro-slavery South: “South Carolinians feted him and sent him back to Washington with triumphant unanimity.  Brooks received dozens of canes, some inscribed with such mottoes as ‘Hit Him Again’ and ‘Use Knock-Down Arguments.’  Id.  at 151.

Sumner to Gianforte to January 6 to last week's brawl.  What connects them?

Simple: when democracy is attacked by the forces of white reactionary supremacy, white supremacists will invariably choose violence in the support of their power over democracy.  They would of course prefer to pervert the institutions of government to keep themselves in power, as George Bush and the Republican bent Supreme Court did in 2000.

But when all else fails, as it did on January 6, the white power (now doing business as the Republican Party) are content to use violence to maintain their grip on power in the face of democratic rejection.

Although using violence to maintain power is as American as lynching, it's not exclusively an American phenomenon.  Fascists by definition seek to motivate a vicious minority to destroy by violence the machinery of democracy and the rule of law:

Upon Hitler's ascent, the country had undergone a brutal spasm of state-condoned violence.  Hitler's brown-shirted paramilitary army, the Sturmabteilung or SA – had gone wiled, arresting, beating, and in some cases murdering communists, socialists, and Jews.  Storm Troopers established impromptu prisons and torture stations in basements....As estimated five hundred to seven hundred prisoners died in custody; others endured “mock drownings and hangings,”...

E. Larson, In the Garden of Beasts at 16.

Sounds like Stephen Miller's immigration agenda.

The importance of violence as a tool of white supremacy explains its continuing appeal to white supremacists, like the 60% of New Hampshire Republicans who approve of the January 6 insurrection. It also explains why plug-uglies like Markwayne “the Prairie Prevaricator” Mullin are already raising money over his attempted beatdown of a witness:

 

And of course the Tangerine-Faced Defendant's calls for violence against his opponents, immigrants, and others are reliable applause getters at his rallies. 

Nothing shows your contempt for democracy and your dominance over its defenders better than brawling and rampaging through the corridors of government, which is why these performances (and promises of more) thrill the anti-democratic minority.

If the appeal to white violence succeeds next year, or the majority of us choose not to vote for President Biden over disputes, real or imagined, there's no doubt what will happen on the Capitol steps in 2025: 

 In Ron DeathSantis's Florida, it's happening already.

An exciting new episode of Media of Washington's Search for the Elusive Moderate Republican!

By Meta-content Generator A.J. Liebling with Florida Correspondent Jenny Herk

The national media's endless search for the Great White Moderate Republican continued in Miami this week, where the usual suspects thought they had spotted one on the Miami debate stage answering to Nikki “You're Scum” Haley.

In comparison to the other clowns, ne'er do wells, and Canadian girlfriend lovers up there, you could perhaps understand the error.  But there's no doubt that rumors of a sighting of the likely-extinct moderate Republican were disproven by – your eyes and ears.

Let's take a quick look at the excited reports of alleged moderation, starting with long-time useless Washington Post bloviator Kathleen Parker (famous for telling us that we'd be fine no matter who won the 2016 Presidential election):

 

Come on, Republicans. Debate-wise, Haley outdid the competition — again.

On foreign policy, she’s plainly the strongest Republican candidate....

On the key Democratic issue, abortion, she managed to thread a microscopic needle. Though pro-life, Haley said she doesn’t want to judge pro-choice women or be judged for her position. She urged letting states determine their own destinies while the country works toward consensus.

To which we'd like to borrow Desi Lydic's rejoinder: What The Actual F***?

Nor was Parker the only gasbag who fell for Haley's empty platitudes on the right of women to control their own bodies.  When the New York Times Opinion gang convened a Republican-dominated panel to assess how the five nitwits did in Miami with predictably tragic results, this is what our Wonderful Republican Ally and Lincoln Project stalwart Sarah Longwell had to say:

She is at her best when demonstrating her foreign policy expertise (or swatting aside Ramaswamy). She falls flat when she’s delivering canned lines about her footwear. Her answer on abortion was thoughtful and seemed likely to connect with both primary and swing voters. There is a real chance she may overtake DeSantis as the main challenger to Trump.

Thoughtful? Foreign policy expertise? Hoo-kay.

And after 100 years of dispensing Republican-friendly conventional wisdom, Time said:

On stage, Haley understood the rules. She has a hawkish instinct on national security, giving her a leg up during a debate that toured the globe’s crises in Ukraine and Israel as well as threats from the southern border and China. She’s a pragmatic realist when it comes to social issues, smartly reasoning that Congress passing a federal abortion ban is as realistic as finding the Loch Ness Monster.

Hard to believe – that Time is still in business, that is.

And the sad clueless shills and gasbags of Hacks on Tap called her word salad a “master class.”  

Start by unpacking her supposedly thoughtful, pragmatic, moderate position on forced birth.  By the way when she was Governor of South Carolina, she had a position on abortion rights.  She was against them:

Before reading the polls and election returns, the voice of moderation would try to dress up forced birth as somehow a feminist position, in this bit of pretzel-like anti-choice invective:

Nikki Haley took the stage as the keynote speaker Monday night at an anti-abortion group’s annual gala, saying that allowing women to have autonomy over their bodies “is not real feminism.”

Speaking from the Susan B. Anthony List’s Campaign for Life Gala in Washington, D.C., the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations asserted that groups supporting abortion rights were creating hostility among women and trying to force their values on others.

“Unfortunately, many on the left use the abortion debate to divide women and demand conformity,” she said. “They do this in the name of feminism. But that is not real feminism.”

Really? Have you ever heard an advocate of reproductive freedom telling a woman she must or even should have an abortion? It's horses***.  

Now that she understands that forced birtherism could cost Republicans plenty at the polls, she spouted a ridiculous effort to avoid the issue by pointing out that the President cannot enact an abortion ban, and therefore – what, exactly?

Lunatic House and Senate Republicans are already considering national abortion bans, not to mention unilateral action to pressure Biden into restricting women's rights, such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville's subversive effort to bring down the US military by blocking all promotions.

And what's her position on those ravings?  Notice she didn't come out against them.  Instead, she issued a witless call for “consensus” over an issue that by definition is not susceptible of compromise.  And she is perfectly OK with women's rights being violated and their lives ruined by accident of state residence.  That's not a thoughtful pragmatic position; that's an empty stupid pander.

Let's turn to her supposed foreign policy expertise, obtained by shilling for the insane Trump Administration during a short stint as UN Ambassador, where she achieved – nothing.

Her “hawkish instinct” combines the worst of neocon warmongering with anti-immigrant bigotry, which is pretty rich considering that she doesn't look Native American to us.

There is no “threat” at the Southern Border.  Anyone who equates the immigration issue with real threats to U.S. national security like Trump's BFF, Vladimir Putin, is perforce disqualified from being taken seriously on foreign policy.

She's threatened to “close” the southern border whatever that means.  Beyond crippling trade with Mexico and letting hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees cower in agony and terror on the south bank of the Rio Grande.

Invade Mexico?  That worked out great before!

We also heard her threaten a trade war with China unless it did something or another about the US love affair with fentanyl.  Advocating tanking the US economy, while creating simultaneous inflation and recession, over chemicals that can be and are made anywhere in the world is not an advertisement of your foreign policy bona fides.  Rather the opposite.

And that was her being moderate.  She threatened a real invasion of Mexico.  She knows that won't happen, but that she would try to fluff Republicans with yet another war disqualifies her from being taken seriously.

The idea that anyone who served the Tangerine-Faced Defendant during his disastrous term could be taken seriously doesn't hold up on even a moment's consideration, no matter how huge and powerful her heels are.

So why is this bundle of angry empty talking points being taken seriously by supposedly legitimate media?  We suspect two reasons: (1) they are desperate to build up someone, anyone as a credible threat to the Tangerine-Faced Defendant, ol' Puddin' Fingers having face-planted on the national stage and (2) they want to show once again how fair-minded they are, by not calling out extremist hacks like Haley as the threats and frauds they are.

As this country faces what could be its last at least partly-free election next year, the media has a choice: they can maintain a facade of objectivity by taking equally seriously the Democratic and Republican candidates.  Or they can tell the truth, which is that each and every Republican running for office represents a clear and immediate danger to our nation and to humanity.

They can choose an aesthetic of objectivity, or they can tell the truth.  So far they're making the wrong choice.  And we are paying the price. 

UPDATE, Nov. 12 – After we went to press, the New York Times Sunday Opinion section chose to join the dumb party with this gem from Kathleen Miller: [Who? – Ed.]

And [Haley] is running the campaign she’s run before: hard-core conservative on fiscal matters and immigration, kitchen-table pragmatic on basically everything else.  

Does that mean she'll advise women in Texas and other forced-birth states to be pragmatic and lie down on the kitchen table with a coat hanger?

Buck off

EDITORS' NOTE: This week we thought we would explore the complex, knotty, and recondite international law issues raised by the current war in the Middle East.  However, much to our surprise, we discovered that the difficult ground had been fully and thoughtfully considered by the leading experts in the field, including (1) Alvy Singer's second wife and her Barnard Comp Lit faculty colleagues, (2) every snot-nosed college student, and (3) our Wonderful Progressive Allies who have learned how to spell “colonialism.” What more can we add to their careful and judicious writings and Tweets in this area?  So we thought we'd discuss something simpler and easier: our latest Republican ally.

By Cissy Paterson
Spy Washington Bureau with Nellie Bly in Colorado

Days after Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck joined every single f***in' one of his colleagues in voting to install an insane Christian dominionist insurrectionist bigoted election denier as Speaker of the US House of Representatives, ol' Ken put out a press release announcing his retirement because he can no longer abide the election denial lunacy of his fellow Republicans.

According to The Washington Post,

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Wednesday that he would not seek reelection next year, expressing disappointment that many fellow Republicans continue to push the “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Our nation is on a collision course with reality, and a steadfast commitment to truth, even uncomfortable truths, is the only way forward,” Buck said in a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “Too many Republican leaders are lying to America.”

Immediately this long time Republican extremist was lionized as another Man of Principle, like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger:

With a deadpan demeanor, an independent streak and a background as a federal prosecutor, Buck has gained national prominence as a House Republican fed up with Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and the Trump allies in Congress who amplify them. It’s a stand few others in the GOP are taking and is a remarkable turn that shows just how deeply Trump’s once-fringe lies about that race have settled into the Republican mainstream.  

Who was Ken Buck, and how did he come to be shocked, shocked by Republican lies?

After graduating from Princeton, the university that has given us any number of distinguished politicians including Cancun Ted Cruz and Eliot “the Ladies' Man” Spitzer, he found himself working for that sterling constitutional scholar, Dick Cheney.

Buck labored for Cheney's whitewash of the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved St. Ronald of Bitburg violating a clear Congressional prohibition on contra aid by laundering money through Iran.  Buck's efforts produced the following:

After completing a bachelor’s degree at Princeton University and a law degree at the University of Wyoming, Buck worked for then-Wyoming Rep. Dick Cheney, who was the top Republican on the committee investigating the Reagan administration for the Iran-Contra affair. Cheney, who is Liz Cheney’s father, eventually issued a minority report that argued that President Ronald Reagan had wide latitude to conduct foreign policy and described the president’s actions as “mistakes in judgment, and nothing more.” 

Cheney's whitewash of Reagan's obstructions of justice and payment for atrocities and war crimes (If you don't believe us, just ask the experts at the Barnard Department of Comp. Lit) paved the way for Deadeye Dick's even more serious violations of international and US law in connection with torture and the lies that attended the pointless Iraq War.

He came to Washington representing the hard-right rural Fourth District of Colorado in 2014, as part of the white-supremacist backlash to the intolerable insult of a Black President who was actually good at his job.  

He arrived on Capitol Hill with a, um, bang:

Funny story about that stunt performed by our young Princeton man with a commitment to upholding the law:

DENVER (CBS4) - Republican congressmen are no strangers to fighting for gun rights, but did a Colorado representative break the law by bringing his AR-15 to a Capitol Hill office?

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado is causing controversy after tweeting a photo of himself and South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy holding an AR-15 rifle on Capitol Hill.

The assault weapon is illegal in Washington, D.C. Members of Congress are legally entitled to carry guns with them in Capitol Hill offices, but transporting an AR-15 through Washington, D.C., may be a different story. 

In those days it was illegal to bring weapons of war that have no use other than shredding human flesh 40 times or more per minute into the District. And that's only part of the point. Buck, now so sickened by Republican lies that he has to flee for the wide open spaces of the Eastern Front or more likely a cushy career as cable gasbag and go-to anti-Trump Republican, had no problem propagating lies about the wonders of human-liquefying weaponry two years after the Sandy Hook massacre. The Republican lie about the constitutional right of anyone to own weapons of mass murder continues to resonate today, most recently in and around Lewiston, Maine.

After putting away his weapon of mass destruction, Buck went on to defend the American constitutional system in so many other ways:

 What about the Tangerine-Faced Sex Offender attracted our principled legal eagle? 

On Thursday morning Buck told the Colorado delegation in Cleveland to essentially get over it and get behind Trump. He said the makeup of the Supreme Court for decades to come is on the line.

"If we allow a 6 to 3, 7 to 2 majority to exist in the United States of America, we lose every right that we hold dear as conservatives. We have got to suck it up. We have got to vote for Donald Trump. We have got to support Donald Trump. And in the end we have got to do everything we can to hold him, to hold his administration responsible," said Buck, who represents Colorado's Fourth Congressional District.

Not just the right to parade around the Capitol with lethal semi-automatic weapons, but all those other rights, like the right to gerrymander themselves into perpetual power even when they cannot command a majority of the vote (thank you, John Roberts '76!), the right to tell women what they can do with their own reproductive systems (thank you, Sam Alito!), and the right to expose your fellow citizens to lethal disease.

Buck got his priorities straight, and his no-doubt fervid prayers were answered by the successful transformation of the Supreme Court into a self-appointed reactionary court of revision that decides the nation's policy agenda despite what those pesky elected officials may think.  Another triumph of Buck's style of American constitutionalism.

Perhaps his opponent said it best a long time ago:

For Ken Buck, it was never about the Constitution. It has always been about power. It’s about the power to micromanage a President, even as the Congress repeatedly fails to take responsibility and to do its job; the power to block legislation proposed by members of his own party; the power to punish Americans who are poor, unemployed, or who are facing hard times and tough choices. For Ken Buck, “promoting conservative values” is simply a euphemism for making sure that money and power stay with the people who already have money and power. Buck seems to be convinced that a Trump presidency would help meet those objectives. He’s probably right.

Back to the good earth of Colorado for Ken!

Buck could have come out against Trump, as several of his Republican colleagues have already done, if not on constitutional grounds than at least for Trump’s reaction to the Khan family. Instead, he has chosen to remain silent while Trump insults the sacrifices of military families. Instead of condemning Trump’s polarizing rhetoric, Buck has piled on his own “us v. them” statements.

Politics doesn’t shape your priorities. It exposes them. For Ken Buck, it turns out that the Constitution is not really a priority after all. 

Nor, it appears, was the truth.

The man from the prairie who quit his job because he was sick of Republican lies in fact built his entire political career on them: The lie that machine guns make us safer.  The lie that men should control women's bodies.  The lie that it's OK to bend American democracy to ensure permanent Republican minority rule.  The lie that the depraved Tangerine-Faced Defendant was a fit person to lead the United States.

Speaking of lies, we wonder if the Buckster is lying about the real reason he stepped down.  Maybe it wasn't that his delicate sensibilities could no longer stomach his colleagues.  Maybe the real reason for his departure was that he was a Republican Dead Man Walking:

Yet under political pressure in Colorado, Buck decided there was no way forward for him in Congress.

Translated into English, he was about to be successfully primaried by some Trump-backed goon in his district, whose Republican voters have lost their minds due to the incessant harsh winds sweeping across the desolate prairie of eastern Colorado. 

So if the next time we see our glorious new Republican ally pontificating about the truth on CNN or somewhere else, you'll pardon us if we switch to reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  We like our fiction funny.  And kind.

What Mortal Could Be the New Speaker? The Spy's Nominees:

By Isidor Feinstein and Nellie Bly
Spy Washington Bureau

With the news from the Middle East becoming more dire with each edition, with war and conflict threatening to rage out of control, and millions of civilians in harm's way, the world turns its eyes to its last best strongest hope: the United States.  From the White House, the Biden Administration is working hard to get its arms around the manifold urgent overlapping life-and-death crises.  

Matt Gaetz couldn't resist the call of his base

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the House of Representatives stands paralyzed by the inability of House Republicans to find someone, anyone to serve as Speaker.  Apparently moderate consensus-building insurrectionists are not easy to find.

Exhausted by their lack of effort, House Republicans have decided to take a long weekend off in this time of international calamity.  According to DC pundits, they are no closer to elected someone than they were a week ago, and they still refuse to reach out to House Democrats to see if the Democrats will help them in exchange for an end to the insanity.  But insanity is the Republican brand.

This motley crew of criminals, pervs, racists, and Brazilian transvestites is out of ideas.

The Spy, as usual, rides to the rescue.  We have been informed that the Speaker of the House does not in fact have to be a sitting House member.  This opens up the job to a wide variety of highly-qualified individuals sure to appeal to House Republicans. Some have speculated that the Tangerine-Faced Defendant, who in fact runs the House Republican caucus, should take the job, but that seems too much like work to appeal to the drug-addled grifter.

Fortunately, there are many plausible alternatives who would be perfect for the job.  Under the leadership of one of these worthies, the House can get back to work on vital national issues like banning books, publishing pictures of Hunter Biden's shvantz and cutting food assistance so more children can go hungry.

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

Sarah Palin

She's tanned, rested, and ready, and she could really use the job, or indeed any job.  

Why this authentic down-home crackpot and hatemonger disappeared from the Republican roster remains a mystery.  She's got it all: 

• she'll say anything, no matter how stupid, to get cable TV coverage, 


• she knows nothing about any pressing issue, foreign or domestic, 


• she's greedy and corrupt, and 


• she's free from any hint of competence, intelligence, compassion, or integrity.  

That's why they call her “Ms. Republican!”

But she's not without her downsides:

• She's 30 years too old for Matt Gaetz


• The lumpier (but blonder) Marjorie Taylor Greene might not appreciate the competition


• She's incredibly lazy and likely to walk away from the job on a whim; and
  


• She'd need a $250,000 clothing allowance.

But if House Republicans need someone who can bring together every single idiot white supremacist reactionary and insurrectionist, it's hard to think of a better candidate.

And if she brings her daughters with her, Lauren Boebert can teach them how to make a boy happy without getting preggers.

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

Tucker Carlson

Whatever happened to ol' Tuck?  Just a few months ago he was riding high  He had a nightly audience of millions of white bigots ready to follow him into the fiery lava fields of white supremacy and anti-Semitism.  Then he cost his boss and patron Rupert Murdoch a quick $767 million, and, worse yet, was found to have slagged off the old tosser and his mouth-breathing son in what he thought were confidential text messages.

Yeah, Tucker was so dumb he believed that there was such a thing as “confidential text messages.”

For these sins he was exiled to his palatial bunker in the deep woods of Maine, where he hasn't been heard from since, thanks to his ace media adviser Elno Musk. 

But he'd be perfect for House Republicans.  He knows how to use media to advance their agenda.  He shares their bats**t crazy ideas.  He's ready to march on the Reichstag [Surely, the Capitol? – Ed.]  Best of all, if you really want a crazed insurrectionist in a position of power, it's hard to see how you could do better.

The only downside that House Republicans might want to consider is that if Tucker gets the job, he's going to want a 1,000-year term.  And he's not known for taking nein for an answer.

 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers explains zinc to a nurse

Here's another big name who desperately needs a new gig.  He lasted about four downs as the salvation of the New York Jets (we're going to have to hold off on our endless repository of Jets burns as long as the home town team up here is dredging new depths of suckdom), and gained some notoriety spouting anti-vaccine drivel sure to enamor him to the House Republican Caucus.

And given the obscene amount of money he's making for not doing anything, he's sure to support Republican efforts to cut taxes on the idle rich.

He's certainly less divisive and more telegenic than any House Republican, and he enjoys surprisingly favorable press attention considering how loathsome his views are.  And unlike any other Republican member of the House, he'd always be welcome at the White House for an afternoon of football on the big screen, hot wings, and brewskis.

We'd be inclined to note on the downside that he is known for speaking passionately and endlessly about stuff he knows nothing about, but to this Republican Party, that's a feature, not a bug.

 

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Keri Lake

Put the filter on

Keeping in mind that the Tangerine-Faced Defendant has a veto over who serves as Speaker of the House, here's a candidate that he'd be likely to back.

She covered herself in glory refusing to concede that she lost the Arizona Governor's race last year even after she lost every single worthless challenge she filed in court.  That kind of disregard for indisputable facts and contempt for democracy should endear her to every House Republican.

Now she's running for Senate from Arizona and seems doomed to lose.  Nominee Tiny Toadstool has already signaled that she's too annoying to be his VP nominee, so she needs something to keep her like a cinder in the public eye. 

She never met a camera she didn't like and as long it's slathered in Vaseline, the camera returns the favor.  And she's willing to lie on Fox “News,” or indeed to say or do anything  for a live shot, up to and including vacuuming the rugs in the studio and on the heads of their male talent.

If House Republicans want to cause chaos and paralyze the government, it's hard to imagine anyone better equipped to do so, with the possible exception of every sitting House Republican.  

 

 

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So that's our Slanderers' Row of Speaker candidates.  If you think it's light on political experience and judgment, in our defense, none of these four worthies either conspired to overthrow democratic government in the United States (although Tucker liked the idea) or covered up evidence of sex crimes committed against college athletes they were supposed to protect.

In both these respects, they are better candidates than the House Republicans' current nominee for the job.

Brutal Hamas terror attack - thank you George Bush!

By Middle East Correspondent Rebecca Bell
with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva

The horrific news coming in from Israel of a multi-faceted bloody Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians and villages inside Israel's 1967 borders is still being digested.  The prospect of thousands of more deaths, Israeli and Palestinian alike, seems likely.  Hamas rockets have reached Tel Aviv. and Hamas terrorists wantonly and happily slaughtered hundreds of Israelis who dared to attend a dance party inside the state's pre-1967 borders.

With the grave situation still in flux and all Americans ready to unite behind President Biden's support of Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas, Republicans joined this bipartisan response to emphasize American unity and resolve in this crisis.

Actually, we're just s***in' you.  

Of course the Republicans didn't.  

Apparently they have been texted a few idiotic points blaming Biden because he negotiated the release of detained Americans in Iran by in part letting Iran have access to its own money for humanitarian purposes.  And Iran does support Hamas. So by the transitive property of Republican ratf***ery, it's all Joe Biden's fault.

Here's corrupt Republican Senator Rick Scott, setting aside his love of the Fifth Amendment for a minute and weighing in thusly:

.@JoeBiden funded this attack when he bowed to Iran and gave $6 BILLION to this evil regime that starts every day plotting to destroy Israel.

While Biden is silent, his appeasement of Iran and Hamas terrorists is heard in every siren blaring across Israel. https://t.co/4UKHEvVMfk

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) October 7, 2023

Of course the Republicans' favorite bloodthirsty dictator, Vladimir Putin, also supports Hamas but you haven't heard any of his Republican apparatchiks saying boo about him. 

As long as we're ignoring the real issue of what America should be doing to both support Israel while limiting human suffering, let's follow Rick Scott's lead and try to make some partisan political hay of the unfolding disaster.

How is it that Gaza, a relatively rich, educated, well-located city-state of 1,500,000 fell into the hands of Hamas butchers?

Funny story, but it all goes back to this f***in' guy:

Although we are aware that none of you care about history unless it's Taylor Swift's exes, let's go back to the ancient Middle East, in 2005 to be exact.

In the summer of 2005, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whom no one ever described as dovish on Palestine, decided after 38 years of occupation to withdraw all Israeli citizens and troops from Gaza:

He began Gaza as a unilateral move while Mr. Arafat was alive and insists on it now because Mr. Sharon does not really believe in negotiations....He decided to leave Gaza for many reasons: demographic, political, financial, diplomatic, his aides say, adding that Palestinian violence was not an important factor, especially after the Israeli Army defeated the Palestinians at the height of the last intifada, in spring 2002.

Still, the anti-pullout movement in Israel, which includes much of Mr. Sharon's own Likud Party, is, like Hamas, accusing the old soldier of capitulating to violence.

Observers at the time noted that Gaza was poised on a knife's edge between Fatah, which showed some interest in building a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and Hamas, which favored killing all the Jews.

There were some hopes that Fatah could build a successful city-state in Gaza that might serve as a springboard to a true Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, although they were voiced by the likes of Iraq War stooge Six Months Tom Friedman:

Condi to the rescue!

The other hugely important fact is that Israel is going to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in mid-August. In a courageous move to shrink Israeli control of Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is risking his life, and defying all the schemers and backstabbers in his party trying to topple him, to unilaterally uproot the Jewish settlers in Gaza.

This pending withdrawal and the eruption of a pent-up desire for normalcy among both Israelis and Palestinians together form the foundation for rebuilding the crumbled peace process. That's the good news. The bad news is that although this Israeli withdrawal is unilateral, for it to provide the peace and prosperity that both sides want from it requires a series of complicated agreements about how Gaza will relate to Israel and the rest of the world. Many key details are still not fully baked -- at all....

Finally, if this Gaza withdrawal is going to happen in a way that lays the foundation for a wider settlement, which it can, it will in the end require a U.S. broker, guarantor and arm-twister -- at the highest level.

So far, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has just breezed in and out. Bad call. Not only will she not escape failure, but she is also missing how emotionally important and helpful a high-level U.S. embrace of the Israeli majority's desire to get out of Gaza would be right now. Also, helping to knit together all the unresolved issues would not only bring off the withdrawal in the right way, but would also bolster America's standing in this region at a key time.

God created American secretaries of state for this kind of moment.

Then God laughed the Eternal One's ass off.

To provide a rationale for the continuing bloody stalemate in Iraq after the original ones were shown to be, ahem, lies, Bush and his stooges, including well-known moderate mainstream intellectual and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, orchestrated a series of elections to justify the preposterous claim that the Iraq War was in defense of democracy:

 

Congressional Research Service report, January 29, 2008.

A few weak American clients succumbed to this pressure, including Fatah Leader Mohammad Abbas, who had avoided holding elections for years because he knew he'd lose to Hamas.

He did lose.  Hamas won.  Abbas, with American and Israeli support, ignored the election results.  Not long thereafter, Hamas simply seized power in Gaza, with the results now before us.

It's possible that Hamas might have seized power in Gaza anyway, but the elections gave them the legitimacy to proclaim themselves the true Palestinian government.  Their reign of terror in Gaza has continued without meaningful interruption since 2007, and exploded into Israel yesterday.

Bush's willingness to sacrifice the delicate peace between Israel and the Palestinians for a f***ing stupid talking point intended to make his Iraq War disaster look other than a pointless effusion of blood and treasure marked another highlight of his disastrous foreign policy that left the United States weaker and the world an infinitely more dangerous place.

Does that mean that Bush and his Republican enablers, many of whom have reopened for business as our Wonderful Allies, are as evil as Hamas?  Of course not.

But it's a reminder that Republicans have been busily undermining US national security for the past 23 years.  It's something to keep in mind when you hear Republicans trying to blame Joe Biden for the outrages of Hamas.

If you want to learn more about the most sensitive details of US foreign policy and national security, you could dig into the Internet archives for yourself.  Or if you're too busy, just swing by the omelette bar at Mar-a-Lago.  Your gracious host will be only too glad to tell you everything he knows.

Report from Capitol Hill: Another problem solved!

By Isidor Feinstein and Nellie Bly
Spy Washington Bureau

Proving once again their inability to govern, House Republicans today threw the grenade whose pin they had pulled in January, voting to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the request of the Scourge of Florida Deb Balls, Matt Gaetz.

All day long the insufferable talking heads speculated wildly about the likelihood that some, a few, any moderate Democrats would ride to the aid of the embattled Speaker, who, it will be recalled, endeared himself to Democrats and patriots everywhere by supporting the Tangerine-Faced Defendant's continuing insurrection against lawful government in the United States and the preposterous but also sad trumped up impeachment inquiry against real President Biden.

They were shocked, shocked to learn that Democrats were not inclined to support a weak feckless extremist subversive lying Trump and Putin tool.  This came as a harsh blow to the Problem-Solvers, the self-described caucus of Republicans and Democrats who believe, notwithstanding their own eyes and ears, that America's pressing problems could be solved if only children and refugees among others were sacrificed on the altar of bipartisan compromise. 

Last time we looked, the so-called Problem-Solvers were looking to solve the problem, if indeed it is one, of refugees entering the United States by – locking them up.

Democrats told the likes of Krysten Sinema thanks but no thanks and the Republic endured.

This time, when Democrats told the Problem-Solvers that they had no interest in propping up the most inept, unpatriotic, and extreme Speaker in Republican history, the Problem-Solvers decided it was time to stage a mass sulk:

NEW: Republicans on the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus are considering quitting the group “en masse” after Democrats in the group voted to oust McCarthy, per a GOP member of the group.

Latest sign of fallout after the historic removal of the speaker.

confirming @juliegraceb

— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) October 3, 2023

After all they have done to save our country, this is the thanks they get!

Before the vote the Washington mainstream gasbags were full of, let's call it speculation about how Democrats could save the Man from Bakersfield if they saw the bipartisan light:

But some Democrats could vote to rescue McCarthy — especially if he strikes a last-minute deal with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to change the House rules, bring more funding for Ukraine up for a vote or to back other Democratic priorities.

Yeah, that didn't happen:

Democrats thought about voting with a majority of Republicans to help McCarthy keep his job. They contemplated it but ultimately decided not to; every Democrat present voted against McCarthy.

There are lots of reasons Democrats dislike McCarthy: He’s all-in on Donald Trump; he just launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over “allegations”; and he thwarted Jan. 6 investigations. But the last straw for them was seeing McCarthy on TV over the weekend trying to blame Democrats for the near-shutdown, reports The Washington Post.

“He dug his own grave,” one person in the know told The Post about why Democrats weren’t saving him.

Perhaps the last shovelful was McCarthy's effort to renege on his promise to hold a vote on aid to Ukraine, which commands wide bipartisan support despite the 100+ members of the House Republican Putin Caucus.

It turned out that once again the Pride of Bakersfield was lying, weak, evil, and advancing the interests of Vladimir Putin – the Republican Grand Slam:

The California Republican now says that if Democrats want a new package of aid to Ukraine... they must help pass the GOP “border security” agenda.

As long as Republicans seek to torment
refugees, we'll use this picture

But McCarthy’s proposal is about much more than “border security.” If passed, the GOP agenda would dramatically roll back certain types of legal migration to this country and otherwise transform our immigration system in numerous radical, cruel and reckless ways.

And bonus Republican points: deporting the Anne Franks of today to meet their fates would be a undeniable violation of U.S. treaty commitments under international law!

How could Democrats abandon a prince like this in his time of need?  It's not like he was seeking protection from a violent mob persecuting him for his political beliefs, because he doesn't have any.

So why did Republicans defenestrate their Speaker and plunge the House into chaos?  What was so important to them?  Glad you asked:

[Rep. Bob] Good asserted in a floor speech Tuesday that McCarthy was more interested in remaining Speaker than in cutting spending. 

Good had his white robe in a twist because McCarthy gave up on the Republicans's insane continuing resolution demanding a 30% cut in all spending that helps people, like providing food and health care:

Earlier proposals from House Republicans would have cut hundreds of billions of dollars from programs serving millions of Americans, including nutritional aid for pregnant mothers, housing subsidies for low-income families, funds for medical research and initiatives to protect the environment, among others. 

And who needs government anyway?

[Hard right Republicans] are determined to not only slash spending levels but remake the U.S. government, which they view with growing enmity and criticize as “woke and weaponized.” Some conservatives have downplayed the effects of a government shutdown and even contend that it would have benefits.

“The Biden regulatory agenda comes to a grinding halt with a government shutdown,” Russell Vought, an influential strategist among the right-wing lawmakers, posted on social media this week.

Sound familiar?  The usual gasbags moan that the Republican Party has descended into chaos from the heights it once occupied in the misty golden past, but it sounds to us like the same anti-government ragtime that lovable Ronald Reagan implanted into the brains of good Republicans over 40 years ago. And has it been 30 years since Newt Gingrich, in between getting his rocket polished by a woman not his wife, shut down the Government to demand a cut in Medicare?  How time flies when you're bats*** crazy!

House Republicans caucused to determine next their steps

In fact the Republican proclivity towards blowing up the government unless it stops doing anything to comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable is almost two generations old, as is its embrace of white supremacy.  The clowns who unseated Kevin McCarthy swim in that Republican mainstream. 

The only new wrinkle is that government chaos serves an additional goal: weakening the institutions of democracy to assist the return of tangerine-faced Fascism.  Fascists and totalitarians from Lenin to Mussolini to you know who have always sought to undermine the institutions of democratic government so that they can build reactionary dictatorships based on hatred of others and cultlike worship of the Dear Leader.

That's all they have.  Nancy Pelosi was able to keep a tight grip on her five-seat majority because Democrats want to legislate. Republicans have no legislative agenda, other than tax cuts for the rich, white supremacy, and chaos. 

So now what?  Republicans, with their genius for performative petty vengeance, left town while their minions punished Democrats for voting Democratic by taking away Nancy Pelosi's Capitol office while she was off in California mourning with the Feinsteins.

They'll eventually put some hard right stooge back in the Speaker's chair on the condition that he shut down the Government the week before Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, if the Problem-Solvers are really committed to a bipartisan solution to cleaning up The Mess in Washington, they could nominate for Speaker a moderate, mainstream, cautious bipartisan compromiser.  His name is - Hakeem Jeffries.