The “Primal Scream of a Dying Regime” Reaches Fever Pitch.

THE INTRO TO Steve Bannon’s popular “War Room” show on Rumble talks about the “primal scream of a dying regime,” referring to the desperate cries of Biden and his ilk losing unfettered power as the people take back their country. The screaming has become increasingly cacophonic in recent days. To wit, today’s revelation that former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was fired from his radio talk show on Apple Media’s WABC-AM. Giuliani was suspended early on Friday before his daily show was to begin at 3 p.m. The show is number one afternoon drive show in the largest radio market in the nation, exceeding audience numbers of even Sean Hannity. The purported reason was Giuliani’s reporting of the rigged election of 2020, supposedly in violation of station policy. 

This violation doesn’t quite pass the sniff test inasmuch as the mayor has regularly and repeatedly discussed this topic on WABC for years and, as he said Friday, on his own 8 p.m. podcast, “Rudy’s Common Sense,” he had never before been told he couldn’t report on the story. Billionaire Republican Red Apple Media owner, John Catsimatidis, seems to be walking it back a bit by claiming Giuliani was fired after he refused to agree to comply with the terms in a letter sent by email to the mayor on Thursday. In a brief phone interview, Catsimatidis cryptically said, “My view is that nobody really knows but we had made a company policy. It’s over, life goes on.” ‘If no one really knew…’ Really?

Giuliani has bugger problems, like criminal charges he faces in Georgia and Arizona over the rigged 2020 election and his bankruptcy due to untoward judgments against him to the tune of $148 million. AZ indictment here. Georgia, here. The charges may be frivolous, but even frivolous cases require expensive lawyers. 

Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s chief strategists, also made the news on Friday. Bannon had received a four-month sentence in 2022 for refusing to provide evidence to a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6th events at the Capitol based on legal advice he followed in good faith concerning his obligation to honor presidential privilege. IOW, he didn’t ‘willfully’ fail to comply with any congressional subpoena—he was legally obliged to. When he lost, he was given two four-month sentences for two charges of contempt of Congress, to run concurrently, along with a $6,500 fine. Bannon appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, staying his sentence in the meantime. On Friday, however, the appellate court declined to take up his challenge. A problem with Bannon’s claim, which otherwise has some merit IMO, is that he had left his White House gig years before Jan. 6th. The appeals court, however, agreed with the trial court on the meaning of “willful” in the contempt statute, meaning “deliberately and intentionally,” which it found controlling. Bannon really should’ve appealed at the time the subpoena issued and IMO, didn’t receive prudent legal advice. 

But Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project at The Federalist, who has a much greater legal mind than mine, disagrees. Davis was former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, where he advised on the confirmations of federal judges and judicial branch appointees, overseeing the floor votes for 278 nominees, including the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He has also served in all three branches of government and in the private sector as a civil litigator at a major firm and as a sole practitioner.

Davis believes the D.C. Circuit is filled with partisans and cowards, and may be correct. Where I depart with his analysis, however, is in his belief the case was about executive privilege, which IMO it wasn’t. It just didn’t get to that nexus. The issue before the court was only whether Bannon complied with the subpoena or not. It’s a strict liability offense. There may be good cause to defy a subpoena or to simply not show, but it’s incumbent upon the witness to raise an excuse (e.g., in emergency surgery) or affirmative defense (e.g., executive privilege) at the outset and pre-litigate that issue, if necessary. I’d like to believe the result would be different if that had been done given the importance of executive immunity. 

Bannon makes it a point to not discuss his legal issues publicly, so nothing was said on the evening edition of War Room. Nor did he elucidate anything when he appeared on Giuliani’s “Rudy’s Common Sense” at 8 pm, which was aired from Palm Beach where the two men happened to fortuitously be for commiseration (and probably some adult beverages). Bannon could ask the full appeals court to hear his appeal or, alternatively, take it to the Supreme Court, but neither option is a sure thing. It could buy time, however, and if it buys it long enough for Trump to return to the White House, it would be reasonable to expect Bannon (and Peter Navarro and others) would be pardoned. It’s reasonable to believe he’ll at least try the full court or SCOTUS given his sentence is again stayed pending appeal. His lawyer, Doug Schoen, seems to be heading in that direction. The D.C. Circuit Court’s Opinion is here. 

Peter Navarro is in a similar predicament, though further along. He was sentenced to four months and is currently serving that time in Miami. This man, 74, who is small in stature and devoid of any history of violence, has been held as a political prisoner, unable to receive visitors, including, most startling, his own attorneys! Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) then requested to interview Navarro at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but was denied because Navarro was deemed “too notorious” to be visited by a member of Congress. As Gaetz tweeted, “John Gotti was interviewed in prison. The QAnon Shaman was interviewed in prison. Director Peters HERSELF brought NBC News THROUGH PRISONS to showcase the work of corrections that’s being done!” 

This prompted another letter from another Committee and probably will call for another hearing to show the American people Congress is ‘doing something.’ The Committee on the Judiciary wrote to Peters on Thursday demanding testimony from the official who made the decision to deny Navarro visitors, here. The Committee also raised ongoing issues of abusive treatment of Jan. 6th defendants and inmates, who are still being pursued. Some have met bad fates, including suicide. Matthew Perna was one receiving press early on, but there are several others. Reports vary widely, however. Congressional letters, committee hearings, and reports have been futile.

A Glimpse Into the 2028 Presidential Race?

THIS EVENING, FOX NEWS’ SEAN HANNITY moderated Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) in a debate that had been agreed to some time ago when DeSantis’ poll numbers in the Republican presidential primary race were much better than they are today. At the time, it was also expected the imposter occupying the White House, Joey Biden, would be impeached, ousted, or ready to retire, a mere footnote in the 2024 campaign season, and that Newsom might be the new Big Guy taking his place. 

I haven’t watched Hannity, or Fox (except Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning), since early on Election Day of 2020 when the cable news channel prematurely and erroneously called the State of Arizona for Biden with only a tiny fraction of the vote counted. I didn’t miss much, it seems. 

It wasn’t really a debate, but rather, a clearly one-sided G.O.P. presentation, albeit, a well-researched and accurate one. Newsom would have none of it, though, and talked over Sean and DeSantis, sometimes very loudly. His answers were unresponsive and irrelevant as he ignored the facts presented to him by Hannity that painted a tarnished picture of the Golden State. Many of his assertions were just plain untrue, except, perhaps, for his correction to DeSantis’ pronunciation of Kamala Harris’ first name. Newsom came across as the pompous ass he truly is, but credit where due: he agreed to appear on (gasp!) Fox.

DeSantis, for his part, came across as sane, reasoned, and prepared. He is not known to be a good debater (this was good practice), but he can do a pretty credible compare-and-contrast presentation, as he illustrated. He came with a show-and-tell package, which included, e.g., an actual map currently in use showing where the human shit on the streets in San Francisco is especially bad and a couple of actual books in current use in California schools that glorify homosexuality in age-inappropriate ways. He had to be a bit annoying by speaking fast and loud to be heard over Newsom’s constant interruptions. At the end, it sounded as though the two had agreed to continue the debate another 20 minutes, but during the commercials, they changed their minds. A news imbroglio ensued.

It appears over 5 million watched the fiasco. All the while, it was irrelevant to 2024, but maybe it is a glimpse into the future—2028. 

A Snake and Fox Went to Court One Day…

MY HEART SANK TODAY when I learned that Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems settled their lawsuit for $787 million immediately prior to going to trial. This happens every day, of course, but this case is particularly disappointing to see settle because the discovery and testimony would be of extraordinary interest to all those people voters who were told they didn’t have standing to sue Dominion. The settlement is significant: it amounts to about 25% of Fox’s reported earnings of $2.96 billion last year. 

Hopefully, there will be verifiable leaks to shed light on what made Fox settle, because it wasn’t that they were wrong. Some say it was to avoid embarrassment if Fox founder Rupert Murdoch, and anchors Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity were called to testify. Fox must’ve forgotten the burden of proof was on Dominion. That burden required an affirmative showing that Fox acted with malice in airing allegations that it either knew to be false or with reckless disregard for the truth. 

The public knew something was up yesterday when the Delaware judge in the case, Eric Davis, delayed the start of the trial by one day. By the time Fox agreed to pay Dominion almost $800 million to settle, opening statements were about to begin. After the settlement was announced, Dominion lawyers crowed about how the ‘peddling’ of ‘conspiracy theories’ have consequences. Fox’s lawyers countered by intoning about how the settlement was good for the country. 

What is so astonishing, however, is the press. One report by Yahoo News said, “Coupled with other lawsuits in the pipeline, the agreement shows there is a real financial risk for conservative media that traffic in conspiracy theories.” The assertion is made without evidence that Dominion’s equipment did not switch any votes when, in fact, there was credible evidence that it did, but it couldn’t be adjudicated because the judiciary refused to find any parties had standing to sue. To Yahoo, the simple recitation of what they hope to be true, namely, that the 2020 presidential election wasn’t rigged, stolen, or just erroneously counted, is sufficient to establish that wish as fact. Call something a ‘conspiracy theory’ long enough, it will become one.

Yahoo continued its report by noting Fox was trying to win back viewers after it had called Arizona for the Democrat, but failed to acknowledge Arizona is still hotly contested, both in federal and state races in 2020 and 2022, and have not been adjudicated or resolved even now.

Judge Davis was apparently quite the activist leading up the settlement of today. While it is a judge’s duty to narrow the scope of the trial to the essentials, so both sides can present relevant, but not redundant evidence to the jury, it sounds as if he hogtied the defense. Presumably, this means he would not allow evidence of faulty machines to be admitted because there wasn’t any because no one had been allowed to inspect the actual machines in question because no one had standing to sue and Dominion obviously wasn’t going to voluntarily allow anyone to examine the machines, even under tightly controlled circumstances. 

But Davis also nixed Fox’s defense that it was merely airing alternative views that were newsworthy under the First Amendment. He ruled that newsworthiness was not a defense against defamation, and that was that. But ‘the truth’ is an absolute defense, and it’s not altogether clear how the judge made the finding of fact that what Fox claimed was false, instead of the jury. It appears the judge was acting similarly to Yahoo and other news outlets by simply concluding that others’ assertions were wrong without any analysis. 

It also sounds as though Fox wasn’t going to get a fair hearing under Judge Davis since on March 31st, he chided the network for airing falsehoods despite the fact  the jury had not made any such finding. It is the jury who finds facts in a case, and in this particular case, this fact/not fact is crucial: it makes or breaks an absolute defense available for Fox. Just to drive it home, Davis reportedly said, “The statements at issue were dramatically different than the truth. In fact, although it cannot be attributed directly to Fox’s statements, it is noteworthy that some Americans still believe the election was rigged.” Why even bother with a trial?

Perhaps Judge Davis was prepared to test the precedential value of Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 case that set the test for defamation of public figures to require actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth, but that really isn’t his job. While the test may be controversial, including among conservatives, it is the current state of defamation law and must be followed unless and until it is overturned.  

One can only hope another of any of Dominion’s lawfare suits will go to trial. As for Fox, the network still faces a defamation lawsuit from voting software company, Smartmatic, which seeks even more in damages than Dominion. There is a tendency today to obtain unusually high defamation damage awards from conservatives, just because…See e.g., Alex Jones, who was ordered to pay $965m.

“ A Cruel and Reckless Thing to Keep Saying.”

DOMINION’S LAWSUIT AGAINST FOX NEWS promised to deliver the goods in discovery. First, some leading hosts called Attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani crazy. More specifically, on Nov. 18th, 2020, Tucker Carlson wrote to Laura Ingraham that ““Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.” Ingraham then replied to Carlson, “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.” Carlson further called Powell in a text, “an unguided missile,” and “dangerous as hell.” 

Powell and Giuliani both realized something had gone terribly wrong in the election they both believed, and hoped, Donald Trump would win in a likely landslide. At that point, they seemed to think Dominion itself rigged the machines to steal the election rather than what probably did happen, namely, that corrupt or woefully ignorant election officials played a part in the unexpected counts from the machines and the software they used in several contested states. 

At one point, Carlson confronted Powell with, “You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software. I hope you will prove that very soon. You’ve convinced them that Trump will win. If you don’t have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it’s a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying.” Carlson’s confrontations of Powell on air, if anything, would tend to show fair reporting, especially when they were coupled with broadcasting Dominion’s denials. And Fox, it should be remembered, was the first to call Arizona (which led to calling the election) for Joe Biden. No wonder MAGA looked to Newsmax.

Carlson and Sean Hannity were reportedly hoping to get White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich fired after she ‘fact-checked’ a Trump tweet about Dominion. Carlson alleged said to Hannity, “Please get her fired. Seriously….What the fuck? I’m actually shocked…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” Yet another incident occurred when correspondent Kristin Fisher displeased Fox executives when she fact-checked Powell and Giuliani claims from a Nov. 19th press conference. This led to a meeting with Washington bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who expressed his displeasure. Meanwhile, the audience and Trump himself were so displeased with Fox, they abandoned it for Newsmax and O.A.N. Carlson picked up it early, texting a producer, “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real….an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.” 

Two days after Election Day, Carlson texted his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, about Fox having called Arizona too early. “We worked really hard to build what we have,” he said, “Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.” Pfeiffer responded that “many on ‘our side’ are being reckless demagogues right now.” “Of course they are,” Carlson replied,. “We’re not going to follow them,” adding that Trump was good at “destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.” On Nov. 13th, Carlson texted Pfeiffer he thought that Trump should concede “that there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” of the election, and concluded that Powell was “lying” about having evidence for election fraud. 

One of the oddest discoveries was that Powell allegedly told Fox employees and host Maria Bartiromo that she relied on sources which made her unreliable. Dominion alleges in its complaint that before Powell’s Nov. 8, 2020 appearance on Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures, the “evidence” Powell provided to prove her allegedly false accusation that Dominion manipulated the election was from an individual who described herself as “internally decapitated” and capable of “time travel in a semi-conscious state.” (Which is likely why Powell defended herself by saying, in effect, no one in their right mind would believe her, but I digress.)

The real bombshell was on the day before the alleged Jan. 6, 2021 ’insurrection,’ when Rupert Murdoch wrote to Fox News Media C.E.O., Suzanne Scott, “It’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won,’” and added that such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.” Naturally, MSM media has picked up on this with glee, as if Murdoch would have any incontrovertible evidence to support his claim.  

Although it is met with controversy in legal circles, under present law, Dominion is required to show Fox acted with “actual malice” or reckless disregard for the truth. Fox claims that all the people who advanced ideas that Dominion machines may have caused an improper upset were “profoundly newsworthy.” Therefore, Dominion cannot prove actual malice or reckless disregard. (If it is newsworthy, according to the argument, it cannot per se be actual malice or reckless disregard.) Nor can it chill protected speech. Fox has additionally taken exception to Dominion’s claim it suffered damages of $1.6 billion (with a ‘b’), an amount which would simply enrich its private equity owner, Staple Street Capital Partners. 

Counsel for Fox, Dan Webb, obviously doesn’t want to fall into what I’ve dubbed “the Powell Trap,” meaning, he and Fox cannot assert the truth isn’t yet known (even though it isn’t), and therefore, by litigating this case, unripe for adjudication at this point, justice cannot be properly administered as a matter of law because the truth of the matter, which would be an affirmative and dispositive defense for Fox, is still an open question. 

Put differently, until we actually know for a fact that the machines didn’t flip votes significantly enough to change the results of the election, we cannot proceed with this matter before the Delaware court. There are, in fact, dribs and drabs of evidence slowly coming in from states here and there that show that the machines and the 2020 election were highly problematic. See, e.g., here, here, and even generally, here. (It wasn’t necessary for there to be a lot of fraud (or mistakes, if you’re less cynical); there only needed to be a little bit in just a few contested jurisdictions.) The Powell Trap undoubtedly weights on Webb, who doesn’t want to be disbarred, sanctioned, or disciplined, or sued by Dominion himself. The whole case just ‘chills’ legal representation as much as it does speech.

Dominion, like others, relies on so-called fact-checkers to advance its narrative. Of note is that whenever you see an article about Dominion, election/voter fraud, or MAGA, it is an automatic response for editors to have inserted the words “falsely” before the assertions they dislike, with the expectation (and often the unfortunate result) that by calling something false long enough, it will, in fact, become false in peoples’ minds whether or not, in fact, it really is. The solution to see beyond this trick is to simply cross out the word “false” in such stories, and reach your own conclusion independently.

Fox has filed a counterclaim against Dominion which is based on New York’s “anti-SLAAP” law, aimed at protecting parties exercising their First Amendment rights from being intimidated by “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” These companion cases promise to be great fodder for tomorrow’s ConLaw students and a triumph not just for Fox, but for the First Amendment. 

Assuming no summary judgment is granted, a trial will begin in April. I, for one, await it with bated breath.

F.B.I.: The Federal Bureau of Injustice

THE MAGISTRATE THAT SIGNED OFF on an extremely broad search warrant for Mar-a-Lago is now contemplating whether and to what extent the underlying affidavit can be unsealed for the public. Best guess is it will be, with the caveat that it’ll be heavily redacted for “security reasons” and is therefore a meaningless, wholly unsatisfactory gesture, but justice is being sought.

Forty-fifth President Donald Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Florida seeking to enjoin the Department of Justice from viewing materials that the F.B.I. seized at his Palm Beach resort home that could fall under an attorney-client privilege or executive privilege exception, at least until a Special Master is appointed to review the claims and report on them to the court. Trump also requested a more detailed inventory of what was taken and return of his items that fell outside the scope of the warrant. The Motion can be read in its entirety here.

Of particular interest is that Trump’s former attorney M. Evan Corcoran attested to the politicalization of the search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment: 

“President Donald J. Trump is the clear frontrunner in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary and in the 2024 General Election, should he decide to run. Beyond that, his endorsement in the 2022 mid-term elections has been decisive for Republican candidates.”On August 8, 2022, in a shockingly aggressive move — and with no understanding of the distress that it would cause most Americans — roughly two dozen Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), directed by attorneys of the U.S. Department of Justice (the “Government”), raided the home…”

That this wasn’t political, as the F.B.I. claims, is belied by a number of facts, one of which Sean Hannity probed with son, Eric Trump, to wit, that the agents demanded the surveillance cameras be shut off. They weren’t, though, and it seems there is a recording of the whole thing that Eric says might be revealed to the world at some point. Also indicative of politics behind this unsavory antic by the F.B.I. is evidence that the raid involved personnel who were also behind the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax. It may be the supporting affidavit was also from the agent seeking a warrant. And the fact A.G. Merrick Garland personally approved it matters, too.

Libertarian reason.com, by no means pro-Trump, published some interesting speculation about the matter (here), but if the same degree of scrutiny were applied to the F.B.I., it would look like nothing more than a Deep State gestapo. Review a detailed laundry list thanks to good work of Tristan Justice at The Federalist here.

God Wanted His Talent Back.

LEGENDARY radio talk show pioneer and cultural phenomenon Rush Limbaugh died on Wednesday morning in his home in Palm Beach County, Florida, a year after he received a dark diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. He was 70. 

Throughout his treatment, he returned to his “golden E.I.B. [Excellence in Broadcasting] microphone” with his “formerly nicotine stained fingers” on his “hands tied behind his back just to make it fair” to deliver his fiery conservative monologues to America and “those in Rio Linda,” with his “talent on loan from God-d-d.” He’d take calls from those who agreed with him and sometimes said so by simply saying “mega-dittos, Rush.” 

Lately, though, the end seemed to be near as he received “mega-prayers” called in to his substitute hosts. His last day live on the radio was February 2nd. He knew the end was near and he seemed at peace with it.

His wife Kathryn made the announcement prior to his show at noon Eastern time today. The show continued with a montage of past Rush shows. Future plans for the radio show are not yet announced.

“Harmless fuzzball” and bona fide “deplorable” Rush Limbaugh wasn’t the first on talk radio and probably wasn’t the best, but he was almost certainly the most influential and listened to. “Trends go where the talent lies,” said Michael Harrison of talkers.com, the talk radio trade publication, on Sean Spicer’s show on Newsmax about why only conservatives like Rush are successful in this particular medium. (It’s a good point, and answers my companion question as to why only liberals can compose good folk tunes.)

Talk radio had been around since the 1950s with Barry Gray on WMCA in New York City and Jerry Williams on WMEX in Boston, but it was locally produced. By the 1960s, it was often aired at night or on weekends and was intermixed with, say, a Top 40 format during the day. An example of this was Barry Farber on WINS in New York City in 1960. (Farber died last year after his long and distinguished career.) Another example was then-KABC’s Bob Grant, who later developed a very different ‘combat talk,’ “get off my phone” style he brought to WMCA and WOR in New York in the ‘70s. 

Radio was thought to be dying, though, and by the early 1980s, some radio executives thought radio syndication of conservative talk radio would be marketable. An early adopter of syndicated talk programming was Miami’s Larry King of the Mutual Broadcasting System, who died himself less than a month ago. For my taste, his radio talk and interview show on overnights in the 1970s was vastly superior to the dumbed-down television shows he later became known for in the mid-1980s through 2010.

Plus, the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine of 1949 was finally repealed in 1987, which gave way to an explosion of political talk radio. Enter Rush Limbaugh, along with colleagues Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, among others. Syndication did sanitize the format, however, which, for some had been much more enjoyable as a local and more personal medium. Today, some radio stations have rediscovered this fact. Think Howie Carr and Jeff Kuhner in Boston or Mark Simone and Guardian Angel’s founder Curtis Sliwa in New York.

Nonetheless, Rush Limbaugh has held a noon to 3 p.m. slot weekdays on over 600 radio stations nationwide, especially on the AM band, throughout his tremendously successful career. He had a weekly cumulative audience of 15.5 million unique listeners weekly, making him the top-rated in the biz. In 2018, Rush was the world’s second (behind Howard Stern) highest-paid radio host, reportedly earning $84.5 million. He renewed the contract a year ago. He was worth a reported $600 million.

Cancer was the last of Rush’s medical problems. He had lost his hearing and in 2001 had a then-futuristic cochlear implant in one ear, leaving the second ear untreated in case better technology emerged later. He reportedly had callers’ comments transcribed in real time to respond on the air, though the process wasn’t really noticeable to listeners. 

Later, in 2006, Rush admitted to having developed an addiction to OxyContin after back surgery problems for which he was being treated and from which he apparently eventually recovered. He had been arrested by Palm Beach County authorities after his name emerged in an investigation into black market drug trafficking where Limbaugh’s name came up as a possible buyer.

Rush was a great supporter of President Trump, who honored him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the 2020 State of the Union address. First Lady Melania Trump tied the medal around his neck. He looked sick, but was clearly overjoyed and humbled by the honor. Rush was also an animal lover, having had cats and dogs as beloved pets.

People who knew him found him gracious, funny, charming, and generous. “Ditto-heads” will certainly miss Rush. He is survived by his fourth wife, Kathryn, and his brother, David Limbaugh, a lawyer from Missouri. 

An obituary can be read here. President Trump’s laudatory reaction in the first interview he’s granted since leaving office can be read here. Others are here. Those who disagreed with his politics, of course, had less charitable words for Rush.

Rush began his shows saying he had “talent on loan from God-d-d.” On Wednesday, God got the talent back — sooner than most earthly brethren hoped.

Wonderland 2020: Trump Quarantines. Biden Knocks on Stranger’s Doors.

If things seem topsy-turvy and you feel like a trans-Alice in an oxymoronic Wonderland after eating too few magic mushrooms to make it all go away, you’re 100 percent right, but it is 2020, after all.

On Tuesday, September 29th, President Trump and former Vice President Biden debated — if you want to call it that — in Cleveland, Ohio, where Biden chided the president for his public campaigning rather than, like Biden, cowering in a basement bunker covered with a super-sized black mask. On Wednesday, September 30th, Trump rallied a huge and enthusiastic outdoor group in Duluth, MN. On Thursday, October 1st, Trump fundraised and was interviewed on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News where he was asked, inter alia, about his senior counselor, Hope Hicks’ positive Covid test. Overnight, Trump tweeted out his own Covid test, too, came back positive.

On Friday morning, October 2nd, Americans woke up to declining markets and the news their president (and First Lady Melania Trump) had contracted the Wuhan coronavirus, but the administration was being fairly candid about it, citing, for instance, how he would be treated by his physicians. (“Keep a vigilant watch.” “Experimental cocktail.”) Trump was reportedly experiencing “mild symptoms,” including fatigue and a slight fever.  Obviously, the Trumps quarantined immediately upon learning the news.

After markets closed down just slightly for the week, the White House announced that out of “an abundance of caution,” the President would be airlifted to the Presidential Suite at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for several days of observation and treatment under the controlled setting. Trump was ambulatory, but clearly looked worn down as he issued a slight wave, but no comments to press outside. After his short helicopter flight to the hospital and his admittance, he issued a short video via Twitter made a bit earlier about feeling fine, but just wanting to be careful.

Nut cases, screw balls, and moon bats came out of the woodwork in spades. Some tweeted despicable things. Other lambasted the president for not wearing masks consistently. But some people who should’ve known better, in an attempt to not let the crisis go to waste, raised some  truly bizarre political ideas, making one wonder which was the more mentally debilitating diagnosis or dangerous pandemic — Covid-19 or Trump Derangement Syndrome?

Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein thought there should be a delay in the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Others demanded to cancel the remainder of presidential debates. Some seriously wondered if Trump would remove himself from the G.O.P. ticket over the diagnosis. Biden had already said Trump should resign over his response to the virus, so there’s that. (Yeah, no …)

The weirdest news of the day, however, was that the Biden campaign was going to start door-to-door outreach in competitive states to distribute campaign literature and election re-education materials while urging a get out the vote to the living and the dead for their enfeebled candidate. (Huh?!)

Only a few weeks ago, Biden’s campaign refused to do this (unlike the Trump campaign) claiming they would never endanger voters during a pandemic. But here there are today, immediately after the President of the United States has contracted the virus, knocking on the doors of unsuspecting people in battleground states just politely opening their doors to possible Covid super-spreaders. Perhaps they reasoned the risk  of contagion they posed to their possible voters was outweighed by the  danger of the reelection of the president? Paradoxically, the Biden campaign also temporarily cancelled its “attack ads” against Trump in light of his diagnosis. 

Gaetz v. Bloomberg

Former New York City mayor and party chameleon Mike Bloomberg has been intent on ousting President Donald Trump from office, even running his own unsuccessful, short-lived, high-priced campaign against him. He did, however, win the coveted first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire’s remote White Mountain hamlet of Dixville Notch  (pop.: 12) with three write-in votes from five voters back in February. Shortly thereafter, Bloomberg was a footnote in presidential history.

Bloomberg’s political expenditures are notorious for little bang for big bucks. He paid $18 million for each of his 31 pledged delegates in 2020.

The billionaire has since managed to raise $16 million towards the goal  of beating Trump, all of which is earmarked towards paying off the outstanding fines of 32,000 black and Hispanic Florida voters, with the idea they’ll vote for Biden in this election. Recently, Florida courts returned the right to vote to felons conditional upon them not only serving their sentences, but paying off their fines and restitution, as well.

As a general rule, federal law proscribes paying or receiving money for voting. Thus, it is likely what Bloomberg now wants to do violates federal law. And at least one legal analyst, J. Christian Adams, thinks Bloomberg is breaking Florida state law, as well. Adams also claims Bloomberg is putting these felons on legal and financial jeopardy by assuming their debts in exchange for votes. Bloomberg’s idea isn’t unique. Basketball player Lebron James wanted to do the same thing.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican, doesn’t appreciate the Empire State’s interference in the Sunshine State’s elections. On Tuesday, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he called in the state’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, about possibly instituting a bribery investigation into Bloomberg’s stunt.

Good.

The DNC’s House of Cards is Collapsing

 

Much of the best investigative reporting on the Trump-Russia-collusion witch hunt against the President has been conducted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity and a handful of stalwart correspondents committed to uncovering the increasingly astonishing story.

The latest in the house of cards that the Trump-Russia-collusion saga has become involves Ukraine, and suggests the only collusion with foreign agents during the 2016 presidential campaign involved Democrats.

Who Is John Huber?

 

On Friday, Sean Hannity learned that a revelation into the Clinton crime family would be forthcoming this coming Monday. John Solomon, a reporter for The Hill was his source:

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John Solomon: “I’ll give you some breaking news right now, Sean. Just two hours ago federal prosecutors assigned to John Huber, the US attorney investigating the Clintons, reached out to a whistleblower in the Clinton Foundation – The first time we’ve seen contact between a Clinton Foundation whistleblower and that particular federal office. That just happened tonight.”