Monday Tabs
- Via the NYT: Ron Klain Expected to Step Down as Biden’s White House Chief of Staff. If it seems fast, note ” Mr. Klain takes pride that he has lasted longer than any other Democratic president’s first chief of staff in more than half a century.”
- And along those lines, via WaPo: Jeff Zients to be Biden’s next chief of staff.
- This stuff makes my head hurt (but is a likely preview of the next two years), via WaPo: How a Hunter Biden conspiracy theory grew, from lone tweet to a big megaphone.
- Via the Washington Examiner: Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs says she’ll continue transporting migrants out of state. Despite the headline, one of these things is not like the other:
However, spokespeople for Hobbs said their new strategy would differ from Ducey’s, noting migrants would no longer be dropped off at major Democratic cities and expected to find their own way to their final destination.
“We’re sending migrants to cities they actually need to go to and be connected with their sponsors, and we are doing it in a more cost effective way by looking at all travel options, not just buses,” Hobbs’s press secretary Josselyn Berry said in a statement.
- Via ABC News: POLL: Most Americans think both Biden and Trump inappropriately handled classified documents. And they’re not wrong. Of course, one of them is fully cooperating and the other defied a subpoena and had to have his property raided to force compliance, so YMMV.
- Via the NYT: Despite Red Flags, G.O.P. Backed Candidate Now Charged in Shootings. The story isn’t all that well written. He lost a state legislative race in 2022 and the shootings happened after his loss. But he did have a criminal record and was clearly part of the fringe of the party. I would have loved the story to be more explicit about how and when state GOP officials could have known of his past, as while I would not absolve them of vetting responsibilities, it is wholly unclear to me from the piece what the process normally would look like or what the reporters could demonstrate should have been known. More likely than not this is just another example of a system that largely relies on self-selection and then the party backs its candidates over the opposition party.
Why won’t anyone tell me what’s on Hunter Biden’s laptop. I sense that everyone has seen the content, but I’m being excluded. Come on guys, let me see.
@Slugger:
It’s a secret, but I’ll let you in on it. Nothing of interest, unless you’re into dick pics.
@Slugger:
@Sleeping Dog:
They have been ranting about Hunter’s Laptop since October, 2020.
To date no has provided any evidence of any laws being broken.
My sense of this is that it will turn out to be very similar to Starr investigation of Clinton; they will go off in search of some imagined massive illegality, falsely smear the reputations of a bunch of people in the process, and in the end settle on charging someone for getting a blowie because there is nothing else there.
Re Arizona and refugees, my understanding is that local and national charities and nonprofits are doing a pretty good job of moving refugees with sponsors or who fall into one of the categories that doesn’t require a sponsor to the right places away from the border. The problem is that there is a relatively large (by historical standards) number of refugees that don’t have a sponsor, and are hard to match with a sponsor, that are allowed to stay pending a court hearing.
It’s been years, but taking on a sponsorship used to be a serious responsibility. The sponsor was potentially responsible for providing the refugee with shelter, food, and medical care for up to five years.
@daryl and his brother darryl: FWIW, I don’t think many people are aware of just what a sleazebag Ken Starr was. Think about it. He investigated the Clintons for years and couldn’t find a thing to charge them with, so he got Clinton under oath and questioned him for days about his sex life and every night someone from Starr’s office leaked what was being said. So Clinton lied and they got him on perjury. If that isn’t an actual “perjury trap” I don’t know what was.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Just as a note: Clinton was impeached, but not convicted, for perjury (lying to a grand jury) and obstruction of justice.
@CSK:
Sure…but it was because he got a extra-marital blowie and lied about it.
How many married guys have done that?
Put Trump in front of a grand jury and ask him what he had for breakfast. Guaranteed perjury conviction.
@MarkedMan: That’s hardly the only example of Starr being a sleazebag. Except in the other cases, he was trying to *cover up* sexual misdeeds (Baylor University and Jeffery Epstein), except those were of the non-consensual variety. The man was ass backwards.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Only if you proved that what he had for breakfast was material to the case at hand.
There’s long been a question about the materiality of the Lewinsky matter to the Paula Jones case, but it was never tested in court.
@Franklin: There was a report that at one point Ken Starr wanted to quit, said he’d been after Bill Clinton for years, had come up dry, and wanted to drop it. But his mentor and sponsor, Richard Mellon Scaife, funder of the “vast right wing conspiracy” Hillary was derided for noticing, told him to shut up and keep digging until he found something.