I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
Have you ever had one of those weeks where there’s just so much to write about in the world of politics that it practically paralyzes you? No, just me? Well, today I will do my best to rectify that … and WRITE ABOUT ALL OF IT.
Brew some coffee, and find a comfortable seat, because this shit is about to get real.
Everything Is Coming Up Milhouse for Joe Biden
Let’s briefly check in on the Biden reelection campaign.
It feels increasingly unlikely that Ron DeSantis will be the 2024 Republican nominee for President, but if it happens, this legislation (signed by DeSantis at 11:30 PM in the hopes, I suppose, that no one living in a swing state would notice) will be the gift that keeps on giving to the Biden campaign.
I don’t mean to minimize how dangerous this is for the women of Florida, and the Deep South, because since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the state has been a regional destination for those seeking abortion access. Women will suffer and potentially die because of this legislation. But from a political perspective, this is the equivalent of hitting the campaign trail wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt.
In swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where we’ve already seen abortion play an out-sized role in recent elections, it’s political Kryptonite. And it ain’t gonna help DeSantis in Arizona or Nevada either.
So, to sum up, Joe Biden’s two main rivals for re-election are a) a guy who just signed a wildly unpopular 6-week abortion ban and eats pudding with his fingers or b) the most polarizing figure in modern American politics who just recorded a 25% favorability rating in a recent poll, is facing potentially multiple criminal indictments and has led the GOP to three straight election losses.
*By the way, DeSantis calling an abortion ban that will force women to carry an unwanted fetus to term a “help to young mothers” is like saying the Nuremberg Laws were intended to help Jews.
Brutal
Unfortunately, I can’t embed it in the newsletter, but this new Trump ad, attacking DeSantis, is absolutely brutal — and not just because it shows an actor portraying DeSantis eating pudding with his hands. Trump is hitting DeSantis over his support for cutting Social Security and Medicaid which is smart politics because a) Americans like Social Security and Medicare and b) DeSantis is clearly vulnerable on the issue. This line of attacks is a case of the chickens coming home to roost over past GOP support for cuts to these programs. That it’s coming from a fellow Republican is nothing if not ironic. In 2016 Trump significantly benefited when he attacked his fellow Republicans for pushing for cuts to social insurance programs. This is a repeat of that rather effective strategy.
As I’ve noted, Trump might be stupid … but he’s not dumb. He’s running a clever campaign against DeSantis that is made even smarter by the fact that the Florida Governor still hasn’t announced his candidacy. Trump is defining DeSantis for the GOP electorate before he can do it himself. He’s been so effective that I would no longer be shocked if DeSantis chooses not to run. I don’t think it will likely happen, but it’s no longer a far-fetched notion.
Supreme Corruption
The original Pro Publica story on Clarence Thomas’s relationship with a billionaire conservative donor was bad … but this is even worse.
In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.
The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.
The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.
This piece is jaw-dropping from beginning to end. The renovations on Thomas’s mother’s home came to $36,000 — and she still lives there. It appears that Crow paid above market value for the house, which Thomas, a decade before had valued at $15,000. A federal disclosure law requires Thomas to report any real estate deal above $1,000. Like the all-expenses-paid vacations he took with Crow, Thomas reported none of it. According to four ethics law experts consulted by ProPublica, that’s a violation of the law.
This is blatant, stunning corruption. Even if Crow’s money didn’t influence Thomas’s judicial decisions (and Thomas is such a hard ass that I doubt they did), this is an extraordinary violation of the public trust and makes the highest court in the land look like a cesspool of old-boy corruption. If Thomas had a scintilla of shame, he’d resign — and if we lived in a normal and healthy democracy, there’d be calls from both sides of the political aisle for him to step down. Of course, Thomas has no shame, and we don’t live in a healthy democracy, so Thomas will stay on the Court until he dies.
PAYWALL ALERT
This is usually the spot in the newsletter where I would place the paywall … preventing free subscribers from reading further. But I’m not going to do that today. Instead, I’m asking that if you like the content on Truth and Consequences subscribe below and support independent journalism! And if you do, you’ll get 20 percent off.
Somehow This Is Not Parody
Because Elon Musk is terrible at business I can’t embed this tweet in my newsletter, but you need to watch it … and I swear it’s not a parody.
Not Great Bob
It seems that the worst classified intelligence leak in years was perpetuated by the head of the Dipshit Brigade.
In interviews, members of Thug Shaker Central said their group had started out as a place where young men and teenage boys could gather amid the isolation of the pandemic to bond over their love of guns, share memes — sometimes racist ones — and play war-themed video games.
But Airman Teixeira, who one member of the group called O.G. and was also its unofficial leader, wanted to teach the young acolytes who gravitated to him about actual war, members said.
And so, beginning in at least October, Airman Teixeira, who was attached to the Guard’s intelligence unit, began sharing descriptions of classified information, group members and law enforcement officials said, eventually uploading hundreds of pages of documents, including detailed battlefield maps from Ukraine and confidential assessments of Russia’s war machine.
His goal, group members said, was both to inform and impress … “This guy was a Christian, antiwar, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” said Vahki, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate who identified himself by the screen name he used. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games; we like war games.”
The suspect, 21-year-old Airman First Class Jack Teixeira, is likely facing decades in prison (if not life) because he wanted to impress his friends in a gaming chat room. Questions will be asked about why someone so young had access to such high-level classified material, but I don’t find that as shocking. Many lower-level officials have access to highly classified material as long as they have the appropriate security clearance. But this incident is a reminder of why the penalties for leaking such information are so strong — to deter people from doing what Teixeira did. And make no mistake, the Department of Justice will throw the book at him in the hopes that other like-minded simpletons will think twice before doing something this stupid.
The Credibility Fairy
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will convene its second hearing on the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan and you’re going to hear plenty of arguments similar to this one from the Washington Post editorial board.
But the ugly optics of the United States abandoning its ally in Kabul might have reinforced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions to attack Ukraine and signaled irresolution to Beijing.
No, no, no. I’m so tired of rebutting this lazy talking point, but there are reams of political science data pointing out that this is not how international relations work. Let’s put aside the fact that Putin’s preparations to go to war in Ukraine pre-dated the US withdrawal from Afghanistan or that if the US had remained bogged down there, it likely would have been better for Putin’s war not worse (American attention diverted and less direct military support to provide to Kyiv). as I wrote about this topic in 2021, “Credibility is perhaps the most overinflated concept in international affairs. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, global leaders hardly obsess over America’s retreat from lost wars … Instead, leaders calculate credibility not by past events, but by their interpretation of current ones.”
Putin calculated that the US would not directly involve itself militarily in the Ukraine war. He was right. He also likely concluded that the US would slap sanctions on Russia but that the country could weather the storm. The latter is kind of true, but it seems he underestimated the ferocity of the US response. He almost certainly based these decisions on past US behavior toward Russia — and concluded that the benefits of stopping Ukraine’s shift to the West were worth the cost. He is still operating under that assumption. It’s the reason why the war is continuing. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan did not influence these strategic decisions. Arguments like the Post’s are simplistic, easily refuted, and reflect the thinking of the person writing it rather than a rigorous consideration of how foreign leaders operate. It’s tiresome that people keep making them.
The GOP’s War on LGBTQ Americans
I wrote something about the real reason why Republicans are waging a legislative assault on trans people — they hate them.
When it comes to LGBTQ Americans, the Republican Party has traded its dog whistle in for a train whistle.
This week, for example, during a legislative hearing on a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to use a bathroom that doesn’t match the sex a person was assigned at birth, Florida state Rep. Webster Barnaby called transgender people “demons” and “mutants.”
“The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us,” Barnaby thundered. “That’s right, I called you demons and imps, who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.”
Barnaby quickly apologized. But his comments, like many political gaffes, told an unpleasant truth: that bigotry and open hostility underpin the GOP’s continuing assault on the rights of transgender and other LGBTQ people.
You can read the whole thing here.
What’s Going On
For a while, I thought South Carolina Senator Tim Scott would be a strong Republican candidate for president. After watching him trying and failing to answer a question about his abortion stance, I think I was wrong. If you're a presidential candidate and you don't have a prepared answer to a question about abortion, you're not ready for prime time.
Loved this piece on a guy who hit a million-dollar shot at a Chicago Bulls game in 1993.
Here's a good Military Times piece on why the military is embracing diversity.
Really interesting Axios piece on how the GOP's war on abortion rights is really turning off swing voters in Pennsylvania.
I posted this piece earlier this week looking at the many problems with the Texas District Court's decision taking the abortion pill off the market. Unfortunately, the link was broken, but you can read it here.
Musical Interlude/Today in Bob Dylan