Quick Hits

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is introducing a resolution directing the Sergeant at Arms of the House to arrest and detain Merrick Garland until he turns over the Hur tapes.

Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on Monday informed lawmakers that she would bring a resolution to require the House sergeant at arms to detain Attorney General Merrick Garland and bring him before the lower chamber.

The House this month held Garland in contempt of Congress in a 216-207 vote over his refusal to turn over the audio tapes of special counsel Robert Hur's interview with President Joe Biden. The Department of Justice has indicated it will not prosecute Garland.

Luna's resolution would hold Garland in "inherent contempt" over the matter, according to The Hill. The House has not done so in just under 100 years.

"Under inherent contempt, the individual is brought before the bar of the House by the Sergeant at Arms, tried by the body, and can then be detained either in the Capitol or in D.C.," Luna wrote. "This process demonstrates the seriousness with which Congress views non-compliance and the potential consequences for those who refuse to cooperate."

I think the idea here is that Congress has this power and must have this power itself. If they just turn over their contempt charges to the Executive, the Executive can, as they're doing here, refuse to prosecute the party in contempt. Congress must have the power to compel evidence in their own body, or else they don't have this power at all.

As she notes, it has been done in the past -- but not in a long while.

I doubt our Brave Heroes in Congress are willing to take this step.

Trump is floating the idea of a drug test for both himself and Biden before the debate. Biden, for obvious reasons, will not agree to it.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he and President Joe Biden should submit to a drug test prior to their participation in the first presidential debate on Thursday.

"DRUG TEST FOR CROOKED JOE BIDEN??? I WOULD, ALSO, IMMEDIATELY AGREE TO ONE!!!" he posted on Truth Social.

Biden has for years faced scrutiny over his age and fitness for office. Trump previously suggested that Biden would be "jacked up" on drugs during the debate and speculated that the president had been using cocaine during the State of the Union in order to deliver a solid performance.

Axios thinks you should feel bad for Biden:

Alex Thompson
@AlexThomp

It has affected the president: Aides know to tiptoe around him when there's bad family news, and he's often angry or distracted about the legal and political attacks on them, per 5 ppl familiar w/ the dynamic.

His family's struggles -- along w/ the still raw grief over his son Beau -- can manifest w/ tears and an "impenetrable sadness," 1 person close to him said.

It's all led Biden to rely more heavily on those he's known the longest -- creating a protective inner circle around him.

This was the state of the Biden family when he ran for president in 2020:
both of his adult children were struggling w/ addiction to drugs
Hallie Biden had only just gotten sober from crack cocaine
Her 2 school-age children went through a period when both of the adults in the home were addicts

Not only that, but cannibals ate his uncle!

How does this All-American Football star find the strength to soldier on?

@AlexThomp

Hunter's troubles have been well-aired, but Ashley Biden also has paid a heavy price under the glare of the presidential spotlight as she left behind her rehab diary which was later stolen and published on a right-wing site.

In a letter in April during the woman's criminal trial, Ashley wrote:
"I will forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online...The despair I have often felt will never truly go away."
J
The diary includes convos w/ Joe Biden. After a relapse in July of 2019d
"My dad cried on the phone, saying he has the debate in a week + 'now has to worry about you.' And he cried. Maybe he knows what he is doing + it's worked but my feelings of guilt often are overwhelming."

Say, Alex, did she perchance happen to mention anything else interesting about Biden in her diary...?

Neither Ashley nor Hunter wanted to be the reason their father didn't run -- and they encouraged him to do so. So did Jill.

Val Biden had serious doubts, she later wrote.

"I didn't want the family to go through it. I was worried the family couldn't go through it."

Oh poor them.

I've heard that apples don't fall far from trees. Say, what about Trump's idea for a drug test?

Biden's debate prep includes... simply training himself to be able to stand for 90 minutes.

That's where we are.

Round Mound of Clown Jamaal Bowman is trailing his Democrat primary opponent by 17 points. So he held a rally over the weekend, which about 100 people attended, a large art of them reporters.

AOC played Bowman's hype-man and spazzed out trying to amp up the barely-existent "crowd," and photos showing just how small and sad this assemblage was.

In a foul-mouthed tirade, he named the real enemy: "AIPAC." And he promised to "show them who the f*** we are."

Sexton suggests that he knows he's going to lose, so he's setting himself up for his Second Act as a racist antisemitic ignorant firebrand conspiracy-theorist rabble-rouser, which is pretty much what he is now, except he'll be drawing a paycheck from MSNBC instead of the taxpayers.

Update to Kasie Hunt story: Clay Travis linked video of both Tapper and his fellow immoderate moderator Dana Bash repeatedly comparing Trump to Hitler.

You may wonder, "How could they claim to be objective?" It's simple: They claim, for each and every one of their leftwing opinions, that their opinions are objectively true. Donald Trump is objectively a Nazi. If you disagree, you're the one who's not objective. Their opinions are facts, your facts are hateful conspiracy theories.

Axios decides that proposing to post the ten commandments in schools means that "Christian nationalism" -- this year's psyop -- is "on the march."

A new Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms is drawing new scrutiny to Christian nationalism, a once-fringe movement steadily gaining political power in the U.S.

Why it matters: Christian nationalism seeks to establish a country governed by a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Adherents and allies of the movement have aligned themselves with Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

Zoom in: The "Appeal to Heaven" flag flown outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home last summer -- originally a Revolutionary War symbol -- is linked to Christian nationalism.

So, too, is the Alabama Supreme Court ruling in February that defined frozen embryos as children -- temporarily causing IVF clinics in the state to halt treatments.
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker cited the Bible in his legal opinion and declared on a Christian podcast that "God created government."

I added this late as an update to an earlier post. In case you missed it:

CNN objects to posting the Ten Commandments in school... because that might cause a child to ask what "adultery" is, which would expose children to adult sexual behaviors that are out-of-place in a school.

CNN meanwhile is all-in on Drag Queen Story Hour.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:13 PM

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