The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The good:

Petr Pavel, a retired general and former senior Nato commander, has swept to the Czech presidency after a landslide victory over the former prime minister Andrej Babiš in an election overshadowed by rows over the war between Russia and Ukraine.

With nearly all the votes counted, returns showed Pavel prevailing by the emphatic margin of 58.3% to 41.68%, the largest ever recorded in a Czech presidential poll and reflecting an advantage of more than 958,000 votes nationwide.

Pavel’s supporters immediately hailed the result as a victory for liberal democracy over oligarchic populism, which they believe Babiš represents.  [snip]

He called his win a victory for “truth, dignity, respect and humility” and vowed to seek national unity after an election campaign widely denounced as bitterly divisive. “We have different views on many things, but that doesn’t mean we are enemies,” said Pavel. “We have to learn to communicate with each other.”

In a highly symbolic moment, he then received the congratulations on stage of Zuzana Čaputová, Slovakia’s president, who – like Pavel – has spoken out against populism and invoked the values of Václav Havel, the one-time dissident who was the first post-communist president of the former Czechoslovakia.

The outcome represented a personal vindication for the pro-western Pavel, who was forced to deny false eve-of-poll reports of his own death announced on a counterfeit version of his campaign website, sparking allegations of dirty tricks and a police investigation.

It also amounted to a humiliating rebuff for Slovak-born Babiš, 68, a billionaire tycoon who stood accused of running a shameless, scorched-earth campaign after portraying Pavel as a warmonger for his support of military aid to Ukraine. At one point, Babiš even appeared to question Nato’s collective security arrangements by saying he would never send Czech troops to Poland, a fellow member of the military alliance, if it was attacked by Russia...

Now, if only Hungary's Orbán, another Putin/ Trump pal in NATO, was as vulnerable to removal.  Still, perhaps this is a sign that right- wing populism is in retreat in Europe.

The bad:

The good news is many Republicans want to leave Donald Trump in the dust. The bad news is so many of them are just as odious.

Case in point: Mike Pompeo.

This choleric guy, who was plucked from back-bench House obscurity by the Trump team and inexplicably elevated to CIA director and Secretary of State, is clearly maneuvering to run for president in 2024. It’s obvious in two ways: He has sought to make himself more telegenic by losing massive amounts of weight and he’s seeking to romance the right-wing donor class and Duh Base by singing all of MAGA’s greatest hits.

Earlier this week, he said on TV that “the left” had “exploited” the violent events of Jan. 6 insurrection and that the day had ended in “glory.” Apparently “the left” is exploiting the courts, which continue to send insurrectionist thugs to the slammer, and bending the minds of the 140 Capitol cops who are still reeling from the physical assaults they suffered that day.

And a year ago, for instance, on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Pompeo lauded the mass murderer as “very savvy…very shrewd…elegantly sophisticated…one who is not reckless but has always done the math…He is a very talented statesman.” Right. Putin is so talented he has united the western world against him, strengthened NATO, and wrecked the economy of his own benighted country. 

Putin is arguably a clear and present danger to world peace, but Mike Pompeo disagrees. A few months ago he decreed: “The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call.” In case you didn’t know, Weingarten runs one of unions that represents public school teachers.

Actually, Pompeo has been off his rocker for a very long time. Remember Benghazi, the faux-scandal that House Republicans like Pompeo tried to pin on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? That ginned-up brouhaha ended when a string of congressional panels – the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and three others – all concluded that she’d done nothing perfidious or criminal. But none of that mattered to Pompeo, who insisted on NBC News that she was guilty of something. He was asked, where’s the evidence? He replied: “In my heart.”...

The arrogant asshole also smeared Jamal Khashoggi in defense of his Saudi pals.  So Pompeo, DeSantis, Youngkin,  etc., etc.  The horse race media will try its best to sanitize these bums, but remember the Angelou maxim:  "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

The ugly:

The man accused of brutally attacking former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer last year expressed regret on Friday that he didn’t do more, according to a jailhouse call that he reportedly had with a California news station.

David DePape shared a stunning lack of remorse for the violence during what was described as an unexpected phone call to KTVU, the San Francisco TV station reported. The call followed the public release of police body camera footage capturing the incident.

“I want to apologize to everyone. I messed up. What I did was really bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them. It’s my own fault. No one else is to blame. I should have come better prepared,” he told KTVU reporter Amber Lee, according to audio of the call posted online.  [snip]

DePape, who is behind bars on charges of attempted murder, elder abuse and kidnapping, which he’s pleaded not guilty to, reportedly refused questions from Lee reasoning that it could jeopardize his criminal case. Regardless, in the call’s recording he appears to admit to plotting and carrying out the Oct. 28 attack while defending it as taking a stand for Americans’ freedom.

“You’re welcome,” he says after acknowledging the video footage capturing the early morning home invasion that hospitalized 82-year-old Paul Pelosi.

“Freedom and liberty isn’t dying, it’s being killed systemically and deliberately,” he says in the recording. “The people killing it have names and addresses so I got their names and addresses so I could pay them a little visit. Have a heart-to-heart chat about their bad behavior.”...

This deluded loon, like his cult leader, doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.  FAFO.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

In case you missed the latest blame- shifting and conspiracy- mongering by the Golden Turd:

President Donald Trump went off on a rant accusing hospitals, doctors and nurses of hoarding equipment and intentionally exaggerating the things they need.

Speaking in the Rose Garden Sunday, Trump asked, “How do you go from 10 to 20 to 300,000 masks? Where are the masks going, are they going out the backdoor?”

Indeed, the masks are going in the trash after they’re used. The masks are one-use masks, which Trump said he wants to be able to sanitize them so people can reuse them.

“They have to look into that in New York,” Trump said, noting that he heard they went from 10,000 masks to 300,000 masks. 

“I don’t think it’s hoarding, it’s maybe worse than hoarding,” Trump said.

The crooked cheater is projecting again, suggesting that the most heroic, selfless people in our communities are crooks and cheaters like him.  ER doctor and Executive Director of Committee to Protect Medicare Rob Davidson:

Accusing heroic healthcare workers in NYC of stealing #PPE and #ventilators is an all-time low from @realDonaldTrump. They deserve our praise, and they get slapped in the face from this pitiful man. They give more of themselves in one shift than he could give in 1000 lifetimes.

— Dr. Rob Davidson (@DrRobDavidson) March 29, 2020

As the death toll relentlessly climbs, Golden Turd can't help but give himself a pat on the back should we "only" lose under 200,000 lives:

Anthony S. Fauci, the White House adviser, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that models suggest the virus could cause between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths and that millions of people could be infected. But he stressed that the 200,000 figure was a worst-case estimate that is unlikely to come to pass.

In the Rose Garden on Sunday, Trump compared those numbers favorably with the more than 2 million deaths forecast as a worst-case scenario had the nation not taken strict measures to respond to the virus. If coronavirus-related deaths remained under 200,000, he said, “we all together have done a very good job.”

Spoken like a true sociopath who ignored the health experts, dragged his feet, and placed more value on "the markets" than on human life.

Meanwhile, let's get into the Wayback Machine to remind the Golden Turd about how his regime bungled the medical supply issue from the get go:

The U.S. State Department shipped 17.8 million tons of donated coronavirus medical supplies to China seven weeks ago, when health experts and some American lawmakers were already seeking federal action to prepare the country for the disease.

The massive shipment to China included medical masks, gowns and respirators, now in desperately short supply across America. The supplies were contributed by American companies and nonprofits, according to a U.S. Agency for International Development official.

Maybe should have checked our own stockpiles first? Nah, too competent!

Let's stick with the State Department, run by odious toady Mike "Pompous" Pompeo. Here's  Jackson Diehl on some of what Pompeo has been doing to weaken what's left of our standing in the world:

Let’s recall how the U.S. secretary of state has historically behaved at a time of grave international crisis: circling the globe (at least telephonically); formulating a coherent multilateral response; and lining up nations behind it — starting with America’s closest allies.

Now, consider how Mike Pompeo spent his time last week, as cases of covid-19 soared in the United States and numerous other countries. He kicked off Monday by indulging in a pointless war of words with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whom he accused of lying about the country’s grave coronavirus outbreak. [snip]

On Wednesday, Pompeo had an opportunity to lead when foreign ministers of the Group of Seven convened by telephone. James A. Baker III, George Shultz or Madeleine Albright would have emerged with a clear statement of purpose by the world’s leading democracies — perhaps a commitment to aiding the poor nations and refugees that face devastation by the new disease.

Instead, Pompeo blocked the G-7 from issuing any communique after the other ministers sensibly refused to go along with his petty insistence that it refer to the “Wuhan virus.” The message he sent was clear: Scoring a rhetorical point against Beijing is more important to this U.S. administration than forging a consensus with Britain, France, Germany and other close allies.

For all the evidence of Golden Turd's incompetence, vindictiveness and evil you won't ever see on any of the national network news evening broadcasts (they're failing even more spectacularly than they did in 2016), Digby has the lowlights of his latest "briefing."

As we usually do, we highly recommend you visit Infidel 753's link round-up for a much more comprehensive view of what's going on all over the world.  Go!

Pompeo Gets Piggy About Reporter Doing Her Job (UPDATED)

There's been a lot of chatter about the run- in NPR's Mary Louise Kelly had during and after an interview with pig cosplayer and smug Secretary of State Mike "Pompous" Pompeo on Friday.  The gist of the story is that Trump loyalist Pompeo (who you may recall was elected to the House as a Tea Party Republican in 2011 and is an evangelical who believes in the Rapture) bridled at Kelly asking questions about Ukraine, and specifically about his treatment of Ambassador Marie Yovanovich and Rudy Colludy's back channel smear safari.  News reports take it from there:

According to a transcript of the interview between NPR host Mary Louise Kelly and Pompeo, he repeatedly dodged questions on Ukraine and grew increasingly irate after Kelly asked, “Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?”

“You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran,” Pompeo said before going on to insist, “I  just don’t have anything else to say about that this morning.”

When Kelly kept grilling him and noted that some within the State Department had criticized his failure to stand up for Yovanovitch after she was fired amid what she described as a smear campaign orchestrated by President Trump, Pompeo sought to dismiss the criticism as being from “unnamed sources.”

But Kelly stopped him: “These are not unnamed sources. This is your senior adviser Michael McKinley, a career foreign service officer with four decades experience,” she said, reminding Pompeo that McKinley had testified on the matter under oath.

Declining to comment on McKinley, Pompeo insisted, “I have defended every State Department official,” only to end the interview when Kelly asked him to refer her to any comments he’d made in defense of Yovanovitch.

Shortly after Pompeo stormed out of the interview, an aide ushered Kelly into Pompeo's inner sanctum where NPR's Ari Shapiro picks up the story:

The coda to @NPRKelly's interview with @SecPompeo is shocking. As described on @npratc: He screamed, swore at her, and said she couldn't find Ukraine on a map. He ordered staffers to bring a blank map. She pointed to Ukraine and thanked him for his time.https://t.co/8HlCDWxCU9

— Ari Shapiro (@arishapiro) January 24, 2020

He seems more pigly than godly, doesn't he?

He also said, "Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?"  (Pompeo is set to visit Ukraine next week. Awkward!)

But, since he's always performing for an audience of one, Pompeo issued a statement in which he just had to attack "the media" and double down (click to enlarge):




For what it's worth, Kelly said she arranged ahead of time with Pompeo's staff that Ukraine would be one of the topics she'd cover.  She said she never was asked and would never agree to have the post- interview rant off the record.  Also, Kelly has a Master's degree in European studies from Cambridge and has covered national security issues for NPR for years.  We'd put our money on her finding Ukraine on an unmarked map before pig man could.  And as far as betting which one is a liar, that wouldn't be a fair bet.

BONUS:  We like Wonkette's handling of the story.

UPDATE:  Crime family boss is now tweeting out not- so- veiled threats toward NPR.  Thugs gotta stick together!