Hillary Clinton

Hillary wrote a piece for the New York Times (below) about the upcoming "debate" between President Biden and convicted felon Donald Trump. Trump "stealing" the 2016 election was a real travesty for this country. It highlights once again the archaic nature of our Electoral College, whose time has come and gone. Same thing happened to Al Gore in 2000, when the then-Supreme Court halted the recount in Florida which would have put Gore over the top and into the White House. What did we get instead? George W Bush, the goofy ex-governor in Texas, who neglected terrorist warnings and started a dumb war in Afghanistan, then Iraq, not to mention the economic crisis in 2008, exacerbated by Bush and his awe shucks personality. But, unlike Trump, Gore accepted the SCOTUS' decision and did not call for an insurrection.

But regardless, the 2000 and 2016 elections are now in the past and there is no "fixing" them. The GOP does not want to abolish or even attempt to update the Electoral College, because it produced two GOP wins in 2000 and 2016, both of which ended in disaster for the country, despite Bush and Trump losing the popular vote. That has to change. 

So, instead of Hillary Clinton becoming president in 2016, we got the egomaniacal con man Donald Trump, who has shown himself to be in it only for himself and his rich friends, and full of vitriol and hatred. We have to do just about whatever it takes, short of cheating, to keep Trump out of the Oval Office again.

Hillary Clinton: I've Debated Trump and Biden. Here's What I'm Watching For.

June 25, 2024 

Last week I had the time of my life at the Tony Awards introducing a song from “Suffs,” the Broadway musical I co-produced about the suffragists who won women the right to vote. I was thrilled when the show took home the awards for best original score and best book.

From “Suffs” to “Hamilton,” I love theater about politics. But not the other way around. Too often we approach pivotal moments like this week’s debate between President Biden and Donald Trump like drama critics. We’re picking a president, not the best actor.

I am the only person to have debated both men (Mr. Trump in 2016 and, in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary race, Mr. Biden). I know the excruciating pressure of walking onto that stage and that it is nearly impossible to focus on substance when Mr. Trump is involved. In our three debates in 2016, he unleashed a blizzard of interruptions, insults and lies that overwhelmed the moderators and did a disservice to the voters who tuned in to learn about our visions for the country — including a record 84 million viewers for our first debate.

It is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump’s arguments like in a normal debate. It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather. This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated. I was not surprised that after a recent meeting, several chief executives said that Mr. Trump, as one journalist described it, “could not keep a straight thought” and was “all over the map.” Yet expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.

Mr. Trump may rant and rave in part because he wants to avoid giving straight answers about his unpopular positions, like restrictions on abortion, giving tax breaks to billionaires and selling out our planet to big oil companies in return for campaign donations. He interrupts and bullies — he even stalked me around the stage at one point — because he wants to appear dominant and throw his opponent off balance.

These ploys will fall flat if Mr. Biden is as direct and forceful as he was when engaging Republican hecklers at the State of the Union address in March. The president also has facts and truth on his side. He led America’s comeback from a historic health and economic crisis, with more than 15 million jobs created so far, incomes for working families rising, inflation slowing and investments in clean energy and advanced manufacturing soaring. He’ll win if that story comes through.

In 2016, I prepared intensely for the debates because I knew I had to find a way to cut through Mr. Trump’s antics and help the American people understand what was really at stake. In 90-minute mock debates on an identical stage, I practiced keeping my cool in the face of hard questions and outright lies about my record and character. A longtime adviser played Mr. Trump and did everything he could to provoke, rattle and enrage me. It worked.

Unfortunately, Mr. Biden starts from a disadvantage because there’s no way he can spend as much time preparing as I did eight years ago. Being president isn’t just a day job; it’s an everything-everywhere-all-at-once job. Historically, that has led to weaker first debate performances for the incumbent.

First, pay attention to how the candidates talk about people, not just policies. In my third debate with Mr. Trump, he promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. I responded that this would have real consequences for real women. Mr. Trump had already said women should be punished for getting abortions. “You should meet with some of the women I’ve met with,” I told him. “I’ve been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions, like they used to do in China, or forced women to bear children like they used to do in Romania. And I can tell you, the government has no business in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with their faith, with medical advice.”

On Thursday, Mr. Trump will most likely say he wants to leave abortion to the states. He hopes that sounds moderate. But it really means he’s endorsing the most extreme abortion bans already imposed by many states and all the extreme restrictions to come. Mr. Trump should have to answer for the 12-year-old girl in Mississippi who was raped and then forced to carry a child to term. She started the seventh grade with a newborn because of her state’s draconian abortion ban. It’s because of Mr. Trump that in Louisiana a young girl unable to get an abortion went into labor clutching a teddy bear. Studies find that women living under abortion bans are up to three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth. Because of Mr. Trump, one in three women of reproductive age now lives under such restrictions.

Mr. Biden is one of the most empathetic leaders we’ve ever had. Listen to how sincerely he talks about women’s rights, the struggles of working families, opportunities for people of color and the courage of Ukrainian men and women risking their lives for democracy. Mr. Trump can’t do that because he cares only about himself.

Second, try to see through the bluster and focus on the fundamentals at stake. In 2016, Mr. Trump refused to say whether he would accept the results of the election. “I’ll keep you in suspense,” he said. “That is not the way our democracy works,” I responded. “Let’s be clear about what he’s saying and what that means.” You can draw a straight line from that exchange to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

This time, expect Mr. Trump to blame Mr. Biden for inflation but avoid answering questions about his own economic plans. He has to deflect or lie because his proposals — tax cuts for the superrich, gutting the Affordable Care Act, deporting millions of workers and slapping across-the-board tariffs on everyday goods — would exacerbate inflation, raise costs for American households and cause a recession. That’s not my prediction; it’s from Wall Street’s Moody’s Analytics. Experts at the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that Mr. Trump’s tariffs alone would mean, in effect, a $1,700 tax increase each year for the average American family — or more.

For his part, Mr. Biden is clearly eager to talk about his plans to lower costs. He has stood up to powerful pharmaceutical companies by capping the cost of insulin and signing a law to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for the first time. On Thursday listen for plans to take on corporate price gouging and make gas, groceries and housing more affordable. The president has already helped one in 10 Americans with federal student loans get much-needed relief. He most likely will be ready to offer more ideas for how to help young people get a strong start and afford a middle-class life.

Third, when you see these two men side by side, think about the real choice in this election. It’s between chaos and competence.

Mr. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies and found liable for sexual assault and financial fraud. He’s spent a lifetime putting himself first. If he gets back to the White House, we’ll have more inflation and less freedom. It won’t just be a rerun of his first term. Since losing in 2020, Mr. Trump has become angrier and more unhinged. His former secretary of defense says he is “a threat to democracy.” His former chief of staff says he “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.” Remember that on Thursday when you hear Mr. Trump recite his grievances and vow retribution.

By contrast, Mr. Biden is a wise and decent man who is fighting hard for working families. Yes, he’s 81. That’s just three years older than Mr. Trump. And his lifetime of service and experience helps him get things done that make our country stronger and all of our lives better, from bringing Democrats and Republicans together to fix crumbling roads and bridges to standing up to Russian aggression.

This election is between a convicted criminal out for revenge and a president who delivers results for the American people. No matter what happens in the debate, that’s an easy choice.

Original (Gifted)

wake up America

Hope springs eternal that enough Trump fans will become disenchanted with the guy that the Dems can retake the House, expand their majority in the Senate, and keep the White House. 

I heard a segment on CNBC yesterday that was quoting a couple of billionaires and they were saying that they are more concerned about Joe Biden "destroying" capitalism than they were about Trump "destroying" democracy. All I can surmise from this ridiculous statement is that they are either 1) not that well educated, or 2) they are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who are casting about for an excuse to keep voting for Trump.

I also noticed that more wealthy people are dumping large amounts of money into Trump's campaign. I suppose it is akin to a wager. You put up $20 million for Trump, and if he wins, the GOP lowers taxes on the rich, and the return on money could be quite large. And they don't give a fuck if the country unravels or not. How they figure they would survive Trump's flippant temper is beyond me.

Meanwhile, I wish the cult members would open their eyes.

tariffs?

Recently, Donald Trump (I hate having to focus on this buffoon) said he would abolish the income tax and generate revenue solely by tariffs if he gets back into the Oval Office. The fact that tariffs would have to increase by probably 50-100% on everything we buy to make up the shortfall would curtail consumer spending, raise tariffs worldwide, and leave the government wayyyy short of cash.  But how short?

I often turn to Paul Krugman, an economist who publishes columns in the New York Times and elsewhere, for simple answers to economic issues. Paul takes a stab at Trump's ludicrous idea, and he almost gets there, but still, his explanation seems incomplete. Frankly, trying to convince the simplest-minded voters (e.g. Trump voters) that this is a bad idea seems too big a mountain to climb. 

Which reminds me of all the wasted time and effort this nation has expended "thanks" to Trump. A literal time-suck, a boil on the ass and heart of this nation, a plague upon the mind of the nation, a degenerate wannabe dictator that has screwed everyone he has ever met is my impression of this despicable person. Trying to explain anything to a brainwashed Trump-cult member seems a total waste of time, so about all we can do is vote blue in November.

The Paranoid Style in Tariff Policy

But what’s worse is Republicans’ toadying support that defends it with a laughable conspiracy theory.

• Thursday, June 20, 2024

• By Paul Krugman / The New York Times

A few days ago Donald Trump floated a truly terrible, indeed unworkable economic proposal. I’m aware that many readers will say, “So what else is new?” But in so doing, you’re letting Trump benefit from the soft bigotry of rock-bottom expectations, not holding him to the standards that should apply to any presidential candidate. A politician shouldn’t be given a pass on nonsense because he talks nonsense all the time.

But in a way the most interesting thing about Trump’s latest awful policy idea is the way his party responded, with the kind of obsequiousness and paranoia you normally expect in places like North Korea.

What Trump reportedly proposed was an “all tariff policy” in which taxes on imports replace income taxes. Why is that a bad idea?

First, the math doesn’t work. Annual income tax receipts are around $2.4 trillion; imports are around $3.9 trillion. On the face of it, this might seem to suggest that Trump’s idea would require an average tariff rate of around 60%. But high tariffs would reduce imports, so tariff rates would have to go even higher to realize the same amount of revenue, which would reduce imports even more and so on. How high would tariffs have to go in the end? I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation using highly Trump-favorable assumptions and came up with a tariff rate of 133%; in reality, there’s probably no tariff rate high enough to replace the income tax.

And to the extent that we did replace income taxes with tariffs, we’d in effect sharply raise taxes on working-class Americans while giving the rich a big tax cut; because the income tax is fairly progressive, falling most heavily on affluent taxpayers, while tariffs are de facto a kind of sales tax that falls most heavily on the working class.

So this is a really bad idea that would be highly unpopular if voters knew about it.

But here’s the kicker: How did the Republican National Committee respond when asked about it? By having its representative declare, “The notion that tariffs are a tax on U.S. consumers is a lie pushed by outsourcers and the Chinese Communist Party.”

Now, economists have been saying that tariffs are a tax on domestic consumers for the past two centuries or so; I guess they’ve been working for China all along. Yes, there are exceptions and qualifications, but if you imagine that Trump is thinking about optimal tariff theory, I have a degree from Trump University you might want to buy.

Anyway, look at how the RNC responded to a substantive policy question: by insisting not just that Dear Leader’s nonsense is true but that anyone who disagrees is part of a sinister conspiracy.

Don’t brush this off. It’s one more piece of evidence that MAGA has become a dangerous cult.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 

Original.

Alberto

Tropical Storm Alberto, that is. We here in deep south Texas have escaped hurricanes for several years now. In fact, the last strong storm to hit this area was 2008 with Tropical Storm Dolly, which dumped lots of rain and shredded some buildings at the time. The house we are now living in on South Padre Island was hit hard by Dolly. It ripped off the roof and dumped tons of rain into the house, which had to be stripped down to the studs and rebuilt. We bought it back in 2017 and have had no storms since. 

Alberto became the 1st Tropical Storm of the season this morning. After years of avoiding them, I guess it is our turn. Forecasts indicate a second tropical storm will be forming in the same area in about a weeks time. Forecasts that far out are often bullshit, but when it comes to these storms, we should pay attention.

We have been in a horrendous drought for years down here. Everything is parched, many plants simply dried up and died. We are in a Stage 2 Water Rationing situation down here, which is supposed to mean no watering of plants, but neighbors all over the area simply disregard the restriction trying to keep their plants alive. No one has been fined or penalized for violating Stage 2. Maybe, maybe, Alberto will add enough water to the region to allow Stage 2 to be lifted.

The Rio Grande Valley gets its water supply from 3 sources, which are all linked together: the Rio Grande river, Falcon Lake and Lake Amistad. Both lakes are along the Rio Grande river. Falcon Lake is down to 10% full, or 90% empty, and Amistad is around 25% full, or 75% empty. The Rio Grande itself slows to a mere trickle in several places all the way up to its headwaters in the state of Colorado. Irrigation is the main culprit. 

This area produces prodigious amounts of corn, sorghum, cotton, sugar cane, citrus and other crops, sucking water from the Rio Grande and declining groundwater. Many huge fields of citrus have been converted to neighborhoods. Now, we get as much food from Mexico as we get locally. But the Mexican cartels keep threatening foodstuffs coming north across the border from Mexico. If the cartels cut off the foods coming north and we continue with the persistent drought, well, I shudder to think.

Bling Bishop

This story should be a cautionary tale for any "believers" out there, but it probably won't be. Countless charlatans, users, and fakers have been exposed over the years as pedophiles, sexual abusers, thieves, con men (and women) and what have you, but still people feel this need to believe. Once you've fallen into the religious black hole, it's hard to get out. Many have. Far more have not. 

Becoming a "preacher" is one of the easiest ways to make some easy money. If you profess your belief in the "good book" and be passionate about it, you will attract followers who will likely want to give you money. And it's all tax-free cash too! What a deal! I actually considered it a long while ago, but I decided that I simply could not, in good conscience, lie to and fleece people who wanted to believe. Many others don't allow their conscience to stop them from taking advantage of others. Donald Trump springs to mind.

The 'Bling Bishop' is Sentenced to 9 Years for Fleecing His Flock

Lamor Whitehead, who prosecutors said was a career con man who ran a church, took in millions, which he spent on cars, clothes and jewels.

Lamor Whitehead, the flamboyant Brooklyn preacher who was convicted of defrauding a parishioner’s mother and attempting to commit extortion, was sentenced to nine years in prison by a federal judge in Manhattan on Monday.

Mr. Whitehead, known as “the bling bishop,” was already in custody after Judge Lorna G. Schofield revoked his bail last month, admonishing him for making false statements about law enforcement officials and his victims on social media. Prosecutors have said that after his conviction in March, he had even tried to sell legal documents from his case online.

“I don’t see any remorse for your conduct,” the judge told Mr. Whitehead on Monday after he delivered a rambling monologue asking for her mercy. She added that he did not appear to appreciate the impact of his crimes — or the basic facts of the case.

Two of Mr. Whitehead’s victims, his former acolyte Rasheed Anderson and Mr. Anderson’s mother, Pauline Anderson, addressed the judge before she rendered her sentence.

Ms. Anderson, a nurse, broke down as she described how she had spent a lifetime working only to lose $90,000 from her retirement savings when she gave it to Mr. Whitehead to help her achieve her dream of buying a home.

“I lost everything I had worked for,” she said, adding later that the betrayal “broke my heart, my spirit and my soul.”

In a memo to the judge before the sentencing, prosecutors argued that Mr. Whitehead was a “career con man and liar” who had committed fraud for more than two decades. They said he had abused his position as a religious leader to rake in millions, much of which he spent on fancy clothes and luxury cars.

Mr. Whitehead’s conviction, in March, related to conduct beginning in 2018. He was found guilty of five counts related to defrauding financial institutions and the Andersons, trying to extort the owner of a Bronx auto body shop and lying to federal agents.

Mr. Whitehead, 46, who was robbed of jewelry at gunpoint during a live-streamed church service in 2022, had boasted of ties to Mayor Eric Adams, who previously served as Brooklyn borough president. Mr. Whitehead had sought to cultivate Mr. Adams as a mentor, but text messages shown during the trial revealed that Mr. Adams had sought to distance himself, reprimanding Mr. Whitehead for creating conflict or sometimes not responding at all. The mayor was not accused of wrongdoing.

Among the panoply of charges, the case of Pauline Anderson stood out. Ms. Anderson had met Mr. Whitehead in 2020 through her son when he was a volunteer at Mr. Whitehead’s Brooklyn church. Rasheed Anderson went on to work for the church, and Mr. Whitehead helped him to buy a home and officiated at Mr. Anderson’s wedding. Eventually, Pauline Anderson gave tens of thousands of dollars from her retirement account to Mr. Whitehead, believing that he would help her buy a home too.

Instead, prosecutors said, Mr. Whitehead used the money for shopping sprees at Polo and Louis Vuitton and payments on a BMW. When she asked for the money back, he lied and then threatened her, they said.

Mr. Anderson, 30, said that his mother was a hardworking single parent from Jamaica who helped support many relatives, always putting herself last. Now, family members are digging into savings to defend themselves in a lawsuit filed by Mr. Whitehead, he said.

“I was used and taken advantage of, and because of that I have to see my mother suffer because of Lamor Whitehead’s deceit,” he told Judge Schofield.

In another episode that led to extortion charges, a Bronx businessman, Brandon Belmonte, wore a wire at the behest of the F.B.I. to record Mr. Whitehead’s threats. In those recordings, Mr. Whitehead said that he had “the key to the city” and that he could procure favors from Mr. Adams, including getting permits to operate affordable housing or lifting stop-work orders at construction sites. Those claims were false, the prosecutors said.

“Bishop Whitehead is in my prayers,” the mayor said when asked about the sentencing Monday.

Mr. Whitehead’s lawyers had argued that he should be freed immediately and allowed to remain on supervised release.

His lawyer Dawn Florio argued that he was a man of faith who had done many charitable works and even sought to go into public service himself — as Brooklyn borough president. Numerous parishioners from his church, Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries, wrote letters to the court praising him.

Ms. Florio also argued that Mr. Whitehead probably has post-traumatic stress disorder from the live-streamed robbery two years ago. Two men pleaded guilty in that crime and are scheduled to be sentenced in August. A third man charged in the heist died in a shootout with U.S. marshals who had gone to arrest him in New Jersey in January.

But prosecutors from the office of Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, also pointed to Mr. Whitehead’s past as they argued for a tougher punishment. In 2008, he was convicted of several charges of identity theft for a scheme involving loans for cars and motorcycles secured in other people’s names. He served five years in prison in that case.

“This defendant has repeatedly committed serious crimes and repeatedly cast the blame for them on everyone but himself,” the prosecutors wrote in their presentencing filing.

Mr. Whitehead’s comments to the judge focused on his work in poor neighborhoods in Brooklyn. He mentioned the names of police officials and elected officials he said he had worked with on gun buybacks, youth programs and “untold turkey giveaways” for Thanksgiving.

“I am a pillar of the community,” he said.

Outside the courtroom afterward, Rasheed Anderson said the family had thought Mr. Whitehead would get an even longer sentence, but that he hoped it would lead to his mother’s finally recouping her hard-earned money.

“It has been a traumatic event for all of us,” he said. “This is our first step toward closure.”

Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.

Karen Zraick covers federal law enforcement, courts and criminal justice and is based in New York. More about Karen Zraick

Gifted Article

got "the" call today

So I'm driving across the bridge to the mainland and I get a phone call routed through my car. Only the phone number was given on the screen of the car. Even though the caller's area code was my own, I chose to "Deny" the call. Hackers and scammers can spoof just about any phone number these days. That caller could have been sitting in Malaysia, using my local area code for cover. My opinion is, if you want to reach me, you can leave a voicemail. Or, if I answer your call, great. I didn't think about the phone call again. 

...until I got home and my awesome wife asked me if I got a call from my General Practitioner? She got a call from them after they were unable to reach me, and the nurse asked for me to call them back.  Dum dum DUM: I did some blood work last week; they probably got the results back; and they want to talk with me about the results!! Very logical.

But the blood pressure and pulse rate tics up a little, and all those thoughts start popping up: Do they have bad news for me? Have they discovered some alien gene in my blood or did my urine test show trouble with my prostate?  Sky-high cholesterol? Off the charts glucose levels? Is my thyroid out of whack? I've had this little bulge around there lately. 

Or

Maybe everything is good. I've been feeling pretty good lately, except that I'm getting close to 70 years old and shit just don't work as well as it used to, and except for this extreme heat and humidity we have to endure down here for far too many days each calendar year. I'll bet everything is just fine. Another set of good results, like the last several in a row. But that little pain I get now and then.... 

So I walked over to the piano and started playing, which quickly drove my wife over the edge, but under control, still. "Don't you think you should call the doctor's office and see what they wanted?" she asked, with a detectable shake in her voice.

"Why hurry? If it's good news, what's the rush? If it's bad news, what's the rush? I'd rather play the piano for a little bit."

"Just call the doctor's office!? Please." The first sentence was tense. The second, apologetic. Ok, ok. 

So I call the doctor's office. On hold, of course. Meanwhile my wife seems to be allowing herself to imagine the worst. Fucking chill out, woman! Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be. The future's not ours to see. On hold with really annoying, clanky piano music, audio levels up and down, it's now been 5 minutes with this bad muzak. The voice on the automated response unit (ARU) said I could press 1 at any time to leave a message, but, surprise, pressing 1 did nothing. So I hang up, and go back over to the piano.

"Aren't you going to try them again?" "Of course, dahling, in a minute."

I start playing a dirge on the piano, and singing "Oh, my blood is fried! That's what the doctor say!"

"Ack! Just call the doctor!" "Geez, ok."

I call them back and this time press 1 earlier in the process and suddenly the nurse answers! Outsmarted the ARU! Name? Date of birth? Oh yes, the blood results. Just a minute.... 

The wife is over there biting her nails. She's so cute. She cares for me so much. So concerned about my health. It's a great feeling to have someone care for you that much. Even if I accomplish little else in my life, the love she has for me and the love I have for her make it all worthwhile.

The nurse comes back on and says, "All your results look great!"

"So that means I'm going to LIVE?!" I ask in an exaggerated, overacting way.

"You sure are, for a long, long time!" she replies in a happy voice. Now, how would she know that? Uh oh, we might have a bruja here.  Ha ha!

My wife and I were both quite relieved. Until NEXT TIME!!

Oh, the stress. When is everything going to start breaking down?

Steve Benen

I've been a fan of Steve Benen's "no-nonsense" writing style for many years now. He is currently a producer of The Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC and curates The Maddow Blog. But you knew that. As "calm" as his writing is (to me), he understates many things in the news. I wish he'd be a bit more aggressive.

In an unfortunate stunt, Republicans hold AG Garland in contempt

It was obvious that House Republicans planned to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt as part of a partisan stunt. GOP members did it anyway.

June 12, 2024, 3:48 PM CDT

By Steve Benen

As the Republican Party’s broader offensive against the Justice Department and federal law enforcement intensifies, Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote a Washington Post op-ed this week, calling on some partisan restraint.

“Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy. They are normal,” the nation’s chief law enforcement official wrote. “But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal. The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country.”

One day later, House Republicans responded — by voting to hold the attorney general in contempt.

The final tally on the House floor was 216 to 207. (Seven Democrats did note vote, though the measure would've passed anyway.)

The outcome was hardly a foregone conclusion. As recently as late yesterday, Axios reported that the contempt resolution was “hanging by a thread” and “in severe danger of being pulled by GOP leadership.”

As recently as this morning, Politico reported that there was “lingering skepticism” within corners of the House Republican conference, and given the party’s tiny majority in the chamber and the unanimous opposition of Democratic lawmakers, the resolution would’ve failed if only a few GOP members balked.

They didn't. Ultimately, only one House Republican — Ohio's Dave Joyce, a former prosecutor — opposed the measure.

In terms of how we arrived at this point, it was early last year when President Joe Biden and his team made an unexpected announcement: The Delaware Democrat, after leaving the vice presidency, inadvertently took some classified documents with him. Team Biden contacted the authorities, returned the materials and announced plans to cooperate with any investigation.

Soon after, Garland appointed Robert Hur to serve as a special counsel in the matter and eventually to prepare a report on his findings.

It concluded more or less how everyone assumed it would: The prosecutor decided not to indict the incumbent president. Soon after, Hur wrapped up his work and released a report, including a transcript of an interview that Biden volunteered to participate in. (Donald Trump, in contrast, refused to be interviewed by either special counsel Robert Mueller or special counsel Jack Smith.)

In theory, that ended the story. In practice, however, there was one additional element that Republicans decided to pursue: the audio recording of the incumbent president’s Q&A with investigators.

The Biden administration has declined GOP lawmakers’ requests for the tape, and there’s no great mystery as to why: Officials realize that Republicans are simply looking for a political toy they can play with ahead of Election Day 2024. Former Republican Rep. Ken Buck admitted as much last month, explaining that Congress already has the transcript and relevant information, adding that his former GOP colleagues are “just looking for something for political purposes.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer went even further to prove Democrats right, declaring in a recent fundraising appeal that he wanted the recordings as part of an effort to target “swing voters across the country.”

If there was any question as to whether or not House Republicans were engaged in a partisan, election-year stunt, Comer appeared to answer it.

As for what happens now, the answer is "not much."

Given that there’s no legitimate or legislative reason to release the audio, Team Biden asserted executive privilege. White House Counsel Ed Siskel told congressional Republicans in a letter last month, “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.” (NBC News and other media organizations are suing to force the release of the audio on the grounds that it’s part of the public record.)

With this in mind, NBC News reported that the White House’s move “all but eliminated the possibility that Garland would be prosecuted for ignoring the subpoenas. It’s also unheard of for Justice Department prosecutors to go after the head of their agency over a contempt issue.”

House Republican leaders and their members are well aware of the obvious details. They know their resolution will be ignored. They know their gambit has been exposed as a partisan stunt.

But GOP members nevertheless wanted to scratch a partisan itch, so they did. The public can expect to see a great many House Republicans boasting on conservative media and in fundraising appeals about their willingness to "get tough" with Garland, even if the contempt resolution doesn't amount to anything.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

Original.