Should I be shocked about the Matt Gaetz scandal? Maybe. But he was such a transparent sleaze that I kind of felt like his behavior was going to be exposed sooner or later.

What really surprises me, though, is how flagrant he was. He was waving around photos of nude women and bragging about his sexual conquests to his peers in congress, and they said nothing. They built a wall of support for one of their own, instead.

The most surprising thing about Gaetz’s current position is just how unsurprising every Republican in D.C. seems to find it. But there’s a good reason: Not only did Gaetz show off naked pictures and videos of his supposed conquests to other Republican members of Congress, his staff apparently sent around videos of his most outrageous exploits to their counterparts with other Republican officials.

When it comes to Matt Gaetz, Republicans weren’t facing vague rumors about his conduct, they were getting bragging self-confessions from the man himself. And they were getting both photos and video, some of it delivered by Gaetz right from the floor of the House.

Part of what made Gaetz feel as if sending his sex tapes to fellow Republicans acceptable can be seen in a new Orlando Sentinel article that describes Gaetz’s feelings about such images. Gaetz believes that once he has an “intimate” picture of someone, that image is his to use however he wants. That includes feeding his ego, or using the image as revenge porn. Which is why Gaetz as the primary source of opposition to a bill against revenge porn when he served in the Florida house.

Alexandra Petri nails it on the appropriate response.

I keep coming back to the detail in CNN’s report that this wasn’t something Matt Gaetz did a single time, but repeatedly. Because if it happened more than once — if it happened twice, even — that is because the first time went better than it should have.

To me, this is something you do, ideally, zero times. You never experience the impulse to do it, and you lead a pleasant life. You travel. You eat lunchmeat sandwiches. Maybe you do a marathon, or climb something. You lead a blithe existence for many decades, you die in your bed in your mid-nineties surrounded by your cherished relatives, and in all that time, you never walk up to a colleague on the floor of the House of Representatives and out of nowhere present him with a nude photograph of someone you claim to have had sex with.

But if you can’t do it zero times, then ideally it happens only once. It happens only once, because the moment you do it, the person you show it to responds the way a person should respond. You produce your photograph to your colleague, and your colleague looks at you and says, “Never show that to anyone, ever again. Go home and rethink your life. I do not feel closer to you. If anything, I want to have you removed forcibly from my presence by strong gentlemen whose biceps are tattooed with ‘MOM.’ The fact that you thought this would make us closer makes me question every decision in my life that has led me to this point. Leave now and never come back.”

That’s exactly right. I’ve never been in Congress, but in the communities I have been part of, I’ve always been the rat who, if told of something unethical you or someone else did, I’d not only say “no, that’s not acceptable” to you, but I’d also tell everyone else. That’s another part of the problem, though: once you do that to your sleazy colleague, no one ever confides in you again.

I can understand the wall of silence his fellow Republicans put up around Gaetz’s disgusting behavior, but it doesn’t excuse it. A conspiracy to hide Gaetz’s behavior required the involvement of more than just Matt Gaetz. Maybe none of his colleagues participated directly in the abuse of women, but they enabled it.

While we’re pointing out cowards who tolerated revolting behavior, why is Jim Jordan still in congress?

Well, this isn’t surprising. Matt Gaetz is under investigation for a relationship with a 17 year old teenager.

The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz — a Florida Republican considered a close political ally of former president Donald Trump — over an alleged sexual relationship with an underage girl, according to people familiar with the matter, though the probe has been complicated by the congressman’s assertion that his family is being extorted.

The investigation into Gaetz began some time last year, when Trump was still in office, after a criminal case against a different Florida politician led investigators to allegations that the congressman had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her travel, a person familiar with the matter said on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. As that probe was underway, the person said, Gaetz’s family raised allegations that the congressman was being extorted, and the FBI is separately exploring those claims.

“Under investigation” does not mean he’s guilty, of course. There could be an innocent explanation. What’s suspicious, though, is his response. He went on Tucker Carlson, and his argument was: a) Hey, Tucker, you were once falsely accused, too; b) he denied that he travelled with a 17 year old and had travel records to prove it, and c) someone tried to extort $25 million from his daddy to hide the evidence.

That’s just weird. Trying to recruit Carlson as a supporter is irrelevant; that Carlson might have been falsely accused does not mean Gaetz is also innocent. No one thinks that being on a plane with a teenager is a crime. The accusations have emerged out of a federal investigation of a sex trafficker, so what he should have denied was that he was dating or had sex with her, which he didn’t do. Was he dating someone less than half his age or not? The next phase in his denial is right here:

What really mystifies me, though, is why is the extortionist running to Daddy Gaetz? Matt Gaetz is 38 years old and presumably an autonomous adult human being. If I were trying to blackmail or extort money from a victim, I’d go straight to them, terrify them with my wicked claims, and let them go running to a big-money source.

It’s all very strange. I’m sure more info will be emerging. Perhaps Gaetz will consult with a competent lawyer and come out with a logical, coherent explanation. Although it seems he’s sounding out an alternative strategy.

Separately, Axios reported Tuesday that Gaetz was telling confidants he was contemplating not seeking reelection and possibly leaving his post early for a job at Newsmax, a conservative media outlet.

I used to appreciate Glenn Greenwald, back in the Bush years when he was a loud voice against the American war machine, defender of Chelsea Manning, etc. But then he got weird, and in his efforts to oppose the Establishment became increasingly aligned with what were fringe political perspectives that have since become mainstream Republicanism, and he never seemed to notice. He resigned from the Intercept because he thought they were neglecting marginal voices.

On Thursday, Greenwald penned a lengthy resignation letter ripping the publication he helped co-found, saying it is “completely unrecognizable” from its creation in 2014.

“Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties,” Greenwald wrote on Thursday.

So now, to avoid those “mandated ideological and partisan loyalties”, he has decided that the “marginalized voice and unheard perspective” he must support is that of… Tucker Carlson?

It’s good to see that I’m not the only one who has been dismayed by his strange and obvious rightward turn — not just a turn, by a headlong rush into the arms of Carlson and Jimmy Dore and other pundits who try to pretend to be brave centrists while parroting the Republican party line.

At this point, Greenwald seems to have almost no ideology besides reflexive contrarianism. Perhaps this is simply the end result of spending hours on Twitter every day for years, or spending two (or four?) years focused laser-like on the Russia inquiry. His incessant—and often finely detailed, and articulate—criticisms have transformed the man into a kind of fanatic.

More problematic, obviously, this tendency towards contrarian criticism has increasingly aligned him with the far right. Some of this can clearly be chalked up to the simplification of information within the context of social media; self-reinforcing media bubbles are created. But we pick our bubbles, and Greenwald appears to be comfortable with his niche.

It is worth noting that the rhetorical overlap between Greenwald and the far right was always there, but could, in the past, usually be plausibly discounted as both-sides hostility towards a corrupt elite—consider the comparisons between Trump and Bernie. Or at least that’s how I felt. No longer. Take a look at Greenwald’s Twitter feed, which reads as an unending stream of right-wing grievance against cultural liberalism, and/or specific and almost exclusive amplification of right-wing media.

Right now, he is just another media pundit with “mandated ideological and partisan loyalties” of the kind he deplored — and worse, he has incomprehensibly hitched his star to the wagon of Trumpism and far right conservatism. I’d say that’s too bad, but after four years of incontrovertible empirical evidence that that political wing is incompetent and evil, I just have to say … screw him.

At the rate he’s going, Madison Cawthorn will be president one day.

Madison Cawthorn’s political origin story is that of an innocent Christian boy transformed through tragedy into a fierce freedom fighter. This tale begins with Cawthorn as a popular home-schooled teenager. He played football in a faith-based league, worked at Chick-fil-A, and was destined for a long and rewarding military career. Tragically, his path to the U.S. Naval Academy was derailed by a brutal car crash. Cawthorn, then just nineteen, was “declared dead on the scene.” But then a miracle happened. He kept the faith and fought his way back to a fulfilling life. In short order, he became an inspirational speaker, self-proclaimed CEO of a real estate investment company, and Paralympic athlete.

Cawthorn’s quasi-biblical biography captured the hearts of many in North Carolina’s 11th district, who last year elected him one of the youngest Congressmen in American history. While most political careers are assisted by mythmaking, Cawthorn’s self-spun narrative is particularly fictitious. In truth, he’s a college dropout, credibly accused sexual predator, and fan of the Third Reich who had no path to the Paralympics and was rejected by the Naval Academy. Contrary to Cawthorn’s past statements, he was not declared dead at his car’s crash site, and his real estate “business” appears to have only purchased a single foreclosed lot.

But what Cawthorn lacks in integrity he makes up for in resiliency. The determination and durability he demonstrated throughout his post-crash recovery—plus his natural born charisma—served him well during his Congressional bid. Cawthorn used these skills to convince many low-information voters that he was a soldier of some sort, then leveraged the credibility conferred by this false perception to cast his Democratic opponent, a retired Air Force Colonel named Moe Davis, as a “dishonorable” ally of terrorists. This warped reality led to a bizarre Election Day moment in which a voter essentially recognized Cawthorn as a decorated war hero. “Hey,” the voter began, “thanks for, uh, doing your service—.” Before he could finish, Cawthorn interjected: “It’s an honor to get to fight for America,” he said.

The article also points out something important: while Cawthorn is the most extravagantly dishonest of the Republican valor-thieves, Democrats do it too, unconvincingly rubbing themselves up against the “glamour” of big-money defense contractors and citizen enthusiasm for bigger, better, nastier weapons. That’s a mistake.

Democrats would do best to frame war as what it is: a deeply damaging experience for American service members, their families, and the world. In their failure to do so, the left has not only perpetuated conflict but also failed to define peace. The Pentagon has stepped into this vacuum and convinced the American people—a majority of whom want a smaller military footprint abroad—that peace is armed, dangerous, and MAD. Those who describe it otherwise, or call for the peacekeepers to put down their guns, are deemed weak-willed and anti-American.

Unwilling to challenge this consensus, Democrats continue to concoct war stories or cozy up to the military establishment in hopes of insulating themselves from criticism. Take Bernie Sanders’s support of the F-35 fighter jet being based in his hometown of Burlington, a highly controversial position that a political scientist once half-jokingly suggested to me was directed “almost at the point of a gun.”

Dulce et decorum est and all that. They really need to read beyond the title.

Sydney Powell (remember her? One of Trump’s most ridiculous defenders?) is being sued for defamation, because her lies cost a company that made voting machines a heck of a lot of money. Her defense is a grifter’s work of art.

Right-wing lawyer Sidney Powell is claiming in a new court filing that reasonable people wouldn’t have believed as fact her assertions of fraud after the 2020 presidential election.

The election infrastructure company Dominion Voting Systems sued Powell for defamation after she pushed lawsuits and made appearances in conservative media on behalf of then-President Donald Trump to sow doubt about the 2020 election results. Dominion claims that Powell knew her election fraud accusations were false and hurtful to the company.

Did you believe anything she said? Then Sydney Powell believes you weren’t a reasonable person. Ha ha, don’t you feel foolish now?

I guess that was the kraken, the revelation that Powell was a fraud and a liar.

There are a lot of people who participated in the recent insurrection who are pooping their diapers right now, and I’m here for it. They seem to be shocked that they are actually being held accountable for breaking the law. It’s hilariously stupid.

Take, for instance, the case of Debra Maimone and Philip Vogel, two business owners from Pittsburgh. One of the slight surprises emerging from these proceeding is how many of these people are reasonably well-off, middle class small business owners by day, and shrieking MAGAts the instant they get on the internet. Maimone and Vogel are definitely in that category, and the capitol insurrection was their opportunity to bring their online persona out into real-world action. They still tried to hide their identities behind masks, but poorly, and the police have thoroughly documented their presence in the event (pdf). All those security cameras caught their every move, including when they briefly took the mask off to take a selfie (brilliant criminal minds at work), when they broke in, when they moved into very offices, and when they stole stuff from capitol security. In some ways, it’s rather chilling how completely they monitored every movement of these individuals.

They also got a bonanza of information from Parler. Hoo boy, Parler was like the Rosetta stone to break far-right coding. People had to register with real names and all kinds of confidential information, so once the police got that, they could trace all kinds of loud-mouthed assholery made under the cloak of anonymity (they thought!) straight to idiotic small business owners. Like this absurdity from Debra Maimone:

She praises those brave patriots who occupied the government building FULL OF TYRANTS in one breath, and in the next insists oh no, she wasn’t in there. She was. She’s a chickenshit who just revealed that she knew her actions were illegal, but is going to deny it to avoid the consequences.

I’ll be mildly surprised if she gets the full ten-year sentence from the court, but I’ll be even more surprised if she escapes conviction or gets a trivial sentence — the case against her is awfully strong. She and Vogel are now out on $10,000 bail, but the tyrants have told her she can’t have any guns while awaiting trial.

Here’s their business, Vera General Contracting & Cleaning Services, and the Yelp reviews are amusing.

Super gross company. Owners are rude and outwardly racist. Asked me why I have a BLM sign in my yard saying they don’t work with people who support them. Umm… gee Karen how about because I’m black and I believe in equality.

I’m also a Christian so I forgive those who display hateful behavior–but it’s clear they are not because when I referenced John 13:34 they had no clue and seemed confused. Typical.

To add insult to injury they quoted me one price on the phone, but when they saw me they doubled it before even going inside my home.

It’s obvious that when they realized I’m a black woman they decided to try and screw me over.

This one is a little more succinct.

They promised me they’d do some work for me this weekend but now cannot as they have been arrested for being domestic terrorists.

Awww…