The Conscience of Lisa Murkowski

Today's newsletter is farrago of cruelty, cowardice, betrayal, and hypocrisy.

“We are all afraid….I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. But that’s what you’ve asked me to do and so I’m going to use my voice to the best of my ability.” — Lisa Murkowski.

Or not.

“It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... “ But for Alaska?

This morning, I’m tempted to write that Lisa Murkowski is simply the worst. But, of course this is unfair, because there is so much competition for that distinction. She serves in a body infested with Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson, Marsha Blackburn, Josh Hawley… and I could go on and on.

But as she cast the decisive vote for Trump’s mega-spending bill yesterday, she distinguished herself by her thrumming hypocrisy, cowardice, and grift. And she seemed to have known it.

How bad is this bill? Besides being politically toxic? Jonathan Chait writes in The Atlantic:

[The] megabill will take food assistance away from some 3 million Americans, while causing 12 million to lose their health insurance. That is how you save money: by taking benefits away from people. Congress is not finding magical efficiencies. To the contrary, the bill introduces inefficiencies by design.

At the same time, the bill massively cuts taxes on the well-to-do while also exploding the deficit by $4 trillion or more.

Unlike her lack-witted colleagues, Murkowski knew the bill was horrible and pretended to be concerned. She voted for it anyway.

When NBC’s Ryan Nobles asked her about her vote — and Rand Paul’s suggestion that she had been bought off¹ - she froze and tried to stare him down. But watch this closely: This is a woman caught between the cravenness of her political choice and the conscience that she has just shredded.

Murkowski spent much of the aftermath of her vote disingenuously grappling for excuses.

“Do I like this bill? No. But I tried to take care of Alaska's interests," she said. "But I know, I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged (sic) by this bill. I don't like that.” She described her vote as “agonizng.”

“We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination,” Murkowski told reporters. “My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”

This gives naivete a bad name. Indeed, the notion that the House GOP will make the bill better seems clinically delusional.

In fairness to Murkowski, she was the decisive vote on the ghastly bill only because all but three of her GOP colleagues fell into line behind it. But the word in the Capitol was that Murkowski had planned to vote against the bill if she was not the decisive vote; but would vote yes if she was. As you attempt to parse that political logic, note that a profile in courage it is not.

And so ends Murkowski’s brief stint cosplaying as a Woman of Principle. And I would argue that makes her even worse than other collaborators and toadies.

She pretended to be better; and might have been. But it was all bullshit. She could have been a John McCain. Instead, she chose to be a low-rent Lindsey Graham.

Her choice was even more striking because Murkowski seemed on the edge of a decisive break from Trumpism. She had voted to convict him at his second impeachment; had opposed some of his key appointments; and had even floated the idea that she might end up caucusing with Democrats.

It’s also worth remembering that back in 2017, during the attempts to repeal Obamacare, Trump and the GOP leadership tried to bribe her with special carveouts and kickbacks. “Nonetheless, “ recalls Joe Perticone, “Murkowski held firm and refused to help Republicans rip apart the Affordable Care Act.”

More recently, Murkowski came out with a book that portrayed herself as a tough-minded maverick. Of Trump, she wrote: "He isn't that smart. Trump lacks the ability for strategic or linear thinking. He isn't able to form or follow through on complex plans." She devotes considerable time to explaining her votes against the the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and her vote to convict Trump after the January Insurrection.

In the book, she laments the climate of hyper-partisanship: “The parties demand conformity,” she wrote, “and their loudest voices are also their most extreme and uncompromising.”

On Monday, she gave them what they wanted. And now she has to live with that.

The Paramount/CBS Grovel

Really, it’s doesn’t get much worse than this. “Paramount to Pay Trump $16 Million to Settle ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit”. The frog is well and truly boiled.

This is what I wrote back in April: “The Most Pathetic Surrender So Far.”

If she caves (as now seems likely) Shari Redstone should be forever remembered as the Quisling of the First Amendment. That’s it. That’s her fuqqing legacy.”

In my live stream yesterday with Miles Taylor, I added this

The Sadism Porn is the Point

I should have devoted an entire newsletter to this obscenity. But, once again, we need to understand that the cruelty and the brutality are the point. (I wrote about this back in 2023: “Brutality is the new Republican litmus test.”

The whole “Alligator Alcatraz” thing is bad enough — with its juvenile sniggering crudity. But check out the pure glee of the Trumpist sadism here — the open reveling in razor-wire, mosquitoes, and the possibility that migrants will be torn apart and eaten if they try to break free.

Here’s Trump influencer Benny Johnson gleefully describing the new gulag:

Notes Oliver Darcy:

Johnson wasn’t alone. Throughout the day, MAGA Media hyped Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new detention center, relishing in teasing how dreadful the place would be for migrants. Donald Trump even got in on the action. He confirmed the idea behind the location is that if a migrant tries to escape, they will have to run through snake-and-gator-infested marsh. Trump even joked it would teach immigrants to run a certain way from the reptiles.

As Fox News hosts yukked it up, Trumpists posted grinning selfies in and around the prison. Here’s the official White House post, which depicts alligators wearing ICE hats.

Darcy puts all of this into context:

This is the logical extension of a political movement that has spent years dehumanizing immigrants. It becomes easier to dismiss the fear and desperation that drives people to cross a border in search of safety or a better future. It becomes easier to cheer at the thought of people being torn apart by wildlife as they flee.

But these images and jokes have real-world consequences. They set the stage for policy. They shape the boundaries of what is considered acceptable treatment of human beings. And they send a clear signal that for many in this movement, there is no line too far to cross when it comes to inflicting suffering on migrants.

That is the message from the “Alligator Alcatraz.” And if you find yourself alarmed by it, you should be. Because such concepts are no longer a theoretical under a second Trump administration anymore. They are the reality being built, in plain sight.

**

BONUS: Nany Mace really wants to get on the migrant-eating thing.

Finally: Betrayal

Wednesday dogs

Eli is ready.

1. Rand Paul on the Murkowski deal: "There was a time in which they had to make a decision, dealing with me and reducing the debt ceiling or giving pork and subsidies to Alaska. They chose to add more pork and subsidies for Alaska to secure that."