Mr. Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, had subpoenaed a former prosecutor who worked on the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump…
Tethyssays
In the category of Yes, it’s about damn time:
Manhattan’s top prosecutor [Alvin Bragg] sues to stop Republican [douchebag insurrectionist Jordan] ‘intimidation’ in Trump case.
Lol, I’ve crossposted with Reginald. I’m so very sick of Rethuglicans thinking they can flout all the laws, while mumbling partisan claims about law and order.
Gary Hart didn’t even cheat on his wife, have multiple sugar babies, or pay off any women during his campaign for POTUS. One photo of a strange women sitting on his lap was enough to sink it.
birgerjohanssonsays
Thank you, Tethys and Reginald Selkirk.
.
For your amusement.
God Awful Movies found this gem.
-I now know the next thing Fox News will scare the viewers with once people have lost their fear of the gay and the trans people: evil zombie rabbits!
Military: Wagner mercenaries will last only 2 more months in Bakhmut if tactics unchanged
by The Kyiv Independent news desk April 11, 2023 10:59 PM 2 min read
Wagner mercenaries fighting in Bakhmut will only last two more months if their tactics remain unchanged, Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military’s Eastern Operational Command said on April 11.
Speaking on national television, Cherevatyi acknowledged that the forecast was subjective, although grounded in the high casualty rates of Wagner troops.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Feb. 16 that Kremlin-backed private mercenary Wagner Group and Russian proxy units active in eastern Ukraine were losing up to 80% of some assault units.
The situation still remains difficult in Bakhmut, according to Cherevatyi.
However, the Ukrainian military command “clearly sees their plans, we know how to respond to them. Our intelligence and aerial surveillance are working,” Cherevatyi said.
Wagner has been assisting Russia’s military in trying to capture Ukraine’s eastern city of Bakhmut for the past nine months as Moscow tries to consolidate its grip over the entirety of Donetsk Oblast. However, Ukrainian forces continue to hold the city.
Disputes between Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian officials have been ongoing for what the former perceives as a lack of proper artillery support for Wagner troops in Ukraine.
In late February, Prigozhin posted a photo on his Telegram channel of dozens of bodies that he claimed belonged to Wagner fighters killed on the previous day.
Along with the image, Prigozhin shared an audio interview in which he expressed his frustration towards the Defense Ministry for not providing his forces with adequate means to fight.
StevoRsays
Wow! Excellent Choice!
NASA’s first female Goddard Space Flight Center director swears oath on Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagen
NASA’s newly appointed director of the Goddard Space Flight Center has claimed two firsts before even starting her official duties.On Thursday, Makenzie Lystrup became the first woman in NASA’s history to be appointed the director of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
She also became the first person to take their oath of office on a copy of Carl Sagan’s 1994 book Pale Blue Dot. In the US, office holders of a certain level are required to take an oath, otherwise known as being ‘sworn in’, before starting their roles. Religious texts such as the Bible are most often associated with US official swearing in ceremonies. But officials can use whatever text holds the most meaning to them and have sworn oaths on everything from the US Constitution to a Dr Seuss book. … (Snip) .. Prior to joining NASA, Dr Lystrup was vice president and general manager of civil space at Ball Aerospace. During her tenure at the company she led Ball’s contributions to several missions, such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), Landsat 9, and the Roman Space Telescope.
birgerjohansson
In the top 10 of my favourite movies.
whheydtsays
Re: SteveoR @ #6…
I’ve long wanted to quiz people running for President of the US and one question would be, “What is the ending clause of the oath of office, as specified in the Constitution.” Anyone who answers, “so help me God” should be automatically disqualified.
Russia has suffered big losses on the battlefield and needs to replenish its forces in Ukraine
By Sofia Samokhina & Kateryna Khinkulova
BBC News Russian
The Russian parliament has approved legislation to start serving call-up papers online.
The Kremlin has denied the move is aimed at speeding up further mobilisation of Russian men or putting a stop to widespread draft-dodging.
Thousands of Russians have avoided the draft to escape the war in Ukraine.
Critics say the law is further evidence of authorities creating an “electronic Gulag”, referring to the Soviet-era network of prison camps.
Until now, conscription papers in Russia have had to be served in person or via an employer.
In reality, it has meant many avoiding the draft by moving away from where they were registered to live, or simply not opening the door when military officials came calling.
Under the new legislation, call-up papers will be deemed to be served as soon as they appear on a special “State Services” government portal called “Gosuslugi”.
“The summons is considered received from the moment it is placed in the personal account of a person liable for military service,” Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the Russian parliament’s defence committee, said on TV.
From that moment, a conscript will be obliged to turn up at his local enlistment office.
Citizens who fail to show up will be banned from travelling abroad and could face other restrictions. They will not be able to buy or sell property, their driving licences will be invalidated and they will be unable to register small businesses.
Of the 395 Russian MPs who voted on the legislation, 394 supported it and one abstained. Russia’s lower house or State Duma has 450 MPs.
The new legislation will come into effect when it is signed by President Vladimir Putin, which is likely to happen soon.
Last September, the Kremlin began a chaotic emergency mobilisation campaign to support Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, amid a series of humiliating defeats after its full-scale invasion.
Police officers detain a man following calls to protest against partial mobilisation announced by Russian President, in Moscow, on September 21, 2022.Image source, ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP
Image caption,
Some of those who protested against Russia’s military mobilisation were themselves handed draft papers
More than 300,000 former soldiers and ex-conscripts are believed to have been called up, in a drive that often saw young men being picked up on the street or in shopping malls.
Thousands of men aged 18 to 27 fled abroad to avoid the draft and protests broke out in numerous Russian cities, although they were swiftly suppressed.
The talk-show hosts telling Russians what to believe
According to leaked US documents, Russia is estimated to have suffered between 189,500 and 223,000 casualties. Those numbers include 35,500-43,000 men killed in action and another 154,000-180,000 wounded.
BBC News Russian has compiled a list of 17,000 Russian servicemen who are confirmed dead, through gathering information from open sources, with names, ranks and in many cases, the military units they served in.
The last time Russian authorities revealed casualties figures was in September last year, when they confirmed the deaths of 5,937 servicemen.
“A once convenient online government portal turned out to have a flip side,” tweeted Ilia Krasilshchik, who founded the Helpdesk website, which offers advice and assistance to Russian men trying to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine.
“In an instant, you can be marked out and your exit from the country can be shut off. That’s it. Who needs new waves of mobilisation? Take people out one by one in an attractive interface of a digital state.”
The State Services government web portal is widely used by Russians to apply for a new passport or a marriage licence, pay bills and fines or make an appointment with a GP.
But Mr Krasilshchik warned that the state had turned it into a site to provide the Russian state with cannon fodder for Ukrainian guns.
President Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, denied the new legislation was linked to an attempt to widen mobilisation: “This is simply to improve military records. The system has to match modern requirements.”,
Talk about a juicy target for hacking… Just start sneaking in call-up notices for politicians and their family members…
rietpluimsays
‘This is the real reason why the US wants to ban TikTok.’
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued a strong statement urging international leaders to act after videos circulated on social media that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers beheaded by Russian forces. One video being circulated appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle. A voice says: “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off”. A second clip, which may have been filmed in summer last year, judging by the appearance of foliage in the clip, claims to show a member of Russian forces using a knife to cut off the head of a Ukrainian soldier.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has compared Russian fighters in Ukraine to Islamic State after a video circulated online that appeared to show a beheading.
Kuleba said on Twitter: “A horrific video of Russian troops decapitating a Ukrainian prisoner of war is circulating online.”
“It’s absurd that Russia, which is worse than Islamic State, is presiding over the UNSC,” he said, referring to the UN security council where Russia took up the rotating presidency this month. “Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes.”
Reuters reports Ukraine’s domestic security agency said it had launched an investigation into a suspected war crime over the video.
“Yesterday, a video appeared on the Internet showing how the Russian occupiers are showing their beastly [sic] nature – cruelly torturing a Ukrainian prisoner and cutting off his head,” the SBU agency wrote on Telegram.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, has described Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland as a “blink and you’ll miss it” trip. By the end of the day he will be over the border, in the Republic of Ireland, where he will be staying until Friday….
With less than 90 minutes before Joe Biden arrives in Ulster University for his speech, Northern Ireland political parties have still not had their meeting with the US president confirmed.
Leaders of all five main parties are sitting among the 100 or so guests already waiting in the auditorium for a speech that will restate America’s commitment to peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
One MP said: “We have been told we will be meeting him just before he speaks but we don’t know where.”
The trip to Belfast has been marred by repeated speculation of a rift between the White House and Downing Street on the nature of the US presidential visit which has been edited down to half a day, with three days to follow south of the border.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, was seen at the back of the auditorium chatting and joking to Joe Kennedy III, Biden’s recently appointed economic envoy.
Biden is expected to wave a large financial carrot in front of the DUP in an effort to persuade them to return to Stormont, with an economic summit and a redoubling of efforts to lure US investment into Northern Ireland if power-sharing in Stormont can be restored.
Biden ‘hates the UK’, former DUP leader and former first minister Arlene Foster claims
Arlene Foster, the former DUP leader and former Northern Ireland first minister, told GB News last night that Joe Biden was more opposed to unionism than any US president in modern times. She said he hates the UK. She said:
He hates the United Kingdom, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
I just think the fact he’s coming here won’t put any pressure on the DUP at all, quite the reverse actually, because he’s seen by so many people as just simply pro-republican and pro-nationalist.
The DUP MP Sammy Wilson has also described Biden as “anti-British”….
Joe Biden is “not anti-British,” one of his most senior aides has said in response to accusations by the former Democratic Unionist party leader Arlene Foster that the US president “hates the UK”….
Just hours after he arrived in Belfast, the purpose of Biden’s short visit to Northern Ireland was being questioned by unionists who have been boycotting power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland for more than a year, meaning the territory has no devolved government.
At a briefing in Belfast, Amanda Sloat, special assistant to Biden and senior director for Europe at the national security council, denied the president’s Irish heritage made him biased against the British in relation to the continued deadlock over the devolved government in Stormont. She said:
I think the track record of of the president shows that he is not anti-British. The president has been very actively engaged throughout his career dating back to when he was a senator in the peace process in Northern Ireland and that involved engagement with leaders of all of Northern Ireland parties from both of the two main communities.
At a keynote speech at lunch time Biden will be sending out a message underlining the US’s continued support for the peace process in Northern Ireland and his “strong desire” to see enduring economic prosperity and political stability….
Climate models around the globe continue to warn of a potential El Niño developing later this year – a pattern of ocean warming in the Pacific that can increase the risk of catastrophic weather events around the globe.
Some models are raising the possibility later this year of an extreme, or “super El Niño”, that is marked by very high temperatures in a central region of the Pacific around the equator.
The last extreme El Niño in 2016 helped push global temperatures to the highest on record, underpinned by human-caused global heating that sparked floods, droughts and disease outbreaks.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said in a Tuesday update that all seven models it had surveyed – including those from weather agencies in the UK, Japan and the US – showed sea surface temperatures passing the El Niño threshold by August.
But the bureau and climate scientists warned that forecasts were much less reliable during the southern hemisphere autumn and outlooks should be “viewed with some caution”.
There was a 50% chance of an El Niño developing before the end of the year, the bureau said….
Alexey Navalny’s attorney Vadim Kobzev reports that paramedics had been summoned to Navalny’s cell late on the night of April 7–8, due to acute symptoms that the prison personnel refuses to explain.
Kobzev says he wouldn’t rule out that Navalny is being poisoned again, this time in small dozes calculated to make him decline “gradually but steadily”…
…
Navalny recently spent 15 days in a penal cell (“ShIZO”). Kobzev says he lost 8 kilograms (17 pounds) in that time alone. Having been released from the punishment cell last Friday, Navalny was returned there after the episode requiring an ambulance, for another 15-day disciplinary term.
The maximal legal duration of confinement in a penal cell is 15 days. The penal colony is getting around that regulation by sending Navalny on serial back-to-back stays in the ShIZO, separated by brief periods in ordinary prison conditions….
Russia is unlikely to launch its unified digital registry of citizens eligible for military service before the start of the country’s annual fall conscription campaign, the state news outlet RIA Novosti said on Wednesday, citing Digital Development Minister Maxut Shadayev….
One warm afternoon in May, Dwight Jackson was getting dressed for a visit to his favorite cigar lounge. He slipped his holstered SIG Sauer P320 pistol onto his belt, put on a button-down shirt and leaned across his bed for his wallet. Suddenly, he said, the gun fired, sending a bullet tearing through his right buttock and into his left ankle…
The P320 is one of the nation’s most popular handguns. A variant of the weapon is the standard-issue sidearm for every branch of the U.S. military. Since its introduction to the commercial market in 2014, manufacturer SIG Sauer has sold the P320 to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the gun has been used by officers at more than a thousand law enforcement agencies across the nation, court records show…
More than 100 people allege that their P320 pistols discharged when they did not pull the trigger, an eight-month investigation by the Washington Post and the Trace has found. At least 80 people were wounded in the shootings, which date to 2016…
The Guardian is now liveblogging Biden’s speech at Ulster University:
Biden says he came to Belfast in 1991, and in those days you would not have had a glass building here (because of the bombs)….
Also from there:
Turning away from Northern Ireland for a moment, the Scottish government has confirmed that it is going to court to try to overturn the UK government’s decision to block its gender recognition reform bill. Humza Yousaf, the new first minister, promised to do this during the SNP leadership contest.
Shirley-Anne Somerville, the social justice secretary, has told the Scottish parliament in a written statement that the Scottish government will lodge a petition for a judicial review of the decision.
A telescope in Chile has traced the distribution of this mysterious stuff on a quarter of the sky and across almost 14 billion years of time…
The Chile facility observed the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB – a pervasive but faint glow of long-wavelength radiation that comes to us from the very edge of the observable Universe.
ACT mapped the subtle distortions in this ancient light that were introduced as it passed by all intervening matter…
The distribution of matter agrees very well with scientific predictions.
ACT observations indicate that the “lumpiness” of the Universe and the rate at which it has been expanding after 14 billion years of evolution are just what you’d expect from the standard model of cosmology, which has Einstein’s theory of gravity (general relativity) at its foundation…
Ukrainian hackers claim to have broken into the emails of a senior Russian military spy wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for hacking the Hillary Clinton campaign and other senior U.S. Democrats ahead of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016.
In a message posted to Telegram on Monday, a group calling itself Cyber Resistance said it had stolen correspondence from Lt. Col. Sergey Morgachev, who was charged in 2018 with helping organize the hack and leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign…
The German government is very worried about jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s worsening health condition, a government spokesperson has said.
The UN has said it is “appalled” by “gruesome” videos, including of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a captured Ukrainian soldier, and another appearing to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian servicemen lying next to a destroyed military vehicle….
Russian-installed authorities in annexed Crimea and the city of Sevastopol have cancelled traditional military parades to celebrate Victory Day and May Day, the Russian-appointed leader of Crimea has said, citing security reasons.
Sergei Aksyonov posted to Telegram that there would be no parades or marches to mark May Day on 1 May, or Victory Day on 9 May, which celebrates Soviet defeat over Nazi Germany. Victory Day is celebrated across Russia and has become central to Vladimir Putin’s idea of Russian identity.
Aksyonov wrote:
The local authorities will certainly visit them [veterans] and congratulate them on Victory Day.
His comments conflicted with those made by the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, who said on his Telegram that a 9 May military parade has not been cancelled. He wrote:
The decision to cancel the military parade on May 9 in Sevastopol has not been made at the moment. Now there are consultations with the Ministry of Defense, the decision to hold the Parade in Sevastopol is the prerogative of the military department.
On Tuesday, Aksyonov said Crimea was on guard and that Russian forces had built “modern, in-depth defenses” and had “more than enough” troops and equipment to repel a possible Ukrainian assault.
His comments came days after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reaffirmed Kyiv’s intention to take back the Black Sea peninsula that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
A Delaware judge on Tuesday lectured attorneys defending Fox News in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit after they revealed that Rupert Murdoch is not only the chairman at Fox Corp., but also a corporate officer at its subsidiary, Fox News.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis said Fox lawyers previously had “represented to him more than once” that Murdoch was not an officer for the subsidiary cable network. Such information “could have” led him to make different rulings earlier on in the case, he said…
South Africa said on Wednesday an international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war was a “spanner in the works” ahead of a BRICS summit in the country in August.
Pretoria, which has close ties with Moscow, has been faced with a diplomatic dilemma since the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March.
The Russian president is due to attend a summit of the Brics – a bloc which groups together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – in South Africa in August.
But the host nation is a member of the ICC and would be expected to make the arrest if Putin steps foot in the country.
“All heads of state would be expected to attend the summit. But now we have a spanner in the works in the form of this ICC warrant,” Vincent Magwenya, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, told a press briefing on Wednesday.
“What that dictates is that there be further engagements, in terms of how that is going to be managed and those engagements are under way. Once they’ve been concluded, the necessary announcements will be made.”…
A small Texas county is weighing whether to shut down its public library system after a federal judge ruled the commissioners violated the constitution by banning a dozen mostly children’s books and ordered that they be put back in circulation.
The Llano County commissioners have scheduled for Thursday a special meeting in which the first item on the agenda is whether to “continue or cease operations” at the library…
StevoRsays
Good news – kinda?
Oil and gas company Santos has apologised to an Adelaide Aboriginal elder, who asked for his image to be removed from its corporate materials in protest at the company’s treatment of Indigenous people.Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri elder Major “Moogy” Sumner has written to Santos chairman Keith Spence saying he did not give consent for his image to be used in a promotional video played at the company’s heated Annual General Meeting in Adelaide on April 6.
“It is disrespectful that you refused to listen to or answer the questions of the Gomeroi people and Tiwi Islanders who came to the Santos AGM to express concerns about mining on their Country,” Mr Sumner wrote.
“I call on you to apologise to the Gomeroi people and Tiwi Islanders for the dismissive way they were treated by your company at the AGM.”
Santos has apologised to Mr Sumner and said it would remove his images from its website and communications material.
A Chinese woman has become the first person to die from a type of bird flu that is rare in humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, but the strain does not appear to spread between people.
The TESS exoplanet finder satellite has discovered TOI-4127 b, a “warm Jupiter” which may yet heat up and is double Jove’s mass in a 56 day orbit around a star more massive than ours.
Egyptian authorities have since 2020 carried out a campaign to silence female social media influencers, using a cybercrime law to detain them on vague charges such as violating “public morals” and “undermining family values”. Last week, TikTok celebrity Salma Elshimy became the latest in a growing list of women to fall foul of the authorities over social media posts….
They note that she was jailed previously in 2020 for a photo shoot at the Saqqara Necropolis that local media said involved “exploiting the cultural value of the antiquities in inappropriate Pharaonic clothes.”
…Trois mois après la présentation de la réforme des retraites et le début d’une mobilisation “historique” marquée par bientôt douze journées de mobilisation, l’heure de vérité approche pour les syndicats, désormais suspendus à la décision du Conseil constitutionnel.
Les “Sages” doivent annoncer vendredi 14 avril, en fin de journée, s’ils valident le projet décrié du gouvernement, ou s’ils le censurent en partie ou dans sa totalité. Ils jugeront aussi si la demande de référendum d’initiative partagée (RIP) de la gauche est recevable ou non.
Les syndicats ont prévu d’ici là une douzième journée de grève et de manifestations, jeudi, avec à Paris un parcours allant de la place de l’Opéra à celle de la Bastille….
In 2021, a Texas intelligence command center disseminated a bulletin warning its law enforcement partners about activists interested in sabotaging fossil fuel infrastructure. The report detailed no specific threat, but instead linked to an interview with Andreas Malm, a Swedish professor of human ecology, on a New Yorker podcast in which he advocated for the destroying or “neutralizing” new fossil fuel projects like pipelines using nonviolent methods.
Now, Malm’s work is once again drawing the attention of a fusion center. “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” a new movie dramatizing Malm’s 2021 nonfiction book of the same name, sympathetically depicts the infrastructure sabotage by environmentalists. The film’s fictional protagonist, Theo, contracts leukemia after growing up in a Long Beach neighborhood with heavy pollution. She joins several others to strap a homemade bomb to an oil pipeline in West Texas.
In a report disseminated last week, another intelligence command center — this time in Kansas City, Missouri — quietly warned of a “developing threat” related to the movie. It was obtained by The Intercept via a source with access to law enforcement reporting, and the Kansas City Regional Fusion Center did not reply to a request for comment.
Again, however, this new report conceded that the intelligence center could not identify any specific threat — a contradiction that experts say speaks to the overbroad authority of state intelligence entities and the make-work required by these centers.
“The performance metric is the number of reports you write, rather than the accuracy of them,” Mike German, a retired FBI agent who is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, said of fusion centers. “What do you do after you write reports on realistic threats? Pretty soon you have to start writing about imaginary ones. Lots come straight from the fever swamps of social media.”
The Missouri report goes a step further than Texas’s, since the film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is fictional.
Another fusion center, the Colorado Information Analysis Center, recently issued a similar bulletin in anticipation of a student walkout to protest legislative inaction on gun violence, as The Intercept reported last week. The report did not identify any potential crime that might arise in relation to the protest. Defending its report, CIAC said that it was not monitoring the protesters and that the report was merely distributed for situational awareness.
“Fusion center leaders often say this type of reporting is for ‘situational awareness’ but then why send this type of report out broadly to the law enforcement community,” German said. “I am surprised how many of the fusion center products we see focus on protest activity, where the analysts acknowledge in the report itself that they have no indication that any criminal activity might take place.”
“The Kansas City Regional Fusion Center (KCRFC) has prepared the following Situational Awareness Bulletin,” the report, dated April 4, reads, “to provide information to partners concerning a developing threat targeting Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR), especially oil and natural gas pipelines.” But in a separate caption, it notes “The KCRFC has no information on specific threats directed at the energy sector in this area.”
KCRFC is one of 80 fusion centers across the country, which were established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to combat terrorism by sharing intelligence with law enforcement partners. But fusion centers lack the traditional law enforcement requirement for a criminal predicate to exist in order to investigate something, German told The Intercept.
…
While KCRFC’s bulletin acknowledges that neither the film nor the book advocate for the targeting of people, it alludes to unspecified social media posts calling for more extreme tactics….
While Malm’s book draws a hard line between sabotage that only affects property and tactics that might harm people, the FBI makes no such distinction, referring to it all as “eco-terrorism.” “Animal rights/Environmental violent extremism” represents one of five domestic terrorism threat categories the U.S. government has focused on since 2019, per a report to Congress last year. [THIS IS LUDICROUS]…
Follow-up to a post in the previous Thread – “A Palestinian envoy to the United Nations honors the life and work of Nuremberg war crimes tribunal prosecutor Ben Ferencz, who passed away last week…”
Dozens of people in central Myanmar were killed in air strikes Tuesday, according to local media reports and a witness contacted by AFP, as the United Nations and Western powers condemned the attacks and demanded accountability.
The Southeast Asian country has been in chaos and its economy in tatters since the military seized power in February 2021 coup.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was “horrified” by the deadly air strikes whose victims he said included schoolchildren performing dances, with the global body calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The death toll from the early Tuesday morning strike on the remote Kanbalu township in Sagaing region is unclear.
At least 50 fatalities and dozens of injuries were reported by BBC Burmese, The Irrawaddy and Radio Free Asia…
Alexey Smirnov, a former journalist, reviews, tests, and compares various weapons on his YouTube channel called Large Caliber Commotion.
In an episode, originally posted three months ago, Smirnov compares Soviet and Western anti-tank weapons, including the Swedish AT4. It is unclear where he got the Swedish weapon from.
At one point in the video, Smirnov attempts to shoot the shoulder-fired weapon at a tank, announcing: “Here we have the ordinary AT4 … let’s see how it deals with a T72 tank.”
The vlogger goes on to explain the launcher works while fiddling with it, saying at one point that it doesn’t feel “very smooth.”
As he prepares to fire, Smirnov appears to not hold on to the front grip of the AT4, which is designed to help steady the weapon when being aimed.
The video then shows him pressing the trigger, causing the weapon to launch back into his face. He then falls backward, shouting: “Ah, fuck … you bastard thing!”
The video cuts to Smirnov on his back holding his eye as a cameraman offers to help him up. A text then appears on the screen, reading: “Thank you for understanding.” …
Memphis-area officials will meet Wednesday to decide whether to reinstate Justin J. Pearson to the Tennessee Legislature after Republicans expelled him last week for protesting gun violence on the chamber floor.
The Shelby County Board of Commissioners is slated to take up the issue during a special meeting in Memphis on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. ET [1:30 local time].
Democrats hold a 9-4 majority on the 13-seat board. Only a handful of members have so far commented publicly about their support for Pearson and their intention to vote to return him to the Legislature. A simple majority is required.
…
The vote by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners will come two days after the Nashville Metropolitan Council voted unanimously to reinstate Jones to his seat in the Legislature. The council suspended its rules to allow an immediate vote instead of holding an extended nomination period.
Cameron Sexton, the Republican House speaker, seated Jones to his old position and has committed to seating whomever Shelby County officials appoint to fill Pearson’s vacancy, including Pearson.
Under state rules, elections for both seats must still be held. Those rules dictate that Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, must schedule a primary for Jones’ and Pearson’s seats within 60 days and a general election within 107 days. Both Jones and Pearson have said they will seek re-election….
Abby Grossberg, the former Tucker Carlson producer accusing Fox News of pressuring her to give false testimony in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, filed amended legal complaints on Tuesday claiming there are secret Fox audio recordings of Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies.
Grossberg, who is suing the conservative network for harassment and a toxic work environment, claims that the behind-the-scenes conversations with Giuliani, former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and Trump campaign officials featured them admitting they had no evidence to support their Dominion election fraud lies…
A video began circulating widely on Tuesday evening. In this video, Russian soldiers kill and decapitate a Ukrainian soldier using a knife. Don’t watch it. I appreciate that with any such act of horrific brutality, there is a tendency to watch, not out of accident at the side-of-the-road gawkerism, but because it seems only right that such horror should be witnessed. That, like the atrocities of the Holocaust, such things must be seen rather than allowed to pass unnoted.
Please. Don’t watch it. No matter what your intentions. There is a second version of the video in which the details have been blurred. Do not watch that one either.
I don’t care how hardened you are to the barbarity of war, how familiar you are with injury and gore, or how grimly familiar you may be with the inhumanity that can happen on the battlefield—or anywhere else. Don’t watch it. You don’t need this. It has been seen. Efforts to identify the place and people where this happened are already underway, and any justice that can be rendered is unattainable for those of us far away.
This event has been witnessed. It won’t be forgotten. What happens now is unknown, but don’t take that burden on yourself. Don’t watch it, don’t share it, and if someone sends it your way, delete it. [Tweet from Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “He says ‘these horrible images’ must be verified. If it happened, where and who did it, etc. there are many fakes in today’s world after all, etc.”]
BAKHMUT HOLDS … ISH
Also on Tuesday evening, the Ukrainian Telegram channel DeepState brought bad news from Bakhmut. After having been pushed back two days earlier, Russian forces reportedly launched simultaneous diversionary attacks at the north and south of the city. While that was underway, a force that included both Wagner and airborne VDV forces pushed in from the east and took the railroad station and much of the surrounding blocks. [map at the link]
I’ve expanded the area this morning expressly to show how far things have slid from the days when Russia was endlessly trying to take the winery, or the drywall factory, and making their HQ at the landfill back along Patrisa Lumumby Street. At this point, Russia controls somewhere between 70% and 80% of the area within the limits of Bakhmut.
There are still a lot of Ukrainian forces within the city, but they’re now confined to that small area in the west, while Russia has increasingly moved artillery in from three sides, concentrating fire on Ukraine’s remaining force. This is a bad situation, and despite the occasional pushback or slowdown, it has been getting progressively worse since Soledar was occupied by Russia in January. How much longer Ukraine can keep a toehold in Bakhmut is extremely unclear.
As for why Ukrainian forces remain in this area in spite of absolutely hellish conditions, Deputy Minister of Defence Hanna Maliar spoke on Ukrainian television Tuesday night. “It is in Bakhmut where the enemy is concentrating their main efforts, so we have to concentrate there in response in order to stop them,” said Maliar. “In fact, Bakhmut has now taken the main blow of the enemy’s armed forces and their private armies in the East.”
There is no doubt that Russia has lost tens of thousands of men in their attempt to capture Bakhmut. No doubt that the fields and roads around the city are filled with the burnt out shells of Russian tanks, transports, and artillery. It’s impossible to know what the cost has been to Ukraine to defend the city. The daily list of obituaries that end with “killed in Bakhmut” shows that the cost is very high. Squads that had been made famous by their success in Kharkiv or their bravery at Severodonetsk, have evaporated in the heat of Bakhmut.
In an interview earlier this week, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov spelled out why Russia is wiling to lose so many men and so much equipment if it means making even the smallest gain.
According to Reznikov Russia doesn’t care if they lose 1 million soldiers. Or 2 million. Or three. There are 20 million men of potential military age in Russia. Russia is willing to give up a significant fraction of them if it means capturing all, or even half of Ukraine. After all, should Russia actually capture the areas of Ukraine it has already officially claimed to own, that’s another 20 million people and some impressive resources.
Spend 1 million men to subjugate 20 million? For Russia, that’s attractive math. As for Bakhmut …
“Their ‘creeping’ attack there is going on for the sixth or even seventh month. They use assault waves, attack tactics. There may be ten or twelve such waves that directly follow each other. In Bakhmut alone, because of this, they lose up to 500 killed and wounded soldiers per day. But there, first of all, there are Wagner Group soldiers, criminals and convicts, whom they simply discard in great numbers.”
Russia has spent tens of thousands of soldiers trying to capture Bakhmut. But the question is … does Russia care?
As the Associated Press reports, Russia has just passed a bill that allows the military to send mobilization notices by email or text message. This is widely seen as an indicator that Russia intends to drag another round of mobilized troops to Ukraine, likely replicating past events by throwing many of them onto the front lines untrained and poorly supplied.
How is all this affecting Russia? Here’s what The Moscow Times has to say about an odd shortage of young workers that is affecting Russian productivity.
The number of young workers in Russia fell by 1.33 million people between December 2021 and December 2022.
Where did they go? Many fled Russia when the mobilization was announced. Some shifted to jobs in the “gray economy” when inflation and the declining value of the ruble made ordinary jobs unattractive. Others are dead in the mud across Ukraine.
Not to worry. Russia is finding someone to fill the open positions. Unlike France, where discussions of raising the retirement age have resulted in protests across the nation, Russia reformed pensions just five years ago, reducing the pay of retirees and sharply increasing the time most people have to stay on the job. So jobs that would be going to young people at the start of their careers are now being filled by older Russians who aren’t able to retire.
Russians aged 60-69 showed the biggest increase in workforce share from December 2021-December 2022 at 336,000 people.
With an average life expectancy of 71, it’s not all that clear how many older Russians are available to fill the gap left by the missing young. But hey, Russia can always just kidnap 1 million young Ukrainians. Considering the thousands of people stolen away from Mariupol, and the estimate of child abductions that run as high as 300,000 taken from across Ukraine, they already have a good start.
People. As far as Russia has concerned, they are a fungible commodity.
The bigger question for Russia may not ultimately be whether or not it can really keep up the number of people “creeping” forward in wave attacks. Right now, more than half of Russia’s total active tank force is dead on the field, and it is not even close to manufacturing new ones at a rate that replaces its losses. Declining rates of artillery fire are a good indication that Russia has blown through decades of stockpiles and has started to operate at a level closer to the number of shells it can actually kick out each month.
In total over 10,000 vehicles and pieces of heavy equipment have been lost to Russia since Vladimir Putin launched his illegal and unprovoked invasion. Grotesque as it sounds, it may be those losses and not the number of dead—which Ukraine this morning estimated at over 180,000—that ultimately forces Russia to stop.
Dominion v. Fox News
With Dominion’s defamation case against Fox News set to go to trial next week, the judge made several important pre-trial rulings yesterday:
– Fox will not be allowed to argue that it broadcast false claims about Dominion because they were newsworthy, shutting down what had been a key line of defense for the cable news net.
– The judge was angered by a last-minute revelation that Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch also held an officer position with Fox News. [See Reginald’s comment 22]
– Fox did win one pre-trial dispute: Dominion will not be allowed to mention the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol during the trial.
– A new shareholder derivative lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Delaware against Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch and several members of the Fox Corp. board of directors, claiming they violated their fiduciary duties by allowing Fox News to broadcast election conspiracy theories, NBC News reported. [LOL]
RUSSIA COMPLETES DEFENSIVE LINES AROUND MELITOPOL
[…] equipment loss is likely to make the Russian front lines vulnerable to a Ukrainian counteroffensive once Ukraine assembles the force, and ammunition, necessary to conduct a sustained advance. And Russia may understand that just as well as anyone else.
When Russian forces began making bits of disconnected trench in a seemingly unimportant area of Donetsk shortly after the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv, it was easy to make fun of the “Putinot Line.” The unanchored “dragon’s teeth” looked as if they wouldn’t stop a tractor, much less a tank. The short segment of trench didn’t seem to be defending anywhere in particular. The whole thing was far from the front line that it seemed not just unimportant, but an utter waste of time and effort.
However, over the intervening months, trenches have become ever more important to defending positions on the front line in Ukraine. Sure, the area in between the lines can still be crossed by tanks and other armor, but when the soldiers in the trenches are carrying anti-tank weapons, that crossing can be almost as hazardous as infantry rushing a machine gun nest. And if there is one piece of equipment that Russia makes that’s actually the envy of militaries around the world, it is this: [Video of Russian BTM-3, trench digging machine.]
Using machines like this one, Russia has now completed hundreds of kilometers of trenches, all along the front line and in some areas, many miles from the front. That includes a reported 120 kilometers of trenches around Melitopol where Russia—like apparently every analyst with access to a keyboard—expects Ukraine to launch its counteroffensive in the next few weeks.
Will these trenches actually make up for a shortfall in Russian arms and ammunition? Not completely, and it’s difficult to say just how effective they will be. After all, Ukraine has had some pretty elaborate defensive works in place at locations like Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, and Russia managed to overrun them within a day while not being exactly masters of combined arms.
Russia’s defensive lines (which we’ll look at in detail later this week) might be the tonic they need to accommodate their shrinking (and aging) tank force and declining levels of artillery support. Or they might be a literal speed bump on Ukraine’s way to the coast. We don’t know … yet.
FRANCE REPORTEDLY BLOCKING UKRAINE’S AMMUNITION
The one thing that’s obvious to all observers, and which was featured in those supposed top secret documents back in February, is that Ukraine needs more ammo. More small arms ammo, more artillery shells, more tank shells, more MLRS rockets, more ammo.
In addition to the pledges already made by the U.S., U.K., Poland, and others to ship large batches of additional ammo to Ukraine, there is currently a deal on the table to supply Ukraine with more a more constant supply. In an agreement announced on March 20, that deal should provide Ukraine with 1 million 155 mm artillery shells a year.
However, there are reports this morning from Polish media, that France … is blocking the deal.
The issue seems to be about how the ammo—which is produced primarily in Germany, France, and Poland—is to be reimbursed, with supplies coming from nations outside the EU to replace any depleted stocks and Ukraine paying for ammunition on an as-needed basis. France reportedly has issues both with the sources of ammo (they’d like replacement shells to be manufactured within the EU) and with how Ukraine is paying (they want it structured differently).
In the opinion of some diplomats, lobbying by defense companies may be behind France’s decision.
Yeah. That’s just great. I will now resist any remarks about the French and wars.
whheydt @44, I’m sure that Putin would find you fit enough to conscript you into his trench-digging forces.
During WWII there were quite a few Russian women serving in the military. I don’t see Russian babushkas digging trenches … yet, but I wouldn’t put it past Putin to start recruiting women.
According to this resource: The United States Military Academy (2015). West Point History of World War II. Vol. 1. Simon and Schuster. p. 235. ISBN 978-1-4767-8273-7, There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war, which is roughly 5 percent of total military personnel.
StevoRsays
Wewll, this isn’t much, just implications of world as we know it ending :
Unlike France, where discussions of raising the retirement age have resulted in protests across the nation, Russia reformed pensions just five years ago, reducing the pay of retirees and sharply increasing the time most people have to stay on the job.
Stochastic terrorism operates through the mechanism of plausible deniability. The person issuing the call to action—the call to violence—can later disclaim whatever he or she said by denying that any call was given at all. The person responding to the rhetoric must have misheard or misunderstood. This is key to understanding how the phenomenon works.
What do we have today? What kind of rhetoric is going out on the airwaves these days in the conservative realm of discourse?
I can’t claim to know everything that every mouthpiece or influencer is out there saying. I merely poke around. And the fact that, even with limited media exposure, I was able to discern these calls to action I find quite indicative of how widespread these sentiments must be. What these people are proclaiming is very much out in the open.
One example from last year in terms of stochastic terrorism was the destruction of the Georgia Guidestones. A privately constructed monument ostensibly celebrating ideals championed by the right, the Stonehenge-esque structure was targeted rhetorically by conspiracy theorists and those associated with QAnon. Within a very short span of time, the Guidestones were targeted in real life, brought down by explosives, damaged so badly that they had to be demolished altogether.
Later in the year, in the wake of the attack on Paul Pelosi’s, there seemed to be a ratcheting up of rhetoric from right-wing spokespeople. This came not from prominent politicians but persons more lateral to the movement. Charlie Kirk, for example, “joked” that some patriot should post bail for the assailant. Donald Trump, Jr., posted to Instagram a photo of mens’ underwear with a hammer strewn across. Taunting. [Instagram text and image at the link]
But the tide turned when conservatives did not get the red wave that they had prophesied for weeks on end; and their followers, I’m sure, were dispirited. Momentum had died.
Several things did happen in the interim, however. Elon Musk took over Twitter and became one of the most public proponents of conspiracy theories. Donald Trump announced his bid for office and then held an anti-Semitic Thanksgiving dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, for which he never paid any price; no Republican ever distanced themselves from him on that score. Kevin McCarthy elevated the MAGA caucus in his bid for apex power in the House. The GOP seemed to be settling back into a narrative of “Deep State” undermining and other nostrums (crime, immigration) related to their war on our culture.
What’s happening now? In the wake of high-profile mass shootings, including several at colleges and elementary school (a Christian private academy, no less), Republicans have admitted that they mean to do nothing to rein in the proliferation of guns. They instead turned their ire immediately toward the trans community, with Tucker Carlson (just weeks after re-creating for his audience a fantasy version of January 6th) intoning that this is obviously no time to give up your AR-15.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, true to her QAnon roots, said in an interview that Democrats were pedophiles, and 60 Minutes thought theirs was the platform by which to boost this message.
And now Donald Trump has been indicted.
It’s a five-alarm fire over in right-wing circles right now, and they are communicating to their audience the dire straits. The Lincoln Project drew up a compilation: [video at the link]
Tucker Carlson: This is what it seems to be. It’s a political purge.
Josh Hawley: This is burning down the rule of law.
Lindsey Graham: This is going to destroy America.
Donald Trump, Jr.: This is, like, communist-level shit.
Madison Cawthorn: This is exactly like what happened during the fall of the Roman republic.
Laura Ingraham: It’s like Stalin’s purges.
Lindsey Graham: This is literally legal voodoo.
Glenn Beck: The Bill of Rights is gone. ✂️
Charlie Kirk: We must make them pay a price.
Glenn Beck: They’ve wanted violence from the Right from the beginning.
Alex Jones: This is the season of them staging terror attacks and blaming it on Trump supporters.
Dan Bongino: I mean, we’re in a police state. I’m not even arguing this. ✂️
Tucker Carlson: This is too great an assault on our system, much greater than anything we saw on January 6th.
Josh Hawley: They will regret doing this.
Tucker Carlson: What you’re seeing now is lawlessness, and the question is, “Who can stop it?”
That gives you a sampling of how widespread this outrage is playing, and in what tones.
Other voices have joined the fray. Charlie Kirk just this week said that gun violence is the price we’re obligated to pay for the freedom to possess guns: [video at the link]
Kirk: The Second Amendment protects all of the other amendments. That’s a fact. And there is a cost to any form of liberty. That’s a fact. If you have cars, you get 50,000 auto fatalities every single year. If you have planes, you’re going to have some planes crash. If you have the Open Skies Act, you’re going to have a bad pilot. You have pools, unfortunately you have kids wander into the pool and they die of suffocation. Happens far too often in Arizona. You have peanuts, people could be eating alone in their home and they could choke to death. You get the point.
Liberty has some costs. But yes, liberty is worth it. And I say that because we live under this delusion that somehow we can get gun deaths down to zero. So if you come from the premise that we’re going to have an armed citizenry, you’re going to have a cost.
Lance Wallnau—megachurch pastor with an unhealthy obsession with Trump, an advocate of the Seven Mountains doctrine—now is prophesying that, in May, God will start killing lots of people. [Video at the link]
Wallnau: Satan’s whole Antichrist activity is him trying to consolidate control, because he knows he’s about to lose everything. So you have to really reinterpret what’s going on in the news. Watching what’s happening with Donald Trump, as we’re praying into that. I believe this is the time. Maybe the election wasn’t the time. But this is the time for the imprecatory prayers that would be answered, which is going to be, “May they fall into the pit that they have dug.”
Now what would that look like? Well, it could be that there’s such an outrageous backlash over the clear political persecution of an innocent, uh, political candidate that we’re really becoming like a Venezuela or a Soviet Union where we find a crime to put, to lock up or assassinate our political rivals. The American people won’t put up with it.
Now that the elites in Washington, well, they shrug their shoulders. They’re half happy that this is happening. But I’ve been listening to prophecies lately about sudden deaths. And it looks to me like there could be some sudden deaths coming in May. And in May you’re going to see some of the disciplinary hand of God come down upon those people that have been standing in the path of what He wants to do. I’m not talking about Democrats only. We have Republicans also.
This hearkens back to the ReAwaken America tour, where Julie Green, another Trumpified prophet, laid out a roster of people on God’s hit list, including some in the GOP. [Screenshot at the link: “Angel of Death is coming for them […]” with the roster including Hillary Clinton, Rachel Maddow, Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, etc.]
Does this mean anything? No one can say for sure. And that’s the whole point. They’re not directing anyone to commit acts of violence. They’re merely using the rhetoric of white-hot anger to rile up their base and to imply that what they’re witnessing is the end of the world, and that God will strike down the troublemakers thwarting His will.
New legislation from House Republicans aims to prevent local district attorneys from pursuing charges against former presidents…
Now comes a proposal that Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) said would “prevent political prosecutions” by moving cases against former presidents from state jurisdiction to federal court, where judges are confirmed by the Senate, an institution reliably influenced by elected Republicans.
“Politically motivated prosecutors should not be able to wield unwarranted power and target our nation’s top leaders for their own personal gain,” Fry said in a statement on his website…
Who decides whether a prosecution is “politically motivated”?
In other news, here are some responses from readers of the article quoted in comment 51:
What the gaggle of conservatives gathered in the Lincoln Project video sets out, what those people establish, is a permission structure. They are relieving people of responsibility and charging them with a duty all at the same time. [a duty to commit violence]
——————
There is a reason for them to “accelerate” and that’s the Orange Anus getting formally arraigned and charged with 34 felony counts. They worried that the wheels are about to come of their fascist hand cart. That if they don’t act soon the figurehead they’ve latched themselves to is likely to be in prison. While that will give him some “martyr” value it will be a huge turnoff to the mushy middle voters that they need to get him back in the White House. Basically their scheming reeks of desperation and fear. But that doesn’t mean we can or should back off. They’re counting on our side collapsing from their rhetoric and some possible acts of terror it creates.
———————-
Authoritarians benefit from violence in a number of ways:
– It intimidates opponents (ostensibly).
– It gooses their own supporters.
– It hardens people into their ideologies, such that if one were already identified as conservative it strengthens that identification.
So, cause crime? Profit!
————————-
What the GOP are doing is arming up their violent base by making guns easier to get, manipulating and gaslighting the 2nd Amendment, riling them up into a violent frenzy, while at the same time legally supporting their right to murder those who oppose their views. Such as they did when they excused Kyle Rittenhouse and are now set to let off Daniel Perry for murder. Each one excused for their crime because the victims were associated to “Anifa” and “BLM.” Groups who oppose the right-wing brand of bigotry, racism and fascism.
————————-
I think if you make outrage, whether its real or manufactured, eventually it will build up sufficiently to require an outlet in some form. And that level is different for different people and different contexts.
But while the results end up the same, manufactured outrage to get clicks, or grift a few dollars is far, far more dangerous as it is not self-limited by reality, and it can be a form of addictive behavior, getting the adrenaline/rage high, requiring more and more outrage to feed it, speeding the need for outlets.
————————-
the new-KGB is finding hateful, angry, vulnerable men to flatter and support and enlist/use to agitate US audiences of Russia’s troll farms and amp up the chaos. That’s what Putin has done throughout his career for like 50 years – without and then with the internet – pretty successfully.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., for withholding evidence in the Dominion defamation suit, and said he’s considering further investigation and censure.
According to a person present in the courtroom, lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems played recordings Fox News producer Abby Grossberg made during 2020, which were not handed over to Dominion’s lawyers during discovery.
Grossberg, a former producer for Fox hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, has sued Fox News and said her deposition was coerced. In an amended filing yesterday, she said she had recorded conversations with Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and others.
The sanction gives Dominion a chance to conduct another deposition, at Fox’s expense.
The surprise evidence and sanction comes days before the trial is scheduled to begin in the $1.6 billion defamation case Dominion Voting Systems filed against Fox News and Fox Corporation. Davis also said Wednesday he was considering appointing a special master to investigate the Fox legal teams’ actions.
Wonkette: “Florida Bigot Unclear On Concept: Are Trans People ‘X-Men’? Because Those Guys Are Awesome!”
Florida Republicans introduced legislation last month that would make it a misdemeanor for trans people to use the bathroom in public. The so-called “Safety in Private Spaces Act” would require that people use public restrooms and changing facilities strictly according to their sex assigned at birth. […] It’s unclear how you’d enforce the necessary genital inspections before anyone enters the bathroom, so this just seems like legalized harassment.
The bill’s supporters claim this will ensure “public safety, decency, and decorum.” Sen. Erin Grall, who sponsored this mess, said, “There are just places where we should be comfortable to do the business that needs to be done in those spaces.” She’s existed in a world with trans people for a while now without incident. She’s the one who wants to make people uncomfortable.
Florida is still technically part of America, so several trans Floridians spoke out against the bill that would directly impact them during a committee meeting Monday. That’s when the villainy escalated to comic-book proportions.
Rep. Webster Barnaby from Deltona viciously attacked these citizens, calling them “demons” and “imps.”
Here’s the pure hatred: [video at the link]
Embracing his ignorance, Barnaby said he didn’t know what gender dysphoria actually is and didn’t want to know.
“I’m looking at society today,” he lamented, “and it’s like I’m watching an X-Men movie.”
That’s a pretty deep cut. The first X-Men film starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and a mostly wasted Halle Berry came out in 2000. But just what did he think the point of those movies were? The people terrified of mutants and who want to regulate their existence are all bad guys.
“When you watch those movies or [read] Marvel Comics … ” Oh, good, he’s going to share more of his thought process with us. Better fetch an airsick bag. “… It’s like we have mutants living among us on our planet. And some people don’t like that, but that’s a fact.”
No, it’s not a fact. The X-Men films weren’t documentaries. Mutants aren’t real, although they have served as a general metaphor for marginalized groups. […]
Barnaby’s diatribe continued:
“We have people who live among us on planet Earth who are happy to display themselves as if they were mutants from another planet. This is the planet Earth where God created men ‘male’ and women ‘female.'”
(Technically, we know that Adam has a rib but the Bible doesn’t go into much detail about his or Eve’s genitalia.)
Declaring himself a “proud Christian conservative Republican,” Barnaby displayed more witch-burning contempt for the trans people before him.
“There is so much evil in the world today, and so many people who are afraid to address the evil, the dysphoria, the dysfunction. But I’m not afraid to address the dysphoria or the dysfunction,” Barnaby said, perhaps hoping for an accompanying soundtrack of thunder cracking. “The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us. That’s right, I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.” [Wow! Okay then.]
Unlike the X-Men, who I must stress again don’t exist, trans people are part of this world and share the same essential humanity as Barnaby — though that does seem unfair to trans people.
“My righteous indignation is stirred,” Barnaby declared. “I’m tired of this. I’m not going to put up with it. You can test me and try to take me on. I promise you, I’ll win every time.” [cartoon X-Men image at the link]
The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Rachel Lora Saunders Plakon, tried to distance herself from Barnaby’s supervillain monologue, and Barnaby later apologized in a manner reminiscent of Nic Cage in Wild At Heart:
“I would like to apologize to the trans community for referring to you as demons.”
Alejandra Caraballo tweeted, “It’s extremely difficult to prove unconstitutional animus in legislation and this Rep. just managed to do it explicitly on the record in legislative debate. He may have singlehandedly helped prove discriminatory intent to get it enjoined in court.”
Luckily those two wild and crazy guys [Tucker Carlson and Trump] have something in common, and it is that they both are on Vladimir Putin’s side, against America. So they could talk about that.
Couple things here. Firstly, the sniffing from Trump was just off the charts. […] Secondly, watch the facial expressions from Tucker, because they are priceless. […] Tucker hardly gets a word in edgewise, just lets the blubbering blob babble. [video at the link]
[…] The Hardcore Anti-American Shit
Anyway, so Trump drooled all over dictators, like he always does. How smart is Putin? Tucker wanted to know. And Trump told him first how smart President Xi of China is, and then how smart Kim Jong-Un is, and then how smart Vladimir Putin is.
[…] Follow the bouncing traitor:
TRUMP: Top of the line. Top line. They’re all top of the line. Our guy’s not top of the line. Never was. These are top of the line people at the top of their game. President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find, there’s nobody like that.
Because that’s where you’d go to find the leader of China.
TRUMP: The look, the brain, the whole thing. We had a great relationship. You know, when he first came to Mar-a-Lago, he came, the first day, he was there for a few days, we were going to have a … It was so organized by them and by us, but by them very boom, boom, boom. Everything’s like business. No games, you know. They don’t say, Gee, how did the Yankees do last night? Oh, that was a wonderful. They don’t care. They don’t care about anything. I said, You ever go to a Broadway play? I’ll take you to one. Do you ever have plays like do you ever go … No, I don’t know. He’s all, this is business. These aren’t game players, right? I like it, you know, in a way, I like it. You have no life. But that’s what he likes.
Trump wanted to take the president-for-life of China to see Cats.
TRUMP: Top of the line. Smart. Top of the line.
He talks about people like they’re snazzy brand new 1970s Cadillacs. Top of the line. Unparalleled luxury. Wood grain dashboards. Tail fins.
TRUMP: When they came in, it was supposed to be a meeting that lasted exactly 15 minutes. So we go to breakout sessions with all they had. Like 40 people. We had 40 people, you know, the comparables. Right? And we’re sitting across the table from each other in the ballroom of Mar-a-Lago. It was an amazing scene, but our meeting was supposed to take 15 minutes. It took four hours. We got along so well. There was a great chemistry we had. Great. We talked about everything. A great chemistry.
But people ask me how smart Xi, I said top of the line. You’ve never met anybody smarter.
How smart is Kim Jong-Un? Top of the line. You know people say, oh, this and that. Really smart.
Mini-bar in the backseat. Corinthian leather.
TRUMP: You know, when you come out and as a young man at 24, 23, even though he sort of inherits it, most people when they inherit, they lose it.
He would know.
TRUMP: And that’s easy stuff. He took over a country, a very smart people, very, very energetic people, very tough people at a very young age. And he has total dominant control. That’s not easy. These are, these are very smart …
He finally gets to Putin, and some words about how excited he is for Putin to take over all of Ukraine, because of how Trump is an enemy of freedom and democracy in all the world, not just America.
TRUMP: Putin, very smart.
Velour upholstery.
TRUMP: Now, he’s had probably a bad year. Don’t forget, that whole thing is not, if he took over all of Ukraine, and what are we going to do because Biden is so committed to Ukraine.
Note that Trump is criticizing Joe Biden here, for being committed to Ukraine.
TRUMP: What happens if it’s a not winnable war? You know, there are people that say Ukraine cannot win. You can’t beat Russia right now.
Many people are saying and they have tears in their eyes.
TRUMP: I’m not saying anything out of school. I read it in one of our newspapers. So, you know, it’s probably fake news, but maybe not. I don’t think it is. Russia right now is making massive amounts of ammunition. Sounds simple, right? But they’re making massive beyond anything they’ve ever made before. We don’t have any ammunition. We’ve given it to Ukraine. We’re not, we’re not prepared to fight. I rebuilt our military, new planes, new tanks, new everything. They’ve taken, the military that I’ve rebuilt, and they’ve given it all to Ukraine. I mean, massive amounts.
For more than 80 years, Morgan State University students walking down Hillen Road near the school’s entrance saw a massive red brick wall. Some thought it was a simple alley; others thought perhaps it protected a few garages. But the structure was actually a “spite wall” intended to keep Black students from venturing into a once predominantly white Baltimore neighborhood.
White Baltimore residents banded together in the late 1930s to erect the wall in response to the growing number of Black people in the area attending Morgan State, a historically Black institution. On Tuesday, University President David Wilson, school officials and residents watched as an excavator destroyed the barrier. [historical photo at the link]
[…] “For the white community, this spite wall was to send a signal and to physically create a divider that would symbolize the segregation that they stood for,” said Dale Green, a professor and architectural historian at Morgan State. “They were not supportive of the integration of African Americans into the greater society. The wall was to fortify the whites from the Blacks.”
[…] officials plan to keep a small part of the wall in place as a historical marker where students can learn about its dark history.
House Republicans expressed alarm after an increasingly unhinged Rep. Jim Jordan subpoenaed himself to testify before Congress.
In a blistering statement, the House Judiciary Committee chairman demanded that he comply with his subpoena and called himself a “toadying Soros-backed flunky.”
“The message to Jim Jordan is clear: you can run, but you can’t hide,” Jordan said.
The Ohio congressman warned that, if he refused to testify, he would have “no other choice” but to call for himself to be jailed.
Behind the scenes, Jordan’s G.O.P. colleagues discussed replacing him as the chair of the Judiciary Committee with a more mentally stable member of their conference, such as Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Jury selection in the trial to hear Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News wasn’t slated to begin until Thursday, but Wednesday brought fireworks in the courtroom of Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis. Davis not only admonished Fox News’ attorneys for hiding evidence related to network co-founder Rupert Murdoch, he determined that a special master would be necessary to review the evidence that Fox News is holding but has not yet shared with the court or Dominion.
As NBC News reports, a clearly upset Davis didn’t stop at scolding Fox News. He sanctioned the corporation, giving Dominion another opportunity to review the evidence—at Fox News’ expense. Davis also warned that he is considering “further investigation and censure” after it became clear that Fox News was downplaying Murdoch’s role at the company in order to cover up his involvement in how the network reported on Dominion.
According to CNN Business, Davis also informed both Fox News and Dominion that he intends to appoint a “special master” to review the information Fox has so far withheld and determine which of it should be added to the trial evidence.
“I am very concerned… that there have been misrepresentations to the court. This is very serious.”
Two years ago, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News for its repeated broadcasting of false claims that diminished trust in Dominion’s voting machines and harmed the value of the company. Many of those claims came from sources close to Donald Trump, including Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who were frequent guests on Fox News’ programs and who repeatedly made unsupported claims about the security, reliability, and ownership of Dominion. Fox News made repeated attempts to get the lawsuit dismissed. All of those attempts failed.
In February, it was revealed that during the process of discovery Dominion had obtained a series of behind-the-scenes texts and emails showing that Fox News knew that many of the claims the network was airing against Dominion were lies, but they went ahead with those lies anyway. As Laura Clawson reported at the time, “Winning a defamation lawsuit against a news network requires meeting an extremely high standard of proof, but this is about as strong a case as you can imagine: Dominion has pages of internal communications between top Fox News personalities and executives showing that they knew what they were doing.”
Fox News responded to Dominion’s outrage over the behind-the-scenes revelations with a statement that utterly failed to address the issues raised by the raft of emails and texts. Instead, Fox News tried to hide behind First Amendment claims. However, Dominion won on almost every point in pretrial motions and on March 31, Judge Davis ruled that the lawsuit could proceed to trial.
Murdoch made some appearances in the previous cache of emails and texts provided by Fox News. That includes an email in which Murdoch said “This is really crazy stuff” when referring to Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s false claims about Dominion. Some of the released material also showed Murdoch discussing with Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott a plan in which they would say that Biden actually won the election in an effort to “stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen.” However, Scott’s reply warns that “we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers.”
This, and another incident in which Murdoch was quoted worrying about what Sean Hannity might say to his audience, makes the 92-year-old owner of Fox News seem like the most reasonable person in the room.
However, it now seems that by claiming that Murdoch was “only an officer at Fox Corporation and didn’t have any role in Fox News,” much of his involvement with statements and actions related to Dominion may have been left out of documents turned over during the discovery phase of the trial.
Then on Sunday, days before the trial begins, Fox disclosed to Dominion’s attorneys that Murdoch does have a small role at Fox News … in that he is “executive chair” over the whole company.
Judge Davis was clearly shocked by the level of deception. “My problem is that it has been represented to me more than once that he is not an officer,” he stated in court on Tuesday. “I’m very uncomfortable right now.”
Fox responded that Murdoch had been listed as executive chair in corporate filings since 2019. They didn’t explain why they had repeatedly denied that he held a position at Fox News. At the moment, it is unknown which additional communications with or instructions from Murdoch are still under wraps.
Trial was expected to begin on Thursday, but this extension of discovery might cause a delay.
Earlier this year, Murdoch attempted to combine Fox News and parent company News Corporation. That merger was placed on hold in January, in part due to concerns over the Dominion trial.
Commissioners in Memphis voted Wednesday to reinstate one of two Black Democrats kicked out of the Republican-led Tennessee House.
The Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted to send Justin Pearson back to the Legislature in Nashville.
Republicans banished Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones last week over their role in a gun control protest on the House floor after a deadly school shooting.
The Nashville Metropolitan Council took only a few minutes Monday to restore Jones to office. He was quickly reinstated to his House seat. […]
Sen. John Fetterman’s public struggle with depression has led to a larger discussion about the stigmas surrounding mental health. While Fox News pundits and Donald Trump’s colossal failure of a son have mocked Fetterman’s condition and outright questioned his fitness, Fetterman’s challenges are hardly unique. An estimated one in five US adults live with a mental illness (57.8 million in 2021).
Four of Fetterman’s Democratic colleagues — Sen. Tina Smith from Minnesota, Rep. Seth Moulton from Massachusetts, Rep. Ruben Gallego from Arizona, and Rep. Ritchie Torres from New York — spoke this week with ABC News’s Brittney Shepherd about their personal mental health struggles. It was a generous show of support for Fetterman’s recovery and a brave stance for politicians currently in office, including one who’s also running for Senate.
Torres told Shepherd he considers telling their stories a vital form of public service.
“We represent people who are deeply affected by mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, who want to see themselves in their elected officials,” he said. “And I felt like I had a profound obligation to confront the culture of silence and stigma and shame that often surrounds the subject of mental health.” […]
Wonkette: “Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Sues Jim Jordan”
House Republicans were never known for finesse, but their hamfisted handling of the recent Trump indictment by New York prosecutors is a new low. For weeks now, Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan and heads of Oversight and Administration Reps. James Comer and Bryan Steil have harassed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office with demands that it turn over all its internal documents and testify about the Trump prosecution. And they haven’t been subtle about it, with Reps. Elise Stefanik and Marjorie Taylor Greene, among others, confirming that they are coordinating Congress’s response to Bragg with Trump himself.
But yesterday, Manhattan DA Bragg punched back, filing a complaint in the Southern District of New York seeking judicial relief from House Republicans’ efforts to intimidate his office.
It’s axiomatic that the US Congress has zero oversight authority over local law enforcement officials. That’s how federalism goes, and it’s why conservatives are always howling about “local control,” although Rolling Stone reports that if Trump gets reelected, he plans to launch a civil rights investigation of Bragg on the theory that he’s racist against white people. Nevertheless, Republicans are in lockstep, vowing to punish Bragg for daring to hold Donald Trump accountable for … allegedly … committing crimes in the state of New York. [Tweet from Kevin McCarthy is available at the link]
Jordan and the dipshits’ rationale for their oversight authority has shifted. At the outset, Jordan mumbled vaguely about needing to legislate the Secret Service’s interaction with local police and/or the possibility of proposing a (laughably unconstitutional) law to allow former presidents to transfer state prosecutions to federal court. But after the DA disclosed that his predecessor used approximately $5,000 of federal funds in 2021 to investigate the Trump Organization, Jordan pivoted to insisting that this gives Congress the right to examine the inner workings of the office. This is also ridiculous, since virtually every local police department receives some federal funding, and Jordan’s logic would empower the federal government to conduct not just the civil rights investigation of Bragg that Trump’s [promising] but to micromanage every local law enforcement agency.
Meanwhile Jordan stepped up the hackery by announcing that he’ll be holding a “field hearing” on Monday in New York with the “victims” of Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim policies.” Which is merely stupid, unlike issuing a subpoena for former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to testify on April 20, which is a major escalation.
In February of 2021, Pomerantz was sworn in as a special assistant district attorney to investigate Trump. A year later, he resigned in rage after Bragg refused to take the property fraud case to the grand jury, although those charges later formed the basis of the New York Attorney General’s civil indictment of the Trump Organization. Pomerantz then took the unorthodox (read: arguably unethical) step of writing a book entitled People v. Donald Trump, over the objections of the District Attorney’s Office. Jordan has now cited this book as waiving privilege, as well as proving that the Trump investigation was tainted by bias. He seems untroubled by the fact that Bragg actually killed the part of the investigation Pomerantz worked on, writing in his subpoena letter that “Your book also contributed to the ‘political pressure’ on District Attorney Bragg to bring charges against former President Trump.”
Yesterday, Bragg responded by suing Jordan and Pomerantz in federal court, accusing the congressman of mounting “an unprecedented brazen and unconstitutional attack.” Don’t read this as Bragg suing Pomerantz. The lawyer has already told Jordan to get bent — naming him as a defendant gives Pomerantz additional legal cover not to testify next week. [Ah, that’s interesting! So that’s how that works.]
“Chairman Jordan’s demands, including his subpoena to Mr. Pomerantz, seek highly sensitive and confidential local prosecutorial information that belongs to the Office of the District Attorney and the People of New York,” he writes. “Basic principles of federalism and common sense, as well as binding Supreme Court precedent, forbid Congress from demanding it.”
In support of this argument, Bragg cites New York’s grand jury secrecy laws, as well as attorney-client and work product privileges. On a federal level, he points to the the Tenth Amendment, which reserves to the states any power not specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution, as well as multiple Supreme Court precedents affirming that the federal government cannot direct local law enforcement to do anything other than not violate federal laws. He also cites Trump v. Mazars, the Supreme Court holding that resulted from Trump’s longstanding challenge to the congressional subpoena for the then-president’s financial information. In it, the Court set out a four-part test for evaluating legislative subpoenas which impact the president, […]
Under the Mazars test, courts should determine: (1) if other sources can reasonably provide Congress the same information; (2) whether the subpoena is no broader than is reasonably necessary to support the legislative objective; (3) whether the subpoena would advance a valid legislative purpose; and (4) whether the subpoena burdens the executive entity and may be a result of partisan politics.
Clearly, this subpoena for details about just one case cannot possibly pass any prong of the test. Nevertheless, Judge Mary Vyskocil, a Trump appointee assigned to the case, refused to issue a temporary restraining order yesterday as requested, instead scheduling a hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction for April 19.
Now, there are Trump judges, and there are Trump judges. Vyskocil was originally placed on the bankruptcy court in 2016 by Barack Obama, and her 2019 nomination was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is not Judge Aileen Cannon. Moreover, a TRO granted before the defendant has even been served notice of the complaint is a drastic remedy reserved only for cases where the harm to be prevented is both imminent and irreparable. Here, Pomerantz has already said he’s not showing up to testify on the 20th, and he’s clearly not going to be prosecuted by the Justice Department for blowing off Congress, so waiting a week is unlikely to matter.
All of which is a long way of saying that we have no idea what’s going to happen with this case. Courts are loath to intervene with congressional authority, due to separation of powers issues. But considering how long Trump was able to delay compliance through litigation, there’s at least a decent chance Bragg can drag this out to where the subpoena disappears because Democrats have taken back the House and tossed it in the trash. In any event, the DA will have punched back and made it difficult for Jordan to issue any more subpoenas of future witnesses.
And that’s a win. We take those.
Bragg’s lawsuit against Jordan will also allow for discovery, during which Bragg can request evidence that shows Jordan coordinating with Trump.
The Arizona House rose to the occasion on Wednesday, voting to expel Rep. Liz Harris for her role in smearing multiple public officials and private citizens who were accused of accepting bribes from a Mexican drug cartel.
Republicans and Democrats finally found something they could agree upon: Harris had to go.
This, after the House Ethics Committee unanimously concluded that Harris not only knew what her invited speaker was likely to say during a livestreamed February hearing on elections but that the freshman legislator actually took steps to hide the details from House leadership.
Then she lied about it to the ethics panel.
“The Committee finds that, prior to the Joint Hearing, Representative Harris knew or was at least aware that (Jacqueline) Breger would present criminal allegations at the Joint Hearing and REJECTS Representative Harris’ testimony to the contrary,” the ethics panel wrote, in one of five findings that she engaged in “disorderly behavior”…
Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday removed the national police director who had talked about using exorcisms to catch fugitives.
Neither Petro nor the Defense Ministry elaborated on reasons for the dismissal of Gen. Henry Sanabria, a staunch Catholic who was appointed by Petro in August of last year. But Sanabria was under an internal investigation by the ministry over whether he had inappropriately allowed his religious beliefs to infringe on his duties.
Sanabria had unleashed a debate about the impact of his faith on the police after his statements in an interview last month including that police had used exorcisms to catch drug kingpins and guerrilla leaders. He also issued a strong condemnation of abortion, which is legal in Colombia.
Although Colombia is a predominantly Catholic country of conservative and religious traditions, it is a secular state under its constitution. Petro, who was sworn in as the country’s first-ever leftist president last August, said that Sanabria would never be persecuted over his religion, but that there must be separation between religious beliefs and the state…
Donald Trump sued his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday seeking at least $500 million in damages, as the former U.S. president steps up attacks on his onetime loyal “fixer” after Cohen testified before the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Miami, Trump accused Cohen of failing to keep confidential attorney-client communications private and profiting by “spreading falsehoods” about him in books and podcasts.
Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, called Trump’s lawsuit “frivolous.” Trump often over the years has filed suits against various adversaries…
Helping a client to commit a crime is not protected by attorney-client privilege, so I don’t think there is any valid basis for Trump’s lawsuit. IANAL.
Twice-impeached and freshly indicted former President Donald Trump has a standard mythology about himself. It is somewhat based on the jingoistic, cocaine-fueled action films of the 1980s and ‘90s. In it, Donald Trump is an omnipotent, fearless, and wise leader who inspires deference from all those around him. One of the refrains of this self-delusion is that people are constantly crying around him. Whether it is hardened Navy SEAL veterans and their wives, wizened generals, and calloused laborers, they are all coming up to him “with tears in their eyes.” The only time this seems to be true is when the MAGA world runs into the brick wall of reality and must reconcile how loathsome the rest of the country finds them.
In order to campaign for the Republican nomination while also pleading his case to try and stay out of jail, Donald Trump has reunited with his misinformation enablers over at Fox News. This includes doing an interview that aired Tuesday night with the man that prayed Trump would go away and texted that he hated the Donald “passionately”: Tucker Carlson.
Trump made some of his patented claims during the interview. One of those sets of claims came at the beginning of the interview where he described his experience when he was booked for dozens of federal charges against him in New York City. Trump claimed that basically everybody booking him was apologizing and crying; in fact, “tears were pouring down their eyes.” Not only is this an unbelievable story (and also a strange way to describe crying), but Yahoo! News has a source that says this story is “absolute BS.”
At the beginning of the interview with Carlson, Trump claimed:
“When they signed me in, and I’ll tell you, people were crying, people that work there, professionally work there, that have no problems putting in murderers, and they see everybody. It’s a tough, tough place, and they were crying. They were actually crying. They said, ‘I’m sorry.’ They said, ‘2024, sir. 2024.’ And tears were pouring down their eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Truly unbelievable. Like, if you told it to me one million times I wouldn’t believe you. […]
According to journalist Michael Isikoff, his source was on hand for Trump’s arraignment and told the reporter that not only was Trump misrepresenting the approximately 57-minute booking experience, but Donald Trump’s story, according to the source, was “Absolute BS.” In this context, “BS” means “bullshit.” In fact, “There were zero people crying. There were zero people saying ‘I’m sorry.’” In this context “zero” means 0.00 or the absence of even a single person.
The source’s description highlights Trump absolute detachment from reality, because that source confirmed that Trump and his people had very limited interaction with any employees at the courthouse. According to the source, the only thing that was even slightly out of the ordinary from any run-of-the-mill booking was that Trump’s “fingers were too dry for his fingerprinting, at which point district attorney employees provided lotion for his fingers.” Yikes. Get that moisturizer on, Donald!
Enjoy watching Trump just plagiarize his own lies. It’s sort of like watching a fake-tanned snake eat poop out of its own butt.
Donald Trump is a stochastic terrorist […] The dictionary defines stochastic terrorism […] as “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
Trump does this all the time. It’s pretty much all he does these days, come to think of it. […]
Already, Trump has been harshly criticizing Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg on Goof Social since it became clear Bragg would prosecute him. Late last month, Trump predicted “death and destruction” if he were to be charged (he was) and posted a photo of Bragg next to a pic of himself wielding a baseball bat. He’s also called Bragg a “racist” and an “animal.”
His strategy is working—as he no doubt knew it would, considering his track record. According to reports, the Manhattan DA’s office has recently been deluged with threats as a direct result of Trump’s arraignment on charges stemming from his hush-money payments to a porn star.
Vice News:
The DA’s office received more than 1,000 calls and emails from Trump supporters since March 18, the day when Trump inaccurately predicted his own arrest, Bragg revealed on Tuesday. Many of those messages have been “overtly racist and antisemitic,” Bragg’s office said.
One email read: “Hay George Soros asshole puppet If you want President Trump come and get me. Remember we are everywhere and we have guns.”
[“We are everywhere and we have guns” sounds accurate.]
[…] Other emails called Bragg “Black trash” and “Aids Infested.” And if the threats were merely verbal, the situation might not be quite so worrying, but on at least two occasions since Trump incorrectly predicted the date of his arrest, his feral flying monkeys have come too close for comfort.
Bragg received an envelope containing white powder and a specific death threat against him. The letter was immediately contained to prevent exposure, and was later determined to contain no dangerous substance, according to a letter Bragg later circulated to his staff.
On March 28, a Trump supporter protesting Bragg’s investigation pulled a knife on a family, including two children, Bragg’s office said. The protester, a 39-year-old woman, carried a sign that read: “I support Trump, do you?” The protester was arrested.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers are risibly claiming that Trump’s obvious threats are not actual, bona fide threats. After all, he’s just an excitable boy who gets a tad worked up when he’s cranky.
“These posts are not threats, they are not harassment,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Juan Merchan during Trump’s arraignment. “He has rights, he’s allowed to speak publicly.”
Okay, sure. This is happening because they’re “not threats”: “We have maintained an increased security presence in and around courthouses and throughout the judiciary and will adjust protocols as necessary,” said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesperson for New York state courts. “We continue to evaluate and reevaluate security concerns and potential threats.”
One crucial part of Trump’s stochastic terrorism is convincing the wider world—and himself—that he’s a victim. In this case, he’s just an innocent lamb being led to slaughter; literally everyone except for the mean racist Black man can see it. […]
To be fair, we have seen video of Lindsey Graham crying for Trump. That was during Graham’s straight-to-camera plea for people to send money to Trump.
Elon Musk and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) called for NPR to be defunded after the outlet announced it would no longer use Twitter due to the social media platform slapping it with a “government-funded media” label.
“Defund @NPR,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday, after sharing an email that said the media outlet was no longer using Twitter.
Boebert responded to the Musk Tweet by saying “I’ve been saying that for quite some time! Let’s get it done!” […]
After ProPublica revealed that billionaire and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow spent decades lavishing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with pricey gifts and globetrotting trips, follow up stories noted Crow is an ardent collector of Nazi memorabilia. . . . What’s on display at his Dallas mansion includes two Hitler paintings, a signed copy of Mein Kampf, and swastika embossed linens. —Mother Jones
Some Reasons That You Might Own a Collection of Fancy Third Reich Table Linens, by Bruce Handy
The fancy Third Reich table linens were a steal compared with the fancy Confederate table linens.
You’re sophisticated enough to separate the art from the artist and/or genocidal regime.
You’re a film-studies major writing an honors thesis on Leni Riefenstahl’s table manners.
You bought them as a thoughtful “cheer up” present for your dear but troubled friend Ye.
You need them as props for your passion project, a bio-pic of Albert Speer, because you’re Stanley Kubrick, and you’re manically obsessive about authenticity, and you’re still alive.
Using paper Third Reich napkins contributes to climate change.
Something, something . . . Antifa.
You’re keeping them off the market because you’re concerned that they might retain traces of Hitler’s DNA, which unscrupulous scientists could use to clone him, or at least grow Hitler lab meat.
You’re worried that they might fall into the hands of extremist neo-Nazi cater waiters.
You’re preserving them as a reminder for future generations that elegant place settings are no excuse for unutterable evil.
The Nazi napkin drawer is the last place anyone would think to look for the afikoman.
Say what you will, but they go great with the Mar-a-Lago napkin rings. ♦
If you’ve been following international news, you’ve noticed the marked rise of protests and conflict in Israel. An unprecedentedly right-wing governing coalition has been elected with Netanyahu at the helm. Hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets in Tel Aviv to protest the right’s moves to get rid of independence and the self-determination of Israeli Jews. Joining us to break it all down is Edo Konrad, editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine, a left-leaning publication that tells the story of people on the ground in Israel and Palestine. Konrad joins WITHpod to discuss the political fight over which hegemonic group may rule Israel, debates over the future of Zionism, why he says there is no going back to a status quo ante and more.
In this public News Brief, we detail how uncritical acceptance by centrist––and even liberal––media that the US is seeing an unprecedented “labor shortage” is helping justify repealing child labor protections in roughly a dozen states.
Chances are, if a character rides a bicycle in a movie or TV show that character is a huge loser. From The 40-Year-Old Virgin to Arrested Development, bicycles are frequently used to represent immaturity, otherness and misfortune. Thankfully, things are changing — at least a little. Witness the Citibike-riding women of Broad City or Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, the sports psychologist who counsels the cast of Ted Lasso after commuting to work on her Brompton folding bike. Journalist Nitish Pahwa of Slate joins us to discuss the ways in which Hollywood and other parts of our entertainment-industrial complex use bicycles and cars to signify power and status.
Ben Affleck’s AIR (2023) chronicles the wheeling and dealing that led to Michael Jordan signing with Nike, and this unabashed celebration of the world’s most famous shoe brand positions the Air Jordan as a victory for trickle-down economics. We discuss the movie that asks the question: “What if you made The Social Network about people who were frickin epic??”
(I can get annoyed with this podcast, but this episode is fun.)
It’s time for @SenFeinstein to resign. We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.
This isn’t something that shld be playing out in the press or on Twitter. Sen. Schumer and Gov. Newsome shld speak to Sen. Feinstein and her family and make clear that the state needs a full time Senator. This is unseemly and unkind.
It depends on whether people have tried to speak with her previously. Seems like she should have been aware of the problems long before this.
wzrd1says
Trump is suing Cohen for $500 million. Now, what the lawyers filed and what Trump says, well, if Trump does his usual, Trump will likely look at obstruction charges, as Cohen’s long been on the witness list.
Trump really needs to learn, if you want to get out of the hole, first put down the shovel. He keeps digging in deeper.
I can easily see him talking himself away from just the likely fines and straight into a prison cell.
So sad, too bad.
Richmond, Indiana has a major recycling plant fire, unknown releases, dense smoke, expected to burn for days, only a half mile around the fire evacuated. Based on aerial photos, I’d have went with a mile. Plastics alone generate some really nasty stuff.
Wagner founder wants Russian society to be fully mobilized for war. I’m sure the other oligarchs will find that a wonderful idea, right up there with going bankrupt, experiencing a firing squad and calling Putin crazy to his face.
Dominion judge sanctioning Fox for withholding evidence. Oops, now a special master to investigate for misconduct.
StevoRsays
Jim Wright of the Stonekettle Station blog has a typically brilliant fb post on the disturbing state of the USA & its now openly fascist party here :
Yesterday, the Missouri state house under Republicans control, de facto voted to close all public libraries in the state.
I say “de facto” because while they didn’t out and out say “close all the public libraries” they DID vote to remove all funding for public libraries from the state budget. They also voted to fully defund diversity programs, state run child care, and all state funded pre-school.
They did this as an act of revenge.
Note the lack of “apparently” in that previous sentence.
Republicans led by House Budget Committee chairman Cody Smith OPENLY said the move was in retaliation for a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. That lawsuit seeks to have declared as unconstitutional recent legislation by Missouri Republicans banning over 300 books from school libraries. You can guess which books. Yep, that’s right, LGBTQ themes and anything having to do with any race other than white.
The legislation has now passed the House and is being taken up by the Missouri Senate. And in an appalling coda, during debate over gender affirming care for trans youth yesterday, Missouri Senator Mike Moon went off on a tangent about how girl children in the state of Missouri should be allowed to marry ADULT MEN so long as their parents approve.
“Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do! And guess what? They’re still married!” That’s Republican Senator Mike Moon. Those are his words. And he thinks that’s a GOOD thing.
Where I’m from, we’d call that statutory rape.
We’d call that pedophilia.
We’d call THAT “grooming.”
– Jim Wright
Federal prosecutors probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have in recent weeks sought a wide range of documents related to fundraising after the 2020 election, looking to determine if Trump or his advisers scammed donors by using false claims about voter fraud to raise money, eight people familiar with the new inquiries said.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office has sent subpoenas in recent weeks to Trump advisers and former campaign aides, Republican operatives and other consultants involved in the 2020 presidential campaign, the people said. They have also heard testimony from some of these figures in front of a Washington grand jury, some of the people said. […]
The fundraising prong of the investigation is focused on money raised during the period between Nov. 3, 2020, and the end of Trump’s time in office on Jan. 20, 2o21, and prosecutors are said to be interested in whether anyone associated with the fundraising operation violated wire fraud laws, which make it illegal to make false representations over email to swindle people out of money.
The new subpoenas received since the beginning of March, which have not been previously reported, show the breadth of Smith’s investigation…
Ha! It would be a real schadenfreude moment if Trump was not allowed to keep all that money he raised.
Commentary:
[…] I’m gonna guess yes, Trump committed wire fraud. He knew darn well that he lost the election fair and square. In fact, Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump told His Chief of Staff, Meadows, to hide the fact of his loss at all costs. It would have been bad for the grift. […]
Business Insider link to article “Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump told Mark Meadows ‘I don’t want people to know that we lost’ 2020 election court case.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced on Wednesday that her return to work in Washington has been delayed due to ongoing health complications and called on the Senate to appoint a temporary replacement for her on the Judiciary Committee
.
Her announcement came hours after Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) called for her to resign from the chamber.
Feinstein has been sidelined since late February after being diagnosed with shingles. Her absence, coupled with that of Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), has left Democrats working at an even 49-49 at best during that time.
However, Feinstein’s post on the Senate Judiciary Committee has meant that the panel has been unable to advance partisan nominees through to floor votes over that period.
“When I was first diagnosed with shingles, I expected to return by the end of the March work period. Unfortunately, my return to Washington has been delayed due to continued complications related to my diagnosis,” Feinstein said in a Wednesday night statement.
“I intend to return as soon as possible once my medical team advises that it’s safe for me to travel. In the meantime, I remain committed to the job and will continue to work from home in San Francisco,” Feinstein continued.
“I understand that my absence could delay the important work of the Judiciary Committee, so I’ve asked [Majority Leader Chuck Schumer] to ask the Senate to allow another Democratic senator to temporarily serve until I’m able to resume my committee work,” she added.
At the moment, there are 14 pending judicial nominees who have had hearings before the panel, but have not received a vote by the committee. Since Feinstein has been absent, the panel has had to cancel three committee markups for nominees.
A spokesperson for Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would abide by Feinstein’s request. “Per Sen. Feinstein’s wishes, Majority Leader Schumer will ask the Senate next week to allow another Democratic Senator to temporarily serve on the Judiciary Committee,” they said.
A Politico report also emerged earlier Wednesday detailing the toll that shingles has taken on the 89-year-old senator and the oldest member of the upper chamber, who announced in February that she will not run for reelection in 2024.
Feinstein’s acuity has come into question in recent years. This was most recently on display when she announced her plans to retire at the end of her term, only to tell reporters minutes after that she had not made a decision about whether to seek another term, forcing her staff to correct her.
The longtime California Democrat has also rolled back her workload during the course of her term. She gave up her post atop the Judiciary Committee and allowed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to become chairman after an outcry over how she handled Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation for the Supreme Court in 2020.
She was also in line to become the Senate Pro Tempore this year as the longest serving Senate Democrat, but allowed Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to take on the position. The position would have put her third in line for the presidency.
Heading into the current two-week recess stretch Senate Democrats were hopeful that she and Fetterman would be able to return to the upper chamber for work next week. Fetterman announced that he would indeed do so after being hospitalized and treated for clinical depression.
“We hope to be back to full strength right after Easter and to get back down to business,” Durbin told The Hill at the time.
Democrats hold an 11-10 advantage on the Judiciary Committee, making Feinstein’s absence even more acute than usual.
Headlining the group of nominees who remain stuck in limbo are Michael Delaney, who was tapped to fill the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacancy, and Charnelle Bjelkengren, a district court judge nominee for the Eastern District of Washington.
Delaney’s confirmation is in peril over his handling of a sexual assault case at a New Hampshire boarding school. Bjelkengren is the target of GOP opposition after she stumbled over questioning during her confirmation hearing.
Since the February recess, the Senate overall has confirmed one circuit court nominee and 12 district court judges.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The man responsible for the leak of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents is reported to be a young, racist gun enthusiast who worked on a military base, and who was seeking to impress two dozen fellow members of an internet chat group. MPs have warned that British lives have been put at risk by the leak.
Ukraine’s state-owned gas company Naftogaz on Thursday said Russia has been ordered by an arbitration court in The Hague to pay $5bn (£4bn / €4.5bn) in compensation for unlawfully expropriating its assets in Crimea, which the Russian Federation claimed to annex in 2014.
Norway expels 15 Russian diplomats, accusing them of being intelligence officers
Norway’s foreign ministry has said it has decided to expel 15 Russian embassy officials in Oslo, claiming that they were intelligence officers operating under the cover of diplomatic positions.
In a statement, the ministry said:
The government’s decision is in response to the changed security situation in Europe, which has led to an increased intelligence threat from Russia.
The officers concerned “must leave Norway shortly”, it added.
The Norwegian foreign minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, said in a statement:
This is an important step in countering, and reducing the level of, Russian intelligence activity in Norway, and thus in safeguarding our national interests.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it would respond to Norway’s expulsion of its 15 diplomats, state media reported.
The man responsible for the leak of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents is reported to be a young, racist gun enthusiast who worked on a military base, and who was seeking to impress two dozen fellow members of an internet chat group.
The Washington Post interviewed a teenage member of the group, who described the man, referred to by the initials “OG”, from their online correspondence, and shared photographs and videos. The Post also viewed a video of a man identified as OG at a shooting range with a large rifle.
“He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target,” the report said. OG told fellow members of the same internet group that he worked on a military base, which was not named in the report, where his job involved viewing large amounts of classified information.
…
OG appears to have acted as a leader on a server originally set up in 2020 on the Discord messaging platform by a small group of gun enthusiasts and gamers. The group went by several names, but most often it was known as Thug Shaker Central….
According to the teenage member of the group interviewed by the Post, OG “had a dark view of the government”, portraying the government, and particularly law enforcement and the intelligence agencies, as a repressive force. He ranted about “government overreach”.
The Post said details were confirmed anonymously by other members of the group, and that it had viewed a total 300 photographs of classified documents, three times the number previously thought to be circulating.
The origins of the leaks on Thug Shaker Central was first reported on Sunday by the Bellingcat investigative journalism group, which also interviewed the same member, who is under 18. [Aric Toler said WaPo, unlike the Guardian, didn’t cite or link to his work.]
However, the Washington Post said the teen member, who had been in touch with OG “in the past few days” had yet to be interviewed by any federal law enforcement officials by the time of publication on Wednesday night, even though the justice department began a criminal investigation and an FBI manhunt was launched at the beginning of the week. The defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed to “turn over every rock” in pursuit of the leaker.
OG’s current whereabouts are unknown. The teenage group member told the Post he “seemed very confused and lost as to what to do”.
“He’s fully aware of what’s happening and what the consequences may be,” he said. “He’s just not sure on how to go about solving this situation … He seems pretty distraught about it.” [Shashank Joshi: “I think it is safe to say that he’s getting arrested today.”]
In his final message to his fellow group members, OG told them to “keep low and delete any information that could possibly relate to him”, including any copies of the classified documents. [LOL]…
India’s financial crimes agency is investigating the BBC over alleged violations of foreign exchange rules, less than two months after the corporation’s Indian headquarters were raided by tax inspectors.
According to officials, the latest investigation is being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a central government agency.
In February, dozens of tax inspectors carried out a three-day “survey” of the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai. Tax authorities accused the BBC of irregularities in its tax filings and illegally diverting its profits.
Both investigations come in the wake of a BBC documentary that was critical of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. India’s government condemned the documentary as “colonial propaganda” that was “undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India” and banned it from being shared on social media.
The two-part BBC series, India: the Modi Question focused on Modi’s time as chief minister of Gujarat during violent Hindu-Muslim riots that ripped through his state in 2002 and left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
The BBC documentary revealed that a British government document from the time had found Modi “directly responsible” for not stopping the killings of Muslims during the riots, and said the violence had “all the hallmarks of genocide”.
The BBC has stood by the documentary, stating it was “rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards”.
Though the documentary was not broadcast in India, it prompted a strongly worded backlash from the government. Several students who tried to hold screenings of the banned film were arrested or faced accusations of “treason”.
During the February raids dozens of inspectors cloned laptops and mobile phones and questioned editorial staff.
The government denied there was any correlation between the documentary and the raids, which it described as “routine scrutiny”.
The more recent case against the BBC was reportedly filed by the ED under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) two weeks ago. The broadcaster has reportedly been made to hand over financial documents and several staff members have been questioned.
The ED has previously been used against foreign organisations that have been deemed to be critical of the government. Amnesty International and Greenpeace are among the organisations who have had their accounts frozen and their operations halted in India after such an investigation….
Here’s a link to France 24’s English France-protest liveblog:
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across France on Thursday in a 12th day of protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s contested pension reforms, which will raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. The demonstrations come a day before Friday’s much-awaited verdict by the Constitutional Council on the legality of the bill….
…
– Public anger over the reforms was further ignited after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne used Article 49.3 – known as the “nuclear option” – to push pension reform through parliament without a vote on March 16, sparking widespread anger. Days later, the government narrowly survived two no-confidence votes.
– French President Emmanuel Macron insists the proposed changes, which include raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, are needed to reform a moribund system. But some of the government’s own experts have said the pension system is in relatively good shape and would likely return to a balanced budget even without reforms.
The Paris march will start at 2pm, and will start at Place de l’Opéra in Paris’s central ninth arrondissement, and end at Place de la Bastille in the 11th arrondissement in the east of the capital.
Protesters are set to march down the avenue de l’Opéra, rue de Rivoli and rue Saint-Antoine.
“Le combat syndical est loin d’être terminé”, affirme Laurent Berger, secrétaire général de la CFDT, présent dans le cortège parisien contre la réforme des retraites, ce jeudi, se projetant vers de “grandes manifestations populaires le 1er mai”.
“Contrairement à ce qu’espère le gouvernement, le mouvement n’est pas fini”, a renchéri à ses côtés la numéro un de la CGT Sophie Binet, réaffirmant, peu avant le départ du cortège parisien, que le président “ne peut pas gouverner le pays tant qu’il ne retire pas cette réforme”.
France’s highest constitutional authority, the Constitutional Council, will rule Friday on whether President Emmanuel Macron’s contentious pension reform proposal should be accepted, modified or rejected based on the guidelines of the French constitution. FRANCE 24 explains the three possible outcomes.
Not once in living memory has a ruling by France’s Constitutional Council aroused so much excitement. One of France’s three highest legal authorities, the Council is tasked with ensuring that legislation does not contravene the Fifth Republic’s constitution presented by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. The Council is not a politicised body like the US Supreme Court, and has tended to focus on the more technical questions of constitutional interpretation.
But there is enormous public discontent with Macron’s proposed reform, which would notably raise the retirement age from 62 to 64….
Against this tense backdrop, the Council’s verdict is eagerly awaited.
The Council’s nine members, led by former PM Laurent Fabius, will render two key decisions that will affect the future of the legislation: the first on its constitutionality and the second on whether to authorise a public referendum on the reform.
In ruling on whether it conforms to the constitution, the Council will either accept the bill in its entirety, alter aspects of it or reject it wholesale.
One member of the Council cautioned against expecting it to offer a simple resolution to France’s political crisis, telling journalists: “The Council’s decision is probably going to be more complex than some are suggesting.”
While the Council is a legal body and not a political one, it does take political and social context into account. And given that France is in the midst of a fierce popular movement against the reforms with near-weekly strikes and protests, it is “unlikely that the Council will just wave every bit of the legislation through intact”, said Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at Sciences-Po University’s centre for political research in Paris.
But it seems equally unlikely that the Constitutional Council will reject the legislation entirely. Since the Council’s creation in 1958, along with the rest of the Fifth Republic’s institutions, its members have struck down only 17 laws – and these were invalidated over minor issues.
…
France’s Constitutional Court has long taken a dim view of “legislative riders” – provisions added to bills with a tenuous link or no real link at all to the core legislation – deeming them unconstitutional.
While the pension reform legislation is technically a budgetary measure – an update to France’s yearly social security financing bill – Macron’s government chose this way of introducing the bill because budgetary measures are not subject to a constitutional rule limiting the executive to using Article 49.3 no more than once in a parliamentary session.
Thus, at least in theory, any parts of the bill that are not “budgetary” could be struck down as legislative riders.
…
The Council will also rule on the possibility of holding a public referendum that could stop the pension reform in its tracks.
A never-before-used constitutional amendment from 2008 allows for a “Citizens’ Initiative Referendum” (référendum d’initiative partagée) to be held if a motion wins the support of one-fifth of MPs and the backing of one-tenth of voters. The left-wing NUPES alliance is trying to hold a national vote on passing a law capping the retirement age at 62.
That would be a tall order – even if the Council rules that a referendum can go ahead.
“It’s quite possible that the Council will allow for a referendum, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop Macron from putting his law in place,” Cautrès said.
“As for collecting nearly 5 million signatures in the nine months before the law is implemented – well, that’s not at all certain,” he added.
The Council will also have to consider a handful of appeals against the bill – including from NUPES and from Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party (Rassemblement National).
But one thing is certain, Cautrès said. “The Constitutional Council has an exclusively legal role and is not going to play politics.”
Constitutional Council president Fabius must eventually task one of the Council’s other members to write up an analysis of the bill. Whoever is chosen can draw upon the expertise of the Council’s legal department and may meet with the politicians behind the appeals that have been lodged. Once the report is complete, its author presents it to the rest of the Council.
Council members then take to the floor to share their positions on the report’s conclusions. A simple majority vote of the nine members decides the matter; the Council’s president votes last, casting the deciding vote if need be.
…
Regardless of what the Constitutional Council decides, France is likely to see more upheaval over the reforms in the weeks to come.
tomhsays
Re: #79 “Feinstein asks for Judiciary replacement after calls for resignation”
NYT:
Replacing Ms. Feinstein on the committee would require Democrats to pass a resolution, which would need some degree of bipartisan support — either the unanimous consent of the Senate or 60 votes. It is not clear whether Republicans, who want to hold up President Biden’s judicial nominations, would support such a measure.
Joe Biden on Thursday said that there was a “full-blown” investigation going on with the US intelligence community and the justice department over the leaking of classified Pentagon documents. “We’re getting close,” he said on answers. “But I don’t have an answer.”
Speaking in Dublin, the US president said that while he was concerned that sensitive government documents had been leaked, “there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.”…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
The southern United States is the country’s least friendly region for abortion, and access will soon grow even tighter as Florida moves to pass a ban on the procedure after six weeks. The GOP-controlled state House of Representatives is voting on the measure today, which contains exceptions for the life of the mother [sic], and governor Ron DeSantis has said he’ll sign it. While it’s not the outright ban imposed by some of the state’s neighbors, it’ll reduce abortion availability to a time period when most women aren’t yet aware they’re pregnant.
The greater battle in reproductive rights appears to be over mifepristone, which is used in medication abortion, and the subject of an ongoing federal court battle. Here’s more from Reuters on the late Wednesday ruling from an appeals court that preserved its availability, but imposed restrictions it that made it more difficult to access:
The abortion pill mifepristone will remain available in the US for now but with significant restrictions, including a requirement for in-person doctor visits to obtain the drug, a federal appeals court ruled late on Wednesday.
The New Orleans-based fifth circuit court of appeals put on hold part of last Friday’s order by the US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, which suspended the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval for the drug while he heard a lawsuit by anti-abortion groups seeking to ban it.
The Biden administration and the maker of the mifepristone brand, Danco Laboratories, had quickly asked for an emergency stay of that order.
However, the appeals court declined to block portions of Kacsmaryk’s order that in effect reinstate restrictions on the pill’s distribution, which had been lifted since 2016. In addition to a requirement of in-person doctor visits to prescribe and dispense the drug, those restrictions include limiting its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, down from 10 weeks. Kacsmaryk’s order will take effect on Friday.
Most Americans, including just over half of Republicans, believe a federal judge’s decision last week that would have taken abortion medication mifepristone off the shelves was motivated by politics, according to a new poll.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey completed yesterday found 56% of overall respondents believed the decision by conservative judge Matthew Kacsmaryk was politically motivated. The view was shared by 67% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans, according to the data.
The poll also found support for medication abortion across party lines. Restrictions on access to abortion pills as the state level were opposed by 51% of Republicans and 73% of Democrats.
The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has condemned the federal appeals court that blocked a judge’s ruling deauthorizing abortion medication mifepristone, but placing new restrictions on its distribution.
“The majority Maga panel of judges on the fifth circuit appellate court continue to undermine the FDA’s lawful expansion of access to safe medication abortion based on dubious legal grounds and baseless pseudo-science,” Schumer said in a statement.
“These extremist judges are putting their own anti-choice opinions before the medical expertise of providers and the FDA and the interests of patients. Senate Democrats will continue to fight back against this right-wing campaign against women.”
If you are wondering where Donald Trump is today, the answer is back in New York City, site of last week’s circus-like arraignment on felony charges of falsifying business records.
This time, he’s sitting for a deposition before New York attorney general Letitia James as part of her case alleging massive fraud by the former president and some of his children. Here’s the scene as his motorcade arrived in Manhattan, from the Washington Post: [link to a tweet with a video at the link: “Trump motorcade arriving at AG’s office to chants of ‘New York hates you’.”]
Fort Lauderdale experienced the rainiest day in its history Wednesday – a 1-in-1,000-year rainfall event – sparking a flash flood emergency in Broward County that has prompted emergency rescues, forced drivers to abandon cars, shuttered schools and shut down the airport through 5 a.m. Friday. And more rain is on the way.
The region recorded widespread rainfall totals of more than a foot, while Fort Lauderdale tallied 25.91 inches in a 24-hour period, according to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service office in Miami.
While the rain Thursday won’t reach nearly the amounts that fell on Wednesday, it will be problematic and create additional flooding, the National Weather Service said. Gusty winds, small hail and even isolated tornadoes are possible.
A flood warning is in effect for portions of Broward County until noon Thursday. A flood watch is in effect through Thursday evening.
Between 14 and 20 inches of rain have drenched the greater Fort Lauderdale metro area since Wednesday afternoon, according to a Thursday morning update from the National Weather Service office in Miami. The deluge is the “most severe flooding that I’ve ever seen,” one mayor said.
“This amount of rain in a 24-hour period is incredibly rare for South Florida,” said meteorologist Ana Torres-Vazquez from the weather service’s Miami forecast office.
Rainfall of 20 to 25 inches is similar to what the area can receive with a high-end hurricane over more than a day, Torres-Vazquez explained. She described the rainfall as a “1-in-1,000 year event, or greater,” meaning it’s an event so intense, the chance of it happening in any given year is just 0.1%.
During the peak of Wednesday’s deluge, a month’s worth of rain fell in just one hour. Fort Lauderdale’s average rainfall for April is 3 inches and it’s been nearly 25 years since the city totaled 20 inches of rain in an entire month.
Extreme rainfall is a signature consequence of a warming climate, and it is happening more frequently. The deluge in South Florida is just the latest instance after 1-in-1000 year rains struck over the past year in areas including Dallas, St. Louis, eastern Kentucky and Yellowstone.
…
There is a slight risk, Level 2 of 5, for severe storms Thursday in parts of Florida, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Jacksonville, according to the Storm Prediction Center….
Attorney general Merrick Garland said the justice department will ask the supreme court to review an appeals court decision that preserved access to abortion medication mifepristone but placed new restrictions on its use and distribution.
“The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA to deny in part our request for a stay pending appeal,” Garland said in a statement. “We will be seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court to defend the FDA’s scientific judgment and protect Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care.”
Last week, conservative federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had sided with abortion foes and revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the drug, in a ruling that was to take effect this Friday. The justice department appealed, and late yesterday the fifth circuit court of appeals in New Orleans blocked the deauthorization. However, the judges allowed to go into effect portions of Kacsmaryk’s ruling that required mifepristone be prescribed during in-person doctor’s appointments and limiting its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy from its current 10 weeks.
“Officers of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine and units from the defence forces carried out a number of actions on the Donetsk front, which allowed them to establish the location of a Zhitel R-330Zh automated jamming station. The jamming station was quite far behind the front line.
The coordinates [of the jamming station’s location] were promptly transmitted to a rocket artillery unit, which knows how to do its job very well.
The video captures the moment when a HIMARS M142 rocket hit the jamming station.” …
Public outrage prompted a probe by the Pembrokeshire County Council in Wales to investigate whether Pembrokeshire Council member Andrew Edwards said, “All white men should have a Black slave.”
A 16-second audio clip published by this week by Nation Cymru allegedly captures him saying Black people are of “lower class” than white people…
[…] from the […] the Dominion pre-trial hearings. […] the basis for Trump (erroneously) believing Pence could decide which slate of electors to seat on Jan 6, 2021.
[The Bush v. Gore] Supreme Court ruling stopping the recount of Presidential votes in Florida was most unfortunate.
In his dissent Justice Stevens refers to the 1960 Hawaii Presidential election […]
its story […] an apparent winner on election night; a contest by the apparent loser; a court-ordered recount; the certification of one set of electors by the Governor while the recount was under way; a court decision declaring the apparent loser the winner after a recount completed after the date the State’s electors met; competing slates of electors presented to the Congress; and a joint session of Congress choosing which slate of electors to accept.
[…]
Vice President Nixon, sitting as the presiding officer of the joint convention of the two Houses, suggested that the electors named in the certificate of the Governor dated January 4, 1961 be considered the lawful electors from Hawaii.
[…]
The precedent […] Governor [sends] a subsequent certificate of election based on the decision of the count […] and Congress accepts […] his final certification.
[…]
Under this procedure Florida need not rush to complete its recount […] The key date is not December 12 or December 18. It is January 6
a quick thread on standing (in light of CA5’s mifepristone ruling) – and just some of the things that the Supreme Court concluded were *not* sufficiently likely to occur and therefore did *not* constitute viable injuries that allowed the plaintiffs to sue.
…
The Fifth Circuit’s standing analysis is not remotely consistent with these cases – their reasoning, their outcomes, anything.
…
NEW THEORY: I have standing to appeal the 5th circuit’s decision bc it’s dumb and I don’t like it and I have feelings….
Overnight, The Washington Post ran an article in which they claimed to have exclusive knowledge about the person behind the leaks of apparent top secret military information. Ordinarily, this sort of “we interviewed an anonymous friend of a doubly-anonymous person” sort of article might generate nothing but an eye-roll. However, it’s lent some credence by the fact that the Post has now run at least two articles—one on doubts about Ukraine’s ability to conduct an effective counteroffensive back in February, the other concerning Egyptian plans to sell rockets to Russia—that were not sourced from the images that were widely circulating after being posted to a series of forums.
This certainly suggests that The Washington Post has some source for additional information. This “friend” looks to be it.
But the most immediately striking part of the latest revelations on the leaker have to be how the paper of record refers to a person who reportedly “toiled for hours” to write up invaluable top secret information so they could share it on a Discord server. [Screenshot of a paragraph from the Washington Post story, with “young charismatic gun enthusiast” and “searching for companionship” highlighted.]
It’s exactly the way the Post, and others, frequently describe a mass shooter. So long as he’s white.
This glossy, airbrushed, kid glove handling of the leaker continues to a jaw-dropping degree in the following paragraphs as The Washington Post describes an online community drawn together by “their mutual love of guns, military gear and God.”
If the authors on this are ever hard up for work, there are certainly several white supremacist groups who could use some good PR.
The leaker, who used the acronym “OG,” apparently fit right in with this group of “mostly men and boys” (my guess is that “mostly” here is an understatement). OG, who claimed to be on a military base, began almost immediately sending long missives complete with military acronyms and information. They were “what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that OG indicated he had brought home from his job.”
No one in this group of gun and God lovin’ guys thought about telling the Army, or the FBI, or anyone else about how OG was gracing them with top secret nuggets. Instead they just sat back while OG explained the importance of what he was uploading and provided notes to explain any concept too tricky—including explaining just how classified the information he was illegally sharing really was. Guns and God guys were good with that.
But don’t think the Post is done at this point knob-polishing OG or his group. Nope. He “toiled for hours writing up the classified documents to share with his companions in the Discord server he controlled.” How nice. What a good guy to put in all that effort for his “companions” who were taking “refuge” on Discord, just swapping “memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat” as OG kept them informed on “secretive government operations” in order to protect his online pals.
Really. I’m underselling how sickly sweet this article really is in treating both OG and the Discord group. The hero worship of OG expressed by one of the group members—“He’s fit. He’s strong. He’s armed. He’s trained. Just about everything you can expect out of some sort of crazy movie.”—seems perfectly reflected in the way the Post handled this article.
You have to go 14 paragraphs into the piece (that’s 14) before you get to this:
In a video seen by The Post, the man who the member said is OG stands at a shooting range, wearing safety glasses and ear coverings and holding a large rifle. He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target.
Oh, he just happens to be racist and antisemitic? How charis-f–king-matic! You can just feel that mutual love! You’ll have to guess what kind of memes and offensive jokes OG’s online community was sharing. No, seriously. You’ll have to guess, because the Post just glosses right over that while talking about how all these poor folks were feeling like the pandemic was keeping them away from “their real friends.”
Seriously, this cloyingly sweet take on an online group that seems to have been centered on violence and racism and a guy who joins that group to share information in an effort to be deliberately harmful to both the U.S. and Ukraine is incomprehensible. […]
Oh yeah, the name of this friendly group of God-loving guys doesn’t make it until near the end of the article. They called themselves “Thug Shaker Central.” Jesus would surely approve. We’re also reassured that OG “is not a Russian operative.” And, oh yeah, the Discord channel on which OG served up classified documents about the positions of Ukrainian forces and inside information on Ukrainian assets was called “Bear vs. Pig.”
If all this wasn’t enough, the article also adds the spice of neck-snapping contradiction: [Screenshot of text from the Post, with OG’s anti-government views highlighted.]
The documents were another lesson for younger members in how OG thought the world really worked. The member said OG wasn’t hostile to the U.S. government, and he insisted that he was not working on behalf of any country’s interests … But OG had a dark view of the government. The young member said he spoke of the United States, and particularly law enforcement and the intelligence community, as a sinister force that sought to suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark. He ranted about “government overreach.”
What you can learn from this article appears to be three things:
– The person who posted the images of classified information from February apparently worked on a military base, liked big guns, and liked to film himself shooting those guns when spraying racist and antisemitic statements. He also viewed the U.S. government as a “dark” and “sinister” force.
– He joined an online community filled with guys who also liked to talk about how they loved God and guns while making racist and antisemitic statements. Which might otherwise be known as a collection of white Christofascists with violent fantasies.
– Even though he shared dozens of highly classified documents with that community over a period of years, and went out of his way to prove that these documents were real, and some of the members of that community recognized they were real, none of them bothered to do a damn thing about it.
If I’ve ever read an article that worked this hard to be kind to subjects involved, I can’t recall it. And I’ve spent seven years watching the media write about Donald Trump. This article … this is something. Though I can’t really say what. Here’s a little section from the middle:
The member met OG about four years ago, on a different server for fans of Oxide, a popular YouTuber who streams videos about guns, body armor and military hardware. He said a group of avid members found the server too crowded and wanted a quieter place to talk about video game tactics, so they broke off into their own, small group.
The Post doesn’t seem to challenge this idea, or follow up. Want to make a bet about why this group really decided they needed some alone space? Might it have something to do with the “memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat” they wanted to share?
In any case … there you go. The Washington Post says the leaker was a fit, strong, charismatic young man who joined a God-loving community for companionship and tried to protect them from darkness and give some insight into the overreaching, sinister government by sharing a few dozen highly classified documents about how America was doing too much for hopeless Ukrainian pigs.
Any questions?
One other note on the leaker. CNN reports that President Joe Biden says the intelligence community is closing in. “There’s a full-blown investigation going on, as you know,” said Biden. “The intelligence community and the Justice Department. And they’re getting close.”
If “OG” is the leaker, he apparently helped out by posting several videos of his own apartment. Multiple articles are out this morning discussing how the intelligence community is once again tightening the screws and the military is further restricting access to information—steps that could make it more difficult to plan future actions.
Meanwhile, Ukraine says they’re not seriously harmed by any of the information released. Mostly because they didn’t trust U.S. security in the first place.
Wonkette: “LOL! Tim Scott … LOL! … Running For POTUS … LOL! No, Seriously!”
He’s really doing it. Tim Scott, the junior senator from South Carolina whose cookout invitations remain extremely limited, announced Wednesday that he’s assembling a presidential exploratory committee that we assume will take his money and tell him he’s not about to humiliate himself.
Here’s his launch video. We’re gonna need a minute to cut through all the terrible. [video at the link]
Elie Mystal: “There are many dumbass things about Tim Scott announcing his run for president at Fort Sumter, but one of the dumbest is… the fort was never taken. After the Confederates took it, they held onto it for the duration of the Civil War, eventually abandoning but never surrendering.
It weirdly sums up Scott’s entire political existence… always claiming victory over the racism the animates the South when the base of his own party calls owning Scott the “lost cause” and is spoiling for Civil War 2. […]”
April 12, 1861, is considered the start of the US Civil War. A white supremacist militia attacked US soldiers at Fort Sumter. This siege was a dark day for the actual United States, and the traitors won, triggering a four-year-long, bloody war. This is a weird moment in history for Scott, who’s Black and descended from slaves, to launch his presidential campaign.
“Our country faced the defining moment,” Scott says while strolling through Fort Sumter. “Would we truly be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all? America’s soul was put to the test and we prevailed!”
This is a Joe Biden speech twisted into some sick AF “Abraham Lincoln was a Republican!” historical revisionism. Southern conservatives were on the wrong side during the Civil War, and they’re on the wrong side in our present cold war with an anti-democratic insurgency posing as a political party.
“We prevailed”? The Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans would disagree. Also, even someone who took a history course in Ron DeSantis’s Florida would know that the Confederacy held Fort Sumter throughout the entire Civil War and only abandoned it once their evil cause was truly lost, but they never surrendered — much like MAGA after January 6.
“Today our country is once again being tested. Once again, our divisions run deep, and the threat to our future is real. Joe Biden and the radical Left have chosen a culture of grievance over greatness.”
Then we cut to the inevitable photo of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [image at the link]
Think what you want of her (and I’m sure morons will go on about how she’s no better than Robert E. Lee), but Scott has achieved a new level of moral bankruptcy by directly comparing Joe Biden and specifically a woman of color to the 19th Century white racist traitors who declared war on the United States. That would’ve been gross even before 21st Century white racist traitors attacked the US Capitol on January 6.
On the upside, much like South Carolina during the Civil War, Tim Scott is heading for the biggest of all “L”s.
[…] Nikki Haley only lives in South Carolina now [she is polling at 18% in the Republican presidential primary race]. Scott is the sitting senator and to borrow from a rap song I assume he’s never heard, Trump is about to scream on his ass like his dad. Can he turn this around? […] you’re starting in single digits in your home state.
During an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Scott, who has zero charisma, insisted that his personal tap-dancing story will win over that rabid mob we generously call a Republican primary electorate. According to not-very-complicated math, Scott can’t win the nomination without defeating the clear frontrunner, Donald Trump. When asked point-blank how he planned to achieve this, Scott said, “As opposed to trying to have a conversation about how to beat a Republican, I think we’re better off having a conversation about beating Joe Biden.”
But you have to win the primary first, motherfucker! […] Trump is already raining body blows on DeSantis, who is responding like a dope without the rope. You can’t just say “Let’s go, Brandon!” when the frontrunner calls you an establishment RINO who likes little girls.
This isn’t a “West Wing” primary where everyone plays nice and talks about the issues that matter to voters. Besides, Trump, as the previous nominee, has inertia on his side. […]
As the Republican establishment’s favorite Black conservative (not an impressive achievement, of course), Scott has the same problems as DeSantis. He’s not MAGA enough. He’s the Bud Light of MAGA. DeSantis is a more effective cosplayer and is genuinely evil, but Scott is Republican awfulness at its most banal.
On Wednesday evening, commentators on Russian state media claimed that the grotesque video of a Ukrainian prisoner being decapitated using a knife showed members of the Wagner Group mercenaries rather than regular Russian military.
At first glance, this might be considered just the Russian military taking this opportunity to lob this disgusting crime over the wall to Wagner, especially since Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin is now reportedly investigating running for office in a party that is not the Vladimir Putin-favored “United Russia.”
However, CNN reports that there is another video that is circulating on Telegram that “appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle.”
On the video, a Russian voice can be heard saying (translated): “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.”
This video was supposedly shot near Bakhmut, and is also attributed to members of Wagner Group. It’s also not dissimilar to actions that Wagner Group took in Syria. All of which makes it seem as if Wagner Group may be behind what has to be one of the more graphic displays of barbarity many of those unfortunate enough to watch the video have ever witnessed.
But it’s not as if their attitudes toward Ukrainians is unique. [Video at the link. “[…] “They don’t get the New Testament ethics, they get the Old Testament. A prophet personally cut the throats of 300 servants. These should be dealt within the same manner. They need to be liquidated without having second thoughts.”]
This, according to this priest, is “wholly Christian.” Because, just like those people in the Discord group, he really loves God.
Though this appeared in comments yesterday, I’m adding it again here. [Video of Zelenskyy’s response.]
SC @101, OMG. Tucker is really swimming in the racist sludge. He likes it. He even offhandedly says that Justin Pearson probably got into Bowdoin College not on his own merit, but because he is black.
In other news, here is a followup to comments 97 and 102.
More Ukraine updates:
WHEN DO THE TANKS ARRIVE?
When it comes to Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 tanks, the answer is: They’re already there. First groups of both tanks are already in Ukraine, as are crews who have been training in the U.K. and Poland.
But what about this … [Tweet and image concerning M1A2 tanks on the move in Germany] The U.S. has taken steps recently to accelerate the arrival of Abrams M1A2 tanks for Ukraine, and just yesterday the Ukrainian minister of defense indicated that the U.S. intends to send more Abrams and more Bradleys than have been currently announced. However, all that said, it’s likely way too early to get excited about images of unmarked Abrams being moved around Germany.
According to the U.S. Defense Department, no Ukrainian troops have been trained to operate the Abrams. That statement doesn’t elaborate, but it’s also unlikely that any Ukrainian mechanics have been trained in how to maintain the tank, and drivers of all the supporting vehicles haven’t been trained, and clerks haven’t been walked through the logistics needed to support operation or maintenance of these tanks in the field.
The tanks moving around Germany may actually be those slated to go to Ukraine. However, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be on the front lines next week […]
If Ukraine is going to start a counteroffensive in the next few weeks, it will happen without the M1A2.
TWO VIDEOS FROM BAKHMUT
Russia is moving into the center of the city in force, with more armor supported by artillery across the river in the eastern part of the city. Russia sources are again claiming that “Bakhmut has fallen” and in fact, things do not look good. Remaining Ukrainian forces are grouped together in an area at the west of the city, but Russia still appears to be moving forward. [Videos at the link]
Still, Ukrainian troops are in the city. Are still holding positions. Are still moving and acting with a level of composure that seems almost superhuman. Bakhmut is not gone yet, and all we can hope is that the Ukrainian military is right when it says their sacrifice in the city is worth it.
One thing you might notice: The ground these guys are walking over looks pretty dry. After some rain in the next 24 hours, it looks like Bakhmut will have dry weather for at least the next week. Considering that dirt roads are serving an elevated role in moving people in (or out) of the city, that could help lend Ukrainian forces some much-needed flexibility over the near term.
Heck, let’s make it three videos. After the stories this morning, I need this. [Video at the link: Kids greet their coach who returned from Bakhmut]
The biggest thing on Russian media today—both state media and social media—isn’t either the leaked documents or the beheading. It’s Donald Trump. Trump’s Putin-praising interview on Fox, in which he appears to blame the U.S. for the invasion of Ukraine and the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, is running on Russian state media with the regularity of Taylor Swift on the average music streaming service.
Just like the beheading videos, I’m not going to show it here.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) said they have stopped posting content on their official Twitter account, becoming the second major news outlet — after National Public Radio (NPR) — to ditch the popular social media platform.
PBS’ decision comes after Twitter labeled the non-profit TV network’s account as “government-funded media.”
“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” said a PBS spokesman, according to several news outlets. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.” […]
after an interview with BBC, Musk changed BBC’s label to “publicly funded media.” But as of Thursday, NPR and PBS’ labels remain as “government-funded media.”
Ron DeSantis is playing catch-up with the flooding emergency in Florida’s Broward county, a “one in a thousand” weather event that left large areas under water following an overnight deluge.
The Republican governor spent the morning in Ohio on his nationwide book tour. At a lunchtime press conference/update, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Dean Trantalis, said he had spoken with the White House but not the governor.
“Governor DeSantis has not yet called. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m sure he’s very interested in what’s going on here,” he said.
Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’s press secretary, broke cover on Twitter shortly after midday Thursday, linking to a Florida department of emergency management bulletin on the flooding.
The governor’s schedule for the day was sent out at 1.22pm, showing afternoon calls were set with state emergency management director Kevin Guthrie and Broward county commissioner Michael Udine.
@NBCNews reporting a 21-year-old w/ possible ties to this area is a MA National Guard member and the suspected leaker of a trove of classified military documents.”
California’s state senators relocated to a secure, remote facility after a “credible threat” forced the Assembly to abandon its Thursday session.
An email from senate secretary Erika Contreras told lawmakers: “The California Highway Patrol (CHP) has notified the senate of a threat they consider to be credible involving the Capitol.
“The CHP and security partners are present in higher numbers in the Capitol area, and are alert of the situation.”
Contreras said the session was moved to another state building nearby. Staff were told to stay home or remain in their offices.
The person suspected of recently leaking classified U.S. government documents has been identified as Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, two law enforcement officials said Thursday.
Officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said that officials have been tracking Teixeira for some time and that an arrest is imminent.
The classified documents from the Department of Defense were found online last month — it remains unclear how long the documents had been on the internet and the total number that have been posted — and revealed details of U.S. spying on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, secret assessments of Ukraine’s combat power, as well as intelligence gathering on America’s allies, including South Korea and Israel, NBC News previously reported.
A Facebook post in July from the 102nd Intelligence Wing, which is headquartered at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod, congratulated an individual with the same name as Teixeira on a promotion to airman first class. […]
The first chapter of the black-and-white PDF magazine begins with an ominous warning. Over four dense pages, the anonymous writers paint a picture of “an anti-tech revolution, beginning with the annihilation of the U.S. energy grid.”
[…] detail traffic chaos, dwindling supplies of clean water and spreading disease before concluding that a successful attack targeting key points on the electrical grid would lead to “the collapse of the system … chaos, agony, and death”
The magazine was obtained by TPM in a chat group on the encrypted app Telegram dedicated to “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski. Along with the breathless depiction of a widespread blackout, it included a precise list of the locations of “THE MOST CRITICALLY IMPORTANT ELECTRIC SUBSTATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.”
This apocalyptic brand of extremist rhetoric — and the focus, specifically, on targeting substations — is part of a growing phenomenon that has captured the attention of both the far right and law enforcement. The trend has resulted in a dramatic rise in attacks that have left tens of thousands of people without power. Experts have attributed the wave to the digital spread of right-wing accelerationist ideology, which aims to hasten societal collapse, and materials like this magazine that encourage and provide instructions for targeting the grid.
Participants in the Telegram chat where TPM obtained the magazine shared it on multiple occasions […] They also hurled racial slurs and anti-gay rhetoric while talking about plans for staging attacks.
[…] member, whose avatar featured a glaring bald eagle, posted an even more specific vision naming a major provider of abortion care and reproductive health services.
[…] Due to the inflammatory and potentially dangerous nature of the content, TPM is not naming the magazine, the alias of its writers, or the chat group in which we obtained it. One of the members who posted the magazine said it had been “removed” from other sites and “marked as terrorism.” They noted that it “contains the addresses of those substations and how to deal with them” and encouraged other members of the chat to “download” it or keep it “somewhere you can access it.”
It is easy to dismiss these writings as digital bluster, but law enforcement and academic experts have repeatedly attributed the frightening online rhetoric to the real-world rise in assaults on power stations. And data indicates white supremacists are the driving force behind the uptick in these dangerous attacks.
[…] “From our standpoint, what has shifted in the last ten years since Metcalf is the awareness of the tactic and the attention that has gotten,” a Department of Homeland Security official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of their work, told TPM.
“In the publicly available forums we can see tactics and references to the previous, successful incidents getting discussion, diagrams being passed,” the official said. […]
RAGING AGAINST THE ‘ANTI-WHITE SYSTEM’
While there are myriad risks to power stations, relatively simple shooting attacks from far-right white supremacist terrorists have emerged as a major threat to the grid. […] This far-right fixation on power stations comes as there is a consensus among federal law enforcement agencies that white supremacists have become the top domestic terror threat.
[…] Atomwaffen, which rebranded as National Socialist Order in mid-2020 as it faced investigations in multiple countries, is perhaps the best-known modern white supremacist accelerationist group. In general, accelerationism is an ideology that believes modern society is evil and encourages acts that would bring it downl. Many white supremacist accelerationists expect this cataclysm to come through a race war.
“Accelerationists believe that there is nothing redeemable about contemporary society,” said Michael Edison Hayden, a senior investigative reporter and spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
The power grid is a natural target for white supremacist accelerationists, who view it as the backbone of “the anti-white system,” Hayden said.
[…] TPM emailed with one of the writers of the magazine. They said the publication was produced by a “small group.” While this writer denounced racism as “fucking stupid” and said they would prefer “militant groups of educated anarchists” to use the magazine, they said they would not necessarily be opposed to working with the far right towards the larger goal of “the destruction of techno-industrial society.”
“It is another unpleasant reality that the far-right is far better armed and has easier access to a lot of the locations listed than the Left or post-Left,” the magazine writer explained.
[…] white supremacist accelerationists have proven to be the most capable of doing real-world damage.
[…] After listing off the locations of various substations, the magazine concluded with an ominous accelerationist poem of sorts:
In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.
The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.
The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.
A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.
The disclosure form Thomas filed for that year also had a space to report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction, such as a real estate deal. That space is blank….
UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi warned on Thursday that “we are living on borrowed time” following two recent landmine explosions near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant.
The Associated Press reports:
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly expressed fears over the safety of the plant, which is Europe’s largest atomic power station.
Russian forces took control of the six-reactor plant in embattled southern Ukraine in March last year.
“We are living on borrowed time when it comes to nuclear safety and security at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” Grossi said in a statement.
“Unless we take action to protect the plant, our luck will sooner or later run out, with potentially severe consequences for human health and the environment,” he added.
Two landmine explosions occurred outside the plant’s perimeter fence – the first on 8 April, and another four days later, according to the statement.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts, it said.
Reminder that Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis paid the Boring Company $375,000 last year for a study to dig a car tunnel from downtown to the beach
[drone video of cars in flooded Fort Lauderdale streets last night at the (Twitter) link]
Here’s Fort Lauderdale’s mayor yelling at a tunneling expert who is trying to tell him the Boring Company’s proposal isn’t feasible
[video and link to thread at the link]
Fort Lauderdale was looking at building a commuter train to ease congestion — until Elon Musk sold their mayor on a car tunnel
[link to thread by the mayor at the link]
As @parismarx and I discussed last year, Elon Musk uses Twitter to disseminate transportation lies — “underground tunnels are immune to surface weather conditions” 🤔 — to boost his tunneling scam now valued at $5.7 billion
[link at the link]
This mayor has now spent two years sucking up to Elon and his car holes when he could have been pouring money into a plan to prevent his downtown constituents from having to drive through deadly floodwaters
Keep a lookout for Ukraine’s ex-Russian BAT-2 armored engineering vehicles. It’s possible the hulking AEVs are about to become very useful…
The best breaching vehicles can clear mines, fill trenches and excavate berms, all while deflecting small arms fire and artillery shrapnel. Examples include Germany’s Dachs, the American Assault Breacher and Russia’s BAT-2.
It should come as no surprise that, as Ukraine’s allies supply equipment for the coming counteroffensive, breaching vehicles have been a top priority. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden together have pledged to Ukraine dozens of specialized AEVs.
Ironically, the Russians have helped out, too. When Russia widened its war on Ukraine back in February 2022, a host of AEVs led the way. As the Russian advance faltered and regiments retreated to the current front line, they left behind nearly 200 of these specialist vehicles. Many of them now work for Ukraine…
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on April 12 it had imposed sanctions against 333 more Canadian nationals — including regional officials, lawmakers, politicians, and athletes — “involved in unbridled Russophobia.” The move comes a day after Canada imposed sanctions against 14 Russian nationals and 34 Russian companies, including persons linked to Wagner mercenary group. There are now 1,537 Canadian citizens and companies on Russia’s sanction list…
Jack Teixeira has now been arrested by the FBI in connection with the leaking of classified documents posted to an online forum.
Looks like Teixeira is living out his big guns fantasies … just not the way he may have expected. And hey, doesn’t he look “charismatic?” [Tweet and image at the link]
If everything published so far is correct, information at this level—including source level material from inside the Russian government—was routinely available to someone at the very lowest rank of the National Guard in Cape Cod. Which means that Ukraine was very, very right not to trust the United States within any information of value.
Is there a phrase for the opposite of operational security? [Photo of Teixeira at the link]
Bellingcat analyst Aric Toler was reportedly key to putting together the digital trail leading to Teixeira.
He is a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Why Teixeira would have such access to high level documents isn’t yet clear.
——————–
Russian sources are now confirming that Ukraine, not Russia, controls the train station in Bakhmut. It’s uncertain at this point if this represents an advance by Ukrainian sources, or if the Russian assault on Tuesday actually failed and too many people—myself included—were too quick to accept the loss of that location. Ukraine also appears to control a nearby grain elevator which had been reported as under Russian control.
The tactic now being deployed in Bakhmut is using the city’s fractured buildings as a series of traps. Syrian fighters reportedly developed a similar tactic in 2017 as a means of slowing pro-Assad forces in east Damascus. [Tweet and translated text at the link]
TikTok: Decoder – Substack CEO faceplants interview, excerpt
Host: If somebody shows up on Substack and says “all brown people are animals and they shouldn’t be allowed in America,” […] I’m pretty sure is just flatly against your terms of service. […] Would you allow that on Substack Notes?
CEO: [Squirms for two minutes.]
Host: You know this is a very bad response to this question, right? […] You should just say no. And I’m wondering what’s keeping you from just saying no.
Full Podcast/Transcript: Decoder – Is Substack Notes a ‘Twitter clone’? (1:10:00)
* Excerpt came from 47:40.
StevoRsays
In April last year, registered nurse Kim Gibson tested positive to a mild case of COVID-19, but the symptoms that developed after were anything but.She thought the virus was behind her, but five weeks later she developed new symptoms.
“I woke up and I could hardly stand up straight, I felt like I was on a boat,” Ms Gibson said.
“It impacted me personally and professionally, it was a real debilitating time in my life.
“I was very sensitive to any noise.”
Ms Gibson suffered hearing loss in her right ear, along with tinnitus and vertigo.
“My GP couldn’t see anything wrong with my ear drum … I was referred to an ENT surgeon,” Ms Gibson said.
She said she went through months of agony desperate for answers on what exactly caused her sudden loss of hearing.
To her surprise, doctors confirmed it was a rare side effect of long COVID.
A church responsible for more than 20 schools across Australia says students in “active same-sex relationships” should not take up school leadership positions.The Presbyterian Church of Australia made the statement in its response to the Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws Consultation Paper, in which it questioned the ability of LGBTQIA+ students to uphold Christian leadership values.
“If this student were in an active same-sex relationship, they would not be able to give appropriate Christian leadership in a Christian school which requires modelling Christian living,” the submission stated.
“This would also be the case for a student in a sexually active unmarried heterosexual relationship.”
There are about 13,000 students across the church’s schools and pre-schools around the country.
(Citing- ed. ) [Video at the link. “[…] “They don’t get the New Testament ethics, they get the Old Testament. A prophet personally cut the throats of 300 servants. These should be dealt within the same manner. They need to be liquidated without having second thoughts.”
I don’t recall reading that in the Bible & wonder which prophet and atrocity he is referring to there? Anyone know?.
@113. SC (Salty Current) : How is Thomas NOT yet impeached or forced to resign after all this? At least if not outright arrested fro treason and considered a domestic enemy of the state with his wife and sure he knew about her involvement in the Jan 6th attempted Coup and seems very likely was right with her if not behind her actions and words there. It just … aaarrghhh!
@98. Sure enough seems like the launch will be happening about 3 or 4 am ish my time. Dammed Amercian timezones! Bring back Pangea I say! (1 second lauch window apparently – and for over the rest of April too.)
This month, no less than five new species of frog have been described by scientists from the Queensland and South Australian Museums and Griffith University, who published their results in Zootaxa. Among the new species is one with a bird-poo-like appearance (above) when young that changes as it matures, and another named for its blood-red belly. The study’s lead author Steven Richards, an honorary researcher with the South Australian Museum, spent the last 30 years collecting the new specimens from Gulf Province and the New Guinea Highlands. ..(snip).. “We’re definitely estimating there are well over 700 frogs, (on PNG -ed.) which is basically more than any other tropical island area in the world,” Dr Oliver said. “It leaves Borneo for dead and it’s way more than Australia. Australia has got about 250. So it’s an insanely diverse frog fauna.”
But pictures tell a thousand words. Here in no particular order are our five newly classified amphibian friends….
Hmm .. Amphibians generally are in massive trouble globally so I hope those newly discovered – and still undiscovered species – are okay.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@StevoR #123:
@Lynna OM #102:
[Russian priest]: “the Old Testament. A prophet personally cut the throats of 300 servants.”
I don’t recall reading that in the Bible & wonder which prophet and atrocity he is referring to there?
Article: Drunk with Blood, God’s Killings in The Bible
Ahab, the king of Israel, was a follower of Baal, which, of course, Yahweh and Elijah didn’t like very much. So Elijah suggested a prayer contest to determine which god was the real God.
[…]
Then Elijah told the spectators to slaughter the 450 prophets of Baal
* I think the personal throat-sliting is specific to the “New American Bible” (Catholic / Episcopal).
Then Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Let none of them escape!” They were seized, and Elijah had them brought down to the brook Kishon and there he slit their throats.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
* I confirmed at least one Russian Bible with the personal throat-slitting. That priest wasn’t anomalously citing an American text while speaking Russian to a Russian audience.
* It wasn’t the “Russian Synodal Bible”. A little odd, cuz that seems popular. (Wikipedia: “commonly used by the Russian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic, as well as Russian Baptists and other Protestant communities in Russia.”)
Akira MacKenziesays
How is Thomas NOT yet impeached or forced to resign after all this?
Because our illustrious, infallible Founding Fathers made it so the process for removing a corrupt judge requires impeachment from the House followed by a 2/3rds majority vote in the Senate to convict and remove. In the current climate, this requires Republicans to support such removal and that isn’t going to happen.
As for forcing them him out, forget it. The SCOTUS is a lifetime appointment who are answerable to no one.
All the more reason why the Constitution needs to be scraped.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has claimed in its daily intelligence briefing that Ukrainian troops have been forced to make ‘orderly withdrawals’ from positions they previously held in the highly contested town of Bakhmut, and that the last two days have seen an intense artillery bombardment from Russian forces.
…
Rishi Sunak denounced a video on Friday purporting to show the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war and said those responsible should be brought to book. Downing Street said the UK prime minister told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in a call that the footage was “abhorrent”.
Ukraine’s security service has issued a warning to the millions of people in the country celebrating Orthodox Easter this weekend, Sky News reported. Ukrainians are asked to “limit the attendance of mass events” and avoid lingering “unnecessarily” in temples during the traditional blessing of the Easter basket.
…
China approved the provision of lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine but wanted any shipments to remain a secret, according to leaked US government documents. A top-secret intelligence summary dated 23 February states that Beijing had approved the incremental provision of weapons to Moscow, which it would disguise as civilian items, according to a report in the Washington Post.
China’s foreign minister on Friday said the country would not sell weapons to parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine and would regulate the export of items with dual civilian and military use. Qin Gang was speaking at a news conference with his visiting German counterpart Annalena Baerbock, and he reiterated China’s willingness to help facilitate negotiations to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict and said all parties should remain “objective and calm”. Baerbock urged China to step up to exert its influence on Russia over Ukraine during a trip to Beijing. She said Germany wanted “China to influence Russia to stop its aggression”.
Ukrainian forces are finding a growing number of components from China in Russian weapons used in Ukraine, a senior adviser in President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office told Reuters on Friday.
The US secretary of defence will meet with his counterparts in Sweden and Germany next week, including hosting a Ukraine-related defence meeting with top officials from nearly 50 countries, the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday.
…
Finland’s embassy in Moscow has contacted the Russian foreign ministry after it received a letter containing powder.
The 15 Russian diplomats expelled by Norway this week had sought to recruit sources, conduct so-called signal intelligence and to buy advanced technology, the Norwegian security police said on Friday.
Ukraine has barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus, the sports ministry said. The decision published in a decree on Friday, criticised by some Ukrainian athletes, comes after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) angered Kyiv by paving the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
China’s defence minister, Li Shangfu, will visit Russia from 16 to 19 April, and meet Russian military officials.
Also from there:
The war in Ukraine has gutted Russia’s clandestine forces, and it will take Moscow years to rebuild them, according to classified US assessments seen by the Washington Post.
The finding, which the paper says has not been previously reported, is among a cache of sensitive materials leaked online through the messaging platform Discord. Alex Horton writes:
Typically, spetsnaz personnel are assigned the sorts of stealthy, high-risk missions – including an apparent order to capture Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy – for which they receive some of the Russian military’s most advanced training. But when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion last year, senior commanders eager to seize momentum and skeptical of their conventional fighters’ prowess deviated from the norm, ordering elite forces into direct combat, according to US intelligence findings and independent analysts who have closely followed spetsnaz deployments.
The rapid depletion of Russia’s commando units, observers say, shifted the war’s dynamic from the outset, severely limiting Moscow’s ability to employ clandestine tactics in support of conventional combat operations. US officials believe that the staggering casualties these units have sustained will render them less effective, not only in Ukraine but also in other parts of the world where Russian forces operate, according to the assessments, which range in date from late 2022 to earlier this year.
Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar.
That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime.
And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more.
Ask yourself who is the real enemy?
A young low level national guardsmen?
Or the…
Definitely the one who is illegally leaking classified information. Thanks for asking.
A Russian tank used in the assault on Ukraine has mysteriously appeared at a truck stop in the US.
The T-90 tank is thought to have been captured last September by Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Mechanised Brigade, after being used in fighting in the Kharkiv region of north west Ukraine.
The combat vehicle was left on a low loader in the parking lot of a restaurant in the state of Louisiana.
Local reports suggest that after the truck towing the tank broke down, the vehicle was left at Peto’s Travel Center and Casino in Roanoke, Louisiana, next to US Interstate 10…
The Republican Accountability Project, a group of “Never Trump” GOPers, dropped a clip featuring Trump’s comments from this week and the past in which he praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It’s embellished with hearts — and has some music to set the mood:…
A Spanish extreme athlete has emerged from a cave after spending 500 days with no human contact, in what could be a world record.
When Beatriz Flamini entered the cave in Granada, Russia had not invaded Ukraine and the world was still in the grip of the Covid pandemic.
It was part of an experiment closely monitored by scientists.
“I’m still stuck on November 21, 2021. I don’t know anything about the world,” she said after exiting the cave.
Ms Flamini, 50, entered the cave aged 48. She spent her time in the 70-metres (230 feet) deep cave exercising, drawing and knitting woolly hats. She got through 60 books and 1,000 litres of water, according to her support team.
She was monitored by a group of psychologists, researchers, speleologists – specialists in the study of caves – but none of the experts made contact with her. ..
Parlement Technologies Inc. has entered an agreement to sell off its social platform to Starboard, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Starboard is a digital media company formerly known as Olympic Media run by founder and CEO Ryan Coyne. The company already owns conservative news sites like American Wire News and BizPac Review, according to WSJ…
StevoRsays
@128. SC (Salty Current) :
StevoR @ #124, do you have a link for the frog report? I especially want to check out the “one with a bird-poo-like appearance.”
Mea culpa , apologies. Thought I’d included that link in the original comment but, nah, I fucked up.
@ 125. & next comment CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Cheers. Thanks for that. very much appreciated.
@127. Akira MacKenzie : “As for forcing them him out, forget it. The SCOTUS is a lifetime appointment who are answerable to no one.”
Time that changed. long overdue. Not acceptable. Traitors on SCOTUS? No. Time that was called out, stopped, reversed and punished and the Federalist society treated as the perverting the course of justice traitors at the very least in spirit if not letter of law that they are.
StevoRsays
Said before, will say again, Biden and the Democratic party absolutely need to do something about SCOTUS ideally arresting perjurers and corrupt traitors and drunken rapists on it, starting impeachment proceedings and publicly, directly personally, calling out the Trump cultist & perjury apppointed traitors on there for what they are.
So disappointed and disgusted that they haven’t done so already even knowing the Congress numbers.
Also scrappping the EC same deal – again so very long overdue. One vote, one value. Fuck the flyover, rural, Trumpist Suprmacist Slaver states and their bigoted minority of deluded extremists. One person, one vote. Now. Please.
Why isn’t there more pressure for more necessary reforms over in the US of A? For .. fucks sake,.
…But when [Crater Mountain treehole frogs] first emerge from the hollow, they don’t have the green and white “naispela” markings of their mature form.
Instead, the researchers think they’ve evolved a bird-poo mimicry to avoid being eaten.
“The locals said … all those tree hollows where I found those frogs coming out are well known as bird drinking spots,” Dr Richards said.
“It’s interesting that the little frog coming out looks like bird poo.
“What a great strategy to avoid predators — it’s a hypothesis but I reckon it’s a pretty good one.”
Dr Oliver said bird poo mimicry isn’t as rare as we might imagine.
“There are frogs in South America and frogs in Asia that do the same thing. And there are also lots of insects that do the same thing.
“Our local baby orchard swallowtail [butterflies], their babies are dead ringers for poo.
“But what’s cool is again it emphasises that the New Guinea frog fauna is really diverse, and we’re only … just scratching the tip of the iceberg in terms of the cool things that New Guinea’s frogs do.”
KGsays
When Beatriz Flamini entered the cave in Granada… the world was still in the grip of the Covid pandemic. – Reginald Selkirk@134 quoting BBC
It still is!
StevoRsays
Oh & seems my timing was wrong with the JUICE mission too as it is flying towards Jove and its moons now :
Having been successfully launched. Timezones ..FFS. Sigh. Wish i’d seen it but glad it has happened and wishing they get there sfe’n’smooth as possible and all the science and more as planned Congrats & best wishes to all those who made this spaceprobe fly.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill that would ban most abortions in the state after six weeks, according to a release from the governor’s office late Thursday night.
Under the law, most abortions in Florida would be banned after six weeks. Opponents of the legislation have argued that six weeks is before many women know that they are pregnant.
“Let’s be clear about the silent part: You just don’t want women to have choice,” House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat, said Thursday during debate on the bill.
Victims of rape, incest and human trafficking could obtain an abortion up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy, under the legislation, if the woman provides a restraining order, police report, medical record or other evidence.
The bill would also ban doctors from prescribing an abortion via telehealth and require medication for abortion be dispensed by a physician, not by mail.
Supporters of the bill said they were protecting life.
“A woman’s right to choose, I’ve heard people talk about that. Well, that right to choose begins before you have sex,” state Rep. Kiyan Michael, a Jacksonville Republican, said Thursday. “It should not be after you have sex. “
[…]
For decades, courts in Florida have blocked legislative attempts to restrict abortion in the state. The state Supreme Court in 1989 determined that a privacy clause in the state constitution “is clearly implicated in a woman’s decision of whether or not to continue her pregnancy.”
However, the makeup of the Florida Supreme Court has shifted considerably in recent years, and it is now heavily shaped by DeSantis’ conservative influence. He appointed four of the six sitting justices and will name a fifth to succeed Justice Ricky Polston, who resigned last month.
The White House issued a statement sharply criticizing the bill.
At least five people were killed and 15 wounded on Friday by a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, the regional governor said.
Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram that seven more people remained under the rubble after S-300 missiles damaged five apartment buildings and five private buildings, among other objects.
“The evil state once again demonstrates its essence,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyi wrote in a separate post accompanied by footage of a damaged building. “Just killing people in broad daylight. Ruining, destroying all life.”
Kyrylenko said rescuers, paramedics and police were working on the scene….
Paris Marx is joined by Emily M. Bender to discuss what it means to say that ChatGPT is a “stochastic parrot,” why Elon Musk is calling to pause AI development, and how the tech industry uses language to trick us into buying its narratives about technology.
Emily M. Bender is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Washington and the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master’s Program. She’s also the director of the Computational Linguistics Laboratory….
Paris Marx is joined by Kate Wagner to discuss the goals behind Saudi Arabia’s architectural megaprojects, the incentives for major architects to work on projects for despotic regimes, and how architecture’s relationship to tech is driven by profits and PR.
Kate Wagner is an architecture critic and journalist. She’s also the creator of McMansion Hell….
whheydtsays
Re: tomh @ #142…
Looks like it’s time for a Lysistrata action in Florida.
Jack Teixeira, an Airman 1st Class (E-3) in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested at his home on Thursday by the FBI. Teixeira supervised a Discord group which called itself “Thug Shaker Central.” It was on that platform that he shared dozens of documents—some written by Teixeira as summaries of things he had seen, others direct images of top secret documents—providing detailed analysis on the military capability of the United States, Ukraine, and others. Included were documents, such as a map of Ukrainian air defense positions, that could have a strong negative effect on Ukraine if made public.
The Thug Shaker Central group consisted of between 10 and 20 members at any time. The primary themes of the group were guns, including both civilian and military weapons; games, primarily those which simulate close combat situations; and racism, including descriptions of acts of violence toward people of color. The group was formed in 2020, and Teixeira reportedly began posting classified information to the discord server for the group almost immediately.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Teixeira created a channel called “Bear vs. Pig,” in which he posted documents about the situation in Ukraine, along with his own analysis of events. Some members were reported to be from outside the United States, including from Eastern Europe. Others members of the group said that these Eastern European members had a particular interest in the information Teixeira posted.
I’d like to say we don’t need to talk about Teixeira anymore today, and I’d especially like to say that we don’t need to have any further concerns about how the media is reporting on Teixeira. Unfortunately …
Yesterday, I took issue—to put it mildly—with the way The Washington Post, in their article revealing information about Teixeira before he had been named, described him as a “young charismatic gun enthusiast” who was “searching for companionship” and found it in an online group held together by “their mutual love of guns, military gear and God.”
For those who felt I was being a bit hard on the Post, I give you their tweet following Teixeira’s arrest. [Tweet at the link]
Breaking news, folks. The most important thing to know is that his family was patriotic. So patriotic.
The first three paragraphs of that linked article … nope. I’m just going to post them; they have to be seen to be believed. [Three paragraphs available at the link as a screen capture. “Patriotic zeal” etc.]
See? He wasn’t just young and charismatic, he was also slim and boyish. And patriotic. His family was so patriotic that they got him a “patriotic-themed balloon.” His proud mom posted to Facebook! I put these in as images because I didn’t want you to think I had shorted you a word.
What’s missing from that opening? Any of the information that you see in the first three paragraphs of this article, the one you’re reading, explaining what Teixeira did and why it’s important. The Post’s glowing coverage of Teixeira is at decided odds with what CNN found when they spoke to people who were not part of Teixeira’s family or his online community at “Thug Shaker Central.”
Several former high school classmates of Teixeira’s told CNN Thursday that he had a fascination with the military, guns and war. He would sometimes wear camouflage to school, carried a “dictionary-sized book on guns,” and behaved in a way that made some fellow students feel uneasy.
“A lot of people were wary of him,” said Brooke Cleathero, who attended middle school and high school with Teixeira. “He was more of a loner, and having a fascination with war and guns made him off-putting to a lot of people.”
What both articles are describing is a loner with an obsession with guns and violence. Only The Washington Post has concentrated so much on softening Teixeira’s image that the Vaseline on the lens is now three miles deep. If the description from CNN sounds familiar, it’s because it usually comes attached to an article featuring a body count. Here’s another paragraph from that CNN article on the charismatic, slim, and boyish Teixeira.
Other students, who asked not to be identified, said they detected a more menacing vibe from Teixeira, who some recalled making comments they perceived as racist or mumbling derogatory things about people under his breath. …
One student recalled him showing up for school wearing a shirt with an AR-15 on it the day after a mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
Just because he didn’t turn up at that high school with a rifle one day doesn’t mean that Teixeira is not responsible for deaths. It may even be a large number of deaths, if the documents he put into a public space have been used by Russian forces in planning attacks. In recent weeks, the number of aerial sorties by Russia in some areas of the front has reportedly increased. Was that because they were aware of how Ukrainian air defenses were situated? Probably not. But we can’t be sure.
It’s likely we will never be sure how Teixeira’s actions have affected things in Ukraine, but he wasn’t some kid playing with make-believe characters in a video game to amuse his friends. He was a member of the U.S. military sharing top secret documents in an insecure forum in a way that put real people, real soldiers on the ground, civilians in Ukrainian cities, and relationships between entire nations at high risk.
One more thing, before I let all this go. Here’s how The Washington Post described Teixeira’s online community in their dewy article on Wednesday evening.
The gathering spot had been a pandemic refuge, particularly for teen gamers locked in their houses and cut off from their real-world friends. The members swapped memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat.
Memes? What kind of memes? They were racist memes. The entire site was named after a racist meme. Other outlets haven’t shied away from making it clear that racism was a staple of Teixeira’s online community, along with anti-gay “jokes.” The one example we have of a video featuring Teixeira shows him making racist and antisemitic statements between firing a gun at a target. That aspect of this story should not be ignored or glossed over.
Discord is a highly useful tool. I belong to numerous Discord groups—one that talks about model rockets, another on astrophotography, and one that offers support for owners of a cheap and cantankerous 3D printer—but even in the most innocuous group, it’s absolutely certain that someone will show up spewing racism or threats of violence. Those people are shown the door by good group administrators. But Teixeira’s group on Discord, which was run by Teixeira, didn’t do that. It was violence welcoming. Racism welcoming. It also appears, if Teixeira is in fact the person who leaked these documents, that it was crime welcoming.
And now, I really do hope I don’t have to talk about that guy, in this place, again. Also … WTF, Washington Post? What editor approved these things? The only thing I can say is, you’re not alone.
Just heard MSNBC live reporter say that there are no indicators Jack Texiera—hard right Catholic gun zealot & conspiracy theorist who hated government, called Ukrainians pigs, and screamed racist & antisemitic memes—has any “political motives.” [posted by Jeff Sharlet]
Moving on.
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 137
So disappointed and disgusted that they haven’t done so already even knowing the Congress numbers.
Yeah, it’s almost as if that the Dems make a lot of promises they never intend to keep while enforcing voter loyalty with scare stories about what the mean old Republicans will do if the Dems lose.
May 9 is the day Russia celebrates the 1945 surrender of Nazi Germany. It’s long been a national holiday, with parades not just in Moscow, but every regional capital and many smaller cities across the nation. Except this year is going to be different.
With the parade less than a month away, events in the cities of Belgorod and Kursk have been canceled. Those cancellations have reportedly been made because there are security concerns since those cities are capitals of oblasts that border Ukraine. Certainly, Ukraine has demonstrated more than once that it can reach out to Belgorod, which is less than 50km across the border near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian helicopters famously conducted a low-level flight into Belgorod a year ago this month to take out a fuel depot in a daring attack […] Since then, Ukraine has acted several times, using MLRS, long-range artillery, and drones to hit targets at the military base and railroad deports in Belgorod.
[…] there’s another reason that celebrations this year may be considerably toned down, and not just in these Ukraine-neighboring oblasts. [Tweet and image at the link]
Oryx (who is planning to take a break soon after not just performing a difficult job over the last year and a quarter, but also after being a constant target for online abuse) currently logs Russia’s documented loss of tanks in Ukraine at 1,908. The Ukrainian general staff sets the number at 3,650.
Whatever the real number, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that Russia has lost over half its active tank force. In particular, the T-72B3 and T-80BV that have been the workhorses of the Russian military for decades have taken a huge hit. Many of the tanks lost in Ukraine were built in the 1980s or 1990s. Replacing them at the current rate of Russian production will take years, if not decades. At least 60 newer T-90 tanks have been lost, which is thought to be at least a third of Russia’s active fleet. [Tweet and video at the link]
Over the last few months, older and older tanks have rolled into Ukraine. That includes rolling in hundreds of older T-62 and T-64 tanks, and more recently, 70-year-old T-55s like the one in the Twitter image above. As Forbes reported earlier this month, even when Russia can find a newer tank rusting in a rail yard or storage facility, it lacks the ability to repair them quickly enough to address the losses it is suffering in Ukraine.
A 41-ton T-62 with its 115-millimeter smoothbore gun, or a 40-ton T-55 with its 100-millimeter rifled gun, isn’t just easier for Russian industry to restore than a newer T-90 or T-72 is—after all, the T-62 or T-55 requires fewer ball bearings and electronic components. The older tank also is easier for its crew to operate.
That last sentence is particularly critical because Russia isn’t just running out of tanks; it’s running out of tank crews. The old tanks, with manual loading and simplistic fire controls, are easier to operate when Russia puts men inside who have never seen a tank before. And that’s what they’re doing. With the expected results. [Tweet and video at the link]
Of course, Ukraine also has tanks based off the T-64 in the fight, but not all T-64s are created equal. Updated with improved armor, new communications, thermal sites, and electronic fire control, a T-64 can still be a highly effective weapon … so long as it doesn’t have to stand toe-to-toe with a newer tank. But the ones Russia is bringing to Ukraine have little or no new systems. They’re just 20th-century tanks in a 21st-century war.
As the Atlantic Council reports, the cancellation of Victory Day celebrations has as much to do about the shortages of both tanks and troops as it does with concerns over security. They cite numerous commentators who believe Moscow is…
… understandably eager to avoid highlighting the scale of the losses suffered by the Russian army in Ukraine. Whether the real reason is security issues or equipment shortages, the decision to cancel this year’s Victory Day parades represents a painful blow for Vladimir Putin that hints at the grim reality behind Moscow’s upbeat propaganda portrayals of his faltering Ukraine invasion.
They’re a big blow to Putin because, since coming to power, he has elevated Victory Day into a day that doesn’t just commemorate victory in World War II, but celebrates Russia’s supposed role as an reborn superpower on the world stage. Putin has extended the celebration into an entire “quasi-religious victory cult complete with its own dogmas, feast days, and heretics.”
Victory Day, with its ranks of goose-stepping soldiers, blocks of rolling tanks, and examples of big, big missiles, has been elevated as “the defining day in Russian history,” as much about the future as the past. That makes any diminishment of Victory Day a blaring signal that things have gone very, very wrong.
Even with a reported 97% of the Russian military currently tied down in Ukraine, there’s little doubt Putin can cobble together enough gear to put on a good show in Moscow. If nothing else, there are some dozens of the new T-14 Armata tanks which, despite repeated claims, are yet to make an appearance in Ukraine. The few that exist are all prototypes, outfitted to varying degrees, with many lacking systems necessary before they could be sent into combat. Still, they can probably look good in Moscow for an afternoon. Probably. [video at the link of T-14 tank breaking down during a Victory Day parade.]
That video came from just after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Putin was able to keep up the pretense of Russian power then, and he can probably do it now … though some of the historic tanks rolling through Moscow streets might just keep rolling to the west when they’re done to replace those lost in the last month.
Soldiers who show up to demonstrate their skills at drilling in a real sharp coat might also want to think about what happens when they get to the end of the parade route this year. Because trains might just be waiting.
One year ago today, at this exact minute (0114 EEST), the cruiser Moskva rolled over and was promoted to command all undersea orc vessels in the Black Sea.
The rest of the fleet will be joining their flagship shortly.
Slava Ukraïni! [images at the link]
RUSSIA HAS A ONE-TRACK MIND
On Friday, the Ukrainian military reported that it had repelled 49 Russian attacks at various points along the line, primarily around Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
At Kreminna, Russian forces were again reportedly turned back at Dibrova, indicating that Ukraine continues to hold this position just outside the city. Russian forces failed in an attack near Stelmakhivka, west of Svatove and in the perpetual effort to take Novoselivske. There were reports on Thursday that Russia had used aircraft to bomb a power station in the forest south of Kreminna, but that station primarily provides power to the area Russia currently occupies […]
Ukraine reports that they repelled Russian attacks in the Bohdanivka and Predtechyne areas of Bakhmut, Russia is reporting more success there. Right now, I don’t have the evidence to say. However, Ukraine seems to have been repelled by Russian attacks outside the city, including at Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Ivanivske. One concerning name on the list this morning: Novomarkove. This town is southwest of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, which could represent Russia advancing across fields to attack in a new direction. Half of all the attacks reported on Friday appear to have been in the Bakhmut area.
Barely any actions were reported around Avdiivka, at least in the form of attempted advances by Russian forces. That’s also true of positions across the southern part of the line—though there are reports that Russia is gathering forces for an attack at, you guessed it, Vuhledar.
Much of what is in the morning update aligns with a report that was published yesterday indicating that, according to Ukraine at least, Russia is now incapable of sustaining multiple lines of attack. It’s investing everything it has in Bakhmut and can’t mount a major effort elsewhere […]
Russia isn’t just hurting for equipment and ammunition; it’s seriously short on leadership at every level. Bad logistics, poor command, equipment shortages … add it all together, and it seems that no matter how many people Putin shovels into Ukraine, they can put together an offensive at only one location at a time. Even then, this is not actually a “large offensive.” It’s a lot of small offensives that are all happening in proximity. Russia appears to be incapable of directing coordinated actions across a large force.
That doesn’t mean Russia can’t mount an effective defense. At locations west of Kherson city, Russian forces showed they could defend positions even when they had diminished equipment and were under withering fire. So no one should assume that Russia’s inability to conduct a coordinated offense means it will be hot-knife-meets-butter time when Ukraine goes on the offense. […]
ORTHODOX EASTER IS COMING
And Ukrainians of all ages take their eggs very seriously. [Photo of Easter egg painting workshop in Kyiv]
More details concerning the guy that Greg Abbott is planning to pardon:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is planning to pardon Daniel Perry, the man convicted of murder for killing a Black Lives Matter protester at a rally in Austin in July 2020. Abbott is citing a “Stand Your Ground” law after Perry ran a red light and accelerated his car onto a street filled with protesters, then shot Garrett Foster, a protester who approached the car while openly carrying an AK-47. [carrying that AK-47 is legal in Texas, and the gun was never aimed at Perry.] That Abbott wants to make Perry into cause celebre given the bare facts of the case is bad enough, but on Thursday, the Houston Chronicle released a 76-page filing by Travis County prosecutors that should really make Abbott think again, but probably won’t.
The filing includes page after page of social media posts and private messages filled with racism, violent imagery, and, tellingly, a strong preoccupation with exactly what counts as murder when it comes to killing protesters. The man did research on what he might be able to get away with—a search for “degrees of murder charges,” web history looking at Wikipedia on murder in United States law, a status posted about the distinctions between different degrees of murder and manslaughter, discussions of people who drove into crowds of protesters. Daniel Perry didn’t just happen to drive onto a street with protesters and then shoot and kill one of them. This was something he’d thought about a lot.
On May 31, 2020, Perry shows how he is thinking this through:
DANIEL PERRY: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
JUSTIN SMITH: “Can you legally do so?”
DANIEL PERRY: “If they attack me or try to pull me out my car then yes.”
DANIEL PERRY: “If I just do it because I am driving by then no.”
So that’s the first question for Greg Abbott: Do you want to pardon the guy who not only murdered someone, but murdered someone after doing his research on different types of murder charges and showing a preoccupation with driving into crowds of protesters?
The second question for Abbott would probably involve some of the more overtly racist things Perry said and shared. Just one with the n-word, apparently, but you don’t need to use that word to be unbelievably racist, like when Perry shared “a meme with a photo of a woman holding her child’s head under the bath water and the text reads, ‘WHEN YOUR DAUGHTERS FIRST CRUSH IS A LITTLE NEGRO BOY.’”
Perry also compared Black Lives Matter protesters to monkeys at the zoo and said, speaking for himself, not sharing a meme, “To bad we can’t get paid for hunting Muslims in Europe.” How about that, Gov. Abbott? Still can’t wait to pardon him?
But that’s not all prosecutors want on the record about what Perry was up to online. They also have him searching for “good chats to meet young girls” and messaging with multiple underage girls, with the strong implication that he had a sexual relationship with one too young to have her driver’s license. This is the guy Greg Abbott wants to make into a heroic martyr of the right.
There are also some messages exchanged that you really want more context on, like this one:
OUTGOING MESSAGE: “He is now saying they threaten him.
”JUSTIN SMITH: “Probably. Sounds like he got kidnapped.”
OUTGOING MESSAGE: “Look just fix it.”
JUSTIN SMITH: “Literally how.”
OUTGOING MESSAGE: “By ensuring this never happens again contacting me and my father if he contacts you.”
JUSTIN SMITH: “I’m sorry.”
OUTGOING MESSAGE: “And tell me if the money shows up.”
That exchange goes on from there, concluding:
OUTGOING MESSAGE: “I am legally not allowed to talk about said issue anymore.”
OUTGOING MESSAGE: “I will hit you up on the DL.”
Daniel Perry was obsessed with protests, especially protests for racial justice. He was specifically interested in when it was permissible to kill protesters. He was also sharing racist memes, saying his own personal racist stuff, and hitting on teenage girls. This guy is a real prince. And Abbott isn’t the only Republican who has defended him:
Dan Crenshaw said a convicted murderer who shot a Black Lives Matter protestor shouldn’t only be pardoned but also *compensated.*
Now texts and social media posts were just released showing the murderer calling Black people “animals” he wants to hunt and saying “I am a racist.”
Maybe Republicans will back away from Perry a little bit following the revelations in this filing, with their racism and obsession with teenage girls and evidence of premeditation. But that’s not a given. And even if they back away now, they were willing to go with him right up to murder. This is where we are right now: Major politicians in one of the major parties support murderers if the murderer is on their side politically and the victim was on the other side. It’s hard to see how you come back from that.
Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s team has come up with a proposal to take to President Joe Biden in debt ceiling negotiations. [Sort of—”discussions” are ongoing among Republicans.]
[…] an actual plan for discussion is in the works. It would lift the debt ceiling until May 2024, with the assumption that the Treasury could take measures to extend it until November, thus making sure it’s a major issue in the election. The strings they attach to that are going to prove unacceptable to the White House and Senate Democrats.
The House GOP has refined their ask from their previous demands that Biden undo the whole of his term so far. Now they have put numbers to those demands, which are mostly steep cuts to all but defense spending. They added nuking Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Also making sure people can’t afford to make their homes more energy efficient by repealing some of those tax credits. And, of course, they will demand work requirements for people on social assistance programs. They also want to strip executive branch authority in rule-making on almost everything. So, just a few simple things.
The “Main Street” caucus of Republicans, who cast themselves as the reasonable people, have their own plan, which echoes much of that but also tosses in a “Mandatory Spending Commission” to come up with solutions for “increasing the sustainability of Social Security and Medicare” that “will not include cuts to Medicare or Social Security benefits.” The commission would look at “unnecessary” mandatory spending “unrelated to Medicare and Social Security” to sacrifice in the name of shoring up those programs. In other words, Medicaid.
The White House is not impressed. “If today’s reports are true, Speaker McCarthy is adopting the extreme MAGA House Republican position: threatening our economic recovery, hard-working Americans’ retirement, and catastrophic default in order to force devastating cuts to veterans’ health care, education, and other programs that lower costs for working families,” Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary, said in response to the reports.
They know this is dead on arrival if it ever makes it out of the House, so that much of it is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the timeline they appear to be setting for themselves. [Tweet at the link] That’s Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. The end of the April legislative session is just eight legislative work days away.
What’s more, next week in the House will mostly be taken up by the all-important work of making the lives of trans children even more miserable. They’ll be working on the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” for most of the week. The bill would amend Title X to ban transgender students from competing in sports designated for women or girls.
The chances that McCarthy can actually get his raucous caucus under control to come up with a debt ceiling plan 218 members agree with are slim enough. The idea that he could do it in eight days is laughable.
Several people have died of starvation, and possibly many more, from what police say was a “radicalized” Christian pastor in Kenya leading them in a fasting ritual.
At least four were found in an emaciated state and died while being rushed to the hospital in a police rescue operation on a house in the county of Kilifi.
They were among about fifteen people found in the house fasting. Most are now in stable condition, but police are investigating reports there may be as many as 30 more buried in a local forest…
“The information we received is that the people there were being starved after being radicalised by a certain member of a church who told them that their work in this world is done and they should die and go and see their creator. So far the information at hand is that there are more people who are believed to be in the bush.”
All of the dead belong the Good News International Church. Police have blamed the deaths on its leader, Pastor Makenzie Nthenge, who was not immediately available for comment…
[…] Republicans reacted to the racism allegations with derision. But on Thursday, The Tennessee Holler, an independent reader-supported website, released leaked audio of a closed-door meeting of House Republicans after the expulsion votes. They angrily confronted one of their colleagues, Rep. Jody Barrett, who had unexpectedly voted against ousting Johnson after pledging that he would.
And they talked a lot about racism.
Have a listen to the nearly 10-minute clip The Tennessee Holler released. Captions can be found in the red bar near the center. [Audio at the link]
Barrett’s Republican colleagues turned on him, saying he should have put aside his reservations about the resolution to expel Johnson, rather than make his colleagues look bad.
Rep. Jason Zachary said that for the last three days all he’s heard from Democrats is “how this is the most racist place … even white supremacist. Good lord, we have to realize they (Democrats) are not our friends …They destroy the republic and the foundation of who we are.”
And he told Barrett: “Man, you hung us out to dry … This would’ve been bad anyway, but good God … it brought the racism into it because you didn’t stay with us.”
Barrett asserted that […] after reading the expulsion resolution, he didn’t feel it made the case for Johnson to be removed. Barrett explained his thinking at the time as follows: “I’m concerned I’m going to vote ‘yes’ on a resolution that I know is wrong,” and added that he didn’t want to “put my name on something I knew was gonna be in the annals of history as being wrong.”
Barrett did vote to expel Jones and Pearson. In an NPR interview last week, he pointed out that Johnson was the only one of the three representatives facing expulsion to be represented by legal counsel. He said her lawyers pointed out deficiencies in her expulsion resolution, while House leaders failed to establish what it was that she did to rise to the level of expulsion.
Rep. Scott Cepicky told Barrett he should have raised his concerns about expelling Johnson with party leadership, which “would’ve given us the opportunity to not throw the party under the bus.”
Cepicky was particularly upset that Tennessee Republicans were being made to look racist. (Note: Even before the expulsion votes, Tennessee GOP lawmakers had already built a record of making racist remarks and passing racist legislation.)
A clearly angry Cepicky said, “I’ve been called a racist, a misogynist, a white supremacist more in the last two months than I have my entire life. And by golly, I’m biting my tongue. And I’m telling you, all due respect, those days are wearing thin right now.”
And lest anyone have any doubts, he declared that Republicans consider themselves to be at war with Democrats.
“If you don’t believe we’re at war for our republic, with all love and respect to you, you need a different job,” he told Barrett. “The left wants Tennessee so bad because if they get us, the whole Southeast falls. And it’s game over for our republic. This is not a neighborhood social gathering. We are fighting for the republic of our country right now. And the world is staring at us—are we going to stand our ground?”
And then Cepicky blurted out this gem about one of the reinstated Black lawmakers.
“I’m going to have to swallow this seeing Mr. Jones back up here walking these hallowed halls that the greats of Tennessee stood in. And watch them disrespect this fucking state that I chose to move to. And by golly, it’s got to stop.”
And then he made this remarkable comment which sums up the political cynicism of the current Republican Party. “You got to do what’s right, even if you think it’s wrong.” That, of course, means what’s right by GOP standards.
Jones spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper Thursday night, after listening to the leaked tape. [video at the link]
He told CNN:
“it was just very surreal to hear the commentary — and to hear from them that they really are reenacting the Civil War. …. So you hear this mentality that is very extreme and very alarming. We’re dealing with people who … don’t believe that someone like me or Rep. Pearson, young black lawmakers, even deserve to be in the legislature.
“But you also hear them fighting amongst each other. I’ve heard from Republicans who are calling on the House Speaker Cameron Sexton to resign. There is a lot of division in their caucus. You heard in that recorded conversation just the infighting and the dysfunction in the Republican Party here in Tennessee because they’ve been controlled by these extreme forces. … And it shows that they’re not free to think for themselves either, that If you diverge from their caucus leadership then you’re seen as an outsider like Rep. Barrett is being seen now.”
As Rep. Cepicky stated, “the world is staring” at Tennessee’s House Republicans. And what do they see? What Rep. Johnson describes: a “mentality that is very extreme and very alarming.”
Finland is building the first stretch of a fence on its border with Russia on Friday, less than two weeks after it joined the NATO military alliance to complete a security U-turn taken in response to the war in Ukraine.
Fearing retaliation from the east following its NATO application, the government decided last year to construct the barrier, primarily in case Russia moved to flood the border with migrants.
Finland aims to guard against a repeat of events on the European Union’s eastern frontier in Poland in winter 2021, when the bloc accused neighbouring Belarus – a staunch Russian ally – of engineering a crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East, giving them visas and pushing them across the border.
Made of steel mesh, the Finnish fence is scheduled to cover some 200 kilometres (125 miles) of the most critical parts of its border by the end of 2026. Project manager Ismo Kurki said on Friday that, while it is not intended to stop any invasion attempt, the fence will have surveillance equipment…
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik on Friday told his ally Serbia he was seriously considering declaring the autonomous Serb Republic independent from the rest of Bosnia unless a row over a property law is resolved.
Dodik’s hardline Serb nationalism and pro-Russian stance have raised concern that Bosnia might fracture again along ethnic lines, a generation after its devastating war…
On Thursday, the Missouri House voted in favor of passing the grotesquely titled Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act (SAFE Act), which would make it illegal not only for doctors to perform gender-affirming surgeries on children under the age 18, but to even prescribe them hormone treatments or puberty blockers, which are reversible.
But this was not enough for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. […] So Andrew Bailey decided to go and issue an “emergency rule” barring gender affirming care not only for children, but for many adults as well.
[…] To be clear, “the science” actually supports gender-affirming care [Andrew Bailey’s actions are] likely in response to the already debunked and refuted account from Jamie Reed, a former employee of the Washington University Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, who claimed in an article published earlier this year that the hospital’s staff was just going around transitioning every kid who walked through the doors without telling them or their parents about potential side effects and not really caring if the kids were actually transgender or not. [That’s some weapons-grade disinformation!]
“This emergency rule is necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, and also to protect a compelling governmental interest as the attorney general is charged with protecting consumers, including minors, from harm and investigating fraud and abuse in the state’s health care payment system,” the emergency regulation states.
According to the press release, the rule will prohibit gender transition interventions when the provider “fails” to,
– ensure that the patient has received a full psychological or psychiatric assessment, consisting of not fewer than 15 separate, hourly sessions (at least 10 of which must be with the same therapist) over the course of not fewer than 18 months to explore the developmental influences on the patient’s current gender identity and to determine, among other things, whether the person has any mental health comorbidities
– ensure that any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved
– ensure that, for at least the 3 most recent consecutive years, the patient has exhibited a medically documented, long-lasting, persistent and intense pattern of gender dysphoria
– with respect to a patient who is a minor, ensure that the patient has received a comprehensive screening (at least annually) for social media addiction or compulsion and has not, for at least the six months prior to beginning any intervention, suffered from social media addiction or compulsion
– maintain data about adverse effects in a form that can be accessed readily for systematic study
– adopt and follow a procedure to track all adverse effects that arise from any course of covered gender transition intervention for all patients beginning the first day of intervention and continuing for a period of not fewer than 15 years
– obtain and keep on file informed written consent
– ensure that the patient has received a comprehensive screening to determine whether the patient has autism
– ensure (at least annually) that the patient is not experiencing social contagion with respect to the patient’s gender identity
The vast majority of this “emergency” rule is based on the bizarre right-wing theory that thousands of children who are not actually trans are claiming to be trans due to “social contagion,” which is not a thing. Multiple studies have shown that this is not a thing (Restar et al., 2019; Kuper et al., 2019; Kennedy, 2020; Bauer et al., 2021; Sansfaçon et al., 2021; Sorbara et al., 2021; Puckett et al., 2022; Turban et al., 2022; Brakefield et al., 2014) and that the reason two children who are friends might both come out as transgender is better explained by the mere fact that people tend to hang out with people like themselves (Aral et al., 2009; Shalizi & Thomas, 2011).
The regulation also bars adults who have autism from transitioning. Some studies have shown that gender dysphoria is more common among people with autism, but it is entirely unclear why autistic adults would be specifically barred from transitioning. Is it that Bailey assumes that autistic people are being nefariously preyed upon by doctors desperate to do gender-affirming surgeries? If so, to what end? […]
Rep. Peter Meredith (D-St. Louis) brought up the fact that Moon had previously supported a bill that would have allowed adults to marry children as young as 12 as long as the child’s parents were cool with it. You know, like how many parents of 12-year-old girls were okay with their children marrying Warren Jeffs or David Koresh.
Moon owned this, retorting, “Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They’re still married.” This is not entirely surprising as someone who raises their own spouse is likely to exercise a certain amount of control over them that might make it difficult for them to leave. It also seems rather unlikely that a girl who gets married to an adult at 12 would have been allowed to go to college or get any sort of training that might make her able to be financially independent.
This just shows that all of this is has nothing to do with whether or not people are able to make good decisions at any age or whether they should be allowed to make life-altering ones […] This is about these people and the world they want to live in. They do not want to live in a world in which they have to deal with the existence of transgender people. […] And they really don’t like living in a world where they no longer have the social power to dissuade people from coming out for fear of rejection.
Both the bill and the emergency rule are absurdly cruel and will result in thousands of children and adults at best being chased out of the state of Missouri entirely and at worst being traumatized for life. These are decisions that should be made between patients, their doctors and, if they are underage, their parents. Not by some random Republican politicians who want to be able to live in a world that makes sense to them.
birgerjohanssonsays
I see Sarah Michelle Gellar aka Buffy the vampire killer turned 46 today.
About 40 school districts in Indiana canceled in-person classes Friday after receiving emails threatening the use of explosives on several campuses.
No suspicious or explosive devices were found […] an ongoing trend of non-credible threats […] Earlier this week […] Illinois saw similar threats.
“And this has been going on almost weekly since at least the beginning of the school year in August […] multiple school districts receiving multiple threats across multiple states all within the same day.”
The Supreme Court on Friday paused a rapidly developing legal battle over the abortion pill mifepristone, temporarily suspending a lower court’s ruling that imposed limits on access to the drug so that justices have more time to review the case.
The order from Justice Samuel Alito does not signal which way the court is leaning but it does temporarily delay restrictions that abortion rights advocates warned could significantly limit availability of the drug. President Joe Biden hours earlier asked the high court to intervene to block a lower court’s decision upholding those restrictions.
The order maintains the status quo on the drug’s access until Wednesday at midnight…
Motherboard has discovered a swatting-as-a-service account on Telegram that uses computer generated voices to issue bomb and mass shooting threats against highschools and other locations across the country. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report:
Known as “Torswats” on the messaging app Telegram, the swatter has been calling in bomb and mass shooting threats against highschools and other locations across the country…
Torswats carries out these threatening calls as part of a paid service they offer. For $75, Torswats says they will close down a school. For $50, Torswats says customers can buy “extreme swattings,” in which authorities will handcuff the victim and search the house…
A new ad released by pro–Donald Trump super PAC MAGA Inc hit out at the governor, centering the 30-second video around reports that DeSantis has eaten pudding with his fingers. Originally reported in the Daily Beast, two sources alleged that the governor ate the dessert with three fingers while on a private plane ride from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C. in March 2019.
Glad to see Republicans addressing the serious issues.
A billionaire Texan property tycoon linked to the Duchess of York has been accused of financing a sex-trafficking ring in the US.
Trammell Crow Jr, who Sarah Ferguson has reportedly struck up a friendship with, has been named in a lawsuit by two women who claim he financed a sex and labour trafficking venture…
Speaking of Crow, this from the link @ #113 was interesting:
“The surrounding properties had fallen into disrepair and needed to be demolished for health and safety reasons,” Crow said in his statement. He added that his company built one new house on the block “and made it available to a local police officer.”
Who? Why? Was it for free security for Thomas’s mother? Some other reason?
World Bank staff were apparently told to give preferential treatment to the son of a high-ranking Trump administration official after the US Treasury threw its support behind a $13bn (£10bn) funding increase for the organisation, a leaked recording suggests.
Shared with the Guardian by a whistleblower, the recording of a 2018 staff meeting suggests colleagues were encouraged by a senior manager to curry favour with the son of David Malpass, who is now president of the World Bank but at the time was serving in the US Treasury under Donald Trump.
During the recording, which has left the Washington-based organisation facing questions over standards of governance [LOL], staff refer to 22-year-old Robert Malpass as a “prince” and “important little fellow”, who could go “running to daddy” if things went wrong.
Campaigners said the case could undermine the World Bank’s mission, which includes combating the erosion of public trust in civic institutions by promoting good governance.
Staff were apparently told Robert was the son of the undersecretary of the US Treasury, which had played a “beneficial” role in helping the World Bank secure an endorsement for the multibillion-dollar capital injection.
The recordings also suggest it may not have been the first time the international development bank had hired a family member of an important global figure. “Remember we had a ‘prince’ before … that is a subject for happy hour,” a staff member is heard saying.
The World Bank said it could not confirm the contents of the recording, but added it was “both false and absurd” to suggest that there was any connection between an entry-level hire and the multibillion-dollar capital increase.
The findings raise concerns over internal standards at the World Bank Group (WBG) [LOL], which is governed by high-ranking officials from across its 189 member states, and is holding its spring meeting alongside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington this week.
It will also raise further concerns over David Malpass’s term as World Bank president. The economist announced his early resignation in February, months after he controversially failed to say whether he accepted that fossil fuels were causing the climate crisis….
[…] Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that Teixeira was “white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime.” Greene went on to say that the U.S. government is the real enemy for “waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers.” In a follow-up tweet, Greene described Teixeira as a fall guy for “exposing the truth about Ukraine” and said that “the same people that want to take away your guns, are waging war, in a foreign country, without permission from congress.”
On Thursday evening, Tucker Carlson not only defended Teixeira, but claimed that he was a whistleblower being singled out for “telling the truth” about Ukraine. Because of this, claimed Carlson, Teixeira is being treated “like Osama bin Laden, maybe a little worse.” Bin Laden was shot in the head, then buried at sea, and he was probably dead even before he was shot. So just possibly his treatment is a bit rougher than being arrested at home while wearing gym shorts.
Carlson then went on to read figures from online documents. Except that he skipped the documents Teixeira actually uploaded and went straight to a laughable photoshop from Russian media that showed Ukraine losing seven times as many soldiers as Russia. This, said Carlson, was how Teixeira had revealed that “Ukraine is losing the war.”
Carslon and Greene are not alone. Because the first response of the right to a racist, antisemitic loner who fetishizes guns and obsesses over violence is to pull him in and make him a hero. Just like they did with Kyle Rittenhouse.
Those who read the daily “Ukraine Update” will know that a portion of that update over the last two days has been dedicated to taking The Washington Post to task for their treatment of Teixeira, both before and after his arrest. On Thursday, the paper described Teixeira, who had at that point not been named, as a “charismatic” member of a group formed by young men “seeking companionship” who bonded over their love of guns, the military, and God. On Friday, the Post was back after the arrest to insist that the “slim and boyish” Teixeira “came from a patriotic family.” That included starting off the article with Teixeira’s mom making a proud post on Facebook and buying him a “patriotic-themed balloon.”
If this sounds like the same kind of sickening drivel that is used all too often in pearl-clutching post mortems of a mass shooting incident, those where the shooter is white, that’s not a coincidence.
In their coverage, CNN spoke with others who had known Teixeira in high school. Those conversations revealed a young man who classmates remembered him because he made racist comments, “mumbled derogatory things about people under his breath,” gave off a “menacing vibe,” carried a “dictionary-sized book on guns,” and wore a shirt featuring an AR-15 to school the day after the mass shooting in Las Vegas.
If Teixeira is actually the man responsible for leaking dozens of classified documents, he was not a kid playing video games. He was a member of the U.S. military who betrayed the trust of his superiors and fellow servicemembers. He damaged relationships between nations and violated security in ways that are likely to make future planning more difficult. He placed real soldiers, in the midst of hard and bitter fighting in the muddy trenches around Bakhmut and all along the front lines in Ukraine, at increased risk.
The documents, which include both information Teixeira compiled and summarized himself, as well as photographs of maps, tables, and other information, included those classified as “Top Secret.” Some of these carried codes indicating they were not to be revealed to foreign nationals, even allies. Among the items posted were details of both U.S. and Ukrainian military capabilities, positions of Ukrainian air defenses, and an analysis of Ukraine’s positioning for a possible counteroffensive against invading Russian forces. And more. A lot more. The total number of documents released appears to be in the hundreds.
In one particularly egregious example, by revealing the location of air defenses in the middle of a war, Teixeira knowingly placed the lives of every single Ukrainian military and civilian at risk. The Washington Post may describe him as young, charismatic, slim, and boyish. But try telling that to a mother wailing over the body of a child killed by a Russian missile.
[…]
Teixeira posted these documents to a Discord server where he reportedly served as administrator. That server, named “Thug Shaker Central,” reportedly included members from outside the United States, including from unspecified locations in Eastern Europe. Those members were reported to be particularly interested in the documents Teixeira posted.
[…] The name of the site itself is drawn from a racist, anti-gay meme. […]
For Greene, the arrest of Teixeira simply represents another opportunity to be outrageously vile. Which is her one and only talent. Greene has no concern about the results of Teixeira’s actions.
In 2017, while working for a military contractor, former Air Force Senior Airman Reality Winner sent a copy of a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election to the online news site The Intercept. In later interviews, Winner said she sent the document because she was concerned about the measures Russia was taking to influence U.S. elections and, in particular, their role in the 2016 election.
The document she sent did not include any information on military dispositions, either in the U.S. or elsewhere, and very little that might be a threat to either sources or methods. It was a brief post-election analysis of Russia’s impact on the election, which Winner insisted she took because “I am somebody who only acted out of love for what this country stands for,” and she felt the public “was being lied to” when it came to Russia’s role in the election of Donald Trump.
Winner was arrested even before any of the material in the report appeared in print. In August 2017, she was sentenced to 63 months in prison for this single violation of the Espionage Act. It was the longest sentence ever imposed for the unauthorized release of government information to the media.
A case can certainly be made that Winner really was a whistleblower, out to inform the public about facts being withheld by a government that benefited from general ignorance. No such case can possibly be put forward concerning Teixeira. He made no effort to bring the documents to the attention of the public, the media, or any authority. He used them primarily to inflate his status among a group of young men exchanging LOLs about guns and racism.
When it comes to Carlson, his motivations certainly overlap with those of Greene, but in a way, they’re purer. Carlson just wants Vladimir Putin to be successful in his invasion of Ukraine, and he means to help by using any means at hand to reduce U.S. support for the Ukrainian effort.
[…] Both Greene and Carlson also claimed that Teixeira’s slides show “direct U.S. involvement” in Ukraine, a feature that has already been picked up on by Russian state media, which is enjoying this leak as much as might be expected. [Tweet and video at the link]
The claim made here—that Teixeira’s leak shows a breakdown of the security under Biden—also echoes statements made by Greene, Carlson, and others on the right. Except Teixeira formed his group and began leaking in 2020—under Donald Trump. Don’t expect them to acknowledge that while turning Teixeira into their next big right-wing hero.
[…] the time from now until Trump declares that he would give Teixeira a full pardon can likely be measured in milliseconds.
[…] The Washington Post’s Philip Bump analyzed how traditional media outlets like MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNN, and Fox News were covering the news [news about the financially swampy relationship between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Texas billionaire, conservative donor, and Nazi artifact collector Harlan Crow]. It turns out that in the case of Fox News, they aren’t covering it all that much. Over a ten-day period after the news broke, Fox News has mentioned Thomas’ name in less than 50 segments, all less than 15 seconds long, according to The Washington Post.
To put this into perspective, over that same period, MSNBC has mentioned Thomas almost 500 times. As for the name Harlan Crow? Fox News has almost never mentioned his name.
[…] Fox News is barely mentioning the Supreme Court story, and talking all the way around the various Donald Trump legal indictments and trials and potential indictments, what are they talking about? According to the analysis, Bud Light. The beer. You see, Bud Light signed a sponsorship deal with internet celebrity Dylan Mulvaney [a trans celebrity]. The deal seems to have included Mulvaney making sure to create product placement social media posts.
Mulvaney’s sponsorship deal led to former celebrities like Kid Rock to start shooting Bud Light cans with guns in protest. Fox News covered that more than 183 times. This coming from the network that spends a considerable amount of of resources trying to torture conspiratorial connections between billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and … everything happening that they don’t like. […]
The Justice Department announced charges against 28 Mexican drug cartel leaders and members on Friday, targeting the infamous Sinaloa cartel and the children of former drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the charges, focusing on the cartel’s fentanyl trafficking, filed in the Southern District of New York, the Northern District of Illinois and Washington, D.C.
Defendants include at least three sons of the imprisoned El Chapo, known as the “Chapitos”: Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar and Ovidio Guzman Lopez.
A statement from the Justice Department also mentions a fourth Chapito, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, as a defendant in this case.
The Chapitos are accused of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, among other charges.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested in January and “charged in a separate indictment alleging the same offenses.” He is still detained in Mexico pending extradition proceedings, according to the Justice Department.
Other defendants in the case include suppliers in China selling fentanyl precursor chemicals to the Sinaloa Cartel, a Guatemalan-based broker who purchases the precursors on behalf of the cartel, and operators of labs in Mexico where the cartel manufactures fentanyl.
Also charged were a weapons supplier who provides the cartel with firearms smuggled to Mexico from the U.S., leaders of the cartel’s security and money launderers who fund the cartel’s operations, Garland said.
“The United States government is using every tool at its disposal to combat the fentanyl epidemic,” Garland said.
Garland said that between 2019 to 2021, fatal overdoses in the country increased by over 94%, with an estimated 196 Americans dying every day from fentanyl poisoning.
“Families and communities across our country are being devastated by the fentanyl epidemic,” he said. “From August 2021 to August 2022, 107,735 people died of drug overdoses in the United States. Two thirds of those deaths involve synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.”
Garland also outlined how the cartel “operates without respect for human rights, for human life or for rule of law,” describing incidents where defendants fed victims, dead and alive, to tigers belonging to the Chapitos.
The cartel also allegedly used human test subjects in fatal fentanyl experiments.
“In another instance, those defendants experimented on a woman they had been ordered to shoot. Instead they injected her repeatedly with fentanyl until she overdosed and died,” Garland said.
“And after an addict died testing a batch of the cartel’s fentanyl, one of the defendants sent the batch to the United States anyway.”
A total of eight of the defendants are currently in custody, Garland added.
Although Friday’s charges concerned the Sinaloa Cartel, the initiative is part of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s push to target major drug trafficking organizations like Sinaloa and its main rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
The Biden administration also announced Friday that it is increasing cooperation with Mexico to combat the trafficking of fentanyl coming north into the U.S., while also cracking down on the trafficking of guns going south into Mexico….
Tennessee Speaker Cameron Sexton is the Republican representative from Crossville. Or is he? Popular Information’s intrepid Judd Legum […] has been investigating whether Sexton actually lives in his district, or if he bought an expensive house in Nashville, moved his family there, but has nonetheless been dinging Tennessee’s taxpayers to the tune of thousands of dollars of per diem expenses.
Who wants to guess which way this is going?
Thanks to Legum’s reporting, Sexton admitted last week that he did indeed move his family to Nashville […] Furthermore:
Sexton went to considerable lengths to obscure his purchase of his home in Nashville. He established an anonymous trust, the Beccani Trust, to buy the property. Cameron Sexton’s name does not appear anywhere on the documents memorializing the sale and the mortgage. A financial advisor based in Utah, Bret Bryce, was appointed trustee and signed most of the documents.
But Sexton’s wife, Lacey Sexton, signed the warranty deed for the property as the “affiant.”
This is 100 percent how you do real estate purchases when everything is on the up and up and you do have nothing to hide, such as whether you may now be ineligible under Article II, Section 5a of the Tennessee Constitution to represent the place you used to live that is two hours away from the state capital.
Sexton did at some point buy a condo in Crossville as a way-less-than-adequate residency fig leaf. Then he neglected to pay the property taxes on it until Popular Info brought it to the public’s attention.
Also, there is this:
But members who live more than 50 miles outside of Nashville are entitled to a much larger per diem, $313 in 2022, to cover the cost of lodging in Nashville. Sexton has taken the larger per diem, which is pegged to the cost of a hotel room in Nashville. On the forms, Sexton claims a roundtrip commute of 236 miles.
These per diems are also available when the legislature is out of session if a member has to travel to Nashville to conduct official business. Sexton makes extensive use of that privilege, consistently charging taxpayers the larger amount.
Since 2021, Sexton has charged Tennessee taxpayers $92,071 in per diem expenses.
Ninety-two thousand dollars in under two years! A fella could easily pay off two years of property taxes on a condo with that windfall […]
You might wonder what happened to #WomanLifeFreedom in #iran . Here is a long [thread] for you after a while on the eve of the Saturday that state has threatened women with a harsh faceoff! Focus of this thread is the compulsory #hijab :…
A response: “Even in the recent religious nights of Ramadhan women took part in the ceremonies without hijab.”
Followup to comment 71. More discussion about Hasan Crow’s collection of Nazi memorabilia, etc.
[…] Even in the privacy of your own home, it does not make sense to honor victims of tyranny with statues of the tyrants or knickknacks from their regimes. How does a signed copy of “Mein Kampf” speak to the horrors of Nazism? How does a “resolute” statue of Stalin capture the misery of the gulag or the murderous brutality of his rule?
They don’t. They can’t. So why are they there?
I don’t know what is in Crow’s heart. But he is a wealthy man. He is a powerful man. And power is attracted to power. “Crow might earnestly think he is buying this stuff to provide some kind of object lesson about the perils of tyranny,” writes John Ganz, my friend and podcast co-host, on Substack, “but there is an unavoidable suggestion of idolatry and vulgar power-worship just under the surface.”
That’s right. Does Crow secretly admire these figures of his fascination? […] He doesn’t respect the weight and meaning of the histories in question.
What Crow has done is trivialize them. He has made them objects of curiosity. He has stripped them of specificity; they are meant to represent evil at its most generic and abstract. “Tyranny” here doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a word. […]
Even in the least litigious of times, Fox News attracts lawsuits like flies to falafel. But after brutally defaming Dominion Voting Systems (allegedly!) with its barmy stolen-election nonsense, the network has recently found itself reeling from a barrage of legal haymakers. The latest? Abby Grossberg—the former Fox News producer who last month filed suit against the network, claiming that Fox lawyers browbeat her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case—has amended her lawsuit. CEO Suzanne Scott is now a co-defendant, and Grossberg alleges the company’s lawyers improperly deleted messages from her phone.
In her initial complaint, Grossberg stated Fox’s lawyers tried to set her and Fox host Maria Bartiromo—who, to be fair, is the journalistic equivalent of an incontinent emu running loose in a TGI Friday’s—up as patsies who were ultimately responsible for the network’s airing of easily disprovable conspiracy theories. Grossberg also claimed the network’s scapegoating was a result of the misogyny and discrimination that (allegedly!) prevails at the network.
Now Grossberg is claiming Scott was complicit in the lawyers’ alleged misconduct, which, according to the complaint, included tampering with evidence.
CNN:
In Grossberg’s amended complaint filed this week, she accused Fox’s lawyers of deleting messages from her phone. The lawsuit says Grossberg gave her phone to Fox lawyers in 2022, and “that certain messages between Ms. Grossberg and Ms. Bartiromo were missing/appeared to have been deleted” when she got the device back from Fox’s team.
The topic of potentially missing or withheld evidence is looming large over the Dominion case. A judge sanctioned Fox on Wednesday for withholding key material from Dominion — audio recordings of Bartiromo talking off-air with Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
Ah, yes. Rudy Giuliani. […] He has a starring role in Grossberg’s new filing as well.
The Daily Beast:
Grossberg, who is suing the conservative network for harassment and a toxic work environment, claims that the behind-the-scenes conversations with Giuliani, former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and Trump campaign officials featured them admitting they had no evidence to support their Dominion election fraud lies.
Additionally, she says an adviser of former President Donald Trump pointed out the importance of January 6 weeks before the Capitol attacks, noting that the adviser said there were “no issues” with voting machines and January 6 was now the “backstop” for determining the election.
Well, that sounds significant. So what, exactly, was in these tapes?
During a recording in mid-November 2020, according to Grossberg, Giuliani admitted to Bartiromo that the Trump campaign couldn’t prove some of its Dominion allegations. Asked by Bartiromo what evidence he had implicating Dominion in rigging the election, Giuliani allegedly said “that’s a little harder.” He also conceded that he had no evidence to back up the conspiracy theory that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had an interest in Dominion. “I’ve read that. I can’t prove that,” he said.
Ginni Thomas has reassured the American people that she is doing everything in her power to keep her husband’s mounting ethical issues from interfering with her work on the United States Supreme Court.
Acknowledging that her husband’s controversies were a “distraction,” Thomas said, “They shouldn’t keep me from doing the important work I was sent here to do.”
“There are reproductive rights to shred and environmental protections to erase,” she said. “Regardless of the mess Clarence has gotten himself into, I need to keep my focus.”
Calling her post as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court “a job I’ve loved for the past three decades,” Thomas said, “I’m hopping mad that Clarence would do anything to jeopardize that. But anyone who thinks that I’m giving less than a hundred per cent to my work doesn’t know what Ginni Thomas is made of.”
Approximately 18,000 cows were killed in a blast at a Texas dairy farm earlier this week, according to local authorities.
The explosion, at South Fork Dairy near the town of Dimmitt, also left one person [human] in critical condition.
Authorities believe that machinery in the facility may have ignited methane gas.
Nearly three million farm[ed] animals died in fires across the US between 2018 and 2021.
…
Speaking to local news outlet KFDA, Sheriff Sal Rivera said that most of the cattle [sic] had been lost after the blaze spread to an area in which cows were held before being taken to a milking area and then into a holding pen.
“There’s some that survived,” he was quoted as saying. “There’s some that are probably injured to the point where they’ll have to be destroyed.”
Mr Rivera told KFDA that investigators believed the fire might have started with a machine referred to as a “honey badger”, which he described as “vacuum that sucks the manure and water out”.
“Possibly [it] got overheated and probably the methane and things like that ignited and spread out and exploded,” he said.
In a statement sent to the BBC, the Washington DC-based Animal Welfare Institute said that – if confirmed – a death toll of 18,000 cows would be “by far” the deadliest barn fire involving cattle [sic] since it began keeping statistics in 2013.
“We hope the industry will remain [?!] focused on this issue and strongly encourage farms to adopt common sense fire safety measures,” said Allie Granger, policy associate for AWI’s farm animal program. “It is hard to imagine anything worse than being burned alive.”…
Anything in brackets other than “[it]” is my editorializing. What are we doing here?
Republicans have lost the culture war by winning their most cherished goal. So now they are trying to whip up an anti-trans frenzy. It isn’t working. My latest column.
[NYT link at the link]
The horrifying laws being passed to punish trans people in states the GOP controls are a harbinger of what’s to come and ordinary people, unsurprisingly, want no part of it.
Republicans seem to think that transphobia is the perfect post-Roe wedge issue. But the abject cruelty of their post-Roe lawmaking blitz has only alienated the swing voters wedge issues are meant to peel off.
Abortion rights and trans rights are two sides of the same coin, and the anti-trans bills have demonstrated that clearly. Republicans want to police your body. Is it surprising that Americans are rejecting this? Of course not.
Centrists of a certain type seem to have become convinced that supporting trans rights is a liability for Democrats. They are working in a long tradition of sacrificing queer lives on the altar of so-called moderation. This is wrong and cruel.
Bill Clinton courted the gay vote but then enacted laws that specifically targeted the dignity of queer people. Centrists – I urge you: do not do this. It will not help you win power statewide or nationally.
While writing this column I thought often of my grandmother, a rock-rib Wisconsin conservative who voted for every Republican presidential nominee from Barry Goldwater to Mitt Romney. In 2016 she couldn’t bring herself to vote for Trump. (She didn’t vote Hillary either!)
She raised a gay son and loved her Black grandchildren, one of whom (me!) is queer. We lost her in 2020, but I know in my bones that she would not countenance this cruelty.
This madness is weird and unpopular. [quote from the article at the link]
Through a random chain of links and events I ended up doing cursory internet research on 17th- and 18th-century British history, and, in a moment of anti-drag laws, came across
He was reputed to own the best wig in Scotland…
To my unfathomable disappointment, there is no citation for this claim. However, there’s a painting at the (WP) link.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, asks the Russian authorities to declare the end of the war and concentrate on gaining a foothold in the occupied territories of Ukraine…
Pakistani police arrested on Friday a Muslim woman on charges of blasphemy after she allegedly claimed she was an Islamic prophet, a charge that can carry the death sentence under the country’s laws.
The woman was taken into custody from her home in the city of Faisalabad in eastern Punjab province, shortly after a mob had gathered outside demanding that she be lynched after news spread of her alleged claims of prophethood, senior police official Nasir Ali Rizvi said.
Rizvi identified the woman as Sana Ullah and said two other people were arrested with her. He said she would be brought before a judge to face the charge against her…
A man who used a stolen riot shield to crush a police officer in a doorframe during the U.S. Capitol insurrection was sentenced on Friday to more than seven years in prison for his role in one of the most violent episodes of the Jan. 6 attack.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 15 years and eight months for Patrick McCaughey III, which would have been the longest sentence for a Capitol riot case by more than five years.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden sentenced McCaughey to seven years and six months in prison followed by two years of supervised release. The judge described McCaughey, 25, as a “poster child of all that was dangerous and appalling about” the Jan. 6, 2021, riot…
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he will not enter the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
In an interview with Fox News, the devoted ally and defender of Donald Trump opted out of a contest that would have put him into competition with his former commander in chief.
“The time is not right for me and my family,” Pompeo said in a statement later posted to Twitter…
Oh bullshit. He had his people run some polls and found out there was no way he could win.
The SSU has exposed another FSB agent during counter-sabotage activities in Sumy Oblast. He turned out to be a local resident, whom the Russian special service involved in covert cooperation even before the start of their full-scale invasion…
North Bay Village Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe, who skipped a vote Thursday passing a divisive measure that would cut the threshold for abortion in Florida from 15 to six weeks, wants to clarify he was for giving women twice that amount of time.
The reason the House didn’t pass a 12-week ban instead, he said, is because Democrats — who hold just 30% of the seats in either chamber — were unwilling to work with GOP lawmakers…
Montana made history on Friday by becoming the first state legislature to approve a wholesale TikTok affecting nearly all devices in the state. The first-of-its-kind ban, which goes far beyond previous state efforts banning the app on government devices, could set the precedent for a wave of TikTok bans in other Republican-led states. Widespread TikTok bans, for better or worse, could become a reality.
The state’s House of Representatives voted in favor of the bill, called SB 419, by a margin of 54-43 on Friday afternoon. Montana’s state senate already approved the bill back in March, meaning the only thing preventing it from becoming law is a signature from governor and known journalist body-slammer Greg Gianforte. Once signed, the ban will take effect in January 2024. However, the bill would become void if Congress enacts its own national TikTok ban. The bill also wouldn’t apply if TikTok divests its US business from Chinese ownership. ..
wzrd1says
The Wagner decapitation videos just adds to their laundry list of war crimes, not that it matters much, as mercenaries aren’t protected by the Geneva or Hague Conventions, but still representing Russia, opens Russian forces up to reprisals for violation of the conventions.
The last reprisal actions I can recall are of Waffen SS troops, who summarily executed civilians and Allied troops being summarily executed themselves.
Teixeira, he’s an Air National Guard service member on federal duty as a systems administrator. Shitty reporting claims that he should have had access to the documents, but that’s not best business practices in civilian or military environments where least privilege is the standard. The system account and specific applications, as well as the backup job accounts need access, not the SA’s. So, a shit ton of people were, again, not doing their fucking job and some idiot kid will end up paying the price, while they all move forward in their dereliction of duty filled careers, rather than sharing a cell block with him.
Manning’s case had a different dereliction of duty, deleterious personnel action was pending and by regulation, access should have been immediately terminated and wasn’t. The termination of access, to prevent precisely what happened from happening.
I was a senior NCO and after retiring, an SA/NA and later, IA (Information Assurance, information security title in the US DoD). Both were and remain utterly unacceptable.
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #188…
One wonders just how the Montana state government plans to enforce their ban…
wzrd1says
Maybe they’ll have the Montana National Guard march to China and invade?
Or they’ll incarcerate every kid in the state that uses their site and/or client software?
Seriously, this is like trying to repeal the law of gravity. You can try to, but it’s utterly unenforceable.
StevoRsays
@ ^ 190 whheydt & #191. wzrd1 : Cyberwarfare of some kind? A compulsoryu TikTok destroying program – software that is maybe?
.***
US authorities in north-western New Mexico have released body camera footage of police officers opening fire and killing a home owner after they showed up at the wrong address in response to a domestic violence call.The video released by the Farmington Police Department on Friday — just over a week after the April 5 night-time shooting — showed officers arriving at the home.
They walked up to the front door, passing the address that was posted on the home and illuminated by an exterior light, knocked on the door and announced themselves.
While knocking twice more, the officers can be heard asking a dispatcher to confirm the address and to tell the caller to come to the door. The dispatcher states the address of a home across the street.
It was soon after that the home owner, armed with a handgun, opened the door and the officers immediately began shooting, firing multiple rounds as they backed away. The man can be seen dropping to the ground.
About a minute afterwards, a woman can be heard screaming inside the home and more shots ring out.
Authorities have said the man’s wife returned fire from the doorway, not knowing who was outside, prompting the officers to fire again.
She was not injured but could be heard screaming and crying after the second volley of shots were fired.
Ukraine’s top general Valeriy Zaluzhny shared a video showing the effectiveness of US-provided M982 Excalibur shells against Russian forces…
The GPS-guided 155 mm shells offer an accurate, longer-range alternative to conventional artillery shell, capable of hitting within seven feet of their target.
The Excalibur has a range of 25 miles…
StevoRsays
Tragic loss of an unknown number of brave lives :
Every year, hundreds if not thousands of West African migrants disappear, trying to reach the Canary Islands and, they believe, better lives in Europe.
The real death toll is unknown, and so many people and boats are never seen again.
However, in 2021, something strange happened.
The boats — from the Atlantic coastal nation of Mauritania and other African nations, believed to have been used by migrants — weren’t making it to the Canaries. They were emerging on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Caribbean, and even as far as Brazil.
All carried a sad cargo — the bodies of young men and women who had dreamt of a new life in Europe. Few were ever identified.
They had drifted to death.
For nearly two years, AP journalists traced the origins of one boat and the people who died in it.
The City of Adelaide has 182 years of history, but today marks the first time an Aboriginal person has been honoured on its chamber walls.A portrait of Ngarrindjeri and Boandik elder Aunty Shirley Peisley — taken by Aboriginal artist Ali Gumillya Baker — was unveiled at Adelaide Town Hall on Friday, as part of an initiative to include a series of portraits of prominent women in council chambers.
Ms Peisley — a fierce advocate for Aboriginal rights — was heavily involved in campaigning in the lead-up to the 1967 referendum, which allowed the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people, and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to be counted in the census. She was the first female Aboriginal Probation and Truancy officer, working in the Youth Court in the 1970s and, in 2000, she received an Order of Australia Medal for her services to the Aboriginal community.
Josh Marshall, quoting from a Wall Street Journal article:
Let’s Not Kid Ourselves
From the Journal …
The people in the online spaces where Airman First Class Jack Teixeira spent his time and allegedly leaked highly classified documents had many things in common. In obscure game forums and private online chat rooms, his friends posted slurs against minority communities, Ukrainians and pretty much everyone else.
Everyone, that is, except Russians.
Members of that small community, hosted on the social-media app Discord, admired President Vladimir Putin’s regime and its war on Ukraine.
I’m tired of hearing about inflation and jobs reports, what we need in this country is an insufferability index, measuring the degree to which our quality of life is impacted by the shrieking inanity of the American Right in decline. That number would be off the charts this week. The charts I just made up.
Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk cited junk science and authority granted nowhere in actual law to ban the abortion pill mifepristone, because he’d had quite enough of this women-having-bodily-autonomy hooey, thank you very much.
Now, I like having basic human rights removed by Federalist Society weirdos as much as the next fellow, but the electorate has sent no subtle signals since Dobbs. The American public will not passively submit to the revanchist whims of minoritarian zealots bent on shittiness for its own sake.
Of course, like so much of objective reality, this is proving to be a difficult concept for Republicans to wrap their wee minds around. They can’t quite figure out where this “youth vote problem” came from, but with thought leaders like Scott Walker and Kellyanne Conway on the job, I’m confident they’ll find a steady stream of creative excuses to avoid the obvious.
Poor Tim Scott tied himself in knots, and right when he’s launching what some feel obliged to pretend is a campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, too. Mockery aside, Tim doesn’t really need a good answer on abortion, or on anything at all, if we’re honest, given the, ahem, other obstacles he faces in the contest to lead the…y’know…the white nationalist resentment cult.
Actually, I think Texas Congressdolt Tony Gonzalez may’ve hit upon the solution: simply change the subject, and the issue will vanish into the cool night air! Women are flighty creatures, and once they’re restored to their natural station, they’ll be too busy with housework to even think about controlling their own bodies.
Yeah, I bet that works. I bet DeSantistan’s new six-week abortion ban never comes up during the entire presidential campaign, not once, cuz Ron cleverly signed the bill late at night, rather than in a showy, public ceremony. Curses! Outfoxed again, just like Disney!
I dunno. Given the ground he’s already ceding on the pudding issue, I don’t see it happening for DeSantis, though of course, you never really know what Republican primary voters will do, because their brains don’t work.
As predicted, Tennessee Republicans’re feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse over last week’s authoritarian shitfit. Seems nobody bothered to investigate procedural next steps before sending out invites to their big Excommunicate the Urban Black Guys party, so Justins Jones and Pearson barely had time to greet their new, national following before returning to work.
In addition to empowering those they sought to sanction, the other thing Tennessee Republicans accomplished was drawing the world’s attention to all the fashy shenanigans they’ve been up to of late. […]
They sure had fun with their little expulsion vote, though.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t have to defend a plutocrat’s collection of Hitler memorabilia just because he bought Clarence Thomas’ mom’s house. Owning Hitler paintings is pretty fucked up, regardless of any Supreme Court Justices whose lavish lifestyles you may or may not be corruptly financing.
Another thing you don’t have to say out loud is that you think 12-year-olds should be allowed to marry. Meet Missouri State Senator Mike Moon, by the way. Oh, and “Moon’s support of the practice resurfaced during a committee hearing on a bill introduced by Moon that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender children,” which goes without saying, I suppose.
Missouri Republicans’re also working to defund libraries statewide, because it’s quicker than pulling the books about Black people off the shelves individually.
Surprise, surprise, Tucker Carlson’s tougher in his texts than in real life, where he submissively offered his platform up to the doddering fuckwit he once called “a demonic force, a destroyer,” to rant about all his favorite dictators.
And sure, that was pretty emasculating, but nothing a few hours under the ol’ scrotum tanning machine couldn’t fix.Tucker was back on his feet in no time, lionizing the 21-year-old jackass who perpetrated the most damaging national security breach in years to impress a handful of asshats in a Discord chat.
(Marjorie Taylor Greene is also a fan, no doubt believing Jack Teixeira will upload the Jewish space laser schematics as soon as he finds a spare moment.)
Fox News was sanctioned (yay, incidentally) for withholding evidence in the Dominion case, another gleaming example of that organization’s general trustworthiness.
Greg Abbott coulda sworn it was legal in Texas to gun Black Lives Matter protesters down in the street, and he’ll get right on that next legislative session, but for now, he wants the world to know he’s working as quickly as humanly possible to turn a convicted murderer loose.
As you’d imagine, a wingnut like Abbott doesn’t hand out a ton of pardons, but obviously this dude is a special case, given his proudly stated racism. Oh, and his fantasies about killing protesters. Which are documented. And specific. “Might have to kill a few people on my way to work,” that sort of thing.
Yeah, we’ve seen this behavior before, and we’ll see it again. Some wound-up, armed-to-the-gills loser goes cruising for a fight so he can shoot his way out of it. Call it Rittenhousing. And Abbott is far from alone on the Right in believing it should be completely legal. Which is fairly terrifying.
Governor Tate Reeves once again proclaimed Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi. There’s no denying Tate keeps spirit of the Confederacy alive, overseeing the highest poverty rate and highest infant mortality rate in the nation. Truly, the South rose again that time Reeves led his state to the fourth-highest COVID death rate…in the world.
Well, their culture venerates failure, and I suppose we have to respect that.
Kevin McCarthy’s assclown caucus celebrated 100 days of Jim Jordan and James Comer Punching Themselves in the Groin on C-SPAN For Some Reason. […]
There’s now an overpriced anti-trans beer to go with the overpriced anti-trans chocolate bar, for those who enjoy lighting their money ablaze in fleeting displays of petulant hate. Meanwhile, Bud Light’s enjoying all the free advertising that comes with being the official adult beverage of Not These Screeching Bigots, secure in the knowledge that, as Dan Crenshaw so elegantly proved, Republicans are too stupid to successfully boycott anything.
Seems like only yesterday we were laughing at Elon Musk for setting the Guinness World Record for losing money, but he turned everything around this week, by covering up the W in “Twitter” (GET IT HAW HAW HAW) on the side of a building, and trolling NPR into leaving his platform. He’s so good at business, I frequently weep tears of pure admiration.
Congratulations to Arizona state Representative Liz Harris, for being shitty and crazy and dishonest enough to get expelled from a Republican-controlled legislature. I’m honestly impressed. In the state party of Kari Lake and Mark Lamb and Sheriff Joe and the Bamboo Fiber Detection Squad, Liz not only found the line, but crossed it. You should be rewarded for that, with like, a syringe of artisanal, small batch horse dewormer or something.
I see George Santos uncovered the deep state plot to ban toilet paper, which one of ya squealed? […]
Also returning Is J.R. Majewski, who lied about his military record en route to losing his last congressional election by 13 points, in the red wave that wasn’t. Majewski, you’ll recall, rose to MAGA prominence by painting Donald Trump on his lawn, which is the sort of thing swing voters usually go nuts for, so it must’ve been the valor theft.
A Donald Trump speech at an NRA convention is too fucking much for me on a Friday night, but check it out if you hate yourself, I guess.
[…] Trump may be our drama queen as he stumbles his way toward oblivion, but to the evil forces of the world, he is their stooge. He shares that distinction in an inverse relationship he has with his own rabid followers. They serve as his stooges while he picks their pockets.
[…] No one cried for him this week. They were too happy watching him finally face the music. Swan songs are rarely this anticipated— judgment rarely this welcomed.
A rather extraordinary story about the search for an intriguing meteorite that fell in PNG back in 2014 here albeit soem pretty wild speculation on its possible nature :
A team of Harvard University scientists is planning an expedition to Papua New Guinea to investigate the origin and make-up of a rare interstellar meteor, fragments of which are believed to have crashed into waters near Manus Island. n 2014, US ballistic missile systems identified an object that had collided with Earth’s atmosphere and it was added to a NASA “meteor catalogue” of 272 objects.
However — under closer examination by physicist Avi Loeb and his student Amir Suraj — it was discovered it was moving too fast for it to be bound to the sun.
Essentially, that means it went over the solar system’s speed limit, which scientists say indicates it must have travelled from a far-flung region.
“It was moving faster than 95 per cent of all the stars in the vicinity of the sun,” Professor Loeb said.
“We wrote a paper about it and the US government confirmed it, with 99.999 per cent confidence in our identification, and released data about the fireball that was created when the meteor exploded 10 kilometres above sea level.”
Their studies also indicated the material the object was made up of was 10 times stronger than any other known space rock, which enabled it to travel well into Earth’s atmosphere before combusting.
Plus a venus sized exoplanet found around a red dwarf toolcose and likely lacking an atmosphere I’d guess from similar worlds including the closest of the Trappist 1 worlds:
This morning, as it has every morning for the last eight months, Bakhmut holds. The question now is: Has Bakhmut held long enough?
That’s a different questions from “Why is Ukraine fighting in Bakhmut?” or “Should Ukraine withdraw from Bakhmut to save its forces?” Both of those were about the appropriateness of Bakhmut as a theater of combat, and whether Ukraine was causing sufficient damage to the Russian military by remaining in this place to justify its own considerable losses. Months ago, the Ukrainian leadership made it clear that, so far as they were concerned, the answers to these were “Because so long as we keep fighting there, another city is not being destroyed” and a very definite “Yes.”
The constant stream of obituaries that finish with “in fighting near Bakhmut” makes it clear that the cost of holding this city has been very, very high. And there are some indications that Ukraine is backing away from the city, removing some of its forces from the cauldron at the center—yes, for real this time. However, that pull back may not be directly in response to what Wagner Group is doing this week. In fact, it may be the other way around. Wagner may be advancing because Urkaine is pulling back. Right on schedule.
Back in February, one of the soldiers inside the city wrote this on a Telegram post: “Our task from the beginning of the year: ‘Hold Bakhmut until the beginning of April.” Similar messages targeted “mid-April.” Last month, Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed to be aware that something was coming around the same date, warning that April was the date for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Now it’s mid-April, and Ukraine may be withdrawing from the streets of Bakhmut. But are they ready to conduct the counteroffensive that could make all the sacrifice in the city worth it?
Maybe Prigozhin’s letter last month was effective, because there are reports that much of the advances in Bakhmut over the last few weeks have come as Wagner Group is getting better support from regular Russian military. That combined firepower is reportedly giving Russian forces in the city a boost, perhaps explaining how they were able to move from the river to the railway station much more quickly than they captured blocks to the east and south. [UK Intelligence Update available at the link]
Once again, Russian forces are occupying the railway station at the center of Bakhmut, and it doesn’t seem to be “managed to get a few troops near before withdrawing” this time. Reports are that Russia has solidified its position to the east of the station and that Ukrainian forces are no longer fighting in the area across the railroad line. To the north of the station, those tracks still look to be the boundary between Ukrainian and Russian forces, with fire being exchanged across the rails. To the south, Russian forces are again reportedly pressing in to the T0504 highway. [map at the link]
All the old familiar places that Russia and Ukraine traded back and forth for so long—the winery, the drywall factory, etc.—are off the map to the east. This is just the last western nub of the city. However, don’t expect Ukraine to vanish from the rest of Bakhmut overnight. Reports continue to indicate that fighting is going on block by block, house by house.
Wagner and Russian Telegram are also filled with messages about Ukraine leaving behind traps and remote controlled explosives, so that when Russians seek shelter in buildings Ukrainian forces just abandoned, they get a nasty surprise. How many of these reports are true is hard to say, but the constant spread of these stories probably makes Russian forces very reluctant to step through any door in Bakhmut. [video at the link]
Russian forces are reportedly “flooding into” Bakhmut from the east and north. Additionally, as noted in the UK situational report, artillery fire in the city is intensifying. Earlier this week, there were reports that Ukraine had also sent more reserves to the area, however those reserves don’t seem to have entered the city proper—which appears to be a very good idea. Because Russian artillery is able to drop into that remaining area from three sides, making the what’s left or Ukrainian-controlled Bakhmut a very difficult place to be.
Right now, it appears that Ukraine is conducting, and will continue to conduct, a “fighting retreat” from Bakhmut. Unless Russian forces are somehow exhausted—and at this point, we’re passed what seems like a thousand different experts using some variant on the phrase “almost culminated”—it looks like Ukraine will withdraw from Bakhmut around the end of the month.
In a lengthy letter on Telegram, Prigozhin admits that the value of the city for Russia is extremely limited.
The strategic role of Bakhmut is not so great. Bakhmut is followed by Siversk, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Konstantinivka, Druzhkivka and Chasiv Yar: settlements that are part of the so-called “Donbas ring” and form a fortified area. On the one hand, Bakhmut is part of this fortified area, on the other hand, the capture of Bakhmut itself will not ensure a short-term victory over Ukraine, the road to the Dnieper, or even the capture of Donbas.
Bakhmut the city, the citizens, the tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who have fought there, the thousands who have died, have held the attention of the Russian military for eight months. In that time, Ukraine has acquired new Western weapons and its forces have undergone extensive training. Most,of the images which the the Ukrainian military has published for the last few months is not of combat along the front lines, but large groups of Ukrainian forces drilling and training away from the lines.
This has not slipped Prigozhi’s attention.
The Ukrainian army has gathered a sufficient number of forces. About 200,000 already sufficiently trained fighters, who have undergone two to three months of training and coordination, are ready to carry out combat missions. The amount of weapons and ammunition is quite enough for these 200 thousand to go on the offensive in various directions.
His worry is that right now, with Russia focusing on Bakhmut and only Bakhmut, those Ukrainian forces could go essentially anywhere. It’s taken months for Russia to assemble the bulk of its force in one place, and even longer for Russia to put together something that seems like a unified push in that single location. In Bakhmut, but nowhere else, Russia seems to be able to exert its will. The opinion of analysts in Ukraine, and the Pentagon, is that Russia’s logistical and command structure currently can support only one significant offensive push. [video at the link]
Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut today
Will Ukraine be able to move in some other region before the last forces give up that remaining toehold in Bakhmut? If Russia is able to claim victory in Bakhmut, and forces of both Russian military and Wagner disperse to other locations, will it be much more difficult for Ukraine to stage an effective counteroffensive? Will Russia be able to keep the tentative cooperation it’s built in the center of Bakhmut and use it to conduct a successful operation elsewhere, maybe in less than eight grinding months, and possibly without shedding 1,000 men a day?
Yeah. Those are questions. That’s what those are. Unfortunately, they don’t come packaged with answers.
Prigozhin’s letter also claims that lengthy battles like Bakhmut are part of a U.S. plot to draw out the war, causing the Russian people to grow disillusioned with the government and turn to more liberal politicians who will end the war and move Russia into greater alignment with the West. […]
More Ukraine updates, (and news from Sudan is included).
LEOPARD 1, LEOPARD 2
If the Ukrainian counteroffensive is waiting on Western equipment, particularly main battle tanks, then there’s both good news and bad news. The good news is that more of those tanks are coming Real Soon Now. [Tweet and video at the link]
This is a Danish Leopard 1A5 which has reportedly finished the necessary repairs and updates needed before being sent to Ukraine. Denmark has promised to transfer a truly gratifying 100 of these tanks to Ukraine. Unfortunately, this is one of the first such tanks reported to be ready to roll, and even when it arrives in Ukraine, the welders are likely to go to work adding additional bits of armor and protection from pesky drones dropping grenades. In other words: These tanks will definitely not be in Ukraine this month.
Reports this morning indicate that Canada has increased the size of its crash program for teaching Ukrainian tankers to operate the Leopard 2. The eight Leopard 2 tanks sent by Canada are reportedly either already in Ukraine or near the border in Poland, but the presence of crews still being trained makes the idea that of these Leopard 2 crews are about to hit the front lines worrisome.
There’s no doubt that Ukraine has assembled a significant, better trained, better rested force away from the front lines. It’s not clear if any of those forces, should they roll out in the next few weeks, would include units formed around Western main battle tanks.
THAT DIDN’T WORK. THAT ALSO DIDN’T WORK.
The Ukrainian military has released this image of Russian tanks that were destroyed in a new series of failed attacks. You get two guesses as to the location, but the first one doesn’t count. Yes, it’s Vuhledar. [Image at the link]
Meanwhile, there are numerous videos and images on Telegram and Twitter this morning that show a failed Russian attack in the woods to the south of Kreminna. This is also one in a big series of failed Russian attacks in a very small area. [tweet and video at the link]
The Ukrainian General Staff situation update actually reports 56 repelled attacks in the last 24 hours, which is up slightly from earlier in the week, but still well below last month’s average.
CREATURES OF THE NIGHT, UNITE
Okay, I don’t usually post images of prisoners of war, but this Russian guy … when they cut Wagner off from its supply of death row inmates, did Prigozhi start recruiting nosferatu? Do we have a Dog Soldiers situation here? [image at the link]
SLOVYANSK HIT BY MISSILE
A missile strike in the city of Slovyansk has hit an apartment building, killing a reported nine people. [Image at the link]
Russia fired a reported thirteen S-300 missiles into Slovyansk and the nearby city of Kramatorsk, this morning. Those cities are essentially the end goal in Russian efforts to capture Donetsk oblast — a goal currently being held up at Bakhmut.
This is one of the largest missile strikes Russia has launched in the last month, but it was still small compared to earlier waves of missile attacks. The S-300 appears to be the only missile which Russia still has in relative abundance.
MEANWHILE, IN SUDAN
Within the last few hours, intense fighting has erupted by the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces in the capital city of Khartoum. Rebel forces have reportedly taken control of the nearby air base in the village of Jabal Awliya.
Those rebel forces are commanded by Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was formerly closely connected to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese military. However, a schism between the two threatens to split both the military and the nation. Part of the reason for that schism seems to go directly back to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. [Tweet and video at the link]
Sudan had previously been enjoying support and investment from Russia, which was helping to prop up the government formed by al-Burhan and Dagalo following the ousting of the previous strongman government in 2019, which was followed by chaos, which was followed by a 2021 coup. In particular, Sudan was giving Russia access to gold mines in Sudan in exchange for weapons and support. That allowed Russia to get easily fungible gold, and kept the Sudanese junta well-supplied.
With pressure from the outside community pushing Sudan to deny access to Russia, and Vladimir Putin’s distraction over Ukraine leading to lessened support for his other projects, the partnership between al-Burhan and Dagalo crumbled.
Honestly, I’m not familiar with either force in this conflict to say whether either of them represent “the good guys.” Even relative good guys. There are levels of connections here that RSF to the government that was overthrown in 2021, which itself was in no way legitimate, and to the one that existed before 2019, which … ditto. The BBC explains more of the rivalry behind the fighting.
All I can say is that images and videos coming out of Khartoum this morning are … kind of nuts. [Tweet and video at the link]
International agencies are calling for a cease fire. Right now, just keep your fingers crossed for the people who live there.
Matthew Kacsmaryk—the far-right federal judge who blocked the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone last week—took his name off a 2017 Texas Review of Law and Politics article and failed to disclose the work to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which requires nominees to disclose all publications, The Washington Post reports. In a draft obtained by the Post, Kacsmaryk argued against Obama administration healthcare protections for the transgender community, as well as for patients seeking abortions, arguing lawmakers had ignored objections of religious physicians. The newspaper obtained emails from Kacsmaryk during his nomination process asking editors to take off his name and replace it with his colleagues’ from the First Liberty Institute. A representative for the First Liberty Institute told the Post Kacsmaryk’s name was merely a “placeholder” and that he did not contribute significantly…
South Dakota’s governor told an audience of people that her two-year-old grandchild has several guns.
While speaking on Friday at a National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbying leadership forum in Indiana, the Republican governor Kristi Noem told audience members her toddler grandchild has multiple guns, reported Mediaite.
During her remarks, Noem spoke about her grandchildren: Addie, who is almost two, and Branch, who is a few months old. Noem then said that Addie already had a shotgun and a rifle.
“Now Addie, who you know – soon will need them, I wanna reassure you, she already has a shotgun and she already has a rifle and she’s got a little pony named Sparkles too. So the girl is set up,” said Noem…
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reportedly spent more than $65,000 of her campaign funds installing a fence at her home, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Ms Greene’s schedule B itemized disbursements show her various campaign expenditures. Included in that list is a $65,257.49 payment to Bartow Fence Company Inc for the installation of an “additional security fence for residence.”
The expenditure is not illegal; FEC rules allow candidates to spend campaign funds on personal security. However, the cost of the fence is more than $10,000 more than the median household income in her district, according to RawStory…
Russian forces are reportedly staging a two-pronged assault on Bilohorivka, south of Kreminna with the major force coming in across the surface mine area to the southeast. Ukraine has repelled several such attacks in the last two weeks, including one within the last 24 hours, but Russian sources are claiming that this one has made more progress into the town.
The small town of Bilohorivka has been a frequent target for Russia because it is one of the few locations liberated by Ukraine in Luhansk, Oblast.
[Tweet and photo at the link: “T-55 confirmed in use by the Russian forces.”] The first T-55 rolled off the line in 1946, and it was placed in regular service in the Russian army in 1948. This one is probably newer … but it’s still likely older than me, and that’s really saying something.
On Friday evening, the National Weather Service’s tsunami warning service delivered a different kind of warning. There was no wave rushing toward shore anywhere, but if one occurred, notice might not appear on Twitter. That warning came because, as the NWS indicated, “Twitter is now limiting automated tweets and as a result, this account can no longer post all tsunami Warnings, Advisories, Watches, and Information Statements as they are issued.”
The new restrictions from Twitter affected far more than just the ability to warn about incoming waves. For example, in San Francisco, the BART system has warned that it can no longer send out automated alerts about service and issues on the line: “Twitter has shut off its free API, and that means we are going dark until we can find a solution.” In New York, the Metro Transit Authority had a very similar message.
From the weather, to earthquake notifications, to closures of national parks, just about any automated system that was tied to Twitter through that platform’s APIs found itself on the outs Friday evening. So did thousands of other services ranging from those which helped people upload images and video, to whose which helped analysts track the activity of bot farms and troll farms.
After a break of about five hours, the APIs on which many of these services depend seem to have been turned back on, but the outage once again showed that under Elon Musk Twitter has become a undendable, and unpredictable, partner.
[…] For now, the worst effects of the Friday night API massacre appear to have been mitigated, but this closing of the taps, even if temporary, has left both developers, and users, once again scrambling for a more reliable alternative.
One of Africa’s largest countries is spinning out of control, as weeks of mounting tensions between two military leaders erupted in battles in the capital, Khartoum, and in other cities.
Fighting raged on Saturday across the capital of Sudan and in a handful of other cities as months of rising tensions between rival factions of the armed forces suddenly spiraled into an all-out battle for control of one of Africa’s biggest countries.
Clashes at a military base in the capital, Khartoum, quickly spread to the presidential palace, the international airport and the headquarters of the state broadcaster. Residents cowered in their homes as explosions rang out and warplanes screeched over rooftops. An internal U.N. report cited about 27 dead and 400 injured.
By Saturday night, it was unclear who was in control of Sudan, a sprawling and strategically important country just south of Egypt.
The chaos was an alarming turn for a nation that only four years ago was an inspiration to both Africa and the Arab world. Jubilant protesters, symbolized in part by a young woman in a white robe, toppled their widely detested ruler of three decades, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, ushering in hopes for democracy and an end to the country’s grinding isolation.
The revolution faltered 18 months ago when Sudan’s two most powerful generals, who are now fighting each other, united to seize power in a coup. But pro-democracy protesters refused to back down, continuing to lose their lives in demonstrations […]
Sudan has become a flashpoint in the wider global rivalry between the West and Russia.
The Kremlin-backed private military company Wagner has deployed mercenaries to Sudan and runs a major gold mining concession, while Russia’s government has pressed Sudan to allow Russian warships to dock at its Red Sea ports.
Sudan’s military, which has struggled to rule effectively, was supposed to hand back power to civilian leaders this month, as part of a Western-backed deal. But any hopes for a peaceful transition were shattered early Saturday when strained relations between the most powerful military leaders — the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the commander of the powerful Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries — turned violent.
[…] As night fell on Saturday, reports that fighting had spread to military bases in the Darfur region stoked worries that some of the region’s numerous heavily-armed rebel groups could get sucked into the fighting.
[…] When in power, Mr. al-Bashir oversaw a brutal campaign of genocidal, state-sponsored violence in Darfur that caused the International Criminal Court to indict him for war crimes, and which paved the way for the rise of General Hamdan, widely known as Hemeti. […]
“Now Addie (almost two yeras old), who you know – soon will need them, (a shotgun, a rifle and a little pony named Sparkles..
What the.. ?!
No gov, a two year old infant needs none of those things least of all deadly firearms. The pony is nice but not exactly necessary and at two years old.. F ing L!
What does she think her kid is going to be needing and doing and is that the sort of world she thinks she’s running and contributing to making? Just .. expletives. Wow.
I expect that this governor would have plenty of secuity measures and bodyguards and protection which.. can’t imagine they’d be impressed with her obvious lack of faithinthem too..
StevoRsays
@ ^ Fix : her obvious lack of faith in them ..
What does she think – that her professional security will be total failures but her 2 year old toddler will save herself by riding away on a pony firing a rifle and shotgun simultanously and that’ll work?
The Washington Post report on Sunday also detailed how Thomas has had errors on his forms for years, many of them tied to his controversial wife Ginni, who became a nationally-known figure in the aftermath of the 2020 election when reports revealed her emails to Arizona officials who were questioning Joe Biden’s victory in that state.
The latest problems for Clarence Thomas are tied to this real estate firm that shut down in 2006.
After it closed, a new firm Ginger Holdings, LLC, which is managed by Ginni Thomas sister, took over the holdings.
But Thomas has reported income from the defunct company – between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years – with no mention of the new firm…
If this person was municipal dog catcher, he would have been tossed out on ethical grounds by now. But since he has one of the most powerful jobs in the country, he is somehow exempt from ethical oversight. It makes no sense.
StevoRsays
The largest rocket ever built, the SpaceX Starship, is possibly going to launch tomorrow~ish my time or aftermorrow in USA timezones. Monday anyhow. See :
.* Including a chart of marine mammals in the splashdown zone with sea turtles and the very rude sounding Phocid pinniped listed separately at the 9 min 47 secs mark.
tomhsays
Re: #210
Even before these latest revelations, Slate had an excellent piece on Thomas and how he has clearly broken the law. It also points out how for years, in various decisions, he has railed against all sorts of disclosure laws. Not to mention it’s also perhaps the best pun in an article title ever….Quid Pro Crow.
“The wealthy political activist who pays for my vacation getaways purchased a house from me in order to build a museum to me” is out of bounds even if Crow wasn’t letting Thomas’ mother keep living in the place. That’s comic book levels of crooked. I mean, for f—s sake.
More details at the link, including a closer look at Ginger, Ltd. and Ginger Holdings, LLC. Excerpt:
[…] In 1982, Ginni Thomas’ now-deceased parents formed Ginger, Ltd., as a Nebraska real estate company, collecting rent from two residential developments. That company ceased to exist in 2006; a new company named Ginger Holdings, LLC was formed with the same business address, with Ginni Thomas’ sister Joanne Elliot listed as the manager. The assets of the former company were transferred to the new one.
Ginni Thomas, notably, “is not named in state incorporation records” for the new company, reports the Post.
That’s where the Post’s answers end and the questions begin. Contacted by the Post, Joanne Elliot suggested the reporters call Ginni Thomas for information about the company “before hanging up,” which is an odd response from the alleged head of the company. So what’s going on?
The most obvious presumption would be that the company was restructured into an LLC for mercurial legal reasons, closing shop and reopening with Joanne Elliot as the manager while distancing sister Ginni Thomas.
Ginni continued to make regular profits from the company. Justice Thomas, however, never bothered to update the new company status—and hasn’t updated it in the nearly 20 years since the original company shuttered.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The Post notes that this error is “among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades,” ones that “raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public.”
That’s not a great use of the raising questions trope, from the Post. There aren’t “questions” to be had how Thomas views his legal responsibilities in public reporting his financial dealings while on the bench. […]
[graphic showing “5 characteristics of science denial”]
Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks “climate change” science is bogus, and its proponents are grifters. She presented her case in a tweet. She starts,
“If you believe that today’s “climate change” is caused by too much carbon, you have been fooled.”
Her “scare quotes” say she does not believe in climate change. However, she leaves it unclear whether she denies the planet is getting hotter — or if she accepts the increase in global temperature but denies it is due to carbon.
More telling is her use of it the passive voice — “you have been fooled.” In doing so, she avoids saying who was doing the fooling. Her opening sentence is both unclear and wishy-washy. It is the hallmark of someone lacking confidence in their argument.
In the second paragraph, she lays out the groundwork for her argument.
“We live on a spinning planet that rotates around a much bigger sun along with other planets and heavenly bodies rotating around the sun that all create gravitational pull on one another while our galaxy rotates and travels through the universe.
Technically the Earth, other planets, and heavenly bodies “revolve” or “orbit” around the sun — a mass rotates around its axis. As for these “heavenly bodies”, my best guess is she means asteroids and comets.
She is correct that our galaxy — the Milky Way — does rotate and travel through the universe. And she is also right that all masses in the universe exert ”gravitational pull” on each other. (Note, astrophysicists no longer believe gravity is a pulling force, but I am probably splitting more hairs.) Overall, Greene offers a reasonably accurate, if simplistic, explanation of things.
Her vocabulary reveals the genesis of her ideas. Her use of “heavenly bodies” illuminates her religious approach to astronomy. ‘Heaven’ is, of course, not a scientific concept.
Then she arrives at her QED moment.
“Considering all of that, yes our climate will change, and it’s totally normal!”
[WTF] She has left us hanging. She does not explain how all this movement leads to climate change — although it is good of her to acknowledge that our climate is changing.
My best estimate is that she has heard the sun drives climate and weather on Earth and has tossed in the rest […]
As for “it’s totally normal,” I hazard that she is referring to the conservative climate-apologist tactic of pointing out that the Earth has had climate change in the past — without bringing up time scales. What used to take centuries or millennia is now happening in decades. Who knows what Greene means — I doubt she could explain it.
Next, she gets to her comfort zone — conspiracy theories.
“But there are some very powerful people that are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams convincing many that carbon is the enemy and that if humans sacrifice enough energy producing things we can actually control the climate.”
She dodged bringing up these anti-carbon activists before by using the passive voice. Now she obfuscates who they are by not naming these “very powerful people”. The genius of her argument is that if you stay fact-free, it is harder to be fact-checked. And it takes far less time and effort to blame shadowy cabals rather than take on the scientific community.
Greene again befuddles her audience by warning that humans may potentially “sacrifice enough energy producing things.” Does she mean fossil fuels? If so, why not just say so? The answer is that her scattershot writing is just more of the watery gruel Greene serves up as a solid argument. […]
She closes with a warning.
Don’t fall for the scam, fossil fuels are natural and amazing. They produce an abundance of energy that we all need to survive along with more products than you can possibly imagine.
Who are the scammers? We still do not know. Fossil fuels are natural and amazing. However, so are funnel web spiders, belladonna, and mosquitos. The first can be venomous; the second, fatally poisonous; and the last spread malaria, which has killed innumerable people over time. “Natural and amazing” is not necessarily the asset Green thinks it is
Greene is correct that fossil fuels produce an abundance of energy — and we need that energy to survive. But humans have invented better alternatives to the old ways throughout our existence. The internal combustion engine replaced the horse. EVs will replace gas-powered cars. It is what we do. There is no need to stop with fossil fuels when so many renewable, clean, efficient, and non-carbon energy sources are available or within our grasp.
Greene is also correct that we make a lot of stuff from fossil fuels. Petroleum products are the basis of many artificial fibers. Manufacturers use them in cosmetics, medicine, packaging, and food dyes. Ironically, one use is to make the plastics that go into solar panels.
However, while the citizen should be concerned that many petroleum-based products are not biodegradable, making consumer products from oil does not add CO2 to the atmosphere — if manufacturers power their plants with alternate energy. CO2 is generally only released when we burn fossil fuels. [Tweet and fossil fuel chart posted by Marjorie Taylor Greene]
Greene finishes with her clincher — a picture that shows a decline in chemicals released into the atmosphere as fossil fuels increase. She is either a moron or a cynic. The decrease in airborne pollution results from ecological policies enacted under the 1970 Clean Air Act and enforced by the newly created EPA. An act and an agency today’s GOP wants to disembowel and diminish.
But far more egregiously, it does not measure the greenhouse gas that Greene is the crux of Greene’s tweet — carbon dioxide, CO2. This omission is not a surprise as the source of this misleading graph is FossilFuture.com — a website that promotes Alex Epstein, a fossil fuel advocate with a computer science/philosophy degree.
If she were an honest dealer, Greene would have used this chart (source: NASA). But that would have shredded her already piss-poor argument. [Chart from NASA showing the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide]
Bad news for people who like delicious food and do not own a bidet! According to psychic QAnon influencer Utsava, the ‘Deep State’ has been putting 5G technology in hot peppers and toilet paper so that they can control your mind and make you hear voices. [Tweets and videos at the link.]
She explains:
The deep state has teamed up a taken over the wireless providers such as Verizon and they are hijacking the wireless technology 5G. It has been used as tool for surveillance, mind control, and tracking. People are getting harassed by all sorts of technology.
For instance, they make people hear voices. So in those hot peppers, jalapeno peppers from Mexico, what I discovered is there’s a coating in there like graphene, it’s some sort of nanoparticles. And it makes people hear voices.
It gets ingested so they surveil you in your brain so they can see what you see, like with the graphene technology. And then they can send the information, all the information. They can give you hallucinations. People having been hearing voices through that.
And I told people, stop eating that and then it goes away. Toilet paper has it in it too. You can have it sitting – the toilet paper – in your bathroom and the 5G gets in the air.
It gets everywhere, the graphene. You don’t even have to use the toilet paper. So that regular toilet paper, Quilted Northern, I would not buy any further. I would look for maybe organic, maybe a recycled one. And also paper towels, they have graphene in them as well.
So our deep state is putting graphene in peppers from Mexico and toilet paper and paper towels for the purpose of controlling our thoughts? Isn’t that … inefficient? Like do they have a whole department of people whose job it is to send messages and voices and hallucinations to people who eat spicy food and don’t walk around with dirty asses? And also look at things through their eyes? Because that seems both very boring and like a logistical nightmare.
Possibly related: I came across a “targeted individual” on Twitter yesterday who claims that “perps” keep microwaving her right little finger for “psychopathic fun.” [Disturbing tweet and images at the link]
Well, everyone needs a hobby, I guess.
Posted by readers of the article:
Bidets also squirt graphene up your booty hole to turn you French!
——————–
I am always somewhat amused when conspiracy theorists state that the government is using some kind of mind control over the citizens, because the people who believe this are the very people who need some kind of mind control to clean all the nonsense out of their brains.
———————-
Just sayin’ for some folks, installing devices in both hot peppers and toilet paper seems wasteful redundance on the part of the deep state operatives, what with hot peppers vastly increasing use of the toilet paper.
The Russian government has become far more successful at manipulating social media and search engine rankings than previously known, boosting lies about Ukraine’s military and the side effects of vaccines with hundreds of thousands of fake online accounts, according to documents recently leaked on the chat app Discord.
The Russian operators of those accounts boast that they are detected by social networks only about 1 percent of the time, one document says.
That claim, described here for the first time, drew alarm from former government officials and experts inside and outside social media companies contacted for this article.
“Google and Meta and others are trying to stop this, and Russia is trying to get better. The figure that you are citing suggests that Russia is winning,” said Thomas Rid, a disinformation scholar and professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He added that the 1 percent claim was likely exaggerated or misleading.
[…] Propaganda campaigns and hate speech have increased since Elon Musk took over the site [Twitter] in October, according to employees and outside researchers. Russian misinformation promoters even bought Musk’s new blue-check verifications.
[…]even if Russia’s fake accounts escaped detection only 90 percent of the time instead of 99 percent, that would indicate Russia has become far more proficient at disseminating its views to unknowing consumers than in 2016, when it combined bot accounts with human propagandists and hacking to try to influence the course of the U.S. presidential election, the experts said.
[…] The document offers a rare candid assessment by U.S. intelligence of Russian disinformation operations. The document indicates it was prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Cyber Command and Europe Command, the organization that directs American military activities in Europe. It refers to signals intelligence, which includes eavesdropping, but does not cite sources for its conclusions.
It focuses on Russia’s Main Scientific Research Computing Center, also referred to as GlavNIVTs. The center performs work directly for the Russian presidential administration. It said the Russian network for running its disinformation campaign is known as Fabrika.
The center was working in late 2022 to improve the Fabrika network further, the analysis says, concluding that “The efforts will likely enhance Moscow’s ability to control its domestic information environment and promote pro-Russian narratives abroad.”
[…] “Bots view, ‘like,’ subscribe and repost content and manipulate view counts to move content up in search results and recommendation lists,” the summary says. It adds that in other cases, Fabrika sends content directly to ordinary and unsuspecting users after gleaning their details such as email addresses and phone numbers from databases.
The intelligence document says the Russian influence campaigns’ goals included demoralizing Ukrainians and exploiting divisions among Western allies.
After Russia’s 2016 efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, social media companies stepped up their attempts to verify users, including through phone numbers. Russia responded, in at least one case, by buying SIM cards in bulk, which worked until companies spotted the pattern, employees said. The Russians have now turned to front companies that can acquire less detectable phone numbers, the document says.
[…] Russian campaigns included one designed to spread the idea that U.S. officials were hiding vaccine side effects, intended to stoke divisions in the West. Another campaign claimed that Ukraine’s Azov Brigade was acting punitively in the country’s eastern Donbas region.
Others, aimed at specific countries in the region, push the idea that Latvia, Lithuania and Poland want to send Ukrainian refugees back to fight; that Ukraine’s security service is recruiting U.N. employees to spy; and that Ukraine is using influence operations against Europe with help from NATO.
A final campaign is intended to reveal the identities of Ukraine’s information warriors — the people on the opposite side of a deepening propaganda war.
TAMA, Iowa — As an icy prairie wind slapped down on the empty town, Lisa Spitler pulled on winter gloves, grabbed a clipboard and started walking toward the cars idling outside the fire station. In two hours, a mobile food pantry would begin a free food distribution. The line of early arrivals already stretched a half-mile to where it dead-ends in this town of 3,000 residents east of Des Moines. […]
even as she stopped at each vehicle to chat, she knew that it was about to become more difficult for Iowans to access the help.
The state legislature, with the support of the Republican supermajority, was poised to approve some of the nation’s harshest restrictions on SNAP. They include asset tests and new eligibility guidelines. By the state’s own estimate, Iowa will need to spend nearly $18 million in administrative costs during the first three years — to take in less federal money. The bill’s backers argue the steps would save the state money long term and cut down on “SNAP fraud.”
[…] The proposed legislation was not a homegrown effort but the product of a network of conservative think tanks pushing similar SNAP restrictions in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and other states. […]
“[…] the SNAP program is really well-designed. It’s effective and efficient, and it does a tremendous amount of good. Generally, proposals to change it usually are going to make it worse.” [quoting Diane Schanzenbach, a professor at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy.
[…] In January, 39 Republican House members sponsored a bill that would require an asset test, meaning families and individuals are barred from accessing SNAP, Medicaid, and other assistance programs if the value of their cars, farm equipment or other items are too high. The measure would also create more paperwork for recipients, and ban those using SNAP from buying candy and soda, as well as fresh meat, white bread, baked beans or American cheese, among other items.
[…] Republican supporters point to Iowa’s SNAP error rate of 11.81 percent in 2019, which the state was fined for, even though it was in line with the national standard in 2021. (The Agriculture Department warns that the error rate is “not a fraud rate” because it also includes underpayments and eligibility mistakes.) [Correct. Republicans are shouting “Fraud!” when the actual fraud problem is insignificant.]
Northwestern’s Schanzenbach noted that other states are moving toward fewer eligibility requirements, not more, because around 40 percent of SNAP recipients nationally are either elderly or disabled. “They have stable incomes then, so there is just not really much of an upside to having them certify more often,” she said.
Eventually, Iowa legislators stripped the food restrictions from the SNAP bill after a number of prominent players in state business — including the Iowa Beverage Association, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry and Tyson Foods — lobbied against the bill. [LOL]
But the version of the proposal that the legislature would later vote on kept the assets test, tasked the state with contracting with a third-party vendor to conduct rigorous identity verification and authentication on recipients, raised the monthly income threshold of SNAP participants to 160 percent of the federal poverty level for households and gave recipients only 10 days to respond to paperwork mistakes or discrepancies before they are cut from the program. [sheesh]
Enacting the bill is expected to cost Iowa more than $17 million in the first three years, far more than the $2.2 million the state spends each year to administer SNAP. (The federal government funds SNAP and splits administrative costs 50-50 with the state. Last year, Iowa received $60.4 million in federal SNAP funds). […]
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their closing summary:
A row is brewing over Poland and Hungary’s decision to ban grain imports from Ukraine to protect their own agricultural sectors. Reuters reports that a European Commission spokesperson said unilateral action on trade by European Union member states was “not acceptable”.
Following Poland and Hungary’s decision, Bulgaria is considering a similar move. Local news agency BTA reported that the agriculture minister, Yavor Gechev, said the country was mulling over a ban on Ukrainian grain imports.
Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kyiv forces are still holding on, Ukraine’s military has said.
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukraine city of Sloviansk has risen to 11. A block of flats was badly damaged and rescue crews were continuing on Saturday to try to rescue people trapped underneath rubble.
…
A new international economic support package of $115bn (£93bn) is giving Ukraine more confidence it can prevail against Russian forces amid growing recognition the war could continue for longer than expected, the Ukrainian finance minister said on Saturday. Serhiy Marchenko said Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers assured him during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week that they would support Ukraine for as long as needed.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Saturday. In two tweets, the Ukrainian president said they had discussed Macron’s recent visit to Beijing to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping.
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, will visit Baghdad on Monday, his first trip to Iraq since Russia invaded Ukraine. Kuleba is expected to hold talks with the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and the foreign minister, Fuad Hussein.
YouTube is hosting videos that promote the Wagner group, the Russian private military company accused of war crimes, according to a report by the Sunday Times. Dozens of propaganda clips on the platform glorify the mercenary group, encourage viewers to join it, and even raise money for the paramilitary organisation. A YouTube spokesperson told the Sunday Times: “Content intended to praise, promote, or aid violent extremist or criminal organisations is not allowed on YouTube.”
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for establishing a group of countries that are not involved in the Russia-Ukraine war in order to broker peace. Lula, who has criticised the role of the US and the European Union in the conflict, spoke of attempting to gather a group of leaders who “prefer to talk about peace rather than war”, citing China’s Xi Jinping and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, both of whom he met this week. [SMH]…
As a country of people who love animals, it shocks and saddens many of us that watching a horse break their neck on national TV is still considered entertainment. That’s why 300 people from Animal Rising went to Aintree on Saturday to stop the Grand National.
We did not fully succeed, and – like last year – more horses died. Hill Sixteen fell at the first fence and was put down due to the horse’s injuries. Hill Sixteen’s death followed those of two others at Aintree last week. We mourn the loss of these animals.
These deaths are par for this course, and for racing events overall. The horse racing authorities and betting industry defend slow incremental “welfare” improvements, and yet horses continue to die with awful regularity: 50 so far on the tracks in 2023. On average, a horse dies every other day on the tracks, over jumps and on the flat, with many more dying in training and the paddock. The dangerous institution of the Grand National should have been retired long ago.
Where we did succeed is in showing that this is a much bigger problem than just one race. We protested because everywhere we look we see a broken relationship with animals and the natural world.
This broken relationship is at the heart of our climate and nature crisis. We’re devouring nature through animal farming and fishing, killing our rivers with slurry from industrial chicken and pig farms, and watching our beloved wildlife disappear in front of our eyes. All because we are stuck in a pattern of outdated beliefs that it is OK to control animals, using them for profit. The Grand National is emblematic of this uncomfortable and one-sided dominance – that’s why we tried to stop it.
There is a solution: repairing this broken relationship, beginning where most harm is done, in our food system. A food system without animals is already known to be safer, more secure and more sovereign, providing all the calories and nutrients we need and, in fact, using less land. This freed-up land could be rewilded for nature to recover, and we could see wildlife – including wild horses – return and flourish.
It shouldn’t take a committed bunch of caring individuals to put this solution at the centre of national debate. But it has. Up and down the country, everyone is talking about our treatment of animals. This national conversation is essential to challenge the fast decline into climate inaction.
…
For those few claiming that our actions affected the horses and outcome, we point to the fact we were not taking action for the other 2,601 deaths since 2007. Direct action has been part of a healthy democracy for as long as there has been democracy, especially when it is obvious that “business as usual” does not represent the values of most of us. In the UK, according to research by the University of York, more than 80% of people under 40 do not want to attend horse racing events because they know it is unethical.
Returning to the bigger picture, has anyone yet taken any action that is proportionate to the coming social and economic collapse that is likely to result from the climate crisis? Have we persuaded our climate-insane government to take proportionate action? Not yet – if we had, it would have already ended animal farming and fishing and supported farmers into safer, more sustainable practices.
That’s why we’ll be taking more action this year, along with all those acting to challenge the existential threat. We’re not against those who attended Aintree, or the trainers or jockeys. But we accept Saturday was the biggest challenge to horse racing in this country for more than a decade.
Let’s hope that we’ve begun the process of having this crucial conversation about our treatment of animals and the natural world, and that others – our government, and all those who say they love animals – stand with us to tackle the mounting crises we face.
Paris Marx is joined by Timnit Gebru to discuss the misleading framings of artificial intelligence, her experience of getting fired by Google in a very public way, and why we need to avoid getting distracted by all the hype around ChatGPT and AI image tools.
Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute and former co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google….
This is kind of the earlier companion episode to the one with Emily Bender @ #145 above.
Tl;dr: The harms from so-called AI are real and present and follow from the acts of people and corporations deploying automated systems. Regulatory efforts should focus on transparency, accountability and preventing exploitative labor practices….
Paris Marx is joined by Jim Thomas to discuss how digital technologies are being integrated into the industrial food system, how it empowers agribusiness firms and major tech companies, and its implications for farmers and farm workers.
Jim Thomas is the research director at ETC Group, which has over 25 years international experience tracking the impact of emerging technologies on human rights, biodiversity, equity and food systems….
Since its founding in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has advocated for farmed animals and large-scale institutional reform with the ultimate goal of removing animals from the food system. Senior Director of Advocacy Aaron Rimmler-Cohen joins the podcast this week to discuss Farm Sanctuary’s Food Systems Shift program. In our conversation, Aaron discusses the disastrous policy of government subsidies of animal products and explains why the nonprofit is shifting resources to community-based organizations building sustainable, plant-based food systems. He also highlights three key ways it encourages the federal government to support such a community-focused shift….
Brendan and Andrew welcome back award-winning journalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, to discuss his new book, If It Sounds Like a Quack… A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine. Libertarians figured prominently in his 2020 book, A Libertarian Walks into a Bear (which we interviewed Matt about in Ep. 42), and they do here as well. Matt explains how the libertarian-instigated “medical freedom” slogan has helped to unite the quacks, make their fringe movement go viral, and threaten the future of science- and evidence-based healthcare. He and the co-hosts discuss the long history of struggle between quackery and evidence-based medicine, the mainstreaming of anti-vaxx sentiment in the space of one generation, the fear of zombies—and the far-right messaging encoded in talk of “zombies”—and other manifestations of quackery. They also discuss Matt’s criticisms of the medical establishment and government regulators, and they explore ways to fight back against the quack attack.
Plus current-events segment: What’s Really the Matter with Kansas (and Elsewhere)? The co-hosts discuss Alan Abramowitz’s new study, which shows that racism, not “economic stress,” is what has driven whites without college degrees into the arms of the Republican Party….
birgerjohanssonsays
FUUUUUUUUCK.
Thoughts and prayers, everyone.
Alabama this time, home of George Wallace and a million second amendment enthusiasts.
The FBI alleges Josiah Ernesto Garcia used a site called “Rent-a-Hitman” to apply for a job as an assassin. Garcia was arrested at a park in Hendersonville, Tennessee, on Wednesday by an undercover agent, according to a news release.
It’s the latest in a string of reported arrests linked to the website, originally created in 2005 to advertise a cyber security startup company that never took off. Instead, it became a parody site— complete with false testimonials, a request form, and a job application for aspiring hitmen…
How stupid do you have to be to believe that rentahitman.com is either a joke or a sting?
The (Florida) Senate sprang a 98-page elections bill on the public with scant 24 hours notice before a recent committee hearing…
There’s a lot not to like in this bill. It has more than two dozen specific changes to an elections code that also underwent major changes in 2021 and 2022 — even after trouble-free elections. A year ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis got his elections police force. The year before, the Legislature restricted the use of ballot drop boxes.
This time, the targets are first-time voters such as college students, and groups that register new voters.
Russian society and leadership has an obsession with size. Its land mass is proof of the greatness and glory of Russian culture, with their most celebrated Tsars being the ones who gobbled up the most land.
This obsession over land isn’t unique to Russia. The United States built its country by pushing westward, wiping out entire civilizations that stood in the way, as well as instigating wars with Mexico and Spain in order to expand southward. But the U.S. has at least stopped encroaching on its neighbors. Mexico and Canada don’t need to fear losing territory, and independence is there for Puerto Rico and other American island territories if they want it. There has been some progress in our own notions of empire.
And for all the singing about “sea to shining sea,” Americans don’t take pride in our country’s size [not entirely true, but I get the point], but in its accomplishments. Russia has few of those to point to, hence the obsession with land, and hunger for more of it.
The irony is that the standard world map grossly exaggerates Russia’s size. I already wrote about this map thread today [see comment 215], but this part is even more relevant here: [Tweets and images at the link]
Russia’s notions of greatness are based, in large part, on the standard-issue distorted Eurocentric map of the world. In reality, it’s more like this: [image at the link]
Yes, Russia is big, but it’s no longer the globe-dominating behemoth we’ve been conditioned to expect. But when a country bases its self worth on the amount of land that it holds, it certainly has all the wrong incentives when dealing with its neighbors.
Hence, the U.S. is happy to work with its allies toward common goals—the Europeans, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Those countries all have a close working relationship with the U.S., but the Americans can’t dictate terms. It can lead by example, or by persuasion, but it can’t coerce.
Russia can’t fathom such an arrangement. Hence, its alliance with Belarus isn’t a close working relationship with a valued partner, but an interim step toward full integration of Belarus back into the Russian Federation. And there’s Ukraine, of course, where Russia has already annexed the parts of the country it had conquered (and even some it has subsequently lost, like Kherson oblast north of the Dnipro).
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the criminal mercenary Wagner Group, is ready to call it quits, content with Russia simply swallowing the territory it has already captured. (All quotes are from the Google translate version of the linked article.)
First, I’ll share this passage because it demonstrates just how weird Prigozhin is:
Why did Zelensky rest so much on Bakhmut? Why, starting from December 20, when I challenged him from the artillery guns of PMC Wagner, Zelensky seduced like a boy and rested on Bakhmut? And our intimate dialogue with him has been going on for four months. We both have fun, but the orgasm never came.
Okay then…
Interestingly, Prigozhin himself argues that Bakhmut is strategically insignificant, and that his efforts to capture it are bleeding Ukraine dry. It’s a version of the childish “I know you are but what am I?” game, as it is Russia who has been bled dry. How do we know? Because this is one of only two corners of the map in which mighty Russia is left attempting to advance, and doing a poor job of it.
We’ve long argued about the wisdom of defending the city, and military historians will argue over it for years. But no one is arguing about the wisdom of attacking it. There is none.
Anyway, I’m burying the lede. In short, Prigozhin is saying that Vladimir Putin should declare victory and end the war.
For the authorities and society as a whole, today it is necessary to put some fat end to the [Special Military Operation]. The ideal option is to announce the end of the [Special Military Operation], inform everyone that Russia has achieved the results it planned, and in a sense we have really achieved them. We have ground a huge number of APU [Ukrainian armed forces] fighters and can report to ourselves that the tasks of the [Special Military Operation] have been completed.
Of course, “grinding a large number of Ukrainian soldiers” to the ground was never one of Putin’s goals. It was all about subjugating Ukraine and expanding Russia’s lands, and Ukraine keeps fighting.
Theoretically, Russia has already received this fat point by destroying a large part of the active male population of Ukraine, by intimidating another part of it, which fled to Europe. Russia cut off the Azov and a large piece of the Black Sea, captured a fat piece of Ukraine’s territory and created a land corridor to Crimea. Now there is only one thing left: to gain a firm foothold, to clog in those territories that already exist. But there is cunning – if Ukraine used to be part of the former Russia, now it is an absolutely nationally-oriented state.
Hilarious, he thinks Ukrainian men are “intimidated.” He is right, however, that Russia currently has its “land bridge” from mainland Russia to Crimea—a key strategic war goal. And he knows that Ukraine’s ties to Russia, once bonded by language and some common history, is now fully severed.
If until February 24, 2022 the European Union was greedy to give Ukraine tens of millions of dollars, now tens of billions of billions are being waged for the war. Of course, some of these funds please the pockets of the ruling elite of Ukraine, which benefits from the conflict. Many of those who were forgotten yesterday today got a new chance for self-realization and enrichment.
Like American conservatives, every accusation is a confession. Russia is pulling 70-year-old tanks out of storage because of greed, grift, and pilfering. Heck, Prigozhin himself has benefited from Russia’s mafia-style oligarchy. Yet in this rambling essay, he goes after those oligarchs, labeling them the “Deep State,” and defining them as “a community of near-state elites that operate independently of the political leadership of the state and have close ties and their own agenda.” [Yes, that last part especially sounds like Prigozhin is confessing.] He thinks their lives of luxury are threatened, and would thus ally with the United States in an effort to break up Russia.
Why do the Anglo-Saxons restrain Zelensky by arranging internal conflicts and slowing down the offensive? Just to break the main jackpot – the collapse of Russia into many principalities. The U.S. doesn’t need a quick war. They need a war that will lead to the persuasion of the “deep state” and its victory.
I won’t pretend to fully understand this conspiracy theory—Russia’s oligarchs wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a splintered Russian Federation. Quite the opposite, in fact. They serve at the leisure of a Putin-style strongman, allowing them to continue sucking the riches from the provinces to Moscow and St. Petersburg. If the war was a threat to their fortunes (and it is), they would most benefit from replacing Putin with another strongman, but one willing to end the war.
Perhaps it is this paranoia, that Russian oligarchs are allying themselves with the U.S., that is leading to so many of them flying from skyscraper windows.
Point is, Prigozhin sees enemies all around, eager to splinter Russia. [Yep.] So he argues that a “dramatic pause” (interesting translation of “ceasefire”) is needed in order to freeze the conflict at the current lines, otherwise the situation may “worsen” during a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
If the authorities refuse, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will go on the offensive. In this situation, there may be various scenarios. One of them – the Armed Forces of Ukraine will rest on the defense of the Russian Federation, incur serious losses, after which a colossal counteroffensive of Russian troops to the borders of [Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in the Donbas), or to the [Dnipro], or in general to Poland will begin. But, given today’s dynamics and problems, such a counteroffensive, to put it mildly, is not very likely. The second option, the Ukrainian army will take a counteroffensive and somewhere will be able to break through the defense.
Prigozhin’s reference to Poland seems to be an oblique slam at the propagandists on state Russian media who hilariously boast that Russia will push beyond Ukraine and into Poland and the Baltic states. His reference to “today’s dynamics and problems” are a reference to the sorry state of Russia’s armed forces.
In this case, in the army, which for years considered itself one of the best armies in the world, decaying moods can begin first, and then the situation deteriorates, as it was after the defeatist wars of the early twentieth century – Finnish, Japanese – and the tragic events of 1917.
He’s never been too shy to criticize the Russian army. Much can be lost or added in translation, obviously, but “which for years considered itself one of the best armies in the world” reads quite sarcastic to me. The reference to morale is a stark admission that his mercenaries have been carrying the military load because Russia’s armed forces are close to breaking.
This can lead to global changes in Russian society. The people are already looking for those responsible for the fact that we are not the strongest army in the world, and in this situation they will look for “extreme”. And these “extreme” will certainly be representatives of the “deep state.” That is, those people who today, without making efforts in the military operation, are as far as possible from the theater of operations, try not to lose their capital, to live their usual lives, and this is absolutely unacceptable for the people tired of war and losing the taste of victory.
Patriots’ craving for justice can have a hard impact on the very deepest state mired in luxury and bureaucracy.
Again, Prigozhin is worried about the collapse of the Russian federation at the hand of the oligarch “deep state” and its American allies/instigators/handlers.
Prigozhin then launches into seemingly endless pontification about the dangers of negotiation, how the U.S. would work with those “deep state” oligarchs to slowly weaken and humiliate Russia. That Russia’s return to military superpower would be hampered and delayed.
Therefore, he argues, “Russia cannot accept any agreement, only a fair fight. And if we get out of this fight shabby, there’s nothing wrong with that.” He’s happy with Russia’s ill-gotten gains, and that’s good enough. Therefore, he wants an end to all offensive efforts, and the establishment of defensive fortifications to protect what they captured, at least until Russia is able to rebuild its armed forces.
To summarize. Ukrainians are ready for an offensive. We are ready to repel the blow. The best scenario of Russia’s healing in order to unite and become the Strongest State is the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which no handiments and negotiations will be possible.
And either the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be defeated in a fair fight, or Russia will lick wounds, accumulate muscles and again tear up rivals in a fair fight. Therefore, I believe that the option of the agreements is impossible for the future of Russia.
He’s actually not wrong. Russia clearly lacks the firepower for offensive operations. If it really wants to bleed Ukraine, it needs to do it on the defensive. Yet Prigozhin is also right to worry that Russia’s morale is so low, that the chances of a Ukrainian breakthrough are real. Hence, he wants to stop all offensive actions to preserve fodder to man the vast network of trenches they’ve built on occupied territory.
But weirdly, he doesn’t take his own advice. This is Bakhmut currently: [Tweet and video at the link, noting some 30 firefights and fierce fighting.]
That video is freakin’ insane.
To be clear, Prigozhin claims his attack on Bakhmut is bleeding Ukraine dry, yet it is the defenders that have an advantage in this situation. Bullets may be flying all around those two soldiers, but they can hunker down. Wagner’s cannon fodder have to run headlong into that fire. It’s clear who takes the heavier casualties.
And he wants all offensive operations to cease, lest Russia lose the manpower it needs to man defensive trenches, but he continues to throw wave after wave of his cannon fodder into that wall of flying steel.
If the air becomes too humid and is combined with record-breaking high temperatures causing the body’s sweat to inhibit evaporation from the body, the ability to cool itself is dangerously compromised. The phenomenon is known as the wet-bulb temperature, and the threshold of humidity and heat in Celsius is 35 degrees and Fahrenheit 95 degrees. That threshold will be pushed to the outer limits in India, warn experts.
Historically, India has dealt with significant heat events over the millennia, many of which were catastrophic. In 1768-1771, for example, the British Empire was shaken when over 10 million people died in Bengal due to El Nino.
El Nino has already arrived in Peru, and it is slowly building off the coast of India.
Spring arrives, and the country warms up. The World Bank has warned that the Indian subcontinent is getting too hot, and many swathes will become uninhabitable.
And, so, 2023 begins.
March 22, 2023: Vernal equinox or the beginning of spring is the moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator, an imaginary line that runs through the sky right above the equator exactly between the hemispheres. That happened at 2.54 am Indian time on Tuesday.
“Once the sun’s vertical rays approach the equator, the maximum temperature will rise beginning today [Tuesday],” Prof S Abhilash, director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), told South First on Tuesday.
Temperatures in the Ganga and Indus valleys will likely pass the critical wet-bulb temperatures that the IPCC warned must never come to pass — could occur in 2023 and 2024.
Conservative by design, the IPCC mentioned if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. They have not been and will not be anytime soon. India primarily uses coal for energy, and the hotter it gets, the more it will burn if it can find enough. It is a vicious feedback loop, one that we will not want to face.
India is unprepared for this looming catastrophe; no nation is safe from the climate crisis. However, some countries will get there sooner than others.
From QZ:
India’s heat action plans (HAPs), designed to tackle economically damaging and life-threatening heat waves, generally focus on dry extreme heat. It does not consider the threats posed by humid heat, according to a report by The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) released on Monday (March 27).
It is unclear if authorities consider risk factors like the duration of continuous heat, hot nights and so on, on a region-wise basis.
India has 37 HAPs across 18 states at the city, district, and state levels. Only two of these, however, have explicitly targeted vulnerable groups. The rest only have broad categories such as the elderly, outdoor workers, and pregnant women. Even the solutions proposed do not necessarily focus on them, the CPR report stated.
Moreover, these HAPs do not have enough funds. Insufficient capacity building and a lack of transparency are also matters of concern.
“There is no national repository of HAPs and very few HAPs are listed online. Further, it is unclear whether these HAPs are being updated periodically and whether this is based on evaluation data,” the report stated, emphasizing investment in areas like local heat research ecosystem.
[Map with temperature gradients for 14 April 2023. “Thailand just measured over 45°C for the first time on record […] that would be 113.72 Fahrenheit.”]
India and Pakistan in 2022 had record-breaking heatwaves. What follows is commonly called; climate change as a threat multiplier.
Record Smashing Heatwave in India and Pakistan Sparks Landfill Fires and Power Outages
The heatwave has sparked a number of worrying issues in India. The extreme heat caused a massive fire in an equally massive landfill in the city of Bhalswa, where the blaze reached higher than a 17-storey building and covered an area bigger than 50 football fields.
The risk of fire there is particularly high as 2,300 tonnes of the city’s waste are dumped in landfills every day. As organic waste decomposes, it creates a build-up of highly combustible methane gas, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Three other landfills around the Indian capital have also caught fire in recent weeks.
Other major issues at hand include crop damage – where India’s wheat crop is usually harvested in the month of April, potentially exacerbating global wheat shortages and food insecurity following the Russian invasion of Ukraine – as well as increasing pressure on domestic energy demand.
India’s electricity demand has soared to a record high in April from the surge in the use of air conditioning. Total power demand rose 13.2% to 135.4 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), with electricity demand in the north growing between 16- 75%, according to Reuters’ analysis of government data.
This has led to a coal shortage in India – also exacerbated by the war in Ukraine – and triggered the country’s worst power crisis in more than six years. Millions are left without power for up to nine hours a day, and critical services such as hospitals are threatened by blackouts.
Why does the power grid fail when everyone turns on the air conditioner?
From the Lewis University Presser:
Why is the power grid so sensitive to high temperatures? It’s quite simple really. First, we certainly love our air conditioners, and air conditioners demand a lot of power. Second, power is generated at only a few places in the country, and yet our air-conditioned homes and businesses and factories are everywhere.
Transmission lines have to carry power from these relatively few power injection points to all these different destinations. Transmission lines, however, are just wires, and they have limited capacity. In fact, their capacity actually goes down when it’s hot. This is worsened by the fact that, when a transmission line is carrying a lot of power, it heats up. The metal conductor in the line expands, causing the line to droop. If the line droops too much, it makes contact with foliage on the ground, resulting in a short circuit and an end to that line’s ability to carry power. With that line now out of service, other lines have to pick up the slack, but they, too, become overloaded and prone to the same problem. Furthermore, as the amount of power these lines carry grows, so does the amount of power lost through them due to heat, as well as the amount of “magnetic loss,” which we call reactive power.
As reactive power is expended at a fast clip on these heavily loaded lines, it can no longer do what it is intended to do, which is to keep our voltages at their designed level. As the amount of reactive power falls, so do voltages. When the voltages fall below what they’re supposed to be, the lights in our home dim, our appliances run at speeds that cause wear and tear on their motors, and our air conditioners begin to pose an even greater burden on the system.
In other words, there are some rather nasty feedback mechanisms that take place that cause the grid a lot of stress when we all turn our air conditioners on. Power system operators traditionally have had a very limited number of controls to counteract these bad behaviors.
President Biden blasted Republicans Sunday for standing with the National Rifle Association in the wake of two more shootings in Alabama and Kentucky.
“This morning, our nation is once again grieving for at least four Americans tragically killed at a teen’s birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama as well as two others killed last night in a crowded public park in Louisville,” Biden said in a statement Sunday. […]
A shooting at a 16-year-old’s birthday party in Alabama Saturday night killed four people and injured more than a dozen teenagers, according to law enforcement. In Louisville, Ky. two people died and four were left injured after shots were fired into a crowd at Chickasaw Park. These pair of shootings are the latest in a recent string of gun violence across the country, including a mass shooting at a bank in Louisville that ended with five deaths just days before the shooting in Chickasaw Park.
Biden criticized GOP members for not acting on gun violence, […] He again reiterated that it is up to Congress to pass gun safety laws and to approve a national ban of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“What has our nation come to when children cannot attend a birthday party without fear? When parents have to worry every time their kids walk out the door to school, to the movie theater, or to the park?” Biden asked in his statement.
“This is outrageous and unacceptable. Americans agree and want lawmakers to act on commonsense gun safety reforms,” he continued. “Instead, this past week Americans saw national Republican elected leaders stand alongside the NRA in a race to the bottom on dangerous laws that further erode gun safety. […].”
Biden also praised Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) for signing an executive order to expand background checks for gun purchases and for calling on the Tennessee state legislature to pass red flag laws, saying he hopes “more Republican officials will follow suit and take action.” The governor’s actions come in the aftermath of the Covenant School shooting last month that left six people dead, including three nine-year-old children.
“I stand ready, as I always have been, to work across the aisle in good faith on federal legislation that will save lives,” Biden continued. “It is within Congress’ power to require safe storage of firearms, require background checks for all gun sales, eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines – and this should happen without delay.”
I think reporters shouldn’t just ask after a mass (or other) shooting what type of gun was used. Reporting on every one should specify not just the kind of gun but the manufacturer of the gun, the politicians who take money from and promote them, and the advertising companies and influencers who hawk their products.
For the first time since the Cold War, an American reporter has been charged with espionage in Russia. On this week’s On the Media, hear about one journalist who stayed to cover Putin’s invasion, and from one who left. Plus, a look at why NPR has sworn off Twitter for good, and how it will affect people who get their news from the app.
1. OTM producer Molly Schwartz [@mollyfication], takes a deep dive into the imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and the challenges of reporting on the ground in Russia right now.
2. Nikita Kondratyev, reporter for Novaya Gazeta Europe, on leaving Russia and covering Putin’s invasion in exile.
3. Zoe Schiffer [@ZoeSchiffer], managing editor of Platformer, on Elon Musk’s newest fight with the press and the departure of NPR from Twitter.
It’s so strange how Kondratyev talks about his fears of Russian cities being attacked. Just a bizarre thing to fear. Ukraine doesn’t want to attack Russia. “Western” countries don’t want to attack Russia. This isn’t a reasonable concern.
– Ecologistas en Acción ha preparado sendos recursos de casación, autonómico y estatal, contra la sentencia que desestima su recurso y avala la Operación Chamartín o Madrid Nuevo Norte.
– Para celebrar el Día de la Tierra, el 22 de abril, Día de la Tierra, organizan un paseo y una tortillada [?] en los terrenos de la Operación Chamartín con el objetivo de reivindicar un urbanismo humano, libre de especulación y de arboricidios….
I’m not familiar with this organization or the strength of their legal case, but WTF to this whole project.
…Breaking via the @wsj: “Fox has made a late push to settle the dispute out of court, people familiar with the situation said Sunday.”
Washington Post: Opening arguments in Dominion v. Fox have been delayed until Tuesday “to allow both parties to hold conversations about the possibility of a settlement, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation…”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
A court in Moscow has sentenced the opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years prison, in one of the most high-profile cases to date of a Russian dissident being jailed for opposing the invasion of Ukraine. Kara-Murza, a father of three, was detained in April 2022 and charged with spreading false information about the Russian army in Ukraine. He was later also charged with “high treason” over a series of public speeches he made that criticised Kremlin policies and the war in Ukraine.
The British government on Monday summoned the Russian ambassador to make clear its condemnation of what it described as the “politically motivated” conviction of Kara-Murza, a British dual national. “Russia’s lack of commitment to protecting fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, is alarming,” British foreign secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. “We continue to urge Russia to adhere to its international obligations including Vladimir Kara-Murza’s entitlement to proper healthcare.”
…
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday read a report to President Vladimir Putin about drills conducted by the country’s Pacific Fleet. In footage broadcast on state television, Putin responded by saying that snap checks had shown the Pacific Fleet at a high level of readiness… [LOL]
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday that Tokyo had lodged a protest with Russia over its military exercises around disputed islands near Japan’s Hokkaido….
Marc Elias tweeted: “I’ve offered the GOP a deal. If they stop suppressing the right to vote, I will stop suing them for suppressing the right to vote.”
To her devoted followers, “Donbas Devushka” – or Donbas Girl – is a Russian Jew from the occupied Ukrainian city of Luhansk, who has faithfully broadcast Kremlin propaganda for months.
But in reality, she is Sarah Bils, a 37-year-old divorcee from New Jersey and a US Navy veteran who served as an aviation electronics technician at Whitby Island in Washington State…
Using assorted pseudonyms including CheburekiVibes, MeatballSubZero, YuGopnik, GhostofLugansk, she has amassed 135,000 subscribers to her podcast on which she broadcasts with a cod “Russian” accent.
Overnight, Justice Clarence Thomas – via one anonymous source to CNN – offered his response to the second round of revelations from ProPublica about his relationship with billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow. It’s not an official response from Thomas, but I guess he’s hoping it’ll do for now.
The top line for most of the coverage will be that Thomas will amend his financial disclosures to include the previously undisclosed 2014 real estate transaction wherein Crow bought Thomas family properties in Georgia, including the house where Thomas’ mother lived and still lives.
But the explanation offered to CNN by the source on Thomas’ behalf is in considerable internal tension with itself, even as it offers some potentially new and interesting information. Let me just reproduce this key paragraph in the CNN report:
The source said Thomas has always filled out his forms with the help of aides, and that it was an oversight not to report the real estate transaction. Thomas believed he didn’t have to disclose because he lost money on the deal, according to the source.
A lot going on there, so let’s break it down.
First off, the side-swipe blaming of aides is super classy. Points for throwing underlings under the bus. [I expected that.]
Second, which is it: an “oversight” or a deliberate decision not to disclose because he didn’t think he had to? Those aren’t usually the same thing. An oversight is when you mistakenly fail to include something you knew you should include and maybe even intended to include but missed it somehow. Not disclosing something on purpose is a different ball of wax. The generous read might be that the “oversight” was misinterpreting the disclosure rules and requirements. But that’s not really an oversight. That’s just flat out getting it wrong.
We learned quite a bit more of interest from the “source.” I’m going to use CNN’s exact language to begin with:
– “As a part of the negotiated sale price, [Thomas’ mother], who was 85 at the time of the deal, was given an occupancy agreement to be able to live in the home for the rest of her life, the source said.”
– “She lives rent free but is responsible for paying the property taxes and insurance.”
– “Thomas and his wife put $50,000 to $70,000 into his mother’s home in capital improvements, and once the sale was completed, Thomas’ proceeds were $44,000, according to the source. Because there was no gain, Thomas thought there was no need to report, the source said.”
[…] To summarize, yes, Thomas’ mother has lived in the house rent-free since 2014 (and for the rest of her life!) but this was somehow baked into the sale price at the outset. So no freebie for the Thomas family, is the implication, because that was negotiated as part of the original sales price. The only way that works is if the Thomases reduced the sale price considerably to offset the future unpaid rent. Maybe, maybe not. But was any of that documented in real time in a way that will withstand scrutiny? Oh and also she’s paying taxes and insurance, so …
Also, I get the sense there’s an effort here to muddle the capital improvements issue. Recall ProPublica reported that Crow put in tens of thousands of dollar in improvements to the home after he bought it. Team Thomas seems to want credit for having made a lot of improvements to the home, too! So many in fact that they took an overall loss on the deal (even setting aside the future rent offset?) hence Thomas’ mistaken reading of the rules that he didn’t have to disclose it.
Finding your concerns assuaged by this “source”? Me either.
Noted very smart legal person Donald Trump, who is currently indicted on 34 felony counts in Manhattan, and who may be indicted on many more counts in many more places before his natural life is up, has some legal advice for Fox News.
It was the middle of the night, 2:39 a.m. to be precise, and his very bad brain was screaming in all caps, as usual:
IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED. BACK UP THOSE PATRIOTS AT FOX INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM UNDER THE BUS – & THEY ARE RIGHT! THERE IS SOOO MUCH PROOF, LIKE MASS BALLOT STUFFING CAUGHT ON GOVERNMENT CAMERAS, FBI COLLUDING WITH TWITTER & FACEBOOK, STATE LEGISLATURES NOT USED, etc.
If Fox would finally admit that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, it would be very good for the defamation case Dominion Voting Systems filed against them, which is about … their pushing of Donald Trump’s lies about Dominion rigging the 2020 election against him.
Right on, sounds legit.
The rest of the words are just demented babbling. Mass ballot stuffing caught on government cameras! FBI colluding with Twitter and Facebook! State legislatures not used!
Whatever, you dumb bloated pile of skin.
For some reason, we doubt Fox News is going to take Trump’s advice, if only because they, like Mike Pence, do not have the courage. Today was supposed to be the first day of Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation trial against Fox News. Then suddenly the judge postponed it for a single day, reportedly because Fox was making a last-ditch bid to settle. (The judge says this is fairly normal, and seems confident the trial will start as planned tomorrow.) Trump’s brilliant legal advice appears to have come as a response to these developments.
If only Fox would start telling his sad fascist loser Big Lie about the election some more!
If only they would make up some lies that would help heal his wounded self-esteem! […]
Anyway.
This isn’t the first time Fox News has tried to settle this. It hasn’t worked previous times. We’ll see what happens this time, if perhaps Fox News really tries to pony up the big bucks here at the eleventh hour.
We sure hope they don’t settle, because like most patriotic Americans, we want to watch Fox News on trial. We want to see Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity under oath. The Washington Post notes that “Dominion officials have insisted they would not settle without a full-throated apology and acknowledgment from Fox that it aired false information,” but we doubt Dominion is naive enough to think any apology from Fox News would be worth the paper it was printed on or have any meaning coming out of one of Fox News’s lying stupid faces.
After all, as Matthew Gertz from Media Matters reminds us: [tweet at the link: "Something Dominion should probably keep in mind is that after Fox News settled with Seth Rich's family, Tucker Carlson resumed lying about Rich (albeit without explicitly mentioning his name)."]
Most of what we’re seeing right now is about how strong Dominion’s case is that Fox News acted with either “actual malice” and/or “reckless disregard for the truth” with all the statements it aired about Dominion’s role in an imaginary plot to steal the election. As Brian Stelter wrote the other day, before news broke that the trial was delayed:
Practically every media lawyer I know has marveled at the strength of Dominion’s case. “There are so many emails and texts. Each one might be actual malice,” says Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law professor at the US Naval Academy and a careful observer of the pretrial proceedings. Kosseff tells me he is not ruling out “the chance of a courthouse-steps settlement on Monday morning,” moments before opening arguments. “Preventing the Murdochs from taking the stand would likely be worth an inflated settlement,” Kosseff says. But he suspects there is “no advantage for Dominion to settle now.”
[…] Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson is shouting FUUUUUUUUUCK DO NOT SETTLE FUUUUUUUUUUUCK! [Not an exact quote.] [Tweet and image at the link]
As Yahoo! News reminds us:
After leaving the network in 2016, Carlson received a reported $20 million settlement from her former employer over sexual harassment allegations against then-CEO Roger Ailes.
And she would very much like to be out of the NDA that was part of that settlement. [Tweet at the link]
So that’s what’s going on with that.
Of course, the judge ALSO just hit Fox News with sanctions for maybe being less than forthcoming about what role Rupert Murdoch plays at the network, which matters when it comes to what sorts of documents and communications they were required to turn over in discovery. Also there’s that new tape of Rudy Giuliani in November 2020 telling Maria Bartiromo that ACTUALLY he didn’t have any evidence Dominion machines could flip votes, and Fox News just turned that evidence over, which has really pissed off the judge.
So yeah, at least from what we can see, it doesn’t sound like Fox News is heading into this week with the wind at its back.
Stay strong, Dominion!
We wanna hear more on the stand from Tucker about how “passionately” he hates Donald Trump.
Rep. George Santos launched a personal attack against his potential Democratic rival, insulting Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan’s chin during a heated Twitter exchange. It backfired spectacularly.
Twitter users unleashed on the embattled GOP House member from New York and sided with Lafazan, who quickly fired back: “Corrective jaw surgery helped me breathe normally & saved my life. My insurance covered it, & it’s why I’m fighting so hard for universal health care”
Lafazan, who earned name recognition and a fundraising opportunity from the exchange, continued, “You are beneath the office you hold. And I can’t wait to replace you in Congress, in 2024 or sooner. Send postcards from jail”….
The nasty exchange started about a New York Post story reporting Santos is expected to announce his reelection campaign on Monday…
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) is continuing his quest to involve himself in Trump’s legal affairs, using his authority as a House chair to protect Trump and performatively investigate the investigators. In a new court filing, his legal team asserted that he has the right to undermine the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation.
The Ohio Republican asked a district judge on Monday to allow his House panel to subpoena Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office who’s since written a book about his work in that office investigating Trump.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office just brought 34 counts of falsifying business records against Trump. Last week, Bragg sued to block Jordan’s Pomerantz subpoena and to stop what he called a “campaign of intimidation” against his office. But Jordan’s attorneys asked U.S. District Court Judge Mary Vyskocil on Monday to throw out the suit on the grounds that the Speech or Debate Clause gave Jordan every right to subpoena the former prosecutor.
[…] They also argued that the Clause bars any inquiry into “the motivation for [legislative] acts,” so protections granted by it aren’t evaded by claims that a legislator “acted unlawfully or with an unworthy purpose.”
Citing the 1975 Supreme Court case Eastland v. U.S. Servicemen’s Fund, the attorneys argued that their subpoena is “absolutely” protected by the Clause because, the high court ruled back then, the statute provided “complete immunity” for the legislators in that case.
Lastly, Jordan’s team argued that Bragg’s request for a preliminary injunction lacked merit. If a subpoena by a member of Congress satisfies the Clause’s requirements as a legislative act, they argue, courts have held that that’s “the end of the matter.” [So says the doofus who refused the Jan 6. Committee’s subpoena.]
Monday’s filing is just the latest in Jordan’s ongoing attempts to use his House Judiciary chairmanship to do Trump’s bidding. In mid-March he sent Bragg a letter asking whether he was colluding with the Justice Department, just hours after the former president elevated conspiracy theories saying as much on Truth Social. Turns out, Trump’s team had been coordinating with top Republican Congress members, including Jordan, to defend him against Bragg’s probes.
He’d also started clawing at Pomerantz around this time, starting with a letter requesting his cooperation on March 22 that blossomed into a full-blown subpoena on April 6.
Pomerantz himself chimed in on Monday, only to support Bragg’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.
“I believe that the Committee seeks my testimony not for any legitimate legislative purpose, but rather to impede and interfere with the District Attorney’s Office’s ongoing work, assist Mr. Trump in his defense, probe my political views, and harass me because I was the author of People v. Donald Trump, a book that Mr. Trump and some of his supporters do not like,” he wrote. “Even assuming, contrary to fact, that the Committee’s ‘oversight’ interests are not pretextual, and that I had information that was pertinent to a legitimate legislative purpose, the subpoena to me should not be enforced.”
To summarize. Ukrainians are ready for an offensive. We are ready to repel the blow. The best scenario of Russia’s healing in order to unite and become the Strongest State is the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which no handiments and negotiations will be possible.
With Fox News Channel’s defamation trial set for this week, the network’s lawyers intend to cite its hiring of Kimberly Guilfoyle as the linchpin of an insanity defense.
Although such a defense is highly unorthodox in a civil case, Fox’s lawyers believe that the decision to put Guilfoyle on the air is conclusive proof that the network’s brass cannot be held responsible for their actions.
According to those familiar with the legal strategy, Fox’s lawyers plan to show the jury Guilfoyle’s ear-splitting performance at the 2020 Republican National Convention in its entirety.
At the conclusion of the video, they will ask the jurors if the executives who considered Guilfoyle an acceptable TV presence could possibly be deemed sane.
“Pleading insanity is a desperate gambit that almost never succeeds,” Professor Davis Logsdon, of the University of Minnesota Law School, said. “But this Kimberly Guilfoyle thing looks like a slam dunk.”
The following videos are reported to be confessions from Wagner “musicians” in Ukraine who detailed some of the horrendous war crimes they committed — including murdering civilians, torturing Wagner soldiers who disobeyed orders and murdering wounded soldiers by blowing them up and setting the pit they were in on fire.
This is just a small portion of the known evidence that Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin must be indicted as a war criminal and that the Wagner Group must be classified as a terrorist organization.
“There was an order to shoot everyone 15 and older. We shot about 10 of these 15, 16, 17 year olds. ”
Russian project Gulagu net published a video with the confessions of two convicts, ex-commanders of Wagner PMC subdivisions – Azamat Uldarov and ex convict Aleksey Savichev.
If it weren’t for Putin’s and Prigozhin’s complicity, these people would be imprisoned, but Russian authorities sent them to war instead, teaching them to kill other people beforehand.
[…] “There were about 60 people there. I was given an order: come, blow it up and set on fire.” – destroying a pit with wounded and those who decided to leave combat and refused to kill Ukrainians. […]
If Fox would finally admit that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, it would be very good for the defamation case Dominion Voting Systems filed against them, which is about … their pushing of Donald Trump’s lies about Dominion rigging the 2020 election against him.
Right on, sounds legit.
The judge already found that the claims made on Fox were false. It’s not even at issue in the trial.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna… @ # 255: Maybe a native Russian speaker will enlighten us.
I hope such a person, or somebody, can also set us straight about the item Reginald Selkirk posted @ # 244: … she broadcasts with a cod “Russian” accent. (Sounds fishy to me…)
The FBI on Monday revealed what it said is evidence of expanding espionage and security activity by the Chinese government on U.S. soil, including in Lower Manhattan.
The Justice Department announced three cases suggesting more brazen activity by China inside the U.S. in the wake of the spy balloon controversy.
One case involves Chinese security officials allegedly spying on Zoom calls and then harassing Chinese dissident participants identified as targets.
Ten Chinese officials were charged with conspiracy along with an employee of a telecommunications company. Sources told ABC News the company was Zoom and the insider from China allegedly was able to disrupt meetings on Zoom.
Another of the cases involves Chinese security officials allegedly setting up a “police station” in New York City and using it as a base of operations to spy on, co-opt or intimidate Chinese dissidents living in the city and elsewhere.
The charges unsealed allege two defendants were operating an illegal overseas “police station” — the first ever in the U.S. — located in lower Manhattan, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, were arrested earlier Monday morning at their homes in New York City.
The two suspects operated out a Manhattan office building in Chinatown at the direction of a Chinese police official, prosecutors alleged.
The police station – which closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBI’s investigation – occupied a floor in an office building in Chinatown.
The men engaged in a number of activities on U.S. soil, prosecutors said, including participating in counter protests and targeting specific Chinese dissidents for harassment. The men arrested were expected in a Brooklyn federal court later Monday.
If convicted of conspiring to act as agents of the PRC, the defendants face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The obstruction of justice charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The Justice Department also announced charges against 34 members of a specialized unit in China. The unit, run by the Chinese national police or Public Security Ministry, the U.S. said, allegedly created fake social media accounts, including on Twitter, to harass Chinese dissidents in the U.S. and to promote propaganda from China.…
An Indian couple has allegedly died by suicide by using a guillotine-like mechanism to decapitate themselves in a sacrificial ritual, police said Sunday.
Hemubhai Makwana, 38, and his wife Hansaben, 35, both died by decapitation after using a homemade bladed mechanism in a hut on their farm in the western state of Gujarat, police said…
Judge Eric M. Davis: “The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”
Donald Trump’s rape trial will begin next week as scheduled after a federal judge rejected a request for a one-month delay, saying the former president cannot make public statements to promote pre-trial publicity and then claim it is prejudicial to him and reason to delay.
Lewis A Kaplan, a federal judge in Manhattan, said the civil trial on claims against Trump by the columnist E Jean Carroll will begin as scheduled on 25 April….
Kaplan rejected arguments by Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina that the former president’s recent indictment in New York state court on criminal falsification of business records charges created such negative publicity that a one-month cooling-off period was needed before the rape trial could begin.
…
Kaplan said a portion of coverage of Trump’s indictment was “of his own doing” as the ex-president made public statements on his social media platform, in press conferences and in interviews.
“It does not sit well for Mr Trump to promote pretrial publicity and then to claim that coverage that he promoted was prejudicial to him and should be taken into account as supporting a further delay,” the judge said, adding that he was also concerned that the request was a “delay tactic by Mr Trump”.
He noted that it was not necessary to find jurors who had never heard of Trump’s legal woes as long as jurors agreed to be fair and impartial.
…
Tacopina declined comment about Kaplan’s ruling and whether Trump will attend the rape trial. He is required to notify Kaplan by Thursday if Trump plans to show up.
In a footnote, the judge cited other legal threats Trump faces to show that a month-long delay in the trial stemming from Carroll’s lawsuit could make the climate to find a fair jury worse rather than better. [LOL]
…
Carroll sued Trump for defamation after he said she lied when she wrote in a 2019 memoir that he attacked her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in 1996. She brought a second lawsuit in November, after New York state allowed victims to temporarily sue over sexual assaults that occurred long ago.
Officials said on Monday that the engineer at the Dasu hydropower project in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was accused of blasphemy after he highlighted the “slow pace of work” during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.
“The labourers said they were fasting but denied that work had slowed down, which led to an exchange of heated words” with the supervisor, a police official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
“Later, the labourers accused the engineer of making blasphemous remarks” and about 400 locals gathered to protest, he said.
A written complaint filed with the police identified him only as a heavy transport supervisor by the name of “Mr Tian”, and said that his remarks on Saturday “sparked tensions”…
“It does not sit well for Mr Trump to promote pretrial publicity and then to claim that coverage that he promoted was prejudicial to him and should be taken into account as supporting a further delay,” the judge said, adding that he was also concerned that the request was a “delay tactic by Mr Trump”.
GOP officials from McCurtain County, Okla. are being investigated by the FBI after they were caught on tape expressing their frustration about it not being socially acceptable beat up and hang Black people, as well as their desires to hire hit men to kill newspaper reporters.
The audio was published by print-only newspaper McCurtain Gazette-News, and it released transcript of a recording from a county commissioners meeting last month to the public that allegedly incriminates several public officials after disturbing comments were made. The full audio recording from Gazette-News reporter Bruce Willingham will be released by the newspaper at a later date.
After hundreds came out in protest, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has called for the resignation of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy (R), District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings (R), Investigator Alicia Manning and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix for their comments in the meeting. District 3 Commissioner Robert Beck (R) is also cited in the audio.
The transcript suggests that the group first started discussing a recent fire which killed a woman and her two dogs. The group joked about the woman’s body parts falling off her body, and that it is similar to eating barbecue.
“So we get her in the body bag and Kyler goes, ‘You do know what we gotta do right?’ Faith goes, ‘No, what?’ He goes, ‘You gotta pre-heat the oven 350 degrees, leave her in there for 15 minutes,’” said Clardy.
Later in the transcript, Jennings and Clardy had a racist exchange and went back and forth about society making it unacceptable to lynch Black people.
“I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marshton would take a damn Black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for f—ing sheriff,” Jennings said.
After Clardy said things aren’t like that anymore, Jennings continued.
“I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.”
Jennings supposedly went on to say that he knows of two large pre-dug holes “if you ever need them,” referring to disposing the remains of Bruce Willingham and his son, Chris, also a Gazette-News reporter. Jennings also said that he knows of “two or three hit men, they’re very quiet guys.”
Manning chimed in and claimed nobody would care if two of the Gazette-News’ reporters were harmed. “Yeah, but here’s the reality,” Manning allegedly said. “If a hair on his wife’s head, Chris Willingham’s head, or any of those people that really were behind that, if any hair on their head got touched by anybody, who would be the bad guy?”
The trio was supposedly frustrated with the Gazette-News portraying the sheriff’s office unfavorably in their reporting.
Republicans like the fact that Feinstein is not there to help Democrats confirm Biden’s nominees.
The Senate returned from a long spring recess Monday to the beginnings of a major fight. Senate Republicans have declared that the war over the federal judiciary is back on, even if it means breaking the essential Senate norm of respecting colleagues and acting with a minimum of decency toward them. They are already lining up to tell Sen. Dianne Feinstein to stuff it. The California Democrat asked last week to be temporarily replaced on the Judiciary Committee while she recovers from a health setback. Her absence has hindered the committee–and the Democrats–from doing their main job for the next two years: confirming Biden’s nominees.
Republicans, of course, realize that and now see that they can achieve their primary goal for the next two years–stopping Biden from getting judicial nominees. Feinstein’s request was blood in the water for the likes of the repugnant Tom Cotton, a Judiciary Committee member. The Arkansas Republican was the first out of the block to say he’d oppose the move, tweeting “Republicans should not assist Democrats in confirming Joe Biden’s most radical nominees to the courts.”
He was quickly joined in that opposition by Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who tweeted “I will not go along with Chuck Schumer’s plan to replace Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee and pack the court with activist judges.” Ah, yes. Activist judges. Like those who have declared that they know more about drug safety than the Food and Drug Administration. That’s her excuse for stabbing her fellow committee member in the back.
Feinstein has been away from the Senate since early March, after hospitalization from a case of shingles. Her absence has created a major headache for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee. With her absence from the committee, Democrats don’t have a majority on the committee and can’t easily advance President Biden’s nominees, which was basically the one job they had for the next two years.
[…] Feinstein requested that she be temporarily replaced on the committee with a fellow Democrat until she’s cleared by her doctors to return. That, however, is subject to the agreement of the whole Senate because that’s how committee assignments are approved. In the pre-McConnell days, it would have been done with unanimous consent by the Senate because that was just how it worked. Not anymore.
[…] Never mind that committee assignments have never been subject to partisan fights in the Senate. Each party conference decides among members who is going to be on which committee and those decisions are respected by the whole Senate. “You just don’t screw with a conference or caucus’ decision” on committee assignments, one longtime Senate aide told Politico. You do if you’re Mitch McConnell.
This sets up yet another filibuster fight. When Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asks for unanimous consent for another member to fill in for Feinstein, Cotton or Blackburn or any of the other assholes from the Judiciary GOP—and it has more than its share of them—will say “no.” Then Schumer will have to send it to the floor, where it will require 60 votes. That means finding 10 Republicans to help. There won’t be 10 Republicans to help.
At this point, Schumer could try to break the filibuster by invoking the so-called nuclear option, making a motion that a simple majority of 51 votes can be used to make committee assignments. That requires the presence of Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the 51st vote. It also requires anti-filibuster reform Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to agree. [OMG, unreliable Manchin and Sinema.]
The other option is to continue to try to do judicial confirmations the way they did it last session, when the Senate was divided 50-50. That required Schumer to have extra votes. When the committee deadlocked on a vote for a nominee, Schumer had to schedule a vote to discharge the nominee from the committee and then votes to move that nominee to the floor. It significantly slows the confirmation process and, thus, the number of Biden nominees the Senate has time to get confirmed.
If Biden’s goal of remaking the federal judiciary is going to be realized, Schumer and the Democrats really only have one option: forcing the issue and getting another Democrat on the committee by whatever means necessary.
johnson catmansays
The trio was supposedly frustrated with the Gazette-News portraying the sheriff’s office unfavorably in their reporting.
Apparently, the unfavorable reporting was justified.
She should back it up by saying “if I cannot be replaced I will simply resign and allow Gov Newsome to fill my seat” — that should unstick things
———————
No, that doesn’t help, not if the GOP is willing to filibuster adding a new member to the Judiciary Committee. They could do that after Newsom replaces Feinstein. If they are willing to stoop this low, then either the filibuster is broken or it isn’t.
————————
As a Californian this is infuriating. DO WHATEVER IS NECESSARY to get a sitting senator on the judiciary committee g’dammit
————————
If the GOP can block Schumer from naming a replacement now, they can still do it after Feinstein is replaced.
————————
f your enemies are the ones who want you to stay around…..
[…] The House Judiciary Committee, led by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, held a field hearing Monday near Bragg’s offices to examine the Democrat’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies.
New York City has “lost its way when it comes to fighting crime and upholding the law,” Jordan said. “Here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics. For the district attorney justice isn’t blind — it’s about advancing opportunities to promote a political agenda — a radical political agenda.”
Democrats said the hearing was a partisan stunt aimed at amplifying conservative anger at Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district attorney.
“It is really troubling that American taxpayers’ dollars are being used to come here on this junket to do an examination of the safest big city in America instead of focusing on the real over-proliferation of guns that we have witnessed,” said Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain.
Adams called the hearing an “in-kind donation” to the Trump campaign. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called it “a circus.” [Both correct.]
New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said: “Jim Jordan engages in a lot of political theater in Washington, but he should know better than to take his tired act to Broadway. New Yorkers see through this transparent attempt to defend Donald Trump at all costs while ignoring the real public safety needs of our community.”
Interrupted several times by outbursts from protesters, Monday’s hearing was the latest salvo in Jordan’s weekslong effort to use his congressional powers to defend Trump from what he says is a politically motivated prosecution.
[…] in reality, the city’s violent crime rate remains substantially below the U.S. average.
[…] The House Judiciary Committee didn’t invite Bragg to testify, nor was anyone from his office expected to participate. Instead, the committee heard from crime victims, the head of the city’s detectives union, the head of an anti-gun violence group and a crime policy expert who — under questioning by Democrats — ticked off a long list of cities and states with higher violent crime rates than New York and Manhattan.
[…] Jose Alba, a former convenience store clerk, testified about his arrest after stabbing an attacker to death in his shop. Bragg dropped the charges but critics said he should have done so sooner. Madeline Brame blamed Bragg for seeking long prison sentences only for two of four people involved in her son’s killing. Jennifer Harrison — whose boyfriend was killed in New Jersey in 2005, outside Bragg’s jurisdiction and long before he took office — spoke as a victim advocate and Bragg critic.
“I want to thank all the witnesses including the victims of crime,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said. “I fear that you were being used for a political purpose despite your sincerity.”
A very literally creative translation there: I couldn’t find “handiment” in three dictionaries
From #229: Daily Kos
The best scenario of Russia’s healing in order to unite and become the Strongest State is the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which no handiments and negotiations will be possible.
The best scenario for healing Russia so that it rallies together and becomes the strongest state is the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which no handouts and negotiations will be possible
“I’m going to start something which I call ‘Truth GPT’ or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe,” Mr. Musk said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight”
Musk: Understanding the nature of the universe “might be the best path to safety, in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe, it is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe”…
Trying to pin down the size of the Ukrainian armed forces is a difficult task. The Ukrainian government hasn’t released any official figures, for all the obvious reasons. Why give Russia any information to inform their own plans? So that leaves a cacophony of often contradictory information that likely suits Ukraine just fine. But it makes our jobs as analysts harder to consider.
The current number floating around pro-Ukraine media is that Ukraine has 175 combat brigades […] At 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers per brigade, that’s somewhere between 500,000 and 875,000 soldiers. I’ve also found references to a podcast in which a Ukrainian government official supposedly claimed that Ukraine has 1.2 million men and women under arms. That is plausible, given the various elements of the Ukrainian military: Territorial Defense Forces, Border Guards, National Guard, and even paramilitary police units we’ve seen on the front lines.
Now let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this number is inflated for misinformation purposes, or to freak out the Russians. Let’s also assume that tens of thousands would remain stationed on the Belarus and Russian borders to protect against invasion or sabotage. A great many more would continue to man defenses in places like Bakhmut, no matter where the counteroffensive took place. Also, remember that only about 15-20% of all troops pull a trigger or press a button that fires something; everyone else is playing supporting roles.
So let’s say Ukraine has only 100,000 combat arms troops available for the counteroffensive.
If that’s the case, and if those troops have effectively learned combined arms warfare … well then, Russia is kinda f’d. [Tweet and video at the link]
This map features Russia’s current defensive lines: [Tweet and map at the link]
The active front line is around 1,000 kilometers. Russia may have up to 350,000 troops in Ukraine. That estimate is likely high, but let’s use that number for argument’s sake.
Assuming equal distribution, that would amount to 350 Russians per kilometer of active front. Except that those trench lines extend beyond the active front, and we can assume some Russians will be manning them (lest Ukraine catch them sleeping again, like they did in the Kharkiv offensive). Furthermore, Russia is most concerned about losing its precious “land bridge” to Crimea. The map above reflects that priority, with layers of defenses heading south toward Melitopol and the port city of Berdyansk.
That means that certain areas of the front will have a higher density of Russian defenders than others. Ukraine will have to decide whether the more thinly defended path toward Svatove and Starobilsk in northeastern Ukraine is worth the effort, or if they’ll punch hard to sever the land bridge and slice Russia’s army in half.
Furthermore, Russia will presumably hold units in reserve in the rear, ready to rush toward Ukraine’s main thrust, ready to plug any holes that Ukraine may open and attempt to exploit. That means those trenches will have even fewer defenders as a first line. And complicating things for Russia, Ukraine can freely move its troops around its internal lines of communication, while Russia has to move theirs the long way, around the perimeter:
Let’s say that down in Zaporizhzhia oblast, en route toward Melitopol, that Russian defensive density is around 500 soldiers per kilometer—most of them poorly equipped untrained mobiks.
This is where combined-arms warfare comes into play. Ukraine can’t mimic the Russian tactic of randomly sending armor toward defensive positions. It also can’t send human waves. Ukraine has made mincemeat of both Russian approaches. It certainly can’t do American-style combined-arms breaching maneuvers, as Ukraine lacks the air power, but it has to approximate it as best it can. [Combined Arms Breach video at the link]
Recent arms shipments from its allies have been heavy on engineering equipment (systems to clear mines, mobile bridges, etc), and American trainers have been working with Ukrainian units on combined arms maneuvers in Germany. Those units are now continuing their training in Ukraine, presumably sharing their new expertise with other Ukrainian units.
Over 1,000 new pieces of Western armor are currently flowing into Ukraine, supplementing Ukraine’s already large inventory of Soviet-era equipment—both their own and that captured from the Russians. [Tweet and image of Bradley IFVs]
Everyone is so focused on tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, yet the most important tool in this battlefield, given the absence of air power, remains artillery. And Italy has stepped up in a big way. [Tweet and video at the link]
Italian media is reporting that 60 of these self-propelled artillery guns are headed toward Ukraine, part of over 100 that were sitting in storage, all committed to Ukraine. Back in 2019, they were sold to Pakistan, but the Trump Administration blocked the transfer because Pakistan had also ordered hundreds of Chinese-made howitzers and MLRS rocket artillery. Donald Trump finally made a decision that worked out!
Of course, Ukraine is having serious issues procuring enough ammunition, currently the most alarming bottleneck. But given the extensive wear and tear on Ukraine’s existing stock, having additional guns available should help in this offensive. And the last two American arms announcements to Ukraine were uncharacteristically heavy on ammunition.
If we have 100,000 Ukrainian troops, with artillery, armor, air defense, electronic warfare, engineering, and drones (for the air component) all working in combined fashion, facing Russian trenches with several hundred low-morale defenders per kilometer … well, you start getting a sense of what’s possible.
Ukraine caught Russia sleeping in Kharkiv oblast, and it liberated much of Kherson oblast and its capital by cutting off the two bridges supplying Russian forces in the area. Russia is no longer sleeping, and it’s not so easy to cut logistics to occupied Ukrainian territory. This will require Ukraine to do what it hasn’t done before, and what Russia never managed: massing forces to punch through defensive lines.
Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, asserted that Russia is “interested in ending the war in Ukraine as fast as possible”.
Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman returned to work on Monday after weeks of treatment for depression, bringing a crucial vote back to a Senate narrowly controlled by Democrats…
Russians are so desperate for Western goods that they keep coming up with hilarious facsimiles: [Tweet and video, showing Swed House, a Belarusian furniture company that sells items intended to look like those from IKEA […] IKEA halted all operations in Russia in response to the war in Ukraine. The video has English subtitles.]
It’s extra funny because by copying Ikea’s colors, they are using Ukraine’s.
[Tweet, images and video at the link: “Tucker Carlson pushed a fake version of a U.S. intelligence document about Ukrainian war casualties. It was doctored by a fraud podcaster who claimed to be a Russian woman from Luhansk. In reality, Sarah Bils is a former U.S. Navy clerk from New Jersey—and she pocketed all the money she claimed to raise for Russian causes.”]
On the plus side, she solicited donations for Russian troops, then pocketed the cash. If you’re going to grift, grifting from Russia lovers makes it much better. On the other hand, having helped disseminate those stolen documents, she is now under investigation.
Rachel Maddow covered this story tonight. Tucker Carlson was awful … he was a Russian propaganda stooge. He read from a doctored document and concluded that “Ukraine is losing the war.” He also stated as if was fact that Ukraine is losing 7 soldiers to every 1 Russian soldier. Also, that document was not just altered, it was crudely altered, and was thus an obvious fake. Very lazy and/or stupid of Fox News to not factcheck that.
[Tweet and video of Russian forces attacking Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut with incendiary munitions.] These incendiary munitions look both beautiful and nasty, but they can’t possibly be that effective if these Ukrainian soldiers inside a warehouse seem totally protected. It’d be nasty to be caught outside when these balls of fire float down, but there seems to be plenty of advance notice for anyone caught under one of these barrages.
[Tweet and video of incendiary munitions being used in Vuhledar.] Given we’ve seen these munitions over towns like Adviika and Vuhledar for months that remain in Ukrainian hands, I just don’t see the value of them beyond attempting to terrorize defenders. (And it doesn’t work, if you can sit in a warehouse safe and sound.)
…an AI that cares about understanding the universe, it is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe…
Or maybe it will kill us because that simplifies the universe and therefore makes it easier to understand.
But frankly, the biggest threat to humanity isn’t from AI, it’s from people like Musk.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Vladimir Putin has visited military headquarters in Russian-occupied areas Ukraine, the Kremlin has said. Putin was shown on Russian state television disembarking a military helicopter in Russian-held Ukraine and greeting senior military commanders. It was not stated when the visit took place.
…
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appeared in court to appeal on Tuesday against his detention in Moscow on charges of espionage. The court will hear a complaint filed by Gershkovich against the decision to keep him in custody in Lefortovo prison while the case is being investigated. The hearing is essentially procedural covering how Gershkovich should be detained as he awaits trial, not about the substance of the charges.
Poland and Ukraine will resume negotiations early on Tuesday to try to reopen the transit of food and grains, the Polish agriculture minister told public radio station PR1. The two countries held talks on Monday over bans by central eastern European countries seeking to shelter their farmers from the impact of an influx of cheaper Ukrainian grain.
Russian forces are stepping up their use of heavy artillery and air strikes in the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces said on Tuesday….
Only a tiny fraction of primary care physicians provide abortion care. Dr Joan Fleischman believes that training them in a simple and easy abortion method might be the best way to offset the war on access…
You might be feeling that artificial intelligence is starting to seem a bit like magic. Our guest this week points out that AI, once the subject of science fiction, has seen the biggest rise of any consumer technology in history and has outpaced the uptake of TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. As we see AI becoming more of an everyday tool, students are even using chatbots like ChatGPT to write papers. While automating certain tasks can help with productivity, we’re starting to see more examples of the dark side of the technology. How close are we to genuine external intelligence? Kate Crawford is an AI expert, research professor at USC Annenberg, honorary professor at the University of Sydney and senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research Lab in New York City. She’s also author of “Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence.” Crawford joins WITHpod to discuss the social and political implications of AI, exploited labor behind its growth, why she says it’s “neither artificial nor intelligent,” climate change concerns, the need for regulation and more.
I don’t like the way Hayes speaks at some points about consciousness and animals – he mentions “projecting” an inner life onto dogs, I think even uses the phrase “human uniqueness,” and so on. Reasserting the nature of human thought in contrast to these technologies is necessary, but shouldn’t be done by disparaging the thought of other animals. Talking about animals in this disparaging way ignores the embodied and social foundations of human thought that Crawford notes. I recommend Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. (I still haven’t read Ed Yong’s An Immense World, but I’m still excited to.)
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reports that the ambassadors of the US, UK and Canada have been summoned to the foreign ministry over their comments about the sentencing yesterday of opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Tass quotes the ministry saying:
In connection with gross interference in the internal affairs of Russia and activities that do not correspond to diplomatic status, the ambassadors of the US, Britain and Canada have been summoned to the foreign ministry.
…
As #240 above notes, Kara-Murza is also a British citizen.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited Ukrainian troops in Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, according to officials from the country who released video footage of the trip. The president of Ukraine heard reports from military commanders on the situation on the battlefield and handed out awards to soldiers.
A Russian judge has rejected an appeal by the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich against the decision to hold him in detention before his trial on charges of espionage.
Gershkovich, 31, is the first US journalist to be detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the cold war and, if found guilty, could face up to 20 years in prison.
Russia’s FSB security service has accused him of collecting state secrets about Russia’s military for the benefit of US intelligence, charges that have been roundly condemned as political and unfounded.
Hearings in his case are being held in closed sessions because of the nature of the charges, but cameras were briefly allowed into the courtroom before Tuesday’s hearing started. The court was only deciding on the decision to hold Gershkovich in pre-trial detention, not on the substance of the case.
It was the first time the outside world has seen proper footage of Gershkovich since his arrest at the end of March. The reporter was standing inside a glass case known informally as an “aquarium”, where defendants in Russian court cases are often held. He appeared calm and was pictured smiling. Marks on one of his wrists appeared to show where he had been kept in handcuffs.
Security concerns have prompted Russian authorities this year to cancel traditional nationwide victory day processions where people carry portraits of relatives who fought against Nazi Germany in the second world war, Reuters report a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Since 2012, the “immortal regiment” processions have become a major feature of national celebrations on 9 May, a public holiday when Russia honours the 27 million Soviet citizens [many of whom were Ukrainian] who died in the struggle to defeat Adolf Hitler’s invasion [which wouldn’t have succeeded without huge amounts of aid from the US].
But Tass news agency quoted lawmaker Yelena Tsunayeva as saying the marches would not take place this year since a number of regions, including Russian-annexed Crimea, had pulled out “because of the threat”.
Tsunayeva did not specify a threat, although Russia has claimed that Ukraine has been behind bomb attacks on Russian soil….
birgerjohanssonsays
Astronomy.
The Star HD 19467 -a G star of approximately the sun’s mass and luminosity 100 light years away has been confirmed having a Brown dwarf companion 50 AU away, mass ca 50 Jupiter masses.
(The system is about 7 billion years old, so any planets closer to the sun-like star may still have some tectonic activity if they are not enough)
There are closer systems with Brown dwarf companions but I find sun-like stars more interesting.
southpaw on Twitter: “Twitter, which has generally made itself a haven for far right accounts since Musk’s takeover, suspends Ali Alexander’s account @ali after @willsommer’s story about Alexander soliciting nudes from teen boys.”
We had wondered how the Danny Masterson retrial might be different than the first trial, which ended in a hung jury on November 30. And wow, on day one of the retrial yesterday, we really got some confirmation that the differences could be pretty stark….
Essentially, in the first trial, “the defense had argued for excluding any mention of Scientology from the trial at all.” In this one, they’re going to be “turning it into a spectacle about Scientology.”
Our journalism is impartial and independent. To suggest otherwise is untrue. That is why we are pausing our activities on @Twitter. | Notre journalisme est impartial et indépendant. Prétendre le contraire est faux. C’est pourquoi nous suspendons nos activités sur @Twitter.
Ukraine’s government has criticised Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his efforts to broker a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, and invited the Brazilian leader to visit the war-torn country and see for himself the consequences of the Russian invasion.
The comments came a day after Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, visited Brasília, and praised Lula’s calls for a negotiated settlement.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Kyiv was watching Lula’s efforts to resolve the conflict “with interest” but criticised the Brazilian government for giving equal weight to “the victim and the aggressor”.
The spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, confirmed that Lula had been invited to visit Kyiv “to understand the real causes of Russian aggression and its consequences for global security”.
Lula has refused to supply weapons to Ukraine and suggested that Brazil could lead a “peace club” of neutral countries to mediate discussions between the two sides, as part of his efforts to return the South American country to international relevance after the isolation of the Jair Bolsonaro years…. [Going great so far!]
I still can’t figure out how a machine translation could come up with a word apparently not found in any dictionary.
For that matter, I don’t understand how the word “handout” would apply to putative negotiations between two nations at war Special Military Operation – an allusion to “hand out” meaning an invitation to a handshake, maybe?
whheydtsays
Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #291…
I would read “handout” as a gift, such as just for showing up at the negotiation table.
Fox News Channel’s much anticipated defamation trial was unexpectedly delayed after the network’s anchors required five hours to have their makeup done.
Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, both expected to testify during the proceedings, were behind closed doors having what was described as “several substantial coats” of foundation, bronzer, and blush slathered onto their faces.
Judge Eric Davis called the delay “unacceptable,” reminding Fox’s attorneys that the trial was not even being televised.
But Dan Webb, Fox’s lead attorney, argued that, without their makeup, “Mr. Hannity and Mr. Carlson would be totally unrecognizable to the jury.”
The trial suffered yet another delay when the anchors finally entered the courtroom and three jurors passed out from hair-spray fumes.
Trump has repeatedly sought to delay his trial in the E. Jean Carroll case where she accuses him of rape and defamation. The judge has grown weary of denying these motions for the trial set to begin on April 25th, a week from today. The weariness was evident in the a decision from the judge yesterday denying yet another Trump request to delay the trial. The decision is truly a joy to read.
Trump sought to delay the trial for a month as a “cooling off period” after his indictment in the courthouse next door. Trump claimed the extensive publicity surrounding his indictment created a media circus so that any potential jury in his case with Carroll would have fresh in their minds his criminal charges.
The judge’s first reason for denying Trump’s request is one I noted right away. In a month, there’s likely to be another criminal indictment, and a month later yet another. If criminal indictments are a basis to delay Carroll’s trial it may not happen till next year. […]
As the judge politely put it:
“postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity. Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse . . . Mr. Trump faces a number of criminal and civil investigations and litigation including . . .”
The judge then lists the pending investigations against Trump that could lead to more criminal charges. It’s a lengthy footnote.
Towards the end of the decision the judge points out that much of the publicity surrounding Trump’s indictment was generated by Trump.
“it bears emphasis that at least some portion of the recent media coverage of Mr.Trump’s indictment was of his own doing. There has been no shortage of recent news articles focused on Mr. Trump’s own public statements on his social media platform and in press conferences and interviews he has given about his indictment. It does not sit well for Mr. Trump to promote pretrial publicity and then to claim that coverage that he promoted was prejudicial to him and should be taken into account as supporting a further delay.”
For those hoping Trump’s big mouth would be used against him in court, read it and smile. Further, this is the second time in just this case. As I previously wrote, the same judge applied a treatment for Trump, normally given to mafia bosses, in ruling that Trump’s long history of attempting to intimidate courts, witnesses, and even individual jurors justified keeping the names of jurors in this case anonymous.
A curious toddler on Tuesday earned the title of one of the tiniest White House intruders after he squeezed through the metal fencing on the north side of the executive mansion.
U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division officers, who are responsible for security at the White House, walked across the North Lawn to retrieve the tot and reunite him with his parents on Pennsylvania Avenue. Access to the complex was briefly restricted while officers conducted the reunification. Officers briefly questioned the parents before allowing them to continue on their way…
Paul Ksays
SC #284: ‘I still haven’t read Ed Yong’s An Immense World, but I’m still excited to.’
I just signed in to respond to this: It is soooo good! I love a book with footnotes, but this one has dozens that would make fantastic topics for books all their own. Yong set out to attempt to look at the way other living things experience the world, not as something to teach us about ourselves, but for those living thing’s sake themselves. He succeeds. It’s wonderful!
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has such a tenuous grip on his own conference that the debt-ceiling hostage-taking he is attempting to pull off has all the hallmarks of the bumbling kidnapping capers you see in the movies:
– The House GOP can’t agree amongst themselves what to ask for as ransom.
– They can’t get the White House to take them seriously enough as a ragtag band of kidnappers to engage in negotiations.
– They keep threatening dire consequences for not taking them seriously but are repeatedly hobbled by their own lack of consensus.
At this point, McCarthy wants the House to vote by the end of the month on a package that combines the debt ceiling with draconian spending cuts, but he clearly doesn’t have (i) internal agreement on those cuts or on how much to raise the debt ceiling by; or (ii) the votes to push a package through as early as next week.
McCarthy is preparing to bypass the House committees altogether and cobble together a package on the floor himself […] If wishing and hoping were a plan …
One word of warning: Political reporters are doing McCarthy a favor by calling what he’s presenting publicly, including in his speech yesterday to the NYSE, a “plan.” It’s not a plan yet. It skews the coverage to pretend it is a plan. McCarthy is taking advantage of this journalistic failure to try to leverage pressure on the White House. The White House ain’t stupid and isn’t biting.
McCarthy doesn’t have a plan or the votes. Until that changes, that’s really all you need to know.
The fake GOP electors in Georgia that former President Donald Trump recruited as part of his failed attempt to stay in power are starting to point fingers at each other, court documents revealed on Tuesday.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area prosecutor who’s investigating Trump’s effort to upend American democracy there, laid out the details in a legal memo to a state judge—one that hints at criminal indictments to come.
According to the memo, prosecutors in July last year dangled immunity deals for “alternate electors” who were willing to cooperate with the investigation—but their defense lawyer is now accused of never telling them about the potential deal.
If their attorney is selling them out due to some other interest – say Trump’s – that attorney could be in trouble.
Following a special purpose grand jury recommendation in December that the DA seek indictments against some people involved in the fraudulent scheme, investigators have turned up the pressure.
It turns out, these Republican officials and political operatives are now starting to squirm, identifying illegal behavior by their colleagues while trying to save their own skin—a sudden pivot that came when Willis’ investigators met with these fake electors last week…
But that situation has created what Willis calls “an impracticable and ethical mess,” because 10 of these fake electors are being represented by a single Atlanta defense lawyer—who can’t possibly advocate for clients who are simultaneously ratting each other out. The DA’s office is using those details to make the case that the judge should intervene and disqualify that defense lawyer, Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, citing a conflict of interest…
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday voiced his strong opposition to allowing Democrats to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on the Judiciary Committee, stymieing a move sought by Democrats to strengthen the party’s hand in confirming judicial nominees during Feinstein’s extended absence.
During remarks on the Senate floor, McConnell argued that nominees by President Biden that enjoy some Republican support are still able to move forward through the committee as Feinstein recovers from shingles in California.
Adding another Democratic vote in the meantime would only serve to allow Democrats to “force through their very worst nominees,” McConnell said.
“The supposed emergency is the Senate Democrats are unable to push through the small fraction of their nominees who are so extreme, so extreme and so unqualified, that they cannot win a single Republican vote in committee,” McConnell said.
[…] replacing Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee would take 60 votes to approve given GOP objections. This means at least 10 Republicans would need to back the measure — a number that appeared out of reach even before McConnell delivered his first public remarks on the issue on Tuesday. […]
Posted by a reader of the article:
“Moscow Mitch” has some chutzpah in refusing the Democrats leave to replace an ailing Diane Feinstein on the Senate Judicial Committee… considering the shimmying and sliding […] he has performed in order to push through the confirmation process his hand-picked and (mostly) unqualified conservative judges.
Poland has begun building a state-of-the-art electronic barrier at its land border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave to monitor and counteract any illegal activity, the Polish interior minister said Tuesday.
The barrier, which will be equipped with 24-hour monitoring cameras and motion detectors, will run for 210 kilometers (130 miles) and is due to be completed in the fall…
Last year, Poland, which is an EU member, built a wall on its border with Belarus, a Russian ally, to stop a massive illegal inflow of migrants. Warsaw said the crossings were organized by the Belarus and Russian authorities to destabilize Poland and the rest of the EU…
“There is and has been an ongoing investigation into multiple, significant violation(s) of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act … which states that it is illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties,” according to the statement.
Joey Senat, a journalism professor at Oklahoma State University, said under Oklahoma law, the recording would be legal if it were obtained in a place where the officials being recorded did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Bruce Willingham, the longtime publisher of the McCurtain Gazette-News, said the recording was made March 6 when he left a voice-activated recorder inside the room after a county commissioner’s meeting because he suspected the group was continuing to conduct county business after the meeting had ended in violation of the state’s Open Meeting Act.
Willingham said he twice spoke with his attorneys to be sure he was doing nothing illegal…
Paul K @ #297, thanks for signing in! OK, that does it – I’m going to have to move it back to the top of my reading list, especially since almost everything I’ve read lately has been making me angry.
There has been a decidedly downbeat mood among many U.S. analysts when it comes to the potential of any Ukrainian military counteroffensive and to the ultimate outcome of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion. Some of those analysts are now raising proposals that are invariably pitched as a means of generating “lasting peace,” but all of which come down to rewarding Vladimir Putin and limiting future U.S. support for Ukraine.
Some of these negative assessments point to one of the documents reportedly leaked by Massachusetts Air National Guard service member Jack Teixeira which was covered in The Washington Post. That report expresses significant reservations about Ukraine’s ability to restore the integrity of its territory, pointing to several areas where its forces are short of the necessary equipment and training to make a major breakthrough. That document is now several months old and was clearly intended not as an outright evaluation of Ukraine’s chances, but as a guide to things that needed to be addressed before any such advance was launched.
Almost every analysis seems to make the same assumptions and come to the same conclusions: Ukraine will attack to the south, trying to sever the “land bridge” between Russia and Crimea. That attack, even if it is successful in reaching the shores of the Sea of Azov, won’t lead to any kind of general failure of the Russian military. What happens next will be a new phase of the war. For many analysts, the best guide to what that phase will be like is what’s happening in Ukraine right now, creating a choice between a bad peace and a bloody stalemate.
A perfect example of this kind of analysis is featured in this editorial on Foreign Policy.
If those leaked documents from the Pentagon are to be believed—and I think they are—the United States needs a plan B for Ukraine. As much as we’d all like to see the swift liberation of Ukrainian territory, the under-equipped, under-trained Ukrainian forces now gearing up for a spring offensive are unlikely to make far-reaching gains against Russia’s defenses. The administration’s bold promises of an eventual Ukrainian triumph will probably not be borne out, and Ukraine will suffer additional damage in the meantime. What Ukraine needs is peace, not a protracted war of attrition against a more populous adversary whose leader does not much care about how many lives are sacrificed in the maelstrom.
That article authored by a Harvard professor, follows another Foreign Policy article from five days ago that seems to start out from a more hopeful position.
After just over a year, the war in Ukraine has turned out far better for Ukraine than most predicted. Russia’s effort to subjugate its neighbor has failed. Ukraine remains an independent, sovereign, functioning democracy, holding on to roughly 85 percent of the territory it controlled before Russia’s 2014 invasion.
But that’s the end of the good news. From there, the article takes the position that Russia’s “numerical superiority likely gives it the ability to counter Ukraine’s greater operational skill and morale, as well as its access to Western support. Accordingly, the most likely outcome of the conflict is not a complete Ukrainian victory but a bloody stalemate.”
Because of all this, both articles come ultimately to the same conclusion: The West needs to prepare for Ukraine to be unable to force Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory. Not just from territory held since 2014, but from thousands of square kilometers captured since February 2022. And in the end, it all comes down to this …
The second prong of the West’s strategy should be to roll out later this year a plan for brokering a cease-fire and a follow-on peace process aimed at permanently ending the conflict. … as the war’s costs mount and the prospect of a military stalemate looms, it is worth pressing for a durable truce, one that could prevent renewed conflict and, even better, set the stage for a lasting peace.
What does such peace look like? With much talk about the “end of this fighting season” and how Ukraine should not continue to win “Pyrrhic victories,” it boils down to Ukrainian territory being divided between Ukraine and Russia with a demilitarized zone in-between. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this is exactly what Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was targeting from the outset.
As The Guardian reported in March 2022, “Vladimir Putin is seeking to split Ukraine into two, emulating the postwar division between North and South Korea, the invaded country’s military intelligence chief has said.”
But, even if that’s where all the smart people think this is going, there’s an alternative to drawing up that plan for a Zaporizhzhia DMZ: Let’s wait and see what Ukraine can accomplish.
Taking the ugliest, most hard-hearted, most selfish view imaginable, it’s hard to see how anyone could view what’s happened over the last year in Ukraine as anything but an enormous win for the United States and the West. For the cost of just over one-tenth of a single year’s Pentagon budget, and with shipments of equipment that was largely headed for some of those endless desert storage fields—if not the scrapyard—the ability of Russia to project military power overseas has been all but eliminated.
Who would not take that bargain? Bonus points as it was someone else who actually had to pay the enormous cost in blood and loss to make it happen, while the biggest concern in the U.S. was the price of eggs.
Oryx verifies that Russia has lost over 1,900 tanks. Ukraine puts the number over 3,600. The same set of leaked documents that includes the apparently gloomy assessment of a Ukrainian counteroffensive sets the number around 2,300. Whichever number you take, that’s about one-half of all the rolling stock available. And the quality of what remains is seriously degraded. The bulk of Russia’s T90s are gone. The T-80s are gone. The T-72s that have been the workhorse of the Russian military for four decades are gone. They’re bringing in not just T-62s and T-64s, there are verified sightings of T-55 tanks creaking into Ukraine in all their geriatric glory.
It’s not just tanks that are gone, it’s tank crews. It’s all the other experienced soldiers who accompanied those tank crews. A generation of Russia’s most capable soldiers and up-and-coming officers lay dead on the field at Bakhmut, and at places like Lyman, Snihurivka, and Bohorodychne, where Russia fought long, bloody battles. And lost.
Not only are the Russian tanks in the field now older and less capable, but the Russian troops in the field are also less experienced. When the invasion began, almost all those who crossed the border into Ukraine were in the Russian military by choice. Now such units are a rarity.
[…] On a tactical level, Russia is fighting more effectively now than when it waded into Ukraine expecting Georgia or Syria 2.0, dress uniforms at the ready. Russia is making better use of drones, and if it hasn’t learned to stage large-scale actions effectively, it’s learned how to at least heap small-scale actions into the same general area.
Even all those defensive lines—from “dragon’s teeth” to trenches—which seemed ridiculous when Russia started digging them months ago, look like a recognition that Russia doesn’t have the firepower to stand up to a direct assault. Recognizing that and preparing lines well back from the current front shows that Russia has a much greater self-awareness of its own capabilities and shortfalls than it did when rolling that “40km convoy” toward Kyiv.
Even if Ukraine fully integrates all the new Western gear; even if they make good use of Western training and tactics; even if they are immediately successful in driving for the coast (or Starobilsk, or Donetsk, or…) It may actually be impossible for Ukraine to shatter Russian forces so thoroughly that they drive Russian forces from their territory in the next few months.
What Ukraine deserves then is … more months. Months in which any suggestion that a solution less than full defeat of the Russian military is at all acceptable, must come from Ukraine. It is way too early to talk about handing over more of Ukraine to Putin and giving him the weakened, divided Ukraine he wanted a year ago.
If the West slackens in supplying Ukraine, or pressures the government in Kyiv to look for a peace plan that they don’t want, we won’t just be failing the people who have done yeoman’s work in making the whole world a better place, we’ll be extending a lifeline to Putin, and to the whole concept of war for territorial gain.
What the West has given to Ukraine, and what the West owes Ukraine are vastly different things. If there’s anything we need to plan for, it should be how we recognize that when this is all over.
Siberia was on a cooling trend for 7,638 years before the industrial revolution. Today the vast frozen region at the top of the world is warming four to seven times faster than the rest of the planet, which is directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. […]
That is not the only problem in Siberia; Vladimir Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine have stopped all international climate research in the frozen but rapidly thawing carbon-rich permafrost. The Siberian climate researchers and activists have been labeled as foreign agents, and many have fled to the West to avoid arrest or murder by Russian Authorities.
Yale 360 writes about the unprecedented temperatures and ramifications of wildfires, rapid permafrost thaw, and rising sea temperatures in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean are scaring the daylights out of climate scientists as the world flies blind in a highly significant region of the earth climate system. [video at the link]
Scientists analyzed tree rings in partially fossilized wood from Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula to track summer temperatures over the last 7,638 years — tree rings tend to be wider in warm, wet years and thinner in colder, drier years. The wood samples, collected in expeditions carried out over the last four decades, revealed a multi-millennial cooling trend that abruptly reversed at the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
The long-term decline in Siberia’s summer temperatures is consistent with changes in the Earth’s orbit, while the recent warming trend reflects the sudden rise in heat-trapping carbon dioxide over the last 150 years. Today, Siberian summers are warming faster that at any time in the last 7,000 years, reaching unprecedented temperatures. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. […]
Scientists say the rapid rise in Arctic temperatures is setting the stage for larger and more intense fires. Over the last two decades, wildfires in boreal forests accounted for 70 percent of fire-related forest loss globally. So far this year, wildfires in Siberia have burned more than 8 million acres of forest, an area roughly the size of the Netherlands. More ferocious wildfires and permafrost loss threaten to unleash more greenhouse gases, spurring further warming.
[Before the invasion into Ukraine, Russia used soldiers to fight wildfires.]
[chart at the link: shows rapidly warming temps at from the start of the Industrial Revolution to now.]
Russia has half of the Arctic land mass within its borders and jurisdiction over most of the Arctic Ocean.
How Tensions With Russia Are Jeopardizing Key Arctic Research
“So much of what we need to know about these impacts is being lost,” Regehr says. “It’s hard to see how we are going to be able to resume the science without the government and non-government funding [for] us and the Russians, and without us being there to work with their scientists.” […]
Scientists from around the globe have collaborated in the Arctic at least since the Cold War. Three years after the Cuban missile crisis, representatives from the Soviet Union attended the first of many circumpolar meetings on the study of polar bears, which were in serious decline from overhunting. The Soviet Union was a signatory to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which went into effect in 1973, and the five-nation Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which went into force three years later.
The Russians have also been intimately involved with the International Maritime Organization and the World Meteorological Organization, […]
[Tweet, and video of climate protest in Moscow.]
‘Foreign agents’: Inside the Russian climate movement taking the government to court
The climate case was submitted on 11 September. Five days later, Russia withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights. This case may turn out to be the last the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) hears from the country.
18 individuals and two organisations filed the lawsuit, despite considerable risks from crackdowns on state opposition.
Russian politicians accused those behind the lawsuit of using the “myth” of climate change to launch a “large-scale legal sabotage”. Chairman of the Just Russia party Sergei Mironov called it a “direct preparation for a new propaganda campaign against our countries and outright blackmail of the Russian leadership”. [Bullshit, bullshitting propaganda, also, it is right wing nonsense.]
[…] Aleksandra Koroleva from Ecodefense! says there are now 70 organisations on the list of foreign agents, 19 people on the register of individuals and 172 people and organisations recognised as media foreign agents. […] by 2021, 22 of the 32 environmental organisations that were initially added to the list had closed. Others have struggled to survive by adapting to tightening restrictions on their operations.
Russia, of course, is not alone in demonizing the climate movement. [Tweet and video from the UK.]
‘Violent’ Climate Activists Next Global ThreatSays Lobbying Group Funded by Russia and Big Oil
[…] Vladimir Putin’s aim is to sow chaos in Europe. That is why it’s particularly significant that this British national security lobbying group funded by four giant oil and gas firms, several NATO members, along with the Russian Government, is warning that climate activists will turn to “violence”.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies […] is funded by some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel majors – including BP, Chevron, Shell and Equinor, as well as the British Army, US military, other Western governments, private military contractors, and authoritarian Gulf regimes.
It also receives funding from the Russian Government – the biggest oil and gas exporter in the world.
However, this detail was quietly removed from the IISS’ website without notice, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Its new paper claims that “violent” climate activism is among the world’s top climate-related security threats.
Hoping to repeat his past success with NFTs, former President Donald Trump has launched a second collection of digital trading cards, with tens of thousands of new collectibles now available for mint. But prices for the controversial politician’s original NFT set have quickly plummeted now that the total supply has more than doubled…
ondrbaksays
@295
“Подачка” in the original text is not just a handout, it’s a kind of handout that costs nearly nothing to the giver and taking it is humiliating to the receiver. The origin of the term is leftover food thrown to dogs. The term implies very unequal status of the parties in the exchange and is often used by the receiving party when rejecting the ‘handout’ precisely on the grounds that it is humiliating.
I’m not entirely sure what Prigozhyn meant by the word in that particular sentence, but reading the preceding paragraphs when he speculates about the US/West being more interested in the slow decline of the quality of life and consequently the moral or the russian population which could lead to general acceptance of some kind of negotiations and of giving away occupied territories in exchange for something that would improve the quality of life, I think “подачки” refers to whatever the US/West will propose in exchange for russia’s withdrawing its troops, which would presumably be something trivial for the US/West and insulting to the russian lives lost and therefore humiliating to russia and therefore “подачка”.
Federal investigators say BNSF railroad is analyzing a section of fractured rail after last month’s fiery derailment that prompted evacuations in southwest Minnesota, but they didn’t say definitively that the broken rail caused the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued its preliminary report Tuesday on the March 30 derailment that forced about 800 people from their homes in Raymond, Minnesota, after 10 ethanol cars derailed and several of them caught fire from the fuel additive leak. Those ethanol cars were among 23 cars that came off the tracks shortly before 1 a.m. that day…
A TALE OF TWO VISITS
This morning, there are reports that Vladimir Putin is visiting occupied areas in Ukraine. For Putin, that apparently means arriving by helicopter in an area at least 150 km away from any active front. There Putin shook hands with one (count ‘em) officer and walked one (count ‘em) block along a street in an area where there seems to have been no fighting or damage.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was back at the front, visiting with soldiers in Avdiivka, a suburb of occupied Donetsk, which has been on the front every single day since Russia invaded. Avdiivka has been second only to Bakhmut in Russia’s ongoing efforts to capture the town, but it, and the rest of the lines around Donetsk, have held firm.
It’s genuinely astounding that every day of this invasion, Ukraine has been less than 10km away from one of the “regional capitals” of Russia’s occupation. It says something about the two sides’ relative goals: While Ukraine has certainly fired into military targets in and around Donetsk, it has made no effort to flatten the city as Russia has to every village, town, or city on the Ukrainian side of the front. [video at the link]
DON’T PULL THE TRIGGER UNTIL THE GUN IS LOADED
This morning, there are more good signs that, while a counteroffensive is coming, it may not be coming for several more weeks. The Canadian military provided some nice pictures this morning of the last Leopard 2 tanks being loaded for delivery. Because of flight limitations, it’s likely these tanks actually made their way to Poland or Germany, and are threading into Ukraine by rail. [Image of Leopard 2 tank being transported on a royal Canadian Air Force plane.]
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials seem anxious to test out the capabilities of the speedy AMX-10rc (which I know we’ve all agreed not to call a tank because it has wheels, but certainly seems like a light tank … with wheels). [Tweet and video at the link: “[…] we agreed to call the AMX-10 the “sniper rifle on the fast wheels.”
Seeing this hardware on the ground in Ukraine is certainly a good signal that a counteroffensive is on the way. However, assuming that Western hardware is going to play a significant role in that counteroffensive (which is, after all, far from a sure thing), the fact that we’re still seeing images of transport and training shows that this equipment hasn’t yet been kitted out for the front lines and integrated into Ukrainian units.
And then there is this less-than-happy signal from training on Leopard 2 tanks in Poland. [Tweet and images at the link]
That’s a pretty painful sight. It hopefully didn’t result in any injuries to members of a Ukrainian tank crew, but it’s a good signal of just how early these guys are when it comes to driving vehicles that are of a wholly unfamiliar design and operation.
As people keep making predictions about the Ukrainian counteroffensive, here are some unpredictions:
– It won’t necessarily happen in the south.
– It won’t necessarily involve much, if any, Western hardware.
– It won’t necessarily happen in the next few weeks.
RUSSIAN ASSAULTS TICK UPWARD
After weeks of a downward trend, the Ukrainian General Staff reported repelling at least 70 Russian attacks in their latest situation report. Not only did there seem to be an increase in activity, but there were also reports of assaults in areas that have been relatively quiet over the last few weeks.
Kupyansk: Russia reportedly tried to attack the town of Synkivka. In some ways, this is a good sign, as several analysts had written this town off as Russian-occupied some time ago. Ukraine, it seems, is still there. Also of interest, there are some signals of fighting far to the north, near the Russian border at the edge of the Kharkiv oblast.
Spirne: This town, which is about halfway between Severodonetsk and Bakhmut, is an interesting case. Ukraine actually made an assault to the east two weeks ago, liberating an area that penetrated about 1km into Russian-occupied territory. So far, they’ve held this little spike of land against repeated Russian assaults.
Bakhmut: In addition to fighting in the city, Russia reportedly made another unsuccessful run at Ivaniske. Russian sources report that Ukraine is “massing forces” north and south of Bakhmut. No confirmation that this is true.
Avdiivka: The town Zelenskyy visited today was also the center of another Russian assault. Which failed. Not for the first time, the Ukrainian president probably got a firsthand look at some active fighting.
Marinka: Reportedly, there were numerous assaults on this location, which comes right behind Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the number of Russian attempts over the last month. No gains by Russia.
Vuhledar: Russia did not attempt to attack Vuhledar. That seems worth noting.
The number of locations shelled also seemed to tick up in the last 24 hours. Does that mean Russia has unearthed another collection of old artillery shells (which, in some reports, have a detonation rate of less than 50%), or is this a temporary bump? Stay tuned.
FAREWELL FROM SWEDEN
Time for another of those videos in which trainers are giving a send-off to the troops who have been training with them for the last weeks or months. [video at the link]
ondrbak @309, thank you for that additional information:
[…] it’s a kind of handout that costs nearly nothing to the giver and taking it is humiliating to the receiver. The origin of the term is leftover food thrown to dogs. […]
Sounds like something Prigozhyn would typically say. I think he is full of braggadocio and also thin-skinned at the same time. Sounds a bit like Trump.
Wonkette: “FDA Approves Second Bivalent Booster Shots For Some”
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a second dose of the updated COVID booster shot that came out last fall, for older people and folks with compromised immune systems. That would be the “bivalent” boosters that were developed to protect against the original virus and the Omicron variant of the virus. The booster will be available to people over the age of 65 four months after their last dose, and to those with weakened immune systems two months after their last shot. Those guidelines apply to both the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech boosters.
On top of that, the FDA authorized making the updated vaccines the standard for all COVID vaccines from here on in, which means that anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated yet will get a single dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine instead of the two-dose vaccines that were originally rolled out in December 2020.
Next, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet with its vaccine advisory panel on Wednesday; once the CDC signs off on the new second dose plan, boosters can begin being given immediately.
As always, anti-vaxxers are still recommended to take a daily helping of STFU.
So far, the CDC says that only around 42 percent of Americans over 65 have received a first dose of the bivalent booster, and while virtually all Americans are able to get it, fewer than 17 percent of us have done so.
The Washington Post notes that the health agencies “will not formally urge that people get a second booster. Instead, the ‘permissive’ policy says they may get a second dose if they want.”
Experts have expressed differing views on the necessity of a second bivalent dose. While some say little data exists to justify it, others believe the extra shot is a good option for high-risk individuals. The United Kingdom and Canada already are offering spring booster shots for vulnerable individuals.
Since the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine wanes over time, you may as well get the second bivalent booster if you qualify, and you should definitely get a first one if you haven’t yet, since the vaccine has a good safety record and does a good job of protecting against hospitalization and death.
NBC News points out that while the two Omicron subvariants the bivalent vaccines were designed to protect against are no longer circulating in the US, the vaccines still offer pretty good protection against the current prevalent strain, another Omicron subvariant called XBB.1.5:
A CDC report published in January found that the updated Covid boosters reduced the risk of Covid infection from the XBB.1.5 subvariant by nearly half. Another study, published by Israeli researchers in the Lancet this month, found that the Covid boosters reduced the risk of hospitalization in people 65 and older by 72%. Neither study, however, looked at the effects of receiving two doses of the bivalent booster.
Going forward, the Post says that the FDA still plans to recommend that people get a COVID vaccine annually, in the fall when they get their flu vaccine [Good plan.]:
The FDA and its advisers hope the simplified schedule will encourage more people to get coronavirus vaccine doses. Officials will select a reformulated dose in coming months based on which coronavirus strain scientists think is most likely to be circulating in fall and winter.
Under that blueprint, most people, whether vaccinated or not, would be urged to receive a single annual dose of a coronavirus shot.
Even though Congress hasn’t authorized updated funding for COVID programs, the Post reports the shots will remain free of cost regardless of whether eligible people have insurance or not, since the “government has an ample supply.” Should that supply be exhausted, people with health insurance will still get free shots, but people on private insurance will want to make sure their providers are in network. The uninsured may have to pay, though, unless more funding comes from Congress. Freaking America, man.
Get your free booster shot now.
tomhsays
Fox/Dominion have settled their lawsuit, after the jury was seated and opening statements were about to begin. Term are not known.
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #313…
Saw that news earlier today. As soon as the second booster approvals clear the CDC and become official, I’ll get one. What with being 74. Then a third of whatever formulation they come up with in the Fall.
Tethyssays
From the train derailment article in #310
The fire from those leaking ethanol cars damaged the gaskets on three other ethanol cars nearby, causing them to leak as well, even though the gaskets were rated to withstand temperatures up to 225 degrees Fahrenheit (107.2 degrees Celsius).
I hope this is an error. Fires generally exceed the boiling point of water by far more than 13 degrees. Even if they meant the gasket is rated to 225 Celsius/ 432 Fahrenheit, the fire safety issue is obvious. I fact checked Ray Bradbury to be sure of my numbers, and the top result confirms that paper combusts at Fahrenheit 451.
“The ignition temperature of paper is 451 degrees Fahrenheit, or 233 degrees Celsius. Many people know this value from the Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451, an anti-utopian tale about a society where firemen are in charge of burning books instead of stopping fires.”
Ethanol fires are considerably hotter than that.
Reginald Selkirksays
@314: Very exciting, interested to see the details. I imagine it is much closer to Dominion’s position than Fox’s.
KGsays
Another senior SNP official – the party treasurer, Colin Beattie – has been arrested today in connection with the party’s funding, overshadowing Humza Yousaf’s attempted relaunch in the Scottish Parliament. You have to wonder if the timing was entirely coincidental. Beattie apparently supported multi-bigot Kate Forbes against Yousaf in the leadership election.in the
As an Army program tries to improve service members’ mental—and spiritual—well-being, nonbelievers see a chance to address bias
KGsays
Disappointed to learn Dominion have reached a settlement with Fox. The latter will undoubtedly retrun to their lies as soon as they think they can get away with it.
Contemporary atheism is not simply a denial of all religions; it’s really an ideology… Here are five essential points to enrich a Christian’s knowledge, and to realize that atheism is not so open-minded to evidence as it claims…
tomhsays
Re: Dominion
The settlement includes a $787.5 million payment from Fox, according to Dominion’s lawyers.
The $787.5 million payment cited by Dominion represents roughly half of the $1.6 billion that the company initially asked for in damages. Fox is still facing a similar defamation suit from another plaintiff involved in voting technology, Smartmatic.
A Smartmatic spokesman said in a statement: “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest.”
Reginald Selkirksays
@320: A settlement will come with terms. These terms are not yet known. I would presume that Fox desisting from repeating claims against Dominion are a baseline requirement.
What I think Fox News will learn from this settlement is: we can lie all the time if that’s what we like … we just have to avoid connecting those lies to the name of a specific company.
Tucker Carlson lied recently about the status of the war in Ukraine.
Fox did issue a statement. “We acknowledge the Court’s finding” sounds like weasel words to me.
[…] Fox issued a statement addressing the settlement, which briefly admits that it aired falsehoods:
“We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”
Fox has never had a “commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
tomhsays
NYT:
Under the terms of the settlement, Fox News will not have to apologize or admit to spreading false claims on network programming, according to a person familiar with the details of the agreement.
Dominion may have settled this suit, but its legal pursuits are far from over. The company still has defamation suits related to allegations of election fraud pending against Fox competitors Newsmax and OAN, as well as against the MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne, and against Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, both former lawyers for Donald J. Trump.
Fox News won’t have to issue on-air retraction for Dominion comments
Fox News, as part of a settlement reached Tuesday that resolves Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, will not have to issue an on-air correction or apology for the false statements made about the voting technology company in the weeks and months after the 2020 election, according to two people close to the network.
NYT:
Here are the other legal cases Fox is entangled in.
SMARTMATIC
Smartmatic, another election technology company, filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox in February 2021, accusing the news network of falsely implicating the company in a bogus narrative about vote rigging in the 2020 election.
“Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign,” a Smartmatic spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday. “Smartmatic will expose the rest.”
Smartmatic said in its complaint that Fox knowingly aired more than 100 false statements. A day after the suit was filed, Fox Business canceled the show of Lou Dobbs, who was named as a defendant.
In February, a New York appeals court denied Fox’s request to dismiss the case, and last month a New York judge agreed the case could proceed. A trial date has not been set.
A Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement: “We are confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected while the damages claims in this case are outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis. ”
ABBY GROSSBERG
On March 20, Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who had worked with the hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, filed two lawsuits against the company, in Delaware and in New York, saying that Fox’s lawyers had pushed her to give a misleading deposition in the Dominion case and alleging a hostile and discriminatory work environment. Ms. Grossberg was fired after filing the complaints.
“We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees,” a Fox News spokeswoman said.
CRIKEY NEWS
In this case, filed in August 2022, Lachlan Murdoch, the C.E.O. of Fox Corporation, is the one suing for libel.
Mr. Murdoch has accused Crikey News, a small Australian website, of defaming him after it published a column linking a “Murdoch” to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots as an “unindicted co-conspirator.”
Crikey recently amended its defense to include documents and testimony from the Dominion case. The lawsuit is expected to go to trial in Sydney, Australia, in October.
Pierce R. Butlersays
ondrbak @ # 309 – Thanks!
KG @ # 320: … Fox… will undoubtedly [return] to their lies as soon as they think they can get away with it.
Return? When did they depart? I must’ve blinked and missed it.
SpaceX is launching another batch of Starlink […] (April 19)
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 […] “V2 mini” satellites
[…]
SpaceX already has over 4,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, […] The company has regulatory approval to launch up to 12,000 more Starlink craft and is seeking permission to add a whopping 30,000 more.
[…]
the company’s massive Starship rocket [is scheduled for April 20].
[…] the billionaire space race has absolutely destroyed my love of rockets.
10 years ago, I definitely would have been paying close attention to the current giant SpaceX launch. But because I know it’s going to be used to launch hundreds of unregulated, unsafe, polluting, for-profit Starlink satellites at once, I just can’t look. […]
A Tennessee man and his mother were convicted on Tuesday of charges that they stormed the Capitol, where they brought plastic zip-tie handcuffs into the Senate gallery as a mob attacked the building, court records show.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth convicted Eric Munchel and his mother, Lisa Eisenhart, on all 10 counts in their indictment, including a charge that they conspired to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021. The judge is scheduled to sentence both of them Sept. 8.
Lamberth decided the case without a jury after a “stipulated bench trial,” an unusual legal proceeding in which defendants do not admit guilt to charges but agree with prosecutors that certain facts are true. At least three dozen Capitol riot defendants have resolved their cases that way — which allows defendants to preserve their right to an appeal — rather than opting for a traditional trial or pleading guilty…
New York’s Senate confirmed Rowan Wilson as the state’s first Black chief judge Tuesday, two months after lawmakers dealt Gov. Kathy Hochul a political defeat by rejecting her initial nominee for the top court post…
“Big energy in liberal media corridors as Fox News is punished for foolish coverage of the 2020 election,” O’Reilly said in a statement on his website. “This is what happens when money becomes more important than honest information. Since I left FNC (Fox News Corp), the template changed from ‘Fair and Balanced’ to ‘tell the audience what it wants to hear.’”…
“Tide goes in, tide goes out.”
Or is it “Garbage in, garbage out”? I can never keep those two straight.
A Northern California man was found guilty Monday of assaulting officers with bear spray and obstructing the certification of 2020 election results at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Sean Michael McHugh could serve up to 20 years in prison and three years of supervised release because of his role at the insurrection, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said during the half-day bench trial on Monday. McHugh, 35, also could pay up to $250,000 in fines and other penalties…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog:
The Patriot air defence systems the Ukrainian government had called for to help the country defend itself from air attacks have arrived, according to Ukraine’s defence minister.
Oleksii Reznikov posted on Twitter that “our beautiful sky becomes more secure because Patriot air defence systems have arrived in Ukraine”.
He thanked the US, German and Dutch governments for providing them. Reznikov said he had first lobbied for the Patriots in August 2021, before the invasion, in a visit to the US.
The lack of a considerable Ukrainian air force since the early stages of the invasion has meant Ukraine has been laid bare to Russian air attacks by jets.
Ukrainian government ministers were still urging foreign powers to provide the missile systems as recently as December, as the US drew up plans to supply them.
The Dutch government then agreed in January to also send the batteries.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the Volyn region of Ukraine which borders with Belarus and Poland, where he praised the work of border guards.
In a video posted on Telegram he said: “There are many important issues – equipment and protection of the state border, socioeconomic and current security situation in the region, arrangement of fortification and defence engineering structures.
“It is an honour for me to be here today to thank our border guards for protecting the state border,” Ukraine’s president wrote under footage showing him meeting and addressing border guards.
Audrey Dutton at Idaho Capital Sun is reporting an Idaho judge issued a civil arrest warrant on Tuesday for Ammon Bundy after he repeatedly failed to appear in court or respond to a lawsuit filed by St. Luke’s Health System.
Ada County Judge Lynn Norton found probable cause that Bundy committed contempt and set his bail at $10,000.
In May 2022, St. Luke’s filed a lawsuit against Bundy, his gubernatorial campaign and other business entities, as well as his friend, Diego Rodriguez and Rodriguez’s organizations.
The health system alleges protests over the hospitalization of Rodriguez’s infant grandson last year that resulted in redirection of emergency services and a lockdown of the downtown Boise campus were simply a “grift” to enrich themselves and boost their own publicity.
It could take several days for Bundy to be arraigned.
Norton considered a few other motions made by St. Luke’s legal team, including a request for a “discovery referee” to help compel Bundy and Rodriguez, his co-defendant, to produce documents and other records that can be used at trial. Norton said she would rule on the request at a later date.
Norton also ordered that Bundy, Rodriguez, as well as other business entities controlled by one or the other, are required to appear for depositions.
Nearly six years after a gathering of white nationalists in Charlottesville erupted in violent clashes with counter-protesters, a grand jury in Virginia indicted multiple people on felony charges for carrying flaming torches with the intent to intimidate.
The Albemarle county commonwealth’s attorney said in a news release that the indictments relate to events on 11 August 2017, when white nationalists carrying torches marched through the campus of the University of Virginia.
Some chanted: “Jews will not replace us.”
Donald Trump, who was then president, set off a firestorm of criticism when he said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the clashes between white nationalists and anti-racist demonstrators in Charlottesville.
On Tuesday, the commonwealth’s attorney, James Hingeley, did not say how many people had been indicted.
According to court records, three indictments have been unsealed. They are against William Zachary Smith, of Nacona, Texas; Tyler Bradley Dykes, of Bluffton, South Carolina; and Dallas Medina, of Ravenna, Ohio.
Each is charged with a single count of burning an object with the intent of intimidating a person or group of people. The charge carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison.
…
The indictments, issued in February but only recently unsealed, come almost six years after the largest gathering of white nationalists in a decade….
So just how explosive is this C4 data set? An analysis of the scraped data from The Washington Post Wednesday shows C4 mostly relied on some heinous sources for its text. The top four most-used sites were Google Patents (making up .46% of all tokens), Wikipedia (.19%), Scribd (.07%), and The New York Times’ website (.06%). At the same time, C4 used large swaths of text from Russian propaganda site Russia Today and the ultra-right-wing Breitbart. Both those were in the top 200 sites trawled for text…
The Post’s report is all the more enlightening considering just how hard it is to actually find information about AI training.
I think it’s Kate Crawford in the interview @ #284 who talks about how they can scrape these garbage sites, and then the tool generates content reflecting that, which then goes online and is itself scraped, potentially leading to an endless spiral of wrongness.
Sweden’s public radio said Tuesday that it would stop being active on Twitter, but it did not blame new labels that Elon Musk ’s social media platform has slapped on public broadcasters, leading some major North American outlets to quit tweeting.
Sveriges Radio said on its blog that Twitter has lost its relevance to Swedish audiences. National Public Radio and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, meanwhile, have pointed to Twitter’s new policy of labeling them as government-funded instititutions, saying it undermines their credibility…
He cited a recent study showing only some 7% of Swedes are on Twitter daily and said the platform “has simply changed over the years and become less important for us.” …
SC @342, “[…] an endless spiral of wrongness.” Yep. Very aptly put. Repetition is known to be one of the factors in convincing people that disinformation is truth.
Sounds sort of like Fox News. On their website they do not really inform their readers about the Dominion lawsuit.
Fox News has an article on its website right now about a thing that happened. It says there was a settlement of some kind between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems […] How much settlement? It does not say.
What exactly was this lawsuit about? Oh let’s not get lost in the weeds.
It says the judge told the lawyers for both sides that they did a very good job of lawyering! “I have been on the bench since 2010. … I think this is the best lawyering I’ve had, ever,” [Judge Eric] Davis said, adding, “I would be proud to be your judge in the future.”
The article says the settlement happened as as a trial was starting. It says a lot of people were interested in the trial!
It says some people on Donald Trump’s legal team made “false and unsubstantiated claims” about Dominion.
The end! Good 162-word article on regular journalism website Fox News!
It was written by a reporter named Joseph Wulfsohn, and it says at the bottom that if you have any hot news tips for him, you can send them on. […]
Such has been Fox News’s coverage ever since it was announced that the network had settled with Dominion for $787.5 million […] Dominion brought the case because Fox News hosts and guests blatantly and knowingly and constantly lied about the 2020 election, including advancing brazenly bullshit conspiracy theories and claims about Dominion voting machines being used to steal the election from Donald Trump.
See, Mr. Wulfsohn? Writing words is possible!
Here are some more words: There’s still a $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News coming down the pike from voting machine company Smartmatic.
Wonkette will have more words today on the settlement itself. In this post, we’re just clowning on them trying to avoid talking about The Thing That Happened. […]
Spoiler, the story is that the primetime hosts didn’t even mention it one time. What, you thought there would be an apology? LOL. […]
[…] “Today’s settlement of $787,500,000 represents vindication and accountability. Lies have consequences,” Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson told reporters on the courthouse steps. His colleague Stephen Shackelford agreed: “Money is accountability, and we got that today from Fox.”
And before you go whining that Dominion should have refused a settlement and gone to trial for America, that’s not what corporations are for. The company is largely owned by private equity, which valued it at about $80 million in 2018. Under the most generous valuation (i.e., the number Fox’s lawyers ran with), it’s worth $220 million today. How could you justify to shareholders risking three quarters of a billion dollars on the whims of 12 anonymous strangers in service of some larger civic goal? The answer is you couldn’t. And even a $3 billion dollar verdict wouldn’t have put Fox out of business, since that represents less than one quarter’s profits for the company.
But in two years of discovery, Dominion has given us an unprecedented look inside Fox, and all those documents remain in the public record. Meanwhile, Dominion’s competitor Smartmatic has a pending $2.7 billion suit against Fox in New York, shareholders are suing the Murdochs for recklessly risking profits by airing all this defamatory shit, and Dominion is still suing OAN and Newsmax, as well as various Big Lie purveyors like Mike Lindell.
It sucks that we’re not going to get the show trial we all wanted and deserved, but we got a lot out of this case. And the bloodletting isn’t over.
With the 11th meeting of allies in support of Ukraine beginning at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday, Ukraine is already sending a clear message about what it needs from the Western nations. Despite what most people assume, the top of that list isn’t more tanks, or even highly desired modern fighter jets. It’s more air defenses.
Ukraine has asked for, and received, multiple air defense systems over the course of the invasion. Those systems have shot down hundreds of Russian missiles and hundreds more Iranian-made drones. However, before it launches any counteroffensive, Ukraine needs to improve its air defenses, not just in the few cities where defenses are now emplaced, but everywhere along the line.
It’s not just the longer-range systems to protect its cities that Ukraine is after this time. It has a particular interest in shorter-range systems that can take out drones and aircraft as well as help to protect against incoming missiles. Because as Ukraine moves closer to its much talked about counteroffensive, preventing Russia from having anything that approaches air superiority is critical to Ukraine’s success. [Image of Patriot Missile Defense system on its way to Ukraine.]
On March 9, Russia directed a massive barrage of 81 missiles at Ukrainian cities, largely targeting civilian infrastructure and apartment buildings. That attack included cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and six of Russia’s hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles. Despite the donations of air defense systems that have reached Ukraine over the last year, only 34 of those missiles were shot down before reaching their targets. Multiple people died in at least four cities, and half of Kyiv was once again without power for days following the attack.
That attack, now over a month ago, was the last large-scale missile attack Russia has launched against Ukraine–which is notable. Before last month, attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure were coming with much greater frequency. There were six such strikes last October alone as well as three in November, five in December, three in January, three in February, one in March, and then … pause.
But it’s not as if Russia’s missiles have gone silent. Smaller attacks continue almost daily, most of them using a mix of the S-300 missiles that constitute much of Russia’s remaining stock, often supplemented by Iranian-made drones. On Tuesday night in Ukraine, there were four reported missiles launched by Russia, causing explosions in Odesa and Vovchansk that resulted in at least two deaths. [tweet and image at the link]
In addition, shorter-range weapons were fired into towns and villages near the border in at least 60 locations. That’s a typical night—and exactly the kind of thing Ukraine needs to stop if it’s going to protect both its people and its infrastructure.
This week, Ukraine has received more major air defense systems that will help to protect cities and towns against this kind of attack. That includes both additional U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot Missile Defense systems and German medium-range IRIS-T SLM systems. These systems will join a growing network of overlapping systems that have been centered around Ukraine’s major cities. [Map showing airspace that various air defense systems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces can cover.]
However, not only are some missiles continuing to run this gauntlet of defenses, Russia seems more than willing to expend a multimillion-dollar missile to knock down a few homes or take out an electrical substation in a small village. So long as that’s true, it’s unlikely Ukraine will ever have enough air defenses. There will always be gaps, places where Russia can drop a warhead that takes lives and damages property. The localized air defense systems allow Ukraine to be quite effective against any kind of strategic attack. They don’t allow Ukraine to protect from the sort of terror attacks Russia is delivering.
The decline in major Russian missile attacks may mean that phase of the war is over, though it’s almost certain Russia still has enough missiles, especially S-300 missiles, to launch many more significant attacks. The nightly horror in places like Vovchansk may continue so long as Russia’s invasion continues—or Russian forces are pushed back out of range of the town.
Ukraine will be seeking still more of these air defense systems at Ramstein as it attempts to minimize the impact of Russian missiles. […]
What Ukraine really wants–in large quantities and soon–from its Western allies are systems that are short-range and portable. That primarily consists of two kinds of systems:
– Anti-aircraft guns, such as the Soviet 2K22 Tunguska.
– Surface to air missile systems, such as the American MIM-23 Hawk.
– Man-portable air defense systems, such as the French Mistral.
So far, documented losses show that Ukraine has lost nine anti-aircraft guns and 91 surface-to-air systems. In addition, they’ve expended hundreds, if not thousands, of the man-portable missiles. Their record for all this is pretty good, with at least 79 Russian jets and 81 Russian helicopters recorded as down. But when it comes to a counteroffensive, Ukraine needs to step up its anti-aircraft game.
Recent attacks around Bakhmut show that Russian pilots have become more daring in attacking close to Ukrainian positions rather than firing missiles from a distance. That doesn’t mean they’ve become immune to any of the anti-aircraft systems, including the skillful use of anti-aircraft guns. [Tweet about Ukrainian forces shooting down aircraft and helicopters.]
[…] There are already some systems, like the British Stormer HVM and U.S. AN/TWQ-1 Avenger, present in Ukraine in some quantities. Other systems are there in quantities of one or two. It’s likely Ukraine is going to be seeking more of what it already has since this seems like a poor time to be introducing another element to its logistical spaghetti, or to be sending crews off to train on a new system. The highest priority of all may simply be refilling the numbers of man-portable systems, which have been used heavily against aircraft, helicopters, and drones.
Ukraine has received fresh Mig-29 fighters to bolster its air force, but as it moves forward it will be movi
Bragg Sues Jim Jordan in Move to Block Interference in Trump Case
In the category of Yes, it’s about damn time:
Manhattan’s top prosecutor [Alvin Bragg] sues to stop Republican [douchebag insurrectionist Jordan] ‘intimidation’ in Trump case.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/manhattan-district-attorney-sues-republican-lawmaker-jim-jordan-over-trump-case-2023-04-11/
Lol, I’ve crossposted with Reginald. I’m so very sick of Rethuglicans thinking they can flout all the laws, while mumbling partisan claims about law and order.
Gary Hart didn’t even cheat on his wife, have multiple sugar babies, or pay off any women during his campaign for POTUS. One photo of a strange women sitting on his lap was enough to sink it.
Thank you, Tethys and Reginald Selkirk.
.
For your amusement.
God Awful Movies found this gem.
-I now know the next thing Fox News will scare the viewers with once people have lost their fear of the gay and the trans people: evil zombie rabbits!
GAM 399 Night Of the Lepus.
https://youtu.be/EPLAzQ-L34M
(I posted this item on the previous thread too, but hours later this new thread went up)
https://kyivindependent.com/military-current-number-of-wagner-mercenaries-will-last-2-months-with-ongoing-tactics/
Wow! Excellent Choice!
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-12/nasa-pale-blue-dot-goddard-space-flight-centre-makenzie-lystrup/102212224
Their typo in the headline not mine! (For once.)
birgerjohansson
In the top 10 of my favourite movies.
Re: SteveoR @ #6…
I’ve long wanted to quiz people running for President of the US and one question would be, “What is the ending clause of the oath of office, as specified in the Constitution.” Anyone who answers, “so help me God” should be automatically disqualified.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65239093
Talk about a juicy target for hacking… Just start sneaking in call-up notices for politicians and their family members…
‘This is the real reason why the US wants to ban TikTok.’
Some brutal footage in there!
https://twitter.com/hilaryagro/status/1643981590354350088
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Guardian – “Climate models warn of possible ‘super El Niño’ before end of year”:
Meduza:
“Alexey Navalny needed ambulance due to unexplained symptoms. His lawyer suspects slow poisoning.”:
“Russian digital development minister says registry of draft-eligible citizens won’t be launched before annual fall conscription”:
Popular handgun fires without anyone pulling the trigger, victims say
The Guardian is now liveblogging Biden’s speech at Ulster University:
Also from there:
“This interview is just an hour-long exercise in complete humiliation for Tucker:…”
Video clip at the (Twitter) link. The Republican Party is sick.
Mysterious dark matter mapped in finest detail yet
Ukrainian hackers say they have compromised Russian spy who hacked Democrats in 2016
Guardian liveblog:
Judge lectures Fox attorneys over dual roles for Rupert Murdoch
Mehdi Hasan tweeting a screenshot of a Carlson tweet promoting the interview @ #18:
Guardian liveblog:
Texas county weighs closing local library after federal judge orders banned books returned to circulation
Good news – kinda?
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-12/santos-urged-to-apologise-for-using-image-of-aboriginal-elder/102213092
Bad news :
A Chinese woman has become the first person to die from a type of bird flu that is rare in humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, but the strain does not appear to spread between people.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-12/china-records-world-s-first-human-death-from-h3n8-bird-flu-who/102214650
Plus spaaace neeewws : https://www.space.com/europe-juice-jupiter-mission-lauch-april-13-highlights
Hopefully coming up soon if plans work as planned
Sigh.. Guess y’all can guess which bit in my # 26 was meant to be in blockquotes but wasn’t..
Another space news story :
https://www.space.com/hot-jupiter-dwarf-star-new-exoplanet
The TESS exoplanet finder satellite has discovered TOI-4127 b, a “warm Jupiter” which may yet heat up and is double Jove’s mass in a 56 day orbit around a star more massive than ours.
I linked to this France 24 article in the previous thread, but they now have it in English translation – “Egypt’s female social media influencers face arrest, jail on ‘morality’ charges”:
They note that she was jailed previously in 2020 for a photo shoot at the Saqqara Necropolis that local media said involved “exploiting the cultural value of the antiquities in inappropriate Pharaonic clothes.”
As reported in the French edition, tomorrow (Thursday, April 13) will be the 12th day of mobilization against Macron’s neoliberal pension age hike, on the eve of the Constitutional Council meeting on Friday on the policy (they evidently announce their decision at the end of the day).
Ken Klippenstein at the Intercept – ““How to Blow Up a Pipeline” Movie Poses Terror Threat, Kansas City Intel Agency Claims”:
Follow-up to a post in the previous Thread – “A Palestinian envoy to the United Nations honors the life and work of Nuremberg war crimes tribunal prosecutor Ben Ferencz, who passed away last week…”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
With NATO entry blocked, Sweden turns hopeful eye toward Turkey’s presidential elections
Ted Cruz Tweet Ages As Badly As Possible After Louisville Shooting
“News: NPR becomes first major news org to stop using Twitter, saying that the Elon Musk-owned platform ‘is taking actions that undermine our credibility’.
‘We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility…'”
Leaked intelligence document shows that Egypt, a longtime US ally, secretly planned to provide Russia with 40,000 rockets and gunpowder: report
International anger as air strikes kill dozens in Myanmar
Video shows a Russian YouTuber striking himself in the face with a Western anti-tank weapon after holding it the wrong way
NBC – “Shelby County council to vote on returning ousted Democrat Justin J. Pearson to the Tennessee Legislature”:
Ex-Fox Producer: There Are Secret Rudy Giuliani Recordings About Dominion
Crossposting from the grift thread.
Rishi Sunak- corruption & waste
https://youtu.be/swvcfWqfU6I
Rupert Murdoch, Jerry Hall’s Divorce Agreement Bars Her From Giving Story Ideas to ‘Succession’
Ukraine Update: There’s a video. Don’t watch it
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Link
Followup to SC’s comment 18.
Aaron Rupar’s thread concerning the Tucker Carlson interview of Trump:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1645940484378963968
Excerpt:
Video snippets are available at the link.
Excerpt:
Tucker kissing ass:
LMAO
Excerpt:
Re: Lynna, OM @ #41…
Hmmm… Trivial item…if the average lifespan in Russia is 71 years, I’ve made it 3 years past that.
Followup to comment 41.
More Ukraine updates:
Link. Scroll down to view the updates.
whheydt @44, I’m sure that Putin would find you fit enough to conscript you into his trench-digging forces.
During WWII there were quite a few Russian women serving in the military. I don’t see Russian babushkas digging trenches … yet, but I wouldn’t put it past Putin to start recruiting women.
According to this resource: The United States Military Academy (2015). West Point History of World War II. Vol. 1. Simon and Schuster. p. 235. ISBN 978-1-4767-8273-7, There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war, which is roughly 5 percent of total military personnel.
Wewll, this isn’t much, just implications of world as we know it ending :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2023/04/10/research-suggests-were-on-track-for-3-degrees/
Going largely unotied yet again..
^ Un-noticed that is.. Sigh.
Nice video:
Excerpt from the English-subtitled video:
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1646138209271676928
Mark Sumner quoted in Lynna’s #41:
Hundreds of thousands of people protested across the nation for several months over the retirement-age increase in Russia in 2018, where even then it was far harder to protest than in France. I covered it here on the thread.
“in May you’re going to see some of the disciplinary hand of God come down upon those people”
GOP Seeks To Shield Trump From All Future State Prosecutions
Who decides whether a prosecution is “politically motivated”?
SC @50, good point.
In other news, here are some responses from readers of the article quoted in comment 51:
NBC News
Fox News sanctioned for withholding evidence in Dominion defamation case
By Jane C. Timm and Amanda Terkel
Wonkette: “Florida Bigot Unclear On Concept: Are Trans People ‘X-Men’? Because Those Guys Are Awesome!”
“Is technology-based intelligence more likely to evolve on land or in water?”
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-technology-based-intelligence-evolve.html
Followup to SC @18 and me @43.
80-year-old segregation wall finally comes down in Baltimore
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Followup to comments 42 and 22.
Judge in Dominion lawsuit appoints ‘special master,’ sanctions Fox News for concealing evidence
Update: Expelled Black lawmaker Pearson to return to Tennessee House
Link. Video at the link.
Wonkette: “Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Sues Jim Jordan”
Bragg’s lawsuit against Jordan will also allow for discovery, during which Bragg can request evidence that shows Jordan coordinating with Trump.
Expelling Rep. Liz Harris almost restores my faith in the Arizona Legislature (almost)
Colombia president removes police chief who cited exorcisms
Trump sues ex-lawyer Michael Cohen after grand jury testimony
Helping a client to commit a crime is not protected by attorney-client privilege, so I don’t think there is any valid basis for Trump’s lawsuit. IANAL.
Followup to comment 43.
Witness calls ‘b——-’ on Trump’s claims people were ‘crying’ at arraignment
video at the link.
Alberta woman desperately trying to get rid of 133,000 Rum & Butter chocolate bars
Racist threats have been ‘pouring into’ Manhattan DA Bragg’s office since Trump’s arraignment
To be fair, we have seen video of Lindsey Graham crying for Trump. That was during Graham’s straight-to-camera plea for people to send money to Trump.
What? Say what now?
Link
Some Reasons That You Might Own a Collection of Fancy Third Reich Table Linens, by Bruce Handy
New Yorker link
Some podcast episodes:
Why Is This Happening? – “What’s Behind Israel’s Unprecedented Protests with Edo Konrad”:
Citations Needed – “News Brief: Media’s Credulous ‘Labor Shortage’ Reporting Helps Lay Groundwork For Repealing Child Labor Laws”:
The War On Cars – “103. Why Does Hollywood Hate Bikes?”:
Michael & US – “#418 – Of Shoes and Men”:
(I can get annoyed with this podcast, but this episode is fun.)
Tweet o’ the day.
Rep. Khanna tweeted:
Josh Marshall tweeted:
It depends on whether people have tried to speak with her previously. Seems like she should have been aware of the problems long before this.
Trump is suing Cohen for $500 million. Now, what the lawyers filed and what Trump says, well, if Trump does his usual, Trump will likely look at obstruction charges, as Cohen’s long been on the witness list.
Trump really needs to learn, if you want to get out of the hole, first put down the shovel. He keeps digging in deeper.
I can easily see him talking himself away from just the likely fines and straight into a prison cell.
So sad, too bad.
Richmond, Indiana has a major recycling plant fire, unknown releases, dense smoke, expected to burn for days, only a half mile around the fire evacuated. Based on aerial photos, I’d have went with a mile. Plastics alone generate some really nasty stuff.
Wagner founder wants Russian society to be fully mobilized for war. I’m sure the other oligarchs will find that a wonderful idea, right up there with going bankrupt, experiencing a firing squad and calling Putin crazy to his face.
Dominion judge sanctioning Fox for withholding evidence. Oops, now a special master to investigate for misconduct.
Jim Wright of the Stonekettle Station blog has a typically brilliant fb post on the disturbing state of the USA & its now openly fascist party here :
https://www.facebook.com/Stonekettle/posts/pfbid047z7oGebhFyD9Ra3hhLM2MK64V9WQNqtyBgp9hoVs1ESYtRPdUn8DbCCAFFHMvyCl
Washington Post:
Ha! It would be a real schadenfreude moment if Trump was not allowed to keep all that money he raised.
Commentary:
Business Insider link to article “Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump told Mark Meadows ‘I don’t want people to know that we lost’ 2020 election court case.”
Feinstein asks for Judiciary replacement after calls for resignation
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Investment
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/investment
“Pentagon leaks linked to young gun enthusiast who worked at military base – report”:
Guardian – “Indian government agency investigates BBC over foreign exchange rules”:
Here’s a link to France 24’s English France-protest liveblog:
Here’s a link to the French liveblog:
France 24 – “‘Unprecedented’ situation as two African countries report outbreaks of Marburg virus.”
France 24 – “Three possible scenarios as French court prepares to rule on constitutionality of pension reform”:
Re: #79 “Feinstein asks for Judiciary replacement after calls for resignation”
NYT:
Guardian liveblog:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
In other Florida news – CNN – “Fort Lauderdale airport to remain closed until Friday morning after the rainiest day in the city’s history causes severe flooding”:
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and other troops deploy HIMARS to strike Russian jamming station
British Politician Under Investigation By His Own Party After Recording Surfaces of Him Reportedly Saying ‘All White Men Should Have a Black Slave’
“this is quite the word salad from Tim Scott on a national abortion ban…”
Word-salad video at the (Twitter) link.
Tweet o’ the day, because LOL. (They can leave most of the policies back in 1996, though.)
Toot:
Congressional Record: Rep Mink (D-Hawaii) (2000-12-13)
Leah Litman:
Ukraine Update: The Washington Post article on the leaker may be the single worst article I’ve read
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Spaaeace neeeeeewsNot yet in space news :https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/juice-mission-launch-delayed-due-to-lightning-risk-new-launch-date-announced-article-99468931
But hopefully soon :
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/13/world/esa-jupiter-juice-mission-launch-scn/index.html
See also the European Space Agency page here :
https://www.esa.int/
Which notes :
Wish I knew what time that was in Aussie – specifically Adelaide time.. Guessing 15th probly when I’m inevitably asleep or out?
Followup to SC @93.
Wonkette: “LOL! Tim Scott … LOL! … Running For POTUS … LOL! No, Seriously!”
Bellingcat and the NYT are reporting a name for the suspected leaker, but I won’t post it until it’s officially confirmed or he’s been arrested.
“Tucker’s starting tonight’s show with a wildly racist rant about @justinjpearson:…”
Video clip at the (Twitter) link. I share the reaction in several responses: Holy shit.
Followup to comment 97.
More Ukraine updates:
SC @101, OMG. Tucker is really swimming in the racist sludge. He likes it. He even offhandedly says that Justin Pearson probably got into Bowdoin College not on his own merit, but because he is black.
In other news, here is a followup to comments 97 and 102.
More Ukraine updates:
Link. Scroll down to view the updates.
PBS Joins NPR, Becomes Second Major News Org To Stop Using Twitter Over Musk Label
Guardian liveblog:
NBC10 Boston reporter: “#BREAKING: Police have a house surrounded in North Dighton, MA.
@NBCNews reporting a 21-year-old w/ possible ties to this area is a MA National Guard member and the suspected leaker of a trove of classified military documents.”
Guardian liveblog:
Link
Teixeira has reportedly been arrested.
Laura Rozen:
This is like the 2023 version of Pamela Smart.
Aspiring Right-Wing Terrorists Are Targeting The Power Grid Amid Rise In Accelerationist Extremism
More at the link.
“Revenge” for what?
ProPublica – “Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.”:
More at the link.
Guardian liveblog:
Jackson Crawford talks about the rhunic alphabet.
https://youtu.be/VsYb8fQb16I
or possibly
https://youtu.be/VsYb8fQb16l
Alissa Walker:
Ukraine Has Captured Three of Russia’s Giant Engineering Vehicles. They’re About To Become Very Useful.
In Tit-For-Tat Move, Russia Sanctions Another 333 Canadian Citizens
Driver says he threw $200,000 cash out car window to ‘bless’ others, Oregon cops say
Followup to SC @109, Ukrainian updates:
Link
TikTok: Decoder – Substack CEO faceplants interview, excerpt
Full Podcast/Transcript: Decoder – Is Substack Notes a ‘Twitter clone’? (1:10:00)
* Excerpt came from 47:40.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-14/long-covid-experience-shared-in-british-medical-journal-research/102217016
Ccylone Ilsa coverage :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-14/live-updates-tropical-cyclone-ilsa-hits-western-australia/102217818
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-14/qld-alrc-submissions-school-leaders-sexuality-presbyterian/102222474
Fucking Christian bigots.
@102. Lynna OM :
I don’t recall reading that in the Bible & wonder which prophet and atrocity he is referring to there? Anyone know?.
@113. SC (Salty Current) : How is Thomas NOT yet impeached or forced to resign after all this? At least if not outright arrested fro treason and considered a domestic enemy of the state with his wife and sure he knew about her involvement in the Jan 6th attempted Coup and seems very likely was right with her if not behind her actions and words there. It just … aaarrghhh!
@98. Sure enough seems like the launch will be happening about 3 or 4 am ish my time. Dammed Amercian timezones! Bring back Pangea I say! (1 second lauch window apparently – and for over the rest of April too.)
@ ^ See : https://www.space.com/juice-jupiter-mission-launch-april-2023-livestream
Whilst in other astronomy news, our picture of the Supermassive Black Hole at the core of Messier 87 has been improved :
https://www.space.com/first-ever-black-hole-image-ai-makeover
Meanwhile in zoological science news :
Hmm .. Amphibians generally are in massive trouble globally so I hope those newly discovered – and still undiscovered species – are okay.
@StevoR #123:
Article: Drunk with Blood, God’s Killings in The Bible
* I think the personal throat-sliting is specific to the “New American Bible” (Catholic / Episcopal).
Verse: NAB – 18:40
* I confirmed at least one Russian Bible with the personal throat-slitting. That priest wasn’t anomalously citing an American text while speaking Russian to a Russian audience.
* It wasn’t the “Russian Synodal Bible”. A little odd, cuz that seems popular. (Wikipedia: “commonly used by the Russian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic, as well as Russian Baptists and other Protestant communities in Russia.”)
Because our illustrious, infallible Founding Fathers made it so the process for removing a corrupt judge requires impeachment from the House followed by a 2/3rds majority vote in the Senate to convict and remove. In the current climate, this requires Republicans to support such removal and that isn’t going to happen.
As for forcing them him out, forget it. The SCOTUS is a lifetime appointment who are answerable to no one.
All the more reason why the Constitution needs to be scraped.
StevoR @ #124, do you have a link for the frog report? I especially want to check out the “one with a bird-poo-like appearance.”
:)
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also from there:
A poor excuse for an article in the Guardian – “Bob Lee knew his killer. But that won’t ease the pressure on San Francisco.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Trashed For Cooking Up Wild Defense Of Alleged Leaker
Definitely the one who is illegally leaking classified information. Thanks for asking.
Russian tank captured by Ukrainian forces turns up at Louisiana truck stop
Republican Group Mocks Trump’s Love Of Dictators With Sexy New Video
Beatriz Flamini: Athlete emerges after 500 days living in cave
Parler Has a New Owner and They’re Putting the Platform on Hiatus
@128. SC (Salty Current) :
Certainly – here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-04-14/bird-poo-frog-five-new-species-papua-new-guinea-png/102207720
Mea culpa , apologies. Thought I’d included that link in the original comment but, nah, I fucked up.
@ 125. & next comment CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Cheers. Thanks for that. very much appreciated.
@127. Akira MacKenzie : “As for forcing them him out, forget it. The SCOTUS is a lifetime appointment who are answerable to no one.”
Time that changed. long overdue. Not acceptable. Traitors on SCOTUS? No. Time that was called out, stopped, reversed and punished and the Federalist society treated as the perverting the course of justice traitors at the very least in spirit if not letter of law that they are.
Said before, will say again, Biden and the Democratic party absolutely need to do something about SCOTUS ideally arresting perjurers and corrupt traitors and drunken rapists on it, starting impeachment proceedings and publicly, directly personally, calling out the Trump cultist & perjury apppointed traitors on there for what they are.
So disappointed and disgusted that they haven’t done so already even knowing the Congress numbers.
Also scrappping the EC same deal – again so very long overdue. One vote, one value. Fuck the flyover, rural, Trumpist Suprmacist Slaver states and their bigoted minority of deluded extremists. One person, one vote. Now. Please.
Why isn’t there more pressure for more necessary reforms over in the US of A? For .. fucks sake,.
StevoR @ #136, thanks! So cute! And very cool:
It still is!
Oh & seems my timing was wrong with the JUICE mission too as it is flying towards Jove and its moons now :
https://www.space.com/europe-launches-juice-mission-jupiter-ocean-moons
Having been successfully launched. Timezones ..FFS. Sigh. Wish i’d seen it but glad it has happened and wishing they get there sfe’n’smooth as possible and all the science and more as planned Congrats & best wishes to all those who made this spaceprobe fly.
France 24 – “France’s Constitutional Council upholds raising of legal retirement age to 64.”
There’s no story yet – just the breaking news.
Florida Gov. DeSantis signs 6-week abortion ban
By Steve Contorno, CNN / April 14, 2023
The White House issued a statement sharply criticizing the bill.
Turning carbon dioxide into a value-added product
https://www.phys.org/news/2023-04-mochas-greenhouse-gas-value-added-product.html
Guardian liveblog:
Recent episodes of Tech Won’t Save Us:
“ChatGPT Is Not Intelligent w/ Emily M. Bender”:
“What Drives Architects to Design Saudi Megaprojects? w/ Kate Wagner”:
Re: tomh @ #142…
Looks like it’s time for a Lysistrata action in Florida.
Ukraine Update: Victory Day parades cancelled in Russia as Putin faces a shortage of tanks [Headline is misleading for this part of the update, which mostly concerns Jack Teixeira. I will post the actual Ukraine updates separately.]
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
@ 137
Yeah, it’s almost as if that the Dems make a lot of promises they never intend to keep while enforcing voter loyalty with scare stories about what the mean old Republicans will do if the Dems lose.
Followup to comment 147.
More Ukraine updates:
Link
Even more Ukraine updates coming soon.
Followup to comments 147 and 149.
More Ukraine updates:
More details concerning the guy that Greg Abbott is planning to pardon:
Link
House GOP finally comes up with a debt limit offer, and it’s ridiculous
Four die in pastor-led fasting: Kenya police
Leaked audio: Tennessee House Republicans are upset because they made themselves look ‘racist’
Finland starts fence on Russian border amid migration, security concerns
Bosnia Serb leader Dodik threatens to declare indepdendence
Missouri Attorney General Singlehandedly Bans Care For Trans Adults Too, No Law Required
I see Sarah Michelle Gellar aka Buffy the vampire killer turned 46 today.
Article: IndyStar
Abortion pill: Justice Alito pauses mifepristone restrictions as Supreme Court weighs appeal
@159:
A Computer Generated Swatting Service Is Causing Havoc Across America
Ron DeSantis Mocked for ‘Pudding Fingers’ in New MAGA Ad, Escalating Trump’s Feud with Florida Governor
Glad to see Republicans addressing the serious issues.
Billionaire linked to Sarah Ferguson accused of financing sex trafficking ring
Crow eh? You’ll never guess who his brother is.
Speaking of Crow, this from the link @ #113 was interesting:
Who? Why? Was it for free security for Thomas’s mother? Some other reason?
This was in the Guardian a couple days ago but I haven’t seen anything else about it – “World Bank staff were told to give special treatment to son of Trump official”:
Much more at the link.
Followup to comments 108, 109, 120, Reginald @131, and comment 147.
Right-wing pundits and politicians are trying to make a hero out of document leaker Jack Teixeira
What news is being covered on Fox?
Link
NBC – “El Chapo’s sons among 28 Mexican cartel members charged by Justice Department in fentanyl crackdown”:
Corrupt Republican in the Tennessee legislature:
Link
Hannah Kaviani on Twitter:
A response: “Even in the recent religious nights of Ramadhan women took part in the ceremonies without hijab.”
Followup to comment 71. More discussion about Hasan Crow’s collection of Nazi memorabilia, etc.
Ex-Fox News producer supercharges lawsuit, alleges network’s lawyers deleted evidence from her phone
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Tweet o’ the day.
BBC – “Texas dairy farm explosion kills 18,000 cows”:
Anything in brackets other than “[it]” is my editorializing. What are we doing here?
“Florida GOP newsletter out today highlights DeSantis awarding transportation $ and a new Buc-ee’s. No mention of abortion bill.”
Screenshot at the (Twitter) link.
Lydia Polgreen on Twitter:
Through a random chain of links and events I ended up doing cursory internet research on 17th- and 18th-century British history, and, in a moment of anti-drag laws, came across
To my unfathomable disappointment, there is no citation for this claim. However, there’s a painting at the (WP) link.
“@JoeBiden is given a rapturous welcome as he arrives on stage outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, Co Mayo”
Video at the (Twitter) link. I was wondering why the Dropkick Murphys were trending!
Bonnie Raitt vs. John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane and Holland.
Wagner Group Leader calls on Putin to declare end of war
Pakistan arrests woman for claiming to be Islam’s prophet
Capitol rioter who crushed officer with shield gets 7 years
Ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not running for president
Oh bullshit. He had his people run some polls and found out there was no way he could win.
Russian agent caught looking for “weak points” on border in Sumy Oblast
Fabián Basabe, who skipped vote, blames Democratic ‘bullies’ for 6-week abortion ban
“The party of personal responsibility”
Kenya chess: Male player dons disguise to compete as woman
Montana Just Passed the First State Tiktok Ban
The Wagner decapitation videos just adds to their laundry list of war crimes, not that it matters much, as mercenaries aren’t protected by the Geneva or Hague Conventions, but still representing Russia, opens Russian forces up to reprisals for violation of the conventions.
The last reprisal actions I can recall are of Waffen SS troops, who summarily executed civilians and Allied troops being summarily executed themselves.
Teixeira, he’s an Air National Guard service member on federal duty as a systems administrator. Shitty reporting claims that he should have had access to the documents, but that’s not best business practices in civilian or military environments where least privilege is the standard. The system account and specific applications, as well as the backup job accounts need access, not the SA’s. So, a shit ton of people were, again, not doing their fucking job and some idiot kid will end up paying the price, while they all move forward in their dereliction of duty filled careers, rather than sharing a cell block with him.
Manning’s case had a different dereliction of duty, deleterious personnel action was pending and by regulation, access should have been immediately terminated and wasn’t. The termination of access, to prevent precisely what happened from happening.
I was a senior NCO and after retiring, an SA/NA and later, IA (Information Assurance, information security title in the US DoD). Both were and remain utterly unacceptable.
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #188…
One wonders just how the Montana state government plans to enforce their ban…
Maybe they’ll have the Montana National Guard march to China and invade?
Or they’ll incarcerate every kid in the state that uses their site and/or client software?
Seriously, this is like trying to repeal the law of gravity. You can try to, but it’s utterly unenforceable.
@ ^ 190 whheydt & #191. wzrd1 : Cyberwarfare of some kind? A compulsoryu TikTok destroying program – software that is maybe?
.***
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-15/us-police-shoot-man-dead-after-responding-to-wrong-address/102227592
Ukraine hails GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shells that can hit a target 25 miles away with pinpoint accuracy
Tragic loss of an unknown number of brave lives :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-15/desperate-for-new-lives-they-took-to-the-sea/102222888
Seems something is happening in Sudan – quite possibly a coup :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-15/sudan-coup-clash-in-khartoum/102227850
More Russian atrocities in Putin’s attack on Ukraine :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-15/russian-strike-kills-people-including-toddler-in-eastern-ukraine/102227900
Whilst in good if long time coming news :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-14/portrait-of-aunty-shirley-peisley-unveiled-at-adelaide-council/102222410
Josh Marshall, quoting from a Wall Street Journal article:
You’re Just Jealous Your Own Hitler Collection is Comparatively Unimpressive
Followup to comment 67.
Link
A rather extraordinary story about the search for an intriguing meteorite that fell in PNG back in 2014 here albeit soem pretty wild speculation on its possible nature :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-15/rare-interstellar-png-meteor-investigated-by-harvard-scientist/102212078
In other astronomy & space news – helicopter drone Ingnuity is still flying in martian skies having now made a milestone 50 flights – see :
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-nasa-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-50th.html
Plus a venus sized exoplanet found around a red dwarf toolcose and likely lacking an atmosphere I’d guess from similar worlds including the closest of the Trappist 1 worlds:
See : https://phys.org/news/2023-04-tess-venus-sized-exoplanet-orbiting-nearby.html
Which I’d argue is somewhat stretching the “nearby” term given LHS 475 b is 40 light years aaway.
Ukraine Update: Bakhmut has held Russia back for eight months, but is that enough?
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Followup to comment 200.
More Ukraine updates, (and news from Sudan is included).
Link. Scroll down to view the updates.
Far-Right Judge Who Blocked Mifepristone Failed to Disclose Anti-Abortion Article
South Dakota governor says her two-year-old grandchild has several guns
Marjorie Taylor Greene spent more than $65,000 in campaign funds on home fence
Followup to comments 200 and 201.
Additional Ukraine update:
Link
API changes leave thousands of Twitter services broken, millions of users frustrated
More details at the link.
Followup to comments 195 and 201.
Rival Generals Unleash Fighting in Sudan, Dashing Dreams of Democracy.
New York Times link
One of Africa’s largest countries is spinning out of control, as weeks of mounting tensions between two military leaders erupted in battles in the capital, Khartoum, and in other cities.
@203. Reginald Selkirk : Quoting South Dakota Republican governor Kristi Noem
What the.. ?!
No gov, a two year old infant needs none of those things least of all deadly firearms. The pony is nice but not exactly necessary and at two years old.. F ing L!
What does she think her kid is going to be needing and doing and is that the sort of world she thinks she’s running and contributing to making? Just .. expletives. Wow.
I expect that this governor would have plenty of secuity measures and bodyguards and protection which.. can’t imagine they’d be impressed with her obvious lack of faithinthem too..
@ ^ Fix : her obvious lack of faith in them ..
What does she think – that her professional security will be total failures but her 2 year old toddler will save herself by riding away on a pony firing a rifle and shotgun simultanously and that’ll work?
More trouble for Clarence Thomas: Now questions being raised about thousands in income tied to real estate firm managed by wife Ginni’s sister
If this person was municipal dog catcher, he would have been tossed out on ethical grounds by now. But since he has one of the most powerful jobs in the country, he is somehow exempt from ethical oversight. It makes no sense.
The largest rocket ever built, the SpaceX Starship, is possibly going to launch tomorrow~ish my time or aftermorrow in USA timezones. Monday anyhow. See :
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-spacex-powerful-rocket-monday.html
Plus Scott Manley’s clip here where the Starship section starts at the 5 minute 40 seconds mark and totals 7 mins 21 secs although not all on that obvs* and see as well this rocket size comparison which is almost 3 mins long.
.* Including a chart of marine mammals in the splashdown zone with sea turtles and the very rude sounding Phocid pinniped listed separately at the 9 min 47 secs mark.
Re: #210
Even before these latest revelations, Slate had an excellent piece on Thomas and how he has clearly broken the law. It also points out how for years, in various decisions, he has railed against all sorts of disclosure laws. Not to mention it’s also perhaps the best pun in an article title ever….Quid Pro Crow.
Followup to comments 210 and 212.
Link
More details at the link, including a closer look at Ginger, Ltd. and Ginger Holdings, LLC. Excerpt:
MT Greene attempts to explain climate change is fake – it goes badly
https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1647026136298209281
The GIF showing the “World Mercator projection with country going to true size” is available at the link.
Excerpts from the rest of the thread, ( keep in mind that illustrations are included):
Much more at the link.
QAnon Psychic Makes Case For Bland Food And Dirty Bums
Posted by readers of the article:
Russians boasted that just 1% of fake social profiles are caught, leak shows
Washington Post link
Iowa to spend millions kicking families off food stamps. More states may follow.
Washington Post link
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their closing summary:
Alex Lockwood in the Guardian – “Why did we protest at the Grand National? To finally make Britain talk about our treatment of animals”:
More here – “Over 40 activists de-arrested after Grand National protest, campaign group says.”
Some podcast episodes (they appear disconnected, but intersect in interesting ways):
Tech Won’t Save Us – “Don’t Fall for the AI Hype w/ Timnit Gebru”:
This is kind of the earlier companion episode to the one with Emily Bender @ #145 above.
This is an open letter by Gebru, Bender, and others from a couple of weeks ago: “Statement from the listed authors of Stochastic Parrots on the ‘AI pause’ letter.”:
Tech Won’t Save Us – “How Tech is Remaking the Food System w/ Jim Thomas”:
Our Hen House – “Farm Sanctuary’s ‘Food Systems Shift’ w/ Aaron Rimmler-Cohen”:
Radio Free Humanity – “Episode 90: The Quack Attack on Americans’ Healthcare (interview with Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling)”:
FUUUUUUUUCK.
Thoughts and prayers, everyone.
Alabama this time, home of George Wallace and a million second amendment enthusiasts.
Elon Musk Sounds New Alarm About San Francisco
Elon Musk Says Germany Is Making a Dangerous Mistake (by closing nuclear power plants)
Why is anyone asking Elon Musk’s opinion on anything?
https://news.yahoo.com/air-national-guardsman-arrested-applying-224233068.html“>Air National Guardsman arrested after applying to work as hitman, FBI says
How stupid do you have to be to believe that rentahitman.com is either a joke or a sting?
Tweet o’ the day.
^ “not”
Yet another scheme to make it harder to vote in Florida
Elon Musk Wants to Cut Your Social Security Because He Doesn’t Understand Math
Ukraine Update: Wagner chief calls for end to Russia’s offensive actions, wants to lock in gains
India may tip this year to a wet-bulb temperatures threshold that will test human survival.
Followup to birgerjohansson @222.
‘Outrageous and unacceptable’: Biden slams GOP for standing with NRA in wake of Alabama, Kentucky gun violence
Narrator: They were not ready to repel the blow.
I love this phrase, especially since he’s referring to mutinous thoughts.
I think reporters shouldn’t just ask after a mass (or other) shooting what type of gun was used. Reporting on every one should specify not just the kind of gun but the manufacturer of the gun, the politicians who take money from and promote them, and the advertising companies and influencers who hawk their products.
On the Media – “Inside Russia’s Crackdown on Journalists”:
It’s so strange how Kondratyev talks about his fears of Russian cities being attacked. Just a bizarre thing to fear. Ukraine doesn’t want to attack Russia. “Western” countries don’t want to attack Russia. This isn’t a reasonable concern.
Moliy, “Ghana Bop.”
(From DKos, “Black Music Sunday: Give a listen to MVP Harris’ Africa trip music playlist.”)
Ecologistas en Acción – “Recurren la sentencia que avala la Operación Chamartín”:
I’m not familiar with this organization or the strength of their legal case, but WTF to this whole project.
Brian Stelter on Twitter:
Starship launch live on youtube here scehduled to start happening in 3 hours time from now.
Can’t stand Musk but SpaceX is absolutely awesome.
Starship launch live coverage youtube via NASA Spaceflight sicne the otherone seems tohave an issue now.
BBC news on this here : https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65294084
Plus wikipage here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_orbital_test_flight
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also in today’s Guardian:
“Lavish ancient Roman winery found at ruins of Villa of the Quintilii near Rome.”
“Andalucía accused of pandering to far right over plans for Spanish wetlands.”
“Chile takes on ‘moral duty’ of finding the disappeared of Pinochet regime.”
Marc Elias tweeted: “I’ve offered the GOP a deal. If they stop suppressing the right to vote, I will stop suing them for suppressing the right to vote.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene fires back at Lindsey Graham by posting Photoshopped pic of senator hoisting a Bud Light with trans influencer’s image
Totally a serious person.
Pro-Russia propagandist unmasked as New Jersey tropical fish seller
The rocket launch has been scrubbed.
The YT livefeed commenters are not happy.
Judy Blume clarifies statement on J.K. Rowling: “I stand with the trans community”
“Workers at Tesla’s Shanghai factory are speaking out about the death of one of their coworkers and management withholding wages.
Last year, Musk was praising how hard they worked and for ‘burning the 3am’ oil while he said US workers were ‘trying to avoid going to work at all’.”
Screenshot at the (Twitter) link.
“We firmly believe that as a globally renowned company, Tesla should have higher social responsibility and corporate moral standards.”
More re #248 – Reuters – “Angry Tesla Shanghai workers vent to Elon Musk over bonus cuts.”
Oops! Team Thomas Offers Baffling Explano For Ethics Lapse
Link
Lynna… @ # 229 quoting kos quoting Google Translate quoting Prigozhin: … no handiments and negotiations will be possible.
A very literally creative translation there: I couldn’t find “handiment” in three dictionaries and a general Web search.
George Santos’ personal insult against his potential Democratic opponent backfires spectacularly
Jordan Asserts He’s Within His Right To Undermine Bragg’s Prosecution of Trump In New Filing
Pierce @252, yes, that struck me as really odd.
Here again is the context:
Maybe a native Russian speaker will enlighten us.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Russian prisoners recount murdering civilians, wounded soldiers; plus Russian stuff blowing up
Much more at the link.
The judge already found that the claims made on Fox were false. It’s not even at issue in the trial.
Lynna… @ # 255: Maybe a native Russian speaker will enlighten us.
I hope such a person, or somebody, can also set us straight about the item Reginald Selkirk posted @ # 244: … she broadcasts with a cod “Russian” accent. (Sounds fishy to me…)
ABC7NY – “DOJ accuses China of using ‘police station’ in Manhattan to spy on dissidents inside US”:
Couple beheaded themselves with homemade guillotine in ritual sacrifice, police in India say
IS truffle picker attacks: At least 26 killed in Syrian desert ambush
Judge Eric M. Davis: “The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”
Guardian – “Judge rejects Trump request to delay rape trial over negative publicity”:
Chinese engineer charged with blasphemy in Pakistan
Re: Lynna 254
They’re really milking presenting interference and harassment as “free speech” at every social level.
Text quoted by SC @264:
So true. LOL.
FBI investigating GOP Okla. officials caught on tape talking about lynching Black people, murdering newspaper reporters
More at the link.
Feinstein needs to go, Republicans say no
Republicans like the fact that Feinstein is not there to help Democrats confirm Biden’s nominees.
Apparently, the unfavorable reporting was justified.
Followup to comment 269.
Posted by readers of the article:
Link
@Lynna, OM #255:
@Pierce R. Butler #252:
From #229: Daily Kos
Article: Deutsche Welle
Reginald Selkirk @ #223, He is such a dipshit:
WSJ link at the (Twitter) link.
Title of the WSJ piece: “Elon Musk Says His AI Project Will Seek to Understand the Nature of the Universe.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @273, Thank you. That makes sense.
In related news, here is the Ukraine update: The next offensive is coming, and Russia may be f’d
More updates coming soon.
Russian Foreign Minister speaks of “ending war as fast as possible”
Great, then get the f*** out of Ukraine.
US Senator Fetterman returns to Senate after depression treatment
Followup to comment 276.
More Ukraine updates.
Rachel Maddow covered this story tonight. Tucker Carlson was awful … he was a Russian propaganda stooge. He read from a doctored document and concluded that “Ukraine is losing the war.” He also stated as if was fact that Ukraine is losing 7 soldiers to every 1 Russian soldier. Also, that document was not just altered, it was crudely altered, and was thus an obvious fake. Very lazy and/or stupid of Fox News to not factcheck that.
Link. Scroll down to view the updates.
I keep thinking that, just to drive Putin nuts, Ukraine should start their big offensive on May 9.
Or maybe it will kill us because that simplifies the universe and therefore makes it easier to understand.
But frankly, the biggest threat to humanity isn’t from AI, it’s from people like Musk.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also in today’s Guardian:
“‘A gamechanger’: this simple device could help fight the war on abortion rights in the US”:
“Indian government labels same sex-marriage ‘elitist’ as supreme court hearing begins”:
“New Zealand feral cat hunting competition for children prompts backlash”:
WTF?!
New episode of Why Is This Happening? with Chris Hayes – “AI: ‘An Exponential Disruption’ with Kate Crawford”:
I don’t like the way Hayes speaks at some points about consciousness and animals – he mentions “projecting” an inner life onto dogs, I think even uses the phrase “human uniqueness,” and so on. Reasserting the nature of human thought in contrast to these technologies is necessary, but shouldn’t be done by disparaging the thought of other animals. Talking about animals in this disparaging way ignores the embodied and social foundations of human thought that Crawford notes. I recommend Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. (I still haven’t read Ed Yong’s An Immense World, but I’m still excited to.)
Guardian liveblog:
As #240 above notes, Kara-Murza is also a British citizen.
Astronomy.
The Star HD 19467 -a G star of approximately the sun’s mass and luminosity 100 light years away has been confirmed having a Brown dwarf companion 50 AU away, mass ca 50 Jupiter masses.
(The system is about 7 billion years old, so any planets closer to the sun-like star may still have some tectonic activity if they are not enough)
There are closer systems with Brown dwarf companions but I find sun-like stars more interesting.
southpaw on Twitter: “Twitter, which has generally made itself a haven for far right accounts since Musk’s takeover, suspends Ali Alexander’s account @ali after @willsommer’s story about Alexander soliciting nudes from teen boys.”
The Underground Bunker on Substack – “Day one at the Danny Masterson retrial was wild, what’s in store for day two?”:
Essentially, in the first trial, “the defense had argued for excluding any mention of Scientology from the trial at all.” In this one, they’re going to be “turning it into a spectacle about Scientology.”
Musk went after CBC, too.
They tweeted:
Guardian liveblog:
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ # 273 – Thanks!
I still can’t figure out how a machine translation could come up with a word apparently not found in any dictionary.
For that matter, I don’t understand how the word “handout” would apply to putative negotiations between two nations at
warSpecial Military Operation – an allusion to “hand out” meaning an invitation to a handshake, maybe?Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #291…
I would read “handout” as a gift, such as just for showing up at the negotiation table.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
Link
Judge Finds Trump Ringleader Of Media Circus: Denies Motion
@291 and that whole discussion
Google translate agrees on “handouts”, but Chat-GPT suggests “bribes”.
Littlest intruder: Toddler crawls through White House fence
SC #284: ‘I still haven’t read Ed Yong’s An Immense World, but I’m still excited to.’
I just signed in to respond to this: It is soooo good! I love a book with footnotes, but this one has dozens that would make fantastic topics for books all their own. Yong set out to attempt to look at the way other living things experience the world, not as something to teach us about ourselves, but for those living thing’s sake themselves. He succeeds. It’s wonderful!
This Is The Dumbest Debt Ceiling Fight Ever
Link
Trump’s Fake Georgia Electors Are Now Ratting on Each Other
If their attorney is selling them out due to some other interest – say Trump’s – that attorney could be in trouble.
Followup to comments 74, 75, 79, 87, 269, and 271.
McConnell opposes allowing Democrats to replace Feinstein on Judiciary Committee
Posted by a reader of the article:
Poland building electronic barrier on border with Russia
Oklahoma sheriff says recording of killing talk was illegal
Paul K @ #297, thanks for signing in! OK, that does it – I’m going to have to move it back to the top of my reading list, especially since almost everything I’ve read lately has been making me angry.
:)
Back to the Mines: Iowa Senate Moves to Legalize Child Labor in Pre-Dawn Session
Ukraine Update: Experts worry about what comes after the counteroffensive
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
“German government confirms that Patriot air defense system is already in Ukraine.
Excellent timing.”
Global heating in Siberia is so extreme that it reversed a 7000-year cooling trend.
Trump Drops More NFTs—And Now the First Batch Is Plummeting in Price
@295
“Подачка” in the original text is not just a handout, it’s a kind of handout that costs nearly nothing to the giver and taking it is humiliating to the receiver. The origin of the term is leftover food thrown to dogs. The term implies very unequal status of the parties in the exchange and is often used by the receiving party when rejecting the ‘handout’ precisely on the grounds that it is humiliating.
I’m not entirely sure what Prigozhyn meant by the word in that particular sentence, but reading the preceding paragraphs when he speculates about the US/West being more interested in the slow decline of the quality of life and consequently the moral or the russian population which could lead to general acceptance of some kind of negotiations and of giving away occupied territories in exchange for something that would improve the quality of life, I think “подачки” refers to whatever the US/West will propose in exchange for russia’s withdrawing its troops, which would presumably be something trivial for the US/West and insulting to the russian lives lost and therefore humiliating to russia and therefore “подачка”.
Fractured rail found after fiery Minnesota derailment
Followup to comment 305.
More Ukraine updates.
Link. Scroll down to view the updates.
ondrbak @309, thank you for that additional information:
Sounds like something Prigozhyn would typically say. I think he is full of braggadocio and also thin-skinned at the same time. Sounds a bit like Trump.
Wonkette: “FDA Approves Second Bivalent Booster Shots For Some”
Get your free booster shot now.
Fox/Dominion have settled their lawsuit, after the jury was seated and opening statements were about to begin. Term are not known.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #313…
Saw that news earlier today. As soon as the second booster approvals clear the CDC and become official, I’ll get one. What with being 74. Then a third of whatever formulation they come up with in the Fall.
From the train derailment article in #310
The fire from those leaking ethanol cars damaged the gaskets on three other ethanol cars nearby, causing them to leak as well, even though the gaskets were rated to withstand temperatures up to 225 degrees Fahrenheit (107.2 degrees Celsius).
I hope this is an error. Fires generally exceed the boiling point of water by far more than 13 degrees. Even if they meant the gasket is rated to 225 Celsius/ 432 Fahrenheit, the fire safety issue is obvious. I fact checked Ray Bradbury to be sure of my numbers, and the top result confirms that paper combusts at Fahrenheit 451.
“The ignition temperature of paper is 451 degrees Fahrenheit, or 233 degrees Celsius. Many people know this value from the Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451, an anti-utopian tale about a society where firemen are in charge of burning books instead of stopping fires.”
Ethanol fires are considerably hotter than that.
@314: Very exciting, interested to see the details. I imagine it is much closer to Dominion’s position than Fox’s.
Another senior SNP official – the party treasurer, Colin Beattie – has been arrested today in connection with the party’s funding, overshadowing Humza Yousaf’s attempted relaunch in the Scottish Parliament. You have to wonder if the timing was entirely coincidental. Beattie apparently supported multi-bigot Kate Forbes against Yousaf in the leadership election.in the
Atheists in Foxholes
Disappointed to learn Dominion have reached a settlement with Fox. The latter will undoubtedly retrun to their lies as soon as they think they can get away with it.
More Christians pretending to understand and explain atheism:
Dear Christian: 5 things to know about atheism
Re: Dominion
The settlement includes a $787.5 million payment from Fox, according to Dominion’s lawyers.
The $787.5 million payment cited by Dominion represents roughly half of the $1.6 billion that the company initially asked for in damages. Fox is still facing a similar defamation suit from another plaintiff involved in voting technology, Smartmatic.
A Smartmatic spokesman said in a statement: “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest.”
@320: A settlement will come with terms. These terms are not yet known. I would presume that Fox desisting from repeating claims against Dominion are a baseline requirement.
KG @ 320
I agree.
.
The religion of the scythians and their genetic heritage
https://youtu.be/Xsowwl7s4Q0
What I think Fox News will learn from this settlement is: we can lie all the time if that’s what we like … we just have to avoid connecting those lies to the name of a specific company.
Tucker Carlson lied recently about the status of the war in Ukraine.
Fox did issue a statement. “We acknowledge the Court’s finding” sounds like weasel words to me.
Link
Fox has never had a “commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
NYT:
Well, fuck.
Washington Post link
NYT:
Here are the other legal cases Fox is entangled in.
ondrbak @ # 309 – Thanks!
KG @ # 320: … Fox… will undoubtedly [return] to their lies as soon as they think they can get away with it.
Return? When did they depart? I must’ve blinked and missed it.
Nothing says highest journalistic standards like paying out an $800 million defamation settlement after a judge finds you lied.
Article: Space.com
Toot: Prof. Sam Lawler
* An astronomer currently fighting for satellite regulation.
Mom, son who took zip ties into Senate convicted in 1/6 riot
1st Black chief judge for New York state confirmed
Consider the source:
Bill O’Reilly criticizes Fox News following settlement: ‘The nightmare will continue’
“Tide goes in, tide goes out.”
Or is it “Garbage in, garbage out”? I can never keep those two straight.
California man who hit police officer with bear spray at Capitol insurrection found guilty
He was just reporting on what groups were calling Dr. Tiller.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog:
Also in the Guardian – “Severe heatwave engulfs Asia causing deaths and forcing schools to close”:
CBS2 IdahoNews – “Judge issues warrant for Ammon Bundy for ignoring St. Luke’s lawsuit”:
Guardian – “White nationalists who carried torches in Charlottesville in 2017 indicted”:
Meta’s AI Is Partially Trained on Breitbart and Russia Today, Study Finds
From the link @ #341:
I think it’s Kate Crawford in the interview @ #284 who talks about how they can scrape these garbage sites, and then the tool generates content reflecting that, which then goes online and is itself scraped, potentially leading to an endless spiral of wrongness.
Sweden public radio exits Twitter, says audience already has
SC @342, “[…] an endless spiral of wrongness.” Yep. Very aptly put. Repetition is known to be one of the factors in convincing people that disinformation is truth.
Sounds sort of like Fox News. On their website they do not really inform their readers about the Dominion lawsuit.
https://www.wonkette.com/how-did-fox-news-cover-dominion-settlement
Followup to comment 344.
More commentary from Wonkette:
Ukraine Update: To make the counteroffensive work on the ground, Ukraine needs more help in the air