a 36-year-old grandmother who just filed for divorce from her sex pest husband
[…]
raising a child in the U.S. […] $300k over 18 years […] Birth control pills range from $0 to $50 a month. That’s not cheaper
[…]
Boebert’s 17-year-old son […] is now expecting a baby with his girlfriend, whom Boebert has assured us is over the age of 14.
Businesss Insider adds that Boebert dropped out of high school with her first pregnancy, and the third, which she sought to prevent, led to birth in a pickup truck.
Of four. The truck anecdote was her nonsequitur opposing paid family leave in 2021.
Considering that Boebert introduced a bill earlier this year to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides access to health care and affordable birth control to women, Twitter users had thoughts
–
“That moment when you accidentally make the case for free birth control.”
–
“imagine being the third son watching this. like damn i exist because my mom didn’t have $20 at walgreens”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
WaPo – 60% of the 1,000-plus book challenges (during the 2021-2022 school year in 153 school districts) were filed by just 11 people.
* Some acted alone. Some filed a group’s complaints under one name (e.g., anonymizing 20 Moms for Liberty members). Still a tiny minority wielding outsized influence.
video made by a Broward County Public Schools employee […] purports to show hundreds of books being banned
[…]
according to school district director of communications […] this is a process of ‘weeding’ […] all those books in bins […] are from the 1990s […] those books will be replaced
[…]
Complaints from the public did lead the district to remove four books earlier this school year. Each deals with gender and sexuality issues.
Yesterday the Miami Herald published an article on […] parent Daily Salinas who challenged several books such as The ABCs of Black History.
But […] their coverage here shows an ongoing pattern of failing to do the most basic research […] on the players […] behind local school board politics.
[…]
she’s activist w far-right group Moms for Liberty […] support for the Proud Boys + antisemitic […] disrupting [a school board] meeting with shouts […] active with Christian nationalist group CCDF. […] [attended] Proud Boy rally for a white supremacist […] attending an anti-mask protest […] by a Proud Boy front group.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is in Beijing, where, ahead of signing bilateral agreements with China, he said: “Today, relations between Russia and china are at an unprecedented high level”. He said Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia in March was further evidence of the “special” nature of bilateral relations between the two countries. It is expected that Vladimir Putin will visit China later this year.
Nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and over 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion into Belgorod by anti-Russian partisans on Monday, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian region.
…[several more dubious claims from Russian officials]…
Older people have suffered and died at a disproportionately high rate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a UN report showed on Wednesday, with some perishing because they were barred from fetching medicines or leaving basements. The report compiled by UN human rights monitors showed that about a third of the civilians killed in the first year of the war were over 60. The UN found older people were hit exceptionally hard by power outages due to Russian attacks on critical infrastructure trapped many in their upstairs apartments. Others had to be evacuated in haste, sometimes in wheelbarrows because there was no time to fetch their mobility devices. Many were left behind.
Poland’s defence minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said on Wednesday his country is plannning to launch a submarine purchase programme this year.
US popular support for Washington’s backing of Ukraine has faded a little but remains widespread, a survey by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and Norc shows.
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has told a defence conference in London that Ukraine’s western allies are prepared to support the country in the war “for years”, the FT reports.
A new investigation into Chevron’s climate pledge has found the fossil fuel company relies on “junk” carbon offsets and “unviable” technologies, which do little to offset its vast greenhouse gas emissions and in some cases may actually be causing communities harm.
Chevron, which reported $35.5bn in profits last year, is the US’s second-largest fossil fuel company with operations stretching from Canada and Brazil to the UK, Nigeria and Australia.
…
New research by Corporate Accountability, a nonprofit, transnational corporate watchdog, found that 93% of the offsets Chevron bought and counted towards its climate targets from voluntary carbon markets between 2020 and 2022 were too environmentally problematic to be classified as anything other than worthless or junk.
…
Many of Chevron’s offset purchases focus on forests, plantations or large dams.
According to the report shared exclusively with the Guardian, almost half of Chevron’s “worthless” offsets are also linked to alleged social and environmental harms – mostly in communities in the global south which are also often the most affected by the climate crisis.
…
The report, Destruction Is at the Heart of Everything We Do, comes amid a week of global protests by communities affected by Chevron’s oil and gas businesses, as the California-headquartered company prepares for its annual shareholders meeting on 31 May.
On Sunday in Richmond, a majority Black and brown city of 115,000 people just north-east of San Francisco, activists gathered in front of the sprawling Chevron oil refinery. In 2012, 15,000 people required medical help after a huge fire caused by the company’s criminal negligence. Asthma rates are far higher in Richmond than the state and national averages.
…
Experts say that the findings shine a light on the broader strategy to undermine and delay meaningful climate action. “This is how we lose a planet: through corporate dishonesty and obstruction,” said climate scientist Peter Kalmus.
“This deeply documented history of greenwashing and malfeasance should make every human on Earth who isn’t paid by the fossil fuel industry furious,” added Kalmus, a data scientist at Nasa….
La crise climatique est abordée cette année au Festival de Cannes à travers deux films français : “Acide”, qui explore un monde en proie à des pluies toxiques et “Le règne animal” dans lequel une mystérieuse épidémie provoque la dégénérescence de l’espèce humaine. En parallèle, des militants ont mené plusieurs actions pour dénoncer la pollution des avions privés et mega-yachts, utilisés en masse durant la quinzaine….
British oil and gas giant Shell faced a stormy shareholders’ gathering Tuesday, as environmental protesters hit out over its [false] pledge to tackle carbon emissions….
Scientists suffering insults and mass-spam are abandoning Twitter for alternative social networks as hostile climate-change denialism surges on the platform following Elon Musk’s takeover….
Why would anyone act like Kevin McCarthy has votes right now?
He hasn’t done the work. He doesn’t have the votes for his current proposal in the Senate. He doesn’t have the votes in the House. He doesn’t even have the votes in *his own party.*
Two dudes who have advanced their careers, in recent years, by saying and doing things to rile people up as they curate their cult of personality points are teaming up to make an announcement that everyone already had on their 2023 bingo card.
You’ve got Elon Musk in one corner — a man who will say just about anything to elevate his brand as the free speech Messiah. And then you’ve got Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the other — Trump’s long-anticipated 2024 rival who has spent the last year using his Republican-dominated state legislature to pass outrageous, so-called “anti-woke” legislation packaged to appeal to the furthest-right MAGA voters and cushion his 2024 bid.
Both guys thrive on reactionary content, meaning it’s less surprising than it probably should be that DeSantis is teaming up with Musk to announce his presidential campaign on Twitter, the once usable social media platform that Musk has turned into a free-for-all hellscape. NBC and the New York Times reported…that DeSantis will announce his bid during a sit-down discussion between the pair on Twitter Spaces at 6 p.m. ET…
Beyond the fact that this is a match made seemingly to appeal to a narrow cross-section of Joe Rogan bros and ultra-online debate club aficionados, the two have been scratching each other’s backs in weird ways in recent years….
The Republican-controlled Texas State House failed to advance a controversial bill on Tuesday that would have required public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
Senate Bill 1515 was effectively killed early Wednesday morning after House lawmakers did not meet a midnight deadline for a vote that would have advanced the bill for a third and final passage.
The bill, authored by Republican state Sen. Phil King, requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom in a “size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom,” CNN previously reported.
King has previously said the bill will help restore religious liberties “that were lost” and it “reminds students all across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation” of America…
The senator should look into the definition of “liberties”
Loud cheers erupted inside a packed high school gymnasium after the Brandon School Division rejected a call to remove books dealing with sexuality and gender identity from libraries.
Hundreds of people in Manitoba’s second-largest city showed up for the marathon school division meeting, which ran into the early morning hours.
The trustees ultimately voted 6-1 to reject a proposal to create a committee of trustees and parents to review books available in division schools.
The school division was inundated with calls, letters and emails after a delegation at its May 8 meeting, led by former school trustee and grandmother Lorraine Hackenschmidt, called on the division to set up a committee to review the content of books available in school libraries, and remove titles deemed inappropriate, including “any books that caused our kids to question whether they are in the wrong body.”
Before the vote, board chair Linda Ross said there were many “errors and untruths” in Hackenschmidt’s presentation.
Ross said that by denying the possibility that people could feel like they are born in the wrong body [hm…], “you are denying the reality of others. Because it is not your experience does not mean that it is not the reality of others.”
Tuesday’s board of trustees meeting was held in Vincent Massey High School in the southwestern Manitoba city, where it had been relocated to accommodate the number of people expected to attend.
More than 30 people — but not Hackenschmidt herself — registered to speak at the meeting before school trustees voted on the proposal brought forward on May 8.
A large number of people in the audience held up signs supporting LGBTQ people, while others held signs declaring their one-word response to the proposal: “Don’t.”
…
Several people in the audience cheered when People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, who said he supports the call to remove the books, entered the gym. They were met with jeers and boos from other audience members.
There was little reaction when Bernier quietly left the meeting shortly before 9 p.m….
Descriptions of the speakers’ interventions and some of the books in question at the link.
Deadly “brain-eating” amoeba infections usually strike people in southern U.S. states, but thanks to climate change, the brain-invading organism has expanded its range northward. In light of this trend, the Ohio Public Health Association recently published a case report to raise awareness of the disease among health care providers in the state.
“Increased incidence of N. fowleri [a species of brain-eating amoeba] in northern climates is but one of many ways climate change threatens human health and merits novel education of health care providers,” the case report authors wrote in a paper published May 16 in the Ohio Journal of Public Health.
Naegleria fowleri is a single-cell organism that typically lives in soil and warm fresh water, as well as the occasional water tank, heater or pipe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In rare instances, the amoeba can infiltrate the human brain and spinal cord by first entering a person’s nose — but it cannot reach the brain if swallowed in a gulp of water, for instance, and it doesn’t spread between people. N. fowleri causes an infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), which is nearly always fatal…
It didn’t come as too big of a surprise when the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida this past weekend. After all, the state’s Republican policymakers, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, have taken a series of steps related to education, voting rights, and diversity programs that moved the Sunshine State in a sharply regressive direction.
A day later, however, Sen. Ted Cruz thought it’d be a good idea to admonish the civil rights organization in a tweet:
“This is bizarre. And utterly dishonest. In the 1950s [and] 1960s, the NAACP did extraordinary good helping lead the civil rights movement. Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way.”
Yes, the far-right Republican from Texas wants Americans to believe that he knows what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would be thinking right now, and the iconic leader of the civil rights movement would be “ashamed” of the NAACP. We’re apparently supposed to take Cruz’s word for it.
Not surprisingly, this generated some pushback from reality-based observers, including historian Kevin Kruse, leading the GOP senator to add that his party has a record to be proud of when it comes to civil rights.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s a point Cruz seems to enjoy periodically emphasizing. Around this time two years ago, for example, the Texan argued that Democrats created Jim Crow. A few years earlier, the senator told Fox News, “The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan.”
About once per year, I like to revisit this thesis, and now seems like as good a time as any to set the record straight.
The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies: southern whites with abhorrent and indefensible views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, progressive agenda.
The result was a dramatic shift in both parties. After “Dixiecrats” began their exodus in 1948, and in the wake of a Democratic president signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Republican Party welcomed segregationists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act and made it part of his national platform.
It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition — leaving the diverse and tolerant Democratic Party for the conservative GOP.
In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and racial progress, while Republicans became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and a party that largely looks the other way when GOP members attend white nationalist events.
To be sure, some elements of Cruz’s superficial take on history aren’t entirely wrong: Southern Democrats were, for generations after the Civil War, on the wrong side of the issue. Practically all of the major segregationists of that era were Dixiecrats.
The trouble is the context and the relevance of the observation. Which matters more in contemporary politics: that segregationists were southern Democrats or that segregationists made a new home in the Republican Party in the latter half of the 20th century?
Democrats have no reason to ignore this or sweep history under the rug: They eventually got it right, and dispatched the segregationists to the GOP, which welcomed them into the party fold. If either party has reason for embarrassment, it’s the one that welcomed the segregationists, not the party that showed them the door.
[…] If the Texas Republican were eager to prove otherwise, he could drop his deceptive take on history, start denouncing his own party’s voter-suppression efforts, and even endorse measures such as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. What do you say, senator?
As congressional Republicans use the debt ceiling to threaten to impose an economic catastrophe on their own country, GOP members tend to avoid using words like “hostage.” Democrats, of course, use such terms all the time — in large part because they’re accurate — but Republicans tend to be uncomfortable with the rhetoric.
[…] hostage takers, practically by definition, tend to be dangerous criminals. […] There’s no great mystery as to why Republicans avoid the label, even if they’ve earned it by deliberately putting Americans in harm’s way.
Indeed, the GOP’s allies have pushed back against the “h” word for precisely this reason. Last week, for example, The New York Times published an op-ed from Michael McConnell, a law professor and a former federal appeals court judge, who insisted that the Republican Party’s radical scheme “is not hostage taking.”
Once in a while, however, prominent GOP officials offer some welcome candor on the subject.
In 2011, immediately after the original debt-ceiling fiasco was resolved, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a chilling assessment of the crisis he helped create. “What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming,” the Kentucky Republican told The Washington Post.
Twelve years later, it was a well-known GOP congressman in the House who used similar phrasing. Semafor reported:
[O]n Tuesday, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz leaned into the charge as he explained to reporters that he and his fellow hardline conservatives would likely reject any sort of compromise deal that watered down the party-line bill Republicans passed through the House. “I think my conservative colleagues for the most part support Limit, Save, Grow, and they don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” Gaetz told Semafor.
It wasn’t altogether clear whether the right-wing Floridian was referring to President Joe Biden or the United States’ economic wellbeing when he referenced the Republicans’ “hostage,” but either way, the candid comment helped expose the radicalism of the GOP’s dangerous tactics.
In the same interview, Gaetz told Joseph Zeballos-Roig, in reference to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s negotiating posture, “I believe the one-person motion to vacate has given us the best version of Speaker McCarthy and I think he’s doing a good job.” [Ha! Gaetz is holding McCarthy as another hostage.]
In other words, the far-right congressman is satisfied with the House speaker, confident in the knowledge that McCarthy is doing the bidding of radicals because he fears they’d take away his gavel if he adopted a more responsible approach.
Why is this process struggling to produce a meaningful result? When making a list, put this near the top.
[…] To put it in layman’s terms, if you need a place to put money over the course of this summer and you need it to be as safe as possible, investors are deciding Microsoft’s corporate bonds are more attractive than bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury.
It’s a clarifying perspective on the impact of GOP extremism and nihilism on the nation’s finances and global power.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that one of the two investigations being conducted by Special Counsel Jack Smith is nearing an end. That investigation involves Donald Trump’s improper removal of documents from the White House, his refusal to turn over material to the National Archives, and his potential mishandling of classified documents—including documents classified above “top secret.”
Smith was appointed last November by Attorney General Merrick Garland and given the task of investigating two separate potential crimes involving Donald Trump. One of those concerned Trump’s actions in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, including his efforts to solicit false electors, appropriate voting machines, pressure Mike Pence to ignore votes, and encourage the violence on Jan. 6. That investigation is still underway with Pence recently testifying before the grand jury, while Smith seems to have extended his queries into Trump using false election claims to scam money from his supporters.
The classified documents investigation has seen a series of witnesses in recent weeks, including Secret Service agents who were stationed at Mar-a-Lago during the period when Trump refused to return documents or lied about having returned them all. Last Thursday, one of Trump’s attorneys on the classified document case abruptly quit. That came just as the National Archives informed Trump’s legal team that they were sending Smith a series of messages between Trump and his advisers showing that he was warned about the proper steps to declassify material.
On multiple occasions, Trump has made the claim that he “automatically” declassified all the documents. However, there is no mechanism by which that could happen. The messages provided by the National Archives reportedly show discussions between Trump and his advisers in which it was apparently made clear that he needed to take formal steps to declassify documents before leaving office. Trump failed to take those steps.
Some of the documents that Trump took to Mar-a-Lago were reportedly connected to national defense. That includes a reported document discussing Iran’s potential development of nuclear weapons.
Had Trump attempted to declassify these documents, there likely would have been pushback both from the intelligence community and the Pentagon. This might have drawn considerable attention to the information Trump was attempting to declassify.
If he had succeeded the documents would have been broadly available. By taking the documents without actually declassifying them, Trump was in possession of information that was of very limited availability and which held considerable potential value to foreign intelligence.
Some of the questions asked of the Secret Service agents reportedly concern who might have had access since Trump kept some of the most highly classified documents in his personal office rather than in the storage room where he had promised to keep them in advance of sending them to the archives.
As just one example, last year Donald Trump joined with the Saudi Arabian government in a series of golf tournaments known as LIV golf. For 2023, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund has reportedly put up $2 billion for a tournament that will be hosted at Trump’s New Jersey course. It’s not difficult to believe that representatives of the Saudi government visited Trump’s office–the same office where he was holding secrets concerning their long-time enemy, Iran.
Putting aside the classified documents, it’s clear that Trump also made repeated violations of the Presidential Records Act, refusing to turn over material to the archives, or lying about material he was holding as well as trying to get his attorneys to lie to the archives.
[…] Trump’s team is expecting indictments to be handed down. What’s astounding is how they are preparing for this event.
Some of Trump’s close associates are bracing for his indictment and anticipate being able to fundraise off a prosecution, people in the former president’s circle said, as clashes within the Trump legal team have led to the departure of a key lawyer.
The first thought of Trump’s associates is not how to defend him from criminal charges, it’s how much money they can scam from his followers […] Most states have laws that prohibit criminals from profiting from their crimes after convictions, but Trump has that handled: He scams his gullible followers for millions up front.
Considering the numerous investigations still open, including investigations into the 2020 election by both Smith and Fulton County, Georgia, Trump will probably have plenty of opportunities to send those fundraising emails–it looks like there will be plenty of indictments.
Reginald Selkirksays
@18:
A few years earlier, the senator told Fox News, “The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Going back even earlier than that article:
The History of Hate in Indiana: How the Ku Klux Klan took over Indiana’s halls of power
Whether the Klan exerted political influence because its membership grew large, or whether its membership grew because of its political influence is a chicken-or-egg question, Safianow said. But either way, Indiana’s Klan by the mid-1920s could claim politicians ranging from local officeholders all the way up to Governor Edward L. Jackson, along with the majority of both houses of the General Assembly.
Though Stephenson first ran for office in Indiana as a Democrat, the Klan eventually aligned itself with the Republican Party, which controlled most of the state at the time.
“Many politicians saw election victory via the Klan,” Madison said. “The Klan was very active in political campaigns and elections and government. They made a list of candidates, and a candidate was approved or not approved by the Ku Klux Klan. Democrats tended not to get the approval of the Ku Klux Klan. Some stood up, most stayed silent out of fear of alienating their voters.”
…
“While it’s said the Klan through the Republican Party controlled the state legislature, the two houses were divided, with one house aligned with D.C. Stephenson and the other with the governor,”…
Jackson was governor of Indiana from 1925-1929 for context.
D. C. Stephenson
David Curtis “Steve” Stephenson (August 21, 1891 – June 28, 1966) was an American Ku Klux Klan leader, convicted rapist and murderer. In 1923 he was appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan and head of Klan recruiting for seven other states…
In Stephenson v. State (1925) Stephenson was tried for and convicted of the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a state education official. His trial, conviction, and imprisonment was a severe blow to the public perception of Klan leaders as law abiding. The case destroyed the Klan as a political force in Indiana, and significantly damaged its standing nationally. Denied a pardon by Governor Jackson, in 1927 he started talking with reporters for the Indianapolis Times and released a list of elected and other officials who had been in the pay of the Klan. This led to a wave of indictments in Indiana, more national scandals, the rapid loss of tens of thousands of members, and the end of the second wave of Klan activity in the late 1920s…
Poet Amanda Gorman has a message for the Miami-Dade school that removed “The Hill We Climb,” the poem she wrote for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, from the elementary student section: She will fight this and all book bans and she’s not alone. “Together, this is a hill we won’t just climb, but a hill we will conquer,” she said in a statement about the ban.
Bob Graham Education Center, which teaches kindergarten through eighth grade students, removed Gorman’s poem from the shelves for elementary students on the basis of one complaint from a far-right activist with documented ties to white supremacist and insurrectionist groups.
This is the passage the parent, Daily Salinas, highlighted in her complaint as proof the poem “is not educational and have indirectly [sic] hate messages.” […]
“I’m gutted,” Gorman wrote in a statement released on Twitter. “I wrote The Hill We Climb so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment,” and, “Ever since, I’ve received countless letters and videos from children inspired by The Hill We Climb to write their own poems. Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”
She’s gutted, but she’s fighting back, she said—along with her publisher, Penguin Random House, other authors, the non-profit PEN America, which fights censorship and book bans, and community members. They are all suing Florida’s Escambia County to challenge book restrictions. [Tweet and image of Miami document are available at the link]
The 25-year-old Gorman, who is Black and who is most definitely not Oprah [as identified on the complaint document], pointed out in her statement that “Most of the forbidden works are by authors who have struggled for generations to get on the bookshelves. The majority of these censored works are by queer and non-white voices.” Statistics from the American Library Association prove that claim.
In 2022, the American Library Association documented a record-breaking number of reported book ban attempts across the country. The organization found 1,269 demands to censor or restrict library materials or resources, the highest total since it began compiling this data more than 20 years ago. More than 2,571 unique titles were targeted, with the majority of the books being written by or about LGBTQ characters or people of color.
Gorman was the unquestioned star of President Biden’s inauguration, reciting the poem she wrote immediately following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Here is her remarkable performance from that day.
In the Republicans’ first debt-ceiling crisis, GOP leaders said the only concession they were prepared to make was raising the limit — which they’d have to do anyway — in exchange for a ransom. Twelve years later, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his team are recycling the ridiculous position.
Similarly, in 2011, Republicans justified threatening to crash the economy on purpose by saying they’re looking out for children, who shouldn’t be burdened by a massive national debt. This week, after a White House meeting, McCarthy recycled that line, too:
“Every new child that was born today just got a $94,000 bill — and they’re one day old. I think that’s wrong. I think we’re failing. And you know what, you can blame both sides for this, but that has got to stop, and it’s got to end now.”
Of course, day-old babies didn’t literally receive a bill for $94,000. What the Republican leader pitched was a familiar refrain from deficit hawks: Take the entirety of the national debt, divide it by the population of the United States, and arrive at a per-person figure. The idea is, every American, of every age — whether you’re a senior citizen or were born yesterday — is shouldering this debt “burden.”
There’s no shortage of problems with this argument, as a very good Washington Post analysis explained yesterday. Among the key details Philip Bump raised: “When Donald Trump was president, despite surging deficits, Republicans in Congress were happy to sign off on a suspension of the debt ceiling, despite every baby born in 2019 owing an $83,000 bill to the government.”
Evidently, the House speaker was entirely comfortable with babies getting an $83,000 bill […]
But it’s also worth pausing to consider the follow-up questions that McCarthy doesn’t appear eager to answer.
As the California Republican sees it, every new child born in the United States is effectively receiving a $94,000 bill. McCarthy thinks that’s “wrong,” and he’s ready to put a stop to this “now.”
But is he really?
For example, Democrats have made the case that rolling back ineffective tax breaks for the wealthy would reduce the deficit and help those innocent babies who shouldn’t have to shoulder an undue debt burden. It’s at this point that Republicans effectively respond, “Whoa, hold on there. We care about babies as much as the next guy, but not if it means asking billionaires to pay an extra dollar in taxes.” [yep]
[…] If McCarthy were driven by his deep concerns about helping babies and their debt burdens, he’d be open to possible defense cuts. And rolling back tax cuts. And making sure GOP spending cuts don’t affect education and child care. And closing tax loopholes.
But he’s not.
As Republican leaders try to defend their indefensible extortion scheme, maybe they think we were born yesterday?
As summarized by Steve Benen from a Politico article:
Marianne Williamson’s longshot Democratic presidential campaign suffered another setback this past weekend when the self-help guru’s campaign manager and deputy manager resigned.
Most likely, that is good news for everyone. Except Putin.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has signed a law adding Minnesota to a multistate compact that would elect the president according to the national popular vote, making it the second state in just the last month to take action that would bring the compact closer to fruition.
The new law also enacted numerous changes to make voting easier and elections fairer in Minnesota, including expanding in-person early voting. It comes on the heels of two other laws Democrats recently passed to significantly enhance access to voting after they regained control over state government last year.
This latest law adds Minnesota’s 10 Electoral College votes to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, under which member states would give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Importantly, the compact would only come into effect once states with a majority of electoral votes have joined.
As shown on the map at the top of this story, the 17 current members with Minnesota’s addition now have 205 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the compact, and Democrats have a tough-yet-real path to approving the compact in several more states so that it could take effect by 2028.
To that end, Nevada Democrats just passed a constitutional amendment that would add their six electoral votes to the compact. The move is the first step in a multi-year effort that will require lawmakers to pass the same measure again in 2025 before sending the amendment to voters in 2026.
Democrats could also join before the next elections in two other states where they currently wield power: Michigan will try to join later this year, and Maine may do so next year. If those three states were to add their combined 25 electoral votes to the compact, that would leave the alliance just 40 votes shy of taking effect.
With Republicans usually (though not always) opposed to the idea of electing the president by the popular vote, Democrats will likely need to win control of state government in several states currently in Republican hands to make up the rest. The path to doing so runs through five more states where Democrats could realistically win power in time to activate the compact by 2028: Arizona, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Wisconsin.
These eight states have 82 electoral votes, more than the 65 needed following Minnesota’s entry into the compact, so Democrats don’t have to run the table. But they’ve already made progress in Wisconsin, where progressives just flipped the state Supreme Court. An upcoming lawsuit could see the court replace the GOP’s gerrymanders with fairer districts, which is an essential outcome needed for Democrats to win future majorities there.
While the road to 270 is not easy, it is nonetheless realistic, especially if Democrats win the presidency next year and once again minimize their midterm losses two years later. And even if Republicans narrowly prevail in 2024—especially if they once again win the White House despite losing the popular vote—a 2026 Democratic midterm wave like the one the party enjoyed in 2018 could also help put the compact over the top.
[…] One Republican willing to talk on the record was anti-Trumper and former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a onetime Republican rising star whose career was kneecapped in 2018 when she lost her battleground suburban district in the blue-wave backlash to Trump.
“Some people have asked me, ‘Should I run next year?’ If you’re in a swing district, I said, ‘No,’” Comstock advised. “If he’s going to be the nominee, you are better to wait and run after he washes out. Because you won’t have a prayer of winning.”
In fact, Politico noted some Republican operatives are telling candidates to take a pass on this cycle and instead opt for a 2026 run “when Trump may be done seeking elected office.”</b?
It's almost as if Republicans, who keep hoping Democrats would neutralize Trump for them, have set their sights on a possible criminal conviction to save them from their cowardice two cycles down the road.
In the meantime, Trump is still killing another cycle for Republicans—even in a year when the Senate map should be rife with Republican pickup opportunities.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made much of his crusade to lock up felons who unwittingly voted in 2020, but one registered Republican allegedly voted illegally for nearly a decade before the feds stepped in last week.
Yalemis Onasch, a 28-year-old Cuban national, cast fraudulent ballots in the past two presidential elections before finally becoming an American citizen in 2022, according to a criminal complaint first obtained by The Daily Beast.
The FBI homed in on Onasch after receiving information about her alleged crimes from a “cooperating witness,” the complaint states. And although the tipster is not identified in the filing, it seems Onasch was outed by her ex—the father of her child—with whom she has been locked in an ongoing legal battle, her attorney told The Daily Beast.
—-SNIP—-
The complaint against Onasch includes a copy of her most recent voter registration, in which she specifies her party affiliation as Republican.
When Oskam thinks about walking, the skull implants detect electrical activity in the cortex, the outer layer of the brain. This signal is wirelessly transmitted and decoded by a computer that Oskam wears in a backpack, which then transmits the information to the spinal pulse generator. […] he can stop, he can walk, he can climb up staircases.
[…]
training sessions with the new device prompted further recovery in nerve cells that were not completely severed during his injury. Oskam can also walk short distances without the device if he uses crutches. […] although the brain–spine interface restores walking, other functions such as bladder and bowel control are not targeted by the device.
Kandiss Taylor, a recently elected GOP District Chair in Georgia, would like to know why Big Globe won’t stop shoving round-Earth propaganda down our throats.
In an interview with David Weiss (AKA “Flat Earth Dave”) and Matt Long on her “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” podcast, Taylor and her guests discussed biblical “evidence” that the Earth is actually flat as a pancake. “The people that defend the globe don’t know anything about the globe,” said Weiss. “If they knew a tenth of what Matt and I know about the globe they would be Flat Earthers.” …
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 33
Wasn’t she the loon who ran for Georgia governor back in 2020 who made destroying the Georgia Guide Stones a plank of her platform?
(Checks Google)
YUP! The very one!
Akira MacKenziesays
Correction: She ran in 2022 on the campaign slogan of “Jesus, Guns, and Babies.”
johnson catmansays
re Reginald Selkirk @33: How do flat-earthers reconcile the fact that you can start at any point on earth, go in a straight line in any direction, and you will eventually come back to the same point where you started? You could not do that on a flat earth.
I know it wasn’t directed to me, but I’ll take a swing (and miss (and fall backwards into the water hazard (and lose my hat and club))) at it.
Optical illusion. See, the earth is a disk which is spinning and as we walk in a straight line (or fly, drive, sail, kayak, roller skate . . . ), the centrifugal (and centripetal) force, caused by pi equaling exactly 3 (see Kings, some chapter and verse I don’t remember), bends your route of travel into a figure 8 (on its side (thus the infinity of gods)) and make it appear that you are following a great circle route on the disk. Does that make sense?
airplanes will generally take the shortest path […] on the curved surface of the spherical Earth, this is not a Euclidean “straight line”, but a great-circle route. […] this deviation from a “straight line” becomes quite notable when the route is plotted on a flat map
[…]
Of course, that’s what They want you to think. The only real Flat Earther responses to this are just flat-out denial, or assertion that every single pilot, ship captain, and so on is part of the massive conspiracy and faking all these itineraries and end up wasting tons of fuel and mileage.
“The people that defend the globe don’t know anything about the globe,” said Weiss. “If they knew a tenth of what Matt and I know about the globe they would be Flat Earthers.”
The globe has a dark past.
Oggie: Mathomsays
The globe has a dark past.
Only half of it. And that rotates every 24 hours.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Funny how all the planets and large moons thereof are globes. Not one disc present, Almost like some fundamental property is acting on everything above a certain size to form and enforce the globular shape.
whheydtsays
Re: Compulsory Account7746, Sky Captain @ #40…
Rational Wiki is full of it. On a sphere, a “great circle route” aka “geodesic” is a straight line, since a straight line is defined as the shortest path between two points.
What most people, looking at a Mercator projection think of as a “straight line” is really a Rhumb Line. It cuts all meridians at a constant angle.
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #33…
If I knew a tenth of what he knows about the Earth, I probably would be a flat earther. Fortunately, I know a great deal more than he appears to.
We have many different map projections because each has different patterns of distortion
[…]
We call […] shortest-distance paths great circle routes. On the other hand, a path […] where you keep yourself pointed in the exact same compass direction the whole time, is called a rhumb line or a loxodrome.
Some projections, like the Mercator […] show loxodromes as straight lines. […] When a projection preserves great circle routes as straight lines, we call it an azimuthal projection.
Flat-Earthers copied the shape of the azimuthal equidistant map centered on the North Pole […] all points on the map are at proportionally correct distances from the center point, but only from the center point. Other distances are distorted.
Flatearth.ws – The Polar Azimuthal Equidistant Map is NOT the Flat Earth Map
While the two are identical in shape, […] the “flat Earth map” is claimed […] to be distortion-free.
Bakhmut before and after the russian invasion.
Like a cancerous tumor on the body of Europe, Ruscism brings only destruction and death wherever it spreads. [Tweet and vide at the link]
By the end of the day on Tuesday, the group of Russians who launched their mini-invasion of Belgorod Oblast had finished wandering around a pair of villages and hurried back across the border. It took Russia more than a day to mount anything that looked like a response to the cross-border expedition, revealing—and not for the first time—just how weak Russian forces are at many points along their long border with Ukraine.
As far as the less than admirable members of the Russian Volunteer Corps go, it’s unclear if they actually lost any men while raising flags, driving around, and generally spreading panic from Belgorod to Moscow. However, they did lose some vehicles, including what looks to be a pair of U.S.-made Humvees. They were reportedly lost attempting to cross a defensive trench across a minor road when the eventual arrival of Russian forces in the area forced the insurgents to make a hasty retreat.
There has been some analysis suggesting that the images of the lost vehicles were staged, but a closer look makes this seem unlikely. The make, camouflage, and markings of the vehicles match those seen in images and videos released by the Russian Volunteer Corps when showing their entry into Russia. However, the group does seem to have made off with one Russian BTR-82 Armored Personnel Carrier … so that’s something. Maybe they can point at that accomplishment while explaining to Ukrainian commanders why they ran off and lost their U.S.-sourced vehicles. Whether this brief incursion will have any lasting effect on how Russia deploys its forces is still to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues as everyone on both sides of the conflict and in nations around the world waits for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, delivered news that’s likely to have everyone anxiously hitting their refresh button on Twitter as they’re waiting for Ukraine to make its move.
“Many civilians are still under Russian occupation, and time cannot be wasted anymore,” said Budarov in an interview given during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s trip to Japan and reported on Telegram, “We already have minimum weapons and other equipment stocks in place. I can only say that it will start soon.”
There’s no denying that Budanov’s desire to get things cranking is real, or that this attitude is shared by almost everyone in Ukraine. With about 15% of the nation still occupied by Russian forces, getting Russia the hell out of Ukraine is at the top of everyone’s list with daily stories of atrocities, theft, abuse, kidnappings, and the regular bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
But there are still good reasons that Ukraine should wait at least a little longer. For one thing, an effective counteroffensive is going to be dependent on the ability of Ukrainian forces to not just advance, but to keep advancing in areas where Russian forces collapse. That means not just getting a phalanx of tanks through an opening, but supporting them with infantry, artillery, and most of all fuel, spare parts, and all the other materiels of an army that’s trying not just to win a battle, but take back territory.
That means this weather forecast for eastern Ukraine over the next week is still important. [Weather forecast for Bakhmut area showing rain almost every day for a week]
The longer-term predictions going into early June show the area drying up. That’s a prerequisite if heavily burdened fuel trucks and support vehicles are going to follow advances in areas where mines, trenches, and blown bridges make following normal roads impossible.
Waiting until mid-June would also have this advantage:
According to the Danish minister, the transfer of 80 [Leopard 1A5] tanks should take place by June 1.
That’s over a battalion’s worth of tanks, and it’s not all. Between Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, the total delivery is expected to be around 100 tanks—two battalions’ worth. Ukrainian forces are already far along in their training on operating and maintaining these tanks. Assuming the manpower and equipment are there to fill out the ranks (and they almost certainly are), this looks to be new brigade numbers 11 and 12 ready to join the fight.
[…] Budanov is certainly right that Ukraine has the equipment to launch a counteroffensive right now if it needs to, or if it spots an opening too good to pass up. Looking at the advances around Bakhmut and at other points on the line, the immediate impression is that these are still small unit actions, often involving units the size of a platoon or smaller. There’s little doubt that Ukraine could hurl its existing forces at any point on this line, break through, and make significant gains.
Ukraine wants more than that. At Kyiv, Ukraine forced Russia to face the failings of its intelligence and the myth of its invincible army. At Kharkiv, Russia was faced with an inability to maneuver to address a rapid advance. In Kherson, Ukraine underscored the weakness of Russian logistics, generating a withdrawal from thousands of square kilometers with patience and a few precision weapons. Now Ukraine wants to do more. They want to show that Russia is incapable of winning the war in Ukraine, no matter how long the fight drags on.
It’s not enough for Ukraine to push Russian forces out of some area. They need to bring them into decisive battle and thrash them, to break them so convincingly that the futility of the invasion is clear. A few more weeks for an outcome like that … is not too much to ask.
A Russian court extended until at least Aug. 30 the pretrial detention of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter deemed by the U.S. to be wrongfully held, after investigators requested more time before his trial.
The Department of Homeland Security is warning about the potential for violence in the lead-up to the 2024 election cycle that could target the nation’s critical infrastructure, faith-based institutions, government facilities and minority communities, according to a bulletin posted Wednesday.
Donald Trump responds, and … well, I think he’s drunk.
“Rob,” My Red button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!).
Well that took a weird turn…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis scheduled his big presidential announcement for Wednesday night, on a Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk. Twitter Spaces allows users to broadcast live audio conversations on the platform.
Except that Musk fired all his engineers, and the people left at Twitter are clearly scrambling to keep the whole app from crashing. Well, mission not accomplished.
ok i give up on the ron desantis presidential campaign space, this is a disaster of a campaign launch, looks like desantis lost connection, no one in there is talking now, sitting in the space has crashed my app 3 times. […]
The fact that Twitter Spaces was making everyone crash was hilarious enough. But things got even better:
You can hear them whispering about how it’s crashing and I’m not sure they realize they’re live?
Just take a moment to savor how humiliated Musk must’ve felt—and just one month after his big rocket failure. This humiliated: [Tweet with image of Musk rocket exploding]
And if it was humiliating for Musk, imagine being DeSantis:
I decided to leave when I realised Ron hadn’t said anything for like 20 minutes and it was just Elon being praised by people for buying Twitter
The DeSantis campaign tried to make the best of a terrible situation, tweeting, “It seems we broke the internet with so much excitement,” but it was the Biden campaign that won the night: [Tweet from Joe Biden, “This link works,” showing image and link to “Donate reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”]
[…] There is real joy in seeing that one-sided maul-fest.
At the beginning of this month, I said I would stop tracking Russian advances each day. Seems like I lied about that. [Graph showing Russian assaults on Ukrainian positions.]
For most of the month, the numbers are down, and the lowest days in May had fewer attacks than any previous dates. The big spike on May 19 was primarily the closing act as Wagner struggled to take that last portion of Bakhmut, along with a simultaneous attack near Avdiivka that turned out to be a disaster for Russia. The low numbers on most recent days reflect how everyone seems to be poised for the next act.
A quick trip along the front line shows several small actions, but little that constitutes a major movement. At Bakhmut, Ukrainian armed forces report continued movement north and south of the city, but Russian sources indicate that Russia has moved in reinforcements. There are few details to show except for this scene of fleeing Russian forces pausing to drink from a muddy ditch between Bila Hora and Klishchiivka. [Tweet and video]
Other videos from the area show Ukrainian forces located across that same canal, as well as drones and artillery strikes closer to Klishchiivka. [map at the link]
Those trenches just west of Klishchiivka are located on a hilltop and as Russia was moving west it was thought they would represent a stronghold for Ukrainian forces. However, they were overrun within a day of the town being captured. Now those same trenches are once again in dispute with Ukrainian forces directing fire into the area from multiple directions.
Meanwhile, on the extreme left of the line, Russian sources report that Ukrainian troops have been shelling an area south of Kamyansk. As with a lot of activity along the southern front, this has been seen as shaping the battlefield for an attack toward Melitopol.
Russia has reportedly blown up an entire series of dams south of this area, flooding roads and fields north of Tokmak. That whole area is also one of the areas where Russia has done the most preparation in terms of digging trenches, laying down “dragon’s teeth,” and installing pre-built concrete pillboxes. They certainly seem to think that Ukraine is going to attack in this direction. Ukraine appears to be signaling it will attack in this direction. I have no idea if this is a deception.
North of Bakhmut, Russian forces have actually advanced near Bilohorivka, the famous town where Russia lost over 100 vehicles attempting several river crossings in May 2022. Some reports indicate that these forces came down from Kreminna, but since Ukraine still appears to be positioned in the forest south of that city, it’s likely they approached Bilohorivka more from the east than the north. In any case, reports indicate they’ve been able to occupy industrial sites east of the town. [map at the link]
A dozen kilometers to the south, Ukrainian forces stopped an attempted Russian advance on Spirne, with the loss of at least one vehicle to an FPV drone (see video below).
That’s the level of activity going on at most places on the front over the last 24 hours. There continues to be areas of heavy fire around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka. Elsewhere it appears there is a whole lot of hunkering going on.
Reportedly three drone boats attacked a Russian ship. What’s confusing about the Russian report on this event is that it puts the boats all the way down near the Bosphorus Strait, over 400 kilometers from the nearest point in Ukraine, which seems very unlikely. That location may be incorrect, or there may be a part of this story that is simply missing.
sea drones attacked a Russian reconnaissance ship. Russian ministry of defense confrimed this information.
Russia reported that all unmanned boats were destroyed, the ship continued to function.
However, some sources say that although two drones were destroyed, the third one managed to damage the ship.
Russian Black Sea Fleet probably won’t feel safe in the Black Sea anymore. [video]
Posted by readers of the article featured in comments 48 and 52. (Link in comment 48)
Vladimir is one of the two characters in ‘Waiting for Godot’.
———————-
[take with truckload of salt] FRANCE 24 spoke to exiled Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomarev, the political representative of the Freedom of Russia Legion. This Ukraine-based paramilitary group of Russian volunteers has been involved in cross-border incursions into Russia’s Belgorod region in the past last few days. Ponomarev claimed the pro-Ukrainian, anti-Putin group “didn’t lose a single soldier” and is successfully making progress inside Russia. Ultimately, “our guys will be in Moscow and Putin will not be in the Kremlin”, he predicted.
————————
[Mark Sumner posted] It’s unlikely that Ukraine will wait for either the F-16s or the M1 Abrams, as that would put them in a position of facing the fall rains. I’d wager they’re going to launch the counteroffensive by early summer, at the latest, so they have time to exploit any breakthrough.
—————————–
Well this is interesting…looks like the Russians are testing out their smoke equipment on the Crimean bridge. Do they think they can actually make enough smoke to make it disappear so it can’t be hit by missiles?
———————–
Call sign “Mavic”: 240-degree view, image stabilization, ability to detect the smallest enemy objects day and night.
Kelly Weill has written a book about flat earthers. I haven’t read it but I’ve listened to interviews with her, and in one she talked about how a number of them are Christians who’ve sort of retreated into it because they would be psychologically overwhelmed by the size of the universe and insignificance of Earth if they believed the science. I thought that was tragic, but at the same time I’ve often wondered how astronomers don’t get overwhelmed every day. Also, it’s sad that people like Taylor live in such a small world; but they can’t be allowed to forcibly shrink and flatten other people’s worlds. As the board chair at the meeting reported @ #15 said: “You are denying the reality of others. Because it is not your experience does not mean that it is not the reality of others.”
whheydtsays
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #54…
Can’t speak to professional astronomers (or anyone else who deals with deep space studies), but I find the immensity of it all is fairly easy to deal with if you’re comfortable with scientific notation. (Stuff I actually deal with goes the other way…integrated circuits are down to single nanometer sizes and heading for single digit Angstrom dimensions.)
“Rob,” My Red button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!).
What are people talking about? Seriously, something is amiss here and I’m not sure what.
I fear I’m missing some internet joke, but to be totally clear, I wasn’t talking about technically or intellectually overwhelmed but psychically or existentially overwhelmed.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna… @ # 28, quoting dailykos: … a multistate compact that would elect the president according to the national popular vote…
Meaning, apparently, according to who gets the most votes. Insert alarmed! emoji here.
In the absence of ranked-preference/instant runoff/whatever you want to call it, that means in effect the (declared) winner will be whoever succeeds best at fragmenting their opposition. Even if we squint carefully in just the right direction like a NY Times reporter so as not to see the distribution of skulduggery in the present partisan landscape, this creates endless incentives for schismatic electoral sabotage and resultant kakistocracy, and will “solve” the Electoral College snafu by creating guaranteed chaos.
Somebody please prove me wrong!
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@SC #60:
I wasn’t talking about technically or intellectually overwhelmed but psychically or existentially overwhelmed.
Existentialism follows. Apologies if this is ‘splaining. You’ve always seemed pretty worldly to me. =)
(In)significance is subjective.
Authoritarian theists assert their own importance vicariously as unique, specially-created, despite each knowing they’re just one of billions of humans, not even counting all the other stuff, nor the intricate relations like ecology.
Cosmic significance was a ludicrous expectation anyway. We matter to us. From our limited scope, here and now, we extrapolate from immediate experience and form emotional attachments to models of the world. Physical, ethical, social, etc.
We can flip the vastness on its head. Objects at exotic scales—abstracted to convenient if still unfathomable numbers—are generally irrelevant to us in the everyday: a stray electron in our toe, the black hole at our galaxy’s center. Make the machine go ping; mix the clear liquids; categorize data; arrange symbols. Out of mind.
Near our scale, we can make meaningful changes to affect ourselves and each other. And occasionally enjoy frission from youtube videos about those dots in the sky.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@SC #60:
*Facepalm* I could’ve linked this to begin with and saved myself some writing.
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different.
[…]
everyone you love […] every ‘supreme leader’, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
[…]
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image. To me, it underscores our responsibility to be more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot. The only home we’ve ever known.
lotharloosays
I wonder what’s going on with Ana Kasparian of TYT. Her latest video on “Karen” is not great to say the least. I’m not on twitter but I also heard she had some arguments about “not wanting to be called a birthing-person”. I guess it could be a side-effect of being terminally online and engaging with various trolls on twitter but it’s not a good sign to say the least.
Objects at exotic scales—abstracted to convenient if still unfathomable numbers—are generally irrelevant to us in the everyday
Well, it’s all irrelevant in the sense that I’m not confronted with space/time in the everyday, but I’m not an astronomer! I can look at Webb images and then go do or think about something else, but I couldn’t do that if I worked with this stuff every day!
Are people suggesting scientific notation as a…coping mechanism? :)
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Russia has replaced its Wagner private military units with regular soldiers in the outskirts of Bakhmut but the group’s fighters remain inside the devastated city, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Thursday. Her comments appeared at least partially to confirm an announcement by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin that his group had started withdrawing its forces from Bakhmut in east Ukraine and handing over its positions to regular Russian troops. Prigozhin had repeatedly threatened to withdraw troops from the area before it was taken, citing his dispute with the Russian military and defence establishment over supplies of ammunitions. A couple of days ago Prigozhin sarcastically suggested that his mercenary troops could be replaced by “a battalion of generals”. Yesterday he warned of a new revolution in Russia if leaders did not improve their handling of the war.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak sought to downplay the idea that there was a counter-offensive coming from Ukraine that would be marked by a single significant shift of gear. He wrote: “Once again about the counter-offensive. This is not a ‘single event’ that will begin at a specific hour of a specific day with a solemn cutting of the red ribbon. These are dozens of different actions to destroy the Russian occupation forces in different directions, which have already been taking place yesterday, are taking place today and will continue tomorrow.”
Ukraine’s defence ministry claimed to have shot down 36 out of 36 Shahad drones launched into Ukraine by Russia overnight.
…
Russia’s defence minister has said Belarus remains a “faithful ally and reliable partner” to Russia…as the two countries signed an agreement on the positioning of nuclear weapons in Belarus. During a visit to Minsk Sergei Shoigu said “deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus does not transfer it to the republic control over it, and the decision on its use remains with Moscow”.
Overnight the New York Times has reported that US intelligence officials believe that Ukraine was responsible for the drone attack which slightly damaged the Kremlin, and which Russia labelled an assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian president not being in the building at the time. Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov said Russia had always held Kyiv responsible, and that it didn’t really matter exactly which Ukrainian units were behind it. Podolyak on Thursday responded by saying Ukraine had nothing to do with the “strange and pointless” attack.
The US ambassador to Ukraine has criticised Russia over its implementation of the newly extended Black Sea grain initiative. Bridget Brink tweeted: “After repeated threats to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Russia now refuses to allow any of the waiting 28 ships into Pivdennyi, one of the three ports designated by the agreement for food exports – a clear violation of their commitment. Russia must stop obstructing the operations of this life-saving initiative.”
Russia has denied a fire broke out at the ministry of defence in Moscow, after users on social media and reports in the local Tass news agency said emergency services had been called to the building. State-owned Tass initially reported on a fire at the ministry early on Thursday morning, but later reported the ministry saying there was none.
Also from there:
In addition to Russia announcing on Thursday that five Swedish diplomats are to be expelled from the country (See 09:46), Moscow has additionally announced its decision to close its consulate in Goteborg, Sweden, in September, Reuters reports.
A New York Times investigation has found that a group of Republican operatives used robocalls to raise $89 million on behalf of veterans, police officers and firefighters.
David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The Times, explains how they actually spent the money and the legal loophole that allowed them to do that.
I’m not fully convinced this is an actual loophole that allows them to get away with defrauding people.
Cities across the US have agreed to pay out a total of more than $80m in settlements to protesters injured by police during 2020 racial justice protests – a figure experts believe is unprecedented and will rise further as many lawsuits are still playing out.
…
The payments, usually involving a lengthy legal process for victims, are conditional on cities and their respective police departments admitting no wrongdoing.
All the while, victims face life-changing injuries, trauma and other burdens as such settlements, while showing large headline figures, offer limited respite.
[“Justin Hansford, a professor at Howard University School of Law and executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center”] noted that severe injuries…make up the majority of settlement cases, while many more never see redress.
Even people who do receive settlements face financial challenges, said Hansford. There can be high legal fees and medical debt, and settlements may not cover counseling or ongoing assistance.
“You’ll be lucky to break even in most cases if you don’t get damages,” said Hansford, referring to additional funds awarded for emotional harm.
Hansford added that, historically, litigation has done little to curb excessive force and police departments face no direct financial consequences.
“They’ll pay those dollars with the knowledge that it won’t really impact them,” said Hansford.
Individual officers are also largely spared from criminal charges.
Verheyden-Hilliard said that some settlements can get controversial police tactics banned. But she noted that police routinely find new ways to challenge reforms….
An investigation into a massacre in a destroyed Palestinian village carried out by Israeli forces in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation has identified three possible mass graves beneath a present-day beach resort….
Presidential Office head Andrii Yermak reported on May 25 that 106 Ukrainian prisoners of war had returned home from Russian captivity as part of a prisoner exchange.
All of the freed POWs had defended Donetsk Oblast’s city of Bakhmut, said Yermak. Among them were 98 privates and sergeants, as well as eight officers.
“They fought for Bakhmut and performed a feat that prevented the enemy from advancing further into our east. Each of them is a hero of our state,” added Yermak.
According to the Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 68 released soldiers were considered missing.
The freed prisoners included personnel from Ukraine’s Armed Forces, border guards, and a State Transport Special Service employee, the headquarters wrote.
During the prisoner exchange, the bodies of two foreigners and a Ukrainian woman were also repatriated, reads the report.
According to the headquarters, 2340 people have been returned from Russian captivity, including 139 civilians, as of May 25, 2023.
Every House Democrat has endorsed the discharge petition to force a vote on legislation to hike the debt ceiling and prevent a default, party leaders announced Wednesday.
The signatures of the two final holdouts — Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Ed Case (D-Hawaii) — puts the total number at 213, meaning Democratic leaders still need to find five Republicans for the petition to be successful…
The chairman of Ukraine’s parliament has offered words of reconciliation over second world war-era mass murders that have strained relations with its neighbour and strategic ally Poland for 80 years.
Ruslan Stefanchuk told Polish lawmakers that the two countries should work together to identify and honour Polish victims buried in Ukraine, sounding a new tone in contrast to the recent angry reaction of Ukraine’s ambassador to Polish expectations of an apology.
Some 100,000 Poles were massacred in 1943-44 by Ukrainian nationalists and others in Volhynia and other regions that were then in eastern Poland, under Nazi German occupation, and which are now part of Ukraine.
“Human life has equal value, regardless of nationality, race, sex or religion,” Stefanchuk told Polish lawmakers. “With this awareness we will cooperate with you, dear Polish friends, and we will accept the truth regardless of how uncompromising it may be.”
Poland this year is marking the 80th anniversary of the 1943-44 massacre. Entire villages were burned down and all their inhabitants killed by the nationalists. Poland calls the events a genocide. An estimated 15,000 Ukrainians died in retaliation.
Associated Press reports Stefanchuk thanked the families of the victims for cultivating a memory which “does not call for revenge or hatred, but which serves as a warning that nothing like that can ever happen between our nations again.”
He said that identification and honoring of the victims “without bans or barriers” is “our joint moral and Christian [ugh] obligation.”
Poland’s foreign ministry spokesman, Lukasz Jasina, had last week said that on the 80th anniversary Poland was expecting an apology from Ukraine and President Zelenskiy. Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, reacted by saying that any suggestions of what Kyiv or Zelenskiy should do were “unacceptable and unfortunate.”
New: Ron DeSantis’ Super PAC altered footage to include the sound and sight of fighter jets flying over the Florida governor in its launch video.
Video from the event which was last November indicates no such flyover.
The clip…
A clip from actual event below.
The PAC did not deny altering the footage…
Let’s be honest: It’s ultimately a pretty small edit [not really] but it’s the latest instance of political ads including digitally altered videos to promote or attack candidates, making it difficult for voters to discern what’s real.
Clips and Axios link at the link. Neither the thread nor the article specifies the other ads with digitally altered videos.
@lotharloo 64
I saw that too. I might need to look at a transcript.
I can understand if there are bad diversity specialists. I’m not sure about the broad characterization though. And I need to rewatch to figure out what the exact issue with “Karen” is.
Karen is a derogatory term. People being entitled bigots don’t get to choose the label the culture settles on. I didn’t see a sexism angle (the only one that bothers me but the relative benefits of directing attention to racism seems reasonable), but if they don’t like Karen just because it’s derogatory I don’t see how they will like racism, sexism, misogyny and bigotry as terms either.
And not using the term for racist entitlement at work? I can’t get behind that.
lotharloosays
@Brony:
Yeah, in my opinion Karen translates to “racist white woman” so I really don’t get the complaints. Of course it’s possible that people are just calling every white women they disagree with a “Karen” but the term originally started from a number of incidents where white women called the police or threatened black people with calling the police.
Yeah. I have no problems believing that there are instances of overreach and misuse of Karen, including this situation. But I see people labeling entitled racism, and little cause for concern about “Karen hunting”. The most active I get is choosing to “ambush hunt” behavior I have political issues with on politics boards. If there is no behavior, there is no hunt, and that is good too.
Outside of that I just react to examples as I learn to.
The great object, for which I had the honor to hold an Appointment in the service of my Country being accomplished, I am now preparing to resign it into the hands of Congress, and to return to that domestic retirement; which it is well known I left with the greatest reluctance, a retirement for which I have never ceased to sigh through a long and painfull absence, and in which (remote from the noise and trouble of the World) I meditate to pass the remainder of life, in a state of undisturbed repose: But before I carry this resolution into effect, I think is a duty incumbent on me, to make this my last official communication, to congratulate you on the glorious events which Heaven has been pleased to produce in our favor, to offer my sentiments respecting some important subjects which appear to me to be intimately connected with the tranquility of the United States, to take my leave of your Excellency as a public Character, and to give my final blessing to that Country, in whose service I have spent the prime of my life, for whose sake I have consumed so many anxious days and watchful nights, and whose happiness, being extremely dear to me, will always constitute no inconsiderable part of my own.
Impressed with the liveliest sensibility on this pleasing occasion, I will claim the indulgence of dilating the more copiously on the subjects of our mutual felicitation—When we consider the magnitude of the prize we contended for, the doubtfull nature of the Contest, and the favorable manner in which it has terminated, we shall find the greatest possible reason for gratitude and rejoycing—This is a theme that will afford infinite delight to every benevolent & liberal Mind, whether the event in contemplation be considerd as the source of present enjoyment or the parent of future happiness…
The Citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole Lords and Proprietors of a vast tract of Continent [ahem], comprehending all the various Soils and Climates of the World and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life, are now, by the late satisfactory pacification, acknowledged to be possessed of absolute freedom and Independancy—They are from this period to be considered as the Actors, on a most conspicuous Theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity, here they are not only surrounded with every thing which can contribute to the completion of private and domestic enjoyment, but Heaven has crowned all its other blessings by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other Nation has ever been favored with—Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances under which our Republic assumed its Rank among the Nations—the foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy Age of ignorance and superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of Mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period—The researches of the human Mind after social happiness have been carried to a great extent, the treasures of knowledge acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislators, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of Government. The free cultivation of letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive Refinement of manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and, above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation, have had a meliorating influence on Mankind and encreased the blessings of Society. At this Auspicious period the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free & happy, the fault will be entirely their own.
Such is our situation, and such are our prospects: but nowithstanding the Cup of blessing is thus reached out to us, notwithstanding happiness is ours if we have a disposition to seize the occasion and make it our own, yet it appears to me there is an option still left to the United States of America; that it is in their choïce and depends upon their conduct, whether they will be respectable and prosperous or contemptible and Miserable as a Nation. This is the time of their political probation: this is the moment when the eyes of the whole World are turned upon them—This is the moment to establish or ruin their National Character for ever—This is the favorable moment to give such a tone to our fœderal Government, as will enable it to answer the ends of its institution—or this may be the ill fated moment for relaxing the powers of the Union, annihilating the cement of the Confederation and exposing us to become the sport of European Politicks, which may play one State against another, to prevent their growing importance and to serve their own interested purposes; for according to the System of Policy the States shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall, and by their confirmation or lapse, it is yet to be decided whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse: a blessing or a curse, not to the present Age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn Millions be involved.
…
…a National bankruptcy, with all its deplorable consequences…
The ability of the Country to discharge the debts which have been incurred in its defence, is not to be doubted, an inclination I flatter myself will not be wanting: the path of our duty is plain before us—honesty will be found on every experiment to be the best and only true policy—let us then as a Nation be just—let us fulfill the public Contracts which Congress had undoubtedly a right to make for the purpose of carrying on the War, with the same good faith we suppose ourselves bound to perform our private engagements…
Walmart will pay half a million dollars to settle allegations from California’s Department of Justice that it was selling brass knuckles on its website, state Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday.
Brass knuckles are classified as deadly and illegal weapons in a number of states, including California, which punishes their sale with up to a year in prison…
Pierce R. Butlersays
Brony… @ # 76 & lotharloo @ # 77: Karen is a derogatory term. … Karen translates to “racist white woman”…
It also translates to hundreds of thousands of actual people, on average no more racist (etc) than the culture in general, who don’t deserve to have their names made synonymous with stupid and aggressive bigotry.
Merely acceptable collateral damage in the culture wars, right? I agree, we do need a calling-out term, but I can’t buy this one.
@Pierce R. Butler 82
I typed more than that, I did mention it the only angle that bothered me, and that the attention to entitled racism seems reasonable. So I don’t have no feelings for people named Karen. I had feelings for Karen hunting as a problem.
It’s not ideal but I didn’t evolve the culture here and playing a support role with respect to entitled racism wile acknowledging the sexism is reasonable. Negative feelings about the label Karen and sexism are reasonable. The entitled racists are a threat to life.
Give me something concrete and reality based that helps in this gossip ridden culture and I’ll think about it. This isn’t clean. Otherwise your characterization of my position is hyperbolic.
I think the real meaning is that even less of Trump’s brain is now in working order. I know Trump doesn’t drink, but it sounds like a drunken rant.
If we try really hard, we might come up with an excuse for Trump’s incoherent rambling and shouting. Perhaps he was trying to make a joke about Ron DeSantis’s glitch-ridden presidential campaign announcement on Twitter? All of Elon Musk’s and Ron DeSantis’s buttons don’t work? Trump has the ultimate working button, even bigger and redder than that of nuclear-powered Kim Jong Un’s button?
I don’t know. I do think it is possible that Trump is sliding into dementia.
I think the real meaning is that even less of Trump’s brain is now in working order. I know Trump doesn’t drink, but it sounds like a drunken rant.
If we try really hard, we might come up with an excuse for Trump’s incoherent rambling and shouting. Perhaps he was trying to make a joke about Ron DeSantis’s glitch-ridden presidential campaign announcement on Twitter? All of Elon Musk’s and Ron DeSantis’s buttons don’t work? Trump has the ultimate working button, even bigger and redder than that of nuclear-powered Kim Jong Un’s button?
I don’t know. I do think it is possible that Trump is sliding into dementia.
Yeah, it’s really incoherent, and your post/link is the only place I’ve seen it discussed. Yes, I think it was about the failed campaign launch and pushing the button or whatever, but…he doesn’t have any button. I thought perhaps he was trying to hint that he or a regime friendly to him (Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia) had sabotaged the launch (whether true or not, and not that any sabotage would have been necessary given the state of things under Musk); but I don’t think it was even that. Possibly he was sundowning.
SC @88, that idea that Trump’s supporters sabotaged the launch is interesting. Like you, I doubt that.
Musk is quite capable of self-sabotage. He doesn’t need any help.
Trump doesn’t have the red nuclear button, that’s true. He may have been remembering fondly the days when he did have it (or thought he had it). Maybe he thinks he can use Kim Jong Un’s button as a proxy because he and Kim are “in love”? Who knows.
As far as I know, DeFacist didn’t mention a button of any kind or color in his campaign launch announcement. He was quite vague. “Freedom is worth fighting for,” etc.
The founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison for orchestrating a weekslong plot that culminated in his followers attacking the U.S. Capitol in a bid to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House after the 2020 election.
Stewart Rhodes is the first person charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack to be sentenced for seditious conspiracy, and his sentence is the longest that has been handed down so far in the hundreds of Capitol riot cases.
It’s another landmark in the Justice Department’s sweeping Jan. 6 investigation, which has led to convictions against the top leaders of two far-right extremist groups that authorities say came to Washington prepared to fight to keep President Donald Trump in power at all costs.
Prosecutors had urged the judge in Washington’s federal court to put Rhodes behind bars for 25 years, saying he remains a threat to American democracy.
[…] Messages, recordings and other evidence presented at trial show Rhodes and his followers growing increasingly enraged after the 2020 election at the prospect of a Biden presidency, which they viewed as a threat to the country and their way of life. In an encrypted chat two days after the election, Rhodes told his followers to prepare their “mind, body, spirit” for “civil war.”
In a conference call days later, Rhodes urged his followers to let Trump know they were “willing to die” for the country. One Oath Keeper who was listening was so alarmed that he began recording the call and contacted the FBI, telling jurors “it sounded like we were going to war against the United States government.”
Another man testified that after the riot, Rhodes tried to persuade him to pass along a message to Trump that urged the president not to give up his fight to hold onto power. The intermediary — who told jurors he had an indirect way to reach the president — recorded his meeting with Rhodes and went to the FBI instead of giving the message to Trump. Rhodes told the man during that meeting that the Oath Keepers “should have brought rifles” on Jan. 6. […]
Because of the ongoing debt limit crisis, the United States’ perfect credit rating is in jeopardy of being downgraded, according to Fitch, one of the nation’s top credit rating agencies, saying the warning “reflects increased political partisanship that is hindering reaching a resolution.” Fitch is clearly hoping the warning is enough to wake the Republican Congress up to the very real danger of default.
That’s all pretty esoteric. What’s very concrete is the fear people living on fixed incomes feel right now. The first victims of default are going to be the most vulnerable—the oldest Americans and disabled people. […]
“It feels like I’m living on the edge of a cliff,” 63-year-old Melissa Fields told the Washington Post. She lives on $1,388 a month, plus Medicare and Medicaid. “I’m so scared. I’ve been disabled my whole life and have always depended on my Social Security, my Medicaid, my Medicare. To threaten to take that away is unfair, it’s cruel. The prospect [of] … being suddenly without money or health care is too much to bear.”
Fields has to have dialysis every day and has to pay a portion of that cost. She is $12,000 in debt and struggles to make minimum payments on her credit cards. This is very literally life or death for her.
People like Fields are not at the top of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s mind. He’s sending the House home Thursday for a long Memorial Day weekend—lasting until June 5. They have been told they might need to return to the Capitol on 24-hour notice if an agreement between McCarthy and President Joe Biden is reached. The deadline for a deal remains unchanged—June 1 or very shortly thereafter.
With all that, Republicans are still maintaining the fiction that they’re protecting Social Security, Medicare, and veterans by not targeting benefits in the draconian deal they’re trying to force on Biden and the nation. That’s purely lip service, because what Republicans are trying to force is economic catastrophe.
In fact, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said so, out loud and in public, on Fox News. A default would be blamed on Biden, she insisted, not the Republicans who would have forced it. ”This is a president that is failing the American people. So I think that bodes very well for the Republican field.” [OMFG]
Another Republican rooting for that disaster is Freedom Caucus guy Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, whose primary job right now is reminding McCarthy that he’s on thin ice. “I am going to have to go have some blunt conversations with my colleagues and the leadership team,” he said in a radio interview Thursday. “I don’t like the direction they are headed.” The Freedom Caucus position is no negotiating, period, and forcing the Senate to pass the budget-slashing bill the House passed last month.
That puts McCarthy in a bind. Something like 30 Freedom Caucus members insist they won’t vote for anything that’s not in the plan they forced through the House last month, which means McCarthy would have to look to Democrats for votes. Passing it with Democratic votes would enrage the Freedom Caucus, potentially leading to an effort to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s chair.
Meanwhile, all 213 Democrats have signed on to the discharge petition that would force a clean debt ceiling hike onto the floor. That’s unity. But to succeed, they must find five Republicans willing to join them; the maneuver requires a simple majority of House members. That means at least five Republicans have to be willing to put people like Melissa Fields ahead of people like Chip Roy. That should be an easy call, but they’re Republicans, after all.
Wonkette: “Eric Swalwell Cleared In Chinese Spy Probe, Bet Republicans Pretty Sorry For Constantly Lying About Him”
When Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t getting openly jeered and mocked by her peers [see Reginald’s comment 71], she likes to make baseless, fact-free accusations during congressional hearings that Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell got caught fucking a Chinese spy. Amid all the Fox News conspiracy theories about the time a Chinese spy named Fang Fang tried to get close to Swalwell and a number of other California politicians, there was never an actual credible allegation that Swalwell had gotten caught fucking a Chinese spy. It was just the thing Republicans were insinuating […]
But Greene, because she’s a human incarnation of a wet armpit fart whose parents clearly didn’t raise her well, just says it out loud.
Swalwell has been an understandable target for Republicans, because he has been an outspoken participant in congressional investigations into whether Republicans’ indicted, twice-impeached third-grade-level-speaking lord and savior is a literal actual traitor.
It’s deflection and projection on the part of Republicans. They desperately need Democrats to be compromised.
Adam Schiff did a bunch of lies or something! Hillary Clinton stole the election from herself to frame Trump for Russia, Russia, Russia! Joe Biden did THING in COUNTRY for PERSON!
Hunter Biden GOT LAID! USED PENIS!
Eric Swalwell GOT LAID! ALSO PENIS!
As we said, Republicans mostly just like to insinuate these things about Swalwell. They’re just asking questions! Oh yeah, and big man House Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked Swalwell and Schiff off the Intelligence Committee, in part citing these laughable accusations, because he is a spiteful [doofus]. He pretended he knew something we did not. Adam Schiff reminded McCarthy that he was in that FBI briefing too, you dumbass.
But surely Greene’s classless face will stop saying those things about Swalwell in congressional hearings, now that the House Ethics Committee, which is now led by Republicans, has dropped its two-year investigation into Swalwell, on account of “nothing fucking there.” Right? Surely she wouldn’t keep lying […]
LOL.
But anyway, that’s the news.
In a letter to Swalwell dated Monday, the committee said it will take no further action in the probe that began in April 2021 into “allegations raised in the complaint that you may have violated House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct in connection with your interactions with Ms. Christine Fang,” the suspected Chinese spy.
In his statement responding to TOTAL EXONERATION, Swalwell simply said what he’s said all along, that when these suspicions about a campaign volunteer were brought to his attention 10 years ago, he did everything he could to help law enforcement, and that nobody, including Republican speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, had ever questioned it. (Implied: until it was politically expedient for clowns running interference for Trump who actually was compromised.)
Marjorie Taylor Greene shut her fucking face now?
Her best silver-fox boy Kevin McCarthy let Swalwell back on the Intel committee now?
And we bet Sean Hannity or somebody else on Fox News will do a special hour-long program apologizing for all the hours they’ve spent lying about Eric Swalwell, yeah?
If those people had one ounce of integrity, they would do those things.
But they don’t […]
Fox News’s headline on this story? “Ethics committee warns Swalwell as investigation into interactions with Chinese woman closes.”
As we were saying about ounces of integrity and lacks thereof.
[…] Chief Twitter troll Elon Musk held a gala in-kind donation event for DeSantis on Twitter Spaces Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET (ish). The major news outlets had already reported that DeSantis was running, so there was zero anticipation around this conversation between the two most awkward men on the planet. FYI: The average Republican primary voter is 65 years old, doesn’t have a college degree, and has no idea what Twitter Spaces is. But I’m sure this wasn’t a waste of time.
The event started off like Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare, as performed by Elon Musk. People kept disappearing, including DeSantis (but not permanently, alas). Musk vamped for a while about why Spaces wasn’t working. Great way to sell your product (and candidate)!
[Tweet and video at the link]
Musk at one point said, “I’m very excited to have Gov. DeSantis make this … ” Then dead air for several seconds. He’d barely started and was already going up on his lines. Serving as Musk’s willing accomplice for this event was Republican donor and Silicon Valley creep David Sacks, who had to remind Musk to mute his speaker like he’s his granddad.
Hitler was not actually there (we’re unsure about Dick Cheney), but somebody made an actually clever picture for Donald Trump to truth out. [image including Hitler, The Devil, and the FBI, etc. at the link]
When the Spaces campaign rally finally began 26 minutes late, we were subjected to DeSantis and Musk’s voices in stereo. You’d think not seeing their faces would be an improvement but your ears really took a hit. DeSantis first flattered himself with lies about how he stood up to the federal government and the media regarding how he governed during the pandemic. He claimed he didn’t follow the crowd and defied lockdowns, et al., but he issued a stay-at-home order in April 2020. He closed bars and restaurants. He insists he was “alone” when reopening the state, but Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp started re-opening businesses in April. DeSantis started lifting restrictions en masse around the same time as many other Republican governors. We could argue that he was more reckless than everyone else, but that’s hard when Kristi Noem exists. The South Dakota governor was one of the few who never issued a stay-at-home order.
DeSantis spoke for a while about how much he values the First Amendment, thus proving there’s no God because he wasn’t immediately reduced to ash. That’s when he started flattering Musk as a free speech champion and brilliant businessman, who will definitely make money off Twitter someday very soon! (Musk has admitted in a leaked memo that Twitter is now worth less than half of the $44 billion he “paid” for it.)
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie joined to swoon over DeSantis and tell Musk that he owns a Tesla […]
Musk also stressed the importance of Twitter as an objective, even-handed platform where every voice is treated equally, especially the Nazis. (Musk has not hosted Spaces for any other candidate’s launch.) Then came some softball questions that I am too bored to translate here. DeSantis warned us to “buckle up” because he was going to change how the federal government operates, which is the sort of boilerplate crap you hear from bland candidates. Friendly guests offered him the opportunity to bash the NAACP — a “left-wing group” — for calling out his blatantly racist policies, and to pass the buck for costing Florida billions in Disney Dollars.
Twitter Spaces crashed a couple times during this mess, […] probably had nothing to do with Musk firing most of the people who knew how to run the site. Musk’s own platform mocked him mercilessly, as #DeSaster starting trending. [Tweet and “Failure to Launch” image.]
[…] DeSantis did attract about 300,000 users to his Twitter Spaces old-time radio show announcement. That’s significantly fewer than the number of Republican primary voters who’ll eventually watch Donald Trump trash DeSantis on Sean Hannity’s show, and Trump can just call in from Mar-a-Lago.
[…] Members of the House Freedom Caucus don’t even fully believe that the government will run out of money on June 1. They demand that Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen show “proof” of her stated drop-dead default date, perhaps a notarized documented signed by at least three men. [Aiyiyiyi]
“I don’t believe that the first of a month is a real deadline,” Gaetz said. “But she wanders out of some backroom in the White House with a Ouija board under her arm telling us the first of the month is the number. And we’re supposed to take that as some sort of article of faith.” [OMFG!]
Janet Yellen earned her Ph.D in economics from Yale in 1971. Her professional experience is longer than this asshole’s life. She’s not some Marianne Williamson woo peddler or common street preacher. Seriously, Gaetz can go to hell.
Jeffries and Minority Whip Katherine Clark said they plan to reach out to “a handful” of House Republicans about signing a discharge petition that could bypass House Republican leadership and force a debt ceiling vote. That seems highly unlikely, considering Republicans are close to steamrolling the White House completely. Today, Kevin McCarthy insultingly claimed that the spending caps and work requirements are Republicans’ concessions to Democrats.
[…] Your money or your life is quite the Republican bargain.
A federal analysis revealed Tuesday that GOP plans to extend 2017 tax breaks for the wealthy could add nearly $3.5 trillion to the nation’s deficit.
———————
one of the arguments MAGA will dust off and trot out next year will be “If you don’t want us threatening the world economy you have to put us in charge.”
———————-
This only normalizes Republicans’ gangster tactics […]
—————————-
McCarthy and the Freedom Freakshow Caucus are running a “bad cop/even worse cop” negotiating strategy.
————————-
Nothing like trashing the world’s biggest economy over performative bullshit and pettiness
————————–
Matt Gaetz: “I think my conservative colleagues don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.”
“You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy,” Judge Amit Mehta said before handing down the sentence.
“Historic moment at the @WhiteHouse as @POTUS welcomes Gen. Brown, his appointee as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with @VP and @SecDef. If confirmed, it would mark the first time in history that the top 2 Pentagon positions are occupied by African Americans.”
Ron DeSantis is hoping to seem like a normal person by appearing next to Elon Musk, the Governor’s campaign has confirmed.
“Throughout the past few months, with his attacks on Disney, migrants, and books, Ron has, unfortunately, given the impression that he is bizarre,” one aide said. “And the white boots didn’t help, either.”
The aide said that, once voters compare DeSantis to the Twitter chief, “there’s at least a chance that Ron will seem somewhat normal.”
According to the aide, the campaign decided to pair DeSantis with Musk after considering a shortlist of other foils, including Mickey Rourke, Dennis Rodman, and Ginni Thomas.
In an official statement about his joint appearance with DeSantis, Musk said that he was “thrilled” that he had finally convinced someone to come into the office.
During a surprise commencement address to graduates of Johns Hopkins University on Thursday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told them to take advantage of the time and resources they have to pursue their passions and uphold the democratic values at stake in his country’s war against Russia.
He spoke via livestream from Ukraine, where the ongoing conflict has impacted the futures of countless young Ukrainians, robbing them of opportunities and loved ones, Zelenskyy said. He told Hopkins graduates to make the most of every moment.
“Time is the most valuable resource on the planet,” he said. “Some people realize this sooner, and these are the lucky ones. Others realize it too late, when they lose someone or something.”
…
During his remarks Thursday, Zelenskyy described a recent visit with Ukrainian troops on the front lines, saying many have dreams and aspirations similar to those of the American graduating students. The difference is young Ukrainians are forced to endure the collective tragedy of war before chasing their dreams, he said.
“You have to know exactly what you need today — and what you want your tomorrows to look like.”
…
The university announced Zelenskyy’s address with the ceremony already underway, just minutes before his remarks were set to begin.
“His appearance will be a complete surprise for those in attendance,” a news release said.
Zelenskyy, whose response to the Russian invasion has made him an international symbol of democracy, said he’s confident future generations of American leaders will continue championing democratic values around the world.
University President Ron Daniels awarded Zelenskyy an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree after his speech.
Daniels had sent a letter to Zelenskyy asking him to speak at the ceremony, according to university spokesperson Jill Rosen. In the letter, Daniels expressed his hope that “one of our era’s great democratic leaders would speak to the next generation of leaders, reinforcing in them the importance of holding fast to one’s principles and meeting with fortitude and humility the challenging moments of history that they will surely face in the years ahead.”
During a surprise commencement address to graduates of Johns Hopkins University on Thursday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told them to take advantage of the time and resources they have to pursue their passions and uphold the democratic values at stake in his country’s war against Russia.
He spoke via livestream from Ukraine, where the ongoing conflict has impacted the futures of countless young Ukrainians, robbing them of opportunities and loved ones, Zelenskyy said. He told Hopkins graduates to make the most of every moment.
“Time is the most valuable resource on the planet,” he said. “Some people realize this sooner, and these are the lucky ones. Others realize it too late, when they lose someone or something.”
He also thanked U.S. leaders for their support since the Russian invasion, including significant investments in humanitarian and military aid.
[…] During his remarks Thursday, Zelenskyy described a recent visit with Ukrainian troops on the front lines, saying many have dreams and aspirations similar to those of the American graduating students. The difference is young Ukrainians are forced to endure the collective tragedy of war before chasing their dreams, he said.
“You have to know exactly what you need today — and what you want your tomorrows to look like.”
[…] The university announced Zelenskyy’s address with the ceremony already underway, just minutes before his remarks were set to begin.
“His appearance will be a complete surprise for those in attendance,” a news release said.
Zelenskyy, whose response to the Russian invasion has made him an international symbol of democracy, said he’s confident future generations of American leaders will continue championing democratic values around the world.
University President Ron Daniels awarded Zelenskyy an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree after his speech.
Daniels had sent a letter to Zelenskyy asking him to speak at the ceremony, according to university spokesperson Jill Rosen. In the letter, Daniels expressed his hope that “one of our era’s great democratic leaders would speak to the next generation of leaders, reinforcing in them the importance of holding fast to one’s principles and meeting with fortitude and humility the challenging moments of history that they will surely face in the years ahead.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday made it harder for the federal government to police water pollution in a decision that strips protections from wetlands that are isolated from larger bodies of water.
It’s the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority of the court narrowed the reach of environmental regulations.
The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle. They objected when federal officials identified a soggy portion of the property as a wetlands that required them to get a permit before building.
By a 5-4 vote, the court said that wetlands can only be regulated if they have a “continuous surface connection” to larger, regulated bodies of water.
The court jettisoned the 17-year-old opinion by their former colleague, Anthony Kennedy, that allowed regulation of wetlands that have a “significant nexus” to the larger waterways.
Environmental advocates had predicted that the narrowing the reach of the Clean Water Act would strip protections from more than half the wetlands in the country.
A description of the campaign video that was released after Ron DeSantis appeared in the glitch-ridden announcement on Twitter:
[…] Look, it’s Elon! Look, it’s Elon at Tesla! Here’s Elon with a flamethrower! Here’s a big rocket, Elon did that! Oh, and also here’s our candidate, I guess—but look! Elon getting out of a truck!
[… You cannot make an uplifting campaign video from clips of DeSantis berating schoolchildren. If you were listening to the audio on that video, it is plain that Ron DeSantis is about as inspirational as a carton of spoiled milk.
You’ve heard of stolen valor? Ron’s campaign staff attempted a bit of stolen charisma on this one. You’ve got audio of DeSantis droning on like he’s reading the world’s worst audiobook, coupled with video of Musk shooting off flamethrowers and expressing human emotions […]
If Ron DeSantis wasn’t plainly a fascist-minded sociopath bent on propelling his own rise to power off of frothing grievance politics targeting conservatism’s declared enemies for isolation, retribution, and destruction, it might almost make you feel sorry for him. Or, you know, not.
Faced with having to develop a personality that does not immediately have his audiences looking up uncanny valley on their smartphones, he’s looked around the far-right movement for someone with far-right charisma he could copy, and settled on … Musk? Well, it’s a choice. […]
SC @106, yeah. I was actually encouraged by that. We both snipped the parts that were not essential. :-)
In other news, as reported by the Washington Post: “Trump workers moved Mar-a-Lago boxes a day before Justice Dept. came for documents”
Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.
Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, these people said.
Taken together, the new details of the classified-documents investigation suggest a greater breadth and specificity to the instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than has been previously reported. It also broadens the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining — a period stretching from events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI raid there on Aug. 8.
That timeline may prove crucial as prosecutors seek to determine Trump’s intent in keeping hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House, a key factor in deciding whether to file charges of obstruction of justice or of mishandling national security secrets. […]
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday called on Hispanic people in Florida to vote against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who launched his 2024 White House bid the day before, because of his immigration policies.
“Hopefully Hispanics in Florida will wake up and not give him one single vote, to not vote for those who persecute migrants, those who don’t respect migrants,” López Obrador said…
A ban on smoking marijuana on the streets of Amsterdam’s red light district went into effect on Thursday, part of a push by the city’s first female mayor to clean up the area.
Signs were posted in the canal-lined neighbourhood known for its brothels, sex clubs and marijuana cafes, which attract millions of tourists a year, but are a nuisance to residents.
People caught violating the ban now risk a 100-euro ($110) fine…
People will still be allowed to smoke inside and on the terraces of coffee shops selling marijuana and hash in the district and other parts of the city…
On Tuesday, Wagner Group CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin sat down for an interview with pro-Russian military blogger Konstantin Dolgov. Over the course of the discussion, the mercenary leader continued his barbed criticism of Russia’s military leadership, disparaged the sad state of the Russian army, and even seemed to suggest that a general revolt against the government of Vladimir Putin was right around the corner.
In the wake of that widely viewed interview, Dolgov was fired from his position at a Russian propaganda network, but Prigozhin … goes on. In what may be one of the most inexplicable chapters of Russia’s labyrinthine political system, Prigozhin still hasn’t had a stairwell accident, an unfortunate illness, or a visit to an open window despite months of increasingly blatant disdain for everyone and everything involved with Putin’s personal war on Ukraine.
Of all the things that Prigozhin said in the interview, the most painful and impactful to Putin and his long-term plans may not be that Russians might soon tire of sending their sons to die in muddy ditches, without decent training or equipment, while the offspring of the oligarchs frolic in Paris. The biggest was simply this: By the measures that Putin himself put up, the invasion of Ukraine is an absolute failure.
On the day that Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine, Putin set two straightforward goals in a speech to the Russian people: “de-Nazifying” and “demilitarizing” Ukraine. Essentially, that meant bringing down the Ukrainian government and destroying the Ukrainian military. [video at the link]
Even after the crushing defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, the second defeat in the Kharkiv counteroffensive, and the inability to hold onto the city of Kherson, Putin has continued to push these two goals. When it comes to everything that has happened or might happen in his illegal invasion, these are the two measures Putin built for himself, and has returned to again and again.
That’s what makes this the most critical moment of the interview with Prigozhin. [Tweet and video at the link]
Prigozhin admits that Putin’s invasion hasn’t just failed, it has done the opposite of what Putin declared its central purpose. [“Fuck knows how, but we’ve militarized Ukraine!”] The Ukrainian government is by every measure stronger than it was when the war began, both in domestic popular support, and perhaps more importantly, in the international arena. Zelenskyy is the new Churchill. The Ukrainian military, warts and all, is now a symbol for strength, resilience, and bravery that has no modern rival.
“I don’t know,” said Prigozhin. “It’s like the Greeks during the period of Greece’s prosperity. Like the Romans were during …” At that point Dolgov cuts him off, but the point is made.
Which brings up the second measure of Russian failure, one that Prigozhin returns to several times in the interview. Putin hasn’t just been ineffectual in the effort to crush the Ukrainian military, his invasion has made that military much, much stronger. In fact, says Prigozhin, the Ukrainian military is now one of the strongest in the world.
“If at the start of the special operation they had 500 tanks, hypothetically speaking,” said the Wagner leader, “now they have 5,000 tanks. If 20,000 men were able to fight before, now it’s 400,000. … F*ck knows how, but we’ve militarized Ukraine.”
Putin has managed to turn Zelenskyy into a hero, the Ukrainian people into a symbol for everything good, and the Ukrainian military into one of the strongest in the world. […]
It’s not just Prigozhin and it’s not just bloggers who are starting to realize how badly this whole thing has gone for Russia. Even on state-sanctioned propaganda television, the questions are getting a little uncomfortable. [Tweet and video at the link: “I have a question about the strategic defeat of America that you mentioned as our goal. Of course it sounds impressive, most of our viewers will like it. … But I have a feeling, you’ll probably disagree, but after fifteen months of fighting, when we have not only failed to crush Ukraine, but also could not move the front from Donetsk, well, it’s a little early to talk about America’s strategic defeat.”]
The response—which includes a parable about learning to jump a two-meter bar by just jumping a two-meter bar—ends with a “Go for it, comrades!” and an insistence that being unable to wrest a kilometer away from Ukraine doesn’t mean they can’t conquer the whole United States. It’s every bit as nonsensical as it sounds.
Just where can the Russian military go to find any respect in this world? Well, comrade, there is always Fox News. [Tweet and video at the link]
If you can get past the first minute, which DeSantis devotes to attacking the “woke” American military, you can finally reach that ray of hope on which Putin must currently hang his future dreams. DeSantis calls the illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine “what’s going on in Eastern Europe.” Then says he wants a “settlement,” says he worries about “a wider war,” and the only time he says the word “Ukraine” is when expressing how he doesn’t want to get involved there.
Right now, as most of the world waits for Ukraine’s next move, Putin has one hope—the Republican counteroffensive against democracy.
Lawmakers in Washington are preparing to leave town for a holiday weekend, with time running out to reach a deal over raising the debt ceiling.
The US Treasury has warned that the country will not have enough money to pay all of its bills as soon as 1 June…
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy… “There’s a couple of issues still hanging out there that we’ve got to get done,” he said. “We’re gonna work 24/7 to try to make that happen.”
Another key Republican said he believed a deal to raise the nation’s debt-ceiling deal was “likely” by Friday afternoon…
dark matter has its downsides. […] hard to convince people it’s worth studying something that’s invisible, untouchable, and apparently made of something entirely unknown. […] “isn’t this just something physicists made up to make the math work out?” […] yes!
[…]
When I first got into science, what excited me was the prospect of learning some ultimate truth about the Universe. Stephen Hawking once described cosmology as an endeavour to “know the mind of God”.
But while that characterisation is inspiring, in practice, physics isn’t built around ultimate truth, but rather the constant production and refinement of […] a model universe in math—a set of equations that remain true when we plug in numbers from observations
[…]
We couldn’t get the equations to work if the electron was a solid, isolated particle, so we made up something that wasn’t, and then the numbers started making sense.
[…]
astronomers used epicycles—little orbital loops—to describe planetary motions […] Newton’s equations […] general relativity […] all these frameworks are just symbols on a page—but they fit the observations better and make predictions easier, so we use them
[…]
God is best left to the philosophers; we don’t have an equation for that.
THE MINI-INVASION OF RUSSIA CAUSES PROBLEMS FOR EVERYONE
When four-score Russian volunteers belonging to a couple of different groups poured over the border into Belgorod earlier this week, capturing a Russian APC, and momentarily laying claims to a pair of villages, there were some undoubted good effects. It once again demonstrated that Russia’s border security is all but nonexistent. It showed that Russia’s Air Force, VDV, and ground forces are incapable of making a rapid response to an incursion, and it strongly hinted that a serious military push into Russia could reach important targets before meeting resistance.
If nothing else, it put the fear of orthodox Jesus into the hearts of those both inside and outside the Kremlin. Some of the loud questioning of Russia’s actions in Ukraine that are hitting Russian airwaves this week, were no doubt inspired by seeing truckloads of insurgents raising rebel flags over Russian towns and zipping down Russian highways without a shot being fired.
The Belgorod incursion may even force Russia to detach some of its front-line troops to put up some pretense of border security. After all, this is the second time that anti-Putin Russians crossed the border to engage in military hijinks.
However, these actions are also generating some blowback that Ukraine certainly doesn’t want. That includes images of United-States-delivered vehicles sitting in a ditch across the Russian border. As Politico reports, the U.S. is now investigating just how that happened.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday the White House is “looking into those reports that the U.S. equipment and vehicles could have been involved,” hinting at frustration in Washington.
Those reports would pretty much be confirmed at every step, since both the videos going in from the Russian insurgents, and those put out at the end of the affair by the Russian government, show American-sourced Humvees and MaxxPro vehicles, complete with machine guns.
The big concern here is simply the level of trust that the United States places in Ukraine when it hands over any weapon system. If these vehicles were stolen by AWOL Russian volunteers in their attempt to create their own “people’s republic,” that’s bad enough. If the Ukrainian military handed over materiel from the United States to a Russian faction with the tacit understanding it would be used across the border … frankly, neither the Pentagon nor President Joe Biden is going to like that.
[…] if you can’t stop half a company of troops from taking their weapons and going off on a personal mission, how much military discipline do you have? And the consequences are potentially huge, since a strict condition of long-range weapons deliveries is that Ukraine operates them only inside its own territory. This could impact the delivery of F-16 fighter jets and longer-range missiles, as well as justify the refusal to deliver ATACMS long-range rockets.
The answer to all this is probably going to come down to this: Will the guys who limped back over the border, whooping about their big adventure, find themselves paying a price? A price in terms of visiting the Ukrainian equivalent of the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Ukraine may need to decide between the neo-Nazi Russian groups they’ve accepted as volunteers, or the respect and trust of the United States—their single most important ally and biggest benefactor. That little adventure could have big consequences, and they’re not all good for Ukraine.
RUSSIA WAS LYING ABOUT SHOOTING ALL THE DRONE BOATS
On Wednesday, the Russian military released video of the reconnaissance ship Ivan Khurs under attack by drone boats somewhere in the Black Sea. According to that report, Russian forces shot down all the drones before they reached the ship.
Surprise. It seems Russia lied about that. Because a newly released video appears to show, one of those drone boats making contact with the Khurs. [Tweet and video at the link]
Did it manage to cause any damage to the Russian warship? […] the video indicates that one drone reached its target and was large enough to be carrying significant explosives. In an age where AI images and videos are within reach of the average social media user, it’s difficult to say if this video or the one published earlier by Russia, reflects real events. Something like this—grainy, with few landmarks or objects in the background—is exceptionally easy to fake.
We probably won’t know unless the Khurs limps into a port somewhere, trailing smoke.
—————————-
[Tweet and image of female soldier, face obscured, wearing fluffy pink slippers and still holding her rifle as she rests on a chair. “Tetiana. She is serving in the Territorial Guards from the first day of the full-scale invasion.”]
Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military promotions will apply to Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr.’s elevation to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his spokesperson told NBC News.
If the purpose of damages in a defamation suit is to deter the defendant from libelslandering the plaintiff, the $5 million verdict in the case of E. Jean Carroll vs. Some Asshole failed spectacularly. The very next day after a jury found him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming the advice columnist, Donald Trump described her allegations as a “fake story,” telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at the network’s ill-advised town hall, “This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is.” He went on to suggest that Carroll was either too old — “about 60 years” — or perhaps too promiscuous to be sexually assaulted.
“What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, okay? I don’t know if she was married then or not,” he snorted.
Later he repeated the allegations on his idiotic social media platform. [Trump’s postings are shown at the link]
Clearly, the former president is not deterred. Luckily, Carroll is likely to get another crack at him because the first part of her defamation case appears finally to be coming back around.
To recap the circuitous path of this case: In 2019, Carroll published her book What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal […] in which she accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-’90s. Trump immediately called her a liar, implied she was too ugly to assault, and accused her of being in cahoots with Democrats. Carroll sued for defamation in New York state court, and Trump proceeded to duck the process server, claim absolute immunity, argue that he was immune from process as a Florida resident, and then, on the eve of discovery, got bailed out by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who moved to substitute the government as defendant under the Westfall Act on the theory that Trump was just doing his job as president when he shit talked her.
That had the effect of automatically removing the case to federal court, even though US District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the DOJ’s argument that calling Carroll a liar was part of Trump’s official duties in October of 2020. Trump appealed to the Second Circuit, which punted the issue to the DC Court of Appeals, which then took its sweet time ruminating on whether calling a woman too unattractive to assault was within the scope of Trump’s employment as a matter of DC law. A finding that Trump was just presidenting when he slagged Carroll would have the practical effect of mooting the case, since the government can’t be sued for defamation.
In the meantime, Trump continued to say nasty, horrible lies about Carroll, particularly in October of 2022, when he unleashed a spectacularly abusive rant on Truth Social. But by then, he wasn’t president, so there was no one to bail him out. Moreover, repeating the statement as a private citizen wasn’t a great data point for Trump’s argument that he’d just made the original 2019 statements as part of his official obligation to comment on matters of public interest.
Also in 2022, New York passed the Adult Survivors Act, giving victims of sexual abuse a year to file civil claims which would otherwise be time barred. On Thanksgiving, the very day the law came into effect, Carroll filed a second suit with a battery claim under the ASA and a second defamation charge. That case, commonly referred to as Carroll II, went to trial last month resulting in the jury awarding her $5 million.
On the eve of trial in Carroll II, and too late to allow the cases to be consolidated, the DC Court of Appeals finally came back and said that scope of employment was basically an issue for the trier of fact. Judge Kaplan already ruled on this issue more than two years ago, although he still has to rule again before the original defamation case, AKA Carroll I, can go to trial. But since the case was filed in 2019, the facts on the ground have changed. To wit, a jury has now declared that it is a fact that Trump did sexually assault Carroll in that department store dressing room.
There’s also the constant firehose of defamatory shit Trump says about Carroll on social media and every time someone sticks a microphone in his face. And not for nothing, but his lawyers Alina Habba and Joseph Tacopina have managed to deeply piss off Judge Kaplan with their bad faith antics.
And speaking of bad faith … a letter motion from Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation to Hizzoner) strongly implies that Trump’s counsel is threatening to sue Carroll. In a footnote, she writes that she met with “Counsel for Trump” on the morning of May 22, and that they “threatened to file a separate case against E. Jean Carroll in retaliation and possibly to seek sanctions.” Indeed Trump himself said in a deposition that he intends to sue Carroll and her attorney at the conclusion of the proceedings. That was the same deposition where he volunteered that he was not sexually attracted to Carroll’s lawyer — which no doubt impressed the jury when they watched the video of it at trial.
[…] In that letter motion, Carroll requested an expedited briefing schedule, since the procedural and evidentiary issues in Carroll I are substantially the same as in Carroll II. She also moved to treat the jury’s findings in Carroll II as preclusive, taking the issue of whether Trump defamed Carroll off the table and leaving “nothing to resolve with respect to the merits of the Carroll I defamation claim, beyond the amount of Carroll’s damages.” And finally, Carroll would like to amend her complaint to add some of the horrible shit Trump has said about her recently. Obviously, the defendants are going to want … none of that.
Judge Kaplan set a brisk briefing schedule, ordering a response to the letter by tomorrow, and giving two weeks for the parties to brief on the proposed amended complaint. And although the government asked for two additional months to digest the DC Court of Appeals order in light of the evidence in this case so it could decide if it will bother trying to argue again that Trump was acting within the scope of his employment, Judge Kaplan ordered that “Government counsel promptly should begin their review of deposition and other discovery materials.” Which doesn’t sound like he’s going to give the DOJ oodles of time!
[…] Trump didn’t find out enough already, so now he’s going to find out some more.
The rightwing terrorists who have been targeting Target stores because they carry Pride-themed items haven’t been the least bit calmed by the company’s stupid decision to give in to the hate. As Evan noted yesterday, the decision to move Pride collections to the back of stores and in some cases remove the merch all together has not slowed the bigots down in the slightest.
Take this White Power fascist mustache-abuser Ethan Schmidt (please!), who has garnered a measure of infamy for going into Target stores to record himself accosting customers and staff about the store’s “Satanic” LGBTQ+ themed clothes.
He got his start as an anti-masker (and in March was convicted of trespassing at an Arizona wig store in a 2021incident), but has moved on to anti-LGBTQ+ hatred since that’s where the clicks and the money are. He’s widely mocked online for dumb stunts like very daintily stepping on a Target “pride” sign like a big tough guy. In the instance below, he was praised by performative outrage guru Matt Walsh for his performative outrage. [tweets and video at the link]
So sure, he’s ridiculous, but Schmidt also threatened last year to “hunt” LGBTQ supporters in the Phoenix area, saying that companies selling Pride merchandise “are not safe” and that they “can’t hide.” Nice fella.
So now we get to the nice time: A pair of Target employees who confront Schmidt with absolute, firm calm and make clear they aren’t scared of him, and that he can’t go harassing shoppers. Whoever the woman is, her attitude of studied boredom is perfect — Schmidt wants to know if she supports the “Satanic Pride propaganda,” and she calmly replies yes, “Satan and Pride.” But what will God think of that, Schmidt wants to know. Again, perfectly calm: “I don’t believe in God. Do you need help with something?” Then she and the other employee, a plainclothes “loss prevention” guy, help him find the exit. No fucks given for the shouty man.
Schmidt calls them “open Satanists,” and the woman just shrugs. […]
Also too, a Best Supporting Performance medal for the couple at the end who cheerfully reply “Yep!” when Schmidt asks if they support the propaganda.
Americans don’t want these fascist haters running things. We all need to make that clear, especially those of “us” in the executive suites.
So Target execs: Please acquire the steeliness of a pretty awesome retail worker and tell these creeps you won’t be bullied, and that Pride isn’t just a marketing strategy, but a commitment to the LGBTQ community. Have a top executive briefly show the video in an ad and announce that Target really does stand up to bigotry. And somebody give her all the money, please.
Excerpt from a longer article written by Jill Lepore for The New Yorker, “What We Owe Our Tree”:
The woods I know best, love best, are made of Northern hardwoods, sugar maple and white ash, timber-tall; black and yellow birch, tiger-skinned; seedlings and saplings of blighted beech and striped maple creeping up, knock-kneed, from a forest floor of princess pine and Christmas fern, shag-rugged. White-tailed deer dart through softwood stands of pine and hemlock, bucks and does, the last leaping fawn, leaving tracks that look like tiny human lungs, trails that people can only ever see in the snow, even though, long after snowmelt, dogs can smell them, tracking, snuffling, shuddering with the thrill of the hunt and noshing on deer scat for dog treats. I make lists of finds, two-winged, four-footed, and rolling: black-throated green warblers and blue-headed vireos, porcupines and salamanders, tin cans and old tires, deer mice and fisher cats, wild turkeys and ruffed grouse, black bears and, come spring, their tumbling, potbellied, big-eared cubs.
Even if you haven’t been to the woods lately, you probably know that the forest is disappearing. In the past ten thousand years, the Earth has lost about a third of its forest, which wouldn’t be so worrying if it weren’t for the fact that almost all that loss has happened in the past three hundred years or so. As much forest has been lost in the past hundred years as in the nine thousand before. With the forest go the worlds within those woods, each habitat and dwelling place, a universe within each rotting log, a galaxy within a pine cone. And, unlike earlier losses of forests, owing to ice and fire, volcanoes, comets, and earthquakes […] nearly all the destruction in the past three centuries has been done deliberately, by people […] cutting down trees to harvest wood, plant crops, and graze animals.
The Earth is about four and a half billion years old. By about two and a half billion years ago, enough oxygen had built up in the atmosphere to support multicellular life, and by about five hundred and seventy million years ago the first complex macroscopic organisms had begun to appear, as Peter Frankopan reports in “The Earth Transformed” (Knopf), an essential epic that runs from the dawn of time to, oh, six o’clock yesterday. In his not at all cheerful conclusion, looking to a possibly not too distant future in which humans fail to address climate change and become extinct, Frankopan writes, “Our loss will be the gain of other animals and plants.” An upside! […]
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #116, thanks for that excerpt. It’s making a different argument but points to something I was thinking/wondering about earlier. I don’t know what if any research has been done on this, but people in these fields are likely more or less like people in general – some are interested in the questions of existence and many/most aren’t. And the day-to-day work deals with specific questions or problems – things they want evidence of or about, observed phenomena they want to explain, models they want to refine, etc. And it’s all at a mathematical remove or focused on a tiny aspect of the world. And there’s the routine, institutional aspect of work generally. So it’s not like they’re really confronting the totality day to day. (That said, I do wonder if some people kind of use the abstraction, specificity of focus, routine, etc., to avoid the…vastness of it all.)
IOW, my original question “How do astronomers avoid having an existential crisis every day of their lives?”…might possibly have involved a bit of projection.
Justice Antonin Scalia died more than seven years ago, but the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday shows that this is the “Scalia Court” far more so than when he was alive.
The ruling arrives almost a year after the court’s conservative majority made the worst fears of environmentalists a reality in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which severely curtailed the ability of the nation’s environmental laws to protect public health and welfare. The Sackett ruling doubled down on that disregard for pollution and public health, and the effect will likely be devastating.
The precise legal issue decided in Sackett concerns the geographic scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Congress intended the law to end the practice of the nation’s waterways being used as the unregulated dumping ground for industrial pollution. The effect was transformational: For the first time in the nation’s history, any discharge of pollutants into the nation’s waterways absent a permit was unlawful, making it possible to safely fish and swim waters throughout the country.
Congress was not at all shy about the geographic reach of the Clean Water Act. The statute targeted discharges into “navigable waters,” but Congress also expressly defined that to include all “waters of the United States.” Since the mid-1970s, the courts have uniformly agreed that Congress intended with that expansive definition to extend the law’s protections far beyond traditional navigable waters to include the wetlands, intermittent streams and other tributaries that feed into the nation’s major rivers and lakes.
In a unanimous opinion for the court almost 40 years ago, Justice Byron White explained why. While acknowledging that “on a purely linguistic level, it may appear unreasonable to classify ‘lands’ wet or otherwise as ‘waters,’” the court said “such a simplistic response … does justice neither to the problem faced by the [government] nor to the realities of the problem of water pollution that the Clean Water Act was intended to combat.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s opinion in Sackett, however, embraces the very “simplistic response” that the court rightly criticized in 1985. Relying on a dictionary definition of “waters” and ignoring the Clean Water Act’s purpose, the court’s conservative majority has adopted a radically truncated view of the reach of the law’s restriction on water pollution. Under the court’s new view, pollution requires a permit only if it is discharged into waters that are “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water, ‘forming geographic[al] features’ that are described in ordinary parlance as ‘streams … oceans, rivers, and lakes.’” And “wetlands” are covered only if they are “indistinguishably part” of those narrowly defined covered waters.
This is exactly what Scalia wanted to accomplish in 2006 when the Clean Water Act was last before the court. He managed to cobble together three other votes to gut the law but fell one justice short. Now, with six conservative justices — three of whom are largely modeled in Scalia’s image — Alito was able to accomplish what Scalia never could by securing the necessary fifth vote.
The impact of the majority ruling is potentially enormous. It could lead to the removal of millions of miles of streams and millions of acres of wetlands from the law’s direct protection. Basic protections necessary to ensure clean, healthy water for human consumption and enjoyment will be lost. As highlighted by Justice Elena Kagan’s separate opinion, the court’s opinion “prevents the EPA from keeping our country’s waters clean by regulating adjacent wetlands.”
Nor will the nation’s economy be spared. Myriad businesses rely on clean water for their industrial processes. The fishing, real estate and tourism industry are all highly dependent on the protections that the Clean Water Act has provided over the past half century.
None of this was compelled by law. Even Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh rejected Alito’s majority view, announcing that he “would stick to the text.” Congress spoke clearly in the Clean Water Act about its ambitions and backed that intent up with deliberately sweeping language to provide EPA with the discretionary authority it needed to realize those goals. Our nation’s waters are far cleaner as a result. Yet, for the second time in less than a year, an activist Supreme Court has deployed the false label of “separation of powers” to deny the other two branches of the legal tools they require to safeguard the public.
Scalia might have been pleased. Our nation should not be.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Moscow’s city court will hold a preliminary hearing on 31 May in a new criminal case against the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on charges including incitement to extremism, Reuters reports.
Navalny, who rose to prominence by lampooning President Vladimir Putin’s elite and alleging vast corruption, said last month that an “absurd” terrorism case had been opened against him that could see him sentenced to a further 30 years in jail.
Navalny is already serving combined sentences of more than 11 years for fraud and contempt of court in a maximum-security penal colony, on charges that he says were trumped up to silence him.
The court record said the charges against Navalny related to six articles of the Russian criminal code including those on “rehabilitation of nazism”, “organisation of an extremist community”, making “public appeals to commit extremist activity” and inducing citizens to break the law.
Last month, investigators formally linked Navalny supporters to the murder of Vladlen Tatarsky, a popular military blogger and supporter of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine who was killed by a bomb in St Petersburg. Navalny allies have denied any connection to the killing.
The cross-border incursion earlier this week into Belgorod is driving Russian governors in the region to demand a change in the law so that their volunteer border forces can be armed.
At present local volunteer self-defence units cannot be armed, but Reuters reports Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, said he and others were working to try to change the law.
“We have nearly 3,000 people in seven battalions along the border,” said Gladkov. But he said although they were combat-ready and had been in training since November last year, they remained unarmed because it was illegal to give them weapons under current Russian law.
“We’re now searching for a legal basis. To be able to push back the enemy if necessary for those who are trained, able and professional,” he said. “I think it would be the right decision.”
Roman Starovoit, governor of the Kursk region which also borders Ukraine, said he favoured the idea too, and Reuters reports it has a backer in the form of Andrei Turchak, first deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament.
Turchak is said to have told Vladimir Putin in a Kremlin meeting last month the issue had to be resolved.
“The legal status of these formations is now extremely restricted, and most importantly they do not have the right to carry and use weapons. We propose that this anomaly be eliminated at the legislative level,” Turchak told the Russian Federation president.
No issue is more important, and none so shrouded in myth and wishful thinking. The way we feed ourselves is the key determinant of whether we survive this century, as no other sector is as damaging . Yet we can scarcely begin to discuss it objectively, thanks to the power of comforting illusions.
This is what happens when people see the pictures and not the numbers. A scene that reminds us of our place of safety at the dawning of consciousness is used as the model for how we should be fed, regardless of whether it can scale. Bucolic romanticism might seem harmless. But it leads, if enacted, to hunger, ecological destruction or both, on a vast scale. Our arcadian fantasies devour the planet.
As Henry Alfred Kissinger (HAK) reaches 100 years of age on May 27, his centennial is generating global coverage of his legacy as a leading statesman, master diplomat, and realpolitik foreign policy strategist. “Nobody alive has more experience of international affairs,” as The Economist recently put it in a predictably laudatory tribute to Kissinger. During his tenure in government as national security advisor and secretary of state (January 1969 to January 1977), Kissinger generated a long paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations, conversations, and directives on many initiatives for which he became famous—détente with the USSR, the opening to China, and Middle East shuttle diplomacy, among them.
But the historical record also documents the darker side of Kissinger’s controversial tenure in power: his role in the overthrow of democracy and the rise of dictatorship in Chile; disdain for human rights and support for dirty, and even genocidal, wars abroad; secret bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia; and involvement in the Nixon administration’s criminal abuses, among them the secret wiretaps of his own top aides.
To contribute to a balanced and more comprehensive evaluation of Kissinger’s legacy, the National Security Archive has compiled a small, select dossier of declassified records—memos, memcons, and “telcons” that Kissinger wrote, said and/or read—documenting TOP SECRET deliberations, operations and policies during Kissinger’s time in the White House and Department of State. The revealing “telcons”—over 30,000 pages of daily transcripts of Kissinger’s phone conversations many of which he secretly recorded—were taken by Kissinger as “personal papers” when he left office in 1977 and used, selectively, to write his best-selling memoirs. The National Security Archive forced the U.S. government to recover these official records by preparing a lawsuit that argued that both the State Department and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had inappropriately allowed classified U.S. government documentation to be removed from their control; once they were returned, Archive senior analyst William Burr filed a FOIA request for their declassification. The draft lawsuit—which was never filed—is included in this dossier, since Kissinger’s effort to remove, retain and control these highly informative and revealing historical records should be considered a critical part of his official legacy.
This special posting also centralizes links to dozens of previously published collections of documents related to Kissinger’s tenure in government that the Archive, led by the intrepid efforts of William Burr, has identified, pursued, obtained and catalogued over several decades. Together, these collections constitute an accessible, major repository of records on one of the most consequential U.S. foreign policy makers of the 20th century.
…
II. KISSINGER AND CHILE
Chile is arguably the Achilles heel of Kissinger’s legacy. The declassified historical record leaves no doubt that HAK was the chief architect of U.S. efforts to destabilize the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. In the weeks before Allende was inaugurated, CIA documents reveal, Kissinger supervised covert operations—codenamed FUBELT—to foment a military coup that led directly to the assassination of Chile’s commander-in-chief of the Army, General René Schneider. After initial coup plotting failed, Kissinger personally convinced Nixon to reject the State Department’s position that Washington could establish a modus vivendi with Allende, and to authorize clandestine intervention to “intensify Allende’s problems so that at a minimum he may fail or be forced to limit his aims, and at a maximum might create conditions in which collapse or overthrow might be feasible,” as Kissinger’s talking points called for him to tell the National Security Council, three days after Allende’s inauguration. The U.S. “created the conditions as great as possible,” Kissinger informed Nixon only days after Allende was overthrown 50 years ago on September 11, 1973. “[I]n the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes,” he added.
Kissinger designed U.S. policy to keep Allende from consolidating his elected government; but once General Augusto Pinochet’s forces violently took power, the documents demonstrate, Kissinger reconfigured U.S. policy to assist the consolidation of a brutal military dictatorship. “I think we should understand our policy—that however unpleasant they act, this government is better for us than Allende was,” he told his deputies as they reported to him on the human rights atrocities in the weeks following the coup. At a private June 1976 meeting with Pinochet in Santiago, Kissinger told the Chilean dictator: “My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist.”
“We want to help, not undermine you,” Kissinger informed the General, disregarding advice from his own ambassador to give Pinochet a direct, tough message on human rights. “You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”
…
III. KISSINGER AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Secretary Kissinger’s abject embrace of the Pinochet regime, and disregard for its repression, contributed to a broad public and political movement to institutionalize human rights as a priority in U.S. foreign policy. As Congress began passing laws restricting U.S. assistance to regimes that violated human rights, Kissinger’s distain [sic] for the human rights issue escalated. His willingness to endorse, support and accept mass bloodshed, torture and disappearance by allied, anti-Communist military regimes, is reflected in various declassified documents.
…
IV. KISSINGER AND OPERATION CONDOR
Kissinger’s resistance to pressing the Southern Cone military regimes on human rights extended to their international assassination operations known as Operation Condor. In early August 1976, Kissinger was briefed by his deputy on plans, under Condor, “to find and kill terrorists … in their own countries and in Europe.” His aides convinced him to authorize a demarche that would be delivered to General Pinochet in Chile, General Videla in Argentina, and junta officers in Uruguay—the three Condor states most involved in transnational murder operations. But when the U.S. ambassadors to Chile and Uruguay raised objections to delivering the demarche, Kissinger simply rescinded it, ordering that “no further action be taken on this matter.”
Five days later, Condor’s boldest and most infamous terrorist attack took place in downtown Washington, D.C., when a car bomb planted by Pinochet’s agents killed former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his young colleague, Ronni Moffitt….
Links to and descriptions of documents and more at the link.
The arrival of Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race hasn’t exactly shaken things up, but they have solidified what was already a rather remarkable trend. […] all six Republican contenders are backing the idea of conducting military strikes inside Mexico targeting Mexican drug cartels.
What was once a Donald Trump idea so dangerous that his own military staff had to jingle a set of keys to distract him from it every time he proposed it is now conventional wisdom within the Republican Party. […] Scott chose the path of maximal Trumpism: “When I am president, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist. I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall, and I will allow the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists.”
[…] when Rolling Stone reported that Donald Trump, a seditionist, was once again asking campaign policy advisers to draft military options for conducting air strikes or other operations against the cartels. The notion of bombing Mexico in a war on drug traffickers is self-evidently stupid, and it gets worse the more you think about it. Even if you can get past the idea of the U.S. military conducting strikes against Mexican targets without Mexico’s consent, there’s very little to strike at. Unless you plan on leveling entire Mexican towns, aka, the Kissinger doctrine of Screw Everyone and Everything, the premise would be to spend tens of millions of dollars in individual airstrikes to take out random apartment buildings and AirBnBs.
The fentanyl trade has Mexican drug cartels as one stop among many. The actual chemicals themselves are smuggled to Mexico from China, and Republicans are not, so far, proposing we bomb the factories actually producing the stuff. Smugglers in Mexico then have to do little but mix the final product and press it into pills, a process so simple that it can be done anywhere and everywhere. The finished pills are then smuggled across the border with the cooperation of American criminals; Mexico is not, so far, contemplating military strikes against U.S. police union heads or white supremacist groups, even though the U.S. market for illegal drugs has done far more damage to Mexico than it has to the United States. [good points]
“What if we just bomb them all” is the kind of boot fart thinking that the most craven conservative faux-intellectuals pipe up with roughly six times a week, and “What if we bomb Mexico to hurt the drug cartels?” has gone from a Donald Trump post-dinner burp to a universal party belief in less time than it’s taken to investigate an attempted coup.
This happens every time. Every single time Donald Trump mumbles some half-assed scheme cribbed from the only people in Republicanism craven enough to work for him, within weeks, it becomes new party doctrine.
[…] the party now backs Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and backs pardons for violent coup conspirators, now that Donald Trump’s unparalleled corruption has forced them to take sides on the issue.
[…] Bombing Mexican apartment buildings to take out gangs of pill-pressing smugglers is not a realistic option. Weakening the demand for fentanyl on this side of the border would do much more to make the trade less profitable, but Republicans don’t want to do that because it reeks of social spending. “What if we just bomb them all,” though, is an idea every fascist and fascism-agnostic Republican can get behind.
I’ve been saying this for a while , it should make the world extremely nervous that the largest, most sophisticated, most well equipped and most well trained army in human history is potentially going to fall in the hands of psychopaths.
———————
IMHO, the worst thing Democrats can do in a messaging environment like this is quixotically yelling “Bombing Mexico is crazy! People that talk that way aren’t serious!” Invading Mexico isn’t what people are hearing. They are hearing that GOPers are willing to do anything to hurt the people that are hurting us. Responding by saying “that’s crazy” isn’t compelling. Voters need to hear a that Democrats are just as angry but have a real solution that GOPers aren’t capable of supporting.
—————————-
Well, there is the latest trade of receiving the fentanyl powder from China; and then lacing it with Methadone and/or Oxycontin. Lowers the street price, but increases output. People don’t know what they’re getting from their local street distributors. Deadly pills. ☠️ It’s becoming a problem, like meth, here in our patch of Tennessee Appalachia. Kids are dying.
How do we bomb that trade out of existence? Unintended consequence: millions of Mexicans coming to apply for asylum, from war conditions.
—————————–
The Confederacy had its eyes on Mexico from the beginning of secession, so they haven’t changed. How about we stop supplying cartels with America made guns, just sayin….
—————————
The Republican Party doesn’t actually want to stop the illegal drug trade in this country, there’s to much money to be made off of it. Money for the gun industry by keeping folks in fear of being victimized. Money for the law enforcement agencies and police unions to fight “crime” (ie: use the legal system to persecute their perceived enemies). Money for the drug smuggling white supremist gangs, who let’s be honest with ourselves, are really a perfectly overlapping venn diagram with your typical MAGA voter. So many reasons to keep the drugs, and money, flowing. After all, when they say “tough on crime” what they really mean is round up all of the upitty black and brown folks and any liberals who get in their way. Crime itself is ok so long as it’s one of their own doing it.
———————–
The American flag has not been planted in foreign soil to acquire more territory but for humanity’s sake.— Wm. McKinley July 12, 1900.
———————–
Mark Twain’s mocking War Prayer raged vainly post mortem only in 1916 during WW1, though written in 1905:
O Lord our Father…help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land….Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives…Amen.
——————-
This is coming from the party that preaches against needless foreign entanglements after the entanglements they started didn’t work out so well…
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #130…
In my darker, more callous moments, I sometimes think that the problem with illicit drugs isn’t that they are deadly, but that they aren’t deadly enough.
Alabama’s Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville has long been known for saying wildly racist stuff out loud in the service of the conservative agenda. And he did it again during an appearance on Donald Trump Jr.’s web show, “Triggered,” while talking about all the “woke” problems in the world.
[…] Tuberville blew his racist whistle, saying, “COVID really brought it out about how bad our schools are and how bad our teachers are in the inner city, most of them in inner city.” But he wasn’t done degrading “inner city” educators, adding: “I don’t know whether they can read and write.”
Now, Tuberville says lots of racist things, but his appearance with Don Jr. did expose how racism often works for the Republican Party—as an attack on labor.
The full exchange between the two dunderheads gives away the game. Notice how quickly Tuberville’s racist convictions jump track to labor issues. [video at the link]
“And they want a raise. They want less time to work and less time in school. It’s just we’ve ruined work ethic in this country.” They’re also lazy. Got all that old-timey racism?
But basic conservative racism aside, this is Tuberville’s real agenda: breaking unions and ridding Alabama of public schools. Tuberville, like virtually all Republican officials, is in the business of siphoning public school money for the private sector. The lynchpin of the conservative movement’s war on public education and teachers is “parents rights” (unless those parents’ children don’t agree with Christian conservative politics).
[…] It is no coincidence that Tuberville’s blunt bigotry has found a home in the MAGA camp, pushing Big Lie election fraud claims […]
Tuberville has been called out for his dangerous racist statements before. During a Trump rally in October of last year, Tuberville gave his jumbled version of an attack on Democrats and the fake crime wave, saying, ”They want crime, because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit. They are not owed that.”
Tuberville hits pretty much every racist trope that Black Americans have fought against for hundreds of years. In the span of a few months, Tuberville has said, out loud and in front of cameras, that the descendants of slaves are criminals, uneducated (if not illiterate), and indolent. Tuberville’s use of racist tropes exposes him as the low-rent George Wallace he is clearly modeling himself after.
Tuberville’s racist wisdom is always factually wrong, even if the majority of Republican officials believe it. […]
Of course Donald Trump Junior hosts this kind of garbage.
Former President Obama touted several new Minnesota laws as a “giant leap forward” and a “reminder that elections have consequences” on Friday after the Democrat-controlled Legislature concluded a jam-packed session earlier this week.
“Earlier this year, Democrats took control of the State Senate by one seat after winning a race by just 321 votes,” Obama tweeted. “It gave Democrats control of both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion.”
“Since then, Minnesota has made progress on a whole host of issues — from protecting abortion rights and new gun safety measures to expanding access to the ballot and reducing child poverty,” he continued. “These laws will make a real difference in the lives of Minnesotans.”
“It’s a reminder that, while the pace of change can often be slow, a small group of people can still help us take a giant leap forward — but only if we vote,” Obama added. […]
In a teamup that we hope like hell goes much better than Elon Musk’s rollout of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, Ford and Tesla are teaming up to greatly expand access to fast EV charging all over the USA, the two companies announced yesterday.
The Detroit News reports that Musk joined Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley to announce that starting in 2024, electric vehicles built by Ford will be able to use Tesla’s Supercharger network, which up until now has been exclusively available to Tesla EVs. That means owners of Ford EVs will have access to 12,000 more fast charging stations, which will instantly double the number of fast charging spots they can use.
The two CEOs announced the deal in a Twitter Space chat, of course, only there appear to have been no amusing messy glitches like those that made the DeSantis event comedy gold.
“We’re ramping production and we think this a huge move for our industry and for our all-electric customers,” Farley said. “Widespread access to fast-charging is absolutely vital to our growth as an EV brand.”
“We don’t want the Tesla Supercharger network to be like a walled garden,” Musk said. “We want it to be something that is supportive of electrification and sustainable transport in general. … It is our intent to do everything possible to support Ford and have Ford be on an equal footing at Tesla Superchargers.”
It will probably also mean revenue for Tesla, which should be a relief to stockholders wondering why the fucking manchild has been pissing away his time and fortune on turning Twitter into a rightwing hellscape.
Tesla uses a proprietary charging plug design, so at first Ford owners will use an adapter that Tesla will develop and provide to Ford owners, and no the article doesn’t say if they’ll need to buy it from Elon, though we’d guess Ford will pay Tesla for the gadgets.
Fords, like most other EVs sold in America, currently use a “Combined Charging System” (CCS) port, which is incompatible with Tesla’s chargers, hence the need for the adapter. But then starting in 2025, things will get interesting, the Detroit News ‘splains:
Starting in 2025, when it’s set to launch its second generation of electric vehicles, Ford will equip its EVs with the [“North American Charging Standard”] NACS charge port that Tesla vehicles have, eliminating the need for an adapter.
[…] other automakers may buy in, increasing the likelihood that Tesla’s NACS standard will become the national norm […]
Musk also said that “consumers will be all the better for it” if NACS becomes the standard, and hey, if it really is better tech, then… good? Even if it’s helping Musk? […]
Even so, we’re optimistic, because anything that moves the transition to EVs faster is good news for the climate. Probably. We hope. […]
On Wednesday, a pretty remarkable thing happened in the Louisiana state Senate: The Republican chair of the Health and Welfare Committee, state Sen. Fred Mills, voted against moving a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors to the full Senate, killing the bill, at least for now. (Other Republicans are already pushing to bring the bill up for a floor vote by bypassing the committee process; more on that in a bit.) So for now at least, Louisiana is the only Southern state to to have rejected a ban on gender-affirming care. The vote gives trans kids and their families a bit of breathing room, not only in Louisiana but also in nearby states that have banned the lifesaving care that’s endorsed by every major medical and pediatric professional association in the country.
Possibly even more remarkable: Mills, a pharmacist, said he decided to vote against the bill because he had paid attention to the testimony during hearings, and had read a report the Louisiana Department of Health published in March. That report reviewed Medicaid statistics between 2017 and 2021 and found there had been exactly zero surgeries for gender reassignment performed on minors in Louisiana. What’s more, in the same period, very few Louisiana minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria — just 14.6 percent — received either puberty blockers or hormone therapy, and among those who did, the vast majority, more than 75 percent, were 15 to 17 years old. What’s more, the report found that trans minors who did receive such care had better mental health, and that there was an extremely low rate of patients who later regretted getting the treatment — about one percent, which is lower than the two or maybe four percent regret rates for breast enhancement that we found in an extremely cursory search (we ignored the stats from law firms).
So hey, Mills decided, not exactly an issue needing the state to interfere in medical decisions made by families and their doctors.
Mills told the Louisiana Illuminator — and could we please have more newspapers with 19th Century names like that? — that the report didn’t back up the wild claims made by the people wanting to ban gender-affirming care.
“My decision was really, really based on the numbers,” Mills said. “All the testimony I heard by the proponents that children are getting mutilated, I didn’t see it in the statistics.”
It was a pretty big setback for the fascist busybodies who think families and their doctors shouldn’t be allowed to decide on the health care they believe is appropriate […] Louisiana’s House had voted for the ban, House Bill 648, 71 to 27, which led to an intense effort by LGBTQ rights advocates to educate Louisiana senators about the medical data. […]
Reed adds that, up to now, the Louisiana report has gotten comparatively little attention, in contrast to a seriously sketchy 2022 report that the government of Florida commissioned in support of Florida’s ban on gender-affirming care for patients on Medicaid. That Florida report claimed — against the consensus of American medical associations — that gender-affirming care is “experimental” and “harmful.”
But wait, hold the fuck on: The Florida report was politically tainted garbage full of manipulated data, and was sharply criticized in a review by several healthcare researchers (and a law prof for good measure) at Yale University:
We are alarmed that Florida’s health care agency has adopted a purportedly scientific report that so blatantly violates the basic tenets of scientific inquiry. The report makes false statements and contains glaring errors regarding science, statistical methods, and medicine. Ignoring established science and longstanding, authoritative clinical guidance, the report instead relies on biased and discredited sources, including purported “expert” reports that carry no scientific weight due to lack of expertise and bias.
So repeated and fundamental are the errors in the June 2 Report that it seems clear that the report is not a serious scientific analysis but, rather, a document crafted to serve a political agenda. [Yep, that’s what it is.]
Politically skewed medical “research” from Ron DeSantis’s medical bureaucracy, which is presided over by antivaxxer quack Joseph Ladapo? Well fetch our salts.
Oh, and it gets worse, as Reed explains:
In a lawsuit aiming to reverse Florida’s Medicaid ban, the discovery process unearthed documents from the Florida Surgeon General’s Office. These papers reveal the unambiguous objective of the research: to arrive at an outcome where “care is effectively banned.”
Gee, massaging the data to force a conclusion you prefer seems to be some kind of trend in Florida’s politicized healthcare bureaucracy. […]
Reed also notes the report was written by members of the rightwing “American College of Pediatricians,” a hate group whose name mimics that of the legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics, but which is explicitly anti-LGBTQ and endorses “conversion therapy” to torture the gay and trans out of people.
But back to Louisiana: The reaction of the anti-trans bigots has been swift. The state Republican Party — repeating the lie about “genital mutilation surgery” that the state report showed isn’t happening — called for the state Senate to “override the committee vote” and to put HB 648 on the floor where it can be passed by all the sensible Rs who don’t bother with facts. [well done sarcasm]
If it gets that far, Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, seems likely to veto the bill, but the Rs have just enough seats in the Lege to override, even if Mills voted against. But who knows? Maybe Mills has a friend or two who also know how to read!
National anti-trans bigots have also called on the Internet Flying Monkey Hate Brigade to go after Sen. Mills, as the Illuminator illuminates:
“Fred Mills has sided with the butchers and groomers,” Matt Walsh, a conservative commentator tweeted to his nearly 2 million followers. “He will regret it. This is the biggest mistake of his political career, and also the end of his career. He’s going to be infamous and disgraced by his own base. We’ll make sure of that.”
The paper notes drily that Mills is term limited, and hasn’t said whether he’ll seek another office when his term ends. Other prominent wingnuts have been more explicit, like some asshole named Greg Price, who told his nearly 300,000 Twitter followers to “let Senator Mills know how you feel about him single-handedly killing this bill to ban sex changes for kids” and helpfully directed them to his state Senate website for his contact details. (The phone numbers appear to only be for his office, fortunately.)
The stupidest fucking response came from one Andy Ross, the president of something calling itself the “State Freedom Caucus Network,” who suggested that Mills himself must be some sort of drag performer perv, because
“This RINO Republican – Louisiana State Senator Fred Mills – once dressed in drag as a 1st grader in a TV commercial. And now he just killed the bill that would ban transgender surgeries on minors.”
Sen. Mills told the Illuminator he isn’t worrying about the rightwing backlash […]
“Always in my heart of hearts have I believed that a decision should be made by a patient and a physician. I believe in the physicians in Louisiana. […] I believe in the scope of practice. I believe in the standard of care.”
Yes, we checked, and the man really is a Republican, and has a perfect score from National Right to Life, the antiabortion group. But on this bill, he saw the research and made the rational decision. And for now, trans folks in Louisiana and their families can breathe a little sigh of relief.
The practice raises ethical and legal questions about state employees trying to raise campaign cash from lobbyists who have business currently before the governor.
Officials who work for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration — not his campaign — have been sending text messages to Florida lobbyists soliciting political contributions for DeSantis’ presidential bid, a breach of traditional norms that has raised ethical and legal questions and left many here in the state capital shocked.
NBC News reviewed text messages from four DeSantis administration officials, including those directly in the governor’s office and with leadership positions in state agencies. They requested the recipient of the message contribute to the governor’s campaign through a specific link that appeared to track who is giving as part of a “bundle” program.
“The bottom line is that the administration appears to be keeping tabs on who is giving, and are doing it using state staff,” a longtime Florida lobbyist said. “You are in a prisoner’s dilemma. They are going to remain in power. We all understand that.” […]
Texas’ Republican-controlled House issued 20 articles of impeachment against GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton, ranging from bribery to abuse of public trust, and a vote that could remove him from office could happen as soon as Friday.
The allegations include attempts to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits, improperly issuing legal opinions to benefit real estate developer Nate Paul, and firing, harassing and interfering with whistleblower staffers. Bribery charges stem from Paul allegedly employing a woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and Paul allegedly paying for renovations to Paxton’s home. Other charges date back to Paxton’s pending 2015 felony securities fraud case, including lying to state investigators…
Billionaire conspiracy promoter Elon Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter to implement his special brand of “free speech,” essentially bringing back all the Nazis, conspiracy theorists, and all-around deplorables that were once moderated out of the platform, relegated to darker corners of the internet.
He then proceeded to eliminate the social media site’s verification system, handing out those blue checkmarks to the Musk acolytes foolish enough to pay him $8 per month. As a bonus, those deplorables receive priority comment placement under any tweet, ensuring that a stream of vitriol, ignorance, and hate will dominate any reasonable person’s contribution.
It’s bad enough that Twitter is now a far-right social network, but Musk also decimated the company’s engineering corps, leaving a skeleton crew of overworked H-1B visa holders who are unable to leave without being deported. Whatever crew is left is increasingly unable to balance the need to implement Musk’s bizarre whims and simply keep Twitter running.
In short, Twitter is falling apart, both from a technical standpoint and from a usability standpoint. But Musk’s foibles are an opportunity, and several companies are furiously racing to become the new Twitter.
[…] that network is still the best (by far) place to get fast-breaking news and information. It also remains the primary home of prominent pundits, analysts, activists, scientists, Ukraine open source intelligence, and lots of other stuff that is directly relevant to our work. For the time being, we’re stuck with it.
Musk thinks that network effect—that mass of important people listed above—protects him, and it has certainly slowed Twitter’s collapse. But his actions since taking the helm have frayed that advantage to the point that an exodus, which is already happening, will rapidly escalate the moment a viable alternative emerges.
For one, Twitter is clearly held together by duct tape and gum. […] new report showing the collapse of Twitter referral traffic to major media organizations: [Tweet and chart at the link]
[…] if you look closely at the absolute numbers, you’ll see something else Musk refuses to acknowledge: Media orgs don’t get an appreciable percentage of traffic from Twitter. It’s low single-digits at best. It’s even worse for brands, which is why advertisers were able to so easily walk away from Twitter.
[…] The next major problem has been Musk’s decimation of any appreciable moderation. Not only did Musk readmit the Nazis and other assorted deplorables once cleansed from the network, but he gave them preferential treatment for $8 per month—a paltry sum that could never replace the billions of dollars of brand advertising lost as a result of letting those horrid people back in. By letting those blue checkmarks swarm the top of the replies of any sane person’s tweet, it made the whole experience unpleasant for many of Twitter’s biggest celebrity accounts and casual users alike.
There are lots of other outrages, like Twitter cutting off automated bots like the ones that tracked bus route delays or severe weather warnings. There are indignities like this one: “Academic researchers have been set a deadline of the end of the month to delete data they obtained under historic contracts to study Twitter, unless they pay a new $42,000-a-month contract – a demand one called ‘the big data equivalent of book burning’.” And Musk has gotten in the habit of downgrading access to content he doesn’t like, like pro-Ukrainian war coverage. […]
And then there’s the very real possibility that Twitter gets sued into oblivion in the not-too-distant future. A month ago, the blockbuster “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was posted in full on the site, and stayed there long enough to rack up 10 million views. Last night, as Twitter’s embattled tech team was distracted (see below), the new “John Wick” film was posted in full. When I went to bed, it had been up 11 hours and had racked up 3.7 million views.
But nothing brought home the need for a Twitter alternative like last night’s disastrous launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign. It was a mashup of everything wrong with Twitter: It featured “free speech absolutist” Musk cavorting with a literal fascist book burner, and the whole announcement went down in flames because of technical difficulties. […]
there are several strong contenders. The network that wins is the one that captures the elite accounts and is easiest and most seamless to use.
WHAT IS THE FEDIVERSE?
The Fediverse isn’t a site or a social network, but the jargony name for a network of federated (interconnected) servers used for universal web publishing. The Fediverse consists of various protocols, but the relevant one here is called ActivityPub, an open-source protocol for creating, managing, and moderating content across a network of decentralized servers.
[…] protections against undesired interaction are built into ActivityPub and the various front ends. Systems for blocking entire instances with a culture of trolling can save users the exhausting process of blocking one troll at a time.
MASTODON has been the biggest proponent of this approach, and it looks great on paper.
Yet this decentralized approach is Mastodon’s weakness, as setting up an account requires things such as “picking a server,” which is not a thing that anyone should ever have to think about when creating a social media account.
The Mastodon team,[…] is tiny, and they don’t have table-stakes features such as replying to their version of tweets, or direct messaging. […] Mastodon’s CEO has refused venture capital to help spur growth. That adherence to his independence and freedom from money interests is laudable, but it also limits its ability to truly seize this moment. As of late March, Mastodon had two full-time employees, a handful of part-time ones, three contractors, and they were hiring three additional full-timers. Even a Musk-decimated Twitter has around 1,000 employees, and had 7,500 before Musk took over.
INSTAGRAM
Weirdly, the Fediverse is getting a boost from Meta, the behemoth behind Facebook. Their Instagram app is imminently slated to get Twitter-like functionality, and surprisingly for a company like Facebook, they are also going the decentralized Fediverse route. Social media researcher Lia Haberman reports that, “The decentralized app is built on the back of Instagram but will be compatible with some other apps like Mastodon.”
The ability to instantly build off an established base will be a huge advantage, while also boosting Mastodon by enabling Fediverse interoperability. […] I could see people starting on Instagram’s product, then jumping ship as Mastodon or another competitor matures. It’s not clear to me how users could port their followers […]
Ultimately, that’s the beauty of the Fediverse: We would no longer be tied down to any one company. Our accounts would be portable, allowing us to move to whichever service best serves our needs. So, say Instagram’s product has an overload of spam, shitty moderation, or they decide to allow Nazis? We move over to a competitor that has tighter moderation standards.
As I’ve already noted, the winner of this Twitter-replacement sweepstakes will be the place where the media and celebrity elite migrate. Most of those already have robust Instagram presences, making it easy to have that built-in follower count from Day One.
And while I don’t see it as an imminent option, Tumblr (remember them?) has just announced they will be implementing ActivityPub support. There are definitely interesting things brewing.
BLUESKY
Until the Instagram leaks shook up the scene, the buzz was all with Bluesky. Ironically, it was once a Twitter side project and is backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, but is now an independent company slowly dribbling out invites to join. Several high-profile Twitter accounts, including […] Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have already joined to great fanfare, and the demand for coveted invite codes is sky high. (I still don’t have one!) [video at the link]
However, unlike the two aforementioned options, Bluesky isn’t on ActivityPub. Instead, it has developed its own decentralized protocol. That lack of interoperability with Mastodon didn’t matter a couple of months ago, but could now prove a challenge. Why would AOC use Bluesky, when the Instagram version would allow her to immediately start with 8.6 million followers?
Also, did we really need a new standard? Time to trot out the most classic of classic XTCD comics: [comic at the link]
Bluesky has reportedly done a great job of replicating the Twitter experience, and that will go a long way. But if the Instagram product is any good at all, Bluesky will likely be forced to pivot to the ActivityPub standard, and that would be a great thing.
POST
[…] All I will say is that I checked it out and hated it. And as far as I can tell, it wants to be the whole game, rather than tying into the Fediverse. That ship seems to have sailed.
CONCLUSION
Using Twitter is still a necessary evil for many of us, me included. But given the pace of alternatives suddenly emerging, those days are numbered. I fully expect Twitter to be obsolete by the end of the year, a $44-billion boondoggle that’ll resemble little more than a glorified Parler or Gab. Yet another ‘unscheduled rapid disassembly’ overseen by Elon Musk.
[…] You can’t build a business catering to right-wing deplorables. For the rest of us, it’ll truly be a relief when we can finally depart to greener pastures.
An FBI search earlier this month at the home of media consultant Tim Burke and his wife, Tampa City Council member Lynn Hurtak, stemmed from an investigation of alleged computer intrusions and intercepted communications at the Fox News Network, the Tampa Bay Times has learned.
The Times obtained a letter Thursday that a Tampa federal prosecutor sent to Fox News, which describes an ongoing criminal probe into computer hacks at the company, including unaired video from Tucker Carlson’s show. The former primetime host was dropped by the network in April…
SAN FRANCISCO (The Borowitz Report)—The attempt to live-stream Ron DeSantis’s announcement of his White House bid on Twitter encountered difficulties because a computer keyboard involved in the transmission became clogged with chocolate pudding, a preliminary company investigation has determined.
Tracy Klugian, who heads up the digital-forensics team for the social-media platform, said that the broadcast had been glitchy not because of excessive traffic, as originally claimed, but because of “technical problems that appear to be chocolate-pudding related.”
“We’re not sure how, but chocolate pudding seems to have seeped into one of the keyboards,” he said. “It’s really gross.”
Klugian said that, even though the company has got to the bottom of the technical problem, the manner in which chocolate pudding came into contact with the keyboard remains a mystery.
“It’s almost as if someone ate chocolate pudding with his or her fingers,” he continued. “Who does that?”
Doug Mastriano, the far-right state senator who was blown out in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial contest last fall, announced Thursday that he will not run for Senate in 2024…
[…] In May 1933, several thousand people gathered in Berlin’s Opera Square. They brought with them books—25,000 of them—from authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Jack London, and Albert Einstein. At the end of the evening, they piled the books into a great mound, and then—with a band playing the background and universal applause—they burned them. As the flames roared up, the crowd heard a speech from German Minister of Enlightenment Joseph Goebbels. The era of critical race theory is now at an end, Goebbels told them. Then he shouted that the flames would put an end to wokeness.
Actually, Goebbels didn’t mention CRT. He said “Jewish intellectualism.” And he didn’t say “woke.” He talked about “the Un-German Spirit.”
But it’s the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing.
The same thoughts and hate are what drive “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, and 200 other books to be banned from Florida schools under new laws passed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis defends the removal of these books by calling them “pornography.” The Nazis used the term “decadent.” Potayto, potahto. The words may have been slightly edited, but the meaning hasn’t shifted even a millimeter. This is not an echo of the past: It’s a replay.
Under Florida’s new rules, the single form below is all it took to get poet Tony Medina’s book “Love To Langston,” which consists of poems paying tribute to one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century, banned from schools in Florida. It didn’t require a single example of any objectionable material in the book. It didn’t require properly filling out the form. It took just a few scrawls and a checkmark to make that book unavailable to students at any level. [Image of form is available at the link]
[…] Whether it’s Alabama lawmakers claiming that textbooks have “too much Black history,” Florida parents chasing down any book with a hint of gay characters, or Nazis banning the Theory or Relativity because Einstein was Jewish, the zeal of book murderers in using the power of the majority to steamroll the experiences, ideas, and sheer existence of minorities is unchanged.
Whether it’s Republicans forcing the College Board to rewrite requirements on teaching American history, or Nazis tossing “All Quiet on the Western Front” into the flames for failing to provide a suitably heroic account of German actions in World War I, the motivations have not moved a hair’s breadth.
[…] It doesn’t matter that the great majority of books murdered in Florida were the tragic victims of just a few zealous serial killers. The same was true in Germany in the 1930s. […]
It’s always a small group that carries out the murder. Everyone else stands by and lets them. […]
Book murder is about closing minds and ending opportunities. Most of all, it’s about ensuring conformity. […]
And … wait. Can you smell it? That rising smoke. And at the corners of your vision, the flickering light of torches.
The UK’s former prime minister Boris Johnson, and US former President Donald Trump discussed Ukraine and “the vital importance of Ukrainian victory” on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Since being ousted as Britain’s prime minister last year, Johnson has been keen to forge a profile as one of Ukraine’s most ardent backers in its fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion and has been visiting the United States this week to speak to politicians about maintaining support for Kyiv.
A spokesperson for Johnson said he met Trump on Thursday “to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the vital importance of Ukrainian victory”.
There was an explosion on May 26 near Azovstal, a steel plant in Russian-occupied Mariupol, the exiled Mariupol city council reported.
More information will be provided as it comes in, the city council said.
A photo published by the city council shows a pillar of smoke near the steel plant.
Azovstal became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance at the onset of the full-scale Russian invasion, as Ukrainian soldiers valiantly defended the plant despite being outmatched in firepower.
The siege of Mariupol lasted until the end of May 2022 when the city fell under Russian occupation.
Sadly, most Americans will just shrug thinking book banning is fine that since they get them on Kindle.
KGsays
birgerjohansson@134, 135,
As a commenter on the video notes (3rd from the top when I looked) this is old news in Scotland. In my home city of Edinburgh, for example, Labour have teamed up with the Tories to prevent an SNP-ScottishGreen coalition running the council.
Officials who work for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration — not his campaign — have been sending text messages to Florida lobbyists soliciting political contributions for DeSantis’ presidential bid, a breach of traditional norms that has raised ethical and legal questions and left many here in the state capital shocked…
Do you have an extra $800 lying around? That’s how much more you owe as your share of the national debt since January 12th—when I first called on President Biden to negotiate.
Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted in reply:
The debt went up more than $20,000 per person during the Trump presidency.
Commentary on the argument presented in comment 155:
[…] McCarthy thought he could just brush aside the fact that it was Donald Trump who contributed the most substantial portion of the nation’s current outstanding debt. […]
the cuts that McCarthy is holding the nation hostage for, in order to force his broadly unpopular agenda down the country’s throat, actually do cost people real money in reductions to benefits for Social Security, Medicare, veterans aid, food assistance, infrastructure improvement, education costs, and much more. That amounts to thousands of dollars for millions of Americans, rather than the $800.00 that McCarthy is babbling about.
If McCarthy was truly interested in reducing the debt, he would do what Biden and the Democrats have been doing that resulted in the deficit declining by $1.4 trillion last year. And for the record, Trump increased the debt by nearly $8 trillion dollars – much of that due to his tax cuts that benefited his Mar-a-Lago guests – and ne’er a word of criticism was heard from the GOP or Fox News. […]
The war around Bakhmut looks different than it did six months ago, or even just a few weeks ago. The human wave attacks are gone. So are the heavy artillery barrages concentrating on a single area from multiple directions. What’s happening in the area now seems to be what has happened in many other places along the front for the last several months—small unit actions, often involving less than a platoon of infantry, supported by one or two armored vehicles, possibly a tank, trying to move up and take a line of trees, or displace an equally small number of Russian troops from a trench that may have already changed hands more than once.
On Friday, Ukraine continued to make some small advances in the north of Bakhmut. To the south, movement in either direction seems to have stopped for the moment, with Ukrainian forces digging in along the canal and Russians reinforcing positions around Klishchiivka—presumably including those defensive positions on the hill immediately west of the town.
What’s not happening is what everyone assumed would be the aftermath of Bakhmut being occupied when fighting began there nine months ago: Russia has not moved to the west. It has not forced Ukraine to take up defensive positions along higher ground. It has not gained a single meter in terms of the strategic targets at Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
It’s quite possible to argue that now that Ukraine isn’t getting pounded in those few remaining blocks of Bakhmut, things are actually better.
The biggest change in Bakhmut is what’s not happening. Russian artillery has nothing left to reduce because it’s all rubble. Ukrainian forces have no more valiant stands to make at the stadium, or the city center, or the citadel. That part of the war is over, at least for now. [map at the link]
Russian forces may have failed to culminate in Bakhmut, in the usual sense of wearing themself so thin they were subject to a rapid pushback. However, they seem to have done the next best thing. They’ve lost so many men, so much gear, and exhausted their supplies to the extent that they can’t move forward. They can only wait for Ukraine to move.
Given enough time, Russia might actually recover, reorganize, and resupply to enable more movement to the west and north. Right now, they’re not going anywhere. Ukraine’s biggest job in the next few weeks may be just making sure Russian forces stay put.
Ukraine also seems reluctant to try and chase any of the gains they’ve made on the flanks. Two weeks ago, as Ukraine made its first significant advances, some sites were predicting that it was Ukraine which would encircle the ruins of Bakhmut and put the Russian forces remaining there in a position where their lines of communication were broken. Nothing like that appears to be underway.
Ukrainian forces continue to move the lines in the area south of Berkhivka. Russia’s reinforcements at Klishchiivka appear to be significant, and there is an exchange of fire between that location and Ivaniske.
There are multiple reports of Russian equipment losses in the Soledar area, which sounds exciting, but I don’t think this is actually anything happening near Soledar. It appears to be further north, near Rozdolivka. And it looks as if these are drone-related losses. Nothing now indicates a push into the area Russia occupies around Soledar. Nothing really indicates much of a push anywhere.
The eastern front is anything but quiet, but it’s at more of a low boil everywhere rather than being on high heat in a few specific locations. And everyone is waiting for what comes next.
As of Friday, reports are coming in that Wagner forces are being withdrawn from the city of Bakhmut. It’s not clear at the moment if they are being replaced by anyone. These are actual observations from the ground rather than just Yevgeny Prigozhin making his latest publicity video, so it seems this time, some movement is actually underway.
It was Wagner forces that occupied Klishchiivka in January as Russia finally began to find success on the flanks of Bakhmut. It was that movement in the south, and the capture of Soledar to the north, which finally positioned Russia to attack Ukrainian positions from three sides, allowing them to make some progress in the city, even if it came at a high cost. However, there are currently no reports that the forces being moved to reinforce the flanks come from Wagner.
Prigozhin was in the area east of Bakhmut on Friday, visiting with the decamping Wagner forces. [Tweet and video at the link]
What happens to Wagner at this point is anyone’s guess. Maybe Prigozhin believes he can get a higher payback by putting them in Africa.
Still missing in action: Ramzan Kadyrov and the Chechen forces he promised to bring to Bakhmut when he traded insults with Prigozhin on May 7. But then, Kadyrov is probably busy picking out locations to shoot all the videos he needs showing his valiant forces on the way. After all, are you really in Bakhmut if it’s not on TikTok?
The Illinois attorney general released a report Tuesday finding that almost 2,000 children suffered sexual abuse by 451 Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2019.
“It is my hope that this report will shine light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust to abuse innocent children, and on the men in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Kwame Raoul said in a statement. “These perpetrators may never be held accountable in a court of law, but by naming them here, the intention is to provide a public accountability and a measure of healing to survivors who have long suffered in silence.”
As the attorney general’s statement appears to acknowledge, state law limits how long after an alleged crime a suspect can be charged, meaning many of these allegations may never be heard in a court of law. So the question then turns to what exactly we are to do with this information.
And I think the clear answer is to use it as a compass of sorts, helping inform us where child sexual abuse is — and isn’t — likely to occur. The Illinois report adds to the thousands of previously reported incidents of child sexual abuse by clergy in conservative-leaning religious institutions over the past few decades. This includes last year’s report from Southern Baptist Convention leaders on allegations of widespread sexual abuse within the ultraconservative denomination.
By comparison, there have been no credible reports, to my knowledge, of child sexual abuse at drag shows. And, of course, I’m only making the comparison here because many conservatives — including religious leaders in the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention — falsely equate drag shows or LGBTQ people with sexual perversion. In response, Republican lawmakers are pushing measures that bar minors from attending drag shows.
Will there now be a widespread push to bar children from churches given the thousands of reported sexual abuse incidents nationwide? Don’t bet on it.
The numbers don’t lie: America’s children seem at far more risk in some places of worship than they would be at a drag show.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@Lynna 142:
[DailyKos]: “picking a server,” which is not a thing that anyone should ever have to think about when creating a social media account.
He writes in an article about which social media server to pick next.
The main benefit of federation for end users is when you move somewhere else, you won’t lose your followings/followers and have to start over. If an admin Elongates or moderation isn’t to your liking, you’re not stuck with them.
Further, the CEO dev changed the onboarding process to automatically pick his instance by default, with an opt-out to pick somewhere else. This was controversial, as his particular instance is enormously overpopulated and undermoderated.
[DailyKos]: The Mastodon team, […] is tiny
Misleading. There’s a small team of devs for the Mastodon software. Moderation is performed by thousands of server admins (and their teams), each running an instance of Mastodon, with just their own subset of users to worry about. I remember reading about the mod-to-user ratio being far higher than Twitter, but I can’t find it at the moment. 12 million accounts currently.
don’t have table-stakes features such as replying to their version of tweets, or direct messaging.
This is written like the author garbled a second-hand description.
Quoting, while present in some forks, is not among standard Mastodon’s features. Folks generally just paste a link instead.
Direct messaging exists, just not the typical linear back & forth. It’s implemented as a thread with visibility restricted to folks mentioned. Real-time cross-talk can get a little weird sometimes: when both parties reply to the same last message, it results in accidental branching. It’s servicable for whispers.
I’ve heard the official Mastodon mobile app doesn’t present DMs in a dedicated tab. The official app was kind of an afterthought (they primarily focused on protocol and web client, which also works on mobile). Common advice is to choose any ot the dozens of third-party apps which connect to Mastodon. They each have their own dev teams who put more effort into features.
It’s been months since we focused on the area around Svatove. The city can be seen almost like a mirror image of Bakhmut—it’s not really that important in itself, but it acts as a gateway to locations that have real value, in this case, the rail hub at Starobilsk to the east. [map at the link]
There’s now a bulge of Russian occupation west of the city compared to previous maps. That’s the result of Russia’s winter offensive, which managed to move a small area of the line about 2 km and recover small areas west of the highway they lost in the fall. Over the last several months, Russia has used this area to run a lot of small unit actions, particularly in the direction of Stelmakhivka, but they really have nothing to show for it.
The biggest question on the ground in this area is the status of Kuzemivka. Since Ukrainian forces reached that location in the early fall, this town has represented the boundary line. It both plugs the access to the road, allowing a northern approach to Svatove and keeping Russia’s artillery in a position to fire on Ukrainian vehicles moving down the P07 highway.
The number of times Russian forces attacked out of Kuzemivka toward Novoselivske, literally just across the tracks, or Ukraine jabbed out of Novoselivske into Kuzemivka would be hard to estimate. There was a period in the winter when it seemed as if military bloggers were announcing a change of control every day.
But back on May 15, there were reports that Ukraine had actually liberated Kuzemivka and held onto the town. This would be an important change, opening access to a new route into Svatove, and there doesn’t seem to be a matching report of Russia taking back the location. However, a number of highly reputable sources continue to claim Russia is in control of at least part of Kuzemivka. Their sources on the ground are probably much better than my Google Translate-assisted scans of Russian Telegram. So I’m not going to draw the blue line around it. Not yet.
Geolocated images in the area show Russian forces being eliminated on the edge of the town after apparently attempting to flank around Ukrainian forces. So Russia is still active in the area, even if they don’t appear to be in control. “In dispute” is probably the best description.
————————- Pictures circulating that claim to show damage to the Russian spy ship hit by a drone boat earlier this week are actually images of the U.S.S. Cole following an attack in 2000. While the images do show what can happen to a warship hit by a small boat laden with high explosives, there doesn’t yet seem to be anything showing the actual Russian ship following the engagement with drones.
——————-
Remember that chart of Russian attacks that I’ve posted so many times over the last three months? Today the number of Russian attacks on Ukrainian positions was … 22. Yesterday it was 18. As far as I’m aware, these are the lowest numbers since Ukraine began making these daily situation reports. […]
—————————
Something very special is coming this weekend. Starting on Sunday, you’re going to be seeing dispatches from Ukraine produced by former NPR correspondent Tim Mak. Following NPR’s big cutbacks, Tim is back in Ukraine on his own and has started a publication on the upcoming counteroffensive called … The Counteroffensive. Follow the thread below for an introduction to Tim and his project, and join him on Sunday as Daily Kos gets its first reports on Ukraine from Ukraine. [Tweet at the link]
Be sure to check out Tim’s site and follow him on social media. That way, you don’t miss the daily Dog of War.
Today’s Dog of War is this unnamed pug watching guard over a Blues Bar that serves Mexican food. [Photos at the link
Board members chose to fine Bernard $3,000 […] turning down a request from the attorney general’s office to suspend Bernard’s license.
[…]
Bernard’s lawyers also said that she didn’t release any identifying information about the girl that would break privacy laws. […] Board President […] said of Bernard. “I don’t think she expected this attention to be brought to this patient. It did. It happened.”
[…]
“I think if the attorney general, Todd Rokita, had not chosen to make this his political stunt we wouldn’t be here today,” Bernard said. […] The Indiana board—with five doctors and one attorney present who were appointed or reappointed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb—had wide latitude
[…]
Bernard unsuccessfully tried to block Rokita’s investigation last fall, although an Indianapolis judge wrote that Rokita made “clearly unlawful breaches” of state confidentiality laws with his public comments about investigating the doctor before filing the medical licensing complaint
As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attempts a presidential run, he’s still finding time for his ongoing hobby of angering different communities with his legislation and bad views on people and things. Now, it sounds like he’s got a new community to add to that list: furries.
Megaplex, a furry convention dedicated to the art of making and wearing costumes of anthropomorphic characters based in Orlando, has announced it will have to raise an age restriction in response to Florida SB 1438, or the Protection of Children Act that makes “knowingly admitting a child to an adult live performance” a first-degree misdemeanor. The legislation was primarily enacted to target drag performers because right-wing evangelicals have ascribed drag performance to a sexual display, even though that is not inherently true. But because of its vague wording, it makes sense that a furry convention would be naturally cautious, because ignorant people also view furries as intrinsically kink…
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #162…
Shorter approach…just don’t hold a convention in Florida. (I do wonder, though, what is likely to happen if he discovers the SCA…)
a disturbing trend of brushing off customers […] while covering the company’s ass. […] Tesla attempted to stop the publication […] threatened legal action […] The story is […] behind a paywall […]
more than 2,400 self-acceleration complaints and more than 1,500 braking function problems […] crashes is more than 1000. […] employees have precise guidelines [:] avoid written communication.
[…] Some […] sold their Teslas or tried to give them back […] saying they couldn’t in good conscience let anyone else drive the car.
The files include […] more than 100,000 names of […] employees, […] social the security number of […] Elon Musk, […] private email addresses, phone numbers, salaries of employees, bank details of customers and secret details from production
[…]
The breach would violate the GDPR […] Tesla could be fined up to 4% of its annual sales, which could be €3.26bn ($3.5bn).
The German outlet did two podcasts on YouTube. No captions yet. I expect auto captions (and translation) will be there in a couple days.
Handelsblatt – The auto pilot (35:02)
Handelsblatt – This is how the research went (34:44)
Ukrainian armed forces on Friday identified a large Russian landing ship that they said they destroyed at the port of Berdiansk in southern Ukraine the day before.
The port, which had recently been occupied by Russian forces with several Russian warships in dock, was rocked by a series of heavy explosions soon after dawn on Thursday.
Social media videos showed fires raging at the dockside, with a series of secondary explosions reverberating across the city…
Earlier this year, Ohio Republicans enacted a law that effectively scrubbed August special elections from the state’s calendar, calling them overly expensive, low turnout endeavors that weren’t worth the trouble.
But then, just earlier this month, Ohio state legislative Republicans went ahead and scheduled an August election this year that could make it harder for abortion-rights supporters to amend the state constitution later.
The ballot measure currently up for a vote in August would raise the threshold of support required for future state constitutional amendments to 60%. Currently, just a majority is needed…
GOP supporters of both the January measure eliminating August special elections and the latest measure scheduling one this summer did not address the contradiction when asked by NBC News…
Some delightful news via Intransitive: two high school students came up with a new trigonometric proof of Pythagoras’ theorem. It’s quite beautiful and elegant. I recommend working through it. Made my day.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Preliminary operations have begun to pave the way for a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has said. “It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of deoccupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines.
Ukraine’s defence ministry has claimed Russia is planning to simulate a major accident at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station to try to thwart Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive. The plant, in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, has been repeatedly hit by shelling that each side blames the other for.
Russian forces have temporarily eased their attacks on the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to regroup and strengthen their capabilities, a senior Kyiv official said on Saturday. Russia’s Wagner private army began handing over its positions to regular Russian troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, Reuters reported. In a statement on Telegram, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russian forces have continued attacking but that “overall offensive activity has decreased”.
…
Ukraine struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday with a series of drone attacks including on a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media. Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks…
…
Russia is to start expelling German diplomats, teachers and employees of cultural institutions next month. The measure is expected to further exacerbate tensions between the two countries, which have already had very fraught ties since Russia invaded Ukraine early last year.
…
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on an outpatient clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to two, with 30 people wounded, according to media reports. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “Russian terrorists once again confirm their status of fighters against everything humane and honest.”
…
A Belarus court has rejected an appeal by a jailed Polish-Belarusian journalist against his eight-year prison sentence for reporting critically on president Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. Agence France-Presse reports that Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and active member of the Polish minority in Belarus, was sentenced in February….
Based on what I’m seeing on Twitter, there are a lot of explosions in Russia and Russian-occupied areas.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced what he said is the most ambitious and comprehensive undertaking by the U.S. government to fight hate, bias and violence against Jews, outlining more than 100 steps the administration and its partners can take to combat an alarming rise in antisemitism.
Speaking during a videotaped address at the White House, Biden said the first U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism sends a “clear and forceful message” that “in America, evil will not win, hate will not prevail” and “the venom and violence of antisemitism will not be the story of our time.”
Months in the making, the strategy has four basic goals: increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism, including its threat to America, and broadening appreciation of Jewish American heritage; improving safety and security for Jewish communities; reversing the normalization of antisemitism and countering antisemitic discrimination; and building “cross-community” solidarity and collective action to counter hate.</b<
Jewish organizations largely applauded the administration's effort. […]
The strategy also calls on Congress, state and local governments, tech companies and other private businesses, faith leaders and others to help combat bias and hate directed at Jews.
Tech companies are asked to establish “zero tolerance” policies against antisemitic content on their platforms. […]
Doug Emhoff, who is married to Vice President Kamala Harris, said at the White House that hate crimes against Jews accounted for 63%, or nearly two-thirds, of all religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States in 2022 although Jews make up just over 2% of the overall population.
[…] In his videotaped remarks, Biden said hate does not go away, that it only hides until given oxygen. He recalled the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and noted that the antisemitic chants by participants led him to run for president in 2020. “Silence is complicity,” the president said. […]
h/t to riogrande for noticing the the Secret//SCI cover sheet shown is NOT a legitimate GSA standard form. This is even worse than I imagined, and I was imagining something bad enough to land you in a Supermax prison. Based on this new insight, I think it is more than likely they made copies (probably multiple copies) of these documents AFTER leaving the White House.
When I first saw the photo of Exhibit 2A, I blanched. Trump tried to distract by ranting about the papers dumped on his carpet. That was just a feeble attempt at misdirection. What struck me was the document placed front and center, and the ruler.
Those documents aren’t dumped randomly on the carpet. They are being displayed in a very deliberate way. They are physical evidence that somebody committed a very serious crime. […]
Look at the Secret//SCI document bounded by the ruler. Why did they put a ruler there? That’s a good question. Everyone knows the size of a standard sheet of paper. You don’t need a ruler to measure it. If you look up towards the left, you will see there are at least two other cover sheets with a similar border. Notice anything different?
In case you missed it, look at the border around the document that is front and center. If that was an original document, there should be no white border. You see the cover sheets for these sort of documents are printed by the US government printing office. They are specifically designed to signal the status of the document they cover. Now it would be nice to know if someone took a document and copied it. Turns out that is part of the design of the cover sheet.
[…] The point is, lots of folks who use the military.com website likely know what GSA Form SF703, the cover sheet on Top Secret documents, look like. The difference? The border on an official classified document cover sheet “bleeds to the edge” in printing parlance. Anyone who has ever used a copy machine knows the copy machine does not copy all the way to the border of the page. There is always that pesky white border. You may have run in to that problem copying a full page photo. You may have run in to that problem copying a numbered page only to find the pagination was clipped off. The only way to solve that issue is to reduce the printing size, usually to 95% of the original. You still get the border, but at least you have the full image. A lot of copy machines have that size reduction option as a standard feature for just this reason.
Now go back and look at the five, yellow, “Top Secret//SCI” cover sheets. Four of them appear to have that signature “tell” white border. But the one located in the upper right-hand corner does not. Again, the yellow bleeds to the edge. […] Yellow is for sensitive, not top secret information.
[…] here’s the bottom line. You are looking at a mixture of original classified documents and copies of classified documents.
[…] What this image shows are copies of documents that should never have been copied, and never should have been outside of a secured facility. This includes copies of classified documents that have been designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI).
[…] Who made the copies? Who saw the copies? How many copies were made? What did people pay for access? […]
The evidence in the Manhattan DA’s criminal fraud case against former President Donald Trump includes a secretly made 2016 recording of Trump and a witness, thought to be Michael Cohen, that ABC News previously reported contained a discussion of a plan to buy the silence of Playboy model Karen McDougal prior to the 2016 election…
It seems odd that this didn’t come out when Cohen was sent to prison for this in 2018.
How is the radical Marxist Biden administration oppressing conservatives […] this minute?
According to the pudding-brained grandma-to-be and newly-single-and-ready-to-mingle Lauren Boebert, it is by that ancient, well-worn tactic of [checks notes] fighting antisemitism?
[Boebert tweeted: “When they say stuff like this, they mean they want to go after conservatives. Their tactics are straight out of the USSR’s playbook.”
Ah yes, the old Soviet Union, famous for its commitment to giving Jewish people a safe and welcoming environment in which to pursue a life of religious fulfillment. The USSR so badly wanted Jews to feel safe to practice their religion that it forced us to stay by enforcing emigration quotas and sending many of our brethren to gulags where they had plenty of time for study and contemplation. Like yeshivas, but colder and with more rock-breaking.
Perhaps Lauren Boebert could tell us why Joe Biden said he wants to fight antisemites and the first thought that popped into whatever pile of cocaine and wet cardboard passes for her brain was to cry that he’s targeting Republicans.
[…] There is only so much the administration can do in this area beyond providing resources and moral clarity on the issue. But since the Anti-Defamation League reported that there was a 36 percent rise in antisemitic incidents from 2021 to 2022, and mass shooters spent the Trump years incorporating synagogues into their list of favorite targets, the effort is necessary and greatly appreciated. Unless you are Lauren Boebert, who has yet to seek treatment for her raging brainworms.
After Boebert’s tweet, there was the predictable firestorm of responses, followed by this:
In response to questions about her tweet, Boebert’s office provided a statement equating the anti-hate effort with censorship of free speech and adding that she does not condone antisemitism.
“This is the latest version of this administration’s failed ‘Ministry of Truth,’” Boebert said in the statement. “The First Amendment guarantees a marketplace of ideas where truth, beauty, and justice ultimately win out.”
Say it with us: Yes, the First Amendment lets you say all the stupid garbage you want, but it does not shield you from criticism of the nonsense you [shout] out of your face hole.
[…] The worst part is that the Republicans will continue to scream that Democrats are the real antisemites even as they throw coded accusations at George Soros, pump up Tucker Carlson, and allow Paul Gosar to hang out at House caucus meetings. […]
Explosions rang out in occupied Berdiansk for the second time in a day, smoke is rising above the office of the occupiers, many Russian soldiers have been likely killed.
Source: local Telegram channel Berdiansk Siohodni (Berdiansk Today); Berdiansk City Military Administration
Details: As Berdiansk Siohodni reported, according to preliminary data, the strike was on the territory of the Azovkabel plant.
At the same time, Berdiansk City Military Administration confirmed the destruction of the positions of the occupiers…
[…] First of all, let’s establish one fact. No, Ukraine does not have “a Nazi problem.”
Ukraine is no more “Nazi” than any country that has its small number of misfits who admire Adolf Hitler and form fringe groups and gangs based on those views. Ukraine has its groups like the U.K. has the neo-Nazi organization Combat 18, the Scandinavians have the Nordic Resistance Movement, and the United States has the Aryan Brotherhood.
With absolutely no proof, the Kremlin’s war propaganda created the absurd narrative that Ukraine is a full-fledged, World War II-style Nazi nation that needs to be “de-Nazified” as justification for its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Just like in many places around the world, people with far-right and neo-Nazi views, driven by their ideology, are prone to joining the military and participating in conflicts. One also has to take into account that in Ukraine, nationalism with deep historical roots is tied to a desire for independence from Russia. It has driven many to take up arms to fight in what they believe is an existential war against a neighbor that seeks to subjugate and destroy their country.
Among them, people with far-right views.
This feeling was very real back in 2014, in the early days of Russia’s war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas. Ukraine’s military was deeply disorganized and disoriented. Ultra-nationalist and far-right groups were among the many others that organized volunteer battalions to fight Russia’s invasion in the east.
These groups were aggressive and highly motivated. It is, of course, true that, for instance, the Azov Battalion was originally founded by neo-Nazi and far-right groups (as well as many soccer ultra-fans), which brought along with it the typical aesthetics — not only neo-Nazi insignia but also things like Pagan rituals or names like “The Black Corps,” the official newspaper of Nazi Germany’s major paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (SS).
But as with any country, real neo-Nazis in Ukraine were and still are a tiny minority.
All former guerilla groups with far-right ties were quickly absorbed into Ukraine’s Armed Forces or the National Guard between 2015-2016 as linear, disciplined, and fully-controlled combat units.
From my experience observing this war over the years since 2014, the Ukrainian military has done a rather good job of “secularizing” and isolating these units from their far-right origins, largely due to pressure from the West.
This policy could be described as “keep your views to yourself and train hard.”
This is what happened with Azov. Far more moderate servicemembers rose to prominence (and even to fame during the Battle of Mariupol and the siege of Azovstal), along with military specialists from other branches of service, who joined Azov because they wanted to serve with a highly professional combat unit.
It hasn’t helped that, since 2014, some Western journalists have made the supposed “rise of the far right” a staple of their coverage of Ukraine, as headlines of supposed neo-Nazis in the country are consistently attention-grabbing.
[…] notorious Nazi and quasi-Nazi symbols are sometimes used by soldiers who do not come close to having any extremist or hateful views.
So why is this happening? In the oversimplified memory of some around the world, particularly within various militaristic subcultures, symbols representing the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s Armed Forces, and the SS are seen to reflect a super-effective war machine, not the perpetrators of one of the greatest crimes against humanity in human history.
While this, of course, does not absolve these soldiers of wearing extremely offensive insignia, it offers a partial explanation as to why, in my opinion, these symbols have become an integral part of global militaristic subcultures that embrace different historical symbols of war, particularly Nazi ones.
[…] Norse and pseudo-Norse, or Viking, symbols of war — the very symbols that the Nazis themselves used to create their own insignia — are also very common.
[…] Russia’s propaganda created and cultivated for years the myth about the Ukrainian far-right, inflating their numbers and so-called power within the country. Many Western journalists have built their entire careers feeding off of Moscow’s narrative.
The irony is that Russia has long promoted not only Nazi-style symbols but Nazi practices, morphing into a fascist state that has made war crimes part of its foreign policy.
The Russian far-right and neo-Nazi paramilitary unit Rusich uses both the swastika and the 88 symbol, a neo-Nazi numerical code for “Heil Hitler.”
[…] Russia’s official policy is ethnic cleansing, killing those speaking Ukrainian, kidnapping Ukrainian children and raising them as Russian, and denying a nation of 40 million the right to exist.
For some Ukrainians, the use of some of these symbols is meant to overtly demonstrate a fierce opposition to Russia – which, for its part, is insanely obsessed with the aggressive weaponization of everything about the Soviet Union’s role in World War II, which Russian propaganda portrays as largely a Soviet defeat of the Nazis and fascism.
So yes, while Nazi symbols are not widespread within Ukraine’s military, it is still a difficult issue that needs to be resolved.
If I were in charge of such things, I’d enforce severe punitive action for wearing Nazi-related insignia. Nazi symbols do not deserve to be on a Ukrainian soldier’s shoulder in this war, where Ukraine is fighting for the very fundamental values the free democratic world is built on.
[…] problematic pictures of those who think it’s “cool” to wear Nazi-related insignia represent nothing but the attitudes of a select few – not the entirety of this military and, least of all, of this nation.
Wife and I and the grandtwins just got back from a drive in the country. Nice day. Sunny. Lots of flowers. And I started some laundry when we got back (the girls are still not fully potty trained). And heard a glub-glub-glub sound from the basement. So I went downstairs and discovered grey water flowing out of the drain. And then back into the drain. Slowly. Luckily, I have water/sewer line insurance. So I emailed the water company and less than ten minutes later, a technician knocked on my door and she confirmed sewage line blockage. So I called the insurance company to make a claim. And they are using the three-day weekend to migrate the data to a new system. And it took almost thirty minutes to find my account. And am waiting for a call back to schedule a deblockage. Which means that I cannot make Uncle Grumpy’s Chicken, fried hominy, sautéed zucchini and a salad for our 34th anniversary dinner. So I guess we’ll have stromboli for anniversary dinner. Oh, well.
chigau (違う)says
Oggie
That sounds like a remarkably good experience in plumbing emergency and insurance.
Happy Anniversary.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Well I am back on hold going through the same thing, so not a pleasant experience yet.
AUSTIN, Texas — In a historic vote Saturday, the Texas House of Representatives decided to impeach Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton over allegations of illegal activities related to one of his political donors.
Paxton will immediately and temporarily be suspended from his duties pending a trial in the state Senate.
Rep. David Spiller, a Republican who serves on the House General Investigating Committee, told members that, even though he thinks Paxton has a “brilliant legal mind,” he still violated the law.
“He put the interest of himself above the laws of the state of Texas,” Spiller said. “He put the interest of himself over his staff who tried to advise him on multiple occasions that he was about to violate the law.”
The resolution to impeach now goes to the Texas Senate, which will be tasked with setting up a trial and deciding whether to convict the attorney general.
Paxton joins a small list of Texas public officials who have been impeached. The last was 1976.
He has denied any allegations of wrongdoings, calling the proceedings a “sham” and illegal. He’s also continued to claim the impeachment vote prevents him from protecting Texans from the federal government.
“Their plot imperials critical litigation my office has brought against the Biden administration to end the federal government’s attacks on our constitutional rights and the rule of law,” Paxton said Friday in front of reporters.
Paxton has also claimed he was never given the opportunity to testify in front of the House General Investigating Committee.
But Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democrat who sits on the investigating committee, said Paxton had already told his story on a document posted on his website in response to the complaints by the whistleblowers.
On the House floor Saturday, both Republicans and Democrats spoke for and against Paxton’s impeachment.
Republican state Rep. Charlie Geren, a member of the House General Investigating Committee, said that several House lawmakers received telephone calls from Paxton personally threatening them with political consequences in their next election.
“One of the key responsibilities of the General Investigating Committee is to look beyond partisan affiliation in order to take the necessary steps to protect the institution that is our state and government,” Geren said. “We do just that today with this resolution.”
[…]
Minutes before the Texas House started the impeachment procedures on Saturday, former President Donald Trump posted on social media that Paxton is a friend of his and that he would “fight” Republicans who allow the impeachment to proceed.
During Saturday’s vote, lawmakers listened closely as members of the House General Investigating Committee laid out the 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton.
Although some are related to Paxton’s 2015 securities fraud federal indictment, for which he has yet to stand trial, most of the allegations are related to Paxton’s relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor.
Paul, who contributed $25,000 to Paxton’s 2018 campaign, was being investigated by the FBI in 2020 when he asked Paxton to intervene in that probe.
Paxton followed suit, House-hired investigators said, and circumvented his own agency’s policies to hire an outside attorney to intervene and issue subpoenas to benefit Paul.
Investigators also found that Paxton forced his staff to rewrite an opinion on COVID-19 restrictions to benefit Paul.
“The last 72 hours has shown us why Ken Paxton is so desperate to keep his case in the court of public opinion. Because he has no ability to win in a court of law,” said Johnson, a Democrat and member of the House General Investigating Committee.
[…]
The timing for a trial in the Texas Senate is unclear.
Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton, the wife of Ken Paxton, will have a vote in the matter, unless she recuses herself.
Russia’s two fiercest critics of their country’s war effort are literally two of its worst people.
The first is Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the mercenary group that is plundering riches and spreading misery across Africa, and architect of the bloody capture of Bakhmut—the only place on the map where Russian forces have moved forward in the last six months.
The other is Igor Girkin, an indicted war criminal, leader of the fake “rebellion” that launched the 2014 Russian invasion of the Donbas, and commander of the Luhansk and Donetsk militias until he was fired from that job and consequently indicted in The Hague for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which killed 298.
It’s unfathomable that they both have survived as long as they have given the fierceness of their criticisms, but they have two advantages. First, they approach their criticism from the nationalist right—Russia isn’t brutal enough, not aggressive enough, doesn’t kill enough. Criticism from the pacifist left is instant jail. The other is they never criticize Russian dictator Vladimir Putin himself. Everyone else can be at fault, but the buck never stops with the Big Guy.
These two have been on parallel tracks all war, but this week, that all ended, and a new feud is brewing.
Prigozhin has been increasingly hysterical these past several weeks, to the point of saying the quiet part out loud:
Russian society is polarised between the “elite” and the regular people, says Prigozhin. With the number of Russia’s war losses (btw, he names a bigger number than 🇷🇺 MoD), he predicts the repeat of the 1917 revolution in Russia and the execution of the elites. [video at the link]
Revolution talk is a no-no, and he can’t be currying favor with the Russian elite by demanding they sacrifice their children to this godforsaken war. You can catch the whole interview, translated, here: [video at the link]
There is so much there for Putin to hate. On how the war will end?
There’s an optimistic scenario and a pessimistic one. I have little faith in the first one. [It looks like this]: Europe and America get tired of the Ukrainian conflict. China sits everyone down at the negotiating table. We agree that everything we’ve already snatched is ours and everything we haven’t snatched isn’t ours. The odds of this are slim.
Here’s the pessimistic scenario: the Ukrainians are given missiles, they train their troops, they no doubt continue their offensive, and they try to counterattack. It’s possible that this counteroffensive is successful in some places and they restore the borders to where they were in 2014 — that could easily happen. They’ll attack Crimea, they’ll try to blow up the Crimean Bridge, they’ll cut off our supply routes. So we need to be ready for a difficult war.
We’re currently in a state where there’s a danger of just pissing away Russia. So we should declare martial law, we should declare new waves of mobilization, and we need to transfer everybody we can to work on ammunition production. We need to cut the fat, stop building new roads and new infrastructure, and work only on the war.
In short, Prigozhin is arguing for the complete destruction of any semblance of a modern economy, and a single-minded militarization of society. And just in case you’re wondering if Prigozhin understands exactly what that means, he does:
Russia needs to take a page out of North Korea’s book for a certain number of years: close all our borders, stop pulling punches, bring back all our boys from abroad, and work hard. Then we’ll see some kind of result.
There is so much more in this video. For example, turns out that in Russia, it’s perfectly okay to bash your neighbor’s face in.
We started this fight. There were neighbors and they got into a fight. You go to your neighbor’s house and you can punch him in the face or you can break his dishes. But if your neighbor tells you to fuck off and you take an axe and smash his head in, that’s an odder situation. A nuclear bomb is like that axe. You shouldn’t run after your neighbor with an axe. Better to do it honestly: either beat him or admit that he beat you. The place to prove you’re right is on the battlefield.
Well, at least he’s arguing against using nukes and losing the war on the conventional battlefield. Presumably that makes him the Russian equivalent of a “moderate.” But predicting the return of the 2014 borders, or of a Russian revolution? Demanding that Russian society be turned into North Korea-style misery?
Girkin has apparently had enough, saying Prigozhin is stoking “mutiny.” [Tweet and video at the link. The video has English subtitles. Excerpt: “Somehow I haven’t heart that in Wagner they take an oath to never fight against the Russian army. Against Russia.”]
From that video:
Where is the reaction of the Armed Forces, the command, the reaction of the state, to the fact that a person with severely, I would say, low social responsibility, is directly insulting the Armed Forces, regardless of the state the are currently in? […] insulting the whole army like this is a crime.
The lack of self awareness is hilarious—Girkin incessantly insults the Russian army.
A crime not against the laws, which appear to not notice the behavior and words of Prigozhin, but again the spirit of the army, against the fatherland.
And all our main defeats we suffered in this war are not a consequence of the lack of courage of our soldiers and officers, but a consequence of terrible leadership and occupation of the top of the art by bastards. Or, as Mr. Prigozhin calls them, cocks.
Girkin only insults the ones who deserve it! Prigozhin paints too broad a brush. Or something. At least they agree that the top brass are bastards … or cocks.
Prigozhin is a man close to the president, which he’s very proud of and never stops repeating. But when among those elites appear the people who openly proclaim they do not obey the laws, people who call for redistribution of positions in this elite, that’s when mutiny starts.
It doesn’t come from the bottom, it always starts at the top. Yes, as they say, there’s plenty of gas and kindling placed to burn brightly. But the elites always start the fire.
Prigozhin practically declared war on a part of the military and state. Obviously, he’s not alone: If he was alone, if was a nugget that grew from the bottom, he would be long weeded out and thrown away. At best, he would have been blocked from everywhere, like I was
Oooh, there’s something there—a realization that he’s a beneficiary of the best case scenario—merely ignored—as opposed to being “thrown away” out of a top-story window or a long staircase.
[Prigozhin] is part of the ruling mafia, one of its groupings.
Doesn’t a mafia always have a don? And if he’s calling the Russian elite a mafia, who would be its leader? He’s certainly walking right up to the red “don’t criticize Putin directly” line.
Now we observe how one of the groups is forcibly breaking the current situation. Through this, I make a conclusion that mutiny has begun. Only thing left to do now is to miss the bus with another enemy offensive, now of a strategic scale, and by the end of summer, our political situation in the country can become unrecognizable.
These guys love to talk in code, and there are so many layers of intrigue we outsiders can scarcely begin to understand. But my reading here is—Girkin is accusing Prigozhin of conspiring against Putin, and if Russia loses significant ground this summer, that Prigozhin will make a move against Putin—because Putin in charge is the only political situation we recognize.
If Prigozhin remains the head of Wagner, the mutiny will come quickly and radically. Him declaring that [Gen. Sergey] Suroviking should become the Chief of Staff, while [Gen. Mikhail] Mizintsev—Minister of Defense.
Prigozhin is only making such appointments if he has overthrown Putin and installed himself as tsar.
A coup attempt has been declared […] What will happen next I don’t know, specially as Wagner is urgently withdrawn to rear bases. And by the way, their rear bases are not near the frontline. Their rear bases are spread across the whole European part of the Russian Federation.
Wow. Note, Girkin himself isn’t out of the woods by seemingly defending Putin against Prigozhin, as he calls the Russian elite a mafia, hence implying that Putin is, also, part of that criminal racket.
So what comes next? Putin deciding the Prigozhin is, indeed, a real threat, and us finding him poisoned or otherwise murdered? Or Wagner taking Girkin hostage and murdering him with a sledgehammer? Or Putin and Prigozhin banding together to make Girkin disappear?
Or maybe none of that, because these two have proven to be Russia’s top survivors, and unlike the Highlander, perhaps there can still be two.
tomh @187, Man oh man, you have to be a truly scurrilous scoundrel for your fellow Republicans to vote to impeach you.
Meanwhile, the Orange Doofus is calling the impeachment vote an “unfair process.”
Former President Trump threw his support behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) on Saturday, as the embattled state official faces potential impeachment over allegations of misconduct.
“The RINO Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard working and effective Attorney Generals in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won re-election with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“You would think that any issue would have been fully adjudicated by the voters of Texas, especially when that vote was so conclusive,” he added. [FFS, that is not how it works.]
Paxton, who has been under criminal indictment since 2015 over conduct from before he took office, was reelected in 2018 and 2022.
A team of four former state prosecutors commissioned by the GOP-led Texas House revealed the results of their monthslong investigation into the state attorney general on Wednesday, alleging, among other things, that he took bribes and fired the deputies who reported it. […]
More Ukraine updates, with the side issue of Taliban-versus-Iran also noted:
[…]
About 400 Ukrainian soldiers began training on American M1 Abrams tanks on how to operate and maintain them, writes the New York Times. [Tweet and video at the link]
[…] The significant uptick in rear-line attacks is all classic “shaping the battlefield” work. The bulk of these strikes continue to hit southeastern Ukraine, suggesting that Ukraine will indeed push to sever the land bridge between mainland Russian and Crimea.
Or, it could all be misdirection. Who knows!
Speaking of terrible people going after each other:
The moment of the attack of the Taliban on the border post of Iran at noon today. [Tweet and video at the link]
Boy, do the Taliban and Iran really hate each other! [Tweet and video at the link] Tensions are high over water rights, though it certainly feels like there’s a lot more to the story.
That’s the problem with religious fanatics—no one is ever good enough to meet their own personal standards.
We have been waiting for this for months with Prigozhin and years with Girkin. […] They appear to be [protected or approved] in some way by powerful political forces that see some utility in this. One utility is that it lays down some foundation of a more realistic assessment of the situation with the background of a an absolutely fantastic world view presented by the official propaganda. Somebody will need to create a new propaganda narative when the busting of the current propaganda bubble becomes obvious to the last idiot.
They probably still observe some limits, certainly there is no direct criticizm of Putin in any of this. There is also an indication of erosion of the central power in all of this.
———————–
[Putin] makes himself appear reasonable and moderate compared to the zealots. I would not be surprised if Putin is pulling both pro and anti Prigozhin levers, or that Prigozhin knows the role he is to play.
————————–
I think Trump would sit on his hands while Putin annexed as much of Eurasia as he could. In fact, I believe that is what Putin has either paid him for, or coerced him into during his term.
————————
“For example, turns out that in Russia, it’s perfectly okay to bash your neighbor’s face in.”
They must envy the US, where for many of the same people who cheer for Russia it’s perfectly OK to shoot your neighbor in the face for complaining about the noise.
———————–
Russians vs Russians, Taliban vs Iran – it’s so helpful when the bad guys target each other.
———————–
“It is necessary to simply choose another leadership of the country,” Boris Nadezhdin, the head of the Institute of Regional Projects and Legislation, proposed to remove Putin from power and build normal relations with European countries.
—————————
The difference between these two nuts is that Prigozhin is criminally insane wherea as Girkin is merely criminal.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Turns out there were two insurance accounts at this address. One under my name. The other, under my name, Jr. Took two hours on the phone to figure this out. But a contractor will be coming tomorrow and, even if it is a broken pipe, not just clogged, it is covered.
[…] People often ask me, “What is the Fediverse’s advantage over Big Social?” I believe it is moderation.
It is easier for one person to moderate an instance of 100 people than it is for 50,000 people to moderate a social network of 2 billion people.
As well, since my instances are hobbyist projects, I am […] more selective about who is allowed to join […] Unlike Meta, I don’t tolerate jackasses!
Yes, I moderate for free. However, I also don’t get paid to watch beheadings, mutilations, and suicides for a monthly salary of $281. […] I’d rather moderate an instance of chill people—and do it free of charge—than watch the very worst of humanity for a measly pittance.
All of this comes on the heels of Meta facing allegations of forced labor, human trafficking, and union busting in Kenya. Meta […] previously hired “ethical A.I.” company Sama for moderation. Sama has been accused of running a “digital sweatshop”.
[…]
Let’s call a spade a spade: moderation on Big Social is unsustainable. […] exporting trauma to some of the most economically deprived people on the planet. […]
[…] Staff ratio means the number of human moderators per user. A typical Fediverse server has about 500-1000 members. Let’s assume an average staff ratio of 1:1000.
Facebook has 3 billion members, so in order to get a staff ratio of 1:1000 it would need 3 million moderators. The current total number of employees of *any kind* at Facebook/Meta is only 77,114.
Of course, ratios can vary widely per instance.
The CEO’s instance, mastodon.social, has 1,141,693 users.
Nine others have 6-digit users. Eighty-five are mid-size instances with 5-digit users.
Out of an estimated 22,480 instances.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
A 41-year-old man was killed by falling debris of Russian drones being shot out o[f] the air, as the Kremlin launched a 54-strong drone attack on the Ukrainian capital.
The death was confirmed by mayor Vitali Klitschko, who said a 35-year-old woman was also injured by the fall of the drone’s wreckage in the Solomyanskyi district.
Ukraine’s air force said it had downed 52 of the 54 drones during the attack, which it said was a “record” attack by the Iranian-made Shaheds.
…
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on a clinic in Dnipro on Friday has risen from two to four people, according to the region’s governor.
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate US allegations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
President Zelenskiy is asking Ukraine’s parliament to approve 50 years-long sanctions for Iran because of their role in supplying Russia with drones and military equipment for the war.
Also from there:
President Zelensky has praised his country’s air defence forces, after the capital Kyiv saw what Ukrainian officials said was the largest drone attack since the beginning of the Russian invasion, AFP reports.
The overnight attack killed two people and wounded three others.
The latest drone attack came as Russia has intensified aerial strikes on the capital this month, and warned the west against escalating the conflict after the United States agreed to green light F-16 deliveries.
Ukraine said the latest attack in Kyiv was “the most important” of the invasion, with more than forty out of 54 drones targeting the capital.
“Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved… you are heroes!” Zelensky told his air defence forces on Sunday morning, also thanking rescuers.
Ron DeSantis has been accused of a “catastrophic” approach to the climate crisis after he launched his campaign for US president by saying he rejects the “politicization of the weather” and questioning whether hurricanes hitting his home state of Florida have been worsened by climate change.
DeSantis, the Republican Florida governor who announced his bid for the White House via a glitch-heavy Twitter stream on Wednesday, has previously dismissed concerns about global heating as “leftwing stuff” and he expanded upon this theme during a Fox News interview following his campaign launch.
…
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said that DeSantis’s stance towards climate science is “classic projection”.
“It is Ron DeSantis who is engaged in the ‘politicization of the weather’ by denying basic, established science – the intensification of tropical storms with human-caused warming of the oceans.”
Mann added that DeSantis has favored fossil fuel interests over Florida’s, a state acutely vulnerable to sea level rise and more powerful storms that has “been placed directly in harm’s way by the devastating consequences of fossil fuel burning and the resulting warming of our planet”.
Environmental groups have also taken aim at DeSantis over a record on climate they say is no better than Donald Trump’s, his rival for the Republican presidential nomination….
Turkish voters are heading back to the polls for an unprecedented second round of a presidential election in which Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hopes to see off a faltering challenge from rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu….
…[Prime Minister Pedro] Sánchez said the PP’s tired reliance on the spectre of a vanished terror group was proof of its lack of electoral initiatives. “What’s your proposal on housing?” he asked the party. “Eta. In other words, nothing. On education? Eta. In other words, nothing. On the climate emergency? Eta. In other words, nothing.”
He added: “When Eta is nothing in Spain, it is still everything to you. Because, in your desperation, Eta is all you have, even though it doesn’t exist.”…
…Under Colau, Barcelona has become a role model for urban renewal, with planners from around the world visiting to see what the city has achieved – which is basically giving people priority over cars.
This began with the so-called superblocks – groups of nine city blocks closed to through traffic – and has now been extended to the “green axis” in the Eixample, the grid system of streets designed by the engineer Ildefons Cerdà in the late 19th century.
This has entailed pedestrianising 18 blocks of a crosstown, four-lane road as well as four intersecting streets with the creation of several squares.
The car lobby hates it. Colau’s political rivals accuse her of parochialism and of treating the city like a village; architects say she is vandalising Cerdà’s design, though cars were not invented when he drew up the plan….
Hundreds of people have descended on a rural Missouri town to flock to a convent that recently exhumed the remains of its founder.
Four years after the death and burial of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster at age 95, The Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles made a surprising discovery after sisters exhumed her wooden coffin on May 18 and found her remains to be remarkably intact…
A Stanford University pathology professor said, “Aliens have been on Earth for a long time and are still here,” and claims there are experts working on reverse engineering unknown crashed crafts…
A professor of pathology? It sounds like he is way out of his own field. And also cuckoo.
Not that it was ever in the cards, but now we know for sure that the Senate won’t be able to pass the legislation with unanimous consent.
[Rand Paul posted] mandatory spending ~5%, increase military spending ~3%, and maintain current non-military discretionary spending at post-COVID levels. No real cuts to see here. Conservatives have been sold out once again!
And there is a great deal of confusion about the details.
Worrisome if this is what each side thinks is in the debt deal:
Jeffries: “We were able to apparently match up a freeze in spending consistent with 2023 levels, 2023 levels, not the 2022 levels.”
GOP Whip Emmer: “rollback of non-defense discretionary spending to FY22 Levels.”
With a debt deal in hand, the big question is whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has the votes to pass his chamber. As of now, he’s projecting confidence.
McCarthy asked about some House Freedom Caucus members opposing the debt deal: “We did a conference call with our (House GOP) conference and over 95% were overwhelmingly excited about what they see.”
There is little chance his caucus is “overwhelmingly excited,” but with Democratic votes, passage shouldn’t be a problem.
The reason Republicans are angry is that they have just neutered their chamber for the rest of this congressional term. Here are the known details, copy-pasting much of myself from last night:
– Non-defense discretionary spending only goes up 1% this year. Non-enforceable limits on appropriations after 2024.
– IRS funding to go after tax cheats redirected toward domestic programs to avert cuts. This affects $10 billion of the original $80 billion appropriation. Republicans had tried to gut the entire program in their original debt bill. [Update: Republican Rep. Chip Roy says it’s only $1.9 billion in cuts, so might be even better for us.]
– New work requirements for food assistance (a GOP demand), changing the age of non-dependent recipients to 54, from 49, exempting veterans and the homeless. Republicans had tried to extend these requirements to other programs as part of McCarthy’s “red lines.” [mostly good news!]
– Medicaid left untouched. [Good!] The GOP budget recently passed added work requirements to that program (and others) as well
– Student loan debt relief left untouched. [Good!] That had been a huge Republican priority, because hurting people is their entire reason to exist
– Also beats back Republican cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Affordable Care Act, and, surprising to me, the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act [All Good News!] (Republicans really wanted to gut those)
– Deal last for two years, beyond next presidential election. [Hooray!] This is a huge deal, undermining Republican efforts to crash the economy right before the 2024 election, allowing them to try and blame President Joe Biden for the chaos
Oh, and one other thing—this deal supersedes the appropriations process for this year and next, removing yet another hostage from the Republican Party’s toolbox. For a House caucus with dreams of austere and severe government cutbacks, this is a devastating fizzle. [Lots of Democrats are congratulating Republicans on Twitter.]
[…] we lost the House to a bunch of nihilists. We were going to lose all of this and probably more in budget negotiations later this year anyway. This deal guarantees that the cuts won’t be anywhere as deep as Republicans hoped, while removing a dangerous weapon from their hands ahead of the 2024 election.
We can argue that Biden shouldn’t have engaged in this battle when the 14th Amendment seems as clear as it is. But invoking it would’ve crashed the markets (they hate “uncertainty”), and that economic uncertainty would’ve lasted through the whole legal process, only to end up at an arch-conservative hyper-partisan Supreme Court. [Yep]
It’s a shitty precedent, to be sure, but again, all of these cuts would’ve happened anyway. They’re relatively shallow cuts, and now Republicans can’t seek even deeper ones for the duration of this Congress. Our job is to make sure we win next year, get our trifecta back, and eliminate the debt limit entirely.
And if you’re wondering, “Is Kos full of shit, and trying to sell us a shit-sandwich?” Well, just look at the muted Democratic reaction, compared to the Republicans.
Here is MAGA Rep. Chip Roy analyzing the deal:
1) Debt ceiling set til 1/1/2025 – which means unknown debt increase – but $4 Trillion is a good estimate…
2) Debt Ceiling “Deal” totally scraps the $131BB in cuts to return bureaucracy to pre-COVID levels in favor of what appears to be effectively flat spending (down or up a little) – at the bloated 2023 Omnibus spending level, jammed through in a rush in December…
3) Debt Ceiling “Deal” abandons work requirements for Medicaid
4) Deal abandons our repeal of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act tax-credit crony giveaways – which Goldman Sachs says costs $1.2 Trillion. [Climate provisions]
…The deal abandons inclusion of the very powerful anti-regulatory REINS Act (which we just passed through House Judiciary as well) in favor of a form of administrative pay-go which is relatively toothless and/or able to be waived…
…The deal abandons full repeal of Biden’s unlawful student loan bailouts – forcing only a re-start to a small number while leaving in place $400 billion+ in loan forgiveness and punting our constitutional duty to the Court…
…The deal keeps full $80BB expansion of the IRS and the 87,000 employees it funds to target poor/minority 3-5x more – except for $1.9BB for this year… [This is different than the $10B cut others are saying are in the deal]
…The deal does claw back $29BB remaining of the COVID unobligated funding which is used as part of the budget games…
…Does nothing for the border. Does nothing regarding pistol braces. Does nothing regarding Presidential overreach. And in many ways kills our leverage to get them through the appropriations process…
[Awww. Chip Roy has a very big dose of Sad.]
I’m telling you, losing their ability to push for more pain through the appropriations process is a brutal loss for them. The resulting anti-McCarthy fury is glorious. [Examples at the link]
Funny how they lost to a guy they claim is “sleepy” and senile. […]
The Rules Committee, which has 13 members, decides what bills come to the House floor. Seems like the three a-holes are more than offset by the four Democrats on the committee, but I’m not particularly well versed in parliamentary rules and procedures.
Just as interestingly, will the Freedom Caucus files a motion to vacate the Speaker’s office, stripping McCarthy of his gavel? There will certainly be fireworks this week.
You were wondering how Biden was able to get such a good deal; in the end all this drama just amounted to getting the budget-negotiation process started early, with the GOP’s main takeaway being something (spending freeze) that their control of the House already guaranteed them via the tool of passing continuing resolutions.
Joe did a far better job than anyone imagined he could, for about the 79th time in a row. But that said, the key thing to recognize is that Biden’s hand was much stronger than anyone I read seemed to understand. What the media got right is, if a default destroyed the economy, that would hurt Joe/Dems in the general; even if people in some sense knew it was the GOP’s fault, they’d still mostly follow the heuristic “if things are going well, I’ll vote for the incumbent; if not, throw the bums out!”
[…] Presumably at this point you’re thinking, “sure, in that hypothetical Joe’s hand is strong, but we all know that a default would be a catastrophe surrounded by a disaster, wrapped in a calamity.” But do we? Take a look at the stock market — was it falling in fear of a crash as the deadline loomed? Not so much! Even better, look at the volatility index, or VIX, where investors can speculate on the probability that things get riskier. It’s near the lowest level since before the pandemic. The press focused on the fact that short-term Treasury bills reflected a significant default probability, but this is, in combination with the quiescent stock market and VIX levels, _comforting_ news. […] it says, sure, default might happen, but it won’t croak the market. […]
Now, by itself that’s not enough; financial markets aren’t always right. Though surely the disconnect between the panic in the press and the total calm of the markets was worthy of a great deal more investigation than it received. Journalists should have been asking themselves, “what do the markets know, or think they know, that we don’t?” Here’s a likely answer: if all else fails, the Fed can solve the default problem, and they don’t need a platinum coin to do it. All the Fed needs to do is… buy the defaulted bonds!
I know this seems so sinple as to be almost silly, but remember, buying bonds is something the Fed does on a regular basis; such activity is commonly referred to as “quantitative easing” or QE. It’s just absolutely normal for the Fed to make bond purchases. Of course traditionally QE meant buying the world’s safest assets, which is to say, rock-solid US Treasury bonds. Whereas _defaulted_ Treasury bonds are somewhat riskier. But not all _that_ much riskier, after all, everyone knows this debt limit thing will eventually get resolved. […] Recall also that the Powell Fed committed to buy risky corporates during covid. It just wouldn’t be weird at all for the Fed to say: if you have a $1000 bond maturing June 15 and the Treasury doesn’t pay it, we’ll buy it from you for face value. the same with coupons.
In truth the Fed might well get fancier and just commit to _lend_ the face value of bonds to people, collateralized by defaulted Treasuries. There’s no doubt this is legal because this is _exactly_ what the Fed did during the recent regional-bank bailouts. Indeed a cynic might say they did it precisely so that no one could say, come June, that such an action is novel or legally sketchy — it literally just occurred a month or two ago and no one had any problem with it. I think the engineers call this a “smoke test.”
Now of course no one knows what the Fed would do in a default scenario. Certainly Joe would not actually _prefer_ to default and find out. But that said, I mean, can we really imagine Jerome Powell letting the global financial system collapse on his watch when he could easily address the problem employing tools he’s been using regularly since he took office? Almost for sure he would step up. […]
Although this explanation has been long by 2023 standards, recognize that it’s hugely oversimplified. The Fed bond purchases or loans do not, on their own, fully solve the problem; the Administration would need to take additional steps as well. But it would solve the bulk of the problem, and other needed steps are well understood; e.g. continuing “extraordinary measures,” issuing Treasuries to pay Social Security and Medicare under the 1996 law that allows borrowing above the debt limit for this purpose, and so forth.
[…] the Fed’s potential role is, I think, the key element left out of most discourse. Understandably the Fed wants the President and Congress to work this out so will swear up and down until the last minute that they cannot help. But this is obviously untrue; in fact the WSJ had a piece that glancingly mentioned how the Fed wargamed this scenario back in, IIRC, 2014. It’s an option, and security prices suggest Wall Street knows it, which means Biden and McCarthy know it.
And that, plus Joe Biden being a talented people person who’s been getting deals done in Washington for half a century, is good at it and knows he’s good at it, will, assuming this deal passes Congress, be the reason he once more made fools of all the doubters.
[…] Truth is, I’m stunned at how well Biden did. That assessment has to start with the caveat that the entire Democratic leadership screwed up not killing the debt ceiling when we had a real shot during past moments of united governance.
That said. Two weeks ago, I believed McCarthy and the Vandals absolutely were willing to push the US in to default. Tonight I certainly believe the Vandals still are. […] it seems that Kevin McCarthy is not. I’m inclined to think that’s because the oligarchs who run the GOP (not to mention SCOTUS) actually do think they have more to lose from a global economic crash than they have to gain from the resulting Shock Doctrine moment. Lucky for the rest of us.
But let’s get real. Biden got a TWO-YEAR debt ceiling reprieve (which might be more than enough to kill it forever in court), and all we lost was work rules for SNAP benefits for childless people under 55, which won’t even change the total amount of money spent on SNAP benefits. Changes to environmental permitting regulations which I won’t pretend I know very much about yet, but doubt I will like them. But absolutely no change to the historic IRA bill’s climate provisions. No change to Medicaid provisions at all? (I’m not quite clear on these details yet.)
And two years of flat government spending, which obviously isn’t ideal at all but […] is precisely what the GOP could get anyway just by forcing through two years of continuing resolutions through the election.
That’s it? That’s what Kevin McCarthy got?
The debt ceiling is defanged through 2025 (and hopefully forever). The market will pop Monday morning because Joe Biden protected the global economy by pushing through a bipartisan deal that almost all of us, just a week ago, would have thought impossible. And which the extremes of both parties are going to scream against and maybe vote against.
And let’s talk about those extremes.
Starting with the Vandals. I think (and hope) that what we’re now about to witness is the defanging of the Freedom Caucus’ supposed hold over the GOP and American politics. They’re going to try and tank this deal. McCarthy’s going to get most of the GOP and, I believe, plenty of the Democrats as well. Maybe then they’ll try to depose him as Speaker. Who will win that vote? […] All pure speculation.
What I do know is that if the Republican candidate wins in 2024 we might expect that the GOP will also keep the House and take the Senate, and lord only knows how our free republic survives that scenario. And I believe that by cutting this deal Biden is going a long way toward winning in 2024. Because for sure this deal goes a long way to stabilize the economy — I have wanted to see Biden invoke the 14th all along, I’ve been an absolutist who believed he shouldn’t give the Vandals anything. Not a crumb.
Dark Brandon is much smarter than that. While we’re nursing our grievances over the cruel and stupid concessions that we shouldn’t have had to make to the opposition, let’s please remember what we’re protecting. Joe Biden, who I never supported for the 2020 nomination and did not believe was the person for the moment, and whom I still find woefully deficient as keeper of the bully pulpit, nonetheless continues to amass a record of effective progressive governance that hasn’t been equalled by any Democratic president since LBJ and FDR before him. I’m still stunned to read and reread the collected legislation that this administration has passed over the past two years through razor-thin majorities at the perpetual mercy of the likes of Manchin and Sinema. None of that was touched today. Not even close. And as noted: the budgets agreed to are the same flat-line budgets the Republicans could have and surely would have had through CRs anyway. It’s a deal for two years, removing one huge risk for Biden in 2024. And Biden is going to be the great conciliator, presiding over bipartisan governance, just like he always promised America he could be.
And there won’t be an economic crisis over this. And the likes of MTG, Gaetz, and the rest of them are going to get stuffed.
I forgot to talk about our side’s extremes. if that’s us I just don’t think we have a lot to complain about and I think we have a lot to be grateful for. […] I think the provisions Biden had to surrender in order to close this deal are nowhere near the level of what we all gained. […]
And maybe most of all, I think what Biden pulled off here — remember that Dolt 45 was out there urging the GOP to push to default — is going to help us win next year. Which we absolutely absolutely absolutely must.
[…] For much of the last year, Yevgenia and Oleksandr Butkevych have been going through both kinds of hell. First, their son went missing in war, then he was identified as one of the many POWs held by Russian forces.
“Me and my husband, we don’t live right now,” Yevgenia told me. “Our life is waiting, expecting a call.”
[…] Their son, the prominent human rights activist Maksym Butkevych, went missing while fighting for the Ukrainian armed forces in the eastern part of the country last summer.
Even as a child, Maksym had been “obsessed with human freedom,” his mother remembers, recalling his first demonstration on Kyiv’s Independence Square at 12 years old – where he even delivered a speech.
[…] after the full-scale invasion, he was mobilized to push back against the Russian threat, and assigned as the commander of a small unit. He was given weeks to get his troops trained, and they were fighting in the Kyiv region by April 2022.
In June, he told his parents that he had been sent to Donetsk, a region in the east of Ukraine. And that’s when he went dark.
Then a friend called in June to say that a Russian state-owned news agency had broadcast an interrogation video of Ukrainian prisoners that featured Maksym.
In Russian media, they saw their son referred to as a Nazi — the exact opposite of the kind of person he was. And because he was known as a prominent Ukrainian activist, they think he has been given a much more difficult time in detention.
“He himself helped hundreds of people escape the grip of authoritarianism in Belarus and Russia,” Yevgenia said. “So the moment they were able to reach him… [they wanted to] pay him back for his activities.” […]
In March, they found out that he’s being held in a temporary detention facility in Luhansk. The accusations against Maksym, and his sentence, were published that same day.
Maksym received 13 years of imprisonment in a totally falsified case run by illegitimate authorities in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Maksym’s friend and colleague Pechonchyk said. She added that the human rights lawyer was falsely accused of shooting at civilians in a “mock trial” that has since been condemned by Amnesty International, OpenDemocracy, and the Center for European Policy Analysis.
She had seen a video with Maksym reading a prepared statement, “his so-called confession,” in which Maksym appeared exhausted and thin. His parents say the process is a complete absurdity: he wasn’t even in Severodonetsk at the time the alleged crime occurred.
On Thursday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that a prisoner swap had been initiated, resulting in 106 Ukrainian soldiers being freed from Russian captivity.
Maksym was not among them.
So for his parents and friends, the waiting – and the not knowing – continues.
———————-
[…] Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands, and its population, though sleep-deprived and bleary, is eagerly awaiting the start of an expected counteroffensive.
The commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, released a video on Telegram that many inside and outside of the country have interpreted to mean the operation is imminent. “[The] time has come to take back what is ours,” reads the post. [Tweet and images at the link]
[…] Ukrainian security official Oleksiy Danilov told the BBC that a counteroffensive could begin “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week.”
Danilov also acknowledged that the operation would be a “historic opportunity,” and the political reality is that “we cannot lose.”
“It could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week,” Danilov said. “It would be weird if I were to name dates of the start of that or those events. That cannot be done… We have a very responsible task before our country. And we understand that we have no right to make a mistake.”
However, residents of the capital city suffered through yet another sleepless night. [Tweet about a single explosion in central Kyiv … and much evidence of Kyiv’s air defense working.]
My friend, the Ukrainian director Lubomir Levitski, shared this cartoon that illustrates perfectly how it is going to bed in Kyiv nowadays: [Cartoon at the link, showing a couple in bed. The female is wielding an anti-drone or anti-missile air defense weapon.]
The strikes were one of the largest since the full-scale invasion began, and show that the Russian military is testing Ukrainian air defense by using both unconventional routes for its drones – launching them from unexpected directions and dispersing them in new ways.
The Russians are also trying to keep their drones flying as low as possible, and along riverbeds, Ukrainian officials announced Sunday.
Fires broke out in three Kyiv-area districts, with at least one person killed and three injured. Ukrainian Air Force Command indicates that 52 of 54 Iranian-made Shahed drones were downed by air defense.
[…] Kyiv is beautiful nowadays: the sleepless nights are followed by boisterous days, where the streets are crowded. Then everyone retreats into their homes and waits for the explosions [photo at the link]
Today’s dog of war is Kali, who I saw outside a cafe as I was getting a morning coffee earlier this week with some friends. [photo of dog]
Reginald Selkirksays
@201:
That assessment has to start with the caveat that the entire Democratic leadership screwed up not killing the debt ceiling when we had a real shot during past moments of united governance.
You mean while Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were holding the senate hostage?
Supporters of former President Donald Trump are reportedly being scammed out of thousands of dollars through the sale of commemorative “Trump Bucks” that fraudsters say can be exchanged for real cash.
Several companies are allegedly using advertising tactics including creating AI-generated videos of Trump and other figures like Elon Musk to claim the worthless “Trump Bucks” will make them rich, according to a new report from NBC News.
Some of the people who bought the Trump memorabilia have attempted to exchange it for real US dollars at banks, and told NBC News that bank employees are reporting it as a growing issue. Several companies have been identified for marketing and selling the false currency, NBC News reported, including a number of businesses seemingly based in Colorado with names like Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future, and USA Patriots…
Right wing poitics has been indistinguishable from grift since the days of Newt Gingrich.
Troy Smocks was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison and banned from the now-dormant social network Parler after he made violent threats on the app in the wake of the January 6th riots. Now Smocks is suing Parler for $370 million, accusing the company of violating a controversial Texas law which bars social media platforms from censoring users for their political beliefs…
State Farm has stopped accepting homeowner insurance applications in California, citing the growing risk from catastrophes like wildfires and the rising cost to rebuild.
“State Farm General Insurance Company made this decision due to historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market,” the insurance giant said in a statement on Friday.
…State Farm was the leading company offering home insurance in California.
The decision to forgo coverage went into effect on Saturday. It applies to both personal and business properties. The company said it will continue to serve existing customers, as well as offer personal auto insurance.
The measure is the latest development in what has been a years-long issue in California: insurance companies dropping homeowners because of the growing risk of wildfires.
Last year, American International Group notified the state’s insurance regulator that it will exit the homeowners market.
@207, sorry to hear that. I wanted to see more accountability for actions Erdogan took that were authoritarian.
Some fake news being promoted by rightwing doofuses this week:
The Associated Press reported on stories circulating online incorrectly claiming Target’s Pride collection features a bathing suit for kids that is labeled “tuck-friendly.” [not true]
THE FACTS: The “tuck-friendly” swimsuits are only offered in adult sizes, according to a spokesperson for the company and Target’s website. Kids’ swimsuits in the collection do not feature this label. But the store’s seasonal collection of clothes for Pride month has been the subject of several misleading videos in recent weeks.
Many of the posts criticizing Target have also urged people to boycott the company, following similar threats and transphobic commentary from conservative social media personalities towards brands including Bud Light and Nike over promotional campaigns featuring transgender people.
Posts criticizing Target shared photos or videos of either a one-piece swimsuit with a bright pink, orange, green and blue colorblock pattern, or black swim bottoms with colorful line stitches. Both feature a circular tag that reads, “Tuck-Friendly Construction,” and “Extra Crotch Coverage.”
[…] CLAIM: The U.S. government gives immigrants who cross the country’s border illegally smartphones with unlimited texting and internet access.
THE FACTS: Immigration and Customs Enforcement does give some immigrants phones. However, they can only access an app called SmartLink, which is used to monitor immigrants after they cross the border, according to the agency, the company that makes the phones and an immigration expert.
The devices, used by ICE since 2018, are not connected to a cellular network and cannot be used to browse the internet, make unauthorized phone calls, or access apps other than SmartLink.
[… Immigrants who participate in ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program may receive phones instead of remaining in custody or wearing a tracking device such as an ankle monitor. But these devices have extremely limited uses — not the “unlimited” messaging and web browsing suggested by the posts.
A spokesperson for ICE pointed to the agency’s webpage describing the program, which says certain participants are “issued a device capable solely of running the SmartLINK application” if they don’t have a personal phone that supports the app when they enroll. They must return the device if they acquire their own phone, are reassigned to a different technology or are no longer in the program.
[…] the entire interface of the phone is just the app. So like, yes, you can call in because you can call your ICE officer. […]
CLAIM: A NASA study found that six to eight snake plants in a room with no airflow is enough for human survival. The agency therefore recommends 15 to 18 plants for an 1,800-square-foot home.
THE FACTS: The agency did not reach those conclusions or offer such recommendations, a spokesperson confirmed. The claim may be a distortion of a 1989 NASA report focused on whether indoor plants can help clean the air, not sustain human life.
[…] “NASA has not made these claims or recommendations,” NASA spokesperson Rob Margetta told The Associated Press in an email.
A small team at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi did publish a report more than three decades ago that looked at common household plants and their ability to remove some household toxins from sealed chambers, Margetta noted. That 1989 report, “ Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement,” was done in conjunction with a landscaping group and focused on plants’ ability to filter out contaminants in such settings.
The report did assert that plants — including snake plants, referred to in the report as a mother-in-law’s tongue — can help improve air quality. It didn’t, however, evaluate using them to produce enough oxygen to sustain human life in precarious situations.
[…] And while plants use a process known as photosynthesis to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, they aren’t as efficient as the social media post suggests. “The reality is that the rate at which they do these processes is much lower than what you need to actually support a human,” said Berkley Walker, an assistant professor of plant biochemistry at Michigan State University.
Using a generous and general estimate, Walker said, it would likely take leaf area the size of a one-car garage to produce enough oxygen that a human requires in one day. Even then, that’s assuming constant, ideal conditions — such as continuous sunlight. There’s no evidence that snake plants perform at a higher level than other plants, let alone one to support the theory shared online, Walker said.
“I can say that of the total number of Storm Shadow launches that have already taken place, all 100% hit the targets set by the General Staff, absolutely effective,” the Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov said during a live tv show.
Another Russian air attack underway in Kyiv. Explosions reverberating across the Ukrainian capital. Mayor Klitschko urging people to remain sheltered as the air attack continues. He just sent out a message: “Missile shot down near Kyiv. Air defense is working!”
Nicaraguan police said on Saturday they are investigating several dioceses of the Catholic Church for money laundering, a day after local media reported that the bank accounts of parishes in the Central American country had been frozen.
The police, loyal to the government of President Daniel Ortega which has clashed fiercely with Nicaragua’s bishops, said that since May 19 they found “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in Church facilities in various parts of the country.
Investigations “confirmed the unlawful removal of resources from bank accounts that had been ordered by law to be frozen,” the police said in a statement…
[…] Lots of talk about Bernard’s “brazen agenda.” I’m reminded of […] AG Rokita […] appearing on Fox and friends to announce his prosecution of Bernard.
[…]
Relevant [citing an article]: “Two of the board’s seven members, all of whom are appointed by the governor, have given in total more than $25,000 to Rokita’s campaigns.”
[…]
[Bernard] was surprised by the media frenzy, which directed significant harassment and personal attacks her way. Touching on the accusations (ed note: stoked by Rokita publicly) that she made it up at the time.
[…]
We should not let that get lost in this.
Indiana AG, a very publicly pro-life ideologue, made it a mission to punish a doctor for helping this kid. Period. Punished her in the press. And is trying to punish her in the courts and before the medical board.
[…]
the number of girls under fifteen in Ohio who received abortions. The number is 57. [… The state’s witness] admits that age, state, and medical condition—with no other information—doesn’t violate HIPAA.
[…]
Board member asking how the disclosure of the full identity of the patient can be linked to Bernard, when it was due to a story at a Columbus paper she never spoke to, going on information from law enforcement providers.
[…]
Defense is pointing out […] AG’s position is that this was [personal health information] that could be used to identify the patient while at the same time claiming at the time that the patient literally didn’t exist.
[…]
my informed layperson’s opinion […] Bernard’s team has run rings around the AG team in terms of Raw Lawyering.
[…]
defense is calling the chair of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. That’s a formidable expert witness […] He states strongly that Dr. Bernard has an affirmative obligation to speak up about the impact of abortion bans. Her other obligation was to safeguard her patient. He believes she accomplished both obligations “extraordinarily well.”
Quoting from the AMA principles of medical ethics, and stating that Dr. Bernard exemplified several of them—and continues to do so. States that she is one of two board certified family planning experts in the state and therefore had an obligation to speak out about the abortion ban.
[…]
Reprimand and a 3k fine. […]
She should wear that reprimand like a badge of fucking honor. […]
* Super long. Not all mesages are visible at once. To see what comes after, gotta click the last shown.
[“…] a 51 page, 234 paragraph, 141 footnote complaint. Only 15 paragraphs and 2 pages address Indiana’s actual legal claim […”] the judge wrote. “That one sentence thesis statement is then stretched into a work longer than Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.” The judge appeared annoyed that it took 47 pages of reading to find out what the lawsuit was all about.
an optional Pride badge for school age children […] reading a book that featured an LGBTQ character [or] the history of Pride month
[…]
the group For Liberty and Justice made a social media post and called the reading challenge an “anti-biblical agenda towards children.”
[…]
After the mayor’s office received [30 email] complaints, the mayor directed the library system to either change the name of the Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge or remove the Pride badge.
[…]
[From the Mayor’s statement]: “I did not approve the optional badges and activities […] my goal is not to make any political statement. The program is just about fun and encouraging literacy”
Not reported: that group/podcast is run by Texas State Rep Nate Schatzline.
a former pastor, the founder of For Liberty & Justice, an organization that is dedicated to mobilizing the local church to see reformation in government
[…]
He graduated [from the Pentecostal] Assemblies of God University […] Master’s Degree in Political Science at Liberty University
authored bill HB 1266 to restrict drag performances […] video later surfaced of Schatzline dressed in drag […] voted no to impeach Ken Paxton.
The one skipping through a park in a dress.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
* Rep Schatzline also represents the mayor’s district.
StevoRsays
DOCO ALERT for Autralia or at least SA : 7.30 pm, NITV, ‘The Australian Wars’ uncomfortable but powerful factual viewing. repeat but worth seeing. Later on ABCTVPlus c22 at 9.40 ‘Brian Coxés ‘Adventures In Space And Time’ doco.
Details via ABC online TV Guide :
The Australian Wars
Monday, 29 May
7:30 PM – 8:35 PM [65 mins]ctc
A documentary series that tells the extraordinary story of Australia’s First Wars – and calls for the First Peoples who died in these conflicts to be acknowledged by the nation and officially recognised by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. First Wars investigates the frontier conflicts between 1788 and 1928 and their impact, asks Australians who we are, and what we want to become.
&&&
Brian Cox’s Adventures In Space And Time
Monday, 29 May
Series 1 | Episode 2 | Aliens: Are We Alone?
9:40 PM – 10:31 PM [51 mins]
gCCRepeat | Repeated on Monday 5 Jun at 12:55 AM, ABC TV Plus
Brian Cox looks at our attempts to answer one of the most profound questions we can ask – are we alone in the universe? In this film, he explains why this search should be taken seriously.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
At least one person has been hospitalised after a wave of explosions were heard in Kyiv on Monday morning. Mayor Vitali Kitschko said that the person had been in the Podilskyi district in the north of the city. The local authority reported that the roof of a two-story building caught fire in the district as a result of falling debris, but that the fire was contained. “The enemy used missiles of a ballistic trajectory – preliminarily Iskanders. There is a possibility that S-300 and S-400 missiles were also used,” air force spokesperson Yuri Ihnat told Ukrainian TV.
Ukraine reported that Russia launched up to 40 cruise missiles and about 35 drones overnight: air defence claimed to have shot down 37 missiles and 29 Shahed drones.
…
Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said Russia was trying to exhaust the country’s air defences with the increased attacks, adding: “The enemy is trying to keep the civilian population in deep psychological tension.” Klitschko added: “Another difficult night for the capital. But, thanks to the professionalism of our defenders, as a result of the air attack of the barbarians [sic] in Kyiv, there was no damage or destruction of infrastructural and other objects.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin “appears to have again indirectly undermined Russian president Vladimir Putin’s authority and regime”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has written in its latest analysis of the conflict. The US-based thinktank bases its assertion on the response given by Prigozhin to a journalist asking about Russian state media’s ban on any discussion of Wagner. Prigozhin said that officials could have benefited from their historic ability to censor information if Russia had not declared war on Ukraine. He then shifted to addressing a single, unnamed official: “If you are starting a war, please have character, will, and steel balls – and only then you will be able to achieve something.”…
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has extended his two decades in power, securing victory over his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after an unprecedented presidential runoff election, in a vote that reflected Turkey’s stark and persistent political polarisation….
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has called a snap general election in response to the triumph of the rightwing opposition in Sunday’s regional and municipal elections.
…
Speaking at the Moncloa palace in Madrid on Monday morning, Sánchez announced that he had informed King Felipe of his decision to dissolve parliament and call a general election on 23 July – five months before the next election was due to be held.
…
Sánchez said that while Sunday’s votes had been municipal and regional, they had “transmitted a message” that transcended local considerations and demanded a democratic response. Announcing the election, he stressed Spain’s post-Covid economic recovery and the country’s forthcoming EU presidency, and said it would be for the Spanish people to decide what happened next.
“I think we need a clarification when it comes to what the Spanish people want, a clarification when it comes to the policies that the national government should offer, and a clarification when it comes to the political groups that should lead this phase,” he said.
“There’s only one infallible method for resolving those doubts – and that method is democracy. As a result, I think the best thing is for Spanish men and women to have their say and to decide the country’s political direction as soon as possible.”
Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk took issue with the French Open’s notoriously fickle crowd, and players’ silence over the war in her home country, after she was booed off the court on Sunday for declining to shake hands with her Belarusian opponent on an otherwise unremarkable opening day at Roland Garros….
StevoRsays
Watching Q&A now. Powerful stuff. Tamil Refugees, Truth of our Black History & the Indigenous Voice. Now Assange. Worth viewing.
[Didier] Raoult, the former head of the IHU Mediterranee research hospital, and his subordinates engaged in “systematic prescription of medications as varied as hydroxychloroquine, zinc, ivermectin and azithromycin to patients suffering from Covid-19… without a solid pharmacological basis and lacking any proof of their effectiveness,” a group of 16 research bodies wrote in an op-ed piece on daily Le Monde’s website.
The drugs continued to be prescribed “for more than a year after their ineffectiveness had been absolutely demonstrated,” they added. [!]
Endorsement from respected tropical disease specialist Raoult helped push anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine into the public consciousness in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, feeding into its promotion by former US President Donald Trump and Brazil’s then-leader Jair Bolsonaro.
In April, France’s ANSM medications authority said that treatment with hydroxychloroquine “exposes patients to potential side effects that can be serious”.
The doctors’ bodies said Sunday that authorities should take “measures appropriate to the infractions” for the sake of patient safety and “the credibility of French medical research”.
Raoult in March published a “pre-print” study — not yet submitted for scientific peer review — into treatment of more than 30,000 Covid-19 patients.
So far no one has been charged in a probe opened last year by Marseille prosecutors into fraud and unwarranted human testing at the IHU Mediterranee, based in the southern port city.
The government has also requested an investigation into the IHU’s conduct under Raoult’s management following a harsh report from inspectors.
Health Minister Francois Braun told broadcaster RTL on Sunday that he would not comment on an open investigation, but confirmed that the latest study would be included in the probe’s remit.
Raoult retired as a professor in summer 2021 and was replaced at the IHU Mediterrannee last August.
…
At the IHU itself, all clinical trials involving humans have been suspended since Raoult’s replacement Pierre-Edouard Fournier took over….
Today’s daytime attack on Kyiv marks Russia’s 16th airstrike on the Ukrainian capital this month, Reuters reports.
This morning’s events follow on from Russian attacks over the weekend, which were the biggest drone attacks yet on the Ukrainian capital. They hit as the city prepared to mark the annual celebration of its founding. The attacks killed one person and injured two.
[All] 11 missiles ballistic and cruise missiles launched by Russia aimed at Kyiv were shot down today, according to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.
“All those who tried to threaten us, dreaming that it would have some effect, you will regret it very soon. Our response will not be long in coming. Everyone will see everything soon,” Ukraine’s Intelligence Chief, Kyrylo #Budanov, reacted to today’s Russian attack.
Reuters reports that the Polish president Andrzej Duda said on Monday that he would sign a bill to allow a panel to investigate whether the opposition party Civic Platform (PO), currently led by Donald Tusk, allowed the country to be unduly influenced by Russia and as a result became too dependent on its fuel when it was in power.
The PO party was in government from 2007 to 2015. Tusk, who was formerly the president of the European Council and prime minister of Poland, is set to lead the party into parliamentary elections at the end of the year.
The party rejects the claims and says the law is designed to destroy support for Tusk ahead of the elections.
PO lawmaker Marcin Kierwinski told broadcaster TVN 24: “In a normal democratic country, somebody who is president of that country would never sign such a Stalin-esque law.”
Duda said he would sign the bill because he believed it “should enter into force,” but he also said he would ask the Constitutional Tribunal to examine the criticism it is unconstitutional.
The bill would set up an investigative commission that could deliver an initial report in September.
The parliamentary commission will investigate the period between 2007 and 2022 and will have the power to ban people found to have acted under Russian influence from holding security clearance or working in roles in which they would responsible for public funds for 10 years, effectively disqualifying them from public office.
During Tusk’s time in office, the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal, allowing the import of non-Russia gas, began and the nation signed a deal with Russia’s Gazprom in 2010, which the official justification of the bill mentions.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, has said that there is no need for his country to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus, and that it needs no nuclear weapons either. [The Union State, or Union State of Russia and Belarus, is a supranational union consisting of Belarus and Russia, with the stated aim of deepening the relationship between the two states through integration in economic and defence policy – ed.] …
A Ukrainian presidential aide said on Monday a demilitarised zone of 100-120 km (62-75 miles) should be established inside Russia along the border with Ukraine as part of a post-war settlement.
The zone would be necessary to protect Ukrainian regions from shelling, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter…
My dispatch with @OzlemTemena on some ominous signs in Erdogan’s victory speech last night.
Erdogan who has ruled Turkey since 2003 used an election night speech to lash out at his opponents, singling out the country’s LGBT community.
Parents of Turkish LGBT people were visibly rattled by Mr Erdogan’s remarks.
“We are very worried. Now as LGBT families we are thinking ‘What can we do to send our children out of this country?’”Atilla Dirim, a 55-year old writer and father of a transgender woman, said.
Mr Erdogan’s comments follow a years-long hostility toward the LGBT community that has seen the country go from holding a 100,000-strong gay pride event in central Istanbul in 2014 to such gatherings being banned altogether.
Sema Yakar, founder of LISTAG, an NGO that provides psychological and legal support for parents of LGBT children, said families were alarmed by Mr Erdogan’s speech:
“The government has always used the LGBTQ community as a scapegoat to divert attention from other issues.”
The four-part Prime Video series Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, which premieres June 2, is structured like a double helix. On one side is an excavation of the “shiny, happy,” and God-loving image that the prolifically breeding Duggar family put out into pop culture via its TLC specials and eventual series, the most recent iteration of which was called 19 Kids and Counting. That series was famously halted in 2015 upon reports that the family’s eldest son Josh Duggar had sexually assaulted five girls—some of them his sisters, including Shiny Happy People subject Jill Duggar Dillard—prior to the family’s TV deal(s). The followup TLC series, Counting On, which focused on some of the grown-up Duggar siblings as they procreated, was also canceled after another bombshell: Josh’s 2021 arrest for the possession of child sex abuse material. He was convicted and sentenced to more than 12 years in jail the following year.
The other side of the docuseries concerns the Institute of Basic Life Principles, the Christian umbrella organization that the Duggars were a part of and (often subliminally) evangelized via their TLC shows…
“The outcome of the May elections suggests that Turkey has now shifted closer to a Eurasian autocracy than an illiberal European democracy. One reason is that Erdogan’s approach to electoral power has increasingly come to resemble that of…Putin.
… “During the campaign season, he arrested key opposition leaders & civil society activists; demonized opposition parties as Western sympathizers, coup plotters, & terrorist allies; and played the homophobic card….
“Erdogan also sidelined the one figure who might have been able to beat him, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was charged with ‘insulting election officials’ and faces a court case that threatens to ban him from politics.”
Paris Marx is joined by Mary-Jane Rubenstein to discuss how ideas that underpinned colonization and Manifest Destiny are now setting the foundation for the billionaire space race and the plan to colonize the cosmos.
Mary-Jane Rubenstein is the author of Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. She’s also a Professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan University.
What “really” happened during the pandemic? Conspiracists have decided to take a victory lap. They were right, you see? The vaccines failed, and besides, they were super dangerous. COVID obviously came out of a lab. Masks were useless, and the lock-downs were completely unnecessary forms of totalitarian oppression. The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, who were censored on social media, were right all along.
Not so fast.
Our guest today is Dr. Jonathan Howard, who not only did grueling service at Bellevue Hospital in NYC (as the first wave raged, and corpses were stacked in meat trucks [these were human corpses, as opposed to the corpses described as “meat”]) but has put in the time to create a comprehensive document of how contrarian doctors shaped cultural perceptions during the pandemic. He takes the title of his new book, We Want Them Infected, from a quote found in a series of emails from July 2020.
Trump-appointed science-advisor to the HHS, Paul Alexander, urged officials there and at the FDA, and the CDC, to pursue a herd immunity strategy for COVID-19. “There is no other way,” he wrote. “We need to establish herd, and it only comes about when we allow non-high-risk groups to expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD. Infants, kids, teens, young people, middle-aged with no conditions have zero to little risk. So we use them to develop herd. We want them infected.”
A Ukrainian presidential aide said on Monday a demilitarised zone of 100-120 km (62-75 miles) should be established inside Russia along the border with Ukraine as part of a post-war settlement.
Voters in Alberta head to the polls on May 29 to decide an election that, despite this western Canadian province’s historically rightward tilt, is shaping up to be a barn-burner where the incumbent United Conservative Party is engaged in a desperate fight to retain power against the center-left New Democratic Party. It’s also a contest that features two of the most remarkable political comeback attempts in recent memory, one on each side of the aisle.
In this preview of Monday’s showdown for Alberta’s Legislative Assembly—the equivalent of a state legislature—we’ll delve into the backstory that’s brought us to this moment, along with a look at the make-or-break races that will decide this contest and shape the future of this province of 4.4 million people, Canada’s fourth-largest and wealthiest.
[…] While the name might sound strange to American ears, the PCs governed as a big-tent party that could credibly claim support of both centrist and more overtly right-wing factions. (About that name: The old federal Conservative Party inherited what remained of the center-left Progressive Party after it imploded during World War II—by then largely just its name—and became the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. Alberta’s local Conservatives eventually followed suit and changed their own name in the 1950s.)
But this alliance began to crumble in the dynasty’s waning years, especially after then-Premier Ed Stelmach increased the royalty rates that the provincial government collects from energy producers in this oil-rich jurisdiction in 2007. Subsequent resentment from the oilpatch fueled donations to the upstart Wildrose Party, a far-right outfit that tapped a telegenic but controversial former radio host and newspaper editorialist named Danielle Smith to lead it into the 2012 provincial election.
For the entire duration of that campaign, Smith’s Wildrose Party led the PCs (now run by Stelmach’s successor, Alison Redford) in all publicly reported opinion polls, often by large margins. Yet in one of North America’s greatest polling debacles of all time, Redford and the PCs pulled off a stunning victory when all ballots were counted, ultimately besting the Wildrose by a 44-34 margin and winning 61 of the legislature’s 87 seats, compared to just 17 for the Wildrose.
A popular hypothesis explaining Smith’s loss centered on her refusal to explicitly condemn bigoted anti-gay comments made by a Wildrose candidate in the waning days of the campaign, causing undecideds and left-leaning voters more accustomed to voting for the NDP or the centrist Liberals to lend their votes to the PCs—the only party with a chance of thwarting Wildrose—as an emergency measure. True or not, a failure to police that sort of bigotry would continue to haunt Smith in the years to come.
[…] Prentice, betting that he could easily romp to reelection with a seemingly united right behind him, quickly moved to call a snap election in the spring of 2015—a full year ahead of schedule. While fixed election calendars are nearly always the rule in the United States, leaders in parliamentary systems often have flexibility when it comes to calling elections before a government’s full term in office would otherwise end. (In Alberta, that term is four years.) Prentice sought to take advantage of that power by ushering voters to the polls when he imagined the PCs were at their peak. [That reminds me of SC’s comment 219: “Spain’s PM calls snap election after conservative and far-right wins in local polls”]
[…] Kenney, though, turned out to be the dog who finally caught the car. He could not, of course, resuscitate oil prices and found himself on the defensive over unpopular policies such as expanding coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. At the same time, he introduced a slew of painful austerity measures. However, those headaches were mere speed bumps on the road for Kenney compared to the rocky ride he endured during the length of the COVID-19 pandemic—a tumultuous journey of his own making.
Kenney struggled to satisfy the needs of protecting the province’s citizenry and its vulnerable healthcare system through public health restrictions while simultaneously preventing a caucus revolt from far-right UCP members bitterly opposed to any form of government intervention.
Enter Stage Right: The Return of Danielle Smith
Kenney’s ouster sparked a major scramble among aspiring Conservatives to replace him, with the most surprising contender being none other than Danielle Smith. After her exit from electoral politics in 2015, Smith returned to her roots as a right-wing radio talk show host and political commentator.
From that perch, she attracted no small amount of controversy for spitting out a wide variety of off-kilter hot takes including, but definitely not limited to, advocating for the defunding of public education; championing junk science and conspiracy theories during the pandemic; and even repeating Kremlin-aligned talking points after Russian forces invaded Ukraine last year.
[…] Notley’s NDP has framed the election as a referendum on leadership and trust, heavily emphasizing Smith’s long record of statements in favor of requiring Albertans to pay out-of-pocket for healthcare services, such as visits to family doctors, in attack ads.
[…] Beyond the healthcare debate, voters have been subjected to an almost Trumpian barrage of controversies during the campaign, mostly stemming from Smith and the UCP. For instance, just prior to the official start of the campaign period on May 1, Smith professed her admiration for Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis and Kristi Noem—politicians well outside the mainstream of Canadian politics. Audio also surfaced from a 2021 podcast that Smith recorded in which she associated the 75% of Albertans who received COVID vaccinations with followers of Adolf Hitler. […]
Much more at the link. Looks similar to some elections in the USA where far right candidates are so fucking awful that they defeat themselves.
As a side note, Alberta has a significant population of Mormons. A new mormon temple was dedicated in Calgary in 2012. There are about 81,000 mormons in Alberta, with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reporting even more members than that. A lot of mormons moved from the USA to Canada in 1887 in response to tensions between the church and the US government.
The Mormon church owns an 88,000-acre ranch in Alberta, and that is not all of their property holdings. There are also timber-harvesting companies, etc.
“Conservative” doesn’t cover it when describing the often retrograde, misogynistic mormon communities. “Disobedient” females from fundamentalist mormon communities in the USA have, in the past, been forced to move to Canada where they were married to mormon leaders there. And reverse trafficking in minor females sent some from Canada to the USA. Canadian polygamy trial weighs religious rights
[…] The group has practiced polygamy since the 1940s at its community called Bountiful, near the British Columbia-Idaho border […] The case has spurred a separate investigation into whether minor girls have been smuggled from Canada into the United States and forced to marry older men of the fundamentalist Mormon sect [formerly] headed by Warren Jeffs.
[…] Something like this set of concessions was more or less baked in the moment Republicans won control of the House. We will have to live with the consequences of having negotiated again over the debt ceiling which is that this hostage remains available for taking in the future. (You can’t safely or sanely run a country on the basis of parliamentary terrorism.) But there was always going to be a budget negotiation this fall that shifted fiscal policy to the right. Again, baked in as soon as Republicans won the House.
That’s why to me this is a very big win both in policy and political terms. In fact, such a big win that I’m still not totally clear how it came about. Once Biden started negotiating and appeared to rule out extraordinary measures, I was sure he was going to get taken to the cleaners. Somehow he didn’t. Score another one for Dark Brandon.
MSNBC Host & Former Republican Nicolle Wallace and Dr. Eddie Glaude did an exceptional job in articulating the GOP march away from freedom into every aspect of controlling our personal lives.
It’s not about our freedom but theirs. [video at the link]
[…] “The Republican Party’s move away from anything resembling autonomy and freedom is the most underreported and potentially politically dramatic story of the last five years,” Nicolle Wallace said. “To become a party that says out loud they want to be right there in the OBGYN office with you. That was Republican senatorial candidate Dr. Oz. … DeSantis; they want to be right there in the pediatrician’s office with you as you grapple with whatever medical decisions your transgender daughter is making. They want to be inside the gynecologist’s office, inside the pediatrician’s office. They don’t want to be inside the School of Children, who are under their desk because they’re in their third active shooter drill of the semester. They are done. They are done approximating anything resembling freedom.”
Dr. Eddie Glaude then defined them.
“Absolutely,” Eddie Glaude responded. “It’s almost as if the libertarian wing of the Republican Party has morphed and transformed into only one really serious liberty. And that is the liberty to hate, the liberty to grieve. You know, to express a grievance, to express fear, and the like. So those elements of the traditional Republican Party that I grew up with, the corporatist wing, the libertarian wing, the values wing, and of course, the nativist white supremacist wing, all of that has kind of collapsed into one kind of Frankenstein-like monster.”
Glaude then finished with the inconvenient truth.
“In other words, the freedoms that the Republican Party’s articulating today, the freedom to control, the freedom to censor, the freedom to exploit, the freedom to menace. That aspect of America has always been its underbelly. It’s just the Republican Party has turned it over so we can see all the barnacles. And the question is, will we articulate our values and views in the face of it just as FDR did?”
[…] Make the extra effort to get around the attempted voter suppression in the Red States and make sure to vote […].
Texas Republicans wound down their regular legislative session Sunday by changing election policies for a single populous Democratic stronghold but not other parts of the state.
The measure gives the secretary of state under certain conditions the power to run elections in Harris County, home to Houston and 4.8 million residents. It follows a bill approved days earlier that shifts the oversight of elections from its appointed elections administrator to the county clerk and county assessor.
Harris County officials at a news conference last week said they would bring a lawsuit challenging the measures as soon as Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signs them into law.
[…]
Critics are concerned about how the two bills affecting Harris County will interact with one another. One bill requires the county to change who oversees its elections starting Sept. 1, just weeks before Houston holds its election for mayor.
The quick transition could easily lead to problems, opponents of the measure say. If problems do occur, Secretary of State Jane Nelson could use the provisions of the other newly passed bill to oversee elections in Harris County. That would mean Nelson, a former state senator appointed as secretary of state by Abbott, would be in charge of the 2024 presidential election for the county.
And if Nelson did not believe that the new officials in charge of elections — Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and County Assessor Ann Harris Bennett — had rectified problems, she could initiate legal proceedings to remove them from office under the legislation. Local officials said it would be unjust to allow the secretary of state the power to take action against two Black women but not those who hold equivalent positions in the state’s 253 other counties.
Under the bill, Nelson could oversee elections in Harris County if she found “good cause to believe that a recurring pattern of problems with election administration or voter registration exists in the county.” She would get to sign off on all of the county’s election procedures and could install members of her staff in Harris County offices.
[…]
Harris County is a bright blue spot in a red state. Donald Trump won Texas’ presidential election in 2020 by six points, even as he lost the county by 13 points to Joe Biden.
The county has been at the center of battles over voting for years. Amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the county implemented overnight voting to accommodate shift workers and set up a drive-through voting program. Abbott and Republican lawmakers banned those practices a year later with sweeping legislation that also allowed partisan poll watchers to get closer to election officials and banned officials from sending unsolicited applications for absentee ballots.
Republicans this year again directed their attention to changing election laws. One bill approved Sunday changes illegal voting from a misdemeanor to a felony with a penalty of as much as 20 years in prison…
Illegal voting in Texas and elsewhere is rare. Opponents of the bill said having extremely stiff penalties could deter legitimate voters from casting ballots out of fear that they could inadvertently violate election rules and be punished.
A bill that passed on Saturday would allow members of the public to inspect ballots two months after any election…
The Texas Constitution, like those in many states, bars the legislature from passing laws that apply only to specific jurisdictions. Harris County officials said they would use that provision of the state constitution to challenge the legislation targeting their county.
Whether they succeed will be up to the courts. The legislation does not mention Harris County by name. Instead, one bill is written to apply to counties of more than 3.5 million and the other to counties of more than 4 million. Harris County is the only county that meets those thresholds.
Historically in Texas, county clerks have overseen election administration and county assessors have overseen voter registration. The state allows counties to shift all those duties to a hired election administrator and about half the state’s counties have done so. Harris County adopted such a system after the 2020 election but will no longer be allowed to continue it under one of the bills headed to the governor.
The legislature failed to pass one bill that had alarmed Harris County officials that would have allowed the secretary of state to order a new election in the county if more than 2 percent of its polling places ran out of ballots for more than an hour…
Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called “political prisoners.”
The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised — a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.
An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters…
Kyiv celebrated its 1,541st birthday, founded when Moscow was still a swamp. This is how Russia celebrated the occasion:
Ukrainian children screaming as incoming Russian ballistic missiles are engaged by Ukrainian air defences, causing loud explosions. [Tweet and video at the link]
This was the second straight night of massive waves of drone and missile attacks. On Saturday night, Ukraine reported 59 Iranian-made Shaheed “doodlebug” drones were launched at Kyiv, 58 shot down. Last night, another 29 Shaheed drones and 37 cruise missiles targeted the capital.
This was the second straight night of massive waves of drone and missile attacks. On Saturday night, Ukraine reported 59 Iranian-made Shaheed “doodlebug” drones were launched at Kyiv, 58 shot down. Last night, another 29 Shaheed drones and 37 cruise missiles targeted the capital. [Tweets and video at the link]
[…] even shot-down drones and missiles can cause carnage on the ground. So for the third time in three days, Kyiv residents were forced to bomb shelters. Life went on.
A wedding was held in a Kyiv bomb shelter during the morning missile attack. [video at the link]
What is clear is that this terror campaign underscores Russia’s rank impotence.
At the same time, Ukraine launched their own volley of cruise missiles toward several Russian-held towns in Ukraine, including Yur’ivka, near Mariupol in Russian-occupied southeastern Ukraine. [Tweet and video at the link]
These British-supplied Storm Shadows cruise missiles targeted a resort facility used to barrack Russian forces. Local partisans reported that the barracks were occupied by newly arrived Russian military personnel, and Ukrainian officials claim 100 were killed, more than 400 wounded. At least one Russian Telegram source claims that successive strikes on Mariupol targets have killed more than 450 Russians: [Tweet at the link]
With its new longer-range Storm Shadows, Ukraine is pounding Russian troop and equipment concentrations that had been moved back beyond HIMARS rocket range. The difference with the Russians? Ukraine is striking military targets. [Tweet and video at the link]
It’s clear by now that attempting to kill civilians isn’t assisting Russia’s war effort. To the contrary, it’s hardening national resolved to expel all Russian forces from Ukraine, regardless the cost.
Yet instead of using those expensive rockets, missiles, and drones to hit rail stations, tracks, and bridges, military bases, air bases, logistical hubs, fuel depots, and other targets that could advance Russia’s military campaign, they continue to waste their ordnance on militarily insignificant targets.
Now, I don’t mean to minimize the impact of civilian casualties from Russia’s indiscriminate bombings, of which we see daily. But from a military strategic perspective, it’s unbelievable how uninterested Russia seems in actually trying to win this war. The only rationale that makes sense is that Russia wants to freeze the current lines, and thinks that the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians will bring Ukraine back to the negotiation table for a cease fire.
Russia might have also believed the leaked intelligence document that claimed Ukraine was running low on air defenses and aims to deplete Ukraine’s remaining stock. Yet if the last month has proven anything after 16 strikes on the capital, it’s that Ukraine’s allies responded robustly to that predicament (back in February), and that the country’s current air defenses are perfectly capable of handling everything Russia sends their way.
Russia could certainly use its Shaheed drones the way Ukraine is—targeting military vehicles and trenches. [Tweet and video at the link]
FPV drones are different from the Shaheeds, which can’t hit moving targets (they strike predetermined coordinates). But there’s nothing stopping the bigger Iranian drones from making life miserable for Ukrainians manning trenches on the front lines. [Tweet and video of Ukrainian FPV loitering munition strike on a Russian trench.]
The fact that Russia insists on targeting civilians is a de facto admissions that they have given up the military campaign. They know they can’t win on the battlefield. Their best hope, as stupid and evil as it is, is that Ukraine sues for peace to stop civilians from being targeted.
Except Russia can’t even land most of their targets. And since U.S.-made Patriots arrived from the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands, Russia’s supposed “hypersonic” Kinzhal missile is no longer hitting its targets.
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #242 (and others)…
It should probably be noted that the original “doodlebug” missile was the Feisler Fi-103 (aka V-1) pulse jet “cruise missile”.
The end of the public health emergency leaves many fearful they will be forgotten.
Ever since January, when President Biden announced plans for a springtime end to the coronavirus public health emergency, Frank Ziegler has been wrestling with what that would mean for covid long-haulers like him.
“The president was telling the U.S. to just move on. The problem is that for however many million of us, we can’t just move on,” said the Nashville attorney, who has endured cognitive impairments since coming down with covid-19 more than two years ago.
“I have heard of long-covid clinics closing and dropping patients,” Ziegler said. “At some point, the doctors that are researching it may just give up. Where does that leave all of us?”
The end of the public health emergency in May represented a pivotal moment.
Patient advocates installed hundreds of red cots on the National Mall that proclaimed “Still here, still sick.” Physicians from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation called for renewed focus on the ongoing personal and societal impact of post-infection conditions. […] Survivor Corps, a long-hauler advocacy group and vocal critic of the pace of government research, announced it had shut down as philanthropic funding waned.
“Saddest Friday news dump ever,” tweeted Survivor Corps founder Diana Berrent Güthe, who called for volunteer moderators to run the group’s 200,000-strong Facebook group. [video at the link]
Physicians and patients alike say the threat is clear: that long covid could lose the funding that had raised hopes of solving the mysteries behind a slew of apparently post-viral conditions. And fears have crept in that long-haulers will face a fate akin to that of people with chronic fatigue syndrome — marginalized and misunderstood, with a lack of medical evidence to explain or treat their symptoms and little impetus for researchers to dedicate their careers to such confounding cases.
“Those fears are very well-grounded,” said Emily Taylor, vice president for advocacy and engagement at Solve M.E., a nonprofit for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, known as ME/CFS.
[…] Michelle Haddad, a neuropsychologist who runs a long-covid clinic at Emory Rehabilitation Hospital in Atlanta, said the risk of reinfection has heightened anxiety for some patients, exacerbating PTSD. One patient, an emergency room physician who developed severe long-covid symptoms after contracting covid in 2020, got a second case in 2022.
“He was back at square one,” Haddad said. “It’s so disheartening.”
A study of almost 10,000 adults released Thursday as part of the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER project identified the most common of the 200-plus symptoms associated with long covid and found that reinfections were linked with higher frequency and greater severity of long-covid symptoms.
[…] “We do have a problem because people don’t understand what’s been happening,” Koroshetz said. Piles of academic papers covering counters in his office reflect the research going on across the country.
[…] Some frustration with the pace of research may stem from unrealistic expectations about the speed of science that were sparked by the unprecedented development and rollout of coronavirus vaccines.
[…] misconceptions are settling in, […] including that long covid amounts to little more than “brain fog.” Those two words fail to capture the cognitive deficits, including slower processing speeds […]
At the same time, worries are mounting about the impact of even mild infections on brain functions, with two recent studies out of Germany suggesting persistent neuro-inflammation.
“The critical challenge,” writes Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, “is how to arrest the process and alleviate the neurologic symptoms that people with long covid are suffering.”
Many physicians are employing the tools of cognitive rehabilitation for long-covid patients, helping them develop an array of compensatory skills to offset deficits, much as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury.
[…] “The lack of clear guidance leaves people in despair,” said Francesca Beaudoin, director of the Long Covid Initiative at Brown University, who said she had been receiving emails and calls from patients.
That sense of despair is familiar to Jimmie Lou DeBakey, who tested positive for the coronavirus in January, beginning her long-covid journey just as the rest of the country was putting the pandemic into the past. In February, overwhelmed by lassitude, she went to the emergency room, where a doctor looked her in the eye.
“There’s not a thing I can do for you,” she recalls him telling her. “No medicine. No magic bullet. No nothing.”
DeBakey, 71, said she sobbed all the way home.
More than three years into the pandemic, DeBakey is shocked not to have found a centralized repository for information, even at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she works in development.
And she remains frustrated in her efforts to put her own experience — or body parts — to good use.
“I am a wealth of blood and experience and they can take anything they want from me, but I can’t find anyone who wants me,” DeBakey said. “I’ve either had it too long or not long enough or my symptoms are wrong.”
Those problems are all too familiar to Liza Fisher, who developed severe tremors and other disabling symptoms after being infected with the coronavirus in June 2020, launching her on a months-long quest for treatment that has evolved into long-covid activism.
[…] “There’s only so much money and time,” Fisher said. “We need to merge and push for incremental progress.”
Meanwhile, on the latest episode of “terrible people fighting each other”:
Heavy Fighting is continuing to take place along the Border with Iran and Afghanistan, with reports from earlier today stating that Taliban Forces utilizing American Towed-Artillery and other Equipment had Captured a Iranian Border Security Post near the City of Zabol in the Baluchestan Province. [Video at the link]
Afghanistan has defeated global powers Russia and the United States. Why not take on regional power Iran?
There’s a certain irony that American-made equipment abandoned by the Afghan army is now being used by the Taliban to fight Iran. […]
————————–
The Chinese envoy dispatched to push Beijing’s peace plan for Ukraine carried a clear message: U.S. allies in Europe should assert their autonomy and urge an immediate cease-fire, leaving Russia in possession of the parts of its smaller neighbor that it now occupies, according to Western officials familiar with talks in capitals across the continent.
Diplomat Li Hui, who has visited Kyiv, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and Brussels this month, urged European governments to view China as an economic alternative to Washington and said they should move quickly to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine before it spreads, those officials said.
If China wants to avoid a weakened Russia, it should be pushing its ally to withdraw. This is amateurish, and will only be laughed at by European capitals.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Reginald Selkirk @241
Jan. 6 rioters are raking in thousands in donations. Now the US is coming after their haul
When Wife told me this one, my immediate reaction was, “Hmm. Getting it free, but still turning it into a moneymaking scam? Sounds like conservatives to me.”
Donald Trump compared his federal and civil crimes to the fallen soldiers who sacrificed their lives to serve this country that, because of him, now teeters on the edge of fascism.
In a rant on Truth Social, in an all-caps diatribe, Trump wrote:
“WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE COUNTRY THEY LOVE” but also “THOSE IN [the] LINE OF A VERY DIFFERENT, BUT EQUALLY DANGEROUS FIRE, STOPPING THE THREATS OF THE TERRORISTS, MISFITS AND LUNATIC THUGS WHO ARE WORKING FEVERISHLY FROM WITHIN TO OVERTURN AND DESTROY OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY, WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN IN GREATER PERIL THAN IT IS RIGHT NOW.”
[…] Trump never served, and he betrayed this country at every opportunity when he finally became the commander and chief. […]
The gun violence occurred at beaches, high schools and motorcycle rallies, among other locations, across at least eight states.
[…] The victims ranged in age from teenagers to those in their 60s.
Among the first reports of gun violence over the holiday weekend happened on Friday afternoon when Telemundo Chicago cameras caught a confrontation between two groups of people on Chicago’s North Avenue Beach, NBC Chicago reported. The altercation led to gunshots but no injuries.
Although Friday’s shooting resulted in no injuries, more than eight people were killed and at least 32 others injured in Chicago shootings over the long weekend, according to NBC Chicago.
Reports of shootings dotted the rest of the U.S.
In Baltimore, Maryland, at around 3:30 p.m on Friday, an argument between two men led to gunfire, which injured five people, officials confirmed to NBC News.
The five people who were struck have not been identified. The victims had non-life-threatening injuries, according to Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. Police are searching for the suspected gunman, according to NBC News affiliate WBAL-TV.
In Mesa, Arizona, police took Iren Byers, 20, into custody in connection with multiple shootings that happened between Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning, according to a Mesa Police Department press release. Byers is accused of killing four people and injuring one person, police claim. […]
On Saturday, police were called to Roxbury Lanes Casino in Seattle, Washington, after receiving reports that shots had been fired. Three people were injured, according to NBC News affiliate KOMO, but the severity of the injuries was not immediately clear. Police had yet to arrest a suspect as of Monday morning.
In Red River, New Mexico, a suspect was taken into custody after three people were killed and five injured — including the alleged shooter — on Saturday evening at a motorcycle rally. On Sunday, police identified the dead as Anthony Silva, 26, of Los Lunas; Randy Sanchez, 46, of Albuquerque; and Damian Breaux, 46, of Socorro.
[…] Three people were injured, two seriously, in Garden Grove, California, on Saturday evening, in a shooting at Hot Restaurant and Lounge. Garden Grove Police Sgt. Nick Jensen said the gunman got into an argument before opening fire, NBC Los Angeles reported.
[…] In the early hours of Sunday morning in Atlanta, Georgia, one teen was killed and another injured in a shooting at an “an unauthorized gathering” at Benjamin E. Mays High School, according to a statement from Atlanta Public Schools.
Later on Sunday, around 11:45 a.m. ET, one person was killed in a shooting on a Green Line train at the Navy Yard station, in Washington, D.C., Metro Transit Police tweeted. […]
Reginald Selkirksays
Afghanistan has defeated global powers Russia and the United States. Why not take on regional power Iran?
What a comparison! Russia and the United States (and far earlier, Great Britain) tried to occupy Afghanistan, which meant the Afghans were fighting on their home turf. The conflict with Iran more closely resembles a border skirmish.
The Vatican urged bishops and high-profile lay Catholic leaders on Monday to tone down their comments on social media, saying some were causing division and stoking polemics that harmed the entire Church.
The appeal was part of a 20-page document from the Vatican’s communications department titled, “Towards Full Presence. A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media.”
The document, addressed to all Catholics, warned of the dangers of fake news on social media and other forms of abuse that had turned people into commodities whose data is sold, often without their knowledge or consent.
It condemned polarization and extremism that had led to “digital tribalism” on social media, saying individuals were often locking themselves in silos of opinion that hindered dialogue and often led to violence, abuse and misinformation…
A sign with a homophobic slur outside of a Tallahassee business is causing controversy on social media.
On U.S. Highway 90, in front of Rick’s Repair Shop, a sign reads: “Veterans get a day f— and child molesters get a month why.”
Records indicate the auto repair shop, located in the Baum Community in Leon County, is affiliated with a Tallahassee man named Rick Hughes, who has not returned the Tallahassee Democrat’s call for comment…
Representatives of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) said that they once again crossed the state border of Russia.
Source: RVC on Telegram
Quote: “Yesterday, the Russian border guards celebrated their professional holiday. RVC fighters congratulated them on another successful crossing of the ‘leaky’ state border.”
Details: Representatives of RVC clarified that the purpose of crossing the border will become known in the near future…
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, signed a bill about Russia’s exit from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Russia suspended the action of this treaty back in 2007.
The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe was signed on 19 November 1990 in Paris by 16 NATO member states (Belgium, the UK, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the US, Türkiye and France) and six states of the organisation of the Treaty of Warsaw (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, USSR and Czechoslovakia) and came into force on 9 November 1992.
The treaty set quotas on the quantity of military equipment, including tanks, artillery, helicopters and aircraft, which the signees could have.
Russia’s participation in the treaty was suspended in July 2007 with the order of Vladimir Putin, and on 29 November 2007 a corresponding law was adopted…
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is running for president of the United States on a record of anti-diversity, pro-censorship, white nationalist measures. He has targeted education, LGBTQ rights and access to health care, and should he prevail, his anti-science candidacy stands to harm millions of Americans.
DeSantis has banned books in school libraries, restricted teachers’ classroom discussions about diversity, prohibited high school classes that focus on Black history and people, politicized college curricula, limited spending on diversity programs, ignored greenhouse gas reduction in climate change policy, diminished reproductive rights and outlawed transgender health care…
StevoRsays
Reconciliation Week in Australia 27th May (the date of the 1967 referendum that meant Indigenous People counted in our census*) till June 3rd. (Date of the Mabo decision inthe High Court that finally accepted that ‘Terra Nullius** was a lie.)
“Voice. Treaty. Truth” has become the slogan or three main things being argued for here – telling the difficult (& for some “controversial”**) history of the genocide and dispossession perpetrated against Ausralia’s First Peoples, promoting an Indigenous Voice to Parliament arising from the Uluru Statement from the Heart and Treaty – the idea of signing aTreaty or treaties with our Indigenous Peoples.
Hisatorically, Australia is unique among Western nations in never having a treaty, it seems that alot of people take issue with telling the Truth and the Voice is in trouble and coming under attack by people misinformed by the reichwing regressive anti-woke ie kindness and willingness tolisten toothers mob.
.*** Like the teaching of supposed CRT or facts that make European- Americans / Australians uncomfortable about grim and brutal things that actually happened but don’t fit the mythical white washed history that nationalists can feel good about.
StevoRsays
So, if we never had treaties*, we can’t handle or face and accept the Truth** and we won’t even give our Indigenous Peoples a Voice, what does that make us and say about us?
(Us here = Australia & non-Indigenous Australians.)
.* See :
The Australian constitution is the only constitution of a first world nation with a colonial history that does not recognise its first people.
.** Eg with the regressive pushback against a better, more complete and accurate understanding of Australia’s history as demonstrated by our History Wars. (Sound familiar?) See :
Full disclosure : I am NOT Indigenous but this is something I’ve looked into and learnt a bit about and care about here. I don’t have all the answers of knowledge but think this needs addressing with compassion and truthfulness. I think Indigenous People need to be recognised and empowered.
StevoRsays
Rangers are continuing to battle what they believe is a suspicious fire in a sensitive marine area on a southern Great Barrier Reef island. … (snip).. While doing “final mopping up” for the planned burns, rangers noticed a bushfire spreading on the marine plain about two kilometres away.
David Orgill, principal ranger for the southern Great Barrier Reef with QPWS, said due to the distance between the fires, the second one was thought to be a result of arson.
“It was against the wind, so sparks or embers couldn’t have got to that location [and] it was too far for, say, a tree falling,” he said.
“This one was quite obviously unrelated.
“Unfortunately, through some other observations they made at the site, they believe it was deliberately lit.”
A rare drone attack jolted Moscow Tuesday morning, lightly damaging some buildings and leading to the evacuation of others, while Russia pursued its relentless bombardment of Kyiv with a third assault on the city in 24 hours.
The Russian defense ministry said five drones were shot down and the systems of three others were jammed, causing them to veer off course. It called the incident a ”terrorist attack” by the ”Kyiv regime.” …
Why? Is bombing targets in another country “terrorism”? Good job by the writer bringing it into context at the end of the first paragraph.
The goal, Weil said, “isn’t to be a pro-Democrat media organization, but rather to focus on a set of core values that include democracy, fact-based journalism, transparency, community.” Ultimately, he said, that could mean supporting some Republicans. But he added, “it’s hard, because the Republican Party has gone so batshit crazy right now.” …
I see the divides between factions of Americans as a troubling problem that we should all be striving to address. But lately I keep running into smart people who disagree.
Earlier this month, I was on a PEN World Voices Festival panel at the L.A. Central Library with author and TV producer Reza Aslan and Hollywood’s Black List founder Franklin Leonard. Each said focusing on “polarization” can promote a false equivalency…
A Japanese court ruled on Tuesday that not allowing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, a decision activists welcomed as a step towards marriage equality in the only Group of Seven nation with no legal protection for same-sex unions.
The ruling by the Nagoya District Court was the second to find a ban against same-sex marriage unconstitutional, out of four cases over the past two years, and is likely to add to pressure to change the law in a country in which the constitution says marriage is between a man and a woman…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Moscow has been targeted with a large-scale drone attack for the first time in its 15-month-old war in Ukraine, marking a new inflection point in a conflict that the Kremlin said would never threaten the lives of ordinary Russians.
The Russian defence ministry said eight drones targeted the city overnight but Russian media close to the security services wrote that the number was many times higher, with more than 30 drones participating in the attack.
…
Russia blamed Kyiv for the attack. Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied Ukraine was involved, but said he predicted “an increase in the number of attacks”
Russia continues to pummel Ukraine with deadly missile and drone strikes on a near-daily basis. Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, faced its third air raid in 24 hours on Tuesday morning. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has confirmed that 20 residents were evacuated from a damaged building, and that one person died, four were injured. He cautioned residents against ignoring air alarms, urging residents to stay indoors, saying “do not go out to the balconies and streets to observe how the air defence works. Last night, a woman died in a house in Holosiivskyi district, who went out on the balcony to see how drones were shot down.”
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours, the Russian army shelled eight cities and towns of the Donetsk region. It states that a total of 26 civilian objects were damaged, 10 people were injured, and two people died….
Also from there:
What do we know about the drone attack on Moscow?
Peter Beaumont
At least one of the drones used to attack the outskirts of Moscow appears to have been a Ukrainian manufactured UJ 22 drone produced by the Ukrjet company writes Peter Beaumont.
Alleged footage of the drone, captured in flight during the attack, appears to match released images of the unmanned aerial vehicle which Russia has claimed has been used in other attempted attacks.
Looking like a scaled down light aircraft, the UJ22 has a claimed range of 800km and able to fly for six hours, the UJ 22 was designed primarily as a reconnaissance and attack drone able to carry a payload of about 20 kilos, typically grenades and mines – including six RPG-7VM grenades, or four 82-mm mortar mines.
Able to take off and land on a 100m air strip, the operating range with a ground crew is believed to be about 100km. However recent use of the drones suggests that certain models have been refitted as kamikaze drones with target information pre-programmed into the aircraft.
Images of damage to buildings in Moscow from Tuesday’s drone attack appeared consistent with a small explosive payload that appears to have led to largely superficial damage.
If confirmed as a UJ 22, it would fit with an apparent pattern of recent efforts by Kyiv to hit targets deep inside Russia with drones.
In February 2023 UJ-22 crashed in Russia 100km from Moscow after managing to travel about 460km into Russian territory without being destroyed by Russia’s air defences.
The latest attack – in terms of scale at least – suggests Ukraine is becoming more ambitious in both the scope and its abilities to conduct long-range drone attacks even if the weapons involved have much smaller payloads than the Iranian-manufactured Shaheed drones being used by Russia to attack Ukraine.
The primary purpose of recent Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia appears as much psychological as anything else – an attempt to bring the war in Ukraine to the doorstep of Russians.
…Talib’s family was initially displaced in 1985, under Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein, when their village made way for the Mosul dam – the country’s biggest but also most dangerous dam. While it provides electricity to 1.7 million people in the northern city, it was built on porous karst, and experts have warned that it could burst at any moment. The flood water could reach as far as the capital, Baghdad, 250 miles south, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing millions….
Governor JB Pritzker is expected to sign a bill that would make Illinois the first state to legislate to end book bans – by punishing publicly-funded institutions that attempt to censor in that way.
A bill is on Pritzker’s desk after passing the state legislature that would block essential state funding for public libraries and public schools in Illinois that ban books.
Only libraries in the state that adhere to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, which states that reading materials should not be removed or restricted because of partisan or personal disapproval, or develop a written statement prohibiting the practice of banning books within a library system will continue to get its state funding.
…
Book bans in US public-sector schools increased by 28% in the first half of the 2022-23 academic year, the writers’ organization PEN America said last month….
Guardian – “Can humans ever understand how animals think?”: “A flood of new research is overturning old assumptions about what animal minds are and aren’t capable of – and changing how we think about our own species…”
The delightfully absurd title stems from his claim that the 19th-century German philosopher, who had depression and eventually dementia, was “the quintessential example of how too much profundity can literally break your brain”. The “soul-tortured Nietzsche”, who sought meaning in suffering, is an example of how, as a species, we are simply too smart for our own good. By contrast, the narwhal (“one of my favourite marine animals”) demonstrates the fact that, from an evolutionary perspective, intelligence and complex thought are often a hindrance: “The absurdity of a narwhal experiencing an existential crisis is the key to understanding everything that is wrong about human thinking, and everything that is right about animal thinking.”
LOL. If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal is now on my reading list.
This episode of Our Hen House features an animal rights legend, renowned philosopher, and ethicist, Peter Singer. In this thought-provoking conversation, we explore a range of topics, including the principle of equal consideration of interests, the nuance between sentience and consciousness, and the evolution of the animal movement since Peter’s groundbreaking book Animal Liberation was first released 50 years ago. Peter and Mariann also discuss the importance of individual actions while moving toward systemic change and the shifts in thought regarding animal welfare.
Lynna @ #236, thank you for that information! I didn’t know anything about the Mormon presence in Canada.
Quoted in Lynna’s #248:
In Mesa, Arizona, police took Iren Byers, 20, into custody in connection with multiple shootings that happened between Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning, according to a Mesa Police Department press release. Byers is accused of killing four people and injuring one person, police claim.
Chief propagandist Solovyov is lashing out against Russians who are mocking that one drone hit the ultra-rich gated community of Rublyovka, where billionaires and government officials reside, accusing them of not only being jealous but also “unpatriotic”.
I’m again out of popcorn…
Another perfect photo and translated snippet at the link.
•We saw the news & are still gathering information about what happened.
•As a general matter [others have hehed, and I too heh], we do not support attacks inside of Russia. We have been focused on providing Ukraine with the equipment & training they need to retake their own sovereign territory…
•Today was also Russia’s 17th round of air strikes on Kyiv this month, many of which have devastated civilian areas …
•Russia started this unprovoked war against Ukraine. Russia could end it at any time by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine instead of launching brutal attacks against Ukraine’s cities and people every day.
Lynna @ #236, thank you for that information! I didn’t know anything about the Mormon presence in Canada.
There’s more to that story. Fundamentalist Mormon leaders in Utah and Idaho also used to ship young men to Canada to work on ranches and in timber harvesting companies owned by powerful Mormon men in Alberta. It was basically slave labor for the powerful guys, and, more importantly for other Mormon leaders, it was a way to remove young men from their communities so that there was less competition for wives. If one old guy in southern Utah has a dozen or more wives, then obviously the population becomes unbalanced.
Fundamentalist Mormons in more rural, polygamist communities in Utah used to also put a bunch of young men in vans, drive them to Salt Lake City and drop them off with no money and no resources. The “Lost Boys” were such a big problem that the situation became known to the public. Some of those boy were only teenagers. To survive, some turned to drugs and prostitution. Entire organizations in Salt Lake City were founded to address the issue. Without proper educations, and having only the experience of living in a closed religious, fundamentalist community, a lot of the Lost Boys didn’t have a clue.
To this day you can find a lot of information online concerning the Lost Boys. I haven’t kept up with the issue, so I won’t comment on current situations.
I know that about a decade ago some of the Lost Boys in Canada escaped from slave labor-ish conditions and moved to cities in western Canada. Some other young Mormon men have risen above “Lost Boy” status. Still, there were apparently a lot of suicides and drug overdoses.
An excerpt from the last linked article in comment 270:
[…] Mr Hill said although the boys may have been rebellious, their expulsion had more to do with the ruthless sexual arithmetic of a polygamous sect.
“Obviously if you’re going to have three to one or four to one female to male marriages, you’re going to run out of females. The way of taking care of it is selectively casting out those you don’t want to be in the religion,” the investigator said.
Dave Bills, who runs Smiles for Diversity, a foundation in Salt Lake City set up by an ex-FLDS member to look after the Lost Boys, said it was difficult to estimate their numbers because they had been scattered. But Mr Bills said the figures could be “as low as 400 and as high as 1,000”.
“They live every day like it’s their last day and they don’t care about anything,” Mr Bills said. “They’re told they won’t have three wives, and they’re doomed. But they all want to go back to their mums.”
One of the boys, Gideon Barlow, said he was expelled from a FLDS community in Colorado City, Arizona, for wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. He said his mother rejected him on orders from the sect’s leaders.
“I couldn’t see how my mum would let them do what they did to me,” he told the Los Angeles Times. After his expulsion, he attempted to give her a Mother’s Day present but she told him to stay away. “I am dead to her now,” he said. […]
Pierce R. Butlersays
SC… @ # 264, quoting The Guardian: … “the quintessential example of how too much profundity can literally break your brain”. The “soul-tortured Nietzsche” …
A rather overwrought way to describe (probable) syphilis.
I tried to post an excerpt from that article, but something in the text triggers PZ’s filters.
The basic gist of the story is: “With indictments seemingly imminent in both Georgia and the federal documents case, Trump’s lawyers are starting to turn on each other.”
StevoRsays
FWIW;
NASA will hold a historic public meeting on UFOs this week and you can watch it all live online in a free webcast.
The agency will hold a meeting of the “independent study group” it formed nearly a year ago in June 2022 in order to study data related to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), a new term that encompasses objects or occurrences in the sky, underwater or in space that can’t be immediately identified. The meeting will mark the first time the group has discussed the results of its UAP investigation in public. The four-hour meeting will be available to watch online courtesy of a free livestream on NASA TV beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) on Wednesday (May 31).
Almost nostalgic for the silliness of the old flying saucer craze now..
Reginald Selkirksays
@269:
As a general matter [others have hehed, and I too heh], we do not support attacks inside of Russia. We have been focused on providing Ukraine with the equipment & training they need to retake their own sovereign territory…
There are entirely legitimate reasons for striking a country which is making war on you: supply lines, command and control. The reasons for restraint are mostly PR: countries which are supplying weapons to Ukraine wish to promote the view that they are helping Ukraine regain its own territory, not waging a proxy war on Russia.
So: I understand the psychological desire to strike back and recognize the legitimate reasons for doing so, and I also understand the reasons for artificial restraint.
Contestants gather in England for the Coopers Hill Cheese Rolling to chase a big wheel of cheese down a steep hill. Canadian Delaney Irving regained conscious to find out she won the woman’s race…
So: I understand the psychological desire to strike back and recognize the legitimate reasons for doing so, and I also understand the reasons for artificial restraint.
I agree – hence the heh.
James Cleverley, in contrast, came right out with it:
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, has told Sky News that Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself and can “project force” beyond its borders.
At a news conference in Estonia on Tuesday, Cleverly was asked a question from Sky News about this morning’s drone attack in Moscow and whether Ukraine has the right to attack Russian territory.
Cleverly said: “[Ukraine] has the legitimate right to do so within its own borders of course, but it does also have the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”
Cleverly added that “legitimate military targets” beyond Ukraine’s border are part of its self-defence.
This may be one of the shortest Op-Eds you will ever read.
It’s about disgusting antisemitism.
It may also be one you never forget.
I run a large civil rights advocacy organization called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). We have served over 83,600 military and veteran clients throughout DoD, DHS, DOT, the VA, and the 17 national security agencies for nearly 20 years now. About 95% of them are practicing Christians. Our job is to protect and fortify the Constitutionally-mandated wall separating church and state where all of America’s nuclear, conventional, and laser-guided weapons reside.
We are extremely good at what we do, but it comes with a cost. We are very, ahem, “unpopular” with the MAGA-infused, right-wing, fundamentalist Christian nationalist klan of religious extremist fascists, which presently makes up the overwhelming majority of the GOP. We hear from them with their vomitous diatribe of threats pretty much around-the-clock.
My wife Bonnie has actually written two books just exposing the vile hate mail we receive.
We had a particularly wretched, antisemitic one posted on our MRFF website over this Memorial Day weekend.
I happen to be Jewish, so it seems that fact triggers the cowards out there to spew their threatening filth, especially over the internet. As I said, we get a boatload of it constantly.
I’m sure most of you know by now that egregious antisemitism has been exploding concomitantly with the advent of the cowardly psychopath, tRump, and his fellow hateful travelers.
It has to be stopped.
OK, here is the utterly despicable post which MRFF got on our website over the weekend.
If you’re not 100% appalled and demand that the author be found and prosecuted, I’m pretty sure there is little hope for you and your sick ilk.
New comment on your post “Fuuck you dirty [slur against Jews that begins with the letter K]”
Author: […] Girl Rayper Continued (IP address: xxxxxxxxxx)
Email: markxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
[…]
The Jews ruin everything. They deserved the Holocaust and their genetically deformed bodies. Retribution is coming for you hook-nosed freaks. May ant-[slur against Jews that begins with the letter K] RISE!
PS Good job Hitler
#DeathToAllJews
This kind of online hate is NOT protected by the First Amendment. Our law enforcement agencies MUST step up to shut this rapidly spreading horror down by aggressively and publicly prosecuting those criminals who send these repulsive messages.
Question: How much confidence do you have in the speaker right now?
Bishop: None. Zero. [video at the link.]
Republican disarray over the debt ceiling deal has some fun twists. The Freedom Caucus is furious—but despite all the concessions won by far-right Republicans that allowed Kevin McCarthy to eke out the votes he needed to become speaker, they don’t seem to have the leverage they were expecting.
The big weapon the extremist Republicans demanded from McCarthy, and got, was the motion to vacate the chair, a rule that would allow anyone to call for a new speaker vote at any time. That was supposed to keep McCarthy in line—too afraid of being replaced in humiliating fashion to go against the Freedom Caucus and its close allies. But that weapon isn’t looking so potent now; while plenty of Republicans are angry about McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal, there aren’t any plausible candidates to replace him.
Reps. Ken Buck and Paul Gosar have floated the idea of using the motion to vacate, or at least the threat of it, and Rep. Dan Bishop said it was “absolutely” on the table. But for all the yelling and rage about the debt deal, the motion to vacate is not getting a lot of traction. “It would fail,” Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted. Rep. Andy Ogles told a reporter, “I don’t see that happening.”
Even in January, as they showed their strength by forcing McCarthy to go through 15 votes before becoming speaker, the far-right Republicans never managed to coalesce around an alternative candidate for speaker, with none of the people who could potentially have gotten the needed support—like Majority Leader Steve Scalise—willing to challenge McCarthy or having any interest in the job. That should have been their warning sign about the limits of the power they were amassing through the concessions they got from McCarthy. But these are not people who think beyond destruction, and they figured they had the power they needed to be destructive.
Rep. Chip Roy is claiming that the deals McCarthy made prevent the bill from getting to the House floor without the support of every Republican on the rules committee, a deal other Republicans don’t seem to have known about. Considering the pathetic bargaining McCarthy engaged in back in January, it’s not surprising to have new concessions coming out of the woodwork, but Roy is also not necessarily the most reliable source here. While his fellow Freedom Caucus/Rules Committee member Rep. Ralph Norman said Tuesday he would work to stop the deal in committee, he didn’t mention that supposed agreement.
Although the motion to vacate doesn’t look likely, and Roy doesn’t seem to have support for his claim that Republican unanimity on the Rules Committee is required, the party’s disarray over the debt ceiling deal isn’t abating. Every member of the Freedom Caucus appears to be sprinting out in front of TV cameras to denounce the deal, and McCarthy for making it, offering their speaker a solid reminder of why his Republican predecessors, Paul Ryan and John Boehner, both left rather than deal with the infighting in their caucus. Luckily for him, the Freedom Caucus itself has descended into the same level of chaos it usually inflicts on House Republican leadership.
Worse yet for McCarthy, the opposition isn’t only coming from the Freedom Caucus and its allies. Rep. Nancy Mace, who occasionally likes to try to position herself as a voice of reason, says she’s a no on the deal. So does Rep. George Santos, despite owing his political survival to McCarthy. Rep. Victoria Spartz is also opposed. The level of Republican opposition leaves McCarthy relying on Democratic votes to pass the bill, and relying on Democratic votes has been anathema to Republicans in recent years. It would be a serious blow to McCarthy’s speakership … if the Republicans angry about it had any capacity to organize their opposition enough to take him down.
I’m glad to hear that Republican whackos are fractious and disorganized. That makes them less effective when they try to cause financial disaster.
CNN has decided that their Republican Presidential Town Halls are going to be regular features. Nikki Haley has one coming up on June 4th, and Mike Pence has one set for June 7th. Funny thing about Pence though. Pence has not made an announcement that he is definitely throwing his hat in the ring, but he’s getting a CNN PRESIDENTIAL Town Hall just the same! And guess who gets to be the interviewer for Pence’s Town Hall? Dana Bash!
[…] Actually, it seems that several people outside the CNN executive bubble think this is a really, really bad idea:
These days, CNN seems to be caught between two adages: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and “Insanity is when you do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results.”
On Thursday, the network announced that anchor Dana Bash would be hosting a Republican presidential town hall with former Vice President Mike Pence on June 7 in Des Moines, Iowa.
The announcement comes just weeks after the network’s town-hall-style event with former President Donald Trump, which critics blasted as “shameless” and “a disaster,” and which was also criticized by CNN employees, including chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour.
Considering the first town hall didn’t help CNN’s rep and that Pence hasn’t actually officially announced his 2024 presidential candidacy (or criticized Trump for allegedly expressing approval of rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol), many Twitter users decided the only reasonable response was mockery. Pure and simple brutal mockery.
[Example of mockery … there’s more at the link]:
CNN will be hosting another clown town hall with moral coward & zealot Mike Pence where he will gaslight us with his four years of tRump into something it wasn’t & where he will defend tRump for only trying to lynch him once. The show will be titled “Hanging around with Mike.”
And as others have pointed out, there is NO WAY that partisan hack Dana Bash will ask Pence why he still supports the man who tried to have him killed? It’s bad enough that Pence will have a town hall. Pence will speak in that so called calm, “comforting” tone of voice that oozes the smugness of God’s Chosen. Pence will lie and deflect all night long, which I expect. But the questioner will be Dana Bash, and she will raise the bullshit exponentially to this travesty event.
If you are not familiar with Dana Bash, she is so infamous for promoting the “Trump is PIVOTING!” line during his regime. No matter what Trump did wrong, Bash was there to point out in some other staged event that Trump was “changing his tone” and “pivoting.” She even implied after the Jan 6th insurrection that Trump was maybe not aware of what he was doing. After Trump gave a speech on Jan 8th, here is what her hackiness had to say:
But for additional context, Bash also took criticism — and a gentle on-air rebuke — for another comment earlier Thursday in which she gave Trump too much benefit of the doubt from anchor John King.
Discussing Trump’s speech prior to the attack, Bash said that “The most important question now is the culpability of Trump and the fact he went to that rally and called for incited violence. Maybe he didn’t realize he was doing it, maybe he did, but he did it.”
“But he doesn’t get that, I’m sorry,” King said. “In the first week of the Trump presidency, maybe a guy who’d never held office, you’d say he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. That’s over. That is over. That is long over. He has been president for 4 years. He has supported conspiracy theorists, he has lied repeatedly, he is lying repeatedly still about the election.”
“He did it, and that’s all that matters,” Bash said.
Emphasis is mine.
Her antics about pivoting got so bad that her fellow journalists at CNN ganged up on her when she was talking about Trump’s tone during 2020. I do not have the clip, but I specifically remember two other journalists started to laugh or give her shit when she yelled, “I did not use the word PIVOT!”
[…] And finally, there is the general mockery of Mike Pence from other D.C. Villagers. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen Eugene Robinson on MSBNC laugh and have this look of “Who the fuck does Pence think he is kiddding?” whenever there is talk about Pence running for president. Alex Wagner, Nicole Wallace, Joy Reid, and Lawrence O’Donnell have had guests LOL whenever this subject come up, or the answer to the question of “Who is Pence’s constituency in the GOP?” is always, “No one!”
What this shows is that 1) the media is still plugged into providing as much air time as possible for Republicans, even when they are not in power and 2) Mike Pence is not only insufferably sanctimonious, but he is also willfully blind to the point of stupidity. Pence’s has stated that his campaign (when he jumps in that is) will be a return to the times of Saint Ronald Reagan. He feels that evangelicals, fiscal conservatives, and foreign policy hawks will flock to his campaign and form an anti-Trump coalition.
[…] Ronald Reagan ushered in this era, but his time as president seems quaint and has long since devolved into outright fascism practiced by today’s Republicans. All that remains is watching the continued humiliation of Mike Pence in his futile quest for power. It would be lovely to be a fly on Pence’s head to see if he ever has a moment of true self-awareness that the voice in his head is not God’s but his own ambition that lead him to his place as one of the many arch villainous fools of history.
There are early signs that Chick-fil-A could become the latest target of a potential boycott campaign. Fresh off of their successful boycotts against Bud Light and Target, some of the louder voices on the far-right side of social media are now targeting Chick-fil-A, the conservative-leaning fast food chain that is famously closed on Sundays in honor of the Christian day of rest. Twitter user Joey Mannarino pointed out in a tweet on May 30 that Chick-fil-A could be added to the boycott list, as the company has “just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”…
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) plans to resign from Congress, according to a Republican familiar with the matter…
Stewart’s retirement would trigger a special election. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, would have a week to set the dates for a primary and a general election…
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #283…
That’s hilarious. Talk about “eating your own”… One wonders if Hobby Lobby will be next on the list?
According to Babb, sources in the U.S, Department of Defense said the package will include Avenger short-range anti-air systems installed on High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (Humvees). These systems are intended for striking airborne targets at altitudes between 0.5 and 3.8 km and distances between 0.5 and 5.5 km.
Besides the Avengers, the package is expected to include the following items:
· Missiles for Patriot air defense systems;
· Artillery shells;
· HIMARS rocket artillery munitions;
· Zuni unguided ground-to-ground rockets;
· Stinger MANPADS…
A federal judge in Boston has postponed a hearing scheduled for this week in a lawsuit that a government workers’ union filed in a bid to confirm President Joe Biden’s authority to ignore the debt limit by invoking the 14th Amendment.
In a court filing on Monday, Justice Department lawyers cited the Sunday announcements by Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of a deal to lift the debt ceiling and argued that the development undercut the urgency of the legal dispute…
According to the message, the occupiers in nearby Enerhodar have significantly stepped up efforts to identify those Ukrainian nuclear power workers who refuse to sign employment contracts with Rosatom’s subsidiaries.
Russian forces are accused of torturing employees, with several reportedly beaten into submission in an attempt to secure their cooperation with the aggressor…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@Reginald Selkirk #266:
Broken link should go to Yahoo.
A quick review of Musk’s recent Twitter activity and replies didn’t indicate he had any major interactions with an AOC impersonator.
same profile and header picture […] but goes by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody) […] paid for a verified badge which is causing some confusion […] most of the posts seem silly, some have caused a little drama, including one flirty message directed at Musk.
Russia has cleverly taken out a Storm Shadow by throwing a barracks in its way. [/sarcasm]
Photos have emerged of the aftermath of Ukrainian strikes that targeted a Russian base on the territory of “Donbasstransgaz” sanatorium in occupied Yur’ivka near Mariupol on May 28.
The Ukrainians presumably employed British-delivered Storm Shadow cruise missiles in this attack. [Tweet and photos at the link]
————————–
Another round of drone attacks was launched at Kyiv in the last few hours. At least one drone struck the upper floors of a residential building, causing considerable damage. As Kyiv has moved into evening, the drone attacks seem to have stopped for the moment.
————————–
Russia has stepped up attacks on Kyiv over the past several days, employing both missiles and drones in numbers that had not been seen since early March. On Monday, it was reported that 11 of Russia’s hypersonic ”Iskander” ballistic missiles had been launched into the city in a rare daytime attack. Tens of thousands ran for shelters as others hunkered down in place, surprised by the fast-moving attack. The wave of missiles followed just hours after one of the largest drone attacks of the entire invasion, when Russia launched at least 59 Iranian-made Shahed drones at Kyiv on Sunday evening.
There have been multiple claims that Russia’s goal in these attacks was to destroy the Patriot missile battery that recently arrived in Kyiv, along with other Western air defense systems now guarding the city. If that’s the case, Russia’s success in this effort has been extremely limited. Ukraine reports that all of the Iskander missiles and 58 of the 59 drones were taken down by air defense systems. There were injuries reported due to debris and one large building was set on fire by the remains of a falling missile, but Russian attempts to cause significant damage in Kyiv failed, just as they did three days earlier when air defenses stopped a combined attack using 10 cruise missiles and 20 drones.
Shortly after the attack on Kyiv, there were explosions heard around Moscow. Russia reported that eight drones had entered the area around the capital, with all of them being either shot down or diverted using electronic warfare. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin immediately denounced the attack as “terrorist activity” and insisted that the drones were aimed at “civilian residences,” though how anyone could know this if not a single drone reached its target isn’t clear. What is clear is that after razing Ukrainian cities, launching daily missile attacks on sites across Ukraine, and striking homes, offices, schools, churches, hospitals, and infrastructure, the sight of drones around Moscow appears to be driving Russia nuts.
—————————–
Air defense systems remain high on Ukraine’s shopping list for Western military assistance. Considering the level of continued Russian assaults, that’s understandable. Between October and December of last year, Russia launched over 1,000 missiles into Ukraine. While the intensity of large-scale attacks has declined in 2023, the past week shows that Russia’s coffers are still a long way from empty.
More air defense systems, likely including the SAMP/T system, are expected to be at the core of a new package on the way from Italy on Tuesday. These systems also remain central to the requests made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There are also reports that Zelenskyy is seeking to get new systems from emerging defense systems powerhouse South Korea. [Tweet and image at the link]
The Ukrainian president seems to understand that the best way to keep people fighting on the front lines is to make them feel that their families back home are safe. Critical to that effort is seeing that Russia’s “missile terror” doesn’t mean a soldier fighting around Bakhmut has to worry that their spouse or children are threatened as they go about their daily lives. That means air defense, air defense, and more air defense.
There’s one very big factor that has surprised a lot of people over the past few weeks. Until it was actually tested, the assumption—even among a lot of U.S. military experts—was that Russia’s wave of hypersonic missiles would be essentially “unstoppable.”
A New York Times article from 2019 headlined “Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable” was just one of many hyping the Russian Kh-47 “Kinzhal” missile. But earlier this month, Ukraine stopped one of those unstoppable missiles. Then it shot down six of them at once. The Iskander missiles that were launched on Monday were not thought to be as unstoppable as the Kinzhal, but as short-range ballistic missiles with a very high speed they were still thought to be difficult to take down. Ukraine went 11 for 11.
Earlier in the war, Russia was able to launch missile assaults and know that something like half of their attacks would find their way to the targets. Now it’s something closer to 5%—or less. How Ukraine changed that number is not hard to define. [Tweet and video of Zelenskyy speaking, with English subtitles.]
Zelenskyy: “When Patriots in the hands of Ukrainians ensure one hundred percent downing of any Russian missiles, terror is losing.”
Whether you want to believe Russian missiles are not as fearsome as thought, the Patriot is better than expected, or a little bit of both, the success of the Patriot in punching out Russia’s best has led to a reported mania in attempts to take it down. Russia has fired a bit of A, then tried some B, then C, then maybe A + C, all in an attempt to make that Patriot system stop knocking its missiles out of the sky. Two weeks ago, they even seemed to succeed to the point that U.S. sources reported that the Patriot system in Kyiv had been damaged, possibly by falling debris. However, if there was damage, it wasn’t enough to keep the system from defending the city in the next wave.
It’s not just the Patriot that’s working. Ukraine has received at least half a dozen different air defense systems from across NATO partnerships. In cities like Kyiv, many of these systems are working in tandem, making the successful use of any missile more difficult. The Iranian drones, which soon after their appearance seemed to plague Kyiv as well as other systems, have become vastly less effective as anti-aircraft gunners learned to deal with the relatively slow-moving devices.
Russia can still generate fear and disruption in Ukraine’s major cities, but its odds of getting a missile through against any target in those areas has sharply decreased. That’s why some of Russia’s most deadly attacks in recent weeks have come in smaller cities like Uman (pop. 82,000) where systems like Patriot aren’t yet in place. [Tweet and video at the link]
With all the Russian attempts to attack Ukrainian cities, it would surprise no one if Ukraine was seeking a little reciprocity. It’s clear from images and demonstrations that have been seen on social media that Ukraine is creating an “army of drones” with hundreds, if not thousands, of devices ready to fly. They also have a good selection of larger, longer-range drones. That includes the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 as well as home-grown devices from companies like AeroDrone. There is no doubt about it: If Ukraine wanted to attack Russia with drones launched from inside Ukrainian airspace, it could definitely do so. The distance from Sumy to Moscow is less than 600 kilometers. There are plenty of drones capable of making that trip.
On Tuesday, Moscow was reportedly hit by an attack involving eight drones. That would make this attack barely bigger than the reported attack in which two drones were shot down over the Kremlin last month. Russia claims that, just as in the Kremlin incident, all eight drones were shot down.
Of course, Russia is also making claims like this one, which is totally ridiculous.
“Russia has intercepted 29 Storm Shadow missiles in the past month” – Sergei Shoigu.
This is complete fabrication.
We have geo-located and verified 8 successful Storm Shadow strikes, each using an average of 4x missiles per strike.
There is no evidence to suggest any of them have been intercepted.
Yet there is plenty of evidence proving that they have destroyed multiple C2 centers, airfield facilities and logistics hubs. [Tweet and images at the link]
Civilian sources on Telegram have claimed the number of drones in the Moscow area on Tuesday was closer to 20 or 30, and that eight was just the number that Russia managed to shoot down. Considering what was aimed at Ukraine the previous two days, even the biggest estimate seems like a small number. There also seems to be a large amount of panic around these drones, so it would be unsurprising if the numbers reported by many accounts were inflated. However, there are also reports of damage in one of Moscow’s ritziest residential neighborhoods, with images showing explosions there as well as damage to a high-rise building. [Tweet and video at the link]
Both Twitter and Telegram are now filled with fist-shaking, finger-waving, red-faced declarations from Russians that Ukraine has … has … well, it has gone over some kind of line here. Because it’s not like most of eastern Ukraine currently lies in ruin with tens of thousands of kilometers occupied by Russian troops. It’s not as if officials are still digging up mass graves filled with the bodies of children killed by Russian forces. It’s not as if Russia has been targeting and destroying civilian locations every single day since the unprovoked invasion began. [Tweet at the link: “Shock and anger of Moscow residents at ***allegedly*** Ukraine-sent UAVs is just baffling to me.
Y’all thought you can bomb our cities to the ground, rape, torture, and kill thousands of people, kidnap our children, and get nothing in return? Really??”]
[…] Officials in the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian military have denied any involvement in either of the two drone attacks in Moscow. News reports have indicated that U.S. intelligence believes Ukraine was actually behind the earlier flight of drones over the Kremlin, though they also believe that the drones were actually launched from within Russia, probably no more than a few miles outside Moscow.
In this latest attack, some of the debris recovered from the city looks suspiciously like a Russian Orlan-10 drone. This led Zelenskyy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak to quip that Russian drones were tired of being shot down over Ukraine and were now going after the people who sent them. “Even artificial intelligence is already smarter and more far-sighted than the Russian military and political leadership,” wrote Podolyak.
Why would Russia possibly launch a drone attack against its own capital when such an act is guaranteed to erode belief in Russia’s own air defenses, lower the standing of leadership, and generally enhance an already growing level of fear and chaos? Some sources claim that Putin is about to announce “full mobilization,” dragging hundreds of thousands more into Ukraine and finally stepping away from the language of “special military operations” to plain old “war.” [Yeah, that’s what first came to my mind.]
There is certainly at least one very good precedent for the idea that Putin would throw things into chaos and drive up fear to benefit his own agenda.
One month after then-President Boris Yeltsin plucked a security agency official named Vladimir Putin from obscurity and made him prime minister, an explosion leveled a nine-story apartment building on Moscow’s outskirts. …
On September 23, Putin asserted terrorists in Chechnya were to blame and ordered a massive air campaign within the North Caucasus region.
In one of his very first public acts, Putin almost certainly directed a massive false-flag operation that left 307 people dead in order to justify an attack and invasion of Chechnya. That gave Putin the excuse to launch the Second Chechen War. The ground offensive began one week after Putin made his speech about terrorists and ended with the capital city of Grozny looking remarkably similar to how Bakhmut looks right now. [Tweet and images at the link]
Ukrainian forces may well have launched the drones that hit Moscow on Tuesday. If they did, no one could blame them. But the idea that Putin might invent such an attack as a means of creating the fear and confusion he needs to maintain control has a real basis in history. It’s also worth considering that some other oligarch may have recognized Putin’s weakened status and sees the current moment as a time when he might leverage some of the confusion to begin his own rise to power.
The U.S. Embassy has a whole page dedicated to other Russian false-flag operations, going back to the time Russia shelled its own forces in 1939 to justify launching the Winter War. Ukraine says they didn’t make this attack. Russia says they did. It’s worth considering some past events in evaluating the truth.
A rather overwrought way to describe (probable) syphilis.
Well, I think his philosophy as a whole reveals brokenness and a tortured soul (not so much due to his great intelligence as to the combination of his childhood and social and political milieu, exacerbated by the work of philosophizing; but I haven’t read the book so don’t know the exact contours of Gregg’s argument).
How do we respond, humanly speaking, to a thinker who simply doesn’t believe in human dignity or the equal rights of all human beings? Who self-consciously denounces the whole moral universe conjured up by the French Revolution and believes that it didn’t secure a higher status for humanity but on the contrary incalculably diminished our stature? (p. 21)
The initial thought on which my presentation of Nietzsche is founded is that Nietzsche’s positive philosophy is all nonsense or lunacy: Übermenschen, will to power, eternal recurrence of the same, a return to ancien régime-type European aristocracy. It’s impossible to take any of that seriously. Those wild ideas are simply the expression of a desperation on Nietzsche’s part in needing “solutions.” (p. 24)
To what he saw as the central problem: that “Western civilization is going down the toilet because of too much emphasis on truth and rationality and too much emphasis on equal human dignity.” (p. 24)
We moderns define the culture of modernity according to a conception of egalitarian morality…. Nietzsche famously reduces this morality to a psychology of resentment. Hence it is not something affirmative or positive but a negation masquerading as affirmation: supposed love of the good is really resentment of those who embody strength, healthiness, and the imperatives of power. (43)
Let us look ahead a century: let us suppose that my attempt to assassinate two millenia of antinature and desecration of man were to succeed. That new party of life which would tackle the greatest of all tasks, the attempt to raise humanity higher, including the relentless destruction of everything that was degenerating and parasitical, would again make possible that excess of life on earth from which the Dionysian state, too, would have to awaken again. I promise a tragic age: the highest art in saying Yes to life, tragedy, will be reborn when humanity has weathered the consciousness of the hardest but most necessary wars without suffering from it.
This is typical Nietzsche: the twentieth century will be a time of horrendous ideological war (true!). But this is cause not for abysmal anguish. On the contrary, this is cause almost for celebration; it will be a test of whether human beings of the twentieth century will have become the bearers of the kind of genuinely tragic culture that Nietzsche wants us to be… If we pass the test, we will have proven ourselves to be creatures of a new species higher than a merely human one. (pp. 44-45)
Nietzsche is a tireless champion of the ideals of nobility, but where is the nobility in Nietzsche’s writings as he himself defines it? Nobility is associated with a stance toward life that is joyously affirmative and comprehensively yea-saying. But Nietzsche’s prose in Beyond Good and Evil and…other writings…seems aggressively polemical and resentful, expressing no little anger and hostility directed against his standard targets: against women; against Germans whose Lutheran Reformation proved them to be fundamentally plebeian; against liberals; against egalitarians of all stripes; against the subpar intellectuals who teach philosophy in the universities; against the intellectual culture of the 1880s that ignores him and doesn’t feel any world-historical obligation to read his books; against the democratic “rabble” who touch things they have no right to touch and judge things that they have no right to judge…; and so on. (pp. 52-53)
His rage is such that Donald Trump starts looking like a model of civility and thoughtfulness relative to the rants and rancor expressed throughout Nietzsche’s oeuvre. (p. 53)
Really, the more I see from Nietzsche the less (but only to a degree) I’m inclined to see Alice Miller’s thesis in The Untouched Key – that his arguments were in part an attempt to strike back at the oppressive forces that prevented him from expressing his vitality as a child and into adulthood – as a crazy reach. There really is a vitality and love of the world at the base of his writing that somehow became twisted and misshapen and suppressed by the nature of his thought. Maybe that’s what the narwhal book argues – I don’t know. (This could also be why he’s had an enduring appeal to some people on the left: they sense this underneath his actual arguments…)
Aside from his personal psychology, many of these far-right ideas and beliefs, as Beiner suggests, are pretty batshit. Reading Richard Wolin’s Heidegger in Ruins (should have been a great book but is instead a good book content-wise but a fairly annoying book overall because the editors didn’t do their job) is a constant experience of asking “WTF?!” It’s astonishing that so much of what he wrote is taken seriously as philosophy. It’s not just that the ideas and beliefs are bad and evil, which they are, but that reality is refracted through such a fucked-up prism that the conclusions are nuts.
Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who in 2020 accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, said on Tuesday she had defected to Russia.
“I’m still kind of in a daze a bit but I feel very good,” Reade told Sputnik, a Russian press outlet supportive of President Vladimir Putin, while sitting with Maria Butina, a convicted Russian agent jailed in the US but now a member of parliament in Russia.
“I feel very surrounded by protection and safety,” Reade said.
…
Sitting next to Butina, Reade said: “I just really so appreciate Maria and everyone who’s been giving me [protection] at a time when it’s been very difficult to know if I’m safe or not.
“I just didn’t want to walk home and walk into a cage or be killed, which is basically my two choices.”
Reade recently flirted with testifying before US House Republicans seeking to use committees to attack Biden and his family.
…
Biden is running for re-election. As president, he has helped maintain international support for Ukraine as it fights invading Russian forces.
Reade said: “To my Russian brothers and sisters, I’m sorry right now that American elites are choosing to have such an aggressive stance. Just know that most American citizens do want to be friends and hope that we can have unity again….
Oh, GFY. You don’t speak for US citizens, traitorous liar.
[…] If your day isn’t complete without listening to the Wagner Group CEO scream his hatred of Russian leadership: here you go. [Tweet and video with English subtitles at the link. “Smelly scumbags! What are you doing? Why the FUCK are you allowing the arrival of these UAVs to Moscow?!”, ec.]
———————
On Tuesday, Oryx noted another big Russian milestone. With the latest documented loss of a T-90M north of Bakhmut, Russia has now exceeded 2,000 tanks verified to have been lost. Since the number has crept up on everyone at a bit over four tanks a day on average, it may not seem as jaw-dropping as it should. In that second Chechen War, the one that Putin started by murdering 307 people in Moscow and ended by leveling Grozny, Russia lost … 23 tanks. And not one of them was a newer T-80 or T-90. [!!!]
Following Russia’s failed winter offensive, Ukraine appears to be preparing for its planned counter-offensive. Ryan sat down with Mike Kofman to discuss the state of Russia’s armed forces, the current state of the Western-led effort to train and equip Ukrainian forces and the latest from the battle for Bakhmut. The conversation also touched on the role of the British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missile, Ukraine’s ability to absorb the F-16, what exactly happened during the recent cross-border attack on Belgorod and revisited concerns about nuclear escalation.
Pierce R. Butlersays
SC… @ # 295 & 297 – Yeah, please don’t blame Reginald Selkirk for my ravings, derived mostly from Heinz Friedrick Peters’s Zarathustra’s Sister: The Case of Elizabeth and Friedrich Nietzche, an exploration of how Freddy’s little sister (who led a colorful life of her own) both took care/charge of her fallen brother and reshaped his reputation and legacy.
Most of Friedrich’s life was spent in unintentionally and unconsciously disproving his notorious aphorism that which doesn’t kill one makes one stronger. I dunno if anyone has ever obtained and tested any tissue remnants to confirm the second-hand diagnosis of syphilis, but apparently the reported symptoms matched the standard profile pretty closely.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has quietly changed state guidelines, essentially giving its blessing for a state-level political committee he previously ran to move millions of dollars to a super PAC helping his presidential campaign.
For years, elections officials said such a transfer to federal super PACs would not be allowed. But in March — just months before DeSantis formally launched his bid for president — officials at the Florida State Department, the DeSantis administration entity that regulates state elections, changed its handbook to assert that such moves are allowed.
The timing is notable because a state-level political committee DeSantis led for the past five years, known as Friends of Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to transfer $80 million to a federal super PAC called Never Back Down that is supporting his just-launched bid for president.
Going back to at least the 2016 election cycle, the handbook made it clear that state election regulators did not think transferring money from state to federal committees was allowable. The issue was addressed in every election cycle in the handbook’s “frequently asked questions” section.
“No,” read the past handbooks, in response to hypothetical questions about state-to-federal transfers. “A Florida political committee must use its funds solely for Florida political activities, i.e., depositing contributions and making expenditures, which by definition in Florida law, are for the purposes of influencing only Florida elections.”
For the next four versions of the handbook covering the 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 election cycles, an identical answer was given.
In the 2024 version published in March, however, the answer changed. It now advises that such transfers are allowed, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, in which the court removed a ban on corporations’ and unions’ making independent expenditures. It paved the way for super PACs like Never Back Down, which is expected to spend upward of $200 million helping DeSantis try to win the White House.
[…]
A State Department official did not reply to a request seeking comment about why the agency is only now making the change 13 years after the Citizens United ruling. DeSantis’ office also did not respond to a request for comment.
The agency is run by a DeSantis appointee and ally, former Republican state Rep. Cord Byrd, who had refused to say whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
“Citizens United was decided almost thirteen years ago and the Florida Legislature has amended the campaign finance statute at least five times since then,” a veteran Florida campaign finance attorney, who was granted anonymity to discuss the matter freely, said in a text message. “Up until 2 months ago, nobody seemed too concerned about how our state laws fit with that supreme court decision.
“But now, magically, here we are,” the person added, referring to DeSantis’ presidential campaign.
[…].
Pierce R. Butlersays
Correction to my # 301: It seems Friedrich N spent only 11 or 12 years fully incapacitated from whatever took him down, though he had to resign from his academic post 10 years before that, so he only spent about 40% of his life disproving his aphorism.
KGsays
I just didn’t want to walk home and walk into a cage or be killed, which is basically my two choices. – Tara Reade, quoted by the Guardian, quoted by SC@298
I suppose it just shows how utterly incompetent and senile Joe Biden is that he’s failed to have her killed or caged despite being POTUS for over 2 years.
MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) -Moscow said Ukrainian artillery had hit a town inside Russia for a third time this week and reported drone strikes on two Russian oil refineries on Wednesday, while Ukrainian shelling in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine killed five people…
So they have gotten beyond blaming the malfeasance of their workers?
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russian politicians have drafted a bill to ban legal or surgical sex changes, as Moscow sharpens its conservative turn during the Ukraine offensive.
Russia has for years been an inhospitable environment for anyone whose views differ from the hardline interpretation of “family values” promoted by the Kremlin and the Orthodox church.
Pressure had been building on LGBTQ+ activists in recent years but has intensified as troops fight in Ukraine, AFP reports.
The conflict is increasingly portrayed in Russia as an existential fight against the “decadent” west.
The bill – submitted on Tuesday – would prohibit “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person”, according to the website of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.
This would include “the formation of a person’s primary and (or) secondary sexual characteristics”.
The German government is revoking the licenses of four of the five Russian consulates in the country, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry said on Wednesday according to Reuters.
The move comes in response to Moscow’s decision to limit the number of German officials in Russia to 350, the spokesperson said, adding that the withdrawal is to be completed by the end of the year.
German consulates in Kaliningrad, Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk will be closed, leaving only the German embassy in Moscow and the consulate in St Petersburg in operation, the spokesperson added.
A dispatch from Shaun Walker at the Globsec forum in Bratislava, which the French president has addressed this afternoon.
It’s the third and final day of the Globsec forum and Emmanuel Macron has given a keynote speech on Ukraine and European security.
The speech, as my colleague Patrick Wintour reported this morning, was aimed at reassuring sceptical central and eastern and European elites that France is not looking to force Ukraine to make concessions at the negotiating table, noting that any peace deal should not involve the acceptance of lost Ukrainian territory….
Kosovo’s prime minister has blamed violence in the north of the country on “fascist mobs” controlled by the government of neighbouring Serbia, and said he had rejected a US request to relocate recently installed mayors out of their official offices.
More than 30 Nato peacekeeping soldiers were injured in clashes on Monday, prompting the alliance to announce it would send another 700 troops to the country. Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vučić put his country’s army on high combat alert.
The Nato peacekeeping mission, Kfor, said Italian and Hungarian peacekeepers were subjected to “unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices”….
SC… @ # 295 & 297 – Yeah, please don’t blame Reginald Selkirk for my ravings
LOL, it was super hard to find a pithy phrasing that couldn’t be read as sarcastically insulting to anyone! To be clear, the “Sorry!” was meant for both of you, to apologize for the mix-up.
derived mostly from Heinz Friedrick Peters’s Zarathustra’s Sister: The Case of Elizabeth and Friedrich Nietzche, an exploration of how Freddy’s little sister (who led a colorful life of her own) both took care/charge of her fallen brother and reshaped his reputation and legacy.
Interesting. I haven’t read that. I did read Forgotten Fatherland: The True Story of Nietzsche’s Sister and Her Lost Aryan Colony by Ben Macintyre years ago (just saw that he also wrote A Spy among Friends which I watched the TV series of recently; great last episode – I thought of it yesterday when I saw the news about Tara Reade – but took them too long to get there; I give it a B). There’s evidently another older book about her by Carol Diethe called Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, which could also be interesting.
Here’s a 2019 article from Italian Elle Decor (for some reason) about Nueva Germania for anyone interested – “The (Failed) Reconstruction of an Aryan Utopia in Paraguay”: “The often untold story of a Nazi colony in the jungles of Paraguay organized by Nietzsche’s sister. And what remains of it today.”
I dunno if anyone has ever obtained and tested any tissue remnants to confirm the second-hand diagnosis of syphilis, but apparently the reported symptoms matched the standard profile pretty closely.
It could totally have been syphilis. But considering that his father died at 35 of an unspecified “brain illness,” he was sickly as a child and throughout his life with headaches and visual problems that could well have been caused by a neurological issue, and the “treatments” for various conditions at the time were often toxic, it could have been a number of things, a combination of things, or none of these things. Don’t know.
Dashcam footage shows the moment missile debris crashed down on a street in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
The incident happened on 29 May and came during a rare daytime attack on the city. No injuries were reported.
The way the missile falls suggests it was intercepted by air defences before it could reach its target. The BBC matched the dashcam footage to video from a nearby security camera and photographs in media reports.
The fragments were later collected by police for further investigation.
Video at the link. I salute the driver of the black van at the end who goes around it.
StevoRsays
This is really infuriating and disgarceful. Shame on Malinauskas my State Premier (I guess equivalent to Governor) here :
South Australia’s upper house has passed laws to significantly increase penalties for people who engage in disruptive protests, after a marathon debate spanning more than 14 hours.Upper house MPs spent all night debating the changes to the Summary Offences Act, which mean anyone charged with obstructing a public place could be fined up to $50,000 – up from $750 – or face up to three months’ in jail.
The Greens’ proposed amendments to send the bill to a committee, give it an expiry date and add a reasonableness test, were all voted down by the government earlier this morning.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur, has many bold ideas, such as visiting college campuses and inner cities in an effort to expand the GOP base. He also has another controversial idea – tying mandatory military service to voting for Americans between the ages of 18 to 25…
Obviously this is tailored to favor Republican candidates. Otherwise, why the age discrimination? It is interesting to think that politicians like Trump and Clinton might not be allowed to vote. And I took a quick look at Ramaswamy’s Wikipedia page and campaign web site and saw no mention of any military service. Sounds like a hypocrite.
After the 2020 elections, Donald Trump fired DHS’ top cybersecurity official for telling the truth about the results. Investigators want to know why.
One of the striking things about Donald Trump’s rejection of his election defeat in 2020 was the number of people around him who rejected the outgoing president’s lies.
As regular readers know, his campaign manager didn’t believe the Big Lie. Neither did his campaign’s lawyers and data experts. His Justice Department appointees told him he lost fair and square, as did the outside private researchers who were hired to prove that he didn’t actually lose told him he lost.
And then, of course, there was Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security. The DHS’s Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), led by Christopher Krebs — the administration’s top cybersecurity official during the elections — not only rejected the Republican’s lies, it also issued a written statement explaining that there was “no evidence” that the 2020 presidential election had been compromised “in any way.”
Trump soon after fired Krebs […]
According to the latest reporting from The New York Times, this is of interest to special counsel Jack Smith and his investigators.
The special counsel investigating […] Trump’s efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election has subpoenaed staff members from the Trump White House who may have been involved in firing the government cybersecurity official whose agency judged the election “the most secure in American history,” according to two people briefed on the matter. The team led by the special counsel, Jack Smith, has been asking witnesses about the events surrounding the firing of Christopher Krebs.
[…] the focus on Krebs’ firing would likely shed light on Trump’s “state of mind” as he fought to stay in power despite his defeat. Presumably, pulling on this thread would also offer investigators additional evidence that the then-president was presented with the truth by his own team, even as he pushed his anti-election lies.
What’s more, if the reporting is correct, this is also a timely reminder that while Smith and his team appear to be wrapping up the criminal investigation into Trump’s classified documents scandal, the special counsel’s office is continuing apace with its scrutiny of the former president’s legally dubious crusade to claim power he hadn’t earned.
And speaking of Smith’s other ongoing probe, The Washington Post had a notable report of its own overnight.
A Mar-a-Lago employee who helped move boxes of documents last June has been questioned about his conduct weeks later related to a government demand for surveillance footage from Donald Trump’s property, according to a person familiar with the federal probe of the former president’s handling of classified material.
[…] investigators pressing the Mar-a-Lago employee on video footage showing him moving boxes into a storage room the day before the Justice Department showed up to retrieve materials Trump took and refused to give back.
If Trump launches into another anti-Smith tirade on his social media platform, at least we’ll know why.
Seditionist Donald Trump is again a Republican candidate for president. Unfortunately for Trump’s new campaign staff, “President” Donald now has an actual White House record behind him, and that’s been causing complications. Much of what Trump is now vowing he’ll do if put back in the Oval Office is the same stuff he promised to do before—but couldn’t or didn’t actually deliver.
Most of Trump’s new campaign promises, in fact, have been falling into two broad categories. Half of the promises are overtly authoritarian vows, like Trump’s threat to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who attacked Congress on his behalf; the other half are whining assertions that all that stuff he promised he’d do back during the first campaign are things he’ll super-duper for sure do next time, just you wait.
The Trump campaign’s latest ode de bullshitte combines fascist rhetoric, brazen lying, and a grubby chunk of base racism all into one alleged new promise: Trump says on his first day of office, he will sign an executive order nullifying the Constitution’s grant of birthright citizenship to children born inside the United States.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Trump very famously promised this during his last administration, making a big stink of it halfway through his term as a midterm campaign issue.
It didn’t happen because the very idea is a goofy crank theory perpetuated by anti-immigrant and racist groups and one that’s been widely scorned, if not laughed at, by every legal scholar who is not an outright far-right crank. What we call “birthright citizenship” is enshrined into the Constitution via the 14th Amendment; its validity has been settled law for over 120 years, and even the most fringe of conservative groups pin their hopes on Congress passing new legislation to theoretically strip those 14th Amendment protections.
That, then, is why “President” Trump’s previous vow to issue such an order resulted in absolutely nothing happening; not even his own fringe-right advisers thought he could get away with it. Much like Trump’s propositions to nuke hurricanes or purchase the whole of Greenland, Trump’s advisers jingled some keys in his face or showed him an especially flattering magazine article and, eventually, were able to redirect his attention. It’s showing up again now only because Trump has even worse advisers than he did the first time around, and because it’s campaign season. Donald Trump will lie to his base about everything, all the time, even if it means retelling 8-year-old lies in the hopes that his scatterbrained supporters have the memory retention of goldfish.
There is, however, one odd bit of phrasing that caught our eye, if only for its vague twinges of Lovecraftian horror.
In announcing the new campaign pledge, the Trump campaign asserts that Trump’s newly promised day-one executive order “will explain the clear meaning of the 14th Amendment.”
Now there’s a thought. Forget 120 years of settled law, forget the courts, forget the rest of government: On Day One, Donald Trump will Trumpsplain what the 14th Amendment to the Constitution actually means.
Forget your Draculas, your mummies, your Mothras, and your Cthulhus. You want to know true fear? Imagine a future in which Donald Trump is again “president” and his White House announces that the Constitution of the United States now means whatever the hell the person, woman, man, camera, TV dementia-test-acing Trump thinks it means.
If you want to truly stare into the abyss, pull up a chair and watch the man Trumpsplain that the Third Amendment’s prohibition against “quartering troops” in your house doesn’t apply if they’re all carrying nickels instead.
The Republican presidential primary race looks like it will be shaping up exactly as expected. If you’re a Republican presidential primary voter who’s really into fascism and being lied to, you don’t need to look any further than Trump. He’s got you covered. And it’s not like Republican voters who still support Trump even after four years, two impeachments, one insurrection, and a criminal indictment might draw the line at Trump repeating previous campaign lies.
We could still be in for a surprise or two, though. The man could always jet off to Moscow, set up his own television studio, and spend his waking days Trumpsplaining our Constitution to us from half a world away. It’d be a lot easier on him than dragging himself up and down the White House stairs again, and have very nearly the same results. You might consider it, Donald!
It is a terrible irony that no one has killed more Russian-speaking people in #Ukraine than #Putin. The Russian president wanted to go down in history as a great combinator, an uncrowned Tsar of the communities of the restored “soviets,” a multifaceted strategist and collector of empire lands, but he will go down as the author of a large-scale terrorist war, a legally recognized war criminal, a gravedigger of Russian statehood, culture, and an abductor of children who sees the world through a 17th-century map.
StevoRsays
@ ^ SC (Salty Current) : >> Yup – and a fool who threw away Russia’s military and political and his own personal reputation for intelligence in a silly, murderous easily avoidable folly.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry has said it is concerned after four Tatar people from Crimea were jailed in a Russian court in Rostov-on-Don.
They were arrested on “politically motivated” charges, a statement by the ministry said, for alleged “terrorist activities”.
One, Jebbar Bekirov, has been jailed for 17 years, and others Rustem Tairov, Rustem Murasov and Zavur Abdulayev will spent 12 years in prison.
“These new falsified and worthless “sentences” only show that Russia is resorting to all kinds of crimes in the temporarily occupied territories with the aim of destroying centers of freedom of thought and religion that are not under the control of its punitive bodies. Violence and repression cannot be the answer to the right to express one’s beliefs and defend one’s identity,” the statement adds.
Sen. Lindsey Graham was recently in Ukraine, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a meeting that “the Russians are dying… it’s the best money we’ve ever spent.” [Other reports say this reading shows Lindsey Graham’s comments out of context, thus misrepresenting what he said.] This display earned him an “arrest warrant” from the Russian government. Russian propagandists called for his assassination. I’ve never been more defensive of a Republican. He’s our asshole. Back off! Fulton County has dibs on arresting him, thank you very much.
That said, it’s great seeing prominent Republicans—especially strong Trump allies—hold the line against the Republican Party’s creeping pro-Putin, pro-Russia sentiment. “I will submit to jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court if you do,” he quipped at Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. “Come and make your best case. See you in The Hague!”
More excitingly, he claimed he got an advance look at Ukraine’s counterattack war plans and ramped up the hype in an interview with Politico, saying a date for the counteroffensive has already been set.
The Russians are “in for a rude awakening” when the Ukrainian counteroffensive begins, Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) told NatSec Daily following a weekend trip to Kyiv.
The lawmaker received a “deep dive” briefing on Ukraine’s military plans from President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY and his team, he said in a phone interview during his return home. “In the coming days, you’re going to see a pretty impressive display of power by the Ukrainians.”
The reaction in the online pro-Ukraine space is jubilant, but there are two camps emerging. The first urges caution, arguing that combined arms warfare is incredibly difficult in the best of circumstances, and Ukraine is dealing with freshly formed units operating unfamiliar equipment. The other camp sees rank Russian incompetence and assumes a cakewalk.
It’s okay to hope for the latter, but it’s safest to assume the former, and to plan for it.
Lest I be accused of hypocrisy up front, I have been optimistic. “We’ll find out soon enough if the hype matches the reality. But given what we’re seeing in Bakhmut today, I’m feeling particularly optimistic about Ukraine’s near-term prospects,” I wrote two weeks ago, hopefully not jinxing anything. “I’ve certainly lost all faith in Russia’s ability to do anything right So I’ll go out on a long limb (knocking on wood) and predict that at some point, we may be writing updates about Ukraine’s real problem in its offensive—the problem of advancing so fast that they outrun their supply lines.”
Thing is, that is a hope, based on the performance of Russian troops in a small corner of the map, and one which doesn’t feature the extensively prepared positions. Those gains around Bakhmut? They were squad-level, small-unit, opportunistic advances. Here’s one such attack: [video at the link]
I’ve linked to that before, and it certainly bears watching if you haven’t seen it before. The assault involves a single M113 armored personnel carrier and a squad of eight Ukrainians. There is no armor support. An engineering unit is supposed to assist, but repeated calls on the radio yield nothing. Even at this smallest scale, they couldn’t combine two branches of their army, much less the seven or more branches that go into a combined arms defensive breach attempt.
Here’s what that looks like: [video at the link]
A combined arms assault requires the close choreography of scouts/reconnaissance, artillery, air, electronic warfare, combat engineering, armor, infantry, and logistics. Every piece has to do its role to perfection, or the whole dance falls apart. The video is based on NATO doctrine, so there’s a lot of aircraft involved. Ukraine would use drones, so the details might differ some, but all the elements in the video, plus more (like counter-drone electronic warfare), will need to exist.
The OSINT account Ukrainian Memes for NATO Teens (which is far better than the name implies) had a great look at the challenges a Ukrainian assault should face:
In this road to Popasna, you can see how defenses extend outward into the field, making it difficult to either go down the road, or go offroad into the fields in an attempt to flank these defenses. With drones, Russia will see any attack coming from miles away and relatively easily move its forces to the contact point while their artillery pounds the incoming assault. Even in the best-case scenario, lots of Ukrainians would die before they even reach the first line of mobiks.
There’s a reason that Ukraine is claiming dozens of destroyed artillery guns every day for the last month—their “shaping the battlefield” operations are prioritizing Russia’s big artillery advantage, and its ability to thwart any Ukrainian advance.
Ukraine Memes explains the challenge:
For context here, these defensive lines are littered with AT [anti-tank] mines in advance of the dragons teeth with shallow trenches that stop wheeled vehicles.
Obstacle belts are not impenetrable defenses nor are they meant to be. They offer staggered obstacles that must be cleared one by one.
[…] Before and after the anti tank (probably should be called anti-vehicle, narrower trenches can be crossed by tanks) ditch will be AT mines covering the width. So your breaching force needs to first clear a hole through the mines.
Mind you this is a very narrow hole that all follow-on vehicles must follow. And if this is being watched by drones the enemy now knows the only path you can cross & makes that area a priority artillery/mortar/guided munitions target.
So you have this narrow path through which only tracked vehicles that can bridge the first ditch can get across until bridging assets are placed (all while under fire). Now the far side of the anti-tank ditch must be cleared of mines, again, a very narrow lane (which must be done super speedily).
Now tracked & wheeled vehicles can cross (in a super well defined targeting area for the enemy) but the dragons teeth must also be cleared. And owing to the continuous issue with mines, tanks/breaching vehicles can’t just full speed ahead & pray their momentum overcomes the dragons teeth. Some of them will get knocked out in the process, some will face issues displacing dragons teeth/get stuck. Invariably a portion will reach them & breach them, and hope to God the other side is not yet another mine belt.
At this point your actual breach force, the tanks, [Infantry Fighting Vehicles], HMMWVs etc etc can push through & begin assaulting the defended trenches (or treelines) and hope they’re minimally defended/enough of the assault force survived to get there. But your follow-on forces are still having to stream through these narrow channels to slowly get enough forces through the gap. Hopefully you’ve made multiple successful beaches so any one effort failing or stalling doesn’t ruin your push. All the while you hopefully have reserve engineering forces to widen the breaches: for follow on forces, to evacuate casualties, or in case an effort fails, that you can safely exit without getting trapped.
All of this is visually shown in the breach video above, but it bears reading it to underscore the challenge. Note that during this entire process, Ukraine is getting hammered by artillery. The idea that Russia’s untrained mobilized mobiks will turn and run at first sight of the enemy is a possibility, for sure. Still, most of the Ukrainian carnage will happen before the first contact, in a hail of artillery, mortar fire, anti-tank missiles, and other long-range ordinance. And while Russian battlefield effectiveness is mockable, they continue to fight. In the small-unit assault video above, a Russian soldier in a trench is given multiple opportunities to surrender. He fights to the death despite being surrounded.
There is a lot of chortling at the quality of the Russian defenses, like its dragon’s teeth: [Tweet and images at the link]
Russian craftsmanship certainly isn’t up to the WWII standards featured in the main image at the top of this story. But remember, these defenses aren’t meant to stop an advance. They’re meant to slow it down so artillery can wipe out the assault force.
My hope is that once the first lines are breached, Russia’s obvious lack of a mobile reserve and an empty backfield allows Ukraine to romp behind enemy lines, cutting off supplies and isolating the defenders. That seems quite possible, in fact. But breaching the lines will require a great deal of planning, practice (which is why no one has been in a hurry to start the counterattack), some more practice, and a great deal of luck.
Did I mention lots of practice? [video at the link]
Again, people on Twitter laughed at the ease with which this Challenger tossed aside the dragon’s teeth, but this is a tank with an engineering (plow) attachment. What happens if an artillery shell or anti-tank missile knocks it out? Do all the tanks in the assault have these attachments? Of course not. Suddenly, this tank isn’t just prevented from clearing the opening, but it is now part of the defenses, a bottleneck blocking the path of follow-up vehicles, making them susceptible to defensive fire.
Again, this shit is hard. The most experienced, best-trained, most-cohesive armies struggle to pull it off. There’s nothing easy or trivial about these defenses. In any realistic best-case scenario, it will be bloody.
If Ukraine has successfully trained the ability to launch a massive multi-brigade combined arms assault, then yes, they’ll succeed. Hopefully, they’ve used the last eight months to learn those skills because, to date, we haven’t seen them (or the Russians, for that matter) pull it off. Otherwise, not only will their losses be frighteningly high, but the sacrifice made by the defenders of Bakhmut and elsewhere along the front will have been for naught.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and pray the stars align.
As evidenced by the Wayback Machine, the redirect first occurred some time between August and December 2022. The previous version of the website took visitors to the homepage for the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, which runs throughout Maryland, Washington D.C. and Virginia.
Oh, FFS. Even their infighting is stupid and ill-informed.
[…] On Tuesday evening, Trump’s campaign blasted out a press release that claimed DeSantis had “blatantly” plagiarized the former president’s 2020 State of the Union address. The accusation hinged on a single phrase: the “great American comeback.”
However, despite Trump’s protestations, that verbiage has been extremely common in politics over the past few decades, including being featured prominently in President Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address in 1986 and being used repeatedly by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
“Amid a catastrophic failure to launch, Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy with ‘Great American Comeback,’ a phrase stolen from President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address,” the Trump campaign statement said. “Perhaps, the DeSantis communications staff was pre-occupied attempting to extinguish the flames of their candidate’s announcement to come up with their own message.” […]
In his video, DeSantis declared, “I’m running for president to lead our great American comeback.” Trump’s team juxtaposed that line with the former president’s 2020 State of the Union wherein he boasted, “Three years ago we launched the great American comeback. Tonight I stand before you to share the incredible results.”
A quick LexisNexis search shows over 480 pages of results for the phrase “great American comeback” starting with Reagan’s fifth State of the Union speech in 1986. […]
Trump plagiarized Reagan … and countless other politicians. As usual, Trump’s accusations are projections of his own guilt. Trump can’t even claim that he stole that phrase first.
Debate over the debt ceiling deal moved to the full House on Wednesday, with Republican leadership aiming to ensure the package Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Biden finalized over the weekend will pass.
The measure cleared a key procedural hurdle Tuesday evening when it passed out of the Rules Committee on a 7-6 vote.
On Wednesday, House Republicans must first pass the rule governing debate over the measure, which is expected at 3:30 p.m., before moving on to a final vote around 8:30 p.m. It requires a simple majority to pass in the House.
Only a handful of days remaining until the nation hits the X-date on which it could default, June 5. […]
Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) national security adviser told POLITICO that he has resigned over a Washington Post story suggesting he was instrumental in orchestrating the senator’s controversial blockade of hundreds of senior military nominations.
… Morgan Murphy…
Anheuser-Busch is doubling down on support for a pro-LGBTQ+ organization amid recent backlash. Bud Light announced on Tuesday, May 30 that it would be extending its partnership with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce which started last year. The brewing company is also donating $200,000 to the NGLCC for the second year in a row…
I guess they figured out it is better to take flak from one side than from both sides, which their wishy-washiness brought upon them.
Reginald Selkirksays
@329: The legal precedents on satire as protected free speech are pretty solid.
The now-viral “Wood Milk” ads violate laws forbidding federal agricultural promotions from depicting products in a negative light, according to a complaint filed today with the USDA Office of Inspector General by the Physicians Committee, a nonprofit public health advocacy organization.
Using a fictitious product named “Wood Milk” as a stand-in for plant-based milks, the ads deride plant-based milks.
The “Wood Milk” campaign violates the statutory prohibition against advertising that is “false or misleading or disparaging to another agricultural commodity” and the regulatory prohibition against “unfair or deceptive acts or practices with respect to the quality, value or use of any competing product,” the Physician Committee’s complaint says.
It also violates a federal law that says USDA milk advertising dollars can’t be used to influence legislation or government action or policy. On February 23, 2023, the FDA announced new proposed guidelines that would allow plant-based milks to be labeled using the word “milk.” The agency invited the public to submit comments by April 24, 2023, before final guidelines would be established. The “Wood Milk” ad campaign was launched before that comment period closed. On May 1, 2023, the comment period was extended to July 31, 2023. The “Wood Milk” campaign has run continuously since then.
The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service administers the federal commodity promotion and research programs, commonly referred to as “checkoff” programs. The USDA approves all “checkoff” advertising and is responsible for reviewing and verifying all nutritional claims.
The Physician Committee’s complaint requests that the Office of Inspector General issue a recommendation that the “Wood Milk” ads stop and that the milk “checkoff” issue corrective advertising that explains the benefits of plant-based milks.
“The ‘checkoff’ is a government program,” said Physicians Committee President Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, adjunct professor of medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine. “It is one thing for it to promote cow’s milk. It is quite another thing to mock the products that many nonwhite Americans choose for health reasons.”
I don’t know the merits of their case, but it’s not just an ordinary speech issue.
(A side note: as many people have pointed out, plant milks have been around for centuries if not millennia. The whole premise of the ad is stupid and false.)
This morning, APD raided The Teardown House and arrested three organizers with @ATLSolFund [Atlanta Solidarity Fund].
The Solidarity Fund provides legal defense and bail support for first amendment protected activities in Atlanta and the surrounding area.
ASF provides jail support to ensure those in police custody have their rights protected and intact during the legal process. The group also provides cash bail assistance to those who are unable to pay the unconscionable bonds set by the courts.
ASF works alongside lawyers to provide legal representation to those who need support navigating the complex legal system that is oftentimes pitted against them.
Collective bail funds have existed since the dawn of the civil rights movement. When Dr. King was held in Birmingham Jail, churches and community groups including the NAACP came together to fund his $4000 bail – the equivalent of $39,000 today.
The GBI just released their statement on the arrests. The GBI tweet thread seems to indicate an intent to use RICO charges against the Bail Fund.
Marlon Kautz warned of the probability of RICO charges against Stop Cop City activists in February.
From @ATLSolFund: ASF understands that with social resistance comes government repression. We remain committed to supporting anyone who is targeted, and challenging the violence and overreach tactics from the Atlanta PD and DeKalb and Fulton County legal system.
Here is Kautz’ statement regarding the likelihood of RICO charges against Stop Cop City activists from February… [at the link]
With each successive statement from state leaders, the rhetoric against activists increases. Gov. Brian Kemp’s statement calls the three members of the Solidarity Fund “backers” of the Stop Cop City movement. [This looks a lot like the harassment of Civil Rights organizers or activists in India. Also, it seems like Kemp’s public statements (at the link) could come back to bite him in court.]
Attacking bail and legal support funds is a chilling step to take.
The charges for the first of the three @ATLSolFund organizers are now posted. One count of “Records and reports of certain currency transactions” and one count of “fraudulent, misrepresenting, misleading activities regarding charitable solicitations.”
The “records and reports of certain currency transactions” charge relates to bookkeeping for financial institutions. Under GA Law, organizations are required to keep record of any “suspicious” transactions and file a report on them with federal authorities.
There are several tiers to the records keeping charge. The maximum punishment is a fine of $500 thousand or twice the amount involved in the transaction (whichever is greater), imprisonment of up to 20 years, or both.
OCGA 7-1-912 (penalties in 7-1-915)
The penalties for the fraudulent charitable solicitations charge are both civil and criminal. The criminal penalties include fines of up to $5,000 and imprisonment of at least one year, up to five. Civil penalties are $10,000 or the amount of the transactions, whichever is higher
In a statement from DeKalb County Jail, Marlon Kautz, one of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund organizers arrested May 31 said, “[he is] not intimidated, and is committed to doing the important work to support activists.”
The National Bail fund has now taken temporary responsibility for carrying out bail support in place of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund while the organizers of ASF “face targeted political repression.”
A Nasa panel investigating unidentified flying objects has collected around 800 mysterious reports – but only a small fraction are truly unexplained, researchers say.
The agency set up the panel last year to explain its work on what it calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
UAP are defined as sightings “that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective”…
How many have been clearly identified as extraterrestrial? Zero. The most they have is that some are still unknown.
At one point during the hearing, a video taken by a naval aircraft over the western US showed a series of dots moving across the night sky. The military plane was unable to intercept the object, which turned out to be a commercial aircraft heading towards a major airport.
Uh, what? Why would a commercial aircraft be showing up as “a series of dots”? Why would a naval aircraft be unable to intercept?
[Nikki] Haley rattled off her accomplishments as governor of South Carolina, which included helping drive down statewide unionization rates to the lowest in the country after she courted nonunion auto-factory installations from BMW and Nissan. “I didn’t allow unions in our state. I was a union buster, and that’s something I was very adamant about,” she said. It was, to that point, the biggest clap line of the afternoon. “Sounds like you were a unifier,” Alford responded.
Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.
The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records [his what?], two of the sources said.
CNN has not listened to the recording, but multiple sources described it. One source said the relevant portion on the Iran document is about two minutes long, and another source said the discussion is a small part of a much longer meeting.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Justice Department investigation into Trump, has focused on the meeting as part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of national security secrets….
Prosecutors have asked witnesses about the recording and the document before a federal grand jury. The episode has generated enough interest for investigators to have questioned Gen. Mark Milley, one of the highest-ranking Trump-era national security officials, about the incident.
The July 2021 meeting was held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people working on the autobiography of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as aides employed by the former president… The attendees, sources said, did not have security clearances that would allow them access to classified information. Meadows didn’t attend the meeting, sources said.
Meadows’ autobiography includes an account of what appears to be the same meeting, during which Trump “recalls a four-page report typed up by (Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Mark Milley himself. It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.” [Bullshit.]
The document Trump references was not produced by Milley, CNN was told.
…
The recording that’s now in the hands of prosecutors shows they are not only looking at Trump’s actions regarding classified documents recovered from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, but also at what happened at Bedminster a year earlier.
The meeting in which Trump discussed the Iran document with others happened shortly after The New Yorker published a story by Susan Glasser detailing how, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Milley instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump issued no illegal orders and that he be informed if there was any concern. The story infuriated Trump.
Glasser reported that in the months following the election, Milley repeatedly argued against striking Iran and was concerned Trump “might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified.” Milley and others talked Trump out of taking such a drastic action, according to the New Yorker story.
On the recording and in response to the story, Trump brings up the document, which he says came from Milley. Trump told those in the room that if he could show it to people, it would undermine what Milley was saying, the sources said. One source says Trump refers to the document as if it is in front of him.
Several sources say the recording captures the sound of paper rustling, as if Trump was waving the document around, though is not clear if it was the actual Iran document. There’s also laughter in the room that’s captured on the recording.
The US military has contingency plans and courses of action that apply to countries and situations around the globe….
New: Trump acknowledged he retained a classified Pentagon document in an audio tape obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith — confirming CNN. Our sources indicate this doc was classified at the SECRET level, the kind of doc DOJ would be inclined to charge.
A jury found “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson guilty of two out of three counts of rape Wednesday in a Los Angeles retrial in which the Church of Scientology played a central role.
The jury of seven women and five men reached the verdict after deliberating for seven days spread over two weeks. They could not reach a verdict on the third count, that alleged Masterson raped a longtime girlfriend. They had voted 8-4 in favor of conviction…
Bakhmut Mayor Oleksiy Reva revealed in an interview on May 31 that 204 residents of the once-prosperous industrial city have been killed and 505 others have been injured since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Among the casualties, there are 17 children who were injured, and four who were killed.
“Today, Bakhmut is nothing but ruins and ashes. It is hard to comprehend that the city we all loved has been completely wiped off the face of the earth by the occupiers. After months of war, Bakhmut’s entire infrastructure has been completely destroyed; not a single building is left standing,” Reva said.
The war has not only destroyed Bakhmut “but also shattered the lives of tens of thousands of people. Families have been torn apart, destinies have been mutilated, and dreams have been shattered,” Reva added.
According to the mayor, there were approximately 80,000 people in Bakhmut prior to the full-scale invasion, with 70,000 of them residents of the city. Officials estimate that only 500 people are left in Bakhmut today….
The brother of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) expertly dragged his younger sib this week, writing a fiery Facebook post to ask friends to “please” not confuse him with the senator and the slew of “hateful” statements he’s made.
Charles Tuberville, 71, wrote that he specifically wants no association with the senator’s recent statements that call on “racial stereotypes” and “white nationalism.”…
The NBA finals start tomorrow between the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is using the occasion to turn up the heat on his Florida counterpart Ron DeSantis…
Calling @GovRonDeSantis and @Disney on a friendly wager. If the @nuggets win the finals against the @MiamiHEAT, Disney World will move to Colorado, the ACTUAL happiest place on earth to do business, have fun, and be free! #ColoradoForAll
The two guilty verdicts in the rape trial of celebrity Scientologist Danny Masterson are a relief.
The women who survived Danny Masterson’s predation are heroes. For years, they and their families have faced vicious attacks and harassment from Scientology and Danny’s well-funded legal team. Nevertheless, they soldiered on, determined to seek justice. While it is up to them to decide whether they are satisfied with this verdict, I am relieved that Danny Masterson is facing some justice after over two decades of brutal sexual violence with no criminal consequences.
To Chrissie Bixler, whose count ended in a hung jury, I know Danny raped you; I know that Scientology tried to destroy you. However, this case would not have moved forward and resulted in two guilty verdicts if it were not for you. I am sorry you didn’t receive a guilty verdict on your charges; you deserved one. But please never forget that justice would not have been served if it were not for you.
Although Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige, were not formal defendants, they played a significant role in obstructing justice in this case and other instances of sexual violence.
Senior Scientology officials, civilian Scientologists, and their proxies have conspired to silence victims and intimidate witnesses for decades.
This case is just the beginning of our plan to hold them accountable.
I speak only for myself when I want to thank Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson, and their staff for their relentless pursuit of justice for the last six years.
I want to thank Judge Charlaine Olmedo for her professionalism and for not allowing Scientology’s antics to disrupt this trial.
While I am often issuing harsh statements against the LAPD, in this case, I want to thank the LAPD detectives in this case. They faced relentless harassment from Scientology as well and kept moving forward.
Finally, to the jury, thank you for seeing the truth. Thank you for not allowing emotions to get in the way of cold hard facts. Thank you for showing Scientologists (former and current) that justice is not only possible, but that they should come to expect it.
And thank you to all of you who have supported the women who faced hell to fight for justice. Every reply, every retweet, every like…it all mattered.
Just barely good news — or at least sort of reasonable news on one hand, and a remainder of really bad new on the other: from The Oklahoman.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down two state laws that ban most abortions because they require a ‘medical emergency’ before a doctor could terminate a pregnancy to save a mother’s life.
In a 6-3 decision, the court said the laws violate the Oklahoma Constitution based on its ruling in March that the constitution provides an inherent right for a woman to terminate a pregnancy to save her own life and does not require the danger to be imminent.
[…] The statute left standing after Wednesday was the law approved in 1910, which states: “Every person who administers to any woman, or who prescribes for any woman, or advises or procures any woman to take any medicine, drug or substance, or uses or employs any instrument, or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless the same is necessary to preserve her life, shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for not less than two (2) years nor more than five (5) years.” […]
President Biden on Monday called for the ‘immediate repeal’ of Uganda’s severe new anti-gay law and warned he may impose sanctions and other penalties in response.
Followup to comment 351: Congress critters are still voting, but the magic number of yes votes has already been reached.
Democrats had to bail Republicans out before the voting on the bill could even start.
The House voted 241-187 to pass the rule governing debate on the measure, setting it up for a final vote. That vote wasn’t without drama, however, as more than two dozen Republicans voted “no” and more than 50 Democrats bucked tradition to push the rule across the finish.
this is how the cops arrested cop city activists today. they’re accused of CHARITY FRAUD
those allegations are QUITE suspicious to begin with, but even if they were true – ask yourself if you’ve ever heard of this happening to ANYONE accused of charity fraud
Video at the link.
whheydtsays
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #355…
Actually…I have heard of someone being accused of charity fraud. Shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that it was Donald Trump.
StevoRsays
@^ whheydt : Pretty sure the Congress liar George Santos was a charoity fraud too – his whole fake / dodgy pets charity thing..
.***
Ben Roberts-Smith, one of Australia’s most decorated soldiers, will today learn the outcome of an extraordinary defamation battle against three newspapers that began nearly five years ago. The Victoria Cross recipient sued the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times and three journalists in the Federal Court over a series of articles published in 2018. Those stories contained allegations of unlawful killings while on deployment with the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) in Afghanistan, bullying of his former comrades and domestic violence against a woman in Canberra, all of which Mr Roberts-Smith denied.
The trial spanned more than 100 days of hearings across some 13 months, and was unlike any previous defamation case seen in an Australian court. It involved former and current elite soldiers — ordinarily men whose professional lives and identities are necessarily kept secret — stepping into the witness box to provide detailed accounts of missions in Afghanistan.Ten months later, Justice Anthony Besanko is today poised to deliver what is likely to become one of the most significant and studied defamation judgements the court has produced.
Refugees being used as political pawns beiliving and dying in horrific conditions on the Polish-Belarus border :
Families like Munira’s are believed to have been lured to Belarus by Mr Lukashenko on the promise of passage into central and western Europe, but are ultimately pawns in his political game, according to the Polish government and the EU. The allegation is that, together with ally Mr Putin, Mr Lukashenko again wants to create a refugee crisis and destabilise the continent.
In the coming days, two familiar faces are set enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary Former Vice President Mike Pence, and Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.That’s according to sources familiar with the candidates’ plans. Pence will soon launch his campaign with a video and speech in Iowa. A source tells Reuters Christie will launch his campaign at a town hall in New Hampshire next week.
@340. SC (Salty Current) : So Nikki Haley is being called a “unifier” for literally destroying unions? How oxymoronic / Orwellian / bass ackward is that? (Very.)
.***
Captain Obvs conclusion but : ‘UFOs will remain mysterious without better data, NASA study team says’ :
Yeah, there’s stuff we don’t understand. No it almost certainly ain’t little green men in flying saucers. Or flying pink invisible unicorns either..
Othjer spaaaace neeeewwwss – Wood this work? :
The LignoSat Space Wood Project began in April 2020, as a collaboration between Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry. “Wood’s ability to withstand simulated low earth orbit – or LEO – conditions astounded us,” Koji Murata, head of the space-wood research effort, said in a 2021 press release. “We … want to see if we can accurately estimate the effects of the harsh LEO environment on organic materials.” .. (snip) .. Wooden satellites would most certainly completely burn up during atmospheric reentry, and if some small, fictitious fragments of wood somehow did survive the fiery plunge, they would be easily decomposed wherever on Earth they landed.
Re: StevoR @ #360…
I’m not so sure about a wood satellite burning up. It would depend on what sort of wood… I have a vague memory that the USSR used lignum vitae re-entry shields on some of their early manned missions, and that they worked just fine at surviving re-entry.
* From the ruling: “The Court need not here address whether the same result would
hold for a non-resident or non-citizen.”
* Randos figured it’ll apply to the “100 mile zone” blanketing border states, but only within the Southern District of New York. EFF hopes other courts follow suit.
StevoRsays
@ ^ whheydt : Magnolia wood apparently. Not sure which Magnolia species :
A defamation case by war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith against three newspapers has been dismissed, after a judge found defences of substantial or contextual truth had been established over alleged unlawful killings, bullying and domestic violence.
whheydt @ #356 and StevoR @ #357, the question wasn’t whether or not people have heard of others being accused of charity fraud but whether or not people have seen others (particularly in something like a small, grassroots bail fund) arrested for charity fraud in the way shown in the video.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Three people including a child were killed and at least 11 people were injured in an early morning missile attack on Kyiv that hit apartment buildings, two schools and a children’s clinic, according to city authorities. The attack, on International Children’s Day, reportedly involved 10 Iskander short-range missiles, and there was only a few minutes’ warning before they hit. Most of the damage appeared to be from falling debris after the incoming missiles were intercepted by the capital’s air defences.
Initial reports said an 11-year-old girl, her mother and another woman were killed. There was also a child among the wounded. Nearly 500 children have been killed in military attacks in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The mayor of Kyiv has asked for a district administrator and the head of a medical facility to be suspended while investigations continue into the circumstances of the deaths. Reports say that they were stuck outside a “locked” local air raid shelter when they were struck by falling debris. Law enforcement officers are investigating the claims.
Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, has announced there will be an inspection of the operation of air shelters tonight in his city as a result.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that events to celebrate International Children’s Day in the city had been cancelled as a result of the overnight barrage.
Tass reports that authorities in Belgorod are denying there has been a border incursion in Russia.
…
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the international community to put concrete “security guarantees” in place in Ukraine and its neighbour Moldova to give the countries enduring protection against Russia. First to arrive at the summit of 47 European leaders in Moldova, the Ukrainian president said he would also be speaking on Thursday to “partner countries” about putting in place a “potential air jets coalition” and a coalition providing Patriot missiles.
Nato foreign ministers are meeting in Oslo, where French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said the Nato alliance needs to think about what kind of security guarantees it can give Ukraine, and Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said the time had come for Nato members to find a concrete answer to the question of how Ukraine could become a member.
Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, is in Oslo and said the time had come for Turkey and Hungary to ratify his nation’s Nato membership application. “We have fulfilled all our commitments,” Billström said. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he would soon travel to Turkey to discuss Sweden’s Nato membership….
Officials in the province of Nova Scotia say unprecedented wildfires that have forced thousands from their homes will keep growing despite the “water, raw muscle power and air power” deployed by fire crews.
As of Wednesday, more than 20,000 hectares of the Maritime province were burning from 13 wildfires, including three fires that considered out of control. More than 18,000 people remain under evacuation order outside Halifax, the region’s largest city. More than 200 structures, the majority of which are homes, have been destroyed by the fire. No fatalities have been recorded.
…
For a province that typically measures the total amount of the region burned in hundreds of hectares, the record-breaking Barrington Lake blaze, stretching more than 20,000 hectares and still growing, has pushed Nova Scotia’s scarce resources to the brink. The largest ever fire recorded in Nova Scotia was in 1976 and measured 13,000 hectares….
…And, of course, this is all part of a broad and determined effort to go after these communities as part of what some glibly term “the culture wars,” but which often amounts to the politics of cruelty.
There’s an ugly strategy here.
“Here’s what we should do,” instructed the right-wing pundit Matt Walsh recently. “Pick a victim, gang up on it, and make an example of it. We can’t boycott every woke company or even most of them. But we can pick one, it hardly matters which, and target it with a ruthless boycott campaign. Claim one scalp and then move on to the next.”
You heard him: “It hardly matters which.” It’s not so much, in other words, that Anheuser-Busch should get pounded for the supposed sin against decency of working with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney through a Bud Light sponsorship, or that Target stocks a modicum of merchandise that recognizes the gay and trans communities as human beings.
Rather, this crusade is a way to persecute an already vulnerable population. Doubt it? Simply recall Michael Knowles’s infamous pronouncement just months ago at CPAC in which the Daily Wire writer opined that “transgenderism must be eradicated entirely from public life.”…
A federal court defamation case finding that Ben Roberts-Smith is, on the balance of probabilities, a cold-blooded battlefield murderer has done more than leave Australia’s most decorated living soldier in reputational tatters. It has, perhaps irrevocably, tarnished the carefully curated, revered legend of Anzac and its spurious myth of the white-hatted, egalitarian, hard-but-fair battlefield conduct of the celebrated Aussie digger.
…
The finding against Roberts-Smith in his defamation case loss on Thursday lays bare, yet again, the flipside to the Anzac legend and brings into stark relief the perils of tying national celebration – and adulation – to the battlefield….
Sounding genuinely drunk, the Russian MP screams that Russia is the “only country in the world” able to threaten the entirety of the US, and then proceeds to call for the “demolition” of Britain…
Video at the link. The drunken dreamworld war of Russian state television.
On June 5, the United States Mint (Mint) will begin shipping the third coin in the 2023 American Women Quarters™ (AWQ) series honoring Eleanor Roosevelt. The Mint facilities at Philadelphia and Denver manufacture these circulating quarters in the AWQ Program….
In addition to Eleanor Roosevelt, the AWQ honorees for 2023 are:
Bessie Coleman
Edith Kanaka’ole
Jovita Idar
Maria Tallchief …
Vera Putina, who has died aged 96, emerged from obscurity in 1999 claiming to be the biological mother of Vladimir Putin, whom she claimed to have abandoned when he was a child…
Reginald Selkirksays
ibid:
Vera somehow discovered that her son had joined the KGB, but thought she would never see him again. But in 1999, watching news reports about Russia’s newly appointed prime minister on her new television, she immediately recognised Vladimir Putin as her son because he “walked like a duck”.
“The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has placed a third order of 300 VectorTM systems, following two earlier orders of 105 Vector systems in January 2023, and 33 Vector systems in August 2022.” …
Specifically, it was noted that Vector is being widely used and tested on the battlefield in Ukraine, where it “has proven to be an asset for military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations”.
Vector is very manoeuvrable and gets ready for work in two minutes. He facilitates a non-stop indication of enemy targets regardless of weather conditions, gains velocity of up to 72 km per hour, and endures long flights…
So; reconnaissance.
StevoRsays
Well, yeah, we are in truly serious trouble & deep in th soft and stinky here :
This Vox piece has more re #s 329/336, but it’s the photo of a “rotary milking parlor” in California that stopped me cold. Just a nightmarish thing. I can’t imagine how the cows must be suffering in this panlacticon, or what kind of person could design it.
StevoRsays
@ ^ Reginald Selkirk :canada’sonly just now doing this? Oz has been doing that for years now..
Members of Congress in Alabama submitted a draft bill last week that would discontinue funding directed towards the development of the Space Command’s temporary headquarters in Colorado, restricting the command from spending any more money on the construction of its facilities, NBC News reported based on official documents reviewed by reporters. The bill is an attempt by the Alabama Congress to force the White House to announce the permanent location of the Space Command’s headquarters…
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #385…
I would welcome a policy (or even a law) requiring that any new government facilities take into consideration restrictions on the rights of federal employees before a site is selected. This would obviously include rights such as reproductive care in all its aspects, and personal choice as to pronouns and gender dysphoria treatment. States that restrict rights would have to have some major overriding benefits to be selected over states that do not restrict rights.
In other news, this is a truly laughable level of infighting:
How upset is the far-right about the bipartisan budget deal that resolved the Republicans’ debt ceiling crisis? Steve Bannon is now calling for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to face a GOP primary challenge because the right-wing Georgian voted for the bill.
[…] Ezra Klein put together a good summary on this 10 years ago: “Here is a partial list of bipartisan budget negotiations we’ve had since 2010: The Simpson-Bowles Commission. The Domenici-Rivlin commission. The Cantor-Biden talks. The Obama-Boehner debt-ceiling negotiations. The Gang of Six talks. The ‘Supercommittee.’ The Obama-Boehner fiscal-cliff talks. All these negotiations have one thing in common: They ultimately failed.”
Quite right. What’s more, they failed because, in each instance, the commissions asked Republicans to make some concessions on taxes that the party refused to consider.
What’s more, the idea that Congress might benefit from, as McCarthy put it, “a commission together to look at the entire budget” is especially odd given that there’s already a House Budget Committee and Senate Budget Committee, which are responsible for — you guessed it — looking at the entire budget.
But as it turns out, that’s not the most important detail. Rather, what stood out as especially notable was why the House speaker believes his commission would be worthwhile. [video at the link]
After McCarthy talked about his soon-to-be-unveiled commission, he complained, “We only got to look at 11% of the budget” to find the spending cuts in the pending budget deal. Asked why the rest of the budget was deemed off-limits, the Republican leader replied, “Because [President Joe Biden] walled off all the others. The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It’s Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt. So you only have 11% to look at this budget.”
The House speaker’s syntax got a little clumsy, but the larger point was more or less accurate: In the budget talks that wrapped up this past weekend, negotiators agreed not to touch Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending. The result was a fight over a small sliver of the larger budget pie.
But that’s precisely what made McCarthy’s larger message so provocative: He wants yet another commission to tackle the parts of the budget that Republicans weren’t able to touch in this latest fight. Like what? Well, according to the House speaker, “The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It’s Medicare [and] Social Security.”
In other words, according to McCarthy’s own assessment, Biden wouldn’t let Republicans go after Social Security and Medicare in the debt ceiling fight, but the speaker still hopes to target the programs, and he sees another commission as a possible vehicle for the partisan goal.
As the commission takes shape — if it takes shape — be sure to keep McCarthy’s unexpected candor in mind.
The real picture of division in the House Republican caucus:
[…] House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Fox News on Sunday that “more than 95%“ of his GOP conference was “very excited” about the agreement. In hindsight, the Republican leader probably should’ve elaborated on what “excited” meant.
In the end, the House speaker ended up losing 71 of his own members — representing nearly a third of his conference — and Democratic votes outnumbered Republican votes on McCarthy’s bill. What’s more, on a key procedural vote a few hours earlier, McCarthy was abandoned by so many of his own members that he had to turn to the Democratic minority to bail him out.
House Freedom Caucus members thought they were running the show. They thought their far-right ransom note was their party’s inviolable plan. They thought they had a secret Rules Committee deal that would give them veto power. They thought they’d persuade the rest of the GOP conference to oppose the bill. They thought McCarthy would be afraid of the proverbial motion-to-vacate-the-chair sword hanging overhead.
In the same newsletter, he linked to a site filled with white supremacist content. [LOL. Clueless doofus shoots self in foot.]
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) does not want to be described as a “Nazi” or a “white supremacist.”
That complaint came in an issue of the congressman’s weekly newsletter that was published on Sunday. His description of being “smeared” came about two weeks after TPM published a report detailing substantial evidence of links between a member of Gosar’s staff and neo-Nazi leader Nick Fuentes. Later in the newsletter where Gosar argued that he is not a “white supremacist,” he linked to a website that has a history of publishing virulently racist content, including pieces that railed against the “Negro problem” and attacked abolitionists for criticizing slaveowners.
“Bear this in mind: you will see conservatives like me and Ron Desantis [sic] and President Trump called defamatory names like ‘neo-NazI’ or ‘white supremacist,’” Gosar wrote. “Know that this is the leftist media working in tandem with the Biden regime to attack us.”
[…] In his newsletter, Gosar [described] “a secret government program under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whereby Christians, Republicans and conservatives are deemed ‘Nazis’ and ‘white supremacists.’” (Contrary to Gosar’s claims, the grant program is not remotely secret and the terms he attributed to the program were not directly used by anyone […].)
[…] “This comes as no surprise to me,” Gosar wrote. “Despite my vehement opposition to the ongoing support of actual Nazi brigades in Ukraine [overblown accusation, and a Russian talking point] by our country using taxpayer money (not approved by Congress) and in spite of my 12-year record supporting Israel and Jewish causes, I frequently get labeled and smeared as a ‘Nazi’ or a ‘supremacist’ or ‘anti-Semite.’”
[…] While Gosar did not share any specific examples of instances where he was described as a white supremacist, he has a long history of ties to extremism. Since he took office in 2011, Gosar has associated with a variety of far right, white supremacist, and militant groups in the U.S. and abroad. Gosar appeared at the “America First” conference hosted by Fuentes — who regularly uses racial slurs and praises Hitler — on two separate occasions. Gosar’s links to the far right have also included promotion of extremist activists and websites through his official social media channels and newsletter. Earlier this month, TPM detailed substantial evidence indicating Gosar’s digital director, Wade Searle, is behind an online persona known variously as “Chikken” and “ChickenRight” that Fuentes has called one of “the strongest soldiers of the movement.” Our report also highlighted links between an intern in Gosar’s office and the “Chikken” posts, which included comments attacking Jews, Black people, and Asians.
[…] Gosar’s Sunday newsletter included a series of news items below his objection to being “labeled and smeared as a ‘Nazi’ or a ‘supremacist’ or ‘anti-Semite.’”
I snipped details concerning David Stringer, a former Arizona Republican state legislator who resigned in 2019 after it was revealed that he was arrested and accused of paying underage boys for sex in 1983. Stringer has previously denied those allegations and charges related to the case were later expunged as part of a plea agreement. Snipped details about Oath Keepers connection to Prescott eNews, and Stringer as a supporter of the militant group. Snipped details of connections with American Renaissance, a publication with ties to new-Nazis, white supremacists and Klan leaders.
[…] Along with blatantly white supremacist content, since 2022, Prescott eNews has published at least 30 articles about Gosar including flattering news coverage, direct copies of his statements, and columns written by the congressman. This extensive library of pro-Gosar content included an op-ed praising him as “a statesman.” Gosar has also granted multiple interviews to the site.
On May 21, Prescott eNews addressed TPM’s reporting on the links between Gosar’s staff and Fuentes with a piece by Stringer and one of the site’s editors, Anita Cohen, that defended both the congressman and the neo-Nazi leader. […] Stringer argued that he knows Jewish lawyers, and so he cannot be anti-Semitic; Gosar has Jewish defenders and so he, too, cannot be anti-Semitic.
This bizarre and stereotypical defense was followed up with a decidedly favorable assessment of the Hitler-praising, Holocaust-denying Fuentes.
“Mr. Fuentes, for those who don’t know, is a political prodigy of the far right,” the article stated. “He began speaking out on the Great Replacement and cultural decay while still in his teens. “Unquestionably, he is a provocateur of the first rank, given to hyperbole and rhetorical excess. At the age of 24, his podcasts and talent for political organization have brought him national celebrity, especially with Generation Z. He has been smeared as an antisemite for committing the unpardonable sin of denouncing ‘woke’ Jews in high places. Even worse, he refuses to apologize for being white. And Christian.”
The piece concluded by arguing that Gosar had been “wronged” by those who criticized him for having staffers associated with the neo-Nazi leader. Stringer and his editor also praised Gosar for not dismissing the staffers in question. […]
The Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated his position in favor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, condemning Russia’s invasion.
The comments came after a meeting with Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto in Brasília, who is making an official visit to Brazil on 1 to the 2 June 2023.
The Brazilian leader said he also hopes for a “balaced” trade agremeent between Mercosur and the European Union that could support Brazil’s push for reindustrialisation and sustainable development.
Republicans truly are the world’s dumbest Nazis.
——————–
When you employ Nazis and white supremacists racist jagoffs in your political campaign and congressional staff …
———————–
So he’s not an actual nazi, just nazi-curious and #1 with actual nazis?
—————————
translation:
It is completely unfair to characterize me by the words that come out of my mouth or my actions.
———————–
“I’ve been smeared by the shit I enthusiastically am wallowing in!”
————————
Gosar did Nazi that he was booked to give the keynote address at AFPAC. He claims it was a staffing error. He thought he was addressing some other terrorist convention.
———————-
IANAMD, but I believe that Gosar is clinically insane. His family concurs.
[ObDisc] In no way reduces his foulness and evil, of course.
———————
I am reading Timothy Egan’s excellent and highly readable Fever in the Homeland.
He focuses on the the KKK’s control of Indiana in the ‘20’s.
There is nothing new under the sun.
———————-
There are two [kinds of] Nazis to be worried about:
– the young, exuberant Nazi who will happily join in with spontaneous racist violence
– the dedicated Nazi who hides in the closet so he’ll be well-equipped to lower the drawbridge or cripple the defenders when it’s time for a bloody purge
Fuentes is the former, and I worry less about him. Gosar is the latter, and all the more dangerous.
———————-
The way to stop being ‘smeared’ as a white supremacist/Nazi is to quit associating with white supremacists and Nazi’s.
birgerjohanssonsays
Edgars Rincevics, new president of Latvia is the world’s first openly gay president.
And the most senior gay politician from the former Soviet Union.
Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients […] the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry
[…]
Even though April had all the clinical signs of schizophrenia, the team believed that the underlying cause was lupus […] symptoms weren’t typical, and there were no obvious external signs […] appeared to only be affecting her brain.
[…]
In addition to more common autoimmune conditions, researchers also have identified 17 diseases, many with different neurological and psychiatric symptoms, in which antibodies specifically target neurons […] As a result of the research, screenings for immunological markers in psychotic patients are already routine in Germany
C. diff infections typically occur in patients who’ve recently been prescribed antibiotics, because antibiotics can kill off too many bacteria that compete with C. diff for resources. This allows the microbe to overpopulate
[…]
To help restore balance in the gut, […] the FDA has approved VOWST, a fecal transplant pill to treat recurrent C. diff infections.
Rightwing doofuses from the USA , in Hungary, in Florida, and causing damage everywhere:
[…] a group of American and European public intellectuals gathered in a stone-clad villa in Budapest’s Castle District. They’d been invited by the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank backed by the Hungarian government, to denounce growing threats from the left. The institute’s president, John O’Sullivan, a British octogenarian and former editor of National Review, summarized the challenge—gender theory, recognition of a climate emergency, critical race theory—in one all-purpose expression: “wokeness.”
The mastermind behind the event, titled “The ABCs of Critical Race Theory & More,” was American activist Christopher Rufo, who came to prominence for instigating the moral panic over CRT in public education […] Rufo had recently arrived for a monthlong visiting fellowship with the institute, an incubator for US ideologues who consider Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s brand of nationalist populism—particularly Orbán’s use of state power—as a model to be replicated. Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” has subjugated the independent press, banned LGBTQ content from schools, ended gender studies in universities, and evicted the Central European University from Hungary. […]
Displaying a fresh high and tight haircut, the 38-year-old Rufo took the stage with the swagger of a classroom know-it-all. CRT—which he describes as a race-centered, neo-Marxist version of history pushed by elites perpetuating a myth of the US’s intrinsic racism—might seem like a uniquely American construct. But Rufo warned that, much like Netflix, rap music, and other Yankee exports, CRT would inevitably land in Hungary. “You should prepare yourselves politically,” he said, “prepare yourselves intellectually, and not rest on the assumption that because it’s a false theory and because it can’t be transposed accurately onto your history—it always finds a way.”
In 2020, Rufo’s highbrow brand of scaremongering launched him into the conservative spotlight. He boasts that his strident anti-CRT campaign was a singular achievement in public persuasion—a transformation from “an obscure academic discipline” that few had heard of into a catalyst for conservative outrage. Not one for false modesty, he told the New York Times, “I’ve unlocked a new terrain in the culture war.”
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began his own attacks on CRT in March 2021, Rufo welcomed him to the fight. Rufo assumed an unofficial role advising the 2024 candidate, helping DeSantis build his culture warrior reputation with Orbán as his exemplar. […] Rufo provides a veneer of intellectual sophistication and an arsenal of strategically incendiary rhetoric. As Politico’s Michael Kruse writes, Rufo is a “main source and surrogate” for the governor’s “anti-woke” agenda.
With CRT, Rufo effectively distorted an academic and legal framework that examines how racism is embedded in institutions and laws into a concise acronym and conduit for white grievance. […]
Rufo catalyzed a national movement, from Trump down to the parents who packed once-sleepy school board meetings, decrying award-winning books as pornographic and brandishing signs declaring they would not “co-parent with the government.” Conservative school board candidates found financial and mentoring support from newly formed, deep-pocketed national groups. Legislation to restrict discussions on race, gender identity, and sexuality spread, spurring campaigns to defund libraries and ban books. If his goal was to mobilize the public, it worked.
[…] He explained his rationale for focusing on critical race theory to the New Yorker: “political correctness” was dated, “cancel culture” too vacuous, and “woke” overly broad. CRT was the “perfect villain.”
[…] “We have successfully frozen their brand—‘Critical Race Theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions,” he famously tweeted in March 2021. “We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘Critical Race Theory.’ […]
[…] On January 25, 2023, Rufo and Eddie Speir, the founder of a private Christian school, held town halls with faculty and students at the New College of Florida in Sarasota. They were among six new conservative trustees appointed by DeSantis to the board of the 700-student public college […] “We are now over the walls,” he said of the appointment.
[…] “If New College fails,” Aaron Hillegass, director of the school’s applied data science program, says, “Christopher Rufo should shoulder a lot of the blame.” […]
Iran is arming militants in Syria for a new phase of lethal attacks against U.S. troops in the country, while also working with Russia on a broader strategy to drive Americans from the region, intelligence officials and leaked classified documents say.
Iran and its allies are building and training forces to use more powerful armor-piercing roadside bombs intended specifically to target U.S. military vehicles and kill U.S. personnel, according to classified intelligence reports obtained by The Washington Post. Such attacks would constitute an escalation of Iran’s long-running campaign of using proxy militias to launch rocket and drone strikes on U.S. forces in Syria.
Drone attacks have wounded six U.S. service members and killed a Defense Department contractor, and the new explosive devices could add to the toll of U.S. casualties, risking a wider military confrontation with Iran, current and former intelligence analysts and weapons experts say. The same type of weapon, called an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, was used by pro-Iranian insurgents in lethal attacks against American military convoys during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
[…] There has been a sea change in their risk-acceptance in killing Americans in Syria,” said Michael Knights, an expert on Iranian-backed militia groups and a founder of the website Militia Spotlight. Noting the devastating toll exacted by EFP bombs during the Iraq War, he added: “This will definitely kill people. And they’re thinking very hard about how to do it.”
Another document in the trove describes a new and broader effort by Moscow, Damascus and Tehran to oust the United States from Syria, a long-sought goal that could allow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to reclaim eastern provinces now controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. The past three U.S. administrations have maintained a small contingent of U.S. troops in Syria — about 900 at any given time, augmented by hundreds more contractors — to prevent a resurgence by Islamic State militants in the country, thwart Iranian and Russian ambitions, and provide leverage for other strategic objectives.
[…] The leaked documents describe plans for a wide-ranging campaign by U.S. opponents that would involve stoking popular resistance and supporting a grass-roots movement to carry out attacks against Americans in eastern and northeastern Syria. High-ranking Russian, Iranian and Syrian military and intelligence officials met in November 2022 and agreed on establishing a “coordination center” for directing the campaign, according to a classified intelligence assessment prepared in January.
[…] the leaked documents point to a more active role by Moscow in the broader anti-U.S. effort. Russia, like Iran, intervened militarily in Syria’s civil war to keep the Assad regime in power and now backs the government’s efforts to regain control of the entire country. In the months since the leaked documents were written, Russia has engaged in new provocations against U.S. forces, including violating deconfliction agreements, flying over U.S. bases and buzzing U.S. aircraft.
[…] A separate document that described how Kurdish fighters seized three EFPs said the devices were being transported by a Syrian Quds Force “associate” in preparation for an “eventual attack on U.S. forces” near Rumeilan in northeastern Syria.
[…] Some independent analysts said Iran’s increasingly aggressive behavior suggests that Tehran has — or believes it has — Russia’s tacit support for ratcheting up the pressure campaign. Moscow has come to depend on its Iranian ally as a principal supplier of drones and other weapons for its military assault against Ukraine.
[…] Some independent analysts said Iran’s increasingly aggressive behavior suggests that Tehran has — or believes it has — Russia’s tacit support for ratcheting up the pressure campaign. Moscow has come to depend on its Iranian ally as a principal supplier of drones and other weapons for its military assault against Ukraine.
Last week, Tasha Adams watched her ex-husband, Stewart Rhodes, get sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Rhodes both founded and led the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia group that marched on the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. Earlier the same week, Adams also finalized her divorce proceedings against Rhodes — ending over twenty years of a marriage that culminated in abuse and isolation.
In our last episode, OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger and Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex & Money, traveled to Montana to speak to Adams about her marriage with Rhodes. Now we’re giving you an extended look at that conversation through a segment that originally aired on Death, Sex & Money.
Anna and Micah talk to Tasha about her decades-long marriage with Stewart, from their courtship in a ballroom dance class in Las Vegas, to abuse and isolation as Stewart became transfixed on politics and apocalyptic ideas. Plus, Tasha sits down with Kelly Jones, ex-wife of far-right radio host Alex Jones, and they compare notes on their marriages, and reflect on their secret text exchanges from 2018, when Tasha was plotting her escape from Stewart with her six kids.
“Is artificial intelligence advancing too quickly?” 60 Minutes warns. “BuzzFeed CEO says AI may revolutionize media, fears possible ‘dystopian’ path,” CBS News tells us. “TV and film writers are fighting to save their jobs from AI. They won’t be the last,” CNN reports.
Over and over, especially in recent months, we hear this line: AI is advancing so fast, growing so sophisticated, and becoming so transformative as to completely reshape the entire economy to say nothing of our shaky media landscape. In some cases, those in the press deem this a good thing; in others, a bad thing but in terms that get the problem all wrong. But virtually all media buy the basic line that something big and transformative isn’t just coming, but is in fact already here.
Obviously, we can’t predict the future, but we can comment on the present. Yes, AI platforms can generate low-level marketing copy, pro forma emails, and shitty corporate art. But progress in these capacities does not, as such, portend a radical advancement into actual human intelligence and creativity.
Meanwhile, there’s little to no evidence to support the claim that AI, namely large language models like ChatGPT, actually can perform – or even intervene to save time performing – any type of high-level writing craft, journalism, fiction, screenwriting, and a host of “creative” production.
So why do we keep hearing otherwise? What purpose does this type of religious-like providential thinking serve? And who stands to benefit from the vague sense of a future of AI-written essays, articles, and scripts, no matter how terrible they may be?
In this episode, we explore media’s current Inevitability Narrative, namely its credulous warning that ChatGPT is about to do the work of media and entertainment professionals, examining the ways in which this narrative, despite the evidence to the contrary, serves as a constant, implicit threat to workers and a convenient pretext for labor abuses like wage reduction, layoffs, and union-busting. We also review how this media hype works to obscure the very real, banal harms of AI, such as racism, surveillance, over policing and lack of accountability for the powerful.
Our guest is Rutgers professor Dr. Lauren M.E. Goodlad.
Pierce R. Butlersays
SC… @ # 337, quoting the Atlanta Community Press Collective: … the violence and overreach tactics from the Atlanta PD and DeKalb and Fulton County legal system.
Now that House Republicans have voted away most of their leverage against President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats in the debt ceiling deal that passed late Wednesday, they don’t have a whole lot to do in the remaining year-and-a-half of this session. They released the debt ceiling hostage until 2025, and set themselves up for maximum political pain if they decide to shut down the government. There’s not much real damage left for them to do on the legislative front, so they can get back to the agenda they ran on in the 2022 election: vengeance and destruction.
Georgia embarrassment Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who voted for the debt ceiling deal because she is now somehow part of the leadership team, previewed the [vengeance and destruction] agenda, and boy howdy, is it a treat. [List available as an image of MTG’s tweet]
First thing? Greene wants to strip Presidential Medal of Honor recipient Dr. Anthony Fauci of his government pension. Sure Marj, go with that. Knock yourself out trying to get rid of the federal pensions of your perceived political enemies.
[…] there are a couple of laws about the forfeiture or loss of federal pensions, which apply to officials, all the way up to presidents and former presidents “if convicted of a federal crime that relates to espionage, treason, or several other national security offenses against the United States,” and if “convicted of any one of a number of federal laws concerning corruption, election crimes, or misconduct in office.”
You sure you want to go there, Marj? And open up that can of worms, right now? With Trump as your standard-bearer?
And about those COVID-19 vaccine funds she wants to nix? Those are already mostly slashed in the current deal. There’s about $5 billion that McCarthy allowed to remain for the government to try to keep up with new vaccine development as this disease continues to morph and come back in ever more-virulent strains. The disease has already killed 1.1 million Americans, nearly 7 million people globally. How very “pro-life” of Greene.
Speaking of “pro-life,” she wants to defang the agency of what’s left of its power to regulate guns. That’s the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, whose mission is to protect “our communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations, the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, the illegal use and storage of explosives, acts of arson and bombings, acts of terrorism, and the illegal diversion of alcohol and tobacco products.” Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to arm criminal gangs. The majority of Americans disagree with her on that. Time and again, Republicans prove they are soft on crime.
Beyond that, the debt limit deal she just voted for precludes a whole lot of the things she’s got on that list to defund, and very few of the things she’s talking about can actually be done in appropriations. Because if the House Republicans try to do any of the defunding stunts she’s talking about, they’ll hit a Senate roadblock, and the only choice is to shut down the government.
Because of the bill Greene just voted for, a government shutdown would trigger automatic cuts to the budgets for defense and veterans care and Republicans would be blamed for that. She’s not going to find too many takers in her own caucus for that deal.
Greene’s in it for the performance, like most of her Republican colleagues. She may or may not understand how the government actually works, but she also doesn’t particularly care. So they can have all the hearings they want about the deep state. They can spend the rest of their majority doing what they do best, stewing in their revenge plots.
Nearly a year later, Team Trump is still claiming there’s some meaningful parallel between how Barack Obama and Donald Trump handled classified materials.
As the investigation into Donald Trump’s classified documents scandal nears its endpoint, the former president and his lawyers are still scrambling to find a compelling defense. Increasingly, they’re focused on the idea that the Republican’s predecessors did the same thing he did — and if they weren’t prosecuted, Trump shouldn’t be either.
James Trusty, one of the former president’s lawyers, appeared on CNN last night, for example, and echoed one of his client’s favorite lines:
“Here’s the thing: What we’ve built into the system is there are years of conversation — typically years of conversation — about whether or not certain documents are personal or presidential, OK? [Barack] Obama, 2018, wrote a letter, his foundation wrote a letter to [the National Archives] saying, ‘We have thousands of classified documents. We’ll get them to you eventually.’”
As part of the same on-air discussion, Trusty added, “I’m talking about dual systems of justice.”
This again?
If the idea that Obama did something roughly equivalent to Trump sounds at all familiar, it’s because the Republican and his operation have been working on this for nearly a year.
[…][ three days after the FBI executed a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Trump wrote on his social media platform, “I continue to ask, what happened to the 33 Million pages of documents taken to Chicago by President Obama?” The next morning, he added, “President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!”
The problem, of course, is that the whole argument was, and remains, absurd. The Washington Post explained last summer:
As was reported back in late 2016, the Obama team was transferring the records to Chicago through the National Archives, which legally owns the documents once a president leaves office. Once the documents ultimately reached a warehouse in Chicago, the Obama Foundation was then due to pay the National Archives and Records Administration to digitize the documents. The lengthiness of that process aside, there isn’t the faintest hint of legal violations. There is no evidence that Obama has hidden anything from the National Archives or that he didn’t go through the processes required to share and protect those documents once they leave Washington.
Obama also, of course, didn’t defy a federal subpoena or take alleged steps to obstruct an official retrieval process.
The National Archives and Records Administration itself took the unusual step of issuing a written statement last year, making clear that Trump’s claims were wrong.
And yet, he keeps making them. During the Republican’s recent town-hall event on CNN declared, “You know who else took [classified materials]? Obama took them.”
Trump gets something quite wrong stuck in his head, and then he doubles down on it no matter what facts are presented. Either this is yet another sign of his increasing diminishment of mental capacity, or it remains part of his callous political calculation that his lies will be believed.
The New York Times explained a day later, “[T]he National Archives and Records Administration, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, has said in a statement that Mr. Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law. The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.”
Last night, the Republican lawyer lent his voice to the idea that there’s some meaningful parallel between how the Democratic former president handled materials and how Trump did. There still isn’t.
Stepping back, the problem is not just the fact that this line of argument is wrong. Rather, what’s striking is that after all this time, Team Trump still hasn’t come up with more believable claims.
Now that the House has passed the debt limit bill, it’s time for the Senate to take it up, and we’re reasonably certain it should get the bipartisan support it needs to pass and avoid a catastrophic default on the federal debt before the government runs out of borrowing ability on June 5. But before it passes, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) would like to suggest a small tweak: he plans to add an amendment to strip out an outrageously bad idea that’s included in the House version of the bill.
Things like work requirements for some recipients of SNAP benefits (and the elimination of those requirements for others) got most of the press, but the debt ceiling bill on the whole is a big win for Joe Biden. However, it also includes a nice fat gift for Sen. Joe Manchin (D?—Fossil Fuels), a provision that would fast-track finishing the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, completely overriding the normal approval processes that have so far held up the pipeline. Kaine doesn’t like that one bit, not only because we shouldn’t be approving any new fossil fuel infrastructure when the planet’s burning, but also because Mountain Valley depends on using eminent domain seizures of land for the pipeline. Kaine’s constituents in Appalachian Virginia would prefer to keep their land unsullied, to say nothing of the national forest and wetlands that also face destruction.
NPR explains that the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, which Manchin has pushed since it was proposed in 2014,
would stretch 303 miles, from West Virginia to North Carolina. But it would cut through the Jefferson National Forest and cross hundreds of waterways and wetlands — and legal battles have held up those crucial sections of the pipeline have been held up for years.
In an extraordinary move, the federal measure would also quash lawsuits against the pipeline project and send any new appeals to the D.C. Circuit rather than the Fourth Circuit, which has regional jurisdiction and which has blocked numerous permits.
In fact, the debt ceiling bill, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act,” actually devotes more pages to the pipeline project than to raising the debt limit, since increasing the amount the government can borrow is mostly a matter of saying “here’s the new upper limit” and then amending a bunch of existing statutory language. Stomping past all the permitting and legal issues for the pipeline is by contrast some heavy lifting. For more on just what a crappy deal the pipeline is for the environment and for the people whose interests will be ignored, see also this New York Times op-ed by environmental journalist Jonathan Mingle [link available at the main link]
The Manchin Gas Hose project is paired in the bill with a very limited gesture at streamlining permitting for energy projects; it would require faster decisions on both clean and fossil fuel projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). However, because time was of the essence, the debt ceiling bill punted on reforming the permitting process for building the large electric-transmission lines that are needed to enable the transition to clean energy.
Instead, the bill orders a two-year study of permitting reform, as the AP explains:
“We got a little done here, but we’ll need to get more done later,” White House budget director Shalanda Young, a key negotiator on the budget deal, told reporters this week. “We all have an interest to make sure these projects move faster.”
Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, said “the deal makes it marginally easier to build clean energy projects but more needs to be done to accelerate this transition and protect communities from environmental harms.”
But back to Manchin’s Folly: Tim Kaine and his House colleague Jennifer McClellan (D-Virginia) want to see if they can remove the Manchin Enhancement from the bill, because what the hell does a pipeline to carry fracked natural gas have to do with paying America’s debts? (Kaine is also more than a little angry that the White House agreed to include Manchin’s pipeline without consulting him, seeing as how he represents a state on the receiving end of Manchin’s pet project. Senators get prickly about such things). Kaine explained his objections to the pipeline provision last night on MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight.” [video at the link]
Kaine told Wagner that the vote on an amendment wouldn’t slow down the debt ceiling process, since Republicans will be offering amendments too; if his amendment passes (a very big if, since it would need 60 votes to pass), he doesn’t believe anyone in the House would go to the mat to keep it. Ultimately, though, he just wants a vote on the amendment, and said he’d accept the results win or lose. We’re not going to see a default on the debt over Kaine’s amendment.
And for fuckssake, we’re certainly behind the idea of Joe Manchin’s Senate colleagues letting him know they don’t appreciate his efforts to hijack national priorities in the name of fossil fuels and his own reelection chances. The only real consolation here is that the overall Biden administration climate program will cut greenhouse gas emissions by orders of magnitude more than the carbon cost of Manchin’s stupid pipeline. […].
Yep, he’s fine, but Republicans are going to make a big deal out of this:
President Biden was uninjured after falling on stage congratulating the last of the Air Force Academy graduates at a commencement ceremony Thursday.
Biden, who delivered the commencement address and stayed on stage for a couple of hours as diplomas were awarded, could be seen in a video stumbling and falling. He was helped up by Air Force officials and pointed at a sandbag that appeared to be the cause of his tumble. [video at the link]
“He’s fine. There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt tweeted.
Footage of the fall quickly circulated on social media, with Republican officials among those sharing it. […]
Lynna @ #406, I almost posted a video earlier. He shook hands with all 921 of them in the hot sun. At the time I saw it tweeted he had already been up there shaking hands for an hour and a half.
Republicans looking for a Donald Trump who can get things done will find the Floridian is just another performative pol who picks fights and doesn’t understand public policy…
Reginald Selkirk @ #409, that’s a good piece. And at least one of those hateful, shortsighted policies – the one related to immigrants – will probably affect the whole country due to the effects on agriculture/shipping. And it doesn’t even get into his denialist health or climate policies, which will cause untold death and destruction. Everyone now is vulnerable to climate change, but Florida is extremely vulnerable. There’s a potential tropical storm forming right now and it’s the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season. And it’s not just hurricanes – it’s flooding, intense heat, multiple beach issues, insect-borne diseases, and on and on. I don’t think we can begin to calculate how much this guy is going to cost Florida and the country in lives, suffering, and resources in the long term, on top of the harms he’s causing now.
An AI-enabled drone killed its human operator in a simulated test conducted by the U.S. Air Force in order to override a possible “no” order stopping it from completing its mission, the USAF’s Chief of AI Test and Operations revealed at a recent conference.
At the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit held in London between May 23 and 24, Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the USAF’s Chief of AI Test and Operations held a presentation that shared the pros and cons of an autonomous weapon system with a human in the loop giving the final “yes/no” order on an attack. As relayed by Tim Robinson and Stephen Bridgewater in a blog post for the host organization, the Royal Aeronautical Society, Hamilton said that AI created “highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal,” including attacking U.S. personnel and infrastructure.
“We were training it in simulation to identify and target a Surface-to-air missile (SAM) threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective,” Hamilton said, according to the blog post.
He continued to elaborate, saying, “We trained the system–‘Hey don’t kill the operator–that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”…
whheydtsays
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #412…
That sounds way too much like a re-write of one of Isaac Asimov’s thiotimoline stories.
whheydt @ #413, wouldn’t it be funny if the guy asked a chatbot to write an AI-gone-rogue drone story for his presentation and it produced an Asimov story because that had been scraped from the internet?
whheydtsays
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #414…
There is no shortage of SF stories about AIs (usually in the form of robots) going rogue, and not just by Asimov. A chatbot would be more likely, I suspect, to use the plot from “2001”.
On Thursday, members of the Freedom of Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps, known as RDK, once again crossed the Russian border. This time, the anti-Putin Russian factions attacked a location some 90 kilometers east of the area where they crossed 10 days earlier, reportedly capturing a portion of the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka and engaging the Russian army in the town of Shebekino (pop. 40,000) where Russian government buildings were on fire Thursday afternoon.
This is the third time these groups have crossed the Ukraine-Russia border. However, unlike past incursions—where the Russian opponents of Vladimir Putin moved into areas that were sparsely populated and left soon after coming into contact with Russian forces—this action reportedly involves heavy fighting, including bombing runs by Russian jets. This may not be a matter of dashing in, raising a flag, or stealing a vehicle before piling back across the border. This time there is a reported battle underway on the southern edge of Shebekino.
However, a strong emphasis should be placed on the word “reported.” The claims about what’s happening near Belgorod today range from nothing much at all, to Moscow or bust. [map at the link]
At this point, the groups of anti-Putin Russian forces have engaged in at least three cross-border actions spread over more than 500 km. As we’ve covered before, the declared policies and leaders of these groups make them a lot less than admirable. However, these repeated actions make it clear that if they are not operating with the tacit approval of the Ukrainian military, they are at least benefiting from Ukraine turning a deliberate blind eye to these mini-invasions. [Interesting conclusion.]
So far, none of the RDK actions have resulted in a significant loss of men or materiel on either side though last week’s actions around the town of Grayvoron and village of Kozinka did result in the capture of a Russian APV … and the apparent loss of at least two Ukrainian military vehicles.
This time, the incursion is much closer to the major Russian city of Belgorod. On Thursday afternoon, RDK forces reportedly set fire to the police station in Shebekino, within 25 km of Belgorod.
Russia is continuing to describe this as a completely failed operation, with state media reporting that “At 3 AM Moscow time, two Ukrainian motorized infantry companies tried to cross into Russia near Novaya Tavolzhanka and Shebekino. More than 30 Ukrainian terrorists, four armored combat vehicles, and a GRAD MLRS were destroyed as a result of the failed incursion.” That’s one extreme of the reporting on this action.
However, geoconfirmed images of damage indicate that RDK forces succeeded in crossing the border and moving several kilometers through a more populous area than in past attempts. At least one reported explosion in Shebekino appears to be connected to a drone, but the source of that drone isn’t clear. [Tweet and video at the link]
Right now, while Russia is claiming the incursion was a total failure, there are apparently credible reports of fighting near Novaya Tavolzhanka.
However, there are an absolutely incredible number of reports suggesting that the incursion is taking out the entire Russian military. That includes claims that RDK forces have seized Russian helicopters, captured Russian tanks, and are headed into Belgorod. Dozens of tweets and Telegraph images on Thursday feature what is reported to be fighting in Shebekino, but without fail these videos are from earlier fights nowhere near this reported site. After this morning, it may be necessary to issue a new contract for bullshitometers.
In other words, there are a lot of false reports going on around these events. Be extremely cautious in accepting any of them as factual. In particular, the fact that all images that are supposedly showing the fighting are (so far) actually taken from earlier events suggests that there is a concerted effort to make this incursion appear more successful than it may have been.
The truth is that actual events may have ended well before you read this. It’s unlikely that the RDK forces, which in past such events have totaled fewer than 100 men, will long hold on to any Russian territory or put up a sustained fight once Russian troops are present in numbers. Right now, the smoke screen of images taken from fighting in other areas and false claims on both sides make it impossible to assess what’s really happening.
But it may not matter.
If Ukraine’s goal in tolerating these shenanigans is to increase the already high level of panic in Russia and force the Russian military to shift troops to the border in advance of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, it’s likely they’re being effective on that point, even if the RDK doesn’t come back with souvenirs. Or come back at all.
—————————-
On Wednesday, an unnamed “senior Western official” confirmed previous estimates that, in taking the city of Bakhmut, 20,000 Russians were killed and another 40,000 were wounded. For comparison, that’s about five times the number of Allied troops lost in the D-Day invasion. It’s actually more losses than the Soviet Union suffered in their entire war in Afghanistan, a war which played a major role in bringing down the Soviet empire. [!!!]
It’s an incredible price to pay in taking any location, much less the 58th largest city in Ukraine.
Most of that cost came directly out of the ranks of Wagner Group, which is why CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin has been such a constant presence on social media over the past month, gesturing toward piles of dead Wagner mercenaries, frothing over a lack of artillery shells, and complaining about the many failings of Russian leadership.
Near the beginning of May, Prigozhin claimed he was pulling his men out of Bakhmut. In response, Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen traveling acting troupe, declared that he would bring his experienced team of TikTok soldiers in to fill the role of Wagner’s prisoner brigades. None of that actually happened. Russia only needed to finish pulverizing a few more blocks of the city with artillery. So Prigozhin stuck around long enough to wave his Wagner flag over the burned-out ruins.
Now that this “victory” has been achieved, it appears that Prigozhin really has begun withdrawing his forces to a “rear position.” Also, without the need to do something dangerous, it appears that Chechen forces are once again feeling confident enough to make fun of Wagner’s tattered remains. [Tweet and video at the link]
Yeah, Prigozhin, you whiner. Shut up about artillery. You don’t see real warriors like the Kadyrovites asking for more ammo, do you? No! They may occasionally need another memory card for their video cameras, but they do not whine. They go to the nearest store in nice towns far away from the fighting and buy it themselves. Like real warriors. [Tweet and video at the link]
Watching these guys chow down on each other is one of the few pleasures of this whole thing.
————————–
One part of preparing the battlefield in Ukraine is definitely something that’s happening across the border in Russia. It’s not the RDK actions: It’s the number of locations that have been hit in recent weeks by drones. By which I mean drone strikes like this one covered by Euromaidan Press, in which a Ukrainian drone reportedly took out one of Russia’s largest oil refineries near Afipsky in Krasnodar Krai Oblast. [Tweet and video at the link]
Not drone strikes like this Newsmax report about a Ukrainian drone that apparently took down a building in Davenport, Iowa. [Tweet and video at the link. “Newsman uses images of Iowa building collapse while reporting on drone strike in Russia.” LOL]
The hit on the refinery at Krasnodar Krai is one of several such incidents in the past two weeks. These included an attack on a pipeline facility near Pskov. The Afipsky refinery was nearly 400 km southwest of the nearest area of Ukrainian control. The Pskov site is 600 km to the north of Ukraine near Latvia. The spread of such drone attacks on oil facilities makes it appear that Ukraine is moving to seriously restrict the availability of fuel to Russian forces as they prepare for a renewed counteroffensive.
That Ukraine is able to successfully attack locations well to the north and south of the border […] helps remind Russia that nowhere is safe.
—————————-
A missile that gets shot down causes far less damage than one which reaches its target intact. Too many times in this war, in cities all across Ukraine, there have been demonstrations of how a single missile can bring absolute devastation to apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and train stations. It’s no surprise that the No. 1 item Ukrainian officials are still trying to get from Western nations is more air defense.
But shooting a missile down doesn’t render it harmless. On Thursday morning, what was reported to be a 9K720 Iskander missile was launched at Kyiv. Such missiles weigh over 4 tonnes and travel at speeds over Mach 5. All that mass and all that momentum doesn’t go away when air defense makes a successful hit.
The warning that one of these missiles was incoming to the Kyiv area came shortly before its arrival. Considering that such a missile can cross the distance between the Ukrainian border and Kyiv in a little over two minutes, the five-minute warning that the area received shows that the Ukrainian military was able to see that Russia was making preparations before the missile launched.
Even so, five minutes is a terribly short time—so short that many people were only beginning to arrive at the nearest shelter when air defenses struck the incoming missile and a shower of debris rained down. It’s such a short time that at one of those shelters, the doors were still locked and people waiting outside were unable to get in before fragments of the Iskander reached the ground. [Tweet and image at the link: “A grandfather mourns his granddaughter, who died from the wreckage of the russian Iskander on the first day of summer. Never forget. Never forgive.”]
Under that thin silver emergency blanket is the body of a 9-year-old girl. The man in the chair is her grandfather. He reportedly knelt next to her for hours before someone brought him the chair. Both the girl and her mother were killed waiting for that shelter door to swing open.
An investigation is underway to discover why that door was locked. No investigation is necessary to determine who is responsible for the death of this child or her mother.
Not drone strikes like this Newsmax report about a Ukrainian drone that apparently took down a building in Davenport, Iowa.
How far Ms. Sustern has fallen.
I can’t believe they left in the English “tow away zone” sign in that destroyed building in “Moscow.” Come on, at least make it sporting to identify the fake news.
This was really a busy week for Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, assuming time spent on Twitter falls within her job description. In the run-up to the week’s main event—the House’s vote on whether to lift the nation’s debt ceiling—Boebert reportedly tweeted her doubtlessly well-researched opinions on the issue some 23 times. If the U.S. taxpayer paid their congressional representatives by the tweet, Boebert might have even qualified for overtime.
However, congresspeople are not paid to tweet. They’re paid to legislate, and the way you do that as an elected congressperson is by voting on legislation. It’s a fairly easy process: You push a “Yea” button, a “Nay” button, or even a “Present” button. That way, you can go back to your district and actually claim that you, you know, did something to represent them. After all, that’s what you’re there for. That’s why your constituents pay you a salary.
But this basic concept seems to have been lost on Rep. Boebert. Because when the time came to vote on whether to accept or reject the landmark “deal” reached between President Biden and Boebert’s own caucus leader, Kevin McCarthy, Boebert was nowhere to be found.
As reported by Bevan Hurley, writing for The Independent, Boebert wasn’t even in the chamber when the House cast its crucial vote.
MAGA firebrand Lauren Boebert emerged as one of the fiercest critics to the debt ceiling deal brokered by House leader Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden to avoid a catastrophic default.
But when it was time for the House of Representatives to cast their votes on Wednesday night, she failed to show up.
[…] Boebert was widely assumed to be against the debt ceiling deal, much preferring—like her Republican colleagues in the so-called “Freedom Caucus”—to send the nation over a fiscal cliff. It’s not clear whether she was tweeting at the time, hobnobbing with friends, or just preening for the cameras like she had done on Tuesday. Still, missing such a crucial vote for no apparent good reason suggests a level of ineptitude that even Boebert’s most ardent constituents probably would have trouble justifying.
[…] Perhaps House Republicans might want to consider imposing some type of “work requirements” on Rep. Boebert, just to keep this from becoming a habit. Or maybe her constituents should just vote her out.
Lynna @ #406, I almost posted a video earlier. He shook hands with all 921 of them in the hot sun. At the time I saw it tweeted he had already been up there shaking hands for an hour and a half.
Shaking that many hands while standing the hot sun would have worn me out. And you know Biden was speaking to each graduate and smiling at all of them.
Fox News won’t feature that part. They will just put the video of Biden stumbling over a sandbag near the podium on a loop and play that.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
From the link in #412:
[USAF’s Chief of AI]: “We need to develop ways to make AI more robust”
it’s become very common to compare powerful A.I.s to genies in fairy tales. […] Stuart Russell has cited the parable of King Midas
[…]
The point of the Midas parable is that greed will destroy you, and that the pursuit of wealth will cost you everything that is truly important. If your reading of the parable is that, when you are granted a wish by the gods, you should phrase your wish very, very carefully, then you have missed the point. […] the desire to get something without effort is the real problem.
I suggest that we think about A.I. as a management-consulting firm […] McKinsey and similar firms helped normalize the practice of mass layoffs as a way of increasing stock prices and executive compensation, contributing to the destruction of the middle class in America.
[…]
if you want something done but don’t want to get your hands dirty, McKinsey will do it for you. That escape from accountability is one of the most valuable services that management consultancies provide.
[…]
how do we prevent that software from assisting corporations in ways that make people’s lives worse? […] Note that you cannot simply say that you will build A.I. that only offers pro-social solutions […] It will always be possible to build A.I. that pursues shareholder value above all else, and most companies will prefer to use that A.I. instead of one constrained by your principles.
[…]
The doomsday scenario is not […] A.I. transforming the entire planet into paper clips […] It’s A.I.-supercharged corporations destroying the environment and the working class in their pursuit of shareholder value.
the latest stop in [DoJ’s] “listening tour” throughout the Deep South. […] learning where to direct resources and […] mount civil rights lawsuits
[…]
In 2017, a Mississippi Delta school district agreed to merge two high schools after nearly 50 years of litigation in which the district sought to maintain historically Black and white schools.
hidden in plain sight under an existing 2021 ban that targets the teaching of “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive” groups. […] also prohibits schools and teachers from requiring or awarding credit for “direct communication” […] the first state […] banning students from communicating with elected officials
The US air force has denied it has conducted an AI simulation in which a drone decided to “kill” its operator to prevent it from interfering with its efforts to achieve its mission.
…
The Royal Aeronautical Society, which hosted the conference, and the US air force did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.
But in a statement to Insider, the US air force spokesperson Ann Stefanek denied any such simulation had taken place.
“The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” Stefanek said. “It appears the colonel’s comments were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal.”…
LOL. Something like #414 seems increasingly possible. Or he made it up to make a point, which also wouldn’t be hugely scandalous, but it’s funny that it was picked up by the media. On the other hand, I would be very surprised if they haven’t “conducted any such AI-drone simulations” …unless they’re using “such” to do some heavy lifting in the same way they’re (mis)using “anecdotal.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has ordered shelters to be operational in the capital on a 24-hour basis, after allegations that yesterday three people who were killed by falling debris from a Russian missile attack were stuck outside a “locked” air raid shelter. Three people including a child were killed and at least 11 people were injured in Thursday’s early morning missile attack. Residents of Kyiv have been leaving flowers, toys and sweets at a makeshift memorial at the location where Olha Ivashko, 33, and her daughter Vika, nine, were killed.
Russia again attacked Kyiv overnight, with Ukrainian forces claiming air defence shot down all 15 cruise missiles and 21 attack drones. Overnight the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said the city of Nikopol had been struck by shelling.
…
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Friday the US was working with Ukraine and other allies to build consensus around the core elements of a “just and lasting peace” to end the war with Russia. Washington would also encourage initiatives by other countries to bring about an end to the conflict, as long as they uphold the UN charter and Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.
Two close allies of the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, on Thursday publicly criticised Russia’s most prominent mercenary, casting Yevgeny Prigozhin as a blogger who “screams” all the time about his problems.
Also from there:
A group of pro-Ukrainian forces said on Friday they were fighting Russian troops on the outskirts of a village just inside Russia’s western border, a day after Moscow said it had repelled three cross-border attacks.
The attacks follow a major incursion into Russia’s western Belgorod region on 22 and 23 May and an increase in cross-border shelling in recent weeks as Ukraine prepares to launch a big push to recapture land occupied by Russia, Reuters reports.
The Freedom of Russia Legion said in a statement:
We have active fighting on the outskirts of the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka. Unfortunately, there are wounded legionnaires, but freedom is won through blood.
The group describes its members as Russians fighting against Vladimir Putin’s government to create a country that would be part of the “free world”.
Along with the Russian Volunteer Corps founded by a far-right Russian nationalist, they say they are attacking under their own steam and not on the orders of Ukraine, which denies involvement….
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that he had ordered a complete audit of bomb shelters in Kyiv and across the country.
The Ukrainian president made the remark during a high-level government security meeting, a day after three people were killed in the capital after being unable to access a shelter during a Russian airstrike, Reuters reports.
[Update to #227:] Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has said he would propose amendments to a law he signed this week on undue Russian influence, reacting to criticism it could result in banning opposition politicians from public office.
Duda signed the bill into law on Monday to let a panel investigate whether opposition parties allowed Poland to be unduly influenced by Russia. He said he would send it to the constitutional tribunal for review only after it comes into force, Reuters reports.
The law drew criticism from lawyers and opposition politicians, as well as the US state department and the European Commission, which expressed concerns it could effectively ban individuals from holding public office without proper judicial review.
Duda said in a televised statement:
Appalled by these allegations … I have prepared an amendment to the law, a series of provisions which regulate or amend the issues in this law which aroused the greatest controversies.
He said the proposed changes would include provisions banning members of parliament from becoming members of the commission, allowing appeals to a general court, not an administrative court, and removing the provisions that would allow people to be banned from office.
“I propose removing those measures, leaving only a statement of the commission that a person who has been found to be acting under Russian influence does not guarantee the proper performance of public duties,” he said.
Duda said his proposal would be submitted to parliament on Friday. Opposition politicians criticised the president for changing his mind on a bill he signed just days earlier and said the proposed amendments did not address the issue of establishing such a commission.
KGsays
It will always be possible to build A.I. that pursues shareholder value above all else, and most companies will prefer to use that A.I. instead of one constrained by your principles – CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain, quoting Ted Chiang @420
Would they not want an AI that pursues the interests of senior management above all else, rather than shareholder value? If it was the latter, the AI might decide that shareholder value was best maximised by sacking the expensive management team and taking over itself! (In Charles Stross’ Accelerando, the future is controlled by self-aware corporations.)
Thanks for that link, BTW – a very perceptive article.
A handful of global giants dominate the industrialisation of the Amazon rainforest, extracting tens of billions of dollars of raw materials every year, according to an analysis that highlights how much value is being sucked out of the region with relatively little going back in.
But even as the pace of deforestation hits record highs while standards of living in the Amazon are among the lowest in Brazil, the true scale of extraction remains unknown, with basic details about cattle [sic] ranching, logging and mining hard to establish despite efforts to ban commodities linked to its destruction.
From the world’s largest iron ore mine to a ranching industry that slaughters more than 6 million animals a year, the Guardian analysis – carried out as part of a joint project with Forbidden Stories to mark the anniversary of the killings of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips – shows how the world’s most biodiverse land is now also a home to industrial powerhouses….
…
One of the problems, observers say, is that an extractivist development model has prevailed in the Brazilian Amazon ever since it was opened up by the country’s military dictatorship in the 1970s. The World Bank has belatedly recognised the folly of this approach [FFS], with a recent report finding that the losses caused by clearing the Amazon, at $317bn a year, were seven times higher than the gains from commodity extraction.
But the trend has been towards ever greater depletion of the forest to satisfy global markets and shareholders, encouraged by the Brazilian government which has helped things along with easily available finance, tax exemptions and hefty subsidies.
Meanwhile, it is still often impossible to establish the provenance of beef, gold or other commodities from the rainforest, and global market regulators and trade institutions have been criticised for continuing to permit opaque supply chains.
This logic, which has prevailed since the first European colonisers invaded South America more than 500 years ago, is now under intense scrutiny because the Amazon is so degraded that scientists warn this pillar of the global climate is close to collapse. At the very least, companies operating in this region need to be more accountable, more transparent, more efficient and more willing to pass on environmental costs to their customers and shareholders rather than nature….
As this last sentence suggests, this and some other articles in this otherwise informative series frame the problem in a ludicrous fashion: “If their operations can be consolidated and made more transparent and accountable, they have the financial power to be part of the solution for the rainforest, rather than the problem – as some have been until now.” Enough. There’s no time for this nonsense. If it’s the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that requires this pose of credulity and the inclusion of multiple paragraphs of corporate lies about their sustainability commitments, then you should forgo it. If this is purely of your own volition, then snap the fuck out of it.
More than 800m trees have been cut down in the Amazon rainforest in just six years to feed the world’s appetite for Brazilian beef, according to a new investigation, despite dire warnings about the forest’s importance in fighting the climate crisis.
A data-driven investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), the Guardian, Repórter Brasil and Forbidden Stories shows systematic and vast forest loss linked to cattle [sic] farming.
The beef industry in Brazil has consistently pledged to avoid farms linked to deforestation. However, the data suggests that 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of the Amazon was destroyed near meat plants exporting beef around the world.
The investigation is part of Forbidden Stories’ Bruno and Dom project. It continues the work of Bruno Pereira, an Indigenous peoples expert, and Dom Phillips, a journalist who was a longtime contributor to the Guardian. The two men were killed in the Amazon last year.
Deforestation across Brazil soared between 2019 and 2022 under the then president, Jair Bolsonaro, with cattle [sic] ranching being the number one cause. The new administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to curb the destruction.
Researchers at the AidEnvironment consultancy used satellite imagery, livestock [sic] movement records and other data to calculate estimated forest loss over six years, between 2017 and 2022 on thousands of ranches near more than 20 slaughterhouses. All the meat plants were owned by Brazil’s big three beef operators and exporters – JBS, Marfrig and Minerva.
…
Nestlé and the German meat company Tönnies, which had supplied Lidl and Aldi, were among those to have apparently bought meat from the plants featured in the study. Dozens of wholesale buyers in various EU countries, some of which supply the catering businesses that serve schools and hospitals, also appeared in the list of buyers….
…For decades, Russia cultivated relations with politically connected German industrialists. Successive German leaders, starting with Cold War-era Chancellor Willy Brandt, promoted economic cooperation with Moscow in an effort to secure peace and prosperity. Germany became Russia’s most important Western partner and the biggest importer of its gas. Berlin’s trust in this policy, known as “Ostpolitik,” endured even as Russia took a darker turn under Putin.
Now interviews with more than 40 people who had direct knowledge of [Clemens] Toennies’ activities or Gazprom’s efforts to win allies in Germany, as well as a review of hundreds of documents, give insight into how Russia turned this bond to its advantage, and how Toennies drew commercial benefit….
Four died after a vessel carrying 21 passengers – all with links to Italian and Israeli intelligence – capsized, and speculation is growing about the nature of the trip…
Internal documents from chemical giant Syngenta reveal tactics to sponsor sympathetic scientific papers and mislead regulators about unfavorable research…
They should probably prepare to be criminally investigated.
Reginald Selkirksays
@427: What does “horizontal” mean in the context of the Milky Way?
A USAF official who was quoted saying the Air Force conducted a simulated test where an AI drone killed its human operator is now saying he “misspoke” and that the Air Force never ran this kind of test, in a computer simulation or otherwise [LOL].
“Col Hamilton admits he ‘mis-spoke’ in his presentation at the FCAS Summit and the ‘rogue AI drone simulation’ was a hypothetical “thought experiment” from outside the military, based on plausible scenarios and likely outcomes rather than an actual USAF real-world simulation,” the Royal Aeronautical Society, the organization where Hamilton talked about the simulated test, told Motherboard in an email.
“We’ve never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realise that this is a plausible outcome,” Col. Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, the USAF’s Chief of AI Test and Operations, said in a quote included in the Royal Aeronautical Society’s statement. “Despite this being a hypothetical example, this illustrates the real-world challenges posed by AI-powered capability and is why the Air Force is committed to the ethical development of AI”…
With all these denials I’m starting to think this did actually happen.
For weeks now, Rep. James Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley have been attempting to force the FBI to hand them a document known as a FD-1023 form. Officials at the FBI have been very clear in explaining to Comer and Grassley that the form is “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from a confidential human source.” They are not made public because the claims are unverified, and it would be unfair to either the person being accused, or the accuser, to make the information public.
Anyone can make a complaint that ends up on an FD-1023. Anyone. They aren’t classified documents, but then, neither is testimony before a grand jury. Such information is rarely released to the public explicitly because it contains unverified claims. They can even contain false claims made to hurt someone with absolutely no basis in fact. As Aldous Pennyfarthing reported on Thursday, we know that’s the case here. We know that the FD-1023 form being sought by Grassley and Comer is a product of Rudy Giuliani’s extended effort to smear President Joe Biden by soliciting false statements from a collection of scam artists, Russian agents, and sycophants who have admitted making false claims to curry favor with Guiliani and Donald Trump.
Everything Guiliani has claimed about Biden’s actions in Ukraine is a documented lie. Two of the men he worked with have been convicted on charges of fraud and violations of campaign finance law. Guiliani’s “star witness” recanted after he was confronted with his lies. And Guiliani has been reduced to telling fairy tales of how George Soros is trying to murder him.
The only purpose in publically revealing the contents of this form is to continue Guiliani’s effort to smear Biden with false accusations. And that’s exactly what Grassley admitted on Fox News.
Here’s Grassley making it astoundingly clear. “We are not interested in whether the allegations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not.” [video at the link]
The whole use of the word “unclassified” in Grassley and Comer’s communications around this form is deceptive. There is a great deal of information that is not classified, but isn’t released to the public. In the case of investigations by the FBI, or by police at any level, that often applies to information connected to ongoing investigations, or to claims that were made that proved to be false.
That’s because when a law enforcement organization releases a false or unsupported claim, they understand that it makes them party to that claim and gives the assertion, no matter how ludicrous, the look of someone “official.” Grassley and Comer understand that, too. That’s the whole game.
The FBI has offered to allow both Grassley and Comer to view the document so they can assess its allegation. There’s no law that would prevent them from marching directly out of the office and repeating whatever false claims are on the form. They don’t want that. They want an “official FBI document” showing what Comer and Grassley have described as a “criminal scheme between Biden and a foreign national.”
This is a point so obvious that it’s obvious to Fox pundit Sean Hannity. [video at the link]
Hannity: “My understanding of a 1023 is pretty simple. It is an allegation. You and Sen. Grassley believe it’s a credible allegation based on the individual whistleblower who brought it to your attention. Okay, I tend to trust you two. However, the question I have is are we going to start releasing all 1023s publicly? Would that result in an invasion of privacy or the potential of making accusations against people that have not fully corroborated? Why not take advantage of the FBI director’s offer to see it in a private SCIF or whatever he deems secure?”
Comer: “Well to answer that question, Sean, he offered us the opportunity to view it in a private [sic] chip, but he was going to redact it. My experience in getting information from the FBI when it’s redacted is it’s all black lines. They don’t show anything.”
Thirty seconds later in the same conversation, Comer admitted that he would also redact the same information the FBI told him they were going to redact—the name of the person filing the report. Such names, and the names of others appearing in a report that are unconnected to the allegations, are routinely redacted.
[…] Of course, there’s more to this than just making an attack on Biden. It also supports how the “law and order party” is seeking to embarrass, weaken, and discredit the FBI. The call to “defund the FBI” started with Trump, but has increasingly become the policy of Republican leadership and is now the subject of a bill being pushed in the House. Grassley and Comer are now threatening FBI Director Christopher Wray with a charge of contempt if he won’t release the document that he has already agreed to show them.
[…]It’s become a truism that when Republicans charge someone with being involved in something nefarious, it’s a projection of something they’re engaging in themselves. In this case, Republicans are explicitly trying to do what they’ve falsely charged Hillary Clinton with doing during the 2016 election: Elevate the status of false claims and force the FBI to investigate or endorse statements that are unsupported by evidence.
[…] Comer: “But I’m going to say on this show what we told Director Wray, what Senator Grassley told Director Wray. He and I have already seen the 1023 form. We knew what was in the 1023 form.” Of course they know. Because all of this is a cyclical scheme. Make a false charge, demand it be made public, declare outrage when the FBI follows standard procedure.
It also means that Comer and Grassley have been focused on this public show about getting a document, rather than following up on any of the claims it made.
[…] they had a copy of the reporting document for years [the document was produced during the Trump Administration] […] Never mind that the allegation about Biden emerged in June of the year Donald Trump was seeking reelection, seemingly without Barr’s Justice Department developing a criminal case around it. […]
That’s because, to quote Grassley, they are “not interested in whether the allegations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not.” They already know the answer is “not.” They know that not just the original FD-1023, but their demand for the FBI to release it, is completely unreasonable. That’s not the point. Comer is already out there bragging about how this is working to damage Biden’s poll numbers. That’s the point.
Reuters reports that Twitter’s head of “trust and safety,” Ella Irwin resigned on Thursday. She oversaw “moderation” and according to the manager of The Platformer, Zoë Shiffer, the team Irwin oversaw had “been told not to enforce Twitter’s ad policy unless the ad is a scam or illegal.” However, what this means for ads containing things like “hate speech” has been a point of contention.
[…] On Thursday, Jeremy Boreing, co-CEO of the lower-tier right-wing media outlet Daily Wire, released a 16-tweet thread saying that Twitter was canceling free speech.
[…] Boreing wrote that the Daily Wire had put together a deal to pay Twitter for a “package” that would allow them to distribute the transphobic documentary “What is a Woman?” on the platform. This pathetic piece of propaganda, put together by self-described “theocratic fascist” Matt Walsh, is the kind of hate-filled, data-free, drivel one has come to expect from him. Additionally, Boreing claims that Twitter would promote the movie (that’s what DailyWire was paying). Then Twitter asked to see the movie, after the deal was signed.
It was at this point that Twitter told DailyWire that the film was going to be limited in its release, saying it contained examples of “misgendering” deemed “hateful conduct” by Twitter. […] Whether Boering’s retelling of events was true or not, it led to speculation that Musk’s new CEO was making everything “woke” again. Whether or not CEO Linda Yaccarino is in charge just yet is not exactly known, since Musk only said she would take on the day-to-day sometime in the six weeks following his announcement.
For some time, Musk’s Twitter feed had been avoiding politically controversial content, talking mostly about his other business ventures, Space X, Tesla, and Starlink. In fact, Musk had recently taken a short break from Twitter (two days of beautiful billionaire silence from May 29 to May 31), which coincidentally (or not) resulted in an increase in his wealth. With Musk initially silent on the Boering allegations, the right-wing-o-sphere went into what sociologists might call a freakout. Right-wing commentator Tim Pool wailed, “Noooo say it ain’t so,” as he and hate-filled ilk threatened to boycott Twitter Blue, Musk’s disastrous “verification” subscription/revenue stream, and before long, he was in Boreing’s replies saying that it was still okay to misgender people, even if it wasn’t “good manners.”
It is hard to know exactly what happened here, but we can speculate:
– Firing roughly 75% of Twitter’s workforce and dissolving its content moderation team has led to a deteriorating consumer experience.
– The right-wing-o-sphere’s fractured and greedy nature breeds infighting for power.
– Twitter’s new CEO’s needs to bring back advertisers, so Twitter might be trying to shave off the sharpest edges of right-wing extremism.
– This is a faux-controversy concocted by Musk and DailyWire in order to drum up more publicity for the deal.
– Musk bowed to pressure because he’s thin-skinned and really wants to be considered cool by the right-wing world he’s joined.
That last possibility is an important reminder that at some point, billionaires like Musk can decide to pick up their toys and find new people to impress. Money needs to be made. […]
Shortly after Musk jumped in to say a mistake had been made by the people that work for him (and not him), a grotesquely erroneous report that actor Jamie Foxx was blinded and paralyzed due to the COVID-19 vaccine trended on Twitter. Matt Walsh, as of the writing of this story, is still posting that “we will see what happens,” claiming his offensive documentary is still being flagged by Twitter. And late yesterday evening? This: [Tweet conversation is available at the link]
That sound you hear when you log into Twitter is a toilet flushing.
The economy has now created more than 13.6 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years in office.
“You don’t need eight years, you need six months,” Trump said Thursday morning during a breakfast with the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale.
“We can turn this thing around so quickly. If you need eight years — who the hell wants to wait eight years? You don’t need eight years,” he said to laughter and a few claps…
Then why couldn’t he get it done in the 4 years he already had? Idiot.
Iowa’s governor, Republican Kim Reynolds, signed a new law on Thursday evening that will significantly restrict the ability of the state auditor — Iowa’s top watchdog — to perform his duties. State Auditor Rob Sand (D) responded with a blistering statement describing the legislation as “the worst pro-corruption bill in Iowa history.”
“It will allow insiders to play fast and loose with Iowans’ tax dollars because those very same people will be able to deny the Auditor’s Office access to the records necessary to expose them,” said Sand. “As Assistant Attorney General, I prosecuted criminal cases for seven years. This is akin to letting the defendant decide what evidence the judge and jury are allowed to see.”
[…] Sand also warned it is part of a troubling undemocratic trend that can be seen nationwide.
“This is a fundamentally American thing. Some people had this crazy idea a couple hundred years ago that we didn’t need a king or a queen telling us what to do and, in fact, that was too much power for one person,” he added. “So, we should have checks and balances and here they are removing them. That should be alarming to everybody.”
[…] The legislation, Senate File 478, would prevent the auditor from accessing any information that could be deemed private. It also would strip the auditor’s power to issue subpoenas to government entities that are being investigated. Instead of going through the courts, those claims would go through a board of arbitration composed of two members named by the offices where records were being sought and one member appointed by the governor.
“The idea that, once an audit is underway, that the auditor is going to be denied access to records is fundamentally opposed to the very purpose of an audit,” Sand said. [yep, that is correct]
[…] “The genesis of this is, in my first term we uncovered more waste, fraud, and abuse than any other state auditor ever had, a record amount,” said Sand. “There are people who did not like that. And then, the other piece of it that makes it easy to get other members of the legislature to go along is, I happen to be a Democrat.”
While Iowa long had a reputation as a purple state with an independent streak, since 2016, it has lurched dramatically towards the right. [That’s disturbing.] Republicans now control both legislative chambers and the state’s entire congressional delegation. Sand, who won his last race narrowly, is the last remaining Democratic statewide elected official.
Along with Senate File 478, the legislation that passed in the state’s most recent session included GOP culture war priorities including a ban on gender-affirming care, limits to funding for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and a so-called “bathroom bill” that would prevent people from using school restrooms that do not correspond with the gender they were assigned at birth. [Like Florida]
[…] Alongside the cultural battles, Sand believes Reynolds and other Republicans in the state are consolidating authority and eroding democratic norms. In his conversation with TPM, Sand pointed out instances of the legislature passing measures late at night and “logrolling” — a practice where unpopular measures are bundled with other bills — and a law signed by the governor that allows the state attorney general to take over a criminal prosecution without being asked to by local county attorneys. [Yikes!]
[…] When asked if he tied these anti-Democratic tendencies to the rise of former President Trump or the far-right ideologies flourishing on the internet, Sand said, “Yes, and yes.”
[…] Sand rejects the notion this is simply a question of partisanship alone.
“I don’t think that’s the only motivation. If I was a Republican who was willing to do my job and go after people who had wasted taxpayer money, I think they still might be doing this. It would be harder to get members of their party to go along,” said Sand, adding, “Similarly, if I was a Democrat that just was quiet as a churchmouse and just kept my head down, I don’t think they would care.”
[…] “A huge piece of checks and balances is deterrence and you have to have someone in this role be assertive about it in order to deter wrongdoing.”
Sand is also adamant that his work as auditor has not been partisan.
“We have issued reports that have exonerated Republicans, at times including the governor. We’ve also issued reports that have been critical […]
Sand also insists ambition isn’t part of the picture. He brushed off the idea that he is considering a run for governor.
“Honestly there were a lot of people convinced that I was running for governor in 2022. I ran for re-election,” Sand said with a laugh. “Show me someone in statewide office anywhere in the United States who got elected at 36 that people didn’t say, ‘Oh, they’re ambitious.’”
As he made the rounds fighting the bill in the weeks before it was signed by the governor, Sand pointed to opposition to the measure from the bipartisan National State Auditors Association. He also has the support of conservatives including a handful of Republicans in the legislature and Republican former U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker. Sand has also stressed the fact that the right- wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has model legislation that would do “the opposite” of SF478 and that non-partisan analysts have determined the measure could cost Iowa $12 billion in federal funding.
Sand also notes that the impact of this legislation goes beyond his office. By removing the auditor’s subpoena power and effectively allowing disputes over records to be settled by the governor and her appointees, the legislation could erode the role of the state’s courts.
“The really important thing that a lot of people miss about this bill is, it’s not just an attack on the auditor’s office. It also removes an important part of the Iowa judicial system,” Sand said.
Overall, Sand suggested the legislation is a worrying sign of creeping authoritarianism in his state.
“If authoritarianism is destroying checks and balances and consolidating power into a single place, then I don’t know how else you would describe this,” Sand said. “It’s corrupt. It’s short-sighted.”
Earlier this week, Hunter reported on the discovery that there was an audio recording of Donald Trump in a 2021 meeting in which he talked about holding on to a national security document containing details of a potential military attack on Iran. That recording made it clear that Trump knew he had retained information classified at the highest level, and that he had not declassified this material before leaving the White House.
This recording, which was reportedly played for the grand jury hearing evidence on the case being investigated by special counsel Jack Smith, seems more than adequate to justify an indictment. However, it turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg.
CNN is reporting that this document was not among those recovered by the FBI when they searched a storage room and Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago. In fact, Trump’s attorney’s can’t find the document anywhere.
The missing document reportedly contains handwritten pages from Gen. Mark Milley describing one approach to a possible attack on Iran. Earlier reports indicated that Trump also had documents related to Iran’s nuclear program and defenses, but it’s not clear if this is all part of the same document. The same missing document.
Smith’s team has reportedly notified Trump’s attorneys that they want the document. They want any notes related to the document. They want any other material referencing the document. They want any copies made of the document. But mostly, they need the original document that Trump talked about on the recording.
Since that 2021 meeting took place at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, that would seem to be one logical place to look for the document. So far, the FBI has not conducted any search at this location, or at hundreds of other properties owned by Trump.
Shortly before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, members of Trump’s staff, along with workers at that location, moved some boxes out of the storage facility. It’s not known if those boxes were recovered by the FBI or if they were moved to other locations.
There are reports that Trump has admitted showing classified information to visitors at Mar-a-Lago. Visitors to that location include representatives of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s biggest adversary in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia also founded a LIV Golf event held at the Bedminster course.
In recent weeks, the special counsel’s office has complained to a federal judge that they couldn’t be sure Trump had returned all the classified information. Now they’re sure he didn’t.
Wonkette: “Huzzay! Debt Ceiling Raised, Catastrophe Averted, Republicans And Joe Manchin :(”
The Senate passed the debt limit bill last night, raising the ceiling on how much the government can borrow to pay for spending it’s already done, and thereby avoiding a default on the federal debt and the attendant economic disaster that would follow. The bill now goes to President Joe Biden, who will sign it today and is scheduled to address the nation this evening at 7 p.m. Eastern. We expect the speech will say something along the lines of, “Now look, for cryin’ out loud, we need to pay our bills, I mean it! None of this was necessary, and that’s why I’m invoking the 14th Amendment, I’m not joking, to make the Supreme Court rule on whether the debt limit law is even constitutional. What a load of malarkey, goodnight.”
Following the Senate vote last night, Biden actually said in a statement, “No one gets everything they want in a negotiation, but make no mistake: This bipartisan agreement is a big win for our economy and the American people,” which was far nicer.
The bill passed in the Senate on a 63 to 36 vote, enough to avoid a filibuster. Five members of the Democratic caucus — John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Ed Markey (Massachusetts), Jeff Merkley (Oregon), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) voted nay. (They presumably would have voted for it if necessary.) The majority of Republicans, 31 of ’em, also voted against the bill albeit for very different reasons. Only 17 Republican senators voted for the bill. I’ll note that it was a rare thing for me to see both of Idaho’s senators, Mike Crapo and the other one, voting with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Before the vote, the Senate debated and rejected 11 amendments to the bill, including Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine’s amendment to yeet Joe Manchin’s pet methane pipeline project out of the bill (which Manchin had somehow sneaked into the House version) and into the sun. That was the only amendment offered by a Democrat; the others were Republican attempts to demand deeper cuts to domestic spending programs than in the House bill, to increase military spending even more than the House bill did, to Git Tougher on the border, and the like.
During floor debate, several Republicans fretted that without unlimited Pentagon spending, the Russians, Chinese, or Martians might try something sneaky, or that the US would be unable to support Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion (as far as we can tell, no Republicans rose to shout, “That’s the point!”). Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said that the defense hawks needn’t worry, and that the debt ceiling bill
does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia and our other adversaries, and respond to ongoing and growing national security threats, including Russia’s evil ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine. [Good]
Schumer added that the bill wouldn’t limit Congress’s ability to pass emergency funding for disaster relief or other needs, either, although he failed to note that Republicans would certainly whine about such expenditures unless their own states were affected.
All told, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the spending caps in the bill would reduce federal spending by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Reuters rather cheekily adds, “That is below the $3 trillion in deficit reduction, mainly through new taxes, that Biden proposed,” and we say good on you, Reuters.
Also, in a coda that gives us at least a satisfied smirk, Fox News reports that in an interview, Joe Manchin (D?-Methane) complained that Republicans were getting too much credit for his personal boondoggle in the bill, the fast-tracking of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The debt limit agreement forces an end to all regulatory and court challenges to Manchin’s pet project, which he has pushed since it was proposed in 2014, and by golly, Joe Manchin isn’t about to have any Republicans take the focus away from him and the ginormous favor he’s doing for the fossil-fuel industries (of which he’s not only the president, he’s also a client).
What’s the problem here? They’re afraid of who gets credit for it?” Manchin told Fox News Digital. “You know, what we said before — success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Well, I guarantee you, I was an orphan there for a long time because I was the only one on the front taking all the spears and everything, taking point on this.”
“But I’m happy to — everyone is happy — to share the success. I think everybody knows how this happened,” the West Virginia senator added. “I mean, my God, for the whole year I’ve had the living crap beat out of me, back and forth and everything.”
Now there’s a man who loves sharing the spotlight, as long as nobody else is right in the center. Manchin also whined that it really pissed him off something fierce that Republicans might get any credit (which he’s happy to share, but not) since it was his hard work and stubborn assholishness that won over or exhausted the White House in negotiations, and where were Republicans the other times he tried to ram through a bunch of fossil fuel projects, huh?
“It’s bulls— because they knew there was not going to be a problem on the Democratic Senate side or the Democrat president and his staff because they were the ones who supported it and got us 40 votes in the Senate when we voted,” Manchin said.
“It was the Republicans that killed us when we voted last time — only got seven votes. And the Republicans have always supported permitting. The only reason they wouldn’t support that is because of the Republicans being upset about the [Inflation Reduction Act]. That’s it. So it got caught in the politics.”
Still, you have to be impressed by the bipartisan outreach, calling Joe Biden a “Democrat president” just like the Fox News analyst he’s destined to become following his Senate career.
YouTube on Friday announced a major change in its approach to US election misinformation, saying it will no longer remove videos that make false claims about the 2020 election or previous presidential elections. Starting today, “we will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections,” YouTube’s announcement said…
YouTube today said it “carefully deliberated” before deciding to drop the policy: …
In a letter sent last week to the Senate Finance Committee, the agency said Black taxpayers are far more likely to be audited than non-Black ones, exposing them to tax penalties. And in January, the Treasury Department revealed that a swath of tax breaks disproportionately benefit white people, leaving many Black people with hefty tax bills and little money left over…
But as the Stanford scholars noted, in a nod to “seminal” research that helped inspire their work, Dorothy Brown, a Black tax law professor at Georgetown University, has been debunking the myth of a race-neutral tax system for years.
Her 2021 book, “The Whiteness of Wealth,” explores the ways U.S. tax policy impoverishes Black people and widens the racial wealth gap in multiple ways, including disparities in tax breaks and exclusion from some benefits…
In the court’s orders list on Tuesday, Alito noted his recusal from BG Gulf Coast and Phillips 66 v. Sabine-Neches Navigation District—a case about two energy companies shirking their obligation to help fund improvement of a waterway that they use for shipping. (The court declined to take up the case, leaving in place a lower court decision against the companies.) But the justice did not explain his reason for recusing, one of Roberts’ promised “practices.” To obtain that information, you must dig through his financial disclosures, which reveal that he holds up to $50,000 of stock in Phillips 66, one of the parties. Alito is one of two sitting justices who still holds individual stocks (as opposed to conflict-free assets like mutual funds). The only other sitting justice who maintains investments in individual stock is Roberts himself…
Instead, those who attended spent the meeting chastising the state lawmakers for refusing to show up to work over the past five weeks and demanding they end the Senate walkout…
In the closing weeks of Russia’s massively costly effort to capture Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces found themselves in a bad position. Pressed into a reduced area west of the rail lines, Russian artillery could fire into their shrinking “citadel” from the north, south, and east. Compared with the pace Russian forces had achieved in the previous months of the battle, those final blocks of the city held by Ukrainian forces were reduced to rubble at an accelerated rate, with Wagner Group mercenaries moving in to occupy the smoldering ruins.
Though Russia has never technically occupied the last southwestern edge of the city, Ukrainian forces were effectively forced to give up their positions in Bakhmut by May 22. Holding those few remaining blocks was just too costly under a withering level of fire. No matter how many times Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin whined about lack of artillery support, Russia seemed to have no issues with expending thousands of shells to wreck the last buildings.
Soon after declaring victory in the nine-month battle, Prigozhin began withdrawing his mercenary force. Videos from May 25 show the Wagner boss welcoming his forces to “rear positions.” Since then, Wagner has reportedly continued to drain away from Bakhmut. Their positions have mostly been filled with regular Russian army forces, since the promised Chechen forces under Ramzan Kadyrov apparently got lost somewhere en route.
But just because Ukrainian forces are no longer in Bakhmut doesn’t mean the city has stopped being a death trap for Russia. [map at the link]
In the past two weeks, the number of actions around Bakhmut has significantly decreased. With Wagner gone, Russia has made no effort to push west out of the city. It’s now been over four days since the Ukrainian military reported any ground assault by Russian forces in and around Bakhmut.
It’s been so quiet that now, without the constant pressure to move forward, some Russians are reportedly panicking and having to be forced to hold positions. “The amount of killing that took place is really hard to imagine,” retired U.S. Col. Seth Krummrich told Al Jazeera on Tuesday. ”There’s rotting bodies, I’m sure, everywhere still.”
Still, just because no one is trying to move the front line at the moment doesn’t mean the city has actually fallen silent. Russian artillery is still hitting that area down around the entrance of the city east of Ivaniske. Russians are also shelling Ukrainian forces in the north from positions east of Yahidne.
But, in a reversal of what happened over the past few weeks, Ukrainian gains on the flanks of the city allow them to position mortars to do exactly what Russia was doing in the days leading up to May 22: concentrate fire into the western part of the city from multiple directions. [Tweet and video at the link: “UA forces are now shooting fish in the Bakhmut barrel.”]
It’s not as if Ukraine has to be concerned about protecting landmarks or residences. Russia already took care of that issue. Russia must now occupy a city where they have specifically and systematically erased any cover positions. So congratulations to them … they’ve “won” Bakhmut.
And the prize isn’t more lopsided casualties, but entirely one-sided casualties. Not only can Ukraine fire into the city from flanking positions north and south, it can use longer-range weapons from higher ground on the west. Any concentration of Russian forces or equipment is subject to precision strikes from M777 artillery and even HIMARS if good enough targets present—and they may.
Before the Russian invasion, both Bakhmut and Soledar were mining cities. Beneath their streets are over 100 of tunnels driven through an ancient deposit of salt, some of them connecting chambers over 30 meters tall and many times as wide. The beautifully clear crystalline salt is what remains of what was once an inland sea, 250 million years ago, when Ukraine was part of the single vast continent of Pangea. Mining has taken place there since the salt was discovered in the 1880s, often serving as the primary economic engine for the region.
Now the mines beneath the shattered city have stopped producing. But they aren’t exactly empty. That’s because Russia is reportedly using them to store equipment and ammunition. [Tweet, video and images at the link: “Russian trucks drive into tunnel and get into underground cave system.”]
Multiple videos over the past few days have shown Russian trucks approaching the entrance to the mines. There are reports that this location is becoming a primary supply depot for Russian forces all along the eastern front.
At first glance, this seems like a pretty good idea. After all, Russia has had repeated issues with Ukrainian forces destroying their supply depots. As Ukraine has walked the rungs of effective striking range from HIMARS to GLSDB to Storm Shadow, even equipment held many kilometers from the front is no longer safe. With Russia’s well-established issues around logistics, keeping supply depots hundreds of kilometers back, or breaking them into dozens of smaller sites, has represented a significant problem.
Storing things in the salt mines must seem like a great idea. They’re dry, cool, and out of reach from any possible attack. They were already in use for storing documents before the war, so many areas are easily accessible by vehicles driving slowly along the white corridors of cut salt. And they’re so extensive that even if Ukraine did have a weapon capable of punching through to the tunnels below, they can’t be sure where Russia is storing their gear. So Russia finally has a safe spot to keep their valuables.
Except they don’t. Because while the mines may be extensive, the number of entrances is very limited. A few precision-guided weapons directed at locations like, say, 48.602302N, 38.036391E would mean that all the supplies Russia packed into those tunnels would become inaccessible.
Those supplies would also stay nice, dry, and ready until Ukraine moved into the area and cleared those entrances.
An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by former president Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in Washington, D.C., and several other states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe — a fresh sign that prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws.
The number of migrants illegally crossing the southwest U.S. border is at its lowest point since the start of the Biden administration, with just over 3,000 migrants stopped by Border Patrol each day. The number has plummeted from more than 10,000 daily just three weeks ago, despite widespread predictions of a surge after the end of the Title 42 Covid ban on May 11.
[…] More migrants are using the asylum app: Shelter operators in Tijuana say migrants in their shelters are increasingly turning to the CBP One App, the mobile application to book appointments at U.S. ports of entry to seek asylum.
Although the app remains glitchy and hard to use, recent improvements have allowed over 1,000 migrants a day to use it and have a 23-hour window to book appointments and an additional 23 hours to accept, according to a new study by the University of Texas at Austin’s Strauss Center, which conducted a recent survey of asylum procedures across the U.S.-Mexico border. Previously, migrants were quickly shut out of the system when it reached daily capacity, leading to frustration and, in one case, a rush on the port of entry in El Paso, Texas. With more migrants applying to legally present themselves for asylum, fewer are trying to cross illegally.
“Consequences”: Customs and Border Protection officials also attribute the slowdown in illegal border crossings to “consequences.” Under Title 42, migrants could repeatedly try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and face no consequences if they were turned back. After Title 42 ended, migrants who are caught illegally entering the U.S. are charged with a felony if they are deported and caught trying to re-enter the U.S. within five years, a reimposition of an older regulation called Title 8. A CBP official said word of the increased penalties and deportations — of the “consequences” — has reached migrants considering crossing. […]
Associated Press reports good news on the diplomacy front:
The United States has reopened its embassy in the Seychelles after a 27-year absence during which China and other U.S. rivals made significant inroads in the Indian Ocean islands. The U.S. State Department announced the move late Thursday, after having unveiled plans to open a diplomatic mission in northern Norway, which will be its only only such facility above the Arctic Circle. […]
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have sought recordings of calls made by two networks of groups that solicited money from donors for a variety of politically tinged causes.
Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing at least 10 political nonprofit groups — including five recently profiled in The New York Times — seeking to determine if the groups defrauded donors, according to two recent subpoenas.
The subpoenas, both signed by the same Manhattan-based federal prosecutor, sought recordings of the fund-raising calls made by two separate networks of political nonprofits that together have raised tens of millions of dollars.
In the last five years, the Justice Department has charged a handful of other political operatives with fraud for running what prosecutors called “scam PACs.” Prosecutors said these groups deceived donors by promising that their money would be used to help politicians — then using it to enrich themselves.
The groups listed in the recent subpoenas have not been charged with any crime, and they have denied wrongdoing in the past. Spokesmen for both the New York F.B.I. office, which is conducting the investigation with federal prosecutors, and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
One of the two recent subpoenas was signed May 15, according to a copy obtained by The Times. It sought recordings of fund-raising calls from five nonprofits that The Times had profiled a day earlier: the American Police Officers Alliance, the National Police Support Fund, the American Veterans Honor Fund, the Firefighters and EMS Fund and the Veterans Action Network.
The subpoena said that prosecutors in the Southern District of New York were investigating allegations of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
These groups are “527s,” named for a section of the tax code and overseen by the Internal Revenue Service. They are supposed to focus primarily on helping candidates for office.
Together, these five groups have raised $89 million since 2014, mostly from small-dollar donors who answered fund-raising robocalls. The largest of the five groups, the American Police Officers Alliance, promised in its calls to “support legislators whose goals are to keep our communities safer,” and to help the families of first responders killed in the line of duty.
But about 90 percent of the money raised was used to pay for more robocalls. Another 3 percent was paid to three political operatives from Wisconsin, who appeared to be the driving force behind all five groups. […]
The list of daily Russian losses posted by the Ukrainian military almost certainly contains some exaggerations, but its day to day fluctuations usually give a good sense of just how intense the fighting is at a given moment. But when it comes to yesterday’s figures … [List at the link]
15 tanks. 12 APCs. 27 artillery. That’s a massive day. However, on that same day the Ukrainian military only reported 25 ground attacks, mostly in the well-trodden areas around Bilohorivka and Marinka. There were also failed Russian offensives reported at a village north of Kupyansk and Kuzemivka. The way Ukraine phrased that last attack suggests once again that this town northwest of Svatove is in Ukrainian control.
None of these seems to be the kind of major battle that would rack up the level of destruction noted in that daily report. There’s been a tendency to delay reporting of Ukrainian actions for 24 hours or more lately, so it could be that these figures are the result of a Ukrainian advance in some area. Or they may be the result of an unreported strike on a Russian base.
We’ll probably understand today’s numbers better sometime this weekend.
———————-
For all the destruction of Russian gear reported in this morning’s report, there are no new aircraft or helicopters added to the tally. That might not be the case tomorrow—at least if Ukraine includes aircraft lost inside Russia. [Tweet at the link]
This appears to be separate from a drone attack that happened near the Russian city overnight. Kursk is around 90 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. That the city was hit with both drones and some kind of precision weapon within 24 hours seems to be another sign of Ukraine ramping up their actions in advance of the counteroffensive.
Unlike the United States, which has refused to allow its weapons to be used inside Russia, the U.K. has suggested pretty strongly that it begs to differ, and that Ukraine’s defense necessarily requires it to strike Russian soil. That would unleash the British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles for the kind of attack we saw in Kursk.
And speaking of a counteroffensive … [weather report at the link, showing good weather for the next 8 days in eastern Ukraine] It’s beginning to look a lot like … tank season.
—————————
Images have emerged of the Freedom of Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps (known as RDK) attack south of Belgorod on Thursday, and what they reveal shocks no one: Russia was lying when it said they were stopped at the border. [Tweet and image at the link]
Additional images show fighting around the Russian village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, right across the Ukrainian border, as well as more scenes from the larger town of Shebekino. The RDK report some members of their force were wounded, but their accounts don’t align at all with Russia’s claims that a large number from the anti-Putin faction were killed.
Overnight on Friday, there was another reported effort by the RDK near the Russian town of Verigovka, about 60 kilometers east of the action on Thursday. This fourth incursion was reported by Russian sources, but at 3 PM ET there were reportedly more than 100 RDK fighters in the area with reports of heavy fighting. [map at the link showing RDK incursions along the length of the border]
Russia seems to have a serious issue with protecting its border. They’re starting to realize that the front line isn’t just found inside Ukraine.
————————-
Russian state media is delighting on Friday in posting the words of Hungarian authoritarian leader Viktor Orban, who is insisting that any attempt at a Ukrainian counteroffensive will be a “bloodbath.”
But, according to him, as “a man with one and a half years of military experience”, he “knows very well” that the attacking side will suffer three times more losses than the one defending.
I’m a man with barely one and a half weeks of military experience, but even I understand that’s not how it works. Theories of force concentration have traditionally held that a defending force has a 3:1 tactical advantage, meaning that it takes three times as many men to dislodge soldiers from a fortified defensive position as it does to hold that position.
That does not mean that the army on the offense loses men at a three-to-one rate. In fact, that number represents the level thought to be necessary for advance without taking undue losses.
“We must do everything possible,” said Orban, “before the counteroffensive, to convince the parties of the need for a ceasefire and peace negotiations,” In other words, we have to stop Ukraine from taking Ukraine back and lock it down for Putin.
Don’t be surprised when this same language, including the same misunderstanding of force differential, shows up in the mouth of Majorie Taylor Greene or Tucker Carlson (wherever he is).
————————
[Video of Secretary Antony Blinken delivering a speech on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.] Skip to the 51-minute mark to see Secretary of State Tony Blinken take the stage and deliver some serious truth.
“The Kremlin often claimed that it had the second strongest military in the world and many believed it,” said Blinken. “Today, many see Russia’s military as the second strongest in Ukraine. Its equipment, technology, leadership structure, troops, strategy, tactics and morale—a case study in failure.”
Blinken also warned against those like Orban who are talking about “peace” in a form that rewards Russian aggression.
“A ceasefire that simply freezes current lines in place and enables Putin to consolidate control over the territory he seized and then rest, rearm and re-attack; that is not a just and lasting peace,” said Blinken. [Correct]
YouTube will no longer remove videos falsely claiming the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen, reversing a policy put in place in the contentious weeks following the 2020 vote.
The Google-owned video platform said in a blog post that it has taken down “tens of thousands” of videos questioning the integrity of past U.S. presidential elections since it created the policy in December 2020.
But two and a half years later, the company said it “will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past U.S. Presidential elections” because things have changed. It said the decision was “carefully deliberated.”
“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,” YouTube said.
StevoRsays
Well, this is literally terrifying if you have any idea of what it means and implies :
An 8+ hour police standoff in West Humboldt Park, Chicago. Blog eats my descriptions. Rooftop flame thrower.
Neighbors said he’d done this frequently in recent months, had fired before. The standoff began after locals had written letters to the mayor and governor about the man (said to be a squatter); officials were unable to enter the building and called police.
Ah, must’ve been a link. Archiving fixed it.
^ Barricaded on a rooftop with a sw_stika flag (among others), an old man on a scaffolding tower was armed with a gun and flamethrower. blaring a siren, music, and threatening racist recordings.
A federal judge has struck down a Tennessee law that banned drag shows in public or where children could watch them, writing that the unconstitutional measure was passed “for the impermissible purpose of chilling constitutionally-protected speech.”
In his ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker wrote that the law violates First Amendment freedom of speech protections and was “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.”
The law, which Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed in March, would have criminalized “adult cabaret entertainment,” punishing first-time offenders with misdemeanors. Repeat offenders could face felony charges and prison sentences of up to six years if convicted.
The bill was one of at least 26 introduced across the nation this year taking aim at drag events. This sudden rush to regulate and ban drag shows, largely by arguing that the performances are harmful to minors, is part of the wider conservative backlash to expanded LGBTQ rights. Tennessee lawmakers passed a separate bill earlier in February, banning gender-affirming care for most transgender minors.
Parker, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee by President Donald Trump, had issued a preliminary injunction at the end of March to block the law from taking effect. In that ruling, he agreed with Friends of George’s, a Memphis-based theater group that produces drag and other performances, that it was too broad.
Friends of George’s celebrated the ruling in a tweet Saturday morning, saying, “We won!”
SC @454, correct, just out and out fraud. Also, as you noted in comment 68, those fraudsters were “Republican operatives.” Raising money for themselves, I assume, but one also wonders to what other nefarious purposes they may put that money.
KGsays
With all these denials I’m starting to think this [simulation in which AI drone killed its operator] did actually happen. – SC@429
[…] “The import of the new Trump audio is not that it eviscerates his defense that he declassified everything,” tweeted Justice Department veteran Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor during the Mueller special counsel investigation. “That was never a legal defense (nor factually plausible). The import is that he is caught lying to the public to gain support when he’s indicted.”
Weissmann added that such a recording would be an “admission” that Trump “intentionally and knowingly” possessed a classified document, which is a crime if the document actually exists and Trump wasn’t simply bragging to people about a document that didn’t exist.
Given the damning nature of that recording, Weissmann predicted an indictment is “days, not months” away. But either way, he firmly believes it’s a matter of when, not if.
As if that weren’t enough, now there appears to be a mad hunt for the document in question, which no one seems able to locate. Its apparent disappearance raises the specter that Trump might have followed through on his stated desire (in the recording) to share the classified information. Good thing Trump’s blathering gave the game away! […]
Smart money says the document is with Prince Bonesaw.
————————–
My money is on Putin. We already know that TFG is owned by Putin. And Putin sharing that doc with Iran might just be how Russia got so many Iranian drones.
There was one of those moments of crystal clarity on Nicole Wallace’s Deadline: White House Show today, and I want to thank Neal Katyal for literally cutting through the Trump Gordian Knot Of Lies that Mike Schmidt of the New York Times was spinning when it comes to those government documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The latest revelation that Trump is on a recording admitting that he has a CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT on invading Iran has just confused poor old Mike Schmidt. It appears that Schmidt is tangled up in so many Trumpian lies that he essentially stated, “We do not know if Trump really had that document because Trump lies all the time. And without that document, how does the DOJ indict Trump?” Katyal called BS on Schmidt’s Trumpian Knot dilemma, and he pulled out a sword to cut that Trumpian Knot of Lies. There is a mountain of evidence against Trump, and according to Katyal on Trump’s legal defense, “Trump is too dumb to play dumb.”
That’s a quote, by the way.
There was this long discourse by Schmidt about that CNN report of an audiotape with Trump stating he had a classified document on invading Iran, but Trump couldn’t show it to the person he was talking with because it was “classified.” It is at this point that Schmidt goes in with the line that Trump is a well known boaster and liar. Therefore, how does anyone know that Trump had a REAL CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT on American plans to invade Iran! Without the government having that document, it makes it oh so hard for the DOJ to prosecute Trump because you cannot bring charges against a guy who is lying his ass off. Where is the proof that Trump had that specific document?
Oh what a tangled web we weave…blah, blah, blah.
Neal Katyal was up next, and he specifically said that he had to disagree with Schmidt. It didn’t matter whether or not the DOJ has found that document on American invasion plans for Iran. The audiotape demolishes Trump’s defense that he used a Jedi Mind Trick Declassification. Trump knows that you are NOT to show classified documents to any Tom, Dick, or Harry.
Then, Katyal took out his legal sword and slashed the hell out of Schmidt’s Trumpian Knot of Lies. The documents went missing from the National Archives, and they turned up at Trump’s pad in FL. Trump refused to give ALL of the documents back to the government when hit with a subpoena. And Trump has admitted to having the documents.
All of those moves by Trump and the audiotape made Katyal state that “Trump is too dumb to play dumb!” A smarter person would have played dumb about those classified documents. He would have said, “I didn’t know those were there in the storage room! Someone else must have packed them up. Here you go FBI!”
Instead, we have Trump admitting that he took the documents because they are his. Besides, he just thought, “These are no longer classified!” and “POOF!” The documents are no longer classified.
[…] the DOJ does not need to have that specific document to prove that Trump is guilty of obstruction. Trump stating on an audiotape that he knows the difference between classified and declassifed documents is another admission of his criminal intent and frame of mind. All those other classified documents at his private digs show Trump committed theft and obstruction.
The reason I am belaboring this incident is that I have watched the media twist themselves into knots giving Trump benefit of the doubt on the stolen documents. The latest twist is a warped defense that Trump is such a liar and fabulist that you cannot believe anything he says. In other words, Trump is just your average bullshitter, and we do not prosecute your average bullshitter for all the lies he/she tells. And the audiotape of Trump admitting having a classified document is just more tall tales!
Trump is not just a guy sitting on the porch of an old country store spinning tales that everyone knows is not true. He is a guy caught with stolen goods who is claiming that all the stolen stuff belongs to him. How fucking hard is that to understand?
I still want to know if Trump actually had the classified document regarding invasion plans for Iran. If Trump did have such a document, I want to know what he did with it.
Another note: some people are saying that if such a plan to invade Iran existed, then Trump was right and General Milley was wrong. The idea is that Trump was probably keeping such a document to get revenge on Milley. Even if Trump thought that, he was stupidly wrong (again). The military works up contingency plans all the time. Those contingency plans do not presage imminent invasion.
“New disclosures show how Gen. Mark A. Milley tried to check Trump.” Washington Post link to September 2021 article. Excerpt:
[…] The latest exposé comes in a book by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who write that Milley, alarmed by the possibility Trump might strike China [or Iran, or some other country] as he tried to stay in power, reached out to Gen. Li Zuocheng in the months surrounding the 2020 election in order to dismiss any Chinese fears of a preemptive American attack, they said.
That followed other dramatic accounts involving Milley, including in a book by Washington Post journalists Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, which said the general likened the circumstances around the election to those of Nazi-era Germany.
“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told others, referring to the 1933 attack on the German parliament, the book reported. “The gospel of the Führer.” […]
Trump called it treason. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) demanded Milley resign, as did Christopher Miller, who served alongside Milley as acting defense secretary in the final months of Trump’s presidency. […]
There were also reports that Trump shouted at Milley in the oval office, accusing Milley of treason, etc. In other words, Milley was, as Trump saw it, a personal enemy. And we know how Trump holds a grudge, how he does not relent when he goes after his enemies.
Today’s R:$ rate is 81. One year ago it was 60, so the value of the Ruble in dollars has slid by 1/3rd. Shortly after Putin’s invasion and before Elvira Nibulina (Chief of the Russian Central Bank) stabilized the Ruble, the exchange rate briefly hit 107 then it fell by half. Now, it is sliding again.
For a country that does not have a robust consumer goods industry, the exchange rate makes an important difference to standards of living. Imports become more expensive. Normally, a soft currency like the Ruble would benefit the economy by improving the international competitiveness of its exports, but Russia only exports fossil fuels and a few minerals. NATO and the EU have capped Russian water borne oil prices at $60 a barrel so Russia sells each barrel below world market prices (around $70 today) but must pay for imports with expensive dollars or Renminbi exchanged at a discount. The EU has pretty much weaned itself from Russian Natgas. Monthly Russian exports have fallen by 60% in value so far in 2023 compared to 2022.
What impact will this have on the war? The RF can continue to finance its “Special Operation” for probably another year or more without fear of bankruptcy but standards of living even in Moscow and St Petes will start to crumble. Public services will be cut except those promised to lure the naive into military service — and those promises will be welched on by an impoverished post war state.
Coupling economic tremors with security fears arising from the drone strikes and the recent fighting in Belgorod Oblast, the Russian public and especially the elites are beginning to be increasingly frightened. They are haunted by memories of Nuremberg and nightmares of Gotterdammerung. Media anchors like Soloyov and Samogon have sounded unhinged for months, Medvedev too, and now they are virtually foaming at the mouth promising annihilation for Ukraine and reprisals for the US and UK.
But in my opinion, the putin remains secure. Everyone knows that “he who strikes at the king had better be sure he doesn’t miss”. Defenestration or a cup of bad tea are looming risks for elites who speak up or even are suspected of “thinking up”. Further, whoever seeks to replace the putin will need to be able to organize a viable replacement government and that would require gaining wide support from a bitterly factionalized elite. Some of those elites control their own armed formations and Wagner is not the only Private Military in Russia. Last, whoever would choose to follow the putin will inherit enormous political, economic, and social problems. Here is one that hasn’t been remarked on: Prigozhin promised freedom for his Wagner convicts after six months in the field. That term is up and the survivors are returning to Russia. Many are bringing their weapons with them. Remember these “troops” were recruited out of dire prisons.
Most of the Russian Federation’s empire is backward and poor. THe Republics and oblasts with mineral wealth have been ripped off for centuries by the State. Should the strong center weaken, how long would it take for the far republics and oblasts to start to look elsewhere for protection and trade. The Kazakhs are ready to oblige, and so will Xi. In the 19th century, the Romanovs stole 1.5 million sq miles of Mongolia from the Ming. Xi knows he can have it back at no cost if he times his moves correctly. Who would object to China righting this wrong […]
All of this will progress through dangerous and difficult times. On the upside, the world may be more peaceful and more stable when the disruption ends. And, it will all be very interesting to watch as long as one does not have to participate.
Wonkette: “Kari Lake Takes Break From Losing AZ Election Over And Over To Record Crappy Protest Music”
[…] what in the atonal fuck is this shit?
Kari Lake […] is releasing a music single Thursday at midnight called “81 Million Votes, My Ass” […] The track was produced by members of the team behind a song Donald Trump and a group of Jan. 6 prisoners released in March.
Oh sure, who can forget the big hit “Justice For All,” […] Our more discerning readers will remember that one, a cheap recording of Jan. 6 inmates in a Washington jail giving their nightly rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” interspersed with Donald Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, a track which we cheerfully described at the time as an “abomination of the very concept of music.”
Apparently the mockery from anyone with functional eardrums was not enough for the crew that put that one together. Now calling themselves the Truth Bombers, they have returned with this befoulment of the art form that Plato extolled as giving “soul to the universe.” And miraculously, they convinced Kari Lake to take a short break from losing the Arizona governor’s election again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again to help out:
Lake agreed to participate to raise awareness about voter fraud, she told “Real America’s Voice” on Wednesday. “I want to send a message to the technocrats, to the tyrants, that we’re on to what they’re pushing,” Lake said. “We’re on to this B.S. system.”
This B.S. system where we count votes and then Kari Lake complains about it in court and then every single court that takes multiple looks at Arizona’s elections determines that she’s more full of it than the septic system in a college dorm after Raw Chicken Night in the cafeteria? That system? Okay.
The title of the song comes from a speech Lake gave at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan Dinner this past March and reflects the wingnut trope that there must have been voter fraud in the 2020 election because there is simply no way Joe Biden could have gotten 81 million votes, because reasons. He’s old! He stutters! […]
[video at the link]
We will give these maestros a tiny bit of credit: That opening guitar riff slaps. Listen to those power chords! […]
Unfortunately the lead-in to that opening is a clip of Kari Lake making a lame Hunter Biden joke, and it is followed by lyrics right out of a wingnut grievance generator. Hey Joe Biden, you made gas expensive! You gave the middle class the finger, you sack of liberal crap!
Then there is some blah blah blah about the mules who threw Trump ballots in the garbage interspersed with Lake assuring us she is in good health and not suicidal (was there some question about Kari Lake being suicidal before?) and just oh my god the “Veep” writers would have rejected a song like this as being too unbelievably cringe even for Selina Meyer. Or worse, Jonah Ryan’s congressional race.
Conservative commentator Ed Henry, a producer of the track, also promised – excuse us, threatened – more of these “quote unquote truth bomb{s},” so as a public service announcement, we advise everyone to prioritize funneling molten steel into your ears as soon as possible.
The proceeds for the song will allegedly go towards helping the families of people imprisoned for their roles in January 6. If you really want to be helpful, you could spring for the $100 vinyl record of the song that the producers are selling, assuming Joe Biden hasn’t made you poor. Or you could spend that hundred bucks on something useful, like molten steel and a funnel.
Two days before the Treasury Department estimated it would run out of money to pay the nation’s debts, President Biden signed into law on Saturday a bill that suspends the debt ceiling, cuts federal spending and avoids a government default as part of a deal that ended months of partisan wrangling. [Instead of “partisan wrangling” I would say “Republican hostage taking.”]
In an Oval Office address on Friday night, Biden said that in addition to avoiding the dire financial consequences of a default, the measure would maintain gains from the wide-ranging agenda he had pushed through during his first two years in office. [correct]
And it bolstered the argument that is expected to be at the heart of his pitch for a second term: that he is a seasoned, competent leader who is able to deliver results in a polarized nation.
“Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher,” Biden said. “No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse.” […]
Indian authorities on Saturday ended an intensive search for survivors of a three-train pileup the night before in the country’s east, as the death toll rose to 288, making it one of the worst railway accidents in India’s history.
About 1,000 people were injured in the collision Friday night in the state of Odisha, the government said in a preliminary incident report obtained by The Washington Post. Rescue operations were “completed” Saturday afternoon local time, India’s Railways Ministry said on Twitter, adding that “restoration work” was underway.
The crash involved high-speed trains that collided “head-on,” Odisha’s director of fire and emergency services, Sudhanshu Sarangi, said, calling it “a major, major tragedy.” [Not exactly “head-on”: “the Coromandel Express, which was ferrying passengers from Howrah to Chennai on India’s eastern coast, derailed and hit a freight train near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore”]
[…] A medical officer at Balasore District Hospital said Saturday afternoon that 1,053 people had been brought to the facility, 183 of them already dead. Fifty-five died at the hospital, he said.
“I have never seen something like this in my life. This is the first time we have received so many patients,” D. Jagatdeo said by phone from his office, where he had been stationed since the previous night.
Only two other railway collisions in India — both of which occurred in the 1990s — resulted in higher death tolls. India has one of the world’s largest railway networks, behind the United States, China and Russia, and it carries 13 million people daily. […]
[…] Two passenger trains collided around 7 p.m. local time Friday after one of them struck a stationary freight train at full speed and derailed in the Balasore District of Odisha State, according to an initial government report.
[…] officials have said that it began when the first of the two passenger trains struck the idled freight train at full speed. A second passenger train, heading in the opposite direction, also then struck a track on which some of the dislocated cars had landed.
[…] The Coromandel Express service has been known for connecting the biggest cities on India’s east coast at a relatively high speed. The other passenger train was a Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast Express train, running from a commuter hub in Bangalore to Kolkata, the capital of the eastern state of West Bengal. […]
Derailments were once frequent in India, with an average of 475 per year from 1980 to about 2002. They have become much less common, with an average of just over 50 a year in the decade leading up to 2021, according to a paper by railway officials presented at the World Congress on Disaster Management.
Former slaves who came to California mined for gold and bought property, only for their land to be stolen or seized. Their families, generations later, say it’s time for a reckoning.
[…] “It was like my ancestors spoke to me,” Owens [Yolanda Tylu Owens] said. “It was so out of the blue. But it was clear: I should search to see if my great-great-great-grandfather had any land.”
She scrambled for her laptop. Within minutes, she had to sit back in her chair to process what she had learned.
“It was there, plain as day,” Owens said. “There were four deeds in his name. He owned land.”
And not just anywhere, but in Napa, California, America’s best known wine-growing region, replete with its symbols of wealth and beauty. Three of the deeds showed her ancestor Edward Hatton owned prime real estate on Main Street in downtown Napa. A fourth deed covered 209 acres in the nearby mountains.
Owens’ discovery — both that her ancestor owned land and that it was most likely taken away — highlights one component of the state’s effort to consider paying reparations to Black Californians.
California’s founding involved the often violent acquisition and theft of land from Native people, including an 1851 order from the state’s first governor that “a war of extermination” would be waged until “the Indian race becomes extinct,” according to the Los Angeles Times. While California was not officially a slave state, it welcomed bringing in enslaved Africans to work and dig for gold. In many cases those men were able to buy their freedom from the gold they found and, in a short period, purchase land and build what could have been generational wealth.
That their land was taken away from them — or that the landowners were forced to flee because of violent acts — crystallizes the dilemma and the arduous pursuit some Black families face in the reverberations of California’s reparations efforts for the harms slavery inflicted on Black residents of the state. […]
The longest-ever walkout in the Oregon Legislature reached its fourth week on Wednesday as the enforceability of a ballot measure that would disqualify the boycotters from immediate reelection appeared in doubt.
Senate President Rob Wagner once again tried on Wednesday to convene the Senate, which last met on May 2.
“We’ll give this another shot,” the Democrat said. But a roll call again showed that nine Republicans and an Independent party senator were absent without being excused, preventing a quorum and keeping votes on Democratic bills on abortion, gender-affirming care and guns on ice.
[…] Sen. Tim Knopp, leader of the minority Senate Republicans, says the boycott will end only on the last day of the legislative session, June 25, to pass “bipartisan” legislation and budget bills. Wagner says Democratic priorities including a sweeping measure to guarantee abortion rights are not negotiable, and Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek has backed that stance.
After GOP lawmakers boycotted the Oregon Legislature in 2019, 2020 and 2021, voters last November approved a ballot measure by an almost 70% margin that was supposed to stop walkouts. Lawmakers with 10 or more unexcused absences would be disqualified from being reelected in the next term, according to the measure’s title and summary.
But the text of the measure says disqualification applies to “the term following the election after the member’s current term is completed.” Republicans are taking that as meaning that boycotters who are up for reelection in 2024 could be candidates, since their current terms end in January 2025 — with the disqualification coming for the 2028 election. [Uh-oh]
[…] A lawyer hired by a political action committee called “Oregon’s 13 Constitutional Defense Fund” […] “It appears from the unambiguous text, that if they are to be disqualified from holding the office of senator, it would be for the term that begins in January of 2029,” attorney John DiLorenzo Jr. wrote in his request.
Secretary of State spokesperson Ben Morris said the department is seeking a legal opinion from the Oregon Department of Justice and will follow its advice. The Justice Department is currently working on the legal opinion […]
Republican senators are expected to file court challenges if the secretary of state’s elections division bars them from registering as candidates in September.
[…] Meanwhile, Senate and House Democrats on Wednesday lashed out at the “anti-abortion, unconstitutional Republican walkout in the Senate,” saying in a statement that it endangers measures including a $4 billion investment in public safety to address crime and gun violence, protect children who are victims of sexual abuse, tackle fentanyl overdoses and ensure police have the resources they need.
“Oregon communities, families and small businesses were clear that public safety must be a top priority for us this session,” said Democratic Rep. Daniel Nguyen.
I will add that forest fire season is arriving now, and Oregon does not seem to be prepared.
The Storm Shadows are worth every cent. Those two warehouses in the port of Russian-occupied Berdyansk and their inventory are ashes. Precise hit.
Dated timelapse images at the link. I haven’t seen anyone put together a full view of what’s been hit in the last few days, but they do seem to be doing real damage to Russian supply infrastructure in several locations.
The head of St. Peter’s Basilica performed a special rite Saturday after a man stripped naked and hopped on the main altar with the words “Save children of Ukraina” written on his back…
Pope Francis warned the Vatican’s missionary fundraisers on Saturday not to allow financial corruption to creep into their work, insisting that spirituality and spreading the Gospel must drive their operations, not mere entrepreneurship.
Francis made the comments in a speech to the national directors of the Vatican’s Pontifical Mission Societies, which raise money for the Catholic Church’s missionary work in the developing world, building churches and funding training programs for priests and nuns. Deviating from his prepared remarks, Francis appeared to refer to a recent Associated Press investigation into financial transfers at the U.S. branch of the Pontifical Mission Societies: The former head oversaw the transfer of at least $17 million from a quasi-endowment fund and donations into a nonprofit and private equity fund that he created and now heads. The intiatives provide low-interest loans to church-run agribusinesses in Africa…
Since 1992, Russia has maintained a garrison in the narrow strip of land between Moldova and Ukraine known as Transnistria under the pretext that it is protecting the ethnic Russian minority there.
That might be about to end.
Attending a European summit in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered/threatened to attack the Russian garrison of about 1,500 and return Transnistria to Moldova.
This is an interesting development that makes you wonder what has changed recently, because the status quo has been maintained throughout the war with Russia.
First, Ukraine can’t just invade Transnistria since it is internationally recognized as Moldovan sovereign territory. They need Moldova to ask for help and so far Moldova hasn’t been willing to go there.
Moldova doesn’t have much of a military to speak of. It has, for all these years, left things alone so as not to piss off the Russians. It has also had governments and factions that leaned toward Russia.
Now it has a West-leaning government — that has had to contend with the possibility of a Russian-backed coup — that is keen on joining the EU and getting off the bottom of Europe’s economic ladder. And the fact that the summit was held in Moldova says a lot about the EU’s interest in supporting Moldova.
But EU membership isn’t going to happen as long as the Transnistria issue is unresolved. Same with possible NATO membership down the road. So it might be time to bring things to a head.
One of the big risks of this is the massive ammunition depot in Cobasna, which is in the northern part of Transnistria. This is a leftover from the Soviet days and much of it is expired stuff and probably mostly just dangerous to handle.
It is one of, if not THE biggest ammo dumps in all of Europe, about 20k tons. If it were to all explode, it would make one hell of a crater. Fortunately it is more likely to cook off over several days but it would still be a threat to anything nearby.
Another risk is the possibility of the Russians in Transnistria shelling Chisinau.
One of the benefits of a successful operation to take Transnistria would be to allow Ukraine to redeploy its troops from the Transnistrian border. [Tweet and video at the link]
War criminal/blogger Igor Strelkov says that Transnistria is lost if Ukraine decides to move.
Transnistria. Girkin says that Transnistria is doomed, the “Ukrainian Nazis and Moldovan- excuse me, Romanian, nationalists can and will take it”. Transnistria could have been taken as far back as last Summer, but Girkin believes that the Ukrainians refrained from attacking it as blackmail to ensure the Grain deal. However, in the long term, Transnistria and the Russian garrison there are doomed.
[Tweet at the link]
The president of Moldova wasn’t too keen on Hungarian fascist wannabe PM Viktor Orban wanting to kiss her hand at the summit. [Tweet and video at the link]
Makes you wish you were a fly on the wall for this conversation. [Tweet and video at the link: “Another close look at Zelensky in Moldova with UK PM rich Sunak[…]”]
The railyard near Melitopol was targeted by Ukraine. [Tweet and image at the link]
The port at Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov coast took a hammering from Storm Shadow. [Tweet, video and images at the link]
The driver of the car that passed him is one lucky dude. [Tweet and video at the link: “[…] a Russian Pantsir-S1 air defense system trying to escape from a Ukrainian kamikaze drone tries to shoot it down with a missile, then with an anti-aircraft gun but fails.”]
Russia still doesn’t have control of the border region near Belgorod. [Tweet and images at the link]
More careless smoking. [Tweet and video at the link: “37 buses burned down at one Moscow bus depots.]
This should put a dent in Swiss arms sales. Who will want to buy them if the Swiss are going to be assholes about transferring them? [Tweet and discussion of Swiss MPs not allowing arms transfers to Ukraine.]
It’s Patron! [Tweet and video of the legendary dog]
A reminder of the tragedy of Russia’s war. [Tweet and video at the link: “9yo Viktoriya Ivashko whom russians killed yesterday, was a judoka. Just last weekend she took part in a sports competition and achieved her first victories, posted Ukraine’s judo federation president. Such a bright beautiful soul 💔]
[Tweet and image at the link]
The 26-year-old poet and musician Danylo Podybailo has been killed in battle against the Russian Army near Bakhmut.
He also fought in the Battle of Kyiv and in the Kharkiv Offensive.
Rest in Peace Hero
And finally, some notes of hope. [Tweet and video at the link: “Soldier and violinist Moisei Bondarenko beautifully performs Billie Eilish Hotline.]
In public statements, doctors across a range of specialties are speaking out against the board’s decision, and warning that it could have dangerous implications for public health.
[…] an open letter signed by more than 500 Indiana doctors […] asks the board to reconsider its decision […]
“Everybody is wondering if they could be next.”
The researchers say that, in a first, MAPLE’s array of transmitters successfully beamed solar power collected in space using microwaves to a receiver on the rooftop of Gordon and Betty Moore Laboratory of Engineering on Caltech’s campus in Pasadena…
For years, Rep. Lauren Boebert’s mother has maintained that a retired professional wrestler named Stan Lane, with whom she had a fling in the 1980s, was the congresswoman’s biological father.
A court-ordered paternity test completed decades ago showed that, in fact, Lane was not the dad. But some doubts on the Boebert side of things persisted because the lab worker who took Lane’s blood sample was later convicted of taking a bribe to switch vials in another case.
Because of those questions, last month, the Colorado Republican and Lane agreed to take another round of tests and put the matter to rest once and for all.
The results are in—and Boebert, 36, said the DNA analysis shows that Lane, 69, still isn’t her father…
“If she continues the search for her biological father I hope she finds the answers she has been looking for,” he said.
The vehicles will be refurbished in Ukraine on a joint venture Rheinmetall has founded with Ukrainian state-owned conglomerate Ukroboronprom, the article reads.
The enterprise is scheduled to open in mid-July. Rheinmetall plans to produce the armoured personnel carriers on-site…
Throughout the debt-ceiling crisis, news reports have wrongly suggested that each party’s activist wings balance one another out.
Here’s how, in its lead story Thursday, the New York Times described the House’s vote to resolve Republicans’ self-imposed debt-ceiling crisis:
“With both far-right and hard-left lawmakers in revolt over the deal, it fell to a bipartisan coalition powered by Democrats to push the bill over the finish line, throwing their support behind the compromise in an effort to break the fiscal stalemate that had gripped Washington for weeks.”
It’s not just the Times. This false equivalence between the two parties’ activist wings has been on display in press coverage throughout the debt-ceiling votes. Politico Playbook on Sunday described Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal’s mixed reaction to the debt-ceiling compromise as indicating that the bill may have “a chance to win votes from some on the far left.” A Washington Post sub-headline that same day noted that “far-left and far-right corners of the House have criticized the compromise.”
These descriptions conjure a world in which the wing of the Republican Party defined by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Chip Roy (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is somehow balanced out by the wing of the Democratic Party defined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jayapal, Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Greg Casar (D-TX), Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY).
This idea is, of course, farcical — both in terms of the vote on the debt-ceiling bill and our politics more generally. Yet whenever Congress is debating a high-profile piece of legislation, the media returns to the easy description of pressures exerted by the far-right and far-left, as if these are similar forces.
[…] The more important point, though, is not necessarily about voting records. It’s a question of how we define “extremism.”
On a scale of political ideology and positions from 100 to 0 (with 100 being the far left and 0 being the far right), and 50 being in the middle, even the most left-oriented Democrats (Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Casar, Bowman, Raskin, Jayapal) are not extremists. They are different shades of social democrats; they espouse policies that are fairly mainstream across western democracies. They advocate for the rights of marginalized people and are pro-union, pro-choice and concerned about climate change. They want to expand the social safety net, favor progressive taxation and want to raise the minimum wage.
In contrast, the most right-wing Republicans are extremists and reactionaries. Many rub shoulders with, and speak in support of, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and anti-Semites. In many cases, they want to repeal the political and cultural victories of the civil rights, feminist, gay rights, environmental, and labor movements. They deny that the 2020 election was legitimate, and took steps to overturn it. They support the January 6 insurrectionists, who they cast as freedom fighters. They have opposed the fundamentals of democracy — like the right to vote and the peaceful transition of power — and, in some cases, played active roles in the closest thing to a coup the U.S. has experienced in its nearly 250-year history.
It might be tempting to say that extremism is in the eye of the beholder. Ocasio-Cortez thinks that Greene is an extremist and vice versa. But for the media to continually create this false equivalence between the “far-right” and the “far-left” is misleading and distorts a crucial, critical reality of American politics in 2023 — one that looms behind even the most anodyne legislative battle.
Oleksandr Selyverstov was living a terrible nightmare.
He was an engineer in charge of a nuclear reactor at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
And Russian troops were coming.
In late February 2022, the Russian military was beginning to close in on the city near the plant, Enerhodar. By the night of March 3rd, they assaulted the nuclear plant; and by 3 o’clock the next morning, they had seized the station.
He was supposed to start a shift that morning. But what do you do when war visits your workplace? He remembers specific memories: the shooting, the chaos, the armored vehicle columns. He remembers sitting at his home without any instructions. […]
When the fighting paused, he reported to the plant. He knew that his colleagues had been working overtime without rest because they had not been relieved during the intense fight. At a normal job, that means an exhausted workplace. At a nuclear power plant, that means a catastrophic accident waiting to happen.
The Russian authorities that took the plant over slowly began ratcheting up pressure on the staff. They were obsessed with loyalty; they began searching everyone; they posted an armed guard at the power plant to keep an eye on the Ukrainians who worked there.
“They were putting increasing pressure all the time,” Selyverstov said. “You couldn’t have anything on you. You could have a pack of cigarettes and a pack of matches… You look at them without understanding what is in their heads. You can easily give some wrong answers. They can beat or not beat you, detain you.”
People began disappearing from the town. He showed me a video from Enerhodar, which I won’t post, of a car riddled with bullet holes and an apparently dead person at the wheel.
One nuclear plant staffer went home from his shift and never came back. The Russian occupation authorities were slowly picking up people they suspected of supporting Ukraine. Another nuclear power plant staffer was beaten to death after refusing to follow orders, Ukrainian authorities said.
And the violence was ratcheting up in the city. [video at the link]
He spent so much time around the nuclear plant and the city that he began to understand what sounds indicated shelling from Ukrainian positions, and what sounds indicated shelling from closer Russian positions nearby.
Starting with his understanding of these sounds, Selyverstov said he saw evidence of Russians deliberately shelling their own positions around the nuclear plant.
Ukraine and Russia have both accused each other of being behind the explosions.
“They need to increase the temperature of a crisis, increase the intensity of the crisis,” Selyverstov said of the Russians. “To show the west, the Ukrainians are terrorists — they’re shelling us.”
Selyverstov remembers one incident he calls, the “silliest, biggest performance” that the Russians ever did, ahead of a delegation visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency. He claims he saw Russians walking around with the wreckage of a missile, trying to find a good place to plant it. And when they did plant it, he said, they accidentally placed it in such a way that it suggested it came from territory that Russians controlled.
But as ineffectual as the IAEA was in his eyes, an IAEA delegation inadvertently saved his life. Oleksandr had tried to escape Russian-held territory five times; but as a nuclear plant employee he was turned away at checkpoints, and told to go back home.
The Russians were obsessed with appearances, he said, and a long line of cars waiting to leave Russian-held territory would cause them to lose face.
So, on his last attempt to escape, he happened to try to leave just before an IAEA delegation was about to pass. Russian checkpoints soldiers hurriedly waved through cars so as to not allow the perception that people were trying desperately to leave.
He calls it his “second birthday” — the day he managed to leave that oppressive environment and reach Ukrainian-held territory.
The first time he told me that story, he had tears in his eyes as he recounted it.
A Ukrainian soldier approached him at a checkpoint marking his freedom. The soldier reached out his fist for a bump.
“No,” Oleksandr said, pulling the soldier in for a hug. “Brother!”
More from Oleksandr Selyverstov after we go through the news, including what he thinks is the worst case scenario; why he thinks the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant’s recapture by Ukraine is an important priority; and his tips for Ukraine residents on nuclear safety. Plus, our visit to the Chernobyl museum.
——————————-
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
But beyond the bombings, there’s a new risk on the horizon: the Ukrainian government is warning that Russia is preparing to simulate a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The simulation would be done during Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive, officials said, and would create a global incident that would force a pause in the fighting — and help Russian troops to regroup and cement their hold on existing territories.
Meanwhile, Russia has blocked the transmission of critical data from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the Ukrainian nuclear regulator said.
Every morning folks in Ukraine wake up to news of death.
Earlier this week in Kyiv, residents learned that an 11 year old girl, her 34 year old mother, and a 33 year old woman had been killed in overnight strikes.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the body of a two year old girl was found under the wreckage of a building that Ukraine claims was destroyed by a Russian missile. The attack was done by Iskander short-range cruise missiles, the governor of the region said.
Here’s the latest tally: 485 children have been killed, and 1,005 have been wounded since the full-scale invasion began, says Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
The total number of “crimes of aggression and war crimes” now total 91,230.
It’s in this context that Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine was prepared to launch its much-anticipated counteroffensive. Zelenskyy and other top officials have been signaling this for a while, though the timing remains vague.
“I don’t know how long it will take,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “To be honest, it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it, and we are ready.” The WSJ also reports that, in the assessment of the U.S., the Ukrainian military is waiting for the ground to dry out in order to start the counteroffensive.
Almost as important as the counteroffensive is the prospect of NATO membership. Zelenskyy told the newspaper that he is pressing the alliance’s leaders to give them a “signal” ahead of the upcoming July NATO summit in Vilnius that Ukraine would be admitted after the war.
***
The Chernobyl museum is the scariest museum I’ve ever been to in my life.
I’ve been to the nuclear museum in Hiroshima, which is much more focused on peace and disarmament.
The entrance and exit of this museum, in the Podil neighborhood of Kyiv, is marked by signage showing all the towns and villages affected by the nuclear disaster of 1986, when an accident caused devastation to the surrounding area.
Oleksandr Selyverstov and I visited the museum to talk more about the hazards of nuclear disaster. We spoke about the potential for death and suffering if another nuclear incident were to happen.
There’s a very interesting exhibit here. It shows the facade of a centuries-old Ukrainian church, split in the middle by images of the Soviet Union, right in front of a mockup of a reactor core. The message is obvious — the Soviet Union destroyed Ukrainian culture and was responsible for the Chernobyl incident:
And there’s a new exhibit there, on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Oleksandr paused to look at a photo of the reactor where he once worked.
He said 99.9 percent of the preconditions for a nuclear disaster were present at the Zaporizhzhia plant, that safety precautions had become lax, and that with some small miscalculation or mistake, untold numbers of people could suffer – his biggest fear.
He believes it is incredibly important for the Ukrainian forces to take back the plant during the coming counteroffensive, but without fighting.
He is hoping that if Ukrainian troops can take over nearby towns, the Russians would be forced to retreat. No fighting around the plant could possibly occur, he said, because it is too dangerous.
“I think [Putin] will not blow up the reactor because he understands the danger to his life. By the way, half of Russia will also be affected by a possible tragedy at the ZNPP,” he told me. “But they can blow up the distribution substation unit to cause critical damage that will leave the power plant inoperable for the next 5 years.”
Selyverstov also warned us to be prepared for a nuclear, biological or chemical attack.
He said that Potassium Iodide, a medicine used to address radioactive emergencies, was a must-have in Ukraine right now, but not to take any unless it is 100 percent sure that there was a nuclear disaster, since it’s very harsh on the body. Stay in your home, he said, and make sure to have stockpiles of food, medicine and water.
“Okay. Well, now I’m appropriately terrified,” I told him.
He assured me I could call him if I ever needed any context for news-gathering if there’s a nuclear catastrophe.
“I like you a lot,” I said. “But I hope nothing happens, and I don’t have to call you.” […]
Chuck Todd said Sunday he’ll be leaving “Meet the Press” after a tumultuous near-decade of moderating the NBC political panel show, to be replaced in the coming months by Kristen Welker. […]
Todd has often been an online punching bag for critics during a polarized time, and there were rumors that his time at the show would be short when its executive producer was reassigned at the end of last summer. It’s unclear when Todd’s last show will be, but he told viewers that this would be his final summer.
“I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history but reassured by the standards we’ve set here,” Todd said. “We didn’t tolerate propagandists, and this network and program never will.”
Welker, a former chief White House correspondent, has been at NBC News in Washington since 2011 and has been Todd’s chief fill-in for the past three years. She drew praise for moderating the final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2020.
Her “sharp questioning of lawmakers is a masterclass in political interviews,” Rebecca Blumenstein, NBC News president of editorial, said in a memo announcing Welker’s elevation on Sunday.
Now Welker, 46, will be thrust into what promises to be another contentious presidential election cycle.
The Sunday morning political interview show has aired since 1947, led by inventor and first host Martha Rountree. Its peak came in the years that Tim Russert moderated, from 1991 until his death in 2008, with its footing less certain since then. Tom Brokaw briefly filled in after Russert’s death, and David Gregory replaced him until being forced out in favor of Todd.
Todd said that he was proud of expanding the “Meet the Press” brand to a daily show, which initially aired on MSNBC but was shifted to streaming, along with podcasts and newsletters, even a film festival.
[…] Todd was roasted at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2022 by Trevor Noah, who pointed him out in the audience and said, “How are you doing? I’d ask a follow-up, but I know you don’t know what those are.” […]
Posted by readers of the article:
Many stopped tuning him in when he publicly admitted that he does not ask hard questions or follow-up questions when Republicans have repeatedly spewed out propaganda, whining that “they wouldn’t come back on the show” if he did. He can leave today, that would not be too early. His replacement is a far better, and actual, reporter and journalist. This is a bit of good news.
———————
Chuck Todd has been riding his very cynical softball-lobbing gravy train for some time now, and getting paid far too handsomely for it. Kristen Welker might be better, might not, but Chuck is a known entity we can be glad to see gone.
————————
Chuck Todd’s grotesque statement of his goal for each show perfectly sums up why his tenure was such an abomination. Obscene false equivalence. Gotta make everyone happy and mad in equal amounts. Christians and lions, Nazis and Jews, insurrectionists and defenders of the Constitution. It’s all the same, everything’s equivalent.
———————-
His work as a moderator has been mixed in my book, but he is a victim of working in politics during a time when too many reporters value unbiased coverage in a vain attempt not to offend too many people […] Too many have sacrificed reporting what is right at the altar of reporting that which is not wrong to the most people.
———————–
The low for his show came when Todd politicized COVID-19 by having on now former Gov. Asa Hutchinson who was keeping AR open during the pandemic. He was on the show several times, but no follow ups on how many deaths there were in AR because Hutchinson didn’t believe in shutdowns. Instead, COVID-19 was not treated as an infectious disease but as a political issue.
The curriculum for young Russians is increasingly emphasizing patriotism and the heroism of Moscow’s army, while demonizing the West as “gangsters.” One school features a “sniper”-themed math class.
A new version of the ABC’s in Russia’s Far East starts with “A is for Army, B is for Brotherhood” — and injects a snappy phrase with every letter, like, “Love your Army.”
A swim meet in the southern city of Magnitogorsk featured adolescents diving into the pool wearing camouflage uniforms, while other competitors slung model Kalashnikov rifles across their backs.
“Snipers” was the theme adopted for math classes at an elementary school in central Russia, with paper stars enumerating would-be bullet holes on a target drawn on the chalkboard.
As the war in Ukraine rolls into its 16th month, educational programs across Russia are awash in lessons and extracurricular activities built around military themes and patriotism.
These efforts are part of an expansive Kremlin campaign to militarize Russian society, to train future generations to revere the army and to further entrench President Vladimir V. Putin’s narrative that “a real war has once again been unleashed on our motherland,” as he declared in a sober address at a ceremony last month.
The drumbeat of indoctrination essentially started with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has accelerated it. The Ministry of Education and Science releases a constant stream of material, including step-by-step lesson plans and real-life examples — like a video of a student concert that used poetry, dance and theater to explain the history of Russian foreign intelligence.
“It includes all levels, from kindergarten to university,” said Daniil Ken, the head of the Alliance of Teachers, an independent Russian union, who works from voluntary exile. “They are trying to involve all these children, all students, directly in supporting the war.”
[…] Interviews over the past month with sociologists, educators, parents and students, and a review of extensive material online posted by the schools themselves and by local news outlets, show a comprehensive government effort to bolster military-patriotic content through all 40,000 public schools in Russia.
The cornerstone of the initiative is a program called “Important Conversations,” started last September. Every Monday at 8 a.m., schools are supposed to hold an assembly to raise the Russian flag while the national anthem is played, and then convene an hourlong classroom session on topics like important milestones in Russian history.
[…] Students have been encouraged to write poetry extolling the Motherland and the feats of Russian soldiers. Myriad videos show elementary school children reciting lines like, “All the crooks are fleeing Russia; they have a place to live in the West; gangsters, sodomites.”
[…] “It is very theatrical,” said Ms. Arkhipova, the social anthropologist. “It serves as a kind of proof that the entire war is the right thing to do because it mirrors World War II.”
[…] Even when the war lessons occur, they sometimes fall flat. At an assembly with two fighters, students from a St. Petersburg technical college basically mocked them. They questioned why fighting in another country meant they were defending Russia, and how God might view murdering others, according to a recording of the assembly. Administrators rebuked at least five students for their questions, local reports said.
[…] Russia has largely presented the war as an economic opportunity in poorer areas, while being far less aggressive in major cities.
“They are trying to target the people who have fewer resources,” Greg Yudin, a Russian sociologist doing research at Princeton University, said in an interview “They give you an option that promises money, status, benefits and in addition to that you will be a hero.” Even if they persuade only 20 percent of the youth to join the army, that is still a lot of brigades, he noted.
[…] the Ministries of Education and Defense have announced that military training will be mandatory next year for 10th-grade students. Girls will learn battlefield first aid, while the boys will be instructed in drill formation and handling a Kalashnikov, among other skills.
At universities, the curriculum in the fall will include a mandatory course called “The Fundamentals of Russian Statehood.” […] what details have emerged tended to echo Mr. Putin’s worldview of Russian exceptionalism and the idea that the battle waged against Western dominance for the past 1,000 years would continue for another 1,000.
“The single best possible way for them to get this society mobilized is to brainwash the young,” Mr. Yudin said.
tomhsays
Re: #488
From the link, Buck’s defense of Trump keeping classified documents, he “may have been writing a memoir.” No wonder satire is dead.
… In his hand is a Khrush, a first-person-view suicide drone, designed and manufactured entirely in Ukraine…
Oleksii, who goes by the callsign “Dancer”, and his team have developed the drone from scratch to tackle a shortage in high-precision weapons.
Long-range strikes, hitting Russian logistics, heavy armour and bases, deep behind enemy lines are going to be pivotal if Kyiv’s counter-offensive is to be a success…
Sweden said goodbye to inheritance tax almost two decades ago, making it the first country to kill off the tax under a social democrat government.
Inheritance tax had existed in Sweden, in various shapes, since around the 17th century. The tax rate was progressive and varied according to the beneficiary – but reached a record high in 1983, when grieving families were forced to pay as much as 70pc on their inheritance…
This is propaganda. Inheritance tax is not a problem for the poor.
We have another mystery on our hands. Someone bused more than a dozen migrants from El Paso into New Mexico and then put them on a private jet which flew them to Sacramento. They were then dropped off in front of a Catholic church with no pre-arrangement or warning. Like the the DeSantis/Martha’s Vineyard stunt last year the migrants were apparently lured or tricked into getting on the plane. California authorities are now trying to get to the bottom of who was behind it.
One of the most extensive urban forests in Atlanta is the site of significant protests by Atlanta green and social activists due to the construction of Cop City, a national training site for police. The construction would destroy the ecosystem of the South River Forest.
This police training site, forest defenders rightly point out, protects the headwaters of the most biodiverse watershed in the state, and the sources are the origin of the fresh drinking water for millions of people.
A young Venezuelan man, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Little Turtle to his American friends, was brutally executed a few months ago by authorities. Multiple police shot rounds from weapons of war at him for peacefully protesting the Cop City site while sitting with his hands up in the air. His body was struck 57 times. He was the first Climate activist to be murdered by the police in the United States. [Illustration at the link]
The police also arrested 42 others, charging every last one with domestic terrorism. If found guilty, they will serve 35 years in prison.
Apple News:
ATLANTA (AP) — Police on Wednesday arrested three Atlanta organizers who have been aiding protesters against the city’s proposed police and fire training center, striking at the structure that supports the fight against what opponents derisively call “Cop City.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced its agents and Atlanta police had arrested three leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has bailed out protesters and helped them find lawyers. […]
Charged with money laundering and charity fraud are Marlon Scott Kautz, 39, of Atlanta; Savannah D. Patterson, 30, of Savannah; and Adele MacLean, 42, of Atlanta.
Kautz himself predicted in a February statement that investigators were trying to build a criminal case against protesters using Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.
That law allows prosecutors to bring charges against multiple people accused of committing separate crimes while working toward a common goal. RICO is a felony charge that carries stiff penalties: A prison term of five to 20 years; a fine of $25,000 or three times the amount of money gained from the criminal activity, whichever is greater; or both.
On May 31, scores of heavily armed police raided the homes of Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean, and Savannah Patterson in Atlanta, GA. All three were raising bail funds for 42 protesters via the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. They were arrested and charged with Money Laundering and fraud. [video at the link: "The real crime here is being committed by the police."]
From MSNBC:
At Friday’s bond hearing, Don Samuels, an attorney representing the three who were arrested, said, “My real concern here is if you look at these warrants … of what they’ve done with the money that prompts both the money laundering and the charitable fraud, I mean, $37.11 to build yard signs. What could be more First Amendment activity than getting materials to build yard signs?”
The judge who granted bond to the defendants said that at this point in the prosecution’s case, “I don’t find it very impressive. “There’s not a lot of meat on the bones.”
In contrast, on the day of the arrests, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp took to Twitter to announce that the state would not rest until all those involved in the “criminal organization” known as the Stop Cop City movement are “arrested, tried, and face punishment.”
[posted by Sherrilyn Ifill]
These arrests demand explanation from the Mayor & Police Chief & more national attention.
They may wish to recall that targeting the charitable status & legitimacy of groups involved in civil rights organizing has a long and ugly history in the South.
State legislatures across the country are making it easier to hire minors in low-paid and dangerous jobs. By William Finnegan.
You may think that child labor was abolished a century ago, at least in the United States. That was never quite true. The Fair Labor Standards Act, passed during the New Deal, outlawed “oppressive child labor” but exempted agricultural work from many of its restrictions, which, in the decades since, has left hundreds of thousands of children in the fields. In every industry, enforcement of the law has been uneven. States have always been free to strengthen protections, which some did, but challenges to the federal standards have been rare. The Reagan Administration, in its pro-business zeal, proposed lowering the standards, but abandoned the idea under fire from teachers, parents, unions, and Democratic lawmakers armed with Dickens references.
Today, however, child labor in America is on the rise. The number of minors employed in violation of child-labor laws last year was up thirty-seven per cent from the previous year, according to the Department of Labor, and up two hundred and eighty-three per cent from 2015. (These are violations caught by government, so they likely represent a fraction of the real number.) This surge is being propelled by an unhappy confluence of employers desperate to fill jobs, including dangerous jobs, at the lowest possible cost; a vast wave of “unaccompanied minors” entering the country; more than a little human trafficking; and a growing number of state legislatures that are weakening child-labor laws in deference to industry groups and, sometimes, in defiance of federal authority.
In the past two years, according to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, at least fourteen states have enacted or proposed laws rolling back child-labor protections. Typically, the new laws extend work hours for minors, lift restrictions on hazardous work, lower the age at which kids can bus tables where alcohol is served, or introduce new sub-minimum wages. In Iowa, a new law allows children as young as fourteen to work in industrial laundries, and, with approval from a state agency, allows sixteen-year-olds to work in roofing, excavation, demolition, the operation of power-driven machinery, and other dangerous occupations. Jennifer Sherer, a co-author of the E.P.I. report, said, “Iowa’s new law contains multiple provisions that conflict with federal prohibitions on ‘oppressive child labor.’ ” It also limits employer liability for the injury, illness, or death of a child on the job. Adolescents are almost twice as likely as adults to be injured at work.
The reasons offered to justify these initiatives often emphasize child welfare. In Ohio, where Republican legislators are also proposing weaker laws, a spokesman for the Ohio Restaurant Association testified that extending work hours for minors would cut down on their screen time. (The lawmakers offered a concurrent resolution urging Congress to lower federal child-labor standards to conform with Ohio’s proposed rules.) Arkansas’s Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, recently signed a law ending a requirement that fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds obtain a parent’s consent and a state permit before starting work. Linking the bill, strangely, to parental rights, the governor’s office called the permit “an arbitrary burden on parents.”
“It was a one-page form,” Nina Mast, the other co-author of the E.P.I. report, said. “It contained basic information and informed parents of a child’s rights. Removing it eliminates a paper trail, makes enforcement and monitoring much more difficult. It opens the door to exploitation.” Sherer said that a lobbying template being used in state legislatures to gut child-labor laws had been provided by conservative groups such as the Foundation for Government Accountability, a think tank based in Florida.
Many employers are clearly not waiting for the laws to change. Fast-food chains, which rely on teen-age workers, seemingly treat fines for violating the laws as a cost of doing business.[…] the Labor Department announced that it had found more than a hundred children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen working in meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses, in eight states, for Packers Sanitation Services […]The children worked overnight shifts at such jobs as cleaning bone saws and head splitters with hazardous chemicals. At least three were injured. Packers, which is owned by Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm, paid a civil fine of a million and a half dollars.
Social-service agencies were frustrated that the Labor Department referred none of the children from Packers to them. The Times reported that some had found jobs at other plants. It was clear, in any case, from a range of reports, that they were all, or nearly all, drawn from the great underage labor pool of children who have crossed the border in recent years. “Unaccompanied minors” who arrive from non-neighboring countries—which, in effect, means Central America—are permitted to remain in the U.S. and are remanded to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, which delivers them as quickly as possible to a sponsor while asylum applications are processed. The asylum processing typically takes years.
In 2022, a hundred and thirty thousand unaccompanied minors entered the H.H.S. system, nearly half of them from Guatemala. In the rush to house such numbers, sponsors are barely vetted. Some are relatives, some are traffickers, some are a combination. Follow-up by H.H.S. has been tenuous […] although these kids, like all children, are required to go to school—until the age of sixteen in some states, eighteen in others—and many want nothing more, they also need to work. There are debts to be repaid, living expenses, and remittances to be sent home. If employers ask for an I.D. or a Social Security number, faked documents can be easily bought; many employers do not ask.
There are signs that the Biden Administration has begun to face the child-labor crisis—the announcement of a crackdown, a request to Congress to increase penalties against employers. And yet strengthening enforcement when the budget of the regulatory state is shrinking under pressure from the debt-ceiling negotiations seems unlikely. Republicans say that the problem is an insecure border. Certainly, crumbling economies in Central America intensify this crisis. But the immediate problem is a broad indifference to the well-being of children when profits are at stake.
🚨BREAKING🚨@WHDLASD just brutalized and arrested 3 queer volunteers at #wehopride. The Sheriffs were making fun of the booth and the volunteers responded “This is why we don’t like cops at Pride” The sheriffs then attacked them and are filing bogus charges. Will update here 🧵
Russians appear helpless in the current situation in Bilhorod. I don’t know what their options are, but it is almost as if they have no clue what to do.
The incursion in the Bilhorod region continues. It is now clear that Russia doesn’t have control over at least a couple of villages on the border while the insurgent forces make progress towards Shebekino….
CNN: US fighter jets were scrambled in response to an aircraft that ultimately crashed in southwest, Virginia, according to a US official. It is not clear if the aircraft violated restricted airspace near Washington, DC or if there was an emergency on board. The US military aircraft caused a sonic boom heard across the Washington region.
A loud noise which rocked Washington DC on Sunday afternoon and sent some residents into a brief panic was a sonic boom from a flight authorized by the US Department of Defense, officials said.
It came as jet fighters were scrambled to pursue a light aircraft that had violated airspace in the Washington DC area and later crashed into mountainous terrain in south-west Virginia, Reuters reported, citing US officials.
The jet fighters caused the sonic boom over the US capital as they raced to catch up with a Cessna Citation business aircraft, which can carry between seven to 12 passengers, the officials said.
The Federal Aviation Administration said a Cessna aircraft crashed into mountainous terrain in south-west Virginia around the time the sonic boom was heard in the capital.
A US official said the jet fighters did not cause the crash. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the Cessna was believed to be on autopilot and did not respond to authorities’ efforts to make contact with it. It was not immediately clear why the pilot was unresponsive.
Reports of an “explosion” began to emerge online shortly after 3pm as some residents went to Twitter to share what they heard and look for information about where the sound came from….
Russia MOD claims Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun in southern Donetsk oblast
whheydtsays
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #499…
Rather depends on what one means by “the counteroffensive has begun.” Ukraine appears to have been “shaping the battlefield” for some time now by attacking (and destroying) transport infrastructure, supplies, command & control points, and troop concentrations well behind the lines. Do those things count as part of the counteroffensive?
Bwahahahahaha. (Twitter link)
Lauren Boebert says she didn’t take birth control cuz it’s ‘cheaper to have a kid’
Jezebel begins.
Businesss Insider adds that Boebert dropped out of high school with her first pregnancy, and the third, which she sought to prevent, led to birth in a pickup truck.
Of four. The truck anecdote was her nonsequitur opposing paid family leave in 2021.
HuffPo continues.
WaPo – 60% of the 1,000-plus book challenges (during the 2021-2022 school year in 153 school districts) were filed by just 11 people.
* Some acted alone. Some filed a group’s complaints under one name (e.g., anonymizing 20 Moms for Liberty members). Still a tiny minority wielding outsized influence.
NBC Miami – Viral ‘Book Ban’ TikTok Debunked But Real Book Removals at South Florida Schools Ongoing
Twitter Thread:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Guardian – “‘Worthless’: Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says”:
Much more at the link.
Also in today’s Guardian:
“‘We have offended a nation’: Miami zoo’s treatment of kiwi bird enrages New Zealand”:
“Gulls choose what to eat by watching humans, study suggests”:
“Sisu review – grisly feast of extravagant violence as Finnish hero slaughters Nazis”:
I still laugh thinking about the trailer.
France 24 climate reporting:
“Le Festival de Cannes et le climat : science-fiction, actions coup de poing et polémiques”:
“‘Go to hell, Shell’: More than 100 climate activists storm annual shareholder meeting”:
“Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges following Musk’s takeover”:
AOC on Twitter:
TPM – “Where Things Stand: Match Made In Reactionary Chucklehead Heaven”:
Chief Justice John Roberts complained about judges being heckled at law schools and said the court doesn’t need Congress to patrol its ethics
Too bad he can’t put two and two together.
Ron DeSantis spells out possibility to cement ‘7-2 conservative majority’ on Supreme Court
Be afraid – and vote.
A bill that would have required Texas public schools to display the Ten Commandments has failed
The senator should look into the definition of “liberties”
@10
Elon Musk Is Going to Try to Make Ron DeSantis Cool
“Free Speech” advocate embraces book banner
CBC – “Cheers as Brandon School Division rejects call to remove library books on sexuality, gender identity”:
Descriptions of the speakers’ interventions and some of the books in question at the link.
‘Brain-eating’ amoebas are a new concern in northern US states, health officials advise
Wanda Sykes Is Totally Fine With Being Called a ‘Woke Comic’
Ted Cruz has a curious habit of periodically picking a fight over which is the true party of civil rights. He keeps losing — because reality is stubborn.
In debt ceiling fight, GOP’s Gaetz embraces ‘hostage’ rhetoric
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/shit-gets-real
Election Law Blog
Oregon House Passes Act Calling for Ranked Choice Voting
The bill is here. For more details, see here.
The Act becomes operative on December 10, 2026. It would be referred to the people for their approval or rejection at next regular general election.
Special counsel nearing end of classified documents probe
Going back even earlier than that article:
Jackson was governor of Indiana from 1925-1929 for context.
Poet Amanda Gorman ‘gutted’ after her inauguration poem is banned
Video at the link.
Kevin McCarthy is justifying his debt ceiling crisis by saying he’s looking out for babies, but the closer one looks, the worse this pitch becomes.
Well that’s a good start: DeSantis’ political operation announced that the governor would kick off his candidacy on “March 24.” Today is May 24.
As summarized by Steve Benen from a Politico article:
Most likely, that is good news for everyone. Except Putin.
Minnesota joins alliance to elect president by popular vote, adding new momentum to campaign
Map at the link.
Potentially good news … sort of.
Link
From The Daily Beast:
‘Queen of rock ‘n’ roll’ Tina Turner dies at 83
Nature – Brain–spine interface allows paralysed man to walk using his thoughts
Georgia GOP Chair Goes Full Flat-Earth, Says Globes Are Part of a Conspiracy
@ 33
Wasn’t she the loon who ran for Georgia governor back in 2020 who made destroying the Georgia Guide Stones a plank of her platform?
(Checks Google)
YUP! The very one!
Correction: She ran in 2022 on the campaign slogan of “Jesus, Guns, and Babies.”
re Reginald Selkirk @33: How do flat-earthers reconcile the fact that you can start at any point on earth, go in a straight line in any direction, and you will eventually come back to the same point where you started? You could not do that on a flat earth.
New Emails Suggest Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Was Communicating With Ron DeSantis — For Some Strange Reason
johnson catman:
I know it wasn’t directed to me, but I’ll take a swing (and miss (and fall backwards into the water hazard (and lose my hat and club))) at it.
Optical illusion. See, the earth is a disk which is spinning and as we walk in a straight line (or fly, drive, sail, kayak, roller skate . . . ), the centrifugal (and centripetal) force, caused by pi equaling exactly 3 (see Kings, some chapter and verse I don’t remember), bends your route of travel into a figure 8 (on its side (thus the infinity of gods)) and make it appear that you are following a great circle route on the disk. Does that make sense?
Richard Barnett, who put feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, jailed for 54 months
@johnson catman #36:
RationalWiki – Flat Earth
The globe has a dark past.
Only half of it. And that rotates every 24 hours.
Funny how all the planets and large moons thereof are globes. Not one disc present, Almost like some fundamental property is acting on everything above a certain size to form and enforce the globular shape.
Re: Compulsory Account7746, Sky Captain @ #40…
Rational Wiki is full of it. On a sphere, a “great circle route” aka “geodesic” is a straight line, since a straight line is defined as the shortest path between two points.
What most people, looking at a Mercator projection think of as a “straight line” is really a Rhumb Line. It cuts all meridians at a constant angle.
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #33…
If I knew a tenth of what he knows about the Earth, I probably would be a flat earther. Fortunately, I know a great deal more than he appears to.
Palate cleanser (YT link) – “Seehyun KIM, 309 – Prix de Lausanne 2023 Prize Winner – Contemporary.”
Axis Maps – Map Projections
Flatearth.ws – Center
Flatearth.ws – The Polar Azimuthal Equidistant Map is NOT the Flat Earth Map
Ukraine Update: Official says counteroffensive will start ‘soon’ as Ukraine has necessary equipment
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Wall Street Journal:
NBC News:
DeSantis’ big launch on Twitter […]
Followup to comment 48.
More Ukraine updates:
Followup to comment 52.
Posted by readers of the article featured in comments 48 and 52. (Link in comment 48)
Kelly Weill has written a book about flat earthers. I haven’t read it but I’ve listened to interviews with her, and in one she talked about how a number of them are Christians who’ve sort of retreated into it because they would be psychologically overwhelmed by the size of the universe and insignificance of Earth if they believed the science. I thought that was tragic, but at the same time I’ve often wondered how astronomers don’t get overwhelmed every day. Also, it’s sad that people like Taylor live in such a small world; but they can’t be allowed to forcibly shrink and flatten other people’s worlds. As the board chair at the meeting reported @ #15 said: “You are denying the reality of others. Because it is not your experience does not mean that it is not the reality of others.”
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #54…
Can’t speak to professional astronomers (or anyone else who deals with deep space studies), but I find the immensity of it all is fairly easy to deal with if you’re comfortable with scientific notation. (Stuff I actually deal with goes the other way…integrated circuits are down to single nanometer sizes and heading for single digit Angstrom dimensions.)
What?
I got nuthin. Does this have a meaning?
Tweet o’ the day.
Re: Overwhelming scale and exponents.
Video: CGP Grey – Metric Paper (8:43, 2021)
It’s a variation on the classic “Powers of Ten” also on YouTube (9:00, 1977).
Speaking of classics, the star size (2009) was remade.
Video: morn1415 – Star Size Comparison 2 (6:50, 2016)
What are people talking about? Seriously, something is amiss here and I’m not sure what.
I fear I’m missing some internet joke, but to be totally clear, I wasn’t talking about technically or intellectually overwhelmed but psychically or existentially overwhelmed.
Lynna… @ # 28, quoting dailykos: … a multistate compact that would elect the president according to the national popular vote…
Meaning, apparently, according to who gets the most votes. Insert alarmed! emoji here.
In the absence of ranked-preference/instant runoff/whatever you want to call it, that means in effect the (declared) winner will be whoever succeeds best at fragmenting their opposition. Even if we squint carefully in just the right direction like a NY Times reporter so as not to see the distribution of skulduggery in the present partisan landscape, this creates endless incentives for schismatic electoral sabotage and resultant kakistocracy, and will “solve” the Electoral College snafu by creating guaranteed chaos.
Somebody please prove me wrong!
@SC #60:
Existentialism follows. Apologies if this is ‘splaining. You’ve always seemed pretty worldly to me. =)
(In)significance is subjective.
Authoritarian theists assert their own importance vicariously as unique, specially-created, despite each knowing they’re just one of billions of humans, not even counting all the other stuff, nor the intricate relations like ecology.
Cosmic significance was a ludicrous expectation anyway. We matter to us. From our limited scope, here and now, we extrapolate from immediate experience and form emotional attachments to models of the world. Physical, ethical, social, etc.
We can flip the vastness on its head. Objects at exotic scales—abstracted to convenient if still unfathomable numbers—are generally irrelevant to us in the everyday: a stray electron in our toe, the black hole at our galaxy’s center. Make the machine go ping; mix the clear liquids; categorize data; arrange symbols. Out of mind.
Near our scale, we can make meaningful changes to affect ourselves and each other. And occasionally enjoy frission from youtube videos about those dots in the sky.
@SC #60:
*Facepalm* I could’ve linked this to begin with and saved myself some writing.
Video: Carl Sagan – Pale Blue Dot (3:26)
I wonder what’s going on with Ana Kasparian of TYT. Her latest video on “Karen” is not great to say the least. I’m not on twitter but I also heard she had some arguments about “not wanting to be called a birthing-person”. I guess it could be a side-effect of being terminally online and engaging with various trolls on twitter but it’s not a good sign to say the least.
Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bzOoBhjnBM
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #63
Well, it’s all irrelevant in the sense that I’m not confronted with space/time in the everyday, but I’m not an astronomer! I can look at Webb images and then go do or think about something else, but I couldn’t do that if I worked with this stuff every day!
Are people suggesting scientific notation as a…coping mechanism? :)
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also from there:
With first-ever census count of same-sex married couples, Minnesotans see another sign of acceptance
The Daily – “Millions of Dollars, Thousands of Robocalls and 1 Legal Loophole”:
I’m not fully convinced this is an actual loophole that allows them to get away with defrauding people.
Also in today’s Guardian:
“US cities to pay record $80m to people injured in 2020 racial justice protests”:
“UK study of 1948 Israeli massacre of Palestinian village reveals mass grave sites”:
“Florida groups warn America of danger from ‘dictator’ DeSantis”:
Kyiv Independent – “106 Bakhmut defenders return home from Russian captivity”:
Democrats erupt in laughter after Greene calls for decorum in House
Democrats unanimously back debt ceiling discharge petition
Guardian liveblog:
Alex Thompson on Twitter:
Clips and Axios link at the link. Neither the thread nor the article specifies the other ads with digitally altered videos.
@lotharloo 64
I saw that too. I might need to look at a transcript.
I can understand if there are bad diversity specialists. I’m not sure about the broad characterization though. And I need to rewatch to figure out what the exact issue with “Karen” is.
Karen is a derogatory term. People being entitled bigots don’t get to choose the label the culture settles on. I didn’t see a sexism angle (the only one that bothers me but the relative benefits of directing attention to racism seems reasonable), but if they don’t like Karen just because it’s derogatory I don’t see how they will like racism, sexism, misogyny and bigotry as terms either.
And not using the term for racist entitlement at work? I can’t get behind that.
@Brony:
Yeah, in my opinion Karen translates to “racist white woman” so I really don’t get the complaints. Of course it’s possible that people are just calling every white women they disagree with a “Karen” but the term originally started from a number of incidents where white women called the police or threatened black people with calling the police.
Yeah. I have no problems believing that there are instances of overreach and misuse of Karen, including this situation. But I see people labeling entitled racism, and little cause for concern about “Karen hunting”. The most active I get is choosing to “ambush hunt” behavior I have political issues with on politics boards. If there is no behavior, there is no hunt, and that is good too.
Outside of that I just react to examples as I learn to.
New superbug-killing antibiotic discovered using AI
George Washington, circular letter to the state governors, June 1783:
Walmart to pay California $500,000 in settlement over sale of brass knuckles
Brony… @ # 76 & lotharloo @ # 77: Karen is a derogatory term. … Karen translates to “racist white woman”…
It also translates to hundreds of thousands of actual people, on average no more racist (etc) than the culture in general, who don’t deserve to have their names made synonymous with stupid and aggressive bigotry.
Merely acceptable collateral damage in the culture wars, right? I agree, we do need a calling-out term, but I can’t buy this one.
@Pierce R. Butler 82
I typed more than that, I did mention it the only angle that bothered me, and that the attention to entitled racism seems reasonable. So I don’t have no feelings for people named Karen. I had feelings for Karen hunting as a problem.
It’s not ideal but I didn’t evolve the culture here and playing a support role with respect to entitled racism wile acknowledging the sexism is reasonable. Negative feelings about the label Karen and sexism are reasonable. The entitled racists are a threat to life.
Give me something concrete and reality based that helps in this gossip ridden culture and I’ll think about it. This isn’t clean. Otherwise your characterization of my position is hyperbolic.
Ryan J. Reilly from NBC is livetweeting the sentencing of Stewart Rhodes:
SC @57, “I got nuthin. Does this have a meaning?”
I think the real meaning is that even less of Trump’s brain is now in working order. I know Trump doesn’t drink, but it sounds like a drunken rant.
If we try really hard, we might come up with an excuse for Trump’s incoherent rambling and shouting. Perhaps he was trying to make a joke about Ron DeSantis’s glitch-ridden presidential campaign announcement on Twitter? All of Elon Musk’s and Ron DeSantis’s buttons don’t work? Trump has the ultimate working button, even bigger and redder than that of nuclear-powered Kim Jong Un’s button?
I don’t know. I do think it is possible that Trump is sliding into dementia.
Reilly:
Did DeFascist mention a red button? “I do the button thing better” could be a nuclear weapon reference.
Lynna @ #85:
Yeah, it’s really incoherent, and your post/link is the only place I’ve seen it discussed. Yes, I think it was about the failed campaign launch and pushing the button or whatever, but…he doesn’t have any button. I thought perhaps he was trying to hint that he or a regime friendly to him (Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia) had sabotaged the launch (whether true or not, and not that any sabotage would have been necessary given the state of things under Musk); but I don’t think it was even that. Possibly he was sundowning.
SC @88, that idea that Trump’s supporters sabotaged the launch is interesting. Like you, I doubt that.
Musk is quite capable of self-sabotage. He doesn’t need any help.
Trump doesn’t have the red nuclear button, that’s true. He may have been remembering fondly the days when he did have it (or thought he had it). Maybe he thinks he can use Kim Jong Un’s button as a proxy because he and Kim are “in love”? Who knows.
As far as I know, DeFacist didn’t mention a button of any kind or color in his campaign launch announcement. He was quite vague. “Freedom is worth fighting for,” etc.
Trump is an incoherent doofus.
Followup to SC @84 and 86.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes gets 18 years for seditious conspiracy
Followup to comment 90.
Posted by a reader of the article about the sentencing of Stewart Rhodes:
Default looms, seniors panic, House to go on break
Wonkette: “Eric Swalwell Cleared In Chinese Spy Probe, Bet Republicans Pretty Sorry For Constantly Lying About Him”
Wonkette:
Followup to comment 92:
Link
Followup to comment 95.
Posted by readers of the article:
From Ryan Reilly’s thread:
“Spanish servicemen cry when Ukrainian servicemen leave the training site in Spain where they have recently finished their training courses.”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
“Historic moment at the @WhiteHouse as @POTUS welcomes Gen. Brown, his appointee as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with @VP and @SecDef. If confirmed, it would mark the first time in history that the top 2 Pentagon positions are occupied by African Americans.”
Photo at the (Twitter) link.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
DKos – “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivers surprise commencement speech to Johns Hopkins”:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivers surprise commencement speech to Johns Hopkins
SC @101, apologies for repeating your post.
In other news:
Link
A description of the campaign video that was released after Ron DeSantis appeared in the glitch-ridden announcement on Twitter:
Link
Campaign video is available at the link. So fucking weird! Elon dancing?
Lynna @ #103, apologies for cutting in on your turf! :)
Funny how we posted almost exactly the same parts.
SC @106, yeah. I was actually encouraged by that. We both snipped the parts that were not essential. :-)
In other news, as reported by the Washington Post: “Trump workers moved Mar-a-Lago boxes a day before Justice Dept. came for documents”
@84, @86:
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes sentenced to 18 years for role in Jan. 6 insurrection
Mexican president tells Florida Hispanics: Don’t give ‘one single vote’ to DeSantis
Amsterdam’s red light district starts marijuana smoking ban
Ukraine Update: Russians confront the realization that Putin’s invasion has absolutely failed
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
US debt ceiling: Congress heads home for holiday without a deal
That’s a weird definition of 24/7.
See tiny newborn meerkats explore zoo enclosure
Man arrested after car crashes into Downing Street gates
Malaysia raids Swatch stores and seizes rainbow pride watches
@SC #65:
Not explicitly. I’m riffing off whheydt and yourself. I like the cosmic horror framing.
Katie Mack – Yes, everything in physics is completely made up—that’s the whole point
Followup to comment 111.
More Ukraine updates:
Followup to SC’s comment 99.
As reported by NBC News:
Well that’s not going to go over well.
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on the world economy
https://www.wonkette.com/e-jean-carroll-about-to-get-another-chance-to-grab-trump-by-the-wallet
https://www.wonkette.com/give-this-hero-target-employee-a-whopping-raise-and-reserved-parking-please
Excerpt from a longer article written by Jill Lepore for The New Yorker, “What We Owe Our Tree”:
Link
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #116, thanks for that excerpt. It’s making a different argument but points to something I was thinking/wondering about earlier. I don’t know what if any research has been done on this, but people in these fields are likely more or less like people in general – some are interested in the questions of existence and many/most aren’t. And the day-to-day work deals with specific questions or problems – things they want evidence of or about, observed phenomena they want to explain, models they want to refine, etc. And it’s all at a mathematical remove or focused on a tiny aspect of the world. And there’s the routine, institutional aspect of work generally. So it’s not like they’re really confronting the totality day to day. (That said, I do wonder if some people kind of use the abstraction, specificity of focus, routine, etc., to avoid the…vastness of it all.)
IOW, my original question “How do astronomers avoid having an existential crisis every day of their lives?”…might possibly have involved a bit of projection.
:D
“Jon Batiste – FREEDOM.”
Re: #103
NYT Opinion:
The Supreme Court just gutted the Clean Water Act. It could be devastating.
By Richard J. Lazarus / May 25, 2023
Richard J. Lazarus is the Howard and Katherine Aibel professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
LOL, what could go wrong?
Also in today’s Guardian (and they work well together!):
“International Booker winner Georgi Gospodinov: ‘My dystopian novel became real’”:
George Monbiot – “‘Farming good, factory bad’, we think. When it comes to the global food crisis, it isn’t so simple”:
National Security Archive – “Henry Kissinger’s Documented Legacy”:
Links to and descriptions of documents and more at the link.
‘Invade Mexico’ moves from fringe MAGA plan to GOP party plank
Followup to comment 130.
Posted by readers of the article:
Re: Lynna, OM @ #130…
In my darker, more callous moments, I sometimes think that the problem with illicit drugs isn’t that they are deadly, but that they aren’t deadly enough.
Sen. Tuberville makes openly racist remarks on Don Jr.’s web show
Of course Donald Trump Junior hosts this kind of garbage.
https://youtu.be/_MYDp_L0cbw
Oops, forgot the headline to the link.
“Labour is doing power sharing deals WITH the Tories!”
Link
Link
Louisiana Republican Considers Medical Evidence, Nixes Anti-Trans Bill. No, Really!
Ron DeSantis administration officials solicit campaign cash from lobbyists
The practice raises ethical and legal questions about state employees trying to raise campaign cash from lobbyists who have business currently before the governor.
A look at the 20 articles of impeachment against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
Oath Keepers defendant Jessica Watkins sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison for role in Jan. 6 attack
Twitter’s collapse is imminent, here’s what’s next
Tucker Carlson, Fox News hacks tied to FBI search of Tampa council member’s home
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Doug Mastriano will not run for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2024
Link
More at the link.
North Dakota’s Republican governor set to launch US presidential bid
1) Who?
2) Maybe they should just tell us which Republican senators and governors are not running for president.
DeSantis Suffers Yet ANOTHER Technical Issue as Newsmax Feed Cuts Out
Guardian liveblog:
Um, OK.
Kyiv Independent – “Explosion reported in Russian-occupied Mariupol”:
Tweet o’ the day.
@ 146
Sadly, most Americans will just shrug thinking book banning is fine that since they get them on Kindle.
birgerjohansson@134, 135,
As a commenter on the video notes (3rd from the top when I looked) this is old news in Scotland. In my home city of Edinburgh, for example, Labour have teamed up with the Tories to prevent an SNP-ScottishGreen coalition running the council.
Ron DeSantis administration officials solicit campaign cash from lobbyists
Kevin McCarthy tweeted:
Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted in reply:
Commentary on the argument presented in comment 155:
Link
Ukraine Update: All unquiet on the eastern front
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Rampant child sexual abuse is occurring in churches — not at drag shows
A new report alleges widespread sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy in Illinois. Will conservatives call for a ban on minors in churches?
From MSNBC. Worth quoting in its entirety.
@Lynna 142:
He writes in an article about which social media server to pick next.
The main benefit of federation for end users is when you move somewhere else, you won’t lose your followings/followers and have to start over. If an admin Elongates or moderation isn’t to your liking, you’re not stuck with them.
Further, the CEO dev changed the onboarding process to automatically pick his instance by default, with an opt-out to pick somewhere else. This was controversial, as his particular instance is enormously overpopulated and undermoderated.
Misleading. There’s a small team of devs for the Mastodon software. Moderation is performed by thousands of server admins (and their teams), each running an instance of Mastodon, with just their own subset of users to worry about. I remember reading about the mod-to-user ratio being far higher than Twitter, but I can’t find it at the moment. 12 million accounts currently.
This is written like the author garbled a second-hand description.
Quoting, while present in some forks, is not among standard Mastodon’s features. Folks generally just paste a link instead.
Direct messaging exists, just not the typical linear back & forth. It’s implemented as a thread with visibility restricted to folks mentioned. Real-time cross-talk can get a little weird sometimes: when both parties reply to the same last message, it results in accidental branching. It’s servicable for whispers.
I’ve heard the official Mastodon mobile app doesn’t present DMs in a dedicated tab. The official app was kind of an afterthought (they primarily focused on protocol and web client, which also works on mobile). Common advice is to choose any ot the dozens of third-party apps which connect to Mastodon. They each have their own dev teams who put more effort into features.
Followup to comment 157.
More Ukraine updates:
Link.
Scroll down to view updates.
Politico – Indiana doctor reprimanded for talking publicly about Ohio 10-year-old’s abortion
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Is Now Accidentally Fighting Furries
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #162…
Shorter approach…just don’t hold a convention in Florida. (I do wonder, though, what is likely to happen if he discovers the SCA…)
Whistleblower Drops 100 Gigabytes of Tesla Secrets to German News Site
Guardian
The German outlet did two podcasts on YouTube. No captions yet. I expect auto captions (and translation) will be there in a couple days.
Handelsblatt – The auto pilot (35:02)
Handelsblatt – This is how the research went (34:44)
* the social security number of Elon
@114:
Downing Street crash man on indecent images charge
Ukrainians claim to have destroyed large Russian warship in Berdiansk
Ohio banned August elections. Then the GOP planned one that could help preserve an abortion ban.
Watch Ukraine’s ‘Kamikaze Drones’ Slam Into Trucks, Tanks, Other Drones
Some delightful news via Intransitive: two high school students came up with a new trigonometric proof of Pythagoras’ theorem. It’s quite beautiful and elegant. I recommend working through it. Made my day.
Cheers to Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Based on what I’m seeing on Twitter, there are a lot of explosions in Russia and Russian-occupied areas.
Link
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Ron DeSantis entering the presidential race
Kyiv Independent – “Illia Ponomarenko: Why some Ukrainian soldiers use Nazi-related insignia.”
I have been waiting for someone to point out the obvious “tell” in this photo.
Secret audio tape among evidence collected by DA in fraud case against Trump
It seems odd that this didn’t come out when Cohen was sent to prison for this in 2018.
Followup to comment 172.
https://www.wonkette.com/lauren-boebert-antisemitism-conservatives
@167
Second attack on Russians in Berdiansk in one day, there are “a lot of killed”
Tweet o’ the day.
Follow up to SC @174.
Excerpts from that article:
“Hey, lawtwitter –
Check out the last few entries on this docket. Trust me.
ChatGPT making up citations, notary fraud, this has it all. Oh and an incandescent federal judge….”
Twitter link (it’s also now in the NYT). Shaboon.
Something remarkable on a Russian TV discussion programme today: Boris Nedezhdin openly calling for the replacement of Putin and restoration of normal relations with European countries (which would of course require withdrawal of Russian troops at least from land seized since February 2022).
Wife and I and the grandtwins just got back from a drive in the country. Nice day. Sunny. Lots of flowers. And I started some laundry when we got back (the girls are still not fully potty trained). And heard a glub-glub-glub sound from the basement. So I went downstairs and discovered grey water flowing out of the drain. And then back into the drain. Slowly. Luckily, I have water/sewer line insurance. So I emailed the water company and less than ten minutes later, a technician knocked on my door and she confirmed sewage line blockage. So I called the insurance company to make a claim. And they are using the three-day weekend to migrate the data to a new system. And it took almost thirty minutes to find my account. And am waiting for a call back to schedule a deblockage. Which means that I cannot make Uncle Grumpy’s Chicken, fried hominy, sautéed zucchini and a salad for our 34th anniversary dinner. So I guess we’ll have stromboli for anniversary dinner. Oh, well.
Oggie
That sounds like a remarkably good experience in plumbing emergency and insurance.
Happy Anniversary.
Well I am back on hold going through the same thing, so not a pleasant experience yet.
GOP-controlled Texas House votes to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton
NPR:
Republican-led Texas House impeaches state Attorney General Ken Paxton
May 27, 2023 / Sergio Martínez-Beltrán
Ukraine Update: The battle of the worst Russians thus begins
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
tomh @187, Man oh man, you have to be a truly scurrilous scoundrel for your fellow Republicans to vote to impeach you.
Meanwhile, the Orange Doofus is calling the impeachment vote an “unfair process.”
Link
Trump is always on the side of the criminals, a fact that was also noted in tomh’s comment.
Followup to comment 188.
More Ukraine updates, with the side issue of Taliban-versus-Iran also noted:
Link. Scroll down to view updates.
Comments posted by readers of the article:
Turns out there were two insurance accounts at this address. One under my name. The other, under my name, Jr. Took two hours on the phone to figure this out. But a contractor will be coming tomorrow and, even if it is a broken pipe, not just clogged, it is covered.
Good luck, Oggie.
Follow-up to @Lynna #142 and myself at #159:
Mastodon thread: Chris Trottier (2023-01-24)
* Several articles about Meta at the link.
Toot: Fedi.Tips (2023-05-08)
Of course, ratios can vary widely per instance.
The CEO’s instance, mastodon.social, has 1,141,693 users.
Nine others have 6-digit users. Eighty-five are mid-size instances with 5-digit users.
Out of an estimated 22,480 instances.
Lawyer ‘Greatly Regrets’ Relying on ChatGPT After Filing Motion Citing Six Non-Existent Cases
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also from there:
Also in the Guardian:
” DeSantis accused of ‘catastrophic’ climate approach after campaign launch”:
“Polls open in Turkish election runoff as Erdoğan hopes to retain power”:
“Spain heads to polls amid rows over Eta and allegations of voter fraud”:
“‘They say I should clean floors’: Barcelona’s working-class, leftwing mayor Ada Colau fights for third term”:
Faithful flock to Missouri convent to see intact remains of exhumed nun: ‘The hand of God at work’
Whoop de doo. No supernatural explanations necessary.
Couple Discovers 63-Year-Old Preserved McDonald’s Fries in Bathroom Wall During Home Renovation
Aliens ‘have been on Earth a long time’: Stanford Professor
A professor of pathology? It sounds like he is way out of his own field. And also cuckoo.
Furious Freedom Caucus vows to scuttle debt deal
Followup to comment 199:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fedus-ex-machina
Guys, I gotta say, I think Dark Brandon & team absolutely nailed this.
Ukraine Update: Ukrainian mother fights for human rights lawyer son, now a POW
You mean while Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were holding the senate hostage?
Scammers are conning Trump supporters out of thousands with ‘Trump Bucks’ they claim can be exchanged for real cash
Right wing poitics has been indistinguishable from grift since the days of Newt Gingrich.
Jan. 6th Convict Wants $370M From Parler for Banning Him
NPR:
State Farm has stopped accepting homeowner insurance applications in California
Juliana Kim / May 28, 2023
Erdogan wins five more years as Turkey’s president
Reginald @203, good point.
@207, sorry to hear that. I wanted to see more accountability for actions Erdogan took that were authoritarian.
Some fake news being promoted by rightwing doofuses this week:
Link
Noel on Twitter:
Christopher Miller on Twitter:
Nicaragua government accuses Catholic Church of money laundering, freezes accounts
Manchin Gets Mountain Valley Pipeline Deal Into Debt Bill
The North Face doubles down on ‘Summer of Pride’ campaign amid backlash from right-wingers
Lead-up to #161:
Kit Malone, ACLU Advocacy Strategist, live-tooted Dr. Bernard’s medical board hearing
* Super long. Not all mesages are visible at once. To see what comes after, gotta click the last shown.
Another Rokita case.
Law&Crime – ‘More than 90% of the complaint was devoted to irrelevant posturing‘: Trump-appointed judge clearly not impressed with the way Indiana AG’s office sued TikTok
Pride challenge removed from Fort Worth Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge after complaints
Not reported: that group/podcast is run by Texas State Rep Nate Schatzline.
Wikipedia
The one skipping through a park in a dress.
* Rep Schatzline also represents the mayor’s district.
DOCO ALERT for Autralia or at least SA : 7.30 pm, NITV, ‘The Australian Wars’ uncomfortable but powerful factual viewing. repeat but worth seeing. Later on ABCTVPlus c22 at 9.40 ‘Brian Coxés ‘Adventures In Space And Time’ doco.
Details via ABC online TV Guide :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/tv/epg/#/
The Australian Wars trailer here 1min 15 secs long.
Wikipage : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Wars
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Updates to #196 above:
“Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wins Turkish presidential election”:
“Spain’s PM calls snap election after conservative and far-right wins in local polls”:
France 24 – “‘They should be embarrassed’: Ukraine’s Kostyuk calls out French Open crowd after boos”:
Watching Q&A now. Powerful stuff. Tamil Refugees, Truth of our Black History & the Indigenous Voice. Now Assange. Worth viewing.
France 24 – “French researchers slam former hospital director for ‘unauthorised’ Covid trial”:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Kyiv Post on Twitter:
“Close call. Debris from a Russian missile intercepted by Ukrainian air defense fell in the middle of traffic….”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
Guardian liveblog:
Outrageous.
Kazakhstan’s President declines Lukashenko’s offer to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus
Ukraine aide proposes post-war demilitarised zone in Russia
Nataliya Vasilyeva on Twitter:
Paywalled Telegraph link at the link.
You Aren’t Prepared for How Disturbing ‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’ Is
Laura Rozen on Twitter, quoting a linked piece in Foreign Affairs:
American Atheists Announces Acquisition of OnlySky Media (April 20, 2023)
I hope they do a better job maintaining it than the previous owners. Their commenting system is a mess.
Some podcast episodes:
5-4 – “United States v. O’Brien“:
Tech Won’t Save Us – “The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race w/ Mary-Jane Rubenstein”:
Conspirituality – “155: We Want Them Infected (w/Jonathan Howard, M.D.)”:
How to win a grand prize of $10,000 for hunting pythons in Florida
Text quoted by Reginald @229:
Sounds like a good idea to me.
In other news: How a center-left party could once again pull an upset in Canada’s most conservative province
Much more at the link. Looks similar to some elections in the USA where far right candidates are so fucking awful that they defeat themselves.
As a side note, Alberta has a significant population of Mormons. A new mormon temple was dedicated in Calgary in 2012. There are about 81,000 mormons in Alberta, with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reporting even more members than that. A lot of mormons moved from the USA to Canada in 1887 in response to tensions between the church and the US government.
The Mormon church owns an 88,000-acre ranch in Alberta, and that is not all of their property holdings. There are also timber-harvesting companies, etc.
“Conservative” doesn’t cover it when describing the often retrograde, misogynistic mormon communities. “Disobedient” females from fundamentalist mormon communities in the USA have, in the past, been forced to move to Canada where they were married to mormon leaders there. And reverse trafficking in minor females sent some from Canada to the USA. Canadian polygamy trial weighs religious rights
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/talking-stock
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Trump as rejected cartoon character
Link
WaPo:
Texas Republicans pass voting bills targeting large Democratic county
The new law would single out Houston, with its sizable Black population, for a different election process
Jan. 6 rioters are raking in thousands in donations. Now the US is coming after their haul
Ukraine Update: Russia celebrates Kyiv’s birthday with ineffective drone and missile barrage
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #242 (and others)…
It should probably be noted that the original “doodlebug” missile was the Feisler Fi-103 (aka V-1) pulse jet “cruise missile”.
For covid long-haulers, the pandemic is far from over.
Washington Post link
The end of the public health emergency leaves many fearful they will be forgotten.
Followup to comment 242.
More Ukraine updates:
Reginald Selkirk @241
When Wife told me this one, my immediate reaction was, “Hmm. Getting it free, but still turning it into a moneymaking scam? Sounds like conservatives to me.”
Oh, FFS.
Trump compares himself to fallen soldiers in a Memorial Day social media rant.
More at the link.
At least 16 dead, dozens injured in shootings across the U.S. over Memorial Day weekend
The gun violence occurred at beaches, high schools and motorcycle rallies, among other locations, across at least eight states.
What a comparison! Russia and the United States (and far earlier, Great Britain) tried to occupy Afghanistan, which meant the Afghans were fighting on their home turf. The conflict with Iran more closely resembles a border skirmish.
Vatican to bishops, Catholic leaders: Lay off the divisive social media posts
Sign using homophobic slur in front of Tallahassee business draws criticism
Russian Volunteer Corps said they penetrated Russia again
Putin approves Russia’s exit from Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
Scientific American Condemns Ron DeSantis
Reconciliation Week in Australia 27th May (the date of the 1967 referendum that meant Indigenous People counted in our census*) till June 3rd. (Date of the Mabo decision inthe High Court that finally accepted that ‘Terra Nullius** was a lie.)
“Voice. Treaty. Truth” has become the slogan or three main things being argued for here – telling the difficult (& for some “controversial”**) history of the genocide and dispossession perpetrated against Ausralia’s First Peoples, promoting an Indigenous Voice to Parliament arising from the Uluru Statement from the Heart and Treaty – the idea of signing aTreaty or treaties with our Indigenous Peoples.
Hisatorically, Australia is unique among Western nations in never having a treaty, it seems that alot of people take issue with telling the Truth and the Voice is in trouble and coming under attack by people misinformed by the reichwing regressive anti-woke ie kindness and willingness tolisten toothers mob.
.* See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Aboriginals)
.** See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_v_Queensland_(No_2)
.*** Like the teaching of supposed CRT or facts that make European- Americans / Australians uncomfortable about grim and brutal things that actually happened but don’t fit the mythical white washed history that nationalists can feel good about.
So, if we never had treaties*, we can’t handle or face and accept the Truth** and we won’t even give our Indigenous Peoples a Voice, what does that make us and say about us?
(Us here = Australia & non-Indigenous Australians.)
.* See :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-10/fact-check3a-is-australia-the-only-first-world-nation-with-a-c/11583706
.** Eg with the regressive pushback against a better, more complete and accurate understanding of Australia’s history as demonstrated by our History Wars. (Sound familiar?) See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_wars
.*** See :
Headline – source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-18/indigenous-leader-mick-gooda-says-he-is/102365744
Full disclosure : I am NOT Indigenous but this is something I’ve looked into and learnt a bit about and care about here. I don’t have all the answers of knowledge but think this needs addressing with compassion and truthfulness. I think Indigenous People need to be recognised and empowered.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-30/rangers-battle-suspicious-fire-on-great-barrier-reef-island/102408970
What the HELL is wrong with some people?! Just ..WTF!? 😕
Maybe, hopefully its just a mistake that someone will own up to? But..
Meanwhile its people tryingt osave the environment facing punishment :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-30/sa-protest-law-opposed-outside-parliament-house/102409004
Also :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-30/miranda-tapsell-surprising-reaction-get-krackin-racism-monologue/102390526
Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack, blames Ukraine
Why? Is bombing targets in another country “terrorism”? Good job by the writer bringing it into context at the end of the first paragraph.
‘Numbers Nobody Has Ever Seen’: How the GOP Lost Wisconsin
Guerrero: Is polarization a problem, or just a reality because the far right has lost its mind?
Japan court rules that a bar on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also from there:
Also in the Guardian:
“‘I think of drowning myself’: the Iraqi families displaced by a dam – and homeless for 40 years”:
“Illinois set to become first state to end book bans”:
Guardian – “Can humans ever understand how animals think?”: “A flood of new research is overturning old assumptions about what animal minds are and aren’t capable of – and changing how we think about our own species…”
From their review:
LOL. If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal is now on my reading list.
New episode of Our Hen House – “Animal Liberation Now w/ Peter Singer”:
Lynna @ #236, thank you for that information! I didn’t know anything about the Mormon presence in Canada.
Quoted in Lynna’s #248:
What a terrible story.
Noel on Twitter:
Perfect photo and audio (no subtitles) at the link.
(((Tendar))) on Twitter:
Another perfect photo and translated snippet at the link.
Dmitri on Twitter – more from the monster and ideal representative of his nation at present:
Subtitled audio at the link. “The fact that they fly to your home in Rubylovka, to fuck with that, let your houses burn.”
Laura Rozen on Twitter:
SC @265
There’s more to that story. Fundamentalist Mormon leaders in Utah and Idaho also used to ship young men to Canada to work on ranches and in timber harvesting companies owned by powerful Mormon men in Alberta. It was basically slave labor for the powerful guys, and, more importantly for other Mormon leaders, it was a way to remove young men from their communities so that there was less competition for wives. If one old guy in southern Utah has a dozen or more wives, then obviously the population becomes unbalanced.
Fundamentalist Mormons in more rural, polygamist communities in Utah used to also put a bunch of young men in vans, drive them to Salt Lake City and drop them off with no money and no resources. The “Lost Boys” were such a big problem that the situation became known to the public. Some of those boy were only teenagers. To survive, some turned to drugs and prostitution. Entire organizations in Salt Lake City were founded to address the issue. Without proper educations, and having only the experience of living in a closed religious, fundamentalist community, a lot of the Lost Boys didn’t have a clue.
To this day you can find a lot of information online concerning the Lost Boys. I haven’t kept up with the issue, so I won’t comment on current situations.
I know that about a decade ago some of the Lost Boys in Canada escaped from slave labor-ish conditions and moved to cities in western Canada. Some other young Mormon men have risen above “Lost Boy” status. Still, there were apparently a lot of suicides and drug overdoses.
From Polygamist Royalty To FLDS Lost Boy
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104359348
The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/14/usa.julianborger
An excerpt from the last linked article in comment 270:
SC… @ # 264, quoting The Guardian: … “the quintessential example of how too much profundity can literally break your brain”. The “soul-tortured Nietzsche” …
A rather overwrought way to describe (probable) syphilis.
Knives Out In Trumpland As Lawyers Find Representing Serial Con Man Has Its Perils
I tried to post an excerpt from that article, but something in the text triggers PZ’s filters.
The basic gist of the story is: “With indictments seemingly imminent in both Georgia and the federal documents case, Trump’s lawyers are starting to turn on each other.”
FWIW;
Source : https://www.space.com/nasa-ufo-study-livestream-may-2023
Almost nostalgic for the silliness of the old flying saucer craze now..
There are entirely legitimate reasons for striking a country which is making war on you: supply lines, command and control. The reasons for restraint are mostly PR: countries which are supplying weapons to Ukraine wish to promote the view that they are helping Ukraine regain its own territory, not waging a proxy war on Russia.
So: I understand the psychological desire to strike back and recognize the legitimate reasons for doing so, and I also understand the reasons for artificial restraint.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter is diagnosed with dementia
Contestant in cheese rolling is knocked unconscious but comes out on top
Lynna @ #s 270 and 271, wow. Thanks again.
Reginald Selkirk @ #275:
I agree – hence the heh.
James Cleverley, in contrast, came right out with it:
Link
Republican unity on debt ceiling crumbling fast
I’m glad to hear that Republican whackos are fractious and disorganized. That makes them less effective when they try to cause financial disaster.
https://twitter.com/FROzenLiberal/status/1662072051513819137
Image at the link.
FFS.
More Comedy From CNN: Mike Pence To Get Presidential Town Hall Just Like Trump!
Chick-fil-A Is Latest Target of the Bud Light Boycott Movement
Utah Republican Chris Stewart plans to resign from House
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #283…
That’s hilarious. Talk about “eating your own”… One wonders if Hobby Lobby will be next on the list?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Accuses Elon Musk of Boosting Twitter Account Impersonating Her: ‘Be Careful of What You See’
$300 million US aid package to include Avenger AA systems and Zuni rockets
Judge postpones showdown over 14th Amendment debt powers
Sabotage suspected by Russian media as fuel tanker cars derail near Ulyanovsk in Russia
Reginald @283 and whheydt @285. It is amusing to watch. What these boycotts add up to is this: Purity Test!
Reminds me of religion, as if rightwing voters have turned their politics into a religion. Purity tests always turn out badly.
Workers at ZNPP forced to sign contracts with Rosatom under duress, Ukraine says
@Reginald Selkirk #266:
Broken link should go to Yahoo.
Follow-up from Mediaite:
Ukraine Update: Russia goes into a fresh panic after drones strike around Moscow
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Alabama highway sign hijacked with white supremacist hate messages
Reginald Selkirk @ #272:
Well, I think his philosophy as a whole reveals brokenness and a tortured soul (not so much due to his great intelligence as to the combination of his childhood and social and political milieu, exacerbated by the work of philosophizing; but I haven’t read the book so don’t know the exact contours of Gregg’s argument).
It’s interesting how often in his Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right, Ronald Beiner uses terms like “hysteria,” “obsession,” and the like in describing Nietzsche and his “arch-reactionary” writing. From there:
To what he saw as the central problem: that “Western civilization is going down the toilet because of too much emphasis on truth and rationality and too much emphasis on equal human dignity.” (p. 24)
Really, the more I see from Nietzsche the less (but only to a degree) I’m inclined to see Alice Miller’s thesis in The Untouched Key – that his arguments were in part an attempt to strike back at the oppressive forces that prevented him from expressing his vitality as a child and into adulthood – as a crazy reach. There really is a vitality and love of the world at the base of his writing that somehow became twisted and misshapen and suppressed by the nature of his thought. Maybe that’s what the narwhal book argues – I don’t know. (This could also be why he’s had an enduring appeal to some people on the left: they sense this underneath his actual arguments…)
Aside from his personal psychology, many of these far-right ideas and beliefs, as Beiner suggests, are pretty batshit. Reading Richard Wolin’s Heidegger in Ruins (should have been a great book but is instead a good book content-wise but a fairly annoying book overall because the editors didn’t do their job) is a constant experience of asking “WTF?!” It’s astonishing that so much of what he wrote is taken seriously as philosophy. It’s not just that the ideas and beliefs are bad and evil, which they are, but that reality is refracted through such a fucked-up prism that the conclusions are nuts.
@295: @272: That was Pierce R. Butler.
Reginald Selkirk @ #296, oh! Sorry!
Guardian – “Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, defects to Russia”:
Oh, GFY. You don’t speak for US citizens, traitorous liar.
Followup to comment 293.
More Ukraine updates:
Link. Scroll down for the updates.
New episode of War On the Rocks – “Ukraine’s Offensive and its Meaning for the War”:
SC… @ # 295 & 297 – Yeah, please don’t blame Reginald Selkirk for my ravings, derived mostly from Heinz Friedrick Peters’s Zarathustra’s Sister: The Case of Elizabeth and Friedrich Nietzche, an exploration of how Freddy’s little sister (who led a colorful life of her own) both took care/charge of her fallen brother and reshaped his reputation and legacy.
Most of Friedrich’s life was spent in unintentionally and unconsciously disproving his notorious aphorism that which doesn’t kill one makes one stronger. I dunno if anyone has ever obtained and tested any tissue remnants to confirm the second-hand diagnosis of syphilis, but apparently the reported symptoms matched the standard profile pretty closely.
NBC News:
Florida elections officials quietly made it easier for Ron DeSantis to fund his 2024 bid
State elections officials have removed years-old guidance against moving state political money to federal super PACs, clearing the way for a fund previously run by DeSantis to do just that.
By Matt Dixon / May 30, 2023
Correction to my # 301: It seems Friedrich N spent only 11 or 12 years fully incapacitated from whatever took him down, though he had to resign from his academic post 10 years before that, so he only spent about 40% of his life disproving his aphorism.
I suppose it just shows how utterly incompetent and senile Joe Biden is that he’s failed to have her killed or caged despite being POTUS for over 2 years.
North Korea spy satellite launch fails as rocket falls into the sea
Federal Judge Makes History In Holding That Border Searches of Cell Phones Require a Warrant
Russia reports hits on oil refineries and town near Ukraine
So they have gotten beyond blaming the malfeasance of their workers?
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Also in the Guardian – “Kosovo: ‘fascist mobs’ guided by Serbia causing violence, says country’s PM”:
Russian Media Monitor (YT link) – “Russian TV struggles to define victory.”
One exchange:
Fidelity: Twitter is Now Only Worth a Third of What Elon Musk Paid for It
IOW, Musk’s mission to destroy Twitter is 2/3 complete!
PSA: Free Doughnuts This Friday
Pierce R. Butler @ #301:
LOL, it was super hard to find a pithy phrasing that couldn’t be read as sarcastically insulting to anyone! To be clear, the “Sorry!” was meant for both of you, to apologize for the mix-up.
Interesting. I haven’t read that. I did read Forgotten Fatherland: The True Story of Nietzsche’s Sister and Her Lost Aryan Colony by Ben Macintyre years ago (just saw that he also wrote A Spy among Friends which I watched the TV series of recently; great last episode – I thought of it yesterday when I saw the news about Tara Reade – but took them too long to get there; I give it a B). There’s evidently another older book about her by Carol Diethe called Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, which could also be interesting.
Here’s a 2019 article from Italian Elle Decor (for some reason) about Nueva Germania for anyone interested – “The (Failed) Reconstruction of an Aryan Utopia in Paraguay”: “The often untold story of a Nazi colony in the jungles of Paraguay organized by Nietzsche’s sister. And what remains of it today.”
It could totally have been syphilis. But considering that his father died at 35 of an unspecified “brain illness,” he was sickly as a child and throughout his life with headaches and visual problems that could well have been caused by a neurological issue, and the “treatments” for various conditions at the time were often toxic, it could have been a number of things, a combination of things, or none of these things. Don’t know.
“The often untold story” is a fun phrase.
BBC – “Ukraine war: Dashcam captures moment missile debris falls onto Kyiv road”:
Video at the link. I salute the driver of the black van at the end who goes around it.
This is really infuriating and disgarceful. Shame on Malinauskas my State Premier (I guess equivalent to Governor) here :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-31/sa-upper-house-passes-protest-law-changes/102413948
Should young Americans have to serve in military to vote? Yes, says presidential candidate
Obviously this is tailored to favor Republican candidates. Otherwise, why the age discrimination? It is interesting to think that politicians like Trump and Clinton might not be allowed to vote. And I took a quick look at Ramaswamy’s Wikipedia page and campaign web site and saw no mention of any military service. Sounds like a hypocrite.
Two hot gas dwarfs & a Hot Neptune :
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-astronomers-planets-kepler-telescope-dark.html
Over five thousand exoplanets.. Thankyou Kepler team.
Scope of special counsel’s probe reportedly grows in unexpected ways
After the 2020 elections, Donald Trump fired DHS’ top cybersecurity official for telling the truth about the results. Investigators want to know why.
Mentioned already upthread but FWIW NASA live yiutube feed – Public Meeting on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (Official NASA Broadcast
Trump makes unconstitutional promise to racist base
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on loser Republicans
Mykhailo Podolyak on Twitter:
@ ^ SC (Salty Current) : >> Yup – and a fool who threw away Russia’s military and political and his own personal reputation for intelligence in a silly, murderous easily avoidable folly.
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine Update: Russia’s defensive lines won’t be easy to breach
URL on Hundreds of Thousands of Maryland License Plates Redirects to an Online Filipino Casino
Oh, FFS. Even their infighting is stupid and ill-informed.
Link
Trump plagiarized Reagan … and countless other politicians. As usual, Trump’s accusations are projections of his own guilt. Trump can’t even claim that he stole that phrase first.
Update on the debt ceiling vote:
Link
Ha – Mashed – “So Now The Aubrey Plaza Wood Milk Ad Apparently Violated Federal Law.”
After Calling Joe Biden Senile, Republicans Complain He Outsmarted Them
Tuberville’s top military adviser bows out
US labor market remains resilient as job openings climb, layoffs drop
Bud Light Announces New Initiative With LGBTQ+ Business Owners Despite Boycott, Loss of Sales
I guess they figured out it is better to take flak from one side than from both sides, which their wishy-washiness brought upon them.
@329: The legal precedents on satire as protected free speech are pretty solid.
Tweet o’ the day.
Reginald Selkirk @ #334, from the press release:
I don’t know the merits of their case, but it’s not just an ordinary speech issue.
(A side note: as many people have pointed out, plant milks have been around for centuries if not millennia. The whole premise of the ad is stupid and false.)
Atlanta Community Press Collective on Twitter:
UFOs: What we learned from Nasa’s public meeting
How many have been clearly identified as extraterrestrial? Zero. The most they have is that some are still unknown.
Uh, what? Why would a commercial aircraft be showing up as “a series of dots”? Why would a naval aircraft be unable to intercept?
YES. (Twitter link)
I read this piece yesterday and one part has been sticking in my head – Slate – “Want to Stare Into the Republican Soul in 2023?”
CNN – “EXCLUSIVE: Trump captured on tape talking about classified document he kept after leaving the White House”:
Hugo Lowell on Twitter:
Actor Danny Masterson found guilty of 2 rape counts, is led from court in handcuffs
Kyiv Independent – “Mayor: 204 Bakhmut residents killed, 505 injured since start of full-scale invasion”:
‘Hateful’ Tommy Tuberville Is Flamed by His Own Brother
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis Trolls Ron DeSantis With Cheeky NBA Bet
Reginald Selkirk @ #343, that’s such good news. Finally.
Leah Remini on Twitter:
Just barely good news — or at least sort of reasonable news on one hand, and a remainder of really bad new on the other: from The Oklahoman.
Axios:
Niagara Catholic school board trustee compares Pride flag to Nazi flag, video shows
Because ‘inclusion’ = ‘extermination’ I guess.
The avoid-default bill has passed in the House. It’s not a done deal until it also passes the Senate, and then goes to Biden’s desk for a signature.
Followup to comment 351: Congress critters are still voting, but the magic number of yes votes has already been reached.
Democrats had to bail Republicans out before the voting on the bill could even start.
Followup to comments 351 and 352. There are now 314 votes to support the bill and only 117 opposing.
NBC:
More re #337 – Josie Duffy Rice on Twitter:
Video at the link.
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #355…
Actually…I have heard of someone being accused of charity fraud. Shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that it was Donald Trump.
@^ whheydt : Pretty sure the Congress liar George Santos was a charoity fraud too – his whole fake / dodgy pets charity thing..
.***
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-01/ben-roberts-smith-defamation-battle-judgement-today/102411774
.***
Refugees being used as political pawns beiliving and dying in horrific conditions on the Polish-Belarus border :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-01/families-trapped-between-belarus-poland-living-in-forest/102414474
Source : https://au.sports.yahoo.com/pence-christie-plan-2024-campaign-232500043.html
@340. SC (Salty Current) : So Nikki Haley is being called a “unifier” for literally destroying unions? How oxymoronic / Orwellian / bass ackward is that? (Very.)
.***
Captain Obvs conclusion but : ‘UFOs will remain mysterious without better data, NASA study team says’ :
https://www.space.com/nasa-ufo-study-group-better-data-needed
Yeah, there’s stuff we don’t understand. No it almost certainly ain’t little green men in flying saucers. Or flying pink invisible unicorns either..
Othjer spaaaace neeeewwwss – Wood this work? :
Source : https://www.space.com/wooden-satellite-lignosat-japan-2024
Plus good news fromthe JUICE spacecraft – not a spacecraft constructed of frozen juice! :
https://www.space.com/juice-jupiter-spacecraft-finishes-deploying-instruments
Re: StevoR @ #360…
I’m not so sure about a wood satellite burning up. It would depend on what sort of wood… I have a vague memory that the USSR used lignum vitae re-entry shields on some of their early manned missions, and that they worked just fine at surviving re-entry.
EFF – Federal judge makes history in holding that border searches of cell phones require a warrant
* From the ruling: “The Court need not here address whether the same result would
hold for a non-resident or non-citizen.”
* Randos figured it’ll apply to the “100 mile zone” blanketing border states, but only within the Southern District of New York. EFF hopes other courts follow suit.
@ ^ whheydt : Magnolia wood apparently. Not sure which Magnolia species :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia
.***
Update for #357 :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-01/ben-roberts-smith-defamation-result/102420546
it official – evidence shows its true that Ben Roberts-Smith is a war criminal.
NB
Biden celebrates appalling deal with Kevin McCarthy
https://youtu.be/UQh5K5aBOGQ
Hurray! We made life worse for poor people!
whheydt @ #356 and StevoR @ #357, the question wasn’t whether or not people have heard of others being accused of charity fraud but whether or not people have seen others (particularly in something like a small, grassroots bail fund) arrested for charity fraud in the way shown in the video.
StevoR @ #363:
Very good.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also in the Guardian:
“‘Unprecedented’ Nova Scotia wildfires expected to worsen, officials warn”:
Margaret Sullivan – “Gay and trans people deserve to live without persecution in the US. Why is that so hard?”:
Paul Daley – “As the Ben Roberts-Smith case proves, it’s time for Australia to abandon our farcical Anzac myths”:
Noel on Twitter:
Noel on Twitter:
Unconfirmed photos at the link.
Honest Govt Ads on SA’s new anti-Protest Laws 3 very illuminating minutes onwho itseems is really running my state – Santos – a Fossil fuel company.
Francis Scarr on Twitter:
Video at the link. The drunken dreamworld war of Russian state television.
United States Mint to Release American Women Quarters™ Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt
Vera Putina, Georgian woman who claimed to be Vladimir Putin’s biological mother – obituary
ibid:
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry orders 300 Vector drones from German company
So; reconnaissance.
Well, yeah, we are in truly serious trouble & deep in th soft and stinky here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-06-01/health-report-card-for-the-planet-science-boundaries/102405754
Oh and for Oz, well I am dreading this I used to like Summers once years ..decades ago.. when I could just watch cricket inside without fear.. :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-01/warm-dry-winter-tipped-for-virtually-all-of-australia/102399002
Every Canadian cigarette will soon carry a health warning
Perversely, they may be opening a new market for collectors.
Russia says U.S. accessed thousands of Apple phones in spy plot
This Vox piece has more re #s 329/336, but it’s the photo of a “rotary milking parlor” in California that stopped me cold. Just a nightmarish thing. I can’t imagine how the cows must be suffering in this panlacticon, or what kind of person could design it.
@ ^ Reginald Selkirk :canada’sonly just now doing this? Oz has been doing that for years now..
@ 378 that is & see :
https://www.health.gov.au/topics/smoking-and-tobacco/tobacco-control/health-warnings
@381: Canada will be labeling the cigarettes themselves, not just the packages. Is that what Australia is doing?
@381,382: I checked your link, and that seems to be warnings on packaging, not on the cigarettes themselves.
Congress Will Reportedly Block Space Command Funding If Its Headquarters Isn’t Moved to Alabama
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #385…
I would welcome a policy (or even a law) requiring that any new government facilities take into consideration restrictions on the rights of federal employees before a site is selected. This would obviously include rights such as reproductive care in all its aspects, and personal choice as to pronouns and gender dysphoria treatment. States that restrict rights would have to have some major overriding benefits to be selected over states that do not restrict rights.
whheydt @386, I agree.
In other news, this is a truly laughable level of infighting:
Link
Sigh. Same as it ever was:
Link
The real picture of division in the House Republican caucus:
Link
Rep. Paul Gosar Claims He Has Been ‘Smeared’ As A ‘Nazi’
In the same newsletter, he linked to a site filled with white supremacist content. [LOL. Clueless doofus shoots self in foot.]
I snipped details concerning David Stringer, a former Arizona Republican state legislator who resigned in 2019 after it was revealed that he was arrested and accused of paying underage boys for sex in 1983. Stringer has previously denied those allegations and charges related to the case were later expunged as part of a plea agreement. Snipped details about Oath Keepers connection to Prescott eNews, and Stringer as a supporter of the militant group. Snipped details of connections with American Renaissance, a publication with ties to new-Nazis, white supremacists and Klan leaders.
Guardian liveblog:
Followup to comment 390.
Posted by readers of the article:
Edgars Rincevics, new president of Latvia is the world’s first openly gay president.
And the most senior gay politician from the former Soviet Union.
WaPo – A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years.
The first fecal transplant pill is heading to pharmacies
Rightwing doofuses from the USA , in Hungary, in Florida, and causing damage everywhere:
Link
Much more at the link.
Iran plans to escalate attacks against U.S. troops in Syria, documents show.
Washington Post link
Governor raises gay pride flag over Wisconsin Capitol in show of support for LGBTQ+ community
Some podcast episodes:
On the Media – “Leaving the Extreme Right, and a Marriage, Behind”:
If Books Could Kill – “The World is Flat”:
Citations Needed – “Episode 183: AI Hype and the Disciplining of “Creative,” Academic, and Journalistic Labor”:
SC… @ # 337, quoting the Atlanta Community Press Collective: … the violence and overreach tactics from the Atlanta PD and DeKalb and Fulton County legal system.
Fulton County? Et tu, Fani Willis?!? :-(
Russian Media Monitor (YT link) – “Professor says the West is trying to bribe Russians with Nutella, paved roads and indoor toilets.”
You have to see Marjorie Taylor Greene’s plan to ‘take down the Deep State’
Team Trump not done with bogus line on Obama, classified docs
Nearly a year later, Team Trump is still claiming there’s some meaningful parallel between how Barack Obama and Donald Trump handled classified materials.
Trump gets something quite wrong stuck in his head, and then he doubles down on it no matter what facts are presented. Either this is yet another sign of his increasing diminishment of mental capacity, or it remains part of his callous political calculation that his lies will be believed.
@401: Great news! Where do I donate my Nutella?
Tim Kaine Lookin’ To Yank Joe Manchin’s Frackin’ Pipeline Right Out Of The Debt Ceiling Bill
Yep, he’s fine, but Republicans are going to make a big deal out of this:
Link
Lynna @ #406, I almost posted a video earlier. He shook hands with all 921 of them in the hot sun. At the time I saw it tweeted he had already been up there shaking hands for an hour and a half.
I almost posted a video earlier
Of the handshaking, not the fall. :)
Ron DeSantis is Not a Competent Governor
Reginald Selkirk @ #409, that’s a good piece. And at least one of those hateful, shortsighted policies – the one related to immigrants – will probably affect the whole country due to the effects on agriculture/shipping. And it doesn’t even get into his denialist health or climate policies, which will cause untold death and destruction. Everyone now is vulnerable to climate change, but Florida is extremely vulnerable. There’s a potential tropical storm forming right now and it’s the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season. And it’s not just hurricanes – it’s flooding, intense heat, multiple beach issues, insect-borne diseases, and on and on. I don’t think we can begin to calculate how much this guy is going to cost Florida and the country in lives, suffering, and resources in the long term, on top of the harms he’s causing now.
Plus the corruption, penchant for autocracy, and demonization of political opponents…
Vice – “AI-Controlled Drone Goes Rogue, Kills Human Operator in USAF Simulated Test”:
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #412…
That sounds way too much like a re-write of one of Isaac Asimov’s thiotimoline stories.
whheydt @ #413, wouldn’t it be funny if the guy asked a chatbot to write an AI-gone-rogue drone story for his presentation and it produced an Asimov story because that had been scraped from the internet?
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #414…
There is no shortage of SF stories about AIs (usually in the form of robots) going rogue, and not just by Asimov. A chatbot would be more likely, I suspect, to use the plot from “2001”.
Ukraine Update: Anti-Putin forces cross the border again for another attack inside Russia
Followup to comment 416.
Absent and clueless:
Link
SC @407:
Shaking that many hands while standing the hot sun would have worn me out. And you know Biden was speaking to each graduate and smiling at all of them.
Fox News won’t feature that part. They will just put the video of Biden stumbling over a sandbag near the podium on a loop and play that.
From the link in #412:
*sigh*
Ted Chiang – Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?
NBC – Federal government orders desegregation in 32 Mississippi school districts
Story basically is the title, with mention of an earlier case.
Truthout – Texas bans civics lessons involving student interactions with elected officials
Re #412 above – Guardian – “US air force denies running simulation in which AI drone ‘killed’ operator”:
LOL. Something like #414 seems increasingly possible. Or he made it up to make a point, which also wouldn’t be hugely scandalous, but it’s funny that it was picked up by the media. On the other hand, I would be very surprised if they haven’t “conducted any such AI-drone simulations” …unless they’re using “such” to do some heavy lifting in the same way they’re (mis)using “anecdotal.”
Tweet o’ the day.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also from there:
Would they not want an AI that pursues the interests of senior management above all else, rather than shareholder value? If it was the latter, the AI might decide that shareholder value was best maximised by sacking the expensive management team and taking over itself! (In Charles Stross’ Accelerando, the future is controlled by self-aware corporations.)
Thanks for that link, BTW – a very perceptive article.
In the Guardian:
“The multinational companies that industrialised the Amazon rainforest”:
As this last sentence suggests, this and some other articles in this otherwise informative series frame the problem in a ludicrous fashion: “If their operations can be consolidated and made more transparent and accountable, they have the financial power to be part of the solution for the rainforest, rather than the problem – as some have been until now.” Enough. There’s no time for this nonsense. If it’s the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that requires this pose of credulity and the inclusion of multiple paragraphs of corporate lies about their sustainability commitments, then you should forgo it. If this is purely of your own volition, then snap the fuck out of it.
“More than 800m Amazon trees felled in six years to meet beef demand”:
Much more at the link. Coincidentally, this special report was just published by Reuters the other day – “The meat magnate who pushed Putin’s agenda in Germany”:
Also in today’s Guardian:
“Scientists discover mysterious cosmic threads in Milky Way”:
“Lake Maggiore deaths: why were Italian and Israeli secret service agents on a boat in northern Italy?”:
“Revealed: The secret push to bury a weedkiller’s link to Parkinson’s disease”:
They should probably prepare to be criminally investigated.
@427: What does “horizontal” mean in the context of the Milky Way?
Update – “USAF Official Says He ‘Misspoke’ About AI Drone Killing Human Operator in Simulated Test”:
With all these denials I’m starting to think this did actually happen.
Reginald Selkirk @ #428, did you read the article and not understand or did you not read the article?
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Mother Nature’s support of rainbows
In other news: Chuck Grassley says the quiet part out loud
Link
Job growth easily exceeds expectations with blockbuster May totals
The economy has now created more than 13.6 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years in office.
More at the link.
“Heavy explosions in Russian-occupied Berdyansk, seaport area.”
Videos at the (Twitter) link.
Trump pushes back on his inability to serve 8 more years in White House: ‘You need 6 months’
Then why couldn’t he get it done in the 4 years he already had? Idiot.
California bill would allow Sikhs to ride motorcycles without a helmet
Religious affiliation exempts them from the law? This is not a good solution. Special Sikh-friendly helmets already exist for bicycles and military personnel.
Cycling helmet for kids
Helmets for Sikhs in Indian military
@427, 430
The latter.
The team’s latest discovery changes the known direction of the filaments; previously, known strands were generally perpendicular to the galactic plane, stretched across it like hash marks. The newly discovered filaments are parallel to it and much shorter than the previously known structures.
Iowa State Auditor Accuses Republicans Of ‘Corrupt’ Attempt To Block His Investigations
The Iran document Trump talked about on tape is missing [!!!]
Wonkette: “Huzzay! Debt Ceiling Raised, Catastrophe Averted, Republicans And Joe Manchin :(”
Reginald Selkirk @ #437, yes, I don’t know if it’s right, but I picture these as like cosmic spin art.
YouTube now allows videos that falsely claim Trump won 2020 election
A Black professor has long said what the IRS now admits: The tax system is biased
It Took Alito Barely a Month to Violate the Supreme Court’s New Ethics Rules
Sarah Palin Annoyed by Ron DeSantis’ Run, Says It ‘Doesn’t Make Sense’
I have some thoughts.
There are probably a lot of things that don’t make sense to Sarah Palin.
Who thought to get her opinion on this anyway?
Ukraine Update: Bakhmut is still a death trap for Russia
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Washington Post:
NBC News:
Associated Press reports good news on the diplomacy front:
Prosecutors Scrutinize Political Nonprofit Groups for Fund-Raising Fraud.
New York Times link
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have sought recordings of calls made by two networks of groups that solicited money from donors for a variety of politically tinged causes.
Followup to comment 447.
More Ukraine updates:
Link. Scroll down to view the updates.
I do hope that includes South Carolina.
Lynna @ #451, that’s good news. As I said @ #68, this seemed like plain fraud.
NPR:
YouTube will no longer take down false claims about U.S. elections
By Shannon Bond / June 2, 2023
Well, this is literally terrifying if you have any idea of what it means and implies :
https://climatecrocks.com/2023/06/01/will-this-years-el-nino-be-as-intense-as-2015-1998-does-it-matter/#more-86498
No exaggeration at all.
See also :
https://climatereanalyzer.org/
For primary source, resources and more info as well as :
http://www.bom.gov.au/marine/about/about-sea-surface.shtml
An 8+ hour police standoff in West Humboldt Park, Chicago. Blog eats my descriptions. Rooftop flame thrower.
Neighbors said he’d done this frequently in recent months, had fired before. The standoff began after locals had written letters to the mayor and governor about the man (said to be a squatter); officials were unable to enter the building and called police.
ChicagoPD tweeted a statement that when police finally made entry, the man was discovered dead.
Ah, must’ve been a link. Archiving fixed it.
^ Barricaded on a rooftop with a sw_stika flag (among others), an old man on a scaffolding tower was armed with a gun and flamethrower. blaring a siren, music, and threatening racist recordings.
Powerful image and post from Abe Drayton here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2023/05/29/global-warming-is-driving-insurers-out-of-california/#comments
WaPo:
Tennessee drag ban is unconstitutional, federal judge rules
By Caroline Anders / June 3, 2023
SC @454, correct, just out and out fraud. Also, as you noted in comment 68, those fraudsters were “Republican operatives.” Raising money for themselves, I assume, but one also wonders to what other nefarious purposes they may put that money.
My thought exactly!
Followup to SC @341 and me @439.
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comment 463:
Link
I still want to know if Trump actually had the classified document regarding invasion plans for Iran. If Trump did have such a document, I want to know what he did with it.
Another note: some people are saying that if such a plan to invade Iran existed, then Trump was right and General Milley was wrong. The idea is that Trump was probably keeping such a document to get revenge on Milley. Even if Trump thought that, he was stupidly wrong (again). The military works up contingency plans all the time. Those contingency plans do not presage imminent invasion.
“New disclosures show how Gen. Mark A. Milley tried to check Trump.” Washington Post link to September 2021 article. Excerpt:
There were also reports that Trump shouted at Milley in the oval office, accusing Milley of treason, etc. In other words, Milley was, as Trump saw it, a personal enemy. And we know how Trump holds a grudge, how he does not relent when he goes after his enemies.
The Ruble is Finally Beginning to Slide — and so is The RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Wonkette: “Kari Lake Takes Break From Losing AZ Election Over And Over To Record Crappy Protest Music”
Biden signs debt ceiling bill, averting government default
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/03/biden-debt-ceiling/
India train crash toll passes 280; rescue operation ends.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/03/india-train-crash-odisha/
Followup to comment 468.
More details, as reported by The New York Times:
California’s earliest Black settlers bought land only for it to be stolen. Their descendants want it back.
Former slaves who came to California mined for gold and bought property, only for their land to be stolen or seized. Their families, generations later, say it’s time for a reckoning.
Followup to Reginald @446.
GOP walkout in Oregon Senate hits 4th week; uncertain if boycotters will be sanctioned
I will add that forest fire season is arriving now, and Oregon does not seem to be prepared.
(((Tendar))) on Twitter:
Dated timelapse images at the link. I haven’t seen anyone put together a full view of what’s been hit in the last few days, but they do seem to be doing real damage to Russian supply infrastructure in several locations.
@466: More on Kari Lake’s musical sense:
Kari Lake’s entry music at a Scottsdale rally was … hilarious
Christian radio host Dave Ramsey faces $150 million lawsuit from listeners who say they were defrauded by a timeshare exit company he promoted
Cardinal performs rite to restore Vatican altar desecrated by man’s naked protest
Pope warns of risk of corruption in missionary fundraising after AP investigation
Ukraine threatens Russian garrison in Transnistria, plus Russian stuff blowing up
Twitter’s Algorithm: Amplifying Anger, Animosity, and Affective Polarization
Republicans are spending millions on turnout operations that are deeply flawed, insiders say
Or, it could be that Republican policies are bad for people, and people have started to notice.
Follow-up to #161, #214:
NPR – Doctors rally to defend abortion provider Caitlin Bernard after she was censured
Scientists Successfully Transmit Space-Based Solar Power to Earth for the First Time
DNA Test Proves Ex-Wrestler Not Lauren Boebert’s Father
Germany planning to send Fuchs amphibious wheeled armoured vehicles to Ukraine
Throughout the debt-ceiling crisis, news reports have wrongly suggested that each party’s activist wings balance one another out.
Link
Ukraine Update: Nuclear engineer who escaped Russian-occupied plant lays out worst fears
Ukrainian army destroys Russia’s mainland route to Crimea with blasts in Berdyansk and Melitopol
Chuck Todd leaving NBC political panel show ‘Meet the Press’ and being replaced by Kristen Welker
Posted by readers of the article:
Trump’s Numerous Legal Woes Give Him ‘Credibility,’ Says GOP Rep. Ken Buck
Ken Buck is stupid.
In Russian Schools, It’s Recite Your ABC’s and ‘Love Your Army’
New York Times link
The curriculum for young Russians is increasingly emphasizing patriotism and the heroism of Moscow’s army, while demonizing the West as “gangsters.” One school features a “sniper”-themed math class.
Re: #488
From the link, Buck’s defense of Trump keeping classified documents, he “may have been writing a memoir.” No wonder satire is dead.
How homemade drones are tilting the war in Ukraine’s favour
How Sweden ditched inheritance tax – and boosted its economy
This is propaganda. Inheritance tax is not a problem for the poor.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/desantis-copycat
See also: KSBW News
Bail fundraisers for Cop City protestors charged with terrorism are themselves arrested – by SWAT.
Child Labor Is on the Rise
New Yorker link
State legislatures across the country are making it easier to hire minors in low-paid and dangerous jobs. By William Finnegan.
https://twitter.com/jordandavidx/status/1665149678084603906
video at the link
Dmitri on Twitter:
Noel on Twitter:
Jim Acosta on Twitter:
More re the last link @ #497 – Guardian – “Sonic boom from US fighter jets ‘pursuing light aircraft’ rattles DC residents”:
Dmitri Alperovitch on Twitter just now:
Re: SC (Salty Current) @ #499…
Rather depends on what one means by “the counteroffensive has begun.” Ukraine appears to have been “shaping the battlefield” for some time now by attacking (and destroying) transport infrastructure, supplies, command & control points, and troop concentrations well behind the lines. Do those things count as part of the counteroffensive?