Fox News sent out a statement acknowledging a chyron that ran late Tuesday during former President Trump’s post-indictment remarks that called President Biden “wannabe dictator.”
“WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED,” the Fox News chyron read just before 9 p.m., as the network showed a split screen of both Biden speaking at the White House and and Trump giving remarks at his New Jersey golf club.
“The chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed,” the network said in a statement to The Hill Wednesday afternoon…
Their response seems to contain neither an apology nor a retraction.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed civil rights lawyer Nusrat Choudhury to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, making her the first Bangladeshi-American and female Muslim federal judge in the United States.
Choudhury, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois, was confirmed on a 50-49 vote. She will also be the first Bangladeshi-American federal judge…
Several US federal government agencies have been hit in a global cyberattack that exploits a vulnerability in widely used software, according to a top US cybersecurity agency.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “is providing support to several federal agencies that have experienced intrusions affecting their MOVEit applications,” Eric Goldstein, the agency’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, said in a statement on Thursday to CNN, referring to the software impacted. “We are working urgently to understand impacts and ensure timely remediation.” …
…When the facts are added up, it generates a much less cozy narrative that doesn’t fit into a neat paragraph anyone and their AI assistant can crank out on demand.
– Republicans were never seriously thinking about anyone but Trump. He’s been the leading candidate from the beginning and remains so, with an average 30-point advantage over the field.
– The only thing that ever affected Trump’s popularity is the impression that he was a loser, and the only thing that might shake Republicans away from him is the idea that he can’t win.
– Indictments have barely moved Trump’s numbers in any meaningful way, and have certainly not caused Republicans to come flooding back. They never left.
– Indictments have not generated a fundraising bounty for Trump, who has raised just a small fraction of what he grifted from Republican donors following his 2020 election loss.
– There’s absolutely nothing in the polls or the money to suggest that Trump has benefited from being indicted, or that President Biden has been harmed.
The TL;DR version might be simply this: President Biden and the DOJ are not on trial. Donald Trump is on trial.
Republicans aren’t concerned about Trump’s baggage getting in the way of the policies. They love the baggage and don’t have any policies. As Trump observed at a rally this week, talking about things like a tax cut puts Republican voters to sleep. It’s only things like attacking trans kids and tearing apart the government that interests them at all. The cruelty is the point.
Hate is the message. Trump is the messenger. Just as it’s pointless to try and convince Republican voters to vote “Republican light” by having Democrats run to the right, it’s pointless to try to position another Republican as the “reasonable alternative” to Trump. That is exactly what Republican voters don’t want. They have zero interest in “reasonable.”
But the biggest lump of BS in the media narrative might be what that “indictments are good for Trump” is meant to imply—that holding Donald Trump up to even a fraction of the consequences faced by any other American for committing some of the most serious federal offenses is politically costly, and that Democrats are going to pay.
Gunfire is heard in Nova Kakhovka, occupied Kherson region. Also intense artillery is reported since an half an hour ago.
Rogov claims, Ukrainian forces trying to land troops on the left bank. Big grain of salt.
More footage…
Videos at the link – one was just added a minute ago.
Oggie: Mathomsays
and that Democrats are going to pay.
This has been a truism among most news organizations, right or center, for decades. No matter how bad what a Republican has done, no matter how bad the news is for the GOP, no matter how good what a Democrat has done, no matter how good the news is for the Democratic Party, the talking heads, the opinion pieces, the editorials, all point to how bad this is for the Democrats.
Really low oil prices early in Biden’s term was bad for the Democrats (it will rise and the Dems will get the blame). Oil prices go up, bad news for Biden and the Democrats. Oil prices come down, bad news for Biden and the Democrats as it means the economy has collapsed. And, strangely, the pundits keep being wrong. And give the same opinion the next time.
Footnote 11 of Justice Barrett’s majority opinion in Brackeen (on Texas’s unpersuasive attempt to get around limits on parens patriae standing), could have *lots* of implications for U.S. v. Texas (the immigration enforcement case) and Biden v. Nebraska (the student loan case).
Both of those cases involve challenges to federal policies by *states,* which, historically, have not been viewed as proper plaintiffs in such cases unless they’ve suffered a unique and distinct injury (that other states *don’t* suffer). Here’s Barrett reaffirming that principle.
UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 15, 2023 · 3:47:56 PM MDT · kos
This speaks to the main story below: [New map showing confirmed Russian equipment kills]
Each of those dots is confirmed Russian equipment kills during the counteroffensive. The cluster at the bottom is five Russian self-propelled howitzers, all destroyed in the same field. All of this equipment is in front of Russia’s prepared defenses, making it so much easier for Ukraine to destroy.
We often talk about the difference between “strategic” and “tactical” when discussing military matters. The former speaks toward broad goals: the thing that must be done to win the war. The latter refers to the individual steps taken to move toward that strategic goal.
Ukraine has always understood this. Russia: clearly not.
Ukraine’s big spring counteroffensive is in its nascent steps, with just three of its 12 new “storm” brigades in action (and none of its heavy-armored brigades). What we are currently seeing down in Zaporizhzhia oblast in southern Ukraine could be the main thrust, or it could be a diversion. We have to wait and see. But either way, Ukrainian advances in the area are, thus far, tactical.
It is militarily irrelevant whether Ukraine holds Makarivka or not. What matters is that it is an important stop toward Ukraine’s broader strategic goal: driving south to the Azov Sea and cutting Vladimir Putin’s precious “land bridge” connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.
Or, maybe holding Makarivka forces Russia to overcommit its reserves to that advance, freeing up another part of the front, working toward what might be Ukraine’s real strategic objective. The point is, Makarivka (and we’ll talk more about that town later in this update) is not in itself important. It won’t end the war. It’s just a waypoint toward that grander strategic goal.
Here’s another way to look at the distinction: After 10 months of bloody effort, with tens of thousands of lives lost and multitudes more maimed, Russia conquered the city of Bakhmut.
The entire time, people like me wondered at the cost Russia was paying for a city with zero strategic value. Some accused people like me of being high on copium, trying to minimize Russia’s big accomplishment.
Yet look at Russia’s situation now. Has Bakhmut gotten Russia any closer to ending the war? Of course not. In fact, it depleted their forces to such an extent that it has likely made it easier for Ukraine to accomplish its goals. And with Ukraine now making gains in Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks, it won’t be long before the city is either abandoned by Russia, or it becomes a graveyard for many more invaders.
It wasn’t always that way with Bakhmut. Once upon a time, Bakhmut was the southern half of a pincer maneuver that would cut off Ukrainian defenses on the entire Donbas contact line. [map at the link]
Yet here’s the thing: That southern pincer only made sense, strategically, as long as Russia held Izyum. And that all ended on Sept. 10, 2022, when Russia retreated from the city during Ukraine’s liberation of Kharkiv oblast.
That northern pincer had long been dead in the water, as Russia’s mighty army crashed into a Ukrainian wall at tiny Dovhen’ke. But while tactically Russia was having a rough go trying to meet its strategic objectives, at least they had strategic objectives. A pincer would’ve isolated Ukraine’s formidable defenses in the Donbas, as well as the twin fortress cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and would’ve ultimately fulfilled most of Russia’s initial war aims:
– All of Donbas (Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts) would be under Russia control.
– An estimated 30-50% of Ukraine’s army would be surrounded, in danger of destruction or surrender.
– Russia’s land bridge to Crimea would be secure.
– Russia could hold around a quarter-million civilians in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk hostage, threatening mass death.
– Ukraine’s allies would apply pressure to end the war.
At that point, Russia would be in the driver’s seat, happy to swallow its ill-gotten gains, freezing the conflict until the next time it was ready to fight again.
That pipe dream all ended with Izyum’s liberation, but a funny thing happened: Russia never developed new strategic goals. The pincer was gone, but the generals in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia never got the memo and they continued their mindless advances toward nothing. Indeed, taking Bakhmut and Vuhledar became the goals, without regard to any broader picture.
Russia never took Vuhledar, and never will. Occupying Bakhmut took monumental effort by Wagner mercenary forces, and then … nothing. It’s just sitting there, and Russian forces inside Bakhmut are sitting ducks to Ukrainian defenders raining death from the heights surrounding the town. If the “strategy” was a one-week propaganda boost, then …congrats? They didn’t even get that, with their victory parade interrupted by marauding pro-Ukrainian Russian rebels romping through Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk border regions.
Ever since the Kharkiv counteroffensive last fall, Ukraine’s strategic goal had been obvious: slow any Russian advances, bleeding the Russian war effort dry, while the West trained and equipped its 12 new storm brigades.
Now, with the tables turned and Russia on the defensive, it has the opportunity to do exactly the same thing: use its meticulously laid and extensive network of defensive emplacements to bleed Ukraine dry and strip it of its precious Western gear. With its fierce defenses of Bakhmut, Vuhledar, and other critical spots along the front line since the start of this year, Ukraine just showed Russia exactly how a strong defense can change the course of the war!
If Ukraine’s counteroffensive falters, it is more likely the West might tire of the effort and start looking for a negotiated settlement. Meanwhile, Russia could use the time to rebuild its tattered and shattered military, train new forces on modern battlefield combined-arms tactics, lean on its allies (and particularly China) to help equip those new forces, and then be ready to resume its offensive six to 12 months down the road.
But unbelievably, that’s not what Russia is doing. [map at the link]
Ukraine is pushing down from Velyka Novosilka, and has reportedly gotten as far south as Makarivka, just above that black pointer on the map above. Russia has decided that Staromaiors’ke, on the black pointer, is important. It is the only road up to Rivnopil, to its northwest, which sits on higher ground. If Staromaiors’ke falls, that Russian garrison up there is cut off and would have to either surrender or be eliminated.
There’s tactical sense in that, if the goal is to hold Rivnopil. But …
This is me screaming: Why would you defend open territory when you have perfectly good prepared defenses just a few kilometers south?
Why on god’s green earth are they fighting up there? Ukraine’s push south has been stopped the last several days because—get this—Russia has sent multiple waves trying to retake Makarivka!
So imagine if you’re Ukraine: Do you push south and deal with Russian defenders in their well-prepared trenches, or do you sit there nice and cozy and pick off charging Russians out in the open? [image at the link]
Ukraine has only committed one or two of its new storm brigades in this axis, and both are light infantry units designed to clear open space. The heavy-armored brigades won’t arrive until they have to punch through that main line of defense. Yet Russia seems to be overcommitting its reserves, out in the open, to plug an approach that hasn’t even breached its lines.
Ukraine’s best-case scenario never looked as good as this!
Elsewhere on that front line, Ukraine announced that its forces advanced “up to one kilometer” south of Vuhledar, likely ending Russia’s efforts against the town once and for all. [tweet and video at the link]
Again, notice that these are light and mechanized (mounted) infantry. These brigades will have some tanks for fire support, but the heavy tank brigades are still being held back, and we won’t likely see them until Ukraine reaches Russia’s main defensive lines.
And while one kilometer doesn’t sound overly exciting, note that these approaches toward the main lines are heavily mined, riddled with ambush points with infantry manning anti-tank missiles. They have to be methodically cleared, and light infantry is the best for this task.
We won’t see any rapid movement until a main defensive line is breached, and Ukraine can romp in the backfield.
[Tweet and video of Ukrainian secondary school students celebrating graduation during an air raid.]
Life goes on, but it doesn’t. Those boys will all go into the Ukrainian military. A good percentage of them won’t be with us in one year.
When Donald Trump was caught laundering money through his casino, he made a deal to pay $10 million and the problem went away. When Trump was caught defrauding people with his fake university, he paid $20 million and the problem went away. When Trump was caught stealing money from his own charity, he paid a fine of $2 million and the problem went away.
All his life, Trump has been convinced that so long as he was able to pull a few more million out of the family vaults, there was nothing he couldn’t get away with. And he’s been right. His deep pockets have allowed him to dodge and delay every legal issue he’s faced, and each time agencies charged with enforcing the law decided they’d rather have Trump’s money than justice.
n the last five years, Trump has only gained an extra layer of protection. Impeached for attempting to blackmail Ukrainian leaders into making false statements against Joe Biden, then impeached again for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Trump was never in serious danger so long as Republicans had more than a third of the Senate. Republicans have made protecting Trump not just a cause, but the cause. To a very large extent, the modern Republican Party exists to create a protective screen for Trump.
Except this time, all the money, all the lies, all the threats, and every chyron on Fox News is not going to be enough. This time, Trump is in trouble.
Considering the kid glove treatment Trump was given in his appearance at the Miami courthouse, it may not seem that way. When 25-year-old Reality Winner was taken before a federal judge on a single charge of mishandling classified documents, the government argued that not only was she a flight risk, she was a “threat to the public.” Her parents offered to put up their house as collateral. Her attorneys offered to severely restrict her movements and her access to the internet. The government was having none of it. Winner was held without bail until trial.
But with Trump … There’s no choice about having your photo taken when facing federal felony changes. Except for Trump. There’s no way that someone facing multiple charges of violating the Espionage Act would not see severe restrictions on their movement before trial. Except for Trump. There’s no way that someone with overseas properties, overseas bank accounts, and a private jet who was facing charges with a possible total sentence measured in centuries would not be considered a flight risk. Except for Trump.
Every time judge Jonathan Goodman referred to Trump not as “the defendant” but as “the former president,” it underscored that in spite of the seriousness of the charges, Trump’s money and power are still shielding him from the treatment that would have been received by any other person standing in the docket.
It would be easy to believe that somewhere around December 2024, after the next election has been decided and a dozen different appeals have been made, the government would simply put out its hand, take another check from Trump, and let the whole thing go away.
That’s not going to happen. Because this time, even those who most want to protect Trump can see the truth of the indictment documents. This time, he ****ed up.
When the announcement came out that Trump was to be indicted by the Miami grand jury seated by special counsel Jack Smith, Republicans did their one job: They rushed to Trump’s defense. From Jim Jordan to Marjorie Taylor Greene to Josh Hawley, they dragged out the expected screams of indignation and reached truly mesmerizing heights of “what aboutism” as they threatened to indict everyone who had so much as registered as a Democrat.
Then the actual indictment was unsealed, and the protests became distinctly muted. It wasn’t just an instantly meme-able image of the bathroom stocked with boxes of classified documents, it was 40 pages of absolutely damning incidents in which Trump, given every opportunity to do the right thing, did the wrong thing. Then he did the wrong thing on tape. Then he explained that he knew he was doing the wrong thing. On tape.
Somewhere out there, a lot of new desks are being ordered for Republican offices to replace all the ones that got damaged by the head-pounding.
As The Washington Post reports, Trump’s attorneys tried to broker a way out of all this over a year ago. They knew just what that kid glove treatment in Miami demonstrated again: If the Justice Department could find a way to let Trump off, they would let him off. They urged Trump to just hand over what he had and put an end to it.
The evidence that this would have worked, and wouldn’t even have required Trump to cut a check, is abundant and obvious: Not one of the charges on Trump’s indictment has anything to do with a document that was voluntarily returned. That’s true of the hundreds of classified documents that were in the boxes handed over to the National Archives in January 2022 after nearly a full year of resistance. That’s true of the additional folio of documents Trump’s attorneys handed over in June of that year after first claiming there were no more documents in Trump’s possession.
Every single charge comes from a document that Trump not only refused to provide, but went out of his way to deny he was holding. He lied to the FBI. He lied to his own attorneys. He lied to everyone.
Interviews with seven Trump advisers with knowledge of the probe indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some of his longest-serving advisers warned of peril and some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them.
The saying “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” may seem trite, but in this case it’s doubly true. If Trump had listened to his attorneys, he’d be in the clear. If Trump had admitted to having the documents and given them back, he’d be in the clear. Hell, if Trump had fessed up after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and simply said he thought he had them all and had made a mistake, there would not have been an indictment.
Trump had stupendous, illogical, unlawful, almost endless opportunities to get out of this—opportunities that would have been given to no one else. The DOJ would have taken any excuse not to indict Trump. But this time, Trump only took all that extra rope and fashioned it into an extra-long necktie. He made it impossible to simply let him go.
This morning, The Washington Post is wondering if Trump “bodyman” Walt Nauta is going to flip and testify against his boss. It’s possible. Nauta was clearly acting on Trump’s orders when he hauled those boxes out of the store room and lined them up for Trump’s perusal. His lie to the FBI was clearly done with the intent of protecting his boss. If Nauta flipped, it would be another solid nail in Trump’s coffin.
It’s possible … but it’s not necessary. What’s already in the indictment is more than sufficient to see Trump convicted.
This isn’t to say that the DOJ won’t reach some kind of deal with Trump. There’s no doubt they would love to be going on to other cases (there was that guy who tried to overturn the election and incite violence … What was his name again?). There’s also no doubt that a conviction for Trump won’t mean what it did for an ordinary citizen like Winner, or a retired Army lieutenant, or an NSA contractor.
But it’s not going to be signing a check this time. These charges are serious, and conviction on even one of them is going to result in at least a period of probation and severely restricted movement. Conviction on multiple charges is going to mean prison time.
Then Hawley and Jordan and Greene can scream even lounder. It won’t help Trump.
Bernie Kerik had a plan to keep former President Trump in office after losing the 2020 election — and he knew how much it would cost. Roughly.
Per an email surfaced in a defamation lawsuit brought against Rudy Giuliani, Kerik wrote to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in a Dec. 28, 2020 missive that he would need “between $5 to $8M” to put a plan into action that would pressure state legislators into throwing their electors behind Trump.
It was one feature of a broader effort to co-opt state legislatures into a scheme that would have seen them try to send slates of fake electors to Washington on January 6. A “strategic communications plan” attached to Kerik’s email indicated he would need millions of dollars to work alongside Giuliani to “pressure” state lawmakers into cooperating.
Kerik is a longtime Giuliani confidante who served as commissioner of the New York City Police Department during Giuliani’s mayoralty. Thanks to a recommendation from Giuliani, he went on to serve as the interim interior minister of Iraq during the country’s occupation by U.S. forces. In 2010, Kerik went to prison after pleading guilty to a slew of charges including tax fraud and making false statements to the White House in conjunction with his vetting for federal posts. Kerik was pardoned by Trump in 2020.
The message with Kerik’s multimillion-dollar ask and strategic plan emerged in a defamation lawsuit that Giuliani faces brought by two Georgia poll workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman….
This new email is further indication of how the efforts to overturn the election were intertwined with requests for cash — and the eye popping sums that were involved….
For months, the BBC has been communicating in secret with three North Koreans living in the country. They expose, for the first time, the disaster unfolding there since the government sealed the borders more than three years ago.
Starvation, brutal crackdowns, and no chance to escape.
Round the cycle turns. As millions are driven from their homes by climate disasters, the extreme right exploits their misery to extend its reach. As the extreme right gains power, climate programmes are shut down, heating accelerates and more people are driven from their homes. If we don’t break this cycle soon, it will become the dominant story of our times.
A recent paper in the scientific journal Nature identifies the “human climate niche”: the range of temperatures and rainfall within which human societies thrive. We have clustered in the parts of the world with a climate that supports our flourishing, but in many of these places the niche is shrinking. Already, around 600 million people have been stranded in inhospitable conditions by global heating. Current global policies are likely to result in about 2.7C of heating by 2100. On this trajectory, some 2 billion people may be left outside the niche by 2030, and 3.7 billion by 2090. If governments limited heating to their agreed goal of 1.5C, the numbers exposed to extreme heat would be reduced fivefold. But if they abandon their climate policies, this would lead to around 4.4C of heating. In this case, by the end of the century around 5.3 billion people would face conditions that ranged from dangerous to impossible.
These conditions include extreme disruption, morbidity and death through heat-shock, water stress, crop failure and the spread of infectious disease. The figures do not take into account the effect of rising sea levels, which could displace hundreds of millions more.
…
India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and central America face extreme risk. Weather events such as massive floods and intensified cyclones and hurricanes will keep hammering countries such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Haiti and Myanmar. Many people will have to move or die.
In the rich world we still have choices: we can greatly limit the damage caused by environmental breakdown, for which our nations and citizens are primarily responsible. But these choices are being deliberately and systematically shut down. Culture war entrepreneurs, often funded by billionaires and commercial enterprises, cast even the most innocent attempts to reduce our impacts as a conspiracy to curtail our freedoms. Everything becomes contested: low-traffic neighbourhoods, 15-minute cities, heat pumps, even induction hobs. You cannot propose even the mildest change without a hundred professionally outraged influencers leaping up to announce: “They’re coming for your …” It’s becoming ever harder, by design, to discuss crucial issues such as SUVs, meat-eating and aviation calmly and rationally.
…
As governments turn rightwards, they shut down policies designed to limit climate breakdown. There’s no mystery about why: hard-right and far-right politics are the defensive wall erected by oligarchs to protect their economic interests.…
In some cases, the cycle plays out in one place. Florida, for example, is one of the US states most prone to climate disaster, especially rising seas and hurricanes. But its governor, Ron DeSantis, is building his bid for the presidency on the back of climate denial. On Fox News, he denounced climate science as “politicisation of the weather”. At home, he has passed a law forcing cities to continue using fossil fuels. He has slashed taxes, including the disaster preparedness sales tax, undermining Florida’s capacity to respond to environmental crises. But the hard right thrives on catastrophe, and again you get the sense that it can scarcely lose.
…
It is easy to whip up fascism. It’s the default result of political ignorance and its exploitation. Containing it is much harder, and never-ending. The two tasks – preventing Earth systems collapse and preventing the rise of the far right – are not divisible. We have no choice but to fight both forces at once.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley claimed on the Senate floor that the foreign national who allegedly bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter has 17 audio recordings of their conversations, but questioned whether those tapes even existed in an interview with CNN days later…
The worst inflation in 40 years has been quite the ride for consumers over the last two years, and recently, it’s even helped the unthinkable become increasingly mainstream. Some economists are asking: Are consumers actually getting ripped off? This once fringe economic hypothesis has captured headlines more and more this year amid persistent inflation, even if it usually goes by another name. After years of being labeled a conspiracy theory, some economists believe that “greedflation” or, to put it the way an early prognosticator defined it: “profit-led inflation,” is to blame for at least part of the recent rise in consumer prices.
[. . . ]
The third wave of inflation, the one we’re getting now, is this unusual profit-led inflation story,” Donovan went on to explain. “This occurs where firms towards the end of the supply chain, so that’s consumer facing companies or near consumer facing companies, increase margins and pretend it’s all due to costs and other factors. They sneak in a margin increase.”
Donovan was one of the first on Wall Street to argue that “profit-led” inflation has been a serious thorn in the side of the Fed as it tries to return price stability to the economy back in March. And on Thursday, he pointed to evidence for his view in the “rise in retail profits as a share of GDP.” Retail profits surged 86% between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Fed data, while GDP rose roughly 20% over the same period. That’s all consumer-facing greedflation.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Another day, another childish tantrum. He really has no clue, does he?
SO NOW THAT EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, PLUS THE CLINTON SOCKS CASE, TOTALLY EXONERATED ME FROM THE CONTINUING WITCH HUNT BROUGHT ON BY CORRUPT JOE BIDEN, THE DOJ, DERANGED JACK SMITH, AND THEIR RADICAL LEFT, MARXIST THUGS, WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO DROP ALL CHARGES AGAINST ME, APOLOGIZE, AND RETURN EVERYTHING THAT WAS ILLEGALLY TAKEN (FOURTH AMENDMENT) FROM MY HOME? THIS WAS NOTHING OTHER THAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!
Reginald Selkirksays
@19: Prosecutors will be carefully watching all of Trump’s tweets: “Is he confessing anything new today?”
Oggie: Mathomsays
AND RETURN EVERYTHING THAT WAS ILLEGALLY TAKEN (FOURTH AMENDMENT) FROM MY HOME?
So if I were to go somewhere and steal some government property (I do know some places where it would be ridiculously easy (not classified shit, but other stuff)), and put it in my home, then, according to Trump, for law enforcement to remove the stolen goods from my home would violate the 4th Amendment? How is recovering stolen goods unreasonable search and seizure? By the Seven Levels of Purple Plupefect Hell, I think Trump really does believe that all the official papers from his Presidency (even the papers pulled out of the toilet, or the ones taped back together) actually belong to him.
And he deserves to be mocked (the Twitter (bleah) captures in the article are good). Can you imagine the damage these asshats could do if they were actually smart and/or competent? Also, considering that most of these GOP asshats come from weathy/upper middle class families and have been to college, it makes me realize that, with enough money, any idiot can get a law degree.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tried to hit President Joe Biden with his best shot on Thursday, but got his critics all fired up instead.
Cruz attempted to explain why Biden is so invincible in the Senate, saying it’s because of loyalty from Democratic lawmakers.
But his explanation somehow involved devil costumes, the full moon, child murder and Roll Hall of Famer Pat Benatar:
Ted Cruz: “I don’t think Senate Democrats, if you had video of Joe Biden murdering children dressed as the devil under a full moon while singing Pat Benatar, they still wouldn’t vote to convict.”
Cruz may have been referring to Benatar’s 1980 track “Hell Is For Children,” which caused the song’s title to trend on Twitter.
But the lyrics aren’t about the devil claiming children, as Cruz seems to think.
Vladimir Putin is threatening the nuke the world once again as a close ally confirmed Russia stands ready to use devastating missiles if necessary.
Putin announced shortly after the start of his “special operation” in Ukraine last year that his nuclear arsenal was on high alert and could be deployed immediately if necessary.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, and close Putin ally, Maria Zakharova reiterated Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend its interests.
During a press briefing on Thursday, Zakharova said: “Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy is strictly defensive.
“The hypothetical use of nuclear weapons is clearly limited by extraordinary circumstances within the framework of strictly defensive purposes.” […]
An undersea tunnel could one day connect Europe’s high-speed rail network to north Africa under plans revived by the Spanish and Moroccan governments.
Spain on Friday confirmed €2.3 million (£2 million) in funding for a design study on the Gibraltar strait fixed link – a planned railway tunnel linking the country with Morocco.
It comes after the two governments said in April they wanted to re-launch the mothballed project, which has been on ice since 2009.
The so-called “Europe-Africa Gibraltar strait fixed link” could resemble the Channel Tunnel between Dover and Calais and bridge the nine-mile continental divide…
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, Laughlin filed a lawsuit last year against the Erie Reader alleging that he had been defamed in an opinion column published by the newspaper.
The lawsuit opened up Laughlin to discovery — and wound up churning up several emails related to former President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to get Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in their state.
Among the most notable communications was between Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano and then-One America News anchor Christina Bobb, who has since become part of Trump’s legal team.
Mastriano, a staunch Trump ally who last year failed to win his race to become Pennsylvania’s governor despite Trump’s support, told Bobb that he was worried about Trump’s proposals to have state legislatures throw out certified election results, as other Republicans had told him such a scheme would be “illegal.”
The emails reveal that Trump personally called Mastriano to push him on the legality of the scheme and gave him materials that falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems of rigging the election for Biden.
Other emails show that Laughlin was not happy about some of the actions that fellow Republicans were taking to get Trump back into the White House, including an attempt by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) to get every single mail-in ballot thrown out.
“We’re not saying a word on this crap,” Laughlin wrote in December of 2020. “Mike Kelly is hurting our party right now.>/blockquote>
And I am gob smacked that even Mastriano, the poster child for Christian Nationalist Fascism, recognized that Trump’s election theft ideas may be illegal.
Enough Republican members showed up in the Oregon Senate on Thursday to end a six-week walkout that halted the work of the Legislature and blocked hundreds of bills, including some on abortion, transgender health care and gun safety.
In other news, this is a followup to Reginald @3: Nusrat Choudhury received zero votes from Senate Republicans, which is just a disgraceful showing on the part of Republicans. She was confirmed to the federal judgeship on a 50-49 vote.
Part of what he said is just a straight up confession. It’s not a defense, it’s just confession. Part is a legal argument that is just not the law. The, “I did not know what was in the boxes,” is disproved by his voice on tape. […]
The House Appropriations Committee made it official this week, moving forward with massive funding cuts, giving in to the 11 Republicans in and allied with the Freedom Caucus, and reneging on the budget agreement House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made with President Joe Biden. They set a spending cap that’s $119 billion less than what was agreed to in that debt ceiling deal, and about $130 billion less than current funding.
That means funding cuts from one-quarter to one-third to everything but defense, military, and VA construction, as well as homeland security, which the Republicans exempted from cuts. In typical vengeful fashion, they are proposing a 59% cut in the financial services appropriations bill, which funds the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President, the judiciary, the District of Columbia, and a few dozen independent agencies.
The proposal Republicans put forward wouldn’t only cut next years’ funding: It would also claw back $115 billion that has already been enacted for a variety of departments and agencies, including the EPA, Department of Agriculture, and the IRS. That money would be plowed into restarting the ridiculous border wall project and other border security measures, as well as “fending off Chinese aggression.”
Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted Republicans for letting the 11 members run the show, and for setting the stage for what looks to be an inevitable government shutdown. “Why did we try avoiding a default to make sure that America pays its bills with a topline spending agreement? What was it all for? Because now all we’re engaging in is right-wing theater […] And Democrats will not let it happen.”
For the extremists who are controlling the Republicans, “shutting down the government is in their DNA,” he said Thursday. “They don’t care about government. And so what we see right now, taking place in the appropriations process, is perhaps an effort by some extreme MAGA Republicans to drive us toward a government shutdown,” Jeffries told reporters. “And that’s a shame.”
Just to rub Democrats’ noses in these ridiculous cuts, the Republicans also screwed Democrats on earmarks, the district-specific funding requests individual members make. Republicans made fewer requests than Democrats, but are getting almost three times as much funding approved. In like-for-like comparisons, a fire station project in a Republican district in Ohio is getting $2.25 million, while one in a Democrat’s district in Massachusetts is getting $1 million. A library improvement project in a Republican district in Pennsylvania is getting $5 million, while one in Democratic New Hampshire is just getting $1 million.
In the set of earmarks for the Homeland Security appropriation bill, Republican Congressman Trent Kelly of Mississippi got $3 million for a DeSoto County Operations Center project, while Democratic Congressman Andy Kim of New Jersey got only $637,195 for a similar project in his district. In Michigan, an earmark to replace lead service lines in St. Charles, Michigan, represented by Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee, got $1 million, but a water infrastructure improvements project in Indiantown, Florida, in Republican Congressman Brian Mast’s district, got $3 million.
These kind of snubs toward Democrats are only going to make it harder for McCarthy to avoid a shutdown. Democrats will not be willing to help him or Republicans out at all, and will be happy to let him own the shutdown when the Senate refuses to go along with the extremists’ tantrum.
Even Republicans on the Senate side reject the House antics. They are working with the majority Democrats to abide by the funding agreement in the debt ceiling deal. […]
[…] a well-founded worry that they’re going to be dragged along into a shutdown. The Republicans could easily take the Senate back in 2024, with a very tough map for Democrats. They are watching an out-of-control House sabotage that effort.
The clear answer for the majority of Republicans who don’t want to be swept up in this chaos is to forcefully reject it. They have the numbers to tell the extremists to pound sand, and to force McCarthy to make concessions to them—when pigs fly.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
A delegation of African leaders began a peace mission in Kyiv on Friday, undeterred by what Ukraine said was a barrage of Russian missiles intended to greet them in the Ukrainian capital.
There’s an issue with their plane (which flew into Poland) and they seem annoyed.
Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Russia has delivered its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
“This is a deterrence measure,” the Russian president said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.
Russian and Belarusian military officials signed a pact in May that provides for Moscow to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on foreign soil is Russia’s first since 1991….
Minneapolis police use excessive force and discriminate against Black and Native Americans
The Minneapolis police force use excessive force and discriminate against marginalized groups, including Black and Native Americans and people with behavioral issues, attorney general Merrick Garland said as he announced the findings of the justice department’s investigation following George Floyd’s death.
“We found that MPD … engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black and Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protected speech and discriminating against people with behavioral disabilities and … when responding to them in crisis,” Garland said.
Garland also said the justice department and the city of Minneapolis “have agreed in principle to negotiate towards a consent decree”.
That the sort of agreement federal prosecutors reach with cities to reform their police departments following investigations into how they interact with the community.
“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect. But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible,” Garland said. “As one city leader told us, ‘these systemic issues didn’t just occur on May 25 2020. There were instances like that, that were being reported by the community long before that.’”
Garland then got into the specifics of what the justice department determined the Minneapolis police did, including instances of brutal treatment of citizens and racist language.
“We found that the Minneapolis police department routinely uses excessive force, often when no force is necessary, including unjust, deadly force and unreasonable use of tasers,” the attorney general said. He related a 2017 incident in which a police officer fatally shot a woman, who an officer said “‘spooked him’ when she approached his squad car. The woman had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in a nearby alley.”
Garland said Minneapolis police “routinely disregard the safety of people in their custody”.
“Our review found numerous incidents in which MPD officers responded to a person’s statement that they could not breathe with a version of ‘you can breathe. You’re talking right now.’”
The attorney general also related a story of four Somali American teens who were stopped by police. “One officer told the teens, ‘do you remember what happened in Black Hawk Down, when we killed a bunch of your folk? I’m proud of that. We didn’t finish the job over there. If we had, you guys wouldn’t be over here right now.’” The comments were a reference to a 1993 battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, involving US special forces.
“Such conduct is deeply disturbing, and it erodes the community’s trust in law enforcement,” Garland said.
The Minneapolis police also beat up reporters, Garland said.
“One officer approached a journalist who was filming while holding up his press credential and shouting, ‘I’m press.’ The officer … forcefully pushed the journalist’s head to the pavement … and when the journalist held up his press credential again, an MPD sergeant pepper sprayed him in the face and walked away.”
[Kristen] Clarke elaborated further on the investigation’s finding that Minneapolis police discriminated against Black and Native American people:
We found that MPD disproportionately stops Black people and Native American people. During stops involving Black and Native American people, MPD performs searches more frequently than during stops involving white people, even when they behave in similar ways. MPD also … uses force during stops involving Black and Native American people more frequently than they do during stops involving white people, even when they behave in similar ways.
The determination came after a deep analysis of police data, Clarke said. “We reviewed over five years of MPD data from November 1 of 2016 to August 9 of 2022 on roughly 187,000 traffic and pedestrian stops. We also conducted interviews and ride alongs and we reviewed other documents and information that the city provided.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey took the podium to remark on the justice department’s findings.
“Today marks a new chapter in the history of public safety in Minneapolis,” Frey said.
“Our success won’t be relegated to a report. It won’t be relegated to compliance figures or a judge’s signature,” Frey vowed. “Our success will be defined by the people of Minneapolis feeling safe in fact feeling safer when interacting with police in our city. We are not going to stop until every single person in every single neighborhood and zip code will feel safe interacting with the police.”
After all that, Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara spoke to reporters.
“We are incredibly thankful for the deep dive assessment that the United States department of justice has done on behalf of the people of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis police department,” O’Hara said. “We acknowledge the pain, anger, frustration, fear and sense of vulnerability that many people in our community have endured.”
He continued: “Our goal is to move forward together and ensure that we provide the best possible policing services for all members of our community. I promise you today that our department will be transparent and will provide an ongoing accounting of our successes as well as our challenges while at the same time continuing our dedicated efforts to keep all people of Minneapolis safe and secure, today and tomorrow.”
“Out of the darkness and trauma our residents and our police officers have experienced over the last three years, we will emerge as a beacon of light for the rest of the world,” O’Hara concluded.
The centre of the fighting in Ukraine has switched to the road to Mariupol where the Ukrainian offensive is slowly pushing back Russian forces, with British Challenger tanks ready to join battle, a minister in Kyiv has said.
Hanna Maliar, a deputy defence minister, said the most active fighting was no longer around Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region, but in the south and specifically in the direction of the two coastal cities of Berdiansk and Mariupol.
“If the first week the epicentre was the east, now we see that the fighting is moving to the south and now we see the most active areas are Berdiansk and Mariupol,” Maliar said.
“In the east, the enemy has turned on all the forces to stop our offensive. And they are massing forces there to stop us. In the south they are not very successful.”
The movement towards Mariupol, infamous for the devastation visited upon it in the first months of the full-scale invasion, is still incremental, with the front said to have been pushed back by about a kilometre.
A broad coalition of groups in Atlanta has launched a referendum to give voters a chance to say whether they want the controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” built in a forest southeast of the city.
The effort requires organizers to collect about 70,000 signatures from Atlanta registered voters in 60 days. Then the question of the city canceling its agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the $90m center can be added to municipal election ballots in November.
The push comes after an estimated thousand people who showed up at City Hall on 5 June proved insufficient to stop Atlanta’s city council from approving some $67m for Cop City. Meanwhile, machines have already begun clear-cutting trees on the project’s 171-acre footprint in South River Forest.
The referendum faces what one organizer called “an atmosphere of repression” – including two activists being charged with felonies last week while putting up fliers, bringing total arrests since December to 50.
The largest group of arrests, on 5 March in a public park in the forest near where the project is planned, was followed by local government closing the park, effectively shutting off tree-sitting protests by “forest defenders” that had gone on for more than a year.
“We’re at the stage where they’ve pushed people out of the forest, they’ve arrested people … they’ve fenced off the forest, they’ve even begun clear-cutting,” said Kamau Franklin, founder of local group Community Movement Builders. “We’re at the stage where the most direct, legal mechanism to stop this project is by referendum.”
Cop City came to global attention after police shot dead Manuel Paez Terán, an environmental protester, in a January raid on the forest – the first incident of its kind in US history. The state says Paez Terán shot first and a special prosecutor is evaluating the case.
Meanwhile, the movement opposing the project has drawn a wide range of people locally, nationally and internationally who oppose police militarization, urban forest destruction amid climate change and environmental racism. Most residents in neighborhoods surrounding the forest are Black.
Most of the organizations driving the referendum are also Black-led, including the regional chapter of Working Families Power, Black Voters Matter and the NAACP. Officials from Georgia governor Brian Kemp down to the mayor have consistently referred to opposition against the center as the work of white “outsiders”.
“That narrative is false,” said Britney Whaley, regional director of Working Families Power. “This has been national, but it’s also been community-grown for a few years now.”
…
Organizers of the Cop City referendum pointed to the state’s heavy-handed approach to protesters as a primary concern. There have been 42 domestic terrorism charges to date. A bail and legal defense fund’s members were also arrested and the state added fundraising to its criminal description of the training center’s opposition.
In that context, it took about a dozen attempts at finding a legally-required fiscal sponsor for the referendum, which may need as much as $3.5m to reach success, said spokesperson Paul Glaze.
Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter – one of two organizations that agreed to take the sponsorship role – said the recent Atlanta Solidarity Fund arrests were done “to send a message, in hopes it would have a chilling effect. We’re not naive about what the threats are – but we believe our community cares about this issue.”
Getting into Atlanta’s communities will take a massive campaign, said Mary Hooks, national field secretary for Movement for Black Lives and part of the team overseeing the signature gathering. Hooks hopes to get canvassers into at least 200 of the city’s 243 neighborhoods, and said more than 3,000 volunteers had already signed up.
“This is an opportunity to protect direct democracy … when so many people are being left out,” she said.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday questioned why a visiting delegation of African leaders planned to travel to Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin after a Russian missile strike overshadowed their visit to Kyiv.
“…This is their decision, how logical it is, I don’t really understand,” he was quoted by Reuters as telling reporters at a joint news conference with the African leaders.
…The incredibly heavy-handed response from those in power just shows how concerned they are about how effective we can be at successfully preventing deportations, immigration raids, evictions, stop and search, new fossil fuel extraction and arms production. As the saying goes: direct action gets the goods. We must continue this resistance.
Carrie Johnson recently confirmed she was expecting her third child, and I wish her stamina. At one point I also had three children under the age of three-and-a-half, and can confirm it’s quite a handful. However, at least I was not also married to a toddler at the time….
An Indian court has blocked the screening of an Al Jazeera documentary about the country’s Muslim minority, fuelling fears that the right to criticise the government is being eroded….
Their button-up shirts and chinos have prompted mockery but experts say the far-right group is becoming increasingly violent…
(The India piece has the the “fueling fears” trope; in this one it’s the cut-&-paste “There has been a rise in white nationalism and far-right politics in countries around the world in recent years,” itself related to the dynamic described in #s 5 and 7 above.)
Tuesday night was an unusual evening in domestic politics. On the one hand, President Joe Biden delivered remarks at a White House event celebrating the Juneteenth holiday. On the other hand, his immediate predecessor simultaneously delivered a series of strange lies to a group of supporters in the wake of his federal criminal indictment.
The circumstances surrounding the split-screen were jarring enough, but Fox News viewers saw something far more outlandish. As NBC News reported, around 9 p.m. ET, Fox viewers saw all-caps text at the bottom of the screen that read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
I’m mindful of the fact that all kinds of manipulated images are often circulated online, but this one was real: Fox News actually featured this on-air graphic. [Tweet and image at the link]
Part of the problem, of course, was the bizarre lack of professionalism and absence of standards, but making matters worse was the fact that the underlying allegation was utterly bonkers: Whether one loves or hates the incumbent president, Biden is not a “wannabe dictator,” and he did not have his political rival arrested.
A Washington Post analysis described it as “a baseless allegation,” adding, “[T]he chyron, which appeared for about 30 seconds, didn’t come out of nowhere; in many ways, it was a culmination. For days and months, Trump and his allies have been pointing in this direction, despite the lack of any actual evidence that Biden played a role in the decision to indict Trump.”
For its part, Fox didn’t seem especially eager to defend the on-screen phrasing. In a statement issued the day after the incident, a network spokesperson said the chyron “was taken down immediately and was addressed.”
But “was addressed” is a great example of passive-voice phrasing. What exactly happened to the person responsible for the absurd message? The Daily Beast reported this morning that the producer who authored the chyron has “parted ways” with the company.
Former Tucker Carlson Tonight managing editor Alexander McCaskill, who features prominently in a toxic work environment lawsuit by a former colleague, is no longer with the network. McCaskill confirmed his exit in a private Instagram post reviewed by The Daily Beast, in which he said it was “the best place I’ve ever worked” and claimed he asked Fox “to let me go.”
Though the reporting hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Carlson himself acknowledged the developments as part of his new Twitter-based program. The producer also published a photo online of him leaving Fox’s office building with his belongings in a box.
The story did not escape the attention of the White House. Presidential press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Fox’s message during a briefing this week, and she replied that the chyron was “wrong,” adding, “There are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this.”
The number was not accidental: In April, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems in which the network agreed to pay $787.5 million.
Good news, as summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC News article:
Two months after Tennessee Republicans expelled Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson from the state legislature, the Democrats won primary races for their old seats yesterday, and they appear well positioned to return to the state capitol.
More good news, as summarized by Steve Benen from a Washington Post article:
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kalama Harris picked up endorsements this morning from several of the nation’s leading labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, and AFSCME.
[…] It was Meadows that Kerik was giving updates to, and it was Meadows that Kerik was repeatedly contacting to shake both petty cash and seven-figure sums from.
[…] As far as Kerik was concerned, it was Trump’s White House chief of staff who was coordinating election nullification efforts.
And Meadows has been as silent as a mouse as multiple state and federal investigations swirl and America sees numerous violent backers of the election-erasing scheme convicted for their own parts in a seditious conspiracy.
Kerik? Kerik’s probably the same petty grifter he always was, still attached to equally petty crook Giuliani in an effort to scrape up whatever scraps Republican rubes will give him. But Meadows keeps getting named, time and time again, as the key White House player who either knew of or coordinated each of the Trump team’s various election-sabotaging plans.
That’s a hell of a thing, and most of America is still waiting very, very patiently to hear what prosecutors intend to do about it.
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds has made a name for himself in the Republican world by being as shameless as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, but wrapped up in a version that seems less unhinged.
On Thursday night, Donalds took his self-described “Trump-supporting, gun-owning, liberty-loving, pro-life, politically incorrect Black man” brand of saying absurd things in defense of right-wing corruption and brought it to the friendly studio of Newsmax. Lining up with the defense that Trump refused to give back boxes of classified materials and possibly hid some of that material so it would not be found because it was his magical right to do so, Donalds offered up a new level of ludicrous.
Are you ready for it?
“Do you know how many documents a president of the United States leaves with? You think a president has time before he leaves the White House to go through all his documents? That doesn’t even make any sense because he’s still running the country until January 20. Noon on January 20.”
[video at the link]
The previous 44 guys in the job didn’t have the same problem. In Trump’s defense, he’s a crook.
A couple weeks ago, […] Ted Cruz got on Twitter and said that the new “Kill the Gays” law in Uganda is “horrific and wrong.” Also “grotesque” and “an abomination.” We don’t know why he tweeted it, though we have our own personal theories. We don’t think it’s because he’s a good person. Just a week or so prior he was announcing investigations into Bud Light for, um, being nice to a transgender lady. He’s not a good person.
But something led him to speak up and say hey, at the very least, Uganda should not KILL GAY PEOPLE.
And American right-wing Christians lost it at him on Twitter, because they are psychos and lunatics. Donald Trump’s former homeschooled lawyer Jenna Ellis was furious. She tweeted, “You can condemn a law that imposes the death penalty for homosexuality without being pro or #LGBTQ. Like Bud Light, you should have just said nothing. Not this.” Then she lied about what the law says, claiming as many American fascist Christian supremacists are that the law only provides the death penalty for raping children. What the law actually says is serial-killer-grade homicidal, and anybody who supports it should never be allowed near other humans or animals.
The American Family Association is one of the United States’s most notorious anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, though it’d probably be more efficient just to call them Nazis at this point. One of their resident Christian supremacists, Jameson Taylor, was speaking before the National Association of Christian Lawmakers at Liberty University last week, and Right Wing Watch brings us this clip of him chastising Ted Cruz for even suggesting that killing gay people is bad.
If you watch nothing else in this video, skip to about 30 seconds in and watch for what happens at 0:33. It’ll make the quote that follows extra weird for you. That’s all we will say about that. [video at the link]
“Sen. Cruz seems to have forgotten that following British law, the American colonies imposed the death penalty for sodomy,” Taylor smugly proclaimed. “Thomas Jefferson, among others, sought to change these laws, calling instead for castration and that was because he wanted to reserve the death penalty only for murder and treason. Likewise, the very lenient Quakers in Pennsylvania preferred to punish sodomy with whipping, forfeiture of one-third of one’s property, and six months hard labor for a first offense. I would thus refer Senator Cruz to hashtag ‘American founding’ and hashtag ‘divine law and natural law.’”
OK, sicko. Lecturing Ted Cruz by sneering about the good old days when the [gays] were put to death. Or maybe castrated. Or maybe whipped. And then he said “natural law,” because that’s one of those made-up phrases Christian supremacists like to throw around. They think it puts a scholarly veneer on what is really just an extremely psychologically damaged and disturbed hatred cloaked in the garb of really fucking stupid religious beliefs.
These are the people who want to take over America by force, because they know they can’t take over America through normal democratic means. (By the way, it surprises us NOT AT ALL that Donald Trump’s prime dumbfuck lawyer who tried to help him overthrow the government to steal the presidency, John Eastman, also used to be the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. [!!!] This is all the same project.) They know most voters turning 18 hate them, think they are demented freakshows, and don’t want to live next door to them. They know their own kids are leaving home and leaving their churches and never speaking to them again, or just keeping them at arm’s length, and one of the main reasons for that is because their families and churches are so vile and evil toward LGBTQ+ people. There are articles all over the internet about this.
And these things they know are making white fascists like Jameson Taylor and his pals at the American Family Association hate group and other Christian supremacist organizations seething mad.
So mad, apparently, that they feel the need to scold Ted Cruz of all people for gently suggesting that maybe it is sick and evil to kill people for being gay.
Our refusal to provide ATACMS to Ukraine in effect gives Russia safe haven for these attacks against Ukrainian civilians. I don’t know how the Administration can justify this. At least enable Ukraine to hit the Russian Navy and Air Force in Crimea.
Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers detailing secrets about America’s policy during the Vietnam War, has died at the age of 92, the Guardian can confirm.
In March, Ellsberg announced he had terminal cancer. The former US government analyst’s leaks revealed to the public that successive presidents believed American troops could not win in Vietnam.
Wonkette: ‘Food For Everyone!’ Says Indicted Deadbeat.
After Donald Trump was executed 37 times in Miami by the Deep State, for the made-up crime of bringing his own […] American nuclear secrets home from the White House, he visited the Versailles restaurant in Little Havana. […] everybody goes to Versailles if they want to hobnob with the Cuban community in Miami.
While he was there, the patrons sang “Happy Birthday” to him, and the very generous Trump said, “Food for everyone!” [video at the link]
[…] He really emphasized it. He was doing a thing.
[…] everybody in the reality-based world knows Donald Trump is a notoriously cheapass [person] who doesn’t pay his bills. Not his lawyers, not his contractors, and he FOR DEFINITE is not buying lunch for a bunch of people he’d never deign to share oxygen with if he wasn’t trying to grift them.
Well, we have a surprise (SPOILERS AHEAD, NO FURTHER YOU MUST GO IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS) and it is that Donald Trump did not even actually follow through on “Food for everyone!” The Miami New Times reports he was there literally 10 minutes, and nobody even had time to place an order on Trump’s tab in that time.
So technically this is not a post about an unpaid bill! It is about a lying man who lies to people and gets their hopes up. About yummy lunches, about stolen elections. […]
Looks like some Trump assholes managed to get takeout, though: [Tweet and image at the link]
The New York Daily News teaches both sides of the controversy:
Trump defenders on Twitter noted the GOP frontrunner only said there’d be food for everyone at the restaurant — not that he was buying it.
We’d say that’s impossible because nobody is weird and socially awkward and brain-diseased enough to stand in restaurants and loudly exclaim that this is where all the people are going to eat the food.
But this is a man who, as president, upon leaving hurricane victims, was often known to say “Have fun!” or “Have a good time!”
And this is a man who has been bragging for several years straight about the time he (allegedly) aced a dementia test where he had to pick out which one was “camel.”
So who knows, maybe he really was just correctly identifying “what is restaurant.”
Wonkette: fair as fuck to Donald Trump. Never say otherwise.
Watching Bugs Life with the twins. I think I understand one of the reasons conservatives don’t like Disney — the workers rise up to overthrow the parasitic and powerful wealthy.
In a sit-down interview with Christian Broadcasting Network News, aka that thing whut Pat Robertson wrought, Republican presidential contender and malfunctioning Disney robot Ron DeSantis was asked about history. Welcome, America, to the most cringeworthy segment of pandering you have ever seen. [video at the link]
In terms of, you know, throughout history, I mean, I think like, you know, could I have been there with Jesus’ disciples?
I mean, you know, these are people who, you know, Peter just fishing one day and all of a sudden this guy comes up to him, catches all the fish and says you know, you’re gonna be a fisher, I want you to be a fisher of men, come with me.
And so these guys all went out, uh, and they dedicated their life to spreading the gospel, and they all were killed for it, you know they tried to kill John, John ended up, you know, being able to survive, but I mean the intent was to put him to death too, and you know, to talk about what that was like, um, talk about what their impressions are, you know, whether that—I look back at that and would love to have been, uh, been able to be there with them.
…
…
Okay, uh … hang on. Hang on, this one’s going to take a while to digest. It tastes like lard and motor oil. One second.
All right, let’s start over. Ahem.
For starters, this may be the most concise summary of the gospels anyone has ever given. It really touches all the highlights, doesn’t it? There’s a guy fishing, and then another guy comes up with really top-notch fishing skills, and then yada yada everyone gets killed, and don’t you wish you could go back there and, like, interview them to find out what their impressions are?
If only some of them had written this stuff down, then we could have known how they felt about it.
All right, fine, I’m over it. I suppose we shouldn’t be terribly surprised that when it comes to describing the whole New Testament, a Florida Republican is mostly going to remember the fishing and the murder. It does sort of sum up the whole state oeuvre. And really now, there’s hardly anyone who, if able to go back to just one point in world history, wouldn’t immediately go with “I want to go hang out with Jesus’ friends and ask them about the vibes back then.”
Not Jesus, of course! Jesus is very preachy and has a whole lot of opinions that even after two millennia don’t go down well among conservative Republicans—Ron himself seems to know that’d be an awkward conversation. Instead he seems to want to talk to the disciples about fishing and what it’s like being murdered. Sure.
I know it’s early in the campaign season to already be saying this, but Ron? Please stop. Please stop talking. You are not good at it. If anyone is telling you you are good at it, they are lying to you. You have the personality of a gasoline-soaked rag and the charisma of a decaying alligator corpse.
Please, please stop talking.
birgerjohanssonsays
OK, it is this link https://youtu.be/RzjI6l7yntQ
Those machines were mostly good for getting their own crew members killed.
Oggie: Mathomsays
birgerjohansson:
To be fair, during WWII, all combat aircraftwere barely controllable death traps.,
Oggie: Mathomsays
Actually, once in the air, the bombers were generally pretty stable, bit take offs and landings? Not easy.
OK the first link worked.
The film had the script changed during filming, and two directors. But the style is so cool the film is still watchable. The 1990s were weird.
Donald Trump has had so many lawyers and so many cases over the years, it’s nearly impossible to keep track.
The Washington Post on Friday attempted to, taking a look at some of the “dozens of attorneys who have defended Trump since 2016.”
Trump is continuing to search for an attorney to add to the exceptionally small legal team defending him in the Special Counsel’s 37 criminal felony indictments case that alleges classified documents mishandling, which includes charges under the Espionage Act, along with obstruction charges, and making false statements.
Part of the problem, reportedly, is lawyers wondering whether or not they will get paid.
Last week two of trump’s lawyers resigned from defending him in that case.
Now, one of those attorneys, Jim Trusty, who appeared on multiple cable news shows adamantly defending the ex-president, has quit, this time from a different case.
Citing “irreconcilable differences,” Trusty notified the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida that he is resigning from Trump’s lawsuit against CNN.
“Mr. Trusty’s withdrawal is based upon irreconcilable differences between Counsel and Plaintiff [Donald Trump] and Counsel can no longer effectively and properly represent Plaintiff,” Trusty writes in his motion to withdrawal which was reported by Politico’s Kyle Cheney.
MSNBC anchor and legal contributor Katie Phang commented, “Dropping like flies.”
Car dealerships have been around forever. But that dealership model is very specifically designed; though a dealership might bear a big corporate name — like Ford, for example — these dealerships are not owned or operated by the manufacturer. They are separately owned franchises.
Recently, though, a new model has started to crop up: direct-to-consumer sales. This model — utilized by Tesla — cuts the middleman out of the transaction.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill June 13 that prohibits car manufacturers from using this direct-to-consumer sales model in Florida. The bill represents a big protection for dealerships and serves as a bit of a blow to manufacturers.
Though laws like this one are nothing new, the bill, which will go into effect July 1, carries a notable exception that will allow (TSLA) – Get Free Report, and other newer EV manufacturers, to carry on with their direct-sales method.
The bill says that a manufacturer cannot own or operate a dealership if that manufacturer has, in the past, distributed cars “under a franchise agreement in this state with an independent person.”
This essentially prevents all legacy automakers from going direct-to-consumer, but it will allow for the newer brands, namely Tesla, Rivian and Lucid, to take advantage of the direct-sales model.
The move comes a little under a month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped DeSantis launch his presidential campaign through a Twitter Spaces interview.
During the glitchy event, DeSantis praised Musk for his purchase of Twitter, calling him a “free speech advocate.”
Oggie: Mathomsays
Sorry, third from last paragraph sounds like corruption.
Oggie: Mathomsays
For those vacationing in National Parks this year, we have the <a href=https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/national-park-service-humorous-guide-to-petting-bison/ar-AA1cBa9p#image=1″>National Park Service Wildlife Petting Chart.
The Justice Department has arrested and charged a Russian national for his alleged role in multiple LockBit ransomware attacks against victims in the U.S. and around the world.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday, 20-year-old Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov is accused of carrying out five cyberattacks between August 2020 and March 2023, four of which deployed the notorious LockBit ransomware…
Astamirov, who was located and arrested in the U.S. after law enforcement traced a portion of a victim’s ransom payment to a cryptocurrency address under Astamirov’s control…
Breaking: Federal prosecutors in Boston have filed criminal charges against three men for a string of attacks on the homes of @laurenchooljian and another [New Hampshire Public Radio] journalist last year. Story coming soon @nytimes…
The vandalism took place shortly after Chooljian and NHPR ran an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by Eric Spofford, who owned a network of rehab centers in NH.
The complaint says that “a close personal associate” of Spofford orchestrated the attacks….
Wow, I was just listening to the podcast – The 13th Step – yesterday! I’m about in the middle, and she’s just starting to talk about the retaliation and I thought it sounded extreme.
Link to a NYT background piece and more at the link.
…The complaint says that one of the men who was charged, Tucker Cockerline, bought bricks from Home Depot hours before one of those bricks was used to smash a window at Chooljian’s house. (Cockerline’s lawyer declined to comment.)
Obviously there’s nothing amusing about this in general, but his name is funny and it’s funny that he purchased bricks to throw through someone’s window.
In July of 2021, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security added the Hangzhou, China-based encryption chip manufacturer Hualan Microelectronics, also known as Sage Microelectronics, to its so-called “Entity List,” a vaguely named trade restrictions list that highlights companies “acting contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States.” Specifically, the bureau noted that Hualan had been added to the list for “acquiring and … attempting to acquire US-origin items in support of military modernization for [China’s] People’s Liberation Army.”
Yet nearly two years later, Hualan—and in particular its subsidiary known as Initio, a company originally headquartered in Taiwan that it acquired in 2016—still supplies encryption microcontroller chips to Western manufacturers of encrypted hard drives, including several that list as customers on their websites Western governments’ aerospace, military, and intelligence agencies: NASA, NATO, and the US and UK militaries. Federal procurement records show that US government agencies from the Federal Aviation Administration to the Drug Enforcement Administration to the US Navy have bought encrypted hard drives that use the chips, too…
Scientists have discovered cannabidiol, a compound in cannabis known as CBD, in a common Brazilian plant, opening potential new avenues to produce the increasingly popular substance, a lead researcher said Thursday.
The team found CBD in the fruits and flowers of a plant known as Trema micrantha blume, a shrub which grows across much of the South American country and is often considered a weed, molecular biologist Rodrigo Moura Neto of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro told AFP…
The equipment sent by Stockholm was intended for civilian mine clearance, said Swedish Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin.
This operation will help Ukraine secure the areas that were affected by flooding after the explosion of the Kakhovka dam, he noted…
Oggie: Mathomsays
Obviously there’s nothing amusing about this in general, but his name is funny and it’s funny that he purchased bricks to throw through someone’s window.
Well, yeah, because there are no rocks in New Hampshire. No glacial cobbles. Not even granite. In the Granite State.
An Illinois man is facing charges after investigators say he took a shot at a home intruder, then woke up with a bullet in his leg.
On the night of April 10, the 62-year-old Lake Barrington man dreamed that someone was trying to break into his house, so he grabbed his .357 revolver and fired at them, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said in a June 13 news release.
When he awoke, he realized there was no intruder and he had instead shot himself, the release said. The bullet went through his leg and into his bed…
They also learned the man had a revoked Firearm Owner’s Identification card, which Illinois residents must have in order to legally possess any guns or ammo…
“I am the NRA”
Reginald Selkirksays
A truck driver who expressed hated of Jews was convicted Friday of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.
The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion after Robert Bowers’ own lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
Jurors must now decide whether the 50-year-old should be sent to death row or sentenced to life in prison without parole in a penalty phase that begins June 26…
…
All four Aces were brought up in Provo, a deeply religious town in the US state of Utah, about 45 minutes away from the headquarters of the Mormon church.
“If you’re not familiar with Mormonism, it’s just intense Christianity, really,” says Cristal. “But it’s a way of life in Utah. It’s the world you live in. We didn’t know people that weren’t Mormon in high school.”..
As soon as they could, they disavowed Mormonism and fled Utah for Los Angeles. But though their bandmates supported them, they were still tied to the church.
So when, in 2016. the sisters presented the band with a song called Loving Is Bible – a “grand declaration” that God is tolerant of all sexualities – it caused a certain amount of internal friction…
Oggie @ #64, yes, it’s especially funny if you know the region! We have…no shortage of rocks. I just heard on the podcast that in one of the attacks they missed the window and the brick was found lying on the ground next to it. LOL.
Whenever I need to check in on the latest statements from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Russian state media and numerous Twitter accounts are there to either promote or analyze Putin’s words. Like this ludicrous interview from Tuesday, when Putin said that Ukraine lost 7,000 men, 160 tanks, and 360 armored vehicles in the opening days of the counteroffensive.
But it’s not really necessary to deal with translations from RT, or with news analysts trying to make sense of Putin’s claims—not when there are any number of Republican sources right here in the United States ready to repeat Putin’s every lie and tell me, every day, how the war in Ukraine will inevitably lead to a Russian victory. [Tweet from Senator Dick Black: “Ukraine’s offensive hit a steel wall. 7,000 KIA, 160 tanks and 360 armored vehicles destroyed in just one week with trivial gains. It is a pointless bloodbath. Charred Leopard tanks and Bradley vehicles lie everywhere. Telling Ukraine to fight “for as long as it takes” is inhuman. End this tragic war now.”]
(Black is a former Virginia state senator, not an actual U.S. senator, no matter how he styles himself.)
Still, an even more direct means of transmission is available. A group of African leaders on an outreach trip to both Ukraine and Russia this week didn’t need to do anything to get Putin’s latest message, because he delivered it to them in the form of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones all directed at Kyiv while the peace delegation was in the city.
The peace delegation, which includes leaders from Comoros, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa, and Zambia, met with Ukrainian officials on Friday and was scheduled to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later in the day. Those meetings came after Russia launched a reported six “hypersonic” Kh-47 Kinzhal ballistic missiles and six 3M54 Kalibr cruise missiles into Kyiv. Ukrainian air defenses, including the mighty patriot system, reportedly shot down the full dozen. Air defenses also knocked down a pair of Russian surveillance drones reportedly in the area.
Even if the missiles didn’t actually reach the buildings where the delegation was staying, the visiting leaders seemed to receive Putin’s message quite clearly. As their train arrived in Kyiv, air raid sirens were sounding, and they spent part of their first night in the city in a shelter.
The leaders are reportedly in Ukraine prior to flying on to Russia. In both places, they’re asking leadership to agree to a set of “confidence building measures” that could be used as the basis of peace negotiations. Reuters has seen a draft framework and reports that it includes a proposal to lower sanctions on Russia and suspension of the International Criminal Court charges against Putin. It also includes proposals for removing tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus (which may not exist, and if they do, just happened today) and a Russian troop “pull back,” though how big of a pull back isn’t described.
Ukraine has made it clear that they’re not interested in negotiating a peace that would leave Russian forces in control of Ukrainian territory.
As Ukraine’s minister for foreign affairs wrote, “Putin ‘builds confidence’ by launching the largest missile attack on Kyiv in weeks, exactly amid the visit of African leaders to our capital. Russian missiles are a message to Africa: Russia wants more war, not peace.”
South Africa is actually one of Russia’s partners in the BRICS economic alliance. Launching missiles at your ally’s peace delegation seems like something that ally might remember in the future.
The African leaders complain that sanctions against Russia are hurting their economies, as Russia is one of their major trading partners. If this is true, it’s deeply unfortunate. But considering that Ukraine’s economy fell by 29% last year and is expected to fall by even more this year, especially following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, Zelenskyy may not be extremely sympathetic to these arguments.
HOW TO KNOW WHEN PUTIN IS LYING
The obvious answer is to check whether or not his lizard-thin lips are moving. However, there’s another even better reason why we can be sure that Putin’s claims of mass destruction of Ukrainian forces are completely false.
And it has to do with Bigfoot.
When I was a kid, I loved stories about Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster, and just about every form of strangeness that ever walked, crawled, or swam […] I would sit up at night listening to Frank Edwards and sticking pins into maps, plotting my own expedition to find Mokele-Mbembe.
At the time, the arguments that the world might still be populated by plenty of things we simply hadn’t seen seemed convincing. After all, it’s a big world, there are a lot of trees out there, and most people didn’t run around with a Polaroid glued to their hand. Except now we do. Steve Jobs killed my Bigfoot dreams.
Since Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine, there have been periods in which operational security—especially on the Ukrainian side—has been very tight. Ukrainian forces have generally cooperated in putting their phones down and not sending along those images of a critical battle, a line of smashed vehicles, or a liberated settlement. They’ve been really good … for a day or two. Then we get to see.
There are nearly 1 million people involved in this fight, almost every one of them is carrying a device that can take video and still images, and all of them can squirt those images straight onto the internet with or without the approval of their leaders. Plus this is taking place in a country where there are millions of civilians who are also nearly all equipped with their own in-hand TV studios. Then there are drone videos. There are civilian volunteers driving right out to the battle front. There are journalists mingling with the troops. There are videos produced by military units that have astoundingly professional polish. There is satellite imagery, available even to civilians, so good that it can often not just spot a vehicle, but determine the make.
Since Tuesday, Putin has updated his claims. He now says that Ukraine has lost 186 tanks and 418 armored vehicles.
Sadly, there is no Bigfoot. Happily, there are also not 186 dead Ukrainian tanks sitting out there in the roughly 5-kilometer zone along the front lines. If there were, Russia would not still be sending out videos of the same handful of vehicles lost in the first two days of the counteroffensive.
Earlier this week, Reuters sent news crews right into the thick of the counteroffensive, to the just liberated towns of Storozheve and Neskuchne. They did not pass 160 dead Ukrainian tanks. But they did pass something.
The road into the newly liberated Ukrainian village of Storozheve is lined with the corpses of Russian soldiers and burnt-out armored vehicles.
The grisly scenes bear witness to the ferocity of fighting as Ukrainian troops recaptured Storozheve and several other villages in the past few days as part of a counteroffensive in southern and eastern Ukraine.
These villages have been occupied by Russia since March 2022, just weeks after the invasion began. Now Russia is gone from those locations, except for the Russian bodies that are still awaiting cleanup everywhere along the line of advance. In that same interview where he falsely claimed 160 Ukrainian tanks had been lost, Putin also said that 54 Russian tanks had been destroyed. That part may be pretty close to true. So far, Oryx has cataloged 35 Russian tanks lost since the counteroffensive began around the first of the month. Given another couple of days to catch up to the latest photos, they may well match Putin’s number.
Meanwhile, the actual number of Leopard tanks damaged or destroyed so far seems to be five. At least two of these have been recovered and are being repaired.
Ukraine is on the offensive, but Russia is losing more men and more vehicles. […]
THAT’S NOT A TANK. YES IT IS. NO IT’S NOT.
When Western allies began delivering a bigger variety of vehicles to the Ukrainian military, there was some debate over what can properly be called a “tank.” For example, the French AMX-10rc may look very like what used to be called a “light tank,” and it may play that role for France’s military in Africa. But it also has wheels instead of treads so … not a tank.
On the other hand, when Russia began to run low on its supply of T-80s and T-72s and began sorting through warehouses for aging T-62s (which entered service in 1961) and T-54s (entered service 1948), people made fun of Russia for hauling out such antique hardware. But no one doubted that these old dogs were real tanks—real bad tanks. But still, tanks.
Except it turns out they are not. Or at least they’re not being used as tanks. [map at the link]
On Monday, Ukraine reported that it had liberated the town of Lobkove. At the time, there were also reports that Russian forces had fled from positions in Pyatykhatky and Zherebyanky to regroup around Luhove. But on Thursday there were reports that Russia had arranged a new offensive and was pushing up from Luhove with the intention of reoccupying this area.
On Friday, there are reports of heavy fighting west of Pyatykhatky and around Zherebyanky as, once again, Russia seems intent on defending the area ahead of its defensive line. But there’s an interesting detail to this fight. According to multiple Russian sources, both T-62 tanks and T-54 tanks are in the area, not acting as tanks, but as supplemental artillery. [Not that effective. See below.]
For the crews of these tanks, whose armor would be excessively Swiss-cheesy when encountering anything more modern, sitting some distance from the battlefield must be appreciated. But in terms of acting as artillery, these things have to suck. They have none of the tools that help artillery be accurate over long distances. The old D-10 tank guns on these vehicles can theoretically lob a shell around 15 kilometers, they just can’t hit anything. Their maximum accurate firing range is about 2 kilometers, and that’s with a visible, stationary target and a lot of time to aim.
Furthermore, tank barrels aren’t designed for that kind of wear. “According to the Russian independent news outlet The Insider, Russian tank barrels have a service life from 210 rounds of armor-piercing sub-caliber rounds to 840 rounds of high explosive and shaped charge rounds,” reported Defense Blog. “At the same time, rifled artillery barrels, depending on caliber, projectile type and range, have a life of up to 2,000-3,000 rounds.”
Still, a lot of what’s happening now on the southern Ukraine front seems to be coming down to counter-battery fire. These tanks aren’t taking out Ukrainian guns, but they may at least draw fire away from Russia’s real artillery. If so, prepare for some big numbers in terms of Russian tanks lost over the next couple of days, even if these tanks were not being used as tanks.
Elsewhere on the southern front, Ukraine is reportedly staging a fresh assault on the area around Robotyne, which would be the spot where that handful of Leopard tanks and Bradley IFVs were lost last week. Maybe Russia will soon have something new to photograph. Hopefully not.
Ukraine has also reportedly made advances near Vuhledar following another failed Russian assault in the area, but the extent of this advance isn’t yet clear.
WHEN DO WE GET ANOTHER KURSK?
While Russia is busy using its tanks as artillery, the few Leopard tanks damaged so far have been due almost entirely to mines. None of them has been taken out by a hit from another tank.
Throughout the invasion, actual tank-on-tank combat has been rare, and when it has happened it’s been in the form of one or two tanks on each side, duking it out around a row of trees or among the buildings of a small village. There have been none of the massive tank battles that were key to shifting fates in World War II. Which really seems kind of surprising, considering how many decades Western analysts spent sweating over the idea of Russian tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap.
For tank fans, it’s been something of a disappointment. No one has seen the kind of Leopard 2-on-T-80 action so many craved, and even the approach of drier weather didn’t mean rows of tanks sailing across fields to confront their opposite numbers.
So far in the counteroffensive, a large part of that has been defined by those mines. There are so many mines so tightly packed up there on the perimeter of Russian-occupied territory that picking a route through them is slow, tedious, and extremely dangerous business. Three of those five damaged Leopards were trying to clear mines. [Tweet and image at the link]
If there are going to be any real tank battles—engagements with a large number of tanks blasting away on each side, testing their armor and aim—those are going to happen on the other side of the Russian defensive lines. Even then, it seems improbable. At some point, when a path through the mines has been cleared and the way south is open, Ukraine may actually mount an armored force with a hundred tanks or more, all rolling in the same direction. Russia may form up to meet them, but it’s more likely to be mines, trenches, and artillery all the way down.
If Russia really does square up in a tank vs. tank faceoff, it’s going to be because they’re desperate. And a lot of Russians in very old tanks are going to be unhappy.
———————-
Just when you thought the Mariupol circus was the saddest form of Russian entertainment: [Tweet and video at the link. Strong men tear apart thinks like hot water bottle and tennis balls.]
————————–
Ukraine is going to have some very well-trained pilots. Now, will they let them take the planes home at the end of the course? [Tweet and video at the link. “Sweden signed a deal with Ukraine today on the training of Ukrainian pilots on Swedish JAS-39 Gripen fighter Jets to start. Well done Sweden!”]
—————————
This is a counter-battery radar system, so taking it out is a very good thing for gunners in the Bakhmut area. [Tweet at the link]
Oggie: Mathomsays
SC: Oh, I know the region. Went to college in Rindge. Was a ski instructor at Crotched Mountain. Lived in Peterborough. Yeah, rocks and frost heaves.
8pm EDT June 16 2023: We are still monitoring a tropical wave south of the Cabo Verde Islands. A tropical depression is now likely to form by the early to middle portion of next week as it moves westward across the tropical Atlantic.
2-day genesis probability: low (…30%)
7-day genesis probability: high (…70%)
Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who after experiencing a sobbing antiwar epiphany on a bathroom floor made the momentous decision in 1971 to disclose a secret history of American lies and deceit in Vietnam, what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at his home in Kensington, Calif., in the Bay Area. He was 92.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, his wife and children said in a statement.
…
The disclosure of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 government pages of damning revelations about deceptions by successive presidents who exceeded their authority, bypassed Congress and misled the American people — plunged a nation that was already wounded and divided by the war deeper into angry controversy.
It led to illegal countermeasures by the White House to discredit Mr. Ellsberg, halt leaks of government information and attack perceived political enemies, forming a constellation of crimes known as the Watergate scandal that led to the disgrace and resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.
And it set up a First Amendment confrontation between the Nixon administration and The New York Times, whose publication of the papers was denounced by the government as an act of espionage that jeopardized national security. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the freedom of the press.
Mr. Ellsberg was charged with espionage, conspiracy and other crimes and tried in federal court in Los Angeles. But on the eve of jury deliberations, the judge threw out the case, citing government misconduct, including illegal wiretapping, a break-in at the office of Mr. Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist and an offer by President Nixon to appoint the judge himself as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“The demystification and de-sanctification of the president has begun,” Mr. Ellsberg said after being released. “It’s like the defrocking of the Wizard of Oz.”
…
He earned a doctorate at Harvard, joined the RAND Corporation and began studying game theory as applied to crisis situations and nuclear warfare. In the 1960s, he conferred on Washington’s responses to the Cuban missile crisis and North Vietnamese attacks on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.
By 1964, Mr. Ellsberg was an adviser to Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. As American involvement in Vietnam deepened, he went to Saigon in 1965 to evaluate civilian pacification programs. He joined Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, the counterinsurgency expert, and for 18 months accompanied combat patrols into the jungles and villages.
What he saw began his transformation. It went beyond the failure to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese. It was a mounting toll of civilian deaths, tortured prisoners and burned villages, a litany of brutality entered in military field reports as “clear and hold operations.”
“I saw it was all very hard on those people,” he told the syndicated columnist Mary McGrory. “But I told myself that living under communism would be harder, and World War III, which I thought we were preventing, would be worse.”
To Mr. McNamara, Mr. Ellsberg forecast a dismal prospect of continued death and destruction, ending perhaps in an American withdrawal and victory for North Vietnam. His reports went nowhere. But Mr. McNamara summoned him in 1967, with 35 others, to compile a history of the Vietnam conflict.
Mr. Ellsberg’s contribution to the study was relatively modest. But he was deeply disturbed by its sweeping conclusions: that successive presidents had widened the war while concealing the facts from Congress and the American people. Mr. Ellsberg returned to RAND in 1968, but he began quietly acting on his changing views, composing war policy statements for Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential race and attending antiwar conferences.
In August 1969, he went to a War Resisters League meeting at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and heard a speaker, Randy Kehler, proudly announce that he was soon going to join his friends in prison for refusing the draft.
Profoundly moved, Mr. Ellsberg had reached his breaking point, as he was quoted saying in “The Right Words at the Right Time” (2002), by the actress Marlo Thomas. “I left the auditorium and found a deserted men’s room,” he said. “I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing. The only time in my life I’ve reacted to something like that.”
Mr. Ellsberg began to oppose the war openly. He wrote letters to newspapers, joined antiwar protests, composed articles and testified at the trials of draft resisters. He also resigned from RAND, under pressure.
…
The Pentagon Papers revealed not only that successive presidents had widened the war, but also that they had been aware that it was not likely to be won. The documents also disclosed rife cynicism among high officials toward the public and disregard for the enormous casualties of the war. Mr. Ellsberg called the conflict “an American war almost from the beginning.”
The White House soon began to pursue Mr. Ellsberg, who had gone into hiding. Under President Nixon’s domestic affairs adviser, John D. Ehrlichman, a unit called the “plumbers” was formed to plug leaks and carry out covert operations, including burglaries at the office of Mr. Ellsberg’s psychiatrist (no damaging files were found), and in 1972 at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. The arrest of the burglars there began an unraveling that led to Mr. Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
Mr. Ellsberg, who surrendered, and Mr. Russo, his colleague, were charged with espionage, conspiracy and other crimes carrying a total of 115 years in prison. After a procedural mistrial in 1972, they were tried in 1973 before Judge William M. Byrne Jr. in federal court in Los Angeles. Before the case went to the jury, however, the judge dismissed all the charges on the grounds of government misconduct.
Judge Byrne said that G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, who engineered the Watergate burglary, had broken into the office of Lewis J. Fielding, Mr. Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist, in a failed attempt to find damaging evidence against him; that the F.B.I. had illegally wiretapped Mr. Ellsberg’s conversations; and that during the trial Mr. Ehrlichman had offered the judge the directorship of the F.B.I.
While Mr. Nixon resigned and Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Ehrlichman and other Watergate figures went to prison, Mr. Ellsberg continued to be active in the antiwar movement, speaking at rallies and campuses across the nation. He also advocated disarmament and spoke against nuclear weapons,…
…
He is survived by his wife, his children, five grandchildren and one great-granddaughter….
Huffman even called protesting moderators “landed gentry.”
“[…] people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.” He added that he plans to make […] policies so users can vote them out.
[…]
In a blog post […] it respects the right to protests. However, the rules state that the company can remove moderators if they are uncooperative.
[…]
A study published last year estimated that they spend 466 hours per day on maintaining these communities. […] if Reddit paid them $20 per hour, it would cost them $3.4 million annually.
“Reddit represents one of the largest data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things,” Huffman said. “We are not in the business of giving that away for free.”
I mean holy shit dude. […] It came from millions of people who gave you that content for free. And many of them […] through third party apps because those apps made your site much more useful without charging you a dime.
[…]
Remember how Musk talked about “lords and peasants.” […] guys in full control […] literal dictators, […] trying to set their users against those who have provided massive value to the site for years for free. It’s disgusting.
we – the so-called “landed gentry” – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the “royal court,” […] we figured that the only reasonable thing to do was directly ask how you’d like things to progress
[…]
Our final tally is as follows:
* Return to normal operations: -2,329 votes
* Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy: 37,331 votes
state Sen. Rachel Hunt (D) […] she’s running for lieutenant governor to combat anti-choice Republicans who recently passed a 12-week abortion ban […] The video is still available on Twitter, but the Hunt campaign cannot currently advertise or promote the video on the platform.
[…]
she’s deeply concerned that Twitter believes content regarding abortion rights should be prohibited.
StevoRsays
About 200 counter-protesters have drowned out opposition against a storytelling event hosted by a drag artist at a Perth library. Drag artist Cougar Morrison hosted a book-reading event at Maylands Library today, which was met with opposition in the lead-up. Protesters outside the library said the event exposed children to “grooming”, and their opposition was intended to “protect the children”. However, Morrison told the ABC the protesters’ fears were unwarranted. “We all have working with children cards,” she said. “There has not been a huge amount of backlash to drag story time until recently, and it’s really an echo response from the transphobic rhetoric we’ve seen in the US.” … (snip) .. When asked what she (homophobic bigot protester -ed) was afraid would happen, Ms Gallina said she was not sure.”But, they’re allowing children to listen to stories that are not appropriate,” she said. However, Morrison refuted the comments, and said the books and her attire were appropriate for children.
A longtime producer for Tucker Carlson has been ousted from Fox News after being found responsible for an on-air headline that referred to US President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator”. The producer, Alex McCaskill, confirmed his exit in an Instagram post. … (snip).. It was during the last minutes of Carlson’s former timeslot on Tuesday when the message appeared under separate on-screen boxes that showed Mr Biden and former US president Donald Trump talking. It read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” Carlson, in a Twitter monologue posted on Thursday, said “the women who run the network panicked” about the post and scolded the person responsible.
Guessing McCaskil will be heading straight to QANN or Newsmaxx or joining the Trump campaign… But still.
KGsays
Reginald Selkirk@66,
Further bad news for that guy: acting out dreams (which often involve fleeing from or retaliating against an attacker) is called RBD – REM sleep behaviour disorder – and appears often to be an early sign of developing Parkinson’s disease or other neurodegenerative illnesses (there are other causes such as certain drugs); see February 2023 Scientific American, pp.54-59. During REM sleep, most skeletal muscles are effectively paralysed, in RBD this inhibition fails. RBD should not be confused with sleepwalking and sleeptalking, which usually occur during non-REM sleep.
Reginald Selkirksays
@25 @35 “Tunnel of Hercules” ?
StevoRsays
“Until a Drag Queen walks into a school and beats 8 kids to death with a copy of ‘To KillA mockingbird‘ I think you’re focusing on the wrong shit.”
– Wanda Sykes
Spot on meme / quote seen on fb just now.
Reginald Selkirksays
@60,64,69 brickthrowing
FBI: 3 men used bricks, spray paint to vandalize the homes of 2 New Hampshire journalists
The charge of conspiracy to commit interstate stalking carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case…
1) They conspired.
2) They crossed state lines.
That’s why the feds are involved, and I doubt they will get off easy.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar confirmed troops were “engaged in active moves” to advance the counteroffensive in the country’s south.
Maliar said:
Practically in all sectors where our units are attacking in the south, they have registered tactical successes. They are gradually moving forward. At the moment, the advance is up to 2km in each direction.
Ukrainian forces around the devastated city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia last month, were trying to push Russian forces out from the outskirts of the town.
Russia has not officially acknowledged Ukrainian advances and said it had inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv’s forces in the previous 24 hours.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the developments saying “every soldier, every new step we take, every metre of Ukrainian land freed from the enemy is of utmost importance.”
A delegation of African leaders met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv and urged Russia and Ukraine to de-escalate and negotiate, hours after sheltering from missile strikes on the capital. The diplomatic team called their visit a “historic mission” and voiced the concerns of a continent suffering from the fallout of the war, including rising grain prices. The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said both sides needed to stop fighting and “this war must be settled and there should be peace through negotiations”. Zelenskiy rejected any negotiations with Moscow, saying he had made clear to the African leaders that “permitting any talks with Russia now, when the occupier is on our land, means freezing the war, freezing pain and suffering”.
FBI agents arrested a Michigan man on Friday accused of planning a mass killing at a synagogue in East Lansing, according to federal court documents filed in the Western District of Michigan.
Seann Patrick Pietila discussed the attack on Instagram, court documents said, where he frequently posted anti-semitic remarks about hating Jews and being inspired by the men convicted of two mass shootings in New Zealand and Norway, who shot and killed dozens of people – driven to the murders by religious hatred and far-right extremism.
He was charged with one count of interstate communication of threats and made his first appearance in court on Friday, court records show…
…Baden believes tactics to block access to both abortion and gender-affirming care will intensify as the next election cycle approaches, with young people as a key messaging strategy. She points to Idaho’s recently enacted travel ban for minors seeking abortions out of state. “They start with minors because they think they have both an easier messaging win and easier legal avenues,” she said. “I think we’ll see more of those kinds of bills next year, but … that is just a testing ground for them.”
Branstetter, too, sees restrictions for young people as the beginning of a larger escalation. “They’re dropping the pretense that this was about young people,” she said. “We’re probably stepping into a legislative session and an election where outright bans on gender transitions for anyone of any age are on the table.”
For her, that prospect is yet another reason to see abortion and transgender rights as two sides of the same coin. Both impact historically marginalized groups, both employ technologies that help people break free of gender norms, and both save lives. Said Branstetter, “Their goal is to make people so scared of trans freedom that you’ll sacrifice your own … [but] trans rights are women’s rights.”
Finland will slash spending, cut immigration and tighten up citizenship rules under a new four-party coalition government including the far-right Finns party and headed by the conservative leader Petteri Orpo.
The coalition of Orpo’s National Coalition party (NCP), the Finns, the Swedish People’s party (RKP) and the Christian Democrats has a majority of 108 MPs in the 200-seat parliament and was unveiled on Friday after 11 weeks of sometimes stormy negotiations.
Analysts have described it as arguably the most rightwing administration in Finland’s history. A radical austerity programme has already been promised, and the Finns party is taking a hard line on development aid, the climate crisis and immigration….
Meet Lieutenant General Andrei Gurulev, who demands that Russian scientists should develop biological weapons that will only affect the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ to counter ‘US biological labs in Norway’.
“We need to deal with the Anglo-Saxons. This is the main enemy,” Gurulev said
WarGonzo reports that Ukrainian forces have entrenched on the borders of P’yatykhatky.
“If we delay the cleanup any longer, then the Ukrainians will bring in such a number of personnel and equipment that the settlement will have to be abandoned.”
Former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on Saturday identified five factors that underscore how far down the right-wing rabbit hole twice-indicted ex-President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have dragged American politics.
“‘Authoritarianism’ isn’t adequate” to “describe what Trump wants for America,” Reich wrote in a Guardian opinion column. “It is fascism. Fascism stands for a coherent set of ideas different from – and more dangerous than – authoritarianism.”
Reich noted what he believes differentiates fascism from mere authoritarianism.
According to Reich, Trump and the GOP have embraced the following:
Rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman depends on galvanizing popular rage.
Popular rage draws on a nationalism based on a supposed superior race or ethnicity.
That superior race or ethnicity is justified by social Darwinist strength and violence, as exemplified by heroic warriors.
Strength, violence and the heroic warrior are centered on male power.
Those tenets, Reich concluded, “are not the elements of authoritarianism. They are the essential elements of fascism.”
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Disdain for human rights
3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
4. Rampant sexism
5. Controlled mass media
6. Obsession with national security
7. Religion and government intertwined
8. Corporate power protected
9. Labor power suppressed
10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts
11. Obsession with crime and punishment
12. Rampant cronyism and corruption
The only two the GOP hasn’t hit under Trump are 5 & 6. Well, control of mass media is partially done.
[…] Florida Governor DeSantis decided to veto flooding projects in Democratic districts of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties [and for fewer, but some projects requested by Republicans]. The improvements that he vetoed were for “culverts, road resurfacing and adding more drainage infrastructure” that would help alleviate flooding in blue districts according to reporting from Anne Geggie of Florida Politics.
The $3.14 million in reductions — all having to do with flood control and drainage — were among the half-billion that Gov. Ron DeSantis excised from the 2023-24 budget Thursday.
– An appropriation for $800,000 to improve Lauderhill Maple Run drainage that Democratic Rep. Lisa Dunkley proposed accounted for the biggest chunk felled in the tri-county water-handling vetoes. It would have provided pipes and discharge control structures to remove water from roadways in the Maple Run neighborhood.
– Next came an appropriation Republican Rep. David Borrero requested to resurface Southwest Fifth Street between Southwest 112th and 113th Avenues and add new drainage structures.
– Improving drainage on Southwest Ranches roads failed in two places. DeSantis vetoed the $340,200 Democrat Mike Gottlieb requested to improve Southwest 69th Street, as well as the same amount for drainage improvements Democrat Robin Bartleman requested for Southwest 57th Court.
– Bartleman was dismayed the Governor cut $262,500 that would have rehabilitated deteriorating drainage culverts along the South Broward Drainage District’s (SBDD) C-1 Canal.
– A $200,000 flood mitigation project in Parkland that Democrat Rep. Christine Hunschofsky requested was stripped from the budget as was $150,000 Republican Rep. Rick Roth requested for South Bay stormwater and flood control management.
– Roth also saw the Governor veto his request for $1.5 million that would have improved sanitary sewer overflows for the Glades Community, but that’s not just water that falls from the sky. It would have involved better stormwater handling too, however, the request said.
Using the office of the Governor to punish his political opponents for petty and vindictive purposes is appalling and I thank Anne Geggie for her reporting. National media has picked up her reporting and is provides another example of cruelty by the Republican Party for the nation to see.
Desantis also refused flooding improvements in central Florida that abut Disney World.
They included the following projects.
– Orange County Utilities – Orlo Vista Integrated Water Resources Project, flood mitigation for the Orlo Vista neighborhood: $2 million
– Osceola County Buenaventura Lakes Drainage Improvements, project to remove 142 homes and businesses from repetitive flood risk: $1.8 million
– Oviedo West Mitchell Hammock Water Treatment Facility – Tank Construction, construction of a new 2.5-million-gallon water tank: $1 million
– Seminole County Midway Drainage Improvements, flooding mitigation projects for the Midway community: $1 million
– Purpose Built Florida – Lift Orlando, funding to address the root causes of generational poverty in low-income communities: $1 million
This punishment of Democratic counties is nothing new for the racist, misogynist, and homophobic fascist that is hoping to become the Grand Wizard of America. He is the great white hope for some GQP power brokers as Trump is politically vulnerable in a general election due to indictments for rape, espionage and is under investigation for insurrection and treason and the fact that he is a despicable human being.
Desantis was silent for days while he fundraised and campaigned in Ohio while unprecedented rainfall flooded many parts of Fort Lauderdale in Broward County, which made international headlines as a jaw dropping example of unpredictable climate disaster. [video at the link]
DeeSantis wasted no time campaigning after the Category 5 Hurricane Ian flattened the red counties in SW Florida. Funny that.
[…] the 2023 Hurricane Season climate disruption could bring catastrophic wind and flooding to Florida this summer, repeatedly. […]
Rates have gone up there because most insurance companies have pulled out of FL because of the repeated weather disasters there. The remainder charge 3-5x what the rest of the country pays because of this. There is also some sort of state agency insurance you can get in the areas no insurance company will cover, and that’s also outrageously high and infamously slow at paying claims.
[…] These people think their wealth will protect them from natural and climate disasters, but it won’t. And they will find their wealth much reduced when businesses and people flee the state in huge numbers
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our asshole legislature has allowed the Insurance Companies to have “Florida only subsidiaries’. The premiums would be much lower if the risks were spread out over all the areas the companies do business.
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“What fresh Hell is this?” is becoming my morning mantra, as DeSatan continues to insist on destroying humanity.
I realize that “Florida is where people come to die”, but I’m wondering why he’s trying so hard to speed up the process. I didn’t bargain for people like him to be running things, back when I settled here; mainly to escape winter and Midwest Xtianists.
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Until it washes away Ron’s own mansion or MarALardo none of the GQP [Grand Q’Anon Party] will really care.
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He also cut huge amounts of funding for SFS college for nursing while nurses are leaving Florida in droves. So stupid.
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This is not the only problem for Florida…the greening disease, which causes fruit to drop, unripened, now infects almost all citrus groves in Florida. Besides criminalizing field workers without papers as felons, driving them out, there is much less left to pick, with the smallest harvest in decades. But those Florida republicans who hate socialism and want to cut the Federal debt have a plan…
“..citrus farmers hope federal disaster aid will defray costs from hurricane damage. The U.S. House voted to approve block grants for citrus growers Monday as part of a bill introduced by Rep. C. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.). (From the Wash Post this morning).
If republicans weren’t hypocrites and liars, they would have no talkings points at all. (The greening disease mentioned is currently incurable.).
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They [Insurance companies] have already pulled out as national companies. […] Florida had to allow “Florida only” insurance subsidiaries because the companies said they would pull out otherwise and stop writing home policies. Without those policies, banks won’t provide mortgages. There goes the real estate market.
Florida residents pay huge home owner insurance rates — not something mentioned in all those glossy “affordability” write ups.
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The skeptic in me thinks that the Grand Wizard’s plan is not only to punish Democratic districts in the near term, signaling just how much he despises Democrats, and fluffing up his MAGA ‘street cred’, but also, in anticipation of the next flooding disaster, to simply let it happen, declare an emergency, and wait for the Democratic Federal Government come in and pay for it. A win-win!
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You might want to spend money on flood mitigation because flood water and storm surge does not honor boundaries.
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) claimed Thursday that another source in the GOP’s Biden family probe has been missing ― for the last three years. The lawmaker complained to Fox News host Sean Hannity that MSNBCrides him over informants who have disappeared…
Reginald Selkirksays
ibid:
“Nine of the 10 people that we’ve identified that have very good knowledge with respect to the Bidens, they’re one of three things,” he said. “They’re either currently in court, they’re currently in jail or they’re currently missing.”
If House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was expecting a thank you from the Freedom Caucus and other Republican nihilists for capitulating to them and agreeing to renege on the debt ceiling agreement he made with President Joe Biden, he doesn’t know the extremists: Of course they’re not happy. They don’t necessarily know what they want, but they do know they want to raise hell about it. And as usual, the likeliest victims are the most vulnerable Americans.
What this means is that all the big must-pass bills besides the 12 appropriations bills are going to be a massive fight, none more so than the reauthorization of the farm bill, and with it the fight that the extremists are still mad about: food assistance. That includes again trying to force everyone getting SNAP aid to prove they’re working, and also banning universal free school meals. [!!!]
The extremists don’t think the concessions McCarthy made to them are good enough and want to make sure, in the words of Florida Man Rep. Matt Gaetz, that they aren’t using “budgetary gimmicks” to move money around, but are actually taking it away from programs. Like the Community Eligibility Provision in the National School Lunch Program. The budget released by the Republican Study Committee, which comprises the hardest-right 175 or so House members, rescinds the program that provides for universal free school meals in areas that qualify economically.
It’s not that huge of a program now, but it does mean that in low-income areas, school meals are available to all the kids and none of them have to be ashamed or subject to school authorities embarrassing them in front of their schoolmates, by, for instance, ripping food away from them because they have school lunch debt. It also means that all of the kids receive at least one or two nourishing meals every day and are ready to learn. [All good … so Republicans want to take it away.]
That program is run by the Food and Nutrition Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, and is just one of many programs that will need to be reauthorized in the farm bill. So is SNAP, as the food stamp program is now called. The hardliners among the House Republicans are still mad that McCarthy “watered down” his demands for work requirements in the debt ceiling deal, and they are going to demand to be appeased this time. McCarthy has supposedly told his more reasonable colleagues that they’ll have to appease the extremists, and at least fight for tougher restrictions.
Plenty of House Republicans don’t want to hear that.
“We’ve negotiated a new level of requirements on SNAP and I think it’s time to move forward from there,” Rep. John Duarte of California told Politico. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska agrees. “You can’t just have an agreement and then say we’re gonna change it,” Bacon said. “In the end, if we get a bipartisan bill, you’ll get enough Democrats on board where [opposition from some far-right House Republicans] won’t be an issue.”
Even one Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, who serves on the Agriculture Committee, is worried about what his pals could be doing on the farm bill. “I don’t have a lot of confidence of anything passing the House anymore under the current environment,” he told Politico, adding “there’s certain members … that I don’t think anybody can change their opinions.”
He’s not wrong. There’s a bunch of them just spoiling for a fight, any fight, even if it’s with each other. “There are many country club Republicans up here that seem perfectly content to manage the decline of this country,” Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona said on a right-wing radio show this week.
If you’re keeping score, that’s the Freedom Caucus and fringe members fighting with each other, with other House Republicans, with Senate Republicans, and with McCarthy, who will undoubtedly capitulate to them in the end. They’ve agreed with the majority of Democrats that the appropriation bills they pass will meet the debt ceiling agreement, roughly $120 billion more in spending than the House now says it will provide.
Over in the Senate, Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, has said point-blank that Congress is “done” talking work requirements. They won’t be in her bill.
Beyond that, Senate Republicans (who disproportionately represent federally funded farm states) as a whole don’t like making waves on the farm bill. They want it to pass and they want their constituents and friends in the agriculture lobby groups to be happy. Many also recognize that rural communities need food assistance as much as urban ones, and have decided that’s not a fight they need to have. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made a point of calling out the farm bill as a major priority.
This bill is going to be moving apart from, and in parallel to, the funding bills, but with plenty of cross-contamination in the battles. Just like the spending fight will almost certainly end in a government shutdown, the farm bill will probably limp into next year without having been reauthorized, dragging well into the 2024 campaign cycle. That is exactly the thing McConnell wants to avoid. Maybe he can help McCarthy and the rest of the Republicans find some spine to stand up to the nihilists.
[…] one part of the appeal of Donald Trump has been clear: He’s a racist. A misogynist. An unfettered narcissist whose wealth and connections have allowed him to cheat contractors, defraud investors, insult whoever he chooses, endanger workers, and sexually assault women.
He’s so crude he’ll talk about the size of his daughter’s breasts in a radio interview. So heartless he’ll make his disdain for prisoners of war and Gold Star parents into a campaign plank. So brazen he’ll tell obvious lies, tell a different lie five minutes later, then deny what he said on camera in front of an audience.
Trump is an unrepentant bully. That alone is enough to make him appealing to many, for the same reason third-grade bullies have henchmen.
But it’s not the big pull. The big pull, the thing that turned Trump from a clown on a gaudy staircase into a nightmare in the White House, is that he holds out the same offer to his followers that he enjoys: the promise of cruelty without consequence.
Over the course of Trump’s time in the big chair, he pardoned Steve Bannon when his former campaign chief defrauded fans out of $25 million to pay for a fictional border wall. He gave racist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio a pass on contempt of court. Right-wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza got to blow past giving illegal campaign contributions. Erstwhile foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was given a gold star after lying to federal investigators. Conservative talk show host Conrad Black may have lost when he appealed his obstruction case to the Supreme Court, but Trump took care of that. Conservative lobbyist Roger Stone was convicted of seven felonies with direct connections to Trump’s campaign. Just like that, Trump set him free. […]
[…] it wasn’t just that Trump brushed away laws like cobwebs when it came to his friends. He made it abundantly clear that he was there for those who would swear allegiance, like a trio of Republican ex-congressmen—Duncan Hunter, Chris Collins, and Steve Stockman—who were given passes on everything from securities fraud to money laundering.
The franchise was also extended to those who did things that Trump and his fan base admired. That included giving full pardons to Dwight and Steven Hammond, a pair of Oregon ranchers and serial arsonists who were part of Ammon Bundy’s anti-government uprising.
Then Trump topped himself by pardoning Clint Lorance for casually ordering the murder of two civilians in Afghanistan. And pardoning Mathew Golsteyn for murdering a civilian. And he pardoned Edward Gallagher, who not only murdered a prisoner by slowly sticking a knife into his neck, but went on to desecrate the man’s body before posing for a few pictures.
All of them were found guilty in military courts before officers and men who had served in the same areas. All of them had their convictions reversed, and their crimes blessed, by Trump.
If there’s any doubt that this trend would continue, Trump has already declared he would pardon a “large portion” of those convicted in the Jan. 6 insurgency. […]
It’s been said many times that in the modern Republican Party, cruelty is the point, But Donald Trump’s real promise is that those who follow his path get to be cruel—and never pay for it.
Trump himself is the exemplar of this system. He’s weathered over 3,000 lawsuits, often resulting from his refusal to pay his debts. He’s walked away from charges of racial discrimination with nothing more than a promise to be good next time. He’s faced down 106 charges of money laundering, class-action lawsuits for condos that were never built, state charges over charitable theft, and a federal case over a fraudulent “university,” and the worst thing that happened to him was that he had to carve off less money than he spent decorating his tacky apartment. Even a jury trial finding that Trump sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll didn’t result in a dip in his polls, or cost him more than he can grift in “donations” from his followers in less than a week.
All of this is why it’s vitally important that Trump not just be indicted, not just be found guilty, but that he pay by serving a serious, lengthy prison sentence. Otherwise, his supporters will receive exactly the message Trump has been sending them all along: Special people, people like Trump, can always walk away. [Yep.]
Even the courtesies that the FBI and Department of Justice have been providing Trump so far—the courtesy warnings before indictments are produced, the waving of mugshots, the failure to impose any bail or travel restrictions—only serve to reinforce the message that, even when caught, nothing bad really happens. His followers see that. They internalize it. They live it. [Yep.]
Trump himself keeps complaining that if the government can come after him, they can come after anyone, and in a way that’s true: If Trump has to pay, then his promise to his supporters falls apart. Only by seeing that Trump receives punishment on the scale of anyone else charged with the same crimes can his supporters be convinced that their bully can’t protect them. That the next pardon won’t have their name on it. That eventually, everyone has to pay for their actions.
That lesson had better be taught. It had better be clear. And it had better be soon.
[…] Doris Kearns Goodwin drew a contrast between public opinion (which appears, on the surface, static) and public sentiment, which shows signs of moving against Donald Trump.
There are those who say “nothing matters” but the truth is it all matters.
E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against Trump will begin on Jan. 15, 2024.
It falls between the Oct. 2, 2023 trial of Letitia James’s $250 mil civil fraud case and the Mar. 25, 2024 trial of Alvin Bragg’s 34-count indictment on felony falsification of records charges.
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With other trial dates TBD in between or surrounding🤘🏼
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“You can’t vote for someone who’s under investigation by the FBI!” – Presidential candidate Donald Trump, 2016
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Judges are going to need a shared calendar in order to know whether or not Trump can be in their courtroom or if he has to be at one of his other trials
[…] Karl Rove/Wall Street Journal:
Trump Invited This Indictment
His childish defiance of the law comes at a high cost to him—and to the country.
The blame for this calamity rests solely on Mr. Trump […]
Extreme as this situation is, it could easily have been avoided if Mr. Trump simply followed the law […] If then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows ordered the trucks heading south to Mar-a-Lago to detour to drop off records at the archives’ warehouse in Suitland, Md., it might have enraged Mr. Trump when he found out, but it would have spared the country from the ugly months ahead.
No matter the outcome, America will pay a high price for the former president’s reckless petulance. So will he.
Quinta Jurecic/The Atlantic:
Trump Can’t Bluster His Way Through Court
A courtroom is an inhospitable place for the former president’s efforts to define his own reality.
Trump has built a political juggernaut out of shameless lying. Or perhaps not even lying. It’s practically a cliché at this point to refer to the philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit, which Frankfurt describes as distinct from, and worse than, a lie, in that the bullshitter doesn’t even care whether or not what he’s saying is true. Trump is a consummate bullshitter—but the courtroom is an inhospitable place for that sort of bluster. It’s an environment designed for careful, systematic evaluation of meaning and argument. In court, Trump is no longer on his home turf. In that sense, the Mar-a-Lago indictment represents the latest collision between the legal system and Trump’s insistence on defining the terms of his own reality.
[…] Peggy Noonan/Wall Street Journal:
The Indictment Can Only Hurt Trump
Even his loyal supporters will understand that his mishandling of documents endangered U.S. security.
This won’t solidify his position with hardline supporters. [Doubt that.] Deep down they know “What about Hillary?” doesn’t answer the questions: “Why would Trump do this? Why would he put America in danger? Who did he show those papers to?”
As to soft Trump supporters, the charges do nothing to keep them in his camp. They reinforce the arguments of former Trump Republicans now backing other candidates: He was our guy but in the end he’s all danger and loss.
David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:
Donald Trump Is About to Have His Wile E. Coyote Moment
The double-indicted ex-president will soon look down to discover he’s over the cliff and there’s nothing and no one left to support him.
This is what is happening to Trump. He’s churning along confident that the MAGA rocket pack that has boosted his political career for the past seven years will continue to carry him forward, intimidating his rivals, and guaranteeing him political relevance and all the grift that goes with it.
But that MAGA rocket pack was apparently supplied by the ACME Rocket Pack Company and as everyone knows, ACME is the only company that rivals Trump’s own enterprises for its record of failures.
Sure, you’re hearing that Trump being indicted is actually helping him with his base. But that is pure hooey peddled by the hooeymongers in the media who have been serving as stenographers simply repeating verbatim talking points produced by Team Trump’s ACME Hooey Machine. The facts show that Trump’s support is beginning to erode in multiple meaningful ways. The ground is literally giving way beneath his feet, even if he and a goodly chunk of the punditerati don’t know it yet.
What is more, it is a phenomenon that is only likely to accelerate.
Josh Barro/”Very Serious” on Substack:
It’s Time for GOP Candidates to Pile On Trump
To run against Trump, you have to run *against* Trump. Otherwise, you’re just running to lose to him.
These candidates are confused about the source of their problems.
Their main political problem is that Trump is far ahead of them in the polls. Republican voters like him a great deal and are eager to make him president again. Most Republican primary voters don’t care if Trump commits crimes, such is their loyalty to him. When your opponent is so popular the voters don’t care if he gets indicted, your problem isn’t the indictment. It’s his popularity.
[Posted by Lakshya Jain]:
Yeah, I don’t think Biden is going to get some massive boost in approval. I think his age is a very real liability that caps a lot of this, but the GOP nominating Trump is more likely than not to obviate those voter concerns and result in a worse GOP defeat than 2020.
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Our focus group for @nytopinion found the same thing: “Disapproving 2020 Biden Voters” who spent 85 minutes of a 90 min focus group complaining about Biden and saying they don’t think he’s fit to serve thru 2028…but the final 5 mins they say they’d pick him over Trump anyway.
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Biden got to be the nominee precisely because he united the clans as best as anyone could, and it’s unclear who else could actually do that in this short of a time. When Trump’s less popular than ever, it’s not faulty logic to go with the incumbent president who won last time.
Jamil Smith/Los Angeles Times:
Republicans are trafficking migrants to California. Are we too tired to protest?
There was Juneteenth this month, of course, […] holiday celebrating African Americans’ final emancipation from enslavement. And three summers ago, we had the all-too-brief rebellion against racism and police brutality in the wake of a terrible few months filled with Black death. Both arrived at historical moments when America had a choice to either collectively progress towards racial equity or remain true to its bloody roots.
I’m reminded now of something that a policing expert told me when I wrote about Juneteenth three years ago, as the uprising was swelling around the world. Speaking about emancipation, he told me “it took so much blood and so much treasure that the nation was too exhausted to stay focused on what you do to actually build freedom.” He touched upon what I sense looking at today’s America. Folks are tired. I know I am.
Greg Sargent/Washington Post:
As more schools target ‘Maus,’ Art Spiegelman’s fears are deepening
Right-wing culture warriors pushing restrictions on classroom instruction sometimes defend these measures by insisting that they avoid targeting historically or intellectually significant material. In their telling, these laws restrict genuinely objectionable matter — such as pornography or “woke indoctrination” — while sparing material that kids truly need to learn, even if it’s controversial.
A new fracas involving a school board in Missouri will test this premise. The controversy revolves around Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about the Holocaust, and it indicates that those seeking to censor books seem oddly unconstrained by the principle that they are supposed to avoid restricting important, challenging historical material.
“It’s one more book — just throw it on the bonfire,” Spiegelman told me ruefully, suggesting the impulse to target books seems to have a built-in tendency to expand, sweeping in even his Pulitzer-winning “Maus” under absurd pretenses.
[snipped video compilation of “Most Humiliating Moments of MTG’s life”]
Twitter ran ads from household-name brands like Disney, Microsoft, and The Telegraph newspaper alongside neo-Nazi propaganda this week. Family-friendly media conglomerates, tech giants, and legacy newspapers running ads on social media platforms may try to do so with some confidence their names won’t appear plastered next to racist, hateful imagery, but that’s far from guaranteed on Elon Musk’s new Twitter. Users tweeted screenshots of the ads beside clips an antisemitic film, and Gizmodo was able to verify that the ads were still being shown against the videos via simple searches.
How the snafu began: Verified Twitter users with blue check marks in their bios have been sharing long clips of the 2017 antisemitic film Europa: The Last Battle, which the Anti-Defamation League considers a “World War II revisionist film.” …
This year, we have witnessed perhaps the most significant protests against the Iranian regime since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In response, the bloodthirst of the Mullahs has been on full display.
Despite this, Iranian women continue to protest for the basic right to wear the hijab — or not. Though the world may ignore the plight of these women as the news cycle moves on, as it always seems to do, these protests persist. And so do the consequences.
Iranian women face daily threats of violence. More than 90 girls’ schools across Iran have suffered from apparent poisonings. Last month, Iran put on trial the brave women reporters who visited Mahsa Amini — the woman whose death sparked the protests — in prison and told the whole world what the regime had done to her.
[…] Where are all the media headlines giving them the attention they deserve? Where are our leaders around the world drawing their red lines?
[…] The hallmark of this era may very well be the absence of outrage when women are repeatedly abused by societal power structures.
[…] The reality is that Islam, like all other religions, must contend with modern times and the unstoppable human quest for fundamental rights and human dignity. With global communications, increased education and the freedom to engage on a global scale, citizens cannot be kept in the dark about what happens in other parts of the world. In a world where everyone knows everything that’s going on, religious leaders must face their own reckoning, which will come sooner than expected when they fail to bring reformation in their own culture.
[…] Nowhere in the world’s major religions, including Islam, is the quest for fundamental rights and freedom left to God alone, and in no religion are expressions for fundamental human rights viewed as acts against God.
[…] Ultimately, we must take hope in the human spirit. Human dignity can never be suppressed indefinitely. One way or another, the Iranian regime as it is currently constituted will fail unless there is reform.
When it does, it will be women who played a crucial role in their liberation. Those women should not feel alone. […]
As we see in the packed Indianapolis courtrooms where my law students and I represent low-income tenants each week, evictions across the country are rising. Census figures show nearly 8 million households are behind on their rent, teetering on the edge of joining those who line up to hear when they’ll be ordered by a judge to move. With these evictions comes huge and often irreversible damage to families’ finances and physical and mental health.
The chief driver of this crisis is our nation’s appalling shortage of affordable housing. Tenants and other activists rightly push forward plans for expanded public housing, housing vouchers for all who are eligible, and rent control. But we should not neglect an immediate, obvious remedy: stop evicting so many people.
It really can be that simple. Our state and local governments together operate a massive, ruthlessly efficient collection and repossession machine for the benefit of landlords, particularly corporate landlords. We the people run this machine, so we can decide to pump the brakes.
Consider my home state of Indiana, which has one of the nation’s highest eviction rates. That is in large part because our lawmakers and courts have chosen to make evictions remarkably fast, cheap and easy. Fast: Tenants can be ordered out of their homes as quickly as 10 days after a case is filed. Cheap: It costs as little as $104 for a landlord to file an eviction case. And easy: Most tenants here don’t have lawyers, most judges here tell tenants that even egregiously unsafe conditions are not an excuse for non-payment of rent, and our state does not require a landlord to have good cause for evicting a tenant. [JFC]
Nearly all states make eviction filing a snap, as sociologist and “Evicted”author Matthew Desmond and colleagues found in an analysis of 8 million court records from dozens of jurisdictions across the country. They found that low fees and lax procedures caused courts to, in their words, “act more like an extension of the residential rental business than an impartial arbitrator between landlords and tenants.”
The top beneficiaries of courts’ eviction mills are the ever-expanding institutional, aka corporate, landlords that have built an increasingly dominant presence in communities across the country. These mega-companies file for eviction much more quickly than the vanishing breed of mom-and-pop landlords. For example, Indianapolis Star analysis of the 2021 eviction filings in our community showed that 88 percent of the cases were initiated by corporate landlords. Surveys show landlords are well aware of the advantage our justice system gives them, so they eagerly use the courts to jump the line in front of tenants’ competing obligations like utilities, food and healthcare.
Our governments should not be providing landlords with VIP access to court orders and police muscle that other litigants don’t have access to. […]
For example, our county’s local courts require mandatory mediation for parties who seek civil jury trials, post-divorce-decree rulings, or two hours or more of court time for contested family law hearings. In our state’s foreclosure cases, settlement conferences are mandatory. Applying similar rules to eviction cases would put an end to the current phenomenon of landlords rushing to court for a “gotcha” filing, sometimes within days of a tenant being late on rent.
[…] a little additional time is often precious. Even an extra week or two before an eviction case is filed or heard in court could be the time needed for another paycheck or a tax refund to arrive, or a relative or social service agency to come through with the rent owed, any one of which can prevent a renting family from becoming homeless.
Many landlords admit they regularly uses the court eviction process to shake down tenants for late rent rather than to truly seek possession of the rental property. The fix here is obvious: raise the court filing fees substantially. If our governments are going to operate a for-hire collection and enforcement apparatus, let’s at least make it less of a bargain.
Finally, […] We should protect tenants by requiring a landlord to show good cause for refusing to renew their leases. And we should adopt “clean hands” requirements to block landlords with housing code violations from evicting tenants.
Since we control the eviction machine, we can even decide to shut it down during times of health, economic or weather emergencies. We proved this option works when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-triggered eviction moratorium prevented 1.5 million evictions, saving families and communities untold disease spread and suffering.
[…] 90 percent of tenants go to eviction court without an attorney, while landlords virtually always have a lawyer. When the very roof over a family’s head is at stake, all communities need to follow the lead of the cities that have ensured tenants have a lawyer by their side. […]
Last night, the Dodgers gave a special Community Hero award to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for their incredible charity and advocacy work in the LGBTQ+ community for the last several decades — particularly the incredible work they did to help and take care of people and encourage safe sex during the AIDS crisis while the Reagan administration was sticking its fingers in its ears and pretending it wasn’t happening.
This lovely gesture almost didn’t happen, thanks to the efforts of the right-wing wackos who spent the last two months demanding that the Dodgers rescind the award, claiming that the group was an “anti-Catholic hate group” — and the Dodgers’ caved, for a time, before they realized the error of their ways.
Last night, despite all of this hysteria, the Dodgers played to 49,000 fans at their Pride night event last night [Yay! Success.], while a bunch of strident sourpusses stood around outside, sounding like the Westboro Baptist Church screaming about how much Jesus hates everyone who isn’t them. In hopes of furthering their pretend “Go Woke, Get Broke” nonsense that they think they’re using to force all of the companies to side with them in their stupid culture war that no one else cares about, many on the Right posted pictures and footage of the stadium over 4 1/2 hours before the game even started, claiming that their boycott worked and no one showed up. I am not a big sports person, but it does seem to me that baseball games are long enough without showing up 4 1/2 hours early. [LOL]
Speaking to a crowd outside, Pizzagate idiot Jack Posobiec gave an absolutely unhinged speech about demons and exorcisms that is sure to resonate with an increasingly secular country.
“They are not the Sisters of Perpetual indulgence, they are the Sisters of Demonic Possession,” he cried, apparently unaware that that is also a pretty cool name. “That is what they are. And we are here, we’ve all gathered here today, with the bishops, with the Priests, to perform an exorcism. Because we need to exorcise Dodgers’ stadium. We need to exercise the demons in our midst. Because we know that when the serpent approaches you in the desert, what do you say? You say ‘Get behind me Satan!’ ‘Get behind me Satan!’ ‘Get behind me Satan!'”
Do you though? That seems like it might wig the serpent out and cause it to bite you.
Via ABC:
Fans were still able to make their way into the stadium and the Sisters were given their Community Hero award from the Dodgers in a small ceremony before the game. Eventually, the stands filled up with people ready to celebrate Pride and watch a baseball game.
[…] Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts made it clear all were welcome at the ballpark ahead of the game […]
“I love everyone… Anyone who wants to come in and support the Dodgers, I’m all in, we’re all in,” said Roberts.
Calling the Sisters an “anti-Catholic hate group,” because they are drag queens who dress up in silly nun outfits and have silly nun names is just a tad ironic given how often the Catholic church has functioned as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group over the years. […]
many on the Right think that Catholicism is basically witchcraft. They are just always looking for any excuse they can find to justify their bigotry as something other than “We just really don’t like LGBTQ people, because of how we are assholes.” […]
The Dodgers may have lost to the Giants last night, but the real winner was America. That may seem strange to say in light of the teeming jackasses outside the stadium and the people who tried to shut down the event — but ultimately, those people didn’t get what they wanted. The show (or game, in this case, went on). People had fun, the Sisters got their award, and not only did the bigots lose, but they had to stand outside listening to Jack Posobiec ramble on about demons, which seems like a terrible time.
…
Last week, Patrick released an episode with Kashif Khan as a guest. Khan claims that aliens edited human DNA just before the start of recorded history to restrict lifespans to a maximum of 120 years. Khan stated that his unfounded belief stems from characters in historical myths living for centuries. Patrick doesn’t challenge it, hypothesizing that those mythical figures might have been aliens themselves or human-alien hybrids.
The discussion with Khan isn’t an outlier. Patrick has invited guests to talk about aliens secretly living among us, how the truth about UFOs being kept from the public, and weird ideas about the pyramids. You know, normal stuff from someone who should probably also stay off the racing commentary circuit.
A Kentucky mother of three was forced to travel hundreds of miles to Illinois to receive an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a serious birth defect where the skull doesn’t develop, at her 20-week ultrasound appointment.
“The only option I had here was to continue carrying her with the same outcome for another you know, 17, 18 weeks,” Heather Maberry, 32, told ABC News. “I said, ‘I physically can’t and mentally can’t continue carrying her knowing that she’s never gonna breathe, we’re never going to have a life with her.’ So, we came to the decision that we were going to try to get an abortion.” …
On Wednesday night, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas became the first Black woman to play for the Democrats in the yearly Congressional Baseball Game. This marks the first time this has ever happened in the event’s history after being around for over a century…
Death for some, survival for others. Children survived a plane crash.
[…] The Cessna U206G Stationair hit the trees, broke apart and plunged nose-first to the forest floor. When Colombian special operations soldiers reached the wreckage two weeks later, they found three bodies. Mucutuy, Murcia and a third adult were dead. But there was no sign of the children. The collision had barely damaged their seats — and the discovery of a diaper, a half-eaten piece of fruit and small footprints sparked an unreasonable hope: Could they still be alive?
[…] it was difficult to imagine. Family members believed the children might have the skills to survive in the jungle. But this was a notoriously dangerous stretch, infested with jaguars and venomous snakes.
Finally, after more than five weeks of searching, came the miracle: The children were found alive. Even baby Cristin, who’d turned 1 in the forest.
They had survived the seemingly impossible. First, the plane crash that had killed all the adults. Then 40 days in the most inhospitable of environments.
But their battles, it would turn out, were far from over.
The travelers were midway through their 95-minute flight on May 1 when the plane vanished from tracking systems. The search began immediately, with a days-long walk into the forest. A team of six Indigenous men led by Edwin Paky, 36, swung machetes to hack a path through the virgin forest, making slow progress toward the crash site.
They knew the forest well enough to be confident. But also well enough to be wary.
This was one of the densest, wettest, least explored corners of the Amazon basin, an interlude wedged between the Caquetá and Apaporis rivers in southern Colombia. The air was humid; the terrain, sodden. [map at the link]
[…] Measures to relieve poverty in conflict-torn rural areas that had long suffered state neglect. Old guerrillas were rearming; new groups were mustering.
The result: A region now “complex and extremely insecure,” said Carlos Lasso, a security analyst at the Alexander Von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute in Bogotá.
[Rescuers] noted signs of life: The plane door was open. Several bags had been brought outside. An improvised camp — little more than a bed of twigs — lay near the wreckage.
To Paky, it was obvious. The kids were alive.
[…] María Fátima Valencia’s missing daughter had been found dead. But her grandchildren were still unaccounted for. Searchers and officials believed they had wandered into the forest.
At home in their Indigenous community near Araracuara, Valencia, 63, saw the children nearly every week. She knew they were strong. They had to be — they lived in a region of Colombia almost entirely disconnected from the central government. No cell service. No electricity. No roads. The only means of travel? Walking paths and rivers. Reaching the nearest highway took three hours by boat and three more on foot.
[…] Lesly, the oldest child, was raised to survive. Like other Huitoto children, she knew from a young age how to walk in the jungle, fish its waters, which fruits to eat and which to avoid. At 13, she lived as an adult. While her parents worked, she cared for her younger siblings and cooked. Her responsibilities left her little time for mischief or mirth.
“A very smart girl,” Miller said. “Very serious. Short-tempered. Responsible.”
If anyone had the strength and cunning to survive the jungle, her family believed, it was Lesly.
Gen. Pedro Sánchez was less sanguine. The head of Colombia’s Special Operations Joint Command, he was admired for his competence and organizational capacity. But he had never taken on a mission like this.
It was dubbed Operation Hope. It had taken the first searchers more than two weeks to locate the plane — but that was only the beginning. From there, they calculated how far the children might walk in a day to establish a search perimeter. Its size was stunning: More than 160 square miles, in a forest so dense that visibility was less than 60 feet. And so wet it would rain more than 16 hours per day.
Most daunting of all, the children were moving targets. They’d have to comb the same quadrants repeatedly.
“This was my most difficult, most complicated mission,” he said. “Supremely complex.”
His team needed to invent new methods of search. They strung up lines of construction tape with whistles attached so the kids could signal them. They set up a loudspeaker and a large light to orient the rescuers and save them from getting lost themselves. They determined that sound carried more than 2 miles, so they blasted a message, recorded by Valencia in their Indigenous language, telling them to stay put. And they dropped food they hoped the children would find.
Within days, nearly 200 responders — a mix of Colombian special operations and Indigenous volunteers — had ventured into the forest. Sánchez was encouraged. […]
By May 20, Sánchez was convinced they were close. They’d found footprints. He told his superiors they were hours from finding the kids. Then a massive rain drenched the forest. The footprints were washed away. The trail was lost.
[…] Lesly knew her mother was dead. Mucutuy was lying motionless. So were Murcia and Mendoza. But elsewhere in the wrecked cabin, her siblings were stirring. She pulled her baby sister from her mother’s arms and brought her other siblings out of the wreckage, she told her grandparents. She held one of her brother’s diapers to a gash in her head, her grandparents told The Washington Post.
Outside the plane, Lesly set up a basic camp, stringing a towel and a mosquito net to provide shelter, and settled down to wait. They stayed for a long time […]
With no help coming, Lesly said, she decided to leave the wreckage. She had been taught the importance of a water source. So she gathered all the provisions she could find: 11 pounds of the yuca flour called fariña, a pair of scissors, the mosquito net and the baby’s bottle. Then the four children set out in search of a river. For shelter at night, they relied on little more than a webbing of branches strung overhead.
The forest didn’t scare Lesly, she told her grandparents. Nor did its animals. But now it was strange. She heard her grandmother’s disembodied voice — the searchers’ broadcast — but didn’t understand. Was Valencia in the helicopter she saw passing overhead? She made out other voices in the forest, but was nervous to go to them. She was afraid she’d be punished for leaving the plane site. To muffle the baby’s cries, she put a hand over her mouth.
[…] The children found some of the food dropped by the searchers and foraged for seeds and fruits. But it wasn’t enough.
A hunger was closing in. The children’s time was running out.
[…] Then came the faint sound of a baby crying. The searchers stopped and listened.
Another wail.
“I think those are the children!” Kumariteke said, he later told reporters.
They rushed toward the sound. And then there they were — dirty, skeletal, weakened, but alive. Lesly was holding Cristin, now 1. Nine-year-old Soleiny stood beside them.
It was June 9. Forty days after the crash.
“Tenemos hambre,” Lesly said. We’re hungry.
They found the last child, 5-year-old Tien, lying on the ground 50 feet from the others.
“My mom died,” he said.
“But your grandmother is looking for you,” one of the Indigenous rescuers said. “We’ll take you to her.” […]
I snipped the rest of the story, which includes a custody battle.
Well, it’s happened, just as I predicted. The Golden Goose that was so beautiful is being slaughtered by Fools. MAGA has left Fox for more promising “prairies.” Long live the King. The only solution for Fox News is to bring back Trump Allies and MAGA—Backing No Personality Ron DeSanctimonious has been a disaster….
….Also—Do not broadcast negative ads against Republican and Conservative Candidates by Perverts and Misfits like the Failing Lincoln Project, and others. Roger Ailes never allowed that—And neither should a new and less successful Fox. Big turnoff! MSDNC and Fake News CNN will never allow positive Republican ads or hit pieces on Crooked Joe Biden. Fox must get smart fast before it’s too late. Only “TRUMP” can save Fox News. It is in freefall!
Oggie: Mathomsays
With all of the talk about Trump’s mishandling of documents, I think an important connection has been missed. By me. One of the most important reasons that many classified documents are classified is source protection. Just how accurate are our satellites? How deeply have we infiltrated Russian military computer systems? Who gave or sold us this information about a rival and/or enemy?
And that last one, if that information is compromised, people die. Generally, very secret information is only held by a few people. If that secret information suddenly shows up in a rival intelligence service’s briefing, then it can come down to a process of elimination (sometimes literally) to find out who leaked, or sold, the information.
It was niggling in the back of my mind for the last month or two and, once that niggling happened while I was on the computer (rather than lying in bed, or driving, or shopping . . .) I quickly found what I was looking for.
Leading counterintelligence officials issued a memo to all of the CIA’s global stations saying that a concerning number of U.S. informants were being captured and executed.
The CIA’s counterintelligence mission center investigated dozens of incidents in the last few years that involved killings, arrests or compromises of foreign informants. In an unusual move, the message sent via a top secret cable included the specific number of agents killed by other intelligence agencies, according to The New York Times.
Officials said that level of detail is a sign of the significance of the cable. Announcing the specific number of killings is rare as that figure is typically held under wraps from the public and even from some CIA employees, the Times noted.
The cable, which also cited the issue of putting “mission over security,” comes amid recent efforts by countries like Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan to find CIA informants and turn them into double agents, the Times reported.
The memo also noted long standing issues like placing too much trust in sources, a speedy recruiting process and inadequate attention to potential intelligence risks among other problems.
The uptick in compromised informants highlights the more sophisticated ways in which foreign intelligence agencies are tracking the CIA’s actions. These mechanisms include artificial intelligence, facial recognition tools and other hacking methods, per the Times.
The New York Times also reported that CIA case officers were sometimes promoted for recruiting spies often regardless of the success, performance or quality of that spy.
“No one at the end of the day is being held responsible when things go south with an agent,” Douglas London, a former CIA operative who was unaware of the cable, said to the Times. “Sometimes there are things beyond our control but there are also occasions of sloppiness and neglect and people in senior positions are never held responsible.”
People who have read the cable added that it was intended for the officers who are most directly involved in enlisting and vetting potential new informants, the Times reported.
The CIA declined to comment on the matter.
Notice I left the date in the header. October of 2021. Trump left office in January of 2021. He took extremely sensitive documents with him, including, we now know, documents containing information that came from non-technical sources — people. And over the next nine months, enough foreign non-technical intelligence sources were captured or killed, that CIA Counter-Intel sent out a top secret, and very specific, memo.
At the time, the working theory was that other nations were becoming better at counterintelligence through AI, facial recognition, etc. Of course, the CIA has access to the same, or homologous, software. Perhaps the increase in NTI disappearances was through Trump’s insecure hoarding of National Security documents, at least one of which we know he shared with an ineligible person. Of course, Trump was also ineligible at the time, so . . .
Anyway, this is me, spit balling. And, through my study of history, I know that accidents, coincidences and outright stupidity have probably killed more spies and agents than counterintelligence operations (of course, CI gets the credit). Could Trump’s stupidity have killed valuable intelligence sources overseas?
Tethyssays
The Golden Goose that was so beautiful is being slaughtered by Fools.
Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum
Jack has your goose,
And a few of your chums.
The economy is slowing. Rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation are squeezing indebted households. And just about every forecast is warning that a recession is looming.
But there is one bright spot — one place where the flashing red lights are shrugged off by an army of consumers perfectly content to spend generously: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour…
Could Trump’s stupidity have killed valuable intelligence sources overseas?
Almost assuredly YES. But that will probably never come out in any of the public court proceedings. He should NEVER be allowed access to any sensitive information again, and he should absolutely NEVER be allowed to hold any public office again.
A 76-year-old woman who had been declared dead, and surprised her relatives by knocking on her coffin during her wake earlier this month, has died after seven days in intensive care, her family said Saturday.
Gilberto Barbera Montoya, the woman’s son, told The Associated Press that doctors at the state hospital where she was rushed after the initial incident said that she died on Friday evening.
Bella Montoya initially had been admitted with a possible stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest, and when she did not respond to resuscitation a doctor on duty declared her dead, the ministry said…
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 17, 2023 · 4:14:42 PM MDT · kos
Russian source Rybar claims Russia has retreated from Pyatykhatky, which would mean they are finally falling back to their first line of defense in this axis. [map at the link]
Russia has an extensive network of entrenched defenses across the entire front line, but particularly in southern Ukraine, where Ukraine’s biggest strategic victory would be won—the severing of the “land bridge” connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula.
Brady Africk has done unbelievable work using satellite imagery to map out these defenses: [map at the link]
Ukrainian forces pushing south haven’t even reached the first line of those fortifications, as breach operations are brutally difficult and expensive in blood and equipment.
But Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam opens up an intriguing new possibility, as entire swaths of former reservoir empty out.
With the Kakhovka dam gone, the reservoir is emptying out. [Images at the link]
What’s intriguing is where some of this new land is showing up.
Here is the reservoir before, with the red signifying Russian control: [map at the link]
And now: [image at the link]
The reservoir south of Zaporizhzhia city is emptied out and is open, drying land. And given the location of the original riverbed, there seems to be plenty of room for that eastern part of the reservoir to continue draining.
In other words, an entire new open approach seems to be opening up south that bypasses Russia’s meticulously prepared defensive lines. [map at the link]
Of course this will be muddy for a while, and approaching wide open mud flats in plain view of enemy drone surveillance might be prove ultimately prohibitive. But at the very least Russia should be nervous, and will likely expend effort fortifying the newly exposed areas.
But longer term, this will extend the active front, as what was once an impassable reservoir will eventually revert to that original Dnipro river. And Ukraine has dam control further up the river, meaning it could cut the river’s flow, narrowing it even further ahead of an attack. That could put the Kakhovka Nuclear Power Plant at Enerhodar (the narrow chokepoint on the west edge of the map above) in play for a Ukrainian counter attack, not to mention opening up new avenues south to Crimea.
Would be ironic if Russia’s bizarre decision to blow the damn doesn’t just cost their precious Crimea its water supply, but also allows Ukraine to bypass many of their defenses.
——————-
Ummm….
We have reached the stage in which Putin says “Zelensky isn’t a Jew, he’s a disgrace to the Jewish people” and masses of Russians applaud him. [tweet and video at the link]
He says his Jewish friends say Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn’t a Jew. I don’t think that’s how it works…
———————–
Zaporizhzhia Front Map (June 17th)
Ukrainian Forces 🇺🇦 have liberated the settlement of Lobkove located near the Dnipro River in Zaporizhzhia
Lobkove’s neighboring settlement, Pyatykhatky, is currently contested. Both settlements have been under Russian control since April 20 [tweet and map at the link]
This is actually right near the reservoir’s edge: [map at the link]
As you can see in this map, Lobkove isn’t on the first line of Russian defenses, which is immediately south, but not before routing through the settlement of Pyatykhatky. Yet Russia is doing the exact same thing they are doing in Makarivka, further east of here—furiously counterattacking the Ukrainian advance instead of retreating to their perfectly fine defensive line to the south. Control of the town has see-sawed back and forth over the past seven days. Sure, this slows down the Ukrainian advance, but it’s exponentially easier for Ukraine to destroy Russian forces out in the open, than to root them out from entrenched defensive positions.
It is utterly bizarre that Russia insists on fighting for territory in front of its defenses. If Lobkove was that important, like Makarivka, then Russia would’ve built its trenches in front of the settlement. Truth is, Lobkove isn’t important, but the approach to the south is. Russia is defending the strategic city of Melitopol, not the irrelevant town of Lobkove.
Yet here is Russia rushing reinforcements to hold Pyatykhatky, when their line is right there next door. Russian war reporter WarGonzo reports:
It is reported from the field that the enemy is still on the outskirts of the settlement and has entrenched himself in several houses, where in the morning light armored vehicles approached along with the infantry. You can’t hear the shooting battle in Pyatikhatki, our artillery is working on enemy positions.
As mentioned earlier, if we allow even more delay in cleaning up the village, then the Ukrainians will bring in such a number of personnel and equipment that the settlement will have to be abandoned.
[…] We are truly lucky that Russia is this stupid.
Whatever time Russia buys today, Ukraine will get back on the back side after it breaches these lesser-manned trenches.
————————
I have two favorite kind of war videos. The first is soldier coming home to wife/husband/child/mom/dog videos. The other is stuff like this:
Ukraine is rebuilding the Bairak bridge. This bridge was blown by Russia in an attempt to stop the Kharkiv offensive (Bairak was one of the first places Ukraine attaked). Obviously it didn’t slow down much. [Tweet, and video at the link.]
I can see sporadic “Ukraine Update” stories for a year after the war ends, just of videos of Ukraine rebuilding. And you might all get tired of them and readership and commenting might fall off, but I won’t care, because this is what makes the entire sacrifice worth it.
And if you’re wondering why Russia wouldn’t simply destroy this bridge once again, the answer is simple—Russia would rather kill civilians by targeting residential apartment blocks, than hit militarily significant targets. It’s been inexplicably that way the entire war, and Russia doesn’t seem to have any interest in adapting. It would rather throw a genocidal temper tantrum than actually try and win the war.
The city of St. George must issue a permit for a Utah-based group that organizes drag performances to host an all-ages drag show in a public park, a federal judge ruled, calling the city’s attempt to stop the show unconstitutional discrimination.
“Public spaces are public spaces. Public spaces are not private spaces. Public spaces are not majority spaces,” U.S. District Judge David Nuffer wrote in a Friday ruling granting the preliminary injunction requested by the group. “The First Amendment of the United States Constitution ensures that all citizens, popular or not, majority or minority, conventional or unconventional, have access to public spaces for public expression.” …
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Lead-up to p5 #476, from a former Twitter employee.
Mastodon Thread: Rod Hilton
I want to expand more on the […] Boulder, Colorado office. The story that leads up to this building even existing is bizarre
[…]
Twitter operated out of a Boulder office on Walnut St. for years […] It grew fast. […] floors 1 and 2 were leased to other companies. […] Twitter Boulder had segmented into 3 classes. The upper class on floors and 3 and 4 in the actual office (where all the executives were located). The middle class in the dungeon [basement]. The lower class dumped into the [unbranded] unloved fake office [around the block and up an elevator.]
[…]
In response to the general dislike for the two attempted expansions, [the real estate team] announced in early 2020 that they would soon begin construction on a brand new office […] Dorsey announced that the entire company was Work From Home Forever—permanently. […] most employees wanted to continue working remotely indefinitely, and even before the pandemic hit it was looking unnecessary. […] It honestly seemed like […] the team designing and building it simply never got a memo to stop, and kept at it.
[…]
On June 13 2022, […] the new office opened. […] Countless art installations from who knows how many local artists […] All built to entice people to return to the office at a company that had announced [work from home] forever, and most of whom got fired before ever seeing the inside.
Pennsylvania’s plan for the work involves trucking in 2,000 tons of lightweight glass nuggets for the quick rebuilding, with crews working around the clock until the interstate is open to traffic. Instead of rebuilding the overpass right away, crews will use the recycled glass to fill in the collapsed area to avoid supply-chain delays for other materials, Shapiro has said.
After that, a replacement bridge will be built next to it to reroute traffic while crews excavate the fill to restore the exit ramp, officials have said…
As Russia has carried out its unprecedented cyberwar in Ukraine over nearly a decade, its GRU military intelligence hackers have taken center stage. The notorious GRU hacker groups Sandworm and APT28 have triggered blackouts, launched countless destructive cyberattacks, released the NotPetya malware, and even attempted to spoof results in Ukraine’s 2014 presidential election. Now, according to Microsoft, there’s a new addition to that hyper-aggressive agency’s cyberwar-focused bench.
Microsoft this week named a new group of GRU hackers that it’s calling Cadet Blizzard, and has been tracking since just before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Redmond’s cybersecurity analysts now blame Cadet Blizzard for the destructive malware known as WhisperGate, which hit an array of government agencies, nonprofits, IT organizations, and emergency services in Ukraine in January 2022, just a month before Russia’s invasion began. Microsoft also attributes to Cadet Blizzard a series of web defacements and a hack-and-leak operation known as Free Civilian that dumped the data of several Ukrainian hacking victim organizations online while loosely impersonating hacktivists, another of the GRU’s trademarks.
Microsoft assesses that Cadet Blizzard appears to have the help of at least one private sector Russian firm in its hacking campaign but that it’s neither as prolific nor as sophisticated as previously known GRU groups plaguing Ukraine. But as Russia has switched up the tempo of its cyberwar, focusing on quantity rather than quality of attacks, Cadet Blizzard may play a key role in that brutal cadence of chaos.
StevoRsays
High concentrations of phosphorus have been detected in ice crystals spewed from the interior ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, adding to its potential to harbour life, researchers say.Phosphorus is fundamental to the structure of DNA and a vital part of cell membranes and energy-carrying molecules existing in all forms of life on Earth.The discovery of this essential mineral was based on data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft — the first to orbit Saturn during its 13-year landmark exploration of the gaseous giant planet, its rings and its moons from 2004 to 2017. The findings were published by a German-led international team of scientists in the journal Nature and announced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) outside of Los Angeles, which designed and built the Cassini probe.The same team previously confirmed that Enceladus’s ice grains contain a rich assortment of minerals and complex organic compounds, including the ingredients for amino acids, associated with life as scientists know it.But phosphorus, the least abundant of six chemical elements considered necessary to all living things — the others are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur — was still missing from the equation until now.
Earth may have formed much more rapidly than previously believed after born as tiny millimeter-sized pebbles that accumulated over a period of just a few million years.
The new theory also implies that rather than water being delivered to Earth by icy comets, this vital ingredient for life is present on our planet due to our young planet thirstily sucking up water from its space environment. The theory could have important implications for the search for life outside the solar system, indicating that watery and habitable planets around other stars may be more common than currently theorized.
The new theory put forward by the team suggests that around 4.5 billion years ago when the sun was an infant star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust, known as a proto-planetary disk, tiny particles of dust would be quickly sucked up by forming planets once they reached a certain size. In the case of the infant Earth, this “vacuuming up” of disk material ensured our planet was supplied with water.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Friday that an August election scheduled by Republican lawmakers that could make it harder for abortion rights supporters to amend the state constitution can proceed.
The ballot measure in the August election will allow voters to decide whether to raise the threshold of support required for future state constitutional amendments to 60%. Currently, just a majority is needed.
The ruling is a blow to reproductive rights advocates, who had filed suit to have the election nixed. Those advocates pointed to the fact that Ohio Republicans — only earlier this year — had enacted a different law that had effectively scrubbed most special elections in August from the state’s calendar, after officials called them overly expensive, low turnout endeavors that weren’t worth the trouble…
I’ve been writing recently about the corrupt monstrosity that is the “No Labels” third party effort and the way the insider sheets in DC persist in labeling this an action on behalf of centrists. It is in fact a lifestyle front group run by the husband and wife team of Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson, some of the most retrograde players from the dark side of American politics. The effort is funded by a who’s who of right-wing Republicans. But I want to step back from this story to note a feature of the 2024 presidential election that is already coming into view.
The 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were both quite close. Numerous factors distinguish one from the other and set the stage for the very different results. But one of the biggest factors was the role of third party candidates which made it possible for Trump to slip in by pulling both major party candidates down below 50%.
Donald Trump’s vote percentage was very similar in both elections. Joe Biden’s percentage was significantly higher than Hillary Clinton’s. There are numerous factors that explain the different results. It is likely impossible to figure out which was the most important and how much difference each accounted for. Certainly we won’t settle that question here. But it was a key difference.
Step back and you’ll see that a key driver of the result in 2024 will be how much Donald Trump and the right generally will be able to replicate that crowded field. No Labels is part of that. It is literally funded by the top Republican donors in the country and run by a couple of reprobates […]
Then there’s the primary campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s amazing how open this one is. His top backers are Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone. He’s a creation of the world of MAGA.
[…] I knew he was a big anti-vaxx guy. But seeing some of his recent stuff, I didn’t grasp how far off the trail he’s gone. He’s basically on board with all the conspiracy theories that animate MAGA. Vaccine denial is only one of them. For the moment he’s putting up decent primary support numbers, overwhelmingly because of the name.
Now he’s running in the Democratic primary. There’s every reason to believe he or someone like him will also run in the general.
The point for the moment is not to convince you that these are bad actors or don’t deserve your vote. You know that. The point is that we can now see with some clarity a key outline of the 2024 election. Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee. As I’ve argued for months, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. There’s every reason to think that Biden will defeat Trump in the general election in another not-that-close but still nail-biting result.
[…] I’m not saying a Biden victory is guaranteed by any means. I simply mean it’s the most likely outcome. How does that picture get changed? By getting one or two third party candidates into the race who can, as they did in 2016, siphon off 4% or 5% of the vote and bring Joe Biden down into a range where Trump can slip back into the White House via the electoral college.
[…] no third party challenger in 2016 had $100 million like No Labels supposedly is ready to field. The leading MAGA degenerates like Bannon also didn’t have the clarity they do now to see that fielding the right third party challengers are likely Trump’s only path back to the White House. […]
<>blockquote>“He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests. There’s no question about it. This is a perfect example of that. He’s like a 9-year-old — a defiant 9-year-old kid who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego. But our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.”
Wonkette: “Greg Abbott Pretty Sure Texas Construction Workers Can Go Without Water”
Last year, 279 people died from heat-related illnesses in Texas — the most heat-related deaths the state has had since 1999.
In hope of beating that record, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill this week that, among other things, will bar local municipalities from mandating water breaks for construction workers. Why? Because it really hurts businesses to have to provide 10 minute breaks every four-and-a-half hours so that construction workers can drink some water so that they don’t die in triple digit heat.
HB 2127, introduced by state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, is aimed at overturning progressive policies enacted by cities and barring them from reenacting them ever again. Supporters of the law, which include lobbying groups like the Federation of Independent Business (and probably zero construction workers), claim it is just too confusing for businesses to have to abide by a “patchwork” of local ordinances and regulations. The new law will make it so no local ordinances can provide greater protections for workers than the state requires.
“We did across-the-board regulatory preemption so that local governments — the city of Austin, for example — are not going to be able to micromanage businesses in the state of Texas, especially driving up the costs for local businesses,” Abbott said, according to the Texas Tribune. “We are going to have one regulatory regime across the entire state on massive subject areas that will make the cost of business even lower, the ease of business even better.”
And dying on the job even more likely!
The law won’t go into effect until September 1, but it’s still worth mentioning that temperatures in Texas will be in the triple digits for the next seven days. It will also, according to opponents of the law “make it more difficult for cities and counties to protect tenants facing eviction or to combat predatory lending, excessive noise and invasive species.”
Geoffrey Tahuahua, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas, a supporter of the bill, tried to claim that OSHA already protects worker safety enough in this regard and that, free of these regulations, businesses will be more inclined to protect workers simply out of the goodness of their hearts.
“They try to make one size fits all, and that is not how it should work,” he said. “These ordinances just add confusion and encourage people to do the minimum instead of doing the right thing.”
There is very little evidence that, without regulations, businesses will just do the right thing on their own.
The Texas Tribune also reports that David Michaels, the former head of OSHA vehemently disagrees with Tahuahua.
“Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.”
Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs.
“The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.”
[…] Not to get conspiratorial, but I would bet that a large part of the issue is that it is easier to find people willing to work construction in places like Dallas and Austin, that have these regulations, than it is to find them in places that do not — leading to more actual economic growth. Abbott probably also doesn’t want it to be more pleasant (and possible) for people to live in these areas than to live in the areas of Texas that do not have such protections. The big fear among conservatives is always that if people see how pleasant life is with progressive policies, they will never vote Republican again. It’s a lot easier to keep something from people than it is to take it away. Once they have it, the “But that’s COMMUNISM!” and “Think about the job creators!” arguments just don’t have the same effect.
What I would love to see, […] would be for President Biden to launch an infrastructure project and poach as many Texas construction workers as possible for work in other states, depriving Texas of the ability to build anything at all. Obviously that wouldn’t happen because people have lives and obligations in their own states, but it would be highly satisfying.
birgerjohanssonsays
LGBTQ issues , the Ukraine war
Four LBTQ milbloggers get together and form the North Atlantic Friends Organisation (NAFO).
Here is their latest podcast. https://youtu.be/6QsRuaWrsO8
Reginald Selkirksays
@134 Bill Barr:
Does have any regrets about having been an enabler for Trump when he served as attorney general? Because he was helping Trump to put his interest ahead of the country’s, and to gratify his ego.
#AdjacentCell
The junta’s constitutional amendments could let it consolidate power over an unstable nation.
The ruling junta in Mali is holding a constitutional referendum as part of a transition back toward civilian rule, but experts and political opponents say the true aim is consolidating its power in the increasingly violent and unstable Sahel region, which runs through Mali and several other countries.
The junta, which came to power in an August 2020 coup, has promised to stabilize the country where violent insurgent Islamist groups compete with it and each other for control. Instead, violence on the part of the Islamists and the junta — backed by the Russian mercenary Wagner group — has increased exponentially, with civilians bearing the brunt of the horror.
The vote has been delayed several times, most recently in February of this year, citing logistical reasons. Presidential elections are to be held in February 2024, though it’s unclear whether the junta will adhere to that timeframe.
Some of the proposed constitutional amendments give more power to the president, rather than than the parliament — hence the political opposition. Though it’s unclear whether the current leader, Col. Assimi Goïta, will stand in any future election, certainly an ally or proxy for the junta will. That could effectively legitimize the junta’s control and perpetuate the current violence and instability.
“The fear I have for Mali is that we might see, effectively, the restoration of military power which is kind of like going back to the ‘70s and ‘80s, which are commonly referred to in the African politics literature as the ‘Dark Decades,’” according to Daniel Eizenga of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “That was a really terrible time, but [the current situation] looks kind of like a prelude to re-experiencing that,” he told Vox in an interview.
Security forces have already voted, and civilians are set to vote Sunday, June 18 — a simple “yes” or “no” in response to whether they approve of the changes the junta has proposed to the 1992 Malian constitution, created by civilian leadership after the overthrow of dictator Moussa Traoré in 1991. Opposition to the changes include a contingent of influential imams who oppose the idea of Mali as a secular country, as well as political parties and civil society groups that reject mechanisms for the junta to consolidate power under the guise of the democratic process.
However, the international community has pushed for the referendum as part of Mali’s path back to civilian governance; regardless of the flaws in the process, it’s a necessary step in the transition.
[…] Goïta’s leadership is actually the result of a second coup that he staged in May 2021, seizing power from the transitional president and prime minister. Goïta had previously taken power from Mali’s last elected civilian, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta — commonly referred to as IBK — over allegations of corruption and worsening security and economic conditions.
Though the coup sparked international outcry, thousands of Malians had protested IBK’s poor handling of the country’s crises, and supported the military forces as they took the capital Bamako. Islamist terrorist groups and separatist groups flush with weapons and insurgents after Libya’s collapse in 2011 have wreaked havoc across the Sahel region, particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
[…] United Nations peacekeeping forces and French military forces had been in Mali since 2013, in an effort to help the government combat extremist forces. However, the junta effectively forced French forces out in 2022 and on Friday demanded that UN peacekeepers leave the country “without delay.”
Though the efficacy of both forces [French forces and UN peacekeepers] in containing the violence has been dubious at best, the calls for their removal has more to do with the junta’s efforts to whip up populist, nationalist, and anti-colonial sentiment than it does with the military’s own efforts to stabilize areas where insurgent groups are in control.
[…] “based on the available data through the first quarter of 2023, we anticipate roughly a doubling of violence since the junta took power.”
That is primarily due to the Moura massacre in Mali’s southern-central Mopti region. As Vox’s Jen Kirby wrote in a March report on the Wagner mercenary group:
In January, a group of independent United Nations experts called for an investigation into reported abuses in Mali, including a potential mass execution in Moura. Malian troops and Russian mercenaries — who are fighting an insurgency — were accused of murdering hundreds of people last March, many of them likely civilians with no apparent ties to insurgent groups.
[…] “part of the logic seems to be to alienate international forces like those comprising [the UN peacekeeping forces], so as to limit scrutiny of the military’s operations particularly with Wagner support.”
[…] “Too much power in the hands of the future president will squash all the other institutions,” Sidi Toure, a PARENA spokesperson, told Reuters Friday. […]
The referendum has brought about a serious debate about the role of religion in society and politics in the majority-Muslim country, particularly as a rejection of the French model of secularism. Imams are a major force of opposition to the draft constitution […] “the hopes for emboldened democracy in Mali, I think, are pretty low.”
Results of Sunday’s referendum are expected within 72 hours after the election, according to Agence France-Presse.
The developers of Bluesky believe that they are developing a protocol. The users want it to be a Twitter substitute, with Twitter’s ease of use but no Nazis or other harassers. This is a problem.
The developers repeat that they are developing a protocol. But few of the users know what that means, so they continue to believe that Bluesky will be their Twitter replacement.
The protocol, apparently, is a way of setting up Bluesky to be part of a federated system, like Mastodon. But the developers believe it will be without Mastodon’s problems. And the users are not ready to take on the responsbilities that federation is likely to require…
Vladimir Putin has written the staff playbook for Republican lawmakers when it comes to restricting LGBTQ+ rights.
On Wednesday, Russia’s State Duma passed the first reading of an anti-trans bill to ban legal and surgical gender changes. All 365 deputies present at the meeting supported the bill. The bill is expected to easily pass the required second and third reading in the Duma, as well as a single reading in the upper-house Federation Council. Then Putin will be able to sign the bill into law.
Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a package of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that included a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. A federal judge in Florida temporarily blocked the ban from going into effect in a narrow ruling allowing three transgender children to continue receiving puberty blockers. Elsewhere, at least 19 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming treatment for minors.
The anti-trans law before the Russian parliament goes even further than the laws enacted in Florida and other Republican-controlled states: It would cover adults as well as minors.
State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin almost sounded as if he could be a spokesperson for DeSantis.
Volodin said: “In the United States, where these new pseudo-values are promoted, the proportion of transgender people among teenagers is already three times higher than among adults. This is the result of propaganda.”
The bill bans “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” including hormone therapy, and “the state registration of a change of gender without an operation.”
Russian human rights lawyer Max Olenichev, who works with the LGBTQ+ community, told the Associated Press that once the new law goes into effect, the only option for those seeking to transition through medical care or changing their gender in documents would be to leave the country. […]
Human Rights Watch pointed to a cruel aspect of the bill that allows unnecessary surgeries to be carried out on intersex children—those born with variations in their sex characteristics—to “normalize” their healthy bodies.
[…] transgender men [in Russia] were hesitant to change the gender marker from female to male in their passports because of the threat of military conscription. […]
The anti-trans bill is the latest move in a widening crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights that has been underway since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. It’s part of a broader campaign to suppress human rights, free speech, and dissent.
In November, Russia expanded its own notorious 2013 “Don’t Say Gay” law, which banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. The new law banned LGBTQ+ ‘”propaganda” among all adults, levying penalties for “the imposition of information” that might arouse interest in “sex reassignment” and homosexual relationships. It applies to films, books, advertising, television, social media, and more.
That law has the full support of the Russian Orthodox Church […]. Under Patriarch Kiriil, Russia’s dominant church has also fully supported Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“The Church has always supported banning not just the LGBT agenda, but any agenda promoting sin in the public space,” Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for Church Relations with Society and Media, said.
“Any sin injures the public consciousness, and we therefore consider it completely unacceptable to promote sin if we seek a society based on true values of marriage, family, fidelity, sacrificial service, and patriotism.”
Putin has sounded like many Republican politicians in the U.S. when railing against gay rights. He has tried to justify the war against Ukraine as an existential fight against Western liberal values that pose a threat to Russia, including LGBTQ+ freedoms.
In his Sept. 30 speech announcing the annexation of four Ukrainian territories, Putin said:
“Do we want children from elementary school to be imposed with things that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want them to be taught that instead of men and women, there are supposedly some other genders and to be offered sex-change surgeries? This is unacceptable to us; we have a different future.”
[…] the anti-gay laws that Putin has introduced over the past decade also lead growing numbers of LGBTQ+ Russians to leave the country. Meduza reported that this trend has intensified since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; many have settled in Turkey as a first stop.
There is also a community of Russian LGBTQ+ people who have emigrated to the United States. They now see a similar pattern to what happened in Putin’s Russia to what is going on in the U.S., with Republican-controlled state legislatures passing a growing number of anti-gay and anti-trans laws.
[…] LGBTQ+ Russians thought they would be safer and freer in the United States, but some are considering leaving for Canada given the raft of anti-gay legislation in many U.S. states.
[…] The American Civil Liberties Union reports that it is tracking more than 490 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in U.S. states.
Fatal shootings broke out in Illinois, Missouri and Washington on Sunday in a night of gun violence that has left more than 30 people injured.
[…] At least one person was killed with 19 more injured at a strip mall in Willowbrook, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago, police said.
Eric Swanson, the deputy chief of the DuPage County Sheriff’s office, told a news conference that deputies “heard numerous gunshots fired and responded to an area where a large gathering of people was happening.”
Preliminary witness and victim reports indicated “that there were at least 20 individuals shot,” he said. “At this time one victim is deceased,” he added.
He added that the victims had been taken to nearby hospitals, adding that the names and ages of the victims were not available.
“The motive behind this incident is unclear and this is still an active investigation,” he said.
Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital said it received 12 patients in relation to the shooting Sunday, seven of whom were treated and released. Four patients remained in good condition, with one person described as being in “fair” condition.
Some witnesses told NBC Chicago they were leaving the gathering when shots rang out
“We were all just out, and next thing you know, shots just got going off,” said Craig Lottie. “Everybody ran, and it was chaos.”
The shooting came hours after two people were killed and three injured near the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival in Washington State.
There, police said the suspect shot “randomly into the crowd,” at a campground near the Gorge Amphitheater, in the small city of George, around 149 miles east of Seattle.
Another deadly shooting took place just after 1 a.m. in St. Louis, Missouri. One person was killed and 9 others injured, according to St. Louis Metropolitan Police.
Those who were shot ranged in age from 15 to 19 years old, police said Sunday. The person killed was identified as a 17-year-old, according to police chief Robert Tracy.
Tracy said officers in the area noticed a group of people fleeing a building downtown and called for backup at the same time that multiple calls came in reporting a shooting.
It appears the shooting occurred at a party being held on the fifth floor of the building, an office space, Tracy said. The bullet casings at the scene indicate more than one gun was fired and “multiple firearms” were recovered at the scene.
One person of interest, a juvenile, has been taken into custody, Tracy said.
There have been 307 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2023, according to the Gun Violence archive, a nonprofit that tracks incidents and which defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which at least four people — other than the shooter — are shot.
The US, which has already promised to send Ukraine its combat-proven M1 Abrams tanks, is expected to follow in the UK’s footsteps and also send armor-piercing depleted-uranium tank rounds designed to defeat even hard-to-beat armor…
Bees, for example, can count, grasp concepts of sameness and difference, learn complex tasks by observing others, and know their own individual body dimensions, a capacity associated with consciousness in humans. They also appear to experience both pleasure and pain. In other words, it now looks like at least some species of insects—and maybe all of them—are sentient.
No Labels, the self-proclaimed centrist political organization with about as many principles and integrity as its founder Joe Lieberman, is proving once again that it definitely has a label: Republican, just as long as that Republican isn’t Donald Trump. The group, which says it rejects politics that aim to “hurl pot shots at the other side” or “stir up hate and recrimination,” has decided it’s just fine to embrace the pot-shotters and haters. They just draw the line at Trump.
The group is indicating that they’ll back off their threat to run a third-party candidate in 2024 if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerges as the Republican nominee. Because if DeSantis is known for one thing, it’s absolutely not for rejecting the politics of hate and division. They’d have to look hard to find a candidate who embodied Trump’s fascistic instincts more fully than DeSantis. But if he’s the nominee, they’d be just fine with that…
The ammo dump that was targeted by Ukraine in Kherson Oblast near Crimea appears to have been placed at or near the railway station in town. That makes this attack a two-fer, because not only has a large cache of ammunition been destroyed, Rykove is a key junction in the railway line that supplies Crimea.
After the huge ammo dump explosions from last summer Russia quit storing so much ammo in one place. So maybe this cache had just been unloaded and hadn’t been distributed yet. Or maybe they thought it was safe this far from the front lines.
It isn’t known yet what Ukraine used. This town is out of HIMARS range, so Storm Shadow is a likely cause — or partisans could have blown it up.
Or maybe it was the ubiquitous careless Russian smoker. [satellite image and video at the link]
From the report below:
“this railway artery has been known for a long time, and they have been delivering ammo there for days and months for more than 8 months they actively used this particular station, the territory was usually guarded by “elite” troops, including bearded men [Akhmat] the scale of destruction is maximum, there were a lot of ammo and it detonated for more than 5-6 hours as of now, after the explosions in Lazurny and Rykovo, at least fifty-two ‘200″ single-cell “military” and a very large number of “300” with various types of injuries, limb amputations, etc. are known”
[Tweet at the link]
Partyzany is apparently the former name of Rykove.
⚡️Air Force: Ukraine hits Russian ammo depot in occupied Kherson Oblast.
Ukrainian forces hit a Russian ammunition depot in the village of Partyzany in southern Kherson Oblast, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told national television on June 18. [Tweet and image at the link]
The aftermath. [Tweets and images at the link]
———————
There are numerous reports that Ukraine is close to liberating the town of Robotyne, which is northwest of Tokmak. Even if Ukraine takes the town, it will be tough sledding from there. Russia has a formidable array of defensive lines between there and Tokmak.
The situation in Rivnopil, which is a Russian salient, seems to be that Russia’s grip is slipping. There have been reports of some Russian soldiers fleeing. [tweet and images at the link]
Former Attorney General Bill Barr blasted former President Trump’s defense in the classified documents case as “absurd” and said the former president “absolutely” was mischaracterizing the Presidential Records Act.
“The legal theory by which he gets to take battle plans and sensitive national security information as his personal papers is absurd. It’s just as wacky as the legal doctrine they came up with for having the vice president unilaterally determine who won the election,” Barr told Robert Costa on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” in an interview Sunday morning.
Trump was not charged with violating the Presidential Records Act, but he and some supporters have cited the act to claim Trump was allowed to take the sensitive material after he left the White House.
“The whole purpose of the statute, the Presidential Records Act, was to stop presidents from taking official documents out of the White House. It was passed after Watergate. That’s the whole purpose of it. And therefore, it restricted what a president can take. […]” Barr said Sunday
.
“Obviously, these documents are not purely private, it’s obvious. And they’re not even now arguing that it’s purely private. What they’re saying is the President just has sweeping discretion to say they are, even though they squarely don’t fall within the definition. It’s an absurd argument,” Barr added.
[…] “The Department had no choice but to seek those documents. [Those Republicans’] basic argument really isn’t to defend his conduct, because Trump’s conduct is indefensible. What they’re really saying is, he should get a pass because Hillary Clinton got a pass six or seven years ago,” Barr said. “That’s not a frivolous argument. But I’m not sure that’s true.”
“If you want to restore the rule of law and equal justice, you don’t do it by further derogating from justice. You do it by applying the right standard here. And that’s not unfair to Trump because this is not a case where Trump is innocent and being unfairly hounded. He committed the crime, or if he did commit the crime, it’s not unfair to hold them to that standard,” he said.
“He’s like a nine-year-old, defiant nine-year-old kid, who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego, but our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this,” Barr [former Attorney General Bill Barr] said of Trump.
“Donald Trump, if you believe what he said when they left, that means he didn’t pick the very best people and doesn’t know how to pick personnel. If you believe what — about them what he said at the beginning, the great stuff, then this guy is the worst manager in the history of the American presidency,” Christie [Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R)] said of Trump.
“Either way, Republicans should listen to what he says. He’s a petulant child when someone disagrees with him … if you disagree with Donald Trump, the petulant child comes out and he calls you names,” Christie added.
Former U.S. vice president and benign colon polyp Mike Pence will never be confused with a vertebrate, but he does sit up straight and look you square in the eye when repeating what he thinks Jesus would say if Jesus were the corporate spokesperson for a Fort Wayne-based lunchmeat company that’s trying to get out in front of a listeria outbreak.
Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Pence mildly rebuked the man who literally tried to get him killed two years ago and expressed zero regret for it afterward. And, no, Pence didn’t take exception to Donald Trump’s murder-adjacent proclivities. Instead, he claimed, with his trademark mealy aplomb, that Trump has been walking away from his pro-life commitments and is now—not before, when Pence was his No. 2 and they were running up massive public debts—no longer serious about reducing the deficit.
You see, Pence is running for president and—unless he’s asked to face Nikki Haley one-on-one in the GOP kids’ table debate or suddenly comes down with a wicked case of ennui—he plans to see it through to the end. And in order to remain—bwahahahahahah! … hoo-boy … *wipes away tear*—viable as a candidate, he needs to create ideological space between himself and Trump while somehow taking credit for all the stuff they did together that wasn’t transparently felonious or barf-baggingly amoral.
Oh, and there’s the small matter of Trump’s having been indicted twice since leaving the White House, including for stealing incredibly sensitive government secrets and storing them in a resort ballroom “in which events and gatherings took place.” But come on now. It’s rude to ask Pence about that, because it shocks and frightens him—and when the color drains from Mike Pence’s face, he gets angry cease-and-desist letters from Elmer’s Glue.
So when Todd asked Pence if he’d pardon Trump as president, Pence pounced like a NyQuil-besotted banana slug.
Watch: [video at the link]
TODD: “You have been asked a few times whether you would pardon the former president if he’s convicted and you were the president. Would you?”
PENCE: “Well, I just think the question is premature. Honestly, Chuck, I’ve pardoned people who were found guilty of a crime …”
TODD: “What was your bar for a pardon?”
PENCE: “Well, let me say first and foremost, I don’t know why some of my competitors in the Republican primary presume the president will be found guilty. Look, all we know is what the president has been accused of in the indictment. We don’t know what his defense is. We don’t know if this will even go to trial. It could be subject to a motion to dismiss. We don’t know what the verdict will be of the jury.”
Erm, he’s not the president, Mike. You might remember the moment his ex-ness became official. You almost met Jesus that day. But your work here wasn’t done. And Jesus felt a migraine coming on and didn’t want to deal with a guy who wouldn’t stop asking if it was really safe for him to be left alone with the Virgin Mary.
TODD: “If you were President Biden, would you pardon him right now?”
PENCE: “I just think this whole matter is incredibly divisive for the country. And, uh, look, I, uh, I just think at the end of the day, it is saddening to me that we are now in this moment.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, you translucent twit. The dude has almost certainly committed high crimes against the republic and—uh, you know—tried to kill you. The correct answer to Todd’s question is, “Fuck no! Are you fucking mad!? I hope he rots in prison!” But you do you.
Of course, it would be fun to see both Pence and Chris Christie qualify for the debates, because if they did, the first question from the moderator might be, “Hands up if at any point Donald Trump tried to kill you,” and at least two candidates would be forced to comply. Maybe more. Who really knows? The dude keeps a lot of secrets, and it may take several more years to recover them all.
Mesenchymal stem cells aren’t pluripotent but they’re pretty darn close. They can become bone, muscle, blood vessels, and connective tissue cells, and even liver cells. A new source […] was discovered [in 2007]: menstrual fluid.
[They’ve since shown promise in regenerative studies on strokes, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, liver function, Covid, hernia mesh inflammation, infertility, and wound healing.]
Reginald Selkirksays
@151
PENCE: “Well, I just think the question is premature. Honestly, Chuck, I’ve pardoned people who were found guilty of a crime …”
Duh. People who are found innocent don’t need to be pardoned.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Clarification of the pyrex discussion from the previous page of comments.
There are two companies allowed to distribute Pyrex kitchenware [circa 2020]:
* International Cookware for Europe, Middle East & Africa
[Uppercase PYREX, made in Châteauroux, France, borosilicate]
* Corelle Brands for US, Asia & Latin America
[Lowercase pyrex, soda-lime]
While the Pyrex® brand was born […] in Corning, NY, it has been made in various places […] Currently [2015=World Kitchen, 2023=Corelle Brands] manufactures Pyrex consumer products in Charleroi, PA
Corning had licensed out the Pyrex brand to Newell Cookware Europe. A soda-lime factory in Sunderland, UK had made Pyrex from 1922 to 2007. Arc International acquired Newell in 2006, and moved production to France (boro plant linked above?). They sold their Pyrex division to International Cookware group. Which was bought by private equity Kartesia in 2020. Duralex bought in 2021.
So US went boro-to-soda in the 1940s. And Europe went soda-to-boro in 2007.
A representative at Corelle Brands told us, “Pyrex glassware [has] been manufactured from heat-strengthened soda lime glass since the 1950s.” However, they did not disclose when Pyrex stopped using borosilicate altogether, and to our knowledge the company never made a formal announcement.
* From the works cited, the author seems to have done legwork interviewing folks who’d know what’s publicly knowable.
* Proper handling tips at the link. (TIL casserole dish + room temp baking sheet + oven rack.)
I had an ordinary Corelle bowl time-bomb in the cupboard from post-dishwasher stacking.
Researchers with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies have been testing a new method for signal timing in which an algorithm measures traffic volumes at an intersection in real time and tells the controller which direction to grant a green light.
In laboratory testing, the system — called max-pressure signal timing — has been found to significantly improve traffic flow by allowing more vehicles through a single green light, said researcher Michael Levin, an assistant professor in the U’s civil, environmental and geo-engineering department…
StevoRsays
Spaaace neeeeewwwws! Watch this Mercurian space :
Europe’s Mercury probe BepiColombo will take a close look at its target planet on Monday (June 19), and we can expect some exciting new images to reach Earth soon after that.
The flyby will be BepiColombo’s third of Mercury and will see the spacecraft whizz past the planet at a superclose distance of just 147 miles (236 kilometers) at 3:34 p.m. EDT (1934 GMT). That’s closer than the probe’s two orbiters will circle during the main mission.
The main goal of the flyby, however, is not to take stunning close-ups of Mercury’s surface, but to slow the probe down using Mercury’s gravity so that it can enter the planet’s orbit in late 2025.
On the campaign trail, voters are confronting a public conversation that’s never happened before: Republican presidential hopefuls are weighing in on whether they’d pardon Donald Trump after the 2024 elections. Some have endorsed the idea, while others have left the door open to the possibility.
But it’s not just White House aspirants engaged in the conversation. National Review’s Rich Lowry, a prominent conservative voice, wrote a piece for Politico last week, arguing that a pardon for Trump — in the event that the former president is convicted — would help “drain poison” from our political system.
Two other conservative commentators, Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka, made a similar pitch in The Washington Post.
In his 2020 victory speech, Joe Biden declared that “to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.” If he wants to deliver on his promise to heal the country, he could do so with one action: Pardon Donald Trump.
[OMFG and JFC]
Pletka and Thiessen added that with a pardon for his predecessor, “Biden would be a true statesman. Sparing the country the ordeal of a trial would go a long way toward repairing the nation’s frayed political fabric.”
To be sure, this is a conversation with many dimensions. We could explore the dubious idea that our politics would benefit from less accountability for criminal wrongdoing. We could review Biden’s pre-election vows not to pardon Trump. We could explain that the former president is already facing charges in New York, with more charges likely in Georgia, and that even if the Democrat were inclined to rescue his predecessor, Biden lacks the authority to issue pardons for state crimes.
But in the Post opinion piece, the line that stood out for me was the idea that Biden has the power to spare the country “the ordeal of a trial.” This, of course, was a common refrain roughly a half-century ago: As Richard Nixon faced the very real possibility of a criminal trial, Gerald Ford, his Republican successor in the White House, pardoned the former president and said the move was ultimately intended to help the country, not Nixon.
But there’s something else that would spare the country “the ordeal of a trial”: a guilty plea.
In fact, the focus on Biden seems altogether misplaced. Trump took classified documents; Trump refused to give them back; and Trump was indicted for his alleged crimes. None of this has anything to do with the incumbent president.
It’s not unreasonable to think the Republican’s criminal proceedings — any of them, really — would generate political turmoil. But why put the pressure on Biden to curtail the process when it’s within Trump’s power to accept responsibility for his apparent actions?
If he did, it would open the door to a very different kind of conversation about a possible pardon.
[…] Trump is dealing simultaneously with his comeback campaign, multiple criminal indictments, the prospect of additional criminal charges, and the growing contempt of those who worked alongside him during his tenure in office.
It’s amazing in part because there’s no modern precedent for anything like this, and in part because it intensifies the challenge for Trump’s followers.
It’s clear that these voters are not going to listen to Democrats. Or scholars. Or judges. Or prosecutors. Or journalists. But perhaps they’d consider trusting the word of people Trump himself put in key positions of authority, and who worked alongside him for years while he was in the White House?
Examples of former Trump admin officials now condemning Trump are available at the link.
Why did GOP leaders allow right-wing members to hold a fake hearing honoring Jan. 6 rioters, their family members, and their political allies?
In the U.S. House, when a party is in the minority, it will sometimes organize events that are intended to look like real congressional hearings, but they’re really not. It’s the House majority that controls the committees, and it’s up to committee chairs to decide whether or not to hold proper, legitimate hearings.
Members in the minority will occasionally organize informal meetings, describe invitees as “witnesses,” and hope the media takes an interest, but for all intents and purposes, they’re theatrical presentations, intended to shine a light on concerns the majority prefers to ignore.
What’s weird is when members of the majority feel the need to hold their own fake hearing. Politico reported:
…Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), joined by a handful of others from the conference’s right flank, hosted an event last week with former Trump acting assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark, people charged in relation to Jan. 6, defendants’ family members and allies. The event featured a veritable kitchen sink of conspiracy theories as well as rehashed false claims, including that the 2020 election was “stolen” and that the Jan. 6 committee “doctored” video.
Just so we’re clear, this was not an actual congressional hearing. The far-right Floridian, however, wanted it to be perceived as one. Gaetz pretended to be a chairman, recognizing members and witnesses, alerting participants to when their time had expired, and explaining that the “testimony” could be used in official proceedings. (That last part was true but irrelevant: Anything can be used in official proceedings, including the blog post you’re reading now.)
The GOP congressman labeled this exercise a Capitol Hill “field hearing,” and he invited a motley crew of House Republicans to join him: Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Troy Nehls of Texas, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. The ostensible point was to further the far-right investigation into “the weaponization of the federal government.”
But just as notable was the message Gaetz sent with his list of witnesses. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who covered the event, highlighted the Republicans’ guests:
– The wife of Ronald McAbee, who is awaiting trial for allegedly attacking a police officer and dragging him into the mob while wearing a black vest that said “SHERIFF.”
– Underwear model John Strand, sentenced to two years and eight months for being part of the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 and pushed past police officers.
– Activist Brandon Straka, sentenced to home detention and probation and fined for his Jan. 6 actions.
– The aunt of Matthew Perna; Perna committed suicide while awaiting sentencing for his role in breaching the Capitol.
– Ed Martin, an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” effort leading up to Jan. 6.
– And Jeffrey Clark, the Trump Justice Department official who tried to get states to toss the election results.
Greene told the guests they were victims of “sick, evil people.” Norman added that he considers it “heartbreaking … the way you all have been treated.” [OMFG]
[…] the gathering was intended to honor “participants in the [Jan. 6] riot, family members of Jan. 6 rioters and organizers of the attempted overthrow of the 2020 vote. [Awful … and correct]
So why does this matter? In part because of the timing: It was not a coincidence that Gaetz and his radical allies held their faux hearing on midday Tuesday, just as Donald Trump was being arraigned in a Florida courthouse.
The larger partisan trajectory is also notable: In the immediate aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Gaetz was among the loudest Republican voices suggesting that Jan. 6 rioters might actually have been radical leftists pretending to be Trump supporters. More than two years later, the Floridian and his confederates have not only abandoned that line, they’re now heralding the rioters as heroes and martyrs.
But I’m also struck by the fact that the ersatz hearing was allowed to happen in the first place. It wasn’t exactly surprising to see unhinged members of Congress taking fresh steps to embrace what Politico’s report described as “Jan. 6 extremism.” This is, after all, the path they’ve followed for far too long.
What was surprising was the fact that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his GOP leadership team — who are supposed to maintain some degree of control of their conference — didn’t prevent this radical event from taking place.
As many news outlets have reported, the Republican-led House of Representatives introduced a resolution last week attempting to censure and fine Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, for, among other things, his efforts, statements and actions to investigate and confirm collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian Federation regarding the 2016 election. That resolution (essentially a scattershot, inflammatory manifesto of right-wing grievances) was put to a vote on June 14, 2023, and it failed by a vote of 225 -196, with several Republicans crossing the aisle to vote against their own party. Five Democrats and two Republicans voted “present” in connection with the failed resolution.
With those facts in mind, please read this article by the New York Times capitol reporter, Karoun Demirjian. After reciting the introductory facts, Demirjian writes the following:
The vote was 225 to 196 to table, or kill, a resolution by Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who has allied herself closely with the former president. Twenty Republicans joined Democrats in voting to sideline it, with another two G.O.P. lawmakers voting “present” to avoid registering a position. In a surprise, five Democrats also voted “present.”
[***]
…[W]hile the measure, which accused Mr. Schiff of willfully lying for political gain, was highly partisan, it raised complicated questions about accountability and revenge. Mr. Schiff’s claims that there was “ample evidence” that Mr. Trump colluded with Russia were undermined by the conclusions of the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who wrote in his report that his investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Republicans have wielded that determination to accuse Mr. Schiff of lying.
There are two errors here. The first is the assertion that it was a “surprise” that five Democrats also voted “present.” The clear and unmistakable implication from Demirjian’s article is that Schiff did not have the full support of his caucus in opposing the resolution. That’s quite wrong, and the reason why it is wrong is explained below.
But the language bolded in the subsequent paragraph is far more troubling. Demirjian states as a fact — not an opinion, not a viewpoint, but as a fact — that Rep. Schiff’s claims were undermined by the conclusions of special counsel Mueller. That statement is further emphasized by Demirjian in her sentence stating, “Republicans have wielded ‘that determination’ to accuse Mr. Schiff of lying.”
Before we get to the substance of that paragraph by Demirjian, take a look at the following analysis piece, on the very same subject, written by Steve Benen for MSNBC.
Benen writes:
[W]hether Republicans want to hear this or not, the seriousness of Trump’s Russia scandal has not been discredited, and when Schiff said there was “ample evidence” connecting the former president’s political operation and his Russian benefactors, he was correct. In fact, a Senate Intelligence Committee’s report — written in part by the panel’s then-Republican majority — at one point literally described a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.
Benen also addresses the fact that five Democrats voted “present.” But unlike Demirjian, he actually explains why they voted the way they did:
If you look at the roll call, you’ll note that five House Democrats voted “present” Wednesday, but that’s not because they’re Schiff critics. Those five members serve on the House Ethics Committee, and as a Politico report noted, “Democratic ethics panel members generally vote present on any ethics matters that come before the House.”
So, let’s be clear. It was no “surprise” that five Democrats voted “present.” Contrary to the implication in Demirjian’s New York Times piece, it was simply the fact that those Democrats were following protocol as members of the Ethics Committee. But anyone following Demirjian’s reporting would have instantly (and reasonably) concluded that five Democrats believed, somehow, that Schiff may have been culpable and deserving of censure.
That’s not just sloppy reporting on Demirjian’s part, it’s tantamount to misinformation.
But let’s presume it was unintentional and that Demirjian was simply negligent in failing to determine why those five Democrats voted in that fashion. What is neither unintentional nor negligent is her assertion as a matter of fact that Schiff’s claims were “undermined” by the Mueller report and its conclusions. That is at best a matter of serious dispute and at worst a complete mischaracterization. But in either case it is an opinion, not a fact. […]
Anyone who has actually read the Mueller report (and the Senate intelligence committee report describing Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election) will come away with the clear understanding that there existed multiple and numerous knowing avenues of communication between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence services regarding the 2016 election, specifically Russia’s intention and efforts to influence the outcome.
As Benen has previously written:
As regular readers know, investigations from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee documented the extent to which Trump and his team welcomed, received, and benefited from Russian campaign assistance. (They also obstructed the investigation into this assistance — by some measures, 10 times.)
The evidence also showed there was coordination and high-level connections between Trump’s political operation and those responsible for the attack on our elections. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report at one point literally described a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”
[…] Republicans have widely branded the Mueller investigation (and by implication, the Republicans’ own Senate investigation) a “hoax,” implying that the entire effort was utterly groundless, and a political “smear.” They have to do this because the implications otherwise are quite damning: Trump in fact conspired with known Russian sources to engineer the election’s outcome. That would make Donald Trump a traitor in the eyes of most Americans.
But repetition of that lie has already obtained its desired result: the Republican rank and file refuse to believe what is actually spelled out in detail in both the Mueller report and the Senate investigation.
What the New York Times’ “capitol reporter” did here was feed directly into that narrative [appalling]: Namely, that Schiff had been “undermined” by the Mueller report. And to add insult to injury, Demirjian falsely implies that five Democrats may have also felt he was “undermined” by voting “present” on the GOP resolution to censure him. But as Benen and many other investigative reporters have shown, Rep. Schiff wasn’t undermined at all. He was validated.
For example, from Ryan Goodman, writing for Just Security:
The redacted Mueller Report documents a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities.
In short, there was plenty of evidence of “collusion.” Mueller, however, was looking for crimes provable beyond reasonable doubt. As Mueller himself stated, and as reported by Philip Bump for the Washington Post at the time:
“We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term. Rather, we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy. It was not.”
Nor, pursuant to DOJ policy, was charging Trump with criminal liability even considered by Mueller.
“Based on Justice Department policy and principles of fairness, we decided we would not make a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. That was our decision then and it remains our decision today.”
For example, as Goodman notes, “We don’t know what the Special Counsel’s Office or the FBI have assessed, for example, with respect to whether Trump associates engaged in reciprocal efforts with Russian agents without entering a criminal agreement to do so, whether Americans have been witting or unwitting Russian assets, and what leverage or influence Moscow may have over particular individuals.” Nowhere in Demirjian’s reporting is any acknowledgment of that fact, nor even any mention of the equally damning Senate report at all.
If the implications of Trump’s treachery with Russian intelligence weren’t so grave, this might be forgivable.
[…] This is worse than lazy journalism. This is misinformation with serious national implications. The only question is whether it’s a product of sheer incompetence or biased intent.
[…] After Trump was arraigned he went back to Bedminster to make his big speech, and — um — this guy showed up. Yeah, this fuckerhead is real. [video at the link]
He glorifies the Confederacy and Secession and he knocks the “Slavery Narrative” because he claims that there were also black slave owners who ultimately fought on the side of the Confederacy as if that somehow magically erases all the evil the South ultimately wrought.
Technically, he is correct but he also misses the point. The implementation of Slavery in America was uniquely brutal and racial. The Dread Scot decision found that the Constitutional support for the slave trade and its racial components undermined the rights of All Africans, even those born here, and denied them full citizenship.
This guy really, really, seriously, doesn’t understand any of that.
And it’s also clear that his comprehensive failures are not an accident or a fluke. By the rhetoric that he uses — which smacks of Prager U and Thomas Sowell — he as been strategically disinformed. […] to believe that the poor South has been unfairly vilified. That Slavery wasn’t a racist institution.
Let’s just quote from the Articles of Secession on that point;
Georgia: For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war.[…]
While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. […]
Texas: Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits— a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. […]
They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. […]
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
So, the argument that Racism had nothing to do with the establishment and continuation of Slavery — is simply put. fucking. nonsense.
Also, this guys argues with the interviewer about the details of the Indictment which he claims to have read, but he continues to deny that Trump lied to and manipulated his own attorneys in order to obstruct the DOJ retrieving the classified documents he had stolen.
And he doesn’t believe that the Neo-Nazis outside DisneyWorld protesting their LGBTQ police — the ones with the Ron DeSantis flags — were real. He says they were “Plants.”
Yeah, so there’s that.
Ok, so just to complete the point there is also this guy on C-Span. [video at the link]
“I have not heard one white Democrat apologize for slavery,” he said. “I haven’t heard any Black person say thank you to the over 300,000 white men who died to free those Black slaves.”
“I just, I’m astonished,” he added. “I realize we’re focusing on slavery, but my descendants are from Scotland and Ireland. We never owned slaves.”
Congress did apologize for Slavery in 2008 in a resolution by Rep. Steven Cohen (D-TN). https://www.npr.org/…/congress-apologizes-for-slavery… […]
The South in the Civil War fought to preserve slavery as noted above in their articles of secession, but the North wasn’t fighting to End Slavery – they were responding to having been attacking and attempting to keep the nation as a single unit.
The Civil War had 300,000 casualties, but frankly, far less than half of them died to end slavery. Most Northern soldiers were also racists, the abolitionist movement was largely part of the fringes.
Lincoln himself didn’t plan on ending slavery until he decided to use his war powers with the Emancipation Proclamation as a way to blackmail the South into surrendering by threatening to take their slaves away and recruiting them into the Union Army. Any state or county that ended their rebellion would get to keep their slaves.
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a BLUFF. At best, it was a half-measure. It was a demand to cease hostilities or else we make your slaves into warriors against the South. If the South had surrendered before the deadline of Jan 1, 1863 they would have kept *all* their slaves. Every. one. of. them.
It wasn’t until later that Lincoln decided the entire institution of slavery needed to end and he advanced the 13th Amendment, however, that measure has a loophole that allows for slavery and indentured servitude to continue to this very day “for the duly convicted.”
Some people have said “Thank you” but that is somewhat muted by the fact that Slavery continues, reconstruction failed, and the KKK rose while Jim Crow, segregation, voter suppression, discrimination and racial bias have slowed but not stopped.
The throngs of teen and 20-something women flowed into the ballroom of the Gaylord Texan hotel on a Friday night this month in a blur of shimmer and pink. There were sequins. There were bell-bottoms. There were sequin bell-bottoms. Most opted for some form of heel — often platformed, sometimes bedazzled. Others sported go-go or cowboy boots. (Kari Lake’s daughter wore a rose gold pair of the latter.) […]
They were ready for their trip back to the 1970s — or to a certain anti-feminist version of the era, anyway.
“That decade fundamentally changed the narrative surrounding women, what our role should be, what our lives should look like,” said Alex Clark, the evening’s unofficial emcee for the Young Women’s Leadership Summit, an annual event thrown by Turning Point USA, a sort of MAGA youth group. “All these years later, I’m not sure that was very good advice. Are you?”
Clark, who hosts a pop culture podcast for Turning Point, dressed for her opening-night speech in a sequined shift dress. The summit’s branding stretched across the screen behind her, all groovy lines and fat serif fonts in mustard, mauve and sienna. It was inspired, at least in part, by “Mrs. America,” the 2020 miniseries about the failed fight to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (with an implicit solidarity with Phyllis Schlafly, not Gloria Steinem).
“In the ’70s, women were given all sorts of lies,” she continued. “They just told us, ‘Well, you can be a man.’ And I guess we’ve kind of accomplished that. But are we happier?”
The attendees couldn’t speak from experience, having been born in the ’90s and 2000s. But Clark, who just turned 30, was very sure the answer was no. “What I’m here to tell you is, if you were to just go back to biblical roots in what God had designed for women to do, we will be happier,” she told them. [head/desk]
What does it mean to be young, female and conservative in America, 2023?
At the leadership summit, there were answers. It means posing for selfies in a mirror made to look like a magazine cover with a headline that reads, “Birth control is so last year.” It means having it all — but having kids and a husband before trying to get the rest. It means buying tampons and beauty products and other items from companies that market themselves as pro-Christian or anti-“woke.” It means embracing a particular kind of American nostalgia, one where women’s liberation means being free from the complexities of modern gender politics.
Perhaps most of all, it means seeing transgender women as a grave threat to womanhood.
“They ruin opportunities for women,” said Heaven Angel Martinez, a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, who described the topic of being transgender as “absolutely” her top political issue.
[…] “This is a fight against cultural evils — against the erasure of women,” said Georgia Chapa, a student at Texas A&M University.
Chapa had been to a number of Turning Point events. In her experience, the co-ed ones are (informally) more oriented to partying and finding a “dudeservative” to marry, she said, while the women’s summit is more of a “feminine escape.” It’s women supporting women — specifically, women supporting women in their choice to reject liberal gender politics.
[…] In the exhibition hall, the young women were greeted with products that were created for feminine non-feminists. Like Garnuu, a brand that proudly declares that feminine products are for “Girls Only. Period.” Or Hope Beauty, which sells “biblically inspired cosmetics.” Or the Right Stuff, a dating app for women who want to filter out any men who might be — as Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk put it during a session on dating advice — “feminized versions of metrosexual culture.” Or Turning Point’s official merchandise, which includes a sweatshirt proclaiming, in the style of the Chanel No. 5 logo, that, “No 1 cares about your pronouns.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with being a trad wife,” right-wing commentator Benny Johnson assured the attendees, using a term that refers to women who embrace a return to the traditional roles of homemaker and child-rearer.
Johnson’s wife, Kate, led a lecture on post-pregnancy beauty standards — namely, that having them is good — in a session titled “Hot Mom Summer.” In another room, Hope Beauty’s founder demonstrated how to apply lip liner — but never too much. (“We’re not into the drag queen makeup here!” she said to laughter.) Later, a panel of Christian chiropractic doctors and conservative health influencers presented a crash course in homeopathy in a session called “Anti-Woke Wellness.” (The advice: Ditch your hormonal birth control, planned hospital births and perfumed household products, if you can.) […]
Like a lot of women here, Reyn was worried about transgender women. Reyn is a competitive swimmer, and she was concerned about what it would mean to compete against athletes who are transgender women […] No wonder Riley Gaines was a star here. The recent University of Kentucky graduate made headlines in early 2022 when she tied for fifth place in the 200 freestyle final at the NCAA championships with Lia Thomas, a trans woman who swam on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team. Gaines spoke out against sharing the podium with Thomas, and the right-wing media heralded Gaines as a hero.
[…] the former president’s legal and political dramas seemed irrelevant to the culture war these young women were gearing up to fight. The ballroom roared with approval, for example, when Greene called for President Biden to be impeached — but it was mention of her federal bill to criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender youth that earned Greene a standing ovation. […]
Tourist Vessel Disappears in Area of Titanic Wreck.
A search-and-rescue mission is underway in the North Atlantic for the missing craft, the Coast Guard said. It is unclear how many people were on board.
A submersible craft disappeared in the area of the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic on Monday, setting off a search-and-rescue operation by the U.S. Coast Guard, according to the agency and the tourism company operating the craft.
Petty Officer Lourdes Putnam confirmed that Coast Guard officials were searching for the submersible, which is operated by OceanGate Expeditions. It was not clear how many people were on board, and Officer Putnam offered no further details. The company’s website said its submersibles carry five people.
[…] Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard said that the agency did not have the right equipment in the search area to do a “comprehensive sonar survey of the bottom.” He said,“Right now, we’re really just focused on trying to locate the vessel again by saturating the air with aerial assets, by tasking surface assets in the area, and then using the underwater sonar.” […]
The Marine Institute at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, which partnered with OceanGate on the trip, said in a statement that it became aware on Monday morning that OceanGate had lost contact with its Titan submersible. One Marine Institute student who was on a summer employment contract with OceanGate was safe, the statement said. “We have no further information on the status of the submersible or personnel,” the statement said. […]
Hamish Harding, the chairman of a Dubai-based sales and air operations company, Action Aviation, is among those aboard the missing submersible, according to Mark Butler, the company’s managing director. Harding, who holds several Guinness World Records, including for the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive, wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday that a dive had been planned for Sunday: “A weather window has just opened up,” he wrote. […]
More than 90 other Palestinians were wounded, Palestinian health officials said. The Israeli army said seven of its soldiers were also wounded.
Israeli military forces raided a refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday, igniting the fiercest day of fighting in years as Palestinian militants detonated roadside bombs and Israeli helicopter gunships struck Palestinian gunmen to rescue troops trapped in the hourslong firefight.
At least five Palestinians were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, and over 90 others were wounded, Palestinian health officials said. Seven Israeli soldiers were also wounded, the army said.
The Israeli military said forces stormed into the Jenin refugee camp in the early morning to arrest two wanted militants. They faced fierce resistance. Palestinian militants said they ambushed Israeli armored vehicles with explosive devices, disabling several vehicles with troops trapped inside.
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht described Palestinian militants’ use of at least one powerful roadside bomb as “very unusual and dramatic.” Five mangled vehicles were stuck in the firefight for hours, requiring the military to dispatch helicopters as part of an elaborate evacuation operation.
It was the first such use of a helicopter gunship in the occupied West Bank since the second Palestinian uprising around two decades ago, Israeli media reported. The Jenin refugee camp, long a militant stronghold, witnessed some of the biggest battles at the time.
At least one Apache helicopter fired missiles at Palestinian gunmen to try to clear the area while security forces worked to extract the trapped vehicles, the Israeli army said. The local branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad based in Jenin said its fighters opened fire at the combat helicopter. The group praised its fighters and warned Israel to “reconsider its calculations before its soldiers set foot on Jenin’s land.”
[…] “They were shooting at anything and everything that moved,” hospital director Tawfik al-Shobaki said of Israeli forces.
As the Israeli military eventually withdrew its damaged vehicles from the camp in the late afternoon, Palestinians ventured out to assess the heavy damage and bury their dead.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified those killed as Khaled Asasa, 21, Qassam Abu Sariya, 29, Qais Jabarin, 21, Ahmed Daraghmeh, 19, and 15-year-old Ahmed Saqr. Of the 91 Palestinians wounded, at least 12 were in critical condition, hospital officials said. Wissam Bakar, director of Jenin Government Hospital, said a 15-year-old girl was among the critically wounded.
Islamic Jihad claimed two of the dead as its fighters — Qais Jabarin and Qassam Abu Sariya.
A Palestinian cameraman, Hazem Nasser, wearing a clearly marked press vest, was among those seriously wounded in the fighting. His colleagues said he was shot when a building — where journalists had camped out to cover the clashes — came under Israeli fire. […]
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said that he saw the military shoot directly at Nasser. The Israeli military didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the shooting.
[…] The escalation was the latest in more than a year of near-daily violence that has wracked the West Bank.
Israel and the Palestinians have been gripped by months of violence, focused mainly in the West Bank, where 124 Palestinians have been killed this year. The city of Jenin has been a hotbed of Palestinian militancy.
[…] Israel has been staging near-nightly raids in the West Bank in response to a spasm of Palestinian violence early last year. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have surged during that time. Israel says most of the dead were militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed at least 20 people this year.
The Kremlin has doubled its wine allowance for Russian officials to alleviate the stress of Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
Sources told the exiled Verstka news website that Russian government officials have taken to sipping cognac throughout the day and turning up to meetings drunk and morose. […]
Other than enjoying German beer when he was stationed in Dresden as a Soviet spy in the 1980s, Vladimir Putin is not known as a drinker.
Verstka’s sources confirmed that he has not hit the bottle to cope with the disappointment of his invasion of Ukraine, but many of his senior lieutenants have. […]
A government strategist said that the Kremlin had recently increased the allowance of wine at official banquets to two bottles per person.
The stories of excessive drinking among the elite tally with reports that purchases of vodka and anti-depressants have spiked since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year. […]
According to Verstka, government officials show no sign of slowing down their own consumption amid claims they are “missing or disrupting meetings, using illegal substances and attending events while drunk”.
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
CLAIM: President Joe Biden withheld 1,850 boxes of classified documents from his time as vice president.
THE FACTS: The National Archives and Records Administration says the boxes of files referenced in that figure are actually Biden’s Senate papers, which are housed at the University of Delaware. The federal agency told the AP that the files of Congress members are considered their personal property and are not subject to the same restrictions as presidential records, which are considered government property. While the FBI has searched the Delaware university records as part of a larger search for classified documents, there is no evidence they were withheld from authorities in any way. As former President Donald Trump faces federal charges of illegally hoarding White House documents, he has repeatedly drawn comparisons to the boxes of government records kept by Biden as proof he’s being unfairly persecuted. “By the way, Biden’s got 1,850 boxes,” Trump said at a recent campaign rally in Georgia. “He’s fighting them on the boxes. He doesn’t want to give the boxes and then they say, ‘Trump is obstructioning’.” On social media, supporters have echoed the figure. But the 1,850 boxes referred to in these claims are being falsely conflated with classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president that have been found in other locations, such as one of his former office in Washington and his Delaware home. Instead, the university documents are from the Democrat’s many years serving in Congress as a U.S. senator from Delaware, according to NARA and the University of Delaware. Biden donated the files to his alma mater more than a decade ago. Daniel Holt, an assistant historian in the U.S. Senate’s Historical Office, also cited the chamber’s website, which states that “records created and maintained within a senator’s office are the property of the senator.” David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University’s law school, added that the documents Biden provided to the university aren’t subject to the Presidential Records Act, which Trump and his allies have frequently and misleadingly invoked. “Mr. Biden was incapable of creating records of his own presidency before he was elected president,” he wrote in an email. While the records are not currently available to the public, there is no indication Biden has resisted the FBI’s efforts to review or retrieve documents from the university — nor any other location where the agency has been investigating, added Super. Indeed, the White House disclosed in January that a lawyer for Biden had located what was described as a “small number” of classified documents from his time as vice president during a search of a former office space in Washington. The documents were turned over to the Justice Department, as were an additional batch found at Biden’s house in Wilmington, Delaware. […]
— Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.
Massachusetts church was not holding same-sex wedding when it was hit by lightning and burned down.
CLAIM: A church in Boston was hosting a same-sex wedding ceremony when it was hit by lightning, sparking a fire that left no survivors.
THE FACTS: The First Congregational Church in the town of Spencer — which is in central Massachusetts, not the Boston area — did burn down on June 2 after it was hit by lightning. But there was no wedding being held at the time, nor any injuries reported, the local fire chief told the AP. The church caught fire on a Friday afternoon earlier this month when a storm was moving through the area, the AP reported. Social media users initially shared video of the church engulfed in flames with posts containing homophobic rhetoric and criticizing the church’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues. The church’s Facebook page has published positive messages about Pride month in the past. But in recent days, some users shared the footage with false claims that the blaze took place in Boston and that it occurred amid a same-sex wedding ceremony. A video shared on TikTok and Twitter shows the steeple of a church building ablaze as it slowly falls to the ground. “Church burnt down by a lightening, in Boston, In the USA, during a marriage ceremony of homosexual couple. No survival from the participants,” reads one post on Twitter, misspelling “lightning.” However, the historic church in Spencer — about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Worcester — was closed when the fire broke out, not hosting a wedding, according to Spencer Fire Chief Robert Parsons. No injuries were reported in the fire, which drew nearly 100 firefighters from close to 20 departments. “There was no wedding going on and actually the church was closed up and locked. No one was working in the church,” Parsons said in an email. Parsons and the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services also confirmed the cause of the fire was a lightning strike. Jake Wark, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts fire service, said state police fire investigators worked with local officials to determine that the lightning started a blaze in the building’s attic, which rapidly spread through the wood-framed structure. Parsons previously told the AP that the building was a total loss.
— Associated Press writer Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed this report.
Fabricated Trump Truth Social post about Walt Nauta circulates after court appearance.
CLAIM: A screenshot shows a Truth Social post from former President Donald Trump saying his personal aide and alleged co-conspirator Walt Nauta was the one who packed up his “personal papers” when he left the White House.
THE FACTS: The image is fabricated and Trump never posted such a statement on Truth Social. Many social media users shared the bogus post as real after Trump pleaded not guilty to dozens of felony counts accusing him of hoarding classified documents, suggesting it showed the former president was pointing the finger at Nauta for possessing any classified documents. Nauta, Trump’s valet before joining him as personal aide in Mar-a-Lago, was indicted last week on charges that he moved boxes of documents at Trump’s direction and then misled the FBI about it. Nauta did not enter a plea Tuesday because he did not have a local lawyer with him. The post circulating on social media shows Trump’s Truth Social profile. “Many people are saying the theft of Nuclear and Military Secrets is a very serious crime,” it begins. The post goes on to say that Trump asked his “LOYAL aide Walt Nauta” to pack personal documents before leaving the White House and is confident Nauta didn’t “place any Nuclear Secrets” inside because he knew that would get the former president in “trouble.” “So let’s just see what Judge Cannon says. Good Luck, Walt! We are behind you all the way!” it ends. While Trump did publish a flurry of posts on his social media platform about the case before and after his court appearance, the post shown in the image was not one of them. […] The image circulating on social media also contains signs it is not real, including a watermark from imgflip.com, a meme generator website that allows users to mimic Trump’s Truth Social posts. […] Trump did post about Nauta on Truth Social on June 9, but it was to protest his inclusion in the indictment. “They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about ‘Trump.’ He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot. The FBI and DOJ are CORRUPT!” Trump wrote.
— Karena Phan
Posts misrepresent data on terrorism and migration in Poland.
CLAIM: A map shows that Poland has not been the target of any terror attacks, the lack of which is a result of the country’s “strict no-migrants policy.”
THE FACTS: The map only shows terror attacks from 2012 through 2015 — but the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database shows six such attacks in Poland since 2015 and dozens prior to 2012. Additionally, Poland is open to migrants as a member of the European Union, and experts say the data shows migrants are in fact more likely to be victims of terror than perpetrators. Yet a screenshot of the map spread online in recent days alongside the erroneous claim. “Here is a map of terror attacks in Europe,” one tweet states. “Poland has a strict no-migrants policy. Draw your own conclusions.” It is true that the map, built by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, does not show any terror attacks in Poland. However, while the map only shows attacks recorded in the Global Terrorism Database over a four-year period, the database has records of attacks from 1970 through 2020. During that time, Poland has seen 42 terror attacks. […] While Poland does have lower levels of migration than other countries in the European Union, it doesn’t have a “no-migrants policy.” As a member of the EU, Poland must adhere to freedom of movement rights, which allow EU citizens and their families to reside freely in member countries. As of late May 2023, approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian refugees from the Russia-Ukraine war were registered for temporary protection in Poland, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Regardless, the map doesn’t show that terror attacks in the countries with higher migration rates were perpetrated by migrants, as the posts suggest, noted Miller. In fact, she added, most terror attacks are carried out by “domestic assailants,” and immigrants are more likely to be victims than perpetrators. […] more populous countries have more attacks, not because the migrants are the ones responsible. To the extent that there is a relationship to migration, especially in the case of people coming to Europe from non-European countries, it’s due to the attacks on the migrants — not by them […]
China and the United States hailed ‘progress’ and pledged to stabilize a spiraling relationship on Monday but stopped short of achieving a significant breakthrough after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Xi Jinping.
[…] Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC News on Monday that his trip to Beijing marked an ‘important start’ in stabilizing U.S. ties with China and that the countries should move on from the spy balloon incident that postponed his visit earlier this year.
Donald Trump is losing another lawyer in another pending case. It’s actually his second time losing this same lawyer in a matter of days. Jim Trusty had recently parted ways with the former president after Trump’s latest criminal indictment. Now, the lawyer wants off Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CNN, which seeks $475 million from the cable network over an alleged ‘smear campaign.’
More than 1 million people have been dropped from Medicaid in the past couple months as some states moved swiftly to halt health care coverage following the end of the coronavirus pandemic. Most got dropped for not filling out paperwork.
Houston Chronicle:
COVID-19 expert Peter Hotez said on Twitter he was ‘stalked’ outside his home Sunday morning by a pair of people espousing anti-vaccines views and encouraging him to debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on the subject. The confrontation stemmed from a podcast Joe Rogan posted June 15 interviewing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in April launched a campaign to run for president in 2024.
“Today is a good day to remember: Christianity is the faith and America is the place slavery came to die,” the Missouri senator tweeted, managing to fail at both grammar and a basic grasp of history.
In reality, as Jeet Heer and many others pointed out in response to Hawley’s inane commentary, the United States lagged decades behind most other countries in the Western hemisphere in abolishing slavery. England, Mexico, France, and Denmark had all ended slavery before we adopted the 13th Amendment in 1865.
And while it’s unclear from a logical or even syntax perspective what “Christianity is the faith” is supposed to mean in that tweet, Hawley also seems to be whiffing on the irony that Americans used Christianity to justify slavery in the first place. Frederick Douglass had this to say on the subject: …
Russia created a Tank Bomb by packing an ancient tank with 6 tons of explosives and sending it toward the Ukrainian lines with the driver jumping out and letting it continue on its own.
Unfortunately for them it went kaboom way too early. [Tweet and video at the link]
It was pretty crude, but if it had gotten through it would have killed many. What Russia failed to do was send one or two other vehicles ahead of the Tank Bomb as sacrificial lambs to clear some of the mines to give the tank bomb a better chance of making it.
A video of @benweideman then me discussing the Russian T55 packed with explosives. Pack a tank with explosives, have a volunteer drive it, then jump off after pointing it toward the enemy. What a stupid way to conduct armored operations by the Russians
Russia, of course, claims the attack was a roaring success. […]
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Close combat between Ukrainian and Russian troops in a network of trenches. NOTE: The video shows Russian troops getting shot at close range. You have to open the link if you want to watch it.
Explicit content: fighters of the 73rd Maritime Special Operations of the Ukraine Armed Forces entered a well-equipped Russian trench on the southern front to destroy a group of 10 Russian servicemen (uncensored + some subtitles added). pic.twitter.com/uxFRkm3esL
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) June 19, 2023
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Russia is attempting to launch its own offensive near Kreminna. [Tweets at the link]
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An interesting story that Hillary Clinton says Vladimir Putin told her. [Tweet and video at the link]
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[Tweet and video showing detonation of Russian stuff]
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Thus with all officials of Russia’s Vichy governments. [Tweet and images at link. A Deputy Prime Minister is targeted by car bomb in Russian-occupied Simferopol, Crimea.]
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If it’s a day ending in Y, it must be insurance fraud. [Video at the link]
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A Ukrainian drone halts construction of Russian defensive lines without even dropping a bomb. [Tweet and video at the link]
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This is what all the heroic warriors will be wearing this summer. [Tweet and video at the link: 🇺🇦 Ukrainian soldiers organized a fashion show 🥰 ]
It’s also important to stay clean. [Tweet and video at the link: Ukrainian soldiers take a shower after leaving the trenches … looks like a fire hose, and muddy, fully-clothed soldiers.]
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Russians left to die by their own army are rescued by Ukrainians. [Tweet and video of Ukrainian Special Forces rescuing russian soldiers who don’t know how to swim. They were left to die by their own.]
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Where’s a Stinger when you need one? [Tweet and video at the link]
Hunter Biden will plead guilty to three federal offenses in a plea deal: two tax misdemeanours, one offense of illegally owning a firearm (lying about his drug use when he bought it). Thisapparently concludes the federal investigation into him.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 187
Thisapparently [sic] concludes the federal investigation into him
That is, until the Republicans take Congress back.
[…] in Nevada, Republican congressional candidate David Flippo recently used social media to promote an image of a makeshift hut, telling the public, “This is not a village in a 3rd world country, this is the US border!” As Politico noted, the photo was actually taken in rural Africa. Asked for an explanation, the GOP campaign accused Politico of being a “propaganda arm” for Democrats.
Why would a private citizen being charged with two tax misdemeanors and a charge over possessing a gun for 1 week “have immediate reverberations in the 2024 presidential election”? And why is @CNN adopting that Republican narrative with zero scrutiny?
[…] Hunter Biden isn’t on the presidential ballot next year. That’s Joe Biden, who has not smoked crack and lied about it on a gun application. However, Biden’s likely Republican opponent, Donald Trump, is the one who has been indicted for all the crimes, including alarming violations of the Espionage Act. Even if Hunter Biden were running for president, I’d still vote for him over Trump because he hasn’t stolen classified documents and actively obstructed justice. Oh, and he’s also not fascist scum.
Republicans insist, without evidence, that Joe Biden is directly connected to his son’s legal problems, which they claim are far more serious than what Hunter’s actually facing. Here is a quick Whitman’s sampler of stupid. [Tweet at the link]
Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Into Hunter’s Penis Committee, tweeted, “Hunter Biden’s getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery.”
Comer claimed Hunter Biden received a “sweetheart plea deal,” a term that Sen. Marsha Blackburn repeated because she is not known for her original material. She said it’s “no coincidence that less than a week after [Donald] Trump is arraigned by the DOJ, Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to a sweetheart deal with no jail time.” No, I think it is a coincidence, or more specifically, two unrelated sequential events.
Matt Schlapp, who has his own issues, tweeted, “A sitting President just orchestrated a sweetheart deal for his son in order to boost his re-election. All election interference.” Joe Biden didn’t negotiate this plea deal. That was US Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, who was appointed by Donald Trump. [So very correct!]
Sen. JD Vance said, “Any other American would have the book thrown at them.” (That’s a lie.) “The president’s son gets a slap on the wrist. This is exhibit 1,402 for why I’m holding Biden’s DOJ nominees. We have a two-tiered justice system in our country. It’s a disgrace.” No, Senator, you’re the disgrace.
Perhaps the most absurd response comes courtesy of Rep. Lance Gooden, who tweeted, “DOJ brought 3 week charges against Hunter to try to trick the American public into thinking they aren’t politically biased. But Hunter will see zero days in jail even thought he has committed many crimes.” (The oh-so-many crimes remain unproven.) “Trump faces 450 years over a paperwork dispute.”
Stealing classified documents and showing them off to random people is not a “paperwork dispute” no matter how hard the MAGA cult tries to soft-pedal Trump’s treason crimes. Actual voters don’t buy it, either. Stop making the “Biden Crime Family” happen. It’s never going to happen.
A new report in the Financial Times appears to confirm that the main Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, is recruiting and training a militia to join the country’s war effort against Ukraine.
The “Uran” battalion, which translates to Uranus, is to be made up of employees of Roscosmos, as well as those from its dozens of state-owned subsidiaries in the aerospace business. Recruits will receive a 100,000 ruble ($1,200) sign-up bonus, and a monthly frontline duty salary of 270,000 rubles, according to the report. This is far above the wages paid to most employees of Roscosmos…
Tethyssays
I expect it will be a very short trial after tfg helpfully explained how his golf shirts were stolen by the FBI.
Judge Cannon’s Order: “This case is hereby set for a Criminal Jury Trial during the two-week period commencing August 14, 2023, or as soon thereafter as the case may be called…”
Judge Cannon’s order (more):
“Any change of plea must be taken prior to 5:00 p.m. on the last business day before trial is scheduled to begin”
Lynna, OM @ # 171 quoting a Kossack: … he claims that there were also black slave owners who ultimately fought on the side of the Confederacy … Technically, he is correct but he also misses the point.
Last I heard, historians have failed to find any of the claimed “Blacks who fought for the CSA“. Lots of slaves did get dragged into Confederate military service, but they cooked, cleaned, dug, and drove – they didn’t receive or use weapons. Confederate law explicitly banned that (until about the last month of the war).
The Civil War had 300,000 casualties…
That’s only off by about half a million (if by “casualties” one means “fatalities”, not the standard usage).
It really bothers me when progressives get the facts wrong.
On Sunday, news broke about an OceanGate Expeditions tourist submarine headed for the wreck of the Titanic that went missing with five people aboard. Soon after, details emerged about the sub’s non-standard design that did not meet regulations, including steering apparently handled by a $30 Logitech F710 wireless PC game controller from 2010…
Use the sub to goad about regulations? There’s reciprocity in death and callousness. I’ll have have to think that for a bit though. I want an idea of what doing that wrong looks like.
Reginald Selkirksays
@196:
Submarine tourism is such a small market I don’t know if guidelines for safe operation exist.
This one operates in international waters, which brings up the question if jurisdiction.
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #197…
One might expect the regulations to go by country of registration (of the “mothership”…those small, deep submersibles, aren’t ocean-going vessels in their own right). That, of course, opens up the whole “flag of convenience” can of worms. The last recourse being to bar port calls if the ship and/or submersible fails to meet the standards of any country where they make port.
I figure negligence and callousness stands despite what the law is. Like not caring what the law say with abortion ultimately. But this group will have complicated empathy for one another.
In a baffling turn of events, the Donald Trump-appointed federal judge overseeing his Mar-a-Lago classified documents debacle appears to have placed the case on warp speed—setting a trial just two months away…
A restaurant in California has been ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages to employees after it hired a priest to extract workers’ confessions, in what federal investigators are calling “the most shameless” acts of corruption an employer has taken against its staff.
The US Department of Labor said an employee testified that owner Che Garibaldi, who operates two locations of Taqueria Garibaldi in northern California, hired a fake priest to hear confessions during work hours and “get the sins out,” including asking them if they had been late for work, stolen money from the restaurant or had “bad intentions” toward their employer…
North Carolina’s state House speaker is being sued by a local elected official who alleges the powerful Republican ruined his marriage by having an affair with his wife.
Lawyers for Scott Lassiter claim that for more than three years Speaker Tim Moore “willfully interfered in the marital relationship” between Lassiter and his wife, who leads an agency within the state courts system…
Lassiter wants at least $200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages against Moore and another unidentified man whom Lassiter said conspired with Moore in recent weeks to install a camera outside Lassiter’s suburban Raleigh home…
Donald Trump has a court date. And a judge. For those who assumed that the Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon would naturally remove herself from presiding over this trial, especially after her actions earlier in the same case ended up with the 11th Circuit stepping in to reverse her every decision and scold her for breaking every judicial convention … think again. Because everything about the order she just issued indicates that Cannon intends to be in the big chair when testimony begins.
The order calls for the case to begin on Aug. 14, or “as soon thereafter as the case may be called.“ Pretrial motions are to due by July 24. The statement anticipates a two-week trial before the jury.
No one should anticipate that Trump’s trial will actually start promptly on that date. It’s common for cases before the federal court to be continued to a later date. If there is anything that Trump has proven himself to be good at when it comes to court cases, it’s delay, and Cannon has demonstrated that she is his willing partner in pumping the brakes. This is a placeholder date. The difference between Aug. 14 and when a gavel actually hits the table is likely to be measured in months.
Even though Trump’s arraignment was held at the federal courthouse in Miami, the trial is scheduled for the Alto Adams Courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. This is is the normal courthouse for the Southern District of Florida, where Cannon normally hears cases, and where she presided over the whole “special master” fiasco.
The difference between the date on the order and the date on which things might get rolling is highlighted by some of the conditions Cannon attaches to her order. For example:
Any motion for a continuance of trial shall (1) set forth in detail which factors constitute grounds for a continuance pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(B), including the complexity of the case, 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(B)(ii), the security clearance process, and any anticipated impact of the Classified Information Procedures Act, Pub. L. 96–456, 94 Stat. 2025, 18 U.S.C. App. III §§ 1–16; and (2) indicate whether the reasons served by granting the continuance outweigh the defendant’s constitutional and statutory rights to a speedy trial.
This paragraph anticipates that there will be a continuance because of the need to obtain security clearances for attorneys and staff, the issues caused from the numerous classified documents at the heart of the case, and the inherent “complexity of the case.”
Of the two dates, the July 24 date may be the only one that matters, because Trump’s team is likely to wait until the last possible minute of that day before handing in their paperwork, which will be a request for a continuance—one that moves the date for filing more requests for a continuance weeks into the future.
Unless something happens in that time to replace Cannon at the helm, don’t expect any of these requests to be denied.
she wouldn’t recuse herself, now they have moved the trial to her district. From what I understand, she was chosen not randomly but because the Miami clerk checked the box that says she was the original magistrate in this case so it automatically assigned her to it. Jack Smith needs to step in now or this is going to be a sh*t show.
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I suspect that Jack Smith needs more than just, “but she did such-and-such last trial” as a reason for why she should be removed from the case. Jack’s going to have to wait for her to fvk up big-time, which for Loose-Cannon, will thankfully be sooner rather than later. [I agree]
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t’s a sensitive docs case… every lawyer handling those cases knows the pressure points for the prosecution are the documents themselves … there will be piecemeal motions for each document about full discovery of the document itself … then admissibility if some at trial … each of the docs can potentially be it’s own case which goes through motion practice, interlocutory appeals then all the way to SUP Ct … rinse repeat for the next Doc … it’s gonna happen … note my predictions from here and we will circle back on this next year when these exact issues are winding their way up and down the court system
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As someone who hasn’t practiced in federal court in decades, I’m intrigued by your statement that each document could be the subject of an appeal. Under what theory of appealability?
I ask because here in California, you can seek interlocutory appellate review of almost any order, but issues of admissibility of evidence are an important exception. Our case law considers a post-judgment appeal an adequate remedy for any error in admitting or excluding evidence, so there are no grounds for review by pretrial writ.
My recollection of federal practice is that interlocutory review is quite limited. It’s basically the collateral order doctrine. Which is another reason I’m interested in your comment. I know this is arcane stuff, but would you mind elaborating further?
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They would still need some jurisdictional basis for their appeals. If they can’t identify one, the appeals can be dismissed fairly quickly.
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The Guardian: Trump and his legal team spent the afternoon before his arraignment interviewing potential lawyers but the interviews did not result in any joining the team in time for Trump’s initial court appearance scheduled for 3pm ET on Tuesday after several attorneys declined to take him as a client.
Trump has also seemingly been unable to find a specialist national security lawyer, eligible to possess a security clearance, to help him navigate the Espionage Act charges.
The last-minute scramble to find a veteran trial lawyer was a familiar process for Trump, who has had difficulty hiring and keeping lawyers to defend him in the numerous federal and state criminal cases that have dogged him through his presidency and after he left the White House.
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today (June 20) is the deadline for “all attorneys of record and forthcoming attorneys of record” to get in touch with the Justice Department’s litigation security group so that they can expedite “the necessary clearance process”. Maybe we’ll get a clue as to how strict deadlines will be in this case by the end of today (June 20).
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Can Trump get a security clearance now that his was taken away by Biden. I would think not.
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a criminal jury needs to be unanimous and I agree that is worrisome in FL. Then again there was a MAGA nut on the NY civil trial of Drumpf and we got a unanimous decision. OTOH Grand Juries don’t have to be unanimous, just need to hit a threshold which I believe was 12 out of a minimum of 16 participating.
As you’d expect, news that the long-running Hunter Biden investigation is ending with pleas to a few relatively low level infractions that are unlikely to result in jail time has been met with gnashing of teeth and donning of sack cloth in “Where’s Hunter?”/Biden Crime Family land. But they are holding on to one faint glimmer of hope. Is the investigation really, really, really over? As in super double over?
Let’s take a look.
Biden’s lawyer Christopher Clark said in a statement this morning that “it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.” Reporting in various publications based on anonymous sources and ‘sources close to the negotiation’ basically confirm that. Politico for instance reports this: “The plea agreement is intended to be a comprehensive resolution of Hunter Biden’s potential legal liability in all matters investigated by federal authorities, a person familiar with the negotiations said.”
So seems clear enough.
But there’s more!
The Department of Justice released a statement by US Attorney David C. Weiss in which he gives a pretty unremarkable recitation of the agreement. Then tucked inconspicuously down at the end of paragraph five he writes: “The investigation is ongoing.”
So is this done or is there more to come?
Generally speaking you plea out as a global resolution to everything your facing. Otherwise, why are you doing it? That can’t be treated as an absolute rule. But it’s generally how things work. Add to this the fact that not only is Biden’s lawyer saying this but reporters covering this seem to think this is done as well.
But then why that statement?
Right wingers first seized on this as evidence that there’s more to come and their grandest hopes aren’t actually dashed. But then they came up with alternate explanation. Maybe they’re keeping the case open on what is now a phantom investigation for the sinister purpose of keeping an excuse not to turn materials over to Reps. Comer and Jordan. For the moment they appear to be going with both: the dream is alive and the fix is in, with maybe some trend toward the latter.
I’d like to conclude this post with a silver bullet explanation.[…] But at least for now there’s no clear or obvious answer. Even the reporters following this closest don’t seem quite clear what it means. Politico for instance speculates that while Hunter Biden himself may face no more exposure the investigation might be continuing with potential charges for others. It’s just not clear. Maybe it’s just boilerplate and it doesn’t really mean anything. The folks who I’d expect would know don’t seem to know.
In any case, if you see people discussing this still dangling thread to the Hunter Biden drama, that’s the best we have so far.
On Monday, Donald Trump sat down for a face-to-face interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier. Perched on a familiar stool in front of cameras that have spent so much time pointed his way that his face must be burned into their core, and fresh off his prime time CNN promo in front of a hand-selected audience told to cheer his every utterance, Trump must have anticipated some easy sledding.
Only Baier did the surprising thing: He asked actual questions, ones that didn’t just tee up Trump to repeat some part of his long-established rant. Questions like why Trump held onto the classified documents in the face of multiple requests from the National Archives and Department of Justice, and why he continues to refuse to admit he lost the 2020 election. But nothing may be funnier than when Baier asked Trump about why everyone he ever worked with, all those “best people” he hired in 2016, absolutely came to loathe him.
Baier’s list of people who were appointed by Trump to the most important positions in government, but who wouldn’t now support his run for street cleaner, is a reference that should be returned to again and again. A chief of staff. Another chief of staff. Defense secretary. Attorney general. Press secretary. Secretary of state. Secretary of transportation. UN ambassador. And Mike Pence. [video at the link]
If that’s not enough of Trump slamming Bill Barr, don’t worry. There’s plenty more.
In response to why he hired people who had “very small brains,” were “dumb as rocks,” or were “gutless pigs,” Trump’s response was that he hired “10 good people” for every one of these very bad people. And then Trump can’t name a single one. [LOL] The best he can do is say that he had very good people in charge of the economy. That would be this economy. [chart at the link, Trump performed impressively badly, and Biden’s numbers are mostly very good.]
Trump’s “best” accomplishment was exactly like his best people: a disaster. He crashed the economy in a way that hasn’t been seen … since the last time a Republican was in the White House. That economy sprang back under Biden, but still hasn’t stabilized from the mismanagement of Trump’s nameless people.
During his interview with Baier, Trump mostly allowed the Fox anchor to finish his questions, something he did not allow CNN host Kaitlin Collins or any other woman who dared direct a query his way. However, there was one point at which Trump seemed determined to get out his gallop and trot right over Baier. [video at the link]
Trump’s insistence on throwing out one debunked conspiracy and one proven false narrative after another on this point is illuminating both because it’s clear he doesn’t want to give Baier time to confront any of these claims one at a time, and because it’s all just a litany of names and gibberish that’s unidentifiable to anyone not part of the MAGA horde. It’s all “the 51 agents” and “real recounts”—phrases that wouldn’t mean a thing to someone who had not been neck-deep in conspiracy land. Even Baier seems exhausted by the effort to get Trump to deal with the facts.
But the part of the interview already making the news outside Fox is the part where Trump confesses to withholding the documents. Again. And the part where he claims that the Bedminster document, the one he was caught talking about on tape and waving around to visitors, doesn’t exist.
Confronted about the documents, Trump gives what might be his best reason so far when it comes to withholding highly classified national defense documents: Trump didn’t hand over the boxes because he was concerned about running short of golf shirts. And he had apparently filed away some pants. As one does. [video at the link]
If you’re keeping track of Trump excuses, there are three Trump has repeated numerous times.
The documents were planted.
The documents were declassified by telepathy.
The Presidential Records Act lets me keep whatever I want.
To these, America can now add “I was too busy” and “because there were shoes.” And shirts. And pants. Boxes of pants. Trump also repeats the “everything was declassified” lie at the end of this ramble, along with another claim that the National Archives might be “stuffing” other documents in.
But even the pants aren’t the most ludicrous part of this statement. There’s also the part where Trump proclaims that the Bedminster document—the document that Trump was caught on tape declaring “like, highly confidential”—isn’t real. On the recording, Trump can be heard describing the document, explaining how it was prepared for him, and warning about its sensitivity. “As president, I could have declassified it,” said Trump. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
But now Trump says the document doesn’t exist.
Trump: “There’s no document there. Those were newspaper articles. They were copies of articles and magazines. There was no document there.”
So Trump is saying he told people that a collection of newspaper articles and magazine clippings were “secret” and that he could have declassified them?
Despite having described the documents as having been prepared by General Mark Milley, Trump insists to Baier that he “has never seen a document from Milley,” and that “Miley was just incompetent.” Making him a perfect fit with every other person Trump appointed.
To top off the theme of the evening, after Trump insists there was nothing but a collection of newspaper clips and magazines, not a classified document, Baier makes one more stab.
Baier: “According to the people in the room who testified …”
Trump: “These people are very dishonest people. They’re thugs.”
Of course they are. […]
By any measure, Trump’s interview was a laughable disaster. However, don’t get the idea this means Fox is shutting the door on Trump. Those who tuned in live may have seen Trump get confronted over several issues. Those who are following Fox’s coverage today are getting none of that, because this is what Fox News’ front page coverage of their Trump interview looks like on Tuesday morning. [Screen capture showing Fox headline: “Trump reveals he told Putin to halt Ukraine invasion.” Bullshit.]
Even when Trump lies to Fox News face to face, it’s not as if they’re going to report it. Instead, they’re digging deep to find a way to put a positive spin on the results. For those who are interested, the inspirational words that kept Putin from invading Ukraine, according to Trump, were “don’t do it.”
It’s not much of a story. But then, Fox isn’t much of a news organization. Notice that while they included clips of Trump making statements of his relationship with Xi and giving his rants about the dangers of the left, they failed to include any clips when editing his “boxes of pants” defense into something more reasonable.
Trump may hate everyone. Fox News may know he’s awful. But they both know they are dependent on the same awful audience for their financial survival.
In that case, Fox News should fail financially. Trump should fail financially (and on every other level as well).
There’s an unhinged, anti-vax conspiracy theorist running for president and unfortunately he’s doing so in the Democratic primary. Nepo baby candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast last Thursday and spouted a bunch of nonsense about vaccines and the war in Ukraine, which he absurdly claimed cost “$8 trillion … That’s $24 trillion that they had to print to pay for nothing.”
“That money, the way they’re paying it back,” he said, “it’s a hidden tax called inflation, and it hits the poor and the middle class”
Yeah, so everything that guy just said is bullshit. Congress has committed $113 billion to our ally Ukraine. (Please note that a trillion is a thousand billions or roughly the number of blows to the head Kennedy Jr. seems to have suffered.)
Kennedy Jr. also shared a number of debunked conspiracy theories, including the popular one about how the CIA assassinated his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and could possibly do the same to him because he’s not at all dangerously paranoid.
“Well, I got to be careful,” Kennedy told Rogan. “And I’m aware of that — I’m aware of that danger. I don’t live in fear of it, you know, at all. But I’m not stupid about it, and I take precautions.”
I’d love to know the “precautions” a private citizen takes to avoid getting whacked by the same shadowy figures who apparently took down a president. Does he spring for a SimplySafe system with the doorbell camera?
In an upcoming New Yorker profile titled “Is R.F.K., Jr., the First Podcast Presidential Candidate?” Kennedy said with all due humility, “The same way my uncle discovered television in 1960 and realized it was going to be a new path to the White House, podcasts are a good media for me, because my weakest media is the short sound bite.”
I don’t think the problem is that Americans weren’t hearing the full scope of Kennedy Jr.’s dementia. What Kennedy Jr. loves most about podcasts, it seems, is that he’s “able to outrun the censorship juggernaut” or in other words, his favorite podcast hosts let him say whatever goofy ass shit he wants unchallenged. For instance, Rogan shamelessly extended a platform for Kennedy Jr.’s baseless claims that vaccines cause autism. (They do not.) [Tweet and video at the link]
When vaccine researcher Dr. Peter Hotez criticized Rogan for broadcasting Kennedy Jr.’s BS, Rogan challenged him to “debate” Kennedy Jr. on his podcast as if that is a valuable use of anyone’s time, let alone a medical professional’s. Rogan also offered to donate $100,000 to the charity of Dr. Hotez’s choice, which is not how actual charity works. (Rogan earns an estimated $60 million a year, so this is chump change.)
Dr. Hotez considered this an offer he definitely could refuse, and there was a back-and-forth Twitter exchange where Kennedy promised a “respectful, congenial, informative debate that the American people deserve.” The American people might bear responsibility for 27 seasons of “The Bachelor” but they don’t deserve a “debate” between an entitled crackpot and serious person.
Chief Twitter troll Elon Musk claimed Dr. Hotez “hated charity” and was “afraid of a public debate, because he knows he’s wrong.” He’s not a scientist. He’s a chicken! Coo-coo-coo-chaw!
Sunday, Dr. Hotez explained to MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan that actual scientists write papers supporting their positions. They don’t rhetorically arm wrestle idiots.
I have a new book coming out that basically says 200,000 Americans needlessly perished, because they believed the anti-vaccine disinformation and refused to take a COVID vaccine during our Delta wave and BA.1 Omicron wave in 2021-22 after vaccines were widely available.
So the point is anti-vaccine disinformation, it’s always done a lot of damage and harm, but now it’s a lethal force in the United States, and that’s why we have to have that discussion. And I offered to come and go on Joe Rogan again — I’ve been on a couple of times — and have that discussion, but not to turn it into the Jerry Springer Show with having RFK Jr. on.
[Tweet and video at the link: “Debates with anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists only serve to elevate them—and most importantly, they don’t change anyone’s mind.”]
Some of Rogan’s creepier fans stalked Dr. Hotez’s home in Texas. He claims one asshole shoved a cellphone in his face and asked if he would accept Rogan’s challenge. “They were clearly lying in wait,” Hotez told the Washington Post. “It’s very sad. All we were trying to do is get a cake for Father’s Day.”
Kennedy Jr. also had a cozy chat last week with Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, a noted crackpot who has it out for feminists, minorities, and queer people. Peterson recorded the interview as a podcast for the right-wing Daily Wire, which is not an ideal venue to reach potential Democratic primary voters.
YouTube yanked the video for “violating YouTube’s general vaccine misinformation policy, which prohibits content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities,” the company said Monday in a statement.
Kennedy and Peterson claimed (stupidly) that YouTube was “interfering” with a presidential campaign. “Should social media platforms censor presidential candidates?” Kennedy whined on Twitter, where of course the video remains up. We’re not sharing the link here, but Kennedy repeated an Alex Jones-addled conspiracy theory that chemicals in the water were “turning the frogs gay.” Kermit was no longer sexually interested in Miss Piggy. He just found her fabulous.
Cranking the crazy up a notch, Kennedy told Peterson, “I think a lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated on that how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing.”
Yes, Kennedy Jr. believes polluted water turns kids TRANSGENDER. Don’t worry. We don’t “underappreciate” how deranged this man is.
Details of the former president’s agreement to work with a Saudi firm to develop a hotel and golf complex overlooking the Gulf of Oman highlight the ways his business and political roles intersect.
On a remote site at the edge of the Gulf of Oman, thousands of migrant laborers from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are at work in 103-degree heat, toiling in shifts from dawn until nightfall to build a new city, a multibillion-dollar project backed by Oman’s oil-rich government that has an unusual partner: former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s name is plastered on signs at the entrance of the project and in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel in Muscat, the nearby capital of Oman, where a team of sales agents is invoking Mr. Trump’s name to help sell luxury villas at prices of up to $13 million, mostly targeting superrich buyers from around the world, including from Russia, Iran and India.
Mr. Trump has been selling his name to global real estate developers for more than a decade. But the Oman deal has taken his financial stake in one of the world’s most strategically important and volatile regions to a new level, underscoring how his business and his politics intersect as he runs for president again amid intensifying legal and ethical troubles.
Interviews and an examination by The New York Times of hundreds of pages of financial documents associated with the Oman project show that this partnership is unlike any other international deal Mr. Trump and his family have signed.
The venture puts Mr. Trump in business with the government of Oman, an ally of the United States with which Mr. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, cultivated ties while in office and which plays a vital diplomatic role in a volatile region. The Omani government is providing the land for the development, is investing heavily in the infrastructure to support it and will get a cut of the profits in the long run.
Mr. Trump was brought into the deal by a Saudi real estate firm, Dar Al Arkan, which is closely intertwined with the Saudi government. While in office, Mr. Trump developed a tight relationship with Saudi leaders. Since leaving office, he has worked with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to host the LIV golf tour and Mr. Kushner received a $2 billion infusion from the Saudi fund for his investment venture.
Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, has already brought in at least $5 million from the Oman deal. Under its terms, Trump Organization will not put up any money for the development, but will help design a Trump-branded hotel, golf course and golf club and will be paid to manage them for up to 30 years, among other revenue.
The project could also draw scrutiny in the West for its treatment of its migrant workers, who during the first phase of construction are living in compounds of cramped trailers in a desertlike setting and are being paid as little as $340 a month, according to one of the engineers supervising the work. […]
Not ‘the Hamptons of the Middle East’
In February, Eric Trump, the former president’s son who is overseeing the project for Trump Organization while also playing a role in his father’s re-election campaign, traveled to Oman to visit the cliff-side site where the golf course will soon be built. He met with executives from Dar Al Arkan, the Saudi firm, as well as top government officials from Oman who control the land.
“It’s like the Hamptons of the Middle East,” Eric Trump said in an interview, declining to address other questions about the project.
Oman, in fact, is nothing like the Hamptons. It is a Muslim nation and absolute monarchy, ruled by a sultan, who plays a sensitive role in the Middle East: Oman maintains close ties with Saudi Arabia and its allies, but also with Iran, with which it has considerable trade.
[…] Oman is also a buyer of weapons from the United States, including Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighter jets and a Raytheon-manufactured missile system that it agreed to purchase last year. […] it was through Dar Al Arkan, the Saudi real estate company, that Mr. Trump and his family firm got into the Oman project.
[…] Mr. Trump was on hand to close the deal in New York in November, just before he announced his 2024 presidential bid. Executives from the Saudi real estate company visited Trump Tower and showed off designs for the project, and Eric Trump signed paperwork confirming the deal.
“Our partnership with Trump will distinguish our first project in Oman and put it on the global map,” Yousef Al Shelash, the chairman of Dar Al Arkan, said in a statement issued as the deal was signed. […]
Links to Foreign Governments
In Oman, the government’s contribution to the Yiti project starts with the land: It has set aside nearly 3,000 acres along the Gulf of Oman for the project, a quarter of which it has turned over to the Saudi-run Dar Al Arkan. The Omani government will be paid back over time for the land, and get a cut of the profits from the project, according to a detailed description of the deal made public in a financial filing in London.
Separately, the government of Oman is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade highways and utilities […]
“What you see in front of you — that’s a billion dollars’ worth of investments,” said Ammar Al Kharusi, the head of development at the Oman government’s tourism agency, as he stood on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the first phase of the Yiti project, where hundreds of workers toiled below, as countless trucks and at least a dozen cranes hauled in and lifted loads of steel and other building supplies to construct this new metropolis.
Next door is the second phase — called Oceana at Aida — that will be built by Dar Al Arkan on a desertlike plateau towering nearly 450 feet above the Gulf of Oman, offering extraordinary views.
[…] Dar Al Arkan is one of the country’s most important beneficiaries of a decision more than a decade ago by Saudi Arabia to pump in billions of dollars of government funds to help create a modern, mortgage-backed housing industry in an effort to expand homeownership. It is also a major investor in Saudi Home Loans Company, which has profited as government dollars flow into the mortgage industry.
Dar Al Arkan more recently moved into international luxury real-estate development, this time through a London-based subsidiary it set up called DarGlobal.
DarGlobal is teaming up with luxury brands like Missoni, Versace and Lamborghini — as well as the Trump family — on projects outside Saudi Arabia targeting international buyers. DarGlobal is targeting buyers who will pay as much as a 30 percent premium for a “branded” townhouse and can often buy their units with cash, according to a confidential company document obtained by The Times.
[…] The 30-year agreement between DarGlobal and the Trump family designates the Trump Organization as the hotel manager that will “direct the management and operation of a world-class, super luxury hotel to be constructed by Dar Oman within its Aida project in Oman.” The deal puts the Trump company in charge of the hotel budget, its restaurants and any retail stores. The Trump Organization will set prices and market the hotel once it opens under the name Trump International Hotel Oman.
It will have similar management rights over the 18-hole golf course and golf club, which will be known as Trump International Golf Club Oman. There will also be over 200 “Trump branded residential villas,” according to one company document published in January, and marked confidential.
The Trump family, the agreement says, will not have to commit its own money to the project, but it will have detailed oversight including reviewing a “model room” that DarGlobal will build to sign off on the design.
“Dar Oman will design, develop, construct, equip and furnish the hotel, at its sole cost and expenses, in accordance with the specifications, standards and requirements issued from time to time by the hotel manager,” the financial documents say, referring to the Trump Organization.
Working in the Heat
[…] The army of workers, in orange, blue or yellow overalls, move deliberately, many of them with their heads covered with towels and other fabrics stuffed under their hard hats to try to protect themselves from the heat, routinely above 100 degrees, during 10-hour shifts. They live mostly in trailer camps adjacent to the construction site, or they arrive in fleets of buses that run through the billowing clouds of dust that blow through.
[…] the State Department listed “labor exploitation of foreign migrants” as among the human rights issues it is monitoring in Oman.
[…] “It’s too hot — too hot,” said Mathan Mp, 38, who is from Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India, said as he took a break from supervising dozens of workers at the project site. “But we came for work. We have a time schedule. We have to finish the project.”
[…] The Trump-branded project is being built just above the seaside village of Yiti, where there are now more donkeys, goats and stray cats in the streets than people, as many have moved away as the construction projects have accelerated.
The few remaining residents do not know a great deal about Mr. Trump, having only a general impression of him as a rich businessman and politician.
Htim Talbi, whose family has lived in Yiti for six decades and remains in one of the few occupied homes in the dusty town, said he harbored a far-off dream that he might somehow afford one of the luxury townhouses.
“Trump — he is your king from America,” Mr. Talbi said, after inviting a visitor to his village inside to an air-conditioned room to sit on the floor and share a pot of tea. “Welcome to Oman.”
Lots of photos and more details are available at the link.
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In a statement on behalf of Fox News Channel, Rupert Murdoch apologized for what he called the network’s “regrettable flirtation with accuracy” in its programming on Monday night.
In his apology, which was strikingly heartfelt and anguished, Murdoch criticized the Fox personality Bret Baier for “disseminating information that was recklessly and unforgivably true.”
“As long as I live and breathe, this will not stand,” he said.
Murdoch implored Fox’s viewers to ignore “this embarrassing incident” and instead focus on the network’s “long-standing record of gaslighting and mendacity.”
Hoping to earn back its viewers’ trust tonight, Fox will air a three-hour special, “Crime of the Century: Joe Biden’s Fifteen Hundred Boxes in Chinatown.”
WaPo: Arkansas federal judge blocks first ban on gender-affirming care U.S. district judge in Arkansas issued a permanent injunction against a state law that banned trans youth and their families from seeking gender-affirming medical care
By Anne Branigin / June 20, 2023
A federal judge has struck down a 2021 Arkansas law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth, forbidding the enforcement of the nation’s first law blocking medical treatment for transitioning young people.
U.S. District Judge James Moody of the Eastern District of Arkansas ruled the law unconstitutional, saying it violated the rights of doctors and discriminated against transgender people. Gender-affirming medical care includes such treatments as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The law also prohibited doctors from referring trans youth to other providers for gender-affirming care.
Moody’s closely watched ruling marks the first time a federal court has decided the legality of such bans, which have been taken up by a growing number of state legislatures in recent years. As of June 20, at least 20 additional states have enacted restrictions or bans on gender-affirming care, according to data compiled by the ACLU. Florida’s effort to limit such care for trans youth has also severely restricted access to transition-related care for adults.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement posted on Twitter that in his ruling “Judge Moody misses what is widely known: There is no scientific evidence that any child will benefit from these procedures, while the consequences are harmful and often permanent. We will appeal to the Eighth Circuit.”
… leading medical associations, including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, all recommend transgender youth be able to access this kind of health care.
[…]
This is the first federal court ruling on a categorical ban on gender-affirming care and follows rulings in Florida, Alabama and Indiana blocking enforcement of those bans while challenges against them proceed.
[…]
In his decision [full text] Tuesday, he wrote: “Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancing.”
A doctor in Tennessee has lost his medical license after a local news investigation revealed he was selling bogus COVID-19 vaccination waivers to essentially anyone—including patients he had never met, patients in far-flung states, and one black Labrador retriever named Charlie.
In a consent order signed May 16, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners determined Robert Coble had violated state statutes on the grounds of “unprofessional, dishonorable, or unethical conduct,” and “making false statements or representations, being guilty of fraud or deceit … in the practice of medicine.” …
At least one Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter is flying with what appears to be a new and previously unseen kind of underwing pylon system. While we currently don’t know the exact purpose of this pylon, it raises some very interesting questions, especially bearing in mind the previous adaptations that have been made to the MiG-29 (and other Soviet-era combat aircraft) to allow them to carry new weapons of Western origin.
Especially intriguing is the origin of this photo. It was posted today to the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian Air Force, together with the caption “New day — new challenges!” That phrase could well suggest that some new kind of capability is being used. Either way, the fact that the Ukrainian Air Force chose to publicize this particular photo also indicates they are happy to show something of that new capability, whatever it might be…
John Eastman, the Trump-allied lawyer who created a memo arguing that then-Vice President Mike Pence could overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, is set to face disciplinary hearings starting Tuesday in Los Angeles.
The counsel for the State Bar of California is asking a court to revoke Eastman’s license to practice law in the state. Eastman faces 11 disciplinary charges alleging he engaged in a plot to push a far-fetched legal strategy for Pence to overturn Biden’s victory as a joint session of Congress counted the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors alleged that Eastman made false and misleading statements with his baseless claims of widespread election fraud, including his remarks at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse shortly before the Capitol attack…
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #214…
I’m will to go with “frustrations”. The evangelicals are frustrated that the rest of the country doesn’t want the sort of restrictive laws that they are pushing. And to be fair, it’s likely that most of the evangelicals wouldn’t actually want to live under the sort of laws they claim to want.
Last Friday, Russian sources reported that Ukrainian armor had begun moving toward Pyatykhatky. As with so many locations in Ukraine, there are multiple settlements of that name, including a small city of around 20,000. This isn’t that Pyatykhatky. This is a village of a few hundred people, almost all of them living in homes that lie along one central street. It’s located about 3 kilometers from what had been the front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces for the last year, just southwest of Kamyansk and less than a kilometer from the even smaller village of Lobkove, which Ukraine officially liberated last week.
Earlier, there had been reports that Russian forces, fleeing from the fighting at Lobkove, had actually abandoned Pyatykhatky. However, Ukraine made no immediate move to bring its forces into the village, so Russia crept back and prepared their positions there.
On Friday, Russian sources reported that Ukraine was again advancing, but sent reassuring messages that they were holding their positions and still in complete control of Pyatykhatky. A few hours later, the same Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces were entrenching on the northern edge of the village. However, Russian troops were still holding their positions. A couple of hours after that, they reported that Ukraine had partial control of the village. But Russia was holding its positions.
By Saturday morning, Russian Telegram was confidently reporting on how they were directing artillery into the Ukrainian-controlled town of Pyatykhatky. And, of course, holding their positions. [map at the link]
A summary of this four-stage report:
– They are attacking, but we are holding.
– They are at the edge of the village, but we are holding.
– They are in the village, but we are holding.
– They control all the village, but we are holding … from a distance.
It’s both amusing and instructive. There have been multiple reports at locations all along the front of Russian forces abandoning positions and retreating to locations closer to their actual defensive lines. However, these have rarely been followed by reports that Ukraine has moved immediately into these areas. There are at least three good reasons for this.
First, many of the reports are likely false. For months in advance of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian forces have seemed to be in a state of nearly constant dread. That they, once they started running, might run until they reach a position of some apparent safeness seems understandable. However, it’s just as likely that the panic on the side of both Russian forces and Russian sources causes them to immediately cry disaster. […]
Second, Ukraine seems to be moving very methodically. There are certainly places, such as the area just north of Robotyne, where things are definitely not going according to plan. No one back in Kyiv wrote a note that said “deposit Leopard tanks and Bradley IFVs here.” But in general, everyone in the Ukrainian military seems to be on the same page, the page that says, “Don’t rush forward and risk a disaster to make things move quickly. Take it slow. Take it carefully. Win.”
Third: Mines. The density of mines in the area where fighting is now taking place, in what Russia is passing off as “the gray zone,” appears to be surprising even to the Ukrainian forces. [Tweet and Image at the link. the image shows a shocking number of mines.]
The level of mines is great enough that Ukraine is not moving until it is prepared to do so in a way that clears those mines, providing lanes through which armor can advance. [Tweet and video. the video shows a Russian minefield in Ukraine’s south being cleared using an American M58 MICLIC rocket=projected mine-clearing line charge.]
In that advance toward Robotyne back on June 10, multiple Leopard 2 tanks that had been modified for mine clearing were damaged, and one or two were likely lost (though they reportedly did a good job of protecting their crews). Ukraine now seems to be making more use of systems like the U.S.-made M58 above, or the Soviet equivalent, the UR-77 “Meteorite.” [Tweet and video]
It’s difficult to tell whether these systems are as quick or as effective as mine-clearing tanks, and it’s certain the first vehicles through the corridors opened with these tools will be those equipped to deal with any remaining mines. However, these remote systems look to be safer when it comes to exposing both equipment and crews to the danger of hitting those mines, or from being slowed to a near stop while still in range of Russian artillery.
There’s another lesson from Pyatykhatky, and it may be even more important. It’s the part that happened next.
On Sunday, Russian sources once again began talking about the village. This time, they claimed that Russian forces had regrouped at the next village to the south, Zherebyanky. Then Russian forces reported that they had surged out of Zherebyanky, counter-counterattacked Pyatykhatky, and retaken the village. Big huzzahs all across Russian social media.
The problem with Russia’s good news coda is that it didn’t happen. Or at least most of it didn’t happen.
It seems that Russian forces did regroup at Zherebyanky, and they did launch an attempt to retake Pyatykhatky, only that attempt failed disastrously. The road between the two villages swiftly became a scrap yard of destroyed Russian vehicles. Ukrainian artillery easily began punching away at not just the Russian armor along the road, but the forces massed inside Zherebyanky. By Monday not only was Ukraine still in possession of Pyatykhatky, they were forming up to attack Zherebyanky—an operation that is reportedly underway now.
Once again, Russia is insisting on pouring everything into defending an area ahead of its defensive line. Not only that, it’s stripping local areas of resources in the effort, making it unclear exactly who will be available to defend those lines when Ukraine reaches them. Which will be soon.
This strategy, if it is a strategy, is utterly bizarre.
RUSSIA’S KA-52 HELICOPTERS ARE GOING DOWN
When looking at the issues that are slowing Ukraine’s advance in Zaporizhzhia, there’s another big item on the list in addition to strategy–mines–and Russia’s incomprehensible defense. The fourth speedbump is Russia’s fleet of Kamov KA-52 “Alligator” helicopters, which Russia has promoted as “flying tanks.”
From the first day that Ukraine began the counteroffensive, those heavily armored single-seat gunships have reportedly been rushing forward in waves, multiple times a day, sometimes in company of other types of helicopters, to spray unguided missiles into Ukrainian positions. They may not be accurate, but they have been coming in numbers and making such frequent sorties that they’ve become a significant issue. [Tweet and video at the link]
On Saturday, The Guardian reported on the destruction these helicopter raids were doing among Ukrainian forces and how difficult they were making it to advance. “There are constant attacks from helicopters, three or four times a day,” one soldier in the area reported.
The KA-52 in particular was reported to be difficult to shoot down. The helicopters are flying low, barely above treetops, popping up only long enough to fire their missiles while surrounded by a spray of protective flares. Then they are down low again, heading back to reload for another run. The speed, altitude, and distance of the attacks made it difficult for Ukrainian forces to deal with this constant overhead threat.
The KA-52’s armor also means that the kind of close-by explosion that might take out their thin-skinned relatives is shrugged off by the Alligator. Another part of the helicopter’s design makes it extra tough. Most helicopters have one set of spinning blades. Those blades create a significant amount of torque, which would spin the helicopter around in circles except that the torque is offset by the blades on the tail. The KA-52 has two sets of counter-rotating blades. That means it doesn’t immediately go into a spin when it takes a hit to the tail, as do many helicopters. A KA-52 without the tail rotor can’t maneuver well, but it remains flyable and controllable. [Tweet and video at the link]
Russian state media has clamped onto the Alligator as Russia’s front-line hero in Zaporizhzhia, crediting the helicopter with killing multiple Leopard Tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles that were actually damaged when hitting mines. However, something is wrong with Russia’s hometown hero. Like … they’re starting to fall at a pretty incredible rate. [Tweet at the link. “[…] downing another Ka-52 in the Donetsk region.’]
As the Kyiv Post reports, a big part of this seems to be simply experience and plenty of MANPADS available to front line forces.
“The pilot of the Russian helicopter… was moving… at an altitude of less than twenty meters, and the distance to the Ukrainian positions was more than four kilometers… so ‘Putin’s vulture’ felt almost invulnerable… The missile fired from the Igla MANPADS hit the tail projection of the helicopter. Later, ‘Lyto’ and his brothers watched a picturesque picture: the vaunted twin-rotor “Alligator”, leaving behind a trail of greasy thick smoke, began to sharply lose [altitude] and disappeared from sight in a few seconds.”
That KA-52 may well be the one seen flying tailless in the video above. Even if it limped back to base somewhere, it won’t be returning to action soon. The number of such reports of KA-52s damaged or downed has been ticking along like clockwork over the last week, with two KA-52 reportedly taken down on Sunday, another on Monday.
Originally, Russia built about 200 of the KA-52. Oryx documents 35 lost in Ukraine. That doesn’t include any of those lost during the last two weeks of the counteroffensive, but it does include some that were taken out on the ground by long-range attacks.
There have been at least two videos of KA-52s stuck on the ground because of rust and corrosion to the airframe—not a great look for a helicopter that’s only been in service for two decades. Additionally, there are videos showing that the twin-rotor system is intolerant of manufacturing flaws or maintenance errors, leading to a high degree of shaking that can render the aircraft unusable. A lot of these helicopters have been enjoying the Russian weather over the last two decades, left out winter and summer, before being hauled to Ukraine.
Somewhere just over half the original KA-52s may have been in flyable condition at the invasion’s outset. Subtract those 35 at Oryx, then remove another 25 to 30 which have been lost since the date of his last cataloged loss. When those that are now dead on the runway are added in, it’s uncertain how many remain in flying shape is unknown. Likely no more than 50. Maybe considerably fewer.
Right now, the KA-52 remains a threat to Ukrainian front-line forces. If Russia hoards them carefully, the remaining Alligators could still take a big bite of an advancing Ukrainian force without air support at a critical time. Only Russia doesn’t seem to be shepherding these forces any more closely than anything else. When the critical time arrives, the Russian Alligator may be extinct. [Tweet and video at the link]
Reports of the destruction of Russian equipment at Zherebyanky keep growing. It’s starting to sound like Vuhledar, take two. [video at the link]
There are multiple reports that Russia has mined the cooling system at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant. I’m trying to determine if there is anything to these reports and what it might mean.
Followup to Reginald @117, plus followup to speculation about Russia mining the cooling system of a nuclear plant.
Posted by readers of the Ukraine Update article quoted in comment 218:
The cholera-like bacteria vibrio, which local health authorities said can cause acute intestinal infections, has been found in several rivers and estuaries following the devastating collapse of Kakhovka dam.
To clarify: The bacterial genus Vibrio includes many different species. Cholera is caused by the species Vibrio cholerae. Several other species of Vibrio can cause acute intestinal illnesses that may resemble cholera.
———————–
Vibrio can also infect wounds. In 20+ years of doing wound care, the fastest I ever saw somebody head South was a guy who cut his foot while getting his boat on a trailer. He was in salt water and so he just dried the wound off and covered it with antibiotic ointment. He was awakened by horrible pain and went to the ER. 3 weeks of IV antibiotics and numerous debridements he left the hospital with his leg and life. It was by no means clear he would leave with either about 28 hours after the cut.
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if Russians blow up the ZNPP cooling system there’s no telling what will happen. I doubt whether it would be as bad as Chernobyl because ZNPP has light-water reactors, but it’d be quite bad — worse than Fukushima.
DW has published Clare Roth’s story “Zaporizhzhia: What would happen if there was an accident?” on the topic.
We’re talking Putin’s Russia, and unfortunately I’m expecting them to commit yet another major war crime here.
—————————
It will be bad. There will be no containing it. Fire. Explosions. Leaks into the river. It will poison everything downstream and downwind. There will be no controlling it.
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Firstly ZNPP is in cold shutdown, so the reactors aren’t in a state where they can go critical, nor is the spent fuel. A meltdown could happen without cooling water, but that mainly means the fuel rods in the reactor or in the pools would melt, and while that would be a local environment catastrophy, it’s not a China Syndrome—nor would the reactors be if they melted down. Chernobyl spread most of it’s radiation throughout Europe due to the fire in the reactor and after the explosion liberated radioactive isotopes. ZNPP is in a very different situation. Short of the Russian’s triggering one of their own nuclear weapons within the facility, Europe is not threatened by them sabotaging the plant.
Secondly, combat around ZNPP is just as risky as if the Russian’s sabotage and blow the plant up.
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Russia might try to work a manufactured crisis to get a pause in fighting, only agreeing to outside support under that condition. The biggest immediate concern is that the Russians are incompetent, and efforts to create a manageable crisis could easily get out of hand. Then, if the demand for a cease in hostilities is not met, they would try to blame the West for the ensuing catastrophe.
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Regardless of its operational status the plant needs to be cooled to stay cool. It the cooling system suffers an irremedial failure, it will build heat at a certain rate it until that heat causes something else to blow. Eventually what we are looking at is something like Fukashima times six.
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The issue with an incident at nuclear power stations is that it’s ultimate effects cannot necessarily be predicted from the scale of the initial fault.
[…] I really think that, when the ZNPP comes into play, Ukraine will give it a wide birth, surround it, and wait it out, offering favourable terms to any occupiers inside, all handled through a 3rd party (probably the IAEA). It’s not right, it’s not just, but the stakes are too high. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe CANNOT be risked in any way whatsoever. Unfortunately Russia is well aware of this.
With subreddits tagged NSFW, in addition to applying an age gate for desktop viewers and restricting access […] in the Reddit app, Reddit also doesn’t show ads. This cuts into its ability to monetize them
[…]
moderators of r/MildlyInteresting moved […] to NSFW after a user vote. However, […] Reddit-employed administrators […] were involved: […] the entire mod team was removed […] eventually being reinstated.
[…]
other newly NSFW subs that lost their mods Thursday still don’t have them. r/interestingasfuck (11 million subscribers), r/TIHI (1.7 million subscribers), and r/ShittyLifeProTips (1.6 million subscribers) […] are currently unmoderated.
KGsays
Kennedy repeated an Alex Jones-addled conspiracy theory that chemicals in the water were “turning the frogs gay.” Kermit was no longer sexually interested in Miss Piggy. He just found her fabulous. – Lynna, OM@207 quoting wonkette
Great Sasha Velour interview and discussion of Drag here :
By many measures, drag is more popular than ever. At the same time, there’s a growing number of states passing or debating laws to restrict or ban the art form. But what is drag? And what does it represent to those who create it? One of today’s reigning queens explains the significance to Jeffrey Brown for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.
Unlike other impeachment efforts, Boebert said, hers uses a procedural tactic that requires the House to hold a floor vote.
“I am bringing my articles of impeachment against Joe Biden to the House Floor in a privileged motion, meaning that every Member of Congress must vote on holding Joe Biden accountable,” Boebert tweeted…
I am surprised Boebert would have the knowledge and the power to do that.
…
So when Missouri’s abortion ban took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Barnes and Taves decided to fight back. Along with rabbis and ministers across several denominations, they joined a first-of-its-kind lawsuit arguing Missouri blurred the line between church and state, imposed a particular Christian idea of when life begins over the beliefs of other denominations, and threatened their ability to practice their religions.
As the nation nears the one year anniversary of the fall of Roe, the Missouri case is one of nearly a dozen challenges to abortion restrictions filed by clergy members and practitioners of everything from Judaism to Satanism that are now making their way through state and federal courts — a strategy that aims to restore access to the procedure and chip away at the assumption that all religious people oppose abortion.
In fact, many of the lawsuits are wielding religious protection laws enacted by anti-abortion state officials to target those officials’ own restrictions on the procedure…
@Reginald Selkirk 224
I think that’s the kind of thing they’re better at than policy. Their habitual motivational instincts are better for sneaky ways of getting around things. And she probably had help.
It seems that ProPublica—the investigative outlet that outlined how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury travel and other gifts from a Texas billionaire—has recently been looking into Justice Samuel Alito, and Alito is not happy about it. The justice is so upset, in fact, that he took to the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to issue a rebuttal to a story that hasn’t even run yet—which is absolutely wild behavior for a man in his position.
We don’t know all the accusations yet as, again, the story hasn’t been published, but Alito says ProPublica will make the case that he should have recused himself in cases where Paul Singer, a billionaire hedge fund manager, was connected to an entity that had business at the Supreme Court. Therefore, he should have listed gifts from Singer on his 2008 disclosure forms. Alito disagrees with these claims, saying that he didn’t know Singer was connected to any cases before the court because his ties were through shell corporations, like LLCs. He also attempts to explain that it’s totally fine and normal for him to have accepted a seat on private flight to Alaska and a stay at the King Salmon Lodge for a 2008 fishing trip. Why? The private jet was already flying there, and the lodge was “modest” and “rustic” and only served “homestyle” food. I’m serious. I truly have to print Alito’s reasoning: …
Former Del. Lashrecse Aird was projected to win the Democratic primary in a key Virginia state Senate race, according to The Associated Press, unseating the controversial state Sen. Joe Morrissey (D) in a contest that focused largely on abortion.
Aird was backed by a slew of high-profile Democrats in the state, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who were determined to oust the scandal-plagued Morrissey, one of the rare “pro-life” Democrats still serving…
A highlight of Tuesday’s proceedings was Eastman’s attempt to call a man named Joseph Fried as an expert witness. Fried is a public accountant who wrote an eBook that questioned the legitimacy of Biden’s presidential win. California State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland saw right through the strange request.
“I don’t see how Mr. Fried is qualified to be an expert,” she told Eastman, according to an NPR reporter in the courtroom. “He has no experience in voting or election matters.”
State bar attorney Duncan Carling agreed. “We don’t believe the opinion of a CPA… is relevant,” he said, adding that the accountant “never identified any instances of fraud” in the election…
Former Virginia state Sen. Glen Sturtevant narrowly defeated incumbent state Sen. Amanda Chase, who has described herself as “Trump in heels,” in the GOP Virginia state Senate primary Tuesday, according to projections.
The Associated Press called the race for Sturtevant around 8:55 p.m. EDT…
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) announced Wednesday that she is running for Delaware’s vacant Senate seat…
She officially filed paperwork Tuesday to run for the seat, which is being vacated by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who announced last month he wouldn’t be seeking another term.
Carper, who signaled during his announcement last month that he wanted Blunt Rochester to run, endorsed her Wednesday shortly after her campaign announcement…
A Western North Carolina congressional candidate backed by President Donald Trump has been sentenced for a federal campaign finance violation.
Lynda Bennett of Haywood County received probation and is to pay $7,600 in fines and assessments after hiding a $25,000 illegal loan, according to a June 20 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Christopher R. Cooper for the District of Columbia.
Federal prosecutors had recommended that sentence for Bennett, 65, who lost in a 2020 GOP primary runoff to Madison Cawthorn, the eventual general election winner and one-term congressman…
tomhsays
Re: #227
That ProPublica piece on Alito has now been published here
Donald Trump says the nation’s global standing is one of our most important issues. If that’s true, he’s effectively telling voters not to support him.
Fox News’ Bret Baier began his interview with Donald Trump this week with the same first question the host asks every 2024 presidential candidate: “What do you think is the most important issue facing the country right now?”
The Republican talked about the economy, border security, and what he described as getting “the woke out of our military,” whatever that meant. But the former president eventually turned his attention on a broader point of concern.
“Basically, respect all over the world. We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect three years ago. We don’t have respect anymore. They don’t listen to us. They don’t care about us. They just don’t do what we want them to do and what they have to do, especially since we make life very good for many countries. And we have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we’ve got some big problems.”
[I think I can hear laughing.]
Though it doesn’t generally receive a lot of attention, this has long been one of Trump’s curious preoccupations. At a campaign event in 2020, for example, the then-incumbent turned his attention to one of his very favorite falsehoods: “You know, we’re respected again. You may not feel it, although I think you do. You may not see it. You don’t read about it from the fake news, but this country is respected again.”
As regular readers know, it has long been foundational to the Republican’s worldview: The United States was an international laughingstock for decades, Trump has long argued, but thanks to how awesome his awesomeness is, he singlehandedly restored the nation’s global stature. It was a ridiculous idea he brought up constantly, seeing it as one of his most important accomplishments.
Even in his strange farewell address, delivered on his final full day in the White House, Trump found it necessary, one last time, to boast to Americans, “The world respects us again.” In an apparent message for his Democratic successor, the Republican added, “Please don’t lose that respect.”
None of this made any sense. After roughly 46% of American voters put Trump in the White House, the nation’s international stature collapsed. Remember this Washington Post report from 2020?
New data from Pew Research Center shows that many of the countries that have traditionally been the United States’ closest allies are now far less likely to view the country with approval. In 11 countries for which there are more than five years of data, the percentage of people viewing the United States with approval is at a recorded low in nine. The median percentage expressing favorable views of the United States across each of the countries surveyed is also at a record low, with about a third of respondents holding a favorable view.
[…] global support for the White House was high during Barack Obama’s terms, but then collapsed after the Democrat was replaced by Trump.
[…] The good news is, after President Joe Biden took office, the United States’ standing sharply improved. A Gallup report found in 2021 that approval ratings of U.S. leadership around the world “largely rebounded from the record-low ratings observed during the Trump administration.” […]
A year later, Gallup released another report on the United States’ standing among NATO members, concluding that U.S. leadership in the Biden era “was stronger across much of NATO than it had been in years, after languishing at low levels during the Trump administration.”
And yet, there was Trump on Fox News this week, insisting that we no longer have “respect all over the world.” […]
Makes You Miss Scalia
This is just an unbelievable course of conduct by a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last evening a head-scratcher of an op-ed appeared in the conservative-friendly confines of the WSJ opinion page, authored by Justice Samuel Alito himself.
It turned out to be an effort by Alito to get ahead of an as-then-yet-to-be-published ProPublica investigative piece about unreported travel and accommodations Alito received on an Alaska fishing trip while a justice. ProPublica published its report later in the evening.
Rather than commenting to ProPublica when it reached out to him for its story, Alito ran to his buddies at the WSJ and launched his defense there, which included a broadside against ProPublica.
A sycophantic editor’s note sat atop the Alito op-ed, with snarky quotes impugning ProPublica (whose founder is former longtime WSJ managing editor Paul Steiger):
Editor’s note: Justin Elliott and Josh Kaplan of ProPublica, which styles itself “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force,” emailed Justice Alito Friday with a series of questions and asked him to respond by noon EDT Tuesday. They informed the justice that “we do serious, fair, accurate reporting in the public interest and have won six Pulitzer Prizes.”
(I should note that ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott is a TPM alum.)
The op-ed itself is classic Alito: a bundle of peevish insecurity, paranoid defensiveness, hyper-technical word play, and utter lack of self awareness.
My favorite Alito “defense” is his claim that the seat aboard billionaire Paul Singer’s private plane would have otherwise been unoccupied so no additional expense was involved in hauling Alito to Alaska: [Tweet at the link]
I’ll let you dig in to the ProPublica piece and make your own judgment, in part so you can see the Alito fishing pics: [Tweets and photos at the link … they caught really big fish.]
For what it’s worth, I read the ProPublica piece less as an indictment of Alito for failure to report or of the lax ethics rules binding Supreme Court justices and more as a window into the corrupt project to swing the court towards the right:
Leonard Leo, the longtime leader of the conservative Federalist Society, attended and helped organize the Alaska fishing vacation. Leo invited Singer to join, according to a person familiar with the trip, and asked Singer if he and Alito could fly on the billionaire’s jet. Leo had recently played an important role in the justice’s confirmation to the court. Singer and the lodge owner were both major donors to Leo’s political groups.
What it reads to me as: Leonard Leo was trotting out his newly confirmed show pony Samuel Alito in front of the megadonors who fund the conservative legal movement. No amount of ethics rules and regs will crack the foundational corruption of that effort.
Mark Sumner wrote about the place yesterday, in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, on the road to Melitopol. It’s a tiny nothing kind of place. Its name literally translates to “five huts,” and it’s close to being accurate. Yet after liberating the settlement over the weekend, Russia has been furiously counterattacking it. And that’s weird for one simple reason.
Pyatykhatky is the last settlement before Ukraine hits Russia’s first lines of defense around Zherebyanky. As such, all Russia has to do is sit in those covered, protected positions, under cover of artillery and extensive minefields, and dare Ukraine to push forward. And if Ukraine does, and clears one of those lines, there’s plenty more behind those.
This is the most heavily defended corner of the map. Both Russia and Ukraine know that if Ukraine punches through here, Russia is in deep trouble. But getting through those lines will be a long, bloody slog under the best conditions. Or maybe not, because Russia is sacrificing its men and equipment out in the open fields between Pyatykhatky and Zherebyanky! [Tweets and videos at the link]
We’re seeing this all over the front: Ukraine picking off counterattacking Russians out in the open field, obviating the need to destroy them in protected positions.
So why are they doing this? There can only be two reasons:
Political: Putin doesn’t suffer any lost territory, and is demanding Russia take back anything lost. He claims this is Russia, after all, having illegally annexed the region. Or some local generals want to ingratiate themselves by heroically taking back what is claimed. Either way, the end goal is the same: Make Putin happy.
Military: Perhaps Russia has no faith in its prepared defenses, and literally thinks it can do a better job of halting the Ukrainian advance out in the open. Ukrainian artillery outranges Russia’s, and their Western gear is more accurate. Maybe they feel like sitting ducks in those trenches, or maybe they’re undermanned, or maybe they just don’t know how to properly use them. There’s an art and a science to proper defensive emplacements, with overlapping fields of fire and vantage points, etc.
Whatever the reason, so long as Russia keeps fighting ahead of its defensive lines, it will certainly slow the Ukrainian advance, but not in any way that ultimately delivers Russia’s war aims. Just like bombing civilian rather than military targets, Russia is failing War Fighting 101.
Meanwhile, one retired Ukrainian general is claiming that Russia has thrown 90% of its reserves into stopping the Ukrainian advance, while Ukraine has only committed 25% of its forces. The latter is clear enough. We’ve only seen three of the 12 Western-equipped storm brigades thus far. If Russia has committed the bulk of its forces already, then things are certainly looking up for Ukraine. I’ll remain skeptical until proven otherwise. As of now, Russia’s tactics may be wasteful and idiotic, but they have effectively slowed the methodical Ukrainian advance.
Ultimately, Ukraine is trying to reach Melitopol, and is pushing into the Vasylivka-Tokmak-Melitopol defensive triangle. […]
Remember, Ukraine is just now approaching the first defensive line. Unless that extensive layered network of defensive trenches are sitting empty, the task ahead is monumental. We have to hope that Ukraine chose to attack directly into this because it knows something that we don’t.
Kind of related: Russia has instituted a curfew in Vasylivka. Ukraine isn’t too far off.
Good news! Some creative accounting just freed up another $6.2 billion in aid for Ukraine. [Tweet and video at the link, with details concerning a Pentagon recalculation of aid provided so far, finding that it overestimated the cost by $6.2 billion.]
Despite the MAGA teeth-gnashing, the bulk of our aid to Ukraine has been surplus gear that was in storage or being phased out. It’s saving us money not having to keep this stuff around. Yet since the war began, the Pentagon was counting the replacement value of the equipment, rather than its book value. It would be like donating your 30-year-old Honda to charity, then claiming a tax writeoff for the cost of a brand new Honda.
That $6.2 billion isn’t just a nice chunk of change for Ukraine, but with the proper revised accounting, that money will go further. So how about a couple hundred more M2 Bradleys, and lots and lots of new tanks? [Tweet: “An American accounting error is the size of most European countries air forces.]
A new aid package will be announced today. It will likely be more ammunition, as Ukraine can’t get enough ordinance. But it sure would be nice to get some new hardware into the mix.
The reason the U.S. hasn’t offered anything more than replacement vehicles is likely simple: logistics and training. Ukraine simply doesn’t have the capacity to support more Western gear at this time. Ukraine certainly isn’t publicly asking for more armor. Its public pleas are for more air defenses and F-16 fighter jets.
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Ford released its 2024 Super Bowl commercial early [LOL]: [Tweet and video at the link: “Fighters of the 406th Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces Navy on a night combat mission to destroy a Russian tank.” The artillery is pulled by a Ford truck. Good video.]
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Footage of a daytime HIMARS strike on a Russian base. [Tweet and video at the link] How did Ukraine discover this base? Apparently, some helpful Russian soldiers posted some easily geolocated pictures.
Less than a month ago, Marianne Williamson’s longshot presidential campaign suffered a setback when the self-help guru’s campaign manager and deputy manager resigned. Soon after, The Daily Beast reported that “at least 10 staffers” had left Williamson’s operation. This week, we learned that her latest campaign manager has also parted ways with the Democrat.
May more staffing difficulties befall her until she finally gives up and leaves the race.
[…] Singer didn’t just happen to going to Alaska. He was going to Alaska specifically to spend quality time with Sam Alito. The whole thing had been arranged by The Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, who asked Singer if he and Alito could fly up with him on his private jet.
And here’s where the whole picture starts to come into focus — both the Alito story and the Thomas ones. Needless to say, none of these billionaires are just old friends in the sense you or I might recognize. […] they didn’t just glom on to their justice on their own. Everyone here is part of Leo’s network. Harlan Crow is a big Republican donor but also a big Federalist Society donor. So is Paul Singer. So is the owner of the fishing lodge. […]
As I said, the full picture starts to come into focus. Somewhat like some colleges or the service academies match a sponsor family with first-year students or cadets, Leo seemed to do that with incoming Supreme Court justices. […]
As we’ve noted before, there’s a long arc of the Federalist Society’s role placing justices on the Court. […] We focus a lot on the pipeline the Federalist Society created to place ideologically true justices first on the appellate courts and then finally on the Supreme Court. What gets much less focus and what these stories highlight is the way the justices are essentially kept by the Federalist Society and the sponsor families once they ascend to the Court. It makes you wonder: which families got assigned to Neil, Brett and Amy?
In any case, it’s probably wrong to see this too much in transactional terms. Certainly, all of these lavish gifts should be reported and the justices should recuse themselves when cases arise dealing with their “close friends.” But the larger issue is the way the justices remain “kept” in perpetuity by the right-wing activist donor network that placed them on the Court in the first place. […]
[…] what we see here — the sponsor families, the kept justices — is an essential part of the corruption of the current Supreme Court.
This week, President Joe Biden will host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state dinner — only the third foreign leader to receive such an honor at the Biden White House, the other two being the presidents of France and South Korea. They have a lot to talk about: A White House statement on the meeting has a long list of discussion topics, including climate change and security in the Indo-Pacific region (read: countering China).
But there’s a word missing from the agenda that is, arguably, the most important of all: democracy.
Since Modi took office in 2014, and especially after winning reelection in 2019, he has systematically taken a hammer to the core institutions of Indian democracy. The prime minister’s government has undermined the independence of the election supervision authority, manipulated judges into ruling in his favor, used law enforcement against his enemies, and increased its control over the Indian press.
The prime minister’s anti-democratic behavior has accelerated over time. In the past year alone, Modi’s government has:
– Expelled the leader of the opposition party, Rahul Gandhi, from parliament after he was sentenced to two years of prison for allegedly defaming the prime minister with a joke.
– Taken over one of the few remaining independent television stations through a crooked billionaire ally.
– Created an official panel empowered to take down social media posts critical of the government.
– Sent tax officials to raid the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, a move widely seen as retaliation for a documentary critical of Modi.
Being in power has become self-reinforcing for Modi. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has used its electoral dominance to silence critics and stack the electoral deck against his opponents, making the upcoming 2024 parliamentary election a significant uphill climb for other parties. That vote is shaping up to be critical for India’s democratic future.
[…] This assault on democracy is a deeply ideological project. The BJP is the electoral offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a radical Hindu nationalist organization to which Modi has belonged since he was 8 years old. Christophe Jaffrelot, a leading India scholar at France’s Sciences Po, told me that its ideology amounts to “an Indian version of fascism.”
[…] The easiest way to understand what Modi has done to India is to see it as kind of a mutually reinforcing cycle of two different agendas.
The first is using the powers of the premiership to spread Hindutva ideology and polarize the electorate along Hindu-versus-Muslim lines. The second is consolidating power in his hands and weakening countervailing authorities — including the judiciary, oversight commissions, the free press, and opposition parties.
The more the Hindu public is converted to his ideology, the more popular Modi becomes, providing him political cover to pursue attacks on judges, bureaucrats, and reporters. The more he controls India’s government and the press, the easier it is for him to spread Hindutva propaganda.
[…] The party’s success at selling its Hindutva narrative since Modi’s ascension is not the only part of this story, but it has been an essential one. Modi and state-level BJP leaders have relentlessly hammered Hindutva themes in their speeches and pursued policies undermining Muslim rights and inflaming Hindu anxieties about their Muslim neighbors.
[…] In effect, the BJP has used the power of the state to convince Hindus that what unites them against Muslims is more important than what divides them among each other.
One especially egregious example is the so-called “love jihad,” a conspiracy theory that Muslim men are seeking to marry Hindu women as part of an organized plot to convert them to Islam and erode India’s Hindu majority — a pernicious myth that has led to the arrest of Muslim men. Modi and other BJP officials have even promoted a film spreading this idea.
Research suggests these anti-Muslim efforts have deeply affected public attitudes and, even more ominously, behavior. A 2022 paper by Varshney shows a spike in lynchings of Muslims that coincides almost exactly with Modi taking power.
[…] Some of Modi’s tactics involve clever legislation. Take campaign finance: Under Modi, Parliament set up a new system that allows for unlimited donations through the purchasing of electoral bonds — a system that all but announces to wealthy donors that the government knows which party you gave money to.
[…] The recent state-level conviction of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his subsequent expulsion from Parliament speak to the way that both law enforcement and the legal system have been politicized across the board.
Tax enforcement plays a similar role. When a leader of the independent Election Commission voted to penalize Modi for hate speech on the campaign trail in 2019, he swiftly came under tax investigations — as did his sister, wife, and son.
[…] it is also important to note that Indian democracy is not dead yet. There are upcoming scheduled elections in 2024, and there is a chance — unlikely, but a real one — that Modi may go the way of Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
That the BJP can still lose elections has been demonstrated by recent state-level defeats, like in the fiercely contested 2021 West Bengal election. India’s federal system means that state governments have a reasonable amount of power.
And even at the national level, opposition parties still retain some capacity to get their message out.
[…] A slide toward Hindu nationalist authoritarianism in India doesn’t serve America’s interests, especially given the ever-present risk of conflict with nuclear-armed Pakistan. And the contradiction between the administration’s soaring rhetoric about democracy and its relative quiet about the world’s most important instance of democratic backsliding is glaring.
There are some actions the administration could take that could matter at the margins — at the very least, by suggesting during the upcoming state dinner and future engagements that there might be some cost if Modi takes things too far.
But at the same time, the United States’s ability to change the course of Indian domestic politics should not be overstated. What happens in India will ultimately be determined by what Indians decide to do in 2024 and beyond — choices that, given India’s size and rising influence, will have profound consequences for the future of democracy around the world.
Saturday was a big night for Donald Trump. He was heading back to Fox to sit down with Bret Baier to show America’s enraged senior citizens he’s still got it. His face was caked with orange goo, his combover was neatly parted a millimeter above his left ear, and his signature red tie dangled several inches below his groin. […]
And then … he whiffed it. No, that’s too generous. Honestly, what is the word for going on television and admitting that, yes, you did realize you had classified documents in your pool locker, and, no, you didn’t give them back when the government asked, and, yes, you knew they weren’t yours, but actually you were far too busy for 18 straight months to go through the stuff you stole on the way out of the White House and pull out your golf sweaters and commemorative Time Magazine covers, so, yes, you did fail to comply with a grand jury subpoena?
Hindenberg-ed? Is that a word?
We’ve had a good laugh at Baier growing a pair and telling Trump to his face that he lost the election, although he made up for it later by calling Hunter Biden a drug dealer on air. And speaking of drug dealers, check out this clip flagged by the Daily Beast. [video at the link]
Trump begins by dissing his wife and praising China. As you do.
Seems Melon was “in charge of a blue ribbon committee” stacked with “socialites” that considered the problem of addiction in America. But Trump asked Xi Jinping “Do you have a drug problem?” and Xi said “No, no, no, I do not have a drug problem … because we immediately give a quick trial and a death penalty to drug dealers.” (Bullshit.)
“A drug dealer will kill approximately 500 people during the course of his or her life,” Trump babbled on, repeating claims debunked long ago when he previously advocated for mass murder.
Baier then pointed out that Trump supported the First Step Act in 2018, to reform prison sentencing and help offenders return to society. Of course, this being Fox, Baier highlighted the small percentage of those released who re-offended. But Trump countered by pointing to Alice Johnson, a “high quality” woman who “got like 50 years in jail.” Trump pardoned Johnson in 2020 after Kim Kardashian lobbied him on Johnson’s behalf — an avenue for clemency so improbable that it only served to highlight the hopeless plight of tens of thousands of prisoners who don’t have access to a billionaire celebrity to champion their cause.
“But she’d be killed under your plan,” Baier interrupted.
“Huh?” asked the stunned mango.
“As a drug dealer,” Baier pushed.
“Uhhhh, it would depend on the severity,” Trump demurred, just seconds after scoffing that Americans needed to quit being “babies” and start mass murdering people involved in the drug trade.
“According to your data, she’s technically a former drug dealer. She had a multi-million dollar cocaine ring,” Baier pressed. “So even Alice Johnson in that ad?”
“She wouldn’t have done it if it was death penalty,” Trump blarbled. “In other words, if it was death penalty, she wouldn’t have been on that phone call.”
No one has conclusively proved that the death penalty is a deterrent to violent crime, and indeed a 2018 study showed that the murder rate declined in countries which abolished capital punishment. Whether imposing the death penalty for non-violent drug offenders would act as a deterrent has never been tested, although Trump seems quite certain that it would eradicate the problem. And with it the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive punishments!
Trump went on to say that Johnson “wasn’t much of a dealer” and “got treated terribly,” which is clearly the case. Naturally, he refused to grapple with his own policy prescription which would treat her better by summarily murdering her, although he concedes that perhaps “the country isn’t ready for it.”
He also launched into a disquisition on China’s “weakness” in the 20th century because “they were all drugged out.” Then “things happened and they had strong leadership and things happened and they started to build.” Which is an impressive yadda-yadda-yadda-ing of the Communist Revolution and a strongman state.
“If you speak to President Xi, he would tell you ‘without the death penalty, we would have a non-functioning country,'” said the guy who routinely accuses his enemies of being “MARXIST COMMUNISTS.”
But as always, Trump returned to his favorite subject: his own victimhood, albeit through the prism of a poor Black woman who turned to narcotics distribution in desperation and got a five-decade sentence.
“Honestly, she was treated terribly,” Trump went on. “She was treated sort of like I get treated.”
The former president had no comment on whether the death penalty for violation of the Espionage Act would have been a sufficient deterrent that he wouldn’t have committed the crime 37 times. And strangely, Fox’s very serious journalist Bret Baier never asked.
The Estonian Parliament on Tuesday passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage. This makes Estonia the second Central European country to do so, after Slovenia. The law will come into force on January 1, 2024…
Recently shared Photo by a 🇺🇦#Ukrainian soldier of the 47th mechanized Brigade confirms that 🇷🇺#Russians haven’t recovered the Leopard 2A6, Bradley’s and many other vehicles. The fact that Ukrainian Troops probably secured that area gives the opportunity to recover the vehicles. [Tweet, image and map at the link]
These are the vehicles that Russian propaganda have shared over and over again, from different angles, since the debacle. The fact that they don’t have other footage of destroyed Ukrainian equipment suggests that things have gone better elsewhere along the front.
What’s interesting here is that a Russian soldier took pictures of himself next to the vehicles in broad daylight, suggesting that they’d be able to take the vehicles for themselves. It’s noteworthy that they never did.
Four people have been injured after a man allegedly attacked diners with an axe at several Chinese restaurants in Auckland, New Zealand.
Footage showed people running from one restaurant after witnesses said the man entered and started hitting people at 21:00 local time Monday (09:00 GMT.)
They told local media he was carrying a number of other weapons, including a “hammer-like thing”.
A Chinese national was arrested at the scene, police said.
He has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm. He has not been named and his age has been withheld.
Police said the attack did not appear to be racially motivated and was being treated as an isolated incident…
With a unanimous vote late Tuesday afternoon, members of Davis School District’s Board of Education moved to return the religious text to library shelves for students of all ages.
The highly anticipated reversal comes about one month after a review committee of staff and parents appointed by the district was initially determined that the Bible contained “vulgarity or violence” and should have access limited to just high schools…
Animal welfare workers found 146 dead dogs at the home of an Ohio canine rescue group’s president, according to a news release.
On June 16, the Portage Animal Protective League arrived at the Mantua home with a search warrant, which it obtained “after receiving a tip that an animal cruelty charge was pending” against the homeowner, the organization said in a June 19 release.
“The homeowner is known to be a founding operator of Canine Lifeline, Inc., a nonprofit animal rescue,” the release said.
Inside the home, workers found 146 dogs “in varying stages of decay,” many of them in crates and cages, the organization said. There were no dogs alive on the property.
The organization will carry out necropsies on the dogs to determine their causes of death, according to the release…
Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded vote-by-mail access for people with disabilities — specifically people who are blind or paralyzed and need assistance marking their ballot.
Advocates say Abbott’s veto of House Bill 3159 is a blow for voters with disabilities who have for years called for the Legislature to grant them a way to mark their mail-in ballots without having to rely on anyone else.
Co-authored by state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and state Rep. John H. Bucy III, D-Austin, the bill would have allowed voters who need help casting a ballot, such as people who are visually impaired or are paralyzed, to do so “privately and securely” by requesting an electronic ballot and using a computer to mark their choices. The bill still would have required those voters to print out, sign and return their ballots by mail.
[…]
In a resolution explaining his veto Saturday, Abbott called the intent of the bill “laudable” but said the bill does not limit the use of an electronic and accessible ballot by mail only to voters with disabilities. He says the bill would allow “any voter who qualifies to vote by mail to receive a ballot electronically.”
[…]
“Greg Abbott either didn’t read this bill closely enough to understand what it really does or is deliberately working to make it harder for Texans with disabilities to vote,” Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager for Common Cause Texas, said in a statement.
The way in which some senators are abusing the chamber’s informal rules on “procedural holds” is clearly getting out of hand. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, for example, has imposed a blockade against U.S. military promotions, as part of a tantrum over abortion policy. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is standing in the way of EPA nominees, because he’s upset about how an environmental policy he helped write is being implemented.
And last week, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance announced blanket holds on Justice Department nominees in response to federal prosecutors having the audacity to charge Donald Trump with multiple felonies, just because they have extensive evidence of alleged criminal wrongdoing.
“I think that we have to grind this department to a halt until [Attorney General] Merrick Garland promises to do his job and stop going after his political opponents,” the Ohio freshman declared, indifferent to the fact that (a) Garland is already doing his job; and (b) the attorney general isn’t going after his political opponents.
Okay, that does establish the absurdity factor. But wait, there’s more.
Yesterday, Vance nevertheless seemed eager anew to justify his tantrum — by pointing to Hunter Biden’s plea agreement. “Any other American would have the book thrown at them. The president’s son gets a slap on the wrist,” the Republican senator wrote on Twitter. “This is exhibit 1,402 for why I’m holding Biden’s DOJ nominees. We have a two-tiered justice system in our country. It’s a disgrace.”
Given the relevant details of the underlying case, none of this made any sense. He apparently didn’t care.
Vance’s antics are, however, starting to generate some attention. The Washington Post’s editorial board, for example, concluded last week, “To decry what he wrongly claims is the politicization of law enforcement, Mr. Vance is, well, politicizing law enforcement.”
The editors added, “Senators in both parties need to respect a president’s right to make appointments. It’s unconscionable to treat the people charged with keeping us safe, whether career prosecutors or generals, as pawns in partisan fights.”
Writing in The New York Times today, columnist David Firestone agreed and helped highlight the stakes.
… Mr. Vance must know the Justice Department will never withdraw the indictment of Mr. Trump, so his blockade of the department’s promotions and executive hires could go on indefinitely, no doubt pleasing Mr. Trump and his supporters. Preventing new federal prosecutors from taking their jobs, however, will eventually have a serious effect on the government’s ability to fight federal crimes and should alarm anyone who cares about the rule of law.
When I wrote about this last week, I heard from a handful of readers who pushed back against the idea that “holds” matter: All they do, critics said, is require senators to jump through some procedural hoops ahead of a confirmation vote, by standing in the way of the usual “unanimous consent” steps that allow the institution to function. It’s not as if individual senators can block nominees indefinitely, right?
It’s not quite that simple. As the aforementioned Post editorial explained, “Holds cannot ultimately stop confirmations, but breaking through them requires significant and valuable Senate floor time — typically two or three days per nomination.” [That’s a lot of time! … especially when one considers how many days legislators actually work when compared to how many they take off. “The House works about two days a week and the Senate works a little more than that, according to federal records.” Link ]
Given the number of nominees conservative senators are now holding up, we’re talking about a confirmation process that should take hours, but which would instead take several months.
The obvious solution would be for senators to be more responsible, but if that’s not going to happen, and consequential abuses are going to become more common, it’s apparently time for a larger conversation about reforming the way the chamber does business.
The Hill reported that some Senate Democrats “say they’re ready to take another look at rules reform.” It’s an effort worth watching.
A moment of confusion for Trump. You can see his brain break in real time … and then you can watch him try to recover by spouting a bunch of nonsense accompanied by a few wildly chopping hand gestures.
Video at the link.
Baier points out that people like Alice Johnson, who’s sentence Trump commuted, would be killed under his “death penalty for drug dealers” proposal.
The rightwing censorship advocates at “Moms For Liberty” are taking a little trip down memory lane at the group’s annual meeting, announcing yesterday on Twitter that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will speak at their “Joyful Warriors Summit” in Philadelphia, to be held the last weekend of June. While most of us only became aware of Moms for Censorship as it became a central astroturf player in rightwing efforts to ban books featuring anybody gay (including penguins) and anybody Black (including everybody Black), the group got its start in Florida during the pandemic, opposing mask mandates and spreading antivax bullshit. Kennedy’s planned appearance at the Mad Moms confab is almost a sort of homecoming.
Kennedy is nominally running as a Democrat, albeit a crazy conspiracy-spouting one, and you’ll no doubt be surprised not at all to learn that the other speakers at the convention will include Kennedy’s fellow candidates Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, but not Tim Scott or Chris Christie, […] Other prominent wingnuts include historical disinformation disseminator Dennis Prager and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, plus other mixed nuts.
Here’s a very patriotic Declaration of Independence-themed preview video [video at the link], to prove that the Founders would approve of the Mad Moms. We should probably point out that none of the colonists’ grievances against King George III had anything to do with The 1619 Project or Gender Queer being on school library shelves. After nearly a full minute of patriotic glurge […], the video says remarkably little about the conference, except that attendees can be 100 percent sure that everyone else there will agree with them. As far as we can tell, the testimonials were recorded at the end of the 2022 summit, so that may explain a lot.
About that video, I watched it. The joyful women warriors featured in the video look like they are on some kind of drug that makes them higher than a kite … and very much all smiles, sparkling eyes and melodramatic intensity. We are promised that their conference will “knock your socks off.” Looking at their roster of mostly male, far rightwing political doofuses (and whatever Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is), I doubt that my socks would be knocked off even if I had a front row seat.
“Moms for Liberty” are famous for abusing teachers and other parents, up to and including death threats and whatever the actual unhinged fuck this is, and RFK Jr. making common cause with them is just the latest and grossest instance of him cozying up to actual fascists and the far Right; the previous most recent instant of such was when the antivax foundation that he founded and that now pays him half a million dollars a year started begging the Actual Nazis who run Gab to feature him and his work.
We’ll just close with some excellent news for Yr Wonkette, which is that we will not be requesting travel costs, registration fees, or a per diem from Yr Editrix to attend this train wreck, no, not even if it were tax deductible, feh!
Former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia remains dead. But his sense of irony has still been immortalized in Wednesday’s big ProPublica story about Sam Alito and his adventures inspiring Hemingway to write “The Old Man and the Sea.”
It turns out that Rob Arkley II, the California millionaire who owns the lodge that hosted Alito and the lucky billionaire Paul Singer who by a strange coincidence was traveling there at the same time and gave Alito a lift on his private jet, has some experience taking Supreme Court justices on fancy fishing vacations in Alaska. And we have long known about Scalia’s penchant for accepting luxury vacations from rich people. Or at least we have known about it since the justice went tits-up at a Texas hunting ranch owned by some oil gazillionaire back in 2016. Thus:
In June 2005, Arkley flew Scalia on his private jet to Kodiak Island, Alaska, two of Arkley’s former pilots told ProPublica. Arkley had paid to rent out a remote fishing lodge that cost $3,200 a week per person, according to the lodge’s owner, Martha Sikes.
Who among us …
On June 9, Arkley’s group chartered a boat, the Happy Hooker IV, to tour Yakutat Bay.
Literally they sailed around Kodiak Island, Alaska, in a boat called the Happy Hooker. Again yr Wonkette posits that we all live in a Christopher Buckley novel.
A photo captures Arkley and Scalia later that day gazing off the side of the boat at the famed Hubbard Glacier. At one point, a guide chiseled chunks off an iceberg and passed them to Scalia. The justice then mixed martinis from Grey Goose vodka and glacier ice.
Yep, there is a picture in the ProPublica story of Scalia standing on the deck of the Happy Hooker IV and waving a bottle of vodka over a cocktail mixer and a handful of martini glasses laid out before him. Vodka? What savages. All those billions, at least buy yourselves some class.
We just cannot with the image of a Supreme Court justice who thought climate change was a bunch of hooey scraping ice off of one of the world’s quickly disappearing glaciers to put in his Grey Goose martini. Maybe our descendants will, in some future post-environmental apocalypse hellscape, at least get to burn this picture for warmth while somewhere off in hell, Scalia laughs maniacally as he and Satan share a couple of stogies.
And would you believe Scalia didn’t report this trip on his 2005 financial disclosure forms? You would? Good for you, mix yourself a martini as a reward.
Scalia appears to have flown to Alaska on Arkley’s jet right from a Federalist Society meeting in Napa, California, where the justice had given a speech. ProPublica notes that the common link between Scalia’s and Alito’s trips, besides Arkley, was Federalist Society head honcho Leonard Leo. Arkley and Paul Singer, Alito’s benefactor, are heavy donors to the Society, and Leo admitted to helping organize Alito’s trip.
Contacted by ProPublica, Leo released a whiny-ass statement denying that any “event, dinner, or trip would influence” Scalia or Alito’s approach to the law. Which, even if remotely believable, is beside the point. Judicial ethics rules, as Leo well knows because he’s not a fucking moron, are supposed to prevent even the appearance of a conflict. Scalia and Alito could have spent their time in Alaska talking about nothing but their furry characters with their rich buddies, but the public has no way of knowing that.
Leo also name-checks current and former liberal justices to make a point about … something or other:
Justices Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor also have regularly received a level of hospitality from friends and strangers that most Americans never experience, but, like their conservative colleagues, they don’t disregard the law because of outside influence. They’re smart and equally strong-willed and independent — just wrong about their proper role and what the Constitution means.
Again, in case Leo is a regular Wonkette reader, the issue is not necessarily that rich people extend the justices generous hospitality. The issue is whether the justices report said hospitality on their financial disclosure forms and whether they recuse themselves from cases in which their rich hosts might have an interest, all in the name of not sullying the Supreme Court’s legitimacy as one of the major public institutions in American life.
If Leo wants to get one of his billionaire benefactors to fund some right-wing “journalism” outlet’s investigation of whether Planned Parenthood ever took Ruth Ginsburg on a luxury vacation she forgot to report, we say go for it. It won’t change the fact that Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito are ethics-free sacks of crap.
The New York State Legislature gave final approval on Tuesday to legislation that provides legal protection for New York doctors to prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states that have outlawed abortion.
Debate is one of the cornerstones of the American political system. It’s rooted in the noblest of sentiments: that the population should hear from candidates and, duly informed, decide among them.
It’s what Abraham Lincoln did, right? He became a national figure because of his debates with incumbent Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Those Lincoln-Douglas debates didn’t result in Lincoln’s ousting Douglas, but they did pave the way for his election as president in 1860. Two noble candidates, exchanging views, influencing the electorate.
This is no longer how it works. At the presidential level, debates are functionally useless. And below that level, it’s even worse.
[…] We have turned “debate” into a cudgel meant not to inform but to entertain, to validate our skepticism and to feed our dislike of our opponents. Change my mind: Maybe we should stop?
Hi from the desert! I’m in the complete other corner of the US. It’s so different and beautiful. Thanks to everyone for keeping up with events and analysis!
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a rioter who savagely assaulted an officer defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to more than 12 years in prison, calling him a “one-man army of hate” whose severe punishment might act as a deterrent to future acts of political violence….
The defendant, Daniel Rodriguez, 40, who had previously admitted to driving from California to Washington to do armed battle on behalf of former President Donald J. Trump, expressed some regret for his actions as he asked the judge for leniency. But after receiving his sentence, Mr. Rodriguez smiled and let out a defiant shout of “Trump won!” before being led out of the room by federal marshals.
Six people are accused of forging dead people’s signatures to get a Republican candidate on the ballot in time for congressional primaries, Colorado’s attorney general announced.
Alex Joseph, Terris Kintchen, Patrick Rimpel, Jordahni Rimpel, Aliyah Moss, and Diana Watt all face one felony count of attempt to influence a public servant and one misdemeanor count of perjury, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a release Tuesday.
According to a court affidavit, the six people worked for the petitioning company Grassfire LLC, which was hired by Carl Andersen’s campaign to circulate a petition to gather 1,500 signatures necessary for Andersen to be put on the 2022 Republican primary ballot for the US House of Representatives.
The document says Chris Byrne, a criminal investigator for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, reviewed the petition and found that the six petitioners had collected signatures of at least 21 deceased people…
birgerjohanssonsays
God Awful Movies just provided us with a 1961 film.
“GAM409 The Flight That Disappeared.”
Hypothetically, if the plane you are on gets teleported into a time vortex and people from the future put you on a trial for doing something (which is still in your future) that will cause the end of everything…
What specific thing is that likely to be?
.
I get that for P Z it will have something to do with spider development, but what about you?
@260 I find the switch in our brains to turn off empathy, which authoritarians all over the world then force the use of into law because they believe that everyone should think like they do.
redwoodsays
@260 Or, more simply, I find a magic potion that can turn everyone in the world into Trump. It then gets stolen from me and used.
Jeansays
All these SCOTUS corruption talks make it look like the Federalist Society is like an “escort” agency with a madam (Leo), the Johns (billionaires) and the “escorts” (justices and other judges). The main difference with real escorts is that it’s the American democracy that gets screwed.
Texas’ Senate voted Wednesday to start state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial on Sept. 5 and to bar his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, from voting on the historic proceedings.
The Republican-controlled chamber approved rules prohibiting Angela Paxton from voting due to conflict of interest concerns.
She had issued a statement earlier this week announcing her intention to vote at the impeachment trial.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@260
a trial for doing something (which is still in your future)
Establishing premeditation, eh? Nice try!
KGsays
“If you speak to President Xi, he would tell you ‘without the death penalty, we would have a non-functioning country,’” said the guy who routinely accuses his enemies of being “MARXIST COMMUNISTS.” – Lynna, OM quoting Wonkette@242
I feel impelled to defend Trump from the implicit charge of inconsistency here! Bullshit aside, there’s nothing Marxist or Communist about Xi Jinping’s regime, and it’s completely consistent for Trump to respect and admire it and him. China is reported now to have more billionaires than the USA, and higher levels of income inequality. Xi has made himself in effect dictator-for-life (he is as it happens the son of Xi Zhongxun, himself a senior CCP official – many of his most senior subordinates are similarly the children of the party aristocracy). Xi’s regime in many ways resembles classic fascism: capitalists can make huge profits and fortunes, and exploit their workers as much as they like (since there are no free trade unions), but are subordinate to the one-party state, and can be deprived of their wealth, liberty and lives if they offend the Great Leader. Corruption is rife, but whether it is punished is purely a matter of political convenience. Surveillance is probably the broadest and deepest of any state in world history; foreign policy is increasingly aggressive.
Incidentally, all the members of the 7-strong Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CCP, Xi’s immediate circle, are men, and all of them are Han Chinese. The same is true of the 24-member Politburo (of which the Standing Committee forms a subset). This Politburo is the first in 25 years to include no women. Han Chinese men make up around 30% of China’s adult population. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in action!
Mr Musk, who turns 52 later this month, also tweeted: “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus’, where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing.”
He later tweeted short videos of walruses, perhaps suggesting his challenge to Mr Zuckerberg may not entirely be serious…
That’s going to disappoint a lot of people who would like to see Musk get the @#$% beaten out of him. Best outcome would be they both lose.
Ukraine has attacked a bridge linking southern Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula with long-range British missiles, Russian officials say.
The two parallel Chonhar bridges were both damaged, said the Russian-installed governor in occupied Kherson Vladimir Saldo. No-one was hurt.
Mr Saldo said it was likely British Storm Shadow missiles were used in an attack “ordered by London”.
The bridge is the shortest route from Crimea to the front line in the south.
It is also an important link to the occupied city of Melitopol, which lies on the coastal route from the Russian border across southern Ukraine to Crimea…
In a de-escalation of internal GOP tensions, House Republicans are now aiming to refer a Biden impeachment resolution to two committees instead of holding an immediate vote on impeaching the president.
The House will vote Thursday to send a resolution offered by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. By forgoing the impeachment vote, Republicans will be able to avoid, for now, a messy fight that was already dividing the conference.
The House Rules Committee advanced the plan in a last-minute meeting Wednesday night after huddling with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who urged rank-and-file Republicans at a closed-door meeting earlier in the day to oppose Boebert’s resolution, arguing that such an important issue should go through the committee process, three GOP sources who heard the comments confirmed…
A Republican group opposed to Donald Trump will run a new ad on Fox News and CNN this week in which an unexpected figure makes the legal case against the former president: Trump himself.
The new ad from the Republican Accountability Project highlights old comments from Trump on the importance of classified documents as he accused 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton of mishandling sensitive materials.
“I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he said in a clip from a 2016 rally. In a clip from 2020, he said people “go to jail for that.” …
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday he believes Russia acted in “good faith” amid the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, adding the U.S., in fact, bore heavy responsibility for the ongoing war…
The U.S. Air Force has announced that it is ordering AMRAAM missiles worth $1.15 billion from Raytheon Missiles and Defense to supply to Ukraine, the U.S. Department of Defense reported on June 20.
The AIM-120 AMRAAM is a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It is commonly referred to as the ‘Slammer’ and is often deployed by the Norwegian-made air defense system NASAMS, which was also provided to Ukraine by the U.S.
The contract includes AIM-120 D-3 missiles, the latest variant of the AMRAAM, and C-8 AMRAAM missiles. These missiles are already in use with the U.S. Air Force and Navy Force, as well as 18 other countries.
SC @257, ah, so glad you are enjoying the desert landscape.
Reginald @268, “moderate Republicans” still haven’t found a candidate that can defeat the Orange Mango cult leader. Representative Will Hurd makes the 12th entry into the Republican presidential race, (I think … it’s hard to keep track). Hurd used to be a CIA official, and he served in the House of Congress. One good thing: Hurd says that if he is elected, he will not pardon Trump.
J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics said Hurd’s bipartisan record is likely to hurt him in the Republican primary.
“He’d be a very formidable general election candidate,” Coleman said, “which is part of the reason why I suspect he’s going to have a hard time getting the nomination.”
[…] After narrowly winning re-election in 2018, Hurd announced he would retire from Congress ahead of the 2020 election. He was the lone Black Republican in the House when he retired. […]
Craziest House Majority Evah?
It’s been a while since we checked in on the goings-on with the House GOP majority and … what in the holy hell, y’all?
– Voted to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for his role in investigating Donald Trump;
– Embroiled in internal fight over impeaching President Joe Biden;
– Rep. Marjorie Tayor Greene (R-GA) called Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) a “[B-word]” or a “little [B-word]” (accounts vary) on the House floor; and
– Ripped into corrupt Special Counsel John Durham for not being corrupt enough.
And that was just another Wednesday on the House side on the Hill.
Let’s break it down.
House GOP Gets Its Schiff Revenge
The GOP-controlled House voted Wednesday to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) – a top-tier candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in California – for his role in investigating President Donald Trump. It also referred Schiff to the Ethics Committee for investigation. The final vote was 213-209, with Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and the five GOP members of the House ethics panel voting “present.”
The censure resolution was sponsored by freshman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL).
There was no legitimate basis for the censure or the Ethics Committee referral. This was pure political payback for Schiff’s role in the first Trump impeachment and other investigations.
“Adam Schiff launched an all-out political campaign built on baseless distortions against a sitting U.S. president,” Luna said.
Democrats rallied to Schiff’s defense, and House Republicans were an easy mark: [video at the link: "Goldman: One of my Republican colleagues says “we will hold members accountable.” You are the party of George Santos! Who are you holding accountable?!? Don’t lecture us with your projection.. It’s pathetic."]
For his part, Schiff took the political vengeance in stride: [video at the link: "Schiff: To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you. You flatter me with this falsehood. You who are the authors of the big lie about the last election must condemn the truth tellers and I stand proudly before you."]
Schiff was required to stand in the well of the House chamber and receive a verbal rebuke, whereupon Democratic members surrounded him in support and started chanting “SHAME!” [video at the link: "McCarthy has lost control of the House Floor after the censure vote."]
[…] The Daily Beast reported some of the details of a kindergarten-level exchange, in which Boebert confronted Greene over mean things she said about her and Greene accused Boebert of copying her articles of impeachment against Biden.
All three of the sources said Greene called Boebert a “[B-word].” One of the sources said Greene called her “a little [B-word].” […]” You copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them.”
Neither member denied the substance of the exchange when asked about it later by reporters. […]
The U.S. Coast Guard says an underwater vessel has located a debris field near the Titanic in the search for a missing submersible with five people aboard […]
The search passed the critical 96-hour mark Thursday morning when breathable air could have run out. […]
I have not seen anyone claim that the debris field is the (possibly imploded) submersible (not yet anyway. But I doubt that the Coast Guard would announce the finding if there were not strong suspicions that the debris is from the submersible.
To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you. You honor me with your enmity.
You flatter me with this falsehood. You, who are the authors of a big lie about the last election, must condemn the truth tellers, and I stand proudly before you.
Your words tell me that I have been effective in the defense of our democracy, and I am grateful.
And yet this false and defamatory resolution comes at a considerable cost to the country and to the Congress.
At a moment when millions of people in our home state of California are unable to find a place to live or afford a place to live, Speaker McCarthy chooses to occupy the resources of the Congress for two straight weeks on this hollow sop to the MAGA crowd.
He offers nothing to those who are homeless, or addicted to opioids, or to millions of college students mired in debt, but this paltry distraction.
Donald Trump is under indictment for actions that jeopardize our national security, and McCarthy would spend the nation’s time on petty political payback, thinking he can censure or fine Trump’s opposition into submission.
But I will not yield. Not one inch.
The cost to [the country of] the Speaker’s delinquency is high, but the cost to Congress of this frivolous and yet dangerous resolution may be even higher, as it represents another serious abuse of power.
Donald Trump has threatened that any of you that defy him, and vote against this partisan resolution, will be met by a primary challenge.
And he calls for my imprisonment. If a transient majority can punish and attempt to silence members who hold a corrupt president to account, there is no telling what further corruption of office will follow.
And I say this to Speaker McCarthy and others who wish to gratify Donald Trump with this act of subservience or bend to his demands — try as you might to expel me from Congress, or silence me with a $16 million dollar fine, you will not succeed. You might as well make it $160 million. You will never deter me from doing my duty.
No matter how many false justifications or slanders you level against me, you but indict yourselves. As Liz Cheney said, “there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
This resolution attacks me for initiating an investigation into Trump campaign solicitation and acceptance of Russian help in the 2016 election, even though the investigation was first led not by me, but by a Republican chairman.
It would hold that when you give internal campaign polling data to a Russian intelligence operative, while Russian intelligence is helping your campaign — as Trump’s campaign chairman did — that you must not call that collusion, though that is its proper name, as the country well knows.
It would fine me for the costs of the critically important Mueller investigation into Trump’s misconduct, even though the special counsel was appointed by Trump’s own attorney general.
It would reprimand me over a flawed FISA application, as if I were its author, or I was the director of the FBI, and over flaws only discovered years later and by the inspector general, not Mr. Durham.
In short, it would accuse me of omnipotence, the leader of some vast deep state conspiracy. And of course, it is nonsense.
But here is the real gravamen of my offense:
I led the first impeachment of Donald Trump for one of the most egregious presidential abuses of power in our history, and I led a trial which resulted in the first bipartisan vote to remove a president in history.
And I would do so again.
I warned that if Trump was not held accountable, he would go on to try to cheat in even worse ways in the next election, and HE DID, inciting a violent attack on this very Capitol.
And after that, I participated in some of the most important hearings in congressional history — hearings that exposed Donald Trump’s incitement of a dangerous insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
My colleagues, if there is cause for censure in this House — and there is — it should be directed at those in this body who sought to overturn a free and fair election.
The question, my Republican colleagues, is not why am I the subject of this false resolution for doing my constitutional duty, but why are you not? Why are you not standing beside me, the subject of a similar rebuke for speaking the truth?
Why did you not stand up to Donald Trump, why did you not reject his immorality, why did you not condemn his dishonesty, why did you not speak out when his horde attacked this Capitol, or now, when he treats the nation’s secrets with such carelessness, lawlessness and disdain, why did you hide from efforts to hold him accountable, why were you silent, afraid, unwilling to do your ethical, constitutional duty, why did you cower, why did you cower — and why do you still?
Will it be said of you that you lacked the courage to stand up to the most immoral, unlawful and unethical president in history, but consoled yourselves by attacking those who did?
Today, I wear this partisan vote as a badge of honor. Knowing that I have lived my oath.
Knowing that I have done my duty, to hold a dangerous and out of control president accountable. And knowing that I would do so again — in a heartbeat — if the circumstances should ever require it. I thank you.
And I yield back.
“It would fine me for the costs of the critically important Mueller investigation into Trump’s misconduct, even though the special counsel was appointed by Trump’s own attorney general.” Utterly unethical and morally bankrupt actions by the Republicans.
Email to my Republican congresswoman: “I understand you voted to censure Rep. Adam Schiff. Could you tell me how to contact his senatorial campaign? I need to make a contribution in your honor.”
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Donation has been made to Rep. Schiff’s senatorial campaign through ActBlue.
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Me too, from Virginia. Time to show gratitude for all he has done in the House. Donation made moments ago.
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All I could think was wow, what a strong, brave, honest and courageous American speaking to history
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Great speech — and an example of how to stand up to a wanabee lynch mob.
This update includes an interesting photo: “Searching for mines in flooded Kherson oblast. They were swept up after Russia destroyed the dam, and finding them is critical for civilian safety.”
[…] there is something going on that gives even better insight into Ukraine’s patience, and it’s reflected every day in Ukraine’s claims of Russian kills.
Early in the war, Ukraine would claim one to two daily artillery kills. It was frustrating, seeing Ukrainian defenders and its cities under relentless artillery bombardment, yet unable to strike back at the guns and rocket launchers causing that misery.
Over time, Ukraine developed better counter-battery fire: the ability to find Russian artillery and destroy it. Specialized counter-battery radars provided by its Western partners helped locate the guns; drones pin-pointed their position; and longer-ranged Western artillery, precision-guided artillery shells, HIMARS, and M270 rocket launchers finally became a deadly response. More recently, kamikaze drones have become another tool.
Remember, Russia’s is an artillery-based army. Without it, it has no offensive or defensive juice. A wall of explosive steel is the biggest impediment to any rapid Ukrainian gains. And Russia has lots and lots of guns. It has even pulled up old 1950s vintage tanks and is using them as artillery. It knows no other way to fight.
Thing is, it works. Here is Russian artillery making life miserable for Ukrainian forces in Pyatykhatky, which we’ve written about recently […] [Tweet and video at the link.]
It is suicidal to advance under that kind of barrage. NATO doctrine calls first for air superiority (which means destroying both enemy aircraft and their air defenses), then close air support to destroy that artillery, before any ground troops advance. Ukraine doesn’t have air superiority, and wouldn’t even if they had received their F-16s by now.
Russia’s air defense network is about their only thing that seems to (mostly) work in this war. There is no scenario in which Ukraine gets air superiority.
Until three or so weeks ago, the average number of claimed artillery kills averaged 10.5 per day. But as the Ukrainian counteroffensive ramped up in June, we saw something new altogether. Here’s the number of claimed artillery kills by Ukraine over the last two weeks:
June 6: 25
June 7: 22
June 8: 29
June 9: 38
June 10: 16
June 11: 20
June 12: 10
June 13: 20
June 14: 19
June 15: 11
June 16: 21
June 17: 25
June 18: 14
June 19: 18
June 20: 27
June 21: 33
June 22: 23
Ukraine claims it has destroyed 617 MLRS rocket artillery launchers since the start of the war. Russia reportedly had 900. Ukraine claims it has destroyed 3,941 tube artillery. Russia reportedly had 4,900 before the war.
Do we believe these numbers? I sure wouldn’t bet on Russia only having 1,000 guns left. But what I do believe is the increased targeting and killing of those Russian guns. In those 17 days above (3.5% of the 485 days since the war began), Ukraine claimed 371 tube and MLRS artillery kills, or 8.1% of their total claims. That is more than double their previous average.
What’s happening here makes perfect sense.
Ukraine advances to new positions, ejecting Russian forces. They counterattack, allowing Ukraine to destroy valuable men and equipment out in the open. Meanwhile, Russia does what Russia does best and puts up a wall of artillery. But it’s an ambush—Ukraine has clearly devoted extensive counterbattery resources to the front, immediately striking back at those Russian guns.
This is what it looks like: [Tweets, images and videos at the link]
The result is mass attrition of Russia’s greatest resource. The more Ukraine degrades Russia’s ability to hamper its forces with artillery, the easier it will be to break through those prepared Russian lines.
A lack of air superiority makes the task harder, but Ukraine’s ability to improvise given the tools it has available is unmatched.
———————–
I’ll let Wagner mercenary CEO Yevgeny Prihozhin give us the latest from Zaporizhzhya:
“P’yatykhatky is controlled by 🇺🇦 forces, as is the northern part of Robotyne. Urozhaine is also under Ukrainian control. Big parts have been given up by Russian forces. One day we will wake up and find out Crimea is given away.” [video at the link]
Not going to bust out the maps as none of this is much of a change from what we’ve already covered the last several days. There’s a great deal of see-sawing going on, but as noted, this isn’t bad for Ukraine: Better to fight Russian ground forces out in the open while counter-battery operations degrade Russian artillery.
Up north, around both Kreminna and Kupyansk (remember Kupyansk?), Russian forces are on the offensive. [Tweet and image at the link]
The general consensus is that Russia is attacking to draw Ukrainian forces away from Bakhmut, where they continue to make incremental headway in the city’s northern and southern flanks. Russia knows it can’t seriously threaten Kupyansk and Lyman, west of Kreminna. But what it can hopefully do is panic Ukraine enough that it abandons its counteroffensive efforts around their precious Bakhmut. [Not likely.]
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Logistics, logistics, logistics. [Tweets, images, and map related to Chonhar bridge, see Reginald’s comment 270] That looks like HIMARS damage we saw on the Kherson bridges before Ukraine liberated the area. But at 120 kilometers behind the front lines, that has to be a British-supplied Storm Shadow. Each one of those cruise missiles costs around $3.2 million, so that’s an expensive hole. And it looks relatively easily repairable (again, given what we saw in Kherson) unless the bridge is further degraded.
Also, it seems like the railroad bridge would be the juicier target. But anything that hinders Russian logistics to the Zaporizhzhia front is greatly appreciated.
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View from a Russian drone: [Tweet and video at the link:”Footage claimed to be from near the “Velyka Novosilka” Frontline in the Southwestern Donetsk Region showing a Ukrainian T-72B3 Tank appearing to Crush a International M1224 MaxxPro MRAP as its trying to prevent being Hit by a Russian “Lancet” Drone Strike.”]
View from the Ukrainians on the ground: [Tweet and video at the link: “Ukrainian tank T-72B3 hitting a MRAP MaxxPro. We previously saw this situation from a Russian drone, but now detailed footage has emerged. Both vehicles are in Ukrainian-controlled territory and are likely to be evacuated and restored.” Such difficult conditions. Holy shit.]
Holy crap that MaxxPro held up well, which makes me feel good as that’s what my son is currently riding as a top gunner in a deployment in the Middle East.
Also, the tank looks in great shape for having been hit by that Russian kamikaze drone. Looks like the damage was more from confusion or panic.
If you’re wondering what the Ukrainian soldier says in the video: “armor sex.” [LOL]
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[Tweet, image and map at the link: “An old island appeared in the Dnipro. According to wikimapia, this is an old flooded island called Tavan. There seems to be an old road visible. I think it might be slightly elevated due to the area being swampy, and therefore preserved (enough to be visible).”]
Holy crap. That’s just east of the Kakhovka dam, and it’s increasingly clear that Ukraine will be able to march across this land after it fully dries out, and maybe beforehand with lighter vehicles.
[…] Russia reconfigured the region’s geography by destroying the dam.
Update regarding Jack Smith’s prosecution team’s actions:
In a good sign, the prosecutors in the Trump classified documents case have turned over important discovery, including grand jury testimony from the witnesses who will testify against Trump in court.
This means Trump now knows (or will very soon). So keep an eye on Trump’s outbursts. LOL. […]
Renato Mariotti: “Prosecutors are required to turn over the grand jury testimony of witnesses. They often do so near the end of the discovery process, not the beginning.”
On MSNBC, Andrew Weissmann also said it is unusual to turn over this amount of discovery so early in a case.
Over the past couple of months, Republicans claimed — over and over again — that they will not propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But despite the promises, a new budget proposal, released last week by the Republican Study Committee, details the changes and cuts they would make to the entitlement programs some of the nation’s most vulnerable depend on.
The committee, made up largely of House GOP caucus members, details cuts to Social Security, partly through making so-called “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees.”
The 167-page document also proposes turning Medicare into a “premium support” system that would subsidize private insurance options that compete with traditional Medicare, a nod at the kind of privatization of the program that Republicans have pushed for years.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the plan a “devastating attack on Medicare, Social Security, and Americans’ access to health coverage and prescription drugs.”
“The Republican Study Committee is taking aim at the Medicare benefits all Americans pay to earn by repealing the new power President Biden gave it to negotiate lower drug costs, to address rapid drug price increases, and to cap the price of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries,” she added. “This is exactly what Republicans in Congress pledged not to do…”
Jean-Pierre is not wrong.
[…] In January, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said cuts to Medicare and Social Security were “off the table.”
A month later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) echoed the sentiment, saying initiatives to sunset Social Security and Medicare are not a “Republican plan.”
Former President Donald Trump also joined in the rhetoric, repeatedly insisting he will not support entitlement cuts if he wins his third bid for the White House.
Similarly, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) promised not to touch Social Security programs, breaking from his past support for privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age back when he was a lawmaker.
[…] in a quick-witted maneuver, President Joe Biden got dozens of Republicans to collectively agree they would not cut funding for Medicare or Social Security during his State of the Union speech.
[…] Despite the several public declarations that cuts to entitlement programs are off the table, the RSC budget is clear in their proposal and messaging.
The committee has spent decades proposing cuts to entitlement programs with little hope of passing but some House Republicans think this year’s plan could make it to the House floor.
“The RSC Budget is more than just a financial statement. It is a statement of priorities,” the document reads.
Donald Trump has been having trouble finding attorneys. His previous batch not only dropped out of the case connected to his federal indictments over mishandling classified documents just one day after those charges were handed down, they abandoned Trumps’ lawsuit against CNN in midstream. Enough attorneys have run away from Trump that Forbes has prepared a handy timeline of the nine times Trump has changed out his legal team just since 2020. According to The Washington Post, Trump has swapped out 16 attorneys since 2016, making it an open question whether they last longer than his ketchup bottles.
Anyone who is standing too close to Mar-a-Lago today should be aware of the high probability of more attorneys departing at high speed, because Trump’s team was just handed the first batch of evidence collected by special counsel Jack Smith to prepare the 37 federal indictments leveled against Trump on June 8.
Included in the information are recordings of Trump speaking at Bedminster in which he brags about retaining a top secret document, explains how it was prepared, and admits that he can’t declassify it—a sort of all-in-one pre-packaged conviction for at least one charge of mishandling classified documents, lying to investigators, and obstructing justice. But the most interesting part of the statement that accompanies this release of information may be a very strong hint that there are still more Trump recordings in which he confesses to his crimes.
As CNN reports, this represents extremely swift movement on the part of Smith and the Department of Justice. It’s also another indication that Smith is ready for Trump’s trial to begin, which is the last thing that Trump wants to happen.
The next official date on the court calendar is July 24, which Judge Aileen Cannon has penciled in as the final day for getting in filings in advance of trial. It’s absolutely certain that at the last possible moment on that date, Trump’s attorney (assuming he has one at that point) will file for an extension, requesting more time for motions and a delay of the Aug. 14 court date. Such initial requests are often granted even with very little cause, and Trump can expect to move the goalposts back for several months, with the Trump-appointed Cannon determining just how much additional slack he will receive.
Additional requests for delay beyond that point should have to jump considerably higher hurdles, but again … Cannon. So we’ll have to wait and see.
But Smith is giving Trump’s team absolutely no reason to claim they haven’t had sufficient time to review the evidence by providing it early and in quantity. It’s another sign that what the government wants here is a swift movement toward the earliest possible court date. […]
[…] Another interesting point of the Wednesday filing is that it makes clear that the information has not been provided to the legal team of Trump’s “body man,” Walt Nauta. Nauta appears on several of the charges along with Trump, as well having one charge of lying to investigators on his own. Trump was forbidden from discussing the case with Nauta, one of the few conditions placed on his release following arraignment, but the indictments against both Trump and Nauta are currently being treated as a single case.
There have been several suggestions that, like Meadows, Nauta has or is considering cooperating with the special counsel’s office. Some analysts have taken how the discovery evidence was provided to Trump’s attorneys, but not Nauta’s attorneys in the Wednesday order as a signal that the Department of Justice is treating the two defendants differently, elevating claims that Nauta has agreed to a deal of some sort.
With both Nauta and Meadows, reports that they have flipped in exchange for reduced charges or sentencing are unconfirmed. […] This could be one of those months when the forecast for fleeing lawyers is considerably higher.
Wonkette: “Climate Change Deniers Chase Out Iowa Weather Man With Death Threats, As Is Normal And Healthy And Fine”
[…] A meteorologist has quit his job in Iowa, citing PTSD after being inundated with violent threats over his coverage of climate change.
In 2021, Chris Gloninger moved to Iowa for a job as the chief meteorologist at Des Moines news station KCCI. Previously, the New York native worked at NBC10 Boston, where he reported on weather events and hosted a weekly show on climate change and apparently did not receive any death threats at all — either because people in coastal areas understand that they are the ones who are going to have to deal with sea levels rising or because he never said anything complimentary about the Yankees.
While he was accustomed to receiving some complaints here and there from people who don’t believe in climate change, a few months into his tenure at KCCI, he started receiving a series of frightening emails, including at least one demanding to know what his address was. Police identified the sender as 63-year-old Danny H. Hancock of Lenox, Iowa, and ultimately fined him $150 for the threats.
Via Iowa Capital Dispatch:
Hancock wrote to Gloninger, “Getting sick and tired of your liberal conspiracy theory on the weather, climate changes every day, always has, always will, your pushing nothing but a Biden hoax, go back to where you came from.”
A few days later, Hancock wrote to Gloninger: “You are worthless Biden puppet, a liar, a conspiracy theorist, and an idiot!!! You give Iowa a bad name, GO HOME B—-.”
A few hours after that message was sent, Hancock sent another email in which he referenced Brett Kavanaugh, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: “What’s your address, we conservative Iowans would like to give you an Iowan welcome you will never forget, kinda like the l—— gave JUDGE KAVANAUGH!!!!!!!” […]
On July 15, Hancock wrote again, this time referencing Anthony Fauci, the immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has helped lead the fight against COVID-19, and told Gloninger to “go east and drown from the ice cap melting you dumbf—!!!!!!!”
This is a very normal thing to do to one’s local meteorologist.
It’s not clear if Hancock’s threats continued after that, but $150 doesn’t really seem like enough to discourage someone who is that intent on spreading the word that climate change is an evil plot concocted by Joe Biden to … do something? It’s not entirely clear from his emails, and frankly it’s always been a little unclear why the Right is so deeply disturbed by the concept of climate change to begin with. It seems like it should be something deeper than “We don’t want corporations to be inconvenienced by regulations meant to keep them from destroying the planet!” […] death threats are on the table […]
Gloninger shared some of the emails online last year, describing how mentally exhausting it had been to deal with. [Tweet with examples of threats available at the link]
“Eighteen years. Seven stations. Five states. I am bidding farewell to TV to embark on a new journey dedicated to helping solve the climate crisis,” Gloninger said in a statement to the Des Moines Register. “After a death threat stemming from my climate coverage last year and resulting PTSD, in addition to family health issues, I’ve decided to begin this journey now.”
Perhaps KCCI could replace him with Jeremy Kappell, the Rochester, New York, meteorologist who was fired from his job at NBC affiliate WHEC for saying a racial slur on air and has since become far more interested in The Storm than in storms — by which I mean he is now a QAnon person. […]
Alas, if this is the Iowa way to greet a meteorologist, they may end up with no meteorologists at all, and Iowans will just have to spend their lives guessing at whether or not to bring an umbrella or a sweater.
whheydtsays
Between the vote to censure Schiff and the clear plans to gut Social Security and Medicare, perhaps it is time for a Democrat to make a motion to vacate the chair and throw McCarthy to his own wolves. Maybe Congressman Schiff should file the motion…
[…] the New York Post yesterday translated the story [about the lost Titanic submersible] into a vernacular that we’ve become quite familiar with around here […] Gaze upon the Post’s work, ye mighty, and tremble! [Image showing New York Post headline]
You see, the Post found a 2020 video interview (which has since been removed from both the website and from YouTube, which is where it had the date attached) in which Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate and pilot of the lost submersible, discussed the business and the techie stuff about the machines, and his plans to do “adventure tourism” that would include not only trips to the Titanic wreck but also to deep sea thermal vents and to other, lesser-known shipwrecks. While most of the discussion was about the tech stuff, Rush also explained the image he wanted the company to project, and that’s what got the Post exercised.
When I started the business, one of the things you’ll find, there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have, uh, gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and they — you’ll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys. […]
I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational and I’m not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology, but a 25-year-old, uh, you know, who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational.
So we’ve really tried to get, um, very intelligent, motivated, younger individuals involved because we’re doing things that are completely new.
Most of us might read that as dopey marketing talk about having an adventurous, youthful image, like Richard Branson when he was still youthful 30 years ago. It’s also worth noting that Rush didn’t say he would never hire any 50-year-old white guys (he’s 61 himself now).
Ah, but he mentioned “white guys,” so the Post frames it as deliberate — and ultimately fatal — wokeness, because see what happens if you don’t have middle-aged white military veterans running things? So the story’s first two paragraphs very subtly imply that Rush has no one but his own anti-white racism to blame for the unfolding disaster:
The OceanGate CEO who is trapped on a 22-foot submersible on an ill-fated voyage to see the Titanic wreck once explained how he didn’t hire “50-year-old white guys” with military experience to captain his vessels because they weren’t “inspirational.”
Stockton Rush, 61, added that such expertise was unnecessary because “anybody can drive the sub” with a $30 video game controller.
The Post also made its own video, embedding the scary woke clips of Rush rejecting expertise if it came from white men: [video at the the link]
Now, the Post didn’t directly say that the submersible is in trouble because the foolish CEO may have hired women and minorities, but it didn’t have to. The accusation of “wokeness” made it to Fox News, where Jesse Watters complained [OMFG, Jesse Watters putting Fox News anti-woke spin on the whole story?] that the OceanGate CEO recklessly ignored “regulations” — but aren’t those burdensome, Jesse? — and then brought up the Post story:
He’s quoted as saying he didn’t hire a bunch of 50-year-old White guys with military experience because he didn’t want his vessels to be—not inspirational for a younger generation. I don’t care who is in these vessels, I just want them to be experienced and safe. And if you’re gonna be woke, you might have to—”
Watters stopped himself before finishing the thought that Wokeness Kills, adding “I don’t want to say it because I don’t want to put these people’s legacies through that, but, I don’t see how they’re ever going to find this thing again.”
Other rightwing media sources weren’t anywhere near as delicate as Jesse Watters. Wingnut podcaster Jeff Younger proclaimed on Twitter that “Being woke makes you stupid and deadly.” [JFC!] Some rightwing outfit calling itself the “Conservative Media Center” tut-tutted on Twitter that
even underwater Titanic submersible companies aren’t safe from ESG and woke hiring practices. One has to wonder if hiring based on “inspiration” instead of skill might have played a role in this tragedy.
Expanding on the theme, the linked article pointed out how stupid Rush was, because after all, “the most ‘inspirational’ person on the planet is an almost 52-year-old white guy. His name is Elon Musk.” [painful, head/desk]
[…] Gab founder Andrew Torba, who loves him some racist conspiracy theories because he is a Nazi, tweeted that the problem isn’t just one woke submersible, heavens no: All of America’s infrastructure is about to crumble because it’s not being planned and built by white men, we guess. Retweeting a short video about the Post story, Torba warned,
Wait until you find out how many critical infrastructure operations are doing the same thing. Buckle up, complex systems require meritocracy—not skin color quotas—to operate and maintain.
So when civilization falls apart next week, remember, it’s all because not enough old white men run things. [LOL]
Now, there’s lots of wider discussion suggesting that Rush may have ignored warnings from experts about the safety of his machines, and that he took entirely too many unnecessary risks in how he built and operated the submersible, and those are completely legitimate questions that are likely to be answered in the course of investigating what went wrong. They also have exactly fuck-all to do with “wokeness.”
Also, I should probably include a moderator note here: Our commenting rules remain in effect. […] you do not get to fantasize about who you would like to be dying two miles under the sea instead of the people aboard the Titan. […]
Debris from the Titan submersible, including its tail cone, was found on the ocean floor on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard.
They also found parts identified as “parts of the pressure hull.”
ALASKA (The Borowitz Report)—The billionaire Paul Singer set a sport-fishing record by catching a Supreme Court Justice who weighed in at approximately two hundred pounds.
The Justice, who was estimated to measure over sixty inches, became Singer’s catch during a luxury fishing trip to Alaska in 2008.
Singer, who said that he kept his record catch a secret because he does not “like to brag,” revealed that the jurist was “much easier to catch” than he had anticipated.
“He required practically no bait whatsoever,” he said. “I’ve never caught something that seemed so happy to be flopping around on my boat.”
Okay, folks. Quiz time. Who do YOU think wrote THIS:
“Congress will hopefully now look at the ever continuing Witch Hunts and ELECTION INTERFERENCE against me on perfectly legal Boxes, where I have no doubt that information is being secretly ‘planted’ by the scoundrels in charge, the Perfect Phone Calls (Atlanta), the illegal DOJ/Pomerantz/Manhattan D.A. Hoax, where virtually EVERYONE agrees THERE IS NO CASE, and the NYSAG SCAM, where I have proven beyond a doubt that there is no case, but have a hostile Judge who should not be on this case!”
One of the enduring mysteries of the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s theft of scores of classified national security documents is why the FBI conducted a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and resort, a search that turned up highly classified documents that Trump and his lawyers had repeatedly asserted did not exist, but has not conducted similar searches of Trump’s other homes and properties.
That mystery has only deepened, now that we know that the FBI had a recording of Trump showing off some of those national security documents inside his Bedminster, New Jersey, club, and that the specific document he was caught on tape describing has not yet been found. And the FBI knows, for an absolute fact, that Trump has taken multiple steps to hide classified documents so that the government could not take them back. There’s no question that Trump and his lawyers would lie about there being no documents left to find in Bedminster; those lies are precisely why Trump and Walt Nauta, one of his aides, have now been booked on federal Espionage Act charges.
A brand new Guardian story clears up the mystery not one damn bit. The Guardian reports that prosecutors were, “within weeks” of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, already “alarmed” by the evidence that Trump had taken some of the most sensitive documents to Bedminster. […]
The Justice Department’s response? Just weeks after the FBI search found classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors requested that Trump’s legal team conduct their own search of Bedminster and Trump’s other properties. From The Guardian:
Whether to acquiesce with the request split the Trump legal team. Trump in-house counsel Boris Epshteyn and Trump lawyer Chris Kise were uneasy about being ordered around by the government, while the other Trump lawyers Tim Parlatore and Jim Trusty suggested a cooperative approach.
This team of legal schmeagles eventually agreed to the request, and you’ll note, not for nothing, that both Parlatore and Trusty are now no longer working on Trump’s team, leaving the buffoonish crime magnet Epshteyn more firmly in charge of such things. But the Trump team hired “contractors” to search Bedminster. The contractors dutifully reported that they did not find any classified documents—we do not, of course, know what rooms they were even allowed to look inside—and that of course left the prosecutors “uneasy” since they already had evidence that documents were there. Because, once again for the record, Trump’s lawyers had already just tried to get away with lying their asses off about not being able to find classified documents that the FBI then had to go and “find” themselves.
And the Bedminster dodge must have looked, to prosecutors, almost exactly like the Mar-a-Lago dodge Trump and his lawyers had just tried to pull. The Guardian reports that prosecutors asked Trump’s legal team for a signature attesting that no such documents were found, via a legal custodian of records, and Trump’s legal team refused to provide such a statement. That refusal lead prosecutors to pursue new contempt proceedings.
What didn’t happen, though, is what happened at Mar-a-Lago when investigators became quite sure Trump was lying about turning over the classified documents he had instead hidden even from his own lawyers. There was no FBI search of Bedminster, and that remains an even more baffling decision now than it was then.
The absence of classified documents at Bedminster led prosecutors to suspect that Trump treated it like a vacation home, where he took boxes of things away from Mar-a-Lago at the start of the summer, and then returned with all of his things to Mar-a-Lago at the end of the season, the people said.
This is absolute nonsense, and surely even The Guardian’s sources know it. Whether or not Trump treats Bedminster as a “vacation home” has nothing to do with whether he might be intentionally hiding even more national security documents there, because Trump is already indicted for hiding classified documents in places even his own lawyers don’t have access to. Prosecutors know classified documents were moved to Bedminster. They know that some of the documents they’ve been looking for are still missing, like the document Trump showed off at Bedminster. They know that whatever Trump’s legal team did or didn’t do, they were not willing to do what they had just done in Florida: putting a lawyer’s signature to a piece of paper attesting that the search had been conducted and that nothing was found.
And the Department of Justice’s takeaway from all of that, with nuclear and national security secrets on the line, is to take that Trump team’s word for it and conclude that Bedminster was merely a “vacation home,” somewhere that Trump might take classified documents to but not someplace he would leave them?
Yeah, that’s bullshit. There’s definitely some reason that prosecutors are balking at forcibly searching the last known location of national security documents, but it isn’t because Boris Epshteyn and the ragged remnants of Trump’s legal team have been deemed just so damn trustworthy that such a search is no longer needed. […]
There’s been no search of Trump’s other properties for the missing documents, and no restrictions on Trump that might keep him from spiriting off still-hidden documents to new hiding places. Despite Trump owning his own private 757 and being a known brownnoser of numerous anti-American regimes worldwide that would be quite happy to host him in exchange for things, prosecutors aren’t even willing to concede that the orchestrator of an attempted coup might indeed be a flight risk.
That’s not how other people indicted for Espionage Act crimes get treated. […] The Justice Department is still giving such broad deference to Trump that they’re not willing to pursue the most obvious leads as to where still-missing documents might be.
The very worst explanation is also the most likely one. A recent story from The Washington Post described a culture of near-cowardice inside the Justice Department that left Trump’s role in attempting an overthrow of our elected government largely uninvestigated for over a year while DOJ leadership instead insisted on a bottom-up approach that would see individual Jan. 6 insurrectionists charged for violence while, for the most part, evading the investigation of how all those seditionist conspirators happened to be there in the first place. We’ve already seen the same reluctance in the ploddingly timid investigation into Trump storing nuclear secrets in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom and publicly accessible storage closet. The short of it is that the Justice Department bent over backwards to avoid investigating Trump’s role in either case until Trump was caught doing something so all-encompassingly stupid that there was no way to not prosecute him.
[…] Not conducting the search has been a massive hole in the investigation since the day the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and found what they expected to find, and there hasn’t been a single truly plausible explanation for why investigators aren’t covering that gap.
The notion that indicted criminals don’t get their “vacation homes” searched, though? That’s complete nonsense and everybody knows it. There’s going to have to be a better explanation than that.
Within two weeks of a fiery tanker-truck crash on June 11 that caused a stretch of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia to collapse, the temporarily repaired roadway will be ready to reopen this weekend, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced today on Twitter. The weekend reopening had been contingent, however, on good weather. Instead, the forecast calls for rain.
So hey, how about a nice-time story where the local government gets things done quickly and efficiently? And with rain coming, the local-ish NASCAR racetrack, Pocono Raceway, 100 miles north of the city, was happy to loan the state the use of its “jet dryer” truck, which uses a turbine engine from a helicopter to blow air at around 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, to dry off the freshly laid asphalt so it can be painted.
Here’s your feel-good tweet from Gov. Shapiro:
To rebuild I-95 on time, we need 12 hours of dry weather to complete the paving and striping process.
With rain in the forecast, we reached out @PoconoRaceway for help — and they’re bringing their jet dryer to Philly to help dry this section of I-95 and keep us on schedule.
NASCAR racers can’t run safely on wet pavement, so every track has a jet-dryer system; in the ’70s and ’80s, most used literal jet engines like the one from Pocono Raceway, although faster technology using compressed air is the norm for on-track use, with the older jet trucks for backup.
State Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll called Pocono Raceway Wednesday to ask for help, and the track operators, who know Carroll from his time as state representative for the area, were happy to help, said Ricky Durst, the racetrack’s senior director of marketing.
WHYY explains how the process will work:
Paving on the six-lane segment reconnecting I-95 happened overnight on Wednesday, according to PennDOT. And this morning, after a Pa. State Police escort down to the construction site, the jet dryer starts the work of keeping the newly laid asphalt dry so construction crews can paint the lines on top of it, Durst said.
“All things being equal, I would anticipate it takes maybe a couple hours” to dry the segment, Durst told Billy Penn.
And once the temporary repairs are done, the state can shift money around from Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill to free up funding for a longer-term fix. And no, even though some NASCAR equipment was involved, you won’t be able to go 200 MPH on the repaired I-95.
You know, it’s almost as if effective local government and federal infrastructure funding are good things. The Heritage Foundation and the rest of them can go jump in a very wet lake. […]
So I started with a couple of live traps. Baited with peanut butter, candied cashews, and a little toast. Nothing. Went to snap traps. Same bait. Caught one. Two weeks later, we still have one mouse brazenly running across the living room floor, in the afternoon, under the nose of my daughter’s rescue dog. Gave up and bought sticky pads. Got the mouse. Released two miles away. Went out on my porch and discovered three attorneys representing Disney explaining that this harassment of Mickey’s relatives will cease. Same lawyers suing DeSantis. Oh, well. Hopefully that was the last one.
whheydtsays
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #301..
You didn’t try a ball-bearing mousetrap?
Oggie: Mathomsays
NO, whheydt. Had I used ball-bearing mousetrap, I would have stated that I did. Live trap to spring trap to sticky pads. Honest, that is all.
The scientists worked with iron selenide (FeSe) – a material that reaches a superconductive state at a balmy 70 Kelvins (roughly -203° Celsius), making it the highest-temperature iron-based superconductor currently known. During their experiments the team discovered that FeSE reached the superconducting state – a process known as the nematic phase – not through spin polarization like other iron-based superconductors, but orbitally…
Special counsel John Durham, who was appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election, made false statements while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, legal experts say.
Durham, who House Republicans have heralded over his widely criticized report, misrepresented key parts of the Russia election scandal, “suggesting he was either unfamiliar with basic facts or was purposefully trying to mislead the committee and the American public,” according to Mother Jones…
For those who work in the field of political commentary, angry responses from disagreeable readers are a standard part of the job. Some published pieces, however, generate stronger reactions than others.
I made the case yesterday that the House Republicans’ decision to censure Rep. Adam Schiff was indefensible: For all intents and purposes, the far-right GOP majority was formally punishing the California Democrat for having the audacity to tell Republicans inconvenient truths about the Trump/Russia scandal that the party didn’t want to hear.
To understate matters, I heard from a great many conservatives who disagreed. Indeed, I lost count of how many hysterical reactions I received from those who insisted, with varying degrees of vitriol, that the entire controversy was an elaborate “hoax.” For Schiff to have said otherwise, these readers asserted, made him a villain for the ages.
It was against this backdrop that I was reminded of a terrific analysis The Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote this week:
There are few areas of the political conversation where the partisan divide is wider than on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Many Democrats think that Donald Trump actively worked with Russian interests to aid his victory that year. Republicans often accept Trump’s own framing: The whole thing was a hoax, top to bottom. The reality is unquestionably closer to the former.
While there’s overwhelming — and to date, uncontested — evidence documenting the connections between Team Trump and its Russian benefactors, much of the right is absolutely convinced that the scandal has been thoroughly discredited. It has not.
They don’t care.
As Bump’s analysis added, for many conservatives, “the very idea that Russia sought to aid Trump’s election is ridiculous — however well-documented and however obviously aligned with the country’s interest in dividing the United States. The idea that it was ever worth investigating whether Trump assisted that effort therefore attains a new level of ludicrousness.”
At this point, I’m going to skip the usual part of this debate. I’m not going to dwell on the fact that the core elements of the Trump/Russia scandal have not been discredited. I’m not going to remind readers about the overwhelming evidence. I’m not going to reiterate the fact that a Senate Intelligence Committee’s report — written in part by the panel’s then-Republican majority — at one point literally described a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”
I am, however, going to raise a different kind of question: Just how much of the controversy do Republicans no longer believe?
The question is newly relevant because Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released a video showing a variety of prominent Democrats talking about Russia trying to help elect Trump in 2016. For the panel’s GOP members, each of the featured Democratic claims should now be seen as a “lie.”
But as is always the case, the details matter. Each of the featured quotes were actually true, including the most basic claims: Viewers saw Hillary Clinton explain in August 2020, for example, that there’s “no question any longer the Russians actively interfered in our election to help Donald Trump. There is no hoax.”
Clinton was right, but congressional Republicans apparently now consider this a “lie.”
Taking a step back, let’s break down the broader controversy into a handful of component parts.
– Russia attacked our elections in order to help elect Trump.
– Team Trump consorted and conspired with Russia as part of the scheme.
– Team Trump lied about this and took steps to cover it up by obstructing investigations.
The evidence to support all three of these points is sound, as the Mueller report and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report help prove. But in general, Republicans have nevertheless spent recent years rejecting #2 and #3.
This week, they’ve apparently rejected #1, too, which reflects a bizarre regression. It suggests much of the GOP isn’t just contesting the idea of “collusion,” Republicans are also comfortable denouncing the basics of the underlying attack itself.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies treated the Russian attack on our elections as the most serious domestic security breach since 9/11. And yet, seven years later, at least some GOP officials are choosing not to believe this basic detail.
As Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale, summarized yesterday, “Moscow worked hard to get Trump elected in 2016. Choosing not to know that is choosing not to care about political reality and national security.”
In 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan warned Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, that Moscow had made an important mistake when it targeted U.S. elections.
“I said that all Americans, regardless of political affiliation or whom they might support in the election, cherish their ability to elect their own leaders without outside interference or disruption,” Brennan explained. “I said American voters would be outraged by any Russian attempt to interfere in election.”
I wish that were true. Too many Republicans suggested this week that it was not.
Humans could be contributing to the spread of a cat-loving, mind-altering parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, new research this week suggests. The study found that domesticated and wild cats were more likely to carry the parasite in areas densely packed with humans…
The new ProPublica reporting about Justice Samuel Alito’s fishing trip to Alaska in 2008 makes perfectly clear that the justice did exactly what the reporters said he did—accepted a free flight on a private jet and a stay at a private resort, organized by the Federalist Society’s judicial kingmaker, Leonard Leo, and funded by Leo’s billionaire big donors. Justice Alito knew perfectly well that such gifts were to be reported, because he had reported others. He also knew that his relationship with Paul Singer, the hedge fund magnate with business before the court, might require recusal. Nothing in that reporting was in fact undermined by the justice’s response to ProPublica in the Wall Street Journal. He took the trip. He just also determined that a private jet was a “facility” for purposes of hospitality, and apparently he had no idea Singer was behind the Argentine debt case heard by the court in 2014, even though my cats knew it.
There’s no need for me to gild the lily in terms of debunking the justice’s textualist reading of the relevant disclosure provisions, as others have ably rebutted Alito’s prebuttal since it surfaced. If Leonard Leo’s risible “he’s a stand-up guy with unimpeachable integrity and nothing but nothing can influence him” defense were a real defense, nobody would need to follow ethics and anticorruption rules, ever. They could just be honorable. Same with the “but here’s a time he didn’t do what Paul Singer wanted” defense, which is Dr.-Pepper-out-your-nose funny, but not a defense. I won’t waste your time or mine on the this-is-all-just-a-“liberal-smear” defense, because it’s boring.
The problem with continuing to frame the Harlan Crow/Barre Seid/Paul Singer stories as “ethics” issues is that we tend to think of “ethics” scandals in league with failures to use the correct shrimp fork. This is kind of what happened when we framed the great pay-to-play Supreme Court Historical Society caper that permitted one couple, the Wrights, to purchase access to the Alitos and the Scalias for the price of $125,000, as a “leak” story. We keep centering the justices and their “ethics” misfires at the expense of the real grifting here: Billionaires being assigned, like something out of the Big Brothers program, to individual justices for the purposes of lavish gift giving and influence.
Look again at ProPublica’s photos of Paul Singer, Antonin Scalia, Leonard Leo, and Samuel Alito and the Big Shiny Fishes they netted. If you think the fish is the trophy in this picture, you’re making a galactic-category error. The trophy is the justice. The vital question here is not why did Justice Alito agree to take the trip, because the trip sounds quite awesome. The question is why did Leo pick him to go, empty seat on the private jet notwithstanding, and why was building a friendship with someone who was in the literal business of reshaping the court to favor his own business so urgently necessary?
As professor Steven Lubet points out, no justice wants to believe him- or herself to be a large salmon: “Justices would surely deny any such subtle influences, sincerely insisting that their judgment could never be affected by the generosity of their well-heeled friends.” But, as Lubet continues, “social science research has determined that the receipt of gifts can powerfully sway later decisions, often in ways unrealized by the recipients.” Research he cites shows that simply receiving a pen was associated with physicians’ increased prescription of a pharmaceutical company’s brand-name medication.
So long as we continue to think of Alito’s and Thomas’ failures to disclose expensive gifts in terms of ethical lapses, the focus stays on them. Look again at Harlan Crow’s now-infamous dogs-playing-poker portrait of himself, Leo, Mark Paoletta, and Clarence Thomas, smoking and Adirondacking, and not talking about anything that might come up before the court, ever. Why is Harlan Crow having that moment commemorated for all time in oils? A #protip that will no doubt make those justices who have been lured away to elaborate bear hunts and deer hunts and rabbit hunts and salmon hunts by wealthy oligarchs feel a bit sad: If your close personal friends who only just met you after you came onto the courts are memorializing your time together for posterity, there’s a decent chance you are, in fact, the thing being hunted.
Let me say it again, because it’s important: Justices and judges and all public servants are human beings who deserve to have friendships and love lives and families and cocktail parties and awards dinners and book clubs and fight clubs as they see fit. But the presumption that when other people seek access to public figures, they are currying favor and influence, but when they seek access to you, it’s because you’re just generally outstanding, well this formulation of facts cannot become the basis of recusal rules, or disclosure statutes, or your sense of self-worth in this world. And if you do the simple thing required of you, which is to disclose that it happened? The worst thing that would result is a clerk suggesting years later that you perhaps recuse yourself from hearing the case.
Finally, when the people mounting the most spirited defenses of your honor and integrity are the same exact folks who have been rendered in oils sitting next to you, well, let’s just ask ourselves whether they are indeed the objective finders of fact they purport to be. If it’s a contest between the objective good judgement of influence-seekers, or the many, many, many ethics experts who have weighed in to say that trips like this one are not OK, and they must be reported, and that recusal would be proper, I think I’m going with the experts, and not the guy who has the head of a powerful person more or less mounted on his wall.
Nobody in this world enjoys hearing that they are the salmon. But that is why we don’t allow the salmon be the sole arbiter of whether they are the salmon. Let’s please stop framing this issue in terms of “ethics” and “friendships” and “honor.” It is a big-game safari for access to powerful people, and this game has been played since power was first invented. Naming this as an influence scheme clarifies the rules and it clarifies the stakes, and most of all, it clarifies the stench.
Reginald Selkirksays
@310: Enough about how the conservative justices are all corrupt.
Tell us about how the liberal justices have been bought and paid for by Big Gay, or whatever the left wing money center is.
In a 2019 interview with Smithsonian Magazine, Stockton Rush, the “daredevil inventor” and “maverick CEO” of OceanGate, expressed his frustration about the limitations placed on the commercial submarine business.
“There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years. It’s obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn’t innovated or grown—because they have all these regulations.”
Rush was on his invention, the submersible “Titan,” when it imploded roughly 10,000 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic last Sunday. For some days it was thought that the Titan might actually be on the surface somewhere, the passengers still alive but unable to communicate or make themselves known. Or that the boat had lost power as reportedly happened on multiple previous missions, and settled slowly to the bottom, in the absolute darkness, slowly growing colder as the air inside ran out over the space of days. However, we now know that the submersible failed abruptly at depth. Under such pressures, the entire event would have ended in milliseconds, water rushing in at thousands of miles an hour. The conversion of potential energy in the form of pressure into kinetic energy in the form of movement would have momentarily heated the area of the Titan to a temperature well above that of the surface of the sun. Those on board may have been aware that something was going wrong, but they did not have time to feel pain, or terror. It was just over. […]
In the case of OceanGate, it certainly appears that some of the regulations that had kept the commercial submarine business incident-free for over 35 years existed for a very good reason. Bypassing those regulations has a price much greater than the $250,000 price tag of a trip in the Titan. In another interview, Rush bragged about violating the rules against placing titanium next to carbon fiber. The reason that there is such a rule is that the difference in electrical potential between the two materials generates corrosion. It’s not just something someone dreamed up. Electrochemistry does not care if you’re a “maverick.”
Taking a submersible 2 miles beneath the ocean is only one of many opportunities that the extremely wealthy have to indulge in something unavailable to most people. A ride in either Jeff Bezos’ rocket or in Richard Branson’s air-dropped rocket plane will also reportedly cost between $200,000 and $250,000. (Tip: If you have pockets so deep you’re seriously considering one or the other, there are reasons to be concerned about Branson’s system that go beyond just the death of a pilot in the crash of an earlier model.)
A similar check will buy a ride to the stratosphere on Space Perspective’s giant high-altitude balloon, but if you really want to make it to space for more than a few minutes, prepare to add a couple of zeros. A ride on Soyuz used to cost as little as $20 million when video game developer Richard Garriott visited the International Space Station in 2008, but more recent tickets have run to over $80 million per seat. Prospective space visitors can do a little better on the flights Axiom Space arranges on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Those can reportedly deliver a week or more on the ISS for around $55 million.
Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman reportedly spent around $200 million to book an entire Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule for a four-person flight. How deep are Isaacman’s pockets? Deep enough that he has reportedly booked three more flights.
For the most part, these flights are exactly as safe as those being conducted on the same ship by NASA. They follow the same safety protocols, and they’re under some pretty intense scrutiny from agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration. That doesn’t make them by any means safe (see Challenger and Columbia), it just means they’re not notably less safe than their government-sanctioned counterparts.
But space is just the very lofty tip of the adventure travel iceberg. These days, just about anyone can visit Antarctica. (You can literally get there on a Disney cruise.) But if you want to pitch out $70,000, you can go to the actual South Pole for a six-day visit to the place so many explorers failed to reach in the previous two centuries.
For around $40,000 you can journey to Nepal, get taken up in a small plane, and then dropped from the same altitude as the top of Mount Everest to parachute above the Himalayas, although the drop may not be as long as expected since the landing zone is at an elevation of 15,000 feet.
And if just falling through the skies above the Goddess Mother of the World isn’t enough, $100,000 will buy you a spot on a guided expedition to reach the summit. Only three climbers died in 2022. That’s a good year. Outside Magazine set the average over the last 30 years at 6.2 climbers per year, with some years being much worse. The year 2023 is looking to shape up as one of the worst years, with at least 10 climbers dead just through mid-May.
When talking about these kinds of experiences, there’s probably no better reference than Jon Krakauer’s book “Into Thin Air.” Krakauer was sent to Everest by Outside in 1996 to cover the growing trend of guided trips up the mountain that all but promised to put wealthy clients on the summit. That year turned out to be a very bad year, with 15 climbers dying in a cascade of disasters.
Even though the guides on Krakauer’s expedition were both experienced and conscious of the danger, they—and their clients, including Krakauer—made some very bad decisions when caught between extreme circumstances and reaching their goals.
Those decisions might be best illustrated by the story of Doug Hansen, one of the few people on the expedition who was not extremely wealthy. Hansen worked for the Postal Service, sorting mail by night, and he picked up construction work during the day, saving up the tremendous cost necessary to satisfy his Everest dream. In 1995, Hansen made the trip to Nepal and joined a team lead by experienced New Zealand guide Rob Hall, paying $65,000 (the equivalent of $131,000 in 2023) for permits, supplies, and for Hall and a team of sherpas to lead him to the top. Then, at an altitude of 28,800 feet, less than 300 feet from the summit, the weather closed in and Hansen was forced to turn back.
Hall was so upset about Hansen’s near-miss that he called him repeatedly from New Zealand, urging him to join the 1996 expedition. He even offered Hansen a steep discount to make a second try on a team otherwise populated by lawyers, doctors, and corporate CEOs who could easily afford the hefty price. On May 10, 1996, as the team started its final ascent toward the summit, Hanson told the group he was not feeling well, hadn’t slept, and was thinking of going down. However, after a conversation with Hall, he decided to keep going.
The team started off in pre-dawn darkness with a “drop dead” time of 2 PM to reach the summit. But crowded conditions on the mountain, worsening weather, and Hansen’s own fading strength meant that when 2 PM came, he was still some distance from the summit. Hall then ignored the warnings he had given everyone just that morning. He put his arm around his client and helped Hansen reach the summit of Everest at 4 PM, May 10, 1996.
Neither man survived.
Out of oxygen and with Hansen both mentally and physically exhausted, Hall left him around 6 PM in an effort to reach supplies at a lower level. Hansen’s body was never discovered, but it’s speculated that he fell over 7,000 feet from the side of the mountain in his confusion. Hall reached the South Summit of the mountain, located oxygen, and was able to radio to people further down the mountain, who connected him by phone with his pregnant wife back in New Zealand. He spoke to her in a series of heartbreaking messages before dying, suffering from too much frostbite and hypothermia to make his way down the ropes.
Hall has often been put forward as the villain of some of the events on that disastrous day, but no one who knew him seems to feel that he set out to do harm, or even to take unnecessary risks. Hall loved the mountain. His trip to the top with Hansen was his fifth visit to the summit. There’s every indication that he only wanted to help Hansen fulfill his dream, to make his client happy. To have something to toast and cheer about when they were both safe down at base camp.
Those events on Everest make it all too easy to imagine something happening, not high up on the mountains, but a mile or more beneath the sea in the small passenger chamber of the submersible Titan. Maybe a light began to blink on the screen. Maybe there was a sound that didn’t seem quite right. But then … maybe they were only 300 feet from being down at the Titanic. Maybe Stockton Rush was so close to giving his clients what they wanted. Making them happy. Sharing with them an adventure they would all be excited to talk about when back aboard the surface ship.
It’s rarely malice that generates the events that lead to a safety regulation. Carelessness will do. So will pushing onward just one step too far because you want to show someone that you can deliver on your promises. That you can give them what they paid for. That you can make them happy.
Unfortunately, the high cost can be even higher. Learning of Hansen and Hall’s predicament on Everest, guide Andy Harris, who had already summitted the mountain hours earlier, took the extraordinary step of trying to go back up to find them and help them down. His ice ax and jacket were later discovered near Hall’s body. His own body was never recovered.
If the Titan had been discovered still intact somewhere beneath the sea, people would certainly have placed their own lives at risk in an effort to recover it. That’s okay. More than okay. The instinct to save those in extremis, even at risk to ourselves, should be cultivated, not repressed. That the people inside were capable of footing an enormous bill, and that the guy who was at the controls thought he was smarter than all those regulations may not make them lovable. It doesn’t make them less worth the effort of saving.
As someone who likes to take solo hikes, I’m certainly not going to complain when I know that on any given day a bad fall or a heart attack could have me drawing rescuers into the wilderness. I admire those people, even if I never need them.
But that’s another reason to never be incautious, never take unnecessary risks, and never try to skirt the safety rules, even if they are “obscene.” The cost can be not just your life or the lives of others who depend on you, but the lives of wonderful people who would try to save you, creating a cascade of costs that can’t be paid off … even for those who can afford to buy a space shot.
They could have asked a real expert like James Cameron who said that carbon fiber doesn’t do compression safely. That’s not what it was designed for. There’s a reason why every deep submersible puts passengers inside a titanium SPHERE because a cylinder with its ends glued on isn’t safe.
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Especially in extremes or where disaster is a potential, you want multiple “lines of defense.” Belt and suspenders. Never depend on some person always doing everything right. Every person has *derp* moments. Equipment does too.
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Guns are extreme inherently, disaster is a potential, yet safety depends on one person–the gun owner–(some random person with possibly no training), choosing to do everything right, and never having a *derp.* With the only safety net being EMS to collect the dead and/or wounded later.
I’d venture the collective cost of playing fast and loose with gun safety is at least as high as for billionaire excursions. Probably much higher.
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One of the four other passengers (Paul-Henri Nargeolet) was a French deep-sea diver known as “Mr. Titanic” because of the large number of dives he had done on the wreck. He had decades of experience in deep-sea diving
This leads me to believe that Stockton Rush must have had gift of gab good enough to sell sand to folks at the beach to be able to get Nargeolet into that tin can.
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Well, at the bottom of the ocean there now exists this century’s monument to engineering hubris, lying next to last century’s monument to engineering hubris.
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The GQP is all about abandoning regulations. They say that governments have no business stifling entrepreneurs and their dreams to make themselves even richer. They literally want all regulations to go away. Heck, who needs seat belts and air bags in cars, or why should there be airworthiness certificates issued for airliners? There were people who saw what Stockton was doing at OceanGate and blew the whistle. He had a lawsuit with an ex-employee over safety issues that were ignored. There was at least one passenger for this or an earlier dive, that pulled out after he found out how much Stockton flaunted regulations.
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And this is exactly why I get frustrated with people who think that we need to loosen restrictions on businesses. If they could be trusted to not cut corners and do the right thing, that would be one thing, but we all know that profit is more important than safety or protecting our planet.
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I have attempted to imagine events happening in a 6,000 lbs/sq inch environment. Milliseconds to oblivion but I did not understand or know about the heat involved. Ignorant reporters asked the Coast Guard Admiral about possible body recovery. There is nothing left to recover.
For decades, Americans had settled around an uneasy truce on abortion. Even if most people weren’t happy with the status quo, public opinion about the legality and morality of abortion remained relatively static. But the Supreme Court’s decision last summer overturning Roe v. Wade set off a seismic change, in one swoop striking down a federal right to abortion that had existed for 50 years, long enough that women of reproductive age had never lived in a world without it. As the decision triggered state bans and animated voters in the midterms, it shook complacency and forced many people to reconsider their positions.
In the year since, polling shows that what had been considered stable ground has begun to shift: For the first time, a majority of Americans say abortion is “morally acceptable.” A majority now believes abortion laws are too strict. They are significantly more likely to identify, in the language of polls, as “pro-choice” over “pro-life,” for the first time in two decades.
And more voters than ever say they will vote only for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, with a twist: While Republicans and those identifying as “pro-life” have historically been most likely to see abortion as a litmus test, now they are less motivated by it, while Democrats and those identifying as “pro-choice” are far more so.
One survey in the weeks after the court’s decision last June found that 92 percent of people had heard news coverage of abortion and 73 percent had one or more conversations about it. As people talked — at work, over family Zoom calls, even with strangers in grocery store aisles — they were forced to confront new medical realities and a disconnect between the status of women now and in 1973, when Roe was decided.
[…]
“This is a paradigm shift,” said Lydia Saad, director of United States social research for Gallup, the polling firm. “There’s still a lot of ambivalence, there aren’t a lot of all-or-nothing people. But there is much more support for abortion rights than there was, and that seems to be here to stay.”
Gallup happened to start its annual survey of American values just as the court’s decision in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaked last May. That was when the balance began to tilt toward voters identifying as “pro-choice.” And when the question was divided into whether abortion should be legal in the first, second or third trimester, the share of Americans who say it should be legal in each was the highest it has been since Gallup first asked in 1996.
The New York Times reviewed polls from groups that have been asking Americans about abortion for decades, including Gallup, Public Religion Research Institute, Pew Research, Ipsos, KFF and other nonpartisan polling organizations. All pointed to the same general trends: growing public support for legalized abortion and dissatisfaction with new laws that restrict it.
Pollsters say the biggest change was in political action around abortion, not necessarily in people’s core views. Polls regarding whether abortion should be legal or illegal in most or all cases — long the most widely-used metric — have remained relatively stable, with the percentage of voters saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases slowly ticking up over the past five years to somewhere between 60 percent and 70 percent.
But there were sudden and significant jumps in support for legalized abortion post-Dobbs among some groups, including Republican men and Black Protestants. Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute found that the percentage of Hispanic Catholics saying abortion should be legal in all cases doubled between March and December of last year, from 16 percent to 31 percent. And the share of voters saying abortion should be illegal in all cases dropped significantly in several polls.
That largely reflected the dramatic change in abortion access. Fourteen states enacted near-total bans on abortion as a result of the court’s decision.
“While Roe was settled law, you kind of didn’t have to worry about the consequences,” said Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, a writer for Commonweal, the Catholic lay publication, and a mother of four. “You could say, ‘I think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances,’ if you didn’t really have to think about what it would mean for that to happen.”
[…]
“When people have the idea that abortion equals killing babies, it’s very easy to say, ‘Of course I’m against that,’” she said. “If you start seeing how reproductive health care is necessary to women, you start to see that if you’re supporting these policies that ban abortion, you’re going to end up killing women.”
[…]
Ms. Wilson O’Reilly now believes decisions on abortion should be up to women and their doctors, not governments. It’s impossible to draw a “bright line” around what exceptions to the bans should be allowed, she said.
[…]
“People will react to a once-in-a-generation event. That’s true, and it should be a wake-up call for Republicans,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which was founded to help elect lawmakers who oppose abortion rights. Republicans, she said, have to paint Democratic candidates as the extremists on abortion: “If they don’t, they may very well lose.”
[…]
High proportions of women ages 18 to 49, and especially Democrats, say they will vote only for candidates who support their views on abortion. On the flip side, Republicans are less enthusiastic. The Public Religion Research Institute found that the share of Republicans who think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases and who said they would vote only for a candidate whose view matched their own had dropped significantly, to 30 percent last December from 42 percent in December 2020.
“That’s a direct effect of Dobbs,” said Melissa Deckman, the chief executive of PRRI and a political scientist…..”this is an issue of salience and turnout.”
* Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Emily’s List — by most measures, the nation’s three leading reproductive rights organizations — are endorsing President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. [Associated Press source]
* The No Labels operation has the potential to dramatically affect the 2024 presidential election, but at least for now the organization insists on secrecy in response to questions about its finances. [Politico source]
* The newest member of the Republican Party’s presidential field, former Rep. Will Hurd, told CNN that he won’t sign the party’s loyalty pledge, which would require him to support the eventual Republican nominee, even if it’s not him. Unless he changes his mind, it means the Texan will not be eligible to participate in debates sponsored by the Republican National Committee. [The Hill source]
* The New York Times reported yesterday that Sen. Rick Scott is still considering jumping into the GOP’s 2024 race. The Florida Republican said soon after that he’s “not considering” a national campaign and remains focused on his Senate re-election bid, but a Times reporter responded to the denial by adding, “We’re really very confident in our sourcing.” [New York Times and Twitter sources] [I am reminded of a commentator on MSNBC who noted that most of the candidates in the overly stuffed Republican field are “delusional narcissists.”]
* A far-right group called Moms for Liberty, which is becoming more popular in Republican circles, came under fire this week after one of its local affiliates in Indiana quoted Adolf Hitler in a newsletter. The chapter apologized yesterday. [NBC News source. Can you just apologize for quoting Hitler and then assume all is well?]
* Stephen Richer, a top Republican election official in Arizona, filed a defamation lawsuit against Kari Lake yesterday. Richer said he’s faced “violent vitriol and other dire consequences” because of the conspiratorial lies spread by the failed GOP gubernatorial candidate. [NBC News source]
* Despite the fact that two leading South Carolina Republicans — Sen. Tim Scott and former Gov. Nikki Haley — are running for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rolled out endorsements yesterday from 15 legislators in the state yesterday. [Associated Press source. Sigh. It’s going to be a long time before we are rid of the scourge of Ron DeSantis.]
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has personal ties to a leader of the legal clinic under the Notre Dame initiative that funded Justice Samuel Alito’s July 2022 speaking trip to Rome, CNN reports.
Just months after she was sworn in at the Supreme Court in 2020, Barrett, who had left her judgeship and job as a Notre Dame law professor, sold her private home in South Bend, Indiana, to a recently hired Notre Dame professor who was assuming a leadership role at the Religious Liberty Initiative, according to records discovered by the left-leaning non-profit watchdog group Accountable.US.
The initiative’s legal clinic has curried favor with the Supreme Court since its founding in 2020 and filed at least nine “friend-of-the-court” amicus briefs in religious liberty cases before the Court. Alito joined the majority in deciding in favor of the initiative’s conservative positions in several of those cases, including the one that reversed Roe v. Wade, and others on issues of school prayer and COVID-19 restrictions on churches…
A top Republican election official in Arizona filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against Kari Lake, who falsely claims she lost the 2022 race for governor because of fraud.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said he’s faced “violent vitriol and other dire consequences” because of lies spread by Lake, including death threats and the loss of friendships…
Despite her losses in court, she continues to claim that Richer and other Maricopa County officials interfered in the election to prevent her from winning…
The suit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, names Lake, her campaign and her political fundraising group as defendants. In addition to unspecified monetary damages, Richer is seeking a court order declaring Lake’s statements false and requiring her to delete them from social media.
Fresh off their vote to censure Rep. Adam Schiff for the crime of noticing that Trump was corrupt, Trump’s House allies are proving that there is literally nothing they won’t do to kiss Donald Trump’s saggy, orange ass.
In a stunt which would be rejected by the Jackass franchise for being too pathetic, Reps. Elise Stefanik and Margie Greene have introduced a resolution to Hot Tub Time Machine themselves back to 2021 so they can expunge Trump’s impeachment for trying to overthrow the government. And then they’ll get back in the bubbles for a trip to 2019 to scrub away that impeachment for Trump’s effort to extort the president of Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden. After that, maybe they’ll go even further back to determine which came first — losing their consciences, or losing their goddamn minds.
The bill regarding the 2021 impeachment is especially ridiculous, namechecking every argle bargle conspiracy while conveniently sidestepping the total lack of evidence of any actual vote fraud, even as Marge and Lissy deride the impeachment resolution as a “subjective account” of the events of January 6, 2021.
What about “voting anomalies”? What about secretaries of state making it easier to vote in a pandemic? What about Trump winning “18 of the 19 bellwether counties across the country that have predicted the winner of every Presidential election since 1980”? What about Trump getting more votes in 2020 than in 2016? What about the wee feefees of all the MAGA heads who honestly believe in their hearts that the election was stolen? What about the fact that mean Nancy Pelosi just picked up the glass and scrubbed the blood and feces off the walls and then raced to a vote without letting Republicans obstruct for two months? What about the fact that Mitch McConnell refused to allow evidence to be presented and surrendered his chance to get rid of that orange menace once and for all?
IMPEACH THE IMPEACHMENT!
The resolution to disappear the Ukraine impeachment for “wrongfully accused” seems almost sane, if only by comparison.
You can’t “expunge” an act of Congress. It’s not like a criminal record which can be removed from official searches. Trump will still be the only president to have been impeached twice, although Margie is ready to cage fight Lauren Boebert for the opportunity to present weekly articles of impeachment of President Biden based on recycled Giuliani effluvia from 2019.
“The first impeachment of President Trump was a politically motivated sham. The Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, weaponized a perfect phone call with Ukraine to interfere with the 2020 election,” she shrieks. “Meanwhile, the FBI had credible evidence of Joe and Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings, confirming their involvement in a foreign bribery pay-to-play scheme and receipt of over $5 million each.”
Gotta hand it to her, she does stay on her crazy, lie message.
“It’s clear that President Trump’s impeachment was nothing more than a witch hunt that needs to be expunged from our history. I’m proud to work with Chairwoman Elise Stefanik on our joint resolutions to correct the record and clear President Trump’s good name,” she continued.
For her part, Stefanik is clearly more concerned with using MAGA voters and Trump’s endorsement for her own ambitions — she is, after all, Republican Conference Chair, just three clicks below a notoriously weak speaker.
“The American people know Democrats weaponized the power of impeachment against President Donald Trump to advance their own extreme political agenda,” Stefanik lied. “From the beginning of this sham process, I stood up against Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff’s blatant attempt to shred the Constitution as House Democrats ignored the Constitution and failed to follow the legislative process. President Donald Trump was rightfully acquitted, and it is past time to expunge Democrats’ sham smear against not only President Trump’s name, but against millions of patriots across the country.”
[…] Anyway, it’s not clear if this attempt to take White Out to the Congressional Record will even get a vote. But Greene and Stefanik got a news cycle out of it, so, you know, they did their real jobs.
While much of America has been occupied this week with the Titanic-exploring submersible […], super-idiot lawyer John Eastman has been in a courtroom in California trying to explain why plotting to overthrow the elected government of the United States on January 6 should not result in him losing his law license.
Eastman is facing 11 disciplinary charges, and we’re going to try and sum up his week of his morality, his reputation, his worldview, and his general air of galactic dipshittery getting hammered by bar attorneys while Eastman’s lawyer Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, tried to put a bold new lip on this particular pig.
[…] the foot soldiers who stormed the Capitol on January 6 have been sentenced to prison, or are awaiting trial while enduring the indignity of recording their Grand Ole Opry audition tapes. The people who wound them up and pointed them in the direction of Congress shouldn’t get off without being flayed […] Metaphorically, of course.
Where were we? Oh right, the trial.
TUESDAY: Eastman’s lawyer tried to call a man named Joseph Fried as an expert witness. Fried is a Certified Public Accountant who wrote an ebook alleging that as a financial professional, he knows an audit when he sees one, and the audits where county election boards kept finding that Eastman and Donald Trump’s charges of vote fraud didn’t amount to a fart in a NASA wind tunnel were all a bunch of hooey.
What are Fried’s qualifications? According to Eastman lawyer Harvey Birdman, Fried’s 40-year career as a CPA means his expert knowledge of statistics makes him an expert in elections for some reason. Well shoot, in that case why not call our high school statistics teacher as an expert witness? Why not call our sainted father, who has also been a CPA for 40 years? Why not call Ben Affleck, he played an accountant in that movie The Accountant.
Also, Fried never actually identified a specific instance of fraud, just made a lot of assertions that, well, he knows numbers and these vote totals must be hinky for some reason. The judge ruled he could not testify.
Then Harvey Birdman tried to call someone named Jay Valentine, who appears to do some sort of work with data fraud and claimed he had run some sort of analysis proving widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The attorney for the state bar told the judge that Valentine has refused to turn over the database he used that he claims proves he is correct. The judge then decided Valentine couldn’t testify.
To sum up, Eastman tried to call a couple of charlatans to support his case, and the judge told the charlatans to take a long walk off a short pier and hug an octopus.
And that was just the first morning. The afternoon saw Eastman getting wrecked on the stand by the bar attorney. There was a lot of “I don’t know” and “I don’t recall” from Eastman. Then there was this: [Tweet and article excerpt at the link]
Eastman was so convinced of his case that he suggested everyone read an article in Time that appears to contradict him. Genius.
This trial was expected to last eight days but now might go a full two weeks. Worst. Hanukkah. Miracle. Ever.
WEDNESDAY: Testimony from Greg Jacob, counsel for Mike Pence, who infamously emailed Eastman in the middle of the Capitol being sacked to tell him “Thanks to your bullshit we’re now under siege.” Jacob patiently explains to Harvey Birdman that while Pence had some concerns about the changes in voting procedures made by Democratic state officials in 2020 (much of which was pandemic-related), there is a huge difference between that and deliberate voter fraud. Jacob (and Pence) did not see anywhere near enough of the latter to make a difference in the election outcome.
Also John Yoo is going to testify for Eastman at some point, we think? Presumably to say that Donald Trump would have been well within his rights to let John Eastman crush the testicles of every election administrator in Arizona until they admitted to voter fraud.
THURSDAY: Harvey Birdman tried to block the testimony of various election administrators about any audits that took place after January of 2021 on the grounds that it “post-dates the conduct at issue in the case.” This would of course eliminate any examination of, among others, the infamous Cyber Ninjas audits in Arizona that turned up bupkis after months and months of work.
It would also conveniently ignore the fact that Eastman himself didn’t stop spreading stolen election bullshit at midnight on January 7. All he did was change his tune to say all his theories had been, well, theoretical, and therefore well within the scope of giving the best advice he could to his client, the president. He’s not responsible if all the people he wound up were still listening to him, is he?
The judge managed to not laugh in Birdman’s face while turning him down.
We’ll try for more updates next week, assuming we haven’t hammered gold bricks into our ears so we don’t have to listen to anymore of Eastman’s prevaricating.
Everyone seems to be disappointed by the rate at which the Ukrainian counteroffensive is liberating territory … only it’s not clear that the Ukrainian military is actually part of that “everyone.” What’s happening right now could be so vital to their efforts that trying to change things by rapidly liberating more area could actually make things worse.
To understand why staying put might not be as much a necessity as it is a strategy, it helps to look at this message from a Ukrainian soldier taking part in the fighting around Pyatykhatky at the western end of the southern front.
“The Russians have been trying to drive us out of our positions for days. From the direction of Zherebyanky the Russians attack with tanks and IFV. The attacks are made across the open field, through their own minefields. By capturing high ground we have fire sovereignty over this sector.”
There’s an incident in America’s history that seems to mesh with the situation being described in this area—it was called “Pickett’s Charge.”
I’m not going to recount all the details of how Confederate commander Robert E. Lee’s arrogance and Gen. George Pickett’s complacency conspired to create a military disaster. Most readers of this series are probably well-versed in the events of that day, and if not, here you go.
I’m just going to say this: Gen. George Meade is not much remembered by history. Most Americans would be shocked to learn that he was the commander of Union forces at Gettysburg rather than some better known name like Ulysses S. Grant or William Tecumseh Sherman. Meade’s biggest accomplishment may have been how powerfully he pissed off Abraham Lincoln (and keeping the army running when Grant was too busy being Grant). But Meade knew enough to not abandon a strong tactical position when his enemy kept attacking from a weaker position.
Here’s more of that message from a Ukrainian soldier on the ground on the southern Ukrainian front:
“The Russian 429th Motor Rifle Division from Ossetia was virtually destroyed. The Russians are always pushing in new reserves instead of retreating in their well-developed positions. Attacking further forward doesn’t make sense at all, since the Russians send their reserves to the kill zone where they can be effectively fought by us.”
So long as the Russians are sending forces forward to Zherebyanky to be destroyed in a neatly constrained area of about three square kilometers, over which Ukraine has a superior tactical advantage … why stop them? Trying to take Zherebyanky under such conditions would be like telling the Union forces shooting from behind the elevated stone wall to stand up and charge out to meet Pickett’s men.
The quote “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” has been attributed to everyone from Napoleon Bonaparte to Sun Tzu, but it was probably first said by someone with a name like Ugg. Because this is advice so obvious even a caveman can see the sense of it. [Tweet and images at the link]
It may seem like we keep hammering this point, because we keep hammering this point. But there are other ways to measure success than land changing hands in the first two weeks of fighting.
For example, just yesterday Markos wrote about the increased rate of Russian artillery being taken out through counter-battery fire since the counteroffensive began. Going into the last two weeks, Ukraine had been removing Russian guns from the field at a rate of about 10.5 a day. Over the last two weeks, that number jumped to an average of 21.8 guns a day. Then there was yesterday: [List at the link]
That was 44 tube artillery and eight MLRS being taken out in 24 hours. It almost doesn’t matter how many guns Russia can dig out of mothballs. If Ukraine can hold that rate of attrition, Russia is weeks away from being unable to field the kind of comprehensive artillery coverage that their tactics demand.
Somehow, just by moving a couple of kilometers, Ukraine has convinced Russia to try and recover “their” area no matter the cost. It’s a tactic so baffling that the same soldier on the ground admits he doesn’t know why they are doing it. He states that “the Russians are learning” and everyone worries that there is some bigger picture that they don’t understand. But for now, the Ukrainians at Pyatykhatky are sitting on their hills and shooting the Russians as they try again to cross all that open ground.
It’s understandable that Donald Trump and his allies have focused much of their rage of late on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the classified documents scandal. After all, the former president has been charged with 37 felony counts — which is the sort of thing that tends to get one’s attention.
But Smith’s other investigation is advancing, too. NBC News reported yesterday on G. Michael Brown, whose name might not be familiar, but who’s perspective is highly relevant.
The deputy director of Election Day operations for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign appeared before a federal grand jury Thursday as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Jan. 6 and efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of presidential power.
If you were to go through the MaddowBlog’s archives, you’d find Gary Michael Brown’s name just once: In February 2022, we discussed the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee’s interest in the former Trump campaign aide, when congressional investigators sought information on what Brown knew about the fake electors plot.
Months later, his name appeared in the panel’s final report:
“By early January, most of the fake elector votes had arrived in Washington, except those from Michigan and Wisconsin. Undeterred, the Trump team arranged to fly them to Washington and hand deliver them to Congress for the Vice President himself. ‘Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President…’ Wisconsin Republican Party official Mark Jefferson wrote to Party Chairman Hitt on January 4th. Hitt responded, ‘Ok I see I have a missed call from [Mike] Roman and a text from someone else. Did you talk to them already? This is just nuts….’ The next day, Trump Campaign Deputy Director for Election Day Operations G. Michael Brown sent a text message to other campaign staff suggesting that he was the person who delivered the fake votes to Congress.”
It helps explain why the House select committee concluded that it had “credible evidence” that Brown was “aware of, and participated in, efforts to promote unsupported allegations of fraud in the November 2020 Presidential election and encourage state legislators to alter the outcome of the November 2020 election by, among other things, appointing alternate slates of electors to send competing electoral votes to the United States Congress.”
This is the Brown who appeared yesterday before Smith’s Jan. 6 grand jury.
He’s hardly alone. As my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin recently noted, it was just 10 days ago when Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald, a close Trump political ally, as well as Jim DeGraffenreid, the state party’s vice chair, were also seen entering the room where the Jan. 6 grand jury is meeting. Both were among Trump’s fake electors in the wake of his 2020 defeat.
CNN reported today that the special counsel’s office “compelled” McDonald and DeGraffenreid to testify “by giving them limited immunity,” but that detail hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.
The week before that, the federal grand jury subpoenaed far-right media personality Steve Bannon, who seemed to have insights into what would happen on Jan. 6 before the attack on the Capitol occurred.
I’m not prepared to make any predictions, and it’s certainly possible that this aspect of Smith’s investigation won’t lead to any new criminal charges for the former president.
But as the probe advances, and knowledgeable witnesses appear before the grand jury, Trump has every reason to be nervous.
One of the most confounding political aspects of the economy is the fact that public perception often doesn’t align with the actual data. [Not all that confounding. Like every other issue, Republicans and rightwing media pump out misleading propaganda about the economy constantly. Even Trump contributes.]
In fact, heading into last year’s midterms, reporting was riddled with doomsday predictions for Democrats due to polling showing inflation and the state of the economy consistently topping voter concerns. By November 2022, President Joe Biden had created more jobs in his first two years than any president in history, including 735,000 manufacturing jobs, and the average gas price had fallen from a peak of $4.99 in mid-June to slightly north of $3.80 by early November. Yet 61% of registered voters still viewed the economy as “getting worse” on Election Day, while just 17% said it was “getting better,” net -44 points in Civiqs tracking of the issue.
Fast forward to summer 2023 and Americans appear to finally be warming to the economy as U.S. economic indicators consistently improve: inflation continues to ease, the U.S. economy added a whopping 339,000 jobs in May, the unemployment rate remains at historic lows, and the White House managed to wrangle House Republicans into averting a U.S. debt default and the ensuing economic calamity.
Annual manufacturing construction is also on pace to be roughly $190 billion this year compared to less than $100 billion for the entirety of the 2010s. As CNN analyst Ronald Brownstein quipped of the news: “Coming to a swing state TV ad near you.” [Tweet and chart at the link]
In Civiqs tracking, perceptions of the economy have improved roughly 10 points since last November, and are trending in the right direction. Though 56% of voters still say the economy is getting worse, that’s the lowest the number has been in over a year and a half. [chart at the link]
Another measure of consumer confidence, the Michigan consumer sentiment index, shows increased optimism about the economy with the index rising 8 points in June to 63.9—its highest level in four months. Other Civiqs measures are also trending in a positive direction. Biden’s numbers on the question of whether he’s doing enough to create new jobs are the best of his entire presidency despite still being underwater at 39% yes-50% no, but again, moving in the right direction. [Chart at the link]
Another hopeful sign for Democrats: They’re besting Republicans by 9 points on the question of which party is “more concerned with the needs of people like you,” 42% Democrats-33% Republicans. […]
Perhaps the biggest problem for Democrats on the economy is that old habits die hard and voters seem to continue to have a clearer, if outdated, understanding of the Republican message on the economy. That dynamic really came through in several recent Navigator focus groups of independents and soft partisans represented by Republicans in swing districts in Arizona (AZ-1), New York (NY-19), and Wisconsin (WI-1). Navigator writes:
When asked about the Democratic position on the economy, there was a lack of clarity, with some participants citing spending or raising taxes on the “top one percent.” Conversely, the Republican vision on the economy was much more consistent: lower taxes, less regulation, and reducing government spending.
The most actionable insight from the focus groups was just how unpopular the voting records of vulnerable GOP members are. “Many participants described their representative as ‘crooked’ or ‘lacking empathy’ after reading about their actions and voting records over the past few years,” writes Navigator. WI-1 voters, for instance, were told their congressman, Rep. Bryan Steil, voted against capping the price of insulin; against giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices; and for massive cuts to law enforcement, public school, veterans’ benefits, and food for families who can’t afford it. When one WI-1 woman was asked what animal her representative would be if they were an animal, she stated: “I mean, obviously a snake.”
Pyatykhatky—a village it’s safe to say was unknown to most observers of Russia’s invasion until last week—is a long way from being the whole front line. While the fighting continues there, it’s also going on numerous other locations on the south, east, and north. [map at the link]
Robotyne: This area is best known for being the location at which Ukraine lost Leopard 2 tanks and Bradley IFVs in the opening days of the counteroffensive. However, on Friday there were reports that Ukraine was again advancing in this area. One unconfirmed Russian report indicates that Ukraine has pushed Russian troops out of their positions in this area and moved south. [Tweet and images at the link]
Makarivka: Fighting continues in the area between Makarivka and two towns just to the south, but Ukrainian forces have reportedly had success in moving west of the town, liberating several square kilometers of mostly open fields. [Tweet and maps at the link]
Rivnopil: The most notable thing about this location is the silence. After being the scene of fighting over the first week, there’s been almost nothing heard from this front-line location in days. There were early reports that Russia had fled the location, but these were later retracted. However, it now seems very possible that Russia has simply left and Ukraine took it without a lengthy fight. Waiting for confirmation. [Tweet and map at the link]
In areas not covered by this map: Reports claim that Ukraine has advanced east of Krasnohorivka centered on the rail lines there, Russia has reoccupied the small village of Sakko i Vantsetti north of Bakhmut, Ukraine has retaken areas in that forest near Kreminna, and Russia’s advance at Kupyansk doesn’t seem to be as extensive (or as close to the city) as previously claimed.
———————
CHONHAR BRIDGE
The bombing of the Chonhar Bridge may be a bigger deal than it seemed. Though the initial impression was that the damage could be swiftly repaired. It now seems that support structures could be out in a way that will limit traffic for weeks. [Tweet and image at the link]
Russia is taking the damage seriously enough to construct a pontoon crossing, but taking out the bridge appears to be part of a systematic effort to disrupt Russian lines of communication. [Tweet and map at the link: “In order to illustrate the impact of the (de facto) destruction of the Chonhar bridge we see the original path of a supply truck coming from the Dzhankoi to Melitopol in red and the remaining two alternatives in blue and yellow going through Armiansk. The supply lines have been almost doubled and they lead now through less useful roads then the main artery before.
Double the time or half the supply in the same time equals to strategic degradation, not mentioning Ukrainian partisans having now their chances doubled to interfere.”]
After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. freight carriers finally have […] paid sick days.
[…]
nearly caused a nationwide shutdown of freight rail just before Christmas […] It was not part of last December’s congressionally implemented […] agreement
[…]
the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after […] Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and […] the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously
[…]
several other railroad-related unions have also seen success in negotiating for similar sick-day benefits. These 12 unions represent more than 105,000 railroad workers.
Is the Republican Freedom Caucus going to blow itself up by focusing on purity tests? Looks likely.
The latest blow-up in the House Freedom Caucus, pitting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene against Rep. Lauren Boebert in battle for the title of wingnuttiest of them all, is history repeating itself. Since the gang got together after the 2014 midterm blow-out that gave Republicans a big majority during Obama’s second term, the caucus has spent at least as much time on purity tests within its own ranks as it has blowing up everything else.
The group is currently squabbling over whether or not to have a purge, who gets credit for trying to impeach President Joe Biden, if or when they’re going to try to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and whether or not founding member Rep. Jim Jordan has been co-opted and can be trusted. It’s the old story of the gang that just can’t say “yes.”
They’ve arguably got the most power they’ve ever had since they put McCarthy in the speaker’s chair. They have high-profile seats, and sometimes control, over key committees. They’ve shown their ability to shut the House down and bend McCarthy to their will, but they just can’t stop turning on each other.
The Boebert-Greene kerfuffle is par for the course. Boebert is exploiting the fact that many of her colleagues don’t trust Greene since Greene cozied up to McCarthy. In fact, when they’re talking purges—and “at least two hardliners” are, according to Politico—Greene is at the top of the list, along with unnamed others who are “too aligned with GOP leaders and too outwardly critical of the group when it splits on certain issues.” [Oh, my. Fighting about who belongs in the family and who should be ousted.]
The current chair of the group, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, says he’s refused the purge request. That’s not going to stop the infighting. There are too many fracture points, as South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman was happy to explain. “The speaker’s race, there was some difference in opinion. The debt ceiling, there were differences of opinion. And we had to get 80 percent on any major issue that we take positions on,” he told Politico. “On some big issues, we have not been able to get there … We’re at a critical point right now.” Yes, they’re still fighting with each other over the speaker’s race and the debt ceiling deal.
Some of them are also looking sideways at Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the group’s founders. He was the choice of some of the members for speaker, but he was too focused on getting the powerful Judiciary Committee chair to consider it. He now has the power to hold all the hearings he wants on all the made-up issues he cares about and spend all his time yelling for the cameras, seemingly his goal in life. That’s causing “some conservative grumbling behind closed doors about his hand-in-glove work with McCarthy.”
It’s a good thing for the country that the extreme far-right in the House spend so much time fighting each other and leadership. […]
Remember the “grand bargain” of 2011, when Republicans were oh-so close to getting President Barack Obama to agree to cuts to Social Security and Medicare? The hardliners—the members who would come together in a few years to become the Freedom Caucus—balked, and wouldn’t let it happen because it came with some tax increases on the rich. The decades-long GOP goal of undermining Social Security and Medicare went down the drain. And with it, the speakership of John Boehner.
And then, in 2017, Republicans were on the brink of repealing the Affordable Care Act, the hated bill that gave Republicans such a big majority in 2014 and helped spawn the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus was so distrustful of then-Speaker Paul Ryan that they torpedoed the plan. Paul Ryan decided to retire rather than have to keep dealing with this group of misfits.
If the Freedom Caucus and fellow hardliners couldn’t be relied upon to trip over their own feet, Social Security and Medicare would be failing and Obamacare repealed. That’s the upside of their existence. That and the entertainment value of watching them take down one Republican speaker after another.
Donald Trump has targeted his former attorney Michael Cohen witha $500 million lawsuit alleging “multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract by virtue of Defendant’s past service as Plaintiff’s employee and attorney.”
Cohen’s first move in April was a motion to dismiss Trump’s case. Trump responded with opposition to that, and Cohen’s latest document is a blistering takedown of every minute accusation in Trump’s lawsuit. It not only mocks the suit as something that isn’t even based on the reality of law, but also destroys the unprofessional carelessness with which Trump’s lawyers penned the filing.
“Plaintiff Donald J. Trump’s sprawling and baseless Complaint appears to have two aims: retaliating against and intimidating Mr. Cohen, and distracting from Mr. Trump’s mounting and serious criminal exposure,” the filing begins.
Trump was indicted in Florida earlier this month and arraigned a week later on a slew of federal crimes for the alleged theft of documents from the White House and obstruction in trying to get them back. There is also a state suit from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and possible “criminal exposure” in Georgia coming at the end of the summer.
The response walks through Trump’s failure on standing, the fact that his complaints are far outside of the statute of limitations (one year, in NY, or two years at most in Florida), and “based on misconstructions of the relevant facts and law.”
“Trump fails to show any standing to enforce the Confidentiality Agreement and conspicuously stops short of asserting that he is a party to or even a third-party beneficiary of the agreement,” it continues.
Another comment in the Cohen motion notes that Trump cites “Florida” when it comes to the allegations of Cohen breaching his “fiduciary duty.” Trump claims he suffered an “injury” as a result of Cohen, but not that the injury happened in Florida. It’s likely because any work Cohen did for the Trump Org. was in New York before Trump left the White House and moved to Florida.
The filing comments that Trump appears to go back and forth, sometimes using Florida law and sometimes New York law. It is all in an effort to apply whichever laws are the most beneficial to his case, according to Cohen.
“Mr. Trump does not address this argument in his Opposition, nor does he attempt to explain why, having invoked protections of New York law and claimed that Mr. Cohen’s fiduciary obligations flown therefrom, New York law should not apply to his claims,” the filing says.
Trump filed the suit in Florida, despite Cohen never working for him while Trump considered his residence to be Mar-a-Lago. That returns to Cohen’s statute of limitations argument. They say that for the suit to be considered under Florida law, Trump would have had to file the suit at a time before he was even an actual Florida resident.
One of Trump’s requests in his response to Cohen’s motion to dismiss was that he needed to amend his claim to provide additional information. Cohen’s motion mocks the request as pointless, because the whole lawsuit purportedly isn’t based in fact to begin with.
“Mr. Trump requests that he be granted leave to amend the Complaint ‘to provide further particularized allegations of fact supportive of [his] claims or standing.’ His request should be denied. Mr. Trump’s claims are deficient as a foundational level they are untimely, impermissibly duplicative of each other, and he lacks standing to assert them. They cannot be cured by additional allegations, so amendment would be futile.”
Side-stepping legalese, Cohen’s motion ultimately says that Trump’s allegations “rely on selective quotation of pertinent documents, omission of critical information, and obfuscation of inconvenient facts.” One of those key documents that Trump refers to is the agreement between him and Cohen. It isn’t attached to Trump’s filing as an exhibit as proof.
Special counsel Jack Smith has compelled at least two Republican fake electors to testify to a federal grand jury in Washington in recent weeks by giving them limited immunity, part of a current push by federal prosecutors to swiftly nail down evidence in the sprawling criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The testimony, described to CNN by people familiar with the situation, comes after a year of relative dormancy around the fake electors portion of the investigation and as a parade of related witnesses are being told to appear before the grand jury with no chance for delay…
Republicans took the news earlier this week that Hunter Biden had reached a plea deal with the Justice Department over some misdemeanor tax offenses and one federal gun charge with heroic levels of civility and grace. Ha ha, just kidding, THEY ARE SO FUCKING MAD ABOUT IT THEY COULD JUST POOP.
And by pooping we mean releasing some whistleblower interviews they hope will muddy up the waters surrounding the plea and keep afloat the slowly leaking balloon that is their suspicions that Hunter Biden was the worst tax cheat since Al Capone was forced to spend his golden years dying of syphilis on Alcatraz.
The plea deal was announced while the House Ways and Means committee was sitting on these two interviews, which claim that higher-ups at the Internal Revenue Service meddled with investigations into Biden’s alleged tax crimes. The committee had apparently not finished vetting the interviews yet after conducting them in late May.
But then Hunter struck his deal and Joe “Irish Lex Luthor” Biden got the entire United States military to engage in a cover-up of that submersible imploding in order to keep his son’s problems off the front page [all is sarcasm, of course]. So the GOP head of Ways and Means, Rep. Jason Smith, went ahead and released transcripts of the interviews in an effort to refocus the nation’s attention where it belongs: on whether Hunter Biden deducted sexy times with hookers as business expenses.
Might it look pretty silly to release interviews complaining that Hunter Biden’s tax misdeeds were not being investigated the same week that the Justice Department announced Biden would plead guilty to criminal charges related to his tax misdeeds? It might, if anyone felt like thinking about it for more than fifteen seconds. And even then it wouldn’t stop them.
Anyway, the core of the whistleblower complaint is that Biden somehow got preferential treatment from the government because David Weiss, the US Attorney for Delaware, was prevented from filing charges against Biden. This argument falls apart not only because of the fact that Weiss, uh, filed charges against Biden, but also because Weiss himself, who was appointed by Donald Trump, swore up and down to Congress that nuh-uh, liar liar pants on fire:
“I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the prosecution, consistent with federal law, the Principles of Federal Prosecution, and Departmental regulations,” Weiss wrote in the letter.
[So sweet and naive of Weiss to assume that his statement of facts would calm the roiling Republican waters.]
The rightwing freakout is also undermined by the argument that Hunter Biden was apparently treated more harshly than most people would have been in the same situation, according to former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, who writes in POLITICO:
As for the misdemeanor tax charges, I prosecuted tax cases and have defended many clients in criminal tax cases, and I’m not familiar with a misdemeanor tax charge ever being brought as the only tax charge in a case. The DOJ’s Tax Division has to approve every tax charge brought by prosecutors, and their practice is to focus on serious felony tax fraud or tax evasion cases. Those serious felony offenses would require evidence of fraud or affirmative efforts to evade taxes. Merely not paying your taxes isn’t enough.
Mariotti went on to note that in his career, he would sometimes file misdemeanor tax charges as a sort of backup, in case he lost on the felony counts:
The most typical misdemeanor that was charged is a failure to file a tax return, and that is trivial to prove. Biden was charged with something even less serious — a failure to pay taxes even though he did file a return. And the amount of his unpaid taxes — approximately $100,000 in 2017 and again in 2018 — is typically dealt with as a civil matter, with penalties and interest, rather than as a federal criminal case.
[…] we are mightily entertained by the Republican Party suddenly being very concerned with making sure the IRS has all the resources it needs to chase tax cheats.
Domestic terrorist James Charles Kopp has filed court papers asking that his federal convictions be overturned on the grounds of the United States Supreme Court determining in the 2022 Dobbs decision that Americans have no constitutional right to abortion — which he seems to believe gave him the right to kill an abortion provider.
In 1998, Kopp, a member of a radical anti-abortion group called the Lambs of Christ (or, alternately, Victim Souls of the Unborn Christ-Child), shot and killed Dr. Barnett Slepian in a sniper attack in his home near Buffalo, New York. Kopp was convicted in 1993 on state charges of second degree murder and on federal charges of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence and of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) resulting in death.
[…] Kopp also alleges, in these court papers, that he was denied the ability to claim in court that he killed Slepian in defense of “the humanity of womb children.” He’s not the first anti-abortion radical to assert that he should be able to plead “defense of others” in court, though this defense has yet to be successful.
It is highly unlikely that this nonsense will get any kind of hearing, though the fact that a domestic terrorist like Kopp is looking at that ruling and thinking “Killing abortion providers is definitely legal now” is certainly frightening. He’s not alone, either.
According to statistics compiled by the National Abortion Federation, anti-abortion violence increased exponentially in 2022 following the Dobbs ruling:
– Stalking rose 229 percent (from 28 in 2021 to 92 in 2022)
– Burglary rose 231 percent (from 13 in 2021 to 43 in 2022)
– Arson increased by 100 percent (from 2 in 2021 to 4 in 2022)
– Invasions increased by 25 percent (from 16 in 2021 to 20 in 2022)
– There was a 100 percent increase in anthrax/bioterrorism threats in the past decade (from 2 between 2010-2021 to 4 in 2022)
[…] Barnett Slepian, by the way, is likely not the only abortion provider that Kopp shot, though he is the only fatality; Kopp is suspected of four other sniper attacks on abortion providers in their homes in southern Canada and in Rochester, New York. These are largely referred to as the Remembrance Day shootings, as they all took place around November 11, which Canadian anti-abortion radicals celebrate as Remembrance Day for the Unborn. […]
Twitter employees were told not to take down potentially threatening pro-Trump tweets on the day before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
[…] “I am very concerned about what happens tomorrow, especially given what we have been seeing,” said one member of the team, Anika Collier Navaroli, in a video call, the details of which are reported here for the first time. “For months we have been allowing folks to maintain and say on the platform that they’re locked and loaded, that they’re ready to shoot people, that they’re ready to commit violence.”
Some participants in the call pushed the company to adopt a tougher position, arguing that moderators should be able to remove what they called “coded incitements to violence” — messages, such as “locked and loaded,” that could be read as threats. But a senior manager dismissed the idea, saying executives wanted them to take action against only the most flagrant rules violations, adding, “We didn’t want to go too far.”
“What if there’s violence on the ground?” responded another team member in Twitter’s Dublin office. “Would we take action … or do we have to wait for violence — someone getting shot?”
The next day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead and more than 100 police officers injured.
Two and a half years after those events, the role of social media companies in fomenting the violence remains a volatile topic. Twitter’s current owner, Elon Musk, commissioned a series of reports intended to reveal how the company had previously sought to squelch conservative speech, and a Republican-led committee in the House of Representatives is working to build the case that the tech giants have been digitally weaponized against conservative ideas.
But the video and other newly obtained internal Twitter records show that, far from working to censor pro-Trump sentiment in the days before the Capitol riot, the company’s leaders were intent on leaving it up — despite internal warnings that trouble was brewing. […]
records reveal a company that fought until the end to give some of Trump’s most belligerent supporters the benefit of the doubt, even as its internal teams faced an overwhelming volume of tweets threatening retribution in line with Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen. […]
None of the records obtained by The Washington Post — including the 32-minute video, a five-page retrospective memo outlining the suspension discussions and a 114-page agenda document detailing the safety policy team’s meetings and conversations — show any contacts with federal officials pushing the company to take any action involving Trump’s account. […]
KG @333, yikes. Well, Prigozhin sounds serious. He also sounds fucking crazy.
Here are some excerpts the The New York Times coverage of the same issue:
[…] Prigozhin, the outspoken Russian mercenary tycoon, accused the Russian military of attacking his private forces on Friday, shortly after be described his country’s invasion of Ukraine as a “racket” perpetrated by a corrupt elite chasing money and glory without concern for Russian lives.
For months the Russian war effort has been hampered by the bitter feud between Mr. Prigozhin, who leads the Wagner force, and top military leaders, whom he has accused in scathing terms of incompetence in conducting the war.
But the accusations Mr. Prigozhin leveled in audio and videotaped messages posted on Friday took the conflict to a new level. Never before had Mr. Prigozhin accused Russians military leaders of attacking his forces, nor had asserted in such stark terms that the Kremlin’s stated justification for the war was nonsense.
After Mr. Prigozhin’s allegations became public, the state news agency, Tass, reported that the country’s top security agency, F.S.B., had opened a criminal case in connection with Mr. Prigozhin’s statements, including calls for armed rebellion.
He accused the Russian minister of defense, Sergei Shoigu, of orchestrating a deadly attack with missiles and helicopters on camps to the rear of the Russian lines in Ukraine, where his soldiers of fortune were bivouacked. He said that some Wagner fighters died and accused Mr. Shoigu of overseeing the strikes himself from the town of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, near Ukraine.
[…] The mercenary leader’s claims could not be immediately verified. The Russian defense ministry denied the allegations, saying in a statement that the messages Mr. Prigozhin had posted about supposed strikes on Wagner camps “do not correspond to reality.”
[…] In an earlier videotaped speech, Mr. Prigozhin did not explicitly impugn President Vladimir V. Putin, instead casting him as a leader being misled by his officials. But in dismissing the Kremlin’s narrative that the invasion was an existential necessity for the Russian nation, Mr. Prigozhin went farther than anyone in Russia’s security establishment in publicly challenging the wisdom of the war.
“The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin said, referring to Mr. Putin’s initial justifications for the war. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”
[…] Mr. Putin has not reined in Mr. Prigozhin, even as his security forces have jailed or fined thousands of Russians for criticizing the military or opposing the war. Some people who know Mr. Putin have said they believe that the president still sees Mr. Prigozhin as a loyal servant applying needed pressure on a sprawling military apparatus. Others theorize that the Kremlin has orchestrated Mr. Prigozhin’s tirades against Mr. Shoigu, the defense minister, to deflect blame from Mr. Putin himself.
But Friday’s video complicated the picture, with Mr. Prigozhin going after not just Mr. Shoigu but also unnamed “oligarchs” around Mr. Putin, […] challenging the Kremlin’s justification that Ukraine was on the verge of attacking Russian-backed separatist territory in Ukraine’s east.
[…] The comments come as Russia fights to hold back Ukraine’s counteroffensive — a fight that Mr. Prigozhin asserted in his video was going much more poorly for Russia than the government was letting on. […]
Some other Russians are using posts on Telegram to accuse Prigozhin of treason.
Might be worse than the Lauren Boebert versus Marjorie Taylor Greene kerfuffle. Definite infighting among those who are supposed to be on the same side. This can only redound to Ukraine’s benefit.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Prigozhin appears to have declared war on Russia’s military leadership. Surrealist or what?
I saw that earlier, but the article I spotted was through a news service called Daily Express US, which, when I looked at their home page, appears to be a right-wing anti-Biden site, so I was unsure if it was real or not. Guardian? I trust. Daily Express US? Not so much.
It really is getting more difficult to filter out real news organizations from the ones that make Fox News look rational.
The Justice Department turned over all of the evidence that it has collected against former President Donald Trump regarding his refusal to turn over government documents he took upon leaving the White House. Today is the day that former U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner predicts Trump will want to start tampering with evidence.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Deadline White House” on Thursday, the panel cracked jokes about the all-caps rants that have surfaced on Trump’s social media site.
Kirschner told Nicolle Wallace that there are some risks to giving the information to Trump, and it’s one of the reasons that there was a protective order put in place. That doesn’t mean that Trump won’t try to fumble his way through witness tampering.
“You know, it’s a small consolation if Donald Trump were to tamper with a witness to the detriment of the case and of the witness, yeah, it might be great; the judge might be able to hold him accountable, hold him in contempt, fine him, and possibly even incarcerate him, but the damage has been done,” said Kirschner. “At this point you can only confine a man for but one life, and look at all the charges that are pending against Donald Trump. But, you know, if Donald Trump was ever inspired to tamper with witnesses, Nicolle, I have a feeling that will be at its zenith when he reads those grand jury transcripts.”
He noted that there are people who are inclined to say one thing when they’re in front of Trump and something else when they’re in front of a grand jury and under oath.
“And these, we believe, are Donald Trump’s own attorneys; they are close associates, heck, they may be cabinet members and family members,” said Kirschner. “So, I think this will be a real eye-opening moment for Donald Trump when he starts poring through these grand jury transcripts and he sees what all of these people have testified about regarding his misconduct.”
Wallace said that the only real comparison that Americans have to something like this with Trump is when former White House counsel Don McGahn spoke to special counsel Robert Mueller. He was fired after Trump realized just how long McGahn spent with Mueller’s team. This might be a different matter.
New York Times reporter Katie Benner said that she’ll be looking into who some of the witnesses were that aren’t already known. She also said that McGahn was someone she thought of as well when she saw just how many witnesses the special counsel spoke to.
“There’s going to be things Donald Trump and his team sees that are evidence that the special counsel has gathered that has really nothing to do with whether or not people have betrayed him on purpose but simply because of the team around him, the people around him, and Donald Trump himself, were really not careful when they spoke about these documents, when they moved these documents around, when they took pictures of them and texted them to one another,” Benner said.
She explained that she thinks it will ultimately be the part that truly hurts Trump the most.
“There was so much documentation and so much talk about these documents among so many people,” she concluded. “It was just not a well-kept secret he had them. It’s incredible this special counsel’s office was able to seek out all this information.”
In an earlier videotaped speech, Mr. Prigozhin did not explicitly impugn President Vladimir V. Putin, instead casting him as a leader being misled by his officials. – Lynna, OM quoting the NYT@335
The King’s evil councillors…
Definite infighting among those who are supposed to be on the same side. This can only redound to Ukraine’s benefit.
I certainly hope so. But it could also be a very dangerous moment. If Putin, or anyone else with control of nuclear weapons feels in personal danger, there’s no knowing what they might do.
KGsays
Latest from the Guardian:
The FSB urged Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and treacherous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures to detain him.”
In a separate statement, prosecutors said that Prigozhin could face between 12 and 20 years in prison.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian president was “aware of the situation unfolding around Prigozhin”.
“All necessary measures are being taken,” Russian state media quoted Peskov saying.
According to several Telegram channels linked to security services, an emergency protocol has been implemented in Rostov, the city from where Prigozhin said Shoigu directed the supposed strike on his troops.
The “Citadel protocol” implies full mobilisation of the local security services. Pictures published by local media showed armour vehicles appearing on the streets of the city. Baza, a Telegram channel linked to Russian security services, reported that helicopters were seen flying over Rostov. Unconfirmed footage also appeared to show military vehicles on the streets of Moscow.
It was not immediately clear what Prigozhin’s objectives were and whether his threats were directed at the Kremlin.
“This is not a military coup, this is a march of justice. Our actions do not hinder the armed forces in any way,” the Wagner chief said, adding that the “majority of soldiers” were on his side.
Former President Donald Trump told attendees at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday night that he rejected some of the biggest law firms and lawyers in the country because he doesn’t “need any help.”
Earlier this month, two of the former president’s top lawyers resigned from his defense team after the DOJ announced it would charge Trump with 37 counts related to his handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who previously led Trump’s legal team in Washington, D.C., indicated they would no longer represent him in the Jack Smith probe and his $475 million defamation suit against CNN.
However, despite difficulties retaining new legal representation, Trump bragged to a group of supporters at a fundraiser at Bedminster that some of the “biggest” firms and lawyers have called him asking to represent him in the upcoming federal trial.
“I tell all these people, they all come in — they want to help,” Trump said speaking about the upcoming 2024 election. “The biggest, some of the biggest people, the biggest law firms, the biggest lawyers, I say listen, “I don’t need any help. I don’t want any help in campaigns.”
The Guardian reported ahead of Trump’s arraignment in Miami earlier in the month that Howard Srebnick and David Markus were among the Florida lawyers who Trump interviewed who declined to take the case.
whheydtsays
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #341…
And besides, I bet the grapes were sour, anyway.
tomhsays
I remember what Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s White House lawyers, said about why lawyers were reluctant to work for Trump. “He turns all of his lawyers into witnesses.”
[…] as a consequence of Musk tweeting that cis is a slur, there is now vandalism going on wiktionary. […] this will be used by fascists as “proof” that cisgender is controversial.
[…]
This started with me deleting some anti-trans vandalising, I didn’t realise that admins would immediately protect the anti-trans content and shit on trans people. […]
[…] The power tripping admin put the disinformation back in every time someone tried to address it. Then they locked the page so only some people can edit it […] I reported this behaviour so they locked the page even more. Wiktionary has basically taken the stance that cisgender is an offensive term, and that trans people who want to remove this disinformation are a nuisance. […]
I don’t know how to endlessly act like a lawyer with people who obsess over a vague and obscure process over actual harm. […] If someone feels like wasting more time on this feel free
[…]
no matter how much they hide behind due process, criteria for inclusion, “this source is considered unreliable by wikipedia but we don’t have such a list so it’s fine”, or tone-policing… The truth is they just don’t give a shit about harm to trans people from platforming anti-trans disinformation, so they’re trying to retrofit rules to justify this bias.
[…]
Now wiktionary is platforming a bunch of TERF quotes. “sex is not assigned, it is observed and recorded at birth.” welcome to Wiktionary […]
KGsays
Prigozhin is now claiming that his forces are entering Rostov-on-Don (in southern Russia), and that Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of the General Staff, ordered airstrikes on them but the pilots refused. How much of this is real and how much Prigozhin’s fantasy, I’ve no idea.
KGsays
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@344,
Looks like I may have to halt my regular payments to the Wikimedia Foundation, and tell them why.
Tethyssays
#343 -about why lawyers were reluctant to work for Trump. “He turns all of his lawyers into witnesses.”
A wreckage of a plane, that has been lying in Sauðanes Airport in Langanes since the plane crashed there in 1969, has been sold. The aircraft was moved to the other side of the country to its new owners on Friday.
The aircraft, a Douglas R4D-S, dates from the time of the American garrison at Heiðarfjall mountain.
The wreckage was transported more than 700 kilometers to Eyvindarholt under Eyjafjöll mountains. The wings were also sold and transported under the Eyjafjöll mountains over two decades ago, according to Ágúst Marinós Ágústsson, a farmer in Sauðanes.
The sale process was a long time coming, but when Ágústsson first advertised the machine for sale, Langanes-municipality wanted to have a right of first refusal. The municipality had set a deadline of another year to complete the purchase, Ágústsson said.
“When it came to the sale, the local government wanted to exercise the right of first refusal and it was accepted, but there was a dispute, so the deal went south,” Ágústsson tells mbl.is, concluding that the plane was sold south. …
“R4D” is a US Navy designation for a DC-3. (Some other designations are Dakota, C-47, and Skytrain.)
StevoRsays
Potentially huge news from Russia with links here :
Researchers have attached Fitbit heart rate monitors to koalas to gauge the impact of human interference on the animals and inform future research methods. The team from Flinders University in Adelaide has also been using infrared cameras and acoustic equipment in the burrows of little penguins.
They say the number of people shining torches and putting their hands into burrows has alarmed them.
In a recently published study, the scientists evaluated the reaction of koalas to drones flying nearby.
Drones are now considered a vital conservation tool in capturing the distribution and abundance of koalas, particularly in remote and inaccessible areas — and the Flinders University study is the first to measure how the animals respond to them.
Behavioural ecologist Diane Colombelli-Négrel said the study monitored 34 koalas at the Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills, 16 of which were fitted with exercise heart rate monitors.
Analysis of the data from the monitors and cameras on the drones showed their presence had very little impact on the koalas.
Of course what impact fitting the heart rate monitors has on them is another question.
(Which I guess they probly already answered to get permission to do this..)
StevoRsays
Mars seen in UV light :
New ultraviolet photos of Mars offer stunning views of the planet’s changing seasons.
Astronomers using NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft photographed the Red Planet in July 2022, during the southern hemisphere’s summer season when the planet was closest to the sun, and then again in January 2023 after Mars’ northern hemisphere had passed the farthest point in its orbit from the sun.
Satellites observe record-breaking marine heatwave hit North Atlantic
By Tereza Pultarova published about 16 hours ago
The sea off the coast of the U.K. has never been this hot this time of the year.
Ocean water temperatures around the U.K. and Ireland are over 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) above long-term averages for this part of the year, sparking concerns of marine life die-off later this year.
Satellite measurements show that the unexpected marine heatwave hit particularly hard around the northeastern coast of the usually cool Scotland and northwestern Ireland. Similar extremes have been detected in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Germany and Poland.
Climate scientists classify the current marine heatwave as an extreme to beyond-extreme category IV or V, which, according to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) earth observation specialist Craig Donlon, is extremely unusual for this time of the year.
Also the news from Trappist 1-c ain’t good either – no atmosphere or very little :
Astronomers using JWST were able to calculate the amount of heat energy coming from TRAPPIST-1 c, revealing that the dayside temperature of the rocky world is about 225 degrees Fahrenheit (107 degrees Celsius) — the coolest rocky exoplanet ever characterized. At this temperature, the exoplanet’s atmosphere is likely extremely thin, if it exists at all, according to a statement from NASA.
Android 12 added an easy-access feature for emergency services: just press the power button five times, and your phone will dial emergency services […] apparently pretty easy to do accidentally
[…]
Google’s current recommendation is to turn the feature off. That’s easier said than done. […] search the system settings for “Emergency SOS.” […] some users report the page doesn’t actually have an “off” switch.
[…]
When Android patches can take months or years to reach the masses, Google’s claim that this will be fixed in “a couple of days” sounds… optimistic?
* If it happens, apologize to the dispatcher. When you just hang up, they call back.
the big June update […] removes the […] way to disable it
[…]
In addition […] Emergency SOS can now be turned on by pressing the power key repeatedly five times instead of three times in the previous updates. [*facepalm*] […] in line with how it works on vanilla Android.
Power users can remove the app themselves with the adb command on a PC.
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.oppo.sos
* aka “com.oplus.sos”
* A common debloating method to remove stock apps. Technically not deleted, it can be reinstalled with a similar command.
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 9:46:37 PM MDT · Mark Sumner
Rostov is a Wagner camp. [Tweet showing list of what Wagner has seized in Rostov: headquarters of UVO; police department; the building of the ministry of Internal Affairs; Federal Security service; Rostov administration]
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 9:32:39 PM MDT · kos
I write down below that Wagner can’t sustain itself logistically. And they certainly won’t be able to project beyond Rostov. But perhaps they don’t have to. Given Rostov’s logistical importance, there are likely enough supplies for Wagner to hole up indefinitely. And is Russia going to give one of its own cities the Bakhmut treatment? Shit is getting interesting just as I’m about to board a plane on my vacation. Goddam it.
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 9:03:25 PM MDT · Mark Sumner
This is absolutely surreal. These people pointing their phones are an alien species to these guys fresh from Bakhmut. How any of them feels the least bit safe is beyond me. [Tweet and video showing civilians live-streaming Wagner Group’s assault on the headquarters of the Russian Defense Ministry in Rostov. [HOLY SHIT!]]
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 8:31:48 PM MDT · kos
Hilarious comment by mememe:
2021: The russian army is 2nd in the world!
2022: The russian army is 2nd in Ukraine!
2023: The russian army is 2nd in Russia!
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 8:25:10 PM MDT · kos
I mentioned in the main story that Rostov is a Russian logistical hub. It may be the hub, since the Starobilsk area up north is so lightly defended, I doubt Russia has much up there left to defend. [Tweet at the link: “Controlling Rostov = cutting off the main supply line to the entire russian army in Ukraine = the army is then Prigozhin’s hostage. When fighting erupts in Rostov – the russian civil war has begun.]
With Ukraine working on cutting supply lines from Crimea, and Wagner doing them a solid in Rostov, this could be quite fortuitous for the good guys, even if it’s just for the short term.
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 8:21:36 PM MDT · kos
Damn, this thing might be real after all. [Tweet and video at the link. “It looks like that Wagner units are preparing to storm the headquarters of the Russian Souther Military district. They definitely control the streets and it appears that resistance is zero. This coup is in full swing.”]
[…] This is mostly a win-win. Prigozhin is the worst, a war criminal with untold blood on his hands. HIs death will be celebrated by the civilized world. The big question mark is Africa: What happens to Wagner forces currently raping and pillaging their way through the continent in service of the worst repressive regimes? Unmoored by any structure, those Russian mercenaries might engage in even worse atrocities—they’ll want to get paid somehow. Or, they retreat and create a power vacuum that will lead to more death and violence in areas that have already suffered too much of it.
There are certainly consequences to what’s happening. President Joe Biden is being briefed on developments. Don’t expect this to lead to the fracture of the Russian federation, but if nothing else, we’ll get to see the worst people staring each other down for the next few days, if not outright killing each other.
Gary Kasparov has his take:
Don’t wonder what will happen if Russia collapses. It already did! Years ago. It’s not a state, it’s a mafia front with factions fighting each other for money, resources, and power.
Whatever is happening now, it was already clear Putin wasn’t able to control every faction or to keep the infighting quiet or at least non-violent the way he mostly could before.
The pointing fingers among Russian factions will increasingly be on triggers as Ukrainian victories multiply. The towers of lies will collapse and new, smaller ones built. Defeat will be denied, then blamed on rivals, then fake victory declared by the survivors.
Whoever keeps control, Putin or anyone else, will be faced with threats & instability. It is vital for the free world not to offer any lifelines to murderers. We do not expect democracy and liberty to suddenly flourish, but there can be no deals with Russian war criminals.
There will be attempts to use internal conflict as pretext for ceasefires, sanctions relief, and other charades to give Russia time to regroup and reload while occupying Ukrainian territory & continuing the terror. No.
Do not let whatever mafia show that is now out in the open in Russia distract from the goal of Ukrainian victory. It is time to accelerate, not hesitate. If you agree that “let them all lose” in Russia is ideal, the road to that is victory. Glory to Ukraine.
PS Please keep in mind that even more than usual, everything coming out of the Kremlin, and Russia generally, will be lies. It’s instinctive and about control. Such people would not admit they were drowning to a lifeguard.
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 10:16:48 PM MDT · Mark Sumner
Google and many Western sites are now reportedly blocked in Russia. It’s not quite Swan Lake on every channel, but it’s getting there.
Posted by readesr of the article from which text was quoted in comment 355:
I don’t think Prigozh is rebelling against Putin yet, though. He is trying to force putin’s had to put him in charge of the MOD. If Putin won’t, Wagner will try to kill the people in charge of the MOD until he is put in.
———————-
Imagine an already nervous, panicky, half-trained Russian army, learning what is going on behind them! I imagine mass desertions,and surrenders on the part of the Russian conscripts !
————————-
Putin retains direct control over his 400,000 strong Pretorian Guard — the Rossguardia. So he retains a great deal of coercive power. [I am skeptical of any claims to Russian military might.]
——————————
There is no way that this event, regardless of the outcome, does anything other than make Putin look incredibly weak. It’s just going to accelerate the in-fighting, finger pointing, and blame game, as it is high probability that he will overreact violently […] and no one is going to want to be without a chair when the music stops. There’s going to be a need for plenty of scapegoats!
While I think the likely outcome is a relatively swift end to Wagner and Prigozhin, the ideal scenario would be internal strife that lasts just long enough to make a lot of the Russian leadership hold back as they think about which way the wind is going to blow. A semi-public show of wavering loyalty would create a LOT of bad blood and suspicion that would do wonders for furthering dysfunction within the Russian command circles. A Stalinist purge of military leaders would be a great benefit to Ukraine right about now.
——————————
Oligarch on Oligarch violence
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 10:43:38 PM MDT · Mark Sumner
I think he means the former headquarters of the Russian Southern Military District. Also known as Wagner HQ. [Tweet and video at the link. “Yevgeny Prigozhin is in Rostov! He is talking to Deputy Minister of Defense, Colonel General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in the headquarters of the Russian Southern Military District”] [Yep, that’s Prigozhin, swanning around Rostov like he owns the place. No violence or resistance is shown in the video.]
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 10:40:43 PM MDT · kos
Wagner just conquered Russia’s 10th largest city in hours, population 1 million, after taking 9 months to take Ukraine’s 58th largest city.
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 10:31:50 PM MDT · Mark Sumner
Unconfirmed, but … pretty convincing. [Video at the link: Wagner Group shot down a second Russian helicopter.]
Link. Updates are being posted at the top of the page.
UPDATE: Friday, Jun 23, 2023 · 10:48:44 PM MDT · kos
Rostov was likely the chief logistical hub supplying Russian forces in Ukraine. Right now, Wagner is raiding storage facilities of weapons that were going to be used against Ukraine, and there’s nothing Russia can do about it.
Alexander Lukashenko didn’t wait very long to get the hell out of Dodge.
Reports say that Lukashenko — or at least his jet — flew to Russia, turned the transponder on his plane off and then turned it on again when he got to Turkey.
[…] If Lukashenko has indeed flown the coop, it is not necessarily good news for the people of Belarus. There are thousands of Russian troops in Belarus and Putin could decide to just annex the country or install a more compliant puppet.
whheydtsays
As regards the Wagner takeover of Rostov-on-Don… One wonders how long they would have to hold it for the Russians to run out of artillery ammo in Ukraine…and (of course) missiles fired by helicopters and fuel for everything…
A handful of other Delaware towns […] already allow corporations to vote […] In 2019, it was revealed that a single property manager who controlled multiple LLCs voted 31 times […] an incident that led Newark to amend its rules.
Despite the title, this Republican-sponsored bill hasn’t passed either house yet, and the session ends in a week, resuming in January. Still ominous, as there are nearly as many businesses (234, most without physical presence) as there were human voters in the last election (340).
KGsays
There are rumours that Lukashenko has fled Belarus – but these come with a serious health warning: the link is to the Daily Express, nothing on the Guardian or BBC.
KGsays
Prigozhin has described Putin as “deeply mistaken” in accusing him of treason, and defied orders to surrender. Putin apparently used the phrase “stab in the back” in his TV address – it can surely only be a matter of time before he’s denouncing the mutiny as a “Jewish plot” masterminded from Ukraine!
Former DOJ Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord tore into former President Donald Trump for the cavalier way he put lives at risk with his hoard of highly classified national defense information at Mar-a-Lago on MSNBC Friday.
“The 49 pages of Jack Smith’s indictment of mishandling and willful retention of classified documents are full of things that no normal president says or does, but here we are,” said anchor Nicolle Wallace. “I wonder what you think of this moment in terms of mistakes for U.S. national security.”
“I think sometimes when we discuss, you know, this prosecution and, you know, Andrew [Weissman] and I sometimes get into the details on our podcast as former prosecutors, but I think what sometimes gets lost is exactly what you’re pointing out, Nicolle, the information we’re talking about here that the former president handled so carelessly for his own political purposes,” said McCord. “So even if we accept him at his word, right, even if we accept him saying these documents were mine, of course I could take them, they’re all mine under the Presidential Records Act — which is incorrect — but if we accept that, he was basically taking people’s lives, waving them around publicly, keeping them in box where is they were vulnerable to being exposed to our adversaries, putting them at harm’s risk, all so, I guess, he could feel good about having access to things that he felt like he was entitled to.”
Notably, McCord added, “never once have you heard him express any concern about the people who have spent their lives’ work collecting intelligence to protect our national security, oftentimes putting themselves at great risk and dying.”
“I’ll just tell you a little anecdote,” continued McCord. “When I first came over from the U.S. Attorney’s office to the Department of Justice National Security Division, about a month later, the FBI and our military did a capture operation in Libya to capture Abu Khattalah, who we had indicted and charged for crimes related to the attack on our mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing a sitting ambassador and three others, including three other members of our intelligence community. And I didn’t sleep the entire night, so worried about the safety of the people who were risking their lives to capture this person, bring him back to be held accountable if a U.S. court for responsibility for killing U.S. nationals. And that’s the depth of it, right.”
“But you wouldn’t get any sense at all from Mr. Trump that he has any recognition of the seriousness of what’s in those documents or that he cares,” McCord added. “They are just political tools for him.”
Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay the attorney fees of two Georgia election workers suing him for defamation, after a judge found he failed to comply with his obligations to turn over evidence in the case.
US District Judge Beryl Howell entered an order on Friday directing Giuliani to cover what it cost the lawyers for Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss to pursue their successful motion to compel him to produce information.
The order doesn’t specify the amount he’ll owe; the judge directed the plaintiffs to disclose that in a later filing. Howell wrote that Giuliani had failed to show that his resistance to the plaintiffs’ discovery requests was “substantially justified,” which meant he was required to pay their attorney fees.
Freeman and Moss became the subject of 2020 post-election voter fraud conspiracy theories that Giuliani, former President Donald Trump, and other Trump allies promoted. Earlier this week, the Georgia State Election Board announced it had formally cleared Freeman and Moss of any wrongdoing…
You know there is a window in Russia with Prigozhin’s name on it.
Rob Grigjanissays
KG: Were you by any chance at the Elgin demo against the fascist ant-immigration rally in Elgin on June 17? By all accounts (my nephew was there) a very pleasing humiliation for the Nazis. I realize it’s a fair distance from Edinburgh.
Oggie: Mathomsays
You know there is a window in Russia with Prigozhin’s name on it.
Well, some of the Russian Defenestration Teams are still trying to perfect their techniques for the Nationals. The Russian Defenestration Organization, the governing body for the Defenestration Nationals, is still trying to convert the Nationals into an Olympic qualifying event, but the IOC is still resisting — mostly because Russia is the only nation with Defenestration Teams. For some reason.
KGsays
Rob Grigjanis@372,
No – as you say, it’s some distance away!
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 4:46:39 AM MDT · Mark Sumner
Russian military helicopters are bombing fuel depots held by the Wagner Group in the Voronezh region. [Tweet and video at the link]
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 1:59:02 AM MDT · kos This is a real war, and no one will back down. And with the systematic lack of opposition to Wagner’s advance, it’s clear that Moscow has lost control of its forces.
So what’s left for Russian forces in Ukraine? Why are they fighting? For who are they fighting? [Tweets and video at the link, showing zero resistance in Rostov-on-Don.]
Today Mark Sumner told me not to worry, the war would still be here in two weeks when I returned from my vacation. Right now, that’s no longer a sure thing. This could still be crushed in a couple of days. But it’s increasingly apparent this thing has legs, and we may be witnessing history on par with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And if the root of Putin’s fall is Ukraine’s fierce and costly defense of Bakhmut, we’ll that’ll be quite the plot twist, and I’ll have plenty of crow to eat—having long questioned the wisdom of losing so much for Ukraine’s 58th largest city.
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 1:11:38 AM MDT · kos
[Tweet at the link: Putin promises to fight back:
❗️Putin: “They’re pushing us to a defeat and capitulation … a strike against Russia, our people .. our actions will be BRUTAL … everyone who consciously went on this path will take an immediate punishment … all departments have been instructed … additional anti-terrorist measures being introduced in regions and Moscow … operation of civil and military departments in Rostov are challenging.
As a citizen, I will do EVERYTHING to protect the Constitution and the people.
Those who started the mutiny BETRAYED RUSSIA AND WILL BE RESPONSIBLE
The only right choice is to lay down weapons.”]
In the video, you can see Putin is pissed.
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 1:08:22 AM MDT · kos
Good thread: [Tweet at the link: Russia’s security forces are reported to be in disarray following the attempted mutiny by the Wagner Group. It seems to have been perfectly timed for a moment – Friday night – when many personnel were too drunk to respond quickly, while others are refusing to fight Wagner.
The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports what its sources are saying is the situation within various security organisations. At the FSB and Ministry of Internal Affairs, “Everyone is up and running, urgently reporting in. Now all the offices are like one big after-party.”
“80 per cent of the staff smell of booze. Some of them can barely stand on their feet. Can’t arm ’em, can’t send ’em anywhere. Friday night’s the perfect time to start something like this. Everybody’s standing around, waiting for something. No introductions.”
“A couple of hours more and the conflicts among themselves will start when [the alcohol] starts to wear off.”
Unwillingness to fight Wagner appears to be a common theme. “There is real panic in Rostov, especially among the police. There is more than a 40 percent shortfall in personnel among those called up in connection with Operation Fortress” (to defend security installations).
Wagner forces were able to cross the border from Ukraine without opposition, despite orders not to let them through. “Both the border service of the FSB and the Interior Ministry received instructions to stop the Wagner PMC. No one is complying, as it is not realistic.”
Most ominously for the Kremlin, elements of the security forces appear to be actively siding with Wagner or refusing to act against it.
“The defence ministry has lost control over a number of units and formations of the South Eastern Military District, it will not be possible to organise defence by the Rosgvardia [Russian National Guard] and the FSB. Local leaders are extremely careful in their statements”.
“Attempts to counter Prigozhin are only going through the FSB and the National Guard. The Ministry of Defence has simply withdrawn, junior officers either refuse to follow orders or directly support Wagner.”
And Shoigu and the [MOD leadership] team just hid and completely lost touch with reality. The fear is obviously serious.
“A number of units of the Ministry of Defence that participated in the war are beginning to come under the command of Wagner. Entire corps. Shoigu and Gerasimov’s people are being removed.”]
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 1:03:33 AM MDT · kos
Russian propagandists are sad. [Video at the link] Putin was supposed to address the nation an hour ago. Crickets. State TV hasn’t gotten their talking points and don’t know what to do. […]
It will be interesting to see how our local Tankies cope with the news of Prigozhin’s uprising. I’m anticipating either some Olympic-class obfuscation, or total silence!
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 9:23:25 AM MDT · RO37
Russians sources report on further advances by Wagner towards Moscow. [Tweet and map at the link: “To be fair, its the most impressive military drive of the war so far by a Russian force.”]
Russian National Guard troops are reportedly preparing to defend Moscow. [Tweet and photo at the link: “Russian National Guard units are lying next to the Kashira highway on the approaches of Moscow. Waiting for Wagner units to arrive.” [Well that looks pitifully inadequate!]]
Wagner Forces may have control of nuclear warheads. [Tweet at the link: “Voronej, a city where #Wagner seized control of numerous military facilities also hosts a nuclear weapons warehouse (375 Object C) under the 12th Chief Directorate of Russian MoD.
A real bargaining chip for Prigozhin, and a wildcard for the nuclear calculus of the war.”]
Road closures reported throughout Wagner’s route of advance on google maps. [map at the link]
A good reminder from @War_Mapper:
Important to remember when seeing control maps for Russia, that Wagner controls just a few buildings and not large swathes of land.
Very similar to the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Apart from the highways, presence is almost non existent.
As the result of a catastrophic political blunder by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Second Russian Civil War appears to have started.
Who is Prigozhin and Wagner Group?
Yevgeny Prigozhin is an ex-caterer for Putin who used his connection with the Russian president to found the Wagner Group. Originally founded in 2014, the Wagner Group was nominally a private band of mercenaries but began making appearances on behalf of Russian state interests. From 2014 to 2021, Wagner troops have appeared in various conflict zones, such as Ukraine (in Crimea and Donbas), Syria, Sudan, the Central African Republic,
As an entity believed to be funded and largely equipped by the Russian Ministry of Defense, Wagner Group was always closely linked to the Russian government, acting as a de facto alternative military organization. The group has been referred to as “Putin’s private army” and Russia’s “implausible deniability.” As a nominally private company, the Russian government can deny that it has directed Wagner to intervene in various conflicts, even though it very obviously had done so (hence ‘implausible deniability’).
Beginning with just a few hundred members in 2014, Wagner had grown into 6000-strong forces by 2017, but remained a force no larger than several thousand soldiers—until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
[…] Wagner became known for their brutal tactics in the Battle of Bakhmut, sending thousands of convict soldiers to their deaths in near-suicidally aggressive attacks. These costly tactics would gradually push Wagner closer and closer to capturing the city of Bakhmut from October 2022 to May 2023.
Prigozhin established himself in the Russian psyche, through frequent appearances on the social network service Telegram, where he would often provide lengthy monologues explaining his views on the Rwar.
Many of Wagner Group’s soldiers have been killed, wounded, and unable to return to action, or have been sent home with their contracts complete. Wagner Group is currently believed to be composed of around 8,000-10,000 professional contract soldiers, and another 15,000-plus convict soldiers.
Notably, Wagner is just one of several semi-independent military organizations in Russia. Aside from the Russian regular Army, the Kadyrovites (Chechnyan Regiment), the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya), VDV (Russian Paratroopers), and Spetznaz (Russian Special Forces) all feature semi-independent commands in varying degrees.
Putin has been loath to place too large a portion of the Russian Army under a single command, famously declining to appoint an overall commander for the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with independent commanders taking charge of as many as five different command sectors with overlapping responsibilities.
Even after appointing a nominal overall commander of the Ukraine conflict, the Wagner Group and the Kadyrovites in particular continued to defy orders from the Ministry of Defense and operate as de facto independent commands.
The Russian dual military structure—that is, an official army and unofficial military forces—is broadly similar to Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS and German Army. Adolf Hitler needed a military to realize his ambitions, but distrusted army officers and thus wanted a counterweight to the army’s monopoly of military force. Hitler created the Waffen-SS, originally the paramilitary arm of Hitler’s bodyguards, the SS—then expanded it into a 900,000-strong army.
The Waffen-SS developed into a full-blown military force, with its command structure and officers separate from the German Army. The Waffen-SS had a fierce rivalry with the regular Army, which Hitler saw as beneficial: So long as the two military arms did not cooperate with each other, it would be difficult to conduct a coup to overthrow him.
[…] Putin’s political machinations have backfired spectacularly.
[…] Putin effectively demoted Surovikin by appointing Wagner’s enemy and the Ministry of Defense’s old guard Valery Gerasimov as the overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Gerasimov followed his appointment by making a series of moves intended to reduce Wagner’s ability to grow, or to even maintain its numbers. Most importantly, Russia barred Wagner from recruitment of convicts, and established its own private companies under closer Ministry of Defense control to take over inmate recruitment.
Soon, Prigozhin began loudly and repeatedly accusing the Ministry of Defense of depriving the Wagner soldiers of necessary artillery shells. Prigozhin frequently claimed, in virulent and profane rants posted publicly to social media, that Wagner soldiers’ deaths were being caused by the machinations of Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Commander in Chief Gerasimov.
[…] On June 8, a shocking video was released by Wagner forces. The video was a “confession tape” of Lt. Col. Roman Venevitin, commander of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Army. Lt. Col. Venevitin appeared to have a broken nose in the video, and stated that, out of a sense of personal animosity and while drunk with alcohol, he had personally fired upon Wagner vehicles, among other offenses. Lt. Col. Venevitin later stated he had been tortured into confessing by Wagnerites. Wagner Group and Prigozhin appeared to face no direct consequences for this violent episode.
The situation further deteriorated as Shoigu demanded, with Putin’s express backing, a requirement that all contract soldiers sign a contract directly with the Ministry of Defense. The signing of such a contract, it was pointed out, would make all Wagner soldiers the legal direct employees of the Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin vowed that Wagner’s troops would never sign such a contract. A deadline was set for Wagner troops to sign the contract by July 1.
[…] On June 23 at 9:09 PM local time, Prigozhin, in a public video posted on Telegram, announced that the Ministry of Defense had launched rocket attacks on Wagner camps; he claimed a huge number of Wagner soldiers had been killed.
This was followed shortly by a second video where Prigozhin declared that Wagner’s supreme council had decided that the Russian military leadership must be stopped, and that Wagner’s 25,000 remaining soldiers would do it. [I doubt that Prigozhin actually has 25,000 wel-trained and well-equipped soldiers. He has perhaps 15,000 prisoner recruits that are not top notch soldiers, plus perhaps 10,000 well-trained and equipped soldiers. As he proceeds with his coup, Prigozhin will pick up more soldiers by absorbing regular, non-mercenary Russian units.] Prigozhin further stated that anyone who resists Wagner would be killed, referring to the Wagner uprising as a “march for justice.”
Several further videos followed, arguing that the Russian Ministry of Defense was trying to destroy Wagner, and that they were working to hide the extent of Russian losses from her people. At 9:49 PM local time—just 40 minutes after his first video—Prigozhin called on the Russian people to join him in fighting the evil that is the military leadership of Russia.
Meanwhile, Wagner forces were reportedly crossing the border from eastern Ukraine into Russia. A key logistical juncture through which all railroad traffic from central Russia passes through to get to southwestern Russia, it is also the location of the headquarters of the Southern District of the Russian Army.
[…] There are videos and reports of Russian troops dropping their weapons and refusing to fight Wagner troops [Tweets and images at the link], along with unconfirmed reports that Voronezh is now also under Wagner control, This would put Wagner just 500km south of Moscow—what would ordinarily be a six-hour drive.
[…] Analysis
This coup represents a massive political miscalculation by Putin, which allowed a desperate Prigozhin to move against the military and the government.
One key question: Why are Wagner troops going along with Prigozhin? From the perspective of the Wagner soldiers, many have spent months fighting in the brutal trenches of Bakhmut, all the while they were being told that their comrades were dying because the Ministry of Defense was withholding shells.
Although the Ministry of Defense denied the claim, Putin did … nothing.
The Russian state’s primary power of control rests in its power to shape narratives through the control of information. Unlike the Soviet police state, which used raw power and the threat of violence to keep dissidents in line, the Russian state’s FSB (Federal Security Service) is feared—but it’s a fraction of the size of its predecessor, the KGB. Putin’s Russia instead relies on its control over the Russian media landscape to shape most people’s understanding of their lived realities.
However, in the case of Prigozhin, perhaps because Wagner was being set up as a competing counterweight to the Ministry of Defense, so long as Prigozhin avoided directly criticizing Putin himself, his virulent denunciations of the Ministry of Defense went unchallenged by state media.
This gave credibility to Prigozhin’s claims of the Ministry of Defense’s corruption and incompetence, which likely resonated particularly strongly with the soldiers in his command.
Brazen acts of defiance of the Ministry of Defense, like the kidnapping and torture of Lt. Col. Venevitin, likely gave Wagner troops confidence that Prigozhin was more powerful than the Ministry, and had Putin’s tacit approval in these actions.
Then it appeared that Wagner had reached its final act: Wagner was being all but disbanded, having served its purpose in capturing Bakhmut. The remaining soldiers were being contracted to the Ministry of Defense, and Prigozhin was essentially being told to submit, or be removed, with an ultimatum to expire on July 1.
But Putin’s second miscalculation was to do this when 25,000 Wagner troops were pulled off the front lines and had freedom of movement.
It’s not entirely clear exactly how much military power Putin even has at his immediate disposal.
[…] The UK report notes that Russia “redeployed up to several battalions to reinforce the Bakhmut sector.” Furthermore, it notes “Russia likely maintain(s) relatively few uncommitted combat units in Ukraine, the redeployment represents a notable commitment by Russian command.”
These statements give some hints as to the scope of Russian reserves, based on UK intelligence estimates.
At the time, Russia appeared to commit five to six additional battalions in the Bakhmut sector. If five or six battalions are a “notable commitment,” it might be reasonable to assume that they represent at least 15-20% of Russian reserves. A commitment of just 10% or fewer Russian reserves would seem odd to characterize as “notable.”
On that basis, Russia has, at most, 30-40 Battalions of strategic reserves in the entire Ukrainian theater of operations. Perhaps 50. A Russian battalion is generally around 600-800 troops, so this would represent around 20,000-35,000 troops.
And thus Russia’s entire strategic reserve in the Ukrainian battlefield may represent approximately similar or fewer troops than Prigozhin has at his disposal: allegedly 25,000.
Furthermore, Russia has been steadily denuding its army formations within Russia to strengthen its combat forces in Ukraine. Most of the elite reserve forces intended to block an attack by NATO, like the 1st Guards Tank Army, have long since been committed to Ukraine—and largely devastated. A Feb. 15 report from the UK Ministry of Defense suggested that 97% of Russia’s combat forces were committed within Ukraine.
Supporting the idea that Russian defenses in its mainland are virtually nonexistent, Freedom of Russia Legion troops—that claimed to be of battalion size (at most several hundred troops)—seemingly crossed the Russo-Ukrainian border freely, to raid Russian villages in Belgorod. One raid, that started on June 4, managed to hold the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka until around June 15. The fact that a lightly armed group of infantry could not only freely cross the border virtually at will, but maintain a position within Russia for over a week indicates the weakness of any forces available for Russia near the borders.
Moscow may be significantly better defended than the bordering regions. However, the general assumption that Russian troops should be able to crush the 25,000 Wagnerites with ease does not seem supported by evidence.
This is not to say that Wagner forces will capture Moscow, or that they will succeed in their attempt to decapitate the military. But, in my opinion, it is not at all clear that Putin has the forces necessary to crush Wagner’s attempted coup, particularly in a short period.
Wagner forces appear to have fully cut Russian lines of supply to the Russian armies in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimean Oblasts. If it takes weeks for the Russians to suppress the Wagner uprising, the Russian army’s defensive positions in southern Ukraine may collapse from a lack of supply.
I can’t think of a better way to put this than this comment from a stellar Putin parody account.
I’m beginning to think that giving a psychopath his own private army of criminals was not a good idea.
Michael Roman, a top official in former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign, is in discussions with the office of the special counsel Jack Smith that could soon lead to Mr. Roman voluntarily answering questions about a plan to create slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to a person familiar with the matter.
If Mr. Roman ends up giving the interview — known as a proffer — to prosecutors working for Mr. Smith, it would be the first known instance of cooperation by someone with direct knowledge of the so-called fake elector plan. That plan has long been at the center of Mr. Smith’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The talks with Mr. Roman, who served as Mr. Trump’s director of Election Day operations, were the latest indication that Mr. Smith is actively pressing forward with his election interference investigation even as attention has been focused on the other case in his portfolio: the recent indictment of Mr. Trump in Florida on charges of illegally keeping hold of classified documents and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.
In the past few weeks, several witnesses with connections to the fake elector plan have appeared in front of a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington that is investigating the ways in which Mr. Trump and his allies sought to reverse his defeat to Mr. Biden. Among them was Gary Michael Brown, Mr. Roman’s onetime deputy, who was questioned in front of the grand jury on Thursday.
Mr. Roman did much of the legwork in putting together the fake elector plan and in finding ways to challenge Mr. Trump’s losses in several key battleground states, according to emails reviewed last summer by The New York Times. Mr. Roman, the emails show, coordinated with several other lawyers and aides to Mr. Trump in seeking to assemble support to create the false slates of electors in states like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada….
The emails reviewed by The Times showed Mr. Roman and others discussing options to try to prevent Mr. Biden from being certified as the winner of the election. He reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, who championed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud.
The fake-elector strategy was arguably the longest-running and most expansive of the multiple efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It involved a sprawling cast of pro-Trump lawyers, state Republican officials and White House aides in an effort that began even before some states had even finished counting their ballots.
The plan culminated in a campaign by Mr. Trump and others to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the false slates to subvert congressional certification of the outcome of the election in front of a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. That proceeding was interrupted when a violent mob of Mr. Trump’s followers stormed the Capitol and chased lawmakers away.
Even some of those connected to efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office appeared to acknowledge the electors plan was legally dubious.
“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who was helping to organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a December 2020 email to Mr. Epshteyn.
In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that calling them “alternate” electors was probably better than “fake” electors.
Oggie: Mathomsays
KG:
It will be interesting to see how our local Tankies cope with the news of Prigozhin’s uprising. I’m anticipating either some Olympic-class obfuscation, or total silence!
Nah, they will blame it on the Russian military being ‘woke’.
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 11:50:29 AM MDT · Jessica Sutherland
Multiple reports emerging of Prigozhin’s announcement that he’s called things off:
Prigozhin says it’s over:
“They were going to dismantle PMC Wagner. We came out on 23 June to the March of Justice. In a day, we walked to nearly 200km away from Moscow. In this time, we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now, the moment has come when blood may spill. That’s why, understanding the responsibility for spilling Russian blood on one of the sides, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps according to the plan.”
KGsays
It’s reported that Lukashenko has negotiated a “de-escalation” with Prigozhin. That in itself confirms the weakness of Putin’s position – that after vowing to crush what he (with considerable justification, one must admit) described as “treason”, he has had to resort to negotiating with the traitor. Still difficult to see how the two mafiosi can reach a stable agreement.
So, this is where things stood before Prigozhin reportedly decided to stand down:
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 10:25:49 AM MDT · Mark Sumner
At 7PM in Moscow:
– Lead elements of the Wagner mercenary force have reportedly reached Moscow Oblast and are continuing toward the city.
– Bridges along the M4 highway have reportedly been blown to slow the mercenary army.
– Putin’s plane has reportedly left Moscow and headed for his massive residence at Valday, about halfway between Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
– Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov has reportedly left the country for Turkey.
– Fuel tanks around the city of Voronezh are burning after the Russian military bombed them to keep them out of Wagner’s hands.
– Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has reportedly taken up residence in the former HQ of the Russian Southern Military Command at Rostov.
– There are reports of Russian military forces departing Ukraine in an effort to stop Wagner, along with rumors that some of those forces intend to join Wagner.
It’s been less than 24 hours since Wagner leader Prigozhin indicated he would take his forces into Russia, and about 18 hours since the Kremlin responded with a call for a “criminal investigation.” All that now seems ridiculously dated. Events in Russia are moving fast.
Now we don’t know if Prigozhin is going to call all of his troops back to Rostov or not. We’ll see.
As far as Prigozhin’s claims about not spilling blood, that may not be true for the other side in this Russian civil war:
[…] Russian military helicopters have been shot down. Vehicles, including possibly a civilian bus, have been blown up along Russia’s busiest highway. Fuel tanks are in flames along the route. Bridges are being blow up to slow the progress of the Wagner force. And as the mercenary convoy gets closer to Moscow it’s impossible to tell whether we’re looking at a coup in action, an attempt to decapitate Russia’s military leadership, or something even stranger. […]
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 12:50:22 PM MDT · quaoar
UPDATE 3: So maybe Shoigu and Gerasimov will be thrown under the bus by Putin to save his ass. Of course, a security guarantee from Russia is as worthless as a promise by Trump to pay his contractors. And what happens to those regular army units that joined Wagner or refused to try to stop him?
Prigozhin was offered to give up the idea of going to Moscow, and in response, they offered security guarantees to the “Wagner” PMC. They also promised to resolve the issues of Shoigu and Gerasimov, — Russian voenkors
Different viewpoints—that’s for sure. after Putin issued his statement saying, without using Prigozhin’s name, that he will “suffer an inevitable punishment, Prigozhin said the following:
Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president is sorely mistaken. We’re patriots of our motherland. We’ve fought and we’ll continue fighting. All Wagner Group fighters. And none of us is going to turn himself in at the demand of the president, the FSB, or anybody else. Because we don’t want the country to go on living in corruption, deception, and bureaucracy. When we fought in Africa, they told us we need Africa, and then they abandoned it, because they plundered all the money that was supposed to help. When they told us that we were fighting against Ukraine, we went and fought. But it turned out that the ammunition, the weapons, all the money that was allocated for them was also plundered. And the bureaucrats sit there, saving it for themselves, specifically for the day when this happens, when someone marches on Moscow. Now they’re not saving anything — they’re using planes and helicopters to bomb columns where there are civilians. And they’re bombing civilians because they can’t hit their targets. And they’re just hitting whatever they hit. So we’re the patriots, and those who are resisting us are the ones who have gathered around scoundrels.
The exceptionally warm waters could pose a deadly threat to marine life and impact summer weather in the U.K. and Europe.
The ocean waters surrounding the United Kingdom and much of Europe are baking in an unprecedented marine heat wave that scientists say is being intensified by human-caused climate change. Scientists are astounded not only by how much the waters have warmed during the past month but also how early in the year the heat wave is occurring. The warm waters are a threat to marine life and could worsen heat waves over land this summer, they say.
Sea surface temperatures are running as high as 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, the warmest in more than 170 years, and are more typical of August and September when the waters are usually warmest. The event has registered as a Category 4 on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine heat wave scale with localized areas reaching Category 5, the two highest categories on the scale.
NOAA defines a marine heat wave as a period with persistent and unusually warm ocean temperatures, “which can have significant impacts on marine life as well as coastal communities and economies.” The agency describes Category 4 as “extreme” and Category 5 as “beyond extreme.” [Tweet and images at the link]
Last month was the warmest May since 1850 for the Atlantic Ocean around the United Kingdom and the warmest compared to average for any month, the country’s Met Office reported. And that was before water temperatures soared in early June, in part because of abundant sunshine and warm breezes from the southwest, Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern said in a video update Tuesday.
The average sea surface temperature near the United Kingdom and Ireland is closing in on 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), which has only happened once before in June, tweeted Ben Noll, a meteorologist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand. “It seems very likely that June 2023 will set a new record in the region as sea temperatures continue to rise,” he said. [Chart at the link]
[…] The unusually warm waters in the tropical Atlantic are already influencing the hurricane season, having helped Tropical Storm Bret form the farthest east of any storm on record so early in the season. Longer-term impacts of warming oceans could include higher sea levels, more intense storms with heavier rain and more frequent regional marine heat waves like the one surrounding Europe now.
[…] “The temperatures are not yet lethal for most sensitive species, although they will be stressed,” Smith said. “However, if temperatures remain at 4 to 5 degrees Celsius above normal through to September, we could witness a significant die-off in critical species for the marine ecosystems that surround the UK, such as kelp and seagrass, as well as oysters and various fish species that are important for regional economies.”
[…] Potential weather impacts for the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe this summer and beyond range from heat waves to higher chances for heavy rain.
Smith notes that because the United Kingdom and Ireland are surrounded by an unusually warm North Atlantic Ocean to the west and an equally warm North Sea to the east, “whichever way the winds blow, they will pass over warmer waters than we’ve ever experienced in the observational record for this time of year.”
That could lead to “a more turbulent atmosphere, and the associated storms and heavy rainfall,” Smith said. “If the winds don’t blow and we sit under a high pressure system, the surrounding heat has the potential to form a heat dome that might exacerbate summer heatwaves.” […]
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 1:33:03 PM MDT · Jessica Sutherland
Shortly after Prigozhin announced Wagner’s retreat on Telegram (fun fact: As of this writing, independent Russian outlet Meduza’s liveblog reports the post has over 4.7 million listens—and nearly 100,000 🤡 reactions), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Russians in their own language.
“I’ll say it in Russian. It’s clear that the person in the Kremlin is very afraid and is probably hiding somewhere and is not showing himself. I’m confident that he’s already left Moscow. He’s calling somewhere, asking for something… He knows what to be afraid of because he himself created this threat. All evil, all loses, all hatred, he himself spreads. The longer he is able to run between his bunkers, the more you will all lose… all those connected to Russia.
“What will we Ukrainians do? We will defend our country. We will defend our freedom. We will not be silent and we will not stand idly by. We know how to win and we will. Our victory in this war will be clear.
“And what will you all be doing?
“The longer your troops will be on Ukrainian territory, the larger the collapse they will then bring to Russia. The longer this person will be in the Kremlin, the larger this catastrophe will be.”
Who is Dmitry Utkin, who reportedly led the Wagner convoy headed toward Moscow?
Born on June 11, 1970, Dmitry Utkin is a Russian intelligence special forces officer. He is considered to be the founder of the Wagner private military company.
It was his call sign – “Wagner” – that became the name for the entire PMC.
According to some reports, he is a neo-Nazi, a fan of the Third Reich.
According to GulaguNet, it was he who was preparing to take over a number of facilities of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense with a nuclear arsenal. “Utkin was preparing this particular part of the military rebellion.”
Prigozhin was offered to give up the idea of going to Moscow, and in response, they offered security guarantees to the “Wagner” PMC.
Not worth shit.
Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the former USSR and in response, Russia offered security and territorial guarantees. Until they wanted the Crimea. And then Eastern Ukraine. Russia has more than 100 year history of making deals when they had to, knowing they could break them whenever they felt strong enough,.
At least four papers authored by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino contain fraudulent data, three business school professors allege…
According to Data Colada, Gino was “the only author involved in the data collection and analysis” of the experiment in question.
“To the best of our knowledge, none of Gino’s co-authors carried out or assisted with the data collection for the studies in question,” the professors wrote…
Cherokee Nation leaders are fighting for a seat in Congress that they say they are owed because of an 1835 treaty the tribe signed with the U.S. government. Leaders explain what changes that would mean for them. Ed O’Keefe reports…
Putin had accused mercenary Prigozhin of “treason” and vowed to crush the growing armed rebellion. The Kremlin says Prigozhin will now go to Belarus and Wagner soldiers would not be prosecuted.
Tass, a media outlet run by Russia’s government, reported the criminal case against Prigozhin would be dropped. In a Telegram post , the news agency reported that Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also said Prigozhin would “go to Belarus” and that Wagner soldiers would not be prosecuted.
Charges against Wagner chief will be dropped, Kremlin says. Washington Post link
Multiple Russian media outlets reported Prigozhin leaving Rostov-on-Don after the Kremlin said charges would be dropped against the Wagner chief and that he would be sent to Belarus. Some aired photos and videos of his apparent exit, with people in the crowd appearing to cheer as he was driven away.
[…] Saturday-night video from Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner mercenaries had seized a military building that morning, appeared to show civilians celebrating with fighters as they prepared to withdraw.
[…] Wagner Group armored vehicles and soldiers exited the southern military district of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday evening. Videos and photos shared on social media show crowds of locals filming the departure of the mercenary group after its deal with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. […]
[…] Last fall, Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former Russian prisoner who defected to Ukraine after being recruited by the Wagner group and ended up back in Russia after a prisoner swap, was killed with a sledgehammer. A video of this massacre emerged in November and was most likely intended as a warning to all future deserters.
Surprisingly, this barbarity has a lot of fans. Stores in Russia began to sell “Wagner Sledgehammers,” as well as souvenirs and car stickers with Wagner symbols. Mr. Prigozhin, who put out a statement supporting Mr. Nuzhin’s killing, became somewhat of a folk hero.
The most radical politicians and businessmen have been drawn to Mr. Prigozhin. Those I speak with tell me that the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who previously had a direct line to Mr. Putin, now reports to Mr. Prigozhin. The businessman Konstantin Malofeev, owner of the ultraconservative channel Tsargrad TV, who supported Russia’s attack on Donbas in 2014, as well as the ideologist of modern Russian fascism, the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, also praised Mr. Prigozhin. In addition, his group of influence includes the leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk republics. In general, this is the most influential clan in modern Russia, since it is those who are at the front who carry the most weight in the eyes of Mr. Putin.
Mr. Prigozhin has also become the hero for “patriotic” military reporters (those who work for propagandist media and express openly fascist views). […]
How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed the Russian President. [Emphasis in the excerpted text below is mine.]
In recent years, Vladimir Putin has run much of his Presidency in the most splendid isolation, bunkered away in palaces from the wooded suburbs of Moscow to the shore of the Black Sea. […] Putin emerged on Saturday at 10 a.m., an early hour for him, and let loose a five-minute-long tirade ordering his military to destroy an “armed rebellion” led by one of his former loyalists, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary force known as the Wagner Group. Since taking power a generation ago, Putin had never looked so weak. […] Citing the revolutionary days of 1917, he was now forced to protect his own capital and power against thousands of Prigozhin’s mercenaries. By the end of the day, Moscow time, Prigozhin was saying that he had called off his march north to avoid bloodshed, a truce reportedly brokered by Belarus, but, for Putin, there was no avoiding the fact that some of the deepest fissures and anxieties in the Russian leadership had been exposed.
After combing through the more reliable outlets of the independent Russian press and social media, I had a lengthy conversation with Mikhail Zygar, one of the most knowledgeable reporters and commentators on Kremlin power. Zygar is a former editor-in-chief of TV Rain (known as Dozhd in Russian) an independent channel that Putin closed after the start of the war. His 2016 book, “All the Kremlin’s Men” was a best-seller in Russia and a well-sourced examination of Putin’s rule and the inner dynamics of his ruling circle. His new book, “War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” will be published next month. Zygar, who is forty-two, left Russia after the invasion and has been living in Europe. In January, 2023, he wrote an Op-Ed column in the Times about Prigozhin titled “The Man Challenging Putin for Power.”
“I am feeling a little prophetic this morning,” Zygar told me.
Prigozhin, like Putin, was born and raised in Leningrad, which was renamed St. Petersburg as the Soviet Union was crumbling. As a young man, Prigozhin was a petty criminal and was eventually arrested and sentenced to twelve years in prison for robbing apartments. He was released after nine years. The rest of his biography resembles that of so many around Putin. After making some money selling hot dogs at the local flea market, he got involved in the grocery business, then casinos, construction, catering, and restaurants. He formed a close relationship with Putin, a frequent diner at his establishments, and that put him in a position to increase his good fortune. Private planes, helicopters, and immense residences soon followed—as did the founding of troll farms [which supported the election of Trump] in St. Petersburg and the Wagner Group, a military contractor that was heartily supported by Putin as a way to help assist Russian Army troops and also, according to Zygar, as a way to counterbalance the power of figures like Sergei Shoigu, the Defense Minister.
The relationship between Putin and Prigozhin ruptured during the war as Prigozhin repeatedly went on social-media platforms, particularly the messaging app Telegram, and, in profane, blunt language, lambasted the Russian military leadership for betraying the Wagner Group, denying them ammunition and support, and, generally, botching the war effort against Ukraine.
[…] When I asked Zygar what was the most striking aspect of the uprising, he said, “Putin is weaker. I have the feeling he is not really running the country. Certainly, not the way he once did. He is still President, but all the different clans”—the factions within the government, the military, and, most important, the security services—“now have the feeling that ‘Russia after Putin’ is getting closer. Putin is still alive. He is still there in his bunker. But there is the growing feeling that he is a lame duck, and they have to prepare for Russia after Putin.”
[…] as Putin has grown more distant and preposterously wealthy, Prigozhin, often dressed in full battle gear and strutting before the cameras next to his troops in front-line Ukrainian cities like Bakhmut, has taken on the populist mantle.
“Prigozhin has a distinct background,” Zygar said. “He speaks the way prisoners speak. He is the average guy. He went the same way that Putin did twenty years ago when politicians, in 1999, were very old and looked dead and Soviet. They couldn’t speak the language of the people. Putin spoke like a gangster, like a gopnik, like someone from the Leningrad slums. That was a cultural coup—a guy who knows the problems of the simple people. Prigozhin has come along and has followed that pattern in an even more brutal way.” [Trumpian]
The confrontation between Putin and Prigozhin is also a clash of propagandists. […] “The most important propagandists now are not the propagandists on state TV,” Zygar told me, “they are the so-called war correspondents on Telegram, former military officers turned bloggers. They pose themselves as representatives of some ‘true Russia.’ They are careful, but they do not denounce Prigozhin.”
Reginald @396: Is that how Prigozhin stores his money? Seems like asking for burglary.
In other news:
UPDATE: Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 · 5:28:22 PM MDT · Mark Sumner
Many videos of Russians cheering Wagner and booing the return of local militia and police. [Tweet and video at the link]
Follow-up to #354.
Neither of those apps were on my phone to remove. It goes by yet another name. To confirm, I brought up settings and ran a command to name the visible app.
Sharing sends your location to emergency contacts, which can be triggered from its own settings menu or optionally by the SOS (power button).
I confirmed they can be uninstalled independently (disappearing from the parent menu), and can be reinstalled. I rebooted in their absence without incident.
Lynna, OM@388,
Dmitri Utkin has SS flashes tatooed on his neck – visible in the image at your link.
Oggie: Mathom@389,
Yes, given Putin’s history as a poisoner, if I were Prigozhin I’d be advertising for a taster!
All the commenters I’ve read agree Putin has been weakened by this “Coup de théâtre” – not only the rebellion itself, but by the need to let Prigozhin and his followers escape any real punishment after vowing to crush it. Putin will likely be obsessed now with who did and did not express loyalty to him, and will likely resent Lukashenko for negotiating with Prigozhin. Meanwhile all the factions around him will be manouevring in prepration for the post-Putin era. While I don’t think this will lead to a rapid collapse of the Russian army, it’s hard to believe that the military brass will be able tocoordinate much more than an attempt to hold what they have. I’ve seen some UK military bigwig suggesting that Prigozhin might launch a new attack on Ukraine from Belarus, but I’d say it’s very unlikely Lukashenko would be that stupid, having avoided direct participation in the war so far. I doubt if he’d allow Prigozhin bring any significant number of followers with him to Belarus.
KGsays
Just listened to the BBC Radio 4 news. Apparently, the claim that Prigozhin was going to Belarus came from only one source, Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov, and Prigozhin’s social media accounts have been silent.
StevoRsays
So wet, cold and miserable weather~wise here in Adelaide and the Hills (South Oz) with more forecast to come and dams threatening to break plus possible thunderstorms coming too :
Of course thinking globally there’s a LOT of extreme and severe weather events happening planet-wide right now so I know I’m not alone here.Had a power outage the other night and wouldn’t be at all surprised to have more.. Trying to keep my phone fully charged at nearly all times here.
Fires of unprecedented scale in Canada, record heat in China, Mongolia, India and Mexico and so it goes..
Some really disturbing temperature and weather charts and graphs seen lately. An understatement
Experience locally, look globally, join the dots and go figure huh?
Toronto will soon decide who will be its next mayor, after revelations of an extramarital affair pushed the city’s long-time leader out of office. There is no shortage of candidates to choose from – in fact, a historic total of 102 names will be on the ballot, including Molly, the dog.
The six-year-old wolf-husky canine, and her owner Toby Heaps, are running on the promise to “Stop the Salt Assault” on city roads during the winter…
Former President Donald Trump has expanded his lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican presidential field since Trump’s latest indictment on federal criminal charges, according to a new national NBC News poll.
“For the first time in history, a former president has been indicted, and we can’t find a marker in this survey that it’s had an impact with his standing,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.
“Not only are they sticking with Trump post-federal indictment,” Horwitt said of Republican voters, “there are several signs that his support is growing or others are losing ground, particularly Ron DeSantis.”
The NBC News poll was conducted June 16-20 — beginning a week after a federal grand jury indicted Trump on criminal charges for mishandling classified documents that were discovered last year at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Now if he can just get indicted over Jan 6 he’ll have the nomination in a landslide, the rest may as well drop out.
It was all over in less than 24 hours. Yevgeny Prigozhin announced a “march for justice” just past 9 PM on June 23, 2023, promising that “Anyone who tries to resist we will consider a threat, and we will swiftly eliminate.”
Wagner troops secured the key logistics hub of Rostov-on-Don, then secured the major city of Voronezh, about a six-hour drive south of Moscow. Videos and photos of troops loyal to Vladimir Putin digging trenches and preparing for a defense of Moscow were all over social media. [Tweet and images at the link]
By 8 PM on June 24th, news broke that Wagner troops had turned back and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had brokered a deal. The hope was that a protracted civil war in Russia might force a general withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, or at least severely hamper Russian operations were quickly dashed.
For reasons I will make clear below, I believe that Putin was put in a position where he needed to cut a deal because of a substantial risk that he could not defeat Wagner quickly—which could have been catastrophic for Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, by the evening of June 24, Prigozhin may have been facing a growing realization that his chances of ultimate victory were quite slim. Before the clash of Wagner’s main force with Putin’s Presidential Guard troops establishing a perimeter around Moscow was Prigozhin’s last chance to try to come out of these events alive, so it made sense for him to cut a deal.
Russian government officials made public an agreement brokered by Belarusian President Lukashenko that brought an end to the hostilities.
– The charges of armed rebellion against Prigozhin were dropped and Putin personally guaranteed that he would safely be seen off to the Belarusian border. Prigozhin is presumed to be under the personal protection of President Lukashenko.
– Wagner troops who participated in the uprising would be pardoned and any charges against them will be dropped.
– A few Wagner units that did not participate in the uprising would be eligible to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense as contract soldiers. This represents the likely end of PMC Wagner as it exists in its current form, as troops are either discharged or folded into the Ministry of Defense umbrella.
– Official statements from the Russian government made no definitive comment on the status of Defense Minister Shoigu or General Gerasimov (whose removal was Wagner’s stated aim). Rumors that Shoigu was detained by the FSO and remains in detention, or that both had been asked to tender their resignations circulate, but no highly credible sources have reported on their current or future status. ABC News reports that US officials believe Putin may have made concessions on Shoigu and others’ futures.
A few things immediately stand out about the publicly known details of the brokered deal.
First, this deal can be fairly characterized as a humiliation for Putin. Putin addressed the Russian nation, calling the participants in the uprising “criminals” who had “stabbed in the back” both the Russian State and its people. Less than a day had passed since Putin how vowed to bring these “apostates” to justice.
Putin’s agreement not to prosecute Prigozhin or the Wagnerites is an extremely public admission of weakness. When a person leads thousands of soldiers in an armed revolt, shoots down multiple military helicopters, captures two major cities, and advances within a couple hours’ drive of the nation’s capital, not being able to prosecute a single person for their action is indicative of an extremely public admission by Putin that he lacks the power to crush the rebellion.
Putin would not make such an agreement unless he found himself in a position of considerable weakness.
This is not to say that Putin could not have defeated Wagner, or that Putin thought the same. But a protracted battle between Russian forces in a civil war would have likely had catastrophic consequences for the War in Ukraine, whether or not Prigozhin intended such consequences. Supply lines would be severed, reinforcements and reserves would be directed to the civil war, and the front would be neglected.
[…] A UK intelligence memorandum from May 20, 2023, provided some information regarding the state of Russian reserve forces in Ukraine that suggested Russia may have only 30-40 battalions of troops in all of the Ukrainian theater of operations, around 20,000~35,000 troops.
Russia took over a week to drive a single battalion of Freedom of Russia Legion’s troops out of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast in early June.
Russia had to scramble to bring troops from all around Russia via airlift to assemble a defense of Moscow.
when you’re establishing an air bridge to your own capital.” [posted by Josh Marshall]
Other more difficult to verify reports paint an even darker picture of Putin. Reports that Russian army units were not resisting Wagner’s advance and were waving them through checkpoints abounded. It was reported that the 45th Airborne Brigade and a number of other Russian army units ordered to intercept Wagner’s advance refused to comply.
It appeared possible that only Putin’s fiercely loyal elite units of Rosgvardia (National Guard) had any enthusiasm for defending their leader.
Given the political liabilities involved in pardoning Prigozhin and the Wagnerites, the only logical interpretation is to believe that Putin saw himself in a position of weakness.
However, for a deal to come through, the same would likely have to be true of Prigozhin—he would also have needed to find himself in a state of weakness.
Although Prigozhin claimed that it had always been the plan to turn back before fighting in Moscow, this statement strains credulity. There was no way for Prigozhin to know that the first major resistance Wagner faced would not come until he reached the outskirts of Moscow. Wagner rising in armed rebellion, then immediately backing down if the garrison at Rostov-on-Don intended to resist would have made no sense.
[…] US officials reported that they were aware of preparations for an insurrection by Wagner forces by mid-June. It’s believed that Prigozhin received notifications from the Russian Ministry of Defense that Wagner forces were to sign contracts with the MoD—meaning they would be made employees of the MoD and a de facto destruction of Wagner as an organization.
Wagner made preparations by stockpiling ammunition and fuel. If Prigozhin’s plan from the beginning had been to turn back at first resistance, it hardly makes sense to stockpile ammunition.
Wagner’s forces had advanced to within 200km of Moscow, and something persuaded Prigozhin that he needed to cut a deal—that certainly was not confidence.
One valid question would be—did Prigozhin lose his nerve? This interpretation of events is certainly possible, but by all appearances, he had already crossed the Rubicon. Many people expressed incredulity at the idea that Putin would allow a traitor to continue living, particularly one living in exile in a virtual Russian satellite state like Belarus. Surely, Prigozhin must be aware of this.
[…] Here are two alternative possibilities.
Prigozhin may have been counting on the support elements of the Russian Army or other oligarchs but did not receive any. Sergei Surovikin is a high-ranking general who served for three months as the overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, before being replaced by Valery Gerasimov.
And yet, Surovikin was one of the first generals to call upon Wagner to drop their weapons and submit to the Russian government. [Tweet and video at the link.]
This lack of support may have been disheartening to Prigozhin, leading him to believe even if he were victorious in capturing Moscow, that he could not rule a hostile nation without powerful supporters in the army and the oligarchs, that he could not establish an effective new government.
Another possibility is that Prigozhin recognized that he was militarily unable to capture Moscow. While Wagner brought some anti-aircraft weapons with them, lacking any air support of their own placed Wagner’s troops at a distinct disadvantage.
It appears that as Wagner’s troops got closer to Moscow, the frequency and intensity of helicopter and aircraft attacks intensified. [Tweets and videos at the link]
[…] Between intensifying air strikes, Russia air-bridging troops into Moscow at a rapid clip, and Wagner’s presumably limited sources of supply, the danger may have exceeded Prigozhin’s expectations leading to him being receptive to ideas of a compromise.
[…] A compromise that guaranteed Prigozhin’s exile and safety would at least give him a chance to survive.
[…] What is clear, however, is that the coup has destroyed Russia’s image of an unquestionable and stable regime with the loyalty of its citizens.
Russians would see a video of a man Putin called a “traitor” and a “criminal” being sent off to exile by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters. [Tweet and video at the link]
People were chanting “Wagner, Wagner” as Wagner units withdrew from Rostov-on-Don. [Tweet and video at the link]
Perhaps more shocking was the lack of loyalty from so many soldiers and police officers along Wagner’s long route of advance toward Moscow. Reports from Wagner soldiers commenting on how all the soldiers and police officers were just waving Wagner vehicles through were shocking. The very speed by which Wagner’s column could advance indicated that they were true.
Many of these units appeared to want to wait to see who had the upper hand in an apparent civil war on the verge of starting.
This coup exposed the fact that Putin is far less secure and powerful than the image he projects. Worse, for Putin, that fact has been laid apparent to everyone in Russia.
How this change could impact Russia in the coming months and years is hard to predict, but here are historical examples that may illuminate some of the possibilities.
———————— Kornilov Affair
1917 was a very difficult year for Russia. A revolution in February 1917 brought a provisional government to power, which continued to keep Russia in World War One. Eventually, Alexander Kerensky came to dominate the government.
Kerensky came under withering criticism when a series of offensives conducted by the Russian Army at Kerensky’s urging failed. It was a series of attacks, known as the Kerensky Offensive.
The failure of the Kerensky Offensive convinced ultra-nationalist elements in the Russian army to begin plotting the demise of the Provisional Government. The coup plot was discovered, and the main central members, including General Kornilov, were imprisoned.
However, the scale of the coup and the Nationalists’ anger at the government resulted in a loss of credibility on the part of the Provisional Government. This set the stage for the October Revolution by the Bolsheviks.
The lesson: Even if a government suppresses a plot, it can reveal the lack of control and weakness of a government. Other powerful elements that may like to see the regime go down can begin aiming to take over.
The July 20 Plot on Hitler
With the German Army being pressed from the west and east by the Allies in 1944, a cabal of German army officers began plotting to kill Adolf Hitler with the hopes of negotiation with the Allied powers.
The officers set a bomb to kill Hitler during a conference, yet Hitler survived the blast mostly due to pure luck.
Hitler ordered a widespread investigation. Diaries and notes were discovered in the homes of many plotters, leading to the discovery of prior plots. Over 7,000 people were arrested, and 4980 people were executed.
Beyond this widespread purge, nothing much changed. Hitler’s position remained beyond challenge domestically, all the way to his suicide the following year.
The lesson: Failed military coups and plots do not necessarily lead to changes in the domestic order, particularly when an effective purge of dissident elements can be identified and eliminated as a result of the coup.
These are just some potential points of comparison. The 1991 KGB coup against Gorbachev, where KGB officers tried to reverse liberal reforms is one. The February 21st Incident of 1936 in Imperial Japan, where militarist officers tried to establish a militarist state, failed, but laid the groundwork for the military domination of civilian government.
[…] Like Kerensky, Putin’s collapsing credibility may make managing the war effort a near-impossible task as criticism of his war management results in the destabilization of his government.
Conversely, Putin may be able to use the incident to identify less loyal sectors of his governing force and begin to purge them to increase the stability of his regime. Politicians, military officers, and police units that seemed to support the Wagnerites might become targets of the FSB in an ever-broadening net.
One thing is certain—Putin’s regime is weaker now than it was at any point in recent memory.
1. In Wagner PMC, a split has reportedly started between those who felt used and those who remained loyal to Prigozhin after the failed rebellion.
2. Combat pilots reportedly quit Wagner PMC due to their disagreement with the way planes and helicopters of the Russian Aerospace Forces were destroyed yesterday.
3. A vertical of power has collapsed.
No one in Russia can feel safe anymore. Neither officials, nor oligarchs, nor FSB officers who used to think they were the rulers of life. Putin stopped holding a monopoly on violence in Russia yesterday. It was proven that factions with more weapons and determination decide everything.
4. Russia might be facing a bloody war, not a civil war, but a war of clans, armed groups and private armies: Chechens, Prigozhin’s supporters, armed mercenaries, who will separate from Prigozhin or other PMCs and be hired by local clans for protection from invading outsiders.
All large business and oligarchs will probably create (if they haven’t already) private armies, as Gazprom has already done to protect itself.
Conflicts and redistribution of property will be resolved by force. It will be the new 90s but far worse – Resembling the Mad Max style and genre of an anti-utopia action movie.
5. The Russian army, it seems, has de facto ceased to exist as a united structure. Soldiers and officers sitting in trenches in the massacre unleashed by Putin, probably finally realized yesterday the utter pointlessness of the war against Ukraine, against the background of the fact that a group of criminals in the rear can pass 600km in a day, sweeping away everything in their path and then be amnestied after killing pilots and civilians.
6. Ukraine is a few steps closer to fully restoring its territorial integrity, including Crimea.
7. What a pity that this circus did not end with the self-destruction of Putin’s regime and Prigozhin faction.
But I believe it will happen again with even larger scale!
@404: I’m not that concerned with what the polls are saying today. The first primaries are 6 months away. At some point it will dawn on anyone sane that the indictment is not politically based, and there may be additional indictments as well. I am eager to see what comes out of Georgia.
This may still leave a sizable fraction of the GOP base in Trump’s corner, but if they were sane they wouldn’t be Republican, would they?
[Trump said], Today I’m announcing a new plan to protect the integrity of our immigration system. Federal law prohibits the entry of communists and totalitarians into the United States. (BIG CHEERS!)
But my question is what do we do with the ones that are already here that grew up in it? I think we have to pass a new law for them. (ALSO BIG CHEERS!)
Using federal law and section 212-F of the Immigration and Nationality Act, I will order my government to deny entry to all communists and all Marxists. Those who come to and join our country must love our country. We want them to love our country. We don’t want them when they want to destroy our country. Welcome to America, we want to destroy your country, thank you very much. So we’re going to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists, and socialists out of America. We’re keeping them out of America.
Commentary from Wonkette:
It is true that our immigration laws (specifically the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act) do still technically bar those with a “membership in or affiliation with a communist or totalitarian party” from naturalizing — and this includes the Communist Party USA — but it is also true that the Cold War is over and has been for several decades now.
The fact that this law is still even on the books in a country that supposedly prides itself on freedom of speech is absolutely revolting. Perhaps we should thank him for reminding us of this so that we can update those regulations after Democrats win again in 2024.
Is Trump going to deport himself once he realizes he fits in the “totalitarian” category?
[…] Outside a small kiosk, Wagner fighters order coffee, a rifle casually hanging in one soldier’s right hand. When they’re done, a civilian toting a backpack brushes past to place his order. […]
[…] At the exact time that Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was being arraigned in Miami and charged with felony violations of the Espionage Act in connection with his alleged mishandling of our nation’s classified documents, several of his Republican congressional supporters gathered in the U.S. Capitol for a fake “hearing.” This hearing honored the people who attacked the same Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, lauding, encouraging, and soothing them for their failed attempt to violently overturn the 2020 election.
Earlier that week, a Republican congressman from Louisiana named Clay Higgins telegraphed a message on Twitter providing coded, helpful tactical advice to extremist white supremacist militia groups in the event they perpetrated a violent assault on the federal courthouse where Trump was being arraigned.
Later in the same week, 196 Republicans—nearly the entire GOP House caucus—voted in favor of a resolution to censure and heavily fine Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for investigating and revealing the rank complicity between the Trump administration and the Russian Federation in influencing the outcome of the 2016 election.
These acts aren’t simply “un-American.” They’re clear evidence of a political organization that has collectively resolved to make a clean break with democracy.
As reported by The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, the Capitol “hearing” should not have occurred at all, since Gaetz, who oversaw the “proceedings,” is not a committee chair. Nevertheless, it was permitted by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and (as a consequence of that phony imprimatur of legitimacy) Gaetz played it to the hilt, formally calling witnesses, “yielding” and “allowing” time, and displaying the congressional seal on the backdrop of a large video screen. Tables were arranged to make it appear as if these six Republican congressmen were “taking testimony,” which Gaetz declared would be part of the “official record.” As Milbank notes, C-SPAN dutifully carried the faux “hearings” as if they were something other than a total self-serving farce.
As Milbank reports, the “witnesses” included actual participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection, including those convicted of urging assaults on police at the Capitol, relatives of those currently awaiting trial for physically assaulting Capitol Police on that day, and organizers of the insurrection itself. The one thing all of the witnesses had in common was that they or their relatives were in some way being held to account for their behavior on and leading up to the Jan. 6 assault.
As Milbank records, the Republican lawmakers heaped praise on all of them [JFC].
“To all of you, my condolences,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who added tenderly that “you know how I feel about Ashli” Babbitt, the woman police shot as she breached the last line of defense protecting lawmakers in the House chamber.
“This is heartbreaking,” added Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), “the way you all have been treated.”
Greene added “my deepest sympathy for each of you and all the pain and suffering that you’ve all had to go through because of this government.” She told them that they were the victims of “sick, evil people”…
Gosar blamed the attack on “people undercover, whether it be antifa, FBI, whatever.” Norman suggested that the FBI was framing people who weren’t involved in the attack.
Preening before an audience of Trump supporters (some wearing T-shirts accusing the Capitol police of murder), these same lawmakers whose halls were assaulted and trashed on Jan. 6 continued to bestow pity on the insurrectionists. They repeatedly blamed law enforcement, judges, prosecutors, and the FBI for their “mistreatment,” even as Capitol Police guarded the doors in the halls outside the hearing. Milbank, of course, notes the unintended irony in that.
But we’re well past the ironic stage. In a single week we have seen elected Republican officials leap to support a former president criminally indicted (with damning evidence) for espionage, a Republican Congress voting almost en masse to punish an investigation into that same president’s treacherous complicity with Russian intelligence, and members of Congress publicly treating politically inspired violence as some perverse act of heroism.
In 2018, conservative David Frum, writing for The Atlantic, predicted how the corruption of the Republican Party would play out under Donald Trump. He wrote the following:
The more isolated Trump becomes within the American political system as a whole, the more he will dominate whatever remains of the conservative portion of that system. He will devour his party from within.
Maybe you do not much care about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.
[…] Frum’s 2018 prediction is exactly what is happening, and this past week it was there for all to see, in real time. As Jamelle Bouie, writing for The New York Times, put it on June 13:
What is striking about the Republican Party is the extent to which it has, for decades now, cultivated the opposite — a highly instrumental view of our political system, in which rules and laws are legitimate only insofar as they allow for the acquisition and concentration of power in Republican hands.
Most Republicans won’t condemn Trump. There are his millions of ultra-loyal voters, yes. And there are the challenges associated with breaking from the consensus of your political party, yes. But there is also the reality that Trump is the apotheosis of a propensity for lawlessness within the Republican Party. He is what the party and its most prominent figures have been building toward for nearly half a century. I think he knows it and I think they do too.
Republicans have made their choice, and democracy lost. The only real question is what they’ll endorse next.
I figure that the party will listen, as soon as Trump donates money for his own campaign and the Jan 6 defendants.
Most likely to happen next February 32nd.
Republican senators are leaning on Chief Justice John Roberts to do something about the Supreme Court’s appearance problem in the wake of reports that conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito accepted luxury vacations from conservative donors…
Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride, who in 2020 became the nation’s first openly transgender state senator, is setting out to make history again – this time as the first out transgender person elected to Congress…
[…] we are still in a grinding phase. Which means a lot of fighting, but not much change of land control. In a way, current Ukrainian attacks are still a part of the “shaping of the field” operation. Ukraine makes a move or a strike. Waits for the Russian reaction. Makes reassessment of the situation. Makes another move or strike. Waits for the intelligence reports. And so on, and so forth.
So, what can you do to shrug off this suspense? These are some of the things I use myself.
1. Take a step back
You may need to make a step back to see the whole picture. Here is one of the Ukrainian assessments about the first 20 days of the counter-offensive at the Zaporizzhia front:
– out of 90 000 Russian men at the Zaporizzhia front, about 16 000 are dead or wounded through the first 20 days of the offensive.
– out of 990 Russian artillery pieces, 300 have been destroyed.
At this level of attrition, we may need another couple of weeks to see any significant change and movement of the front.
So you may read the daily briefings of the Ukrainian General Stuff and do believe that there is intense fighting (but also intense thinking, manoeuvring and deception) takes place.
Also, you might wish to look back for some old news.
For me personally, the most significant development of the last week was the official confirmation of the rumours that Ukraine’s defence forces liberated territories in Donetsk Oblast occupied since 2014.
Many people were speculating whether a potential cease-fire or a peace treaty would somehow rely on the “pre-24 February 2022” front line”.
Some were casually referring to the “strong defensive lines built by Russia at the old front line.
And here it is — the line has been crossed, and the news about this fact is lost in the casual everyday newswire.
For me, this bears an additional meaning, as there are some places in the “old” occupied territories to which I have a family connection — and had been cut off from them for long nine years… [Mural depicting: A “Zaporizhzhia Avenger” — a new mural painting in Kyiv dedicated to the National Guard MANPAD operator who shot down 7 Russian Su-25s and one cruise missile on the Zaporizhzhia front. The guy himself is from Ivano-Frankivsk, his name is Roman Golomba, and he is 19 years old.]
2. Broaden your focus
Remember that things happen not just on the front line.
The same night Prigozhin took Rostov-on Don, five people were killed and eleven wounded in Kyiv due to the biggest Russian missile strike since April. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry shows first minutes after missile fragments fell on a residential building in Kyiv. [photo of building]
Meanwhile, in the occupied territories, Russians check teenagers in Mariupol for “loyalty to Ukraine”. That follows the killing by Russians of two Ukrainian teenagers who had attacked Russian police in Berdyansk two days ago.
3. Connect to a topic, military unit, or a relief organization
This helps me a lot. I [vent] my frustration by posting on international social media and writing posts like this, usually accompanied by a call to donate. I was lucky to have dozens of people reporting that they have donated to various Ukrainian military and civilian causes that I had promoted, bought Ukrainian goods etc. I have even two guys who donated their drones to Ukrainian units.
I have some connection to those units, and I can tell you they were not having a very quiet life throughout the war. Either they are fighting, recovering from fighting, or training. People raise in ranks and get awards, and fun things happen, but also people die and get wounded. All of that helps me feel connected, useful, and involved. Getting yourself busy and connected with something you are excited about helps.
Another thing I am looking at — and the one you might be interested two, especially if you are into some business — is Ukraine’s economic recovery: there was a major conference last week in London, and a dozen programs totalling USD 60 billion have been announced to support and rebuild Ukraine. I can see a lot of that money being put to work in Ukraine — from rebuilding destroyed bridges to providing microgrants to SMEs who suffered from war or employ IDPs or veterans. This is no less exciting than fighting at the front line.
Things happen, and life goes on. Pray for Ukrainian fighters, donate if you can, keep your governments in check to keep supporting Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, ask for stronger sanctions against Russia, and urge Western companies to finally stop doing business in Russia.
Once again, thank you USA and all Americans who are supporting Ukraine now. Please keep doing this — the trend is positive, but we are just halfway there, in the best case. [Mural: “A new mural painting in Kyiv dedicated to Ukrainian volunteers. If you have helped Ukrainians during this year and a half, you may consider yourself to be one of them.”]
Republican abortion bans are very unpopular. Yet a significant chunk of Republican primary voters—especially evangelical Christians—demand more abortion bans. That’s a challenge for presidential primary candidates, and one they had to confront head-on over the weekend at the Faith & Freedom Coalition Road to Majority conference. (The “freedom” in the name is not the freedom to make your own medical decisions.)
Donald Trump, far and away the frontrunner in the Republican primary, is looking ahead to the general election. He tries to woo anti-abortion hardliners by reminding them of the past, claiming that at a campaign event, “A woman stood up and said, ‘This guy ended Roe v. Wade. How the hell can you go against him?”
That’s Trump’s pitch in a nutshell. He appointed three of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to end abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. What more could you want?
The thing is, some of his opponents are looking ahead and saying they’d support more extreme bans than Trump is endorsing. Mike Pence, Trump’s former number two, is an actual evangelical Christian and a longtime zealot on abortion. He speaks the language, and he shares the goal of national abortion restrictions, calling for a 15-week federal ban.
“Save the babies, and we will save America,” Pence said at a Saturday rally. He added, “as the old book says, that many more are with us than are with them.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also spoke at the event, criticizing Trump for saying the six-week abortion ban he had signed into law in Florida was “too harsh.” But DeSantis is the one who looks like he’s engaging in political calculation here, keeping it low-key as he signed an unpopular law he thought he needed for the primary, avoiding the subject of abortion in the early weeks of his campaign, and then suddenly wanting to talk about it as his polling stagnated.
Trump faces continuing pressure from anti-abortion extremists over his refusal thus far to commit to a 15-week abortion ban, though. At a recent meeting with Sen. Lindsey Graham, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, “[Trump told them] that rather than get hung up on 12 weeks, 15 weeks, 16 weeks, his threshold is when the baby can feel pain,” according to a CNN source. They’re going to demand more than that as the primary goes on, but Trump’s goal is to use his role in overturning Roe to maintain support from hardliners while avoiding further commitments on the issue to preserve his viability for a general election. That’s a luxury DeSantis doesn’t have—and Pence, the true believer, doesn’t want.
Wagner group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who sent a convoy of mercenary fighters toward Moscow over the weekend in an extraordinary challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority, posted an 11-minute audio statement on Monday claiming he launched the rebellion after Russian forces killed 30 of his fighters. They were his first remarks since accepting a deal to avoid prosecution and withdrawing his fighters on Saturday.
[…] Questions remain about the whereabouts of Putin and Prigozhin — neither of whom has been seen in public since the episode came to a close — and about the future of Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mercenaries.
Wagner rebellion and aftermath
Footage released Monday. by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office shows him visiting troops in Ukraine’s Donbas region
.
Russia’s Defense Ministry published a video Monday claiming to show Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspecting a command post in Ukraine. It was not immediately clear when or where the footage was recorded. Prigozhin has long accused Shoigu of fumbling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for his ouster. Shoigu, one of the targets of Wagner’s rebellion, was nowhere to be seen over the weekend.
The brief rebellion in Russia “raises profound questions” about the country’s stability, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Blinken and Zelensky attributed the revolt, at least in part, to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “The longer Russian aggression lasts, the more degradation it causes in Russia itself,” Zelensky said Sunday.
Western officials are questioning whether the truce will last and are concerned that instability in Russia, a major nuclear power, could pose a risk to the United States and its allies. Under Russia’s reported agreement with Prigozhin, the Wagner Group leader and some of his forces will go to Belarus, but Western officials were unsure of the exact terms.
Global updates
– Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called for reinforcing the border with Belarus following a weekend of political instability in Russia that resulted in Prigozhin’s reported acceptance of exile to Belarus. “We need to tighten security of our eastern borders even more,” Nauseda said Monday at a Lithuanian State Defense Council meeting, the Interfax news agency reported.
– Germany wants to permanently station about 4,000 soldiers in Lithuania to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced Monday. “It is about “defending our common freedom,” he said, according to German media.
– China has downplayed Russia’s political instability, branding the recent rebellion as “internal affairs” in Moscow. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning made the comment when asked if recent events could weaken Putin. She said Beijing supports Moscow in “maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity.”
– Australia announced a new assistance package to Ukraine that includes 70 military vehicles and ammunition. The package, worth 110 million Australian dollars, or about $75 million, “demonstrates that Ukraine can count on Australia,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement. It also includes money for a U.N. humanitarian fund for civilians in Ukraine.
From our correspondents
– Mercenary boss warned of revolution in Russia, but his own was short-lived: Before Prigozhin sent his army marching on Moscow in an act of defiance over the weekend, he told Russians that for the country to stand a chance of winning its war in Ukraine, it must become a “North Korea-style” state with the death penalty in force.
– Now, following the short-lived rebellion, Prigozhin has reportedly agreed to go into exile in Belarus, a dictatorship even more isolated than Russia and often referred to as the North Korea of Europe […]
wzrd1says
Two in six months.
In January, a ramp worker for Piedmont Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines (and formerly a subsidiary of US Airways) approached an aircraft that had arrived while the engines were running and warning beacons were running, the mother of 3 was ingested into the engine, resulting in her death.
Friday, in San Antonio, a Delta ramp worker was ingested into a running engine, resulting in death.
Neither aircraft were some mysterious new model, airplanes aren’t new, no background on time on the job for either worker, but in the case of the mother of three in Alabama, OSHA fined Piedmont Airlines for safety violations.
Many years ago, I worked the ramp for an airline, specifically, Piedmont Airlines, before it was acquired by US Airways (itself formerly known of as Allegheny Airlines). Ramp safety was a culture, it had to be, we manually loaded and unloaded aircraft, as our airplanes didn’t have container storage systems. I worked every position on the ramp and freight, fortunately, I managed to avoid ticket counter (workers had to learn every job position there was back then). Ramps are extremely dangerous places to work, there’s heavy equipment in use that ranges from service trucks, tugs, pushback tugs that weigh in between 70 – 120000 pounds, fuel pods for ground equipment, luggage conveyor belts, fuel trucks and aircraft, to name a few moving hazards. In many cases, airlines have gates dedicated to specific models of aircraft, so they mark where lashdown points are and where the engine ingestion hazard zone is. Rule of thumb being a cone around 10 meters from the engine inlet.
The only aviation environment more hazardous is on an aircraft carrier flight deck and that’s largely due to congestion. For both, when an aircraft is starting up or coming in, people are to be in specific areas to avoid hazards like engine blast or intake zones.
When marshaling in an aircraft, one isn’t only watching the aircraft, but wing walkers, rear walker, moving and stationary ground equipment, coworkers, contractors and even for trash. Approach to the aircraft isn’t allowed until cleared by the cockpit, engines are shut down, the hazard beacons are extinguished and the pilot in control gives an all clear.
Humans are sloppy creatures, we’ll cut corners, make shortcuts, dodge the edge of procedures and more to get things done, so a safety culture takes that into account to prevent hazards from forming a chain that can turn lethal. Many a first officer has mentioned the angst of seeing the engine still running and seeing a cargo bin door open indicator and when reported, management is supposed to jump onto that safety violation with both feet. A culture of safety, like a culture of security is organization wide, without leadership buy in and support, there is no culture.
The fan disc on a modern jet engine spins at around 2500 – 3000 rpm. If anything larger than a chicken (literally, engines are checked using chickens and even turkeys) hits the fan or makes it past the fan somehow and into the turbine that’s going at 15k rpm or more, well, that’s a hell of a lot of energy and metal is only so strong. The impinging object is shredded violently, as is the rotating component. Bad enough to lose a worker, but the risk of an uncontained engine failure is very real, where components, such as the fan ring and blades can fly out like shrapnel from a monstrous hand grenade, endangering all around for quite long distances. Steel roofs have been penetrated by fan debris. As has the fuselage of an occupied aircraft, resulting in passenger deaths on multiple occasions.
Now, some will automatically go to the current go to of blaming the pandemic. Pandemics don’t change safety practices, but one can grow rusty when returning, but that ship has long sailed. Some will try to blame a massive return, post-pandemic, to air travel. Again, a safety culture is designed to be resilient and halt a chain of errors that can allow an accident to occur.
So, what went wrong twice now, that allowed a ramp worker to approach an aircraft that was running, to be sucked off their feet and into that running engine, when no other factor is novel?
Because, now, two families are without their loved ones, two airlines have damaged aircraft and two terminals full of passengers and two aircraft passenger loads have been traumatized by seeing someone sucked into an engine and gore and blood fly out the other end.
Something has changed and it’s for the worst, it’s up to regulators and the industry to find out what and fix it.
Sorry for the extreme OT rant, but this one’s been bothering me, it was totally preventable and two in such a short amount of time is utterly unacceptable.
[…] In a bit of a surprise, the U.S. Supreme Court today rejected Louisiana’s appeal seeking to prevent the state’s congressional map from being redrawn. As a result, the state will have to redraw its map, after lower courts concluded that the current district boundaries unlawfully dilute the influence of Black voters.
As Marsha Blackburn connects the Titan submersible implosion and Hunter Biden’s story, her far-right conspiratorial thinking is coming into sharper focus.
There was a great deal of public interest last week in OceanGate’s Titan submersible and the implosion that claimed the lives of the five people onboard, but it was not the kind of story I usually cover. Maritime disasters are tragic, but they’re far from my wheelhouse.
But then some congressional Republicans took an unhealthy interest in the developments.
Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, for example, suggested Congress should open an investigation into whether the Biden administration withheld information about the Titan implosion to distract the public from Hunter Biden.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee was thinking along similar lines, publishing a tweet on Friday that read:
“If the U.S. Navy suspected that the Titan Submersible imploded just hours after it began its voyage, why did the Coast Guard wait until Thursday — the same day the IRS whistleblowers testified before Congress — to make their announcement to the public?”
So, a few things.
First, the IRS whistleblowers in question testified weeks ago, not Thursday.
Second, there’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Navy or the Coast Guard.
And third, I’m curious if Blackburn has ever heard a far-right conspiracy theory she didn’t embrace without regard for accuracy.
In 2009, for example, a group of 11 House Republicans unveiled a “birther” bill in Congress, requiring presidential candidates to prove they’re native-born citizens. Most of the 11 GOP members are no longer in Congress, but one — Blackburn — managed to secure a promotion to statewide office.
From her Senate perch, the Tennessean has touted all kinds of odd theories. Remember the one about the secret “cabals” in the FBI that don’t appear to exist? Or how about Blackburn’s insistence that the White House was deliberately trying raise gas prices, even as it worked to lower gas prices?
The Republican’s Covid-related theories were especially weird: Blackburn argued that unnamed Democrats want “a permanent pandemic“ as part of a weird liberal scheme that never really made any sense, only to later tell Fox News that White House staffers were trying to “keep the pandemic going” so they could spend more money and direct more people to vote by mail.
Now the Republican is connecting the Titan submersible implosion to the Hunter Biden story — because Blackburn appears to see the world through conspiratorial eyes.
I made the case months ago that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer had an amazing ability to connect any story to President Joe Biden’s son. Evidently, the Kentucky congressman isn’t the only one.
[…] some voices on the right thought the smart thing to do would be to start peddling conspiracy theories about the developments in Russia.
On Saturday, for example, Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy questioned whether the United States was involved in the Russian crisis, adding that she doesn’t trust what she hears from the United States government. A day later, Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo was even more direct on this point, arguing that the threat of a Russian civil war was part of an elaborate scheme to shift attention away from Hunter Biden.
“The White House wanted to give the media something else to cover, and this is the m.o.,” Bartiromo told viewers. “This is exactly the way they do things.” She added that the State Department was “drumming up all the drama” about a possible coup effort in Russia.
This wasn’t limited to conservative media. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — who’s been accused of being a part of Congress’ so-called Putin Caucus — published a tweet on Saturday afternoon that read, “After our government has been funding a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine for over a year, I sure hope our government isn’t behind a coup attempt currently happening in Russia. Regime change in a nuclear armed country may lead to terrible consequences the American people don’t want.”
Just so we’re all clear, let’s go ahead and note two obvious points. The first is that as conspiratorial ideas go, this one appears to be quite bonkers. None of the people peddling the theory have pointed to anything that even resembles evidence; they simply see value in reflexively looking for ways trying to undermine their own country’s White House.
The second is that the rhetoric could prove dangerous. Putin is the only real beneficiary of loud voices in the United States raising the prospect of American officials trying to destabilize Russia. [correct]
If GOP leaders have the courage and wherewithal to denounce their base’s conspiracy theories, now seems like an excellent time to speak up. […]
That’s much akin to the Hunter Biden story where the IRS suggested far more charges. Conveniently ignoring that whole plea bargaining thing or the fact that a prosecutor selects the most likely to succeed charges, not the biggest wheelbarrow full of charges to press.
The rest, just more about the Grand Conspiracy of the Space Aliens.
Although, when they started on being against all ballots by mail, I reminded them that those denied the vote by ballot do retain the right to vote by bullet, then questioned why they want to deny our deployed military their votes. They automatically conflate the two and STFU.
Has Ron DeSantis signed a lot of far-right measures into law? Without a doubt, yes. Have those measures fared well in the courts? Clearly, no.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has made no secret of his contempt for drag shows, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise last month when the Florida Republican signed a measure empowering the state to penalize businesses that allow minors to attend drag performances.
As The New York Times reported, the new state law is facing judicial scrutiny — and it’s not faring well.
A federal judge in Florida temporarily blocked a new law allowing the state to penalize businesses that admit children to “adult live performances” such as drag shows. Judge Gregory A. Presnell of the Federal District Court in Orlando issued a preliminary injunction blocking the new law, which went into effect last month.
“Florida already has statutes that provide such protection [from obscene performances]. Rather, this statute is specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers,” Presnell wrote.
The setback in court comes months after DeSantis’ administration sent undercover police officers to look for evidence of improprieties at a Christmas drag show in Orlando. When the officers said they didn’t see anything that ran afoul of the state’s decency laws, DeSantis’ administration went after the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation for hosting the event anyway.
Friday’s ruling was an injunction that blocks Florida from enforcing the drag restrictions, but the underlying case challenging the legality of the new state statute is still ongoing.
The Republican governor/presidential candidate denounced the injunction as “dead wrong” and vowed to appeal, but stepping back, it’s hard not to notice that DeSantis has struggled quite a bit in the courts lately. NBC News reported:
On Wednesday, another judge struck down a Florida rule and a statute that banned state Medicaid payments for transgender healthcare. That same judge on June 6 partially blocked Florida from enforcing its recent ban on people under 18 receiving gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Those were just last week’s setbacks. DeSantis also lost when a court blocked Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act”; his anti-protest measure was also blocked by a federal judge; the Republican’s law to regulate social media companies was blocked by a different federal judge; and the cases brought by his elections police unit have largely fallen short.
This list might yet grow, with a variety of other high-profile cases — including litigation stemming from the governor’s Martha’s Vineyard fiasco and his weird crusade against Disney — still pending.
There are a few relevant angles to all of this. The first is that DeSantis likes to tout the Sunshine State as a “citadel of freedom,” but he keeps signing measures into law that curtail Floridians’ rights.
The second is the financial costs he’s imposing on Florida taxpayers, who are footing a hefty bill to cover the legal expenses surrounding DeSantis’ culture war. I’m reminded of something Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, told The Miami Herald late last year, reflecting on the fact that DeSantis almost certainly knows that many of his policies won’t withstand judicial scrutiny.
“He does not care if he wins or loses,” Jarvis said in December. “In fact, if he wins, he can say, ‘See, I was right.’ And, if he loses, it’s just as good as winning because then he can say, ‘There’s a liberal conspiracy and we have to get the libs out.’
“But when your goal is not to win or lose, and you have a blank check from the taxpayers, then really it’s all about: ‘Will this lawsuit generate headlines? And will this allow me to control the narrative?’” Jarvis added.
All of which leads us to the third angle: Will GOP primary voters be impressed? On the one hand, it’s easy to imagine rank-and-file Republicans applauding the far-right governor for “fighting” to advance an agenda they agree with. On the other hand, these same voters might notice that DeSantis’ accomplishments start to look like failures as he loses, over and over again, in the courts.
“Vote for me because judges rejected many of my favorite achievements” might not be the pitch the party base is looking for.
DeSantis is spending a fuckton of taxpayer money defending his ill-conceived policies in court.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has had plenty of run-ins with Christian nationalist GOP members of Congress over the years. There was MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein’s 2014 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Personnel that was crashed by members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus who weren’t members of the subcommittee to berate Mikey. (Watch video here.)
And there have been a slew of letters written by GOP, and more recently MAGA, House members and senators to the Secretary of Defense or VA Secretary decrying this or that MRFF victory and demanding that these victories be reversed. [Links to examples are available at the main link.] Mainly consisting of ineffectual letter-writing and some [complaining] on Fox News and occasionally on the House floor. Tthe GOP’s attacks on MRFF have been easily taken in stride — UNTIL NOW.
In an almost inconceivable action, a Christian nationalist GOP congressman, Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, has introduced actual legislation to shut MRFF down — to make it ILLEGAL for Department of Defense personnel to even communicate with MRFF!
Yes, this is how scared the Christian nationalists are of MRFF’s success in fighting for the religious freedom of our service members and against the spread of Christian nationalism in our military. They now see the only way to try to stop us is to make us illegal for military personnel!
Turner’s legislation comes in the form of an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2024 — an amendment that was PASSED last week in the GOP-led House Armed Services Committee’s markup of the NDAA.
This is the text of Turner’s unbelievable amendment:
LIMITATION ON USE OF FUNDS RELATED TO MILITARY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FOUNDATION.
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available for fiscal year 2024 for the Department of Defense may be used—
(1) to communicate with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, its leadership, or its founder; or
(2) to take any action or make any decision as a result of any claim, objection, or protest made by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation without the authority of the Secretary of Defense. [official document is available at the link]
If this amendment remains in the final bill, it will become LAW, specifically it will become part of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, also known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). This means that if a military commander even responds to an email from MRFF, or makes any decision as a result of being contacted by MRFF, that commander can be charged with violating the UCMJ and potentially face a court-martial!
In addition to obstructing MRFF’s crucial ability to communicate with commanders to advocate for the constitutionally-guaranteed rights of our service members, this amendment would also obliterate MRFF’s ability to get responses to or FOIA requests since it would be illegal for any FOIA officer to respond to our requests.
In other words, THE GOAL OF TURNER’S AMENDMENT IS TO SHUT MRFF DOWN!!!
This is nothing short of a completely unconstitutional bill of attainder, defined as “legislation that imposes punishment on a specific person or group of people without a judicial trial,” and explicitly prohibited by Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution, which states: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
This amendment was passed by the House Armed Services Committee as part of an en bloc package, meaning the committee members were voting on a list of numbers that was rattled off as a package. There was no reading of or debate on each individual amendment, allowing Turner to easily sneak in his reprehensible shut-MRFF-down amendment and get it passed. Turner even seems to be trying to hide this amendment from his constituents, omitting it from the list of NDAA amendments that he’s boasting on his website about getting passed.
We can’t let this horrifying and flagrantly unconstitutional amendment end up in the final NDAA!
Please, contact your representatives and senators, particularly if they are on their respective body’s Armed Services Committee, and urge them to stop Turner’s amendment.
The use of exclamation marks is too extravagant for my taste, but I do think this is an important issue.
The way I see it, Christian nationalists want to have control over the military.
[…] Northern Mexico will endure temperatures up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit as a relentless heat dome provides no relief from deadly temperatures that have baked the Mexican people for weeks, and they have no choice but to suffer.
[…] Northern Mexico will endure temperatures up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit as a relentless heat dome provides no relief from deadly temperatures that have baked the Mexican people for weeks, and they have no choice but to suffer.
[…] Central America, Afghanistan, and Papua New Guinea are some regions identified where it will be impossible to survive for a significant part of the year. They do not have the resources to prepare themselves for the oncoming disaster. The world will be tested. [Tweets and maps at the link]
At least 50 million people have been placed under extreme heat advisories as temperatures are forecast to soar at least 5-10C above the climatological average, with daily maximum temperatures reaching 40-45C (104-113F). San Angelo airport in Texas has already recorded two consecutive days where the temperature hit 45.6C (114F), which surpasses its highest ever temperature by three degrees.
This heat will continue to put stress on power grids across the southern states and Mexico. Texas in particular is uniquely vulnerable to power failures as it is the only state in the contiguous US that is disconnected from the national grid. As a result, the power grid operator for Texas has asked residents to voluntarily cut back on electricity due to anticipated record demand.
In Mexico, demands on energy have already surpassed last year by 9% due to the heat. Blackouts have been reported in Cancún and Tulum, leaving many without air conditioning and fresh water. Several heat-related deaths have been reported by local media. […]
Far be it from us NEAR BE IT TO US TO BRAG, but we do believe we called it on May 3, 2023, when we wrote the post “Jesse Watters Can Tell Who’s ‘Illegal’ Just By Looking At Them, So He’s Replacing Tucker, Right?”
And we typed:
For our money, the only current Fox personality who is smarmy and disgusting and creepy and racist and eagerly displays his masculinity issues with a joie de vivre that even approaches Tucker’s is Jesse Watters. Hunnerd percent. There is nobody else, assuming Fox wants to stick with its current business model for 8 p.m.
And we typed:
Tell us that if Watters didn’t borrow some of Tucker’s stable of white supremacist writers they couldn’t write him some store-brand Tucker-style monologues and have him fluffed and ready by next week.
And we typed:
Dude literally bragged that he tricked his now-wife into getting into his car with him by letting the air out of her tires.
Tucker’s white supremacist misogynist human trash audience is going to love him, congratulations on your new job, Jesse!
Was Wonkette the first to congratulate Jesse Watters on his new job? Perhaps-olutely!
Anyway, he got the job. He’s perfect. He’s even ready on day one to shit all over innocent Ukrainians and take Russia’s side.
But oh goodness, all these other shakeups in the Fox News primetime lineup! [Tweet at the link]
Let’s go through this. First of all, let us note how utterly Fox News just screwed Laura Ingraham out of the primetime lineup. Before this she was at 10, when[…] viewers were passing out in their chairs and leaving the TV on and being counted as “viewers” for “King of Late Night” Greg Gutfeld, who came on at 11. It was so pathetic how Gutfeld clung to that title like a Bible or a gun. As if he was actually poaching viewers from real late-night comedy hosts.
But back to Ingraham, she’ll be on at 7, and you know what happens at 7? […] “Wheel Of Fortune” for fucks sake! […]
Gutfeld moves into Ingraham’s earlier slot, so we guess a few of his fans might see the first few minutes of his show before they pass out confused about where Laura went.
Speaking of Greg, when we correctly prophecied […] that Jesse Watters would be receiving Tucker’s sloppy seconds, we made a joke about why Greg would not be getting the job:
We guess they could give Tucker’s job to Greg Gutfeld, who whined this week that “wokeism is every bit as racist as white nationalism,” but he’s getting a little past his sell-by date and quite frankly doesn’t have the range or the look. Also just such a try-hard.
Correct.
Hannity stays in the same timeslot, who cares.
Ingraham out of primetime! Gutfeld out of late night!
Watters going home MUCH LATER to the woman whose tires he let the air out of as part of his ploy to convince her to date him! (They are matrimonied now.)
It all starts July 17.
The Washington Post notes that this all comes as Fox News has been completely hemorrhaging viewers ever since they fired Tucker. They’ve even been getting beaten by MSNBC this month. We’re sure this will completely turn their primetime fortunes around. What’s hotter than the 1-2-3 punch of three of the most mediocre white guys God ever shat out of heaven?
Anyway, the point of this post is that Wonkette gave Jesse Watters Tucker’s old timeslot first. For the sake of fairness, we’ll note that Drudge got it almost exactly right a few weeks later when he reported that Watters and Gutfeld were going to primetime, which at the very least suggested that Ingraham was not part of the primetime lineup anymore.
At around the same time there were rumors on the internet that Ingraham was actually getting fired. Naw. Just heavily demoted. Ha ha.
In summary and in conclusion, congratulations to Laura Ingraham on her new job as Fox News janitor.
Well that’s a big claim, Wagner is going to continue operating, but now the headquarters will be in Belarus?
[…] Prigozhin, who did not disclose his whereabouts, said he ordered the rebellion after Russia’s military killed 30 Wagner fighters in a missile strike on one of the militia’s camps, and he said he accepted a deal to avoid prosecution and move to Belarus because it would allow Wagner to continue its operations there.
[…] Prigozhin expressed regret about Russian aircrews killed by Wagner during Saturday’s rebellion, “but these assets were dropping bombs and delivering missile strikes,” he said.
[…] He boasted that Wagner was perhaps the “most experienced and combat-ready unit in Russia, and possibly in the world” and had performed a huge number of tasks in the interests of the Russian state, in Africa, the Middle East “and around the world.”
“Recently, this unit has achieved good results in Ukraine,” he said, adding that Wagner had received an outpouring of support from Russians in Saturday’s revolt, which he called a “march for justice.” […]
On Saturday evening, the leader of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, got into a car and was taken to a big grassy farm upstate where the weather is warm and there are plenty of other old dogs to play with. Or at least, that’s certainly how it seemed to his mercenary organization he lead, because as of Monday morning Wagner said they hadn’t heard from their erstwhile boss since he took his last selfie with Russian generals, climbed into the back seat of an SUV, and paused for a moment to exchange a high-five with a few adoring fans.
Prigozhin, who has spent the last year making daily, if not hourly, pronouncements on the state of the war, the actions of his troops, and the idiocy of the Russian military, finally released audio on Monday evening discussing his decision to halt his to that point successful mutiny. However, it’s unclear that this audio is actually “new” […] There are also multiple reports, including from Russian state agencies, that the criminal case against Prigozhin has not been dropped as the agreement that sent Prigozhin to Belarus promised, and that the FSB is continuing to “investigate” potential charges against the mercenary warlord who came within a few hours of marching his forces into Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, who was mysteriously missing since before Wagner crossed the border into Russia, has also reportedly reappeared. Maybe. But at the same time there are reports that Putin intends to replace both Shoigu and head of ground forces, Gen Valery Gerasimov, with someone he considers more loyal, even if that someone has very limited military experience.
A day and a half since Russia appeared hours away from a coup, everything still seems to be riding the edge of chaos. What happened on Saturday seems so improbable that everyone is still trying to put it in some kind of context that can be understood. Can Prigozhin survive? Is he already dead? Can Vladimir Putin survive? How soon might Russia be dead?
For those who might have actually put some weekend in their weekend, here’s a quick recap:
After months of escalating complaints about the military leadership and shooting videos in which he claimed that thousands of Wagner mercenaries were dying due to poor support from the military leadership, with Shoigu in particular coming in for abuse, Prigozhin posted a video in which he claimed hundreds of “his men” had been killed by a Russian missile that had deliberately targeted their base. More than many previous videos from Prigozhin, this one appeared to have been staged. That impression wasn’t helped by how many members of Wagner had hinted that something big was coming.
Whether or not any Wagner forces had actually been victims of a deliberate strike, Prigozhin used this as an excuse to order his force across the border into Russia. In the early hours of Saturday, they moved through border stations—where guards carefully avoided any confrontation—and entered the city of Rostov-on-Don just at dawn. There, Wagner forces captured the police headquarters, the city offices, and most importantly the southern command of the Russian military. As they were entering Rostov, Wagner forces shot down a Russian military helicopter (which was probably not there to stop them). Soon after parking tanks around the military command and taking all the commanders there hostage, they shot down a second helicopter, which was left smoking on the edge of the city.
Then, with Prigozhin installed in Rostov, talking to Russian generals who nodded politely, a portion of the Wagner force continued up the M-4 highway in the direction of Moscow. Within a few hours, those forces reached the city of Voronezh, over 500 kilometers to the north. Russian military helicopters bombed their own fuel depots near the city in an apparent attempt to starve the Wagner convoy, which reportedly included as many as 400 vehicles. That didn’t work. [video at the link]
By Saturday afternoon, Wagner forces had entered Moscow Oblast and were only about 200 km from the city. Bridges had been removed to make their progress more difficult. More helicopters and an Il-22M “airborne command post” plane were on the ground. In total, Wagner appeared to have shot down one KA-52 attack helicopter, one MI-35 attack helicopter, three MI-8 reconnaissance helicopters, and that plane—seven aircraft and roughly 39 total crew members in what one source called “the worst day of the war for the Russian Air Force.” Wagner had also picked up at least a couple of Russian military vehicles along the way, with at least one vehicle with markings for the military taking part in the occupation of Rostov. [Interesting details]
Then, just as reports were coming in that Putin had left Moscow, oligarchs were looking for a way out, and multiple military units had declared themselves for Prigozhin … it was all over. In a deal negotiated with the help of Belarus dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, Prigozhi told his forces to turn around, promised that his men would return to their military camps in Ukraine, and agreed to join Lukashenko in Minsk.
In return, Putin announced that the criminal case against Prigozhin was being dropped, no charges would be levied against Wagner forces who took part in the aborted coup, and those soldiers would be given a choice between signing up with the Russian military and … something something. Prigozhin climbed into that SUV, his convoy turned around and drove back to Rostov, and … that was this weekend in Russia.
How any of this was supposed to work is baffling. Sure, Wagner just demonstrated that they could stroll through Russia’s internal defenses like Michael Meyers visiting a day care, and the reaction of Russian civilians they encountered demonstrated a genuine desire to see Putin replaced by a guy they mostly knew from his screaming on social media, but sure … it’s all okay now and all those soldiers can just go back to camp. The camp where Prigozhin just said the Russian military had attacked them with missiles. And the camp where he said they weren’t getting supplies. Is all good now.
On Monday, a lengthy audio message from Prigozhin appeared on Telegram. In this message Prigozhin restated that the purpose of his “March of Justice” was to resist the earlier call that Wagner had to sign on to report to Shoigu through the military chain of command, and that his deal with Lukashenko is not just a deal for his personal safety but “for the further work of Wagner PMC in legal jurisdiction.” Though it’s hard to believe that Lukashenko would be eager to accept a group of guys who could likely remove him from power during his morning nap.
In talking about the easy stroll of his forces through Russia, Prigozhin drew what was sure to be a painful parallel.
”When on June 23-24 we walked past Russian cities, civilians met us with the flags of Russia and with the emblems and flags of the Wagner PMC. They were all happy when we came and when we passed by. Many of them still write words of support, and some are disappointed that we stopped. Because in the march of justice, in addition to our struggle for existence, they saw support for the fight against bureaucracy and other ailments that exist in our country today. …
The civilians were glad to see us. We showed a master class on what February 24, 2022 should have looked like.”
[…] If Prigozhin really has survived to be ripping off Putin’s nose with a statement that Putin could not take Kyiv in 16 months but Prigozhin could have taken Moscow in a day, it’s another sign of just how incredibly weak all of this makes Russia, Putin, Gerasimov, and Shoigu. [See statement above.]
[…] Maybe Wagner forces will really be allowed to go home, relocated to Minsk, or to head off for more raping and pillaging in Africa without being punished for their actions over the weekend. Maybe Russia will find some way to keep their invasion of Ukraine viable.
All of that seems very, very improbable. But then, so does every moment of the action that played out in the 24 hours that started before dawn on Saturday.
WHAT HAPPENS TO SHOIGU?
Over the weekend, just about every report on Prigozhin’s departure included an assumption that both Shoigu and Gerasimov were done. There were even confident reports that both were to be replaced by Alexey Dyumin. Dyumin is currently the governor of Tula Oblast (which happens to be just about where Wagner forces pumped the brakes on Saturday). He’s also Vladimir Putin’s former chief bodyguard. Like Putin, Dyumin has a history in Russia’s various security agencies […]
Despite an apparent lack of any real military experience, Dyumin’s closeness to Putin means he has already done a stint as deputy commander of Russian ground forces and carries a rank of lieutenant general. So in terms of people who Putin considers trustworthy and in position to take on one or more of the roles expected to open up soon, Dyumin is probably the logical candidate.
Whether or not he can run a war seems irrelevant. It’s not as if Shoigu or Gerasimov were legendary tacticians.
When it comes to Shoigu, he reportedly resurfaced on Monday with the release of videos showing him leaning over maps and apparently studying conditions in Ukraine. These videos are probably, though not certainly, new. It’s unlikely the Russian minister of defense has been sent to that farm upstate. Yet.
The biggest concern for Putin is probably that firing Shoigu now would make it look like Prigozhin obtained all his announced goals without paying any price. So it’s likely that Shoigu will stay on for now, at least publicly, until a suitable time has passed before being replaced by Dyumin or another Putin-approved candidate.
If Shoigu doesn’t go soon, it’s a very good signal that Prigozhin is having fun chasing rabbits.
WHAT ABOUT WAGNER?
This may not be the $64 trillion question (that one is coming), but it’s at least a 25,000-men-and-their-machines-of-war question. It’s unclear how many members of Wagner will be ready to sign on the dotted line and become bottom-rung objects of scorn within Russian military units. Being forced to place Wagner under the direct command of the Russian military was one of the things that Prigozhin was supposedly fighting against, but as part of his negotiations he appears to have signed up to do not only that, but to essentially dissolve Wagner.
Wagner forces now get the pleasure of “returning to camps” where the likelihood of anyone bringing them fresh bullets, or even a fresh bowl of borscht, seems highly remote. Then they get a choice between signing up to join the Russian military, where they’ll almost certainly be given the biggest **** jobs any military commander can find until there’s a convenient time to send them into battle with or without weapons, or they can … it’s really unclear. Go home? Go to Africa? Go to hell and take their tanks with them?
Losing Wagner completely means that Russia loses 25,000 experienced troops, but splitting those forces up and sticking them piecemeal into Russian units where they’ll get the side-eye forever doesn’t seem as if it’s a great way to keep that force within the Russian military. Leaving Wagner intact under the command of some new leader might be an option, except it doesn’t seem to be an option. Wagner, at least as it existed in Ukraine (and temporarily in Russia), appears to be gone.
There are already some reports that Wagner fighters have been arrested, or otherwise restrained by military units. These reports are unconfirmed, but believable.
WHAT ABOUT THE RUSSIAN MILITARY?
Here’s a big puzzler. All along the route from the Ukrainian border to Rostov, from Rostov to Voronezh, and from Voronezh until Prigozhin called a halt, there was next to no Russian military opposition to the Wagner advance. It’s completely understandable why border guards and Rosgvardiya units arrayed in roadblocks along the M-4 hustled to get out of the way. After all, 10,000 guys with tanks aren’t likely to calmly be turned back by half a dozen guys carrying rusty rifles.
But Wagner went past major military installations in cities along the way, and not one squad seems to have been arrayed in their path. The Third Motor Rifle Division stationed at Boguchar offered no opposition. Neither did the 106th Airborne at Tula or the 150th Motor Rifle Division at Novocherkassk. Saturday just seemed like an excellent time to remain in their barracks and watch cartoons. Not even the two Guards divisions assigned to protect Moscow answered the call to form up defenses. That is something everyone is bound to notice.
It’s even hard to find someone in the military chain of command other than Putin or Air Forces Commander Gen. Sergey Surovikin (who, strangely enough, was the only person Prigozhin had said he would take orders from … before he refused to take those orders). Surovikin has held various titles since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine began, and has variously been promoted, demoted, and moved sideways in actions that seemed unrelated to any success on the ground. He was briefly in charge of all forces in Ukraine before being replaced by Gerasimov.
Other than Surovikin, most Russian generals appear to have developed a bad case of laryngitis on Saturday, and those few that were talking were often not saying anything that Moscow wanted to hear.
As the Wagner convoy neared Moscow, some units, and even commanders, hopped onto social media to declare that they were all in with Prigozhin. These reportedly included:
Guards brigades in Rostov-on-Don.
The “elite” 108th Spetsnaz Detachment.
Multiple units of Rosgvardia at Voronezh and Boguchar.
Border guards by the score.
It may be easy to forgive those who pledged their allegiance to Prigozhin when staring down the barrel of a Wagner tank. However, it’s going to be a bit tougher to ignore regular military units inside Ukraine that sent attaboys via video or social media.
Everyone who so much as hinted at sympathy to Prigozhin now has to be looking over their shoulder for the guy who is going to put a bullet in their back.
WHAT ABOUT PUTIN?
The one thing that seems to garner universal agreement—unless it’s on tankie Twitter—is that Putin comes out of this whole affair looking incredibly weak. He couldn’t manage to scrape together anyone to fight Prigozhin. The best he could muster was ordering in the TikTok brigades of Chechen blowhard Ramzan Kadyrov who, predictably, did absolutely nothing.
Putin reportedly left Moscow for his country estate as Prigozhin’s forces approached. But if he had a big-screen TV handy, he could have still watched the Russian people in the streets of at least two cities chanting, “Wagner! Wagner! Wagner!”
Somehow, the dictator who was so concerned about a military hero emerging that he regularly removed officers who showed signs of success found himself overshadowed by his former chef and a bunch of guys largely recruited from prisons. That seemed like a pretty good measure of how many Russians want change, even if it means changing out one brutal egotist for another.
The number of predictions about how long Putin will last now is certainly larger than the amount of time Putin will last now, but his weakness might be gauged by the fact that he gave a speech in Moscow this morning and did not even mention the Wagner mutiny.
Many writers have cited the Kornilov affair, an attempted coup in 1917 that didn’t overthrow the Russian provisional government but so weakened it that it opened the way for Lenin just months later. It’s just one of several instances in which a failed coup has turned out to be the opening act to a Big Show to come.
If Vladimir Putin is still running Russia in six months, a lot of people are going to be very surprised. That may include Putin.
But hey, maybe he can make a deal to move to Minsk. I hear it’s warm there all the time, and there are many rabbits to chase.
WHAT ABOUT RUSSIA?
Finally, the big question. Following the actions over this weekend, here’s what’s clear:
The Russian federation is hollow. All those statements about over 90% of the military being off in Ukraine turn out to be true. Not only that, but Russia is so lacking in reserves it couldn’t detach forces to defend its own capital. Prigozhin’s note didn’t feature a “ya busted,” but it might as well have.
It’s not just Putin’s grip on the Kremlin that’s in doubt, but Moscow’s ability to hold subjugated areas in line. It’s been clear for months that CSTO, Putin’s own mini-NATO alternative, had ceased to be an operational thing. The Russian federation seems to be lining up to follow. That some region didn’t just declare its independence over the weekend is probably more a matter of luck than continued fear of consequences.
How long Russia can sustain a viable military force in Ukraine under these circumstances is highly, highly questionable. The other thing that came after the Kornilov affair and the changeover of Russian control was the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in which Russia withdrew its forces from World War I and brought its troops home to point guns at each other.
Did Vladimir Putin go to war with Ukraine and lose Russia? Not just yet. But that may well be where things are going. Soon.
Note: The thing missing from this Ukraine update is … Ukraine. And there are significant developments on the ground, including Ukrainian forces crossing the Dnipro river near Kherson. So expect a second article today looking at what’s happened in Ukraine since Prigozhin shifted the media focus away from the battlefield.
In a flurry of little-noticed legislative action, GOP lawmakers are pushing abortion policy changes, trying to build on the work of activists whose strategy successfully elevated their fight to the nation’s highest court.
In one government funding bill after another, Republicans are incorporating unrelated policy provisions, known as riders, to restrict women’s reproductive rights. Democrats say the proposals will never become law.
“This is not just about an attack on women’s health,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Friday. “I view it as an attempt to derail the entire process of funding the federal government by injecting these riders into the appropriations process.” …
On Sunday morning, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene took time away from space laser theorizing to post a tweet about how her television might be watching her. Writing, “Last night in my DC residence, the television turned on by itself and the screen showed someone’s laptop trying to connect to the TV,” Greene went on to say a lot of stuff about how healthy she was, and how she was totally patriotic.
Greene then linked to a 2019 article from CBS News titled, “Your smart TV might be spying on you, FBI warns.” […] the actual story basically says your smart TV might pose a security threat to someone hacking into your router. Facts, schmacts!
Greene is no stranger to promoting any and every conspiracy theory that just so happens to serve her personal political agenda at the time. Whether it is mass shooting conspiracies or space lasers controlled by a wealthy Jewish family, Greene presents the world with example after example of what a maligned imagination can do to a person. You combine that level of paranoia with a cantankerous Republican Party in disarray and you get a person who thinks their television is spying on them.
The responses to Greene’s latest foray into tinfoil hat land were exemplary. […]
File under: “Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most.”
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Oh I believe the TV turned on because of a connection request, but unlike the paranoid I know that was likely a mistake by someone nearby.
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Can’t you just introduce a bill on Monday to impeach it? Seems like it’s needed.
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Last night in my DC residence, the television turned on by itself and out of the screen that Little B@@ch Lauren Boebert crawled out!
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Maybe it was Antifa…
In other news, Josh Marshall commented “Not Over” regarding the situation in Russia:
[…] In today’s message Prigozhin played up the speed and organization of Wagner’s drive both to Rostov and Moscow and said, paraphrasing, wouldn’t it have been great if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had been handled that well? We could have wrapped the place up in a week.
It remains simply remarkable that this guy launched what can fairly be seen as a Caesar-like invasion of his own country and is not only still alive but actually on social media explaining how it was actually completely awesome.
Even as an outsider to Russian politics it’s very hard to see how this isn’t a pretty big problem for Putin’s rule. It is also striking to me how little we’ve seen of Putin. For someone who’s rule has been rooted so greatly in heroic imagery of his physical person, I find it surprising he would remain so relatively invisible at such a moment.
The situation in Russia descended into further uncertainty after Kari Lake stunned geopolitical experts by declaring herself the new leader of the Wagner Group.
Speaking from the mercenary force’s new headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, the former anchorwoman claimed that she won the leadership of Wagner by a landslide.
She warned Russian state media against questioning her claim to the Wagner helm. “I will be your worst frickin’ nightmare,” she said.
Wagner troops expressed surprise at Lake’s sudden elevation and reservations about whether she would be an improvement over their former leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. “She seems really mean,” one said
Welcome to hell, folks. Precisely what I predicted when Citizens United became the law of the land is occurring now. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seaford-delaware-corporate-voting-llc-trust-elections/
Corporations getting the right to vote. In one town, one corporation and its subsidiaries got 350 votes in one election. That town changed the charter as a result.
Given the ease in which one can open and register a corporation, it becomes a money game, as if you’ve got the money, you could in theory have more corporations than people and always outvote the entirety of the populace.
wzrd1says
And that Kari Lake thing is nonsense, Wagner’s mine. If anyone wants to object, tell them that if they do, I’ll show them Kuzma’s mother.
A white former assistant teaching professor has filed a lawsuit against Penn State, alleging the university racially discriminated and retaliated against him until his resignation in August 2022.
Zack De Piero, 40, served as an assistant teaching professor of English and Composition at Penn State-Abington from 2018 to 2022. During that time, he said he felt pressured by the administration to grade certain minorities easier, and he also objected to meetings and exercises seemingly centered on critical race theory, where white faculty were made to feel “terrible.” Once he reported what he perceived as discrimination, he believed university officials retaliated by filing a bullying and harassment complaint against him, in addition to handing him lower scores on his subsequent annual performance review…
That’s it? They didn’t burn crosses on his lawn? Refuse to serve him in the cafeteria? Make him use a separate water fountain?
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@wzrd1 #441:
one corporation and its subsidiaries got 350 votes in one election. That town changed the charter as a result.
Reginald Selkirk, I think he wanted his own private litterbox.
Why would one feel terrible about oneself, save if one is participating in behavior that was objectionable and being castigated?
Just another snowflake trying to deny being responsible for the avalanche.
A Massachusetts woman claims that an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy during an ultrasound appointment and that the pregnancy later ruptured, requiring emergency surgery to remove one of her fallopian tubes. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable and can be life-threatening; the pregnancy should have been terminated immediately.
The woman, known as Jane Doe, filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday in Worcester Superior Court alleging that Clearway Clinic in Worcester didn’t follow standard medical care. The suit also claims that Clearway engages in deceptive practices to lure in people seeking the full range of pregnancy options, when its actual purpose is just to dissuade them from getting abortions…
An Iowa meteorologist will be leaving his career on television, citing harassment over his coverage of climate change and its impact on weather, he said Friday.
Chris Gloninger, chief meteorologist for CBS affiliate KCCI in Des Moines, told followers on social media this week he’s embarking on a new career in hopes of “helping solve the climate crisis” after 18 years in broadcasting. ..
It looks like Yorkshire is getting its own Balamory as a row of seaside properties come to become a rainbow of colours to help boost tourism.
Along the North Yorkshire Coast, the seaside town of Redcar is going to get a lick of paint to brighten up the place taking their inspiration from the classic children’s show, Balamory…
The Oakland County Republican Party over the weekend gave former President Donald Trump an award for “Man of the Decade” — and he’s very unhappy that it didn’t get any airplay on Fox News.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, the former president heaped scorn on Fox News for ignoring the award he received, and he suggested that he might use it as an excuse to skip out on the network’s Republican primary debate later this summer.
“So FoxNews, which is down 37% in the Ratings, doesn’t cover my getting the ‘Man of the Decade’ Award (because of my great trade policies!) in Michigan, or my Keynote Speech for Faith & Freedom in D.C., and then wants me to show up and get them ratings for their ‘Presidential’ Debate, where I’m leading the field by 40 points,” he wrote. “All they do is promote, against all hope, Ron DeSanctimonious, and he’s dropping like a rock. Sorry FoxNews, life doesn’t work that way!!!”
Polls show that Trump is indeed leading the Republican presidential field by wide margin despite the fact that he was impeached twice during his first term, he has been indicted on two separate instances on multiple felony charges, and he faces more potential indictments later this year for his attempts to illegally remain in power after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
And in other news, the entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has now replaced the entry under “Malignant Narcissist” with a three-word description: “See: Donald Trump.”
Ten years ago, the Supreme Court eviscerated a central component of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. That decision removed the requirement for jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination in voting to obtain federal approval for new voting policies — a process called “preclearance.” Without this guardrail, voters lost a bulwark against discriminatory voting policies, and states previously subject to preclearance were free to implement discriminatory restrictions on voting access without advance checks. Many states did exactly that.
…In the years since, the Court has repeatedly confirmed this, signaling to states that they could pass restrictive voting laws without fear of legal consequence. (The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Allen v. Milligan upholds the Voting Rights Act’s protections against racial gerrymandering, not against voting restrictions.)
As a result, the country has witnessed a barrage of restrictive voting legislation over the course of the last decade, reaching a fever pitch after the 2020 election and showing no signs of abating…
Since Shelby County was decided, at least 29 states have passed 94 restrictive voting laws.
Not all restrictive laws are created equal — some, like those passed in Iowa, Florida, Georgia, and Texas in 2021, are omnibus bills that include many restrictive provisions…Arizona, a state that was previously subject to preclearance, clocks in with the highest number of restrictive voting laws (8) passed in any one state since Shelby County.
Many of these new laws are racially discriminatory. There is ample evidence that these kinds of laws fall hardest on communities of color, and a number have been struck down by courts as racially discriminatory. The gaps between turnout rates for white voters and voters of color have grown in the years since Shelby County, including in jurisdictions previously covered by preclearance… Far from racial discrimination in voting being a specter of the past, as the Shelby County opinion presumed, there is ample evidence that it continues to play an active role in the continued suppression of voters of color.
The restrictive laws passed in the last 10 years target every aspect of voting, including making voter registration more difficult, curtailing early voting opportunities, closing polling places, and limiting voter assistance. However, a substantial portion of the restrictive laws passed since Shelby County coalesce around two major trends: strict voter ID legislation just after the decision and limitations on mail voting after the 2020 election.
Immediate and persistent focus on voter ID
The first wave of restrictive laws following Shelby County was largely focused on imposing unreasonably strict voter ID requirements. In fact, the very day that the Supreme Court released its decision, the Texas attorney general announced that a strict voter ID law previously blocked by preclearance for its discriminatory impact would become effective immediately. Federal courts later struck down the law as racially discriminatory under another provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Mississippi and Alabama also began to enforce photo ID laws that had previously been blocked under preclearance. The North Carolina legislature passed an omnibus voting bill that instituted a strict voter ID requirement and several other restrictive policies — a bill that a federal court later found “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
This trend of instating stricter voter ID requirements or restricting acceptable forms of voter ID continued through 2017, with at least nine states post-Shelby County enacting new restrictive voter ID laws (including the North Carolina law discussed above) or implementing voter ID laws previously barred by preclearance.
There is a growing mountain of evidence that strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact voters of color. Strict voter ID requirements also place burdens on voters with disabilities and low-income voters who can face significant obstacles to obtaining photo identification.
Overall, at least 25 new laws implementing restrictive voter ID policies have been passed since Shelby County. (A number of these 25 laws rolled back voting access in other ways as well.)
Mail voting targeted after 2020
More recently, lawmakers seeking to restrict access to voting have focused on voting by mail. The United States has a long history of mail voting that dates back to before the nation’s founding. In the immediate aftermath of Shelby County, very few restrictive laws targeting mail voting passed. In fact, many states actively expanded mail voting options. However, the lies about mail ballot voter fraud that were spread during and after the 2020 race, coupled with the role mail voting played in expanding voter turnout in 2020, prompted an extreme legislative backlash against mail voting. Since the 2020 election, 20 states passed 32 laws restricting mail voting access. Overall, 22 states passed 41 such laws since Shelby County. (A number of these bills restricted voting access in other ways as well.)
For any voter, and especially those who have travel obligations, health needs, transportation challenges, or job conflicts, restricting mail voting can hinder them from easily participating in democracy. Some of these new restrictions have a clear racially discriminatory impact. For example, the Brennan Center studied a 2021 Texas law requiring a voter to include their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number on mail ballot applications and mail ballots and requiring the number to match the individual’s voter file data. During Texas’s March 2022 primary, thousands of mail ballots and mail ballot applications were rejected, disproportionately cast by Latino, Asian, and Black voters. Overall, nonwhite voters were at least 30 percent more likely to have an application or mail ballot rejected than white voters.
In short, Shelby County v. Holder opened the floodgates for restrictive voting laws. The Supreme Court’s ruling was based on a claim that racial discrimination in voting was largely a thing of the past, but the story that has unfolded in the years since belies that claim. Over the last decade, voters have faced an unprecedented slew of restrictive and often discriminatory laws, and the courts have offered little in the way of protection.
As the Supreme Court noted in Shelby County, Congress can remedy this problem. And it should — by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the Voting Rights Act to its full strength, as well as the Freedom to Vote Act to set nondiscriminatory baseline national standards for voting and elections.
A year ago this month […] a 160-acre plot of land in Grady County, Oklahoma […] Citizen Energy will pay Alito’s wife 3/16ths of all the money it makes from oil and gas sales. […] Prior to the lease, Alito ruled on cases with the potential to impact gas and oil prices, both nationally and in Oklahoma.
For the last 72 hours, it’s been difficult to write anything about Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, which wasn’t dominated by how that invasion has snapped back to attack its creator in the best possible Frankenstein’s monster sort of way. But while Russian generals, oligarchs, and media figures have been burning brain fuel trying to decide which brutal, murderous lout had their allegiance, and Russian media was reversing itself three times in a day, Ukraine has had more important things to do.
That has included closing the gap that existed between Ukrainian troops in one area of the southern front, bringing the effort there into something closer to a single broad thrust. It also included more progress in the area north and south of Bakhmut to the point that Russian observers are starting to talk about what happens after the Russians are driven from the area.
But the biggest news has to be that over the weekend Ukraine shuttled armored vehicles across the Dnipro River on barges, established a (literal) bridgehead near the Antonivka Bridge, and are now pushing Russian forces away from the area east of Kherson after opening up a whole new front.
UKRAINE CROSSES THE DNIPRO TO ESTABLISH BRIDGEHEAD ON EAST BANK
While Russian forces were otherwise occupied with whether or not they should just pack up and run, Ukraine reportedly used barges to relocate a significant force to the eastern (left) bank of the Dnipro River. The area around the damaged Antonivka Road Bridge was recently scoured by floods resulting from Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and some locations near the river are still mired in mud and stagnant water. Some Russian forces on the low-lying eastern side were washed away in the flood, with bodies showing up on the beaches near Odesa, and positions near the river were moved back during the flood. [map at the link]
Ukraine appears to have taken advantage of all this, plus the weekend chaos, to bring over a force that reportedly includes a number of tanks (type unspecified). Ukrainian forces have advanced on the large town of Oleshki. There are reports that Russia has already been knocked out of defensive positions on the edge of the town and active battles are continuing as Ukrainian forces press south.
The area near the bridge is reportedly very swampy and difficult, so unloading vehicles there is a challenge. However, one side of the bridge is known as Oleshki Sands and it seems there is good enough terrain there to get vehicles off the barges as they cross.
As of nightfall, Ukraine had liberated the area north of the city and held an area of large homes on the periphery of Oleshki. It’s not known at the moment if Ukraine is continuing to press the attack overnight, as it has in several areas.
Right now, the fighting all seems to be going Ukraine’s way. However, this is all happening within 5 km of the bridgehead. Ukraine needs to break out of this area, or even establish a second crossing point, to be sure it can sustain forces on the left side of the river.
It’s unclear how many Russian troops remain in this area. Shelling across the river has continued following the flooding, but with Ukraines counter attacks along the southern front, and Russia’s blowing of the dam, there may not be much of a Russian presence remaining to contest the crossing near Kherson.
RIVNOPIL LIBERATED
For weeks now, Rivnopil has been stuck between two areas of Ukrainian control but stubbornly remained at the tip of a small red salient. That’s no longer true. [Tweet, map and video at the link]
There’s a lot of room in the middle there that just doesn’t touch a settlement, and reports that Russia has withdrawn forces toward Staromlynivka, so Ukraine may have advanced more than this map indicates.
BAKHMUT COMEBACK
Details are scarce today, but there are reports Ukraine has made substantial advances near Bakmut. So much so that Russian media is openly discussing what they should do when forced from the area. [Tweet and video at the link]
The U.K. Ministry of Defence notes the progress Ukraine is making at Bakhmut, and in the south, and near Kherson and concludes that Russia is putting everything it has on the lines right now. There wasn’t a reserve that could be. [Intelligence update at the link]
Last week, Republicans in the House were desperately seeking a reason to impeach President Joe Biden. That lead to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert exchanging insults on the House floor, competing bills that included claims that Biden was responsible for an international child trafficking ring, and Republican leadership even more desperately trying to find a way to avoid defending, again, the painful foolishness and delusional nonsense spewed by the member of its most powerful caucus.
Bobert and Greene’s struggle to one-up each other on the outlandishness of their call for a Biden impeachment came just a week after Rep. Bob Goode called for an impeachment of FBI Director Christopher Wray, which came a week after Republicans tried, and failed, to hold Wray in contempt of Congress, and a full month after Greene’s earlier attempt to impeach Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump, for turning the FBI into “a Federal police force to intimidate, harass, and entrap American citizens that are deemed enemies of the Biden regime.” All of this came wrapped around the House decision to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (and boost his Senate campaign) because … reasons. Not good reasons. Just reasons.
Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy now seems to have picked a target to satisfy his members’ impeachment bloodlust, if he could only find a crime.
As The Hill reports, McCarthy has proposed that the Republican demand for a human sacrifice might find its ceremonial victim in Attorney General Merrick Garland, but impeachment has that pesky requirement for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” meaning McCarthy needs more than a name, he needs a justification before he can start whipping up the vote.
So what does he have?
McCarthy wants to impeach Garland because a “whistleblower,” apparently from within the IRS, claims to have knowledge of a private WhatsApp message in which Hunter Biden tried to extract money from a Chinese businessman. That whistleblower also accused the Department of Justice of giving Hunter Biden “preferential treatment” in an examination of his taxes.
“If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ,” said McCarthy.
Unfortunately, for all the times that Republicans sling it around, there is no such crime as “weaponization of the DOJ” or the FBI or of any other department. It’s certainly true that these departments can be and have been aimed at individuals—see Martin Luther King Jr. and just about anyone who ever offended J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon—but impeachment requires a crime, not a buzzword.
They need to find evidence that Garland has done something like intervene to repress evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hunter Biden. That could be hard considering U.S. Attorney David Weiss just came off a five-year investigation into Hunter Biden that resulted in two minor charges of late payment of taxes and a charge of owning a gun while using drugs. [smile]
Weiss was appointed to this task by then-Attorney General William Barr, and the first two years of the investigation were carried out under Donald Trump. If there is anything unusual in the charges, it’s that Biden is being charged at all, because these are very rarely applied charges.
McCarthy admits that there are “clear disparities” between what Weiss found and the unsubstantiated reports Republicans are waving around as part of their fundraising campaigns. He’s demanding that Weiss come back to the House and explain the issues. Garland has said he’d be happy for Weiss to make such an appearance and talk about any issues with the IRS. [smile]
While he’s at it, maybe Weiss can explain how the reported attempt to extort a Chinese billionaire happened in 2017 while President Joe Biden was no longer vice president, no longer in the Senate, and not running for anything. [smile] As Garland explained on Friday, Weiss had full authority to pursue any evidence he found, including “more authority than a special counsel would have had.” He also noted that the IRS whistleblower had claimed Weiss was prohibited from looking at evidence outside Delaware, which was untrue.
While McCarthy has Weiss at the House, he might also get in a few questions about why the last “key informant” that Republicans claimed to have, this one also throwing around unsubstantiated claims about Hunter Biden, turns out to be dead. [LOL] And the guy who was at the center of that supposed deal turns out to have died over three years before Hunter Biden became involved. [LOL]
Of course, the requirement for McCarthy to produce a crime on which to base impeachment is only what’s in the Constitution and the law. No big deal for this crew. Republicans can write up an impeachment because they don’t like the pattern on Garland’s tie and likely find a majority to pass it.
Donald Trump was impeached, twice, on clear crimes. First he was impeached for his attempt to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into providing false evidence against then-candidate Joe Biden. That effort not only caused delays in military assistance to Ukraine, it sent a clear signal that the United States wasn’t interested in stopping corruption. It was interested in causing corruption.
Trump’s second impeachment came from his involvement in the events of Jan. 6. Trump not only provided consistently false statements about the 2020 election, he incited violence and delayed necessary assistance to protect members of Congress and Capitol Police.
Republicans want to impeach someone, anyone, in order to gain a measure of revenge concerning Trump. That includes McCarthy voicing his support for expunging Trump’s twin impeachments. Everything they are doing is about showing their support for Trump and showing Trump supporters how willing they are to smite anyone who opposes him.
But this chart from last week shows their basic problem. [chart at the link]
It’s not that Republicans aren’t getting plenty of opportunities to investigate their opponents. It’s that Republicans keep doing all the crime. Whether it’s a special counsel or a U.S. attorney, years of investigations into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden have found no grand conspiracy or serious crime. But just a few months’ worth of investigating Trump turned up felonies literally in the dozens.
For that, Republicans want to prosecute the investigators. Maybe their “tough on crime” theme would work better if it were actually aimed at the criminals. Like Trump.
StevoRsays
Churchill vs Colonel Blimp BBC article. Excerpts :
Powell and Pressburger’s classic satire about the British military turns 80 this month. Mark Allison reflects on the controversy around its production, which even incited the prime minister. …(snip)..At a crucial House of Commons debate on the “War Situation” in February 1942, Labour MP FW Pethick-Lawrence made a speech railing against what he called “Blimpery” in the British war effort. He was referring to Colonel Blimp, a creation of cartoonist David Low published in the Evening Standard throughout the 1930s and 40s. Blimp was a pompous, upper-class army officer with portly features and a walrus moustache, intended as a satire of the UK’s aristocratic military-imperial establishment. Low’s cartoons captured the public mood following the series of British military disasters which opened WW2, and Blimp became a shorthand for all that was wrong with the British Empire’s incompetent and out-of-touch elite.
…(snip).. A summary of the script found its way to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who wrote to Minister of Information Brenden Bracken, “Pray propose to me the measures necessary to stop this foolish production before it gets any further.”
“Churchill sometimes got a bee in his bonnet about things he didn’t fully understand,” Richard Toye, Professor of History at the University of Exeter and author of Winston Churchill: A Life in the News, tells BBC Culture. “He quite often had harsh, repressive instincts when it came to the media, but he didn’t always follow them through, and other people stood in his way to try to make him see sense.”
Indeed, Bracken was uncomfortable with Churchill’s request, and responded that he had “no power to supress the film”, warning that “in order to stop it the government would need to assume powers of a very far-reaching kind”.
When Donald Trump was indicted on 37 counts ranging from willful retention of national defense information to conspiracy to obstruct justice, that indictment contained devastating snippets of a conversation in which Trump provided prosecutors with a nearly perfect admission of guilt. Now CNN has obtained the full conversation and it turns out to be … even more devastating than it seemed.
In the indictment, Trump was transcribed talking about “the papers.” Afterward, Trump claimed he was actually only showing news clippings to an author working as a ghostwriter for his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. “There was no document,” Trump insisted in a Fox News appearance. “I didn’t have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”
But just as the original portion of the conversation ripped through Trump’s claims about having declassified everything, the full conversation makes a hash of the idea that Trump was just flipping through newspaper clippings. And Trump is not happy about its release.
The recorded conversation starts immediately with Trump proclaiming that U.S. military leadership, and particularly former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, are “bad, sick people.” But then he jumps immediately into audibly fumbling through papers.
Trump: “Well with Milley, let me see that. I’ll show you an example. He said that I want to attack Iran. Isn’t it amazing, I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him.”
Trump stops flipping through papers at this point and there is a sharp sound, as if he is stabbing the page with a finger.
Trump: “This was him. He presented me this. This is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some–this wasn’t done by me. This was him.”
The sound of pages turning resumes.
Trump: “Also it’s pages long. Look. Wait a minute, let’s see here. It’s it amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like highly controversial, secret …”
Laughter in the background.
Trump: “This is secret information. Look at this! The attack …”
At this point, someone comments that “Hillary would print that out all the time.” Trump then comments, “She would send it to Anthony Weiner.”
But the joke is on Trump, because even the comments about Hillary Clinton demonstrate that what he was paging through was not newspapers or magazine clippings, but the actual classified documents—just as he said. And as Trump makes clear, it’s not just one document. It’s a “big pile of papers” that he has with him at the Bedminster club.
The argument that when talking about “papers” Trump meant newspapers is as thoroughly shredded by the conversation as the idea that Trump had somehow declassified this material before leaving office. Not only does he brag about the material being “secret” repeatedly, the conversation goes on, as it did in the indictment, to make things absolutely, abundantly clear.
Trump: “This was done by the military and given to me. Uh, I think we can probably print?”
Staffer: “Well, we’ll have to see, yeah. We’ll have to try to–”
Trump: “Declassify it.”
Staffer: “Yeah.”
Trump: “See, as president I could have declassified it, now I can’t, you know, but this is classified.”
Staffer: “We have a problem.”
Trump: “Isn’t that interesting? It’s so cool. And look, we heard I have a–and you probably didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.”
This is material right out of a prosecutor’s dream. Trump confirms the origin of the classified document, he not only shows it to staffers and the writer, who have no security clearance, while saying “look” and “this is secret,” he then goes on to explain that he knows the material remains classified and that he can’t declassify it … though he seems to think there is some way around this.
The partial conversation was already indefensible, but the full audio only drives nails into Trump’s coffin. Which is why he’s reacting to it so well. [Trump’s all-caps idiotic response is available at the link.]
Audio of Trump’s conversation is also available at the link.
The Supreme Court rejected the independent state legislature theory in a bombshell decision Tuesday, turning back a right-wing attempt to vest the sole power in administering federal elections with state legislatures.
“The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections,” Chief Justice John Roberts writes for the majority.
Roberts was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kavanaugh also wrote in concurrence. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch in full and Samuel Alito in part.
Experts have long feared the outcome of this case, worrying that the right-wing Court would embrace the theory, opening the door to the kind of post-election chaos Donald Trump unleashed in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. If all the power was granted to state legislatures, similar gambits in 2024 would have a much higher chance of success for Trump or others who reflexively respond to losses with lies about election fraud. […]
StevoR @ 461, stop that, CO2 is good, it’s plant food, it makes Venus the garden spot that it is today!
Now, to move the deniers there. With the finest cooling system that the absolute lowest bidder can provide.
[…] The Kremlin on Tuesday went into overdrive to try to project unity and reassert Putin’s strength while also moving to taint Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the former Putin ally who led the rebellion. But the official explanations for why Prigozhin was allowed to escape without punishment looked unusually thin, highlighting new doubts about Putin’s strength and competence in a crisis.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed Tuesday that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus, the key condition in his deal with the Kremlin to drop insurgency charges against him and allow Wagner to relocate its operations. Lukashenko said that the mercenary group would be offered an abandoned military base for its use.
In a bombshell revelation, during a meeting with military service members at the Kremlin, Putin, who for years denied any state link to Wagner, for the first time admitted that the mercenaries were fully state-financed. He added that Russia paid the mercenaries more than $1 billion from May 2022 to May 2023, while Prigozhin’s Concord company was paid almost $1 billion to supply food to the military.
“I hope that no one stole anything or stole not much, but we will deal with all this,” he said, referring to Wagner’s leadership without uttering Prigozhin’s name, which he has avoided saying since the start of the crisis Friday.
The admission that Russian authorities spent so much money on a “private” mercenary group could backfire on Putin, as a telling example of the cost of the Ukraine war, which the Kremlin generally has sought to obscure from the public. The disclosure could be especially damaging after Prigozhin’s repeated accusations that Russian military leaders are minimizing the death toll in Ukraine, which he claims has run as high as 1,000 soldiers a day either killed, seriously wounded or deserting.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday also announced that steps were being taken for Wagner to hand over heavy weapons that the government had provided the mercenaries to fight the war in Ukraine.
[…] In a sign of the Kremlin’s scramble to close ranks, Putin was to hold a closed-door meeting with Russian editors and other media leaders later in the day, probably in a bid to curb questions and impose the official line.
[…] Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was present at Putin’s meeting with military officers, in a clear sign that the president is unlikely to remove him, despite intense resentment over Shoigu’s handling of the war among hard line nationalists and some Russian military officers. Prigozhin, a ferocious critic of Shoigu, tried to leverage those divisions in his unsuccessful mutiny.
[…] At least one winner of the chaotic mutiny episode appeared to be Viktor Zolotov, commander of the Russian National Guard, who announced that Putin had agreed to allocate tanks and heavy weapons to his forces.
About a year ago, former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, a giant in conservative legal circles, wrote a bold and widely read op-ed, warning Americans that Republicans would try to steal upcoming elections — and describing the tool that GOP officials would use to execute their plot.
Reflecting on the 2020 scheme crafted by Donald Trump and his team, Luttig made the case that the cornerstone of the Republican plan would involve having the U.S. Supreme Court endorse an idea called the “independent state legislature” doctrine.
This may sound complicated, but it need not be: State legislatures don’t have sole authority over elections. There are election laws, constitutional limits, elections procedures, and courts that help dictate the process. But under the so-called independent state legislature doctrine, legislators would have broad power to bypass those other checks and act unilaterally.
It was this same idea that lost at the Supreme Court this morning. NBC News reported:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to impose new limits on state courts reviewing certain election-related issues by ruling against Republicans in North Carolina fighting for a congressional district map that would heavily favor their candidates. The justices ruled in a 6-3 vote that the North Carolina Supreme Court was acting within its authority in concluding that the map constituted a partisan gerrymander under the state Constitution.
For democracy advocates, the developments brought a sigh of relief. Barack Obama, for example, published a Twitter thread this morning, celebrating the fact that the court’s majority “rejected the fringe independent state legislature theory that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances.”
The former president added, “This ruling rejects the far-right theory that threatened to undermine our democracy, and makes clear that courts can continue defending voters’ rights — in North Carolina and in every state.”
Or as the headline on a Washington Post analysis summarized today, “Democracy survives another day.”
That is, to be sure, a development worth feeling good about. That said, as my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained in his report this morning, the outcome was not unanimous: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
Their opposition admittedly gets a little complicated. In light of developments with the North Carolina Supreme Court, there was some uncertainty about whether the litigation was still valid, and the dissenters argued that the case was moot. But as NBC News’ report added, Thomas didn’t quite stop there.
Thomas complained that the decision will lead to further confusion in lower courts that could give rise to more cases like the Supreme Court’s own Bush v. Gore ruling issued in 2000, which ultimately led to Republican George W. Bush taking office as president. The court, Thomas said, “opens a new field for Bush-style controversies over state election law — and a far more uncertain one.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, meanwhile, wrote a concurring opinion of his own that suggested the high court might yet revisit the scope of state court election authority “in the future.”
In other words, democracy won today, but elements of the larger debate still linger — even if they shouldn’t.
Tethyssays
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is expected to sit for an interview on Wednesday with investigators in special counsel Jack Smith’s office, the secretary’s spokesperson confirmed to ABC News. […]
A steady drumbeat of witnesses involved in the Jan. 6. Insurrection and other efforts to stymy the peaceful transition of power in early 2021 have been spotted in recent weeks entering the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where a grand jury has been convened by Smith’s office.
A court dismissed the claims against Ivanka Trump in a big civil case. The bad news: There are still other defendants.
[…] perhaps most notable of all is the sweeping civil case brought by the New York Attorney General’s Office, which affects Trump and three of his adult children.
Today, as NBC News reported, the list of defendants grew a little smaller.
A New York appeals court Tuesday dismissed claims against Ivanka Trump in the state attorney general’s $250 million lawsuit against the former president, his oldest children and his company. In a five-page ruling, a five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division found that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ claims against Ivanka Trump were “time-barred” and that she should be dismissed as a defendant in the case.
“The allegations against defendant Ivanka Trump do not support any claims that accrued after February 6, 2016. Thus, all claims against her should have been dismissed as untimely,” the ruling said.
In case anyone needs a refresher — there are quite a few Trump-related cases to keep track of, aren’t there? — let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.
It was in March 2019 when New York Attorney General Letitia James first opened a civil investigation into the Trump Organization, and in the months that followed James left no doubt that the probe had uncovered systemic wrongdoing.
Last year, for example, the Democratic state attorney general declared in a court filing, “Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit.”
In August 2022, the former president had an opportunity to convince state prosecutors that he didn’t commit fraud, but instead he pleaded the Fifth — by some accounts, more than 440 times.
Six weeks later, James declared at a press conference that the former president, three of his adult children, and his business operation engaged in “intentional and deliberate fraud.” To that end, the New York attorney general filed a 220-page lawsuit, which detailed extensive efforts by the former president to, among other things, inflate his personal net worth in order to secure more favorable loans.
James’ office, pointing to more than 200 instances of fraud over 10 years, said it is seeking roughly $250 million in civil penalties.
It now appears, however, that state court assessed Ivanka Trump’s liabilities in the case and determined that she’s in the clear.
For the Trump family, that’s the good news. The bad news is that the case still exists against two of her adult siblings and her father, though an attorney for the former president issued a statement today saying he still hopes to end the entire case.
Ukraine is beginning to advance on multiple fronts, with gains reported on the Tokmak, Velyka Novosilka, Kherson, and Donetsk in recent days, while Ukraine continues to press the flanks around Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly is trying to launch its own attacks around Donetsk but has little to show for it.
Mark Sumner conducted an excellent overview of the fronts last night covering Ukrainian progress [see comment 456], so we will do a bit more of a deep dive focusing primarily on Ukraine’s attacks toward Robotyne, one of the prongs of the Tokmak front, aka the Tavria front. [map at the link]
TOKMAK FRONT
On the Tokmak front, there are primarily two attacks: in the west, a smaller attack being driven by the elite light infantry of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade toward Vasylivka. To the east, what was originally an assault led by the 33rd/47th Mechanized Brigades toward Robotyne, which infamously lost Leopard 2 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles in the first week of the counteroffensive. [map at the link]
On the west (the Ukrainian right), the 128th MAB has made slow but steady progress, but the biggest fighting in this sector has been Ukraine’s push toward Robotyne to the east.
Robotyne’s importance is because it lies on the most direct route and the main highway that connects Ukrainian-held territory to the city of Tokmak. [map at the link]
Tokmak’s importance is due to its strategic location, making it the gateway for any southwestern advance by Ukrainian forces. If Ukraine wants to liberate the major city of Melitopol, or to advance onto Crimea, capturing Tokmak first is a must.
This is because Tokmak lies at a strategic junction of five major highways, on top of the main east-west railway that allows Russian movement of troops and material between the southern and eastern fronts, and a key position north of the Molochna River. (The Russian-held railways are in orange.) [map at the link]
Bypassing Tokmak is not a good option. Even if Ukraine broke through Russian defenses around Vasylivka, Tokmak is only 30 kilometers (20 miles) away. A Russian counterattack to sever the lines of supply of Ukrainian troops on a southwestern advance would be too great. At a minimum, Ukraine must surround and isolate, and preferably capture, Tokmak before it can move on.
Measured strictly in distance, Ukraine does not need to advance very far to capture Tokmak—only about a 30 km advance from the initial front lines would do it. However, these 30 km are defended by at least four lines of fortifications that Russian forces have built up. Breaching or finding a way past each layer of defense will be necessary if Ukraine hopes to liberate its southern territories. [map at the link]
For these reasons, Robotyne effectively represents a central piece of the first main line of Russian defenses in this area.
A METHODICAL APPROACH
After the first week of heavy armor losses in an exceptionally dense minefield northeast of Robotyne, Ukraine is taking a methodical approach. Russian sources continue to circulate the armor losses from the first week of the fighting, indicating there are no additional “flashy” losses to report.
Since the second week or so of the counteroffensive, Ukraine has been leaning on the newly formed 65th Mechanized Battalion. Their missions have been to conduct the most dangerous task of cutting a swath through the minefields in front of Robotyne. This adjustment has likely allowed Ukraine to pull the Leopard 2s and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles further back in a supporting role in the main advance on Robotyne. The NATO-trained heavy armor brigades of the 33rd and 47th Mechanized Brigades with these advanced armored vehicles are well suited for this type of role.
According to Poulet Volant and Ukraine Control Map, the two national guard units of the National Guard Spartan Storm Brigade and the National Guard 11th Operational Brigade have moved up as well. These units deployed to the east of the 65th MB and may be taking on leading the attacks in those areas in the place of the elite NATO-armed 33rd MB/47th MB.
This matches reports from the Tokmak area that Ukraine has shifted to small-scale light infantry attacks to take on the task of slowly clearing minefields. [map at the link]
On June 22 there were reports that the 65th MB broke through a defense line, and Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Ukrainian troops were already in northern Robotyne. This appears to have been false, or a misunderstanding.
Based on recent reports from the pro-Russian sources that Ukrainian troops are approximate “1.5km” from Robotyne, in retrospect you can better understand the June 22 reports by Russian mili-blogger RVvoenkory and Rybar of a Ukrainian breakthrough. [Tweet at the link]
To the west of the T0408 highway that the 65th MB is attacking, there is a lighter line of Russian trench works about 2.5 km north of the Russian main defenses around Robotyne. [map at the link]
It seems likely that Prigozhin, Rybar, etc. were discussing the 65th MB breaking through this initial line of defenses north of Robotyne. Some Russian bloggers may have mistakenly reported this to mean the 65th MB was in northern Robotyne. This erroneous information was picked up by Prigozhin, amplifying the misinformation.
So I assess that the Russian reports of a breakthrough by the 65th MB on June 22 are likely to have been true. The defense line discussed just was not the main defense line at Robotyne, but the smaller line of defenses about 2 km north.
Stepping back, here is my best guess as to Ukraine’s approach in this sector. The initial push to capture Robotyne was an attempt at a classic NATO-style breach action, aiming to use engineering vehicles to clear a path through the minefields and lead an assault column straight for Robotyne. The goal was to punch through the first main Russian defense line in one go.
NATO doctrine generally calls for air power to suppress and destroy enemy artillery and air assets before and during striking. But Ukraine’s air forces do not have that type of capability. Ukraine tried to make up for this with counterbattery fire from HIMARS. While HIMARS has been effective at destroying Russian artillery over time, this suppressive effort was insufficient in the initial stages.
Ukraine came under heavy attack by both artillery and attack helicopters in particular and was defeated. Reportedly, they were particularly caught off guard by the density of the minefield they encountered that forced assault columns to move far slower than planned.
So Ukraine has shifted gears in this sector. First, Ukraine now appears to be avoiding the area of the densest minefield and shifted the main attack to the west, lead by the newly formed Soviet arms-equipped 65h MB. Their dangerous role is to push down the main highway, gradually creating a road through the minefields.
SMALL SCALE ATTACKS VERSUS LARGE SCALE
To the east, Ukraine is taking the same approach with National Guard troops of the 3rd Spartan and 11th Op. Brigades. These are light infantry units with less training than elite regular army armored units. But with four months of solid combat training, Ukrainian National Guards receive more than two to three times the training that Russian conscripts receive.
This bringing forward of National Guard light infantry units matches reports that Ukraine’s attacks are being lead by small-scale infantry squad tactics that protect engineering vehicles rather than any large-scale combined arms heavy armored assault.
These light infantry attacks are inevitably slower, but can be heavily supported by long-range fire from the 33rd/47th MB’s Western armor—Bradleys’ TOW missiles and the Leopard 2 tank’s main gun are particularly effective at long-range engagements. Their night-fighting optics in particular allow them to outrange virtually all Russian armored units. Thus, during night attacks, Western armor can set up some distance behind the attacking light infantry and still provide powerful fire support.
The armored units switching to a supporting role would explain not only the light casualties to armored units, but the existence of new “Bradley destroys Russian armor” videos that continue to be put on social media.
Now only 1.5 km from the Russian main lines (per Pro-Russian blogger Rybar), it appears the 65th MB is now well within the tank-gun range of the first lines of Russian defense. Western armor can strike from ranges of well over 3 km, while Ukrainian Soviet-era tanks are often effective from around 2,500 meters to 3,000 meters. As Ukrainian sappers (combat engineers) continue to broaden safe areas by de-mining behind the dug-in forward elements of the Ukrainian vanguard, Ukraine should be able to bring greater supporting firepower to the Russian main trench line.
Furthermore, by approaching closer to the Russian front lines, it becomes more and more practical for Ukrainian spotter drones to survive attempts to provide fire-adjustment information for Ukrainian artillery on Russian trench positions. Russian anti-drone weaponry will have a more and more difficult time preventing drone reconnaissance with drones having less ground to cover under attacks by Russian anti-drone weapons.
Ukrainian artillery units demonstrated how deadly they can be when reconnaissance drones can deploy nearby the targets to provide artillery fire adjustments (artillery spotting). Ukrainian artillery showed terrifying accuracy in their attacks north of Bakhmut, landing shells directly into Russian trenches. If Ukraine can bring this level of accurate firepower down on Russian trench positions around Robotyne, Russian losses ahead of the Ukrainian main assault will rapidly multiply. [Tweet and video at the link]
Ukraine may be nearing the point where it can make a real attempt to breach the first main Russian defense lines, this time with far more supporting firepower, far less ground to cover, and a much-weakened Russian position.
Despite these gains, there is still considerable consternation from even some pro-Ukrainian analysts that greater territorial progress has not been made after three weeks of fighting. Partially, most of these are localized tactical successes and do not yet represent a major strategic breakthrough of the main Russian defensive lines.
These gains do represent the fact that Ukraine has the tactical initiative across every theater of the conflict. Australian retired Major Gen. Mick Ryan pointed out that Russians have tried to wrest the initiative, particularly in the east, around Bakhmut, Donetsk, Avdiivka, and Siverskyi Donets. Despite a commitment of precious Russian offensive force, thus far gains have been marginal at best. [Tweet at the link]
Two overwhelmingly important factors are currently at play to explain Ukraine’s slow advance. The biggest reason for slower progress is that Ukraine has adopted a low-risk attritional strategy of first grinding down Russian military resources. The initial aim appears to be the reduction of Russian reserves and artillery forces while gaining a pathway to the main lines of Russian defense and committing as few heavy brigades as possible.
[…] Ukraine has a total of at least nine new NATO-trained and equipped elite heavy armored brigades. We know the names of eight of them: 7th, 21st, 32nd, 33rd, 37th, 82nd, 117th, and 118th Brigades.
We know that an unnamed Swedish Brigade equipped with Leopard 2s, Archer Self-Propelled Guns, and Combat Vehicle 90 Infantry Fighting Vehicles finished training and has returned to Ukraine. It is unknown if this brigade is included among the eight listed above.
The elite troops of the 1st and 4th Tank, 47th Assault, and 25th Air Assault brigades all have heavy armored formations and NATO training. The veteran light infantry of the 35th and 37th Marines, 68th Jaeger, and the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade have also already been committed to the fighting and NATO equipment.
A new mechanized formation with Soviet equipment, the 65th Mechanized, has also been committed to the fighting. The 23rd Mechanized, a Soviet-equipped veteran formation, has also been committed. The veteran 3rd Tank Brigade has been spotted in the southern theater but has not yet been committed to the fighting.
That totals 20-21 Regular Army Ukrainian Brigades that have been set aside for this offensive. “Twenty brigades” set aside for the offensive matches an often quoted number of Ukrainian brigades available for the offensive in April and May 2023, shortly before the beginning of the summer counteroffensive.
There are also eight new National Guard Operational Brigades raised for the offensive, also known as “storm brigades.” These are primarily light infantry formations, and receive slightly less training through a 16-week training program, as opposed to a minimum 24-week training program for the regular army. Nonetheless, they are better trained than Russian conscripts, who only receive a four- to eight-week training program; in some cases it’s as little as a single day. So far, the 3rd Operational Brigade “Spartan” has been committed to the fighting, along with the National Guard 10th Operational Brigade.
TOTAL UKRAINIAN FORCES [Lists, by brigade, are available at the link]
[…] That’s a commitment of a total of 12 brigades out of a probable 29 brigades. Six armored brigades out of a likely 16. So it’s probably fair to say Ukraine has committed just 30%-40% of its total combat power, with an emphasis on committing its light elite brigades to the fighting.
In other words, when Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi told The Guardian in an interview that Ukraine’s “main force was yet to be committed” and that Ukraine was fighting with only a fraction of its offensive combat power, there was a good reason to believe he’s telling the truth.
So why would Ukraine choose to fight this way? There are two factors at play: Russia’s fortified defensive position, and the issue of “force density.”
First, Ukraine has effectively launched three separate attacks of varying sizes on Russian positions. [map at the link]
The military principle of “force density” holds that there is a maximal amount of troops you can squeeze into a given area without increased concentration becoming counterproductive. This maximal density has steadily decreased over time through improvements in firepower. In 1800, you could squeeze upward of 100,000 men over 5 to 6 km of the front. Today, armies rarely concentrate more than a few thousand soldiers in such a tight space.
So when planning the assault, Ukraine needs to be selective about the number of points at which it attempts to breach Russia’s defenses, as this will dictate the number of troops they can commit in the early stages of the assault. In theory, Ukraine could line up all 29 or 30 of its brigades up and down Russia’s line and attack at once, trying to breach Russia’s defenses at 29 or more different points. This would be extremely wasteful and doomed to failure. Russian defense lines comprise myriad defensive obstacles: mines, barbed wire, tank obstacles, and anti-tank ditches.
Breaking through these defenses requires Ukrainian troops to suffer losses as they make their way through under withering Russian artillery fire and helicopter attacks. However, you don’t need more than one breach in a defensive line. Once attacking troops are on either side of the line, they can fan out, attacking enemy positions from behind and from the flanks, making them defensively untenable. [map at the link]
If the attacker penetrates a defensive line, the defender only has two options: Send in the reserves to try to push the attacker back from the breached line of defenses, or retreat their remaining troops on that line back to the next line of resistance.
So Ukraine must balance the benefits of increased pressure on Russia by attempting a breach through multiple points, and the costs of troops and material in breaking through a position on the Russian line. Ukraine appears to be pressing toward Russia’s main defensive lines in the aforementioned two, possibly three locations, but doing so primarily with light infantry brigades. Light infantry relies on armored personnel carriers to move them to and from the fighting but lacks a heavy contingent of armored tanks or infantry fighting vehicles.
Light infantry are effective in fighting for open ground, reconnaissance, and on the defensive, but they are less effective as units break through a heavily fortified defensive line. This is likely why Ukraine is relying on light infantry brigades to grind down Russian reserves.
And there is reason to believe Russian operational reserves are quite limited. The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense publishes regular defense intelligence updates, and one particular item caught my eye on May 20, 2023.
A few weeks before the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Ukraine began a series of local counterattacks in Bakhmut that threatened the flanks of the Russian positions north and south of the city. Losing ground, Russia rushed reinforcements to Bakhmut. [Intelligence update at the link]
The report notes that Russia “redeployed up to several battalions to reinforce the Bakhmut sector.” Furthermore, it notes “Russia likely maintain[s] relatively few uncommitted combat units in Ukraine, the redeployment represents a notable commitment by Russian command.”
If one were to assume that “notable commitment” meant 15%-20% of Russian reserves, based on the knowledge that Russia deployed five to six battalions to Bakhmut, Russia had a probable 30-40 battalions of operational reserves in the entire Ukrainian theater of operations as of May 20. A Russian battalion is generally around 600-800 troops, so this would represent around 20,000-35,000 troops.
A Russian brigade is generally around six to eight battalions, so this would represent just five to seven Russian brigades in reserve. This was before Russia began needing to pour its reserves into the front lines of the fighting, and inclusive of the five to six battalions deployed to Bakhmut in May.
While Ukraine began the offensive with around 29-30 brigades to commit to the offensive, Russia could bring just four to six brigades to reinforce a given area (with one brigade not committed to Bakhmut).
It is likely that Russia has already committed most of its operational reserves. [Lists of committed regiments and brigades is available at the link]
It is apparent that Russia has nearly doubled its force commitment to this area.
A commitment of 15 battalions to this region may have represented the expenditure of as much as half of Russian available reserves—and that doesn’t count the five to six battalions Russia deployed to Bakhmut when the May 20 report was released. That would represent the commitment of 20 out of an estimated 30-40 Russian reserve battalions.
In this context, consider the U.K. intelligence report from June 26: “Little evidence that Russia maintains any significant ground forces operational level reserves which could be used to reinforce.”
If one were to assume U.K. intelligence to be reasonably accurate (as Western intelligence has repeatedly proven throughout the war since the early stages), if Ukraine can trade some of its light infantry brigades one for one with Russian front-line units to grind them down, Russian units will begin to lose any ability to reinforce front-line positions. This is made worse by the fact Russia has gone on the offensive on the Eastern Front in mid-June 2023, requiring greater commitments of men and material on the Eastern front. These Russian attacks may draw Ukrainian reserves to these sectors, but they likely have already drawn on Russian reserves as well.
Thus far, Russia has been able to continually reinforce its front lines as Ukrainian attacks have pressed front-line positions in front of Russia’s main defenses. To outside observers, this may appear to be much like a stalemate with slow progress.
Russia may have been counting on replenishing its operational reserves by converting Wagner troops to contract soldiers. On June 26, Putin has reportedly announced that he will permit Wagner soldiers to go to Belarus, sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense, or be discharged. It’s unclear how safe it would be for Russia to force tens of thousands of Wagner soldiers that participated in a mutiny to be folded into the Russian army. Soldiers that choose to join may be more reliable—but it seems more than likely that many, if not most Wagner soldiers, would prefer alternatives.
In any case, Ukraine has a much larger well-trained and equipped reserve of forces to commit to the offensive. Russia has maintained an illusion of stalemate by continually feeding drips of reserves into the front lines but has likely exhausted most of those reserves. A bigger shift is likely coming in the next weeks.
WHAT MAPLE SYRUP HAS TO DO WITH IT
To illustrate this issue, consider Canada’s Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. In 2012, a team of thieves lead by a Canadian man named Richard Vallières conducted an audacious heist that stole millions of dollars of goods. The stolen goods: maple syrup. The victim? Canada’s Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. The thieves were caught, and the story of the heist itself is fascinating. But when I learned about this story, I also found the entire concept of the Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve as fascinating as the heist itself.
Canada controls 77% of the world’s maple syrup supply, enough that it can control global pricing. It has been described as “the OPEC of maple syrup.” Canada stores maple syrup in the reserve in years of abundance, in part to restrict supply and drive up global prices. In lean years, it can release syrup reserves, which prevents a shortage and keeps prices at levels that benefit Canadian producers.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with the Russo-Ukrainian War. It’s because what happens during a global maple syrup shortage and Canadian Strategic Maple Syrup Reserves is a pretty good analogy for the concept of a military strategic reserve.
Global annual consumption of maple syrup is around 68,000 tons. If production falls short of that total, Canada can release reserves to prevent a shortage from happening. But what if production keeps falling short, year after year?
To the average person, it may not appear that anything much is changing. But Canada is maintaining the status quo only by releasing reserves year after year. At some point, when the strategic reserve runs dry, the full force of the shortage will become apparent and it will appear to all as if a sudden massive shortage has befallen global markets.
Military reserves are very similar. If one or both sides of a conflict are constantly feeding reserves into a battle at an unsustainable rate, what may appear to be an unchanging status quo can actually be the rapid deterioration of the combat forces of one side.
A historical example of precisely such a battle would be the Battle of Normandy in 1944. Australian retired Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan wrote a piece in The Economist urging patience and compared the Ukrainian counteroffensive to the Battle of Normandy, noting how the Allies took nearly three months to break through the numerous lines of German defenses.
Allied forces landed on Normandy on June 6, 1944. Many people are familiar with the initial struggles during the Omaha Beach landings, but overall the landing operations were successful beyond Eisenhower’s expectations. Eisenhower defined “success” in the landing operations as establishing beachheads and a defensible position while suffering below 30% casualties during planning. The Allies suffered only around 10,000 casualties out of 133,000 Allied troops, or just 7.5%.
What followed, however, was a grinding and difficult battle to achieve “breakout,” far more time-consuming and costly than anything Allied planners expected. [map at the link]
The problem was the Norman hedgerows. Viewed from aerial photography, Allied generals assumed that the hedgerows in this region would be the same as the hedgerows commonly seen in England, with bushes trimmed to around 1 m (3 feet) tall that can be easily crossed on foot.
It turned out the Norman hedgerows were something entirely different. Known locally as bocage, these were hedges that were built on steep dirt embankments that were themselves 1-2 m tall, and 4-5 m tall thick hedges that towered over them. They proved very difficult to traverse.
German defenders turned the bocage into an ad hoc network of field defenses. The bocage funneled Allied troops into chokepoints where Allied troops contended with German strongpoints defended with mines, artillery, and machine guns.
Allied progress was slow. It took near a month (July 1) to secure the key port of Cherbourg, a little more than 30 km from Utah Beach. After securing Omaha Beach on June 6-7, Allied forces did not secure the key crossroads at St. Lo, just 35 km away, until July 19.
Allied losses were horrific. Between June 6 to Aug. 30, 1944, the U.S. Army alone suffered over 124,000 casualties. Allied losses topped 220,000. By late July, there were suggestions in the U.S. and the U.K. that the offensive had devolved into a hopeless stalemate—the Battle of the Somme all over again. But the Allies kept feeding brigade after brigade, division after division into the offensive to keep it going.
What such critics did not understand was that the Allies were inflicting horrific losses on the German army, losses the German army could not replenish. Germany slowed the Allied advance by relying upon the defensive terrain and by feeding reserves constantly to the front.
When the German reserves were exhausted, there was nothing that could stop the Allied advance. Germany reached the breaking point in early August 1944. The Allies broke out from Normandy, encircling numerous Germans in the Falaise Pocket and advancing into central and southern France. Paris was liberated by Aug. 19, and by late August, Allied forces had reached the French-German border. All talk of a stalemate had been forgotten.
WHAT UKRAINE AND THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY SHARE
The current state of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has similarities to the Battle of Normandy. Ukraine faces intense resistance from Russian forces in entrenched positions. Russia is mobilizing its reserve forces to maintain forward defensive positions to keep the status quo.
The Ukrainian army has a massive armored reserve thanks to over 3,000 armored fighting vehicles Ukraine has received from its Western allies that vastly outstrip Russian production potential or reserves. Even if Russia can convert most Wagnerite troops into its reserves, Wagner is not known for its armored warfare.
Despite Russian commitments to reserve forces, Ukraine is making slow but certain progress toward its initial operational objectives. Russia is losing ground.
Ukraine’s tactic appears to be to rely on its light infantry in broad front attacks and to save as much of its armored resources as possible and drain Russian operational reserves. Depending on how many Wagner soldiers Russia can utilize as part of an emergency operational reserve, Russia already looks increasingly close to a breaking point.
Ukraine is making gains around both north of Robotyne and is approaching the thinly defended main defense line south of Velyka Novosilka. Major commitments of Ukrainian armored forces may be soon to come to break through these defenses. As Russian artillery losses and the exhaustion of reserves degrade the Russian ability to resist, progress can be expected to get faster and faster.
“They want to take away your gas stoves,” he said. “They want to take away your washing machines and your dryers. They don’t wanna give you any water for the washing machine, even though you have so much water you don’t know what the hell to do with it up here. Flows out into the ocean.” (He was in New Hampshire where the state motto is “WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! I’M ALL WET!”)
Unfortunately, Trump is behind the news cycle, because on top of all those things they’re taking, New York City has canceled pizza. Yes! It’s true! (Not true.) Here is known truth-teller (no) Benny Johnson to explain: [video at the link]
Shrieking and yelping way too fast, as usual, Benny said, “Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen!” He said Joe Biden is going to New York, but he won’t be able to get a slice of pizza there. (He will.) “New York has canceled pizza!” (It has not.)
But Benny! Doesn’t New York love pizza so much? Why would New York do that? Aren’t all the TV shows about New York basically about people eating pizza? (It feels like Benny might not make it to the big city very often.)
“Isn’t it like the MECCA for ALL PIZZA? Yes. And that’s the point.” Benny explained:
“The point of the Green New Deal, the point of the Great Reset, the point of the World Economic Forum, is to humiliate you, denigrate you, and to prove that you, the little people, cannot have the nice little things that you have wanted so badly in your life, that you’ve grown accustomed to, like private property. Like non-federally backed cryptocurrency. Like having physical dollars in your hand, like hard currency, like these kinda things, like driving a car, driving an automobile, filling up that car with a fossil fuel, those things you’re not allowed to do.
“And you know, pizza in a coal-burning oven, and in a wood fire-burning oven, that creates fossil fuels. So you’re no longer allowed to eat pizza. Microwave Totino’s ONLY from now on in New York!”
You will be shocked to learn that literally none of this true. New York has not banned pizza. Benny is safe telling his[…] listeners this because these are the types of people who are scared of New York and would never go there […]
So where is this all coming from? Why are Benny and other idiots telling people that the Green New Deal (which isn’t law) and the World Economic Forum are banning cryptocurrency (LOL) and pizza?
Well, there was an article in known journalism newspaper the New York Post. Being a Murdoch organ, it wasn’t one of those articles that was meant to provide information. It was the other kind of article. It was an EXCLUSIVE! story that said that under new New York City rules, pizzerias could be required to cut their carbon emissions by 75 percent, which itself was not accurate either.
Once it started incestuously reproducing in conservative media, the story became that woke climate groomers were canceling your pizza. Elon Musk whined about it. As you can see, it’s made it all the way to Benny Johnson’s tender brain.
Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson explain at the Heated newsletter that, despite what the screaming Post headline says, this isn’t about forcing pizzerias to cut carbon emissions by 75 percent at all. They also note that none of these articles are actually linking to the proposed rule in question. But they do, and they explain:
[T]he proposed rule states that coal- and wood-fired cook stoves covered by the rule are only asked to reduce particulate matter emissions by 75 percent.
Particulate pollution and carbon pollution are not the same thing. Particulate pollution refers to the tiny pieces of solids and liquids that we can breathe into our lungs and harm our health: think smoke, smog, dirt, and soot. Carbon pollution refers to the greenhouse gas that warms the planet.
This is an air pollution rule. It’s not a climate rule.
The point is, they’re trying to do something about air pollution problems around pizzerias.
Which the Post article kind of says waaaaaaay down if you are in the habit of reading full articles, but we’re pretty sure they’re counting on you not to do that.
Here is the big ooga-booga woke New York is trying to impose on their poor pizza makers:
The only thing the rule requires is for pizzeria owners to have an architect or engineer come check out the oven, and see if it’s feasible to install an emissions scrubber. If it’s not, they can apply for a waiver.
An even stronger piece of evidence against the anonymous “pizza restaurateur’s” claim is that this rule is already in place. It’s been nearly a decade since New York passed its 2015 law requiring emissions-scrubbing technology on commercial wood- and coal-fired ovens built after 2016.
And that law, Atkin and Samuelson explain, said that one day, eventually, the earlier ovens would have to get into compliance.
Even the Post article admits that we’re talking about fewer than 100 New York restaurants that could be affected here. And the Post’s own quoted sources disagree on whether the air filtration fix required would actually change the quality of their pizza. (The guy who has already installed one says his pizza is great and the same. Also that neighbors who used to complain about the smoke seem much happier. Some anonymous whining shithead restaurateur who hasn’t done so believes differently.)
This is why Benny Johnson is shitting his Underoos.
This is it. This is all of it.
Anyway, RIP pizza, it was fun while it lasted.
Go have fun on the Rainbow Bridge with all the gas stoves and the cow farts!
[…] “Nobody died in the Holocaust, either. That’s the truth. It should happen. Six million Jews should die right now, because they cause all the problems in the world. But it never happened. But it never happened.”
Roseanne Barr added, “Mandated,” and we don’t know why.
Then Roseanne said she is “a hundred percent Jewish” and Hollywood is a Jewish business and Black people control the rap and “People should be glad that it’s Jewish, too, because if Jews were not controlling Hollywood, all you’d have is fuckin’ fishing shows. You see what I’m sayin’?”
That’s what she said, right after the part about the Holocaust didn’t happen but six million Jews should die.
There’s a much longer weirdass clip if you’d like to watch it. You might want to pack a snack before you dive in. [video at the link]
The video begins with Barr explaining that Joe Biden did win legitimately, but that there are government “guidelines” that say you are only allowed to speak the truth about that. Which she supports. “I’m just glad that they were able to make sure that nobody could detract from that proven truth.”
What?
“That they mandated that that was the truth and that nobody could say, well what about, NO!”
What?
That was the “truth” she was speaking, right before she said the other thing about the Holocaust. And if you don’t say these truths, then the government will kick you off YouTube. Or something.
After Barr said six million Jews should die, the host said there’s a “good level of organization that goes on with Jews,” and asked Barr if she was indeed all Jewish, “was it weird that Hollywood like went against you, then, because you’re Jewish?” She explained that “Hollywood Jews don’t like Jews.” She said she’s “not the right kind of Jew for the Jews in Hollywood,” adding, “I’m a JEW-Y JEW. I’m the scary kind!”
At which point she started talking about harmonics and vibrations and her ring, which she said wards off “other people givin’ you the evil eye.”
We are making none of this up.
And it just got stranger from there! Did you know Steven Spielberg’s movies about “friendly aliens” are “for mind control”? Why wouldn’t they be!
So we guess that’s how Roseanne’s comeback is going.
In summary and in conclusion, this video of Roseanne is also going around today and at the end she says Donald Trump is the first woman president, that’s totally normal, the end.
Smoke from Canadian wildfires is blanketing Chicago and much of the Great Lakes region, creating unhealthy air quality conditions.
Chicago had the worst air quality in the world Tuesday, according to IQAir.com, a tracking service, and Detroit has the second worst.
The National Weather Service has issued air quality alerts for northeastern Illinois, northwestern Indiana and all of southeast Michigan for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Federal law enforcement agencies failed to correctly analyze a wide range of intelligence showing the potential for violence on Jan. 6, 2021, Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee concluded in a report released Tuesday.
The United Nations said Tuesday the surging violence in Sudan is likely to drive more than 1 million refugees out of the African country by October, as the 10-week conflict shows few signs of easing.
A closely watched survey of consumer confidence jumped to a 17-month high, a sign that individuals are feeling better about inflation and the economy. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index hit 109.7 in June, higher than economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast.
Former President Barack Obama has been criticized by Indian officials after he called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to protect the rights of minorities, especially Muslims.
A federal judge in New York City signaled Tuesday that the state criminal hush money prosecution of former President Donald Trump will soon be returned to state court because Trump cannot prove that he was acting in his capacity as president when he made payments to his private attorney. [LOL]
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he saw “no relationship to any official act of the president” [LOL] in the actions cited in a prosecution that led Trump to plead not guilty in state court in April to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide 2016 hush money payouts to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
[…] If a judge agrees to move the case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers could then try to get the case dismissed on the grounds that federal officials are immune from criminal prosecution over actions they take as part of their official job duties.
Moving the case to federal court would also mean that jurors would potentially be drawn not only from Manhattan, where Trump is wildly unpopular, but also a handful of suburban counties north of the city where he has more political support. […]
The answer […] hinges in part on whether a person is classified as recovered. That, in turn, depends on the definition of long COVID, which varies widely. The World Health Organization defines it as symptoms arising within three months […] lasting at least two months
[…]
researchers followed 1106 adults who caught SARS-CoV-2 before vaccines were available. After six months, 22.9% of them still had symptoms. This fell to 18.5% at one year and 17.2% after two years. […] “You have a higher chance of recovery during the first year, and after one year it really becomes more of a chronic condition.”
In another study […] one-third of people who had long COVID six months after infection no longer had it at nine months.
[…]
risk factors […] being female, of older age, having a high body mass index and smoking. But the greatest risk was associated with certain pre-existing diseases, such as asthma and diabetes, and with hospitalization for COVID-19. […] people who had to be confined to bed for 7 days or more […] tended to have more symptoms up to 27 months after diagnosis […] risk of long COVID from a second SARS-CoV-2 infection was lower than from a first infection
[…]
“The only thing that we know works […] get vaccinated,” […] medications are showing promise for preventing […] metformin […] Paxlovid […] results need to be replicated
[…]
But preventive agents will not help those who now have the condition […] WHO estimates prevalence to be 10–20% [of infected people].
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has only been an official presidential candidate for a month, and he’s already fucking up pretty badly in New Hampshire. He lashed out at a reporter during his first visit; he’s trying to hide his abysmal abortion views; he pissed off a conservative women’s group; and, perhaps as a result, his state poll numbers are tanking…
Previously unreported details of the investigation show that prosecutors working for Mr. Smith have subpoenaed surveillance footage from Bedminster, much like they did from Mar-a-Lago, and fought a pitched battle with Mr. Trump’s lawyers late last year over how best to search the New Jersey property.
At one point in the early fall of last year, investigators went so far as to discuss executing a search warrant at Bedminster, according to two people briefed on the matter. Investigators were concerned that more documents were stashed at the club and the only way to account for them was to search the property. But one of the people said the Justice Department lacked probable cause to obtain a warrant from a judge.
The discussions about the warrant took place around the time that Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at the Justice Department, told Mr. Trump’s legal team that prosecutors believed Mr. Trump still had more classified materials in his possession.
Lacked probable cause to search Bedminster?! That’s almost comical in light of the audio tape CNN just released. Not to mention the video we have seen of TFG and his cronies schlepping boxes onto private planes going from Florida to New Jersey.
At least Special Counsel Smith is clearly aware that crimes were likely committed in New Jersey, and is on the case.
What DoJ needs is witness testimony in a timely manner, in other words “fresh” evidence of a crime.
——————————-
Lacked probable cause?
As soon as any documents were found at Mar-a-Lago, they had probable cause to search all of Trump’s properties
——————————-
Do it correctly and properly without violating the rights of the defendant, and the case won’t get tossed on appeal after conviction.
——————————-
It would be good to get an indictment in NJ as well as FLA. I don’t know if that how it works, but it would at least reduce the chances of [Judge[ Cannon blowing things up (pun intended).
—————————–
IMHO it’s pretty silly to back-seat drive this investigation over this Bedminster stuff. Smith knows what he’s doing and knows what he has to have in order to get a search warrant. Clearly, the fact that Trump showed the documents at Bedminster isn’t enough to make a judge agree they still might BE at Bedminster. Or it may be that the FBI has those documents (contradicting the notion that they are “lost”) or knows where they are … and that location ain’t Bedminster. Making the recording worthless as evidence for a search warrant of Bedminster.
By now, it has to be obvious that there are details about this that we don’t know. Smith hasn’t been able to put together the evidence for a search warrant of that property.
—————————
“… Trump’s lawyers claim a document matching this description was among those returned to the Archives. …
Prosecutors have shown the actual document to grand jury witnesses.”
I’m waiting for more details, for more information. This story is developing.
Update: Aftermath from the attack in Kramatorsk. 3 people have died. One of them is reported to be a child.
wzrd1says
@484, doesn’t work that way. He took the documents, possibly the same ones already in evidence, from FL to NJ and probably back to FL. It’d at most, if a document or set of documents were to suddenly be found in NJ, more federal counts. Federal cases and counts are related to initial crime scene (state, territory, etc), crime, evidence seized and if it’s moved, regardless of where it’s legally seized, is part of the original case. We don’t get 50 states worth of cases for a criminal trial that originated with one crime.
Now, if there were NJ state crimes, that’d be in NJ and entirely separate, as federal and state are entirely different jurisdictions.
Oh, Legal Eagle on youtube has a video up on potential sentencing, based upon federal guidelines, which is rather complex, to put it mildly. Figure, worst case for Trump, 17 – 24 years. Given that PVT Manning got 35 years for 700000 documents that were given over to foreign interests, yeah. Not like he’d leave prison alive, save if some crooked Republican commuted his sentence. Although, Manning served nearly 7 years before Obama commuted the sentence.
I’ll refrain from an extended rant on why Manning’s entire chain of command should’ve had adjacent cells… There never could have been a crime there had his chain of command done their duty per regulations.
Donald Trump’s valet charged in the classified documents case had his arraignment on Tuesday delayed for a second time to July by a magistrate judge, after he was forced to abandon his top choice Florida lawyer over a dispute about legal fees, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The valet, Walt Nauta, appeared alongside Trump when the former president pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges in federal district court in Miami this month but could not himself enter a plea – a necessary step to start trial preparation – because he lacked local counsel…
Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron directly solicited donations for his gubernatorial campaign from executives of a Kentucky drug treatment organization that his office began investigating last year, according to an attorney for the organization.
The request for contributions occurred during a call Cameron made early this year to a representative of Edgewater Recovery Centers, Edgewater attorney Michael Denbow told The Associated Press…
A turnstile, which is only activated when someone drops a 50-cent euro coin, was placed at the entrance to the toilets of the Church of Saint Andreas in Patras…
Canadian National has placed a 10-mile-per-hour speed limit on 25 miles of its track outside of Montreal. The Times Union reported that Amtrak believes the speed restrictions are due to high weather temperatures. High heat combined with the weight of trains moving at normal speed would cause the tracks to warp…
Amtrak was forced to suspend the Adirondack because the longer trip times would have crews working beyond their federally mandated workday limit. There’s little Amtrak can do but wait because Canadian National owns the track…
[…] former Rep. Liz Cheney reflected this week on what she believes is ailing American politics. “What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots,” the Wyoming Republican said on Monday night, as part of a conversation at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
No matter how tight one is wearing a red MAGA cap, Donald Trump’s new “bravado” defense in the classified documents scandal is literally unbelievable.
Those who watch crime dramas tend to pick up on a common feature in many stories: Detectives invariably learn not to trust suspects who repeatedly change their stories. After all, innocent people tend not to rely on evolving narratives, since the truth is usually good enough.
With this in mind, the fact that Donald Trump keeps changing his story in the classified documents scandal should probably leave his supporters with an unsettling feeling.
The public has learned quite a bit in recent weeks about a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed sensitive materials he took from the White House. [Trump’s] comments were recorded, and portions of the transcript appeared in his federal criminal indictment.
In an interview with Fox News last week, host Bret Baier asked about this aspect of the controversy. Trump responded, “There was no document there. … That was not a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.” (It was in this same on-air appearance that he said he didn’t return subpoenaed materials because he was worried about losing some golf attire he had “interspersed” with the classified documents he allegedly stole.)
That line didn’t last long. As the public heard this week, the audio recording shows the former president conceding he took classified materials, knowingly kept the classified materials, deliberately showed highly sensitive materials to those who didn’t have the necessary clearance, and admitted he lacked the authority to declassify the documents he wasn’t supposed to have.
On Monday night, Trump responded to the revelations by claiming the tape was “actually an exoneration,” which was utterly bonkers. By Tuesday morning, he had a new line, conceding he kept, among other things, “copies of different plans“ in his desk. I’m still not sure how that was supposed to help his defense.
By Tuesday afternoon, the public was treated to yet another rhetorical creation. NBC News reported that Trump said that “it was bravado” when he was showing off papers.
“I would say it was bravado, if you want to know the truth. It was bravado,” he told Semafor and ABC News aboard his plane. “I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents,” he added. Asked about his earlier reference to “plans” in the papers, Trump insisted he was talking about other materials.
As part of the same on-the-record exchange, the former president went on to say, “Did I use the word plans? What I’m referring to is magazines, newspapers, plans of buildings. I had plans of buildings. You know, building plans? I had plans of a golf course.”
In other words, with his new “bravado” defense, Trump would have us believe he was trying to impress people — in private, behind closed doors — by showing off classified documents that were not actually classified documents. It’s a defense rooted in the idea that he was lying at the time, but not now.
What’s more, we’re also supposed to believe that his references to “plans” might’ve had something to do with buildings and golf courses.
Oh my.
This need not be complicated. On the recording, we can obviously hear Trump shuffling through papers, and apparently presenting a war plan — which the former president describes as “highly confidential” — to a writer as part of his criticism of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump said, adding, “Isn’t that incredible?” At one point, pointing to Pentagon documents, he also declared, “These are the papers. … This was done by the military and given to me.”
He went on to say, “As president, I could have declassified. Now I can’t, but this is still a secret. … It’s so cool.”
I appreciate the fact that Trump’s loyalists are prepared to go to great lengths to deny reality, but after hearing this recording, the former president decided the smart move would be to claim he “had no documents,” and suggest he merely had “plans of buildings.”
No matter how tight one is wearing a red MAGA cap, this is literally unbelievable.
Of course, if recent history is any guide, the former president will come up with entirely new defenses over the course of today, replacing yesterday’s nonsense with new nonsense. I can hardly wait.
.@chrislhayes: “You’d think this would be a pretty open and shut case at this point, but today the indicted ex-president offered a 12-point refutation of the recording.”
Video snippet at the link includes Trump saying, “My voice was fine. … All I know is I did nothing wrong. … Nobody said I did anything wrong, other than the fake news … I don’t do things wrong. I do things right. I’m a legitimate person.”
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna… @ #495 quoting Steve Benen: … [Trump™] said he didn’t return subpoenaed materials because he was worried about losing some golf attire he had “interspersed” with the classified documents …
Doesn’t have much confidence in his valet, does he?
[…] Ever since yesterday, Trump’s explanations for the audio tape have been like Follow The Bouncing Idiot.
Speaking in New Hampshire yesterday, Trump just started confessing, in that moron way he does when he swears he did nothing wrong. “We did nothing wrong and everybody knows it.” He said that “this is just another hoax.” As Fox News notes, last week, talking to Bret Baier, Trump said that “there was no document.” But then that tape came out, where you could hear him saying like hey, look at this highly confidential Iran war plan document!
So yesterday, Fox Digital was like wait what? Can you please clarify all the things? And he said:
“I said it very clearly — I had a whole desk full of lots of papers, mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories, having to do with many, many subjects, and what was said was absolutely fine. … We did nothing wrong. This is a whole hoax.”
He was just sitting there at his very large desk in Bedminster, with his papers and his newspaper articles and his copies of Tiger Beat and his “copies of plans.” (Plans?) The things he discussed on that tape were “absolutely fine.” IT WAS A PERFECT TAPE! He’s gonna say that soon.
Then he tried to play confused about what people objected to on the tape:
“My voice was fine. What did I say wrong on those recordings? I didn’t even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you hear the rustle of the paper. And nobody said that I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which is Fox, too.”
What did he say on the recording? He did nothing wrong on the recording. What recording? It was a beautiful recording! He hasn’t even heard of a recording, which was perfect. The only people saying he did wrong things are the fake news, which includes all people saying he did something wrong! [LOL]
Asked if there were any other recordings that may materialize, Trump said, “I don’t know of any recordings that we should be concerned with because I don’t do things wrong. I do things right. I’m a legitimate person.”
Trump the Legitimate, that’s what they call him.
Trying out some different words, Trump talked to Semafor and ABC News on his plane later yesterday. To them he just said that aw shucks, he was trying to impress that pretty lady who was biographizin’ Mark Meadows, you know how it is.
“I would say it was bravado, if you want to know the truth, it was bravado,” Trump said in an interview aboard his plane with Semafor and ABC News. “I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn’t have any documents.”
Who among us hasn’t held up papers and said they were secret military Iran attack plans whilst in the pursuit of getting our dick wet?
“Highly confidential! Secret! This is secret information!” he said on the tape. “See, as president, I could have declassified it, but now I can’t.” The biographer reponded, “Now we have a problem!” She was probably flirting back. [She was certainly laughing a lot at every lame thing Trump said. And she participated when it came to making stupid Hillary Clinton jokes.]
[…] Trump tried to do a show-and-tell demonstration for Semafor and ABC News:
At one point, Trump gestured to the seat next to him on the plane, where a stack of various papers — newspapers, copies of his speech, printouts of articles — sat. He grabbed some from the pile and placed them in front of him, moving them around as he spoke and offering up a physical reenactment of what he said was occurring on the audio tape.
As one does.
And why did he tell Fox News that some of the documents he was smushing around in front of him were “plans”? Semafor/ABC News asked, Trump answered:
“Did I use the word plans?” he said. “What I’m referring to is magazines, newspapers, plans of buildings. I had plans of buildings. You know, building plans? I had plans of a golf course.”
Just waving around my blueprints and telling pretty ladies they’re confidential. […]
[…] Trump is apparently very mad about a story about former Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley having plans in place for what to do if Trump gave an illegal order, specifically to keep him from starting a war in Iran at the very end of his presidency.
But no! He is insisting: Milley brought him a plan TO attack Iran! (Apparently at the end of Trump’s presidency he was still too stupid to understand that the Pentagon and other agencies plan out pretty much every action, whether they’re recommending those actions or not. Brain worms.)
[…] It’s sad, friendless behavior from a stupid fucking loser who’s trying to impress the people writing Mark Meadows’s life story. And again Trump is also a traitor, and God knows who else he kept all those documents for.
One of the biographer idiots makes a normal person “joke” about how Hillary Clinton used to “print that out all the time.” “She’d send it to Anthony Weiner, the pervert,” replied Trump, who also knows how to make “jokes.”
[…] “Speaking as a Watergate historian,” tweets Watergate historian Garrett Graff, “there’s nowhere on thousands of hours of Nixon tapes where Nixon makes any comment as clear, as clearly illegal, and as clearly self-aware as this Trump tape.”
[…] text of that Trump spox statement, which really is real, we checked:
“The audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all. The President is speaking rhetorically and also quite humorously [LOLLLL!!! GARGLE GARGLE! — Ed.] about a very perverted individual, Anthony Weiner, who was deep inside the corrupt Clinton campaign. The media and the Trump-haters once again were all too willing to take the bait, falling for another Democrat-DOJ hoax, hook, line, and sinker.”
[…] just a little while ago:
COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO THE DERANGED, TRUMP HATING JACK SMITH, HIS FAMILY, AND HIS FRIENDS, THAT AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, I COME UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, AS AFFIRMED BY THE CLINTON SOCKS CASE, NOT BY THIS PSYCHOS’ FANTASY OF THE NEVER USED BEFORE ESPIONAGE ACT OF 1917. “SMITH” SHOULD BE LOOKING AT CROOKED JOE BIDDEN AND ALL OF THE CRIMES THAT HE HAS PERPETRATED ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, INCLUDING THE MILLIONS & MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HE EXTORTED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES!
[…] still babbling about “Clinton Socks Case!” And “Crooked Joe Bidden!”
Anyway, no.
Is it time for Trump go to prison never to be heard from again until one day he dies in prison and everybody goes “Huh, he was still alive?” and then goes back to whatever they were doing?
There is tacky, and then there is the New York Times on one of its access journalism benders, searching like a lost, naked Chuck Todd on the side of the road for those elusive Both Sides to each and every issue. And Peter Baker has a SPECIAL one for us today, which endeavors to make Joe Biden loving his son Hunter as disgusting as Hillary Clinton having a Gmail account.
He sets it up on Twitter.
“In the nation’s capital, where such things are rarely accidental and always noticed, Hunter BIden’s appearances at a state dinner and Camp David came across as an in-your-face message of defiance by a president determined to show that he stands by his son.”
OK, not so terrible so far.
Let’s see that headline. “Hunter Biden Isn’t Hiding. Even Some Democrats Are Uncomfortable.”
There it is. The New York Times has figured out how to make this nasty, to show both sides of Joe Biden publicly showing that he’s there for his (only surviving) son.
Of course, you’d think if you click on that, you’d find reporting about Democrats who have a problem with Joe Biden standing by his son. That’s what it promises, yes? These are scoops about Democrats who came to Peter Baker and said “Peter, please help us, because you are the newspaper! Hunter Biden isn’t hiding, and even we are uncomfortable!” But no. It’s just the same old lazyass clickbait we’ve come to expect from NYT reporters.
[…] It quotes Barack Obama’s ethics chief Norm Eisen, who correctly says that Joe Biden absolutely knows what he’s doing, making Hunter Biden visible right now. But if you want Eisen to have some kind of problem with it like Peter Baker seems to, you’re shit out of luck. “Certainly, there’s no violation of any ethics rule as long as they didn’t talk about the case.”
It’s not that Baker doesn’t present the other side of the story, the White House’s side, as heathen and radical as it may be:
The White House said Mr. Biden was simply being a father.
“In all administrations, regardless of party, it’s common for presidential family members to attend state dinners and to accompany presidents to Camp David,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday. “The president and first lady love and support their son.”
Why, in at least one recent administration we can remember, the president’s daughter and her nepo baby husband had big important jobs in the White House they weren’t qualified for, all while they sat under constant clouds of suspicion for their notoriously hinky ethics and national security situations and so much worse! And when the son-in-law left that position, he went and sat on old man Saudi Arabia’s lap and giggled while they pulled $2 billion from behind his ear and gave it to him!
Turkey’s Erdogan says Sweden shouldn’t expect to join NATO any time soon
Fox News issues statement on chyron calling Biden ‘wannabe dictator’
Their response seems to contain neither an apology nor a retraction.
U.S. Senate confirms Nusrat Choudhury as first Muslim female federal judge
US government agencies hit in global cyberattack
Mark Sumner at DKos – “Trump’s indictments aren’t doing him any favors”:
Noel on Twitter:
Videos at the link – one was just added a minute ago.
This has been a truism among most news organizations, right or center, for decades. No matter how bad what a Republican has done, no matter how bad the news is for the GOP, no matter how good what a Democrat has done, no matter how good the news is for the Democratic Party, the talking heads, the opinion pieces, the editorials, all point to how bad this is for the Democrats.
Really low oil prices early in Biden’s term was bad for the Democrats (it will rise and the Dems will get the blame). Oil prices go up, bad news for Biden and the Democrats. Oil prices come down, bad news for Biden and the Democrats as it means the economy has collapsed. And, strangely, the pundits keep being wrong. And give the same opinion the next time.
Jack Teixeira, alleged classified documents leaker, indicted by federal grand jury
Steve Vladeck on Twitter:
Ukraine Update: Ukraine understands ‘strategy.’ Russia does not
This time, Trump is in trouble
TPM – “Bernie Kerik Pitched Mark Meadows on ‘$5 to $8’ Million Plan To Reverse Trump 2020 Loss”:
BBC – “Inside North Korea”:
George Monbiot in the Guardian – “The hard right and climate catastrophe are intimately linked. This is how”:
Republican questions legitimacy of Biden tapes he claimed existed
Time to retire.
Trump declared ‘food for all’ in post-arrest stop at Miami cafe – but skipped the bill, report says
Isle of Wight: New dinosaur species discovered
When the idea of “greedflation” first showed up in mainstream media, it was mocked. It was described as a conspiracy theory. It was derided. Problem is, it was, and is, real. Even Fortune Magazine (obviously a haven for liberals and commies, right?) has come around.
Another day, another childish tantrum. He really has no clue, does he?
@19: Prosecutors will be carefully watching all of Trump’s tweets: “Is he confessing anything new today?”
So if I were to go somewhere and steal some government property (I do know some places where it would be ridiculously easy (not classified shit, but other stuff)), and put it in my home, then, according to Trump, for law enforcement to remove the stolen goods from my home would violate the 4th Amendment? How is recovering stolen goods unreasonable search and seizure? By the Seven Levels of Purple Plupefect Hell, I think Trump really does believe that all the official papers from his Presidency (even the papers pulled out of the toilet, or the ones taped back together) actually belong to him.
Ted Cruz Mercilessly Mocked For Bizarre Rant About Biden, Satan And Pat Benatar.
And he deserves to be mocked (the Twitter (bleah) captures in the article are good). Can you imagine the damage these asshats could do if they were actually smart and/or competent? Also, considering that most of these GOP asshats come from weathy/upper middle class families and have been to college, it makes me realize that, with enough money, any idiot can get a law degree.
‘It was a mess’: Ugly U.S.-Mexico match halted after 4 ejections, brawls and anti-gay chant
(soccer)
Cruz says stupid shit. Trump has a temper tantrum. Putin threatens the world. Typical day in the 2020s.
High-speed rail tunnel to link Europe to Africa gets EU feasibility funding
GOP lawmaker’s lawsuit against newspaper backfires and exposes damning 2020 election emails. Which, I guess, comes under the heading of, imagine what the GOP could do if they were competent and understood cause-and-effect relationships?
<
blockquote>© Raw Story
A series of damning emails about the 2020 election were exposed as a result of a lawsuit filed against a local newspaper by Pennsylvania State Sen. Dan Laughlin.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, Laughlin filed a lawsuit last year against the Erie Reader alleging that he had been defamed in an opinion column published by the newspaper.
The lawsuit opened up Laughlin to discovery — and wound up churning up several emails related to former President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to get Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in their state.
Among the most notable communications was between Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano and then-One America News anchor Christina Bobb, who has since become part of Trump’s legal team.
Mastriano, a staunch Trump ally who last year failed to win his race to become Pennsylvania’s governor despite Trump’s support, told Bobb that he was worried about Trump’s proposals to have state legislatures throw out certified election results, as other Republicans had told him such a scheme would be “illegal.”
The emails reveal that Trump personally called Mastriano to push him on the legality of the scheme and gave him materials that falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems of rigging the election for Biden.
Other emails show that Laughlin was not happy about some of the actions that fellow Republicans were taking to get Trump back into the White House, including an attempt by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) to get every single mail-in ballot thrown out.
“We’re not saying a word on this crap,” Laughlin wrote in December of 2020. “Mike Kelly is hurting our party right now.>/blockquote>
And I am gob smacked that even Mastriano, the poster child for Christian Nationalist Fascism, recognized that Trump’s election theft ideas may be illegal.
NBC News:
In other news, this is a followup to Reginald @3: Nusrat Choudhury received zero votes from Senate Republicans, which is just a disgraceful showing on the part of Republicans. She was confirmed to the federal judgeship on a 50-49 vote.
https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1668920327320260608
Video at the link.
More in the video, which is 2:56 long.
OMFG.
GOP debt deal walk back
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
There’s an issue with their plane (which flew into Poland) and they seem annoyed.
The Guardian also has a liveblog about the release of the DoJ report into the Minneapolis police and other US news. From there:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian – “Activists push for referendum to put ‘Cop City’ on ballot in Atlanta”:
Guardian liveblog:
From Reginald Selkirk’s #25:
That would be cool!
Needs a better name than that!
Also in today’s Guardian:
Griff Ferris, Rivka Micklethwaite and Callum Lynch – “We took direct action against the UK’s racist policies, and a jury acquitted us. Resistance can succeed”:
Marina Hyde – “Are Tory MPs as deluded as Boris Johnson? It’s a tough act to follow, but they’re doing their best”:
“Indian court halts airing of documentary on Muslim minority”:
“‘More extreme, more violent’: experts’ warning over khaki-clad Patriot Front”:
(The India piece has the the “fueling fears” trope; in this one it’s the cut-&-paste “There has been a rise in white nationalism and far-right politics in countries around the world in recent years,” itself related to the dynamic described in #s 5 and 7 above.)
What happened to Fox News staffer responsible for the “wannabe dictator” incident? The former Tucker Carlson staffer has parted ways with the network.
Good news, as summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC News article:
More good news, as summarized by Steve Benen from a Washington Post article:
The Iowa Supreme Court split 3-3 on reviving a six-week abortion ban Friday, blocking the ban and keeping the procedure legal in the state.
Followup to SC’s comment #12:
Link
Link
Trump has also offered the defense that he is a “very busy man.”
Wow, Christian Hate Groups STILL Mad At Ted Cruz For Lightly Suggesting Uganda Shouldn’t Murder Gays
https://www.wonkette.com/jameson-taylor-ted-cruz-uganda-kill-the-gays
Ben Hodges on Twitter:
Guardian liveblog:
RIP.
Followup to Reginald’s comment #16.
Wonkette: ‘Food For Everyone!’ Says Indicted Deadbeat.
How (British) bombers got their crew killed in WWII.
“The deadliest British bombers”
https://youtu.be/RzjI6I7yntQ
or
https://youtu.be/RzjI6l7yntQ
or
https://youtu.be/Rzjl6I7yntQ
Watching Bugs Life with the twins. I think I understand one of the reasons conservatives don’t like Disney — the workers rise up to overthrow the parasitic and powerful wealthy.
DeSantis’ Bible lesson: Fishing, murder, and hanging with Jesus
OK, it is this link
https://youtu.be/RzjI6l7yntQ
Those machines were mostly good for getting their own crew members killed.
birgerjohansson:
To be fair, during WWII, all combat aircraftwere barely controllable death traps.,
Actually, once in the air, the bombers were generally pretty stable, bit take offs and landings? Not easy.
For your enjoyment:
Rutger Hauer in a really weird film
https://youtu.be/zM5Ob1K9IIM
or maybe
https://youtu.be/zM5Ob1K9IlM
or
https://youtu.be/zM5Ob1K9lIM
OK the first link worked.
The film had the script changed during filming, and two directors. But the style is so cool the film is still watchable. The 1990s were weird.
Lawyers are Dropping Like Flies
Notice the last paragraph. This REALLY sounds, to me, like corruption.
Sorry, third from last paragraph sounds like corruption.
For those vacationing in National Parks this year, we have the <a href=https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/national-park-service-humorous-guide-to-petting-bison/ar-AA1cBa9p#image=1″>National Park Service Wildlife Petting Chart.
All Hail Tpyos. Sorry.
For those vacationing in National Parks this year, we have the National Park Service Wildlife Petting Chart.
Feds catch another LockBit hacker, Justice Department announces
David Enrich, NYT, on Twitter:
Wow, I was just listening to the podcast – The 13th Step – yesterday! I’m about in the middle, and she’s just starting to talk about the retaliation and I thought it sounded extreme.
Link to a NYT background piece and more at the link.
Obviously there’s nothing amusing about this in general, but his name is funny and it’s funny that he purchased bricks to throw through someone’s window.
The US Navy, NATO, and NASA are using a shady Chinese company’s encryption chips
Scientists Find Cannabis Compound Inside a Totally Different Plant
Sweden sending 250 mine detectors to search for landmines scattered after Kakhovka dam flooding
Well, yeah, because there are no rocks in New Hampshire. No glacial cobbles. Not even granite. In the Granite State.
Elon Musk asks: ‘If I’m so smart, why did I pay so much for Twitter?’
Who said you were smart?
Man shoots his own leg while dreaming about intruder, Illinois cops say. He’s charged
“I am the NRA”
The Aces: US pop band comes of age after a reckoning with Mormonism
Oggie @ #64, yes, it’s especially funny if you know the region! We have…no shortage of rocks. I just heard on the podcast that in one of the attacks they missed the window and the brick was found lying on the ground next to it. LOL.
Tweet o’ the day.
Ukraine Update: When is a tank not a tank?
SC: Oh, I know the region. Went to college in Rindge. Was a ski instructor at Crotched Mountain. Lived in Peterborough. Yeah, rocks and frost heaves.
Oggie @ #72, I know you know it! That’s what I meant! :)
National Hurricane Center on Twitter:
Map at the link.
NYT (Twitter link with gift link from Robert Ellsberg) – “Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92”:
TechCrunch – Reddit CEO lashes out
NBC – Reddit CEO praises Elon Musk’s cost-cutting
TechDirt – Reddit CEO […] whines about not making enough money
POLL: Decide on the future of /r/Pics!
HuffPo – Twitter halts promotion of campaign video due to ‘Abortion Advocacy’
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-17/protesters-rally-at-drag-queen-storytelling-event-maylands/102490866
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-17/tucker-carlon-producer-fired-for-dictator-chyron/102492100
Guessing McCaskil will be heading straight to QANN or Newsmaxx or joining the Trump campaign… But still.
Reginald Selkirk@66,
Further bad news for that guy: acting out dreams (which often involve fleeing from or retaliating against an attacker) is called RBD – REM sleep behaviour disorder – and appears often to be an early sign of developing Parkinson’s disease or other neurodegenerative illnesses (there are other causes such as certain drugs); see February 2023 Scientific American, pp.54-59. During REM sleep, most skeletal muscles are effectively paralysed, in RBD this inhibition fails. RBD should not be confused with sleepwalking and sleeptalking, which usually occur during non-REM sleep.
@25 @35 “Tunnel of Hercules” ?
Spot on meme / quote seen on fb just now.
@60,64,69 brickthrowing
1) They conspired.
2) They crossed state lines.
That’s why the feds are involved, and I doubt they will get off easy.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Michigan man arrested for planning mass killing at synagogue
They didn’t post John Oliver’s sexy otter furry art he got done for a bit. I guess it was a bit too nsfw.
Also in the Guardian:
“US rightwing group planned $6m for anti-trans messaging in 2022 midterms”:
“Finland’s ‘most rightwing government ever’ to cut spending and immigration”:
“‘Almost still shines’: 3,000-year-old sword unearthed in Germany”:
Noel on Twitter:
Noel on Twitter:
Noel on Twitter:
Noel on Twitter:
Video at the link. It’s one of those taken by sunbathers on the beach.
Reich: Trump and Republicans have embraced these ‘five elements of fascism’
Opinion by Brandon Gage
This list is from the Washington Monthly, back in 2917:
The only two the GOP hasn’t hit under Trump are 5 & 6. Well, control of mass media is partially done.
@82 Typos mine because of course. Sorry folks.
Not a good idea:
Followup to comment 91. Here is the link to the article.
Posted by readers of the article:
GOP Rep. James Comer Says Another Biden Source Is Missing, Braces For MSNBC Mockery
ibid:
Pence on Trump: I don’t know why other GOP 2024 candidates ‘presume the president will be found guilty’
Because he is guilty, and the indictment indicates that the Justice Dept. has a bathroom-load of evidence, including Trump’s own words.
US ambassador marches in Warsaw Pride parade, sending message to NATO ally
Farm bill will provide fresh fodder for Republican dysfunction
Reginald @96, nice photo. Ambassador with heart in the right place.
Donald Trump and the promise of participatory violence
Cartoon: The dangers of natural stupidity
It matters after all:
Link
Twitter Runs Ads for Disney, Microsoft, and the NBA Next to Neo-Nazi Propaganda
The protest for Iranian women didn’t end: The world is ignoring it
Eviction:
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/dodgers-pride-night
Danica Patrick Can’t Stop Inviting Alien Conspiracy Idiots On Her Podcast
Kentucky Mom Forced to Leave State for Abortion After Fetus Diagnosed With Anencephaly
Ok Sis! Rep. Jasmine Crockett Is First Black Woman Democrat To Play In Congressional Baseball Game
Death for some, survival for others. Children survived a plane crash.
I snipped the rest of the story, which includes a custody battle.
Washington post link
Narcissism on display. Amazingly, NOT in ALL CAPS.
With all of the talk about Trump’s mishandling of documents, I think an important connection has been missed. By me. One of the most important reasons that many classified documents are classified is source protection. Just how accurate are our satellites? How deeply have we infiltrated Russian military computer systems? Who gave or sold us this information about a rival and/or enemy?
And that last one, if that information is compromised, people die. Generally, very secret information is only held by a few people. If that secret information suddenly shows up in a rival intelligence service’s briefing, then it can come down to a process of elimination (sometimes literally) to find out who leaked, or sold, the information.
It was niggling in the back of my mind for the last month or two and, once that niggling happened while I was on the computer (rather than lying in bed, or driving, or shopping . . .) I quickly found what I was looking for.
From The Hill, by BY MONIQUE BEALS – 10/05/21
Notice I left the date in the header. October of 2021. Trump left office in January of 2021. He took extremely sensitive documents with him, including, we now know, documents containing information that came from non-technical sources — people. And over the next nine months, enough foreign non-technical intelligence sources were captured or killed, that CIA Counter-Intel sent out a top secret, and very specific, memo.
At the time, the working theory was that other nations were becoming better at counterintelligence through AI, facial recognition, etc. Of course, the CIA has access to the same, or homologous, software. Perhaps the increase in NTI disappearances was through Trump’s insecure hoarding of National Security documents, at least one of which we know he shared with an ineligible person. Of course, Trump was also ineligible at the time, so . . .
Anyway, this is me, spit balling. And, through my study of history, I know that accidents, coincidences and outright stupidity have probably killed more spies and agents than counterintelligence operations (of course, CI gets the credit). Could Trump’s stupidity have killed valuable intelligence sources overseas?
Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum
Jack has your goose,
And a few of your chums.
Pop stars influencing the economy:
Is Taylor Swift saving the economy?
Beyoncé shows blamed for fueling inflation in Sweden
re Oggie @111:
Almost assuredly YES. But that will probably never come out in any of the public court proceedings. He should NEVER be allowed access to any sensitive information again, and he should absolutely NEVER be allowed to hold any public office again.
Rare earthquake damages French homes, schools and churches
Ecuadoran woman who knocked on coffin during her own wake has died
Russian units in Kherson Oblast and Crimea, stricken in cholera outbreak, ‘losing combat effectiveness’
Ukraine Update: Emptying Kakhovka reservoir redraws Ukraine’s topographical map
Reginald @117, I wondered how long it would be before an infectious disease struck Russian units.
RNC declines request to amend loyalty pledge to free candidates from supporting convicted felon
A Utah city violated the First Amendment in denying a drag show permit, judge rules
Lead-up to p5 #476, from a former Twitter employee.
Mastodon Thread: Rod Hilton
Collapsed stretch of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia to reopen within 2 weeks, governor says
A Newly Named Group of GRU Hackers Is Wreaking Havoc in Ukraine
WIRED link
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-15/saturn-moon-enceladus-key-building-block-of-life/102482336
NCAA committee recommends dropping marijuana from banned drug list for athletes
Source : https://www.space.com/earth-formation-few-million-years
More and More Americans Want to Attend Church Digitally, Study Finds
Happy father’s day (US) to all fathers.
Vienna Pride parade attack foiled, Austrian police say
Ohio Supreme Court rules in favor of August election that could preserve abortion ban
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumpers-know-3rd-party-spoilers-are-trumps-only-shot
TikTok videos of Mormon crickets wreaking havoc on Nevada homes are going viral
Bill Barr:
<>blockquote>“He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests. There’s no question about it. This is a perfect example of that. He’s like a 9-year-old — a defiant 9-year-old kid who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego. But our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.”
Wonkette: “Greg Abbott Pretty Sure Texas Construction Workers Can Go Without Water”
LGBTQ issues , the Ukraine war
Four LBTQ milbloggers get together and form the North Atlantic Friends Organisation (NAFO).
Here is their latest podcast.
https://youtu.be/6QsRuaWrsO8
@134 Bill Barr:
Does have any regrets about having been an enabler for Trump when he served as attorney general? Because he was helping Trump to put his interest ahead of the country’s, and to gratify his ego.
#AdjacentCell
@136:
I thought that was North Atlantic Fellas Organization
Mali’s referendum can’t guarantee a democratic transition
The junta’s constitutional amendments could let it consolidate power over an unstable nation.
Bluesky Has Problems
Russia set to pass bill banning gender-affirming care. It’s even worse than Florida’s
4 people killed, dozens injured in chaotic night of mass shootings across the country
Fatal shootings broke out in Illinois, Missouri and Washington on Sunday in a night of gun violence that has left more than 30 people injured.
Armed with depleted-uranium ammo, Ukraine’s tank gunners could punch through tough Russian armor and set tanks on fire
SciAm – Insects have surprisingly rich inner lives
Many examples at the link.
A Democratic congressman is pushing to allow reporters — and eventually lawmakers — to wear sneakers in the ornate and historic Speaker’s Lobby
No Labels found an acceptable fascist Republican candidate
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on future Southern Baptists
Huge explosion at Russian ammo dump, more than 50 reported to be killed
Link
Followup to comment 149.
“He’s like a nine-year-old, defiant nine-year-old kid, who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego, but our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this,” Barr [former Attorney General Bill Barr] said of Trump.
“Donald Trump, if you believe what he said when they left, that means he didn’t pick the very best people and doesn’t know how to pick personnel. If you believe what — about them what he said at the beginning, the great stuff, then this guy is the worst manager in the history of the American presidency,” Christie [Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R)] said of Trump.
“Either way, Republicans should listen to what he says. He’s a petulant child when someone disagrees with him … if you disagree with Donald Trump, the petulant child comes out and he calls you names,” Christie added.
Mike Pence turns whiter shade of pale when asked if he’d pardon Trump
Video: SciShow – Can We Treat Alzheimer’s With Period Blood? (7:56)
Duh. People who are found innocent don’t need to be pardoned.
Clarification of the pyrex discussion from the previous page of comments.
Difference between Pyrex® USA and Pyrex®Europe
Corning Museum FAQ
I’ll paraphrase Wikipedia’s Pyrex History on the European lineage…
Corning had licensed out the Pyrex brand to Newell Cookware Europe. A soda-lime factory in Sunderland, UK had made Pyrex from 1922 to 2007. Arc International acquired Newell in 2006, and moved production to France (boro plant linked above?). They sold their Pyrex division to International Cookware group. Which was bought by private equity Kartesia in 2020. Duralex bought in 2021.
So US went boro-to-soda in the 1940s. And Europe went soda-to-boro in 2007.
NYTimes – Why We’re Not Worried About Pyrex Bakeware “Exploding” (2020)
* From the works cited, the author seems to have done legwork interviewing folks who’d know what’s publicly knowable.
* Proper handling tips at the link. (TIL casserole dish + room temp baking sheet + oven rack.)
I had an ordinary Corelle bowl time-bomb in the cupboard from post-dishwasher stacking.
Truly scary graphs with implications here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-16/global-climate-records-breaking-rapid-rate/102484434
Also see :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2023/06/17/reckless-water-consumption-is-tilting-the-entire-planet/
Plus : https://phys.org/news/2023-06-white-communities-safer-diverse-neighborhoods.html
There’s a good (IMHON) article listing and debunking Putin’s propaganda linked here FWIW :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/06/08/here-we-go/comment-page-1/#comment-2183001
@154
Corning Museum of Glass is highly recommended. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Corning, New York give it a try.
University of Minnesota study on how to get more cars through green lights shows promise
Spaaace neeeeewwwws! Watch this Mercurian space :
Source : https://www.space.com/mercury-flyby-bepicolombo-spacecraft-june-2023
Apple Is Taking On Apples in a Truly Weird Trademark Battle
How to Spot an App You Shouldn’t Trust
Would a pardon for Donald Trump spare the country “the ordeal of a trial”? Maybe, but so would a guilty plea from the Republican defendant.
Chrysler Sold A Car In Japan Called The Dodge Michigan
Examples of former Trump admin officials now condemning Trump are available at the link.
Link
Reginald Selkirk@161,
The insolence of these corporate arseholes really knows no bounds.
Why a misguided Republican ‘hearing’ on Jan. 6 rioters matters
Why did GOP leaders allow right-wing members to hold a fake hearing honoring Jan. 6 rioters, their family members, and their political allies?
The New York Times makes an easy target, but this is absolutely appalling
Juneteenth today :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
June 19tj. I have now been retired exactly one year.
And now for a Trump Confederate on Juneteenth, because we should always remember why we fight
Inside a conservative confab for young women, where feminism is a lie.
Washington Post link
Missing Submersible
New York Times link
Tourist Vessel Disappears in Area of Titanic Wreck.
A search-and-rescue mission is underway in the North Atlantic for the missing craft, the Coast Guard said. It is unclear how many people were on board.
Fiercest fighting in years erupts in West Bank camp of Jenin, killing at least 5 Palestinians
More than 90 other Palestinians were wounded, Palestinian health officials said. The Israeli army said seven of its soldiers were also wounded.
Yahoo News link
Talked to this Trump supporter who said Trump would have to be really stupid to keep secret documents in his bathroom. We agree.
Cartoon: Heard it through the conspiracy grapevine
Cartoon: The War on Woke
Link
NBC News:
NBC News:
MSNBC:
Associated Press:
Houston Chronicle:
Sen. Josh Hawley Shares His Mindblowingly Stupid Thoughts on Juneteenth
https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1670927924134920194
video at the link: Fox News’ Bret Baier eviscerates Donald Trump
See also: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1670922502510452738
See also: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1670917466036269057
Holy shit.
Link
https://www.joemygod.com/2023/06/rep-paul-gosar-calls-for-bounties-on-january-6-antifa/
We’re back to pretending antifascists are why fascists went and did fascisms. This is bad, but it will be useful to see how a made up phantom gets used like bounties on abortions.
Hunter Biden will plead guilty to three federal offenses in a plea deal: two tax misdemeanours, one offense of illegally owning a firearm (lying about his drug use when he bought it). Thisapparently concludes the federal investigation into him.
@ 187
That is, until the Republicans take Congress back.
A bit of news summarized by Steve Benen:
Followup to comments 187 and 188.
https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1671157205847130116
CNN headline and image are available at the link.
BTW, it was a Trump-appointed prosecutor who charged Hunter Biden.
Followup to comment 190.
Commentary from Wonkette:
It appears that Roscosmos really is recruiting soldiers for the Ukraine War
I expect it will be a very short trial after tfg helpfully explained how his golf shirts were stolen by the FBI.
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1671133905263505408
Lynna, OM @ # 171 quoting a Kossack: … he claims that there were also black slave owners who ultimately fought on the side of the Confederacy … Technically, he is correct but he also misses the point.
Last I heard, historians have failed to find any of the claimed “Blacks who fought for the CSA“. Lots of slaves did get dragged into Confederate military service, but they cooked, cleaned, dug, and drove – they didn’t receive or use weapons. Confederate law explicitly banned that (until about the last month of the war).
The Civil War had 300,000 casualties…
That’s only off by about half a million (if by “casualties” one means “fatalities”, not the standard usage).
It really bothers me when progressives get the facts wrong.
Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering
Use the sub to goad about regulations? There’s reciprocity in death and callousness. I’ll have have to think that for a bit though. I want an idea of what doing that wrong looks like.
@196:
Submarine tourism is such a small market I don’t know if guidelines for safe operation exist.
This one operates in international waters, which brings up the question if jurisdiction.
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #197…
One might expect the regulations to go by country of registration (of the “mothership”…those small, deep submersibles, aren’t ocean-going vessels in their own right). That, of course, opens up the whole “flag of convenience” can of worms. The last recourse being to bar port calls if the ship and/or submersible fails to meet the standards of any country where they make port.
I figure negligence and callousness stands despite what the law is. Like not caring what the law say with abortion ultimately. But this group will have complicated empathy for one another.
Judge Cannon Just Set an Incredible Trump Trial Date
A restaurant must pay workers $140,000 after allegedly hiring a fake priest to extract confessions of workers’ ‘sins’
North Carolina state House speaker sued for damages over alleged affair
Followup to comment 200.
Judge Aileen Cannon sets a date for the trial of Donald Trump, but not really
Followup to comment 203.
Posted by readers of the article:
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/one-small-mystery
Followup to comment 184.
Trump confessed to crimes in Fox interview
In that case, Fox News should fail financially. Trump should fail financially (and on every other level as well).
Wonkette:
Link
Trump Real Estate Deal in Oman Underscores Ethics Concerns
New York Times link
Details of the former president’s agreement to work with a Saudi firm to develop a hotel and golf complex overlooking the Gulf of Oman highlight the ways his business and political roles intersect.
Lots of photos and more details are available at the link.
Satire written by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
WaPo:
Arkansas federal judge blocks first ban on gender-affirming care
U.S. district judge in Arkansas issued a permanent injunction against a state law that banned trans youth and their families from seeking gender-affirming medical care
By Anne Branigin / June 20, 2023
Paul Simon contemplates faith, death and the existence of God
Paul Simon is a pretty good musician. Who gives a bleep what his theological positions are?
Doctor who sold bogus COVID vaccination waiver to dog loses medical license
Ukrainian MiG-29 Fighter Appears With Mystery Weapon Pylons
Evangelicals supported Trump because he ‘gave voice’ to their
frustrationsbigotry, Pence saysFIFY
Trump says his kids won’t serve in his administration if he wins a second term
John Eastman faces disbarment proceedings in California over effort to reverse 2020 election
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #214…
I’m will to go with “frustrations”. The evangelicals are frustrated that the rest of the country doesn’t want the sort of restrictive laws that they are pushing. And to be fair, it’s likely that most of the evangelicals wouldn’t actually want to live under the sort of laws they claim to want.
Ukraine Update: Pyatykhatky is a small place. The battle there may have a big effect
Followup to Reginald @117, plus followup to speculation about Russia mining the cooling system of a nuclear plant.
Posted by readers of the Ukraine Update article quoted in comment 218:
TheVerge – Reddit removed moderators […] before restoring a few of them
One would think that if a frog had got over his sexual attraction to pigs, it might be considered a good thing for frogkind :-p. I don’t know the exact terms in which either Kennedy or Jones discussed this issue, but the effects of anthropogenic endocrine disruptors on both humans’ and other animals’ sexual development and reproductive functioning is a real and serious issue. One of my colleagues at my last permananet place of employment was a recognised expert in this area.
Great Sasha Velour interview and discussion of Drag here :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/drag-performer-sasha-velour-explains-what-the-art-form-means-to-her
On PBS Newshour today.
Parts of Florida’s Broward County are under quarantine after giant African land snails were detected
Rep. Lauren Boebert to force House vote on impeaching Biden
I am surprised Boebert would have the knowledge and the power to do that.
The sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans
@Reginald Selkirk 224
I think that’s the kind of thing they’re better at than policy. Their habitual motivational instincts are better for sneaky ways of getting around things. And she probably had help.
Justice Alito Writes Aggrieved Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Defending His Luxury Fishing Trip
The Taliban threatens to ‘conquer Iran’ in a dispute over shared river
Hmmm. Whom to root for?
Progressive ousts ‘pro-life’ Democrat Joe Morrissey in Virginia state Senate race
Judge Shuts Down Trump ‘Coup Memo’ Scribe John Eastman’s ‘Expert’ Witness
‘Trump in heels’ Amanda Chase loses GOP state Senate primary in Virginia
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D) announces run for Senate seat in Delaware
Trump-backed Asheville, WNC House candidate sentenced for federal felony election crime
Re: #227
That ProPublica piece on Alito has now been published here
Asked for the top U.S. issue, Trump picks one of his weaknesses
Donald Trump says the nation’s global standing is one of our most important issues. If that’s true, he’s effectively telling voters not to support him.
Followup to comments 227 and 234.
Sam Alito Is A Peevish, Self-Absorbed Piece Of Work
Samuel L. Jackson says Brie Larson won’t be toppled by “incel dudes who hate strong women
Ukraine Update: Why is Russia afraid of actually using its defensive trenches?
Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
May more staffing difficulties befall her until she finally gives up and leaves the race.
Followup to comment 236.
Josh Marshall:
Link
Democracy is not thriving in India:
Link
Much more at the link. I snipped a lot.
Wonkette:
Estonia legalizes same-sex marriage
Followup to comment 238.
More Ukraine updates:
Link
New Zealand: Four injured in axe attacks at Chinese restaurants
Utah school board reverses Bible ban and calls out lawmakers who attacked the district
146 dogs found dead at home of animal rescue group’s president, Ohio officials say
Votebeat:
Gov. Abbott vetoes bill offering new mail voting option to people with disabilities
Toxic algae kills hundreds of dolphins and sea lions on California coast
Do scientists debate? Not like that they don’t
J.D. Vance thinks the Hunter Biden case justifies his blanket hold on Justice Department nominees. Whether the senator realizes this or not, that’s absurd.
Okay, that does establish the absurdity factor. But wait, there’s more.
https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1671284227885744128
A moment of confusion for Trump. You can see his brain break in real time … and then you can watch him try to recover by spouting a bunch of nonsense accompanied by a few wildly chopping hand gestures.
Video at the link.
About that video, I watched it. The joyful women warriors featured in the video look like they are on some kind of drug that makes them higher than a kite … and very much all smiles, sparkling eyes and melodramatic intensity. We are promised that their conference will “knock your socks off.” Looking at their roster of mostly male, far rightwing political doofuses (and whatever Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is), I doubt that my socks would be knocked off even if I had a front row seat.
Wonkette link
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/antonin-scalia-alaska-fishing-ethics
New York Times:
Washington Post:
Washington Post link
Hi from the desert! I’m in the complete other corner of the US. It’s so different and beautiful. Thanks to everyone for keeping up with events and analysis!
NYT:
Man Who Assaulted Officer on Jan. 6 Is Sentenced to More Than 12 Years
By Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer / June 21, 2023
6 people accused of forging signatures of dead people to get a Republican candidate on the ballot in Colorado
God Awful Movies just provided us with a 1961 film.
“GAM409 The Flight That Disappeared.”
Hypothetically, if the plane you are on gets teleported into a time vortex and people from the future put you on a trial for doing something (which is still in your future) that will cause the end of everything…
What specific thing is that likely to be?
.
I get that for P Z it will have something to do with spider development, but what about you?
I find Pandora’s box and take out forboding.
@260 I find the switch in our brains to turn off empathy, which authoritarians all over the world then force the use of into law because they believe that everyone should think like they do.
@260 Or, more simply, I find a magic potion that can turn everyone in the world into Trump. It then gets stolen from me and used.
All these SCOTUS corruption talks make it look like the Federalist Society is like an “escort” agency with a madam (Leo), the Johns (billionaires) and the “escorts” (justices and other judges). The main difference with real escorts is that it’s the American democracy that gets screwed.
Axios
Texas state Sen. Paxton blocked from voting in husband’s impeachment trial
Rebecca Falconer / June 21, 2023
@260
Establishing premeditation, eh? Nice try!
I feel impelled to defend Trump from the implicit charge of inconsistency here! Bullshit aside, there’s nothing Marxist or Communist about Xi Jinping’s regime, and it’s completely consistent for Trump to respect and admire it and him. China is reported now to have more billionaires than the USA, and higher levels of income inequality. Xi has made himself in effect dictator-for-life (he is as it happens the son of Xi Zhongxun, himself a senior CCP official – many of his most senior subordinates are similarly the children of the party aristocracy). Xi’s regime in many ways resembles classic fascism: capitalists can make huge profits and fortunes, and exploit their workers as much as they like (since there are no free trade unions), but are subordinate to the one-party state, and can be deprived of their wealth, liberty and lives if they offend the Great Leader. Corruption is rife, but whether it is punished is purely a matter of political convenience. Surveillance is probably the broadest and deepest of any state in world history; foreign policy is increasingly aggressive.
Incidentally, all the members of the 7-strong Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CCP, Xi’s immediate circle, are men, and all of them are Han Chinese. The same is true of the 24-member Politburo (of which the Standing Committee forms a subset). This Politburo is the first in 25 years to include no women. Han Chinese men make up around 30% of China’s adult population. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in action!
Will Hurd, a moderate Texas Republican and Trump critic, announces run for president
1) Who?
2) “Moderate Texas Republican” sounds like an oxymoron.
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg agree to hold cage fight
That’s going to disappoint a lot of people who would like to see Musk get the @#$% beaten out of him. Best outcome would be they both lose.
Ukraine strikes Chonhar bridge to Crimea, says Russia
Republicans decide to forgo Biden impeachment vote after internal fighting
Republican Group Taunts Trump With His Own Damning Words In Fox News Ad
@218
Russia loses 5 Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters in as many days
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Russia Acted In ‘Good Faith’ In Ukraine Invasion
Pentagon orders AMRAAM missiles worth over $1 billion for Ukraine
Sorry, Joe Rogan: Scientists should never ‘debate’ anti-vaccine quacks. Here’s why
SC @257, ah, so glad you are enjoying the desert landscape.
Reginald @268, “moderate Republicans” still haven’t found a candidate that can defeat the Orange Mango cult leader. Representative Will Hurd makes the 12th entry into the Republican presidential race, (I think … it’s hard to keep track). Hurd used to be a CIA official, and he served in the House of Congress. One good thing: Hurd says that if he is elected, he will not pardon Trump.
NBC News link
The House GOP Clown Show Rolls Right Off The Cliff
Deep-sea robot found debris field possibly linked to missing Titan
I have not seen anyone claim that the debris field is the (possibly imploded) submersible (not yet anyway. But I doubt that the Coast Guard would announce the finding if there were not strong suspicions that the debris is from the submersible.
Followup to comment 278.
What Schiff said, word for word:
“It would fine me for the costs of the critically important Mueller investigation into Trump’s misconduct, even though the special counsel was appointed by Trump’s own attorney general.” Utterly unethical and morally bankrupt actions by the Republicans.
Follow up to comment 280.
Posted by readers of the article:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/22/2176875/-Full-transcript-of-CA-Rep-Adam-Schiff-s-response-to-his-censure-by-the-Trump-corrupted-GOP-House
@280 Very impressive speech. He is definitely worth serious consideration in a future presidential race.
Ukraine Update: The one war stat that tells us what’s happening with Ukraine’s counteroffensive
This update includes an interesting photo: “Searching for mines in flooded Kherson oblast. They were swept up after Russia destroyed the dam, and finding them is critical for civilian safety.”
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on jaywalking versus murder
Update regarding Jack Smith’s prosecution team’s actions:
Link
Followup to comment 285.
Jack Hopkins posted:
Looks to me like Jack Smith has all his ducks in a row. He is ready to proceed.
Despite Repeated Vows Not To, House GOPers Are Again Proposing Social Security And Medicare Cuts
Followup to comment 285.
Link
Wonkette: “Climate Change Deniers Chase Out Iowa Weather Man With Death Threats, As Is Normal And Healthy And Fine”
Between the vote to censure Schiff and the clear plans to gut Social Security and Medicare, perhaps it is time for a Democrat to make a motion to vacate the chair and throw McCarthy to his own wolves. Maybe Congressman Schiff should file the motion…
https://www.wonkette.com/new-york-post-lost-titanic-submersible-too-woke-to-float
Followup to comments 279.
The Coast Guard announced that the debris field is consistent with a catastrophic event.
New York Times:
They also found parts identified as “parts of the pressure hull.”
Followup to comments 292 or 293.
More from the New York Times:
The phrase “catastrophic implosion” was also used.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Okay, folks. Quiz time. Who do YOU think wrote THIS:
From Raw Story.<.a>
Mystery: Why hasn’t the FBI searched Trump’s other properties?
Cartoon: Trump crimes versus Whataboutism
Feel good story:
Link
Corporations Do Not Have Any Rights That We Don’t Give Them
So I started with a couple of live traps. Baited with peanut butter, candied cashews, and a little toast. Nothing. Went to snap traps. Same bait. Caught one. Two weeks later, we still have one mouse brazenly running across the living room floor, in the afternoon, under the nose of my daughter’s rescue dog. Gave up and bought sticky pads. Got the mouse. Released two miles away. Went out on my porch and discovered three attorneys representing Disney explaining that this harassment of Mickey’s relatives will cease. Same lawyers suing DeSantis. Oh, well. Hopefully that was the last one.
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #301..
You didn’t try a ball-bearing mousetrap?
NO, whheydt. Had I used ball-bearing mousetrap, I would have stated that I did. Live trap to spring trap to sticky pads. Honest, that is all.
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #303…
Can’t much more live a trap than a ball-bearing mousetrap. Here’s a description… https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ball%20bearing%20mousetrap
MIT discovery suggests a new class of superconductors
Republicans vote to cut University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $32M in diversity programs spat
Legal experts: John Durham made false statements to Congress about Trump-Russia probe
Much of the GOP isn’t just contesting the idea of “collusion,” Republicans are also rejecting the idea that Russia attacked our elections to help Trump.
Humans Might Be Fueling the Spread of a Cat-Loving, Mind-Altering Parasite
Justice Samuel Alito IS the Salmon, By Dahlia Lithwick
Calling this an ethics scandal misses the point.
@310: Enough about how the conservative justices are all corrupt.
Tell us about how the liberal justices have been bought and paid for by Big Gay, or whatever the left wing money center is.
/s (do I need to do this?)
Extreme adventure comes with a price tag in dollars and in safety
Followup to comment 312.
Posted by readers of the article:
NYT:
How a Year Without Roe Shifted American Views on Abortion
By Kate Zernike / June 23, 2023
Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
“Shady and corrupt”: Watchdog group sounds the alarm over Amy Coney Barrett real estate deal
Donald in the John With Boxes – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/23/2177125/-Randy-Rainbow-is-actually-a-stable-genius
Also available on YouTube.
Arizona Republican election official sues Kari Lake for defamation
Interstate 95 reopens to some traffic less than two weeks after deadly collapse in Philadelphia
Wonkette
Wonkette:
Heh, “galactic dipshittery.”
Ukraine Update: Pyatykhatky and Pickett’s Charge
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Jan. 6 grand jury hears from Team Trump members as probe advances
Good economic news might finally be sinking in
Followup to comment 322.
More Ukraine updates:
Link. Scroll down to view updates.
IBEW – Hard-Fought Success on Rail Sick Days
Is the Republican Freedom Caucus going to blow itself up by focusing on purity tests? Looks likely.
Link
Clarence Thomas Uses Immigration Case to Attack the Right to Birth Control
Michael Cohen ridicules Trump’s lawyers in response to former president’s ‘sprawling and baseless complaint’
Story by Sarah K. Burris • Yesterday 8:22 PM
Special counsel trades immunity for fake elector testimony as Jan 6 probe heats up
Charges Hunter Biden Coddled By IRS Contradicted By All The Evidence. Darn!
https://www.wonkette.com/hunter-biden-irs-charges-taxes
Well, no, that’s not how this works:
https://www.wonkette.com/anti-abortion-terrorist-thinks-dobbs-ruling-should-set-him-free
Prigozhin appears to have declared war on Russia’s military leadership. Surrealist or what?
New video undercuts claim Twitter censored pro-Trump views before Jan. 6
Washington Post link
Twitter employees were told not to take down potentially threatening pro-Trump tweets on the day before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
KG @333, yikes. Well, Prigozhin sounds serious. He also sounds fucking crazy.
Here are some excerpts the The New York Times coverage of the same issue:
Some other Russians are using posts on Telegram to accuse Prigozhin of treason.
Might be worse than the Lauren Boebert versus Marjorie Taylor Greene kerfuffle. Definite infighting among those who are supposed to be on the same side. This can only redound to Ukraine’s benefit.
I saw that earlier, but the article I spotted was through a news service called Daily Express US, which, when I looked at their home page, appears to be a right-wing anti-Biden site, so I was unsure if it was real or not. Guardian? I trust. Daily Express US? Not so much.
It really is getting more difficult to filter out real news organizations from the ones that make Fox News look rational.
Maybe this is the reason why the prosecutions discovery material was given to Trump’s team so early? Actually, I think that it was so that Trump’s team could convince him to plead guilty, but giving Trump a chance to tamper with witnesses would also work.
Sam Alito Laments It’s Getting So You Can’t Take All-Expense Paid Luxury Vacations Funded By Billionaires Anymore
The King’s evil councillors…
I certainly hope so. But it could also be a very dangerous moment. If Putin, or anyone else with control of nuclear weapons feels in personal danger, there’s no knowing what they might do.
Latest from the Guardian:
So, seriously, what is the biggest tell that Donald Trump is lying? I mean, apart from his lips moving and sound coming out of his mouth?
Trump Says He Rejected The ‘Biggest Law Firms’ And ‘ Biggest Lawyers’ After He Struggled To Find New Lawyers For Docs Trial: ‘I Don’t Need Any Help’. Do you see the tell in there?
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #341…
And besides, I bet the grapes were sour, anyway.
I remember what Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s White House lawyers, said about why lawyers were reluctant to work for Trump. “He turns all of his lawyers into witnesses.”
Mastodon Thread:
Toot:
Toot:
* Discussion page she’d used for reporting can be reached via this link.
* Lengthy chatter at the “cisgender” article’s talk page.
Toot:
Prigozhin is now claiming that his forces are entering Rostov-on-Don (in southern Russia), and that Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of the General Staff, ordered airstrikes on them but the pilots refused. How much of this is real and how much Prigozhin’s fantasy, I’ve no idea.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@344,
Looks like I may have to halt my regular payments to the Wikimedia Foundation, and tell them why.
MAGA = Making attorneys get attorneys.
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2023/06/23/aircraft_wreckage_sold_due_to_tourist_encroachment/
“R4D” is a US Navy designation for a DC-3. (Some other designations are Dakota, C-47, and Skytrain.)
Potentially huge news from Russia with links here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/06/23/when-the-future-looks-back-on-the-deplorable-events-of-our-time-this-will-be-one-of-the-photos/comment-page-1/#comment-2184003
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-24/researchers-monitor-drones-koalas-cameras-little-penguins/102511526
Of course what impact fitting the heart rate monitors has on them is another question.
(Which I guess they probly already answered to get permission to do this..)
Mars seen in UV light :
https://www.space.com/mars-nasa-maven-mission-ultraviolet-photos
Not such good space dot com news :
Source : https://www.space.com/climate-change-extreme-marine-heatwave-north-atlantic
Also the news from Trappist 1-c ain’t good either – no atmosphere or very little :
https://www.space.com/trappist-1-exoplanet-lacks-atmosphere-james-webb-space-telescope
Noty looking good fro lif earound red dwarfs.
ArsTechnica – Android’s emergency call shortcut is flooding dispatchers
* If it happens, apologize to the dispatcher. When you just hang up, they call back.
Samsung phones no longer have the option to disable Emergency SOS feature
Power users can remove the app themselves with the adb command on a PC.
* aka “com.oplus.sos”
* A common debloating method to remove stock apps. Technically not deleted, it can be reinstalled with a similar command.
Ukraine Update: What’s this about a Russian civil war?
More at the link.
Followup to comment 355.
From the same link.
Followup to comment 355 and 356.
Posted by readesr of the article from which text was quoted in comment 355:
Followup to comments , 355, 356, 357 and 358:
Link. Updates are being posted at the top of the page.
Has dictator Alexander Lukashenko fled Belarus?
As regards the Wagner takeover of Rostov-on-Don… One wonders how long they would have to hold it for the Russians to run out of artillery ammo in Ukraine…and (of course) missiles fired by helicopters and fuel for everything…
CBS – A Delaware city is set to give corporations the right to vote in elections
Despite the title, this Republican-sponsored bill hasn’t passed either house yet, and the session ends in a week, resuming in January. Still ominous, as there are nearly as many businesses (234, most without physical presence) as there were human voters in the last election (340).
There are rumours that Lukashenko has fled Belarus – but these come with a serious health warning: the link is to the Daily Express, nothing on the Guardian or BBC.
Prigozhin has described Putin as “deeply mistaken” in accusing him of treason, and defied orders to surrender. Putin apparently used the phrase “stab in the back” in his TV address – it can surely only be a matter of time before he’s denouncing the mutiny as a “Jewish plot” masterminded from Ukraine!
It’s claimed that the Russian air force has bombed a fuel depot in Voronezh to deprive the Wagnerites of fuel.
I’m off out to distribute “solidarity with Kyiv Pride” leaflets at the Edinburgh Pride march.
I hate being right sometimes: Trump was ‘waving around’ the lives of our spies for his own sense of entitlement: Ex-DOJ lawyer
Story by Matthew Chapman • Yesterday 6:59 PM
Giuliani Ordered to Pay Georgia Election Workers’ Attorney Fees
John Bolton discusses possible 2024 bid, Trump investigations
Is Bolton really not aware that nobody likes him?
Koreas Speed Up Drone Race After Unprecedented Incursions
You know there is a window in Russia with Prigozhin’s name on it.
KG: Were you by any chance at the Elgin demo against the fascist ant-immigration rally in Elgin on June 17? By all accounts (my nephew was there) a very pleasing humiliation for the Nazis. I realize it’s a fair distance from Edinburgh.
Well, some of the Russian Defenestration Teams are still trying to perfect their techniques for the Nationals. The Russian Defenestration Organization, the governing body for the Defenestration Nationals, is still trying to convert the Nationals into an Olympic qualifying event, but the IOC is still resisting — mostly because Russia is the only nation with Defenestration Teams. For some reason.
Rob Grigjanis@372,
No – as you say, it’s some distance away!
Ukraine updates:
Link
It will be interesting to see how our local Tankies cope with the news of Prigozhin’s uprising. I’m anticipating either some Olympic-class obfuscation, or total silence!
Ukraine Update: Putin’s blunder
NYT:
Former Trump Campaign Official in Talks to Cooperate in Jan. 6 Inquiry
By Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman / June 23, 2023
KG:
Nah, they will blame it on the Russian military being ‘woke’.
Followup to comment 377.
It’s reported that Lukashenko has negotiated a “de-escalation” with Prigozhin. That in itself confirms the weakness of Putin’s position – that after vowing to crush what he (with considerable justification, one must admit) described as “treason”, he has had to resort to negotiating with the traitor. Still difficult to see how the two mafiosi can reach a stable agreement.
Followup to comment 380.
So, this is where things stood before Prigozhin reportedly decided to stand down:
Now we don’t know if Prigozhin is going to call all of his troops back to Rostov or not. We’ll see.
As far as Prigozhin’s claims about not spilling blood, that may not be true for the other side in this Russian civil war:
Link
Followup to comments 380, 381 and 382.
Link
Different viewpoints—that’s for sure. after Putin issued his statement saying, without using Prigozhin’s name, that he will “suffer an inevitable punishment, Prigozhin said the following:
Iconic photos:
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/06/24/an-attempted-military-coup-in-photos
I especially like “Wagner fighters relax on the terrace of a restaurant on Budonnovskiy Avenue,” from Reuters.
‘Beyond extreme’ ocean heat wave in North Atlantic is worst in 170 years.
Washington Post link
The exceptionally warm waters could pose a deadly threat to marine life and impact summer weather in the U.K. and Europe.
Link
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1672653350741893121
Photos at the link.
Not worth shit.
Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the former USSR and in response, Russia offered security and territorial guarantees. Until they wanted the Crimea. And then Eastern Ukraine. Russia has more than 100 year history of making deals when they had to, knowing they could break them whenever they felt strong enough,.
Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino Accused of Committing Data Fraud in at Least Four Papers
Cherokee Nation fights for representation in Congress
Followup to Oggi @389, good points. I agree.
More details: Mercenary chief halts Moscow advance; Kremlin says criminal case will be dropped
Putin had accused mercenary Prigozhin of “treason” and vowed to crush the growing armed rebellion. The Kremlin says Prigozhin will now go to Belarus and Wagner soldiers would not be prosecuted.
Charges against Wagner chief will be dropped, Kremlin says.
Washington Post link
See also: https://twitter.com/idreesali114/status/1672697878291046400
From The New York Times:
The cruelty is the point.
Putin’s Weakness Unmasked, by David Remnick
New Yorker link
How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed the Russian President. [Emphasis in the excerpted text below is mine.]
Pence says pushing for abortion restrictions is ‘winning issue’ for GOP
Pence is out of touch with reality.
Billions of roubles: Prigozhin claims Russian forces have found a van and 2 buses containing boxes of his money
Reginald @395, Pence is delusional.
Reginald @396: Is that how Prigozhin stores his money? Seems like asking for burglary.
In other news:
Link
Follow-up to #354.
Neither of those apps were on my phone to remove. It goes by yet another name. To confirm, I brought up settings and ran a command to name the visible app.
“Emergency SOS” = “com.samsung.android.emergency”
“Emergency Sharing” = “com.sec.android.app.safetyassurance”
Sharing sends your location to emergency contacts, which can be triggered from its own settings menu or optionally by the SOS (power button).
I confirmed they can be uninstalled independently (disappearing from the parent menu), and can be reinstalled. I rebooted in their absence without incident.
Lynna, OM@388,
Dmitri Utkin has SS flashes tatooed on his neck – visible in the image at your link.
Oggie: Mathom@389,
Yes, given Putin’s history as a poisoner, if I were Prigozhin I’d be advertising for a taster!
All the commenters I’ve read agree Putin has been weakened by this “Coup de théâtre” – not only the rebellion itself, but by the need to let Prigozhin and his followers escape any real punishment after vowing to crush it. Putin will likely be obsessed now with who did and did not express loyalty to him, and will likely resent Lukashenko for negotiating with Prigozhin. Meanwhile all the factions around him will be manouevring in prepration for the post-Putin era. While I don’t think this will lead to a rapid collapse of the Russian army, it’s hard to believe that the military brass will be able tocoordinate much more than an attempt to hold what they have. I’ve seen some UK military bigwig suggesting that Prigozhin might launch a new attack on Ukraine from Belarus, but I’d say it’s very unlikely Lukashenko would be that stupid, having avoided direct participation in the war so far. I doubt if he’d allow Prigozhin bring any significant number of followers with him to Belarus.
Just listened to the BBC Radio 4 news. Apparently, the claim that Prigozhin was going to Belarus came from only one source, Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov, and Prigozhin’s social media accounts have been silent.
So wet, cold and miserable weather~wise here in Adelaide and the Hills (South Oz) with more forecast to come and dams threatening to break plus possible thunderstorms coming too :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-25/severe-weather-continues-in-parts-of-south-australia/102521126
Of course thinking globally there’s a LOT of extreme and severe weather events happening planet-wide right now so I know I’m not alone here.Had a power outage the other night and wouldn’t be at all surprised to have more.. Trying to keep my phone fully charged at nearly all times here.
Fires of unprecedented scale in Canada, record heat in China, Mongolia, India and Mexico and so it goes..
Some really disturbing temperature and weather charts and graphs seen lately. An understatement
Experience locally, look globally, join the dots and go figure huh?
Why 101 people and a dog want to be Toronto’s mayor
NBC News:
Trump’s GOP lead grows after latest indictment, poll finds
By Mark Murray / June 25, 2023
Now if he can just get indicted over Jan 6 he’ll have the nomination in a landslide, the rest may as well drop out.
Ukraine Update: The Coup that Wasn’t
Posted by Anton Gerashchenko:
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1672918703946571776
@404: I’m not that concerned with what the polls are saying today. The first primaries are 6 months away. At some point it will dawn on anyone sane that the indictment is not politically based, and there may be additional indictments as well. I am eager to see what comes out of Georgia.
This may still leave a sizable fraction of the GOP base in Trump’s corner, but if they were sane they wouldn’t be Republican, would they?
Prank Involving Ketchup Escalates to Alleged Assault in Centralia
If you thought all horrible useless English-speaking politicians are American, here is a British one.
“Government reveals no plan för inflation”
https://youtu.be/vNIDtxqtX6Y
or possibly
https://youtu.be/vNlDtxqtX6Y
Harvard professor who studies honesty accused of falsifying data in studies.
Reginald @408, At least they didn’t shoot each other,
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Supreme Court’s ‘Take your sugar daddy to work day’
Scenes from the Wagner Mutiny That Shook Russia
Well, this is funny … also unfortunately real:
Commentary from Wonkette:
Is Trump going to deport himself once he realizes he fits in the “totalitarian” category?
Surreal scenes were captured in Rostov-on-Don:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/06/25/wagner-rebellion-rostov-scenes/
Link
Trump gave remarks at fundraiser for Jan. 6 defendants, said he planned to contribute: reports
I am prepared to bet that he never does. Any takers?
Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, a conservative, comes down hard on the entirety of the GOP for not disavowing Trump.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/25/politics/michael-luttig-republican-party-trump-rebuke/index.html
Beyond scathing, stating outright that if the party continues on course, it has absolutely no right to survive.
I figure that the party will listen, as soon as Trump donates money for his own campaign and the Jan 6 defendants.
Most likely to happen next February 32nd.
A law that bans sex toys as obscene and morally harmful is being challenged by women in Zimbabwe
GOP senators want Roberts to take action on Supreme Court
(cough cough)
The Ashes: Ash Gardner takes eight wickets as Australia beat England by 89 runs
Sarah McBride launches House bid, would be first openly trans member of Congress
Ukraine, by KyivGuy:
Republican presidential candidates try to out-do each other on abortion
Russia’s Prigozhin resurfaces, says Wagner rebelled to fight absorption by military.
Washington Post link
Two in six months.
In January, a ramp worker for Piedmont Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines (and formerly a subsidiary of US Airways) approached an aircraft that had arrived while the engines were running and warning beacons were running, the mother of 3 was ingested into the engine, resulting in her death.
Friday, in San Antonio, a Delta ramp worker was ingested into a running engine, resulting in death.
Neither aircraft were some mysterious new model, airplanes aren’t new, no background on time on the job for either worker, but in the case of the mother of three in Alabama, OSHA fined Piedmont Airlines for safety violations.
Many years ago, I worked the ramp for an airline, specifically, Piedmont Airlines, before it was acquired by US Airways (itself formerly known of as Allegheny Airlines). Ramp safety was a culture, it had to be, we manually loaded and unloaded aircraft, as our airplanes didn’t have container storage systems. I worked every position on the ramp and freight, fortunately, I managed to avoid ticket counter (workers had to learn every job position there was back then). Ramps are extremely dangerous places to work, there’s heavy equipment in use that ranges from service trucks, tugs, pushback tugs that weigh in between 70 – 120000 pounds, fuel pods for ground equipment, luggage conveyor belts, fuel trucks and aircraft, to name a few moving hazards. In many cases, airlines have gates dedicated to specific models of aircraft, so they mark where lashdown points are and where the engine ingestion hazard zone is. Rule of thumb being a cone around 10 meters from the engine inlet.
The only aviation environment more hazardous is on an aircraft carrier flight deck and that’s largely due to congestion. For both, when an aircraft is starting up or coming in, people are to be in specific areas to avoid hazards like engine blast or intake zones.
When marshaling in an aircraft, one isn’t only watching the aircraft, but wing walkers, rear walker, moving and stationary ground equipment, coworkers, contractors and even for trash. Approach to the aircraft isn’t allowed until cleared by the cockpit, engines are shut down, the hazard beacons are extinguished and the pilot in control gives an all clear.
Humans are sloppy creatures, we’ll cut corners, make shortcuts, dodge the edge of procedures and more to get things done, so a safety culture takes that into account to prevent hazards from forming a chain that can turn lethal. Many a first officer has mentioned the angst of seeing the engine still running and seeing a cargo bin door open indicator and when reported, management is supposed to jump onto that safety violation with both feet. A culture of safety, like a culture of security is organization wide, without leadership buy in and support, there is no culture.
The fan disc on a modern jet engine spins at around 2500 – 3000 rpm. If anything larger than a chicken (literally, engines are checked using chickens and even turkeys) hits the fan or makes it past the fan somehow and into the turbine that’s going at 15k rpm or more, well, that’s a hell of a lot of energy and metal is only so strong. The impinging object is shredded violently, as is the rotating component. Bad enough to lose a worker, but the risk of an uncontained engine failure is very real, where components, such as the fan ring and blades can fly out like shrapnel from a monstrous hand grenade, endangering all around for quite long distances. Steel roofs have been penetrated by fan debris. As has the fuselage of an occupied aircraft, resulting in passenger deaths on multiple occasions.
Now, some will automatically go to the current go to of blaming the pandemic. Pandemics don’t change safety practices, but one can grow rusty when returning, but that ship has long sailed. Some will try to blame a massive return, post-pandemic, to air travel. Again, a safety culture is designed to be resilient and halt a chain of errors that can allow an accident to occur.
So, what went wrong twice now, that allowed a ramp worker to approach an aircraft that was running, to be sucked off their feet and into that running engine, when no other factor is novel?
Because, now, two families are without their loved ones, two airlines have damaged aircraft and two terminals full of passengers and two aircraft passenger loads have been traumatized by seeing someone sucked into an engine and gore and blood fly out the other end.
Something has changed and it’s for the worst, it’s up to regulators and the industry to find out what and fix it.
Sorry for the extreme OT rant, but this one’s been bothering me, it was totally preventable and two in such a short amount of time is utterly unacceptable.
NBC News link
GOP’s Blackburn connects Titan submersible, Hunter Biden story
As Marsha Blackburn connects the Titan submersible implosion and Hunter Biden’s story, her far-right conspiratorial thinking is coming into sharper focus.
Oh FFS.
Link
That’s much akin to the Hunter Biden story where the IRS suggested far more charges. Conveniently ignoring that whole plea bargaining thing or the fact that a prosecutor selects the most likely to succeed charges, not the biggest wheelbarrow full of charges to press.
The rest, just more about the Grand Conspiracy of the Space Aliens.
Although, when they started on being against all ballots by mail, I reminded them that those denied the vote by ballot do retain the right to vote by bullet, then questioned why they want to deny our deployed military their votes. They automatically conflate the two and STFU.
DeSantis’ latest setback: Court blocks state law on drag shows
Has Ron DeSantis signed a lot of far-right measures into law? Without a doubt, yes. Have those measures fared well in the courts? Clearly, no.
DeSantis is spending a fuckton of taxpayer money defending his ill-conceived policies in court.
OMFG!! House Armed Services Committee passes amendment to make it ILLEGAL to communicate with MRFF!!
The use of exclamation marks is too extravagant for my taste, but I do think this is an important issue.
The way I see it, Christian nationalists want to have control over the military.
Much more at the link.
Fox News Finds One Dude In Building Creepy Enough To Stick In Tucker’s Slot.
https://www.wonkette.com/fox-news-tucker-jesse-watters-primetime-lineup
Well that’s a big claim, Wagner is going to continue operating, but now the headquarters will be in Belarus?
Washington Post link
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian counteroffensive took control of Rivnopil, the ninth village recaptured since the counteroffensive began.
Ukraine Update: After a weekend of chaos, no one knows what happens next
In post-Roe era, House Republicans begin quiet push for new restrictions on abortion access
Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks her TV is spying on her
Reginald @437, Looks like they’ll never give up.
In other news, Josh Marshall commented “Not Over” regarding the situation in Russia:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/not-over-3
Satire written by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link</>
Welcome to hell, folks. Precisely what I predicted when Citizens United became the law of the land is occurring now.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seaford-delaware-corporate-voting-llc-trust-elections/
Corporations getting the right to vote. In one town, one corporation and its subsidiaries got 350 votes in one election. That town changed the charter as a result.
Given the ease in which one can open and register a corporation, it becomes a money game, as if you’ve got the money, you could in theory have more corporations than people and always outvote the entirety of the populace.
And that Kari Lake thing is nonsense, Wagner’s mine. If anyone wants to object, tell them that if they do, I’ll show them Kuzma’s mother.
Top court stops North Carolina school’s skirt dress code for girls
White professor files lawsuit against Penn State for ‘racially hostile environment’
That’s it? They didn’t burn crosses on his lawn? Refuse to serve him in the cafeteria? Make him use a separate water fountain?
@wzrd1 #441:
Citation? See #363.
Reginald Selkirk, I think he wanted his own private litterbox.
Why would one feel terrible about oneself, save if one is participating in behavior that was objectionable and being castigated?
Just another snowflake trying to deny being responsible for the avalanche.
Woman Sues Anti-Abortion ‘Pregnancy Center’ After Her Ectopic Pregnancy Ruptured
Keir Starmer joins Biden in snuggling up to Modi.
Steve Kirsch and Brandolini’s law
Iowa meteorologist quitting TV, cites PTSD from death threat over climate change coverage
Yorkshire’s Seaside Town Houses To Be Turned Into A Kaleidoscope of Colors
?Trump flips out on Fox News for not reporting on his ‘Man of the Decade’ award
And in other news, the entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has now replaced the entry under “Malignant Narcissist” with a three-word description: “See: Donald Trump.”
Brennan Center, Analysis:
States Have Added Nearly 100 Restrictive Laws Since SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act 10 Years Ago
Jasleen Singh, Sara Carter / June 23, 2023
The Intercept – Samuel Alito’s wife leased land to an oil and gas firm while the justice fought the EPA
New Zealand to wipe out every lasts rat
Ukraine update: While Russia falls apart, Ukraine makes progress on the frontlines
Impeach-A-Palooza 2023: Republicans search for someone, anyone, to impeach
Churchill vs Colonel Blimp BBC article. Excerpts :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230615-the-life-and-death-of-colonel-blimp-the-war-film-that-churchill-tried-to-ban
Scott manley’s fun clip on how the real Universe logo would destroy the Earth – if it was really real – under 15 mins long.
New audio of Trump sharing national security secrets
Audio of Trump’s conversation is also available at the link.
Via : https://www.space.com/world-chokes-on-co2-in-eerie-nasa-videos
NASA animation of human CO2 spreading across our shared home planet.
See also : https://www.co2.earth/
Link
Lynna, OM, you beat me to it. Thanks!
StevoR @ 461, stop that, CO2 is good, it’s plant food, it makes Venus the garden spot that it is today!
Now, to move the deniers there. With the finest cooling system that the absolute lowest bidder can provide.
Putin speech on deal with mercenaries
Washington Post link
Followup to comment 462.
The good news is, the “independent state legislature” doctrine lost at the U.S. Supreme Court. The bad news is, the ruling wasn’t unanimous.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/georgia-secretary-state-brad-raffensperger-meet-special-counsel/story?id=100408946
Appeals court gives Ivanka Trump the news she wanted to hear
A court dismissed the claims against Ivanka Trump in a big civil case. The bad news: There are still other defendants.
Malaria spreading in Texas and Florida; first US-based cases in two decades
EV startup Lordstown Motors files for bankruptcy protection
Ukraine Update: Normandy, maple syrup, and counteroffensive optimism
Today Donald Trump talked about the things they aren’t going to let you have anymore.
https://www.wonkette.com/new-york-pizza-canceled
JFC. What now?
NBC News:
Pompeii archaeologists discover ‘pizza’ painting
NBC News:
Associated Press:
Wall Street Journal:
NBC News:
Cartoon: Putin and Prigozhin
Judge, rejecting Trump arguments, signals he’ll let New York criminal case stay in state court
Nature – Long COVID: answers emerge on how many people get better
Ron DeSantis Is Having Some Hilarious New Hampshire Problems
Jack Smith Subpoenas Bedminster Security Footage
Followup to comment 483.
Posted by readers of the article:
I’m waiting for more details, for more information. This story is developing.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1673745925787754496
Photo at the link.
Update: Aftermath from the attack in Kramatorsk. 3 people have died. One of them is reported to be a child.
@484, doesn’t work that way. He took the documents, possibly the same ones already in evidence, from FL to NJ and probably back to FL. It’d at most, if a document or set of documents were to suddenly be found in NJ, more federal counts. Federal cases and counts are related to initial crime scene (state, territory, etc), crime, evidence seized and if it’s moved, regardless of where it’s legally seized, is part of the original case. We don’t get 50 states worth of cases for a criminal trial that originated with one crime.
Now, if there were NJ state crimes, that’d be in NJ and entirely separate, as federal and state are entirely different jurisdictions.
Oh, Legal Eagle on youtube has a video up on potential sentencing, based upon federal guidelines, which is rather complex, to put it mildly. Figure, worst case for Trump, 17 – 24 years. Given that PVT Manning got 35 years for 700000 documents that were given over to foreign interests, yeah. Not like he’d leave prison alive, save if some crooked Republican commuted his sentence. Although, Manning served nearly 7 years before Obama commuted the sentence.
I’ll refrain from an extended rant on why Manning’s entire chain of command should’ve had adjacent cells… There never could have been a crime there had his chain of command done their duty per regulations.
Trump sues E. Jean Carroll for defamation after jury finds he sexually abused her
Considering the outcome of the recent case, this looks to not go well for Trump.
Trump valet arraignment delayed after losing Florida lawyer over fees dispute
Kentucky attorney general is accused of seeking donations from company his office is investigating
Church in Patras charges parishioners for using the toilet
Freight Railroad’s 10 MPH Speed Limit Forces Amtrak To Suspend Route
Marco Rubio Claims Top U.S. Officials Coming Forward With UFO Claims
Giant ‘rabbit creature’ found in Ukraine sparks wild ‘Chernobyl hare’ conspiracy
Relax, it’s the Daily Star.
“https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/27/liz-cheney-electing-idiots/
wzrd1 @486, many thanks for that clarification.
Related news: In classified docs case, Trump adds ‘bravado’ claim to evolving story
No matter how tight one is wearing a red MAGA cap, Donald Trump’s new “bravado” defense in the classified documents scandal is literally unbelievable.
Followup to comment 495.
https://twitter.com/allinwithchris/status/1673853583488434176
Video snippet at the link includes Trump saying, “My voice was fine. … All I know is I did nothing wrong. … Nobody said I did anything wrong, other than the fake news … I don’t do things wrong. I do things right. I’m a legitimate person.”
Lynna… @ #495 quoting Steve Benen: … [Trump™] said he didn’t return subpoenaed materials because he was worried about losing some golf attire he had “interspersed” with the classified documents …
Doesn’t have much confidence in his valet, does he?
Followup to comment 495 and 496.
Excerpts from Wonkette’s report:
Wonkette link
https://www.wonkette.com/trump-tape-bedminster-iran
https://www.wonkette.com/new-york-times-joe-biden-loves-hunter