Another dud hearing in a long line of Republican hearings regarding Hunter Biden … and another case of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot:
If you steered clear of far-right social media accounts over the weekend, you might not know about fake developments that sparked considerable hysteria in Republican circles. Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, was poised to testify before the GOP-led House Oversight Committee, and Republicans were convinced that the Justice Department was trying to prevent that from happening as part of a nefarious partisan plot.
The claims were quickly and easily discredited, but for a short while, prominent GOP voices were apoplectic about this. Naturally, folks like Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia helped lead the charge, but they weren’t alone.
Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York claimed that federal prosecutors might themselves be criminals, engaging in “witness intimidation” and “obstruction of justice,” while Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina suggested Congress might need to respond to this entirely bogus controversy by defunding federal law enforcement and impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Making matters worse, the circus also included House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, all of whom pretended the imagined outrage was real. It was not.
This was, by any fair measure, utterly bonkers. It was also soon rendered moot when the scheduled congressional hearing happened as scheduled, and it produced nothing that advanced the GOP’s crusade against President Joe Biden. The New York Times reported that Archer told lawmakers that Biden, before becoming president, occasionally had casual interactions with his son’s business associates, but that’s all he did.
[I]n nearly five hours of closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Devon Archer, the former partner, asserted that the elder Mr. Biden was not party to any of his son’s business deals and that Hunter Biden had tried to sell the illusion that he was providing access to his powerful father when he was not, according to Democrats on the panel.
Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman of New York issued a brief statement online, explaining that he was the only member of the Oversight panel who stayed for the entire multi-hour hearing. He came away with two simple observations: According to the Republicans’ own witness, Joe Biden never talked business with his son or his son’s associates, and there was no bribe.
Goldman added, “This investigation has uncovered ZERO evidence connected to President Biden. In fact, the evidence is clear that President Biden had nothing to do with Hunter’s businesses.”
The New York Democrat wasn’t the only relevant voice: Far-right Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona conceded that Archer didn’t help bolster the core attack Republicans have tried to make against the president.
For good measure, it’s also important to emphasize that Democrats want the public to have access to the full transcript of yesterday’s hearing — which is generally a sign that the discussion was not a great success for Republican conspiracy theorists.
All of this, of course, comes on the heels of a related misstep from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer last month, which follows a series of similar setbacks. […] it was in May when Comer scheduled a highly anticipated press conference, at which the Kentucky Republican was supposed to unveil devastating information about Biden and the Democrat’s alleged corruption. It would be “judgment day” for the president, the House Oversight Committee chairman said, as GOP lawmakers unveiled evidence of a scandal that would make “Watergate look like jaywalking.”
A humiliating dud soon followed. After months of desperate searching and thorough investigating, Comer conceded that he still didn’t have any actual evidence against the incumbent president.
As The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson explained in a recent column, Comer’s presentation proved to be little more than a “shameless, empty exercise in rumor and innuendo.” Even Fox News was unimpressed with the Republican’s pitch.
Common sense suggested that the Oversight Committee chairman would take a step back, lick his wounds, wait for the embarrassment to subside, and reassess whether this pointless crusade was still worth the effort. Instead, Comer kept going, scheduling more hearings, and racking up more losses.
[…] Before this year, the most recent GOP chairman was South Carolina’s Trey Gowdy, who’s best known for leading a ridiculous investigation into Benghazi conspiracy theories. He was proceeded by Utah’s Jason Chaffetz, who didn’t realize that charts have y axes.
Also in recent memory, California’s Darrell Issa was a relentlessly partisan GOP chairman of the Oversight Committee, following an even more ridiculous tenure from Indiana’s Dan Burton, best known for shooting melons in his backyard in pursuit of anti-Clinton conspiracy theories.
Now, it’s Comer’s turn — and the Kentucky Republican has taken his place in an unfortunate GOP club.
@ 482, the answer is simple, condemn the building.
Lynna, OM @ 483, it’s only a couple of hundred children born to die in agony, not a big deal for Texass.
Where agony lives and is preserved in perpetuity.
Again, justifying my longstanding suggestion of giving Texas back to Mexico.
Ukraine is using a new, long-range drone, known as the “Beaver”, to bring the war deep into Russia’s borders, according to experts.
Open-source intelligence experts have posted footage of recent drone attacks in Moscow, and said the aircraft appeared to be Ukrainian Beaver drones.
The drones have an unusual shape, with an engine at the back end and a second pair of smaller wings near the front, according to footage and images posted online by Ukrainian outlet Euromaidan Press.
This allows them to make abrupt changes in flight altitude and evade air defenses.
They carry an explosive payload, and have a range of up to 620 miles, meaning attacks on Russia can be launched from within Ukraine’s borders…
That was quick. We have already filled up another chapter of The Infinite Thread with 500 comments. Today, the thread automatically rolled over to begin anew at comment #1.
For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous chapter:
wzrd1 @2: “Lynna, OM @ 483, it’s only a couple of hundred children born to die in agony, not a big deal for Texass.
Where agony lives and is preserved in perpetuity.”
True. Still shocking to me to see those statistics, and the conclusion that “The anti-abortion movement championed by so-called Christian conservatives is finally achieving the results everyone said they would achieve: Dead infants and tortured citizens.”
wzrd1says
Leave it to Beaver, yes?
Want to bet that they’re not randomly targeted, unlike Russian missiles?
Oh wait, striking back on an invader is terryism, so Russia and the Allies are terryists for attacking poor, innocent Nazi Germany in WWII…
I’ve got a full pallet of sarcasometers, for those whose sarcasm meters blew out, just send a SASE and I’ll pop a replacement along.
Shit, there went another pallet load…
Former President Donald J. Trump’s political action committee, which began last year with $105 million, now has less than $4 million left in its account after paying tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for Mr. Trump and his associates.
NBC News:
Trump’s Save America PAC has spent more than $20 million on legal fees alone — doling out payments to more than 40 different law firms — in the first six months of 2023, according to new campaign finance reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission. Legal expenditures accounted for two-thirds of the PAC’s total spending from January through June.
Commentary:
[…] The Save America operation hasn’t just been paying Trump’s legal expenses, it’s also picked up the tab for the lawyers representing the former president’s associates in the investigations.
Supporters of the former president who donated to his leadership PAC, assuming the money would be spent on election-related expenses, are now learning otherwise.
It’s against this backdrop that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ operation has started to accuse Team Trump of relying on sketchy fundraising tactics — the phrase “MAGA grandmas were scammed” stood out for me — which seems like a potentially potent line of attack.
That said, the former president and his team have confronted credible allegations of grift for many years, and to date, Trump’s followers have continued to send him money anyway.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, said she has been receiving racist threats and voicemails, according to multiple news reports.
The threats come as Willis is expected to decide whether she’ll bring charges against Trump and his allies before September 1.
“I am sending to you in case you are unclear on what I and my staff have come accustomed to over the last 2 ½ years,” Willis wrote in an email, where she highlighted the threats. “I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe.”
Willis’s email urging county commissioners and judges to stay vigilant over the next month before her expected indictment of the former President included an example of a threat she said she received last Friday.
The subject line for that email: “Fani Willis = Corrupt N*****.”
“You are going to fail, you Jim Crow Democrat whore,” the rest of the email read.
Willis added that others in her office and other county officials have also received threatening voicemails over the 2020 probe.
“I have every intention of doing my job,” Willis wrote. “Please make decisions that keep your staff safe.”
With possible charges expected against the former President, security measures around the county courthouse have ramped up.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Department put up barricades around the building last week in expectation of the announcement.
And the Magistrate Court of Fulton County encouraged individuals who are scheduled to have hearings in the county courthouse in coming weeks to avoid going downtown in person and connect to their hearings virtually instead. […]
@498 Reginald Selkirk said the decrease in the number of seats meant that ‘IMHO this is a big nothing-burger.’
I reply: I don’t argue with your figures. But, looking at the issue from more than a statistical viewpoint, I have seen, first hand, how in so many instances, for commercial profit, zoning is changed by big money no matter how many residential areas they ruin. It isn’t a nothing burger to those who constantly have raging people partying until about midnight and throwing beer bottles on their lawns and making their lives unbearable.
The residents have to live there, the billionaire developer goes to his (likely, I’m sure) expensive, quiet, private home at night.
‘From March through June 2022, residents in the working group canvassed neighbors and reported concerns. Among the most important: Neighbors did not want the use of the stadium expanded.’ The current use is limited by zoning. The new apparently almost limitless commercial uses including rock concerts (see below) and would be incredibly more disruptive of the residents’ lives, regardless of the actual capacity of the stadium. That dissent is from people who have to live with the expanded commercial use. The university was deceitful in their phone interviews – ‘Without providing any information about the challenges that rock concerts pose—dangerous sound transmission, traffic congestion, transportation complexities or parking problems’
Facts about the project and doubts about Northwestern’s false assurances became clearer. Grassroots opposition grew. Voices of dissent got louder.
AND, ‘So unbeknownst to residents and Evanston city council members who opposed the plan, the city asked a federal judge to modify the decree to protect Northwestern. Remarkably, it wanted to ban residents from discussing the proposed arena in the town-gown committee hearings.
On June 29, 2023, Northwestern and the city filed a joint brief supporting the ban.Stunning as it seemed, even before the first zoning commission hearing on the university’s unprecedented request to amend the ordinance, Evanston had aligned itself with Northwestern—in secret.’
I see this as very deceitful and acting against the desires of the residents the city officials were elected to represent.
[I would say “fascist” and “Nazi-wannabe” instead of “controversial.”]
Semafor has an exclusive look at internal DeSantis campaign communications about the meme-filled videos produced in-house then distributed on the sly via supportive Twitter accounts:
The videos include two that have created recurring distractions for his campaign in recent weeks: an anti-Trump video that featured a fascist symbol, and another that attacked Donald Trump for past comments supportive of LGBT rights.
The meme-filled videos emerged from a Signal channel called “War Room Creative Ideas,” screenshots of which were shared with Semafor and whose authenticity was confirmed by a second source familiar with the campaign.
DeSantis staffers were gleeful about their efforts:
Screenshots of the “War Room” chat reviewed by Semafor included staffers praising a widely-derided and since-deleted video — originally posted on an anonymous account, “Ron DeSantis Fancams” — that included a version of the Sonnenrad, a symbol associated with Nazi Germany.
“This belongs in the Smithsonian,” wrote Kyle Lamb, the campaign’s director of research and data, before the video blew up in the campaign’s face.
It includes a special cameo by longtime DeSantis spox Christina Pushaw, who now runs his campaign’s rapid response team.
Rats, sorry about that, I got caught in the middle of the rollover to a new thread. But, the important point I wanted to make is: people’s lives get ruined for the sake of the arrogance of billionaires and of profit all the time. And, I have seen so many people who know what a crime it is, because they’ve lived it.
A new set of campaign finance reports have dropped, and with them comes another revelation as to who’s funding far-right conspiracy crank Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s supposed “Democratic presidential” bid. Surprise: It’s a Republican megadonor. Yeah, I know—if you need to take a minute to lie down here, you go ahead and do that. It’s a shocker for all of us, really. [LOL. Nice bit of sarcasm there.]
NBC News has the report, and the headline news is that of the $9.8 million raised by the pro-Kennedy super PAC “American Values 2024” this year, $5 million of it was a donation from just one Republican: perennial megadonor Timothy Mellon.
“The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things: that he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption and that he’s the one Democrat who can win in the general election,” Mellon said in a statement the super PAC circulated on Sunday.
Ha ha ha ha oh my gawd, this guy is shameless. Yeah, a man who shelled out $20 million to keep Donald effing Trump in office has thoughts on unity and “corruption.” And of all the potential candidates in America, he thinks the anti-vaxx conspiracy crank shunned by his own family is the one to fix it all.
[…] Kennedy has a 0.0% chance of winning the Democratic nomination to anything, in large part because he’s not courting Democratic voters to begin with. Kennedy’s publicity tour has him chatting up far-right hoax site Newsmax, showing up to give speeches to the hate group Moms for Liberty and to seditionist Michael Flynn’s Christian nationalist tour, spending time with toxic righty crank Jordan Peterson, and, of course, palling around with Nazis.
His support among Democratic voters continues to be from people who know his family name but not him, which puts Kennedy in a position where he can’t promote himself to Democratic groups for fear of those voters actually hearing the things that come out of his mouth. [True]
[…] As for the other half of the super PAC’s money, that’s interesting as well. Almost all of the rest of the PAC’s funds came from Gaven de Becker, a security specialist whose name you might remember because he was the investigator Amazon’s Jeff Bezos hired to determine how the National Enquirer had gotten hold of texts proving Bezos was cheating on his then-wife. De Becker, who’s had a long career catering to celebrity clients, forked over nearly as much as Mellon: $4.7 million so far this year. Those two donors alone account for all but $100,000 of the Kennedy super PAC’s $9.8 million in raised funds this year.
Again, it makes perfect sense. Kennedy is a pariah in his own family, and the sort of people Kennedy hangs out with on his so-called campaign trail don’t exactly have a lot of pocket change. If he’s going to fund a vanity run to sell himself to America’s hate groups and paranoid fringe, he’s going to need to rely on a handful of megadonors [true] rather than scraping together McDonald’s money from the Jordan Peterson crowd.
But he’s not actually running for president, and his donors are suckers if they think he is. If he were running for president he’d be looking to appeal to actual Democratic voters, not the various deplorables of Gab. This is Kennedy’s bid to boost his own support among anti-vaxxers and conspiracy cranks, a purely narcissistic bid to be king of all the worst people you know.
And … it is a ploy to pull Democratic voters away from supporting Joe Biden so that Donald Trump has a better chance of winning.
There’s also the chaos and confusion factor. Republicans are good at that.
A massive fire that is burning in California and Nevada is creating “fire whirls” as fire crews continue to battle the flames.
The York Fire that started in California’s Mojave National Preserve on Friday is now more than 80,000 acres wide and crossed into Nevada on Sunday. The Mojave National Preserve said that the fire was about 23 percent contained as of Tuesday morning.
The Mojave National Preserve also noted in a Saturday Facebook post that fire crews were battling fire whirls, also known as fire tornados, which it described as a “vortex of flames and smoke that forms when intense heat and turbulent winds combine, creating a spinning column of fire.” The preserve added the whirlwinds are “extremely dangerous” for firefighters due to their size and ability to change direction quickly.
“While these can be fascinating to observe they are a very dangerous natural phenomena that can occur during wildfires,” the preserve wrote in its post. […]
North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham ding-dong-ditched the Democratic Party in April, and since then, her stunned former colleagues haven’t had time to reflect on her betrayal. They’ve been too busy coping with its impact.
Despite running as a pro-choice champion in 2022, the freshly minted Republican Cotham cast the decisive vote in May to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto and enact a 12-week abortion ban. And she wasn’t done.
Cotham’s defection empowered state Republicans with a veto-proof supermajority and Cotham has reliably voted to overturn a series of vetoes from Cooper. This includes six just on June 27. She’ll likely help override Cooper’s July vetoes of three anti-LGBTQ bills, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. She’s personally sponsored a bill that expands student eligibility for private-school vouchers.
[…] recent reporting from the New York Times paints Cotham as a “Republican plant,” as if this were a remake of the Manchurian Candidate. Cotham had served a decade in the North Carolina House of Representatives when she declined to run for re-election in 2016 and instead challenged US House Rep. Alma Adams in a newly redrawn 12th Congressional District. Adams, who’s Black, beat her by more than 20 points.
Hmm, this seems relevant to later events.
When Cotham later considered a return to the North Carolina House, she received counsel from Republican House Speaker Tim Moore and John Bell, the Republican majority leader.
“I encouraged her to run because she was a really good member when she served before,” Mr. Bell recalled in an interview.
She doesn’t seem like a very subtle plant. There were other obvious signs of her perfidy: She’d worked as a lobbyist for charter schools, a lucrative but obvious flip from her position while in elected office. (Kinda think Republicans would notice if someone running in their primary had previously lobbied for gun safety.) She also ghosted Democratic activists who offered to help her 2022 campaign. It was kind of like she was a Republican all along.
Ms. Cotham’s top campaign donors included the North Carolina Dental Society PAC — which gave almost exclusively to Republican candidates — and the North Carolina Health Care Facilities PAC, which gave mainly to Republicans.
Cotham easily won the Democratic primary and then moonwalked to victory over her Republican opponent, Tony Long. That’s the Republican Party’s ideal election, one where both candidates are Republicans.
Susan Rinkunas at Jezebel writes that Cotham deliberately “[fooled] voters in her very blue Charlotte-area district into thinking she strongly supported abortion rights.” And it’s true that leading up to the primary, when news had just broken about the Dobbs draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Cotham tweeted: “Now, more than ever, we need leaders who will be unwavering and unapologetic in their support of abortion rights. I’ll fight to codify Roe in the #NcGA and continue my strong record of defending the right to choose. #ncpol #womensrights #SCOTUS #Meckleburg.”
So, it’s fair to say that voters might’ve chosen her to help stop anti-abortion forces, not join them. But voters could’ve used guidance from Democratic officials, who perhaps should’ve noticed that despite her family history with the party, she’d reportedly “grown alienated from Democratic Party officials and ideals.” She was also reportedly pissed that Democrats treated her as a normal freshman upon her return to the North Carolina House. Meanwhile, according to the Times, “Republican leaders cultivated her before she ran and, seeing her growing estrangement, seized a chance to coax her across party lines.”
Now, that’s a very clear example of grooming.
After screwing over state Democrats and her constituents, Cotham has become “a rock star among the Republican Party activists and voter base,” according to Republican US House Rep. Dan Bishop, who’d encouraged Cotham to switch parties.
Her “rock star status” earned her a standing ovation at North Carolina’s state Republican convention in June. She even met privately with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former Vice President Mike Pence, which I guess makes them the starstruck groupies in this scenario. [JFC!]
State Democrats remain gobsmacked, however, especially those who “have known her since she was a child,” said Pat Cotham, the rock star Republican’s mother.
They apparently weren’t great judges of character.
Oggie: Mathomsays
from Lynna’s quote @8:
“You are going to fail, you Jim Crow Democrat whore,” the rest of the email read.
Also showing the failure of education in state of Georgia: ‘Jim Crow’, tho at the time a pejorative name for African Americans, refers to the sets of laws, enacted at the state, county, and city level, which enforced ‘separate but equal segregation — in all public accommodations — in the Old South. Jim Crow laws disenfranchised blacks, denied them educational opportunities, created separate sentencing guidelines for blacks (who, while in prison, could be rented from the state by wealthy farmers and industrialists), reduced their life expectancy, increased infant mortality. and created an underclass. Yes, this was done by the Democratic Party, but after the Dixiecrat fiascos after World War II, Democrats, under Johnson, forced through Civil Rights legislation and all of the hard-core racist Dixiecrats were successfully recruited by the GOP via the Southern Strategy. Fuck, there are so many things wrong with just that one statement . . .
ACatholic school near Kansas City has expelled an A-student because his mother objected to a ban on LGBTQ+ books, according to a report.
The Kansas City Star reported that St. John LaLande Catholic School in Blue Springs disenrolled Hollee Muller’s 11-year-old son Hunter after “prayerful consideration.” [, , , , ]
Humanity may be in the throes of another breakthrough that’s every bit as impactful as the invention of the transistor and the advent (and eventual vindication) of quantum computing. LK-99, as it’s been named, is a new compound that researchers believe will enable the fabrication of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductors. Initially published by a Korean team last Friday, frantic work is underway throughout the research world to validate the paper’s claims. For now, two separate sources have already provided preliminary confirmations that this might actually be the real thing — Chinese researchers have even posted video proof. Strap in; this is a maglev-powered, superconducting ride…
Republicans have rallied around country singer Jason Aldean after his song that apparently glorifies vigilante violence generated controversy and was removed by some channels – and a historian flagged that support as another alarming development in the GOP’s ongoing radicalization.
The song, “Try That In A Small Town,” seems to celebrate mob violence to preserve the mythical ideal of small towns – replete with retribution against Black Lives Matter protesters and flag-burning demonstrators – and despite being pulled from rotation by Country Music Television, it has been viewed millions of times on YouTube and adopted by right-wing culture warriors as a rallying cry, wrote The Bulwark columnist Thomas Lecaque.
“I was thinking of Aldean’s song as I watched the coverage of Trump’s rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, this past weekend, where the rhetoric of mob violence – or even of murder fantasies — was disturbingly on display,” wrote Lecaque, a scholar of religious violence and apocalypticism and associate professor of history at Grand View University.
Lecaque recounts interviews with Trump supporters conducted by the Right Side Broadcasting Network, in which one rally attendee tells correspondent Matthew Alvarez he wants to “kill them all” – meaning, in his words, “the left and the RINOs and the globalists.” The historian said those comments reflect the fanaticism the former president inspires.
“So much of what surrounds Trump is performative – the idea that he’s a successful businessman is a TV show, not a reality,” Lecaque wrote. “The notion that he’s ultramasculine is made for 8kun memes, not reality. The idea that he’s a God-touched avatar of the presidency is a subject of fantasy artwork (or whatever one calls the work of Jon McNaughton). And the rhetoric of violence that suffuses the contemporary far right is at least partially performative in that way.”
“Trump loves the side glance and the plausible deniability — but the malice that comes with it is clear,” he added.
The ex-president stokes anger toward his enemies by ominously warning they intend to destroy his supporters’ way of life, and while he and the crowd feed off those vacuous threats in a type of call-and-response feedback loop, some listeners are motivated to take action.
“Maybe it’s just rhetoric — but when Trump posted a suggestion of former President Obama’s home address on Truth Social, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and January 6th attacker went after Obama with rhetoric suggesting an assassination attempt during his livestream,” Lecaque wrote. “It’s always just rhetoric until the murders become real, not performative.”
Trump has been inching closer to the QAnon conspiracy theory since before the 2020 election, and while it generates less media attention nowadays its adherents remain committed, and the former president even played a song at the end of his rally that sounds similar to its theme song “#WWG1WGA.”
“This is the grotesque vision that unites these things — a Jason Aldean song, a Trump rally, and QAnon: What they want is a different world, a purified world in which all of the people unlike them are gone. And gone with violence,” Lecaque wrote. “Each of them invites or at least imagines violence done to their opponents to drive them out of their utopian future.”
“What they all hope for, though, is that someone else will do the dirty work for them,” he added.
Apologies if this has already been posted, but this is the first time I have seen this article. I have seen some of the Dawkins quotes, but this short essay is, to me, new.
For decades, the renowned evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins urged his readers to use science and reason to counter religious misinformation. Now Dawkins is abandoning both to spread anti-transgender rhetoric embraced by religious conservatives.
During a recent episode of his podcast “The Poetry of Reality,” Dawkins spoke with author Helen Joyce about the “influence of gender ideology on society.” There was no mention of how Joyce has previously said transgender people who have transitioned are “damaged” and “a huge problem to a sane world.” Nor did Dawkins bring up how she believes “reducing” the number of people who transition is a moral imperative.
Dawkins not only agreed with many of her points, he added that “sex really is binary” and that kids are choosing to be trans under pressure from both their peers and teachers. He also insisted that people like him were the real victims of abuse, wondering why “all the bullying (goes) one way.” (In fact, a study from 2021 found that trans people are four times more likely than cisgender people to “experience violent victimization.”)
The podcast episode dropped days after Dawkins wrote an essay for the British magazine The New Statesman answering the question, “What is a woman?” Dawkins’ reductive response boiled down to “A woman is an adult human female, free of Y chromosomes,” as if the absence of a single chromosome answers the question. That flies in the face of what many scientists have said about the subject.
“There are cisgender women who have XY sex chromosomes, and many other exceptions to binary sex. Around 1 in 1,000 people are intersex,” said Jey McCreight, a science communicator with a Ph.D. in genomics who has consulted on trans inclusivity for biotech companies. McCreight added in an email: “That’s pretty common as far as biology goes. A study may treat sex as binary out of practicality, but scientists understand that reality is more nuanced.”
Despite acknowledging those exceptions exist, Dawkins casually dismisses them, just as he dismisses the genetic influences many experts believe contribute to the development of trans identities. Those exceptions and influences are reasons the American Medical Association and other major medical organizations have supported gender-affirming care.
Dawkins also rejects definitions of womanhood that extend beyond chromosomes. In 2021, he went even further, comparing trans people to Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who famously (and controversially) identified as Black. Suggesting trans people were making a similar choice, he tweeted, “Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men.” He insisted he wasn’t disparaging trans people — most of whom say their gender identity is not a choice at all, but rather just who they are — and said he used their names and pronouns as a “courtesy.”
But that didn’t smooth things over. The American Humanist Association, which gave Dawkins its 1996 Humanist of the Year award, rescinded the honor in response.
At a time when 76% of atheists accept the existence of trans people, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, while only 38% of all American adults feel the same, it’s jarring to see the world’s most famous atheist use his massive platform to downplay or deny trans identities. That’s especially true when trans people in the U.S. are under attack from conservative media outlets and legislators eager to label them predators or “groomers.” The advocacy group GLAAD said 2023 was “on pace to be a record-setting year for state legislation targeting LGBTQ adults and youth,” including laws banning or limiting trans individuals’ access to health care and participation in sports.
For decades, the most vocal opponents of LGBTQ rights were religious conservatives making the argument that acceptance violated God’s wishes. Lately, though, as the lines between politics and religion have blurred, conservatives have been citing science, rather than religion, to justify their positions. In response to a trans-supporting colleague, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hung a sign outside her office saying “There are TWO genders … Trust The Science!” A recent anti-trans film by conservative provocateur Matt Walsh attempted to make a scientific rather than religious case against trans people. And author J.K. Rowling, whom Dawkins called “very brave” in his podcast, has couched her inflammatory rhetoric in biological terms.
What’s most frustrating about Dawkins’ shift in focus is that his otherwise excellent science writing is being tarnished by his bizarre obsession.
Much as fans of the Harry Potter series are now conflicted about the book and movie franchise and its creator, I can no longer recommend Dawkins’ books to people who want to educate themselves about evolution.
It’s also maddening because Dawkins remains the go-to atheist for reporters and media outlets. There are more atheists who are LGBTQ, women and people of color than ever before, yet it’s Dawkins who often takes center stage whenever there are public conversations about atheism. That’s not his fault, of course: He literally wrote the most popular book on the subject. But it’s irresponsible to use his platforms to spread ignorance on a topic that critics have repeatedly said he doesn’t understand and often gets flat-out wrong.
His words also have the effect of further alienating LGBTQ people when they’re already marginalized by many powerful religious leaders. Why would they want to become atheists when supposedly “reasonable” people are spreading the same lies they hear in churches?
Trans people are currently subject to political attacks and dehumanizing laws. Dawkins should spend less time acting like this issue boils down to basic biology and more time advocating for LGBTQ people who have been harmed by religious — and now supposedly scientific — bigotry.
There is, of course, a disclaimer. After all, this the Religious News Service.
{Hemant Mehta is a writer, podcaster and atheist activist. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
ust a few short weeks after OceanGate’s own CEO perished along with four others in an implosion of the Titan submersible, the company’s co-founder wants to send another group of people into another uninhabitable environment.
In an interview with Insider, OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein expressed his interest in sending 1,000 people to a floating space colony in Venus’ atmosphere by the year 2050. Venus, sometimes dubbed the Hell Planet, is also known as Earth’s twin, as it has a similar size and density—however, Venus’ atmosphere consists of high-speed winds that churn up toxic levels of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuric acid. No matter, as Söhnlein remains steadfast in his interest, apparently citing some research that there is a tiny portion of Venus’ atmosphere that might be survivable for a human colony. Söhnlein clarified to Gizmodo in a statement that it’s a stretch to call Venus “habitable,” and specified that temperatures and pressures in some areas of the planet are more Earth-like, citing NASA and research from Russia’s Venera program…
A former Republican attorney general candidate and another supporter of former President Donald Trump have been criminally charged in Michigan in connection with accessing and tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election, according to court records.
Matthew DePerno, a Republican lawyer who was endorsed by Trump in an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general last year, was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy, according to Oakland County court records.
Daire Rendon, a former Republican state representative, was charged with conspiracy to commit undue possession of a voting machine and false pretenses. A lawyer listed on court documents as representing Rendon could not be immediately reached for comment by phone…
“Skepticrat 205 Deus Twitter Machina”
(OK, this link has two I or two l, and ny cellphone cannot see the difference.
I have to type four links with all possible permutations.) https://youtu.be/OF_oE5bjI0I
The drugmaker’s prediction comes as Covid hospitalizations are once again on the rise.
The Food and Drug Administration could authorize Pfizer’s updated Covid boosters by the end of August, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said during an investor call Tuesday.
The drugmaker asked the FDA in June to authorize an updated version of its Covid booster that is designed to target the XBB.1.5 subvariant, a coronavirus strain that began circulating widely last winter. Moderna made a similar request that same month.
The requests came days after the FDA advised the drugmakers to update the shots to target XBB.1.5 ahead of a fall Covid booster campaign.
XBB.1.5 is no longer the predominant strain, only making up 12.3% of all new Covid cases through the week ending July 22, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s been edged out by XBB.1.16, which accounts for about 15% of all new cases. (Experts said during a June meeting of FDA advisers that they don’t expect that will hurt vaccine effectiveness too much, as the XBB strains aren’t too genetically different from one another.)
Bourla’s prediction on the availability of new boosters comes as Covid hospitalizations are rising in the U.S., though they still remain lower than at any point during the pandemic.
During the call, Bourla said the company expects Covid cases and hospitalizations will continue to pick up heading into the colder months.
“We expect a new Covid wave to start in the U.S. this fall,” Bourla said.
[…] It’s unclear if the Covid boosters will be recommended for everyone in the U.S. That decision will be left up to the CDC, which isn’t expected to make a recommendation until after the FDA authorizes the shots. […]
An 84-year-old retired bishop of Albany, who has been accused of sexual abuse and has unsuccessfully sought to be removed from the priesthood, said Tuesday he recently married a woman in a civil ceremony.
Emeritus Bishop Howard Hubbard made the surprise announcement during a tumultuous time for the Albany diocese. It filed for bankruptcy this year after a surge of lawsuits from people who say they endured sexual abuse as children, sometimes decades ago.
The current bishop of the upstate New York diocese said it did not consider Hubbard’s marriage to be valid.
Hubbard, who retired in 2014, has acknowledged covering up allegations of abuse by priests, in part to avoid scandal. He has adamantly denied accusations that he abused minors…
In recent years, white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who are often armed, have increasingly protested Pride celebrations and drag events.
A group of neo-Nazis protested an LGBTQ Pride event in Wisconsin on Saturday, carrying swastika flags and shouting homophobic language, according to NBC affiliate WMTV of Madison.
The neo-Nazi group showed up to an annual Pride in the Park event in Watertown, which is about an hour west of Milwaukee. Members wore black face coverings, sunglasses, black shirts and khaki pants, and some carried black flags with the swastika symbol on them, according to the Watertown Daily Times.
At one point, they chanted, “Us or the pedophiles,” according to a video shared on social media by Unity Project of Watertown, which organized the Pride event. They also chanted, “There will be blood, blood, blood,” another video shared on social media shows.
One person carried a weapon, the Watertown Daily Times reported.
Julie Janowak, board member at large for Unity Project of Watertown, told WMTV that she cried when the protest started because she was afraid, but she said police responded quickly and lined themselves up between the Pride event and the neo-Nazis.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers condemned the protest in a statement Monday, saying the neo-Nazis “chose to disrupt, intimidate, and harass kids, people, and families who were attending a local Pride event aimed at celebrating and honoring the LGBTQ community.”
“This is a disgusting and direct attack on our state’s LGBTQ community, communities of color, and Jewish Wisconsinites,” Evers said in the statement. “Nazis, swastikas, and any other anti-LGBTQ, white supremacist, or anti-Semitic messages, symbols, or groups are unacceptable and unwelcome in Wisconsin. Period.”
He added that their “dangerous, hateful behavior” should be condemned by every elected official “and that includes all those who continue to push radical rhetoric, divisive legislation and litigation, and falsehoods and disinformation about the LGBTQ community—those words, those actions, and those policies have real and harmful consequences.”
[…] White nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, who are often armed, have increasingly protested LGBTQ events in recent years, particularly events where there are drag performers. GLAAD, an LGBTQ media watchdog group, found 141 incidents in 2022 of anti-LGBTQ protests and threats targeting specific drag events, including some led by armed white nationalist groups.
June, which marks LGBTQ Pride Month, also saw an uptick in anti-LGBTQ incidents, according to a report from GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League. The groups documented 145 incidents of anti-LGBTQ hate and extremism nationwide in June, which is more than three times the 48 incidents documented during Pride Month last year.
From the moment people inside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign started boosting “anonymously” produced, meme-filled, 4chan-style videos promoting creepily fascist themes, DeSantis watchers suspected his campaign was directly responsible for the ads. Well, now we’ve got the confirmation. The people who put out the anti-LGBTQ+ ad so filled with toxic masculinity that it came off as homoerotic? The people who put out an ad that closed on an actual, no-shit Nazi symbol with DeSantis’ head superimposed in the middle of it?
They were all members of the DeSantis campaign staff. They just laundered the far-far-right creepfests through supportive third parties because they knew the videos were too toxic to take credit for. But this is a campaign trick that only works if you don’t, you know, completely suck at covering it up afterward, and the DeSantis campaign has been leaking to so many reporters so often that you can only assume a good chunk of his staff is nursing a serious grudge.
[…] The most prominent name behind the 4chan-style videos, however? Christina Pushaw. Pushaw is the always-online, meme-infected conspiracy theorist who acts as DeSantis’ main defender, an aide and professional shitposter who regularly causes scandal and who has promoted memes from neo-Nazi circles before.
[…] It is more surprising that the campaign is still self-aware enough to know the videos had to be laundered through a third party. After DeSantis nominated an actual anti-vaxx, anti-mask crank as his state’s top public health official, you’d think that all attempts at subtlety had long been wrung out of him and his aides.
[…] DeSantis was an unremarkable backbencher during his stint as a House Republican, following the party line to the point of dullness. He won his current governorship by sucking up to Donald Trump […] He’s now gone so far right that the only way his campaign can top that is to go full Online Nazi, so … that’s what they did.
Federal authorities have launched an international manhunt for a Georgia everyman-turned-fugitive who is being sought for an alleged scheme that redirected more than $30 million from Christian charities meant to be spent on Bible distribution in China.
According to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, 45-year-old Jason Gerald Shenk took more than $33 million in donations from charities and individuals—money that he allegedly promised to use for producing and distributing Bibles and Christian literature—and spent it on a slew of expensive personal purchases.
Shenk allegedly spent about $1 million on diamonds and precious metals, $7 million on his family farm, $320,000 on real estate in Chile, $4 million on 16 life insurance policies, $850,000 on shares of a private U.S. nuclear company, $820,000 on credit card payments and $1 million deposited in an online sports betting site—which was subsequently shut down for fraudulent activity.
He also went to great lengths to cover his tracks, the indictment claims. Shenk allegedly directed the funds to a variety of shell corporations that had bank accounts stationed around the globe to “conceal the nature of the transactions.”
He even sent completely fabricated spreadsheets—containing phony statistics about how many Bibles were distributed to different Chinese provinces—to the charities he was scamming, according to the indictment…
Shenk’s efforts allegedly kept the elaborate scheme afloat for nearly a decade. Prosecutors say it may have started as early as April 2010, running all the way until July 2019…
A federal grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election has voted to indict the former president, according to a court document.
Smith has been looking into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, including the deadly 6 January 2021 riot in which his supporters overran the Capitol building in Washington DC.
Trump is already facing criminal charges in Florida for illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency, and prosecution in New York for a hush-money payment to an adult movie star. He is also expected to face state charges in Georgia over Trump’s efforts there to reverse his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election.
Trump currently leads in polling for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination by a wide margin.
Donald Trump has been indicted on four counts involved with trying to overturn the 2020 election by special counsel Jack Smith.
The former president faces the charges:
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
Conspiracy Against Rights
The indictment lists six co-conspirators but does not name them: four attorneys, a justice department official and a political consultant.
Donald Trump has been informed he has been indicted by a federal grand jury regarding the special counsel’s probe into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources with direct knowledge have told ABC News.
More than 70 years after doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge, a lawyer for her descendants said they have reached a settlement with a biotechnology company that they accused of reaping billions of dollars from a racist medical system.
Tissue taken from the Black woman’s tumor before she died of cervical cancer became the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishes. HeLa cells went on to become a cornerstone of modern medicine, enabling countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines.
Despite that incalculable impact, the Lacks family had never been compensated…
The indictment lists six co-conspirators but does not name them. They are:
Co-Conspirator 1: An attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not.
Co-Conspirator 2: An attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.
Co-Conspirator 3: An attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.
Co-Conspirator 4: A Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.
Co-Conspirator 5: An attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.
Co-Conspirator 6: A political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins writes that the co-conspirator 1 will likely be Rudy Giuliani, who served as Trump’s attorney at the time in the wake of his 2020 presidential election loss.
Politico’s Kyle Cheney writes that the second co-conspirator appears to be John Eastman, who was in the vanguard of lawyers plotting schemes involving “fake electors” and other ploys to help Trump thwart Joe Biden’s win in 2020.
Jack Smith just gave a short public statement. He didn’t take any questions.
Guardian liveblog:
The Trump case has been assigned to US district judge Tanya S Chutkan, according to the court docket.
Chutkan, an Obama appointee, is the only federal judge in Washington who has sentenced January 6 defendants to sentences longer than the government had requested, according to NBC.
Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis took aim at Washington jurors following the historic third indictment against former President Trump, calling the capital city a “swamp.”
Trump on Tuesday was indicted by a Washington grand jury on charges of four counts stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The charges against Trump are the most serious to ever be brought against a former U.S. president.
DeSantis slammed the outcome of the indictment in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the news broke.
“While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment,” DeSantis wrote. “I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts.” [Now, I am not a lawyer, but aren’t trials for major crimes normally held in the same district that the crime occurred? Of course, some of the rioters who tried to overthrow the government of the United States have been tried outside of Washington, DC. How does that work?]
He added, “Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality.”[That, by the by, is definitely racist as hell]
The indictment proves the government has been weaponized, DeSantis claimed. [Yeah. From 2017 to 2021, it was. Since then, it is being depoliticized.]
“One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses—I will end the weaponization of the federal government.” [No, you fucking idiot. Our country is in decline because anyone on the right wing thinks they are above the law. And the police and, sometimes the courts, agree.]
The four charges laid out in the 45-page indictment from special counsel Jack Smith are conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the indictment states.
Trump will make his first court appearance in the case Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will oversee the case, according to the docket of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia.
More than 250 Europeans were evacuated from the West African nation of Niger on Tuesday on a plane sent by France, nearly a week after a coup threatened to set off a regional conflict. The evacuations came less than a day after two neighboring states, Burkina Faso and Mali, said that they would join forces to defend Niger’s new military junta if a bloc of other regional countries carried through on a threat to intervene unless the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, was returned to office.
An increase in the number of COVID-19 cases from the past few weeks could be indicative of a slight summer COVID-19 wave in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hospital admissions, test positivity rates, and emergency department visits by people who have contracted the virus have all seen a national uptick since mid-July, though numbers remain relatively low.
[…] CDC data shows that hospital admissions related to COVID-19 had risen by 10.3% from July 9 to July 15, amounting to an increase of more than 7,000 hospitalizations across the U.S. The percentage of people diagnosed with the virus after an emergency room visit also rose over the past few weeks from around 0.5% in mid-to-late June to 0.78% on July 24th.
Deaths due to COVID-19 remain around the same. Data from the last three weeks are still being updated, but the week of July 1 saw 494 COVID-related deaths, compared to the week of June 24 at 549.
But overall, charts tracking this information show that this summer’s current data is still on the lower end of the most recent surge, which happened this winter. […]
The Inflation Reduction Act is spurring manufacturers to return to the US in droves, the chief executive officer of US Steel Corp. said. ‘This is the most amazing thing we’ve seen in the United States for a very long time,’ David Burritt said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “It’s a Manufacturing Renaissance Act.”
While the indictment does not identify them by name, there are six co-conspirators whose roles and alleged actions in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election are described in detail. While none of the identities have been officially confirmed, it is not difficult to identify who may be who based on the indictment’s descriptions, at least for five of the six.
Co-conspirator 1 is almost certainly Rudy Giuliani.
The indictment describes co-conspirator 1 as a lawyer “who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not,” and later identifies “co-conspirator 1” as the person Trump announced “would spearhead his efforts going forward to challenge the election results” in the days immediately after the November 2020 election. Both of those details match what we knew of Giuliani’s role at the time.
Co-conspirator 2 smells a lot like John Eastman.
The indictment’s description of the second co-conspirator: an “attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.” It also alleges that this person sent around a “two-page memorandum” that outlined this plan to Trump allies. This lines up with what we know about Eastman’s scheme as he attempted to push a plan that involved pressuring then-VP Pence to not certify the election on Jan. 6 and creating slates of pro-Trump electors in states that President Biden had actually won.
Co-conspirator 3 is likely “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell.
Like the others, the indictment’s description alone nearly gets us there: “an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy.’ Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.” Further down co-conspirator 3 is also alleged to have filed a lawsuit against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp “falsely alleging ‘massive election fraud’ accomplished through the voting machine company’s election software and hardware” that was dismissed on Dec. 7 that year. Powell is the person who filed that lawsuit.
Co-conspirator 4 matches Jeffrey Clark almost exactly.
Again, a “Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud” doesn’t leave much room for questions. Clark was, of course, the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the time. The indictment also mentions further down that Trump offered co-conspirator 4 the job as acting attorney general, but reversed course when DOJ officials told him they’d resign if that happened. Multiple witnesses confirmed this series of events during the Jan. 6 committee hearings.
Co-conspirator 5 matches TPM’s reporting on Kenneth Chesebro.
TPM’s Josh Kovensky is the only reporter whom Chesebro has granted an interview since it was reported in early 2022 that he was the author of the “Wisconsin Memo,” a scheme which argued that electors loyal to Trump could cast votes on Jan. 6 to “preserve” the slate in case Trump’s lawsuits challenging the results in certain states ended up being successful. The indictment identifies the author of the “Wisconsin Memo” as co-conspirator 5 and also describes the person as an “an attorney who was assisting the Defendant’s Campaign with legal efforts related to a recount in Wisconsin.” This all matches what we know of Chesebro and his role in proposing a plan to submit fake slates of presidential electors.
Co-conspirator 6 is a toss up.
This person is described as a “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding” in the indictment. This could be a number of people. Further down the indictment alleges that this person assisted co-conspirator 1 in putting together a list of pro-Trump lawyers in key states where the Trump campaign was trying to challenge the election results.
This person also allegedly participated in a phone call with some of the Trump electors in Pennsylvania on Dec. 12, according to the indictment. They also “attempted to confirm phone numbers” for a handful of senators on the day of the insurrection “whom the Defendant had directed Co-Conspirator 1 to call and attempt to enlist in further delaying the certification.”
Trump Responds To Latest Indictment With Merch And Scammy Fundraising Tactics
[…] Trump is responding to being indicted for his efforts to reverse his loss in the last election by trying to raise money to win the next one. Hours after he was indicted by special counsel Jack Smith, Trump’s campaign sent out a pair of fundraising emails.
In the first, Trump directly addressed supporters. He reiterated his past claims that he has committed “no crime” and that the investigations into his conduct are “Election Interference” before resorting to a fundraising tactic that has drawn legal scrutiny and been criticized as a “scam.”
“Please make a contribution to show that you will NEVER SURRENDER our country to tyranny as the Deep State thugs try to JAIL me for life – for 1,500% impact,” Trump wrote in the message.
Due to strict limits on political donations, extravagant promises to match contributions are almost completely unfeasible. Despite this, campaigns do deploy the tactic and Trump has become known for the technique.
Even after the violence at the Capitol ended, Smith said, Trump continued to try to persuade senators to keep him in power.
Per Smith, Trump “attempted to reach two United States Senators at 6:00 pm.” That was just as law enforcement finished clearing the Capitol building of Trump’s supporters.
Smith also said that a co-conspirator matching Mike Roman’s description “attempted to confirm phone numbers for six United States Senators whom the Defendant had directed” Giuliani to call in a bid to persuade them to delay Biden’s certification.
Trump Lawyers Used ‘Pretextual’ Lawsuits To Help Further Their Plot, Smith Says
Since January 6, one of the key defenses from Trump’s legal team has been that they were simply addressing a dispute in the election.
If you don’t believe that the election was legitimately in dispute, they’ve said, just look at all the litigation. The fake electors, the thinking goes, weren’t participants in a criminal act; they were needed to ensure that the Trump campaign kept its options open in the event that the dispute was resolved on terms unfavorable to Biden.
It’s like a cartoon version of how attorneys think, and Smith assailed it repeatedly in the indictment as a “pretext” to keep a criminal scheme alive.
In one instance, Smith wrote that co-conspirator five — who closely matches the description of attorney Ken Chesebro — suggested that an Arizona attorney for Trump “file a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court as a pretext to claim that litigation was pending in the state” so that the state’s fake electors could cast their ballots.
Chesebro purportedly said that a person matching Rudy Giuliani’s description had heard from a state official that “it could appear treasonous for the AZ electors to vote on Monday if there is no pending court proceeding.”
Later, Smith wrote that the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit to reverse the New Mexico result at 11:54 a.m. on Dec. 14 — “six minutes before the noon deadline for the electors’ votes,” which Smith again described as a “pretext” for pending litigation as the fake electors voted.
A couple of days ago, I noted Russian reports that they had counterattacked the village of Staromaiorske, which was liberated by Ukraine just a few days prior. The news was excitedly spread far and wide among Russian media and their English-language enablers on Twitter and Telegram. Yet a few days later, Ukraine’s hold on the settlement wasn’t just secure—it didn’t even seem to have been threatened much.
Today, the pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel Deep State mocked the Russian effort by sharing video that proved yes, Russia did attempt a counterattack, but the soldiers in the video were fleeing away from the front line. [Tweet and video at the link]
Whatever attack Russia had mustered, it failed. In the end, a number of Russians lost their lives for a clumsy propaganda effort. And that’s what this war has proven: The country that used Facebook propaganda so effectively to impact the 2020 U.S. presidential election actually really sucks at it.
This isn’t a new topic for me. And I’ll admit upfront: Nothing is as hilariously inept as the effort to invent a failed assassination attempt against Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. Remember that one? [Tweet and image at the link]
An intelligence officer was asked to plant three cell phone SIM cards into the pile of “evidence,” and the dumbass literally found three copies of the video game “The SIMS” instead.
And that wasn’t all. The agent was supposed to sign a Nazi card, but with an illegible scrawl. So he signed the postcard “signature illegible.” The pictures of Molotov cocktails they offered up? They were in plastic bottles. I mean, the whole thing was beyond hilarious. And not one supervisor caught those mistakes.
Nothing will ever top that epic fail. Regardless, Russia proves every single day that they really suck at this propaganda game.
Those of you following the war closely have likely heard that Ukraine hit the same building in downtown Moscow twice, on successive days. [Tweet and video at the link]
The building houses several Russian government offices, including Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, which certainly sounds like a propaganda operation.
After the first night’s strike, Russia claimed that the drone attack was “thwarted,” that “one Ukrainian UAV was destroyed in the air by air defense systems,” and “two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare, and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow City non-residential building complex.”
That claim was … plausible, for sure. It certainly seemed weird for Ukraine to target a commercial building, and there was no way to tell if the targeted floor actually housed that propaganda ministry.
Then the next night, Ukraine hit the same building, in the same location. And what did Russia say? They claimed that Ukraine attacked Moscow with three drones, two of them shot down by air defenses, and one of them “suppressed” by electronic warfare causing it to lose control and … crash into the exact same location as the drone that last control the previous night.
At that point, we could come to several conclusions:
– Ukraine can precision target locations in Moscow, hundreds of kilometers away from the front lines, and there’s not much Moscow can do about it.
– Where are Russia’s air defenses? Ukraine seems to be able to knock down similar Iranian-made drones, despite facing dozens at a time. (To be fair, we have seen videos of drones Russia claimed to have shot down, just not in these two cases.)
– Someone in Ukraine has a sense of humor. Seeing Russian claims after the first night, they found the perfect way to expose the lies.
Next up, Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov’s boys are up to their old TikTok ways, playing pretend warrior for the cameras: [Tweet and video at the link]
The first tip is just how pristine that field is. We’ve all become accustomed to the moonscaped, shell-scarred vistas of eastern Ukraine. It’s totally adorable how they pretend. And of course, the geolocators came in and pinpointed where these buffoons were playing war: Belgorod oblast, Russia, 2 kilometers from the border.
Remember when those Free Russia guys were conducting cross-border raids into Russia right before the Wagner coup attempt? Kadyrov volunteered to “protect” that border. I guess they’ve been sitting up there, bored.
To be fair, we have seen at least one Kadyrovite unit getting their asses beat around Bakhmut. So they’re not all playing at war. But those guys aren’t making bullshit TikTok videos to try and impress people back home.
Let’s now go to Vladimir Putin. We saw this one a couple of days ago, but it’s a good one: [Tweet and video at the link] “We were asked to withdraw the troops from Kyiv in order to create conditions for concluding peace,” he told visiting African leaders.
Who asked Russia to do this? Why did Russia comply? What was this magical-pony peace plan that hadn’t been mentioned before until this moment? This entire sentence is patently ludicrous. But therein lies an important truth: Russia’s propaganda isn’t geared toward an external audience, which can easily see through most of it. It is designed first and foremost for internal consumption. Putin and his regime need to keep his people passive and under control, and feeding them sweet nothings goes a long way toward that goal.
[Tweet from Ted Lieu]
It is a fallacy and shows weakness that some officials in the US/NATO say we need to give Putin an off-ramp. We do not. Putin controls the media in Russia and can make up whatever he needs</b.. See below. [the video in which Putin claims he withdrew troops from Kyiv in order to create conditions for peace.] The way to get to an off-ramp is to humiliate Putin and defeat his forces.
Rep. Ted Lieu is right. “It is a fallacy and shows weakness that some officials in the US/NATO say we need to give Putin an off-ramp. We do not. Putin controls the media in Russia and can make up whatever he needs,” he said.
We don’t need to give Putin anything. He can feed his domestic audience whatever bullshit nonsense he wants, at any time. It’s the kind of unfettered media control Donald Trump wishes he had.
A humiliating battlefield loss is the only way Russia is ever leaving Ukraine. What Putin says about it afterward to his people is none of our concern.
Reactions to the most recent indictments of Trump:
“Donald Trump spent his entire lifetime fucking around and he’s about to find out. I’d like to think that in some small way I played a part in all this.”– Mike Fanone
Mike Pence statement: “Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States…Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any one man’s career.”
Jay Willis:
If Ginni Thomas gets indicted my soul will spontaneously leave my body and ascend to a higher plane of existence
Juan Williams on Fox News:
“At this point, it’s hard to separate yourself as a Republican from being a Trump supporter and defender”
The indictment really is just full of little details that show Trump’s contempt for both truth and law.
“On January 1, the Defendant called the Vice President and berated him because he had learned that the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the Vice President had the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution. The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the Defendant told the Vice President, ‘You’re too honest.’”
[…] “The Deputy White House Counsel reiterated to Co-Conspirator 4 that there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that if the Defendant remained in office nonetheless, there would be ‘riots in every major city in the United States.’ Co-Conspirator 4 responded, ‘Well, [Deputy White House Counsel], that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.’”
In a brief press statement, special counsel Jack Smith calls the Jan. 6 coup attempt “an unprecedented assault on the seat of democracy” that was “fueled by lies.” He says his office will seek a “speedy trial.”
Much of the indictment consists of specific, separate incidences in which Trump and his co-conspirators knowingly and repeatedly made false public statements in an attempt to convince the public the election results were illegitimate—a litany of lies that would also be used as the pretext for assembling fake electoral slates to be presented to Congress as fraudulent “alternatives to the legitimate slates.”
[…] From the indictment: “After it became public on the afternoon of January 6 that the Vice President would not fraudulently alter the election results, a large and angry crowd—including many individuals whom the Defendant had deceived into believing the Vice President could and might change the election results—violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding. As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”
From the indictment: “The Defendant, Donald J. Trump, did knowingly combine conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to defraud the United States.”
“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those collected, counted, and certified.” […]
Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt on Tuesday sharply rebuked former President Trump’s campaign for likening his most recent indictment to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
“Comparing this indictment to Nazi Germany in the 1930s is factually incorrect, completely inappropriate and flat out offensive. […]” Greenblatt posted Tuesday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Greenblatt was responding to a statement from Trump’s campaign, which called the indictment “election interference” and compared the indictment to authoritarian regimes, including Nazi Germany.
“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the campaign posted to Truth Social. [snipped more bullshit, including a prediction that Trump will win]
Vice President Harris on Tuesday fired back after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered to discuss his state’s African American history standards following Florida’s approval of controversial new rules for teaching the subject.
“Right here in Florida, they plan to teach students that enslaved people benefited from slavery. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates, and now they attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated roundtable,” Harris said in remarks at the Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention.
“Well, I’m here in Florida and I will tell you, there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: There were no redeeming qualities of slavery,” she added.
[…] How hard is Fox News coping right now? They’re desperately speculating that MAAAAAAYBE discovery in this case will give Donald Trump a chance to FINNALLLLLLY prove the election was stolen.
Oh. My. God.
Anyway, we’re gonna read this indictment now, you should do the same […]
Reading through Donald Trump’s indictment for alleged election interference offers a “chilling tale” for Americans who were almost defrauded by their own leader, according to a former FBI official.
Former FBI assistant director for counter-intelligence Frank Figliuzzi said on Tuesday evening that American citizens were extremely close to having their civil right to a free and fair election taken from them. Figliuzzi appeared on MSNBC after Jack Smith formally charged the former president with his role in the purported conspiracies to steal the election from Joe Biden.
Asked what he sees in the 45-page indictment, Figliuzzi said, “I see a chilling tale of how close we came, all of us, to literally being the defrauded of our civil rights, our right to a free and fair election.” [emphasis mine]
He continued with a warning to citizens who might be listening:
“If you’re listening to the show, watching the show, and you’re an American citizen, you were almost defrauded by the president of the United States, who tried to steal an election from us,” he said.
He went on to say that Smith intelligently charged Jan. 6 offences without directly challenging Trump’s freedom of speech.
quotetheunquotesays
@KG #58
Hey, diamond mine and casino owners have to eat too, you know!!! /sn
[…] the candidates who have so far qualified to appear in the first debate — to be held Aug. 23 in Milwaukee — are former President Donald Trump, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have so far met the polling threshold for the first debate, but not the fundraising threshold.
The media partner for the second debate has not yet been announced. The first debate will be broadcast on Fox News Channel.
For months, as congressional Republicans advanced their latest debt ceiling crisis, much of the political and financial world warned GOP leaders that their dangerous gambit risked a series of adverse consequences, including the possibility of a debt downgrade. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ignored the warnings and proceeded with the scheme anyway.
In early June, Fitch Ratings pointed to the “repeated political standoffs around the debt limit” as factors that “lower confidence” in U.S. governance. Evidently, the agency wasn’t kidding. NBC News reported:
Fitch downgraded its credit rating for the U.S. government, from AAA to AA+, two months after the debt-ceiling crisis was resolved. “In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters,” the rating agency said Tuesday. Fitch said the U.S. appeared to suffer from an “erosion of governance,” pointing to the Washington brinkmanship over the debt ceiling as an example.
If these circumstances sound at all familiar, it’s not your imagination: Exactly 12 years ago this week, a rival credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, also downgraded U.S. debt in response to the original Republican debt ceiling crisis.
As a practical matter, it’s probably best not to overreact to these latest developments. The 2011 downgrade did not do dramatic harm to the domestic economy, though it did push Wall Street lower and made it more difficult for consumers to get auto loans and mortgages.
[…] Republican officials have tried to argue that they’re not to blame for what happened, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a written statement that read, “The downgrade by Fitch shows that House Republicans’ reckless brinksmanship and flirtation with default has negative consequences for the country.” The New York Democrat added, “Republicans need to learn from their mistakes and never push our country to the brink of default again.”
Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, added in a statement of his own, “Fitch’s decision to downgrade rests on the shoulders of Speaker McCarthy and the extreme MAGA Republicans who openly rooted for default.”
So, which side of the political divide is right? This isn’t a close call.
– Republicans were told they’d likely force a downgrade if they proceeded with their debt ceiling crisis.
– Republicans proceeded with their debt ceiling crisis.
– It led to a downgrade.
For good measure, officials from Fitch reportedly told Biden administration officials that the Jan. 6 attack contributed to the agency’s concerns about the future of American governance.
I can appreciate why GOP leaders want to avoid responsibility for this, but Democrats aren’t the ones who keep creating debt ceilings, and it wasn’t President Joe Biden who launched the Jan. 6 crisis.
The mystery surrounding who’s to blame for the downgrade isn’t a mystery at all.
What makes the indictment against Donald J. Trump on Tuesday so breathtaking is not that it is the first time a president has been charged with a crime or even the second. Mr. Trump already holds those records. But as serious as hush money and classified documents may be, this third indictment in four months gets to the heart of the matter, the issue that will define the future of American democracy. At the core of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump is no less than the viability of the system constructed during that summer in Philadelphia. Can a sitting president spread lies about an election and try to employ the authority of the government to overturn the will of the voters without consequence?
Commentary:
[…] as Rachel Maddow explained on the air last night, Trump allegedly led “multiple criminal conspiracies to try to hold power by force after he was voted out of office by the people.”
A Washington Post analysis added, “This indictment makes the case that was Trump trying to dismantle democracy. This was Trump trying to orchestrate a mechanism through which he got to keep flying around on Air Force One, whatever the costs to the country. This particular U.S. v. Trump is, more so than the other indictment obtained by special counsel Jack Smith, very much about Trump vs. the U.S.”
[…] Garrett M. Graff noted just hours after the latest indictment was unsealed, “As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did — and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged — approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy.”
[…] Yes, Trump has been indicted before, and yes, he’s likely to be indicted again. But if there’s a temptation to simply lump these alleged felonies in with the other crimes the Republican has been accused of, or see this as just another data point on a timeline, that would be a mistake.
The prospect of holding the former president accountable for launching an unjustified attack targeting the foundations of our democracy makes this different and more important than any case of its kind.
[…] Republicans had plenty to say as the public learned of Trump’s latest indictment — about the Democratic president’s son, about their increasingly overt disdain for federal law enforcement, about congressional investigations they like to pretend are going well, etc. — but not about the specific allegations the former president is facing.
The same thing happened last week, when the special counsel’s office filed a superseding indictment in Trump’s classified documents scandal, and prominent Republican lawmakers responded with a defense that failed to include a defense. In fact, GOP reactions seemed to touch on everything but the allegations themselves.
It’s not that Trump’s Republican toadies read the indictment, assessed the merits, reviewed the details, and came away unpersuaded. On the contrary, there’s little to suggest GOP leaders and their members bothered to examine the indictment at all.
[…] For too much of the party, the evidence is simply irrelevant. These Republicans haven’t made the case for Trump’s innocence, so much as they’ve effectively said they don’t care whether he’s guilty. […]
Here’s a random update on Russia’s ongoing effort to scrape up more men to serve as cannon fodder in Ukraine. I’ve lately seen some relevant bits and pieces in several news stories by the Finnish national broadcaster Yle.
Since July 11, Russia has reportedly revoked the driving licenses of men who are dodging the draft after receiving draft notices, including those living abroad. It remains unclear whether other countries will try to enforce this outside of Russia, and what the legal responsibilities are. Nowadays the draft notices can be delivered electronically (as opposed to in person), even abroad, though Russians who live permanently abroad are supposedly not eligible for draft. Information connections between Russia and other countries can be unreliable, which complicates the legalities.
Russian parliament is processing a change in the law concerning regular conscription, so that from 2024 on, young men up to age 30 (as opposed to 27 currently) will be sought to perform their mandatory conscript service. However, it is not obvious to me that this will significantly increase the total number of men who perform the conscript service and thus become reserve. In Finland, if you’re approaching the upper age limit for conscript service and haven’t done the service yet, the authorities will actively drag you out, regardless of what the actual age limit is. If Russia doesn’t have enough bureaucratic efficiency for this, adjusting the age limit probably won’t help.
That article also mentions that draft/conscription dodgers will be formally banned from leaving the country. At Yle, I’ve seen informal speculation that Russia might soon forbid any military age men from leaving the country.
Also from the Guardian article:
In 2022, Russia announced a plan to boost its professional and conscripted combat personnel by more than 30% to 1.5 million, an ambitious task made harder by its heavy but undisclosed casualties in Ukraine. In September, tens of thousands of men fled Russia last autumn after Putin announced a mobilisation of 300,000 reservists to prop up Moscow’s forces in Ukraine.
As has been noted before, career military service was already unpopular in Russia before 2022, reserved mainly for the economically destitute, while many men from more privileged backgrounds found ways to skip even the mandatory conscript service. Now, of course, there’s also newfound public awareness that being a soldier for Russia might very well get you dragged into some endless, pointless war and possibly killed while you’re there.
In April, Russian lawmakers adopted a law creating a digital conscription notice system. It allowed call-up papers to be served online instead of in person, greatly facilitating the mobilisation of Russians into the army.
Compulsory military service has long been a sensitive issue in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being handed conscription papers during the twice-yearly call-up periods.
Also:
Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were in theory exempted from the September mobilisation – although some conscripts were sent to the front in error.
However, Russia unilaterally claimed four Ukrainian regions as its own last September, in a move not recognised internationally, fuelling fears that raw conscripts could now legally be sent into battle.
I had this impression that also drafted reservists (in addition to conscripts, and as opposed to career soldiers) cannot be legally sent to fight abroad. This would explain why Russia staged the annexation of practically all occupied areas in Ukraine last year, at the same time when the mobilization of the reserve began.
in Finland, a modest number (some hundreds) of Russians have sought asylum on the basis of draft since last September. These include a few deserted career soldiers. In addition, a few hundred draft dodgers are estimated to be in Finland illegally, while others have moved from Finland farther west. Much larger numbers of Russians have gone to Central Asia and Caucasus. The asylum applications in Finland are currently on hold, as the Finnish authorities are waiting for a common EU asylum policy for Russian draft dodgers.
The cruelest blow to Donald Trump in the Jan. 6 indictment comes in paragraph 1: “The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.”
It’s the singular predicate fact upon which everything else rests, and it was refreshing to see it stated with clarity and simplicity.
[…] The Quote Of The Indictment
A version of this quote (or a similar one) first appeared in a Washington Post story a month ago attributed to Jason Miller. It was high quality enough to merit inclusion in the indictment, though the “Senior Campaign Advisor” remains unnamed (emphasis mine):
When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases. I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership. –Senior advisor to the Trump 2020 campaign
[…] The Weird Role Of The White House Counsel
Books will be written on the extraordinary role and odd position that the White House counsel’s office found itself in during the Trump presidency, but none more awkward than when the occupant of the White House was directing a coup attempt. A few standout examples from the indictment:
– Deputy White House counsel to Trump in December 2020: “[T]here is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House [o]n January 20th.” The deputy White House counsel is not named in the indictment but at the time it was Patrick Philbin.
– On the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, “the White House Counsel called [Trump] to ask him to withdraw any objections and allow the certification. [Trump] refused.” The White House counsel is not named in the indictment but at the time it was Pat Cipollone.
– Trump “deliberately excluded his White House Counsel from the [Jan. 4] meeting because the White House Counsel previously had pushed back on [Trump’s] false claims of election fraud.”
Jeff Clark Allegedly Said The Quiet Part Out Loud
BIG Jeff CLARK details: Trump gave him the acting AG job on Jan. 3.
Deputy White House Counsel Pat PHILBIN told Clark that any effort to remain in power would cause “riots in every major city.”
Clark replied, “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”
Extremely Damning
[…] We knew that the [coup attempt] continued late into the evening of Jan. 6, even after the riot at the Capitol and been brought under control and Congress reconvened to complete the certification of the Electoral College vote. But the indictment puts more meat on that bone, and it is striking how much clearer it is now that the violence had created the exact kind of disruption that the coup plotters wanted to help delay the certification and buy them time to create more doubt in the minds of members of Congress so that the whole “mess” they created could get kicked back to state legislatures in key swing states.
[…]
[…] In order to get the fake electors conspiracy moving, key players in it had to lie, Smith said. In one instance, that included RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who allegedly falsely heard from John Eastman that the fake electors were only to be used if the Trump campaign won a lawsuit challenging a state’s results. In another instance, Giuliani allegedly told Pennsylvania fake electors on a conference call that the certificates they signed would only be used if the courts agreed to overturn state election results.
Even The Campaign Got Cold Feet About The Fake Electors Scheme
At the same time, Smith alleged, Trump campaign officials refused to put out a statement supporting the electors. In one group text cited by Smith, a deputy campaign manager wrote about the scheme that “the way this has morphed it’s a crazy play so I don’t know who wants to put their name on it,” to which a senior advisor purportedly replied: “certifying illegal votes.” The group, which also included an unnamed campaign staffer, refused to issue a statement about the fake electors with their names attributed.
Trump’s Lawyers Got Direct With Him
Smith cited many instances in which attorneys for Trump told him directly that he had lost the election. But the most direct came from Pat Philbin, who allegedly told the President in December 2020 that “there is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House [o]n January 20th.”
A Look Inside The White House Mid-Riot
Prosecutors cited numerous conversations in the White House on January 6. That included an alleged refusal from Trump to “approve a message directing rioters to leave the Capitol,” as urged by Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Deputy White House Counsel Pat Philbin, and others. Instead, Smith wrote, Trump tweeted twice that “the crowd at the Capitol was being peaceful.” […]
Good to emphasize: “I had this impression that also drafted reservists (in addition to conscripts, and as opposed to career soldiers) cannot be legally sent to fight abroad. This would explain why Russia staged the annexation of practically all occupied areas in Ukraine last year, at the same time when the mobilization of the reserve began.”
“The asylum applications in Finland are currently on hold, as the Finnish authorities are waiting for a common EU asylum policy for Russian draft dodgers.” It’s interesting to note that the EU now needs to establish a policy for handling Russian draft dodgers.
You’re a presidential candidate. The leading candidate in the race, the guy you have to dethrone to get anywhere, has just been indicted on federal criminal charges. How do you respond?
If your answer is any of the following:
A) Cite the completely unrelated legal troubles of the current president’s son as if they’re relevant.
B) Refer to the alleged “weaponization” of the federal government.
C) Call for criminal defendants to be able to move their court cases from the location where the alleged crimes were committed if that location happens to be Washington, D.C.
D) I’m suing the Justice Department.
Then congratulations, you’re ready to be a Republican presidential candidate!
[…] “Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any one man’s career,” Pence said. “On January 6th, Former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will.”
That’s all well and good, but as a direct witness to Trump’s crimes and as the intended victim of the mob Trump incited to attack the Capitol, Pence should have a lot more to say. Saying, as Pence did, that Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence is just plain weird when he knows, very personally, that Trump is not innocent.
And Pence couldn’t bring himself to be critical of Trump and Trump alone on the occasion of Trump’s indictment. He just had to throw in, “As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden’s disastrous economic policies afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter.” I mean … what? What is that “as Americans” even doing in that sentence? And the definitive reference to “the pattern of corruption with Hunter” is pretty rich given how lacking the evidence of said pattern of corruption is, and that this entirely irrelevant aside comes right after Trump deserving the presumption of innocence in Pence’s statement.
If Pence, as witness and intended victim, should have sterner words about the charges, other candidates have their own incentives to use this against Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a distant second in the race with big ambitions. He has the most to gain from Trump running into problems, but he doesn’t have the nerve to go for it.
“As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans,” DeSantis tweeted. So he kicked it off with the Republican “weaponization of government” talking point, itself a projection onto Democrats of what Trump tried to do and other Republicans would be happy to run with. Then he pledged to replace an FBI director originally appointed by Trump, and then said the opposite of what he’s looking to do. He doesn’t want a single standard of justice for all Americans! This whole statement is in opposition to Trump facing the standard that applies to regular people.
DeSantis continued, “While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment. I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts.” People are tried where their crimes are committed. That’s why Trump is being tried in Florida for keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing the federal government’s efforts to reclaim them, as well as being tried in Washington, D.C., for crimes he committed there. DeSantis is a lawyer and he knows this is absolute dishonest nonsense, but he had to say something suggesting that Trump was a victim here.
[…] Sen. Tim Scott, the guy who’s hoping DeSantis will crash and burn (or, really, continue crashing and burning) so he can have a shot at being the second-place guy who hopes Trump will crash and burn took a somewhat similar approach. “I remain concerned about the weaponization of Biden’s DOJ and its immense power used against political opponents,” he tweeted. “What we see today are two different tracks of justice. One for political opponents and another for the son of the current president.” This is, again, total nonsense, code for “crimes by Republicans should never be investigated,” and a projection onto Democrats of Trump’s constant desire to “lock up” his political opponents, with the mandatory reference to “Hunter Biden,” a name that’s become a code word for a long list of Republican conspiracy theories.
[…] To be sure, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, both in the race as critics of Donald Trump, had stern words about the indictment. Hutchinson, polling at 0.7%, renewed his call for Trump to drop out. Christie, currently polling at 1.6%, tweeted, “The events around the White House from election night forward are a stain on our country’s history & a disgrace to the people who participated. This disgrace falls the most on Donald Trump. He swore an oath to the Constitution, violated his oath & brought shame to his presidency.”
But Christie and Hutchinson are there to make exactly that type of statement. They don’t think they’re winning even if Trump collapses as a candidate. The people who hope to win, or who hope to be vice president or top administration officials if Trump gets back in the White House? They cannot be honest about the real basis for this indictment. And if they can’t quite bring themselves to say he’s innocent, well, they can always distract by attacking Hunter Biden. Once again, the responses to something involving Donald Trump show that the vast majority of Republican elected officials range from gutless cowards to people willing to embrace Trump-style authoritarianism because they think it might benefit themselves or their party.
[…] Under the scheme Trump is now charged with, 81 million Americans would have had their votes for the highest elected office in this land rendered meaningless, effectively erased, as if they’d never existed. […] all crudely and unilaterally disregarded and trashed. Had Trump succeeded in this plan, half the voting nation would have experienced the absolute foundation of their own citizenship snatched away from them in one single, tyrannical power grab […]
That would have led to massive protests in the street […] as special counsel Jack Smith’s Tuesday indictment shows, Trump was prepared to respond to those anticipated protests by calling out the military to quell them.
As he plotted his coup, Trump knew he needed the assistance of the Justice Department to at least paint a thin veneer of legality over what he was contemplating. The fact that he weighed elevating a nobody like Jeffrey Clark (clearly referenced as “Co-Conspirator 4” in Smith’s indictment) to the post of acting attorney general showed that Trump knew he would face almost total opposition from the Department of Justice.
Clark, recommended to Trump by Republican Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, was the solution to that problem. As explained by Tim Dickinson analyzing the indictment for Rolling Stone, Clark was nothing if not a compliant toady, brimming with ideas on how to handle the inevitable and violent fallout from Trump’s coup:
In a meeting that same afternoon [Jan. 3, 2021] Co-Conspirator 4 allegedly had a discussion with a Deputy White House Counsel, who had previously told Trump directly that there was no hope of overturning the 2020 election and that, “there is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House” on Jan 20, 2021.
This same Deputy White House Counsel now “tried to dissuade” Co-Conspirator 4 from taking the post of Acting Attorney General. The counsel again made clear his conviction that there had not been meaningful fraud in the election. And he warned that there would be “riots in every major city in the United States” if Trump attempted to remain in office, against the will of the electorate.
Co-Conspirator 4 had an answer for the Deputy White House Counsel, the indictment alleges, that was equally disturbing and glib: “Well,” he said, “that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”
As Dickinson explains, the Insurrection Act permits the president to sidestep the general prohibition of employing using the U.S. military within the nation’s borders if deemed necessary to stop an “uprising.” And indeed, Clark’s proposed solution would have been Trump’s only realistic option. There simply aren’t enough Proud Boys or Oath Keepers to combat the righteous fury of 81 million Democratic voters. Trump would need the military to keep order if his plan was to succeed. And if that meant deploying soldiers to confront protesting Biden supporters in the street, that was just fine. In the interim, Trump knew he could rely on the entirety of his supplicant right-wing media juggernaut to try to legitimize his efforts with a hodgepodge of ready-made lies and conspiracy theories.
So Americans should understand the full scope of what Trump was contemplating. It was nothing short of dictatorial rule, using the nation’s armed forces against over half of the nation’s electorate, whom he would have already effectively disenfranchised. It would have been a profound, unspeakable crime against this nation and its people, one far more serious than even the gravest legal language can convey. […]
It is not just North America suffering from suffocating heat waves. It is happening everywhere.
The heatwave situation in Iran is so grim that the government has declared Wednesday and Thursday government holidays due to the “unprecedented heat.” The government’s Ministry of Health has ordered hospitals nationwide to be highly alert. In southern Iran, a temperature reading of 123 F was recorded. Even higher temperatures are likely this week.
Drought and heat have taken a toll over recent years, and the country of 88 million is experiencing power outages and grid failure due to the energy-intensive air conditioning use necessary to keep people alive. [Yikes]
From Reuters:
Iran has announced Wednesday and Thursday this week will be public holidays because of “unprecedented heat” and told the elderly and people with health conditions to stay indoors, Iranian state media reported.
Many cities in southern Iran have already suffered from days of exceptional heat. State media reported temperatures had this week exceeded 51°C in the southern city of Ahvaz.
Government spokesman Ali Bahadori-Jahromi was quoted by state media as saying Wednesday and Thursday would be holidays, while the health ministry said hospitals would be on high alert.
Temperatures are expected to be 39 C in Tehran on Wednesday.
These temperatures with drought in an already water-stressed ecosystem are increasing in frequency and duration. The Middle East Institute reports on the worrying trend that heat is driving seasonal internal migration, which took off after exceptional climate impacts that exacerbated a long-term displacement trend in 2022. At other times it was flash flooding from an increasing number of storms that forced people to leave their homes. An estimated 41,000 in 2021 left due to land degradation, flooding, drought, and sand and dust storms. Climate change will increase quickly, turbocharging the impacts and driving even more to evacuate. NASA has found the country will be uninhabitable by 2050. Considering how quickly the crisis has accelerated in the last few months, it may arrive sooner.
Migrants generally move to areas where climate conditions are better, yet still experience environmental decline. In Sistan and Baluchistan’s Chabahar County, along the Gulf shores in southeastern Iran, an increasing number of people have been forced to move as a result of climate change and now live on the margins of towns. As drought strikes southern Iran, migration to northern parts of the country has become more common as well.
Migration trends are reshaping the country and as some regions become depopulated, this may even have implications for national security. Border areas in particular are essential to maintaining Iran’s territorial integrity and unified geographic structure, but large-scale migration driven by climate and economic factors has left many of them devoid of inhabitants.
People living in Iran’s vast central desert face swirling winds that destroy the surface of the soil, placing stress on the region’s underground water resources and prompting many to migrate either to the Caspian Sea region in the north or the capital. Tehran in particular has been a major magnet for migrants. Over the past two decades the city has added an estimated 200,000-250,000 people per year, and this rapid population growth has resulted in unbalanced urban development, making the capital ever more congested and difficult to live in. According to a city official, Tehran’s population is growing by 1.7% annually and will reach 15 million in two decades’ time. Other figures put the annual increase in the city’s population even higher, at around 600,000, driven largely by internal migration. Statistics released last year suggest nearly two-thirds of Tehran’s population (62%) was born outside the city, while its suburbs are home to a population equivalent to that of 15 other provinces combined.
snip
Iran’s recent experience with drought, the worst in the past five decades, further intensified internal displacement. Water-induced migration is a major challenge for Iran, a country in which 75% of its nearly 88 million people live on less than 40% of its land, mostly in the water-rich areas of the west and in the north. Half a century ago, 60% of Iran’s 30 million people lived in those same areas. Accelerated desertification and deforestation in these regions, along with damaging environmental practices and high water consumption patterns, are stressing underground water resources and potentially causing water bankruptcy on the local level.
In southwestern Iran, including the province of Khuzestan, chronic water shortages are the result of a shift in agricultural patterns toward more water-intensive crops, carried out as part of an effort to achieve food security. This was combined with a ramping up of dam construction and a diversion of water toward industrial projects, including steel plants, in other parts of the country.
The result is climate wars, whether it’s internal or external. There have been skirmishes with Iranians encroaching on Afghan territory for water as crops wilt and die. […]
Special Counsel Jack Smith, in his January 6 indictment, graciously allowed that Donald Trump is free to maintain his identity as a lying scumbag.
The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.
[…] However, Trump wasn’t content with mere speech. He wanted to fraudulently retain the presidency, so he launched conspiracy to defraud the government and disenfranchise millions of American voters. […]
You can believe whatever you wish and lie to anyone who’ll listen, but you can’t act illegally on those false beliefs. Othello’s murder of Desdemona isn’t justified because he believed Iago’s lies. It’s so simple an idiot should understand, which is why Fox News contributor Will Cain declared Tuesday that Jack Smith hath murdered free speech. He wrote:
Free speech has been indicted.[…]
[The indictment] acknowledges that Trump has the right to say, even falsely, the results were fraudulent and claim he won the election. That’s protected by the First Amendment.
But the indictment says he can’t lie about election fraud. So they must prove Trump didn’t believe his speech. And then, I would think, they’d need to indict every politician who lies (need to build more jails) about election results (Clinton, Kerry, Abrams).
The DOJ has criminalized politics. And because, who is to decide the truth, criminalized free speech.
Yes, Cain is a lawyer, but so are (were?) Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis. […]
Dullards like Cain have brought up Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Stacey Abrams, and Al Gore as examples of Democratic politicians “lying” about past election losses. We can debate another time whether those candidates actually lied about anything — Hillary Clinton and Al Gore literally won the popular vote and the Supreme Court did hand the election to George W. Bush — but there’s no debate over whether Gore, Kerry, Clinton, or Abrams tried to actively steal their elections. That never happened. They all conceded, even if somewhat saltily.
Gore was even vice president when Congress met to certify Bush’s Electoral College victory. He didn’t reject Florida’s results or incite an attack on the Capitol.
I won’t share video of Clinton conceding to Trump because I watched that once and it was enough. But it happened. Pantsuit Nation didn’t bludgeon cops and threaten to hang Joe Biden if he didn’t make Clinton president.
Trump’s coup was a sinister plot to overthrow the government and employ violence if necessary (and it would’ve been) to remain in power against the public will. That’s why he was indicted, not just because he would’t keep his lying mouth shut.
The Wall Street Journal, which I won’t claim should know better, expressed similar sentiments as Cain on its editorial page Wednesday.
“This potentially criminalizes many kinds of actions and statements by a President that a prosecutor deems to be false. You don’t have to be a defender of Donald Trump to worry about where this will lead. It makes any future election challenges, however valid, legally vulnerable to a partisan prosecutor.”
This is another constitutionally protected bald-faced lie: Trump’s not being charged for his 62 failed election lawsuits. Smith specifically states in the indictment that Trump “was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures.”
Even worse is this line from the WSJ’s editorial: “There is no evidence tying Mr. Trump to the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys who planned to, and did, breach the U.S. Capitol that day. That was the worst offense against democracy, and more than 1,000 people have been prosecuted in connection with it.”
Putting aside that Trump is the only reason anyone breached the Capitol on January 6, the attack itself wasn’t the “worst offense against democracy.” That was a defeated president attempting to illegally remain in power through lies, fraud, and violence. That’s what makes a nation a banana republic, not the act of prosecuting him for his crimes.
The WSJ tries to avoid the taint of MAGA with its weaselly “You don’t have to be a defender of Donald Trump to worry about where this will lead.” No, if you pretend that holding Trump accountable for his broad daylight coup-ing potentially puts innocent citizens at risk, you’re no better than Marjorie Taylor Greene, even if you belong to a fancier country club.
I wanted to note two points about possible Trump defenses that haven’t so much been ignored by legal experts as perhaps simply been assumed and thus left unstated. It’s worth stating them explicitly.
We’ve discussed many times the kind of reality distortion field that exists around Donald Trump. When Trump is caught red-handed, which is frequently, we’re routinely hit with the question of whether Trump really knew what he was doing was wrong or illegal or whether it’s not possible that he might really have thought his lie was true. Why he should be accorded this extraordinary accommodation is never really explained clearly or adequately. But it’s part and parcel of the world of Trump. […] we’re supposed to accept that Trump somehow lacks the cognitive preparation or experience to follow the law.
Today that’s focusing on whether Trump really believed he won the 2020 election. Analysts noted yesterday that aside from a few offhand remarks in which Trump seemed to admit he lost the election, Smith’s case rests mostly on just how many of Trump’s advisors told him that he’d lost and that his plans to undo the result […] were either illegal, based on falsehoods or wouldn’t work.
But here’s the thing. Prosecutors don’t need to prove what Trump believed. That’s in part because truly proving belief is a fool’s errand […] we are fundamentally stuck with the self-serving testimony of the person whose state of mind we’re trying to discern. Good liars lie consistently. Pathological liars lie in a way that they even partly convince themselves. As we know from all our experience people have a great ability to believe what they want to believe or what is helpful for them to believe. The standard isn’t what someone claims they believed but whether it was a reasonable belief.
It’s peak Trump to lead the criminal justice system around by its nose with ludicrous claims about what he believed. But the law provides a clear way around this: what was reasonable to believe.
The other point is that your belief isn’t all that matters. Let’s say Trump truly believed he was the winner of the election. That would fully entitle him to exhaust every judicial remedy to vindicate that belief. But it still wouldn’t entitle him to inspire a violent mob to ransack the capitol, to threaten the life of his vice president or to take numerous steps to halt the formal counting of electoral votes. Civic life is filled with good faith disagreements. We have courts to settle those disagreements. None of them provide a justification, other than perhaps as a mitigating factor at sentencing, for taking the law into your own hands.
Let’s take a more plausible example. In 2000 Al Gore clearly believed that he was the legitimate winner of the 2000 presidential election. He wasn’t crazy. Probably half the country believed the same thing. But a court decided the case against him. To point to the current claims of various Trump supporters his free speech rights entitled him to claim he was the legitimate president, that he’d been robbed by the Supreme Court. His free speech rights entitled him to create all sorts of politically destabilizing commotion. But no one would imagine he had any right to use the administration’s powers to block the count of the electoral votes. Remember that Gore was in the same position Pence was in: as sitting Vice President he was responsible for overseeing the ministerial counting of the electoral votes. But he had no right to try to force his beliefs into reality by violating the law.
We can imagine various permutations of this question. But they all come down to the same thing. The law doesn’t require us to delve into the unplumbable mysteries of Donald Trump’s degenerate brain. His state of mind is relevant. But he doesn’t get a pass because he claims, with himself the only potential witness, that he believed ludicrous things. It has to be a reasonable belief. And even if he did have such a belief, even a reasonable belief, that is still no justification for violating the law or otherwise trying to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A new fund-raising e-mail from Donald J. Trump is offering donors the “unique chance” to serve prison time for the former President.
“Jack So-Called Smith and the Biden Justice Department want to put Your Favorite President Behind Bars!” the appeal, which was sent to millions of Trump supporters, reads. “For a Limited Time Only, You Can Go in My Place!!!”
According to a campaign spokesman, Trump donors are lining up in substantial numbers to serve time in prison for him. “This offer is doing even better than the Trump N.F.T.s,” the campaign worker said.
The success of the appeal, however, has raised concern that the demand for Trump prison slots could overwhelm supply. “Hopefully, there will be some more indictments soon,” the spokesman said.
One advantage that I enjoyed working at a railroad museum as a National Park Ranger was that we had very few wild animals. Okay, we did have two-hundred-ton locomotives, but they stayed on the tracks. We did have visitors who climbed on locomotives and cars, generally the ones that were on display and not serviceable, but at least once a month, we had some moron standing on top of the Big Boy — 16 feet above the top of the rails, so 17 or 18 feet above the stone ballast — but no one was ever seriously injured. I did get to yell at them and then, very sternly, read them the riot act. I don’t know how I would have handled the asshat from this article in Whiskey Riff.
I’m not sure what it will take for people to understand that you really, really, really shouldn’t approach bison, or any wild animal for that matter.
There is an endless amount of video proof about how bothering wildlife can go wrong, like this pit bull getting launched by a bison, these sea lions scaring people off the beach, or this raccoon chasing a woman down the street. Yet somehow, people forget all about stuff like that and decide to idiotically waltz up to animals in their natural habitat.
Some might say people like that aren’t intelligent, while others might call them “Natural Selection Supporters.” Either description works, especially for this video below of a man walking right up a bison that was bedded down in a California forest.
It appears that this person filmed the interaction himself, apparently wanting to document his stupidity in case things went south. He also decided that in order to keep the bison calm, he was going to speak to it and ask it questions in English, which I’m sure the bison fully understood.
As he walks towards the bison laying down on the forest floor, the man says:
AD
“Hi…I’m your friend. Hi! I’m your friend. Do you mind if I ride you? Can I ride you?”
That’s when bison scares the man, basically saying “no you can’t ride me.” A quick jolt of movement, along with a rapid wagging of its tail, let the man now as clearly as possible that the bison didn’t want to mess with him. Even though the beast could make pretty short work of the tourist…
Once it is clear that riding the bison is off the table, the man counters with another question:
“Can I pet you? Can I pet you?”
If only the bison could talk and put this idiot in his place. Instead of getting up and hurting the man who first wanted to ride him, then wanted to pet him, the bison gets up and runs off. Once it’s a safe distance away, it stays standing and peers over at the man that had just been bothering him.’
The video continues, along with the parade of dumb questions, as the man asks:
“You’re not very friendly are you?”
Yeah it’s not very friendly, it’s a wild bison. What is it supposed to do?
Take a look at the ridiculous video below: [vedeo at lunk]
And you know how I said earlier “if only this bison could talk?” Well, some of the comments give us a pretty good idea of what the bison probably would have said:
“Tourist: ‘You’re not very friendly, are you?’ Bison: ‘You’re not very bright, are you?’”
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe some humans actually can be this stupid, but here we are.”
“Damn, I was so looking forward to the part when the bison flings him 12 feet into the air.”
“Bison: ‘Considering the fact that you aren’t in the shape of a pancake yet, I would say say that I am pretty friendly.’”
“That is by far the chillest bison I’ve ever seen. This dude is both the dumbest and luckiest man alive.”
A potential Donald Trump defense strategy has emerged since he was indicted for efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a Washington Post columnist wrote Wednesday – plead ignorance.
The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake notes that Trump’s defenders in the immediate aftermath of the newest charges against the former president have signaled a “didn’t know any better” legal strategy.
MSNBC host Ari Melber earlier this year likened this defense strategy to George Costanza after the Seinfeld character’s comment in an episode: “Remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Blake notes that Trump attorney John Lauro, during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday night, suggested a potential argument is that Trump believed the falsehoods, and therefore coudn’t have had intent to commit crimes that are the basis of his indictments.
“I would like them to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations were false,” Lauro said.
Blake notes that Lauro’s argument has merit, and that it will be special counsel Jack Smith’s burden to prove Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, not Lauro’s to prove otherwise.
Trump’s spokeswoman Alina Habba made a similar argument Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News, telling host Jesse Watters that “everybody that knows Donald Trump and has read his [social-media posts] know, he still believes the election was stolen, and he has good cause to believe so.”
Blake writes that “The argument from his own spokeswoman isn’t that the election necessarily was stolen, mind you, just that Trump has cause to believe that. Habba also cited not Trump’s most far-fetched claims, but rather “ballot harvesting” and ‘things of that nature.’ (This is a trend with Republicans that dates back to the post-2020 election period: offering watered-down claims about election problems that don’t actually come close to matching Trump’s claims.)”
IANAL, but to claim, “I was so stupid that I believed my own lies and thought it was okay to engage in a conspiracy to try to overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America which I took an oath to defend,” ain’t gonna fly. If I believe a lie that pedophiles are using a pizza parlor to sell children and go in and shoot it up, that doesn’t make me any less guilty.
Oggie: Mathomsays
A good short essay (that I am saving and keeping on my desk top) by Elizabeth Ervin.
In the last several years, everything has become politically polarized and extreme. Dozens of popular phrases are stated and regurgitated by both parties. However, after someone asked for examples of ones that give away you’re a conservative voter, these are THEIR top-voted responses. Do you say them? [with this crowd, do you know anyone who says them?]
1. “Nobody Wants to Work Anymore”
It’s partially true, but not in the sense they are projecting. People are tired of working two or three jobs and still barely making it. People expect to be paid a living wage. Trading hours of your life should not be reduced to minimal compensation and survival. A user admits, “I can imagine a plantation owner saying that during the emancipation.” It’s giving off that same vibe.
2. “You Can’t Say Anything Anymore”
We live in a time when people are canceling others for saying things that are racist and homophobic. However, rather than acknowledging the statements as wrong, conservatives tend to dismiss them as: “You can’t say anything anymore.”
While I don’t entirely agree with the sentiment, I agree that some people are being labeled bigoted for having a different opinion. It’s unfortunate because it takes away from acknowledging the real issues of homophobia and racism.
3. “People Just Need to Stop Complaining”
Another statement used to deflect when racism and homophobia are called out is: “People just need to stop complaining.” I agree that it feels like everyone and their mother has become a victim of prejudices. However, when this statement is used to dismiss legitimate complaints, that is an indicator a person votes conservative.
13 Automatic Assumptions People Make When You Say You’re Not Right or Left Wing
13 Automatic Assumptions People Make When You Say You’re Not Right or Left Wing
13 Automatic Assumptions People Make When You Say You’re Not Right or Left Wing
As someone who does not identify as right or left, this post from an online forum quickly drew my attention. When you suggest that both sides have extremists who are hateful and wrong, you are automatically dismissed by the masses. But it’s true. After someone asked, “What are your assumptions of someone who says they’re neither left-wing nor right-wing with their political views?” Here are THEIR honest confessions.
See More
4. “I Was Spanked and I Turned Out Ok”
The difference between conservatives and liberals who were beaten as children is that conservatives identify with being OK despite the physical abuse, and liberals tend to advise therapy and healing from childhood trauma, in my experience, that is. I was also hit with a belt (leather razor strap) frequently, and no misinterpretation of scripture justifies it.
Many conservatives lean on the phrase: “Spare the rod; spoil the child.” However, that is not even scripture. The actual scripture reads: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him,” and like many things in the bible, I don’t think it is meant to be taken literally.
5. “People Just Gotta Pull Themselves Up by the Bootstraps”
Or the variation: “People just gotta pull themselves up by the bootstraps, like when I was young.” My father loved the bootstraps phrase, and let me tell you, it is not helpful when speaking to someone about depression and mental health.
6. “The World Doesn’t Owe You Anything”
Many people comment on the popular conservative phrase: “The world doesn’t owe you anything,” as a means of dismissing fair wages and other matters of equality. However, many acknowledge that they are more left-leaning and agree with this statement.
7. Use of the Terms: “Snowflakes” and “Woke”
Numerous users admit that liberals no longer use the term “Woke” and never embraced “Snowflakes.” Someone writes, “I agree. Also, it is almost ALWAYS the case that the people who use the term ‘snowflake’ and ‘safe space’ are incapable of taking what they dish out.”
8. “I’m an Independent: I Vote for the Person — Not the Party”
“If someone says “I’m an independent. I vote for the PERSON, not the PARTY.” Nine times out of ten, they’ve never voted for a Democrat in their life,” notes one. I had never thought about this, but my father always said this, and he never voted for a Democrat in his life.
9. “Athletes Should Keep Their Opinions to Themselves”
Yes! “Athletes should keep their opinions to themselves,” as well as “Actors and actresses should stay put of politics,” are two very conservative phrases. Perform for me but have zero opinion on real-life issues.
10. “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter”
Without a doubt, those two phrases are associated with being a conservative voter. We know all lives matter. The problem is people aren’t acknowledging the Black lives included in the broad term “All.”
No one is born blue. You can remove that color; Black people cannot remove their skin. So the blue lives matter thing is particularly offensive to those outside of the conservative party.
I like the way this deconstructed these simplistic right wing platitudes.
[In his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6] the Defendant insinuated that more than ten thousand dead voters had voted in Georgia. Just four days earlier, Georgia’s Secretary of State had explained to the Defendant that this was false.
The Defendant asserted that there had been 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. The Defendant’s Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General had explained to him that this was false.
Commentary:
On Jan. 5, after Pence had repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s demands that he refuse to certify the election, Trump approved a campaign statement that said, “The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.” There was absolutely no way he believed that to be true, and it became part of the false narrative that Pence had betrayed him. On the morning of Jan. 6, after Pence again would not cave, Trump “decided to single out the Vice President in public remarks he would make within the hour, reinserting language that he had personally drafted earlier that morning—falsely claiming that the Vice President had authority to send electoral votes to the states—but that advisors had previously successfully advocated be removed.”
Trump’s defense, as telegraphed by his lead lawyer, is that he didn’t know this stuff was false, but the prosecutors anticipated that defense at every turn. And, the indictment shows, even after Trump saw the violence of the attack on the Capitol and knew the seriousness of what he’d incited, he and his co-conspirators continued trying to reach members of Congress to lobby them to delay the vote certification.
[…] just as Trump knew he lost the election even if he wouldn’t admit it, everyone who’s paying any attention now knows that he is a criminal—even if they won’t admit it.
[…] The tweet from Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau reads, “The plan was to stage a coup and then use the military to put down any protest that ensued.” He’s reacting to #81 in the indictment, a description of a conversation between Co-Conspirator 4, Trump coup-plotter and Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and a deputy White House counsel, on January 3, 2021. The same lawyer had told Trump the month before that “there is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House [o]n January 20th.” In this conversation, the White House counsel was trying to convince Clark not to become acting attorney general, as Trump wished. There was no fraud. And if Trump seized the office, there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” And Clark responded, “Well, [Deputy White House Counsel], that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”
In case that’s too subtle, it’s exactly as Favreau tweeted. The plan was to overthrow the United States — goddamned fucking literally, this is not some kind of Resistance Twitter hyperbole from 2017 — and then use the military to subdue the population, to attack civilians. (At the Daily Beast, William Vaillancourt notes that Oath Keepers head Stewart Rhodes, now convicted of seditious conspiracy, tried to get Trump to use the Insurrection Act.)
Let us keep our eye on that ball, because that Trump-sanctioned violence bleeds throughout this indictment, and was integral to their plot. January 6 wasn’t an accident that got out of hand. It was what they were counting on.
On January 4, when a Trump adviser told Co-Conspirator #2, AKA coup-plotter attorney moron John Eastman, that “[Y]ou’re going to cause riots in the streets,” Eastman “responded that there had previously been points in the nation’s history where violence was necessary to protect the republic.”
The violence was part of the plan.
And then of course we flip over to the part of the indictment that describes January 6 itself. Trump had tweeted on December 19, after lying to his supporters for weeks about a stolen election, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” And he kept reminding them to RSVP to the insurrection. And he kept lying to them and telling them Mike Pence had the authority to delay or otherwise stop the certification of the election, even though he had been told one-thousand fucking times at that point that he did not.
Just ginning them up and ginning them up and ginning them up.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes he’s pressuring Mike Pence to do something Mike Pence clearly had no authority to do, something Eastman conceded he didn’t want the Supreme Court weighing in on, because of how he knew they would have laughed it out of their courtroom.
Pence’s chief of staff started to get worried for Pence’s safety on January 5, when Trump told Pence that he was going to have to “publicly criticize him.”
Trump told his advisers on January 5 that the crowd the next day would be “angry.”
And Trump kept lying and tweeting and saying Mike Pence could change the outcome of the election, and he kept ginning them up and kept ginning them up.
Speaking to the crowd the morning of January 6, Rudy Giuliani called for “trial by combat.” And John Eastman ginned them up. And Trump famously ginned them up. Trump told them, “when you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.”
At the Capitol, the riots were well underway, and then the invasion, and Trump refused to issue a statement trying to rein them in. He instead tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage.” One minute later they had to get Mike Pence the fuck out of there.
“Hang Mike Pence!” “Where is Pence?” “Bring him out!” “Traitor Pence!” They hung nooses and erected gallows, in case any of that was too subtle.
Even when Trump finally started calling his hordes off, his statements included lines about “this is what happens. These people are really angry. This is what happens.” Look what you made them do.
At 11:44 p.m. that night, as Congress was finally going about the task of finishing its constitutional duty, John Eastman emailed Mike Pence’s lawyer to beg him to do just one little tiny crime and please just adjourn for 10 days.
The election was certified 3:41 a.m. January 7.
(We are dramatically writing this from the indictment, but lawd we also remember it personally.)
The violence was part of the plan. It was necessary and they were counting on it. If they had to use it themselves against America — with their new fascist powers and a military that had to do anything Dear Leader demanded, even if it was illegal — so be it. Laws are for little people.
Besides, Trump had just incited a terrorist attack against the very Republic. What would have been so wrong about using the military to do another one?
There are a lot of things to focus on with these indictments, but again, it’s simple:
“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.”
The pro-Ukraine media space is furious at a New York Times story that seems to pin the blame for slow counteroffensive advances on Ukraine itself, absolving its allies who slow-walked aid for so long. The premise is this: Ukraine received Western weapons and training, but that didn’t work, so they’re back to Soviet-style tactics of massive artillery barrages and small-unit advances, and that’s slow, which is bad.
Ukraine’s decision to change tactics is a clear signal that NATO’s hopes for large advances made by Ukrainian formations armed with new weapons, new training and an injection of artillery ammunition have failed to materialize, at least for now.
It raises questions about the quality of the training the Ukrainians received from the West and about whether tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, including nearly $44 billion from the Biden administration, have been successful in transforming the Ukrainian military into a NATO-standard fighting force.
Interestingly, the facts of the story aren’t wrong, but the analysis is sophomoric at best.
The idea that anyone thought four to six weeks of combined arms training would somehow mold an effective combined-arms fighting force up to NATO standards is so ridiculous, I can’t imagine anyone thought it was true. I wrote about it repeatedly, noting that combined-arms maneuvers—in which armor, infantry, artillery, engineering, electronic warfare, aviation (drones), logistics, and intelligence all work in concert toward an objective—are incredibly hard even for the best-trained, best-drilled armies. I still remember a Ukrainian infantry platoon assaulting a tree line, screaming into a phone wondering where the engineers were at. That was just combining two elements in a small-unit-sized operation and they couldn’t pull it off. At scale, it’s infinitely harder.
That said, that has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the $44 billion in military aid Ukraine has received so far from the United States. That $44 billion literally saved Kyiv and drove Russia out of Kherson city and Kharkiv oblast. It stabilized the lines, forcing Russia to move to the defensive, where it hopes to freeze the conflict, clinging to its illegal territorial gains.
In fact, just a small percentage of those billions has been allocated to vehicles and munitions that could be directly attributable to the current counteroffensive, or the idea of crafting a “NATO-standard fighting force.” And really, there’s a simple explanation for that: Ukraine’s allies have vacillated time and time again in delivering the necessary weaponry Ukraine has needed to wage this war.
I’ve made clear that I don’t think any single weapon system, including F-16 fighter jets or ATAMCS long-range rocket artillery, are the silver bullet that would lead Ukraine to victory. But let’s imagine an alternate world, where the allies rushed absolutely everything Ukraine needed to win the war.
We’re 17 months into the war. The first two months, it was rational for Ukraine’s allies to assess whether Ukraine had the will and means to fight. We had just seen the Afghan government collapse overnight, even before American troops were fully withdrawn from the country. There was no guarantee Ukraine wouldn’t follow suit.
Two months in, it was clear Ukraine could win. In fact, it had already defeated Russia’s war aims. At that point, the question was how to best oust Russian forces from occupied territory.
If Ukraine’s Western allies really had sought to craft Ukraine into a “NATO-standard fighting force,” this would’ve been the time to do it. And that would have meant fully equipping Ukraine with the kind of gear and training that NATO-standard fighting forces get.
F-16s: They wouldn’t be a dominant feature on the battlefield, but by now, they would have chased Russia’s Black Sea Fleet away from Sevastopol, preventing them from launching punishing missile strikes against Ukrainian cities, and in particular, Odesa’s port and grain infrastructure. There isn’t a lot of Russian air activity over the Zaporizhzhia front, but deterring that with long-range air-to-air missiles would certainly help.
Long-range rocket artillery and other missiles: Ukraine’s first counteroffensive was a resounding success for two reasons: 1.) Russia didn’t have the extensive network of defenses it has today, and 2.) GMLRS shorter-range rocket artillery absolutely decimated Russia’s supply depots close to the front.
Well, Russia learned its lesson. It built those defensive lines and it moved its supply depots outside of GMLRS range (around 80 kilometers). It wasn’t until very recently that Ukraine was able to hit those more distant targets with newly supplied British and French cruise missiles, including ammo depots, command and control centers, and bridges.
It certainly would’ve been nice to have more time to degrade those supplies over the winter and spring. And even now, the total number of British and French cruise missiles are only around 100. Only the United States can significantly bolster that supply, and only the United States has longer-range missiles able to hit the Kerch Bridge, connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean Peninsula—one of the most important supply routes of military equipment into Ukraine.
But the United States still isn’t sending ATACMS, and that is giving Germany an excuse not to send its version of the cruise missile that the U.K. and France have already sent.
Tanks: Ukraine began asking for main battle tanks from nearly the start of the war. We have subsequently found out that Europe’s supply of Leopard tanks is woefully small, and what exists was in terrible working order. Only the Turks and Greeks seemed to have properly working gear, and that’s because they’re pointing those weapons at each other.
The logistical footprint of American M1 Abrams battle tanks is immense, and the challenges huge. That means that getting them to the battlefield was going to take time. But had that process begun early last year, we’d be there already. We’d have those behemoths storming Russian trenches today. And while I can’t say whether they’d be more effective than Leopards or Soviet-era tanks have been, at least we know the U.S. has thousands in storage.
Yes, most of them have depleted uranium armor, which the U.S. cannot, by law, export. But laws could be changed if there was a will, and that armor can be swapped out. It takes time! Unfortunately, “it takes time” was used as an excuse to do nothing.
The overarching argument against sending those weapons at the time was sound: The U.S. and its allies were prioritizing shipments of the stuff Ukraine needed immediately. At the start, that was anti-tank guided missiles, anti-ship missiles to deter an amphibious assault on Odesa, shoulder-fired air-defense missiles to ground the Russian air force, vehicles to launch GMLRS rockets (HIMARS and M270s), air defenses for cities, and so on. But that didn’t mean that preparations couldn’t be made to deliver things like tanks and aircrafts in the future.
And the equipment the U.S. sent was lacking, like woefully obsolete M113 infantry personnel carriers instead of still-old but far more modern and powerful M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. Again, some of the rationales made sense—the M113 wasn’t just a simple machine to maintain mechanically, but the U.S. and other Western allies had thousands in stock. By my rough count, Ukraine has received around 1,300 of them, which have real value. But that shouldn’t have stopped us from sending the better kit.
Anyway, tying the value of the $44 billion in military aid to the current counteroffensive is patently absurd. The U.S. dictated what weapons it would prioritize and send, which for the most part were old and defensive weapons. Regardless, Ukraine has accomplished incredible feats with that gear. By all objective metrics, that aid has been fabulously successful.
Thankfully, both Michael Koffman and Rob Lee—fresh off their visits to the front lines—make an appearance in that New York Times article.
“The counteroffensive itself hasn’t failed; it will drag on for several months into the fall,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who recently visited the front lines. “Arguably, the problem was in the assumption that with a few months of training, Ukrainian units could be converted into fighting more the way American forces might fight, leading the assault against a well-prepared Russian defense, rather than helping Ukrainians fight more the best way they know how.”
That assumption was certainly shared among lay people, the kind that love to argue that, “Ukraine can do anything and do it faster than normal people!” while ignoring the immutable laws of physics and war. Take the Patriot air defense system, for example. In the U.S. Army, learning to operate it requires a one-year school. Ukrainians learned it in half that time. Huzzah!
But sitting in a room behind a computer and making software decisions is different than trying to remember complex doctrine while under artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire on a battlefield where any wrong step hits a mine. We don’t even know how good those Patriots crews were at the start! Who knows how many times they screwed up before they became proficient in their systems. A Russian drone or missile hits its target? Well, you can’t get them all! A commander f’s up on the battlefield, and Russia gleefully distributes the video of the burning vehicles and Ukrainian corpses.
Biden administration officials had hoped the nine Western-trained brigades, some 36,000 troops, would show that the American way of warfare was superior to the Russian approach. While the Russians have a rigidly centralized command structure, the Americans taught the Ukrainians to empower senior enlisted soldiers to make quick decisions on the battlefield and to deploy combined arms tactics — synchronized attacks by infantry, armor and artillery forces.
Dear god, I hope no one really thought four to six weeks of extra training in Germany would “show the American way of warfare was superior,” because there’s absolutely no way that was going to happen. That ridiculous notion is attributed, by link, to a previous story these authors wrote, and that story makes the same claim, but with zero attribution. The only Biden administration official quoted is Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and he’s talking about something else. It really seems to be some kind of fantasy invented by the authors, and they loved it so much they used it a second time. [Yep]
“They were given a tall order,” said Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and a former U.S. Marine officer, who has also traveled to the front lines. “They had a short amount of time to train on new equipment and to develop unit cohesion, and then they were thrown into one of the most difficult combat situations. They were put in an incredibly tough position.”
Those quotes are good. The rest of the article is less so.
The article keeps hitting on “the American way of warfare,” which is just stupid framing. For one, the United States hasn’t had a near-peer war since the Korean War. Second of all, Ukraine can’t fight American-style because NATO doctrine relies heavily on air power. Yes, I’ve noted how drones have replaced war planes to some extent over the Ukrainian battlefield, but NATO doctrine requires the establishment of air superiority. That’s why Russia has invested so heavily in air defenses: to counter NATO’s greatest strength. We’ve seen how few tanks and artillery shells the NATO allies have, and that’s because they aren’t supposed to need them. The U.S. Air Force and Navy have no shortage of munitions for their roles in an American war.
Ukraine isn’t NATO, and does not have the equipment or training for it. It is important that their forces are trained up and better equipped. But they have to fight their war their way, because they don’t have the option to do it any other way.
Ukrainian soldiers aren’t superheroes able to assimilate and integrate every major weapons system immediately and at maximum efficiency into their operations. But they are incredibly smart, innovative, and properly motivated to take the tools they are given, utilizing them in ways that will, with time, become effective against entrenched Russians.
Things would look different today had the allies not delayed aid, but they are at least moving in the right direction.
————————–
Voice of America talks to Ukrainians who liberated Staromaiorske.
Troops at the spearhead of Ukraine’s counteroffensive say a battle last week along the front in the southeast proved to be tougher and bloodier than expected, with plans going awry and an enemy that was well-prepared.
“The Russians were waiting for us,” said a 29-year-old soldier using the call-sign Bulat, from a unit sent into battle in armored vehicles during last week’s assault.
“They fired anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers at us. My vehicle drove over an anti-tank mine, but everything was OK, the vehicle took the hit, and everyone was alive. We dismounted and ran towards the cover. Because the most important [thing] is to find cover and then move on.”
This keeps showing up time and time again:
“Our mission was planned to take two days. But we couldn’t drive in during the darkness at the right time, for a few reasons. So, we drove in later and lost the right moment,” said Bulat.
One of the biggest advantages of Western gear is the night-vision capabilities of their optics. And time and time again, we see Ukrainians attack in broad daylight.
The Russian defenders had set up “pre-sighted zones” in anticipation of the attack, said a 24-year-old Ukrainian marine with the call-sign “Dub.”
“They methodically destroyed the roads. They made pits that prevented driving in and out of the village, even in dry weather. Even walking was quite hard. You can’t use flashlights at night, but you still have to advance.”
This is a small settlement. Ukraine will have to repeat this time and time again as it drives south, unless Russian lines fully break. We had so much hope that Russia’s fighting spirit would break, but that’s not happening. And the harder it is for Ukraine to advance, the more that bolsters Russia’s morale.
—————————
News from the front is scant right now. Russia has cracked down on its war bloggers delivering bad news, so they’re suddenly quiet about everything. Ukraine is being quiet out of a need for operational security.
I can safely say that while the lines might’ve moved a few hundred meters here or there, nothing of significance has happened over the past several days.
—————————–
My god, there is something seriously wrong with Russia. Let’s start with this poor immigrant taxi driver, who asked his Russian passenger not to drink beer in his cab. [video at the link]
And then let’s go to this supposedly cheerful broadcast celebrating VDV Day—the national holiday celebrating Russia’s airborne troopers. [video at the link]
And this is just nuts: [Tweet and video at the link: “Mordor is in hysterics after Ukrainians dismantle the Soviet hammer and sickle coat of arms from the Ukrainian Motherland monument.
Apparently putting a different symbol on her shield also changes the meaning of her pose. 😂” “This is defilement. It’s the rape of a Russian woman …. etc.]
Russia: Another military conscription office set on fire in Saint Petersburg. Police manhunt in progress for the woman. This is either the 12th or the 13th documented case of attacks on conscription offices in the past 48 hours in Russia. Hard to keep track at this point.
Police searched Senate office buildings after a 911 call reported an active shooter at one of them Wednesday, but officers found no evidence that a shooting occurred, authorities said.
NBC News:
Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service’s chief of communications, said Wednesday that the agency, along with Capitol Police and local authorities, are working to ensure Trump’s safety during his arraignment on Thursday.
Diversity, equity and inclusion programs were abolished Tuesday from Walt Disney World’s governing district, now controlled by appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an echo of the Florida governor’s agenda which has championed curtailing such programs in higher education and elsewhere.
The gunman who opened fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 and wounding seven others, will be sentenced to death, federal jurors decided Wednesday. The tragedy, nearly five years ago, was the most heinous antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
A female microscopic roundworm that spent the last 46,000 years in suspended animation deep in the Siberian permafrost was revived and started having babies in a laboratory dish.
Donald Trump may have been indicted (again) Wednesday night for conspiring to nullify a United States election, but that wasn’t going to stop him from having a nice dinner. And it wasn’t enough to stop his dinner guests from showing up to fete him, either. Our national Trump whisperers report that his Bedminster dinner guests last night were Fox News president Jay Wallace and network CEO Suzanne Scott, and they were there to beg Trump, once again, to come on their shitty lie-promoting network for their Republican presidential primary debate.
Because that’s what you do when a political figure faces four felony counts of conspiring to overthrow the elected United States government: You slither over to his house and plead for the head crook to come to your network to put on a show.
For context, Trump has been threatening to skip the first Republican primary debate because it’s hosted by Fox News, and in the violence-provoking seditious traitor’s mind Fox has not been deferential enough to him and his various promoted conspiracy theories. Even worse, Trump thinks that Fox has been too nice to his main rival, stale block of cheese Ron DeSantis, and because Trump knows the secret of manipulating the nation’s media is to simply threaten to deny them access to his glorious self, his solution to both problems is to announce that he’s only going to show up for debates on networks that do bend their coverage in ways he likes.
Whether or not he’ll follow through with skipping the Aug. 23 debate is unknown, because Trump lies about everything, all the time, and it’s strictly based on what will carry him through any particular day’s news cycle. But he’s been aggressive in mocking the Fox News debate and at least pretending he won’t be showing up, posting sneers like, “Let them debate so I can see who I MIGHT consider for Vice President!”
It therefore fell to network executives Wallace and Scott to suck up to Donald, because goosing network ratings is considerably more important than whether or not the suckee is facing prison time for an attempted toppling of our democracy. Our Trump-whispering New York Times reporters write that Fox host Sean Hannity was supposed to show up as well. Trump’s brain is guided almost exclusively by what he sees on television, and Hannity would have been far more convincing to Trump than a pair of network heads who have next to no TV time at all. Sadly, Hannity couldn’t get out of doing his Fox show that evening.
Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that one. The executives who could have given Hannity his hall pass were both at the damn dinner themselves. If Sean didn’t show up, it was because Sean didn’t want to show up. And that’s probably because Hannity knows Trump better than Wallace and Scott do, and didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity of Trump and his good china only hours after he got the news that he was facing another decade or two of possible prison time.
Now, this is not how the Fox News evening had to go. Wallace and Scott did not have to make the pilgrimage to the land of sedition-backing sucking up. They are important people in their own right and could have begged off meeting with the worst and unambiguously most corrupt former president the nation has ever, ever been saddled with.
They could have decided, when the new indictment dropped, to cut Trump loose. It has never been an urgent damn necessity that a man indicted on literally dozens of counts stemming from rank political corruption share time on the Republican debate stage with the other candidates. There’s really no issue of “fairness” still at play when one candidate was caught dead to rights with national security secrets stuffed into various places of his spy-riddled social club.
[…] Journalists cover Mexican drug cartels as criminal enterprises, yet network hosts do not, at least not yet, invite Mexican cartel leaders to 90-minute televised debates so that they can give their own opinions on why Americans should ignore gun and drug laws.
[…] a good chunk of all the top Republicans in the nation were themselves co-conspirators in an attempted coup […]
There is no reason Republicans need to continue to ally themselves with a secret-stealing, hoax-promoting seditionist. There is no question but that Donald Trump was the worst “president” the United States has ever seen, and the most crooked. There is no argument against it. It’s perfectly fine for the media to deny camera time to a dangerous man already responsible for political violence, but it’s a truly trivial act for media executives to not beg and scrape for his attention.
This goes for CNN, and it goes for Fox News. If you’re unwilling to take a stand against an actual attempted coup, at least pick your pants off the floor and attempt to regain your network dignity.
wzrd1says
@ 81, actually, some people are born blue. Either from a congenital defect in the heart, a still functional shunt that normally closes off at birth or due to a defect in their hemoglobin.
As in an entire family in Kentucky with the latter, had to take methylene blue to treat it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates
@ 83, one fly in the military ointment. The military questions, then refuses to follow unlawful orders. Restoring order in riots is one thing, suppressing the citizenry just won’t cut the mustard.
@ 84, spot on target. It takes a hell of a lot more than 6 weeks of training to become proficient at combined arms and fire and maneuver, at least if you don’t want to end up killing your own warfighters. That training is a perishable skill as well, requiring reinforcement training to maintain proficiency.
I am curious though, with Trump, would he still retain his Secret Service protective detail in prison?
If he’s convicted, will his name be removed from the GOP ballots?
whheydtsays
Re: wzrd1 @ #91…
There is nothing in the Constitution to bar a convict from running for president. Indeed, it’s been done. Eugene Debs ran for president while in prison.
John Moralessays
Eugene Debs ran for president while in prison.
How well did Eugene do? ;)
whheydtsays
Re: John Morales @ #93…
Election of 1920. He got 3.4% of the popular vote. Be nice if that’s what Trump got.
tomhsays
@ #93 John Morales
“How well did Eugene do?”
What does that have to do with whether one is allowed to run from prison?
According to Russian independent media outlet Meduza, there have been at least 28 attempts to set fire to military enlistment offices and Defense Ministry buildings over the last five days in Russia and in Russian-occupied Crimea.
From July 29 to Aug. 2, cases of arson have been recorded in cities across the country, from Vsevolozhsk, just outside St Petersburg, to Khabarovsk in the far east.
Meduza reported that the series of attacks on military enlistment offices is the largest since mobilization was announced in September 2022 in Russia, and that most arson cases occurred in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan.
Other cities where arson was recorded include Volgograd, Ulan-Ude, and Omsk, as well as Feodosia in Russian-occupied Crimea.
In St Petersburg, two different offices were set on fire on Aug. 1. In Podolsk in Moscow Oblast, the same military enlistment office was set on fire twice, first on July 31 and again on Aug. 2.
According to Radio Svoboda, there were 12 arson attempts on July 31 alone and most of the attempts were carried out by women. All the suspects said that they were forced to do this by telephone scammers.
Multiple reports claim that the arsonists said they were driven to set fire to enlistment offices by seemingly fake telephone calls, often from people posing as Russian intelligence operatives.
Meduza refers to reports on Telegram that the 51-year-old woman who threw a Molotov cocktail at an enlistment office in Feodosia on July 29 claimed an FSB officer had convinced her that criminals were hiding in the building.
On July 31, a 17-year-old girl claimed she also threw a Molotov cocktail at her local district military enlistment building in Zabaikalsky Krai after being convinced a Ukrainian spy was inside, according to local Telegram channels.
Meduza also reported that one of the arsonists in Podolsk, a 22-year-old fast food chain employee, claimed he had been scammed by someone who convinced him to participate in “some kind of special operation.”
According to Radio Svoboda, attempting to set fire to an enlistment office in Russia is now being categorized as a terrorist act, for which there is a life sentence.
The wave of attacks comes after Russia’s lower parliamentary house, the State Duma, decided on July 25 to raise the upper age limit for conscription from 27 to 30.
There’s going to be a “this is fine” meme opportunity in here.
wzrd1says
whheydt @ 96, we’ll see who the Russians want to pin the blame on. It certainly does have a lot of odd elements in the story.
I’m also expecting some false flag action coming soon, in part to expand and unsettle things and in part to distract from Russian debacles in Ukraine.
wzrd1says
Ugh, feel like poop.
Nose runny for a few days, mild coughing that grows to fits occasionally, resulting in vomiting more than typical for my GERD, but tons of mucus.
Sleep mildly disrupted.
I’ve a suspicion, we’ll see if it continues for another day, if so, doctor time for a swab.
If it’s what I suspect, it’s COVID again. Thankfully, I was vaccinated in April, so it’ll be hampered in its attempt at havoc.
Last time, my primary symptom was no fever, just diarrhea. And mitral valve damage. That pisses me off, as it does hamper some activities and my resident seems happy to ignore that. Guess I’ll need to take a bite out of that crime…
No, I don’t abuse residents, but I will present sufficiently to leave them feeling the fool at rare and hard earned times. If you’re in your final year, yeah, I’m worse than an attending’s wrath at times.
Fucking up, we all do it. How one deals with it, when it’s presented crushingly, due to risk, that separates the children from adults and amateurs that belong in pathology from physicians.
And I really do love my pathologists!
I just loathe poor clinicians that can do far, far better.
Although, it’s actually fun when a doctor schools me, because I learn something new.
I was only an SF medic, so doctor educating is highly valued. And most of the non-didactic is learned via their extended residency.
As an NCO and educator, I really loathed didactic, but it was a necessary evil, so that my preferred Socratic method could be utilized effectively. When possible, I’d have student lead lessons, for one learns best when one has to teach a subject.
Even when my own ass is at stake.
And especially when I feel like poop, to provide another educational example.
Oh, stools are well formed. So, at least my GI tract learned a lesson from that damned virus.
@ #93 John Morales
“How well did Eugene do?”
What does that have to do with whether one is allowed to run from prison?
What makes you imagine the question was about whether it was possible to undertake that activity given such a circumstance?
(Did it escape you that the question is predicated on one being allowed to run from prison, so that it must perforce not be about that very predicate?)
birgerjohanssonsays
I want to share this, considering a superpower recently had a leader who was enthusiastic about using nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear War would be more devastating for Earth’s climate than cold war predictions, even with fewer weapons ”
I recall when the article was published in the Swedish journal Ambio, prompting US researchers to apply the knowledge they had received from NASA studies of the Martian atmosphere, leading to the term “nuclear winter”.
It now turns out to be even worse.
Good news. Arthur Survives. But almost half the books that parents have demanded be removed have been removed. So, some good news, but the book banners are still winning.
I guess those poor kids will continue to damage something that only exists in the imagination of irrational people.
A Florida school district has decided to place a book in the Arthur series back on its bookshelves after a lone parent complained it was “NOT APPROPRIATE” for children, who would have “DAMAGED SOULS” if they read it.
On Tuesday, the Clay County School District Oversight Committee found that Arthur’s Birthday does not violate any state school board laws, and it will remain in the district’s libraries.
“Arthur will go back on the shelves,” Clay County School District spokesperson Terri Dennis told The Daily Beast in an email Wednesday morning, which also included an updated list on the status of all 45 books that had been challenged ahead of the 2023-24 school year.
Of the 45, 22 will be removed from libraries, including Carrie by Stephen King, Sophie’s Choice by William Styron, and 21 Proms by David Levithan. [ . . . ]
(I think that Steve Benen may be one of the best political commentators around)
If there’s a competition in Republican circles to see who can come up with the most unfortunate response to Donald Trump’s new indictment, the senior senator from the great state of Florida has a submission that warrants attention.
Here, for example, was what Sen. Marco Rubio posted online, less than a day after special counsel Jack Smith’s latest indictment was unsealed:
Let’s unpack this, because it’s a classic example of a politician pushing foolish rhetoric that he even can’t seriously believe.
First, the idea that the former president was charged with “making statements challenging election results” is evidence of the apparent fact that Rubio complained about an indictment without reading it, which was unwise.
Second, for the Floridian to suggest that Trump’s bonkers conspiracy theories related to the election are merely at odds with the special counsel’s opinions — as opposed to reality — is plainly ridiculous.
Third, Rubio has become such a relentless partisan that he not only uses “Democrat” when he should use “Democratic,” the senator can no longer even bring himself to capitalize the proper noun.
But the truly amazing part of his missive was the senator trying to link together Trump’s election scandal and those who have the audacity to believe the Russia scandal. As Rubio characterized it, there’s an equivalence between the former president trying to overturn an election and seize illegitimate power, and those who “falsely” accused the Kremlin of targeting the U.S. elections in 2016 to benefit the Republican ticket.
If the former is considered a crime, the senator suggested, then perhaps the latter should be considered illegal, too.
What makes this so striking is not just the nonsensical nature of Rubio’s attempted point, but also the fact that Rubio, as much as any Republican politician anywhere, knows the truth.
After Russia launched an expansive and expensive covert military intelligence operation that targeted the U.S. political system in 2016, the Senate Intelligence Committee launched a lengthy and thorough investigation. That committee was chaired at the time by a gentleman by the name of Marco Rubio.
The panel published its voluminous findings, which arrived at a variety of important conclusions, including the apparent fact that the Russian government “directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against U.S. election infrastructure at the state and local level.”
While the committee didn’t find evidence of Russian attackers going so far as to change votes, congressional investigators did conclude that Moscow’s efforts “exploited the seams between federal authorities and capabilities, and protections for the states.”
This, of course, was the same Senate panel that literally described a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services” as part of its official findings.
This was not an obscure document unrelated to Rubio’s work on Capitol Hill; he was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee when the panel released its findings, which makes his latest rhetoric all the more difficult to explain.
Oggie: Mathomsays
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” — William Shakespeare.
After Pentagon leaders, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blockade against military promotions was undermining military readiness, the Alabama Republican rejected the claim. In fact, he appeared on a conservative media outlet two weeks ago and said, “I’m not holding up readiness.”
The senator didn’t explain why he disagreed with military officials, or why he believed they would make a claim he considered false. Tuberville also didn’t elaborate as to why he’s convinced his radical tactics weren’t having an impact. The GOP lawmaker simply asserted that he’s right, despite what the public has heard from the Pentagon.
Tuberville then pitched a similar line via social media: “All of these jobs are being done. My holds are NOT affecting national security.”
So, is this true? As Tuberville stands in the way of military promotions, are the jobs “being done” anyway?
As it turns out, retired two-star Marine Gen. Arnold Punaro talked to Politico about this last week. After calling the far-right senator “a coward” who “doesn’t understand our military,” the retired general, who also worked as longtime staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, explained that Tuberville’s unprecedented holds really are “having an impact.”
“A good example of what’s happening in the Marine Corps is you have Eric Smith, who’s the assistant commandant — that’s still his billet because he didn’t get confirmed. He’s doing the equivalent of two full-time four-star jobs right now. It’d be like asking the Auburn quarterback to play offensive tackle and quarterback at the same time. … I don’t think people really understand how detrimental this really is on a day-to-day basis.”
Punaro is hardly the only military voice raising these concerns. CNN recently noted that Redstone Arsenal, an army base in the Republican’s home state of Alabama, is also waiting for Tuberville to let senators confirm its pending leader.
Retired Gen. Jim Rogers, who served as a senior commander at Redstone, told CNN, “Someone has given [Tuberville] bad advice. It affects everyone. It affects the nation, it affects every community like this. I am very concerned our senator is getting led down a path that he does not understand the full impact for the military, and I just recommend that he reconsider that.”
What we’re left with, in other words, is a test of credibility. Tuberville has argued that his radical tactics are largely inconsequential, and he’s not adversely affecting his own country’s military. On the other hand, there are actual military leaders who’ve made the opposite case.
Who are we to believe? Well, Tuberville is a coach-turned-politician whose most meaningful association with the military was coaching the losing team in the 2014 Military Bowl; he’s repeatedly flubbed the basics when talking about his own tactics; he hasn’t yet kept his promise to Alabama veterans; he told claims about his father’s military service that didn’t withstand scrutiny; and he was one of only 11 senators to vote against the Honoring Our PACT Act that expands health care benefits for 3.5 million veterans.
Or put another way, in this debate, if the Alabama Republican expects people to simply take his word for it, Tuberville might be disappointed.
[…] The editorial page of The Kansas City Star published some advice on Tuesday. “Republicans, our democracy depends on your willingness to read the Trump indictment,” the headline read.
Please read it. We refer, of course, to the 45-page indictment that explains exactly what Donald J. Trump did to overthrow our democracy. … Even if you are among those who say yes, he committed serious crimes and you’ll happily vote for him anyway, you still owe it to your country to acquaint yourself with what crimes it is that you’re willing to overlook. … If you don’t trust us to characterize what it says, read it for yourself.
[…] for those who are unable to read the document for whatever reason, folks can listen to MSNBC’s Ali Velshi read the whole thing in podcast form.
Also note, one need not be a legal expert to understand the indictment. As The New York Times’ Charles Blow explained in his new column, “The federal indictment issued this week against Donald Trump for his efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election has a literary quality to it. It reads like a movie script.”
But in practice, it’s tough to be optimistic in light of the Republican Party’s recent aversion to learning through the written word. GOP officials freely admitted, for example, that they didn’t read Trump’s first federal indictment, which suggests it’s unlikely they’ll read his second federal indictment.
As we discussed in June, Republicans also didn’t read the Mueller report. Or the Durham report. Or the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings on the Russia scandal. Or the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the investigation into the Russia scandal.
While we’re at it, let’s not forget that Trump’s allies also condemned the contents of the former president’s indictment in New York before it was unsealed, suggesting they didn’t feel the need to read it, either.
Stepping back, this pattern reinforces concerns that much of Republican Party is simply indifferent to whether Trump committed crimes or not: If GOP officials cared about the merits of these cases, they’d obviously want to take the time to at least familiarize themselves with the allegations themselves, especially since the indictments are short and readable.
But this also poses a challenge for rank-and-file voters who ostensibly want to know the truth: Are they prepared to trust those making assessments of documents they haven’t bothered to read?
As soon as I saw the headline, I knew this NYT story was going to be bad: “Trump Election Charges Set Up Clash of Lies Versus Free Speech.” No. No, it does not.
Both-sides coverage in politics is toxic; in legal coverage it’s so bad it becomes almost funny. But of course in typical legal matters we rarely get both-sides coverage. Instead, it skews heavily in favor of the narrative of law enforcement and prosecutors. But when a politician (let alone Trump) is the defendant, suddenly there’s a detached remove from the underlying facts. Conspiracy to overthrow the government or just political puffery in the spirit of stump speaking? Who can say, really? We’ll leave to you, dear reader, to decide.
Take the core graph of the story:
The indictment and his initial response set up a showdown between those two opposing assertions of principle: that what prosecutors in this case called “pervasive and destabilizing lies” from the highest office in the land can be integral to criminal plans, and that political speech enjoys broad protections, especially when conveying what Mr. Trump’s allies say are sincerely held beliefs.
Trust me, folks. This is not going to be a showdown over the limits of the First Amendment. How do I know? Well, one way is by reading the bottom half of the same NYT story, where legal experts shred the Trump defenses.
But by then of course the entire top half of the story has framed it up as a legitimately titanic clash over First Amendment freedoms. Readers who don’t make it past the halfway mark of the story will be forgiven for coming away with a very different impression of Trump’s prospects at trial. […]
It’s Not Just The NYT
Another example of covering a criminal prosecution like it’s politics, courtesy of the WSJ: “Trump Is Being Prosecuted, but Justice Department Is on Trial, Too”
Oh boy, this sentence: “On the issue of whether it can persuade the public of the righteousness of its prosecution, the Justice Department has taken on a huge and politically polarizing target in an atmosphere already ripe with mistrust over its motivations.”
Not literally untrue. But notice the way this turns it all into a messaging contest, like a political campaign..
I’m glad David hit this point in The Morning Memo. In addition to the Times article he references, the Times also published a piece by Tom Edsall […] casting the Trump indictment as part of a larger story of “the left’s” turn away from free speech. [JFC!] That premise about free speech is a complicated matter in its own right. But, as David notes, it has nothing to do with this case. The case has nothing to do with platforms or hate speech or misinformation or anything else. This is a case of a group of individuals taking coordinated and affirmative non-speech steps (i.e., a conspiracy) to fraudulently change the results of a lawful election.
Ironically, the Republican trolling on this front does a pretty good job, in spite of itself, illustrating the point. Across the right-o-sphere yesterday, virtually everyone was saying, “Remember when Al Gore challenged the results of the 2000 election? Remember when Stacey Abrams said her loss to Brian Kemp was illegitimate? Only Trump is indicted though!!!”
They even said the same thing about Hillary Clinton in 2016, though this was an odd one since I think we all remember a plainly devastated Hillary Clinton, the morning after the 2016 election, conceding defeat and congratulating the new President-elect.
But the Gore and Abrams examples illustrate the point. Let’s set aside the fact that neither quite said what Republicans are claiming. Even so, the examples illustrate clearly precisely why this isn’t a First Amendment case. You can claim you’re the real winner. You can file lawsuits. You can say whatever you want. But neither of these defeated candidates tried to substitute phony vote tallies, or stop vote counting, or do any number of other illegal things to change the results of the election.
Again, Republicans make all sorts of silly, bad faith arguments. I only note them here because rather than prove any commonality and double standard, they show the glaring difference. Republicans’ examples of Democrats who took issue with elections are examples in which the candidates didn’t take any steps to alter the votes, block the legal counting of votes, or do anything else to change the lawful result. This basic difference could scarcely be more clear.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the last few days has taken to larding his rhetoric with references to plans for mass slaughter […]
NHPR covered the candidate’s three-day campaign jaunt to New Hanpshire, during which DeSantis reportedl:
promised that, under his presidency, Mexican drug cartels would be “shot stone cold dead,” and vowed that when it comes to federal bureaucrats, “we are going to start slitting throats on Day One.”
Florida Politics reported on an interview DeSantis gave last week on right-wing satellite, cable and streaming news channel “Real America’s Voice,” where he discussed the prospect of “throat-slitting” in greater detail.
“I think the idea that you take a flag (officer) or general officer who recently retired and put them as the Secretary of Defense, I think it is a mistake,” DeSantis said, advocating for “professional distance from the General Officer Corps.”
“You know, they may have to slit some throats, and it’s a lot harder to do that if these are people that you’ve trained with in the past or that, you know, so we’re going to have somebody out there, you know, be very firm, very strong….”
[…] Speaking personally, it’s hard for me to read the repeated references to mass shooting or throat-slitting, metaphoric though the latter may be (and whatever he actually has in mind specifically), as anything but another and louder dog whistle among the many being sounded by right wing extremists.
And as a form of priming for further stochastic violence, in a country where literal mass slaughters have already become almost routine.
Not to mention the product of a sick mind.
This person has no business anywhere near the presidency–nor in any situation that entails power over others.
[…] There are some people who are preternaturally gifted in some way. Both Neal Katyal and Barry Berke are gifted attorneys and they both absolutely obliterated the mens rea, “I sincerely believed that I won,” defense on Nicolle Wallace’s news program, “Deadline White House.”
Nicolle Wallace: We covered it as an open question, right, intimacy of Trump’s hands on role in fake electors. He’s its architect, he’s its cheerleader, he’s the one that when it looks too hard, he’s pushing and prodding his campaign people to keep going. They’re emailing amongst themselves all of the smoking guns, ‘They’re false, we better not call them ‘false’ in our emails’. I mean that’s something Chuck Rosenberg said to me seven years ago, ‘Not all criminals are smart 🤓!’ What do you see in this sort of tapestry of Trump’s dominance in the recruitment of fake electors and slates of fake electors?
Neal Katyal, “Yeah, so Donald Trump has two defenses that he’s trying to trot out.
One is there was no bad criminal act. All I did was speech. And as you rightly point out, boy the indictment just shows his hands were thick in it, not just speech, but active involvement and orchestrating all of these different plots whether it’s fake electors or whether it’s disrupting the count on January sixth, so many different things.
So that then leads Trump to pivot to a different defense, which is, ‘I didn’t have the criminal intent, the bad men’s rea. I legitimately thought I have won. And the clips you just showed, I think, are devastating proof that Trump knew and had to know something else.
Now I suppose he still has a defense which is, ‘Everyone was saying that, but I believed something else.’ That is NOT A DEFENSE! As a criminal defendant you don’t just get to invent your own reality and say, ‘Well, I lacked the criminal intent’ because of it. Like if I point a gun at and shoot you, I can’t defend myself by saying, “Well, I don’t think bullets kill people. When I shot you, I didn’t think I would kill you at the time.
At some point, all of these defenses that go to state of mind have to be tempered with a dose of reality. And when your own attorney general is telling you something, when your own top White House Counsel is telling you something, when the other top officials at the Justice Department are telling you something, when state officials are telling you something, when 62 courts are telling you something, if at that point you say, ‘Well, I didn’t believe ANY of them’, THAT ISN’T A MENS REA DEFENSE!”
Nicolle Wallace: “Well, and there is also evidence to the contrary, that he didn’t believe the crazy 🤣😧 people! This indictment makes clear that he thought Sidney Powell was crazy. which I guess cuts both ways, right? He amplified the crazy, but he knew it was nuts. I want to read this, we’ve talked about this a lot on the show, it shows up in the indictment. Trump tells Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley that a national security issue would be for ‘the next guy’. From the indictment, ‘On the evening of January 3rd, the Defendant met for a briefing on an overseas national security issue with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior national security advisors. The Chairman briefed the Defendant on the issue -, which had previously arisen in December as well as possible ways the Defendant could handle it when the chairman and another advisor recommended that the Defendant take no action because Inauguration Day was only seventeen days away and any course of action could trigger something unhelpful, the Defendant calmly agreed saying, “Yeah, you’re right, it’s too late for us. We’re going to give that to the next guy.” An hour later I think he would go on to shake down Raffensperger” […]
Barry Berke: Those sort of statements in a criminal case are overwhelming, it’s the defendant in his own words, big picture, he knew he lost. And even beyond that though, they don’t have to prove whether he actually believed he may have somehow won, the question is did he know he was making false statements about what happened. He was told again and again these theories of Sidney Powell were crazy. He himself adopted that the notion that there were not really these stolen ballots or dead voters, he knew it, but he would nevertheless he repeated and repeated it. So, those sorts of statements are fatal to what he’s going to say. You also see how it is all tied together in the indictment, when he was told that there’s no way Pence is going to do something, he sends out another email to the mob to come put pressure, he again, does things. When he sent out the initial email, ‘Come, it’s going to be wild’ that was right after he was told by his counsel that these crazy theories of Sidney Powell wouldn’t work and they couldn’t seize machines. So this tells such a compelling story.
I’ll tell you as a defense lawyer, at trial, as someone who has had the good fortune of winning a lot of cases, we always say, ‘What is your path to victory ? You need a path to victory.’
Nicolle Wallace: Right
Barry Berke: “Looking at this indictment, Donald Trump HAS NO PATH”
Nicolle Wallace: “His path is reelection. I think he made that clear, right?” […]
Barry Berke: “He has no criminal defense path. He is going to be convicted”
[…] Pence’s campaign is selling T-shirts and hats that read “Too honest,” a nod to a quote from the 45-page indictment against Trump over his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, which included pressuring his vice president to reject the results. […]
When Pence said there was no constitutional basis for him to reject the votes, Trump replied, “You’re too honest.” […]
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) is the latest GOP state leader to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, deploying 109 Guardsmen to Texas on Wednesday.
The deployment, meant to assist Texas’s border security effort Operation Lone Star, will be paid for by the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief package known as the American Rescue Plan Act, according to a statement from Reynolds’s office. […]
the deployments are not in concert with a separate, federal effort to handle migrants at the border. The disconnect prompted Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Operating Officer Blas Nuñez-Neto to accuse Abbott of taking “actions that are being done really for purely political reasons and that do not involve the kind of coordination that we really need to see at the border.”
He also called on governors in May to “make sure that any steps they take are done in coordination with our federal personnel.” […]
Canada as much of a threat to Iowa. I don’t see anything about Canadian cartels from the racist fucks among my fellow citizens. Change history a bit and the gossip finds reasons to fear monger about the other border.
The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this year and through last fall, even as there is no evidence of election fraud that would have altered the outcome of the contest.
The new poll, conducted in the run-up to former President Donald Trump’s indictment on Tuesday over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, suggests the share of election deniers among his partisans has climbed to a level last seen before hearings held last year by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack. In January of 2022, 67% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they thought Biden’s win was not legitimate; that had been as high as 72% in CNN polling in the summer of 2021.
Among Republican-aligned adults, the share who believe there is solid evidence proving the election was not legitimate stands at 39%, while 30% say it is merely their suspicion that Biden did not win legitimately, and 29% say Biden’s election was legitimate…
Overall, 61% of Americans say Biden did legitimately win enough votes to win the presidency, and 38% believe that he did not. Among registered voters who say they cast a ballot for Trump in 2020, 75% say they have doubts about Biden’s legitimacy.
[…]
[…] Grandpa Crimefarts posted this on TruthSocial:
The latest Fake “case” brought by Crooked Joe Biden & Deranged Jack Smith will hopefully be moved to an impartial Venue, such as the politically unbiased nearby State of West Virginia! IMPOSSIBLE to get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., which is over 95% anti-Trump, & for which I have called for a Federal TAKEOVER in order to bring out Capital back to Greatness. It is now a high crime embarrassment to our Nation and, indeed, the World. This indictment is all about Election Interference!!!
LMAO. Gonna skip all the rest of that wackass malarkey and just laugh at the part about the “politically unbiased nearby State [sic] of West Virginia.” Which Donald Trump won by 39 points, his highest margin anywhere. Because when you’re a white supremacist, “unbiased” means “where the white people are.” […]
Yeah.
So we’ve moved on to the phase of the indictment where Washington DC is Black and therefore cannot offer a fair trial to a white man. One of Trump’s lawyers, John Lauro, literally said yesterday that West Virginia is “much more diverse” than DC. We guess he’s referring to how many flavors of meth you can find taped under the toilet seat in an average Pentecostal church bathroom. (He also says “speedy trial” is BAD! He thinks Trump should have “years” to get his defense ready. Sure, man. Will this dude even still be Trump’s lawyer two months from now?)
White Republicans are also levying pretty rock-solid allegations that the judge, Tanya Chutkan, is Black (she was born in Jamaica) and was appointed by a Black president. Additionally, she may have walked past Hunter Biden in a hallway at some point in her life, but there’s actually not any direct evidence of that, but they’re just saying she might have. These are being treated as full-blown scandals. [video at the link]
[…] People known for being professionally full of shit like Greta Van Susteren are crowing about an article that says the judge, Tanya Chutkan, previously worked at the (very large) law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner, where Hunter Biden spent one year as “of counsel.” […]
We are sure there are way more people saying idiotass things like this, but we don’t care. None of it amounts to an argument that Donald Trump isn’t culpable for the traitorous crimes he committed right in front of our fucking faces.
And let’s be clear: Donald Trump is being tried in DC because he mounted a conspiracy to overthrow the Republic in DC. He is being tried in south Florida because he hid the American national security secrets he stole from the government in his ugly trash palace in south Florida.
That’s how this works.
All this about the judge and DC is just whinyass racist bullshit from whinyass racists […]
But don’t play in traffic in front of the Elijah Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in DC this afternoon, because it’s barricaded off for a VERY special event: the arrest, arraignment, and fingerprinting of Donald J. Trump. […]
Here is this afternoon’s schedule:
4:00: Arrival
4:05: Fingerprinting
4:10: Last chance to poop
4:15: Arraignment
4:20: Execution
[…] OK, we are just fooling. There will be a 15-minute trial before the execution, obviously. This is still America, after all!
OK, we are just fooling again! There will be no execution, but we are going to make that joke every time Trump catches a charge.
It starts at 4:00 p.m. The New York Times reports he’s flying down from Bedminster, and will appear before magistrate judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya. One of the people reportedly traveling with him will be Boris Epshteyn, whom the New York Times has identified as the most likely candidate for “Co-Conspirator #6” in Trump’s indictment. (Perhaps!)
He will get booked, which at this point should be old hat for him.
“He is also expected to answer a series of intake questions that include personal details, such as his age.” New dementia test to ace!
Judge someone by their actions not their website bio.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina sells a graven image of himself, one of a reasonable Republican who promotes a message of “unity” and “optimism.” You see, Tim Scott is an honorable man.
When Scott launched his own presidential campaign a few months ago, he suggested that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represented the Confederate side of the Civil War. Wait, that’s not honorable at all. It’s the exact opposite.
Yet, Tim Scott is an honorable man, at least that’s what he claims before telling his supporters on his “Faith in America” tour […]
Non-MAGA Republicans, a species facing terminal extinction, shared their collective disappointment over Scott’s response to Donald Trump’s third indictment this year (so far). When Scott repeated absurd talking points, straight from Trump’s horse face, about President Joe Biden’s “weaponized DOJ,” former Rep. Adam Kinzinger said, “Tim I know you. I know your heart. Trust me, it feels way better to do right. I know you want to and I know you know better.”
Does he? Kinzinger voted for Trump twice, which is hardly admirable, but January 6 was enough for him to knowingly sacrifice his political career in service of holding Trump accountable for his coup. He suffered a single political death, while Scott will die a million times defending Trump.
Scott, unlike Kinzinger, refused to take that last exit ramp to decency. Instead, he voted against Trump’s second impeachment and continues to minimize Trump’s responsibility for January 6. Just a couple weeks ago, Scott said, “I was targeted on that day … I hold the folks who broke into the Capitol with ill will in their hearts … responsible for their actions. I don’t hold the former president who didn’t show up at the Capitol and threaten my life as responsible.”
Scott should’ve paid attention to the January 6 committee hearings, which he blew off as a “made-for-TV” spectacle. Liz Cheney said in her opening statement that “Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.” There is no Capitol attack without Trump’s lies and specifically his rage fest at the Ellipse, when he said, “… we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”
[…] Dispatch editor Stephen Hayes tweeted on Wednesday, “Tim Scott is an honorable man and a good public servant. If you wanted to provide a role model for elected Republicans, he’d be one of a handful you’d recommend. This is pathetic. And he knows better. Exceptionally disappointing.”
Tim Scott is honorable and a role model. That’s what everyone says, yet his actions are somehow consistently disappointing.
Writing for MSNBC, Scott’s former Senate colleague Claire McCaskill said:
Maybe the saddest thing for me Tuesday night after the indictment was unsealed was seeing Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., attack the so-called weaponization of President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.
We were watching in real time someone lose their moral compass. Someone sacrificing their character at the altar of political ambition. Someone who knows better, who was there, who saw what happened on Jan. 6, who saw people running for their lives, who knows what Trump did was wrong and has said it wrong.
This all assumes that Scott ever possessed a moral compass to lose. […] Scott’s friends act as if he’s the lead in a Greek tragedy and they’re shouting at the stage, “No, don’t … Oh, God, man, that’s your mother! This is so disappointing! You know better!”
[…] If Tim Scott does know better than his public behavior demonstrates, well, he’s obviously made a choice, and it doesn’t make him honorable.
[…] Eric went on the Fox News Jesse Watters show last night — truly a blind leading the blind situation — and oh boy, he just got real mad and started saying his dad is gonna show us who’s boss, and oh boy, it was hard to watch: [video at the link]
ERIC: MY FATHER CANNOT WAIT TO TAKE DISCOVERY ON THESE PEOPLE!
[Jesse laughs because stupid]
THERE ARE A LOT OF QUESTIONS ABOUT JANUARY 6, TRUST ME! HOW ABOUT ALL THE VIDEOTAPES, HOW ABOUT ALL THE FBI AGENTS THAT WERE IN THERE? THERE’S A LOT OF QUESTIONS! WHY DIDN’T THEY CALL UP THE 10,000 NATIONAL GUARD RESERVE TROOPS THAT MY FATHER APPROVED? YOU KNOW, WHY DIDN’T THEY DO THAT! [shrieking]
JESSE BECAUSE STUPID: They might regret fast-tracking this trial before the election!
Oh sweet Jesus, where do we even start, besides Daddy never approved 10,000 National Guard troops. […]
And how does this dipshit think “discovery” works? Does he think Daddy and his lawyers are just gonna be able to take their pants off and run around the courtroom screaming “RAY EPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSWSSSSS!1!11!!!!!1!?”
And, dear stupid Eric, which FBI agents are we talking about?
Did FBI agents trick Daddy into mounting a coup to seize power? Did FBI agents trick Daddy into pressuring Mike Pence to steal the election? Did FBI agents trick Daddy into conspiring to erase millions of votes? Because those are the things Daddy is indicted for.
Daddy is not indicted for “January 6.” Per the indictment, it is three counts of conspiracy and one of obstruction for the purpose of “overturn[ing] the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.”
[…] The trial against Trump will be about Trump’s criminal conspiracies to steal the presidency. […]
In re: Jesse Watters’s over-confident assertion that “they might regret fast-tracking this trial before the election,” why, Jesse?
Because Trump is threatening to go back and relitigate imaginary fraud in the 2020 election, just so he can be exposed as a clown again? That’s just a legal strategy, which is why his idiot lawyer is out there on TV saying it. They desperately need to argue that poor Trump was too helpless and stupid and led astray by bad influence lawyers to bear any culpability for this.
And they have to pretend Eric’s father is intellectually incapable of understanding he lost. Well guess what? Trump can be a pathetic, desperate man who clings to fantasies to hide from his constant failures. He can also be 100 percent intellectually aware he’s full of shit. Narcissistic Personality Disorder isn’t a free ticket for crimes.
Bill Barr said on TV last night that Trump absolutely knew he had lost the election. And as Andrew Lawrence from Media Matters joked on Twitter, Jack Smith can prove that the same way they proved Fox News didn’t believe any of its own lies about a stolen election.
It’s of course unsurprising that Jesse Watters […] has been desperately barking up this “discovery” and revenge tree. Just you wait! Trump is going to do discovery and then you will all be sorry when it’s revenge time! […]
Have you ever seen anything sadder than this Jesse rant from the other day? (Besides weeping Eric?)
“I don’t think the Biden administration realizes what it’s done here. It’s going to give Donald Trump the opportunity to relitigate the 2020 election in federal court. This is what Donald Trump’s been dying to do for the last two and half years. He’s going to have subpoena power. He’s going to cross-examine witnesses. He’s going to put his own witnesses. He’s going to go out and prove or try to prove there was election fraud in Philly, Vegas, Arizona, Detroit. And the federal government is going to have to prove that it was clean in those deep blue counties. That’s going to be a fun one to follow.”
LMAO WTF does he think is going to happen in court that didn’t happen the first 60 fucking times Trump lost in court?
But Jesse says when Trump’s president again, you’ll be sorry! “Payback is gonna be a you know what, and you guys started it!”
OK, dudes.
Trump gets arrested and arraigned later today. […]
So, Tuberville claims that his holds on high rank military promotions is not actually doing anything. He also seems to think that his holds on high rank military promotions will force the military to go back on allowing soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and officers the ability to travel to another state for specific medical care. Well, asshole, which is it? Is your hold not doing anything? Or is it a strong enough disincentive to force the military to do his bidding?
Oh,crap, here comes waspy jeebus!!! https://crooksandliars.com/2023/08/oh-lord-here-comes-ai-jesus
ROFLMAO
Also,
@119 Lynna, OM commented: Trump Demands To Be Tried By Jury Of His White Peers, In West Virginia
I reply: that’s only partially right, to be his peers they must also be: chronic liars, cheats, rapists, etc.
I recall reading a paper, about 10 years ago, back when I still worked for the NPS, that studied the economic impact on small communities surrounded by government owned natural lands. It compared those communities located in areas where the government owned lands were being used for extractive economic activities — mining, energy extraction, logging — to those that were located in areas where the government owned lands were being used for recreational economic activities — hiking, snowmobiling, skiing, whitewater, swimming, fishing — as well as those in areas devoted almost exclusively to hunting. And the towns surrounded by extractive use fared the worst, economically, followed by hunting towns. Those devoted to non-hunting recreational activities fared the best with the highest per capita income in the town as well as far more cultural activities such as theaters, concerts, and festivals. The upshot of the paper was that government spending to support non-hunting recreational activities provided not only the best bang for the buck, but also did far better than hunting or extraction in supporting genus and species diversity and overall biomass. So certain types of recreational activities not only help the economy, but also the environment.
I did a quick look for the paper and could not find it. Probably got buried by the NRA and mining/oil/logging interests (that last bit is snark, but believable snark).
Oggie: Mathomsays
And almost four years away from my career, my bureaucratic writing skills are still evident. Sorry about that.
birgerjohanssonsays
The problem of understanding English dialects.
I read an article about the TV series ‘Reservation Dogs’.
“Skoden” is an abbreviation of ‘let’s go then’ (to fight).
Cussin: cursing.
I assumed ‘tuguy’ was an abbreviation of “tough guy” but it is the cree word for penis (and thus = schlemiel, schmuck or putz, to use jiddish).
It was on Monday when the House Oversight Committee sat down with a man named Devon Archer, whose name is probably unfamiliar to most Americans, but whom Republicans were very excited about. Archer was a former Hunter Biden business associate, which meant his congressional testimony created an exciting new opportunity for GOP crusaders.
It was a day later when special counsel Jack Smith indicted Donald Trump for alleged crimes the former president committed after his 2020 defeat, as the Republican tried to overturn election results and seize illegitimate power.
For some Republicans, the fact that these two unrelated events unfolded in back-to-back days was evidence of … something. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, for example, issued a written statement emphasizing the timeline and arguing, “Today’s sham indictment of Donald Trump is yet another desperate attempt to distract attention away from the mounting evidence of Joe Biden’s direct involvement in his family’s illegal influence peddling scheme, one of the greatest political corruption scandals in history.”
The New York congresswoman’s rhetoric was bizarre for a variety of reasons, but at the heart of Stefanik’s argument was an unstated assumption: Archer’s testimony was a disaster for Democrats and a triumph for Republicans desperate to tear President Joe Biden down. Of course the latest Trump indictment came on the heels of Archer’s testimony, the argument went, those rascally Democrats and their allies are terrified of the public learning what the witness had to say. It’s all one big “distraction.”
This turns reality on its head. Democrats don’t want to hide Archer’s testimony, they want to brag about it.
In fact, now that the public has access to a transcript of what exactly the witness said, a Washington Post analysis highlighted claims about Archer’s testimony from two powerful Republicans — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan — and made clear that both men said things that were plainly untrue.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but this transcript is an obvious disaster for the Republicans. Not only did Archer discredit the GOP’s core claims, the transcript also leaves little doubt that when Republican lawmakers tried to put a positive spin on the witness’ testimony, they participated in a highly deceptive campaign.
To be sure, much of this probably isn’t too surprising. Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman issued a brief statement after Monday’s closed-door Q&A, explaining that he was the only member of the Oversight panel who stayed for the entire multi-hour hearing. He came away with some straightforward observations: According to the Republicans’ own witness, Joe Biden never talked business with his son or his son’s associates; the president was not party to any of his son’s business deals; and there was no bribe.
But some might’ve been skeptical about Goldman’s assessment. Maybe, White House critics thought, the official transcript would be more damaging that the New York Democrat indicated.
Now we know for sure: Archer said under oath that Joe Biden wasn’t involved with Burisma, didn’t talk business with his son’s associates, and didn’t take bribes. The Post’s analysis added, “That’s the pattern here. Comer and Jordan and others hype claims of Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s work only to see those claims collapse as more information is made public.”
Or put another way, Archer’s testimony was an embarrassing dud for Republicans; it did nothing to advance their partisan efforts against the president; and it was the latest in a series of related duds. If Comer and Jordan aren’t prepared to acknowledge that some of their rhetoric this week wasn’t true, they should at least consider a new hobby.
Having been formally arraigned on the charges against him, Trump has now reportedly entered a plea: not guilty on the four charges brought against him.
In a big-picture look at Ukraine’s battlefields, we have passed the point where serious observers are expecting any new major military actions from Russia. Russia’s position is now primarily defensive, looking to hold what areas it has taken but with no plausible military options for expanding that territory. Time is the enemy of both sides. Ukraine is compelled to make advances to justify large-scale munitions shipments from Europe and America that cannot necessarily last forever. The Russian army started out as a wreck and now is the sloppy remnants of a wreck.
The advantage is with Ukraine. Russia has no chance of replenishing artillery at the rate it’s being destroyed, continues to suffer munitions shortages, has somehow managed to build a standing army that still does not know how to use defensive lines, and is reeling from what can only be described as a “practice coup” by a private army.
The worst news Russia has faced in their efforts to outlast Ukrainian counterattacks until Ukraine’s backers grow weary and demand Ukraine forfeit the lands, however, has been the new indictment of former United States President Donald Trump.
If you think that sounds ridiculous, you’re absolutely right. There’s no part of that sentence that’s not completely asinine, and yet here we are.
Russian state-affiliated media is reeling with the news that Trump has been indicted yet again, and this time for an attempted coup, which has been a topic wedged in the minds of the Russian ruling class for approximately their entire lives and then some. The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis brings us the latest translated grousings from state propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.
“I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it in my entire life! In America, they are currently attempting to destroy Trump—and to do it unbelievably fast! This sort of a thing never happened in American history!,” whined Solovyov, copying the rhetoric of more than a few of the most shameless Republicans in this country. Because this is a Russian television show, it quickly descended into talk of nuclear war, an American civil war, and a “big European War.”
Solovyov guest Dmitry Evstafiev brought out the propaganda guns for that one:
“Americans always thought they could bypass the big war, but the more they keep doing this internally within their own country … and if things related to Trump will continue the way they’re going, we can surmise that their regime went from being authoritarian to being totalitarian and I can tell you that they will not be able to escape a big European war.”
Special points to Evstafiev for understanding the American psyche with perfect, uh, precision:
“They were certain that no one would follow Trump. They thought that Trump would be a disco dancer and he would dance disco in front of the rednecks,” [Evstafiev] fumed. “Meanwhile, they [the Democrats] would win. Now they no longer have this certainty. This means that serious powers with big money have committed to Trump! To them, Trump is a lesser evil than all the rest. I understand these big money people! To have a moron as their president is better than nuclear war.” [LMAO]
But it was Evstafiev’s reference to “liberal, pro-Western groups” inside Russia that provided context for just why a seditionist American former president’s legal troubles were the topic of the evening. Those groups “say something should be done, there should be a coup and then [America will] offer us something. […] Do you really think that people who don’t abide by their own written and unwritten rules will honor them towards you? Have you totally lost your minds?”
The Russian government’s troubles have expanded beyond the inability of its military to coordinate offensive actions, supply routes, or even staying in their own defensive lines. The Wagner “practice coup” rattled the Putin camp with solid evidence of just how little resistance an attempted decapitation of Moscow’s elites would be met with if the coup’s backers were promising an end to the Ukraine occupation and an end to Russia’s global isolation.
It’s mildly intriguing that Evstafiev would admit or invent the existence of such groups inside Russia, purely from a propaganda standpoint. In general, authoritarian regimes are loath to acknowledge the existence of pro-coup “groups” because it suggests to the ordinary public that their own possible “pro-coup” sentiments may not be as isolated as they imagine. After Wagner’s success in at least feinting towards Moscow, however, that cat may be out of the bag.
It is a truthful absurdity: Trump’s new indictment is likely to shape the battlefields of Ukraine in the coming months. Russia is currently engaged in the aforementioned desperate attempt to hold existing gains until Ukraine can be forced to negotiate a disadvantageous peace. The potential return of Trump to the White House is among the only scenarios that might bring about that outcome. Trump has condemned military aid to Ukraine and vowed to end it. Europe could not by itself make up the slack. Trump has already proven a willingness to both sabotage Ukrainian military efforts and deflate sanctions against Russia—he is, from the Putin perspective, a sure bet.
The mere possibility of a Trump election win in 2024 creates a strategic reason for Russia to attempt to maintain its current occupation even with losses unsustainable in the long term, and even as an anti-Putin coup inside Russia moves from the realm of paranoid to the plausible. It sets a certain (or near-certain) date for the rapid deterioration of Ukraine’s capabilities. January 2025 becomes Russia’s military marker.
A certain Trump loss, however—dropping out of the race, a collapse in the polls, a chunk of cheeseburger going down the wrong pipe—changes the equation for the worse. No Republican replacement can be counted on to do as much, or as fast; the further degradation of the Russian army and mounting political unrest loom larger.
It’s not just that the possibility of a Trump return may boost Russian military advantages in the future. It’s shaping the battlefield now in Russian equations of how long their ragged army of conscripts must hold out, and with what supplies, before Ukraine’s own supplies dwindle. So yes, Trump’s legal troubles are very much in the mind of the pundits tasked with justifying the war’s continuation. They’re a bit sweaty on the subject.
But at a court hearing in the nation’s capital, the former US president found himself fidgeting in his seat while he waited 20 minutes for the judge to arrive.
In the meantime, he also stole furtive glances at Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor who has now indicted him in two separate federal cases.
More at the link.
John Moralessays
“he also stole furtive glances”
<snicker>
That’s about as weak-sauce as it can get.
whheydtsays
Re; John Morales @ #133…
Perhaps the next charge will be for theft…
tomhsays
WaPo Live blog:
Unusual admonition from the judge:
Lawyers who practice frequently in Washington, D.C., including MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirschner, say that most of the conditions of release imposed on Trump by the magistrate judge were standard, including the requirement that he not commit a crime while free.
However, they say that Judge Moxila Upadhyaya did issue a warning to Trump that is not commonly given to defendants at arraignments: “Finally, sir, I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror, or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”
whheydtsays
Re: tomh @ #235…
People are trying to start betting pools on how long it takes before he violates that admonition. Most people seem to think he won’t last a week.
whheydt @ 136, I doubt he got through the day without violating that admonition. A quick review of the metadata from his phone and his employees phones would tell the tale.
lotharloosays
BTW, Greg Mitchell is doing a series of Oppenheimer blog posts in light of the recent interest in the topic. I have zero desire to see the shit produced by Hollywood but I am curious about the topic. If you have seen the movie or you are regardless interested in it, I highly recommend you read them. E.g., this is from a few days ago: https://oppenheimer2023.substack.com/p/the-manhattan-projects-only-would
After toiling in a top-secret government program for two to three years, many scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project, and not at Los Alamos, finally learned in 1945 that all that work was aimed at creating a revolutionary new weapon, the atomic bomb, and with Germany defeated it might very well still be used–over Japanese cities in the months ahead. Indeed, this would occur, seventy-eight years ago next week. This eventuality deeply troubled some of them, fearing the toll on civilians, and the uncharted radiation effects that would result, as well as setting a precedent for future use.
Yet none of them took these concerns public. Wartime security controls were still very much in place and anyone who did leak or speak to the press faced severe penalties. A key Chicago scientist, Eugene Rabinowitz, later recounted that he deeply considered speaking out. It wasn’t so much that he opposed any possible use of the bomb but that—I find this profound—Americans deserved to know, in advance, what was likely about to be done by their leaders, in their names. There is no record of anyone else within the massive Manhattan Project–with sprawling sites in a several states–coming close to doing that.
One of the most famous scientists who played a key early role in developing the bomb, Leo Szilard, did mount an earnest private campaign, gaining the support of dozens of atomic scientists in the project. We see a little of this in Oppenheimer, once via Szilard and a couple of times raised by Teller. They petitioned President Truman to never use, or at least hold off using, the new weapon until Japan was given a much longer period to surrender, or possibly demonstrate the power of the bomb for the enemy before actually dropping it over a city. The petition was blocked (partly by Oppie) from reaching the desk of the president before it was too late.
This has been documented by historians for decades. Almost nothing has been reported about the saga of the one true internal “whistleblower” within the bomb project, a man whose name is almost lost to history: Oswald C. Brewster. And he took his warning straight to the president himself.
Brewster was an engineer for a leading Project contractor, the Kellex Corporation, living in New York City. Deeply involved with the separation of uranium isotopes, he supported the race with Germany for the bomb. Then, on May 24, 1945, risking arrest and long imprisonment for security violations–indeed he would later claim he was followed by agents and his phone tapped–he penned a powerful and prescient 3000-word letter and transmitted it through U.S. Army channels to Truman, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the new (very pro-bomb) Secretary of State James Byrnes.
Brewster warned that an atomic bomb would easily destroy any large city and a massive number of civilians, spread dangerous radiation, and inspire many other countries to race for their own such weapon. Therefore he opposed using it against reeling and surrounded Japan. While admitting this was an “unpopular and minority view” among his peers–and might be considered by some “treason”–he felt duty-bound, as one of the relatively few Americans who knew about this plan, to take his protest to the top.
Brewster recognized the key factor influencing the decision to drop the bomb: all of Truman’s advisers, tightly bound to the Project and its success, had strong personal or career reasons for making sure the new weapon was utilized (as did Oppenheimer). There was as well the need to justify having spent $2 billion, a truly massive number then, to create it. He pleaded for Truman to seek “disinterested counsel” from “unbiased” observers, a brilliant, much-needed proposal….
OK
‘Trump’s plan for nationwide “Kent State ” massacre revealed’
And several senators went along with this. Because democracy is…overrated? https://youtu.be/0nkBVTQJIPI
Nope, not Kent State. That was a debacle from untrained National Guard panicking and killing protesting students. The National Guard now receives training annually on crowd control and literally won’t even bring their weapons to a protest, bringing mattock handles instead.
Nope, what he had planned was worse. Declaring martial law nationally, ala Baltimore during the Civil War, when we imprisoned people even for political views without trial.
Honest Abe wasn’t exactly a saint or paragon of Constitutional protection during the Civil War.
The tree variety, InnovaTree, is born of cross-pollinating native Minnesota cottonwood and European poplar. It grows up to 8 feet per year — 64% faster than other commercial trees — and tops out at about 75 feet tall…
There are five other varieties in line to be rolled out, likely one in the next year that is an improved native Eastern cottonwood, according to Jeff Jackson, extension educator at the NRRI…
The NRRI has more than 1,600 new varieties of poplar in development, which they will do extensive testing on to find superior characteristics…
wzrd1says
The College Board has advised Florida school districts to drop AP Psychology from the curriculum after learning that lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation are now unlawful under Florida law. Without those lessons, the courses aren’t accredited.
“Therefore, we advise Florida districts not to offer AP Psychology until Florida reverses their decision and allows parents and students to choose to take the full course,” the board said.
AP psychology is one of the most popular courses in Florida, with 28000 students taking the course.
The Florida legislature is now effectively sabotaging children’s futures in their state. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/us/florida-ap-psychology-college-board/index.html
After a home repair company in North Carolina fired a construction manager over his refusal to attend daily Christian prayer sessions at work, a federal lawsuit followed, according to court records. The former employee, who is atheist, initially attended the mandatory sessions — involving Bible readings and occasional prayer requests “for poor performing employees” — that began increasing in length, lasting around 45 minutes or more, a complaint filed in federal court says. The owner of Aurora Pro Services told him “he did not have to believe in God, and he did not have to like the prayer meetings, but he had to participate” before the worker refused to attend the meetings altogether and was fired over it in the fall of 2020, McClatchy News previously reported. A few months later, the Greensboro-based business fired a customer service representative, who is agnostic, in January 2021 after she stopped attending the prayer sessions, according to the complaint. An agnostic individual does not commit to any view regarding the existence of a higher religious power. This former employee felt the meetings were becoming “cult-like” and went against her beliefs, the complaint filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says. Now, Aurora Pro Services has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle the lawsuit accusing it of religious discrimination, harassment and retaliation on behalf of the former employees, the EEOC announced in an Aug. 2 news release…
Former President Donald Trump has now been indicted three different times on dozens of felony charges — and he wants the United States Supreme Court to help bail him out.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, the former president called on the Supreme Court to “intercede” on the grounds that he is being prosecuted only to harm his chances of winning the 2024 presidential election.
“CRAZY!” Trump began. “My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate. Resources that would have gone into Ads and Rallies, will now have to be spent fighting these Radical Left Thugs in numerous courts throughout the Country. I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede. MAGA!”
Although Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court’s nine justices, they have often been reluctant to do his personal legal bidding.
For instance, the Supreme Court refused to take on the lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and it also shot down Trump’s executive privilege claims when he tried to block the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots from accessing his White House records.
To the extent that anyone might’ve tried to argue that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer was approaching his anti-Biden crusade in good faith, those days appear to be over. In fact, by some measures, this has been a career-defining week for the Kentucky Republican — but not in a good way.
The week began with an interview with Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, who testified under oath to the GOP-led Oversight panel, and whom Republicans saw as a key witness in their ongoing investigations into President Joe Biden and his family. In the wake of the Q&A, Comer made a variety of provocative claims about the closed-door testimony.
Those claims weren’t true. We know this for certain because the Oversight Committee chose yesterday — shortly before Donald Trump’s arraignment overshadowed other political news — to release the official transcript of Archer’s testimony. It thoroughly discredited not only Comer’s claims this week, but also every Republican talking point related to the Democratic president.
A Washington Post analysis took note of what happened next.
On Thursday morning, a Washington Post reporter received an email from Comer’s congressional campaign, seeking to raise money off of the release of the Archer testimony. “Star Witness Devon Archer delivered BOMBSHELL testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee,” the email reads. Then, in bold: “No wonder Biden’s DOJ tried to throw him in jail before he could testify.”
[JFC}
The Justice Department did not, in reality, try to throw Archer in jail in the hopes of derailing his testimony.
Nevertheless, Comer’s written fundraising appeal went on to describe the witness’ sworn testimony as “the smoking gun evidence we needed to prove that Joe Biden was the head of the Biden Bribery Scheme.”
There is simply no defense for such brazen dishonesty. Perhaps a brief timeline of events might help clarify matters.
1. Comer spends months assuring the public that he’d present devastating evidence of Biden corruption. He fails spectacularly at every step.
2. Comer schedules a special closed-door interview with Archer, promising important results. The Oversight Committee chairman fails to attend the Q&A.
3. Comer peddles a variety of highly provocative claims about Archer’s testimony, including during appearances on national television, leading the public to believe the witness advanced the case against the president.
4. Comer’s committee releases the transcript of Archer’s testimony — a time that appeared designed to bury the news — that shows the opposite of what Comer had claimed.
5. Comer’s political operation seeks financial rewards from his supporters anyway, pretending the information that was devastating for the GOP was actually “smoking gun evidence” that incriminated Joe Biden, despite reality.
These are not the actions of a powerful public official acting in good faith.
As we discussed yesterday, the core details are obvious and no longer in doubt: Archer said under oath that Joe Biden wasn’t involved with Burisma, didn’t talk business with his son’s associates, and didn’t take bribes. The Post’s analysis added, “That’s the pattern here. Comer … and others hype claims of Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s work only to see those claims collapse as more information is made public.” […]
As Comer’s campaign tries to capitalize financially on the GOP chairman’s failure, there should almost certainly be a meaningful conversation about whether Comer should continue to hold the Oversight Committee’s gavel.
A year after Donald Trump left the White House, the former president realized that his legal troubles were just getting started. As talk of possible indictments grew louder, Trump held a rally in January 2022 and said that if he were to face charges, “I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had.”
We were reminded yesterday that those hopes have since been dashed. The Washington Post reported:
As Donald Trump left Thursday for his arraignment on a third criminal indictment, he fired off a social media post telling his supporters that he was showing up to a D.C. federal courthouse “for you.” Few returned the favor. … For all the online outrage, only a handful of Trump supporters turned out to protest the latest charges against the former president, continuing a shift in the right-wing fervor that once drew thousands to D.C. rallies.
The muted reactions, at least so far, are clearly not what the former president had in mind.
[…] In March, as the former president prepared for an indictment in New York, he turned to his social media platform, writing, “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” In case that was too subtle, Trump added a few hours later, “IT’S TIME!!! … WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. … WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”
Around the same time, the Republican derided talk of “peaceful” demonstrations, while suggesting that if he were indicted in New York, it might cause “potential death [and] destruction” that “could be catastrophic for our Country.”
Though it seemed as if Trump envisioned mass groups of red-capped followers taking to the streets, those calls were largely ignored. Some supporters turned out in Manhattan around the time of his first arrest, but the gatherings were, by any fair measure, underwhelming duds.
After his classified documents scandal led to his second indictment, the former president again called on his followers to rally behind him — Trump wrote, “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” on his social media platform — but the numbers were again small.
Local law enforcement was prepared for crowds of up to 50,000 people. The actual crowd was closer to 500.
In the nation’s capital yesterday, the precise number of pro-Trump voices is unavailable, but by any fair measure, there were just dozens of people. For a man who cares more about crowd sizes than any human being should, this must’ve been disappointing […]
[Chris Hayes also noted that, apart from lawyers, Trump was alone. No family members, close friends, or political allies accompanied Trump to the arraignment.]
[…] Zeeshan Aleem wrote, “[…] Maybe Trump finally has exhausted his base with his constant hysteria. … Whatever the reasons may be, Trump is looking weak.”
Reps. Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville both comfortably reclaimed their legislative seats in the Tennessee House in a Thursday special election.
Jones celebrated the victory with a tweet, noting the pair will be back in the state House when a special session to discuss potential changes to the state’s gun control laws begins later this month. [Tweet available at the link]
The landslide victories came almost three months after Pearson and Jones — two young, Black Democrats — were expelled by Tennessee Republicans for participating in a peaceful gun protest on the House floor.
During the April demonstration, Pearson and Jones, alongside Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville — an older white woman, who survived the GOP-led attempt to oust the trio — joined a group of demonstrators, made up mostly of teachers, children and parents holding signs and protesting the Nashville school shooting that left three children and three school personnel dead. The group packed the state’s Capitol building and the House gallery and chanted, calling for gun restrictions. Jones, Johnson and Pearson cheered on the protestors from the front of the House chamber, with two of them using a bullhorn.
In response, state Republicans moved forward with efforts to oust them, claiming the three Democrats “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives through their individual and collective actions.”
The Republican House leadership also made bad faith and over-the-top comparisons, likening the trio’s behavior to the Jan. 6 “insurrection.” […]
Just a couple of days later, the Republicans voted to oust Jones and Pearson but did not punish Johnson, a white woman, after some lawmakers cited that she didn’t use the bullhorn.
House Republican leaders have repeatedly denied that race was a factor in the expulsions of the two Black lawmakers. But Democrats across the country, including Tennessee Democrat and third protestor Johnson, pushed back on the argument, saying that the only reason that she wasn’t expelled was because she is white.
Pearson also echoed that sentiment, saying at the time many across the county were “upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this White supremacist-led state legislature.”
With the strong national pushback from Democrats, the expulsions drew national support for the trio, dubbed the “Tennessee Three.” That national support came in especially handy for Pearson and Jones as they fundraised for their re-election campaigns.The two raised more than $2 million combined through about 70,400 campaign donations from across the country, according to the Associated Press an unheard of amount of cash for two freshman Democrats in a statehouse superminority.
On the flip side, more than 15 Republican lawmakers funneled cash to fund the campaign efforts of Jones’ opponent Laura Nelson (R). Nelson raised more than $34,000 for the race. But despite GOP efforts, Jones won approximately 78% of the votes in House District 52 against Nelson.
Meanwhile, Pearson’s opponent Jeff Johnston, an Independent, raised less than $400. And Pearson ended up earning approximately 94% of the votes in Tennessee’s House District 86.
Once the Democrats were expelled in April, their House seats automatically became vacant. And, according to Tennessee law, it fell on the respective county legislative bodies to make an appointment to fill the seats of the expelled lawmakers temporarily until a special election could be held.
Just a few days later, both Pearson and Jones were unanimously voted — by their respective county boards — to return to the seats they were expelled from as interim House members.
With the Thursday election, both Democrats have now officially won their respective special elections to formally return to their seats for the rest of their two-year term.
The Republicans’ efforts to keep the members, who dared to speak out about gun violence, out of office ultimately failed. In addition to having their seats back, the young Black Democrats made a national name for themselves, guaranteeing more than enough support to reclaim their seats.
And Johnson, who was also praised for her role as a part of the Tennessee Three, is reportedly eyeing a mid-August launch for a Senate campaign against Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
[…] Trump’s Truth Social platform has a bit of an air of The Wizard of Oz, bellowing and menace. But out from behind the curtain he’s a much smaller figure.
The simple fact is that if Donald Trump isn’t elected in November 2024, there’s a good chance he’ll spend a good part or most of the rest of his life in prison. That would terrify anyone. Especially someone who experiences powerlessness, being dominated as a kind of death.
What is coming into focus for me is that we’re likely going to get a hugely consequential decision pretty soon: a trial date. The government seems very intent on a speedy trial calendar, one that would have the trial take place early in 2024, ahead of his trial in the documents case in Florida. Trump’s lawyer, Lauro, acted as though this is a borderline absurd proposition, that the defense will need far longer to prepare. I simply don’t know enough about the law or judicial practices to know whether he has much to stand on to make that case with any effect. But unlike in Florida it doesn’t seem like he’ll have a judge doing his bidding or giving any special dispensation.
[…] Why is this so important? There are political and legal — or, rather, extra-legal reasons — and the two intertwine. If the trial is pushed out past the election and Trump wins, the case disappears, a total victory. But there’s a political factor too. For reasons I didn’t fully appreciate until recently, Trump doesn’t want to go into the election a convicted felon. He definitely doesn’t want to go into the convention a convicted felon. […] For his diehard supporters, it’s just another step in the Deep State’s persecution of Trump. But voting for a convicted felon is probably more than at least a significant slice of Republican voters have the stomach for. […]
[…] I don’t think a guilty verdict will necessarily lose Trump the nomination. I don’t think the bottom is going to fall out of his support in the general election either. But it introduces at least some uncertainty on the first count and is likely highly damaging on the second. If he loses the election he’s probably doing real jail time with sentences in one or more of what will likely be four separate criminal trials.
As you can see, the trial date is a pretty big deal. […]
Every one of us has had bad days in our lives, but few of us have ever been indicted on four felonies for a conspiracy to fraudulently change the results of a United States election. At this point, that might only count as an average Thursday for Donald Trump.
But boy oh boy, was Trump’s day filled with reminders that he isn’t the president anymore. Get ready for truly epic levels of short-thumbed rageposting, because he had a bad day
Trump’s arraignment began with an insult he’s probably not used to, with the magistrate judge making him cool his heels at the defense table for a good 20 minutes before showing up to begin. In Trump’s world, making someone wait for you is a power move. It’s how Vladimir Putin used to show world leaders he was the more important figure. “I’m too busy for you, so just sit and stew for a while” is a favorite game among the elite.
And then, the judge had the audacity to not suck up to him! [video at the link: "I am told that one thing that irked him particularly was during that hearing today when the magistrate judge referred to him as simply Mr. Trump."]
Trump’s lawyer explicitly introduced Donald as “President Trump,” only to have the female judge greet him with a mere mister. […]
Even before arriving at the courthouse, Trump was getting some in-your-face reminders that he was no longer the most heavily guarded figure in the country.
Trump’s campaign team was miffed by a lack of traffic support from local police after he arrived in Washington, forcing the motorcade to weave through rush-hour traffic. Other motorists attempted to change lanes between the motorcade, showing less deference than typical for an average funeral procession. The welcome from onlookers at the courthouse was occasionally hostile, with several middle fingers from bikers and spectators along the highway from the airport. There was a Biden flag on a corner near the courthouse.
What local police were supposed to do, upon the arrival of the man whose attempted coup caused injuries to many of their own colleagues, was block off entire streets so that Trump’s motorcade could scoot through the city like a line of sleek black ducklings, ruining everybody else’s plans to be anywhere on time. But then, middle fingers? A Biden sign? This is why Trump admires dictators so much. In his mind, “That guy has a Biden sign” is something the Secret Service should have taken care of before Donald’s unwrinkled brain had to take in its existence.
Pfft. His campaign team was “miffed.”
The court appearance was not the end of Donald’s day, of course. After having the conditions of his release explained to him by a female judge who called him “mister,” Trump still had to make his way back to his Bedminster summer home in New Jersey. He of course had to take his private, flag-painted 757 jet to make the journey.
Sorry, Donald. You ain’t on Air Force One anymore and airports are busy places. There’s a line, and you have to wait your turn. [Tweet and image at the link] [It’s a petty issue, but we all love seeing that Trump is made to wait … and wait. It shows how much power he has lost. And we know that that Trump feels personally insulted, prickly narcissist that he is, so we indulge in the delicious schadenfreude.]
The capper of Donald’s trip, however, and perhaps the worst reminder that he is no longer half as important as he thinks he is, is that Trump found his motorcade blocked upon his arrival at Bedminster. [LOL]
By goats. [LOL] [Tweet and video at the link]
I know what you’re probably thinking: Those goats were clearly antifa. But Actually, those could well have been Donald’s own goats, or at least goats owned by a chain of Bermuda-based corporations and subcontracted to his house through a complex arrangement that would be baffling to most goats. Those goats might be the personal herd that gives Trump a multimillion-dollar property tax dodge.
That’s got to be enraging to Trump—having his motorcade come to a dead stop after being blocked by goats. Not protesters. Not bicyclists. Farm animals.
And the Secret Service didn’t do a damn thing about it! Not a single goat was tackled or riddled with bullets! Donald’s own tax dodge was given the right of way!
Yes, it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Donald Trump. He had to see a Biden sign (probably the reason he announced that Washington, D.C., was now a hellhole once he’d made it back to the airport), he was forced to wait, he was called mister (and by a woman!), his plane had to burn money on the runway waiting for commercial jets carrying vacationers and other people’s extra packed pairs of underpants to take to the air before he could, and then his own damn goats showed him who’s boss when he got back to his house. And all of those things were probably just as enraging to him as being arraigned for four new felonies.
Yeah, he’s going to be hell to be around today—I imagine Melania Trump already had plans to be a few states away until at least Monday.
And the odds are pretty good that Donald had goat for dinner last night.
[Aaron Rupar: “Here’s one of Trump’s lawyers admitting to Laura Ingraham tonight that Trump urged Pence to delay election certification past January 6, which is illegal. Great work!”]
Trump urged Pence to call a 10-day recess for state legislatures to reconsider election results. IOW, he just admitted to one of the charges in Jack Smith’s indictment, 18 USC 1512(c)(2) obstruction
Gang not shooting straight, as Trump defense attorney John Lauro, a few hours after his client’s arraignment, went on NewsMax/Fox and inadvertently admitted his client participated in a conspiracy to overturn the election. Lauro’s statement is likely admissible in court — and he can now potentially be disqualified from representing Trump. Witless for the prosecution. [video at the link]
John Lauro, Donald Trump’s latest defense attorney who one would think had found his law license in a box of Cheerios if Andrew Weissmen wasn’t saying that he and Lauro worked together in the Eastern district of New York as U.S. Attorneys and he considers Lauro “competent”, went on Faux Snooze and Newsmax tonight and in interviews at both places he directly quoted his client saying that he wanted Mike Pence to ge a 10-day delay in the count so the issue could be returned to the states for determination of which votes were accurate. In other words, the defense lawuer went on television and confirmed the accuracy of Count 4 of the indictment!
According to Weissman, when an “agent of the defendant” – which Lauro is as his defense attorney – makes a statement of fact like this, it is admissable in court as evidence to convict Trump on that count.
Weissman, Tim Heaphy and Barbar McQuade all agreed with Lawrence O’Donnell that what is happening with the Trump defense is they are running through various possible defenses in public, to see which one resonates with the public. Doing this is an attempt to pollute the jury pool by providing misinformation that a potential juror might latch onto and use as his or her reason to be the holdout that results in a hung jury in the coming trial.
Donald Trump was arraigned for the third time Thursday. The disgraced former president pleaded not guilty to four federal counts of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. Earlier in the day, Trump smashed that all caps button and wrote on his Truth Social site that it was an “HONOR” to be indicted because “I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU.”
The arraignment took some time, and Fox News tried to spin the historic and treasonous nature of Thursday’s event by suggesting that all publicity is good publicity. After leaving the courtroom, Trump spoke briefly to reporters at an airport tarmac where his plane was waiting for him. Holding a big sad umbrella, Trump prattled in a very not-all-caps way about some connection between him not being president and the infrastructure of the nation’s capital not being up to snuff.
“This is a very sad day for America,” he intoned. “And it was also very sad driving through Washington, D.C., and seeing the filth and the decay and all of the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti. This is not the place that I left. It’s a very sad thing to see it. When you look at what’s happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent.”
He ended his rambling statement by implying this was all happening because he is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. “So if you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him,” Trump blathered. How about both?
It was sort of funny.
Trump has leaned into the persecution language in the past couple of days, releasing a statement on Wednesday saying this new indictment was “reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.” Today’s withering, low-energy statement didn’t elicit the sympathy he may (or may not) have been looking for. [video at the link]
Many people responded with their translations of what they believe he was trying to say. “I can’t get a fair trial here. Look at these buildings.”
[…] And while I do not know if this is accurate, knowing Donald Trump, it very well may be. [Map of motorcade route, showing only small area around the courthouse where Trump could have seen buildings in DC at ground level.]
And finally: [Tweet at the link: “Trump literally tried to get Zelensky to investigate his political opponent when he was president. It’s always projection 🙄
Donald Trump told reporters he believes the case against him is political, ” So if you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him.”]
Trump grabbing the umbrella from his coconspirator Walt Nauta (before boarding his plane to fly back to Bedminster) looked like a cranky old man.
Alejandro Monteverde’s Sound of Freedom has generated two things in excess: cash (its domestic box office haul since its July 3 release has topped $155 million) and controversy. One month out, it persists. In the time since the movie was released, news broke that the fantastical movie’s real-life subject, Tim Ballard, left his anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad “after an internal investigation into claims made against him by multiple employees—something which OUR does not dispute,” according to a Vice report. Details of his departure have yet to leak.
The latest thing to make you go hmmmm involving this movie and the people who helped bring it to the public is the recent arrest of Fabian Marta, who bragged about helping fund the movie after Disney shelved it. According to the Missouri Courts website, Marta was charged July 21 with child kidnapping, a felony. According to Newsweek, which published his mugshot, Marta was arrested on July 23. “A person commits the offense of child kidnapping if he or she is not a relative of the child within the third degree and, knowing he or she has no right to do so, removes a child under the age of fourteen without consent of the child’s parents or guardian, or confines such child for a substantial period of time without such consent,” is how Marta’s charge is defined on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes…
Pennsylvania announced on Thursday that, after nearly 30 years, it was canceling the contract of an anti-abortion group that provides funding for deceptive crisis pregnancy centers. The group, Real Alternatives, had received more than $134 million to date in state and federal funds. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) first signed the 2023-2024 budget, which increased the line item from $6.2 million to $8.2 million, and then his administration separately revealed the end of the group’s contract.
CPCs are usually Evangelical-run anti-abortion facilities that exist solely to dissuade people from having abortions. They masquerade as real health clinics but typically don’t have any licensed medical professionals on staff, only offering free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds without disclosing that the ultrasounds are non-diagnostic and don’t accurately date a pregnancy. (A Massachusetts woman recently sued a CPC claiming that it failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy and that the pregnancy later ruptured, requiring emergency surgery.) Many CPCs also offer things like diapers and baby clothes, but only after people “earn” them by taking parenting classes…
[…] Covid-19 cases are on the rise again. Hospitalizations from the virus ticked up in mid-July, increasing by 12 percent to just over 8,000 across the US for the week ending July 22. That’s nowhere near the pandemic peaks that overwhelmed health workers, but July brought the first weekly increases in hospitalizations since the US ended the federal Covid-19 public health emergency in May, just a week after the World Health Organization did the same with its global public health emergency.
The end of Covid-19 emergency status meant the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking the virus as closely. But metrics show infections are still spreading. The pharmacy chain Walgreens reported a 42 percent positivity rate for tests during the last week of July, up from 29 percent in late June. And wastewater samples show concentrations of the virus moving upward across the country. Cases of Covid have also increased in Japan and the United Kingdom.
[…] experts have a hazier view of the building wave than in prior years. In the US, publication of hospitalization data comes a week behind the dates it captures. The CDC no longer tracks community levels of transmission. When the WHO emergency declaration was in effect, we saw more cross-government communication, but that’s less available now. “Our magnifying glass is a bit smudged compared to where we were a year ago,” says Josh Michaud, an associate director for global health policy at KFF, a nonprofit research group. “Many of the data points and indicators that we relied on in the past are no longer available to us.”
ut there are still signs to watch. Wastewater testing, which can find traces of the virus expelled in feces, has shown a “sustained” increase in Covid-19 concentrations over several weeks, says Mariana Matus, CEO and cofounder of Biobot Analytics, a company that tracks Covid-19, Mpox, and opioids in US wastewater. The data from Biobot Analytics draws from about 600 wastewater data collection points and is valuable, Matus says, because it doesn’t exclude people who can’t afford testing or don’t report the results of at-home tests—and it can show the presence of Covid-19 in a community before large numbers of people get test results or are hospitalized.
But ensuring a bigger picture will require additional steps, such as expanding wastewater sampling. The decision to test wastewater largely relies on individual communities opting do their own testing. Matus imagines a more robust system that could help people make decisions based on pathogen concentrations in different regions, analogous to the Air Quality Index—data that could be easily displayed on something equivalent to a weather app. […]
Although case and hospitalization numbers are still relatively low, the virus does kill hundreds of people in the US each week. And as of early 2023, it had left an estimated one in 10 survivors fighting long Covid, which can include persistent health issues like breathlessness and brain fog.
[…] while the US government previously bought doses directly and helped distribute them for free, the distribution of vaccines is now expected to move to the private sector.
Officials are unlikely to roll out wide-ranging restrictions on masking and social distancing—and barring a threatening new subvariant or a massive peak in cases, people are unlikely to change their behaviors after living alongside the virus for more than three years. It’s too soon to know whether the latest Covid-19 cases are a blip or a big wave. But as the dog days of summer linger, Covid is hanging around too.
North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop, a vocal member of the Freedom Caucus that’s become a foil to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, announced on Thursday that he would run for state attorney general next year rather than seek to remain in Congress…
Could be a double benefit, if he leaves the House and then loses his other election.
When the latest indictment of Donald Trump came down Tuesday night, the former president’s top lieutenants were quick to defend their boss and characterize the investigation as a witch hunt.
But less than 24 hours later, after The New York Times suggested there was a strong possibility that senior Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn could be co-conspirator No. 6, Trump advisers who had been castigating the indictment were suddenly delighting in Epshteyn’s predicament.
“So sad!” one Trump adviser told The Daily Beast, summoning a Trump catchphrase while sending a meme of a cat crying with a Kleenex…
“He is so deeply, viscerally hated right now,” another Trump confidant told The Daily Beast.
Even Trumpworld’s most loyal and steadfast MAGA-aligned operatives—who usually make sport out of spinning MAGA shortcomings into strengths—admitted that Epshteyn has the ability to irk coworkers…
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ various, regard Trump arraignment…
Not only a woman judge–a judge magistrate, at that–but not white and an immigrant. Likewise the actual Article III judge that will hear the case is also a woman of color and an immigrant. Bet she also addresses him as “Mr.”.
Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has found a new cause—changing the election law she blames for her 2022 congressional campaign loss. But new details about the fringe conservative group behind that crusade suggest that this battle might very likely meet the same fate.
That group, “Alaskans for Honest Elections,” is dedicated to overturning the practice of ranked-choice voting (RCV). But state filings and a recent campaign finance complaint suggest the ballot committee, which features Palin as its national spokesperson, has generated a blizzard of potential violations, including attempts to skirt disclosure laws, obscure its finances, manufacture tax breaks for contributors, and line the pockets of its own officials…
While the train of shady wheeling and dealing isn’t exactly new or even all that uncommon in the world of political dark money, in this case, it’s been enabled by a curious mechanism: the creation of a new “church” to fund the whole operation—the absurdly named “Ranked Choice Education Association,” which Kendall makes no bones about describing as “completely fake.”
The man behind these groups is right-wing megachurch minister Dr. Art Mathias, who among other things has openly practiced LGBTQ “conversion therapy” and has claimed that COVID vaccines cause “spontaneous abortions” in 80 percent of pregnant women. Mathias has so far sent at least $90,000 in personal contributions to the ballot committee through the RCEA…
Unable to meet any of its pre-war goals of taking Kyiv, decapitating the Ukrainian government and installing its own puppet regime, and demilitarizing Ukraine, Russia’s final gambit is to retain the territory it captured until everyone gets tired of supplying Ukraine.
It would not be an insignificant result, as Russia currently holds valuable agricultural steppe in northeastern Ukraine, as well as an invaluable “land bridge” connecting mainland Russia with the occupied Crimean Peninsula. It would be enough for Vladimir Putin to declare victory and call it quits … for now.
As such, Putin has ratcheted up “peace” talk as of late, implying that it is Kyiv who are the real warmongers, unwilling to cease hostilities. Within that context, this weekend’s peace gathering in Saudi Arabia is particularly interesting. Russia is talking about peace only to itself, offering nothing of actual substance. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia will host 40 countries to discuss Ukraine’s proposal, including, surprisingly, China.
China’s attendance at the peace gathering gives the event some heft beyond mere propaganda value. Reuters reports:
Chinese Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will visit Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for international talks on the peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis, China’s foreign ministry said on Friday.
“China is willing to work with the international community to continue to play a constructive role in promoting a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson at the Chinese ministry, said in a statement.
Ukrainian and Western diplomats hope the meeting in Jeddah this weekend of national security advisers and other senior officials from some 40 countries will agree on key principles for a future peace settlement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow will not be attending.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday he hoped the initiative will lead to a “peace summit” of leaders from around the world this autumn to endorse the principles, based on his own 10-point formula for a peace settlement.
Ukraine’s 10-point plan is as follows:
– Nuclear safety around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor currently in Russian-occupied territory.
– Allowing Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea.
– Rebuilding Ukraine’s energy network while maintaining price constraints on Russian energy exports.
– Release of all prisoners of war, and return of all deported Ukrainian citizens.
– Restoration of Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.
– Withdrawal of all Russian forces from those internationally recognized borders.
– Establishment of a judicial tribunal to try Russian war criminals.
– Focus on restoring Ukraine’s damaged ecosystem, including removal of all mines and unexploded ordnance.
– Security guarantees for Ukraine, including NATO ascension.
– A signed declaration ending the war between Ukraine and Russia.
This peace plan is more like a Ukrainian wishlist of everything it wants. The demand for territorial integrity and the restoration of the pre-2014 borders (which include Crimea) is a hard line for both Ukraine and Russia. There is also no scenario, absent violent regime change in Moscow, in which indicted war criminal Putin ends up at The Hague.
As such, it’s hard to see this leading to any sort of actual negotiated peace. And given the situation on the ground, there is little military impetus for either side to budge at this time.
But this weekend’s peace summit is quite interesting nonetheless. Russia will obviously be absent, but what if China comes in and endorses much or most of this document? This summit will also be attended by many of the “global south” nations which Russia has heavily wooed in the past year, hoping to lead this bloc of economically emerging nations against the dominant West.
Brazil, India, and South Africa will be there. Alongside China and Russia, they are the core members of the BRICS alliance (the initials correspond to each of those nations). It’s not much of an alliance right now, as India and China are in a low-grade border conflict, India and Russia have their disagreements, and China and Russia have theirs. And none of those nations are helping Russia militarily in this war. BRICS is more of an idea of a future in which the U.S. Canada, Australia, and Europe don’t have outsized weight in world affairs. Their inclusion in this Ukrainian summit, to Russia’s detriment, is telling.
Also attending are other key “global south” countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Chile, and several African nations like Zambia. Regional power Turkey, which is hosting Putin in a bid to restart the grain corridor deal, will also be there.
Not that diplomatic isolation will, in itself, end the war. Russia has been diplomatically isolated this entire war and it hasn’t altered Putin’s behavior in any way. But this war will end when multiple pieces come together—diplomatic, economic, and military.
Russia’s biggest triumph since the start of the invasion has been on the economic front, keeping its economy afloat in the face of punishing Western sanctions. Indeed, the White House once claimed that its sanctions would cut Russia’s economy in half. Instead, its economy grew 1.5% this year after contracting by a mere 2.1% last year.
Much of that growth, however, has come from massive government spending on war stuff, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
Government spending as part of gross domestic product has jumped by 13.5% in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the highest growth rate in data going back to 1996 […]
The output of “finished metal goods”—a line that analysts say includes weapons and ammunition—rose by 30% in the first half of the year compared with last. Other lines associated with military output have also increased: Production of computers, electronic and optical products also rose by 30%, while the output of special clothing has jumped by 76%. By contrast, auto output is down over 10% year-over-year.
“What we’re seeing now is a massive boost in demand distribution via military-industrial complex and war beneficiaries, we can call it military Keynesianism,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central-bank official who is now a nonresident scholar at the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Russia successfully arrested an economic decline by artificially propping up its currency, the ruble. It did that by forbidding Russian banks from converting rubles to foreign currency, thereby forcing them to carry large supplies of rubles. This had a particularly outsize effect on regular Russians, who would previously convert their rubles to dollars and euros as the more desirable, safer currency. It also forced companies doing business with Russia’s massive energy conglomerates and other economic sectors to make payments in rubles. As long as major economic players needed to convert their local currencies to rubles to pay for Russian goods, that currency retained value.
But that streak is now coming to an end. India and China have expressed little interest in paying for Russian supplies in rubles, and they have far more economic leverage than the Europeans who once depended on Russian energy. As Europe continues to exit Russian energy markets, the ruble is suffering accordingly. Today, the ruble hit its lowest mark against the U.S. dollar since the start of the war. If Russia is unable to reverse that trend, it will raise the cost of goods for regular Russians and increase inflation; that will lead to higher interest rates and add to the growing discontent around the country.
None of this is going to end the war anytime soon. Absent a successful coup, that will still depend, for the most part, on what happens on the battlefield. But the more Russia is isolated diplomatically, the more its economy falters, and the greater the chance of success in the year ahead.
———————–
Chris Christie visited Ukraine today. [Tweet and video at the link.] Many people laughed this off, given his poor status in the Republican presidential field. I think it’s important for any Republican to show support for Ukraine, and push back against the MAGA nihilists who cheer Putin’s war. [I agree.]
————————
Rumors yesterday that Ukraine hit another Russian naval ship are confirmed as true. Video of the drone has been circulating on Twitter and YouTube, and here’s video of the ship being towed to harbor, looking dangerously damaged. [video at the link]
I mean, look at this thing. It might not make it: [Tweet, image, and video at the link]
This is a Ropucha-class landing ship, designed for amphibious landings. While Russia won’t be making any such amphibious assaults against Ukraine anytime soon, it does seem like that ship would be an effective way to shuttle equipment into Crimea in the case the land bridge in Zaporizhzhia is cut and the Crimean Bridge is destroyed. And in any case, it signals to Russia that their ships are not safe, and perhaps need to be pulled back away from Crimea.
It sure would be nice if Ukraine managed to similarly damage the missile cruisers that have been launching punishing missile strikes against Odesa the past two weeks.
——————————-
Lots of rumors around Robotyne, suggesting that Ukraine has captured the first Russian defensive lines, and that Robotyne itself may be on the verge of liberation.
The town itself is less important than those trench lines. If the first line has been breached, that would be something to celebrate. Cut off from its supplies, the Russian garrison at Robotyne would either have to fight its way out, or surrender.
Nothing is confirmed, with Ukraine characteristically quiet and Russians uncharacteristically shut down. Remember, the war bloggers are now under pressure from Moscow to refrain from publishing “unflattering” information. The arrest of war criminal and war critic Igor Girkin has had a chilling effect on the Russian war blogging world.
Also, this conversation with Russian POWs is interesting:
Russian POWs claim they were threatened to be executed for disobeying orders in Putin’s army. “We didn’t have a choice,” one of them says in the video. [video at the link] “Another group of Russians surrendered near Kreminna where Russia is throwing everything with little to show for it.
Now the men are safe, no one will shoot them for disobeying the criminal orders. [Dmitri]
[…] NBC News reported on comments the Floridian made while campaigning in Iowa.
Asked by a reporter during a campaign stop in Iowa whether the 2020 election was “stolen,” DeSantis said the fraud theories “did not prove to be true.” He did not, however, mention the name of his top rival for the GOP nomination, who was just indicted for allegedly working to overturn the last presidential election.
To be sure, the governor did not come right out and say, “Trump lied about his defeat,” despite the fact that Trump really did lie about his defeat, but DeSantis went considerably further than he has before.
“I’ve said many times, the election is what it is,” DeSantis said. “All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true.” He added that assorted theories, “you know, proved to be unsubstantiated.”
Note the classic and clumsy use of passive voice: The Florida Republican referenced “theories that were put out,” carefully avoiding reference to those responsible for the theories. It was effectively DeSantis’ way of saying lies were told, instead of pointing to those who told the lies.
What’s more, I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention that the phrase “the election is what it is” has no apparent meaning.
Nevertheless, the GOP governor has dodged questions about Trump and the 2020 race repeatedly for months, and he’s never come close to saying what he said today.
[…] Having facts on his side, however, might not be enough, and it’s all but certain that Trump will seize on these comments as evidence of DeSantis siding with the reality-based community over the 69% of Republican voters who actually believe the former president’s “Big Lie.”
I won’t pretend to know whether this grudging acknowledgement of the truth — late on a Friday afternoon in early August — will help or hurt DeSantis’ candidacy, but at least it’s something new and different, in a race that’s been gradually slipping away from him.
[…] As Trump prepared to be arraigned for alleged crimes related to his post-election wrongdoing, Habba, a prominent member of the former president’s legal team, held a brief press conference. As part of a larger set of comments, Habba conceded that “everybody” on Team Trump “was made aware that he lost the election.”
That probably wasn’t the ideal message for Habba to acknowledge — since part of the indictment focused on the fact that a great many credible people surrounding Trump told him the truth about his defeat, making it that much more difficult for him to claim that he didn’t know the facts about his loss as he tried to overturn the results. […]
The two largest federal employee unions on Thursday denounced Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s recent vow that as president he would “start slitting throats” in the federal bureaucracy — the latest escalation in intensifying Republican attacks on government operations they want to slash or eliminate.
DeSantis, whose campaign for the GOP nomination has included promises to downsize agencies and fire bureaucrats, made the comments this weekend in New Hampshire while criticizing the “deep state,” echoing a term regularly used by former president Donald Trump to deride Washington.
“On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on Day One and be ready to go,” DeSantis said at a barbecue in Rye, N.H., on Sunday hosted by former senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.). “You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.” […]
two prominent unions representing tens of thousands of federal workers called on DeSantis to retract his words. Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union — which represents about 150,000 employees at the Internal Revenue Service and 30 other federal agencies — called the comments “repulsive and unworthy of the presidential campaign trail” in a statement.
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement that “violent anti-government rhetoric from politicians has deadly consequences,” pointing to a pro-Trump’s mob’s storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Any candidate who positions themselves within that shameful tradition has no place in public office,” said Kelley, whose union represents 750,000 civil servants across the federal workforce of 2.1 million. Both labor organizations are closely allied with President Biden.
DeSantis’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, but some of his allies embraced the rhetoric. “Hell yes,” tweeted Matt Wolking, an official with the super PAC supporting DeSantis’s presidential bid. […]
Lil Miss Hot Mess, a prominent drag queen, realized about a week ago that she had been pulled into a fight over abortion in Ohio, which is over a thousand miles from her current home. The news came via a message from a friend, who tipped Lil Miss Hot Mess off that she was starring in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women Ohio. The commercial warned an upcoming ballot measure, “State Issue 1,” would allow “out-of-state special interest groups” to “enshrine late-term abortion in our constitution and abolish parental rights so someone can take your child to get an abortion or sex change operation without your consent.” Along with this ominous message, the ad featured footage of Lil Miss Hot Mess participating in a “Drag Story Hour” event alongside images of happy families with prepubescent children.
According to Lil MIss Hot Mess, her reaction to the intensely dramatic commercial was, “honestly, an eyeroll.”
Other people might be shocked to find their image in a television ad running in a state where they don’t live, focused on an issue they have never weighed in on. But, as a prominent drag queen, Lil Miss Hot Mess has become used to political attacks of late. Even so, this new use of her image was different. The attack ad featuring Lil Miss Hot Mess was part of a political battle that was not directly related to drag or LGBTQ issues. Instead, it was a salvo in a multimillion dollar offensive that critics have described as a “disinformation campaign” for its strained attempts to harness right-wing hysteria surrounding the raging culture wars over gender and sexuality to defeat an abortion measure in Ohio. […]
‘Co-Conspirator 2’ cited the Declaration of Independence in saying that the people have a right to “alter or abolish” their government.
In an interview released on Thursday, John Eastman restated that he’s an unreconstructed believer that the 2020 election was stolen by the left.
Chairman of the Claremont Institute’s Board of Directors Tom Klingenstein conducted the interview, which was released in three parts, the last of which was published on Thursday.
Klingenstein asked Eastman whether he would have acted in the same way in 1960 as he did in 2020, referencing the belief on the right that John F. Kennedy stole that year’s election from Richard Nixon.
Eastman replied no, and added that the stakes of 2020 represented an “existential threat to the very survivability, not just of our nation, but of the example that our nation, properly understood, provides to the world.”
The Trump 2020 lawyer went on to reference the Declaration of Independence, saying that “our founders lay this case out.”
“There’s actually a provision in the Declaration of Independence that a people will suffer abuses while they remain sufferable, tolerable while they remain tolerable,” he said. “At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.”
“So that’s the question,” he added. “Have the abuses or the threat of abuses become so intolerable that we have to be willing to push back?”
The interview was recorded before Special Counsel Jack Smith charged President Trump with four counts related to his efforts to reverse the 2020 election. Though Eastman does not appear in the indictment by name, his attorney confirmed to multiple media outlets that the document refers to him as “Co-Conspirator 2.”
Eastman has not been charged with a crime, and his lawyer said last month that he planned to send a letter to state and federal officials investigating Jan. 6 explaining that Eastman committed no crimes.
Eastman made the stunning remarks, which appear to repeat the suggestion that overthrowing the government is a legitimate means to stop what Eastman described as “the modern left wing,” in the last of a series of interviews with Klingenstein. Part one, published in June, addresses Eastman’s belief that the election was stolen. Part two covers what Eastman saw as the legal remedy, while part three asks, as Klingenstein put it, “should you and the president have pursued that legal remedy?”
Eastman said in the interview that his own actions and statements during the run-up to January 6 had been mischaracterized, and at one point claimed that Trump himself read a series of academic law review articles about the Electoral Count Act to brush up on the relevant law. […]
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @171:
. . . and at one point claimed that Trump himself read a series of academic law review articles about the Electoral Count Act to brush up on the relevant law.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! The Orange Turnip ain’t read no such thing. It didn’t have anything praising him, and there were no pictures.
johnson catmansays
re Reginald Selkirk @160:
Could be a double benefit, if he leaves the House and then loses his other election.
That is a big IF. The state of North Carolina is deeply divided, with the urban areas mostly overwhelmingly liberal and the rural areas mostly overwhelmingly conservative. The Orange Idiot carried the state in 2020, the last two senatorial races have gone to the republicans, and the NC legislature has gerrymandered the state so fully that it is hard for Democrats to get a fair shake. The gerrymandering would not affect a state-wide race, but the efforts by the NC legislature to make voting harder for marginalized groups has had quite an effect.
The agency’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, sent the equivalent of an interstellar “shout” more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) to Voyager 2, instructing the spacecraft to reorient itself and turn its antenna back to Earth. With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked. At 12:29 a.m. EDT on Aug. 4, the spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data, indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory.
wzrd1says
Well, it’s official sports fans! The god-emperor wannabe wants the SCOTUS to intercede on his behalf in his current criminal woes. Nothing on a docket, they should decide by judicial fiat to wave the magic gavel over his head and anoint him free or something.
A day after being arraigned for the third time, former President Donald Trump complained about the time and cost spent on his many legal battles and called on the Supreme Court to “intercede.”
“My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump complained on Truth Social. “Resources that would have gone into Ads and Rallies, will now have to be spent fighting these Radical Left Thugs in numerous courts throughout the Country. I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede.”
Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to four criminal charges related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
After the hearing, Trump criticized the latest charges and described the indictment as “a persecution of a political opponent.”
“This is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in America,” Trump said while giving brief remarks Thursday before boarding his private plane back to New Jersey. “This is the persecution of the person that’s leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot. So if you can’t beat him you persecute him or you prosecute him. We can’t let this happen in America.”
Trump is expected to speak tonight at the Alabama GOP summer dinner in Montgomery.
Of course, his MO has been to try to jump straight to the SCOTUS while in office, after succeeding twice, he got slapped down by the court on his next attempt to end around the entire hierarchy of courts.
Which I’m sure upset the supreme god-emperor, who deserves nothing less than a supreme court…
wzrd1says
@ 174, consider that Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and has endured unimaginably hostile conditions and still remains operational, albeit barely. Astonishing! 45 years, 11 months, 15 days elapsed, predicted to have enough power to continue transmitting until 2026. Then, the RTG is expected to have insufficient power output to power the transmitter.
As I understand the RTG’s operation, the thermocouple degrades faster than the plutonium will decay. Still, amazingly robust design, given the hard radiation smacking that silicon-germanium thermocouple around by the environment (the plutonium is a robust alpha emitter, so shielding against that requires pretty much anything greater than a stern glare).
Hopefully, it’ll fare better than Pioneer 10, which is destined to be shot up by a trigger happy Klingon, if Star Trek movies are any guide.
Or dismantled, the plaque thrown into a pile, with the commander questioning, “Why do they always send pictures of themselves naked?”.
Pierce R. Butlersays
whheydt @ # 136: People are trying to start betting pools on how long it takes before he violates that admonition.
Judge Upadhyaya needs to move fast – and firmly fiercely.
wzrd1says
Well, my bet, recorded above, was for him to make his stupid move on the same day.
Idiots are predictable, fools are utterly predictable, Utter idiotic fools, well, they can replace pulsars for predictability. Having the advantage of actually meeting him before unreality TV distorted the universe more than a naked singularity, well, yeah. I’m guessing he was delayed in posting stupidity online while on Trump Farce One, probably because he didn’t want to pay for the internet bill for a commercial aircraft.
StevoRsays
@135. tomh :
WaPo Live blog:
Unusual admonition from the judge:
Lawyers who practice frequently in Washington, D.C., including MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirschner, say that most of the conditions of release imposed on Trump by the magistrate judge were standard, including the requirement that he not commit a crime while free.
However, they say that Judge Moxila Upadhyaya did issue a warning to Trump that is not commonly given to defendants at arraignments: “Finally, sir, I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror, or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”
ABC news :
On his Truth Social site, the former president wrote, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” on Friday afternoon, a day after he pleaded not guilty to charges that he orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to try to reverse his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
If this isn’t blatant Contempt of Court and attempting to Pervert the course of Justice I dunno what is.. Or what more it will take for the legal system to finally lose its patience and come down seriously hard with the full weight of the law which so far has been more of a feather’s weight than anything when it needs to be the proverbial tonne of bricks.
Can Trump be arrested properly – and his time remanded in custody until trial – now please?
As well as face the extra charges as noted above too.
(Kinda for emphasis and venting here but just .. F ing L..)
I was dying…It was just a matter of time. Lying behind the wheel of the airplane, bleeding out of the right side of my devastated body, I waited for the rapid shooting to stop.
—Former Representative Jackie Speier in her memoir Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back recounting her experience after being shot five times during an ambush during her fact-finding visit to Jonestown, Guyana where Jim Jones and his cult, Peoples Temple, had built a compound.
It, combined with everything else that was going on, made it difficult to breathe…Being crushed by the shield and the people behind it … leaving me defenseless, injured.
—Metropolitan police officer, Daniel Hodges, describing being crushed in a doorway during the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol
In both of the examples above, the individual speaking was the victim of extreme violence perpetrated by followers of a single person whose influence had spread to hundreds of people (in the January 6th case, thousands of people). In fact, Speier’s experience with the Jim Jones followers was part of the single greatest loss of American life (918 people) prior to 9/11/2001. These followings have been given an umbrella name, cult, and have involved what has been traditionally called “brainwashing.” The cult leader receives seemingly undying support as the Dear Leader or Savior. However, the term brainwashing suggests that indoctrinated members are robots without free will – behavioral scientists argue that this is not the case. It’s an oversimplification.
Rather than being seen as passive victims to an irresistible force, psychiatrist Robert Lifton argues that there is “voluntary self-surrender” in one’s entrance into a cult. Further, the decision to give up control as part of the cult process may actually be part of the reason why people join. Research and experience tell us that those who are “cult vulnerable” may have a sense of confusion or separation from society or seek the same sort of highly controlled environment that was part of their childhood. It has also been suggested that those who are at risk for cult membership feel an enormous lack of control in the face of uncertainty (i.e., economic, occupational, academic, social, familial) and will gravitate more towards a cult as their distress increases. I would argue that many of these factors are at play when we see the ongoing support of Trumpism and MAGA “theology.”
Psychologist Leon Festinger described the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance in which there is a disconnect between one’s feelings, beliefs, and convictions and their observable actions. This dissonance is distressing and, in order to relieve the anxiety, people may become more invested in the cult or belief system that goes against who they are individually. As such, cult members become more “dug-in” and will cling to thoughts and beliefs that contradict available evidence. In other words, they are no longer able to find a middle ground or compromise.
How does this apply to today’s politics?
There was a time when the two major political parties in America could exhibit bipartisanship by moving across the aisle to compromise on the issues on which they were legislating. Tried and true Republicans who favored small government, lower taxes, and national security could find a middle ground with Democrats who pushed for things like universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, and progressive tax reform. The abortion issue in America has been an area of debate between the parties as they debated elements like when life begins, is a heartbeat a heartbeat, and what to do about post-birth abortions (which is murder and not actually a thing). There were largely two sides of the issue and some areas for compromise.
This is no longer possible in today’s sociopolitical climate. Although members of the GOP still refer to themselves as a political party with principled stances, the reality is they have now morphed into a domestic terror organization and to use the umbrella term, a cult – the largest and most dangerous cult in American history.
Cult thinking includes ardent adherence to group thinking such as – clinically speaking, in the face of distorted thinking we ask about one’s strength of conviction by querying, ”Can you think of other ways of seeing this?” Sadly, what we are seeing publicly is ‘No’ from those who still subscribe to Trumpism/MAGA.
Here are a few examples in today’s socio-political environment in which cultism has contributed to a lack of middle ground.
There is no middle ground on treasonous, conspiratorial, fraudulent behavior – these are crimes and, arguably, the worst crimes one could commit against their own country.
There is no middle ground on slavery.
There is no middle ground on allowing Americans to die through inaction in response to natural disasters and global health crises.
There is no middle ground on gunning down school children or wearing an AR-15 rifle pin and throwing away a pin to remember a Uvalde victim.
There is no middle ground on jeopardizing national security and retaining and sharing classified documents.
There is no middle ground on breaking campaign finance (i.e., hush money schemes) laws.
There should be no middle ground on tolerance of crime, period.
And so many know this. Tim Scott, Jim Jordan, and Marco Rubio (the last two having gone to law school), all know this and are smarter than they are acting – which takes us back to cult dynamics – if you are a dyed-in-the-wool cultist or pretending to be a cultist – but the outcome is the same – harm to the Country and its people – there is no difference. Whether you actually have a personality disorder or are pretending to be a sociopathically or psychopathically disordered person – if the result is the same – harm to your constituents and your country – what’s the difference? As noted in the opening paragraphs, there is a voluntary submission to cultism – Rubio, for example, identified all of the reasons why the 45th President was not qualified when he himself was running for President in 2016. However, perhaps due to his own intolerance of uncertainties in his life, volunteered for Trumpism.
What can be done?
There are exit strategies for people ensnared in a cult. One factor is accountability or repeatedly seeing the adverse consequences of the group’s behavior (e.g., indictment, incarceration, job loss) which we started to see even more of this week.
But until one party and its ardent followers can admit they are in a domestic terrorist cult and as Rep. Eric Swalwell said are “unserious” people, there is no hope of unification on the horizon. The first step is getting through to people who can’t or won’t see the truth.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Remains found in China may belong to third human lineage ”
Seems plausible. Humans and equuids both have a lot of diversity in the fossil record, the number of lineages eventually being pruned down to two for horses/donkeys and just one for humans.
Politico is reporting that federal prosecutors on Friday evening proposed that the court issue a protective order barring former President Donald Trump from “the improper dissemination or use of discovery material, including to the public.”
The request for the protective order came after Trump earlier Friday posted on his Truth Social platform: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU, Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
It came after Trump swore at his arraignment on Thursday that he “would not attempt to influence or intimidate witnesses, retaliate against anyone, or in any other way attempt to obstruct the administration of justice.”
Trump’s arraignment came after a federal grand jury convened by Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted him on charges that he participated in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and remain in power.
Prosecutors said such a restriction on the improper dissemination of discovery material is “particularly important” because “the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him,” [Tweet at the link. Yes, Trump used Twitter/X]
[…] The prosecutors’ request noted that if Trump “were to begin issuing public posts using details — or for example, grand jury transcripts — obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”
The protective order would have to be issued by D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan who is handling the case.
Trump so far has not been able to restrain himself from using social posts to attack prosecutors, judges and their family members involved in criminal and civil cases against him.
If he continues to do so in this new case, the court potentially could impose sanctions against him, with the most serious being ordering him jailed pending trial.
Not a gag order, that’s different. This is a protective order.
Federal intelligence and national security agencies — from the FBI to DHS — are in universal agreement that domestic extremism and terrorism is the leading threat to the U.S. homeland. But homeland security officials are also trained to be apolitical, so here’s what they can’t tell you: Donald J. Trump poses a significant threat to homeland security.
While generally highly decentralized and fractured, violent extremist groups have begun to mesh over a unifying figure: Trump. The former president has become a focal point of domestic extremism, and by not denouncing them — and sometimes courting them — he has been adopted by these groups as a de facto spiritual leader. In some ways, Trump has also co-opted these groups to boost his own support. This, in my assessment, makes the former president a leading driver of domestic extremism, and an unprecedented danger to our security. The indictment of Trump for his push to overturn the 2020 election puts that in stark relief.
I do not issue this assessment lightly. Such statements are considered blasphemy in domestic intelligence circles and will undoubtedly draw the ire of many both inside and outside of the profession. To name a political figure, or any prominent U.S. person, in a domestic intelligence assessment is taboo. Intelligence analysts and the agencies that oversee them are taught to not politicize threat assessments. To do so would potentially run afoul of civil rights and civil liberties and the First Amendment.
But times have drastically changed since the Trump presidency began. Even as the homeland security profession has resisted involving itself in politics, politically motivated violence has emerged as a major threat to our homeland. This has led to the rise of stochastic terrorism, which occurs when prominent figures demonize, marginalize or openly target a specific group or individual and violence ensues.
Trump’s affinity for violent extremists and conspiracy theorists is an unspoken concern for many homeland security professionals. Throughout his presidency, he consistently failed to condemn white supremacists and far-right militia groups and created an environment ripe for potential violence. More importantly, the legitimization of extremists and so-called “patriots” by Trump and other prominent Republicans has helped them win converts to their violent ideologies.
The culmination of Trump’s attraction to these hateful elements unfolded for the world on Jan 6. In the months and years since then, despite the prosecution of hundreds of the rioters and the recent indictment of the former president for his role in fomenting the violence, the danger of extremist violence has not abated. Instead, it has morphed. Donald Trump still poses a clear and present danger to the United States of America.
I saw the chaos of Jan. 6 up close. At the time, I was the head of the District of Columbia’s Fusion Intelligence Center, one of 80 “fusion” centers around the country tasked with the collection, analysis, contextualization and dissemination of threat intelligence. It was clear to all on my team that the intent of Trump and his supporters was mass violence on a scale not seen in the District in decades.
Throughout his time in office, Trump openly advocated violence on numerous occasions. Whether it was suggesting that protesters should be roughed up or praising those who engaged in violence against journalists and dissenters, his remarks encouraged a dangerous disregard for the rule of law and the sanctity of peaceful protest. But most significantly, he normalized the notion of politically motivated violence. In doing so, he emboldened individuals and groups whose base instinct or lack of civil restraint inclined them to protest with their fists and weapons, rather than their voices.
It was this assessment that prompted me to reach out to every hospital in Washington, D.C., days before Jan. 6 to warn them to be fully staffed and prepared for a mass casualty event, including stockpiling blood supplies. I also briefed the District’s chief medical examiner and told him to be prepared for a large-scale crime scene with multiple fatalities. I remain grateful to law enforcement officers that the tragedy, as deadly and damaging as it was, never reached the worst proportions imaginable and as the insurrectionists planned it to be.
Oggie: Mathomsays
John Gosling, keyboard player for The Kinks, has died.
A source from Ukraine’s security service told NBC News the ship was transporting fuel to Russian troops.
A Russian tanker under U.S. sanctions was hit by Ukrainian drone near a strategic bridge in the Kerch Strait that links Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula, Kremlin officials said Saturday.
The “Sig” was damaged with a hole “near the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of a sea drone attack” Russia’s Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport said in a statement posted to its Telegram channel. There were no casualties, it added.
There was no immediate public claim of responsibility by Kyiv, which usually refrains from taking credit for attacks on Russian soil, but a source in Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, told NBC News that it “blew up a large oil tanker of the Russian Federation,” in a joint operation with the navy.
The tanker was “transporting fuel for the Russian troops,” the source said, adding that it was well loaded and “the ‘fireworks’ could be seen from afar.” They said that a surface drone and TNT had been used to carry out the attack. NBC News could not verify their claims.
Video broadcast on Ukrainian television and shared by several officials on social media showed a sea drone moving towards the tanker before striking it. The footage cuts out before an explosion is visible. NBC News was not able to independently verify the footage.
SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk responded to the attack in a Telegram post. “Any explosions that happen with the ships of the Russian Federation or the Crimean bridge is an absolutely logical and effective step in relation to the enemy,” he said.
“If the Russians want the explosions to stop, they should use the only option for this — to leave the territorial waters of Ukraine,” he added.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council also appeared to reference the attack, which came a day after his country’s security services said they had carried out a drone strike on a Russian navy ship.
“With each new combat mission, Ukrainian combat UAVs and naval drones become more accurate, operators more experienced, combat coordination more effective, and manufacturers get opportunities to improve tactical and technical characteristics,” he said in a post on Twitter.
[…] The attack briefly halted traffic on the Crimean Bridge, and ferry transport was suspended for several hours, according to Russian-installed authorities in the area, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The U.S. sanctioned the tanker and its owner, St. Petersburg-based company Transpetrochart, a marine freight company, for helping to provide jet fuel in Syria in 2019.
Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks in the Black Sea since Moscow exited a deal allowing the safe export of Ukrainian grain in July. […]
[…] THE ELEMENTS OF OFFENSE IN THE TRUMP JANUARY 6 INDICTMENT
[…] Here, in abbreviated form, is what the elements of the offense are for the four charged crimes, which is what the jury will be given to judge the former President’s crimes. DOJ will need to prove that Trump entered into three parallel conspiracies with his alleged co-conspirators, then show that they attempted to:
– Use deceit to undermine the Electoral College Act
– Prevent the certification of the Electoral votes on January 6
– Prevent the Biden voters votes in swing states from being counted
[…] For 18 USC 371, the government needs to prove that Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to use deceit to pretend that Trump had won 306 electoral college votes, rather than Joe Biden. This statute is why the discussion of all the lying is in there.
Notably, assuming Chutkan agrees these are all co-conspirators, DOJ won’t have to rely entirely on Trump’s lies. They’ll also rely on:
– Rudy’s admission to Rusty Bowers they had no evidence to back their claims
– Eastman’s admission to Mike Pence his claims about ECA were untested, and his admission to Greg Jacob that SCOTUS would reject them
– Trump’s description of Sidney Powell’s claims as crazy
– Jeffrey Clark’s attempts to deceive his bosses about what he was doing with Trump
– Kenneth Chesebro’s admission that the fake electors in several states could not comply with the law
[…] DOJ has set up 5 specific lies that Trump recycled in his Ellipse speech after having them repeatedly debunked by Republicans, along with the voting machine lies Sidney Powell told. They have also laid out that Trump lied about what Pence had just told him (and there are contemporary witnesses that it happened before Trump made his false claims about Pence).
Even if jurors believed Trump believed his own bullshit about some or all of the claims about fraudulent votes, DOJ would still have Trump’s lies about Dominion voting machines and Pence to prove that he knowingly defrauded the US.
[…] The government will show that on November 14, Rudy took over Trump’s efforts to contest the vote (remember that DOJ subpoenaed whatever legal arrangement he had with Trump, but note that Special Master Barbara Jones appears to have found none of Rudy’s post-election plotting to be privileged). It will show that, acting on Trump’s instructions, Rudy repeatedly contacted both state officials and members of Congress to assert fraud that even he admitted he had no evidence for. “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.” It will show that Trump repeatedly publicly ratified Rudy’s lies, often by Tweeting the claims Rudy made, and often by pushing them both with state officials he was personally trying to pressure, but also with US government officials, including DOJ
[…] The government will show that as Trump tried to find some justification for stealing the election, he turned to Eastman to give it legal cover. It will point to things like the Georgia lawsuit certification Trump signed on December 31 that Eastman acknowledged included false data. It will show Eastman’s calls in support of fake electors. It will rely heavily on the meetings Eastman personally attended in the days leading up to January 6. It will show that Trump decided, after being told repeatedly that Mike Pence wouldn’t throw out the votes, to have Eastman (as well as Rudy) speak at the Ellipse rally.
[…] The government will show that, starting on December 22, after Bill Barr, Jeffrey Rosen, and Richard Donoghue all debunked Trump’s false claims, Clark had secret communications with Trump that violated DOJ’s contact policy. As a result of those secret communications, Clark drafted a letter he attempted to coerce Rosen and others to sign, endorsing the fake elector scheme. Trump endorsed his actions by attempting to (and briefly at least, in fact replacing) Rosen with Clark so Clark could, “use the authority of the Justice Department to falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors.” […]
Paraphrasing of Ari Melber: You have the 1st amendment right to say you own a Porsche. You even have the 1st Amendment right to lie about owning a Porsche. But you do NOT have the right to sell a fake Porsche, claiming it is real.
[…] Yesterday morning, Sam Stein of Politico/MSNBC posted a dramatically-worded Tweet (er…make that “Post”):
NEW — The ActBlue data for Dems is dire. The party has raised $30m less through its online portal than at this time in 2019. DCCC and DSCC saw 1/3 less compared to last cycle.
The headline of the Politico article by Jessica Piper is equally grim-sounding:
‘Whistling past the graveyard’: Dem fear grows over massive grassroots fundraising hit […] The decline is a major warning sign as the presidential campaign heats up. That’s among the findings of an analysis of fundraising for the first half of the year through ActBlue, the party’s primary donation processor. Small-dollar giving at the federal level totaled $312 million in the first half of 2023 — a drop-off of more than $30 million compared to this point in the 2020 cycle.
Yikes, that sounds pretty bad indeed. I took the bait and read the full article…and this jumped out at me:
The platform also had 32 percent fewer donors in the second quarter this year compared to four years prior, although its total fundraising increased slightly due to several factors, including more recurring donors and greater giving to non-federal groups.
Wait, what? Total fundraising via ActBlue “increased slightly?”
I decided to look at the actual numbers publicly reported by ActBlue […] And behold: [charts at the link]
When you add them up, you get:
– Q1+Q2 2023: $489,524,232
– Q1+Q2 2019: $420,495,118
Sure enough total fundraising via ActBlue is actually up 16.4% for the first half of 2023 vs. the first half of 2019.
So what’s going on here? Well, the key is the federal vs. non-federal clarifiers.
Donations to federal races (and other organizations/PACs like the DNC, DCCC & DSCC) are down 8.8% ($312M vs. $342M)
But what about non-federal races/orgs/PACs? Well, simple math tells us that:
– $420.5M — $342M = $78.5M FOR NON-FEDERAL FUNDS IN H1 2019
– $489.5M — $312M = $177.5M FOR NON-FEDERAL FUNDS IN H1 2023
Holy cats. ActBlue donations to non-federal funds have skyrocketed by 226% or nearly 2.3x as much so far this cycle.
In other words, Politico says that an 8.8% drop in federal fundraising is “dire” but a 16.4% increase in overall fundraising is a “slight” increase. Huh.
[…] What about the U.S. House and U.S. Senate races?
Via ActBlue, for Q1 2023:
As the Q2 cycle approaches, House and Senate candidates are actively engaging donors to support their campaigns. In Q1, these efforts resulted in an impressive 73.0% increase in unique donors, and we saw more than double the total contributions and dollars raised compared to Q1 2019. This level of momentum and support positions the campaigns strongly for success in the upcoming elections.
What about Q2 2023?
The US Senate had a particularly strong quarter in Q2 2023, with over double the dollars raised compared to Q2 2019 despite having 11 fewer campaigns, committees, and organizations fundraising.
[…] Unless I’m missing something, it sounds to me like the DCCC & DSCC are the only federal funds which have actually seen a significant drop—and if that drop is being cancelled out by the actual campaigns raising more money, I don’t see that as being a bad thing.
[…] when you look at the Q1 & Q2 reports for 2021 vs. 2019, the number of unique donors was up 4.6M vs. 4.4M…and that was for a midterm election.
[…] It sounds to me like Democrats are donating just as much (if not more) than they did 4 years ago…they’re just changing which races they’re donating to.
[…] UPDATE: BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
I noted the drop off in ActBlue fundraising for the DCCC & DSCC as being one of the few parts of the Politico story which is genuinely negative news.
What I forgot about, however, is that this only includes ActBlue fundraising. While ActBlue comprises 82% of individual donations to federal campaigns, the DCCC & DSCC raise money via other sources as well.
Sure enough:
– Q1 2023: DCCC Shatters First Quarter Fundraising Record, Raising More Than $37 Million
– Q2 2023: Jeffries brings in $29 million for Democrats in second quarter, taking aim at McCarthy
– Q1 + Q2 2023: DSCC raises $39.2 million
That’s right: When you include fund transfers from Democratic House/Senate members as well as leadership PAC funds, both the DCCC & DSCC have raised significantly more so far this year than they did in the 1st half of 2019.
I should also note that a big chunk of the funds being transferred from membership dues & leadership PACs itself likely came from…ActBlue.
wzrd1says
Basically, Trump is an armed robber who is mentally deficient.
“Give me all your money and I’ll kill you”.
Idiots keep giving the money, despite knowing he’ll kill them.
I’ll remain choosing not to participate, but instead hand him his own genitals during the exchange.
Then, feed the remains to the pigs.
Likely, ruining the future bacon.
Stein has a master’s in journalism from Columbia. I will accept that he is a smart guy. However, he is an exemplar of a fundamental flaw in journalism. Journalists rarely have math degrees — and while literate, are frequently innumerate.
MANHTTAN (CN) — A divided Second Circuit panel on Friday upheld the constitutionality of a Connecticut law that ended the state’s longstanding offering of religious exemptions from immunization requirements for children in schools, colleges and day care.
In a 2-1 decision, the panel found that repealing religious exemptions for students’ mandatory immunizations, while still allowing medical exemptions to remain in place, was a reasonable means to promote health and safety by reducing the potential spread of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Connecticut’s law had been challenged by the groups We the Patriots USA and the CT Freedom Alliance, and a group of Connecticut parents, who claimed the state’s repeal violated their First Amendment rights by removing the religious exemption from school vaccination requirements.
Connecticut Attorney General Tong applauded the circuit court’s ruling in favor of the state law.
“This decision is a full and resounding affirmation of the constitutionality and legality of Connecticut’s vaccine requirements,” he wrote in a statement Friday. “Vaccines save lives — this is a fact beyond dispute. The Legislature acted responsibly and well within its authority to protect the health of Connecticut families and stop the spread of preventable disease.”
A spokesperson for We The Patriots USA said the plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
[…]
Five other states do not offer religious exemptions for vaccines — California, New York, West Virginia, Mississippi and Maine.
Courthouse News Service
wzrd1says
Well, there is this. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/trump-truth-social-smith-evidence-2020/index.html
“Every time they file an indictment we go way up in the polls. We need one more indictment close out this election. One more indictment and this election is closed out, nobody has even a chance,” Trump said.
OK, file 1000000000000000000000000000000000 indictments, enjoy an unnaturally lengthened life in solitary confinement, artificially kept alive as long as technology allows.
Then, add a decade.
Keep him alive in solitary in prison until the sun goes out.
Then, let him starve of burgers and freeze.
Well, or bake, depends on how Sol wants to act vs earth.
Baking like Laika.
I’ll admit, I’ve never hated someone before, well, other than terrorists that I killed.
I really don’t enjoy the experience, but due to his malfluence, I’m unable to move on.
I’d suggest a bullet, but that’d be illegal a few ways.
And far too merciful. And I’m disinclined toward mercy.
wzrd1says
I’ll admit, I’m in a shit mood.
Got a neighbor, who is somewhat needy, amputations and all.
Befriended her, despite warnings from another neighbor of her stealing food, ending their friendship.
Now, she’s clinging. Caressing, yeah, know the revulsion of that and already knew that long before I was married.
Now, I’m into a land foreign to me, disentangling myself, while remaining hopefully a helpful friend.
Currently, I’m thinking, after two interrupted and tossed meals, cobalt-60 bombardment of the planet.
But then, there is that shit mood.
Maybe I’ll have a better mood after I masturbate with a cheese grater.
Although, the 8th floor window is enticing.
Any suggestions beyond suggesting using a grinder instead of the grater?
birgerjohanssonsays
Reading rewievs in The Guardian.
“The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart” with Sigourney Weawer is an Australian film about escaping violent relationships.
wzrd1
The only suggestion I have is to really play up your grief, not your real grief as that is yours to share or not as you choose, but your societal grief – you are old-fashioned when it comes to grief, and will be in three years of mourning at the least – but that may make you into an appealingly tough challenge, so I don’t know.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Lynna @188:
Politico hit piece on Dem fundraising manages to confuse increases for decreases
This is typical of political reporting across the board. When gas prices spiked after the Russian invasion, pundits, everywhere, predicted doom for Biden and the Democratic Party. When gas prices dropped in late summer and early fall, pundits predicted doom for Biden and the Democratic Party as this was a sign that we were entering a recession. When inflation peaked during the same time, disaster for Biden and the Democratic Party. Now inflation is easing, and it is doom for Biden and the Democratic Party as this is a sign we are entering a recession. Even major victories, all of the victories Biden and the Democrats in congress have put together, is doom for Biden and the Democrats because it will inflame right wing voters who will turn out in droves.
On the flip side, no matter how bad the news for Trump, much of the media is declaring that all of these scandals are helping Trump because Trump gets far more headlines than Biden. In short, any political event (even an increase in donations to the Democrats but differences in donations at the local and federal level) is good news for the right and bad news for the left.
whheydtsays
Re: Jazzlet @ #196…
(My sympathies to wzrd1.)
Three years? Victoria was in mourning for 40 years. I won’t manage that long because I was already 73 when my wife died and the odds of living to 113 are so low as to be disregarded. (Absent, of course, some truly remarkable breakthrough in gerontology in the immediate future.)
whheydtsays
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #197…
One might well wonder how they’ll spin it if Ohio deep-sixes Issue 1 next Tuesday and goes on the write a right to abortion into the state constitution in the fall.
Oggie: Mathomsays
One might well wonder how they’ll spin it if Ohio deep-sixes Issue 1 next Tuesday and goes on the write a right to abortion into the state constitution in the fall.
I predict a flurry of articles and opinion pieces explaining that this ‘victory’ for the left will increase right-wing voter turnout and put the 2024 elections over to the GOP.
I want to return to this revelatory interview with coconspirator John Eastman, the last portion of which was published Thursday by Tom Klingenstein, the Chairman of the Trumpite Claremont Institute and then highlighted by our Josh Kovensky. There’s a lot of atmospherics in this interview, a lot of bookshelf-lined tweedy gentility mixed with complaints about OSHA regulations and Drag Queen story hours. But the central bit comes just over half way through the interview when Eastman gets into the core justification and purpose for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and overthrow the constitutional order itself. He invokes the Declaration of Independence and says quite clearly that yes, we were trying to overthrow the government and argues that they were justified because of the sheer existential threat America was under because of the election of Joe Biden. [Sheesh!]
Jan 6th conspirators have spent more than two years claiming either that nothing really happened at all in the weeks leading up to January 6th or that it was just a peaceful protest that got a bit out of hand or that they were just making a good faith effort to follow the legal process. Eastman cuts through all of this and makes clear they were trying to overthrow (“abolish”) the government; they were justified in doing so; and the warrant for their actions is none other than the Declaration of Independence itself.
“Our Founders lay this case out,” says Eastman. “There’s actually a provision in the Declaration of Independence that a people will suffer abuses while they remain sufferable, tolerable while they remain tolerable. At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.”
“So that’s the question,” he tells Klingenstein. “Have the abuses or the threat of abuses become so intolerable that we have to be willing to push back?”
The answer for Eastman is clearly yes and that’s his justification for his and his associates extraordinary actions.
Let’s dig in for a moment to what this means because it’s a framework of thought or discourse that was central to many American controversies in the first decades of the Republic. The Declaration of Independence has no legal force under American law. It’s not a legal document. It’s a public explanation of a political decision: to break the colonies’ allegiance to Great Britain and form a new country. But it contains a number of claims and principles that became and remain central to American political life.
The one Eastman invokes here is the right to overthrow governments. The claim is that governments have no legitimacy or authority beyond their ability to serve the governed. Governments shouldn’t be overthrown over minor or transitory reasons. But when they become truly oppressive people have a right to get rid of them and start over. This may seem commonsensical to us. But that’s because we live a couple centuries downstream of these ideas. Governments at least in theory are justified by how they serve their populations rather than countries being essentially owned by kings or nobilities who rule them.
But this is a highly protean idea. Who gets to decide? Indeed it came up again and again over the next century each time the young republic faced a major political crisis whether it was in the late 1790s, the mid-teens, in 1832-33 or finally during the American Civil War. If one side didn’t get its way and wanted out what better authority to cite than the Declaration of Independence? There’s an obvious difference but American political leaders needed a language to describe it. What they came up with is straightforward. It’s the difference between a constitutional or legal right and a revolutionary one. Abraham Lincoln was doing no more than stating a commonplace when he said this on the eve of the Civil War in his first inaugural address: “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”
Yes, you have a revolutionary right to overthrow the government if you really think its abuses have gotten that intractable and grave. But the government has an equal right to stop you, to defend itself or, as we see today, put you on trial if you fail. The American revolutionaries knew full well that they were committing treason against the British monarchy. If they lost they would all hang. They accepted that. They didn’t claim that George III had no choice but to let them go.
From the beginning the Trump/Eastman coup plotters have tried to wrap their efforts in legal processes and procedures. It was their dissimulating shield to hide the reality of their coup plot and if needed give them legal immunity from the consequences. The leaders of the secession movement tried the same thing in 1861.
In a way I admire Eastman for coming clean. I don’t know whether he sees the writing on the wall and figures he might as well lay his argument out there or whether his grad school political theory pretentiousness and pride got the better of him and led him to state openly the indefensible truth. But either way he’s done it and not in any way that’s retrievable as a slip of the tongue. They knew it was a coup and they justified it to themselves in those terms. They thought they were justified in trying to overthrow the government, whether because of OSHA chair size regulations or drag queens or, more broadly, because the common herd of us doesn’t understand the country’s “founding principles” the way he and his weirdo clique do. But they did it. He just admitted it. And now they’re going to face the consequences.
As our The Heroci Heretic ™ put it in a more lighthearted vein:
Scientists bought some, carefully examined them and determined that the red MAGAt hats shield the tiny, shriveled brain underneath; preventing any reason or facts from penetrating and confusing it.
@201 Lynna, OM naid: John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government
I reply: he is just one in a procession of those that were staunch tRUMP supporters that now are against him. I guess that, even though unlikely,, their favorite footware would be ‘flip-flops’!?
When someone mentions a battle of attrition, many people think of the years-long-stalemate of World War I, or the endless and strategically pointless body count battles that characterized the American involvement in the Vietnam War. Battles of attrition are heavily associated in many people’s imaginations with “lengthy stalemates” and “strategic immobility.”
Neither is necessarily true.
As J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., professor of military history at the US Army War College and course director for military theory at the United States Military Academy observed in his 2010 essay, “The Issue of Attrition”:
Attrition is a dirty word. Soldiers and politicians seek quick, decisive victories; the World War I-style slugging match evoked by the term attrition is the last thing a commander or statesman wants to replicate. […]
People cite Sun Tzu’s aphorism “For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited” as if it were true.
The American Revolution conclusively demonstrates that he was wrong. In fact, there is an entire and respected branch of strategy, insurgency theory, based specifically on attrition as the preferred defeat mechanism, and at least one author claims special operations forces produce strategic effect best through attrition.
From a theoretical standpoint, at its most simple level, an attritional strategy is most successful when the rate at which one can destroy the enemy army’s ability to sustain combat far exceeds the enemy army’s ability to replace its losses.
Enemy Combat Power – (Losses – Reinforcements) = Net Enemy Combat Power Change
However, one’s own army also sustains losses while fighting an attritional battle. Thus a net change in combat power in a theater might be more accurately described as
[Own Combat Power – (Losses – Reinforcements)] – [Enemy Combat Power – (Losses – Reinforcements)] = Net Change
This is not exactly Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but bear with me.
The rate of reinforcement can be considered a constant. Neither side can likely freely change, in the shorter operational term, their own (nor their enemy’s) rate of reinforcement—only in a strategic, longer-term context. Thus, the success of an attrition strategy depends upon two things:
– The efficient infliction of loss upon the enemy. That is, what is the ratio between one’s losses and the enemy’s losses?
– The infliction of the scope of sufficient losses on the enemy. Specifically, inflicting losses upon an enemy faster than they can replace combat power.
Efficiency is necessary in an attritional battle, unless one’s rate of reinforcement is overwhelming relative to that of the enemy. If one is suffering losses at two or three times the rate of the enemy force, it is unlikely that one can gain ground in the combat power equation. One’s loss will swallow whatever gains are made in inflicting losses upon the enemy.
However, in an attritional battle, the overall rate of loss also matters.
Take an extreme example, where every day, Ukraine kills two Russian soldiers and loses one of its own. While the losses inflicted are highly efficient at a ratio of 2:1, the rate of loss is highly unlikely to be sufficiently attritional to have a strategic impact. If Russia is suffering relatively insignificant losses that it can readily replace or even reinforce beyond its losses, an attritional strategy is not very effective.
Thus first, if we presume that, following the attempt to punch through Russian lines around Robotyne in early June failed, and Ukraine has shifted into a deliberate attritional strategy, Ukraine’s strategic distribution of forces begins to make a lot of sense. [map at the link]
From west to east, Ukraine is currently conducting
– an offensive south of Kherson crossing the Dnipro;
– an attack towards Tokmak, composed of:
a smaller thrust south towards Vasylivka;
and a major assault towards Robotyne;
– a major offensive south from Velyka Novosilka;
– a small offensive south from Vuhledar; and
– a major offensive both north and south of Bakhmut.
Furthermore, Ukraine is also heavily contesting and yielding little ground to several Russian offensives:
– a Russian offensive around Dnipro;
– a major Russian offensive west from Kreminna toward Lyman; and
– a major Russian offensive west from Svatove toward Kupiansk.
Ukraine has clearly prioritized the Robotyne and Velyka Novosilka offensives.
There were nine NATO-trained and -equipped heavy armored brigades identified in the Pentagon papers leaked by Jack Texeira: the 21st, 32nd, 33rd, 37th, 47th, 82nd, 117th, and 118th Brigades (with a ninth name being illegible).
Additional and notable veteran units that Ukraine started resting and retraining in November 2022 were the 1st and 4th Tank Brigades, the 25th and 80th Air Assault Brigades, and the 92nd Mechanized Brigades. All were removed from the frontlines to rest and refit for the next offensive. These 14 NATO-trained brigades—around 30-40,000 soldiers—represent the best-trained and -equipped core of Ukraine’s offensive power.
The 33rd and 47th Brigades are already operating around Robotyne. Additionally, it’s believed that the 118th Brigade was deployed to Robotyne as reinforcements on July 26, which was erroneously reported as the deployment of three of Ukraine’s best brigades at the time. The 37th Marines are operating around Velyka Novosilka, alongside the 4th Tank Brigade.
This means five of Ukraine’s 14 crack brigades are deployed in these two axes, in addition to numerous other veteran brigades, like the 65th in Robotyne, as well as the 35th and 36th Marines around Velyka Novosilka.
Ukraine continues to keep its three most powerful brigades—the 1st Tank, the 82nd Air Assault, and the 92nd Mechanized—in reserve, but it has deployed a significant share of its other powerful brigades in other sectors of the battlefield.
The 21st “Swedish” Brigade is around Kreminna and recently lost its first CV90 infantry fighting vehicle. The 32nd is operating around Kupiansk, while the 80th Air Assault Brigade is fighting around Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut.
In particular, Ukraine’s counterattack around Bakhmut is of a significant scale. [map at the link]
North of Bakhmut, the 57th Motorized, 30th Mechanized, 93rd Mechanized, and 10th Mountain Assault Brigades can be found, while the 3rd Assault, 5th Assault, 80th Air Assault, 22nd Mechanized, and 28th Mechanized Brigades are south of Bakhmut.
While the scale of the attacks across the Dnipro River around Kherson and Ukraine’s attacks out of Vuhledar have been relatively small, they have also been triggering furious artillery duels. All of this raises a question: Why does it seem like Ukraine is intent on attacking everywhere, and defending everywhere? Why wouldn’t Ukraine concentrate its forces in one area of the battlefield?
In the context of a battle of maneuver, Ukraine’s choice to spread out its forces and launch small-scale attacks all over the battlefield (and vigorously defend every part of the battlefield) doesn’t make sense.
In a battle of maneuver, such as a blitzkrieg assault, the goal of the attack is positional. The goal is to gain ground operationally and strategically, to flank or surround the enemy, or to cut them off from their bases of supply. In such contexts, concentration of force is paramount, because regardless of losses, capturing key positions and encircling the enemy is the entire goal of the offensive.
Understanding a battle of attrition requires a shift in focus from merely “gaining ground.” While a battle of attrition eventually aims to capture ground and strategic locations, the first and primary objective is centered on the two elements laid out above.
– The efficient infliction of loss upon the enemy.
– The infliction of losses upon an enemy faster than they can replace combat power.
Neither of these goals is predicated on gaining ground. In fact, in many cases, trying to rapidly gain ground works directly against the first objective—the efficient infliction of losses.
Careful attacks, aimed at uncovering enemy positions and inflicting maximal firepower on the enemy while taking the fewest losses, essentially require both superior firepower and small unit actions to reconnoiter enemy concentrations.
Large mass groups of armor or infantry are ideal for trying to gain ground, but they are more susceptible to enemy artillery and firepower. Small unit infantry actions that cautiously creep forwards are far more resilient and efficient, albeit at the expense of speed of advance.
In this context, the Ukrainian transition from NATO-style assault tactics of concentrated armored columns in early June to smaller unit infantry actions aimed at gradual and progressive advances, particularly around Robotyne, make sense.
If the goal of the Ukrainian high command is attritional, keeping Ukrainian heavy armor like Leopard 2s and Bradleys as safe as possible, while slowing pressing forwards and engaging in artillery duels, is an ideal way to inflict efficient losses on the enemy with the lowest levels of risk.
However, choosing ro employ small unit actions aimed at slow advances runs counter to attrition goal #2: the infliction of losses upon an enemy faster than they can replace combat power.
Thus, rather than increase the intensity of attacks at key locations (as would be done in a battle of maneuver), Ukraine has chosen to launch attritional attacks—many, many efficient attacks in favorable locations. And Bakhmut is an ideal attritional battlefield, because Russia is sitting in front of its prepared defenses, and it is politically difficult for it to withdraw.
Kherson is an ideal attritional battlefield because Russia cannot simply allow Ukraine to establish a secure bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro, and must constantly bring forces to contest Ukrainian small-unit advances along the river into Ukrainian artillery range.
Even if the intensity of the attacks and the risks that Ukrainian troops are willing to engage to gain ground is limited (thus making the ground gained more minimal), if Ukraine can maintain a broad attritional drain on Russian forces on many battlefields while maintaining an efficient infliction of losses, Ukraine is likely winning the attritional battle.
Despite being on the offensive, Ukrainian armor losses—as tabulated by Oryx since the start of the counter-offensive on June 5—have been approximately even with Russia’s, counting both disabled or damaged armor and destroyed armor. However, Ukraine has maintained an approximate 3:1 advantage in artillery losses for the past two months.
It’s Ukraine’s advantages in GPS-guided munitions, superior counter-battery radar, and long-ranged HIMARS attacks that permit Ukraine to strike back at Russian artillery with precision and speed.
The flip side to efficient doling of damage to the enemy is the replacement/reinforcement side of the equation. Many non-experts who opine on the Ukraine War comment that due to Russia’s manpower advantage, Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition. One well-known YouTuber even claimed that Ukraine cannot win the war without inflicting three times as many losses as it receives, because Russia’s population is three times higher than Ukraine’s.
This is a ridiculous assertion.
These population- and manpower-based claims had merit 200 years ago, or even 70 years ago, to an extent, but sheer manpower has long since lost much semblance of relevance as a determinant of firepower. Perhaps, in certain analysts’ imaginations, the 1.3 million-strong North Korean army looks more powerful on paper compared to the 470,000-strong U.S. Army—but such analysis doesn’t deserve serious discussion.
The reason that manpower has become less significant is due to the radical reduction of combat density on the modern battlefield—how many troops per square kilometer you can effectively deploy. Radical increases in firepower make clustering infantry densely together less and less practical, making massed infantry tactics less effective.
A Tiger tank was a fearsome heavily armored beast of a tank, but had poor accuracy beyond 1,000 meters, could fire just 8-10 rounds a minute, and had a single coaxial machine gun for support against infantry. Charge 1,000 infantrymen armed with rifles nearly shoulder to shoulder at a single Tiger tank, and the infantry will almost certainly win (or at least force the Tiger to flee).
By contrast, against formations of infantry, modern Infantry fighting vehicles are far deadlier. Designed to spit out massive amounts of anti-infantry firepower, Bradley’s 25 mm auto-cannon can fire up to 200 rounds per minute—highly accurate high explosive rounds that can tear through groups of infantry. With modern optics and digital fire controls, with a line of sight, a Bradley can engage enemy positions well over 4,000 meters away, rapidly mowing down any infantry that might try to approach it. [Photo of Bradley fighting vehicle]
1,000 riflemen without anti-tank guided missiles or armor support would have no chance against even a single Bradley.
Certainly, armed with ATMGs and other anti-tank weapons like unguided RPGs, a Bradley can be threatened by large groups of enemy infantry, even without armor support. But the mere presence of a Bradley (or other similar high firepower, heavily protected armored vehicles) essentially precludes clustering even dozens of infantry into highly compact formations for massed attacks.
Russian attacks during the Winter Offensive were termed “human wave attacks,” but most near-suicidal Russian infantry attacks involved repeated waves of small squads of just three infantry, slowly pressing their way through enemy fire to establish forward positions. This was a tactic pioneered by the Wagner Group. It has gotten broad application among Russian assault units, who first use barely trained conscript or convict “disposable infantry” units, heavily supported by artillery to probe for weaknesses in Ukrainian defenses, before sending in highly trained shock troops to follow up.
Relying on three-man squads of infantry limits casualties at any one time, but also limits the scale of attacks in any tactical space. This further limits the operational tempo of attacks, and ends up with a strategic effect—only limited quantities of infantry can be deployed per kilometer of front.
This problem can be addressed through armored units. While shrapnel or cluster munitions can destroy large groups of infantry, more heavily protected units of mechanized infantry or armored columns can survive a much broader range of firepower. One cluster of 80 dismounted infantry can be wiped out in seconds by a single Bradley. Riding in 10-12 infantry fighting vehicles, it takes a great deal more firepower to take them on.
Thus particularly on the offensive, modern combat force is far more dependent on armored forces and firepower than it is upon manpower. Having a great deal of manpower can help one to repeat attacks over and over. However, one cannot make an attack more effective by simply trying to run larger and larger groups of soldiers at enemy objectives. Beyond a certain concentration, dismounted infantry simply die in greater numbers without any added benefit of combat power.
Manpower can certainly hurt you if you run out of it. Russia’s steadfast refusal early in the war to commit to mobilization led directly to undermanned Russian units lacking sufficient infantry numbers to defend the Kharkiv region, helping Ukraine overrun Russian positions behind Izium in September 2022. But having more manpower than you can use at one time in a given area is worthless.
Reportedly, Russia has concentrated nearly half its army in the Kreminna and Kupiansk directions. Media reports breathlessly spoke of Russia preparing for a major breakthrough in the north as 100,000 Russian troops concentrated in Luhansk. [map at the link]
Ukraine has dispatched the NATO-trained 32nd and 21st “Swedish” Brigades to this area. This has broadly fit with Ukraine’s attritional strategy of efficient infliction of damage, while preserving their best crack units to exploit an eventual weakness. Having launched its counter-counteroffensive in the north in mid-July, Russia has almost nothing to show for its offensives on these two axes of advance.
If Ukraine is employing an attritional strategy, then these attacks play directly into Ukraine’s hands. Russian units taking the operational offensive forces Russian units to move out of secure and fortified defensive positions to advance against Ukrainian troops sitting behind their own defenses.
By ratcheting up the intensity of combat in additional areas, it makes it easier for Ukraine to expand the scale of Russian losses, without sacrificing efficiency.
The impotence of the Russian attacks, both now and throughout the winter, shows how simply amassing more troops in an area doesn’t translate to operation combat strength sufficient to create the sort of operational or strategic breakthroughs that Russia can exploit.
Thus, it should be clear that the forces that Ukraine needs to degrade most urgently are likely not manpower, which Russia is capable of replacing in massive quantities. Russia’s losses in armored fighting vehicles and artillery are the losses that Russia cannot so easily replace. And there is ample evidence that Russia is running out of both.
Russian tank production has remained between an estimated 20-25, to perhaps as much as 30-35 units per month. There were reports in May that Russia had ordered Uralvagonzavod, Russia’s primary supplier of tanks, to cease production of domestic goods and focus all its resources on war production. Some pro-Russian sources were predicting UVZ could produce “thousands” of T-90M tanks in 2023, stating that hundreds of T-90 tanks had already been delivered to the front, and would be followed with monthly dispatches of all the modern tanks Russia could ask for.
These T-90M tanks have largely failed to materialize; Russia continues to deploy older and older tanks to the front, pulling out multiple shipments of T-55 tanks—whose designs were drawn up during World War II. Russian armor losses, as tabulated by Oryx, show no spike of modern tank losses this year, instead following the trend of showing increased losses of older model T-72s—including nearly 50-year-old T-72 Urals from 1974 that had been sent into combat without any upgrades.
This is unsurprising, as it has been noted that the bottleneck for Russian tank production isn’t tank bodies, but the fire control equipment. Night vision equipment, laser or optical range finders, electronic controls, gun-stabilizer equipment, and other advanced parts require considerable expertise to produce, and often require electronic parts from the West that Russia has struggled to get in sufficient quantities, due to sanctions.
The difficulties extend to the BMP3 and Russia’s infantry fighting vehicle forces. Russia ceased domestic production of the cheap and ubiquitous BMP2 IFV to focus on the production of the more advanced BMP3, but the BMP3 competes for the same electronic parts and high-quality steel needed to produce modern tanks and artillery.
BMP3 deliveries have been far, far outstripped by Russian losses. Russian manufacturers proudly declared that they had accelerated BMP3 production and were making their third delivery of BMP3s in May, saying they had already produced as many BMP3s of 2022 in the first five months of 2023. However, the delivery was actually for “several dozen” BMP3s.
Taking this at face value, Russia had received three shipments of perhaps 60-70 BMP3s in five months, or around 30-40 BMP3s per month. Oryx has recorded 2,616 Russian IFV losses as of Saturday. This represents a loss of roughly 160 IFVs every month since the start of the war.
Russia has tried to keep pace by refurbishing old BMP1s and BMP2s in storage and rushing them to the front, but it has been observed that as the war goes on, the ubiquity of early Cold War Russian armored vehicles has grown more and more common.
An un-upgraded BMP1, for example, has armor that is only 6 mm thick in certain places, making it vulnerable to virtually any anti-tank weapon, including armor-piercing machine gun rounds. It would stand almost no chance against a Bradley or Marder main gun.
Russia’s artillery has likewise degraded.
The Royal United Services Institute noted that a lack of 152 mm ammunition and replacement barrels was driving a shift from a primary reliance on 152 mm howitzers to increasing use of mortars to replace shortfalls in firepower. This mirrors reports from the frontlines, such as from Ukrainian officer Tatarigami_UA, who noted an overall shift in Russian tactics in February, when Russian units began operating with a greater emphasis on mortars. This also follows reports that 152 mm artillery usage had dropped by 75% or more.
Furthermore, Oryx verified losses of Russian artillery had been predominantly 152 mm artillery at the start of the war. The 152mm self-propelled artillery was the most commonly used artillery unit until May and Jun , when 152 mm artillery losses were surpassed by 122 mm howitzers and 120 mm mortar losses. This likely represents a significant drop-off in the number of 152 mm artillery being deployed, also suggesting Russia’s increasing reliance on mortars is real.
Of 152 mm artillery units still being deployed, an increased reliance on older towed artillery units, rather than better-protected and more mobile self-propelled artillery, has been observed.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to degrade Russian ammunition and fuel supplies—through attacks on both stockpiles and transportation infrastructure.
Ukrainian cruise missiles and drones have struck key Russian rail transportation bridges. [Tweet and images at the link: “It is now absolutely certain that the rail bridge of Chonhar connecting Russian-occupied Crimea with the remaining Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast has been severely hit. You can also see from the picture that the strike was quite precise, hitting the the steel structure next to the supporting hill at the northern end of the bridge. That bridge is most certainly out of action for the remainder of this war. Coordinates: 45°57’10.71″N, 34°28’47.18″E]
Additionally, Ukraine’s successful attack on the Kerch Bridge on July 18 likely was severely disruptive to Russian supplies to Crimea and Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian drone boats have begun successfully striking Russian shipping vessels deep in Russian waters, striking the 3600-tonne, 113-meter-long amphibious landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak near its base of operations in Novorossiysk. Satellite imagery has confirmed that the ship suffered heavy damage. and is listing heavily in port while leaking oil. The Olenegorsky Gornyak was frequently used to ferry military equipment across the Kerch Strait when the Kerch Rail Bridge was out of commission. As the rail bridge remains under repair from Ukraine’s strike on the bridge on July 17, even a temporary loss of the ship may represent a significant loss of Russian logistical capability.
Furthermore, the attack illustrated the reach of Ukrainian drone boats—the attack likely required a range of nearly 800 km. [map at the link]
On Friday, Ukraine also reported a successful drone boat strike on a Russian oil tanker headed for the port at Kerch. [Tweet and video at the link]
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to receive new military equipment that far exceeds Russia’s production capabilities.
Since June, Western allies have delivered, or newly promised, approximately 600 new armored fighting vehicles:
60 Marder IFVs
81 Bradley IFVs
200 KTO Rosomak IFVs
83 Stryker IFVs
64 Bandvagn APCs
100 BTR-60 APCs
10 Leopard 1A5 tanks
Leopard 2 repair facilities are now running in Poland, and tanks are being delivered from the front lines for repair. While Ukraine has lost 12 Leopard 2A4s and 2A6s, nine were deemed repairable by Oryx. Similarly, while Ukraine is confirmed to have lost 48 Bradleys in combat, just 23 are deemed total losses by Oryx.
Two aspects of Western armor are sometimes overlooked. Heavy Western armor design helps keep highly trained crew and passengers alive when vehicles are hit, but they also are designed to compartmentalize damage and keep them repairable. So while Soviet and Russian armor designs are toast if the ammunition is hit, Western armor like the Leopard 2 or the Bradley are designed to eject the force of ammunition explosion upwards, which increases crew survivability but also keeps such armored vehicles repairable upon recovery.
A vulnerability in Ukraine’s air defenses was identified through a deficiency of SHORAD (short-range air defense) units, cheaper highly mobile short-range anti-air units. Russia exploited this weakness in the early days of the counteroffensive by attacking Ukrainian armored columns with Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters.
The UK has helped address this deficiency by delivering Supacat heavy trucks with ASRAAM IR Anti-air missiles strapped to them. The ASRAAM is traditionally an air-to-air missile; this is the first known instance of its use as a SAM missile. [Tweet and photo at the link]
The ASRAAM is not radar-based, but is instead a heat-seeking missile, making it more autonomous than a radar-based anti-air missile. Thus it’s well suited to be used as an improvised SAM missile.
The system does appear highly improvised, with a simple launcher welded onto the rear of the high-mobility vehicle. It’s unclear if it has its own radar, but it’s likely a very inexpensive and weak system if so. the ASRAAM normally has a range of 25 km, but this assumes being fired from a fighter jet flying at Mach 1 or greater, and at high altitudes. But when the 50 km-ranged AIM-120A AMRAAM is fired from a NASAMS, its range drops to under half to around 25km. Thus, the 25km ASRAAM will likely only sport a horizontal range of 10-15km at most.
While an improvised system comes with some obvious limitations, this solution does come with two significant advantages. The UK, and many European allies, have major stockpiles of older ASRAAM missiles it can dispatch to Ukraine without fear of impacting their own stockpiles. The Supacat high mobility vehicles are also ubiquitous and can be delivered in mass quantities. Thus it appears this system can be delivered in quantity as soon as launchers can be affixed to trucks.
Several systems are reportedly already deployed to Ukrainian cities as a defense against Shaheed drone attacks, but several systems are now serving as front-line SHORAD systems as well—presumably in defense against Ka-52 attack choppers.
Just as critically, Ukraine’s 155m m artillery ammunition issue has been largely solved for the foreseeable future. Although Ukraine was desperate to find shells to feed its artillery corps, the U.S.’s decision to send 155m m DPICM cluster munitions was a game-changer in terms of supply quantity.
Ukraine’s monthly shortfall of 155 mm shells relative to allied production was an estimated 50~100,000 shells. With a stockpile of 3~4 million 155mm DPICM stockpiles, U.S. stocks of cluster munition shells would take around 30 months to exhaust, even absent any production increases in 155 mm shells, which are planned to come together by next spring.
The cluster munition shells are also far deadlier in attacking enemy fixed positions than conventional HE shells. […]
Ukraine […] continues to amass an increasingly Western anti-air battery system, and Western allies continue to make efforts to fill any gaps in Ukraine’s equipment needs.
Russia has been increasingly forced to replace its best equipment with 60- to 70-year-old equipment or worse.
[snipped examples of WWII attritional battles, and of attritional battles in the American Civil War.]
[…] why do certain attritional campaigns lead to decisive victories in a matter of weeks or months, but others lead to years of stalemate, or victory only after many years?
It leads back to the simple theoretical issues of “scope” and “efficiency.” If an attritional campaign is launched with insufficient scope, then the damage dealt to the enemy army is insufficient to break it: If reinforcements exceed or nearly match losses, then no attritional progress is made, and the war of attrition becomes a stalemate.
If an attritional campaign is launched with poor efficiency, the campaign is rarely successful. Poor efficiency means the attacker is losing too much in exchange for the losses. In a war between approximate peers, an inefficient war of attrition is likely to weaken the attacker more rapidly than the defender; an inefficient battle of attrition is doomed to failure in a near-peer war.
The question becomes: Does Ukraine have both necessary elements for a successful war of attrition?
I would argue yes. Ukraine’s losses have been efficient, with approximately even armor losses as Russia, while doling out a sharply greater proportion of artillery losses. Ukraine also has been causing a sufficient scope of damage to Russia to degrade its forces—as evidenced by its need to reach for older and older equipment to keep its front lines staffed, and sharp declines in its 152 mm howitzer firepower.
Russia can replenish its manpower reserves by calling for another mobilization, or by expanding its program of pseudo-mobilization. But Russia’s losses in its armored forces and artillery cannot be replaced by manpower, and declining Russian combat forces from attrition will lead to gaps opening up in its defenses.
And thus Ukraine’s strategy of attrition appears to be on the right track.
I think it’s notable that Ukraine continues to keep in reserve several of its most powerful brigades. I think Ukraine General Staff is waiting for a gap to open up in Russia’s defense from attrtition to exploit the gap ruthlessly with its best forces.
But how quickly Russia gets to that point is really hard to predict.
I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if Ukraine hasn’t made dramatic progress in 8 weeks. Grinding down Russian artillery and armor for another 2 months is really realistic—i think taking Robotyne and capturing Staromlynivka would be good by October 1.
But whenever Russia’s defense begins to crumble, I think the consequences will be fast… and permanent, much in the way Germany never recovered from its losses from winter 1943 — fall 1944.
———————–
I believe Russia never stopped making T-72 parts. I think T-62 and T-54/55s spare parts might be more of an issue, but T-72 modernizations and maintenance were still very much a big part of the Russian arms industry at the start of the war, so i have little doubt Russia was producing plenty of spare parts.
Engine and other mechanical parts anyway—highly advanced ball bearings, electronic components and military grade steel being a separate matter.
In fact, Russia was having trouble getting their tank manufacturers to stop making T-72 parts and start producing the T-14 Armata.
———————-
A Kleptocracy is big into loyalty….. competence/excellence? not so much.
————————–
economic and war materiel sanctions seem to have rendered Russia incapable of maintaining or increasing war materiel production, while Ukraine maintains a pipeline of new materiel to replace losses. That is not sustainable for Russia.
The Archdiocese of San Francisco announced Friday that it will “very likely” file for bankruptcy as it faces more than 500 child sex abuse lawsuits.
In an open letter, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said he was “deeply saddened” by the abuse of children and added “the vast majority of the alleged abuse occurred” decades ago.
But recent reporting by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has uncovered new accusations against multiple San Francisco priests still in ministry.
The Catholic Church across California is being hammered by a wave of new lawsuits made possible by a recent state law. The Oakland and Santa Rosa dioceses have already filed for bankruptcy protection.
Victim advocates with the victims’ support group SNAP blasted Friday’s announcement, saying the wave of diocese declaring bankruptcy is about protecting secrets and reducing payments to abuse victims.
/rant on
Personally, I don’t think that bankruptcy courts should accept petitions from churches. I hold that on “separation of church and state” grounds. When an organization goes into bankruptcy, the court is in charge of that organization. The court may allow current “management” to continue day to day operations, or the court may appoint a special master to actually run things. Either way, the court is in charge. In the case of a church (or other religious organization) that means that a secular court is responsible for the operations of a religious entity. That should be barred by the 1st Amendment. So…the only way to avoid the problem is to refuse to accept bankruptcy petitions from churches or other religious organizations.
/rant off
lotharloosays
BBC Farsi article and update on the hijab situation inside Iran. For almost a year now, many women inside Iran have been in open defiant of hijab laws by going about their lives in public without wearing the mandatory symbol of patriarchy and oppression and the bearded fanatics in charge are not happy.
(forgot to add that Farsi is a genderless language so in the above translation google translate is using the masculine pronouns but as far as I can see, they all have to be “she”).
Richard Dawkins is really losing the grip on reality. He has a beyond stupid article that starts with this gem:
A colleague sent two challenges to me, posted by Jordan Peterson, suggesting I should respond. I’m happy to do so because I greatly respect Dr Peterson’s courageous stance against a bossy, intolerant thought-police whose Orwellian newspeak threatens enlightened rationalism. The hero of 1984, Winston Smith, was eventually persuaded by O’Brien that, if the Party wills it, 2+2 = 5. Winston had earlier found it necessary to stake out his credo. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows”.
And then basically declares that “wokeism” is a religion. Yeah, he picks the dumbest argument in the book, “the ideas that I don’t agree with are a rELiGeooooonNNN”. His reasons are the following. Please put away any hot liquids you might be holding before reading this crap.
1. Heresy hunting. Ruthlessly uncompromising, relentlessly unforgiving persecution of heretics: “Kill a TERF today”. “’If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face” …
2. Hereditary Guilt. One of Christianity’s nastier doctrines is the notion that we are all, even tiny babies, born in sin. Every baby inherits, via a long lineage of semen according to St Augustine, the sin of Adam. … Today’s Original Sins are slavery and colonial oppression. All white people are born in sin, the sin of their ancestors. From the moment they are born, all white people partake in the “institutional racism” handed down, like Adam’s semen, from their great great great grandfathers, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation . . .” (Deuteronomy 5:9).
3. Transubstantiation … Roman Catholics required to believe … accidentals of wafer and wine remain wafer and wine, but in their substance they become body and blood. Hence the word “transubstantiation”. Similarly, in the cult of woke, a man speaks the magic incantation, “I am a woman”, and thereby becomes a woman in true substance, while “her” intact penis and hairy chest are mere Aristotelian accidentals. Transsexuals have transubstantiated genitals.
When I was growing up in the South, I had one of those textbooks in history class approved by the Daughters of the Confederacy. (Their descendants are now in Moms for Liberty.) One of the issues of being a history teacher is having limited time to teach all of the amazing things that our nation has gone through, but in my private school in Virginia, we used a book that devoted pages to learning about the Ku Klux Klan. I had to learn about their founding and history after the Civil War, and there was even an image of them marching in “konklave,” which was described as a “beautiful” parade with white satin robes and flags.
I could have told you all about the 30,000 white supremacists who marched on Washington in 1926, but not a damn word about the Tulsa race massacre, where a white mob stormed a major Black town with the Klan’s help, supplied with munitions from government officials, to completely destroy it. I learned nothing about Black heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen, Bessie Coleman, Robert Smalls, or Madam C.J. Walker. Over the past few decades, a more inclusive curriculum has been demanded. Unfortunately, racists have been pushing back hard to either whitewash or ban the history of oppressed groups.
I was hoping things would improve in my adulthood, but I live in Florida where white supremacist Republicans appointed to the Board of Education are now requiring students to be taught that slavery had benefits and that Blacks must share the blame for their own massacres. Our nightmare started in January, when a law was passed that essentially banned the teaching of African American history. If a lesson made a white person feel guilt, it couldn’t be taught, or a student could sue for damages. A Florida judge who blocked the worst aspects of the law called it “positively dystopian,” but that didn’t stop Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from appointing the worst people he could find to write lesson plans on Black history.
Even textbook companies have made special adjustments for Florida. A Florida publisher rewrote Rosa Parks’ story by saying she was famous because she refused to move after “she was told to move to a different seat.” No reason given. Not that it was a well-planned strategy involving a woman deeply entrenched in the Civil Rights Movement. Well, I’m not a teacher, so I can’t be sued. (At least not yet.) DeSantis has tried hard to get political bloggers to register with the state, but so far he hasn’t succeeded. I’m therefore going to cover a very interesting—and incredibly disturbing—part of history that would definitely make a racist uncomfortable. You won’t learn about any of this in a Florida school. Here we go.
There is a hidden history across this nation of “drowned towns.” Numerous Black communities have been deliberately submerged by our government, resulting in their complete destruction. In some instances, the structures themselves remained intact, leaving churches, schools, and homes fully submerged underwater. While it is impossible to cover every instance, I will highlight several of the more prominent cases.
Lake Lanier, formerly the town of Oscarville, Georgia
This beautiful lake, named after a Confederate soldier, is a popular weekend destination for fishing and boating. Yet before this man-made lake was created, it was the town of Oscarville, which was a thriving Black township until 1912. That year, two Black men were accused of rape. They were hunted down and killed on the same day. Afterward, a white supremacist group called the “Night Riders” terrorized all the Black residents of the county and literally ran every Black resident of Oscarville out of town. Over 1,000 residents were forced to leave their homes or be murdered.
As a result, this terror group obtained many Black property deeds without any bills of sale or transfer. The stolen land was, over time, sold back to the government, which wanted the land to create a man-made lake that could supply water for the growing white towns nearby. In the end, 250 families were displaced, 15 businesses were demolished, and several cemeteries and their corpses had to be relocated. However, not all buildings were demolished and not all graves were moved.
The reason this town is likely the most well-known of the drowned towns is for one curious reason: ghost stories. There is a local legend that the lake is cursed because of how it came into existence. Over 500 deaths have occurred on this lake, with the majority happening in the past 25 years.
Some Black artists have embraced the legend to create a low-budget thriller film and horror series around Lake Lanier. It’s one creative way to bring the story to a wider audience. The lake legend has also been brought up on the popular comedy-drama series “Atlanta” on FX and in an episode of the police procedural series on ABC, “Will Trent.”
Lake Martin, formerly Kowaliga, Alabama
This town was founded by John Benson, a former slave who founded this Black community after he became a wealthy man. After the Civil War, Benson worked the mines for $0.60 per ton, and worked like a dog until he finally saved up $100. He used the money to buy some land from his former slave owners’ estate and began to work the land. His former slave owner was inclined to sell because Congress passed a law that allowed for Union soldiers to seize land from rebels and give it to slaves.
Because of the lack of slave labor, several nearby white farms started going under. John was able to buy more and more land and hired workers, both Black and white. By the turn of the century, Benson had 3,000 acres. He built a brickyard, a sawmill, and a cotton gin. A town sprung up with dozens of houses. John was so wealthy he began bankrolling mortgages for buyers of all races. All of his children would receive college educations, which was unheard of during that era.
His son, William Benson, was equally impressive. He founded a school, which became one of the first Black universities, and built America’s first-ever Black-owned railroad called the Dixie Line, which had customers all over the world. (The Dixie Line was acquired by the Atlantic Coast Line, which would eventually, through several acquisitions, become a part of the modern-day CSX Transportation empire.)
Several shops were burned because of white mobs, but the family kept pressing on. Sadly the son died of illness, and his father followed shortly after.
In 1926, one year after John Benson’s death, the Alabama Power Company completed construction on the Martin Dam on the Tallapoosa River. The dam created heavy upstream flooding that sank the entire town of Kowaliga and the nearby Black township of Susanna as well. Susanna once included a gold mine, a school, two mercantile shops, a grist mill, a flour mill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, and a church. I can find no record of any compensation being given for the flooding.
Central Park Reservoir, formerly York Hill and Seneca Village, New York
In the early 1800s, Lower Manhattan was not a well-developed area. A white farmer named John Whitehead started selling small plots of land from his property. An enterprising young Black man who made money as a bootblack purchased multiple lots that formed the basis of a town, Seneca Village.
New York wanted a giant reservoir and forcibly evicted Black residents of York Hill, who moved to Seneca Village. Although this town was predominantly Black, there were many Irish immigrants who found safe haven there during the Great Famine. Most people built and owned their homes, and archeological excavations have shown they were well made.
City planners by 1840 wanted a large park in Manhattan, which was slated to be built on a tract of land called Jones Wood. The area was occupied by multiple wealthy families who objected to the taking of their land, and successfully obtained an injunction to block the acquisition. Instead, they campaigned successfully for New York to seize the land occupied by Seneca Village.
The media at the time wrote racist articles referring to the residents as “criminals” and “vagabonds,” saying they were “wretched” and couldn’t speak English well. They also falsely described the area as being entirely filled with shanties. By 1857, all the property in Seneca Village was seized and every building destroyed. At that time, what was written about the structures of the town was quite disparaging:
“[The houses] were built largely of old boxes, thrown out rubbish, and timbers salvaged from the river, on which nailed tin cans beaten out flat.”—Reverend Thomas McClure Peters of St. Michael’s Church, sometime in the 1850s
“A suburb more filthy, squalid, and disgusting can hardly be imagined.”—Statement from Central Park Commissioners, 1856
This piece of New York history went largely forgotten until the 1970s. At that time, an author investigating the history of the area discovered a huge discrepancy between what was said about the town and the old city maps from that same time period. City assessors’ maps showcased that the town was primarily made up of substantial two- or three-story houses. One of the larger homes even had a 50-foot veranda on three sides. The author questioned whether the area was really squalid, or if the bad press was due to the city wanting the land that this multiracial town was on. […]
It’s clearly dawned on Trump that he may literally end up in prison.
NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL, OR EVEN CLOSE TO A FAIR TRIAL, IN WASHINGTON, D.C. THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR THIS, BUT JUST ONE IS THAT I AM CALLING FOR A FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF THIS FILTHY AND CRIME RIDDEN EMBARRASSMENT TO OUR NATION, WHERE MURDERS HAVE JUST SHATTERED THE ALL TIME RECORD, OTHER VIOLENT CRIMES HAVE NEVER NEEN WORSE, AND TOURISTS HAVE FLED. THE FEDERAL TAKEOVER IS VERY UNPOPULAR WITH POTENTIAL AREA JURORS, BUT NECESSARY FOR SAFETY, GREATNESS, & FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!
Tourism is fine in D.C., but are we really going to pretend that Trump cares about D.C.’s tourism rate? This is the guy who ignored COVID when he thought it was only killing urban liberals.
[…] ALL CAPS MAKES TRUMP SOUND VERY CENTERED, CALM, AND RATIONAL.
[…] Meanwhile, America has record low unemployment, inflation has been tamed unlike the rest of the world, and we avoided a recession economists were sure was inevitable. The only thing being DESTROYED is Trump’s feeling of invulnerability.
THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE “ASSIGNED” TO THE RIDICULOUS FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FAIR ELECTIONS CASE. EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, AND SO DOES SHE! WE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY ASKING FOR RECUSAL OF THIS JUDGE ON VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS, AND LIKEWISE FOR VENUE CHANGE, OUT IF D.C.
Oooh, VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS.
What’s ironic is that we’re most likely to get a judge change out of the Florida case than this one. […]
Update: Oh, he’s at it.
I purposely didn’t comment on Nancy Pelosi’s very weird story concerning her husband, but now I can because she said something about me, with glee, that was really quite vicious. “I saw a scared puppy,” she said, as she watched me on television, like millions of others, that didn’t see that. I wasn’t “scared.”
Nevertheless, how mean a thing to say! She is a Wicked Witch whose husbands journey from hell starts and finishes with her. She is a sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!
So low energy, no ALL CAPS. Tragic how Nancy Pelosi wounded him so deeply.
From the Dark Brandon coffee cup supposed scandal:
[…] On Thursday, Biden released a short video in which he sipped from a “Dark Brandon” mug and cheekily intoned, “I like my coffee dark.” Our president is tweaking his opponents with a playful little flourish, while embracing a viral meme that slyly juxtaposes his laid-back avuncular nature with his burgeoning reputation for getting shit done.
It’s fun, right? Yet you’d think he’d stolen top secret government documents after hatching a scheme to disenfranchise 81 million voters and end American democracy or something. Because Fox’s talking meatheads were outraged. Outraged, I tells ya!
Julie Banderas: “Dark Brandon is not funny, that’s actually a really dark joke at the expense of the American public. I don’t think think it’s funny, and Brandon is not a compliment!”
—————-
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: “This mug is like about trying to present him as tough and badass when we know he probably wears diapers and he falls off of his bike. So it’s not working, and it’s a problem. … Obviously, this is a man who, his economy is in trouble. He is censoring all of his, anyone who contradicts him and his narrative, online. He’s imprisoning, trying to imprison, his own opponent. This is a sign of weakness, and you’re right. Who is going to step up? Will it be Gavin Newsom, or will we get a surprise in Michelle Obama?”
Or maybe Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will win the nomination! Or Marianne Williamson! Her plan for providing health care to every citizen by erecting an 800-foot-tall healing crystal in the middle of Kansas is just … *chef’s kiss*. Or maybe Jimmy Carter will run. He’s still eligible for one more term! Anyone but this guy whose economy The Washington Post editorial board just described as being ”in the midst of something wonderful.”
Also, let’s be clear. Biden isn’t trying to imprison Trump. He respects the White House’s traditional hands-off approach to the Department of Justice. On the other hand, corruptly using the DOJ to pursue his political opponents is something Trump definitely wanted to do. The incessant “lock her up” chants were kind of a tell.
Back to the meltdown!
KAYLEIGH MCENANY: “Well, we know he wears that CPAP mask, we don’t know much else, but we’ve seen the strap. […] But Julie, what is he doing? He’s on a beach, he’s on a bike, he’s on a 10-day vacation in Delaware. This is what he’s doing. If I’m a Democrat [sic] Party member, I’m saying, let’s bring in Gavin Newsom, because this guy doesn’t seem to care.”
Sure, Gavin Newsom. Sleep apnea wouldn’t dare afflict Gavin Newsom! […] But above all, we need Donald Trump back in the White House, because he never goes on vacation!
But besides craving Gavin Newsom, what else do the “Outnumbered” cast assume Democrats might think of this cheeky little ad?
JULIE BANDERAS: “If I’m a Democratic Party member, I’m embarrassed because he’s actually doing his Democratic Party a disservice. Dark Brandon is not funny. I mean, that’s actually a really dark joke. … I don’t think it’s funny. And ‘Brandon’ is not a compliment. If that’s all he’s got to go on is take the worst insult that he’s adopted through his presidency and make something of it? And while the red beaming eyes … would be very cool, I also think it’s really uncool, the fact that all of this news about Hunter Biden this week, and Joe Biden, was buried by the mainstream media because of the indictment. You know what, our main focus should be our president, and the dark days of summer. That’s what his mug should say.”
The worst insult of his presidency? It’s not even the worst insult from the last three minutes of that show. Didn’t Campos-Duffy just say he wears diapers?
And, wait, there was no news this week about Hunter Biden, other than the revelation that the president had absolutely no involvement in his son’s business schemes. Is that why the mainstream media focused on a former U.S. president’s third criminal indictment instead? So weird. And so, so unfair to … Democrats.
Of course, the Dark Brandon meme is not only not “dark,” it’s barrels of fun and highly effective. And it deftly turns the right’s narrative about Biden—i.e., he’s a namby-pamby milquetoast octogenarian who’s somehow orchestrating a Machievellian transformation of America—on its head. And it ultimately turns the right’s “Let’s Go, Brandon” meme—itself born of vulgarity and a journalistic gaffe—into an embarrassing own goal.
Vox:
[T]he Dark Brandon meme’s popularity among Biden supporters was so swift and decisive that it has effectively become a positive affirmation, not only of Biden himself, but of the internet’s ability to reclaim and salvage what once was lost.
In the year or so since Democrats — including numerous politicians and White House staff members — started using it, the “Brandon” meme, which began as an ironic take on an already-ironic meme from the right, has become a triumphant anthem for the Biden campaign. […]
And at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 29, Biden briefly donned sunglasses and referenced the persona, to cheers from the audience.
Yeah, he did that. [video at the link]
[…] [video of Trump pumping his fist as LIV golf crowd chants, "Let's go Brandon."]
Meanwhile, Jesse Watters, whom Fox News promoted following the network’s painful Tucker-ectomy, is thoroughly exercised about this, too. [video at the link]
WATTERS: “Remember, Dark Brandon came from ‘Let’s Go, Brandon,’ which came from you know what. [From some stupid slogan that included “fuck Biden.”] So the political consultant tried to capitalize off that goofy smear, and this is what they came up with. It’s funny because he is a dark guy, he’s a nasty guy. He’s arresting his rival, and he’s been shaking down Chinese and Ukrainian executives for years and hiding it. He’s nasty to his family, to his granddaughter. He’s a nasty guy. He calls people white supremacists. He’s not a nice guy. So they’re kind of funny about it, but there’s some darkness in his soul.”
[…] the whole Dark Brandon thing has been a real boon to Biden’s reelection campaign. […] “Dark Brandon” — an online meme that portrays the 80-year-old president as a two-steps-ahead Machiavelli — is driving the Biden campaign’s merchandise sales. More than 54% of the store’s total revenue is coming from Brandon-themed products, his re-election team told Axios. […]
After Trump swore at his arraignment on Thursday that he “would not attempt to influence or intimidate witnesses, retaliate against anyone, or in any other way attempt to obstruct the administration of justice,” he proceeded to go after Mike Pence.
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday lashed out at Mike Pence, his former vice president and GOP presidential primary opponent, calling him “delusional” and “not a very good person.”
“WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him V.P., has gone to the Dark Side,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
“I never told a newly emboldened (not based on his 2% poll numbers!) Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was ‘too honest,’” Trump added. “He’s delusional, and now he wants to show he’s a tough guy.”
[…] Trump falsely claimed in a Truth Social post earlier this week that “The V.P. had power that Mike didn’t understand.” Such claims have been depicted in the indictment as central to his attempt to obstruct the certification of 2020 election results.
Authorities are monitoring for a spike in extreme rhetoric online, wary of it crossing over into real-life violence.
The top post at the online forum TheDonald on Wednesday morning was titled “Fuck Mike Pence. 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻.” And chilling calls for violence against the former vice president were rising to the top of the comments thread.
[…] Special prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment also recalls how Trump, unable to convince Pence to become a co-conspirator in his despotic plot to steal the presidency, instead unleashed a mob of MAGA supporters against him. “At the Capitol,” the court document reads, “members of the crowd chanted, ‘Hang Mike Pence!’; ‘Where is Pence? Bring him out!’; and ‘Traitor Pence!’”
Such dark sentiments against Pence now have been revived, at an online forum that played a key role for plotters of the unrest of Jan. 6. TheDonald is a Reddit like forum for the Trumpiest of the Trump faithful. Both individual posts, and the comments on them, rise based on the “upvoting” of users, giving a glimpse into the collective psyche of the community.
The top comment on the Pence post called for divine retribution against the “traitor.” It reads: “May GOD Strike him down for his lies and treachery to the American People.” But as other commenters piled on, they fantasized about a public execution of Pence at a gallows. “I want to watch his toes dangle in the breeze,” wrote user BigMikesHairyDong.
“I want to stand beside you as witness,” wrote user Totally_Passable adding, “I want to pull the lever.” This user made clear he didn’t want the violence to end with Pence: “I long for the day we the people pull these traitors… out of their seats screaming, knowing full well what is coming to them, and why its coming.” […]
Pence is not the only object of seething online anger in the wake of the new indictment. SITE Intelligence, a group that tracks online extremist activity, has flagged online calls for “civil war” and “armed revolution” to avenge Trump, as well as “open threats” to both special counsel Jack Smith and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will be handling the case.
On Wednesday, Trump supporters called for assassinating members of the grand jury that returned the most recent indictment against the former president. On the social media site Gettr, users urged others to buy more guns to attack the special counsel and jury members, according to a SITE Intelligence report sent to law enforcement agencies. “Jack Smith just pissed off 200 million Americans with guns,” one person wrote on Gettr. “Buy more guns! We’re going to need them,” posted another. There were also calls on a Telegram channel associated with QAnon conspiracy extremists to attack Washington D.C. “DC needs to be destroyed,” one user wrote. “Time to burn it down!!!!” […]
RO37 wrote yesterday about attritional war, and a big part of degrading the Russian war machine is cutting its key supply routes. [See comment 204]
Currently, Russia supplies its forces in southern Ukraine, on the Zaporizhzhia front, both from Crimea, and through the Donbas. [map at the link]
The only rail line from mainland Russia through that Zaporizhzhia “land bridge” runs through Tokmak, and has been within GMLRS rocket artillery range for over a year now, I don’t believe it is operational. Thus, for Russia to more efficiently move its supplies via rail, it had to do so through Crimea. [Tweet and video at the link]
Ukraine knocked out the rail line on the Kerch Bridge last year, and kept it offline for around six months, but it is back operational. Ukraine’s recent attack on the Kerch Bridge knocked out one lane of vehicular traffic, but the rail line was unaffected. That meant that Russia has been able to move supplies by rail all the way up to Melitopol, or at least could, until it took out the Chongar Bridge rail line a week ago. (There is another rail line up from Crimea, but it passes near Kherson city, well within Ukraine’s tube artillery.)
With the Chongar Bridge rail line inoperable for now, Ukraine’s strikes last night hit the car lanes at both Chongar Bridge, and also the nearby Henichesk Bridge. [Tweet and images at the link]
More detail on the Chongar Bridge damage: [Tweets and images at the link]
The pontoon bridge can only carry a fraction of the traffic of the regular bridge. Until Russia repairs the bridge, supply vehicles will have to route further west, adding miles to their trip, on a highway that passes near Kherson before routing east to Melitopol, putting them in range of Ukrainian artillery, drones, and ambushes.
Meanwhile, supplies coming in from the east, through Donetsk oblast, travel a road that is mostly within Ukrainian tube artillery range. Remember the battle of Vuhledar, where Russia lost hundreds of armored vehicles and untold lives trying to take the town? Unlike Bakhmut, Vuhledar mattered—had Russian succeeded in pushing back Ukrainian defenders, it would’ve better secured that east-west supply route to Tokmak and Melitopol.
Ukraine is systematically tightening the noose around the Russian defenders on the Zaporizhzhia front. It was much easier in last year’s Kherson counteroffensive—all they had to do was destroy two bridges. But the goal here is the same, to make it untenable to supply Russia’s hungry artillery guns. Between the campaign to systematically degrade Russia’s artillery advantage via counter battery fire, and this campaign to starve it of ammunition, Ukraine hopes to create the conditions by which it can finally push hard into the Russian defenses without facing that withering, impenetrable wall of artillery fire.
————————-
This is a great point: [Tweet at the link: “One year essentially to the US election. Does Biden want to have a Ukrainian victory to point to as vindication or a stalemate the Republican candidate will use for all kinds of legitimate and illegitimate accusations?”]
President Joe Biden will have to decide whether he wants Donald Trump to have Ukraine as a campaign issue, or whether he enters the general election having been a key part of Ukraine’s victorious liberation campaign.
Don’t assume Ukraine will be a political winner for Biden and the Democrats. Americans may abstractly want Ukraine to win, but nativist arguments like “why aren’t we spending the $44 billion at home” have a place. MAGA a-holes are already dishonestly making that argument, saying things like “why spend that money in Ukraine when people are hungry in America?” Of course, those same people would never support $44 billion to feed the hungry, so the argument is utter horseshit, but there’s an audience that will lap that up.
It’s in Biden’s interest to open the floodgates of American support, offer everything we have—M1 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, ATACMS long-range missiles, F-16 fighter jets—and will Ukraine to victory before domestic politics make a messy situation even more complicated.
———————-
Look at that, Code Pink, once a fierce critic of Chinese repression, has changed its tune thanks to some sweet, sweet, Chinese cash.
Code Pink once criticized China’s rights record but now defends its internment of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, which human rights experts have labeled a crime against humanity […]
Ms. Evans has organized around progressive causes like climate change, gender and racism. Until a few years ago, she readily criticized China’s authoritarian government.
“We demand China stop brutal repression of their women’s human rights defenders,” she wrote on Twitter in 2015. She later posted on Instagram a photo with the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei […]
Ms. Evans now stridently supports China. She casts it as a defender of the oppressed and a model for economic growth without slavery or war. “If the U.S. crushes China,” she said in 2021, it “would cut off hope for the human race and life on Earth.” […]
She describes the Uyghurs as terrorists and defends their mass detention. “We have to do something,” she said in 2021. In a recent YouTube video chat, she was asked if she had anything negative to say about China.
“I can’t, for the life of me, think of anything,” Ms. Evans responded. She ultimately had one complaint: She had trouble using China’s phone-based payment apps.
Utterly repulsive.
—————————– Last night, Russia launched one of its biggest missile attacks on Ukraine [Tweet at the link: “Russians unleashed large missile attack targeting Ukrainian infrastructure last night. UA Air Force Command says it shot down:
– 13 of 20 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles
– 17 of 20 Calibr cruise missiles
– 0 of 3 Kh-47 Kinzhal
– 27 of 27 Shahed kamikaze drones]
While civilian targets were hit, including a blood transfusion center in Kupiansk, for once the targets appeared to be mostly military. The Starokostiantyniv air base in Khmelnytskyy Oblast in western Ukraine was targeted. It is home to the Ukrainian war planes launching those devastating Storm Shadow cruise missiles against Russian targets.
Now, you may be wondering, why haven’t those airfields been pulverized by now? How are we 17 months into the war, and Ukraine has functional military air fields well within range of Russian missiles? Well, it’s because Russia would rather hit civilian apartment complexes, schools, and shopping centers, than to hit targets that might actually help them win the war.
Russia would rather be terrorists than win on the battlefield.
For one night, that clearly changed. The good news is that the vast majority of Russian missiles and drones were shot down. Some did get through, but hopefully, with hours of advance notice, the Ukrainian Air Force dispersed its aircraft at the first notice of incoming missiles.
Airfields are notoriously difficult to destroy. It takes 10 minutes to fill any crater made by a missile. The key is to protect the aircraft.
Incidentally, a KH-101 costs $13 million, a KH-555 costs $7.5 million, a Calibr costs $1 million, and Kinzhal’s cost $10 million. Shahed drones are cheap, around $10,000 each. So this attack cost Russia around $250 million in cruise missiles, and another half a million in drones.
Some good news on the diplomatic front. See Lisa O’Carroll’s “China ‘backs further Ukraine peace talks’ after Saudi Arabia summit” in today’s Guardian. O’Carroll quotes an unnamed EU source who said China “participated actively and was positive about idea of a third meeting at this level”. And the Financial Times reported today in “Ukraine allies buoyed by ‘constructive’ China signals at Jeddah talks” that an unnamed EU diplomat said that China “appeared constructive” and “keen to show that [it] is not Russia” and that the “mere presence of China shows Russia is more and more isolated”.
This is a big step up from the June peace summit in Copenhagen, which China did not attend despite being invited. Let’s hope that China understands more and more that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is bad for China — which it is — and acts on this understanding.
Oggie: Mathomsays
stderr gives a wonderful takedown of the whole free speech defense over here. Really really really worth a read.
Well, it’s indictment week. Again. And that must mean it’s time for Sunday Four-Play—a new-ish feature in which we shine a spotlight on some of the Sunday show hijinks.
[…] is Trump more dangerously criminal or dangerously incompetent?
[…] The hits keep coming, and Trump’s not doing himself any favors by continuing to post on social media with all the forbearance and dignity of a howler monkey with his balls caught in a saltwater taffy machine. He really needs to call his old cybersecurity adviser Rudy Giuliani and ask him how to get locked out of his own phone.
[…] John Lauro is one of the folks Donald Trump hired to represent him after Barry Zuckerkorn refused to take his calls. He’s already—somewhat hilariously—acknowledged Trump’s guilt in one of the charges brought against him. And he did it on national TV, because Trump isn’t trying to hide anything! Even those things that could land him in prison […]
Lauro appeared on “Meet the Press” with host Chuck Todd, who is leaving the show in September. (Not strictly relevant, I know; it just makes me happy.)
Judging from Lauro’s response, it’s fair to question whether he has any control over his client at all. The more Trump talks, the quaggier his legal quagmire gets. […]
TRUMP (CLIP): “Deranged Jack Smith, he’s a deranged human being. You take a look at that face you say, ‘That guy is a sick man, there’s something wrong with him.’”
TODD: “Do you believe he’s deranged?”
LAURO: “President Biden in April of 2022 said he wanted President Trump prosecuted, and he wanted him out of the race. He repeated that in November of 2022. As a result, President Biden has put in motion a political prosecution in the middle of an election season, and obviously everything is open to politics. I’m not involved in politics, I’m just representing a client. I’m ensuring that justice is done in this case. President Trump is entitled to his day in court, and he’ll get it.”
TODD: “Do innocent people attack prosecutors?”
LAURO: “This is a political campaign right now. This prosecution was instituted by President Biden, and in the middle of that campaign, people are going to speak out. My role is not to address anything about prosecutors, but I will say this: There has been a history in the Justice Department of rogue prosecutions. They went after Arthur Andersen, a major accounting firm. Destroyed the company, and the DOJ lost 9-0. They went after the former governor of Virginia in a prosecution—a Republican governor who was convicted unfairly. Reversed 9-0. And now the Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department, is going after a former president for acts that he carried out in fulfillment of his oath and president of the United States.” [video at the link]
You know, when Lauro claimed President Biden said he wanted Trump prosecuted and out of the race, I thought to myself, “Hmm, that doesn’t sound anything like Biden. It sure sounds like something Trump would say, though.”
Well, I was right. And since this claim is at the heart of the Trump team’s public defense of their client—i.e., that this is nothing but a political prosecution launched by Trump’s political opponent—it’s important to take this head-on.
First of all, Trump is the one who continually tried to weaponize the DOJ. He wanted the department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, whom he corruptly fired in an attempt to stop an investigation. He also tried to use the department to overturn the 2020 election. And he continually attacked former Attorney General Jeff Sessions after Sessions recused himself in the Russian investigation—because he wanted “his” DOJ to act as his personal Roy Cohn. Oh, and he recently said he would seek to prosecute President Biden if he’s reelected.
But Biden? He understands the White House’s traditional hands-off posture toward the DOJ in a way that Trump never did. And he’s continually resisted overstepping his authority.
So what is Lauro talking about here?
Well, in April 2022, according to media reports, Biden privately mentioned to his inner circle that he thought Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, but he never mentioned this personal preference to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
And in November of last year, responding to a reporter’s question about how to reassure world leaders that the poo-flinging Putin puppet would never resume his tirade, Biden said, “Well, we just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by—if we—if he does run. I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again.”
In other words, he’s going to campaign against him.
But hey, why let facts and context get in the way of a fun narrative!?
Oh, hey, Lauro was on “Face the Nation,” too! And “ABC This Week”! Not to mention “Fox News Sunday”! […]
Here he was with CBS’ Major Garrett talking about the Trump team’s desire for a change of venue: [video at the link]
GARRETT: “You’re still going to pursue a change of venue?”
LAURO: “Absolutely. We would like a diverse venue, a diverse jury …”
GARRETT: “Do you have any expectation that will be granted?”
LAURO: “… that reflects the characteristics of the American people. It’s up to the judge. I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue to try this case.”
Yes, the famously diverse state of West Virginia, whose residents represent every color of the rainbow, from alabaster to ecru. Its population is 92.8% white and 3.7% Black. […]
Hey, here’s a tip: If you don’t want to be tried in Washington, D.C., don’t commit crimes in Washington, D.C. It works every time!
Alina Habba, another Trump attorney and apologist, appeared on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. And this happened: [video at the link]
BARTIROMO: “Let me ask you this, because typically when you have a case as complicated as the one we’re talking about, there is deposition, there is discovery—a whole discovery process where Trump’s lawyers will have to get access to the other side’s information, and vice versa. How long do you expect that process to take, because Jack Smith says he wants a speedy trial. We’re about a year away from an election. Obviously we’re just two weeks away from the first GOP primary debate, two months away from the Iowa Caucuses. Are you expecting to have a trial before election 2024?”
HABBA: “I think that that’s their goal. I think that realistically you have to remember that a lot of these cases deal with classified documents and classified records, which mean that all the lawyers now have to apply for special clearance, right? So it’s not a normal situation. You can’t just take a classified document and review it. You have to have SCIFs. You have to have certain procedures put in place. So while I appreciate Jack Smith trying to bleed us all dry and trying to have a speedy trial, perhaps he should have taken a case that didn’t involve classified documents that he now possesses, that we have to now repossess and review for discovery. It’s a poorly planned attack, frankly, because that’s what it is, it’s political lawfare, and he didn’t think it through. So I think these are going to take a lot longer. I think that once the judges get a [unintelligible] for how many years they’ve had this discovery—look at [Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney] Fani [Willis], two years. But she’s bringing this case now. Why? Because of election interference. They want to keep him tied up in trials, keep his lawyers tied up so that we’re distracted and not focused. It’s not going to work. He is a machine and he knows what he’s doing in a campaign. You know, he’s done this rodeo before.”
[Emphasis added]
Wait, Trump is a machine? Someone alert Mike Lindell! [Tweet and video at the link]
But never mind Pillow Man. Here’s the real takeaway: “You can’t just take a classified document and review it. You have to have SCIFs. You have to have certain procedures put in place.”
Say, Alina. Go back to the transcript and read that part over again. Then ask yourself if it was appropriate for Trump to (allegedly!) wave classified battle plans around in front of a gaggle of randos. This is an easy one. We’ll progress to the alphabet song in next week’s lesson—and colors and shapes, if there’s still time.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead manager for Trump’s second impeachment, appeared on “Meet the Press” after Lauro spewed his pabulum all over Chuck Todd’s neatly pressed suit.
It went a little something like this: [Tweet and video at the link]
TODD: “Let me first start with a couple of things we heard from Mr. Lauro. You spent 25 years as a constitutional law professor, so I kind of want to get Professor Raskin’s take on this. Let me play one quick clip of something he said to me about the Constitution.”
LAURO (CLIP): “A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law. That’s just plain wrong.”
TODD: “Now, he added the word ‘criminal law’ there, but it was my understanding if you violated the Constitution, you’ve violated the law.”
RASKIN: “Well, first of all, a technical violation of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution in six different places opposes insurrection. It makes that a grievous constitutional offense. So our Constitution is designed to stop people from trying to overthrow elections and trying to overthrow the government. But in any event, there’s a whole apparatus of criminal law which is in place to enforce this constitutional principle. That’s what Donald Trump is charged with violating. He conspired to defraud the American people out of our right to an honest election by substituting the real legal process we have under federal and state law with counterfeit electors. I mean, there are people who are in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote, if they try to vote illegally once. He tried to steal the entire election, and his lawyer’s up there saying, oh, that’s just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights. That’s deranged. That is a deranged argument.”
[…] with a client like this, a deranged argument is probably the best you can do, now isn’t it?
[…] Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the inimitable Flaxen Klaxon, tells Bartiromo, “The more times they indict President Trump, the more people realize that the Biden administration is a communist regime.” (“Sunday Morning Futures”) […]
An attorney for former president Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will argue that Trump’s failed attempt to cling to power after the 2020 election was “aspirational” and not criminal.
John Lauro, who is defending Trump against four felony charges related to attempts to throw out President Biden’s 2020 victory, said Trump’s pressure campaign against then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and state officials was speech protected by the First Amendment.
Trump’s attempts included asking Pence to throw out slates of electors and pause the election certification process, and demanding that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” enough votes to flip the state’s electoral slate from Biden to Trump. In spite of his unsuccessful efforts, no crime was committed, Lauro contended.
“When it comes to political speech,” Lauro said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “you can not only advocate for a position, but you can take action, you can petition, you can ask even your vice president to pause the vote.”
“Asking is aspirational. Asking is not action. It’s core free speech,” he added.
Pence said on CNN that he had “no plans to testify” but would comply with a subpoena.
[…] “Mr. Trump is not a lawyer. Let’s understand that. He’s a political leader and a businessman,” Lauro said on ABC’s “This Week.” “What Mr. Eastman was saying, as an attorney, is that there is a constitutional pathway to making this ask.” [Trump is throwing Eastman under the bus.]
[…] Trump has increasingly lashed out at Smith and indicated a willingness to retaliate against witnesses who testify for the prosecution. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” he posted Friday on his Truth Social account.
In remarks at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday night, Trump again verbally attacked Smith as “mentally ill” and “deranged.”
Citing Trump’s threatening social media posts, prosecutors asked Chutkan to impose a protective order on the former president and his legal team, prohibiting them from remarking about certain evidence publicly.
Lauro said Sunday that he would fight that proposed order. […]
It has long been a sore spot for the Western alliance: Italy, a key partner of the United States, cozying up to China.
But now Rome is trying to back away — without angering the Asian giant 10 times its economic size — and Washington will be watching the balancing act closely as it pushes allies to reimagine their own delicate ties with Beijing.
The U.S. was deeply critical of Italy’s decision in 2019 to become the only major Western economy to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI, as it’s known, is an unprecedented global infrastructure project that critics see as Beijing’s attempt to gain influence abroad and make smaller countries financially dependent on Chinese investment.
But this week Italy gave its strongest signal yet that it planned to pull out of the project. [video at the link]
Signing the deal four years ago was “an improvised and atrocious act,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday. “We exported a load of oranges to China, they tripled exports to Italy in three years.”
Crosetto added a more measured coda: “The issue today is, how to walk back without damaging relations? Because it is true that while China is a competitor, it is also a partner.”
These remarks followed months of reports that Italy planned to quit the BRI. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s far-right prime minister, said her government would make a decision by December, when the pact between Rome and Beijing is due to renew.
[…] Four years ago, Italy’s allies “thought we were selling our soul to the devil” by signing up to the BRI, said Filippo Fasulo, an expert in Italian-Chinese relations at the Italian Institute for International Studies, a think tank based in Milan. Today Italy wants to show it is “closely aligned with the U.S., Western camp” while keeping a “stable relationship with China,” Fasulo told NBC News. “The problem is, how to explain that to China?”
China’s hawkish Global Times newspaper on Monday derided the Italian defense minister’s comments as resulting from “mounting pressure from the U.S. and the E.U.” as well as Italy’s right-wing politics.
“The current government is quite pro-U.S.,” Wang Yiwei, a professor at the Center for European Studies at China’s Renmin University, said of Italy. “It’s their decision, but we feel regret.”
Asked about the Italian defense minister’s comments, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement Friday that the BRI “unleashed great enthusiasm and potential for bilateral cooperation.”
They added that some forces had “launched malicious hype and politicized the cultural exchange and trade cooperation between China and Italy under the Belt and Road framework in a bid to disrupt cooperation and create division.”
[…] The BRI is based loosely on the ancient Silk Road trade route, the same that was traversed by the medieval Venetian explorer Marco Polo. When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Italy to sign the deal in 2019, he described Polo as a “pioneer of cultural exchanges between East and West” and an inspiration for centuries of friendship since.
[…] by the time Italy inked its deal Western attitudes had begun to turn, with increased scrutiny on China’s human rights record
[…] The outcome — while not quite “a load of oranges” — has not been kind to Italy. Since signing the BRI, Chinese exports to Italy have risen 51%, but Italy’s exports to China have gone up only 26%, according to Italian government figures.
[…] “Part of this is about trying to put bilateral relations with Washington on a sounder footing,” said Francesco Sisci, a senior researcher at the Center for European Studies at China’s Renmin University. “Withdrawing from it now is a signal of a change of heart in the Western approach to China.”
[…] Beech leaf disease has quietly raced across the country infecting a particular species of trees critical to forest ecosystems, the American beech. The mysterious condition has been shown to be caused by a newly discovered subspecies of nematodes, or microscopic worms.
First discovered in Ohio in 2012, beech leaf disease has now been identified in 12 states, where it’s ravaging trees in forests and back yards and costing nursery owners millions. But much remains unknown about the disease, namely, how are the nematodes spreading so rapidly and what, if anything, can be done to stop their march and save the infected trees.
[…] Despite concerns that the arboreal ailment could wipe out one of America’s most iconic trees, the scientists have struggled to get funding from government agencies and other sources to launch more of the kind of intensive studies they say are sorely needed.
“One of the main things we say on the calls is, ‘Oh, gee! You can’t find any funding,’” said Margery Daughtrey, a plant pathologist and senior extension associate at Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science. “It’s a real problem.”
[…] The trees are considered a “foundational species” in northern hardwood forests. They produce a a high-fat nut prized by bears, turkeys and other animals. And their towering canopy and trunk cavities provide a home for numerous types of birds and insects.
Beech trees are believed to be especially critical for black bears. Studies have shown a direct link between a healthy American beech forest and black bear birth rates.
In the years after the disease was first discovered, scientists had no idea what was causing the beech tree leaves to develop dark green bands and then to curl and pucker.
[…] since then, the microscopic menaces have only caused more damage.
Danielle Martin, a forest pathologist for the U.S. Forest Service, said she realized just how devastating the disease can be when she returned to an infected area in Cleveland last summer, three years after first visiting the site.
“It was shocking how much it had advanced within those stands,” she said. “It was just dark, dead forest. I think my jaw dropped.”
The nematodes feast on the buds and leaves of beech trees. As the parasites multiply, the leaves develop dark bands, crinkle and thicken. In time, the buds die and the crown of the beeches thin out, hampering photosynthesis and hastening the trees’ death.
[…] No other leaf-eating nematode is known to infect a large forest tree in North America. The vast majority of nematodes dwell in the soil and attack roots or underground crops such as potatoes and carrots.
[…] American beech trees grow from Ontario, Canada, all the way down to Florida, so the disease has the potential to spread much further.
[…] “We need many researchers asking these sorts of questions — not just a few — because the level of the problem is extreme,” Daughtrey [Cornell University professor] said.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #220….
Side note on beech (the wood, not specifically the tree). Had English developed differently (alas, my late wife could have supplied the specific change, but I think it was the Great Vowel Shift), the plural of “book” would be “beech”. So beech is, rather literally, book wood, going back to carving–or, often enough, scratching–runes into strips of wood.
Justice Clarence Thomas met the recreational vehicle of his dreams in Phoenix, on a November Friday in 1999…
But there is an untold, and far more complex, back story to Thomas’ RV — one that not only undercuts the mythology but also leaves unanswered a host of questions about whether the justice received, and failed to disclose, a lavish gift from a wealthy friend.
His Prevost Marathon cost $267,230, according to title history records obtained by The New York Times. And Thomas, who in the ensuing years would tell friends how he had scrimped and saved to afford the motor coach, did not buy it on his own. In fact, the purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters, a close friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.
He provided Thomas with financing that experts said a bank would have been unlikely to extend — not only because Thomas was already carrying a lot of debt, but because the Marathon brand’s high level of customization makes its used motor coaches difficult to value…
But despite repeated requests over nearly two weeks, Welters did not answer further questions essential to understanding his arrangement with Thomas.
He would not say how much he had lent Thomas, how much the justice had repaid and whether any of the debt had been forgiven or otherwise discharged. He declined to provide the Times with a copy of a loan agreement — or even say if one existed. Nor would he share the basic terms of the loan, such as what, if any, interest rate had been charged or whether Thomas had adhered to an agreed-upon repayment schedule. And when asked to elaborate on what he had meant when he said the loan had been “satisfied,” he did not respond…
An elite group of North Korean hackers secretly breached computer networks at a major Russian missile developer for at least five months last year, according to technical evidence reviewed by Reuters and analysis by security researchers.
Reuters found cyber-espionage teams linked to the North Korean government, which security researchers call ScarCruft and Lazarus, secretly installed stealthy digital backdoors into systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.
Reuters could not determine whether any data was taken during the intrusion or what information may have been viewed. In the months following the digital break-in Pyongyang announced several developments in its banned ballistic missile programme but it is not clear if this was related to the breach…
Adam Edelman and Dareh Gregorian and Sarah Dean
Updated Mon, August 7, 2023 at 12:43 AM EDT
If former President Donald Trump committed a “technical violation of the Constitution,” it doesn’t mean he necessarily broke any criminal laws, John Lauro, Trump’s criminal defense attorney, argued Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Lauro appeared to signal how he’d defend the former president in a trial that will stem from the four-count criminal indictment returned last week by a federal grand jury that had been examining Trump’s possible role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Pressed by NBC’s Chuck Todd about Trump’s alleged pressure campaign to get former Vice President Mike Pence to reverse the election, Lauro claimed that Trump and Pence had merely disagreed over whether a vice president could constitutionally take actions that could lead to a presidential election’s being overturned.
“A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law,” Lauro contended, saying it was “just plain wrong” to suggest that Trump had pressed Pence to break the law…
Aug. 6 (UPI) — The controversial Westboro Baptist Church, based in Kansas, claimed that Hawaii will be “utterly destroyed” on Sunday.
“The churches of Hawaii have doomed the inhabitants with lies about the eternal God,” Westboro Baptist Church said in a statement announcing a protest at three churches in Hawaii. “The watchers must (and will) publicly pronounce the warning on Sunday.”
The Westboro Baptist Church said its members will picket outside of Grace Bible Church and King’s Cathedral in Kahului as well as Wailuku Union Church in Wailuku…
So Westboro is still around. I have not heard of them in years. If Hwaii was destroyed yesterday, it failed to make the news.
birgerjohanssonsays
When even Financial Times thinks the Conservative Party has gone too far.
A disease spread by fleas is becoming more common and deadlier in Los Angeles, California. In a new report this week, health officials say that recorded cases of flea-borne typhus have steadily risen in LA since 2010, with the highest tally seen last year. Additionally, three people are thought to have died from typhus in 2022, the first such deaths reported in the area in three decades.
Flea-borne typhus is caused by the bacteria Rickettsia typhi. It’s a relative of the bacteria responsible for epidemic typhus, a disease that usually only appears and wreaks havoc during times of great human suffering, particularly wars. In contrast, flea-borne typhus is endemic in many parts of the world, though it tends to cause milder illness than its cousin. Symptoms include fever, headache, and a distinctive rash…
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 226
I got a feeling they’d claim that it was “destroyed in the spiritual realm”
KYIV — Ukraine said Monday it had detained an informant who was sharing intelligence with Russia as part of a plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The woman “was preparing an enemy airstrike on Mykolaiv region” during a recent visit by Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said in a statement released online.
The SBU said the woman, who was not identified, was collecting information including the time and list of locations that the Ukrainian leader planned to attend in the southern region.
A spokesperson for the SBU confirmed to NBC News that Ukraine was saying Zelenskyy was the target of the attack.
However, the SBU said it learned of the alleged plot in time and that “additional security measures were taken during the visit.”…
Young Americans who identify strongly with gun use and gun ownership often hold male supremacist beliefs and racial resentment.
The young people who are most closely associated with guns are more likely to be white people who have worse symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to new research conducted by Everytown for Gun Safety, American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The research also found that men were more familiar with and agreed more with the following “gun narratives”: “Guns allow the weak to stand up to the strong,” “People should buy guns now because society might collapse in our lifetime;” “It isn’t fair that the actions of a few troubles individuals should have a negative effect on the gun rights of good Americans who have done everything right;” “Guns are the best way to defend yourself, loved ones and your community;” and, “Guns bring families together.”
This first-of-its-kind look at American youth’s attitudes about gun violence polled over 4,000 American young people between the ages of 14 and 30 from a nationally representative sample over the past year. The researchers, who also conducted qualitative focus groups with participants, found that youth with stronger male supremacist and racist attitudes tend to hold stronger beliefs that adults in schools should be armed, feel safer with guns than without guns, and have stronger trust in the police.
[…] this speaks to a larger cultural dynamic at play currently, where many white men are feeling unsure of how to articulate themselves as men in current society. As a result, many young men are turning to guns as an “unimpeachable access to masculinity.”
Dashtgard said that for many young men, developing a relationship with guns as a way to bolster their sense of male identity starts at a very young age, when young boys are often unwittingly exposed to “a lot of really toxic ideas and a lot of really potentially radicalizing content” through social media. He says while many parents dismiss concerns over what children are seeing—and the potential for radicalization—on social media as overblown “wokeness,” he said most parents would be shocked to find that their children are interacting with white supremacist recruiters while playing video games and watching Twitch streams.
“Media literacy is really important,” Dashtgard said.
In addition to making sure children are taught media literacy, Angela Ferrell-Zabala, the executive director of Moms Demand Action, a part of the Everytown for Gun Safety network, told The 19th that parents also need to be aware of what media their children are consuming—and aware of the ways that the gun advocates have helped position media messages designed to influence their sons, as this new research shows.
“This research tells us a lot about where we need to go from here and it confirms just how intertwined the gun culture promoted by the gun lobby is with hate-filled ideologies,” Ferrell-Zabala said.
She noted that part of Everytown’s work on gun safety includes calling attention to the way guns and gun accessories are frequently marketed to young boys and men. Ferrell-Zabala pointed to campaigns such as Bushmaster’s “reissue your man-card,” and an ad from Kahr Firearms that was posted during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 that portrays Kyle Rittenhouse—the man who as a then-17-year-old traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the protests there following the killing of a Black man in the summer of 2020 and shot three people, two of them fatally—as a hero.
“I think we need to talk about why, when young men and boys are engaging with content about guns and American gun culture, they increasingly find themselves holding hateful beliefs about sexism and racism,” Ferrell-Zabala said of the findings of this new research. “The rhetoric of the gun lobby has long included racist and sexist overtones and dog-whistles, which we may assume only reaches the older generations in our country — but what our research shows is that this rhetoric does seem to be sticking with young boys and men.”
[…] “This isn’t a case of somebody typing in ‘the Holocaust isn’t real,’ but a 14-year old boy who is nervous about talking to women and going on the Internet and searching for tips for how to do that.”
From that simple search, he said, many young men are quickly entering into a world of “really awful content” that is rooted in male and white supremacist ideology.
“As feminist discourse has entered into mainstream conversation, there has been an understandable focus on the ways patriarchy has impacted women,” Dashtgard said. “There hasn’t been articulated as clearly an understanding of how patriarchy affects boys and men.”
As a result, many boys and men are turning to the internet for answers. There, Dashtgard said, “white supremacist and Stormfront recruiters [are] coming into those forums” so that men looking for answers are met with ideas that often lead them to violence rooted in feelings of hatred and resentment towards women and racial minorities. […]
Two lawmakers who served on the Jan. 6 select committee slammed Donald Trump’s lawyer John Lauro’s argument, made on MSNBC’s Meet The Press over the weekend, that his client, the former president, simply committed a “technical violation of the Constitution” but did not break any criminal laws when he pressured then Vice President Mike Pence to stop the 2020 electoral count.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) — who was also the lead manager in Trump’s second impeachment — on Sunday called Lauro’s argument “deranged.”
“First of all, a technical violation of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution, Raskin said later on MSNBC’S “Meet The Press.” “The Constitution in six different places opposes insurrection … Our Constitution is designed to stop people from trying to overthrow elections and trying to overthrow the government.”
“[Trump] conspired to defraud the American people out of our right to an honest election by substituting the real legal process we have under federal and state law with counterfeit electors,” he added. “There are people in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote … He tried to steal the entire election.”
Raskin also pushed back on another rhetorical argument deployed by Lauro.
“His lawyer is up there saying, ‘Oh that’s just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights,’” Raskin said. “That is a deranged argument.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), who was also on the Jan. 6 committee, offered his take on Smith’s case — and Lauro’s counterarguments to it — in a separate interview. “That’s just not true,” he said when asked about Lauro’s statement that the government will not be able to prove Trump had a corrupt intent when trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
“I’m confident that the government will prove that,” Aguilar said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “Jack Smith, in his indictment, said that the former president deliberately disregarded the truth. That was his quote. And our January 6th Committee report showed time and time again that President Trump was told he lost the election by his campaign lawyers, by his advisers.” […]
Technically, plotting a coup is illegal. Whadda gonna do?
—————-
“Technically” a violation of law is, you know, “technically” a “crime.” If you wanna get all “technical.”
JHFC.
—————
I’m still a bit baffled about the concept of having one
of Trump’s lead lawyers spending time discussing their
strategy on the public airwaves instead of saving it for
the courtroom, unless, of course, they don’t believe they
have a winning case, and instead want to rile up the base
to intimidate Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and the DoJ
to either drop charges or go very easy on him under
threats of violence.
None of it will work. Not the threats, not the desire to
change venue nor the judge in the case. I hope he gets
used to hearing “no”, though judging from the E. Jean
Carroll case, he’ll have a very hard time accepting it.
——————–
It’s amazing that in Trumpland they can be making the case that he’s a complete idiot who believed every single whackadoodle theory about the election and thought he actually won, so clearly is unable to functionally assess reality, while at the same time saying he should again be the president of the most powerful nation on the planet.
————-
the reason Chuck Toad is being replaced is that his entire response after briefly attempting to push back was basically, “homina, homina, homina” to tRump’s lawyer’s claims. It was a weak attempt, and his lawyer continued to filibuster with non-stop bullshit. Nobody needs that to understand the issue with that kind of ongoing disinformation. It might as well have been a segment on Faux news.
“Of course he lost. Joe Biden’s the president. I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think it was a good-run election. But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening.”
[…] Before everyone gets too excited about a brand-new pivot from Ron, however, check out the tape of how this admission was dragged out of him. [posted by Aaron Rupar] “he is so unbelievably bad at this.” [video at the link, and video also available here: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1688558540116402176 ]
That was absolutely effing painful. Yeah, I’m not convinced this was some grand—and planned—pivot on Ron’s part. That looked more like a man trying to claw his way through that part of the interview with the minimal answer he could give. Trump himself became infamous for saying whatever he needed to say to get himself out of one day’s jam, even if he had to reverse himself and say something different to get out of the next one. This is the Sweaty “60 Minutes” Interview Guy play, not anything grander.
Politico points to an Iowa campaign stop for more evidence for an actual pivot, and this bit is more solid. A bit.
And during a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday, DeSantis was asked if he thought the election was stolen, as asserted by Trump and his supporters. “I’ve said many times, the election is what it is. All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true,” he responded.
He also criticized 2020 as an election that was not “conducted the way I think we want to. But that’s different than saying [Venezuelan leader Nicolas] Maduro stole votes or something like that. And I think those theories proved to be unsubstantiated.” Suffice to say, some of Trump’s supporters reacted furiously to DeSantis’ supporters.
Now that is a more substantive answer. Ron is willing to admit, in front of a live audience of Republicans frothy and fascist enough to want to hear what Ron DeSantis has to say about anything, that the current Venezuelan president was maybe not personally involved in denying Trump a reelection win.
But Ron didn’t say outright that Maduro wasn’t. He just offered up that “those theories proved to be unsubstantiated,” and Trump supporters in the crowd had a collective Iowa cow over even that.
Ron’s never going to do the one thing that would actually differentiate himself from Trump. DeSantis could come out and say, “Donald Trump lied his ass off to all of you, he used you, he tricked you into believing your ass was your elbow because he is a gigantic quivering manbaby who could not handle his own loss.”
Fellow Republican candidate Chris Christie might say it if his seemingly infinite number of good media friends continue to prop his candidacy up with as many interviews as they can muster, but not DeSantis. He’s already committed himself to being a prime conspiracy theorist himself back in Florida, furiously rallying his voters to believe that everyone from government health experts to state elementary school teachers are all plotting against them.
So we’ll see if DeSantis walks back both of these admissions, both the admission that President Joe Biden is really truly the real-world president and that a batshit conspiracy theory involving vote-fixing by Venezuelan leaders both dead and alive is still—gasp—”unsubstantiated.” Every one of the DeSantis reboots so far has amounted to exactly nothing because his campaign simply can’t sustain any extended narrative that doesn’t focus on conspiracy cranks and online Nazis.
A road located near the Fulton County Courthouse has been closed as District Attorney Fani Willis (D) prepares to potentially bring an indictment against former President Trump in the coming weeks.
The two southbound lanes of Pryor Street SW between MLK Jr. Drive and Mitchell Street closed to general traffic starting at 5 a.m. Monday and will continue through Aug. 18, according to the Fulton County Sheriff’s office. The closed portion of the street will be converted to media parking, which will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
The traffic advisory noted that the courthouse and Fulton County Government Center will remain open to the public and that the street will allow pedestrian traffic. No public parking will be allowed on the surrounding streets. […]
whheydt @ # 221: … beech is, rather literally, book wood…
Seeing it in German makes the connection even more obvious. The notorious death camp Buchenwald translates to English as the very innocuous “Beechwood”.
Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday asked the Justice Department to explain its use of an out-of-state grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago case.
The demand came in response to a duo of filings submitted under seal, which Cannon directed a clerk to strike from the docket.
The Justice Department “shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district,” she wrote. […]
This latest pronouncement from Elon Musk is going to backfire badly … or so I predict.
When Elon Musk first took over Twitter, he immediately fired pretty much everyone who worked there, without just cause. This was legal for him to do because, unlike every other country in the world, we have a thing called at-will employment. This means that your boss can fire you for any reason or no reason. Musk understood this and used it to his advantage. Well, we assume he did, anyway.
This weekend, however, he at least pretended to have no understanding of this or labor laws in general, announcing that the social media site would fund the legal bills of anyone whose actions on the site led to problems at their workplace.
“If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill,” he wrote. “No limit. Please let us know.”
Naturally, the responses to the tweet were largely paid blue checkmarks with the most heart-wrenching stories about how they were fired from their jobs just for being gross bigots online, each claiming that theirs was the perfect test case for this project.
“This is beyond awesome,” wrote one Muskovite. “Nobody asked him to do it. Nobody expected him to do it. Could cost him and the company unimaginable amounts of money. But if it works . . . If corporations and institutions hear about this and are scared straight, we all win.”
Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen. There is a reason why, despite the right-wing hysteria over people being fired for their bigoted tweets, we haven’t actually heard about any lawsuits against employers for having done this.
First of all, as mentioned — with the lone exception of Montana — we have at-will employment in this country. This means that your employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all. You can be fired because a new manager “wants their own team,” because your boss didn’t like your tie or simply because they were having a bad day and wanted to take it out on someone.
We are the only nation that does things this way. In literally every other country on earth, an employer generally has to have “just cause” in order to fire someone.
So yes, generally speaking, people can be fired for their tweets or for having a bad hair day.
The only exception to this rule is that employers aren’t supposed to be able to fire employees for discriminatory reasons or as retaliation for trying to start a union or complaining about discrimination or harassment, though there are exceptions to that, as well. Federally and in many states, businesses with fewer than 15 employees are exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). It’s also pretty easy for businesses to fire people for discriminatory reasons but claim it is for “no reason,” and the onus is on the terminated employee to file an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint, hire a lawyer and prove that they were discriminated against, which is neither cheap nor easy.
This means that the only people who would actually be able to sue over being fired for their tweets are people fired over tweets supporting a union at their place of work or complaining about discrimination or tweeting about something related to their membership in a protected category (e.g. tweeting about being gay, disabled, a member of a particular religion, etc.).
It also means that those fired for bigoted tweets, or “for liking Libs Of TikTok” as one person mentioned, are in fact being fired for “just cause.” Why? Because they are opening the company up to a workplace discrimination or harassment lawsuit.
[…] Statistics show that 63 percent of those who file an EEOC complaint against their employer end up losing their jobs (67 percent for those whose complaint is related to a disability) and only a very small percentage end up getting anything out of it. Only seven percent of complaints lead to any change in the workplace and only 12 percent result in any monetary compensation, with the median payout being about $8,500.
[…] However, if someone feels they have been discriminated at work for being gay by a manager whose Twitter feed is full of homophobic drivel, they’ve got a pretty solid case against the company.
[…] Many of those asking for Musk’s help were medical professionals tossed out over spreading misinformation about COVID or vaccines, which was both legal and an entirely reasonable thing to do. People, after all, need to be able to have some trust that when they go to the hospital, they are not in the care of crackpots.
All of this being said, there is some rather delicious irony in the fact that those getting all excited about Elon’s offer are Republicans, whose votes support things like at-will employment and other weak labor laws. They are the very reason their own bosses do not need a good reason to fire them. Perhaps they’d know this if they spent less time trying to “own the libs” and more time learning about what their party actually stands for beyond just hurting the people they want to see hurt.
MADILL, OKLAHOMA (The Borowitz Report)—Clarence and Ginni Thomas became stranded over the weekend after the engine of their quarter-million-dollar recreational vehicle suddenly ran out of caviar.
The R.V. was passing through Madill, Oklahoma, when the Thomases made the unfortunate discovery.
After their attempt to buy enough caviar in Marshall County for their beluga-powered motor home proved fruitless, the couple was forced to reach out to their roster of super-donor friends for a new shipment of roe.
Ginni Thomas said that the caviar mishap had ruined their summer vacation. “After a gruelling year as a Supreme Court Justice, this was the last thing I needed,” she said.
Republicans move from one culture war to the next, like Tarzan swinging through the trees. It can be hard to keep up with the nonsense, but try we must.
After last year’s all-out assault on transgender children, pregnant women, the accurate teaching of history, and books—the right has expanded its roster to include some new issues.
This includes efforts to repeal no-fault divorce laws, which are now popping up in red spots around the country. The Republican Party of Texas, for example, adopted a (disturbing) platform in 2022 that includes this plank: “214. No-Fault Divorce: We urge the Legislature to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws…”
[…]
Conservative commentators are joining the calls to end no-fault divorce. Steven Crowder bemoaned the fact that Texas law permitted his wife to divorce him just because “she didn’t want to be married anymore.”
There is nothing special about Texas in this regard—every state has at least one no-fault ground for divorce. And he’s right when he says that a person can file for divorce because they no longer want to be married to their spouse. This is the product of the no-fault revolution that began in 1970, and during which every single state either eliminated fault-based divorce or added a no-fault ground.
The earliest divorce laws in this country required the party seeking divorce to prove that the other party had committed one of the enumerated types of marital “fault” that the legislature had deemed sufficient to justify allowing the marriage to be dissolved. Every divorce law included adultery as a ground, and some states also had grounds like abandonment, neglect, imprisonment, or extreme cruelty. These grounds represented the legislature’s determination about what types of marital breakdown were dealbreakers.
But the fault-based system had other features, as well. The party filing for divorce had to be “innocent” of marital fault themselves—if each party proved the other had committed marital fault, the law said that the parties had to stay married under the doctrine of recrimination.
In other words, the worse the marriage, the longer it should last.
[Snipped a long (awful!) history of divorce laws.]
The Daily Beast
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #226…
Did they specify which Sunday?
birgerjohansson – re comment 238 by Pierce R. Butler
Isn’t the word “book” also identical to “beech” in Swedish? Until now, I thought it was coincidental.
lumipunasays
In Finnish, the name of alder (leppä) originally meant blood (veri), presumably because a cut surface of living alderwood turns reddish. Most modern Finns aren’t aware of this etymology, so there’s a common modern misinterpretation of the idiom “lentää kuin leppäkeihäs”.
This is a metaphor of something being thrown away of expelled so hard that it “flies like a thrown spear”. The modern interpretation of leppäkeihäs would be “spear made of alderwood”, but an etymologically correct interpretation would be “blood spear”. I can only imagine there’s an allusion to a hunting spear that is thrown well (accurately and with enough momentum) so that “finds” a target and ends up bloodied.
An ancient skull found in China is like nothing scientists have ever seen.
The teen’s head shape doesn’t fit with any of the early human relatives seen to date.
If it’s an undiscovered human ancestor, it could rewrite the story of human evolution.
An ancient skull is baffling scientists because it looks unlike any known human ancestor.
The mystery 300,000-year-old skull of a child about 12 or 13 years old was first uncovered in Hualongdong in East China in 2019, alongside a leg bone.
Researchers think the individual, known only as HDL 6, is a mix between modern humans and an unknown hominin that existed in China at that time, Science Alert reported Monday.
The skull has facial features that are similar to early modern humans, which scientists think began to branch away from another human ancestor known as Homo erectus sometime between 550,000 and 750,000 years ago.
But its limbs, skull cap, and recessed chin “seem to reflect more primitive traits,” Xiujie Wu, a paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences wrote in an analysis of the bones published July 31.
These features are closer to a Denisovan’s facial structure, a now-extinct branch of East Asian hominins that split from Neanderthals about 400,000 years ago…
Early turnout is off the charts for the Ohio special election that will determine whether it becomes harder to amend the state constitution—an election conspicuously timed to come before a crucial abortion measure appears on state ballots this fall.
Voting ends Tuesday evening on Ohio’s Issue 1, which would to raise the winning threshold for a referendum from a simple majority to 60 percent of the vote. (The pro-choice position is voting “no.”) If the measure passes, the new rules would take effect before November, thereby kneecapping a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution…
People tend to forget…before Dubya, before Reagan, even before Nixon, there was another crook that became president.
“Lyndon Baines Johnson -most corrupt.” https://youtu.be/jjBHLQVP_LA
Marines in California tested the Corps’ new ground-based anti-ship missile in late June, just a few months before the service plans to field the weapon with a new unit in Hawaii, a milestone that reflects the Marine Corps’ renewed focus on fighting alongside the US Navy to control important waterways in the Western Pacific.
The test-firing of the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, known as NMESIS, from June 27 to 29 was announced in mid-July. Marines with the 1st Marine Division “successfully launched and engaged a simulated target off the coast of Southern California,” the Corps said.
“NMESIS is the solution for the ground-based anti-ship missile capability,” Staff Sgt. Derek Reddy, NMESIS team leader for the unit involved, said a video release. The June exercise was “absolutely imperative” and will help “set forth expectations” for the weapon’s future use, Reddy added…
Archaeologists are too scared to open up the 2,200-year-old tomb of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang because they fear it might harbor deadly booby traps.
The mausoleum of the emperor, who ruled from 221 to 210 BC, is in Lintong District, Xi’an, Shaanxi. It is guarded by the iconic Terracotta Army, sculptures meant to protect him in the afterlife.
While parts of the necropolis have been explored, the tomb itself has never been opened due to fears of what might be inside.
Ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian wrote an account about 100 years after the emperor’s death describing possible booby traps inside the tomb.
“Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows primed to shoot at anyone who enters the tomb. Mercury was used to simulate the hundred rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow River, and the great sea, and set to flow mechanically,” the text reads, per IFL Science…
Pierce R. Butlersays
birgerjohansson @ # 252: … even before Nixon, there was another crook that became president.
We should also remember Warren G. Harding, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore …
(I’m listing those with monetary misdeeds, and leaving out political criminality and sex scandals, or the list would go to 45.)
Even George Washington pushed policies that favored his own investments (see Willard Sterne Randall, The Founders’ Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America.
Four days a week, volunteers from Food Not Bombs, an international organization that feeds those experiencing homelessness, serve up meals at the corner of Smith and McKinney streets in downtown Houston near the public library. They’ve kept up this routine for 20 years, but in March something changed.
Police decided to start issuing citations to the group for “violating the city’s Charitable Feeding Ordinance,” an ordinance that has been on the books since 2012, but one which area volunteers say has never really been enforced. It requires both registered and non-registered food service operations to “obtain owner consent before using either public or private property for food service of more than five people.”
Since the spring, Food Not Bombs has continued their operations as usual, despite both police and the City of Houston demanding they move their set-up to Houston Police Department parking lot west of downtown, the only address that appears to be currently pre-approved for charitable food service events in the city on the city’s website. Now, four times a week, the volunteers have to determine whose turn it is to receive the citation…
As kamikaze drones wreak havoc in the Ukraine war, the US Army is rushing to develop its own tank-killing version.
The Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance program aims to develop a lightweight weapon that can be carried by soldiers in the Army’s Infantry Brigade Combat Teams.
Known as LASSO, the weapon will be “a man-portable, tube launched, lethal payload munition,” according to an announcement by the Army’s Program Executive Office Soldier. “It includes electrical optical/infrared sensor, precision flight control, and the ability to fly, track and engage non-line-of-sight targets and armored vehicles with precision lethal fires. LASSO currently consists of three modules: the launch tube, unmanned aerial system, and fire control station.” …
Tethyssays
whheydt @ # 221: … beech is, rather literally, book wood…
Pierce Butler – Seeing it in German makes the connection even more obvious. The notorious death camp Buchenwald translates to English as the very innocuous “Beechwood”.
Buchenwald translates as ‘The Beech Forest’, which is also the name of the village where the death camp was located. The Buchenland is the modern name for a well known region in antiquity. It was the Forest of the Goths before the Huns invaded.
The wiki on the etymology of beech does mention with no citation that beech was used for carving runes, but I’ve never come across any mention of beech in that context in either Norse or Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. They spell it bok, or bokr. The r is a grammatical noun ending in ON.
Boxwood (Gr. buchbaum) is another possible etymology for book, as writing tablets were commonly made from boxwood for at least a few millennia.
[…] the former president published this missive to his social media platform soon after the game wrapped up.
“The ‘shocking and totally unexpected’ loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden. Many of our players were openly hostile to America — No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA”
So to recap, Trump believes President Joe Biden is somehow to blame for the USWNT falling short. He also feels comfortable questioning the players’ patriotism, taunting Megan Rapinoe, attacking the ideologies of athletes he does not know, and asserting that his own country is “going to Hell.”
Trump published his harangue yesterday, on Aug. 6. Oddly enough, almost exactly two years to the day earlier — on Aug. 5, 2021 — Trump also lashed out at the U.S. women’s soccer team after they “only” won Bronze medals at the Olympics.
“If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn’t woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze,” the former president declared in a written statement. “Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has…. The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job!”
He added that he wanted to see “Patriots” replace “the wokesters” in future games.
What Trump seemed to embrace was the idea that Americans should root not for their country’s athletes, but rather, for conservatives and against liberals. If some of the women soccer players were on the left, the Republican believed they deserve to be derided and mocked for their beliefs — and their setbacks on the pitch should be celebrated and blamed on their politics, and quite possibly even their president. […] nuclear-grade nonsense […]
[…] cheering against an established tradition of American greatness—to put it in language they might use if they were attacking progressives over opposition to a war or a U.S.-backed coup or something—because of one player’s politics is how today’s conservatives operate. It’s hard to overstate how obnoxious and deeply ridiculous this whole thing is.
If coach Vlatko Andonovski had used substitutions more wisely in the group stage game against the Netherlands, the U.S. likely would have won, rather than tied, that game and wouldn’t have been playing Sweden in the round of 16. If Musovic had failed to make any of those 11 saves, the U.S. could have gone up a point over Sweden before it came to penalty kicks.
ESPN suggests that the U.S. youth program isn’t producing the players the women’s team needs. If Sophia Smith or Kelley O’Hara had not missed their penalty kicks. If U.S. goalie Alyssa Naeher had stopped Lina Hurtig’s penalty kick literally a millimeter sooner, before it just touched the line.
There are so many what-ifs here, but what fits the viciousness of the right wing is giddy celebration that a 38-year-old ended her incredibly successful career in a tournament she barely played in by missing her first penalty kick since 2018. Because she dares to be an LGBTQ+ woman who stands up for racial justice and equal pay and trans athletes. Because many of her teammates agree with her, albeit usually more quietly, on many of these points. Because for the right wing, women’s sports only ever matter as a political cudgel.
Some members of Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents reportedly want the school’s journalism program to churn out conservatives.
Jay Graham, one of the Texas A&M board members who ousted a journalist after she accepted the job as the school’s journalism director, talked about wanting to have a program that would produce “high-quality conservative Aggie journalists into the market,” according to text messages seen by KBTX and the Texas Tribune.
“We were going to start a journalism department to get high-quality conservative Aggie students into the journalism world to help direct our message,” Graham said in a text message to fellow board member David Baggett obtained by KBTX…
I’ve been returning to this John Eastman interview again and again. In a way it doesn’t deserve so much attention. This is a shallow-thinking, casually self-justifying, fundamentally dishonest man. But his central role in America’s profound political crisis — one that is ongoing — makes him and his arguments important. What interests me are the sophisms he uses to justify his own criminality, attacks on the democratic process and more by projecting his own bad acts on to his foes.
The structure is consistently the same. Assert enemies were about to do X in the cause of the Deep State, wokeness and anti-Americanism so Eastman had to do X to preserve America. In a way he takes to the nation-state level the argument of every guy who blows someone’s head off and justifies it by saying he was afraid they were about to hurt him. Beyond these “I had to do it first” claims there’s another theme: a lot of railing against coastal intellectuals from the Eastman crew’s headquarters in Southern California while using layer upon layer of high-falutin’ fancy talk that falls apart when you kick any tire.
There’s an irony here for anyone familiar with the “Straussian” milieu, the idea pond in which Eastman spent his academic and political career. […] they were the ones most willing to come up with transparently silly and circular arguments to get what they wanted. To the extent “virtue” is really the cement that holds republics together, they turned out to have the least of it, which is of course what brought them and Trump together.
Let me just note a couple examples.
So for instance, just past 17 minutes into the interview he says this: “If Trump is the legitimate winner and you’re afraid of saying that because of mob violence then you’re subjecting yourself to mob rule. And that’s not the rule of law.”
This comes up in his account of a conversation he had with Eric Herschmann, a member of the Trump White House General Counsel’s office. You may remember Herschmann’s account of this conversation from his testimony to the January 6th committee when he recalled telling Eastman, “Are you out of your effing mind? I said I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on: ‘orderly transition.’” Here Eastman is giving his account. He says Herschmann said there would be riots in every American city if they pursued Eastman’s plan. Herschmann is saying if you try to steal the election all hell is going to break loose.
In Eastman’s response you have the right wing fear of being “silenced,” being afraid to say something and also the prospect of imaginary left wing mobs. In his tweedy armchair militance, Eastman wraps these together into an argument that breaking the law — switching the winner of the election without a legal rationale let alone a substantive rationale — is actually upholding the rule of law. Indeed, if Eastman and Trump’s supporters don’t overturn the election they’ll be surrendering to mob rule in advance. [Yep, that’s a good description of Eastman’s twisted logic.]
A bit later Eastman gets to the point where he grounds his argument on the Declaration of Independence and its justification of overthrowing governments that become oppressive — the part I focused on in this weekend post. He references this because he’s not really saying he had a good legal argument. He’s saying that the stakes in this case were so grave and existential that they required going outside the constitution, “fighting back” as he puts it. Or as he notes in his reference to the Declaration, “abolishing” the government. He and the interviewer actually go into a digression about how he probably wouldn’t have decided to overturn the 1960 or 2000 election because the stakes weren’t as high. So here he says it wasn’t just any stolen election. It was a “stolen election that thwarts the will of the people trying to correct course and get back on a path that understands the significance and the nobility of America and the American experiment is really at stake and we ought to fight for it.”
The last part here about understanding the “significance and the nobility of America and the American experiment” is from an idea world of the Straussian clique centered on the Claremont Colleges and now embodied in the Claremont Institute. […] What makes it so important, in Eastman’s account, is that the American people had a final chance to do the right thing and shift course. It’s so important because here were the American people trying to correct course in an election in which they got fewer votes.
Last point. One highly notable thing about this interview is that Eastman doesn’t actually bring up or hang his hat on any of the “stolen election” or election fraud conspiracy theories. He’s clearly not willing to. He says the following, which comes just after 27 minutes, 30 seconds into the interview …
“The amount of information about illegality was, I thought, clear-cut. That opened the door for fraud. And I think both the statistical evidence and the anecdotal evidence [that] I had for people engaging in that fraud because the door had been open to it was significant enough to have halted the results of the election.”
With this logic he makes a key jump (actually stated most clearly earlier in the interview at just after seven minutes): “Because of the illegality, the actual burden of proof shifts on to” those who wanted to certify the election. So because of the “illegalities,” Trump and Co don’t even have to explain why the election result should be overturned. Everyone else has to explain why it shouldn’t be overturned! [Yep. More twisted Eastman logic. It makes my head hurt. JFC]
Let’s break down the keywords here by translating it out of Trumpspeak: When he talks about “illegalities,” he’s talking about the raft of adjustments and changes that were made to election administration to hold an election during what was then the-still pre-vaccine pandemic. In many cases these changes were quite significant. But we can say that they were all definitively legal. How can we say this so categorically? Because the Republican Party and the Trump campaign aggressively litigated all of them in the courts in the lead up to the election.[…] The changes that were in effect for the actual election were all ones that withstood judicial scrutiny, in the great majority of cases before right leaning courts. Ergo, they were all legal.
(As a separate matter we can ask what it says about the GOP that they were so focused on making it harder to vote during a pandemic. But that’s besides the point here.) In a way we can thank the Trump campaign for securing in advance, with judicial certainty, proof that all of their after-the-fact claims of “illegalities” were false. The premise of Eastman’s argument for overturning the result of the election is one he and his colleagues themselves blew to bits in the summer and fall of 2020. Thanks, guys! [LOL]
With his bogus claim of “illegalities” in place, then note Eastman’s next sleight of hand. He says that this “opened the door” to fraud and that he had both “statistical evidence and … anecdotal evidence” to suggest that fraud happened. It’s this “opened the door” which is the crux of his argument: not that it happened but that it “opened the door.” “Statistical evidence” is basically claims that various numbers just don’t look right — error rates or numbers of rejected ballots were too high or too low. The technical term for this is self-serving bullshit. “Anecdotal evidence” is just what it sounds like: various things he heard without any substantiation or actual evidence.
The whole justification for what he concedes in the interview really was an attempt to overthrow the constitutional order turns out to be nothing more that wisps and snowflakes. He doesn’t have jack.
Federal workers have been authorized to leave work early as severe weather is expected to hit the Washington, D.C., area and parts of the Northeast region of the country.
In a news release Monday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said federal employees located in the D.C. area were authorized to leave their workplaces two hours earlier than expected, and that all employees must evacuate their buildings “no later than 3:00 at which time Federal offices are closed.” […]
Rolling Stone collected some of the rightwing comments:
“Team USA’s downfall was delivered by anti-America, anti-woman activist Megan Rapinoe’s EMBARRASSING free kick,” wrote right-wing shitposter Benny Johnson, the first of several tweets in which he celebrated how Rapinoe’s “humiliation is COMPLETE,” while alleging that she “intentionally sabotaged Team USA.”
@catturd2, one of Trump’s favorite influencers, was also thrilled. “The anti-American USA woke women’s soccer team has been eliminated and Megan Rapinoe is the cause of it,” he wrote. “I can’t stop laughing.” [catturd2 is also admired by retweeted frequently by Elon Musk.]
“I’m glad they lost,” added T.J. Moe of right-wing outlet The Blaze. “The attitude of the USWNT reflect such poor values it’s sickening. They need an overhaul. The America-hating, entitled, ungrateful group, led by Megan Rapinoe, needs to go. Quite fitting she’s the one who blew their best chance to win.”
Jesse Watters is the guy who replaced Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Watters said this:
[…] when Trump’s attacked, the country is attacked.
Commentary from Wonkette:
[…] Because Trump is America. At least for extraneous, unimportant loser conservative white supremacist dudes whose opinion American society is making exceptionally clear nobody wants to hear anymore.
The rest of the clip is Jesse desperately trying to argue that Trump is “better than” the “professional class” because he went to an Ivy League school (SAD) and because he “owns golf courses” and “iconic real estate.” It’s even more pathetic because Jesse argues that Trump actually was “accepted” by the people whose approval he craves.
[…] He said Trump had “humiliated the press.”
“Imagine that, a billionaire who listens to the forgotten man.” […]
Over the weekend, 42 countries met in Saudi Arabia to discuss Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan. The summit wasn’t notable for what it accomplished; the countries adjourned without offering any joining statement, much less actual tangible progress toward peace. But what the summit did is demonstrate that Russia’s international diplomatic isolation is only growing as the war drags on.
Russia thinks itself the ringleader of two “alliances” meant to counter the United States, NATO, and the West. The first is the Collective Security Treaty Organization—six former Soviet Republics bound by a military alliance. The group, currently consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, was already bleeding members, having lost Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan over the years. The reality, of course, is that this organization was merely a Russian instrument to exercise colonial influence over its former territories. [Correct.]
As I noted last year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine broke this alliance. Not only have none of the member states come to Russia’s aid (certainly not militarily, but not even diplomatically), but they all ignored Armenia’s plight during multiple invasions by Azerbaijan both last year and this one. The CSTO is effectively dead, with its member states now taking advantage of Russia’s challenges to further distance themselves from their old colonial master. China is a big beneficiary.
The second Russian-led “alliance” is BRICS‚ named after its founding members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The organization is meant as a bulwark of the “Global South” against the hegemony of the Western world. In addition to its founding members, which collectively represent over one-third of the world’s population, there are pending membership applications from countries like Argentina, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Other countries like Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey have also expressed interest. Indeed, of the world’s top 10 most populated countries, nine of them are in BRICS or have expressed interest in joining.
BRICS has lofty aspirations, including developing an alternate standard currency to rival the dollar and euro. Yet BRICS has been hamstrung by competing national agendas, a lack of true unifying purpose, and infighting among its members. Russia thinks it leads this group, yet doesn’t have the economic heft to influence anything. Much of its power rested on the myth of Russian military might, but that’s gone. China is an economic powerhouse exponentially larger than any of the other members, so it has zero interest in subsuming its own national interests for that of the BRICS common good, whatever that might be (it’s still undefined). Forget agreeing on a common counter currency to the dollar or euro. No member nation will agree to adopt another country’s currency, and even if they did, the bloc doesn’t have the economic heft to force a new global standard.
BRICS may have raw population numbers, but looking at GDP, the bloc lags behind. The United States blows the rest of the world out of the water with a GDP of nearly $27 trillion, compared to China at $19.4 trillion, and third-place Japan far behind at $4.4 trillion. Here are the world’s top economies […]
– United States, $26.9 trillion.
– China, $19.4 trillion (BRICS).
– Japan, $4.4 trillion.
– Germany, $4.3 trillion.
– India, $3.7 trillion (BRICS).
– United Kingdom, $3.2 trillion.
– France, $2.9 trillion.
– Italy, $2.2 trillion.
– Canada, $2.1 trillion.
– Brazil, $2.1 trillion (BRICS).
– Russia, $2.1 trillion (BRICS).
– South Korea, $1.7 trillion.
– Australia, $1.7 trillion.
– Mexico, $1.7 trillion (non-aligned, BRICS-curious).
– Spain, $1.5 trillion.
– Indonesia, $1.4 trillion (non-aligned, BRICS-applicant).
– Netherlands, $1.1 trillion.
– Saudi Arabia, $1.1 trillion (non-aligned, BRICS-curious).
– Turkey, $1 trillion (playing all sides).
– Switzerland, $900 million.
The collective West’s economic heft is undeniable […] When South Africa considered allowing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to attend a BRICS summit later this month, the fear of losing foreign investment from American and European countries likely weighed heavily on their decision to rescind the invitation. Indeed, the mere appearance of South African support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict is harming its economy.
Even without further direct sanctions from Washington over the Lady R saga, the impact of South Africa’s perceived leaning towards Russia put severe negative pressure on the South African currency, which plunged to its lowest-ever value against a basket of currencies including the dollar and the euro.
International investors also took a dim view, with an enormous flight of foreign investment and a threat posed to preferential SA-US mutual trade, as well as SA-EU trade, as Washington contemplates further steps.
All the tough talk about creating alternatives to the dollar goes out the window when the mere threat of a Western economic pullback threatens local economies.
There is much to say about that outsized Western economic influence on the developing world, to be sure. The abuses are legion, and it is right for the developing world/Global South to look for alternatives. Colonial exploitation is real, and ongoing. The problem is that Russia is not a fair arbiter in this game—and neither is China, for that matter. And while BRICS counts democracies among its members and aspirants, it’s noteworthy that every single Western-aligned nation at the top of the GDP charts is a stable democracy, while a great number of BRICS aspirants are totalitarian or repressive regimes.
None of this is simple or black and white, as Russia is finding out.
This weekend’s Ukrainian peace summit in Saudi Arabia was attended by Ukraine’s Western allies, but there was sizable representation from Global South nations. Saudi Arabia hosted the event. All of the BRICS countries, sans Russia, attended. Chile, Mexico, Zambia, Egypt, and others were present.
But it was China that stole the show, the same China that once declared a “friendship with no boundaries” with Russia … mere days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The summit created a series of working groups tackling various elements of Ukraine’s peace proposal, but nothing seemed more impactful than China’s assertion that the summit helped “consolidate international consensus” toward a peaceful resolution to the war. China didn’t just send a delegation to the gathering, but their envoy was a former ambassador to Russia. [Nice touch.]
Li “had extensive contact and communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis… listened to all sides’ opinions and proposals, and further consolidated international consensus,” the foreign ministry said in a written statement to Reuters.
To be clear, China hasn’t turned on Russia. And even if it did, that would still not be enough to force Russia out of Ukraine. But it adds to the bunker-siege mentality in Moscow, isolated as Russia’s supposed friends talk to its enemies. China was literally hobnobbing with U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and the Ukrainian delegation. And to add further insult, a European Union source told The Guardian that China “participated actively and was positive about the idea of a third meeting at this level.” The excitement from Western and Ukrainian attendees was palpable and real.
Meanwhile, Putin can’t even attend BRICS summits, much less exert any influence or control over its members. Its CSTO alliance is dead in the water. And Russia’s propagandists are well aware of their international isolation. [Tweets and videos at the link, among other things, they proposed nuking Alaska and sending imprisoned women to the frontlines.]
Whatever dreams Putin had of leading an international alliance against Western military and economic hegemony is dead. Too bad it’s not enough for him to call it quits.
Good news. [Tweet and images, a Ka-52 helicopter washout down near Robotyne by the 47th mechanized brigade with MANPADS.]
Russian aircraft have harassed the Ukrainian advance, which is ammunition for those claiming that Ukraine can’t be expected to succeed without its own airpower. Yet these Russian losses prove why combat airpower has limited utility in this conflict.
We don’t have images of this wreckage, so it’s not in the Oryx database, but that one already includes 39 downed Ka-52s. Russia started the war with 90 of them. Given that many of these losses would happen behind Russian lines and away from video evidence, it’s clear that Russia has lost over half its fleet, and that’s with limited usage, mostly launching unguided rockets from friendly territory. Furthermore, the bulk of these were downed with shoulder-fired man-portable anti-air missiles. Russia is swarming with those as well.
It’s not mentioned often, but even drones have scant survivability over the Ukrainian battlefield, with most getting shot down by their third or fourth mission. The air is thick with anti-air systems, and anything approaching the front lines is in dire danger.
That’s why F-16s won’t make a direct impact on the front lines, handling other critical tasks (like hopefully chasing the Russian Black Sea Fleet away from their Sevastopol Crimean home base). Currently, most of the damage from the air (on both sides) is being done by surveillance drones guiding artillery fire to their targets, and suicide drones directly destroying men and equipment at the front lines.
————————
They’re coming!
The first batch of Abrams tanks that the US is providing to Ukraine was approved for shipment over the weekend, and the tanks are on track to arrive in Ukraine by early fall, Army Acquisition Chief Doug Bush said on Monday.
That’s next month.
————————
Russia launched a barrage of cruise missiles and drones targeting Ukrainian military air bases over the weekend. It was a surprising change of tactics—trying to do military harm as opposed to murdering helpless civilians.
Well, that didn’t last long. [Tweet and video at the link: An apartment building in Pokrovsk was shelled today. “Looks like a direct hit.”]
Voting concludes Tuesday in Ohio for a high-stakes special election for a Republican-backed measure called Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that would make it harder for voters to pass future amendments―including an upcoming one to protect abortion rights. Voters in Mississippi also go to the polls the same day for their regularly scheduled party primaries for statewide offices, the state legislature, and other posts.
Ohio Republicans control the governorship and hold supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature, so ballot measures are one of the few ways that progressives can influence state government. To further restrict that avenue, Republican lawmakers placed Issue 1, which would increase the threshold for voter approval of amendments from the current simple majority to 60%, on the ballot.
The measure would also require voters to gather signatures from all 88 counties to qualify their own amendments instead of the current 44, a move designed to make it even harder for progressive measures to even reach the ballot in the first place. (Joe Biden carried just seven counties in 2020.)
Republicans have done nothing to hide the fact that they scheduled the vote, which is the only contest on Tuesday’s ballot, for August in order to make it more difficult for pro-choice advocates to pass their own amendment on Nov. 7 that would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.
“This is 100% about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is competing in the 2024 primary to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, told fellow conservatives earlier this year. The head of Ohio Right to Life agreed in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “From the pro-life, pro-family, pro-Christian lane, yes, a hundred percent about abortion for us,” said Mike Gonidakis. […]
Indeed, the November abortion amendment is by no means the only ballot measure that conservatives want to stop in order to safeguard their “way of life.” For starters, a Republican state representative told colleagues last year that he hopes Issue 1 will thwart a 2024 effort to create an independent redistricting commission that would end the GOP’s existing gerrymanders.
[…] There have been very few polls released during this entire campaign. The only one that directly asked respondents how they’d vote was a mid-July survey from Suffolk University that found “no” ahead by a strong 59-26 margin. […] Ballot measures are notoriously difficult to poll, however, so we’ll only know which approach was best on Tuesday night.
[…] Recent elections in other states, however, give progressives reasons to be optimistic. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich writes, voters in South Dakota rejected attempts to raise the threshold to pass certain ballot measures in both 2018 and 2022, while their counterparts in Arkansas torpedoed an amendment similar to Issue 1 just last year. […]
Judge Aileen Cannon, apparently unsatisfied with being the inspiration for satire, has decided to ignore the criticisms and laughter and go all in on her “objectivity” as it applies to the Trump Mar-A-Lago case.
Asking for information from a Grand Jury, being apparently unaware of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and generally agitating the prosecution is not exactly a display of competence or impartiality, is it?
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, on Monday ordered both sides to file briefs on how Special Counsel John “Jack” Smith’s team used a grand jury in Washington to continue gathering evidence after it had already indicted Trump in Florida using a grand jury in Miami.
The involvement of multiple grand juries is an issue raised by Trump’s lawyers as a potential line of attack against the prosecution because there are rules that limit how and where the government can use them. Cannon’s order puts Smith on the spot early on to explain the process.
Cannon’s order was prompted by a request by Smith’s team last week for a hearing on whether there were conflict of interest problems related to Stanley Woodward, a lead attorney for Trump’s co-defendant and personal aide Waltine “Walt” Nauta.
Does she not know the process?
More to the point do these actions threaten the progress of the Grand Jury in D.C.? And did Cannon just get rope-a-doped by a much smarter Jack Smith?
From what I have been told, Smith anticipated this, and is not at all upset.
Anyone revealing the workings of a sitting Grand Jury, in an attempt to get information to aid the defense would be facing a legal problem.
If, hypothetically, a Federal Judge were to I would think it to be unprecedented.
I said hypothetically.
Here is a competent Twitter thread to untangle this mess: [Twitter thread at the link: includes this: “Jack filed evidence from the DC grand jury with the Miami GJ and asked it be sealed. (It’s GJ evidence.) Cannon denied him and struck the filings from the record. She then questioned whether it was legal to use the DC GJ evidence at all, and ordered briefing. (Delay.)”]
And who asked her to do this? [Answer in the Twitter thread: “No one. […]]
I expect Cannon to be removed from this case by the 11th circuit, period. […]
This is a reminder of what it would take to see that happen:
We already knew U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is relatively inexperienced, and that her conduct in previous Donald Trump litigation suggested she wasn’t up to the task of overseeing his classified documents case. A Reuters report published Friday further underscores the Trump appointee’s lackluster record, highlighting apparent errors she made in another case.
But before noting those reported errors and their significance, it’s important to remember they won’t result in kicking Cannon off the classified documents case. As I’ve noted, generally being a bad judge doesn’t necessitate reassignment (and she hasn’t recused herself).
Rather, precedent indicates what’s needed is outlandish conduct within a particular case.
The appearance of inventing defense arguments out of thin air would seem to meet that clear standard.
StevoRsays
Trump just lost in court again :
Former US president Donald Trump has lost his countersuit against the writer who won a million dollar sexual abuse lawsuit against him.
Warning: This story contains graphic details of alleged rape and sexual assault.
Writer E. Jean Carroll won a $US5 million ($AUD7.6 million) judgement against the former president in May over claims he sexually abused her in 1996.
On Monday, a federal judge tossed out Mr Trump’s countersuit claim Ms Carroll defamed him by continuing to say she was not only sexually abused but raped.
The final police officer to face court for his role in killing George Floyd did not show any repentance or admit wrongdoing as he was sentenced. Tou Thao was sentenced to four years and nine months in jail on Monday for holding back concerned bystanders who gathered as former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while the Black man pleaded for his life.
Thao previously testified he merely served as a “human traffic cone” during the May 25, 2020 incident.
Mr Floyd’s death and cries of “I can’t breathe” set off protests worldwide against police brutality and racism.
Thao spoke at length about his Christian growth during his 340 days behind bars but denied any responsibility for Mr Floyd’s death during his sentencing hearing.
& note from there that suggests Thao was more than just a “human traffic cone” :
Mr Thao stopped bystanders, including a firefighter, from assisting Mr Floyd
Of course, over the nione minutes it took for the cops to murder him George Floyd repeatedly begged for his life, repeatedly said please, stated he couldn’t breathe and cried out for his mother.
StevoRsays
Yikes! Didn’t expect :
In a record-breaking discovery, scientists detected our very own sun emitting an extraordinary amount of gamma rays — wavelengths of light known to carry the most energy of any other wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum. This is quite a big deal as it marks the highest-energy radiation to ever be documented coming from our planet’s host star.
Something like 1 trillion electron volts, to be exact.
“After looking at six years’ worth of data, out popped this excess of gamma rays,” Meher Un Nisa, a postdoctoral research associate at Michigan State University and co-author of a new paper about the findings released Wednesday (Aug. 3), said in a statement. “When we first saw it, we were like, ‘We definitely messed this up. The sun cannot be this bright at these energies.'”
Spoiler alert : yes it can be. Reads further :
Before you start worrying, no, these rays can’t harm us. But what they can do is have a pretty important ripple effect for the future of solar physics. In fact, they have already raised some important questions about the sun, such as what role its magnetic field might play in the newly observed gamma-ray phenomenon.
StevoR @ 274, kind of a big deal for those in space and satellites.
I get space weather alerts, signed up when I relied on satcom, just stayed on the list.
Oxygen in particular gets royally pissed off when met by ionizing radiation and well, tends to block it. Then, there’s that nitrogen thing, which goes all carbon-14…
Not a biggie down here, but is a biggie upstairs in orbit. Might get a few Hulks out of the mess, well, or cataracts and cancers later on.
Or worse, a Hulk with cancer and cataracts, for which I recommend abandoning the planet.
birgerjohanssonsays
Can this make MAGA followers keep their distance?
“Researchers discover antifungal molecule” https://phys.org/news/2023-08- antifungal-molecule.html
One of the most notable parts of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ interview with NBC News was the Florida Republican’s willingness to acknowledge President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. While this shouldn’t be provocative, the GOP governor’s position represents a risk: DeSantis is publicly disagreeing with much of his party’s base.
But there was another part of the NBC News interview that generated less attention, but which is probably worth dwelling on.
In late June, DeSantis raised a few eyebrows when he endorsed the use of “deadly force“ against migrants coming into the U.S. — if they’re suspected of smuggling drugs. “You have hostile intent, because you’re obviously running drugs,” the Floridian said at the time. “You absolutely can use deadly force.”
In his new interview, DeSantis reiterated his support for such a policy, prompting NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns to ask the right question: How would a DeSantis administration “tell good guys from bad guys, especially when folks are crossing the border under cover of night.”
“Same way a police officer would know,” DeSantis replied. “Same way somebody operating in Iraq would know. You know, these people in Iraq at the time, they all looked the same. You didn’t know who had a bomb strapped to them. So those guys have to make judgments.”
So let me see if I have this straight.
[DeSantis]l raised the specter of literally shooting migrants — apparently without the benefit of a trial — if they’re suspected of smuggling drugs across the U.S./Mexico border. Asked to clarify how his administration would tell the difference between drug smugglers and innocent migrants, DeSantis referenced his military service — he told NBC News the “people in Iraq … all looked the same” — while suggesting that officials would somehow have an innate sense that would help them figure it out.
Apparently, if some folks intend to enter the country and claim asylum, they better hope that officials don’t have a hunch they’re smuggling drugs.
Perhaps DeSantis could elaborate further. If officials at the border “make judgments” about possible drug smugglers, should they simply open fire? If those “judgments” prove to be wrong, and those officials end up using lethal force against migrants who aren’t smuggling drugs, what exactly does DeSantis envision as the appropriate next step?
And does the Republican genuinely believe that U.S. troops on patrol in Iraq are facing an analogous situation to U.S. officials responsible for border security?
I realize, of course, that DeSantis is trying to find a way to get to Trump’s right on a major issue, but I’m not convinced he’s thought this through.
Florida has banned a lot of books, movies, and ideas under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Here’s something it hasn’t banned: historically inaccurate, frankly racist videos from far-right advocacy group PragerU. This is explicitly right-wing content from an organization founded by a right-wing talk radio host that has promoted climate denial and, in defense of the Electoral College, the line, “pure democracies do not work.”
Dennis Prager, a founder of PragerU, told Moms for Liberty, “I really wanted to hear what evidence do you have that I am despicable? And all I heard was, ‘Well, because you indoctrinate kids.’ Which is true. We bring doctrines to children. That is a very fair statement. I said, ‘But what is the bad of our indoctrination?’”
That’s a valid question. How about this? [Tweet at the link] The video shows time-traveling kids Leo and Layla wondering why their teachers are so opposed to Christopher Columbus. Leo is “just doing some research,” finding out that, on the one hand, Columbus “was a really mean guy who spread slavery, disease, and violence to people who would have been better off if he’d never gone to the New World.” But on the other hand, “he was a really courageous guy who loved exploring, inspired generations, and spread Christianity and Western civilization to people who really benefited from new ways of thinking and doing things.” Unable to decide when “both sides are just giving their opinions,” they visit Columbus himself … for the unbiased view of whether Columbus was good or bad. […]
Columbus, with a variety of accents coming and going as he sometimes says things like “caramba” and sounds downright Russian at other points, tells them that “what I just accomplished was insane” before launching into a brief self-hagiography.
Then they get to the controversy Leo and Layla were concerned about. Not to worry, Columbus tells them, the New World was not a peaceful paradise that he ruined. There was already violence there. (The natives had it coming, apparently.)
“Slavery is as old as time and has taken place in every corner of the world, even among the people I just left,” he tells them. “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.” When he learns that “in our time, we view slavery as being evil and terrible,” he’s thrilled, “but, you said you’re from 500 years in the future? How can you come here to the 15th century and judge me by your standards from the 21st century? For those in the future to look back and do this is, well, estúpido.”
No need to get into Columbus’ record of torture and murder. That would be estúpido!
Then there’s this one: [Tweet and video at the link: Of all the PragerU propaganda you’ve seen, this might be the worst. Frederick Douglass takes a dig at BLM while praising the founding fathers as abolitionists and calling the Constitution a “glorious liberty document.” Florida is letting schools play this stuff.]
PragerU doesn’t just concern itself with downplaying slavery, though. It also does climate denial. In one video:
.. teenager Ania is concerned about climate change because of what she learned at school. The fossil fuel industry’s climate-denial talking points are introduced almost verbatim in the trusted voice of Ania’s mother and father.
Ania’s parents tell her that the climate has always cooled and warmed — “long before carbon emissions were a factor” — and that climate action is pointless until China and India cut their emissions. Ania also hears that renewable energy is unreliable and too expensive.
Ania repeats her parent’s claims in class and is shunned by her teacher and classmates. Her sadness lifts, however, when her grandfather tells her about life under Nazism in World War II. Ania feels empowered because her grandfather says “fighting oppression always takes courage.”
Yes, rolling coal is just like fighting the Nazis.
The Florida Department of Education recently said it had “reviewed PragerU Kids and determined the material aligns to Florida’s revised civics and government standards. PragerU Kids is no different than many other resources, which can be used as supplemental materials in Florida schools at district discretion.” Florida schools are scared to teach Shakespeare, banning Disney movies about the Civil Rights Movement, and tried to ban AP Psychology over sex and gender content until an outcry forced the state to reverse itself. But the state is not just approving PragerU content downplaying and justifying slavery, it’s creating its own pro-slavery curriculum.
Can you imagine the outcry if the Democratic governor of a major state put equivalently extreme, dishonest, historically and scientifically flawed left-wing content explicitly intended to indoctrinate kids into schools while banning classics of the Western canon?
Fox News anchor Julie Banderas: “Hatching schemes to stay in office is not a crime. And claiming you won an election that you know you lost is not a crime.”
Commentary:
I swear our discourse is getting stupider by the f–king minute, so let’s break this down in terms that even somebody hired by Fox Freaking News can understand.
Hatching a scheme to stay in office can very much be a crime, if your “scheme” is “let’s do some crimes” and then you do those crimes. Special counsel Jack Smith was very nice and spelled all of it out in the indictment’s very first pages!
While we’re talking about people who get stupider by the f–king minute, let’s bring actual Republican Sen. J.D. Vance into it. Vance’s whole shtick is that he thinks everybody in America but him is a stone-cold sucker willing to believe whatever Vance can pump into their heads, so let’s point and laugh at him for a minute.
[J.D. Vance tweeted: “The most recent Trump indictment is a clarifying moment. They’re trying to throw the former president in prison for saying “bad” things. The regime has crossed a line. If your response to this is to whine about Trump you’re useless.”]
Look at this twit. Oh no, Trump said “bad” things! Specifically, he told the whole country that the election was rigged against him and Actually he had won it even though he and everybody else in the room knew that was not just a hoax, but a Rudy Giuliani/Four Seasons Landscaping/melting hair dye-level hoax. And nobody is indicting Trump for saying “bad” things, because if we indicted Trump for saying bad things we’d have to give him about 300,000 consecutive death penalties and not even the Department of Justice has that sort of time. Trump was indicted for taking part in a scheme to produce fraudulent election results that his team then attempted—but failed—to substitute for the real ones.
That is very much a big-boy crime. But getting back to the Fox News talking heads, who at this point are all so interchangeable there’s no point in even learning their names, let’s explain it with an analogy that even the “Fox & Friends” team could probably understand.
Let’s say Donald Trump announced that he, personally, believed he should be allowed to eat human babies. That’s a free speech issue, and he wouldn’t be indicted for it. People would “whine” about it, to use the term J.D. Vance used to dismiss a four-felony attempted overthrow of government, but Trump could do that. “I enjoy eating human babies with Ketchup,” Donald might write, and for the purposes of this analogy we will assume Trump continues to capitalize random words in no pattern anyone else can understand.
It would still be free speech if Donald, for example, had a new book ghostwritten under his name that consisted of nothing but a few dozen recipes for human baby. He could have someone digitally edit together an image of him eating a human baby. He could make it a fundraising ploy; send an appropriate headshot and, for just $200 per family, the Trump campaign will send you back a fake image of Donald Trump eating your baby, one you can paste into your previously purchased book of Trump’s ghostwritten baby recipes.
Let’s say Trump then sits his ass down at Mar-a-Lago and actually eats a human baby. Now it’s a crime.
Also a crime: If Trump were to tell the chef, “I want to eat a human baby, please find one and cook it and present it to me,” if it results in the chef taking the first initial step of attempting to acquire a human baby for Trump to shove down his gullet. Trump has now conspired with another to commit what would already be a criminal act.
Does that make anything clearer? You can say almost any old bullshit you want. But you can’t then go commit a crime. Saying it out loud first doesn’t make the criminal thing not a crime.
[Tweet and video at the link. Bradley P. Moss responds to Trump lawyer John Lauro, who said on Meet the Press: “The defense is quite simple. president Trump believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election, and as any American citizen, he had a right to speak out under the first Amendment.” Aaron Rupar points out that “Jack Smith Agrees!.” Bradley P. Moss tweets “If I believe in my heart of hearts that the bank owes me $20,000,000, can I conspire with friends to go in and demand the bank teller give me the money? This is an awesome new standard!”]
So did Trump and his as-yet-unindicted co-conspirators commit an actual crime? Yes! Pence was nice enough to explain it again in public just this weekend, when he described Trump’s lawyers coming back to him the day before the coup attempt to once again persuade him to fraudulently claim the submitted and state-certified electoral slates from multiple Joe Biden-won states were not the “real” electors
[Tweet and video at the link: Pence on CNN on whether Trump was asking him to pause certifying the election or overturn it: “But frankly, the day before January 6, if memory serves, they came back – his lawyers did – and said we want you to reject votes outright. They were asking me to overturn the election.”]
[…] Trump and his team took a series of steps to forge fake electoral slates so that Pence could use their existence to fraudulently claim that the election’s real results in those states were in doubt. Pence did not do this, likely because he thought the whole scheme was likely to end up with the co-conspirators lined up before a firing squad if he did do it and Trump attempted to call out the military to enforce the fraudulent “results.” But Trump and his team tried repeatedly, for weeks and weeks, to make it happen.
Former House Republican Rep. Justin Amash also joined the parade of dipshits who pretended to not understand this, and your guess is as good as mine as to why Amash thought that because he didn’t read the indictment, that meant nobody else would either. [Tweet at the link]
Look, Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr is as crooked as they come, but even he wasn’t willing to back an actual coup attempt. Like Pence, he also was nice enough to come back on our televisions this weekend, just so he could personally emphasize that Trump’s scheme was a whoooooole lotta criming, super-duper-felony stuff. What’s up with Fox News and Republican actual supposed lawmakers that they can’t figure this out even when it’s Bill Freaking Barr shoving it in their ear holes?
What’s clear, then, is that there is no Plan B for Republican sedition backers. They’re going to stick with the plan of pretending that Trump has been indicted for being Wrong about the election being stolen, while continuing to simply not bring up the actual scheme he was actually indicted for, the one where he and his lawyers attempted to swap in fake election results that would have him “winning” the electoral vote even though everyone in the room knew full well Trump had lost.
That they’ve been beating this same drum ever since the indictment first dropped is pretty solid evidence that Trump’s legal team thinks the actual case against Trump is irrefutable on the facts. It’s also another prime example of the Republican descent into a fascist movement. Republicans are attempting to justify an attempted coup by members of their party. There’s not a scrap of remorse for the violence inside the Capitol or for the lies that the majority of Republican lawmakers and party officials spread that made it happen.
And Republicans are continuing to rely on the fascist move to, when the news cycle looks bad for Dear Leader or their party, promote hoaxes to compete with the bad news, putting the real news in public competition with fake versions. The notion that Trump has been indicted for his speech is plainly false. The indictment is publicly available, the charges are written out in plain language, and Republican media allies and lawmakers are coordinating an orchestrated campaign of lying about it in order to deceive the public—again.
If Fox News hosts believe that using fake documents to mount an attempted coup is not a criminal act, then they are objectively pro-sedition. It’s not surprising, given the lengths conservative media have gone to gaslight their viewers into believing Trump and allies are noble freedom fighters while the politicians who oppose him are the ones who ought to be in jail, but it still ought to be extremely alarming. Faking the results of an election you’ve already lost is not, for fucking fuck’s sake, a matter of “free speech.” It’s just a crime.
The odds of good-old White folks dying by gunfire are a whopping 1.7 times higher in an overwhelmingly White, small town or rural area lionized in singer Jason Aldean’s chart-topping “Try That in a Small Town” video than in a big city full of people of color.
[…] The dirty rural secret shown in the latest Centers for Disease Control death tabulations for 2022-23: White people in small towns are 1.3 times more likely to be murdered, 1.3 times more likely to commit suicide, and 1.2 times more likely to die by violent causes than White people living in a big metro like Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, or Houston.
It gets worse. Deadly dangers to White people soar still more if they live in a solid Republican rural area compared to Whites in a solidly Democratic urban one. (Republican and Democrat areas are defined as ones in which one party dominates the governorship and both houses of the legislature and by how counties voted in 2020; “White” refers to non-Hispanic White.)
[…] Rural White people in Red counties in Red states (no blaming liberals allowed; Republicans run everything) are 1.9 times more likely to be murdered, 2.4 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement (why aren’t rural Whites banding with Black Lives Matter against trigger-happy cops?), and 2.6 times more likely to die by guns than White people living in big-city Blue counties in Blue states run by Democrats at all levels.
[…] In a larger campaign, conservatives incessantly blame crime on Democrats, which, if true, would mean that violence rates should be lower where Republicans dictate state crime, gun regulation, law enforcement, and economic policies than where Democrats govern. However, the latest FBI data for the first quarter of 2023 covering 214 cities with an aggregate population of 60 million demolish the daily right-wing crusade blaming violence on liberals.
Of the 15 cities with the highest rates of violent crime, eight are in Republican states. California, a constant target of conservative-media “soft on crime” vitriol, has only one city in the top-violence category, the same as Republican-run Texas and fewer than Republican Tennessee.
More damning, nine of the 15 cities with the highest murder rates are in Republican states; just three are in Democratic states, and three are in states with mixed party governance. No California city was in the top 15 for homicide rate. New York, also a regular Republican target, had no city in the top 15 either for homicide or violence.
For gun deaths overall, seven of the 15 worst cities are in Republican states, two are in Democratic states, and six are in mixed-party states. None of the most murderous or deadliest firearms cities are in California or New York.
Conversely, of the 15 cities with the lowest homicide rates, just three are in Republican states, 10 are in Democratic states, and two in mixed-government states. This is a big deal. The most dangerous cities suffer homicide rates 13 times higher than the safest cities. Four of the 15 safest urban counties are in California; two are in Texas (Denton and Collin, if anyone wants to study how that could happen).
[…] the false Aldeanean narrative that cities are lawless and small towns idyllic.
These people are so bent in the head over Trump that they’ve become what they claim he is: unhinged and unable to see the damage they’re doing to norms and democratic values. Now, in their relentless pursuit of Biden’s chief antagonist, AG Garland and his prosecutorial hitman Jack Smith are doing more damage to America than any group of Capitol rioters ever could.
[…] Okeydoke, clownass. Merrick Garland and Jack Smith, in bringing to justice the vile shithole-American who tried to literally overthrow the Republic, are doing more damage to America than the white supremacist terrorists who were such bigtime helpers in his Republic-overthrowing project on January 6.
But that’s not who she’s the angriest about. Not the reporters, not the special counsel. That’s not who she’s calling the manager and refusing to move her pontoon boat about. She’s angriest at historians, we guess because they’re always contextualizing history with current events, like common historians. “Where can we go to get our historians back?” said her chyron, like she was looking for a comment card hotline.
Ingraham said “anti-Trump contagion” has “infected that august group of American historians who are supposed to be able to distill the full sweep of national and world events without a blinding historical bias.” Fox News white fascist propaganda cannot conceive of the notion that Trump is literally so unacceptable to American and human history that even the historians call him a piece of shit to his face. It’s almost like the white fascist propagandists are taking the wrong lesson, from the historians.
She is angry at Michael Beschloss, who goes on the TV with his soft-spoken aw-shucks scholarly uncle thing and, you know, calls Trump a world-historical piece of shit and a threat to the fabric of the Republic. She played a clip of Becshloss saying Osama bin Laden “hated our democracy, tried to destroy it,” and said so did Trump. She made a scoffy judgmental crack about when Beschloss “isn’t busy on Martha’s Vineyard, there’s always Doris Kearns Goodwin.” (We guess the uncool kids who won’t sit with Ingraham at lunch, which is fine because these seats are taken by her friends from Canada anyway, often make fun of people for being busy on Martha’s Vineyard. You wouldn’t understand. It’s an inside joke.)
What did Doris Kearns Goodwin do? She showed insufficient deference to their babbling criminal shitlord Trump. In fact, she even said that it’s important to make sure Trump is never re-elected! What do historians know about the present? Aren’t historians just supposed to say both sides of historical facts and then say the white supremacists were the good guys? (Or are we hallucinating a PragerU video about Christopher Columbus?)
No, Ingraham really said something that vapid:
INGRAHAM: Huh! It must be my misunderstanding, I guess, because I always thought that historians were individuals who wrote about different arcs of the political parties and events, their leaders, not people who call for political action in the future!
Yeah! “The future” is a segment of linear time that’s off limits to you historians! Stick to writing down that whatever white people did in the past wasn’t that bad and everybody else is probably just whining and wants a handout.
This has been a history lesson with Laura Ingraham.
Almost 100 people in the United States and Australia have so far been arrested over child sexual abuse allegations after the fatal shooting of two FBI agents led to the unraveling of a suspected international pedophile ring, officials announced Tuesday.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said that 19 men had been arrested on charges of sharing child abuse material online, while at least 13 children were rescued from further harm as a result of a joint operation with the FBI, dubbed “Operation Bakis.”
The development brought the total number of people arrested as part of the joint probe up to 98, with at least 79 arrests so far carried out by the FBI, according to the Australian agency.
The joint investigation began after the two FBI agents investigating the alleged pedophile ring were fatally shot in 2021 while executing a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, for a man suspected of being in possession of child abuse material, the agency noted in a news release.
Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were fatally shot and three other agents were wounded, while the gunman, David Lee Huber, 55, was also killed, NBC News previously reported.
The Australian agency said the coordinated probe was formally launched in 2022 after the FBI provided the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation with intelligence about Australian individuals suspected of being part of a “peer-to-peer network allegedly sharing child abuse material on the dark web.” [Illustration at the link]
The Australian suspects are between the ages of 32 to 81 years old, the federal police agency said. So far, two have been sentenced, it said.
Most of the Australian suspects were employed in occupations that required a high degree of knowledge on internet networks, the agency said.
“Members used software to anonymously share files, chat on message boards and access websites within the network,” it said.
Some were also accused of having produced their own child abuse material to share with members of the network, the agency said.
“The success of Operation Bakis demonstrates the importance of partnerships for law enforcement, at a national level here in Australia, but also at an international level,” she said.
“We are proud of our longstanding relationship with the Australian Federal Police resulting in 19 Australian men facing criminal prosecution as a result of our collaborative investigation,” FBI legal attaché Nitiana Mann said in a separate statement.
“The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone,” Mann said. “As we continue to build bridges through collaboration and teamwork, we can ensure the good guys win and the bad guys lose.”
She said that 43 people had been convicted of child abuse offenses in the U.S. as part of the investigation, according to The Associated Press.
The FBI had also alerted other countries to suspects within their jurisdictions, Mann said according to the AP, but did not name those countries.
As Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign struggles, the Florida Republican has now replaced his campaign manager, bringing in James Uthmeier, his longtime chief of staff, to succeed Generra Peck. Whether this counts as a new reboot or a continuation of the old reboot remains an open question.
———————-
It wasn’t easy, and it took a long while, but former Vice President Mike Pence has apparently qualified for his party’s first presidential primary debate, which is scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow. Whether his former running mate will join him on the stage is unclear.
—————————-
In New Hampshire, the latest NHJournal/co-efficient poll found Donald Trump leading the GOP field in the first primary state with 43% support, followed by DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who were tied for second with 9% each. Former Ambassador Nikki Haley was fourth in the survey with 7%, and no other candidate topped 5%.
————————–
There are still plenty of questions about who the candidates in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race will be, but according to a new Emerson College poll, in three-way contests featuring incumbent independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego enjoys modest leads.
———————–
While DeSantis agreed to debate Gov. Gavin Newsom, the difficult negotiations between the Florida Republican and California Democrat over the ground rules suggest the event might not happen after all.
The then-leader of the US Coast Guard covered up an explosive investigation four years ago into rapes and sexual assaults at the agency’s academy despite prior plans by top officials to come clean about the inquiry, a CNN investigation found.
Commandant Karl L. Schultz took charge of the agency in June of 2018 as the secret investigation, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, was concluding. The inquiry revealed a dark history of sexual misconduct at the prestigious academy, substantiating dozens of rapes and assaults from the late 1980s to 2006.
The probe — the existence of which was first reported by CNN in late June — found that the academy’s leadership had been more concerned about the school’s reputation than victims’ wellbeing. While the report’s findings were not flattering, internal records reviewed by CNN show that people involved with the investigation had made plans to brief Congress and officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which has direct oversight of the Coast Guard. One internal memo shows that investigators believed Fouled Anchor’s findings should be “required reading for current and future Academy leadership teams.” Another detailed plans for DHS to be briefed in October 2018, with a “Hill brief” to follow a few weeks later. [ . . . . ]
This is PZ’s site to run as he wants. As a reader for many years and a commenter for a few years, I offer my perspective on the comments section on the post indicated below here, on the infinite thread, to avoid disrupting that post. I perceive, and appreciate that this blog has an academic tone. It is of significant benefit when commenters are able to contribute additional pertinent viewpoints. A couple of humorous/sarcastic remarks don’t seem to be a problem. I feel that in an academic arena, civil discourse is an important component. Comments that are clearly perceived as pointed, crude, personal attacks rather than civil discussion and constructive criticism severely distracts from the topical discussion. I appreciate it when someone provides a more accurate perspective than my comments provided. Many times here, I, and others, have been gracious in accepting constructive criticism. I am capable of objectivity, even though I, too, have been the target of a couple of crude personal attacks in the past. I examined the post: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/08/07/i-am-an-ai-training-module/ and the comments. Overall, they have been good natured and add good information with an occasional humorous break. However, I did notice comments by one individual that were in some instances redundant to earlier comments and that became more and more combative and personally insulting to other commenters, resorting to childish name calling, arguing over insignificant points of grammar and making observations as if they were incontestable fact. While some of the points made by that commenter were valid, their combative nature greatly distracted from the tone and detracted from the effectiveness and flow of the discourse. Banning a troll is a serious step and PZ has only resorted to it in a couple of obvious instances. If I were disruptive, I would welcome and appreciate PZ taking a little of his precious time to contact me, using my E-mail address, and admonish me to stop being disruptive. (or he could have his AI assistant handle that /sarcastic humor!?)
House Republicans have been planning to impeach President Joe Biden since before last November’s midterm elections. They had to come up with an excuse, which they knew would center on Hunter Biden. After months of relentless sham investigations, they are ready: It’s going to be about Hunter, like they planned, and since they haven’t found anything implicating the president in corruption, they will go ahead and lie. Lucky for them, the headlines will focus on Republican claims rather than the fact that they are lies.
Dueling articles at The New York Times and CNN show the multiple ways that the media can cover the Republican impeachment push without ever saying that it’s completely partisan BS. CNN offers up what appears to be a straightforward news report on House Republican plans. Really it’s dozens of paragraphs laundering false Republican claims.
Before the Russian invasion in 2014 changed everything for Ukraine, the armed forces of Ukraine had a single brigade of marines: the 37th Brigade. As Ukraine has adopted NATO and American tactics and organization, the branch that has grown by proportion the most has undoubtedly been the Ukrainian Marine Corps.
Ukraine added new marine brigades in the 36th Brigade (2015), 35th Brigade (2018), and the 38th Brigade, which completed its training in spring 2023. Each composed of around 2,000 soldiers, the Ukrainian marines have some amphibious assault capabilities, but with only a single aging landing ship, the Ukrainian Marine Corps is intended to primarily be elite light infantry.
The Ukrainian marine brigades differ from Ukrainian mechanized infantry in the following ways:
– They are an all-volunteer force of professional soldiers with no conscripts.
– They were formerly under the administration of the navy but were made an independent service branch on May 23, 2023. As a co-equal branch of the armed forces, the marines have their representative on the general staff, alongside the army, navy, and air force.
– They focus on training light infantry actions with a focus on mobility and small unit actions.
The equipment of the Ukrainian Marine Corps reflects the style of fighting they want to conduct. A typical mechanized infantry brigade in the Ukrainian army would have: 30 main battle tanks (Such as T-72s), 30 infantry fighting vehicles (usually a tracked IFV such as a BWP-1 or a BMP-1A), and a few dozen armored personnel carriers to ferry the rest of their infantry.
Infantry fighting vehicles differ from armored personnel carriers in that IFVs are meant to carry their infantry units directly into combat and accompany the infantry during the fighting. They are more heavily armored and have 25 mm-40 mm autocannons that can lay down heavy rapid-firing support for infantry units.
APCs generally are lightly armed with at most a heavy machine gun and are generally intended to carry infantry close to but not into close-range combat. Their armor is intended to protect infantry from shrapnel and long-range threats. APCs are intended to provide operational mobility, permitting infantry brigades to operate and concentrate larger groups of infantry even within long-range enemy artillery ranges without fear of decimation by shrapnel or cluster munitions. However, the APCs are primarily “battle taxis” that won’t enter combat directly with the infantry it carries.
Ukrainian marines differ greatly from mechanized infantry brigades in that they have a much-reduced tank contingent, having only around 10 tanks per brigade (as opposed to 30), and they have no IFVs. They operate entirely with APCs, mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles like the MaxxPro armored truck or the Oshkosh M-ATV, and armored infantry mobility vehicles, like HMMWV. In other words, a high proportion of Ukrainian marines travel on armored wheeled vehicles and are trained to fight predominantly on foot in smaller unit actions.
This represents a split that exists in many militaries. Some infantry units are built around “heavy infantry” or “armored infantry” concepts, infantry that rides into battle on IFVs. Other infantry units are considered “mechanized light infantry.” Although they ride in and out of battle quickly on armored vehicles that provide them with protection and speed, they fight predominantly on foot.
The Ukrainian Marine Corps can be considered Ukraine’s most powerful group of elite light infantry. They are not well suited for punching through a wall of fortified trench defense line. Breach operations require heavily armored infantry units rolling in armored IFVs like Bradleys and Marders working their way through Russian defenses.
This is reflected in where Ukraine has the choice to deploy the marine corps on a single axis of advance: Velyka Novosilka. Not one, not two, but all four marine brigades have now been deployed on this single axis of advance. [map at the link]
For example, around Robotyne (north of Tokmak), where Russian fortifications and trench works abound, the heavy infantry brigades of the 62nd, 47th, and 33rd Mechanized Brigades are deployed.
In contrast, the farm fields, tree lines, and rolling hills south of Velyka Novosilka are ideal ground for quick-moving marine hit-and-run tactics. Looking closer at this sector, Ukraine’s game plan becomes more apparent. [map at the link]
On July 27, a force of Ukrainian troops led by the 36th Marines liberated Staromaiorske, breaching a key position in the Russian lines. From July 29-Aug. 2, Russia launched a series of counterattacks trying to retake Staromaiorske. Several pro-Russian channels repeatedly reported that Ukraine had retreated from Staromaiorske, but after days of Russian counterattacks, Ukraine remained in possession of the city. Despite being effectively surrounded on three sides, Russia has chosen to defend Urozhaine tooth and nail. So for the past week, much of the fighting has focused on the small village of Urozhaine.
Descriptions of Ukrainian marine tactics emphasize the speed and light nature of Ukrainian marine forces. Marines seek to use the mine-protected nature and speed of their MRAPs to bypass and move past Russian strongpoints, deploy then surround, or flank Russian positions in small groups. When successful, they can emulate the U.S. Marines’ thunder run tactics in rapidly bypassing enemy strong points in mechanized column formations, striking deep behind enemy positions to establish disruptive operational gains.
These aggressive tactics are possible, in part, due to the fact the marines travel light, with primarily wheeled armored vehicles, and without waiting for accompanying heavy armored groups that slow their progress. But on the flip side, they tend to be short on anti-tank weaponry and staying power against enemy armor. A late-June assault by the 37th Marines overran several defensive positions and was on the verge of flanking the Russian defenses when a T-72 tank unexpectedly shows up and takes out one of the 37th’s MaxxPro armored trucks. Unprepared at this time for this armored threat, the Ukrainian marines withdrew.
When encountering stiffer Russian resistance, Ukrainian marines will be forced to dismount from their APCs and MRAPs prior to the line of enemy resistance and strike forward more methodically in rapid-forming infantry hit-and-run tactics.
The very fact that the marines rely on cheaper, less valuable armored trucks for transport (as opposed to Bradleys) permits them to be more aggressive and take greater risks. The loss of a MaxxPro truck costs around $300,000, while the loss of a Bradley costs over $3 million. These quick attacks are designed to help reveal enemy strong points or artillery, which permits friendly artillery units to lay down targeted artillery fire. These repeated small-group assaults have kept Ukrainian losses to a minimum while grinding down both Russian artillery and reserve strength in the area.
Indeed, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense intelligence report on July 30 already noted that Russian troops in the area are suffering from severe attrition, morale problems, and artillery shell shortages. And that was before a series of failed counterattacks toward Staromaiorske.
There are some strong signs that these reports are reliable. Pro-Ukrainian sources are reporting a drop in the volume of shellfire from the Russians on this axis. Meanwhile, video footage shows the quality of Russian artillery crews deployed in this area. [Video at the link: Russian mortar crew having some ver serious issues.]
For those unable to watch the video, this is a Russian soldier (presumably a conscript) working as part of a mortar team. His job is to drop a mortar round into the tube so the firing pin at the bottom of the tube ignites the propellant on the tail of the mortar round, firing the shell.
There’s just one problem: The fins are facing up, meaning the mortar round is about to slide down the pipe with the warhead sliding directly toward the firing pin. Only the quick intervention of another soldier stops him … but the soldier tries to shove the mortar round down the tube upside down again. He’s stopped a second time, but it shows the remarkably low level of training with which Russian mortar teams are now operating.
In this gradually weakening area of Russian defenses, Ukraine has committed two armored units in this axis of advance, the 32nd Mechanized (a newly formed Soviet-equipped brigade) and the 4th Tank Brigade, an elite veteran outfit. One curious aspect of the 4th Tank Brigade’s involvement is that it was widely reported to have been one of the few Ukrainian brigades to receive Leopard 2 tanks—presumably Leopard 2A4s.
And yet, Ukraine has damaged or lost just six Leopard 2A4s thus far—and none have been geolocated to the Velyka Novosilka area. This is despite the fact the 4th Tank Brigade has been actively fighting in the Velyka Novosilka area since June 12, almost two months ago. The absence of the loss of even a single Leopard 2A4 in this area indicates the 4th Tank Brigade seems to be fighting exclusively with its T-72s and T-64s. The 4th Tank Brigade appears to have thus far kept its Leopard 2A4s in reserve.
[…] Ukraine appears to want to preserve its armored forces as much as possible until it reaches the first and only major defensive line in this area of the battlefield.
Breaking through that single line of defenses would create a situation ripe for exploitation by fresh armored brigades. [map at the link]
But all of that is predicated on two things:
– Keeping Ukraine’s best-armored forces as fresh and full strength as possible until the critical time.
– Degrading Russian reserves and artillery strength weakened Russia’s ability to resist at the main defensive line.
Ukrainian marines are not heavily armored troops. They are not well suited for overrunning heavily fortified Russian trenches.
Thus, the Ukrainian general staff appears to have calculated that this is the time to use the Ukrainian Marine Corps’ full strength. To destroy Russia’s reserve forces and drive them back through the open ground north of their defensive line, they need to keep Ukraine’s best-armored troops uncommitted and at full strength. The fact that the 4th Tank Brigade has been committed to the fighting for two months yet has saved its best tanks thus far seems extremely deliberate and seems to confirm this approach.
The marines are tantalizingly close to their operation goal: Staromlynivka. Capture Staromlynivka, and the marines will have secured the T0518 highway leading all the way up to the main Russian defense line.
Advance just 5 more miles, around 8 kilometers without needing additional help, and the Ukrainian marines will have cleared the way. The Ukrainian marines will have secured the route for Ukrainian heavy armored forces to take on and break through the main Russian defense line.
To cut his losses, Rudy Giuliani agreed not to challenge certain aspects of a lawsuit brought by Georgia election workers. But a federal judge isn’t buying it.
[…] The former Trump attorney entered into a “nolo contendre stipulation” on July 25 in a civil lawsuit brought by a mother-daughter pair of Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he falsely accused of election fraud.
In that filing, Giuliani basically agreed to all elements of liability on their claims, while attempting to carve out certain defenses, including the statute of limitations and his ability to characterize his statements as opinions, not facts. He also attempted to preserve his right to argue that Freeman and Moss suffered no damages, a steep proposition given their gut-wrenching testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee about the ways Giuliani and others’ lies destroyed their privacy and threatened their security.
At the time, Giuliani and his legal team appear to have believed that the stipulation could transform the trial into little more than a damages case — but also had the advantage of relieving Giuliani from an automatic, or “default,” judgment against him. More importantly, the stipulation would insulate Giuliani — who has claimed the discovery Freeman and Moss seek no longer exists — from further orders to produce what could be highly damaging evidence.
Yet not all legal observers saw the situation as Giuliani’s counsel seem to have. One former prosecutor privately told me they believe U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing Freeman and Moss’ case in Washington, would never allow Giuliani to evade his discovery obligations without meaningful consequences, especially when the plaintiffs had shown how flagrant Giuliani’s non-compliance was. Indeed, the plaintiffs even accused him of destroying evidence. That prosecutor predicted Jackson would see right through Giuliani’s apparent efforts to evade discovery by “not contesting” liability while attempting to preserve a bunch of defensive off-ramps.
My prosecutor friend was right. In an order last Friday, Jackson explained why Giuliani’s efforts to have his cake and eat it too, even if it seemed like a sacrifice, were deeply unsatisfying. If Giuliani is indeed conceding Freeman and Moss’ allegations are true, she reasoned, none of the affirmative defenses he has asserted previously have “continued viability.”
Noting the “seemingly incongruous and certainly puzzling caveats” in Giuliani’s stipulation as well as Freeman and Moss’ lawyers’ unsuccessful efforts to obtain clarification from the defense as to what it is and is not conceding, the judge then gave Giuliani a choice. By 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Giuliani could either:
– Submit a new stipulation conceding liability to the claims “all factual allegations … as to his liability for plaintiffs’ defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy claims, and his liability as to plaintiffs’ claim for punitive damages” and that a default judgment as to his liability is appropriate, or
– Explain why he is declining to submit such a stipulation by clarifying “what precisely his original stipulation conceded regarding the plaintiffs’ factual allegations and legal claims.”
There was a third option, too — but it’s not a good one. Should Giuliani fail to choose doors one or two, Jackson made clear she’ll convene an Aug. 15 hearing to determine how, if at all, he has complied with her prior order to search and produce all materials responsive to Freeman and Moss’ discovery requests “with the assistance of a professional vendor.”
Note that such discovery would not only hurt Giuliani in this lawsuit but it could also prove extremely damaging to him in special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election probe if investigators do not already have those materials/data. (National security and legal blogger Marcy Wheeler has surmised that federal investigators long ago obtained evidence relevant to Giuliani’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election through further, secret warrants to search the devices the Southern District of New York seized from Giuliani’s home and office in 2021 as part of its investigation into his Ukrainian business dealings.)
Last week, Freeman and Moss told the court that however Giuliani responds (or doesn’t respond) on Tuesday, a default judgment is appropriate. That would leave for any future trial or other resolution only the amount of damages owed.
For his part, Giuliani did file a “superseding nolo contendre” on Tuesday. Yet it is almost as inconsistent as the first. On one hand, he acknowledges that his liability on plaintiffs’ claims should be “treated as though there is default liability.” On the other hand, he tries to preserve certain defenses for appeal.
Then again, Giuliani seems to understand he is in deep trouble, at least financially. Business Insider reported on Monday that his multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment went on the market the same week he submitted the initial stipulation. And especially given his too-cute-by-half filings, Giuliani’s decision to sell his apartment sounds like the first smart move he’s made in weeks.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) nodded at what’s been relatively clear since House Republicans first began making noise about opening an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden: He — and many Republicans — are hoping not to go there.
“Impeachment ought to be rare,” McConnell said in an interview with the New York Times. “This is not good for the country.”
As Democrats control the Senate, McConnell has not publicly weighed in on the subject of impeaching Biden yet. But his far-right colleagues in the House have been pushing it for months and House Republican leadership signaled an openness to it just before the August recess – though House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has tried to downplay the seriousness of such a move by saying he’s only open to an impeachment inquiry at the moment.
In his remarks, McConnell also pointed to his opposition of the first and second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
“I said two years ago, when we had not one but two impeachments, that once we go down this path it incentivizes the other side to do the same thing,” McConnell said.
In late July, McCarthy proclaimed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that his caucus’ ongoing bogus probes into President Biden and his family are “rising to the level of impeachment inquiry.” As TPM has reported, the shift in tone occurred just as far-right members of his caucus began slowing down the appropriations process and ultimately risking a shutdown by stuffing right-wing grievances into unrelated appropriations bills.
That shift sparked an avalanche of confusion within the House Republican caucus, as Republicans from swing districts expressed concern about the impact of an impeachment on their reelections.
Less than a day after that, McCarthy walked his comments back, pressing that he didn’t announce an impeachment or even an impeachment inquiry.
“I simply said that the actions that I’m seeing by this administration — withholding the agencies from being able to work with us, that would rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry,” the speaker told reporters.
Later, he dulled that statement further, saying he would only launch an inquiry if the White House does not hand over the information House Republicans are requesting, while clarifying he had raised the prospect of an “impeachment inquiry,” not impeachment.
McCarthy’s word game certainly seemed to create confusion within the deeply divided caucus. Some hardliners like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) parroted the leadership’s language, confirming that McCarthy’s use of the term “inquiry” had been intentional. Others like Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) criticized McCarthy for participating in “impeachment theater.”
But despite the internal tension, many House Republicans privately say that President Biden will face an impeachment inquiry in the fall, according to CNN.
Republicans say if they don’t move forward with an impeachment inquiry soon, it will give the American people the impression that House Republicans have essentially cleared President Biden of the GOP’s unfounded obsession with trying to link him to his son Hunter Biden’s business entanglements, CNN reported.
While teasing the possibility of an impeachment inquiry before the August recess, McCarthy was careful to play to both sides of his caucus.
In a late July closed-door meeting in the Speaker’s office, McCarthy and GOP leadership discussed the difference between an impeachment inquiry and an actual impeachment in depth, according to CNN. In that same meeting, McCarthy reportedly emphasized to his leadership team that an impeachment inquiry is just a way to launch a formal probe and get more information, and isn’t the same thing as impeachment.
That messaging could be the key to ultimately convincing moderates in the GOP caucus who are skeptical of the effort to back an inquiry, while at the same time providing the speaker with a carrot to dangle in front of his far-right flank who are mucking up government funding processes and seeking revenge for Trump’s two impeachments as well as the mounting legal heat he’s gotten from special counsel Jack Smith’s indictments.
A WTF moment brought to you by a right-wing judge.
The story of how a federal judge came to order Southwest Airlines to send its lawyers to “religious-liberty training” with a far-right group that’s been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center is a complicated one. But yes, that happened, and it’s another sign of how right-wing judges are not even pretending to be even-handed these days.
Chris Geidner at Law Dork has the details: Southwest Airlines fired Charlene Carter, a longtime flight attendant, for sending her union president hostile messages about abortion rights and posting “highly offensive” things on Facebook. She sued, alleging she had been discriminated against on religious grounds. The airline lost in a jury trial. Southwest is appealing, but in the meantime, it informed employees that it “does not discriminate” on the basis of religion, rather than telling them that it “may not discriminate,” as the court ordered. Additionally, Southwest sent out a memo on civility and courtesy directly referring to things Carter had said.
Carter asked for sanctions against Southwest—but she wanted corrective notices and money, not for her employer’s lawyers to have to take religious liberty training. It was U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, a Donald Trump appointee, natch, who first brought the training into the picture, and later specifically assigned the Alliance Defending Freedom as the court-mandated trainer.
Geidner writes:
Starr, however, introduced ADF in the contempt order by writing that “there are esteemed non-profit organizations that are dedicated to preserving free speech and religious freedom,” with a footnote citation to the fact that ADF litigated Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. He then stated that “some of those entities laudably provide training free of charge for those who have struggled to respect religious liberties in the manner federal law requires” and went on to use ADF’s own news release regarding a case that ADF had brought to highlight one instance of ADF providing “instruction” to justify requiring Southwest Airlines’ lawyers, in a case that has nothing to do with ADF, to receive “instruction” from ADF.
[…] This “esteemed non-profit” has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. ADF has:
– Supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad
– Defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad
– Contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia
– Claimed that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society
ADF isn’t just any hate group. It’s the one that employs Erin Hawley, the wife of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. It’s the group that brought the legal challenge to mifepristone, an extremely safe medication that has been FDA-approved for abortion since 2000. ADF represented the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, as the judge cited in his order.
Surely if the judge felt so strongly that Southwest needed to be trained to preserve religious liberty, he could have found an organization that represented more than a narrow slice of one religion. But that’s not what he wanted to do. Yet again we see that, to the far right and its hand-picked judges, “religious liberty” means adherence to Christian extremism.
shermanj @ 288, oh no, not the AI, please, not the AI! That could scar someone for life!
Lynna, OM @ 290, one good thing about the inverted mortar round part, it wouldn’t detonate. Many light mortars are impulse armed, the warhead fuse arming by the launch impulse. Heavy mortar rounds are spin armed, with the round having to spin a number of times at a brisk rate to allow the warhead to arm.
But, the crew would have to remove the tube from the base, then tip it to decant their misinserted round back out. Likely, under fire by folks who are laughing at you.
I do wonder if their current rifles have proudly emblazoned on the front sight, “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” like our claymore mines do.
Oh, Russia also raised their upper age group for conscription and made it more difficult to evade conscription. Sounds like they’re dug partway through the bottom of the barrel. They might have to activate Kuzma’s mother soon.
tomhsays
Polls have closed in Ohio.
An estimated 26.3 percent of votes have been counted.
Yes 268,419 33.6%
No 556,809 66.4%
whheydtsays
Re: tonh @ #296…
tomhsays
Ohio update: AP calls it for the No vote in Ohio.It’s about 60-40 with over 40% reporting.
The spotlight now goes to the Republican dominated Ohio Supreme Court. A lawsuit has been filed to block the abortion Amendment which claims the petitions filed to the secretary of state supporting the proposed abortion amendment did not meet the requirements to be submitted.
They claim the amendment, if passed in November, does not lay out how the amendment would change current laws, among other objections.
whheydtsays
Re: tomh @ #296…
(Try that again…without the typo.)
Good start. I’m really hoping the “No” vote is above 60% and that the reproductive rights amendment in November passes with more than 60% (showing that the whole scheme was doomed from the start).
tomhsays
Re: #299
Probably won’t end up above 60%, with 65% counted it’s about 57-43 as of now. The important thing, of course, is that it’s going to pass.
Reginald Selkirksays
Can the people of Ohio put one and one and one together and get three? Republican politicians were wrong on abortion, Republican politicians were wrong on changing the constitution for political convenience; … maybe the people of Ohio should stop electing Republican politicians.
He criticized Donald Trump and the Southern Baptist Convention’s response to a sexual abuse crisis. Then he found himself on the outside.
Who is he? Russell Moore was one of the top officials in the Southern Baptist Convention.
When Donald Trump came on the scene, Moore criticized him publicly and found himself ostracized by many other evangelical leaders who embraced the former president.
Moore also criticized the Southern Baptist Convention’s response to a sexual abuse crisis, as well as what he viewed as an increased tolerance for white nationalism within the church.
Suddenly, in 2021, Moore found himself resigning from his post and on the outside of a denomination that had, up until that point, defined his life.
What’s the big deal? According to Moore, Christianity is in crisis in the United States today.
Moore is now the editor-in-chief of the Christianity Today magazine and has written a new book, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America, which is his attempt at finding a path forward for the religion he loves…
Upon searching Amazon and Goodreads, author Jane Friedman recently discovered a half-dozen listings of fraudulent books using her name, likely filled with either junk or AI-generated content. Both Amazon and Goodreads resisted removing the faux titles until the author’s complaints went viral on social media…
Oggie: Mathomsays
Can the people of Ohio put one and one and one together and get three?
Except that the gerrymandering math results in a very different answer for the state house.
wzrd1says
I don’t get the one and one and one equals three. The Leader long ago has decided that two plus two equals 5.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Of course, to the doctrinaire Christians of many churches, 1+1+1=1.
wzrd1says
On the island of Maui, people jumped into the ocean to escape hurricane Dora driven wildfires. Dora being 740 miles away and no hurricane warnings deemed necessary.
But, major wildfires are normal, that’s why forests are supposed to be raked out like nobody in the world does or something. Record heat is fake news, CO2 is good and made Venus the garden world that it is today. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/weather/maui-county-wildfires-hurricane-dora/index.html
wzrd1says
Peter Thiel’s VC fund gave Musk’s Neuralink $280 million to help advance his brain interface technology to at least 1970’s levels. Well, more like 1930’s infection rates, using 1970’s level technology to wire up pigs and monkeys, but bluetooth and all makes it ultramodern, with a hand wave. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/tech/neuralink-brain-musk-fundraising-founders-fund/index.html
Oh well, as usual, the animals and suckered investors pay the price for assembly line science. A well proven method, just look at all of the AC motors and AC generators Edison’s assembly line engineering line produced. Well, those and deep sea birds and upgraded unicorns.
wzrd1says
Good news! Google’s going to weed out inactive accounts, to prevent weak accounts being phished and spammed.
Although, howinhell one phishes an inactive account is beyond me and if an inactive account is spammed, would anyone even notice?
I guess Google needs the storage space? https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/07/tech/google-deleting-inactive-accounts/index.html
wzrd1says
In a strange story that’s nothing new, but somehow mysteriously newsworthy, cell phone use remains prohibited inside of airplane terminals near aircraft parking areas, lest the airplanes crash while parked or something.
Or one might be distracted while talking on a cell phone and walk into a running jet engine ingestion zone. Having worked for an airline, color me impressed if one can hear a cell phone, let alone not be busy guarding one’s ears from the noise of an operating jet engine when you’re within 20 meters of an operating jet engine. With 10 meters being the safety buffer zone internationally used around a running jet engine.
But, the 5G service installed in many airports and cell phone repeaters are OK.
Seriously, the story made zero sense. https://www.cnn.com/travel/airport-tarmac-phone-rules/index.html
Of course, one lighting technology that was high efficient was also banned in the US (but, OK in Europe), as it might interfere with satellite radio or aircraft instruments, which it didn’t.
I’ll just call it enhanced circular thinking.
birgerjohanssonsays
Reginald Selkirk @ 303.
It seems to me the non-regressive part of the American population needs all the allies it can get.
Especially as the Democratic party is run by legacy Democrats like Biden and Pelosi who think the road to the future is to be Republican-lite.
Reginald Selkirksays
@310: I assume they are concerned about neglected accounts being compromised and being used by the phishers as they pretend to be someone else, not about the weak accounts being phished.
INTERPOL has revealed a successful investigation into a phishing-as-a-service operation named “16shop” with arrests of alleged operators made in Indonesia and Japan and the platform shut down.
The international police co-operation org revealed on Tuesday that a research project investigating cyber threats in the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc detected the existence of 16shop, which it characterized as a vendor of “phishing kits” sold to cyber crims.
INTERPOL assessed the kits as having been used to compromise 70,000 users in 43 countries…
In Carter v. Transport Workers of America, a Texas federal district court ordered sanctions against Southwest Airlines for its failing to comply with an earlier Order in the case that found the Airline had violated Title VII when it fired a flight attendant because of her social media messages about her religiously-motivated views on abortion. Southwest claimed that the flight attendant had violated the company’s social media policy regarding civility. In its current Order, the court set out a specifically worded communication that the Airline is required to send to its flight attendants regarding its obligation under Title VII not to engage in religious discrimination.
The court also ordered that three of the Airline’s attorneys who were responsible for non-compliance with the earlier Order attend at least 8 hours of religious liberty training conducted by the Christian legal non-profit Alliance Defending Freedom. The court explained, in part:
When a litigant “does not appear to comprehend” a legal concept, training in “the relevant subject area” constitutes a “particularly apropos” sanction.
Follow up to comments 298, 300 and others related to the vote in Ohio.
Steve Benen reports:
Shortly after Ohio voters easily discarded Issue 1, the Republican leader of the state Senate said he and his party would “probably” try to advance the same plan again. He didn’t appear to be kidding.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, fresh off the news of voters roundly rejecting State Issue 1, said lawmakers would “probably” bring the question back before the electorate sometime in the future.
Conceding to reporters that the campaign would likely lose by eight to 10 points, Huffman, a key force in bringing the proposal to the ballot, said several times that Tuesday’s results do not mark the death of the effort to make constitutional amendments harder to pass in Ohio.
“I think you’ll probably see the question coming back,” he said, although he later noted it might not be this year.
Huffman was quick to spread blame around for the failure. He said “vociferous” vocal opposition from ex-GOP Govs. John Kasich and Bob Taft, along with former Republican Attorney General Betty Montgomery proved damaging. He said the campaign didn’t have enough time to put together a sufficient case, even though state lawmakers selected the Aug. 8 election date.
“If we passed this in January and put it on May ballot, we’d have had a better opportunity to run a campaign and do things,” he said.
And he said the roughly $16 million the state spent to hold the special election was worth it.
“It’s an important question, and with the time we had to work with, I think you’ll probably see the question coming back,” Huffman said.
[…] Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis, one of the main public faces of the vote-yes campaign, said Ohio will “regret” the vote it took today. He declined to pass blame around besides for the voters he said were “confused” by claims made by the vote-no campaign. He said outside groups will continue to spend heavily in Ohio to similarly confound voters at scheduled referendums on marijuana and abortion in November, and potential future amendments involving redistricting, the minimum wage, and animal welfare laws.
[…] he expected conservatives will “come home” in November and reject the proposed marijuana and abortion ballot issues
[…] Spencer Gross, a spokesman for the vote-yes campaign, issued a statement Tuesday evening.
“From its inception, Issue 1 was about giving Ohioans a choice in the structure of their founding document. Tonight, they have made their choice,” he said. “Though these are not the results we hoped for, our coalition looks forward to working with the General Assembly on policy for the betterment of all Ohioans, in a manner that honors and respects the legislative process – not circumvents it.”
So, the Republicans are in a hole and still digging. They are using some gobbledygook explanations to double down. The “in a manner that honors and respects the legislative process” is a particularly pernicious phrase. What Republicans are doing is the opposite of “honor and respect.”
Ken Fleming and Doug Bishop may not be cops, but they do work to solve missing persons cold cases. It’s a volunteer gig that involves traveling up and down the state of Florida, using sonar to search various bodies of water for clues. And according to WSVN, one of their recent searches turned up 32 cars at the bottom of a lake in Doral, Florida.
And just because that’s a little out of the ordinary, they’re jumping to the conclusion that their find indicates some sort of criminal activity in the area…
[…] “I probably have another [indictment],” he told his audience. “They say there’s a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta. She’s a racist. And they say, I guess, they say that she was after a certain gang, and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang, or a gang member. And this is the person that wants to indict me.”
As Trump smears go, this was among the more grotesque.
For one thing, there’s literally no evidence to suggest Willis is racist, and it’s curious how the former president only seems to apply the label to Black prosecutors who suspect him of crimes.
For another, there’s literally no evidence to suggest Willis had an affair with a gang member, and the Republican’s campaign has made no effort to substantiate the claim.
But as important as these details are, and as ugly as Trump’s attempted smear was, the apparent case against him is proceeding anyway […]
Trump said a lot of wildly untrue things yesterday, especially about the Georgia prosecutor, but when the former president told his audience that he’ll “probably” be indicted for election-related crimes in Fulton County, that was the one claim he made that was very easy to believe.
“The approach of fall, when weather and fighting conditions are expected to worsen, gives Ukrainian forces a limited window to push forward.” [Quoting text from a CNN article.]
It should also be noted that the climate during mud season in southern Ukraine is much different from conditions in the north and east. The Black Sea climate renders the terrain in southern Ukraine far drier and less cold, with temperatures rarely dipping below freezing in many parts of southern Ukraine. Fall mud season is mild compared to the spring mud season in northern Ukraine, but it is even more so in the south.
There is a reason why Ukraine continued last year’s Kherson offensive right into November, even as the fall rains had already started in northern Ukraine and began to shift into early winter weather.
There will likely be a wetter, muddier period in the south from October to November. But such weather didn’t really stop the Kherson Offensive, and if Ukraine is pressing smaller-unit attritional attacks like it is now, it is unlikely to have that big of an impact—not like the way the mud can swallow tanks whole and bring entire armies to a standstill in the north.
While Ukraine punching through to Tokmak or breaking out south of Velyka Novosilka by late September would be ideal, today’s situation is not the ticking clock of doom that the CNN article appears to paint it as.
That update also includes an argument that CNN’s claim that ““Ukrainian forces have incurred staggering losses [around Robotyne] leading Ukrainian commanders to hold back some units to regroup and reduce casualties” is grossly overstated. Actual ratios for confirmed losses are presented.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose went on Fox & Friends to talk about his Issue 1 failing and said, “the all out assault is coming from the radical left … the war continues. I’ve just begun to fight.”
The guy is blustering loudly. He uses “radical” to describe the opponents of his Issue 1, and he tries to tie abortion-rights supporters to supposed attempts to take away gun rights in Ohio. He also tries to shift the blame for his failures onto others. Dude is basically sweating and nervous and LOSING … so he tries to project an extreme macho image.
[…] Sorry, guys, but no. Voters see that you want to take their rights, and they don’t like it. You can’t finesse that message enough to make it a winning one.
@304 Reginald Selkirk points out AI generated counterfeit books on amazon only removed when a spotlight was shined on them.
I reply: Thanks, Reginald for finding and posting that. It is important to anyone who creates written or multimedia works. G00GLE and amaz0n stole copyright books years ago. Youtube allows copyrighted works to be pirated and made available to the public. Our society rewards big corporate fraud and theft.
Well well well! In the indictment of Donald The Fool for conspiring with his idiot lawyer friends to hatch a plan to overturn an election and overthrow the Republic, there had been listed a mysterious memo we hadn’t seen yet, one drafted by a lawyer back in December, which laid out some of the plans in explicit detail.
No, we don’t mean the John Eastman coup-plotting memos. We mean a different coup-plotting memo. A related one, from a different architect of the coup.
Now, the New York Times has gotten its hands on it.
This is a memo written by lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who’s been widely reported to be Co-conspirator #5 described in the indictment. It was written on December 6, and the indictment calls it the “Fraudulent Elector Memo,” which explicitly stated that on January 6, Mike Pence should simply use the fake electors they got together and count those, instead of the real electors for the real winner (Joe Biden), to keep the real winner (Joe Biden) from reaching 270 electoral votes. The purpose, according to the indictment, would be to “[set] up a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”
You know, the coup.
Co-conspirator 1 — Rudy Giuliani — got that memo in his hands on December 7.
But as Maggie Haberman and her bandmates explain, we didn’t know about this memo until it was referred to in the indictment, and the January 6 Committee didn’t uncover it. It really says some shit! And we think it will go a long way to proving these fuckers’ criminal knowledge of what they were doing.
Some things this memo is super explicit about:
– Make sure ALL THE FAKE ELECTORS VOTE IN ALL THE SIX STATES WHERE WE’RE DOING FAKE ELECTORS.
– We should really get the message out there that this is totally routine, like no food or drink before a colonoscopy. It’s just a thing we always do, the fake electors!
– We are doing this for the explicit purpose of denying Joe Biden the 270 electoral votes he won, thus overturning the votes of millions of Americans in those states and everywhere else, who overwhelmingly elected Biden president.
– The fake electors have to vote for a fake president by December 14, “to create a scenario under which Biden can be prevented from reaching 270 electoral votes.”
– We can rig the way the votes are counted to make it look like Biden is never ahead in the electoral count. (Biden won 306 to Trump’s 232, and beat him by over four percentage points and over seven million votes of the people.)
– The Supreme Court would probably LOL at all this, but it “would guarantee that public attention would be riveted on the evidence of electoral abuses by the Democrats, and would also buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.” So it’s fine! They were stealin’ an election! And they knew it!
– And again, did they mention that doing fake electors was routine? Totally normal! Don’t we always have fake Republican electors in states Democrats win? Here are a bunch of Democrats whose words we can misuse to make it look like it’s totally routine, the regular thing to do! (The indictment says Trump and his co-conspirators even lied to some of the fake electors themselves, so they would think that getting together in basements to cast fake electoral votes was normal.)
And then on January 6, Mike Pence can count the fake electors, and Donald Trump can be president forever!
Of course, we should also see this in light of all the violence people listed in the indictment were outright condoning, including the idea of using the military to attack any American people who didn’t like the coup they just pulled off.
We’re certain Jack Smith will keep it all in context for us, really drive home for the jurors how disgustingly anti-American this plot to overthrow the Republic really was.
By the way, one of the Democrats cited in the memo is Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe, who Haberman et al. explain used to teach Chesebro. Tribe has been meanwhile explaining lately that his former student is full of shit.
We’ll close out this post with a tweet from Tribe, which we think tells us how impressed he is with what has become of Chesebro: [Tweet at the link]
If that’s what your old teachers are saying about you, you’re doin’ it wrong.
Wonkette reports on one of Hair Furor’s August 8 rants on Truth Social:
[…] And speaking of Trump losing it because the walls are closing in and he’s scared and there’s nowhere to hide from his fear and nowhere to hide from his own true, shameful, shriveled, humiliated self, here’s another one he fake-tweeted from his fake Twitter:
The Obama appointed judge in the FREE SPEECH indictment of me by my political opponent, Crooked Joe Biden’s Department of InJustice, shared professional ties at the law firm that worked for Energy Burisma, based in Ukraine, of which Hunter Biden and his associate were “proud” MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, and were paid Millions of Dollars, even though Hunter knew almost NOTHING about Energy. How much was the law firm paid? So Horrible. This is a CLASSIC Conflict of Interest! “GATEWAY PUNDIT”
So that’s what a barely literate mental breakdown looks like, we reckon.
Bless his heart.
And we mean that in the southern way, which in this case roughly translates as “fuck around and find out.”
Reginald Selkirksays
@322 The Supreme Court would probably LOL at all this…
They should, but I lack confidence that they would.
The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election tried, failed, and ultimately succeeded in accessing the former president’s Twitter account, documents published Wednesday show. According to the courts, Twitter was late in producing all the information investigators wanted on Trump’s pre-Jan. 6 activities because it objected to not being able to tell Trump about the investigation. A judge held Twitter in contempt and fined it $350,000.
As initially reported by Politico and other outlets, redacted court documents from the D.C. court of appeals detail how special counsel Jack Smith executed a search warrant against Twitter in January of this year…
A man who posted violent threats against President Joe Biden and other officials online was shot dead during an FBI raid on Wednesday.
Agents were attempting to serve an arrest warrant on Craig Robertson at his home in Utah, just hours ahead of a planned visit to the state by Mr Biden.
A criminal complaint said Robertson posted threats on Facebook against Mr Biden and a prosecutor pursuing criminal charges against Donald Trump…
The last time House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity was two weeks ago, and at the time, the California Republican made some news. It was in this interview when the GOP leader suggested the House would be justified initiating an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite the inconvenient fact that the party hasn’t uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing against the Democratic incumbent.
With this in mind, McCarthy returned to Hannity’s program this week, and as The Hill reported, his remarks led the White House to accuse the speaker of “lying.”
Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, dug into McCarthy’s Fox News appearance Monday evening, saying he “continued lying about President Biden — making a series of plainly false, widely debunked attacks in order to promote the extreme far right’s baseless impeachment stunt that even some members of McCarthy’s own caucus are expressing concerns about pursuing.”
Team Biden’s concerns were hardly unreasonable. McCarthy told viewers, for example, that a “Russian oligarch” gave the Biden family $3.5 million, which is a stale claim that was discredited years ago. In the same interview, the House speaker insisted the FBI “didn’t act” on highly dubious anti-Biden bribery claims, which was equally wrong given the extensive information we’ve already seen pointing in the opposite direction.
After the show, McCarthy turned to social media to add that the Democratic president “lied about his own involvement in a pay-to-play scheme,” which might be interesting if Republicans had any evidence to substantiate such a claim. But since they don’t, the House speaker probably ought to try to be a little more responsible.
Stepping back, the larger question isn’t whether McCarthy is making false claims, it’s why he’s making false claims.
Chances are, we’ll probably never know the Republican’s genuine motivations. Perhaps the House speaker has been told by assorted voices in his party what to say, and he’s in too weak a position to refuse. Maybe McCarthy has convinced himself that some of his strange talking points actually have merit.
Either way, the GOP congressman appears to be laying the groundwork for a misguided partisan goal. As HuffPost explained:
House Republicans may soon pull the trigger on the ultimate weapon they can wield against President Joe Biden: impeachment. The party’s itch for revenge over the dual impeachments of former President Donald Trump is leading them headlong toward pursuing the same thing, despite repeatedly failing to deliver evidence of Biden’s purported wrongdoing, and despite the risk of an electoral backlash.
Indeed, during his latest chat with Hannity, McCarthy again talked up the merits of “an impeachment inquiry,” which he said would give lawmakers the ability “to get the answers they need.”
Of course, given that they already have the answers they need, and many Republicans will never be satisfied, no matter how many facts they receive, McCarthy’s line still needs some work.
Nevertheless, GOP lawmakers continue to barrel down a ridiculous path. In fact, CNN reported this week House Republicans have privately said that “if they don’t move forward with an impeachment inquiry now, it will create the impression that House Republicans have essentially cleared Biden of any wrongdoing.”
The logic behind this approach is truly incredible. Republicans want to advance an impeachment inquiry against Biden, but they don’t have any evidence. So they’re prepared to launch an impeachment inquiry anyway, in the hopes that it will prevent people from noticing that they don’t have the evidence needed to justify an impeachment inquiry.
All of this is slated to unfold in the coming months. Watch this space.
[…] I read through the criminal complaint against Craig Robertson, the man killed this morning during an FBI raid tied to threats he allegedly made to kill President Biden, New York City DA Alvin Bragg, New York AG Letitia James, AG Merrick Garland as well as Vice President Harris and California Governor Newsom.
As you’d expect, the complaint details numerous social media posts showing Robertson threatening to kill the men and women above and showing that he possessed a sniper rifle and a substantial arsenal of assault rifles. Two FBI agents recently visited his residence and asked to speak with him about his posts. He essentially told them to get lost and then, in follow-on posts, started threatening to kill them if they returned
The move to arrest Robertson this morning appears to have been triggered by a Sunday post in which he threatened to murder President Biden with a sniper rifle and a “ghillie suit” during the President’s visit to Utah today. As the complaint explains, Robertson’s alleged social media posts suggest he did in fact own a sniper and a ghillie suit, which is essentially a sniper’s camouflage suit that makes you look a bit like Sasquatch.
What’s notable about the complaint is how many of Robertson’s threats and complaints mirror standard GOP talking points from Capitol Hill. He refers to the FBI visits in response to his threats to murder Alvin Bragg and President Biden as an example of “the WEAPONIZED FBI coming after a 75 year old conservative,” and he makes general complaints about the FBI monitoring conservative social media. He also criticizes Facebook for censoring his assassination threats. Of course, he walked around in a Trump hat and identified himself as a “MAGA TRUMPER,” […]
Gee, who saw that coming? Less than a day after Ohio voters roundly rejected the GOP’s attempt to dismantle democracy as we know it, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and full-time Mar-a-Lago resident Kari Lake pulled a page from her Maricopa County playbook.
You may remember that in the 2022 Arizona race Maricopa County, the largest population in the state by far, experienced dozens of voter machine problems. No voter was denied the right to cast a ballot, although it may have taken a bit longer to do so, while others filled in provisional ballots and left. Still, study after study showed the Maricopa County malfunction did not affect the total vote count, even though Lake used the machine glitch as her main argument in three appeals, all of which she lost.
Yesterday a reporter tweeted that one location in Cuyahoga Falls was experiencing a machine malfunction, and that’s all it took for the rightwing to go bananas.
[Anti-Muslim activist] Brigitte Gabriel told her 909,000 followers, ‘WOW. Ballot scanners in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio have not been working for their special election today.'”
Kari Lake said the malfunction, “Reminds me of the jackasses who run Maricopa County elections when they sabotaged Election Day to stop the will of We the People. Wake up America.” Lake “made it sound as if the machine issue was widespread,” while far-right OAN declared, “Something fishy was going on in Cuyahoga Falls.”
It’s gotta be something “fishy,” a conspiracy, not simply an error, especially when your side gets blown out. It didn’t take long for the election fraud conspiracy BS to take root in MAGA world. They needed some explanation for the drubbing Issue 1 took at the polls; clearly it can’t be that people hate a measure that destroys representative government!
What Lake and every other nutter failed to mention was that the malfunction occurred in one polling station in Cuyahoga Falls, causing about 20 voters to wait longer. The other 33 polling stations in the county experienced no problems, nor did the machines in Ohio’s other 87 counties.
In other words, of the hundreds of polling places in Ohio, one experienced a momentary machine malfunction, but that’s all it took for Kari Lake to remind everyone she’s still trying to overturn the 2022 Arizona vote, she’s maybe running for U.S. Senate against Rep. Ruben Gallego, she could be Trump’s VP pick if she never wastes an opportunity to [complain] about election fraud […]
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s chance of winning the Republican nomination for president is next to nil. That being said, Christie is doing the one thing every single candidate facing Donald Trump should be doing: going directly after him. It isn’t hard to attack Trump when every known fact is on your side. And Christie, to his credit, has employed a simple, Trump-is-factually-a-criminal series of attacks on the disgraced former president.
Yesterday, that goaded Trump into calling Christie a “fat pig.” The thing is, Christie is just as much of a bully and was happy to turn the insult into a debate challenge. He took to Twitter to tell Trump, “If you had the guts you would show up to the debate and say it to my face.” It really says all you need to know about Trump’s character when Christie comes out like some kind of saint in favor of law and justice in this battle.
But that wasn’t Christie’s only attack on Trump.
He’s been more than willing to employ some rhetorical mud-slinging, calling Trump names like “loser” and describing him as a “coward.” And did I mention he keeps calling Trump a “loser”? And at a Tuesday town hall event in the Granite State, he chose to condescend to Trump in another way, pointing out that Trump has not denied he did all of the things he’s been indicted for doing, and seems to have come up with a defense that consists of crying, “Nobody has been picked on more than me” and “Poor me.” Christie ended his dismissal of Trump with a sarcastic dig at “our poor New York City billionaire. So picked on.”
[…] t’s clear Trump has heard that Christie is willing to send some arrows his way, which is why at a New Hampshire campaign stop on Tuesday, the twice-impeached, thrice-indicted former president dug deep into his bag of trash in order to insult his former ally.
While Trump was improvising and riffing off of the heckling crowd, he remarked “No, Chris Christie, he’s eating. He can’t be bothered.” This elicited the reaction he wanted. Trump followed that up by employing a childish trick, one he has performed before.
Pointing to someone in the audience, Trump said, “Sir, please do not call him a ‘fat pig,’ that’s very disre…don’t call him. See I’m trying to be nice, don’t call him a ‘fat pig.’” [video at the link]
Lahaina is gone; no word yet on casualties. [photo at the link]
“Maui can’t handle this. A lot of people just lost their jobs because a lot of businesses burned. A lot of people lost their homes. This is going to be devastating for Maui.” Alan Dickar, Front Street Business Owner
There is no safe place to be any more to escape the impacts of global warming. On the island of Maui, a brush fire ignited (the exact cause is yet to be determined), dry, brittle tinder, and powerful winds from Hurricane Dora spread embers across the island. The hurricane passed to the south of the Hawaiian Islands. Lahaina was once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The fires are not contained, and the worst disaster since Hurricane Iniki barreled over Kauai in 1992. First responders describe the scene on Maui as apocalyptic. [Tweet and video at the link]
It was Lahaina that took a devastating hit. Twelve people were rescued by the Coast Guard from the waters off the coast after fleeing the flames forced them to jump into the harbor. It is still night in Hawaii, and the scale of the devastation is yet unknown. In social media posts, survivors have reported there are casualties. The fire has also severely damaged the towns of Kihei and Kula; both are under mandatory evacuations. Waikuku is also reporting fires.
[…] A recent CNN post warned that many burn victims need immediate evacuation. Maui has lost all communications. The state plans to evacuate west Maui and is attempting to secure hotels and airlines for evacuations to another island, likely in Honolulu, for medical care and abundant hotel space. […]
“911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down. That’s been part of the problem. The Maui County has not been able to communicate with residents on the west side, the Lahaina side,” Luke said. […]
The fringe outlet Creative Destruction Media posts content attacking purported “Black and brown invaders from Northern Africa and the MidEast” with “a primitive culture”; advising readers to arm themselves against transgender people; and falsely claiming that the 2020 election was “fraudulent” and “stolen” from Donald Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s super PAC has been spending thousands on advertising on the right-wing outlet.
American Values 2024 is a super PAC run by close Kennedy associates, including friend and Skyhorse Publishing President Tony Lyons. (Skyhorse has published numerous conspiracy theory-filled books, including Kennedy’s The Real Anthony Fauci.) Politico recently noted that the PAC received “more than half its nearly $10 million in funds from a single GOP donor.” Kennedy promoted content from the PAC last week…
Reginald @335, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to look worse and worse. We’re getting a better picture of just how awful he is. JFC.
In other news, a recent New Yorker cartoon is captioned: “Your Honor, in an effort to insure a fair trial, we move for a change of venue to the defendant’s imagination.” New Yorker link
TALLAHASSEE (The Borowitz Report)—In a campaign shakeup that he is calling a “game-changer,” Ron DeSantis is replacing himself with an appealing human being.
“In Iowa and New Hampshire, I’ve listened as voters have told me loud and clear what they want in a candidate,” he said. “And what they want is not me.”
“Let me say to all of the Republican primary voters out there: message received,” he declared.
In the effort to replace the Florida governor, his campaign has begun compiling a list of people who are more likable than DeSantis, a roster that reportedly runs into the hundreds of thousands.
DeSantis’s campaign spokesman, Harland Dorrinson, said that the candidate’s decision to replace himself with a non-odious substitute “shows that he’s willing to make the gutsy calls a leader has to make,” and added that the future of the governor’s white go-go boots is yet to be determined.
…
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Save America’s funds were dwindling after Trump was forced to pay out numerous lawyers amid his seemingly-unending indictments and court cases — the PAC reported less than $4 million in its account after starting last year with more than $105 million. The floundering PAC was even forced to request a whopping $60 million dollar refund from pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., with the New York Times reporting that the refund was issued to Save America in installments seemingly timed to Trump’s various legal woes.
“I don’t know that calling it a refund changes the fundamental illegality,” Adav Noti, a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission’s litigation division and leader of watchdog group, Campaign Legal Center, told The Times. As the report noted, “the pro-Trump super PAC and Trump-controlled PAC must be independent entities and are barred from any coordination on strategy.”
“So for the super PAC and the Trump PAC to be sending tens of millions of dollars back and forth depending upon who needs the money more strongly suggests unlawful financial coordination,” Noti added…
The mother of a 30-year-old Michigan man who’s accused of making death threats against Democratic politicians is now charged with lying when she purchased firearms later found in her son’s possession.
Threats against public officials have become increasingly common in Michigan in recent years. A plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was broken up by the FBI in 2020, and prosecutors have so far secured nine convictions in the case in state and federal courts.
The charges unsealed Tuesday against Michelle Berka, 56, come after her son Randall Berka II was arrested in March and charged with illegally possessing guns. Federal prosecutors say he made death threats on social media against the president and governor, as well as people in the LGBTQ community.
Authorities say Michelle Berka knowingly lied when she bought five guns that were eventually given to another person, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court Tuesday and first reported by The Detroit News. While the indictment dated Aug. 2 does not name who Berka gave the firearms to, her son was arrested with four of the same firearms in March…
A veteran FBI counterintelligence agent says his supervisor told him to stop investigating Rudy Giuliani and to cut off contact with any sources who reported on corruption by associates of former President Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower complaint obtained by Insider.
The agent, who served 14 years as a special agent for the bureau, including a long stint in Russia-focussed counter-intelligence, claims in a 22-page statement that his bosses interfered with his work in “a highly suspicious suppression of investigations and intelligence-gathering” aimed at protecting “certain politically active figures and possibly also FBI agents” who were connected to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs.
Those figures, the statement claims, explicitly included “anyone in the [Trump] White House and any former or current associates of President Trump.”…
The whistleblower told Insider that he was finally ordered to stop investigating Giuliani and the rest of the Trump White House in August 2022, after months of what he says were persistent efforts to frustrate his work, at a meeting with three FBI supervisors at a bureau field office…
wzrd1says
Can’t find the story now, but earlier CNN was reporting Maui hospitals were overrun with burn patients.
That means that they’ll swiftly run out of bandages, sterile surgical supplies, IV solutions and antibiotics, plus of course pain medications.
Major wildfires go into firestorms, firestorms are absolute fucking nightmares when urban areas get involved.
For evacuation, it might be beneficial to sail a fair sized bit of our fleets out of Pearl, landing craft in for evacuate the wounded, then hospital ship or troop ship them to the mainland, where resources are far greater.
And station communications ships closer to shore, to assist with the currently collapsed communications ashore.
whheydtsays
Re; wzrd1 @ #342…
Hospital ship, I should think. A Navy hospital should be well equipped for burn victims. For evacuation, if there is a cruise ship in the local waters, order them the offload their passengers and send it over to pick up those that need little or no medical care. Since there may not be adequate (or any) docking facilities, ask the Navy to send over landing craft to get the evacuees from shore to ship.
Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he won’t sign a pledge to support the Republican nominee if he loses the GOP presidential primary, flouting a requirement for appearing in the first debate later this month.
“Why would I sign it?” Trump said in an interview on the conservative cable network Newsmax. “I can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president. So right there, there’s a problem.”
He declined to name the candidates he wouldn’t support, saying “there’s no reason to insult them.” …
Not that that ever stopped him before.
The surprising thing here is his honesty; in not signing the pledge and then violating it. This ought to be sufficient reason to keep him out of the debate, if the Republicans have the spine to enforce their rules.
Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Elizabeth Walters on Wednesday mocked a senior Republican official who complained that they did not have enough time to campaign for an effort to stymie abortion rights.
“Like, saying the obvious thing out loud, you picked the date dude,” Walters said during a call with reporters. “What was surprising about it, you know?”
Walters, who appeared to briefly be at a loss for words, said she was “trying very hard for you guys not to have to bleep me out later.” …
Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been killed in an armed attack following a campaign rally in the capital Quito, according to the country’s president Guillermo Lasso and local media reports…
Germany and Ukraine have agreed on the supply of additional Patriot air defence missile systems to Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his evening address on Wednesday.
“Today there is good news from Germany – exactly what we agreed with (German Chancellor) Olaf Scholz. There are additional Patriot systems. Thank you very much, Olaf, it is necessary for the defence of our people against Russian terror,” Zelenskiy said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany announced its decision to ship two more Patriot launchers to Ukraine…
Lawmakers who participated in the legislative walkout this year will not be able to file to run for reelection in 2024, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade announced Tuesday.
Ten lawmakers accumulated more than 10 unexcused absences during the 2023 legislative session, triggering for the first time the voter-approved Measure 113.
The measure passed in November following several years of frustration with legislative walkouts. Republicans in Oregon have walked out seven times since 2019, halting all legislative work due to the state’s unique two-thirds quorum rule.
During 2023’s legislative session, the lawmakers walked out in protest over bills surrounding gun control, abortion, and gender-affirming care….
birgerjohanssonsays
Florida restricts Shakespeare lessons over “raunchiness”.
Flight restrictions were imposed at Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports on Aug. 10, amid reports of yet another drone attack.
The restrictions were implemented due to “reasons independent of the airport,” according to the Russian state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti, citing Vnukovo air port’s press service…
An exceptionally disturbing case in Georgia of an ‘accident’ during the delivery of an infant.
Litigation filed alleges that the infant was decapitated during delivery after the shoulders couldn’t pass through the birth canal and a Caesarean section was not ‘performed in a timely manner’. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/us/georgia-baby-death-lawsuit/index.html
Then, the staff attempted to conceal the manner of death.
Sounds to me like something that a DA should examine, homicide and conspiracy charges all around.
On June 24, 2022, Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices handed down Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and in the process, they jolted Americans’ assumptions.
Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, reflected on this in comments to NBC News.
Lake said the Dobbs ruling gives Democrats an opening against Trump that they lacked in 2016. She lamented that voters didn’t believe Trump would actually fight to restrict abortion. But over his four years as president, Trump put three justices on the Supreme Court — all provided decisive votes to end the right to legal abortion.
“I was doing focus groups in Michigan with women, and I said: ‘Donald Trump is going to defund Planned Parenthood.’ And the women said, ‘No he’s not, that’s ridiculous.’ And I said I can show you the clip on TV, and I played the news for them,” Lake said. “And they said, ‘Are you kidding me? I don’t care what he says.’”
[…] There was a great deal of complacency about reproductive rights in the recent past, with plenty of mainstream voters confident that the Roe precedent would hang on indefinitely. All of those assumptions, obviously, have been reassessed.
But can we also pause to marvel at focus group members’ incredulity?
As regular readers might recall, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Congress eyed measures intended to give the economy a boost, and House Republicans were only too pleased to pitch their ideas. By any fair measure, the GOP bill included little more than tax cuts for corporations that the party wanted anyway. Even the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal conceded the plan “mainly padded corporate bottom lines.”
Democrats, eager to go on the offensive, convened focus groups to help sharpen their message. The party, however, quickly discovered a problem: Voters literally couldn’t believe that Republicans would respond to deadly terrorism by pushing corporate tax breaks. As The New York Times’ Paul Krugman explained at the time, the Republican proposal “was so extreme that when political consultants tried to get reactions from voter focus groups, the voters refused to believe that they were describing the bill accurately.”
More than a decade later, it happened again: A super PAC supporting Barack Obama’s re-election informed focus group participants about Paul Ryan’s budget plan and Mitt Romney’s support for it. As the New York Times reported soon after, respondents “simply refused to believe” what they were hearing, despite the fact that what they were hearing was true.
As New York magazine’s Jon Chait summarized at the time, focus group participants were receiving accurate descriptions of real GOP proposals, but the truth “struck those voters as so cartoonishly evil that they found the charge implausible.”
It must be frustrating for Democratic strategists to tell a room full of voters the truth, only to hear in response, “That can’t be right.”
[…] voters found it implausible that Trump would dramatically roll back the clock on reproductive rights. The problem, of course, is that Lake wasn’t exaggerating to those focus group members, and the warnings about the changes to come were real.
For all the talk about American voters being cynical, sometimes they’re not quite cynical enough.
For months, congressional Republicans and their allies have gone to great lengths to manufacture a scandal that doesn’t appear to exist. To hear these GOP voices tell it, President Joe Biden was not only involved in his son’s business schemes, the Democrat also accepted alleged “bribes,” trading policies for cash.
Of course, the more Republicans try to substantiate these allegations with facts, the more they fail spectacularly. Indeed, it happened again yesterday, as GOP officials on the House Oversight Committee released documents showing that members of Biden’s family, and “associates” who know members of the president’s family, received money from foreign sources — a rather boring observation — while failing once again to make any meaningful connections to the president himself.
But as it turns out, that’s not all they said. CNN reported:
House Oversight Republicans laid out their intention to accuse President Joe Biden of corruption even without direct evidence that he financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. … [S]o far, it appears the committee has not found any direct evidence that President Biden personally benefited from any of his son’s business dealings. Republicans are now insisting they don’t have to.
[…] It took a while, but I think I finally have a handle on the trajectory of the Republicans’ case:
– We’ll produce evidence.
– We’ll probably find evidence.
– We hope there’s evidence.
– Evidence schmevidence.
I know there’s a group of conservative voters out there, hoping against hope that this investigation will generate a real anti-Biden scandal. Now is the time for those voters to start lowering their expectations.
Next year’s battle for the White House will once again come down to just a handful of states, and one of those states will be Pennsylvania.
And if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee once more, there’s every reason to think he’ll try to steal Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, just like he sought to do in 2020 […]
Three years ago, our sturdiest backstop was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which conclusively shut down Trump’s many bogus lawsuits that sought to overturn the election. We need to make sure the state’s highest court stands ready to safeguard democracy yet again, which is why Daily Kos is proudly endorsing Judge Dan McCaffery in the Nov. 7 race to fill a critical vacant seat.
McCaffery is an unimpeachable jurist who has sat on the bench for a decade, winning election as an appeals court judge in 2019. He’s the son of immigrants who fled violence in their native Ireland, an Army veteran, a West Point graduate, and a former prosecutor. He has the support of Planned Parenthood, labor unions across the state, and the state Democratic Party. And he earned the highest possible rating from the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In short, he’s a fair-minded, independent judge who can be trusted to do the right thing.
Not so his Republican opponent. Judge Carolyn Carluccio not only holds extreme anti-abortion views, she’s tried to conceal them by stripping references to her promise to be a “Defender” of “All Life Under the Law” from her campaign website. Even more troubling, she suggested without any evidence that mail voting could lead to fraud and even refused to answer directly when the Philadelphia Inquirer asked if she thought the 2022 and 2022 elections were “free and fair.” That sounds like exactly the sort of judge Trump would want to have in his corner.
It goes without saying that the stakes in 2024 are as high as they come, which makes this fall’s contest an extremely high-stakes affair as well. Right now, Democrats hold a 4-2 majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, meaning that if Republicans flip this seat (which became vacant after Democrat Max Baer died last year), they’ll shrink that edge to 4-3. That’s way too close for comfort, especially if there’s ever an absence, a recusal, or another vacancy.
And it wasn’t too long ago that Republicans controlled the court—it was only in 2015 that Democrats were able to take it back. Republicans have never accepted the legitimacy of that new Democratic majority and even threatened to impeach Democratic justices after they struck down the GOP’s gerrymandered maps a few years ago, so we know they’re going to fight like hell to regain power.
[…] we need to do everything we can to help McCaffery win in November. […]
Steve Schmidt discusses the “Tedium (and the Terror) that is Donald Trump”
“What I’m talking about is the panic of the party’s pollsters and election strategists. They see the writing on the wall. They know what’s coming down the pike.”
“Republicans understand that Donald Trump is going off the rails. Look at his behavior.”
“This man seeks again, to be the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in human history. He wants control of America’s Nuclear Weapons arsenal.”
“And by any objective measurement, any standard, his conduct has become completely deranged: his attacks on the Federal Judges and Judiciary; his attacks and threat on the Prosecutor in Atlanta — he’s dis-respecting her, insulting her, degrading her. The attack is racist.”
“He is lashing out; he is decomposing. This is what 100 felony counts will do to a person.”
“When the trials begin, and there is action to cover and to report on, as the events are taking place, I believe it is safe to say that the American people will be highly engaged.”
“Part of what is broken between the Media and the politician — the ubiquity of coverage, the constant presence of these people in our faces, is leading the American people to turn off their televisions.”
“The coverage of the Donald Trump story — as we move into the 8th year — has become brutally tedious.”
“Republican pollsters and election strategists … they know the incredibly high price that has been paid up and down the ballot, for Trump sycophancy. They know the cost of the appeasement and collaboration — of the moral cowardice. They know the cost of what it looks like, when these Candidates are made to seem idiotic, under questioning that they can’t keep straight. They can’t walk the fine line of being for — and against — Trump.”
“They can’t possibly make the case that they support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” […]
“The Extremist threat facing America, has been cooking now, for a very very long time. It has been inflamed by Social Media, by the ubiquity of Trump’s presence. By his his ability at any moment to divide, antagonize, incite.”
“A great test is coming for America. And this is a test that is Pass/Fail. It’s very simple. We are nearly 250 years old as a nation. Generations of American have marched into battle, to defend our Freedom. They crossed bridges, like the Edmund Pettus, for Justice. Americans were beaten, killed, lynched, shot — SO that they could have the Right to Vote.”
“There is no conceivable way to sustain the United States of America outside of a system, where the People are able to pick their leaders. And this requires something from the leaders: a willingness to concede to the sovereignty and the will of the People.”
“Politics attracts all sorts of people: the narcissists, the vain, the needy, the searching, the yearning. It also attracts genuine servants. People who want to make the country stronger. Make it better. Defend the country. It is so hard sometimes to see the difference, and to tell the difference between the two. But they’re there.”
“The test at hand means: you cannot be for the man who tried to take away the Right of the American people to choose.”
“The test ahead means, that you have to understand, that America is built on the concept: that if you lose, you acknowledge the will of the People. You congratulate your opponent. You support him or her when you can, if there are areas of mutual agreement, for the betterment of something bigger … bigger than you … bigger than your state — and that’s the American Nation.” […]
Hackers with apparent links to the Belarusian government have been targeting foreign diplomats in the country for nearly 10 years, according to security researchers.
On Thursday, antivirus firm ESET published a report that details the activities of a newly discovered government hacking group that the company has dubbed MoustachedBouncer. The group has likely been hacking or at least targeting diplomats by intercepting their connections at the internet service provider (ISP) level, suggesting close collaboration with Belarus’ government, according to ESET…
The Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a lower state court that ordered Alabama lawmakers to adopt a new map that either created two majority-Black districts, or “something quite close” to it. Instead, the Legislature approved a map with just one majority-Black district, with the next-highest Black-majority district having just under 40% of voting-age Black voters….
Attorney General Steve Marshall was also present at the Republican meeting, and expressed his thanks to the Republican-led Legislature for, at least temporarily, protecting a Republican-held congressional seat.
“I very much value the Legislature and the work that they did in this last session; it would have been very easy for them just to back down and believe they had to do something that they didn’t believe right,” Marshall said.
“Let’s make it clear, we elect a Legislature to reflect the values of the people that they represent, and I don’t think anybody in this room wanted this Legislature to adopt two districts that were going to guarantee that two Democrats would be elected.”
Marshall said that his office was looking forward to the newly-adopted map being litigated in a federal court hearing next week.
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* As Sen. Joe Manchin weighs his 2024 options, the conservative Democrat told a local media outlet this morning that he’s “thinking seriously” about becoming an independent. The incumbent, who’s current term ends next year, added, “I’ve been thinking seriously about that for quite some time.”
* President Joe Biden has picked up new endorsements from many of the nation’s most prominent gun safety groups. As part of a coordinated rollout, the Democratic incumbent can now claim the support of Brady and its youth-led arm, Team Enough; Community Justice Action Fund; Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action; and Giffords.
* With just 12 days remaining before the first debate for Republican presidential hopefuls, Donald Trump declared last night that he doesn’t intend to sign a loyalty pledge. The Republican National Committee has said candidates who intend to participate in the debate must formally vow to support the party’s eventual nominee.
* In related news, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of eight candidates who’ve qualified for the debate, signed the RNC’s loyalty pledge this week.
* Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, took the lead in championing the controversial Issue 1. Now that voters have easily rejected the measure, LaRose’s critics are using the results to make the case against his U.S. Senate candidacy.
* Ahead of Donald Trump’s possible indictment in Georgia, the former president’s 2024 campaign has launched a new television ad in the Atlanta area, attacking Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
* For months, it looked like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was gearing up for a presidential campaign, including making stops in Iowa and New Hampshire. So what happened? “The fact is, none of [the candidates in the GOP field] can win as long as Trump’s in the race. And that’s just the facts,” the Republican said on Fox News yesterday. “So why run if you can’t win?”
* And in case the Republicans’ U.S. Senate field in Nevada wasn’t already crowded enough, Air Force veteran Tony Grady, threw his hat into the ring this week. Others in the field include failed secretary of state candidates Jim Marchant, failed Senate candidate Sam Brown, and Jeff Gunter, a former Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to Iceland.
Yep, Biden is doing well in verbal battles with Fox News doofuses:
On Thursday morning, “Fox & Friends” […] ran with a video of an exchange between President Joe Biden and Fox News’ reporter Peter Doocy. In the video, Doocy asks the president, “There’s this testimony now, where one of your former business associates is claiming that you were on speaker phone a lot with them, talking business? Is that … wha–” at which point Biden cuts him off, saying, “I never talked business with anybody, and I knew you’d have a lousy question.”
Doocy feigns surprise at being called full of shit, but frankly, Biden was being nice. It was a lot worse than a “lousy” question. Doocy asks why it is a “lousy” question, and Biden rightfully answers, “Because it’s a lie.”
@363:
“The fact is, none of [the candidates in the GOP field] can win as long as Trump’s in the race. And that’s just the facts,” the Republican said on Fox News yesterday. “So why run if you can’t win?”
Because Trump is going to drop out eventually when he has trouble campaigning from inside a prison.
England forward Lauren James has been given a two-match ban by Fifa for her red card in the Women’s World Cup game with Nigeria.
James, 21, was sent off for stamping on the back of Michelle Alozie in the last 16-tie, which England won on penalties.
The dismissal came with an automatic one-game ban which Fifa has increased, meaning she will miss the semi-final if England get there…
After the game, England boss Sarina Wiegman said: “She is inexperienced on this stage and in a split-second lost her emotions. It isn’t something she did on purpose. She apologised and felt really bad…
Yes, she did it “on purpose.” Perhaps what Wiegman is trying to say is that it was not premeditated.
StevoRsays
@365. Reginald Selkirk : “Because Trump is going to drop out eventually when he has trouble campaigning from inside a prison.”
I so hope you are right.
That’s what should happen.
What should have already happened long ago.
But if that does not happen? What then?
If Trump stays in and manages to keep campoaigning and his cult followers are enough if the vote gets split .. (nom & POTUS-cy alike..) Nightmare scenario. Low probability. Happened before.. I wish I could rule it out. Say worst case scenario won’t happen.. But Fk!
It might.
So.. what then?
StevoRsays
I don’t think Trunmp will volunatarily drop out.
Especially given the threat of prison.
StevoRsays
Mian reason he’s running = fear of being jailed..
Reginald Selkirksays
If Trump stays in and manages to keep campoaigning and his cult followers are enough if the vote gets split …
That such scenarios cannot be ruled out worry me too.
But I think it is more probable that Trump and his cult staying in will split the Republican vote.
(3:29):The Republican Party spent almost the entirety of this election in panic trying to stop Donald Trump from being their nominee, and when they could not, surprise! They won the presidency, both houses of Congress and soon, a new seat on the Supreme Court. It’s like the GOP got caught in a plunging elevator, and they all fell screaming ten stories down—and then landed gently to have the doors open on a candy store where everything’s free.
Like everything else Trump offers, the candy was poison.
Congressional Republicans began last week with high expectations. Members of the House Oversight Committee were poised to sit down with a man named Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, which raised GOP hopes about explosive revelations.
Those hopes were quickly dashed. Archer testified under oath that President Joe Biden wasn’t involved with Burisma, didn’t talk business with his son’s associates, and didn’t take bribes, effectively shredding each of the Republicans’ core claims. We know this for certain because the GOP-led panel released a transcript of the Q&A. [Transcript at the link]
That was last week. This week, the same Republican-led Oversight Committee tried to pretend the developments weren’t an embarrassing failure for the party. Here’s a message the panel’s majority published online: “Self-appointed Biden defender [Rep. Dan Goldman] came to the Devon Archer interview with an agenda. Unfortunately for Rep. Goldman, the interview didn’t quite go the way he tried to push it.”
Two hours later, the Democratic New York congressman responded with a simple plea: Goldman asked people to simply read the transcript. […]
In fact, historian Heather Cox Richardson soon after responded that she’d taken the congressman’s advice. “I did, in fact, read the transcript, and Goldman is right,” she wrote. “The Republicans on the Oversight Committee are expecting their loyalists won’t read it.”
Let’s note that last sentence again for emphasis: “The Republicans on the Oversight Committee are expecting their loyalists won’t read it.”
Richardson’s point resonated with me because it’s a dynamic that comes up with remarkable frequency. Indeed, it came to the fore just last week, as the editorial page of The Kansas City Star practically begged people, especially Republicans, to read the latest indictment against Donald Trump.
Please read it. … Even if you are among those who say yes, he committed serious crimes and you’ll happily vote for him anyway, you still owe it to your country to acquaint yourself with what crimes it is that you’re willing to overlook. … If you don’t trust us to characterize what it says, read it for yourself.
The Star’s editors added, “If you are right that this is a political prosecution, or that if he did do something wrong it was nothing serious, or was in any case nothing others haven’t done, then this 45 pages will do nothing to challenge that view. If you’re not right, then don’t you want to know that?”
Reality-based observers also urged people to read Trump’s first indictment. And the Mueller report. And the Durham report. And the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings on the Russia scandal. In each instance, Republicans made all sorts of claims about the documents, but they made very little effort to actually read them. […]
Donald Trump has now officially rendered the Republican National Committee useless […]
On Wednesday, Trump told the right-wing outlet Newsmax he would not sign the RNC’s so-called loyalty pledge to support whoever won the 2024 Republican nomination.
“Why would I sign a pledge? There are people on there that I wouldn’t have,” Trump offered in the interview with Eric Bolling. “I can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president. So right there, there’s a problem right there,” he added, declining to name names. Trump did single out Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for praise, an admittedly clever way of putting two up and comers on notice that they might be in line for vice president if they play their cards right. […]
There’s only the Trump Party now. I don’t know if even putting him in jail will end this.
After months of quiet negotiations, Iran and the U.S. have reached an agreement that would see five American citizens considered to be unjustly detained released from custody and allowed to leave the country, ABC News has learned.
A lawyer representing one of the detainees tells ABC News that four of the five were released from Iran’s notorious Evin prison on Thursday and are currently under house arrest in the country.
The move sets the stage for what a person familiar with the negotiations described as “a process” that — if all goes well — could ultimately see the four freed along with a fifth U.S. national who was already under house arrest and, according to the White House, had previously been held in prison.
The detained U.S. citizens include Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz, as well as two others, a man and a woman, who asked that their identity not be made public…
I’ve often had occasion to turn to Daniel Davies’ classic advice on “the correct way to argue with Milton Friedman” over the two decades since I’ve read it. The best white hat hacker is a reformed black hat hacker, and Dan (dsquared) knows both the offense and defense sides of trolling.
Dan (back in 2004!):
I’m pretty sure that it was JK Galbraith (with an outside chance that it was Bhagwati) who noted that there is one and only one successful tactic to use, should you happen to get into an argument with Milton Friedman about economics. That is, you listen out for the words “Let us assume” or “Let’s suppose” and immediately jump in and say “No, let’s not assume that”. The point being that if you give away the starting assumptions, Friedman’s reasoning will almost always carry you away to the conclusion he wants to reach with no further opportunities to object, but that if you examine the assumptions carefully, there’s usually one of them which provides the function of a great big rug under which all the points you might want to make have been pre-swept. A few CT mates appear to be floundering badly over this Law & Economics post at Marginal Revolution on the subject of why it’s a bad idea to have minimum standards for rented accommodation. (Atrios is doing a bit better). So I thought I’d use it as an object lesson in applying the Milton Friedman technique.
In the same friendly spirit, I’ll note that Jonathan Katz flounders a bit in his rebuttal of Richard Hanania…
birgerjohanssonsays
Here is a news video describing the perfect storm “Hans” that has been stuck across Scandinavia and the Baltic states for days.
Since this was made, Norway has been hit even worse. https://youtu.be/Ths2OaiPb_g
whheydtsays
I’ve never met Milton Friedman, but I’m on first name terms with his son.
Switzerland is roiled by controversy after getting called out by a U.S. government agency for falling for a plot orchestrated by notorious Trump Tower lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
“Switzerland is fighting for its reputation,” wrote Swiss newspaper of record Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
The fallout comes after the U.S. Helsinki Commission wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggesting that three Swiss nationals—two ex-prosecutors and one former law enforcement official—should be sanctioned by the U.S. “These individuals have abetted Russian nationals sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act,” the letter read.
Veselnitskaya, the pro-Kremlin lawyer who attended an infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner in 2016, held secret talks with one of the men—Vinzenz Schnell—while he was supposed to be investigating the Magnitsky affair, one of the world’s most notorious frauds, which Veselnitskaya was tasked with covering up.
One of the Schnell-Veselnitskaya summits took place in Moscow on an illicit trip to Russia bankrolled by the Russians. Schnell, who was a consultant to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office at the time, was eventually fired and convicted when it emerged that he had been gifted multiple luxury vacations, including a bear hunting escapade, all while he was in a key position investigating the case against a network of Russians who had funneled some of the stolen $230 million into Swiss bank accounts.
During one of these trips to the picturesque Lake Baikal he was photographed with Switzerland’s attorney general Michael Lauber and prosecutor Patrick Lamon—the other two men targeted by the Helsinki Commission—along with senior Russian officials.
Despite Schnell’s conviction—and the details of Veselnitskaya’s influence campaign being aired in open court—Switzerland decided to return 80 percent of the funds that had been frozen by the authorities to sanctioned Russians, as first reported by The Daily Beast…
A self-proclaimed white supremacist was arrested Thursday on charges that he made online threats toward the jury and witnesses at the trial of a man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Hardy Carroll Lloyd of Follansbee, West Virginia, is accused of sending threatening social media posts and emails along with comments on websites about the trial of Robert Bowers. In addition, Lloyd, 45, allegedly was responsible for stickers placed in predominantly Jewish areas of Pittsburgh directing people to a website containing his threats and antisemitic messages, the Justice Department said in a news release…
A Wisconsin judge on Thursday allowed a civil lawsuit filed against 10 fake electors for former President Donald Trump and two of his attorneys to proceed, rejecting a move to dismiss the case…
The pending civil lawsuit, filed by two Democratic electors and a voter, seeks $2.4 million from the fake GOP electors and two of Trump’s attorneys, alleging they were part of a conspiracy by Trump and his allies to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential race. It also seeks to disqualify the Republicans from ever serving as electors again…
[…] Russia has notched significant gains in Ukraine’s northeast, quickly gobbling up territory on the approach to Kupyansk. Meanwhile, Ukraine is pushing forward in the delta islands south of Kherson.
The war has become a game of chess. There are finite reinforcements, and both sides need to determine where to deploy what they have left. Whoever chooses right will have the upper hand in this next stage of the war.
Kupiansk is the critical logistical hub that once keystoned Russia’s entire occupation of northeastern Ukraine, and in particular, Kharkiv oblast. Ukraine’s liberation of the town in mid-September of last year led to the collapse of the entire Russian presence in that region, from the town of Izyum (and just below it, tiny Dovhen’ke), all the way up to the Russian border.
In the face of that Ukrainian advance, Russia’s defenses finally held outside of Kreminna, on the southern edge of this front, and Svatove further up north. You might remember Svatove as a possible point of attack for Ukraine’s current counteroffensive. It was the lower-risk, lower-gain option. Though given Russia’s current advances, picking this point might’ve had more utility than we assumed. [map at the link]
The reason to attack here would be to reach Starobilsk and liberate that entire swath of red in northeastern Ukraine, all of it agricultural steppe. It would’ve cut off Russia’s supply lines from Belgorod, forcing Russia to run its war supplies through eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Still, I assumed that the supply line had already been mostly phased out, hence the lack of interest from Ukrainian general staff. Instead, that supply line is now feeding the current Russian advances toward Kupyansk. [map at the link]
Ukraine has ordered a full evacuation of all the villages between the current Russian advance heading toward Kupyansk from the north. Meanwhile, Novoselivske has fallen back into Russian hands. You probably don’t remember that town. It is tiny but strategic, and we were so excited when Ukraine liberated it back in January. That’s no more. Also, Ukrainian forces have lost ground in the forests around Kreminna.
Ukraine has clearly moved its most experienced and best equipped units down to the Zaporizhzhia front, leaving this corner of the map manned by less capable Territorial Defense Forces. Its general staff will have to make some hard choices on how much to reinforce the map and push back against Russian gains that will be, necessarily, tenuous.
Not that Russia is devoid of hard questions as well.
Southeast of Kherson, on the other side of the Dnipro, Ukrainian forces staged a surprise attack on the town of Kozachi Laheri. While some sources described this as a “raid,” others claimed the fighting had been ongoing for 1-2 days. While Russian propagandists are making sure people know that Russia still retains control of the settlement, there is plenty of geolocated evidence of heavy fighting.
Ukraine still has significant logistical difficulties in moving forces, equipment, and supplies across the Dnipro, but it is becoming more aggressive in pushing south into that contested delta marshland. A Ukrainian established presence in this area would be a direct threat to Russia’s Crimean supply lines and Melitopol’s western flank. [map at the link]
So now Russia has to decide—is this a serious enough threat to its flanks that it needs to send its own reinforcements to handle the situation? It’s certainly not as big a situation as the fighting around Kupyansk, but without a proper Russian response, it can certainly blossom into one.
Meanwhile, at the main front, Ukrainian forces have, at reportedly high cost, established their first foothold in Robotyne. That area is a hornet’s nest of Russian defenses: [map at the link]
It’s been slow, grueling work, but Ukraine has advanced on both the town’s flanks, mostly marked here as contested gray area.
Not only would Robotyne’s liberation break the first of three Russian defensive lines on the path to strategic Tokmak, a key logistical hub for the area much as Kupyansk was, but it would put Tokmak in range of Ukrainian tube artillery, further messing with Russia’s logistics along this critical part of the front. Currently, Ukraine needs to use scarce and precious GMLRS rocket artillery to hit those targets.
On another part of this front, Ukraine now has a foothold in Urozhaine. This is the approach toward Mariupol with a single major defensive line. All those Ukrainian armored units, they’re waiting for the opening through these minefield-infested defenses before romping in the backfield. At least that’s the obvious hope. [Tweet and maps at the link]
————————-
This is infuriating: [tweet and video at the link: Air Force spokesman Yuryi Ignat explains why only 8 pilots will conduct training on the F-16 in the first place.
"We are just talking about the first batch of pilots, others will be sent after them . Perhaps the pilots will be scattered in different countries. Because knowledge of the English language, which not all Ukrainian pilots possess, is also important."]
Yes, the West has dithered on approving F-16s for the Ukrainian air force, but it’s been over a year. No one in Ukraine thought it would be important to offer English-language training for key pilots?
English is the language of NATO. You want to use NATO-standard equipment, trained by NATO personnel, you learn English. This should’ve been ongoing from the moment Ukrainian general staff thought “we have to get our hands on Western gear.” They’ve used interpreters to teach Ukrainians how to operate other equipment, but these are fighter jets. You can’t have interpreters translating training commands while flying these single-seat jets.
————————–
[Tweet and images at the link: For the first time, ammo produced by the DPRK was spotted in the hands of the Russian military- North Korean 🇰🇵 R-122 122mm rockets recently started to be issued to Russian BM-21 Grad crews.
According to the images, nearly all markings on the rockets were sanitized.]
Mighty Russia, propped up by Iran and North Korea. How humiliating.
————————-
[Tweet and video at the link: Laura Ingraham describes Russia’s war against Ukraine as “the regime’s war in Ukraine.” Tommy Tuberville responds by saying “it’s a junior high team playing a college team. They can’t win.”]
The deaths of 36 people have been confirmed from fires that tore through Maui, and mass evacuations continue for visitors and residents. Six fires are burning on Maui and the Big Island. Officials say that they are still trying to get a handle on the fires and that search and rescue remains a primary concern.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday flatly denied that she had a relationship with a former client and other rumors spread by former President Donald Trump in a new campaign ad.
In an email to her colleagues, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis called the information in a television spot bankrolled by the Trump campaign ‘derogatory and false.’ She urged her staff not to respond to any of the allegations.
“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, sent early Wednesday. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”
[…] In the minute-long ad, titled “The Fraud Squad,” the narrator refers to Willis as “Biden’s newest lackey.” It says that Willis presided over a sharp rise of violent crimes in Atlanta and highlights her office being disqualified from investigating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in her long-running election interference case due to a political conflict of interest.
But the most incendiary allegation is that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” It cites as evidence a Jan. 25, 2023, article in Rolling Stone. [video at the link]
But the ad gets several facts wrong. The Rolling Stone article is an interview with YSL Mondo, one of Willis’ former clients in 2019 when she worked as a defense attorney, and it doesn’t make reference to any sort of affair.</b?
In the interview, Mondo is quoted saying that he had some “auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type of talks” with Willis. But the article notes that the two didn’t talk after his case was resolved.
After Willis was elected DA, her office opened a racketeering case against the rapper Young Thug and the alleged street gang Young Slime Life. YSL Mondo co-founded the Young Slime Life music crew with Young Thug in the early 2010s, according to Rolling Stone, and in the article commented that the Willis who defended him is not the same person who would pursue such a racketeering case.
Trump made a similar baseless relationship allegation against Willis during a Tuesday campaign rally in Windham, N.H.
“I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member,” Trump said. “And this is a person that wants to indict me.”
Since then, his comments have been amplified by several right wing activists.
The Trump campaign paid $79,000 for “The Fraud Squad” ad to run on cable news channels in metro Atlanta between Aug. 9 and 13, according to Medium Buying, which tracks political ad spending.
[…] The spot also accuses Willis of presiding over violent crime rates that have “exploded,” and cites Atlanta murder rate numbers that are more than two years old. In fact, homicide numbers in the city are down this year after reaching a 26-year high in 2022. After increasing for three years, violent crime in Atlanta in 2022 returned to near the historic low set in 2018, according to data fromThe Atlanta Regional Commission.
Trump has long accused Willis of being a “racist” on a “witch hunt” against him for his “perfect” Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which he pressured the fellow Republican to “find” him 11,780 votes and told him he could be legally exposed if he didn’t. His amped up rhetoric comes days before Willis is expected to pursue charges against Trump and many of his allies for criminally interfering in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
In recent days, Willis has shared some of the racist, obscene and threatening messages she and her office have received since opening her investigation.
“I am sending to you in case you are unclear on what I and my staff have come accustomed to over the last 2½ years,” Willis told Fulton County leaders in a recent email. “I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe.”
Donald Trump and the fascist-supporting, billionaire-funded rightwing have been lying to you about these indictments, particularly the federal one that charges Trump with trying to overturn the 2020 election in defiance of the Constitution and federal law.
His lawyer has been all over TV telling anybody who will listen that Joe Biden ordered this prosecution and that it’s all about “denying Trump’s free speech right to question an election.”
Both are lies, being spun to try to justify a criminal conspiracy of shocking proportions that nearly ended the American Experiment after 247 years.
First off, Joe Biden has had nothing to do with this: if he had, there would have been shocked news about it out of the DOJ like there was when Trump ordered them to investigate and try to prosecute Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden.
Special counsel Jack Smith is independent of both Biden’s office and Merrick Garland’s: that’s the whole point of a special counsel. It’s why Nixon was only able to rid himself of a special counsel by firing him.
Remember the “Saturday Night Massacre” of October 20, 1973?
Attorney General Elliot Richardson had appointed Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox to look into Nixon’s association with the Watergate break-in, and that night in 1973 Nixon ordered him fired. Richardson refused and resigned, leaving William Ruckelshaus in charge of the DOJ. Nixon ordered Ruckelshaus to fire Cox and he, too, refused and resigned, leaving Robert Bork in charge. Bork carried out the order and Cox was fired.
Jack Smith is operating independently of the DOJ just like Cox was (and Ken Starr was): they can’t give him marching orders of any sort; the only authority they have is to fire him or not.
Second, Trump’s lawyers are claiming that Trump had every right to say whatever he wanted to about the election, which is true. But that’s purely a straw-man argument: nowhere in the indictment does it say he’s being prosecuted for expressing his opinions.
In fact, the second page of the indictment makes that totally clear:
The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.
He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures.
Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.
Instead, Trump has been charged with several specific crimes that have little to do with his “free speech” about the election. They include:
・“A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371;
・“A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified (“the certification proceeding”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k); and
・“A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.”
Trump literally tried to prevent the votes of Democrats — specifically Democratic voters in cities with large Black populations — from being counted. Instead, he wanted them thrown out or ignored so, even though he lost the election by 7 million votes, he could claim he was still president.
In his effort to do this, he engaged in specific actions designed to end American democracy and turn our republic into a totalitarian strongman oligarchy.
Trump promoted and publicized repeated lies about the integrity of the election itself, all to create public acceptance of his efforts to overturn the election. In this, he was attacking the foundation of American democracy: the right to vote and have your vote counted. And to a tragically large extent those lies have worked on gullible Republican voters: about 70 percent now believe those repeatedly disproven lies.
Trump conspired with Republicans in seven states to organize slates of fake electors that could be used to criminally overturn the election results and throw out the ballots of people who’d voted for Joe Biden.
Trump tried to get Mike Pence assassinated, presumably so he could declare a state of emergency and have the military seize ballot boxes and impose martial law. Trump repeatedly told his followers the lie that Pence had the power to overturn the election, eliciting the predictable rage — and murder attempt — from them when Pence refused.
Twice in the indictment the specter of the US military taking over our nation is raised; as I noted last week, it would have been Kent State times a thousand. Trump then watched approvingly on TV as the mob searched for Pence, chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” with a fully functional and professionally made gallows sitting on the lawn of the Capitol.
The indictment even notes that Trump “caused” his campaign to issue a statement that Pence agreed with Trump, when Trump knew it was a lie and would put a target on Pence’s back.
While this is technically speech, it’s the kind of speech that nearly caused the death of Pence and did cause the death of nine other people, including four police officers, and the injury and hospitalization of over 140 other officers. It clearly falls into the “yelling fire in a crowded theater” exception to the First Amendment.
Along those lines, Trump repeatedly and knowingly told other lies that were designed to bolster and gain public acceptance for his criminal conspiracy to get the swing states to throw out the ballots of Democratic voters. They include, as summarized in the indictment:
— The lie that “the election was stolen” and he had “actually won.” (Page 1)
— The lie that the fake electors’ ballots could legitimately be counted. (Page 5)
— The lie, which he tried repeatedly to get the DOJ to put on their letterhead and send out to the seven swing states, that that agency and the Attorney General believed the election had been riddled with fraud (this led to Bill Barr’s resignation). (Page 6)
— The lie that thousands of “dead people” voted in Georgia (Secretary of State Raffensperger told Trump he could only find two dead people whose ballots had been turned in). (Page 8)
— The lie that Pennsylvania had counted almost a quarter-million more votes than there were registered voters in the states. (Page 8)
— The lie that there were “dumps” of pro-Biden votes in Detroit, a lie he repeated even after both Attorney General Bill Barr told him it hadn’t happened and that was confirmed by Michigan’s Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mike Shirkey. (Page 9)
— The lie, which he repeated even after it had been refuted by Nevada’s Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, that “thousands” of Nevadans had voted more than once. (Page 9)
— The lie, which he repeated even after it had been refuted by Arizona’s Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers, that “over 36,000” non-citizens voted in that state. (Page 10)
— The lie, which he repeated even after the head of his Cybersecurity agency told him was false, that voting machines were switching Trump votes to Biden. As the indictment notes: “The Defendant’s Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.” (Pages 9 and 12)
— The lie that Georgia election workers were “stuffing” the ballot boxes with Biden votes, and that “thousands” of people outside the state of Georgia had voted in that state. (Pages 13, 14, 16)
— The lies, repeated after the Wisconsin state Supreme Court had ruled them lies, that “tens of thousands” of fraudulent votes were cast in that state and that more votes were counted than there were registered voters. (Page 21)
— The lie that Pennsylvania officials wanted the election re-certified. (Page 38).
As you can see, this wasn’t an exercise in free speech: it was a planned, organized, carefully executed conspiracy to defraud Biden voters in those seven states out of their right to have their votes counted.
Which may be why some Republicans say they believe Trump’s lies: what’s actually going on is that many know he lied and committed crimes but nonetheless support his attempt to steal the election from a Democrat. Trump’s public supporters don’t, in other words, believe in democracy. To cover up that tolerance for criminality, they pretend this is all about free-speech.
But it’s not. It’s about criminal fraud.
Fraud almost always involves speech: it’s hard to defraud somebody out of something without talking to or at them. But that doesn’t even remotely make it protected by the First Amendment’s free speech provision. Our prisons are filled with people who defrauded others purely with their words.
When Trump defrauded thousands of Trump University students out of their hard-earned money, for example, he was convicted and ordered to pay $25 million in restitution for the things he said. Had it been a criminal rather than civil case, he could have gone to jail: the attorneys for Trump’s victims, however, opted for the money instead of jail time.
So why would you go along with his criminality? Because either you share his bigotry or you believed his other lies on the campaign trail.
The bottom line is that you, dear Trump lover, have been lied to literally thousands of times by this man and his sycophants.
Trump lied to you when he said he was going to give everybody in America inexpensive healthcare that was “better than Obamacare.”
He lied to you when he said that he’d cut your taxes and then instead cut taxes for himself and his billionaire buddies.
He lied to you when he said he’d bring our jobs back from China and then instead got China to give his daughter tens of millions of dollars worth of patents.
He lied to you when he said he’d rebuild America’s infrastructure: instead, Biden has put trillions into rebuilding our nation.
He lied to you when he said he had “the best economy in history”; instead, Biden has created more jobs than Trump, Bush Jr., and Bush Sr. combined.
He even lied to you about Covid, causing deaths from that disease to run about twice as high in Red counties as in Blue counties since the vaccines became available.
And now Trump isn’t alone in pushing these lies.
The media outlets who gloss over Trump’s lies do so because it’s profitable for them: when, for example, Fox “News” stopped supporting Trump’s lies for a few weeks they lost a large chunk of their audience to another TV network that was willing to parrot his lies. Which is why they’re now back to supporting his lies and are again making money.
The politicians who approve of or repeat Trump’s lies do so because they see it as their path to fame and power: they want you to believe those lies and then vote for them.
And the billionaires who push Trump and his lies through their publications, think-tanks, and media outlets do so because they believe if he’s re-elected, they’ll get even more tax breaks and that Trump will continue his efforts to gut the IRS and EPA, which they hate.
The simple reality, dear Trump-lover, is that you’ve been suckered.
Groups opposed to Maine’s new law expanding abortion access won’t attempt to nullify the statute through a so-called People’s Veto referendum.
Republican Rep. Laurel Libby, leader of the Speak Up for LIFE group, said Wednesday that allies have decided to focus their resources on electing candidates who are opposed to abortions instead of collecting signatures and running a referendum campaign.
“At the end of the day, we want to put our effort into the most effective place possible,” Libby, a Republican from Auburn, told The Associated Press. That means flipping legislative seats, she said, particularly in the Maine House.
The bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills last month allows abortions at any time if deemed medically necessary by a doctor, making the law one of the nation’s least restrictive. The previous law, the Reproductive Privacy Act of 1993, banned abortions after a fetus became viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks, with an exception if the patient’s life is at risk…
Six Western nations marked the 15th anniversary of Russia’s takeover of 20% of Georgia’s territory by demanding on Thursday that Moscow return the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions.
A joint statement by the six members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Albania, Japan and Malta — said Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 “marked a more aggressive trend” in its policy toward its neighbors, something being witnessed today in Ukraine…
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #389…
I saw that reported the other day. My reaction was the same as yours.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lauren Boebert gets things wrong again. Farron Cousins comments.
birgerjohansson, surely you can force your phone’s (or computer’s) browser to use specific fonts. It’s a thing.
(Because you’re working ever so hard, pointlessly)
John Moralessays
… or you know, you could preview what you post — both links, that is — and click on each one to determine which is the correct textual sequence. Then edit the previewed text to exclude the false text.
That would work, for sure. But it might take some effort on your part.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #389
Yup, they know they would lose. They also hope to get more extremist legislators into the state house to advance the real agenda — all those horrible taxes (my dad, up in Maine, knows a man who is furious that the annual state tax on his Land Rover is so much higher than the gut down the road with a 35-year-old Isuzu — that’s not fair!), restrictions on what businesses can do, minimum wage law, etc. Abortion is, and has always been, a way to get poor and middle class people to vote to transfer even more money to the rich.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Two new mammal species. If only we were finding new species as fast as we are driving others to the brink of extinction. Or past it.
Scientists have identified two new moles which may have been living undiscovered in the mountains of eastern Turkey for up to three million years.
The animals, named Talpa hakkariensis and Talpa davidiana tatvanensis, belong to a familiar group of subterranean, invertebrate-eating mammals found across Europe and Western Asia.
While only one species of mole, Talpa europaea, is found in Britain, further east there are a number of different moles, many of which have very small geographical ranges.
The researchers, using cutting edge DNA technology, have confirmed the new animals are biologically distinct from other moles.
Both inhabit mountainous regions in eastern Turkey and are able to survive in temperatures of up to 50C in summer and being buried under two metres of snow in winter. [ . . . ]
I am so tired of hearing (and reading) conservatives wail about how unprecedented all of this is. Why don’t they also talk about a federal judge being escorted by US Marshals to get coffee as unprecedented?
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case over the alleged 2020 election conspiracy is flanked by U.S. Marshals when she goes to get a coffee, and that’s “extremely rare,” a former federal prosecutor said Thursday.
Kristy Greenberg appeared late Thursday evening on the 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, and was asked about the pending protective order hearing in the criminal case against the former president in D.C. Jack Smith has asked for a more strict order, while Trump’s team has sought one that allows him to litigate some issues in the court of public opinion.
Greenberg said she expects the judge to issue an order that goes closer to what Smith is seeking, especially considering the “extremely rare” circumstances.
“As long as we are talking unprecedented, Kristy, this judge, when she goes to get a coffee, is now flanked by U.S. marshals. How rare is that?” she’s asked by the host.
Donald Trump launches attack on the judge who will preside over his new
“Extremely rare, and sad, and infuriating,” she answered. “I mean, at some point a line needs to be drawn here, where, look, Donald Trump can vigorously maintain his innocence. He should vigorously defend his case. But he should not be able to threaten people. He shouldn’t be able to incite violence. He shouldn’t be able to just threaten and intimidate witnesses, the judge, potential juror jurors. There’s a chilling effect that happens to potential jurors and witnesses.”
Note to self: change will to include the use of garbage disposal for means of disposal of remains… Not like I’d want to use them afterwards and recycling and all.
The proposed approximately 240-mile route would offer a total travel time of less than 90 minutes between two of the top five major U.S. metropolitan areas and would complement future, new and improved corridor and long-distance service in the southern region…
johnson catmansays
re wzrd1 @399: A wood chipper would probably be easier to use and less prone to jamming or malfunction. Plus, you could still use it for the original purpose afterwards. ;-P
wzrd1says
Both inhabit mountainous regions in eastern Turkey and are able to survive in temperatures of up to 50C in summer and being buried under two metres of snow in winter.
Wow! That’s a seriously impressive lifecycle! Basically, they’re dormant for most of the year, managing to eat for phenomenally short periods and somehow, managing to reproduce on top of that! Beyond impressive.
I can manage with 50C in summer, the snow thing, not so much. Getting food under those conditions by foraging, not so much.
Context, I’m comfortable at 23 – 25 C, with moderately low humidity, the remainder being STP. The higher the temperature, the lower meat consumption, as required processing involves exothermic reactions, basically, grass wilts, meat cooks.
The only general rule of thumb that I observe, as I never was into wife beating.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Folks, I know how easily it is to indulge in fantasies about people we really do not like, but remember that even Trump and the asshole in Pittsburg are people, NOT monsters. I have occasional fantasies about the men who raped me when I was younger, but I squelch them quickly and I do not toss them out into a public arena. Seriously, this type of revenge fantasy sounds more like the revenge fantasies of Trump and his fellow travellers.
Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team have asked for a trial date that would commence weeks before ex-President Donald Trump would begin participating in GOP primaries, and cited a Fox News hit in the filing.
Smith’s team filed a motion for a relatively short date to sent Trump to trial on his indictment by Smith’s grand jury for his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election before and on January 6, 2021. Trump faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
In the filing, Smith proposes a January 2, 2024 date — weeks before the Iowa caucuses:
The Government proposes that trial begin on January 2, 2024, and estimates that its case in chief will take no longer than four to six weeks. This trial date, and the proposed schedule outlined below, would give the defendant time to review the discovery in this case and prepare a defense, and would allow the Court and parties to fully litigate any pre-trial legal issues. Most importantly, a January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial—an interest guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law in all cases, but of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, obstruct the certification of the election results, and discount citizens’ legitimate votes.
The filing cites several of Trump attorney John Lauro’s many media hits, including an appearance on Fox News Channel’s The Ingraham Angle, in arguing against Trump’s attempts to push for a longer date:
At the defendant’s initial appearance, and in several television interviews, defense counsel has suggested that the Speedy Trial Act is intended only to protect the defendant’s rights. See, e.g., 8/3/23 Hr’g Tr. at 17 (“Of course, the Speedy Trial Act protects a defendant’s rights”); 8/3/23 Fox News, Ingraham Angle (“Speedy trials rights are a defendant’s speedy trial rights. A citizen’s speedy trial rights. Not the government.” 2 ).
Not so. Under both the Sixth Amendment’s Speedy Trial Clause and the Speedy Trial Act, the right to a timely trial is vested in the public, not just in the defendant. See Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 519 (1972) (“The right to a speedy trial is generically different from any of the other rights enshrined in the Constitution for the protection of the accused,” since “there is a societal interest in providing a speedy trial which exists separate from, and at times in opposition to, the interests of the accused.”); Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489, 501 (2006) (“[T]he [Speedy Trial] Act was designed not just to benefit defendants but also to serve the public interest by, among other things, reducing defendants’ opportunity to commit crimes while on pretrial release and preventing extended pretrial delay from impairing the deterrent effect of punishment.”); United States v. Gambino, 59 F.3d 353, 360 (2d Cir. 1995) (“[T]he public has as great an interest in a prompt criminal trial as has the defendant. Certainly, the public is the loser when a criminal trial is not prosecuted expeditiously, as suggested by the aphorism, ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’”).
Thus far, Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s rulings have broken in favor of a speedier proceeding and against delays.
wzrd1says
Entertaining, stepped onto the scale to check my weight, got Tilt.
OK, actually, Err.
Due to ‘weakness’ in one leg (actually, the opposite is true, proprioception is defective, strength is unimpacted – annoyingly at times), wobbly gave the entertaining result.
Reweighing resulted in annoyance, got another pound to shed, looking at losing 15 pounds minimum to keep the tonnage down and hence, glycemic index lower.
Familial trait being fat accumulation, followed by type 2 diabetes. Followed by also familial high cholesterol and that whole arterial disease thing.
More into that death by everything falling off thing. Probably, due to my liver falling off, justifiably.
birgerjohanssonsays
I don’t want to kill Trump and DeSantis., I just want to throw them in an arena with the grumpiest grizzly I can find, let them run a few laps around it and then let them out. Before they lose bits that are necessary for survival.
BTW I am Swedish, but I would not have begrudged the American team a victory last week. Considering how the misogynic idiots celebrate their defeat.
Idea: Any senator or congresscritter that accepted donations from the oil & coal lobby should be drafted to fight firestorms in Hawa’i and elsewhere.
birgerjohanssonsays
Reginald Selkirk @ 400
I do not have a map in front of me but if that investment is to be done, it would make sense to attach smaller urban centers along the route and maybe build new ones.
It would reduce the growing pains of the two big cities if ultrafast commuting became possible.
Also, the high-speed rail could be extended beyond the two major cities.
If you have read William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” you will recall BAMA (the Boston – Atlanta Metropolitan Axis connected by high-speed rail) aka “the Sprawl”.
birgerjohanssonsays
Reginald Selkirk @ 400.
I have looked at a map. There are several possible routes between the cities that would link up several smaller cities to the network. And a spur through Waco would connect Austin.
Unfortunately to extend a high-speed network to the East Coast it would not be able to grow organically, as the yokel/MAGA domain of Arkansas, Missisippi and Alabama offers few destinations that motivate very expensive investments.
You would need the federal government to invest a bajillion $ to extend a high-speed network from Texas to Atlanta and onwards, and USA is so full of almost-collapsing old infrastructure that the money is better spent elsewhere.
Hmm… apply “stargate” tech? You would go East without passing through Alabama and other intervening space, a concept I find highly appealing.
Oggie: Mathomsays
birgerjohansson & Reginald Selkirk:
I don’t see it happening for one very major reason. It has nothing to do with the usefulness of the high-speed rail line. It has nothing to do with the feasibility of the project. The problem is that the project would require not only private investment (which would most likely be available) but also state and federal investment. And the construction jobs are, many of them, union jobs. The railroaders — train crew, track workers, electricians, mechanics, etc., are also well-paid union workers. And the state of Texas, as well as the MAGA congress critters are adamantly against any public investment which will create more union jobs.
This has been proposed before (I remember reading about it in TRAINS magazine a decade or two ago) and it foundered on the creation of union jobs in Texas.
When Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier in June, the host asked the former president what he considers “the most important issue” facing the country. The Republican talked about the economy, border security, and getting “the woke out of our military” — I still don’t know what that means — before focusing on his principal point of concern.
“Basically, respect all over the world,” Trump said. “We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect three years ago. We don’t have respect anymore. … We have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we’ve got some big problems.”
Two months later, I have some good news for the former president — though I have a hunch he won’t be glad to see it. The Washington Post reports:
After four years of decline during Donald Trump’s presidency, America’s reputation abroad is bouncing back. That’s a major takeaway from a new Pew Research Center survey on international views toward the United States.
The survey data was compiled in June, Richard Wike, the director of global attitudes at the Pew Research Center, discussed the results this week at a forum held by the University of Southern California’s Washington center.
Wike explained that international attitudes toward the United States have “certainly rebounded since President Biden was elected.” Not all of the news was encouraging — the Pew Research Center also found concerns abroad about the U.S. “interfering” in other countries’ affairs — but the researcher added that “there’s been a big shift in America’s global image in a positive direction.”
This encouraging news is consistent with other data from the last couple of years. Revisiting our earlier coverage, a Gallup report in 2021 found that approval ratings of U.S. leadership around the world had “largely rebounded from the record-low ratings observed during the Trump administration.” Around the same time, the Pew Research Center released a related report documenting “dramatic” improvements in the United States’ international stature once Biden replaced Trump in the Oval Office.
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.”
The latest Pew Research Center data, in other words, is consistent with the recent trend.
And yet, there was Trump on Fox News in June, insisting that under Biden, we no longer have “respect all over the world,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had the entire dynamic backward.
[…] 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 tell Americans, “The world respects us again.” The Republican added, in an apparent message for his Democratic successor, “Please don’t lose that respect.”
None of this made any sense. After roughly 46% of American voters put Trump in the White House, international public opinion research showed that our global stature collapsed. […]
If Trump is genuinely convinced that international respect for the United States is “the most important issue” facing the country, I have good news and bad news for the former president. The good news is that the country’s standing has rebounded nicely; the bad news is that it’s Biden who’s helped deliver the encouraging results.
Reginald Selkirksays
@407: Putting in a lot of intermediate stops means that the trains would seldom approach their top speed of 205 mph.
Beneath the turquoise waters of Lake Ohrid, the “Pearl of the Balkans,” scientists have uncovered what may be one of Europe’s earliest sedentary communities, and are trying to solve the mystery of why it sheltered behind a fortress of defensive spikes.
A stretch of the Albanian shore of the lake once hosted a settlement of stilt houses some 8,000 years ago, archaeologists believe, making it the oldest lakeside village in Europe discovered to date.
Radiocarbon dating from the site puts it at between 6000 and 5800 BC.
“It is several hundred years older than previously known lake-dwelling sites in the Mediterranean and Alpine regions,” said Albert Hafner, a professor of archaeology from Switzerland’s University of Bern…
Michael Cohen, who served as former President Trump’s personal attorney, said in a new interview that he is considering a run for Congress.
Cohen told Semafor he is “interested” in running as a Democrat. Cohen added that he is currently living on the East Side of Manhattan, meaning he would potentially make a bid for New York’s 12th Congressional District seat, now held by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.)…
Former Gov. Chris Christie is running for president, but by all appearances, his party’s 2024 nomination is not the only thing the New Jersey Republican wants. Christie seems equally focused on a related goal: infuriating Donald Trump.
There’s reason to believe the former governor is succeeding.
In theory, the former president should feel free to ignore Christie. According to the latest data from FiveThirtyEight, Trump is cruising to the GOP nomination, leading the crowded field with nearly 54% support. Christie, meanwhile, is in seventh place, with roughly 2.6% support. Common sense suggests the former need not pay attention to the latter.
And yet Trump talks about his former ally a lot, both on the campaign trail — the “fat pig” rhetoric this week was unusually ugly — and on the former president’s social media platform. Indeed, just last night the 2024 frontrunner wrote a missive that read in part:
“Reported that Sloppy Chris Christie said I only built 50 Miles of Wall on the Southern Border. Wrong! I built almost 500 Miles of Wall, including the fact that some very dilapidated areas had to be completely demolished with new Wall then built. He knows this but keeps repeating the lies. … Loser!”
For those who don’t watch the Republican candidates closely, it’s worth appreciating the fact that this back-and-forth fight has been ongoing for a while. Christie has mocked Trump for failing to erect a significant amount of new border barriers, only to have the former president lash out furiously in response. This, naturally, has led Christie to keep needling Trump — he knows he’s touched a nerve — which in turn has generated more hysterics from the former president.
[…] The problem for Trump— one of them, anyway — is that Christie has the facts on his side. In May, after Trump boasted that he “built hundreds of miles of wall” and “finished” the project, The New York Times explained:
The Trump administration constructed 453 miles of border wall over four years, and a vast majority of the new barriers reinforced or replaced existing structures. Of that, about 47 miles were new primary barriers. The United States’ southwestern border with Mexico is over 1,900 miles, and during his campaign, Mr. Trump had vowed to build a wall across the entire border and make Mexico pay for it. Mexico did not pay for the barriers that had been constructed.
Just so we’re all clear, the entire border wall project was a rather embarrassing failure. I realize that the GOP’s presidential contenders — including Christie, who used to know better — are promising to pick up where Trump left off, but that’s a tough position to defend as a substantive matter: The misguided idea simply didn’t work.
But if we’re going to have a conversation about it anyway, we should at least rely on accurate details. Christie keeps saying that the Trump administration only managed to add roughly 47 miles’ worth of new border barriers, while Trump keeps saying “the actual number is 463 Miles.”
The actual number is 47 miles. The more the former president pushed back against Christie, the more frequently we’re reminded of the fact that Christie’s claim is true.
Sen. Ted Cruz has taken a keen interest in his party’s attempts to manufacture a corruption scandal surrounding President Joe Biden. In fact, after talking up the increasingly absurd story on Fox News last night, the Texas Republican made a curious claim via social media:
“There’s never been an allegation in the history of our country that a President of the United States, or then Vice President in Joe Biden’s alleged case, sold official favors for millions of dollars.”
[LOL]
As much as I appreciated the GOP senator throwing in the word “alleged,” it’s difficult to defend such irresponsible rhetoric. Republicans have spent the better part of 2023 trying to find evidence of an imagined “bribery” scandal that doesn’t exist, and their efforts have failed spectacularly.
Indeed, the party’s star witness recently testified that the president wasn’t involved with Burisma, didn’t talk business with his son’s associates, and didn’t take bribes, effectively shredding each of the Republicans’ core claims. (We know this for certain because the GOP-led panel released a transcript of the Q&A.)
It reached the point this week that some of the House Republicans most determined anti-Biden crusaders conceded that they’ve found no evidence against the president — though they made the case that they no longer believe that evidence of wrongdoing is necessary.
Or put another way, the “allegations” Cruz is so eager to promote remain entirely baseless.
[…] What really stood out in the Texan’s message wasn’t his unfair anti-Biden smear; it was his errors related to history.
A vice president has never been accused of selling official favors for money? That’s plainly wrong.
For example, Schuyler Colfax, Ulysses S. Grant’s vice president, was caught up in the Crédit Mobilier scandal which involved cash bribes to powerful officials. The allegations ruined Colfax’s career, and nearly led to his impeachment.
But even if Cruz is unfamiliar with mid-19th century American politics, I would’ve hoped the senator was at least somewhat familiar with Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s vice president, who carried out a bribery and extortion ring while in office.
The Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Plant in Moscow Oblast, where an explosion occurred on 9 August, participated in the development of a next-generation stealth bomber…
Vladimir Putin has saved human civilisation by invading Ukraine, according to a new propaganda-heavy textbook being taught to Russian schoolchildren.
As the Kremlin struggles to explain to ordinary Russians why they are being asked to make sacrifices for the brutal invasion of its neighbour, Putin’s regime has doubled down on brainwashing students.
A year after Russia’s president ordered his officials to come up with a new history textbook for Year 11, the final year in Russian high schools, authorities have formalised a narrative that seeks to justify the Russian invasion and portray Moscow as a victim of the scheming West…
Maui residents who made desperate escapes from oncoming flames, some on foot, asked why Hawaii’s famous emergency warning system didn’t alert them as wildfires raced toward their homes.
Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered before devastating fires killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town, officials confirmed Thursday. The blaze is already the state’s deadliest natural disaster since a 1960 tsunami, which killed 61 people on the Big Island. Gov. Josh Green warned the death toll will likely rise as search and rescue operations continue.
Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, with about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain to alert people to various natural disasters and other threats. But many of Lahaina’s survivors said in interviews at evacuation centers that they didn’t hear any sirens and only realized they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.
Thomas Leonard, a 70-year-old retired mailman from Lahaina, didn’t know about the fire until he smelled smoke. Power and cell phone service had both gone out earlier that day, leaving the town with no real-time information about the danger.
He tried to leave in his Jeep, but had to abandon the vehicle and run to the shore when cars nearby began exploding. He hid behind a seawall for hours, the wind blowing hot ash and cinders over him.
Firefighters eventually arrived and escorted Leonard and other survivors through the flames to safety.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui this week, racing through parched brush covering the island.
The most serious one left Lahaina a grid of gray, ashen rubble, wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes. Skeletal remains of buildings bowed under roofs that pancaked in the blaze. Palm trees were torched, boats in the harbor were scorched and the stench of burning lingered.
“Without a doubt, it feels like a bomb was dropped on Lahaina,” Gov. Green said after walking the ruins of the town Thursday morning with Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr.
Firefighters managed to build perimeters around most of the Lahaina fire and another near the resort-filled area of Kihei, but they were still not fully contained Thursday afternoon.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told The Associated Press that the department’s records don’t show that Maui’s warning sirens were triggered on Tuesday, when the Lahaina fire began. Instead, the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, Weintraub said.
It’s not clear if those alerts were sent before widespread power and cellular outages cut off most communication to Lahaina. Across the island, in fact, 911, landline and cellular service have failed at times.
Maui Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura said the fire moved so quickly from brush to neighborhoods that it was impossible to get messages to the emergency management agencies responsible for alerts.
“What we experienced was such a fast-moving fire through the … initial neighborhood that caught fire they were basically self-evacuating with fairly little notice,” Ventura said.
[…] Lahaina’s wildfire risk was well known. Maui County’s hazard mitigation plan, last updated in 2020, identified Lahaina and other West Maui communities as having frequent wildfires and a large number of buildings at risk of wildfire damage.
The report also noted that West Maui had the island’s second-highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers.
[…] There are a maximum of 65 firefighters working at any given time in Maui County, and they are responsible for fighting fires on three islands — Maui, Molokai and Lanai — he said.
Those crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, but the department does not have any off-road vehicles, he said.
That means fire crews can’t attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas, Lee said. The high winds caused by Hurricane Dora made that extremely difficult, he said.
[…] Marlon Vasquez, a 31-year-old cook from Guatemala who came to the U.S. in January 2022, said that when he heard fire alarms, it was already too late to flee in his car.
“I opened the door, and the fire was almost on top of us,” he said from an evacuation center at a gymnasium. “We ran and ran. We ran almost the whole night and into the next day, because the fire didn’t stop.”
Vasquez and his brother Eduardo escaped via roads that were clogged with vehicles full of people. The smoke was so toxic that he vomited. He said he’s not sure his roommates and neighbors made it to safety.
[…] President Joe Biden declared a major disaster on Maui. […]
The federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against Donald Trump largely sided with his defense Friday in a dispute over a protective order and said she was inclined to agree to less restrictive rules than were sought by prosecutors around the public disclosure of government evidence.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington rejected prosecutors’ broader protective order proposal that sought to prevent the public airing of all evidence they hand over to Trump’s defense as they prepare for trial. She instead seemed poised to impose a more limited protective order that would bar the public release only of materials deemed “sensitive,” such as grand jury materials.
She did, however, block other defense requests to broaden the scope of who can see discovery and what should be considered sensitive.
The government considers the vast majority of evidence in the case to be sensitive.
When prosecutors proposed the protective order, it became an early flashpoint in the case. The prosecutors called the judge’s attention to a post on Trump’s social media platform in which he said he would be “coming after” those who “go after” him.
They warned Trump could improperly share sensitive information online that could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses.” They accused Trump of objecting to their proposal because he wants to be able to use the government’s evidence to “try the case in the media rather than in the courtroom.”
[…] Prosecutors say that they are ready to hand over a substantial amount of evidence to Trump’s legal team and that much of it includes sensitive and confidential information — like transcripts from the grand jury that investigated the case and evidence obtained through sealed search warrants. Grand jury proceedings are secret. […]
Posted by readers of the article:
Chutkan to Lauro: Your client’s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom. Not on the internet. To extent he wants to make statements on the internet, they have to always yield to witness security and safety. That’s what I’m worried about. (Trump has never been gagged.)
———————-
All of the parties are going to try and craft a protective order that is as detailed as possible and Trump’s team will no doubt break it with some flimsy argument. This hearing just proves he intends to push every limit. […] Note: we are going to be back in court until Trump is put under a gag order, but the judge has to make every effort to be fair and give the defendant the chances to screw up first. [Amee Vanderpool tweeted]
————————–
Trump attorney Lauro casts DOJ proposal as a “contempt trap.” Judge Chutkan replies: “There are limits regardless with what’s going on —I hate to say it — with his day job. that means there are going to be limits on the defendant’s speech.”
————————-
Lauro asks to submit alternative language but adds:
“Anyone who sees any discovery in this case will be done at my direction, it will not be haphazard”
Chutkan: Anyone who sees discovery will have to sign and understand they are bound by the protective order
—————————– Since she hasn’t yet ruled, it’s hard to say she has sided with the defense, especially when the partial transcript I’ve read shows her challenging Lauro at every step, and smacking down his nonsensical argument for total free speech.
CHUTKAN: “Mr. Trump, like every American, has a First Amendment right to free speech. But that right is not aboslute… Defendant’s free speech is subject to the release conditions imposed at arraignment and it must yield to the orderly administration of justice.”
CHUTKAN: “What the defendant is currently doing — the fact that he’s running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice. If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.”
Chutkan: He is a criminal defendant. He’s going to have restrictions like every other defendant.
Chutkan: The fact that the defendant is engaged in a political campaign is not going to allow him any greater or lesser latitude than any defendant in any criminal case.
[…] On Thursday Trump posted the following comments on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, all within about twelve hours. These remarks hardly need any elaboration. They tell the story of a severely damaged person who is suffering from paranoia, delusions of grandeur, and malignant narcissism.
1: “What Crooked Joe Biden, who can’t string two sentences together, has done to our once great Country […] OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED BY A MAN WITH THE MIND, IDEAS, AND I.Q. OF A FIRST GRADER.”
2:”I think that Crooked Joe Biden is not only dumb and incompetent, I believe he has gone MAD, a stark raving Lunatic […] HE IS A MENTAL CATASTROPHE THAT IS LEADING OUR COUNTRY TO HELL!”
3: “Deranged Jack Smith has just asked for a trial on the Biden Indictment to take place on January 2nd., […] Only an out of touch lunatic would ask for such a date.”
And as a bonus, Trump re-posted a comment from ultra-MAGA blogger and Trump messiah disciple, Wayne Allyn Root, that said simply “Donald Trump is ‘the Chosen One.'” And this is the guy that most Republicans want to return to the White House and have the nuclear codes?
These are cries for help from a diseased mind that is fixated on his fears and projecting mental maladies onto his foes. Trump will not recover from this sickness without help from his family, friends, and professional psychiatric therapy. Which he is unlikely to get […] Meanwhile, America, and the world, suffers. At least until Trump is convicted, sentenced, and defeated in the next election.
re Oggie @403: I would have thought that the ;-P at the end of my post @401 would indicate that it was a snarky response. Sorry if you didn’t see it that way.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday he is appointing a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe, deepening the investigation of the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.
Garland said he is naming David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who has been probing the financial and business dealings of the president’s son, as the special counsel.
Garland said on Tuesday that Weiss told him that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a Special Counsel, and he asked to be appointed.”
“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.
The move is a momentous development from the typically cautious Garland and comes amid a pair of sweeping Justice Department probes into Donald Trump, the former president, and President Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election. It comes as House Republicans are mounting their own investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.
The 5 year investigation continues…..
——————————
To boldly go where Rudy Giuliani has gone before.
————————–
Here we go. The bigger part of this news is that the plea deal has fallen through and now the case will likely go to trial.
This is ALL the media will talk about, other than Trump. The press will be giddy with excitement to make it sound like these personal travails of a son are the equivalent of Trump’s massive crimes.
————————-
The plea deal was a misdrafted clusterfuck that should never have escaped from the drafting phase as it did, and should never have been agreed to by Hunter Biden’s legal team in that form. I have no idea what went wrong in that process, but it must have been several things.
In light of that, sadly, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see a Special Counsel appointed here, frankly.
—————————
Not clear why the president’s son, a private citizen, needs a special counsel to go after him.
————————
Because he’s the President’s son. This is exactly why a Special Counsel is appropriate, just like for an investigation of a political opponent. That the alleged crimes of Hunter Biden are trivialities compared to the alleged crimes of Donald Trump doesn’t matter. The only relevant consideration should be whether there is an appearance of conflict of interest for a political appointee to be in charge of the investigation, or if it should be vested in a non-political actor. If there’s any complaint to be made, it’s that Smith and Weiss weren’t appointed sooner.
—————————-
Honestly? Yes, he’s the president’s son, but also because the plea agreement that was previously drafted in this case was a staggeringly bad tire fire. Not because it was too lax (or not lax enough), but because it simply shouldn’t have been offered in that form and shouldn’t have been accepted in that form.
After that sort of catastrophic failure on a high profile case with political implications, yes, put a Special Counsel in charge. I would have liked to have seen it be someone who hadn’t already had their hands in the case, though.
—————————
No matter what Garland does with Hunter Biden, the Republicans will say he is not being fair to Trump.
————————–
Clearly I don’t have the appetite/gumption/patience/constitution/knack or smarts to be in law or politics. From this layman’s perspective, this is bullshit. How long have R’s been trying to pin something on POTUS through his son? Years. And gotten nowhere. So now Garland appoints a SC to drag it out for another couple of years. Up to and through the election. So lame.
I think Garland is competent but misguided. Maybe Garland is trying to get this wrapped up in one (likely years long) fell swoop, to put the issue to rest. But we’ve already seen that the R’s are not going to let this rest
Nobody has ever accused Fox News of being smart, intellectually rigorous, logical, or even true. But creative? Fox News can definitely do creative, or at least it can play a game of News Mad Libs (to make libs mad) by trying to connect literally anything in the known universe to Hunter Biden. This week, we got a spectacular example of the genre as two Fox anchors tried their best to suggest that Joe Biden had only the most nefarious, corrupt motives in mind when he declared a new national monument that will protect 1,562 square miles north and south of Grand Canyon National Park.
Never mind that Native American tribes and environmentalists have been working for literally decades to protect the sensitive high desert surrounding the Grand Canyon. In Foxworld, history is just as much a fiction as logic or evidence.
According to first Jesse Watters and then Laura Ingraham, Biden actually created the new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument so he could block all uranium mining in the area,and thereby guarantee that Russia and Kazakhstan can completely control world uranium markets! There goes Traitor Joe, betraying America to pay back the huge bribes everyone knows Ukrainian and Kazakh interests gave Hunter, who passed millions along to Joe himself!
We’ll get to the videos of Watters and Ingraham trying to apply Occam’s Duct Tape to all this, but first, let’s just make clear why it’s all nonsense. Happily, that’s really easy. For starters, the area being preserved by the new monument accounts for just 1.3 percent of the US’s known uranium resources. If Joe Biden were trying to choke off access to uranium mining in the USA (while cackling madly at his own evil genius), declaring this national monument would be a huge failure.
For another, while the US does import most of its uranium, Russia and Kazakhstan aren’t the only sources — we get as much of those imports from Canada and Australia (15 and 14 percent of the annual total, respectively) as from Russia (14 percent). An international agreement limits Russian uranium imports to 15 percent of the total through 2040. But the main reason we import uranium is that it’s just plain cheaper than digging the nasty stuff up here. With only about one percent of world uranium supplies, we’re just not competitive on world markets, and US companies that want to mine uranium demand federal subsidies to even make a go of it.
With that in mind, let’s have a good laugh at this recording from Tuesday of Jesse Waters trying to blame Joe Biden for coups in Africa and Crom knows what else, all so he can get rich by manipulating world uranium markets for Hunter. Remember, however many times he says the monument closes off “millions of acres” to mining, the more important number is 1.3 percent — the real portion of US reserves taken off the table. Also, haw haw senile Joe Biden said “nine” wonders of the world, because he’s feeble and senile but also ruthlessly manipulating everything.
Watters grimly notes that “as always is the case with Joe Biden, you have to follow the money,” and asks how it makes any sense at all that Joe Biden, supposed foe of climate change, would prevent mining of lovely carbon-free uranium, hmm? (Because mining has poisoned Native American lands, including waterways that reach the Grand Canyon. Really. It’s right in the proclamation.) [video at the link]
We won’t bother transcribing the whole mess; Media Matters has most of it. But look at all these very important questions Watters is Just Asking, about Biden’s sneaky underhanded corruption for which there’s no actual proof:
So, instead of mining uranium here at home — remember made in America Joe, union jobs Joe, no emissions Joe — why wouldn’t he starve this dirty Russian company of cash? It’s like Keystone all over again. His entire energy policy favors Russia and China, why is that?
Well, does it have anything to do with the three and a half million dollars the Russians paid the Bidens? Or the Porsche Panamera that the Kazakhstanis gifted Hunter? Does it have anything to do with the three and a half carat diamond that the Chinese slipped the first son? There’s something very mysterious going on in the international uranium market that involves the Bidens and the Russians.
There’s not really anything to debunk there, beyond the simple fact that Biden couldn’t hand world uranium markets to Russia if he wanted to. The US simply doesn’t have enough uranium to do that in the first place, and certainly not by taking 1.3 percent of the potential US resource out of the market.
Wednesday, it was Laura Ingraham’s turn to say “one MILLLLION acres” and to sputter uselessly about how America will be devastated by Joe Biden’s endless uranium corruption. Lookie how Joe and Hunter are holding money covered with Burisma China Ukraine Kazakh honey, too! Graphic design is Fox’s passion. [video at the link]
As long as Joe Biden is in power, a cloud of corruption hangs over this White House. Take his announcement yesterday, brazenly crippling America’s uranium mining capacity by making one million acres permanently off-limits for any type of mining. […]
And what country — when you think about how this is all being cordoned off, can’t do any mining here — is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Joe’s courageous decision? None other than Kazakhstan, home of one of Biden’s preferred oligarchs and one of his son’s sugar daddies. It’s now guaranteed to remain the dominant supplier of uranium to the United States with its 35 percent share.
Well, it all could really make perfect sense, couldn’t it? One of the most crooked families in American politics is responsible for making America permanently dependent on one of the most crooked countries on the face of the planet.
As far as we can tell, this nonsense isn’t getting much traction; apart from the usual dribble of tweets that repeat any Fox News talking points, we haven’t seen wingnuts getting too upset about it. As with any Fox garbage, though, there’s always the potential that it will set off some crazies with guns, so we hope the folks at the new monument’s eventual visitor’s center will stay safe.
It was 10 months ago when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to serve as special counsel in the investigations into Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. It was eight months ago when Garland also appointed Robert Hur to serve as special counsel in the investigation into President Biden’s classified documents.
And it was today when the attorney general appointed the third special counsel of his tenure. NBC News reported:
U.S. Attorney David Weiss will be appointed special counsel in the ongoing probe of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday. Weiss will be responsible for the “ongoing investigation” of President Joe Biden’s son “as well as for any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation,” the Justice Department said in a statement. Weiss asked to be appointed special counsel on Tuesday and Garland agreed it was “in the public interest” to do so, the attorney general said.
If Weiss’ name sounds at all familiar, there’s a good reason for that: He’s the same federal prosecutor who’s overseen the Hunter Biden probe for years. He’s also a U.S. attorney who was tapped for his role by Donald Trump and confirmed by a Republican-led Senate.
Weiss previously made no request to be made a special counsel, though that apparently changed this week. The details behind the shift are unclear, though it’s worth emphasizing that the recent plea deal in this case appears to have collapsed.
On the surface, these developments might appear to be in line with Republicans’ wishes. By elevating Weiss, Garland is further guaranteeing prosecutorial independence in this case. It hardly seems necessary — Weiss was already operating free of political interference — but if the attorney general wants to go the extra mile to address unjustified GOP criticisms, so be it.
Republicans, most notably House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, have practically begged for a special counsel in this case, and now they have what they were looking for, right?
Not exactly. The problem is, the GOP voices who demanded a special counsel are the same GOP voices who believe Weiss — the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney — isn’t a reliable ally. Indeed, he’s already told Republicans truths they didn’t want to hear about the investigation.
With this in mind, less than an hour after the attorney general’s announcement today, Jordan’s office condemned the move, insisting, “David Weiss can’t be trusted.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer issued a related statement, arguing that the appointment of the Trump-appointed prosecutor is part of a “coverup.” (I don’t understand what that’s supposed to mean in this context, either.)
What’s more, The New York Times’ Charlie Savage raised a good point about the political circumstances, adding, “It is not clear whether this step will change anything substantive about the Hunter Biden investigation, since Garland and Weiss have already described the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney as operating with significant independence. But Republicans have sought to portray the Biden administration as conspiring to go easy on the president’s son, so at a minimum the naming of Weiss as a special counsel will offer Democrats an additional argument to rebut those accusations.”
All of which is to say, if the attorney general expects this latest move to help rebut Republican criticisms and make his partisan detractors happy, Garland will likely be disappointed to see a new round of GOP complaints.
Oggie: Mathomsays
johnson catman:
Sorry if you didn’t see it that way.
I guess I am just a humourless asshole. Jokes about dismemberment, sending someone you don’t like through a garbage disposal or a wood chipper just do not strike me as funny.
tomhsays
Most outlandish quote from this morning’s hearing. In response to Judge Chutkan proclaiming, “He’s a criminal defendant. He is going to have restrictions like every single other defendant,” Trump’s lawyer replied, “President Trump will scrupulously abide by his conditions of release.”
whheydtsays
About the proposed Texas high-speed rail line… The one thing I would like to see would be a requirement that any high-speed rail line be required to adhere to a set of standards such that, should any of them ever interconnect, the systems would be compatible with each other.
I agree with Oggie @431 on this issue. I can sort of appreciate the jokes, but I still think it is better to steer away completely from violence against humans … in this thread at least.
tomh @432. You are right. We already have evidence that Trump will NOT scrupulously abide by his conditions of release.
[…] We don’t know exactly how many people in American prisons have dementia because nobody is counting. By some estimates, there are already thousands, most of them languishing in the general inmate population.
Older adults represent one of the fastest-growing demographic groups within American correctional facilities. Between 1999 and 2016, the number of prisoners over 55 increased by 280 percent, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts; over the same period, the number of incarcerated younger people grew by just 3 percent
[…] Early on, a prisoner’s dementia might go unnoticed. Federal prisons do not routinely screen older people for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia unless they exhibit symptoms. And the rigidity and monotony of institutional life can often mask them: A person can get by, for a while, just by following the man ahead of him.
But later, things will start to fall apart. At first, a person with dementia might struggle in the normal way that other aging prisoners do: to walk long distances for meals or medication, to get up from a low-lying toilet without a handrail, to climb a bunk bed on command. Over time, he might start to pace or repeat phrases over and over. He might have hallucinations or delusions or paranoia. He might fall. He might be incorrectly medicated, by a doctor who does not understand his condition. He might struggle to distinguish between items of similar color — mashed potatoes on a white plate, say — and so have trouble eating. Or forget to eat at all.. This trend is largely attributed to “tough on crime” reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, which lengthened sentences and ensured that many more people would grow old and frail and then die behind prison walls.
[…] Eventually, the man will find himself living inside an unyielding system whose boundaries and principles he can no longer see or interpret or remember. And because he can’t stop breaking the rules, he might be punished — in some cases, with solitary housing. There, his condition might worsen. “Noncompliance with correctional rules and directions is often treated as a disciplinary issue rather than a medical issue,” explains a 2022 report, “Persons Living With Dementia in the Criminal Legal System,” copublished by the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging. Because the prisoner has nowhere else to go, he might muddle along as best as he can until he becomes so impaired that he is transferred to a medical center, where he will spend the rest of his incarcerated days lying in bed.
The Memory Disorder Unit at F.M.C. Devens, which opened in 2019 and was designed to resemble a memory care facility, offers an alternative path for such a prisoner. Its correctional officers have received training from the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners and currently supervise around two dozen men with an average age of 72. These officers have been given a tall task: to bend an institution designed to punish and sequester into a place that can provide care to some of the most vulnerable people in the system.
In the end, they are proud of what they have built. Why else would they let a journalist come to see it? And still, the M.D.U. seems to challenge several of the classic justifications for the prison system itself: to segregate the dangerous, for instance (many M.D.U. residents are weak and unthreatening), or to reform the morally corrupt (many M.D.U. prisoners don’t remember doing wrong).
Amy Boncher, who was the warden of F.M.C. Devens when I visited in May (she is now the Bureau of Prisons’ northeast regional director), told me that when she first met the residents of the unit, it was hard to make sense of the entire project. “I looked at them. And I’m thinking: Why haven’t we released all of them?” […]
Regarding House Oversight chairman James Comer, he has gotten into trouble by lying.
“James Comer mocked for saying he was at Hunter Biden’s hearing that he did not attend”
Like with Boris Johnson and D Trump these people have the strategy to just make things up when they experience stress. https://youtu.be/EjdH0v594Fs
Truth Social, the social media company owned by Donald Trump, tipped off the FBI to threats Craig Robertson was making against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg back in March, NBC News reported, citing a senior law enforcement official. FBI agents shot and killed Robertson Wednesday while they were serving a warrant at his home in Provo, Utah.
Robertson pointed a gun at the agents and did not respond to commands, officials told multiple outlets.
Secret Service had also flagged Robertson to the FBI, per the report. All told, Robertson had made threats against a wide swath of officials, including Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In one recent alleged post, Robertson wrote on Facebook that “perhaps Utah will become famous this week as the place a sniper took out Biden the Marxist.” Robertson was killed hours before Biden was due to arrive in Salt Lake City. The FBI’s Inspection Division is investigating the shooting.
[…] Fox News Host Laura Ingraham did a segment of her Thursday show dedicated to the shooting, where she questioned its necessity, mulling whether we’re “only reserving a concern for police-involved shootings in the inner city when we’re talking about excessive force possibilities.”
She played a clip of a law enforcement pundit saying that we’d seen the dynamic of radicalized individuals moved to violence before, especially on Jan. 6, and that it might happen again. She said that his comment amounted to “a smear, implicit, at least, of millions of Americans who may have supported President Trump or other conservatives implying that they can’t be trusted or, I don’t know, is it when in doubt, shoot first, ask questions later?”
Others in the right-wing media ecosystem are using a similar spin.
“Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander wrote on Telegram that: “The FBI is now killing online critics of Biden.”
Alt-right troll and male supremacist Mike Cernovich tweeted that the killing by an “FBI assassination team” which has “sworn an oath to demons” was “to send a message.”
The New York Post, owned by Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch, gave Robertson a very sympathetic treatment with a piece headlined: “Trump supporter killed in FBI raid was a ‘teddy bear’ who cared for blind son but the ‘type to sleep with gun under his pillow’: neighbor.”
It’s a sign of the fungibility of the right-wing outrage machine that it can so easily switch from fury about “social media censorship” to the “deep state FBI” when conditions serve.
Posted by readers of the article:
So threatening to kill the president is being an “online critic” so long as the president is a Democrat?
————————
If Robertson had complied with the warrant, he wouldn’t have been shot.
———————-
You know, like Robinson I am a 75 year old white male and I own firearms. If the FBI ever showed up to my house I would open the door and comply fully with all their demands. I wouldn’t under any circumstances show up at the door with a gun. That isn’t very Teddy Bear like.
Just because you are an old man you don’t have the right to threaten anyone with a weapon, no matter what some crazy lady on Fox News might tell you.
———————-
It’s okay to shoot unarmed people of color who are running away from police because “they didn’t comply.” But an armed white man, making threats and pointing a loaded weapon at officers, is a bridge too far? The hypocrisy is astounding.
————————–
threatening to kill a number of Democratic elected officials, including the President; threatening to kill the FBI agents who came to interview him if they came back; posting a detailed threat against Biden and, now pointing a presumably loaded gun at federal agents serving a warrant. Seems this guy put a lot of effort into becoming the online critic ‘assassinated’ by the Biden DoJ.
————————–
Robertson had 3 children, but divorced in 1986, so the kids would be at least 37+ years old at this point. Unknown whether one was blind (relevance, NYPost?) but he lived alone, not currently “caring” for blind son.
—————————
Republican leaders who tout “2d Amendment Solutions” are very much the cause of this incident.
——————
The FBI didn’t kill a man threatening Biden. They killed a man who pointed a gun at them. That’s what police are trained to do. The threats were the reason the FBI was serving him a warrant.
——————–
Ya know, two fundamental rules are going to apply pretty much across all demographics:
– If the FBI comes to serve you a warrant, do not point a weapon at them.
– If you do, and they order you to drop the weapon, drop the goddam weapon.
————————-
As I’m sure the right will make a big deal of Robertson’s age in trying to paint him as a victim and a martyr, let’s remember:
On October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. From his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel, he fired more than 1,000 bullets, killing 60 people[a] and wounding at least 413. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting)
Michigan Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock hosted a pool party fundraiser in August for the 16 fake electors who were recently charged by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for signing fraudulent paperwork claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Maddock’s wife, Meshawn Maddock, is one of the Trump supporters facing several felonies for her role in the scheme. In a speech to the pool party attendees that was recorded by someone at the event and later leaked to The Messenger, Maddock told supporters people were getting angry about the prosecutions and violence was a likely outcome.
Maddock warned the crowd that “If the government continues to weaponize these departments against conservatives and the citizens that are then the taxpayers … Someone’s going to get so pissed off, they’re going to shoot someone. That’s what’s going to happen. Or we’re going have a civil war or some sort of revolution. That’s where this is, where this is going.” But Maddock frames this coming civil war as a violent event and added that pool party attendees, and conservatives in general, are “going to get squashed.”
[…] Rep. James DeSana can also be heard telling the audience he hopes to “get a resolution up to impeach Dana Nessel,” the state’s attorney general.
[…] DeSana released a statement on Thursday saying he stood by his statement, while Maddock’s statement hid behind his “right to free speech.”
[…] The indictment alleges all 16 charged in the scheme met in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters and signed “multiple certificates stating they were the ‘duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan.’ These false documents were then transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan.”
Each defendant is facing:
– One count of Conspiracy to Commit Forgery, a 14-year felony.
– Two counts of Forgery, a 14-year felony.
– One count of Conspiracy to Commit Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony.
– One count of Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony.
– One count of Conspiracy to Commit Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.
– Two counts of Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.
Serious charges with serious consequences. […] they are leaning into the violence that got them to this point in the first place.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Citing “unfortunate economic realities,” Clarence Thomas is hiking the price of Supreme Court decisions to keep up with inflation.
The jurist disclosed his new rate card in a mass e-mail sent to more than a hundred super-donors.
“I have tried to keep my prices reasonable, but, as inflation proves more stubborn than predicted, I have no choice but to adjust my rates accordingly,” he wrote.
“Sadly, the days of shredding civil rights in exchange for ten private-jet flights are over,” he added.
It remains to be seen whether the billionaires who received Thomas’s e-mail will tolerate his steeper prices or whether they will explore a budget option such as Neil Gorsuch.
“Sloppy Chris Christie”…Trump thinks he can repeat 2016 by repeating the same kind of slurs.
Reginald Selkirk
About that lake with prehistoric settlements, it should be possible to map the bottom with inch-level presicion by towing a synthetic aperture sonar array over it. The lake pre-dates the ice age and the absence of salt water means wooden objects are not consumed by sea worms. There will be silt deposits hiding the oldest human traces but it should be possible to find artifacts even older than 8000 years.
Now, researchers say they’ve found a new weapon: a naturally occurring bacterium that, when fed to mosquitoes, halts the development of the malaria parasite in the insects’ guts…
The bacterium in the new study, published today in Science, inhibits the malaria parasite without any genetic tinkering by humans. Janneth Rodrigues, a scientific lead in global health medicines R&D at GlaxoSmithKline, and colleagues stumbled across the microbe at a GSK research center in Spain, after noticing the mosquitoes they were using for malaria research were getting harder to infect with Plasmodium.
It turned out there was an unexpected microbe, a bacterial strain called Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1, inside these mosquitoes’ guts, Rodrigues says…
Right-wing Florida Republican congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini is not afraid to trumpet his resume, including his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, where—according to his LinkedIn, Legistorm, Wikipedia, law firm, and Timeshare Information Center bios—he graduated with honors, magna cum laude.
But Sabatini’s honors thesis—a 2012 treatise on the political legacy of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, titled “A Profound Logic of The Blood”—is wildly plagiarized.
The Daily Beast’s review of the paper found that Sabatini lifted an astonishing amount of content verbatim from other sources. Worse, Sabatini—who double-majored in history and philosophy before being admitted to law school, also at the University of Florida—frequently pulls his passages from Wikipedia, and presents them without the required quotation marks or any clear attribution whatsoever…
The Ohio Supreme Court cleared the path for a November vote on abortion access by rejecting a legal challenge to backers’ petitions.
In a unanimous decision, the Ohio Supreme Court denied a lawsuit filed by several Republicans to boot the measure from the Nov. 7 ballot. The GOP politicos had argued that abortion rights activists failed to include on their petitions the language of state abortion laws that would be repealed if the constitutional amendment passed.
The legal challenge was filed days after abortion rights proponents cleared the signature requirement to appear on the fall ballot.
Attorneys for the abortion rights measure agreed that their petitions did not spell out which state abortion policies would be eliminated. However, they contended the Republicans’ arguments weren’t relevant, and the requirement to include those laws was unconstitutional…
The sole arrest pertaining to Krentel’s demise was that of a man who criticized the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office’s (STPSO) slow-going investigation of the case, which remains unsolved. If that sounds unconstitutional, it’s because it is: On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit confirmed that Jerry Rogers Jr.’s suit against Sheriff Randy Smith, Chief Danny Culpeper, and Sgt. Keith Canizaro may proceed, as they violated clearly established law when they arrested him for his speech…
Rogers, however, will finally be able to sue those officers. In 2019, the STPSO caught wind that he had expressed his ire for the lead investigator, Detective Daniel Buckner, whom Rogers characterized in an email as “clueless.” In order to pore over his messages, the police obtained what was likely an illegal search warrant, as it listed the qualifying offense as “14:00000,” which does not exist.
To arrest him, the police had to furnish a real crime, as opposed to an imaginary one, so they sought to leverage Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute. Lawyers with the district attorney’s office told them that would be illegal, as that law was long ago rendered unconstitutional as it pertains to the criticism of public officials.
The defendants were undeterred. They arrested, strip-searched, and detained Rogers. He was jailed for part of that day and then released on bond, and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections ultimately declined to prosecute the case. But the primary goal was likely humiliation: Before he was booked, the police blasted out a press release about his arrest—which, according to Canizaro, was the only time he could remember the office following that particular order of operations. And the police filed a formal complaint with Rogers’ employer, something they had also never done before.
That he has had to wait almost four years for permission to sue over that retaliation is an apt indictment of qualified immunity, which requires victims of state and local government abuse to show that the violation of their rights was “clearly established” with meticulous exactitude in a prior court precedent. Though Rogers overcame that, the legal doctrine enables the government to file appeal after appeal, dragging out costly litigation for years…
birgerjohanssonsays
Reginald Selkirk
I think we are both browsing the same articles – this is the second time you beat me to posting an item of science news thus afternoon. 😊
U.S. Rep. Greg Steube on Friday became the second Republican to file articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden, accusing him of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
A Sarasota Republican, Steube’s impeachment effort includes four articles touching on the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and allegations of fraud, obstruction of justice and “financial involvement in drug (sic) and prostitution.” …
‘The Ring of Fire’ with Farron Cousins is a great source of information, especially about Florida but also the rest of USA.
Reginald Selkirksays
Independent voters now outnumber Republicans in Arizona
I’m going to interpret that as Republicans who are disgusted with the current state of their party. It’s good that they are disgusted, but if they still vote Republican the gesture doesn’t mean much.
Abortion rights advocates in Arizona on Tuesday launched a campaign to add abortion protections to the state constitution in next year’s election, in a bid to invalidate the state’s current 15-week ban.
A new coalition, Arizona for Abortion Access, said it had filed proposed language on Tuesday for a ballot measure to go before voters in November 2024 with the Arizona secretary of state’s office. The political action committee includes the Arizona chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, among others…
The U.S. Department of Energy will announce $1.2 billion in climate funding Friday to build two commercial-scale direct air capture facilities in Texas and Louisiana that will help reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The initiative is being funded through President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and is part of the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program, which aims to build a national network of carbon removal sites to mitigate the escalating climate crisis.
The funding for the project stands to become the world’s largest-ever investment in engineered carbon removal, with each new hub capable of clearing more than 250 times more carbon dioxide from the air than the largest capture facility in operation today, the Energy Department said in a statement…
I think it would be more useful to stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than to pump some of it out.
KGsays
I think it would be more useful to stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than to pump some of it out. – Reginald Selkirk@453
QFT. From your link:
In total, the new facilities are expected to rid the air of more than 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year — which is equal to the amount of contaminants put out by 445,00 gas-powered vehicles, the agency said.
Biden’s net-zero emissions plan, however, is far more ambitious — calling for between 400 million and 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere and captured from emissions sources annually by 2050.
According to Our World in Data, current annual global greenhouse gas emissions in CO2 equivalent are around 55 billion tonnes.
Before Russia’s Wagner mercenary group became famous in Ukraine, capturing Bakhmut by throwing wave after wave of prisoners against Ukrainian defenses, it was best known for war criming in Africa, violently propping up the most repressive regimes in exchange for mineral gold and diamond rights.
With yet another African government falling to a Russian-backed military coup, a regional armed war in Western Africa may soon break out.
Outside of Ukraine, Wagner mercenaries are currently deployed in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and Madagascar. It is unclear how Wagner’s attempted rebellion in Russia has affected operations, but by all outward indications, its African operations remain unaffected.
Until recently, the mercenaries’ presence in western Africa was limited, but that has changed over the past two years. The area is bound by an economic and military alliance called ECOWAS—the Economic Community of West African States. Altogether, these countries are home to 400 million people. Nigeria is the lynchpin of ECOWAS, with a population of 224 million, far outpacing the next-most populous African country of Ethiopia, with 120 million.
Along with its economic, monetary, and diplomatic integration, ECOWAS has been extremely active as a peacekeeping force among its members, intervening in previous conflicts in Liberia (1990), Sierra-Leone (1997), Ivory Coast (2003), Guinea-Bissau (2012), and Mali (2013). [map at the link]
Since 2020,Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso have been suspended from ECOWAS. First came Mali, after a 2020 military coup (that was overthrown in 2021 by another military coup), then Guinea in 2021, and Burkina Faso after a series of military coups in 2022.
On July 26, Niger joined that coup group when its democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, was ousted by the commander of his presidential guard. One common thread among all four countries? Their respective militaries had all been using the services of the Wagner group. The quartet now makes up a kind of axis of evil in western Africa.
[Tweet and annotated map at the link]
Russia has used anti-colonial sentiment to rile up African public opinion against the region’s old colonial powers. It’s notable that pre-suspensions, ECOWAS had 15 members—eight of them French-speaking, five of them English, two Portuguese, and one Arabic. The region’s colonial past runs deep. Russia’s efforts have almost fully driven France out of the region, but Niger was an exception: It’s an important French and American military staging area for efforts to combat the violent Islamic Insurgency in the Sahel (you might remember the murderous Boko Haram).
The coup in Niger has obviously put a stop to those efforts, as the ruling junta has closed airspace, aside from some humanitarian flights. Unlike previous coups in its sphere, ECOWAS has been aggressive in demanding a return to civilian democratic rule in Niger. Sunday’s deadline for the coup leaders to stand downcame and went, as ECOWAS declared they’d give diplomacy a last chance. In reality, it needed more time to create a military reaction force—that’s now in place.
The ECOWAS force is 25,000 strong, with the bulk coming from Nigeria. Benin, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal are also contributing troops. The military intervention has been endorsed by the U.S., France, and most importantly for those screaming about Western imperialism, the African Union, which represents the entire continent. For context, Niger’s armed forces numbered around 33,000, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studios, but we know that war isn’t about raw numbers. We also don’t know how much of Niger’s military backs the coup.
The Niger coup leaders have promised to murder Bazoum if ECOWAS intervenes. The military juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso initially vowed to join Niger in the eventuality of an ECOWAS intervention, but seem to have backtracked for now. Neither country has the logistical and military sophistication to support that kind of deployment outside of their borders. And those who gain power by military force know how easy it would be for the next coup to depose them if they left themselves defenseless.
Meanwhile, the Wagner disinformation machine is in full force.
Moscow is using Wagner and other channels of influence to discredit Western nations, asserted Lou Osborn , an investigator with All Eyes on Wagner, a project focusing on the group.
Tactics include using social media to spread rumors, mobilize demonstrations and spread false narratives, Osborn said.
She pointed to a Telegram post on Wednesday by an alleged Wagner operative, Alexander Ivanov, asserting that France had begun the “mass removal of children” likely to be used for slave labor and sexual exploitation.
Given Europe’s horrendous colonial history in Africa, it’s not hard to rile up the population against France and the United States. The claims of “slave labor” may sound ridiculous, but in their full historical context, they land.
ECOWAS defense ministers will meet Saturday in Ghana, likely to plot next steps. There’s also a search for the participation of additional countries to lend any intervention greater international legitimacy.
Meanwhile, there are around 1,100 U.S. troops stationed in Niger, currently restricted to their bases. The Pentagon spent $110 million to build a drone base currently sitting idle, and in potential danger of facing the same fate as its Afghan bases.
“With a limited U.S. base presence in Africa – restricted to Djibouti and Niger – losing access to Base Aerienne 201 [Niger Air Base 201] would be a detrimental blow to U.S. and African joint efforts to counter violent extremist groups connected to the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda operating in the area,” Jocelyn Trainer, a sub-Saharan Africa expert at the Center for a New American Security, told Task & Purpose. “This setback coincides with France diminishing its presence in the region. A reduced U.S. and French presence could create space for Wagner, or other actors, to fill a security vacuum.”
Russia may be struggling in Ukraine, but Africa has proven fertile ground to advance its interests. And as much as Russia plays on the West’s colonial history, it is Russia that now wants to plunder the African continent’s riches for itself, just as it’s trying to do in Ukraine.
———————–
Back in Ukraine, I wouldn’t want to be a Russian soldier in Urozhaine, currently the front line in Ukraine’s push toward Mariupol. [Tweets and videos at the link. One of the videos shows a tank battle in the center of Urozhaine and predicts “good news soon.”]
————————–
Yesterday I noted questions over whether a Ukrainian attack on Kozachi Laheri, across the Dnipro River southeast of Kherson city, was a real attack or a raid. Well, we’re now four days in, and Ukraine is holding part of the town. [Tweet and video at the link]
There is fierce fighting in the town right now. [Tweet and video at the link]
That certainly doesn’t feel like a raid to me. Taking the town would force Russia to make difficult decisions over where to deploy its reserves. The two sides are currently playing a game of chess, daring the other to react to probing attacks, with the Russians pushing hard toward Kupyansk in the north, and Ukraine causing mischief in Kherson oblast. [map at the link]
Meanwhile, the chatter about Robotyne is increasing to a fever pitch. The implication is that Ukraine will soon announce good news. I’ve seen nothing to confirm that is actually the case, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Kind Deeds Organization
@Kind_Deeds_Org Jul 31
Thanks to @WestPoint_USMA for inviting us and giving our team and our soldiers the warmest, most touching reception ever. What an honour to receive so much respect from the most prestigious military institution in the world. ❤️🇺🇦🇺🇸@ColHogan3 @SP4URachel
The story in the link with this tweet chronicles the journey of 11 women to Russia to find their kidnapped children/grandchild and bring them back home. For those who can’t access Twitter, click here.
[Tweet and image at the link]
Here is an excerpt:
Organized by a local organization called Save Ukraine, private donors are funding the trip. This will be the organization’s fourth group of mothers to retrieve their children from Crimea, but it’s the first time entering occupied Luhansk. Nathalia’s journey will be the riskiest to date. “No laws work on that territory. It’s a lottery who you will meet,” Olga Yerokhina, the organization’s spokesperson, tells me.
The organization’s lawyer, Myroslava Kharchenko, quiets the room. “Congratulations. You are already at the finish line. In a couple of days, you will finally see your children,” she says. “But it will not be easy. It will not be an easy path. For some time, you will be in the country of the aggressor. You have to remember that you are strong.”
The group stays silent. A few women have tears in their eyes.
She explains the various security protocols that the women should follow and asks the journalists in the room not to publish them. The group will first take a train to Chelm, in Poland, then drive to Minsk where they will board a plane to Moscow. Then they’ll drive down into Crimea and Luhansk. A network of sympathetic volunteers along the route will assist the group. “You have to memorize the driver’s phone number because anything can happen.”
Doctors in the Russian-occupied village of Lazurne in the Kherson region will not give medicines to residents who have not received Russian passports, Gauleiter of the local administration Aleksandr Dudka said.
“First of all it concerns people who need insulin, they have already felt on themselves how to be a citizen of another country,” – he said.
People “who have not yet issued passports of the country they live in” will not receive humanitarian aid either.
Dudka also criticized families whose children do not attend a Russian school: “These parents will be brought to administrative responsibility, and then to criminal responsibility. And then we will put them on buses, take them to the border line and send them to Ukrainian schools.”
The residents of the settlement should “respect the country that ensures its security,” Dudka said.
YouTube has removed the channel of Scott Ritter, the main foreign “expert” on Russian propaganda, a former U.S. intelligence officer who was convicted of pedophilia.
The propagandist will now appear on Solovyov’s program.
The state Court of Appeals has ruled that Congressman Paul Gosar and two former GOP state lawmakers will have to pay the legal fees of another representative they sued for defamation.
The appellate decision was unanimous.
In 2021, Anthony Kern, Mark Finchem and Paul Gosar sued Charlene Fernandez for defamation. She and 41 other Democratic state lawmakers had signed a letter asking the FBI to investigate the trio for alleged roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Fernandez successfully defended herself, and a Yuma trial judge ordered Kern, Finchem and Gosar to pay her $75,000 in legal fees. The trio appealed.
But the appellate panel says their defamation suit was brought without substantial justification. Fernandez’s attorneys must file an updated statement of costs…
Former Vice President Mike Pence is being mocked online for a minute-long video of him pretending to pump gas into his pickup truck as he criticized President Joe Biden.
“Hey, everybody, Mike Pence here,” he said in the video, grabbing a gas-pump nozzle. The campaign clip was posted Wednesday on X and has been viewed over 3.2 million times.
“Remember $2-a-gallon gas? I do. And then Joe Biden became president of the United States and launched his war on energy,” Pence said, slotting the nozzle into the fuel inlet of a red pickup truck.
Hand on his hip, Pence spoke about surging energy prices, and his plan to lower those consumer costs that would “reclaim America’s role as the leading producer of energy in the world” by 2040.
He urged people to visit his 2024 presidential campaign website and support his run for the White House.
But throughout the ad, Pence never squeezed the pump handle…
In January 2022, Breiner David Cucuñame, a 14-year-old Indigenous Colombian activist, was shot dead in Colombia’s southwestern department of Cauca.
He was killed in the company of his father, during a routine unarmed patrol of Indigenous lands for the purpose of deterring incursions by militant groups. While the killing made headlines on account of Cucuñame’s young age, it was pretty much business as usual in the South American nation. As of September 2021, 611 environmental defenders had already been assassinated in Colombia since the signing of the so-called “peace deal” in 2016, according to the Colombian Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz). Of those 611 people, 332 were Indigenous.
And yet this snapshot of bloodshed in Colombia is but part of a larger, sinister global picture. Last year, the London-based NGO Global Witness released a report documenting no fewer than 1,733 murdered environmental and land-defence activists in the decade since 2012, amounting to one murder approximately every two days.
Even so, the NGO emphasised that its figures were “almost certainly an underestimate”. In 2021 alone, as per the Global Witness report, 200 land and environmental defenders were killed worldwide – nearly four per week. Significantly, more than 40 percent of the documented killings were of Indigenous people, who account for no more than five percent of the global population.
Many were involved in defending their lands from exploitation by predatory industries ranging from mining and agribusiness to logging, oil and hydropower….
For those who’ve forgotten , it seems the innermost two exoplanets of Trappist-1 are barren rocks with little to no atmosphere at all in a disturbing sign for the possibility of life on planets of red dwarf stars – the most common of all star types. However, despite being just a simulation and computer modelling exercise this does seem to provide some cause for hope :
Franck Selsis, an astronomer at the University of Bordeaux, France, and his colleagues didn’t set out to prove the enticing system of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting a small, cool star only 40 light-years from Earth could host life. Rather, they were frustrated by the crude nature of existing models of water-rich planetary atmospheres. They wanted to create something more realistic — something that would take into account actual atmospheric conditions on those planets and not just a set of theoretical assumptions.
… (Snip)…
The new model developed by Selsis, however, shows that although conditions on all these planets were undoubtedly hellish during their earlier years, they may not have been hot enough to melt the planets’ crust and mantle into magma. That means quite a lot of water may have survived within the rock, into the later years when the parent star cooled off. Hence, oceans of liquid water could have formed on these planets, which today may harbor thriving life.
Emphasis on that may here -and very eagerly awaiting the JWST’s analsysis of the outer Trappist worlds but still.
StevoRsays
Another space dot com news story here :
A groundbreaking NASA spacecraft will return to Earth on Saturday (Aug. 12) after 17 years away from home. One-half of the agency’s STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) mission, STEREO-A will fly close to our planet for the first time since its launch on Oct. 25, 2006, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. STEREO-A will pass between Earth and the sun this weekend. STEREO-A is the lead component of a dual-spacecraft mission, which also includes the STEREO-B spacecraft. This was the first mission to capture a multiple-perspective or “stereoscopic” view of the sun. The STEREO mission also made history in February of 2011, when the two spacecraft achieved a 180-degree separation in their orbital pathway, taking positions on opposite sides of the sun and offering humanity its first glimpse of our star as a complete sphere. Akin to their titles, STEREO-A’s “A” stands for “ahead” and STEREO-B’s “B” stands for “behind.”
Thought this wa s a pretty fascinating article about an old spaceprobe that’s done some remarkable work -and is still dpoing more when it comes to understanding our Daytime Star. Sadly STEREO-B has since stopped working. See also :
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s some more photos and video from the attack on the Crimea bridge in Kerch. While the Russian-appointed head of Crimea is saying the bridge was not damaged after air defence shot down two drones, the results of the attack of yet to be determined….
Russian-appointed officials of the Russian-occupied Crimea are now saying that the smoke coming off the Crimea bridge is “smoke cover” created by rescue services. [LOL]
Locals who were near the beach are reporting seeing something hit the bridge, but Russian officials are saying air defence stopped two drones. Traffic is halted in both directions.
The Russian defence ministry is now saying that Kyiv attempted to strike the Crimean bridge with an S-200 anti-aircraft guided missile – not two drones.
”The Ukrainian missile was timely detected and intercepted in the air by Russian air defense systems,” the defence ministry said on Telegram.
Russian officials are still saying there was no damage or casualties, but that remains to be seen.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before dawn on 24 February 2022, it marked his latest and most overt attempt to brutally conquer the country, and reshaped the world order. Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times and the foremost journalist covering the country, was there on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. But the seeds of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the West were sown more than a decade earlier.
This is the definitive, inside story of its long fight for freedom. Told through Miller’s personal experiences, vivid front-line dispatches and illuminating interviews with unforgettable characters, The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine (Bloomsbury, 2023) takes readers on a riveting journey through the key locales and pivotal events of Ukraine’s modern history. From the coal-dusted, sunflower-covered steppe of the Donbas in the far east to the heart of the Euromaidan revolution camp in Kyiv; from the Black Sea shores of Crimea, where Russian troops stealthily annexed Ukraine’s peninsula, to the bloody battlefields where Cossacks roamed before the Kremlin’s warlords ruled with iron fists; and through the horror and destruction wrought by Russian forces in Bucha, Bakhmut, Mariupol, and beyond.
With candor, wit and sensitivity, Miller captures Ukraine in all its glory: vast, defiant, resilient, and full of wonder. A breathtaking narrative that is at times both poignant and inspiring, The War Came To Us is the story of an American who fell in love with a foreign place and its people – and witnessed them do extraordinary things to escape the long shadow of their former imperial ruler and preserve their independence.
This year, the Department of Defense began renaming military bases that honor the Confederacy. On this week’s On the Media, a former general explains why the reckoning with the myth of the “lost cause” is overdue. Plus, hear how Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine has been hundreds of years in the making.
1. Ty Seidule, the Vice Chair of the National Commission on Base Renaming, on the military’s efforts to reckon with the “Lost Cause.”
2. Alexis Akwagyiram, Managing Editor of Semafor Africa and former Reuters bureau chief in Nigeria, on the potential widespread impact of the coup in Niger.
3. Mikhail Zygar, investigative journalist and founder of the independent Russian TV channel Rain, on debunking some of Russia’s most powerful myths about itself.
This week, another legal blow for former president Donald Trump after a judge ruled to dismiss Trump’s counter defamation lawsuit against E Jean Carroll for statements she made about a ruling on civil case earlier this year. Back in May, a Manhattan federal jury found that former president Donald Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid 1990s, and awarded her $5 million for defamation and battery. The jurors, however, rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped [well,…]. This came at the end of a seven-day trial, during which Carroll testified against Trump’s claims that she was lying, and that he had never met her. The day of the verdict, Carroll strolled out of the courtroom onto the New York City sidewalk, sunglass-clad and triumphant. Rebecca Traister is a writer-at-large for New York magazine, and author of “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.” This week, she speaks with Brooke about the place that this nearly thirty-year-old case holds in the landscape of Me Too, the premature death bells of the movement, and just how long it takes for movements to fully permeate laws, practices, and attitudes.
Josh and Kate discuss a big election in Ohio, John Eastman’s admission that he did try to overthrow the government and an eyebrow-raising New York Times opinion column.
“We are naive if we think that we don’t have to fight for [our democracy] every single day,” says Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), in this week’s WITHpod. Given how imperiled our democracy is, we thought it would be good to talk about the nation’s democratic health with someone who has navigated some of the most difficult terrain in American politics. Sen. Warnock, who defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker, is the author of numerous books, including his latest titled, “A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story.” He’s also the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He joins WITHpod to discuss his concerns about the state of our democracy, his efforts to renew the fight for voting rights, the most surprising part of being a U.S. senator, what he thinks the worst part of his job is and more.
This is a breaking news story. Check back to idahostatesman.com for updates.
To sign up for breaking news alerts, click here.
Ammon Bundy was arrested Friday by the Gem County Sheriff’s Office on an outstanding warrant, Gem County dispatch confirmed in a call with the Idaho Statesman. No details of the warrant were provided…
Paris Marx is joined by Edward Ongweso Jr. to discuss how the venture capital industry works, why the technologies it funds don’t deliver on their marketing promises, and how that’s once again being shown in the hype around AI.
Edward Ongweso Jr. is a freelance journalist, co-host of This Machine Kills, and guest columnist at The Nation….
Big Tech locked us into their systems by making their platforms hard to leave by design. The impossibility of staying connected to people on their platforms after you delete your account has nothing to do with technological limitations: it’s an intentional business strategy.
In The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (Verso, 2023), Cory Doctorow explains how to seize the means of computation, by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission….
Joe Cirincione is back on the podcast this week to walk us through the science of nuclear weapons and give us his preliminary thoughts on Oppenheimer.
Cirincione is a national security analyst and author with over 40 years of experience. He’s been a congressional staffer, a program director, a philanthropist, an advisor the the State Department and three presidential campaigns. Now, he writes at a substack.
He’s recently completed a six part series detaling the history of the nuclear world….
QAnon began as a niche conspiracy theory. How did it become a movement for self-radicalisation? How have its dangerous ideas infiltrated society? Rafael Behr is joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Ball, author of The Other Pandemic How QAnon Contaminated the World, to explore how the dark corners of the internet have serious implications for mainstream politics.
The Russian foreign ministry has decried Ukraine’s attacks on the Crimean bridge as “terrorist attacks” on “civilian infrastructure”.
“The Crimean bridge is an object of purely civilian infrastructure [lie!], attacks on which are unacceptable,” spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion, conducting air strikes on power grids, dams, parks, schools, private homes, churches and hotels.
In Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories (Melville House, 2023), Mike Rothschild delves into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family—from the “pamphlet wars” of Paris in the 1840s to the dankest pits of the internet today. Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, who isn’t related to the family, sorts out myth from reality to find the truth about these conspiracy theories and their spreaders. Who were the Rothschilds? Who are they today? Do they really own $500 trillion and every central bank, in addition to “controlling the British money supply?” Is any of this actually true? And why, even as their wealth and influence have waned, do they continue to drive conspiracies and hoaxes?…
Why do so many on the Christian, cultural, and political right receive such obvious pleasure in enacting policies and legislation that harm others? Don’t they care about the harm they’re doing? And if not, why not? Dan tackles this issue in this week’s episode, taking a look empathy, and its lack, as key concept for answering these questions.
Survivors witnessed a surreal landscape of flattened homes, blackened hulks of burned-out cars and ashy lots where buildings once stood as they took stock of their shattered lives in the aftermath of a fast-paced wildfire on the Hawaii island of Maui that authorities say killed at least 80 people.
Anthony Garcia assessed the devastation as he stood under Lahaina’s iconic banyan tree, now charred, and swept twisted branches into neat piles next to another heap filled with dead animals: cats, roosters and other birds killed by the smoke and flames.
[…] Cadaver-sniffing dogs were deployed to search for the dead, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said.
A new wildfire Friday evening triggered the evacuation of Kaanapali in West Maui, a community northeast of the area that burned earlier, but crews were able to extinguish the fire before 8:30 p.m., authorities said.
Attorney General Anne Lopez announced plans to conduct a comprehensive review of decision-making and standing policies impacting the response to the deadly wildfires.
“My Department is committed to understanding the decisions that were made before and during the wildfires and to sharing with the public the results of this review,” Lopez said in a statement.
The wildfires are the state’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 on the Big Island, prompted development of a territory-wide emergency system with sirens that are tested monthly.
Many fire survivors said they didn’t hear any sirens or receive a warning giving them enough time to prepare, realizing they were in danger only when they saw flames or heard explosions. […]
Rob Grigjanissays
SC @474: And England! The Matildas meet the Lionesses in the second semi-final (after Spain vs Sweden Tuesday) on Wednesday.
wzrd1says
Wow, just fucking wow. A Kentucky school district apparently didn’t realize that school buses needed drivers, stranding 96000 students until nearly 10 PM. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/11/us/kentucky-schools-transportation-disaster/index.html
Just a little hiccup there.
Seriously, what in the actual fuck?! Did brain cells suddenly become extinct in that district?
…In Aotearoa (New Zealand) today, government guidelines tell us to consume 2.5 servings of dairy a day, and offer it in schools with no alternative, even though around 64 percent of the Indigenous Māori people are lactose intolerant….
I’m not sure how this is allowed to continue there or in the US. It seems plainly discriminatory (especially in historical context).
…How did the next big thing in food modernization, climate action and harm reduction suddenly become reduced to a fake product as terrible as Twinkies and as unhealthy as, well, chicken nuggets? Who or what could possibly benefit from consumers turning their backs on products that taste like dead farmed animals, but aren’t actually made of dead farmed animals?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a new sub-variant of Covid called EG.5 – unofficially named “Eris” – a variant of interest and is asking countries to monitor it as cases grow globally.
But the organisation says it poses a low risk to public health, with no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other variants circulating at the moment….
The paradox of techno-optimism at a huge conference on the future of mental health led by embattled tech CEOs alongside the most prominent figures of psychiatry….
Oggie: Mathomsays
Wow, just fucking wow. A Kentucky school district apparently didn’t realize that school buses needed drivers, stranding 96000 students until nearly 10 PM.
My guess is that the person who was responsible for making sure that there were drivers retired and, with the slashing of school budgets nationwide, no one was hired to do that job. Though rarely with this much of a splatter pattern, this kind of thing happens frequently in any bureaucracy – public or private. Any institution or business that operates under optimum staffing will experience this kind of ‘oh, shit, I didn’t know that the person who retired also had this even though it is not in the job description’ moment.
Last week, The Atlantic published a plan to reverse Christianity’s decline in popularity. But there is a problem with what Christian author Jake Meador proposes: is that it is the same old conservative Christian patriarchy that caused the decline — only in disguise.
Meador starts by observing:
“Nearly everyone I grew up with in my childhood church in Lincoln, Nebraska, is no longer Christian.”
I also spent most of my life in Lincoln, and I also know a lot of people there who are no longer Christian. Judging by our mutual friends on Facebook, some of the ex-Christians Meador knows are the same people that I know. I wonder if he talked to any of them about why they left Christianity?
Rather than draw on the experiences of any of those actual people, Meador writes about the hypothetical experiences of a couple of “composite characters” from a forthcoming Christian book called “The Great Dechurching.” These composite people are busy with childcare, work, or friendships that take up their Sunday mornings. Yet, they want to attend church, Meador assures us. Because the book isn’t out yet, we can’t examine the social science that this assurance is supposedly based on. We must accept on faith that “a typical evangelical dechurcher” is someone who would be going to church if they could. Meador appears to assume that, aside from a few victims of abuse, people don’t have a problem with church itself. They simply cannot find the time to attend.
This isn’t a new idea. Back in 2000, the book “Bowling Alone” documented a reduction in in-person community involvement of all kinds – bowling leagues, churches, labor unions, etc. – starting in the US in the 1960s. The pressures of work and childcare are one explanation that the book found for this decline. It is no surprise that, like other community organizations, churches continue to get squeezed out of the public’s dwindling free time. The fact that this is happening to Christianity in particular is not newsworthy.
But, the simple inability to schedule time in a church pew doesn’t explain why Meador’s childhood friends rejected the Christian religion entirely. They could have kept the faith in their hearts and homes, but they apparently didn’t. For someone who wants to forestall Christianity’s decline, Meador says remarkably little about why these people left.
To his credit, Meador does acknowledge that abuse survivors have an understandable reason to leave religion. “Numerous victims of abuse in church environments can identify a moment when they lost the ability to believe, when they almost felt their faith draining out of them,” he writes.
Abuse does explain a disturbing share of deconversions. In 2021, the Nebraska attorney general uncovered credible allegations of the sexual abuse of hundreds of children in the state, and speculated that many more were abused but not discovered because of a cover-up in which “those in authority chose to place the reputation of the church above the protection of the children.”
Still, victims of abuse aren’t numerous enough to explain the mass outflow of people from Christianity. Meador can comprehend an acute crisis of faith following the betrayal of abuse. He’s also aware that many people give up belief less dramatically, “less like jumping off a cliff and more like driving down a slope.” Yet he puts forth no idea of their motivations to stop believing.
However, the reasons people leave religion have been investigated.
In a cross-cultural survey in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality published in 2022, people most often explained that they outgrew religion intellectually, or that they rejected it because of problems like sex abuse scandals, hypocrisy, and hatefulness toward particular social groups. Similarly, in an online survey by Baptist News Global, the most popular initial reason for leaving American Christianity was the religion’s mistreatment of LGBTQ people. Other common explanations were the bad behavior of believers, the religion’s lack of intellectual coherence, Christianity’s obsession with politics, and its maltreatment of women.
Speaking with the ex-Christians in my social group in Lincoln, I’ve heard these same explanations many times. Yet I have never spoken to anyone who attributed their deconversion simply to their busy schedule. Nor do the surveys record this as a common reason.
The sexism and homophobia that often drive people away from the religion are the very reasons that Christianity appeals to Meador. In its mission statement, Meador’s blog is “committed to Nicean orthodoxy as well as the orthodox teachings of Scripture and the church concerning sex and gender.” He is a “complementarian,” a Christianese word for sacred sexism. Like the “separate but equal” regime of the Jim Crow South, complementarians pretend to regard men and women as equal while also saying (and doing) things that plainly treat women as inferior. His blog is full of typical reactionary material on gender, pining for the days “when our country still knew what marriage was and what men and women are” and opposing divorce.
To justify these beliefs, conservative Christians sometimes claim their paternalism protects women and children. But it does not. In July, a 26-year-old man in Lincoln was charged with posing as a 17-year-old high school student using a fake birth certificate and other “incredibly well-crafted, fraudulent documents.” Zachary Scheich faces two counts of sexual assault and one count of sex trafficking of a minor, having allegedly solicited sex from school children as young as 13. Scheich is a pastor’s son. His father, Jeff Scheich, preaches at Christ Lincoln, a multi-campus conservative church that excludes women from leadership. Pastor Jeff advocates for “conversion therapy” of gay people; his denomination regards gay relationships as “intrinsically sinful.”
I do not blame Jeff Scheich for the allegations against his son; this situation would be a nightmare for any parent. Instead, I bring up these events as a demonstration that moralizing against gay people and women does not work to keep vulnerable people safer. Someone raised with these conservative sexual beliefs may go on to commit horrific acts. This example is not particularly unusual — it just happened to be the example that occurred in Lincoln during the same week that Meador published in The Atlantic. Consider it a snapshot of the dysfunctional Christianity that Meador calls us to embrace.
Rather than fix the prejudices that plague Christianity or address the abuse that he acknowledges but quickly discards, Meador has another suggestion:
“A healthy church can be a safety net in the harsh American economy by offering its members material assistance in times of need: meals after a baby is born, money for rent after a layoff. Perhaps more important, it reminds people that their identity is not in their job or how much money they make; they are children of God, loved and protected and infinitely valuable.”
As his ideal of this safety-net church, Meador picks a small Bruderhof religious commune in New York where, he writes, “members do not have privately held property but share their property and money.” The Bruderhof movement prohibits divorce, same-sex relationships, and all sex outside marriage. I’m sure the enforcement of these rules is simplified when the rule-makers have total control over all property. Laws against divorce were historically easy to enforce before women could have independent finances.
He writes that churches are in decline because they “aren’t asking nearly enough” from people. Meador wants Christianity to become a full-immersion experience. He imagines this ideal church lovingly caring for people’s needs — and incidentally exercising considerable financial and social control over people’s lives.
He tries to make it sound cozy:
“What is more needed in our time than a community marked by sincere love, sharing what they have from each according to their ability and to each according to their need, eating together regularly, generously serving neighbors, and living lives of quiet virtue and prayer?”
Of course, “each according to their ability and to each according to their need” is a famous saying of Karl Marx. Meador’s anti-capitalist feelings come through when he complains about how work takes people away from church. What he doesn’t say in The Atlantic – but does say on his blog – is that he’s also opposed to capitalism because it causes women to work outside the home. He says paid labor is “hostile to life, care, and the design of women’s bodies” because it gives women something to do other than bear and raise children. The utopia he appears to want is actually a misogynist dystopia.
I don’t think I need to explain that Marxism is pretty unpopular in Nebraska. The state’s conservative Christian voters are conditioned to use the words “socialism” and “cultural Marxism” as the ultimate insults for anything that seems progressive or tolerant. The power structure they elect is extremely capitalist and brutally Christian. Nebraska’s governor, Jim Pillen, is an agribusiness multimillionaire who thinks transgender people represent “Lucifer at its finest.”
In May, Pillen vetoed millions of dollars of social safety net spending from the state’s already “austere” Republican-drafted budget. This includes cuts to Medicaid, rural housing assistance, a gun safety study, child welfare spending, and reductions to a program to provide court-appointed advocates for children who suffer abuse.
Hence, conservative Christians already control the state’s social safety net. They choose to let the needy suffer. They are not going to suddenly build a well-functioning safety net — much less a Marxist utopia — if their religion takes even more power over people’s lives. Much the same is true in all red US states: they each have a highly Christian government that hates taking care of people’s needs.
Meador proposes a seemingly-compassionate Christian authoritarianism. The compassionate portion of his proposal will never be implemented. It can only serve to make authoritarianism more palatable. It only appears compassionate if you overlook its sexism and homophobia. To be charitable to Meador, perhaps he does not realize that no real-world conservative Christians will ever follow his advice. Nonetheless, he proposes a false bargain: cede power to conservative Christianity, and in return, get a promise of a social safety net that Christianity will never deliver.
I’m not sure why The Atlantic chose a sexually conservative Marxist to represent the future of American Christianity. But they’re not alone; in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the New York Times ran an essay by a conservative Christian woman who argued that outlawing abortion will help to bring about a compassionate, feminist Christian society that truly cares about women and children. But her proposal has the same problem as Meador’s: powerful conservative Christians have never actually shown a willingness to create the compassionate policy that she suggests.
These authors are promoting nothing more than the Christian patriarchy that Republicans on the religious right have long promoted; they’ve just decorated it with leftist ideas like Marxism and feminism. Their musings are as substantial as a late-night bull session in a college dorm room. Their only proposal to reverse the decline of Christianity is to do even more of the stuff that drove people away.
…Phil Cooney now outranked the National Academy of Sciences. He’d become—with scissor and inserts—the most powerful literary editor in the world….
Oggie: Mathomsays
We had a saying where I used go work: You Can’t Make This Shit Up!” Texas has now broken through the bottom of the barrel and is now scraping the bottom of the next barrel.
Texas, a fiercely anti-abortion state that has fought for the rights of unborn children, is now conveniently arguing the opposite in a legal battle spurred by a lawsuit filed in 2021. According to the lawsuit, prison guard Salia Issa began feeling intense pain “similar to a contraction” during her shift, but her supervisor allegedly refused to let her leave and kept her in the post for another two hours. Once she was finally let go, the suit says Issa had to drive herself to the hospital to undergo emergency surgery because doctors were unable to detect a fetal heartbeat. Soon after, she delivered her baby stillborn. Issa is seeking monetary damages to cover her medical bills and funeral expenses for the unborn child, but the state attorney general’s office has requested a judge dismiss the case. Central to the state’s argument is that “just because several statutes define an individual to include an unborn child does not mean that the Fourteenth Amendment does the same,” the office wrote in a March legal filing. Their argument also leans on the fact that Issa lost her unborn child before the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Just last week, a judge recommended the case move forward without addressing arguments over the rights of a fetus.
To understand why it’s a bad idea to try to hold onto a tiny 2 km-wide salient sticking out into enemy-controlled territory—while also surrounded on three sides in modern combat—try joining the Russian defenders in Urozhaine. They are receiving a horrific lesson on tactical futility.
Urozhaine has been at the center of some of the fiercest fighting on the southern front, alongside Robotyne to the west. It is part of Ukraine’s advance southward from Velyka Novosilka. [map at the link]
Urozhaine is a small town, with a pre-war population of around 1,000. it sits alongside the T0518 Highway that connects the Ukrainian-held Velyka Novosilka to Staromlynivka, which sits just north of Russia’s only fortified defense line in this region. [map at the link]
Urozhaine and Staromaiorske are separated by the tiny Mokri Yali River; Staromaiorske was liberated by Ukrainian troops on July 27.
Rather than concede this defensive alignment centered on Staromaiorske and Urozhaine once the defense line had been breached, Russia instead launched a furious series of counterattacks in early August, running straight uphill against newly established Ukrainian defensive positions on the high ground within the town. After several days of counterattacks, the Russians gave up, having accomplished nothing.
For all of Russia’s “fight for every inch” philosophy, I didn’t think Russia would be so boneheaded as to refuse to retreat from Urozhaine after giving up on retaking Staromaiorske. It’s hard to express just how impossible a position Urozhaine became after Staromaiorske fell firmly into Ukrainian control. [map at the link]
Most people with even a cursory understanding of military tactics understand that “trying to defend a position surrounded on three sides is a bad idea,” but let’s put it into very practical terms.
First, understand that there’s a de facto maximum “combat density” of troops Russia can put into a given position before things become counterproductive. That is, one can only put so many military resources into a square kilometer of ground.
Packing troops and equipment into a small area means they become more vulnerable to artillery and airstrikes. If troops are stationed in every third building, an artillery round that accidentally hits the wrong building won’t kill any troops; if you pack soldiers into every building, even an artillery round that “misses” its mark can take out troops.
Combat density problems are particularly acute when on the defensive.
On the offensive, a large number of troops can be packed into a small area for a short period (especially if they are riding in armored vehicles); they can fight for a short spurt and then disperse to avoid enemy firepower.
But on the defensive, by definition, the goal is to keep the defensive force in place for an extended period of time. In theory, reserves could be rushed into an area and then quickly retreated, but there are practical limits quickly encountered in time and space.
Thus, assuming that Russia concentrated maximal practical defensive forces on Urozhaine prior to the fall of Staromaiorske, Russia cannot simply rush more troops into Urozhaine to resolve the more precarious nature of its current tactical situation. It will have to make do with the same amount of combat power as it had before.
Before Staromaiorske was captured by Ukraine, Russian defenders could rely on the Russian troops in Staromaiorske to cover their left flank. Since its fall, the same number of defenders must now defend not only the northern and eastern approaches to Urozhaine, but its western flank as well. [map at the link]
This leaves Urozhaine significantly more vulnerable. But Russia’s problems run far deeper.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has frequently been described as an “artillery war,” which is certainly a fair characterization. And one weapon that has made artillery dramatically more powerful has been the simple reconnaissance drone.
For example, the M777, the lightweight American towed 155 mm howitzer in ubiquitous Ukrainian service—with nearly 200 delivered to Ukraine—is very accurate. With digital fire controls and high-precision manufacturing, it achieves a circle error of probability of 25m, at a maximum range of 23km. That is, if it fires one round at a target at 23km, 50% of the time, the shot will land within 25m (82 feet) of the target.
This might be accurate enough to hit a large building, but it is not accurate enough to hit tank-sized units or a small squad of infantry.
There are three ways in which artillery can dramatically improve its odds of hitting the target.
First, Ukrainian artillery can reach for a guided munition. Excalibur GPS rounds, GMLRS rockets from HIMARS rocket artillery, and BONUS or SMArt antitank munitions all have various types of guidance abilities that reduce CEP to only a few meters, making them highly likely to destroy their targets. Russian artillery also has some limited access to laser-guided artillery shells, although these require a spotter to guide the shell into the target with a laser targeter.
The downside is that guided munitions cost hundreds of times more than a conventional artillery round. An Excalibur GPS guided round costs around $100k, where as a conventional 155 mm shell can be had for a few hundred dollars.
Second, artillery in defensive positions can rely on preregistered artillery fire. Artillery in defensive positions can “test fire” a few rounds at various anticipated enemy approaches beforehand and gain a working knowledge of where they expect rounds to fall at different angles of fire. This information is recorded, so when an enemy force approaches a preregistered site, artillery can open fire using this information, allowing them to land far more accurate strikes. This basic tactic is used by both Russian and Ukrainian artillery crews and is one reason that artillery tends to be deadlier in defense.
Lastly, artillery crews can make use of a spotter to lay down adjusted artillery fire. A spotter—on the ground or in an aircraft—or most commonly, a reconnaissance drone will observe where artillery shells are falling. That information is relayed back to artillery crews, who adjust their fire accordingly. Artillery shells can gradually be “walked” to their target by adjusting the artillery fire over time.
Thus, in modern combat, the ability to place enemy targets under observation is essentially equivalent to firepower. Artillery firing blindly to blanket enemy targets in hopes of hitting something is a waste of ammunition. Sometimes there is no better option, but concentrating firepower on targets under observation minimizes the number of shells necessary to efficiently destroy targets.
This brings into focus another major problem with Russia’s choice to defend Urozhaine.
Before Staromaiorske fell, Ukrainian drones had to fly over Russian anti-drone defenses deployed in the north in order to observe rearward Russian positions.
With Staromaiorske now under Ukrainian control, observation drones can likely bring most or nearly all of Urozhaine under observation, while barely needing to penetrate Russian anti-drone defenses. [important point]
[…] Ukrainian artillery is being relayed information from frontline Ukrainian units and thus can walk artillery barrages onto Russian rearward targets with great efficiency, bringing all of Urozhaine under risk of artillery strikes at any time.
Unsurprisingly, Ukraine has been doing just that for the past two weeks. [video at the link: Ukrainian forces employ UAV reconnaissance to reveal enemy position.]
The stupidity of Russia’s decision to defend a 4km-long and 2km-wide salient sticking into Ukrainian-controlled ground can be inferred from the lack of air defense. [map at the link]
Air defense assets, with their powerful expensive radars and expensive anti-air munitions that generally cost over $1M per missile, are not something to put right on the front line. Even less expensive short-ranged anti-air systems will generally be placed at least a few kilometers from the front, lest they become easy targets to enemy artillery.
Before Urozhaine became an isolated tiny salient, it may have been safe to place short-ranged SAM systems around the vicinity of Zavitne Bazhannya, which could give coverage against Ukrainian Close Air Support bombers trying to fly in for a strike—making it a risky proposition. That’s not to say that such a strike couldn’t be attempted, particularly with a GPS-guided glide bomb, like the JDAM, which can be toss-bombed from a distance of 30km or more. But it would be a more dangerous proposition.
However, once Staromaiorske was liberated and Ukraine advanced on both flanks of Urozhaine, not only did all of Urozhaine come under spotter drone observation for Ukrainian artillery, Ukraine also pushed its ability to observe Russian-held territory several kilometers behind Urozhaine, making such areas likely too dangerous for Russian SAM batteries. Russian SAM batteries were almost certainly forced to pull their anti-air coverage several kilometers backward—leaving Urozhaine further exposed to Ukrainian CAS bomber strikes. [Yep]
Thus we see JDAM strikes on front-line Russian strong points by Ukrainian bombers in Urozhaine. [Tweet and video at the link]
I share Kos’ befuddlement at Russia’s strategic decision to contest every inch of ground beyond their main defense lines, even at the cost of expending their reserves in repeated counterattacks on newly captured high grounds—like at Staromaiorske.
However, due to the fog of war, I have difficulty entirely ruling out the possibility that perhaps the Russians have some logistically, militarily, or politically strategic angle that I am not seeing to justify this expenditure of men and materiel. Perhaps Russia is counting on mobilization to refill its ranks, or there really are 100 T-90 tanks about to roll off of Russian assembly lines. Perhaps Russia’s gotten assurances of Chinese military aid that will be arriving within weeks. I think all these things are fantastically unlikely at present, but I won’t say the possibility is zero.
What I will say, with a fair amount of confidence, is that the Russian decision not to withdraw from Urozhaine after Ukraine liberated Staromaiorske and the counterattacks to regain the position failed cannot possibly be militarily justified. These Russian soldiers were left in an utterly vulnerable position where they would be exposed to Ukrainian firepower. This has been a fully lopsided fight for Ukraine, as its forces were able to strike at Russian positions at will for two weeks.
Now that Ukraine felt the defenders have been sufficiently degraded to move on the position from the north and southwest, it’s unsurprising the Russian defenses are quickly crumbling. It’s quite likely that any Russian defenders in this position have been thoroughly decimated in the past two weeks, in what can only be described as utter folly on the part of Russian commanders.
Switching gears, I have been watching with growing interest Ukraine’s small-scale operations to establish defensible positions on the left bank (i.e. the south bank) of the Dnipro River, close to Kherson. [Map at the link]
Ukraine first sent the 73rd Marine special operations unit on a mission to establish a position across the Dnipro, where the remains of the Antonivka Bridge still stand.
Russian positions in Oleshky have not been seriously threatened, but repeated attempts by Russian artillery, cruise missiles, and land forces to dislodge Ukraine from its now dug-in positions have failed. Ukraine has extended its area of control southwest, to encompass all the territory north of the Konka River, and reportedly has crossed the Konka River southwest of Oleshky, although forces have not appeared to have advanced any further. [map at the link]
On Wednesday, Ukraine launched a small-scale offensive operation aimed at Kozachi Laheri, about 17km northeast of Oleshky. [map at the link]
The scale of this attack was reportedly not large, involving fewer than 50 soldiers on seven boats. But even this small force managed to penetrate Russia’s limited defenses at Kozahi Laheri and establish a defensive position in the western part of the town.
A furious artillery duel followed, as Russia tried to force the Ukrainiansto retreat with sheer firepower, and Ukraine laid down counterbattery fire and bombardment of nearby Russian positions.
Remarkably, given the small initial force that was sent, Ukraine continues to hold its position at Kozahi Laheri. It’s unclear if the small initial force has been reinforced.
So the question becomes, what is Ukraine’s objective in launching these small-scale attacks across the river?
Due to the small scale of the attack, the Institute for the Study of War initially characterized this operation as a “limited raid,” but this is a characterization I would dispute. Raids are generally aimed at causing damage and exploiting gaps in enemy defenses, but they generally do not aim to capture and hold territory—however small the territorial gains are.
Ukraine launched a series of probing attacks and raids from November-June, wherein Ukrainian troops would disembark on the left bank of the Dnipro, perhaps fight a few skirmishes, investigate the surroundings, or attack a small isolated outpost, then leave. These are classic raid operations.
But Ukraine’s operation in crossing the Dnipro north of Oleshky, and now west of Kosachi Laheri, are of a different character; even if they are similar in scale to past operations, soldiers are now seeking to find defensible locations and dig in.
Several possibilities for Ukrainian objectives can be surmised, and these are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
First, the goal could be to “fix” Russian troops in the Kherson direction. By threatening to land and establish defensible positions on the opposite bank of the Dnipro, Russia is forced to maintain a measure of defensive forces in this region. if too many Russian troops are being diverted to Zaporizhzhia or the Donetsk fronts, Ukraine could launch gradually expanding raids to drive fear of an even greater-scale attack that would permit Ukraine to begin establishing a serious cross-river offensive.
Russian commanders may fear the situation getting out of hand and request reinforcements before things are too late, and Ukraine might “fix” a significant amount of Russian troops in this area with a relatively small commitment of troops.
Second, Ukraine’s goal might be the attrition of Russian artillery assets.
Ukraine has been leveraging significant advantages in counterbattery radar, precision munitions, and long-range rocket artillery in HIMARS to a 3:1 or better artillery kill ratio. Pro-Russian bloggers have been calling it an “artillery genocide.”
RUSI has already observed a radical 75%+ decline in the volume of 152 mm heavy artillery fire for Russia, and an increased reliance on heavy mortars in its place. Russian artillery has shown an increased reliance on archaic 50- to 70-year-old artillery systems and towed artillery, leaving its crews increasingly vulnerable to counterbattery fire. Degraded crews and weaker equipment further accelerate Ukraine’s artillery advantages.
One of Ukraine’s present goals is likely to eliminate sufficient quantities of trained Russian artillery crews and enough high-quality artillery pieces to grind Russia’s artillery arm into increasing ineffectiveness.
To accomplish this, Ukraine needs not only localized casualties to Russian artillery assets in areas they wish to advance ,but a global decline in Russian artillery assets. To achieve this, Ukraine needs to leverage its advantages and engage Russian artillery in as many areas as possible. By dealing damage to Russian artillery in maximum areas of combat, the overall Russian losses might become overwhelming on a systemic level.
Although the number of Ukrainian infantry engaged in combat in these cross-river operations is tiny compared to the fighting around Robotyne, Urozhaine, or Bakhmut, the number of artillery units engaged in combat is not trivial. The fires from the furious bombardments and counterbattery fire are large enough to be detected as serious artillery engagements on FIRMS satellite heat map data.
Thus, these small-scale infantry raids may be trigger points to force Russian artillery units to reveal themselves to counterbattery fire. Whatever Russian artillery Ukraine can knock out in these engagements may be the primary point of launching the attacks—as opposed to any ground that Ukraine gains on the left bank.
Finally, it is possible that Ukraine is building towards a serious river crossing operation, aimed at opening a new and significant route of advance from the rear of the Russian defenses around Melitopol and Tokmak. [map at the link]
This would be great! Except that to sustain a large enough force that could seriously threaten the Russian rear, Ukraine needs a pontoon bridge or three.
Laying a pontoon bridge across the Dnipro is certainly possible. Russia built a pontoon crossing in under 24 hours right next to the Antonivka Bridge on Oct. 19, 2022, despite the river’s width being nearly a mile around this area. Around where the Antonivka Rail Bridge used to be, about a mile upstream from the Road Bridge, the river narrows considerably and is only a little more than 500m wide. [map at the link]
So there are certainly some points where Ukraine could lay a pontoon bridge.
The problem is securing a perimeter that makes the bridges secure. If Ukraine begins building a pontoon bridge while under observation by Russian reconnaissance drones, the bridge will undoubtedly be quickly destroyed.
This is the inverse of the “observation is firepower” issue discussed above with regards to Urozhaine. For Ukraine to build a pontoon bridge and protect it, at the very minimum, Ukraine must drive back Russian positions from the planned bridge site. Ukraine could then deploy anti-drone assets to prevent observation by Russian reconnaissance drones.
Ten kilometers would probably be an absolute bare minimum depth, but 15-20km would probably be necessary. [map at the link]
t’s not that bringing a sufficient force to conduct such a major operation isn’t within Ukraine’s capabilities.
Based on publicly known military ferry assets Ukraine has received, I previously calculated that in the first 20 minutes, Ukraine could ferry across 8 main battle tanks and 12 infantry fighting vehicles. By the end of two hours, if Russia fails to disrupt the crossings, Ukraine should be able to bring across around 30 to 40 MBTs, 80 to 100 IFVs, 8,000+ dismounted infantry, and supporting artillery.
The problem isn’t so much bringing a large force across the river, but being able to sustain it. Multiple brigades worth of Ukrainian soldiers would require enormous supplies of food, ammunition, and fuel simply to sustain in place, let alone to advance.
Additionally, bringing a significant force across the river risks having it isolated and destroyed. Ukraine can simply load up a few dozen soldiers to make a hasty retreat if a major Russian counterattack is brewing. But as previously noted, organizing a fighting withdrawal of hundreds or thousands of Ukrainian troops, tanks, and other armored vehicles is a different dimension of complexity—and likely beyond Ukraine’s capabilities.
But there is one relatively low-risk way for Ukraine to gradually set conditions for a push across the river: Bring the towns surrounding Oleshky under Ukrainian control with small unit offensives before launching a bigger assault. [map at the link]
For example, Ukrainian raids on small villages—perhaps southwest of Oleshky, like Kardashynka or Kokhany, or northeast of Oleshky around Pishchanivka—could establish small defensive positions that help isolate Oleshky from Russian reinforcements. This would create staging areas for a major effort to surround and capture Oleshky rapidly—if Ukraine chose to do so.
Such actions can continue at relatively small scale, requiring dozens, not hundreds of soldiers. Yet the overall net effect of gradually establishing defensible positions dotted around the riverside villages would be to gradually impede the movement of Russian forces alongside the river, and establish conditions for a rapid encirclement of Oleshky if Ukraine chose to bring across a significant force.
This would increasingly put pressure on Russia to increase troop presence in this area, or risk permitting Ukraine to establish a significant bridgehead across the Dnipro.
There are numerous complications to such an operation—which would be enormously risky. Russian cruise missiles could be used to target any pontoon bridges, and Ukraine’s logistics would be dependent on its ability to keep the pontoon bridges intact. Ukraine would likely need multiple bridges to ensure that it can survive the loss of one bridge, even temporarily. Ukraine would also need to deploy a modern Western SAM battery to guard against Russian missile attacks—and even then the risks would be high.
But if Ukraine is aiming to begin a pattern of establishing small defensible locations along the bank of the Dnipro, there may be a greater operational goal down the road. And the mere threat of those operational developments could force Russia into some tough decisions on where to allocate troops.
[…] When your currency is less desirable than North Korea’s. It’s only a matter of time before the ruble plunges into a death spiral. Russia is having to spend huge amounts of its foreign currency reserves to prop up the ruble, but it can’t keep that up forever. […]
We’ve been meaning to get to this one since we saw it mentioned on Twitter a couple weeks ago, shortly after Florida’s Department of Education approved the use of videos from PragerU (Slogan: “In no sense a university”) as supplementary materials for “civics and government” in Florida classrooms. PragerU is the rightwing disinformation factory run by Dennis Prager (Slogan: “Anne Frank was a IDIOT”), and earlier this week we looked at a particularly noxious video in which Christopher Columbus teaches kids that slavery was merely a product of its time, everyone did it, and hey, it was better than being killed.
We have good news for you, Wonkers: the lousy lying climate denial video we’ll consider today isn’t nearly as awful, although it too is full of lies. But they aren’t lies about enslaving human beings, so … progress?
Today’s experiment is “Ania’s Energy Crisis,” eight minutes of video torture […]
The video is set in present-day Poland, where a bright tween girl named Ania learns to resist the ideology of climate change, although you won’t actually learn anything about science in the video at all. Fear not: I’ve slapped fact-checking URLs on top of most of the climate denial claims mentioned in the video.
Please note that Anya looks slightly starved, and her family members are all a little haggard and disheveled. We guess that shows Europe isn’t free like America. [video at the link]
We learn that coal blesses Poland with 70 percent of its power, adding that over a third of Poles use plentiful “cheap brown coal” to heat their homes. It briefly mentions “pollution” is a problem, but doesn’t explain.
Sadly, the government of Ania’s hometown, Krakow, banned coal! Her teacher, a frumpy elitist who loves telling others how to live, insists that Poland must eliminate all fossil fuels to “save the world,” although why people think so is never explained.
Her teacher pushes Ania to mindlessly spout climate doctrine, but like Christians in the closing pages of a Chick Tract, Ania’s parents rescue her via logical fallacies taken straight from climate denial blogs. Hasn’t climate always changed? If Poland stopped using coal, would that really halt climate change? Especially since India and China aren’t doing anything? These loaded questions make Ania question everything.
Then Russia invades Ukraine and cuts off gas supplies, and Poland’s foolish ban on coal makes everyone miserable, because wind and solar energy can’t power a whole country!
Ania does her own research and “learns” renewable energy is unreliable and more expensive than coal, because she only reads stuff the Heartland Institute wrote a decade ago. (The video is recent enough to discuss the invasion of Ukraine, but deliberately ignores the fact that wind and solar are cheaper than coal, and have been for years. )
Poor Ania shares her concerns at school, but even her best friend shuns her because belief in climate change is the “cool” thing for kids these days. You know you’re in a rightwing fantasy, because not even Ania’s teacher can explain how renewables can ever be abundant and affordable enough to replace coal.
Ania goes online to tell anyone who’ll listen that “energy poverty” is far worse than “climate change,” but as she shares her research, she gets nothing but rude replies like “Your ‘facts’ make me angry!” with lots of angry emojis. Nobody argues back with science.
And there’s the big cheat: the video doesn’t even attempt to explain away climate science, apart from the broad idea that “believers” in climate change say not burning fossil fuels will save the world. Not a word about the science, which is plenty easy to understand: Burning coal, oil, and gas releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, trapping heat and warming the planet.
The video’s “arguments” are entirely emotional: without coal, nice people must suffer for the sake of what snooty experts claim is real, even if the “believers” have no good answers. And if you dare question climate change, people get angry at you. Climate change is pretty much a fad. It’s climate denial that doesn’t even bother denying anything.
Anyway, Ania’s family is “proud of her for telling the truth,” which isn’t specified either. They tell her tales of how before communism fell, Dad had to meet friends secretly, under threat from the government, to “share his ideas.” And Grandpa Yakob tells her about the “Warsaw Uprising,”
when the city’s Jews fought back against the Nazis. Yakob remembers helping smuggle food, blankets, and even ammunition to the Jewish resistance fighters through the sewer tunnels.
May we get pedantic? Here the video conflates — deliberately or lazily — two completely different events in WWII: the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Or maybe Grandpa just has a bad memory, because he’s recalling a story that couldn’t have happened.
The August 1944 Warsaw uprising was a brave but doomed attempt by tens of thousands of Polish resistance fighters to drive the Nazis from the city. They held out 63 days, but Joseph Stalin halted the Red Army’s advance long enough to let the Nazis wipe out the democracy-minded resisters who might otherwise have opposed Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. So pragmatic!
There weren’t any “Jewish resistance fighters” in Warsaw during the 1944 uprising, because they were all dead. In April and May of 1943, about 750 Jewish fighters made a brave but doomed stand against the Nazis’ plan to liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto and send the remaining Jews to concentration camps. They resisted hellish Nazi assaults for 27 days before they and thousands of Jewish civilians were killed or captured.
And while one faction of the Jewish underground obtained a small number of pistols and some explosives from the regular Polish underground in October 1942, there were definitely no Polish gentiles running supplies through the sewers during the actual fighting.
So hey, PragerU, thanks for the inspiring “history” of a thing that never happened.
But we digress. The big lesson is that “fighting oppression is risky, and that it always takes courage,” so Ania keeps up her own brave online fight.
Yes, really. These Prager people are sick, stealing the valor of those who fought the Nazis and saying that demanding continued use of fossil fuels is every bit as brave. Also, opponents of fossil fuels are Nazis.
Ania’s blog starts taking off as others realize they too are oppressed by not having beautiful cheap carbon-rich coal. The Polish government drops restrictions on coal, and Ania helps folks score bargains on coal from the Czech Republic, which she helps deliver with her brother’s truck! The narrator’s voice trills with joy here, as everything is made better again by coal, all thanks to Ania, the brave little Johnny Carbonseed of Krakow.
Now, as with that idiotic slavery video, we don’t know whether any Florida schools are actually showing this crap to students. But the Florida Department of Education has determined that PragerU propaganda “aligns to Florida’s revised civics and government standards.” We do know for certain that PragerU videos are a standby for homeschoolers, and that during the pandemic, some teachers in public schools used them to fill time.
With other rightwing governors hot to copy Ron DeSantis’s war on “woke,” it seems inevitable that PragerU lies will be showing up in classrooms in other red states, too, unless people who give a damn about reality demand otherwise. Whole lotta school board seats up for election every year, everywhere, people.
UPDATE for Nerds: NPR reported on the PragerU nonsense yesterday, pointed out that “No Florida school district has yet announced plans to use PragerU Kids videos, but they can’t stop teachers from showing them, either.”
The story adds that public school advocates suggest parents tell principals to opt kids out of PragerU videos. Like so, from the Twitters: [image at the link: My child is not allowed to see, or be exposed to any PragerU materials at all! Thank you.]
The manager of the 2020 campaign that launched the far-right politician Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress has been ordered to pay $25,000 for his role in a charity scam aimed at capitalizing on the East Palestine train crash.
Isaiah Wartman and his business partner Luke Mahoney must each pay $22,000 in restitution as well as $3,000 in investigative costs and fees as part of a settlement with the Ohio attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case. Meanwhile, the settlement calls for a co-founder of the fake charity, Michael Peppel, to pay a $25,000 civil penalty and be banned from starting, running or soliciting for any charitable organization in the state.
The settlement, announced on Thursday, stems from the men’s involvement with the fraudulent Ohio Clean Fund, which sought donations for victims of February’s East Palestine train derailment.
The Ohio Clean Water Fund for which Wartman and Mahoney served as fundraisers raised $149,000 in donations in the wake of the East Palestine train derailment disaster in Ohio. The charity claimed it would provide donations to the Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley.
But the Ohio Clean Water Fund only donated $10,000, and the charity pocketed the rest…
StevoRsays
On the banks of the Komi Memem River, the activity never ceases: women go down the embankment from Laje Velho village carrying basins to wash clothing, while men embark in small canoes on hunting and fishing expeditions. At day’s end, it’s the children’s turn to dive into its tea-coloured waters.The river, named Laje on non-Indigenous maps, is vital to the Oro Waram, one of the six subgroups of the Wari’ people, who have inhabited the Western Amazon for centuries.
However, this immemorial relationship is under increasing threat. The relentless expansion of soybeans and pastures encroaches on their land, while land robbers promote illegal deforestation.To protect themselves, the Wari’ people are resorting to a new strategy; the white man’s law. In June, the municipality of Guajara-Mirim passed a groundbreaking law proposed by an Indigenous councilman that designates the Komi Memem and its tributaries as living entities with rights, ranging from maintaining their natural flow to having the forest around them protected.
Given the ramp up in the development of locally-produced Kamikaze drones that can fly several hundred kilometres, there is speculation a mass drone strike may not be far off.
According to Samuel Bendett, a Russian military weapons expert at the US Centre for Naval Analyses, this could be “truly massive”.
“Not a few, but a hundred or more drones attacking Moscow at once,” Mr Bendett told the ABC.
“If Ukraine can launch half a dozen and they can penetrate through air defences, what’s stopping them from launching dozens at once?”
This is what we know so far about what’s being targeted and Ukraine’s capabilities.
A fire that swept through a picturesque town in Maui this week has killed at least 89 people, authorities said Saturday, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire of the past century.
The newly released figure surpassed the toll of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead. A century earlier, the 1918 Cloquet Fire broke out in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and raced through a number of rural communities, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds.
At least two other fires have been burning in Maui, with no fatalities reported thus far: in south Maui’s Kihei area and in the mountainous, inland communities known as Upcountry. A fourth broke out Friday evening in Kaanapali, a coastal community in West Maui north of Lahaina, but crews were able to extinguish it, authorities said.
wzrd1says
Here is one chuckle I have.
What’s the difference between a Kamikaze drone and a cruise missile? Or for that matter, any other guided missile?
But, they’re new, so magical or something scare quote worthy.
They’re a melding of WWII level control with proper modern crypto for C3, the rest, just a guided missile that moves slower than what we normally expect from modern guided missiles. And hence, cheaper to build.
One can turn anything from a model airplane with limited ability to carry a payload, through a large jumbo jet into a drone.
The only difference between WWII level and now is software and hardware giving precision guidance and waypoints.
Reginald Selkirksays
@495:
What’s the difference between a Kamikaze drone and a cruise missile?
Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe.
Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation…
In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.
Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”
The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.
The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving…
The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid…
A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.
A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation…
Another dud hearing in a long line of Republican hearings regarding Hunter Biden … and another case of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot:
Leak
@ 482, the answer is simple, condemn the building.
Lynna, OM @ 483, it’s only a couple of hundred children born to die in agony, not a big deal for Texass.
Where agony lives and is preserved in perpetuity.
Again, justifying my longstanding suggestion of giving Texas back to Mexico.
Ukraine is using a new exploding drone to target Russia, say experts. But the ‘Beaver’ may have one major weakness.
Hello, Readers,
That was quick. We have already filled up another chapter of The Infinite Thread with 500 comments. Today, the thread automatically rolled over to begin anew at comment #1.
For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous chapter:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/07/11/infinite-thread-xxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2189842
Trump plans to toss Eastman and Giuliani under the bus.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/07/11/infinite-thread-xxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2189837
Mystery iron age warrior turns out to be female.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/07/11/infinite-thread-xxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2189790
Ukraine Update: MAGA support for Russia rising as Trump attacks Ukraine in his campaign
wzrd1 @2: “Lynna, OM @ 483, it’s only a couple of hundred children born to die in agony, not a big deal for Texass.
Where agony lives and is preserved in perpetuity.”
True. Still shocking to me to see those statistics, and the conclusion that “The anti-abortion movement championed by so-called Christian conservatives is finally achieving the results everyone said they would achieve: Dead infants and tortured citizens.”
Leave it to Beaver, yes?
Want to bet that they’re not randomly targeted, unlike Russian missiles?
Oh wait, striking back on an invader is terryism, so Russia and the Allies are terryists for attacking poor, innocent Nazi Germany in WWII…
I’ve got a full pallet of sarcasometers, for those whose sarcasm meters blew out, just send a SASE and I’ll pop a replacement along.
Shit, there went another pallet load…
New York Times:
NBC News:
Commentary:
Link
Link
@498 Reginald Selkirk said the decrease in the number of seats meant that ‘IMHO this is a big nothing-burger.’
I reply: I don’t argue with your figures. But, looking at the issue from more than a statistical viewpoint, I have seen, first hand, how in so many instances, for commercial profit, zoning is changed by big money no matter how many residential areas they ruin. It isn’t a nothing burger to those who constantly have raging people partying until about midnight and throwing beer bottles on their lawns and making their lives unbearable.
The residents have to live there, the billionaire developer goes to his (likely, I’m sure) expensive, quiet, private home at night.
‘From March through June 2022, residents in the working group canvassed neighbors and reported concerns. Among the most important: Neighbors did not want the use of the stadium expanded.’ The current use is limited by zoning. The new apparently almost limitless commercial uses including rock concerts (see below) and would be incredibly more disruptive of the residents’ lives, regardless of the actual capacity of the stadium. That dissent is from people who have to live with the expanded commercial use. The university was deceitful in their phone interviews – ‘Without providing any information about the challenges that rock concerts pose—dangerous sound transmission, traffic congestion, transportation complexities or parking problems’
Facts about the project and doubts about Northwestern’s false assurances became clearer. Grassroots opposition grew. Voices of dissent got louder.
AND, ‘So unbeknownst to residents and Evanston city council members who opposed the plan, the city asked a federal judge to modify the decree to protect Northwestern. Remarkably, it wanted to ban residents from discussing the proposed arena in the town-gown committee hearings.
On June 29, 2023, Northwestern and the city filed a joint brief supporting the ban.Stunning as it seemed, even before the first zoning commission hearing on the university’s unprecedented request to amend the ordinance, Evanston had aligned itself with Northwestern—in secret.’
I see this as very deceitful and acting against the desires of the residents the city officials were elected to represent.
DeSantis Campaign Was Totally Behind Those Controversial Meme Videos
[I would say “fascist” and “Nazi-wannabe” instead of “controversial.”]
New levels of cluelessness. Gleeful fascists. JFC
Rats, sorry about that, I got caught in the middle of the rollover to a new thread. But, the important point I wanted to make is: people’s lives get ruined for the sake of the arrogance of billionaires and of profit all the time. And, I have seen so many people who know what a crime it is, because they’ve lived it.
Thanks, Lynna, OM, it’s my timing that’s bad.
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on sure signs another indictment is about to drop
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vanity campaign is being boosted by a pro-Trump megadonor
And … it is a ploy to pull Democratic voters away from supporting Joe Biden so that Donald Trump has a better chance of winning.
There’s also the chaos and confusion factor. Republicans are good at that.
Huge fire burning in California and Nevada creating ‘fire whirls’
North Carolina Democrat-Turned-Republican Tricia Cotham Was A Plant All Along
https://www.wonkette.com/p/north-carolina-dem-turned-rep-tricia
from Lynna’s quote @8:
Also showing the failure of education in state of Georgia: ‘Jim Crow’, tho at the time a pejorative name for African Americans, refers to the sets of laws, enacted at the state, county, and city level, which enforced ‘separate but equal segregation — in all public accommodations — in the Old South. Jim Crow laws disenfranchised blacks, denied them educational opportunities, created separate sentencing guidelines for blacks (who, while in prison, could be rented from the state by wealthy farmers and industrialists), reduced their life expectancy, increased infant mortality. and created an underclass. Yes, this was done by the Democratic Party, but after the Dixiecrat fiascos after World War II, Democrats, under Johnson, forced through Civil Rights legislation and all of the hard-core racist Dixiecrats were successfully recruited by the GOP via the Southern Strategy. Fuck, there are so many things wrong with just that one statement . . .
The War On Books Continues. And kids are, as always, casualties.
Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing
Trump supporters won’t rest until ‘all of the people unlike them are gone, and gone with violence’: historian
Story by Travis Gettys
Bunch of fascist assholes.
Richard Dawkins has abandoned science to justify his transphobia
Opinion by Religion News Service (actually, by Hemant Mehta)
Apologies if this has already been posted, but this is the first time I have seen this article. I have seen some of the Dawkins quotes, but this short essay is, to me, new.
There is, of course, a disclaimer. After all, this the Religious News Service.
Ukraine receives Zuzana 2 howitzers from Slovakia, 14 more coming
Ukraine has 14 kinds of howitzers to batter Russian forces, but each gun brings a new problem for Kyiv
OceanGate Co-Founder Wants to Send 1,000 People to Venus—What Could Go Wrong?
AI’s hallucination problem
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-chatbots-ai-hallucination-problem-fixable.html
Cosmic Question Mark Spotted in Deep Space Suggests the Universe Is Stumped
Michigan prosecutors charge Trump allies in felonies involving voting machines, illegal ‘testing’
The never-ending Brexit:
Rishi Sunak makes a mess of international relations again.
https://youtu.be/LIf_MGDHd6w
or
https://youtu.be/Llf_MGDHd6w
Cartoon: Barbie, Ken, and Ted
“Skepticrat 205 Deus Twitter Machina”
(OK, this link has two I or two l, and ny cellphone cannot see the difference.
I have to type four links with all possible permutations.)
https://youtu.be/OF_oE5bjI0I
https://youtu.be/OF_oE5bjI0l
https://youtu.be/OF_oE5bjl0I
or
https://youtu.be/OF_oE5bjl0l
OK, Skepticrat is at the first link. Enjoy.
Updated Covid boosters could be authorized by end of month, Pfizer says
The drugmaker’s prediction comes as Covid hospitalizations are once again on the rise.
Retired bishop in New York state gets married after bid to leave priesthood denied
Nazis protest a Wisconsin Pride event, shouting homophobic slurs
In recent years, white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who are often armed, have increasingly protested Pride celebrations and drag events.
Followup to comment 10.
Top DeSantis aides oversaw creation of anti-LGBTQ+, Nazi-promoting videos
Missionary Raised $30M for Bibles—Then Blew It on Diamonds and Gambling
From the Guardian US liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
“Conspiracy Against Rights” should be his campaign slogan.
Henrietta Lacks’ family settles lawsuit with a biotech company that used her cells without consent
The Guardian liveblog has a link to the full 45-page indictment.
Guardian liveblog:
Florida Man Is Now Averaging One Federal Indictment Per Month
Jack Smith just gave a short public statement. He didn’t take any questions.
Guardian liveblog:
AG Merrick Garland will be speaking momentarily.
Reginald @18, hmm. I’m not that confident.
Mind you, you are not the only optimist:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/room-temperature-superconductor-new-developments
OTOH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjzL9cS3VW8&t=31s
DeSantis attacks DC jurors after Trump indictment
Story by Sarah Polus
© Provided by The Hill
New York Times:
Time:
https://time.com/6299476/summer-uptick-covid-19-us/
Bloomberg:
Link
Link
Ukraine Update: Putin doesn’t need an ‘off-ramp’ to end the war.
Reactions to the most recent indictments of Trump:
Jay Willis:
Juan Williams on Fox News:
Link
Link
Link
Wonkette link
Missionary Raised $30M for Bibles—Then Blew It on Diamonds and Gambling – Reginald Selkirk linking to Yahoo@34
A true philanthropist!
@47: I had COVID myself a month ago, and I have two (separate) friends who recently came down with it while traveling. Definitely seems to be a wave.
A retired FBI counterintelligence agent gets it right.
@KG #58
Hey, diamond mine and casino owners have to eat too, you know!!! /sn
Update on the upcoming Republican debate:
Link
Republicans hope to avoid blame for the latest downgrade in U.S. debt, but reality is stubborn, and there’s no great mystery here.
New York Times:
Commentary:
Link
Link
Here’s a random update on Russia’s ongoing effort to scrape up more men to serve as cannon fodder in Ukraine. I’ve lately seen some relevant bits and pieces in several news stories by the Finnish national broadcaster Yle.
Since July 11, Russia has reportedly revoked the driving licenses of men who are dodging the draft after receiving draft notices, including those living abroad. It remains unclear whether other countries will try to enforce this outside of Russia, and what the legal responsibilities are. Nowadays the draft notices can be delivered electronically (as opposed to in person), even abroad, though Russians who live permanently abroad are supposedly not eligible for draft. Information connections between Russia and other countries can be unreliable, which complicates the legalities.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20039766
Russian parliament is processing a change in the law concerning regular conscription, so that from 2024 on, young men up to age 30 (as opposed to 27 currently) will be sought to perform their mandatory conscript service. However, it is not obvious to me that this will significantly increase the total number of men who perform the conscript service and thus become reserve. In Finland, if you’re approaching the upper age limit for conscript service and haven’t done the service yet, the authorities will actively drag you out, regardless of what the actual age limit is. If Russia doesn’t have enough bureaucratic efficiency for this, adjusting the age limit probably won’t help.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/russia-conscription-maximum-age-raised-ukraine-war
That article also mentions that draft/conscription dodgers will be formally banned from leaving the country. At Yle, I’ve seen informal speculation that Russia might soon forbid any military age men from leaving the country.
Also from the Guardian article:
As has been noted before, career military service was already unpopular in Russia before 2022, reserved mainly for the economically destitute, while many men from more privileged backgrounds found ways to skip even the mandatory conscript service. Now, of course, there’s also newfound public awareness that being a soldier for Russia might very well get you dragged into some endless, pointless war and possibly killed while you’re there.
Also:
I had this impression that also drafted reservists (in addition to conscripts, and as opposed to career soldiers) cannot be legally sent to fight abroad. This would explain why Russia staged the annexation of practically all occupied areas in Ukraine last year, at the same time when the mobilization of the reserve began.
in Finland, a modest number (some hundreds) of Russians have sought asylum on the basis of draft since last September. These include a few deserted career soldiers. In addition, a few hundred draft dodgers are estimated to be in Finland illegally, while others have moved from Finland farther west. Much larger numbers of Russians have gone to Central Asia and Caucasus. The asylum applications in Finland are currently on hold, as the Finnish authorities are waiting for a common EU asylum policy for Russian draft dodgers.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20043074
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/trump-indictment-jan-6
Link
lumipuna @66, thanks for that update.
Good to emphasize: “I had this impression that also drafted reservists (in addition to conscripts, and as opposed to career soldiers) cannot be legally sent to fight abroad. This would explain why Russia staged the annexation of practically all occupied areas in Ukraine last year, at the same time when the mobilization of the reserve began.”
“The asylum applications in Finland are currently on hold, as the Finnish authorities are waiting for a common EU asylum policy for Russian draft dodgers.” It’s interesting to note that the EU now needs to establish a policy for handling Russian draft dodgers.
Link
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on the Republican wild goose chase
Holy fuck this new fossil discovery. A primitive whale that was probably bigger than modern blue whale, on average.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02457-0
Never forget, Biden voters: Trump and his conspirators were willing to use the military against you
Iran shuts the country down for two days over heat crisis; internal mass migration.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-defending-idiots-free-speech
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/was-that-wrong-and-other-improbable-trump-defenses
Satire written by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
One advantage that I enjoyed working at a railroad museum as a National Park Ranger was that we had very few wild animals. Okay, we did have two-hundred-ton locomotives, but they stayed on the tracks. We did have visitors who climbed on locomotives and cars, generally the ones that were on display and not serviceable, but at least once a month, we had some moron standing on top of the Big Boy — 16 feet above the top of the rails, so 17 or 18 feet above the stone ballast — but no one was ever seriously injured. I did get to yell at them and then, very sternly, read them the riot act. I don’t know how I would have handled the asshat from this article in Whiskey Riff.
er, video at link. All Tpyos are Mien!
Possible Trump Defense: I Believed My Own Lies.
IANAL, but to claim, “I was so stupid that I believed my own lies and thought it was okay to engage in a conspiracy to try to overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America which I took an oath to defend,” ain’t gonna fly. If I believe a lie that pedophiles are using a pizza parlor to sell children and go in and shoot it up, that doesn’t make me any less guilty.
A good short essay (that I am saving and keeping on my desk top) by Elizabeth Ervin.
I like the way this deconstructed these simplistic right wing platitudes.
Excerpt from the indictment of Trump:
Commentary:
Link
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-violence-was-part-of-the-plan
Ukraine Update: Don’t hold Ukraine to ‘NATO standards’ if they’re not equipped and trained to them
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1686600080969842688
video at the link
Washington Post:
NBC News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
Washington Post:
Washington Post link
After Trump indicted for coup attempt, Fox News still begs him to show up for debate
@ 81, actually, some people are born blue. Either from a congenital defect in the heart, a still functional shunt that normally closes off at birth or due to a defect in their hemoglobin.
As in an entire family in Kentucky with the latter, had to take methylene blue to treat it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates
@ 83, one fly in the military ointment. The military questions, then refuses to follow unlawful orders. Restoring order in riots is one thing, suppressing the citizenry just won’t cut the mustard.
@ 84, spot on target. It takes a hell of a lot more than 6 weeks of training to become proficient at combined arms and fire and maneuver, at least if you don’t want to end up killing your own warfighters. That training is a perishable skill as well, requiring reinforcement training to maintain proficiency.
I am curious though, with Trump, would he still retain his Secret Service protective detail in prison?
If he’s convicted, will his name be removed from the GOP ballots?
Re: wzrd1 @ #91…
There is nothing in the Constitution to bar a convict from running for president. Indeed, it’s been done. Eugene Debs ran for president while in prison.
How well did Eugene do? ;)
Re: John Morales @ #93…
Election of 1920. He got 3.4% of the popular vote. Be nice if that’s what Trump got.
@ #93 John Morales
“How well did Eugene do?”
What does that have to do with whether one is allowed to run from prison?
https://kyivindependent.com/media-28-arson-attempts-on-russian-military-enlistment-offices-in-5-days/
Some of the details are rather…odd.
There’s going to be a “this is fine” meme opportunity in here.
whheydt @ 96, we’ll see who the Russians want to pin the blame on. It certainly does have a lot of odd elements in the story.
I’m also expecting some false flag action coming soon, in part to expand and unsettle things and in part to distract from Russian debacles in Ukraine.
Ugh, feel like poop.
Nose runny for a few days, mild coughing that grows to fits occasionally, resulting in vomiting more than typical for my GERD, but tons of mucus.
Sleep mildly disrupted.
I’ve a suspicion, we’ll see if it continues for another day, if so, doctor time for a swab.
If it’s what I suspect, it’s COVID again. Thankfully, I was vaccinated in April, so it’ll be hampered in its attempt at havoc.
Last time, my primary symptom was no fever, just diarrhea. And mitral valve damage. That pisses me off, as it does hamper some activities and my resident seems happy to ignore that. Guess I’ll need to take a bite out of that crime…
No, I don’t abuse residents, but I will present sufficiently to leave them feeling the fool at rare and hard earned times. If you’re in your final year, yeah, I’m worse than an attending’s wrath at times.
Fucking up, we all do it. How one deals with it, when it’s presented crushingly, due to risk, that separates the children from adults and amateurs that belong in pathology from physicians.
And I really do love my pathologists!
I just loathe poor clinicians that can do far, far better.
Although, it’s actually fun when a doctor schools me, because I learn something new.
I was only an SF medic, so doctor educating is highly valued. And most of the non-didactic is learned via their extended residency.
As an NCO and educator, I really loathed didactic, but it was a necessary evil, so that my preferred Socratic method could be utilized effectively. When possible, I’d have student lead lessons, for one learns best when one has to teach a subject.
Even when my own ass is at stake.
And especially when I feel like poop, to provide another educational example.
Oh, stools are well formed. So, at least my GI tract learned a lesson from that damned virus.
The ‘trolley problem’ is not hard.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/solution-2
And this explains your economical future if you live in the US or Britain.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/game-4
Heisenberg god?
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/focus-3
tomh:
What makes you imagine the question was about whether it was possible to undertake that activity given such a circumstance?
(Did it escape you that the question is predicated on one being allowed to run from prison, so that it must perforce not be about that very predicate?)
I want to share this, considering a superpower recently had a leader who was enthusiastic about using nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear War would be more devastating for Earth’s climate than cold war predictions, even with fewer weapons ”
I recall when the article was published in the Swedish journal Ambio, prompting US researchers to apply the knowledge they had received from NASA studies of the Martian atmosphere, leading to the term “nuclear winter”.
It now turns out to be even worse.
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-nuclear-war-devastating-earth-climate.html
Good news. Arthur Survives. But almost half the books that parents have demanded be removed have been removed. So, some good news, but the book banners are still winning.
I guess those poor kids will continue to damage something that only exists in the imagination of irrational people.
Maddow Blog | The most important flaw in Rubio’s woeful new Trump defense
Story by Steve Benen • 48m ago
(I think that Steve Benen may be one of the best political commentators around)
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” — William Shakespeare.
Okay, folks. Is there anyone who can honestly claim that Trump and his minions, incompetent as they are, is not an existential threat to constitutional rule in the United States?
Look, it’s not my fault that my political opponent in the Democrat Party, Crooked Joe Biden, has told his Attorney General to charge the leading (by far!) Republican Nominee & former President of the United States, me, with as many crimes as can be concocted so that he is forced to spend large amounts of time & money to defend himself,” he wrote before threatening, “The Dems don’t want to run against me or they would not be doing this unprecedented weaponization of “Justice.” BUT SOON, IN 2024, IT WILL BE OUR TURN. MAGA!”
Ron DeSonnenrad?
Military officials say Tuberville’s blockade is causing adverse consequences. The senator says the opposite. One side of this argument has credibility.
Link
Link
Followup to comment 111.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/taking-the-bait
Link
Link
Link
Iowa governor taps COVID funds to send troops to Mexico border
Canada as much of a threat to Iowa. I don’t see anything about Canadian cartels from the racist fucks among my fellow citizens. Change history a bit and the gossip finds reasons to fear monger about the other border.
CNN Poll: Percentage of Republicans who think Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70%
By Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN / August 3, 2023
Trump Demands To Be Tried By Jury Of His White Peers, In West Virginia
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-demands-to-be-tried-by-jury
https://www.wonkette.com/p/tim-scott-is-not-an-honorable-man
Tim Scott Is Not An Honorable Man
Judge someone by their actions not their website bio.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/poor-dumb-eric-doesnt-understand
So, Tuberville claims that his holds on high rank military promotions is not actually doing anything. He also seems to think that his holds on high rank military promotions will force the military to go back on allowing soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and officers the ability to travel to another state for specific medical care. Well, asshole, which is it? Is your hold not doing anything? Or is it a strong enough disincentive to force the military to do his bidding?
Oh,crap, here comes waspy jeebus!!!
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/08/oh-lord-here-comes-ai-jesus
ROFLMAO
Also,
@119 Lynna, OM commented: Trump Demands To Be Tried By Jury Of His White Peers, In West Virginia
I reply: that’s only partially right, to be his peers they must also be: chronic liars, cheats, rapists, etc.
NB
Protect the economy by protecting nature, study urges.
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-economy-nature-urges.html
birgerjohannson:
I recall reading a paper, about 10 years ago, back when I still worked for the NPS, that studied the economic impact on small communities surrounded by government owned natural lands. It compared those communities located in areas where the government owned lands were being used for extractive economic activities — mining, energy extraction, logging — to those that were located in areas where the government owned lands were being used for recreational economic activities — hiking, snowmobiling, skiing, whitewater, swimming, fishing — as well as those in areas devoted almost exclusively to hunting. And the towns surrounded by extractive use fared the worst, economically, followed by hunting towns. Those devoted to non-hunting recreational activities fared the best with the highest per capita income in the town as well as far more cultural activities such as theaters, concerts, and festivals. The upshot of the paper was that government spending to support non-hunting recreational activities provided not only the best bang for the buck, but also did far better than hunting or extraction in supporting genus and species diversity and overall biomass. So certain types of recreational activities not only help the economy, but also the environment.
I did a quick look for the paper and could not find it. Probably got buried by the NRA and mining/oil/logging interests (that last bit is snark, but believable snark).
And almost four years away from my career, my bureaucratic writing skills are still evident. Sorry about that.
The problem of understanding English dialects.
I read an article about the TV series ‘Reservation Dogs’.
“Skoden” is an abbreviation of ‘let’s go then’ (to fight).
Cussin: cursing.
I assumed ‘tuguy’ was an abbreviation of “tough guy” but it is the cree word for penis (and thus = schlemiel, schmuck or putz, to use jiddish).
Witness transcript makes matters worse for GOP’s Comer, Jordan
Story by Steve Benen
As expected:
Remember, folks: Donald Trump is ALWAYS the smartest person in any room.
Ukraine Update: Trump’s indictment further weakens Russian hopes of outlasting Ukraine
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66399284
More at the link.
“he also stole furtive glances”
<snicker>
That’s about as weak-sauce as it can get.
Re; John Morales @ #133…
Perhaps the next charge will be for theft…
WaPo Live blog:
Unusual admonition from the judge:
Lawyers who practice frequently in Washington, D.C., including MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirschner, say that most of the conditions of release imposed on Trump by the magistrate judge were standard, including the requirement that he not commit a crime while free.
However, they say that Judge Moxila Upadhyaya did issue a warning to Trump that is not commonly given to defendants at arraignments: “Finally, sir, I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror, or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”
Re: tomh @ #235…
People are trying to start betting pools on how long it takes before he violates that admonition. Most people seem to think he won’t last a week.
Comforting a dying rabbit- a documentary .
https://youtu.be/o6NvUC52kEA
whheydt @ 136, I doubt he got through the day without violating that admonition. A quick review of the metadata from his phone and his employees phones would tell the tale.
BTW, Greg Mitchell is doing a series of Oppenheimer blog posts in light of the recent interest in the topic. I have zero desire to see the shit produced by Hollywood but I am curious about the topic. If you have seen the movie or you are regardless interested in it, I highly recommend you read them. E.g., this is from a few days ago: https://oppenheimer2023.substack.com/p/the-manhattan-projects-only-would
“Trump planned a nationwide Kent State massacre ”
Not hyperbole.
(I have to try all the permutations of I and l in the link as my cellphone shows no difference, please bear with me)
https://youtu.be/0nkBVTQJIPI
or
https://youtu.be/0nkBVTQJIPl
or
https://youtu.be/0nkBVTQJlPI
OK
‘Trump’s plan for nationwide “Kent State ” massacre revealed’
And several senators went along with this. Because democracy is…overrated?
https://youtu.be/0nkBVTQJIPI
Opposed-piston diesels supplanting batteries in trucks?
https://youtu.be/kK07KImx1_k
or
https://youtu.be/kK07Klmx1_k
Nope, not Kent State. That was a debacle from untrained National Guard panicking and killing protesting students. The National Guard now receives training annually on crowd control and literally won’t even bring their weapons to a protest, bringing mattock handles instead.
Nope, what he had planned was worse. Declaring martial law nationally, ala Baltimore during the Civil War, when we imprisoned people even for political views without trial.
Honest Abe wasn’t exactly a saint or paragon of Constitutional protection during the Civil War.
After 30 years, researchers at the University of Minnesota Duluth have created a new tree
The College Board has advised Florida school districts to drop AP Psychology from the curriculum after learning that lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation are now unlawful under Florida law. Without those lessons, the courses aren’t accredited.
“Therefore, we advise Florida districts not to offer AP Psychology until Florida reverses their decision and allows parents and students to choose to take the full course,” the board said.
AP psychology is one of the most popular courses in Florida, with 28000 students taking the course.
The Florida legislature is now effectively sabotaging children’s futures in their state.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/us/florida-ap-psychology-college-board/index.html
Atheist worker who refused to attend NC company prayer meetings wins $37,000, feds say
‘Supreme Court must intercede’: Trump demands SCOTUS bail him out of legal jams.
Followup to Oggie @128.
To the extent that anyone might’ve tried to argue that James Comer was approaching his anti-Biden crusade in good faith, those days appear to be over.
Donald Trump expected his indictments to generate mass public protests. We were reminded again this week that this clearly hasn’t happened.
Good News: Tennessee Dems Expelled After Gun Protest Win Back Seats In Special Election
Big smiles.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bluster-menace-and-trial-calendars
Link for text quoted in comment 152.
The video with the goats is funny. Looks like it was shot from a drone.
Previous Guy’s lawyer admits illegal act on Faux News
Man thrusts American flag through another man’s head at Sonic, Oklahoma cops say
Donald Trump’s statement to the press was low-energy, sad, and fun to make fun of
Trump grabbing the umbrella from his coconspirator Walt Nauta (before boarding his plane to fly back to Bedminster) looked like a cranky old man.
‘Sound of Freedom’ Funder Fabian Marta Charged With Felony Child Kidnapping
Hell Yes, Pennsylvania Finally Ends State Funding for Crisis Pregnancy Centers
Reginald @158, that’s good news!
In other news,
WIRED link
US Rep. Dan Bishop announces a run for North Carolina attorney general
Could be a double benefit, if he leaves the House and then loses his other election.
‘So Sad!’ Trumpworld Delights That This Aide May Be in Legal Trouble
Re: Lynna, OM @ various, regard Trump arraignment…
Not only a woman judge–a judge magistrate, at that–but not white and an immigrant. Likewise the actual Article III judge that will hear the case is also a woman of color and an immigrant. Bet she also addresses him as “Mr.”.
The Fake Church Behind Sarah Palin’s Crusade Against Voting
whheydt @162, good points. Schadenfreude opportunities abound.
Speaking of schadenfreude, in other news: Ukraine Update: Ukraine’s weekend peace summit now includes all of Russia’s BRICS ‘allies’
Followup to comment 164.
Here is another source for images and video the Olenegorsky Gornyak, which is listing to the Port side.
https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1687371227533283328
Also, this conversation with Russian POWs is interesting:
https://twitter.com/annanemtsova/status/1687435791906091008
The video has English subtitles.
Followup to comment 165.
Those Russian POWs are in their twenties, but they look older. The look not just defeated, but depleted.
DeSantis takes a risk, concedes Trump’s election lies were false
Link
Washington Post:
Multimillion-Dollar ‘Disinformation Campaign’ Seeks To Make Ohio’s Big Abortion Vote About ‘Sex Change’ Operations
Well that does not sound wise.
Eastman Reiterates Support For Full Insurrection
‘Co-Conspirator 2’ cited the Declaration of Independence in saying that the people have a right to “alter or abolish” their government.
re Lynna @171:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! The Orange Turnip ain’t read no such thing. It didn’t have anything praising him, and there were no pictures.
re Reginald Selkirk @160:
That is a big IF. The state of North Carolina is deeply divided, with the urban areas mostly overwhelmingly liberal and the rural areas mostly overwhelmingly conservative. The Orange Idiot carried the state in 2020, the last two senatorial races have gone to the republicans, and the NC legislature has gerrymandered the state so fully that it is hard for Democrats to get a fair shake. The gerrymandering would not affect a state-wide race, but the efforts by the NC legislature to make voting harder for marginalized groups has had quite an effect.
Voyager 2 phones home after hearing a “shout”
Well, it’s official sports fans! The god-emperor wannabe wants the SCOTUS to intercede on his behalf in his current criminal woes. Nothing on a docket, they should decide by judicial fiat to wave the magic gavel over his head and anoint him free or something.
A day after being arraigned for the third time, former President Donald Trump complained about the time and cost spent on his many legal battles and called on the Supreme Court to “intercede.”
“My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump complained on Truth Social. “Resources that would have gone into Ads and Rallies, will now have to be spent fighting these Radical Left Thugs in numerous courts throughout the Country. I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede.”
Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to four criminal charges related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
After the hearing, Trump criticized the latest charges and described the indictment as “a persecution of a political opponent.”
“This is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in America,” Trump said while giving brief remarks Thursday before boarding his private plane back to New Jersey. “This is the persecution of the person that’s leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot. So if you can’t beat him you persecute him or you prosecute him. We can’t let this happen in America.”
Trump is expected to speak tonight at the Alabama GOP summer dinner in Montgomery.
Of course, his MO has been to try to jump straight to the SCOTUS while in office, after succeeding twice, he got slapped down by the court on his next attempt to end around the entire hierarchy of courts.
Which I’m sure upset the supreme god-emperor, who deserves nothing less than a supreme court…
@ 174, consider that Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and has endured unimaginably hostile conditions and still remains operational, albeit barely. Astonishing! 45 years, 11 months, 15 days elapsed, predicted to have enough power to continue transmitting until 2026. Then, the RTG is expected to have insufficient power output to power the transmitter.
As I understand the RTG’s operation, the thermocouple degrades faster than the plutonium will decay. Still, amazingly robust design, given the hard radiation smacking that silicon-germanium thermocouple around by the environment (the plutonium is a robust alpha emitter, so shielding against that requires pretty much anything greater than a stern glare).
Hopefully, it’ll fare better than Pioneer 10, which is destined to be shot up by a trigger happy Klingon, if Star Trek movies are any guide.
Or dismantled, the plaque thrown into a pile, with the commander questioning, “Why do they always send pictures of themselves naked?”.
whheydt @ # 136: People are trying to start betting pools on how long it takes before he violates that admonition.
Whoever picked “one day” wins:
Judge Upadhyaya needs to move fast – and
firmlyfiercely.Well, my bet, recorded above, was for him to make his stupid move on the same day.
Idiots are predictable, fools are utterly predictable, Utter idiotic fools, well, they can replace pulsars for predictability. Having the advantage of actually meeting him before unreality TV distorted the universe more than a naked singularity, well, yeah. I’m guessing he was delayed in posting stupidity online while on Trump Farce One, probably because he didn’t want to pay for the internet bill for a commercial aircraft.
@135. tomh :
ABC news :
If this isn’t blatant Contempt of Court and attempting to Pervert the course of Justice I dunno what is.. Or what more it will take for the legal system to finally lose its patience and come down seriously hard with the full weight of the law which so far has been more of a feather’s weight than anything when it needs to be the proverbial tonne of bricks.
Can Trump be arrested properly – and his time remanded in custody until trial – now please?
As well as face the extra charges as noted above too.
(Kinda for emphasis and venting here but just .. F ing L..)
^ this time..
A neuroscientist warns: We’re watching the largest and most dangerous ‘cult’ in American history
Opinion by Seth D. Norrholm
“Remains found in China may belong to third human lineage ”
Seems plausible. Humans and equuids both have a lot of diversity in the fossil record, the number of lineages eventually being pruned down to two for horses/donkeys and just one for humans.
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-china-human-lineage.html
Followup to StevoR @179.
Prosecutors request protective order after Trump posts “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU’
Not a gag order, that’s different. This is a protective order.
An Intelligence Assessment: Donald Trump Is a Clear and Present Threat to Homeland Security
Opinion by By Donell Harvin
John Gosling, keyboard player for The Kinks, has died.
Ukrainian drones hit sanctioned Russian tanker in second sea attack in a day
A source from Ukraine’s security service told NBC News the ship was transporting fuel to Russian troops.
Link
Paraphrasing of Ari Melber: You have the 1st amendment right to say you own a Porsche. You even have the 1st Amendment right to lie about owning a Porsche. But you do NOT have the right to sell a fake Porsche, claiming it is real.
Politico hit piece on Dem fundraising manages to confuse increases for decreases
Basically, Trump is an armed robber who is mentally deficient.
“Give me all your money and I’ll kill you”.
Idiots keep giving the money, despite knowing he’ll kill them.
I’ll remain choosing not to participate, but instead hand him his own genitals during the exchange.
Then, feed the remains to the pigs.
Likely, ruining the future bacon.
Followup to comment 188.
Posted by a reader of the article:
2nd Circuit affirms Connecticut repeal of religious vaccine exemptions for schoolchildren
JOSH RUSSELL / August 4, 2023
Courthouse News Service
Well, there is this.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/trump-truth-social-smith-evidence-2020/index.html
“Every time they file an indictment we go way up in the polls. We need one more indictment close out this election. One more indictment and this election is closed out, nobody has even a chance,” Trump said.
OK, file 1000000000000000000000000000000000 indictments, enjoy an unnaturally lengthened life in solitary confinement, artificially kept alive as long as technology allows.
Then, add a decade.
Keep him alive in solitary in prison until the sun goes out.
Then, let him starve of burgers and freeze.
Well, or bake, depends on how Sol wants to act vs earth.
Baking like Laika.
I’ll admit, I’ve never hated someone before, well, other than terrorists that I killed.
I really don’t enjoy the experience, but due to his malfluence, I’m unable to move on.
I’d suggest a bullet, but that’d be illegal a few ways.
And far too merciful. And I’m disinclined toward mercy.
I’ll admit, I’m in a shit mood.
Got a neighbor, who is somewhat needy, amputations and all.
Befriended her, despite warnings from another neighbor of her stealing food, ending their friendship.
Now, she’s clinging. Caressing, yeah, know the revulsion of that and already knew that long before I was married.
Now, I’m into a land foreign to me, disentangling myself, while remaining hopefully a helpful friend.
Currently, I’m thinking, after two interrupted and tossed meals, cobalt-60 bombardment of the planet.
But then, there is that shit mood.
Maybe I’ll have a better mood after I masturbate with a cheese grater.
Although, the 8th floor window is enticing.
Any suggestions beyond suggesting using a grinder instead of the grater?
Reading rewievs in The Guardian.
“The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart” with Sigourney Weawer is an Australian film about escaping violent relationships.
GOP wants these five lies to convince you to kill Americans
https://youtu.be/_VY7rP1A0Bg
wzrd1
The only suggestion I have is to really play up your grief, not your real grief as that is yours to share or not as you choose, but your societal grief – you are old-fashioned when it comes to grief, and will be in three years of mourning at the least – but that may make you into an appealingly tough challenge, so I don’t know.
Lynna @188:
This is typical of political reporting across the board. When gas prices spiked after the Russian invasion, pundits, everywhere, predicted doom for Biden and the Democratic Party. When gas prices dropped in late summer and early fall, pundits predicted doom for Biden and the Democratic Party as this was a sign that we were entering a recession. When inflation peaked during the same time, disaster for Biden and the Democratic Party. Now inflation is easing, and it is doom for Biden and the Democratic Party as this is a sign we are entering a recession. Even major victories, all of the victories Biden and the Democrats in congress have put together, is doom for Biden and the Democrats because it will inflame right wing voters who will turn out in droves.
On the flip side, no matter how bad the news for Trump, much of the media is declaring that all of these scandals are helping Trump because Trump gets far more headlines than Biden. In short, any political event (even an increase in donations to the Democrats but differences in donations at the local and federal level) is good news for the right and bad news for the left.
Re: Jazzlet @ #196…
(My sympathies to wzrd1.)
Three years? Victoria was in mourning for 40 years. I won’t manage that long because I was already 73 when my wife died and the odds of living to 113 are so low as to be disregarded. (Absent, of course, some truly remarkable breakthrough in gerontology in the immediate future.)
Re: Oggie: Mathom @ #197…
One might well wonder how they’ll spin it if Ohio deep-sixes Issue 1 next Tuesday and goes on the write a right to abortion into the state constitution in the fall.
I predict a flurry of articles and opinion pieces explaining that this ‘victory’ for the left will increase right-wing voter turnout and put the 2024 elections over to the GOP.
John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government
As our The Heroci Heretic ™ put it in a more lighthearted vein:
Scientists bought some, carefully examined them and determined that the red MAGAt hats shield the tiny, shriveled brain underneath; preventing any reason or facts from penetrating and confusing it.
@201 Lynna, OM naid: John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government
I reply: he is just one in a procession of those that were staunch tRUMP supporters that now are against him. I guess that, even though unlikely,, their favorite footware would be ‘flip-flops’!?
Ukraine Update: Ukraine’s war of attrition can break Russia—and it won’t take years
Followup to comment 204.
Posted by readers of the article:
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/sf-archdiocese-bankruptcy/3288894/
/rant on
Personally, I don’t think that bankruptcy courts should accept petitions from churches. I hold that on “separation of church and state” grounds. When an organization goes into bankruptcy, the court is in charge of that organization. The court may allow current “management” to continue day to day operations, or the court may appoint a special master to actually run things. Either way, the court is in charge. In the case of a church (or other religious organization) that means that a secular court is responsible for the operations of a religious entity. That should be barred by the 1st Amendment. So…the only way to avoid the problem is to refuse to accept bankruptcy petitions from churches or other religious organizations.
/rant off
BBC Farsi article and update on the hijab situation inside Iran. For almost a year now, many women inside Iran have been in open defiant of hijab laws by going about their lives in public without wearing the mandatory symbol of patriarchy and oppression and the bearded fanatics in charge are not happy.
(via google translate)
https://www-bbc-com.translate.goog/persian/iran-features-66397120?_x_tr_sl=fa&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
(forgot to add that Farsi is a genderless language so in the above translation google translate is using the masculine pronouns but as far as I can see, they all have to be “she”).
Aussie ABC’s latest Planet America show featuring discussion of Trump’s indictment over Jan 6th and more – 50 minutes long.
Richard Dawkins is really losing the grip on reality. He has a beyond stupid article that starts with this gem:
And then basically declares that “wokeism” is a religion. Yeah, he picks the dumbest argument in the book, “the ideas that I don’t agree with are a rELiGeooooonNNN”. His reasons are the following. Please put away any hot liquids you might be holding before reading this crap.
Yeah, it’s over.
Florida isn’t the only state banning history: The shocking story of drowning entire Black towns
More at the link.
Donald Trump is having a normal one this morning
From the Dark Brandon coffee cup supposed scandal:
After Trump swore at his arraignment on Thursday that he “would not attempt to influence or intimidate witnesses, retaliate against anyone, or in any other way attempt to obstruct the administration of justice,” he proceeded to go after Mike Pence.
CNN link
Trump Extremists Make New Calls to Hang Mike Pence: ‘Watch His Toes Dangle’
Authorities are monitoring for a spike in extreme rhetoric online, wary of it crossing over into real-life violence.
More at the Rolling Stone link.
Ukraine Update: Ukraine systematically targets Russian logistics
Followup to comment 214.
Posted by a reader of the article:
stderr gives a wonderful takedown of the whole free speech defense over here. Really really really worth a read.
Trump’s lawyers try to spin their incorrigible client’s latest indictment
Trump’s lawyers try to spin their incorrigible client’s latest indictment
Lots of details at the link.
Trump’s moves to overturn 2020 election were ‘aspirational,’ not criminal, his lawyer argues.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/06/trump-jan6-lawyer/
Italy was the only G7 nation to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Now it says it wants to quit the plan and pivot back to Washington.
Link. Photos at the link.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #220….
Side note on beech (the wood, not specifically the tree). Had English developed differently (alas, my late wife could have supplied the specific change, but I think it was the Great Vowel Shift), the plural of “book” would be “beech”. So beech is, rather literally, book wood, going back to carving–or, often enough, scratching–runes into strips of wood.
The Donald Trump prison collection
https://youtu.be/80965HW3b6g
Clarence Thomas’ $267,230 RV and the Friend Who Financed It
North Korean hackers breached top Russian missile maker
If Trump committed ‘a technical violation of the Constitution,’ it’s not a crime, his lawyer says
Westboro Baptist Church claims Hawaii will be ‘utterly destroyed’ Sunday
So Westboro is still around. I have not heard of them in years. If Hwaii was destroyed yesterday, it failed to make the news.
When even Financial Times thinks the Conservative Party has gone too far.
“Sewage dumping shows privatisation has gone too far”
https://youtu.be/nNqcVgzAv0U
England’s Lauren James is sent off after a VAR review adjudged her to have stamped on Nigeria’s Michelle Alozie during their Women’s World Cup last 16 match.
That was a correct call.
Los Angeles Has a Growing Typhus Problem, Thanks to the Fleas
@ 226
I got a feeling they’d claim that it was “destroyed in the spiritual realm”
Ukraine says Russian informant detained in Zelenskyy assassination plot
whheydt @221, very interesting. I have seen photos of carvings in the trunks of Beech trees, but didn’t realize the more profound connection.
Study: Young Americans who identify with gun culture are more likely to believe in male supremacy
Jan. 6 Panel Members Slam Trump Lawyer’s Assertion That Client Merely Committed A ‘Technical Violation Of The Constitution’
Followup to comment 234.
Posted by readers of the article:
Link
DeSantis’s attempt to tap dance around the questions didn’t work. Every media outlet I’ve looked at highlights his “Of course he lost” comment.
Link
whheydt @ # 221: … beech is, rather literally, book wood…
Seeing it in German makes the connection even more obvious. The notorious death camp Buchenwald translates to English as the very innocuous “Beechwood”.
Link
This latest pronouncement from Elon Musk is going to backfire badly … or so I predict.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/elon-at-will-employment
PZ, here’s some truly sage medical advice (ROFLOL):
Medieval Medicine Today!?
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/medieval
Satire written by Andy Borowitz:
Link
Watch Out for Renewed GOP Assaults on No-Fault Divorce
Joanna L. Grossman / 8/7/2023
The Daily Beast
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #226…
Did they specify which Sunday?
NB – nature is not Republican
Communication, cooperation and altruism from an evolutionary perspective
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-communication-cooperation-altruism-evolutionary-perspective.html
Erratum
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-cooperation-communication-altruism-evolutionary-perspective.html
birgerjohansson – re comment 238 by Pierce R. Butler
Isn’t the word “book” also identical to “beech” in Swedish? Until now, I thought it was coincidental.
In Finnish, the name of alder (leppä) originally meant blood (veri), presumably because a cut surface of living alderwood turns reddish. Most modern Finns aren’t aware of this etymology, so there’s a common modern misinterpretation of the idiom “lentää kuin leppäkeihäs”.
This is a metaphor of something being thrown away of expelled so hard that it “flies like a thrown spear”. The modern interpretation of leppäkeihäs would be “spear made of alderwood”, but an etymologically correct interpretation would be “blood spear”. I can only imagine there’s an allusion to a hunting spear that is thrown well (accurately and with enough momentum) so that “finds” a target and ends up bloodied.
An ancient skull unlike any human ever seen is baffling scientists and could rewrite the story of our evolution
Turnout Is Off the Charts for Ohio Special Election Designed to Thwart Abortion Vote
High turnout is good in this case.
‘Black Aquaman’ and the ‘Boston Tea Party’: World watches Montgomery riverfront brawl
People tend to forget…before Dubya, before Reagan, even before Nixon, there was another crook that became president.
“Lyndon Baines Johnson -most corrupt.”
https://youtu.be/jjBHLQVP_LA
US Marines gearing up to defend ‘key’ terrain near China are about to get a first-of-its-kind ship-hunting missile
Archaeologists are too scared to open the tomb of China’s first emperor because they fear booby traps
birgerjohansson @ # 252: … even before Nixon, there was another crook that became president.
We should also remember Warren G. Harding, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore …
(I’m listing those with monetary misdeeds, and leaving out political criminality and sex scandals, or the list would go to 45.)
Even George Washington pushed policies that favored his own investments (see Willard Sterne Randall, The Founders’ Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America.
“Criminalizing the Samaritan”: Why cities across the US are making it illegal to feed the homeless
As the drone battle in Ukraine unfolds, the US Army is scrambling to get its soldiers a new one-way tank-buster
Buchenwald translates as ‘The Beech Forest’, which is also the name of the village where the death camp was located. The Buchenland is the modern name for a well known region in antiquity. It was the Forest of the Goths before the Huns invaded.
The wiki on the etymology of beech does mention with no citation that beech was used for carving runes, but I’ve never come across any mention of beech in that context in either Norse or Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. They spell it bok, or bokr. The r is a grammatical noun ending in ON.
Boxwood (Gr. buchbaum) is another possible etymology for book, as writing tablets were commonly made from boxwood for at least a few millennia.
When the United States’ women’s soccer team came up short at the World Cup, plenty of American fans were naturally disappointed. Donald Trump was not.
Followup to comment 259.
Link
Texas A&M board members sought a journalism program that would churn out conservatives to ‘direct our message,’ according to text messages
Your Guide To John Eastman’s High Falutin’ Word Salad to Overthrow the Constitution
Cartoon: Ringleaders go to prison
Link
Followup to comments 259 and 260.
Rolling Stone collected some of the rightwing comments:
Jesse Watters is the guy who replaced Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Watters said this:
Commentary from Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/north-korean-news-lady-jesse-watters
North Korea targets Russian missile company.
https://www.securityweek.com/north-korean-hackers-targeted-russian-missile-developer/
Lie with dogs, wake up with fleas.
re Lynna @259: I would be willing to bet that Simone Biles is “woke”, and it didn’t seem to negatively affect her performance this past weekend.
Ukraine Update: China joins 41 other nations working on Ukraine’s peace plan
Good news so far. Turnout, polling, and spending all point to loss for GOP effort to rig Ohio’s ballot measure rules
With Latest Ruling, Judge Cannon Brings Up Defense Claims Even the Defense is Not Raising.
Trump just lost in court again :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-08/donald-trump-loses-sex-abuse-countersuit-e-jean-carroll/102700992
& note from there that suggests Thao was more than just a “human traffic cone” :
Of course, over the nione minutes it took for the cops to murder him George Floyd repeatedly begged for his life, repeatedly said please, stated he couldn’t breathe and cried out for his mother.
Yikes! Didn’t expect :
Spoiler alert : yes it can be. Reads further :
Source : https://www.space.com/sun-blasts-highest-energy-radiation-ever-recorded-raising-questions-solar-physics
Remember, shoot up a single floor pizza shop to protect children, ignore reality!
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/australia/australia-child-abuse-arrests-rescue-fbi-agents-intl-hnk/index.html
The reality being, two dead FBI agents, dozens to hundreds of children abused and somehow, all stopped without shooting up a pizza shop.
The obvious solution is to issue out more machine guns.
Or something.
StevoR @ 274, kind of a big deal for those in space and satellites.
I get space weather alerts, signed up when I relied on satcom, just stayed on the list.
Oxygen in particular gets royally pissed off when met by ionizing radiation and well, tends to block it. Then, there’s that nitrogen thing, which goes all carbon-14…
Not a biggie down here, but is a biggie upstairs in orbit. Might get a few Hulks out of the mess, well, or cataracts and cancers later on.
Or worse, a Hulk with cancer and cataracts, for which I recommend abandoning the planet.
Can this make MAGA followers keep their distance?
“Researchers discover antifungal molecule”
https://phys.org/news/2023-08- antifungal-molecule.html
Erratum
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-antifungal-molecule.html
Going back before the first humans: This is what nature used instead of the Black monolith in ‘2001’ .
“Social learning. Simulation model shows how groups can keep important information within and across generations”.
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-social-simulation-groups-important-generations.html
DeSantis supports using “lethal force” against migrants suspected of smuggling drugs. The closer one looks at the details, the messier his line becomes.
Just when you thought Florida’s educational system couldn’t get any worse …
Fox News anchor Julie Banderas: “Hatching schemes to stay in office is not a crime. And claiming you won an election that you know you lost is not a crime.”
Commentary:
Link
Laura Ingraham (on Fox News):
Commentary from Wonkette:
Followup to wzrd1 @275.
Link
Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Exclusive: Former Coast Guard head covered up secret investigation into sexual assaults at the Coast Guard Academy
By Melanie Hicken, Blake Ellis, Curt Devine, Pamela Brown and Scott Bronstein
This is PZ’s site to run as he wants. As a reader for many years and a commenter for a few years, I offer my perspective on the comments section on the post indicated below here, on the infinite thread, to avoid disrupting that post. I perceive, and appreciate that this blog has an academic tone. It is of significant benefit when commenters are able to contribute additional pertinent viewpoints. A couple of humorous/sarcastic remarks don’t seem to be a problem. I feel that in an academic arena, civil discourse is an important component. Comments that are clearly perceived as pointed, crude, personal attacks rather than civil discussion and constructive criticism severely distracts from the topical discussion. I appreciate it when someone provides a more accurate perspective than my comments provided. Many times here, I, and others, have been gracious in accepting constructive criticism. I am capable of objectivity, even though I, too, have been the target of a couple of crude personal attacks in the past. I examined the post: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/08/07/i-am-an-ai-training-module/ and the comments. Overall, they have been good natured and add good information with an occasional humorous break. However, I did notice comments by one individual that were in some instances redundant to earlier comments and that became more and more combative and personally insulting to other commenters, resorting to childish name calling, arguing over insignificant points of grammar and making observations as if they were incontestable fact. While some of the points made by that commenter were valid, their combative nature greatly distracted from the tone and detracted from the effectiveness and flow of the discourse. Banning a troll is a serious step and PZ has only resorted to it in a couple of obvious instances. If I were disruptive, I would welcome and appreciate PZ taking a little of his precious time to contact me, using my E-mail address, and admonish me to stop being disruptive. (or he could have his AI assistant handle that /sarcastic humor!?)
Oh no, more of this bullshit: Media pretends planned impeachment of Biden has some basis in facts.
Ukraine Update: Ukrainian Marine Corps are on a mission to lead right through the Russian defense
The funeral of Sinead O’Connor was held today.
😥
To cut his losses, Rudy Giuliani agreed not to challenge certain aspects of a lawsuit brought by Georgia election workers. But a federal judge isn’t buying it.
Link
Followup to comment 289.
McConnell Signals He’s Not Onboard With Far-Right House GOP Impeachment Talk
A WTF moment brought to you by a right-wing judge.
Link
shermanj @ 288, oh no, not the AI, please, not the AI! That could scar someone for life!
Lynna, OM @ 290, one good thing about the inverted mortar round part, it wouldn’t detonate. Many light mortars are impulse armed, the warhead fuse arming by the launch impulse. Heavy mortar rounds are spin armed, with the round having to spin a number of times at a brisk rate to allow the warhead to arm.
But, the crew would have to remove the tube from the base, then tip it to decant their misinserted round back out. Likely, under fire by folks who are laughing at you.
I do wonder if their current rifles have proudly emblazoned on the front sight, “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” like our claymore mines do.
Oh, Russia also raised their upper age group for conscription and made it more difficult to evade conscription. Sounds like they’re dug partway through the bottom of the barrel. They might have to activate Kuzma’s mother soon.
Polls have closed in Ohio.
An estimated 26.3 percent of votes have been counted.
Yes 268,419 33.6%
No 556,809 66.4%
Re: tonh @ #296…
Ohio update: AP calls it for the No vote in Ohio.It’s about 60-40 with over 40% reporting.
The spotlight now goes to the Republican dominated Ohio Supreme Court. A lawsuit has been filed to block the abortion Amendment which claims the petitions filed to the secretary of state supporting the proposed abortion amendment did not meet the requirements to be submitted.
They claim the amendment, if passed in November, does not lay out how the amendment would change current laws, among other objections.
Re: tomh @ #296…
(Try that again…without the typo.)
Good start. I’m really hoping the “No” vote is above 60% and that the reproductive rights amendment in November passes with more than 60% (showing that the whole scheme was doomed from the start).
Re: #299
Probably won’t end up above 60%, with 65% counted it’s about 57-43 as of now. The important thing, of course, is that it’s going to pass.
Can the people of Ohio put one and one and one together and get three? Republican politicians were wrong on abortion, Republican politicians were wrong on changing the constitution for political convenience; … maybe the people of Ohio should stop electing Republican politicians.
Otoniel, Colombian kingpin called “the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world,” gets 45 years in U.S. prison
He was a top church official who criticized Trump. He says Christianity is in crisis
Boo hoo.
Author discovers AI-generated counterfeit books written in her name on Amazon
Except that the gerrymandering math results in a very different answer for the state house.
I don’t get the one and one and one equals three. The Leader long ago has decided that two plus two equals 5.
Of course, to the doctrinaire Christians of many churches, 1+1+1=1.
On the island of Maui, people jumped into the ocean to escape hurricane Dora driven wildfires. Dora being 740 miles away and no hurricane warnings deemed necessary.
But, major wildfires are normal, that’s why forests are supposed to be raked out like nobody in the world does or something. Record heat is fake news, CO2 is good and made Venus the garden world that it is today.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/weather/maui-county-wildfires-hurricane-dora/index.html
Peter Thiel’s VC fund gave Musk’s Neuralink $280 million to help advance his brain interface technology to at least 1970’s levels. Well, more like 1930’s infection rates, using 1970’s level technology to wire up pigs and monkeys, but bluetooth and all makes it ultramodern, with a hand wave.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/tech/neuralink-brain-musk-fundraising-founders-fund/index.html
Oh well, as usual, the animals and suckered investors pay the price for assembly line science. A well proven method, just look at all of the AC motors and AC generators Edison’s assembly line engineering line produced. Well, those and deep sea birds and upgraded unicorns.
Good news! Google’s going to weed out inactive accounts, to prevent weak accounts being phished and spammed.
Although, howinhell one phishes an inactive account is beyond me and if an inactive account is spammed, would anyone even notice?
I guess Google needs the storage space?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/07/tech/google-deleting-inactive-accounts/index.html
In a strange story that’s nothing new, but somehow mysteriously newsworthy, cell phone use remains prohibited inside of airplane terminals near aircraft parking areas, lest the airplanes crash while parked or something.
Or one might be distracted while talking on a cell phone and walk into a running jet engine ingestion zone. Having worked for an airline, color me impressed if one can hear a cell phone, let alone not be busy guarding one’s ears from the noise of an operating jet engine when you’re within 20 meters of an operating jet engine. With 10 meters being the safety buffer zone internationally used around a running jet engine.
But, the 5G service installed in many airports and cell phone repeaters are OK.
Seriously, the story made zero sense.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/airport-tarmac-phone-rules/index.html
Of course, one lighting technology that was high efficient was also banned in the US (but, OK in Europe), as it might interfere with satellite radio or aircraft instruments, which it didn’t.
I’ll just call it enhanced circular thinking.
Reginald Selkirk @ 303.
It seems to me the non-regressive part of the American population needs all the allies it can get.
Especially as the Democratic party is run by legacy Democrats like Biden and Pelosi who think the road to the future is to be Republican-lite.
@310: I assume they are concerned about neglected accounts being compromised and being used by the phishers as they pretend to be someone else, not about the weak accounts being phished.
INTERPOL shutters ’16shop’ phishing-as-a-service outfit
In Contempt Sanction, Court Orders Attorneys To Attend Religious Liberty Training
August 09, 2023
Religion Clause
Follow up to comments 298, 300 and others related to the vote in Ohio.
Steve Benen reports:
Here are more details from Cleveland: State Issue 1 is ‘probably’ coming back in the future, Ohio Senate president says
So, the Republicans are in a hole and still digging. They are using some gobbledygook explanations to double down. The “in a manner that honors and respects the legislative process” is a particularly pernicious phrase. What Republicans are doing is the opposite of “honor and respect.”
Florida Divers Working A Cold Case Found 32 Vehicles In A Lake, Which Isn’t Sketchy At All
Facing the very real prospect of an indictment in Georgia, Donald Trump tried to smear Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. It was grotesque.
Excerpt from a Ukraine update:
Link
That update also includes an argument that CNN’s claim that ““Ukrainian forces have incurred staggering losses [around Robotyne] leading Ukrainian commanders to hold back some units to regroup and reduce casualties” is grossly overstated. Actual ratios for confirmed losses are presented.
Video at the link.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1689266459212496896
The guy is blustering loudly. He uses “radical” to describe the opponents of his Issue 1, and he tries to tie abortion-rights supporters to supposed attempts to take away gun rights in Ohio. He also tries to shift the blame for his failures onto others. Dude is basically sweating and nervous and LOSING … so he tries to project an extreme macho image.
Followup to comment 319:
Link
Video also available at that link.
@304 Reginald Selkirk points out AI generated counterfeit books on amazon only removed when a spotlight was shined on them.
I reply: Thanks, Reginald for finding and posting that. It is important to anyone who creates written or multimedia works. G00GLE and amaz0n stole copyright books years ago. Youtube allows copyrighted works to be pirated and made available to the public. Our society rewards big corporate fraud and theft.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-many-coup-memos-did-trump-need
Wonkette reports on one of Hair Furor’s August 8 rants on Truth Social:
They should, but I lack confidence that they would.
Twitter Fined $350,000 for Delaying Search of Trump’s Account in Jan. 6 Prosecution
Man who threatened Biden shot dead in FBI raid in Utah
Dianne Feinstein taken to hospital after fall at home
Robbie Robertson, guitarist and songwriting force behind The Band, dead at 80
Reginald @328, Sorry to hear that. Robbie Robertson is a musician I admired.
In other news: The larger question isn’t whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is making false claims about President Joe Biden, it’s why he’s making false claims.
Followup to Reginald @326.
More Details on Guy Who Threatened to Assassinate Biden
Robbie Robertson of the Band has died. He was 80.
Of course, Kari Lake blames the Ohio blowout on election fraud
Link
Link
More videos and details at the link.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s super PAC is paying thousands of dollars to a fringe outlet that posts anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, and election denial content
Reginald @335, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to look worse and worse. We’re getting a better picture of just how awful he is. JFC.
In other news, a recent New Yorker cartoon is captioned: “Your Honor, in an effort to insure a fair trial, we move for a change of venue to the defendant’s imagination.”
New Yorker link
Satire written by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Robbie Robertson, singer of The Band, dead at 80.
“Might have to give those millions back”: Legal experts say Jack Smith could “seize” Trump PAC cash
Michigan mom is charged with buying guns for son who threatened top Democrats, prosecutors say
Exclusive: A veteran FBI agent told Congress that investigations into Giuliani and other Trump allies were ‘suppressed’
Can’t find the story now, but earlier CNN was reporting Maui hospitals were overrun with burn patients.
That means that they’ll swiftly run out of bandages, sterile surgical supplies, IV solutions and antibiotics, plus of course pain medications.
Major wildfires go into firestorms, firestorms are absolute fucking nightmares when urban areas get involved.
For evacuation, it might be beneficial to sail a fair sized bit of our fleets out of Pearl, landing craft in for evacuate the wounded, then hospital ship or troop ship them to the mainland, where resources are far greater.
And station communications ships closer to shore, to assist with the currently collapsed communications ashore.
Re; wzrd1 @ #342…
Hospital ship, I should think. A Navy hospital should be well equipped for burn victims. For evacuation, if there is a cruise ship in the local waters, order them the offload their passengers and send it over to pick up those that need little or no medical care. Since there may not be adequate (or any) docking facilities, ask the Navy to send over landing craft to get the evacuees from shore to ship.
Trump says he won’t sign Republican loyalty pledge, flouting debate requirement
Not that that ever stopped him before.
The surprising thing here is his honesty; in not signing the pledge and then violating it. This ought to be sufficient reason to keep him out of the debate, if the Republicans have the spine to enforce their rules.
Ohio Dems. chair mocks Republican who complained they didn’t have enough time to push their effort to stymie abortion rights: ‘You picked the date dude’
Ecuadorian presidential candidate Villavicencio killed in attack
The Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend and it’s even better this year
Ukraine to receive additional Patriot air defence systems from Germany -Zelenskiy
Oregon lawmakers who participated in 2023 legislative walkout officially banned from reelection
Florida restricts Shakespeare lessons over “raunchiness”.
…of course they would.
Evolution, :
Single-molecule autocatalysis may have paved the way for the emergence of evolution by natural selection”
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-small-molecule-autocatalysis-paved-emergence-evolution.html
Bots are better than humans at cracking ‘Are you a robot?’ Captcha tests, study finds
Reginald Selkirk @ 347
Thank you, you beat me to it.
Moscow airports in chaos after multiple reports of drone attacks
New Orleans Catholic Church Says Only 25% of Its Employees Accused of Abuse Actually Did It
An exceptionally disturbing case in Georgia of an ‘accident’ during the delivery of an infant.
Litigation filed alleges that the infant was decapitated during delivery after the shoulders couldn’t pass through the birth canal and a Caesarean section was not ‘performed in a timely manner’.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/us/georgia-baby-death-lawsuit/index.html
Then, the staff attempted to conceal the manner of death.
Sounds to me like something that a DA should examine, homicide and conspiracy charges all around.
In 2016, focus groups didn’t believe Donald Trump’s agenda would lead to a rollback in reproductive rights. These voters’ incredulity is part of a pattern.
The old Republican line is that they’d find evidence of wrongdoing against Joe Biden. The new GOP line is that evidence isn’t really needed after all.
Trump tried to steal Pennsylvania. Here’s how we stop him from succeeding next time
Steve Schmidt discusses the “Tedium (and the Terror) that is Donald Trump”
Link
Belarus hackers target foreign diplomats with help of local ISPs, researchers say
Alabama Attorney General Praises State Legislature for Defying the Supreme Court in Not Drawing District Required by the Voting Rights Act
RICK HASEN / August 9, 2023
Alabama Daily News:
Election Law Blog
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Yep, Biden is doing well in verbal battles with Fox News doofuses:
Link
Because Trump is going to drop out eventually when he has trouble campaigning from inside a prison.
Lauren James: England forward given two-game Women’s World Cup ban after red card
Yes, she did it “on purpose.” Perhaps what Wiegman is trying to say is that it was not premeditated.
@365. Reginald Selkirk : “Because Trump is going to drop out eventually when he has trouble campaigning from inside a prison.”
I so hope you are right.
That’s what should happen.
What should have already happened long ago.
But if that does not happen? What then?
If Trump stays in and manages to keep campoaigning and his cult followers are enough if the vote gets split .. (nom & POTUS-cy alike..) Nightmare scenario. Low probability. Happened before.. I wish I could rule it out. Say worst case scenario won’t happen.. But Fk!
It might.
So.. what then?
I don’t think Trunmp will volunatarily drop out.
Especially given the threat of prison.
Mian reason he’s running = fear of being jailed..
That such scenarios cannot be ruled out worry me too.
But I think it is more probable that Trump and his cult staying in will split the Republican vote.
Colbert, back in 2016-11-10
Like everything else Trump offers, the candy was poison.
When there’s a dispute, and one side urges the public to read the original source materials, while the other side doesn’t, it tends to give away the game.
There’s only the Trump Party now. I don’t know if even putting him in jail will end this.
Link
Iran moves toward freeing 5 American citizens who had been imprisoned, in rare deal
Prosecutors seek Jan. 2 trial date for Donald Trump in his 2020 election conspiracy case
January 6 is not available, that’s a Saturday.
Loch Ness monster hunters gear up for the biggest Nessie hunt in decades
Why not to pick your nose: Association between nose picking and SARS-CoV-2 incidence, a cohort study in hospital health care workers
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288352
The Correct Way to Argue with Richard Hanania
Here is a news video describing the perfect storm “Hans” that has been stuck across Scandinavia and the Baltic states for days.
Since this was made, Norway has been hit even worse.
https://youtu.be/Ths2OaiPb_g
I’ve never met Milton Friedman, but I’m on first name terms with his son.
Switzerland Freaks Out After Veselnitskaya Plot Is Exposed
White supremacist accused of threatening jury, witnesses in trial of Pittsburgh synagogue gunman
Wisconsin judge allows civil case against fake Trump electors to proceed
Ukraine Update: Russia offensive in the north unfortunately picks up steam
NBC News:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
How to de-program Fox News watchers on the Trump Indictment
Story by Thom Hartmann
Word.
Headline on FauxNews:
Dems across the country defecting to GOP: ‘Democratic Party has become unrecognizable’
Meanwhile, in the real world:
I was an independent voter. Here’s why I’m rejoining the Democrats
Opponents of Maine’s new abortion law won’t seek to nullify it through a referendum
BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY WOULD LOSE
6 Western nations demand Russia return two regions it took from neighboring Georgia 15 years ago
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #389…
I saw that reported the other day. My reaction was the same as yours.
Lauren Boebert gets things wrong again. Farron Cousins comments.
https://youtu.be/BVBtIFOsr7A
or
https://youtu.be/BVBtlFOsr7A
[meta]
birgerjohansson, surely you can force your phone’s (or computer’s) browser to use specific fonts. It’s a thing.
(Because you’re working ever so hard, pointlessly)
… or you know, you could preview what you post — both links, that is — and click on each one to determine which is the correct textual sequence. Then edit the previewed text to exclude the false text.
That would work, for sure. But it might take some effort on your part.
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #389
Yup, they know they would lose. They also hope to get more extremist legislators into the state house to advance the real agenda — all those horrible taxes (my dad, up in Maine, knows a man who is furious that the annual state tax on his Land Rover is so much higher than the gut down the road with a 35-year-old Isuzu — that’s not fair!), restrictions on what businesses can do, minimum wage law, etc. Abortion is, and has always been, a way to get poor and middle class people to vote to transfer even more money to the rich.
Two new mammal species. If only we were finding new species as fast as we are driving others to the brink of extinction. Or past it.
‘Extremely rare’: Ex-prosecutor predicts ‘stern warning’ for Trump’s attacks on judge
Story by David McAfee
I am so tired of hearing (and reading) conservatives wail about how unprecedented all of this is. Why don’t they also talk about a federal judge being escorted by US Marshals to get coffee as unprecedented?
Japan 1 – 2 Sweden
Spain 2 – 1 Netherlands
Idiot meets village by threatening jurors and witnesses in synagogue murders trial.
Now gets to become civilized in prison.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/us/pittsburgh-synagogue-trial-threats-arrest-hardy-lloyd/index.html
Frankly, despite my original opinion against the death penalty, some people are better served up via garbage disposal.
Note to self: change will to include the use of garbage disposal for means of disposal of remains… Not like I’d want to use them afterwards and recycling and all.
Texas Central and Amtrak Seek to Explore High-Speed Rail Service Opportunities between Dallas and Houston
re wzrd1 @399: A wood chipper would probably be easier to use and less prone to jamming or malfunction. Plus, you could still use it for the original purpose afterwards. ;-P
Wow! That’s a seriously impressive lifecycle! Basically, they’re dormant for most of the year, managing to eat for phenomenally short periods and somehow, managing to reproduce on top of that! Beyond impressive.
I can manage with 50C in summer, the snow thing, not so much. Getting food under those conditions by foraging, not so much.
Context, I’m comfortable at 23 – 25 C, with moderately low humidity, the remainder being STP. The higher the temperature, the lower meat consumption, as required processing involves exothermic reactions, basically, grass wilts, meat cooks.
The only general rule of thumb that I observe, as I never was into wife beating.
Folks, I know how easily it is to indulge in fantasies about people we really do not like, but remember that even Trump and the asshole in Pittsburg are people, NOT monsters. I have occasional fantasies about the men who raped me when I was younger, but I squelch them quickly and I do not toss them out into a public arena. Seriously, this type of revenge fantasy sounds more like the revenge fantasies of Trump and his fellow travellers.
JUST IN: Trump Prosecutors Propose Trial Date Before GOP Primaries Begin — Cite Trump Lawyer Fox News Hit To Court
Story by Tommy Christopher
Entertaining, stepped onto the scale to check my weight, got Tilt.
OK, actually, Err.
Due to ‘weakness’ in one leg (actually, the opposite is true, proprioception is defective, strength is unimpacted – annoyingly at times), wobbly gave the entertaining result.
Reweighing resulted in annoyance, got another pound to shed, looking at losing 15 pounds minimum to keep the tonnage down and hence, glycemic index lower.
Familial trait being fat accumulation, followed by type 2 diabetes. Followed by also familial high cholesterol and that whole arterial disease thing.
More into that death by everything falling off thing. Probably, due to my liver falling off, justifiably.
I don’t want to kill Trump and DeSantis., I just want to throw them in an arena with the grumpiest grizzly I can find, let them run a few laps around it and then let them out. Before they lose bits that are necessary for survival.
BTW I am Swedish, but I would not have begrudged the American team a victory last week. Considering how the misogynic idiots celebrate their defeat.
Idea: Any senator or congresscritter that accepted donations from the oil & coal lobby should be drafted to fight firestorms in Hawa’i and elsewhere.
Reginald Selkirk @ 400
I do not have a map in front of me but if that investment is to be done, it would make sense to attach smaller urban centers along the route and maybe build new ones.
It would reduce the growing pains of the two big cities if ultrafast commuting became possible.
Also, the high-speed rail could be extended beyond the two major cities.
If you have read William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” you will recall BAMA (the Boston – Atlanta Metropolitan Axis connected by high-speed rail) aka “the Sprawl”.
Reginald Selkirk @ 400.
I have looked at a map. There are several possible routes between the cities that would link up several smaller cities to the network. And a spur through Waco would connect Austin.
Unfortunately to extend a high-speed network to the East Coast it would not be able to grow organically, as the yokel/MAGA domain of Arkansas, Missisippi and Alabama offers few destinations that motivate very expensive investments.
You would need the federal government to invest a bajillion $ to extend a high-speed network from Texas to Atlanta and onwards, and USA is so full of almost-collapsing old infrastructure that the money is better spent elsewhere.
Hmm… apply “stargate” tech? You would go East without passing through Alabama and other intervening space, a concept I find highly appealing.
birgerjohansson & Reginald Selkirk:
I don’t see it happening for one very major reason. It has nothing to do with the usefulness of the high-speed rail line. It has nothing to do with the feasibility of the project. The problem is that the project would require not only private investment (which would most likely be available) but also state and federal investment. And the construction jobs are, many of them, union jobs. The railroaders — train crew, track workers, electricians, mechanics, etc., are also well-paid union workers. And the state of Texas, as well as the MAGA congress critters are adamantly against any public investment which will create more union jobs.
This has been proposed before (I remember reading about it in TRAINS magazine a decade or two ago) and it foundered on the creation of union jobs in Texas.
International polling: Support for U.S. rebounds under Biden
@407: Putting in a lot of intermediate stops means that the trains would seldom approach their top speed of 205 mph.
Scientists uncover 8,000-year-old village underwater, find “treasure trove”
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen considering NY congressional bid
Sounds like a dumb idea.
Chris Christie and Donald Trump are fighting over, among other things, how many miles of new border wall Trump built. But only one is telling the truth.
Link
Plant in Moscow Oblast that suffered from explosion participated in development of next generation bomber
Putin saved civilisation by invading Ukraine, new school textbook claims
At least 55 people died on Maui. Residents had little warning before wildfires overtook a town
Update on the Trump election case:
Posted by readers of the article:
See also: https://mastodon.social/@GottaLaff/110871173351558199
CHUTKAN: “Mr. Trump, like every American, has a First Amendment right to free speech. But that right is not aboslute… Defendant’s free speech is subject to the release conditions imposed at arraignment and it must yield to the orderly administration of justice.”
CHUTKAN: “What the defendant is currently doing — the fact that he’s running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice. If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.”
Chutkan: He is a criminal defendant. He’s going to have restrictions like every other defendant.
Chutkan: The fact that the defendant is engaged in a political campaign is not going to allow him any greater or lesser latitude than any defendant in any criminal case.
Cartoon: Riding with Clarence
Donald Trump’s Deteriorating Mental State
SCOTUS Gift Guide: What to Buy the Unelected Justice Who Loves 18th Century Law
re Oggie @403: I would have thought that the ;-P at the end of my post @401 would indicate that it was a snarky response. Sorry if you didn’t see it that way.
Re: Lynna 421
Maximum projection? Terminal projection seems off.
Brony @424, “Maximum projection” sounds right. End Stage projection. Whackadoodle projection.
In other JFC moments: Attorney General Garland will appoint special counsel in Hunter Biden probe
Never go full projection.
Hopefully it simplifies the patterns enough that some will see Trump is just moving attention relating to things he does or is doing.
Followup to comment 425.
Posted by readers of the article:
“Fox News: New National Monument Must Be Biden Bribery Smoking Gun, Because UKRAINIUM”
This much stupid should be painful.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/fox-news-new-national-monument-must
Followup to comments 425 and 428.
Republicans wanted a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case, and now they have a Trump-appointed prosecutor. But the GOP is already complaining anyway.
johnson catman:
I guess I am just a humourless asshole. Jokes about dismemberment, sending someone you don’t like through a garbage disposal or a wood chipper just do not strike me as funny.
Most outlandish quote from this morning’s hearing. In response to Judge Chutkan proclaiming, “He’s a criminal defendant. He is going to have restrictions like every single other defendant,” Trump’s lawyer replied, “President Trump will scrupulously abide by his conditions of release.”
About the proposed Texas high-speed rail line… The one thing I would like to see would be a requirement that any high-speed rail line be required to adhere to a set of standards such that, should any of them ever interconnect, the systems would be compatible with each other.
I agree with Oggie @431 on this issue. I can sort of appreciate the jokes, but I still think it is better to steer away completely from violence against humans … in this thread at least.
tomh @432. You are right. We already have evidence that Trump will NOT scrupulously abide by his conditions of release.
Well, that’s a scary statistic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/opinion/dementia-prisons.html
Lynna, OM, @ 430
Regarding House Oversight chairman James Comer, he has gotten into trouble by lying.
“James Comer mocked for saying he was at Hunter Biden’s hearing that he did not attend”
Like with Boris Johnson and D Trump these people have the strategy to just make things up when they experience stress.
https://youtu.be/EjdH0v594Fs
Right Wingers Furious That The FBI Killed A Man Threatening Biden.
Posted by readers of the article:
When cruelty is the point, the tories prove incompetent even at cruelty.
https://youtu.be/uriG2uedd0g
birger @436, true. Good point. And thanks for the additional information.
In other news: Leaked audio: MI Republican warns of civil war and violence if fake electors get prosecuted
Satire written by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Canadian origins of the satanic panic explored in documentary Satan Wants You
“Sloppy Chris Christie”…Trump thinks he can repeat 2016 by repeating the same kind of slurs.
Reginald Selkirk
About that lake with prehistoric settlements, it should be possible to map the bottom with inch-level presicion by towing a synthetic aperture sonar array over it. The lake pre-dates the ice age and the absence of salt water means wooden objects are not consumed by sea worms. There will be silt deposits hiding the oldest human traces but it should be possible to find artifacts even older than 8000 years.
Microbe stops mosquitoes from harboring malaria parasite
GOP Candidate Plagiarized Massive Segments of His College Thesis
Ohio Supreme Court rejects legal challenge, clears path for November abortion rights vote
A Louisiana Man Was Jailed for Criticizing Police. A Federal Court Wasn’t Having It.
Reginald Selkirk
I think we are both browsing the same articles – this is the second time you beat me to posting an item of science news thus afternoon. 😊
Florida congressman files articles of impeachment against Joe Biden
Before Oppenheimer got the bomb working, there was napalm.
https://youtu.be/Yw-YndOCxFQ
The Daily Show
This is priceless.
https://youtu.be/BCnxD342Luw
.
Trump whines about disloyalty, then refuses to sign loyalty pledge.
https://youtu.be/6KDZQI5xSMQ
or possibly
https://youtu.be/6KDZQl5xSMQ
‘The Ring of Fire’ with Farron Cousins is a great source of information, especially about Florida but also the rest of USA.
Independent voters now outnumber Republicans in Arizona
I’m going to interpret that as Republicans who are disgusted with the current state of their party. It’s good that they are disgusted, but if they still vote Republican the gesture doesn’t mean much.
Arizona abortion rights groups launch bid to put issue on 2024 ballot
U.S. Energy Department announces $1.2 billion to build two carbon dioxide removal sites in Texas, Louisiana
I think it would be more useful to stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than to pump some of it out.
QFT. From your link:
According to Our World in Data, current annual global greenhouse gas emissions in CO2 equivalent are around 55 billion tonnes.
Ukraine Update: Russia’s destabilizing efforts in Africa may soon spark a regional war
Followup to comment 418.
The death toll from wildfires in Hawaii have risen to 67, and there is confirmation that warning sirens were not activated.
Link
Amazing moment at @WestPoint_USMA when they received Ukrainian injured soldiers.
I have goosebumps.
@Kind_Deeds_Org
🙏🇺🇸🇺🇦
https://twitter.com/11Knuk123/status/1689674693551300612
Video at the link.
Link. Scroll down at the link.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1690100434155843586
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1690031941460873217
Gosar, Finchem, Kern lose appeal, ordered to pay court fees
Paxton isn’t Trump. Don’t get them mixed up. Texas Republicans actually like Trump.
Mike Pence is getting ridiculed online for a campaign video where he pretends to pump gas into his pickup truck for a full minute
K’gari is again in the spotlight after two more dingo attacks
Grim and disturbing reading here but :
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/8/9/the-murders-of-indigenous-activists-mark-the-death-of-the-planet
For those who’ve forgotten , it seems the innermost two exoplanets of Trappist-1 are barren rocks with little to no atmosphere at all in a disturbing sign for the possibility of life on planets of red dwarf stars – the most common of all star types. However, despite being just a simulation and computer modelling exercise this does seem to provide some cause for hope :
Source : https://www.space.com/trappist-1-exoplanets-more-likely-to-have-water
Emphasis on that may here -and very eagerly awaiting the JWST’s analsysis of the outer Trappist worlds but still.
Another space dot com news story here :
Source : https://www.space.com/after-17-years-away-nasa-sun-studying-stereo-visit-earth-august-12
Thought this wa s a pretty fascinating article about an old spaceprobe that’s done some remarkable work -and is still dpoing more when it comes to understanding our Daytime Star. Sadly STEREO-B has since stopped working. See also :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEREO Plus this very brief ten second animation of the flightpath for this Earthly fly by here among other things.
Reverse Christianity
https://youtu.be/-GxODmgjCNw
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Some podcast episodes:
NBN – “Christopher Miller, The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine“:
OTM – “Making History”:
OTM – “The Trump Case Against E. Jean Carroll and The Progress of #MeToo”:
Josh Marshall Podcast – “Ep. 285: NOhio”:
WITHpod – “‘A Moral Moment in America’ with Sen. Raphael Warnock”:
Ammon Bundy arrested in Emmett on an outstanding warrant
Australia 0(7) – 0(6) France
England 2 – 1 Colombia
More podcast episodes:
Tech Won’t Save Us – “Abolish Venture Capital w/ Edward Ongweso Jr.”:
NBN – “Cory Doctorow, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation“:
Angry Planet – “The Science and Terror of Nuclear Weapons”:
The Bunker – “How QAnon is still destroying the internet”:
Congratulations to Australia!
Guardian liveblog:
What Olexander Scherba said (on TAFKAT).
Two more podcast episodes:
NBN – “Mike Rothschild, Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories“:
(I like the cover design.)
SWAJ – “It’s In the Code Ep. 59: ‘Don’t They Care?'”:
Both the Guardian and the CNN Ukraine liveblogs today are doing mainly stenography for Russian officials, which is fairly aggravating.
The death toll rises to 80 in Maui wildfires as survivors begin returning to communities in ruins
SC @474: And England! The Matildas meet the Lionesses in the second semi-final (after Spain vs Sweden Tuesday) on Wednesday.
Wow, just fucking wow. A Kentucky school district apparently didn’t realize that school buses needed drivers, stranding 96000 students until nearly 10 PM.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/11/us/kentucky-schools-transportation-disaster/index.html
Just a little hiccup there.
Seriously, what in the actual fuck?! Did brain cells suddenly become extinct in that district?
A few related links:
VegNews – “Vegan Diet Slashes Emissions by 75 Percent. And, It Helps You Live 25 Percent Longer.”:
Sentient Media – “Veganism Is Not Anti-Indigenous”:
I’m not sure how this is allowed to continue there or in the US. It seems plainly discriminatory (especially in historical context).
Sentient Media – “The Backlash to Plant-Based Meat Has a Sneaky, if Not Surprising, Explanation”:
BBC – “What we know about the Covid variant EG.5 dubbed ‘Eris'”:
Mad in America – “Big Tech CEOs Meet with Psychiatry’s Leaders to Decide the Future of Mental Health”:
My guess is that the person who was responsible for making sure that there were drivers retired and, with the slashing of school budgets nationwide, no one was hired to do that job. Though rarely with this much of a splatter pattern, this kind of thing happens frequently in any bureaucracy – public or private. Any institution or business that operates under optimum staffing will experience this kind of ‘oh, shit, I didn’t know that the person who retired also had this even though it is not in the job description’ moment.
Been there. Done that.
Compassionate Christian authoritarianism: The leftist utopia the right thinks will save the church
Opinion by John Skiles Skinner
It really is all about controlling women.
LitHub – “How the Bush Administration Hid the Dangers Posed by Climate Change”: “David Lipsky on the Manipulation of Language Behind Climate Change Denialism…”
We had a saying where I used go work: You Can’t Make This Shit Up!” Texas has now broken through the bottom of the barrel and is now scraping the bottom of the next barrel.
Ukraine Update: Russian folly at Urozhaine, and Ukraine’s long game across the Dnipro
Link
Dmitry Grozoubinski posted:
https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1690118421734711297
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign manager to pay $25k over Ohio train derailment scam
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-13/indigenous-leader-inspires-amazon-city-to-grant-personhood-river/102702070
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-13/drone-strikes-in-moscow-ukraine-war-uj22-beaver/102707452
Death toll from Maui wildfire reaches 89, making it the deadliest in the US in more than 100 years
Here is one chuckle I have.
What’s the difference between a Kamikaze drone and a cruise missile? Or for that matter, any other guided missile?
But, they’re new, so magical or something scare quote worthy.
They’re a melding of WWII level control with proper modern crypto for C3, the rest, just a guided missile that moves slower than what we normally expect from modern guided missiles. And hence, cheaper to build.
One can turn anything from a model airplane with limited ability to carry a payload, through a large jumbo jet into a drone.
The only difference between WWII level and now is software and hardware giving precision guidance and waypoints.
Several million dollars.
Former top church official warns Christianity is in ‘crisis’ if people think quotes from Jesus are ‘liberal talking points’
Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach
Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones