It has been a month since the surprise Hamas terrorist attack that Israel says killed 1,400 people and left 240 still held hostage in the Gaza Strip. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and health officials there say more than 10,000 have been killed as Israel bombards the Palestinian enclave from the air and assaults it on the ground.
NBC News:
Israel will have ‘overall security responsibility’ for Gaza for ‘an indefinite period’ after this war with Hamas ends, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated it would uphold a federal law that prohibits people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms, potentially limiting the scope of its own major gun rights ruling from last year.
House Republicans on Tuesday grasped for a way to avert a government shutdown amid deep divides in their ranks over federal spending, debating how to strike a compromise with the Democratic-led Senate and President Biden just 10 days away from the funding deadline.
Yeah, I don’t think they are really “grasping” for a way to avert a shutdown. Instead, the Republicans in the House, under Mike Johnson’s leadership as the new Speaker, are busy burying poison pills in every funding proposal. They want to hold funding hostage by insisting that various ignorant and ineffective Republican priorities be included.
[…] The upshot here? Democrats are continuing a pattern of beating expectations in off-year elections, likely due to a concentration of highly engaged, educated voters in their coalition. We may be looking at a new era of off-year Democratic overperformance.
[…] Today, Johnson held a press conference asking the public to “trust us” as he offered scant details about his supposed plan — that’s unlikely to pass the Senate — to keep the government from shutting down in 11 days.
“I’m not going to tell you when we will bring it to the floor, but it will be in time, how about that? Trust us: We’re working through the process in a way that I think that people will be proud of,” Johnson told reporters, adding that “many options … are on the table and we’ll be revealing what our plan is in short order.”
He’s likely alluding to a strategy he’s been suggesting for the past week, which involves funding the government incrementally.
The Senate, which has already approved three bipartisan spending bills, is unlikely to jump on Johnson’s messy grenade, putting him in the same position that doomed Kevin McCarthy’s speakership: work with the Senate and risk angering the far-right flank or appease the hardliners and shut down the government. Until Johnson faces that impending reality, he’s nothing more than a projection of unity at the helm of a circus caucus.
Democrats had plenty of good news to celebrate in Tuesday’s off-year elections and more evidence that they can win races centered on the national debate over abortion.
Abortion rights supporters won an Ohio ballot measure and the Democratic governor of beet-red Kentucky held onto his office by campaigning on reproductive rights and painting his opponent as extremist. A Democrat won an open seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after campaigning on his pledge to uphold abortion rights. And Democrats took full control of the Virginia statehouse, blocking Republicans from being able to pass new abortion restrictions and delivering a defeat to Gov. Glenn Youngkin that may douse any buzz about a late entry into the GOP presidential primary…
The Republican candidate for a Texas city council was arrested just hours before Election Day on federal child pornography charges.
Brad Benson, who was running for the Granbury City Council, was arrested at his home Monday morning. Benson was a small-business owner and the deputy fire marshal for the town, which is southwest of Fort Worth…
According to the Wall Street Journal, Intel may receive billions in U.S. government funding to build secret facilities that produce microchips for the military. SiliconANGLE reports: …
Ahead of Election Day 2023, Donald Trump focused most of his electoral energies on one specific statewide candidate: Daniel Cameron, the Republican attorney general in Kentucky, and the GOP’s highly touted gubernatorial candidate.
For months, Cameron was trailing, but as polls showed a narrowing race at the finish line, the former president published an item to his social-media platform over the weekend, eagerly taking credit for the candidate’s position. Cameron “has made a huge surge, now that [voters] see my strong Endorsement,” Trump wrote, adding that the candidate has a “great future.” [Ha! So nice to add some schadenfreude sauce to the good news.]
In hindsight, “great” might not have been the best choice of words.
[…] As Teri Carter, a political columnist in central Kentucky, wrote for MSNBC overnight, “Kentucky is a deep-red state. Republicans have a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature. In addition to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, we send hard-line firebrands like Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Thomas Massie and Rep. James Comer to represent us in Washington, D.C.”
We are, after all, talking about a state Donald Trump won in 2020 by roughly 26 points. When Beshear was elected four years ago, he barely eked a narrow victory against a troubled Republican incumbent — and at the time, the Democrat failed to reach 50% of the vote.
Success, in other words, was hardly assured.
But Beshear prevailed anyway, in part thanks to steady and effective leadership over four years, and in part by running on abortion rights. This ad, which the governor’s campaign began airing in late-September, remains one of the most memorable spots of 2023. [Tweet and video at the link]
Two days after the ad began airing, Politico reported, “It was once unthinkable for a Democrat running statewide in a red state like Kentucky to win on abortion. Now, in the final stretch of a campaign to defend the governor’s mansion, Democrats are betting hard that they can ride it to victory.”
That bet paid off.
“Just look at what we were up against,” Beshear told supporters after the race was called. “Five super PACs. My opponent’s super PAC, Mitch McConnell’s super PAC. Rand Paul’s super PAC, the Club for Growth, the Republican Governors Association, all running ads full of hate and division. And you know what? We beat them all at the same time.”
Republicans are licking their wounds and surveying the carnage from yesterday’s election, but there’s no sign that it will break Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP.
You probably remember Trump’s immortal line from 2016: “We’re going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning.” The next line in that riff is the pièce de résistance: “Please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it any more.”
Here’s how all that winning is looking right now 😭😭😭 …
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) on Newsmax: “It was a secret sauce for disaster in Ohio. I don’t know what they were thinking. Thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”
Sean Hannity on Fox News: “Democrats are trying to scare women into thinking Republicans don’t want abortion legal under any circumstances.”
Newsmax anchor: “It does seem like the Republican Party generally has a real problem with winning.” […]
Florida’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, suggested providing public funding for former President Trump’s legal defense to fight “liberal prosecutors” as he battles fraud allegations.
Patronis floated the proposal on Monday amid Trump’s civil fraud trial that stemmed from a lawsuit brought against him, his family and his businesses by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“Why not provide public funding for a Presidential nominee (who’s a Floridian) when DOJ is after them?” Patronis posted on X. “Are we really going to deny one of our own a fair shot against a witch hunt? We didn’t start this, Biden and liberal prosecutors did. They’re ones trying to deny a fair election.” …
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 15
There is never going to be a moment of realization on the part of Republicans because their right-wing ideology won’t allow them that. They assume that their opponent’s ideology is so evil or absurd that no one beyond the depraved supports it; therefore, the left can only win when they resort to fraud. That’s why the whole “election fraud/stolen election” conspiracies resonate so well with them.
There is a limit to language sympathy and river and sea references aren’t enough to ignore anything here. There is libel and slander being made about Rashida Tlaib. Anyone sensitive to a Hamas reference should be able to see the intent.
As an American who called out child concentration camps here I have no problem describing the Palestinian living conditions as Isreal’s concentration camp.
And due to the clear power asymmetry I choose not to care about complaints of anti-Semitic tone. Hamas doesn’t own the reference and complaints distract from genocide.
I can acknowledge the association between Israel and concentration camps will feel uniquely awful. But then it’s awful that the associations can be made to Israel. I would have thought that such things could be avoided by Israel, but we are very irrational beings.
Law enforcement officials found four Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department employees dead on Monday and Tuesday, in what officials described as unrelated suicides, according to multiple reports…
Ivanka Trump was forced Wednesday, during her family’s New York business fraud trial, to explain an email exchange that could undo their entire defense.
Donald Trump’s oldest daughter took the stand to testify about the Trump Organization’s business practices. Ivanka Trump was presented with an email conversation she had with one of the company’s lawyers.
The lawyer, Jason Greenblatt, was worried about a 2012 deal with Deutsche Bank for the purchase of the Doral golf club in Miami, which required Donald Trump to maintain a minimum net worth of $3 billion. This requirement “would seem to me to be a problem?” he asked Ivanka.
Ivanka replied this was something they “have known from day one. We wanted to get a great rate and the only way to get the proceeds/term and principle where we want them is to guarantee the deal.”
Another email related to the Doral deal makes clear that her father’s financials were a big part of securing the purchase. “My father will also send you his most recent financial statement by hard mail,” she wrote in an email with the subject line “Doral.”
This exchange speaks directly to New York Attorney General Letitia James’s main accusation that Trump and his allies fraudulently inflated the value of their real estate assets to get more favorable terms on bank loans. Greenblatt was concerned that Trump would struggle to prove and maintain a net worth of at least $3 billion. But Ivanka didn’t seem worried.
In the Doral deal, Ivanka eventually got the requirement for Trump’s net worth lowered to $2.5 billion, but that’s still far higher than what James estimates Trump’s net worth actually was at the time of the purchase in 2012…
SWAT teams were frantically searching a wooded area in New Jersey on Wednesday for a suspected Jan. 6 rioter who bolted when cops tried to arrest him. The FBI said in a statement to News 12 NJ that Gregory Yetman, 46, was wanted in connection to the riot, but his exact charges were not specified…
Anti-abortion organizations and Republican lawmakers have filed a lawsuit in federal court, challenging the legality of the voter-approved constitutional amendment enshrining abortion access in Michigan.
A group of organizations, led by Right to Life of Michigan, filed a complaint against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state leaders in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan Wednesday, asking a judge to issue a permanent injunction against Proposal 3. In 2022, nearly 57% of voters approved the proposal, which enshrined in the state constitution the “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” which includes − but is not limited to − the right to seek abortion. It also protects a right to contraception and infertility care, for instance.
The lawsuit also lists Republican lawmakers Sen. Joseph Bellino, R-Monroe, and Reps. Gina Johnsen, R-Lake Odessa, and Luke Meerman, R-Coopersville, as plaintiffs. In the complaint, attorneys write Proposal 3 is unconstitutional because it creates a “super-right” to abortion access.
“At no time in our nation’s history has such a super-right, immune from all legislative action, ever been created by a popular vote outside of the checks and balances of a republican form of government,” the complaint states. It also states the proposal violates the equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution…
OHIO (The Borowitz Report)—Irate Republican officials in Ohio have been crying foul over Tuesday night’s election results, claiming that there were “widespread cases” of women voting across the state.
Harland Dorrinson, a G.O.P. operative in Lake County, said that he had “eyewitness accounts” of “swarms of women” standing in long lines outside of polling places.
“Many of our poll workers spotted women going into voting booths and literally casting votes,” he said. “These were not isolated incidents.”
Dorrinson said the “nightmare scenario” that unfolded on Tuesday has dire implications for both Ohio and the nation.
“There is every indication that women meddled in this election,” he said. “What’s to stop them from doing it again in 2024?”
[…] there was another statewide contest in the Bluegrass State this year that drew national interest, and for good reason. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported:
Kentucky voters on Tuesday gave Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams a second term as the state’s top elections official. … Having survived a three-way GOP primary challenge in May, Adams campaigned as a moderate Republican willing to expand ballot access and square off against election deniers in his own political party.
I’m mindful of the fact that the vast majority of Americans outside of Kentucky probably have no idea who Michael Adams is. […]
Adams stood out as an interesting figure in Republican politics because of his forceful rejection of the election deniers in his midst. In fact, he’s been rather unapologetic about it, running a campaign that told voters that his success would mean “closing the door on the clown show.”
He sat down with Semafor’s Dave Weigel in May and was surprisingly candid on this point.
“Misinformation is on the ballot — whether we’re going to be a fact- and rationality-based government, when it comes to elections, or whether we’re gonna let conspiracy theorists run the show,” Adams said. “It’s important that we have free and fair elections in a legitimate system. It’s also important for the image of our state and for our business environment that we’re not seen as a bunch of nut jobs, putting some kook into this very critical office.”
In case this isn’t obvious, in context, he was referring to extremists in his own party.
Not surprisingly, this led Adams to face primary rivals, whom he defeated. As the dust settled on his re-election bid, the incumbent appears to have prevailed with over 60% of the vote.
The point is not that Adams should be seen as a progressive voice in Kentucky. He really isn’t. On the contrary, Kentucky’s secretary of state is a conservative Republican whom most Democrats would disagree with on a wide range of issues.
But Adams also has a problem with misinformation, conspiracy theorists, “nut jobs” and “kooks.”
Will his win “close the door on the clown show”? Probably not, but when Republicans opposed to their party’s election deniers win big, it helps send a signal to the rest of the GOP.
I remember when Bob Dole referred to protections for gay people as “special rights” (1988?). Someone called him out on it during an appearance, asking how having the same protections as other people was in any way “special.” To his credit, he actually stopped using the term.
That doesn’t happen nowadays. They keep telling the same lies no matter how many times they get called out.
They’re just rights. They get compared to one another when the come into conflict but even “ultra maga” is just political language that may help divide a conquer a bit, but the fascism is better to focus on. Now that some have embraced ultra maga do we get to single them out in law with it? No, but it might be a fun point at some time.
[…] This is the key takeaway from the morning session. The state brought out evidence that, again and again, Trump was turned down in attempting to obtain financing for Doral, with most of those efforts not even getting to the point of banks setting a rate. And that was despite Ivanka providing those banks with both her package on Doral and Trump’s financial statements.
Then Deutsche Bank not only agreed to make the deal, but gave Trump a sweetheart rate, handing him cash 6% lower than the going commercial rate. All of that was completely dependent on Trump’s statement of financial condition which covered his assets and his liquidity. […]
On Monday, Trump argued that those statements weren’t important, that the banks didn’t care, and that he would have received the loans without them. Ivanka’s testimony, and the documents the state produced during that testimony, showed that this was not the case.
Trump’s loan rates were a gift provided to him based on his statement of financial condition, and the statement of financial condition was a lie. [The lie was Trump saying would maintain a minimum net worth of $2 to $3 billion.]
[…] Engoron talked with Kise and work out some limits to the spousal defense over lunch. Because it’s clear that Kushner was involved in connecting Ivanka with Rosemary Vrablic at Deutsche Bank, and that he helped review proposals on the Old Post Office.
There’s also the possibility that this could connect with a company called Bergel 715 Associates, partially owned by Kushner, that sold Vrablican an apartment in 2013 while she was still involved in arranging loans for Trump. There appears to have been a lot of mutual hand-washing going on among these “friends.”
Engoron indicates that because both Ivanka and Kushner used work emails to communicate, they were doing business, not engaged in private discussions as spouses. And that seems to be where this is going to stand for now.
[…] Solomon is once again showing Ivanka documents from Deutsche Bank. Ivanka is hauling out another series of “I don’t recall” responses. Her memory seems to be declining as the day goes on.
[…]
Questioning turns to Ivanka Trump’s penthouse at Trump Park Avenue.
Side trivia: The property was once an historic hotel where Bob Dylan reportedly introduced the Beatles to cannabis by smoking a joint with them.
[Hmmm. Remember all those outlandish claims Trump made about “brand value”?] Ivanka views a proposal with the following Covenant: “Guarantor shall maintain a Minimum Net Worth of $3.0 billion excluding any value related to the Guarantor’s brand value.”
What we’ve seen so far is that three banks, including Deutsche Bank, turned down financing for Doral. In fact, they turned it down before even getting far into negotiations. And it seems that those banks had Trump’s financial statements.
But then Rosemary Vrablic at the special section of Deutsche for ultra-wealthy clients made the deal after a nudge from Jared and Ivanka and after Trump sent in a set of guarantees about his personal wealth and liquid assets. In other words: It was all heavily dependent on the statement of financial condition that Trump testified didn’t matter.
[…] t’s hard to overestimate how important this connection to Vrablic became for Trump. Through the connection to Jared and Ivanka, he managed to get financing at just 2% (2%!) at a time when Deutshe’s rate for commercial loans was 8%. This was through the special section of the bank devoted to making extremely wealthy people happy. Which … yeah, how nice that super-rich people get an enormously better rate. […]
[…] Not to be outdone by the Times touting its own polls, CNN ran with a poll analysis that appears to have been written before the elections with the assumption that they would signal trouble for Democrats. It seems like it was then hastily tweaked. It opens: “A big night for Democrats Tuesday in state races only highlighted the struggles Joe Biden faces in 2024 following polls suggesting he’s far less popular than his party.” A few paragraphs later, the article’s author, Stephen Collinson, details some of Tuesday’s big wins and offers up this skeptical admission: “This could mean polls are underplaying Democrats’ resilience under Biden, as they did in last year’s midterms when a Republican red wave was averted.”
But you know there’s a “but” coming. It is of course a classic traditional media piece, swinging from but to but and always landing most decisively where it started, which is with the bad news for Democrats the morning after a set of big wins. […]
President Joe Biden traveled to an Amtrak maintenance warehouse in Bear, Delaware, Monday to talk up the jobs and economic growth resulting from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that he signed in 2021. In particular, he touted the release of $16 billion in BIL funding for rail projects in the Northwest Corridor spanning Boston to Washington DC. He noted the good union jobs being created by the infrastructure law, emphasizing as he always does that “The middle class built America, but unions built the middle class.”
It was kind of a big deal, he said, since the BIL included “the largest investment in passenger rail since Amtrak was created 50 years ago: $66 billion for world-class rail right here at home.” Biden noted that the fully electrified passenger trains running through the Northwest corridor aren’t just fast and convenient for commuters, but clean, since they “emit 83 percent less greenhouses gases, by the way, than driving your car, 72 percent less greenhouse gases than taking a plane.” Unfortunately, we won’t be getting intercity Shinkansen service just yet. High-speed train nerds will have to settle for Japanese travel channels on YouTube for some time to come.
And of course Biden called attention to the urgent need to repair parts of US infrastructure that previous administrations and Congress allowed to degrade. (Fun fact: BIL fully funds Amtrak’s long maintenance backlog, and that’ll improve both efficiency and safety.)
All pretty good stuff, and the New York Times covered the story (gift link) and Biden’s main points. But instead of a straight news story, the Paper of Record wondered why on earth Biden was talking about infrastructure at a time like this, when that one Times-Siena College poll shows he’ll absolutely lose to Donald Trump in a year, except for how nothing of the sort is certain. (Remember, the poll also showed Trump losing bigly if he’s convicted in one or more of his criminal cases, which seems just possible.)
So we got this weird lede on the infrastructure story, obsessing about the poll in both the first and second paragraphs:
President Biden, perhaps Amtrak’s most famous advocate, announced $16.4 billion in funding for rail projects on Monday, exhibiting a business-as-usual approach as polls show him trailing former President Donald J. Trump one year before Election Day.
Speaking at a maintenance warehouse where Amtrak trains are serviced in Bear, Del., Mr. Biden made no mention of the polling from The New York Times and Siena College polls.
Dang, Joe, where are your priorities? Why won’t you dance for the New York Times?
The story went on like that, alternating between brief mentions of the infrastructure event and extended grumping about Biden’s failure to acknowledge that this one poll says he’s doomed, doomed, portraying the Amtrak event as so much train-whistling past the graveyard.
Democratic strategists said Mr. Biden is making a point to stay on message, despite polling that showed voters in battleground states said they trusted Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration.
The White House has brushed off the polls, saying Mr. Biden still has a year to campaign and that polls have historically failed to predict the results of elections when taken a year ahead of time.
“It’s fine he’s doing an Amtrak event; it’s very on brand,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director for President Barack Obama.
“What they have to do is stick with the drumbeat on economic gains,” Ms. Palmieri said. “You need to spend time telling people: ‘We have gotten a lot done. We will get more done.’”
A couple paragraphs later, the story switches back to the infrastructure event, although we suppose the Times might have preferred those sections have ominous music under them. There’s also a brief note that Biden “also slammed Republicans on Monday for seeking to cut funding for infrastructure and other administration priorities,” but no details on what he said, which was,
“Folks, meanwhile, our MAGA Republican friends in Congress are proposing to slash Amtrak’s budget.
“We’re trying to make train travel easier, faster, safer, more reliable. They’re trying to make it slower, harder, and less safe. You can’t make this stuff up.
“But that’s okay. We’re not going to let them stop the progress we’re making. And it’s — I promise you that.”
He’s right, of course. Even after trying to score points against Biden following the derailment and chemical pollution in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this year, Republicans really do want to slash railroad safety funding, as well as most of the administration’s infrastructure and climate policies.
And as Evan has already noted today, on top of the weird angle on the infrastructure story Monday, the Times even managed to find bad news for Joe Biden in its story on yesterday’s very good election results, insisting in a subhed that “President Biden is unpopular, but the winning streak for his party and its policies has been extended through another election night,” and following that by proclaiming in the story’s lede that
The political potency of abortion rights proved more powerful than the drag of President Biden’s approval ratings in Tuesday’s off-year elections …
Hell, at this rate, if Biden is reelected, the Times story on his second inauguration will most likely begin, “Joe Biden was sworn in for a second term today, although his second inaugural address made no mention of recent polling showing he’d lose a rematch against Donald Trump if the 2024 election were held all over again.”
Amazingly bad journalism on the part of the New York Times. What is wrong with them?
Marjorie Taylor Greene … having a bad time and making sure everyone else has a bad time too:
Last night, Marjorie Taylor Greene advanced an amendment to reduce Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s salary to a dollar. Why? Because she’s a vile homophobic piece of dogshit. She might have had other reasons, but they don’t matter, because she doesn’t matter. It passed by voice vote, but it’s DOA in the Senate, obviously, if it gets there. The full House didn’t vote on the budget package that included it last night.
Republicans did this to several officials last night. Greene did it in September to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. None of it will never become law, and it will never matter. It will be just one more wasted moment in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s life, which seems to consist only of such moments.
[…] She’s alienated the House Freedom Caucus, which kicked her out a long time ago. The “normal” Republicans don’t like her, because God, she’s embarrassing.
She tried to get Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib censured last week, but 23 Republicans were like no fuck you, we aren’t voting for your stinky resolution, it has poop on it, fuck your resolution, we hate it and we hate you. They voted for a different member’s resolution to censure Tlaib last night (with some Democratic support), and Greene had to pull hers this morning.
She was so mad […]
Chip Roy responded: “Tell her to focus on chasing so-called Jewish space lasers if she wishes to spend her time on such matters.” LMAO.
Greene responded: “Oh shut up Colonel Sanders, you’re not even from Texas, more like the DMV.” Which kind of sounds like maybe the lady is having a stroke.
Petrizzo’s reporting includes more of the back-and-forth from that fight, which shockingly got stupid because Republicans are uninteresting and humorless people. For example, this quote from Byron Donalds, doing some friendly ribbing at Chip Roy: “Honestly, I joked with him and said, ‘Hey man, let me get a three-piece.’” GET IT, GET IT, GET IT? Because MTG called him Colonel Sanders. GET IT? A THREE-PIECE!
We hate everybody in this article and we hope their power goes out while they’re cooking something they love.
With some votes from the 2023 election still being tallied, the top Republican candidates not named Donald Trump are preparing for their third, smallest-yet debate in Miami.
Democrats are celebrating nationwide wins in states (and commonwealths) from Ohio to Kentucky to Virginia to Pennsylvania. These Republicans are taking one of their last chances to make the case that only they atop the 2024 ticket can stem the bleeding.
Viewership Keeps Dropping […]
In this mostly useless exercise of gauging who is the least far behind Trump, Haley has recently seen her numbers rise a bit. Expect her to go after DeSantis to solidify that placement, and the rest of the crowd to attack her more. I, for one, am most eager to see what new heights of utter disdain she can reach in her ongoing contempt for Ramaswamy. […]
In another Election Day victory over right-wing forces, a progressive mother of an LGBTQ+ child has beaten the daughter of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a Virginia school board race.
LGBTQ-supportive mom Allison Spillman defeated Meg Bryce by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent for an open at-large seat on the Albemarle County School Board, local newspaper The Daily Progress reports…
Reginald Selkirksays
ibid:
Bryce, Scalia’s daughter, has four children, all of whom attend private schools…
WTF is someone with no stake doing asking to run the public schools? Apparently “parental rights” means “the right to control other people’s children.”
Former President Donald Trump will stay on the Minnesota primary ballot after the state supreme court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit seeking end his candidacy under a rarely-used constitutional provision that forbids those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
The Minnesota Supreme Court declined to become the first in history to use Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to prevent someone from running for the presidency. The court dodged the central question of the lawsuit — does Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualify him from the presidency — by ruling that state law allows parties to put whomever they want on the primary ballot.
“There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,” Chief Justice Natalie Hudson ruled…
The United States is discussing with Israel and Qatar a proposal for a pause in fighting in Gaza of up to three days that would allow for the delivery of more humanitarian aid and the possible release of some hostages held by Hamas, according to two foreign diplomats and a U.S. official.
It was a debate heavily focused on foreign policy, with little conversation about how to recalibrate the party after Tuesday’s electoral shellacking. Nikki Haley’s “you’re just scum” to Vivek Ramaswamy may have been the only moment of the night that sticks — to the extent that it matters.
[…] ‘NB Snooze Republican Presidential Debate’ … NBC News anchor and debate moderator Kristen Welker clearly meant to say “NBC News” but the slip, it was Freudian.
[…] And so concludes our third exercise in seeing who’ll lose to Trump the least handily.
Yes, they talked about a 15-week abortion ban nationally … and that’s after losing so bigly yesterday because they are total doofuses when it comes to abortion.
Yesterday, Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner wrote about the increased action in Kherson oblast, as Ukrainian units cross the Dnipro River and begin to threaten Russian control of the region. Today, we’ll take a closer look at what we know about those activities.
Here’s where things stand. On Oct. 30, Ukrainian forces (reportedly elements of the 35th Marine Brigade) launched a raid across the Dnipro River, about 30 kilometers east of the city of Kherson. This appeared at first to be one of many raids Ukrainian forces had launched on the left bank of the Dnipro. (Ukraine refers to the right and left banks by looking downstream. In this case, that’s the eastern and southern banks of the Dnipro.) [map at the link]
Ukraine currently controls or contests a narrow strip of land that extends at most 2 to 3 kilometers from the Dnipro riverbank. A series of small islands and marshy lowlands cover much of the area directly south of the river in this area, along with small tributary streams that split off and remerge with the main river.
The Dnipro River itself varies between a width of 800 to 1,200 meters in this area—wide enough that crossing the river poses a significant challenge. Even after crossing the river, Ukrainian forces must contend with watery marshland, outside of a few paved roads around Antonivka (near Kherson) and around where the Kakhovka Dam used to be located further upstream.
There is also an inoperable railroad line that runs through the marsh from the remains of the destroyed Antonivka rail bridge, but no paved roads. [map at the link]
Ukraine can bring over light infantry, all-terrain vehicles, and even heavy equipment at different landing sites. A secure river crossing is vital to supply any large mechanized force. And capturing a few villages near the riverbank won’t permit Ukrainian operations deeper into Kherson Oblast without first securing an inland road—and that means either capturing Oleshky (south of the Antonivskyi Bridge site) or Nova Kakhovka—the only two places where roads lead inland from the riverbank. There is no other way to supply any march toward Crimea or Melitopol with the fuel, ammunition, spare parts, food, water, and other equipment necessary to feed an advancing army.
As such, I doubt Ukraine has crossed the Dnipro in a serious operational or strategic sense. That is, they’re not ready to liberate the rest of Kherson oblast or march on Crimea. The marshlands and small villages Ukraine has liberated will gain broader significance only if they serve as a springboard for the liberation of key supply routes. [map at the link]
In addition to an inland supply route, Ukraine also needs a secure way to move supplies across the river.
Currently, all three bridges over the Dnipro River in Kherson are out of commission, fully disabled by the Russians after their retreat from the northern part of Kherson last November. Here’s recent satellite data of all three. [images at the link]
Daily Kos’ own Mark Sumner used Sentinel satellite imagery to estimate the smaller gaps in the bridge to be at least 40-45 meters, but the large gap in the collapsed center section spans at least 110 meters, and possibly a few hundred meters.
Currently, Ukraine is using Soviet-era PTS-2 Amphibious transports to ferry supplies across the river. [Tweet and image at the link]
The PTS-2 is a tracked amphibious vehicle that can carry up to 12 tons of supplies over water. It is large enough to transport lighter Ukrainian armored vehicles or Humvees. On Nov. 7, images of an abandoned and burning Ukrainian armored Humvee struck by a Russian drone were posted on social media, confirming that Ukraine has already been moving vehicles across the river.
In addition to the PTS-2, Ukraine also has some Western amphibious transportation options:
Ukraine has received numerous M3 Amphibious Bridging Vehicles and PFM Motorized Bridge Sections. These bridging vehicles can be linked together to create bridges, but they can also be used as military ferries. For example, just three M3 ABVs can be linked together to create a ferry that can carry 2 western MBTs. The PFM motorized bridge sections can be used similarly. Much of this bridging equipment began to be delivered this spring, as Ukrainian allies began playing weapon deliveries closer to the vest. Ukraine received at least 6 German-made M3 ABVs from the Netherlands, but there are rumors that they received more. Germany’s Bundeswehr also uses the M3 ABV in its engineering corps, and it provided undisclosed “light and heavy bridging assets” that may include some M3 ABVs. The UK, Sweden, Latvia, and the Netherlands all use the M3 ABV, thus it would not be surprising if Ukraine had as many as a dozen or two M3 ABVs.
There are likely to be fairly limited numbers of these precious amphibious supply vessels. So to sustain any significant force, Ukraine needs a bridge.
One option is to do what Russia did when Ukraine knocked out the bridges over the Dnipro River: build a pontoon bridge. U.S. Army pontoon bridges can be both extremely lengthy and have a hefty carrying capacity. They are capable of supporting M1 Abrams Tanks weighing over 70 tons.
For example, the U.S. Army built a pontoon bridge crossing the Sava River into Bosnia to support NATO peacekeeping operations. The temporary bridge supplied over 20,000 NATO troops, the bulk of which was the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division—with logistically demanding M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
Russia built their pontoon bridge alongside the former Antonivskyi Bridge in 24 hours. If Ukraine were to attempt the same, the process might be expected to take about a single day. For example, the 10th Operational Corps of Ukraine that conducted the Ukrainian offensive toward Tokmak around Robotyne was estimated at around 20,000 soldiers, so a single pontoon bridge would likely be enough to support a major Ukrainian offensive into Kherson oblast—if the bridge could be kept intact.
As the Russians have repeatedly discovered, keeping a pontoon bridge within enemy artillery range operation is no easy task. Remember this video? [video at the link]
Two Russian attempts to construct a pontoon bridge across the Siverskyi Donets River resulted in that famous Russian catastrophe at Bilohorivka. [video at the link]
Ukraine similarly struck and destroyed Russian pontoons across the Dnipro near Kherson on multiple occasions, such as in August and October 2022. Ukraine used a combination of precision-guided artillery mentions and HIMARS GMLRS guided rockets to target these Russian logistical routes with pinpoint accuracy from as much as 40+ kilometers away.
If not pontoon bridges, what then?
The U.S. Army has the rapidly deployable WFEL dry support bridge that can span up to 46 meters, falling short of what would be needed for that larger gap.
The Mabey Logistics Bridge system used by the British Corps of Engineers as well as the U.S. Army can span up to 50 meters of open space, but more importantly, can span hundreds of meters with support struts anchored to the ground.
[…] While Ukraine has systematically targeted bridges to disrupt Russian supply routes, Russia has taken a different approach. Russia still has a substantial arsenal of cruise and ballistic missiles like the Iskander and Kalibr missiles, yet Russian strikes on bridges have been quite rare.
In April 2022, Russia set its sights on destroying the Zatoka Bridge south of Odesa, a key civilian trade route with Moldova. Hundreds of kilometers behind any front lines, Russia had to rely on long-range missile strikes to hit the target.
In 2022, Russia launched unimpeded missile salvos on Apr. 26, Apr. 27, May 2, May 17, and July 19, before Western air defense systems had arrived—yet failed to take the bridge out of commission. Russia simply couldn’t score a direct hit. As such, the bridge remained operational until February 2023, when Russia finally managed to put the bridge out of commission … using a naval drone.
This may explain why Russia has relied predominantly on tube artillery to take out bridges in Ukrainian-held territory.
[…] Faced with Ukrainian bridging of the Dnipro, Russia could potentially deploy its FAB1500-M54 glide bombs, just recently entering battle in September. These bombs are massive, weighing in at 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds), far larger than the 227 kilogram (500 pounds) JDAM GPS-guided glide bombs that Ukraine typically uses, or the 500 kilogram (1,100 pounds) glide bombs Russia has been using since February 2023. Using a lobbed trajectory, these glide bombs can reportedly be deployed as far as 40 kilometers away, allowing Russian aircraft to strike front-line targets without coming suicidally close to Ukrainian air defense systems.
Russia claims these bombs have an accuracy of […] strike within a circle with a radius of 15 meters. Western analysts almost uniformly believe these claims to be exaggerated.
Russian glide bombs rely on the GLOSNAST constellation of coordinate guidance, which is more than a generation behind the U.S. GPS system. The UMPK guidance module attached to these bombs were highly improvised and rushed into production—and from recovered copies almost completely built with Western electronic components. The CEP of these weapons are more likely to be two or three times greater than the claimed CEP accuracy—meaning 30-45 meters.
A standard U.S. Army pontoon bridge is just 5.7 meters wide. A direct hit from a Russian glide bomb is extremely unlikely, although the sheer power of a 3,300-pound bomb can do a great deal of damage within a broad radius. Still, when striking floating targets, the concussive effect of the bomb is partially absorbed by the water, and a low-lying flexible structure is least likely to be affected by shockwaves from a powerful but distant explosion.
[…] the most advanced Western air defense systems have proved highly effective at deterring glide-bombing attacks on key targets. After a series of glide-bombing strikes on Ukrainian positions near Krynky on Nov. 4 and 5, Russian military blogger Romanov noted that Ukraine shifted Iris-T air defense systems within a few kilometers of the village on the opposite side of the river, now protecting the area from slow-flying glide bombs.
Given the success of Western air defense systems in intercepting Russian planes, cruise missiles, glide bombs, and drones, a concentrated and layered Ukrainian air defense near a bridge site could be reasonably expected to protect it from Russian air strikes. Control of the waterways would protect against the kind of water drones that destroyed the Zatoka Bridge. That means Ukraine’s final challenge would be to protect any new bridge from Russian artillery.
[…] Ukraine’s current methodical advances in this area are creating the conditions where all of this might be possible. Russia clearly sees Ukrainian gains as a serious threat.
[…] If Ukraine can secure a supply route across the river, Ukraine could threaten Russian defenses around Melitopol and the Surovikin line from behind. From there, it would be just a little over 100 kilometers (60 miles) to Crimea.
But the challenge of securing that initial bridgehead is immense. Amphibious assaults are considered among the most difficult operations in war. Ukraine may need to rely on predominantly light infantry forces supported by smaller numbers of heavy armored vehicles to secure a safe bridgehead.
The coming weeks will show if this is merely a Ukrainian fixing operation—designed to force Russia to weaken other fronts by reinforcing this one—or the real deal.
Vatican officials said Wednesday that transgender people can be baptized in the Catholic church…
Vatican officials also concluded that transgender people can be godparents and witnesses at religious weddings. They added that an individual in a same-sex relationship can also be a witness in Catholic weddings.
The document appeared to suggest that children either adopted by same-sex couples or conceived through surrogacy cannot be baptized. It also implied that people in same-sex relationships should not be godparents to baptized children…
Last year, when it struck down New York’s concealed-carry law, the Supreme Court upended how the courts scrutinize gun regulations by creating an unusual new test for them: Their constitutionality must be weighed by whether or not similar laws existed when the Second Amendment was ratified all the way back in 1791.
“When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court in New York State Pistol and Rifle Association v. Bruen. “The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”
Originalism—which asserts that the Constitution must be interpreted based on its original public meaning—has been in ascendance on the right for years, but the Bruen ruling may have been the most brazen application yet of the legal doctrine. It may also have been the sloppiest, as the justices seemed to implicitly acknowledge in oral arguments on Tuesday in a separate gun case.
It fell to Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing on behalf of the federal government in United States v. Rahimi, to explicitly poke holes in the “historical tradition” test. She didn’t ask the court to overturn Bruen outright—likely a tactical decision, given that she urged the justices not to strike down the New York concealed-carry law last year—and instead asked the justices to “clarify” some aspects of this new historical test for gun laws…
However reasonable this test sounded in theory—and it apparently sounded reasonable enough for five other justices to join Thomas’s opinion—it has been something entirely else in practice…
What counts as “historical evidence” or a “historical analogue” is open to interpretation. A federal judge in New Jersey, for example, struck down a ban on carrying firearms in casinos even though there were no casinos in the Thirteen Colonies and therefore no historical analogues to be found. She instead noted that French Louisiana had a casino in 1753, there was no evidence that it had banned firearms, and therefore neither could New Jersey…
Another problem with the Bruen test is that American society is fundamentally different than it was in 1791. When defending some restrictions, particularly those involving dangerousness and possession, the government and some judges have cited founding-era laws that disarmed enslaved persons, free Black Americans, and members of Native American tribes. This has led to no shortage of awkwardness in the lower courts, as one might imagine…
Jackson used the opportunity to point out that this required the courts to engage in historical cherry-picking, which would cut against Bruen’s validity…
… a clear majority of the justices, at least from the way they approached oral arguments on Tuesday, apparently do not want to arm domestic abusers with Bruen. How they “clarify” their test without admitting it was a mistake will be a formidable challenge.
StevoRsays
@44. Reginald Selkirk : Vatican says transgender people can be baptized
When the Vatican – the fucking Vatican – is less bigoted and more living in the current eon than the Repugs and other far reichwing political parties.. Fucking hell. Wow.
I know it is a ‘hot topic’, but I hope people will read this article by Prof. Juan Cole. He is likely the leading expert and a thoughtful and objective commenter on the middle east. I have expressed my sorrow over the obscene loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives and my anger at the obvious genocide of Netanyahoo as aided and abetted by the u.s. Professor Cole points out a lot of facts overlooked by the ignorant and zealots: https://www.juancole.com/2023/11/resolution-delusional-falsehoods.html
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 44, 46
Ever since Franny got to the position of High Exalted Pedophile Enabler, the press has been falling over themselves anytime he makes these vaguely positive statements. EACH AND EVERY TIME, there is a “clarification” from the Vatican that walks back Franny’s statement that never get’s picked up by the MSM.
Remember kids, this is the same shitfucker who compared arguments for trans rights to nuclear weapons. This is just PR. Stop letting the religious justify their existence by falling for this crap.
[…] If his social-media efforts were any indication, the race the former president cared about most was the gubernatorial contest in Kentucky, where Trump invested time and effort into supporting the state’s Republican attorney general, Daniel Cameron. As recently as Saturday, Trump published an item taking credit for Cameron’s possible success, explaining that the GOP nominee was “not really ‘a McConnell guy,” in reference to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The morning after Cameron lost, Trump returned to his platform and wrote, “Daniel Cameron lost because he couldn’t alleviate the stench of Mitch McConnell. I told him early that’s a big burden to overcome. McConnell and Romney are Kryptonite for Republican Candidates. I moved him up 25 Points, but the McConnell relationship was ‘too much to bear.’”
First, McConnell won re-election in Kentucky a few years ago by nearly 20 points. Second, Cameron based much of his candidacy on his affiliation to Trump but lost anyway. And third, the contradiction between what he wrote on Saturday and his follow-up message four days later seemed pretty obvious.
But Trump took matters in an even uglier direction soon after. NBC News reported:
One day after the election losses, Trump also quickly turned to unfounded conclusions that there were “irregularities” that caused Republicans to lose Tuesday night. “We have very, very third world elections. You see that up in Connecticut this weekend, the last few days,” Trump said Wednesday on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “They found a lot of improprieties, to use a nice word.”
[bullshit and lies, same old trumpian nonsense]
Democrats racked up a series of impressive wins in the 2023 elections, and Trump’s next-day response was decidedly Trumpian: People should chalk up GOP defeats, not to the will of voters, but to election “irregularities.”
Or put another way, the Republican leader did what he always does: Trump responded to election results he didn’t like by encouraging the public not to trust the integrity of the nation’s democracy.
In the same interview, the former president went on to falsely claim that he defeated President Joe Biden “by a tremendous amount,” adding, “We have proof of it. We’re releasing the proof. And you’ll see that proof, it’ll come up a lot in the next few months.” [JFC!]
Republican candidates held a debate in Florida on Wednesday night. So Donald Trump held a rally at the same time in the same state, because that’s exactly the sort of kicking-people-when-they’re-down that Trump most enjoys.
At this rally, Trump delivered a speech riddled with nonsense, nonsequiturs, and plain old lies. He also made errors of a scale that show he has little grasp on the threats America faces, the solutions to the nation’s issues, or reality.
But the most shocking thing about the massive errors Trump made in this rally is that you have to come to Daily Kos or scour social media to find out about it. Because the national media, when they bothered to report on Trump’s rally at all, was so fixated on Trump upstaging his Republican opponents that they didn’t bother to mention how Trump’s speech completely jumped the rails.
At his South Florida rally, Trump once again praised the authoritarian leader of Hungary, Viktor Orban. [video at the link]
To Trump’s credit, he was at least correct about the country that Orban leads this time. When he brought up Orban two weeks ago, Trump called him the leader of Turkey.
However, Trump still seems to believe that Hungary shares a border with Russia. It does not. Orban has all of Ukraine acting as a buffer between his country and Vladimir Putin, which is very handy for someone who wants to scoff at the Russian threat.
But Trump didn’t stop with just expressing his admiration for right-wing authoritarian leaders who were elected. He also went dreamy over dictators who inherited their power in a government that doesn’t even pretend to represent its citizens. [video at the link]
The population of North Korea is only 26 million, but that’s not the worst part of this statement. Since when is being an absolute tyrant worthy of praise? The whole focus of this section of Trump’s speech appears to be that people who have taken power over others deserve acclaim, no matter how that power was obtained and no matter how brutally it is used.
As for Kim Jong Un and his 1.4 billion thralls, Trump may have mistaken Kim for Xi Jinping. He may have simply grabbed for a number that sounded good. After all, it’s not as if anyone is going to call him on it.
[…] here’s CNN devoting 500 words to Biden incorrectly naming an Irish rugby team. And another article on this same flub from The Guardian. And one from USA Today. There are plenty more, even though Biden almost immediately corrected himself.
But if you search for Trump’s claims that Hungary borders Russia or his confusion over Kim Jong Un, you’ll find … crickets.
Actually, that’s not quite true. In a running report on the Republican debate, one commentator at The Washington Post mentions in passing that Trump once again extended the Russian border to Hungary. That seems to be all the space that paper, or any other national paper, devoted to Trump’s mistakes. CNN didn’t mention it. USA Today discussed how Trump was holding a rally to tweak his opponents, but didn’t report on what he said.
The New York Times did cover Trump’s rally. That included reporting on how it was “a kind of Make America Great Again festival,” talking about the food trucks and T-shirts, and explaining how Trump compared President Joe Biden to Fidel Castro in an outreach to Cuban voters. Trump’s praise for Kim and Orban, along with his mistakes on the size of North Korea or Hungary’s geography, got not a single word. Neither did any of the obscene weirdness, like the moment when Trump reported his parents were looking down to praise him for being indicted.
It’s not like any of this is new. Allowing Trump to spout nonsense, hate, and unchecked calls for violence is what the national media does. So is clutching pearls over every slip of the tongue—or foot—by Biden.
They want their horserace, and they’re going to get it no matter how hard they have to press their thumb on the scale, or what risk it generates for the nation.
Andre Costopoulos (U of Alberta anthro dept chair) – There is no new evidence that Gunung Padang is a 24000 year old pyramid
In fall 2022, an episode of Graham Hancock’s Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse heavily featured the impressive archaeological site of Gunung Padang in Indonesia. […] Hancock claimed that the site was in fact not a natural volcanic hill, but a pyramid built by an ancient lost civilization […] Other archaeologists who work in the region, including Indonesian archaeologists, consider the terraces at Gunung Padang to be about 2000 years old.
[…]
I see a massive disconnect between the claims made, especially in the conclusion, and the evidence presented in the body of this latest article. The title of the article, and the resulting media headlines do not match the evidence.
[…]
no evidence is presented of any sculpting of the stone core of the hill. The authors don’t present tool marks, and they don’t claim to have recovered any archaeological tools […] If I am told of “meticulous sculpting”, I would expect it to be measurable in some way.
[…]
The second problem is that this kind of andesite outcrop is common in the region. […] no effort to tell us why Gunung Padang is different from any of the surrounding andesite outcrops. […] Presumably, the sculpting into a pyramid would have made it look different and remarkable.
[…]
Soils have an organic component that can be dated […] A radiocarbon date does not an archaeological site make. […] The authors here present no evidence that the soil they are dating is related to human activity.
[…]
The speed at which these unsupported (as opposed to false or impossible) claims spread through the media is stunning.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 51
I’m adding the media to the industries that need to be nationalized.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s crusade against President Joe Biden has struggled mightily all year, but Republicans’ hopes were buoyed last month by a new revelation.
“We have found a $200,000 DIRECT payment to Joe Biden,” the Kentucky Republican’s panel declared in a message via social media.
The facts proved to be far less interesting than the GOP hoped. Based on the information Republicans uncovered, Joe Biden — in his personal capacity, two years after serving as vice president — loaned his brother James Biden some money. Then, his brother paid him back. In case there were any ambiguities about the purpose of the no-interest repayment, James Biden literally wrote on the check itself, “Loan repayment.”
As we discussed soon after, this just wasn’t that interesting. Indeed, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell on California noted online soon after, “[Comer] proves Joe Biden generously loaned his family money and they responsibly paid him back. Nice work, detective!”
[…] the President was not involved in and did not profit from his family members’ business ventures.
[…] after seeing this Daily Beast report, the GOP’s line of attack suddenly looks worse.
According to Kentucky property records, Comer and his own brother have engaged in land swaps related to their family farming business. In one deal—also involving $200,000, as well as a shell company—the more powerful and influential Comer channeled extra money to his brother, seemingly from nothing. Other recent land swaps were quickly followed with new applications for special tax breaks, state records show. All of this, perplexingly, related to the dealings of a family company that appears to have never existed on paper. But unlike with the Bidens, Comer’s own history actually borders a conflict of interest between his official government role and his private family business—and it’s been going on for decades.
The Daily Beast added, if Comer genuinely believes the Biden family’s transactions clear the “shady business practices” bar, “he might want to consider a parallel inquiry into his own family.”
[…] it appears that some of Comer’s Democratic colleagues have taken a keen interest in the allegations. Swalwell asked online, for example, “Why did lead MAGA investigator James Comer channel $200,000 to his brother? What is going on? Will he answer questions and turn over documents?”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, another Democratic member of the Oversight panel, raised related points and suggested that the committee “subpoena the records“ related to Comer’s deals.
There’s a report out there which claims that reporters from AP, Reuters and stringers for CNN, NYT et al were actually embedded with the Hamas death squads that swept into southern Israel on October 7th. If they were embedded they had some foreknowledge of the operation. They might even have been able to stop it.
I first saw this story posted by a writer for The National Review and I read the report. I was highly skeptical but I was curious to see what the argument or evidence was.
In short, the whole ‘report’ was a crock. I wouldn’t even say it contains false information per se. It’s really just a matter of a pile of leading questions or questions framed as leading inevitably to very dark conclusions when that’s not the case at all. It basically amounts to saying, hey there were photos and video of Hamas fighters with hostages or streaming through the barrier fence. […]
n the last two weeks, Rep. James Comer has claimed that President Joe Biden “laundered China money,” accused Biden of “influence peddling,” and issued subpoenas to members of Biden’s family. Comer has based these actions on the “discovery” of transactions that Biden made no effort to disguise, including a $200,000 loan Biden extended to his brother and which his brother later repaid.
However, as The Daily Beast reports, Comer was engaged in a series of business dealings with his own brother. Those dealings, which included a $200,000 payment, were nowhere near as straightforward as the dealings between Joe and James Biden. Comer’s deal involved not only a big payment but multiple land swamps, shell companies, and requests for special tax breaks.
As members of the Biden family were being accused of “shady business practices,” it seems that Comer has a forest’s worth of shade.
[…] Comer’s family has for years been identified in news accounts as owning “Comer Land & Cattle.” As of 2018, Comer listed this as an asset worth $3 million.
However, no such entity appears to exist in business filings. It reportedly did at one time, but there’s been no such business for years. At least, not legally. It’s not registered as a business in Kentucky. It’s not registered anywhere else. A past press release showed him as the owner of “James Comer Jr. Farms,” which also doesn’t appear on paper to be a business entity. Comer’s Facebook page also lists him as the owner of “Comer Family Farms,” which isn’t listed as a business entity in Kentucky, according to the secretary of state’s website.
Much of Comer’s business activity seems to follow inheriting land in Kentucky following his father’s death in 2019. But exactly what happened with that land is the opposite of transparent. In one case, Comer reportedly sold his interest in a piece of land to his brother, then bought it back five months later, slipping his brother $18,000 in the process. That purchase ran through a shell company owned by Comer, the value of which doubled in two years. That company appears to have dealt exclusively with agricultural land deals at a time when Comer was on the House Agriculture Committee.
Comer’s family also swapped large tracts of land in Tennessee. That includes handing his brother one tract valued at $175,000 as a “gift.” In exchange, Comer reportedly got another tract that The Daily Beast describes as “apparently more valuable” without recording the cost of that land. The value of these transactions appears to be larger than even the largest loan that Biden gave to his brother.
Comer also seems to have benefited directly from a “tobacco buyout” of land he purchased while serving on the Kentucky legislature’s Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight Committee. This means that he helped set the rate for the purchase of his own property.
Much of Comer’s story seems to be a more rural version of the Donald Trump story. He started out making small land purchases with the help of his father and brother, inherited larger tracts of land when his father died, and has made millions engaging in land speculation. The difference is that for much of this time, Comer was either involved in the Kentucky legislature or the House Agriculture Committee in positions that gave him insider knowledge and a direct advantage.
Comer also has his own Trump-style bank connection. When he sought a line of credit up to $1 million, he found it at South Central Bank—the same bank where Comer had been on the board of directors for 12 years.
If all of this makes Comer look like a country mini-Trump, that’s probably a description that would make him proud. But it would also seem to make his family finances much more worthy of scrutiny than anything he’s claimed about Joe Biden.
Well, well. What have we here? Shell companies, land swaps, and businesses that don’t exist outside of Comer’s claims that they do, A lot of smoke there, so by Republican reasoning, there must be a huge conflagration.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@Reginald Selkirk #36, adding to #53:
Carl Feagans (archaeologist) – Gunung Padang: What Archaeology Really Says
I’ve accused Natawidjaja [the article’s lead author] and others of arriving at Gunung Padang with a conclusion to which they seek only those data that fit. […] And to underscore Danny Hilman Natawidjaja’s expectations […] look no further than his 2013 book Plato Never Lied: Atlantis is in Indonesia.
[…]
Gunung Padang is an absolutely wonderful site and it may possibly be one of the earliest known examples of a punden berundak, a stepped or terraced temple for worship of ancestors in Austronesia. It’s true significance is clouded by the pseudoarchaeological approach of a legitimate geologist and his colleagues who are afflicted by one or both of two problematic biases: 1) a belief that Atlantis was a genuine advanced culture in existence prior to 12,800 years ago; 2) a nationalist desire to elevate this and other sites as a point of nationalist pride.
You might think that with another government shutdown looming due to the inability of House Republicans to do even the most basic of their assigned tasks, they might at some point stop throwing pies, towel off a bit, and get to that. Nope. Not going to happen. But there’s always time for little performative stunts, which is what we got on Thursday. Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney introduced an amendment to their budget plan that would reduce the salary of Biden administration press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to $1.
It’s obviously not meant to become law. This is one of the stunts that’s now a go-to move for any House Republican who has a bone to pick with any government official. “Defund” them all! That’ll show them!
So far, House Republicans have attempted to defund the office of the vice president and reduce Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s salary to $1, while simultaneously:
The Pentagon’s director of diversity and inclusion, the head of the department’s equity and inclusion office, the military’s chief diversity officer, and the assistant secretary of defense for readiness — a transgender woman — were all targeted with amendments that would trim their annual salary to less than $1.
House Republicans also approved a measure to reduce Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s salary to $1.
If you’re noticing a trend here, House Republicans seem to focus this move on Black and LGBTQ+ members of government, both top-level and not. But they’ve also threatened to use similar mechanisms to defund the prosecutors who have indicted Donald Trump, the Department of Justice and FBI, the FBI again, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and take-your-pick.
[…] And no, the House didn’t put forward the appropriations bill that they had planned on voting on. And they are now heading out for a long weekend. The countdown to government shutdown continues.
Last night, Washington Post editors decided that they needed 12 reporters live-blogging the Republican non-event. Twelve! In addition, five of their right-leaning columnists ran a separate live-blog, bringing the total number of writers devoted to the irrelevant gathering to 17. And today brings (so far) eight articles about last night’s meaningless get-together with more probably in the works.
Why? The five candidates on the stage last night are going nowhere. They are all down 40 to 50 points to Trump, and even this deep into the campaign, none of them — including Chris Christie — would go hard at Trump in the debate. Glancing blows, perhaps, but no candidate went after Trump directly and repeatedly.
In short, these “debates” are a joke.
How many reporters does the Post have digging into Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who, according to his financial disclosure report, has no savings? He has no bank account, no checking account, no cash, no stocks or bonds and he owes a ton of money on his home including a mortgage, a home equity a loan and a sizable personal loan. Mike Johnson’s financial straits make him a serious security risk. Plus, he has publicly stated that he believes the Bible supersedes the Constitution when it comes to governing the country. He is anti-democracy and pro-fascist theocracy — and he’s second in line for the presidency!
Is the Post putting 12 reporters on that story? What do you think?
And today, they add an investigative story on Joe Biden joining a country club in the early 2000s. Seriously.
The Post’s slogan is,”Democracy dies in the darkness.”
Maybe they should try shedding some damn light on something that actually matters to our democracy. Post subscribers expect journalism, not a blow-by-blow of who insulted who at some non-event.
What a pathetic showing from the Post. Expected, perhaps, but just horrible.
The New York Times did a poll and it found that Joe Biden is old, and then the Democrats won every election in the world Tuesday night, and the New York Times was like WUHHHHH and wrote every article about the election results like “Even though Joe Biden is very stinky and ate the last bowl of Jell-O at the nursing home where he lives with my grandmother, who is 50 years younger than him, Democrats did good last night.”
And now that tyrant among men has the gall to go to Belvidere, Illinois, to celebrate the United Auto Workers (UAW) agreement that’s bringing jobs back to that town, like he’s some kind of American president who supports labor.
Pretty sure the New York Times is still mad at him, and it’s like he doesn’t even care.
srael has agreed to daily, four-hour pauses in operations inside Gaza to allow more civilians to leave the northern part of the enclave and facilitate an increase in humanitarian aid entering from Egypt, the White House said Thursday. The pauses are to begin “today,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, though Israel had offered similar windows for civilians to evacuate earlier in the week. The Israel Defense Forces’ statements Thursday did not mention an agreement for daily pauses, and did not offer specifics about their length; instead, they said the IDF would conduct “tactical, local pauses for humanitarian aid” that were “limited in time and area.” Asked to respond to the subsequent White House description, Elyon Levy, spokesman for office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed that Israel would continue to allow a “window” for the evacuation of civilians along a specific corridor. […]
President Biden had asked Netanyahu for a three-day pause.
Seasonal fires and a slew of air pollutants are obscuring skies across northern India, registering “very unhealthy” air quality in New Delhi and causing schools to shut down. Advisories recommend residents avoid spending time outside in the city, which has experienced toxic smog from around the beginning of November.
[…] The air quality index in New Delhi for PM2.5 — a particularly hazardous pollutant known as particulate matter 2.5 — reached 285 or “very unhealthy” on Thursday, which is the second most severe level, according to data from the U.S. Embassy. These tiny pollutants, spanning one-thirtieth of the width of a human hair, can travel into our lungs and bloodstream to cause heart disease or lung cancer.
This dip in air quality, especially around New Delhi, occurs every year in the months ahead of winter. Every November, farmers in northwestern India burn off excess paddy straw after rice harvest to clear the land for the next crop — a practice known as stubble burning. The smoke spreads across the region, including the country’s biggest city New Delhi, which is home to almost 35 million people.
The level of smoke pollution is due to “farm fires in the northwest, particularly two states in Punjab and Haryana,” said Jethva, although he said fire activity in Haryana is less this year. “It happens every year.”
The crop fires add to a mix of other hazardous pollution sources in the area, including vehicles, industrial activities and fires for heating and cooking. Dust coming from the Thar Desert to the west can also pollute skies. […]
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday ordered former President Donald Trump to formally declare whether he plans to argue that he was acting on the advice of his lawyers in his D.C. election subversion case.
Chutkan partially granted a motion from special counsel Jack Smith’s team asking her to require Trump to declare whether he plans to use the advice-of-counsel defense, in which a defendant argues that he relied in good faith on the advice of his attorneys…
“When a defendant invokes such a defense in court,” Smith’s office argued, “he waives attorney-client privilege for all communications concerning that defense, and the government is entitled to additional discovery and may conduct further investigation, both of which may require further litigation and briefing.” …
It’s eight days until the government funding expires, and the House of Representatives has quit work for the week. That’s after Speaker Mike Johnson had to yank another appropriations bill from the floor because it was too radical for one bloc of his conference to pass and not radical enough for the Freedom Caucus.
If this sounds all too familiar, it’s because we lived through it a couple of months ago. Congress is exactly where it was the week before the previous government-funding cliff, at the end of September: hostage to the House Republican chaos. Then it was former Speaker Kevin McCarthy struggling to pass the defense and agriculture appropriations bills. Now it’s Johnson having to pull the transportation spending bill off the floor Tuesday and yanking the Financial Services and general government funding bill on Thursday.
The problem then and now is that leadership is letting the maniacs run the show. In the case of Thursday’s failure, it’s an abortion fight. The bill funds Washington, D.C., and has a provision that repeals the city’s policy that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees who get abortions or use birth control. That’s too much for the non-maniacs in the House GOP who are “just sick of every appropriations bill being a vehicle for some off the wall abortion policy,” according to California Republican Rep. John Duarte. Once again, Johnson doesn’t have the votes to pass that bill.
While all those fights are continuing and the shutdown clock is ticking, Johnson still hasn’t presented a continuing resolution to fund the government after next Friday. It really is a replay of the chaos of September. The only differences are that the maniacs don’t have knives out for Johnson, and that someone with no leadership experience whatsoever is in the top job. Johnson seems to not have a clue how to do any of this, and to be listening to the worst people.
[…] In the meantime, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer started the ball rolling on a CR in the Senate, getting ready to jam the House if necessary. “The only way, the only way—let me say it a third time—the only way we avoid a shutdown is with bipartisan cooperation,” Schumer said Thursday. “Just as it was true in September and it will be true in the future.”
“I implore Speaker Johnson and our House Republican colleagues to learn from the fiasco of a month ago,” he continued. “Hard-right proposals, hard-right slashing cuts, hard-right poison pills that have zero support from Democrats will only make a shutdown more likely.” It’s not likely Schumer’s words can penetrate the bubble in which Johnson operates, but he’s got to try.
GOP presidential candidates are threatening to deport international students who they accuse of sympathizing with anti-Israel terrorists. “If you are here on a student visa as a foreign national, and you’re making common cause with Hamas, I’m canceling your visa and I’m sending you home, no questions asked,” vowed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during Wednesday night’s debate.
“To every student who has come to our country on a visa to a college campus, your visa is a privilege, not a right,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said during the same event. “To all the students on visas who are encouraging Jewish genocide, I would deport you.”
[…] It’s a trend that is setting off alarm bells for civil liberties advocates, who warn that these proposals risk conflating support for Palestinian rights or criticism of the Israeli government with an endorsement of terrorism. Moreover, they argue, threats of deportation could have a severely chilling effect on free speech and the right to protest.
“It’s a really dangerous rhetoric,” says Azadeh Shahshahani, the legal and advocacy director of Project South, an activist group that focuses on immigrants’ rights. “This seems to be just another measure that is targeting a particular group of people, in this case immigrants, and using vulnerability in terms of immigration status to try to force people to stay quiet.”
The Republican demands have already gone far beyond typical campaign-trail bluster. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urged the Biden administration to “immediately deport any foreign national—including and especially any alien on a student visa—that has expressed support for Hamas and its murderous attacks on Israel.” A week after the October 7 attack, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) introduced a resolution calling on President Biden to “revoke visas and initiate deportation proceedings for any foreign national who has endorsed or espoused the terrorist activities of Hamas” or other anti-Israel terrorist organizations. […]
Multiple GOP presidential candidates say the US should reject Palestinian refugees, citing purported concerns about terrorism. In a speech on Saturday, Donald Trump vowed that, if elected, he would implement a new version of his infamous travel ban and mandate “ideological screenings” for immigrants. “If you want to abolish Israel, if you sympathize with jihadists,” he said, “you’re not coming into our country.” […]
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Ivanka Trump raised eyebrows during her testimony in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday when she appeared unable to remember her father’s name.
Responding to a question from Judge Arthur F. Engoron about Donald J. Trump’s business dealings, Ms. Trump stared blankly and said, “I’m sorry. I’m not familiar with that person.”
Reminded that Donald J. Trump was, in fact, her father, she replied, “Huh. O.K., if you say so. I have to say that the name isn’t ringing a bell for me right now.”
As for the inner workings of her father’s business, Ms. Trump testified that she had been too busy driving her own company into the ground to recall anything about his.
According to one observer at the trial, Ms. Trump’s memory lapses were “concerning,” but “she still seemed sharper than Eric.”
Officials are refuting online claims that a gas leak at one polling place in Kentucky’s largest county was election rigging that helped Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear win reelection.
The claims amassed thousands of shares on social media Tuesday after reports of a gas leak at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville caused polls there to close for about 30 minutes while Louisville Gas & Electric investigated the issue. The delay prompted a judge to extend voting at the church until 6:30 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. EST…
In yesterday’s Ukraine Update, I wrote about the premise that any Ukrainian pontoon bridge would have to connect to the road network on the other side of the river. I thought this meant that Ukraine needed to secure the area immediately opposite Antonivka (around Oleshky) or the Nova Kakhovka area.
I was wrong.
Daily Kos community user jeagerca pointed out in the comments that Ukraine conducted pontoon bridge construction exercises upstream from Krynky in 2016 and 2020. [map at the link]
Defence Blog described how in joint exercises with the British Army in 2016, Ukrainian engineers were able to build a 560 meter span in two hours. The article was vague about the exact location of the pontoon bridge, noting only that it spanned the Dnipro River near Kherson City.
Jeagerca also referenced a recent video by Denys Davydov noting that the Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted two pontoon-building exercises in 2020 near this exact point and suggests that this is where Ukraine will cross the Dnipro. (Section begins at 1:31.) [video at the link]
I was intrigued.
– Assuming Davydov was correct about the location of the exercises, why would Ukraine choose this location?
– What was the exact location of the pontoon bridge that was constructed?
– Would Ukraine have any way to bring supplies further inland?
I began by looking at the terrain on the riverbank near Krynky. Northeast of Krynky and north of Korsunka, there was a bit of brown smudge of terrain that looked a little different than the marshes that lay along most of the riverbank. [map at the link]
Zooming in on that spit of land and … “holy **** is that a road?” [image at the link]
Yes, there’s definitely a road. [more images at the link. There are homes on this road. This is solid dry land.
The road leads north out of Korsunka, next to the Korsun Monastery, then winds through flat dirt terrain along the riverbank to just south of the town of L’vove on the right bank of the Dnipro. The road is around 3 kilometers long, give or take. [Image at the link]
The path is bisected by a small stream that runs north-south, around 20-25 meters wide, bridged by a small bridge or culvert. The bridge point is just 15 meters long, short enough to be spanned by any number of rapidly deployable bridge structures. [image at the link]
This certainly looked like the right place. All that was left was to geo-confirm the location of the past trainings.
There were three distinctive high-power electrical-line structures in the background of one of the photographs of the 2016 exercises. I was able to find the same structure along the Korsunka riverbank road.
That puts the pontoon crossing right here: [image at the link]
Everything matches up: the structures, the roads, and the width of the river. This is exactly where Ukraine twice practiced bridging.
Zooming out, we see that the value of this pontoon crossing becomes crystal clear. [map at the link]
L’vove, directly across the river is a short drive from the P47 highway. Thus, when Ukraine liberates Korsunka, they’ll be able to link it, through the crossing, through L’vove, and through the P47 highway straight to the city of Kherson.
Heading south of Korsunka, the T2206 highway connects to key towns to the west and the south toward Crimea. And heading it east, it’s a direct straight shot to Melitopol and would cut off the Russian garrison in Nova Kakhovka from its supply routes. The presence of the road and the homes along the river indicate that the terrain is dry and habitable—not swampland. There’s a reason this location was chosen for these military exercises. It couldn’t be practically and strategically more perfect. [map at the link]
Yesterday, we discussed Russia’s difficulties taking down bridges with missiles and rockets, given their poor accuracy. As such, tube artillery will be any bridge’s bigger danger.
Securing the pontoon crossing from artillery fire would merely require Ukraine to secure a handful of villages. Krynky, Korsunka, Novi Lahore, Pishchane. Korsunka is by far the largest of these, and had a pre-war population of just 1,400. These are fairly tiny villages. [map at the link]
For comparison, the town of Oleshky (south of Antonivka) has a population of over 24,000. Clearing these small villages should be dramatically easier than trying to clear a larger town, like Oleshky or Nova Kakhovka. Furthermore, with more of the combat taking place in rural settings, Ukraine can make better use of its DPICM cluster munitions that have been so integral to its firepower.
Lay the same circle over Andrew Perpetua’s control map in this area, and you can see what Ukraine is aiming to secure. It doesn’t look like a coincidence. [map at the link]
Ukraine still has a lot to do to secure a pontoon crossing north of Korsunka, but this is a far more manageable task than going through Oleshky or Nova Kakhovka.
Now you might be thinking, “Why are you talking about all of this? You might be giving valuable information away to incompetent Russians!” We were originally reluctant as well. The chances that the Russians would be unaware of this potential landing spot was extremely remote, but they weren’t zero. Even the tiniest risk would be unacceptable.
Unfortunately, it appears the Russians are aware of the significance of this location. [maps showing that Russia has fortified the landing spot.]
There are relatively fewer fortifications constructed on the left bank, but Russia still took the time to dig trenches and build fortifications along the Korsunka riverbed road, with a secondary line of fortifications blocking the roads to the strategic highway south of Korsunka. Russia is already well aware of the importance of this location. That explains why both sides are pouring resources into this area, rushing heavy equipment to secure this area.
If Ukraine can wrest four small villages from the Russians’ grasp, Ukraine may have the bridgehead it needs to build a pontoon crossing that can serve as a logistical hub for further advances into lightly fortified Kherson Oblast and toward either Crimea or Melitopol (or both).
The right bank’s about 50m above sea level, the left bank’s 0-5m, so it’s about 150-160feet higher. That’s enough of an elevation difference that for combat taking place relatively close to the river, that can be helpful for Ukraine.
The artillery guns aren’t lining up right on the river though, modern artillery fires at least 10+km from their targets. So the artillery guns themselves are a good 5-10km from the river.
What the height advbantage helps with is spotting the enemy, as well as using laser sites to mark targets for laser guided munitions.
The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating a series of letters containing suspicious powder that were sent to election workers in multiple states in recent days, law enforcement officials told NBC News.
The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating a series of letters containing suspicious powder that were sent to election workers in multiple states in recent days, law enforcement officials told NBC News.
SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 150,000 film and television performers, reached a tentative deal on a new contract with the entertainment world’s top studios Wednesday — a major step that would revive an industry that has been virtually paralyzed for months.
President Joe Biden hit a milestone on Tuesday that he’ll certainly be touting on the campaign trail: He’s put 150 people into lifetime federal judgeships — and of those, 100 are women and 98 are people of color.
KGsays
You know that ‘nationalized’ means ‘state-run’, right? Maybe you mean ‘nationalized if I approve of the government’? – Rob Grigjanis@73
The BBC is “nationalized” in the sense of being publicly owned, but it’s not “state run” in the sense that the government tells it what to say – at least not in any direct fashion. And while it’s far from perfect, it’s a fuck of lot better than Fox News or its recent UK imitators. Its governance could be improved by direct election of the board of governors by licence payers, or pehaps better, their appointment by lot. In any case, we’ve seen the outcome of allowing ownership by oligarchs.
KGsays
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@53, 59,
Thanks for this. What I struggle to understand is why Danny Hilman Natawidjaja identifies Gunung Padang with Atlantis rather than Mu, which at least according to James Churchward was located close to modern Indonesia!
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House GOP conference chair, has filed a judicial ethics complaint against the judge presiding over the New York civil fraud case against Donald Trump, accusing Judge Arthur Engoron of “weaponized law fare” against the former president, and calling on the judge to recuse himself…
She seems extremely for her own turn under the bus.
The U.S. financial services division of Chinese bank ICBC was hit with a cyberattack that reportedly disrupted the trading of Treasurys.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest lender by assets, said Thursday that its financial services arm, called ICBC Financial Services, experienced a ransomware attack “that resulted in disruption to certain” systems…
Despite having little more than a week to avert a government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson seems to have sent representatives home early so he could catch a flight to Paris to attend a far-right conference…
Johnson’s early dismissal on Thursday may have been because he needed to rush across the Atlantic Ocean to appear at the Worldwide Freedom Initiative. The inaugural conference was organized by the groups Republicans Overseas Worldwide and Republicans Overseas France, with the goal of bringing together “the world’s like-minded conservative, patriotic and center right leaders.” …
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday said Alabama cannot use conspiracy laws to prosecute people and groups who help women leave the state to obtain abortions.
The Justice Department filed a statement of its position in consolidated lawsuits against Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, arguing that such prosecutions would be unconstitutional. The lawsuits, filed by an abortion fund and former providers, seek a court ruling clarifying the state can’t use conspiracy statutes to prosecute people who help Alabama women travel elsewhere to obtain an abortion. Marshall has not prosecuted anyone for providing such assistance, but he has made statements saying that his office would “look at” groups that provide abortion help.
The Justice Department argued in the filing that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to travel. The department said that just as Marshall cannot stop women from crossing state lines to obtain a legal abortion, “neither can he seek to achieve the same result by threatening to prosecute anyone who assists that individual in their travel.” …
A year ago this week, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito received a standing ovation at a Federalist Society event, where the jurist praised the conservative group and its impact. “Boy,” the far-right justice said, “is your work needed today.”
Alito wasn’t alone: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, each of whom were nominated by Donald Trump, were also in attendance.
Almost exactly a year later, the Federalist Society held another celebration in the nation’s capital, and the identical lineup of four sitting Supreme Court justices were again on hand to join in the organization’s festivities. This time, however, it was a different conservative receiving an ovation. The Washington Post reported:
Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a standing ovation Thursday night at a black-tie gala for the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group that played a key role in her 2020 nomination and in helping former president Donald Trump transform the federal judiciary.
To be sure, Barrett’s comments at the event were rather anodyne. She talked about her schedule, her family, and the “collegial” relationships she enjoys with her contemporaries on the high court.
But her appearance was notable in its own right, independent of her remarks.
It’s one thing when Supreme Court justices appear at universities or legal symposiums; it’s something else when they extend their imprimatur to ideological causes. Politico, for example, has described the Federalist Society as a “right-leaning lawyers’ group that has become instrumental in grooming and vetting candidates to be nominated to the federal judiciary by Republican presidents.”
When a sitting justice — or more to the point, when the same four sitting justices — repeatedly help celebrate such an organization, they necessarily give the impression that they’re part of a broader political movement.
What’s more, Barrett’s appearance came against a backdrop in which the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating Supreme Court ethics controversies, as part of its probe, the panel has questions for conservative activist Leonard Leo — one of the Federalist Society’s longtime leaders, who was also in attendance last night.
None of this does the court any favors. Gallup polling has found public trust in the Supreme Court deteriorating to historical lows, and a national Grinnell College/Selzer survey last year that found that nearly two-thirds of Americans agree that politics drives the justices’ rulings.
Members of the court’s far-right majority could take steps to reassure the public that the Supreme Court is a neutral arbiter worthy of trust and respect. They keep doing the opposite.
A couple of years ago, Barrett tried to defend the Supreme Court’s political impartiality — while speaking alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who rushed her onto the bench during the 2020 presidential election as part of a brazenly political display.
“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” the justice said at the time.
Is it any wonder why some find her assurances hard to believe?
Not only are there millions more of us, but we are gaining voters while the other side loses them steadily, by mostly normal death among their elderly, and quite unusual loss of a third of their Gen Z children to us. Also women upset about abortion, and a whole lot of other people upset about the other side’s increasing nastiness and paskudnyakery. […]
[CaliGamer posted] “Do Seniors know that trump is going to cut #SocialSecurity? Do those on #Disability know that trump is planning to cut their benefits? Someone should tell them”
[Kevin Standee posted] “I expect that older trumpistias assume that he won’t cut THEIR Social Security, only those Bad People’s payments.”
We also have majorities, larger than just Democratic numbers, on all of the issues. […]
Simply losing Joe Manchin’s seat would leave us with control of the Senate, at 50-50 plus VP Harris. There will be plenty of Doom&Gloom, and plenty of real analysis to come. Remember, the 2024 elections are literally a year away, an eternity in politics.
[…] Manchin is hallucinating about running for President against Joe Biden.
[…] I love the smell of snark in the morning. It smells of…victory.
I’m so tired of all the winning! Make it stop!!!
– New Jersey Republicans got demolished. How bad did it get? A Trump district +35 in NJ was flipped by a Democrat! [True! LOL]
– Ohio voted to protect abortion rights!
– Ohio voted to legalize recreational marijuana!
– Virginia flipped the state house blue!!
– Virginia also held the state senate to control the legislature!! (RIP Glen Youngkin’s WH dreams.)
– Democrat Andy Beshear won in deep red KY! He even won in deep red Letcher county, a county that went to Trump by 60 points last time! [Again, true! Yay!]
BREAKING: Democratic Judge Dan McCaffery WINS the open seat on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, ending Republican dreams of stealing the 2024 election for Trump by seating a Big Liar on Pennsylvania’s top Court.
Another huge loss for Republicans, and a massive win for Democrats!
There’s been a lot of speculation about how House Speaker Mike Johnson gets paid. He apparently has not reported any income in recent congressional filings, leading people to guess that he is paid in Rubles, Cash, Ameros, Dogecoin, or some other questionable way. However, Catherine Rampell at WASHINGTON POST has answers. Let’s start with the questions:
Johnson’s recent launch from obscure congressional backbencher to one of the most powerful people in the country has come with a wave of scrutiny. Reporters are combing through his past and finding weird stuff — his curious arrangement with his son to monitor each others’ digital devices for porn, for instance.
One less salacious but perhaps more consequential discovery involves his finances. In his most recent annual financial disclosures, released last year, Johnson (R-La.) reports no assets at all
Zero.
Very suspicious. […] he’s apparently never reported an account or any income at all since 2016. That’s fucking weird.
The guy makes six figures, after all.
maybe he had bank balances so low that they’re below the required reporting threshold — which is $1,000 for any given account […]
This would suggest that the speaker was living hand to mouth. That is, whatever money comes in might be going right out the door.
Luckily people, including Catherine Rampell are on the story:
[…] Johnson does indeed have a bank account. His account does not pay interest, though, which makes it exempt from House disclosure rules.
Holding your family’s entire savings in a non-interest-bearing account is a strange choice for a high-income household, particularly during a period of high inflation. But more important, this arrangement still leaves voters in the dark about Johnson’s financial well-being. Whatever Johnson’s motivation for managing his money this way, the effect is to obscure what his resources actually look like and whether he’s under the kind of financial strain that other parts of his disclosures might suggest.
So it sounds like Mike found a way to keep his assets a secret, by foregoing interest on money in his account. It’s a strange choice, and I’m guessing whatever shenanigans he’s up to is worth losing out on interest on his account. I’ll leave the last word to Catherine:
This is why we have financial disclosures in the first place: so Americans can judge whether public servants are truly serving the public interest or their own. Yes, a loophole allows Johnson to keep secret the value of his financial assets. If Johnson wants to prove he’s worthy of his unexpected promotion, though, he should release more information about what’s really happening with his finances.
The New York Times sent a scathing rebuke in response to a letter from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) demanding more information from the outlet on its news-gathering process as it covers the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
In a letter to Times leadership dated Thursday, Cotton cited “reports” that suggested journalists working on its behalf were embedded with Hamas around the time of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and “knew about the attack.”
“If your employees, as part of their work, participated in terrorist activities or if your organization or employees provided material support (including any funding) to Hamas, the leadership of your organization may also face criminal penalties under federal law,” he said.
[…] In its response to Cotton, the Times wrote that his letter “exacerbates” the “spread of disinformation and incendiary rhetoric” around journalists covering the war.
“You are merely parroting disinformation harvested form the internet based on a website that has conceded it had no evidence for its claims,” the Times said.
Cotton separately wrote a letter to the Department of Justice on Thursday asking it to probe whether or journalists working for the international news outlets “committed federal crimes by supporting Hamas terrorists.”
A federal judge in Florida, for now, declined to delay the start of former President Trump’s criminal case over his handling of classified documents, though she did push back several pretrial deadlines in the case.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Friday that she would dismiss the motion from Trump’s legal team “without prejudice” against taking it up again in the future. The trial’s start date could be reconsidered at a scheduling conference March 1, she wrote.
[…] Trump’s classified documents trial is scheduled to begin May 20, a little over two months after his D.C.-based trial on charges linked to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election is set to begin, on March 4. Trump’s criminal case in New York over a hush-money payment is set to head to trial on March 25, and a trial in Trump’s fourth criminal case, linked to his actions in Georgia after the 2020 election, has not yet been scheduled. […]
Akira MacKenziesays
…, with the goal of bringing together “the world’s like-minded conservative, patriotic and center right leaders.” …
Remember Johnny McEntee, the poster boy for the Trump administration’s vast wasteland of unqualified morons nudging President Brainworms to tear himself away from “Fox & Friends” long enough to sign orders with insane goals […] The twentysomething body man for Trump who got perp-walked out of the White House because he turned out to be a degenerate gambler, then got hired back to oversee a political purge of the executive branch?
ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl two years ago published a bugfuck insane book about the bugfuck insane last few weeks of the Trump administration. McEntee was a major character, and Karl portrayed him as a sociopathic student […] who decides to spend the end of his high school career pulling hilarious pranks like murdering the principal and setting the school on fire.
Now Karl has returned with yet another bugfuck insane book chronicling those weeks, with the proviso that McEntee’s role “was even greater than I had realized.” Really? What could be greater than a 29-year-old former college football quarterback with zero legal training or experience in foreign policy getting the secretary of Defense fired and writing legal memos assuring the actual lawyers on Mike Pence’s staff that contrary to what literally all the case law and common sense suggested, the vice president did indeed have the power to unilaterally overturn the election?
Axios had previously reported that it was McEntee who gave Douglas Macgregor, a right-wing loon McEntee hired to be the chief adviser to Defense Sec Esper’s replacement Christopher Miller, four bullet points to accomplish in the last few weeks before Trump left office:
· Pull American forces out of Afghanistan.
· Pull American forces out of Iraq and Syria.
· Complete the withdrawal of American forces from Germany (!).
· Pull American forces out of Africa.
Sure, nothing major, just re-orient American foreign policy in two months with no input from anyone else in government. Great idea.
In his new book, Karl gives the heretofore-unpublished account of what happened next:
Three days after Macgregor arrived at the Pentagon, he called McEntee and told him he couldn’t accomplish any of the items on their handwritten to-do list without a signed order from the president.
“Hey, they’re not going to do anything we want, or the president wants, without a directive,” Macgregor told him, emphasizing the need for an official White House order signed by Trump. The Pentagon’s stonewalling made sense, of course: You don’t make major changes to America’s global defense posture based on a glorified Post-it note from the president’s body guy.
[…] Macgregor told McEntee to write up an order focusing on just the first bullet point — withdrawal from Afghanistan — but of course any order more high-level than “bring Donald Trump 187 Diet Cokes a day” was more than McEntee was qualified to write:
“I was called on the phone by one of McEntee’s staffers who was having trouble formatting the order and getting the language straight,” Macgregor recalled. The retired colonel told the thirty-year-old staffer to open a cabinet, find an old presidential decision memorandum, and copy it.
Easy enough. The duo wrote up the order, had the president sign it, and sent it over to Kash Patel, the new acting defense secretary’s chief of staff.
What followed was various high-level officials — Miller, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, low-level functionaries of that nature — getting together to ask each other, basically, What the fuck? They even briefly entertained the possibility that McEntee had forged Trump’s signature on the order using an autopen.
So the officials went looking for Trump and found him where he was spending all his time after the election: his private dining room, watching Fox and throwing ketchup against the walls. After explaining that an order abandoning Afghanistan could not be executed without a lot more input and legal advice from across the government, Trump rescinded the order, presumably because doing all that legalistic voodoo sounded like work […]
No, really:
[T]he episode demonstrated once again that the president of the United States couldn’t get the people he appointed to carry out his policies because he couldn’t be bothered to learn how to implement them. As soon as he realized an Afghanistan withdrawal would require more work than having McEntee scribble up a note, he dropped it entirely.
Johnny McEntee has since landed at Project 2025, the organization dedicated to staffing the next Trump administration with thousands upon thousands of Johnny McEntees who will carry out Trump’s orders without questioning minor details like their legality.
We apologize for writing something earnest, but, you know, Jesus hopped-up Christ.
In other news related to American doofuses traveling overseas to meet with fascists:
Hey remember when Jill Stein was in that picture with Michael Flynn and Vladimir Putin at the RT gala in Russia in 2015 […] How you say LOL in Russian?
Anyway, that fucking psycho woman is throwing her giant furry Russian ushanka hat in the ring again […]
Stein would like to be the Green Party nominee […] We imagine she’s as nutbag crazy as she was back in 2016 when she received more than the difference of votes in Michigan and Wisconsin between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. [Yep. Painfully true.]
Would America’s last several years have gone differently if Jill Stein hadn’t been there to con those people? Would innumerable people whose lives were ruined or even ended as a result of the Trump administration be better off, or perhaps not dead now if Jill Stein didn’t have an inflated sense of her own relevance on this planet? Who can say!
She is so stupid. We remember this one memorable interview in 2017 where we wanted to throw things at our TV when she started complaining that the North Korean government was being demonized. Poor North Korea! […]
Oh, and she was so mad about the US sanctioning Russia for attacking our election in 2016. How could you even prove Russia had done that, except for how it was proven one million times in one million ways?
But anyway, um, yeah, she’s fucking here.
Words, she is still making words:
“The political system is broken,” Stein said in a video posted on social media, announcing her bid for the nomination. “The bipartisan establishment failed us, and we need a party that serves the people.”
Boring.
“Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth and the climate again and again, while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place,” Stein said in her announcement video. “And both parties are a danger to our democracy — expanding censorship, criminalizing protests, throwing competitors off the ballot, suppressing debates, rigging their primaries.”
Oh fuck off.
But won’t Stein be running against fellow idiot Cornel West for the Green Party nom? No, you forgot that Cornel West is running as an independent now because you’ve been playing hooky from giving a fuck what Cornel West is doing for your entire life.
The Washington Post does remind us, though, that before West decided to quit Green Partying, Stein was helping with his campaign, and said he was “the right person for America.” Don’t know what changed there. We’d wildly speculate but oh my God, again, nobody has the bandwidth for “Jill Stein” anymore.
On Thursday morning, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) … appeared on CNN to discuss subpoenas issued by Comer’s Oversight Committee. … Murphy was asked by host John Berman whether he would vote to hold the Bidens in contempt should they not comply with the subpoena. “Absolutely,” Murphy replied.
Commentary:
The trouble, of course, was that the North Carolina Republican had a different set of standards in the recent past: When Steve Bannon blew off a subpoena from the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee, Murphy did not vote to hold him in contempt for failing to comply.
When the CNN host reminded the congressman about this, Murphy responded, “It’s a little bit different of standards, John, when you have somebody who’s in elected office, versus somebody who’s not in elected office.”
He apparently hadn’t thought this through. When the Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Bannon, he was a private citizen who used to hold an influential position in the White House. The Oversight Committee has now subpoenaed Hunter Biden, who is also a private citizen, and who has never held any public office at any level.
[…] House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan also ignored a congressional subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee — and by Murphy’s standards, the Ohio Republican should “absolutely” face a contempt vote.
The Post’s analysis added, “Both Berman and Murphy know the real answer, of course: Bannon is on the Republican ‘team’ and Hunter Biden is on the Democratic side, and that’s the difference.” […]
Some things you just can’t make up. The federal government is one week away from a shutdown, and the Republican-led House wasted another (short) week failing to pass appropriations bills. The kicker? New House Speaker “MAGA” Mike Johnson has swanned off to Paris for the inaugural Republicans Overseas Worldwide Freedom Initiative conference, where he’s a star speaker.
The first two weeks of Johnson’s sparkly new speakership not only have nothing to show for the time, but have contained real disasters like having to pull major funding bills off of the floor at the last minute. The lowest bar for competence in a speaker is putting bills on the floor with enough votes to pass. Only a notch or two above that bar is the ability to avoid shutting down the government. That’s where this week gets even more preposterous: “MAGA Mike” has no plan for how to do that. Oh, excuse me—no “real” plan.
House Approps Chair Granger says “we’ve got a plan” to avoid a shutdown. “But I can’t tell you until it’s a real plan.”
As far as anyone knows, Johnson is still wedded to the wacky idea of a “laddered” continuing resolution, which would stagger funding expiration dates (and their related threats of government shutdown). […] even House leadership doesn’t know whether that’s the plan. It likely means Johnson has been spending more time polishing up his speech for Paris than he’s spent trying to avoid the impending catastrophe.
By all accounts, Johnson is sold on the laddered CR and is trying to win support for it. Right now only the Freedom Caucus likes it; after all, they came up with it. He’s trying to allay fears that having multiple shutdown deadlines for various government agencies somehow won’t be a problem, because he’s talking about only two steps on the ladder. That is to say, some programs would have a December deadline and others a January deadline. That means he essentially wants to double the shutdown threat. Comforting.
[…] “That’s the craziest, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Sen. Patty Murray told reporters this week. The Washington Democrat leads the Senate Appropriations Committee. Her Republican counterpart, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, attempted to be charitable to the GOP speaker, saying, “I have a lot of reservations. I don’t see how that would work, and it seems unnecessarily complex,” but added she’s “willing to hear more about it.”
Johnson better enjoy Paris while he can. It’s the only honeymoon he’s getting, and the clock is ticking. […]
beholdersays
@74 Raging Bee
…Jill Stein is running for President again.
Good. I’m relieved that there’s a decent probability there will be a principled antiwar candidate on the ballot in November. I voted for her twice before, and I’ll vote for her again.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 104
<
blockquote>”Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth and the climate again and again, while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place,” Stein said in her announcement video.”
<
blockquote>
She’s not wrong. The Democrats have only paid lip service to the needs of the working class and the poor right before they eventually side with capital. I just don’t think Stein and her hippie-dippie loons are the ones to do it.
Jeansays
While the two Jill Stein quotes might be true statements, the way you correct that is not through a third party presidential candidate. That only makes sure you get an even worse result. You need to go from the bottom up instead of the top down. But that’s a whole lot of hard work and time and organization and doesn’t lend itself to easy foreign interference and pumping up egos of meaningless individuals. So you won’t see any such proposal from the likes of Jill Stein and other potential (loser) presidential candidates.
Since Democrats outperformed expectations on another Election Day, the traditional media has been looking for ways to manage its grief and lock down the narrative that Democrats are in big trouble. New York Times reporter Peter Baker dug into the Virginia election results and really went for it on Thursday:
A reminder of how closely divided some of this week’s elections really were: a change of just 830 votes in a single Va. House district and 1,923 in a single Va. Senate district would have kept Democrats from taking full control of the legislature and changed the narrative.
Has this professional political reporter never encountered a close election before? Or familiarized himself with the concept that winning a close election is still winning? Nah, Baker just can’t handle the fact that voters created a narrative he didn’t control, a narrative very different from the one he and the Times have been pushing.
Consider this, too: It’s true that Democrats had a couple of narrow wins in Virginia on Tuesday. But so did Republicans. As Baker points out, one Democratic victory in the state House was by just 830 votes. That was in the 21st District, where Democrat Josh Thomas beat Republican John Stirrup by 51.48% to 48.33%—not razor-thin when you consider percentages. Meanwhile, unremarked on by Baker, in the 82nd District, Republican Kim Taylor defeated Democrat Kimberly Pope Adams by 228 votes, 50.32% to 49.51%. In the 57th District, Republican David Owen beat Democrat Susanna Gibson by 966 votes, but with a tighter percentage spread than Thomas’ win: 51.16% to 48.4%. (And that was the race where Republicans had to send thousands of revenge porn-themed mailers to pull out a win.)
Similarly, in the Virginia Senate, where Baker noted that 1,923 votes in a single district would have reversed a Democratic win, there were districts where Republicans won by 1,684 votes and 1,528 votes.
Baker’s take is that Democrats almost didn’t win and it would have changed the narrative dramatically if a small number of votes had flipped. But it’s equally true to say that Democrats were remarkably close to an even bigger win—and it’s obvious that Baker went looking for close races won by Democrats to further his preferred narrative, ignoring data that didn’t fit his case.
Baker isn’t alone in continuing to frantically push the “Democrats are still in big trouble” narrative. NBC News used a series of unnamed Democratic operatives to push the favored narrative that Democrats may have won but Biden is still in huge trouble, with the added twist that those unnamed Democrats are annoyed that the Biden campaign “wants to own” Tuesday’s good results. Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain pushed back:
We took the heat when we lost VA in 2021, and we were going to get run out of town if the red wave hit in 2022, so the biden-skeptics shouldn’t get it both ways. [in response to: Sahil Kapur posting: Plenty of Democrats are “irritated by the chest-thumping and celebrating” from the Biden campaign after Tuesday night, said one Democratic operative, who argued that “last night wasn’t a win for Biden.” Operative says Dems like Beshear won despite Biden.]
Having it both ways is exactly what the media demands, though.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., on Thursday continued to derail the advancement of military promotions he has held up since mid-February as Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., attempted to move the more than 300 nominations on the Senate floor. … Kaine noted that Thursday is “Military Day” in Alabama, which Gov. Kay Ivey set in a proclamation last week.
Commentary:
[…] Seemingly indifferent to irony, Tuberville tried to justify his ongoing, months-long blockade by declaring on the Senate floor that he couldn’t sit idly by while the “Biden administration injects politics into our military.”
No, really, that’s what he said.
The developments came on the heels of Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, telling Punchbowl News, “The idea that somehow this isn’t impacting readiness and morale in one of the most dangerous times we’ve faced in decades — nobody’s buying that.”
Even Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told Fox News that she’s not on board with Tuberville’s radical tactics. […]
Russia’s most notorious military hackers successfully sabotaged Ukraine’s power grid for the third time last year. And in this case, the blackout coincided with a physical attack.
The notorious unit of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency known as Sandworm remains the only team of hackers to have ever triggered blackouts with their cyberattacks, turning off the lights for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians not once, but twice within the past decade. Now it appears that in the midst of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, the group has achieved another dubious distinction in the history of cyberwar: It targeted civilians with a blackout attack at the same time missile strikes hit their city, an unprecedented and brutal combination of digital and physical warfare.
Cybersecurity firm Mandiant today revealed that Sandworm, a cybersecurity industry name for Unit 74455 of Russia’s GRU spy agency, carried out a third successful power grid attack targeting a Ukrainian electric utility in October of last year, causing a blackout for an unknown number of Ukrainian civilians. In this case, unlike any previous hacker-induced blackouts, Mandiant says the cyberattack coincided with the start of a series of missile strikes targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure across the country, which included victims in the same city as the utility where Sandworm triggered its power outage. Two days after the blackout, the hackers also used a piece of data-destroying “wiper” malware to erase the contents of computers across the utility’s network, perhaps in an attempt to destroy evidence that could be used to analyze their intrusion.
Mandiant, which has worked closely with the Ukrainian government on digital defense and investigations of network breaches since the start of the Russian invasion in February of 2022, declined to name the targeted electric utility or the city where it was located. Nor would it offer information like the length of the resulting power loss or the number of civilians affected.
Mandiant does note in its report on the incident that as early as two weeks before the blackout, Sandworm’s hackers appear to have already possessed all the access and capabilities necessary to hijack the industrial control system software that oversees the flow of power at the utility’s electrical substations. Yet it appears to have waited to carry out the cyberattack until the day of Russia’s missile strikes. While that timing may be coincidental, it more likely suggests coordinated cyber and physical attacks, perhaps designed to sow chaos ahead of those air strikes, complicate any defense against them, or add to their psychological effect on civilians.
“The cyber incident exacerbates the impact of the physical attack,” says John Hultquist, Mandiant’s head of threat intelligence, who has tracked Sandworm for nearly a decade and named the group in 2014. “Without seeing their actual orders, it’s really hard on our side to make a determination of whether or not that was on purpose. I will say that this was carried out by a military actor and coincided with another military attack. If it was a coincidence, it was a terribly interesting coincidence.”
The Ukrainian government’s cybersecurity agency, SSSCIP, declined to fully confirm Mandiant’s findings in response to a request from WIRED, but it didn’t dispute them. SSSCIP’s deputy chair, Viktor Zhora, wrote in a statement that the agency responded to the breach last year, working with the victim to “minimize and localize the impact.” In an investigation over the two days following the near-simultaneous blackout and missile strikes, he says, the agency confirmed that the hackers had found a “bridge” from the utility’s IT network to its industrial control systems and planted malware there capable of manipulating the grid.
Mandiant’s more detailed breakdown of the intrusion shows how the GRU’s grid hacking has evolved over time to become far more stealthy and nimble. In this latest blackout attack, the group used a “living off the land” approach that has become more common among state-sponsored hackers seeking to avoid detection. Instead of deploying their own custom malware, they exploited the legitimate tools already present on the network to spread from machine to machine before finally running an automated script that used their access to the facility’s industrial control system software, known as MicroSCADA, to cause the blackout. […]
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 109
The Dems have promised progress and reneged (e.g. national health care) so many times. They have played the hypocrite (e.g. talked about peace, votes for Bush’s wars and increasing the military’s budget) so many times. They think capitalism can be “fixed” through regulation when it is an irremeably evil and exploitative system. They ignore the threat of religion in the name of “diversity” and “religious tolerance”
Last week it was reported that a resolution was proposed that would temporarily change the Senate’s process and solve the Tuberville problem.
There are so many military nominees awaiting confirmation that confirming them one at a time would take months. The proposal would allow for nominees to be voted on all at once. But it requires the support of all Democrats and independents and at least nine Republicans…
She is deadset against getting rid of the filibuster; but temporarily suspending it whenever you need to is different – how?
The Ukrainian military struck two Russian military transport ships with sea-based drones Thursday evening, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced.
The transport ships were crewed and carried armored vehicles for transport in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian military claimed, also publishing video of the attacks. It was unclear whether the ships were sunk…
I saw an article about this just the other day with respect to Trump. If you blame the lawyers by claiming incompetent legal advice, you give up the right to attorney-client privilege.
It’s probably not a coincidence that just as everyone—including the commander in chief of the Ukrainian army—began admitting that progress on the southern front in Zaporizhzhia had ground to a near halt, that action along the Dnipro River intensified. What had been a handful of special forces holding a small position near the foot of the Antonivskyi Bridge has expanded to at least four distinct landing positions. There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of Ukrainian forces, ordinary troops in addition to special forces, across the Dnipro.
Ukraine has successfully secured a long stretch of riverfront and pressed east at the town of Kyrnky. They are still hampered by a shortage of armored vehicles, mortars, and the level of supplies that can be provided only by constructing a pontoon bridge. However, Russia relied on the kilometer width of the Dnipro to be all the buffer they needed on the west, so this part of Kherson is not overrun with the kind of defensive structures seen throughout Zaporizhzhia. Even with a limited force on the ground, Ukraine is making progress and is surely making Russia sweat.
Meanwhile, Russia is continuing its attack on Avdiivka. After weeks of losing an incredible number of tanks and armored vehicles, Russian commanders have been adopting a strategy of throwing unsupported infantry at the area in their effort to encircle the city. The result has been a lot of videos that won’t be shown on Daily Kos as those infantry are mowed down in scores. However, by throwing enough of those troops forward, Russia has managed to advance their area of control and is placing Avdiivka at serious risk.
East and west, two very different conflicts are now underway.
EAST
The Ukrainian military warns that Russia has now positioned over 40,000 troops at Avdiivka in its effort to encircle and capture the town. In addition to infantry, Russia is also trying to flood the field with drones. Those drones represent a huge threat to the Ukrainian artillery that, so far, has been able to prevent Russia from moving down from the north to reach shelter in an industrial site or move troops from the south to cut Ukraine’s supply lines to Avdiivka. [map at the link]
The red circles with white plane symbols spread across the map represent airstrikes against Ukrainian positions by Russian planes operating out of Donetsk. The Ukraine General Staff reported 10 such strikes on Friday.
Russia’s advances have not been large in scale, but some are at critical locations. This is open-source analyst Deep State’s view of the area to the northwest of Avdiivka. [map at the link]
Russia continues to attempt to cross the gap between the Terrikon hill of mining debris and the industrial complex where coal was turned into coke for making steel. From those buildings, Russia could fight the same kind of block-by-block advance it made at Bakhmut.
So far, Ukraine has kept them from reaching those positions, but as the Deep State map shows, Russia has been able to take and hold territory across the rail line as well as occupy fields northeast of Stepove. These are not good developments when it comes to maintaining Ukrainian control in this area.
Russia’s losses around Avdiivka continue to be extremely high, and unlike in the later weeks of the struggle over Bakhmut, or some other areas where Russia has launched an offensive, the ratio of losses is also extremely high. For the most part, Ukrainian forces are sitting back and using artillery, drones, and precision weapons to hold open the gap west of Avdiivka. As a result, Russia is reportedly losing between six and 10 troops for every loss by Ukraine. Equipment losses are similarly lopsided.
As Reuters notes, it’s now Russia complaining about “wet ground” and promising that they will make advances when it gets drier. On the other hand, Ukraine says its defensive positions are “solid” and the public affairs officer for the 3rd Assault Brigade, which is fighting in the area, tied Russia’s actions to an attempt to make a quick gain while the world is distracted. “All this started after the events in Israel,” he said. “Perhaps they believe it is the best time to advance, but they have no serious successes.”
Russia is paying an extremely high price for very small gains in this area. But then, Russia has demonstrated again and again that it’s willing to make this deal every day of the week and twice on Sunday. To hold Avdiivka, Ukraine doesn’t just have to bleed Russia. It has to maintain a level of fire that prevents Russia from advancing at any cost.
WEST
Three hundred kilometers to the west, Ukraine’s move across the Dnipro River is looking more serious every day. [map at the link]
For weeks, Deep State had been unwilling to classify any of this area as more than “in dispute.” But on Friday they finally conceded that Ukraine has solidified its control over at least 15 kilometers of waterfront centered around the Antonivskyi highway bridge and the rail bridge at Prydniprovske.
In the last two days, Ukraine has moved additional forces across the river at Antonivskyi, across from Kherson, at Prydniprovske, 6 kilometers to the north, at another point about 5 kilometers north near the Russian-occupied town of Kozachi Laheri, and finally another 20 kilometers north near Krynky.
Both the Krynky and Antonivskyi groups reportedly have over 300 troops and at least some number of armored vehicles. They’ve also been supported by drones and artillery, some of it from across the river. [map at the link]
On Friday, fighting is reportedly continuing southwest of Krynky in a forested area. Russia has some prepared defensive positions in this area, but they are nothing like Zaporizhzhia’s multiple trench lines and minefields. Ukraine is driving toward the T2206 highway, which would give them the option of moving south to connect with the bridgehead at Antonivskyi Bridge (potentially cutting off Russian forces closer to the river), moving north toward what could be a high-value position at Korsunka, or driving east into territory that is only lightly garrisoned by Russian forces.
This push fits nicely into RO37s image from yesterday’s update, showing the area that Ukraine needs to liberate in order to push Russian artillery out of range of its most likely bridging location. [map at the link]
On Friday, fighting has reportedly continued southwest of Krynky in a forested area. Russia has some prepared defensive positions in this area, but they are nothing like Zaporizhzhia’s multiple trench lines and minefields. Ukraine is driving toward the T2206 highway, which would give them the option of moving south to connect with the bridgehead at Antonivskyi Bridge (potentially cutting off Russian forces closer to the river), moving north toward what could be a high-value position at Korsunka, or driving east into territory that is only lightly garrisoned by Russian forces.
One key difference in this area is that Russia has reportedly lost its air defense systems. Without advanced S-300 and S-400 systems nearby, Russia has tried to fill the gap with the short-range SA-15 Tor system, but it reportedly lost one of those systems in the area this week. Russia has continued to use glide bombs to strike Ukraine’s crossing points along the river, but there are reports that Ukraine has moved its air defenses close to the position at Kyrnky, forcing Russia to maintain a longer standoff distance for its aircraft and reducing the accuracy of the glide bombs.
The more success that Ukraine has in this area, the more reason they have to bring additional forces across. New imagery out today from the Sentinel-2 satellite doesn’t show any obvious buildup of forces along the river or any pontoon bridge underway. It could be that Ukraine is waiting until it holds a longer stretch of riverfront, providing more options. Or, considering that Sentinel has produced sharp images of the area on its last three passes, Ukraine may just be waiting for a few back-to-back cloudy days.
——————————-
It’s been a bad week for Russian Tor systems, and a good week for Ukrainian FPV drones. Not only was one reportedly lost near Krynky, but reportedly another Tor near Kupyansk. [Tweet and video at the link]
Based on the last sale of these systems, they go for about $24 million each. That’s not a bad return on a $1,000 drone.
——————————-
But wait! That loss in Kupyansk doesn’t represent Russia’s biggest-ticket item in the last few days. Overnight, Ukraine once again reminded Russia that the Black Sea Fleet has become little more than a costly target. This strike was made by some of Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated aquatic drones. [Tweet, image, and video at the link]
Some descriptions of this attack refer to the two Russian craft that were damaged as “speed boats,” but that gives a completely incorrect impression. These boats are 25 meters long. One of them has a displacement of over 100 tons. [tweet and image at the link]
Each is capable of carrying a couple of main battle tanks, or four armored vehicles, in addition to infantry. They can also carry supplies in the case Ukraine cuts supply lines to Crimea from the north and the Kerch Bridge. As it happens, these two ships were not empty when Ukraine struck. Onboard one of them was reportedly … a Tor air defense system.
Russian ships aren’t safe in the water. They’re not safe in dry dock. They’re not safe anywhere near Ukraine. Russian ships are costly, inviting targets, but they no longer represent a serious threat.
Republicans still haven’t internalized that the Left promotes abortion as a pro-feminism issue. They aren’t voting to kill babies, they’re voting bc of feminist movies like Barbie and pop stars like Taylor Swift influencing an army of voters
Commentary:
[…] Got that? These silly little girls aren’t voting to protect their lives, their freedoms, and their inalienable right to choose whether or not to be parents. They’re doing it because of the “Barbie” movie. Take that and Taylor Swift’s Instagram away, and those same voters will instantly be mesmerized by Donald Trump’s numerous scintillating “whale-murdering windmills” speeches.
And in case his first comment wasn’t subtle enough, Posobiec also posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, an all-caps newsflash, accompanied by a 58-minute episode of his show on Real America’s Voice that none of us shall watch.
BREAKING: THE CHILDLESS, UNMARRIED ABORTION ARMY MOBILIZED BY BARBIE, TAYLOR SWIFT, AND TIKTOK THAT IS CRUSHING REPUBLICANS AT THE BALLOT BOX RNC ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL ON BALLOT HARVESTING
[…] Of course, while Swift is and will no doubt continue to be an electoral force to be reckoned with—remember her 2020 anti-Trump anthem?—these inveterate right-wing whiners appear to be missing the forest for the Swifties. Swift’s fans are not being brainwashed—just galvanized. They understand what’s at stake, and to suggest otherwise is pretty condescending.
But that won’t stop these wee “wise” men from mansplaining the human uterus. For instance, there was this, from conservative grumblepuss Mark Levin.
The truth about yesterday’s off year election. Once dark red Virginia has moved blue because immigrants and federal bureaucrats have flooded into Northern Virginia, which has changed the state politically. In Kentucky, Cameron lost not because Trump endorsed him, as obsessively stupid Trump-hater Chris Christie claims, but because he is a Mitch McConnell protege (McConnell is a Gerald Ford protege) who was not a forceful advocate of conservative principles and Biden’s failures. This should be a lesson for Republicans, i.e., RINOs have no winnable message. Republicans will continue to lose on the abortion issue because the Democrat Party and their surrogates spend for more on TV ads than the GOP spends on this issue, and the Democrats use those funds to lie about their true policy, which is abortion until birth, no parental notification, and virtually no regulation at all, and lie about their opponents hating women. The point is people are voting on the propaganda they are being fed not the actual issue.
[What an enormous trough of hogwash.]
Okay, Mark, let’s go with that! Also, paragraph breaks are your friend. Keep that in mind.
Remember former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker? He ran for president in 2016 with sky-high hopes after steering his state hard right. His campaign then proceeded to collapse like a poorly crafted cheese curd souffle. […]
Anyway, Walker has his own theory: Democrats are raising much more money than Republicans! Gee, wonder why.
Money drove the losses last night. Liberals had the advantage in every scenario but one. That’s the one we won. Like it or not, money matters as it helps set the terms of the debate. Conservatives need to wake the base up to raise equal amounts or we’re in big trouble.
Golly, what could possibly be behind all these gaudy fundraising numbers? Could it be that Americans are a bit freaked out about losing a right they’d taken for granted for 50 years? Nah, that can’t be it. Must be that “Barbie” movie.
Meanwhile, those bubble-headed Barbie-bots actually showed some human agency in response to conservatives’ latest histrionics. As Insider noted, political activist Olivia Julianna, who has more than 645,000 TikTok followers, posted an excerpt of Charlie Kirk’s rant and followed it up with “Swifties … you know what to do.”
Yes, the Swifties do know what to do. And, fortunately for this country, conservatives still haven’t fully woken to the fact […]
So please proceed, Republicans. You’re doing a heckuva job alienating vast swaths of voters. It’s what you do best, honestly.
Israeli troops fighting Hamas pushed deeper into Gaza City, with local health officials and residents reporting intense bombardment and the presence of military vehicles in the vicinity of a number of hospitals.
A former New Jersey National Guard police sergeant [Gregory Yetman] accused of pepper-spraying officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack turned himself in to authorities in New Jersey on Friday following a 48-hour manhunt.
A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that the Biden administration lacked authority to adopt a regulation aimed at reining in privately made firearms called ‘ghost guns’ that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.
The three judges on the 5th Circuit panel were all Trump appointees.
The Icelandic Met Office reports that a dike formation has likely formed beneath the town of Grindavík. With the magma intrusion possible extending beneath the town with a population of 3,700 a mandatory evacuation has been ordered.
Part of the met office’s update on the matter is below:
The seismic activity has moved south towards Grindavík. Based on how the seismic activity has evolved since 6 PM today, along with results from GPS measurements, there is a likelihood that a magma intrusion has extended beneath Grindavík.
The Department of Civil Protection has raised their alert level to an Emergency/Distress Phase (Neyðarstig). Here is what that means:
Emergency phase is characterized by an event which has already begun and could lead, or already has led to, harm to people, communities, properties or the environment. At this stage, immediate measure are taken to ensure security, save lives and prevent casualties, damage and or loss.
Mobile phone alerts. In the case of disasters or emergencies the Civil Protection sends out alerts to mobile phones in the affected area using cell broadcasting via cell towers. The alert will be broadcast to areas affected by serious disasters. Most capable devices entering the area during the cell broadcast should receive the alert. If your phone is on, capable and inside the targeted location, you should get the alerts. You don’t have to download an app or subscribe to a service, just ensure your phone is capable and updated. You will not be able to respond to the message. In case of an emergency please call 112.
at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds and one death.
[…]
injuries Reuters documented represent only a portion […] OSHA has required companies to report their total number of injuries annually since 2016, but SpaceX facilities failed to […] for most of those years. About two-thirds of the injuries Reuters uncovered came in years when SpaceX did not report
[…]
Reuters […] found no sanctions for its data-reporting failures. For safety violations that inspectors found […] regulators levied only small fines, typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
[…]
For years, Musk and his deputies found it “hilarious” to wave [a novelty] flamethrower around, firing it near other people and giggling […] in close-quarters office settings
[…]
Musk also became known […] for ordering machinery that was painted in industrial safety yellow to be repainted black or blue because of his aversion to bright colors […] Managers also sometimes told workers to avoid wearing safety-yellow vests
KGsays
Akira Mackenzie@113,
Do you trust Jill Stein?
KGsays
…Jill Stein is running for President again.
Good. I’m relieved that there’s a decent probability there will be a principled antiwar candidate on the ballot in November. I voted for her twice before, and I’ll vote for her again. – beholder@107
By “principled antiwar candidate” beholder of course means “Putin stooge”.
birgerjohanssonsays
From the other country who elected horrible leaders:
Writing in Science, a team of chemists at Columbia University have described a superatomic material – Re6Se8Cl2 – that is the fastest and most efficient semiconductor currently known. The key to its speed? The way in which information – and computation – can be carried through…
[…] Yes, Team Democracy is Good, Actually (Also We Are Not Maniacs) notched wins all over the place, from the Kentucky governorship to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to the New Jersey legislature. Don’t forget the abortion rights ballot measure in Ohio, though of course Republicans have not yet abandoned hope of concocting some trickery or other to nullify the electorate’s clearly expressed will.
[…] as everyone knows, every time a wingnut loses an election, an angel gets a donut, but when a community rejects a Moms For Liberty school board candidate, it’s a maple-glazed long john with a big ol’ slab of bacon on top. I figure it’s probably best if folks who call the cops on librarians aren’t consulted on what our children are taught. Plus, it’s okay, angels don’t have arteries to harden.
I’ve been gradually dropping out from reading Pharyngula, and this thread in particular. I was late to notice this recent post on urban turkeys in NYC area:
Quick, GM them to have proper claws! And get back the fangs. Soon, you will not have problems with coyotes or raccoons anymore…
From Cyborg at 16:
One day around the time the first Jurassic Park movie came out, I was driving on a dirt road in Oklahoma heading straight into the sunrise. As I crested a small hill, I saw some ‘Raptors’ running away from me. Between the sunrise, the hill and perspective(?) They looked 6-10 feet tall and just like dinosaurs. (I know they are dinosaurs, but you know what I mean)
Coincidentally, not long ago on Twitter, I saw some discussion on how around the 90s it was all the rage to portray dromaeosaurs (mainly Velociraptor/Deinonychus) as ninja-like superpredators. You know; jumping on the sides/backs of large herbivores and slashing them open with the sickle claws. The Jurassic Park novel and movie were the peak of this portrayal, but they weren’t alone. AFAIK in the modern view, these raptors hunted more like, well, modern raptors, except stalking on the ground. They used their sickle claws to pin down prey their own size or smaller, while eating it alive.
Then, with regard to ninja dromaeosaurs, I had this instant mental connection to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve read some of the original TMNT comic. It was all kinds of over-the-top silly and nonsensical, while also being kind of dark and gritty, but I always found it particularly nonsensical that turtles, of all animals, would be able to become proficient in “ninjitsu” thanks to some “mutations” in their juvenile development.
But what if, instead of baby box turtles, the four protagonists had started their lives as newly hatched turkey chicks? Probably domestic turkey chicks, who somehow got abandoned on the streets of New York. Then they’d be exposed to the mutagenic “green ooze”, while also being washed into sewers and being adopted by an escaped Japanese pet rat, who is also exposed to the mutagen. Feeding on pizza leftovers, they’d all grow into a roughly human-sized bipedal form. Perhaps the young turkeys would have atavistic developmental anomalies, like long balancing tails, functional hands and sharp teeth. And of course sickle claws. They’d be agile and fast, with some in-built weaponry of their own. Perfectly predisposed to learn ninjitsu from their rat sensei, they’d become Teenage Mutant Ninja Turkeys.
For more than 15 years, scientists have worked to build a complex cell with an entire genome built from scratch. This week they announced a major milestone: They’ve created synthetic versions of the 16 chromosomes in a yeast cell and successfully combined some of them in one cell…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@lumipuna #132:
I’d been keeping up via RSS, and I’d missed that post too. Thanks.
So, the ooze and training turn them into cassowaries!
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@Reginald Selkirk #133:
Cool. Oh, clarification…
Scientists are taking major steps towards completing the world’s first synthetic yeast.
A UK-based team […] completed construction of a synthetic chromosome as part of a major international project to build the […] genome. […] a 15-year project […] (UK, US, China, Singapore, UK, France and Australia) […] Alongside this paper, another 9 publications are also released today from other teams describing their synthetic chromosomes. The final completion of the genome project […] is expected next year.
[…]
The [UK] synthetic chromosome has replaced one of the natural chromosomes of a yeast cell and […] allows the cell to grow with the same fitness level as a natural cell.
lumipunasays
Just today, I encountered a fellow baby-eating atheist on Twitter:
Sea stars begin life as fertilized eggs that hatch into a free-floating larva. The larvae bob in the ocean in a plankton form for weeks to months before settling to the ocean floor to perform a magic trick of sorts—transforming from a bilateral […] body plan into an adult with a five-point star shape
[…]
“The problem with starfish is there is nothing on a starfish anatomically that you can relate to a vertebrate,” said Lowe. “There is just nothing there.”
[…]
The team used a group of well-studied molecular markers (Hox genes are an example) that act as blueprints for an organism’s body plan by “telling” each cell which body region it belongs to. […] “So, we ignored the anatomy and asked: Is there a molecular axis hidden under all this weird anatomy and what is its role in a starfish forming a pentaradial body plan?”
[…]
The research revealed that sea stars have a headlike territory in the center of each “arm” and a tail-like region along the perimeter. In an unexpected twist, no part of the sea star ectoderm expresses a “trunk” genetic patterning program, suggesting that sea stars are mostly headlike.
Some 25 Russian invaders were killed, another 30 injured, and eight vehicles destroyed in a Ukrainian artillery attack on a Russian convoy of 11 supply trucks near occupied Hladkivka in Kherson Oblast’s Skadovsk district, Ukrainian military reported on Nov. 10…
Rob Grigjanissays
Last couple of days, every time I click on an FtB site, I’ve received an alert from my AVG Web Shield, saying it has blocked a threat from https:/cdn.taboola.com/…
Don’t get it from any other web sites. Anyone else seen this? I’m guessing it’s something buried in my settings somewhere.
Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was integral to last year’s brazen sabotage operation of the Russia-Germany pipeline, according to people familiar with planning.
A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country’s intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.
The officer’s role provides the most direct evidence to date tying Ukraine’s military and security leadership to a controversial act of sabotage that has spawned multiple criminal investigations and that U.S. and Western officials have called a dangerous attack on Europe’s energy infrastructure.
Roman Chervinsky, a decorated 48-year-old colonel who served in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role said, managing logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines. On Sept. 26, 2022, three explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The attack left only one of the four gas links in the network intact as winter approached.
Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, according to the people familiar with his role, which has not been previously reported. The officer took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, said people familiar with how the operation was carried out. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details about the bombing, which has strained diplomatic relations with Ukraine and drawn objections from U.S. officials.
Ukraine has launched many daring and secretive operations against Russian forces. But the Nord Stream attack targeted civilian infrastructure built to provide energy to millions of people in Europe. While Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas conglomerate, owns 51 percent of Nord Stream, Western energy companies, including from Germany, France and the Netherlands, are partners and invested billions in the project. Ukraine had long complained that Nord Stream would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.
Through his attorney, Chervinsky denied any role in the sabotage of the pipelines. “All speculations about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream are being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis,” Chervinsky said in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which conducted a joint investigation of his role.
[…] Chervinsky’s role illustrates the complex dynamics and internal rivalries of the wartime government in Kyiv, where Ukraine’s intelligence and military establishment is often in tension with its political leadership.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Chervinsky had been serving in a unit of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and was focused on resistance activity in areas of the country occupied by Russia, people familiar with his assignments said. He reported to Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak, a seasoned and respected officer, who communicated directly with Zaluzhny.
[…] Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.
[…] Hanushchak, who is no longer serving in the Special Operations Forces, has said publicly that the operation was approved by the Armed Forces, and declined to comment for this article.
Chervinsky has said he was not responsible for the Russian attack and that in trying to persuade the pilot to fly to Ukraine and hand over his aircraft, he was acting on orders. He calls his arrest and prosecution political retribution for his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration. Chervinsky has said publicly that he suspects Andriy Yermak, one of Zelensky’s closest advisers, of spying for Russia. He has also accused the Zelensky administration of failing to sufficiently prepare the country for Russia’s invasion.
“The operation to recruit the Russian pilot involved units of the SBU, the Air Force, and the Special Operations Forces,” Chervinsky said in his written statement to The Post and Der Spiegel. “The operation was approved by the commander in chief Valery Zaluzhny.”
Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream bombing contradicts Zelensky’s public denials that his country was involved. “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by The Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.
“Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way,” Zelensky said.
But the Nord Stream operation was designed to keep Zelensky out of the loop, people familiar with the operation said.
“All of those involved in planning and execution reported directly to [chief of defense] Zaluzhnyy, so Zelensky wouldn’t have known about it,” according to intelligence reporting obtained by the CIA that was allegedly shared by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, on the Discord chat platform. Officials in multiple countries have said privately they were confident that Zelensky didn’t personally approve the Nord Stream attack.
Other secret Ukrainian operations targeting Russian forces, including the operation involving the Russian airplane, also were designed to bypass the Ukrainian president, people familiar with their planning said.
[…] In June 2022, the Dutch military intelligence agency, the MIVD, obtained information that Ukraine might be planning to attack Nord Stream. Officials at the CIA relayed to Zaluzhny through an intermediary that the United States opposed such an operation, according to people familiar with those conversations.
U.S. officials believed the attack had been called off. But it turned out only to have been postponed to three months later, using a different point of departure than originally planned. Key elements of the plan, including the number of people on the bombing team, as well as the use of a rented boat, diving equipment and fake identities remained the same.
Zaluzhny suggested in the interview that Russian propagandists had tried to tie him and the Ukrainian military to the operation.
The Dutch military intelligence service also reported to the Americans that the Ukrainians planned an attack on another pipeline in the Black Sea, called TurkStream. It’s not clear why that operation was never carried out. In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his country’s security services had prevented a Ukrainian attack on TurkStream. But Russian authorities have provided few details and are not known to have charged anyone in the alleged plot.
The Russian news agency Tass reported, “It is known that the attack was planned by an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on orders from the Ukrainian special services.”
Some of those who described Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraine’s best interests. They argued that bombing the pipelines helped to keep Russia from filling its coffers from natural gas sales and deprived Putin of a means to use the flow of natural gas for political leverage.
The Russian leader had demonstrated that he was willing to use energy as a tool of retaliation. Nearly a month before the explosions, Gazprom stopped flows on Nord Stream 1, hours after the Group of Seven industrialized nations announced a forthcoming price cap on Russian oil, a move intended to put a dent in the Kremlin’s treasury. […]
Details in the article do not seem to be as certain as the headline indicates.
Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, says a second child in the nursery of the Al-Shifa medical complex has died after the electrical generator stopped and the complex went out of service.
Al-Qudra earlier told a news conference that the complex was effectively out of service due to heavy bombardment. He said the intensive care and pediatric departments were hit with power outages.
[…] A senior Israeli security official said that at least one strike on the Al-Shifa hospital was from a failed projectile launched by a militant group, though he did not say which one. This is the second time Israel has claimed a misfired rocket hit a hospital. The official did not confirm whether Israel had launched any strikes on hospitals.
[…] Doctors Without Borders called for an immediate cease-fire and said the “attacks against hospitals must STOP” following a night of heavy bombardment.
“The hostilities around the hospital have not stopped,” the charity said in a statement.
It currently has teams staffed at the Al-Shifa hospital complex, which it said has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments. There have been multiple deaths and injuries, the group said.
“We are being killed here, please do something,” one nurse texted as he hid in the basement of the hospital with his family, according to the charity. “Four or five families are sheltering now in the basement, the shelling is so close, my kids are crying and screaming in fear.”
Doctors Without Borders denounced what it said is a “death warrant on civilians currently trapped in Al-Shifa Hospital signed by the Israeli military.”
“There needs to be an urgent and unconditional ceasefire between all warring parties; humanitarian aid must be supplied to the entirety of Gaza now,” the charity said.
[…] Israeli tanks are attacking the Al-Quds hospital, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said. In a post on X, the society said tanks were shooting directly at the hospital, “creating a state of extreme panic and fear among 14,000 displaced people.”
In another post, the society pleaded to the “international community and humanitarian institutions to intervene immediately.”
“Our crews are trapped inside the hospital, Israeli tanks and military vehicles surround the hospital from all sides, artillery shelling and intense shooting at the hospital and a number of injuries is not yet known,” the post read.
Before the war, Yurii Hlodan was a baker in Odesa. When a Russian missile hit a residential building on April 23, 2022, Yurii’s wife, 3-month-old daughter, and mother-in-law were all killed. That missile, said Yurii, “killed the whole world.” He left his bakery and joined the military, fighting at multiple locations along the front line over the past year. Last week, Yurii rejoined his family while fighting on the front lines in the east.
That kind of tragedy has been so terribly common since Vladimir Putin began his illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. There has been so much loss. So much grief. So much destruction. So much needless pain. Hospitals of expectant mothers, train stations filled with evacuees, and theaters where terrified children sheltered in the dark … all have been destroyed. […]
But that’s not where we’re going today. Today, we’re going to look at something else. We’re going to Kherson exactly one year ago, because in the middle of 625 days of war, there are still some days that shine bright. And none may be brighter than this.
For nine months, Kherson was occupied by Russian forces. They raised Russian flags, installed Russian leaders, and forced children to attend schools where a Russian curriculum was taught in Russian by pro-Russian teachers. On the front lines west of the city, positions seemed even more fixed than they have over the last four months at Robotyne or Bakhmut.
Towns like Snihurivka and Vysokopillya appeared in the Ukraine updates dozens of times, and no matter what happened around them, these Russian “fortress towns” seemed to withstand everything Ukraine could throw at them. Even when it started to become clear over the summer that Ukrainian attacks on the bridges across the Dnipro River were depriving Russian forces of supplies, any sign of progress was delayed over long months. Every day in which Ukraine advanced at a location like Davydiv Brid seemed to be followed by reports that Russian forces had reinforced the area, stalling any movement. Some small villages along the front lines traded back and forth six times or more.
Even after it became clear that Russia really was withdrawing from the area west of the Dnipro River, the extent of that retreat was unclear. Russian soldiers might abandon one village while continuing to hold another only a kilometer away. In some areas, Ukrainian soldiers strolled for hours across the empty countryside, while in others, Ukrainian forces continued to square off with Russian troops at the same line that had held for months.
Finally, finally, came Russia’s hurried and complete retreat. Large amounts of Russian equipment were left in the fields. More was destroyed at muster points as they prepared to cross the river. But in large part, Ukraine was content to sit back and let them retreat, more concerned about the danger to civilians in Kherson than the possibility of destroying a few more vehicles.
And it all led up to this. [videos at the link]
One day this will be Mariupol. One day it will be Sevastopol. We don’t know when those days will come, only that they will.
[…] As he faces the end of his fourth decade in the Senate, Mitch McConnell’s unwavering advocacy for Ukraine has set him apart from many of his GOP colleagues, many of whom are deeply skeptical or outright opposed to U.S. involvement abroad — particularly in Ukraine. It’s an increasingly prevalent view in the Republican Party, shaped under the influence of former President Donald Trump, who has railed against “forever wars” and praised Putin.
[…] He called the Ukraine aid, which Biden has asked Congress to pass as part of a $105 billion request for Israel and other countries, a “no brainer.”
The Republican dissension has created a pivotal political moment, one that could forever shape the fate of Ukraine and the strength of American influence abroad. Stressing urgency, the White House has pushed Congress to approve the massive foreign aid package, which would also aid Israel in its war with Hamas and replenish American military stockpiles at home, by the end of the year.
But while earlier rounds of assistance passed Congress easily, the path for aiding Ukraine has grown perilous as the war enters its second brutal winter.
Almost more than any other issue, the debate over Ukraine divides the GOP along generational and ideological lines — especially as Trump is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination next year.
Cutting off assistance from Ukraine would be “a huge setback for the United States,” and the country’s reputation as the leader of the free world, McConnell said.
[…] It is also a uniquely vulnerable moment for McConnell, who rarely ventures far from the views of his GOP conference. While his position is unequivocal on sending Ukraine more assistance, and several colleagues are behind him, many are hesitant to speak in strong terms about the need to keep Putin at bay.
Others are outright opposed to the aid, and they have begun to directly challenge the Republican leader’s support for it in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
“One of the things I worry about is we have leadership negotiating with the president,” said Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, who is in the first year of his term, of McConnell’s recent talks with the White House and the leader’s support for tying Ukraine and Israel aid together. “I want to make sure that leadership is actually being representative of the views of the conference.”
Vance, who has pushed to separate the aid for the two countries, says his views are closer to new House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans in the House, which passed legislation last week that would aid Israel but not Ukraine. Vance argues the United States does not have enough of a plan for winning the Ukraine war.
[…] Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who has also criticized the Ukraine aid, said that “nationally, the Republican leader right now is the speaker of the House of Representatives.”
[…] The Republican schism in the Senate was most pronounced on Sept, 30, as the House and Senate scrambled in a rare Saturday session to keep the government open before funding expired at midnight on Oct. 1. McConnell was insistent that short-term aid to Ukraine would have to be in the deal, but relented when several of his colleagues, even some of those who were like-minded, endorsed a House plan that would not include it.
McConnell walked out of a private conference meeting and declared that the Republicans would vote against advancing a bipartisan Senate bill that included the aid — a rare public reversal for the leader. His move made the House bill the only funding option left, and it easily passed the Senate. The government stayed open but the Ukraine aid was left unresolved.
McConnell downplays the decision, arguing that “the most important thing at that particular moment was to avoid a government shutdown. The rest of it was sort of incidental.”
The development also wasn’t unexpected. A week before the government funding deadline, McConnell told Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on a call that it “would be impossible” for Congress to pass the full package with Ukraine money included, according to a person familiar with the situation who granted anonymity to discuss it.
Republicans supportive of the aid have laid blame for the delay generally on Biden and congressional Democrats, saying that they need to articulate the importance of helping Ukraine and provide a detailed plan.
As he continues to push for the aid, McConnell’s style is not to strong-arm his colleagues, or the Republican-led House. […]
Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, a McConnell ally who has spoken out in favor of the Ukraine aid, says he thinks McConnell has managed to stem his losses so far.
“There’s a number of us who feel strong and certain about the rightness of this cause, others are more persuadable,” Moran said. “And I think the leader has done a really good job of keeping the two sets of senators together.”
One way McConnell is managing the challenge is by endorsing a push from GOP senators to include border policy in the aid package for Israel and Ukraine — a gambit that introduces difficult immigration issues and could threaten its ultimate passage, but appears essential to winning Republican support. Bipartisan talks are underway to try and find consensus around changes on that issue.
McConnell has also drawn from the lessons of history, emphasizing the connections between the two wars as he urges an unflinching defense of democracy and the West.
[…] Failing to pass the aid would be “a disaster for Ukraine and disaster for us,” McConnell said. He questions what has happened to the belief in America’s global leadership.
“For myself, I’m still a Reagan Republican,” McConnell said. “And I think that’s the best path for us in the future. But look, in our democracy, the voters make that decision.”
The problem is, in our “democracy” the only way Republicans get power is through extreme gerrymandering in the House, which netted them barely enough seats to claim majority, or in the Senate, which is inherently undemocratic with Wyoming getting as many Senators as California. Even in the Senate, they only have a minority. Every election, millions more vote for democrats but we end up with gridlock or worse. McConnell may be claiming to have a principled position here, but remember, if it comes to Party or Country, he will always choose Party.
————————–
Another part is that Trump seems to in general have warm feelings towards authoritarian dictators. And perhaps the biggest piece is that Trump resents Ukraine for not caving to his blackmail attempt, and probably blames Ukraine for his subsequent impeachment over it.
As for most of the rest of the Republican Party, that’s simple: whatever Trump wants, they’ll fall in line with. Because that’s what cults do.
—————————
Had McConnell supported impeachment in January 2021 things would likely be very different right now with respect to aid for Ukraine (among other things). I wish some intrepid reporter(s) would ask him if he now regrets that decision. I’m sure he will say he doesn’t (even if he does) but he should never be allowed to forget that he stood in the way of moving on from Trump and all that comes with him, which includes serving Putin’s interests over America’s interests.
It’s November 11, which is Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I, and also it’s Kurt Vonnegut’s birthday — his 101st! As ever, we’ll start with this wonderful quote about the holiday, from Vonnegut’s 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions:
So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.
I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.
It’s just such a wonderfully Vonnegut-y quote, for all the terrific reasons there are to love Vonnegut: The short, clipped sentences. The backwards time travel. The affectation of spelling out the year. The “men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind” — Jesus, that’s a lovely line!
This year, I’m going to try to use Vonnegut’s writings about war, particularly his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) as a lens to think about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza — with of course the caution that he’s not here to say anything about it himself, so the best we can do is extrapolate, and that can be risky.
I can tell you at the outset that we can’t look to Vonnegut for a solution, sorry.
A month and four days ago, Hamas terrorists killed about 1,200 people in Israel (a downward revision announced today, from 1,400, as if that makes the slaughter any less horrifying). Among the victims were entire families, babies, and young people attending a hippie music festival and dancing all night.
Since Vonnegut remains popular worldwide, maybe some of those killed or dragged away as hostages were fans of Vonnegut’s famously playful dictum, “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.” It came from a 1996 essay in which he also said, a bit less famously, “We’re dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something.”
It’s a beautiful thought until someone brings AK-47s and grenades to the dance.
In response to that horrific attack, Israel blockaded all of Gaza, cut off electricity and water, and set to work shelling and bombing the hell out of the tiny strip of land, with the intent of eliminating Hamas altogether. The Israeli government justifies the incredible death toll — more than 11,000 and constantly climbing — by pointing out that Hamas hides its fighters and tunnel networks in densely populated civilian areas.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently called Gaza “a graveyard for children;” at least 4,100 children had died when he said that five days ago. Palestinian civilians were told to evacuate northern Gaza for the south, which Israeli forces also bombed relentlessly. We can only imagine what Kurt Vonnegut would say about that.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others point to WWII, when the allies made no bones about wiping out entire German and Japanese cities that had any kind of military significance at all. After the war, Gen. Curtis LeMay said of Allied strategy,
There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.
Robert McNamara later said, in the Erroll Morris documentary The Fog of War, that LeMay had confided to him that “if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he’s right.”
Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut’s attempt to reckon with his own war, when he survived the British firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, an attack officially justified because Dresden was a rail hub and therefore a military target. Incendiary bombs created a vast firestorm, wiping out the city and killing between 25,000 and over 100,000 civilians. No one knows. Vonnegut and some other American GIs captured by the Germans survived only because they were locked underground in Schlachthof-Fünf, a former slaughterhouse for pigs.
Vonnegut throws in a lot of science fictiony tropes, like how his protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, occasionally comes “unstuck in time,” which may be literal time travel or a perfect metaphor for PTSD, or both. But as Salman Rushdie wrote to mark the novel’s 50th anniversary, Slaughterhouse-Five
is a great realist novel. Its first sentence is “All this happened, more or less.” In that nonfictional first chapter, Vonnegut tells us how hard the book was to write, how hard it was for him to deal with war.
Vonnegut tells us in that chapter how Mary O’Hare, the wife of one of his war buddies, exploded at him when he mentioned he was working on a book about his wartime experiences, exclaiming, “You were just babies then!” and predicting Vonnegut would just ignore that and write a novel that could become another heroic war movie that would make war seem “just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.”
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: “Mary,” I said, “I don’t think this book of mine will ever be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won’t be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
“I tell you what,” I said, “I’ll call it ‘The Children’s Crusade.'”
She was my friend after that.
And yet the massacres go on. In other writings, Vonnegut said that the United States and its allies had to go war against Germany and Japan, but that too was tragic in its own way, as he noted in an interview a year after 9/11. He noted that US drones — “our unmanned kamikazes” — were inflicting horrifying casualties,
“But this has become quite acceptable in modern warfare apparently — to kill a hell of a lot of innocent people in the process of getting one bad guy. And also I think this war is a very bad idea because it will never stop.”
One of the great American tragedies is to have participated in a just war. It’s been possible for politicians and movie-makers to encourage us we’re always good guys. The Second World War absolutely had to be fought. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But we never talk about the people we kill. This is never spoken of.
The Afghanistan war lasted until August 2021, outliving Vonnegut by 14 years, three presidents, and tens of thousands of civilian deaths. When you’re right, you’re right.
Vonnegut also worried, following the first Gulf War in 1991, about how attitudes toward war have evolved in frightening directions since the war he lived through:
“We have become such a pitiless people,” Vonnegut lamented. “And I think it’s TV that’s done it to us. When I went to war in World War II, we had two fears. One was we would be killed. The other was that we might have to kill somebody. And now killing is Whoopee. It does not seem much anymore. To my generation, it still seemed like an extraordinary thing to do, to kill.”
The Hamas terrorists, however young they may have been, don’t seem to have had any doubts about the justice of their slaughter of Israelis, including children. The IDF, operating so far mostly at a distance like civilized technological nations prefer, seems more coldly unaffected by empathy for the civilians its munitions land on.
Slaughterhouse-Five closes with the end of WWII; the German army heads east to fight the Russians. “And somewhere in there it was springtime,” Vonnegut writes, and one day the war is over, all the guards gone. Birds again can be heard, asking, “Poo-tee-weet?”
But Vonnegut has no answers, really, except perhaps Eliot Rosewater’s advice to newborn twins in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies- “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
Perhaps some Palestinian or Israeli teenager will survive to write the great novel about the horror and stupidity of this war in another 20 years. Wars are often as good for literature as they are for innovations in the technology of killing and the technology of healing, though the latter always runs well behind the former. There are far more ways to destroy the human body than to repair it.
Vonnegut was as mystified as any of us about how to actually get humans to treat each other decently and with justice, but seeing the humanity in other people has to be a starting point. Vonnegut thought that humanism and democratic socialism might be good starts, and maybe he was on to something there.
Too many babies have died for no good reason. As Israelis mourn the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, and as the IDF daily converts more and more parts of Gaza into Dresden, we’ll close with one last quote, this time from Jailbird (1979):
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
[…] At an event Saturday in Muscatine, Iowa, Ron DeSantis got his warhawk on, and, as usual, made it weird.
“What are you supposed to do?” he asked. ‘I mean, I used to say even when they would just fire the normal rockets because they’ve been firing these rockets for years and years. And I thought to myself like if the Bahamas were firing rockets into Fort Lauderdale, like we would not accept that for like one minute. I mean, we would just level it. We would never be willing to live like that as Americans.”
Personally, I’d like to think that we’d find a way to deal with that issue other than leveling the Bahamas, which would result in the deaths of 407,906 people. I would hope that regardless of what side people are on, we can all agree that being that blasé about killing 407,906 people is just a tad on the sociopathic side. It is odd that the first thing he thought to himself “Hey, I’d just kill 400,000 people, no big!”
It is also only fair to point out that the US would not accept what Israel has done to Palestine, either (especially given that the death toll on the Palestinian side has been significantly higher over the years). Florida in particular, which has both Stand Your Ground Laws and Castle Doctrine laws that allow people to use lethal force on someone coming onto their property, might have a problem with that.
So like, if people from the Bahamas decided that they would like to annex Fort Lauderdale and just started moving into random people’s houses while they were out at the grocery store, I don’t think that would go over too well either. Especially if it had ramped up in recent years because Putin decided that it was the official policy of Russia that it is 100 percent fine for them to do that.
I do not think it is possible, truly, for Ron DeSantis to discuss a single subject without going right off the deep end, and the more I think about it, the more it is clear that this is just what he does in every possible situation. Everything is always taken to a point of sadistic absurdity. He can’t just hate gay people like a normal Republican, he has to insist that all the LGBTQ+ people are pedophiles and trying to force kindergarteners to be drag queens. He can’t even just censor books like a regular conservative, he has to go right to the point of throwing teachers in jail. He can’t just eat pudding with a spoon, he’s gotta dip the whole hand in.
Jacob Angeli-Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman (though he prefers to be called America’s Shaman, thank you very much), filed paperwork with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on Thursday announcing his intent to run as a Libertarian (natch) in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.
Chansley was released into a halfway house this past March after serving 27 months of his 41-month sentence for his part in the January 6 insurrection, and has since been very vocal about the fact that all of his contrition over his actions that day were total bullshit, especially the part where his lawyer made him blame Trump for what he did.
He now claims that, actually, the January 6 insurrection he was literally filmed participating in, shirtless and wearing a large fur hat with horns, was a psyop by the FBI to make Trump and his supporters look bad. Don’t think about that one too hard, because it will get you nowhere.
Rep. Debbie Lesko, who currently represents the reliably Republican district, has said she will not be seeking reelection, and Chansley is just one of a number of very exciting candidates vying for the seat — including haunted Victorian doll Blake Masters, Trent “The Female Body Has Ways To Shut That Whole Thing Down” Franks — who resigned in disgrace from that very seat in 2017 following a sexual harassment scandal involving his inability to stop talking about his and his wife’s surrogacy plans, Chansley’s fellow January 6 participant Sen. Anthony Kern of Glendale, along with Seth Coates, Isiah Gallegos, Jimmy Rodriguez, Rollie Stevens, and Brandon Urness.
Candidate Rollie Stevens, I very desperately need to point out, is a country and western singer who has promised to perform a full concert with every speech he gives. […] I have decided to share with you the one titled “Beer Drinking Women.”
He says he wants to “bulldoze bad government” and is also “building a tourism destination in Wickenburg AZ, Gold Mine Experience!” […]
But back to the Shaman.
What I find interesting about him these days is that, while at one point all of the QAnon people were very certain that he, himself, was a CIA or FBI plant on a mission to make them all look bad, the consensus now seems to be that he is “part of the plan,” or at least on the side of the “white hats.” [Screenshot of QAnon postings online]
Look, Debbie Lesko won that seat with 96.5 percent of the vote. A Democrat is not winning that seat. Clearly, the best we can hope for is someone who is hilarious, ineffective and largely embarrassing for the GOP — and that someone seems like it’s gonna be Chansley. Or the singing guy. One of the two.
Sigh. More details emerge concerning Trump’s plans:
Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.
The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.
Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.
He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.
To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.
To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Mr. Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.
In a public reference to his plans, Mr. Trump told a crowd in Iowa in September: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” The reference was to a 1954 campaign to round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an ethnic slur — “Operation Wetback.”
The constellation of Mr. Trump’s 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.
Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.
[…] numerous people who have been allowed to live in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021 Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States. Afghans holding special visas granted to people who helped U.S. forces would be revetted to see if they really did.
And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents — by proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards and passports to them. […]
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Mr. Miller said, adding, “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”
[…] Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would try again to end DACA. And the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court that blocked the last attempt no longer exists: A few months after the DACA ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Mr. Trump replaced her with a sixth conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
[…] As he has campaigned for the party’s third straight presidential nomination, his anti-immigrant tone has only grown harsher. In a recent interview with a right-wing website, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that foreign leaders were deliberately emptying their “insane asylums” to send the patients across America’s southern border as migrants. He said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” And at a rally on Wednesday in Florida, he compared them to the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, saying, “That’s what’s coming into our country right now.”
[…] While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants, Mr. Miller said.
“Bottom line,” he said, “President Trump will do whatever it takes.”
If Americans choose to reelect Donald Trump next year, they will be voting for what can fairly be described as a police state, the likes of which has seldom been contemplated in this country, and of a scale probably unimaginable to anyone who currently lives here. It will be a place quite literally redolent of Germany in the 1930s, in which millions of people considered “undesirable” are routinely rounded up and placed in camps by a government weaponized to serve a racist, authoritarian regime.
As hard as it may be to process, this is not some hyperbolic fantasy. It is an existing, actual plan that has been carefully and meticulously crafted by Trump with the help of his white supremacist former aide, Stephen Miller. Its implementation would begin on day one of Trump’s second term, which would begin in January 2025.
The ensuing social and economic upheaval would be staggering and unprecedented, as the country that we know will have effectively ceased to exist.
[…] Camps to house millions of immigrants prior to their deportation will be constructed, according to Miller, “on open land in Texas near the border.” Funding for such camps and deportation measures will be diverted from existing military appropriations, the authors note, to “get around” Congressional objections. According to Miller, Trump would also weaponize the Centers for Disease Control to declare the arrival of immigrants at the southern border a “public health emergency,” citing the flu, tuberculosis, and other “threats” posed by allegedly disease-carrying immigrants. Deportation would be “fast-tracked” and due process virtually eliminated.
[…] Trump and his minions, who exist primarily within a belief system propagated within the right-wing universe, clearly believe public opinion will support these measures, and they promise to figure strongly in his 2024 reelection campaign. What remains to be seen is whether American voters will be sufficiently horrified or repelled by these plans enough to deny Trump the opportunity to impose them.
An associate of a Jan. 6 defendant pleaded guilty this week to charges that the two men plotted “to murder employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Austin Carter, who was a 26-year-old security officer and a member of the Army Reserves at the time of his arrest in December 2022, admitted in a plea agreement that he “unlawfully and knowingly combined, conspired, and agreed with his co-defendant,” Edward Kelley, to kill FBI personnel.
Carter admitted that he provided a cooperating witness “with a list of FBI employees that CARTER received from KELLEY” on or about Dec. 13, 2022, and that Carter instructed the cooperating witness “to memorize the FBI employees identified on the list and then burn the list.” Kelley and Carter “discussed plans to attack the FBI Field Office in Knoxville, Tennessee” and that the purpose of the conspiracy was “to retaliate against government conduct,” Carter admitted…
One hundred fifteen years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Winters v. United States that American Indian tribes had an inherent right to water because treaties were written with the idea that tribes would become self-sufficient, and without water they couldn’t be. It was one of the most important recognitions of Native sovereignty that ever emerged from the high court. Unfortunately, for most of the tribes of the basin, the 1908 promise in Winters has yet to be fulfilled.
The ruling was ignored in the 1922 Colorado River Compact that divvied up the shares of water each of the seven upper and lower basin states would get. The tribes were expected to beg their water from each state’s share, a losing prospect given the racist hostility toward Natives found among government officials of that era. Meanwhile, the federal government, in the midst of terminating 100 reservations and tribes in the 1950s and ‘60s, grabbed pieces of Native land for massive water projects, with paltry compensation and no guarantee the tribes would themselves benefit from the dams and reservoirs built on land taken from them.
Anna V. Smith and Mark Olalde at High Country News and ProPublica recently collaborated on a lengthy investigative story on how Indigenous Americans in the Colorado River Basin were left out of their share of the river’s water 100 years ago, and that the seven states in the basin, most particularly Arizona, have ever since aggressively fought to keep the tribes from securing their share. Thus, to this day, the Navajo Nation—with the geographically largest reservation in the country and, as of June 2023, the second largest tribally enrolled population (closely behind the Cherokee Nation)—has not secured rights to its share of the water, and neither have 22 other basin tribes, including eight in Arizona.
It’s not easy to condense their excellent reporting, but here goes anyway.
Because the states battled among themselves over water shares, a case arose that came to be known as Arizona v. California. It provided an opportunity to settle the rights of the tribes of the basin, but state officials figured the prevailing attitude at all levels of government would stop that.
Smith and Olalde write:
So it was a shock to states when, in November 1953, Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. and the Department of Justice moved to intervene in the states’ water fight and aggressively staked a claim on behalf of tribes. Tribal water rights were “prior and superior” to all other water users in the basin, even states, the federal government argued.
Western states were apoplectic.
Arizona Gov. John Howard Pyle quickly called a meeting with Brownell to complain, and Western politicians hurried to Washington, D.C. Under political pressure, the Department of Justice removed the document four days after filing it. When Pyle wrote to thank the attorney general, he requested that federal solicitors work with the state on an amended version. “To have left it as it was would have been calamitous,” Pyle said.
The federal government refiled its petition a month later. It no longer asserted that tribes’ water rights were “prior and superior.” […]
In 1956, W.H. Flanery, the associate solicitor of Indian Affairs, wrote to an Interior Department official that Arizona and California “are the Indians’ enemies and they will be united in their efforts to defeat any superior or prior right which we may seek to establish on behalf of the Indians. They have spared and will continue to spare no expense in their efforts to defeat the claims of the Indians.”
It took until 1964 before the Supreme Court quantified the water rights of the Lower Basin states— California, Arizona and Nevada—and five tribes whose lands abut the river. While the ruling defended tribes’ right to water, it did little to help them access it. By excluding all other basin tribes from the case, the court missed a chance to bring their rights into line with Winters once and for all.
Six decades later, the Supreme Court stepped in again this past summer to rule in Arizona v. Navajo Nation that the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo did not require the government to ensure access to water for the tribe. Neil Gorsuch dissented and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The justice is noted for his stance favoring an affirmative approach on American Indian rights. […] He wrote:
Today, the Court rejects a request the Navajo Nation never made. This case is not about compelling the federal government to take “affirmative steps to secure water for the Navajos.” […] Respectfully, the relief the Tribe seeks is far more modest. Everyone agrees the Navajo received enforceable water rights by treaty. Everyone agrees the United States holds some of those water rights in trust on the Tribe’s behalf. And everyone agrees the extent of those rights has never been assessed. Adding those pieces together, the Navajo have a simple ask: They want the United States to identify the water rights it holds for them. And if the United States has misappropriated the Navajo’s water rights, the Tribe asks it to formulate a plan to stop doing so prospectively. Because there is nothing remarkable about any of this, I would affirm the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and allow the Navajos’ case to proceed.
Understanding this lawsuit requires at least three pieces of context the Court’s opinion neglects. It requires some understanding of the history that led to the Treaty of 1868 establishing the Navajo Reservation. It requires some insight into the discussions that surrounded that Treaty. Finally, it requires an appreciation of the many steps the Navajo took to avoid this litigation.
Smith and Olalde point out that eight tribal nations still haven’t been able to reach an agreement about how much water they have rights to in Arizona. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has vowed to resolve the matter, and the Navajo Nation began negotiating with the state last month. But, the pair writes, the tribes and their representatives wonder if the state will bring a new approach. Jay Weiner, an attorney who represents several tribes’ water claims in Arizona, told them, “It’s not clear to me Arizona’s changed a whole lot since the 1950s.”
Health insurers reject millions of claims for treatment every year in America. Corporate insiders, recordings and internal emails expose the system and its harm.
Just outside public view, the American health insurance industry’s algorithms, employees and executives process tens of millions of claims for people seeking medical care.
Sometimes, as ProPublica has reported, insurers base decisions on what’s good for the company’s bottom line rather than what’s good for the patient’s health. Sometimes, insurers make mistakes. In one case we learned about, a company denied a child’s treatment because it based its judgment on adult guidelines instead of pediatric ones. In another, an internal reviewer misread what type of surgery the patient sought and denied coverage based on that error.
At first, these patients had no idea why they were denied treatment. But in each instance, insurance employees left a paper trail — in notes, emails or recordings of phone calls — explaining what happened. Patients and advocates used what they found in those records to craft appeals and ultimately receive the care they needed.
Federal law and regulations require insurers to hand over exactly this sort of information in response to a written request. And they have to do it fast: Most people who get insurance through an employer should get the records, called claim files, within 30 days.
There’s just one catch: Some insurers aren’t turning files over like they’re supposed to. We followed ProPublica readers through the process with five different insurers. Several companies only shared documents with patients after we reached out.
Our team discovered how useful claim files can be after a patient shared internal notes and calculations that a health insurer had made about his case. But few health insurers advertise this service or offer clear instructions for getting these records. To help fill that gap, we published a guide explaining how to submit a claim file request. We also shared resources with health care providers and patient advocates nationwide, including request letter templates.
More than 120 people have told us that they have since requested or intend to request their claim files. Though a handful say they received information that helped them understand why their health insurer denied coverage, many more have been running into challenges. They’ve told us about insurers blowing past deadlines, wrongly requiring subpoenas and — in several cases — misinterpreting their request entirely.
We shared a summary of these examples with Tim Hauser, a deputy assistant secretary with the Department of Labor. His office oversees claim file laws that cover more than 131 million people. He said insurers who fail to provide records are breaking the law. “The claimant really needs to be able to see what the relevant evidence is so that they can respond to it,” he said.
We brought our findings to five insurance companies. We presented them with details about the requests patients had made and how the company had responded, and we asked for an explanation of what happened in each case.
All of the insurers acknowledged that the patients were entitled to the material they’d asked for. Four began sending the files after our inquiry. Two, spokespeople told us, are updating policies to handle future requests. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield spokesperson Michael Bowman said the company needed to better train staff on the rules “to close any gaps to prevent this from occurring in the future.” Cigna spokesperson Justine Sessions admitted that patients do not need a subpoena to access their records, contrary to what the insurer had told a member. She said the company would update its “policies and communications to reflect that for future requests. We regret that we did not make these updates sooner and apologize for any frustration or confusion this has caused our customers.”
By crowdsourcing people’s experiences, we identified some patterns in health insurers’ behavior. Here are some of the most common issues people encountered — and what to watch out for if you submit your own request.
Insurers Asking for Unnecessary Subpoenas or Court Orders
Cigna and Anthem told members that they would need to obtain a court order or subpoena to access their claim file records.
“This is completely unheard of,” said Wells Wilkinson, a senior attorney with the nonprofit legal group Public Health Advocates who regularly files these requests. “It also sounds completely illegal. The consumer has the right to any information used by the health plan in the context of the denial.”
On July 12, Lisa Kays, a Maryland resident, asked Cigna for phone call records related to its decision to deny coverage for her 4-year-old son’s speech therapy. “We couldn’t afford to just give up,” Kays said.
In September, Cigna sent her a letter saying she would need to submit a subpoena to get any transcripts or recordings.
After ProPublica inquired, the company sent Kays partial transcripts of the calls. It also reimbursed her for some of the previously denied coverage. She is still waiting for the recordings.
We asked Anthem about a similar case. On July 19, a call center agent told Pamela Tsigdinos she would need a subpoena to receive her claim file records. Tsigdinos had submitted the request 50 days earlier.
Bowman, the Anthem spokesperson, told us the response was an error and apologized. The company compiled the claim file and sent it to Tsigdinos.
Insurers Confusing Claim File Requests With Appeals
At least five people told ProPublica that, after submitting a request for a claim file, their health insurer mistook the request for an appeal.
We brought three cases to UnitedHealthcare. S.J. Farris requested her claim file from the company on May 10. Five days later, she received a response stating that her request for an appeal had been received. Farris sent a clarifying letter but was met with a call from an appeals agent based in Ireland. “I asked her to send the claim files,” Farris said. “She had no idea what I was talking about.”
After ProPublica sent the company questions, Farris received a call from UnitedHealth in October. They told her that the insurer was working on her claim file and that she should expect it soon. In a statement to ProPublica, UnitedHealth spokesperson Maria Gordon Shydlo said: “We take our responsibility to provide members access to their records seriously and have processes in place to comply with the law. We are sorry for any inconvenience.”
After Beth Tolley sent Anthem a claim file request on behalf of her granddaughter, she received a letter from the health insurer stating, “We’ve received a request from Beth Tolley for an appeal.” This left Tolley confused since, in its last communication, Anthem had said all avenues of appeal with its office had been exhausted.
In early October, Anthem sent the Tolley family a check for the amount it had initially declined to cover. Bowman told ProPublica that the company would be sending the records soon.
Insurers Blowing Past the 30-Day Deadline
For most people who get insurance through their employers, insurers are required to send claim files back within 30 days, according to federal law.
Twelve of the people whose requests ProPublica followed did not receive their records within that time frame even though they had these types of plans. Five of those had been waiting for responses from their insurers for more than 70 days before ProPublica contacted the companies with questions.
Isabella Gonzalez submitted a claim file request via certified mail on Aug. 8. When she called Aetna to get an update, a representative told her they did not see it in the system and advised her to upload it onto the insurer’s online portal, which she did. She called back a few days later. A different customer service employee told her Aetna would respond in 45 days.
Alex Kepnes, the executive director of communications for Aetna, said the company at first did not recognize what Gonzalez was asking for and therefore did not respond to it.
Kepnes declined to respond to follow-up questions about why staff failed to correctly identify the request and whether the company would be taking action to ensure this does not happen again.
Other companies that failed to follow the 30-day timeline include UnitedHealth, Anthem and Cigna.
“It’s really important that these responses be timely,” said Hauser, the Department of Labor official. “If that’s not happening, it’s really contrary to the regulation.”
Making fun of the Republican Debate, Saturday Night live: YouTube link
lumipunasays
Finnish media is currently making hay about a new press release from the border authorities, on illegal migration via Russia. Here’s an English version:
In short, until a few months ago, the Russian border authorities wouldn’t usually let people enter the Finnish border without the documents necessary for crossing into Finland/Schengen area. This was a diplomatic convention that made things easy for the Finnish authorities, as it kept the number of third country asylum seekers trying to enter Europe via Russia/Finland at near zero. In principle, you can always seek asylum, even without documents, if you can physically get to the border. Thus far, very few people have bothered trying to cross from Russia past the official checkpoints (this is illegal border crossing, in addition to “illegal” migration without documents), and those who do try often get caught before the border.
Thus far, there’s been only a small trickle of third country asylum seekers entering from Russia without required visa (not counting Ukrainians, who don’t need a visa). I think the numbers can be expected to increase, as unscrupulous Russian entrepreneurs exploiting Middle Eastern migrants get their business organized and advertised. I also think we can expect freakouts from Finnish media and racist populace at any modest “waves” of asylum seekers.
In a worse-case scenario, there will be a large machinated migration event similar to what happened at the Polish-Belarusian border two years ago, resulting in a humanitarian crisis (in part thanks to Finnish racism) which can be then exploited in Russian propaganda.
Lumipuna @155, thanks for the update. Sounds all too similar to some of the problems the USA has on the border with Mexico … and with American racism. It’s interesting to hear that more people are attempting to flee via crossing the border into Finland.
Last week at this time we were all fretting over a fresh (and rather fragrant) New York Times poll suggesting Donald Trump had pulled ahead of President Joe Biden in several key swing states. This Sunday, we have some actual election results to digest, and we’re all presumably feeling better. Or at least marginally less nauseated.
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, on the other hand, will be forced to explain how Republicans can possibly thread the needle on abortion when the current House Speaker Mike Johnson is promising a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a fetus in every womb. [LOL]
[…] Meanwhile, this should be the righteous response of any Democrat whose Republican opponent attempts to bullshit their way around their party’s decades-old, exhaustively documented fetus fetish: [video clip from movie, showing "Ain't Talking Your Way Out" moment.]
Republicans! Just admit this has always been about controlling women and cynically trolling for votes. At least that would be honest. But enough un-appetizers. On to the main course! Let’s dig in, shall we?
McDaniel appeared on two Sunday shows—NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” During these appearances, she tried to explain why voters should trust Republicans, who’ve spent years staking out the most draconian and extreme abortion positions they could possibly imagine on the abortion issue.
She cited Virginia Senate candidate Danny Diggs, who won his race as a forced-birther who would graciously allow abortions up to 15 weeks. McDaniel appears to think that position—the same one Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin staked his future on before discovering on Tuesday that he has no future—is the Republican secret sauce going forward. Meanwhile, she distorted the ever-living fuck out of Democrats’ positions on abortion. [video at the link]
MCDANIEL: “Why can’t the Democrats come to that? Why can’t they say, listen, we now know through science … a baby feels pain as its life is being taken at 15 weeks. Can’t you at least come here? Why are Democrats continuing to double down on 39 weeks, 38 weeks? What is an abortion they’re against?”
BASH: “Ronna, you know that there are, most Democrats don’t support abortions until the end …”
MCDANIEL: “But why don’t they say it? But don’t say that.”
BASH: “… and if something like that happens that far along, it means something is really wrong. And you know that.”
MCDANIEL: “Yes, and that’s life of the mother, which is an exception. But there are states, five or six, that have it till 39 weeks, so why don’t you say, you know, if we don’t support that, let’s come to a consensus position? And that’s what this candidate in Virginia did, and he did an excellent job and he won the race.”
First of all, it’s not at all clear that 15-week-old fetuses feel pain. But that’s neither here nor there, because the prevailing GOP position on abortion has always been that it’s murder, no matter when it’s performed. Remember that “moment of conception” shtick we’ve heard ad nauseam ever since Jerry Falwell started trying to convince us that, even if he didn’t have a soul, a 16-cell embryo most certainly did? So it’s now okay to murder “unborn babies” if they’re really small and don’t yet respond to noxious stimuli like three-martini lunches and Donald Trump’s voice?
Also, as Bash noted (if only she’d done so a bit more forcefully), Democrats are not clamoring for ninth-month abortions. No one is. If an abortion is performed that late in a pregnancy, it means something has gone horribly wrong.
But what else can McDaniel say? Her party has been extreme on this issue for decades, and now it’s attempting to do an about-face, because for some reason women prefer to make personal health care decisions in consultation with their doctors […]
Oh, and don’t think Republicans won’t pursue a federal abortion ban if they take control of Congress and the White House at some point in the future. In response to a direct question about a federal ban, McDaniel said, “I don’t think that you can just say it’s a states’ issue. I think we’re going to have to talk about this.”
Sorry about the quality of this video, but it’s important to grok what she’s actually proposing: [video at the link]
[…] Luckily, Democrats don’t have to rifle through the couch cushions to find examples of positive election outcomes. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner joined host Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” to discuss Tuesday’s elections, whose results elicited cheers among Democrats and thousand-mile stares into a dark, pitiless, yawning void among Republicans. We Democrats have a great story to tell going into 2024, and it’s high time we tell it.
Take it away, Sen. Warner. [video at the link]
BRENNAN: “The Democrats were celebrating what happened in Virginia this past week with your elections. You told the White House what happened in Virginia was the first election of the 2024 national election cycle. What do you mean by that?”
WARNER: “Well, I meant that while there was a lot of focus on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the Ohio abortion question, in Virginia, a purple state, where not only abortion, gun rights, voting rights were all on the ballot in terms of Democrats’ positions versus the Republicans, and I think it sets the stage well for the president.
And I think one of the things that has not gotten into the analysis—I mean, clearly abortion was a big issue—but I also think Virginia, very reliant on the federal government, on a lot of defense establishment, a lot of federal workers, I think the overall craziness that’s come out of the House of Representatives left a message that, even when the Republicans in Virginia would try to appear moderate, I think Virginians were afraid if they got total control of the state government, it would be the extremists, the MAGA crowd, that would drive the bus the same way that’s happening, unfortunately, at the national level.
I think that played into the Democrats’ taking back the House, keeping the Senate, and stopping some of that agenda.”
In other words, we’re in decent shape going into 2024, so everyone just chill. All we have to do is paint Republicans as extremists […] and the rest should work itself out naturally. (Note: That doesn’t mean we don’t have our work cut out for us, so let’s leave it all on the field, eh?)
Vulgarly racist See ‘n Say Donald Trump isn’t exactly a fount of original ideas. My mom, a lifelong Republican, once had a book called “The Wit & Humor of Richard Nixon.” You could open it to literally any page, plop your finger down on a random passage, and your eyes would start to age exponentially faster than the rest of your body before molderiing into dust and tumbling into your lap. Who knows what was in the book? I never got past the first “witticism.”
That said, Nixon was a regular Voltaire compared to Trump. Someday, someone may release a book called “The Wit & Humor of Donald Trump.” It would likely include bons mots like “And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”
Well, former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen recently discovered that there’s actually a method to Trump’s merde-ness. During an appearance on “The Katie Phang Show,” Cohen revealed that Trump puts about as much thought into his rants and insults as he does his “policies.” [video at the link]
PHANG: “So there’s an old, tired page in the Trump playbook, which is blame everybody else, which we just talked about. But there’s also this plug-and-play that can happen. And you recently discovered a handwritten note, written by Donald Trump, and we’re going to put it up on the screen for our viewers. It basically shows, Michael, that you can plug in somebody else’s name and that person ends up being the bad guy. So you can take Obama, which is on the note that we see on the screen right now. You can put Biden in, you can put Comey in. You can put, you know, anybody else’s name in, including Michael Cohen’s name, right? But it shows it’s the same repetitive attacks that are made by Donald Trump. So what does that tell you then, Michael, about the nature of the Donald Trump defense over and over and over again over the years.”
COHEN: “He’s the victim all the time. He’s always using somebody else as the reason why he’s in these troubles. Always the victim, it’s always somebody else’s fault. You know, I said when I was testifying before the House Oversight Committee—and I don’t want people to lose track, that was only one hearing out of seven that I gave testimony to—that Donald always plays the victim. It’s always somebody else’s fault, and he’s never to blame for anything. In fact, none of us have seen [him] over the four-year period when he was president take accountability for anything. This playbook is easy to understand if you look at Donald’s history. Plain and simple.“
[…] So, yeah, as you may have suspected, Trump’s scintillating put-downs are mostly just cut-and-paste jobs.
Trump attorney Alina Habba, whose law office is about 10 months away from being converted into a Spirit Halloween store, appeared on Fox News’ How the Hell Does Maria Bartiromo Still Have a Show? Show.
Trump’s goose is so thoroughly cooked in the New York civil fraud trial against his eponymous real estate company that AG Letitia James may start showing up to court every day with a gravy boat and a Fiat-load of cranberry compote.
In fact, he’s so screwed, even his lawyers can see it, so they’ve been poking at Judge Arthur Engoron and his law clerk with irrelevant nonsense in a clumsy attempt to force a mistrial. [video at the link]
BARTIROMO: “You have been complaining about the judge’s clerk. And you say that the judge is compromised and the clerk appears compromised. Tell me why.”
HABBA: “Well, I actually can’t tell you why because I’m gagged. I can tell you that, you know, we’ll be filing papers to address all of those issues, but the fact that, frankly, Maria, I can’t even discuss it with you and I’m his spokeswoman, I’m his attorney, says a lot about … the state of our judicial system right now.”
BARTIROMO: “I think I did see that there were donations that the clerk had given very supportive to the Democrats, that was one issue. Are you going to file to get a mistrial?”
HABBA: “Yes.”
BARTIROMO: “When will you do that?”
HABBA: “Soon. Very soon.”
Breaking news! Trump’s legal team, such as it is, is going to ask for a mistrial! Because the judge’s assistant keeps passing notes to him. Which is ostensibly her job. Which she’s entitled to do without getting violent threats from devil-may-care fascists. But never mind any of that. As we all know, Trump is very special, and so the usual laws and social graces don’t apply to him. Or so he thinks, anyway.
Contested river crossings have been considered some of the toughest operations in the military. Simply gaining control of the waterway to permit a safe crossing can often be a challenge. Once across the river, a small force will immediately isolated, surrounded by hostiles on three sides with their backs to the river.
Historically, major contested landing operations required one of two things:
– Massive superiority of forces (quantitative and/or qualitative)
– Air superiority
The former presumably requires little explanation. The latter can be a major equalizer by limiting the ability of the enemy to bring reinforcements or supplies against the landing site—helping the equalize the logistical challenges faced by the landing force.
A big part of the challenge for Ukraine is the fact that it doesn’t have either of the ingredients of a successful amphibious landing operation.
Despite lacking overwhelming force or air superiority, Ukraine has managed just that—a successful river crossing and the establishing of a beachhead […] How did they do that? And why has Ukraine held on to that beachhead and expanded it despite the arrival of Russian T-90M and T-72 tank tanks, mechanized infantry, and Russia’s precious few remaining airborne (VDV) forces?
It appears that Ukraine is leveraging two advantages it DOES have to simulate the effects of these two “traditional” factors—its hard-earned artillery advantage, and its drones. [map at the link]
The first, and arguably most important factor in Ukraine’s current Kherson operation is its hard-earned artillery advantage. Russian sources have warned of a growing Ukrainian advantage in the artillery war since early Summer, and Kherson has been no exception.
Russian military blogger/propagandist Romanov describes how Russian forces in Kherson have been struggling with Ukrainian artillery and counterbattery fire.
This is Kherson oblast. The situation is dire. [The Ukrainians] are striking with artillery, striking with FPV drones, right now shelling is x4 what it was before. We’re holding but we need to think well and strengthen the defense near the bridge.
For this we need proper [electronic warfare], support of artillery for quick destruction of enemy targets. There’s none of that here.
[Ukrainians] figure this out and now they’re launching FPV drones at us without punishment killing our best soldiers for nothing.
This Ukrainian artillery advantage has been built on three advantages:
– Superior counterbattery radars: radar units that track where artillery and mortars fire from based on their shells’ trajectories.
– Superior precision munitions: Russians have highly limited quantities of Krasnodar laser-guided shells. Ukraine has the Excalibur GPS shell, BONUS 155mm antitank guided munitions, GMLRS guided rockets, and more for counterbattery fire.
– Superior range: Russian artillery maxes out at around 25 kilometers. Ukrainian GPS guided shells and rockets can strike as far as 50-70 kilometers. Even unguided shells like Rocket Assisted Projective shells (RAP shells) or base bleed shells like the M864 DPICM cluster munition shells have a 30+ kilometer range, far outranging Russian artillery.
Each of these elements allow Ukrainian artillery to strike and destroy Russian artillery more frequently, with far lower corresponding risks of destruction. Currently, it is estimated that Russia loses three to four guns for every Ukrainian gun lost.
Why does this artillery advantage matter, particularly in Ukraine’s river crossing operations?
Because Ukraine can provide much of its necessary firepower from it’s own side of the river, without needing to worry about shifting huge quantities of supplies to the opposing bank.
Ukrainian artillery generally operates around 10 kilometers from the front lines, so operating a similar distance from the front, Ukraine can still strike deep behind the river. [map at the link]
With the river being about 1 kilometer wide in most places, Ukrainian artillery should be able to lay down barrages as far as 20-25 kilometers from the river using standard shells. If Ukraine continues to operate its artillery 10 kilometers behind the front lines, its beachhead can advance another 15 kilometers deeper into Russian lines before it needs to worry about crossing its guns south of the river, with all the attendant supplies challenges that will create.
Ukraine has dispatched the 35th Marine Brigade Krynky—some of Ukraine’s finest light infantry soldiers.
Equipped with relatively few tanks, the Marines are trained to fight on foot, rather than riding into battle on heavily armored infantry fighting vehicles.
This focus on small unit dismounted infantry tactics makes the Marines’s logistical needs extremely light, especially when it can leave its supporting artillery units on the opposite side of the river.
Supplying food, water, small arms ammunition, and a few mortar or anti-tank missile rounds to a marine unit would be far less demanding than trying to operate the fuel-hungry Bradleys or BMP1 infantry fighting vehicles that equip Ukraine’s strongest heavy mechanized infantry brigades—let alone fuel devouring monsters like the Abrams tank (which burns around 2 gallons per mile).
When encountering heavy Russian armor, the Marines will have to rely on shoulder-fired anti-tank guided munitions like the Javelin missile, or upon precision anti-tank munitions from the rear, such as the 155 BONUS anti-tank shell fired from a standard 155mm howitzer, which deploys two radar-homing anti-tank munitions in midair that blast into enemy tanks and armor.
The Ukrainian beachhead would struggle against a massive Russian armored counterattack, but thus far none has materialized. This may be due to Ukrainian strikes that have severely depleted Russian equipment reserves and stockpiles.
Specifically, Ukraine has targeted Russian air defenses, supply depots and troop concentrations, and electronic warfare units. As such, Russian supply lines are unprotected from Ukrainian drone strikes. Russian units along the Dnipro, such as the 205th Brigade, have been repeatedly complained of supply depletion since as early as August 2023.
Numerous videos of Ukrainian drones intercepting Russian supply trucks attempting to move fuel, food, or ammunition to the front lines have shown the effectiveness of Ukrainian drone interdiction. [video at the link]
Russian air defense is so deteriorated that Ukraine has begun launching attack helicopter raids, flying in at low altitude before lobbing a salvo of unguided rockets at a target and then pulling back.
These factors explain Russia’s ineffective response to the growing Ukrainian beachhead. A Nov. 6 Russian armored counterattack was quickly dispatched by Ukrainian drones, with at least three tanks destroyed. Ukraine lost no ground. [video at the link]
Next up for Ukraine: expand its beachhead to allow for the establishment of a pontoon crossing—most likely around Krynky and Korsunka, from which they can then push east toward Nova Kakhovka, and Melitopol beyond, south to Crimea, or west to clear space around the Antonivskyi Bridge for perhaps a second river crossing. [map at the link]
A pontoon bridge from L’vove to Korsunka would give Ukrainian supply trucks a series of small roads through which to drive supplies. I wrote a whole story on this potential river crossing point here. But these are small roads, thus Ukraine would need to liberate a place like Nova Kakhovka to truly unlock strong logistical routes for further advance. [map at the link]
With this dense network of highways, as many supply trucks and troops as Ukraine can bring across by pontoon bridges can be brought forward.
So a Ukrainian campaign would likely take the steps of
– Secure Korsunka or another pontoon bridge site.
– Keep the fighting within 10-15km of the riverbank so the artillery on the right bank can provide the bulk of the firepower.
– Leverage the supplies from this crossing to expand the bridgehead force, and advance to capture a larger logistical hub (Nova Kakhovka ideally, or Oleshky, which would allow Ukraine to bridge around the destroyed Antonivskyi Bridge).
– Use supplies from this logistical hub to bring a mechanized force to the left bank–begin advancing on Russian positions deeper in Kherson.
After that? Ukraine can look east toward Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol, or south to Kherson, forcing Russia to make some difficult decisions about how and where to deploy its forces.
3) Lifehacker retracted a similar post: “This may be unsafe. Instead of using a banana peel, follow the dermatologist-approved instructions in this video to remove the splinter with tweezers and a needle.” (Peels aren’t sterile.)
4) I’m not familiar with meat tenderizing. Certain fruit juice marinades have suitable enzymes to break down meat at the right temps. There’s protease in banana peels, but I fail to imagine how a solid peel would penetrate a hunk of meat.
“The start-up that built the facility, Heirloom Carbon Technologies, calls it the first commercial plant in the United States to use direct air capture, which involves vacuuming greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.” …
In 2018, when Donald Trump initiated his family-separation policy at the U.S./Mexico border, the then-president initially responded to the uproar by saying his tactics weren’t his fault. “We have to break up families,” the Republican said at a White House event. “The Democrats gave us that law. It’s a horrible thing. We have to break up families. … It’s terrible.”
Trump was, of course, brazenly lying. There was no such law requiring him to engage in such cruelty. He was right to describe his own policy as “horrible” and “terrible,” but the responsibilities rested entirely on his shoulders.
Five years later, the former president no longer bothers with the pretense. Indeed, in a Univision interview last week, he defended his efforts by insisting that he’d created a disincentive for desperate families. “We did family separation. A lot of people didn’t come,” Trump said. “It stopped people from coming by their hundreds of thousands because when they hear family separation, they say ‘Well, we better not go.’”
[…] Trump’s claims were dubious: As my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones explained, “[D]ata suggests the family separation policy did little to actually deter migrants from seeking entry into the United States.”
But as relevant as those details are, the former president’s rhetoric raised a related question: If he’s convinced himself that family separations were wise and effective in 2018, should Americans expect to see a sequel if Trump is given a second term?
[…] Trump’s post-election plans related to immigration are taking shape — and they’re breathtaking.
Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled. The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.
When it comes to the Republican frontrunner and immigration policy, I’m mindful about the importance of avoiding exaggeration. But if the Times’ article is accurate […] Trump envisions a governing model in which the government actually rounds up people and puts them in camps.
That’s not hyperbole; that’s the plan.
What’s more, if lawmakers balked at the idea of paying for such camps, Trump would reportedly “redirect money” away from the Pentagon, regardless of Congress’ wishes, just as he did in his first term in order to finance border barriers.
The same vision also includes another Muslim ban, the end of automatic citizenship for those born in the United States, and a campaign that would “scour the country for unauthorized immigrants” and direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to “carry out sweeping raids.”
This, of course, is the same Trump who also said last month that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
What’s more, the Times spoke to Stephen Miller, a top aide to the former president, who shed additional light on the post-2024 vision.
While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants, Mr. Miller said.
It was just last week when The Washington Post reported that Trump his allies were “drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office.” This element of the post-election plans is reportedly being overseen by Jeffrey Clark, who also raised the specter of invoking the Insurrection Act after Trump’s 2020 defeat as part of a scheme to keep the Republican in power by deploying the military against Americans.
“Mass detention camps, attempts to deny children born here citizenship, uprooting families with mass deportations — this is the horrifying reality that awaits the American people if Donald Trump is allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again,” President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign said in a written statement. “These extreme, racist, cruel policies dreamed up by him and his henchman Stephen Miller are meant to stoke fear […]
Health officials in Omaha, Nebraska, are wasting no time in testing over 500 infants, toddlers, and children who may have been exposed to an active tuberculosis case at a local daycare. The Douglas County Health Department (DCHD) declared a public health emergency Friday…
Look for more of this in the future as anti-vax has become a form of political expression.
As Veterans Day got underway, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign unveiled a new minute-long television ad, titled “Proud,” highlighting the Democrat having signed the PACT Act, which expanded benefits for veterans [and their families] exposed to toxic chemicals.
A few hours later, the president delivered remarks at the memorial amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery. “[…] Too often, the sacrifices go without thanks or without acknowledgment. We must remember only 1% of our society today protects 99% of us.”
Around the same time, his predecessor and likely 2024 rival issued a related message of his own. Of course, Donald Trump’s approach to Veterans’ Day was a little different. Here, for example, is the message Trump published to his social-media platform on Saturday afternoon:
“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic], we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.”
The former president echoed the message soon after at an event in New Hampshire. “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within,” Trump told an audience in Claremont, N.H.
[…] once in a while, Trump pushes the envelope in ways that warrant attention. Pouncing on every stray social-media message is unwise, but so too is looking the other way when the frontrunner for the GOP nomination crosses radical lines with broader implications.
Part of the problem with Trump’s Veterans Day message was the peek into a twisted perspective. The former president believes he’s identified the United States’ biggest problem: Americans he doesn’t like.
[…] Trump has gone from describing many Americans as “evil“ to condemning them as “vermin.”
Just as importantly, his choice of words has historical antecedents. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU historian, told The Washington Post that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
[…] as Trump removes all subtlety from his authoritarian vision, it’s now a new normal for the GOP’s most powerful figure.
As upsetting as the resulting image is, it’s best not to look away.
In a Veterans Day speech that was both shocking and sickening, Donald Trump used terminology straight from the Nazi playbook, describing his opponents as “vermin” and promising that he would “root out” this internal threat. His speech drew on explicitly antisemitic themes as he promised a return to the worst horrors of the past century. […]
Both Hitler and Mussolini used the term “vermin” to describe their opponents and to dehumanize Jews ahead of the Holocaust. Trump’s use of “vermin” came in a speech that not only included language from another antisemitic conspiracy theory but also featured Trump explicitly expressing his admiration for the “iron hand” of authoritarian rulers. […]
The Nazi state produced “documentaries” in which Jews were called the “vermin of mankind.” Nazi cartoonists depicted Jews as rats scurrying to escape from genocide.
In his speech, Trump also revived another theme used to support the rise of Nazism in saying that veterans had been “backstabbed and betrayed.” The “stabbed in the back” narrative not only was used to rally the military to Hitler’s cause but was also attributed to a conspiracy of international Jews.
Trump’s use of these narratives is not just an attempt to dehumanize his opponents. These are explicitly, overtly antisemitic themes at a time when events in the Middle East have generated a rising tide of violence and open expressions of hate that seemed impossible only weeks ago.
This is far from the first time that Trump has used terminology lifted directly from Hitler’s speeches and writing. In October, Trump said that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of the country,” a phrase that echoes Adolf Hitler’s statement in “Mein Kampf” in which he warns that contamination from other races was killing Germany through “blood poisoning.”
Trump is not being subtle. He’s not disguising his intent. He is using the same language that Hitler used in promising his followers a purge of all those they saw as unworthy. And he’s doing it while proclaiming that Hungary has no crime because “very tough strong guy” Viktor Orbán “didn’t allow millions of people to invade his country” like other European leaders, and China has no drug problem because Chinese President Xi Jinping “controls 1.4 billion people with an iron hand.”
So how did the “paper of record” report on all this? This is how The New York Times headlined this event. [image of NYT headline: Trump Takes Veterans Day Speech in a Very Different Direction.]
After an uproar, the Times has changed that headline to “In Veterans Day Speech, Trump Promises to ‘Root Out’ the Left,” still avoiding using the term Trump used to describe opponents and still refusing to make the obvious comparison. A New York Times reader would have to search to find the article since it didn’t come close to the front page on either Sunday or Monday. Even then, they would find no notice that Trump’s language came with an ugly and terrifying historical context.
Compare this with the headlines from The Washington Post: [Image of headline: Trump calls political enemies ‘vermin,’ echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini.]
This comes right after the Times turned coverage of Trump’s fraud trial over to a fashion writer who did get a front-page article in which she described the Trumps’ color palette and called Ivanka Trump “the picture of gentle, pulled-together professionalism and good will.”
It’s reassuring to know that no matter how many times The New York Times gets everything wrong about the rise of fascism, at least they’ll have exquisite articles describing the uniforms.
On November 21, 1922, the New York Times published its very first article about Adolf Hitler. It’s an incredible read — especially its assertion that “Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so violent or genuine as it sounded.” This attitude was, apparently, widespread among Germans at the time; many of them saw Hitler’s anti-Semitism as a ploy for votes among the German masses.
Times correspondent Cyril Brown spends most of the piece documenting the factors behind Hitler’s early rise in Bavaria, Germany, including his oratorical skills. For example: “He exerts an uncanny control over audiences, possessing the remarkable ability to not only rouse his hearers to a fighting pitch of fury, but at will turn right around and reduce the same audience to docile coolness.”
But the really extraordinary part of the article is the three paragraphs on anti-Semitism. Brown acknowledges Hitler’s vicious anti-Semitism as the core of Hitler’s appeal — and notes the terrified Jewish community was fleeing from him — but goes on to dismiss it as a play to satiate the rubes.
He is credibly credited with being actuated by lofty, unselfish patriotism. He probably does not know himself just what he wants to accomplish. The keynote of his propaganda in speaking and writing is violent anti-Semitism. His followers are nicknamed the “Hakenkreuzler.” So violent are Hitler’s fulminations against the Jews that a number of prominent Jewish citizens are reported to have sought safe asylums in the Bavarian highlands, easily reached by fast motor cars, whence they could hurry their women and children when forewarned of an anti-Semitic St. Bartholomew’s night.
But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.
A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them.”
Now, Brown’s sources in all likelihood did tell him that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was for show. That was a popular opinion during Nazism’s early days. But that speaks to how unprepared polite German society was for a movement as sincerely, radically violent as Hitler’s to take power.
One other thing: If “violent anti-Semitism” was such a winning issue for Hitler, what does that tell us about the state of public opinion in Bavaria in 1922?
The Ukraine’s SBU Security Service and the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) have compiled evidence of state treason by a sitting MP Oleksandr Dubinsky, who is accused of involvement in information subversion favoring Russia, according to NV’s sources within law enforcement.
The investigation reveals that Dubinsky used the code name “Buratino” and was part of a criminal organization formed by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU), the SBU said…
Donald Trump Junior is back on the witness stand today.
[…] The testimony of Trump’s eldest son is something of a surprise. After Trump Jr. testified during the state’s prosecution of the case, Trump’s defense attorneys chose not to cross-examine. When witnesses were announced last week, Trump’s team insisted that a former accountant for the Trump Organization would be going first.
On Thursday, lead attorney Chris Kise announced a change in the defense approach, placing Trump Jr. back on the stand as the first defense witness. […]
The biggest difference between the tour that Junior gave to Trump properties this morning and the one that would be given to potential investors or lenders: Numbers. Everything was highly subjective and laden with adjectives that had no units. Everything was splendiferously awesome and uniquely wonderful. But most of the morning was spent avoiding anything that looked like valuing property — which is the core issue of the case.
The only place where the talk did veer into providing values, at 40 Wall Street, those numbers were wrong.
[…] Summing up the morning: Donald Trump Jr has been slowly, painfully, moving through every single project that Donald Trump or the Trump Organization was involved with going back to its inception. That included a slide show telling the story of Don Jr.’s great-grandfather, then visiting properties one at a time. At every stop, they have been showing slides of high-end apartments, big atriums, and rooftop bars. Junior has used the phrase “one of the finest” followed by hotel, golf course, office tower, followed by “anywhere in the world” dozens of times. [sickening, also probably very pleasing for Trump Senior to watch … we assume he is watching]
The whole thing is clearly a sales pitch put together, not for Judge Engoron, but for potential investors. Junior is doing it because he has just as clearly done it before. He knows how to wax enthusiastic over a fountain or go on for minutes about the carpets. All of it is “fabulous,” and “spectacular,” and very definitely “world-class.” [more sick-making swill]
It’s also worthless. Because everything that the defense has been showing is completely subjective statements unsupported by any independent evidence.
The only potential outcome of the morning is improving the case for the state. Because at multiple points the sales pitch did what sales pitches do—exaggerate to the extent of outright lying. For example, today’s testimony added nine floors to 40 Wall Street and finished with a $1.3B valuation for Doral that not only assumes tearing up a golf course to plant hundreds of condos, but also requires that the county rezone the area to permit the construction. The Doral brochure submitted into evidence by the defense is a perfect example of what the state alleges: Trump has repeatedly replaced the actual values of his property with exaggerated claims of potential value.
[…] [posted by Lisa Rubin]
And now Trump is discussing one of their first big licensing and hotel management deals for the Trump International Hotel in Waikiki, which was built by a developer from LA familiar with the Hawaiian market.
This month, it was announced that the hotel will no longer be linked with the Trump name. It’s becoming a Hilton.
[…] Junior was chatting up a sketch artist earlier, trying to get her to play up his biceps. I don’t think this was what he had in mind. [Image of Donald Junior as Alfred E. Neumann]
Now it’s on to another golf course. It’s easy to understand why the loudest sound the the courtroom today could be snoring.
This is like being trapped in a presentation with a time-share salesman who just can’t stop talking about what a fool you’d be to not buy in.
[…] The New York Times notes that reporters aren’t bothering to take notes as Junior follows his script.
During the first round of Trump testimony, frequently the only sound in the courtroom was the witness talking and the tapping as dozens of typing reporters tried to keep up with every word on their laptops. That’s not what’s happening here today, as Donald Trump Jr. continues to describe pictures of Trump properties. The reporters, understanding the lack of substance in the testimony, are being far gentler on their keyboards.
The other part of every one of these stories is Junior explaining how awful each of these properties was before being touched by the healing hand of Trump. […] Who would ever have thought that condos on the 500 block of Park Avenue would turn out to be valuable? Trump is so insightful.
You can punch me now because I didn’t even realize that we were moving through Trump projects chronologically. Next stop, 2004. Still time to catch that Friends finale if you jump off here.
The testimony continues to be the sales brochure for Trump properties. Not a single change in tone or delivery so far.
Here’s Trump World Tower. How sleek! Here’s Doral, the perfect place for “one of the finest weddings in …” You know the rest.
[…] If you took away “one of the finest” and “anywhere in the world” from his testimony, the whole thing would fit on a postcard.
Maryanne Trump Barry, the older sister of Donald Trump, has been found dead in her East Side apartment. Barry was 86. No cause of death has been announced.
[…] Again, if this was being broadcast, or there was a jury to be swayed, parading all these gold fixtures and faux-French furniture might make sense. But they’re only showing a slideshow to the guy who already determined that they had lied about the worth of these buildings.
[…] The conversation has finally moved on from the Mar-a-Lago Praise Hour and is now skipping across several other projects including the Wollman ice rink, which Trump doesn’t own and no longer manages.
That’s because New York City canceled its management contract with Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection. This fact did not make today’s testimony.
More than ten minutes were devoted to just Donald Trump Jr. singing unbroken praise of Mar-a-Lago. The atrium “you need to see it to fully appreciate how spectacular it is.” And on. And on.
One note: Junior claims that Trump spent $15 million building a new ballroom. The construction of the ballroom was a violation of Trump’s agreement with the National Historic Trust. He didn’t mention that part.
[…] The court is now watching slides in which a Trump project that did not happen is described as “the project by which all future high-end, luxury residential buildings would have been judged.” It’s not just that the actual Trump Organization is great, it’s even greater in Trump’s imagination. Take that, reality.
[…] State attorney Colleen Faherty also takes note that Junior’s memory seems much better today than when he was testifying for the prosecution.
[…] Still going on about licensing rather than development. Which has nothing to do with any of the issues in the case and doesn’t relate to any of the properties the state brought up when conducting its questioning. It’s hard to know if this has any purpose other than filling the air with happy-happy Trump-so-good talk, or whether it’s leading to something.
Donald Trump Jr. is giving a long speech he has clearly given many times. He’s going on and on about the value of the “Trump brand” and talking about how other developers were in awe of Trump “because of the boundaries he was able to push.”
According to Junior, those other successful developers flocked to Trump to learn from him and all wanted to work with him. It would be interesting to get some examples—especially of what “boundaries” Trump was pushing.
It’s also worth remembering that the value of that “Trump brand” was explicitly excluded from the statements of financial condition that he had to provide to banks ahead of loans.
[…] Now they’ve moved to something that does make sense: Trying to clear out a zone that explains how Trump was not around post-2017, leaving Junior and Eric to run the works.
Everything so far seems to be explaining how Junior had so impressed Trump that he was allowed to do it all after Trump left. It’s a story that seems to have more than a hint of a big orange bus running over Junior in it, but he’s telling it himself. […]
There are reports that people in the courtroom are struggling to stifle laughter.
No mention was made of Trump’s sister having died.
Afternoon update:
This time, rather than a sales brochure, photographs, or a slide show, Trump’s legal team has a promotional video showing the spectacularness of Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx.
[…] In one sentence, Junior manages to say that it’s both “a similar coastal golf course” to Trump’s Scottish properties and “very unique.”
Not just unique. Very unique. Go get ‘em, Grammar Folk.
This speech is so familiar to Junior that Engoron has asked him to slow down twice in the last five minutes. It’s hard to pace yourself when pouring out something memorized and recited a hundred times before.
Back across the pond to Turnberry. A property that was, you guessed it, decrepit and falling apart until Trump arrived to save the day. […]
OMG, it is just a con job being performed in Court.
Members of former Trump aide Michael Flynn’s family pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in leftover money from a legal defense fund that was set up for the retired general as he faced a federal investigation over the 2016 election, Flynn’s sister testified in a defamation case involving CNN.
Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, also sat for a sworn deposition in the case, in which his wife and sister-in-law are accusing CNN of defaming them by associating them with the QAnon conspiracy theory, newly filed documents show. Flynn’s deposition is sealed.
In a filing made public Thursday, CNN asked a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the suit before going to trial. The motion argues the family was connected to QAnon, “exploited” Michael Flynn’s ties to the movement, and fundraised off of its supporters…
The number of Trump Hotels continues to dwindle, with the chain’s Hawaii resort the latest to ditch the tarnished name for a less politicized brand.
The Trump International Hotel Waikiki is joining Hilton and will no longer have the former president’s name attached to it. In February 2024, the 38-floor hotel will be called the Wākea Waikiki Beach, as part of the Hilton LXR collection of high-end resorts.
The rebranding comes after the Trump Organization announced that it has reached a “mutual agreement for a significant buyout of the hotel management and license agreement” with Irongate, the hotel’s owner…
The main hospital serving Gaza is no longer functioning after three days without power, the World Health Organization said. Several newborns have died and dozens more are at risk at the Al-Shifa hospital, health officials and doctors said.
NBC News:
The U.S. military struck sites in Syria used by Iran-affiliated groups, the latest response to continued attacks against American personnel in the region. Fears of escalation have also risen on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon after days of intense exchanges.
The Supreme Court on Monday announced it has adopted what it called a new code of conduct following allegations of ethics lapses. The court issued a 14-page document that included five canons of conduct in addition to lengthy commentary.
South Korean automaker Hyundai has joined Honda and Toyota in raising factory worker wages after the United Auto Workers union reached new contract agreements with Detroit automakers. Hyundai said Monday it will raise factory worker pay 25% by 2028, matching the general wage increase won by the UAW during that period.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office said Monday that former President Donald Trump wants a ‘carnival atmosphere’ at his federal election interference trial, which is set to get underway in the nation’s capital in March.
NBC News:
Former President Donald Trump warned on Monday that special counsel Jack Smith and other Justice Department officials will wind up in a mental institution if he is re-elected as president next year.
Maryanne Trump Barry, former President Donald Trump’s older sister and a retired federal judge, has died, two sources familiar said. She was 86. Barry had served as a federal appellate judge in Philadelphia and retired in 2019, ending a civil misconduct inquiry that was launched after reporting by The New York Times alleged the then-president and his siblings evaded inheritance taxes.
Republican culture warriors keep getting more extreme in the vast swath of people and things they want to punish and drive out of public life or boycott, but … the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? This feels like a reach—even by recent standards. [image of National Review coverage of petition condemning “non-binary and transgender extravaganza,” the Macy’s Parade.]
Those more than 16,000 petition signatures were gathered by a group called One Million Moms, which makes 16,000 sound particularly underwhelming. Like, if there are a million of them, they should be able to collect at least 100,000 signatures without breaking a sweat, right?
And that “non-binary and transgender extravaganza”? They have two entire examples of nonbinary performers in the parade: Justin David Sullivan of “&Juliet” and Alex Newell of “Shucked,” which are current Broadway musicals. Two years ago, pop singer Kim Petras performed, “becoming the first transgender celebrity to perform during this once family-friendly holiday tradition,” according to the petition. Yes, a woman standing on a float doing a poor job of lip-syncing a generic pop song single-handedly ended the Thanksgiving parade’s family-friendly status not only the year the performance happened, but eternally. And this year, those two nonbinary Broadway performers somehow turn the parade into a “non-binary and transgender extravaganza.”
The parade will include “16 featured character balloons, 26 fantastic floats, 32 heritage and novelty balloons, more than 700 clowns, 12 marching bands and nine performance groups.” Sullivan and Newell will be part of two of the five Broadway productions included. Oh, but there’s more:
Throughout the streets of New York City and on-board Macy’s signature floating stages will be exhilarating performances from artists including Bell Biv DeVoe; Brandy; Chicago; En Vogue; ENHYPEN; David Foster and Katharine McPhee; Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors; Jessie James Decker; Ashley Park with the cast and Muppets of Sesame Street®; Pentatonix; Paul Russell; Amanda Shaw and Alex Smith; and Manuel Turizo. U.S. Olympic Silver Medalist Jordan Chiles (Gymnastics), U.S. Paralympian Ezra Frech (Track and Field), U.S. Paralympic Gold Medalist Jessica Long (Swimming) and Miss America 2023 Grace Stanke will also join the festivities.
Throw two nonbinary people into that extremely large mix, though, and apparently it’s a trans extravaganza. How closely would you have to be watching to even pick those performers out of the onslaught of performances?
But of course the right-wing rage isn’t about their actual performances. It’s about the fact that trans and nonbinary people are able to succeed in our culture. That they are allowed to be visible on the biggest platforms. That even in the face of ongoing discrimination, some trans and nonbinary people’s talent breaks through to Broadway or the Billboard charts or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That is at the core of the rage that led One Million Moms to come up with a petition and 16,000 people to sign it. To most people, though, that kind of hatred is ugly and alienating.
First Ukraine crossed the Dnipro River and established a foothold on the left bank just across from Kherson. Then they did it again further north. Then they did it again further north. Then they did it again further north. That last one, near Krynky, has expanded into the largest bridgehead on the east side of the river, with Ukraine now apparently in control of Krynky and pushing north, south, and east.
According to Russian sources, Ukraine continues to bring armor and artillery across the river at Krynky. They’ve established air defenses and positioned electronic warfare units, limiting the effectiveness of Russian drones and missiles. And Russian forces in the area are already making complaints about supplies, ammunition, and communications, even though Ukraine hasn’t yet disrupted major supply routes.
And after several weeks of moving the beachhead northward, Ukraine’s latest major move is south of the city of Kherson, in an area where the kilometer-wide Dnipro splits into a series of smaller channels. They’ve pushed Russia out of areas on the islands, moved forces by barge across those islands to the left bank, and extended the area of their control down to Hola Prystan on the south.
If Ukraine decides to come across the river in serious force, its options are expanding. Here’s how the always conservative open source intelligence analysts at Deep State show it as of Monday. [map at the link]
More than 60 kilometers of riverfront are now fully under Ukrainian control. They may not have built a pontoon bridge at this point, but they’re going to end up with plenty of options.
Run parallel to one of the existing bridges north of Oleshky? They could do that. Or they could cross the Dnipro at its narrow point in the bend between Krynky and Korsunka. Or they might even choose to bridge the gap to the island village of Bilohrudove and drive forces to a position where the crossing to Hola Prystan is less than 200 meters.
Here’s the south Bilohrudove area in close-up using a map from open-source intelligence analyst Andrew Perpetua. [map at the link]
Ukraine has moved through the town of Bilohrudove and consolidated control over the east end of the island. Other Ukrainian sources claim that Ukraine has advanced closer to the south bank of the island where Bilohrudove is located and taken control of all areas on the large Potemkin Island to the northwest (that’s literally the name of the island, not a metaphor). Ukraine also has forces on the left bank just north of Hola Prystan, but claims that Ukrainian forces have moved into the town itself are not confirmed, and the town itself is protected by the Konka River, which looks to be around 166 meters wide (~545 feet).
If Ukrainian forces move into Hola Prystan, not only would they liberate a town with a pre-war population of over 13,000, they would also threaten Russia’s control over the P57 highway. This would make it more difficult for Russia to supply locations like Oleshky while providing an all-season route for Ukrainian forces. [map at the link]
At the other end of this growing front, fighting continues near Krynky. With Russia shelling the center of town, there are some reports that Ukraine now controls all of Krynky, but there is no confirmation.
Several big targets remain in this area. If Ukraine moves east, it threatens the important T2206 highway. If it can move north to Korsunka, it will have control over the area where the Dnipro is narrowest, and where past exercises have seen Ukrainian forces practice river crossings.
Push south, and it can make Russian forces centered near Oleshky even more concerned—especially when those forces are already dealing with Ukrainian troops building up to their west and south.
Ukraine has greatly expanded the width of its bridgehead across the Dnipro, giving it a lot of options for what happens next, assuming it’s not too tied up in the Zaporizhzhia front or fending off Russian advances around Avdiivka.
But it sure seems like Ukraine is serious in Dnipro. Meaning the next step isn’t a bridgehead: It’s a bridge.
——————————-
At Avdiivka, Russian forces have gained at least partial control over the eastern edge of Stepove and have advanced very near the industrial area on the northwest of Avdiivka in two areas. [map at the link]
Russian tactics here continue to be the same: throw a lot of bodies at the situation, accept the losses, and eke out minimal gains. The reported number of Russian troops lost on Monday dropped to “only” 800 after two days where over 1,100 were reported. This seems to represent a reduction in attacks rather than a fall-off in Ukrainian defenses.
Ukrainian general staff reported only eight attempted attacks at Avdiivka on Monday. That compares with 15 attacks the previous day.
However, it’s far too early to read anything into that. Russia has twice slowed its attacks around Avdiivka in the past three weeks so that it could mass additional forces for a large push. Considering the proximity of Russian forces at Stepove and the industrial area, such a surge in the next few days would not be surprising.
——————————
Russia took out its frustrations at Ukrainian advances along the Dnipro the traditional Russian way—lobbing shells and missiles into civilian areas. [Tweet and video at the link, showing Russian shelling of a hospital in Kherson.]
———————————
There are confusing messages about Russia “regrouping forces” on the left bank of the Dnipro River. That’s the same language Russia used when retreating from Kherson across the river a year ago. [LOL]
This message supposedly came from the Russian Ministry of Defense. Except it didn’t. However, it did appear on two state media outlets: TASS and RIA. [Tweet and images of messages]
The first message was followed by a second saying that the movement had been canceled. This has led to dozens of theories about whether or not the announcement was real and what it means if it was.
Honestly, my first impression is that this is an accidental repeat of messages from a year ago, announcing the withdrawal of forces from the right bank. Because if Russia moved its troops away from the Dnipro … where would they go that would keep Ukraine from either moving south toward Crimea, or east to hit the Zaporizhzhia front in the flank? There’s a direct road from Nova Kakhovka to Melitopol. It seems very unlikely Russia would move away from that road.
Russian forces don’t have a lot of choice but to fight it out along the Dnipro … unless they’re repositioning into Russia. [LOL]
[…] Jason Stanley, a professor at Yale University and the author of “How Fascism Works,” [said] I mean, this is straight—it doesn’t echo ‘Mein Kampf.’ This is, you know, textbook ‘Mein Kampf.’”
The professor broke down the parallels further:
Except for the explicit mentioning of Jews as behind the left, any antisemite will hear this vocabulary as directed against Jews. But Hitler himself was an antisemite. He took it that Jews were behind the international left—Marxism, communism. But his real target was democracy. And anyone who was pro-democracy—a labor union, trade unionists—he labeled as Marxists.
So this overbroad use of “Marxist” to target basically any political opponent, this is familiar from fascism and the way you attack democracy. And of course, labeling your political opponents “vermin,” yeah, I mean, the Nazis targeted their political opponents. They targeted [them] for incarceration and concentration camps. They targeted suspected communists, socialists, as internal enemies. So this is right out of ‘Mein Kampf.’
[video at the link]
StevoRsays
@149. Reginald Selkirk : “Editor of scientific journal says fake study linking whale deaths to wind farms is ‘deliberate misinformation”
MediaWatch on Aussie ABC covered that last night too :
Republicans need to remove the term “pro-life” from their vocabularies because in the ranks of conservatism, there ain’t no such thing. A new CNN story highlights that yet again, as families grapple with the possible loss of federal food assistance benefits, House Republicans are demanding budget cuts, and whenever a Republican says “budget cuts,” you can tack on “targeting children and the poor” and you’ll be right nine times out of 10.
This particular move is the sort of rote dickishness that makes House Republicans tick. Now that pandemic emergency aid programs have largely been wound down, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—otherwise known as WIC—is seeing a sharp spike in enrollments. There have been roughly 600,000 new enrollments in the past few months, which spurred the Biden administration to request an additional $1.4 billion for the program.
Enter House Republicans and new Speaker Mike Johnson, who are of the opinion that the government shouldn’t be helping to feed babies. […]
House Republicans, who are intent on slashing spending, have proposed reducing WIC funding to $5.5 billion, which would be $185 million less than last year’s level and $800 million less than the Senate’s appropriations bill would provide.
The House would also cut back the program’s enhanced fruits and vegetables benefit, which was initially authorized by the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and then renewed with bipartisan support in subsequent appropriations bills. Enrollees would receive between $11 and $15 a month to purchase fresh produce in fiscal year 2024, down from $25 to $49.
[…] There’s no question that enrollment in the program is spiking. Republicans have also been positively frothy about inflation, which has noticeably bumped up food costs for American families. But the argument here is that children in food-insecure households don’t deserve $25 to $49 a month in fresh produce; those families can surely make do with $11 to $15 a month.
You get one trip to the produce aisle per month, new moms. Enjoy.
What makes cuts like these so asinine is that—just like the House Republican demands to defund the IRS in order to limit the agency’s ability to collect taxes from wealthy cheats—cuts to food assistance, housing assistance, and similar programs cost Americans more in the long run than providing the aid to begin with. Boosting child nutrition means those children will have fewer health problems in the long term; fewer health problems means fewer medical bills later on. Unless the nation intends to let its sick children die in ditches—which, admittedly, is where conservatism has long been headed—then handing over $25 a month for some actual, nonprocessed food is a damn fine investment.
But no. No, that’s not the Speaker Mike Johnson way. That’s not the conservative way; if it were up to House Republicans, we’d erase all the food aid completely, then once a year or so, every politician would tweet a thoughts and prayers toward their victims before packing up for a long break.
A wildfire burning in a remote Hawaii rainforest is underscoring a new reality for the normally lush island state […]
No one was injured and no homes burned in the latest fire, which scorched mountain ridges on Oahu, but the flames wiped out irreplaceable native forestland that’s home to nearly two dozen fragile species. And overall, the ingredients are the same as they were in Maui’s historic town of Lahaina: severe drought fueled by climate change is creating fire in Hawaii where it has almost never been before.
[…] The fact that this fire was on Oahu’s wetter, windward side is a “red flag to all of us that there is change afoot,” said Sam ‘Ohu Gon III, senior scientist and cultural adviser at The Nature Conservancy in Hawaii.
The fire mostly burned inside the Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to 22 species listed as endangered or threatened by the U.S. government. They include iiwi and elepaio birds, a tree snail called pupu kani oe and the Hawaiian hoary bat, also known as opeapea. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, does not know yet what plants or wildlife may have been damaged or harmed by the fire, spokesperson Kristen Oleyte-Velasco said.
The fire incinerated 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers) since first being spotted on Oct. 30 and was 90% contained as of Friday. Officials were investigating the cause of the blaze roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Honolulu. […]
The House shelved a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday, punting on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) effort to boot the Biden administration official from his post for his handling of the situation at the border.
Eight Republicans joined Democrats in supporting a motion to refer the impeachment resolution to the Homeland Security Committee, blocking it from coming to the floor for a vote and shielding lawmakers from having to weigh in on the matter directly. The final vote was 209-201.
[…] Greene’s articles differ from previous attempts in their rhetoric: She claims “approximately 10,000,000 illegal border crosser who have invaded our country at our border,” including 1.8 million “gotaways” who are “roaming the interior of the United States.”
Though Greene’s language aligns with base Republican sentiment, some GOP members have urged caution, saying impeachment requires them to build a more solid case.
[…] By bouncing the bill back to committee, Republicans avoided a vote essentially absolving a top Biden administration bogeyman.
But if they want to keep impeachment alive, they’ll also have to negotiate language amenable both to Greene and more centrist Republicans who would’ve sunk her articles. […]
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered that nearly all of the universe’s earliest galaxies were filled with dazzling gas clouds that blazed brighter than the emerging stars within them — and it could help solve a mystery that threatens to break cosmology. …(Snip)..
..”Our paper proves that interactions with the neighboring galaxies are responsible for the unusual brightness of early galaxies,” lead author Anshu Gupta, an astrophysicist at Curtin University in Australia, told Live Science in an email. “The explosion of star formation triggered by the interactions could also explain the more massive nature of early galaxies.”
A structural fire that ravaged a major Los Angeles freeway was likely caused by arson, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) confirmed Monday.
Fire investigators “made a preliminary determination — there was malice intent,” Newsom said at a press conference Monday afternoon, broadcast from the incident site.
“This fire occurred within the fence line of the facility you see behind me,” the governor continued, stressing that “it was arson, and that it was done and set intentionally.”
“That determination of who is responsible is an investigation that is ongoing,” Newsom said, with construction vehicles beeping in the background. […]
This critical artery has an average daily traffic volume of 287,500 vehicles, according to an emergency proclamation issued by Newsom on Saturday.
[…] The governor also stressed that he and his colleagues are looking into the corpus of the lessee of the site, Apex Development Inc.
The state signed an unlawful detainer with Apex in September and is heading to court in early 2024, Newsom said, noting that the company includes “bad actors.”
“They stopped paying their rent, they’re out of compliance,” he added. “They have been subleasing this site to at least five, maybe as many as six, tenants, without authorization.”
[…] Newsom stressed that the 24-7 investigation and repair work will proceed rain or shine. […]
StevoRsays
University of Copenhagen study says Greenland’s glaciers melting at five times previous rates over the last 20 years By Brianna Morris-Grant and wires
…A study of a thousand glaciers in the area showed the rate of melting has entered a new phase over the last two decades, Anders Anker Bjørk, assistant professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen, told Reuters.
“There is a very clear correlation between the temperature we experience on the planet and the changes we observe in how rapidly the glaciers are melting,” Dr Bjørk said.
The glaciers on average decrease by 25 metres annually, compared with 5-6 metres two decades ago.
Scientists reached their conclusion after studying the development of the glaciers over 130 years through satellite imagery and 200,000 old photos. The University of Copenhagen said the study was the most comprehensive monitoring of Greenland’s glaciers to date.
A former attorney for Donald Trump has told Georgia prosecutors that a top presidential aide said to her in December 2020 that “the boss” did not plan to leave the White House “under any circumstances,” according to a video recording obtained by The Washington Post.
Jenna Ellis, a one-time Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for her testimony in the Fulton County, Ga., case, told prosecutors in the video that Dan Scavino, Trump’s deputy chief of staff at the time, was unfazed by her view that the president was running out of options to challenge Joe Biden’s victory. [video at the link]
“And he said to me, you know, in a kind of excited tone, ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave,’” Ellis said in the video.
The description comes from a series of recordings obtained by The Post of the statements of the four defendants who have accepted plea deals in the Georgia case — recordings they were required to make under the terms of their deals and intended to lay out what they know that could be used against the other defendants in the case.
[…] Chesebro disclosed in his recorded statement that at a previously unreported White House meeting, he briefed Trump on election challenges in Arizona and summarized a memo in which he offered advice on assembling alternate slates of electors in key battlegrounds to cast ballots for Trump despite Biden’s victories in those states.
Chesebro’s recollection would bolster evidence that Trump was personally involved in the elector scheme.
[…] Whether the Scavino story about not leaving the White House will be admissible in court is likely to become a topic of debate between Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors, given that it could be deemed hearsay.
Other new details revealed in the recordings include:
– Powell said that if Trump had appointed her special counsel to investigate election irregularities, as she had urged him to do in that Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting, she would have sought to seize election equipment and would have used the military to do so if necessary.
– Chesebro also disclosed for the first time that he played a role transporting documents signed by Wisconsin Trump electors to Capitol Hill as part of a Trump campaign plan to present Vice President Pence with competing slates of electors.
– Powell said she still believes “machine fraud” tainted the 2020 presidential election. “I hate to use one of Rudy’s phrases, but it doesn’t pass the prosecutor smell test,” she said.
– Powell described a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House that included Giuliani and Meadows during which Giuliani called her “every name in the book” — including “b—-.”
– Hall claimed that his role in the alleged breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County was simply as a “political tourist,” and that he spent $10,000 of his own money to fly there on Jan. 7, 2021, purely “for s—- and giggles.” But he also complained that no one reimbursed him for the plane, explaining, “Pardon my French, but I’ve been f—ed through this whole thing.”
– Hall also revealed a previously undisclosed role in alleged harassment of Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker who has publicly described having to go into hiding after Giuliani and others falsely accused her of counting phony ballots. Hall said Cheeley approached him to help locate Freeman, and he surmised that he was tapped because of his bail bondsman skills tracking people down.
– Though she pleaded guilty in the case, Powell continued to maintain her lack of involvement in the Coffee County incident. She said she opposed the publication of the computer data because she understood the sensitivity of the material.
The statements appear to have been recorded in a courthouse conference room, with the defendants seated at the head of a table and their attorneys and the prosecution gathered around them. […]
Here’s what we know:
– Israeli forces have reached the gates of Al-Shifa Hospital, where, without electricity or fuel, patients are dying and corpses are decomposing, according to medical staff and health officials.
– Biden calls for ‘less intrusive action’ around Gaza’s battered hospitals as Israeli forces close in.
– Al-Shifa Hospital ‘is in the circle of death,’ Gaza’s health ministry says.
– As fighting nears, many people are still sheltering on Al-Shifa hospital’s grounds, satellite images show.
– Fighting disrupts an evacuation effort at Al-Quds Hospital.
– State Department employees have sent Blinken at least three ‘dissent’ cables urging a cease-fire in Gaza.
– The U.N. says that it will run out of fuel in Gaza as soon as Tuesday, preventing it from distributing humanitarian aid.
Iran’s proxies escalate attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
The director of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has warned that all of its aid operations in Gaza will soon stop because of a lack of fuel in Gaza.
Efforts by health workers to evacuate some of Gaza’s biggest hospitals appear to be failing Monday despite promises from Israeli forces to allow those wounded and sick to go south, according to doctors.
And the director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has warned that all of its aid operations in Gaza will soon “grind to a halt” because of the lack of fuel in the besieged enclave.
Despite promises of an evacuation effort from Israeli forces on Sunday, doctors at Al-Shifa hospital said they were not aware of anyone leaving the facility.
Dr. Nidal Abu Hadrus, a neurosurgeon at Al-Shifa, told NBC News that it was impossible for people to leave with the sounds of bombing and shooting outside. The IDF has said there have been “intense battles” around the facility.
“It is not safe to move out. It is not safe to stay. We don’t know what to do,” he said. “Please help us.” He said staff at the hospital had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to help facilitate evacuations from the hospital.
Alyona Synenko, a spokesperson for the ICRC, said discussions were underway, but she said she could not provide specific details on the evacuation efforts.
“Evacuating a hospital is an extremely risky and extremely complex enterprise,” she said. “We can’t just, you know, go and like, through the bullets, through the fighting and pick up people in life support and move them.”
“We have to be realistic about what … is possible to achieve under the current conditions,” she said, saying it was a “difficult and frustrating” situation. “It’s heartbreaking to be receiving those calls and not being able to respond to them,” she said.
Abu Hadrus said he worries about what will happen if help doesn’t come soon. “After one or two days more, I’m not sure that we will be able to move out of the hospital, because I’m not sure who will remain alive,” he said. […]
Second, I must agree with @196 Akira MacKenzie: In other words, Biden does NOTHING. (except for getting tons of weapons to the Israeli gov’t to perpetuate the slaughter of civilians)
Thanks, @198 Lynna, OM. That comic echoes our desire to be ‘awakened’ and not part of the nodding, drooling ignorant sheople around us. The motto of one of our organizations reflects that: ‘Toward Enlightenment, through Communication, by Means of the Arts and Sciences’.
There is, somehow, a 150-year-old federal law still on the books that could ban abortion nationwide, and Congress needs to move to repeal it immediately. While the zombie law, the Comstock Act of 1873, hasn’t been enforced since before Roe v. Wade, it’s now a live issue thanks to the abortion pill lawsuit. Some anti-abortion activists argue Comstock is still in effect and that, as a federal statute, it trumps state laws protecting abortion. If a judge agreed, that could result in a nationwide ban on abortion—whether via pill or procedure.
When an appeals court weighed in on the case after midnight on Thursday, they didn’t just claim that people should have to make three trips to a clinic to get abortion pills—they also claimed that the Comstock Act bans the mailing of any item used for abortions.
Grace Haley at Abortion, Every Day Substack (07.30.2023):
The Comstock Act was passed by Congress in 1873 during a decades-long crusade against what religious conservatives considered “obscene.” A century and a half later, conservatives are using the 19th century federal law to target abortion across the country. They’ve invoked Comstock in the Texas mifepristone lawsuit; it’s being used in attempts to allow local governments to ban abortion in spite of state law—it’s even cited in threats against pharmacies to prevent them from dispensing abortion medication.
Legal and abortion rights experts expect this is just the beginning of how conservatives plan to use this 150-year old legislation to ban abortion across the nation. Which means, we need to understand what Comstock is all about. […]
HISTORY OF THE COMSTOCK ACT
The Comstock Act (officially titled “An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use”) was enacted in 1873. The law was named after Anthony Comstock, one of the most zealous moral evangelists and anti-vice crusaders of his time. Comstock served in the Union army before working as a porter and salesman in New York City, and was appalled by the “sin and wickedness” he observed in those worlds—including the copious consumption of pornography and alcohol by his fellow soldiers, as well as the prevalence of contraception, prostitution, and pornography in the city, particularly among the poor.
Within less than a year of the statute’s enactment, Comstock was credited with assistance in the seizure of “130,000 pounds of books, 194,000 pictures and photographs, and 60,300 ‘articles made of rubber for immoral purposes, and used by both sexes.’” […]
After the Comstock Act was enacted, more than half of the states passed “Little Comstock laws” that mirrored the federal statute.
IDEOLOGY & MISOGYNY BEHIND THE COMSTOCK ACT
The Comstock Act was rooted in ideas about purity and the social good as understood by a particular form of American Protestantism which viewed any sex that was not associated with procreation to be a sin.
During and after the civil war, socially conservative Christians like Comstock turned to state intervention and state power to enforce sexual morality. These efforts to promote a conservative Christian view of public health were also directed to restoring the “gendered hierarchy” that had existed before and been undermined by the war. Laws like the Comstock Act embody a stunted conception of the role of women. In the words of Yale Law School Professor Priscilla Smith, the statute is “rooted in archaic views of women’s sexual expression and their subservient role in the family.” It is ultimately “designed to control women’s sexual activity.” […]
COMSTOCK TODAY
Today, the statute prohibits the use of the mail for any “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article” as well as any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”
Much more at this Link, including examples of how the Comstock Act was used recently in Missouri, Texas, Alabama, and other states.
Posted by Imani Gandy:
Democrats really need to repeal the Comstock Act for fucks sake.
It’s called a zombie statute for a reason!
It has laid dormant for decades and now conservative Christians are weaponizing it to institute what would functionally be a nationwide medication abortion ban.
The Biden administration is rolling out billions of dollars aimed at making the country more resilient to the impacts of climate change and stressed on Tuesday that solutions are possible.
His comments and the funding come alongside the release of the Fifth National Climate Assessment — a federal climate report which found that the U.S. has not been decarbonizing fast enough to meet its climate goals or international ambitions. […]
On Tuesday, the Biden administration also announced a total of about $6 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure law that it says will help the nation stand up to some of the extreme weather impacts of climate change.
The Energy Department will be putting $3.9 billion into strengthening the electric grid to make it less vulnerable to extreme weather and natural disasters, in addition to increasing grid capacity and bolstering renewable energy.
The Environmental Protection Agency will be putting forward $2 billion in grants aimed at helping communities to deploy carbon-free energy and bolster their ability to respond to environmental issues, according to the White House.
The Interior Department will be putting $50 million toward water resource reliability and ecosystem health in Western states, and an additional $50 million toward funding for water conservation projects and hydropower upgrades.
[…] “This assessment shows us in clear scientific terms that climate change is impacting all regions, all sectors of the United States,” Biden said. “It warns that more action is still badly needed. We can’t be complacent.”
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 200
It has laid dormant for decades and now conservative Christians are weaponizing it to institute what would functionally be a nationwide medication abortion ban.
It would also be nice if they can also get rid of those state-level laws forbidding atheists from public office. Again, it’s hasn’t been enforced since the SCOTUS ruled they violate Article VI, but that can be reversed by the current crop of Christo-fascists on the high court.
You’re forgiven for not noticing Tim Scott’s presidential campaign, but now it’s over […] I never thought much of Scott, an especially odious, opportunistic, morally bankrupt Republican, but I also never expected more from him just because he’s Black. It’s annoying when Democrats assume that well-off, powerful Black people will automatically care more for those less fortunate than equally privileged white people. […]
What I won’t accept are mainstream media narratives that cast Tim Scott as anything more than a petty creep who lacked the stature of an empty suit. Yet, the New York Times (of course) subjected us to this headline: “Tim Scott Suspends ’24 Campaign, as His Sunny Message Failed to Resonate.”
Sunny message? Scott’s campaign launch video featured him walking through Fort Sumter in South Carolina, where he directly linked the Confederacy to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Secretary of Scary Socialist State Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He didn’t mention the actual modern-day Confederates who stormed the Capitol on Donald Trump’s behalf.
“Today our country is once again being tested,” he said. “Once again, our divisions run deep, and the threat to our future is real. Joe Biden and the radical Left have chosen a culture of grievance over greatness.”
[…] After the vicious terrorist attack against Israel last month, Scott prioritized cheap politics over genuine empathy. He immediately and baselessly blamed Biden, claiming he had “blood on his hands” and was “complicit” in the Hamas attack. He told his dozen or so supporters at a DC event, “His weakness invited the attack, his cash giveaways to Iran helped fund terrorism.”
Just this month, Scott peddled the racist Great Replacement Theory on Fox News and suggested that “the reason why you see this administration so committed to an insecure, unsafe, wide-open border is because it adds to their polls.”
“[Democrats] are interested in one thing: power,” he ranted. “They will manipulate people to control them. They are not interested in racial progress. They’re not talking about how we can all get along.”
[…] He slavishly defended Donald Trump — the oozing slime trail Scott was theoretically competing against in the Republican primary — condemning his indictments as “un-American” and the result of a “weaponized” Department of Justice.
Scott was also a religious extremist, who considered “homosexuality a morally wrong choice, like adultery.” He supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Say Gay” bill and repeated the right-wing lie that American children were being “indoctrinated” in all the gay. He also vowed to sign the most forced-birth legislation possible as president. His recent so-called “Our Values” ad was just more repulsive, small-minded bigotry: “I’m about to say something really controversial in Joe Biden’s America. If you’re able-bodied, you work. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. And if you’re a man, you should play sports against men. America needs more victors and less victims.”
Sure, before he got to the anti-trans garbage, he could have been inveighing against Trump. He wasn’t. These people’s brains are wondrous things.
[…] I don’t doubt Scott was more superficially polite to his colleagues than known assholes Cruz or Josh Hawley, but that doesn’t mean he ran a positive campaign with a “sunny” message. No, he gave Republican primary voters the full MAGA but they weren’t interested.
The Times also describes Scott as a “rising star,” which is absurdly generous. Scott is 58. He’s closer in age to Mike Pence than Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis. He’s a year older than Glenn Youngkin. He’s no “star,” either. He’ll retire in the Senate.
Please ignore these fantasies about Trump picking him as his vice president. He’s duller than Pence, and it says a lot that this is not the worst thing I could say about him.
@197: ugh, I already waded through one thread on free will this week: Ars Technica: Determinism vs. free will: A scientific showdown
The recent spate of such articles is triggered by Sapolsky’s new book. In the comments one finds all the usual detritus surrounding discussions of free will:
Failing to define key terms
Switching definitions at one’s convenience
Confusion of determinism with fatalism
Concentrating on whether one “makes choices” rather than whether those choices are “free” (i.e. not materially determined)
The joke about how “we have no choice but to believe in free will” (get it? yuk, yuk, yuk)
Sapolsky seems to be about the conscious mind not making decisions, but accepting them from other unconscious portion of the brain or body. I don’t see what that has to do with well-informed discussion of free will. Is the conscious brain more free of determinism than the hunger signals we get from the gut? I don’t see how. So my impression is that Sapolsky is trying to use science to attack what is a philosophical question, and this missing the point.
One of our favorite things about the ass-whooping Republicans received at the polls last week is their utter inability to learn one single lesson from it. That’s kind of the way with extremist ideologues — they’re not particularly teachable.
They just don’t get it. It’s not about compromise. It’s about who gets to control whose bodies. Americans overwhelmingly, when presented with that question, do not select white molest-y conservative Christian lawmakers to control their bodies. […]
In Ohio, Republicans seem to think they can get away with getting in the voters’ faces and refusing to enact their will. That should be fun for them as time goes on and voters get angrier and angrier.
But we are totally fine with Republicans continuing to rhythm method their pet chickens on abortion. It’s just going to make every single election easier for Democrats to win, until the day when there really aren’t enough Republicans in the US for their votes to even matter on any subject.
Virginia seditionist GOP Rep. Bob Good, why did you antisocial freaks get spanked so hard in Virginia’s elections and lose control of the whole entire Legislature? Oh, oh, oh! You think it’s because you’re not extremist enough? Oh hell yeah, that was probably it! […]
He was speaking at the Heritage Foundation, we guess one of their sicko fascist circle jerks: [video at the link]
GOOD: We just came off of an election in Virginia. And the narrative now is, ‘Oh, abortion is a loser. We got to surrender on abortion. We got to give in on abortion. We’ve got to be like the Democrats on abortion. Then maybe we can win elections.’ I would argue what’s the point of winning elections if you’re not going to fight for life?
LMAO. Yeah, cool, go on.
GOOD: But beyond that, what was Virginia’s position? What was the state of Virginia’s political leadership position on abortion? We’re okay with 94% of abortions because we want a 15-week ban. And the Democrats, the other side wants 100% of abortions. So we’re going to rally in the red areas and the conservatives and the red base to fight for 6% of abortions? And I submit that’s the reason why we had low red turnout in Virginia.
Sure thing. No notes. Not even going to rebut the argument, Wonkette’s charter doesn’t include helping Republicans out. He thinks all those Republicans — all of ‘em — really want to ban abortion.
Are we pretending conservative Christians aren’t frequent flyers at abortion clinics far enough away from their churches that nobody from Sunday School is likely to see them? Shhh, don’t tell Bob Good.
But again, these goddamned idiots. Let’s just keep letting them fuck around and apparently never find out how to fix it.
It’s gotten a lot of attention already, but here is Republican National Committee Chair Ronna “Mitt Romney” McDaniel — who is inexplicably still employed — on “Meet the Press” this weekend, saying that Republicans can totally still win on abortion, because (get this) Americans are totally with them on the subject.
Oh yeah? Okeydoke! [video at the link]
MCDANIEL: I’m proud to be a pro-life party! But we can win on this message. The American people are where we are. And they want common sense limitations. They want more access to adoption. We want to make sure that there’s pregnancy crisis centers. These are things we can win on!
Couple things:
– The American people do not want abortion bans. They did not like it when the illegitimate partisan hack Supreme Court overturned Roe. They are still pissed and will remain so.
– The American people actually don’t have the raging fetishizing erection for adoption that anti-abortion creeps (claim) to. It’s a good thing, but it’s not a good solution for millions of people.
– The last thing we need is more “crisis pregnancy centers,” AKA extremist Christian fake clinics full of non-medical staff that lure pregnant women in with promises of free ultrasounds and then just lie to them about abortion.
[…] Well, this has been another good talk with Republicans about abortion! We look forward to many more of them, as they continue to never win an election on this again.
[…] Here is Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, a Republican obviously, getting VERY MAD GRRR ARGH during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions because he is BIG MAN MUSCLE GUY who THINKS HE DESERVES RESPECT because he’s a WHITE CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN. (He does not.)
The target of his anger? Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien.
Watch the video — summarizing doesn’t do it justice — as Mullin challenges O’Brien to a fight and literally stands up to go fight O’Brien, at which point everybody in the world starts laughing, and Bernie Sanders has to remind the MAGA [B-word] ass hick that he’s a United States senator. [video at the link]
Mullin was so upset and emotions and in need of smile more! The former MMA fighter, who obviously no longer has any healthy outlets in which to place his simple-minded aggression, starts reading mean tweets the Teamsters man sent him. The Teamsters man suggested Markwayne Mullin is not a self-made man! Markwayne Mullin said he wished the Teamsters man had been in his truck with him to see how self-made he was when he was building his plumbing company!
GRRR ARGH.
The Teamsters man called Mullin a “clown” and a “fraud” in those mean tweets, and told him to “quit the tough guy act.” He added, “You know where to find me. Any time, any place, cowboy.”
So Mullin finished reading the mean tweets and then challenged O’Brien to indeed do a fight right there. O’Brien was yeah sure, fucker. “I’d love to do it right now,” he said, clearly having fun with this.
MULLIN: Well stand your butt up then.
O’BRIEN: You stand your butt up. Big guy.
Oh, oh, oh! All fun and games until somebody challenges another somebody to butt standing!
That was when Markwayne Mullin standed his butt up, because we guess he just takes orders like that. And Bernie Sanders, who was leading the hearing, was like Jesus fucking Christ. Sanders explained that this is Congress and “God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress,” and Jesus fucking Christ.
Mullin continued whining: “I don’t like thugs and bullies!”
O’Brien responded, “I don’t like YOU.”
And Bernie was like GODDAMMIT!
Mullin and O’Brien have done this before. They really hate each other, and obviously O’Brien has a unique talent for getting under Mullin’s thin skin.
It is a good day in the Congress.
Want to hear about the other fight?
First of all, recall the time Eric Swalwell called Kevin McCarthy a [P-word] and everybody nodded their head in the universal motion for “Well, he is not wrong about that.”
This morning, Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee — that goofy weird folksy bastard who gets boners about aliens but also is a lunatic rank seditionist just like the rest of them — had his own run-in with McCarthy. But he didn’t call him a [P-word], because he’s a fucking weird white Jesus-honking Republican man, so instead he said things like:
“Hey, Kevin! You got any guts?!”
And
“You got no guts!”
And
“What kind of chicken move is that?”
And
“You need security, Kevin!”
So that last one is interesting!
Burchett was one of the eight who voted with Matt Gaetz to end McCarthy’s political career, so it’s clear why there might be hostility.
Still, Claudia Grisales of NPR reports that it was weird when she was standing there interviewing Burchett and McCarthy shoved Burchett out of nowhere, which caused Burchett to lunge toward her.
Here are some more tweets:
Burchett’s back was to McCarthy and his detail walking by in the hallway, then the lunge. Burchett responded jokingly as McCarthy kept walking, “Sorry Kevin didn’t mean to elbow –” then seriously yelled, “why’d you elbow me in the back Kevin?! Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?” Burchett then looked back at me and said, “jerk” referring to McCarthy. I asked if he had done that before, Burchett said “no.” That’s when the chase ensued. Burchett took off after McCarthy and his detail. I chased behind with my mic.
A chase ensued! In Congress!
[…] Burchett went on to tell Grisales that McCarthy is in a “downhill spiral.” (Hardest ski slope there is.)
So this is awesome. Hope some kids are at the Capitol today for a field trip to learn about government.
At some point after the incident, Burchett went on CNN and said McCarthy gave him a “clean shot to the kidneys.” Burchett said it still hurts, on his kidneys. [video at the link]
Burchett is not accusing McCarthy of assault, or even going to file an ethics complaint. He is just very bless-Kevin-McCarthy’s-heart about the whole thing, and talking about what a coward he is, and how he’s the type of guy who would “hide behind his mama’s skirt.”
He says he prays for Kevin McCarthy and hopes he “finds some happiness in his life.”[…]
A line of medical workers in scrubs, young men with bewildered expressions and a boy walk hurriedly through the door, each gingerly cradling the tiny form of a swaddled premature baby brought from the nursery of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital.
The footage, aired by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, was a rare glimpse inside Gaza’s largest hospital, where fuel reserves dried up on Friday and power was cut off from incubators and the lifesaving machines in the intensive care unit. The babies were being relocated from the nursery to an operating room that still had some power.
As Israeli forces pursue their mission to destroy the militant Hamas movement into the heart of Gaza City, civilians are bearing the brunt and the hospitals that once provided succor are shutting down as communications break down and fuel for generators runs out.
Gaza’s hospitals have been caught in the crossfire of the fighting, with Shifa emerging as a focal point. Israel alleges that Hamas uses hospitals — especially Shifa — to conceal their bases, while the injured and displaced living on the grounds act as human shields. Hamas accuses Israel of targeting health facilities to cut off a lifeline for residents.
The disintegration of the Gaza infrastructure also means that information is scarce about what is happening and the numbers of those affected.
“There is no ministry basically to put out a number, there is no ministry,” said Medhat Abbas, one of the Health Ministry’s directors, when asked about the latest toll. He said he hasn’t been able to speak with his colleagues, many of whom are at Shifa. “The corpses are in the street, so we can’t say any number right now, the bombardment is ongoing,” he said about Shifa.
The lack of fuel, in hospitals both in the north and in the south, has led to a breakdown in communication and made tallying the dead impossible. Damage from the fighting has also severely degraded the mobile network.
The ministry stopped updating its tally on Friday at 11,078 because of the breakdown, but it estimates that thousands more have since died. There have also been strikes on the Jabalya refugee camp and in Khan Younis since the counting stopped. Israel’s operation against Gaza came in response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, during which more than 1,200 were killed and at least 240 hostages were taken. […]
Since Friday, no ambulances have been allowed to reach Shifa hospital, which is now host to approximately 10,000 patients, staff and displaced people. Communication is ongoing between the director of the hospital and Israel for evacuation, said Ashraf al-Qudra, the ministry’s spokesman, but talks had not yet come to fruition.
“We are trapped inside the buildings, we can’t step outside,” said Qudra in a rare phone call Tuesday from Shifa. “Nothing is available inside the hospital: water, food, or medical supplies, that’s why we lose patients.”
He described how three babies, born premature, died a few days later as a direct result of the lack of electricity and basic necessities like water. Another 37 people have also died since Friday.
[…] In an operating room that still had some power, the 34 remaining infants were placed side-by-side on three beds, their tiny limbs flailing as they mewled softly. Four had been born to dead mothers, Al Jazeera said.
[…] “We have no objection to evacuate the patients,” Qudra said, “but we need a safe passage, there is yet no place to house 650 patients.”
[…] Israel did agree on Nov. 5 to daily pauses to allow civilians to evacuate along routes decided on by Israel. But medical workers and humanitarian groups have said evacuations are not possible due to the fighting around hospitals.
[…] Since the pauses, an estimated 200,000 more people have fled the fighting raging in northern Gaza via a corridor opened by the Israeli military, the United Nations humanitarian office said Tuesday. The south is dubbed by the Israeli military as a “safer zone” — in lieu of calling the area a safe zone.
[…] The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it expected its humanitarian operations to halt within 48 hours, having exhausted its fuel reserves. Its two primary water distribution contractors ceased operations on Tuesday, cutting off 200,000 people from access to potable water.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, or PRCS, announced that the power generator at its affiliated hospital al-Amal in Khan Younis in the south had gone offline, threatening the lives of 90 patients receiving treatment and the 9,000 displaced who had sought refuge on the premises.
Sporadic violence also continued in the occupied West Bank with clashes in the town of Tulkarm. Reuters reported that at least seven Palestinians were killed there. The Israel Defense Forces said it was carrying out “counterterrorism activities” there and in the ensuing firefight, “a number of the assailants were killed.” The Palestine Red Crescent Society tweeted that an ambulance “was surrounded, inspected, and a wounded person inside was detained” by Israeli forces near the camp.
The details of the violence in the occupied West Bank are more complicated than this report indicates.
Israel is pressing its case that Hamas is using hospitals as cover, releasing a pair of videos from inside Gaza’s main children’s hospital that showed weapons and explosives purportedly found in the medical center, and a room where the military said hostages were kept.
While the Health Ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, on Tuesday disputed nearly every assertion made in the initial Israeli video, it acknowledged that the footage was taken from inside Al-Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children in northern Gaza. The remaining patients and staff are believed to have left the hospital over the weekend after it was surrounded by Israeli forces.
Workers at Al-Shifa, the biggest hospital in Gaza City, buried dozens of bodies in a mass grave on its complex on Tuesday because they had started to decompose and posed a health hazard, according to medical authorities in Gaza, signaling the increasingly dire conditions at the facility […]
Scores of people flood into the National Mall in Washington, D.C., at the March for Israel today. While organizers expected thousands to attend the pro-Israel rally, officials have not released an estimate of how many they believe were in attendance.
[…] The White House has “information” that Hamas and other militants in Gaza use hospitals and tunnels beneath them to hide in and keep hostages, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said today aboard Air Force One.
“I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” Kirby said, referring to Gaza’s largest hospital.
“Members operate a command and control node from Al-Shifa in Gaza City,” he said. “They have stored weapons there and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility.”
Kirby said that he did not want to give granular detail on the information to protect sources and methods, but that it came from a variety of U.S. intelligence methods. Hamas, medical staff and Palestinian health officials deny that Gaza hospitals are used by militants. […]
The New York judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron, slapped a limited gag order on Donald Trump early in the trial after Trump launched repeated public attacks on Engoron, his clerk, and state prosecutors. In justifying the order, which later was extended to include Trump’s showboating attorneys, Engoron cited “hundreds” of threats his office has received after Trump’s social media posts.
“The threat of, and actual, violence resulting from heated political rhetoric is well-documented,” Engoron wrote.
That gag order (and two subsequent fines leveled against Trump for ignoring it) hasn’t accomplished much. Trump is still giddily nudging potential violence along, now by promoting a particularly pointed attack from a Truth Social user. “MY FANTASY … I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LITITIA JAMES AND JUDGE ENGORON PLACED UNDER CITIZENS ARREST FOR BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND HARASSMENT,” it read.
This is not a particularly subtle “fantasy.” The notion of a “citizen’s arrest” refers to the common law principle that allows bystanders who witness a (typically violent) felony to use force to disarm and detain the perpetrator before police arrive. […]
In far-right and militia circles, however—and especially in the cells of the far-right that believe county sheriffs hold the majority of constitutional powers and that declaring yourself a “sovereign citizen” means you can skate out from paying taxes—“citizen’s arrest” refers to the militia belief that at some point armed citizens will be called upon to “arrest” members of the government, staging citizen-led trials for militia-described crimes.
[…] This form of citizen’s arrest is indeed a fantasy. Any scenario in which Donald Trump’s supporters conducted a citizen’s arrest of the judge in his trial or the attorney general who brought charges against him would require pushing past or battling the law enforcement officers surrounding both, “arresting” Trump’s targets, and then kidnapping them for the purposes of holding a mock trial. It’s an inherently violent little fantasy, and it leans heavily on the same anti-government theories that sparked the Jan. 6 violence.
And both of those reasons are, of course, why Donald Trump is promoting the notion. Trump has never shied from fantasizing about violence against his enemies, and with his actions and inactions on Jan. 6, Trump proved himself more than willing to use actual violence against his enemies.
[…] An attempt to kill or kidnap one of those judges or prosecutors would be useful to Trump as “proof” that prosecuting him for his crimes poses too great a risk for the nation to handle.
It remains to be seen whether Engoron will respond to this new and transparent threat. I maintain my current position: Throwing Donald Trump’s ass in jail for a night, a week, or a month is both warranted at this point and likely the only judicial threat he will take seriously. That probably won’t happen, but another petty $5,000 or $10,000 fine won’t have any impact at all.
Wow, how very shocking: It turns out that new House Speaker Mike Johnson had a lot of bad things to say about Donald Trump before the Republican Party staked its entire identity and future on the man. From The New York Times:
“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015, before he was elected to Congress and a day after the first Republican primary debate of the campaign cycle.
Johnson also wrote that Trump could “break more things than he fixes,” being “a hot head by nature,” which “is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”
Mr. Johnson, then a state lawmaker in Louisiana, also questioned what would happen if “he decided to bomb another head of state merely disrespecting him? I am only halfway kidding about this. I just don’t think he has the demeanor to be President.”
We, of course, know the rest of the story. Like every other Republican lawmaker still in the party, Johnson changed his tune after Trump won in 2016, and by 2020, Johnson had become a Class-A suckup who played a major role in propagating Trump’s lies that the presidential election had been “rigged” against him. Trump can now do no wrong, and when Trump is impeached or indicted for what appear to be blatant crimes, Mike Johnson is always in his corner, parroting Trump’s declarations that it is the prosecutors who are corrupt.
Johnson’s Trump conversion is the story of modern Republicanism condensed down to one man. Johnson rose to public office banging on about his so-called morality, a man who aligned himself with hate groups and whose Bible-thumping appeared to focus almost exclusively on the alleged evils of homosexuality rather than any of that nonsense about feeding the poor.
But the moment he had power to protect, it became evident that the “moral center” he had been talking about was one that allowed him to attack his self-identified cultural enemies while defending a parade of crimes from his allies. It was all a farce from the beginning.
And that is modern Republicanism. An astonishing amount of horseshit gets tossed around about morality and societal decay and how dare so-and-so do such-and-such, and in the end, it’s all a cover for “And by the way, members of our party are allowed to do crimes now.”
[…] Mike Johnson doesn’t have a g-ddamn moral bone in his body. It was a grift from the beginning, and it’s a grift now. The party purges those who allow ethics and morality to guide them, scrubbing even hard-line conservatives like former Rep. Liz Cheney when simple moral edicts like “it is unacceptable to attempt to overthrow the government” get applied to a corrupt and indecent sack of crimes like Donald Trump. […]
Moms for Liberty and the anti-trans culture war hogwash conservatives were hanging elections on was roundly rejected by voters across the country. […]
Maybe they should have listened to Matthew Conner, a Virginia parent, in October, when he spoke in front of the Virginia Beach School Board and tried to simplify the choice as to whether or not to adopt the anti-trans education policies put forward by state Republicans and Youngkin. [video at the link]
I wasn’t surprised by another delay at the last school board meeting, because no matter how hard you try to implement these discriminatory policies in the right way, you are never going to find a right way to do the wrong thing. And Gov. Youngkin’s policies are wrong.
One of the ways you could tell is because you have speakers from groups like Moms for Liberty here to support them. And I’ll be real simple in case you aren’t paying attention—they’re not the good guys. How can you tell? I can help. The good guys don’t get declared extremist groups by human rights organizations. Never in history have the good guys been the ones trying to ban books. Never in history have the good guys been a segregationist group pushing to legislate identity. Never in history have the good guys been closely connected with and supported by hate groups like The Proud Boys.
And the good guys don’t put Hitler quotes for inspiration on the front of their newsletters. News flash: They’re the bad guys. They’re the bad guys here, supporting bad policy. And if you support the same bad policy, guess what? You’re one of the bad guys, too. When you look around and see only the wrong people support what you’re doing, you’re doing the wrong thing.
Now you’ve heard some speakers come up here and say how they love these kids but won’t accept them. I’m here telling you that if your love makes somebody not want to be alive, it’s not love. That’s not love. Some speakers are going to get up here and talk about parental rights. The only right the parent has is the right to responsibility. And if you need somebody else to tell you who your kid is, you’re probably not that good a parent.
And some are going to get up here and tell you how it’s the law. Well, I remind you that slavery and segregation also used to be the law here in Virginia, and that there is no right way to do the wrong thing.
So do the right thing. Reject these policies that harm and endanger our LGBTQ students. Be the good guys while you still can.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is calling for the House Ethics Committee to investigate Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) after the former speaker was accused of elbowing Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) in the hallway earlier Tuesday.
In a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Ethics Committee, Gaetz said that Burchett had described the attack as a “sucker punch” and “a clean shot to the kidney.”
“I myself have been a victim of outrageous conduct on the House floor as well, but nothing like an open and public assault on a Member, committed by another Member,” Gaetz wrote in the letter. “The rot starts at the top.”
Gaetz accused McCarthy of breaching the congressional code of official conduct — specifically, the first rule, which states that “A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.”
“There is substantial evidence that Rep. McCarthy breached this duty,” Gaetz wrote.
If the Ethics Committee heads determine Gaetz’s request to be a legitimate complaint, they have 45 calendar days or five legislative days to either dismiss the complaint, establish an investigative subcommittee or request an extension.
Leif Ristroph, a physicist and applied mathematician at New York University, was conducting experiments on how clay erodes in response to flowing water when he noticed tiny shapes emerging that resembled seated lions—in essence, miniature versions of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. Further experiments provided evidence in support of a longstanding hypothesis that natural processes first created a land formation known as a yardang, after which humans added additional details to create the final statue…
The House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to prevent a government shutdown after new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to reach across the aisle to Democrats when hard-right conservatives revolted against his plan.
The bipartisan tally — 336-95 with 93 Republicans voting no —showed Johnson’s willingness to leave his right-flank Republicans behind and work with Democrats to temporarily keep government running — the same political move that cost the last House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, his job just weeks ago…
Questions.
Is the House bill going to fly in the Senate? The support of Democrats seems to indicate it might.
Are the MAGA chuds going to throw out Johnson for trying to govern?
Ukraine’s Security Service notified Rudy Giuliani’s top Ukrainian allies on Monday that they are suspects of treason, citing evidence that the officials participated in activities aiding Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Ukrainian member of parliament, Oleksandr Dubinsky, ex-Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, and ex-prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk are suspected of joining an organization founded by chief members of Russia’s Military Intelligence while Giuliani worked to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in 2019, according to a statement.
The organization received more than $10 million from the Russian Federation to “discredit” Ukraine on the international stage…
ruzZian Federation Council member, Margarita Pavlova, shares her view on ruzZian women. They are baby makers, no need for university education. It’s a classic of totalitarian regimes. Adolf had the same idea for German women: Kinder (kids), Küche (kitchen), Kirche (church).
A tragic incident occurred near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A small sabotage group of our military from the territory of Belarus penetrated into the so-called exclusion zone, bypassing control and observation posts.
At some point, the group walked through the forest and encountered a herd of wild boars that live there. It was not possible to shoot at the animals, since the loud sounds of shots could give away the scouts. Alas, the boars managed to catch up with one of the military men. After a collision with one of the animals, the military man fell unsuccessfully and hit his head on a stone. Died on the spot.
Link. Scroll down to view this section of the coverage.
A wild boar (not Orban) thwarted the sabotage mission of a Russian commando in the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, according to the report below
A Russian soldier was killed and left in the forest because Russians do not abandon their own…
It takes a singular asshole to require the creation of a whole new Senate rule just to deal with him. Congratulations, Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville: You achieved that today. The Senate Rules Committee voted 9-7 to temporarily change the rules to overcome Tuberville’s ongoing blockade of all military promotions.
Tuberville has been blocking the promotions since February, ostensibly protesting the Pentagon policy that pays for service members to travel to states where abortion is legal, if they need to—a policy that none of the hundreds of officers he is punishing is responsible for creating or implementing. The resolution passed by the Rules Committee on Tuesday would allow military nominations to be confirmed en bloc, or all at once.
These nominations and promotions are normally considered in blocs, under unanimous consent. They’re handled in blocs because there are hundreds of them every Congress and the Senate simply does not have enough hours in a day or days in a week to take them up individually. There are more than 400 of them now caught in the backlog, thanks to one man’s tantrum.
Tuberville has been blocking every attempt by senators to bring those promotions up for a vote, refusing to give his consent. So the temporary rule change—lasting just for the remainder of this Congress—would change the confirmation procedure for all officers other than the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commanders, who would still require individual votes.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will bring the rule change to the floor unless Republicans figure out a way to get Tuberville to relent—and fast. At least nine Republicans would have to vote with all of the Democrats to pass the bill.
Tuberville has remained completely unmoved so far by his GOP colleagues’ efforts, even when they confronted him directly on the floor, forcing him to spend hours objecting to individual promotions. […]
the Republican conference is getting increasingly fed up with him. In a sign of just how frustrated they are, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t shut the door on supporting the resolution in comments he made Tuesday. “I appreciate the work put into the standing order proposal,” he said of the Democrats’ resolution. “But I am going to oppose going that route, at this particular moment,” he said. That’s not a “never.” It’s more like a “not yet.”
The U.S. government will run out of money at 12:01 a.m. Saturday if Congress fails to act this week. The House is expected to vote on its continuing resolution, or ‘CR,’ to avoid a shutdown at around 5:30 p.m. ET.
A former Fox News Capitol Hill reporter and producer has sued the network, claiming he was fired for challenging its on-air lies about the 2020 election. Jason Donner alleges in the lawsuit that Fox News knew President Donald Trump’s claims that voter fraud was behind his 2020 loss were false but that following backlash from Trump and the network’s audience over its Election Day announcement that President Joe Biden had won Arizona, it ‘purged’ journalists who spoke out against false election fraud claims.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Americans are terrified by the dawning realization that Rep. Mike Johnson is the adult in the room, millions of Americans have confirmed.
Across the country, residents of the United States were initially cheered by the possibility that an adult was in the room, but were immediately shattered by the discovery that said adult was Rep. Johnson.
In particular, they wondered what sort of adult would deny the outcome of a legitimate election, believe that the separation of church and state is a myth, and declare that same-sex marriage is a “dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”
While a substantial number of Americans conceded that the Speaker of the House appears to be an adult when compared with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, or Matt Gaetz, they disagreed that such a dubious distinction earns him even a remote claim to adulthood.
All in all, there seems to be a broad consensus that, if Mike Johnson is in fact the adult in the room, the room is totally screwed.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #222…
And yet… One of the great heroines of the Third Reich was Hanna Reitsch who was not only a military test pilot, but in command of a unit of test pilots.
As always, it’s not about what other people want, it’s about what we want. Support for Biden is now support for genocide, and there’s no going back from that. Biden is doing his very best to lose the votes of a very large chunk of the Democratic base — possibly for good, because so much of the rest of the party has decided it’s better to blindly back him than to listen to their constituents. (Remember: an overwhelming majority of Democrats want a ceasefire, and even a majority of Republicans agree; Biden is absolutely doing something that is against the will of both the public and his party, and it’s a crime so large that he’s never going to be forgiven by anybody who is angry at him.) If Trump wins in 2024, what Biden has done in the past 3 weeks will be exactly the reason why. The Democrats have decided it’s worth losing their own country in order to support crimes against humanity committed by Israel, and they’re in danger of getting what they’re asking for.
This is exactly the sort of outcome which could be predicted from the dismissal of any concern over Democratic candidates’ past records as “purity testing” — you could be reasonably certain that Biden was going to do something horrific like this sooner or later because of what he has done in the past. But anybody who was smart enough to point that out got yelled at, because Democrats love rewarding traitors and idiots with job advancement — look at how Sinema and Manchin got big-name endorsements within the party when they moved from the House to the Senate, despite both of them having already demonstrated that they were actively against nearly everything the party claims to stand for. Look at how Hillary Clinton, a worthless loser who sided with the Republicans over and over in the Senate and lied to push through a pointless war in Libya as Secretary of State, got the Presidential nomination before Biden — the party loves to promote saboteurs and fools.
John Moralessays
Vicar (of the singular persuation, proper):
Support for Biden is now support for genocide
In your imagination, possibly.
Democrats love rewarding traitors and idiots with job advancement
Perhaps you even believe that.
Last time I noted you invariably damn and condemn one side of politics, you blithely make claims to the effect the other is so bad it’s not even in the conversation.
Always, since at least 2015, you persist in your denigration of the Democrats and of their elected members. Never, ever, ever a good word.
(Pretty obvious what you are about, really)
—
Ah well, this is a thread for political madness, and madness may manifest as absurd claims made with a straight face.
Netanyahu’s government has repeatedly said they cannot refuse any demand made by the US because they are too dependent on us to do otherwise. Biden has actively said he won’t demand that they stop their genocide, and is has indicated instead that he is actively in favor of it happening, and is funding it. (We could give every homeless person in the US $24000 with what we’re giving Israel in emergency funding — and that’s not counting the billions they get every year!) He has already lied to justify it (claimed he saw the “video of Hamas killing babies” which turned out to be an invention of the IDF, and the claim was retracted) and accused Palestinians of lying about the death count when they have been able to hand over lists of the people killed. (Over 80 extended families have been completely wiped out. That’s genocide!)
You and the rest of the Democratic Party may be willing to condone all that — in fact, based on your personal history of comments on this blog, you personally are probably thrilled by it — but to people who don’t approve of mass murder and ethnic cleansing it’s horrifying. If you can get away with it, I suppose it will ultimately just be another stain on world history — in 10 or 20 years you’ll be shaking your heads over how you could have permitted yourself to be misled, just as we do now over Iraq and Libya. No doubt Team Biden (other than the man himself — given his age, in 10 years it’s unlikely Biden will still be around) already have somebody to blame for how they were “misled”, although since Biden claimed to have seen video of Hamas killing babies, a claim which has since been retracted and admitted to be false by the IDF, it’s pretty obvious that if anybody is misleading it is Team Biden themselves. (And all the wilder, more inflamatory claims about Hamas are coming from the same sources who told us Iraq had WMDs and the Libyans were taking Viagra to rape more effectively — you know, all the claims which they later admitted, when it was too late, were outright lies.) People like you, who are now being condescending, will deny having backed the genocide just like you deny you backed the invasion of Iraq despite the polls showing that a majority of you must have been in favor of it at the time. By then it will be too late, of course — regrettable, but obviously unavoidable, because actually doing anything would have required that you admit you are fucking wrong now, and you’ll never do that.
I’ve been denigrating the Democrats since 2010, when it became clear that the ACA was (a) deliberately going to be largely pointless — all the useful reforms were basically uncontroversial and could have been passed without mandating private insurance, which was a ridiculously bad thing for the public, and (b) being used cynically by the party as a way to run out the clock on that session of Congress without doing anything about the Too Big To Fail banks and traders or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The party has repeatedly justified my poor opinion of them; there are about 10 Democrats in the federal government who are fit for office; the rest might as well be Republicans.
The Democratic noise machine (which includes all the pro-Biden crowd at this point) hates Trump so much, and claims to actively be afraid he’ll get back into office, but I can’t see any better way to make him win in 2024 than to do as they (and you) are doing. You couldn’t make Biden less appealing to people with actual ethical standards (I know that’s a phrase with which you, like many of the Democratic loyalist imbeciles on this forum, are not familiar) if you were actively giving money to Republican PACs to spend on advertisement. Trying to put lipstick on a pig of this size by providing apologetics for genocide just makes you lose your credibility along with Biden.
John Moralessays
I’ve been denigrating the Democrats since 2010
(The TLDR version, that is)
whheydtsays
Re: The Vicar @ #231…
Your opening is the same argument that was used to object to the Apollo space program. Why not spend that money on peoples needs here on Earth? It overlooked two things. First, the amount spent on the Apollo program would have been lost in the noise when added to then existing support programs, and second, all of the money was spent on Earth (there not being a lot of stores in space or on the Moon).
For the underlying complaint that you make… Do you honestly think that Trump, of all people, would do more to calm things down in the Middle East? If that is what you think, I’d like to know what color the sky is on your planet.
whheydt @228, good to know. There were also women who excelled as snipers. Lots of Russian women did not limit themselves to just making babies for whatever fascist man was in charge. Ditto for women in the Third Reich, as you pointed out. I don’t know why the Kinder (kids), Küche (kitchen), Kirche (church) concept is still being promoted on Russian TV.
Can you tell that we’re excited about recent Ukrainian advances in Kherson oblast, south of the Dnipro River (otherwise known as the “left bank”)? We’ve spent the past week covering Ukraine’s actions […]
Most of that coverage has focused on the what, how, and why of the second Kherson counteroffensive (I think we can officially call it that now). Today, I want to focus on where all of this is headed, and why it must be so terrifying to Russia.
What: Ukraine has advanced across the entire southern (left) bank of the Dnipro River, filling in the last gap over the past few days with new crossings southwest of the city of Kherson, around Potemkin Island (its real name). [map at the link]
Why: Russian defenses in southern Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts, have proven too strong for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia has apparently thrown a great number of its reserves in its bloody bid for Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s Kherson defenses are light, as Russia assumed the kilometer-wide Dnipro would be enough to protect its flanks. As of now, the river certainly complicates Ukraine’s advances, but it’s proving a surmountable obstacle.
How: The details remain shrouded in mystery, as they should be. No need to tip off Russians on how to better counter them. But from all indications, it’s a mix of drone swarms hitting Russian targets, a massive artillery advantage firing relatively safely from Ukraine’s side of the river, and elite light infantry units crossing the river via boat and barge and moving quickly through thinly defended Russian ranks. Russian sources report that Ukraine has started moving armor across the river, but Ukraine needs to bridge the river to bring across and supply serious combat power. That requires pushing Russian forces another 10 kilometers or so from the river, to protect any river crossing from tube artillery. This is why Ukraine is clearing territory around Krynky, near Ukraine’s most likely crossing point: [map at the link]
Ukraine has continued to make gains around Krynky (bottom left yellow splotch inside the circle) in recent days, reportedly liberating the whole village and pushing into the forest to its south, approaching the important T2206 highway. Their current advances aren’t random. Ukraine wants breathing room for its pontoon bridge.
So, what now? It’s now a game of highways. Or, put another way: a war of logistics.
There aren’t many roads in this part of Ukraine: [map at the link]
There are two main highways out of Crimea to the north: the E97 and the T2202. They connect to the T2206 running roughly parallel to the Dnipro, which eventually turns into the M14 running straight to Melitopol—the biggest strategic prize on the entire active war map.
As such, Ukraine will look to control those key intersections connecting Crimea to the T2206: [map at the link]
Oleshky, the westernmost circle on this map, will be a key Ukrainian objective, controlling not just a key junction of the T2206, but also pushing Russia away from the destroyed Antonivskyi Bridge. With some breathing room, Ukraine can run an additional pontoon bridge alongside the old one, just like Russia previously did, offering it some protection from Russian missiles and rockets.
East of Oleshky, Ukraine will want the E97-T2206 road junction. Ukraine is already pushing south of Krynkyand will soon cut the T2206 in that direction. With full control of those access points, the Russian garrison in Kozachi Laheri wouldn’t last long.
Further east, Korsunka will loom large in the coming weeks, as it is the most likely location for Ukraine’s first bridging attempt. Russia knows this, which is why this little corner of Kherson sports a network of Russian defenses: [map at the link]
The black arrows point to Ukraine’s likely landing location, and then a second line just south of Korsunka.
The line on the riverbank will be obliterated by artillery and direct fire from across the river. The Korsunka line will be tougher, but no one thinks these lines are as well developed and equipped as the ones that have caused Ukraine so much grief in Zaporizhzhia.
Once Ukraine breaches that single defensive line south of Korsunka and reaches the T2206, Nova Kakhovka will be in serious danger of being cut off from its supply lines. Russia understands this and has built defenses along the highway to slow any Ukrainian advance. But if Ukraine manages to push through?
It’s a straight shot to Melitopol from there on the M14 highway, on an axis with far fewer developed defenses than north of Melitopol. [map at the link]
In addition to threatening Melitopol, which Ukraine needs to liberate in order to sever Vladimir Putin’s precious land bridge, this would also liberate Enerhodar, where Russia continues playing dangerous games at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. And with winter coming and the Kakhovka reservoir gone, the remaining marshy ground will be frozen, perhaps hard enough for additional Ukrainian crossings in that direction. Don’t sleep on the changed topography of this approach. This satellite image shows you how much of the original river has filled in after Russia blew the Kakhovka dam. [satellite image at the link]
But if I was in charge, I wouldn’t head east. I’d head south, toward Crimea, along those two major highways in the map above.
Reaching Crimea would also sever Russia’s land bridge, and along with the destruction of the Kerch Bridge (you know it’s inevitable), it would mark the start of the siege of Crimea. The peninsula already lost its water supply when Russia blew the Kakhovka Dam; it would now lose the efficient supply of both its military and civilian populations. Russia would be dependent on air supply (inefficient), or sea supply, which Ukraine will gleefully target with its missiles and drones.
With Crimea starving for supplies, Ukraine could afford to wait out the siege while it then looked eastward toward Melitopol.
This would give Ukraine its first major strategic victory since the Kherson counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, quieting many of its Western critics and skeptics and putting Russia at a diplomatically, politically, and militarily disadvantageous position.
It’s a fun scenario, right? And Ukraine is in the process of putting the necessary pieces in place to make it happen.
An international team of 15 people from Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, has entered into Gaza through Egypt, the organization said today on X.
“We [will] do everything we can to alleviate suffering in this catastrophic situation,” said Christophe Garnier, the project coordinator.
The MSF team will be stationed in south Gaza Strip to support medical and surgical staff, “where the health care infrastructure has collapsed and medics are utterly exhausted,” the post said.
Médecins Sans Frontières reiterated its calls for a cease-fire. It added that delivering aid is extremely difficult in northern Gaza because of bombardments and ground warfare.
Doctors and health officials in Gaza say Israel’s public gestures are inadequate, given Al-Shifa’s immense needs.
As outrage grows over reports of babies dying and a mass grave being dug at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, Israel has publicly indicated a desire to mitigate the crisis there — not by ending the siege but by offering fuel and mobile incubators.
On Sunday night, the Israel Defense Forces released video appearing to show soldiers depositing 300 liters (about 79 gallons) of fuel at Al-Shifa’s entrance and announced an evacuation route for people in the complex to flee. On Monday came a pledge that the IDF would coordinate the delivery of incubators to Al-Shifa, following reports that premature babies there had to be removed from their incubators because of power shortages. Then on Tuesday, the IDF shared a photo of a female soldier helping load mobile incubators into a van, which an IDF spokesperson said would be used to transfer at-risk infants out of the hospital.
“We are trying to bring in incubators that can help transfer babies out of Shifa Hospital to other places down south, which will help safeguard the babies in the hospital,” IDF spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said.
The IDF said in a briefing later on Tuesday that the incubators had come from Israel’s Tel Hashomer Hospital and are “intended to be used to move premature babies to a safer space.” Asked how they will be delivered to Al-Shifa, spokesman Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler said coordination with the hospital “has not yet been completed.”
Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a plastic surgeon at Al-Shifa, said the hospital had not yet gotten a “proper offer” from the IDF to evacuate the babies.
Gaza’s hospitals, Al-Shifa in particular, have captured the world’s attention and become one of the war’s biggest and most contentious storylines as they run out of fuel and resources amid an overwhelming influx of patients injured by Israeli airstrikes. Israel has repeatedly alleged that Hamas hides in tunnels below Gaza hospitals, including under Al-Shifa — which both Hamas and hospital workers have denied. But images of vulnerable babies and desperate pleas from Al-Shifa’s medical staff for fuel to keep the hospital running have garnered intense public sympathy.
President Joe Biden said Monday he hoped and expected that there would be “less intrusive action relative to the hospital,” and that the hospital “must be protected.”
[…] The Red Cross, meanwhile, said it is in touch with both parties about Al-Shifa but that no concrete plans or decisions regarding a transfer of the newborns involving the organization have been made.
Failing an evacuation, it is not clear how the delivery of incubators would help save the lives of premature babies when Al-Shifa lacks electricity to power them — the reason they were removed from incubators in the first place.
NBC News was also unable to verify when the incubators might be delivered or how the Israeli army would get them to Al-Shifa amid the violence in the area […]
The promised evacuation route from the hospital, too, does not seem to have changed the situation — doctors at Al-Shifa on Monday said they were not aware of anyone leaving the hospital in the prior two days.
Dr. Nidal Abu Hadrus, a neurosurgeon at Al-Shifa, said on Monday that it was impossible for people to leave given the close sounds of bombing and shooting outside.
“It is not safe to move out. It is not safe to stay. We don’t know what to do,” he said.
[…] As for the 300 liters of fuel Israel left at the hospital entrance, a doctor there said on Sunday that Al-Shifa staff had not retrieved it because the amount was virtually a drop in the bucket. At least 10,000 liters per day (2,640 gallons) would be needed to run vital parts of the hospital, according to Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at the hospital who is also the head of international cooperation at the health ministry.
The IDF alleged that Hamas had told hospital staff not to collect the fuel. It said Tuesday that the delivery was just meant to “gain more time” to save the lives of people in the hospital — specifically babies and children — and not run the entire hospital. […]
Do you honestly think that Trump, of all people, would do more to calm things down in the Middle East? If that is what you think, I’d like to know what color the sky is on your planet.
That’s the problem. No one is saying, “Hey! We’re backing the wrong horse! The Palestinians are being slaughtered from something one group did. We need to stop them.” Instead, we only have the choice between someone who is turning a blind eye to a genocide (i.e. Biden) and someone who would actively participate in the murder (i.e. Trump). While I’m sure that some galaxy brain will try to explain how choosing the former is ethically better than the latter, I disagree. They’re the same.
No one is rushing in to save the Palestinians. No one is sending their military to stop the IDF and oust Netenyahu. The civilized world has decided to let the Israeli’s run their own Holocaust. To be asked to be complicit to that murder by voting in someone who–for whatever reason–will not stop Israel… Well. you can understand why that pisses some off.
You wouldn’t take this “Lesser of two evils” bullshit from right-wingers? Why should it be better when it comes from a useless lib.
whheydtsays
Re: Akira MacKenzie @ #239…
My experience is that voting choices are far too frequently between “the lesser of two evils”. The rare exceptions are something to celebrate. I am not, nor have have been particularly happy with Biden. That said, Trump was, is, and will continue to be an utter catastrophe. Since I expect that the Nov. 2024 election will be Biden versus Trump, with a smattering of third parties–and voting for most third parties will be, in any close state the equivalent of handing the election to Trump, Biden, regardless of what one thinks of him is the choice to avoid the destruction that a second Trump term would bring.
One might have some small hope that Biden won’t survive a second term, in which case I will look forward to having President Harris.
KGsays
Reginald Selkirk@219,
I have to agree with The Vicar and Akira MacKenzie on this occasion: Biden’s failure to demand a ceasefire (and he’s in a unique position to do so) is so vile that: “But Trump would be even worse!”, while true, is simply grotesque. It makes me particularly glad not to be American, and have to decide whether nonetheless to vote for him next year.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @213: Whenever I hear the term “citizen’s arrest”, my thoughts immediately go to Gomer Pyle bleating the term over and over on The Andy Griffith Show. The Orange Idiot is just as silly using the term, but his influence is much more dangerous to the objects of his ire as well as to the country.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 240
I understand all of that, However, I’ve of the crazy opinion that “lesser of two evils” thinking is only acceptable for inconsequential policy mattes: e.g.. Where to put stop lights. Whether to zone this plot of land commercial or residential.. Minor stuff. Little stuff.
On the other hand, using it to decide life and death matters like this is-again, in MY CRAZY, INSANE, DELUSIONAL opinion–is unconscionable.
‘City Elders’, a Shadowy Christian Dominionist Group, Organizing Takeover of Cities Across Country
[…] Writing for Salon in a piece titled “Cracks on the road to Christian Dominion: Is the shadowy ‘City Elders’ group collapsing?” (https://www.salon.com/2023/11/12/cracks-on-the-road-to-christian-dominion-is-the-shadowy-city-elders-group-collapsing/), Clarkson, Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, takes a deep dive into City Elders, a “national network of county level committees of Christian right activists who want to function as the de facto government in their local jurisdictions.” While City Elders “may well succeed in strengthening the political capacities of the Christian right. … Its efforts have also exposed significant cracks on the road to Christian dominion that could derail the goal of building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.”
The name City Elders is both a biblical reference and a description of the group’s focus on county seats as the planned locus of theocratic action. The group seeks to develop a permanent infrastructure to select and elect candidates for local entities such as school boards and county commissions, and then exert ongoing influence. There are statewide City Elders groups in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Virginia, and start-ups in Arkansas and Texas at least.
In early November, the headline speaker at the annual fundraising banquet for City Elders, held at the Tulsa Marriott, was Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla. “Hern and other right-wing Christians in politics,” Clarkson reports, “including newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, have largely avoided media scrutiny over the religious dimension of their politics. But their involvement with aggressively theocratic elements of the New Apostolic Reformation … including City Elders, is becoming increasingly toxic as public awareness and media attention increase. Theocrats know this, and they are scrambling to adjust.”
Clarkson reported that joining Rep. Hern at the confab were former Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and State Sen. David Bullard, Bill Ledbetter, a Southern Baptist minister and “Senior Statesman” who belongs to the Council for National Policy, a secretive and ultra-powerful national conservative leadership group; and Apostle Dutch Sheets of South Carolina, “a top figure in the New Apostolic Reformation who has played a dynamic political role in the Age of Trump.”
Differences within Christian Nationalist ranks might mean rough times ahead for City Elders. Clarkson notes that “City Elders invokes the role of elders in Old Testament Israel who met at the gates of their ancient cities, where important commercial transactions occurred, court was held and public announcements were made. City Elders seek to organize ‘spiritual leaders’ to protect and advance the kingdom of God, as they see it, from non-biblical influences. They see their contemporary function as protecting their counties from ungodly government, and utilizing civil government to advance the Kingdom.”
Jesse Leon Rodgers, the founder and chairman of City Elders, says he and his wife had a vision in 2015 […] “You see, God has destined for us, the people of God, to be the leaders and the influencers and to have dominion,” Rodgers said. “Not to be subjugated, but to rule. […]
Rodgers, who was a state representative of Watchmen on the Wall, a project of the Family Research Council is linking City Elders up with the FRC – the powerful longtime Washington, D.C. lobbying group – for the 2024 elections.
[…] “2024 is going to be the beginning of the Church — and you and I — taking territory which has been lost — lost politically, spiritually, economically, culturally — in every dimension. …. “We are going to see the glory of God.”
[…] In my Salon piece, I am underscoring how Garlow, Jacobs, and Rodgers are clearly sensitive about their Dominionism which is as creepingly totalitarian as it sounds. (They are obviously less concerned about the charge of Christian nationalism).
Ultimately, Clarkson added, “Americans value their democracy and rightly take umbrage at expressions of religious and political supremacism. They are or will become uncomfortable with the stealth politics of CE’s shadowy, unnamed governing councils.”
These fascists, cloaked in “Godliness” are a danger to this country. Sunlight still the best disinfectant.
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fanatical institutions fragment into smaller and smaller sects fighting over minutiae such as was Mary the Mother of God or the mother of Jesus (look it up). The real disaster is that the rest of us will be casualties in their wars.
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I went to one of those “academies” in the South, which are basically like the Christian version of madrasas. We got “devotionals” piped to us through the P.A. system every day, had teachers a couple times a year lead everybody in the sinner’s prayer, we had to pray before every event, and we had church leaders come do presentations that we had to attend (somewhere I probably still have my copy of Freddie Gage, The Underworld Preacher that we were given).
My class ended up putting out more than the usual number of criminals. Bank robbers, child abusers, wife beaters, bank-fraud perpetrators, and don’t even get me started on the drunk drivers and drug abusers. One guy suicided-by-cop by shooting at a couple of state troopers who tried to pull him over. Another couple killed themselves. Only a few of my classmates got through college because we were so poorly prepared for it.
So anytime the right-wingers start talking about “we need prayer in school” I have to just laugh. I HAD prayer in school, it doesn’t freakin’ work.
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My favorite is how they say, “We have so many school shootings because there is no more prayer in school.”
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These kinds of Napoleonic Messiah groups are usually self-limiting. I suspect they’re most dangerous in societies that have already become pretty solidly theocratic and undemocratic, which doesn’t describe us (yet).
More likely, these guys involvement in politics might end up tainting the idea of mixing religion and government among people who would otherwise lean that way. I’m not getting my hope up there, but such an unintended consequence would be a very just dessert.
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God always agrees with whatever bigotry they have, and god always wants them to do exactly what they wanted to do anyway.
It’s enough to make ya question if this whole “god” thing isn’t just self-serving bullshit… :)
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Dominionists don’t wanna be raptured out of here. They want to make the Planet a place they believe Jesus will want to return and rule over, making them his Viceroys, for all their diligent work. They wanna be here for the spoils. They’ve been at this, slowly, creepingly, patiently for over a 100 years. Dominionists are more dangerous to our Democracy than fundiloons, imv.
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This group sounds like a bunch of true believers which is why they will fall flat on their face. Every time stupornatural governing grains traction organized fraud moves in and sets up shop. The blind faith based are easy marks.
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Poor pious Pence. The fly smites thee for all to see, and so didith the Cheeto Jeezuz. I have faith in the continued fraud and fully expect them to be at it for another 100 years. Too bad that rapture thing, where they all disappear, is just a fairytale.
The Boston Globe’s Jackie Kucinich posted that she “chaperoned a first grade field trip this morning and despite having school every week since Labor Day, there was no name calling, fighting or clean shots to the kidneys.”
Akira MacKenziesays
While everyone is so eager to heap abuse on the Palestinians, very few are talking about why we have a crises in the first place:
@209 Lynna, OM pointed out the ‘macho’ repugnantcants and their ‘legislation by violence’
Then, I saw this demonstration of literacy in action by ‘Markwayne the Mullet’:
on Digby’s blog a post quoting Mullin: “we looked into the rules.You used to be able to cane. Andrew jackson challenged 9 guys to a duel. And so at the end of the day, there is presence for it”
I say, sounds like his ‘presence’ sets a precedent for stupidity controlling the legislature
lumipunasays
Re: my 155 on the asylum seekers entering Finland via Russia
Looks like shit has indeed hit the fan, and faster than I expected. The number of asylum seekers is rising rapidly, and will likely soon reach several hundred per day – more than doubling the total rate Finland normally receives asylum seekers.
That kind of rate could cause processing problems if it was sustained for some time, resulting in tens of thousands of people in total. Lots whining and grumbling from the racists, and from the people who generally oppose spending public money for the benefit of the downtrodden (ie. the exact people who voted our current government in).
But now the nation is already getting into panic mode, because there is good enough indication that the whole thing is being machinated by the Kremlin, likely as a petty punishment for Finland for siding with the West/Ukraine. It might be also intended to test our crisis resilience and preparedness. If it was intended to scare many Finns shitless, and lead them into arguing and demanding that we immediately close the border and ditch asylum agreements, it’s working like a charm. The people who already hate brown asylum seekers are on social media ranting about Russian hybrid warfare soldiers.
The government is reportedly preparing some kind of measures to restrict traffic on the Russian border. There are said to be complications in that process – I suspect because our far-right minister of interior Mari Rantanen is demanding some illegal draconian measures and the border/immigration officials and legal advisers are arguing against those. I expect to see some embarrassing outcome in the international news very soon.
Jeansays
About the Biden/Trump issue, this is a real life trolley problem and that one is no joke and has real world consequences. As much as I despise Biden’s handling of the Israel/Palestinian conflict (actually Palestinian massacre), anyone should know that Trump would be worse for that specific conflict but also for every other existing ones and others that would happen because of Trump being president. And everything else that would be bad inside the US as well (look at project 2025).
Also, there is at least some possibility of change for the better with Biden (if not through him, through his successor) since there are people in the party that do have different opinions and are not completely silenced (still way too much dark influence and dark money though). On the other side, Trump has no one that will influence him to do better but actually many who will lead him to do worse on multiple fronts and even if he dies, the party is only going to go down this path for at least a generation.
I’m a Canadian and I’m also appalled at our Prime Minister’s weakness in going against Biden in the Palestinian massacre and not standing up for needs to be done. He’s now trying to be firmer against the killing but he’s helped make Canada meaningless on the world stage (not that Poilievre would be a good alternative, far from it). And I fear we’ll be collateral damage if Trump comes back in power.
… Now, on the Latin American leg of the tour, Brazil might one-up all of those paltry gestures by projecting a Swift tribute on the statue of Christ the Redeemer…
The idea proposed by Brazilian fans is to project a version of Swift’s “Junior Jewels” shirt, a costume which first appeared in her “You Belong With Me” music video back in 2009. A fan mock-up of Jesus in the Junior Jewels shirt seems like the stuff of memes, except it’s a real thing that could happen, because the mayor of Rio has expressed his support…
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 222, quoting some(Ukrainian?)body on Xitter: Adolf had the same idea for German women: Kinder (kids), Küche (kitchen), Kirche (church).
That “3K” line goes back at least to Bismarck, and maybe further (DuckDuckGo seems offline at present, & I don’t consider this a big enough deal to violate my no-Google rule).
Vicar, Morales, MacKenzie, KG, et al supra – y’all can’t all be missing the greater context (about Biden/Israel etc) by ignorance, can you? Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11 – perhaps the only way to get them to listen (though it doesn’t seem to have worked with the majority of public or politicians). Given the power of the Israeli lobby in DC and media, outright denunciation would weaken Biden while not slowing down Zionist atrocities; he’s tried to play a weak hand pretty well, under the circumstances.
US progressives have played a weak hand very poorly, splitting themselves without producing any measurable effect to aid civilian victims “over there” or educate voters over here. The squabbling at FtB illustrates that in a microcosm.
lumipuna @251, thanks for the update. This is disturbing:
But now the nation is already getting into panic mode, because there is good enough indication that the whole thing is being machinated by the Kremlin, likely as a petty punishment for Finland for siding with the West/Ukraine.
Does sound like something Putin would do, but I see that we need more information before we come to a conclusion.
Akira MacKenziesays
“Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11…”
Yeah, I’m sure Netenyahu paused to quake in his boots. What Biden SHOULD have said was “The IDF has 24 hours to stop their genocide against the or the United States will level Tel Aviv.” Then he should expel the Israeli consulate and tell AIPAC to go fuck itself.
He won’t even call it a genocide? Will he?
“US progressives have played a weak hand very poorly, splitting themselves without producing any measurable effect to aid civilian victims “over there” or educate voters over here.”
Maybe because that in this shithole capitalist country Progressive don’t have the political or financial power to do anything of significance. This falls on you centrists. You’ve got the money and power. You do something.
On Tuesday, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was recording an interview segment on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” when news came out that the House of Representatives had finally done something productive: It passed a continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down. And it happened because Democrats put party politics aside and overwhelmingly supported the resolution. Colbert broke the news to Maddow and asked for her real-time reaction. Maddow gave a clear breakdown of how our two-party system has a single-party problem.
[The GOP] is not a party that is trying to govern, and we are faced with this larger project right now in our politics, which is that one side, under the Republican Party’s leader, is trying to say, you know, “My political opponents don’t deserve to live. I shouldn’t be subject to elections. I should just have power and rule and use the government to crush my enemies and get revenge.”
And the Democrats are like, “We like to talk about light rail and some foreign balanced foreign policy perspectives on attacking.” You know, like Democrats are still treating this like it is a governing project. And it is really, the two parties are doing two very different things. And so now we are going to keep the government open. It is because the Democrats came to the rescue and said that we should. But this is the Republican Party still not even wanting to keep the government going, because they don’t believe that governance is what we need in this country.
They believe we want a strongman form of government under a guy who just says what he wants and it happens. And the stakes are really high right now, and it’s just depressing to see what’s happening in Congress.
[video at the link]
Akira MacKenziesays
Sorry, I’m getting really angry right now… Let me respost:
“Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11…”
Yeah, I’m sure Netenyahu paused to quake in his boots. What Biden SHOULD have said was “The IDF has 24 hours to stop their genocide against the of the Palestinians or the United States will level Tel Aviv.” Then he should expel the Israeli consulate and tell AIPAC to go fuck itself.
He won’t even call it a genocide? Will he?
“US progressives have played a weak hand very poorly, splitting themselves without producing any measurable effect to aid civilian victims “over there” or educate voters over here.”
Maybe because that in this shithole capitalist country Progressive don’t have the political or financial power to do anything of significance. This falls on you centrists. You’ve got the money and power. You do something.
Although, you won’t.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Akira MacKenzie @ # 256: What Biden SHOULD have said was {stop massacre} or {massacre}…
You consider this a more moral OR more effective response? Pls stop “thinking” with your amygdala.
… in this shithole capitalist country Progressive don’t have the political or financial power to do anything of significance.
Not quite, but close. Progressives have least leverage in foreign/military policy.
… you centrists.
You misinterpret my position, but I haven’t (in this thread) given you much to judge by. Hint: trying to analyze a situation without favoring any given side does not automatically imply centrism.
On another subject: Akira @256, I do not agree that anyone should follow your suggestion that “the United States will level Tel Aviv.” Furthermore, that comes close to promoting violence, which, as we’ve discussed before, I do not allow on this thread. Let’s not promote violence, not even in an indirect way. Thanks.
Akira MacKenziesays
You consider this a more moral OR more effective response?
Why not. It’s the only language colonizers understand.
Kyiv security services say that Russian intelligence paid $10 million for a network whose claims Giuliani boosted.
The group of Ukrainians who flung byzantine and self-serving allegations about corruption in the Biden family were hit on Monday with treason charges over the effort.
The Security Service of Ukraine said that it was charging several people with counts of treason and involvement in a criminal organization for allegedly taking millions of dollars from Russian intelligence services to spread propaganda aimed at discrediting Kyiv’s relationship with the U.S. during the 2020 election. That propaganda played a role in Trump’s first impeachment, as Rudy Giuliani in 2019 sought to smear the Bidens by dragging them into the muck of Ukrainian corruption scandals.
Giuliani traveled to Kyiv during that effort, meeting with Ukrainian MPs Andriy Derkach and Oleksandr Dubinsky and praising the information he received from them. Now, Ukrainian authorities allege that Derkach, Dubinsky, and another key figure were literally bought and paid for by the Russian government as they were feeding Giuliani with allegations — and that the accusations they were hawking were the product of a $10 million propaganda network created by Russian military intelligence.
The treason charges are a shocking if not surprising milestone in the lengths that Trump and those around him in the GOP went late into his term to manufacture dirt on the Bidens and prod Kyiv into cooperating. Trump was impeached over the effort, which involved him withholding military aid to Kyiv as part of an effort to coerce the country into launching investigations and manufacturing dirt on the Bidens.
The Ukrainian treason charges identify at least some of the information which Giuliani received as the product of a Russian military intelligence effort. They also define the damage that the scandal wrought as being aimed at undermining U.S. support for Ukraine.
Ukrainian security services named the people in a Ukrainian-language press release and accompanying video. They are the two Ukrainian members of parliament, Derkach and Dubinsky, and a prosecutor named Kostyantyn Kulyk. The group received more than $10 million from the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, Ukrainian authorities said.
Ukrainian authorities laid out a division of labor for the three in the statement announcing the charges over what it described as “information-sabotage activities.”
The two members of Ukraine’s parliament, Dubinsky and Derkach, are singled out in the security agency’s statement as having held a number of press conferences in November 2019. The two spun a bizarre conspiracy theory at the conferences alleging that multinational investment funds based in the U.S. were in cahoots with the Democratic party to launder money through and out of Ukraine.
Giuliani met with the two in Kyiv the next month, and said later that he planned to provide Trump with a 20-page report on what he had learned.
At the same time, Ukrainian authorities said, Kulyk allegedly used his position as a prosecutor to substantiate allegations spread by others in the network. […]
Kulyk reportedly developed a seven-page, English-language “dossier” on Hunter Biden while in office in 2018. Kulyk then shopped it around, complaining to right-wing scribe John Solomon in April 2019 that U.S. prosecutors were not interested in the information.
That dossier included debunked accusations which later entranced Trump and Giuliani, including that Biden, as vice president, tried to thwart an investigation into his son by pushing for the country’s top prosecutor to be fired, and that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was opposed to Trump.
The ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, was fired in May 2019.
The Ukrainian charges follow previous allegations from the U.S. Treasury Department that the three men were working to aid the Russian government.
The U.S. Treasury called Derkach an “active Russian agent” in September 2020. Ukrainian security services said earlier this year that Derkach had created a group of private security companies in Ukraine which aimed to assist Russian forces upon their arrival in February 2022, had the invasion gone according to plan. The Treasury Department also sanctioned Kulyk and Dubinsky in January 2021 for allegedly being part of a “Russia-linked foreign influence network.”
Good to see that some bad guys were caught. Also, Giuliani looks so damned gullible.
Not Covid vaccines—the old ones that protect us from measles, whooping cough, and polio.
Back in mid-2021, when it was clear that conservatives were mobilizing against the Covid vaccines, I remember asking a prominent doctors’ group if they were worried that their attacks on the new shots would undermine confidence in routine childhood vaccinations—the kind that prevents potentially deadly, contagious childhood diseases like measles, polio, and whooping cough. They reassured me that parents’ skepticism was limited to Covid vaccines—which made sense because those shots were still new and these others had been around for decades. The rest of the immunizations were still just as popular as ever. […]
That was then.
Today, just two and a half years later, the situation appears to have shifted. The percentage of kindergartners who are fully vaccinated declined from 95 percent in the 2020-2021 school year to 93 percent in 2021-2022—below pre-pandemic levels. Since schools still require routine vaccinations, more families than ever before are asking permission for their school-aged children to skip the shots, as well. Requests for exemptions increased in 41 states, and in 10 states, more than 5 percent of parents made such requests. That exemption rate is significant, because when more than 5 percent of a given population is unwilling to be vaccinated, “herd immunity” is compromised and outbreaks are possible. That was the news last week from the Centers for Disease Control, which tracks rates of childhood immunization every year.
This latest development is no random statistical blip—actually, I’ve been dreading it for a while now. What started as a campaign by a small group of influencers who exist in the nexus of wellness culture and rightwing politics has entered the national conversation as a major talking point of powerful conservative politicians.
[…] I’ve documented the alarming rise in misinformation about immunizations since the onset of the pandemic. In 2020, California naturopath and anti-vaccine activist Larry Cook explained in a video on his website, Medical Freedom Patriots, how his thinking evolved on spreading his anti-vaccine message since the days when skepticism around vaccines was thought to be a quirk of the natural-lifestyle corner of the far left. “The Democrats are actually the ones pushing the vaccine mandate agenda,” he said. “I am of the opinion that now, especially with Covid-19, the Republican elected officials are going to get hit really, really, really hard to capitulate to vaccine mandates.” He explained that his “target demographic” was “pro-Republican,” “pro-President Trump,” and “QAnon friendly.” Cook had hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook before Meta removed his account in 2020 for violating its misinformation policy. Even before the release of the lifesaving Covid vaccines in 2021, influencers were laying the groundwork for widespread confusion, posting in parents’ groups about the supposed dangers of vaccines—along with the pedophilia-obsessed QAnon conspiracy theory that preyed on parents’ myriad anxieties about their children.
That year, the nascent conservative antipathy toward Covid vaccines collided with the burgeoning parents’ rights movement, which railed against school closures and mask mandates, and then against racially diverse and LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, books, and programming. Last year, at the inaugural summit of the influential parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty, I watched Florida governor Ron DeSantis crow to the crowd about his anti-vax credentials. He said he had heard that families were moving to Florida because they were worried their states would require children to be vaccinated against Covid in order to attend school. “It’s very important that we were not allowing government to come in and force that on people,” he said. The moms went wild with approval.
[…] No discussion of the mainstreaming of vaccine hesitancy could be complete without mention of another presidential candidate: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who traffics in vaccine misinformation along with his famous family name. Kennedy, who founded the anti-vaccine advocacy group Children’s Health Defense, somehow over the last decade has been transformed from an effective environmental crusader into a full-blown vaccine conspiracy theorist. He loudly and frequently repeats the discredited claim that vaccines cause autism. “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” he said in a 2021 podcast. Kennedy’s group seems especially intent on eroding vaccine confidence in the Black community. In 2021, Children’s Health Defense released a movie called Medical Racism: The New Apartheid, which inaccurately claims that Black children have more robust immune responses and that they are therefore being “overdosed” with certain vaccines.
[…] Last year, I talked to Florida pediatrician Mobeen Rathore, who had worked on a highly successful campaign in the early aughts to raise the state’s abysmal childhood vaccination rates. They eventually managed to raise the rates among two-year-olds from 77 percent in 2002 to 98 percent in 2019, so he was dismayed to see his hard work being undermined by a few power-hungry politicians. “Of all the things that government mandates, [childhood vaccines are] the simplest, and the most useful one,” he told me. “I just don’t know why we have to politicize healthcare, especially for children.”
Leaked videos. An apparent confession, later represented as a “typo.” Demands for a protective order.
Media reports detailing confidential interviews with four defendants in the Georgia racketeering case involving former President Trump who were divulging their knowledge to state prosecutors set off a bizarre “whodunnit”-style hearing in state court Wednesday afternoon.
It culminated with a confession by one defendant’s lawyer and a Georgia judge weighing whether to issue a protective order placing restrictions on how defendants can disseminate materials they receive in discovery.
“In being transparent with the court and to make sure that nobody else gets blamed for what happened – and so that I can go to sleep well tonight – judge, I did release those videos to one outlet,” said Jonathan Miller, an attorney for defendant Misty Hampton. “And in all candor, I need the court to know that.”
Miller’s admission capped a whirlwind series of developments that began when footage surfaced of the proffer sessions the four defendants who pleaded guilty – ex-Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, plus former Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall – participated in as part of their deals with state prosecutors.
Their confessions, published first by ABC News and the Washington Post, bolster the narrative laid out in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ 98-page indictment that Trump led the charge on efforts to subvert Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results in his favor.
Within hours of the footage surfacing on Monday, prosecutors and defense attorneys started trading blame. It began with an email chain demanding answers from Steve Sadow, Trump’s attorney.
“The proffers did not come from Jennifer or me, or anyone connected to my defense team,” Sadow wrote. “Please state for the record whether the prosecution or anyone connected to the prosecution team had any hand in the disclosure of the proffers to the media.”
Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade responded Tuesday morning, “The State had nothing to do with leaking any information to the media!”
Minutes later, Todd Harding, an attorney representing defendant Harrison Floyd, seemed to confess, writing “It was Harrison Floyd’s team.”
“Sorry, it was a typo,” he followed up minutes later. “We did not communicate with the media.”
But the damage was already done, with prosecutors soon afterwards filing an emergency request for a protective order, which would place restrictions on how the defendants can use materials they receive in discovery. They attached the email chain as part of their motion.
Miller’s confession at Wednesday’s hearing came after Floyd’s lawyers filed additional documents insisting they did not leak the proffers and that the individual who did would come forward.
“It is my understanding that today the individual that disseminated the proffer videos will inform the Court of that fact…. All of this colossal time waste is the direct result of the State’s intentional maneuver to use the typographical error in an email in a motion that the State knows has zero support,” Floyd’s lawyer wrote in court documents filed earlier on Wednesday.
[…] Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is now weighing prosecutors’ request to impose a protective order on all of the defendants in response to the leak. With no protective order currently in place, Miller’s disclosure wasn’t illegal.
Although most defendants were in agreement about issuing a limited protective order, at the hearing, Miller argued against one. He suggested that Hampton believes transparency in the 19-defendant racketeering case – “one of the biggest cases that the country has had” – is vital. Hampton was Coffee County’s election supervisor, where an election equipment breach core to the case allegedly occurred. […]
For that uncle who says China’s doing ‘nothing.’ Now he’ll say China’s lying. Never mind that uncle, he’s a lost cause.
Just a day before today’s face-to-face meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco, the State Department announced that the US and China have agreed to cooperate more closely on climate change. It’s kind of a big deal, since we’re the planet’s two top sources of greenhouse emissions. The agreement is the result of months of negotiations between US Climate Envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua.
NBC News reports the two countries will revive a
bilateral working group that will address issues including energy transition, methane and deforestation, marking the full restoration of climate relations that China cut off more than a year ago amid tensions over the Beijing-claimed island of Taiwan.
The two countries also expressed support for a declaration by world leaders at this year’s Group of 20 summit to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, and vowed to work together on a global, legally binding agreement to reduce plastic pollution.
China has in the last decade deployed more renewable energy, and done it faster, than any other country in the world, and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates that China will build more new solar capacity this year alone than the total amount of solar installed in the USA.
The downside, of course, is that China is also rapidly expanding its coal-burning power stations, even though coal is the worst source of planet-warming carbon dioxide. That’s largely because China’s gamble on building enormous hydroelectric dams has been undercut in recent years by sustained drought that left reservoirs behind the dams too low to produce power. The Chinese Communist Party is no fan of mass protests over blackouts, after all.
There’s every reason to believe, though, that China will be moving away from coal as its renewable capacity expands, although right now all those renewables aren’t yet able to contribute as much as they could, since China’s electric grid needs substantial upgrades to get clean power where it’s needed — a problem the US faces as well.
As the New York Times reported recently, China’s energy transition is actually farther along than almost anyone would have predicted, given its historic reliance on coal.
Mr. Xi announced in December 2020 that China planned to triple its wind and solar capacity by 2030. China is on track to reach that target by the end of next year, said Frank Haugwitz, a solar industry consultant who specializes in China’s data.
The agreement announced yesterday unfortunately doesn’t include any firm commitment by China to phase out coal or even a timeline for ending the construction of new coal plants. But there’s a bit of progress there, too, the Times reports:
[Both] countries agreed to “pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030.” That growth should reach levels high enough “so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation,” the agreement says. Both countries anticipate “meaningful absolute power sector emission reduction” in this decade, it says. That appears to be the first time China has agreed to cut emissions in any part of its economy.
In another notable development, the US-China agreement announced yesterday includes, for the first time, a Chinese commitment to set goals for reducing all greenhouse gases, while up to now it has only set targets for phasing out CO2 emissions.
The Times also points out that so far, China hasn’t joined the “Global Methane Pledge” that 150 nations have signed, which commits member nations to reduce emissions of the highly potent greenhouse gas by 30 percent by 2030. So there’s a lot more persuading yet to go.
This is all what your diplomatic cliché handbook would call “a welcome development” in advance of the UN’s big COP28 climate meeting in Dubai next month, in what’s likely to be the hottest year in human history. If the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases can make progress, then it’s just possible the world is going to tackle climate change in time to keep much of the planet habitable for beloved mammals like manatees, koalas, kittycats and those owned by them … and Taylor Swift.
Speaking of maniacally stupid Republican rent-a-cops, it’s time for a visit with our old pal Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins.
One of the many contradictory conspiracy theories MAGA [followers] believe about January 6 is that it was a false flag by the FBI, in order to make MAGA [followers] look bad […]
(Charlie Sykes points to an interesting Reddit discussion in this morning’s newsletter, which includes an insight about why conspiracy theorists believe in contradictory delusions, namely that it’s not about the specific beliefs themselves, but rather the overarching idea that yer bein’ liiiiiiiied tooooooo! Therefore, for MAGA Republicans, January 6 was both a false flag by the feds to ensnare otherwise innocent Trump supporters — LOL — and also a mere tourist visit by innocent Republicans interested in learning how a bill becomes a law.)
Today, Clay Higgins, by miles one of the stupidest and most easily excitable dipshits ever to stink up the House chamber, spent some time with the conspiracy theory that the FBI brought GHOOOOST BUSES to the Capitol on January 6, filled with “FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters,” who were then “deployed” on the Capitol.
It happened in the Worldwide Threats hearing, and Higgins was bothering FBI Director Christopher Wray. He asked Wray if January 6 was a false flag. Wray said no. Higgins clearly thought he had caught Wray red-handed, and … oh, just bless his heart. [video at the link]
HIGGINS: Are you familiar with – do you know what a ghost vehicle is? You’re the director of the FBI, you certainly should. Do you know what a ghost bus is?
Chris Wray was like what?
HIGGINS: OK. It’s pretty common in law enforcement. It’s a vehicle that’s used for secret purposes. It’s painted over.
Uh huh.
HIGGINS: These two buses in the middle here [points to photo] were the first to arrive at Union Station on January 6, 0500. I have all the evidence. I’m showin’ the TIP of ‘dis iceberg! I’m showing you these two buses are painted completely white!
Well, we all know what white buses mean. Or do we?
HIGGINS: This is very important, Mr. Chairman. These buses are nefarious in nature and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters. They were deployed onto our Capitol on January 6th. Your day is coming, Mr. Wray.
GHOOOOOOOST BUSES!
NEFARIOUS GHOST BUSES!
[…] Let’s revisit our first introduction to Clay Higgins, when former Trump lawyer/now nemesis Michael Cohen testified before Congress in 2019. Higgins was so confused why Cohen was in possession of the boxes of evidence that had been seized from his apartment and office, utterly incapable of mentally processing the concept that the FBI gave the evidence back when they were done with it.
He just kept asking over and over again. WHARRRRRR BOXES? WHARRRRRR ARE THEY?
[…] Wonkette wrote a dramatic one-act play that day about Michael Cohen testifying before brain-damaged Clay Higgins, trying desperately to explain extremely elementary concepts to him:
HIGGINS: WHAR BOXES, GOOD SIR? WHAR BOXES? ARE BOXES IN YOUR GAAAAAAA-RAGE?
COHEN: Um, they’re in storage?
HIGGINS: WHAR BOXES? WHY YEW NOT GIVE BOXES TO THE PO-LICE? WHY YEW HIDE BOXES? WHAR BOXES?
COHEN: They gave them back …
HIGGINS: WHAR BOXES? GIVE MISTER HIGGINS DA BOXES! WHAR BOXES? BOXES IS BURIED TREAS-UH! WHAR YEW BURY BOXES OF TREAS-UH AND HIDE DEM FROM POOR MISTER HIGGINS?
COHEN: Chairman, this congressman is too stupid, may I have a different one?
We have not yet received any literary awards for that, maybe they are lost in the mail.
And now we will write a dramatic one-act play about Clay Higgins asking FBI Director Wray about ghost buses on January 6.
HIGGINS: WHAAAAAR GHOST BUSES, GOOD SIR? I SEEN ‘EM! OFFICER CLAY HIGGINS REPORTIN’ FOR DUTY! I SEEN ‘EM!
WRAY: …
HIGGINS: YEW THINK YOU CAN PAINT GHOST BUSES, BUT I CAN TELL! WHAAAAAR GHOST BUSES?
WRAY: Is there a question?
HIGGINS: YOUR DAY IS COMIN’! GONNA GIT YEW! CLAY HIGGINS GONNA GIT YEW! WHARRRRRR GHOST BUSES?
WRAY: I’m just going to sit here until this is over, I guess.
HIGGINS: WHO YEW GONNA CALL? GHOST BUSSERS.
Maybe the Higgins family can act these out for Daddy at Thanksgiving next week. […]
Or maybe we will just take it to Broadway. We’ll take our Tonys in advance.
OMG. After that pathetic display of macho-man stupidity in a Senate hearing, Markwayne Mullin hastened to Fox News to explain himself, and to offer excuses:
Last night, Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, a Republican obviously, ran whining to Sean Hannity, because that’s what they all do after a long day of playing with their poo. And he told Hannity that he had that silly crybaby temper tantrum at the head of the Teamsters union during a Senate hearing yesterday because that’s what Oklahoma voters sent him there to do. Which says a lot about the relatively low quality of Oklahoma voters in comparison to all others, if true. [video at the link]
Hannity said it would have been “gutless” to react in any other way. (The Teamsters guy had made some mean tweets at Mullin months ago.) “What do people want me to do?” asked Mullin, apparently unaware that regular people who love themselves and aren’t morons do not require their senators to try to start fights during Senate hearings. “If I didn’t do that, people in Oklahoma would be pretty upset at me. That’s not how we raised, and I’m ‘posed to represent Oklahoma values!”
[…] This would be a good time to remind everyone that Sean Hannity does MMA, did you know he does MMA? Markwayne Mullin used to do MMA, did you know he did MMA? This has been a paragraph about MMA and the guys who do it.
At another point in the interview, Hannity explained that back in his day, it was a different time, and every single day (every SINGLE day) on the ballfield all the children would get into fistfights with each other, because this is just what they did.
“Me and my friends, when we played football, we played basketball, I played hockey, you know, I don’t think there was a single day that we were playing sports, where we didn’t drop the gloves or, you know, have a brief interlude of, you know, throwing fists, and it would all be over, you pick up and you start playing again.”
Every day, they had to punch each other, baby Sean Hannity and his pals. [And he remembers this fondly?]
He asked, “When all of a sudden did we become that woke that the thought of two people, one responding to a threat directly, saying, OK, you threatened me, here’s your opportunity, take me up on it?”
Indeed, when did we become so “woke” that we don’t even throw punches during Senate hearings when mean guys hurt our feelings?
Mullin said it is “political correctness,” and then bellyached that “the Left can say whatever they want.” […] [video at the link]
On Fox Business yesterday, Mullin complained […] that the Teamsters man, Sean O’Brien, is a “thug,” and that committee chair Bernie Sanders should have expected this to happen because “you’ve seen his tweets to me.” (Reminder that this is still about mean tweets. You would think Sean O’Brien had fucked Mullin’s wife by how melodramatic he’s being.)
“I says you brought the thug in!” That’s what he said to Bernie.
And he appealed to precedent for other times that grown men acted like little pissyass shitbabies on the Senate floor. There’s a lot going on in this clip: [video at the link]
MULLIN: Andrew Jackson challenged two people or nine people to a duel when he was president, and he also knocked one guy out at a White House dinner! There’s been canings before in the Senate too! Maybe we should bring some of that back, you know, keep people from thinking they’re so tough, and make us sit at a table, and we can actually work out our differences without poking at each other, and wanna run to cameras and call people names. Maybe if we have some kind of respect because we know there’s gonna be consequences for your actions, then maybe we can move on with all this, I don’t know, JARGON, that happens around this place.
Wow, OK. First of all, that’s not how the word “jargon” is used in the English language, or any other language. It is not even the Oklahoma values definition of “jargon.”
Secondly, Markwayne Mullin is saying that maybe they should have some canings in the Senate, or possibly duels, in order to keep people from sending him mean tweets? If they knew there was gonna be consequences for sending Markwayne Mullin mean tweets, then people wouldn’t do it, because they’d get caned?
Uh huh. OK, big boy.
Thirdly, that (infamous) caning Mullin referenced is credited for hastening the beginning of the Civil War, so perhaps Markwayne Mullin’s fight club strategies aren’t that effective out here in grownup world. It was an assault. It wasn’t something they just did back then. And who did the caning? The guy trying to preserve slavery, of course. […]
Mullin also responded to the idea that this was behavior “unbecoming to a senator,” and he said well he doesn’t know, but he said that he is first an Oklahoman (before he is a senator), and that’s what happens if you try that in Oklahoma.[…] He said the Teamsters guy O’Brien was “scared out of his mind” when he stood up to go beat him upon the bottom during the Senate hearing. Markwayne Mullin said he saw “the fear in his eyes,” and that O’Brien was “very thankful” that Bernie Sanders stopped them.
“I wasn’t worried about the fight itself, but I was ready to shut his mouth up,” said the United States senator, yet another man whose head was filled as a child with lies like “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Mullin said he guarantees that Teamsters guy “won’t run his mouth to me again.” […]
For his part, Bernie Sanders said it’s “pathetic” that he had to break up that dumbass shit yesterday.
In other Mullin news, he reportedly kicked Rep. Tim Burchett — the one Kevin McCarthy kidney-punched — out of his workout group last week, because Tim Burchett is mean to Kevin McCarthy and Markwayne Mullin is Kevin McCarthy’s friend and you cannot be mean to Kevin McCarthy unless you WANT TO TAKE THIS OUTSIDE, YOU WANT TO TAKE THIS OUTSIDE? WE CAN TAKE THIS OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!
[Markwayne Mullin has a workout group for Republican senators?]
Burchett said Mullin “berated” and “yelled” at him until he left the group.
Big man. [Bully]
By the way, you really should watch the whole entire full video of yesterday’s incident. Markwayne Mullin is so much more pathetic in the full video than he is in the brief clips we’ve all been watching. If you want to see what a small man he really is, take five minutes.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who last week announced he will retire from the Senate at the end of next year, added to his party’s woes on Wednesday when he said he “absolutely” would consider running for president in 2024.
In an interview with NBC News, Manchin said: “Every American should consider it if they’re in a position to help save the country.” …
Wow, he is delusional.
birgerjohanssonsays
In this week’s God Awful Movies Noah Lugeons is away resting after literally suffering a heart attack, but Heath Enwright ,Eli Bosnick and “guest masochist” Trinity Pixie are holding the fort.
Nevada’s Attorney General Aaron Ford has opened an investigation into efforts by Republicans in the state to undermine Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election by creating a slate of fake pro-Trump electors…
New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy on Wednesday launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in next year’s contest.
Her candidacy, announced Wednesday, puts her in the running to become the first woman elected to the Senate from New Jersey. The Democratic primary already features Rep. Andy Kim and could include Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has lost significant party support amid federal bribery charges but has not ruled out a run in 2024…
Kallas, a 46-year-old lawyer, has been one of the most vocal European backers of Ukraine and a fierce critic of Russia within the European Union and NATO…
Lawmakers apparently balked after learning that Apple canceled the critically acclaimed weekly streaming talk show, The Problem with Jon Stewart, last month—reportedly over issues with the show’s planned programming related to both China and artificial intelligence.
In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party urged Apple to explain its decision to end production of The Problem with Jon Stewart and “accelerate its efforts to reduce its dependence on” China. These steps, lawmakers wrote, are critical to help address “broader concerns about indirect Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence over the creative expression of American artists and companies on CCP-related topics.” …
What the ever-loving fuck? Markwayne Mullin is still talking:
Sen. Markwayne Mullin appeared on the Oklahoma-based podcast “Undaunted Life: A Man’s Podcast.” And Mullin and the host had this strange exchange about his aggro behavior:
HOST KYLE THOMPSON: Why you should train jiu jitsu is because even if you lose a fight, you want to make sure the other guy will never want to fight you ever again, because it’s kind of a win-win at that point. But we need to move from an almost-fight—
MULLIN: And by the way, I’m not afraid of biting. I will bite.
THOMPSON: Biting?
MULLIN: Yeah, if I’m in a fight, I’m going to bite. I’ll do anything. I mean, I’m not above it. And I don’t care where I bite, by the way. It just is going to be a bite.
THOMPSON: I’m not even going to ask any further questions on that. I think that that basically speaks for itself.
[…] Mullin at least knows how to pick an audience for his weird comment about biting. The “Undaunted” podcast is one of many trying to carve out space in the modern “men’s rights” movement. This right-wing to far-right media ecosystem often attaches itself to mixed martial arts and Christianity (sometimes called “spirituality”), with its various middle-tier hosts trying to do their best to mimic Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, and Steven Crowder. For instance, the website for Thompson’s podcast describes itself this way:
On the show, he tackles hot button issues that most pastors won’t go near; such as the lack of true masculinity in the Church, supposed “toxic” masculinity in culture, how to defeat pro-abortion arguments, wokeness and cancel culture, CRT, the LGBTQ+ cultural revolution, and much more.
And yes, Thompson talks about “working out, or doing jiu-jitsu” when not hanging with his wife and kids. He also sells cigars for $16 a pop (or a little under $300 for a 20-pack). But no worries, they are rolled for a good and manly cause: “It’s more than just a good smoke… These cigars help fund the prevention and rescue of children from sex trafficking.”
MarkWayne Mullin used the show to peacock and pretend to be a hard-working Regular Joe, all for the benefit of men who are having a hard time managing their masculine identities in a world with increasing financial inequalities.
Biting? Mullin is a biter? And why are so many bad ideas intersecting here? A supposed “lack of masculinity in the Church”? Why capitalize “Church”? Looks like something similar to what Mormons do when they refer to “The Church,” meaning that only their church is really a church. And why sell cigars to raise money for rescuing children from sex trafficking (supposedly)? So many mind-boggling bad ideas.
The Vatican has confirmed a ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons, a centuries-old secretive society that the Catholic Church has long viewed with hostility and has an estimated global membership of up to six million.
“Active membership in Freemasonry by a member of the faithful is prohibited, because of the irreconcilability between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry,” the Vatican’s doctrinal office said in a letter published by Vatican media on Wednesday…
GOP is consisting more and more of nothing but adult children. Narcissistic, spoiled, temper-tantrum throwing adult children.
————————
Well, obviously they are REAL men….you know the kind that are happy to insult others, but will throw a fit if anybody says anything criticizing them. Yeah, I remember growing up and being told that the most unmanly thing to do during a fight was a low blow, or a bite. Those actions were considered cheating.
——————————
I have to wonder if Markwayne has been checked out for rabies
——————————
He offered the biting comment out of a clear, blue sky; not in answer to a question, but on his own brief. He’s proud of it.
—————————-
And this raving lunatic was actually elected by the entire state of Oklahoma?!
——————————
The Party of “I’ll punch you for hurting my feelings” has another representative who would use violence against another while declaring his Christianity.
A Republican lawmaker’s pitch to strip judges of their ability to block abortion bans isn’t going anywhere, House Speaker Jason Stephens said…
Rep. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester, is working on a bill that would prohibit judges from interpreting Issue 1, a new constitutional standard on access to abortion and other reproductive rights…
I haven’t seen a public response yet but my standard replay online is that this is a social (political) confrontation and they will have to get their physical aggression out somewhere else. I either get nothing or variants on threatening to come over (from Florida? It’s only once so far) and I tell them they will get nothing physical. I’ll point other their lack of useful words and general incompetence.
Ukraine can hardly believe its luck. Fought to a standstill in southern Ukraine, on the Zaporizhzhia front, the defenders were struggling to make gains against the deeply entrenched Russian occupiers. Vladimir Putin took stock of the situation, decided that not enough of his people were dying, and likely ordered his forces’ costly attack on Avdiivka.
The end result? The visually confirmed equipment losses in the Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive were almost identical:
Ukraine: 485 Russia: 490
But here are the numbers of visually confirmed losses around Avdiivka:
Ukraine: 16 Russia: 221
The casualty numbers are likely even more lopsided, as suggested by the endless stream of gruesome videos of wide-open fields littered with the corpses of Russian infantrymen. Cluster munitions, in particular, are proving particularly effective at mowing down this latest round of Russian Zerg rushes. So much so, that the Battle of Bakhmut might’ve ended differently if Ukraine had access to these artillery rounds early last year.
Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about this front, as well as the Ukrainian advances in Kherson.
“Russia is already losing men and equipment near Avdiivka faster and on a larger scale than, for example, near Bakhmut,” Zelenskyy said yesterday in his nightly address. “Withstanding their pressure is extremely difficult … The more Russian forces that are destroyed near Avdiivka, the worse the overall situation will be for the enemy and the overall course of this war.”
Bakhmut took a brutal toll on Russian occupiers, with at least 20,000 Russians killed (confirmed by then-Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin), and anywhere between 40,000 to 80,000 wounded, depending on the estimate. But Ukraine was careful to conceal the cost to its forces. It was the steady stream of Twitter and Telegram memorials that hinted at Ukraine’s high price, and toward the end, when Russian forces had the city surrounded in three directions, that casualty ratio was reportedly 1-to-1. As I’ve written before, war historians will argue for decades whether the cost was justified, particularly since there were perfectly defensible heights west of the city that would’ve presented as much of a hindrance to Russian advances, as Russian defenses in the south halted the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
There is no moral ambiguity around Avdiivka. This is what the typical daily loss report looks like these days, with red signifying Russian losses, and blue being Ukrainian ones: [List of losses at the link]
Per the numbers above, the equipment kill ratio is almost 14-to-1. Ukraine would be happy to keep that going, with Russia’s war machine ground down in a mildly important Ukrainian salient.
That said, Russia has made some advances in the area, and unless Ukraine counterattacks their flanks and pushes them back, there may be a reckoning in the weeks ahead. But for now, Ukraine is happy with the Avdiivka meat grinder. [Tweet, images and video at the link]
Imagine if Ukraine had cluster munitions during the Bakhmut battle. A Russian military instructor talks about their impact on Russia’s war effort, and how cluster munitions are even more impactful than HIMARS rocket artillery or even kamikaze drones:
Here, in terms of the specific means of destruction available to the enemy, I would highlight three elements that radically complicate the situation: HIMARS, kamikaze drones, and the cluster shells.
It is cluster shells that are now knocking out a huge mass of our infantry with the layering of a number of negative factors.
The infantry suffers heavy excess losses directly on the battlefield, as a result of which the execution of combat missions is disrupted, and in addition to this there is an overstrain of evacuation logistics and an overload of the military medical infrastructure.
The rapid depletion of infantry units, coupled with the overload of hospitals, leads to the fact that people are massively returned to the battle, primarily undertreated, and often with small damaging elements in the soft tissues not removed.
In addition, as I said above, cluster shells have a very favorable ratio of the quantity used to the quality of fire damage inflicted on infantry.
The general situation at the front, of course, consists of a whole complex of various factors, but weapons like these also have a significant impact on it.
It would seem logical to ask the question: well, where is the “game change”? After all, there are no radical shifts in the front line, much less breakthroughs from the enemy! However, there aren’t any on our side either! And there is a price. Very high and sad.
Exhausting and bleeding the enemy on the defensive, and then collapsing the front with powerful counterattacks would be an excellent plan if implemented. But in fact, along the way, we ourselves were pretty exhausted and bled dry. Here is a “game change” in which cluster shells have already played and continue to play their role.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government acknowledged its Kherson advances for the first time. Speaking at the Hudson Institute, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, noted that, “Against all odds, Ukraine’s Defense Forces have gained a foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro.” In this part of Ukraine, the left bank is the southern side of the Dnipro River. […]
On the ground, Russia has moved armor into the area to try and stop the Ukrainian advance around Krynky. Check out how well that’s going for them: [Tweet and video at the link] It’s hard to tell what hit the tank, but after the smoke clears, it looks to be in pretty good shape. Its crew certainly wasn’t sticking around to find out—they high-tailed it out of there. After some repairs, Ukraine may have itself a new tank, and one less to transport across the river. Meanwhile, geolocated video released by Russia shows that Ukraine has advanced slightly both to the west of Krynky, toward Kozachi Laheri, and to the west, toward Korsunka. [map at the link]
As we’ve noted all week, Korsunka is the place to watch, as Ukraine’s most likely bridging location is on the riverbank northwest of the village. Ukraine must liberate it to create the breathing room for a pontoon bridge.
In the meantime, Ukrainian FPV suicide drones are swarming all over the region, shutting down Russian logistics. [Tweet and video at the link]
Around Avdiivka, cluster munitions might be king, but kamikaze drones rule the Kherson front.
————————-
Russia’s continued diplomatic isolation continues.
“For the first time, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) did not elect the Russian Federation to one of its main bodies, the Executive Board,” Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak reports.
Hamas wants a multiday pause in fighting, increased humanitarian aid, and freedom for an unknown number of Palestinians in Israeli jails in exchange for the release of at least 50 women and children being held in Gaza.
Hamas has agreed in principle and Israel is now considering a proposal for the release of at least 50 women and children among about 240 foreign and Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, according to an Arab diplomat familiar with the negotiations.
In exchange for the hostages, Israel would agree to a three-to-five-day pause “in place” in the fighting, increased humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the release of an unspecified number of women and children held in Israeli prisons.
Amid reports that agreement on at least some components of a deal may be near, U.S. officials and other interested parties spent much of Wednesday awaiting word from Israel, where internal discussions were said to be underway. President Biden, speaking Wednesday in a news conference after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, said that he was “deeply involved” in negotiations over a hostage release with Israel and the government of Qatar, which is serving as a go-between for Hamas.
“I am mildly hopeful,” Biden said. In response to a question, he said he was not considering any U.S. military involvement in rescuing the captives. Instead, Biden said he was “working on how I can be helpful in getting the hostages released and have a period of time where there’s a pause long enough to let that happen.”
The Arab diplomat and others familiar with the talks, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive negotiations, cautioned that the arrangement currently under discussion could fall apart, as have others up to now. Previous proposals have outlined some of the same parameters, with different numbers of hostages involved and conditions placed on their release. The latest outline has been agreed only “in general terms,” the diplomat said.
“We should be hearing back today,” the diplomat said. If the Israelis agree, “it’s going to happen quickly. If they reject it, then we’re at it again.”
The hope is that agreement on a deal for the release of at least some of the captives could lead to further talks on freeing the remainder of those held in Gaza. Hamas has indicated previously that it will keep Israeli military hostages, estimated to number several dozen, apparently for use in separate exchanges for Palestinian militants held in Israeli prisons.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of his war cabinet refused to comment Wednesday on a potential hostage deal.
Speaking at a military post in southern Israel, Netanyahu said, “There’s no place in Gaza we won’t reach. There’s no hiding, no shelter, no refuge for Hamas murderers. … The hostages will be released and Hamas will be destroyed.”
President Biden, after speaking again Tuesday with Netanyahu, told reporters about a potential hostage release that “I’ve been talking with the people involved every single day. I believe it’s going to happen.” Asked whether he had a message for families awaiting news of the captives, nine of whom are believed to be American citizens, along with one permanent U.S. resident, Biden said: “Hang in there. We’re coming.”
[…] events on the ground in Gaza have also influenced the extent of cooperation by the combatants. Israel has refused international calls to cease its offensive operations, including thousands of airstrikes on alleged Hamas facilities and fighters and a ground operation in which troops are moving block by block through the heavily populated northern part of the enclave.
The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Wednesday calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” and the release of all hostages. The council had failed on four separate occasions to pass resolutions to stop — or at least pause — the fighting, after either the United States or Russia vetoed them as insufficient. Both countries, along with Britain, abstained on Wednesday’s vote.
Outsiders and Western media have had only a highly restricted view of what is going on inside Gaza — although virtually everyone agrees that the war is a humanitarian disaster for civilians. In recent days, Israeli forces have moved to encircle al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, which the Israel Defense Forces and the United States claim is used by Hamas as a key command and control military facility and arms depot.
Israel says it is taking great care to avoid harm to patients and other civilians, while the United States has repeatedly cautioned that hospitals should not come under attack. Gazans and local health-care workers have said that critically and chronically injured civilians are dying as Israeli attacks intensify.
Hamas has told negotiators that it does not have control, or know the location, of all of the hostages — some of whom it says are being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group inside Gaza. U.S. officials have said that a “significant” pause of several days is necessary to assemble hostages to be released and arrange for their safe passage.
Israel has so far agreed only to several hours a day of “safe passage” along two major roads for civilians to travel south from northern Gaza, where combat is focused, and in certain neighborhoods to enable delivery of humanitarian assistance. The United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society have said that they have been unable to deliver any aid to the north for more than a week.
[…] An IDF spokesman, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, told CNN early Wednesday that “this mission” at Shifa “wasn’t focused on hostages. We were focusing on bringing intelligence and dismantling certain capabilities that we had intelligence on. It was something that was very, very focused and we went in a very sort of cautious way into the hospital.” More information, Hecht said, would be “coming out on what we found.” […]
The two leaders agreed to restore military-to-military communications and sought to cool U.S.-China tensions
SAN FRANCISCO — President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on Wednesday to restore communications between their two countries’ militaries after they met face-to-face for the first time in a year, lowering tensions between the two superpowers at a time when the White House is struggling to manage two wars in Europe and the Middle East.
The agreement aims to reestablish key military channels more than a year after Beijing severed them in a burst of anger over then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Biden and Xi also agreed to strengthen counternarcotics cooperation in the hopes of lessening the United States’ fentanyl crisis. Though modest in scope, the two agreements are a rare sign of cooperation between the world’s two most powerful countries, which have been at odds over trade, cyber- and maritime security, human rights, and a range of other pressing issues.
“Miscalculations on either side can or can cause real, real trouble with a country like China or any other major country,” Biden said at a news conference after meeting with Xi. “He and I agreed that each one of us could pick up the phone call directly, would be heard immediately.”
[…] The United States and China also agreed to restart climate talks after a years-long pause and to address the flow of precursor chemicals from China that are used to manufacture illicit fentanyl.
Biden and Xi struck a markedly warmer tone after the meeting than they did after their last meeting a year ago. Both leaders seemed eager to defuse tensions in the relationship as they grapple with domestic and global challenges.
Xi after the meeting Wednesday called U.S.-China ties the most important bilateral relationship in the world, according to a readout from state news outlet Xinhua, adding that the two countries should set an example of cooperation between major powers.
[…] Xi, through an interpreter, said the United States and China had a responsibility to work together despite the challenges in the relationship. […]
StevoRsays
Uh oh..
El Niño reaches ‘strong’ intensity, pointing to a scorching 2024 ahead for the planet
Were someone a simpleton, they might imagin your cited source as the origin of the story, instead of the credited reporter for the story you cited.
Specifically, it cites the “latest NOAA monthly diagnostic report” as its source.
(A bit lazy to go to MSM for such types of news, IMO)
Silentbobsays
@ 285 StevoR
There’s nothing wrong with your citation, you’re being bullied by an idiot troll.
KGsays
Vicar, Morales, MacKenzie, KG, et al supra – y’all can’t all be missing the greater context (about Biden/Israel etc) by ignorance, can you? Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11 – perhaps the only way to get them to listen (though it doesn’t seem to have worked with the majority of public or politicians) – Pierce R. Butler@254
Crap. The way to get the Israeli government to listen is to say that if they don’t call an immediate ceasefire, American arms supplies, funding, and diplomatic support, will cease forthwith. The USA is in a position to do that and it wouldn’t even be politically costly in domestic terms, although of course in such a clear case of genocidal intent that shuold not be a consideration.
John Moralessays
Ah, right, KG. Ta.
Pierce R. Butler@254: Me on 26 October 2023 on this very blog:
“[…]
See, what I think is that the USA is being a moderating influence on the degree of collective punishment Palestinian people are suffering.
Either Israel holds back a bit (as now), or the billions of dollars in aid might be held back.”
—
Silentbob, heh. If you think so, surely it must be so. For you.
A prolonged decline in male fertility in the form of sperm concentrations appears to be connected to the use of pesticides, according to a study published Wednesday.
Researchers compiled, rated and reviewed the results of 25 studies of certain pesticides and male fertility and found that men who had been exposed to certain classes of pesticides had significantly lower sperm concentrations. The study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, included data from more than 1,700 men and spanned several decades…
The new analysis focuses on two groups of chemicals — organophosphates and some carbamates — that are commonly used in insecticides. The researchers looked at data collected from groups of people with exposures to pesticides and others who were not. Most, but not all, of the research centered on exposures in the workplace. The researchers controlled for outside factors that could contribute to lower sperm counts like smoking and age. ..
Akira MacKenziesays
The way to get the Israeli government to listen is to say that if they don’t call an immediate ceasefire, American arms supplies, funding, and diplomatic support, will cease forthwith.
I would be more than happy with that. I just want to see SOMEONE with political power stand up to these bullies and win.
The Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, said on Thursday that four of nine crossing points on the 830-mile border would be closed on Friday night in response to a rise in the number of refugees and migrants.
Specifically, that’s all crossing points in the southern part of the border, where most of the traffic normally occurs. Until now, the asylum seekers have been guided along the fastest highway route via Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vyborg to the border of southeastern Finland.
It’s not very clear what good the partial border closure is supposed to do, since the asylum seekers can be easily diverted further north, where (as of now) four border stations will remain open, and two of them will remain open for asylum applications. Meanwhile, closing the border entirely would be very difficult in practical and humanitarian terms.
Since Finland’s Nato accession earlier this year, tensions between the two countries have become increasingly strained.
That has been actually going on since 2014, as a result of the escalating Russian aggression on Ukraine, with a notable uptick in early 2022.
Russian border guards usually stop people without valid EU visas from crossing into Finland. But on Wednesday Niinistö said he believed Russia had started guiding asylum seekers towards Finnish crossing points in retaliation for Helsinki’s plans to sign a defence cooperation agreement with Washington.
…
The border guard authority said that as of 6pm local time, 74 asylum seekers had arrived at the border in south-east Finland on Wednesday. On Tuesday the number was 55 and on Monday it was 39.
Since Wednesday evening, there are reports that Russian security forces are already blocking entry to the southernmost border crossings, and have begun shuttling asylum seekers further north. This was apprently in anticipation that at least the southernmost crossings would be likely closed, which was only announced today. It is highly unclear what will happen next. BTW, the temperatures up north are currently about 10-20 C below freezing.
[The Guardian quotes the usual Kremlin gremlins Maria Zakharova, denying any Russian government involvement in this, and Dmitri Peskov, giving the same stock comment he always gives on anything about Finland these days, blaming Finns on the ruined “good bilateral relations”]
Earlier this month, the border guard authority banned people from crossing the border by bike in reaction to “foreigners travelling from Russia to Finland by bicycle, without adequate travel documents for entering the Schengen area”.
For context, many of the asylum seekers have been traveling on bicycles because it’s cheaper to get a disposable bike than a disposable car. There are no walking lanes on any of the cross-border roads because walking would be generally impractical due to long distances between settlements. The bike ban was a futile bureaucratic attempt to make travel more difficult for the asylum seekers – it has no effect since the Russian border officials have apparently quit participating in the joint enforcement of travel regulations.
Finland adopted legislation last year that would allow crossing points to stop receiving asylum applications in the event of mass immigration orchestrated by another country.
That legislation was prompted by the very similar situation between Poland/Lithuania and Belarus in late 2021. Naturally, now our new right wing government is trying to take credit for it.
Jussi Laine, a border studies professor at the University of Eastern Finland, said Helsinki was overreacting to a Russian attempt to exert pressure, which was just what Moscow wanted.
Laine said: “This is hybrid-influencing machined by Russia and a key element in it is to create havoc and panic. If this is what they are aiming at, I would say they got it with very little effort.”
The Finnish Refugee Council said the right to seek refuge should be respected, regardless of where applicants came from or how they accessed the border.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Sviridov, former commander of the 6th Air Force and Air Defense Forces Army of the Russian Federation, has been found dead in his home in the Stavropol Krai.
Source: Latvia-based Russian media outlet Meduza, citing Baza Telegram channel; Kremlin-aligned news agency RIA Novosti and Kommersant media
Details: A source of RIA Novosti says that the body of a woman was found next to Sviridov, her identity is being determined. Baza and Kommersant claim that it is the general’s wife…
This text excerpt from your post presents some reasonable conclusions:
Jussi Laine, a border studies professor at the University of Eastern Finland, said Helsinki was overreacting to a Russian attempt to exert pressure, which was just what Moscow wanted.
Laine said: “This is hybrid-influencing machined by Russia and a key element in it is to create havoc and panic. If this is what they are aiming at, I would say they got it with very little effort.”
The Finnish Refugee Council said the right to seek refuge should be respected, regardless of where applicants came from or how they accessed the border.
BTW, I immediately thought about the cold weather at the northern border crossings. It seems especially cruel to funnel the asylum seekers to the north.
[…] laddering was a bad-faith attempt to trick supposedly desperate and meek Democrats into giving up all leverage and a generally solid position once the stop-gap CR expires in mere weeks. Instead, we got a near unassailable negotiating position for next round of budgeting in January and February, the very opposite of what Speaker Johnson and the House GOP thought they were getting and the whole point of their Machiavellian laddering scheme.
[…] How did this happen? In the final draft of the CR that passed the House yesterday, the rungs of the ladder got switched around to completely undermine the calendar that Johnson and the Freedumb Caucus had planned for which departments have to get funded by which dates—and they utterly lost what had been planned as a massive GOP advantage in agency funding priorities come January 2024.
[…] Pressure to approve a half-CR by Jan. 19 would overwhelmingly favor GOP-supported agencies as well as made sure that our troops got paid that date, taking this critical bargaining chip off the table to get the Feb. 2 Group 2 agencies funded. […] That’s why Johnson and the Freedumb Caucus structured the laddering like they did, to make sure DoD (and other key levers for their side like Border Patrol and rural giveaways) all got piled in Group 1.
[…] And the Machiavellian nature of the Freedumb Caucus plan goes well beyond that. The funds of those social services agencies [in the Feb. Group 2 pile] play a very important part in the US economy, more than usually realized, so the austerity would lead to a sudden collapse in economic activity for a huge sector of the country, deep recession and job loss […] and Trump and his neo-fascists waltzing back into the White House after Nov. 2024. Game over for American democracy.
That’s why it looked so bizarre to us that Dems seemed to be rushing the laddered bill through the House, as its original form was not a “compromise” at all for us but a total capitulation […]
But then a very funny thing happened to Mike Johnson and the Freedumb Caucus’s laddering calendar—the drafts got switched out, and agency funding dates completely reshuffled at the last minute. […] Speaker Johnson, House leadership and the Freedumb Caucus made sure the draft for roll call was the one based off their original calendar, with DoD and Border Patrol stuffed in Group 1, and social services agencies all shoved into Group 2, where they could be axed in February after Dems would lose almost all our negotiating leverage after Jan. 19.
Or so they thought. One of the eagle-eyed members of our little hive mind with Congressional staffing experience, spotted something unusual going on with the proceedings around mid-afternoon yesterday on Tuesday Nov. 14 […]:
Under the CR, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation Housing and Urban Development are on the January 19 expiration date.
The February date is for Commerce-Justice-Science, Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security Interior-Environment, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch, State and Foreign Operations.
That’s right—by mid-afternoon yesterday on Tuesday as the laddered CR approached roll call, the drafts had somehow been swapped around and in the one that got voted on, the funding calendar in the laddering had been switched out, with the two most critical GOP agency priorities—military funding and Border Patrol—both shifted over into Group 2 from Group 1 […] the GOP has been “zugzwanged” instead, forced to drop its austerity demands and concede full funding for the social service agencies they hate most by the Feb. 2 deadline. If they don’t, then it also means a shutdown for the military and delayed payments to troops—the scenario they feared most […] Around this same time, the Freedumb Caucus went on a frantic scramble and phones began ringing off the hook in the offices of Republican staffers, as apparently someone in the caucus did spot the change at the last minute.
[…] But obviously, not soon enough[…] the change went right over Mike Johnson’s head, and he wound up introducing a laddered CR that did the total opposite of what he and the Freedumb Caucus had in mind. […] it seems that through a combination of clever distraction, flattery (and Mike Johnson in general being an inattentive dumbass), he and House Leadership got tricked […]
From the enraged frothing in the media and socials that our MAGA relatives (to our own dismay alas) pay attention to, there’s white-hot angry demands to uncover “the mole”, “the traitor”, “the Judas backstabber” (various names for whoever it is), apparently within the staff of one of the GOP members (possibly even a Freedumb Caucus member, to make the irony even more delicious) who slipped in the Trojan horse. […]
Moron Mike Johnson went into roll call thinking he had Democrats over a barrel, and while he wanted our votes, he thought he was laying a perfect trap. […] to shift the negotiating leverage decisively in the Republicans’ favor in January and February 2024 […] He was apparently so arrogant and convinced he’d beaten us that he was horrified when the truth came out. […]
it was Democrats who just tricked, played and utterly humiliated Mike Johnson and the Republican Party, with some of the most skilled and necessary ruthless political gamesmanship in a decade. It’s exactly the kind of tough but necessary “take-no-prisoners” style of political fighting that we need to take down the dangerous neo-fascist GOP […]
[…] things have changed fundamentally. Democrats now have a spine and fight tooth and nail in negotiations, and don’t hesitate to be ruthless enough to cut off the Republicans at their knees. […]
It isn’t just in the budget negotiations—we’re seeing that sea change and tougher negotiating with the military aid bill now being discussed for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza civilians and the border. […] it’s important to bring about a true compromise that provides the aid to hurt Putin more, despite the pathetic attempts by some House Republicans to save him. […]
[…] The social, demographic, cultural, urban and administrative changes in America now are unstoppable, and the old Anglo oligarchy and Sarah Palin’s “real Americans” will never have the power they used to have in “their” settler colony. And it drives them crazy.
It’s why almost every other issue pales to background for the Republican base, compared to the border. […]
Democratic officials as well as Biden, Harris and Jeffries themselves were sure paying attention, and it’s why they’ve smartly structured the military assistance bill as they have, making sure to include extra border funding and immigration screening as a tantalizer for Republicans. […]
So by contrast to so many of the supposedly glum narratives in the media, we’re more confident than we’ve been in decades about Democratic strength going into 2024. A big part of that is that our elected officials are finally embracing their own strength and the popularity of our policies, and using that to stiffen their spines in negotiations to fight hard, even ruthlessly. […]
More at the link, including an historical roundup of how Democrats have failed to negotiate well in the past, and how Democrats failed to be ruthless in the past.
More Republican Congresspersons behaving like uninformed trolls, this time while quizzing FBI Director Chris Wray in a congressional hearing yesterday:
Marjorie Taylor Greene: I posted them on my Twitter account
FBI Director Chris Wray: I don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter
Marjorie Taylor Greene: I’m sure you do because the DHS organized with other offices and censored people like myself
Mother Jones uncovered a bizarre scheme that rocked Albanian politics. Now there’s more to the story.
Five years ago, Mother Jones broke a wild story: A mysterious Scotland-based shell company had paid a GOP-linked American lobbyist to help a presidential candidate in Albania court support from the Trump administration—and the money was apparently tied to Russia. Now a new piece of the puzzle has materialized.
In 2017, Nick Muzin—a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) who became a well-connected and highly paid lobbyist—reported in filings with the Justice Department that he had been hired to win backing in the United States for Lulzim Basha, the head of the center-right Democratic Party of Albania (DPA), who was then challenging the incumbent prime minister of Albania. There was nothing unusual about a DC-based influence peddler being retained by a foreign politician. But a $150,000 payment for Muzin’s services had come from a bizarre source: Biniatta Trade LP, a shell company registered in Scotland by two other shell companies based in Belize.
Biniatta Trade had a convoluted chain of corporate relationships. Those based-in-Belize companies were listed in corporate filings as officers of yet two other firms, and those two companies were controlled by Russian nationals. Moreover, there was no public sign that Biniatta Trade did anything. Its website, registered by a resident of Odessa, Ukraine, was comprised of stock images and boilerplate language. The British phone number it listed did not work. It appeared to be a front. We couldn’t tell for who or for what. But the corporate links tracked back to Russia.
The story—a strong indicator that a person or entity in Russia was using an American lobbyist to influence an election in Albania—generated front-page headlines in Albania. The possibility of secret Russian intervention made sense. Basha’s party opposed the government led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, who had been steering Albania into the European Union and warning of the rise of Russian influence in the Balkans. Moscow certainly had an interest in Basha ousting Rama.
The DPA denounced the article and Mother Jones, claiming the piece was part of a conspiracy involving billionaire philanthropist George Soros. [LOL] Eventually, Albanian prosecutors charged Basha with money laundering and falsifying documents in connection with the matter. That prosecution was later suspended. The controversy oddly came up in the case of Charles McGonigal, the former head of the FBI counterintelligence division in New York who pleaded guilty in September to crimes that included accepting a $225,000 loan from a Rama ally and then ordering up an FBI investigation of US lobbying efforts conducted on behalf of Basha. [Same New York FBI field office that kept showing up as anti-Hillary-Clinton during the presidential race.]
Last year, a State Department report offered a strong suggestion that the Biniatta Trade payment to Muzin was part of an international clandestine Russian influence operation. In a summary of a US intelligence review, the department said that the Kremlin since 2014 had slipped at least $300 million to political parties and politicians outside Russia “to shape foreign political environments in Moscow’s favor.” […]
“Our concern over Russia’s activity in this regard is not with any one country, but global in nature as we continue to face challenges against democratic societies.”
[…] Earlier this month, a team of investigative reporters at the BBC, the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation, and Finance Uncovered solved part of the mystery. They discovered that the Scottish shell company that paid for Muzin’s lobbying in the US for Basha was owned by a Moscow resident.
These journalists are part of an international consortium that has been plowing through the Pandora Papers, a massive trove of leaked files from more than a dozen corporate services firms—companies that create and administer offshore firms that help high-wealth clients move and hide money. Though first revealed in 2021, the papers, which include almost 12 million files, are still spilling secrets.
[…] Alpha Consulting. That firm, based in the Seychelles and owned by a Russia citizen named Victoria Valkovskaya, sets up secretive offshore companies for its clients, many in the former Soviet Union, reportedly including members of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
[…] After Mother Jones’ report on Biniatta appeared in March 2018, Valkovskaya moved to rejigger Biniatta’s complex ownership. She switched control of the company to firms located in the Marshall Islands. Those Marshall Islands firms were run by a foundation controlled by five directors, all Seychelles citizens. In an email to associates, cited by Finance Undercover and the other outlets, Valkovskaya wrote that the owner of Biniatta was “a private Seychelles foundation, in which there are five councillors,” and, thus, there was no need “to declare a controlling person” to regulators.
The newly discovered documents reveal that a Moscow helicopter salesman was running a Scottish shell company that was paying for lobbying in the United States to help an Albanian party that was challenging a government headed by a prime minister opposed to Putin. [What a rat’s nest! These political influence campaigns that trace back ultimately to Putin are everywhere.]
[…] This new information unearthed from the Pandora Papers is more proof that the payment Muzin received was linked to a Russian influence project. This particular operation was part of that larger clandestine effort that included Russia’s successful attempt to help Trump win the White House in 2016. As Trump and his allies keep insisting that Russian interference was all a hoax, evidence to the contrary keeps emerging.
[…] On Wednesday, NPR reported that the speaker [Mike Johnson] has ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, an extreme far-right Christian movement seeking to dissolve the US’s separation between church and state by “any means necessary.” Johnson reportedly has fostered relationships with several NAR leaders, including Pastor Jim Garlow, who has hosted online prayer sessions for “U.S. election integrity”
“I’m so grateful for the ministry and your faithfulness,” said Johnson during an August interview on Garlow’s radio show. “It’s a great encouragement to me and others who are serving in these sometimes rocky corners of the Lord’s vineyard.” But, the NAR isn’t your average conservative Christian cohort. Unlike other believers, they have wholeheartedly embraced and led an effort to spread Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election results. As my former colleague, Emily Hofstaedter, wrote:
NAR adherents share goals with other conservative Christians—outlawing abortion, fighting marriage equality—and were especially instrumental in the movement to keep a defeated Trump in power. In his audio documentary Charismatic Revival Fury, Matthew Taylor, a scholar at Baltimore’s Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, explains how 15 charismatic leaders met with high-level Trump administration officials in the lead-up to January 6 to discuss “spiritual warfare strategies”; of the six protest permits issued that day, four went to NAR-affiliated charismatic church groups. “A lot of NAR people just embrace the Big Lie,” says [André] Gagné, propelled by the claims of their prophets: “‘It’s not true, and God showed us.’”
Johnson’s bonds with this movement shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s even faintly familiar with his rhetoric. The Louisiana legislator has spent nearly two decades trying to cram religion into secular spaces under the guise of “religious freedom,” with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a powerful conservative organization where he spent years as a spokesperson and an attorney.
Telecommunication companies in Gaza announced a complete blackout of their services Thursday due to dwindling fuel supply, marking the latest development in an unfolding humanitarian crisis in the region.
Jawwal and Paltel, two Palestinian telecommunications providers, announced Thursday that all telecom services in the Gaza Strip have gone out of service because the energy sources fueling the networks have been “depleted.” They both cited the prevention of fuel into Gaza as reason for the blackout. […]
Elon Musk is an impressive business guy. In the space of a year, he turned Xwitter from a sometimes-annoying but vital source of information and community-building into an antisemitic dumpster fire in the middle of a racist tire fire atop a shit-encrusted mountain of misinformation and conspiracy theories — all while losing money at it, too.
Wednesday night, the techno wunderscheißhaufen poured gasoline on one of those fires, boosting a vile antisemitic tweet that echoed the deadly rhetoric behind multiple mass shootings by white supremacists. But he later said he didn’t mean to do antisemitism to all Jews, just the ADL and a lot of others, so no harm, no foul stench, and advertisers will surely not be further put off spending money at Xwitter, right?
The latest Musk endorsement of the unspeakable came after a conservative Jewish user retweeted an ADL public service ad showing a dad telling his teenaged kid why “Hitler was right” is not acceptable under any circumstances — not even if you mean the Autobahn, since it was started during the Weimar Republic […]
Since neo-Nazis are welcome now on the Xittpile, a white-supremacist account replied with the classic antisemitic trope that antisemitism is caused by Jews, and by the minorities that Jews keep bringing to America to do Great Replacement to white people:
Jewish commun[i]ties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that [they] support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
It’s the same old shit that you used to find only in the disreputable corners of the internet, or still do, because Twitter is no longer reputable.
Musk somehow saw the creepy thing and replied, “You have said the actual truth.” (The tweet is still up, and has 29,000 “likes.” That’s the digital public square Musk wanted.)
As the Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg points out, the bullshit conspiracy belief that The Jews are promoting migration of scary nonwhite people was cited by the mass shooter at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, as well as by the murderers in El Paso and Buffalo, New York.
Musk went on to “clarify” that he only meant the ADL, because he only thinks some Jews are poisoning America and scaring advertisers away from his platform, where antisemitic talk is now common. Silly advertisers!
Nope, no antisemitism here, because he’s just pointing out that the ADL coddles minority groups that are a threat to “the West”:
The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel.
This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.
It is not right and needs to stop.
If only the ADL would be more racist, then maybe there’d be less antisemitism, said the antisemite.
[Correct analysis, and LOL for the phrasing.]
Then, in reply to another tweet, Musk explained that in fact he thinks that the ADL is a pretty terrible bunch of West-destroying Jews, but that they’re not alone.
You right that this does not extend to all Jewish communities, but it is also not just limited to ADL
Was there more? It’s Elon Musk, there’s no bottom:
“And, at the risk of being repetitive, I am deeply offended by the ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind. I’m sick of it. Stop now.”
To the surprise of no one, Vice reports, Musk’s hatred was a big hit with antisemites and neo-Nazis [No surprise there !!!]:
“Heil Elon Hail our people” one verified X user replied, gaining nearly 1,500 likes. The same user quote-tweeted Musk’s comment with an image of his face superimposed over Hitler’s while giving a Nazi salute. “Sieg Heil @elonmusk Defendor [sic] of the West and its Race!” wrote another user in reply. “Absolutely correct” another user said, and included a video of far-right figure and vocal Hitler fan Nick Fuentes railing against “Jewish people” on the Left and Right and the ADL for “brow-beating us about having a white identity,” an argument that closely aligns with Musk’s own. “Thank you, Elon! Jews flood our nations with foreigners and teach them to hate us,” wrote another user with the handle “Based AF.”
So yep, it’s another fine day to consider doing social media at another platform. I have four BlueSky invitation codes to give to the first four Wonkette readers who email me at doktorzoom at-sign wonkette dot-or-period com, so there’s a start, good god this country.
[…] This piece includes never-before-released pictures taken by law enforcement officials after shootings inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., in 2022, and the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017, that were obtained by The Post. It is also based on Post interviews with survivors and first responders from multiple shootings as well as transcripts of official testimony provided by law enforcement officials who were among the first to witness the carnage. Read a note here from the executive editor about how The Post decided what to publish and why.
The review lays bare how the AR-15, a weapon that has soared in popularity over the past two decades as a beloved tool for hunting, target practice and self-defense, has also given assailants the power to instantly turn everyday American gathering places into zones of gruesome violence.
This is an oral history told in three parts that follows the chronological order of a typical AR-15 mass shooting. It weaves together pictures, videos and the recollections of people who endured different tragedies but have similar stories to tell. […]
I’m considering “fashy fit” for some of these threats to come fight instead of acknowledging a political challenge.
The situation with Mullen and O’Brian has elements of that. The economic aspects have me thinking of other things too.
Reginald @304, I think Republicans will kick him out now. The ethics report is all the “due process” they need, and that report is damning.
Brony @306, and interesting detail from that almost-fisticuffs moment: Markwayne Mullin reached to remove his wedding ring as part of the preparation to fight. Apparently, he approves biting (if he does the biting), but not rings. The whole farce is very performative.
Israeli forces remained inside Al-Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s main hospital after storming it for a second time in 24 hours, Israeli officials say. According to Palestinian reports, the Israel Defense Forces conducted a second raid on the hospital.
The IDF says it discovered AK-47s, hand grenades, military uniforms and a laptop with a photo of a kidnapped Israeli soldier on it in the hospital.
Yehudit Weiss, a hostage abducted from her home by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack, was found dead in a structure “adjacent” to Al-Shifa Hospital, the IDF said in a statement today.
Video shared after yesterday’s raid does not appear to show definitive evidence that a Hamas command center exists beneath the hospital, a claim that Israeli officials have repeatedly made and Hamas and doctors at the hospital have forcefully denied.
President Joe Biden has said that he didn’t believe the Israel-Hamas war would end “until there’s a two-state solution.” The remark came after he was asked about setting a deadline around U.S. support for Israel in the conflict.
Three gunmen opened fire at a crossing in Jerusalem, injuring seven people before they were shot dead by officers, police said today. Israeli officials also said they were opening an investigation into crimes committed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, including allegations of sexual violence.
More than 1.6 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and health officials there say more than 11,200 have been killed. Israel estimates 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas terrorist attack Oct. 7, with 239 people still held hostage in Gaza.
young TikTokers […] sharing the letter approvingly, encouraging followers to read it. […] a spokesperson for the platform said: “Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism. We are proactively and aggressively removing this content[“]
[…]
it denounces the U.S. for helping to establish and maintain a Jewish state in the Palestinian territories. […] going on to impugn Western imperialism and hegemony in broader terms, before shifting into a justification for killing [American] civilians […] the letter is also interspersed with antisemitic tropes and hate speech.
He repeatedly wrote that the country was dominated by Jews who “control your policies, media and economy,” elsewhere condemning homosexuality and fornication as “immoral,” and accusing the U.S. of spreading AIDS, which he termed a “Satanic American Invention.”
[…]
The Guardian, which published it in 2002 […] replaced it with a brief message: [revised after this article to say “we decided to take it down and direct readers instead to the news article that originally contextualised it.”]
Although there is no way to confirm the authenticity […] senior Arab journalists in the Middle Eastern media believe the letter is from bin Laden.
Censorship is counterproductive. Hagiographic praise is reckless at best. Such things need to be shared in a critical context that disarms pernicious hate tropes.
Scared staffers urged Santos to ‘seek treatment’ as he lived the luxe life despite negative bank balances.
The House Ethics committee report on Rep. George Santos (R-NY) that was released on Thursday is quite a read. Investigators from the committee compiled over 170,000 pages of documents and testimony from witnesses, including members of Santos’ campaign team and congressional staff. They concluded that Santos was at the center of a “complex web of unlawful activity” as he “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.” The report describes Santos spinning through various alleged schemes and lies as he obtained funds for everything from casino trips to cosmetic procedures, while dealing with personal credit card debt and negative bank balances.
Santos responded to the stunning report on the site formerly known as Twitter where he called it a “disgusting politicized smear” and announced he would not run for re-election next year “as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time.” […]
TPM was first to report on some of the core allegations in the report including the committee’s focus on a supposed consulting firm Santos set up to work with other campaigns and allegations he charged donors’ credit cards without authorization. House investigators were clear that they did not look into some areas — including the credit card scheme — to avoid conflicting with an ongoing federal criminal investigation that has already led to charges against Santos and his former campaign treasurer. The committee also stopped short of recommending Santos’ expulsion or beginning formal procedures for a sanction. Nevertheless, citing the fact that the case was “unprecedented in many respects,” the investigators recommended referring their findings to the DOJ and making them public.
The resulting report will surely provide ammunition to the members of Congress — including some of Santos’ fellow Republicans — who have been pushing for him to be expelled. It also provides a scintillating read.
We already knew a ton about Santos’ corruption, but there is so much more. Here are some of the wildest revelations from the House Ethics Committee report.
An ‘Untouchable’ Treasurer And Questionable Transactions
As he has faced criminal charges and public scrutiny for the alleged financial improprieties in his election operation, Santos has tried to lay blame elsewhere. Namely, he has pointed the finger at his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, who pleaded guilty last month to charges related to her work on his team. However, House investigators rejected this defense and said “he was a knowing and active participant in the misconduct.” Specifically, the report said Santos “had login credentials to access the campaign’s bank accounts online” and that he responded to staffers who raised concerns about Marks by saying she was “untouchable.” The report also detailed how money from the campaign flowed directly into accounts controlled by Santos where it was used for, among other things, “about $6,000 worth of purchases at Ferragamo stores,” cash withdrawals at casinos and ATMs near Santos’ home, and paying Santos’ rent.
Worried Staff Wanted Santos To ‘Seek Treatment’
[…] “members of Representative Santos’ own campaign staff viewed him as a ‘fabulist,’ whose penchant for telling lies was so concerning that he was encouraged to seek treatment.” […]
‘Definitely A High Roller’
The investigators noted Santos’s campaign “incurred significant travel expenses for flights, hotels, Ubers, and meals” and revealed how many of these charges lined up with his recreational activity rather than political events. […]
Following The Money
Several complex cash flows were tracked by the House Ethics Committee investigators. Some of the criminal charges against Santos relate to loans he reported giving to his campaign when he did not actually have the funds. Those allegedly fraudulent loans helped Santos receive funding and logistical support from Republican Party organizations. According to the committee, Santos also had his campaign pay him back “for four campaign loans, totaling $29,200, that were not made.”
[,,,] a consulting firm connected to Santos that worked for the campaign of far-right congressional hopeful Tina Forte was a major focus of the House Ethics Committee investigation. Santos and his associates collected substantial sums from Forte and other local Republican candidates after he allegedly directed other aspiring politicians to firms without disclosing his own connections to them. The House Ethics Committee report described how one of these consulting firms, RedStone, subsequently deposited “at least $200,000” in Santos’ personal accounts and how some of that money was used “to, among other things: pay down personal credit card bills and other debt; make a $4,127.80 purchase at Hermes; and for smaller purchases at Only Fans; Sephora; and for meals and for parking.”
Messy Personal Finances
While Santos was supposedly making huge loans to his campaign, committee investigators found that many of his personal bank accounts were actually in the red with negative balances, amid his alleged spending on casino trips, cosmetic procedures, and luxury goods. […]
The Imaginary Sports Car
Shortly after his election last year, Santos ended up making headlines due to revelations he lied about many aspects of the made up stories he told on the campaign trail. He made it to Congress after telling an incredible tale that positioned him as a descendant of Holocaust survivors who managed to become a wealthy financier. None of that was true and, while he has denied criminal wrongdoing, Santos has admitted he “lied.”
Multiple investigations into Santos and much of the testimony from people in his orbit who have talked to investigators and to TPM have indicated that he was intent on bolstering the false perception of wealth. Investigators from the Ethics Committee found further indications of Santos’ frantic efforts to convince the world he was a man of means, including false claims that he owned multiple properties and a luxury car. The report summed up that last fantasy in a single, brutal sentence: “At no point does Representative Santos appear to have owned a Maserati, despite telling campaign staff otherwise.”
I snipped a lot of details. Basically, all of the details add up to this: Santos is a bullshitter who lies about everything all the time; and who lies to everyone, friend and foe alike.
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 288: The USA is in a position to do that … & John Morales @ # 289: Either Israel holds back a bit (as now), or the billions of dollars in aid might be held back.
Congress is in a position to do that, by telling the Israel lobby to take a flying leap (or even a deep breath). Without that, Joe Biden is not in such a position, and has – particularly while trying to repair institutional damage by his predecessor – very little leverage to do more than he has. Blocking the flow of materiel or money, or sending the fleet(s) back to Italy, would only produce a domestic political struggle of no advantage to Palestinian civilians, Israeli peaceniks, or humanitarian crises in general.
The I-lobby’s power has several footings, including money, elected officials in key positions, support from the hyperchristian and weapons lobbies, institutional inertia, and political mystique. Sfaict, only a gigantic blunder, an outrageous exposé, and/or a massive grassroots backlash could weaken it, and none of those show up on my radar (the backlash a little, but hobbled by the inevitable antisemitic involvement that repels the rest of us; clearly Netanyahu’s blunders & exposures come nowhere near making a significant difference).
A gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting about court personnel in his New York civil fraud trial after he maligned a key staffer was paused Thursday by an appellate judge who raised concerns that it violated the former president’s free speech rights.
Judge David Friedman, of the state’s intermediate appeals court, issued what’s known a stay — suspending the gag order and allowing Trump to freely comment about court staff while a longer appeals process plays out. Friedman’s ruling also applies to Trump’s lawyers and others involved in the case.
The trial judge, Arthur Engoron, imposed the gag order on Trump after the former president made a disparaging social media post about Engoron’s court clerk on trial’s second day, Oct. 2. Engoron later fined Trump $15,000 for violations and expanded the order to include his lawyers after they questioned the clerk’s prominent role in the courtroom.
Friedman questioned Engoron’s authority to police Trump’s speech outside the courtroom […] He acknowledged that judges often issue gag orders, but said they’re mostly used in criminal cases where there’s a fear that comments about the case could influence the jury.
Trump’s lawyers filed a lawsuit against Engoron late Wednesday challenging the gag order as an abuse of power. Friedman scheduled an emergency hearing Thursday afternoon around a conference table in a state appellate courthouse a couple of miles from where the trial is unfolding.
Trump attorney Alina Habba indicated after Friedman ruled that she has no plans to advise the former president to stay quiet about the clerk.
“I don’t see a reason for restrictions because Ms. James is continuing to disparage my client,” said Habba, referring to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is prosecuting the case. Habba added that Trump hasn’t threatened the clerk’s safety.
[…] Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly put the law clerk, Allison Greenfield, under a microscope during the trial. They contend that the former Democratic judicial candidate is a partisan voice in Judge Arthur Engoron’s ear — though he also is a Democrat — and that she is playing too big a role in the case involving the former Republican president.
Engoron has responded by defending her role in the courtroom, ordering participants in the trial not to comment on court staffers and fining Trump a total of $15,000 for what the judge deemed violations. Engoron went on last week to prohibit attorneys in the case from commenting on “confidential communications” between him and his staff.
Trump’s lawyers — who, separately, sought a mistrial Wednesday — contend that Engoron’s orders are unconstitutionally suppressing free speech, and not just any free speech.
“This constitutional protection is at its apogee where the speech in question is core political speech, made by the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, regarding perceived partisanship and bias at a trial where he is subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and the threatened prohibition of his lawful business activities in the state,” they wrote in a legal filing.
Posted by readers of the article:
So court staff in civil proceedings are subject to open season now? Every defendant who doesn’t like being sued can start doxxing and harassing court staff? I guess they have a plan to make working in the court system even more unbearable than working in the schools.
——————————
That’s political speech? Fuck you it’s not
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Here comes a mistrial ……… G…………D!!! IT!!!!
“Since my poor, poor client (and lawyers) hasn’t had the right to disparage everyone Judge Engoron has shown his political bias in this matter”. I move for mistrial!!
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So I understand Judge David Friedman is saying its fair game for those inclined to malign Judge Friedman, his staff and family because it is “free speech.” American judiciary, doing their part to ensure the downfall of democracy. The judicial system logic would define black as white and white a black.
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This appellate judge is trying to pretend Trump is an ordinary litigant is some banal civil proceeding that’s of no interest outside of the litigants, and not someone who reflexively engages in stochastic terrorism.
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It would not be considered free speech for any one else. It would be considered contempt of court and threats to the safety and lives of others.
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The problem is that the Constitution hasn’t caught up with Trump’s method of subverting it, which is through the careful manipulation of social media and implied, indirect threats beamed out to literally millions of potentially unbalanced followers, many of them ready snap like a hair trigger.
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And when someone who’s being targeted by this disgusting, perverted, lying, sexual assaulting, treasonous, twice impeached, 91 times indicted criminal wannabee dictator is hurt or worse? What then Judges? Whose fault will that be after you won’t order this POS to STFU and keep the gag order in place?
For over a month, Russia has sent wave after wave of both armor-protected and unprotected infantry against Ukrainian defenses in the town of Avdiivka, a suburb of the Russian-occupied regional capital city of Donetsk with a population of nearly 1 million.
Russia is obsessed with Avdiivka for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s a festering reminder of Russia’s inability to push Ukraine away from the edge of Donetsk that dates back to 2014. Second, it puts Ukrainian forces close to key Russian assets in the city, and Russia would prefer to give their regional stronghold some breathing room. And third, Russia doesn’t have to worry about logistics when Ukraine’s defenders are literally across the street from its supply lines.
Now, the battle for Avdiivka is about to enter its decisive phase—and it all rests on the fate of the chemical/coke plant on the northern tip of the town.
For Ukraine, the strategic equation is simple: Russia is bleeding itself dry trying to take the town. Yesterday I wrote up the visually confirmed equipment losses in Bakhmut, compared to Avdiivka:
The end result? The visually confirmed equipment losses in the Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive were almost identical:
Ukraine: 485 Russia: 490
But here are the numbers of visually confirmed losses around Avdiivka:
Ukraine: 16 Russia: 221
That’s a 14-to-1 ratio, and it’s likely far worse in terms of manpower losses, as Ukrainian cluster munitions shred Russian infantry who are assaulting across open fields. [map at the link]
As a Russian military instructor wrote on Telegram:
It is cluster shells that are now knocking out a huge mass of our infantry […]
The infantry suffers heavy excess losses directly on the battlefield, as a result of which the execution of combat missions is disrupted, and in addition to this there is an overstrain of evacuation logistics and an overload of the military medical infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to send more vehicles to slaughter in those open fields. [tweet and video at the link]
However, the endless waves have managed to push Ukrainian defenses back in the northern half of the town, as Russia attempts to surround it in a pincer movement. And while the southern pincer is stalled given those open fields, Russia is now in position to assault the now-famous coke (for mining, not drinking) plant on the northern tip.
We all know about the debris pile across the the railroad tracks from the sprawling factory-industrial complex. [image at the link]
Ukraine has shown a strong ability to defend industrial complexes, and the coke factory should prove no different. Even crossing that strip will prove insanely costly to Russia, as it is likely seeded daily with anti-personnel mines, as well as being covered by mortar and machine-gun fire from the sprawling complex. Artillery is of little use in that strip, as its inherent inaccuracy would threaten Ukrainian positions, but reinforcements coming in from behind that debris pile will face constant bombardment.
Both sides know the stakes. And as usual, it comes down to logistics. [map at the link]
By controlling the coke factory, Russia would have complete fire control of all supply routes into Avdiivka. If Russia takes it, there is no way the Ukrainian garrison can stay in place.
With the heights of the factory buildings, Russia would have all those roads within visual range, not relying on reconnaissance drones. Mortar, sniper, and guided-missile weapons would all be in range, and suicide drones could be called in against Ukrainian supply vehicles.
Inured to caring about its casualties, it’s clear Russia is getting excited. Russia’s big push to the northwest against the settlement of Stepove and beyond secures its flanks (though it would be nice if Ukraine had the combat power to smash that Russian salient from the north).
KGsays
Without that, Joe Biden is not in such a position, and has – particularly while trying to repair institutional damage by his predecessor – very little leverage to do more than he has. Blocking the flow of materiel or money, or sending the fleet(s) back to Italy, would only produce a domestic political struggle of no advantage to Palestinian civilians, Israeli peaceniks, or humanitarian crises in general. – Pierce R. Butler@311
Ridiculous, dishonest garbage. If blocking the flow of money and weapons would be so inconsequential, why is he pushing so hard to speed it up, and being so secretive about what is being sent? I doubt whether the Palestinian civilians being murdered with weapons supplied and paid for by the USA agree with your take. It’s quite clear that sending arms to Israel violates the directive he pronounced only months ago forbidding the supply of arms to countries likely to use them to attack civilians, so he could cite that. Aside from that he could tell the Israeli government – initially in private – that if they do not agree to an immediate ceasefire he will withdraw American diplomats from Israel, throw out theirs from the USA, and sponsor a UNSC resolution condemning their actions. Israel is fundamentally dependent on the USA for arms, money, and diplomatic support. It is just utter crap to whine that Biden can’t do anything. He chooses not to – and makes himself complicit in mass murder.
In our last couple posts on climate change, we’ve included as header images some art that was submitted for a national competition in conjunction with the Fifth National Climate Assessment, aka NCA5, the periodic check-in on the state of the climate that’s compiled by hundreds of America’s top climate scientists.
In addition to the report’s detailed discussions of how climate change is affecting the USA, as well as how our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are going (Summary: We’re up shit creek, but the paddle is starting to make a difference, so paddle like crazy!), this edition of the report includes, for the first time, an art competition and even a poem by the current US Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. There’s even a podcast for those of you who like having stuff in your ears while you’re exercising, doing chores […]
It’s a pretty big contrast to how Donald Trump tried to hide the Fourth Assessment in 2018, when the report was released late on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and that only because Congress mandated the reports in law, so Trump couldn’t memory hole it altogether. Team Biden wants you to spend some time with this comprehensive public document, even if you only look at the art and play around with the interactive maps that let you see how your community will be affected under various warming scenarios.
Let’s start with Ada Limón’s poem, titled “Startlement,” with its themes of unity with nature and with each other. It’s really a lovely, short work:
Startlement
It is a forgotten pleasure, the pleasure
of the unexpected blue-bellied lizard
skittering off his sun spot rock, the flicker
of an unknown bird by the bus stop.
To think, perhaps, we are not distinguishable
and therefore no loneliness can exist here.
Species to species in the same blue air, smoke—
wing flutter buzzing, a car horn coming.
So many unknown languages, to think we have
only honored this strange human tongue.
If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination
of all things upstream. We know now,
we were never at the circle’s center, instead
all around us something is living or trying to live.
The world says, What we are becoming, we are
becoming together.
The world says, One type of dream has ended
and another has just begun.
The world says, Once we were separate,
and now we must move in unison.
That other guy never had poetry. Also, cue the weird rightwing religious freaks complaining that “we were never at the circle’s center” means this is a pagan, Jebus-hating poem because humans have dominion over the earth — which is why it’s such a mess.
Now, some art! There were more than 800 submissions, and works by 92 artists were included in the gallery, including quite a few works in the “Youth” category, because you gotta indoctrinate the young folks with Godless climate ideology, you know.
[images at the link]
We really like this one, “Redrawing the Earth,” by eighth-grader Ritika Shah. (She’s identified only as “Ritika S.” on the website because the youts have only an initial of their last names. It’s the internet and people are the worst, thanks in part to the other guy and his cult, too. Sigh.)
Ritika got to introduce Joe Biden at his speech Tuesday, with her drawing right up there on the soundstage, and he said he hoped she’d remember him when she’s president. [video at the link]
Ritikasaid in her artist’s statement that she wanted to
convey that we can help reverse the effects of climate change. One hand is erasing the pollution caused by industrialization the world over, and the other is redrawing actions to restore the Earth’s beauty. … I hope people learn from my art that they can help change the world by just doing simple things like driving less, not littering, and maybe even setting up solar panels or wind turbines. The effects of climate change are only in our hands, so we should do whatever we can to help.
Hey! The report itself also says that the climate future is “in human hands,” and we don’t even think Ritika had a copy to borrow from. Neat kid.
This is “Keep it Together,” by Tammy West, a site-specific work made by pounding nails into drought-dried Texas earth, connected with red string to suggest sutures helping a damaged Earth heal. “I wanted this piece to convey the desperate situation that we are in […]. If we must resort to tying our world back together, we have nothing.” [image at the link]
“Elevation Drive, 7 Feet above Sea Level,” by Xavier Cortada. 2018, water-based paint on asphalt. [image at the link]
We can’t improve on the artist’s statement:
This street intersection mural in Pinecrest, Florida depicts the location’s elevation above sea level. Painted intersections, coupled with Underwater Markers (elevation yard signs) that residents place in their front yards, make the issue of climate change impossible to ignore. Mapping the topography of their community, neighbors reveal an alarming reality: declining property values, increased flood insurance costs, failing septic tanks, compromised infrastructure, climate gentrification, and collapsing ecosystems. The socially engaged art work is aimed at revealing the vulnerability of coastal communities to rising seas, sparking climate conversations, and catalyzing civic engagement.
[…] “Drought’s Edge Illuminated” by Jon Bradham. 2021, oil on linen. [image at the link]
This painting shows the beauty of the huge built environment and the colors and forms of nature. It also shows the stark problem of drought and overuse of water as populations grow, particularly in areas that are not predisposed to large human cities and agriculture. The bone-like wall of the shrinking lake should be a wakeup call to us all.
“It Doesn’t Look Like Paradise Anymore (Camp Fire 2018)” by Cara Despain. 2019, carbon residue from burnt debris on muslin. [image at the link]
Wow. Just, wow:
For the last four years, I’ve collected burnt debris from wildfires and fires in the urban-interface zone in the western United States. I use them to create “carbon paintings” that serve as markers of a changing climate and sustained forest mismanagement, existing in memoriam of the consequences of human habitation on the planet. The text is the location of the fire, in this case Paradise, CA. These pure black expanses of soot still smell of smoke and are meant to conceptually inhabit the lineage of landscape painting while conveying the new reality of western lands’ spent/wrecked vistas and places.
[…]
More images and descriptions at the link.
KGsays
As for the last sentence of yours that I quoted @314, doing the right thing does, often, lead to a political struggle. It should still be done. But in this case, you would have the most powerful person in the world, supported by a majority of the American (and global) population, on one side of that struggle. Here’s an opportunity for Joe Biden to show real leadership, in a righteous cause, and with every chance of prevailing. If he’s too fucking scared of the Israeli lobby to do so, he has no business being President. But I don’t believe – and I don’t believe you believe – that that’s the reason he won’t demand a ceasefire.
Police were called to dismantle a secret cryptomining rig winding throughout the floors and ventilation ducts of a Polish court in September, according to Polish news channel TVN24.
Several secured computers were discovered, potentially stealing thousands of Polish Zlotys worth of energy per month (the equivalent of roughly $250 per 1,000 Zlotys.) It’s currently unknown how long the rig was running because the illegal operation went undetected, partly because the computers used were connected to the Internet through their own modems rather than through the court’s network.
While no one has been charged yet with any crimes, the court seemingly has suspects. Within two weeks of finding the rig, the court terminated a contract with a company responsible for IT maintenance in the building, TVN24 reported. Before the contract ended, the company fired two employees that it said were responsible for maintenance in the parts of the building where the cryptomine was hidden…
Dr. William “Bill” Powell, 67, died Sunday, Nov. 12, at his home with his family by his side.
Powell was a biology professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where he and his colleague, Charles Maynard, founded the American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project in 1989.
Over more than three decades, Powell led a team that pioneered genetic engineering techniques to bring the iconic American chestnut tree back from the brink of extinction.
“I’m really hoping that we can get through this regulatory process,” Powell told Syracuse.com in June, adding that he wanted “to see these trees planted while I’m here.”
Powell was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer 15 months ago. His death comes just as federal regulators are set to approve Darling-58, the world’s first transgenic chestnut tree, for public release…
….About an hour after the New York gag order was paused, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, posted on social media attacking Ms. Greenfield, calling her a “Democrat Operative.”
Later, shortly before 7 p.m., Mr. Trump himself seized on the pause by posting a message on his Truth Social platform in which he called Ms. Greenfield “politically biased” and “out of control.”
The New York gag orders will be evaluated by a full appellate panel, which may reimpose them. But in the meantime, Mr. Trump and his lawyers are again free to attack court staff, most prominently the law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who since Mr. Trump’s original post has become a magnet for right-wing attacks on the case.
The schedule set by the appeals court means that the gag orders could remain paused for much of the remainder of the civil fraud trial….
…Justice Friedman seemed skeptical that Mr. Trump had said anything that would lead directly to threats against court staff. He repeatedly asked whether Mr. Trump had used specifically threatening language against Ms. Greenfield, who is also a Democrat, and seemed satisfied that the answer was no.
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Alina Habba, praised the appellate court after the Thursday hearing and quickly took advantage of the development.
Ms. Greenfield “is in the judge’s ear time and time again,” Ms. Habba said. “If she had a real threat, she should get off the bench.”
[…]
Justice Engoron imposed his gag order on Mr. Trump on Oct. 3, after the former president posted a picture of Ms. Greenfield with Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader. The image had originally appeared on Ms. Greenfield’s Instagram account.
Mocking her as “Schumer’s girlfriend,” Mr. Trump said that the case against him should be dismissed. After Justice Engoron was alerted that day, Mr. Trump removed the post from social media.
Justice Friedman appeared to agree with Mr. Trump’s lawyers that the gag orders had not been warranted. At one point, he seemed to indicate that he held Ms. Greenfield responsible for the former president’s social media post, given that the picture of her with Mr. Schumer had come from her own Instagram account.
“If you put something out in public and then it goes viral, who’s responsible for that?” he asked.
tomhsays
Re: #310 on expelling Santos.
Just say it out loud.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) told Axios the report “looks pretty damaging” but “why would we want to expel a guy … [when] we’ve got a three-seat, four-seat majority. What are we doing?”
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 314: If blocking the flow of money and weapons would be so inconsequential…
I did not say it would be inconsequential, only that the consequences would be felt more deeply in DC than in Gaza.
It’s quite clear that sending arms to Israel violates the directive he pronounced only months ago…
Yup. Hypocrisy and, um, flexibility in principle in US government go back to Geo. Washington – and occur in some other places, I hear.
… he could tell the Israeli government … that if they do not agree to an immediate ceasefire he will withdraw American diplomats…, throw out theirs…, and sponsor a UNSC resolution condemning their actions.
And, before the sun went down that day, face a major bipartisan impeachment effort and a roadblock on all administration initiatives that would make Tommy Tuberville look like Barack Obama (see the article linked to @ Lynna’s # 297 if that’s not clear). I agree with you that would make the Knesset bend – but in realpolitik, Biden can no more do that than he can send the Fantastic Four to disarm all sides.
KG @ # 316: … you would have the most powerful person in the world, supported by a majority of the American (and global) population, on one side of that struggle.
You could add in Superman and The Incredible Hulk, too, but they’d have to carry out a coup against Congress, SCOTUS, and the corporate media (not to mention much of the public and the military) to make it stick. Have you urged the SNP to hijack a cement truck and rebuild Hadrian’s Wall to fend off those wretched barbarians from the south? How about asking Greta Thunberg to lead a coordinated 100-site commando raid against the collective headquarters of the fossil-fuel industry – they only have a handful of security guards at each office, right? (Maybe a few more at Gazprom and Jiddah…)
We might all enjoy our power fantasies of “what we would do”, but he who has that power in reality knows its limits – and Israel has a vast arsenal of US political kryptonite. (And I think we also agree, justice for Palestinians is not, and never has-been/will-be, Biden’s top priority: probably not even in his top twenty.)
The therapy, called Casgevy, will treat the the blood conditions sickle-cell disease and β-thalassaemia. […] by taking blood-producing stem cells out of the bone marrow […] and using CRISPR to edit genes encoding for haemoglobin in these cells. […] people must undergo a treatment that prepares the bone marrow to receive the edited cells.
[…]
in the trials, […] no significant safety concerns were identified. […] One concern surrounding the approach is that CRISPR can sometimes make unintended genetic modifications […] it could cost roughly US$2 million per patient, in line with the pricing of other gene therapies.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to #309:
Mediaite – Biden White House can’t believe it has to say this but bin Laden bad
on Wednesday, well before TikTok stated that it would be removing such videos […] they numbered at most in the hundreds, many expressing bewilderment or anger at other TikTokers, making jokes, or talking about the letter in general
[…]
As of Thursday morning, relatively few […] endorsed any aspect of bin Laden’s letter, and some of the ones that triggered this whole controversy, which had by then generated numerous tweets and news articles, had been deleted by their creators, in part because they had been overwhelmed by other TikTokers making fun of them.
[…]
Some people posted profoundly cringeworthy stuff. […] It’s unnerving to see young internet strangers talk themselves into bin Laden fandom, even if they’re clearly trying to be provocative. But the only sense in which it truly went viral was elsewhere, in condemnatory posts
[…]
The Guardian removed Bin Laden’s letter […] This inspired a round of news stories, posts on Instagram and X, and, eventually, a (slightly) more substantial round of videos on the subject on TikTok, where users now have a piece of Forbidden Content to post about.
[…]
this was primarily not a TikTok thing. It’s a meta-story that gained purchase among people who are […] maybe worried about TikTok, who […] occasionally see content ripped from TikTok but who don’t really spend much time there
And so, the media Bat Signal went out – Mike Johnson is a religious nut because he adheres to the same faith as 70 per cent of America.
It is ridiculous to presume that all Christians are as wacky as Mike Johnson. It is comparable to those wackos who posture that Creationism or being anti-abortion are Christian positions.
It wasn’t the the only fossil footprint at the site, about 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, with Ms Lowery and a group of researchers going on to find 26 more over two years.
But those tracks — thought to be around 125 million years old — are the earliest-known evidence of birds in Australia and the southern hemisphere, the researchers report today in the science journal Plos One.
In much grimmer news the Mekong is dying, dammed, overfished and drying up :
..A new study suggests an alarming decline in fish populations in the lower Mekong, including the Tonle Sap. Scientists across the world recently analysed 110 fish species over 17 years and found their numbers had dropped by more than 87%. The giant catfish, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, and revered by some locals, is believed to be on the verge of extinction – while the striped catfish, once a staple in countries along the Mekong, is now endangered.
While overfishing is one culprit, so are climate change and dams, which are altering the Mekong and its tributaries in fundamental ways.
The effect is evident here on the Tonle Sap, known as the beating heart of the Mekong…. (snip)..
Plus
Its fast and powerful flow earned it the title “mighty Mekong”. As the planet heats up, successive droughts are diminishing this mighty flow.
Between 2019 and 2021, water levels dropped to their lowest in more than 60 years. But shrinking rainfall is not the only problem.
… (Snip).. “Climate change and dams are working together to deliver a death of a thousand cuts to the river system,” says Brian Eyler who runs the Mekong Dam Monitor at the Stimson Center in Washington DC.
Although the dams eventually release the water, analysts believe that trapping it behind concrete in reservoirs is disrupting the Mekong’s pulse, strangling one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems.
Water is also released from the cascade of dams in China and Laos at different dates and times, often making it difficult to predict water levels downstream, particularly in the north of Thailand and Cambodia.
“Rainfall that typically would fall during the wet season is much lower than normal, but at the same time, upstream dams are restricting water during that wet season. So that’s bringing the river pulse down, and the river flows down much lower than they need to be,” Mr Eyler says.
“Together, climate impact and dam restrictions are changing the way that the Mekong flows – much for the worse.”
Oh and closer to home (for me) the person facing jail for the atrocities Aussie troops committed in Afghanistan? The whistle-blower of course who exposed them. :
A whistleblower who helped expose allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to leaking classified information.
David McBride was due to face trial next week, but changed his plea after a legal ruling scuppered his defence.
McBride – an ex-military lawyer – said he felt a moral duty to speak up after his internal complaints were ignored.
A landmark inquiry later found evidence that Australian forces had unlawfully killed 39 Afghans during the war.
McBride admits he gave troves of documents to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), because he was concerned about what he then thought was the “over-investigation” of troops, the court heard.
He pleaded guilty on Friday to three charges of stealing and unlawfully sharing secret military information.
The information he provided underpinned a series of reports in 2017 called The Afghan Files, which gave unprecedented insight into the operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, and contained allegations of war crimes.
@326. Reginald Selkirk : “The Left’s unhinged attacks on Mike Johnson reveal their moral rot.” (title / link)
So, lemme get this straight; the reichewing are going full fascist and nazi but its the left who suffer “moral rot” eh? FFS!
Paul Ksays
Lynna, OM @297: I see that this article you linked to has been retracted, due to ‘due to misinformation arising from confusion regarding military construction and other Department of Defense operations, a distinction reported as early as November 11, 2023. Misinformation is prohibited here per our Rules of the Road.’
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 326
“Mike Johnson is a religious nut because he adheres to the same faith as 70 per cent of America”
Yes. Yes they are.
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@323
Yup. Hypocrisy and, um, flexibility in principle in US government go back to Geo. Washington – and occur in some other places, I hear.
Brilliant. Whataboutery that doesn’t even have to say what it’s about. Your own invention?
And, before the sun went down that day, face a major bipartisan impeachment effort and a roadblock on all administration initiatives that would make Tommy Tuberville look like Barack Obama (see the article linked to @ Lynna’s # 297 if that’s not clear). I agree with you that would make the Knesset bend
Right. You’ve just admitted that Biden could halt the mass-murder if he chose. He has therefore made himself complicit in mass-murder. Glad we’re agreed on that.
You could add in Superman and The Incredible Hulk, too, but they’d have to carry out a coup against Congress, SCOTUS, and the corporate media (not to mention much of the public and the military) to make it stick.
Funny, I hadn’t heard that the corporate media, the public or the military were something that a coup could be launched against, even in principle. And it’s ludicrous to say that taking diplomatic action against Israel, or even enforcing a directive he gave earlier this year, would be anything even remotely akin to a coup. Of course there would be political and legal challenges. But it seems you hold to the belief that the Israel lobby (or better, call it the Zionist lobby, because a significant fraction of Israelis are not Zionists, and vice versa) has an unchallengeable hold on American foreign policy, and is powerful enough to break a President who stands against it, even with majority public support*. If that is so (personally, I don’t believe it, I think a different president would be quite capable of telling Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire or else), then isn’t it a situation that needs to change? And you could scarcely have either a more pressing or a more promising time to attempt that.
Have you urged the SNP to hijack a cement truck and rebuild Hadrian’s Wall to fend off those wretched barbarians from the south?
A silly squib, but just FYI: (a) Hadrian’s Wall is located completely within England, and (b) the SNP, and the broader independence movement (minus a vanishingly small segment of racist loons) has no wish to interrupt travel between England and Scotland.
he who has that power in reality knows its limits – and Israel has a vast arsenal of US political kryptonite.
Hmm. It seems you really do buy into the antisemitic “ZOG” conspiracy narrative.
And I think we also agree, justice for Palestinians is not, and never has-been/will-be, Biden’s top priority: probably not even in his top twenty.
Actually, he’s clearly against justice for Palestinians, which would necessarily involve American coercion of Israel. But this is just about whether he’s against mass-murder. He’s shown that he isn’t.
*You might respond that ifdespite the majority support for an immediate ceasefire, there would not be such support for serious action or threats of action aginst Israel. But American attitudes towards Israel (particularly among Democrats, and including among American Jews) have changed – and the IDF’s campaign of mass-murder is likely to have pushed that change further. So could Biden, if he chose. I don’t know where the term comes from, but don’t Americans say the President has a “bully pulpit”? If he needed to go beyond private threats, Biden could make a nationwide televised address, explaining that he has tried to reason with and restrain the Israeli government, but they are bent on their policy of ethnic cleansing enforced by bombing and starvation, and he cannot in conscience acquiesce in it any longer.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 329
Remember, for them ‘morality” isn’t about not causing harm or increasing happiness, but obeying rules. Those who obey their Gawd’s rules are good. Those who don’t… “moral rot.”
lumipunasays
Here’s a daily update on the Finnish/Russian border situation.
At some point, I’ll probably have to write a lengthy discussion on the issues with and rules of asylum seeking. The topic is broached in this story by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle:
During Thursday, a total of 19 Somalian and Syrian citizens showed up on the Estonian border without visas. They were clearly part of the same population (of asylum seekers from Somalia and various Middle Eastern countries) that’s been entering Finland from Russia in somewhat larger numbers during this week. Reportedly, all 19 were turned away back to Russia because “they did not request asylum”.
Now, to a critical thinker, this sounds extremely like Estonian border guards are illegally turning away people who did, in fact, try to request asylum. It is very clear (just from the official statements quoted in media) that Estonians are very much on hair trigger about the recent developments, possibly moreso than Finns. I can understand it in these circumstances, as Russia is clearly testing Estonia’s response. Also, illegally turning away migrants on EU borders wouldn’t be remotely unprecedented.
Yle contacted a relevant spokesperson from Estonia to ask for clarification. The given explanation is that Estonian border guards do not, as a rule, outright ask if someone needs an asylum. You have to be able to actively request asylum, preferably quite clearly and using correct terminology, in some widely understood language. This is supposedly sufficient to fulfill the obligations of international law. Personally, I’m not remotely convinced that this explanation is sufficient for why all 19 were turned away.
Yle also quotes a Finnish border guard spokesperson, who asserts that their policy is to always find out the reason for anyone’s travel across the border (at least for those whose entry is conditional on giving a good reason, like seeking asylum). Soon we’ll see how committed the Finnish border guard is to laws and human rights.
According to this story, a group of eight Somalians were interviewed by someone immediately after their rejection at the Estonian border, and the video was posted by the Russian news outlet Fontanka (link in the story). That, too, seems like a wildly curious coincidence.
In Finland, the more far-right members of the cabinet are asserting that we will close the entire Russian border from asylum seekers, if the recently announced partial closure (which is just coming into effect in the hours after I post this) doesn’t solve “the issue”. That would indeed be possible according to the new Finnish law, but rather questionable in terms of interpreting international law. In practical and humanitarian terms, it could be a shitshow.
That was an interesting, if sobering read. I was struck by the fact that people who did not understand the river ecosystem continue to cause damage. One example:
These protected forests have adapted over hundreds of years to the two seasons – months of dry weather followed by months of monsoon rain. However, the gush of water from upstream dams during the dry season gives the forest no time to dry out. When this happens, fungi grow in the damp conditions, causing dry rot.
This, in turn, has an impact on the fish – because the submerged yet healthy roots are a safe haven for fish to spawn. The ecosystem around the roots also provides food for the fish.
There’s also this telling detail:
Across Asia, hydropower output in 2023 has plunged at the fastest rate in decades, forcing power regulators battling erratic weather to rely more on fossil fuels.
So, all those dams are not working as promised, but they are continuing to trap sediment ….
Lots of problems, few solutions.
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 332: Whataboutery that doesn’t even have to say what it’s about. Your own invention?
I wrote a direct reply to your statement – do you need me to reiterate same, every time, for you to see the context?
You’ve just admitted that Biden could halt the mass-murder if he chose.
In the same way that I could halt my state’s governor’s proclivities towards fascism – for a brief moment before they hauled me away, if l were cunning and lucky enough to get close. Wanna call me a fascist for not doing that today?
He [Biden] has therefore made himself complicit in mass-murder.
Everyone who takes on the office of US President makes themselves complicit in that. As does everyone who pays taxes to the US government. (And, I must add, those who put their pence in a certain Royal Treasury.)
… it seems you hold to the belief that the … Zionist lobby… has an unchallengeable hold on American foreign policy, and is powerful enough to break a President who stands against it…
By George, I think he’s got it! Yes, the “strongest nation [empire] in the world” is in fact so rickety that at least a dozen different internal power blocs (including the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, the gun lobby, the media corporations, and, yes, the Z-lobby) could monkey-wrench the works enough to grind Washington &/or the economy to a halt. Or, at minimum, they are perceived to have that capability such that no one in elected office dares to challenge them, which has the same effect.
… then isn’t it a situation that needs to change? And you could scarcely have either a more pressing or a more promising time to attempt that.
Yes it does need to change. And yes we have a very pressing time – particularly regarding the environmental crisis and the surge in outright fascism – but I dunno about the “more promising time” (the Bernie Sanders campaigns of ’16 & ’20 showed the most promise we’ve had in two generations, but both fell short, didn’t they?).
A silly squib …
Thanks for the clarification on the H Wall. I still think comparisons with the absurd pertain.
It seems you really do buy into the antisemitic “ZOG” conspiracy narrative.
No, but I’ve watched the Z-lobby slap down US politicians decade after decade, and can’t recall any who got back up again.
… he’s clearly against justice for Palestinians…
Yeah, that would require boat-rocking. Biden fits the classic liberal profile of supporting the “better” options, but only up to that point. The Israelis’ delusion that they could control and forget the Palestinians suited him just fine.
… American attitudes towards Israel (particularly among Democrats, and including among American Jews) have changed…
Attitudes towards guns and CO2 have changed too, with accompanying mass mobilization – and only token law/policy changes. The empire is both shaky and rigid.
… don’t Americans say the President has a “bully pulpit”?
That phrase came from Theodore Roosevelt, back before WW I. Biden could, indeed, set up a nationwide broadcast whenever he wants – and has done so a few times, but wasn’t even able to get his first (and quite popular) pandemic-recovery program through.
PS: While writing this, I took a call from a disabled-veteran friend. He claimed he had been looking up Likud links to Rabin’s assassination-aftermath in ’95, and had his link shut down in mid-read. He rambled too much for me to get details, but the story does illustrate the difficulties in altering American views of Israel/Palestine.
With this simple docket entry, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon all but assured that the trial of Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case will not happen until after the 2024 election: [screengrab of paperless order is available at the link]
The docket entry is not a clarion call by any means. It’s technical and legalistic. A perfect way to bury the reality of acceding to Trump’s delay strategy. But the consensus among CIPA experts and legal observers is that this is best evidence yet that Cannon is slow-rolling the case, to Trump’s benefit.
What happened? A couple of days ago, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked Cannon to set a key deadline in December for Trump to provide notice of which classified materials he wants to use at trial. Without waiting for Trump to respond, Cannon nixed the idea. Cannon’s docket entry says she won’t even consider setting this and other important deadlines until a hearing on March 1, 2024. That’s not a feasible schedule for a May 2024 trial date.
The only slight caveat I would add here is that it’s conceivable that while the current May 2024 trial date is out the window, something could be scheduled later in 2024, before the election. But that would be very difficult practically with this latest move by Cannon, even if she were competent and well-intentioned, both of which are highly in doubt at this point.
The reactions were scorching:
Harry Litman: “Judge Cannon’s paperless order denying without explanation DOJ’s uber-reasonable request to set a CIPA section 5 hearing comes mighty close to guaranteeing Trump what he wants: a trial post Nov 2024.”
Brandon Van Grack: “Court won’t even consider scheduling a Sec. 5 hearing until March. Clear indication May trial date wont happen. … Refusal to schedule hearing shows the Court is not going to move with urgency.”
Hugo Lowell: “In short: Trump classified docs case is almost certainly not going to trial in May — in fact, we are probably now several months behind that schedule”
Andrew Weissmann: “Judge Cannon’s bias is showing over and over again. Smith has to be weighing whether, when, and how to seek her reversal by the Ct of Appeals and her removal.”
I expect many of you will now expect Smith to follow through as Weissmann suggests above: get Cannon recused and/or appeal her refusal to keep the trial on track. I’m not an expert in CIPA or criminal or appellate procedure, but it sure looks like Cannon has done this in a way that will make appealing it virtually impossible at this stage. In short, we may be stuck with Cannon and these awful, compromised decisions.
There’s no longer a question of whether billionaire Elon Musk is an antisemite. No matter what hapless X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino or Musk’s other underlings say, the case has been proven. And it was proven again on Wednesday, when Musk endorsed a post that blamed “Jewish communities” for pushing “dialectical hatred against whites.” It also referred to the white supremacist conspiracy theory that “western Jewish populations” are behind the “flooding” of countries with “hordes of minorities.”
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk publicly replied.
The false notion that powerful Jewish elites are behind mass-migration patterns, somehow encouraging or facilitating the transfer of migrants so as to overwhelm “white” nations with anti-white foreign “hordes,” is the most antisemitic version of the “great replacement theory.” It is neo-Nazi drivel, the same “Jews control the world” conspiracy used by Nazis to justify the Holocaust and by domestic terrorists who target Jewish Americans in this country.
On Friday, the White House itself blasted Musk’s post.
It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of Antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Like President Biden said weeks ago memorializing the victims of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, the October 7 “devastating atrocity has brought to the service painful memories left by millennia of Antisemitism;” and under his presidency “we will continue to condemn Antisemitism at every turn.” We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans. We all have a responsibility to bring people together against hate, and an obligation to speak out against anyone who attacks the dignity of their fellow Americans and compromises the safety of our communities.
It’s arguably the most overt expression of Musk’s antisemitism to date. And it comes as X becomes such a home for neo-Nazi extremism that advertisements from Apple, IBM, and other major companies often run beside posts praising Adolf Hitler and Nazism and advocating Holocaust denial. [See PZ’s post ]
IBM was the first to respond to Media Matters for America’s proof that the Fortune 500 company’s ads were being paired with pro-Nazi content. In a statement, IBM said that it “immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”
That’s more than Apple or other top brands have done so far, but at this point, any major brand still advertising on X knows what they’re paying into. It still suggests IBM, which “suspended” about $1 million in advertising planned for the year’s fourth quarter, thinks an association with pro-Nazi conspiracy theories is something they can navigate without abandoning the platform completely.
The truth is, Musk regularly protects and elevates white nationalists and far-right conspiracy accounts, even selecting them for the site’s nascent and vaguely premised “revenue sharing” program. And while Yaccarino vigorously lies about X’s efforts to protect advertisers, Musk is spearheading this influx of hate speech.
If IBM, Apple, and other advertisers don’t want to advertise alongside bigotry, they’re going to have to go elsewhere. Musk has no plausible deniability here—and neither do the companies still propping up his antisemitism.
Oh, Tommy Tuberville. The Alabama Republican continues to soak up all the attention he can from his blockade on military promotions, and if that means going on “The Kimberly Guilfoyle Show” and telling a Trumpworld figure who appears unable to move any part of her face that the military may be paying for after-birth abortions, so be it. [video at the link]
“They can’t tell us about the policy in terms of the abortions themselves,” Tuberville said. “You know, it’s been rape, incest, or health of the mom, but we asked in one of our hearings, you know, what month are you going to go by for the abortion? They couldn’t tell us whether it was abortion after birth.”
It sounds like what he’s saying is that the U.S. military is giving its members and their families the respect of letting them get legal medical care without having to justify themselves. But just saying that wouldn’t be attention-grabbing enough, so “they couldn’t tell us whether it was abortion after birth” it is, although that is not a thing.
[…] Tuberville’s comment fits squarely into ongoing Republican lies that Democratic abortion policy is pro-infanticide […] Is it even possible to underestimate Tuberville’s acuity and understanding of policy?
A federal judge has ruled that North Dakota’s Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act in how lawmakers reapportioned legislative districts comprising two tribal nations.
U.S. District Chief Judge Peter Welte issued his ruling on Friday, months after a trial held in June in Fargo.
He ruled that the 2021 redistricting plan for two districts, one with two House subdistricts, “prevents Native American voters from having an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in violation” of a major provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Welte gave the Republican-controlled Legislature until Dec. 22 “to adopt a plan to remedy the violation.”
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Spirit Lake Tribe alleged the 2021 redistricting map violates the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law from 1965. Their complaint argued that the reapportionment “packs” Turtle Mountain tribal members into one House district and leaves Spirit Lake out of a majority-Native district.
Bad news: Republican state legislators continue to restrict voting rights, and the good guys have to take them to court every time in order to force them to do the right thing.
More than a hundred million people in Brazil endure extraordinary and lethal temperatures. The heat index, a combination of temperature and humidity, shattered records in Rio de Janeiro with 108.5 degrees and a feel-like temperature of 137.3 F.
The gobsmacking temperatures are a November heat record for the sprawling city of Rio de Janeiro, which has approximately fourteen million people.
Red health alerts have been posted for thousands of cities across the nation. There was no cooling relief for the bodies of wildlife and humans during the night as temperatures hovered around 90 degrees F.
It is spring in the Southern Hemisphere, and all signs point to a brutal summer for South America, Australia, South Asia, and Africa. […]
More at the link, including a report from the BBC.
From another source:
Favela’s (shacks), located in the upslope of Rio, have little to no air conditioning. “Problems with electricity in favelas are chronic and emerged along with the favelas themselves. The State fails by delivering low-quality service, and residents, improvising, end up overloading grids and making the entire favela population suffer as a result. People spend days without electricity in their homes, […] and according to residents, all of this gets worse in summer.”
How does Fox News cover international politics? Let’s look at Chinese President Xi Jingping’s trip to San Francisco this week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and his meeting on the sidelines with President Joe Biden, and find out! There’s been some straight news coverage, but mostly it’s been the usual sewage, like this clip from Wednesday night, where host Jesse Watters framed Xi’s visit as a “second date” between Xi and California Gov. Gavin Newsom before turning the hate on President Biden, repeating favorite rightwing tropes. [video at the link]
For your basic racism, Watters said Newsom had transformed “San Francisco into Chinatown” for Xi, showing a lot of Asian American people waving US and Chinese Flags, before adding “Killing millions of Americans with COVID and Fentanyl was water under the bridge.” Then it was on to framing Biden as a romantic rival to Newsom for Xi’s attention, ha-ha:
When Xi saw Joe, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. As Joe likes to brag, he spent more time with Xi than anyone else. Not to mention the fact that Xi’s guys bribed the Biden family. The chemistry was unmistakable.
Watters, that wag, also said that Xi and Biden’s discussions on climate cooperation was simply the part of the “date” where they “talked about the weather,” but they didn’t even discuss COVID or the “lab leak,” shame on them.
[Man oh man, that’s some toxic sewage there.]
But Fox’s real focus this week was on the news that in preparation for Xi’s visit, San Francisco, with help from the state, cleared out some homeless encampments along with sprucing up roads Xi’s motorcade would travel along and putting up metal barriers in some areas for security — haw haw, who says walls don’t work, Gavin?
In addition to the TV coverage, Fox’s website carried multiple stories on that, saying San Francisco was temporarily “shifting the significant homeless population that has flooded into the city,” because of course unhoused people aren’t people, they’re some kind of sewage. Another piece collected social media posts from rightwing figures attacking Newsom for waiting until an international summit before “cleaning up the streets” and making unhoused people just go away out of sight. Just for good measure, “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday included an interview with a small business owner who was disgusted that Newsom “cared” more about making San Francisco look nice for Xi than about protecting Californians from those nasty people on the street. […]
All the homeless-bashing is business as usual for Fox, which regularly mocks and dehumanizes people who can’t afford housing, because after all they’re all drug-crazed maniacs who are on the streets ‘by choice,” and who barely count as human. The network’s demonization of homelessness is central to its efforts to portray big cities — especially the ones in blue states — as cesspits of sin and violence that no good upstanding Fox viewer would ever visit, at least not without an M1A2 Abrams main battle tank or armored SUV equivalent.
Homelessness is also a particular hobbyhorse of the apocalypse for Jesse Watters, who’s spent a decade telling rightwing viewers how much he hates people who don’t have homes — not because they can’t afford housing but because they are bad people and barely worth notice as human beings. According to Watters, unhoused people are “just bags of flesh mutating on the sidewalk,” as well as “urine-soaked junkies” and “vagabonds and zombies.” [OMFG]
Here’s a particularly vile Watters rant from a June 13 segment of “The Five” […] In it, Watters insists that homelessness is 100 percent by choice, and that therefore it makes no sense to try to help those people, who are also weird looking and have loose sexual morals. The solution is to get tough with them, not try to provide them housing or services to help them regain some stability in their lives. It’s pretty ugly even by Fox “standards.” [video at the link]
“Homelessness isn’t about lack of affordable housing. It’s about drug addicts that want to wander around and live in tents on the sidewalk,” Watters claims, because obviously drug addicts love sidewalks.
“You can’t coddle antisocial behavior. You can’t subsidize antisocial behavior. You have to stigmatize it. You can’t celebrate people with purple hair, with nose rings, four kids with four different men who are dressed like trash, and make them out to be some sort of cutting-edge heroes. You have to call them what they are. These are people that have failed in life, and they’re on their deathbed.”
The implication was clear: There really wouldn’t be anything all that wrong with helping them die, just saying. All the best terrorism is stochastic.
There is at least an upside here: After endless attacks on unhoused people, Jesse Watters’ personal Twilight Zone Hell will be easy to design.
Last week on Fox News, Harris Faulkner, easily the network’s most fake and disingenuous anchor, did that thing she does where she lowers her voice and gets all serious, like she is really disappointed but not surprised and loves you but does not like you. She was doing her routine where she pretends to be appalled.
Faulkner may be Fox News’s most obvious liar. Her tells, they are legion.
But this thing she said last week about Pakistan expelling 1.7 million Palestinians was also just HEEEEENGGGGGH? Affecting high dudgeon, with fake emotion in her voice as she pretended to have a soul, Faulkner said that if Rep. Rashida Tlaib is “really broken-hearted about Palestinians” — sorry, is that in question, regardless of how you feel about Tlaib’s public statements? — then “WHAT IN THE WORLD IS SHE SAYING TO THE LEADERS OF PAKISTAN?”
Wait, what? [video at the link]
“They have just expelled 1.7 million Palestinians,” said Faulkner, whose brain apparently did not intervene to question if that even made sense. (Here is a real news story [Washington Post link ] about what Pakistan is doing. The people being expelled are undocumented Afghan refugees, and potentially Rohingya from Myanmar and Uyghurs from China, all seeking asylum. It’s unrelated to the Israel/Hamas war […])
“With nowhere to go!” said Faulkner about the imaginary Palestinians being expelled by Pakistan.
“The scarf doesn’t tell me how [Tlaib] feels,” Faulkner added, because she’s an Islamophobic bigot. “Her actions do. Call Pakistan. Get a home for your people. Call Jordan. Call Saudi Arabia, call Iran, all the people with the money and the power!” As if the Israeli/Palestinian crisis and this war could be solved if Rashida Tlaib just opened the Middle Eastern Yellow Pages and looked up places to ship millions of Palestinians. Maybe she could rent a couple million U-Hauls.
Immediately Twitter started making fun of Faulkner’s latest bullshit. (She actually said this crap twice last week.) Yet it took her until yesterday (Thursday), more than a week later, to make a retraction.
“I was wrong when I expressly said that Pakistan had expelled Palestinians. The government there is, in fact, kicking out 1.7 million people and what they’re called a ‘tiered repatriation.’ Pakistan says those people are there illegally — they’re illegal immigrants. Now, here’s who they are: mostly Afghans who have tried to flee the Taliban. Some Uyghurs, ethnic Muslims who are facing genocide in China. And some from Iran and other places. So, I want to set the record straight — it is a mixed group of people, mostly Afghans being expelled.”
Oh yeah? What gave it away for Ms. Faulkner? Did she look at a map? Did somebody ask her how all those 1.7 million Palestinians had traversed the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan to arrive in Pakistan? Did they ask her maybe when this happened, and precisely how?
We guess this is just one of those Fox News lies/factual errors so brazenly dumbass that it actually merited a correction, albeit eight or 10 days later, once the attacks on Rashida Tlaib weren’t so fresh and most of the viewers probably had forgotten what Fox was spewing down their gullets last week.
It does bring to mind the end of the SNL “Fox & Friends” sketches, where the screen scrolls at breakneck pace through all the errors and corrections that really should be made at the end of every real Fox News program.
Corrections like “Ukraine was not Frasier’s brother on the show ‘Frasier,’” and “Malaysia is not the female version of Asia,” and “You cannot abbreviate the Supreme Court to spell SCROTUM.”
And “‘Vaping’ is not having sex with a vacuum cleaner.”
And “The periodic table is not about ‘lady stuff.’”
Harris Faulkner’s thing isn’t near as funny, but it’s dumb enough. [video at the link]
Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters union leader who was threatened by Markwayne Mullin during a Senate hearing, was interviewed by Fox News:
O’BRIEN: It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, because first he says we’re “consenting adults,” which was bizarre because it sounded like he wanted to date me.
It do kind of sound like that.
YOU WANNA TAKE THIS OUTSIDE? FOR A LONG WALK ON THE BEACH?
AT SUNSET?
O’BRIEN: Then he asked to fight me, and I’m hearin’ now that he wanted to bite me. And then the last post he made was in front of a cachet of automatic weapons where he says “anytime, any place.” So make up your mind: Do you wanna date me, fight me, bite me or shoot me?
Markwayne ain’t gonna like this lippy backtalk from Sean O’Brien, we reckon. He might try to bite Sean O’Brien. Probably on the ankles. […]
CAVUTO: I’m just wondering whether there’s any chance the two of you can bury this hatchet.
O’BRIEN: I have no problem sitting down with anybody, I would have no problem sitting down with Senator Mullin.
I will wear my football equipment because I don’t want to get bit, shot, or caned for that matter. So I will have to protect myself.
Shutdown prep is exhausting Washington. At least the bartenders are happy. Washington Post link
[…] As Congress lurches from the brink of one government shutdown to another, official Washington — and the federal workforce around the country — has grown numb to what is widely described as the stupidity of the nation’s budget process. But the routine has grown familiar on Capitol Hill after more than 50 stopgap funding bills since fiscal year 2010 (according to the Congressional Research Service), four government shutdowns and too many complaints about the process to count.
“This becomes a massive headache and distraction, because public servants have to stop what they actually want to do to figure this out instead,” said Jennifer Pahlka, who served as deputy chief technology officer under the Obama administration and is the author of a book about how to improve government services. “It is so much work that goes into preparing these things — really weeks of prep when they’re threatening it — and then most of it is just wasted work that needs to be thrown out anyway.”
The federal government can only spend as much money as has been approved by Congress, and if lawmakers do not greenlight new funding, or appropriations, agencies can’t act. Many services shutter as a result, save for those involved in national security or vital economic activity. Federal workers are furloughed and military service members may miss paychecks, though they’re all entitled to backpay when Congress acts and the government reopens.
Lawmakers beat a Saturday 12:01 a.m. deadline [November 17-18] to extend funding this week, keeping the government operating at current spending levels — and delaying the need for more shutdown planning — until after the new year. President Biden signed it into law late Thursday night.
Fully funding the government through “regular order,” the traditional appropriations process of 12 separate bills, is a cumbersome task, and Congress instead has increasingly taken to approving “continuing resolutions,” blanket extensions of funding authorities, often just before deadlines arrive, as they did this time.
That process, though, masks the real costs of political and fiscal brinkmanship, according to lawmakers, government employees, senior agency officials and budget experts.
Federal workers whose pay is delayed often must put their personal finances on hold. Large swaths of agency activities are derailed for shutdown prep, wasting vast sums of taxpayer money. The last government shutdown reduced the U.S. gross domestic product by $11 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Businesses large and small that count the federal government as clients are faced with uncertainty that could deal a debilitating blow to their balance sheets.
[…] On Wall Street, one analyst complained about having to constantly redo economic forecasts to account for the shifting situation in Washington. He isn’t alone: The credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for U.S. debt this month, citing political dysfunction.
[…] Things are even more volatile for vendors that rely on government business. The federal government awards close to $700 billion in contracts annually, according to the Government Accountability Office, and many of them expire within one year. Even when shutdowns are averted, a chunk of the federal workforce has to figure out backup plans for what happens if these contracts expire and their agencies do not have the funds to pay for their renewal.
[…] Senior government officials have a dizzying amount of work ahead of a shutdown, coordinating with employees implementing federal programs, said Rachel Snyderman, who worked as a budget examiner in the Office of Management and Budget. OMB and the Office of Personnel Management then work with the budget and human resource offices of each agency to update contingency plans and run through their list of essential employees and activities.
[…] During the 2018-2019 shutdown under President Donald Trump, Snyderman was tasked with assisting the Commerce Department in its shutdown plans — which required coordinating across the department’s 13 separate bureaus.
“There’s a tremendous administrative burden that even planning for a shutdown puts on federal employees and their day-to-day programs and services they administer,” said Snyderman, who is now director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank. “It’s an extraordinary cost.”
[…] There is at least one place in Washington where government shutdowns are good news, though. At the Hawk ‘n’ Dove, the staff doesn’t mind when workers from nearby federal buildings are off work due to furloughs and could be called back to the office in a moment’s notice if a new spending law passes, […] That means workers don’t leave town — they just go to the bar. […]
Trump issues his now infamous #vermin comments, and other dictatorial thoughts on a softball Univision interview. Rumors have it that Jared Kushner is pals with some Univision execs, so this is probably the next Univision logo.
Trump’s lawyers have deployed a firehose of motions in a desperate attempt to hobble the cases against him, delay trials, and mollify their boss. They have had some success with […] Aileen Cannon. However, with Georgia Judge Scott McAfee and New York Judge Arthur Engoron, their voluminous legal whining has been less effective — and federal jurist Tanya Chutkan has stood like a rock in the turbulent sea of Trump’s swamp-them-with-bullshit legal strategy.
In their latest motion in the DC court, Trump’s legal team kvetched that the big bad special prosecutor, Jack Smith, had used inflammatory language in his indictments — which they claimed would hopelessly taint the jury pool. In response, Judge Chutkan told them to bugger off — except she used moderate language and backed it up with case law.
In her denial, Chutkan first outlined the Trump team’s wishful thinking and the language they were objecting to.
“The Motion asks the court to strike paragraphs 10(d) and 105–13 of the indictment. Those paragraphs allege that on January 6, 2021, “Defendant and co-conspirators repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gathered supporters, falsely told them that the Vice President had the authority to and might alter the election results, and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the Vice President to take the fraudulent actions he had previously refused,” and that after the supporters “broke through barriers cordoning off the Capitol grounds,” “violently attack[ed] law enforcement officers,” and “breached the building,” Defendant “refused” to “issue a calming message aimed at the rioters” and instead “issued a Tweet intended to further delay and obstruct the certification,” attacking Mike Pence for failing to halt the certification proceedings.”
She then rendered her decision.
“The court will DENY Defendant’s Motion.”
Next she outlined the reasons for her decision (I have omitted the case references for the sake of clarity and brevity)
“Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure provides that a “court may strike surplusage from the indictment or information” upon a defendant’s motion. That rule “has been strictly construed against striking surplusage,” so motions like Defendant’s “are highly disfavored in this Circuit,” They “should be granted only if it is clear that the allegations are not relevant to the charge and are inflammatory and prejudicial.” If an allegation is relevant, or is not inflammatory and prejudicial, the motion should be denied.”
Note: It is always good to expand one’s vocabulary. In this case, I learned that in jurisprudence, ‘surplusage’ is language within a document that has no legal relevance and may thus be ignored.
Chutkan adds that the relevance of the allegations is irrelevant to the case, as Trump’s team had once again screwed the pooch.
“Regardless of whether the allegations at issue are relevant, Defendant has not satisfied his burden to clearly show that they are prejudicial.”
She then states Trump’s case.
“He argues that sharing the allegations with the jury may result in prejudice at his trial “because members of the jury may wrongfully impute fault to [him]” for “the actions at the Capitol on January 6.” Motion at 5; see also id. at 4 (arguing that “the jury might decline to give defendants the benefit of reasonable doubt due to extraneous allegations”).”
In dismissing that contention, Chutkan explained that the jurors will not see the indictment.
“But consistent with its past practice, this court will not provide a copy of the indictment to jurors, eliminating that source of potential prejudice.”
She then called Trump a flaming hypocrite. And she addressed the lawyers’ claim of prejudice by pointing out they had not done any homework.
“Defendant’s sixteen-page Reply In Support of the Motion, despite making numerous inflammatory and unsupported accusations of its own (“President Biden directed the Department of Justice to prosecute his leading opponent for the presidency through a calculated leak to the New York Times.”), devotes only a single paragraph to the prejudice requirement.
His sole argument is that even if the jury does not receive a copy of the indictment, “[v]oluminous evidence exists here that the jury pool has been, and continues to be, exposed to the Indictment and its inflammatory and prejudicial allegations, through media coverage relating to the case.” But Defendant fails to cite even one example of that evidence.”
In plain speak, she said: do not deal it if you can not handle it. And if you say something is so, offer some fecking evidence for it.
She adds that there is a process for weeding out biased jurors. She again says that Trump is second to none in incendiary shit-slinging. And she points out that after the jurors are impaneled, the Court will shield them from extraneous noise.
“In any event, the voir dire process will allow the court to examine and address the effects that pretrial publicity, including any generated by Defendant, has had on the impartiality of potential jurors. When the trial begins, the court will also take steps to screen from the jury any irrelevant and prejudicial material that either party seeks to introduce. Moreover, before the jurors deliberate, the court will instruct them on the actual charges and the evidence they may consider in their deliberations
Adding that: “jury instructions would “make clear to [jurors] what defendants are actually charged with” and “the verdict form will not ask the jury to consider issues for which defendants have not been charged”. This too will prevent “potential prejudice from the alleged surplusage.”
And then, having plunged the knife in, she gives it a twist.
“For these reasons, Defendant’s Motion to Strike Inflammatory Allegations from the Indictment is hereby DENIED.”
As Russia once again bleeds itself dry launching waves of assaults only to be shredded by cluster munitions, Ukraine continues to make slow but real progress on the southern front.
There continues to be no good news for Russia. It also means that we may be in for another round of unfortunate “accidents” for powerful Russians who have recently criticized kleptocratic strongman Vladimir Putin. He will soon announce whether he intends to remain president until at least 2030. [JFC. 2030.]
But Russia’s continued military pantsing and its weakened “military superpower” status also means the brazenly corrupt oligarchy that surrounds Putin needs to ramp up their own propaganda efforts, lest the toilet-less Russian masses get too uppity, or another Russian paramilitary group decides to march on Moscow just for funsies. Putin’s press secretary just gave Russian viewers a wonderfully tacky defense of the oligarchy: Sure, we might be murdering your sons in a war of conquest dreamed up by an aging mob boss, but our kids have had it tough too!
As you can imagine, the world community is having great fun with Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov’s version of “spartan”—even if Russians at home need to keep their own thoughts to themselves. [Tweets, video and images at the link]
“My daughter lived very poorly in France, in Spartan conditions”, Peskov lied to the Russian population.
“She had a very difficult life, a difficult study. Not only in Russia, she also studied in France. And she always lived there very poorly, in very Spartan conditions,” Peskov said.
He only omitted the point that she lived in an elite area of Paris in a 180-meter apartment worth 1.8 million euros.
This are the “Spartan conditions” Liza Peskov is living in:
If only there were price tags on her clothes, it would be great! [images show rich girl in ritzy circumstances, wearing expensive clothing] […]
Indeed, this particular Kremlin daughter has an Instagram that looks anything but spartan. (And it’s a bit off-topic, but do the ultrarich these days do anything but travel the world to strike poses? And do the moderately wealthy do anything but trail after them, striking the same poses but on rented sets?)
Peskov’s current tale of his daughter’s woeful experience in France is not new. It’s an expression of one of the kleptocracy’s most enduring propaganda bits: “The West” is portrayed as both a place of subversive decadence and of abject squalor depending on the needs of the day, even as the Russian kleptocracy itself has largely abandoned their home country in favor of lives of European luxury. [True!]
A particularly pointed CNN story from 2022 called out Peskov himself in a report on the lavish lifestyles of Kremlin-connected sons and daughters.
Peskov – who’s held his role for nearly a decade and reportedly made $173,000 in 2020 – has been seen wearing a $600,000 designer watch and went on a honeymoon that included a roughly $430,000-a-week yacht off the coast of Sardinia, according to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Based on property records, social media posts and traffic violation databases, the Anti-Corruption Foundation also revealed Peskov’s wife, ex-wife and children own luxury vehicles and multimillion-dollar homes all over the world – including Russia and France – a display of riches in stark contrast with the nearly 20 million Russians living in poverty.
Again, a fair chunk of the Russian population doesn’t have indoor plumbing, but the Kremlin’s press secretary sports a half-million-dollar watch he couldn’t possibly afford on his salary. His family collects luxury homes like other people collect stray cats, all while the oligarchy declares the West to be “satanic.”
This is the current list of Russia’s top “unfriendly countries.” You could also call it “nations Russian oligarchs prefer for their summer homes.” [Tweet and image at the link]
In the meantime, Putin’s kleptocracy continues to press the usual authoritarian themes. [Tweet and image at the link. “Fascism demands that we are in a constant state of war, with men pinned to battle, and women pinned to reproduction in order to maintain the supply of fighters. This is so grim but it’s so predictable. [photo of Russian propaganda billboard]]
It’s the same old, same old from the Russian propaganda mills. Incidentally, Peskov’s daughter isn’t the only member of his family to have endured hardship. Reportedly, Peskov has claimed that his son Nikolai served on the Ukrainian frontlines. However, that doesn’t appear to have been the case. A journalist for the Polish news agency Belsat wrote, “According to information found on Telegram, [Nikolai’s] Tesla X received tickets in Moscow when he supposedly was at the front.”
Posted by readers of the article:
While I appreciate insights into the follies of the Russian autocracy / kleptocracy, I’d prefer that a Daily Kos diary whose title begins with “Ukraine Update:” actually focused on the situation in Ukraine. I’d very much prefer to be kept updated on the latest movements in the front lines, and the latest long-range artillery and missile attacks and deployments of personal, etc.
And as long as I’m playing the grouch, a couple of other points:
“There continues to be no good news for Russia.” Well, how about record oil incomes due to sanctions that don’t work, and an American political situation that makes continuing aid to Ukraine very uncertain, and the promise of 1 million artillery shells from the EU that are not going to be delivered on time, if ever, and Hungary’s Victor Orbán sabotaging EU aid to Ukraine, and the Israel – Hamas conflict that has relegated the Ukraine war to the footnotes?
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I think everybody at kos is running out of ways to report “not much happening “. You have to give all of the kos reporters credit, the Updates are almost always very interesting. They have been putting heart and soul to give us great reporting for nearly two years. I can imagine them saying “ it’s your turn today” to each other. Thanks to all of the people who are committed to giving us Ukraine Updates.
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in October oil sales dropped massively
The ICC at The Hague needs to hold Belarus accountable for its participation in war crimes against Ukraine.
More than 2,440 Ukrainian children were illegally taken to Belarus, the Humanitarian Research Laboratory report says.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, at least 2,442 Ukrainian children aged 6 to 17 have been illegally taken to Belarus from the occupied territories through Russia, according to a report published on November 16 by the Humanitarian Research Laboratory (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health in the United States (link below).
The authors of the report identified 13 locations in Belarus where children from Ukraine have been taken to during the war. At least eight of them subjected children to “re-education” by imposing “cultural, historical, societal, and patriotic messages or ideas that serve the political interests of the regimes of Belarus and Russia”. At least six groups of Ukrainian children received military training, in particular on the basis of the Belarusian Internal Troops.
Russian State Duma deputy Valery Seleznyov proposed to release women convicted on non-serious articles to conceive a child.
And if they manage to give birth, Seleznyov suggests canceling the rest of their sentence. Thus, in his opinion, it is possible to solve the problem of high mortality and low birth rate in the Russian Federation.
Macron announced negotiations with Switzerland regarding the re-export of weapons to Ukraine. During his visit to Switzerland, the President of France said that negotiations on the re-export are ongoing and voiced an optimistic forecast.
You’ve just admitted that Biden could halt the mass-murder if he chose.
In the same way that I could halt my state’s governor’s proclivities towards fascism – for a brief moment before they hauled me away, if l were cunning and lucky enough to get close. Wanna call me a fascist for not doing that today?
No, I want to call you a liar and a moral coward for pretending that those two situations are even remotely comparable. Biden would not have to break any laws, or evade any security detail, and would not be “hauled away”. This pretense that the POTUS is some powerless nobody is both stupid and sickening.
He [Biden] has therefore made himself complicit in mass-murder.
Everyone who takes on the office of US President makes themselves complicit in that. As does everyone who pays taxes to the US government. (And, I must add, those who put their pence in a certain Royal Treasury.)
More ludicrous and dishonest whataboutery. Biden is in the position where he could take speciifc action, which you have agreed would force the Israeli government to agree a ceasefire, and chooses not to do so. Neither you refusing to pay taxes in the USA, nor me doing so in the UK, would have any such effect.
… it seems you hold to the belief that the … Zionist lobby… has an unchallengeable hold on American foreign policy, and is powerful enough to break a President who stands against it…
By George, I think he’s got it! Yes, the “strongest nation [empire] in the world” is in fact so rickety that at least a dozen different internal power blocs (including the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, the gun lobby, the media corporations, and, yes, the Z-lobby) could monkey-wrench the works enough to grind Washington &/or the economy to a halt. Or, at minimum, they are perceived to have that capability such that no one in elected office dares to challenge them, which has the same effect.
… then isn’t it a situation that needs to change? And you could scarcely have either a more pressing or a more promising time to attempt that.
Yes it does need to change. And yes we have a very pressing time – particularly regarding the environmental crisis and the surge in outright fascism – but I dunno about the “more promising time” (the Bernie Sanders campaigns of ’16 & ’20 showed the most promise we’ve had in two generations, but both fell short, didn’t they?).
The way to confront evil is not to support it, at most whispering to the mass-murderers that perhaps they could make their intentions a little less obvious, as Biden is doing and as you clearly support him doing. And in strategic terms, taking on and defeating one of those powerful lobbies would make a huge dent in the power of the others, while failing to do so reinforces them – particularly as they clearly overlap considerably.
It seems you really do buy into the antisemitic “ZOG” conspiracy narrative.
No, but I’ve watched the Z-lobby slap down US politicians decade after decade, and can’t recall any who got back up again.
I’m failing to see any meaningful difference between the ZOG conspiracy narrative and the rest of your #337. You are claiming that the POTUS is helpless in the face of the Zionist lobby – in contradiction to your earlier agreement that there is action he could take which would force the Israeli government to agree an immediate ceasefire.
Attitudes towards guns and CO2 have changed too, with accompanying mass mobilization – and only token law/policy changes. The empire is both shaky and rigid.
Then there’s never going to be a time when breaking the hold of the lobbies you name is going to be easy, is there? So if not now – with the immediate and urgent goal of halting a campaign of mass-murder – when? On an issue of foreign policy, where the power of the POTUS is at its greatest, and I’ve identified specific actions which you agreed would have that immediate effect, whatever followed.
t was a spectacular launch for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.
It was all looking good as it blasted skywards into the blue Texan sky.
The second test flight got further than the first – the two parts of the rocket separated as planned.
But then things started to go awry – the bottom booster exploded after it detached – not too big a problem, as it had already done its job of sending the upper stage skywards.
But then a few minutes later the news came through that this had too been lost.
So is this a success or failure?
Well losing a rocket would usually be seen as “not nominal”, but SpaceX has a a different philosophy.
They’ll be analysing all of the data from this – learning what went wrong – then they’ll have another go.
Sarah B. Wallace turned down a challenge from the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which argued a clause in the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from holding office again.
Section 3 of the amendment bans anyone who has taken an oath to support the Constitution then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from serving as a senator, representative, or presidential elector without the approval of two-thirds of Congress.
Wallace found that Trump “engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021, through incitement” – but also ruled that the clause didn’t apply to people running for President.
“The Court holds there is scant direct evidence regarding whether the Presidency is one of the positions subject to disqualification,” she wrote.
“To lump the Presidency in with any other civil or military office is odd indeed and very troubling to the Court… under traditional rules of statutory construction, when a list includes specific positions but then fails to include others, courts assume the exclusion was intentional,” Wallace added…
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
“or hold any office, civil or military” would seem to contradict her logic. When a list ends with “or any others’, normal people, excluding courts, assume it meant what it said.
State lawmakers last week adopted House Bill 4983, which would put Michigan in a unique class. If signed by the governor, this would be the first law in the nation to require a state to register people to vote when they’re released from prison.
The state would later send people mail notifying them that they have been registered to vote, as well as giving them the option to decline and opt out of voter rolls.
Michigan first adopted automatic voter registration in 2018 as part of Proposal 3, a ballot measure that voters overwhelmingly approved. The idea is for public agencies to leverage their existing interactions with citizens to register them to vote, relieving individuals of that burden and shifting it to the state. But, like in most of the other states that have set up this program, Michigan has only implemented it to add people to voter rolls when they get, renew, or update their driver’s licenses or state IDs.
HB 4983 would significantly expand automatic voter registration by ordering the Department of Corrections to implement it as well; at least 8,000 people are released from state prison each year in Michigan, according to the secretary of state’s office. The bill would also bring other agencies into the program, building on steps that a few states have already taken to register people when they obtain a Native American tribal ID, or when they sign up for Medicaid.
[…]
Democrats have passed a number of major voting bills this year, and HB 4983 itself is part of a broad voting-rights package that now awaits the signature of Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has supported other efforts to expand ballot access.
Voting rights advocates in Michigan say they’re confident she will sign these new reforms.
Anne Applebaum understands the implications of modern Russian authoritarianism as well as or better than any journalist or historian operating in our current era. A graduate of the London School of Economics and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale University, Applebaum has served on the Washington Post’s editorial board and has been a columnist for that publication for 17 years. Prior to that she worked as a political correspondent for the Economist and the Spectator, covering the dissolution of the Eastern bloc in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Without belaboring what is a fairly enormous biography of acclaim and achievement — as both a historian and correspondent predominantly focused on Russian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European issues — she has created and directed multiple think-tanks, websites and programs that examine the role of disinformation, specifically as generated by authoritarian regimes, including Russia. Her 2004 book, Gulag, a meticulous account of Stalin’s internal prison system, won the Pulitzer Prize that year for non-fiction.
Applebaum also has the distinction of being targeted by Vladimir Putin’s propaganda apparatus for her writing, and was an early critic of the Western response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Currently a staff writer for The Atlantic, she is eminently qualified to opine about the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the goals and motives of Vladimir Putin. Her latest essay for that publication, titled “The West Must Defeat Russia,” explains the stakes for Russia and Putin himself in instigating his war on Ukraine, and clarifies why those stakes will compel Russia to see that conflict through right up until the moment that Russia itself is — hopefully — defeated.
Her main points are that perpetuating the war as long as possible continues to serve Putin’s aims; that those aims are still primarily dedicated to the weakening of “American power and American alliances;” and that the only way to “win” the war is by completely defeating Russia and decisively crushing Putin’s “neo-imperial dream.” She believes that the significance of what Putin’s invasion means in terms of “great-power conflict” needs to be re-evaluated, specifically that “we need to start helping the Ukrainians fight this war as if we were fighting it,” and that means not only viewing our role as “helping” Ukraine but actively seeking the defeat of Russia.
But perhaps most importantly she provides insight into Putin’s motives and expectations, and how they are inextricably tethered to the attitudes in the United States, its allies, and in particular of certain Republicans and their presumed Presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
Applebaum confirms what most of us already know: That Putin enormously miscalculated the response of Ukraine, and the collective response of the Western Alliance. But despite the heroic success of the Ukrainian people on the battlefield, and despite truly horrific Russian losses, his primary goal — of weakening America and its alliances — remains viable:
The fighting creates food shortages in Africa, thereby generating more unrest and more demand for Russian mercenaries. The war stokes discontent in Europe as well, giving pro-Russian parties a boost. Americans and Europeans view turmoil in country after country as a series of isolated conflicts, but Putin doesn’t think that Ukraine and the Middle East belong to different, competing spheres. On the contrary, since the conflict in Gaza erupted, he has intensified his relationship with Iran, invited leaders of Hamas to Moscow, and attacked Israel because of its links with the U.S., hoping that the spread of violence will decrease Western support for Ukraine. Iranian drones have terrorized Ukrainian cities; Iran, in turn, distributes Russian weapons to its proxies. Hezbollah is thought to have Russian anti-ship missiles that it could use against U.S. warships in the Mediterranean at any minute.
As Applebaum observes, for Putin, even being stymied to a so-called “stalemate” on the battlefield has simply served to readjust Russia’s posture towards the conflict. He is now playing a waiting game, counting on his time-tested intelligence operation to sow seeds of impatience and ultimately disinterest in the war among the U.S. and its allies who continue to provide Ukraine with military, economic and moral support.
As Applebaum writes:
[D]espite his extraordinary losses, Putin still believes that time is on his side. If he can’t win on the battlefield, he will win using political intrigue and economic pressure. He will wait for the democratic world to splinter, and he will encourage that splintering. He will wait for the Ukrainians to grow tired, and he will try to make that happen too. He will wait for Donald Trump to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election, and he will do anything he can to help that happen too.
Securing a second electoral victory for Donald Trump, who has on multiple occasions threatened to undermine our country’s commitment to NATO if not abandon it completely, is obviously at the top of Putin’s wish list. But the pathetic susceptibility of Republican politicians and their favored media organs to his disinformation techniques and tactics is also key to Putin’s calculation, just as it was during the 2016 Presidential election.
Applebaum tallies up some of his recent successes:
Right now, Putin’s bets are on the Republicans who repeat Russian propaganda—Senator J. D. Vance, for example, echoes Russian language about the Ukraine war leading to “global disorder” and “escalation”; Representative Matt Gaetz cited a Chinese state-media source as evidence while asking about alleged Ukrainian neo-Nazis at a congressional hearing; Vivek Ramaswamy, a GOP presidential candidate, has also called Zelensky, who is Jewish, a Nazi. Putin will have been cheered by the new House speaker, Mike Johnson, who is knowingly delaying the military and financial aid that Ukraine needs to keep fighting. The supplemental bill that he refuses to pass includes money that will keep Ukrainians supplied with the air-defense systems they need to protect their cities, as well as the fiscal support they need to sustain their economy and crucial infrastructure in the coming months.
Applebaum notes that part of the Republicans’ position is rooted in simply wanting to see President Biden fail, no matter the consequences. She also notes that at least some of the agitation among some Western nations can frankly be attributed to a desire to see “a Russian victory, or at least a defeat for Biden.” But she allows that some of the objections are made in the good faith belief — by supporters of Ukraine — that since Russia will “never” give up, a truce, even one along the lines of the demarcation that settled the Korean conflict (with an “American security guarantee”) is the most viable solution. She points out, however, that such a solution would require the parties to stop fighting, and there has been no indication that Putin intends to stop fighting, nor that he would be willing to accept any “partition” brokered by Ukraine or its Western allies. His goal — the complete annihilation of Ukraine — remains unchanged, despite any wishful thinking to the contrary. In fact, as she points out, Putin has already transformed the Russian economy, putting it on a solid war footing, with 40% of its state budget — or, as Applebaum points out, 10% of its GDP — now dedicated to its military.
Applebaum’s point is that Russia is setting the stage for a permanent state of war, motivated by Putin’s belief that the West — with its fractured politics and its inherent susceptibility to his disinformation Wurlitzer — cannot sustain that type of commitment. Hence, the waiting game. The subtext to her position is that Putin can do this because he is a dictator presiding over a totalitarian state. He does not fear public dissent, because, as was made vividly clear quite recently, there is none of any significance that cannot be crushed.
[…] She observes that former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev — showing no signs of vacillating from Putin’s program — recently and in great detail threatened Poland with losing “its statehood” for its actions supporting Ukraine, calling it a “historical enemy.” Poland, of course, is a member of NATO. So Medvedev’s warning — which was certainly made under Putin’s direction — can be understood as a fair representation of what a Russian victory in Ukraine would mean for the rest of Europe: as Applebaum explains, “one in which Poland, the Baltic states, and even Germany are under constant physical threat, with all of the attendant consequences for trade and prosperity.”
Applebaum’s position is that the stunning successes of Ukraine thus far in thwarting and reversing Russia’s invasion of their country have not changed Putin’s essential calculation: That the West can be manipulated into giving up on Ukraine simply due to the nature of its democratic traditions, most of all its responsiveness to public sentiment, its fickle political will, and (implicitly) the general ignorance of its populations to the consequences. That is what Russia’s disinformation matrix intends to cultivate, no matter the situation on the ground. Applebaum argues that the West should be focused on combatting that effort, but more than that, she has several practical suggestions that tie in directly with the idea that it is not only Ukraine, but all of us that are fighting for Russia’s defeat.
As she writes:
If Russia is already fighting America and America’s allies on multiple fronts, through political funding, influence campaigns, and its links to other autocracies and terrorist organizations, then the U.S. and Europe need to fight back on multiple fronts too. We should outcompete Russia for the scarce commodities needed to build weapons, block the software updates that they need to run their defense factories, look for ways to sabotage their production facilities. Russia used fewer weapons and less ammunition this year than it did last year. Our task should be to ensure that next year is worse.
Applebaum suggests that the U.S. and its allies in opposition to the Russian invasion should review the sanctions already imposed and streamline them to target the supply chains Russia uses to keep its war effort going. She also believes that the assets of Russian oligarchs and Russian deposits of foreign money — frozen at the outset of the war— should be seized and the money provided to Ukraine to demonstrate that the issue of reparations for this geopolitical catastrophe will not be forgotten. And she notes that spending more now will help prevent, deter or at the very least prepare ourselves for larger conflicts — possibly with China, or Iran, as she notes — down the line.
In sum, Applebaum’s is a clear-eyed assessment of the reality, unfettered and unimpeded by the political gesticulations and pandering of people more interested in performing and catering to their constituents’ fears and prejudices than in actually standing up for our nation against a corrupt, malevolent tyrant. In that respect, it neatly mirrors the same choice our country will be facing in 2024, when it decides who will be its next president.
Standing in front of a massive state flag on Saturday, Claver Kamau-Imani outlined his utopian vision of a Nation of Texas that he believes is just on the horizon.
No taxes or Faucis, no speed zones or toll roads. No liberals, no gun laws. No windmills, no poor people. A separate currency, stock market and gold depository. “Complete control of our own immigration policy.” World-class college football, a farewell to regulators. And unthinkable, unimaginable wealth.
“We are going to be so rich,” he chanted. “We’re gonna be rich. We are gonna be rich. We. Are. Going. To Be. Rich! … As soon as we declare independence, we’re going to be wealthy. I personally believe that our personal GDP will double in five to seven years.”
“The independence of Texas is good for humanity as a whole,” he added to cheers.
Kamau-Imani, a Houston-based preacher, was among 100 or so people who spent the weekend at the Waco Convention Center for the first conference of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which since 2005 has advocated for the Lone Star State to break away from the United States — a “TEXIT,” as they call it.
[…] The get-together also came as TEXIT supporters celebrated what they believe is crucial momentum: Days before the meeting, the Texas Nationalist Movement announced that it was more than halfway to the roughly 100,000 signatures needed to put a non-binding secession referendum on the Texas Republican primary ballot.
[…] Walter Buenger, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin and chief historian at the Texas State Historical Association, said the movement’s modern supporters have sanitized Texas’ brief, nine-year stint as an independent nation from 1836 until 1845, which came after it was initially denied entry to the United States because of its support for slavery.
“It was a disaster,” Buenger said. “They couldn’t get their taxes right. They couldn’t defend themselves. They couldn’t get a rational foreign policy. It was a disaster, and I think it would again be a total disaster.”
The movement, however, continues to gain traction amid growing political polarization and distrust in American institutions. […] a long list of Texas GOP figures have either endorsed the movement or flirted with its ideas.
[…] Kyle Biedermann, a former state representative who in 2021 proposed putting a referendum on secession to voters. Biedermann is running for House District 19 against freshman state Rep. Ellen Troxclair R-Lakeway.
Speaking on Saturday, Biedermann framed Texas independence as part of a divine plan to preserve state culture.
“We’re going out there in the name of God,” he said. “We’re going out there in the name of Texas.” [Of course God is involved. Sheesh.]
[…] For three days, they attended panels on “affirming Texas culture” through strong borders and “Texas Token” cryptocurrency. They intently listened to speeches on the grave threat of socialism and “three-letter agencies” like the FBI and ATF.
They recoiled at warnings from speakers about the “climate cult coming for your car” and “kill switches” that would allow the government to control their vehicles at will. They cheered as an attorney who was outside the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection regaled them with stories of his legal battles against online “censorship,” […] And they took notes as ultraconservative activists explained how to remove books from public libraries or oust Democrats from office via obscure legal challenges.
[…] it’s a much easier sell in theory than in practice. Roughly one-third of Texas’ annual budget is supported by federal funds, according to the budget and policy nonprofit Every Texan. And, upon breaking from the United States, experts note that Texas would immediately have to supplement key programs like social security. […]
Doctors, patients and displaced civilians left Gaza’s largest hospital Saturday amid competing claims over who had ordered the evacuation, which aid groups described as “complex and dangerous.”
The head of al-Shifa Hospital said that Israeli forces gave people one hour to evacuate and that 120 patients and about five doctors remained inside the complex, which had housed thousands of displaced people. Conditions at the hospital were “very difficult,” with water and electricity cut off, he added.
The Israeli military denied ordering an evacuation, instead saying it had agreed to assist evacuation efforts after requests from the hospital. Many evacuees are headed south, a region where Israeli forces have indicated their ground offensive may intensify soon.
Akira MacKenziesays
@362
“We are going to be so rich,” he chanted. “We’re gonna be rich. We are gonna be rich. We. Are. Going. To Be. Rich! … As soon as we declare independence, we’re going to be wealthy…”
Kamau-Imani, a Houston-based preacher…
Let me guess: This creep is a Prosperity Gospel preacher.
(I tried the html img tag but that didn’t show it here. The ‘markup’ rules for wordpress are arcane and I’ve asked them for info, but got no response. sigh)
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 355: … I want to call you a liar and a moral coward …
Time for a deep breath and a little thought: I have no actual influence on the situation, just some time to read & think on it. I’ve learned that rage and ranting and lining up my-side-right-or-wrong produce little of use, and ideas that generally don’t work. In this case, I support the general thrust of increasing pressure on Biden to stop promoting war crimes, but I also want to understand the matrix of political pressures affecting him and all the other major actors in SWANA (SouthWest Asia & North Africa, a label I prefer above “Middle East”).
And yes, I think a flat-out opposition to Israel’s genocide-in-the-making would get Biden “hauled away” – not like, say, Honduran Pres. Zelaya in 2009, but effectively rendered powerless almost immediately, and replaced by D Trump in 14 months (or K Harris, or M Johnson, sooner). Your appeals to POTUS power as an absolute constant simply do not match the political reality I see in this country.
Biden is in the position where he could take speciifc action, which you have agreed would force the Israeli government to agree a ceasefire, and chooses not to do so.
Rishi Sunak is in a position where he could end the war on Ukraine tomorrow by launching a missile at Moscow today. Presumably you would disagree with him doing that; with a view to the day-after-tomorrow consequences; I see a similar problem – with a few more dominos to count, some less tangible but equally predictable – in Biden’s dilemma. That doesn’t mean I support Biden, any more than you (I gather) support Sunak, except in his specified inaction.
The way to confront evil is not to support it…
When one is a hobbit contemplating orcs marching on the Shire, indeed. As an American challenging and adapting to various degrees of horribleness since the days of Richard Nixon, I have long since lost the option of no-evil-whatsoever. (Cue a chorus of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”…)
And in strategic terms, taking on and defeating one of those powerful lobbies would make a huge dent in the power of the others…
And passing Medicare-for-All would dent the power of US insurance companies, and banning semi-automatic rifles would shrink the gun lobby, and nationalizing General Motors & Exxon (with a green mandate) would ameliorate the climate crisis, and slipping a powerful laxative into the water bottles at the next Republican convention would reduce the threat of fascist takeover. So far, the only recent efforts of mine which have made a difference involved a little help with campaigns to reject R. DeSantis appointees to the local county commission and school board, and (maybe) helping hold together a peace group splintering over aid to Ukraine (at least Hamas & Netanyahu have brought us together there!).
I’m failing to see any meaningful difference between the ZOG conspiracy narrative and the rest of your #337.
Dunno how to help you with that, except by urging you to read up on the US Israel lobby, and on the US peace movement – Brobdingnag & Lilliput, respectively.
You are claiming that the POTUS is helpless in the face of the Zionist lobby – in contradiction to your earlier agreement that there is action he could take …
No, there is action Congress could take, were it much less corrupt, compromised, and confused, to bring Israel to heel – but Biden on his own, short of a Napoleonic coup, has no such power. Could Sunak unilaterally redirect the Royal Navy’s budget to NHS & windfarms?
… there’s never going to be a time when breaking the hold of the lobbies you name is going to be easy, is there?
Nope.
So if not now … when?
We have a possible shot at a minor win almost twelve months from now, or more likely, with luck, just blocking a terminal loss.
Unfortunately, that requires backing Biden, or maybe Harris (whom I doubt would do anything much better). You have seen the reports about Schedule F, Project 2025, etc, right?
birgerjohanssonsays
A video about two related stone circles in Aberdeenshire built ca. 2500 BC.
-Astronomy and units of lenghts.
(As my cellphone cannot distinguish between lower-case L and I there will be four links to ensure one of them is the right one) https://youtu.be/dI0baOHFoBI
Elon Musk’s bigotry is on full display this week, and as Daily Kos’ Hunter wrote Friday, the billionaire, who bought Twitter last year and renamed it X, is facing some serious consequences.
Musk’s vile views aren’t just quarantined to his personal posts, of course. They’re integrated into how he runs his social media platform. X is bleeding money, but rather than change his behavior, apologize, or try even a little to rid his little blue-check playground of the sort of content X CEO Linda Yaccarino calls “lawful but awful,” Musk doubled down Saturday, threatening the media outlet whose exposé triggered a mass advertiser exodus.
And that outlet, Media Matters, is firing back.
[…] As CNN noted Friday evening, IBM was the first, but not the last.
A torrent of prominent brands halted their advertising on X on Friday, dealing a massive reputational blow to Elon Musk’s social media company after his public embrace this week of an antisemitic conspiracy theory favored by White supremacists.
The high-profile advertiser revolt includes some of the world’s largest media companies, such as Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent of CNN.
X also reportedly lost Apple, according to multiple news outlets including Axios, which first reported Apple’s withdrawal.
What’s a massive social media platform to do in the face of all this? Ban the Nazis, you might be thinking.
Nah.
A spokesperson for X said the pro-Nazi accounts identified in Thursday’s Media Matters report would no longer be eligible for monetization, meaning ads would no longer be run on those pages.
But there’s more. Early Saturday morning, Musk took to X to threaten Media Matters and ask his eight-dollar army to “stand with X.” He also vowed that X Corp would file a “thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters.” He posted it along a screenshot of a little manifesto, which accused Media Matters of manipulating the platform to get the desired result: Pro-Nazi ads served next to prominent brands. [Manifesto at the link]
In response to Musk’s massive screed, Media Matters Angelo Carusone offered a short, if scathing, response.
Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate. Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. If he does sue us, we will win.
Notably, this isn’t the first time Musk has gotten itchy when X is called out as a Nazi-friendly platform. He’s previously vowed to go after the Anti-Defamation League, whose research going back to May indicates there was lots more hate on the platform since Musk took it over … and new policies, like “freedom of speech, not reach,” allowed it to remain live.
[…]
After months in which Musk has supported racist rants; encouraged hate speech; elevated literal Nazi propaganda; fired every Twitter employee in Brazil on suspicion of being too liberal; fired the entire company press office and the entire company communications department; decimated the team responsible for content moderation; terrified advertisers with chaos, irresponsibility, and perpetuating racism; and thrown away global brand recognition by renaming the whole platform to indulge a personal whim, Musk has put his finger on the real issue.
It’s the Jews.
Back on X on Saturday, Musk acolytes predictably defended their billionaire messiah, taunting Media Matters and Carusone. And thanks to X’s policies, those basement-dwellers will likely be doing so all weekend.
birgerjohanssonsays
Emissions from the central black hole, Sagittarius A* every 76 minutes.
Something is orbiting with a velocity 30% the speed of light and interacting with the accretion disc. https://youtu.be/MuBdajXtEZw
Reginald Selkirksays
@362: No taxes…
“Complete control of our own immigration policy.”
So they’re going to run their own borders, which will be about doubled in length from the current borders, and it won’t cost a thing! It’s a miracle!
Self-proclaimed “Queen of Canada” Romana Didulo — known for her QAnon beliefs — and her followers have left the Richmound, Sask., school they’ve been staying at for more than two months.
Mayor Brad Miller said the cult left the school early afternoon on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, villagers discovered through online coverage of the “Kingdom of Canada” cult’s regular live streamed videos — which it posts on the app Telegram — that the group had a heater propped up on a propane tank in the school.
That, the mayor said, is a fire code violation.
The village sent the fire chief, a building inspector and a bylaw officer to the school on Wednesday, but Miller said the extremist group would not let them enter the school.
However, Miller said Didulo and her followers quickly packed up their vehicles and left the school after the visit…
They didn’t go far.
Miller said they are camped out only 11 kilometres east of the village in the Rural Municipality of Fox Valley on unused farmland after being given permission to stay there by the landowner…
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called for an investigation of the House Jan. 6 Committee on Saturday after security footage from inside the Capitol was released, claiming that the committee selectively ignored evidence.
“Why didn’t Liz Cheney and Adam Kizinger ever refer to any of these tapes?” Lee questioned on X, formerly Twitter, referring to video showing police assisting rioters inside the Capitol on Jan. 6…
I guess he couldn’t find time to list specific way in which release of the tapes would change the narrative on what happened. It’s just a vague, substance-free accusation.
Denmark has handed over unique drones to the Ukrainian Navy. Those are autonomous hydrographic systems, which operate as part of the SeaBat T51 system, which, in particular, allow for the detection of underwater targets.
Source: ArmyInform with reference to Captain 1st Class Roman Honcharenko, the head of the hydrographic service of the Ukrainian Navy
Details: Honcharenko said that these drones are equipped with a multibeam echo sounder designed to survey the bottom topography for situational awareness of the underwater space.
Quote from Honcharenko: “The main task of a multibeam echo sounder is to collect accurate data about the seabed and marine environment. This data can then be processed and used to create and update nautical charts and tablets to support safe navigation in the area.” …
Another member of the Russian military was found dead under unknown circumstances this week.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Sviridov, 68, and his wife Tatyana, 72, were found dead Wednesday in their bedroom, per the Kyiv Post. They looked to have been dead for about a week prior to their discovery, according to the Post.
Sviridov commanded the 6th Army of the Air Force and Air Defense of Russia from 2005 to 2009, per the Kyiv Post…
It says “unknown circumstances”, but if they were “in their bedroom” I guess that means no windows were involved.
Silentbobsays
@ 376 Reginald Selkirk
Who would be silly enough to think evolution has a “last stage”, or that any other extant species has less of a claim? X-D
Reginald Selkirksays
@378: Not I.
Akira MacKenziesays
@376
I was always under the impression that the “last stage of evolution” was extinction.
Some good news for Sunday … a mix of culture and politics by Pink:
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has become the center of book-banning in the United States, overtaking Texas, the former leading state in that category. Pop star Pink is using her Florida concert dates to fight that.
Pink teamed up with anti-censorship nonprofit PEN America to distribute thousands of copies of banned-in-Florida books at her shows in Miami and Sunrise this week. The 2,000 books in the giveaway include “The Family Book” by children’s author Todd Parr; “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman, who became a favorite right-wing target after her poetry reading at the Biden-Harris inauguration; “Beloved” by Toni Morrison; and a book from Girls Who Code. The first three books appear on PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans, while the last was temporarily banned in a Pennsylvania school district.
“Books have held a special joy for me from the time I was a child, and that’s why I am unwilling to stand by and watch while books are banned by schools,” Pink said in a statement. “It’s especially hateful to see authorities take aim at books about race and racism and against LGBTQ authors and those of color. We have made so many strides toward equality in this country and no one should want to see this progress reversed. This is why I am supporting PEN America in its work and why I agree with them: no more banned books.”
Pink promoted the book giveaways—and took on the haters—in a steady stream of tweets: [Examples of tweets are available at the link, including, “Hey there! Sorry I was performing to a sold out room of happy fun people,
Did I miss anything positive? 😂 just kidding, gotta run!
LOVE YOU MIAMI!!!! Enjoy your books!” and “Since
@penamerica
started tracking book bans in 2021, each of these titles have been removed at least once in a public school district; you can find their reporting at https://pen.org/issue/book-bans/. Many of these books are also being challenged and removed in public libraries” and “I wish I could continue cause y’all, I’m just getting started, but I gotta read my kids a bedtime story about how it’s OKAY THAT SOME FAMILIES HAVE TWO DADS”]
It’s really fun when someone who won’t back down or be intimidated offers a reminder of how badly—and why—Republicans are losing the culture wars they’re trying to start.
Ukrainian military sources reported on November 18 that Ukrainian air defenses downed 29 of 38 Russian-launched Shahed-131/136 drones over multiple unspecified oblasts.[1] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian Shaheds struck an energy infrastructure facility and administrative building in Odesa Oblast.[2] The Ukrainian Northern Operational Command reported that Russian Shaheds also damaged infrastructure facilities in Chernihiv Oblast.[3] …
[…]
An Ukrainian sniper set a new world record. With his sniper rifle “Horizon’s Lord”, which is chambered in 12.7x114HL, he accurately hit on a distance of 3,800m the Russian at the right side.
UA Security Service (SBU) sniper set a world record for an effective shot, hitting a RU soldier from 3800 metres, beating the previous record of 3540 metres, using a UA “Volodar Obriyu” (Lord of the Horizon) rifle.
The 12.7×114 “HL” cartridge is based on a .510″ (12.95 mm) bullet in a 14.5×114 mm cartridge case. It weighs 15.7 kg. Effective range 2500 metres, maximum range 3200 metres.
In 2017, a sniper from Canada’s special forces unit surpassed the 2009 record with a 3,540 m (3,871 yd) shot in the Iraqi Civil War.
More at the link, including video of Ukrainian’s destroying a Russian TOS-1A Thermobaric Rocket Launcher, the 13th one they’ve destroyed.
No one knows exactly how many Ukrainian children have allegedly been abducted by Russia during Vladimir Putin’s war. @CeciliaVega spent months following one grandmother as she risked her life to find her grandson before he completely disappeared.
Russian servicemen are stripped naked and put into pits for refusing to go into meat assault without proper equipment. To get out, they need to pay up 400k rubles. These particular men spent 4 nights in the pit completely naked.
This was revealed by the wife of one of the mobilised Russian men who ended up in the pit after refusing orders. The woman said they can be put there for no reason as well if the leadership doesn’t like them.
Likewise, she said that to go on leave, one needs to pay the officers 200k rubles in cash. Otherwise, they’ll never leave the zero line.
There is a deprivation-inundation natural water cycle in Mexico City, and due to modern human interference, a looming disaster is underway. Today’s water crisis starts with bad decisions by the Spanish who, after conquering the capital city of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlán (present-day Mexico City), ‘drained the lake, destroyed the Aztec city, and built their own in the European style, which exacerbated seasonal flooding. The City of Mexico would fill up like a cup in the rainy season—it was once underwater for five years. But the Spanish continued draining the lake system, and the city took deeper root at the silty-clay lakebed. Texcoco and all the other lakes are gone, except for a few marshlands and a region of canals south of the city.
Severe and unrelenting drought is not limited to Mexico City, the largest city in North America with a population of twenty-one million. […] According to Mexico’s National Meteorological Service, 75 percent of the country is in exceptional or severe drought.
Water shortages and flooding are a historical reality. It is a “part of a weather pattern where warmer months typically usher in low-pressure weather systems that bring rain.”
Mexico is sandwiched between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, making it vulnerable to natural disasters. Climate change makes most of them more potent, intense, and frequent. Impacts include hurricanes, earthquakes, heavy rainfall, drought, forest fires, and volcanic activity. This year was ferocious.
The most violent hurricanes since 2018 (only 2023 storms included in my edit).
– Otis: October 17-25, 2023, Wind speed: max. 269 km/h, Diameter: max. 556 km, Air pressure: below 923 mbar, Saffir-Simpson scale: category 5
– Lidia: September 30 to October 11, 2023. Wind speed: max. 222 km/h, Diameter: max. 556 km, Air pressure: below 942 mbar, Saffir-Simpson scale: category 4
– Idalia: August 24 to September 2, 2023, Region: Gulf of Mexico, Wind speed: max. 194 km/h, on land, Air pressure: below 944 mbar, Saffir-Simpson scale: category 5.
– Hilary: August 13-21, 2023, Wind speed: max. 232 km/h on land, Diameter: max. 1333 km, Air pressure: below 939 mbar, Saffir-Simpson scale: category 4
Climate change has been exacerbating and disrupting rainfall patterns across Mexico and the earth. In Mexico City, the consequences of a fast-warming planet, too many people, El Nino, and a dilapidated water infrastructure have created severe water restrictions necessary for the megalopolis […]
[…] Mexican officials imposed severe, monthslong cuts to Mexico City’s water supply at midnight Friday, acting just a month after initial restrictions were ordered as drought dries the capital’s reservoirs.
[…] Officials began restricting water from Cutzamala by roughly 8% on Oct. 17. Friday’s cuts are much more drastic, representing a further 25% of the system’s total flow. Twelve boroughs, mostly in the west of the city, can expect lower water pressure until the restrictions lift, officials said.
Officials did not specify when that would be, saying only that restrictions would stand for “the next few months.” They noted the rainy season — which at normal levels of precipitation would replenish the city’s water — won’t start until around May.
[…]
[…] “Mexico City is a monster; it’s a beast,” said Adams. “All the asphalt, all the plastic in the gutters means that water disappears. It never enters the system” by reaching the aquifer, he said.
[…] Working with Mexico’s Environment Department, Isla Urbana, a group working to improve water access in the city, has installed 10,000 rain collection systems house-by-house across the traditionally underserved southern boroughs of Tlalpan and Xochimilco. The systems gather, filter and treat rain falling on a building before storing it in a personal tank.
[…] The city is sinking because Mexico pumps water out of the ground in their dried-out reservoir lake beds like there is no tomorrow. Once that water is gone, space fills the void, and with a significant city above, the land sinks. As a result, tap water is unreliable and often tainted with impurities.
[…] The Sinaloa Cartel Is Controlling Water in Drought-Stricken Mexico in northern Mexico and California.
[…] Using water trucks, pipelines, and an army of lookouts, the cartel is siphoning water from lakes, rivers, and creeks in the mountains of the northern state of Chihuahua. The business model is twofold: The cartel wants to keep its own weed and poppy fields irrigated, and it wants to be the broker that supplies water to farmers, hotels, and other local businesses that have been left dry.
Suella Braverman is out, and David Cameron is back. Conservatives are still bitterly divided.
If nothing else, one thing is certain about the United Kingdom’s Conservative government: there’s going to be drama.
The latest Tory meltdown saw a major cabinet shakeup and the end of Suella Braverman’s contentious tenure as home secretary, sparked by rising dissent over her controversial plan to send asylum seekers — of any national origin — to Rwanda. James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary, replaced Braverman and former prime minister David Cameron has stepped into the foreign secretary role.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to fire Braverman and bring back Cameron looks like a pendulum swing away from the small but vocal populist members of his party, of which Braverman is emblematic. More moderate members of the party have pressed Sunak to get rid of her for months, though his doing so has inflamed Braverman, whose support in October’s vote helped him become prime minister.
Though Braverman’s firing seems to be tied to an inflammatory op-ed and subsequent violence around a pro-Palestinian rally held last week, there have been other signals that her position was untenable. While some of her hardline rhetoric and policy proposals were popular with right-wing members of Parliament, members in the centrist faction called for her firing, voicing concerns about her rhetoric, her competence, and her alienation of more moderate voters.
[…] The Cabinet reshuffle appears to be an attempt to appeal to old-guard, centrist Tories. But Sunak still aims to follow through on the Rwanda plan, an apparent attempt to satisfy multiple competing factions of his fractious party. […]
Gaza’s main hospital is now a “death zone,” the WHO said, while dozens of premature babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa as Israeli forces continue to operate at the facility.
Summary:
U.S., Israeli and Hamas negotiators are closing in on a deal to release some of the hostages taken during the Oct. 7 terror attack in exchange for a pause in fighting, sources familiar with the negotiations told NBC News, though these sources caution nothing has been finalized yet. The U.S. said that work continued toward a deal.
Al-Shifa, once Gaza’s main hospital, has stopped functioning as a medical facility and is now a “death zone,” the World Health Organization has said. The assessment came after officials were able to inspect the site, which has become a symbol of the plight of Palestinians under Israeli assault.
Thirty-one “very sick” premature babies have now been evacuated from Al-Shifa, where a lack of fuel to power their incubators raised global alarm about their fate. Hundreds of patients and staff have fled after Israel raided the hospital, but intense bombardment continues to hit southern Gaza as Israel prepares to press its offensive deeper into the enclave.
[…] More than 1.6 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and health officials there say the death toll has surpassed 13,000. Israel estimates 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas terrorist attack Oct. 7, with 236 people still held hostage in Gaza. The number of hostages has been revised down to reflect those who have been found dead.
More details:
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency released new footage tonight that they say shows part of a tunnel system underneath Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital used by Hamas.
[…] runs 55 meters long and 10 meters deep.
“The tunnel shaft was uncovered in the area of the hospital underneath a shed alongside a vehicle containing numerous weapons including RPGs, explosives, and Kalashnikov rifles,” the IDF said. It said its forces were continuing to uncover the route of the tunnel. […]
Limited good news:
Almost 800 people traveled through the Rafah crossing out of Gaza and into Egypt today.
A total of 790 people evacuated, including at least 63 medical patients, while 40 aid trucks departed to help with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
A secret text has been discovered in Türkiye, scattered among tens of thousands of ancient clay tablets, which were written in the time of the Hittite Empire during the second millennium BCE.
No one yet knows what the curious cuneiform script says, but it seems to be a long-lost language from more than 3,000 years ago.
Experts say the mysterious idiom is unlike any other ancient written language found in the Middle East, although it seems to share roots with other Anatolian-Indo-European languages.
The sneaky scrawlings start at the end of a cultic ritual text written in Hittite – the oldest known Indo-European tongue – after an introduction that essentially translates to: “From now on, read in the language of the country of Kalašma”…
It’s been over two weeks since Ukraine expanded beyond the marshes along the left (south) bank of the Dnipro River. Since then:
– Russia has failed to eliminate the Ukrainian bridgehead and push the Ukrainians back into the marshes.
– Ukraine has established firm control over the village of Krynky, both on its western treeline border, and has pushed the fighting into the streets between Krynky and the neighboring strategically important village of Korsunka.
– Ukrainian drones have relentlessly targeted Russian positions south of Krynky, destroying artillery, armored vehicles, and logistic vehicles.
Let’s take a closer look.
Krynkyi is a small village on the left (southern/Russian controlled) bank of the Dnipro River in southwestern Ukraine, a little more than 30 km east of Kherson City. Korsunka is just east of it. [map at the link]
The two villages are important because unlike the marshes that typically line the southern bank of the Dnipro, they are near a dry spot that isn’t just a natural location for a pontoon bridge, but Ukraine has already practiced crossing there twice before.
Securing such a pontoon crossing would allow Ukraine to supply a larger, more powerful force across the river, providing the firepower to liberate larger logistical hubs like Nova Kahovka or Oleshky. [map at the link]
With those two cities under Ukrainian control, Ukraine would have the logistical hubs necessary to advance further into Kherson Oblast, and eventually, to attack Melitopol from the rear or to march on Crimea.
Krynky is a critical first step. And as of now, Ukraine has made objectively verifiable advances, and we can use Russia’s use of TOS thermobaric rocket artillery to track progress.
[…] The thermobaric rockets come with two drawbacks. First, they are quite short ranged. Russia’s most commonly used TOS-1A only has a range of 6 kilometers, and the older TOS-1 system is even shorter ranged at just 3 kilometers. This forces TOS rocket artillery to operate extremely closely to enemy positions, potentially exposing them to counterbattery or drone attacks. [Tweet and video at the link]
The other disadvantage is its reliance on unguided rockets with a broad and indiscriminate destructive effect. These weapons do not conduct precision strikes on a single building or structure, they lay down a barrage of rocket shells that level entire neighborhoods. This makes it very dangerous to deploy anywhere remotely close to friendly positions, requiring strikes on areas that can only be described as “enemy-held.”
These were the TOS-1 strikes at Krynky on November 11: [map and image at the link]
And here are Russia’s TOS-1 strikes on November 16: [map and image at the link]
Remember, the indiscriminate nature of TOS strikes means that Russian troops have already left that area.
The following day, Nov. 17, Ukraine let loose a flurry of drone and artillery strikes that destroyed at least three towed howitzers, a TOS-1, a Grad MLRS artillery system, a BTR Armored Personnel Carrier, and a Russian unarmored van (loaf). [map at the link]
Here’s video of some of those kills: [video at the link]
The visually confirmed destruction of so many valuable targets in this condensed area on a single day shows that Ukraine must have had this area under extensive observation by artillery spotting reconnaissance and bomber drones. It also suggests that Russia’s electronic warfare (EW) defenses have been thoroughly decimated in this area.
I have argued that Ukraine needs a 10 kilometer buffer from any pontoon bridging site to protect it from Russian artillery. [map at the link]
n the comments of several of my Ukraine Updates, Daily Kos contributor 22 Trucks argued that Ukraine was incapable of protecting logistical bridges from Russian air strikes, even beyond 10 kilometers, offering two recent examples.
The first was an air strike on Kostyantynivka, west of Bakhmut, on Oct. 18th. [image at the link]
Then, the bridge in Kupiansk over the Oskil River was struck on Nov. 15. [Tweet and images at the link]
The distance from the front for the strike in Konstantynivka is around 9 kilometers based on Russian positions on Oct. 18th. [map at the link]
Similarly, the strike on the bridge in Kupiansk was from just under 10 kilometers from the front lines on Nov. 15th. [maps at the link]
Thus, it is fair to say that neither strike demonstrates any capability on the part of Russian forces to strike a bridge asset deeper than 10 kilometers into Ukrainian territory.
Russian relies primarily on cruise missiles like the Kalibr missile, or ballistic missiles like the Iskander, for strikes deep behind Ukrainian lines. These missiles focus on large civilian infrastructure targets the size of a city block or larger, such as powerplants or major electrical substations, not bridges.
Russian glide bombs are notoriously inaccurate, though they make up for their lack of precision accuracy with their sheer destructive power. This makes them ill-suited for attacking small infrastructure targets like bridges.
This leaves laser-guided weapons as the primary guided munitions Russia could use to strike a bridge with sufficient accuracy, including laser-guided bombs or artillery shells. Still, both of these munitions require Russian drones, planes, and artillery to operate near the front lines.
Take the bridge over the Oskil River in Kupyansk.
Ukraine captured the town of Kupyansk around Sept. 10th, 2022 during the Kharkiv counteroffensive, and then pushed southeast toward Svatove. The nearby town of Vilshana was never liberated.
Vilshana is just 13 kilometers from the bridge in Kupyansk. At various times in the past year, Russin troops were in Lyman Pershyi or close to Synkivka, so Russian forces were almost certainly even closer. [map at the link]
Kupyansk was an important logistical hub for the Russians during their occupation, and it is similarly important to Ukraine today. That bridge is critical to ensure the flow of supplies from eastern Ukraine to forces fighting along the P07 highway around Svatove. [map at the link]
Fighting in Marinka has been ongoing since May 2022. The bridge in question connects two significant areas of conflict—Vuhledar and Marinka, permitting Ukraine to make use of interior lines to transfer forces between the two battlefields. [map at the link]
Given this bridge is only 9-10 kilometers from the front lines, the only question is why Russia didn’t hit it sooner. Russia had every reason to destroy these bridges. They did not.
Either Russian commanders are stupid to the point of incredulity—or Russia was simply unable to destroy these bridges until recently. So what might’ve changed? One possible theory—Ukraine shifted its limited drone and air defenses to Kherson and deprioritized these areas.
If true, this very likely also means is that Ukraine can protect a bridge it prioritizes defense of an area that’s just 10 kilometers or so from the front lines. It did so at Marinka for 20 months. It did so at Kupiansk for 14 months.
It can likely protect a pontoon bridge over the Dnipro today given a minimal buffer zone.
So, Ukraine capturing just a few villages may be the first dominoes leading to Crimea.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, has died at the age of 96.
The Carter Center said she died Sunday after living with dementia and suffering many months of declining health. The statement announcing her death said she “died peacefully, with family by her side” at 2:10 p.m. at her rural Georgia home of Plains.
“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Carter said in the statement. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”
The Carters were married for more than 77 years, forging what they both described as a “full partnership.” Unlike many previous first ladies, Rosalynn sat in on Cabinet meetings, spoke out on controversial issues and represented her husband on foreign trips. Aides to President Carter sometimes referred to her—privately—as “co-president.” […]
The attack off the coast of Yemen comes just days after the Houthis issued a graphic with captions in Hebrew, Arabic and English that said, “We will sink your ships.”
Militants believed to be Iranian-backed Houthi rebels used a helicopter raid to seize a Japanese cargo ship in the southern Red Sea, said three U.S. officials.
According to the officials, at around 1 p.m. Sunday local time, a helicopter hovered over the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-owned and Bahamian-flagged ship, and several armed individuals rappelled down to the deck.
The attack off the coast of Yemen comes just days after the Houthis issued a graphic with captions in Hebrew, Arabic and English that said, “We will sink your ships.” The graphic showed an Israeli commercial ship on fire.
On Nov. 16, the International Maritime Security Construct, an international group that tries to maintain security in regional waters, issued an advisory to all mariners in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb trait between Yemen and Djibouti because of the threat, but did not name the Houthis. The advisory warned ships to stay as far away from Yemeni waters as possible and recommended travel at night whenever possible. […]
A U.S. Defense official said, “We’re aware of the situation and are monitoring it closely.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said via X that, “The hijacking of the cargo ship by the Houthis near Yemen in the southern Red Sea is a very serious event on a global level. This is a ship that left Turkey on its way to India with an international civilian crew, with no Israeli crew members on board. The ship that has been hijacked is not an Israeli ship.”
The Houthis have been fighting the Yemeni military for more than a decade with Iranian backing. Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas, another Iranian proxy, the Houthis have been launching drones and missiles northward.
On Oct. 19, a U.S. Navy warship shot down multiple drones and three cruise missiles that were fired from Yemen and heading “potentially towards Israel,” a Defense Department spokesman said.
The USS Carney was in the northern Red Sea when it took out the missiles and more than a dozen drones, said Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.
On Oct. 31, militants believed to be Houthi rebels fired a medium-range ballistic missile from Yemen toward Israel, according to two U.S. officials.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said the missile was intercepted by Israel’s Arrow air defense system, which was jointly developed by Israel and the U.S. The IDF confirmed that a surface-to-surface missile had been fired toward Israeli territory from the direction of the Red Sea, but not did specify whether it had originated in Yemen.
The U.S. government on Monday will start taking orders for another round of free COVID-19 tests for delivery across the country, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson said.
Households that had ordered four free tests through COVIDTests.gov when they were offered again in September are eligible to order four more, while those that did not can submit two orders for a total of eight free tests…
A Harvard professor’s claims that metallic balls discovered under the ocean may have been made by aliens have been called into question yet again.
In July, Avi Loeb, the director of a computational astrophysics center at Harvard, claimed spherules dredged from the Pacific Ocean were left behind by a meteorite that exploded near Earth in 2014.
Their bizarre chemical makeup, he said, suggested they could be a form of alien technology…
Now an analysis may offer a more down-to-earth explanation for the mysterious spherules: they may simply be an offshoot of coal burning…
Ukraine on Monday sacked two high-ranking cyber defence officials amid a probe into alleged embezzlement, a senior government official said.
Yurii Shchyhol, head of the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP), and his deputy, Viktor Zhora, were dismissed by the government, Cabinet chief Taras Melnychuk wrote on Telegram.
The firings coincided with an announcement by anti-corruption prosecutors that they were investigating officials in cyber defence positions over their alleged roles in a six-person plot to embezzle 62 million UAH ($1.72 million) in 2021…
An eastern Pennsylvania school district has reached a settlement with The Satanic Temple in a lawsuit that alleged the district discriminated against students by barring one of the group’s After School Satan clubs from using a school building earlier this year.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the Saucon Valley School District had agreed to pay $200,000 in attorney’s fees and to provide The Satanic Temple and the After School Satan Club it sponsors the same access to school facilities as is provided to other organizations…
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an announcement that many in Washington felt was overdue, Representative George Santos said that he was resigning from Congress to spend more time with his imaginary family.
“As much as I’ve loved this job, it’s taken me away from my kids,” he said. “And to them I say: Blake, Kaylee, Agnes, Skip, Molly, Charlie, Leeann, and Rex, Daddy’s coming home.”
He thanked his children for taking care of his many imaginary pets, including a marmot named Jerry and a python named Estelle.
As for his future plans, he said that he would be leaving Congress “to go back to my first love: being a member of the Beatles.”
“Today is an emotional day for me,” he said. “If I don’t look emotional, it’s because of the Botox.”
Over 630 earthquakes have been detected since midnight on the Reykjanes peninsula, seven of them of more than 2 in magnitude. The largest one occurred at 01.17 am and was 2.7 magnitude.
The earthquakes have been occurring in line with the magma channel, but the most active activity overnight has been south of Hagafell and north of Stóra-Skógafell.
Einar Hjörleifsson, a natural-hazard specialist at the Icelandic Met Office, says there were no notable changes in the real-time GPS measurements last night. Overall, the situation is similar to last night.
The Met Office will receive new satellite data later today, which could provide a clearer picture of the elevations and deformation in the area.
The article includes an image showing the relationship of various landmarks involved in the ongoing activity. The view is looking south, just so you have a reference.
A federal appeals court moved on Monday to drastically weaken the Voting Rights Act, issuing a ruling that would effectively bar private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits under a central provision of the landmark civil rights law.
The ruling, made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, found that only the federal government could bring a legal challenge under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a crucial part of the law that prohibits election or voting practices that discriminate against Americans based on race.
[…]
The Monday decision by the court of appeals found that the text of the Voting Rights Act did not explicitly contain language for “a private right of action,” or the right of private citizens to file lawsuits under the law. Therefore, the court found, the right to sue would effectively lie with the government alone.
Should the ruling stand, it would remove perhaps the most important facet of the Voting Rights Act; the majority of challenges to discriminatory laws and racial gerrymanders have come from private citizens and civil rights groups.
[…]
The current legal debate over who can bring Section 2 claims took a significant turn in February 2022, when Judge Lee P. Rudofsky, a district judge in eastern Arkansas appointed by former President Donald J. Trump, found that “only the Attorney General of the United States may bring suit” to enforce Section 2.
The decision was appealed to the Eighth Circuit, which on Monday issued a 2-to-1 [Two Trump and one Bush appointees] ruling largely agreeing with the previous decision and finding that the law did not explicitly provide for a “private right of action.”
[…]
Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the Voting Rights Project at the A.C.L.U., who argued the appeal on behalf of the challengers, called the Monday ruling a “travesty for democracy.”
“For generations, private individuals have brought cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to protect their right to vote,” she said in a statement. “By failing to reverse the district court’s radical decision, the Eighth Circuit has put the Voting Rights Act in jeopardy, tossing aside critical protections that voters fought and died for.”
The US Army is testing a new and powerful missile that will eventually replace the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, a weapon that made its battlefield debut in Ukraine last month in an effective strike on Russia’s helicopter fleet.
The Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) program has been in the works for a few years and is meant to provide field artillery units with extended long-range support and deep-strike capabilities…
With a range of nearly 250 miles, the PrSM crushes the maximum distance than any ATACMS variant can travel (186 miles with a unitary warhead). Additionally, a HIMARS launch pod is capable of holding two PrSMs, whereas it can only hold one ATACMS munition, thus doubling the volume of fire…
In case you were feeling too rosy about the state of the world, it’s worth reading this new article by Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz (sub.req.) about “day after” scenarios in Gaza. You can believe, as I do, that Israel is and was justified in and in fact obligated to destroy Hamas’s de facto army in Gaza after the events of October 7th. Here Bar’el goes into some depth about the utter lack of any realistic plan about what comes after that happens, assuming it does happen.
I’ve already noted the malign role of the disgraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is of course ideologically opposed to any move toward self-rule or statehood for any of the Palestinian territories. At the moment what is equally important is that he sees leaving the military and “day after” questions unresolved being in his personal and political self-interest.
That is only the beginning of the problems.
The most plausible path forward is to have some transitional force made up of Arab state militaries to administer the Strip in preparation for a resumption of rule by the Palestinian Authority. But all of the plausible Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, any of the Gulf states – are adamantly opposed to being involved in any way. The Palestinian Authority is also adamantly opposed absent a broader political agreement. But it appears they’re not terribly eager to get involved even if there were one or some real progress toward one. (Of course, the point is highly theoretical.) These points are known already. Bar’el focuses on the many ways that a multi-national force – the big other proposal – is somewhere between a fantasy and simply unworkable.
Only a few countries on earth have the military and logistical capacities to manage a project like that. The most obvious is the United States. But that is a complete non-starter for a hundred different reasons. The UN has some experience policing disengagement agreements. It has very little experience running what amounts to a small city-state.
It is a bleak situation. And I’m likely understating the malign impact of Netanyahu’s remaining in office. Even as I’ve all but ruled out all the conceivable possibilities, something will eventually happen. The future comes for us whether we’re ready or not. But Netanyahu is effectively able to prevent much progress even in discussing it.
In practice any plan needs at least Israel’s tacit approval. They are the military on the ground. But he’s spending most of his time ruling out the most obvious options. Add to this the fact that no one but no one trusts Netanyahu. Certainly among Arab governments and many non-Arab governments trust in any Israeli government is at a low point. But Netanyahu is in a different category. Add to the fact that his government is stacked with extremists and fanatics who now routinely utter barbaric comments and propose unthinkable policies even if the government isn’t following through on them.
There’s really no ‘and therefore’ here. It’s just pure bleak and that’s just focusing on what comes next. We’re not even getting into what is happening now.
[…] Scratch the surface of any GOP cause or belief and you will find the thing they are most against is the very thing that they themselves are guilty of or are trying to cover up.
The hypocrisy is maddening and it never seems to end.
A Republican pastor who coordinates the faith-based outreach for the Philadelphia chapter of Moms for Liberty was convicted a decade ago of sexually abusing a teenage boy.
Phillip Fisher Jr., who leads the Center of Universal Divinity in Olney, helps connect the right-wing group with local faith leaders to boost membership, and other leaders say they’re shocked to learn he pleaded guilty in 2012 to a felony count of aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy when he was 25, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer.
[…] So not just sex with a minor but gay sex with a minor, and of course he is a pastor too.
I obviously don’t have a problem with the gay sex part but I have a major problem with the 14-year-old part and the fact that this obviously gay man is so dead set on proving his “godliness” to others that he, a convicted sex offender, is using the LGBTQ community as a scapegoat. […]
With over 99% of the vote now counted, it’s clear that Trump admirer and self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei will be the next president of Argentina. Considering the conspiracy theory-spouting Milei has claimed the only way he could lose is if the election were rigged, at least Argentina might not suffer the damaging riots that plagued neighbor Brazil after Trump-supporting former President Jair Bolsonaro lost his reelection bid. But that may be the only good thing about Milei’s election.
Nicknamed “the madman,” Milei is a former TV pundit who gained attention with radical-right theories of economics—and detailed explanations of “the joy of tantric sex” that included informing the public of his ejaculation schedule. He has a pack of five huge Mastiff dogs, all of whom are clones. He has frequently campaigned as libertarian superhero “General AnCap” in a black and yellow costume. He has also appeared on stage with running chainsaws and singing Rolling Stones covers while wearing leather pants. He has suggested that Argentinians should be able to sell their internal organs, and once proposed a free market for selling babies. In a country that’s roughly 63% Roman Catholic, Milei has denounced Pope Francis as “a filthy leftist.”
Now he’ll soon be in charge of that nation of almost 47 million, and running South America’s third-largest economy. He intends to show the world a real Ayn Randian/Nietzschean dystopia where wealth and rights are synonymous.
The reason for Milei’s rise despite an unending list of extreme weirdness and seemingly disqualifying statements isn’t hard to pin down: Argentina is a mess.
Inflation in the past year has run at 143%. Current President Alberto Fernández has barely appeared in public over the past few months, and Economics Minister Sergio Massa, who was Milei’s biggest opponent in the election, was largely left holding the bag for an economy where 40% of the nation is in poverty, even though unemployment is less than 7%.
Argentinians are working. They are bringing home paychecks. But they can’t buy anything. Many younger workers are “informally employed” under a system that provides them little in the way of benefits or job protection—a kind of gig economy where salaries are decreasing even as inflation soars. Milei offered the kind of right-wing, populist, nationalist, follow-me-and-it-will-all-be-better option as Donald Trump and Bolsonaro.
That kind of economic crisis has always been a fertile ground for movements backing a strongman with proposals for radical change, and there may be no better place for a fascist revival than Argentina.
The nation has never quite shaken its post-World War II reputation as a friendly retreat for international fascists, or as a nation where democracy is on shaky ground. Until 1983, the country was under the boot of neo-fascist Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, who “disappeared” at least 15,000 of his political enemies. After democracy was restored, several elections were followed by coups, government collapses, and riots. It wasn’t until 1999 that there was a transfer of power between parties in democratic elections, and even that turnover happened during the Argentine great depression, which saw the country’s economy shrink by 28%.
Instability, wild swings in policy, and the constant threat of another military takeover still mark Argentine politics. In Buenos Aires, there is a “Kyle Rittenhouse Cultural Center,” which appears to serve as a meetinghouse for those who believe the best way to enact political change is through assassination. [video of Javier Milei with his chain saw]
Trump supporters may be celebrating Milei’s win because he endorsed Trump, appeared with a “don’t tread on me” Gadsden flag in some campaign appearances, called for making guns readily available, is a climate change denier, and has promised to “make Argentina great again.” But for Argentinians, the immediate result of Milei’s election is likely to be further pain. Milei promises to destroy what little remains of Argentina’s economic safety net, replace the national currency with the American dollar, and close the nation’s central bank. All these measures can be expected to massively disrupt Argentina’s already fragile economy.
The instability has not exactly made Argentina the top target of international investors (though it would not be surprising to see techno billionaires lauding Milei’s calls for a financial Wild West). Should Milei get his way, Argentine citizens could find themselves in a situation that makes their existing funds worthless while removing the protections the government currently provides.
However, despite his sizable victory at the top of the ticket, Milei’s Liberty Advances party ended up carrying only seven of 72 seats in Argentina’s Senate and 38 of 257 in the House. That means Milei may need to pull back on his wild claims and find compromise with his opponents if he wants to pass any legislation.
Or he might just gain the support of the military and do what he wants. This is, after all, Argentina.
The Biden administration Monday issued sanctions against two officers in the Russian military for involvement in gross violations of human rights, including the alleged extrajudicial killing of unarmed Ukrainian civilians.
The sanctions target Azatbek Omurbekov, a colonel in Russia’s armed forces who the State Department said carried the dark moniker of “The Butcher of Bucha,” a reference to the Kyiv suburb that was the site of mass atrocities carried out in the first few weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022.
Daniil Frolkin, a guard corporal in the Russian military, was also sanctioned by the State Department for his involvement in a gross violation of human rights, namely the extrajudicial killing of unarmed Ukrainian civilians in Andriivka.
[…] The State Department issued visa bans against Omurbekov and Frolkin, preventing them and their immediate families from ever entering the U.S. The measure is viewed as a tactic of naming and shaming violators of human rights amid efforts to secure further justice for alleged crimes. […]
We regret to inform you that the worms have eaten another great chunk of Maria Bartiromo’s brain. Here she is explaining her new COVID origin myth to Ohio Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup this morning. [video at the link]
As Mediaite reported, the interview started with Wenstrup pushing the lab leak theory, because if Republicans can just prove that COVID-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, China, and not a wet market, then public health is a big lie and no one ever has to wear a mask or get vaccinated again. […]
But Bartiromo wasn’t content to play normal partisan games with public health.
“Is there a chance that China released this virus on the country intentionally? Disrupt the country, get Donald Trump out, get your man in there, Joe Biden, and then cover it up?” she shouted.
It all makes complete sense! If you disregard the fact that the virus first started killing people in China, which instituted its “Zero COVID” lockdown policy and suffered a massive economic slowdown. And that coronavirus hit Italy months before it hit the US. And that viruses don’t respect international borders. [Yep. All of that is accurate]
[…] Rep. Wenstrup simply moved on to excusing Donald Trump for being taken in by a cuddly little foreign despot.
“Well, they certainly didn’t try to protect America, did they?” he answered, adding, “And I could be wrong on this: President Xi was telling Donald Trump everything is okay. And Donald Trump was repeating what President Xi said. Now Democrats call President Trump a liar, but it seems President Trump was just repeating what President Xi said. Obviously it was more dangerous.”
Let us not stop to contemplate how Republicans would react if Democrats said, “Well, the leader of an adversary nation assured us that something was true, and we believed him, and now a million Americans are dead, but don’t blame us!” This way madness lies.
And anyway there’s enough madness already, because Bartiromo seized on Rep. Wenstrup’s gentle reminder that “it was killing people all around the world, so, it’s not just America” as SCIENCE PROOF that Democrats are trying to cover up something which happened on Trump’s watch because something something Joe Biden Hunter penis pics UNDERPANTS GNOMES.
“Wow!” Bartiromo shrieked. “So, we know that this has been going on. We have all these things to consider. This administration seems to want to ignore all of that, and we do not. And it also seems Democrats in general — I don’t get it. And I don’t understand why Dr. Fauci wouldn’t want to have the debate over whether this came from the lab or whether it came from nature.”
Who is “we,” Maria? Is “we” and independent media doing its job? Or is “we” a television network which functions as an attack dog for the Republican party and feeds its listeners lies all damn day long.
In summary and in conclusion, remember that funny time when Maria Bartiromo put Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell on the air to flog election lies about Dominion Voting Machines and cost the company $787 million plus lawyers fees?
because if Republicans can just prove that COVID-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, China, and not a wet market – wonkette quoted by Lynna, OM@405
Worth noting that the Chinese authorities (aka Xi Jinping) say it wasn’t a lab leak and it wasn’t from a wet market, it came to China from somewhere else, probably on frozen food packaging, so there.
Commercial air crews are reporting something “unthinkable” in the skies above the Middle East: novel “spoofing” attacks have caused navigation systems to fail in dozens of incidents since September.
In late September, multiple commercial flights near Iran went astray after navigation systems went blind. The planes first received spoofed GPS signals, meaning signals designed to fool planes’ systems into thinking they are flying miles away from their real location. One of the aircraft almost flew into Iranian airspace without permission. Since then, air crews discussing the problem online have said it’s only gotten worse, and experts are racing to establish who is behind it…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is opening an investigation into Media Matters for “potential fraudulent activity” after X CEO Elon Musk accused the left-wing media watchdog group of manipulating data on the social media platform…
Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey posted on Sunday that his legal team was “looking into” the matter. Now, Paxton is launching an official investigation with his office after being “extremely troubled” by the allegations…
Paxton is not upholding the law, he is taking sides.
For years, the Conservative Political Action Conference has drawn conservative administration members, top think-tankers and lobbyists, a stream of presidential candidates, and the seditionist Donald Trump. In early times, it was a hub for somewhat nerdy corporate conservatism, but in recent years, under the guidance of American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, the stage and the crowds moved farther and farther right, embracing conspiracy theorists, anti-democratic extremism, and an increasingly fascist agenda.
But CPAC is now in an existential crisis, reports The Washington Post. And naturally, it’s Schlapp’s fault.
In mid-November, powerful conservative figure Morton Blackwell became the latest American Conservative Union board member to resign in the wake of a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against Schlapp by a campaign staffer for then-Senate candidate Herschel Walker. So far, the ACU has forked over over $1 million dollars in legal fees on Schlapp’s behalf, and in a 13-page letter of resignation submitted last May, former Board Treasurer Bob Beauprez blasted Schlapp for mismanagement and apparent self-dealing and warned that he could no longer vouch for the organization’s financial statements.
Over half of CPAC’s staffers have left the organization since 2021, and ticket sales have been slumping as the conference morphed into a celebration of an increasingly extreme pro-Trump and seditionist right. Blackwell’s departure, however, may signal the beginning of the end.
“Morton Blackwell resigning is a signal to the entire conservative movement that the game is over,” said Grover Norquist, the well-known anti-tax activist who served on the CPAC board for more than 15 years. “CPAC stopped being a useful part of the movement long ago and now it’s veering toward dysfunctional.”
A major question is whether the ACU should be funding Schlapp’s legal defense at all, given that Schlapp’s misconduct could not easily be construed as part of his official role as ACU or CPAC leader. Schlapp has been accused of purging board members and staffers who raise questions about his decisions or leadership, and Beauprez called out Schlapp’s use of ACU money for his defense as one of the reasons he no longer had confidence in the organization’s finances and warned that any settlement “upwards of a couple of million dollars,” would, coupled with legal expenses, “break the organization.”
Norquist isn’t alone in suggesting that “the game is over” for the ACU and Schlapp. But while Norquist appears to believe the ACU is unsalvageable, other conservatives appear to believe something can be salvaged—if Schlapp is shown the door.
[…] The continued existence of CPAC as conservative gathering point may depend on how many millions Schlapp is able to bleed from the organization to fund his multiple legal woes, but there don’t appear to be many high-profile conservatives eager to keep the group afloat. That may be due to Schlapp’s tight hold on the organization, one that has alienated longtime conservative leaders in favor of Trump-like blustering cruelty.
It might also be because whenever CPAC burns down, as now seems inevitable, there is no dearth of funding for whatever might replace it. The Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo is swimming in conservative capital and could purchase the name and contracts outright; any number of former CPAC board members might jump to provide a Schlappless alternative group; numerous Trump-adjacent grifters would likely announce their own ventures, all vowing to become the conference’s rightful heir. CPAC may be the biggest and most “important” of conservative conferences, but it’s replaceable. There are no end of far-right groups wanting to hear Stephen Miller’s anti-immigrant rhetoric or have conservative “legal minds” explain why this or that portion of the Constitution ought to be considered invalid.
Still, though: The death of CPAC would be an immensely satisfying event to witness. And not just for liberals, apparently.
[Trump’s] allies are pumping millions of dollars into locating the tens of thousands government foot soldiers necessary to bring that vision to fruition, according to Axios.
Reports of Trump’s plans to punish his political enemies have already surfaced in several outlets, but this effort is aimed at installing an army of lower-level government workers who would help dismantle the federal government department by department.
The program is being coordinated by the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” a presidential transition project premised on the idea of getting “the right people in place” to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left.”
Prescreening candidates for government jobs in the next administration isn’t exactly a new concept, but the breadth of the operation and vetting process being applied are notable. Heritage is utilizing artificial intelligence powered by the tech giant Oracle in order to scour social media histories in search of sufficiently loyal candidates.
Heritage President Kevin Roberts says it’s the biggest operation of its kind ever undertaken by the party out of power.
And Project 2025 Director Paul Dans tells Axios, “Never before has the entire movement … banded together to construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out-of-touch and weaponized administrative state.”
Though the effort isn’t officially linked to Trump or his campaign team, it will provide a potential Trump transition team with a wealth of MAGA loyalists ready to help Trump dismantle the U.S. government as we know it.
Posted by readers of the article:
I suspect that in most cases, anyone on that list would be excluded by reason of criminal history, failure to pass a background check, failing a lie detector test (see CBP testing) etc.
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Once these people get into stable government jobs with nice benefits, why would they try to make themselves unemployed again?
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Our work in government is 10 times more difficult than it is for Republicans. It is always much more difficult to competently run something than to dismantle it. Democrats look to hire the brightest, most experienced, most competent at running government people they can find. Republicans only need to hire incompetent morons and/or grifters to accomplish their goals. Guess which are easier to find and hire?
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It does sound like they are doing the FBI a favor in compiling a list they can’t make themselves. Because targeting citizens that have not broken the law (yet) but have leanings towards a particular faction of a political party is not legal.
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Because putting political reliability over competence worked so well for Communism?
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Not too far away from blatant stormtrooper recruitment are we?
New York City public libraries, a priceless resource, are closing their doors on Sundays after devastating budget cuts that are expected to impact their ability to purchase new materials, organize new programming, and even maintain and repair the very buildings themselves.
“Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, and The New York Public Library regret to announce that as a result of mid-year budget cuts, we must eliminate seven-day service across the city, including ending Sunday service at the vast majority of branches that currently offer it,” library leaders told local media.
This is terrible, but it’s not Joe Biden’s fault, as performer Cardi B. suggested. Biden’s president of the entire United States, and while that includes New York City, it’s Mayor Eric Adams who slashed the budget and closed libraries. Eric Adams sucks, which I’ve reported at length.
Cardi B., perhaps forgivably, did not read my article from earlier this year that detailed the mayor’s attack against literary and overall public good. However, she might’ve noticed when Adams personally announced the steep cuts last Thursday.
From The New York Times:
The budget cuts would bring the number of Police Department officers below 30,000 for the first time since the 1980s, slash the Education Department budget by $1 billion over two years and delay the rollout of composting in the Bronx and Staten Island — one of the mayor’s signature initiatives to address rats and climate change. The cuts would also weaken two popular programs: summer school and universal prekindergarten.
But wait, I thought it was a great time to be rich in New York, so why is the city acting so broke ass? Well, Adams blames those damn migrants.
“No city should be left to handle a national humanitarian crisis largely on its own, and without the significant and timely support we need from Washington, D.C., today’s budget will be only the beginning,” he said.
Yet another centrist Democrat putting the hammer to Joe Biden, but I thought they were the “adults in the room”?
New York City added a half million foreign migrants to its population between 2010 and 2019. The city was averaging tens of thousands of new migrants each year until 2022. Since then, the numbers have surged to more than 118,000 migrants and asylum seekers.
Will Freeman at the Council of Foreign Relations writes:
As of September, nearly sixty thousand newly arrived migrants were living in the city’s shelters; about two-thirds of them families with children. Their sheer numbers have placed enormous fiscal pressure on New York City, costing it over $1 billion so far, and prompted officials to declare a state of emergency. Some estimates say the cost of housing could surpass $4.3 billion by July 2024 …
But New York City’s entire budget is just $4.4 billion! No, wait, I didn’t add a decimal point. The city’s fiscal budget for 2024 is a $107 billion, so the migrant issue accounts for just four percent of the 2024 budget. Guess Adams has no choice but to torch the libraries.
Adams warned New Yorkers about “extremely painful” budget cuts, but it can’t help feeling as if he’s setting up migrants as convenient scapegoats for that pain. Cutting the police budget will also inevitably create a link between any perceived rise in crime and the arrival of migrants from the southern border, which he’s already claimed could “destroy” the city.
While he’s pleading poverty, Adams is also a member at the exclusive club Zero Bond in Noho. It’s open to anyone with the right “character” who can spare $3,850 a year and pony up the $1,000 initiation fee. Maybe the next time he’s chilling at the club, this true mayor of the people can ask one of his rich buddies for some spare change to keep the libraries open.
Or he can just keep blaming desperate people from another country.
Last night was one of those perfect moments on Fox News, where the three interchangeable dipshits on the screen demonstrated in the most efficient manner possible just how much they despise your Nana and Pop Pop and all the other [people] whose viewing eyes keep them employed. It’s a 14-second clip. They all nodded along and smile with each other, Jason Chaffetz and Kayleigh McEnany and some other guy, as Chaffetz just lied to the viewers’ faces about something easily verifiable, about something those viewers could debunk […]
For many of them, it would involve nothing more than going into the kitchen and looking at the most recent receipt from the grocery store. […]
Jason Chaffetz, Kayleigh McEnany and some other guy are lying to Fox News viewers. About the price of Joe Biden’s turkey.
“We went to go buy a turkey today, it was $90 for a turkey! Uh, the price of stamps is up 32 percent in the last four years! But it’s all a choice by Joe Biden, that’s what Bidenomics is.”
McEnany sat there smirking and shaking her head back and forth, appalled by the indignity of the luxury Joe Biden turkey prices in the imaginary story Jason Chaffetz was telling. The other extraneous white guy just sat there smirking like he was in on the lie, but couldn’t quite hide it as well as McEnany and Chaffetz, who are much more seasoned professional liars.
And the viewers at home, well, yes, […] Many of them literally just bought a Butterball for, at the top end, 30 bucks, but yet they likely panted along with the TV and got angry at Joe Biden for making their turkeys 90 dollars. [Screen grab showing cost of turkeys ranging from $15.92 to $30.24]
As we see it, there are two options here:
– Jason Chaffetz is just a pigfuck liar. Don’t overthink it.
– Jason Chaffetz bought his turkey from some kind of luxury boutique turkey delivery service — which is fine, those are nice services! — where they come pre-smoked or something, [he] thinks the bougie turkey-on-demand service he uses is how average Americans do it. Maybe it’s some kind of local restaurant that does it and they do the turkey and prepare some sides and box it up all nice. […]
Ready for your shocker?
The price of turkeys is down this year. It’s down 5.6 percent, according to the Farm Bureau. Know what seems pretty much under control right now? Inflation.
If your Nana starts spouting this bullshit at the Thanksgiving table, tell her these facts and then look her in the eye and gently explain to her that her favorite Fox News personalities — the ones she wishes were her own children — literally hate her.
NATO members Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria are close to agreeing to create a joint force to clear mines drifting into their parts of the Black Sea — part of the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine…
[…] The New York Times didn’t exactly offer Biden many happy returns in Monday’s article, “For an Aging President, a Birthday With a Bite.” (OK, for the record, we’re all aging, even if you’re 21.)
For many of a certain age, there comes a point when marking yet another birthday, taking note of yet another passage of the calendar, is not greeted with the same enthusiasm it once was. And that’s for people who are not even running for president.
This is already morbid nonsense. In my experience, older people are often happier on their birthdays because they appreciate survival and continued time with their loved ones. It’s usually people who are still young who get all mopey because a birthday has passed without their meeting some arbitrary deadline for marriage, career advancement, or overpriced home ownership.
Baker discusses the president like the traveller in Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”
For President Biden, who turns 81 on Monday, another birthday may bring more liability than revelry, offering one more reminder of his age to an already skeptical electorate. Unlike other presidents who have celebrated birthdays with lavish political events, Mr. Biden plans to observe his milestone privately with family in Nantucket later this week.
When Donald Trump turned 77 in June, the Times marked the occasion with the piece, “A Deflated, Low-Energy Trump, Now Twice-Indicted at 77: ‘Some Birthday’.” The key difference here is that Trump was genuinely depressed on his birthday and with good reason: He’d been indicted twice in the same year with two more indictments to come before the end of summer.
However, with Biden, the Times is just projecting psychobabble that’s clearly out of character if you actually know the guy. Biden is openly optimistic about his political future — you might disagree with his assessment, but there’s no evidence that he’s fleeing to New England, locking himself in a dark room, and refusing to blow out any candles. He just wants to celebrate his birthday with his family. It’s not a bizarre choice, unlike the many bizarre choices in Baker’s article.
The best birthday gift the oldest president in American history could hope for would be a strategy for assuaging voters’ concerns, but that has been hard to come by.
Baker has no idea what he’s talking about […] I have no particular insight into Biden’s mind, but he’s probably content with a sunny-day drive in his badass Corvette. [video at the link]
Appearing on MSNBC, Baker kept pushing the narrative that Biden is miserable and will spend his birthday reading New York Times polls and weeping.
“You’re not going to see a big lavish celebration the way Barack Obama celebrated his 50th birthday in office or Bill Clinton celebrated his birthdays in office with fundraisers and concerts and all that. You’re going to see basically almost nothing.”
Yes, Biden is old. No one would deny this obvious fact, but just because the president might prefer a low-key birthday, that doesn’t mean he’s close to death.
And I recall how Times writer Mark Lander discussed Obama’s 50th birthday plans in 2011. It was also a premature elegy.
For many men, turning 50 can be a day of reckoning, marked by graying hair, a slowing step and the wistful recognition that you are probably never going to make it to the corner office. What could be better, at such a melancholy moment, than to celebrate at home, among old friends?
Dear God, Morrissey lyrics are more upbeat.
It apparently doesn’t matter if you’re 50 or 81. The Times will find a way to make you wish you were never born.
President Biden said Tuesday that efforts to bring home hostages being held by Hamas are “looking good,” amid reporting that a tentative deal has been made to release hostages.
“We are now very close, very close. We could bring some of these hostages home very soon, but I don’t want to get into the details of things, because nothing is done until it’s done. And if we have more to say, we will. But things are looking good at the moment,” Biden said during a meeting at the White House.
The president noted that his top officials have been working for weeks to bring home hostages and that he recently spoke with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, about the hostages. He also said his “team has been in the region shuttling between capitals.”
Netanyahu is convening his war cabinet and then his security cabinet and the government on Tuesday evening local time, which could signal a breakthrough in hostage negotiations.
The leader of Hamas said earlier Tuesday that an agreement was close, Reuters reported. […]
The party is sucking wind among independents at 58 points underwater: 14% favorable, 72% unfavorable.There’s simply no way around the fact that the Republican Party brand is continuing its rapid descent amid the leadership of a four-time indictee who is presiding over a party that no longer believes in the Constitution, law and order, or even democratic norms.
Civiqs tracking of the GOP favorability rating has the party 42 points underwater with registered voters (66% unfavorable, 24% favorable)—a 7-point decline since the beginning of August. [Graph at the link]
The party is sucking wind among independents at 58 points underwater: 14% favorable, 72% unfavorable. [Graph at the link]
But perhaps most notably, the Republican Party is tanking among its own voters with a net favorability of just +35 points, representing a 28-point decline since Election Day last year. [Graph at the link]
By comparison, look at the Democratic Party among its own voters: +71 points (81% favorable, 10% unfavorable). [Graph at the link]
Among all voters, Democrats aren’t exactly killing it. But at -17, the party is smelling like a rose compared to its Republican counterpart. [Graph at the link]
Those graphs show promising trends. I hope the trends hold up well and that the Republican Party sinks further.
So, yesterday we covered Elon Musk’s ridiculous censorial threat to sue Media Matters “the split second the court opens on Monday.” Of course, as we noted, you can file lawsuits 24/7. And yet, as the courts opened on Monday, there was nothing. As mentioned in the original post, I was away from internet access for most of Monday, and when I finally got back online I was told there was still no lawsuit.
But, then, on Monday evening, the lawsuit finally came, and it was glorious. Gloriously stupid.
Honestly, this feels like what you get when you have a rich but legally ignorant dude who announces on a Friday that there will be a lawsuit on Monday and finally finds some terrible lawyers who are actually willing to file something just to live up to that promise.
It’s not a good lawsuit. It’s barely even a lawsuit at all.
Civil rights leaders called for justice for Dexter Wade, 37, who was run over by an off-duty police officer in Jackson, Mississippi, and buried in a pauper’s field.
More than eight months after 37-year-old Dexter Wade was killed and later buried in a pauper’s field, his mother gave her only son the formal funeral that he’d been denied.
Civil rights leaders flew in from around the country for the service Monday. Several elected officials, including a member of Congress, found seats in the church audience alongside grieving family members. […]
[…] From the church stage, with Dexter Wade’s two teenage daughters standing next to her, Bettersten Wade spoke of the months she’d spent searching and praying for her son to return, unaware that he’d been run over by an off-duty police officer and buried at the county penal farm.
[…] Her quest to find her son began soon after he left home on March 5 and didn’t return. For months afterward, missing persons investigators with the Jackson Police Department told her that they didn’t have any leads. Then, in late August, officers revealed that he’d been struck by a Jackson police cruiser while he was crossing a six-lane highway less than an hour after he’d left home.
The Hinds County coroner’s office told her his body had been buried in a pauper’s field in July after authorities had failed to reach his next of kin — even though, according to the family’s lawyers, an independent autopsy conducted on the family’s behalf this month found that Dexter Wade was buried with a state ID listing his home address.
The case sparked public outrage when NBC News reported about it last month. Civil rights lawyers Ben Crump and Dennis Sweet took on the case, helping arrange for Dexter Wade’s exhumation, the independent autopsy and, finally, a funeral. Last week, county workers exhumed his body hours before an agreed-upon time, adding another indignity to Bettersten Wade’s ordeal. […]
In all his years advocating on behalf of the families of those killed by police, Sharpton said, he’d “never heard one like this.”
“His life mattered to his mama, to his daughters,” Sharpton said. “And we’re going to make it matter all over this country.” […]
The U.S. government is kicking off its $3 billion National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program (NAPMP) to help shore up domestic chip manufacturing deficiencies. Modern advanced chip packaging technologies, such as Intel’s EMIB and Foveros 3D, require clean rooms and sophisticated tools, which makes contemporary packaging facilities as expensive as fabs were some 15–20 years ago. The importance of complex packaging techniques are hard to overestimate for future chips, as the ability to make chips without packaging is only part of the whole process…
The U.S. military fired back at Iran-backed militants who injured several troops in Iraq on Monday, according to U.S. officials.
The militants launched a missile attack from a truck against U.S. forces at al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq, leaving several service members with minor injuries, according to U.S. officials.
An American AC-130 gunship that was airborne in the region at the time observed the attack and tracked the militants’ vehicle and then fired back. The U.S. assesses several of the Iran-linked fighters were killed in the swift counterstrike.
I didn’t know the US still had/were still operating AC-130s.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah took time away from saying the Pentagon is waging an abortion war on American babies to promote huge lies on social media about the nature of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s announcement of the release of hours of footage from Jan. 6 led the right-wing-o-sphere (and shills like Lee) to begin posting all of the footage they could find where nothing was happening. It is sort of like reviewing 7 AM’s security footage from Sept. 11, 2001, to prove there was no attack on the World Trade Center towers. This has led to many right-wingers trying to use the footage to prove that the entire Jan. 6 insurrection was manufactured by the FBI.
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney decided to post footage to her X (formerly Twitter) account showing the actual siege of the Capitol building, writing, “Here’s some January 6th video for you.” Lee decided to respond to this, writing, “Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that—and nothing else. It’s the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting. Nice try. P.S. How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us).”
Then Lee retweeted a post from former West Virginia lawmaker and guy who apologized profusely and pled guilty to his part in the Jan. 6 insurrection, Derrick Evans. Evans now sells himself as a political prisoner. He posted a screenshot accompanied by the question, “Is this person flashing a badge? If so, this would prove there were undercover federal agents disguised as MAGA.” Lee responded to Evans, “I can’t wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about this at our next oversight hearing. I predict that, as always, his answers will be 97% information-free.”
Of course, it ain’t a badge in the picture. It’s a vape. The guy in the image has been identified as a man named Kevin Lyons—and Lyons isn’t a G-man. In fact, as readers added context to Lee’s reckless retweet of misinformation, Lyons was sentenced to more than four years in a federal prison for stealing a wallet as well as “a framed photo of the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.”
Cheney took advantage of this thoughtless bit of dangerous buffoonery on the part of Lee to call him out: “You’re a lawyer, Mike. You’re capable of understanding the scores of J6 verdicts & rulings in our federal courts. E.g. https://justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases. You didn’t object to electors on J6 because you knew what Trump was doing was unconstitutional & you know what you’re doing now is wrong.” [Tweet at the link]
Lee is a liar and misinformation machine. The past few years have seen video and audio evidence of how duplicitous Lee is when it comes to his craven desire to destroy Social Security. While he may not present himself as chaotically as fellow Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, he’s the exact same type of a hot mess.
Posted by readers of the article:
MSNBC noted yesterday that Mike Lee might be a flake, but he’s a flake that Trump wants to put in charge of the DOJ so he can get retribution on Trump’s enemies. Steve Bannon is also in favor.
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I never thought I’d be grateful for a Cheney, but Liz has been doing a good job of trying to hold Republicans’ feet to the reality fire.
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DIS-information is knowingly lying. And Yes, GQP politicians are “DISINFORMATION” Machines. Lying Liars Lie. Period.
lumipunasays
Update on the Finnish/Russian border situation:
Since the southern part of the border was closed on Friday night, moderate numbers of asylum seekers have been showing up further north, where two of the four remaining border stations continue to accept asylum applications. In the south, a record number (about 220) crossed the border during Friday, after the impending closure had been announced. There was also an uptick in other traffic, as people with family or other business across the border rushed to make arrangements. The closure is tentatively expected to last for three months, though it might be extended or ended earlier.
In the short term, additional restrictions seem almost certain. There is apparently currently a heated argument between the cabinet ministers and their legal advisers, on whether the Russian border could/should be closed entirely for asylum applications. In practice, that’d apparently mean halting all traffic (other than the cargo trains still running at the Vainikkala railroad crossing, where passenger trains were suspended long ago), because otherwise it’s not feasible to push asylum seekers back. The southern border crossings have been closed with barricades, and still a few people slipped through over the weekend.
(Reading the news lately, I have learned that the Finnish name for concertina wire is formally literally “cylinder obstacle” and informally “Nato wire”.)
(Another thing I’ve learned that the Polish/Belarusian border crisis is actually still ongoing at low intensity. Apparently, significant numbers of migrants have been lingering often for long times in Belarus, attempting to sneak across the border into Poland, and occasionally succeeding. Recently, many of them have been recruited to attempt crossing from Russia into Finland.)
There is increasing evidence that someone is bussing people across northwestern Russia to almost within sighting distance of the Finnish border. Presumably, that’s either the security service FSB, or private human smugglers working with a special pass from the FSB. The roads leading to the Finnish border stations of Vartius and Salla run hundreds of kilometers across mostly uninhabited subarctic forests. Reportedly, migrants have been lodging in a hotel or otherwise hanging around in the mining town of Kostamuksha, east of Vartius, confusing and concerning the locals.
After a group of migrants unloads from a bus, for the last few hundred meters, they walk or ride disposable bicycles or electric scooters. The Russian border guards close the road behind them with a gate, blocking all traffic until the migrants have been guided further by Finnish border guards. Many of the migrants have just barely enough clothing to survive as short while outdoors, until they’re led into heated tents that have recently been installed at the two border stations. The temperature in Salla area has today dropped below -20C, which is colder than usually at this time of the year. While the world as a whole broils with a mind-melting 2C positive temperature anomaly, breaking all global warming predictions, northern Scandinavia is pretty much the only place where it’s significantly colder than seasonal average.
birgerjohanssonsays
Ukraine, the Cherson region.
Pontoon bridges over the river, the beachheads seem robust.
(I like this youtube source, it has been relatively reliable) https://youtu.be/g8iTxjYGztE
The battery from Northvolt needs no scarce raw materials like lithium.
BTW the factory in North Sweden mentioned is not far from where I live- that town is going through a boomtown phase now, not something you are much in the sparsely populated north. 😊
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made a rare appearance in court Tuesday to argue for the revocation of the bond of one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In her first time appearing in court in the case since the indictment was filed in August, Willis presented the prosecution’s case against Harrison Floyd, who was a leader in the organization Black Voices for Trump. She planned to call three witnesses, including Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia who strenuously defended the legitimacy of the state’s 2020 vote count against Trump’s false claims that he won.
Willis filed a motion last week asking county Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to revoke Floyd’s bond, writing that he has been attempting to intimidate and contact likely witnesses and his co-defendants in violation of the terms of his release. […]
Progressive groups have been urging the White House and Democratic leadership to build on President Joe Biden’s success in defending Social Security by making proposals to expand the program as part of his 2024 reelection campaign platform.
Biden famously stood down Republican efforts to include cuts to the program in debt ceiling negotiations in his most recent State of the Union speech, forcing Republicans not only to agree to keeping Social Security and Medicare out of the mix, but also to endorse the programs. “I never thought my third State of the Union address would be negotiated on the floor of the United States Congress,” Biden said after the speech. “But it worked.”
It worked to gain the electorate’s trust, too. A Navigator survey conducted after the SOTU found voters overwhelmingly trust Biden and the Democrats more in both “reforming” and “protecting” Social Security and Medicare, with independents trusting them more by double-digits. A Data for Progress survey after the speech found “an overwhelming majority of likely voters (78 percent) are in favor of the Social Security Expansion Act. This includes 85 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of Independents, and 72 percent of Republicans.”
[…] “The only weakness that Democrats have on their Social Security policies is not enough people know that it’s them,” Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, told Politico. “The way to get Republicans even more on the back foot about their plans to cut Social Security is to draw that incredibly clear distinction that Democrats want to expand, Republicans want to cut.”
That’s absolutely true, despite Republicans’ denials. They included a redux of the old “catfood commission” from during Barack Obama’s presidency in their first, failed attempt to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government back in September. During the speaker fight in October, after Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, cutting the programs took center stage when GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma nominated Jim Jordan for the job. Jordan showed “courage,” Cole said, in fighting “to get at the real drivers of debt, and we all know what they are. We all know it’s Social Security, we all know it’s Medicare, we all know it’s Medicaid.”
The speaker they finally landed on, Rep. Mike Johnson, is just as committed as Jordan was to slashing the programs, arguing that the debt is “the greatest threat to our national security,” and that spending on these social insurance programs is at the core. […]
Ordinary people get mad and move on. Billionaire narcissists file another lawsuit. When he ran for the White House for the first time, USA Today reported that Donald Trump had been involved in 4,095 lawsuits over just three decades. That’s more than two-and-a-half lawsuits a week. Since the data goes only until 2016, it doesn’t even count the 62 lawsuits Trump and his allies filed in their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
With Elon Musk filing a frivolous attack on Media Matters for America, it seems Trump couldn’t resist filing suit against 20 media outlets for erroneously reporting that his Truth Social media platform had lost $73 million. As Bloomberg reports, that number came from a regulatory filing by Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the special-purpose acquisition company (and allegedly a massive scam) behind Truth Social.
However, news outlets including Reuters and The Guardian, which were among the first to report the number, made a mistake in tabulating the numbers. Other media outlets then cited those erroneous figures. Rather than demanding a retraction, Trump is claiming that the whole thing constitutes a “coordinated media campaign, by no less than 20 major media outlets, to attack Trump Media & Technology Group.” He’s seeking $1.5 billion in damages.
In just the past year, Donald Trump has:
– Filed and then dropped a $500 million suit against his former attorney, Michael Cohen.
– Lost a $475 million defamation suit against CNN.
– Lost a counter-defamation suit against writer E. Jean Carroll that he filed the day after she won a $5 million settlement against him for defamation and sexual abuse.
– Lost a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post over articles about his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
– Lost a $100 million lawsuit against The New York Times (and his own niece) for what Trump called “an insidious plot” to reveal tax information.
That’s more than $1 billion in dismissed lawsuits this year, with the new Truth Social suit promising to more than double that number. And that’s not even counting the many times Trump has lost in suits or motions related to his many criminal proceedings, such as losing a lawsuit against the FBI for searching Mar-a-Lago.
[…] Overall 2023 has been a very busy legal year for Trump, but 2024 is going to be worse.
It might seem like wasting time on frivolous lawsuits should be way down the to-do list—and this one is very frivolous. All the sources citing Reuters’ original report are clearly protected from any claim of defamation. And in the case of Reuters, Trump’s attorneys would have to show that the news outlet acted maliciously or with “a reckless disregard for the truth.” That’s not going to happen.
Then again, this isn’t about winning in court. It’s about giving Trump something else to whine about and use in fundraising emails. Outlets like Newsmax are already running stories about how Trump is going after “big media” or taking on the “fake news.” Posts on Truth Social are claiming that even more outlets may be added to the nonsense suit.
It’s another generic bit of outrage turned out by the constant outrage machine. And when it fails, Trump will stop whining about the media and whine some more about the justice system.
Meanwhile, Truth Social will keep right on gathering dust.
Harsh reality of war, as posted on Russian Telegram by Military Commander “Kitten”:
The fields turned to rubbish. Ukry is getting stuck.
It’s not sweet for ours either. In this slurry.
This is another reason that the front line freezes at such moments. If infantry actions, especially in small groups – tactical – are still possible in a number of directions, then you should not count on anything more: the armor will get stuck, becoming a good target for the enemy. And infantry actions without the support of armored vehicles minimize the chances of gaining a foothold. Therefore, there is no need to expect breakthroughs and assaults. This is a message, first of all, to those in the rear who demand and expect the “Cannes of the 21st century”, new “Bagration” operations and the like. Come down from the sofa heaven to the sinful earth and at least imagine how you would behave in the plasticine mud, catch a “dolphin” and fight off round-the-clock attacks of rodents in a trench…
From the same link, different post, by Tymofiy Mylovanov:
[…] There is a realization that the war will not end soon. It will last at least this winter, potentially years. The initial adrenaline has run out. We are now in marathon mode.
We now understand that the Western support is determined by domestic politics. And there might be much less of it in the future. So, we are grateful for any support but have to count on ourselves. […] we must protect our people – both civilians and military. Russia doesn’t care about sending tens of thousands to die, but we do.
These two factors require a different strategy that is asymmetric and uses high tech innovation in weapons.
Thus, the future of this war very much depends on our ability to protect our people, maintain economy, and develop technological defense capabilities that shorten the cycle between changes at the front and bringing new technology solution to serial production and deployment.
I will say that my door is completely shut to voting for Donald Trump, and the only reason that I will not endorse a candidate right now is because I still am hopeful that Donald Trump does not end up being the nominee next year.
I think our country will be in a much better place overall, not just for myself, but the ticket and the future of our country will be. But what I will say, too, though, is I think everybody should vote for Joe Biden if they want our democracy to survive.
birgerjohanssonsays
The actor Joss Ackland, known for many roles including South African baddie fighting Mel Gibson (also in a surrealistic musical with the Pet Shop Boys that turned out to be a disaster) has died. He was 95.
I recall him from several Brit films, his peculiar face made him a great film villain.
birgerjohanssonsays
Maybe “distinctive” face is a better fit than “peculiar”. He was a bit like Ron Perlman that way, often picked for roles playing villains.
An unseasonable cold front passed across southern and eastern Ukraine this week, bringing within it wet snow, cold rain, freezing temperatures, and the definitive return of everyone’s least favorite combatant, General Mud. From the Dnipro River on the west, through the trenches of Zaporizhzhia, right into the struggle for Avdiivka, it seems as if every message from soldiers on both sides is the same: It’s cold, wet, and miserable.
More clement weather is expected to return to southern Ukraine in the next few days, but the beginning of bezdorizhzhia (“mud season”) would seem to spell the end for any large movements until the ground freezes up in midwinter. Then again, it’s not as if there was much of anything that could be considered a large movement underway. The gains and losses of both sides over the last few months have largely been measured in meters, as Ukraine’s summer offensive never found a point where they could make a serious breakthrough.
[Tweet and video about miserable conditions]
As the conflict tumbles toward winter, Ukraine and Russia are engaged at numerous points along the eastern front from Bakhmut down to Avdiivka, and there are hints that long-held positions may be shifting. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to pick up ground in the west as more troops are ferried across the Dnipro, but it remains unclear whether this can be turned into a serious front without some armor. And a bridge.
For weeks, it’s been clear that there had been no move to either repair one of the existing bridges across the Dnipro or create a pontoon bridge to bring Ukrainian forces across at a critical point. It was clear because regularly updated satellite imagery showed absolutely nothing in the way of new construction anywhere from the river’s mouth to well past the bend at Korsunka. That’s less clear this week because there are no new images to study. Instead, everything in the area has been socked in by clouds, leaving the last clear images ten days old. Which might be the best thing for Ukraine.
At the moment, neither Deep State nor Andrew Perpetua is showing any big changes on their map, but there is a lot of chatter on Telegram indicating that additional Ukrainian forces have been moved into position, with Ukrainian patrols moving freely in the area around Krynky.
In the words of this Russian soldier: “Everything is happening in the most f**ked up way. Nothing is clear and it’s all bad.” [Tweet and video: “unfortunate situation for the Russian marines in Krynky] I have to say, I love his attitude. And I certainly hope his claims that Ukraine is better equipped and commanded are true.
The most interesting action of the past two days isn’t in Kherson; it may be happening just west of the city of Horlivka, just east of the Ukrainian stronghold at Toretsk, about 20 kilometers south of Bakhmut. [map at the link]
That area of brighter blue represents a Ukrainian advance. That area may look small (about 1 square kilometer), but its location is critical. This is not just along the road to a major city occupied by Russia; it’s in an area Russia has held since 2014. There are claims that Ukrainian forces have crossed Russia’s defensive lines in the area and are still advancing. [image at the link]
A slightly closer look at the disputed area on satellite shows something that’s become familiar from the fighting down at Avdiivka—hills created from mine waste. These heaps of spoil or overburden are steep and rutted, but they also show more vegetation than those at Avdiivka. Either they are older, or there has been some slight attempt at reclamation in this area.
That vegetation could make these hills more stable and better suited for defensive positions than the big, bare waste heap at Avdiivka. They also happen to be particularly steep on the western approach, and while that has made them more difficult for Ukrainian forces to climb, it also means they provide good shelter against Russian artillery arcing in from the east. And that artillery is arcing in. Check out the first map above. Every one of those little red and white bullseyes represents a known Russian artillery strike.
It’s uncertain just how many troops either Russia or Ukraine has in the Horlivka area. There are some reports from Ukraine indicating that their forces are prepared to advance down the highway right into the city. However, these statements are more intended for a Russian audience and likely reflect the real intention of this attack: drawing heat away from Avdiivka.
Avdiivka is less than 30 kilometers south of the attack point at Horlivka. For the last several days, there has been word that Russia was again gathering forces around the area, preparing for a major strike. During this relative lull in Russian attacks, Ukraine has made some counterattacks near the town of Stepove, pushing Russian forces back near the rail line, but they haven’t been able to roll back all of Russia’s previous advances. [tweet and video at the link: showing Ukrainian counterattack near Steve, and a Leopard 2A6 tank in action to support the troops]
Here’s another video of a Russian soldier in the area north of Avdiivka. WARNING: If you click through on this one, know that this guy is not kidding about what he says. “Everything is covered in corpses. Everything. The majority are ours … We’re getting properly f**ked.” [Tweet and video at the link]
The first two such strikes at Avdiivka were repelled with horrible losses on the Russian side. However, over the past two weeks, Russia has managed to push forward on three sides of Avdiivka, and there are expectations that this time they might carry the location.
If not, and the loss of thousands of troops buys them only a few hundred meters, Russia can always back off and do it again. Russia, it seems, is not running out of Russians and is not concerned about wasting the ones it has. As the man said, everything is already covered in corpses.
The Ukrainian advance west of Horlivka may be more concerned about making some of the Russian forces gathering around Avdiivka think twice about facing south and leaving the center of the line exposed. Or maybe Ukraine is seriously going to drive into a major city held by Russia for just under a decade.
Vladimir Putin has been looking for a signal that the situation isn’t deadlocked in Ukraine. Driving into Horlivka would certainly deliver that message loud and clear.
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This is more fronts than I knew existed, but the good news is that Russia failed on all of them. [Tweet, image and link to longer story: “Russian forces fail to advance on 7 fronts.”]
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Well, here’s some nightmare fuel. This is a Ukrainian FPV drone in Krynky, but even then, it’s easy to imagine this technology anywhere. [tweet and video at the link]
When someone claims there’s a pontoon bridge over the Dnipro, wait for a photo, a satellite image, or at least a claim by the General Staff.
There’s been multiple false claims of a pontoon bridge by both Pro-Ukrainian and Pro-Russian sources. Pro-Ukrainian out of some misguided sense of drumming up optimism , relying on unreliable accounts, or mistaking reports of “pontoon ferries” for “pontoon bridges.” Pro-Russian sources claim these things so they can claim they destroyed these mythical bridges.
If you don’t see photographic, geolocated, and dated evidence from a reliable source, wait for more solid evidence is my advice.
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The other thing is that although there is not a pontoon bridge, the are using the motorised pontoon sections which they were given by Germany. Obviously a lot less effective for large scale but they are getting interesting stuff over the river.
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Popping smoke […] the smoke interferes with lasers, like that used with the Kornet ATGM. In fact, it’s possible that the Leopard’s sensors may have picked up that they were being painted — targeted. Although it was probably just good sense to have thrown up some smoke at that time because operating in close proximity to the enemy invites counter-fire.
In any case, these smoke screens aren’t always billowing from right where the tank (or whatever) is operating. You’ll often see tanks, for example, advancing across a field with smoke put down well off to one or both flanks, or even behind the target location, so that other enemy forces cannot paint them.
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Ukraine is ferrying drones with drones […] expect to see more of that. Ukraine has some of their heavier drones fitted with repeaters and enhanced communications allowing the FPV operators to control their attack and suicide drones up to an additional 15k. This pairing of a spotter and attack drone is going to add a bit more threat to areas thought to be secure. I imagine naval drones will be fitted with this also.
The founder of a far-right, unofficial Catholic media group has resigned for an unspecified violation of the organization’s morality clause, the group said in a statement Tuesday.
Michael Voris stepped down as president of St. Michael’s Media and Church Militant, a Michigan-based enterprise established to address what Voris’ official biography calls “the serious erosion of the Catholic faith in the last 50 years.”
“Michael Voris has been asked to resign for breaching the Church Militant morality clause,” the organization said in its statement. “The board has accepted his resignation.” More details were not provided, and the board said it “has chosen not to disclose Michael’s private matters to the public” but asked for prayers for him as he is “focusing on his personal health.” …
Michigan Democrats, who early this year had built on the state’s recent reputation for safeguarding abortion rights, have stalled on the once-assured effort due to dissent within the state legislative caucus in recent months.
Two key pieces of legislation that would have repealed a 24-hour wait period required for patients receiving an abortion and also allowed state Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions were left out of a package signed Tuesday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer…
“We want them infected” is part of a message Dr. Paul Alexander, a science advisor in Trump’s HHS, wrote on July 4, 2020 to the HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo and six other senior officials. The full quote is:
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…”
Jonathan Howard, MD used this quote for the title of his book, We want them infected, How the failed quest for herd immunity led doctors to embrace the anti-vaccine movement and blinded Americans to the threat of COVID. I wrote this story in cooperation with Dr. Howard.
Dr. Howard is the Chief of Neurology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, where he worked throughout the pandemic, including during the worst of the COVID, when 800 people a day were dying in the city. “Overall, I saw more people die in a few weeks than I had my entire career,” Dr. Howard wrote.
We Want Them Infected shows in horrifying detail that “herd immunity” was based on a foundation of deadly false beliefs held by many of the doctors and others advising the Trump administration in the early stages of COVID. These beliefs included:
1. Young and healthy people were not at risk from the virus
2. The elderly and sick could be shielded from risk by separation from the rest of the population.
3. Pursuing herd immunity would minimize illness and death from COVID
Each of these presumptions was wrong and fatal.
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YOUNG, MIDDLE-AGED, AND HEALTHY PEOPLE DIED AND WERE SICKENED BY COVID-19
In April 2020, Dr. Scott Atlas, soon to be a primary Trump COVID advisor, wrote to Seema Verma, Administrator of Trump’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid that the virus would cause about 10,000 deaths, and mingling of the non-elderly population should be encouraged because “Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.”
In June 2022, a House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus issued a report naming Atlas as the leader of the failed herd immunity strategy: The Atlas Dogma: The Trump Administration’s Embrace of a Dangerous And Discredited Herd Immunity Via Mass Infection Strategy. Dr. Howard relies on and quotes extensively from this Report.
This House Report was largely ignored by the media, including The New York Times.
[…] CDC Death Tolls as of September 23, 2023 (Table 1) [Table at the link]
· nearly 2,000 “infants, kids and teens” dead from the virus
· nearly 28,000 “young adults” dead from the virus,
· nearly 250,000 “middle aged” dead from the virus,
· in total nearly 300,000 people having “zero to little risk” dead from the virus.
The herd immunity policy was informal White House policy in early 2020, and later set forth in an October 4, 2020 document filled with falsehoods and unachievable policies known as the “Great Barrington Declaration” (the “GBD”), which was sponsored by a libertarian think tank, the American Institute for Economic Research (also known as an unapologetic proponent of child-labor.) The authors of the GBD were invited to DC to speak with Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Alex Azar on October 5 ,2020. They also advised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis throughout. The GBD stated: “For children, the COVID-19 mortality risk is less than for the annual influenza.” But in reality, 112 children were dead of COVID by October 2020, compared with one flu death during the entire 2020-21 season.
The GBD and its proponents also ignored the severe non-fatal effects of COVID on children and others under 65. COVID hospitalized 200,000 children, and some were very sick, needing mechanical ventilation in the ICU. Some children with COVID have had strokes, seizures, or needed amputations. Around 9,500 children have developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) MIS-C, and most of these children go to the ICU. At least 79 children have died from MIS-C. Some children suffer from disabling Long COVID, and there may be serious long-term consequences of repeat infections for developing children.
Millions of adults have also suffered severe non-fatal illnesses from COVID, including cognitive and neurological impairment, greater frequency of heart attacks and high blood pressure, damage to the immune system, and liver and kidney disease. Many of these illnesses have been present in those suffering from long COVID
These are horrifying statistics, but Dr. Howard adds his own personal experience on the front line, witnessing suffering and death among those Alexander called “zero to little risk,” like a 23-year-old with no pre-existing conditions. (p. 45). Virtually none of those promoting herd immunity through mass infection were caring for COVID patients in 2020.
THE ELDERLY COULD NOT BE EFFECTIVELY SHIELDED FROM THE REST OF OF THE POPULATION.
In the summer of 2020, I made the mistake of engaging in an email exchange with a college classmate about the Trump administration COVID policy. Particularly troubling was his reference to vulnerable populations as “endangered species” who merely needed to be warned about COVID and segregated from the younger population. Any lockdown should end for everyone else, he wrote.
But there was no real plan to do this […]
During times when transmission is high, older people should be offered home delivery of groceries and other essentials. At those times, it is best to meet family and friends outdoors. We should make rapid testing available for visiting relatives. Free N95 masks and instructions on their appropriate use should be provided when potential exposure cannot be avoided.
[…] How would this be done? One of the GBD leaders actually said “we could have offered DoorDash to older people.” As Dr. Howard notes,
Though they were calling for one of the greatest logistical challenges in the history of humanity in the middle of a pandemic, the attitude of the GBD authors was basically someone else should figure out how to actually do this.
Even attempting the impossible goal of segregating older Americans from others would have required a massive new social welfare program involving new housing, huge amounts of food deliveries, and payments to elderly workers for staying home, “like trying to build NASA from scratch in two weeks.” We Want Them Infected, p. 148.
THE HERD IMMUNITY STRATEGY INCREASED DEATH AND ILLNESS FROM COVID
In June 2020, Atlas told Tucker Carlson,
We like the fact that there’s a lot of cases in low-risk populations, because that’s exactly how we’re going to get herd immunity, population immunity, when low-risk people, with no significant problem handling this virus.
Read that again: “We like the fact that there’s a lot of cases in low-risk populations.” Except they weren’t “low-risk,” and even those that may have been low-risk often spread it it to higher risk people. One recent study of nearly 850,000 American households, found that 70.4% COVID-19 transmissions originated with a child. This is Atlas’s version of “We Want Them Infected.”
In August 2020, Atlas convened a group at the White House, including Dr. Joseph Ladapo, now Florida’s anti-vax surgeon general and others who subscribed to the ideas ultimately put in the GBD. According to Trump’s head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield, Atlas brought the group there “to convince people that herd immunity was going to save us, and this thing was going to go bye-bye.” […] Even though SARS-CoV-2 was a brand-new virus, the GBD adherents were certain that one COVID infection led to robust immunity. As they wrote in the GBD:
Despite an estimated 750 million cases worldwide to date after 10 months living with the virus, we have seen only a handful of reinfections. If the virus is like other corona viruses in its immune response, recovery from infection will provide lasting protection against reinfection.
Over a million deaths later, including nearly 300,000 deaths of those under 65, Atlas and the GBD followers have not retracted their belief in herd immunity.
The “herd immunity” leaders became leaders in the anti-vax movement
This diary focuses on the pre-vaccine period, which coincides with the last year of Trump’s Presidency. It’s important to focus on this time because the public is still largely unaware of how reckless and deadly the Administration’s policy was.
[…] Dr. Howard had been studying the anti-vaccine movement for years prior to the pandemic, and part of the book meticulously demonstrates how anti-vaccine arguments made previously against the MMR and HPV vaccines were recycled to cast doubt on the COVID vaccine, especially for young people. However, instead of fringe anti-vaccine doctors spreading anti-vaccine ideas, such misinformation originated from highly credentialed doctors at our top universities, influencing parents and powerful politicians.
Dr. Howard wrote the book earlier this year, and the lethal effects of these policies continue, particularly in Florida, where Governor DeSantis, with his Surgeon-General, Ladapo, continues to risk the lives of his constituents by advising those under 65 not to take the vaccine. […] Homicide in progress in Florida.
The Trump administration’s reliance on Atlas, Ladapo and other discredited doctors unnecessarily caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and years of suffering for many who survived.
Posted by readers of the article:
Of course they went this route. It meant they didn’t have to do any hard work.
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Jared hired a gang of guys that are mini Jareds. They ” sold” many millions of dollars of much needed medical supplies to states and hospitals. They were paid, but then admitted they had never had any idea where to start actually obtaining the stuff. Fun question, did the government ever get those millions back?
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Paul Alexander is certainly I name I recognize. After leaving Trump’s service he `went on to be one of the organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” in Canada and is seen by my “there’s no conspiracy theory I won’t latch on to “ cousin as a hero.
Sadly, he was invited by Alberta’s current premier to advise her on Covid soon after she was elected.
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With rapidly mutating viruses, herd immunity can’t be achieved.
Letting viruses spread also aids in their mutation.
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Two minutes of thought would have produced three problems: older adults in nursing homes need younger people to care for them; children in schools need teachers and staff who may or may not be medically compromised; and if they can’t go to school they are often cared for by grandparents. Aside from anything else, these facts would have stopped them in their tracks had they considered real life at all. Which they obviously didn’t.
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They did not protect all the folks working in hospitals either, from cleaning staff to surgeons.
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In the entire history of deadly infections, there is precisely one way that has built herd immunity successfully. that is VACCINATION.
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The Covid Enquiry is taking place in the UK and what it has revealed is disgusting. Boris Johnson was prepared to sacrifice everyone 80+. “Let the bodies pile high” he said.
Kim Taylor, the wife of an Iowa county supervisor, was found guilty of 52 counts of voter fraud Tuesday, concluding a months-long case into her interference in the 2020 election.
Federal prosecutors said Taylor attempted to “generate votes” in the 2020 primary and general elections in Iowa in order to help her husband, Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor, win the primary for Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) former seat…
The article seems negligent in mentioning their Republican Party affiliation.
Two House lawmakers announced on Tuesday that they won’t run for reelection, the latest in a string of members of Congress heading for the exits.
Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo of California said in a video message that she will not seek reelection in 2024, bringing to an end a more than 30-year career in Congress.
Later in the day, Republican Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio wrote on X that he “will not be seeking an 8th term in Congress,” and said he has accepted an offer to lead Youngstown State University. Johnson said he will “continue serving in the House for several more months.” CNN has reached out to his office to ask when he plans to leave Congress…
While The World’s Richest Lump of Dough is well known for overpromising and underdelivering in virtually every business he has operated, I was inexplicably unaware of his forays into the auto insurance market.
[…] Insurance companies were charging sky-high premiums for Tesla policies, citing their high repair costs and higher than average claims. People were walking away from buying Tesla cars because the insurance was too high, and Elon didn’t like that. So, he started an insurance branch, which would be “much more compelling than anything else out there.” Sound familiar? That’s pretty much what he says about everything he pitches, which far more often than not turns out to be complete bullshit.
[…] he customers who were foolish enough to buy their insurance from Tesla and tried to make claims were gobsmacked to discover that their premiums entitled them to little more than months of waiting for payments that rarely materialized, if they were fortunate enough to reach a claims adjuster in the first place. […]
The deal could include exchanging around 50 women and children for around 150 Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners, sources say.
The Israeli government voted to approve a hostage deal after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened special Cabinet meetings. The hostages’ families or others have 24 hours to appeal to the Supreme Court to object to the deal.
Sources told NBC News that around 50 women and children held as hostages could be exchanged for around 150 Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners in the first phase. Under the proposal, fighting would pause for four to five days to allow for hostage exchanges and for more fuel trucks to enter Gaza.
Heavy fighting has erupted around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza as Israel’s military expands its ground assault on the Palestinian enclave. Israeli forces said they had encircled Jabalia, a refugee camp nearby.
At least 50 journalists, 45 of them Palestinian, have been killed since the war began, the Committee to Protect Journalists says. The first four weeks of the conflict were the deadliest month for journalists since the organization began tracking deaths in 1992, it says.
Almost all of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million is in urgent need of food aid, the United Nations’ World Food Program said […]
More than 1.6 million people have been displaced in Gaza […]
Russian President Vladimir Putin told the leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) on Wednesday that it was necessary to think about how to stop “the tragedy” of the war in Ukraine, some of his most placatory remarks to date about the conflict…
There may be one very simple way which has seemingly not occurred to him.
A good reminder from Gerald F. Seib of the structural advantages Donald Trump and Republicans continues to enjoy heading into 2024:
The Republican advantage is so pronounced that [Charlie] Cook estimates that President Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will have to win the national popular vote by four to seven percentage points to win in the Electoral College, much as he did in 2020 when he won the popular vote by 4.5% over Trump.
On paper, she has scheduled a trial to open next May in the case charging Donald Trump with hoarding national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago.
In reality, she has run the pretrial process at a leisurely pace that will make a postponement almost inevitable, according to experts on criminal prosecutions related to classified information.
Delaying Trump’s trial until after the November election would have a momentous implication: It might mean the trial never happens at all. If Trump wins the election and the case is still pending, he’s expected to order the Justice Department to shut it down.
Even a shorter delay would be fraught: Pushing the trial into the summer or fall could run headlong into the Republican National Convention or the heart of the general election campaign.
For now, Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal district judge in Florida, is officially sticking with the May 20 trial date she announced four months ago. She even recently denied Trump’s bid to push it back. But in a series of more technical rulings, Cannon has postponed key pretrial deadlines, and she has added further slack into the schedule simply by taking her time to resolve some fairly straightforward matters.
“It could be seen as a stealth attempt to delay the ultimate trial date without actually announcing that yet,” said Brian Greer, a former Central Intelligence Agency attorney.
“There’s pretty much no chance they could go to trial on May 20 with the current schedule,” he added.
David Aaron, a former DOJ national security prosecutor, agreed, saying a May 20 trial is unlikely “unless a lot of discipline is imposed.” […]
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewed former Univision President Joaquin Blaya about the new centrist direction the Spanish-language network has taken in their interview with disgraced former president Donald Trump. Blaya took exception with the idea that the hour-long sit-down at Mar-a-Lago was indeed “an interview.”
“That was basically a one-hour propaganda open space for former President Trump to say whatever he wanted to say,” Blaya said.
He added that what was more dangerous and troubling than Trump’s unfiltered and unchecked BS were the chyrons that ran in local markets during and after the broadcast:
You referred to it in your introduction. Had to do with the coverage of the local station for three hours and the banners that were running on the air. There were many, many banners. But one of them referred to how Trump’s statement that we had become the septic tank for immigration. He’s obviously referring about Hispanic immigration. He’s not talking about Norwegians or Swedish coming to America. And this was being run on air, in regular programming, on the Miami Univision station. A real insult to the Hispanic community of this country.
In response, Maddow said that sources were telling MSNBC that local affiliates like Miami no longer had control over the bannering of their broadcast—something Blaya pointed out was a big editorial change in how Univision used to work. “For those who understand the business, there is no doubt that doing what they did had to be a corporate decision. That is not a decision that the local news director or the local general manager would have taken on its own,” he said. [video at the link]
Navarro also reminded viewers that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign began with him “playing the immigration card,” and he “made it his habit to insult, target, otherwise Latinos and Latin immigrants. He has called our countries s—holes, has called Mexicans criminals and rapists.” Among other invectives at that time, he suggested that, if elected, he would build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and make the Mexican government pay for it. “The interview was a disgrace, journalistic disgrace,” she added.
“To see the largest network, the most important network in the Latino community — Univision — giving this man a one-hour platform where there was no pushback, there was a ton of smiling faces. There were references by Donald Trump during the interview to his friends who were there from Univision, Univision executives. It’s raised a lot of questions,” Navarro said. “I don’t know what the hell is going on in Univision, but I do think we need to talk about it. I do think we need to demand transparency and accountability from that very important and crucial network for the Latino community.”
It was not just Univision executives who were there in person for the Trump interview. Jared Kushner was also there.
Posted by readers of the first article:
Looks like Univision has made a deal with the Devil to deliver the Hispanic vote, possibly in exchange for monopoly Spanish media rights upon the Devil’s election.
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Mind boggling how an abusive tyrant is handled with respect by UNIVISION
No wonder DJT does well in that community despite the vitriol he pours on them
The Monaco yacht show is one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in the world. The event, which calls itself “the ultimate gathering of maritime luxury,” takes place in a tax haven where two in three residents are millionaires. When the Guardian visited in late September, the port was filled with more than 100 superyachts, some of which boasted submersibles and swimming pools. Visitors could book airport transfers in private jets and helicopters.
The true cost of such luxury is paid for, in part, by the rest of society. The top 10 percent of earners in the EU emit 24.5 times as much planet-heating CO2 through their transport as the bottom 10 percent do, according to new data from the International Energy Agency. At the extreme end of the spectrum, the carbon footprints of the ultra-rich are inflated by giant yachts, private jets and sports cars with engines that burn barrels of oil.
“There is no other way,” said Christian Largura, an Instagram star and founder of a luxury retail site who was about to buy a superyacht that runs on diesel. “For sure, if it’s possible, you take the green one…[but] if you want a big one, there is nothing fully electric.”
Billionaires’ consumption emissions run to thousands of metric tone a year, with transport, including private jets and yachts, by far the biggest contributor, according to Oxfam’s new report on carbon inequality. And transport, especially car use, is a major factor in the disproportionately high emissions of the richest 10 percent too, with these emissions 20-40 times higher than among the poorest 10 percent in major nations and blocs including the EU, according to the IEA.
A superyacht, or even a medium-sized motor yacht, is the most polluting single object a person can own. There are no reliable estimates of how much carbon the world’s 6,000 superyachts pump into the atmosphere but one study of billionaires’ footprints found yachts were the single biggest contributor, ahead of private jets. “Even a mansion on a private island has less impact because it is at least stuck in one place,” said Richard Wilk, of the Open Anthropology Institute, who co-wrote the study.
In interviews with 50 visitors to the Monaco yacht show—from brokers and buyers to suppliers and sellers—yacht enthusiasts painted a picture of an industry taking small steps to clean up amid growing public pressure. But only a handful of owners and customers who spoke to the Guardian said they were troubled by the disproportionate emissions their boats spewed today.
“You know that it’s something to worry about, but then again there are so many problems that we cannot fix,” said Giorgia Covolio, whose husband owns a yacht. “If I cannot solve it myself then I cannot stress too much about it.”
Jennifer Rodriguez, a friend, agreed. “If Bill Gates doesn’t stress about it, or Leonardo DiCaprio, then we won’t stress about it.”
While a small sailing ship may emit little more carbon than that required to build it and break it down, big motorboats burn vast amounts of fuel to cross seas and run power-hungry services such as air conditioning and desalination. According to a presentation by the industry group Water Revolution Foundation, the global yacht fleet spends a quarter of its energy on propulsion and three-quarters on “hotel load.” Some superyachts guzzle fuel even when docked because their crews live onboard all year round.
[…] One owner verbally abused and physically threatened the reporter during a half-hour interview. Two potential buyers denied the scientific consensus that humans have heated the planet by burning fossil fuels.
Several attenders used identical arguments to those from regular rich people defending habits such as flying on holiday or driving an SUV. Some said their carbon footprints were not as big as those of even richer people. Others pointed to sources of pollution that were bigger in absolute terms, such as cargo ships, factories, and multinational corporations.
A handful of owners said they were aware of their own carbon footprints and frustrated at how little others had done to shrink theirs. “It’s one of the most unsustainable industries in the world, there’s no doubt about it,” said Frederik, a sustainability student from a yacht-owning family, gesturing at the port with a flute of champagne. “You’ve got here maybe three boats in total that are really trying to reduce their impact on the environment.”
He said his family had shrunk their yacht fleet down to two big boats, put solar panels and electric batteries on them and stopped dropping heavy anchors in areas with fragile seagrass that suck up carbon. “You need to make sure you’re having less of an impact every time that you use it.”
[…] The yacht industry has started to pay more attention to the environment. This year’s Monaco yacht show featured a catamaran covered in solar panels and boasted a “sustainability hub” for the second year in a row. Among the stalls were companies trying to power yachts with electricity and methanol instead of fossil fuels, as well as some trying to increase the efficiency of engines and hulls.
[…] A junior associate at a law firm who lives in Monaco and was not attending the yacht show told the Guardian that the thought of such inequality frustrated her. “We make all these efforts in our own lives but when you see that”—she broke off and pulled a face at a row of superyachts hosting parties behind her—“well, it’s completely delirious.”
[…] If all goes to plan, Israel would commence a four-day ceasefire in Gaza and would also stop drone overflights for six hours a day. After those days, the ceasefire could be extended a day with each additional 10 hostages Hamas releases. During this period, Israel would not allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, but would allow some 300 trucks of aid in daily, including fuel.
[…] A combination of Qatar’s orchestration of the deal, Israeli internal political pressure on Netanyahu, and Hamas’s commitment to getting the release of Palestinian prisoners has contributed to this truce and exchange.
[…] Israelis will have 24 hours to appeal any deal to the Supreme Court, and the Almagor Terror Victims Association has said it will. This is one of several potential hiccups as Israel and Hamas work to implement the deal over the coming days; Israeli attacks on Gaza continued Wednesday before the likely cessation of hostilities at 10 am Thursday local time. […]
There have been five wars in the last 15 years between Israel and Hamas. How do we end the current one and prevent a sixth from happening, sooner or later? How do we balance our desire to stop the fighting with the need to address the roots of the conflict? For 75 years, diplomats, well-intentioned Israelis and Palestinians and government leaders around the world have struggled to bring peace to this region. In that time an Egyptian president and an Israeli prime minister were assassinated by extremists for their efforts to end the violence.
And on and on it goes.
For those of us who want not only to bring this war to an end, but to avoid a future one, we must first be cleareyed about facts. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, unleashed a barbaric attack against Israel, killing about 1,200 innocent men, women and children and taking more than 200 hostage. On a per-capita basis, if Israel had the same population as the United States, that attack would have been the equivalent of nearly 40,000 deaths, more than 10 times the fatalities that we suffered on 9/11.
Israel, in response, under the leadership of its right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under indictment for corruption and whose cabinet includes outright racists, unleashed what amounts to total war against the Palestinian people. In Gaza, over 1.6 million Palestinians were forced out of their homes. Food, water, medical supplies and fuel were cut off. The United Nations estimates that 45 percent of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. According to the Gaza health ministry, more than 12,000 Palestinians, about half of whom are children, have been killed and many more wounded. And the situation becomes more dire every day.
This is a humanitarian catastrophe that risks igniting a wider regional conflagration. We all want it to end as soon as possible. To make progress, however, we must grapple with the complexity of this situation that too many people on both sides want to wave away.
First, Hamas has made it clear, before and after Oct. 7, that its goal is perpetual warfare and the destruction of the state of Israel. Just last week a spokesman for Hamas told The New York Times: “I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.”
Second, Israel has done nothing in recent years to give hope for a peaceful settlement — maintaining the blockade of Gaza, deepening the daily humiliations of occupation in the West Bank, and largely ignoring the horrendous living conditions facing Palestinians.
Needless to say, I do not have all of the answers to this never-ending tragedy. But for those of us who believe in peace and justice, it is imperative that we do our best to provide Israelis and Palestinians with a thoughtful response that maps out a realistic path to addressing the reality we face today. Here are my thoughts as to the best way forward and how the United States can rally the world around a moral position that moves us toward peace in the region and justice for the oppressed Palestinian population.
To start, we must demand an immediate end to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, which is causing an enormous number of civilian casualties and is in violation of international law. Israel is at war with Hamas, not innocent Palestinian men, women and children. Israel cannot bomb an entire neighborhood to take out one Hamas target. We don’t know if this campaign has been effective in degrading Hamas’s military capabilities. But we do know that a reported 70 percent of the casualties are women and children, and that 104 U.N. aid workers and 53 journalists have been killed. That’s not acceptable.
There must also be a significant, extended humanitarian pause so that badly needed aid — food, water, medicine and fuel — can get into Gaza and save lives. If Wednesday morning’s deal — in which 50 Israeli hostages are to be freed in exchange for a four-day pause in fighting — is honored, it is a promising first step that we can build upon, and hopefully work to extend the pause. Meanwhile, the United Nations must be given time to safely set up the distribution network needed to prevent thirst, starvation and disease, to build shelters and evacuate those who need critical care. This window will also allow for talks to free as many hostages as possible. This extended pause must not precede a resumption of indiscriminate bombing. Israel will continue to go after Hamas, but it must dramatically change its tactics to minimize civilian harm.
If long-suffering Palestinians are ever going to have a chance at self-determination and a decent standard of living, there must be no long-term Israeli re-occupation and blockade of Gaza. If Hamas is going to be removed from power, as it must be, and Palestinians given the opportunity for a better life, an Israeli occupation of Gaza would be absolutely counterproductive and would benefit Hamas. For the sake of regional peace and a brighter future for the Palestinian people, Gaza must have a chance to be free of Hamas. There can be no long-term Israeli occupation.
To achieve the political transformation that Gaza needs, new Palestinian leadership will be required as part of a wider political process. And for that transformation and peace process to take place, Israel must make certain political commitments that will allow for Palestinian leadership committed to peace to build support. They must guarantee displaced Palestinians the absolute right to return to their homes as Gaza rebuilds. People who have lived in poverty and despair for years cannot be made permanently homeless. Israel must also commit to end the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank and freeze settlements there as a first step toward permanently ending the occupation. Those steps will show that peace can deliver for the Palestinian people, hopefully giving the Palestinian Authority the legitimacy it needs to assume administrative control of Gaza, likely after an interim stabilization period under an international force.
Finally, if Palestinians are to have any hope for a decent future, there must be a commitment to broad peace talks to advance a two-state solution in the wake of this war. The United States, the international community and Israel’s neighbors must move aggressively toward that goal. This would include dramatically increased international support for the Palestinian people, including from wealthy Gulf States. It would also mean the promise of full recognition of Palestine pending the formation of a new democratically elected government committed to peace with Israel.
Let’s be clear: this is not going to happen on its own. Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party was explicitly formed on the premise that “between the Sea and the Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty,” and the current coalition agreement reinforces that goal. This is not just ideology. The Israeli government has systematically pursued this goal. The last year saw record Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank, where more than 700,000 Israelis now live in areas that the United Nations and the United States agree are occupied territories. They have used state violence to back up this de facto annexation. Since Oct. 7, the United Nations reports that at least 208 Palestinians, including 53 children, have been killed by Israeli security forces and settlers. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Mr. Netanyahu has made clear where he stands on these critical issues. So should we. If asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in this position. The only way these necessary changes will happen is if the United States uses the substantial leverage we have with Israel. And we all know what that leverage is.
For many years, the United States has provided Israel substantial sums of money — with close to no strings attached. Currently, we provide $3.8 billion a year. President Biden has asked for $14.3 billion more on top of that sum and asked Congress to waive normal, already-limited oversight rules. The blank check approach must end. The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency. That includes an end to indiscriminate bombing; a significant pause to bombing so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region; the right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes; no long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza; an end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansion; and a commitment to broad peace talks for a two-state solution in the wake of the war.
Over the years, people of good will around the world, including Israelis, have tried to address this conflict in a way that brings justice for Palestinians and security for Israel. I, and some other members of Congress, have tried to do what we could. Obviously, we did not do enough. Now we must recommit to this effort. The stakes are just too high to give up.
A Utah Republican seeking to replace retiring GOP Sen. Mitt Romney in the U.S. Senate has been deemed “one hundred percent a liar” by one state lawmaker following his claim that his campaign received endorsements from several elected officials in the state.
Earlier this year, then-Utah state House Speaker Brad Wilson, who announced his campaign for the Senate in September, released a list of more than 60 lawmakers who his campaign said endorsed Wilson in the race. Wilson’s campaign also said last week that it has received endorsements from more than 50 mayors throughout the state.
However, at least a few of those endorsements were not actually given to Wilson’s campaign, according to four officials whose names appeared on the lists and spoke to Fox News Digital about the situation…
[…] A new Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll shows why polling on highly specific abortion policies should be taken with several grains of salt.
The responses on this poll are all over the map, but one thing stands out in a you-have-got-to-be-F’ing-kidding-me way: the number of weeks gestation at which respondents believed pregnancies to be viable. This is a question with a real answer. It’s not a matter of opinion at all.
Viability, in the context of abortion, means the point at which a fetus could survive outside the uterus. And according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “rates of neonatal survival to discharge at this time range dramatically from 23% to 27% for births at 23 weeks, 42% to 59% for births at 24 weeks, and 67% to 76% for births at 25 weeks of gestation. The consensus also notes that deliveries before 23 weeks have a 5–6% survival rate and that significant morbidity is universal (98–100%) among the rare survivors.”
In other words, a baby born at 24 weeks has about a 50% chance of survival. And a baby born more than a week earlier has virtually no chance of survival.
What did poll respondents say? An unbelievable 35% said pregnancy is viable at six weeks. At six weeks gestation, an embryo (it’s not even a fetus yet!) is about the size of a lentil, and it doesn’t even have developed arms and legs, let alone hands and feet or fingers and toes. It’s common for women to not even be aware they’re pregnant at that point. Another 14% and 13% said pregnancy is viable at 12 and 16 weeks, respectively. At 12 weeks, a fetus has its organs and body parts, but it is about the size of a lime—just over 2 inches long and 2 ounces in weight. At 16 weeks, it’s about the size of an avocado.
The point here is not that people are ignorant. They may or may not be, but I guarantee you that the number of people who would look at a woman six weeks pregnant and say the pregnancy was viable is zero. (They would not know it existed unless they were told about it.) At 12 or 16 weeks, the pregnancy might be visible, although it definitely would not be a good idea to make assumptions. But the vast, vast majority of people would understand that if a pregnancy is supposed to be 40 weeks, 12 or 16 weeks is way too early.
The point is that poll answers on things like this are not particularly reliable. For instance, in one 2015 poll, people who said they thought abortion should be legal only in cases of rape, abuse, and health risk were asked if they wanted Roe v. Wade to be overturned. Just over half said no. They thought abortion should be legal only in extremely specific cases … but they didn’t want the Supreme Court to open the doors for abortion to be banned. People have contradictory views—and, as the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shows, their responses about the specifics don’t necessarily reflect the things they would realize they knew when confronted with real-life situations.
What we know is how people have voted since the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. And no matter how much Republicans pretend they just need to tweak their message, voters are saying no to Republican abortion policies.
The exact question is “Do you think that a fetus is viable at…?” and I’m wondering if a fair number of people might interpret that as “Do you think a pregnancy will continue and not result in a miscarriage if it’s made it as far as…?”
Could be tested by asking “Do you think an embryo could survive if born six weeks after conception?” and seeing if 35% say yes.
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I suspect part of the problem is that everyone either knows someone who is, or has heard of someone who is essentially a miracle baby who was born at 22-24 weeks and lives a normal life. People hear about them because they’re so rare, and that probably drives their thinking that it’s much more common than it actually is. They probably then think to themselves “Oh medical care and technology has improved so I’m sure we can do better.” No, we can’t.
lumipunasays
Re 460: I’ve noticed for years that “viability” is a hot buzzword in the US abortion debate, yet it’s not clear to me why it is considered relevant.
lumipunasays
Update to 430:
It was just announced that Finland will close most of the remaining border crossing points for four weeks, starting this Friday night. One border station (Raja-Jooseppi) will remain open (also for asylum applications) in the far north, near where the Norwegian border begins.
This is clearly not what the cabinet wanted, but rather what they were legally able to do. It is easy to predict that, with this arrangement, the entry of asylum seekers will just move further north. When reporters suggested this at a press conference, Prime Minister Orpo brushed it away saying that the near-complete closure will “send a message” and that the remoteness of Raja-Jooseppi might deter migration, and if not, we can still resort to some unspecified more extreme measures that currently wouldn’t be reasonably warranted.
Russian propaganda is accusing Finland of resorting to border closures “without warning” (there were various complaints from the Finnish Border Guard to their Russian equivalent in the early stages of the crisis), and currently of “refusing dialogue” (there have been attempts at dialogue on high level in the recent days). Kremlin propaganda points out how the border closure is disrupting the lives of some Finnish and Russian citizens (true, if extremely minimal compared to the disruption experienced by Ukrainian citizens in the past two years…) and how some migrants have been forced to camp outdoors in freezing weather (possibly true, as a few campfires have been spotted across the closed border in the south – naturally in this case it’d be a matter of Russian authorities failing to provide assistance).
In related news: Small groups of migrants keep getting turned away at the Estonian border, ostensibly because none of them ever request asylum (see my comment at 334). Also, I just learned that in recent months, large numbers of migrants have been pushed (by Belarusian officials) from Belarus into Latvia.
Jeansays
Re #458
It’s interesting that the number of deaths from Hamas is put in a US per capita equivalent while the Palestinian deaths are left as an absolute number.
lumipunasays
Apropos of nothing, a very serious comment from a Finnish political researcher and armchair security expert I’ve been following:
A note to those who may be concerned: if Trump wins the U.S. elections, or if #Ukraine loses the war, I will write an essay outlining why Finland should pursue independent #nuclear or equivalent WMD deterrent capability.
The Kremlin has shown conclusively that it doesn’t care in the slightest about military losses. But it may care about the prospect of Moscow and St. Petersburg being glassed.
And if the West lets #Ukraine lose, why should we in NATO’s Eastern Flank be assured of our security?
Let me also emphasize that this is coming from a person who believes #nuclear weapons are about as close to absolute evil as technology can be. Just a few years ago I couldn’t even imagine myself writing anything like this.
But I’ve sworn a solemn oath to defend Finland.
My personal opinions about the evil of #nuclear weapons or other WMDs are secondary to whatever I see as necessary to uphold that oath.
If the evidence suggests we cannot rely on our allies, then we have to rely on our own means.
The fundamental truth of Finland’s defense policy is engraved centuries ago on a tomb on Suomenlinna sea fortress outside Helsinki:
“Future generations, stand here on your own ground, not relying on anyone’s aid.”
The Finns should welcome any help, but never expect any.
Re 460: I’ve noticed for years that “viability” is a hot buzzword in the US abortion debate, yet it’s not clear to me why it is considered relevant.
Same here actually. I don’t think it is meant to make a lot of medical or scientific sense. Anti-abortion activists use the word “viability” to obscure their true mission (banning all abortion no matter what), and they use it to make themselves sound reasonable when they are not. I think some anti-abortionists use the word to make their cult followers think of most (if not all) fetuses as “viable.”
It’s weird. Where is the pregnant person and that person’s rights in all of this discussion of viability?
Also, I should mention that many of the most fringe extremists continue to claim that Democrats want to allow “abortion” right up to and including moment of birth. That is not a thing.
All that Republican screaming about voter fraud and stolen elections can’t quite hide the fact that most cases of actual fraud seem to come from Republicans. The latest case in point: Kim Taylor, the wife of an Iowa county supervisor and former congressional candidate, was just convicted of 52 counts in a ballot fraud case.
Taylor’s husband Jeremy ran in a Republican congressional primary in 2020 and, when he lost that race, ran successfully for county supervisor. Federal prosecutors say that in both races, she “submitted or caused others to submit dozens of voter registrations, absentee ballot request forms, and absentee ballots containing false information. Taylor completed and signed voter forms without voters’ permission and told others that they could sign on behalf of relatives who were not present.”
The Des Moines Register reports that Taylor, a native of Vietnam, targeted “voters of Vietnamese heritage with limited English comprehension.” [Well that’s really sneaky.]
The scheme was discovered when two voters requesting absentee ballots learned that they had supposedly already voted absentee. The first, fraudulent absentee ballots were pulled so that the real people could vote for themselves. On election night, election workers realized that they were seeing a lot of absentee ballots with the same handwriting, prompting the investigation.
Jeremy Taylor is an unindicted co-conspirator in his wife’s voter fraud scheme. Kim Taylor was found guilty of 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting.
Cases involving dozens of counts of voter fraud are unusual—and it’s not because Republicans haven’t been looking for Democrats to charge with the crime—but a common thread in the remarkably few proven cases of voter fraud in recent years is that they’ve mostly been committed by Republicans. In January, a former elections official in upstate New York pleaded guilty to identity theft for a scheme in which he used voter information to request absentee ballots. A local Republican official in Ohio voted in two states, once in the name of his late father. A Pennsylvania Trump voter voted for himself and for his long-dead mother. An Alabama state legislator has been charged with voting in a district where he didn’t live. A North Carolina absentee ballot fraud scheme was so serious an election had to be invalidated.
While it’s incredibly rare for fraud to affect more than a handful of votes, the frequency with which Republicans do it isn’t a coincidence. It’s a direct result of a party that is undermining democracy at every turn and—importantly—telling its voters that the other side is going to cheat anyway, leading them to the conclusion that they might as well cheat, too, since everything is rigged. Most Republicans won’t do it, but the number that do show us the message is being received.
There’s nothing new about Republican-controlled states funneling money to religious schools that refuse to admit LGBTQ+ kids. Even so, Arkansas has taken it to what seems to be a new level.
The Arkansas Department of Education promoted a video on a specific Christian school’s participation in the state’s new voucher program. This was not a video on the voucher program as a whole that happened to mention a Christian school. It was two minutes and 30 seconds of an administrator and families at the school talking about it. Dave Ramsey of the Arkansas Times reported that Cornerstone Christian Academy, where a voucher will cover an entire year’s tuition, has 64 voucher students out of 150 total.
“Each child is different, each child is unique, and we believe they are designed uniquely perfect,” an administrator said in the video. Except if they’re LGBTQ+, apparently. Ramsey followed up with a report confirming that Cornerstone Christian Academy’s policy is:
The significance the Bible places on the severity of sexual immorality, and our commitment to a “Christ-centered” environment demands certain standards for admittance to CCA. Therefore, students will NOT be permitted to attend CCA who professes any sort of sexually immoral lifestyle or an openly sinful lifestyle including but not limited to: promiscuity, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.
Again, lots of Christian schools have this kind of policy. Lots of them get public money through school vouchers. It happens in Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, and Arizona. And it should be a scandal that this happens so regularly. But when Maryland tried to ban such a school from getting state education money through vouchers, a federal judge said that was a violation of religious freedom.
Arkansas went a step beyond just using state education money on a school that bans kids with “an openly sinful lifestyle including but not limited to: promiscuity, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.”
[…] This is the future Republicans want to see: public schools being defunded while families that could already afford private school get their tuition paid at schools that tell LGBTQ+ kids there’s something terribly wrong with them.
A vehicle exploded at a checkpoint on the American side of a U.S.-Canada bridge in Niagara Falls Wednesday, prompting the closing of four border crossings in the area, authorities said.
[…] The blast happened on the U.S. side of the Rainbow Bridge, which connects the two countries across the Niagara River. Three other bridges between western New York and Ontario were quickly closed as a precaution, and the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport began security checks on all cars and told passengers to expect additional screenings.
Trudeau said that “additional measures” were being contemplated and activated at border crossings across Canada. […]
All four bridges connecting the U.S. and Canada at Niagara Falls, N.Y., were closed Wednesday after a vehicle explosion at the Rainbow Bridge, multiple law enforcement agencies announced.
The explosion killed two people inside the vehicle, The Associated Press reported.
The FBI Buffalo Field Office is investigating a vehicle explosion at the Rainbow Bridge, a border crossing between the U.S. and Canada in Niagara Falls,” the FBI said in a statement. “The FBI is coordinating with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners in this investigation. As this situation is very fluid, that’s all we can say at this time.”
A photo from local media shared by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) appeared to show damage to the Rainbow Bridge border crossing facility.
Rainbow Bridge is directly adjacent to Niagara Falls State Park and the famous falls. It is one of four bridges in the Niagara Falls area, all of which were closed Wednesday due to the explosion, Canadian police announced.
Vehicles entering the Buffalo Airport will also be subject to additional security searches, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority said.
“We are closely monitoring the situation at Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls and have reached out to local authorities to provide assistance,” Tenney said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We are praying for the safety of Customs and Border Patrol and the first responders answering the calls for help.” […]
With the next Ukraine funding authorization effort stalled by House Republicans, Hungary’s pro-Russian quasi-dictator Viktor Orban is using that chaos to stall European aid for Ukraine.
In a letter to the European Union, Orban threatened to both withhold European aid to Ukraine and block efforts for Ukraine to join the union.
“The European Council must have a frank and open discussion on the feasibility of the EU’s strategic objectives in Ukraine,” the letter states.
“Do we still regard these objectives realistically attainable? Is this strategy sustainable without robust support from the United States? Can we take continuing support from the United States for granted? How do we conceive the security architecture of Europe after the war,” it goes on.
It adds that “the European Council is not in a position to make key decisions on the proposed security guarantees or additional financial support for Ukraine, endorse further strengthening of the EU sanctions regime or agree on the future of the enlargement process unless a consensus on our future strategy towards Ukraine is found.”
Hungary has been a thorn on the EU’s side this entire war, as collective action requires unanimity among its member states. At times, Hungary has been bought into abstaining on key votes by either promising aid, or threatening to withhold aid. Hungary is a poor country deeply dependent on the largess of its richer neighbors. Yet for what have to be ideological reasons, Orban remains the only European Union leader to happily meet with the murderous Vladimir Putin, saying, “Hungary never wanted to confront Russia. Hungary always has been eager to expand contacts” in remarks happily broadcast across Russia’s propaganda outlets.
You might also remember Orban for wowing attendees at last year’s CPAC conservative conference by declaring that “globalists can all go to hell,” using the well-worn anti-semitic dog whistle, as well as declaring that “politics are not enough, this war is a culture war.” And of course, he’s a favorite of Donald Trump, who dreams of Orban-style autocracy in the United States.
Now with Republicans gumming up the works in Congress, Orban has pounced. “Is this strategy sustainable without robust support from the United States?” he asks, likely prematurely. Ukraine still retains majority support in Congress, even in the House. The bigger question is the presidential election, as it’s clear that Putin (and Orban) are placing a great deal of their hope on a second Donald Trump presidency that would prompt a negotiated solution favorable to Russia. But at least in the interim, it gives Orban a fig-leaf excuse to obstruct Europe’s own efforts to aid Ukraine.
Orban’s aims here are even more ambitious than that. While he argues that Europe can’t manage to support Ukraine on its own without the U.S. (even though it literally can, not to mention pretending that Canada, Japan, Australia, and other Ukrainian-supporting nations don’t exist), this question hints at Orban’s ultimate play: “How do we conceive the security architecture of Europe after the war?”
This is, quite simply, an effort to give Russia what it so desperately wants and is so quickly losing: its imperialist hegemony over its former Soviet “republics.” Russia is Europe’s top security threat, and its only nation-state threat (not including terrorism, mass migration from conflict and climate chaos, and economic threats). Orban would be more than happy to return Ukraine to Russian control along with the rest of the central Asian countries caught in a tug-of-war between Russia, their own goals for true independence, and, increasingly, China.
Hungary has said it wouldn’t be the last nation to ratify Sweden’s ascension, and as of right now, that is still possible. While Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan finally signed off on Sweden’s bid, the country’s legislature still hasn’t ratified it. It’s a question of when, rather than if. But Hungary’s delay, even if they eventually allow Sweden in, sends a message: “If you doubt our resolve to block Ukraine, look at us make relatively uncontroversial Sweden’s life miserable.”
It’s certainly not a look that makes friends of their European counterparts. There has been murmuring in some corners about reforming both NATO’s and the EU’s veto powers as expansion has opened both organizations to shenanigans from elected governments hostile to their missions. So while the EU officially lauds progress with Ukraine’s membership bid, Orban mocks the whole notion by smugly noting (threatening?) that Ukraine is “light years away” from joining the EU.
As of now, withholding EU aid is the only mechanism to force Hungary to play ball. For example, the EU is withholding COVID recovery funds while demanding Hungary reverse authoritarian efforts to eliminate the independence of the nation’s judiciary. So Orban’s play is to hold Ukrainian aid hostage, forcing the EU to pick between fighting Russia or fighting Hungary’s slide into authoritarianism.
In recent weeks, Hungarian officials have indicated that their support for new EU aid for Ukraine could be conditioned on the Commission releasing the recovery funds. Earlier this week, Orbán sent a letter to European Council President Charles Michel demanding “urgent” discussions and urged fellow EU leaders to review aid programmes for Ukraine and the sanctions regime against Russia imposed following its invasion.
The Orbán government has also launched a public consultation asking Hungarians whether further aid should be granted to Ukraine until Hungary has received the recovery funds.
“Abusing a veto for blackmail is a cynical and a shameful practice that should be abolished, not rewarded,” said [European Parliament member Jeroen] Lenaers.
“Ukraine needs our help and Ukraine must get our help, and the EU must find ways to get that aid to Ukraine without rewarding the dismantling of the rule of law, and Hungary,” he added.
Given the choice between Europe or Russia, it’s bizarre that Orban would pick Putin. But European unity, its ability to effectively govern, and NATO’s own cohesiveness all require revisiting the unanimity provisions. Imagine a U.S. Senate where the filibuster only required one vote. It’s an untenable long-term situation.
A man who prosecutors said led a violent mob against police during the 2021 Capitol insurrection has been convicted of multiple felonies, after representing himself in court with what the judge reportedly called a “gobbledygook” defense.
Taylor James Johnatakis, of Kingston, Washington, was convicted by a federal jury in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday of seven charges for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack…
Johnatakis told the judge that he wanted to accept “full liability” for the charges, but he refused to plead guilty. He argued that he is a “sovereign citizen” exempt from U.S. law, according to NBC News.
“I have repented all my sins,” he reportedly said while asking the judge to “discharge” the case against him.
The judge summarized Johnatakis’ sovereign citizen claims as “bullshit” and “gobbledygook,” according to NBC News…
lumipunasays
Correction to my 461: The new border closure measure will take effect on Thursday evening.
In a few recent posts we’ve discussed the question of whether one state or two states is the most logical or possible resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. […] A few days ago TPM Reader RC sent me this April Foreign Affairs article, Israel’s One-State Reality. It was written by three scholars at GW and another at the University of Maryland. The piece was interesting to me because it illustrates a lot of what the one state argument is really about. As the title suggests, the article is not so much an argument that one state in Israel-Palestine is a solution to anything but an assertion that it is the current reality.
In other words, Israel’s not a country that functions as a democracy while controlling occupied territories whose final status will be decided at some point in the future. It’s a single country in which all Jews have political and civil rights and most Palestinians have limited civil rights and no political rights. Given that the post-67 occupation has persisted for 67 years, this argument has many merits to it. But what is the import of that assertion. In itself it’s simply a definitional claim. It’s actually an argument for the withdrawal of US support and some escalating framework of sanctions to compel Israel to come up to international standards in which one ethnic group or most of it facing systemic legal discrimination just isn’t okay.
I have myself long subscribed to or at least did subscribe to a version of this withdrawal of support argument. Control over and access to the whole of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is core to most variants of Zionist ideology, just as it is to Palestinian nationalism. For any kind of historic compromise both sides have to give up a lot of concrete stuff and a lot of national aspirations. But unflagging US support has in very real ways protected Israel from the need to make those compromises. No person and no country gives up things that are deeply important to them if it’s easy not to.
My point here isn’t to get into the rights and wrongs of this compulsion approach. It’s something a bit different. If you read the article it doesn’t really make any case that a single state can be viable in operation or acceptable to either national group.
The core paragraph of the whole piece is this one.
A better U.S. policy would advocate for equality, citizenship, and human rights for all Jews and Palestinians living within the single state dominated by Israel. Theoretically, such a policy would not prevent a two-state solution from being resurrected in the unlikely event that the parties moved in that direction in the distant future. But starting from a one-state reality that is morally reprehensible and strategically costly would demand an immediate focus on equal human and civil rights. A serious rejection of today’s unjust reality by the United States and the rest of the international community might also push the parties themselves to seriously consider alternative futures. The United States should demand equality now, even if the ultimate political arrangement will be up to the Palestinians and the Israelis to determine.
While the paragraph starts by referring to two states as only a ‘theoretical’ possibility, the latter part suggests something rather different, referring to “alternative futures” and “ultimate political arrangements.” What are those exactly? If the solution is a single state with full civic and political equality, what’s to decide? The international community, with the full support of the US, is imposing it. It’s already decided.
What the authors are really proposing is: faced with the reality of a single state in which Jewish Israelis cease to make up a decisive majority within a democratic polity that they will decide to shift gears to agree to some kind of partition. I doubt the authors would agree that that is quite what they’re saying. But their unwillingness or inability to explain how a single state would work tells the story in spite of them. Read the piece and you can see they all but concede this. The real argument is that faced with that future, both sides, but especially the Israelis, will get down to really negotiating, under compulsion.
I know many people would argue, what exactly is so horrible about civic and political equality, what we assume here in the United States as a given? That is both a good and complicated question. The simplest answer is that you have two peoples who have very specific histories, which place a state roughly aligning with their national aspirations at the very center of their political cultures. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you or I think. It is demonstrably a super big deal to them. This point isn’t even contested. Even the most ardent one state supporter concedes the idea has virtually no support in either group.
Both peoples have deep claims to the entire land and both can’t have it. Not at all of it. I can’t speak to Palestinian maximalism, though I think I understand its outlines as much as an outsider can. But I understand Israeli maximalism.
Thirty years ago there was majority support among Israelis for some kind of two state solution. But that support was always based on some key vagueness about its actual outlines. It might be better to say there was majority openness to the idea rather than ‘support.’ That support or at least the belief that such a plan is at all realistic has dropped precipitously since then. For parallel reasons it has dropped just as much on the other side. But there was always, say 30% of the Israeli public absolutely opposed to any territorial compromise of any kind. They were against Oslo; they were against giving up the settlement project; they were against evacuating the settlements in Gaza. They remain equally and totally committed to all these things today. The arc of the last quarter century has been to add to that 30% of absolute rejectionists at least another 30% of the population who was maybe in theory open to the idea but decided it was dangerous, unrealistic or just not possible.
The reality I always come back to is this: to believe that “one state” is possible is to imagine that this group, which won’t agree to stop building new settlements, let alone evacuate some number of existing West Bank settlements or fiddle with the territorial status quo in Jerusalem, will somehow agree to lose all of that and actually give up Jewish majority control of the entire country. So a group which won’t agree to painful but ultimately manageable concessions will somehow magically agree to, what are to them, totally and existential concessions. Stated as such the very idea is simply absurd. If and when the Israeli body politic is actually faced with that choice they will almost certainly resort to some territorial retrenchment that avoids it.
The “one state” solution is really less an actual proposed solution to the conflict than a cudgel designed to force serious consideration of ‘alternative futures’ and ‘political arrangements’ which are very likely to be some version of two states.
With just 12 legislative days scheduled the rest of the year, appropriations bills they can’t pass, a simmering civil war over the last continuing resolution to fund the government, and two more funding deadlines looming, House Republicans are laser-focused on one thing: impeaching President Joe Biden.
Leadership wants to make a decision on going forward with impeachment as soon as January, and they’ll figure out what they’re impeaching him over as they go along. At the moment, its allegations are that Biden used his political office to help his family’s business interests. Since their “evidence” tends to have to do with things Biden did when he was not holding political office, and those things are well documented and above board, that’s going to be a challenge. [hah. Understatement.]
The MAGA crew doesn’t care. They want this done now. “I think it needs to move with alacrity. I’ve always felt that we should be able to move faster. … But I do anticipate that it comes to Judiciary soon,” North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop, a Freedom Caucus member who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told Politico.
Another Judiciary Committee member, Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia, tried to take the high road talking to Politico, pretending as though this whole pursuit is about public service rather than Trumpian revenge. “We understand that the further you go toward an election, the more politicized these conversations become. That’s why it’s all the more important for us to begin to take action sooner rather than later.”
And if they can’t get Biden on any actual actions, they’re willing to go for the technicalities. “They’ve hinted that they could also draw obstruction allegations into the impeachment articles, citing any refusal by the Biden administration to cooperate,” Politico reports.
That might be one of the strategies behind the ridiculous subpoenas they’re piling up, the latest of which is for Lesley Wolf, the assistant U.S. attorney for Delaware who investigated Hunter Biden. They’re trying to find evidence of political interference in the federal investigation that began in 2018, under the Trump administration. When Joe Biden was not in office.
It’s not like they aren’t aware that this is a fraught issue for a good chunk of the GOP conference. “Any kind of an impeachment puts our Biden people in a really tough spot,” one GOP lawmaker told Politico, talking about the Biden 18 in particular. “Impeachment hurts us politically—it makes our base feel better.”
They know they’re hurting their members. They know they are only antagonizing the Senate, which will never take up impeachment articles even if the House manages to pass them, a very big if at this point. They also know they have an almost insurmountable amount of work to do between now and Jan. 19, when the first tranche of current government funding expires. On top of that, there’s aid to Israel and Ukraine.
The House GOP is flirting with their own political disaster. The impeachers believe they have an ally in new House Speaker Mike Johnson, but Johnson might be savvy enough to recognize that moving forward with impeachment articles will only rend the conference and give him a black eye he can ill afford going into an election year. But Johnson is “all in” for Trump, so no matter how baseless, toxic, and dangerous impeachment is, that’s probably where they’re headed.
If you look at the video at the link, it looks like this could well be a case of unintended acceleration either through a car malfunction or through a driver health issue. Or it could be intentional but that would seem strange due to the type of vehicle and the trajectory; I doubt that someone would have planned it that way expecting such a result.
StevoRsays
Glencore plan to poison and damage the life-giving underground water basin at the heart of our dry continent. They expect to be able to get away with it? Will they? See :
The museum of North Herthshire (I might be borking the spelling) will refer to the emperor/empress Elogabal/Heliogabalus as “she” as this ruler identified as such.
SQB @ 472
Also, consider Argentine…
It does not matter that we have seen how things turn out in Britain, USA, Hungary and Dumbfuckistan .
Some voters (a k a “low-information voters”) do not care about lessons from other countries.
In Sweden we have an ugly compromise: A coalition supported by a populist party that is not part of the government but dictates much of the government policies.
In Sweden we have an ugly compromise: A coalition supported by a populist party that is not part of the government but dictates much of the government policies.
We’ve had that in the Netherlands, a little over ten years ago, with the PVV, the same populist party that’s now the largest. It blew up after about two years.
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear appeals from both a liberal group that sought to disqualify Donald Trump and the former president himself after a state judge ruled that Trump “engaged in insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, but can still appear on the state’s ballot.
Oral arguments will take place Dec. 6, the court announced…
Hallo all. This will be a heavy night here in central Europe. In my country of residence, The Netherlands, there were national elections today. The results were totally inscrutable, because an entire generation of politicians who so far had dominated the scene, were en bloc retiring. Most big parties went in with new personnel, and two totally new parties were running with big poll support, the centrist-conservative party of Peter Omtzigt (NSC) — a whistleblower about a major government misrule scandal — and the anti-environmentalist, anti-transformational protest movement BBB. But neither of them won the elections — the exit polls are just out and the big winner is Geert Wilders (his party, the PVV got by far the most votes and the largest vote gain).
The grafics above gives the exit poll result. Red — today, grey — last run in 2021. [graph at the link]
Geert Wilders is the big winner and is the likely first contender for the next premier ship of this country […]
Programmatically, Wilders ‘is for’ closing mosques, outlawing the Koran, basically suppressing Islam, refusing any immigration on basis of asylum; he has flirted with EU exit (but will hardly realize that as it would destroy this country). Many of the things he says are un-doable based on the constitution and the fundamental laws around here, but they attracted a vote.
[…] choices and emphases allowed the human process of forgetting to proceed as normal. And that in turn has allowed Trump to gain advantage, or narrow his disadvantage, on things like temperament and fitness for office that should be his defining liabilities.
Commentary:
[…] Beutler’s point is that the constant stream of bile that Trump has exuded since his 2020 defeat has become dangerously routine, to the point that — for those Americans who are paying attention — ”Over time and in silence, atrocities grow foggy and our anger over them dulls.” What is necessary to reverse that process is a deliberate campaign premised on reminding Americans just how awful Trump’s performance in office was, so that “Relived, they can become indelible, like they just happened yesterday.”
Beutler observes that after President Biden’s inauguration the narrative naturally shifted from Trump’s awfulness in office, as Democratic voters in particular breathed a sigh of relief from what was, quite honestly, a harrowing and traumatic four years of malfeasance. He references “the petty corruption, the lying, the caged children, the injecting bleach,” and above all, the malignant response by Trump (and his fellow Republicans) to the COVID-19 pandemic, which irrefutably demonstrated Trump’s unfitness for office. He notes that immediately after Biden’s victory the political right sought to sow doubts about Biden’s physical and mental acuity, and that narrative has become the primary reason why current polls reflect doubts about Biden’s capacity for a second term in office.
The administration has unwittingly fostered this false narrative by (sensibly) focusing on Biden’s successes, but failing to simultaneously [include] repeated reminders about Trump’s own demonstrated incompetence and vileness. That vileness may be self-evident for those of us who closely follow politics, but its lack of emphasis has contributed to the natural process of forgetting that occurred with the rest of the American public who aren’t similarly attuned to Trump’s failures and are more concerned with the latest cost of groceries, their high rents, and the price of consumer goods, for example.
But the reality is that for most Americans the economy is doing pretty damn well. Yes, inflation is still present but it, along with gas prices (the perennial measure, apparently, of Americans’ discontent) is receding. Consumer spending is up. Employment levels are at unprecedented levels in blue and red states and have been for quite some time. The stock market is doing well. Some Americans continue to struggle but the simple truth is they are not the majority. Beutler’s point is that through fear of being seen as insensitive to the valid concerns of a minority, Democrats can fall into the phony narrative being pushed by the GOP. As Bueller theorizes, “politics is more about information warfare and less about governing excellence than we might like,” and in the current environment the Republicans are succeeding by pushing a line that is basically “bullshit” (such as the myth of the “$90 turkey” for example).
But elections often turn on bullshit, and that is why for 2024 the Democrats need to collectively reshape the information narrative. The way to do that is to remind voters very simply, very concisely, of what the process of time has caused them to forget, and not to get caught up in fears about how Republicans will react. The message, as Buetler puts it, is that ‘We’ve built the best American economy in 70 years, after Trump destroyed the last one,’ but it could just as easily be “Trump brags about overruling Roe v. Wade.”
And as 2024 approaches, Trump has shown he will provide Democrats with many, many opportunities that speak to his own unfitness of office. Buetler notes that when Trump characterized those who oppose him as “vermin” virtually all in the media swiftly rose to condemn him as echoing Nazi propaganda. And that’s relevant, but the more important point is that those statements are wholly disqualifying for anyone who wants to occupy a position representing the needs of the American people. Just say that, over and over. Because, as Beutler notes, comparing Trump to Hitler feeds his need to create a sense of menace, and Trump relies on cultivating his menace as power.
As he writes:
He and everyone in his orbit derive juvenile pleasure when good people flinch at their provocations. They are much less happy when they get caught taking things too far. That’s when the artifice falls away, and they clam up like bullies who realize they’ve antagonized someone who can kick their asses. That’s when they start turning on each other.
Imposing across the board tariffs will destroy the U.S. economy and sink economic recovery? Just say it. Creating a system of midnight arrests and concentration camps to deport undocumented immigrants by the millions will tear the country apart? Just say it. Pursuing a policy that led to nearly 400,000 dead Americans? Just say it. Trump managed to destroy an economy whose success was due to the efforts of President Obama? Just say it.
And above all, remind Americans over and over again what Trump did in presiding over the most corrupt, malignant administration in our nation’s collective modern memory, culminating in an unprecedented attack by his followers on our system of government and the idea of free and fair elections. That he tried to erase the considered verdict and votes of everyone who dared to call out his failure in the first place. Remind them what it was like to live every day in sheer dread of what this unbalanced pathology of a man had Tweeted in the middle of the night, while doing nothing whatsoever for the vast majority of Americans. That his followers and those that support him have transformed into a vicious mob of hate-spewers pitted against everyone else.
And don’t waste time worrying about what the Republicans will think or say about it.
The Progress Report has come up with some dandy things to be thankful for, starting with American troops. It also lists:
– Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., for showing it’s patriotic to speak your mind.
– The 90 senators who stood up to Cheney to say that torture is not an American value.
– The 79 senators who demanded the Bush administration detail a plan for Iraq.
– That Sen. Bill Frist is not our physician.
Consider these additional delights: Tom Delay is under indictment, Heckuva Job Brownie is no longer on the public payroll, and for some inexplicable reason, the administration found a Republican prosecutor in the Plame affair who seems to care more about the law than politics. […]
There’s music in poor bleeding New Orleans again, Ted Koppel and his hair put in a commendable 25 years, some terrific new films are out, my puppy has not eaten a shoe for an entire month now, and the Mountain West is moving from red to purple. So let’s all loosen our belts and get right down to the all-American tradition of overeating on Thanksgiving. It’s still a great country, even if it is a little strange. I am grateful for all my fellow citizens—how would we know it was America if we didn’t hear regularly from the nincompoop faction? Happy turkey to you all.
Historical info: “Brownie,” President George W. Bush said, “you’re doing a heckuva job.”
“Brownie” was Michael D. Brown, Bush’s 2003 appointee as the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The occasion was an impromptu press conference after the president eventually decided to visit the wind-whipped and flooded region where almost 2,000 people had died in the costliest natural disaster to hit the U.S.
“Brownie,” critics claimed, had not done a “heckuva job” at all. He and his agency were roundly condemned as executing a slow, uncoordinated and ineffective response. And when it emerged that his previous non-White House job was as a commissioner of the obscure and apparently elitist International Arabian House Association, many eyebrows raised.
A columnist at The New York Times called Michael Brown “legendary as a disaster in his own right.” Later, he was CNN’s “Political Turkey of the Year” for his handling of Katrina.
Senator Bill Frist supported the Iraq war. When he was Senate majority leader (2003-2007) he pushed through the Bush administration’s third major tax cut. In good deeds, he helped to pass the president’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). He supported global health investments. There was a lot of controversy about stem cell lines from embryos, with federal funding being limited or prohibited. Frist progressed from supporting prohibitions in 2001 to saying in 2006 that the limits on cell lines available for federally funded research was too restrictive. James Dobson and other Christians lobbied against Frist’s proposed legislation. Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded federal funding for stem cell research to include stem cells derived from embryos.
From wikipedia (and probably the issue to which Molly Ivins was referring):
In the Terri Schiavo case, a brain-damaged woman whose husband wanted to remove her gastric feeding tube, Frist opposed the removal. In a 2005 speech delivered on the Senate Floor, he questioned the diagnosis of Schiavo’s doctors of Schiavo being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS): “I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office.” After her death, the autopsy showed signs of long-term and irreversible damage to a brain consistent with PVS. Frist defended his actions after the autopsy.
Ukraine has unveiled a new drone, and it says this model can fly far behind enemy lines and resist persistent Russian jamming…
Fedorov noted on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, that the Backfire’s main feature is its “powerful GPS antenna, resistant to Russian jamming” and electronic warfare. That antenna, Fedorov added, “is almost impossible to jam,” Ukrainska Pravda said, and thanks to the drone’s “complete autonomy, the Russians cannot trace its coordinates and ground crew.” ..
tomhsays
NYT
By Luke Broadwater, Alan Feuer and Angelo Fichera
Nov. 23, 2023 / Reporting from Washington
Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to publicly release thousands of hours of Capitol security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, has fueled a renewed effort by Republican lawmakers and far-right activists to rewrite the history of the attack that day and exonerate the pro-Trump rioters who took part.
Mr. Johnson’s move last week to make the footage available — something the far right has long demanded — came as he tried to allay the anger of hard-line Republican lawmakers for working with Democrats to keep the government funded. Now, some of the same people who were irate about that decision are using the Jan. 6 video to circulate an array of false claims and conspiracy theories about the largest attack on the Capitol in centuries.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, was among the first lawmakers to post false information about the newly released videos. She claimed on the social media site X that surveillance video showed a rioter holding a law enforcement badge in his hand, suggesting that he was an undercover police officer “disguised as a Trump supporter” and the attack was an inside job.
But the item in the man’s hand in the screen grab she circulated appears, upon closer inspection, to have been a vape pen. And the man who is seen in that image, Kevin Lyons, was in fact a heating-and-cooling technician — not a police officer — who was later convicted at a public trial of multiple federal charges and sentenced to more than four years in prison.
Ms. Greene later edited her post to remove the false claim, but not before it had spread widely among Trump supporters.
Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, recirculated the same clip and false allegation that the man pictured had flashed a badge, adding that he looked forward to questioning Christopher S. Wray, the F.B.I. director, about the matter.
“How many of these guys are feds?” he asked in a separate post that included video of a violent clash between rioters and the police.
“Heads up,” former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was the top Republican on the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, responded to Mr. Lee. “A nutball conspiracy theorist appears to be posting from your account.”
birgerjohanssonsays
The brouhaha about the firing and reinstatment of Altman is apparently about an algoritm that some in the organisation fear will lead to bona fide artificial general intelligence.
NO!
We are up to our necks in real disastrous problems, we do not need distractions.
Unlike “cultural marxism” and other drivel from Fox News GAI is theoretically possible, but we are nowhere near it.
Deep learning is a clever extention of neural networks that is a very useful tool, but just because a parrot can speak words it is not going to write a Shakespeare play.
You can expect media to produce lots of BS about the topic over the next few weeks instead of writing about the trash fire that is the House, or the failure to make meaningful reductions of CO2 emissions.
YouTube link to Amanda Gorman, the inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S., performing a poem about what the holiday means to her. The 20-year-old is a junior at Harvard University. She performs her composition, “The Republic Gives Thanks.” …
Fighting in the Gaza Strip continued Thursday after a highly anticipated four-day “pause” in fighting and an exchange of hostages and prisoners were delayed. The pause in fighting and deliveries of aid are set to begin at 7 a.m. local time on Friday, said Majed Al Ansari, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry of Qatar, an intermediary between Hamas and Israel. The first hostages are to be released at 4 p.m. Friday, he said, adding that the pause was delayed by last minute logistical issues, including the verification of the list of hostages set to be released. Al Ansari said 13 hostages are set to be released in the first phase of the deal. Fifty of the more than 200 people held by Hamas are expected to be released under the agreement. For every 10 hostages released beyond that, the pause will be extended for an additional day, Israel has said. […]
There are just two doctors left at Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip, the hospital’s head of plastic surgery, Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, told NBC News.
“Most of the staff have left yesterday, except for two doctors, me and my colleague and one nurse all in the hospital,” he said Thursday.
Though he described the situation as “very, very difficult,” he said they’re focused on an estimated 200 patients left at the hospital, which was raided by Israeli military last week under claims that it was used as a Hamas stronghold.
The WHO says the spike is caused by known pathogens, and does not pose a global threat.
[…] Hospitals in northern China appear to be “overwhelmed with sick children” as the country grapples with a surge in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia, prompting the World Health Organization to ask Beijing for more data.
At the Beijing Children’s Hospital in the capital, long lines of people were waiting to register during a visit by NBC News on Thursday. Waiting rooms were crowded with parents and children, some of them on IV drips.
In a review of China’s data, the World Health Organization said that the increase in cases came earlier in the season, “but not unexpected given the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, as similarly experienced in other countries.”
According to WHO, Chinese health authorities did not detect new or unusual pathogens, and that the rise in respiratory illnesses has not resulted in patient loads that exceeded hospital capacities.
There was no indication that the outbreak in China poses any global threat, and the WHO advised against any travel restrictions “based on the current information available on this event.”
Since mid-October, the WHO said, northern China has reported an increase in respiratory diseases compared with the same period in the previous three years. The increase coincides with the end of China’s National Day holiday week, one of its busiest travel periods.
This is also China’s first full flu season since the lifting late last year of some of the world’s most stringent Covid-19 restrictions, which minimized many people’s exposure to a wide range of pathogens for three years.
Countries such as Australia and New Zealand that also had “zero-Covid” restrictions experienced similar surges in respiratory diseases when they were lifted, and the United States had its own “tripledemic” of respiratory viruses last year. […]
A prominent theologian who once authored a book on feminism and Christianity has been terminated from Crandall University, a private Christian post-secondary school in Moncton, N.B., following a six-month investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
John Stackhouse Jr. is a well-known evangelical academic and author, a celebrated professor and speaker at Christian post-secondary institutions. Stackhouse is a frequent contributor to magazines and periodicals, and his views are often sought after on television and radio programs, including on CBC programs.
Stackhouse came to Crandall in 2015 after a 17-year tenure at Regent College in Vancouver. He taught numerous classes at Crandall including two mandatory courses for students, one called the Christian Way and another on ethics.
In March, just after Crandall University had presented Stackhouse with a teaching award, an Instagram account called “dobettercrandall” appeared. It posted a number of accounts of what it alleged were incidents of harassment, many associated with one professor in particular…
Reginald Selkirksays
@496
The summary notes that when the investigator directly asked the faculty member if there was ever a sexual harassment complaint made against him at his previous school “his reply was ‘I do not see how it’s in my interest to answer that question.’ ”
A judge has struck down an effort to enshrine reproductive rights, including abortion, in Nevada’s constitution, as abortion rights advocates in the western swing state attempt to follow other states in putting the question before voters in 2024.
Judge James T. Russell in Carson City District Court concluded on Tuesday that the proposed ballot initiative is too broad, contains a “misleading description of effect” and has an unfunded mandate…
Side mirrors in Virginia have been going missing for years. Now state law enforcement officials believe they may have solved the mystery with the arrest of a 27-year-old man with more than 200 truck mirrors in his Stafford County home Tuesday. “Deputies and detectives were looking into the thefts and conducting surveillance details, but were unable to crack the case… until last week when a crafty resident helped solve the crime,” Stafford County Sheriff David Decatur said. Someone reported their side mirror missing on Nov. 13, but the side mirror had an AirTag on it that allowed authorities to track it and discover “a literal house of mirrors,” officials said. The suspect placed stickers on many of the mirrors with the date and location of the theft, police said, and has initially been charged with two counts of tampering with a vehicle and two counts of grand larceny…
StevoRsays
“When, exactly, as a society, did we decide that locking people up indefinitely was OK? Like, forever, without reasonable prospect of release? Even those who have served full sentences, or who have not even been convicted of a crime?
It’s shocking to realise how complacent we have become about this practice.”
Good question and informative, thoughtful article here by Julia Baird, a journalist, broadcaster, historian and author, if folks can read it? Semi-subscriber-walled I gather, so may or may not be accessible to all here?
Some more excerpts from it :
Three of the 84 released from detention are murderers, we’re told, and seven are sex offenders. And the others? We’re still finding out.
The reporting was muddled; before going to air on the ABC’s The Drum on Thursday night, we scrambled for hours to piece together as much information as we could, before divining that all involved seemed to have served sentences, as well as their time in detention, and the offences ranged from murder to drink-driving.
…(snip)..
As Sanmati Verma, acting legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said: “Every single day, Australian citizens who have been convicted of an offence re-enter the community after serving their time. For the government to suggest that migrants and refugees in the same position pose a different or greater risk is dangerous dog-whistling.”
..(Snip)..
At question is how much further he can be punished – having served a sentence for his crime – because he is not an Australian citizen. Indefinitely? What do we do with him now? Does our court system not work for the stateless? Does a jail term not have the desired effect on those who the former policeman Peter Dutton has been calling “hardened criminals” if they happen to come from another country?
What is also at question is whether those who were not even convicted of a crime can be kept locked up indefinitely. A judgment without trial?
..(Snip)..
When will our politicians stop making us afraid? It has become unbearable to watch the news. We are horrified about what is happening in the Middle East, gutted by the images of dead babies, fretful about creeping unemployment, anxious about a melting planet, stressed about inflation, seemingly powerless to stop the steady thinning of social cohesion, and now – this? It’s too easy to scare us.
As the article concludes too : “Isn’t a measure of a society how we treat the despised and marginalised?”
Looks like The Infinite Thread is ready to start again at comment #1, having racked up 500 comments in the previous chapter.
For the convenience of readers, here a few links back to that previous chapter.
A Republican told my teen daughter working the polls she should ‘get run over by a bus’
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-2/#comment-2200835
Ukraine Update: Action along the Dnipro is becoming more serious, by Mark Sumner
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/10/09/infinite-thread-xxix/comment-page-2/#comment-2200832
Good news: voters in Ohio protected abortion rights in their state constitution [and other good news!]
NBC News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
New York Times:
Yeah, I don’t think they are really “grasping” for a way to avert a shutdown. Instead, the Republicans in the House, under Mike Johnson’s leadership as the new Speaker, are busy burying poison pills in every funding proposal. They want to hold funding hostage by insisting that various ignorant and ineffective Republican priorities be included.
Link
Followup to comment 4.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things-stand/trust-us-as-we-lead-you-off-a-cliff
COVID corruption in Britain, part one million.
https://youtu.be/0RYQYKv8oSM
Latest twist in the Dinkiniesh asteroid encounter saga – turns out its actually three not two with a contact binary moonlet :
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/lucy/nasas-lucy-surprises-again-observes-1st-ever-contact-binary-orbiting-asteroid/
Democrats win in several states on abortion rights and other highlights from Tuesday’s elections
House approves bill slashing Pete Buttigieg’s salary to $1
“We are not throwing a tantrum. We are serious people here to do serious business.”
Family Values: Republican Candidate Arrested for Child Porn Hours Before Election
Democrat Gabe Amo becomes Rhode Island’s first Black candidate elected to Congress
Intel To Build ‘Secure Enclave’ Chip Facilities For Defense Applications
Followup to a previous comment noting Andy Beshear’s win in Kentucky:
Link
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/democrats-have-good-offyear-election
Video snippets are available at the link.
Florida CFO suggests public funding for Trump’s legal defense to fight ‘liberal prosecutors’
@ 15
There is never going to be a moment of realization on the part of Republicans because their right-wing ideology won’t allow them that. They assume that their opponent’s ideology is so evil or absurd that no one beyond the depraved supports it; therefore, the left can only win when they resort to fraud. That’s why the whole “election fraud/stolen election” conspiracies resonate so well with them.
I support Rashida Tlaib here too.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/8/2204411/-I-Stand-With-Congresswoman-Rashida-Tlaib-D-Michigan
There is a limit to language sympathy and river and sea references aren’t enough to ignore anything here. There is libel and slander being made about Rashida Tlaib. Anyone sensitive to a Hamas reference should be able to see the intent.
As an American who called out child concentration camps here I have no problem describing the Palestinian living conditions as Isreal’s concentration camp.
And due to the clear power asymmetry I choose not to care about complaints of anti-Semitic tone. Hamas doesn’t own the reference and complaints distract from genocide.
I can acknowledge the association between Israel and concentration camps will feel uniquely awful. But then it’s awful that the associations can be made to Israel. I would have thought that such things could be avoided by Israel, but we are very irrational beings.
Four Los Angeles sheriff’s officials found dead in apparent suicides
This Ivanka Trump Email Could Undo Her Family’s Entire Defense
Accused Jan. 6 Rioter Escapes Into Woods as FBI Tries to Arrest Him
Right to Life, GOP lawmakers sue over Michigan’s voter-approved abortion amendment
I see that a lot, attach “super”, “mega” like it matters. It’s just feelings attached to nothing.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Followup to comment 14.
Link
@24: “super” rights”
I remember when Bob Dole referred to protections for gay people as “special rights” (1988?). Someone called him out on it during an appearance, asking how having the same protections as other people was in any way “special.” To his credit, he actually stopped using the term.
That doesn’t happen nowadays. They keep telling the same lies no matter how many times they get called out.
They’re just rights. They get compared to one another when the come into conflict but even “ultra maga” is just political language that may help divide a conquer a bit, but the fascism is better to focus on. Now that some have embraced ultra maga do we get to single them out in law with it? No, but it might be a fun point at some time.
Australian farmer Colin Deveraux survives crocodile attack by biting back
Fair dinkum, mate!
Ivanka, the fraud trial in NYC … some details:
Link
bDemocrats had a great night. The media remains obsessed with Democratic doom narratives
ARE YOU OKAY NEW YORK TIMES? DO YOU NEED A POLICEMAN OR A BRAIN DOCTOR?
Guys. This is getting serious.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/are-you-okay-new-york-times-do-you
Amazingly bad journalism on the part of the New York Times. What is wrong with them?
Marjorie Taylor Greene … having a bad time and making sure everyone else has a bad time too:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/everybody-hates-marjorie-taylor-greene
Republicans Debate For Second Place On Heels Of Nationwide Walloping
Boris Johnson did say he would let the bodies pile high.
https://youtu.be/koEmYJfK9Yw
Giant Pyramid Buried in Indonesia Could Be The Oldest in The World, Researchers Say
Antonin Scalia’s Daughter Loses School Board Race to Mother of LGBTQ+ Child
ibid:
WTF is someone with no stake doing asking to run the public schools? Apparently “parental rights” means “the right to control other people’s children.”
These 106 House Republicans voted to defund Vice President Kamala Harris’s office
Yes, these are very serious people indeed, not performative clowns.
Minnesota Supreme Court dismisses ‘insurrection clause’ challenge and allows Trump on primary ballot
NBC News:
Followup to comment 34.
Yes, they talked about a 15-week abortion ban nationally … and that’s after losing so bigly yesterday because they are total doofuses when it comes to abortion.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/republican-third-debate-miami-elections
Ukraine Update: Ukraine crossing the Dnipro River in force is no fantasy. It’s also not easy
Vatican says transgender people can be baptized
Wow, it’s almost like they are real people!
Conservatives’ Favorite Legal Doctrine Crashes Into Reality
@44. Reginald Selkirk : Vatican says transgender people can be baptized
When the Vatican – the fucking Vatican – is less bigoted and more living in the current eon than the Repugs and other far reichwing political parties.. Fucking hell. Wow.
SAG-AFTRA Has a Tentative Deal That Could Bring the Hollywood Strike to an End
I know it is a ‘hot topic’, but I hope people will read this article by Prof. Juan Cole. He is likely the leading expert and a thoughtful and objective commenter on the middle east. I have expressed my sorrow over the obscene loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives and my anger at the obvious genocide of Netanyahoo as aided and abetted by the u.s. Professor Cole points out a lot of facts overlooked by the ignorant and zealots:
https://www.juancole.com/2023/11/resolution-delusional-falsehoods.html
@ 44, 46
Ever since Franny got to the position of High Exalted Pedophile Enabler, the press has been falling over themselves anytime he makes these vaguely positive statements. EACH AND EVERY TIME, there is a “clarification” from the Vatican that walks back Franny’s statement that never get’s picked up by the MSM.
Remember kids, this is the same shitfucker who compared arguments for trans rights to nuclear weapons. This is just PR. Stop letting the religious justify their existence by falling for this crap.
Link
Link
This is something Charlie Kirk actually said:
There’s a lot more at the link: https://www.wonkette.com/p/all-swifties-want-is-swift-abortion
@Reginald Selkirk #36:
Andre Costopoulos (U of Alberta anthro dept chair) – There is no new evidence that Gunung Padang is a 24000 year old pyramid
@ 51
I’m adding the media to the industries that need to be nationalized.
Schadenfreude moment: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s Democratic colleagues have some questions following a report on some Comer family loans.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/reader-beware
Followup to comment 55.
Rep. James Comer’s family business is shadier than anything involving Joe Biden, by Mark Sumner
Followup to comment 57.
Posted by a reader of the article:
@Reginald Selkirk #36, adding to #53:
Carl Feagans (archaeologist) – Gunung Padang: What Archaeology Really Says
Link
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/live-how-can-joe-biden-celebrate
Israel agrees to daily 4-hour fighting pauses in northern Gaza, White House says
Washington Post link
President Biden had asked Netanyahu for a three-day pause.
Lynna @56: Also, why would Hamas embed reporters in a unit carrying out a surprise attack? To show how tough a terrorist’s job was or something?
Delhi’s air quality hits extremely unsafe levels
Washington Post link
Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin won’t seek reelection
“Puts Trump in a box”: Experts say Judge Chutkan just forced Trump to “put up or shut up” on defense
Link
Say what now?
Link
Lynna OM @1
“You will know Christians by their love”.
Of course, for the Republicans, any criticism of Netanyahu and his government = sympathizing with terrorists.
Today was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a real manifestation of anti-semitism.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
So far, Ivanka has used the phrase, “I do not recall,” or something similar 47 times during her testimony.
Akira @54:
You know that ‘nationalized’ means ‘state-run’, right? Maybe you mean ‘nationalized if I approve of the government’?
I just heard Putin’s bestie Jill Stein is running for President again.
Funny how she makes this announcement right after Democrats win some important elections…
A recent post from Stderr:
The might of the Soviet – and later the Russian- military might has been inflated all along.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/stderr/2023/11/08/i-bet-yall-are-gonna-be-shocked/#more-19619
@ 73
I’m well aware what it means. If you have an another way we can make the media tell the truth for a change, I’d like to hear it.
It is Actually Possible to Oppose Bias Against Jews and Muslims at the Same Time A revealing complaint from the right.
You know that ‘nationalized’ means ‘state-run’, right?
Well, first, a lot of state-run media outlets aren’t really that bad, and often cover US issues better than our own “competitive” corporate media.
And second, state-run media like Al Jazeera are far better than a media-run state, like any country run by people who let Fox set their agenda.
‘Patently Absurd’ Conspiracy Theory In Kentucky Election Shot Down By Officials
Ukraine Update: Ukraine is surprisingly close to securing a pontoon bridge site
Followup to comment 80:
NBC News:
Politico:
NBC News:
Huffington Post:
The BBC is “nationalized” in the sense of being publicly owned, but it’s not “state run” in the sense that the government tells it what to say – at least not in any direct fashion. And while it’s far from perfect, it’s a fuck of lot better than Fox News or its recent UK imitators. Its governance could be improved by direct election of the board of governors by licence payers, or pehaps better, their appointment by lot. In any case, we’ve seen the outcome of allowing ownership by oligarchs.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@53, 59,
Thanks for this. What I struggle to understand is why Danny Hilman Natawidjaja identifies Gunung Padang with Atlantis rather than Mu, which at least according to James Churchward was located close to modern Indonesia!
Rep. Elise Stefanik files ethics complaint against judge in Trump’s civil fraud trial
She seems extremely for her own turn under the bus.
@88 “extremely eager”
The capitalist hellscape claims Jezebel.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/11/worlds-most-inept-private-equity-goon-destroys-another-website
China’s ICBC, the world’s biggest bank, hit by cyberattack that reportedly disrupted Treasury markets
Wildlife refuge pond in Hawaii mysteriously turns bright pink
Mike Johnson Sends House Home Early So He Can Hobnob With Paris Elitists
US Air Force’s new B-21 Raider “flying wing” bomber takes first flight
Alabama can’t prosecute people who help women leave the state for abortions, Justice Department says
Conservative justices could take steps to reassure the public that the Supreme Court is a neutral arbiter worthy of trust. They keep doing the opposite.
Cartoon: Puff puff pass GOP
FRIDAY 11/10 Good News Roundup
Yes, Mike Johnson has a Checking Account.
New York Times blasts Cotton [Senator Tom Cotton] for ‘harvesting disinformation’ about journalists in Middle East
Don’t get too excited. This is only good news for now. That could change.
Judge denies Trump bid to delay classified documents trial
So, in in other words, “fascists.”
Trump Told ‘Hot Johnny’ To Go Ahead And Pull The Troops From Literally Everywhere In Last Few Weeks Before Refusing Peaceful Transfer Of Power
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-told-hot-johnny-to-go-ahead
Akira @102, correct. :-)
In other news related to American doofuses traveling overseas to meet with fascists:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/god-opens-jill-stein-window-gets
Washington Post:
Commentary:
Link
Surreal week in the House shows just how broken the GOP is
@74 Raging Bee
Good. I’m relieved that there’s a decent probability there will be a principled antiwar candidate on the ballot in November. I voted for her twice before, and I’ll vote for her again.
@ 104
<
blockquote>”Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth and the climate again and again, while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place,” Stein said in her announcement video.”
<
blockquote>
She’s not wrong. The Democrats have only paid lip service to the needs of the working class and the poor right before they eventually side with capital. I just don’t think Stein and her hippie-dippie loons are the ones to do it.
While the two Jill Stein quotes might be true statements, the way you correct that is not through a third party presidential candidate. That only makes sure you get an even worse result. You need to go from the bottom up instead of the top down. But that’s a whole lot of hard work and time and organization and doesn’t lend itself to easy foreign interference and pumping up egos of meaningless individuals. So you won’t see any such proposal from the likes of Jill Stein and other potential (loser) presidential candidates.
New York Times reporter shows how hard he was rooting for Democrats to lose on Tuesday
AL.com:
Commentary:
Link
Sandworm Hackers Caused Another Blackout in Ukraine—During a Missile Strike
WIRED link
Russia’s most notorious military hackers successfully sabotaged Ukraine’s power grid for the third time last year. And in this case, the blackout coincided with a physical attack.
@ 109
The Dems have promised progress and reneged (e.g. national health care) so many times. They have played the hypocrite (e.g. talked about peace, votes for Bush’s wars and increasing the military’s budget) so many times. They think capitalism can be “fixed” through regulation when it is an irremeably evil and exploitative system. They ignore the threat of religion in the name of “diversity” and “religious tolerance”
I don’t trust them.
How Sen. Sinema could finally snap Sen. Tuberville’s stranglehold on military promotions
She is deadset against getting rid of the filibuster; but temporarily suspending it whenever you need to is different – how?
Ukraine says naval drones struck two crewed Russian warships in Crimea
Bannon appeals contempt conviction, saying he was following attorney’s advice
I saw an article about this just the other day with respect to Trump. If you blame the lawyers by claiming incompetent legal advice, you give up the right to attorney-client privilege.
Ukraine update: East and west, the war continues on two distinct fronts, by Mark Sumner
Jack Poso posted:
Commentary:
Link
NBC News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
The three judges on the 5th Circuit panel were all Trump appointees.
https://grapevine.is/news/2023/11/10/updates-state-of-emergency-declared-grindavik-residents-flee/
Reuters – At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk’s rush to Mars
Akira Mackenzie@113,
Do you trust Jill Stein?
By “principled antiwar candidate” beholder of course means “Putin stooge”.
From the other country who elected horrible leaders:
“Did Rishi Sunak’s ignorance of Thatcher lead to his failure?”
-Tories love authoritarian bullies, not consensus-seekers or appeasers
https://youtu.be/Lw-jYpUuQIQ
or possibly
https://youtu.be/Lw-jYpUuQlQ
New Synthetic Superatomic Material is “World’s Best Semiconductor”
@126 and anti-vaxxer
A grocery chain is removing self-checkout after realizing executives hate it as much as customers do
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/10/2205054/-Election-Day-is-When-MAGA-Does-What-They-Do-Best
Cartoon: MAGA politics
Hello.
I’ve been gradually dropping out from reading Pharyngula, and this thread in particular. I was late to notice this recent post on urban turkeys in NYC area:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/06/only-strong-turkeys-survive-in-new-jersey/
Comments from birgerjohansson at 5:
From Cyborg at 16:
Coincidentally, not long ago on Twitter, I saw some discussion on how around the 90s it was all the rage to portray dromaeosaurs (mainly Velociraptor/Deinonychus) as ninja-like superpredators. You know; jumping on the sides/backs of large herbivores and slashing them open with the sickle claws. The Jurassic Park novel and movie were the peak of this portrayal, but they weren’t alone. AFAIK in the modern view, these raptors hunted more like, well, modern raptors, except stalking on the ground. They used their sickle claws to pin down prey their own size or smaller, while eating it alive.
Then, with regard to ninja dromaeosaurs, I had this instant mental connection to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve read some of the original TMNT comic. It was all kinds of over-the-top silly and nonsensical, while also being kind of dark and gritty, but I always found it particularly nonsensical that turtles, of all animals, would be able to become proficient in “ninjitsu” thanks to some “mutations” in their juvenile development.
But what if, instead of baby box turtles, the four protagonists had started their lives as newly hatched turkey chicks? Probably domestic turkey chicks, who somehow got abandoned on the streets of New York. Then they’d be exposed to the mutagenic “green ooze”, while also being washed into sewers and being adopted by an escaped Japanese pet rat, who is also exposed to the mutagen. Feeding on pizza leftovers, they’d all grow into a roughly human-sized bipedal form. Perhaps the young turkeys would have atavistic developmental anomalies, like long balancing tails, functional hands and sharp teeth. And of course sickle claws. They’d be agile and fast, with some in-built weaponry of their own. Perfectly predisposed to learn ninjitsu from their rat sensei, they’d become Teenage Mutant Ninja Turkeys.
It’d make perfect sense that way.
Scientists build yeast with artificial DNA in a major synthetic biology advance
@lumipuna #132:
I’d been keeping up via RSS, and I’d missed that post too. Thanks.
So, the ooze and training turn them into cassowaries!
@Reginald Selkirk #133:
Cool. Oh, clarification…
Scientists are taking major steps towards completing the world’s first synthetic yeast.
Just today, I encountered a fellow baby-eating atheist on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/InfiDale3476/status/1723050672445092169
My reply:
Study reveals location of starfish’s head
Devastating Ukrainian artillery attack takes out Russian supply convoy in Kherson Oblast
Last couple of days, every time I click on an FtB site, I’ve received an alert from my AVG Web Shield, saying it has blocked a threat from https:/cdn.taboola.com/…
Don’t get it from any other web sites. Anyone else seen this? I’m guessing it’s something buried in my settings somewhere.
Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack
Link to Washington Post exclusive
Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was integral to last year’s brazen sabotage operation of the Russia-Germany pipeline, according to people familiar with planning.
Details in the article do not seem to be as certain as the headline indicates.
Gaza’s biggest hospital ‘out of service’
NBC News link
Ukraine Update: Remembering the liberation of Kherson one year ago
Link
Followup to comment 143.
Posted by readers of the article:
Fine Here Is Your Bloody Kurt Vonnegut, On An Armistice Day When There’s No Armistice In Sight
https://www.wonkette.com/p/ron-desantis-is-quite-blase-about
https://www.wonkette.com/p/of-course-the-qanon-shaman-is-running
Sigh. More details emerge concerning Trump’s plans:
New York Times link
Editor of scientific journal says fake study linking whale deaths to wind farms is ‘deliberate misinformation’
Followup to comment 148.
Link
Tennessee man says he conspired with Jan. 6 defendant to kill FBI agents
States still block Native water rights
Infuriating! You have a right to know why a health insurer denies a claim. Some still refuse
Making fun of the Republican Debate, Saturday Night live:
YouTube link
Finnish media is currently making hay about a new press release from the border authorities, on illegal migration via Russia. Here’s an English version:
https://raja.fi/en/-/more-asylum-seekers-than-usual-have-arrived-at-the-border-of-southeast-finland-without-required-travel-documents
In short, until a few months ago, the Russian border authorities wouldn’t usually let people enter the Finnish border without the documents necessary for crossing into Finland/Schengen area. This was a diplomatic convention that made things easy for the Finnish authorities, as it kept the number of third country asylum seekers trying to enter Europe via Russia/Finland at near zero. In principle, you can always seek asylum, even without documents, if you can physically get to the border. Thus far, very few people have bothered trying to cross from Russia past the official checkpoints (this is illegal border crossing, in addition to “illegal” migration without documents), and those who do try often get caught before the border.
Thus far, there’s been only a small trickle of third country asylum seekers entering from Russia without required visa (not counting Ukrainians, who don’t need a visa). I think the numbers can be expected to increase, as unscrupulous Russian entrepreneurs exploiting Middle Eastern migrants get their business organized and advertised. I also think we can expect freakouts from Finnish media and racist populace at any modest “waves” of asylum seekers.
In a worse-case scenario, there will be a large machinated migration event similar to what happened at the Polish-Belarusian border two years ago, resulting in a humanitarian crisis (in part thanks to Finnish racism) which can be then exploited in Russian propaganda.
Lumipuna @155, thanks for the update. Sounds all too similar to some of the problems the USA has on the border with Mexico … and with American racism. It’s interesting to hear that more people are attempting to flee via crossing the border into Finland.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel tries to appear ‘moderate’ on abortion, fails miserably [plus coverage of other topics]
Ukraine Update: How Ukraine is overcoming the disadvantages of an amphibious landing
Yes, there are ‘atheists in foxholes,’ FFRF USA Today ad asserts
5 surprising uses of banana peels
@Reginald Selkirk #160:
Home remedy listicle slideshows of irrelevant images. Reflects a lax approach to content creation and fact checking.
1) Repellent: ~Fruit attracts unspecified insects. Bait traps.~ I mean… okay?
2) Why You Shouldn’t Use a Banana Peel as Fertilizer for Houseplants
Misspelling ‘compost’ as ‘composite’ was another red flag.
3) Lifehacker retracted a similar post: “This may be unsafe. Instead of using a banana peel, follow the dermatologist-approved instructions in this video to remove the splinter with tweezers and a needle.” (Peels aren’t sterile.)
4) I’m not familiar with meat tenderizing. Certain fruit juice marinades have suitable enzymes to break down meat at the right temps. There’s protease in banana peels, but I fail to imagine how a solid peel would penetrate a hunk of meat.
5) Are Banana Peels Good for Your Skin?: “There’s no scientific evidence to suggest that rubbing a banana peel on your face is going to help.”
America’s First Commercial Carbon-Sucking Facility Opens in California
Tim Scott drops out of GOP primary race after girlfriend reveal
Suella Braverman, Britain’s hardline home secretary, fired as ex-PM David Cameron makes surprise return to government
Article on the ‘quake related damage in Grindavik, Iceland with several pictures.
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2023/11/13/a_lot_of_damage_in_grindavik/
Followup to comments 148 and 150.
Under Donald Trump’s post-election vision, the government would actually round up immigrants and put them in camps. That’s not hyperbole; that’s the plan.
Daycare TB case exposes over 500 babies, children; emergency declared
Look for more of this in the future as anti-vax has become a form of political expression.
Hitler and Mussolini dehumanized people in their own countries by calling them “vermin.” Donald Trump is now using identical rhetoric.
Followup to comment 168.
Donald Trump’s alarming Veterans Day address mirrors Nazi propaganda
Followup to comments 168 and 169.
The New York Times’ first article about Hitler’s rise is absolutely stunning
Democrat Abigail Spanberger Is Running for Virginia Governor
MP Dubinsky accused of treason, working for Russian intel in U.S. Presidential election lies case
Donald Trump Junior is back on the witness stand today.
Link
There are reports that people in the courtroom are struggling to stifle laughter.
No mention was made of Trump’s sister having died.
Afternoon update:
OMG, it is just a con job being performed in Court.
Michael Flynn and family pocketed leftover money from his legal defense fund, filing claims
Waikiki hotel is ditching the Trump name
Does Rishi Sunak’s re-shuffle change the Brexit dynamic?
https://youtu.be/Mu00sEh_wwI
or maybe
https://youtu.be/Mu00sEh_wwl
NBC News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
Link
Looks like a step in the right direction, but it remains mostly toothless as far as enforcement is concerned.
US News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
Anti-LGBTQ+ extremists have a new target: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Ukraine update: The Battle of the Dnipro expands
Fascism expert: Trump speech ‘doesn’t echo ‘Mein Kampf.’ This is textbook ‘Mein Kampf’
@149. Reginald Selkirk : “Editor of scientific journal says fake study linking whale deaths to wind farms is ‘deliberate misinformation”
MediaWatch on Aussie ABC covered that last night too :
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/windfarm/103099664
Click the transcript button there for readable form.
House Republicans want to slash food assistance to infants again. It’s what they do
There’s another wildfire burning in Hawaii. This one is destroying irreplaceable rainforest on Oahu
Sort of good news:
Link
Source : https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-extreme-glow-from-90-percent-early-galaxies
Newsom: Los Angeles freeway fire likely arson
(Emphasis for headline & byline. )
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-13/greenland-ice-sheet-glacier-research/103097030
Also :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-13/csiro-investigator-climate-change-antarctic-circumpolar-current/103092918
Plus : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-09/mapping-worlds-hottest-year-global-temperatures-climate-central/103073800
Ex-Trump allies detail efforts to overturn election in Georgia plea videos
Washington Post link
Gaza Hospitals ‘Must Be Protected,’ Biden Says
New York Times link
Gaza hospital’s evacuation efforts falter amid heavy fighting
The director of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has warned that all of its aid operations in Gaza will soon stop because of a lack of fuel in Gaza.
Trump’s Truth Social Has Lost $73M Since Launch, New Filing Shows
@ 193
In other words, Biden does NOTHING.
First: I’m not qualified to analyze the credibility of this article, but PZ and others may want to read it and comment intelligently:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/11/13/free-will-agency-and-evolution/
Second, I must agree with @196 Akira MacKenzie: In other words, Biden does NOTHING. (except for getting tons of weapons to the Israeli gov’t to perpetuate the slaughter of civilians)
Cartoon: This week in authoritarian newspeak
Thanks, @198 Lynna, OM. That comic echoes our desire to be ‘awakened’ and not part of the nodding, drooling ignorant sheople around us. The motto of one of our organizations reflects that: ‘Toward Enlightenment, through Communication, by Means of the Arts and Sciences’.
Susan Rinkunas at Jezebel (04.13.2023):
Grace Haley at Abortion, Every Day Substack (07.30.2023):
HISTORY OF THE COMSTOCK ACT
IDEOLOGY & MISOGYNY BEHIND THE COMSTOCK ACT
COMSTOCK TODAY
Much more at this Link, including examples of how the Comstock Act was used recently in Missouri, Texas, Alabama, and other states.
Posted by Imani Gandy:
Biden rolls out billions for climate resilience in the wake of dire climate report
@ 200
It would also be nice if they can also get rid of those state-level laws forbidding atheists from public office. Again, it’s hasn’t been enforced since the SCOTUS ruled they violate Article VI, but that can be reversed by the current crop of Christo-fascists on the high court.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/tim-scott-wasnt-surfing-on-a-wave
I was glad to see Tim Scott drop out of the Republican presidential primary. One less doofus to whom we must pay attention.
Person Linked To Scam Asks FBI for His Seized Cryptocurrency Back
US stocks and bonds jump after inflation falls to 3.2%
Followup to comment 192.
One more great quote from Jenna Ellis, former Trump attorney:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/is-it-bad-jenna-ellis-told-investigators
@197: ugh, I already waded through one thread on free will this week: Ars Technica: Determinism vs. free will: A scientific showdown
The recent spate of such articles is triggered by Sapolsky’s new book. In the comments one finds all the usual detritus surrounding discussions of free will:
Failing to define key terms
Switching definitions at one’s convenience
Confusion of determinism with fatalism
Concentrating on whether one “makes choices” rather than whether those choices are “free” (i.e. not materially determined)
The joke about how “we have no choice but to believe in free will” (get it? yuk, yuk, yuk)
Sapolsky seems to be about the conscious mind not making decisions, but accepting them from other unconscious portion of the brain or body. I don’t see what that has to do with well-informed discussion of free will. Is the conscious brain more free of determinism than the hunger signals we get from the gut? I don’t see how. So my impression is that Sapolsky is trying to use science to attack what is a philosophical question, and this missing the point.
I haven’t read the book myself.
Akira @202, good point.
In related news: Should Republicans Keep Doing What They’re Doing On Abortion, Or Should They Be MORE Extremist?
https://www.wonkette.com/p/should-republicans-keep-doing-what
https://www.wonkette.com/p/oh-my-stars-republican-congress-men
All very dignified and focused on much-needed legislation … that’s the Republican men in the Halls of Congress.
In Gaza, the dead go uncounted as medical infrastructure disintegrates
Washington Post link
The details of the violence in the occupied West Bank are more complicated than this report indicates.
New York Times link
NBC News link<>/a>
Trump threatens Judge Engoron again, this time with a repost of a ‘citizens arrest’ fantasy
Link
Man gives truly inspiring speech at Virginia Beach school board meeting
Re: #209 Burchett-McCarthy
WaPo:
Gaetz calls for ethics investigation into McCarthy after Burchett accusation
By Amy B. Wang
Physics reveals secret of how nature helped sculpt the Great Sphinx of Giza
Florida Sovereign Citizens Learn The Hard Way They Do In Fact Need A Driver’s License
With video! 09:56
If Progressives Don’t Like Biden’s Gaza Position, Wait Till They Learn About Trump’s
House votes to prevent a government shutdown as GOP Speaker Johnson relies on Democrats for help
Questions.
Is the House bill going to fly in the Senate? The support of Democrats seems to indicate it might.
Are the MAGA chuds going to throw out Johnson for trying to govern?
Uh-Oh: Giuliani’s Top Ukraine Allies Charged With Being Putin Agents
https://twitter.com/LvivJournal/status/1724352123519840592
Video with English subtitles.
Link. Scroll down to view this section of the coverage.
See also: https://twitter.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1724421980646961234
Senate Rules Committee advances measure to bypass Tuberville’s military promotion blockade
Followup to Reginald @220.
NBC News:
NBC News:
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Re: Lynna, OM @ #222…
And yet… One of the great heroines of the Third Reich was Hanna Reitsch who was not only a military test pilot, but in command of a unit of test pilots.
@#219, Reginald Selkirk:
As always, it’s not about what other people want, it’s about what we want. Support for Biden is now support for genocide, and there’s no going back from that. Biden is doing his very best to lose the votes of a very large chunk of the Democratic base — possibly for good, because so much of the rest of the party has decided it’s better to blindly back him than to listen to their constituents. (Remember: an overwhelming majority of Democrats want a ceasefire, and even a majority of Republicans agree; Biden is absolutely doing something that is against the will of both the public and his party, and it’s a crime so large that he’s never going to be forgiven by anybody who is angry at him.) If Trump wins in 2024, what Biden has done in the past 3 weeks will be exactly the reason why. The Democrats have decided it’s worth losing their own country in order to support crimes against humanity committed by Israel, and they’re in danger of getting what they’re asking for.
This is exactly the sort of outcome which could be predicted from the dismissal of any concern over Democratic candidates’ past records as “purity testing” — you could be reasonably certain that Biden was going to do something horrific like this sooner or later because of what he has done in the past. But anybody who was smart enough to point that out got yelled at, because Democrats love rewarding traitors and idiots with job advancement — look at how Sinema and Manchin got big-name endorsements within the party when they moved from the House to the Senate, despite both of them having already demonstrated that they were actively against nearly everything the party claims to stand for. Look at how Hillary Clinton, a worthless loser who sided with the Republicans over and over in the Senate and lied to push through a pointless war in Libya as Secretary of State, got the Presidential nomination before Biden — the party loves to promote saboteurs and fools.
Vicar (of the singular persuation, proper):
In your imagination, possibly.
Perhaps you even believe that.
Last time I noted you invariably damn and condemn one side of politics, you blithely make claims to the effect the other is so bad it’s not even in the conversation.
Always, since at least 2015, you persist in your denigration of the Democrats and of their elected members. Never, ever, ever a good word.
(Pretty obvious what you are about, really)
—
Ah well, this is a thread for political madness, and madness may manifest as absurd claims made with a straight face.
@#230, John Morales:
Netanyahu’s government has repeatedly said they cannot refuse any demand made by the US because they are too dependent on us to do otherwise. Biden has actively said he won’t demand that they stop their genocide, and is has indicated instead that he is actively in favor of it happening, and is funding it. (We could give every homeless person in the US $24000 with what we’re giving Israel in emergency funding — and that’s not counting the billions they get every year!) He has already lied to justify it (claimed he saw the “video of Hamas killing babies” which turned out to be an invention of the IDF, and the claim was retracted) and accused Palestinians of lying about the death count when they have been able to hand over lists of the people killed. (Over 80 extended families have been completely wiped out. That’s genocide!)
You and the rest of the Democratic Party may be willing to condone all that — in fact, based on your personal history of comments on this blog, you personally are probably thrilled by it — but to people who don’t approve of mass murder and ethnic cleansing it’s horrifying. If you can get away with it, I suppose it will ultimately just be another stain on world history — in 10 or 20 years you’ll be shaking your heads over how you could have permitted yourself to be misled, just as we do now over Iraq and Libya. No doubt Team Biden (other than the man himself — given his age, in 10 years it’s unlikely Biden will still be around) already have somebody to blame for how they were “misled”, although since Biden claimed to have seen video of Hamas killing babies, a claim which has since been retracted and admitted to be false by the IDF, it’s pretty obvious that if anybody is misleading it is Team Biden themselves. (And all the wilder, more inflamatory claims about Hamas are coming from the same sources who told us Iraq had WMDs and the Libyans were taking Viagra to rape more effectively — you know, all the claims which they later admitted, when it was too late, were outright lies.) People like you, who are now being condescending, will deny having backed the genocide just like you deny you backed the invasion of Iraq despite the polls showing that a majority of you must have been in favor of it at the time. By then it will be too late, of course — regrettable, but obviously unavoidable, because actually doing anything would have required that you admit you are fucking wrong now, and you’ll never do that.
I’ve been denigrating the Democrats since 2010, when it became clear that the ACA was (a) deliberately going to be largely pointless — all the useful reforms were basically uncontroversial and could have been passed without mandating private insurance, which was a ridiculously bad thing for the public, and (b) being used cynically by the party as a way to run out the clock on that session of Congress without doing anything about the Too Big To Fail banks and traders or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The party has repeatedly justified my poor opinion of them; there are about 10 Democrats in the federal government who are fit for office; the rest might as well be Republicans.
The Democratic noise machine (which includes all the pro-Biden crowd at this point) hates Trump so much, and claims to actively be afraid he’ll get back into office, but I can’t see any better way to make him win in 2024 than to do as they (and you) are doing. You couldn’t make Biden less appealing to people with actual ethical standards (I know that’s a phrase with which you, like many of the Democratic loyalist imbeciles on this forum, are not familiar) if you were actively giving money to Republican PACs to spend on advertisement. Trying to put lipstick on a pig of this size by providing apologetics for genocide just makes you lose your credibility along with Biden.
(The TLDR version, that is)
Re: The Vicar @ #231…
Your opening is the same argument that was used to object to the Apollo space program. Why not spend that money on peoples needs here on Earth? It overlooked two things. First, the amount spent on the Apollo program would have been lost in the noise when added to then existing support programs, and second, all of the money was spent on Earth (there not being a lot of stores in space or on the Moon).
For the underlying complaint that you make… Do you honestly think that Trump, of all people, would do more to calm things down in the Middle East? If that is what you think, I’d like to know what color the sky is on your planet.
whheydt @228, good to know. There were also women who excelled as snipers. Lots of Russian women did not limit themselves to just making babies for whatever fascist man was in charge. Ditto for women in the Third Reich, as you pointed out. I don’t know why the Kinder (kids), Küche (kitchen), Kirche (church) concept is still being promoted on Russian TV.
Ukraine Update: Ukraine gains in Kherson open up new strategic options
Some limited good news:
Link
As outrage grows over fate of babies in Gaza hospital, Israel offers incubators and fuel
Doctors and health officials in Gaza say Israel’s public gestures are inadequate, given Al-Shifa’s immense needs.
UK experts recommend chickenpox shot for kids for the first time, decades after other countries
That’s the problem. No one is saying, “Hey! We’re backing the wrong horse! The Palestinians are being slaughtered from something one group did. We need to stop them.” Instead, we only have the choice between someone who is turning a blind eye to a genocide (i.e. Biden) and someone who would actively participate in the murder (i.e. Trump). While I’m sure that some galaxy brain will try to explain how choosing the former is ethically better than the latter, I disagree. They’re the same.
No one is rushing in to save the Palestinians. No one is sending their military to stop the IDF and oust Netenyahu. The civilized world has decided to let the Israeli’s run their own Holocaust. To be asked to be complicit to that murder by voting in someone who–for whatever reason–will not stop Israel… Well. you can understand why that pisses some off.
You wouldn’t take this “Lesser of two evils” bullshit from right-wingers? Why should it be better when it comes from a useless lib.
Re: Akira MacKenzie @ #239…
My experience is that voting choices are far too frequently between “the lesser of two evils”. The rare exceptions are something to celebrate. I am not, nor have have been particularly happy with Biden. That said, Trump was, is, and will continue to be an utter catastrophe. Since I expect that the Nov. 2024 election will be Biden versus Trump, with a smattering of third parties–and voting for most third parties will be, in any close state the equivalent of handing the election to Trump, Biden, regardless of what one thinks of him is the choice to avoid the destruction that a second Trump term would bring.
One might have some small hope that Biden won’t survive a second term, in which case I will look forward to having President Harris.
Reginald Selkirk@219,
I have to agree with The Vicar and Akira MacKenzie on this occasion: Biden’s failure to demand a ceasefire (and he’s in a unique position to do so) is so vile that: “But Trump would be even worse!”, while true, is simply grotesque. It makes me particularly glad not to be American, and have to decide whether nonetheless to vote for him next year.
re Lynna @213: Whenever I hear the term “citizen’s arrest”, my thoughts immediately go to Gomer Pyle bleating the term over and over on The Andy Griffith Show. The Orange Idiot is just as silly using the term, but his influence is much more dangerous to the objects of his ire as well as to the country.
@ 240
I understand all of that, However, I’ve of the crazy opinion that “lesser of two evils” thinking is only acceptable for inconsequential policy mattes: e.g.. Where to put stop lights. Whether to zone this plot of land commercial or residential.. Minor stuff. Little stuff.
On the other hand, using it to decide life and death matters like this is-again, in MY CRAZY, INSANE, DELUSIONAL opinion–is unconscionable.
Edit: I understand all of that. However, I’m…
‘City Elders’, a Shadowy Christian Dominionist Group, Organizing Takeover of Cities Across Country
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comment 209.
The Boston Globe’s Jackie Kucinich posted that she “chaperoned a first grade field trip this morning and despite having school every week since Labor Day, there was no name calling, fighting or clean shots to the kidneys.”
While everyone is so eager to heap abuse on the Palestinians, very few are talking about why we have a crises in the first place:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions-of-west-bank-settlers
Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue: YouTube link
Kimmel covers other subjects, but he also talks about fights almost breaking out in Congress.
Stephen Colbert discusses the fact that Donald Trump is a fascist.
YouTube link”
“Souless goon” etc. “The word ‘vermin’ has a hint of Himmler.”
@209 Lynna, OM pointed out the ‘macho’ repugnantcants and their ‘legislation by violence’
Then, I saw this demonstration of literacy in action by ‘Markwayne the Mullet’:
on Digby’s blog a post quoting Mullin: “we looked into the rules.You used to be able to cane. Andrew jackson challenged 9 guys to a duel. And so at the end of the day, there is presence for it”
I say, sounds like his ‘presence’ sets a precedent for stupidity controlling the legislature
Re: my 155 on the asylum seekers entering Finland via Russia
Looks like shit has indeed hit the fan, and faster than I expected. The number of asylum seekers is rising rapidly, and will likely soon reach several hundred per day – more than doubling the total rate Finland normally receives asylum seekers.
That kind of rate could cause processing problems if it was sustained for some time, resulting in tens of thousands of people in total. Lots whining and grumbling from the racists, and from the people who generally oppose spending public money for the benefit of the downtrodden (ie. the exact people who voted our current government in).
But now the nation is already getting into panic mode, because there is good enough indication that the whole thing is being machinated by the Kremlin, likely as a petty punishment for Finland for siding with the West/Ukraine. It might be also intended to test our crisis resilience and preparedness. If it was intended to scare many Finns shitless, and lead them into arguing and demanding that we immediately close the border and ditch asylum agreements, it’s working like a charm. The people who already hate brown asylum seekers are on social media ranting about Russian hybrid warfare soldiers.
The government is reportedly preparing some kind of measures to restrict traffic on the Russian border. There are said to be complications in that process – I suspect because our far-right minister of interior Mari Rantanen is demanding some illegal draconian measures and the border/immigration officials and legal advisers are arguing against those. I expect to see some embarrassing outcome in the international news very soon.
About the Biden/Trump issue, this is a real life trolley problem and that one is no joke and has real world consequences. As much as I despise Biden’s handling of the Israel/Palestinian conflict (actually Palestinian massacre), anyone should know that Trump would be worse for that specific conflict but also for every other existing ones and others that would happen because of Trump being president. And everything else that would be bad inside the US as well (look at project 2025).
Also, there is at least some possibility of change for the better with Biden (if not through him, through his successor) since there are people in the party that do have different opinions and are not completely silenced (still way too much dark influence and dark money though). On the other side, Trump has no one that will influence him to do better but actually many who will lead him to do worse on multiple fronts and even if he dies, the party is only going to go down this path for at least a generation.
I’m a Canadian and I’m also appalled at our Prime Minister’s weakness in going against Biden in the Palestinian massacre and not standing up for needs to be done. He’s now trying to be firmer against the killing but he’s helped make Canada meaningless on the world stage (not that Poilievre would be a good alternative, far from it). And I fear we’ll be collateral damage if Trump comes back in power.
Brazilian Swifties want to literally make Taylor Swift as big as Jesus
Lynna @ # 222, quoting some(Ukrainian?)body on Xitter: Adolf had the same idea for German women: Kinder (kids), Küche (kitchen), Kirche (church).
That “3K” line goes back at least to Bismarck, and maybe further (DuckDuckGo seems offline at present, & I don’t consider this a big enough deal to violate my no-Google rule).
Vicar, Morales, MacKenzie, KG, et al supra – y’all can’t all be missing the greater context (about Biden/Israel etc) by ignorance, can you? Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11 – perhaps the only way to get them to listen (though it doesn’t seem to have worked with the majority of public or politicians). Given the power of the Israeli lobby in DC and media, outright denunciation would weaken Biden while not slowing down Zionist atrocities; he’s tried to play a weak hand pretty well, under the circumstances.
US progressives have played a weak hand very poorly, splitting themselves without producing any measurable effect to aid civilian victims “over there” or educate voters over here. The squabbling at FtB illustrates that in a microcosm.
lumipuna @251, thanks for the update. This is disturbing:
Does sound like something Putin would do, but I see that we need more information before we come to a conclusion.
“Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11…”
Yeah, I’m sure Netenyahu paused to quake in his boots. What Biden SHOULD have said was “The IDF has 24 hours to stop their genocide against the or the United States will level Tel Aviv.” Then he should expel the Israeli consulate and tell AIPAC to go fuck itself.
He won’t even call it a genocide? Will he?
“US progressives have played a weak hand very poorly, splitting themselves without producing any measurable effect to aid civilian victims “over there” or educate voters over here.”
Maybe because that in this shithole capitalist country Progressive don’t have the political or financial power to do anything of significance. This falls on you centrists. You’ve got the money and power. You do something.
Altough, you won’t.
Watch Rachel Maddow’s commentary on the expanding divide between the two parties
Sorry, I’m getting really angry right now… Let me respost:
“Biden not only sucked up to Israel’s emotional response, he tried to temper it by very cogent and relevant reminders of the US’s strategic blunders after 9/11…”
Yeah, I’m sure Netenyahu paused to quake in his boots. What Biden SHOULD have said was “The IDF has 24 hours to stop their genocide against the of the Palestinians or the United States will level Tel Aviv.” Then he should expel the Israeli consulate and tell AIPAC to go fuck itself.
He won’t even call it a genocide? Will he?
“US progressives have played a weak hand very poorly, splitting themselves without producing any measurable effect to aid civilian victims “over there” or educate voters over here.”
Maybe because that in this shithole capitalist country Progressive don’t have the political or financial power to do anything of significance. This falls on you centrists. You’ve got the money and power. You do something.
Although, you won’t.
Akira MacKenzie @ # 256: What Biden SHOULD have said was {stop massacre} or {massacre}…
You consider this a more moral OR more effective response? Pls stop “thinking” with your amygdala.
… in this shithole capitalist country Progressive don’t have the political or financial power to do anything of significance.
Not quite, but close. Progressives have least leverage in foreign/military policy.
… you centrists.
You misinterpret my position, but I haven’t (in this thread) given you much to judge by. Hint: trying to analyze a situation without favoring any given side does not automatically imply centrism.
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Clarence Thomas
On another subject: Akira @256, I do not agree that anyone should follow your suggestion that “the United States will level Tel Aviv.” Furthermore, that comes close to promoting violence, which, as we’ve discussed before, I do not allow on this thread. Let’s not promote violence, not even in an indirect way. Thanks.
Why not. It’s the only language colonizers understand.
Followup to Reginald @221.
Ukraine Officials Who Spun Dirt On Bidens Charged With Treason
Kyiv security services say that Russian intelligence paid $10 million for a network whose claims Giuliani boosted.
Good to see that some bad guys were caught. Also, Giuliani looks so damned gullible.
Childhood Vaccination Rates Are Declining. You Can Blame MAGA.
Not Covid vaccines—the old ones that protect us from measles, whooping cough, and polio.
Stderr provides yet another example of how US governments lie to, and manipulate its citizens.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/stderr/2023/11/12/a-case-study/#more-19630
Lawyer of Georgia defendant in Trump election case admits to leaking witness video
US And China — Yes, THAT China — Agree To Expand Renewable Energy, Ditch Fossil Fuels.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/us-and-china-yes-that-china-agree
For that uncle who says China’s doing ‘nothing.’ Now he’ll say China’s lying. Never mind that uncle, he’s a lost cause.
Louisiana Dipshit Rep. Clay Higgins Knows ‘Ghost Buses’ Full Of Feds Did January 6, WHAAAAAR GHOST BUSES?
https://www.wonkette.com/p/louisiana-dipshit-rep-clay-higgins
OMG. After that pathetic display of macho-man stupidity in a Senate hearing, Markwayne Mullin hastened to Fox News to explain himself, and to offer excuses:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/markwayne-mullin-has-histrionic-pissyfits
More video at the link.
Soccer -moving the goalposts
The day Hammarby Women took 7000 fans to an away game – and won the league .
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/nov/15/hammarby-women-7000-football-fans-away-game-league-win-moving-the-goalposts
US Senator Manchin says has an eye on White House in 2024
Wow, he is delusional.
In this week’s God Awful Movies Noah Lugeons is away resting after literally suffering a heart attack, but Heath Enwright ,Eli Bosnick and “guest masochist” Trinity Pixie are holding the fort.
GAM430 What Is A Woman
https://youtu.be/p55C958d9kE
Yet Another State Is Probing the Trump Fake Elector Scheme
New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy announces run for US Senate seat in 2024
Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas signals her interest in NATO’s top job
Apple’s China ties under Congressional scrutiny after Jon Stewart cancellation
Followup to comments 209 and 268.
What the ever-loving fuck? Markwayne Mullin is still talking:
Link. Video at the link.
More commentary:
Biting? Mullin is a biter? And why are so many bad ideas intersecting here? A supposed “lack of masculinity in the Church”? Why capitalize “Church”? Looks like something similar to what Mormons do when they refer to “The Church,” meaning that only their church is really a church. And why sell cigars to raise money for rescuing children from sex trafficking (supposedly)? So many mind-boggling bad ideas.
Vatican confirms ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons
The Illuminati could not be reached for comment.
Followup to comment 276.
Posted by readers of the article:
More women join lawsuit against Texas for its abortion ban
Speaker pans GOP bill blocking judicial review of Ohio abortion amendment
I haven’t seen a public response yet but my standard replay online is that this is a social (political) confrontation and they will have to get their physical aggression out somewhere else. I either get nothing or variants on threatening to come over (from Florida? It’s only once so far) and I tell them they will get nothing physical. I’ll point other their lack of useful words and general incompetence.
I wonder what a senator would do?
Ukraine Update: Zelenskyy highlights Russian losses in Avdiivka and Ukrainian advances in Kherson
Hamas agrees to tentative deal to free dozens of hostages, pending Israel’s approval.
Washington Post link
Hamas wants a multiday pause in fighting, increased humanitarian aid, and freedom for an unknown number of Palestinians in Israeli jails in exchange for the release of at least 50 women and children being held in Gaza.
Biden and Xi agree to restore military ties, helping ease tensions
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/15/biden-xi-meeting/
The two leaders agreed to restore military-to-military communications and sought to cool U.S.-China tensions
Uh oh..
El Niño reaches ‘strong’ intensity, pointing to a scorching 2024 ahead for the planet
By ABC meteorologist Tom Saunders
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-16/holder-nsw-el-nino-set-to-peak-as-one-of-the-strongest/103104264
Source first, then author, StevoR.
Were someone a simpleton, they might imagin your cited source as the origin of the story, instead of the credited reporter for the story you cited.
Specifically, it cites the “latest NOAA monthly diagnostic report” as its source.
(A bit lazy to go to MSM for such types of news, IMO)
@ 285 StevoR
There’s nothing wrong with your citation, you’re being bullied by an idiot troll.
Crap. The way to get the Israeli government to listen is to say that if they don’t call an immediate ceasefire, American arms supplies, funding, and diplomatic support, will cease forthwith. The USA is in a position to do that and it wouldn’t even be politically costly in domestic terms, although of course in such a clear case of genocidal intent that shuold not be a consideration.
Ah, right, KG. Ta.
Pierce R. Butler@254:
Me on 26 October 2023 on this very blog:
“[…]
See, what I think is that the USA is being a moderating influence on the degree of collective punishment Palestinian people are suffering.
Either Israel holds back a bit (as now), or the billions of dollars in aid might be held back.”
—
Silentbob, heh. If you think so, surely it must be so. For you.
Global decline in male fertility linked to common pesticides
I would be more than happy with that. I just want to see SOMEONE with political power stand up to these bullies and win.
“For decades, mothers have borne the brunt of scrutiny for alcohol use during pregnancy − new research points to dad’s drinking as a significant factor in fetal alcohol syndrome”
https://theconversation.com/for-decades-mothers-have-borne-the-brunt-of-scrutiny-for-alcohol-use-during-pregnancy-new-research-points-to-dads-drinking-as-a-significant-factor-in-fetal-alcohol-syndrome-216601
Epigenetics implicated in dad overdrinking.
Re 251: Aaand here we go
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/16/finland-russia-border-asylum-seekers-us-defence-agreement-sauli-niinisto
Specifically, that’s all crossing points in the southern part of the border, where most of the traffic normally occurs. Until now, the asylum seekers have been guided along the fastest highway route via Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vyborg to the border of southeastern Finland.
It’s not very clear what good the partial border closure is supposed to do, since the asylum seekers can be easily diverted further north, where (as of now) four border stations will remain open, and two of them will remain open for asylum applications. Meanwhile, closing the border entirely would be very difficult in practical and humanitarian terms.
That has been actually going on since 2014, as a result of the escalating Russian aggression on Ukraine, with a notable uptick in early 2022.
Since Wednesday evening, there are reports that Russian security forces are already blocking entry to the southernmost border crossings, and have begun shuttling asylum seekers further north. This was apprently in anticipation that at least the southernmost crossings would be likely closed, which was only announced today. It is highly unclear what will happen next. BTW, the temperatures up north are currently about 10-20 C below freezing.
[The Guardian quotes the usual Kremlin gremlins Maria Zakharova, denying any Russian government involvement in this, and Dmitri Peskov, giving the same stock comment he always gives on anything about Finland these days, blaming Finns on the ruined “good bilateral relations”]
For context, many of the asylum seekers have been traveling on bicycles because it’s cheaper to get a disposable bike than a disposable car. There are no walking lanes on any of the cross-border roads because walking would be generally impractical due to long distances between settlements. The bike ban was a futile bureaucratic attempt to make travel more difficult for the asylum seekers – it has no effect since the Russian border officials have apparently quit participating in the joint enforcement of travel regulations.
That legislation was prompted by the very similar situation between Poland/Lithuania and Belarus in late 2021. Naturally, now our new right wing government is trying to take credit for it.
Russia’s 6th Air Force Army commander found dead under suspicious circumstances
lumipuna @293, thanks for the update.
This text excerpt from your post presents some reasonable conclusions:
BTW, I immediately thought about the cold weather at the northern border crossings. It seems especially cruel to funnel the asylum seekers to the north.
Cartoon: A Calvinesque and Hobbesian look inside Little Donald’s brain
That “laddered CR”? A surprise switcheroo—Mike Johnson’s GOP got played, lost EVERYTHING they wanted
More at the link, including an historical roundup of how Democrats have failed to negotiate well in the past, and how Democrats failed to be ruthless in the past.
A followup, of sorts, to comment 276.
More Republican Congresspersons behaving like uninformed trolls, this time while quizzing FBI Director Chris Wray in a congressional hearing yesterday:
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Trump’s threats
How Money Flowed From Moscow to the Seychelles to Belize to Scotland to a GOP Lobbyist
Mother Jones uncovered a bizarre scheme that rocked Albanian politics. Now there’s more to the story.
Link
Link
Link
Rep. George Santos won’t seek re-election following scathing House Ethics report
Which means he plans to be around until the end of 2024, unless the House can find the spine to get rid of him.
Washington Post link
All the trigger warnings.
I’m considering “fashy fit” for some of these threats to come fight instead of acknowledging a political challenge.
The situation with Mullen and O’Brian has elements of that. The economic aspects have me thinking of other things too.
Reginald @304, I think Republicans will kick him out now. The ethics report is all the “due process” they need, and that report is damning.
Brony @306, and interesting detail from that almost-fisticuffs moment: Markwayne Mullin reached to remove his wedding ring as part of the preparation to fight. Apparently, he approves biting (if he does the biting), but not rings. The whole farce is very performative.
Summary of some news from Gaza:
Link
Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ goes viral 21 years later—on TikTok
Archived letter
TheGuardian – Osama issues new call to arms (2002)
Censorship is counterproductive. Hagiographic praise is reckless at best. Such things need to be shared in a critical context that disarms pernicious hate tropes.
‘High Roller’: Bombshells From Santos Report Include Imaginary Maserati, Spending Sprees On Casinos, ‘Botox’ And OnlyFans
Scared staffers urged Santos to ‘seek treatment’ as he lived the luxe life despite negative bank balances.
I snipped a lot of details. Basically, all of the details add up to this: Santos is a bullshitter who lies about everything all the time; and who lies to everyone, friend and foe alike.
KG @ # 288: The USA is in a position to do that … & John Morales @ # 289: Either Israel holds back a bit (as now), or the billions of dollars in aid might be held back.
Congress is in a position to do that, by telling the Israel lobby to take a flying leap (or even a deep breath). Without that, Joe Biden is not in such a position, and has – particularly while trying to repair institutional damage by his predecessor – very little leverage to do more than he has. Blocking the flow of materiel or money, or sending the fleet(s) back to Italy, would only produce a domestic political struggle of no advantage to Palestinian civilians, Israeli peaceniks, or humanitarian crises in general.
The I-lobby’s power has several footings, including money, elected officials in key positions, support from the hyperchristian and weapons lobbies, institutional inertia, and political mystique. Sfaict, only a gigantic blunder, an outrageous exposé, and/or a massive grassroots backlash could weaken it, and none of those show up on my radar (the backlash a little, but hobbled by the inevitable antisemitic involvement that repels the rest of us; clearly Netanyahu’s blunders & exposures come nowhere near making a significant difference).
New York judge lifts gag order that barred Donald Trump from maligning court staff in fraud trial
Posted by readers of the article:
Ukraine Update: The battle of Avdiivka’s chemical factory will decide the town’s fate
Ridiculous, dishonest garbage. If blocking the flow of money and weapons would be so inconsequential, why is he pushing so hard to speed it up, and being so secretive about what is being sent? I doubt whether the Palestinian civilians being murdered with weapons supplied and paid for by the USA agree with your take. It’s quite clear that sending arms to Israel violates the directive he pronounced only months ago forbidding the supply of arms to countries likely to use them to attack civilians, so he could cite that. Aside from that he could tell the Israeli government – initially in private – that if they do not agree to an immediate ceasefire he will withdraw American diplomats from Israel, throw out theirs from the USA, and sponsor a UNSC resolution condemning their actions. Israel is fundamentally dependent on the USA for arms, money, and diplomatic support. It is just utter crap to whine that Biden can’t do anything. He chooses not to – and makes himself complicit in mass murder.
The National Climate Assessment Has Art, Too. It’s Pretty Cool!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-national-climate-assessment-has
More images and descriptions at the link.
As for the last sentence of yours that I quoted @314, doing the right thing does, often, lead to a political struggle. It should still be done. But in this case, you would have the most powerful person in the world, supported by a majority of the American (and global) population, on one side of that struggle. Here’s an opportunity for Joe Biden to show real leadership, in a righteous cause, and with every chance of prevailing. If he’s too fucking scared of the Israeli lobby to do so, he has no business being President. But I don’t believe – and I don’t believe you believe – that that’s the reason he won’t demand a ceasefire.
Massive cryptomining rig discovered under Polish court’s floor, stealing power
Joe Biden Is A Better Dresser Than Donald Trump
IBM suspends ads on X after corporate ads appeared next to pro-Nazi content
ESF scientist who brought American chestnut tree back from the brink of extinction has died
Re: #312
NYT:
Trump and Aides Immediately Attack Clerk After Gag Order Is Paused
By Jonah E. Bromwich and Alan Feuer / Nov. 16, 2023
Re: #310 on expelling Santos.
Just say it out loud.
KG @ # 314: If blocking the flow of money and weapons would be so inconsequential…
I did not say it would be inconsequential, only that the consequences would be felt more deeply in DC than in Gaza.
It’s quite clear that sending arms to Israel violates the directive he pronounced only months ago…
Yup. Hypocrisy and, um, flexibility in principle in US government go back to Geo. Washington – and occur in some other places, I hear.
… he could tell the Israeli government … that if they do not agree to an immediate ceasefire he will withdraw American diplomats…, throw out theirs…, and sponsor a UNSC resolution condemning their actions.
And, before the sun went down that day, face a major bipartisan impeachment effort and a roadblock on all administration initiatives that would make Tommy Tuberville look like Barack Obama (see the article linked to @ Lynna’s # 297 if that’s not clear). I agree with you that would make the Knesset bend – but in realpolitik, Biden can no more do that than he can send the Fantastic Four to disarm all sides.
KG @ # 316: … you would have the most powerful person in the world, supported by a majority of the American (and global) population, on one side of that struggle.
You could add in Superman and The Incredible Hulk, too, but they’d have to carry out a coup against Congress, SCOTUS, and the corporate media (not to mention much of the public and the military) to make it stick. Have you urged the SNP to hijack a cement truck and rebuild Hadrian’s Wall to fend off those wretched barbarians from the south? How about asking Greta Thunberg to lead a coordinated 100-site commando raid against the collective headquarters of the fossil-fuel industry – they only have a handful of security guards at each office, right? (Maybe a few more at Gazprom and Jiddah…)
We might all enjoy our power fantasies of “what we would do”, but he who has that power in reality knows its limits – and Israel has a vast arsenal of US political kryptonite. (And I think we also agree, justice for Palestinians is not, and never has-been/will-be, Biden’s top priority: probably not even in his top twenty.)
UK first to approve CRISPR treatment for diseases
Follow-up to #309:
Mediaite – Biden White House can’t believe it has to say this but bin Laden bad
NYMag – Is bin Laden really going viral with the kids?
The Left’s unhinged attacks on Mike Johnson reveal their moral rot
It is ridiculous to presume that all Christians are as wacky as Mike Johnson. It is comparable to those wackos who posture that Creationism or being anti-abortion are Christian positions.
Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row
Turns out the early bird ..
… leaves fossilised footrpints from the Creataceous era in Oz. See :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-11-16/oldest-southern-hemisphere-bird-footprints-found-in-victoria/103105476
In much grimmer news the Mekong is dying, dammed, overfished and drying up :
Plus
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/3s2qsuikpf/mekong-the-last-chance-to-save-a-mighty-river
Oh and closer to home (for me) the person facing jail for the atrocities Aussie troops committed in Afghanistan? The whistle-blower of course who exposed them. :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67447254
@326. Reginald Selkirk : “The Left’s unhinged attacks on Mike Johnson reveal their moral rot.” (title / link)
So, lemme get this straight; the reichewing are going full fascist and nazi but its the left who suffer “moral rot” eh? FFS!
Lynna, OM @297: I see that this article you linked to has been retracted, due to ‘due to misinformation arising from confusion regarding military construction and other Department of Defense operations, a distinction reported as early as November 11, 2023. Misinformation is prohibited here per our Rules of the Road.’
@ 326
“Mike Johnson is a religious nut because he adheres to the same faith as 70 per cent of America”
Yes. Yes they are.
Pierce R. Butler@323
Brilliant. Whataboutery that doesn’t even have to say what it’s about. Your own invention?
Right. You’ve just admitted that Biden could halt the mass-murder if he chose. He has therefore made himself complicit in mass-murder. Glad we’re agreed on that.
Funny, I hadn’t heard that the corporate media, the public or the military were something that a coup could be launched against, even in principle. And it’s ludicrous to say that taking diplomatic action against Israel, or even enforcing a directive he gave earlier this year, would be anything even remotely akin to a coup. Of course there would be political and legal challenges. But it seems you hold to the belief that the Israel lobby (or better, call it the Zionist lobby, because a significant fraction of Israelis are not Zionists, and vice versa) has an unchallengeable hold on American foreign policy, and is powerful enough to break a President who stands against it, even with majority public support*. If that is so (personally, I don’t believe it, I think a different president would be quite capable of telling Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire or else), then isn’t it a situation that needs to change? And you could scarcely have either a more pressing or a more promising time to attempt that.
A silly squib, but just FYI: (a) Hadrian’s Wall is located completely within England, and (b) the SNP, and the broader independence movement (minus a vanishingly small segment of racist loons) has no wish to interrupt travel between England and Scotland.
Hmm. It seems you really do buy into the antisemitic “ZOG” conspiracy narrative.
Actually, he’s clearly against justice for Palestinians, which would necessarily involve American coercion of Israel. But this is just about whether he’s against mass-murder. He’s shown that he isn’t.
*You might respond that ifdespite the majority support for an immediate ceasefire, there would not be such support for serious action or threats of action aginst Israel. But American attitudes towards Israel (particularly among Democrats, and including among American Jews) have changed – and the IDF’s campaign of mass-murder is likely to have pushed that change further. So could Biden, if he chose. I don’t know where the term comes from, but don’t Americans say the President has a “bully pulpit”? If he needed to go beyond private threats, Biden could make a nationwide televised address, explaining that he has tried to reason with and restrain the Israeli government, but they are bent on their policy of ethnic cleansing enforced by bombing and starvation, and he cannot in conscience acquiesce in it any longer.
@ 329
Remember, for them ‘morality” isn’t about not causing harm or increasing happiness, but obeying rules. Those who obey their Gawd’s rules are good. Those who don’t… “moral rot.”
Here’s a daily update on the Finnish/Russian border situation.
At some point, I’ll probably have to write a lengthy discussion on the issues with and rules of asylum seeking. The topic is broached in this story by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle:
https://yle.fi/a/74-20060896
During Thursday, a total of 19 Somalian and Syrian citizens showed up on the Estonian border without visas. They were clearly part of the same population (of asylum seekers from Somalia and various Middle Eastern countries) that’s been entering Finland from Russia in somewhat larger numbers during this week. Reportedly, all 19 were turned away back to Russia because “they did not request asylum”.
Now, to a critical thinker, this sounds extremely like Estonian border guards are illegally turning away people who did, in fact, try to request asylum. It is very clear (just from the official statements quoted in media) that Estonians are very much on hair trigger about the recent developments, possibly moreso than Finns. I can understand it in these circumstances, as Russia is clearly testing Estonia’s response. Also, illegally turning away migrants on EU borders wouldn’t be remotely unprecedented.
Yle contacted a relevant spokesperson from Estonia to ask for clarification. The given explanation is that Estonian border guards do not, as a rule, outright ask if someone needs an asylum. You have to be able to actively request asylum, preferably quite clearly and using correct terminology, in some widely understood language. This is supposedly sufficient to fulfill the obligations of international law. Personally, I’m not remotely convinced that this explanation is sufficient for why all 19 were turned away.
Yle also quotes a Finnish border guard spokesperson, who asserts that their policy is to always find out the reason for anyone’s travel across the border (at least for those whose entry is conditional on giving a good reason, like seeking asylum). Soon we’ll see how committed the Finnish border guard is to laws and human rights.
According to this story, a group of eight Somalians were interviewed by someone immediately after their rejection at the Estonian border, and the video was posted by the Russian news outlet Fontanka (link in the story). That, too, seems like a wildly curious coincidence.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20060649
In Finland, the more far-right members of the cabinet are asserting that we will close the entire Russian border from asylum seekers, if the recently announced partial closure (which is just coming into effect in the hours after I post this) doesn’t solve “the issue”. That would indeed be possible according to the new Finnish law, but rather questionable in terms of interpreting international law. In practical and humanitarian terms, it could be a shitshow.
Paul K @330, thank you for that correction! Apologies for posting the article which turned out to contain misinformation. I should have known better.
StevoR @328, thanks for this, Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/3s2qsuikpf/mekong-the-last-chance-to-save-a-mighty-river
That was an interesting, if sobering read. I was struck by the fact that people who did not understand the river ecosystem continue to cause damage. One example:
There’s also this telling detail:
So, all those dams are not working as promised, but they are continuing to trap sediment ….
Lots of problems, few solutions.
KG @ # 332: Whataboutery that doesn’t even have to say what it’s about. Your own invention?
I wrote a direct reply to your statement – do you need me to reiterate same, every time, for you to see the context?
You’ve just admitted that Biden could halt the mass-murder if he chose.
In the same way that I could halt my state’s governor’s proclivities towards fascism – for a brief moment before they hauled me away, if l were cunning and lucky enough to get close. Wanna call me a fascist for not doing that today?
He [Biden] has therefore made himself complicit in mass-murder.
Everyone who takes on the office of US President makes themselves complicit in that. As does everyone who pays taxes to the US government. (And, I must add, those who put their pence in a certain Royal Treasury.)
… it seems you hold to the belief that the … Zionist lobby… has an unchallengeable hold on American foreign policy, and is powerful enough to break a President who stands against it…
By George, I think he’s got it! Yes, the “strongest nation [empire] in the world” is in fact so rickety that at least a dozen different internal power blocs (including the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, the gun lobby, the media corporations, and, yes, the Z-lobby) could monkey-wrench the works enough to grind Washington &/or the economy to a halt. Or, at minimum, they are perceived to have that capability such that no one in elected office dares to challenge them, which has the same effect.
… then isn’t it a situation that needs to change? And you could scarcely have either a more pressing or a more promising time to attempt that.
Yes it does need to change. And yes we have a very pressing time – particularly regarding the environmental crisis and the surge in outright fascism – but I dunno about the “more promising time” (the Bernie Sanders campaigns of ’16 & ’20 showed the most promise we’ve had in two generations, but both fell short, didn’t they?).
A silly squib …
Thanks for the clarification on the H Wall. I still think comparisons with the absurd pertain.
It seems you really do buy into the antisemitic “ZOG” conspiracy narrative.
No, but I’ve watched the Z-lobby slap down US politicians decade after decade, and can’t recall any who got back up again.
… he’s clearly against justice for Palestinians…
Yeah, that would require boat-rocking. Biden fits the classic liberal profile of supporting the “better” options, but only up to that point. The Israelis’ delusion that they could control and forget the Palestinians suited him just fine.
… American attitudes towards Israel (particularly among Democrats, and including among American Jews) have changed…
Attitudes towards guns and CO2 have changed too, with accompanying mass mobilization – and only token law/policy changes. The empire is both shaky and rigid.
… don’t Americans say the President has a “bully pulpit”?
That phrase came from Theodore Roosevelt, back before WW I. Biden could, indeed, set up a nationwide broadcast whenever he wants – and has done so a few times, but wasn’t even able to get his first (and quite popular) pandemic-recovery program through.
PS: While writing this, I took a call from a disabled-veteran friend. He claimed he had been looking up Likud links to Rabin’s assassination-aftermath in ’95, and had his link shut down in mid-read. He rambled too much for me to get details, but the story does illustrate the difficulties in altering American views of Israel/Palestine.
Aileen Cannon Makes A MAL Trial Before Election Day Nearly Impossible
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/aileen-cannon-makes-a-mal-trial-before-election-day-nearly-impossible
White House blasts Elon Musk for antisemitic post. IBM suspends X advertising
Link
Link.
Good news. The court upheld voting rights.
Bad news: Republican state legislators continue to restrict voting rights, and the good guys have to take them to court every time in order to force them to do the right thing.
Heat Index in Rio de Janeiro hits 137.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
More at the link, including a report from the BBC.
From another source:
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/jesse-watters-making-steady-progress
So stupid it’s hard to even read about it:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/fox-newss-harris-faulkner-retracts
Followup to comments 209, 250, 268, 276, and 278.
Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters union leader who was threatened by Markwayne Mullin during a Senate hearing, was interviewed by Fox News:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/teamsters-guy-not-sure-whether-markwayne
Imagination the competion for that honor!
Shutdown prep is exhausting Washington. At least the bartenders are happy.
Washington Post link
Link
Trump accuses Jack Smith of using “inflammatory language” – Chutkan tells him to sit down
Ukraine Update: Putin’s kleptocrats spin old tales as Russia bleeds itself dry
Posted by readers of the article:
More Ukraine news:
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1725516345121386979
News from/about Russia:
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1725526166965019035
Posted by NEXTA.
Posted by NOELREPORTS
Permanently Delete Your X Account in 5 Steps: Elon Musk Boosting Antisemitic Tweet Causes Growing Boycott
Pierce R. Butler@337,
No, I want to call you a liar and a moral coward for pretending that those two situations are even remotely comparable. Biden would not have to break any laws, or evade any security detail, and would not be “hauled away”. This pretense that the POTUS is some powerless nobody is both stupid and sickening.
More ludicrous and dishonest whataboutery. Biden is in the position where he could take speciifc action, which you have agreed would force the Israeli government to agree a ceasefire, and chooses not to do so. Neither you refusing to pay taxes in the USA, nor me doing so in the UK, would have any such effect.
The way to confront evil is not to support it, at most whispering to the mass-murderers that perhaps they could make their intentions a little less obvious, as Biden is doing and as you clearly support him doing. And in strategic terms, taking on and defeating one of those powerful lobbies would make a huge dent in the power of the others, while failing to do so reinforces them – particularly as they clearly overlap considerably.
I’m failing to see any meaningful difference between the ZOG conspiracy narrative and the rest of your #337. You are claiming that the POTUS is helpless in the face of the Zionist lobby – in contradiction to your earlier agreement that there is action he could take which would force the Israeli government to agree an immediate ceasefire.
Then there’s never going to be a time when breaking the hold of the lobbies you name is going to be easy, is there? So if not now – with the immediate and urgent goal of halting a campaign of mass-murder – when? On an issue of foreign policy, where the power of the POTUS is at its greatest, and I’ve identified specific actions which you agreed would have that immediate effect, whatever followed.
Just been watching this. Progress. Stuff learnt :
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/science-environment-67462128
Marjorie Taylor Greene says she isn’t antisemitic because Jesus was ‘a Jewish carpenter’
Donald Trump did engage in ‘insurrection’ on January 6, Colorado judge rules, but can still run for president
14th amendment, section 3
“or hold any office, civil or military” would seem to contradict her logic. When a list ends with “or any others’, normal people, excluding courts, assume it meant what it said.
Elon Musk Promises “Thermonuclear Lawsuit” After Big Brands Pause Ads On X
What a metaphor! Maybe he should put some thought into who survives a thermonuclear incident.
Musk is the latest poster boy for my ‘Tax the Rich’ campaign.
Bolts:
Michigan Law Would Be First to Automatically Register People to Vote As They Leave Prison
Alex Burness | November 17, 2023
The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum tells us what Vladimir Putin is thinking, and how we should respond
Texas secessionists feel more emboldened than ever
Civilians leave al-Shifa Hospital amid ‘dangerous’ evacuation operation
@362
Let me guess: This creep is a Prosperity Gospel preacher.
Oh, and [Emphasis mine]
I’m not part of what PZ called a ‘religious war’ regarding tech ($130 apple cable vs. others) but this is great:
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/3037.gif
(I tried the html img tag but that didn’t show it here. The ‘markup’ rules for wordpress are arcane and I’ve asked them for info, but got no response. sigh)
KG @ # 355: … I want to call you a liar and a moral coward …
Time for a deep breath and a little thought: I have no actual influence on the situation, just some time to read & think on it. I’ve learned that rage and ranting and lining up my-side-right-or-wrong produce little of use, and ideas that generally don’t work. In this case, I support the general thrust of increasing pressure on Biden to stop promoting war crimes, but I also want to understand the matrix of political pressures affecting him and all the other major actors in SWANA (SouthWest Asia & North Africa, a label I prefer above “Middle East”).
And yes, I think a flat-out opposition to Israel’s genocide-in-the-making would get Biden “hauled away” – not like, say, Honduran Pres. Zelaya in 2009, but effectively rendered powerless almost immediately, and replaced by D Trump in 14 months (or K Harris, or M Johnson, sooner). Your appeals to POTUS power as an absolute constant simply do not match the political reality I see in this country.
Biden is in the position where he could take speciifc action, which you have agreed would force the Israeli government to agree a ceasefire, and chooses not to do so.
Rishi Sunak is in a position where he could end the war on Ukraine tomorrow by launching a missile at Moscow today. Presumably you would disagree with him doing that; with a view to the day-after-tomorrow consequences; I see a similar problem – with a few more dominos to count, some less tangible but equally predictable – in Biden’s dilemma. That doesn’t mean I support Biden, any more than you (I gather) support Sunak, except in his specified inaction.
The way to confront evil is not to support it…
When one is a hobbit contemplating orcs marching on the Shire, indeed. As an American challenging and adapting to various degrees of horribleness since the days of Richard Nixon, I have long since lost the option of no-evil-whatsoever. (Cue a chorus of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”…)
And in strategic terms, taking on and defeating one of those powerful lobbies would make a huge dent in the power of the others…
And passing Medicare-for-All would dent the power of US insurance companies, and banning semi-automatic rifles would shrink the gun lobby, and nationalizing General Motors & Exxon (with a green mandate) would ameliorate the climate crisis, and slipping a powerful laxative into the water bottles at the next Republican convention would reduce the threat of fascist takeover. So far, the only recent efforts of mine which have made a difference involved a little help with campaigns to reject R. DeSantis appointees to the local county commission and school board, and (maybe) helping hold together a peace group splintering over aid to Ukraine (at least Hamas & Netanyahu have brought us together there!).
I’m failing to see any meaningful difference between the ZOG conspiracy narrative and the rest of your #337.
Dunno how to help you with that, except by urging you to read up on the US Israel lobby, and on the US peace movement – Brobdingnag & Lilliput, respectively.
You are claiming that the POTUS is helpless in the face of the Zionist lobby – in contradiction to your earlier agreement that there is action he could take …
No, there is action Congress could take, were it much less corrupt, compromised, and confused, to bring Israel to heel – but Biden on his own, short of a Napoleonic coup, has no such power. Could Sunak unilaterally redirect the Royal Navy’s budget to NHS & windfarms?
… there’s never going to be a time when breaking the hold of the lobbies you name is going to be easy, is there?
Nope.
So if not now … when?
We have a possible shot at a minor win almost twelve months from now, or more likely, with luck, just blocking a terminal loss.
Unfortunately, that requires backing Biden, or maybe Harris (whom I doubt would do anything much better). You have seen the reports about Schedule F, Project 2025, etc, right?
A video about two related stone circles in Aberdeenshire built ca. 2500 BC.
-Astronomy and units of lenghts.
(As my cellphone cannot distinguish between lower-case L and I there will be four links to ensure one of them is the right one)
https://youtu.be/dI0baOHFoBI
https://youtu.be/dI0baOHFoBl
https://youtu.be/dl0baOHFoBI
https://youtu.be/dl0baOHFoBl
OK, it’s the top link that leads to the video of two different -but clearly related- stone circles, built in Scotland 4,500 years ago.
shermanj @366, that is funny. Good cartoon.
In other news: Media Matters’ response to Elon Musk’s ‘thermonuclear’ threat is a must-read
Emissions from the central black hole, Sagittarius A* every 76 minutes.
Something is orbiting with a velocity 30% the speed of light and interacting with the accretion disc.
https://youtu.be/MuBdajXtEZw
So they’re going to run their own borders, which will be about doubled in length from the current borders, and it won’t cost a thing! It’s a miracle!
‘Queen of Canada’ Romana Didulo and her followers leave Sask. village school after 2 months
GOP senator says House Jan. 6 panel should be probed after release of tapes
I guess he couldn’t find time to list specific way in which release of the tapes would change the narrative on what happened. It’s just a vague, substance-free accusation.
Denmark sends unique surface drones to Ukraine
After The Human
Who would be silly enough to ask a professor of religion about a biological theory?
A Russian general who was critical of the army’s operation was found dead
It says “unknown circumstances”, but if they were “in their bedroom” I guess that means no windows were involved.
@ 376 Reginald Selkirk
Who would be silly enough to think evolution has a “last stage”, or that any other extant species has less of a claim? X-D
@378: Not I.
@376
I was always under the impression that the “last stage of evolution” was extinction.
Some good news for Sunday … a mix of culture and politics by Pink:
Link
Ukrainian news:
More at the link, including video of Ukrainian’s destroying a Russian TOS-1A Thermobaric Rocket Launcher, the 13th one they’ve destroyed.
See also: The Case for Supporting Ukraine Is Crystal Clear
Note to Congress: Ukraine aid is not charity but serves critical U.S. interests.
https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1725590995604046180
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/disappeared-sunday-on-60-minutes/
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1725838110112514550
Yes, a bunch of soldiers are in a pit, partially naked. Video, with English subtitles at the link.
A sinking and thirsty Mexico City imposes drastic months-long water restrictions.
Rishi Sunak’s cabinet shuffle won’t fix the UK’s Tories’ problems
Suella Braverman is out, and David Cameron is back. Conservatives are still bitterly divided.
Israel-Hamas war live updates: Hostage deal close but not finalized, sources say
Gaza’s main hospital is now a “death zone,” the WHO said, while dozens of premature babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa as Israeli forces continue to operate at the facility.
Summary:
More details:
Limited good news:
Archaeologists Unearth a Secret Lost Language From 3,000 Years Ago
Ukraine Update: How we know most of Krynky is Ukrainian controlled
Rosalynn Carter, outspoken former first lady, dead at 96
Militants believed to be Houthi rebels use helicopter to seize Japanese tanker in Red Sea
The attack off the coast of Yemen comes just days after the Houthis issued a graphic with captions in Hebrew, Arabic and English that said, “We will sink your ships.”
US to offer more free COVID tests nationwide
A Harvard professor claimed balls found in the ocean were alien tech. They may have just been industrial waste.
Top Ukrainian cyber defence officials sacked amid corruption probe
School district and The Satanic Temple reach agreement in lawsuit over After School Satan Club
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Study yields new insights into why some people get headaches from red wine
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2023/11/20/new_data_coming_today_will_give_a_clearer_picture/
The article includes an image showing the relationship of various landmarks involved in the ongoing activity. The view is looking south, just so you have a reference.
NYT:
Federal Court Moves to Drastically Weaken Voting Rights Act
By Nick Corasaniti / Nov. 20, 2023
US Army tests new missile set to replace ATACMS, weapons Ukraine has used to punish Russia’s helicopter fleet
The Ever-Receding ‘Day After’, by Josh Marshall
tomh @399, sorry to see that bad news, bad indeed!
In other news, Moms for Liberty leader turns out to be a convicted sex offender
Argentina elects ‘madman’ Trump admirer amid economic crisis
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/maria-brainworms-strikes-again
A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams
Worth noting that the Chinese authorities (aka Xi Jinping) say it wasn’t a lab leak and it wasn’t from a wet market, it came to China from somewhere else, probably on frozen food packaging, so there.
Commercial Flights Are Experiencing ‘Unthinkable’ GPS Attacks and Nobody Knows What to Do
Texas attorney general opens investigation into Media Matters for ‘potential fraudulent activity’
Paxton is not upholding the law, he is taking sides.
White House And Joe Biden’s Campaign Launch Threads Social Media Accounts
@Reginald Selkirk
Paxton has a similar sensitivity to criticism of antisemitism I think.
‘The game is over’: Conservatism’s biggest conference group is now in dire trouble
Trump allies scouring social media for army of MAGA loyalists to help dismantle U.S. government
Posted by readers of the article:
Cartoon: Cognitive candidate
Private Club Member Eric Adams Really Sorry Those Migrants Made Him Slash Budget For Libraries, Schools, Rat Control
https://www.wonkette.com/p/private-club-member-eric-adams-really
Hate The $90 Turkeys At The Joe Biden $90 Turkey Store
https://www.wonkette.com/p/hate-the-90-turkeys-at-the-joe-biden
NATO members are preparing a special operation to clear Black Sea of mines
https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-york-times-stunned-biden-would
Reginald @417, good plan!
In other news: Biden says ‘things are looking good’ on Hamas releasing hostages
Cautious optimism.
The Republican Party brand continues to crater with voters, including its own
Those graphs show promising trends. I hope the trends hold up well and that the Republican Party sinks further.
Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn’t Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It!
Dexter Wade, buried alone in Mississippi, finally gets the funeral he was denied
Civil rights leaders called for justice for Dexter Wade, 37, who was run over by an off-duty police officer in Jackson, Mississippi, and buried in a pauper’s field.
Good news about skin cancer. New treatment option to prevent metastases
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-skin-cancer-therapy-option-metastases.html
Good news about skin cancer. New treatment option to prevent metastases
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-skin-cancer-therapy-option-metastases.html
US government addresses domestic chipmaking weaknesses with $3 billion advanced packaging program as part of the CHIPS Act
Musk could attract people who don’t like criticism of other bigotries too. They want to keep their tools.
More medicine:
Researcher finds help for Alzheimer’s-associated agitation with new FDA-approved treatment
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-alzheimer-associated-agitation-fda-approved-treatment.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-gunship-strikes-back-iran-linked-militants-injured/story?id=105070277
I didn’t know the US still had/were still operating AC-130s.
Liz Cheney slams ‘nutball conspiracy theorist’ Mike Lee for pushing Jan. 6 lie
Posted by readers of the article:
Update on the Finnish/Russian border situation:
Since the southern part of the border was closed on Friday night, moderate numbers of asylum seekers have been showing up further north, where two of the four remaining border stations continue to accept asylum applications. In the south, a record number (about 220) crossed the border during Friday, after the impending closure had been announced. There was also an uptick in other traffic, as people with family or other business across the border rushed to make arrangements. The closure is tentatively expected to last for three months, though it might be extended or ended earlier.
In the short term, additional restrictions seem almost certain. There is apparently currently a heated argument between the cabinet ministers and their legal advisers, on whether the Russian border could/should be closed entirely for asylum applications. In practice, that’d apparently mean halting all traffic (other than the cargo trains still running at the Vainikkala railroad crossing, where passenger trains were suspended long ago), because otherwise it’s not feasible to push asylum seekers back. The southern border crossings have been closed with barricades, and still a few people slipped through over the weekend.
(Reading the news lately, I have learned that the Finnish name for concertina wire is formally literally “cylinder obstacle” and informally “Nato wire”.)
(Another thing I’ve learned that the Polish/Belarusian border crisis is actually still ongoing at low intensity. Apparently, significant numbers of migrants have been lingering often for long times in Belarus, attempting to sneak across the border into Poland, and occasionally succeeding. Recently, many of them have been recruited to attempt crossing from Russia into Finland.)
There is increasing evidence that someone is bussing people across northwestern Russia to almost within sighting distance of the Finnish border. Presumably, that’s either the security service FSB, or private human smugglers working with a special pass from the FSB. The roads leading to the Finnish border stations of Vartius and Salla run hundreds of kilometers across mostly uninhabited subarctic forests. Reportedly, migrants have been lodging in a hotel or otherwise hanging around in the mining town of Kostamuksha, east of Vartius, confusing and concerning the locals.
After a group of migrants unloads from a bus, for the last few hundred meters, they walk or ride disposable bicycles or electric scooters. The Russian border guards close the road behind them with a gate, blocking all traffic until the migrants have been guided further by Finnish border guards. Many of the migrants have just barely enough clothing to survive as short while outdoors, until they’re led into heated tents that have recently been installed at the two border stations. The temperature in Salla area has today dropped below -20C, which is colder than usually at this time of the year. While the world as a whole broils with a mind-melting 2C positive temperature anomaly, breaking all global warming predictions, northern Scandinavia is pretty much the only place where it’s significantly colder than seasonal average.
Ukraine, the Cherson region.
Pontoon bridges over the river, the beachheads seem robust.
(I like this youtube source, it has been relatively reliable)
https://youtu.be/g8iTxjYGztE
‘Breakthrough battery’ from Sweden may cut dependency on China
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/21/breakthrough-battery-from-sweden-may-cut-dependency-on-china
The battery from Northvolt needs no scarce raw materials like lithium.
BTW the factory in North Sweden mentioned is not far from where I live- that town is going through a boomtown phase now, not something you are much in the sparsely populated north. 😊
lumipuna @430, thank you for the update. It looks like the Russians are using asylum seekers/immigrants as sort of chaos agent.
Birger @431, thank you for that update. Looks like good news for Ukraine’s military.
In other news: Fani Willis appears in court to argue that Trump co-defendant’s bond should be revoked in Georgia
Biden urged to make Social Security expansion part of 2024 platform
Donald Trump files frivolous $1.5 billion suit against 20 media outlets
Harsh reality of war, as posted on Russian Telegram by Military Commander “Kitten”:
Link. Scroll down to view the text quoted above.
From the same link, different post, by Tymofiy Mylovanov:
Cassidy Hutchinson:
The actor Joss Ackland, known for many roles including South African baddie fighting Mel Gibson (also in a surrealistic musical with the Pet Shop Boys that turned out to be a disaster) has died. He was 95.
I recall him from several Brit films, his peculiar face made him a great film villain.
Maybe “distinctive” face is a better fit than “peculiar”. He was a bit like Ron Perlman that way, often picked for roles playing villains.
Ukraine update: Russia and Ukraine wrestle for position in the east as General Mud takes the field, by Mark Sumner
Followup to comment 440.
Posted by readers of the article:
Israel’s cabinet approves deal for release of some hostages
(with several updates)
Founder of far-right Catholic site resigns over breach of its morality clause, group says
Democratic division blocks effort to end Michigan’s 24-hour wait for an abortion
“We want them infected:” The Deadly COVID Policy
Posted by readers of the article:
Iowa official’s wife found guilty on all 52 counts of voter fraud charges
The article seems negligent in mentioning their Republican Party affiliation.
Two more House lawmakers announce they won’t run for reelection
An Elon scam I hadn’t heard before
See also: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-insurance/
Israel-Hamas war live updates: Israeli government agrees to hostage deal
The deal could include exchanging around 50 women and children for around 150 Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners, sources say.
This sea worm has a strange reproduction.
Imagine if your penis or labia grew eyes and limbs and broke off, doing its own thing (I recall the robot Kryten from Red Dwarf building something like that).
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-sea-worm-posterior-scientists.html
World’s richest 1% emit as much carbon as bottom two-thirds: report
Putin says we must think how to stop ‘the tragedy’ of war in Ukraine
There may be one very simple way which has seemingly not occurred to him.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/the-election-is-rigged-for-trump
And: Wall Street Journal link
How one judge is slowing down one of Trump’s biggest criminal cases
Details at the link.
Former Univision president calls Trump interview ‘a real insult to the Hispanic community’
Influential Hispanics are speaking out.
Ana Navarro slams Univision for softball Donald Trump interview: ‘What the hell is going on?’
It was not just Univision executives who were there in person for the Trump interview. Jared Kushner was also there.
Posted by readers of the first article:
Link
Link
Bernie Sanders: Justice for the Palestinians and Security for Israel
New York Times link
Utah Republican seeking to replace Romney accused of falsifying endorsements, strong-arming GOP for support
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Re 460: I’ve noticed for years that “viability” is a hot buzzword in the US abortion debate, yet it’s not clear to me why it is considered relevant.
Update to 430:
It was just announced that Finland will close most of the remaining border crossing points for four weeks, starting this Friday night. One border station (Raja-Jooseppi) will remain open (also for asylum applications) in the far north, near where the Norwegian border begins.
This is clearly not what the cabinet wanted, but rather what they were legally able to do. It is easy to predict that, with this arrangement, the entry of asylum seekers will just move further north. When reporters suggested this at a press conference, Prime Minister Orpo brushed it away saying that the near-complete closure will “send a message” and that the remoteness of Raja-Jooseppi might deter migration, and if not, we can still resort to some unspecified more extreme measures that currently wouldn’t be reasonably warranted.
Russian propaganda is accusing Finland of resorting to border closures “without warning” (there were various complaints from the Finnish Border Guard to their Russian equivalent in the early stages of the crisis), and currently of “refusing dialogue” (there have been attempts at dialogue on high level in the recent days). Kremlin propaganda points out how the border closure is disrupting the lives of some Finnish and Russian citizens (true, if extremely minimal compared to the disruption experienced by Ukrainian citizens in the past two years…) and how some migrants have been forced to camp outdoors in freezing weather (possibly true, as a few campfires have been spotted across the closed border in the south – naturally in this case it’d be a matter of Russian authorities failing to provide assistance).
In related news: Small groups of migrants keep getting turned away at the Estonian border, ostensibly because none of them ever request asylum (see my comment at 334). Also, I just learned that in recent months, large numbers of migrants have been pushed (by Belarusian officials) from Belarus into Latvia.
Re #458
It’s interesting that the number of deaths from Hamas is put in a US per capita equivalent while the Palestinian deaths are left as an absolute number.
Apropos of nothing, a very serious comment from a Finnish political researcher and armchair security expert I’ve been following:
https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1727089220408217874
lumipuna @461:
Same here actually. I don’t think it is meant to make a lot of medical or scientific sense. Anti-abortion activists use the word “viability” to obscure their true mission (banning all abortion no matter what), and they use it to make themselves sound reasonable when they are not. I think some anti-abortionists use the word to make their cult followers think of most (if not all) fetuses as “viable.”
It’s weird. Where is the pregnant person and that person’s rights in all of this discussion of viability?
Also, I should mention that many of the most fringe extremists continue to claim that Democrats want to allow “abortion” right up to and including moment of birth. That is not a thing.
Republican congressional candidate’s wife convicted of 52 counts of voting fraud
Arkansas state government is advertising a Christian school that bans LGBTQ+ students
Border crossing closed after vehicle explosion on bridge connecting New York and Canada
2 dead after vehicle explosion on Rainbow Bridge connecting US and Canada
Ukraine Update: Hungary’s Orban joins kindred spirits in US House to obstruct Ukraine aid
Capitol Rioter Convicted After Judge Slams His Defense As ‘Gobbledygook’
Correction to my 461: The new border closure measure will take effect on Thursday evening.
Note from The Netherlands: I now know how you felt in the USA on the morning of 9 November 2016.
One More One/Two State Discussion Before Thanksgiving! by Josh Marshall
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/one-more-one-two-state-discussion-before-thanksgiving
Link
Follow up on #468
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/nyregion/rainbow-bridge-explosion-niagara-falls.html
If you look at the video at the link, it looks like this could well be a case of unintended acceleration either through a car malfunction or through a driver health issue. Or it could be intentional but that would seem strange due to the type of vehicle and the trajectory; I doubt that someone would have planned it that way expecting such a result.
Glencore plan to poison and damage the life-giving underground water basin at the heart of our dry continent. They expect to be able to get away with it? Will they? See :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-11-23/great-artesian-basin-carbon-capture-project-opposition/103080402
The museum of North Herthshire (I might be borking the spelling) will refer to the emperor/empress Elogabal/Heliogabalus as “she” as this ruler identified as such.
SQB @ 472
Also, consider Argentine…
It does not matter that we have seen how things turn out in Britain, USA, Hungary and Dumbfuckistan .
Some voters (a k a “low-information voters”) do not care about lessons from other countries.
In Sweden we have an ugly compromise: A coalition supported by a populist party that is not part of the government but dictates much of the government policies.
We’ve had that in the Netherlands, a little over ten years ago, with the PVV, the same populist party that’s now the largest. It blew up after about two years.
US nuke reactor lab hit by ‘gay furry hackers’ demanding cat-human mutants
Recommended – it puts our brief lives in perspective
“Origin of stone circles 7000 years ago.
Prehistory documentary ”
https://youtu.be/IXns3edfdVc
or maybe
https://youtu.be/lXns3edfdVc
Colorado Supreme Court will hear appeal of ruling that Trump can stay on ballot despite insurrection
Mike Johnson Says His High School Friends Would Have Claimed to Be Trans to Spy on Girls
I call bullshit. Mike Huckabee said something similar several years ago. There is no way these cowards would face the culture of hate they are fostering.
Netherland news from yesterday:
Link
Brian Beutler:
Commentary:
Link
Molly Ivins on Thanksgiving Day 2005:
Historical info: “Brownie,” President George W. Bush said, “you’re doing a heckuva job.”
Link
Senator Bill Frist supported the Iraq war. When he was Senate majority leader (2003-2007) he pushed through the Bush administration’s third major tax cut. In good deeds, he helped to pass the president’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). He supported global health investments. There was a lot of controversy about stem cell lines from embryos, with federal funding being limited or prohibited. Frist progressed from supporting prohibitions in 2001 to saying in 2006 that the limits on cell lines available for federally funded research was too restrictive. James Dobson and other Christians lobbied against Frist’s proposed legislation. Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded federal funding for stem cell research to include stem cells derived from embryos.
From wikipedia (and probably the issue to which Molly Ivins was referring):
Ukraine says it’s new drone can fly 20 miles and is resistant to electronic jamming
NYT
By Luke Broadwater, Alan Feuer and Angelo Fichera
Nov. 23, 2023 / Reporting from Washington
The brouhaha about the firing and reinstatment of Altman is apparently about an algoritm that some in the organisation fear will lead to bona fide artificial general intelligence.
NO!
We are up to our necks in real disastrous problems, we do not need distractions.
Unlike “cultural marxism” and other drivel from Fox News GAI is theoretically possible, but we are nowhere near it.
Deep learning is a clever extention of neural networks that is a very useful tool, but just because a parrot can speak words it is not going to write a Shakespeare play.
You can expect media to produce lots of BS about the topic over the next few weeks instead of writing about the trash fire that is the House, or the failure to make meaningful reductions of CO2 emissions.
YouTube link to Amanda Gorman, the inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S., performing a poem about what the holiday means to her. The 20-year-old is a junior at Harvard University. She performs her composition, “The Republic Gives Thanks.” …
Followup to comment 489.
See also: https://www.wonkette.com/p/uniting-around-any-piece-of-peace
Washington Post link
Link
Chinese hospitals ‘overwhelmed with sick children’ after surge in respiratory illness
China has reported an increase in respiratory illnesses as it enters its first full flu season.
The WHO says the spike is caused by known pathogens, and does not pose a global threat.
Orcas Pummel Boat After Crew Tries To Deter Them With Heavy Metal Music
Interesting how you never hear about a hospital being overwhelmed with healthy children.
Christian university severs ties with prof after investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour
@496
Nevada judge rejects attempt to get abortion protections on 2024 ballot
Man Arrested After 200 Allegedly Stolen Truck Mirrors Found in Virginia Home
Source : https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/if-we-re-willing-to-imprison-outsiders-for-life-we-must-ask-who-are-we-20231117-p5eku1.html?btis=&s=04
Good question and informative, thoughtful article here by Julia Baird, a journalist, broadcaster, historian and author, if folks can read it? Semi-subscriber-walled I gather, so may or may not be accessible to all here?
Some more excerpts from it :
As the article concludes too : “Isn’t a measure of a society how we treat the despised and marginalised?”