Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    California bans legacy admissions at all colleges

    It will soon be illegal for public and private universities in California to consider an applicant’s relationship to alumni or donors when deciding whether to admit them.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a ban on the practice known as legacy admissions, a change that will affect prestigious institutions including Stanford University and the University of Southern California.

    California’s law, which will take effect Sept. 1, 2025, is the nation’s fifth legacy admissions ban, but only the second that will apply to private colleges…

  2. Reginald Selkirk says

    These male flamingos are ‘doing a great job’ raising a chick together

    It was pretty obvious that two male flamingos at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park wanted to start a family together, say staff.

    The duo, neither of whom had ever raised a chick in their 40 or so years at the zoo, recently started acting as if they were incubating an egg together, taking turns sitting on an empty nest.

    But they are empty-nesters, no longer. The pair is now raising a healthy and growing baby bird, after staff gave them an egg of their very own to hatch…

    But first, Lutomski says, they gave the birds, both members of the lesser flamingo species, a fake egg in July to see what would happen. This, he says, is necessary because, in the past, some flamingos have rejected eggs that weren’t theirs, or even acted aggressively toward them.

    Not so for these boys.

    “Once we did give them the fake egg you could, like, see it right away. They ran over to the nest. They started talking back and forth with each other. One of them got on the nest right away and sat on it and started keeping it warm,” Lutomski said.

    So staff swapped the fake egg for a real one, which hatched last month. Now they are proud papas to a baby flamingo, also known as a flaminglet…

    Male birds raising chicks together is not unheard of.

    Curtis and Arthur, male flamingos in a U.K. zoo, hatched an egg in August. Male penguins Elmer and Lima did the same at a New York zoo in 2022. Male vultures hatched and raised an abandoned egg at a zoo in Amsterdam in 2017.

    It happens in the wild, too. In 2019, As It Happens reported on a trio of bald eagles, one female and two male, raising eaglets together in the wilderness of Illinois. ..

  3. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Elia Ayoub (10-04)

    Israel has bombed the main road leading out of Lebanon to Syria. Lebanon has only two land borders, Syria and Israel. It’s progressively becoming a blockade.

    UN

    people at the Masnaa crossing were so “desperate to flee Lebanon that they walked actually through that destroyed road”. […] between 21 September and 3 October, approximately 235,000 people had crossed into Syria overland […] over the same period, [60,000] had flown out of Beirut airport and around 1,000 had fled by sea.
    […]
    Humanitarians said that there was particular concern for the plight of Lebanon’s 180,000 migrant workers—many of whom are female domestic staff—who have been left destitute by the mass displacement. “We are receiving increasing reports of migrant domestic workers being abandoned by their Lebanese employers; either left on the streets or in the homes as their employers flee…They come from Ethiopia, from Kenya, from Sri Lanka, Sudan, Bangladesh and the Philippines. And they too have been deeply affected by the violence in the country.”

     
    Politico

    Israeli military on [10-03] warned people to evacuate communities in southern Lebanon that are outside a U.N.-declared buffer zone, signaling it may widen a ground operation launched earlier this week […] Meanwhile, Israeli forces said they had struck around 200 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon
    […]
    The World Health Organization reported that 28 health workers were killed in the past day in Lebanon, and access to medical care is becoming limited as three dozen health facilities closed in the south and five hospitals were either partly or fully evacuated in Beirut.

    The Lebanese health minister said Israeli strikes that hit nine hospitals and 45 health care centers violate international law and treaties.
    […]
    The Lebanese Red Cross said an Israeli strike wounded four of its paramedics and killed a Lebanese army soldier as they were evacuating wounded people from the south. It said the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted Thursday despite coordinating its movements with U.N. peacekeepers.

  4. Reginald Selkirk says

    Neo-Nazis head to encrypted SimpleX Chat app, bail on Telegram

    Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

    In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that in the wake of the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov and charges against leaders of the so-called Terrorgram Collective, dozens of extremist groups have moved to the app SimpleX Chat in recent weeks over fears that Telegram’s privacy policies expose them to being arrested. The Terrorgram Collective is a neo-Nazi propaganda network that calls for acolytes to target government officials, attack power stations, and murder people of color…

  5. Reginald Selkirk says

    UK has more atheists than people who believe in God, new research claims

    The UK now has more atheists than people who believe in God, new research has said, with experts saying ‘the UK is entering its first atheist age’.

    The news comes from the global project Explaining Atheism which explains why atheism has grown both in the UK and around the world.

    The research team found that the common notion of the “purposeless unbeliever”, lacking a sense of ultimate meaning in life, objective morality, and strong values is not accurate, challenging the stereotype that atheists lead lives devoid of meaning, morality, and purpose.

    The research team surveyed nearly 25,000 people from across six countries (Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, UK, and US) around the world to find out why people become atheists and agnostics.

    They also brought together converging results from the British Social Attitudes Survey and World Values Survey to show the UK now has a relative majority of atheists.

    The research project is led by principal investigator, Professor Jonathan Lanman from the school of history, anthropology, philosophy and politics at Queen’s, Dr Lois Lee from the University of Kent and Dr Aiyana Willard from Brunel University London; working in collaboration with colleagues Dr Connair Russell from Queen’s; Professor Stephen Bullivant from St Mary’s University, Twickenham and; Dr Miguel Farias from Coventry University; and a number of additional international researchers.

    The project was funded by the John Templeton Foundation and ran over a three-year period…

  6. Reginald Selkirk says

    Psilocybin boosts mind perception but doesn’t reduce atheism

    A recent study published in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs found that while psychedelic experiences increased mind perception across various entities, they did not significantly change individuals’ Atheist-Believer status.

    The relationship between psychedelics and belief systems has long fascinated researchers, particularly the possibility that psychedelics like psilocybin might alter spiritual or religious beliefs. Previous cross-sectional studies suggested that psychedelic experiences could lead to shifts in metaphysical beliefs or religious identifications, with some participants reporting increased spirituality and reduced atheism after using these substances. However, these earlier studies had various biases, such as relying on retrospective accounts and self-selection among participants already interested in belief changes.

    Sandeep M. Nayak and colleagues addressed these limitations by conducting a prospective longitudinal study to assess how psilocybin, a well-known psychedelic, impacts belief systems and mind perception…

    1) Italics by me for emphasis. Can anyone translate this?
    2) Why should taking drugs make you more religious? It ought to be extremely obvious that the altered states you are experiencing are due to the drugs.

  7. birgerjohansson says

    33=half of 66 which looks a bit like 666.
    We are only half-evil. We can do better than this!

  8. birgerjohansson says

    I keep checking celebrities that have recently turned 78, which -if they ran for office- would make them better 78-year-old-candidates than the other one.

    I learned Susan Sarandon turned 78 yesterday. And she was in the vampire film The Hunger with David Bowie and
    Catherine Devenue. That makes her doubly qualified.
    Unlike Hillary Clinton she does not eat children in the basement of a pizza shop, but nobody is perfect.

  9. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @9:

    1) Can anyone translate this?
    2) Why should taking drugs make you more religious?

    Another report of the paper reads:

    mind perception (the ability to attribute consciousness or mental states to entities like animals, plants, or even inanimate objects)
    […]
    “Replicating previous findings, we observed increases in mind perception across a variety of living and non-living targets (e.g. plants, rocks)”, states the study. “However, we found little to no change in metaphysical beliefs (e.g. dualism) or Atheist-Believer status.”

  10. birgerjohansson says

    Sixty years ago, there was a lot of BS of how drugs could help expand the mind.
    A lot of this was new-age pseudo-religous stuff, partly rooted in the role psychoactive drugs played in ceremonies among pre-modern cultures especially indians.

    Also, I can totally beleve lots of people met god during a trip.

  11. StevoR says

    ^ A lot just OD & died too. Or caught varuous diseases from infected needles or ruined their lives by become addicted etc..

  12. says

    NBC News:

    At least 223 people have died and hundreds are unaccounted for in the destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene since it made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26. More than a week later, some residents and communities remain isolated, hundreds of thousands are without power, and spotty service has made communication difficult.

  13. says

    NBC News:

    resident Joe Biden said Friday he was confident that the November election would be ‘free and fair’ but expressed concerns that it may not be “peaceful.”

  14. says

    NBC News:

    Stocks advanced on Friday after an expectation-defying jobs report gave investors confidence around the health of the economy. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% to 5,751.07, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.22% to 18,137.85. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 341.16 points, or 0.81%, to notch an all-time closing high of 42,352.75.

  15. says

    Top Execs Exit Trump Media Amid Allegations of CEO’s Mismanagement and Retaliation

    Several people involved with the former president’s company, operator of Truth Social, believe the departures were retaliation following internal complaints about CEO Devin Nunes to the company board.

    This article first appeared at ProPublica.

    Former President Donald Trump’s media company has forced out executives in recent days after internal allegations that its CEO, former Rep. Devin Nunes, is mismanaging the company, according to interviews and records of communications among former employees.

    Several people involved with Trump Media believe the ousters are retaliation following what they describe as an anonymous “whistleblower” complaint regarding Nunes that went to the company’s board of directors.

    The chief operating officer and chief product officer have left the company, along with at least two lower-level staffers, according to interviews, social media posts and communications between former staffers reviewed by ProPublica. The company, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, disclosed the departure of the chief operating officer in a securities filing Thursday afternoon.

    […] concerns revolve around alleged mismanagement by Nunes. One person said they include allegations of misuse of funds, hiring of foreign contractors and interfering with product development.

    […] Trump Media’s board comprises a set of powerful figures in Trump’s world, including his son Donald Trump Jr., former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the businesswoman Linda McMahon, a major donor and current co-chair of Trump’s transition planning committee.

    Nunes was named CEO of the company in 2021, with Trump hailing him as “a fighter and a leader” who “will make an excellent CEO.” As a member of Congress, Nunes was known as one of Trump’s staunchest loyalists. [Nunes was also known to be a liar.]

    After the internal allegations about Nunes were made at Trump Media, the company enlisted a lawyer to investigate and interview staffers […] Then, last week, some employees who were interviewed by the lawyer were notified they were being pushed out, the person said. [Yep, that sounds like retaliation.] The employees being pushed out include a human relations director and a product designer, along with Chief Operating Officer Andrew Northwall and Chief Product Officer Sandro De Moraes. […] Trump Media asked the employees to sign an agreement pledging not to make public claims of wrongdoing against the company in exchange for severance.

    […] Some word of the departures became public earlier this week when former Trump Media employee Alex Gleason said in a social media post that “Truth Social in shambles. Many more people fired.”

    Trump personally owns nearly 60% of the company. That stake, even after a recent decline in the company’s stock price, is worth nearly $2 billion on paper, a significant chunk of Trump’s fortune. He said last month he was not planning to sell his shares. What role Trump plays, if any, in the day-to-day operations of the company is not clear.

    Since it launched in 2021, the company has become a speculation-fueled meme stock, but its actual business has generated virtually no revenue and Truth Social has not emerged as a serious competitor to the major social media platforms.

    Among Nunes’ moves as CEO, as ProPublica has reported, was inking a large streaming TV deal with several obscure firms, including one controlled by a major political donor. He also traveled to the Balkans over the summer and met with the prime minister of North Macedonia, a trip whose purpose was never publicly explained by the company. [Suspicious activity.]

    Trump Media has a formal whistleblower policy, adopted when the company went public in March, that encourages employees to report illegal activity and other “business conduct that damages the Company’s good name” and business interests. Do you have any information about Trump Media that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

  16. says

    Trump’s anti-Haitian rhetoric evokes 1937 massacre

    I snipped a lot of history with which this article begins. See the link for the details.

    The right’s rhetoric around Haitians “eating the dogs” and cats has become the subject of jokes, memes, and editorial cartoons. But as a person who can be targeted simply because I’m not white-skinned, I don’t find it a laughing matter.

    On Sept. 22, The Guardian published an editorial titled “The Guardian view on Trump’s attacks on migrants: smirking racism is no less dangerous.”

    There is a humanitarian crisis involving Haitians and, despite JD Vance’s lies, it isn’t in Ohio. It’s in Haiti itself, where violence has reached terrifying levels. Five children a week are killed and injured and almost 5 million people – about half the population – face acute hunger. Little wonder families flee. Most of the 15,000 Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield are in the US through the temporary protected status (TPS) granted to them because of the turmoil in their own country.

    Now they face fresh danger thanks to the vicious and baseless lies of Donald Trump’s campaign. In his debate with Kamala Harris, Mr Trump declared that “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats.” He had picked up on his running mate Mr Vance’s slanders on X that “pets [have been] abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country”.

    These were claims first spread by far-right groups and neo-Nazis. Promoting them had predictable results. Hospitals, schools and government buildings have been forced to close after bomb threats. The town as a whole has been endangered, though of course the Haitian population – or those who might be mistaken for them – are most at risk. Some say they are living in constant fear, and are too scared to leave their homes.

    Isaac Chotiner explored the current fiasco in Ohio for The New Yorker in “The Historical Precedents to Trump’s Attacks on Haitian Immigrants.”

    An expert on white nationalism explains how such demonizing rhetoric incubates and spreads—and what sets this particular episode apart.

    During last week’s Presidential debate, Donald Trump brought up a fake Internet rumor about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, abducting and eating pets. Later in the week, he promised to do “large deportations” in Springfield and accused Haitian immigrants of “destroying” the city.

    After news organizations debunked the claim, Trump’s running mate, the Ohio senator J. D. Vance, told CNN, “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” (There are currently some twelve to twenty thousand Haitian immigrants in Springfield, the majority of whom arrived legally; they came largely at the request of groups like the local Chamber of Commerce, which were struggling with job vacancies and a declining population.)

    To better understand Trump’s rhetoric and its precedents in American history, I spoke by phone with Kathleen Belew, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, who’s an expert on white nationalism. (She is also the author of the book “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.”) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what makes Trump’s specific attack so disturbing, how America has dealt with previous panics about immigrants, and how much the white-nationalist movement is dependent on Trump’s political success.

    I’ll close with a poem entitled “Parsley” by Ohio’s Rita Dove, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate at the Library of Congress. [Video at the link]

  17. birgerjohansson says

    Why are no UN troops in Haiti? Is it the former Haitian president that is blocking it?
    I heard Kenya was willing to send troops, but that government is not famous for respecting human rights.

  18. birgerjohansson says

    Considering the abyssal rule of terror the criminal gangs are inflicting on the Haiti population, that is one of the very few cases where an Israeli ‘kill them all’ tactic against the leaders would be morally justified… (I am NOT condoning what Israel is doing in Gaza).
    .
    Also, the last times foreign troops were on Haiti territory it did not lead to long-term stability (under Clinton, and the US invasion 1915). So there have to be a clear understanding of what to achieve.

  19. ardipithecus says

    @25 birgerjohansson

    UN peacekeepers are not given a mandate to act to control civilians. They would be no more effective in Haiti than they were in Rwanda or South Sudan. All they could accomplish there was to provide a guarded refugee camp with very limited capacity or resources.

    In reality, they should be called ‘Lightly Armed Spectators’.

  20. JM says

    Gizmode: Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scam

    But new documents obtained by Gizmodo reveal the site has also been flooded with scammers who are swindling users out of enormous sums of money. We’re talking about people who’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a relatively short period of time.

    No statistics comparing the scam rate to other sites but Truth Social is a target rich environment for grifters. Somehow I’m not surprised.

  21. birgerjohansson says

    Fun fact. If we exclude tax havens like Switzerland, Norway has the greatest GDP per capita, not USA.
    People living in Ireland may be surprised to learn they have even more GDP per capita, an artefact of tax regulations allowing wealthy people to (nominally) be Irish.
    As the wealth in Norway (and the other Scandinavian counties that appear in the top twenty) is very, very much more equally distributed than in some nominally rich countries that also turn up at the top, it is tempting to assume causation between distributed wealth and the social cohesion in the former group of countries compared to the latter group of nations.
    You rarely hear of neo-nazis in Finland, for example.

  22. John Morales says

    Birger:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8l9gpp8yro

    The BBC has confronted a neo-Nazi in Finland who shared online instructions on how to commit arson with UK rioters during the summer.

    The 20-year-old was an administrator in the Southport Wake Up group on the Telegram messaging app, where he was known as “Mr AG”. He posted the arson manual, which was pinned to the top of the group chat.

    In late July and early August, the group was key in helping to organise and provoke protests that turned to violence in England and Northern Ireland.

    We tracked Mr AG – whose real name is Charles-Emmanuel Mikko Rasanen – to an apartment on the outskirts of the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

  23. birgerjohansson says

    John Morales @ 33
    It is interesting that “nationalists” have no problems cooperating across borders against jews, muslims and people of color…

  24. says

    California governor signs law banning medical debt from credit reports

    Californians with medical debt will no longer have to worry about unpaid medical bills showing up on their credit reports under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, adding the nation’s most populous state to a growing effort to protect consumers squeezed by unaffordable medical bills.

    The bill, by Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) and backed by Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, will block health care providers, as well as any contracted collection agency, from sharing a patient’s medical debt with credit reporting agencies. At least eight states have banned medical bills from consumer credit reports in the past two years. In June, the Biden administration proposed similar federal protections, but it’s unclear when the rules will be enacted—or, if former President Donald Trump is elected again, if they will be at all.

    […] When California’s new law goes into effect in January, it will extend these protections to credit reports used for employment and tenant screening, Wu said. […]

    California lawmakers noted that medical debt—unlike other kinds of debt—isn’t an accurate reflection of credit risk, and its inclusion can depress credit scores and make it hard for people to get a job, rent an apartment, or secure a car loan.

    But California lawmakers have left a glaring loophole. Patients who pay hospital bills using medical credit cards or medical specialty loans—which can come with interest rates as high as 36%—won’t get that debt taken off their credit report, as residents of Colorado, Minnesota, and New York do. It’s a concession the financial industry won through late-in-the-game “hostile” amendments, which “influential entities opposed to the measure prevailed” in including, Limón said. In a 2022 KFF poll on medical debt, 15% of adults said they had used a medical credit card.

    Kelly Parsons-O’Brien, legislative chair of the California Association of Collectors, which represents collection agencies, said the exemptions were essential because medical credit card holders can buy nonmedical items and medical loans can be refinanced with nonmedical debt, making it “impossible” for creditors to know what’s actually a medical charge.

    […] The three largest U.S. credit agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—said they would stop listing some medical debt, including paid-off debts and those less than $500, but millions of patients were left with bigger medical bills on their credit reports. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported in April that 15 million Americans still had medical bills on their credit reports.

    About four in 10 Californians report carrying some type of medical debt, which disproportionately affects low-income, Black, and Latino patients, according to the California Health Care Foundation.

    Dozens of states have enacted legislation to protect consumers from surprise billing and medical debt, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Newsom, a Democrat, also signed legislation on Tuesday banning hospitals from using liens on all real property owned by Californians who typically earn less than 400% of the federal poverty level. It expands current state law that protects a patient’s home from debt collectors.

    A KFF Health News analysis found that credit reporting is the most common collection tactic used by hospitals to get patients to pay their bills. A credit score ban might make it more difficult for hospitals to collect. [All the private equity firms that manage hospitals are not going to like that.]

    When Sacramento resident Sonia Hayden and her boyfriend applied for a home loan last year, she discovered her credit score had dropped about a hundred points. It had been downgraded because of an approximately $200 emergency room charge after a car accident years ago.

    The 44-year-old said her insurance covered tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills but that the hospital miscoded the $200 charge and she never received a bill for it. That, she said, should also have been charged to insurance.

    Hayden tried unsuccessfully for over a year to resolve the issue with her health insurer. It’s still on her credit report. She was eventually able to get a home loan, but her interest rates were higher because of her credit score […]

  25. says

    Followup to JM @31.

    MAGAs Fleeced on Truth Social

    If you’re an internet scammer, there’s a perfect place to find gullible rubes: Truth Social — a money hemorrhaging site, pushing a meme stock, run by the most dangerous grifter in U.S. history.

    As posted in a fascinating article on Gizmodo, Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams.

    It outlines that:

    The site has… been flooded with scammers who are swindling users out of enormous sums of money. We’re talking about people who’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a relatively short period of time.

    What kind of rackets, you may ask:

    The scams happening on Truth Social appear to be most commonly pig butchering, a method of gaining someone’s trust while getting them to give you increasingly large amounts of money, all while making it seem like the victim is making wise investments.

    […] Ah, but why is Truth Social such a draw for swindlers? Well:

    If you were a scammer, who would you think might be the easiest marks on the planet, ready to believe anything a conman might say? If you said Trump supporters, you’re clearly not alone.

    It is the perfect watering hole for predators:

    Truth Social, with its older user base of Boomers who have access to a lifetime of savings and retirement accounts, appears to be an attractive target for scammers running pig butchering operations.

    And these are not just penny-ante scams. The losses suffered by some of these marks are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, including: $500,000 from someone in Minnesota; $170,000, from another in Tennessee; $168,000 from another in New York, and the list goes on and on.

    […] collateral carnage unleashed upon the MAGAs by the very false-messiah they hold so dear.

  26. says

    Excerpts from The Hill’s live update presentation of Trump’s rally in Buter, PA today:

    […] Eric Trump and Lara Trump addressed the crowd, with the former president’s son aggressively attacking Democrats.

    “They tried to smear us. They tried to bankrupt us. They came after us, they impeached him twice. They went after his Supreme Court justices. They weaponized the entire legal system…and it has not worked,” Eric Trump said. “And then guys, they tried to kill him. And it’s because the Democratic Party, they can’t do anything right.” [That’s a lie … and it is a dangerous lie that is likely to cause someone to commit more violence.]

    […] “And I think you all were join me in saying to Kamala Harris, how dare you talk about threats to democracy, Donald Trump took a bullet for democracy, what the hell have you done,” JD Vance said.

    […] The former president took the stage just before 6 p.m. as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA” live.

    Prior to Trump’s entrance, there was a video that played on screens at the rally site referencing the shooting in July and touting the strength of Trump’s movement.

    Link

    More on this later.

  27. says

    Washington Post link
    EXCLUSIVE
    Mossad’s pager operation: Inside Israel’s penetration of Hezbollah

    New details emerge of Israel’s elaborate plan to sabotage Hezbollah communications devices to kill or main thousands of its operatives.

    In the initial sales pitch to Hezbollah two years ago, the new line of Apollo pagers seemed precisely suited to the needs of a militia group with a sprawling network of fighters and a hard-earned reputation for paranoia.

    The AR924 pager was slightly bulky but rugged, built to survive battlefield conditions. It boasted a waterproof Taiwanese design and an oversized battery that could operate for months without charging. Best of all, there was no risk that the pagers could ever be tracked by Israel’s intelligence services. Hezbollah’s leaders were so impressed they bought 5,000 of them and began handing them out to mid-level fighters and support personnel in February.

    None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb. And even after thousands of the devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria, few appreciated the pagers’ most sinister feature: a two-step de-encryption procedure that ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated.

    As many as 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members — most of them rear-echelon figures — were killed or maimed, along with an unknown number of civilians, according to Israeli, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials, when Israel’s Mossad intelligence service triggered the devices remotely on Sept. 17.

    As an act of spy craft, it is without parallel, one of the most successful and inventive penetrations of an enemy by an intelligence service in recent history. But key details of the operation — including how it was planned and carried out, and the controversy it engendered within Israel’s security establishment and among allies — are only now coming to light.

    This account, including numerous new details about the operation, was pieced together from interviews with Israeli, Arab and U.S. security officials, politicians and diplomats briefed on the events, as well as Lebanese officials and people close to Hezbollah. They describe a years-long plan that originated at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv and ultimately involved a cast of operatives and unwitting accomplices in multiple countries. […] the attack not only devastated Hezbollah’s leadership ranks but also emboldened Israel to target and kill Hezbollah’s top leader, Hasan Nasrallah […]

    Iran launched around 180 missiles against Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Hezbollah’s leadership and warned of harsher consequences if the conflict escalates.

    “The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said during a Friday sermon in Tehran.

    But in Israel, the strike convinced the country’s political leaders that Hezbollah could be put on the ropes, susceptible to a systematic dismantling using airstrikes and, eventually a ground invasion. […]

    One Israeli political official, referring to the pager plot, summed up the anxieties in a quip at a meeting with Mossad officials. “We cannot make a strategic decision such as an escalation in Lebanon while counting on a toy,” the official said.

    The idea for the pager operation originated in 2022, according to the Israeli, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials familiar with the events. Parts of the plan began falling into place more than a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that put the region on a path to war. […]

    Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for combating foreign threats to the Jewish state, had worked for years to penetrate the group with electronic monitoring and human informants. Over time, Hezbollah leaders learned to worry about the group’s vulnerability to Israeli surveillance and hacking, fearing that even ordinary cellphones could be turned into Israeli-controlled eavesdropping and tracking devices.

    Thus was born the idea of creating a kind of communications Trojan horse, the officials said. Hezbollah was looking for hack-proof electronic networks for relaying messages, and Mossad came up with a pair of ruses that would lead the militia group to purchase devices that seemed perfect for the job — equipment that Mossad designed and had assembled in Israel.

    The first part of the plan, booby-trapped walkie-talkies, began being inserted into Lebanon by Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained oversized battery packs, a hidden explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications.

    For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, the officials said, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive. In an irony that would not become clear for many months, Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.

    Because Hezbollah leaders were alert to possible sabotage, the pagers could not originate in Israel, the United States or any other Israeli ally. So, in 2023, the group began receiving solicitations for the bulk purchase of Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers, a well-recognized trademark and product line with a worldwide distribution and no discernible links to Israeli or Jewish interests. The Taiwanese company had no knowledge of the plan, officials said.

    The sales pitch came from a marketing official trusted by Hezbollah with links to Apollo. The marketing official, a woman whose identity and nationality officials declined to reveal, was a former Middle East sales representative for the Taiwanese firm who had established her own company and acquired a license to sell a line of pagers that bore the Apollo brand. Some time in 2023, she offered Hezbollah a deal on one the products her firm sold: the rugged and reliable AR924.

    […] As it turned out, the actual production of the devices was outsourced and the marketing official had no knowledge of the operation and was unaware that the pagers were physically assembled in Israel under Mossad oversight, officials said. Mossad’s pagers, each weighing less than three ounces, included a unique feature: a battery pack that concealed a tiny amount of a powerful explosive, according to the officials familiar with the plot.

    In a feat of engineering, the bomb component was so carefully hidden as to be virtually undetectable, even if the device was taken apart, the officials said. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah did disassemble some of the pagers and may have even X-rayed them.

    Also invisible was Mossad’s remote access to the devices. An electronic signal from the intelligence service could trigger the explosion of thousands of the devices at once. But, to ensure maximum damage, the blast could also be triggered by a special two-step procedure required for viewing secure messages that had been encrypted.

    “You had to push two buttons to read the message,” an official said. In practice, that meant using both hands.
    In the ensuing explosion, the users would almost certainly “wound both their hands,” the official said, and thus “would be incapable to fight.”

    Most top elected officials in Israel were unaware of the capability until Sept. 12. […]

    The United States, Israel’s closest ally, was not informed of the booby-trapped pagers or the internal debate over whether to trigger them, U.S. officials said.

    Ultimately, Netanyahu approved triggering the devices while they could inflict maximum damage. Over the following week, Mossad began preparations for detonating both the pagers and walkie-talkies already in circulation.

    […] Mossad had known of the leader’s [Nasrallah’s] whereabouts in Lebanon for years and tracked his movements closely, officials said. Yet the Israelis held their fire, certain that an assassination would lead to all-out war with the militia group, and perhaps with Iran as well.

    […] Senior Israeli officials said they voiced support for the cease-fire proposal, but Nasrallah withheld his consent, insisting on a cease-fire for Gaza first […]

    On Sept. 17, even as the debate in Israel’s highest national security circles about whether to strike the Hezbollah leader raged on, thousands of Apollo-branded pagers rang or vibrated at once, all across Lebanon and Syria. A short sentence in Arabic appeared on the screen: “You received an encrypted message,” it said.

    Hezbollah operatives dutifully followed the instructions for checking coded messages, pressing two buttons. In houses and shops, in cars and on sidewalks, explosions ripped apart hands and blew away fingers. Less than a minute later, thousands of other pagers exploded by remote command, regardless of whether the user ever touched his device.

    The following day, on Sept. 18, hundreds of walkie-talkies blew up in the same way, killing and maiming users and bystanders.

    As Hezbollah reeled, Israel struck again, pounding the group’s headquarters, arsenals and logistic centers with 2,000-pound bombs.

    The largest series of airstrikes occurred on Sept. 27, 10 days after the pagers exploded. The attack, targeting a deeply buried command center in Beirut, was ordered by Netanyahu as he traveled to New York for a United Nations speech in which he declared, speaking to Hezbollah, “enough is enough.”

    “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another Oct. 7-style massacre,” Netanyahu said in the speech.

    The next day, Sept. 28, Hezbollah confirmed what most of the world already knew: Nasrallah, the group’s fiery leader and sworn enemy of Israel, was dead.

  28. says

    Making everything worse.

    “Helene response hampered by misinformation, conspiracy theories.”
    Washington Post link

    False claims are adding to the chaos and confusion in many storm-battered communities. Social media platforms such as X have allowed the falsehoods to spread.

    […] Across the Southeast, false rumors and conspiracy theories are flying about Helene, which made landfall as a major hurricane about a week ago, causing at least 229 deaths in six states. The misinformation is adding to the chaos and confusion in many storm-battered communities […]

    Officials have sought to tamp down the misinformation that has continued to spread online. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been updating a webpage seeking to dispute common rumors, while the North Carolina Department of Public Safety has done the same, writing that authorities were “working around-the-clock to save lives and provide humanitarian relief.”

    FEMA also said in a news release Saturday that federal aid provided had topped $110 million so far. The agency said it had more than 700 of its staff on the ground in North Carolina and that more than 1,200 search and rescue personnel were at work there, among other officials
    .
    The Army on Saturday was preparing to expand the active-duty military relief mission and send an additional 500 U.S. troops on top of those already approved by President Joe Biden, said Col. Jimmy Hathaway, the director of operations for U.S. Army North.

    The planned increase, which has not previously been reported, would push the number of active-duty forces involved in relief efforts to about 1,500, after the approval of 1,000 from Fort Liberty, N.C., that were in the process of joining the mission on Saturday.

    In western North Carolina this week, some residents shared false information that a dam was about to burst, prompting hundreds of people to unnecessarily evacuate and diverting the attention of first responders. In eastern Tennessee, some locals spread a hoax about federal officials seizing and bulldozing a town hall. And in many parts of the Southeast, a debunked conspiracy theory has circulated about FEMA spending disaster relief money on helping migrants who are in the country illegally.

    In places with internet access, such falsehoods have flourished on social media platforms such as X. The tech company has pulled back on efforts to combat misinformation after its takeover by billionaire Elon Musk, prompting concern from many disaster experts.

    […] Donald Trump has amplified the false claim about migrants during campaign rallies and on his platform, Truth Social. And Mark Robinson, the embattled Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, has repeatedly alleged that there has been no state government response to Helene, even though Cooper has traversed the affected areas, visiting emergency operations centers and meeting with storm survivors.

    […] North Carolina state Sen. Kevin Corbin, a Republican, slammed the rampant misinformation Thursday in a Facebook post, tagging several GOP colleagues. “Friends can I ask a small favor? Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in WNC,” he wrote, referring to western North Carolina.
    One particularly troubling falsehood that went viral online was a claim that government officials planned to seize the flooded town of Chimney Rock, N.C., and bulldoze bodies under the rubble. Though authorities and local outlets thoroughly debunked the notion, some posts on X asserting it as fact garnered millions of views. One user suggested “a militia to go against FEMA,” in a post that had received more than half a million views as of Saturday afternoon.

    Mark Honeycutt, 33, an Asheville resident who has been posting videos of Helene’s destruction to his YouTube channel, said he had seen the viral social media posts about the small tourist town. On Thursday, he drove his motorbike to where the road ended and then hiked nine miles into Chimney Rock, to check out the situation for himself. [Now that is some difficult factchecking!]

    The scenes along the way were devastating, Honeycutt said, with entire houses swept away by surging floodwaters. But when he got to Chimney Rock, there was no stench of dead bodies. The sun was shining and bulldozers were at work, but only to move debris out of the road. He approached a police officer to ask about the rumors.

    “I felt kind of embarrassed to bring up that conspiracy,” Honeycutt said. “He was like, ‘No, that’s not happening!’”
    Honeycutt also spoke to a worker and resident of the area who said the assertion was incorrect.

    […] Before Musk’s takeover in 2022, Twitter had established itself as a go-to source for public agencies to share critical information during emergencies. While false rumors and hoaxes were common, the company hired former journalists to curate reliable information on trending topics and to debunk misinformation. The site also gave blue verification check marks to public agencies, public officials and members of the news media.

    Under Musk, the rebranded X has leaned into its role as a primary news source, but it has pulled back heavily on content moderation. The platform has eliminated the curation team, reinstated banned users, and replaced the previous verification system with one that elevates content from paying subscribers, including conservative and right-wing influencers.

    […] As of Saturday morning, only a few of the false and misleading posts about Helene’s aftermath had community notes attached to them. In several cases, users had proposed posts correcting the record, but they had not garnered enough support from other users to appear publicly on X.

    Musk, whose 200 million X followers make him the platform’s most influential user, sent at least 12 posts Friday amplifying criticism of the Biden administration’s response to Helene, much of it based on false or misleading claims. [A grave disservice to entire communities.]

    Elon Musk labeled FEMA’s actions “treason” and sent a reply indicating agreement with a post from another user who said Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “should be jailed for life for spending FEMA money on illegal aliens and not Americans.”

    […] Outside the visitor center in Black Mountain this week, volunteers set up a table and posted signs with whatever updates they had to share. The signs told which radio stations to tune into for more updates, where people could find a WiFi signal and which gas stations in the area were open and accepting cash or credit.

    A handwritten poster nearby offered a plea to residents: “We need everyone to share good, credible information.”

  29. tomh says

    WaPo Live:
    Maegan Vazquez

    Donald Trump railed against California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) after he recently signed a law that bans local governments from enacting their own identification requirements to vote.

    “This is a takeover of the country,” Trump said during his rally in Butler, Pa.

    The California secretary of state’s office says that “in most cases, a California voter is not required to show identification to a polling place worker before casting a ballot.”

    Trump asserted, without evidence, that Democrats were pushing back on voter ID efforts “only so they can cheat” on elections.

    “There’s no other conceivable reason,” he added.

  30. Reginald Selkirk says

    4 voters charged with intentionally voting twice in Michigan primary election

    Four people intentionally voted twice in Michigan’s summer primary election, the state attorney general said Friday as she announced felony charges against the suburban Detroit residents as well as part-time employees accused of enabling it to happen…

    She said four people who had already cast absentee ballots for the Aug. 6 primary showed up to vote in St. Clair Shores on that day. It’s not legal, Nessel added, to cancel an already-processed absentee ballot on Election Day and then vote in-person.

    An electronic poll book showed that the four had already voted. But after poll workers consulted with local election staff, they were still allowed to vote again, Nessel said…

    Four voters were charged with voting twice. Three people who were part-time election workers in St. Clair Shores were charged with falsifying election records…

    The state stepped in after Pete Lucido, the Republican local prosecutor in Macomb County, said there was “no malicious or criminal intent” and declined to file charges…

  31. JM says

    ISW: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 3, 2024

    The Russian offensive effort in eastern Ukraine that began in fall 2023 continues to produce gradual Russian tactical gains in specific sectors of the front, but operationally significant gains will likely continue to elude Russian forces. Ukrainian forces are conducting an effective defense in depth along the frontline, inflicting significant losses upon Russian forces while slowly giving ground but preventing the Russian military from making more rapid gains on the battlefield.

    Current Institute for the Study of War assessment of the situation in Ukraine. Russia continues to make slow small advances at high cost. Ukraine continues to make organized retreats when pushed hard but drive off less then major attacks.
    The summer offense of 2024 is coming to close as weather will make any major moves impractical by the end of October. Russia has not achieved any of it’s strategic goals but has made some localized gains. Ukraine has attacked Russia in Kursk but it isn’t clear if they have achieved their goals or not. They have forced Russia to pull some troops off the rest of the front but have not stopped Russia from advancing entirely. The Ukrainian military may have had other goals though, such as reaching places that can drone strike deep in Russia, bringing the war inside Russian territory and messing up Russian supply lines.

  32. StevoR says

    Live coverage of the controversial (for some anyhow incl. Murdoch media, LNP leader Dutton the Gestapotato* & many state premiers) pro-Palestinian protests being held in Oz right now here :

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-06/live-israel-gaza-middle-east-war-protests-sydney-melbourne/104438056

    Also via Aussie ABC :

    “I’m not sure that it does end,” Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel-Palestine analyst for International Crisis Group, told the ABC. “At this point, we can’t talk just about the war in Gaza, but we have to talk about the war with Hezbollah, and the war in the West Bank … and of course Iran and its proxies.” All of this makes the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza even less likely, according to Ms Zonszein. “There’s a spectrum,” she said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-06/israel-gaza-war-one-year-anniversary/104413078

    .* See among other things here :

    For several days this week, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been arguing that there is a clear division between the Albanese government and the US and other major Western powers over what is happening in the Middle East.

    … (snip).. At a particularly dark and dangerous point of global tension, and amid tensions in the Australian community which are also on a knife edge this weekend as we approach the first anniversary of the appalling massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas, such language (by Dutton – ed) is hardly helpful. Particularly since what the opposition leader is accusing the prime minister and deputy prime minister of is just not true.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-05/laura-tingle-on-middle-east-politics-and-dutton-albanese-divide/104433752

  33. StevoR says

    @45.Bekenstein Bound : StevoR@15: That’s heroin you’re describing, not hallucinogens.

    Heroin among some other drugs yeah.

  34. Rob Grigjanis says

    Reginald Selkirk @52:

    There is no such thing as a “sound laser.”

    Are you sure?

    Two independent groups of physicists have unveiled the first phonon “lasers” – devices that emit coherent sound waves in much the same ways as lasers emit coherent light waves. Sometimes called “sasers”, one of the devices emits sound at about 400 GHz while the other operates in the megahertz range.

    https://physicsworld.com/a/hail-the-first-sound-lasers/

  35. Reginald Selkirk says

    @52, 53, 54

    It’s an “analogy.” In other words, a marketing gimmick, or a lie.

  36. lumipuna says

    Re: birgerjohansson32/34 and John Morales 33

    I rarely hear about neonazis in other small European countries, but in recent years I’ve unfortunately often heard about neonazis here in Finland.

    Regarding Mr. AG aka Charles-Emmanuel Mikko Räsänen,

    I mentioned his case on a previous page of this thread weeks ago, when it was covered by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle. The reporter then went to question him at his home door, but they didn’t publish his name for legal reasons. Now, I find it hilarious that he was also pestered by the fucking BBC.

    Only now Finnish audience knows his name – and the fact that he isn’t white, as was widely assumed. Incidentally, for a long while now, Finnish rightwing politicians and social media commentators who totally aren’t nazis themselves have accused Yle of being a politically biased leftist-wokeist institution that uses tax money to scaremonger on the far right threat. Now, some are convinced that Räsänen’s name and ethnic background had been tactically hidden by Yle for some political reason. Like, POC cannot be real nazis, and also nazism in Finland is the fault of immigrants.

  37. Rob Grigjanis says

    @55: Yes, sound amplification by stimulated emission of acoustic radiation is analogous to light amplification by stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. Why the scare quotes, and whence the “lie”?

    If we had known about the sound phenomenon before the light phenomenon, we might well be calling lasers “light sasers”.

  38. birgerjohansson says

    Just realised Swedish ‘desinformation’ = ‘disinformation’ in English. So technically not a spelling error.
    Also, fuck Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

  39. says

    Finally, the New York Times publishes a truthful headline: Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age

    […] Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there.

    Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

    He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.

    […] He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

    According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

    Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. […]

    Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

    He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs.

    [Video snippets are available at the link] And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

    […] Sarah Matthews, who was Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary until breaking with him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, said the former president had lost his fastball.

    “I don’t think anyone would ever say that Trump is the most polished speaker, but his more recent speeches do seem to be more incoherent, and he’s rambling even more so and he’s had some pretty noticeable moments of confusion,” she said. […]

    Mr. Trump dismisses any concerns and insists that he has passed cognitive tests. “I go for two hours without teleprompters, and if I say one word slightly out, they say, ‘He’s cognitively impaired,’” he complained at a recent rally. He calls his meandering style “the weave” and asserts that it is an intentional and “brilliant” communication strategy.

    […] John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, was so convinced that Mr. Trump was psychologically unbalanced that he bought a book called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” written by 27 mental health professionals, to try to understand his boss better. As it was, Mr. Kelly came to refer to Mr. Trump’s White House as “Crazytown.”

    Some of Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries had a running debate over whether the president was “crazy-crazy,” as one of them put it in an interview after leaving office, or merely someone who promoted “crazy ideas.” There were multiple conversations about whether the 25th Amendment disability clause should be invoked to remove him from office, although the idea never went far. His own estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a book identifying disorders she believed he has. Mr. Trump bristled at such talk, insisting that he was “a very stable genius.”

    “There were often discussions about whether he could comprehend or understand the policy and knowing that he didn’t really have a grasp on those kinds of things,” Ms. Matthews said of her time in the White House. “No one wanted to outright say it in that environment — is he mentally fit? — but I definitely had my moments where I personally questioned it.”

    […] One person who has detected a change is Ramin Setoodeh, author of a new book on Mr. Trump’s days hosting “The Apprentice.” Mr. Setoodeh, who has written about Hollywood for years and first met Mr. Trump during his television days, was surprised at how much the former president had changed when he arrived at Mar-a-Lago for the first of six interviews for the book, “Apprentice in Wonderland.”

    “The Donald Trump I interviewed in the early seasons of ‘The Apprentice’ had a stronger sense of time and space, and his narratives were a lot clearer,” Mr. Setoodeh said. “And the Donald Trump I interviewed for my book, ironically, could remember things that happened in the ‘Apprentice’ years well, but he struggled with more recent events.”

    For instance, Mr. Trump could not remember the day in 2015 that NBC called to cut ties with him after he made derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants. “He was very clear in terms of his memory of the shows,” Mr. Setoodeh said, even though his versions were often exaggerated or fabricated. “But when we went to more recent years, things got foggier.”

    So foggy, in fact, that he forgot Mr. Setoodeh himself. After interviewing Mr. Trump in May 2021, Mr. Setoodeh returned in August. “When I said, ‘Do you remember sitting down with me?’ he said, ‘No, that was a long time ago,’” Mr. Setoodeh said. “It was like we started from square one. He started telling me the exact same stories. He didn’t remember what we had talked about. He didn’t remember me.” [Well, well, well. That is a telling detail.]

    […] watching recordings of Mr. Trump over the years yields a pretty clear evolution. The young media-obsessed developer and reality television star who spoke with a degree of sophistication and nuance eventually gave way to the bombastic presidential candidate with the shrunken vocabulary in 2016 and eventually to the aged former president seeking a comeback in 2024.

    Consider the following: In 2002, Mr. Trump was interviewed for an Errol Morris documentary about “Citizen Kane,” the iconic Orson Welles film about a media tycoon. Mr. Trump gave a thoughtful analysis of the movie with a degree of introspection that would be hard to imagine today. “In real life, I believe that wealth does in fact isolate you from other people,” he said. “It’s a protective mechanism. You have your guard up much more so than you would if you didn’t have wealth.”

    Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime.

    He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again. [JFC. Even the summary of the ping-ponging gives me a headache.]

    […] he throws out assertions without any apparent regard for whether they are true or not. Lately, he has claimed that crowds Ms. Harris has drawn were not real but the creation of artificial intelligence, never mind the reporters and cameras on hand to record them.

    He mispronounces names and places with some regularity — “Charlottestown” instead of “Charlottesville,” “Minnianapolis” instead of “Minneapolis,” the website “Snoops” instead of “Snopes,” “Leon” Musk instead of “Elon.”

    […] He considers himself the master of nearly every subject. He said Venezuelan gangs were armed “with MK-47s,” evidently meaning AK-47s, and then added, “I know that gun very well” because “I’ve become an expert on guns.” He claims to have been named “man of the year” in Michigan, although no such prize exists.

    He is easily distracted. He halted in the middle of another extended monologue when he noticed a buzzing insect. “Oh, there’s a fly,” he said. “Oh. I wonder where the fly came from. See? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer.”

    But like some people approaching the end of their eighth decade, he is not open to correction. “Trump is never wrong,” he said recently in Wisconsin. “I am never, ever wrong.”

  40. says

    New York Times link

    […] Forty-seven years ago, the feminist philosopher Susan Rae Peterson identified the syndrome of the “male protection racket,” asking, “Since the state fails them in its protective function, to whom can women turn for protection?” She explained that “women make agreements with husbands or fathers (in return for fidelity or chastity, respectively) to secure protection. From whom do these men protect women? From other men, it turns out.” She continued: “There is a striking parallel between this situation and tactics used by crime syndicates who sell protection as a racket. The buyer who refuses to buy the protective services of an agency because he needs no protection finds out soon that because he refuses to buy it, he very definitely needs protection. Women are in the same position.”

    Or as Mae West putatively said: “Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out what from.”

    Donald Trump has it figured out. “Sadly, women are poorer than they were four years ago,” he told a Pennsylvania rally in late September. Also: “less healthy,” “less safe on the streets” and “more stressed and depressed and unhappy.” In a part of his speech aimed explicitly at female voters, he added, “I will fix all of that and fast, and at long last this nation, and national nightmare, will end.” Women, he promised, “will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger.” Why? “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

    Mr. Trump is a master of the protection racket. He takes the old domestic savior scam national. He’s running a Halloween campaign, leaping from behind every podium to yell “Boo!” to scare his base, male and female both, with any hobgoblin he can conjure — migrants who are “vicious monsters,” who are “poisoning the blood of our country” and who will “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America,” “radical left thugs” who “live like vermin” and “steal and cheat on elections,” Democratic governors who want to “execute” babies after they’re born, liberal schools conducting a “brutal operation” to change a child’s gender. Mr. Trump and his running mate have conjured childless women whose only companions are feline and illegal immigrants dining on felines. To save us from these monsters, Mr. Trump proposes himself.

    His protection, of course, is as mythical as the threats he manufactures. Violent crime is near a 50-year low. Homicides fell nearly 12 percent from 2022 to 2023, the largest single-year drop in six decades, and rape declined by more than 9 percent. Women — and especially never-married women — have made significant economic gains since 2019. As for stress, as “The Daily Show” comedian Desi Lydic remarked after Mr. Trump’s speech, “I love how he’s acknowledging that we’re stressed out, as though he’s not the one stressing us out.” But that isn’t the point. The implicit point is: If this is a situation in which we need protection, would you trust Kamala Harris to protect you?

    […] Many voters, especially men, perceive the prospect of being protected by a woman as a threat. In a society where men judge their worth by their ability to protect, being protected by a woman is seen as a disgrace, a stain on one’s honor.

    I encountered this dynamic in the late 1990s when a book I wrote on men in crisis was reflexively denounced by male pundits, even before publication. “This woman is clearly on a mission,” declared one. “Find a soft place in the collective male self-esteem and drive at it until the lance runs red.” The “lance” in question? Supportive empathy. “I don’t want Susan Faludi’s pity,” a “Time” columnist began facetiously. “I want her tight little body.” The column was titled, “The Emasculation Proclamation.”

    The messages were clear: You cannot defend us without unmanning us.

    […] With his “I am your protector” speech, Mr. Trump was baiting Ms. Harris to cast herself as a protector, knowing he’d have her in a bind. He is a wizard at rope-a-dope, issuing an outrageous assertion in order to goad a response that will trap his opponent. He cast doubt on Ms. Harris’s racial credentials as an invitation for her to come out as an identity warrior. She didn’t take the bait. Now he’s floating protection as a theme, knowing how fraught its expression is for a female candidate. Again, Ms. Harris sidestepped the provocation. In an interview with MSNBC two days after Mr. Trump’s remarks, she responded: “I don’t think the women of America need him to say he’s going to protect them. The women of America need him to trust them.”

    Strikingly, Ms. Harris is, in fact, a formidable protector. Protection comes in two forms: symbolic and practical. The symbolic is performative. Those who crave it don’t actually want effective measures to alleviate a threat. They wish to rage against the threat, and they seek a protector in chief who validates their wrath. For them, war’s the point, not victory — outrage, not outcomes, as victim cultures on both the right and the left amply demonstrate.

    Symbolic and practical protection aren’t two means to the same end but rather are at cross-purposes, antithetical. The first nurtures a cause for grievance that the second would instead remedy. A failure to remedy the grievance only fuels the fury that symbolic protection thrives on.

    This is how recent Republican administrations have profited from their own incompetence. […]

    Ms. Harris isn’t looking to compete on the symbolic field. She’s not playacting a guardian stereotype of either gender. […] Her record of public service and her utilitarian policy plans attest to workable fixes to actual dangers instead of the amplification of invented ones. She offers herself up as the calmly common-sensical civic warden.

    […] As president, Mr. Trump undermined Ukraine’s sovereignty to serve his own political fortunes; Ms. Harris traveled to Europe a week before Russia’s invasion to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky to deliver U.S. intelligence assessments and discuss battlefield preparations.

    […] Time and time again, nations that have sought protection under a fantasy führer — or a real one — have reaped the whirlwind.

    […] Ms. Harris has demonstrated her ability to stand up to America’s most poisonous huckster without being intimidated by or engaging with his scare campaigns. That’s not all she needs to do, but it’s important. Crucial to our nation’s future, she’s proving to be an effective protector against the protection racket itself.

    More at the link. I snipped a lot of text.

  41. says

    Tropical Storm Milton expected to make landfall in Florida as major hurricane

    Tropical Storm Milton is likely to make landfall as a major hurricane on Florida’s already storm-battered west coast by midweek, federal forecasters said Sunday.

    The National Hurricane Center said Milton was rapidly evolving into “an intense hurricane with multiple life-threatening hazards” for the coastline.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news briefing Sunday that Milton is expected to make landfall in Hillsborough or Pinellas counties Wednesday evening. [map at the link]

    “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have significant impacts at this point,” DeSantis said.

    The center’s forecasters said Milton was likely to reach hurricane status — defined by sustained winds of at least 74 mph — later Sunday, followed by major-hurricane status (a Category 3 defined by sustained winds of at least 111 mph) as it moves across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.

    [..] a faster northeastward motion across the Gulf of Mexico is expected over the next couple of days, per the hurricane center.

    […] Storm’s path is rare

    Milton is fueled by unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, where one National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-tracked buoy near the storm’s projected path Saturday night recorded a water temperature of nearly 86 degrees, 2 degrees warmer than the air. The storm is already being noted for rare attributes during a busy Atlantic hurricane season.

    […] it’s a rarified product of its development in the Bay of Campeche, a sheltered southern bite in the Gulf of Mexico west of the Yucatán Peninsula. Since 1850, only two storms that originated there have struck Florida; none have done it in the past 155 years, with the last to take that path recorded in 1867.

    Milton is the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which now has recorded the most such storms between Sept. 24 and Oct. 5, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.

    The last time three named storms (including Kirk and Leslie) were spinning in the Atlantic in October was 2018, he said.

    […] Heavy rain possible ahead of storm […] “Regardless of where the track goes, it’s going to produce heavy rain,” National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said in a video update Saturday. […]

  42. says

    Beirut faces heavy bombardment

    What we know

    The Israeli military carried out heavy overnight strikes on Dahiya, the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs. An NBC News crew described it as by far the heaviest strikes on Lebanon’s capital since the start of this conflict.

    The Israel Defense Forces has issued evacuation orders for much of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, as it returns to the area in what appears to be a major new offensive.

    The region remains on edge as Israel continues to threaten to strike Iran in response to Iran’s retaliatory missile attack on Israel last week.

    Israeli overnight airstrikes on a mosque and school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza killed at least 26 and injured nearly 100, according to the health ministry. [head/desk]

    On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, the IDF said it was bolstering security against potential attacks by Hamas on Israel, as pro-Palestinian demonstrations were held in cities around the world, protesting Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza. […]

  43. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/canadas-trump-mad-at-fake-news-for

    ‘Canada’s Trump’ [Pierre Poilievre] Mad At Fake News For Edited TV Clip

    Justin Trudeau was in NYC last month doing important United Nations stuff and squeezed in a visit to the Ed Sullivan Theater to wave the flag while shooting the shit with Stephen Colbert in front of a friendly audience. The Canadian prime minister is on a desperate charm offensive after his nosediving Liberal Party lost yet another former safe spot in a recent byelection — in his hometown of Montreal, no less […]

    His main opponent, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, is currently trying to force an early election after his NDP counterpart, Jagmeet Singh, tore up his party’s agreement to prop up the minority Trudeau government in exchange for a teaspoon of policy goodies.

    The softball interview might’ve been more entertaining if the host was still doing his rightwinger schtick from the old “Colbert Report” days on Comedy Central, but Trudeau declined the bait when asked about the man who “has been called Canada’s Trump” and pointed out authoritarianism is making a comeback in plenty of other Western democracies as well. [video at the link]

    Comparisons to the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist are rarely helpful because nobody comes close to Trump’s unique cocktail of every imaginable character flaw, and Poilievre doesn’t even share an interest in the one thing Dear Leader is said to be reasonably good at: golf. But he definitely shares Trump’s habits of both shamelessly lying and calling the fourth estate enemies of the state. He took his ongoing issues with the Canuckistan lügenpresse up a notch last week, banning elected party members across the country from speaking with CTV News. […] he is super-mad about the growing carbon tax on fossil fuels brought in by the Liberals to at least try to do something about the, you know, existential climate crisis.

    It wasn’t a great look for one of the country’s largest news networks which — full disclosure — I briefly worked for several years ago, but mistakes happen in newsrooms just like every other workplace. Especially in ones operating on a skeleton crew after being cut to the bone by their hemorrhaging corporate overlords, in this case Bell Media, who’ve let go more than 4,800 employees this year alone while still lining C-Suite executives’ pockets obv.

    Two unnamed CTV staffers were added to the list and sent packing for deleting a sentence fragment from an answer he gave at a recent press conference on Parliament Hill. [Ah. I see. Small error. Big punishment.]

    “That’s why it’s time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election” is the reason Poilievre declared for wanting to force Canadians to the polls a year ahead of schedule, but alas the “for a carbon tax election” part was removed, which also came shortly after a reporter said there are “questions” about dental care’s “future” in the broadcast.

    CTV quickly issued a mea culpa for taking the comment out of context: “A misunderstanding during the editing process resulted in this misrepresentation. […] We unreservedly apologize to Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada.”

    It’s a cliche Canadians are always offering apologies but this one didn’t cut the mustard for the offended party, and the Conservatives’ media relations guy — the wonderfully named Sebastian Skamski — took to the generic social media platform you’d expect to demand more concessions.

    “This wasn’t a simple misunderstanding,” he posted. “Until they explicitly acknowledge their malicious editing and omission of context to undermine Pierre Poilievre, Conservative MPs won’t engage with CTV News and its reporters.”

    [Sheesh. Overreacting much?]

    His boss took it a step further […]

    “The reason why he [Bell’s CEO, Mirko Bibic] and his other cronies at that company are going after me is because he knows that I’m standing up for the people against the crony capitalists and insiders like him.”

    He went on to call Bibic “overpaid” and added he “empties the books to pay his wealthy friends,” both of which are objectively true. It’s fun when autocrats turn on each other because you so rarely get to see it! But the notion the CEO would be looking over the shoulder of video editors instructing them to cut footage in the hope of making Peewee look even worse than he does all on his own is ludicrous. [True!]

    […] It’s worth noting the Conservatives haven’t said anything about what they would do about adding visits to the dentist to the country’s universal healthcare system but they certainly didn’t move on this file when they had a majority government under Stephen Harper earlier this century. They probably think it serves low-income Canadians right for growing teeth in the first place if they can’t afford to pay for them and are perhaps workshopping catchy slogans like their beloved “axe the tax” for carbon. “Forswear oral care!” could be an option.

    The Canada Dental Benefit providing services to citizens with a family income less than $90,000 CAD was first rolled out two years ago and was one of the main reasons the lefty NDP were willing to get into bed with the Libs in the first place but it’s currently still limited to toothholders under 18 or over 65, and the scheduled expansion of the program has been postponed until the end of next year.

    […] The Tories currently have 119 seats, the Bloc Québécois has 32 and the NDP 24. The three parties could theoretically team up to take out the Grits 175-152 if everyone bothers to show up to work on the same day. Time will tell if repeated attempts will eventually hit paydirt for Peewee or if this will end up being another gong show like the GOP trying their best to nominate a new House Speaker.

    But my fingers are crossed Poilievre will start hitting the late-night talk show circuit himself and find out firsthand if it’s as easy as the telegenic Trudeau makes it look.

  44. whheydt says

    @ 52, 53, 54, 55…
    The LASER was originally called an “optical MASER”. The first coherent wave emitting device produced microwaves.

  45. birgerjohansson says

    Harris On Track To Win Based On New 2024 Polling
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=WQKhZXN4a_E

    My comment: The undecided voters in this Pennsylvania poll are way too few for conclusions to be drawn! Also, it is incredible that half the voters still favor Trump. But ever since Reagan was elected I have had strong opinions about how easily Americans can be deceived.
    -Anyway, Harris can win either of two other states and become president, even if she does not win Pennsylvania, see the end of the video.

  46. says

    Toxic geysers, zombie wells, and earthquakes: The real cost of cheap gas, by Mark Sumner

    A 100’ geyser is erupting in Texas. The cause isn’t some deeply buried supervolcano. It doesn’t signal some arcane geologic process. However, it is connected to a recent series of earthquakes. Those quakes and the unexpected geyser have the same cause: injection of wastewater left over from fracking.

    The water spraying from the geyser isn’t clean. It’s laced with oil, gas, and the chemicals used when oil companies pump water into the ground to hydraulically fracture (frack) layers of sedimentary rock. It reeks of toxic sulfur dioxide, filling the air with the odor of rotten eggs. [Yuck]

    How long it will last isn’t known, but it’s a good bet this jet of stink won’t become as beloved as Old Faithful.

    The stench geyser is just one of the treats that fracking has delivered to this area of Texas in the last few years. There are also zombie wells where polluted water is burbling from the mouths of old oil and gas boreholes that were supposedly sealed decades ago—except no one bothered to check. Now farmland is being ruined by toxic streams and vast amounts of methane are escaping into the atmosphere. Similar problems have occurred in other areas where fracking has been used.

    Then there are the earthquakes. A surge of small earthquakes ranging up to a magnitude of 3.6 had earlier raised concerns about fracking in Oklahoma. But everything is bigger in Texas. There was a magnitude 5.0 quake in 2020, followed by a 5.4 quake in 2022 and a 5.3 quake in 2023.

    These are not amusing little rumbles. They are serious quakes that can cause structural damage. Anywhere else in the nation, such events would raise huge alarms. The quake that sent people in New York City scrambling for cover earlier this year? That was a 4.8. Because the scale for earthquakes is exponential, the Texas quakes are many times more powerful. The recent series of fracking-related quakes are among the largest quakes ever recorded in Texas and could signal worse to come.

    But all this isn’t happening somewhere else. It’s happening in the Permian Basin.

    The name comes from thick deposits of sedimentary rock laid down during the Permian, from about 300 to 250 million years ago—a geologic age coming millions of years before the first dinosaurs whose conclusion was marked by an extinction event known as The Great Dying. Beds of this age range up to several thousand feet thick in this area of West Texas, and they are a major source of both oil and gas; one that has grown vastly in importance in the age of fracking. When it comes to oil, the basin outproduces all other oil fields in the lower 48 states combined and it accounts for almost a quarter of the nation’s natural gas production.

    The number of wells drilled each year varies with the price of oil and gas, but in 2024 around 450 oil and gas wells were drilled there—roughly equal to the number drilled everywhere else across the United States. Between 100 and 200 oil rigs are at work drilling holes in the Permian Basin at any given time.

    Economically, the Permian Basin is hugely important. Jobs related to fossil fuels are a major employer in the area, and the fact that the United States is now a net oil exporter and set a record for the most oil ever produced by any nation in a single year, can be largely attributed to production from the Permian Basin.

    There is even a University of Texas Permian Basin, marking out its significance to the state (and yes, it does offer an extensive geology program).

    The first commercial wells were drilled in the basin over 100 years ago. In the 1960s, production in the area peaked at around 600 million barrels of oil per year, along with over 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But the Basin, like many other oil fields, began to play out in the second half of the twentieth century and seemed on a slow decline … until fracking.

    Each one of the hundreds of new wells being drilled—along with hundreds of older wells being rejuvenated—requires the injection of a large amount of water mixed with fine-grained silica sand and often chemicals that act as detergents, breaking away crud and helping to ensure that pores and fractures are opened up for the passage of oil and gas. Increasing the porosity and permeability of the rocks is why fracking has so revolutionized drilling, and why the United States now produces more oil and gas than any nation in world history.

    When fracking is complete, all that polluted water has to go somewhere, and the solution has largely come in the form of injection wells, where the water is sent into porous rocks separated by (hopefully) many impermeable layers from aquifers used for humans and animals. That hasn’t always proved to be the case. In 2012, the amount of polluted water pumped into the Earth was tagged at 30 trillion gallons. That was just in the first few years of widespread commercial fracking. It’s safe to say that number is in the hundreds of trillions by now.

    That 100′ plume rising over Texas is a big signal that this fracking fluid doesn’t always stay where drilling companies said it would.

    The fluid doesn’t just pose a threat to seep through cracks and voids into drinking water or poison surface waters. It also serves as a lubricant for faults and fractures. That generates the earthquakes. Lots of smaller quakes in some areas. Bigger ones in West Texas.

    Despite the potential economic impact and the anything-goes attitude of the Republicans who run the state, Texas had already developed a plan for parts of the Permian Basin that would limit injection based on the number and magnitude of earthquakes in the immediate area. They were concerned enough that another quake above M4.5 would call for at least some reduction in new drilling.

    Those plans don’t have anything to say about geysers. Because no one was expecting a massive stench geyser.

    Maybe they’ll slow the expansion of drilling in the basin before this happens again. But this is Texas. Maybe they’ll just bring in a few bears, throw up a sign or two, and call it a park.

  47. says

    Followup to comment 69.

    Posted by readers of the article:

    Meanwhile, here in Alberta, we have a landscape dotted with un-remediated gas and oil wells. Of course fossil fuel companies in both countries keep finding new ways to avoid paying for the damage they have caused.
    ————————–
    There is no clean way of getting hydrocarbons out of rock, so please don’t sneer at Kamala over this — she’s just being realistic. What we should do is lobby her to make sure those 3 million homes she wants to build are small and energy-neutral, built with carbon-sink materials (wood, special types of concrete), run on renewable energy feeding their excess into micro-grids for the community, have xerotypic landscaping and are close to all necessary amenities.
    ——————–
    Had we taken a multi-pronged approach decades ago, we would be a lot better off. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Solar energy. More experimentation with EVs. Build smaller, more responsible housing and transportation to fit.
    ———————
    I don’t doubt for a moment that Vice-President Kamala Harris wants to make America better. However, we no longer have time for baby steps that accomplish nothing. I don’t doubt for a moment that President Biden has been trying to make America better with VP Harris’ help.

    But honestly where did that get us. America just produced the most oil and gas in a single year in our history. We also exported the most oil and gas ever. How does that reduce global warming and prevent further climate change?
    —————————-
    Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks are billionaires because of of oil and fracking in Texas. Besides destroying the environment, they have been using their wealth to turn Texas into a political cesspool. Many people consider them to be white Christianists. We need to make them as known as the Koch family so that they can’t just act with impunity. Their goals are not just control of Texas. They are poisonous to our whole country.
    ———————————-
    Anyone not acquainted with those ultrarich miscreants, check out the story on ProPublica: “A Pair of Billionaire Preachers Built the Most Powerful Political Machine in Texas. That’s Just the Start.”
    ——————–
    Mark Sumner adds: “If you follow the USGS “every quake” reporting, this location shows up multiple times a day in connection to small M1-2 quakes. It’s so common that it sometimes makes it hard to pick other quakes out of the noise. Even their “notable quakes” feed is sometimes chock full of reports from this area.”
    ———————–
    Mark Sumner adds: “When I first started in the mining industry, I was sent to an old mine site in western Missouri to help trace some toxic runoff. Mining hadn’t been conducted there in decades, but there were still open cracks in the ground venting smoke and steam as coal in the waste material burned (thankfully, it wasn’t an actual burning coal seam as in Centralia, PA). The water running off the site was piss-yellow and had a pH about equal to the acid in a car battery. We built retainment facilities and guys came by to do regular treatment with calcium carbonate to raise the pH. I remember the first time I saw someone toss a brick of lime into the pond. The whole thing turned deep red, then cloudy, as all the dissolved iron and sulfur began to precipitate out of the acidic water.”
    ——————————-
    Nothing to worry about. The folks who made the money from those wells aren’t affected by the mess and the poison. They are just fine.

  48. says

    #Russia continues its racist policy of trying to force migrants to fight its war.

    State news agencies even glory in the fact they managed to “round up” immigrants during a raid on markets in #StPetersburg. They have ‘convinced’ 100 to join the meat market in #Ukraine instead.

    https://x.com/TWMCLtd/status/1842666071444041974

    President Zelensky reported that over the past week, Russia has launched about 20 different types of missiles, over 800 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 400 strike drones. He emphasized that this daily aerial terror can be stopped through unity among partners and long-range capabilities, which will help save Ukrainian lives. Zelensky stated that discussions on this matter will continue with partners during the upcoming “Ramstein” meeting next week.

    https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1842885429294506166

  49. says

    I just watched a video of Ukrainian veteran Vladyslav Zadorin, who spent 22 months in a Russian prison. What he talks about is terrible; it is physical and mental torture on a daily basis. Please share this summary so that the world understands what kind of evil Russia is.

    https://x.com/VolodyaTretyak/status/1830695062457426211

    Volodymyr Tretyak 🇺🇦@VolodyaTretyak
    “We spent 12 hours lying on a pier after being captured on Snake Island. It was late February, it was cold, and the sea was stormy, and freezing water kept splashing on us.” /1 […]

    https://x.com/VolodyaTretyak/status/1830695063925522498

    “After arriving at the colony, we stood in the cold snow for hours—some for a few hours, others for up to 15.” /2

    “In the colony, they gave us a bowl of clear water with a single strand of beet in it. When we asked what it was, they said, ‘This is your Ukrainian borscht.'” /3

    “One guy was forced to do a thousand squats because his heels don’t touch the floor when squatting. If you run out of energy, they will use a taser.” /4

    “They used a taser everywhere—inside our mouths, on genitalia, and even in the rectum. The pain and adrenaline made it feel like we could climb walls.” /5

    “One guard beat prisoners so badly he broke over 10 bottles on my head. I now have a traumatic brain injury. This guard would beat us on the spine, trying to force the vertebrae inward. This guard had grandkids in Kharkiv, Ukraine.” /6

    “They gave me clothes that were deliberately too small just to mock me, even though I weighed 120 kg.” /7

    “On the way to the shower, we had to shout ‘one, two, three, four’ in German. They said we were fascists and we should shout in the ‘language of the fascists.'” /8

    “One guard loved the Russian band Sector Gaza. We had to sing their songs to get food. Those who refused to sing went hungry.””Besides, we had to sing the Russian anthem 30-50 times a day.” /9

    “Some were sexually abused. They inserted objects into the rectum, and some were beaten to death.” /10

    “One prisoner’s tongue was cut in two like a snake’s. They would loosen teeth with pliers so they’d fall out over time.” /11

  50. Reginald Selkirk says

    @57: The properties of the described phenomenon are very un-laser-like. So you could say it is analogous, except for this, and except for that…

  51. Reginald Selkirk says

    None of us should even know who JD Vance is

    JD Vance is a man completely lacking in merit.

    Most of us can see this quite clearly…

    So why have any of us even heard of this Heartland Hitler? Why is JD Vance, less then two months after his 40th birthday and with only a couple of years’ experience as a corporate lawyer and a few more as a venture capitalist, perhaps only a few months away from being a heartbeat away from the presidency? Because elites in academia, the news media, entertainment, and the tech industry have promoted him like no other candidate in memory — except, perhaps, Trump himself.

    JD Vance is not a “product” of America’s elite institutions so much as he is a creation of them…

  52. says

    Right-wing media falsely and dishonestly claim that Hurricane Helene survivors are only entitled to $750 in aid

    In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, right-wing media falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration are ignoring millions of Americans impacted by intense flooding. Media personalities and MAGA influencers have falsely and dishonestly claimed that victims are only entitled to $750 in aid, when in reality that is just the start of federal benefits.

    FEMA can provide assistance for victims of Hurricane Helene, but chronic underfunding and climate change, not undocumented migrants, threaten future aid availability
    – In addition to FEMA providing residents of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia with “a one-time $750 payment to help with essential items like food, water, baby formula and other emergency supplies,” victims can also qualify for “disaster-related financial assistance to repair storm-related damage to homes and replace personal property.” After visiting the wreckage in Georgia, Harris reiterated that “FEMA is also providing tens of thousands more dollars for folks to help them be able to deal with home repair, to be able to cover a deductible when and if they have insurance, and also hotel costs.” [The White House, 10/2/24, 10/2/24]

    – After President Joe Biden signed a stopgap spending bill in September, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said FEMA can properly respond to Helene recovery efforts. FEMA spokesperson Daniel Llargués said that FEMA is in a “good position” to respond to Hurricane Helene relief efforts after the agency received $20.3 billion under the spending bill. Biden has suggested bringing lawmakers back to Washington to provide additional funding for disaster relief, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has claimed “there’s no necessity for Congress to come back”. [The New York Times, 9/26/24, 10/2/24; Roll Call, 10/3/24; FEMA, 10/3/24]

    – Future concerns for FEMA’s funding are attributable to chronic underfunding by Congress and increased costs associated with extreme weather disturbance as a result of climate change, not aid given to undocumented immigrants. Mayorkas warned that FEMA “does not have the funds to make it through the [hurricane] season.” A DHS spokesperson clarified, however, that aid provided to undocumented immigrants through the Shelter and Services Program is “a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams.” [The Associated Press, 10/3/24; Axios, 7/14/23; Bipartisan Policy Center, 7/23/24; Newsweek, 10/3/24]

    Fox News personalities grossly misled viewers about federal aid that Helene survivors are entitled to
    – Fox’s misleading coverage of $750 payment was “one of the more dishonest omissions ever seen on Fox News – which is saying something.” Mediaite columnist Michael Luciano wrote of the misleading attack by Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Laura Ingraham. Watters and Ingraham aired misleading clips from a speech by VP Kamala Harris suggesting that $750 was the only benefit survivors were entitled to, while Harris continued explaining that it was just the start of substantial federal aid. Hannity described the aid efforts in similarly dishonest terms:
    [More examples at the link]
    – As X/Twitter super-poster Acyn Torbai noted in the video below, Fox News actually carried Harris’s speech live the previous day. The vice president explained that the $750 is just the beginning of the assistance available to impacted residents. [Mediaite, 10/3/24]

    […] Fox host Jesse Watters lamented that Vice President Harris is “tossing a few hundred bucks at people who lost everything.” He continued, “$750. Democrats sent checks for thousands of dollars during COVID. Thousands. None of those people had their homes swept away by floodwaters.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 10/2/24]

    […] Watters scoffed: “$750 per person in America after you lost your entire home, all of your belongings, and you have no food, power, or water.” He complained, “When American citizens — the ones who were born here and pay taxes — deserve help, Biden and Harris are saying, ‘Ah, sorry, we give it all away to the people who broke into the country.’” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 10/3/24]

    Sean Hannity blamed FEMA’s lack of funds on its provision of “free food, housing, health care, education, sex-change surgeries, debit cards, four-star hotels” to undocumented immigrants while Helene victims get “a lousy … $750.” “They’ve been completely abandoned by your border czar, who prioritized her unvetted illegal immigrants over the American people.” [Fox News, Hannity, 10/3/24]

    MAGA media figures inaccurately blamed migrants for taking FEMA funds
    […] Anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel claimed that victims of Hurricane Helene would get “$750” but that a “criminal thug from South America” would get “a 4-star hotel with credit cards.” She posted, “If you lost your entire house during Hurricane Helene, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will give you $750. If you are a criminal thug from South America and cross the border illegally through Mexico, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will put you up in a 4-star hotel with credit cards.” [Twitter/X, 10/3/24]

    […] Right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich claimed Mayorkas “laundered all of the money to open borders NGO’s.” [Twitter/X, 10/3/24]
    [More examples at the link]

    I can see how, if you believed that disinformation, and you were a person in desperate straits in a place like North Carolina, you might allow your rage against “illegals” to be stoked. Dangerous rhetoric from the rightwing doofuses.

    Additional embedded links to sources are included at the main link.

  53. Rob Grigjanis says

    @75: You haven’t explained anything, just spouted hand-wavy nonsense. What does ‘very un-laser-like’ mean? What does ‘except for this, and except for that’ mean? What are ‘this’ and ‘that’? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?

  54. tomh says

    WaPo Live :

    During a campaign event in Wisconsin, Donald Trump suggested that any supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris who were at his rally could be physically harmed.

    “Is there anybody here that’s going to vote for [Harris], please raise your hand,” Trump said. “Actually, I should say don’t raise your hand. It would be very dangerous. We don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

  55. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Democrats try ‘Trump-proofing’ their states ahead of Election Day
    By Reis Thebault / October 6, 2024

    Washington and Massachusetts are stockpiling abortion pills. California is cutting climate deals directly with automakers. Colorado is rushing to protect the right to same-sex marriage. And attorneys general across the country are marshaling legal resources and privately plotting courtroom strategies.

    From the West Coast to the East, blue states are preparing for the possibility that former president Donald Trump wins in November by attempting to shield their policy priorities from the reach of a future Trump administration.

    This preemptive strategy — “Trump-proofing” — encompasses a wide range of issues and programs that Democratic leaders fear could be targeted in another Trump presidency, based on his previous actions and his current campaign promises.

    Even as they pursue such safeguards, Democrats are projecting confidence in their nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, but they say it would be irresponsible to go into Election Day without a backup plan for their worst-case scenario.
    […]

    The effort provides a striking contrast to the 2016 election, when Trump’s victory took Democratic officials by surprise and sent them scrambling to respond. Much has changed in the eight years since, however, and experts say that even with the early Democratic organizing, the reach could be limited by the conservative transformation of the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court in Trump’s first term.

    Still, leaders in blue-state America believe the head start and hard-won experience will help them once again act as a bulwark against an agenda they deem dangerous.

    “If Donald Trump should somehow be reelected, we’ll be ready from day one to respond,” said Robert Rivas, the speaker of the California Assembly and one of the top elected Democrats in a state that has styled itself as Trump’s fiercest sparring partner. “We’ve already stopped Trump once, and we’re prepared to do so again.”
    […]

    States appear to be pursuing a three-pronged self-defense strategy, according to interviews with officials, advocates and experts, situated in governor’s mansions, statehouses and courtrooms.
    […]

    In shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes at an undisclosed government facility sits Washington state’s insurance policy against a future Trump administration. In them are 30,000 doses of mifepristone, the commonly used abortion pill that has become a flash point in the fight over reproductive rights.

    Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) was one of several state leaders to order stockpiles of the medication last year, when a lawsuit threatened to limit access to the drug. The Supreme Court later rejected the challenge, but Inslee said last month that he would maintain the state’s stash — at least until the presidential race is decided.

    Trump has suggested that he is open to using federal regulations to limit access to mifepristone, declining to rule out the move in a summer news conference. His campaign later said that “the Supreme Court unanimously decided on the issue and the matter is settled,” but the court’s ruling has no bearing on what a future administration could do and it left the drug vulnerable to additional legal challenges.

    Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) is likewise preserving her state’s stockpile of 15,000 pills in case Trump returns to office.

    “A Donald Trump presidency would be disastrous for states,” Healey said in a statement to The Washington Post, adding that “he would destroy reproductive freedom even more than he already has.”

    ….In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), probably MAGA’s most visible state-level foil, has been working to secure a lofty climate agenda.

    Trump has long gleefully targeted California, and his campaign has told reporters that as president he would again revoke the state’s power to set its own pollution limits on cars and trucks, among other things. (In a September news conference in the state, he also threatened to block federal fire aid to California unless Newsom bowed to his agenda on taxes and other topics.)

    To counter any Trump action on the pollution front, Newsom announced an agreement earlier this year with the automaker Stellantis, one of the world’s largest car manufacturers. The pact ensures that Stellantis will comply with California regulations even if the state is “unable to enforce its standards as a result of judicial or federal action,” an arrangement similar to one Newsom brokered during Trump’s first term.

    The deals underscore California’s ability, rare among states, to use its formidable economy and market muscle to shape policy regardless of what happens at the federal level.
    […]

    After Trump’s 2016 election, California’s rattled legislative leaders vowed to “lead the resistance” to his administration.

    That defiant pledge kicked off years of policymaking as the legislature’s Democratic supermajority pushed dozens of bills designed to insulate California, such as the 2017 “sanctuary state” law that limited communication between local authorities and federal immigration officials amid Trump’s threats of mass deportations.

    “Here in California, we are already battle-tested,” Rivas said.

    On Sunday, Newsom signed a bill that requires insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization, citing GOP opposition to the treatment in explaining its urgency.
    […]

    State lawmakers have also sought to protect same-sex marriage, pushing onto the November ballot constitutional amendments that would secure it in California, Colorado and Hawaii.
    […]

    “We had to really address that issue now while we could,” said Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, co-chair of the Democratic caucus and sponsor of the state’s amendment to remove the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. “A lot of basic protections people take for granted could be changed by a Trump administration.”
    […]

    Lawsuits against the federal government …. skyrocketed during the Trump years, with Democratic states suing his administration more than 150 times, according to Nolette’s database of cases….

    Democrats were often successful, winning more than 80 percent of the cases against Trump, Nolette said, thus blocking some of his high-profile moves, like his push to include citizenship status on the census and his attempt to cancel the program protecting undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, known as DACA.

    But since many of those consequential cases were decided, the Supreme Court has shifted further to the right with Trump’s picks, mirroring a trend at the district level.

    And while Democrats have been planning ahead, Trump’s allies also have had years to fine-tune their own legal strategies.

    “This isn’t a one-way ratchet,” Nolette said. “They’re both upping their game.”

  56. Bekenstein Bound says

    Unfortunately, Canadian polling is even more dire than American: it would likely take a miracle to avoid Oilievre having at least four years to wreck the country and the climate. I’m slowly circling the drain as it is; it’s unlikely I would personally survive his reign long enough to vote against him a second time. But at least there would be one, unlike in America if Trump gets back in.

  57. birgerjohansson says

    There is apparently an election hoing on in the Indian state Haryana, so the Youtube searches for “poll” are half indian exit polls.

  58. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A controversial but effective treatment for meth addiction gains ground

    Unlike opioid addiction, there are no FDA-approved medications for […] stimulants like meth and cocaine. Instead, the most effective treatment is low-tech […] Offering people small rewards for not using drugs—known as contingency management—dates back to the 1980s. Patients are tested for drugs regularly over several months. They receive a gift card for every negative result, and payouts grow with each test.

    The treatment is based on a well-established concept that positive reinforcement is an effective motivator. […] Compared to traditional counseling, researchers have found people are twice as likely to stop […] But the approach has failed to catch on in spite of the evidence.
    […]
    Outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has offered contingency management since 2011, the treatment lay dormant for nearly a decade. But attitudes began to shift after the synthetic opioid fentanyl fueled a rise in overdose deaths
    […]
    In the last four years, some states have relied on federal grants or court rulings against opioid manufacturers to fund their contingency management programs. [California was the first state greenlit for Medicaid.] At least three other states—Montana, Washington and Delaware—are now running their own programs through Medicaid, and four others are seeking federal approval.

  59. KG says

    It reeks of toxic sulfur dioxide, filling the air with the odor of rotten eggs. – Lynna, OM@69 quoting Mark Sumner @DailyKos

    Sulphur dioxide doesn’t smell of rotten eggs, although it is toxic and breathing it in is very unpleasant – it feels, as much as smells, very sharp. It’s hydrogen sulphide that has the smell of rotten eggs (because a rotting egg gives off hydrogen sulphide).

  60. JM says

    FirstPost: Why China is asking school teachers to hand in their passports

    “All teachers and public sector employees were told to hand in our passports,” said a primary school teacher in a major city in the western province of Sichuan told The Financial Times, adding, “If we want to travel aboard, we have to apply to the city education bureau and I don’t think it will be approved,” said the teacher.

    China is imposing paranoid government level passport controls. Once this is rolled out a significant portion of the population will need to get government approval for each trip outside the country.
    This expands controls to all government employees. Even low level ones like primary school teachers. This includes at least some people working for companies owned by the government, a significant group in China. China has always had tight restrictions but this is bordering on insane and will slow all travel.

  61. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hurricane Milton strengthens to major Category 4 storm, Hurricane Watch issued for Florida Gulf Coast

    Florida’s Gulf Coast is under a Hurricane Watch and a Storm Surge Watch as Hurricane Milton continues to gain strength, intensifying into a major Category 4 storm in the Gulf of Mexico.

    As of 9 a.m. on Monday, Hurricane Milton was located at 21.7 N and 92.0 W.

    It was a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph and was moving east-southeast at 8 mph.

    According to the National Hurricane Center, wind shear will cause Milton to weaken ahead of landfall late Wednesday. It could remain a major hurricane upon landfall, which will happen on Florida’s west coast.

    Some areas will receive heavy rainfall on Monday and Tuesday, which FOX 13 meteorologists say is not directly related to Milton.

    Rain from Milton will likely arrive on Wednesday and will continue into Thursday before the storm moves out…

    FOX 13 Chief Meteorologist Paul Dellegatto warns that even if Milton does weaken prior to landfall, it will not lessen the storm surge. The point of landfall south is where the biggest surge will occur.

  62. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nobel Prize in medicine goes to two American biologists for work on the discovery of microRNA

    The 2024 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a molecule that governs how cells in the body function.

    Their research revealed how genes, which contain the instruction manual for life, give rise to different types of cells within the human body, a process known as gene regulation…

    The discovery of gene regulation by microRNA – a family of molecules that helps cells control the sort of proteins they make that has been at work for hundreds of millions of years – was the result of decades of work by Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Ruvkun, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School…

  63. JM says

    Youtube: Report: Russia FLATTENING Civilian Villages In Kursk!
    Russia is turning artillery against Russian villages in the Kursk. There are probably some accidents in there, with the Russian forces not clear on where Ukrainian forces are. The shelling is too wide spread for that to be entirely the case. The Russians are obviously going for a scorched earth strategy, making the villages useless for Ukraine. This is an admission that Russia doesn’t expect to liberate Kursk this year.
    Likely there is also an element of Russian officers doing something that they can report back to Moscow so it doesn’t look like they are sitting on their hands. There is also a propaganda element to this, with Ukraine blaming destruction on Russia and Russia blaming it on Ukraine.

  64. says

    Trump promises (again) to slash federal investments in education

    As part of his pitch on education policy, Donald Trump is vowing to cut federal investments in education by more than half in a second term.

    Donald Trump doesn’t have a detailed plan when it comes to education policy, but he has spent some time in recent months letting voters know about some of his priorities related to schools.

    We know, for example, that Trump has repeatedly vowed to cut off public funds “to any school that has a vaccine mandate.” We also know that he plans to shut down the Department of Education if given a second term.

    While we’re at it, we also know that Trump continues to champion school vouchers — what conservatives refer to as “school choice” — and he even briefly endorsed the idea of forcing public school principals to get elected to their positions.

    What voters might not know, however, is that Trump is the first major-party presidential nominee in recent history to call for slashing federal investments in education.

    In June, for example, the GOP nominee vowed to cut federal spending on education “in half,” conceding at the time that schools in some states “won’t do as well” once he has implemented his agenda. Last week, in an interview with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow — his former White House employee — Trump went a little further, announcing his intention to cut federal education investments by more than half. [video at the link]

    As part of the same pitch, Trump added that, by his estimation, schools in 35 states will be fine. Of course, in a nation with 50 states, the Republican seemed to imply that education in roughly 30% of the country would experience some troubles.

    To be sure, school budgets mostly rely on local and state spending, the federal government does make some investments that benefit public school districts nationwide, and no major-party presidential nominee in recent history has run on a platform of slashing those investments.

    And yet, here we are, watching Trump talk about cutting education spending at least in half while conceding that some parts of his own country would be worse off as a consequence.

    If the GOP candidate is under the impression that such an idea will be popular with the American mainstream, he might be in for a surprise.

  65. says

    Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    * The New York Times reported on conservative activists in Arizona, among other states, monitoring and filming voter-registration sites in pursuit of a larger partisan conspiracy theory.

    * In Georgia, the DeKalb County Republican Party had a pending lawsuit, claiming vulnerabilities to the state’s voting system. Last week, a state judge dismissed the case.

    * Donald Trump claimed in a social media post last week that he’d been endorsed by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Dimon’s office made clear soon after that he has not, in reality, endorsed Trump or any other candidate.

    * And as Election Day 2024 draws closer, expect to see a lot more of Barack Obama. NBC News reported, “Former President Barack Obama will campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh [this] week, his first foray into the election as a battleground-state surrogate. The event, according to a senior Harris campaign official, will launch a larger effort by Obama, who intends to ramp up his campaigning for Harris in the final stretch of the election cycle.”

    Link

    Embedded links are available at the main link. Here’s an excerpt from The New York Times report mentioned in the first paragraph above:

    […] Despite the many debunked falsehoods about widespread voting by noncitizens, liberal Latino advocacy groups say they are being trailed by conservative activists with cameras and accused of registering undocumented immigrants.

    The conservative activists are recording them, tactics that have also targeted migrant shelters, Democratic politicians, abortion clinics and student protesters. […] they were increasingly concerned about safety and intimidation. Some tell canvassers to scrub their public social media profiles and avoid posting photos showing their location in real time. These days, many canvassers go out bracing for an argument about stolen elections.

    […] Multiple reviews have found voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare. The Brennan Center for Justice found that suspected — not confirmed — cases of noncitizen voting accounted for one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of votes cast in 2016.

    In Palm Beach, Fla., workers from Mi Familia en Acción say they have been confronted multiple times as they stand at a table handing out voter-registration applications.

    In one encounter captured on video in early July, two women were working to register new voters, children playing beside them, when a man carrying a camera approached to ask why they were there.

    “You work for an NGO that is paid for by Soros-backed Democrats,” he said, referring to the financier and Democratic donor to nonprofit groups who is a perennial boogeyman for conservatives and antisemitic conspiracy theorists.

    A county worker stepped in to tell the man that Mi Familia’s workers had the right to be there. But the unidentified man had none of it. “They’re trying to do it with registering illegal voters,” he said. […]

    He presses the workers about why they do not ask for identifications. (The rules vary by state, but in many places voters registering online, by mail or using forms are asked to provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, which are checked by election officials.)

    […] The conservative Heritage Foundation has sent teams with hidden cameras posing as voter-outreach workers groups into apartment complexes in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia to ask the mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants there if they were citizens and registered to vote.

    […] Outside the Phoenix D.M.V. in September, the interaction between the Poder Latinx workers and Mr. Stepanov lasted just a few minutes.

    Mr. Stepanov walked away and the canvassers went back to offering voter forms.

    But that night, Mr. Stepanov posted a video of the interaction on social media — calling it “Voter Fraud in Arizona Exposed.” It caught fire with right-wing influencers and garnered more than two million views. […]

  66. says

    Quote Of The Day
    Kamala Harris, responding to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), who said last month that her kids keep her humble but Harris has nothing to keep her humble: “I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble.”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/06/harris-huckabee-sanders-podcast-00182637“>Link

    The quote above is excerpted from a longer article posted by Politico.

  67. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 94
    Yes, it is widely known that countries that waste money on ‘education’ never get much in return/s .

  68. tomh says

    NYT Live:
    The porn industry is jumping into the presidential campaign, targeting Project 2025.
    3 hours ago
    Jonathan Weisman

    Just when you thought everyone had already jumped into the 2024 campaign, here come the porn stars.

    Seventeen pornographic film actors on Monday announced that they had launched a $100,000 ad campaign on porn sites warning that Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a Republican administration that has been a centerpiece of some Democratic campaigns — wants to ban pornography and imprison people who produce it. The online ads will run in the states that will decide the presidency: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

    The architects of the “hands off my porn” campaign are nothing if not aware of the polling. Vice President Kamala Harris is losing to former President Donald J. Trump among men, but younger men might be winnable — and pornographic websites are among the most heavily trafficked on the internet.

    Quoting the Survey Center on American Life, the group said younger men are the biggest consumers of the industry’s products: Among men aged 18-29, 44 percent had watched porn within the past month. Among men aged 30-49, it was 57 percent.

    “I have been in this industry for over 25 years and have witnessed many attacks on our industry, but Project 2025’s ban on pornography is the most extreme proposal I have ever seen, and voters have to take that threat seriously,” Holly Randall, a pornographic film actor, said in the group’s announcement. “We cannot simply rely on precedent that consuming pornography is legal and has been legal for a long time.”

  69. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 95
    Stupid activists are a great source of entertainment.
    -A classic from three years ago. The ‘My Pillow’ guy tries to prove election fraud, but proves his ignorance of computers. At little over one hour, this deconstruction is one of those podcasts I like to fall asleep while listening to.
    “GAM 297 Absolute Interference”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=N3VvkG_QgtA

  70. says

    Good news, as posted by ABC News.

    Supreme Court rejects Republican-led challenge to ease voter registration

    The Supreme Court has turned away a challenge from Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania to a Biden administration executive order that is intended to boost voter registration.

    The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge from Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania to a Biden administration executive order that is intended to boost voter registration.

    The justices did not comment in rejecting an appeal from the Republicans, who claimed the order is an unconstitutional attempt to interfere in the November election. Lower courts had dismissed the lawsuit.

    Nine Republican secretaries of state and 11 members of Congress had asked the court to step in. In May, the justices declined to take up and decide the case on an expedited basis.

    The justices separately rejected two appeals stemming from baseless claims made by Republicans that voting machines and software of Dominion Voting Systems were responsible for Donald Trump ‘s defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

    In one case, the court turned away an appeal from Fulton County, Pennsylvania, that questioned a Pennsylvania high court ruling involving voting machines. The other rejected appeal involved claims from people around the country that Denver-based Dominion tried to silence them.

    About that executive order, mentioned above:

    Biden’s order includes several modest provisions. It directs federal agencies to expand access to voter registration and election information, calls on the heads of agencies to come up with plans to give federal employees time off to vote or volunteer as nonpartisan poll workers, and pushes an overhaul of the government’s Vote.gov website.

    […] The voting rights bill includes provisions to restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and bring transparency to a murky campaign finance system that allows wealthy donors to anonymously bankroll political causes. […]

  71. says

    JUST NOW: @realDonaldTrump leans heavily into race science by telling @hughhewitt that you can tell whether migrants are predisposed to committing murder by “their genes.”

    Video at the link. “Many of them murdered more than one person.” Trump’s answer is so bad. It is worth your time to listen to this rant by Hair Furor so that you will know just how bad it is. The sound track from the Hugh Hewitt show is only about 40 seconds long.

    https://x.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1843275407963164984

  72. says

    Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, confirmed to reporters Saturday that former President Donald Trump is “consistent” in his views on defunding Planned Parenthood.

    A journalist asked Vance, R-Ohio, whether a future Trump administration would defund Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health care group that has garnered opposition from many conservatives for its pro-abortion-rights positions.

    “On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood, look, I mean our view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance said after Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view.”

    In 2021, 93.5% of abortions were done at or before 13 weeks’ gestation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this year. About 5.7% of abortions were done between 14 and 20 weeks, and 0.9% were performed at or beyond 21 weeks.

    Jenny Lawson, executive director of the organization’s political action committee, Planned Parenthood Votes, said in a statement Monday morning that a Trump administration move to defund the group’s health centers “would rob millions of people across the country of vital, affordable care.”

    “As usual, he is spinning tall tales to make his case,” Lawson said said of Vance. “Here’s the truth: Federal funds cannot be used to provide abortion care at any point in pregnancy — but Planned Parenthood health centers do use federal funds to provide cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment, and many other essential reproductive health care services. ‘Defunding’ Planned Parenthood would only deepen and expand the public health crisis we’re already in thanks to Donald Trump, causing more people to suffer and die for lack of basic reproductive care.”

    […] After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump posted last year on Truth Social, a sentiment he has echoed on the campaign trail.

    In 2019, Planned Parenthood withdrew from Title X, a government family planning program, after the Trump administration passed a rule forbidding clinics participating in the program from providing abortion provider referrals.

    Planned Parenthood was already prevented from using federal funds for abortions, though anti-abortion-rights groups have argued that it is impossible for the government to verify that the funding for other services does not help subsidize abortion services.

    President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s rule, allowing clinics that provide abortion referrals to once again receive federal funds.

    In 2016, then-candidate Trump said in a debate that he would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, saying he would “defund it because I’m pro-life.

    Link

  73. says

    Oh no.

    The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate the law in Texas, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans.

    Without detailing their reasoning, the justices kept in place a lower court order that said hospitals cannot be required to provide pregnancy terminations that would violate Texas law.

    The Biden administration had asked the justices to throw out the lower court order, arguing that hospitals have to perform abortions in emergency situations under federal law. The administration pointed to the Supreme Court’s action in a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues.

    The administration also cited a Texas Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. The administration said it brings Texas in line with federal law and means the lower court ruling is not necessary.

    Texas asked the justices to leave the order in place, saying the state Supreme Court ruling meant Texas law, unlike Idaho’s, does have an exception for the health of a pregnant patient and there’s no conflict between federal and state law.

    Doctors have said the law remains dangerously vague after a medical board refused to specify exactly which conditions qualify for the exception. […]

    Link

  74. birgerjohansson says

    Now that Steamboat Willie is open source, there are t-shirts with him leaning over the book from the manga “Death Note” while the malign supernatural entity waits in the background. Japanese and Disney narrative universes colliding to the howling of outraged Disney executives. 🙂

  75. says

    Fox News host warns that listening to Harris might make you like her

    Ainsley Earhardt, co-host of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” morning show, expressed concern on Monday morning that if women hear a recent interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, they may decide to vote for her in the presidential election.

    Over the weekend, Harris gave an interview to “Call Her Daddy,” which the Associated Press reports is “the most-listened-to podcast for women,” with millions of fans.

    During an interview with a Republican strategist, Earhardt said the interview was a problem.

    “If you don’t know the issues, you really think, ‘Okay, she’s selling herself, she’s talking about women’s rights and how Donald Trump has stacked the court with all these conservative justices’—and if you’re a woman listening to that podcast and you don’t know how progressive she is, you might vote for her,” Earhardt said. [video at the link]

    […] Earhardt also alleged that Harris has spread a “lie” about Trump opposing in vitro fertilization. However, the Republican Party platform supports allowing states to make laws that would outlaw the use of embryos created via IVF. A similar situation occurred in February in Alabama, whose state Supreme Court ruled that embryos should be considered children. (The state legislature soon passed a law to protect IVF in the state, though some local clinics say the law wasn’t enough to truly protect the procedure.)

    In addition to her appearance on “Call Her Daddy,” Harris is doing a series of interviews this week, including with “60 Minutes,” “The View,” and “The Howard Stern Show.” And all this comes despite Fox News personalities’ frequent complaints that Harris is supposedly “hiding” from the American public. [It is more like Fox News is trying to hide Kamala Harris from their audience.]

    Since he became a political figure, Trump has been a fixture on Fox News and particularly on “Fox & Friends,” […] In his appearances on that program, Trump is often allowed to speak at length about a disjointed group of issues with little to no response from Earhardt and her fellow hosts. […]

  76. says

    Good news:

    Tim Walz is getting a number of good reviews for his appearance on Fox News today, mostly for his discussion about abortion rights. Here’s a samplilng.

    Tim Walz Easily Bats Down Fox Anchor’s Anti-Abortion Questions Rolling Stone link
    Shannon Bream tried to frame the vice presidential nominee as an extremist on abortion. He didn’t let her

    Tim Walz Outmaneuvers Fox News Host as He’s Grilled on Abortion
    Walz went head-to-head with Shannon Bream Fox News Sunday on abortion, claiming Trump will sign a national abortion ban. Daily Beast link

    Tim Walz Masterfully Pushes Back On The Right’s Abortion Talking Points
    The Democratic vice presidential candidate stood his ground in defense of a Minnesota law he signed as governor that codifies abortion protections post-Roe.

    [more at the main link]

    Here’s the gist of what went down in the Fox interview:

    “I have been clear. The restoration of Roe versus Wade is what we’re asking,” Walz said when Bream asked him on Fox News Sunday whether the Democrats would allow abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

    “The law is very clear. It does not change that. That was been debunked on every occasion​​.”

    Bream interjected to claim that when he enshrined the right to abortion and reproductive health care into Minnesota’s statutes last year, the legislation did not have a “single limit through nine months of pregnancy.”

    Walz, however, calmly kept on message, continuing, ​​“This puts the decision with the woman and her health care providers.”

    ​​“The situation we have is when you don’t have the ability of health care providers to provide that, that’s where you end up with a situation in Texas, where they are afraid to do what’s necessary,” he said.

    “This doesn’t change anything. It puts the decision back on to the woman, to the physicians […]

    ​​“This is a distraction from the real issue here is women being forced into miscarriages, women being forced to go back home, get sepsis, potentially die.”

    “Maternal mortality rates in Texas have skyrocketed off the charts because of this. This is bad policy.”

    To be clear, since Bream isn’t, Roe protected abortion rights through the first trimester but allowed states to “regulate procedure” — meaning states could restrict or ban abortions — in the second and third trimesters, but it absolutely did not restrict or place limitations on abortions nationwide. Later, in the 1992 case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the court protected abortion rights pre-viability and allowed states to restrict abortion post-viability.

    […] Here’s hoping a lot of undecided voters see Tim Walz on Fox and take note of how dishonest he showed Trump, Vance, and Fox themselves are being about what Roe v Wade was and what it wasn’t.

    Link

  77. says

    Oh great, now Melania Trump has thoughts on abortion

    Former first lady Melania Trump has a memoir coming out on Tuesday. Her publisher hilariously describes it as a “compelling and inspirational memoir that offers a glimpse into the life of a remarkable woman who has navigated challenges with grace and determination.” Sure, whatever.

    The real function of this memoir is as a vehicle for Melania to shop around her newfound commitment to abortion rights to any news organization gullible enough to believe she’s sincere. Everything about the book screams “rushed to market in the hopes it helps Trump get elected.”

    The cover is just a blank black slab with “Melania” in the middle in a completely pedestrian all-cap font. The publisher is Skyhorse Publishing, and you’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of them. Their other new releases include such hot numbers as “Y’all Fired: A Southern Belle’s Guide to Restoring Federalism and Draining the Swamp;” “Emergency Home Preparedness: The Ultimate Guide for Bugging In During Natural Disasters, Pandemics, Civil Unrest, and More;” and “The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” which even features a forward by Steve Bannon. [Yikes]

    The publisher’s “About Us” page has blurbs from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tucker Carlson, and Alan Dershowitz. In other words, it’s a dumping ground for right-wingers who can’t get a major publisher to pick up their book. Oh, and the publisher demanded a $250,000 licensing fee from CNN to interview Melania about the book, which they later walked back, declaring it an “internal miscommunication.”

    The Guardian, which really should know better, published exclusive excerpts of Melania’s pro-choice musings, including such vague statements as “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.”

    She also declared that “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.” [video, complete with distracting lighting, is available at the link]

    So, she’s carried this belief forever, but somehow this is the first time she’s ever talked about her deep and abiding belief in the right to an abortion. Besides the fact that this big reveal is conveniently timed to juice sales for her book, which is already, distressingly, the #2 seller on Amazon behind failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, it also comes at a time when her husband is desperately trying to obscure his hardline anti-choice stance.

    Indeed, shortly after The Guardian published excerpts, Donald Trump went on Fox News to proclaim his support, saying, “We spoke about it, and I said, ‘You have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe.’” Donald Trump, famous champion of autonomy for women.

    When asked about Melania’s newfound love of choice, all Sen. JD Vance could muster was that she was “entitled to her own views” before immediately pivoting to talking about securing the border. Notably, when Melania went on Fox News, she was not asked about abortion at all.

    Meanwhile, Trump biographer and New York Times writer Maggie Haberman went on “The Daily” to praise Donald Trump and preserve her own access should he be elected in 2024. Haberman said Trump “would welcome” Melania’s pro-choice stance and it would “make him happy.” This is, to put it charitably, nonsense.

    Trump has bragged about nominating the three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. He was the first sitting president to attend the March for Life, an annual rally and march against the legality of abortion. There, he spoke about how, since his first day in office, he has worked to “protect the unborn” and “would veto any legislation that weakens pro-life policies or that encourages the destruction of human life.”

    Even if one pretends that Melania is sincere here, her timing is way off. She had an entire four years to speak her truth on this or to try to stop Trump from gutting reproductive rights. Even Haberman was forced to admit that “It is not something that former White House advisers remember her talking about in either direction, pro or con.” Imagine that.

    […] As journalist Dan Savage pointed out on X, this sort of thing has been a habit for Republican wives, who are routinely trotted out to say vaguely pro-choice things while their husbands dismantle reproductive rights. Only one of them—Betty Ford—was ever willing to stand up for abortion rights while in the White House. Otherwise, much like Melania, GOP wives kept their pro-choice thoughts to themselves, revealing it only after it was too late for them to have any real influence.

    None of those past statements, however, have been as cynical as the Trump campaign deploying Melania to offset the virulently anti-choice stance of the Trump/Vance ticket.

    The bottom line is that Trump is like the dog who caught the car; he succeeded in eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, and now he has no idea what to do. He’s incapable of actually changing his stance because he’d lose the support of his base.

    So instead, we get Melania, who has been largely absent from the campaign trail unless she’s paid to show up, pretending that she’s a champion for choice. No one can stop her from lying about this, but no one should fall for it. […]

  78. says

    A key GOP Senate candidate faces new ‘carpetbagger’ accusations

    A variety of Republican U.S. Senate candidates this year have faced credible questions about their connections to the states they’re running in. In Wisconsin, for example, Eric Hovde has lived in California on-and-off since 2012. In Pennsylvania, hopeful David McCormick has been credibly accused of living in Connecticut. In Montana, Democrats have been eager to remind locals that Tim Sheehy is relatively new to the state, having moved there from Minnesota.

    Politico, looking ahead to the 2024 cycle, wrote last year, “A number of 2024 Senate candidates in competitive races have a carpetbagger problem,” and there’s ample evidence to bolster the point.

    But perhaps no one in Republican politics is struggling with the issue more than former Rep. Mike Rogers.

    To be sure, the former congressman was definitely born in Michigan, went to school in Michigan, lived in Michigan, and represented a district in the central part of the state for several years before retiring from Capitol Hill a decade ago.

    And then he did what a lot of retirees do: Rogers moved to Florida. We know this for certain, because he’s said so, out loud and on the record. In fact, the Republican, who reportedly purchased a very expensive home in the Sunshine State, was still registered to vote in Florida as recently as this year.

    But, according to the former GOP lawmaker, Rogers has returned to the Wolverine State and is ready to serve Michigan as a U.S. senator.

    […] The Detroit Free Press’ M.L. Elrick looked into the matter and explained in his latest column, “I don’t know where Mike Rogers lives, but it’s not where he’s registered to vote.”

    Rogers, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, changed his voter registration on July 2 to a home in White Lake Township that is under construction. A month later, he used the White Lake address to vote (presumably, for himself) in the four-way race for the GOP nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow. There’s just one problem: The house did not — and still does not — have a certificate of occupancy. That means Rogers could not live there legally. And if he didn’t live there, he may have broken the law by using that address to vote.

    Before changing his registration in July, Rogers apparently listed his brother’s address as his own, though locals suggested they never saw him and he never lived there.

    Elrick explored all of this in considerable detail — his column is well worth your time — and it’s worth noting that the candidate’s spokesperson appears to have confirmed that Rogers, as a result of construction delays, does not live in the house where he’s registered to vote. […]

    I have to wonder if a dark-money donor paid Mike Rogers to run for Senator in Michigan.

    It looks like The Detroit Free Press requires a subscription in order to read M.L. Elrick’s report.

  79. says

    Followup to comment 104.

    Trump Doing Race Science. Again.

    We all know that Donald Trump does not believe in science.

    Climate change? Please, so the world’s oceans are going to rise a gazillionth of an inch, it just means that in a million years people in West Virginia will own valuable oceanfront property. […] Viruses? Eh, they just disappear eventually, and if you can’t wait for that, you can drink bleach or shine an ultraviolet light up your own butthole to get rid of them. Astronomy? Meh, go ahead and stare down that eclipse without safety glasses. Show the sun who’s boss.

    There is one science that Trump believes in, though: race science! Which is less science and more flat-out racism spoken with slightly more erudition than you might find at your average Klan cross burning, but is flat-out racism nonetheless. […]

    Of course Trump is a Republican, so he can spew this racist garbage on a conservative’s podcast and that conservative (Hugh Hewitt in this case) doesn’t even blink. [video at the link]

    Maybe Hewitt was confused, since he had tried to ask Trump about Kamala Harris’s proposal to deal with America’s housing crisis by building a lot more houses. Apparently this is a ridiculous idea for some reason. Anyway, it’s worth quoting liberally here, so we can get Hewitt’s statement and which darkened forest paths of his mind it sent Donald Trump meandering down:

    HH: Well, she also wants to give $25,000 to new homebuilders. That’ll just drive up the price of houses, and then she says…

    DT: That’s going to drive the prices up, yeah. Your price is going to be $100,000 dollars more now. No, no, everything they want to do is wrong. First of all, you have to let the private sector do it. You just have to let them do it. She wants to go into government housing. She wants to go into government feeding. She wants to feed people. She wants to feed people governmentally. She wants to go into a communist party type of a system. When you look at the things that she proposes, they’re so far off. She has no clue. How about allowing people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers. Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.

    Somehow we went from “subsidies encouraging builders to build more housing are a bad idea” to “Hispanic migrants are genetically predisposed to murder” in 159 words and approximately 24 seconds. It’s impressive, in its own terrible way. The modern Republican Party is like thiiiiiiiiiiis close to putting a eugenics plank in its party platform.

    If we’re going to go down this road, we must point out that Donald Trump is of German descent, and the Germans started two world wars, carried out the Holocaust, and gave America the Trump family that has been responsible for so much misery. Clearly, the Kaiser was not sending us or anyone else his best. [sarcasm, not meant to disparage all Germans] […]

  80. says

    Lying Liars And The Lies They Tell On The Sunday Shows

    Trying to ascribe lofty motivations to Republicans has always been a fool’s errand. We’ve mocked elected Democrats in the past when they have waxed poetically about their “worthy opposition” or their “friends on the other side” because it flies in the face of what they are elected to do: represent their constituents.

    So, let’s see how these “opposing friends” decided to behave on Sunday.

    What’s A Little Incitement Among Friends? [video at the link]
    Current Speaker of the House and Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson was on ABC’s “This Week” and “Fox News Sunday.”

    On ABC, Johnson was asked about recent comments from Donald Trump’s failson (the blonde one), attributing the attempted assassinations of Trump to Democrats. After host George Stephanopoulos played a clip of it, Johnson’s faux-nice guy “aww shucks” cadence attempted to speak about “lowering the temperature” of political rhetoric while dodging the questions about it.

    JOHNSON: I – I don’t know what Eric was saying because I only heard just a – a snippet there. I don’t know the context. I do know that Eric is very level-headed and a very intelligent person.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You just saw it, sir.

    JOHNSON: I saw your clip of it, George. I didn’t see the full speech. We need to all look at these things in full context.

    Johnson then did precisely the same equivocating by bringing up bullshit about “Democrats using lawfare” and “Trump has been hounded ever since he came down the escalators in 2015.”

    Stephanopoulos again pressed him to condemn this:

    STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you’re actually repeating the charge. And I don’t know what more context you need. Here’s exactly what Eric Trump said. “They tried to smear us. They came after us. They impeached him twice. And then, guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him, and it’s because the Democratic Party, they can’t do anything right.” What more context do you need? Do you support that statement or not?

    JOHNSON: George, George, I’m not going to parse the language what people say at rallies. I could give you pages and pages of crazy comments by the leading Democrats in this country. That’s not what this is about. […]

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Isn’t that rhetoric the kind of political nonsense you’re talking about?

    JOHNSON: Look, we’re in an election cycle. This is a silly season, as they say. We’re in the – 30 days out from the most fateful election of our lifetime.

    “Silly season.” What a perplexingly innocuous way to describe riling up your voter base to very possibly commit violence, either now or in the event Trump loses (again). […]

    It’s infuriating to see the person second in the presidential line of succession be this callous.

    Johnson was also asked about JD Vance’s inability to just say Trump lost the 2020 election during last week’s VP debate. Johnson referred to the question as a “gotcha game,” which only makes sense if you think asking you about the color of the daytime sky is a “gotcha.”

    Schrödinger’s Election Results

    Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton also had a hard time answering this very question on “Meet The Press.” [video at the link]

    KRISTIN WELKER: We just played it in the open, when Senator JD Vance refused to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. I want to put this question to you, Senator, just to put this to rest: Can you say definitively here and now that Donald Trump did lose the 2020 election?

    COTTON: Kristen, Joe Biden was elected president in 2020. It was an unfair election in many ways. […]

    WELKER: But did Trump lose? Just to the –

    COTTON: Joe Biden was elected, Kristen. I mean, there’s a process by which we elect presidents. There’s votes in November. You have an Electoral College vote. You certify the election. And then you have the inauguration. Joe Biden was elected president. […]

    WELKER: As you know, though, I mean, it has been stated that this was one of the most secure elections in U.S. history. But do you just not want to say that Trump lost? Why not just say the simple –

    COTTON: Kristen –

    WELKER: If Biden is president, can you just simply say, “Trump lost”?

    COTTON: Joe – Joe Biden was elected president in 2020.

    `

    Imagine twisting yourself into knots trying to explain how Joe Biden won without saying he won, or Trump lost without saying he lost. All because the head of your party and nominee is a thin-skinned narcissist who will throw a tantrum if he’s seen as the loser he is.

    Cotton also tried to lie about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, because there’s no low these assclowns won’t stoop to.

    Playing ‘Both Sides’ Even In Disaster [video at the link]

    Speaking of the federal response to Hurricane Helene, North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis went with a third option on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan: Admit North Carolina is getting aid, while still giving oxygen to Trump’s lies.

    BRENNAN: Former President Trump claimed the federal response in North Carolina was terrible, and emergency funding is being spent on immigrants. Do you know what he’s talking about? […] Is he right?

    TILLIS: I think that the President is right to say that billions of dollars is being spent as a result of Biden’s failed immigration policies and border policies. However, we have the resources that we need, we’re going to have to go back and pass more resources. […] But right now, not yet is it affecting the flow of resources to western North Carolina.

    BRENNAN: It is not an effector, to be clear? Okay.

    TILLIS: Not at this time.

    Brennan then pointed out that Speaker Johnson has said he’s not calling people back early to vote to approve necessary funding for FEMA disaster funds. Once again, reality and facts have a way of proving who plays politics with the American people’s lives.

    We just hope people realize this on November 5.

    Have a week.

  81. says

    Elon Musk’s Mom Gleefully Encourages Trump Supporters To Do Voter Fraud

    What could possibly go wrong or result in people going to prison for up to five years?

    Maye Musk — the mother of Elon Musk — took to the site formerly known as Twitter this weekend to encourage Republican users of the site to go out and commit a fuckton of voter fraud this November, assuring them that it was 100 percent legal.

    Quoting a post from her sweet baby boy, Maye Musk wrote, “The Democrats have given us another option. You don’t have to register to vote. On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too.”

    “This is, in fact, illegal,” Community Notes pointed out.

    You also very much have to register to vote, though why interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake? [Posts on X are available at the link]

    For years, Republicans have soothed their voters’ egos with the fiction that Democrats regularly commit voter fraud and steal elections. It’s a story that serves multiple purposes. It allows them to attack the undocumented immigrants they claim are a part of this, it establishes Democrats as evildoers, and, perhaps most importantly, it allows them to preserve their belief that they are the Real Americans and the “silent majority.” If Democrats can’t win without cheating, it means they’re the real winners.

    It’s also a demonstration of how very little Republican politicians and pundits actually care about their constituency. Multiple Republicans have been convicted of voter fraud, often because they thought it was easy to do without getting caught and because they thought they were doing some sort of “turnabout is fair play” with Democrats and “beating them at their own game.” Just like Maye Musk suggested.

    Many have also been charged and some have even been convicted and sentenced for their part in trying to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election, which they truly believed he only lost because of “widespread voter fraud.” Just last week, former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison for her (very illegal) attempts to stop the non-existent steal.

    In-person voter fraud, as Maye Musk describes, is extremely rare, unlikely to make any kind of dent in a national election, and the penalties for getting caught are extremely high. If people were to believe Maye Musk and get caught, they could be sent to prison for five years and also on the hook for up to $10,000. And no, “I just wanted to beat Democrats at their own game, your honor!” is not considered a valid excuse.

  82. says

    Major North Carolina newspaper knocks Trump over Helene response ‘falsehoods’

    A leading newspaper in North Carolina is blasting former President Trump over what it calls his “falsehoods” about the government response to Hurricane Helene, which devastated a large swath of the state last week.

    “This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together,” the editorial board of The Charlotte Observer wrote this week. “By every indication, state and federal agencies have been working to help people in need. They’ve been airlifting food and other supplies to affected areas.”

    The Observer noted Trump’s statements in recent weeks claiming Democratic state and federal officials are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas,” and saying Vice President Harris “spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.”

    “There’s no evidence to support any of those ridiculous claims,” the newspaper shot back.

    “Let’s be clear: Western North Carolina is not a political football. This is not a campaign opportunity,” the outlet continued. “The most unhelpful thing any politician — or anyone else — can do right now is spread misinformation and tell people that their government isn’t doing anything to help them.”

    […] “Sowing the seeds of political division is always an unnecessary and tiresome endeavor,” the Observer continued. “But doing so in times of great need, when unity is paramount, is particularly shameful.”

    Agreed.

  83. says

    Related to comment 117.

    Former Florida GOP chair backs Harris after Helene ‘trolling’

    The former head of the Florida Republican Party said he’s supporting Vice President Harris after “trolling” from other Republicans over the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene.

    Al Cárdenas said in his appearance Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that natural disasters have “always been a bipartisan issue.”

    “Both Democrats and Republicans have worked together to assist the people in harm’s way,” Cárdenas added. “Well, you know, the White House asked Congress to pass a bill to — a supplemental bill — to really help people with these disasters, because we may be running outta cash. All of a sudden, the trolling, the Trump operatives and everybody else started saying, ‘Well, they’re giving that money to illegal immigrants.’ Not true.”

    Republicans, including former President Trump have gone after the federal response to Hurricane Helene. Last week, at a rally in Saginaw, Mich., the former president said the response “is going even worse” than Hurricane Katrina.

    “A certain president, I will not name him, destroyed his reputation with Katrina,” Trump said of former President George W. Bush. “And this is going even worse. She’s doing even worse than he did.”

    Cárdenas said in his appearance on “Morning Joe” that he believes “Harris and [Tim] Walz may not necessarily be my ideal ticket, but they’re not gonna put America in harm’s way.”

    “And so I made an easy decision for me,” the former Sunshine State GOP head said. […]

  84. says

    Followup to comment 62.

    After picking ‘cognitive problems’ fight, Trump faces awkward questions

    It was nine days ago when Donald Trump decided to lean into a provocative new attack targeting Kamala Harris. The Democratic vice president, Trump said, was born “mentally impaired.” The former president also compared her actions to that of “a mentally disabled person.”

    In case that weren’t quite enough, Trump said his 2024 rival is “stupid” and has “cognitive problems.”

    The GOP candidate’s rhetoric was obviously as ugly as it was untrue, but it also opened the door to an awkward conversation about the Republican’s own age, fitness, and mental acuity.

    In fact, just a few days after attacking Harris as “a very dumb person,” Trump held an event in Wisconsin in which he struggled to pronounce United Arab Emirates, flubbed the basics of hurricane season, mixed up Iran with North Korea, falsely claimed government agencies can’t determine the U.S. population, and referred to an African country before concluding, “I don’t know what that is.”

    A Washington Post report told readers soon after, “Trump, 78, often speaks in a digressive, extemporaneous style that thrills his fans at large-scale rallies. But Tuesday’s event, in front of almost entirely reporters, was especially scattered and hard to follow.” Around the same time, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii noted an online video in which the Republican falsely said North Korea was trying to kill him and concluded, “I think it’s reasonable to watch this clip, add the withdrawal from a 60 minutes interview, and wonder if there’s something actually going on. I don’t know — maybe he’s fine, but it’s not a wacky or nasty thing to inquire about.”

    As the week came to an end, The New York Times ran a related front-page report on the same subject. After noting Trump’s boasts about a debate crowd that didn’t exist, the article noted that this was “hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately.” [See comment 62; and see also PZ’s post When you’ve lost the New York Times… ]

    […] This comes on the heels of a related Trump analysis noting that the Republican nominee “has mixed up names, confused facts and stumbled over his points. Mr. Trump’s rambling speeches, sometimes incoherent statements and extreme outbursts have raised questions about his own cognitive health.”

    The list of similar instances in support of the thesis is not short. A few days before targeting Harris’ intellect, for example, the former president referred to Charlottesville as “Charlottestown.” A few days before that, he mixed up Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

    In early September, Trump urged people in New Hampshire to vote against Biden, apparently forgetting that Biden isn’t running. Two weeks earlier, he seemed to forget which state he was in during a campaign rally.

    It came against a backdrop of weird Trump rhetoric about bacon and wind power [snipped the sharks and batteries nonsense]

    As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recently noted, Trump “is very obviously sharply declining before our eyes,” and MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem added: “Trump has been embedded in the public consciousness as a rule-breaker for so long that it can be easy to forget how far he is from fulfilling the basic requirement of a politician to speak clearly. Trump’s speeches seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day.”

    I continue to be preoccupied with this, not only because he picked a fight over which candidate has “cognitive problems” — a fight that appears increasingly foolish with each passing day — but also because President Joe Biden’s age and fitness were the single most dominant issue in the 2024 race for months. [True!]

    […]

  85. says

    […] The IDF issued evacuation warnings for roughly one-quarter of Lebanon’s coastline, as well as much of northern Gaza in what appeared to be major new offensives.

    More than 41,800 people have been killed in Israel’s yearlong assault on the Palestinian enclave, including more than 16,000 children, local officials say. Hamas today hailed its attack a year ago, firing rockets at Tel Aviv.

    More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since Oct. 8, the majority dying in the last few weeks, according to Lebanese officials. […]

    Civilians fleeing violence are at risk following Israeli airstrikes on the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, which could be a violation of international law, according to Human Rights Watch.

    Although Israel’s military has defended the strike on the Masnaa crossing over its alleged use by Hezbollah to transport arms, Human Rights Watch posed that it could still be a violation if the “immediate civilian harm is disproportionate to the anticipated military gain.”

    A border crossing is a civilian infrastructure still governed by the rules of proportionality in war, the organization said.

    Lama Fakih, regional director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that the crossing’s inaccessibility “threatens considerable civilian harm.”

    “Even if that crossing is used for military purposes, Israel would need to take into account the expected civilian harm compared to the anticipated military gain from the attack,” Fakih said. […]

    Link

  86. Reginald Selkirk says

    @118
    Al Cárdenas said in his appearance Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that natural disasters have “always been a bipartisan issue.”

    There is a history of certain members of Congress supporting disaster aid for their home states, but not for other states. These people tend to be Republican. Ted Cruz comes immediately to mind, but there are others.

    Cruz, Texans accused of hypocrisy on Harvey aid

    Texas Republicans in Congress once stood nearly united against a bill to send billions of dollars in aid to Northeastern states recovering from Hurricane Sandy. Sen. Ted Cruz even ripped the legislation as “a Christmas tree” with billions of dollars in extraneous goodies.

    New York and New Jersey Republicans haven’t forgotten the slight. And with Hurricane Harvey wreaking devastation down South — and Congress beginning to contemplate what will likely be a massive aid package — the tough-on-spending Texans could find themselves in an awkward spot…

  87. Reginald Selkirk says

    IRS free tax filing will be available in 24 states for the 2025 season — here’s who can use it

    Next year, more than 30 million Americans in 24 states will be eligible for Direct File, the IRS’ free tax filing program, the agency and U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Thursday.

    The Direct File pilot was open to limited taxpayers in 12 states for the 2024 filing season, including Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

    For the 2025 season, the program will add 12 new states, including Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the agencies told reporters on a press call.

    More states are expected to join in 2026.

    During the pilot, Direct File supported the earned income tax credit, child tax credit and credit for other dependents.

    For 2025, the program will add support for the child and dependent care credit, premium tax credit for Marketplace insurance, the credit for elderly or disabled and retirement saver’s credit.

    Filers still must claim the standard deduction rather than itemizing tax breaks to participate…

  88. Reginald Selkirk says

    Caitlin Clark to tee it up in LPGA pro-am at The Annika

    Caitlin Clark wasn’t joking when she included golf in her offseason plans.

    Clark is going to The Annika in November, the penultimate tournament on the LPGA Tour schedule hosted by Annika Sorenstam, to play in the pro-am and be a panelist at the Women’s Leadership Summit at Pelican Golf Club.

    Clark, the WNBA rookie of the year, said last month when the Indiana Fever was eliminated that she planned to play golf until it got too cold in Indiana and, adding with a smile, “Become a professional golfer.” …

  89. Reginald Selkirk says

    WNBA update

    The New York Liberty has won their semifinal series against the Las Vegas Aces, and has won a spot in the finals.

    Their foe will be determined Tuesday night; the Minnesota Lynx and the Connecticut Sun are tied 2-2 and will decide the best-of-five series then.

    The first game of the finals will be Thursday, October 10, 2024.

  90. StevoR says

    Jut watched this live on ABC miday news.

    Peter Dutton has refused to support a motion put by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to mark a year since the October 7 attack because it went beyond the focus of the suffering of the Jewish people.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-08/federal-parliament-live-blog-october-8/104441336

    Because it called for peace and included the suffering of other groups including groups of Aussies too.

    Peter Dutton is the turd in the punch bowl of Australian politics. He is racist, divisive, extremist, thuggish & outright evil & should be shunned by every decent human. If “parliamentary language” doesn’t allow Dutton to be called out for exactly what he is then “parliamentary language” is fundamentally dishonest

  91. says

    NBC News:

    Life-threatening storm surges are expected to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast this week with the arrival of Hurricane Milton, which was upgraded Monday afternoon to a Category 5 storm over the southern Gulf of Mexico. […]

  92. says

    NBC News:

    The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban while it reviews an appeal from the state of a lower court ruling that had struck down the law. The decision goes into effect at 5 p.m. local time, meaning that most abortions will again be illegal in the state after six weeks of pregnancy after that time.

  93. says

    MSNBC:

    A Colorado judge has been getting multiple threats after he sentenced an election-denying former county clerk [Tina Peters] to prison for orchestrating a security breach to further a conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

  94. says

    Sally Field reveals chilling story of her own illegal abortion at 17

    Sally Field, the Academy Award-winning actress, told her harrowing story of procuring an illegal abortion in Mexico when she was 17, in an Instagram video posted on Sunday.

    “I’ve been so hesitant to do this, to tell my horrific story,” the famed actress wrote on Instagram. “It was during a time even worse than now. A time when contraception was not readily available and only if you were married. But I feel that so many women of my generation went through similar, traumatic events and I feel stronger when I think of them.”

    “I feel still very shamed about it, because I was raised in the 50s, and, you know, it’s ingrained in me,” she said. “And I was 17. I had no choices in my life.”

    In the video, Field details traveling with her mother and two others to a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, where she was not provided a real anesthetic. She also details being molested by a clinic technician and then being rushed out of the facility because abortion was against the law.

    Nevertheless, the abortion, as horrible as Field’s experience was, allowed her to start her career in acting. “I began auditioning, and by the end of that year, I was Gidget,” she said, referring to her role as the title character on the beloved TV show that launched her career.

    “I was the quintessential all-American girl next door,” Field says, adding, “In reality, I was the quintessential all-American girl next door because so many young women—my generation of women—were going through this, and these are the things that women are going through now.” [video at the link]
    […]

  95. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/marjorie-taylor-greene-swears-there

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Swears There Is So A Weather Machine, Gosh Darn It!

    Doubling and tripling down.

    It feels like just last week that […] Marjorie Taylor Greene was not so subtly accusing (((someone))) of firing up their big old hurricane machine and shooting off one giant-ass storm that tore up through several conservative-leaning states, causing flooding, destruction, misery and a couple of hundred deaths (and counting) across a wide swath of the South.

    It feels like just last week because it was just last week. Now, not content with the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Helene, (((they))) have spun up a giant sequel named Hurricane Milton, possibly the most insanely milquetoast name ever given to a hurricane that is about to wreck a whole lot of stuff.

    How is Greene taking it? By doubling down, of course: [Her post is available at the link.]

    Yr Wonkette swears we are not lying to you, so please tell the people to go hate someone else.

    The video MTG posted in support of her “theory” is of former CIA head John Brennan giving a very stilted speech about geoengineering, which he calls an “array of technology … that potentially could help reverse the effects of global climate change.” Specifically, Brennan was talking about one idea called stratospheric aerosol injection that involves injecting sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere to help reflect the sun’s heat away from the planet.

    Now, unlike MTG, we are not dipshit conspiracy theorists with the IQ of spaghetti, so we understand that the geoengineering Brennan is talking about here is not the same thing as weather manipulation, a much more sci-fi-adjacent concept found mostly in movies or those airport thrillers. Climate does not equal weather, which is why a snowstorm in Idaho in February does not mean global warming is a hoax. Thank you for coming to our eight grade earth sciences class.

    Anyway, this is all true, STOP LAUGHING AT MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE.

    Unfortunately the crazy long ago broke containment. Combine that with a natural propensity of people who got rich doing one thing thinking it makes them geniuses about everything, and then divide by Scientology, and you get idiots like Grant Cardone putting this out in public, where people can actually read it: [His post is available at the link.]

    Milton’s is not a common track, but it has happened before. You know when something similar last happened? Last week, when Helene formed in the Gulf and then tracked northeast, coming ashore on the Florida panhandle.

    With the Gulf of Mexico’s waters heating up thanks to climate change, scientists have been predicting for, oh, at least a few decades that eventually we would see more giant, powerful hurricanes forming suddenly in the Gulf and barreling straight into America. And guess what, that is exactly what has been happening for a few years now!

    […] We won’t even get into how Greene helped re-circulate the old conspiracy theories about High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which have been debunked over and over and over again.

    Stay tuned for next week, when Greene is shocked to learn that The Ultimate Christmas Present is not a documentary.

  96. birgerjohansson says

    Good Zod, the team of God Awful Movies has blackmailed Cara Santa Maria to watch another awful film: Church of Darkness. It got 4 out of ten on rotten tomatos.

    The usual paranoia about a secret society running a town and doing sacrifices. It sounds rather ‘eighties’.
    If I was a satanic entity I would go for ruling over sonething more upscale than some godforsaken town full of Republicans (I assume they are republicans, anyway. The cool people do Ctulhu).

  97. John Morales says

    Birger, “a secret society running a town” is not the same as “a satanic entity” running a town.

    Two variables in your disjunctive claims, so four possibilities:
    1– neither the SS nor the SE run the town;
    2– it is SS that runs the the town;
    3– it is SE that runs the the town;
    2– it is SS and SE that jointly run the town.

    (Only one that makes sense is #4)

    BTW, that name literally is Face Holy Maria.

  98. StevoR says

    Trump’s lies are literally if indirectly killing Americans again – just as they did with Covid.Via PBS Newshour :

    Former President Trump has for several days now spread lies and spouted conspiracy theories about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene. The disinformation is causing confusion among those most desperate for help and answers. Geoff Bennett discussed this with Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/helene-recovery-complicated-by-lies-hoaxes-and-conspiracy-theories

  99. JM says

    Political wire: Trump Secretly Stayed in Touch With Putin

    “Donald Trump has secretly spoken with President Vladimir Putin of Russia as many as seven times since leaving office, even as he was pressuring Republicans to block military aid to Ukraine to fight Russian invaders, according to a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward,” the New York Times reports.

    If true you can draw a plausible obvious line for straight up giving aid to an enemy of the US level treason.

  100. says

    Asked about targeting his foes after the election, Trump hedges (again)

    Fox News keeps trying to get Trump to say he won’t prosecute his political enemies in a second term. Unable to help himself, he keeps missing the cues.

    Late last year, Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked Donald Trump if he had plans to “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people.” The obvious point was to have the former president say he had no intention of breaking the law or abusing his authority. Trump, however, missed the point and deflected.

    So, the host tried again to get his guest to say the sensible thing. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked. Trump responded by saying he wanted to create a temporary American dictatorship.

    Six months later, the duo tried again. “Will you pledge to restore equal justice, equal application of our laws, end this practice of weaponization?” the Fox host asked, pointing to developments that have no basis in reality. “Is that a promise you’re going to make?” Trump eventually responded, “Look, I know you want me to say something so nice, but I don’t want to look naive.”

    In the same interview, Hannity also noted those who “want people to believe that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies.” Once again, the former president missed the prompt.

    “Look, when this election is over, based on what they have done, I would have every right to go after them,” Trump replied.

    This week, it was Laura Ingraham’s turn. It went about as well. [video at the link]

    The Fox host began by asking the GOP nominee how he intends to “restore faith in our Justice system,” adding, “A lot of people will say, ‘Well, he’s just going to do to them what he they did to him back at them.’”

    Trump continued to miss the cues. “A lot of people say that’s what should happen, right?” Trump replied and the nearby audience murmured its approval.

    Ingraham tried again. “Punitively using government institutions is what got us in this mess in the first place,” she said, pointing to imaginary circumstances that don’t exist. “In our townhall we did back in February, one of the lines that really resonated, I think, with people is when you said, ‘My revenge is going to be success.’”

    It appeared that the Fox host was trying to guide the candidate to safer ground. It also appeared that he didn’t care.

    “Well, I do believe that, but I will say this: They have started a terrible precedent,” Trump said. “We’ve never had this. We do have that in Third World countries, banana republics, a lot in South America, where they go after somebody politically that’s an opponent.”

    It led Ingraham to try a third time to get the Republican to say the responsible thing. “But you’re not going to do that,” she said. […]

    Trump didn’t exactly answer the question directly.

    “No, I want to make this the most successful country in the world. That’s what I want to do,” he replied.

    To be sure, part of Ingraham’s line of inquiry was problematic. She treated it as a given, for example, that the Biden administration has weaponized federal law enforcement, despite the fact that this hasn’t happened; the ridiculous conspiracy theories have been thoroughly and repeatedly discredited; and there’s unambiguous evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

    But Trump’s answers were far worse.

    Trump not only took deliberate and abusive steps to target his perceived foes while in office, he’s effectively running on a retaliatory 2024 platform: Trump wants to prosecute his perceived domestic political enemies, and he doesn’t seem especially interested in hiding his intentions. On the contrary, he talks about his desire to abuse presidential powers all the time, even raising the specter of military tribunals for his opponents.

    A recent New York Times analysis noted that Trump has effectively put the rule of law “on the ballot.” Fox News hosts keep trying to help the former president take the issue off the ballot, but the GOP candidate, hellbent on revenge, simply can’t help himself.

  101. says

    Harris nails ’60 Minutes’ interview Trump was too afraid to do

    Vice President Kamala Harris sat with CBS’ “60 Minutes” for a wide-ranging prime-time interview that aired on Monday night. Harris discussed her plans to improve the country if elected president, her personal views, and Donald Trump’s precedent-breaking decision to avoid the interview opportunity.

    “60 Minutes” has been a mainstay of television news for over 55 years and has been the highest-rated newsmagazine show for the last 50 of those years. The show also has millions who consume its content via TikTok and YouTube, so an appearance by a candidate there can make an impression with a wide swath of the electorate—especially this close to an election. [video at the link]

    In her interview with correspondent Bill Whitaker, Harris noted that while the economy has improved significantly since she and President Joe Biden took office in 2021, she intends to do more to address middle-class families if she is elected.

    “Prices are still too high, and I know that, and we need to deal with it,” Harris said. “Part of my plan is what we must do to bring down the price of groceries.” Harris has proposed a ban on price gouging, which would prevent companies from making exorbitant profits on needed items like food and medicine.

    Harris noted that her economic plan—including child tax credits, help for small businesses, and credit for first-time homebuyers—is targeted at the middle class, in contrast to Trump’s preference for cutting taxes for large businesses and billionaires.

    “One of the things that I’m going to make sure is that the richest among us, who can afford it, pay their fair share in taxes,” Harris told Whitaker after he asked how she would pay for her proposals.

    Addressing immigration, Harris reiterated her previous statements calling on Congress to pass a border security and reform bill (which Trump opposed). She noted that issues at the border are a “longstanding problem” and that the Biden administration has tried to address the issue, but that it needs congressional action.

    The candidate also told CBS that she owns a Glock gun and has fired it at a shooting range. Harris has emphasized that she supports the Second Amendment, and that responsible gun ownership is paramount to public safety, citing her experience as a prosecutor in San Francisco. [video at the link]

    Asked about Trump’s repeated racism, such as falsely claiming Haitian migrants are eating pets, Harris said, “I believe that the people of America want a leader who’s not trying to divide us and demean. The true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it’s based on who you lift up.”

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, also appeared on the program. Whitaker asked Walz to respond to Republican attacks alleging that Minnesota is out of step with the nation under his leadership. Walz explained that he has championed issues like providing free breakfast and lunch to school children and paid family and medical leave. He added, “Trump spends his time tearing down states rather than lifting up the best of what we do.” [video at the link]

    Both Trump and running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance were not on the program. “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley told viewers that the Trump team’s absence was unprecedented in the 50-year history of the program interviewing the major party presidential candidates.

    Pelley said the Trump team first agreed to do an interview, but then canceled, citing the network’s plans to fact check, which he reiterated the news program does for every story. Trump also said CBS needed to apologize for the 2020 interview that he cut short after getting upset at the questions he was asked by Leslie Stahl.

    Trump’s refusal of CBS’ invitation echoes his decision to refuse engaging in a second debate with Harris. After their Sept. 10 debate, Harris was the consensus winner of the exchange across multiple polls. Since then, Trump has claimed victory and Democrats launched an ad campaign labeling him a “chicken.”

    In her interview, Harris was asked about Trump’s unusual decision regarding “60 Minutes.”

    “If he is not going to give your viewers the ability to have a meaningful, thoughtful conversation, question and answer with you, then watch his rallies,” Harris said. “You’re going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal grievances. And what you will not hear is anything about you, the listener.”

  102. says

    Ron DeSantis Will Put You In Jail If You Run Ads Supporting Abortion Amendment

    The state of Florida may be getting pummelled by hurricanes, but Ronald Dion DeSantis had another thing on his mind last week — going after television stations for airing ads encouraging people to vote for the abortion amendment on this year’s ballot.

    DeSantis, it seems, deployed the general counsel of the Florida Department of Health to write a letter to the general manager of WFLA-TV, the NBC affiliate station in Tampa, demanding that they take the ad down, claiming that it is a “violation of state law.”

    The ad in question features the testimony of Caroline, a woman who was diagnosed with brain cancer while pregnant with her second child.

    “The doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life, and my daughter would lose her mom,” she explained, adding, “Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine.”

    The letter from the Department of Health claims that this is “categorically false” and that women can have abortions for health- and life-related reasons — ignoring the fact that the issue is that there is no clear guidance for doctors on when they are allowed to make that call.

    […] The Department of Health warned the station that unless they take the ad down in the next 24 hours, the state will begin legal proceedings against them in order to force them to do so.

    The fact is, there can never really be any real “guidance” on this issue while doctors risk imprisonment, fines, and the loss of their medical license for making a decision the state of Florida may not agree with. The stakes are just too high and there is literally no reason at all to trust the state of Florida with something like this. That is why these are decisions that need to be made between a patient and their doctor, not a patient, their doctor, and the governor of Florida.

    Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group running the ad, sent its own letter to WFLA-TV, pointing out that the First Amendment “forbids a public official to attempt to suppress the protected speech of private persons by threatening that legal sanctions will at [their] urging be imposed unless there is compliance with [their] demands.”

    They also explained that the ad was entirely accurate and that, unfortunately, Caroline (who, mind you, was telling her own personal story) would be barred from getting an abortion in the state.

    Florida regulations provide very limited guidance regarding the exceptions and the only instances where the Agency for Health Care Administration has provided guidance that abortions are permitted after six-weeks’ gestation are when there is an immediate threat to the pregnant person’s life: Preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), ectopic pregnancy, and molar pregnancy […]. None of these enumerated exceptions would have applied in Caroline’s case.

    Moreover, Caroline’s diagnosis was terminal. Practically, that means that an abortion would not have saved her life, only extended it. Florida law would not allow an abortion in this instance because the abortion would not have “save[d] the pregnant woman’s life,” only extended her life.

    Again, this is why these are decisions that need to be made between patient and doctor with no interference from the state. Politicians are not doctors and even doctors cannot predict every possible instance in which an abortion is going to be medically necessary or specify a specific point at which one can give the “all clear” signal. That’s just not how anything works.

    Ron DeSantis clearly wants to keep people from finding out about how bad and dangerous the law actually is so that they do not rush to the polls and vote to support the abortion amendment, for fear something similar could happen to them or someone they love.

    But the fact is, these stories absolutely are going to come out, whether or not they are aired in a political ad, because they are actually happening to real people — who are under no obligation whatsoever to keep silent about their experiences in order to placate Ron DeSantis and friends.

  103. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/mean-60-minutes-meanly-tells-america

    Mean ’60 Minutes’ Meanly Tells America What A Coward Donald Trump Really Is
    Brutal.

    This is the meanest, most cattiest “60 Minutes” intro piece in human history. No, we are not going to factcheck that statement, we are just going to say it authoritatively, like some kind of power-mad writer […]

    The setup is simple: there’s long been a kind of unofficial tradition in this country of presidential candidates sitting for interviews with “60 Minutes.” And this week, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were both going to go through with the ritual, at least until Trump got cold balls and dropped out, because he was scared.

    So “60 Minutes” very appropriately made that into part of the story, the back-and-forth negotiations with Trump, his pathetically ever-changing excuses for why he’s too much of a coward to go on TV and answer questions.

    Here’s the video, below the transcript: [Video at the link]
    […]

    It’s been a tradition for more than half a century that the major party candidates for president sit down with 60 Minutes in October. In 1968, it was Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump accepted our invitation.

    But unfortunately, last week, Trump canceled.

    The Trump campaign had told us that the interview would be this past Thursday at Mar-A-Lago, Trump’s Florida home. They also asked us whether we would meet 78-year-old Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate for president was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt. We agreed. On Sept. 9, Trump communications director Steven Cheung sent a text that read: “I’m working with our advance team to see logistically if Butler would work in addition to the sit down.” Sit-down meaning the interview in Florida.

    Days later, Cheung called to say “the president said yes.”

    [Donald Trump is not the president. – Ed.]

    Then, a week ago, Trump backed out. The campaign offered shifting explanations. First, it complained that we would fact check the interview.

    We factcheck every story.

    [Cheung had loser-whined on Twitter that it was “unprecedented” for “60 Minutes” to do live factchecking. – Ed.]

    Later, Trump said he needed an apology for his interview in 2020. Trump claims correspondent Lesley Stahl said, in that interview, that Hunter Biden’s controversial laptop came from Russia. She never said that.

    [In the official transcript, “60 Minutes” provides this quote of Trump [complaining] about the show being so mean to him in 2020, by calling Hunter Biden’s laptop Russian: “Where’s my apology? They should apologize,” Trump said on Tuesday night at a Milwaukee press conference. “They were wrong on everything. So I’d like to get an apology. So I’ve asked them for an apology.”]

    Trump has said his opponent doesn’t do interviews because she can’t handle them. He had previously declined another debate with Harris. So tonight may have been the largest audience for the candidates between now and election day. Our questions addressed the economy, immigration, reproductive rights and the wars in the Middle East and Europe. Both campaigns understood this special would go ahead if either candidate backed out.

    And so with that, here’s Bill Whitaker.

    “60 Minutes” added Kamala Harris’s response to Trump backing out like a coward, which she gave during her interview, which she apparently was able to handle after all: “If he is not going to give your viewers the ability to have a meaningful, thoughtful conversation, question and answer with you, then watch his rallies. You’re going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal grievances.”

    She’s always telling people to check out his rallies, to see what he’s really like. Maybe she also doesn’t like the way the media constantly sanewashes him.

    As Lawrence O’Donnell suggested on MSNBC last night, maybe Trump’s brain is just too far decomposed for his people to trust him to sit for an interview with a real journalist. Maybe his handlers are scared of having him do an interview for another reason. Maybe he’s just personally terrified of “60 Minutes,” the same way he’s terrified of shark, battery, and stairs.

    By the way, here’s the transcript for the interview Harris did with “60 Minutes” personality Bill Whitaker. A lot of people are saying his questions were total shit, that he seemingly worked so hard to launder Republican talking points and make Harris deny them, it’s almost like Trump was there after all.

    Example: “With so many people supporting Donald Trump, a man you have called a racist. How do you bridge that seemingly unbridgeable gap?” [Yeah, he said that. I didn’t like that framing by Whitaker. It was so blatantly give-Trump-a-break that it startled me when I heard it.]

    You know, because it’s her job to bridge the gap of Trump’s racism.

    But hey, at least she sat for the interview, because she’s not fucking chickenshit.

  104. birgerjohansson says

    The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics Did Not Go To Physics — This Physicist Is Very Surprised.

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=dR1ncz-Lozc

    My comment about odd choices: The Nobel committe wanted to award a Prize to the engineer behind Sputnik 1, but Chrustchev wanted to keep Korolev’s identity a secret.

  105. says

    There are literally a bunch of pro-Trump whales on Polymarket who shift the betting odds in his favor

    One dude holds almost 8 million pro-Trump shares. Same guy also has $600,000 on Trump winning the popular vote and 200 grand on him winning Michigan lol

    https://x.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1843382352766189575 Details in a list at the link.

    Commentary: The right’s new useless obsession is betting on elections

    In an election cycle full of the outrageous, absurd, and ridiculous, the newfound excitement among conservatives over a betting site is pretty much top-10 territory.

    Polymarket is a political betting site. Traders use crypto to place bets on the outcome of races and events. It is funded by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and happens to be statistician Nate Silver’s current employer […] The crypto requirement means it’s heavily used by tech bros, so not exactly a representative sample of anything.

    For weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris was the bet to win the election, a fact that no one outside of the site’s users cared about.

    Yet over the last few days, that trend reversed, and on Monday, Trump’s chances rose dramatically. Conservatives are delirious with excitement. [Bonkers graph is available at the link.]

    Check out Russian-funded propagandists like Benny Johnson, claiming a “collapse” that has zero bearing with reality. [Screen grab of X post is available at the link.]

    The conservative push seems almost coordinated, see here, here, and here. [Embedded links are available at the main link.] Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Donald Trump hype man, has been pushing the narrative heavily. [Screengrab of Musk’s post is available at the link: “Trump no leading Kamla by 3% in betting markets. More accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line.” [Bullshit from Musk]]

    Note the hilarious notion that betting markets are “more accurate than polls,” which is beyond absurd. But given the lack of any real good news in recent polling for Team Trump, Polymarket has become the conservative moment’s heaviest dose of coping.

    The reality, of course, is that nothing has changed in a race that has remained remarkably static despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent and so many dramatic twists and turns. If an attempted Trump assassination doesn’t move numbers, pretty much nothing will. The electorate is locked in, vote intentions decided. The only question mark is who will vote, and how many of them. […]

    On the other side, there’s been plenty of chortling, noting that it is a well-known fact that gamblers never lose. Except when they do: [Aaron Rupar’s X post is available at the link.]

    And really, political betting is as predictive as sports betting. Otherwise, the city of Chicago would collectively bet their way to a Super Bowl championship, with me happily chipping in! Just because people wager on an outcome, it has zero bearing on that actual outcome. So what exactly is happening?

    A couple of rich MAGA gamblers went all in on Trump. [See X post featured above.]

    More speculation and analysis here, here, here, and here. [Embedded links available at the main link.]

    Think of what happens when buyers go all in on a stock—the price skyrockets. A bunch of kids on Reddit single-handedly rescued AMC Theaters by aggressively purchasing the stock. They recreated that success with GameStop. The problem, of course, is that the tactic was a sugar high—the stock prices eventually crashed back down to earth, as those companies’ fundamentals are challenging at best.

    Whether that happens in this worthless Polymarket gambling site remains to be seen. It depends on how committed these cope-mongering Republicans are to feeding money into the wood chipper, much like they did for so long with Truth Social. [Graph at the link.]

    Trump’s supporters love to be scammed out of money, given how freely they let themselves be used and abused by MAGA grifters, including Trump himself. It’s not unreasonable for either crowdsourced MAGA deplorables or Musk or other wealthy Trump backers to drop a few hundred thousands on Polymarket. It gives them a fresh injection of hopium, even if the rest of the world looks at them with raised eyebrows, wondering how they could possibly be this stupid.

    Yeah, that’s what I thought when I saw Elon Musk’s thoughts on the subject.

  106. says

    Adult Entertainment Actors Undertake anti-Project 2025 Campaign Targeting Swing State Male Audience

    […] on page 5 of the 920 page Project 2025 manifesto is language condemning pornography and saying it leads to transgender ideology and child predators. It goes on to call for an outright ban of all pornography, with prison time for the producers and distributors of adult content, and having educators and public librarians who “purvey” adult content having to register as sex offenders.

    Now maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, or maybe you support getting rid of porn. But this is absolutely an existential threat to the livelihoods of everyone involved in the adult entertainment industry. So in response, a group of adult entertainment actors is about to spend $100,000 in the next 29 days running anti-Project 2025/anti-Trump ads on adult websites targeting their male audiences in seven battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.

    The architects of the “Hands Off My Porn” campaign are nothing if not aware of the polling. Vice President Kamala Harris is losing to former President Donald J. Trump among men, but younger men might be winnable — and pornographic websites are among the most heavily trafficked on the internet.

    […] If you want to reach young males, advertise on porn sites. According to the Survey Center on American Life, 44% of men ages 18 to 29 and 57% of men ages 30 to 49 reportedly watched porn within the past month.

    “While there are a lot of jerk-offs in Washington DC, the ones you should worry about are the right wing conservatives working to end the porn industry,” the “Hands Off My Porn” site says, pointing the finger at “140 Trump appointees” involved in Project 2025, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and JD Vance.

    Regardless of anyone’s feelings about the adult entertainment industry and pornography, I for one welcome this effort. It’s actually very smart and targeted, and just might be enough to earn some additional support from a demographic where Harris/Walz are lagging. Every vote in these battleground states helps.

    Those political ads on porn sites precede the pornographic video the viewer has chosen.

  107. tomh says

    Salon:
    “The Apprentice” gets honest about the making of Donald Trump
    There’s a reason Trump doesn’t want you to see this movie – which is why you should
    By Brian Karem

    When we first meet Donald Trump in the new movie “The Apprentice” it is in the early 70s and Trump is in his mid-20s. He is a slumlord collecting rent from poor tenants for his abusive father. Some of them pour water on him. Some cuss him out. Some avoid him completely.

    Facing bankruptcy for discriminatory rental policies, young Donald, looking for help, turns to the one man he believes can successfully bully the government – Roy Cohn. The infamous attorney takes Trump under his wing, teaches him how to dress, act, and above all how to “win.” Thus begins an acidic mentorship that ends up giving us the Donald Trump we all know today.

    “The Apprentice” is a dark comedy and drama that shows us what happens when our darkest desires, tempered by amorality, grim determination, a substandard intellect and greed all converge into a real-life Shakespearian tragedy. In Ali Abbasi’s movie, as in real life, Trump relies on the mentorship of a lean and mean Falstaff (Cohn as played by the brilliant Jeremy Strong) to guide him through his business dealings in New York.

    Trump, as played by Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes in the Marvel movies) is a dead-ringer for the Trump we all know today. Stan plays Trump as a blank slate. In the beginning, he is naïve. Cohn quickly schools him up in his limousine about the reality and facts of the case against him and his father about the accusations of racial discrimination in their housing project. Through it all we see a Trump who is simultaneously ambitious and cowardly. Barnes nails Trump’s pursed lips and soft squint without ever descending into mimicry. He becomes Trump in such a frightening fashion that at times if you blink, you’ll swear it’s the real Trump on screen.

    The movie played to raves at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, but after the real Trump and his lawyers threatened legal action with a cease and desist demand, the producers could not get a distribution deal. Briarcliff Entertainment and Tom Ortenberg stepped in and took up the cause. Ortenburg is well known for having the courage others have lacked in Hollywood and has distributed several controversial projects like “Spotlight,” which won two Academy Awards – including Best Picture.

    “The Apprentice” may not be the movie Trump wants, but it’s the movie everyone should see. It embraces Trump’s controversies and takes us through a harrowing and yet, dare I say it, entertaining ride through the darker side of the American dream.

    It’s the story of Cohn, who at the top of his game adopts and mentors the vacuous and malleable Donald Trump. … He preaches three rules of success: attack, deny everything, and never admit defeat. It is the template by which Trump operates to this day.
    […]

    Snipped much more detail about the movie and the great acting. Strong’s Cohn is “Oscar worthy.”

    It’s an important character story of a characterless man. It entertains and explains how Trump became who he is. All of the abuse, anger, shallowness, greed and insecurity is there from the very beginning; a volcano of human pettiness and greed stoked by the racist fire of his father, his own sense of entitlement and sparked by a man who helped defend Joe McCarthy.

    In the end, more than anything else, “The Apprentice” is simply one of the most effective studies of the American Dream since Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”

    “The Apprentice” opens nationwide on October 11.

  108. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-ran-a-catch-and-kill-for-brett

    Trump Ran A Catch-And-Kill For Brett Kavanaugh
    We all watched it happen, and it’s now confirmed, again.

    Welp, guess this is not shocking. According to a new report from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Trump was running a little catch-and-kill operation to shush up any potential witnesses to Brett Kavanaugh’s grossitudes back in the day.

    Remember that awful time Brett Kavanaugh got confirmed to the Supreme Court six years ago? […]

    The year was 2018, and soon after President Donald J. Trump nominated Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford came forward to say that he had groped her and tried to take her clothes off at a high school party. Then other skeevy and disgusting stories started coming out from Kavanaugh’s time at Yale, involving him being an aggressive, puking drunk; waggling his weenus at a freshman then shoving it in her face and demanding she “kiss it”; belonging to a fraternity with the slogan “No means yes, yes means anal,” and belonging to a Yalie secret society that was nicknamed “tit and clit.”

    Classmates said his group of friends “treated women like meat,” were like “Lord of the Flies,” and plied women with “jungle juice” to try to take advantage of them. There was that yearbook page, with the boofing, and the devil’s triangle. Yeah, you remember. [Image of yearbook page at the link]

    As more stories about the guy’s party-hog lifestyle at his molto costoso private high school and in college kept popping up, then-President Trump — who, as we were later to learn, dabbled in a bit of rape himself — promised that the FBI would have “free rein” to “to interview whoever they deem appropriate.” For one whole week! Then he proceeded to mock Christine Blasey Ford at his rallies. “How did you get home? I don’t remember. How did you get there? I don’t remember. Where was the place? I don’t remember.” He lamented that the poor bro’s life was now “in tatters.” [Video at the link.]

    But it was not! Kavanaugh showed up to his confirmation hearing and wept about his beautiful calendars, which showed that on July 1, 1982, he had been at Tobin’s house doing a football workout with Ernie, Tim, Squee, and Donkey Dong Doug or whoever, which somehow proved that he could not have assaulted Ford. Then he snarled about how he liked beer, and ultimately he was confirmed to the bench. Where he went on to help overturn Roe v. Wade — and, just yesterday, to thumbs-up Texas letting women die of pregnancy complications before offering an abortion in emergency rooms. […]

    Lamented a corroborating witness, Deborah Ramirez, in 2018: “What does it mean, that this person has a role in defining women’s rights in our future?” Worse things than we even imagined at the time, as it turned out.

    It was Christine Blasey Ford’s life that got tattered, actually. She and her family had to hire around-the-clock security after a barrage of death threats, and move around from hotel to hotel. She still has security, and PTSD, to this day.

    And so now we learn that the coverup was all even worse than it seemed at the time. The tips — 4,500 of them — got forwarded to the White House. And the FBI pursued NONE of them. The FBI was instructed by the White House to talk to 10 potential witnesses. And that’s it. They were not allowed to pursue any corroborating witnesses, even the dozens that lawyers for Blasey Ford and Ramirez had provided to the FBI.

    “Assurances that everything was being done by the book and according to standard FBI procedures omitted the fact that for supplement background investigations, there is no book and there are no procedures,” Whitehouse lamented to the Washington Post. “You simply do what the White House tells you.”

    And then the senators who voted to confirm Kavanaugh cited the lack of corroborating evidence as a reason to confirm him. It was an updated version of Trump’s old National Enquirer catch-and-kill maneuver, Supreme Court edition.

    And just like dude’s old Yalie roommates, we all were forced to watch it happen. […] And as egregious as it all was, there isn’t a lot to be done about it now. But at least we know we weren’t imagining things?

    Anyway, here’s your obligatory Matt Damon. [SNL skit video at the link]

  109. says

    tomh @151, this is such good description:

    “The Apprentice” is a dark comedy and drama that shows us what happens when our darkest desires, tempered by amorality, grim determination, a substandard intellect and greed all converge into a real-life Shakespearian tragedy. In Ali Abbasi’s movie, as in real life, Trump relies on the mentorship of a lean and mean Falstaff (Cohn as played by the brilliant Jeremy Strong) to guide him through his business dealings in New York.

  110. says

    A new foreign policy dividing line emerges in Republican politics

    As Donald Trump and JD Vance celebrate Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, a growing number of Republican senators are pushing back in the opposite direction.

    In last month’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris bested her Republican rival on a variety of fronts, but one point seemed especially brutal. “I have traveled the world as vice president of the United States,” the Democratic nominee said, “and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.”

    Given a chance to respond, Trump clung to a curious defense. “Let me just tell you about world leaders,” he replied. “Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men — they call him a strongman. He’s a tough person. Smart. Prime minister of Hungary.”

    In other words, Trump wanted to present proof that he wasn’t an international laughingstock, and he immediately touted the support he’s received from Orbán — a Russia-aligned leader who’s aggressively chipped away at Hungary’s democracy.

    Trump’s rhetoric was not, however, surprising: He has spent months turning to Orbán for validation, publicly celebrating him, having private conversations with the Hungarian, and even welcoming Orbán to Mar-a-Lago. The more the prime minister’s authoritarian takeover of his country generated international outrage, the more Trump extended his over-the-top support to the prime minister.

    His running mate has made similar comments. As recently as May, for example, Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio appeared on CBS and said the United States “could learn from” Orbán when it comes to targeting universities. (It fell to “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan to remind the senator that the Hungarian strongman has “seized control of state universities” and put them under the control of foundations run by his allies.)

    But as unsettling as the GOP ticket’s embrace of Orbán is, it would be a mistake to assume the entirety of the party is aligned with the prime minister. The Hill reported over the weekend:

    Five Republican senators issued a joint statement Friday questioning Hungary’s ties to Russia, as the nation tightens relations with China and its war on Ukraine nears the three-year mark. “Our delegation and many of our congressional colleagues are increasingly concerned by Hungary’s deepening and expanding relationship with Russia and the continued erosion of its democratic institutions,” the senators wrote, according to the statement, shared on social platform X by U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman.

    The five Republican signatories were Arkansas’ John Boozman, Maine’s Susan Collins, Texas’ John Cornyn, North Dakota’s John Hoeven, and Kansas’ Jerry Moran.

    The joint statement was no doubt well received by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who’s gone to extraordinary lengths to try to drag his party away from Orbán.

    It was five months ago, for example, when the Kentucky Republican, still hoping to salvage what remains of the GOP’s traditional foreign policy vision, condemned Orbán and urged fellow conservatives to reject the far-right strongman. McConnell pushed the same line in July, reminding his party that Orbán is “completely in bed with the Chinese and the Russians.”

    A few weeks ago, the Senate Republican reiterated the message, declaring, “I’ve spoken before about Hungary’s decadelong drift into the orbit of the West’s most determined adversaries. It’s an alarming trend. And nobody — certainly not the American conservatives who increasingly form a cult of personality around Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — can pretend not to see it.”

    The letter from five senior GOP senators last week suggests McConnell has allies within his party on the issue, but it’s clear that Trump and Vance are pushing in the opposite direction. Indeed, the more Orbán’s Republican critics denounce the Hungarian’s Russian ties and hostility toward democracy, the more one wonders whether Trump sees the criticisms as praise.

    Either way, those looking for meaningful divisions in the Republican Party’s vision for the near future should start here.

  111. says

    The problem(s) with the probes into the Trump rally shooting

    The official congressional investigation into the Trump rally shooting is struggling, but the unofficial congressional investigation is vastly worse.

    Nearly three months after being targeted by a would-be assassin, Donald Trump returned to Butler, Pa., over the weekend for a follow-up campaign rally. The event also served as a reminder that members of Congress are investigating the incident from July, hoping to come to terms with how the former president was nearly killed.

    How’s that process going? Not especially well.

    There is, of course, an official congressional task force, with bipartisan membership, though House GOP leaders stacked the panel with some very conservative conspiracy theorists. It was against this backdrop that the task force invited two other House Republican conspiracy theorists to testify as witnesses during an official hearing, prompting a Democratic boycott.

    But if the official congressional investigation is struggling, the unofficial congressional investigation is vastly worse.

    As we discussed in late August, two GOP members — Arizona’s Eli Crane and Florida’s Cory Mills — announced that they were overseeing a “parallel investigation” because they “don’t trust the federal government to actually do the job necessary.”

    Crane added in an interview around the same time that he was concerned that government officials might’ve been involved in the shooting — a radical idea that even other Republicans have avoided.

    But as The New York Times reported, the Arizonan is determined to pursue his rather off-the-wall theories — for which there is no evidence — including bizarre claims that there might be a secret mole within Trump’s Secret Service detail; the FBI might hide the truth; the would-be assassin might’ve had confederates; and the second would-be assassin might’ve been an “asset” of a foreign adversary who was being “handled.”

    Literally everything we know about the incidents suggest Crane’s theories are baseless. He doesn’t appear to care.

    At this point, some might be inclined to shrug. An odd congressman is wasting time pursuing odd ideas, which has a familiar ring to it. But consider this tidbit from the Times’ report:

    Crane … has been everywhere that will have him, promoting conspiracy theories about the assassination attempts against Mr. Trump, despite all evidence that such theories are false. And far from sidelining or attempting to silence him, Republican leaders have given him a prominent platform to air his outlandish claims at the highest levels, lending credence to the conspiracy theories spread by him and others on the far right.

    And therein lies the rub: Key House GOP officials aren’t embarrassed by Crane and his weird conspiracy theories, they’re encouraging Crane and his bizarre pursuits.

    Indeed, when Democrats recently boycotted a task force hearing, it was in large part because the official investigation panel agreed to give Crane a platform.

    I won’t pretend to know what will become of the investigation, House Republicans aren’t exactly inspiring confidence.

    A firehose of misinformation.

  112. says

    Harris aims to help adult caregivers with Medicare benefit expansion

    Vice President Harris on Tuesday introduced a new plan to expand Medicare benefits so that the program covers the costs of long-term home care for older Americans.

    The plan, formally announced on ABC’s “The View,” is aimed at helping the “sandwich generation” take care of their aging parents. According to Pew Research, nearly a quarter of all American adults fall into that category — needing to take care of their parents while also still raising their own children.

    “There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle. They’re taking care of their kids, and they’re taking care of their aging parents, and it’s just almost impossible to do it all,” Harris said. “Especially if they work. We’re finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress.”

    Under the plan, Medicare will cover home care for the first time ever for all of our nation’s seniors and those with disabilities on Medicare who need it, in addition to vision and hearing benefits to help seniors live independently for longer. [good idea, but I added some caveats below]

    It would need congressional action to be put into effect and would likely face long odds of becoming law with Republicans in control of Congress.

    But such a plan could offer significant financial relief to families. It’s part of a series of Harris health proposals, such as eliminating medical debt and capping prescription drug costs, that’s broadly popular and easy for voters to understand.

    […] According to AARP data, 34 percent of older women in Michigan identify as family caregivers, compared to 30 percent of older voters overall. In Georgia, 37 percent of older women identify as family caregivers, compared to 34 percent of older voters overall.

    Seventy-six percent of likely voters 50-plus in Pennsylvania said they would be more likely to support a candidate who provides support for family caregivers who are helping their loved ones live independently in their homes.

    Millions of Americans struggle to find affordable home-based care for themselves or their family members, and many wind up taking on the responsibility themselves.

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14 percent of the adult population provides some form of unpaid eldercare. About 59 percent of those caretakers are women.

    Medicare does not cover long-term services and assistance, like home health aides, except under very narrow circumstances, such as if a person is recovering from an acute medical condition. Private insurance doesn’t cover those services either, leaving families to pay out of pocket.

    The Harris campaign noted the average cost of a full-time home care aide is almost double the income of the typical Medicare beneficiary, and the problem will only get worse as our population ages.

    The Department of Health and Human Services estimated that an average American turning 65 will incur $120,900 in future long-term services and support costs, with families paying for over one-third of that themselves.

    According to the nonpartisan health research group KFF, a round-the-clock professional live-in home health aide can cost more than $288,000 a year.

    Medicaid is the largest payer of long-term services, but it’s only an option for people with low incomes. Even for qualifying beneficiaries, there’s often an extremely long waitlist for home care providers.

    The lack of options often leaves people with no choice but to rely on a family member.

    […] Harris’s campaign did not release a detailed spending breakdown, but an estimate by the Brookings Institute, a centrist think tank, estimated a similar plan would cost $40 billion a year.

    Democrats tried to create a new home care program under the “Build Back Better” domestic policy legislation that became the Inflation Reduction Act, but it was cut due to spending concerns.

    Harris said her plan would be paid for using savings from Medicare’s drug price negotiations.

    “We are going to save Medicare the money, because we’re not going to be paying these high prices,” she said. “Those resources are best then put in a way that helps a family.”

    One thing that bothers me about this is that I already see a lot of corrupt practices in the companies that provide long-term services and assistance. More oversight is needed. I would also be worried that private equity doofuses would see a new pot of money to be exploited, sort of like they already did with hospitals.

  113. says

    Video shows Tampa aquarium moving penguins to higher ground

    The Florida Aquarium in Tampa is transferring its animals to safer ground in anticipation of Hurricane Milton, according to a news release. Nine penguins were moved this morning from their habitat on the first floor to higher ground. This will help protect them from the possibility of severe flooding at the aquarium.

    Other animals moved today as part of the aquarium’s hurricane preparedness plan include six snakes, three lizards, three turtles, two alligators, two toads and a hermit crab.

  114. says

    Why Trump’s talk about a ‘deal’ with Iran makes so little sense

    The GOP candidate expects people to believe he was close to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran. It’s a fantasy, intended to obscure his costly failure.

    It’s been about a week since Donald Trump downplayed the importance of American troops with traumatic brain injuries — the latest in a series of slights toward members of the armed services — which generated a fair amount of attention. What received less coverage, however, is what the former president said in the next sentence.

    “So, just so you understand, there was nobody ever tougher on Iraq,” the Republican said, referring to Iran. “They had no money with me, they would have made any deal with me. I would have had a deal made within — literally, I would have had a deal made within one week after the election.”

    He’s been saying this quite a bit lately. A few weeks ago, during a rambling press conference, Trump said that he was prepared to reach an agreement with Iran “within one week after the election” if he’d won in 2020. And during his latest interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt, the GOP candidate said it again.

    “I would have had a deal a long time ago,” the former president claimed, adding, in reference to Iranian officials, “They were totally busted. They were ready to make a deal. They would have made a deal.” [Sound file at the link]

    Trump might not remember his presidency as well as he should. [understatement]

    Iran already made a deal with the United States — in Barack Obama’s second term. It was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and it came to be known as the Iran nuclear deal.

    As regular readers know, the international agreement with Iran did exactly what it set out to do: The policy dramatically curtailed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and established a rigorous system of monitoring and verification. Once the policy took effect, each of the parties agreed that the participants were holding up their end of the bargain, and Iran’s nuclear program was, at the time, on indefinite hold.

    And then Trump took office and abandoned the policy for reasons he was never able to explain.

    In broad strokes, Obama set out to use economic sanctions to get Iran to the international negotiating table. That worked and a breakthrough agreement eventually followed. Trump came to believe he could duplicate the strategy by abandoning the policy, restoring the old sanctions, and adding new ones.

    This was known as the Republican’s “maximum pressure” campaign, and it was pursued with the assumption that Tehran would inevitably return to the negotiating table. If Obama’s sanctions led to a landmark deal, the argument went, then maybe Trump’s sanctions could produce an even better deal.

    That didn’t happen. Trump’s approach failed.

    In fact, once the United States was no longer a part of the agreement, the West lost verification access to Tehran’s program, and Iran, rather than begging the White House for attention, almost immediately became more dangerous by starting up advanced centrifuges and ending its commitment to limit enrichment of uranium.

    A couple of years ago, Robert Malley, the then-special envoy for Iran, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that after Trump’s decision, Iranian attacks on U.S. personnel in the region got worse, Iranian support for regional proxies got worse, and the pace of the Iranians’ nuclear research program got “much worse.”

    A year later, Colin Kahl, the then-under secretary of Defense, explained to the House Armed Services Committee that Iran’s nuclear progress since Trump abandoned the international nuclear agreement has been “remarkable.” Around the same time, the Pentagon told Congress that Iran could make enough fissile for one nuclear bomb in “about 12 days” — a number that is now smaller — as opposed to the year it would’ve taken while the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was in effect.

    How Trump arrived at his decision adds insult to injury. One of my favorite stories about the Iran deal came a few months into Trump’s term in the White House, when the then-president held a lengthy meeting with top members of his team: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, White House National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford. Each of the officials told Trump the same thing: It was in the United States’ interest to preserve the JCPOA policy that existed at the time.

    Trump expected his team to tell him how to get out of the international agreement, not how to stick with it. When his own foreign policy and national security advisers told him the policy was working, Trump “had a bit of a meltdown.”

    Soon after, he abandoned the JCPOA anyway, not because it was failing, but because Trump was indifferent to its success.

    All Trump had to do was nothing. He could’ve simply left the policy alone and allowed it to keep working. He instead did the opposite. He was convinced that his strategy would work — he even boasted at one point during his term that he was prepared to be Iran’s “best friend” — but the entire gambit backfired and left the world less safe.

    The GOP candidate now expects people to believe he was this close to succeeding. It’s a fantasy, intended to obscure his costly failure.

  115. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Florida is threatening to prosecute TV stations over an abortion rights ad

    Florida’s Department of Health is threatening to bring criminal charges against local TV stations airing a campaign ad to overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban [via a constitutional ammendment ballot measure.]
    […]
    Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC chair, said that stations should not be intimidated for airing political ads. […] The FCC’s show of support for the stations is noteworthy given the federal agency controls broadcast station licenses across the country.
    […]
    The 30-second ad depicts a woman named Caroline who became pregnant with her second child after a brain cancer diagnosis.

    “The doctors knew that if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life, and my daughter would lose her mom […] Florida has now banned abortions, even in cases like mine.”

  116. Bekenstein Bound says

    tomh@151:

    Facing bankruptcy for discriminatory rental policies, young Donald, looking for help, turns to the one man he believes can successfully bully the government – Roy Cohn. The infamous attorney takes Trump under his wing, teaches him how to dress, act, and above all how to “win.” Thus begins an acidic mentorship that ends up giving us the Donald Trump we all know today.

    “The Apprentice” is a dark comedy and drama that shows us what happens when our darkest desires, tempered by amorality, grim determination, a substandard intellect and greed all converge into a real-life Shakespearian tragedy.

    “Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.” So, now that Darth Trump is busily grooming a young and ambitious Darth Vance, what, one wonders, must have quietly happened to Darth Cohn somewhere offstage?

    Sky Captain@161: Erm, do the words “First Amendment” mean anything to DeSantis?

  117. John Morales says

    Ah yes, the factual and historical insight provided by a cheap biopic.

    what, one wonders, must have quietly happened to Darth Cohn somewhere offstage?

    Wonder no more, Wikipedia can elucidate for those on the internet:
    “In 1984, Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS and attempted to keep his condition secret while receiving experimental drug treatment.[60] He participated in clinical trials of AZT, a drug initially synthesized to treat cancer but later developed as the first anti-HIV agent for AIDS patients. He insisted until his dying day that his disease was liver cancer.[61] He died on August 2, 1986, in Bethesda, Maryland, of complications from AIDS, at the age of 59.[7]”

    Sky Captain@161: Erm, do the words “First Amendment” mean anything to DeSantis?

    Probably, but the specified agent is “Florida’s Department of Health”, not whatshisname.

  118. John Morales says

    Basically, Roy Cohn perished at 59 and Donald Trump remains vigorous enough to campaign at 78.

    Hardly comparable on so very many factors.

    It’s pretty vacuous to imagine [Trump:Vance::Cohn:Trump]

    (Deepeties, you attempt, BB)

  119. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Video / Transcript: US State Dept – Daily Press Briefing 2024-10-08
    8:14 to 21:55

    Spox Miller: I did see these reports that Hizballah now wants a ceasefire […] de-linked from Gaza; that they just want a ceasefire on its own terms. […] for a year, Hizballah said that they would not do it unless there was a ceasefire in Gaza. They linked the two when the international community was saying stop the fighting, and Israel was saying if Hizballah stopped attacks across the border Israel would stop its attacks in response against Hizballah. […] And now that Hizballah is on the back foot and is getting battered, suddenly they’ve changed their tune and want a ceasefire.
    […]
    We continue to ultimately want a diplomatic solution to this conflict. But […] Hizballah’s forces in southern Lebanon refuse to fully implement United Nations Security Council 1701. […] Hizballah was supposed to put down its arms, and it was supposed to withdraw beyond the Litani River. 18 years […] they refuse to do either of those things. In fact, […] they increased their [forces] just over the border from [Israel].
    […]
    Reporter: what you are saying is yes, we ultimately want a diplomatic solution to stop this war, but not yet; we want to give a window for Israel to attack Hizballah more.
    […]
    Miller: in 2006 […] Hizballah said that they would implement 1701. And they blew through all of their commitments. So there is an obvious lack of faith in Hizballah’s ability to do […] what it’s saying it would do now, which is agree to an actual ceasefire
    […]
    yes, we do support Israel launching these incursions to degrade Hizballah’s infrastructure so ultimately we can get a diplomatic resolution that allows 1701
    […]
    Reporter: Netanyahu also today spoke directly to the Lebanese people […] to take their country back. […] some inside Lebanon are afraid of this conflict to spill into another civil war in Lebanon.

    Netanyahu: You can now take back your country. […] If you don’t, Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense. […] all of you are suffering because of Hezbollah’s futile war against Israel.

    […]
    Miller: I’m not going to comment on the prime minister’s statement. […] Ultimately, it’s an opportunity for the Lebanese people. What we have always wanted is for the Lebanese people to be able to choose their leaders, to be able to choose their government without […] a veto over that process and without a terrorist organization that wields force independent of the state. That’s what 1701 called for.
    […]
    Reporter: two weeks ago you were proposing a three-week ceasefire, calls for all sides not to escalate. The Israelis have escalated, and now you’re saying it’s an opportunity for the Lebanese people. People might see that as disingenuous that you’re happy with this outcome.
    […]
    Miller: the situation on the ground has changed over the past few weeks, and Hizballah’s leadership has been degraded.
    […]
    Reporter: as the facts on the ground change, your position seems to be, “We’re okay with the new normal.”
    […]
    Miller: what 1701 calls for is Israeli troops back on the Israeli side of the border, Hizballah pulled back beyond the Litani River, and the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL exercising security control over southern Lebanon.

    Reporter: Given that Hizballah is now saying they’re open to a ceasefire, are the Israelis calling for a ceasefire?

    Miller: No, they are not.
    […]
    Reporter: you’ve said repeatedly it takes two to tango when it comes to a ceasefire. […] At what point is it significantly degraded enough for the U.S. to say, “Enough is enough; we’ve got something to start off with,” here?

    Are you talking about supporting Israel to the point of removing Hizballah entirely? There’s got to be some endpoint you guys are working with. If that’s something you can’t talk to us about now, then okay. But we’re going to keep asking you this every day.

    30:46

    Miller: I did see that [video of Israeli troops raising their flag in Lebanese town, Maroun El Ras]. It’s obviously inappropriate […] they have said […] these are limited incursions not with the goal of holding territory.

  120. John Morales says

    #14 & #15 in this thread become more amusing in light of #167.

    (Well, for me, obs)

  121. StevoR says

    Apparently if there was such a thing as a category 6 hurricane, well, Milton would be a category 6 as mentioned here – “I Apologize, This Is Just Horrific” Meteorologist Gets Real About Hurricane Milton – a dozen and a half minute long.

    Incidentally, any relation of yours there John Morales? (You have said its a common name if memory serves so unlikely but still..)

    Ona much more serious note, best wishes to all the regular commenters here who are facing this storm and hope you and your loved ones all stay safe and things go as well as possible for y’all. I remember from a previous thread on Helene that there’s a few people here living there. (Florida anyhow.)

  122. StevoR says

    Yesterday saw the successful launch of the Hera spacecraft on its journey to inspect the damage done to the “didymoon” of asteroid Didymos which is officially named Dimorphos :

    The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera spacecraft has officially begun its journey toward a small, harmless asteroid that was rammed by NASA two years ago in a dress rehearsal for the day a killer space rock threatens Earth. Called Dimorphos, the rammed space rock, located 11 million kilometres away, is a moonlet of Didymos — a fast-spinning asteroid that is five times larger.The September 2022 crash by NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft marked the first part of a planetary defence test that could one day save the planet.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-08/hera-spacecraft-on-its-way-to-study-asteroid/104444546

    The ESA has this excellent video – “Why are we going back to this asteroid?” on that here which is a dozen minutes long.

    Incidentally, to answer the question “First crater made by humans?” asked in the youtube thumbnail at least of that video – No. The Deep Impact mission already beat them to that on comet Tempel 1! See :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(spacecraft)#Crater

    On February 15, NASA scientists identified the crater formed by Deep Impact in images from Stardust. The crater is estimated to be 150 meters (490 ft) in diameter, and has a bright mound in the center likely created when material from the impact fell back into the crater.

  123. birgerjohansson says

    In Farsi, “Iraq” is named Aaragh, which -considering the fundamentalist turn of legislation lately- I find oddly appropriate.

  124. birgerjohansson says

    (Let’s see if it works copying this excerpt)
    The hidden virosphere: AI helps discover more than 160,000 new virus species

    .https://phys.org/news/2024-10-hidden-virosphere-ai-virus-species.html

    “The vast majority of these viruses had been sequenced already and were on public databases, but they were so divergent that no one knew what they were,” Professor Holmes said. “They comprise what is often referred to as sequence ‘dark matter.’ Our AI method was able to organize and categorize all this disparate information, shedding light on the meaning of this dark matter for the first time.”

  125. says

    Detroit news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    At Sen. JD Vance’s latest event in Michigan, a Detroit News reporter spoke to several people wearing “Auto Workers for Trump” shirts at the rally. Some admitted, however, that they were not actually auto workers.

    Typical. A trumpian visual scam of sorts.

    NBC News:

    With time running out in the 2024 election cycle, the Trump campaign is starting to go after Harris with anti-trans ads that will air during football games.

    Politico:

    VoteVets, a progressive veterans group, this week began a $10 million ad campaign designed to boost Harris and several down-ballot Democratic candidates.

  126. says

    When it comes to his mass deportation plans, Trump will apparently be guided by his arbitrary whims, not his country’s immigration laws.

    Donald Trump’s agenda regarding immigration and deportations is already radical. The former president has, after all, raised the prospect of militarized deportations and mass detention camps. Indeed, he’s made little effort to deny the scope and scale of his right-wing plans.

    But what’s less appreciated is what the Republican and his team intend to do with people who entered the United States legally.

    A few weeks ago, for example, as the GOP’s presidential ticket peddled ugly and dangerous lies about Springfield, Ohio, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance was reminded that the Haitian immigrants in question are not, in reality, “illegals.” The Ohio senator replied that because he disagreed with the existing legal process, “I’m still going to call them an illegal alien.”

    In other words, American laws are all fine and good, but as far as the senator was concerned, a Trump/Vance administration would be free to decide who is and is not in the country legally. Vance didn’t express hostility toward the rule of law, so much as he expressed indifference.

    Three weeks later, his running mate said effectively the same thing. As Rolling Stone summarized:

    Donald Trump threw logic out the window on Tuesday. During an interview with Newsmax, the former president claimed that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio — who haven been given Temporary Protected Status and are in the U.S. legally — are ‘illegal immigrants as far as I’m concerned.’

    In the former president’s latest Newsmax interview, he seemed to briefly acknowledge that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield are not undocumented, shortly before concluding that he considers them “illegal immigrants” anyway — because he says so. [video at the link]

    This is consistent with Trump’s usual attitude toward the rule of law, but it also offers a timely reminder to the public: When Trump talks about launching a mass deportation policy affecting a significant percentage of the country’s residents, legal immigrants have reason to be concerned, too.

    Because as Trump told a national television audience, his standards are guided by his whims and preferences, not his own country’s policies.

    As a Washington Post analysis summarized last week, “Whom does Trump plan to deport? Whomever Trump wants to deport.”

    It is by now well-established that the process of identifying, detaining and removing millions of people from the country would be enormously challenging and destabilizing, both economically and to individual communities. What Trump’s and Vance’s claims have reinforced is that it would also be arbitrary, with legal immigrants viewed as undesirable to the president and his supporters slated for ouster, while other groups remain in relative protection.

    I’m reminded of a New York Times report published in July about Latino voters and their perceptions of the Republican’s plans. Many, the article noted, were “unfamiliar with Mr. Trump’s platform, including his plans to round up undocumented people on a mass scale and to detain them in camps pending their deportation.”

    They might be surprised by just how far the GOP candidate is prepared to go.

  127. says

    Eight years ago, Donald Trump said he supported raising taxes on the wealthy. In 2024, the Republican is no longer bothering with the pretense.

    During her “60 Minutes” interview, Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed to explain how she intended to pay for key elements of her progressive agenda. The Democratic nominee told CBS News’ Bill Whitaker that she intends to “make sure that the richest among us, who can afford it, pay their fair share in taxes.”

    A day later, Donald Trump sat down for his latest interview with Newsmax, a conservative outlet, and the host asked the former president for his reaction to Harris’ comments.

    “You don’t tax the rich,” the Republican said, adding that the wealthiest Americans already “pay most of the tax in the country.” [video at the link]

    At first blush, this might not seem especially notable. After all, this has been standard GOP orthodoxy for many years.

    But what was striking about Trump’s latest comments was the degree to which they reject the rhetoric that helped get the Republican elected in the first place.

    Eight years ago, Trump sat down with NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie who asked the then-candidate about his views on tax policy. “Do you believe in raising taxes on the wealthy?” the “Today” host asked.

    “I do,” Trump replied. “I do — including myself. I do.”

    The audience, it’s worth noting, applauded the answer — because raising taxes on the wealthy tends to be quite popular.

    A few months earlier, the future president told Bloomberg Politics that multi-millionaires were “paying very little tax and I think it’s outrageous. … I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it’s ridiculous, OK?”

    Asked if he was prepared to raise his own taxes, Trump said at the time, “That’s right. That’s right. I’m OK with it.”

    To be sure, once he was in the White House, the Republican quickly abandoned all of this and prioritized deep and unpopular tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations, but at least as a candidate, Trump pretended to support measures that would’ve asked more from the rich. He was at least willing to pay lip service to the kind of policies most voters wanted — and continue to want — to see.

    Eight years later, he no longer bothers to keep up the pretense. Trump hasn’t unveiled any detailed plans related to tax policy, but the GOP candidate and his team have made clear that they want to build on his regressive record and approve another round of tax breaks for those at the very top.

    After all, as Trump told Newsmax, “You don’t tax the rich.”

    There are no doubt plenty of voters who backed the Republican in the 2016 race, assuming he was relatively moderate on policies like these and willing to break with his own party’s orthodoxy. In 2024, those same voters shouldn’t be fooled twice.

  128. says

    Georgia Board Turns Election Deniers Into Election ‘Monitors’
    Talking Points “Morning Memo,” with coverage of several issues.

    Oy …
    Fulton County filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Georgia State Election Board to try to block it from sending in election deniers to serve as election “monitors.” The MAGA Republican majority on the board wants to appoint its own monitors despite Fulton County already having appointed a team to monitor its performance in this election.

    Check out these bios of the “monitor” assigned to Fulton County:

    They include former [state] Rep. Frank Ryan [R-PA], who asked his state’s congressional delegation not to recognize its electors in December 2020, and Heather Honey, a subcontractor in the Cyber Ninjas audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona. [Really? The Cyber Ninjas? Sheesh.]

    Honey is also responsible for the false claim, repeated by Trump, that there were “205,000 more votes than you had voters” in Pennsylvania.

    Vote-rich Fulton County is plurality Black and had been a frequent target of Republicans trying to sow doubt and discord about election results.

    The State Election Board responded to the Fulton County lawsuit yesterday by subpoenaing the county’s records for the … 2020 … election. Will it never end?

    Sign O’ The Times
    Bloomberg: “A new wrought-iron fence wraps around the Maricopa County office where votes will be counted next month. On Election Day, there’ll be concrete barriers too, along with plainclothes officers and mounted police.”

    Alleged Election Day Terror Plot Thwarted
    The FBI arrested an Afghan national in Oklahoma who was allegedly plotting an Election Day terror attack. The FBI got wind of the 27-year-old man, allegedly inspired by the Islamic State, and used a confidential informant to sell him and his juvenile brother-in-law a pair of AK-47 rifles and ammunition, at which point they were arrested Monday.

    2024 Ephemera
    – Presidential Transition: The Trump campaign has blown deadlines to participate in the official presidential transition process that both candidates usually engage in to smooth the post-election change of power, the NYT reports. One potential advantage for Trump of not participating: “His refusal to sign the documents allows him to circumvent fund-raising rules that put limits on private contributions to the transition effort, as well as ethics rules meant to avoid possible conflicts of interest for the incoming administration.”
    – Electoral College: Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) reiterated his call to abolish the Electoral College, a position not favored by his running Kamala Harris, their campaign was quick to point out.

    Which Is Worse?
    The two big Trump-Putin reveals from Bob Woodward’s new book “War”:
    – Trump has spoken with Putin as many as seven times since leaving office, according to an unnamed Trump aide. (That account was not able to be immediately confirmed by other journalists.)
    – Trump secretly sent COVID tests to Putin for his personal use in 2020 when the tests were in short supply. (The Kremlin confirmed this account but denied that two leaders have spoken by phone since Trump left office.) [Might be correct? It would be trumpian to send Putin COVID tests and then brag about phone calls that never happened.]

    The Antisemitic Overtones Of Hurricane Helene Misinformation
    – Politico: “FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the swirl of false conspiracy theories around Hurricane Helene is dissuading survivors from seeking help and hurting morale among responders.”
    – NYT: “A wave of antisemitic rhetoric and online threats has been leveled at state and federal officials in North Carolina in recent days as they respond to the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Helene, according to a report released on Tuesday by a nonprofit research group that studies online platforms.”
    – WaPo: “The report noted that antisemitic sentiments were largely directed at three individual officials: FEMA director of public affairs Jaclyn Rothenberg, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Asheville, N.C., Mayor Esther Manheimer.”
    [Embedded links are available at the main link.]

    […] Oklahoma Shamed Out Of Trump Bible Grift?
    Oklahoma modified the specs Monday for its request for proposals to provide 55,000 Bibles that State Superintendent Ryan Walters wants to put in public schools. The RFP now appears to be broad enough to include Bibles other than a specific Trump-endorsed Lee Greenwood edition. […]

  129. says

    The Text Campaign Underworld and the Florid Anti-Semitism You Can Find There

    When I asked to see the text messages you’re receiving I was mainly interested in the presidential race and even more those coming from the right. I’m also interested in ones from the Harris side and also the big Senate races. It’s a fascinating and illuminating prism into an often subterranean part of the campaigns and ones that can fly under the radar. But I was particularly struck by this text TPM Reader BG received in New York City.

    It identifies itself as coming from a group called “Turn Left” which is associated with Richard Ojeda from West Virginia. Ojeda’s name isn’t a household word. But you may remember him. He came to a fame as a West Virginia Democrat who voted for Trump in 2016 and then turned against him. He gained a lot of attention in 2018 and 2020 as a candidate who could give Democrats purchase in rural, Trumpy parts of the country. This ad combines the hurricane misinformation of the moment – $750 checks to storm survivors – with pretty florid and traditional antisemitic tropes about a “genocidal AIPAC” that has its “claws so deep in Washington” that it “cuts checks to bomb civilians while your neighbors drown.”

    “This is what happens,” it continues, “when genocidal groups like AIPAC buy off our leaders. When the same corrupt politicians line their pockets with blood money, then look us in the eye and tell us there’s nothing left for healthcare, education or disaster relief.”

    Full text after the jump … [See screengrabs at the link]

    Needless to say there are many people who disagree with US military aid to Israel. And AIPAC has legions of critics, among whom I include myself. But this language and the tropes it invokes are stock and trade anti-Semitism not to mention peddling false information about hurricane relief that is mainly coming from the right.

    Turn Left’s website provides no contact information. Attempts to contact Ojeda were unsuccessful.

    Text above is from Josh Marshall’s newsletter, which requires a subscription to Talking Points Memo.

    Looks like right-wingers are fitting anti-semitism into political discourse wherever they can.

  130. says

    Trump blasts China’s trade practices, but his Bibles were printed there

    Thousands of copies of Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible were printed in a country that the former president has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices—China.

    Global trade records reviewed by The Associated Press show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States between early February and late March.

    The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible, according to databases that use customs data to track exports and imports. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.

    The Trump Bible’s connection to China, which has not been previously reported, reveals a deep divide between the former president’s harsh anti-China rhetoric and his rush to cash in while campaigning.

    […] Trump says his Bibles would help America
    The largest and most recent load of 70,000 copies of Trump’s Bible arrived by container vessel at the Port of Los Angeles on March 28, two days after Trump announced in a video posted on his Truth Social platform that he’d partnered with country singer Lee Greenwood to hawk the Bibles.

    In the video, Trump blended religion with his campaign message as he urged viewers to buy the Bible, inspired by Greenwood’s ballad, “God Bless the USA.” The Bible includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Pledge of Allegiance.

    “This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back in America, and to make America great again, is our religion, Trump said. Judeo-Christian values, he added, are “under attack, perhaps as never before.”

    Trump didn’t say where the “God Bless the USA” Bibles are printed, or what they cost; a copy hand-signed by the former president sells for $1,000. Trump also didn’t disclose how much he earns per sale.

    A version of the $59.99 Bible memorializes the July 13 assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania. Trump’s name is on the cover above the phrase, “The Day God Intervened.” The wording appears to have been stamped on after the Bible was produced. Trump said Saturday his would-be assassin did not succeed “by the hand of providence and the grace of God.” [JFC]

    The Bibles are sold exclusively through a website that states it is not affiliated with any political campaign nor is it owned or controlled by Trump.

    A photo posted on the website shows Trump sitting at his desk in the Oval Office with Greenwood standing beside him. In another photo, the former president smiles broadly while holding a copy of the Bible.

    Trump’s name and image are licensed
    The website states that Trump’s name and image are used under a paid license from CIC Ventures, a company Trump reported owning in his most recent financial disclosure. CIC Ventures earned $300,000 in Bible sales royalties, according to the disclosure. It’s unclear what period that covers or how much Trump received in additional payments since the disclosure was released in August. […]

    […] Pitching Bibles is one of a dizzying number of for-profit ventures Trump has launched or promoted, including diamond-encrusted watches, sneakers, photo books, cryptocurrency and digital trading cards.

    The web of enterprises has stoked conflict of interest concerns. Selling products at prices that exceed their value may be considered a campaign contribution, said Claire Finkelstein, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law and a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

    “You have to assume that everything that the individual does is being done as a candidate and so that any money that flows through to him benefits him as a candidate,” Finkelstein said. “Suppose Vladimir Putin were to buy a Trump watch. Is that a campaign finance violation? I would think so.”

    Selling Bibles, she added, “strikes me as a profoundly problematic mixing of religion and state.”

    Potential conflicts of interest
    As president, Trump would be in a position to influence policies and markets to benefit businesses in which he and his family have financial stakes. While president, Trump’s administration exempted Bibles and other religious texts from tariffs imposed on billions of dollars of Chinese goods.

    There’s a potentially lucrative opportunity for Trump to sell 55,000 of the “God Bless the USA” Bibles to Oklahoma after the state’s top education official ordered public schools to incorporate Scripture into lessons for grades 5 through 12. Oklahoma plans to spend $3 million on Bibles that initially matched Trump’s edition: a King James Version that contains the U.S. founding documents. The request was revised Monday to allow the U.S. historical documents to be bound with the Bible or provided separately. […]

    “There are hundreds of Bible publishers and we expect a robust competition for this proposal,” said department spokesman Dan Isett. [Yeah, right. You say that after your first attempt to scam the public into buying Trump bibles failed.]

    Chinese printing company confirms shipments
    China is one of the world’s leading producers of Bibles, so it’s not unusual for the Trump-endorsed version to be printed there. [more details at the link]

    Critics call Trump Bible a ‘toxic mix’
    The King James Version used in the Trump Bible is in the public domain. Greenwood had initially planned to use the best-selling New International Version licensed in North America by HarperCollins Christian Publishing. But the publisher abandoned the arrangement amid pressure from religious scholars and authors who denounced the merger of Scripture and government documents as a “toxic mix” that would fuel Christian nationalism sentiments in evangelical churches.

    […] Christian nationalists are likely to believe the U.S. Constitution was inspired by God and that the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation.

    Other critics called the Trump Bible blasphemous. “Taking what has long been understood as a global message religiously and stamping it with the flag of one nation is the type of thing that for centuries theologians would call heresy,” said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist minister and president of the Christian media company Word&Way.

    ‘Love of money’
    Tim Wildsmith, a Baptist minister who reviews Bibles on his YouTube channel, said he quickly noticed the signs of a cheaply made book when his “God Bless the USA” Bible arrived wrapped in plastic inside a padded mailer.

    It had a faux leather cover, and words were jammed together on the pages, making it hard to read. He also found sticky pages that ripped when pulled apart, and there was no copyright page or information about who printed the Bible, or where.

    “I was shocked by how poor the quality of it was,” Wildsmith said. “It says to me that it’s more about the love of money than it is the love of our country.”

  131. KG says

    The UK Conservative Party has been choosing a new leader, in an agonisingly prolonged and complicated process. The remnant 121 MPs have voted in successive rounds, starting with the six candidates who got enough MPs to nominate them, and ending with two (between whom the party membership will choose). In every round, the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated – a procedure which encourages tactical voting to try to push out the candidate who you think most dangerous to your own in later rounds, or if they were pitched against yours in the members’ vote. Before the final MPs round today, it was considered virtually certain that one of the two to go forward would be James Cleverly (often described as a one-man refutation of nominative determinism, but in relative terms, a moderate); to be joined by either corrupt opportunist Robert Jenrick – who was a socially liberal Remainer and supporter of David Cameron back before the Brexit vote, but now wants to leave the European Convention on Human Rights so refugees trying to cross the Channel in small boats can be machine-gunned [OK, he hasn’t actually said that, but it’s the logical endpoint of his policies]; or Kemi Badenoch, a swivel-eyed loon and LGBTQ+-hater who makes LIz Truss look rational, and is notoriously able to start a fight in an empty room. But in fact, Cleverley is out (speculation is that either he received tactical votes in the preceding round, or some of his supporters cast tactical votes in this last round – acting too Cleverly by half, one might say), and members get to choose between the totally unprincipled opportunist and the swivel-eyed loon. Since the last time they got to choose* they went for a swivel-eyed loon (Truss) and the time before for a totally unprincipled opportunist (Johnson), it’s hard to guess which way they will go. Labour and LibDem leaders are delighted, or at any rate, plausibly say they are.

    *They didn’t get a choice when Sunak became leader, as no other candidate stayed in the contest to the end of the MPs’ phase.

  132. says

    Voting in North Carolina:

    How do you get people to the polls when they lack power, gas, water, or usable roads? That’s the challenge facing the North Carolina Board of Elections since Hurricane Helene made landfall on Sept. 26.

    […] As of Oct. 7, all 100 county election offices were open, including those in hurricane-affected areas. A new bipartisan resolution passed unanimously by Republican and Democratic elections officials aims to assist voters in these counties.

    […] The Board of Elections’ resolution addresses accessibility by extending polling hours, creating temporary voting facilities, and allowing staff from other counties to assist as poll workers. [It is probably a safe bet that some Republican election-deniers/chaos-agents will sue the state of North Carolina over these accommodations that make it easier to vote.]

    […] National Guard tents will be set up at polling locations destroyed by flooding. Bell assured residents that the necessary space, power, and security to vote on Nov. 5 are paramount priorities. Residents who are temporarily relocated can also request an absentee ballot which they or a family member can return before polls close on Election Day.

    Staffing has also been impacted, with poll workers facing disrupted cell and internet service and no water or power in their homes. In response, the state board will allow staff members from other counties to work at polling places with early in-person voting starting Oct. 17.

    […] Another necessary provision: multipartisan assistance teams, known as MATs, which have been tasked with facilitating voting at disaster shelters. These nonpartisan volunteers will assist with absentee voting for those who lost family members, homes, and businesses and are being housed in shelters and other places where disaster relief is provided to the general public.

    Combating misinformation and voter doubt
    Years of misinformation, election lies, and social media conspiracies have taken a toll on Republican voters’ confidence in our democracy. It’s even more difficult to restore faith in elections when the GOP’s current presidential nominee is happily parroting the lies.

    Recent surveys show less than one-third of Republicans have faith in our election results. Gallup’s research shows a record-high gap of 56 percentage points when it comes to “faith in the accuracy of the vote,” with 84% of Democrats believing that votes for president will be accurately cast and counted, compared to only 28% of Republicans. […] Republicans are more likely to believe Donald Trump’s lies than fact-checked claims.

    North Carolina and other states impacted by Helene, like Georgia and Tennessee, are at the center of right-wing political talking points. […] Henderson County resident Brown said the misinformation isn’t helping the victims—and it could hurt election turnout.

    […] Conspiracy theories started circulating on social media, claiming that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is stealing money from donations and denying body bag orders. State government officials have been forced to deny cruel claims that bodies aren’t being buried and denounce ridiculous theories that the government is controlling the weather and trying to harvest lithium from western North Carolina.

    Former President Trump and his son Eric pushed misinformation about FEMA’s response to Helene, claiming that funds were diverted to migrants and that Democrats were not willing to help Republican-leaning areas.

    Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, owner of X, and a trollish Trump ally, claimed FEMA was blocking flights trying to aid the area on Friday, calling it “belligerent government incompetence.”

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was forced to reply to Musk’s inflammatory post, which had 28.7 million views as of Tuesday evening.

    “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights,” Buttigieg wrote. “If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.”

    Those on the ground confirmed the claims were false and North Carolina officials, including Republican state Sen. Kevin Corbin, pleaded with residents to stop spreading “conspiracy theory junk.”

    […] FEMA had to publish a “hurricane rumor response” page on its website to combat the flurry of misinformation. Board of Elections Executive Director Bell had to shoot down rumors that she is partisan—and made it clear she took offense.

    […] “It is not helpful, and as a matter of fact, it is a disservice to these people who have already faced disaster and put themselves in harm’s way and are hurting,” she said. “What a disgrace for someone to provide misinformation or disinformation affecting someone’s ability to vote.”

    According to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, FEMA has received 50,000 calls for assistance, and $6 million in aid has already been dispersed.

    On “Fox & Friends” Monday, Trump’s running mate JD Vance spouted more lies about the Biden-Harris administration’s response, claiming they “turned FEMA into an agency that helps to resettle and helps to deal with illegal immigration.” The Ohio senator also said “from the get-go, you should’ve imposed military-style command and control.”

    Except that’s what the president did. On Oct. 2, Biden deployed 1,000 active-duty military personnel to the region. Then, on Oct. 6, Biden announced he was sending 500 extra troops to add to more than 700 FEMA employees and 1,500 National Guard soldiers and airmen. FEMA approved $30 million in housing and other assistance, and officials said nearly 1,700 people were housed in hotels through a FEMA program.

    According to North Carolina officials, as of Saturday, those troops had moved 3.5 million pounds of commodities, while 50 helicopters and more than 400 specialized vehicles were in operation.

    A big blue dot in a sea of red
    Asheville is located in one of the counties most affected by Helene and is among the state’s bluest cities. North Carolina is a swing state, meaning it can sway presidential election results. Republicans hold a slight lead in presidential polls, and the state has not voted for a Democrat since 2008, when it awarded its delegates to then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

    Much of western North Carolina, the region hardest hit by Helene, is predominantly red, except for Buncombe County, home to Asheville. The area is reliably blue […]

    For Henderson County resident Brown, it’s not about who is determined enough to make it to the polls. She wants government officials to make sure that voting is accessible and the process is streamlined for a reeling, devastated community.

    “Officials should be thinking now about how to make voting as easy and simple as possible for everyone so we won’t fall through the cracks and be forgotten […]” Brown said.

    Link

  133. says

    […] A storm like Hurricane Helene, which has killed at least 227 people so far and caused close to $50 billion in estimated property losses across the southeast, is about two-and-a-half times more likely in the region today compared to what would be expected in a “cooler pre-industrial climate,” WWA found. That means Helene, the kind of storm one would expect to see once every 130 years on average, is now expected to develop at a rate of about once every 53 years. Additionally, WWA researchers determined that extreme rainfall from Helene was 70% more likely and 10% heavier in the Appalachians and about 40% more likely in the southern Appalachian region, where many of the deaths occurred, due to climate change. […]

    How Climate Change Is Supercharging Hurricane Milton

  134. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/thanks-marge-now-weather-control

    Thanks, Marge! Now ‘Weather Control’ Is A Campaign Issue, At Least For Crazy People
    Like for instance, ‘Donald Trump.’

    You probably didn’t have “weather control conspiracy theory” on your list of potential issues that might come up in the 2024 presidential election, because you are probably a sane person who thinks the economy or abortion or democracy or something similarly real is what matter to voters.

    But thanks to Donald Trump and his dangerous lies about the federal response to hurricane Helene, the small but extremely vocal subculture of internet weirdos who are absolutely certain the government controls the weather are certain they finally have friends in high places, and not just on the satellites that make hurricanes happen. Last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-QAnon), the Georgia conspiracy freak who turned her raging paranoia into a seat in Congress and in the rightwing media spotlight, returned to her wackaloon roots and proclaimed on Twitter that “Yes, they can control the weather. […] Anyone who says they don’t, or makes fun of this, is lying to you.” You know, (((THEY))).

    As “proof,” Greene cited the fact that some people advocate “geoengineering” — injecting tons of sulfur dioxide particles into the stratosphere to mimic the temporary sunlight-blocking effects of a huge volcanic eruption — as a possible way of temporarily reducing global warming. There’s the slight catch that nobody has actually done it, because the potential unanticipated effects could create awful results. And even its advocates don’t claim it would be so precise as to change particular storms’ behavior, just that it would, hypothetically, temporarily slow global warming while we transition away from fossil fuels. […]

    No, conspiracy theorists don’t fret too much over the details. They do, however, thrive in a crisis.

    Since then Greene has continued to explain that weather control IS TOO a very serious threat, and the crazies on Twitter have joined in, because it just makes too much sense that Democrats would steer hurricanes into areas where they’ll kill hundreds, including fellow Democrats, in hopes that it might affect the election.

    And because cranks are magnetically drawn to each other, the rightwing weirdos at Gateway Pundit, that notorious source of disinformation, ran a story yesterday proclaiming that “Marjorie Taylor Greene was right. Yes, scientists do control the weather.” (Our link goes to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, so you won’t give the liars at Gateway Pundit any traffic.) The article claims to be a “heavily researched” deep dive into the “history of weather manipulation,” and that it will in fact “BLOW YOUR MIND.”

    Greene triumphantly tweeted that she had been vindicated by the conspiracy site, of course. [post available at the link]

    Gentle readers, I have read (OK, skimmed) the article and can assure you my mind remains unblown. It’s a collection of nonsense claiming that cloud-seeding is PROOF of weather manipulation. The reality is that various attempts to coax rain out of cumulus clouds, usually by dropping silver iodine into ‘em, can work. And indeed, during Vietnam, the US military experimented with trying to erase the Ho Chi Minh Trail with thunderstorms, but as you may recall, North Vietnam still managed to get plenty of arms to the Viet Cong rebels in the south.

    Also, the article mentions failed government efforts to break up hurricanes using cloud seeding, because even though the experiments failed, that proves the government wants to control hurricanes. […]

    The article focuses almost entirely on cloud seeding, with a brief nod to the concept of geoengineering to cool the planet, but it never offers the slightest bit of evidence to show that the government or even the global Jewish cabal can create hurricanes or steer them to hit a particular place. That’s because there’s fuck-all evidence of such fine-tuned weather control, so yeah, “THEY control the weather” remains bullshit and Greene is a crazy asshole, a lying liar, or, probably, both.

    Still, props to the Gateway Pundit for mentioning that one of the top cloud-seeding researchers in the 1960s was Bernard Vonnegut, the older brother of Kurt Vonnegut, and that Kurt spun Bernard’s research into the idea of “ice-nine” in Cat’s Cradle. […]

    The Gateway Pundit does not, however, mention the saddest line Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote, which appears in his final novel, Timequake, published the year after Bernard’s death in 1997: “I was the baby of the family. Now I don’t have anybody to show off for anymore.” So it goes.

  135. Walter Solomon says

    Kurt spun Bernard’s research into the idea of “ice-nine” in Cat’s Cradle.

    Ice IX is a real phase of ice.

  136. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/kremlin-confirms-of-course-trump

    Kremlin Confirms: OF COURSE Trump Sent Putin Romantic COVID Care Package And Mixtape In 2020
    Just kidding about the mixtape. Probably.

    When news broke yesterday, from Bob Woodward’s new book War, that during 2020 Donald Trump mailed poor Vladimir Putin all the home COVID testing kits he could find — there was a shortage in the US at the time — Trump’s spokes-pube Steven Cheung huffed and puffed and denied everything, without actually denying anything at all. [Screengrab of statement is available at the link]

    Which stories are fake and made up? Oh, just all of them. More importantly, Bob Woodward is angry and bad and little, and Steven Cheung is mad about that!

    He didn’t bother to actually deny that Trump mailed Putin COVID testing kits, or other aspects of Woodward’s reporting, like the part about Putin and Trump talking on the phone as many as seven times since Trump lost the 2020 election. Cheung moreover gave no further details, like how often they talk on the phone now, nor did he clarify whether Trump often sends Putin care packages, with love notes, or brownies, or mixtapes […]

    Luckily, a slightly more credible source than Trump or Cheung has emerged, and it’s the Kremlin. Please realize that we are not saying the Kremlin is a reliable source. Merely that when compared to a brain-damaged pathological liar like Trump and anybody he hires, the Kremlin is a fount of truth, a goddamn oracle.

    They’re still liars, too, though, obviously.

    We believe them, though, when they confirm that yes, Bob Woodward got it right, Trump sent Putin COVID tests in 2020.

    Kremlin spox Dmitry Peskov — who himself got a care package from Trump in 2017 when Trump spurted code-word level classified Israeli intelligence all over him in the Oval Office — confirmed the story about the COVID tests to Bloomberg, but denied the part about Putin and Trump having spoken seven times since Trump ceased being president.

    […] Vice President Kamala Harris reacted to what Trump did yesterday when she was on Howard Stern, echoing the refrain she’s been hammering about how slobbering and pathetic Trump is with dictators, because he wants to be one, because he thinks they actually like him and want to be his friend:

    “That is just the most recent, stark example of who Donald Trump is,” Harris said Tuesday in an interview on The Howard Stern Show.

    The vice president said people were “scrambling to get these kits” during the pandemic, adding, “And this guy who is president of the United States is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator, for his personal use?”

    “I believe that Donald Trump has this desire to be a dictator,” Harris said. “He admires strong men, and he gets played by them because he thinks that they’re his friends and they are manipulating him full-time, and manipulating him by flattery and with favor.”

    Harris has also already made it into an ad, because her campaign is good: [video at the link]

    Somebody should check and see if Trump has sent Putin any care packages lately, like maybe right before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for the classified documents he had stolen. We dunno, check the tracking receipts from the FedEx and UPS stores in Palm Beach or whatever. […]

  137. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/republican-out-of-options-to-deal

    Republican, Out Of Options To Deal With Trump Hurricane Lies, Tries Truth Instead

    Rep. Chuck Edwards, a Republican congressman from western North Carolina, has apparently decided that the best way to serve constituents who have been digging out from Hurricane Helene is to tell them the truth and to debunk many of the lies being spread by Donald Trump, Twitter, and rightwing media. In a letter to constituents also posted on his congressional website yesterday, Edwards wrote something he probably never thought he’d have to actually spell out: “Nobody can control the weather.”

    Edwards started by saying how proud he is of “how our mountain communities have come together to help one another” — we have to assume he’s talking about the queer anarchist feminist bookstore people — and praised all the support from outside the area, then got straight to work debunking various conspiracies that have been circulating following the disaster.

    To start with, he made clear that thing about the weather, explaining that no technology exists that can “create or manipulate hurricanes.” Edwards went on to explain that no, the federal government also isn’t trying to seize the heavily damaged town of Chimney Rock to mine lithium deposits, nor is it bulldozing the town.

    He added that, contrary to another stupid but widespread rumor, search and rescue in Chimney Rock isn’t being abandoned and bodies aren’t going to be left uncollected and unidentified, good lord will you people listen to yourselves.

    Local officials are NOT abandoning search and rescue efforts to bulldoze over Chimney Rock.
    – Chimney Rock is NOT being bulldozed over.
    – Rutherford County emergency services personnel are going to extensive lengths to search for missing people, including in debris by using cadaver dogs to locate any remains of individuals trapped in the debris.

    The letter is astonishingly patient, given the absurdity of some of the rumors. Edwards explains that FEMA can’t seize your property, and that signing up for disaster aid doesn’t grant the government ownership of your house or land. What’s more, no, FEMA isn’t stealing donations, seizing do-gooders’ vehicles, or closing roads, and if roads are closed, that’s local law enforcement and probably because the road or a bridge was washed away. Oh, and the FAA isn’t closing airspace to nice people delivering stuff either. [I didn’t know that there were that many bonkers claims circulating]

    Furthermore, Edwards points out that no, FEMA isn’t out of money, and no, FEMA disaster funding didn’t go to shelter migrants either. Yes, FEMA is distributing emergency cash aid of $750, but no, that’s not the only aid people can get, and accepting it won’t prevent you from applying for more help. Edwards didn’t address whether the FEMA cash is the Mark of The Beast, however, so be careful, folks.

    For the sake of sounding like a Republican, Edwards did say Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s request for additional disaster funding for the rest of the hurricane season was “an irresponsible attempt to politicize a tragedy for personal gain,” which was pretty scuzzy of Edwards […] But at least he’s not among the Republicans who voted against boosting disaster funding. (Which was, in Florida at least, all of them.) Edwards also promised that he’s working on supplemental FEMA funding, which “will be considered in the House once we return to session in mid-November.” No special session for him!

    Edwards closed with a reminder that constituents should “remember that everything you see on Facebook, X, or any other social media platform is not always fact. Please make sure you are fact checking what you read online with a reputable source.”

    Why no, he didn’t mention Donald Trump at all. Why would he do that? Also, when CBS News tweeted a link to its story about Edwards’s letter, the Blue Checks swarmed it and said WEATHER CONTROL IS TOO TRUE, IT IS!!! The real winner might be a guy who replied, “I didn’t think they could control the weather until you guys started saying they can’t. You guys lie about everything. So that means they can.” [head/desk]

    Also, in related news, Media Matters notes that Tuesday evening on Fox News, the network’s congressional correspondent Chad Pergram teased a story on Twitter about a real scoop: He had acquired a copy of a fact sheet, written by Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, which explained that FEMA “has enough funding in the short-term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.” What’s more, Pergram added, the fact sheet

    also declares there is “no funding connection between” the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is “no intermingling of funding between these two programs.” It adds that “the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.”

    Now, none of that is really new, since we’ve all known it since last week. But the newsy part would certainly be that Republicans on the Appropriations Committee would commit it to writing. And curiously, Media Matters points out, Pergram hasn’t yet reported on that list on any Fox show. Maybe they’ll get to it eventually. Or maybe they won’t pursue the story, because wouldn’t that make the Great Leader look bad?

  138. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/sex-tips-with-stephen-miller

    Sex Tips With Stephen Miller!

    We are sorry to have to do this to you, but it happened, so you need to know about it.

    Jesse Watters had Trump Nazi Stephen Miller on his Fox News show last night — Stephen Miller, the one who looks like Voldemort, or Nosferatu, or one of the “gentlemen” from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” — and they spent far more time than you’d imagine talking about how sexually attractive Stephen Miller is, and allowing Stephen Miller to dole out hot sex tips for scoring the lady of your dreams.

    Hey where are you going? Video time, you sit back down! [video at the link]

    It went like this:

    WATTERS: We are getting a lot of texts from women about Miller and his appearances and his appearance.

    At this point Miller made some kind of “Nervously laughing with a boner while pooping” sounds, you just have to hear it yourself.

    WATTERS: Our audience at “Primetime” believes you are some sort of sexual matador. What do you have to say for yourself?

    Some sort of sexual matador, that Stephen Miller.

    What a cool audience Jesse has.

    MILLER: Well let me give advice to any young man that’s out there.

    Sex advice from Stephen Miller, the president of sex!

    MILLER: I’m married now, I have children, but I wasn’t married that long ago. I was single and I was in the market.

    Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, want to rip some babies out of their mommies’ arms while they all cry?

    MILLER: If you’re a young man — it’s very important in an election season — who’s looking to impress ladies, to be the alpha …

    There’s that well-documented MAGA masculine insecurity complex.

    MILLER: … to be attractive, the best thing you can do is to wear your Trump support on your sleeve. Show that you are a real man.

    [aiyiyiyiyi]
    It’s funny because MAGA people [complain] so much about how everybody swipes left on Trump supporters on dating apps, and now they’ve created their own dating app, which is totally cool except for how there are no women on it.

    MILLER: Show that you are not a beta, right? Be a proud and loud Trump supporter and your dating life will be fantastic.

    Sure thing.

    Also, he pronounced “beta” like “betta,” because that’s how talking works. And dating.

    Are even Fox News viewers going for this? […] Do they think Stephen Miller is a sex symbol of the MAGA movement?

    If you’ve never read the story of how Stephen Miller found another unpleasant Trump Nazi to marry him and even breed with him, refresh yourself. Jesse Watters, of course, once bragged about how he snagged his much-younger wife (while he was married) by letting the air out of her tires and manipulating her into getting into the car with him.

    So these guys are on the same level, although we reluctantly admit that Watters has a leg up on Miller, because he doesn’t look like a med school cadaver.

    Regardless, if any human men are taking sex and dating advice from Jesse Watters and Stephen Miller, they deserve whatever charges they end up catching as a result.

    OMG. So painful.

  139. Reginald Selkirk says

    WNBA update:

    The Minnesota Lynx beat the Connecticut Sun in the semifinals, and so will face the New York Liberty for the championship. Game 1 is Thursday, October 10, 2024.

  140. says

    […] Much of central and southern Florida is under elevated risk of tornadoes, with 53 tornado warnings having already been issued today as of 3 p.m. ET, according to the Miami branch of the National Weather Service.

    The weather service’s map of tornado warnings is a tangled web of red that extends from Osceola County south to Miami-Dade County. […] [map at the link

    Around 14 million people are at risk for tornadoes in Tampa, Sarasota, Naples, Fort Myers, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach and other cities.

    Tornadoes associated with tropical systems are generally weak, but they can spin up quickly and be difficult to detect because they are often accompanied by heavy rain.

    Several tornadoes have already been reported today in Florida, including in Pine Island and Fort Myers and along the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee. […]

    Link. That’s the “Live Updates” link for NBC News.

  141. says

    Buttigieg is a voice of reason, whether it’s hurricanes or Elon Musk

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on CNN Wednesday, to talk about evacuation preparations underway in Florida, as Hurricane Milton approaches. He also offered a calm voice to counter the stream of misinformation and disinformation being pushed by right-wing politicians and their supporters regarding the relief efforts underway in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

    “We’re working through our Federal Highway Administration with Florida’s DOT and local officials. Things like making sure that the shoulder can be used to effectively add a lane on I-4 or I-75,” Buttigieg explained. “The airlines have added capacity and capped fares going out of the affected airports. But most of those are either closed or they’re about to close.”

    Host John Berman also asked Buttigieg about his handling of billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk, who has been promoting misinformation on X.

    Musk has a history of spreading false information about a wide array of subjects, and he promoted the idea that the FAA was blocking rescue efforts after Helene. Buttigieg responded to Musk’s dangerously childish tantrum on the tech bro’s social media platform, but was also able to have a real conversation.

    “Yeah, I’m a big believer in picking up the phone. So I saw information that he was putting out that didn’t seem right to me. It’s suggested that the FAA was preventing emergency flights, which is definitely not the case. So I encouraged him to, to, talk to me. That’s what I would do with any major business leader who’s encountering a problem.”

    It turns out Musk’s insistence that the FAA and/or FEMA was obstructing rescue efforts was untrue. There were, however, “coordination issues on the ground,” and Buttigieg was able to find a solution to Musk’s personal grievances.

    “So, you know, I guess the moral of the story for me is, before taking to Twitter, getting online, work through things, through credible sources, and often the most credible sources in these disaster scenarios, in addition, of course, to FEMA, is folks on the ground, your local first responders.”

    Buttigieg was able to put out this single Musk misinformation fire, but he warned that the problems of misinformation remain. “This is something that actively harms the ability of responders to do their job,” he said. “I think a lot of it’s driven by politics. Some of it’s just, the internet doing what it seems to do lately, and amplify the loudest or strangest thing that is being said.”

    “You need information, good, accurate information,” Buttigieg continued. “That’s what this administration will provide, and that’s what we’re also, of course, counting on the media to make sure it gets out.” [video at the link]

  142. Reginald Selkirk says

    Montana’s attorney general faces a hearing on 41 counts of professional misconduct

    A succession of controversies marks Republican Austin Knudsen’s nearly four years as Montana attorney general.

    His office sided with a man who made an armed threat over a pandemic mask mandate and was accused of pressuring a Helena hospital over its refusal to administer a parasite drug to a COVID-19 patient. He tried to block three constitutional initiatives from the November ballot, recruited a token opponent for the June primary so he could raise more money, and got sued after forcing the head of the Montana Highway Patrol to resign.

    Knudsen is facing a hearing Wednesday that could bring a reckoning in yet another dispute: allegations of professional misconduct over his aggressive defense of a law that allows Montana’s Republican governor to directly fill judicial vacancies. That law was part of a nationwide GOP effort to forge a more conservative judiciary.

    A judicial disciplinary office concluded in 2023 that Knudsen’s office tried to evade the state Supreme Court’s authority by rejecting the validity of court orders.

    His hearing before a state judicial panel on 41 counts of professional misconduct could last up to three days, officials said…

  143. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @197:

    WATTERS: Our audience […] believes you are some sort of sexual matador.

    They made up a new term not knowing what bulls are, or what matadors do.

    Should’ve gone with lady-killer. That would track.

  144. says

    Washington Post:

    For the third time this week, people across portions of the United States may get the chance to see the northern lights. A solar storm is expected to hit Earth on Thursday, potentially bringing the dancing lights as far south as Alabama and California on Thursday night. But the influx of solar energy and particles, poised to arrive just after Hurricane Milton hits Florida late Wednesday or early Thursday, could affect power systems and satellite operations, including low Earth-orbiting commercial satellites.

  145. says

    Watch Trump’s press secretary get shut down on air over hurricane lies

    Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for Donald Trump’s campaign, appeared on CNN on Wednesday to do what Trump press secretaries do: misinform the public. This time, it was about the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. However, host Kate Bolduan was not having it.

    “The former president has said that [Federal Emergency Management Agency] funds were stolen to be used to house illegal migrants, that no one from FEMA was on the ground in North Carolina, that funds were being withheld from Republican areas of the state on purpose,” Bolduan said at the outset of the interview. “None of that is true. … Is the former president going to stop saying this?”

    Trump and others’ claims have been debunked repeatedly, and Leavitt’s replied with one disinformation talking point after another. But Bolduan cut her off, pointing out that Trump’s claim about President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris using disaster-relief funds to house migrants was “not true.”

    “There’s no disaster-relief-fund money that was going to house migrants,” Bolduan said.

    “I don’t think the American people care which pocket the money came from,” Leavitt said, ignoring that the “pocket” was the crux of the question—and Trump’s lie. [video at the link]

    […] Bolduan then detailed Trump’s 2019 redirection of FEMA disaster funds to migrant operations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    “So he is then okay with moving disaster-relief funds for dealing with migrants, but now is not. Is that what you’re saying?” Bolduan asked.

    “What President Trump didn’t do is allow an open-border policy for four years,” Leavitt said, launching into one of Republicans’ favorite false talking points. [video at the link]

    […] before Leavitt can give a nonanswer again, Bolduan closes the whole thing down, saying, “We’re going to leave it there because I offered you three times to give me the answer, and I’m not getting it.” [video at the link]

    […] Trump’s campaign staff and hangers-on have two job responsibilities: spewing misinformation to the public and doing damage control for their incompetent boob of a boss. The only character trait required for the work is a lack of shame.

  146. says

    Fox News melts down because Harris shared a beer with Stephen Colbert

    […] “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt went on to complain that the two-minute segment featuring Harris drinking a Miller High Life means inflation won’t get solved (note: inflation has recently gone down).

    When you look at her drinking a beer with Stephen Colbert and you see all of the destruction in North Carolina, destruction in Florida. Another hurricane about to hit, and blast out all these people’s lives and houses and pictures, and belongings, and you see her drinking a beer, and you know inflation’s up and we can’t afford groceries and you can’t afford college, but we’re paying for college for everyone else who took a loan out, or we’re paying for illegal immigrants to have free health care and food and go to school in our country, and then she drinks a beer and says that she wouldn’t have changed anything over the last four years.

    The long-winded rant has no basis in reality when it comes to Harris’ actions in relation to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. In fact, just a few hours after the Fox News attack, Harris appeared alongside President Joe Biden to receive a briefing on preparations before Milton makes landfall.

    […] At around the same time as the Fox anchors were airing their grievances, Harris’ office released an official statement warning citizens about possible price gouging in response to the storm.

    The administration has taken a “whole-of-government” approach to hurricane response, and Biden has authorized the deployment of military troops and other resources to help local governments in affected areas.

    Harris traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday to represent the administration. While there she thanked National Guard members and other first responders for their ongoing work.

    The Biden-Harris administration has run into obstacles while responding to the storms—not because of Harris drinking a beer, but because of misinformation promoted by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, members of the Republican Party, and—you guessed it—Fox News.

    “A number of scam artists, bad-faith actors, and others who want to sow chaos because they think it helps their political interests are promoting disinformation about the recovery effort, including ways to access critical and live-saving resources. This is wrong, dangerous, and it must stop immediately,” the White House said in a news release.

    Fox News is no stranger to propagating misinformation. The right-leaning network has done so for the entirety of its 28-year history and was compelled to pay a nearly $800 million settlement for airing falsehoods about the outcome of the 2020 election.

    Fox talking heads eagerly heaped criticism on Harris’ activities during the storm. […]

  147. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Something from August I just heard about.

    Democratic platform backtracks on solitary and the death penalty

    for the first time since 2012, the platform makes no mention of abolishing the death penalty. On the subject of solitary confinement, the contrast is subtle but still possibly significant. […] The 2024 platform states: “Democrats will… restrict state and local practices like solitary confinement, chokeholds, and restraints on pregnant inmates.” The current version focuses only on “state and local practices,” as if the federal Bureau of Prisons did not remain the single largest user of solitary confinement, with more than 10,000 people currently in solitary—something the president could change by executive order.

    San Francisco Chronicle

    Nor—unlike the 2020 platform—did it call for ending the “war on drugs,” for repealing mandatory prison sentences for specified federal crimes, or for eliminating qualified immunity, the Supreme Court doctrine that can make it virtually impossible to sue police for violation of one’s civil rights. The platform also includes a statement that “we need to fund the police, not defund the police.”

    There were still substantial differences between Democrats and Republicans, whose agenda includes large-scale executions, fewer restrictions on police searches, […] and “the largest deportation program in American history.” But the Democratic platform on crime and punishment, which drew little attention at the Chicago convention, suggests a shift in ideology.

    Time

    about criminalizing poverty, none of that language really is in the new edition. […] The explicit statement of ‘we want more police officers on the ground’ is a pretty dramatic thing to include and it’s obviously a very deliberate appeal to a fearful America.
    […]
    The 2024 platform states that “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.” However […] the 2020 platform went a step further than this, stating: “Democrats will decriminalize marijuana use.”

     
    2020 Platform

    Democrats believe that torture is immoral and ineffective. […] We will condemn the mistreatment of imprisoned individuals wherever it occurs, and we will hold to account those who perpetrate human rights abuses.

    2024 Platform

    *crickets*

  148. John Morales says

    CA7746, yeah, their platform doesn’t even know who the candidate is.

    From your crickets link: “In his second term, President Biden will continue to promote a free, open, connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient Indo-Pacific. He will deepen economic engagement to drive inclusive growth. He will champion human rights. And he will continue to strengthen our traditional alliances and broaden regional partnerships to bolster deterrence and resist coercion.”

  149. Bekenstein Bound says

    I was able to track down that secular, scientific “Genesis” book I mentioned previously. Turns out it’s by John Gribbin, originally published in 1981.

  150. StevoR says

    Get ready, aurora chasers: There’s a good chance you’ll be able to catch a nice light show by the end of the week! Forecasters with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) are highlighting the potential for a severe geomagnetic storm on Thursday (Oct. 10) and Friday (Oct. 11). That storm is likely to be in the G4 class — the second-highest level on the SWPC’s geomagnetic storm scale, which takes into account both severity and potential impacts.

    Source : https://www.space.com/severe-solar-storm-geomagnetic-storm-auroras-power-grids-october-10-11-2024

  151. StevoR says

    Via PBS Newshour :

    Dr. Firass Abiad: (Lebanese Public Health Minister -ed.)

    Lebanon, in my opinion, is really at an existential juncture in its history. I think that, for me as Lebanese who have lived through all of the past crisis, including the civil war, the ’82 invasion, to me, this is the moment in time where I really fear for the future of Lebanon, or at least for the future of the Lebanon that I know and I love.

    Will Lebanon truly embody what people say about them, as the phoenix that rises among the ashes? I don’t know. I know that we have the fire. We have the ashes. But whether we will be able to rise from this or whether this will prove to be really a bridge too far for us, oh, it’s to be seen.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/more-civilians-in-lebanon-displaced-and-in-dire-need-amid-israels-battle-with-hezbollah

  152. birgerjohansson says

    Sugar Vladdy!

    Trump Denies Inappropriate Relationship with Putin, JD Vance is a Hypocrite & My Pillow Mike for MTG.

  153. Reginald Selkirk says

    Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive

    As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformation during a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened.

    “People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity,” says Washington D.C.-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, in a phone interview conducted while he was traveling down to Florida for the storm. “There’s so much bad information floating around out there that the good information has become obscured.”

    Cappucci says that he’s noticed an enormous change on social media in the last three months: “Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream and it’s making my job much more difficult.” …

    This hurricane season, Cappucci and the other meteorologists I spoke with say, conspiracy theories have been flooding their inboxes. The main one that people have seemed to latch onto is the accusation that the government can control the weather. This theory seems to be amplified with climate change creating worsening storms combined with a tense election year, and the vitriol is being directed at meteorologists. “I’ve been doing this for 46 years and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. He says he’s been “inundated” with misinformation and threatening messages like “Stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else.” …

  154. birgerjohansson says

    Time flows

    Christine Applegate -who once played the awful daughter of the awful parents Al and Peggy Bundy- is 52 years today (which is 26 years less than if you are running for president as a MAGA candidate).

    Reginald Selkirk @ 218
    I have always known the Jews can control the weather. It is the people who claim that earthquakes can be controlled that are the kooks / s.

  155. StevoR says

    So, any land snail expewrts here by any chance? My google-fu has already faield toanswr this question & hoping some one here might know:

    There’s this endangered land snail called the Mission Creek Oregonian (Cryptomastix magnidentata) and its only found in .. erm, Idaho? Oh and also apparently its also been found in ..Utah. See :

    https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/species/cryptomastix-magnidentata

    Plus :

    https://www.nezpercewildlife.org/terrestrial-snails

    As well as :

    https://bioone.org/journals/western-north-american-naturalist/volume-84/issue-1/064.084.0112/Three-Gastropod-Species-Reported-in-Utah-for-the-First-Time/10.3398/064.084.0112.

    Oregon is a neighbouring state but from what I’ve found online these land snails aren’t found there at all. So, where does the Oregonian part of its name come from?

  156. StevoR says

    So, any land snail expewrts here by any chance? My google-fu has already faield toanswr this question & hoping some one here might know:

    There’s this endangered land snail called the Mission Creek Oregonian (Cryptomastix magnidentata) and its only found in .. erm, Idaho? Oh and also apparently its also been found in ..Utah. See :

    https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/species/cryptomastix-magnidentata

    Plus :

    https://www.nezpercewildlife.org/terrestrial-snails

    As well as :

    https://bioone.org/journals/western-north-american-naturalist/volume-84/issue-1/064.084.0112/Three-Gastropod-Species-Reported-in-Utah-for-the-First-Time/10.3398/064.084.0112.

    Oregon is a neighbouring state but from what I’ve found online these land snails aren’t found there at all. So, where does the Oregonian part of its name come from?

  157. tomh says

    Suit Over Deceptively Promoted School Religious Program Moves Ahead

    In Roe v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, (MD LA, Oct. 8, 2024), a Louisiana federal district court refused to dismiss many claims brought by high school seniors and their parents asserting violations of the Establishment Clause, infringement of parental rights, sex discrimination, violation of the Louisiana Parents Bill of Rights, negligence, infliction of emotional distress and fraud. According to the court:

    Plaintiffs’ lawsuit centers around the overarching allegation that, “[f]or several years going back to at least 2016, [defendants] … were engaged in a conspiracy to expose public school children to overtly sectarian and religious experiences directly through the East Baton Rouge School System…, often without the knowledge or permission of the students’ parents or guardians.” [They] …developed a program called ‘Day of Hope’, whereby public school students of the East Baton Rouge School System would be sent to a religious service during school time, chaperoned by EBRSB employees.” … [Defendants] advertised the 2022 event to parents and students as a ‘College and Career Fair’, providing ‘a college and career fair, breakout sessions, live music, a keynote speaker, free food, and more.’ None of the promotional materials or advertisements for the event provided any obvious religious connection.” Plaintiffs claim that, “[i]n actuality, ‘Day of Hope’ speakers were almost exclusively pastors or other religious speakers who describe their participation in the public school event as ‘worship[]’ and ‘minister[ing] to over 1000 kids’, including hashtags on social media posts describing the event like ‘#GodGetsTheGlory’.”…

    The Title IX claim focuses ….. while the male students engaged in “frivolous recreational activities,” the female students were “exposed to a ‘girls gender talk’ including traumatizing lectures by pastors and other religious figures about virginity, rape, abuse, and suicide, even being told to ‘forgive’ their rapists and abusers.”…

  158. KG says

    @185 I described Robert Jenrick, the UK Tory leadership contender, as “corrupt”. Going through my 1,000+ open tabs, I’ve come across a link to an explanation of the most obvious example of his corruption.

  159. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 225

    Living the American right-wing dream: Being the hero of your very own action film where you get to mow down all the people you perceive to be the ‘bad guys” who are out to “take what is yours!”

  160. says

    Down in Alabama, in the nation’s newest congressional district, an interesting battle is brewing—one that pits the daughter of the family that birthed the KKK against the son of the man who bankrupted it.

    Democrats nominated Shomari Figures in the newly redrawn Alabama 2nd Congressional District, while Republicans opted for Caroleene Dobson. The district is a result of the Supreme Court’s Allen v. Milligan surprise decision which ordered the state to draw a second Black-opportunity district.

    Dobson comes from one of the wealthiest families in America—the Kings of King Ranch, the largest contiguous land ownership in the country (825,000 acres!), larger than the size of Rhode Island. How did they get all that land? This story by the amazing Michael Harriot for TheGrio has all the gory details, and it’s a sordid affair.

    Dobson is the great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of John Hardee, a “prominent state senator and slaveholder” who lived in North Carolina before receiving 1,360 acres in Camden County, Ga., for his service as a soldier in the American Revolution. The plantation became known as the Rural Felicity Plantation, where Hardee’s descendants bought and sold 183 human beings between 1816 and 1850, according to our search of Camden County census records and Tara D. Field’s abstracts of Georgia Slave Deeds. By 1840, the Hardees owned 137 pieces of human chattel, placing Dobson’s ancestors in the top .1% of American enslavers.

    Also this:

    In 1817, 200 years before Caroleene Dobson’s conservative colleagues used their “Alabama roots and values” to outlaw squatter’s rights, John Ziba Hardee, moved to Alabama. By the time the U.S. government kicked an estimated 23,000 members of the Muscogee Nation off their native land in the 1830s, his son Joel Hardee (Dobson’s great-great-great grandfather) had already moved to Monroe County, Ala., and claimed squatters rights on 50 acres of land. Then Joel used the Land Act of 1820 to take advantage of this massive redistribution of native American wealth, paying $1.25 per acre for nearly 400 acres in Monroe County, including a 198.235-acre tract, a 39.9-acre plot and another parcel containing 37.64 acres.

    It’s much easier to accumulate generational wealth when you build it on the backs of Black slaves and displaced Native Americans. And of course, Dobson doesn’t have the ability to grapple with her inherent privilege.

    But it wasn’t enough for her family to enslave some and pilfer the land from expelled Native Americans. They also worked hard to enforce a system of inherent bigotry, racism, and oppression. As Harriot explains:

    After the Civil War, Joel’s uncle, William Hardee, joined the Hardees in nearby Selma and became a “well-known member” of the Ku Klux Klan. Joel served 50 years as justice of the peace while William used his confederate hero status to terrorize Black Alabamians. Aside from Jefferson County (home to Alabama’s Blackest city), no county in Alabama had more lynchings than the two counties (Selma and Monroe) where the Hardee brothers dispensed their brand of justice.

    Dobson’s forefathers literally ran one of the most brutal outposts of the KKK. And despite slavery being outlawed, they weren’t done oppressing Black people.

    Although the 1850 Census listed Joel as a “farmer,” there is no evidence that he ever farmed a single plant or ranched a single cattle. After the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, Joel negotiated sharecropping contracts with formerly enslaved men Mitchell Chapman, Cyrus Boatwright and Isaac Bulloch to exploit their labor (and their children’s labor) for less than 34 cents per day, a pair of shoes and three outfits a year. If you lost count, this is Coleene Dobson’s “fifth generation cattle farm.” And since sharecroppers are technically entrepreneurs, Dobson’s campaign bio was not technically lying when it says her family’s reappropriated land is “where she learned the meaning of hard work and developed a firsthand understanding of the challenges faced by hardworking families and entrepreneurs.”

    She never said it was her family doing all that hard work.

    […] it’s not Dobson’s fault her ancestors were brutal slave owners and stole tribal lands. It is her fault that she brags about it as “Alabama roots and values” and has zero introspection as to what those words actually mean in her instance.

    Her wealth was literally built on the backs of others. And she is now a member of the one political party in the United States dedicated to whitewashing that history and exacerbating the economic and societal legacy of our nation’s darkest shames.

    Dobson is quite possibly the polar opposite of Figures. For one, he is Black. But his family is also of great consequence to the racial history of Mobile, Alabama.

    Figures’ father, Michael Figures, the son of a janitor, was Alabama Law School’s first Black graduate after integrating the formerly segregated school in 1969. In 1979 he was elected to the Alabama state Senate, one of just three Black members, Harriot reported. And then …

    On March 21, 1981, police in Mobile, Ala., called Sen. Figures to the scene where someone had kidnapped 19-year-old Michael Donald, beaten him with a tree limb and strangled him with a rope before slitting his throat. A police investigation and a federal inquiry yielded no suspects and investigators eventually closed the case. Michael, who represented Mobile, pleaded with the federal authorities to reopen the cold case. After Mobile’s first Black district attorney had just got a job as assistant U.S. attorney in Mobile, he agreed to resume the investigation, eventually arresting and convicting four members of the United Klans of America for the murder. You may know him as the person whom former Jeff Sessions told: “I thought the KKK was OK until I learned they smoked pot.”

    His name is Thomas Figures, the older brother of Michael Figures.

    This is one hell of an impressive, groundbreaking family.

    Shomari’s father … eventually filed a civil suit on behalf of Donald’s mother that bankrupted the United Klans of America, the organization responsible for the 16th Street Church Bombing, the murder of Viola Luizzo and a half-century of racial terrorism.

    After his father died in 1996, Figures’ mother Vivian won his seat, and in 2008 was the Democratic nominee for Alabama’s Senate race, the first Black woman to accomplish that. She was also the first woman to head either party in the Alabama legislature, and continues to serve today. [Impressive!]

    Figures himself graduated from Alabama Law School, served in the Obama White House and Justice Department, as Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s legal counsel, and returned home when the seat was first drawn. It’s unsurprising that, given his family stature and his own impressive credentials, he sailed through a crowded Democratic primary.

    […] no one is taking the race for granted. Dobson has all the money, and younger Black voters vote at a disproportionately lower rate than the general electorate.

    And Democratic fundraising is difficult in this economically disadvantaged district. As of the end of June, Figures had raised nearly $900,000 to Dobson’s $2.2 million (though she did loan nearly $1.4 million to her campaign). […]

    […] I highly recommend reading Harriot’s story, as I left out a lot of details. It is absolutely a fascinating look at how different “Alabama roots and values” can look from two different lenses. This district has a chance to elect the version that serves the people, and not the family of former slave owners and land stealers who continue, to this day, to fight to maintain a system that benefits the wealthiest and most powerful at the expense of everyone else.

    One last note—I had the pleasure of meeting Figures recently, and he is indeed an impressive individual. It’s rare to sit with a candidate who knows his district’s numbers, can delve deeply into Supreme Court jurisprudence, and communicate the importance and relevance of policy in people’s lives.

    If you didn’t catch his Democratic National Convention speech, you can see what a dynamic speaker he is: [video at the link]

    Figures isn’t a future backbencher. He is destined for leadership and could very well be running things someday, if not leading a Democratic revival in what is, for now, a solidly politically segregated and Republican state.

    Link

  161. says

    Commentary regarding Trump’s bonkers rally schedule:

    […] Trump will be in Aurora, Colorado on Friday; Coachella, California on Saturday; and Madison Square Garden in New York City later this month.

    Coachella is in Riverside County, not far from the Mexican border. The desert city is predominantly Latino, and its voters largely Democratic (like the state as a whole).

    Local leaders have made it clear that Trump is far from welcome, even dropping Kendrick Lamar lyrics to make the point clear.

    “He has consistently expressed disdain for the type of diversity that helps define Coachella,” Mayor Steven Hernandez told the Desert Sun. “We don’t know why Trump is visiting near Coachella, but we know he wasn’t invited by the people who live here. He ain’t like us.”

    […] With the high temperature predicted to reach 99 degrees on Saturday, there is a bigger chance that Trump’s makeup will run in the oppressive heat […] than of him landing any kind of significant blow on Harris at the planned event. And if he can’t draw a crowd in that heat, in the middle of a desert, then the optics will be particularly bad.

    And Trump sure as heck ain’t Lana Del Rey, Bad Bunny, or Billie Eilish.

    Aurora, Colorado, is the city that Republicans claim has been overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Trump repeated the claim during the Sept. 10 presidential debate.

    Ironically, this visit is a chance for Trump to see that it’s all a lie. Maybe he’ll follow the lead of a local columnist who visited the town and the apartment building supposedly controlled by vicious gang members, and instead found tenants living in squalor because of slumlords.

    […] Even the city’s Republican mayor questioned Trump’s planned visit, and urged him to correct the record.

    “Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” said Mayor Mike Coffman.

    His visit and inflammatory language will surely garner headlines and be the talk of conservative media. But again: There are no electoral votes to gain in blue Colorado. And again, a campaign rally’s value isn’t in the resulting coverage on Newsmax or Fox News, but in local media coverage and motivating attendees to participate in get-out-the-vote efforts.

    And a rally in Manhattan? In the closing weeks of the campaign?

    It’s just more evidence that as much as conservatives criticize and cry about New York City and other blue Democratic strongholds, Trump would much rather spend the day surrounded by liberals than in the Alabama region of Pennsylvania talking to his actual supporters.

    Link

  162. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Israeli forces fire on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

    UNIFIL’s Naqoura headquarters and nearby positions have been repeatedly hit.

    This morning, two peacekeepers were injured after an IDF Merkava tank fired its weapon toward an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura, directly hitting it and causing them to fall. The injuries are fortunately, this time, not serious, but they remain in hospital.

    IDF soldiers also fired on UN position (UNP) 1-31 in Labbouneh, hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system.
    […]
    Yesterday, IDF soldiers deliberately fired at and disabled the position’s perimeter-monitoring cameras. They also deliberately fired on UNP 1-32A in Ras Naqoura, where regular Tripartite meetings were held before the conflict began, damaging lighting and a relay station.
    […]
    Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and of Security Council resolution 1701.

  163. Reginald Selkirk says

    Porch Pirates Are Stealing AT&T iPhones Delivered by FedEx

    Porch pirates across the country for months have been snatching FedEx packages that contain AT&T iPhones—within minutes or even seconds of delivery.

    The key to these swift crimes, investigators say: The thieves are armed with tracking numbers. Another factor that makes packages from AT&T particularly vulnerable is that AT&T typically doesn’t require signature on delivery.

    Doorbell camera videos show the thefts in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Michigan, Georgia, Florida and Texas. The details are similar: A FedEx driver drops off a box with an iPhone from AT&T. Then a person walks up—sometimes wearing an Amazon delivery vest—and plucks the package off the front step. The heist can be so quick that in some videos, the FedEx driver and thief cross paths…

    … Now, a spate of thefts that began a few months ago is targeting FedEx deliveries for AT&T. The two companies said they were working with law enforcement to investigate, and declined to disclose how many such packages have been stolen…

  164. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Shapeshifting in Ways ‘Never Identified Before’

    Astronomers used the Hubble space telescope to look at Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS) from December 2023 to March 2024, and they observed the massive storm changing dimensions over the 90-day period. The reason behind this unexpected shapeshifting is unknown, but it revealed that the famous red storm is not as stable as it seemed. The results of the Hubble observations are detailed in a study published Wednesday in The Planetary Science Journal.

    Using Hubble’s observations, the team of astronomers behind the new study measured the Great Red Spot’s size, shape, brightness, color, and vorticity over one full oscillation cycle. The combined images act like a time-lapse of the storm’s changing behavior, revealing its famous red eye varying in size, while its core gets brighter when the Great Red Spot is at its largest during the 90-day cycle…

  165. says

    Arizona Democratic office hit by third shooting in weeks. There were no injuries or arrests

    A Democratic National Committee campaign office in suburban Phoenix has been struck in a third shooting in recent weeks, police said Wednesday.

    No one was inside the building in Tempe, Arizona, and no injuries were reported in any of the shootings. The latest incident occurred Sunday, when someone fired shortly after midnight at the door and windows of the office.

    A $1,000 reward has now been offered for any information leading to the arrest or indictment of those responsible. Police did not provide any other new details in the latest update.

    The most recent shooting came days before Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to return for another campaign visit to Arizona, this time to host a Phoenix rally on Thursday. The Tempe location is one of 18 field offices the Democratic presidential nominee has in Arizona.

    […] Police have said they are analyzing evidence from the scene and taking measures to ensure the safety of those who work in the building and nearby.

    In the first shooting on Sept. 16, authorities reported that the office was struck by pellet or BB gun rounds. As in the most recent incident, actual gunfire was reported in the second shooting on Sept. 23. […]

  166. says

    Social Security recipients will get smaller increase than in past years, by Associated Press

    Millions of Social Security recipients will get a 2.5% cost-of-living increase to their monthly checks beginning in January, the Social Security Administration announced Thursday.

    The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for retirees translates to an average increase of more than $50 for retirees every month, agency officials said.

    About 72.5 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, get Social Security benefit.

    But even before the announcement, retirees voiced concern that the increase would not be enough to counter rising costs.

    Sherri Myers, an 82-year-old retiree from Pensacola City, Florida, is now hoping to get an hourly job at Walmart to help make ends meet.

    “[…] When I’m at the grocery store, I just walk past the vegetables because they are too expensive. I have to be very selective about what I eat — even McDonald’s is expensive,” she said.

    Recipients received a 3.2% increase in their benefits in 2024, after a historically large 8.7% benefit increase in 2023, brought on by record 40-year-high inflation.

    The smaller increase for 2025 reflects moderating inflation.

    […] ”I’ve heard the stories and it is a struggle for seniors,” he [Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley] said, adding that “in their older years, they have to spend their money on a different array of costs and expenses, including prescription drugs.”

    He said policies advanced by the Biden-Harris administration should result in many people seeing lower prescription drug costs.

    The agency will begin notifying recipients about their new benefit amount by mail starting in early December. Adjusted payments to nearly 7.5 million people receiving Supplemental Security Income will begin on December 31.

    The program is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers and that is slated to increase to $176,100. The maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes was $168,600 for 2024, up from $160,200 in 2023.

    […] AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in a statement that “there is more we must do to ensure older Americans can continue to count on Social Security. AARP continues to call on Congress to take bipartisan action to strengthen Social Security and secure a long-term solution that Americans can rely on.”

    […] AARP conducted interviews with both Harris and Trump in late August and asked how the candidates would protect the Social Security Trust Fund.

    Harris said she would make up for the shortfall by “making billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes and use that money to protect and strengthen Social Security for the long haul.”

    Trump said “we’ll protect it with growth. I don’t want to do anything having to do with increasing age. I won’t do that. […]”

    O’Malley said there is a push for the Social Security Administration to use a different index to calculate the cost-of-living increase that measures price changes based on the spending patterns of older people on things such as health care, food and medicine costs.

    The COLA is now calculated according to the Consumer Price Index, a market basket of consumer goods and services. O’Malley said lawmakers who are advocating for a shift “are advancing a very sound policy.”

  167. says

    About those polls:

    […] All the major “liberal” media are calling this the closest race in history. Of course that is in their own self interest. A horse race sells, a runaway is a yawner.

    As for the poll aggregators 538 and Nate Silver, one analyst I trust says that they are stacking the deck. According to him there are a number of outfits on the edge that he has never heard of, have no history and he can’t even find out who they are or even where they are. Some examples are So Cal Strategies and Red Eagle. Their results are very favorable to Trump. Then there are stalwarts like Trafalgar, Inside Advantage and Rasmussen. Also very Trump-biased. In fact Rasmussen has gone into hiding. Their polls are now marked RMG Research. On their website, the lead story even today is Joe Biden’s unfavorables. As if anyone cares. Meanwhile Trafalgar showed Trump +2 in all important Pennsylvania. It didn’t hurt that their crosstabs showed Trump winning 46 percent of the African-American vote!

    [Bullshit being marketed as reliable polls.]

    So 538 is unashamed to throw all of this garbage into their aggregate. [WTF?] Even so, Harris has been consistently ahead, albeit within the margin of error. And RCP, CNN and the NYT then use these numbers to show a pick em race.

    Here is what I see. Democrats and pro-choice have been outperforming the polls by 5% or more in election after election for two years. And that is where we are today. By the way this doesn’t bother me a bit. If it motivates our voters to turn out like their lives depend upon it, then it is all good.

    So the big question is why is this happening. My answer is that the polls are missing something important and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what it is. They are just not polling enough women, particularly young women, a group notorious for not voting. And they are the very people who have been registering in droves. Of course they are not being polled, they don’t fit the old models.

    […] Isn’t anybody noticing the sizable gap between the polls and results that has been so consistent for the past two years? My prediction. Harris is up in the aggregate by about 3 percent. The final results? 52-44. […]

    Link

  168. says

    It’s getting harder and harder to find words to describe the desperation coming from Convicted Felon and Adjudicated Rapist Donald J. Trump. First as we have learned he says Vice President Kamala Harris interview on 60 minutes was illegal. Never said why it was illegal, just that’s it’s illegal. He even demands the government investigate CBS for deceptive editing & wants CBS licence revoked. People who use critical thinking and common sense will ask why or how was her interview illegal and deceptive ( deception actually is trumps game which makes this laughable) but the Cult of trump will be satisfied and fed new fodder just from the words typed on his failing social media blog. Now, trump is demanding this:

    Trump previously called for an investigation Wednesday, but escalated those calls Thursday, saying Harris should now “concede the election”.

    Why?

    “A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal.” […]

    ”The Dems got them to do this and should be forced to concede the Election? WOW!”

    Trump just took insanity and fear to a whole new level.

    Link

    Posted by readers of the article:

    And yet, Trump can mouth absolute rot like your kid goes to school a boy and comes home a girl, thanks to the school nurse and her union, and survives to run neck and neck with a sane, intelligent candidate with 34 years of public service in local to national office. [caveats in comment 235 about those polls!]
    ———————–
    When an ignoramus gets desperate they are capable of saying the most comically absurd stuff.
    —————————
    CBS doest have a license to revoke. Those are only held by local TV and radio stations using the public airwaves. They are the ONLY universal media delivery system that has an FCC license.
    ————————–
    It’s been far too easy for the press to accept Trump’s explanation of “Everybody knows it, and you do too” without follow up. When cornered, he leaves or goes on to the next reporter / question. There is no coordination to try and debunk him in real time. This is why we’ve been stuck with him for so long and why we’ll keep hearing from his pie hole even if he’s soundly defeated.
    —————————–
    “A lot of people are saying”.
    ——————————
    I can win if you concede.

  169. says

    Mayorkas condemns reported harassment of FEMA officials responding to hurricanes

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday condemned reports of online harassment of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

    “We’re seeing horrific hate speech of all types propagated on online platforms. That deplorable speech has an impact on people’s lives and it is also a motivating force for people to do harm. And it has got to stop,” Mayorkas told reporters at a White House press briefing.

    Federal officials have had to combat misinformation spreading online as they work to respond to the two major storms, which hit swaths of the southeastern U.S. False claims began circulating in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene that devastated parts of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.

    Mayorkas spoke at the White House press briefing from North Carolina.

    The claims have been refuted by FEMA, which created a page titled “Hurricane Rumor Response,” where users can see debunked rumors about the agency’s response.

    The White House and officials in impacted states have for days been trying to push back on misinformation surrounding the hurricane response. The Biden administration also launched a Reddit page intended to share the facts about the response. [Good for Biden. He went right at the source of some of the misinformation.]

    Rep. Chuck Edwards (N.C.), a Republican who represents a district hit by Hurricane Helene, posted a press release Tuesday debunking eight “myths” about the storm response, including multiple claims shared by former President Trump. […]

  170. Reginald Selkirk says

    Starlink was offered for free to those hit by Hurricane Helene. It is not entirely free

    The free Starlink service Elon Musk and SpaceX so graciously promised for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene in the US is not actually entirely free, according to those living in the aftermath – and the internet satellite operator’s own signup page.

    There is a significant caveat: You are still expected to foot the bill for the hardware.

    Starlink’s Twitter account declared last week, in a post with tens of millions of views, that “Starlink is now free for 30 days.” The world’s richest man, with a net worth of approximately $260 billion, followed up by saying, in quite the PR coup, that all Starlink terminals would now work automatically “without [the] need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene.”

    But try to sign up for the ostensibly “free” service in an area Starlink has designated as a Helene disaster zone, and surprise: You still have to pay for the terminal (normally $350, but reportedly discounted to $299 for disaster relief, though that’s not reflected in Starlink’s signup page), plus shipping and tax, bringing the grand total to just shy of $400…

  171. says

    Live updates: At least 4 dead, millions without power in aftermath of Hurricane Milton

    Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm late Wednesday along Florida’s Gulf Coast, bringing powerful winds, a deadly storm surge and flooding to much of the state.

    Officials said Thursday morning that the danger had yet to pass.

    Power outages were widespread early Thursday and deaths have been reported. Nearly 3.5 million Floridians are without power, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.

    While Tampa was spared a direct hit, Milton compounded the misery wrought by Helene.

    President Biden also spoke to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier Thursday regarding the impacts of Hurricane Milton.

    The governor said officials were still assessing the damage across the state and thanked Biden for federal support, according to the White House. […]

    President Biden, in a storm update from the White House, said Congress should return from recess to pass more emergency funding.

    “I think that Congress should be coming back and moving on the emergency needs immediately and they’re going to have to come back after the election as well,” Biden said.

    He added that he has not yet spoken to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) about returning.

    “I think Congress should move as rapidly as it can,” Biden added, stressing that FEMA has funding but the Small Business Association funding is “pretty on the edge right now.”

    […] The St. Petersburg area received the most rainfall, with 18.87 inches, and the surrounding areas received double-digit totals.

    Tampa International Airport, which stopped flights beginning Tuesday morning, received 11.73 inches.

    At Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, 7.57 inches of rain fell, but wind gusts were reported to reach 102 mph.

    […] Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that FEMA has enough funds to handle the immediate needs of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, but he signaled more money will be needed soon.

    “We will need additional funds, and we implore Congress when it returns to fund FEMA as is needed,” Mayorkas said at a White House press briefing. […]

  172. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #233…
    Yeah… Social Security is going up 2.5%, or an average of $50 per month. My Medicare Part D drug coverage is going up 35%. There will also be a doubling of drug co-pays, though since it’s pretty low now, the impact will actually minor. No idea what the Part B “Medigap” coverage will cost next year, but it’s already at $700 per quarter. Bet it goes up enough to eat all of the SS increase.

  173. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: StevoR @222:

    Oregon is a neighbouring state but from what I’ve found online these land snails aren’t found there at all.

    First link, under “Descripion and Range”:

    The Mission Creek Oregonian is found in the Snake River Canyon, Grand Ronde Canyon, and Joseph Creek Wildlife Area in Asotin County, Joseph Canyon, Wallowa County, Oregon, and in Lewis and Nez Perce Counties, Idaho.

    Its citation elaborates a little, “Spring 2012 Blue Mountains terrestrial mollusk surveys” page 43.

    This snail appears very nearly as C. magnidentata […] Because of the strong similarity, I have included it in this taxon, however, [others have] described it informally as Cryptomastix (Cryptomastix) n. sp. 2, Hells Canyon oregonian. This snail is found along [yadda yadda above]. Cryptomastix magnidentata has previously been known from Mission Creek, Idaho

    Second link

    Mission Creek Oregonian (Cryptomastix magnidentata). First described in 1940, […] thought to occur only in association with a single, small limestone outcrop directly adjacent to Mission Creek within the [Nez Perce] Tribe’s 1863 Reservation.
    […]
    Its scientific description is based solely on shell morphology, and additional genetic evaluation is needed to clarify this species’ uniqueness and relationship to other land snail species in the region. In addition, the distribution of this species throughout its remaining habitat at the Mission Creek site has never been comprehensively assessed.

    Working third link, the abstract anyway (2024)

    species were discovered in Utah in recent years that have not been previously documented in the state. […] Cryptomastix magnidenta, found in Cache County […] also the first representatives of their genera found in the state.

    The abstract omitted criteria used for assigning the existing name to what they found. Could be identical snails in Idaho and now Utah, with strongly similar, arguably the same ones, in all those other places including Oregon.

    So, where does the Oregonian part of its name come from?

    AFAICT every member of Cryptomastix is called [Something] Oregonian, presumably by heritage broad similarity rather than location of individual species’ discovery.

  174. Tethys says

    I think the snails were ‘discovered’ and named way back in the days of Oregon Territory, which precedes Oregon State and included all of Washington, Idaho, and a bit of Montana too. Anything south of that was still under Spanish rule.

    The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon.

  175. JM says

    CNN: TD Bank hit with record $3 billion fine over drug cartel money laundering

    TD Bank will pay $3 billion to settle charges that it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels, regulators announced Thursday.

    The fine includes a $1.3 billion penalty that will be paid to the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a record fine for a bank. TD also intends to pay $1.8 billion to the US Justice Department and plead guilty to resolve the US government’s investigation that the bank violated of the Bank Secrecy Act and allowed money laundering.

    Big fine and the bank is pleading guilty, which is very uncommon itself. The bank is also going under monitoring and is limited in it’s US expansion. In theory the fine is substantially more then the money that was laundered, but that is only the money the government can prove was laundered. So only a fraction of what was flowing through.
    This was a widespread problem, something not an accident or one branch getting out of line. People high up at TD knew or should have known they were overlooking transactions and didn’t care as long as TD got a share.

  176. JM says

    Government Executive: Trump still declining federal transition services even as second deadline passes

    Presidential transition planning for the federal government has hit a snag as former President Trump’s refusal to date to accept official services has disrupted the process from moving forward on a normal schedule.

    Both campaigns faced a Tuesday deadline to move into a new stage of the quadrennial transition planning, but Trump’s team is still weighing its options on how or whether to formally work with the government in that process. Its wavering has the potential to hold up preparations for both he and Vice President Kamala Harris.

    The Harris campaign is also behind on signing but is just having problems with organization with a campaign started late. Trump seems to be rejecting dealing with the General Services Administration and has not signed anything yet. There have been talks and some informal meetings can be held without any agreements.
    The Trump people are not talking about why and there are a number of possible reasons. You have to meet certain ethics requirements that limit campaign donations from single big donors, which would be bad for Trump. You have to fall in line with government ethics and security standards, which Trump likely wants to violate. Those standards gave him lots of problems staffing in his last presidency. Trump may simple not be interested in working with the Biden administration, both because they plan to gut a lot of the government and because they want to complain about the government.

  177. says

    whheydt @241, that’s discouraging.

    In other news, here is a Hurricane Milton update from NBC News:

    […] At least 12 people have been confirmed dead in the storm’s aftermath, including six deaths in St. Lucie County on Florida’s Atlantic coast, where officials said tornadoes touched down.

    Some 11 million people were at risk of flash and river flooding and a record number of tornadoes caused widespread damage yesterday.

    More than 3.4 million energy customers were without electricity in Florida around 11:50 a.m. ET, according to poweroutage.us. […]

    Disney World and Universal Studios will both reopen tomorrow, the Orlando, Florida, area theme parks announced.

    Disney World said all of its theme parks, along with the Disney Springs shopping center, will resume operations Friday.

    Universal Orlando said they will return to normal operations Friday across all theme parks, including Universal Studios, CityWalk and Halloween Horror Nights.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this afternoon that more than 10,000 federal staff were on the ground supporting the response to hurricanes Helene and Milton across the southeast.

    “Every available resource is being deployed as fast as possible to impacted communities, and we will not leave until the work is done. The same is true for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene,” he said during a briefing.

    Mayorkas said that the federal government and FEMA has the capacity to help the communities impacted by both storms. […]

    Tampa International Airport announced it will reopen tomorrow.

    The airport, which remains closed today because of Hurricane Milton, will open its doors to travelers tomorrow at 8 a.m.

    […] Multiple bridges in the Tampa area have reopened today after their closures yesterday when Hurricane Milton swept through the region.

    The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Howard Frankland Bridge and the Gandy Bridge have reopened, according to Sgt. Steve Gaskins with the Florida Highway Patrol.

    The Courtney Campbell Causeway also reopened, Gaskins said. […]

  178. says

    Belatedly, a few days ago in the comments for
    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/07/sports-organizations-have-way-too-much-money/
    I wrote: Welcome to the united states, entertaining ourselves to death

    @18 John Morales wrote:
    shermanj:
    Welcome to the united states, entertaining ourselves to death
    Um. “in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia”, which is not the United States (of America — there are also united states of Mexico).
    (You might be entertaining ourselves to death, but clearly PZ is not)
    Point being, it’s not all about the USA, solipsistic as USAnians might be.

    I read your comments more carefully and I want to clarify: John, You are correct, it should not be ‘all about the USA’. I should have been more precise that I was referring to the ‘united states of america’ and NOT the United Mexican States – Estados Unidos Mexicanos. But, I decry the poor priorities (the panem et circenses) that is so prevalent here in the ‘united states of america’. And, yes there are still many here, including PZ as you pointed out, that have much better priorities.

  179. says

    Trump trashes Detroit, while delivering a speech in Detroit

    “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Kamala Harris is elected, Donald Trump said, perhaps unaware that he was in Detroit at the time.

    When Donald Trump spoke to congressional Republicans in June, the former president apparently thought it’d be a good idea to trash Wisconsin’s largest city. Milwaukee, the GOP candidate told his allies behind closed doors, is a “horrible” city that’s overrun by crime.

    Trump’s timing could’ve been better: He slammed Milwaukee just weeks before the city would host the Republican National Convention.

    But at least in this instance, the former president trashed the city before arriving there. During Trump’s remarks at the Detroit Economic Club, the GOP nominee was more direct in his insults. The Washington Post reported:

    In bashing Vice President Kamala Harris in his remarks to the Detroit Economic Club Thursday, Donald Trump also insulted the city hosting him. “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s the president,” Trump said. “You’re gonna have a mess on your hands.”

    “The whole country will be like, you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. … We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not gonna let it happen.” [video at the link]

    It’s possible that Trump simply forgot during his improvised comments that he was in Detroit while he was disparaging the city. The former president did, after all, recently relish “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia.

    It’s also possible that the GOP nominee knew where he was, and he simply didn’t care whether he was insulting his hosts’ hometown or not.

    Either way, Mike Duggan, the city’s Democratic mayor, quickly responded online that crime is down in Detroit and the local population is growing. “Lots of cities should be like Detroit,” the mayor wrote, “and we did it all without Trump’s help.” [LOL]

    Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, had a similar message around the same time, writing online, “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities — something Donald Trump could never understand. So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”

    This probably isn’t the “let Detroit go bankrupt” line that undermined Mitt Romney’s presidential hopes in Michigan eight years ago, but it’s not that far off, either.

    If you’re thinking that local voters will be hearing a lot about Trump’s rhetoric between now and Election Day, you’re not the only one.

  180. says

    Regarding the storm damage, I was saddened and frustrated to see a news report showing a man pointing to his home in the south, partially rebuilt from the previous storm on the same low concrete foundation, now ruined by the current storm. This should be examined in greater depth. I know it would be a lot more expensive in the short term, but much more cost effective in the long run (given absurdly high insurance cost and multiple rebuilding costs) if the cities/counties would require hurricane proof buildings (yes, they exist there).

  181. says

    Voting Rights Groups Fight Youngkin’s Sweeping Last Minute Voter Purge

    A group of Virginia voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit this week against GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s recent efforts to purge supposed non-citizens from the voter rolls just before the election, using what plaintiffs argue is unreliable information from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

    The Youngkin effort — which plaintiffs argue is a violation of the National Voter Registration Act and risks purging eligible voters from the rolls — also serves as another misleading datapoint for Republicans’ false narrative that non-citizens are voting en masse on behalf of Democrats, as they set themselves up to cry voter fraud if Donald Trump loses the upcoming election.

    […] On August 7, Youngkin signed Executive Order 35, which removed over 6,000 alleged non-citizens from the voter rolls, and also announced the state’s new program designed to purge supposed non-citizens from the rolls. The order, however, as previously reported by TPM, does not specify whether Youngkin’s office checked the current status of the over 6,000 people removed to confirm that they had indeed not become naturalized citizens since errantly registering to vote.

    The executive order requires the Department of Elections to send only a single notice to those who may be removed from the rolls. And, according to the order, the Department of Elections is not required to verify the accuracy of the DMV information.

    […] The order also requires that local election officials generate a “daily file of all non-citizen transactions, including addresses and document numbers.”

    The plaintiffs, which include the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, the League of Women Voters of Virginia and the League of Women Voters of Virginia Education Fund, are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the ongoing purge of voters so close to the November presidential election.

    “There may be a lot of people out there who are now citizens that are being purged, and they only give you 14 days to respond,” said Joan Porte, president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia.

    According to the National Voter Registration Act, no voter cancellation or systematic list maintenance program can occur within 90 days of an election. […] Aside from violating the NVRA, the lawsuit also argues that the program itself is an “illegal, discriminatory, and error-ridden program that has directed the cancellation of voter registrations of naturalized U.S. citizens and jeopardizes the rights of countless others.”

    “It’s relying on data that is fundamentally unreliable and even demonstrably inaccurate in some cases,” Snow said.

    […] In Virginia, a driver’s license is valid for eight years. This means that it’s actually possible to obtain a license as a non-citizen, and then within that eight-year period, become a citizen without ever having to obtain an updated license. The concern, then, is that eligible voters are erroneously being kicked off the voter rolls and disenfranchised based on outdated DMV information.

    “The State knows or should know that countless individuals who obtained drivers’ licenses while legal permanent residents have become naturalized citizens, many even registering to vote during naturalization ceremonies,” the lawsuit argues. “But Defendants make no effort to conduct any individualized analysis.” [True.]

    As TPM has repeatedly reported, there is simply no evidence to suggest that non-citizen voting en masse is a real issue. The perpetuation of this myth this election cycle is simply a way to sow seeds of doubt and inject chaos into the election system.

    The lawsuit comes against the backdrop of a similar legal challenge in Alabama. In August, Alabama’s Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) also announced the implementation of a new process to remove supposed non-citizens from the voter rolls. Last month, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Allen and the state of Alabama, arguing that the state’s voter purge program is in violation of the NVRA.

  182. says

    Noted gasbag Donald Trump takes aim at his nemesis—the wind

    Donald Trump held a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, where he attacked the wind and called it “bullshit.”

    Trump’s rally rant, filled with all of the lies, misinformation, and general self-pitying grievances we have come to expect, reached a new level of bonkers when the convicted felon got to his favorite subject: windmills.

    “They’re falling down,” Trump explained. “They’re all over the place. They’re all over the place. The gorgeous, beautiful Pennsylvania countryside. They got these big ugly suckers hanging down there, rusting and rotting.” He added that most windmills were spinning slowly or not at all.

    “You know, the environmentalists say it’s also, very importantly, the most expensive form of energy there is. You cannot get more expensive,” Trump said, which isn’t true at all. Studies show that renewable energy plants like sun and wind are far more cost effective than coal-powered plants 99% of the time.

    Trump bypassed his standard attack on windmills being bird killers in order to voice an even larger grievance: the wind itself!

    “The wind, the wind. It sounds so wonderful,” Trump meandered on. “The wind, the wind, the wind is, the wind is bullshit. I’ll tell you. It’s horrible.”

    Trump followed up this terrible haiku by doing another well-worn windmill story about a couple that cannot watch TV at night because there is no wind. “You remember when I used to say, ‘Darling, I want to watch our president tonight on television,’ and the husband looks, ‘I’m sorry, dear, but the windmills aren’t wind. There’s no wind tonight.’”

    He did say “the windmills aren’t wind.” Just remember, this could be our next president, so vote accordingly. [video at the link]

  183. Reginald Selkirk says

    Researchers develop new banana strain that can withstand “bananocalypse”

    The banana you know and love — specifically, the Cavendish cultivar — faces a deadly threat. Fungal diseases are spreading across the globe, jeopardizing the future of this staple fruit…

    This isn’t a new problem. For decades, the global banana industry has been under siege. Two destructive diseases — Tropical Race 4 (TR4) and black sigatoka — have ravaged banana plantations, costing farmers hundreds of millions of dollars and threatening the availability of the world’s most popular fruit. But now, researchers have developed a new banana plant that could revolutionize banana farming and secure the fruit’s future…

    The new hybrid is called Yelloway One, and Gert Kema, a professor at Wageningen University, views it as a major breakthrough in banana cultivation. Working with companies like Chiquita and KeyGene, Kema has created a hybrid banana variety that is resistant to both TR4 and black sigatoka.

    The process behind Yelloway One combines traditional crossbreeding methods with cutting-edge DNA analysis technology. By utilizing modern genetic tools with well-established hybridization practices, the researchers were able to select plants with traits like disease resistance quicker and more efficiently than ever before. The result is a plant that holds the promise of standing strong against the bananas’ menacing enemies…

  184. John Morales says

    A video about spiders:

    Should We Fear Huntsman Spiders?

    Australia’s huntsman spiders grow as big as your hand but are they deadly?

    What The Duck?! with Dr @annjonesnature‬

    00:00 Intro
    00:16 Family scream in terror as HUGE spider crawls inside their car: https://www.tiktok.com/@news.com.au/v
    01:21 Are You Moving Out Now? • Hatching Spiders Found in Bedroom
    02:51 Huntsman Spider Molting • Huntsman Spider | Molting
    04:00 How to catch a Huntsman Spider! • How to catch a Huntsman Spider!
    05:23 Pilot Lands Plane With Large Spider Sitting On Ceiling • Pilot Lands Plane With Large Spider S…

    Gotta say, that molting spider did look just like a squid at one point!

  185. says

    The Texan Doctor and the Disappeared Saudi Princesses.

    New Yorker link

    Four daughters in the royal family were kept drugged and imprisoned for almost two decades. A physician who tried to free them speaks out for the first time.

    By Heidi Blake, excerpts below.

    Dwight Burdick, a private physician to the Saudi royal family, was on a rotation at the King’s palace, in Jeddah, when he got an urgent summons. Princess Hala, a daughter of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, had gone wild with a knife. Burdick was asked to enter her quarters and forcibly sedate her.

    Burdick, a lifelong peacenik with a neat white beard, had moved to Saudi Arabia from Texas in the mid-nineties. He had served for years on the King’s personal medical detail, but had never before encountered Princess Hala. The request to drug her alarmed him—forced sedation was a “violation of my professional ethics,” he said—but he was curious. Though he admired Abdullah, who styled himself a champion of women’s rights, he knew little about the lives of the ruler’s daughters.

    Burdick drove to a walled compound on the palace grounds. Soldiers unlocked imposing gates to reveal a large villa set in landscaped gardens, facing the Red Sea, and Burdick instructed the guards to stay back as he entered the house. Italian pop music was blaring from a second-floor landing, and he followed the sound. “At the top of the stair, I could see a young female with a large kitchen knife in hand,” he wrote, in a detailed account of the incident.

    The princess was slender, dressed in a loose T-shirt and joggers, and her dark curls were cut short. When Burdick approached, he recalled, “she responded with a demand that I not touch her. She said she was the daughter of the King and I was nobody.” He promised not to come closer, but asked for permission to rest a moment.

    Hala gestured at a sofa and Burdick sat. As she stood over him, he spoke softly. “I explained to her that I didn’t intend to provide her with medication that I thought was inappropriate, that I was there to listen,” he said. Eventually, she perched on the far end of the sofa, still gripping the knife, and began to talk.

    Hala said that she and three of her sisters—Sahar, Maha, and Jawaher—were being held captive in the villa. They had been there since their mother, one of the King’s wives, absconded to London to escape his control years earlier. Burdick offered to try to find a way to help, and the princess agreed to return the knife to the kitchen. “I did my method of sedating a patient, which is to talk with them,” he said.

    Back at the royal clinic, Burdick reviewed the princesses’ charts and was dismayed to learn that they were being regularly dosed with a combination of Valium, Ativan, Xanax, and Ambien. “They’re chemically immobilizing them,” he recalled thinking. He learned that he would now be required to write the medical orders for these drugs. “I felt between a rock and a hard place,” he wrote. If he refused, he reasoned, he would likely be replaced by someone more pliable, and, even if he could stop the drugs, an abrupt withdrawal after years of chronic use would have dire consequences. “With the intention of buying time to learn more about the difficult situation these young ladies faced, I set aside my ethics,” he wrote.

    For more than seven years, Burdick was part of a team of trusted physicians charged with medicating the princesses with prescription tranquillizers. The sisters also seemed to have unfettered access to cocaine, amphetamines, and alcohol, Burdick said, further jeopardizing their health. At the same time, he grew to be a close confidant of Princess Hala, and worked to secure her and her sisters’ release.

    […] Their mother, living in exile in London, begged the United Nations to intervene, alleging that her daughters were being forcibly drugged. “These are terrible violations of the most basic human rights,” she wrote. Her pleas drew no help. Last year, I reported that, after King Abdullah died, in 2015, the princesses abruptly lost all contact with the scholars and journalists who had championed their cause. […]

    Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince who became Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler after the death of Abdullah, has touted women as a key part of his plan, called Vision 2030, to modernize the country; he has created employment opportunities for women and appointed female ministers and ambassadors. These gestures have been welcomed by Western governments, though many experts discount them as a fig leaf. […]

    Burdick told me that Salman’s administration continued to crack down hard on the sisters, who were deprived of food and water and whose contact with the outside world was cut off. […]

    I spoke with four former palace medics who further corroborated significant aspects of Burdick’s account. […] He confirmed that Hala and Maha were kept on a regimen of heavy sedatives. […]

    Burdick, who is now eighty-three, left his post not long after Abdullah died. He told me that he has struggled ever since to fathom what he witnessed. “Here’s this man that I just have immense respect for, who I think was really a force for good in the international world, and I think he was particularly a force for good for women’s rights in the Middle East,” he said. “How do you square that with locking his four daughters up and subjecting them to fifteen years of torture?”

    Burdick decided to speak out after learning that Hala had died in 2021, in her mid-forties, after years of malnutrition complicated by substance abuse. Her sister Maha died six months later, according to several authoritative sources. Though Burdick knew the risks involved in criticizing the Saudi regime—“note the fate of Jamal Kashoggi,” he wrote me in an e-mail—he insisted that he was unafraid. “I’m old, and I’m going to die one of these days, and I want to die with some satisfaction that I’ve done my best,” he said.

    [I snipped a lot of history, including details of how Burdick came to be working in Saudi Arabia, and details noting how luxurious the accommodations in Saudi Arabia were that Abdullah arranged for Burdick and his wife.]

    The King had fathered as many as thirty-five children with a multitude of wives. Hala and her sisters were born to Alanoud Al-Fayez, a Jordanian noblewoman, whom Abdullah had married when she was fifteen and he was about fifty. For a time, the princesses had enjoyed relative freedom, studying at expensive schools and travelling with their mother. “Princess Hala had yachted, skied, traveled on private jets, ate in Michelin starred restaurants, and slept in Palaces and 5 star hotels,” Burdick wrote.

    Things soured when King Abdullah turned against Al-Fayez, blaming her for their failure to produce a son. Al-Fayez recounted in a filing to the U.N. that she fled to London in 2003, hoping that her adult daughters would be able to join her. Instead, they were locked up. “I was able to leave,” she wrote. “But my girls’ destiny is shattered more day by day.”

    […] Hala Aldosari, a Saudi scholar and human-rights activist, told me that Abdullah’s imprisonment of the princesses was initially designed to exact revenge on their mother, and that their continued rebellions likely prolonged it. “Women from ruling families must reinforce the power of the state,” she said. “If they challenge those norms, or express any support for any critical opinion, the repression will be severe.”

    […] Hala gradually got off drugs and stopped drinking. As she worked to stay sober, she began to dream of a future beyond the palace walls. […]

    She was permitted to join her father for dinner, but when she returned she was despondent. “What he said was, ‘We need to find you a good Saudi Muslim husband, get you married, and then we can talk about releasing your restrictions,’ ” Burdick said. “And she said, ‘I’m not going to have a Saudi husband. I’m not going to have a Muslim husband. I’m not going to do any of that.’ And so that was the last exposure she had to her father.”

    After the dinner, Hala relapsed, Burdick said. By 2014, she had grown so desperate that she went through spells of starving herself. That March, Burdick sent two memos reporting that Hala’s health was being threatened by “inadequate nutrition” and excessive drug use, and that she complained of water leaks, fungal contamination, and pest infestations in her villa. By then, he said, he had accepted that his efforts to free her were futile. But, he added, “I did what I could to ease the suffering.”[…]

    Publicly, the Saudi authorities rebuffed questions about the princesses, describing their situation as “a private matter.” Behind the scenes, the palace retaliated viciously against Sahar and Jawaher. [The two had participated in a Channel 4 interview]

    Burdick told me that food deliveries to the sisters’ villa were halted and their water supply began to be shut off. “It was really draconian,” he said. He had use of an official car, meaning he could enter the princesses’ compound without inspection, and he began smuggling in food on his visits. Leftovers from the King’s banquet table were often given to staff, Burdick said, and he would gather these up and deliver them to Hala, who would climb the wall between the villas and lower the food to her sisters. […]

    More at the link.

  186. says

    NBC News:

    Inflation has come full circle for the Biden administration. Consumer price growth slowed to its lowest pace since February 2021 — the first month the president took office, the Labor Department said Thursday in its final inflation report before Election Day. The data, while a bit hotter than expected, points to an economy seeing cooler inflation even as the job market remains sturdy and interest rates ease.

  187. says

    Washington Post:

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his ‘Victory Plan’ to end the war with Russia were dealt a significant blow this week by an unexpected foe — Hurricane Milton. A meeting of Kyiv’s allies, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, scheduled for this weekend at Ramstein Air Base in Germany was postponed after President Joe Biden canceled his travel plans to stay in the United States as the Category 3 storm made landfall in Florida on Wednesday night. It’s unclear when the summit will now take place and whether the same senior delegations, including Biden, will attend.

  188. says

    Politico:

    Eight days into the fiscal year, the federal government has spent nearly half the disaster relief that Congress has allocated for the next 12 months. The rapid spending — which is likely to accelerate as aid flows to states pulverized by Hurricanes Helene and Milton — soon will force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to restrict spending unless Congress approves additional funding.

  189. says

    ‘How dumb are you?’: Watch ‘The View’ hosts clap back after Trump diss

    The ladies of ABC’s “The View” came onto set Thursday to the song “Dirty” by Christina Aguilera, with co-host Whoopi Goldberg explaining it was in response to Donald Trump’s attacks on them and Vice President Kamala Harris at a pair of rallies in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

    “[Goldberg’s] mouth was so foul,” Trump told his rally-goers. “She was so filthy, dirty, disgusting.”

    But Goldberg was not fazed by the attack.

    “As it turns out, I was filthy. I was filthy, and stand on that fact,” Goldberg said on “The View,” to applause from the studio audience. “And you knew that when you hired me. I headlined, babe, at your casino—which I might have continued to play had you not run it into the ground.”

    “How dumb are you?” Goldberg continued, facing the camera and addressing Trump. “You hired me four times, and you didn’t know what you were getting? How dumb are you?”

    Co-host Sunny Hostin also had some thoughts to share with the convicted felon who, during his rally, called her “one dumb woman.”

    […] said Hostin, a former federal prosecutor. “Donald Trump, I want to thank you for personally telling so many lies and committing so many alleged crimes and providing us with material on a daily basis. You help us do our jobs, and I’m so appreciative.”

    This is just one example of many reasons why Trump continues to poll poorly with women. [video at the link}

  190. Bekenstein Bound says

    Lynna@246:

    More than 3.4 million energy customers were without electricity in Florida around 11:50 a.m. ET, according to poweroutage.us.

    Really? They have proper tracking of outages in Florida now, instead of relying on Waffle House closures as a proxy? When did that happen?

  191. birgerjohansson says

    I just realised “Milton” is an appropriate name for a dangerous hurricane;
    It is named after Milton Friedman, the most destructive economist since someone convinced Adolph Germany needed ‘lebensraum’.

  192. StevoR says

    @242. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain & #243. Tethys : Thankyou! That makes sense now and very much appreciated. Cheers to you both.

  193. KG says

    birgerjohansson@266,

    If you’re going to chummily refer to Hitler by his personal name, you might as well get it right: it was Adolf, not Adolph. German rarely uses “ph” instead of “f”, and AFAIK, never in personal names.

  194. StevoR says

    There’s an aurorae visible in Adelaide or at least from the Adelaide hills outside right now. Barely visible as a faint glow easily confused with just skyglow as seen by the unaudided eye but much more visible somehow through the camera phone view.

  195. birgerjohansson says

    JG @ 270
    The name of the art-school reject is Adolf in both Swedish and German. I anglizised the name as a service to english-language readers.

  196. StevoR says

    Guessing is exception to the rule.. German / Deutsch makes more sense here to me actually as someone who generally likes things to be written as they sound. i.e. phonetically, wait, fonetikallee..

  197. birgerjohansson says

    Phonetic spelling is great, the downside is, you lose the historical connections to previous iterations of that word.
    Old spelling for instance reveal the relationship with words in other languages with similar meanings whose pronounciation now has
    become quite different.
    .
    TrUmp SpeLing in qUite anotHer mater.

  198. KG says

    StevoR@272,
    Dolph Lundgren is Swedish. But even if you can find a genuine German Adolph, Hitler wasn’t one.

  199. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nobel Peace Prize given to Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo for its work against nuclear weapons

    The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons.

    Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure.” …

  200. says

    FCC chair intervenes as Trump threatens the free press (again)

    After the former president again called for a major broadcaster to lose its license, the Federal Communications Commission chair intervened.

    Every four years, CBS’s “60 Minutes” invites the major-party presidential nominees to sit down for interviews. In nearly every instance, they accept, as Vice President Kamala Harris did this year. Donald Trump, however, refused this year’s invitation — at least in part because, as one anchor explained on the air, the former president was concerned that the show would fact-check his claims.

    Nevertheless, the Harris interview aired on Monday, even as Republicans claimed she was ducking interviews. Two days later, however, her GOP rival took matters in a decidedly weird direction.

    Trump concocted a bizarre conspiracy theory in which CBS News personnel went to extraordinary lengths to deliberately edit the interview to make the Democratic nominee look better. The former president offered literally no evidence, but he nevertheless suggested that “60 Minutes” had engaged in “possibly illegal“ misconduct. The Republican concluded that his weird conspiracy theory “must be investigated, starting today!”

    A day later, his hysterics managed to get worse. Trump used his social media platform to argue that the people who work at “60 Minutes” are “A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY” and responsible for “the single biggest scandal in broadcast history.”

    In a separate item, as his online meltdown continued, he added that the “UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! — which only appears to exist in his mind — should possibly force Democratic to “concede the Election.”

    Perhaps most importantly, the GOP nominee wrote, “CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!”

    In case that weren’t quite enough, Trump kept going during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club — he was supposed to deliver remarks on economic policy — adding new and imaginary details to his conspiracy theory, while again calling for CBS to lose its broadcast license. [video at the link]

    After the event, the former president returned to his online platform, claiming he has “PROOF” to substantiate his bizarre claims, though he still hasn’t shared any such evidence.

    This proved to be a bit too much for Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who issued a written statement responding to Trump’s nonsense. From her statement:

    “While repeated attacks against broadcast stations by the former President may now be familiar, these threats against free speech are serious and should not be ignored. As I’ve said before, the First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. The FCC does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

    The part of this that stood out for me was the fact that the FCC “does not” revoke licenses for broadcast stations. It’s a highly relevant detail. In fact, as The Washington Post reported, “According to the FCC, only individual broadcast stations are licensed, not networks in their entirety. ‘We do not license TV or radio networks (such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox) or other organizations that stations have relationships with, such as PBS or NPR, except if those entities are also station licensees,’ the FCC says on its website.”

    In other words, Trump didn’t just concoct a hysterical conspiracy theory, he also reminded the public that he has no idea what he’s talking about.

    Nevertheless, Trump is now on record targeting the broadcast licenses of CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC, and MSNBC (my employer).

  201. says

    Obama mocks Trump over rhetoric about ‘protecting’ women

    The latest national NBC News poll found Donald Trump trailing Kamala Harris by 21 points among women voters. The good news for Republicans is that the former president is well aware of the gender gap. The bad news for Republicans is that he doesn’t know what to do about it. […]

    [video of Obama speaking is available at the link]

    “He said, ‘Don’t worry, women. I will be your protector,’” Barack Obama explained. “I will tell you how he ‘protected’ you. He hand-picked three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, went out and bragged about it, and now there are Trump abortion bans in 20 states.”

    Honestly, everything about Trump’s pitch isn’t just ridiculous, it’s insulting. The idea that Americans will be “safe” under his presidency is apparently rooted in the idea that he’ll be tougher on crime. In reality, Trump is himself a criminal; he pardoned a great many other criminals; he’s running on a platform of pardoning many more violent criminals; and crime rates in the United States are better now than when he was in the White House.

    It also doesn’t help that the Republican’s pitch is also rooted in creepy paternalism. For that matter, Obama is entirely right about the policy consequences of Trump’s efforts, which have had dramatically detrimental effects on the lives of countless women.

    And then, of course, there’s the idea that “with” Trump, women are “safe.” In reality, so many women have accused the Republican candidate of sexual misconduct that I’ve literally lost count (he denies any wrongdoing); Trump was recorded bragging about his willingness to grab women’s genitals because he’s a “star”; and last year, a jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing a woman.

    If the 2024 election comes down to the question of whether women are “safe” with the GOP nominee, Trump should lose 50 states.

  202. says

    Obama tells men Trump doesn’t represent ‘real strength’

    Rallying for Kamala Harris, former President Barack Obama spoke directly to American men and characterized Donald Trump as mendacious and self-centered, saying he doesn’t represent “real strength.”

    “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I’ve noticed this especially with some men who seem to think some of Trump’s behavior — the bullying and the putting people down — is a sign of strength. And I am here to tell you: That is not what real strength is. It never has been,” Obama said, drawing heavy applause from the Democratic crowd.

    “Real strength is about working hard. And carrying a heavy load without complaining. Real strength is about taking responsibility for your actions and telling the truth even when it’s inconvenient,” he said. “Real strength is about helping people who need it and standing up for those who can’t always stand up for themselves. That is what we should want for our daughters and our sons, and that is what I want to see in a president of the United States of America.”

    Obama said Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, represent the “character” and “values” a president should have.

    […] Obama took particular umbrage at Trump’s spreading false claims about the government’s response to hurricane victims and expressed bafflement that some consider Trump to be strong.

    “I want to ask Republicans out there, people who are conservative, who didn’t vote for me, didn’t agree with me,” he said. “When did that become OK? Why would we go along with that?”

    He added: “Even if you had a family member who acted like that, you might still love them, but you’d tell them you got a problem. And you wouldn’t put them in charge of anything. And yet when Donald Trump lies or cheats or shows utter disregard for our Constitution, when he calls POWs losers or fellow citizens vermin, people make excuses for it. They think it’s OK.”

    Obama is particularly focused on reaching African American men in the final weeks before the election, a source familiar with his thinking said. “They are definitely a targeted constituency for him for the next 26 days.”

    Before the rally, Obama spoke to volunteers and expressed his concerns more explicitly.

    “We have not seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers,” he said, according to a pool report.

    “Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” he said. “You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. I’ve got a problem with that.”

    He called on them to “speak to people on the sidelines” and urge them not to consider “sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you because you think that’s a sign of strength.”

    “Because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down?” Obama told them. “That’s not acceptable.”

  203. says

    Federal judges decline to extend voter registration deadline in Georgia and Florida as states face hurricane damage

    Two federal judges have rejected requests to immediately reopen voter registration in Georgia and Florida as the southeast continues to grapple with significant storm damage ahead of the November election.

    Southern states impacted by Hurricane Helene have been facing intense pressure by voting and civil rights groups to give residents more time to register to vote given the devastation wrought by the storm and the disruption already caused by Hurricane Milton, which made landfall on Florida’s western coast late Wednesday.

    […] Attorneys for Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — both of whom are Republicans — argued there would be a significant “administrative burden” on the state’s elections offices if the voter registration deadline were to be extended.

    Ruling from the bench, Ross agreed, saying, “Harms to the state’s interest outweighs the interest of the plaintiffs.”

    […] “We did not hear from anyone specifically who could not register to vote.”

    On Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida similarly turned down a request from civil rights groups to reopen that state’s voter registration window, which closed on Monday just as the state was recovering from Hurricane Helene and bracing for Hurricane Milton.

    US District Judge Robert Hinkle, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, declined the request a day after the case was brought by the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Florida NAACP.

    The groups had argued that the October 7 deadline was “sandwiched between two life-threatening obstacles” that forced some residents to choose between seeking safety from the hurricanes and signing up to vote.

    Without an extension, attorneys for the groups wrote in court papers, prospective voters “will be deprived of that fundamental right because of the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, the threat to safety caused by Hurricane Milton, and the resultant shutdown of all means of voter registration, including government offices, roads, the Internet, and the postal service twice within the last weeks leading up to the voter registration deadline.” […]

  204. says

    The consequences of right-wing disinfo on Hurricane Helene: a father-in-law refusing FEMA help

    A man named Anthony called into to SiriusXM […] to talk about how his father-in-law in North Carolina refused all FEMA help due to the right-wing conspiracy theories about FEMA that have been spewed out by Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and right-wing influencers.

    Allison Detzel at MSNBC.com:

    As Americans across the Southeast continue to reel from the devastating one-two punch of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, one man says the storm-related disinformation campaign peddled by Donald Trump and other Republicans is tearing his family apart.

    A man identifying himself only as Anthony called into Sirius XM’s “Dan Abrams Show” this week to share the story of his father-in-law, whose property near Ashville, North Carolina, was badly damaged by Helene. Despite the destruction, Anthony said his father-in-law is unwilling to accept assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    “He has refused all FEMA help because he’s a hardcore Trumper,” Anthony told Abrams. “He literally believes that if he accepts anything from FEMA, they’re going to take his house.”

    Disinformation about the Biden administration’s response to the storms across the Southeast has been running rampant on social media. One rumor making the rounds falsely claims that if a person applies for disaster assistance, FEMA could confiscate their property. […]

    More at the link, including excerpts from other media coverage, and two videos.

  205. says

    “For Trump, freedom means getting away with stuff.” He affirms Ellipse speech was private conduct

    […] Yet again it turns out the ‘Scranton firefighters for Trump’ at his event were not firefighters but just random people holding signs. […]

    [video at the link: "Trump: These things were coming cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they're coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle, reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have.. then I heard we lost." WTF?]

    Daniel Dale: “Donald Trump is on his usual pre-election lying spree. He made at least *40 separate false claims* in his two Pennsylvania speeches yesterday. Fact check: [video with fact check at the link.]
    Link

    […]

    Notice Trump argues he has a First Amendment right to make his Ellipse speech. But Jack Smith reminded us in his immunity brief to SCOTUS last year that the First Amendment protects PRIVATE CITIZENS, not the government.

  206. says

    Maryland Senate Hopeful Angela Alsobrooks Dragged Larry Hogan’s Ass To Hell Last Night

    […] An AARP poll last month had him tied 47 to 47 with his Democrat opponent, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who was not well-known outside of her county. So for a minute there it looked like he had a crab’s asshair of a shot.

    […] But not any more! Later polls have shown him sinking. And then right before the debate was taped at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Time magazine busted open one doozy of a self-dealing real-estate scandal (more on that in a minute). That story apparently broke too late to come up in the debate, but there was plenty to drag him about anyway. And drag Alsobrooks did, all glowing and senatorial, while Hogan sputtered and repeated that he’s “not about the red and blue, he’s about the red, white and blue.” Nothing like a slogan you’ve practiced in front of a mirror […]

    But this is Maryland, where it’s not about the red and blue, it’s about the blue and deeper blue. So the debate for a US Senate seat means arguing over who hates Mitch McConnell and guns the most […]

    And if Hogan is such a maverick, a rebel, and a loner, Dottie, why are the Republicans paying for his ads? If he’s independent and thinks Mitch McConnell sucks and blows so hard, why didn’t he run as, oh, I don’t know, an independent? [video at the link]

    Alsobrooks pointed out that if Republicans have a majority, there won’t be any vote on codifying Roe, or anything else for that matter, with the “you numpty” implied. And if he thinks Mitch McConnell and his team are so squicky, why did Hogan “put on the jersey and run into the game” when Mitch blew his little whistle? And gush that Trump’s Supreme Court picks were “incredible”?

    Watch Hogan twitch and deflate like an old air mattress. [video at the link]

    And moderator Chuck Todd did not get a new haircut and drive all the way to Owings Mills just to let Hogan slide. Would Hogan have voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett, or Brett Kavanaugh?

    “If there’s one thing we should not be politicizing, it’s the Supreme Court,” Hogan sputtered, lamely. LOL, WHAT?!! Eventually Hogan said that he did not know. Would Hogan help to end the filibuster? He would not. Does he think weed should be illegal on the federal level? He doesn’t know. Does he think federal employees should be able to work from home two days a week? He doesn’t. Hogan lied that “nobody” wanted the Red Line, an expansion of Baltimore’s light rail that he killed, wasting $300 million state dollars that had already been spent, and giving up $900 million in federal Obamabucks in the process.

    And then Alsobrooks finished him with a piledriver. Hogan fucked away his votes in three elections now, writing in the corpse of “deceased individual” Ronald Reagan twice, and he says he won’t vote for Harris or Trump this year. If he wanted to be so bipartisan, he could vote for Harris. As a Senator, VOTING IS YOUR ONE JOB! If you can’t undither yourself to even vote for president, THAT IS A DISQUALIFIER. If you only watch one clip, make it this one! [video at the link]

    […] And Now For the New!

    And then there’s Hogan’s scandal that broke yesterday. […]

    It goes like this: When Larry Hogan was elected governor of Maryland back in 2015, he was also head of a privately held real estate brokerage, subtly named HOGAN. The head of the Maryland State Ethics Commission sent him a letter telling him to put it in a blind trust. But he did not! He made his brother Timothy head of the trust, and continued to be involved in meetings, even though he told the ethics board he would just stay apprised but not involved. Then somehow, over the eight years of his governorship, 40 percent of the competitive affordable housing awards overseen by himself went to six clients of his brokerage. And somehow, even though his official annual salary ranged from $165,000 to $180,000, in his first three years in office he made $2.4 million. Just luck, probably.

    It gets better! By which we mean worse! In 2018 the Maryland Matters website sniffed out that Hogan held ownership in a company called Brandywine Crossing Realty Partners LLC, a controlling partner for a parcel of land behind the Brandywine Crossing Shopping Center in Prince George’s County. And then he earmarked $55.7 million to build a new highway interchange there, neglecting to mention to legislators that he had a financial interest. […] he’d awarded the contract to Facchina Construction Company, which donated to Hogan’s reelection campaign. And then HOGAN (the company) bought 14 more parcels of land near it. And Hogan (the governor) earmarked $23 million in public funds for crosswalks and other road improvements near his other properties around the state.

    And there’s more! Hogan revealed in 2017 he had a stake in 16 LLCs for development projects […] For every development project, a state transportation infrastructure project or five would pop up in the vicinity, like a patch of hives.

    The deals added up to $90.3 million in subsidies to clients of his businesses while he was governor. All at the very same time Hogan was turning down that $900 million in federal Obamabucks to expand light rail service in Baltimore city with the Red Line. Hogan shifted $736 million of state money to roads instead.

    It was all so Spiro-Agnew-y and shady that the Maryland Senate passed a law in 2020 to enhance disclosure requirements, just for Hogan, and he quickly scrubbed his client list from his website. The pandemic was raging, term limits were going to have him out anyway, and so no one was really paying attention. But the Internet remembers!

    “This is what they call an October surprise, where they dredge up some old false conspiracy theory and throw it out there and then try to make it into a campaign issue,” Hogan told reporters after the debate. “There’s no truth to it at all.” Except for the part where his clients were on his own website and the money was his own disclosures, I guess!

    Yeah, he’s done. And from the looks on his face, he knows it.

    But at least he can dry his tears with all that sweet developer cash.

  207. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @286:

    “He literally believes that if he accepts anything from FEMA, they’re going to take his house.”

    That would be Medcaid, primarily for recouping elder care costs after death—ineffective and cruel, almost certainly also the work of Republicans.

  208. says

    Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    * A national Pew Research Center study found that 74% of Americans believe Trump will not concede the election, even if he loses. A similar number of respondents said they expect Harris will concede if she loses. […]

    * And The Atlantic magazine this week endorsed Harris’ candidacy. It’s only the fifth time in the publication’s 167-year history that it’s formally announced its support for a presidential candidate. […]

    Link

  209. says

    Even Fox News is slamming Trump’s hurricane-relief lies

    Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News show Friday to talk about relief efforts underway in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

    “We also get a lot of misinformation, don’t we?” Cavuto said. “We get people who say in North Carolina that if you’re a Republican, you’re not going to get help, and that if you’re a Democrat, you’ll get help. I would imagine that does a huge disservice to people working together, and scares the bejesus out of others when they believe it.”

    Cavuto was referring to false claims promoted by Donald Trump that Republican-leaning areas were not receiving federal help in the wake of the hurricanes. Trump has been deservedly criticized for his irresponsible promotion of those lies.

    “There are real costs and real consequences to that misinformation,” Buttigieg responded. “But I also want to say, for the most part, we’ve seen a lot of responsible actors on both sides of the aisle saying that there’s no place for that misinformation.”

    “Well, Donald Trump said that about North Carolina—Republicans not getting help, Democrats getting help,” Cavuto said, less diplomatically. “That was Donald Trump.”

    “I think that’s really unfortunate because it’s just not true,” Buttigieg replied.

    Cavuto ended the segment by admonishing the irresponsible behavior of people like Trump, saying that “whether [misinformation is] perpetrated by a politician or someone you think is someone of note and authority, it is wrong. And it is bull. And it cannot be tolerated.” [video at the link]

  210. Reginald Selkirk says

    Researchers Claim Bones in Spanish Church Belong to Christopher Columbus

    A team of researchers that has spent years testing remains to determine the final resting place of Christopher Columbus say the explorer’s remains are in a cathedral in Seville, Spain…

    Now, a team of scientists in Spain say that an incomplete set of remains in Seville’s cathedral are that of the 15th-century explorer. The team DNA-tested samples of the remains in the tomb as well as DNA from Columbus’ brother Diego and his son, Fernando…

    “Today, thanks to new technology, the previous partial theory that the remains in Seville are those of Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” José Antonio Lorente, a forensic researcher at the University of Grenada, told The Guardian.

    The team did not immediately publish a scientific paper of their findings accompanying those claims, though they stated they’ll reveal the explorer’s true origins in a TV special shown in Spain on Saturday, when the country commemorates Columbus’ arrival in the Americas…

  211. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Israel again struck UN bases in Lebanon

    This morning, UNIFIL’s Naqoura headquarters was affected by explosions for the second time in the last 48 hours. Two peacekeepers were injured

    AP: one of the peacekeepers was in critical condition. The Israeli military said […] the intended target of Israeli fire was located some 50 meters from the UNIFIL position.

    […]
    several T-walls at our UN position 1-31, near the Blue Line in Labbouneh, fell when an IDF caterpillar hit the perimeter

    I’d heard of Israeli bulldozers but hadn’t realized they’re armored (since the 1980s)—with machine gun / grenade launcher attachments and remote-controlled variants—deployed up to 100 at a time. HumanRightsWatch tried to get Caterpillar to stop selling vehicles to Israel in 2004.

  212. Reginald Selkirk says

    Update on Florida man who strapped entire house down ahead of life-threatening Hurricane Milton

    There’s been an update on a Florida man who strapped his home down in preparation for Hurricane Milton…

    One of those is Pedro Casares, who decided to protect his home by strapping it down before the hurricane hit…

    His daughter has posted a video to TikTok showing the aftermath of Hurricane Milton and fortunately, the house is still there, the straps are still there, and they appear to be in good condition.

    She thanked people for worrying about them and said that with ‘no crazy damages to the home’, she and her dad were going to see if any of their neighbours needed some help…

    ‘Lieutenant Dan’ survives Hurricane Milton in a sailboat

    Other people who gained viral fame during Hurricane Milton have begun to emerge in the aftermath of the deadly weather.

    Joseph Malinowski is one of them. A stubborn sailor, Malinowski decided not to accept the offer of a shelter, and that he would instead ride out the weather in his boat.

    He ended up being nicknamed ‘Lieutenant Dan’, and he said he’d survived the ‘pretty mellow’ hurricane despite his boat being slammed against the harbour wall a few times…

  213. says

    Why Democrats are seizing on JD Vance’s ‘table scraps’ comments

    The Republican senator’s “table scraps” comment probably won’t go over well in Michigan, but let’s not overlook the larger policy context.

    Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act approved last year by Democratic policymakers, the Biden/Harris administration announced an important investment a few months ago: $500 million will be spent to help General Motors convert a Cadillac plant in Lansing, Mich., into a facility that will produce electric vehicles.

    As HuffPost explained, it’s part of a larger $1.7 billion program “aimed at revamping 11 auto plants to make electric cars or components of them as part of the Joe Biden administration’s effort to speed up the conversion of Americans’ internal combustion-powered cars to more efficient and reliable electric ones.”

    The question, of course, is what would happen to these investments in the event Donald Trump wins the election.

    The answer is far from certain: Not only has Trump vowed to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act, he’s also effectively running on an anti-climate platform.

    With this in mind, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, was asked last week whether the $500 million investment in Michigan would be revoked after the election. The Ohio Republican refused to give a straight answer.

    This week, as The Detroit News reported, Vance said something a little different.

    Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance campaigned Tuesday in Detroit, where he described $500 million that the federal government is providing to convert a General Motors plant in Michigan for electric vehicles as “table scraps” compared with larger job losses he contends could be on the horizon.

    In fairness, the senator did say that he and Trump “want to invest in Michigan auto workers as much as possible,” which was vague and unhelpful. But he also nevertheless characterized the pending $500 million investment — with several hundred jobs on the line — as “table scraps.”

    That hardly inspired confidence in the future of the project, and it didn’t take long for Democrats to seize on this, as evidenced by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s remarks at his latest event in Michigan. [video at the link: "Gov. Walz: JD Vance just said if he and Trump win they might cancel Biden-Harris’ $500 million investment in a Michigan auto plant. He even called those jobs ’table scraps’. Tell that to 650 families who feed their families with those ‘table scrap’ jobs."]

    Around the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said in a written statement, “Major investments in Michigan auto jobs made possible by Vice President Harris aren’t ‘table scraps,’ they’re a lifeline that is building the future of American manufacturing. JD Vance and Donald Trump are out of touch with Michigan, and it’s obvious when you see them threatening to abandon Michigan workers and cede the future of manufacturing to China.”

    That last point was of particular interest, because it speaks to the broader policy context.

    To be sure, Vance’s “table scraps” comments reflected the latest in a series of out-of-touch moments for the Ohioan, but the larger question is whether a Trump/Vance administration would allow China to take the lead on building the next generation of vehicles.

    To hear Vance tell it, Beijing already controls much of the E.V. manufacturing supply chain, so investing in E.V. vehicles necessarily helps China. But The New Republic’s Greg Sargent had a great report on this, explaining the nature of the Republican’s “misdirection.”

    The [Inflation Reduction Act] contains many provisions ensuring that more E.V. parts are manufactured in the United States. Indeed, the whole point of it is to help the U.S. better compete with China in such manufacturing, on the understanding that the world is moving toward E.V.s and the U.S. shouldn’t cede that industry to China. But ceding the industry to China is exactly what Vance and Trump would do.

    The “table scraps” gaffe matters. The GOP ticket planning to let China win — effectively ceding the future of auto manufacturing to the United States’ preeminent economic rival — matters more.

  214. says

    The guy who wrote Texas’ most infamous abortion law just quietly settled his test run

    Jonathan Mitchell enabled private parties to sue anyone who facilitates an abortion. But his test case might have collapsed when an appeals court blocked his subpoena to the woman whose abortion was at issue.

    In May 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed his state’s version of a “heartbeat” ban, forbidding nearly all abortions after six weeks — but with a twist. The Texas bill, as The New York Times reported, also empowered “any private citizen to sue doctors or abortion clinic employees who would perform or help arrange for the procedure.”

    Left unsaid was that private citizens, rather than law enforcement or other state officials, would be the only people who could enforce the ban. By empowering private actors to enforce the ban, the thinking went, abortion providers and other prospective plaintiffs couldn’t sue the state to prevent its enforcement; instead, anyone and everyone could be a prospective plaintiff, and state officials would have no role at all.

    That “bounty hunter” feature of the law — designed specifically to circumvent judicial review — was the conceptual brainchild of a then-relatively unknown conservative lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, whose admirers have praised him as a “technical magician.” And it worked. S.B. 8 took effect in September 2021, despite providers’ petition to the Supreme Court to stay its implementation. It then survived a more thorough Supreme Court review months later.

    Of course, S.B. 8 has never produced an onslaught of litigation, nor did anyone expect it to. The fear of being sued (not to mention the potential liability) was the whole point. And that worked too, effectively ending abortion services in Texas even before Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.

    Since then, Mitchell, who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia and served as Texas’ solicitor general, has become something of a conservative legal hero. In February, through a methodical, “buttoned-down presentation,” he convinced the Supreme Court to rule unanimously that former President Donald Trump should not be disqualified from appearing on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot, thereby overturning the Colorado Supreme Court’s interpretation of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

    But Mitchell’s most notorious case has ended with far less fanfare. In March 2023, Mitchell decided to test the bounty hunter provision by filing a lawsuit in Galveston County court on behalf of Marcus Silva, who had divorced his ex-wife, Brittni, just the month prior. Silva alleged Brittni had undergone a medication abortion during their marriage with the help of two friends, one of whom obtained abortion pills from a third woman. Silva sued all three women — but not his ex-wife, who is immune from liability under the Texas statute — alleging they caused the wrongful death of his child and conspired “to murder Baby Silva with abortion pills.” And Silva sought more than $1 million in damages from each of them.

    Further, Silva attached to his complaint screenshots of text exchanges between and among his ex-wife and the defendants. Those text chains included discussions of how and where to obtain the pills, when to take them and even how to ensure Silva never found out about her pregnancy or the abortion.

    Within weeks of Mitchell’s opening legal salvo, Brittni Silva’s friends sued him too, charging that her ex-husband had invaded their privacy. Despite the defendants’ counterpunch, Marcus Silva’s suit shocked even pro-abortion advocates familiar with Mitchell’s track record. Legal commentators Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, for instance, remarked that by representing Silva, Mitchell seemed to have twin aims: “to set a precedent that helps isolate pregnant people through terror and surveillance” — or what they called “spousal abuse via lawsuit” — and “to make it clear that anyone offering advice about abortion may be bankrupted in a court of law.”

    But on Oct. 10, on the eve of a trial, Mitchell filed papers to terminate the case “with prejudice,” meaning Silva cannot refile his suit. Mitchell’s co-counsel, Briscoe Cain, told The Washington Post “the parties have executed a settlement agreement and all claims and counterclaims have been dismissed”; a court filing confirms “the parties’ agreed resolution.” […]

    In April, a Texas appeals court ruled that Marcus could not force Brittni to turn over communications relating to her abortion, including with the defendants. The court noted that his complaint alleges she violated “numerous state and federal criminal laws,” including the Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibits the mailing of anything “intended for producing abortion.” Even though the Biden administration does not interpret Comstock broadly as prohibiting the mailing of abortion medication, the court reasoned that to compel her to produce the communications at issue could violate her constitutional rights, notably her right against self-incrimination.

    Mitchell then appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, which denied the petition in June in a three-sentence order. One justice of that court, in a concurring opinion, called out Silva’s “disgracefully vicious harassment and intimidation of his ex-wife Brittni during the course of their marriage’s demise and during this litigation,” noting that his “atrocious treatment” of her made him a “particularly unsuitable beneficiary of this Court’s discretionary” powers. (Among other things, The Washington Post reports, “Silva’s ex-wife shared with the court transcripts of recordings of the verbal abuse she said she experienced from Silva ahead of the lawsuit being filed, including threats to persecute her if she didn’t have sex with him and do his laundry.”) [JFC]

    And finally, we know that earlier this week, the trial judge refused Silva’s request to delay trial, which was scheduled to begin on Oct. 14.

    Neither Silva nor his lawyers have explained publicly why they backed down, but without Brittni’s communications, it may be that they simply lacked the evidence to win at trial. Meanwhile, one of the defendants told the Post “[t]here was no money exchanged in connection with” the settlement.

    And the ultimate irony? Despite losing her constitutional right to abortion, a woman’s other constitutional rights may have prevented the guy who wrote the country’s most infamous abortion ban from enforcing it in court.

  215. says

    Washington Post:

    North Korean soldiers are supporting Russian troops on the ground, and some may have already been killed and injured, South Korean and Ukrainian officials said this week, raising questions about whether the military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow has advanced to a new stage. […]

  216. says

    Bill Nye calls Greene’s conspiracy about hurricanes ‘physically impossible’

    Science educator Bill Nye spoke out on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) recent comments suggesting hurricanes are controlled by the government, calling the theories “physically impossible.”

    In an interview Friday on CNN “Newsroom,” Nye explained from a scientific perspective why the storm couldn’t have been geoengineered and tied the topic back to climate change.

    “The amount of energy in a storm like Milton is more than every military in the world put together at the same time,” he said. Hurricane Milton also caused several tornadoes to break out and strike the state of Florida.

    He said a claim like Greene’s “plays on people’s grievances and frustrations,” and he urged people to go out and vote.

    Last week, Greene began sharing posts on her social media attempting to tie the areas impacted by Hurricane Helene to the election. She shared a map made by influencer Matt Wallace, who claimed the storm “seemed to almost methodically miss the bluest parts” of “crucial swing states, while simultaneously ravaging the red parts.”

    In a post on social platform X on Oct. 3, Greene wrote, “Yes, they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

    X’s community note system flagged the content, adding context that weather cannot be controlled.

    Republicans opposed Greene’s comments, with Florida Republican Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez on Wednesday suggesting Greene should have her “head examined” following her posts.

    Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards (N.C.), who represents the Asheville area ravaged by Hurricane Helene, also spoke out, releasing a list Tuesday attempting to refute the rumors about Helene and the government’s response, although he did not name Greene directly.

  217. says

    7 Times JD Vance refused to admit Trump lost in 2020—this month

    […] 1. He avoided it in an interview with The New York Times

    During The New York Times’ podcast “The Interview,” host Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked Vance if Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance responded similarly to his answer in the VP debate, saying he’s “focused on the future.”

    “There’s an obsession here with focusing on 2020,” Mr. Vance said. “I’m much more worried about what happened after 2020, which is a wide-open border, groceries that are unaffordable.”

    2. And a second time.

    Garcia-Navarro pressed a second time: “Senator, yes or no, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”

    “Let me ask you a question,” Vance said. “Is it OK that big technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, which independent analyses have said cost Donald Trump millions of votes?”

    3. And a third time.

    “Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again,” Garcia-Navarro said. “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”

    “Did big technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost Trump millions of votes?” Vance replied.

    4. And a fourth time.

    “Senator Vance,” Ms. Garcia-Navarro continued. “I’m going to ask you again, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”

    “And I’ve answered your question with another question,” Mr. Vance said. “You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

    5. And a fifth time—yes, during the same interview.

    Garcia-Navarro said there is “no proof, legal or otherwise,” of election fraud. Vance dismissed that as “a slogan.”

    “I’m not worried about this slogan that people throw, ‘Well, every court case went this way,’” he said. “I’m talking about something very discrete—a problem of censorship in this country that I do think affected things in 2020.”

    Vance topped it off by saying he would not have certified the 2020 election. Watch the infuriating exchange for yourself. [video at the link]

    6. He blamed the media.

    During a Michigan rally the day after the debate, Vance said, “Well look, here’s the simple reason: The media’s obsessed with talking about the election of four years ago. I’m focused on the election of 33 days from now because I want to throw Kamala Harris out of office and get back to common-sense economic policies.”

    7. He dodged it on the debate stage

    And of course, there was the vice presidential debate on Oct. 1, in response to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s question: “Did he lose the 2020 election?”

    “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance told Walz, before pivoting to an absurdly unrelated topic. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”

    “That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.

    It’s easy to shake your head in wonder at Vance’s absolute gall. But polls show the Trump-Vance ticket has an actual shot at winning in November, which means Vance would be charged with certifying electoral votes in a future election. [Yikes]

    And one thing is chillingly clear: Vance is no Mike Pence.

  218. says

    bEnjoy 90 seconds of Tim Walz calling out Trump’s ‘bullsh-t’

    At a campaign event in Michigan on Friday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz defended Detroit against disparaging remarks that Donald Trump made the day before.

    “Donald Trump was in Detroit, and he said, ‘Our whole country will end up being Detroit. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,’” Walz said, speaking at Macomb Community College. “That’s not unexpected for him … But if that guy would have ever spent any time in the Midwest, like all of us know, he’d know Detroit’s experience and American comeback and renaissance.”

    “City’s growing, crime’s down, factories are opening up,” Walz continued. “But those guys, all’s they know about manufacturing is manufacturing bullshit—every time they show up, every time they show up.”

    Walz highlighted Trump’s failure to deliver on his promises to workers, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs (even before COVID-19 pandemic). Walz reminded the audience how Trump promised them, “If I’m elected, you won’t lose one plant.” It was a promise he broke just a couple of years later when GM announced closures of plants across the country, including in Ohio and Michigan.

    “Technically, it wasn’t a lie because he lost six of them, not one.” Walz said. [LOL, well said.]

    Video at the link.

  219. says

    Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘most dangerous person to this country,’ new book says

    Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States.

    Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.

    In the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a riotous mob of the then-president’s supporters, Woodward writes that Milley insisted on securing a meeting with the then-newly-minted attorney general, Merrick Garland, to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.

    According to Woodward, a senior Department of Justice lawyer said at the time that Milley’s sit-down with Garland might have been the first-ever meeting between a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s top civilian law enforcement official. He writes that the general asked for the meeting because he was “deeply convinced” that Trump remained “a danger to the country” even though he had been forced from office after Biden’s election win.

    But the Army veteran expressed even more strident concerns to Woodward himself at a March 2023 meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC.

    Woodward writes that when he approached Milley at a reception, the general spoke first and told him: “We gotta talk.”

    He told the journalist that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president.

    He asked: “Do you realize, do you see what this man is?”

    Milley, who had been a source for Woodward’s last book, Peril, said he’d “glimpsed” Trump’s true nature when they previously spoke during the writing of that 2021 release, but he said he now knew exactly what the ex-president is.

    “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” he said.

    “A fascist to the core,” Milley repeated.

    The general’s private comments to Woodward, which have not been previously reported, were echoed in cutting remarks Milley made publicly at his September 2023 retirement ceremony, when, without mentioning Trump’s name, he appeared to take a swipe at the ex-president.

    In the impassioned speech, he defiantly said the US military is “unique” among the world’s fighting forces because it does not profess fealty to any one person.

    “We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator,” he said.

  220. says

    Patients scramble for treatments as hospitals conserve IV fluids after storms

    Hospitals delayed or canceled treatments after IV fluid maker Baxter International closed its North Carolina facility because of damage from Hurricane Helene.

    Yvonne Hemz was scheduled to have a cancerous tumor removed from her kidney Tuesday.

    On Sunday, however, Hemze, 52, of Farmington, Minnesota, got a call from the hospital, Abbott Northwestern, telling her that her surgery had been canceled. The hospital was getting reduced shipments of intravenous fluids, essential for patients during surgeries, after Hurricane Helene damaged a Baxter International facility in North Carolina, leading to its temporary closure. The plant is the nation’s largest producer of IV fluids.

    Hemze said she hasn’t been able to get in contact with her doctor since the cancellation and fears her cancer will only get worse.

    “The cancer is not going to stop growing just because they can’t have their surgery,” she said.

    On Thursday, shortly after NBC News reached out to Allina Health, a network of hospitals that includes Abbott Northwestern, for comment, Hemze said she got a call from her doctor informing her that her surgery had been rescheduled for Friday morning. In a statement, a spokesperson for Allina Health said the hospital had been working to reschedule appointments Thursday and prioritizing cases such as Hemze’s.

    Her case is far from unique, however: Hospitals across the United States have said they’re taking steps to conserve their supply of IV fluids, including postponing or canceling nonemergency surgeries. Where possible, patients are provided with Gatorade or water for hydration, instead of IV solutions.

    IV fluids do more than deliver drugs or electrolytes directly into a patient’s bloodstream. They’re needed during surgeries to keep patients hydrated, regulate blood pressure and compensate for lost fluid, including blood. Certain IV fluids are used for kidney failure patients; others, as a form of intravenous nutrition.

    “They are the lifeblood of treating patients in hospitals and if you turn off hospital supply to these critical IV fluids like normal saline and lactated Ringer’s, it’s almost like turning the water off to your house,” said Dr. Chris DeRienzo, a neonatologist and the chief physician executive of the American Hospital Association. (Lactated Ringer’s is an electrolyte solution, similar to saline.)

    There are only a handful of IV fluid manufacturers in the U.S. and abroad, so any disruption can have a significant impact, he said.

    On Monday, the AHA urged President Joe Biden to declare a nationwide emergency over the limited supply of IV fluids. […]

    The federal government is working with Baxter to quickly resolve the supply issue.

    On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would temporarily allow for the importation of IV fluids from Baxter plants in Canada, China, Ireland and the United Kingdom. It remains unclear how long it will take for the product to arrive in the U.S. […]

    The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, has also been helping Baxter get its facility back up and running. […]

    More at the link.

  221. says

    Ship didn’t sink because its captain was a woman, ‘appalled’ defense minister says

    New Zealand’s defense minister issued stinging rebukes of what she said were “vile” and “misogynistic” online remarks by “armchair admirals” about the woman captain of a navy ship that ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa.

    “Seriously, it’s 2024,” Judith Collins told reporters Thursday. “What the hell’s going on here?”

    After days of comments on social media directed at the gender of Commander Yvonne Gray, Collins urged the public to “be better.” Women members of the military had also faced verbal abuse in the street in New Zealand since the ship — one of nine in the country’s navy — was lost on Sunday, Collins said.

    All 75 people on board evacuated to safety with only minor injuries after the vessel ran aground on the reef it was surveying about a mile off the coast of Upolu, Samoa’s most populous island. The cause of the disaster is not known.

    “The one thing that we already know did not cause it is the gender of the ship’s captain, a woman with 30 years’ naval experience who on the night made the call to get her people to safety,” Collins said.

    […] About 20% of New Zealand’s uniformed military members are women. Collins is New Zealand’s first woman defense minister and said she stood alongside Gray and Maj. Gen. Rose King, the country’s first woman army chief, who assumed her role in June.

    “We are all appointed on merit, not gender,” said Collins.

    The sinking prompted fears of a major fuel spill. On Thursday, officials in Samoa said while the vessel was leaking oil from three places, the amount was reducing each day and was dissipating quickly due to strong winds in the area.

    Most of the ship’s fuel appeared to have burned out in the fire, according to a statement by the Marine Pollution Advisory Committee. Officials were due to meet with locals Thursday to discuss how to remove the vessel’s anchor and three shipping containers from the reef without further damaging the fragile marine ecosystem.

    New Zealand’s government has ordered a military court of inquiry into the episode, which will be led by senior military officers. It will assemble for the first time on Friday.

    Passengers, including civilian scientists and foreign military personnel, left the vessel on life boats in “challenging conditions” and darkness, New Zealand’s Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding told reporters after the sinking.

    Those on board have since returned to New Zealand by plane.

    The specialist dive and hydrographic vessel had been in service for New Zealand since 2019, but was 20 years old and had previously belonged to Norway. The military said the ship, purchased for NZ$100 million ($61 million), was not covered by replacement insurance.

    The state of New Zealand’s aging military hardware has prompted warnings from the defense agency, which in a March report described the navy as “extremely fragile,” with ships idle due to problems retaining the staff needed to service and maintain them. Of the navy’s eight remaining ships, five are currently operational.

    Golding said the HMNZS Manawanui underwent a maintenance period before the deployment.

  222. John Morales says

    The things one learns:

    Breakdancers warned of cone-shaped lump from ‘extensive headspinning’

    Breakdancers have been urged to avoid headspinning after a dancer who developed a cone-shaped lump on his head due to “years of extensive headspinning practice” had to have it surgically removed.

    The benign tumour, dubbed a “breakdance bulge”, was more than an inch thick, according to a report published by the British Medical Journal.

    The condition is thought to be caused by repeated friction between the scalp and the floor, combined with pressure from the dancer’s body.

    The unnamed dancer from Denmark trained five times a week – including up to seven minutes of headspinning – and had been wearing a hat to hide the bulge.

    He had continued spinning on his head despite developing the “protuberance” over 19 years of breakdancing.

  223. says

    Oh FFS.

    Lara and Eric Trump-backed “prophet” claims God told her the hurricanes were “man-made” and “they” will also “set off” an earthquake

    “Prophet” Julie Green told followers that the Lord told her that the recent hurricanes were “all man-made” and that the weather events were deliberately created or manipulated as a form of “election interference.” She added that “they” will “set off” an earthquake at some point.

    Green isn’t a random grifter: She’s connected to Trump’s inner circle and has been heavily endorsed by Eric Trump. The former president’s son told Green that she’s “so incredible,” stated that he’s saved one of her messages, called her a “warrior,” and thanked her for their “friendship.”

    Green has also spoken with Republican National Committee co-Chair Lara Trump, who told Green that she was “so honored” to be on her podcast. She also said: “On behalf of our whole family, thank you for all of the prayers, thank you for believing in my father-in-law, and for fighting alongside of us.”

    During a recent podcast appearance, Green — as she does — pushed far-right conspiracy theories while telling people what “the Lord had talked about” regarding the country, including that the Lord supposedly said that the recent hurricanes were “deliberate,” “man-made,” and “another form of election interference”: [video at the link]

    JULIE GREEN: This is exactly one of the things that the Lord had talked about. I have to get out which prophecy it was. I think it was the one from yesterday or Monday. He was talking about how this is the same thing as Maui. This is all on purpose. This is all done for complete devastation. And one of the things that He actually had on there and I have to — I’ll look it up, of which one it was because I have several of them pulled up here again. But He said it was blatant. It was deliberate. What happened in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and those really hard areas, those areas were hit for a specific reason. And again, this is all man-made. All of the stuff, we know they can modify weather, and they’re doing this on purpose. This is another form — and I hate to say this, but it’s so true. This is what the Lord was saying. It’s another form of election interference. This is another form to weaken people, to destroy people more, it’s more to get us to the point where we are so broken spiritually, physically, financially that we will not fight them back. This is another tactic and a strategy of war.

    Green then said that California would soon experience an earthquake so “they” can “bury us financially and get ourselves over burdened and way down and so broken and devastated that we will just accept anything they do from here on out.” [I snipped that. See the link for details.]

    Numerous Trump allies have promoted the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene may have been controlled or manipulated, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Georgia GOP official Kandiss Taylor, Veterans for America First official Lucretia Hughes, Trump event organizer Clay Clark, and commentator Wayne Allyn Root.

    And two other pro-MAGA “prophets,” Lance Wallnau and Hank Kunneman, similarly suggested that God said the hurricanes were unnatural and election interference.

    Laugh out loud funny … if not for also such serious misinformation that it is affecting recovery efforts.

  224. Bekenstein Bound says

    Israel again struck UN bases

    So, when exactly does the UN quit wringing its hands and start writing out arrest warrants for the war criminals responsible?

  225. John Morales says

    BB:

    So, when exactly does the UN quit wringing its hands and start writing out arrest warrants for the war criminals responsible?

    Relax.

    Ahem: “Unsustainable things always seem to be ramping up the hardest-ever right before the bottom drops out.”

  226. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound @310:

    So, when exactly does the UN quit wringing its hands and start writing out arrest warrants

    The UN’s ICJ has adjudicated the Palestinian occupation as genocide and illegal. The process of litigation takes years, and that court has no authority to enforce its rulings.
     
    The ICC has pending applications for arrest warrants for Netanyahu et al.

    Mondoweiss

    Sometime this fall, […] the International Criminal Court (independent from the UN)—will issue one of two far more consequential rulings.
    […]
    ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I (PTC) may approve Khan’s application, in which case arrest warrants would likely be issued shortly thereafter. Alternatively, the PTC may tell Khan that Israel should have an opportunity to prove its own legal system is capable of holding Israelis responsible […] a process that could drag on for months. […] The first of these two scenarios was what ICC watchers had anticipated, in the weeks following Khan’s arrest warrant application. Then, the process went sideways.
    […]
    “There is no information indicating that [Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant] are being criminally investigated or prosecuted, and indeed the core allegations against them have simply been rejected by Israeli authorities,” Khan told the Chamber.

    NYTimes

    Israel has rejected the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants […] in filings to the court made late [September] […] based on technical grounds […] the documents challenge the court’s jurisdiction, arguing that Mr. Khan failed to provide sufficient notice of the scope of his inquiry or to give Israel time to show that it is capable of independently investigating the same matters. Under the treaty setting up the International Criminal Court, which Israel is not a party to, a case could be inadmissible in the court if it is already being or will be investigated by a state
    […]
    Israel is now asking the I.C.C. to delay the request for arrest warrants […] to show the court that it will address the accusations internally.
    […]
    The I.C.C. does have jurisdiction to proceed when a state is unable or unwilling to investigate accusations, or if the state inquiry is conducted in bad faith to protect the accused. And each situation is assessed on a case-by-case basis, so an Israeli inquiry wouldn’t necessarily preclude an I.C.C. prosecution going forward even if the court decides to grant Israel’s initial requests.

     
    CBC

    The ICC and the ICJ, both of which are based in The Hague, investigate serious crimes but serve different purposes and have different outcomes.
    […]
    The ICC was born out of the Rome Statute, an international treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1998, to investigate the “gravest crimes of concern to the international community.” It has a relationship with the United Nations but is independent of the world body.
    […]
    If a case moves to trial, a panel of three judges will consider the evidence and issue a ruling. When there is a conviction, a suspect can face up to 30 years in prison, or life imprisonment in exceptional cases.

    The court requires member states—the signatories to the Rome Statute—to cooperate with it. The court relies on member states to arrest and transfer suspects. (In some cases, a summons is issued and a suspect may appear voluntarily).
    […]
    Israel is not one of them (neither is the U.S.), so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad. […] Although Palestine is not a recognized state—it has non-member observer status at the UN—it accepted the jurisdiction of the Rome Statute and the ICC in 2014.

  227. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wikipedia – States parties to the Rome Statute

    neither signed nor acceded to the Statute: Lebanon
    […]
    In March 2009, Lebanese Justice Minister said the government had decided not to join for now. The Coalition for the International Criminal Court claimed this was due in part to “intense pressure” from the United States, who feared it could result in the prosecution of Israelis in a future conflict. […] in April 2024 Lebanon’s cabinet decided to submit a declaration to the ICC accepting the court’s jurisdiction over crimes committed on Lebanese territory since 7 October 2023. However, the following month this decision was reversed, and the declaration was not submitted.

  228. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Israel has gotten away with doing worse to UN facilities.

    Wikipedia – Qana massacre

    on April 18, 1996, […] in then Israeli-occupied Southern Lebanon, when the Israeli military fired artillery shells at a United Nations compound, which was sheltering around 800 Lebanese civilians, killing 106 and injuring around 116. Four Fijian United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon soldiers were also seriously injured.
    […]
    a United Nations investigation which later found that the Israeli shelling was deliberate […] Naftali Bennett, the commander of the Israeli commando unit which had called in the barrage, entered politics, eventually becoming Prime Minister of Israel.
    […]
    Shelling of UN compound
    By April 14, 745 people took shelter in a United Nations compound at Qana, a UN battalion headquarters for 18 years, well-marked on Israeli maps, and bearing white and black UN signs. By April 16, Hezbollah had fired 120 Katyusha rockets into Israel, causing one casualty […] while Israel was firing over 3,000 shells, conducting 200 missile raids a day into Lebanon, and firing from gunboats on the refugee-crowded roads to Beirut.

    [Hezbollah fighters fired rockets and mortars at positions 350m, 600m, and 220m from the compound. Israeli Howitzers hit the compound with 13 shells clustering in a manner not likely to have resulted from gross error, with a drone watching above the civilians.]
    […]
    The Qana massacre resulted in a wave of international condemnation. As a result of the intense diplomatic pressure that followed, Israel ended Operation Grapes of Wrath before it had originally planned to.
    […]
    UN General Assembly vote
    On 12 May 1997 Arab members of the United Nations financial committee lodged a claim against Israel […] The following month, by a 66 to 2 vote (59 abstentions, United States and Israel voting against), the United Nations General Assembly decided that the $1.7 million cost of repairs to the UNIFIL headquarters should be paid for by Israel.

    Votes to reaffirm the resolution that Israel should pay the costs of damage appeared before the General Assembly every year until 2003 with the same pattern—one third for, one third abstaining, two (United States and Israel) against. The United States claims that financial resolutions, such as this, had to be adopted by consensus to apply, and Israel rejected any responsibility for it, claiming that “any damage caused to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)”, is “the direct consequence of terrorist aggression and Lebanese collusion.”

  229. KG says

    The UN’s ICJ has adjudicated the Palestinian occupation as genocide and illegal. – CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@312

    Illegal, yes. On the question of genocide, I think it has only said that South Africa’s accusation is “plausible”; for the court to come to a definitive conclusion is likely to take years.

  230. says

    Update from NBC News:

    At least 16 people have been confirmed dead in Florida after tornadoes touched down and Hurricane Milton slammed into the state this week, leaving a trail of damage and devastation. Millions of customers are still without electricity.

  231. says

    Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, since she joined the Court, has taken on a singular, likely uncomfortable mantle. She’s often the only one willing to relitigate fights already lost to the conservative supermajority. Often, she does this alone, either out loud or in writing.

    A perfect example of this cropped up during oral arguments on Tuesday, when the Court was considering whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ decision that ghost guns — guns you assemble from a kit — must be regulated like normal guns passed muster.

    While her colleagues debated the intricacies of the guns and the rule, Jackson stayed quiet until the round-robin section, when it was her turn to question Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

    “Justice Kagan talked about the problem of the agency potentially taking over what is Congress’ business, and I guess I’m worried about the different concern, which is about the Court taking over what Congress may have intended for the agency to do in this situation,” she said. “All of my questions — the reason why I didn’t really engage with the other part of this is because all of my questions for you stem from that concern.”

    The other liberals had moved on to trying to get their colleagues on board with rejecting the gun manufacturers’ frankly insane request to let these untraceable guns promulgate. Jackson was stuck on the underlying issue — why are they litigating this at all? ATF, the agency in charge of knowing about guns and how to regulate them, already observed a problem (the explosion in the use of ghost guns to commit crimes) and addressed it, requiring those guns to have serial numbers and background checks.

    She’s fighting a lost battle; this Court is unapologetically hostile to federal agency power, unabashedly committed to the right-wing cause of dismantling the regulatory state. Its overturning of Chevron deference last term was just the opening salvo.

    So what Jackson is doing may seem fruitless. She has no chance of winning over her right-wing peers on this argument. But when one political party is stuck in the minority on the Court, this is what they can do: lay the groundwork in dissent for ideological reorientation that can become possible in the future, when that bloc amasses enough justices and the majority swings left.

    And in the meantime, in the years before that happens, she can provide an important service too: the equivalent of a main character in a sitcom breaking character, locking eyes with the camera and saying “you guys see that this is all bullshit right?”

    Link

  232. says

    Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz had some fun at Donald Trump’s expense in Michigan on Friday.

    During a campaign event, where Walz also detailed how destructive Trump’s White House stay had been for American workers, Walz went on a run about Trump’s big talk about China—and his “God Bless the USA” Bible.

    “Trump’s all talk when it comes to being tough on China. Some of you heard this. We just found out his Trump-branded Bibles, yeah, they’re printed in China,” Walz told the crowd. “This dude even outsourced God to China,” Walz said, eliciting laughs.

    “Again, I’m going to try and be generous here,” Walz continued. “I don’t blame him. He didn’t notice the ‘Made in China’ sticker because they put it inside, a place he’s never looked in the Bible.”

    Trump has made it clear that he is mostly interested in selling junk to enrich himself while promoting a bigoted Christian Nationalism, and has very little regard for the areas and people that rely on manufacturing jobs.

    It is said that all jokes have a little truth behind them. In Trump’s case they’re almost 99% true.

    Link

    Video at the link.

  233. says

    Newsweek:

    Former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, has said on Friday morning that he thinks former President Barack Obama will vote for him over “extremely Low IQ” Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election.

    Writing on his social media platform, Truth Social, the former president said: “Obama admits a total lack of enthusiasm for Kamala, especially with Black Men. I think Obama will be voting for me because he doesn’t like the fact that Kamala is an extremely Low IQ Person!”

  234. says

    […] The Trump rally featured the former Liar-in-Chief bobbin’ and weavin’ much to the delight of some locals. Behind Trump was a sea of hand-held signs touting the GOP ticket. Ordinary citizens including a good number of what seemed to be Scranton firefighters were cheering Trump on. Or were they? If you look at the photo above you would think that Scranton firefighters, some wearing what looked like official uniforms, were out in force supporting the man who has turned the children’s taunt “liar, liar, pants on fire” into a four-alarm trouser blaze.

    Scranton firefighters Local 60 was– well– afire to learn that they had endorsed a candidate in the presidential race because the union hadn’t. A close inspection revealed that the uniforms were bogus and none of the firemen holding signs were actually Scranton firemen. The SFD local #60 union chief responded with a firehose of truth to try to put out the fire:

    “Local 60 would like to address the rally held earlier today in Scranton for former President Trump and the Office of President of the United States. This is not a political post, rather a clarification post for anyone who sees or may see the event. Multiple CITIZENS were seen with “Scranton Firefighters for Trump” signs at today’s rally. It is noted that no member of Local 60 were carrying those signs as the IAFF has chosen not to endorse a candidate this election. We honor and respect each and every person’s political opinions as well as our members own opinions on what they believe is the right choice for them. We just want to clarify that Local 60 has not endorsed a candidate for the Office of President following the path of the IAFF. The signs seen were not a representation of SFD Local 60 nor an endorsement of any candidate.”— Allen Lucas, Scranton Forefighters Local 60 Union President

    The ruse would be funny if it weren’t so subversive. Trump campaign spokesman, Kush Desai, responded to a Scranton Times-Tribune reporter and then added to the original lie with the candidate’s singular diddle— the double down. Desai tells the reporter that the “campaign” had nothing to do with the signs and he had “no idea” where they came from, yet the signs were professionally printed and the men in uniform looked staged. The ex-president was well aware of the firefighters behind him and included them in his remarks:

    A little over an hour into the event, Trump references firefighters, according to a video of the event posted on YouTube.

    “We got the firefighters endorsed us, you probably heard,” Trump said. The crowd cheered and some of the attendants behind Trump held aloft the ‘Scranton Firefighters for Trump’ signs.

    “That’s a very good looking group of human beings,” Trump said. He then went on to speak about the Teamsters and United Auto Workers unions, before coming back to firefighters.

    Looking off to his right and directly addressing some people in the crowd, Trump said, “Thank you fellas very much. It’s great. Any fires lately? Have you put out any fires lately? Any big bad ones? You guys have a lot of guts doing what you do, let me tell you.”— The Scranton Times-Trinune, “Scranton firefighters were not holding pro-Trump signs at rally,” by Jim Lockwood

    The thing about lies is that they require willing dupes whose duty, from the liar’s perspective is not only to believe but to spread the lie. Well, Kush, the folks in Scranton may be spun from blue-collar stock, but they aren’t dupes. They smelled a rat.

    The campaign’s ruse is even more inflammatory, given the planning and execution of the fiction onstage. The authoritarian playbook is generally written with the arrogance of an egoist. Trump believing he can fool enough voters to win an election is the height of arrogance. The lies aren’t even good ones, they are simply pervasive. […]

    That he is smarter than, richer than, and more famous than the rest of us is something he has to constantly reassure himself of. His vanity allows no less. He delights in naming others in order to demean them. Nomenclature is something that Trump uses to amuse himself and his followers– “Lil Marco”, “Crooked Joe”, and “Lyin’ Kamala” are all part of an obsession to own their identities, to brand them. When he named his absurd rambling “The Weave” it was a sign that while others recognized his wandering attention as a sign of diminished mental acuity, giving it a name creates cover for his intellectual decline. […]

    The phony firefighters he employed as pawns were a glum reminder of his own brand of cosplay as a middle-class everyman, a protector of women, and a defender of democracy. He is none of these. Stephen King once said, “The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.” […]

    Link

  235. says

    […] “There actually have been studies looking at taking the COVID vaccine and the flu vaccine together, and even in the same arm or in different arms. And the bottom line is that it really doesn’t matter,” said Dr. Andrew Pekosz, professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

    […] While which arm you get boosted in doesn’t seem to matter much, the timing of the shots does, Pekosz said.

    “It’s best to get them both taken as close as possible to each other,” Pekosz explained, “simply because studies have shown if you go in to get one and say that you’ll go in three or four weeks to get the second, many people never actually go back to the pharmacy to get that second vaccine.”

    […] the CDC emphasizes these side effects are mild and short-lived, and are outweighed by the benefits of getting vaccinated.

    Link

  236. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mystery of Russia’s secret weapon downed in Ukraine

    … Intrigued, Ukrainians soon found out from the fallen debris that they had just witnessed the destruction of Russian’s newest weapon – the S-70 stealth combat drone.

    This is no ordinary drone. Named Okhotnik (Hunter), this heavy, unmanned vehicle is as big as a fighter jet but without a cockpit. It is very hard to detect and its developers claim it has “almost no analogy” in the world…

    This war has seen many drones but nothing like Russia’s S-70.

    It weighs more than 20 tonnes and reputedly has a range of 6,000km (3,700 miles).

    Shaped like an arrow, it looks very similar to American X-47B, another stealth combat drone created a decade ago.

    The Okhotnik is supposed to be able to carry bombs and rockets to strike both ground and aerial targets as well as conduct reconnaissance.

    And, significantly, it is designed to work in conjunction with Russia’s fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets.

    It has been under development since 2012 and the first flight took place in 2019.

    But until last weekend there was no evidence that it had been used in Russia’s two-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine…

  237. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/lets-watch-barack-obama-kick-donald

    Lots of video snippets are available at the link.

    […] Obama said they need to ask whether anything Trump shakes up would actually be good for them.

    “And the reason some people think, ‘Well, I don’t know. I remember that economy when he first came in being pretty good.’ Yeah, it was pretty good because it was my economy! We had 75 straight months of job growth that I handed over to him. It wasn’t something he did. I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me the last time. Just in case everybody has a hazy memory, he didn’t, he didn’t do nothing except those big tax cuts!”

    Obama also went after Trump’s incredible — in the literal sense of the word — lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, pointing out how completely unlike any president ever that was:

    “Donald Trump, at a rally, just started making up stories about the Biden administration withholding aid from Republican areas and siphoning off aid to give to undocumented immigrants. Just made the stuff up! Everybody knew it wasn’t true. Even local Republicans said it was not true.”

    Obama urged people to watch for a rerun of that following Hurricane Milton:

    “We have a guy who will just lie about it to score political points, and this has consequences. People are afraid and they’ve lost everything and now they’re trying to figure out how do I apply for help? […] The idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments. My question is: When did that become okay?”

    While reminding the audience of Harris’s proposal to give new parents a $6,000 tax credit to help pay for their new babbies, Obama delivered the biggest laugh of the speech, with some help from the crowd.

    OBAMA: I remember buying diapers. I remember the first time I went in the store right after Malia was born. I was like, “What? That’s how much diapers cost?” I remember changing diapers. Do you think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?
    VOICE IN CROWD: HIS OWN!
    OBAMA: Yeah. I almost said that, but I decided I shouldn’t say it.

    […] To close, let’s skip back a bit, to just after Obama tore into Trump about the hurricane lies, when he called out Republicans who glibly put up with it or refuse to challenge Trump about it. Doing that, Obama said, isn’t just cowardly or bad politics. It reinforces a false sense of what strength means.

    “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I’ve noticed this especially with some men who seem to think Trump’s behavior of bullying and of putting people down is a sign of strength. And I am here to tell you, that is not what real strength is. It never has been. Real strength is about working hard and carrying a heavy load without complaining. Real strength is about taking responsibility for your actions and telling the truth, even when it’s inconvenient. Real strength is about helping people who need it, and standing up for those who can’t always stand up for themselves.

    “That is what we should want for our daughters and for our sons, and that is what I want to see in a president of the United States of America!”

    […] It does help to have Tim Walz on the team, since he embodies that very different vision, call it Dad Masculinity or whatever. Obama alluded to that, too, earlier in the speech:

    “Tim is a veteran. He is a teacher. He’s a coach. He’s a hunter. He’s been a great governor, working with Democrats and Republicans to get stuff done. He can also take a vintage truck apart and put it back together again. You think Donald Trump can do that? For that matter, do you think Donald Trump has ever changed a tire in his life? No. I’m just trying to picture it.”

    Walz should definitely challenge Trump to change a tire, is what we are saying.

  238. says

    @288 Reginald Selkirk wrote about the muskrat’s ‘generosity’ for storm victims

    AND to confirm that —-
    The elongated muskrat is a conman and ahole just like tRUMP. I knew he would not be honest and caring towards hurricane victims. It was just confirmed:
    The “free” internet Musk offered to Hurricane Helene and Milton victims
    comes with a $400-for-Musk catch.
    https://crooksandliars.com/2024/10/elon-musk-pulls-bait-and-switch-hurricane
    And, if you are too busy recovering from the storm to dump starlink after the free ONE month, you immediately, automatically get billed $120 for month two and on, and on.

    IIRC, Ukraine got (bought?) starlink equipment and the muskrat turned it all off in support of putin, WTF!!!

  239. KG says

    I’m pleased to report the death of Alex Salmond, former first minister of Scotland. The linked article reports his acquital on various sexual charges, but the harrassment of women he admitted should have led to the end of his public life. He crawled up Trump’s fundament (in the days before the latter stood for president, but when it was already quite clear in Scotland what a shit he was – see the 2011 film You’ve Been Trumped), had his own show on RT (although he did pack it in after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine), and became a leading transphobe. Hopefully, the reactionary-nationalist political party Alba, which he founded and led after leaving the SNP, will now collapse (it has never yet won an election – all its representatives in the UK and Scottish parliaments and on local councils were elected as representatives of the SNP, then defected).

  240. says

    Associated Press:

    ENTERPRISE, Ala. — The transition from the bustling Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a small Alabama city on the southernmost tip of the Appalachian mountain range was challenging for Sarah Jacques.

    But over the course of a year, the 22-year-old got used to the quiet and settled in. Jacques got a job at a manufacturing plant that makes car seats, found a Creole-language church and came to appreciate the ease and security of life in Albertville after the political turmoil and violence that’s plagued her home country.

    Recently, though, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate began promoting debunked misinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, causing crime and “eating pets,” Jacques said there have been new, unforeseen challenges.

    “When I first got here, people would wave at us, say hello to us, but now it’s not the same,” Jacques said in Creole through a translator. “When people see you, they kind of look at you like they’re very quiet with you or afraid of you.”

    Amid this mounting tension, a bipartisan group of local religious leaders, law enforcement officials and residents across Alabama sees the fallout in Springfield as a cautionary tale. They’ve been taking steps to help integrate the state’s Haitian population in the small cities where they live.

    As political turmoil and violence intensify in Haiti, Haitian migrants have embraced a program established by President Joe Biden in 2023 that allows the U.S. to accept up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years and offers work authorization. The Biden administration recently announced the program could allow an estimated 300,000 Haitians to remain in the U.S. at least through February 2026.

    […] A representative from Albertville’s school system said that, in the last school year, 34% of the district’s 5,800 students were learning English as a second language — compared to only 17% in 2017. [map at the link]

    In August, weeks before Springfield made national headlines, a Facebook post of men getting off a bus to work at a poultry plant led some residents to speculate that the plant was hiring people living in the country illegally.

    Representatives for the poultry plant said in an email to The Associated Press that all its employees are legally allowed to work in the U.S.

    The uproar culminated in a public meeting where some residents sought clarity about the federal program that allowed Haitians to work in Alabama legally, while others called for landlords to “cut off the housing” for Haitians and suggested that the migrants have a “smell to them,” according to audio recordings.

    To Unique Dunston, a 27-year-old lifelong Albertville resident and community activist, these sentiments felt familiar.

    “Every time Albertville gets a new influx of people who are not white, there seems to be a problem,” Dunston said.

    Dunston runs a store offering free supplies to the community. After tensions boiled over across the country, she put up multiple billboards across town that read, in English, Spanish and Creole, “welcome neighbor glad you came.”

    Dunston said the billboards are a way to “push back” against the notion that migrants are unwelcome.

    When Pastor John Pierre-Charles first arrived in Albertville in 2006, he said the only other Haitians he knew in the area were his family members.

    In 14 years of operation, the congregation at his Creole-language church, Eglise Porte Etroite, has gone from just seven members in 2010 to approximately 300 congregants. He is now annexing classrooms to the church building for English language classes and drivers’ education classes, as well as a podcast studio to accommodate the burgeoning community.

    […] After the fallout from the initial public meetings in August, Pierre-Charles sent a letter to city leadership calling for more resources for housing and food to ensure his growing community could safely acclimate, both economically and culturally.

    “That’s what I’m trying to do, to be a bridge,” said Pierre-Charles.

    […] In September, Hanson [Gerilynn Hanson, 54], an electrical contractor and Trump supporter, formed a nonprofit that she hopes will work with Pierre-Charles and other Haitian community leaders to offer more stable housing and English language classes to meet the growing demand.

    “We can look at (Springfield) and become them in a year,” Hanson said, referring to the animosity that’s taken hold in the Ohio city, which has been inundated with threats. “We can sit back and do nothing and let it unfold under our eyes. Or we can try to counteract some of that and make it to where everyone is productive and can speak to each other.”

    [… In Enterprise, not far from the Alabama-Florida border, cars packed the parking lot of Open Door Baptist Church in September for an event that promised answers about how the growing Haitian population was affecting the city.

    After the event, James Wright, the chief of the Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe, was sympathetic to the reasons Haitians were fleeing their home but said he worried migrants would affect Enterprise’s local “political culture” and “community values.”

    Other attendees echoed fears and misinformation about Haitian migrants being “lawless” and “dangerous.”

    […] Enterprise police Chief Michael Moore said he shared statistics from his department that show no measurable increase in crimes as the Haitian population has grown.

    “I think there was quite a few people there that were more concerned about the fearmongering than the migrants,” Moore told the AP.

    Moore said his department had received reports of Haitian migrants living in houses that violated city code, but when he reached out to the people in question, the issues were quickly resolved. Since then, his department hasn’t heard any credible complaints about crimes caused by migrants.

    “I completely understand that some people don’t like what I say because it doesn’t fit their own personal thought process,” said Moore. “But those are the facts.”

  241. says

    New Yorker link

    Keir Starmer’s Bafflingly Bad Start as the U.K.’s Prime Minister

    The Labour government’s first hundred days in power have been characterized by mistakes, infighting, and drift.

    People used to say that Sir Keir Starmer would make a good Prime Minister because he wasn’t very political. The leader of the Labour Party, which won a huge victory at this summer’s general election, was always fairly wooden on the campaign trail. He wasn’t a vision guy. He didn’t understand why he—a former prosecutor of terrorists, a knight of the realm in his early sixties—was expected to talk about his parents so much. The truism, among people who worked with Starmer and knew him well, was that 10 Downing Street was where he belonged: that he was serious and dedicated, a truly effective leader. It would be as Prime Minister that the people would come to know, and love, the real Keir. In a largely edifying biography by Tom Baldwin, a former Labour communications director, Starmer’s deputy, Angela Rayner, described her boss as “the least political person I know in politics.” I think it was a compliment. After fourteen years of turbulence and performative self-harm at the hands of the Conservative Party, the British population was ready for a little less politics, too.

    But maybe not quite so little. The first hundred days of the new Labour government have been underwhelming in the extreme. As Prime Minister, Starmer has delivered a minor scandal over alleged corruption, a lot of office gossip, and a depressing atmosphere of economic constraint. The political calendar has been unfortunate. Labour won power just before the summer parliamentary break, which was followed by the annual party-conference season, giving the new government limited time to introduce legislation. But the rest has been, in the British political euphemism of the moment, missteps.

    A major part of Starmer’s public image is his workaday-ness. So it hasn’t looked great that, since April, he has disclosed receiving nearly forty thousand pounds’ worth of gifts in kind—including high-end clothes, eyeglasses, and the loan of an apartment—from a single Party donor. By coincidence, or not, the same donor, a TV executive and Labour peer named Waheed Alli, was given a security pass to Downing Street. The scandal, such as it is, has become known as “passes for glasses.” All of Alli’s gifts, along with other donations, were recorded and itemized, dutifully, by Starmer’s office—the cost of “multiple pairs of glasses” came to two thousand four hundred and eighty-five pounds—and then were seized on by his political opponents as evidence of sleaze and the new Prime Minister taking to the high life. (Since June, Starmer and his family received a total of ten tickets, worth more than seven thousand pounds, to see Taylor Swift, and four more tickets to see horse races in Doncaster.) Adding to the awkwardness, on October 2nd, Alli was put under an investigation by the House of Lords for allegedly failing to register his own financial interests properly.

    There have also been reports—from the opening weeks on—of dysfunction among Starmer’s closest advisers. In March, 2023, Starmer hired Sue Gray, one of the U.K.’s most senior civil servants, to be his chief of staff. The appointment was controversial. […] After the election, however, gossip spread among Labour insiders—and into the newspapers—that Gray was a micromanager with poor political instincts. […] (It didn’t help that Gray’s son, a newly elected Labour Member of Parliament named Liam Conlon, was another recipient of Alli’s donations.)

    The result has been incoherence; a sense of governing without meaning. Since taking over a country and an economy hobbled by years of underinvestment and political instability, Starmer and his ministers have done little more than complain about how hard everything is. […] Both Labour and Starmer’s popularity ratings have tanked.

    […] This week, as the hundredth day of Starmer’s government approached, it was impossible not to compare the sense of drift with the dynamic early months of Tony Blair’s Labour premiership, in 1997, which followed a brisk “route map” of policy announcements. […]

    Starmer’s own behavior has been erratic. He has veered between attempting to stay aloof from petty criticism and giving long, overwrought explanations. (The Prime Minister said that he needed to borrow Alli’s eighteen-million-pound apartment during the election campaign so his son could have somewhere quiet to study for his high-school exams. “Any parent would have made the same decision,” he told Sky News.) […]

    […] On October 2nd, Starmer announced that he had paid back some six thousand pounds’ worth of gifts that he had received since becoming Prime Minister and that the rules on hospitality for ministers would be modified. Four days later, Gray quit as Starmer’s chief of staff and was replaced by McSweeney. […]

    On Wednesday, I went to see Starmer respond to Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons. P.M.Q.’s, as they are known, are British politics at its silliest and most self-referential. But they are also important tests of a leader’s mettle and the energy of the parliamentary parties at their back. Starmer arrived in the chamber a moment before noon. He took a sip of water and cracked a rueful smile. As a former prosecutor, the baying of the Commons does not usually faze him. His main interlocutor this week was Rishi Sunak, the previous Prime Minister and outgoing leader of the Conservatives.

    Starmer was in a hurry to name-check things that his government was actually doing: introducing a new bill to strengthen workers’ rights and hosting an upcoming international investment summit. Sunak used his questions to allude to Gray’s departure and the Alli donations and to catch Starmer out on potential tax increases, but the Prime Minister used almost every reply throughout the session—on subjects that ranged from access to family physicians in the Midlands to Basingstoke’s high street, from hospices in Bolton to flooding in Gosport—to hammer the Tories’ record in office and the wreckage they left behind. He talked about a twenty-two-billion-pound “black hole” in the public finances. Each time Starmer let fly at the Conservatives, the Labour M.P.s behind him cheered lustily. It was blunt, but restorative.

    […] Starmer still has time, but not much more, to find his story. ♦

    More at the link.

  242. KG says

    Lynna, OM@333,

    I’m absolutely no admirer of Starmer, but I’ve been truly gobsmacked at the degree of political incompetence he and those around him have shown in his first 100 days as PM. The exposure of the expensive gifts he’s received (while in opposition) from Lord Alli came alongside a decision to limit a benefit which everyone over state pension age got to help with winter heating bills to the very poorest (those receiving a benefit called “pension credit”) in that group. (I get it, I can well do without it, donate it to some good cause, but there are many who don’t get pension credit but do need it). And a failure to remove a restriction on a benefit poorer parents get to help with the costs of children – the restriction means it only applies to the first two children. So Starmer has appeared greedy, entitled, callous and out-of-touch. In addition, the degree to which and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have stressed how things would get worse before they get better, and threatened cuts in the forthcoming budget, has caused a slump in consumer confidence which threatens to cause real damage to the economy. He has also continued to demonstrate a considerable degree of vindictiveness, suspending 7 Labour MPs for voting for an opposition amendment that would have removed the two-child limit, and refusing Emily Thornberry, a senior member of the shadow cabinet before the election, a place in his government, apparently because she once criticised him.

    Incidentally, saying he won a “huge victory” at the election is only part of the story. Yes, Labour won nearly 2/3 of the seats, but on fractionally over 1/3 of the vote – and fewer actual votes than Labour got under Corbyn in the disastrous defeat of 2019. The “huge victory” was not down to McSweeney so much as to Trump suckup Nigel Farage, who split the right-wing vote.

    Starmer still has time, but not much more, to find his story.

    Yes, the problem is, there’s no evidence he has or had any goal other than to become PM and provide competent centrist government, and on current evidence, it’s unclear he can manage the latter.

  243. JM says

    ABC news: Trump’s campaign requests military aircraft and armored vehicles in response to threats from Iran

    Donald Trump ‘s aides have requested a slew of stepped-up security measures, including military aircraft capable of shooting down surface-to-air missiles to transport the former president in the race’s final stretch, amid growing concerns over threats from Iran in a campaign already shaken by violence.

    He is likely to get at least some of what his campaign has asked for. Approval for this would come from Biden directly and after 2 assassination attempts it would look bad to not provide some. That neither assassin seems to be connected to Iran doesn’t matter. The real point is that Trump is complaining that Biden is trying to block his campaign by limiting his access to security and Biden will want to head that off.

  244. John Morales says

    Yes, the problem is, there’s no evidence he has or had any goal other than to become PM and provide competent centrist government, and on current evidence, it’s unclear he can manage the latter.

    So, providing competent centrist government is not good enough?

    (I would personally settle for that)

  245. KG says

    So, providing competent centrist government is not good enough? – John Morales@336

    No, it most certainly is not. Both the UK and the world are mired in a worsening polycrisis – wars, galloping inequality, the rise of fascism, the unaccountable power of the tech lords, and the looming climate and wider environmental emergency. Of course the scale of the polycrisis is such that any UK PM could only make a small contribution to dealing with it, but Starmer has already shown himself completely lacking in the kind of leadership desperately needed, for example by failing to stop arming Israel, and by yielding to the fossil fuel lobby by promising £21bn for the “carbon capture and storage” boondoggle, rather than serious measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

  246. John Morales says

    Fair enough, KG.

    Alas, I don’t see anyone better on the horizon, but at least PMs can be changed without an election, if it comes to that.

  247. John Morales says

    Seems plausible to me:

    The Wrong-Direction Election
    A brief history of a phrase the right uses to justify Trump’s BS.

    At an Oct. 5 rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump told a seemingly apocryphal story about a decades-old women’s weightlifting record that was purportedly broken with ease by a man who had “never lifted before” but cheated the system by identifying as trans. A Canadian women’s powerlifter named April Hutchinson, who seemed to believe that the former president was referring to a specific trans rival of hers from the province of Alberta, posted a clip of the anecdote (which Trump tells frequently) on Twitter/X. The details Hutchinson gave, though, don’t really line up with the vague scenario that Trump describes in his stump speech, in which he sometimes claims to have watched actual footage of a woman losing a competition to the trans lifter in question.

    Fortunately Jay Richards, director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank, was there to square the circle. “Classic Trump hyperbole,” he declared. “Directionally correct but carefully engineered to drive critics crazy over the details.” Problem solved: Trump wasn’t exaggerating, and he definitely wasn’t just getting mad about something that never happened—he was being directionally correct.

    And being directionally correct—or sometimes directionally accurate—is, according to many of Donald Trump’s supporters, something that Donald Trump is very good at. His claims about trans athletes, immigrants, and the 2020 election might not be strictly true, these advocates say, but they are directionally so, because he’s talking about a real problem, or at least a feeling that there’s a real problem.

    […]

  248. Reginald Selkirk says

    Georgia election workers settle defamation lawsuit against conservative website

    Two Georgia election workers have reached a settlement in their defamation lawsuit against a Missouri-based conservative website that falsely accused them of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, according to a court filing earlier this week.

    The lawsuit against The Gateway Pundit, its owner Jim Hoft and his brother Joe Hoft “has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement,” lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss said Friday.

    Monday’s filing in St. Louis City Circuit Court didn’t give any terms of the settlement, but said actions under the agreement are supposed to be completed by March 29. Both sides asked a judge to postpone the case until then, when they expect to request a dismissal…

    Nearly 70 articles cited as defamatory in the lawsuit were no longer available Friday on The Gateway Pundit website, The Associated Press found.

    The company that owns The Gateway Pundit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, but a judge dismissed the case in July, finding the company was solvent and had filed the suit in bad faith in an effort to frustrate the lawsuit by Freeman and Moss…

    Freeman and Moss also sued others, including including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and One America News Network, saying they pushed Donald Trump’s lies about the election being stolen, which led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.

    Freeman and Moss are trying to collect a $148 million defamation judgment they won against Giuliani for his false ballot fraud claims.

    OAN settled with Freeman and Moss in 2022…

    As the allegations spread, Freeman received emails, text messages and threatening phone calls, and strangers showed up at her house, the lawsuit said. The FBI concluded on Jan. 6, 2021, that she wasn’t safe at home, and she relocated for two months. She abandoned her business selling clothing.

    Moss’ teenage son was bombarded with threatening messages after harassers found her old phone number, which he was using, the lawsuit said. Because she previously lived with her grandmother, the lawsuit said, strangers showed up at her grandmother’s house at least twice and tried to enter to make a “citizen’s arrest.”

  249. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tim Walz faces new question: How many ‘misspeaks’ can a ‘knucklehead’ get away with?

    What started as an appealing character trait has quickly become one of Tim Walz’s biggest problems: His way with words.

    Exaggerations from the 60-year-old Minnesota governor’s past, combined with a series of verbal gaffes, have helped define the Democratic vice presidential nominee during a critical two-month period since he joined Kamala Harris atop the party’s 2024 ticket. Selected in part for his Midwestern plainspokenness and ability to connect to people, Walz’s introduction to the nation’s voters has also been hampered by his having to answer for why he cannot seem to say the right things.

    “Welcome to the NFL,” said Chris Pack, a Republican strategist who argued that while “Tim Walz may be a nice guy in Minnesota” the national political arena will hold candidates more accountable for what you say…

    But apparently only if you’re a Democrat. The article makes no mention of Vance’s many falsehoods, nor his practice of doubling down on them even after they have been called out. And Trump’s regular stream of lies? Ha ha ha.

  250. says

    ⚡️Russian channels write that today’s 🇷🇺Russian bomber-fighter Su-34 was shot down by a 🇺🇦Ukrainian fighter F-16

    https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1845046161490526397

    Followup to comment 297.
    https://x.com/RALee85/status/1844798457929711654

    “A Ukrainian military intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security matter, said “several thousand” North Korean infantry soldiers are undergoing training in Russia now and could be deployed to the front line in Ukraine by the end of this year.

    The official said North Korean officers are already on the ground in Russia-occupied Ukraine to observe Russian forces and study the battlefield, but Kyiv hasn’t seen any North Korean units fighting yet.”

    More text, presented as screen grabs, is available at the link.

    […] Hoping the Russians were correct when they posted this:

    Based on the realities observed directly in the Special Military Operation (SMO) zone, European countries have not only failed to stop but have significantly increased the supply of artillery ammunition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The information suggesting that the enemy’s artillery is experiencing a shortage of ammunition does not reflect reality. Moreover, we continue to report and identify signs that the enemy is preparing for a full-scale offensive.

    Text in the paragraph above is excerpted from a longer presentation of news, available here: Link

  251. says

    Christians flock to Washington to pray for America to turn to God — by electing Trump

    Conservative organizers of the “Million Women” worship rally billed the event — and the November election — as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from satanic forces.

    Tens of thousands of evangelical Christians gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to pray for America’s atonement and for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

    […] For hours, the gathered masses sang worship songs, waved flags symbolizing their belief that America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and prayed aloud for Jesus to intercede on behalf of Trump in November.

    “If we don’t stand now,” said Grace Lin, who traveled from Los Angeles for the rally and came wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, “then the enemy will take over our country. If that happens, that’s the end.”

    Lou Engle, the self-described prophet who organized the event, said God told him in a dream to call on a million women to march on Washington in order to restore God’s dominion over the nation. Engle is a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement of charismatic Christians who for years have portrayed U.S. politics as a spiritual clash between good and evil and Trump as a flawed leader anointed by God to redeem the nation.

    “Listen to the cries of your people,” Engle shouted Saturday as thousands of followers lifted their hands to the sky. “Save us, God!”

    […] Thousands of women came wearing pink shirts emblazoned with the words “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” — the name and slogan of an anti-LGBTQ activist group that claims library books, public school teachers and pop culture are tricking children into changing genders. [OMG. How many times have these groups been told lies?]

    Susan Marsh, who drove from Maryland, said she attended because she fears if Democrats maintain power, her 10-month old grandson will grow up in a nation where he’s pressured to identify as a girl. As she sang and prayed, Marsh waved a large Appeal to Heaven flag — a prominent symbol of the Christian movement to end the separation of church and state in America.

    […] Maryn Freitag was part of a group of about 50 people who traveled from Minnesota. She said she came “to stand with the man who God has selected as the president.” She then gestured to her hat, which spelled out “Trump 2024” in shimmering rhinestones.

    Freitag refused to contemplate what would happen if Trump loses to Vice President Kamala Harris: “I don’t even want to go there,” she said.

    Sandi Woskie, another member of the Minnesota contingent, overheard the comment. She leaned in and said: “Think Armageddon.”

    “That’s right,” Freitag said. “If we don’t turn this nation back to the Lord, we’re on a fast slide into the abyss with no return.”

    Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the nonprofit Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Maryland, said those comments are representative of a dangerous and increasingly widespread embrace of apocalyptic political messaging on the Christian right.

    Taylor, who attended the march Saturday as part of his research, has spent years studying the New Apostolic Reformation and its unwavering support for Trump. He documented in his book, “The Violent Take It by Force,” how false claims about widespread election fraud by Engle and other Christian nationalist leaders helped fuel the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Taylor said he worries that the dire messaging — and the portrayal of Trump as God’s chosen candidate to defeat evil Democrats — could set the stage for more violence. [Yes. That is worrying.]

    “This is about activating the most ardent Christian supporters of Donald Trump, putting them into an apocalyptic mindset that says this election is do or die for America,” Taylor said. “The danger is that these folks can easily be converted over into Capitol rioters if the right circumstances come about and if their leaders give them that guidance.”

    Taylor — and many others in attendance — noted that the crowd was more racially and ethnically diverse than most conservative political rallies. Churches from across the country, including some majority-Black denominations, chartered buses for the event. [Well that’s a bad sign.] Organizers chose to hold the event on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, because it is a day to atone for sin.

    LaTrece Curry, a Black mother who said she voted for Barack Obama in 2008, drove from Ohio with her husband and four children. She said her support for Trump — a twice-divorced billionaire who’s facing a range of criminal charges related to his business practices and alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election — has led to divisions and arguments with her Black friends and family members. But she believes he’s the only candidate who will set America back on a moral course.

    “I do think it is a last stand,” Curry said. “But God has given us so much time. Now judgment will come.”

    Phil Heilman drove with his wife from Florida. They learned about the event while attending a get-out-the-vote rally in Georgia hosted by Lance Wallnau, an evangelist who coined and popularized the Seven Mountains Mandate — a growing belief on the American right that says conservative Christians are called to occupy positions of power in seven key spheres of society, including business, education, media and government. Wallnau was among the speakers Saturday.

    Heilman said he gets his news from FlashPoint, a TV program that reaches hundreds of thousands of followers with a blend of pro-Trump political commentary and prophetic messages about God’s divine plans for America. [Mainlining the toxic sludge.]

    He worries about what will happen if Trump loses, but he said he has faith that Satan will be defeated even if Harris and the Democrats prevail.

    “If that happens, it’s not going to be a political solution,” Heilman said. “God will provide other opportunities to take the country back that will be more surreptitious, or underground.”

    Heilman, holding a large, red “Jesus Is King” flag over his shoulder, didn’t expand on what that might look like.

    One way or another, he said, “righteousness will prevail.”

  252. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 343
    I sincerely hope they make a documentary of this event, full of unintended humor. It will be an obvious pick for God Awful Movies, alongside ‘Bells Of Innocence’ or ‘International Guerillas’.

  253. birgerjohansson says

    I hope this link will work.
    Countries in Europe that have a higher quality of life that the US
    ‘European countries that have a higher quality of life than the US’

    .https://www.facebook.com/share/462zz4Ro7JnHykDE/
    Switzerland is not a surprise, nor is The Netherlands. I am a bit surprised Germany did not make it, but they have had an economic hangover for some time.

  254. Tethys says

    @341

    “Welcome to the NFL,” said Chris Pack, a Republican strategist who argued that while “Tim Walz may be a nice guy in Minnesota” the national political arena will hold candidates more accountable for what you say…

    Reginald ~ But apparently only if you’re a Democrat. The article makes no mention of Vance’s many falsehoods, nor his practice of doubling down on them even after they have been called out. And Trump’s regular stream of lies? Ha ha ha.

    Well, it is from Yahoo News. It’s an appropriate name. A whole article that is attempting to smear Walz for something that isn’t remotely true is generally called propaganda, no matter what Mr Republican Yahoo claims.

    By welcoming Tim Walz into the NFL, I assume the strategist suffered a football related head injury of some sort, as he is obviously confusing the 2024 election with the Super Bowl.

    It’s almost comical that he is implying that Walz is some sort of provincial dolt who is constantly making verbal blunders because he is stunned and dazzled by the big city.

    Tim Walz was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019, and the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee from 2017 to 2019. He was re-elected to Congress five times, and then he ran for Governor and won. Twice.

    It’s disturbing that the strategist thinks being nice is something to sneer about? Good manners are free, but that doesn’t mean Minnesotans aren’t equally capable of using the other type of “Minnesota Nice” behavior that smiles oh-so politely while plotting the unfortunate event that will ruin your day. Passive aggression is an Art.

  255. Reginald Selkirk says

    @348: Yahoo News is an aggregator. That piece originated with Sam Woodward of USA Today.

  256. John Morales says

    “A group helping to lay the groundwork for a future Donald Trump administration said [blah]”

    Very credible, is any group helping to lay the groundwork for a future Donald Trump administration.

    (Surely no mendaciousness there!)

  257. Reginald Selkirk says

    Secret tomb found under ‘Indiana Jones’ filming location in Petra

    At the heart of the ancient city of Petra, Jordan, carved into pink sandstone cliffs, lies an elaborate monument known as the Khaznah, or the Treasury.

    And buried beneath that edifice, archaeologists recently discovered, is a tomb with at least 12 human skeletons and artifacts that are estimated to be at least 2,000 years old.

    Archaeologists led by Dr. Pearce Paul Creasman, executive director of the American Center of Research, unearthed the ancient tomb…

    Creasman and his team performed ground-penetrating radar — a remote sensing technique that uses radar pulses to detect underground objects — earlier this year to see whether the physical features on the left, where the original tombs were found, matched those on the right. The detections revealed strong similarities among the two sides, and it was the proof they needed to receive permission from the Jordanian government to dig beneath the Treasury…

    With a film crew, the team excavated the newly uncovered tomb in August. But the real surprise was what lay within the tomb. While many tombs uncovered within Petra are found empty or disturbed, the chamber was filled with complete skeletal remains and grave goods made from bronze, iron and ceramic. The intact burial found beneath the Treasury provides rare insight into the lives of the Nabataeans, ancient Arabian nomads whose desert kingdom thrived during fourth century BC to AD 106, Creasman said….

    Interesting stuff.

    Among the artifacts were several vessels, with one skeleton found clutching a ceramic chalice that resembled the shape of the Holy Grail…

    Oh crikey, that’s a buzz kill. The “Holy Grail” is fictional, and depictions of it in works of fiction vary quite a bit.

  258. Tethys says

    A detail about the person who made the stupid grail comparison in the CNN report about the tomb in Petra

    Josh Gates, host of Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown.”

    Raiders of the Ark is not a documentary.
    The holy grail has always been an entirely fictitious literary device.

    If he knew anything about Archeology he would know that including a drinking vessel in grave goods was a very common practice in multiple cultures. Sometimes they would include enough vessels and tableware to hold a feast.
    Those burials aren’t even dated yet but the fact that they are Nabatean means that they have absolutely nothing to do with Jewish or Christian history.

  259. JM says

    @351 John Morales:
    Politico run down on AFPI
    America First Policy Institute is trying to lay a groundwork for a new Trump administration and is filled with loyalists from the previous Trump administration. It has no official connection to the Trump campaign but Trump said he approved of it’s creation. It is likely to be important if Trump does get elected.

  260. JM says

    NJ.com: Harris vs. Trump analyst tells panicky Dems: GOP is creating fake polls

    About a month ago, Rosenberg predicted that a slew of polls by Republican organizations would flood the zone, showing Trump leading — and, like clockwork, it has happened.

    It’s the same tactic the Republicans used in 2022. Then they created the impression of a possible red wave by publicizing a lot of polls by Republican leaning groups. Now they are pushing the idea that Trump is moving ahead by pushing polls from right wing organizations.