Donald Trump’s interactions with Russia’s Vladimir Putin have long been scandalous, but the story took an unexpected turn last week thanks to fresh allegations raised in Bob Woodward’s new book.
To summarize, Woodward’s book alleges that the former Republican president, while in office, secretly sent Covid-19 testing equipment to Putin at the height of the pandemic, even as people in his own country struggled to gain access to such resources. The book, citing a source close to Trump, also claims that the former president and the Russian leader have had direct conversations “as many as seven times” since he left the White House.
The GOP candidate denied the allegations, but not in a detailed way. A statement from a Trump spokesperson simply said that the claims in the book are not true, before lobbing a series of odd and personal attacks at the author. For its part, the Kremlin said Trump sent covid tests but denied Woodward’s reporting on the phone calls. (Of course, the Kremlin is notorious for spreading disinformation, so it’s hard to give much weight to its statements on the matter.)
That was last week. This week, Trump’s line was noticeably different. NBC News reported:
At an event at the Economic Club of Chicago with Bloomberg News, Trump said he wouldn’t comment on whether or not he called Putin multiple times after he left office. “Well, I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing,” he said. [scoffing laughter] “If I’m friendly with people. If I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing in terms of a country.”
To be sure, that wasn’t an explicit confirmation, but given the comments, the qualifiers and the tone in which he made the comments, it’s hardly a stretch to think the allegations raised in Woodward’s book are credible. [video at the link]
And that, of course, raises a series of related questions. If Trump and Putin have engaged in a series of secret chats — conversations the Republican now believes would be “smart” — how many interactions have the two had? Did Trump offer briefings to U.S. intelligence agencies and the State Department after the conversations?
Did the two talk about U.S. policy toward Ukraine? Did Trump make any promises or extend any guarantees to his benefactor in Moscow? Did the former president say or do anything during the discussions that directly or indirectly undermined his own country’s foreign policy agenda?
Did Trump violate the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from communicating with foreign leaders “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States”?
[…] “The number of people who lost their grandparents and parents, remember what that was like?” she [Kamala Harris] continued. “People were scrambling for the resources and needed tests, and Donald Trump secretly sent covid tests to the president of Russia.”
Just to give some positive vibes in the midst of the election anxiety, I dug up Ladytron’s celebration of Los Angeles.
.
Ladytron – City of Angels (Official Audio)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=r7-n_vk8ox8
Today’s post from Heather Cox Richardson, mostly about he’s bizarre interview with John Micklethwait (Bloomerg News) and the Economic Club of Chicago. She then goes into the position a Trump win puts JD in and his two main backers: Peter Thiel and Elon.
It’s been five weeks since Donald Trump stood on a debate stage and told a bizarre lie about developments in Ohio. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” the former president said before a national television audience, despite reality. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Predictably, there were dangerous consequences — bomb threats, closed buildings, canceled events, terrified residents, death threats, etc. — both for the immigrants and the broader community. State and local officials from his own party urged Trump to stop lying. He declined.
More than a month later, the problem persists. His running mate, Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, still won’t back down from the conspiracy theory, and the former president himself continues to pretend his alternate reality is real. In fact, during his latest Fox News town hall, Trump told new and related lies about Springfield, rooted in part in his apparent confusion about his own country’s immigration laws and the meaning of “probation.”
Hanging overhead is a related question: Did the lie work?
The answer is one of perspective. The Washington Post reported last week on the results of a statewide poll in the Buckeye State.
Most Ohio voters don’t believe former president Donald Trump’s debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are “eating people’s pets,” and agree with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s defense of Haitians as hard workers who are in the United States legally, a Washington Post poll finds.
The results weren’t especially close: According to the survey, only 24% of Ohioans said they believe Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets were “probably” or “definitely” true, while 57% said the claims are probably or definitely false. […]
At first blush, this seems relatively encouraging. Sure, it’s unsettling that roughly 1 in 4 Ohioans fell for this ugly nonsense, but the Post’s poll nevertheless found that a majority of the state knew better than to accept the garbage at face value.
Note, however, the next sentence in the newspaper’s article on the results: “But Trump holds an edge of six percentage points over Vice President Kamala Harris among likely voters in the Buckeye State — 51 percent to 45 percent — similar to his eight-point winning margin four years ago.”
In other words, quite a few voters in Ohio believe that Trump and Vance lied to them about developments in their own state, attacking their neighbors and dividing a local community in order to advance their political interests.
But those same voters have decided to vote for the folks who lied to them anyway.
The more Trump and his allies see this, the greater the incentive they’ll feel to keep lying, confident in the knowledge that they’ll pay no price for the public deceptions.
There were some tense moments on Saturday when volunteers witnessed an armed group of people confronting and threatening FEMA workers in the Elk Mills community of Carter County in Tennessee.
Tracy Elder is president and founder of the International Alliance of Community Chaplains. Her group has been working in disaster relief for more than 20 years.
They are in Carter County at the request of the Elk Mills Volunteer Fire Department to help run the command center there, providing supplies and resources for those in need. But Elder told Nexstar’s WJHL that she found herself between FEMA workers and a group of armed citizens criticizing the work of the government agency on Saturday.
Elder was ultimately able to diffuse the situation.
“They were armed — they were all open-carry — they had surrounded [the FEMA workers] and there was a lady that was yelling at them and threatening them,” Elder said.
She explained that she listened to the group’s grievances about FEMA but explained to them that her organization was not associated with the federal agency. Elder said she felt the group was frustrated and she was able to hear them out, but was firm that their behavior wasn’t appropriate.
“People just need to be heard, and then some of that does take a skill that doesn’t take a confrontation,” Elder said. “I said, ‘Hey I hear you. You can say there’s no volunteers but I’m standing right in front of you honey and I’m here and we’re helping.’”
Elder said once the group realized that FEMA wasn’t taking those donations, and that the command center was run by volunteers, they left and surprisingly returned later with supplies to donate.
During the confrontation, Elder did call 911 because she said the group wasn’t being rational.
“I don’t care whatever their beef is with the government or FEMA, that’s not my job. My job on this ground is to take care of the folks here,” Elder told WJHL.
Because of the bridges washed out in the community, the area is now a now a much longer drive from the sheriff’s department. That doesn’t sit well with Carter County Sheriff Mike Fraley, and it’s why he’s working to get a sub-station up and running at the site of the now washed-away fire department. Two deputies will be stationed there 24 hours a day.
Fraley suspects the group that confronted Elder is from North Carolina. According to other sheriffs he’s spoken to, they’ve been causing these problems on both sides of the state line and it’s unacceptable.
“Those FEMA workers, they’re here to help, and if you don’t want FEMA’s help, then politely tell them so. But they are human beings just like we are,” Fraley said.
Despite the confrontation, a FEMA representative told WJHL that FEMA will still be in the region working with those impacted by the flooding as they begin the recovery process.
Stupid Hitler Confirms He Meant Democrats When He Said ‘Enemy Within’
If there was some part of you that wanted to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt with what he said this weekend about using the military to go after his enemies — if there was part of you that wondered if when he said “enemy from within,” maybe he didn’t mean literally all people who opposed him, maybe he was hallucinating about imaginary antifa/Black Lives Matter people or something like that — then number one, STOP GIVING HIM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.
[…] Besides, he mentioned Adam Schiff as part of his “enemies within” on Sunday, it’s not like he was unclear.
Also, he clarified today that yes, he just means Democrats in general, all Americans — the great majority of Americans, to be clear — who dare to oppose Dear Leader, all patriotic Americans who want to make sure he never is allowed anywhere near the presidency ever again.
He said it in his “women’s town hall” with Fox News North Korean News Reader Harris Faulkner, which from what we can tell was mostly him screaming and fearmongering about migrants and lying about abortion and weirdly saying he was the “father of IVF” and fearmongering about migrants some more. Also a lot of babbling, as usual.
Faulkner asked him about what he said in that Sunday interview with Maria Bartiromo. She played the clip of him saying “the enemy within” is a greater threat than Russia or China, specifically saying that Adam Schiff is the “enemy within.” Faulkner mocked the fact that Kamala Harris is saying, correctly, that Trump is out for unchecked power, that he sounded “unhinged.” That made the audience of Fox News women voters — you know, the kinds of women Fox News and Trump like, the kinds of women who enjoy obeying fascist men — laugh and laugh. [video at the link]
In his response, Trump mocked the idea that America can actually be brought together, and clarified that yes, he means just Democrats in general are who he considers America’s enemy. He even namechecked the Pelosis this time.
“It is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous, they’re Marxists and communists and fascists, and they’re saying … I use a guy like Adam Schiff because they made up the Russia Russia Russia hoax, it took two years to solve the problem, absolutely nothing was done wrong, etc., etc., they’re dangerous for our country. We have China, we have Russia, we have all these countries. If you have a smart president they can all be handled. The more difficult are the Pelosis, these people, they’re so sick, and they’re so evil. If they would spend their time trying to Make America Great Again, we would have, it would be so easy to make this country great …”
[…] yes, Trump is confirming that anyone who opposes him is the “enemy within,” and that when he seizes power again, he’s demanding Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi and the majority of Americans who loathe the air he breathes sign on to his Hitler plans to Make America Great Again, demanding they bend the knee.
That’s what he wants.
Sorry, loser motherfucker, but America will never bend the knee. […]
Hey suckers, are you not satisfied with only buying Trump shoes, Trump watches, Trump Chinese-printed Bibles, or Melania’s jewelry? Step right up because Trump’s new cryptocurrency thing, World Liberty Financial tokens (aka $WLFI ), just launched Tuesday! With […] a website that crashed multiple times, and not many buyers. And a “gold paper” with some new details and hilarious disclaimers that boil down to look, we are just gonna take your money.
The details before were vague, but now that it’s launched, well, it sounds even scammier than it did before!
There really are tokens, Trump-branded Ethereum ERC-20 tokens, to be exact. But buyers in the US can’t actually buy or sell the tokens, or transfer them, because the wet blankets over at the Securities and Exchange Commission are a bunch of joyless nags who demand that “Regulation D” securities only be sold to accredited investors.
So the “gold paper” says in giant all-caps at the top:
THE TOKENS ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR U.S. PERSONS AND ARE ONLY AVAILABLE FOR PERSONS OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES. THE TOKENS HAVE NOT BEEN REGISTERED WITH ANY U.S. OR OTHER AUTHORITY AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED OR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES.
Instead, if you’re in the US, say the terms and conditions, your non-investment buys rights to participate in the “WLF Governance Platform.”
The disclaimer is frank:
You should think of your purchase of Tokens like other non-refundable purchases of goods and services and accept the risk that once you’ve paid the purchase price, your interest in the Token may decline and you have no expectation of resale of the Token.
The platform is offering 20 billion tokens, so each one you buy (but don’t actually buy buy) will get you a one-in-20-billionth of a say in “protocol upgrades, technical changes, promotional partnerships, and oversight of security risks.” Oh boy!
But hey, only 2 percent of the tokens have been sold so far, so if you ACT NOW you can get an even-stronger 0.00000000000001 percent of a vote on if the company should update its software or not! Did we mention yet that there are no refunds? […]
The company is registered in Delaware as DT Marks DeFi LLC, which seems a little too on the nose. In exchange for using their likenesses for promotion, Trump, the choads who set it up for him, and his fug sons will get 22.5 billion of World Liberty Financial’s governance tokens — 22.5 percent of its total supply — and 75 percent of net revenues from the protocol.
Only 9,409 wallet addresses signed up to buy it as of Wednesday, and World Liberty Financial says it has sold 532 million tokens at $0.015. That’s a little short of the $300 million worth of sales they’d estimated, but hey, that’s almost $8 million bucks! Somebody’s gotta keep Poppy in foundation and shoe lifts, so why not you?
Where’s this money coming from? It’s crypto, so, nobody knows! The World Liberty Financial website is registered by Namecheap, a website registrar that outsources domain privacy services to Withheld for Privacy. Withheld for Privacy, a service based in Iceland set up in 2021 by Sergio Raygoza Hernandez, a Mexican living in the United States, was linked in 2021 to Russian ransomware attacks. And Namecheap has been accused of links to malicious actors. Which does not make WLF guilty by association, but it’s also odd that a red-blooded American company wouldn’t use GoDaddy or Network Solutions. [All the best people.]
The blockchain app was built by Trump’s new business partners, Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro, and is called Dough Finance. D’oh! This July, that app was hacked, and $2.1 million got extracted. [LOL]
Zachary Folkman’s experience includes having registered a company called Date Hotter Girls LLC, which posted seminars on YouTube on how to pick up women, “Date Hotter Girls: Better, Faster & Easier.” (“You’re going to be ripping their clothes off and throwing them up against the wall,” he promises.) But it also includes better experience, like selling a nonrefundable $2,000 ecommerce training course while being $77,000 in credit card debt.
Chase Herro (which he spells “Hero” for his podcast) calls himself “the dirtbag of the Internet,” and has spent time in prison for theft and dealing weed. He pushed a $149-a-month get-rich-quick club, sold weight-loss colon cleanses, and ran an advertising business using fake Facebook accounts. As a podcaster he touts get-rich-quick schemes online such as “From Broke to Millionaire in 14 Days,” though he’s left a trail of nonpayment lawsuits and unpaid taxes from California to Puerto Rico. But crypto apparently helped him turn the whole thing around, and he started hosting seminars with Jordan Belfort, the penny-stock scammer played by Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, for $40,000 a seat. […]
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov was in China this week, meeting with Chinese leaders to confirm the continued military partnership between Moscow and Beijing. While Belosov was in Beijing, Russian ships joined the Chinese fleet for bilateral naval exercises in the Pacific. On a very different front, Russian and Chinese hackers are now cooperating in cyber-terrorism aimed at “espionage, destruction, or influence” in Western countries.
Joining Russia and China in these cyber attacks are hackers from Iran. Despite facing new sanctions from the European Union, Iran continues to provide Russia with thousands of drones and with ballistic missiles to be used in attacks on Ukrainian cities. Even in the midst of launching hundreds of missiles into Israel, Iranian leaders see their support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion as so important that they are willing to crate up and deliver some of their most potent weapons.
North Korea is also supplying Russia with artillery and other weapons. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kim Jong-un is providing soldiers to fight on the front lines of the unprovoked, illegal invasion. How many North Korean troops are currently fighting in Ukraine, or where they are located, isn’t yet clear. But this level of direct, boots-on-the-ground assistance may be a big part of why Putin is currently pushing hard for a “Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” that would join Russia and North Korea in a mutual defense agreement.
None of these nations is trying to tell Russia where they can use their weapons or how to deploy their resources. From day one, weapons provided by China, Iran, and North Korea have been used by Russia in long-range attacks on civilian population centers and vital infrastructure. None of these regimes is setting limits on Putin. None of them is fretting about possible repercussions.
They’re not pretending to support Russia in this conflict. They’re supporting Russia.
“We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea,” Zelenskyy said in a televised address on Sunday. “It is no longer just about transferring weapons. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces.”
The Authoritarian Axis is growing stronger and more committed. And it’s not hard to see why the authoritarian regimes are all in.
They see Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a chance to defeat and humiliate the West, demonstrate the inferiority of liberal democracies, and open the door for the expansion of their own regimes through aggressive military action. For them, Ukraine is an experiment. If Putin can do this and get away with it, well then … anything goes.
They also see the war in Ukraine as the end of Pax Americana; as the point when the United States steps away from its role as the greatest among equals. If the end of the Cold War was supposed to be a repudiation of international communism, this open military conquest of Ukraine by a brutal dictatorial regime marks the end of stability, the end of democracy, and the end of the progress that’s defined the last century.
They are making the world safe for large-scale war again.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is making it clear that he sides with the Axis. On Fox News last Sunday, Trump argued that not confronting Kim, Putin, and other authoritarian leaders is the only possible option, because the risk of stopping them is too high.
“We would’ve had a nuclear war with millions of people killed,” Trump said. “And when I was in there, I got along great with Kim Jong-un.”
In other words, Trump has already made it clear that he fears them too much to stand in their way. Or he is simply using that fear as an excuse. It really doesn’t matter.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. has now spent over a month dithering on whether to allow Ukraine to use a single weapons system in the way that Ukrainian military leaders have made clear is a necessity for the nation’s defense. Russia’s grinding advance in Donetsk continues. And the time for the Allies to pull this fight out of the ashes is growing very damn short.
Kursk
After weeks in which the situation in Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region of Russia seemed all but stable, this week Russia made its first real moves to recapture significant portions of this area. [map at the link]
According to Russian military sources, they have driven down the highway on the northwest side of the Ukrainian-controlled region and recaptured the towns of Novoivanoka and Tolstya Lug. On Monday, Russia also claimed to have recaptured the village of Cherkasskaya Konopelka to the southeast, but there had been no confirmation of action in this area.
Russia has also taken control of the area that had been at the very northern tip of the incursion, but Ukraine doesn’t seem to have had any significant force in the area. The larger concern is that Ukrainian troops at Olgovka now appear to be nearly surrounded by Russian forces, and if Russia controls the highway south to Novoivanoka, Ukraine’s options to support—or withdraw— these forces may be limited.
In the two smaller incursion areas to the west, there are still reports that Ukraine has been advancing, with hopes of controlling more area south of the river. However, it doesn’t seem that any other villages or towns have come under Ukrainian control over the last week.
Pokrovsk
In Donetsk Oblast, evacuations continue as Russia draws ever closer to the critical city of Pokrovsk. [map at the link]
It’s now been a solid year since Russia concentrated its forces in the area near Donetsk and began a dedicated effort to break through Ukrainian defensive lines at Avdiivka. That location held out until 17 February 2024, and Russia lost hundreds of armor units and thousands of men in the effort to take this position.
Since the fall of Avdiivka, Russia hasn’t exactly galloped across the landscape (their rate of advance toward Pokrovsk has been limited to about a soccer field per day). However, over the last eight months, the defensive lines that had kept Russian forces within a few kilometers of Donetsk throughout the invasion have essentially ceased to exist. Russia is advancing slowly, but they’re advancing everywhere.
Ukraine has continued to hold the highway positions at Selydove, but the position there could become untenable in a matter of days. There are few good defensive locations between Pokrovsk and this position. [X post and map at the link]
Russia isn’t walking freely into these areas. Drones and artillery are continuing to extract a high price for Russian advances. But the story of what’s happening now near Pokrovsk is essentially the story of this war: Ukraine is extracting a lopsided cost from Russia at every advance, but that cost is not so lopsided that they can stop the Russian advance. [X post and video at the link]
“Quantity has a quality of its own,” says the U.S. War College (not Stalin, Clausewitz, or Napolean, dammit), and that quality is still extremely evident on the Donetsk front. Something has to change in this region if Russia is going to be stopped. Russian forces are now less than 6 kilometers from Pokrovsk, and there is no getting around it: Pokrovsk counts.
——————————— Threats like this one by Vladimir Solovyev come with regularity. They’re not serious threats. They’re just meant to give guys like Trump a regular excuse for letting Putin have whatever he wants. [video at the link]
———————————-
Remember the Canadian idiots who emigrated to Russia to escape “wokeness”? That hasn’t worked out well for them […]
[…] they were running the wrong way. While people are struggling to get into America, they are flowing out of Russia. Oh, and they’re also enjoying a life expectancy almost a decade lower than that in the United States.
Getting half a million people killed on the battlefield probably isn’t helping these numbers. [X post at the link, along with a list of personnel killed, and a list of equipment destroyed]
Russian tactics have been abysmal throughout much of the war, but they haven’t been static. It may have taken them two years, but they’ve learned to use their advantage in numbers and artillery to maintain a slow, steady advance. It’s not too far from the tactics they used in capturing Bakhmut in the spring of 2023, but now they’re doing it without the massive level of loss they suffered in that effort.
While the combination of mines and drones still makes any attempt at a traditional armored thrust next to impossible, Russian forces can still disrupt Ukrainian operations and move forward when given time to develop a position — especially when they have forces sufficient to press at multiple points along a front measured in hundreds of kilometers.
Ukrainian tactics in defense have been largely brilliant (mixed with occasional interludes of stubbon-to-the-point-of-insanity). But now those tactics need to change, and whatever they’re going to do, they have to do it in the face of an advancing enemy that’s days away from securing a critical strategic location.
This could be the most difficult hour since the first days of the invasion.
The special counsel says Trump “willfully caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to obstruct” the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
A team of federal prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith said in a filing Wednesday that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump bears responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a filing responding to Trump’s attempt to dismiss the case, Smith’s team said it “is incorrect” for Trump’s team to assert that the superseding indictment returned against Trump in August does not show that Trump bears responsibility for the events of Jan. 6.
Trump, Smith’s team said, “willfully caused others” to obstruct the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory by repeating his false claims of election fraud and giving “false hope” to his supporters who believed that then-Vice President Mike Pence might overturn the election, and by “pressuring” Pence and legislators to accept fraudulent certificates as part of the fake electors scheme.
“Those allegations link the defendant’s actions on January 6 directly to his efforts to corruptly obstruct the certification proceeding,” Smith’s team wrote.
“Contrary to the defendant’s claim … that he bears no factual or legal responsibility for the ‘events on January 6,’ the superseding indictment plainly alleges that the defendant willfully caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to obstruct the proceeding by summoning them to Washington, D.C., and then directing them to march to the Capitol to pressure the Vice President and legislators to reject the legitimate certificates and instead rely on the fraudulent electoral certificates,” Smith’s team wrote.
Trump’s lawyers previously argued the indictment “stretches generally applicable statutes beyond their breaking point based on false claims that President Trump is somehow responsible for events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” and sought to “assign blame for events President Trump did not control and took action to protect against.”
The indictment alleged that Trump exploited the violence and chaos at the Capitol, and in a recent filing Smith’s team said that Trump — when he heard that Pence had to be rushed to a secure location shortly after Trump attacked him on Twitter — responded by saying, “So what?”
Smith and Trump’s lawyers have continued to exchange legal filings in the case with less than three weeks left until Election Day, when Trump will hope to return to power after his 2020 loss. He has denied wrongdoing in the case and asserted the indictment was politically fueled.
The latest filing comes after the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity gutted part of Smith’s case against Trump. The superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury alleged that Trump knowingly spread lies about the 2020 election that were “unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing” in his bid to overturn his loss and remain in power.
Smith’s team said Trump’s dismissal filing “fails to identify any pleading flaw in the superseding indictment warranting its dismissal” and his motion “ignores entirely that the case against him includes allegations that he and his co-conspirators sought to create and use false evidence — fraudulent electoral certificates — as a means of obstructing the certification proceeding.”
Smith’s team said in a filing earlier this month that Trump “resorted to crimes” to stay in office after his loss and that he was fundamentally acting as a private candidate for office, not as president, when he engaged in much of the conduct at the heart of their case.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, gave Trump’s team an extension that moved the due date of a filing until after the election. Trump’s motion to dismiss based on his claims of presidential immunity is now due Nov. 7, while the government’s reply is due on Nov. 21. Whether the case ultimately goes to trial depends on the outcome of the election.
Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected most of Trump’s lawyer’s attempts to compel prosecutors to hand over more evidence in their case.
A judge overseeing the federal election interference case against Donald Trump on Wednesday rejected the former president’s claim that he was actually concerned about foreign influence and interference in the 2020 election — rather than the false claims about domestic voter fraud that he repeated in the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack. [LOL]
There is “no reason to believe” that Trump’s purported worries about foreign influence in the 2020 election “animated his concerns at the time,” Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote, adding that Trump’s theories that such evidence would be relevant to his criminal case “do not withstand scrutiny.”
Trump’s team had asked Chutkan to compel prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith’s office to provide them with additional evidence, including “all information” about foreign interference and influence efforts in the 2020 election. It’s part of the Trump team’s attempt to present Trump’s concerns about mass voter fraud — which were roundly rejected by independent arbiters and courts — as “reasonable” and grounded in reality.
The defense has maintained that Trump’s false election fraud claims “were plausible and maintained in good faith” and “not unreasonable at the time,” even though many Jan. 6 defendants have since lamented that they were gullible enough to believe Trump’s lies, like Trump’s false claim on Jan. 6 that 139% of voters had cast ballots in the majority-Black city of Detroit.
Chutkan pushed back on Trump’s claims Wednesday in an order that rejected all but three of his 14 categories of requests for additional evidence.
About his request for evidence on foreign interference, Chutkan noted that the claims of election fraud Trump made as part of the alleged criminal conspiracy were “totally unrelated to foreign cyberattacks,” pointing to language in the superseding indictment that states that Trump’s allegations of fraud revolved around his false claims that “large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots, or that voting machines had changed votes.” [Correct.]
“At best, then, Defendant might attempt to use information about these network breaches to argue that because of generic foreign cyberattacks unrelated to election results, he had reason to worry that foreign adversaries would interfere in the 2020 election, which in turn somehow gave him a good-faith basis to claim that domestic actors had perpetrated outcome-determinative election fraud in non-cyberattack forms,” Chutkan wrote. “That logic is too strained to meet Defendant’s burden.” [LOL]
A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment in August charging that Trump schemed to use a campaign of “unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing” claims of voter fraud to overturn his election loss and maintain the presidency.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the four charges against him: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
Trump’s state of mind is essential to the case, and Smith’s team has alleged that Trump “knew” his election lies “were false.” [Correct.]
Chutkan also rejected Trump’s request for evidence on “undercover agents and individuals acting at the direction of official authorities at the Capitol on January 6,” a request that aligns with the false-flag narrative promoted by some conspiracy theorists — including some Republican members of Congress — about Jan. 6.
Trump, she wrote, “does not provide anything more than speculation that there even were any such undercover actors at the Capitol on January 6” and there was no reason to compel the government to search for and produce that information.
Chutkan also rejected Trump’s request for communications by “members, relatives, or associates of the Biden Administration,” saying the “sweepingly broad and undefined” request “utterly fails” to meet the rigorous standard required for Trump to be able to make a selective prosecution claim.
The judge said that Trump was entitled to three categories of information: materials reviewed by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe before his interview with the government; records about security measures that were conveyed to Trump during a meeting with Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, and acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller; and evidence related to the unauthorized retention of classified documents by former Vice President Mike Pence, which Trump’s team could use to potentially undermine Pence’s credibility if he were to testify. The Justice Department declined to press charges against Pence in the classified documents case. [More trouble down the road for Pence?]
The Supreme Court gutted part of Smith’s case over the summer with its ruling on presidential immunity, but the case against Trump is — very slowly — churning toward a potential trial. The likelihood of the case going to trial plummets if Trump wins re-election; he is widely expected to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland with a loyalist who could dismiss the case. [Snipped the usual denials from the Trump campaign, which included: witch hunt, sham, and partisan.]
birgerjohanssonsays
(I am going nuts compulsively checking polls. I had to check something completely different)
A new era of mycelial conservation could begin this month when the UK and Chile propose that fungi should be placed alongside animals and plants as a separate realm for environmental protection.
Mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen would all receive elevated status under the plan, which will be submitted to the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) during the Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia, which opens on 21 October.
The two governments will co-sponsor a “pledge for fungal conservation”, which has been exclusively shared with the Guardian, arguing for the “recognition of fungi as an independent kingdom of life in legislation, policies and agreements, in order to advance their conservation and to adopt concrete measures that allow for maintaining their benefits to ecosystems and people in the context of the triple environmental crisis.”
This refers to a growing body of evidence that fungi play a crucial role in remediating soil, sequestering a third of carbon from fossil fuel emissions, and breaking down plastics and polluting chemicals. Mycologists say that without fungi, most plants are unable to live outside water and therefore life on Earth as we know it would not exist.
“This is the most important thing that has ever happened in the field of fungal conservation,” said Giuliana Furci, the Chilean-British chief executive of the Fungi Foundation, which has been the driving force in the 3F Initiative, which aims to have “funga” recognised alongside flora and fauna. Unlike those terms, the word funga is not Latin and has been coined because it is morphologically similar.
—
Dad joke: “Why was the mushroom always invited to parties? Because he was a fungi.”
JMsays
@11 Lynna, OM:
From day one, weapons provided by China, Iran, and North Korea have been used by Russia in long-range attacks on civilian population centers and vital infrastructure. None of these regimes is setting limits on Putin. None of them is fretting about possible repercussions.
That isn’t really true, China does care about repercussions. China doesn’t care about Ukraine but they do consider their international trade more important then Russia. The governments of China and Russia make a show of being friends right now but really they don’t get along, they just have a mutual enemy. China has forced Russia to renegotiate oil sales, giving China a much more favorable price now that Russia desperately needs the money. They have not done things to help Russia, they are seeing how much they can extract from Russia.
China has played a complex dance seeing how much they can get away with before it triggers trade problems for them. Chinese banks have cut off the Russian banks to avoid China being cut out of the international banking system. This makes it harder for any trade because Chinese companies won’t take Rubles if they can’t be converted into Rembi or dollars. Large Chinese companies are not dealing with Russia, at least not directly. They are selling to fly by night Chinese companies that are selling to the Russians. And even that is limited, no large sales of military gear, weapons, ammunition or vehicles.
Another way of getting rid of reserve currencies from foreign trade is barter, something to which the Russian Finance Ministry has recently turned its attention. Officials have floated a diverse range of ideas, from an exchange of goods worth equal value, to offset deals when a foreign partner exports goods on behalf of a Russian company and then provides this company with goods worth the same amount.
None of these formats, however, are suitable even for the domestic market, never mind foreign trade. Exchanging goods for other goods would have to be manually accounted for, which would create major difficulties for any large or technologically advanced businesses using automated accounting systems.
As a result, mandarins and rice from Pakistan’s Meskay & Femtee Trading Company will be exchanged for chickpeas and lentils from the Russian company Astarta-Agrotrading, The Moscow Times reported.
“Russia and Pakistan have some difficulties in making mutual payments. Therefore, the two companies decided to launch a barter trade mechanism,” Ukrainska Pravda quoted Pakistani Deputy Minister of Trade Nasir Hamid as saying.
According to the agreement, Russia will provide 20,000 tons of chickpeas in exchange for the same amount of Pakistani rice. Separately, Pakistan will trade 10,000 tons of potatoes and 15,000 tons of mandarin oranges for 10,000 tons of Russian lentils and 15,000 tons of chickpeas.
—
(See, those are limits)
John Moralessays
This is, um, something. Germany has a reputation, and not for this sort of thing.
A state-of-the-art fire station in western Germany that was completed last year at a cost of tens of millions of euros has burned to the ground because it had not been equipped with a fire alarm.
The town of Stadtallendorf had proudly unveiled the new structure less than a year ago, but early on Wednesday emergency services were alerted to a fire that had started in a vehicle before quickly spreading to the whole building.
About 170 firefighters battled the blaze, including members of the local volunteer fire brigade, as 10-metre flames leapt from the station’s roof.
No one was injured although 10 fire engines were destroyed. But relief at the lack of casualties quickly gave way to incredulity that the building had no fire alarm – and then growing outrage and bafflement over the revelation that this was not a legal requirement.
Firefighters who rushed to the scene became emotional at the realisation that their own station had burned to the ground.
“It is a nightmare for a firefighter. No one wants to have to extinguish his own fire station,” the district fire inspector, Lars Schäfer, told German media, adding that the cost of the damage was estimated at €20m-24m.
Former President Donald Trump’s transition operation is compiling lists of names of people to keep out of a second Trump administration.
The lists of undesirable staffers include people linked to the Project 2025 policy blueprint; officials who resigned in protest of Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; and others perceived as disloyal to the former president, said two former Trump officials familiar with the discussions.
That Trump has a blacklist isn’t a surprise. There is a long list of government officials that angered him the last time he was president. He has a history of being petty and vindictive. That people associated with Project 2025 are on the list is a surprise. Wonder how he will replace Vance?
Just kidding. The whole thing may just be part of Trump dissociating himself from Project 2025 and they could easily be dropped from the list after the election. That officials from the Trump campaign are willing to talk about it suggests this is the case.
Trump may actually want to keep people too closely tied to Project 2025 out because they will not personally loyal to him or it will bring bad publicity to him. In any case a really broad ban on people associated with or supporting Project 2025 is impractical, the list of organizations supporting it is long. Even if he sticks by a ban it will probably just be people who wrote it, not all supporters.
Jeansays
JM @22
Project 2025 will be back once President J.D. Vance is sworn in after the 25th amendment has been invoked. That’s looking more and more like the plan is to get Trump elected (since Vance would not be electable) and get rid of him once it becomes practical to do so.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unveiled his much anticipated “victory plan” on Wednesday, calling on his allies to take urgent steps to bolster Kyiv at a precarious moment in a bid to end the war with Russia next year.
As Moscow’s forces advance in the east and a bleak winter of power cuts looms, he told parliament his plan contained five main points that were in the hands of his allies, including an unconditional invite to join NATO now and weapons support.”
In return, he offered a Western role in developing Ukraine’s natural mineral resources and said Ukrainian troops could enhance the security of NATO and replace some of the U.S. forces in Europe.
“Together with our partners, we must change the circumstances so that the war ends. Regardless of what Putin wants. We must all change the circumstances so that Russia is forced to peace,” he told lawmakers and top officials.
Zelenskyy, who has unrelentingly called for a “fair” end to the war, says his plan is needed to force the Kremlin to negotiate in good faith […]
“We hear the word ‘negotiations’ from partners and the word ‘justice’ much less often. Ukraine is open to diplomacy, but honest (diplomacy),” he said.
His plan proposed establishing a “comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” inside Ukraine to protect against threats from Russia and to destroy its military power. He did not elaborate, but said there was an additional secret addendum that he could not disclose.
The plan, he added, also envisaged a Western role investing in and jointly protecting Ukraine’s natural mineral resources from Russian attacks as well as post-war reconstruction pledges.
The plan is a major test of the political will of Kyiv’s key allies, who have poured in many billions of dollars of weapons to support Ukraine, while navigating fears of an “escalation” in a war against a nation with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
NATO has said Ukraine is heading for membership but has stopped short of issuing an invitation.
The Kremlin said it was too early to comment in detail on Zelenskyy’s plan, but that Kyiv needed to “sober up” and realize the futility of the policies it was pursuing. […]
Zelenskyy said it was imperative Kyiv’s partners remained united.
He reiterated his months-old request for Western backing to conduct longer-range strikes into Russia, spoke of a “clear list of weapons” and air defenses that were needed and the importance of continuing its operations in Russia, a reference to Kyiv’s surprise incursion in Russia’s Kursk region in August.
“If we start moving on this victory plan now, we may be able to end the war by next year at the latest,” he said.
Zelenskyy said he would travel to a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday to present his plan.
He already met U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington at the end of the September to discuss it. In a subsequent whirlwind tour of Europe, he met the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany and outlined his plan.
The speech was attended by his top military, intelligence and political brass as well as lawmakers, some of whom occasionally stood up to applaud, although it was panned by some lawmakers.
[…] Zelenskyy said it was imperative Kyiv’s partners remained united.
He reiterated his months-old request for Western backing to conduct longer-range strikes into Russia, spoke of a “clear list of weapons” and air defenses that were needed and the importance of continuing its operations in Russia, a reference to Kyiv’s surprise incursion in Russia’s Kursk region in August.
“If we start moving on this victory plan now, we may be able to end the war by next year at the latest,” he said.
Zelenskyy said he would travel to a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday to present his plan.
He already met U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington at the end of the September to discuss it. In a subsequent whirlwind tour of Europe, he met the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany and outlined his plan.
The speech was attended by his top military, intelligence and political brass as well as lawmakers, some of whom occasionally stood up to applaud, although it was panned by some lawmakers.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Biden administration at least in the short term to enforce its latest attempt to curb climate-harming carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants that contribute to climate change. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, rejected emergency requests brought by Republican states led by West Virginia and various industry groups seeking to block the regulation.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday celebrated new data from the National Labor Relations Board showing that the number of workers filing for union representation has doubled since the start of his administration.
In a statement, Biden said his is the “first administration in five decades to have an increase in union petitions.”
Papa fertilization really stepped in it Wednesday when trying to convince a group of women that his supposed ardent support for in-vitro fertilization is a genuine, long-held political position — and not a bandwagon he hopped on when it became a convenient middle ground for damage control on his abortion record this campaign cycle.
During a town hall event hosted and moderated by Fox News’ Harris Faulkner in the battleground state of Georgia on Tuesday, Donald Trump faced questions from an all-female audience, which reportedly consisted of women associated with local Republican groups, hand-picked by Fox News. Despite the friendly audience, Trump fumbled around as he answered their questions in weird and sexists ways — at one point painting himself as the “father of IVF” while admitting he just learned what the procedure was this year when the “fantastically attractive” Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) explained it to him.
Here’s what the former president said in response to a question about his support for the procedure:
[Britt] called me up like, “Emergency! Emergency!” Because an Alabama judge had ruled that the IVF clinics were illegal and they have to be closed down. A judge ruled. And she said, “Friends of mine came up to me, and they were — oh, they were so angry!”
I didn’t even know they were going, you know, they were — it’s fertilization. I didn’t know they were even involved in, nobody talks about — they don’t talk about it. But now that they can’t do it — she said, “I was attacked. In a certain way, I was attacked.”
And I said, “Explain IVF very quickly.” And within about two minutes, I understood it. I said, “No, no. We’re totally in favor of IVF.”
Trump introduced his new moniker for himself in response to a question about restrictive abortion bans in red states and how the bans might impact access to the popular and commonly used fertility treatment.
“I want to talk about IVF. I’m the father of IVF!” he exclaimed, before assuring audience members that the extreme bans that have been passed in states across the nation in the wake of Roe’s overturning — a legacy that he picks and chooses when to take credit for — are “going to be redone.”
“It’s going to be redone, it’s going to be redone, they’re going to — you end up with the vote of the people. And some of them, I agree, they’re too tough, too tough. And those are going to be redone,” he said.
“We really are the party for IVF. We want fertilization and it is all the way, and the Democrats tried to attack us on it and we are out there on IVF even more than them. We are totally in favor of it,” he continued.
This, of course, all flies in the face of recent history: Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have spent recent months espousing their undying support for the fertility treatment, though it was put in harms way in the first place through the legal reasoning of their religious right allies, who contend that personhood begins at or even before conception. That ideology paved the way for the conservative Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling.
It was not until the Alabama Supreme Court handed down a decision that made that reasoning explicit, declaring embryos to be “babies” and putting IVF in the crosshairs, that Republicans spoke out about their supposed deep and undying love for the procedure. That rhetoric has been rolled out in split screen, as Republicans fight Democrats’ attempts to pass federal IVF protections in Congress, and continue to push for laws that would enshrine fetal personhood at the state level.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ first-ever interview on Fox News aired Wednesday. The pretaped segment was expected to be an ambush on the Democratic presidential nominee—and host Brett Baier did not defy those expectations.
Baier immediately tried to bulldoze Harris on the issue of immigration and border security, not even allowing her to respond to his opening “question.” After all, allowing Harris to explain how GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republicans decided to exploit border security as an election issue instead of working on a solution wouldn’t make Fox News’ favored candidate particularly appealing.
“I’m responding to the point you raised, and I’d like to finish,” Harris said when Baier tried to bulldoze through a second “question.” She proceeded to detail all of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to address border security that were ultimately obstructed by Trump and his minions in the Republican Party.
“And Donald Trump found out about that bill and told them to kill it because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.” Harris said, steamrolling right through Baier’s interruptions. “And in this election, this is rightly a discussion that the American people want to have. And what they want are solutions, and they want a president of the United States who is not playing political games with the issue.”
[video at the link]
Harris also set the record straight when Baier tried to downplay Trump’s indefensible threats to sic military forces on American citizens who he deems “radical left lunatics.” She objected when Baier instead showed a clip of Trump joking about being persecuted and comparing himself to infamous gangster Al Capone.
“I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about ‘the enemy within’ that he has repeated,” Harris insisted. “That’s not what you just showed.”
The vice president then broke it down for Fox News viewers.
“Here’s the bottom line. He has repeated it many times. And you and I both know that. And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people,” Harris told Baier. “He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him.”
“This is a democracy,” Harris continued. “And in a democracy, the president of the United States, in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake” [video at the link]
On the fly, and in the moment, Harris had to call out Brett Baier’s deceptive editing of a clip he showed of Trump speaking. Baier and his team did, in fact, edit out the part where Trump emphasized “the enemy within.” Trump has been using that phrase a lot to describe anyone who disagrees with him.
“Maddow: Trump is Trying to Make More Hush Money Payments to Porn Star Stormy Daniels”
I can’t believe I just wrote that title. But seriously it’s happening, and Rachel has all the receipts.
Through lawyers, Trump has been pressuring Stormy to sign an NDA, offering different sums depending on the level of her silence. She won’t sign an NDA, but I think, has accepted something like $600,000 as a “settlement” from Donald Trump.
As troffelmasse corrected me — perhaps this isn’t officially “hush money”, it is still extremely sketchy.
Maddow has documentation of the bargaining back and forth from as recently as July of 2024. That’s just a couple of months ago.
This is terrible for TFG. He has been caught red handed, committing the exact same crimes that only months ago gave him 34 felony convictions! This almost feels like an October surprise, but who knows anymore.
Lets keep kicking ass and go win this thing.
I will embed the video of Maddow breaking into Chris Hayes’ show to break this news, the moment it is available.
Or you can click the play button on this tweet: [available at the link]
Update 9:58pm EDT:
In the comments, troffelmasse makes a very important point:
hey eric … I think this whole thing was a negotiation between Trump and Daniels for the judgment against her over her failed defamation suit … which must have gotten up to the $600k range because of interest? Trump’s lawyers were willing to REDUCE that settlement if Daniels would shut up, and were negotiating about it.
I think you might edit your diary so it doesn’t sound like the $600+k was hush money. Maddow’s video explains the numbers. Ultimately, Daniels didn’t accept the NDA idea and settled for $627.5k.
I appreciate the correction!
I believe, nevertheless, that this is still newsworthy. It is odd that Trump is constantly trying to keep this one porn star quiet. What else does she know?
Yes, I agree. The new developments are newsworthy because Trump is still trying to buy Stormy Daniel’s silence. And he is trying to do so right before an election.
Trump’s lawyers wanted Stormy Daniels to sign a very restrictive NDA, an NDA that even included her agreeing to not talk about Trump’s campaign for the presidency.
Trump’s campaign responded to an inquiry from Rachel Maddow. Part of their response included a claim that all of the documents Rachel used in her report were part of an illegal hack-and-dump by the Iranians. Rachel made it clear that Stormy and her lawyers provided access to the documents. Nothing was hacked. Nothing was second hand.
Posted by readers of the article:
Maddow argues that Trump was apparently trying to launder another NDA through the legal settlement monies Daniels owed Trump. Trump was willing to lower the settlement to $620k if she agreed (started at $650k). She wouldn’t, so the negotiations ended at $627.5k, which she paid. Trump’s campaign then accused Maddow of getting the docs she had from the Iranian hacking. Maddow got them from Daniels’ lawyer lol.
———————————
What is he so desperate to keep her from spilling to the media this time around? I can think of any number of possibilities, but even so, none of them is so grave as to have him willingly stick his head even deeper into the noose, unless whatever it is will seem magnified by being so close to the election […]Curiouser and curiouser…
———————————
somebody set up a Go-fund-me that netted all the money Daniels needed to settle with Trump. What was going on was the negotiating between Trump and Daniels’ lawyers about exactly what the finally settlement would be. And part of those debts stem from a defamation suit that Daniels brought against Trump, and lost, and so owes Trump several hundred thousand dollars in damages and legal fees.
Facts:
– Stormy Daniels did NOT agree to sign an new “hush” agreement. No NDA was signed.
– Ms. Daniels paid her legal debt to Trump.
– Trump was saying, basically, “you owe this much but we will allow you to pay less if you also sign an NDA.” That’s the part of the Trump-proposed deal that looks like trying to launder (hide) a hush-money agreement inside a legal settlement
– Trump, who rather infamously does not use his own money to pay for anything, was willing to use his own money to try to silence Stormy Daniels … again.
– Trump failed in this latest attempt to silence Ms. Daniels.
Link
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-1/#comment-2239600
Vance’s laughable lie: Trump ‘didn’t go after’ his political foes
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-1/#comment-2239595
Guardian: Elon Musk gave $75m to his pro-Trump group in three months
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-1/#comment-2239575
CNBC: Trump’s coin sale misses early targets as crypto project’s website crashes
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-1/#comment-2239488
Watch Rachel Maddow debunk one of the biggest Trump myths
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-1/#comment-2239462
If election board officials in Georgia are thinking about refusing to certify election results they don’t like, a judge has now told them they can’t.
Just to give some positive vibes in the midst of the election anxiety, I dug up Ladytron’s celebration of Los Angeles.
.
Ladytron – City of Angels (Official Audio)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=r7-n_vk8ox8
Why Turkey Has Finally Had Enough of Erdogan
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7oLPL9KOCWE
Today’s post from Heather Cox Richardson, mostly about he’s bizarre interview with John Micklethwait (Bloomerg News) and the Economic Club of Chicago. She then goes into the position a Trump win puts JD in and his two main backers: Peter Thiel and Elon.
Poll shows the effectiveness of Trump’s lie about Springfield, Ohio
FEMA workers threatened by armed group in Tennessee
https://www.wonkette.com/p/stupid-hitler-confirms-he-meant-democrats
Stupid Hitler Confirms He Meant Democrats When He Said ‘Enemy Within’
https://www.wonkette.com/p/step-right-up-trumps-crypto-scam
Step Right Up! Trump’s Crypto Scam Is Live!
Yep. All the best people. Top to bottom.
Art that is weird in a good way:
PUPARIA by Shingo Tamagawa
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CWnqX41JHuM
GUILE’S THEME
Composed by Yoko Shimomura
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iof5pRAIZmw
Ukraine Update, by Mark Sumner.
Big Mama Thornton: Hound Dog (1953)
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/c1NwxXTtveooUvDP/
Followup to comment 11.
Mark Sumner added:
Donald Trump bears responsibility for Jan. 6 attack, Jack Smith argues in new filing
The special counsel says Trump “willfully caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to obstruct” the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
Stickerbrush Symphony (Remix)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jE_V_ok2wKk
Dragonan at Youtube providing a synthwave remix from old game music.
Related to comment 14.
Judge in Trump’s Jan. 6 case rejects ‘strained’ argument about his false 2020 election claims</a.
Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected most of Trump’s lawyer’s attempts to compel prosecutors to hand over more evidence in their case.
(I am going nuts compulsively checking polls. I had to check something completely different)
Perturbator (Feat. Noir Deco) – Technoir (Dark Synthwave AMV)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NWQKiefZ-XI
(From the anime The Running Man.
I thought the ambience fits the times we live in)
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/16/fungi-status-boost-conservation-cop16-uk-chile-biodiversity-plan
—
Dad joke: “Why was the mushroom always invited to parties? Because he was a fungi.”
@11 Lynna, OM:
That isn’t really true, China does care about repercussions. China doesn’t care about Ukraine but they do consider their international trade more important then Russia. The governments of China and Russia make a show of being friends right now but really they don’t get along, they just have a mutual enemy. China has forced Russia to renegotiate oil sales, giving China a much more favorable price now that Russia desperately needs the money. They have not done things to help Russia, they are seeing how much they can extract from Russia.
China has played a complex dance seeing how much they can get away with before it triggers trade problems for them. Chinese banks have cut off the Russian banks to avoid China being cut out of the international banking system. This makes it harder for any trade because Chinese companies won’t take Rubles if they can’t be converted into Rembi or dollars. Large Chinese companies are not dealing with Russia, at least not directly. They are selling to fly by night Chinese companies that are selling to the Russians. And even that is limited, no large sales of military gear, weapons, ammunition or vehicles.
What JM wrote.
cf. Joe Blogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE6Uvqr_Fbo
“Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:33 US DOLLAR
5:19 TRADING VOLUMES
6:55 CHINESE YUAN
8:42 IMPLICATIONS
12:39 FOREIGN CURRENCY”
—
Main driver: secondary sanctions — that is, sanction enterprises that break the sanctions.
India is much the same; they will not pay in rubles.
cf. https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2022/09/bartering-cryptocurrencies-and-yuan-russia-seeks-alternatives-to-trading-in-dollars
Thus: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-oranges-trade-barter-pakistan-1962512
—
(See, those are limits)
This is, um, something. Germany has a reputation, and not for this sort of thing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/blaze-destroys-german-fire-station-fitted-without-alarms
Politico: Trump team preps list of banned staffers
That Trump has a blacklist isn’t a surprise. There is a long list of government officials that angered him the last time he was president. He has a history of being petty and vindictive. That people associated with Project 2025 are on the list is a surprise. Wonder how he will replace Vance?
Just kidding. The whole thing may just be part of Trump dissociating himself from Project 2025 and they could easily be dropped from the list after the election. That officials from the Trump campaign are willing to talk about it suggests this is the case.
Trump may actually want to keep people too closely tied to Project 2025 out because they will not personally loyal to him or it will bring bad publicity to him. In any case a really broad ban on people associated with or supporting Project 2025 is impractical, the list of organizations supporting it is long. Even if he sticks by a ban it will probably just be people who wrote it, not all supporters.
JM @22
Project 2025 will be back once President J.D. Vance is sworn in after the 25th amendment has been invoked. That’s looking more and more like the plan is to get Trump elected (since Vance would not be electable) and get rid of him once it becomes practical to do so.
“Together with our partners, we must change the circumstances so that the war ends. Regardless of what Putin wants,” the Ukrainian president said.
NBC News:
NBC News:
Washington Post:
No, Trump Is Not The ‘Father Of IVF’
Watch Harris kick ass during combative Fox News interview
On the fly, and in the moment, Harris had to call out Brett Baier’s deceptive editing of a clip he showed of Trump speaking. Baier and his team did, in fact, edit out the part where Trump emphasized “the enemy within.” Trump has been using that phrase a lot to describe anyone who disagrees with him.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/16/2277337/-Maddow-Trump-is-Trying-to-Make-More-Hush-Money-Payments-to-Porn-Star-Stormy-Daniels
“Maddow: Trump is Trying to Make More Hush Money Payments to Porn Star Stormy Daniels”
Yes, I agree. The new developments are newsworthy because Trump is still trying to buy Stormy Daniel’s silence. And he is trying to do so right before an election.
Trump’s lawyers wanted Stormy Daniels to sign a very restrictive NDA, an NDA that even included her agreeing to not talk about Trump’s campaign for the presidency.
Trump’s campaign responded to an inquiry from Rachel Maddow. Part of their response included a claim that all of the documents Rachel used in her report were part of an illegal hack-and-dump by the Iranians. Rachel made it clear that Stormy and her lawyers provided access to the documents. Nothing was hacked. Nothing was second hand.
Posted by readers of the article:
Facts:
– Stormy Daniels did NOT agree to sign an new “hush” agreement. No NDA was signed.
– Ms. Daniels paid her legal debt to Trump.
– Trump was saying, basically, “you owe this much but we will allow you to pay less if you also sign an NDA.” That’s the part of the Trump-proposed deal that looks like trying to launder (hide) a hush-money agreement inside a legal settlement
– Trump, who rather infamously does not use his own money to pay for anything, was willing to use his own money to try to silence Stormy Daniels … again.
– Trump failed in this latest attempt to silence Ms. Daniels.