Republicans looking for magic formula on abortion

When the US Supreme Court in their Dobbs ruling in 2021 overturned its Roe v. Wade precedent and declared that the constitution did not provide a right to abortion, there was jubilation among the anti-abortion forces. They had finally achieved their dream and red states everywhere started enacting severe restrictions on abortion, some of those having been written in advance of Dobbs and just waiting for the opportunity to pass them.

But the Dobbs decision also galvanized the abortion-rights movement. Some states expanded the right to abortion while state constitutional amendments passed by referendum in Vermont, California, Michigan, Kentucky, Montana, and Kansas. Another is pending in Ohio this November. Furthermore, this issue is seen as playing an important role in increasing Democratic party success in the 2022 mid-term elections, dashing the hopes of Republicans who had been hoping that a ‘red wave’ would give them control of both houses of Congress with large majorities.
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The Trump interview

Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) sat down for a lengthy interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker, which I did not watch. Of course, one does not need to watch any SSAT interview to know that he will issue his usual litany of lies and whines about how he is being persecuted and Welker has been criticized in some quarters for not refuting all the lies. But William Saletan says that such criticisms are unwarranted and that she did a good job because she did remind viewers of what kind of awful person SSAT is.

Here is the beginning. and end of his article.

THROUGHOUT HIS 78-MINUTE interview with Kristen Welker, Donald Trump spewed lies and delusions. The NBC News journalist, like others who have interviewed the former president, tried to parry his propaganda but let some of it pass so she could get on with her questions. For this reason, many of Trump’s critics judge Welker’s performance a failure.

I take a different view. I’m less interested in what Welker failed to do than in what she did. She exposed, up close and at length, Trump’s psychopathologies.

Let me take you through a few examples.
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IF YOU CAME TO THIS INTERVIEW hoping that Welker or NBC News would refute every lie Trump told, you’ll be disappointed. But I don’t think exhaustive refutation is what we need. In polls, Trump is running even with Biden because many Americans are unhappy with the economy, and most see Biden as old and tired.

These people need to be reacquainted with the reality of Trump. They need to be reminded how recklessly he makes decisions, how poorly he controls his impulses, how ruthlessly he lies, and how impervious he is to correction. They need to be reminded how callously he disregards his oath of office and how little he cares about anyone but himself. They need to be reminded what a psychopath he is.

That’s what Welker accomplished. She has done her job.

Oil companies sued by California for lying about climate change

The state of California has joined several other states and municipalities in suing five major oil companies, charging that they had known for a long time from their internal science that the burning of fossil fuels was harming the environment and driving climate change but lying about it to the public.

California is suing five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, alleging that they engaged in a “decades-long campaign of deception” about climate change and the risks posed by fossil fuels that has forced the state to spend tens of billions of dollars to address environmental-related damages.

State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court alleging that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and the American Petroleum Institute have known since the 1950s that the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet but instead of alerting the public about the dangers posed to the environment they chose to deny or downplay the effects.

“Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change,” Bonta said in a statement, “but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record breaking profits at the expense of our environment. Enough is enough.”

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Time running out for the Republican unicorn to appear

For a long time now, the Republican party establishment has been hoping for the appearance of a candidate who would be able to wrest the party’s presidential nomination from the grasp of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) and rescue the party from the clutches of a narcissist who cares nothing for the party or even policies but simply seeks to be president so that he can soothe the pain of being seen as a loser and wreak vengeance on all his perceived enemies, a list that is long and growing longer by the day. But who will bell the cat? Who will be the person who takes down SSAT by attacking him for his multitude of faults as a candidate and a person?

The most vigorous attempt to do so is by former New Jersey governor Chris Christie who seems to have decided that he is the one to bring down SSAT. But Christie himself is a highly flawed vessel. He has long and close ties with SSAT, worked on his transition team in 2016, and even tried to get a cabinet position as attorney general and is still probably smarting from the humiliation of that rejection. His chances are slim.
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The “Do you know who I am?” ploy almost never works

Pretty much everyone must have heard by now about nutcase Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert being kicked out of theater in Denver during a performance of the musical Beetlejuice for loud and obnoxious behavior, taking flash photographs, and vaping.

She initially denied the vaping charge said that she had been ejected just for enjoying herself too much by laughing and clapping but theater video showed that she was lying (what a surprise!) and that much, much more was going on.

Boebert and her campaign manager initially denied that she was vaping and said she was removed for being too loud. But surveillance video obtained by the Denver television station 9News show the congresswoman openly vaping during the performance.

Two sources also confirmed to 9News that Boebert was vaping, a prohibited action that ushers attempted to address with her several times.

A pregnant woman reportedly confronted Boebert and asked the congresswoman to stop vaping, the New York Post reported. But Boebert refused.
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The CCTV video also shows Boebert’s guest fondling her breasts after they had taken their seats for the musical performance. Boebert is also seen petting her guest’s crotch in the venue whose patrons often include children and their families.

Boebert and her date were later removed by security in the second act of the musical as their disruptive behavior continued.

The CCTV footage showed a blurred out gesture which Boebert flashed at theater security as she was escorted out. Business Insider reported that the gesture appeared to be a middle finger.

According to a report of the confrontation from theater security, Boebert and her guest reportedly became argumentative with officials. “Do you know who I am?” the congresswoman allegedly asked, according to the theater security report.

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The impeachment charade

The speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy has announced that he will support an ‘impeachment inquiry’ into president Joe Biden.

The impeachment inquiry will be handled by the oversight, judiciary and ways and means committees, all of which are controlled by McCarthy allies and since the start of the year have spent much of their time trying to make corruption allegations against the president stick.

McCarthy had earlier said that he would first ask for a vote from the full house on whether to do so. And indeed, when Nancy Pelosi was speaker he had condemned any suggestion that she might start an impeachment inquiry into serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) without first getting a vote in support.

In a sign of the paucity of the results of their efforts, reports indicate McCarthy does not yet have enough votes in support of impeaching Biden. Earlier this month, the speaker told Breitbart News, “If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person,” but backtracked on Tuesday, making no mention of holding a vote to start the investigation.

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Trump’s obsession over the classified documents is even weirder than I thought

I have mentioned before that I just did not get serial sex abuser Donald Trump’s (SSAT) weird obsession with holding on to the classified documents that ultimately led to his indictment. I can (sort of) understand that he took some with him during his chaotic final days before he left the White. House. But why was he so obsessed with holding on to them even after he was told that he had to return them? What value could they possibly have for him?

But clearly he wanted them very badly, to the extent that he even defied his own lawyer’s advice to hand them over. His lawyer Evan Corcoran warned him that of he did not do so voluntarily, the FBI would get a search warrant from a judge for Mar-a-Lago, and that is precisely what happened. But of course, then SSAT expressed outrage at this utterly predictable outcome.
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That Israel is an apartheid state has become undeniable

There used to be a time in the not-too-distant past when describing Israel as an apartheid state because of the way that it treats Palestinians was considered controversial. Whenever I wrote it on this blog, there would be commenters who would suggest that I was not just anti-Semitic but pretty much a Nazi-sympathizer. The government of Israel has an official propaganda program known as Hasbara that trains people in the US to pose as grass roots individuals who would seek out on the internet those who criticize Israel and defend that nation’s policies, often using the anti-Semitism charge as a weapon. I could count on such people popping up on my blog whenever I criticized Israeli policies.

But as Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinians has intensified, and as its government has turned hard right and authoritarian, the view that Israel is an apartheid state has become almost mainstream, with even Jewish groups in the US and Israel echoing that view.

Now we have the former head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, joining other prominent Israelis in describing the state in those terms.

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Proud Boys leader gets 22 years in prison

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the so-called ‘western chauvinist’ movement known as the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the January 6th riot. Earlier in May, Tarrio and of his three lieutenants had been convicted of charges including seditious conspiracy. Readers may remember that the Proud Boys had their moment of fame when in one of the debates between Joe Biden and serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSA) in 2020, the latter was asked to disassociate himself from the white nationalist and racist groups who were supporting him.

“I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace,” Trump said. “What do you want to call them? Give me a name.”

“Proud Boys,” Democrat Joe Biden chimed in, referencing a far-right extremist group that has shown up at protests in the Pacific Northwest. The male-only group of neo-fascists describes themselves as “western chauvinists,” and they have been known to incite street violence.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said.

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The controversy over Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein had a wildly successful career as a conductor and composer who made it his mission to make classical music accessible to a wide range of people, especially young people. He was also, by all accounts, a flamboyant and charismatic figure and so it was inevitable that there would be a biopic of him some day and that day has arrived with the release of the new film Maestro starring Bradley Cooper as Bernstein. Cooper also co-wrote the screenplay and produced and directed it so it was clearly a project that meant a lot to him personally.

This review praises the film and I will likely watch it when it appears on a streaming service.

There have been a few controversies about the film, once again dealing with the issue of representation. Some have criticized the fact that while Bernstein was Jewish, Cooper is not and that while Bernstein was bisexual, Cooper is straight. But the most difficult controversy to deal with was that Cooper had a prosthetic larger nose put on as make up to make him look more like Bernstein, resulting in Cooper even being accused of being anti-Semitic.

These are really tricky issues to navigate.
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