Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. :
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has congratulated his country’s armed forces for doing a “great job” after Russian forces were reportedly pushed back from Snake Island.
Yermak tweeted:
KABOOM!
No Russian troops on the Snake Island anymore. Our Armed Forces did a great job.
More kaboom news to follow. All will be Ukraine.
Yermak later wrote that the Ukrainian army was “restraining the enemy” and that he was expecting more weapons “to knock the Russian troops out”.
Here’s a link to this week’s Meduza Ukraine/Russia liveblog. From there:
The Gogol Center is dead, long live the Gogol Center! On Wednesday, Moscow’s Culture Department announced leadership changes at several of the city’s theaters, including the Gogol Drama Theater, which became better known as the Gogol Center while it was Russia’s leading avant-garde theater. The center’s former director, Kirill Serebrennikov, characterized the removal of directors Alexey Agranovich and Alexey Kabeshev as the center’s effective death. “Yes, the Gogol Center is closed. That’s it,” he wrote on Telegram. City officials say the theater will remain open, however.
Amnesty declares Russian attack a war crime: Amnesty International has named Russia’s attack on Mariupol’s drama theater in March a war crime. Experts from the human rights organization gathered testimonies from 52 survivors and witnesses, 28 of whom were in the theater or nearby at the moment of the attack, in addition to other evidence. They concluded that the strike was committed by Russian troops, who most likely dropped two 500-kilogram (1102-pound) bombs, which detonated simultaneously, from a fighter plane.
In sentencing news, Salah Abdeslam was sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 Paris terror attacks. Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years. R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years. Lev Parnas was sentenced to 20 months.
The US supreme court has sided with Republican-led states to in effect hobble the federal government’s ability to tackle the climate crisis, in a ruling that will have profound implications for the government’s overall regulatory power.
In a move that will seriously hinder America’s ability to stave off disastrous global heating, the supreme court, which became dominated by rightwing justices under the Trump administration, has opted to support a case brought by West Virginia that demands the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) be limited in how it regulates planet-heating gases from the energy sector.
The case, which was backed by a host of other Republican-led states including Texas and Kentucky, was highly unusual in that it was based upon the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era strategy to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that never came into effect. The Biden administration sought to have the case dismissed as baseless given the plan was dropped and has not been resurrected.
Not only was this case about a regulation that does not exist, that never took effect, and which would have imposed obligations on the energy sector that it would have met regardless. It also involves two legal doctrines that are not mentioned in the constitution, and that most scholars agree have no basis in any federal statute.
However, the supreme court has sided with West Virginia, a major coal mining state, which argued that “unelected bureaucrats” at the EPA should not be allowed to reshape its economy by limiting pollution – even though emissions from coal are helping cause worsening flooding, heatwaves and droughts around the world, as well as killing millions of people through toxic air.
It is the most important climate change case to come before the supreme court in more than a decade.
But the ruling could also have sweeping consequences for the federal government’s ability to set standards and regulate in other areas, such as clean air and water, consumer protections, banking, workplace safety and public health. It may prove a landmark moment in conservative ambitions to dismantle the “regulatory state”, stripping away protections from Americans across a wide range of areas.
It could fundamentally change what the federal government is and what it does….
Biden can end Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, supreme court rules
In its second and final decision of the day, the Supreme Court on Thursday said Joe Biden can end a controversial Trump-era immigration policy, known as Remain in Mexico. The ruling affirms a president’s broad power to set the nation’s immigration policy.
The ruling concludes the most consequential supreme court term in recent memory.
“I am authorized to announce that the Court has acted upon all cases submitted to the Court for decision this term,” Roberts writes in his end of term statement. The court will now recess from “today until the first Monday in October 2022.”
Bringing this ignominious and appalling term to an end.
ravensays
Sky News
Russia says it has withdrawn from Snake Island as ‘gesture of goodwill’
Russian forces have withdrawn from Snake Island.
The Russian defence ministry called the decision to leave the strategically important island in the Black Sea a “gesture of goodwill”.
The ministry said it has demonstrated that it is not hindering UN efforts to organise a humanitarian corridor to allow agricultural products to be exported from Ukraine.
“This solution will prevent Kyiv from speculating on an impending food crisis, citing the inability to export grain due to total control of the northwestern part of the Black Sea by Russia,” it said.
“Now it is up to the Ukrainian side that is still not clearing the Black Sea coastline, including the harbour waters.”
Some good news for once.
Good news has been rare the last few years.
Russia is withdrawing from Snake island. They have moved in huge amounts of soldiers and weapons and lost them all to Ukraine. Not a smart decision since Snake island wasn’t defensible.
Russia is starting to show signs of stress here.
Since when have they ever made good will gestures to anyone for any reason.
Lately, all they’ve been doing is threatening to nuke everyone over whatever happened that they don’t like.
The sea mines Ukraine has put out have been bothering the Russians.
Today, information appeared in the Russian and Ukrainian media that a Russian landing boat D-106 was blown up by a mine near Mariupol. People’s Deputy of Ukraine Goncharenko also confirmed this information.
The head of one of Russia’s leading universities was detained Thursday in connection with a fraud investigation targeting a former senior education official.
Vladimir Mau, head of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), was detained as a suspect in a 21-million-ruble ($399,810) embezzlement case, Russia’s Interior Ministry said.
Investigators have requested house arrest for Mau, the RBC business daily reported.
A prominent economist, Mau, 62, is seen as well-connected to high-level government officials and, in addition to his university post, is also a member of the board of directors of state-owned gas giant Gazprom and the Economic Council Presidium, an advisory body to the Russian president.
The criminal case in which Mau has been implicated was opened last year against former deputy education minister Marina Rakova, who investigators allege stole about 21 million rubles intended for a state educational program….
Michael McFaul tweeted: “If Mau can be arrested, anyone can be arrested.”
The Russian ministry of defence has used its official Telegram channel to forward a message from an account called “War on fakes”, which purports to be a fact check on the situation on Snake Island, repeating Russia’s claim that it voluntarily withdrew from the island rather than being forced off.
The message that the ministry has forwarded says that Russia withdrew from the island because “the object is indeed of strategic importance, but at the moment it has fulfilled its role of controlling the airspace.”
The message goes on to say that “given the constant attacks of the armed forces of Ukraine, large resources were spent on its retention. It is an island of a volcanic type, on which there is practically no vegetation and shelters, and it is difficult to keep it in conditions of open confrontation. At the same time, the Russian garrison successfully withstood several attacks.”
It then says “the decision was made to remove the garrison from the island in order to avoid losses.”
The Telegram channel which the Russian ministry is sharing is widely regarded as disseminating propaganda under the guise of fact-checking, and it has over 700,000 followers. The message concludes “The Ukrainian side is trying to turn this into a victory, including with the help of international media.”
It’s been a few hours, and we’re already at like three different stories: goodwill gesture, mission accomplished, strategic withdrawal. Also, withdrawing because you’re under attack, finding it hard to hold territory, and wish to avoid further losses is…retreating.
Gazprom abandons dividends for 2021: For the first time since 1998, the Russian energy giant Gazprom will not pay dividends on last year’s earnings. Following the announcement, the company’s shares dropped by almost 30 percent. Deputy CEO Famil Sadygov says Gazprom will focus instead on “regional gasification, preparation for the heating season, and paying increased taxes,” according to Reuters. The board of directors had previously recommended paying a dividend of 52.53 rubles per share.
State Duma approves additional censorship powers: Russian lawmakers have adopted the third and final reading of legislation that fast-tracks news-media censorship by granting extrajudicial powers to police agencies, allowing the deregistration and blocking of publications believed to have disseminated “fakes,” “discrediting information about the Russian Armed Forces,” and “incitements to sanctions.” First-time offenses can result in suspension for as long as three months, while repeat violations are punishable by suspension for up to six months. The draft law also codifies “reciprocal actions” against foreign media outlets in response to bans against Russian media abroad.
StevoRsays
Happy (if that’s the word for it?) Asteroid Day (30th June -the anniversary of Tyunmguska 1908) everyone. See
“Hey People Magazine, welcome to my crib(s)” – Dr. Oz, literally
As a general rule of thumb, celebrity TV doctors with over $100 million in asset$ + several properties NOT IN PA don’t usually fight for working people….
“Biden says Senate Democrats should create an abortion exception to the filibuster — and more broadly ‘a right to privacy’. That would be a second exception he backs, along with voting rights.”
After knee-capping the federal government’s ability to address greenhouse gases and other national regulatory issues Thursday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear a case next term that could effectively eliminate the role of state courts and dramatically increase the power of state legislatures in questions of federal election law, a potentially huge win for the right in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 election theft attempt.
The court on Thursday granted certiorari — meaning it will consider the case next term — to Moore v. Harper, a North Carolina case that centers on the so-called “Independent State Legislature” theory, or the idea that, because the Constitution delegates certain election responsibilities to “the legislature” of the various states, state courts should have no ability to check those legislatures when they violate voters’ rights.
In Moore v. Harper, North Carolina Republicans argued that the left-leaning North Carolina Supreme Court overstepped its authority under the U.S. Constitution when it struck down gerrymandered congressional districts — a vital check on power grabs that state courts around the country have used, to varying degrees of success, during this year’s redistricting cycle.
But Independent State Legislature theory goes far beyond just redistricting, and if given credence by the Supreme Court could allow legislatures near unchecked authority on everything from disputes over election results to rules surrounding voting rules.
Four of the court’s conservative justices expressed openness to the idea earlier this year, but decided to wait to answer the question.
In effect, the court appears prepared, if it sides with North Carolina Republicans, to dramatically restructure the way election questions are addressed in court, funneling thorny issues up the federal judiciary to the Supreme Court itself — “a power grab by the Supreme Court,” as Carolyn Shapiro, law professor and founder of Chicago-Kent’s Institute on the Supreme Court, told TPM in March.
“The notion that the legislature should be construed as something divorced from enforcement of the state constitution — and that it should be the federal courts to protect the state legislature from the nasty state courts enforcing the state constitution — is a really bizarre prospect,” Jon Sherman, litigation director and senior counsel at the Fair Elections Center, said earlier this month.
The case could spell a decrease in the quality of small-d democracy around the country: The right-wing aspirations spelled out in the Independent State Legislature theory would be most impactful in states where left-leaning state officers elected by the popular vote — governors, state Supreme Court justices — are silenced in favor of right-wing legislatures that have benefitted from wildly gerrymandered districts.
State ballot measures, such as those creating independent redistricting bodies to create fairer districts free of partisan gamesmanship, could also be targeted with fresh lawsuits.
When former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the Jan. 6 committee this week, one name came up 18 times. It was former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone who didn’t want Donald Trump to go to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse. It was Cipollone who wanted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to intervene with Trump about the rioters. It was Cipollone who lobbied to keep dangerous lies out of Trump’s pre-riot remarks.
It was also Cipollone who warned Team Trump not to challenge the election results, even threatening to resign at one point in the post-election process.
Given all of this, the House select committee’s interest in Cipollone is both obvious and understandable: He’s in a unique position to answer key questions.
[…] the bipartisan panel sent the former White House counsel a subpoena yesterday. […]
It’s worth emphasizing that congressional investigators spoke to Cipollone in a limited capacity in April, when he voluntarily agreed to cooperate with the probe. But by all accounts, there were some questions the attorney was not prepared to fully answer, and the Q&A amounted to an informal interview.
The committee’s leaders said in a statement yesterday, “While the Select Committee appreciates Mr. Cipollone’s earlier informal engagement with our investigation, the committee needs to hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations.”
The latter part of that sentence was of particular interest: While it might seem unusual for a White House counsel to offer congressional testimony, it’s not at all unprecedented. On the contrary, former White House counsel Don McGahn — Cipollone’s predecessor in Donald Trump’s administration — testified just last year before the House Judiciary Committee.
What about attorney-client privilege? The legal dynamic is complex, and there are experts who can speak to this with more authority than I can, but as a matter of professional responsibilities, the White House counsel is not the president’s attorney. The counsel’s office represents the interests of the presidency, not the president.
While in office, Trump had plenty of lawyers representing him and his interests. Cipollone’s job was to represent the presidency as an institution and the White House’s interests.
With this in mind, Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, has been increasingly unsubtle in her public and private calls for Cipollone’s testimony. The subpoena from yesterday afternoon was the obvious next step.
We’ll learn soon enough how the former White House counsel responds, but in case this isn’t obvious, congressional investigators don’t want to talk to Cipollone because they think he did something wrong. It’s the exact opposite: They want to talk to him because they think he did things right and can shed light on others’ wrongdoing.
If Cipollone wants to do the right thing, and was waiting for a formal legal summons to force his hand, he now has one.
Under a new civics program launched by Gov. DeSantis, the Florida DoE is partnering with Hillsdale College to offer professional training to public K-12 teachers. Here is what teachers were shown last week about:
1. The Founders’ opposition to slavery;
2. The argument for Originalism (note: no alternative interpretive theories were discussed);
3. The political, moral, and social need for religion;
4. The Founder’s support for religious institutions.
According to attendees, the principal focus was on Christianity. Says one, “There was this Christian nationalism philosophy that was just baked into everything that was there.”
The training session was voluntary. However, attendees were given a $3000 bonus, payable out of leftover CARES funding that DeSantis declined to spend on COVID.
Meanwhile, Orange County’s legal team has introduced guidelines for how public schools should implement HB 1557 (aka the Don’t Say Gay Act). Among the new rules for teachers in that county:
1. No more rainbow clothing or photographs of same-sex partners;
2. No more Safe Space stickers. Also, teachers must out gay students to their parents (because parental rights are absolute), but teachers must use a student’s birth pronouns regardless of parental desires (because parental rights are unimportant).
A spokesman for Orange County acknowledges that some of these interpretations of HB 1557 are extreme, but explains that staff need to “err on the side of caution” because the law is so vague and the penalties so severe.
Hmmm…where have I heard that argument before?…
Finally, in Leon County, the school board just approved new guidelines that require (and I fucking swear this is real) schools to let parents know whether any student using a locker room or attending an overnight trip is “open about their gender identity.”
At the school board meeting, one parent pointed out that pretty much everyone, trans and non-trans alike, is open about their gender identity, so this policy would seem to require a continuous stream of parental notifications.
But I think we all know better.
This is Florida on June 30th, one day before HB 1557 goes into effect. 2.8 million students are enrolled in that state’s public schools. Expect much, much more along these lines….
Senator Patrick Leahy, the 82-year-old Democrat from Vermont, will undergo hip surgery today after falling in his Virginia home, his office said in a statement.
The statement notes that Leahy, a skilled photographer, was born blind in one eye and has had a “lifelong struggle” with depth perception. “He has taken some remarkable dingers over the years but this one finally caught up with him,” it said.
The statement said Leahy is expected to make a full recovery but did not offer any timeline for his return. In a Senate divided 50-50, his absence could delay Democrats plans to confirm a host of judicial nominations and a new director to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It may also imperil negotiations over a reconciliation bill, that may be the vehicle for Democrats’ scaled-back climate proposals, all the more urgent in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling today.
Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative:
The Court’s decision in West Virginia goes beyond the EPA’s power to fight climate change. It will limit federal agencies from implementing and interpreting federal law and give unelected judges the power to second-guess Congress and the White House. West Virginia is especially alarming for those who care about health care and public health because Congress relies on the expertise of federal agencies—such as the FDA, CDC, NIH, etc.—to interpret and implement legislation. West Virginia is sadly yet another stop on the Court’s path to handcuff federal agencies and follows recent decisions to gut the CDC and OSHA’s power to fight COVID-19.
Commentary:
[…] Unlike Roberts or Gorsuch, who truly do not care to understand how the climate crisis will grow all the worse with this decision, Justice Elena Kagan actually cites Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that say as much. In calling out the Supreme Court for its nefarious, continued stymying of the EPA, Kagan does not hold back: “This Court has obstructed EPA’s effort from the beginning. Right after the Obama administration issued the Clean Power Plan, the Court stayed its implementation. That action was unprecedented: Never before had the Court stayed a regulation then under review in the lower courts.”
True, this case stems from a plan that was never implemented and utterly destroyed by the Trump administration. In bringing it in the first place, the many attorneys general from conservative, polluting states saw an opportunity to argue harm would be done before a policy even went into effect. And it worked. This bodes terribly for the forthcoming Sackett v. EPA, a similarly “murky” case in which the question at its center is whether wetlands constitute waterways of the U.S. I’d be naive to think the Supreme Court would do anything but set its sights on destroying the Clean Water Act next.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson became U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Thursday, making history as the first Black woman to serve on the high court, The 51-year-old Jackson is also the first justice since Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991, with criminal defense experience. And her ascension marks another first: All three justices appointed by Democratic presidents and currently serving are women. It’s also the first time in the Court’s history that white men are in the minority, for what it’s worth.
In her opening statement at her confirmation hearing, Jackson told the senators, “During this hearing, I hope that you will see how much I love our country and the Constitution, and the rights that make us free. I stand on the shoulders of many who have come before me, including Judge Constance Baker Motley, who was the first African American woman to be appointed to the federal bench and with whom I share a birthday. And like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building—‘Equal Justice Under Law’—are a reality and not just an ideal.” […]
The most famous incident of the start of the Russian invasion of those parts of Ukraine it did not already occupy was Snake Island. […] its defenders told the captain of a Russian warship to “Go F…” themselves. It now appears they have obeyed this request, The BBC’s Sophie Williams reports from Kyiv:
General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, has thanked “everyone who is helping to defend Ukrainian land” following the news that Russia has withdrawn from Snake Island.
He says Russian forces were “unable to withstand” Ukrainian artillery, missiles and air strikes on the island.
“Thank you to the defenders of Odesa, who took maximum measures to liberate a strategically important part of our territory,” he says.
He also thanks Ukraine’s foreign partners for “providing the means of defeat”.
GOP megadonors turn on Trump after Jan. 6 hearings, set sights on DeSantis, Pence and other 2024 hopefuls […]
big money GQP [Grand QAnon Party] donors are scrambling from the lights to the next rock to crawl under. […] They are looking for another horse to back because the now realize TFG [The Former Guy] is a loser in 2024.
I worry about DeathSantis — he is a more controlled sociopath. CNBC notes
DeSantis raised just over $10 million in May for his 2022 reelection bid for governor. That brought his total fundraising haul in the current election cycle to over $120 million, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Of course, every circus needs a clown. Mike Pence is starting to plan his triumphant climb to the presidency by keynoting $5,000 a plate dinners. Please, oh please, GQP, nominate Pence in 2024.
This only proves [it is important for] the January 6 hearing to not just reveal the plan but who financed it. Since it is major GQP donors, this is one place I would NOT rely on Liz Cheney to lead the charge — I think too many of her circle of donors could also be implicated.
I would also like to see the ties between the GQP and Russia brought to the front again. […]
Wonkette: “Overturning Roe Already Threatens Women’s Health, To Surprise Of Nobody”
It only took an hour and 20 minutes for last Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade to start making one doctor in Wisconsin worried about going to jail for providing good medical care. The doctor sent a group text to colleagues asking what to do to help a woman whose fetus was anencephalic — it was missing parts of its brain and skull, and wouldn’t survive being born, if the pregnancy even made it to full term. Wisconsin’s “trigger law” criminalizing abortion (five year sentence and $10,000 fine, 15 years and $50K if fetus is past 16 weeks) had gone into effect automatically with the Supreme Court ruling, so the doctor cancelled the appointment the woman had for later that day. But what next?
Welcome to the wonderful new world brought to you by the “culture of life.”
Dr. Jane van Dis, an OBGYN professor at the University of Rochester, tweeted this week that she’d heard from a colleague in Missouri (where abortion is now a felony carrying a sentence of five to 15 years) who said that, out of fear of prosecution, “We are now observing patients with ectopic pregnancy and hemoperitoneum until they have a documented falling hemoglobin or unstable vital signs.” [JFC]
You see, these laws may allow emergency abortions when the life of the mother is endangered, but if the procedure occurs while a woman is still relatively healthy, providers might go to prison. As in other countries where abortion is only allowed to save a pregnant person’s life, the laws will definitely cause deaths as doctors try to decide whether their patients are endangered enough to make an abortion legal.
[…] Dr. Lisa Harris, an OBGYN and professor at the University of Michigan, was part of a university task force on the challenges the profession will face in a post-Roe world; the study was cited in the dissent to Dobbs v. Jackson. Harris noted that Michigan’s old abortion ban law — currently on hold due to a court order prior to the Dobbs ruling — makes abortion a felony except when it “shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman.”
“How imminent must death be?” Harris asks. “There are many conditions that people have that when they become pregnant, they’re OK in early pregnancy, but as pregnancy progresses, it puts enormous stress on all of the body’s organ systems – the heart, the lungs, the kidneys. So they may be fine right now – there’s no life-threatening emergency now – but three or four or five months from now, they may have life-threatening consequences.”
[…] Dr. Louise King, an OBGYN at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital (she’s also an attorney and medical ethicist, if that’s Type A enough for you), says the laws will almost inevitably mean doctors will have to simply “watch somebody get sicker and sicker and sicker until some point – and where is that point? – where it’s OK to intervene and we won’t be exposed to criminal liability.”
[…] Mind you, these laws are all designed to delay abortion care — as then-congressman Joe Walsh (R-Illinois) said in 2014, legislators no longer want to allow abortions to protect a pregnant person’s health because honestly, women are never endangered by pregnancy anyway:
There’s no such exception as life of the mother. And as far as health of the mother, same thing, with advances in science and technology, “health” of the mother has become a tool for abortions anytime under any reason.
So legislatures will save all the babies by making sure women really are on death’s door before they can get an abortion. And if some go through that door, then maybe Jesus will smile upon them, unless they’re heathens.
Sure, state legislatures could define things more clearly. But that might allow more abortions. The dilemmas faced by providers and patients
“could be resolved by a legislature trying to engage in more specificity, which they will not do,” predicts Kim Mutcherson, co-dean of Rutgers Law School whose scholarship focuses on bioethics and reproductive justice. In places where abortion is illegal, legislators will broadly “want to make it as difficult as possible, and one of the ways that you do that is [by] creating a standard where people don’t know with specificity whether what they’re doing is right or wrong.”
Instead, she says, “You have to wait until somebody gets in trouble. You have to wait until there’s a case. You have to wait until somebody gets arrested. And then you start to understand, ‘OK, this is what the parameters are.'”
Clarity through the court system is likely to take months, if not years.
And then there are the laws written so badly that they criminalize treatment of ectopic pregnancies, in which a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. If not removed, the embryo will kill the pregnant person long before it can become viable. That was the case with Missouri’s “trigger” law until it was hurriedly amended in March to remove the specific ban on treatment for ectopic pregnancies.
Under the first version of the bill, violations would have been a class A felony in some cases, punishable with 10 to 30 years in prison or a life sentence. That included if the abortion was performed on a woman with an ectopic pregnancy. […]
But please do not worry your little heads about this at all, because Yr Wonkette got a nice email blast from a PR firm for the antiabortion group “Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America” to assure us that NONE of these issues are real! The chirpy missive informs us that
Contrary to what many pro-abortion politicians may be stating, Dobbs will not affect lifesaving medical care for high-risk pregnancies. Many outspoken critics of the recent ruling are claiming that women experiencing ectopic pregnancies, for example, must choose either death or prison, which is completely false.
You see, the anti-abortion “American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists” says that ectopic pregnancies really are emergencies, so surely no hospitals will ever delay treatment. Why no, the email doesn’t mention the Missouri law at all, or any other state laws that are so badly written that, if followed to the letter, would result in prosecution of doctors treating ectopic pregnancy.
Incidentally, just this week, Dr. Donna Harrison, the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists insisted on NPR’s 1A talk show that there really are no medically necessary abortions. She explained that the only purpose of abortion is to kill a living human being, and after she said “killing babies” a few more times, they thanked her and cut her mic. Maybe someday NPR will screen its guests […] Good luck with your health emergencies everyone!
The Supreme Court tossed out decades of precedent (again) Wednesday, granting state governments wider authority in prosecuting crimes on Indian reservations than had been allowed under previous court decisions. The decision, written by Brett Kavanaugh, deeply undercut a Supreme Court decision from just two years ago. In that case McGirt v. Oklahoma, Neil Gorsuch believe it or not wrote a very good decision in favor of tribal rights.
[…] As with other SCOTUS decisions this term, Wednesday’s decision in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta hinged on Donald Trump’s addition of one more rightwing jerk to the court. In 2020, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still around to join the majority in McGirt, but this week, Amy Coney Barrett joined four other rightwing justices to roll back McGirt in a serious way. This time around, Gorsuch wrote a very angry dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer.
At issue in this case was a matter that had long been treated as settled law: What power do states have in criminal cases involving non-Indians? (We’re going to use that dubious antiquated word more than we usually do, following the usage of the Court and some prominent Native American legal writers. […])
Where We Are and How We Got Here
In cases where a crime is committed on Indian land, the jurisdiction varies on the basis of the identities of those involved: When both the accused and the victim are Indians, tribal or federal courts have authority. If both the offender and the victim are non-Indians, the case is tried in state court. When the accused is an Indian and the victim is non-Indian, the case goes to tribal or federal court. And up until the ruling in Castro-Huerta, the same held for cases where the perpetrator is non-Indian and the victim is Indian. Kavanaugh’s decision holds that states will now have “concurrent” jurisdiction and can prosecute non-Native defendants in crimes committed against Native victims on tribal lands.
To be sure, the 2015 case at the heart of the decision is horrible: Victor Castro-Huerta, a non-Native man, was convicted of child neglect after his five-year-old stepdaughter, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, was “found dehydrated, emaciated and covered in lice and excrement, weighing just 19 pounds.” The girl is legally blind and has cerebral palsy. The state charged him and convicted him of neglect, and sentenced him to 35 years in prison.
Brett Kavanaugh Dresses Up As Custer
Then, while Castro-Huerta’s case was on appeal, the Court handed down its McGirt decision, meaning that the Castro-Huerta case belonged in federal or tribal court. A state court vacated Castro-Huerta’s conviction, and he was charged in federal court. He pleaded guilty and accepted a plea agreement with a seven year sentence.
That really appears to have pissed off Brett Kavanaugh, who explained in his decision,
In other words, putting aside parole possibilities, Castro-Huerta in effect received a 28-year reduction of his sentence as a result of McGirt.
Kavanaugh went on to say he believed that happened way too often:
After having their state convictions reversed, some non-Indian criminals have received lighter sentences in plea deals negotiated with the federal government. Others have simply gone free.
So forget all that “precedent” and “our nation’s history and traditions” crap the Court has been banging on about lately. This at least partly comes down to Kavanaugh preferring long prison sentences. The state courts are willing to hand down far harsher punishments, and Castro-Huerta really had done something horrible, so too bad for tribal sovereignty.
Claiming that the Court had never taken a “hard look” at the legislation that has so far governed prosecutions in Indian country, Kavanaugh ultimately determined, nah, 200 years of settled law was actually just a big oopsie, and so “the court today holds that Indian country within a state’s territory is part of a state, not separate from a state.”
Non-Sovereign, Citizenship Questionable
The decision is a major departure from previous understandings of tribal sovereignty, as in it is the exact opposite, and as The New Republic notes, that’s exactly what Oklahoma was after.
To get around McGirt, Oklahoma took aim at the root of tribal sovereignty itself. The state argued that it has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute most crimes in Indian country, meaning that it could do so if the federal government could not or would not. Oklahoma’s challenge was that the practice and policy of the last two centuries pointed in the other direction. In 1832, the court ruled in Worcester v. Georgia that the state of Georgia could not exercise jurisdiction within Cherokee lands because the Cherokee Nation was a separate sovereign.
Other court rulings and laws passed by Congress reaffirmed the principle of tribal sovereignty in criminal cases involving Native Americans, as Gorsuch points out in his dissent, so that
[In] time, Worcester came to be recognized as one of this Court’s finer hours. The decision established a foundational rule that would persist for over 200 years: Native American tribes retain their sovereignty unless and until Congress ordains otherwise. Worcester proved that, even in the “courts of the conqueror,” the rule of law meant something.
Kavanaugh’s decision threw most of that in the garbage, contending that for two centuries, everyone had it wrong, and that since reservations fall within state boundaries, state law applies on them unless federal statutes specifically say otherwise. States, Kavanaugh wrote, “do not need a permission slip from Congress to exercise their sovereign authority.” And now that’s the law of the land, tough shit, he likes beer.
Neil Gorsuch, Surprisingly Right Again
In his dissent (starting on page 29 of the SCOTUS decision PDF) Gorsuch decried the majority opinion, underlining what its betrayal of the principle established in Worchester:
Where this Court once stood firm, today it wilts. After the Cherokee’s exile to what became Oklahoma, the federal government promised the Tribe that it would remain forever free from interference by state authorities. Only the Tribe or the federal government could punish crimes by or against tribal members on tribal lands. At various points in its history, Oklahoma has chafed at this limitation. Now, the State seeks to claim for itself the power to try crimes by non-Indians against tribal members within the Cherokee Reservation. Where our predecessors refused to participate in one State’s unlawful power grab at the expense of the Cherokee, today’s Court accedes to another’s.
The Court’s assertion of state power on reservations, Gorsuch wrote, “comes as if by oracle, without any sense of the history recounted above and unattached to any colorable legal authority,” and is shot through with “astonishing errors.” […] Ultimately, he said, the Castro-Huerta decision belongs in the “anticanon” of terrible, eventually abandoned decisions like Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson.
‘An Act of Conquest’
Native American legal scholars are astonished by the decision. NYU Law prof Maggie Blackhawk said on Twitter that the Court had gone against “hundreds of years of congressional action, against solid SCOTUS precedent, and hundreds of years of history,” and that the Court had effectively “become a superlegislature. Precedent, statutes, separation of powers, reason, the rule of law, these things all mean nothing.”
Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, of Stanford Law, called Kavanaugh’s decision “an act of conquest. Full stop.” It’s such an open power grab that she could barely stand to repeat the core betrayal of norms the decision represents.
The right and power of tribes to rule themselves is being dismissed in favor of state power.
Tribes are…I can’t even write it…part of states.
Hidalgo Reese followed that with a brief explanation of why this is important:
For those wondering, “Why is it bad that states can prosecute too?”
Three answers:
1- States/Tribes have a long history of animosity. Fair treatment isn’t a fair assumption.
2- Tribes want to make different laws for their land than states.
3- Many resources are a zero sum game. […]
4- The feds & states can now blow off responsibility while scapegoat e/o for not prioritizing Indian Country (a difficult and expensive area to police and prosecute).
5- It’ll be harder/complicated for tribes to make the case they need more authority to Congress (too many sovereigns in the kitchen already, why would adding another one help?).
There’s one potentially bright spot in all this, as Dr. Blackhawk notes: Congress could reverse this very easily with a single brief law. The New Republic explains further: All that would be needed is
a single-sentence law that explicitly blocks concurrent jurisdiction. (Kavanaugh mocked Gorsuch for writing that sentence in the dissent but did not dispute it.)
But that needs to happen soon, before the Court decides to erode tribal sovereignty any further in upcoming cases. […]
ravensays
Here is what our new world will look like in the Red states.
El Salvador has been sentencing women who have miscarriages to 30 years in prison.
Not abortions but miscarriages. Because almost all the time, no one can tell the difference between a spontaneous abortion and a medically induced abortion.
Abortion laws: The women jailed for suffering miscarriages
By Valeria Perasso and Fernando Duarte BBC 100 Women ^/30/2022
Karen was sentenced to 30 years in prison in El Salvador in 2015 after being accused of having an abortion
When Karen woke up in an El Salvador hospital, she noticed that she was handcuffed to a bed and there were police officers by her bedside.
“There were a lot of people around and they were saying I had taken my baby’s life and that I was going to ‘pay for what I had done’,” Karen tells BBC 100 Women.
She needed emergency care after suffering pregnancy complications. But Karen, who has 22 at the time, found herself accused of having an abortion.
“I tried to explain what had happened. But they didn’t listen,” she recalls.
“I had already been tried and sentenced there”.
Harsh legislation
El Salvador, in Central America, has some of the world’s harshest anti-abortion laws, which ban all kinds of terminations even if the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s life or results from rape or incest.
Charged with aggravated homicide, Karen was sentenced to 30 years in prison. She became known as one of “Las 17”, a group of women imprisoned after losing their babies in obstetric emergencies like miscarriages or stillbirths.
Karen spent six years behind bars before being released along with three other women in December 2021, following a campaign that drew support from international celebrities such as actors America Ferrera and Milla Jovovich.
At the time she was incarcerated, Karen was already the mother of a two-year-old boy. She wouldn’t see him again until he was nine. continues
Re #24
It’s as if Kavanaugh and the other SC assholes wanted to prevent any future escape from abortion prosecution by going to a Native American land. It was not in the case but I’m sure they all discussed it behind the scene. I guess Gorsuch was not comfortable with trampling the rights of the Native Americans for some reason.
The Supreme Court’s credibility was already suffering. The more justices publish factual errors, the more it further tarnishes the court’s reputation.
Yep. Clarence Thomas is a dunderhead, and he is determined to prove that on a near daily basis.
As a rule, when Supreme Court announces that it won’t hear a case, that’s not especially notable. After all, it’s what the justices include in their rulings that matters most.
There are, however, occasional exceptions.
Last summer, the state of New York created a Covid vaccine requirement for health care workers, prompting a lawsuit from a group of employees who raised religious objections. Lawyers for the state made the fairly obvious case that health care workers already had to be vaccinated against measles and rubella, and there were no religious exemptions, so the lawsuit lacked merit.
The plaintiffs nevertheless appealed their case to the Supreme Court, which announced this afternoon that it wouldn’t consider the matter. That wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was the dissent from three far-right justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — who said the high court should’ve agreed to hear the case.
Writing for the dissenters, Thomas claimed:
“Petitioners are 16 healthcare workers who served New York communities throughout the COVID–19 pandemic. They object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children.”
That was needlessly inflammatory, and as an NBC News report explained, it’s also not true.
Pfizer and Moderna used fetal cell lines early in their Covid vaccine development to test the efficacy of their formulas, as other vaccines have in the past. The fetal tissue used in these processes came from elective abortions that happened decades ago. But the cells have since replicated many times, so none of the original tissue is involved in the making of modern vaccines. So it is not true that Covid vaccines are manufactured using fetal cell lines, nor do they contain any aborted cells.
The NBC News report added that the vaccines “contain messenger RNA — genetic material that instructs our cells to make proteins, which then train the immune system to fight off the coronavirus. They also include fatty substances called lipids that help RNA cross our cell membranes, as well as salt, sugar, and a few substances that help stabilize the other ingredients.”
The vaccines do not, in other words, come from “aborted children.” […]
I wonder if Clarence got that bit of discredited information from his wife.
[…] You can watch footage from the invasion (titled the “Michiana Proud Boys Rainbow Crash”) via YouTube below. You’ll notice the “grooming” accusations and “perversion” rhetoric are alive and well with these folks [video is available at the link. “You guys [librarians] are ruining children’s minds.”]
Per social media posts, it appears several of the group displayed white supremacist symbols.
In a video on their public Telegram channel the Proud Boys posted a video of themselves flashing white power hand signs during the disruption.
Hate like this cannot be tolerated, it is dangerous. At another disruption in Nevada a gun was pulled.
Marissa Gebhard serves as the communications manager for the library and gave a statement to a local news station, saying that while the library welcomes everyone, they ultimately “can’t have disruption” and the library abides by a “code of conduct” to keep everyone safe.
“The library is a safe place,” Gebhard continued. “And we want to continue to make it a safe place.” She went on to say the library is looking more deeply into security measures for future events after this occurrence.
The canceled event will be rescheduled for sometime in the next few months.
Jean @27, that’s an interesting take on the situation. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll be keeping on eye on this to see what develops.
In other news:
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration on Thursday denied a key permit for a gas powered cryptocurrency mining operation in the Finger Lakes, saying the facility spews too much planet-warming pollution to be allowed under the state’s climate law.
The decision by the state Department of Environmental Conservation on the Greenidge gas plant is the latest step in New York to curb the pollution from cryptocurrency mining facilities that have started to proliferate across upstate New York for the growing industry.
“We are applying a new law to a new operation which had significant increases in emissions — almost tripling emissions,” DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos told POLITICO in an interview Thursday. “The company itself was unable to demonstrate that it could come into compliance with the law.”
Hochul […] is also being pushed to sign a measure to put a moratorium on any other new fossil powered cryptocurrency mining projects in New York.
The 106 MW Greenidge gas plant hosts a large-scale Bitcoin mining facility, with about 17,000 miners. The plant has faced aggressive opposition from many local residents, lawmakers and winemakers in the region.
Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc., the company running the plant that employs about 50 people, said they plan to appeal the decision and that it will keep operating as usual while the process plays […]
Environmental advocates and other opponents of the project argue the increased emissions from the cryptocurrency mining threaten achievement of New York’s sweeping Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The measure requires emissions to be slashed 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050. […]
“Governor Hochul and the DEC stood with science and the people, and sent a message to outside speculators: New York’s former fossil fuel-burning plants are not yours to re-open as gas-guzzling Bitcoin mining cancers on our communities,” said Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian in a statement. […]
Environmental groups have also raised concerns about the water quality and aquatic life impacts. Like many combustion plants located on shorelines, Greenidge sucks up water for cooling and dumps it back at an elevated temperature.
More bad news courtesy of the conservatives on the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court’s recent assault on our rights has gone far beyond Roe and Dobbs. The Supreme Court quietly issued a 6-3 ruling recently on Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, siding against two Arizonans on death row who sought to challenge their convictions in federal court after receiving shoddy legal support. The majority’s rationale, which was based on a 1996 federal law, was that state sovereignty and legal expediency must be protected at all costs.
Unfortunately, those costs are clear. The Court’s ruling slashed Americans’ constitutional right to effective counsel by eviscerating the life-saving accountability mechanism that allows people to appeal unjust rulings. The six conservative justices have plainly prioritized the legal system’s power to convict and kill over our human right to live.
What is less clear is why, in a nation where folks will literally risk children’s lives to maintain their Second Amendment rights, Americans seem perfectly happy to hand over their Sixth Amendment rights with hardly a thought. The silence on social media and in our public discourse about this ruling is alarming — we should be very scared and very, very angry.
As the executive director and founder of a nonprofit that works to help low-income Americans navigate the complexities of the legal system by bolstering public defense resources, I know all too well that for many, this case — which is shrouded in the deliberately-exclusionary language of legal discourse — feels more like a remote technicality than an assault on basic rights.
But let me assure you: If you’re worried about your Constitutional rights as a citizen, you should recognize that this is one of the most egregious governmental oversteps of our lifetime, right in line with the current oppressive theme of the Roberts Court.
People’s lives have been irrevocably changed by the recent Dobbs opinion that overturned Roe, stripping away what protection of our bodily autonomy remained in Constitutional law. The Supreme Court declined to issue any opinions the week after the Uvalde shooting, and those were right who guessed that it was because their ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruenwould would have looked especially ghoulish in the wake of the massacres in Buffalo, Orange County, and Uvalde — as well as the 12 more mass shootings that took place over Memorial Day Weekend.
The decision in Shinn, though, is no less ghoulish: It tells every American citizen, yet again, in yet another context, that the rights and protections to which we thought we were entitled will no longer protect us […]
And don’t be fooled — not committing crimes won’t keep you safe on this one.
We live in a world where innocent people are prosecuted every day. This ruling erodes protections for any American who might — at any time — be perceived guilty of any sort of wrongdoing. Whether it be the person in the midst of a miscarriage who is accused of committing an abortion in a red state, or the person who rented a car to visit family and was accused of stealing it despite a complete lack of evidence. It truly could be any of us at any time. All it takes is running into the wrong cop or prosecutor at the wrong time. […]
Of course, it’s most likely to be those of us who happen to be Black or Brown or poor. It’s critical to acknowledge that the system disproportionately accuses Black and Brown Americans of wrongdoing, with Black Americans being incarcerated at nearly five times and Hispanics being incarcerated 1.3 times the rate of whites. But when the law no longer protects American life, liberty and property against legal incompetence with lifetime stakes, no individual can consider themselves outside the zone of harm.
The police and prosecutors we are relying on to arbitrate justice are often wildly ineffective and sometimes operating with ulterior motives. These are the folks who booked a man on charges of possessing methamphetamine because the donut he was eating in his car left a white glaze on the floorboard. I myself have witnessed prosecutors bring cases to court that have no business being there — ranging from felony accusations with no basis and alibi witnesses to baseless drug cases based on the word of a disgraced police officer. Even DNA evidence, so often considered the gold standard of proof, is subject to error and incompetence, resulting in horrifying miscarriages of justice. […]
The Biden v. Texas decision rejects a Trump judge’s absurd reading of federal law, then sends the case right back to that same judge.
Everything about the Supreme Court’s handling of Biden v. Texas, an important immigration decision it handed down on Thursday, emphasizes how easily the Court can sabotage President Joe Biden’s policies — even as it rules narrowly in Biden’s favor.
The case involves the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, a policy implemented by […] Trump that required tens of thousands of immigrants seeking asylum in the United States to, well, remain in Mexico while their cases were being processed. The Biden administration announced in a June 1, 2021 memo from Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas that it would end this program — noting, among other things, that it forced many migrants to live in squalid conditions without “stable access to housing, income, and safety.”
But then Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump judge known for his extreme ideology — Kacsmaryk has labeled being transgender a “mental disorder,” claimed that gay people are “disordered,” and denounced what he called a “sexual revolution” — ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the program last August. [Kacsmaryk is a judge lacking in good judgement.]
In the Biden decision handed down on Thursday, six justices — the three liberal justices plus Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — all agree that Kacsmaryk misread federal immigration law when he held that the federal government is required to maintain the Trump-era program. (Technically, Barrett dissented from the Court’s holding, stating in her opinion that she agrees “with the Court’s analysis of the merits,” but she would have sent the case back to lower courts to consider a jurisdictional issue.)
Indeed, as Roberts indicates in his opinion for the Court, Kacsmaryk misread a key provision of federal law so egregiously that, if the Trump judge’s reasoning is taken seriously, no president has ever complied with this law since it was enacted 26 years ago.
The Court’s decision in Biden goes a long way toward reaffirming that Joe Biden is the president, Alejandro Mayorkas is secretary of Homeland Security, and Matthew Kacsmaryk is neither of these things.
But, while the Court’s rejection of Kacsmaryk’s misreading of federal law is a victory for Biden, it is likely to be a hollow one. Although the Court decides the important issue of whether federal immigration law requires a Remain-in-Mexico-style policy (it doesn’t), the justices send the case back down to Kacsmaryk to resolve a few other lingering questions, including whether Mayorkas adequately explained the administration’s decision to end the program in an October memorandum.
Given Kacsmaryk’s past behavior, and his commitment to an extraordinarily conservative ideology, it is very likely that he will find a new excuse to order the Biden administration to reinstate the Remain in Mexico program once the case is back in his hands. And Kacsmaryk’s new decisions will be reviewed by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, an extremely conservative court that has thus far been complicit in Kacsmaryk’s efforts to seize control of much of US border policy.
[…] Last August, not long after Kacsmaryk handed down his initial decision appointing himself border czar, the Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s request to block that decision […]
Kacsmaryk’s decision, in other words, has now been in effect for nearly a year. While the Biden administration most likely will take steps quickly to end Remain in Mexico, Kacsmaryk could once again put a stop to that. And it could be a year or more before the Supreme Court gets around to reversing whatever order Kacsmaryk hands down after the case is sent back to him.
By slow-walking this case, in other words, the Court has ensured that Judge Kacsmaryk, and not Secretary Mayorkas, will exercise many of the secretary of Homeland Security’s most important policymaking powers. And, at this rate, President Biden could be near the end of his term by the time this case is fully resolved and he finally regains the power to end Remain in Mexico for good.
[snipped many details, see the link for more information]
Even though the Supreme Court rejects Kacsmaryk’s egregious misreading of federal law, it leaves him with significant power to sabotage Biden — and to order Remain in Mexico reinstated one more time.
[…] The Supreme Court’s decision also allows Kacsmaryk to determine whether the Biden administration is properly exercising its authority to grant parole to some immigrants “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” That gives Kacsmaryk another possible rationale to sabotage Biden’s policies. […]
The Leon County Court in Florida has indicated it intends to block a law banning abortions after 15 weeks. Planned Parenthood’s case against the state was heard before Judge John C. Cooper earlier this week. The judge indicated he’d issue a ruling on Thursday and, true to his word, he made his decision. Cooper called HB 5 “unconstitutional,” saying it violates the “fundamental right to privacy,” which is laid out in Florida’s constitution. Per Section 23 of that document: “Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein. This section shall not be construed to limit the public’s right of access to public records and meetings as provided by law.”
Cooper said the state failed to prove why HB 5 should take effect in the first place and is ready to sign an injunction against it. In the meantime, the law is expected to temporarily take effect. Planned Parenthood said it is seeking to make sure any stays sought by the state don’t go through. For now, this is great news for the organization, which called it “only a first step in fighting this dangerous abortion ban … We are grateful this court recognized that it is an unconstitutional intrusion on our patients’ and providers’ medical decisions,” Stephanie Fraim, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said in a statement. “Once this ban is blocked, Florida abortion providers will be able to offer patients who decide to have an abortion the care they need here at home. Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida will continue to stand with all abortion providers and the patients who turn to them.”
Under Florida’s current law, abortions are legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Another case against the law brought forth by a Jewish synagogue has yet to be heard. Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor in its lawsuit claims that the state has violated its religious freedom by restricting abortion access. According to Rabbi Barry Silver, who leads the synagogue, he believes a birthing person has the right to an abortion no matter their reason. Other religious groups are expected to file similar lawsuits around the country in protest of abortion bans and near-bans going into effect in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which effectively overturned Roe v. Wade.
From RawStory, Rudy Giuliani as he tried to undermine Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, said this little gem:
“The January 6 Witch Hunt Cabal has now exceeded even its prior fraudulent,” he said. “The last witness was a reckless liar. Contrary to her false testimony she was never present when I asked for a pardon.”
Admitted something, did he?
He followed up with an attempt to fix that comment with “Actually, I told the President I did not want or need one.”
In his latest denunciation of the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the January 6th committee, Donald J. Trump has denied ever knowing ketchup.
“This business about me using ketchup is a lie, and Wacko Cassidy knows it,” Trump wrote on his social network, Truth Social. “I have never worked with ketchup, and I don’t know ketchup.”
“Ketchup is for losers,” he added.
Trump issued a list of his favorite condiments, notably omitting any mention of the popular tomato-based sauce.
“I’ve used mustard, I’ve used mayonnaise, and at times I’ve used A-1 stake [sic] sauce,” he wrote. “Using ketchup is a disgrace, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday effectively handed the Republican-controlled State Senate broad authority over the composition of state boards and commissions, three and a half years into the term of a Democratic governor whose duties include naming board members. […]
[…] On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who is on the Jan. 6 committee, suggested that Trump’s fundraising may be connected not simply to crimes of scam artistry, but crimes of coercion of witnesses. It seems that Ornato and Engel may be hiding in the shadows finding out where exactly that money is before they go on the record.
The fact of the matter is that Ornato’s move from a senior Secret Service official to a political adviser was seen as a betrayal of Secret Service’s nonpartisan position in our government. […]
It has led to the speculations around Vice President Mike Pence’s reticence to get into a car with Secret Service during the Jan. 6. attack on the Capitol.
On Thursday, Lofgren explained to Anderson Cooper on CNN that Donald Trump’s intense fundraising off of the Big Lie is a paper trail with many angles. While it is obvious to most people who have ever followed even a little bit of Donald Trump’s history as a corrupt dirtbag (dating all the way back to the 1970s in New York City), there is a high probability that much of his fundraising has gone into people’s pockets. Lofgren spoke to the fact that money can help buy testimony and offer the promise of legal protections for people who may otherwise be forced to tell the truth about Donald Trump.
REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Let’s just say, we’re concerned. As you know, in a prior hearing, we talked about the hundreds of millions of dollars that the former president raised. Some of that money is being used to pay for lawyers, for witnesses. and it’s not clear that that arrangement is one that is without coercion potential for some of those witnesses. So, let’s just say this: It’s a concern. And anyone who is trying to dissuade or tamper with a witness should be on notice that that’s a crime. And we are perfectly prepared to provide any evidence we have to the proper authorities.
This goes along with the Hutchinson’s own testimony that she had been contacted by “someone attempting to influence her testimony.” It also follows Rep. Liz Cheney’s assertion at Tuesday’s hearing that two witnesses had also told the committee they were being intimidated by people connected to Donald Trump’s circle of conspirators. […]
Video available at the link.
lumipunasays
Re KG 26 and LykeX 35:
It’s been estimated that it should take between 4 and 12 months for all 30 Nato countries to ratify the membership bids of Finland and Sweden. After that, we in Finland can officially sign in, after having one final vote by our own parliament.
That is, unless Turkey actually tries to break a new record in obstruction. If I understand correctly, they can’t actually reject a new membership bid, they can only play time by not approving it. They probably can’t or won’t delay the matter infinitely. I hope our own politicians are ready to play the same game and wait patiently, no matter how long it takes.
KGsays
Lynna, OM@35,
Yes, poor Kurds. People even here may not be aware of the extent of the genocidal repression and violence the Turkish state has meted out over decades to those in Kurdish-majority areas in south-east Turkey – as well as recently in parts of northern Iraq (in this case, with the connivance of the two dominant, highly corrupt Kurdish-led parties there, the PUK and KDP), and in north-east Syria.
lumipuna@39,
The government of Finland has now denied committing to any specific extraditions to Turkey. I don’t believe Erdoğan is going to agree to their membership of NATO, or Sweden’s, without getting his hands on some actual victims to torture from among those currently sheltering in those countries. While Erdoğan remains in power, no-one at all should be extradited from anywhere to Turkey, for any reason.
ravensays
With Roe versus Wade dead, the battles between Red and Blue states will never end.
The GOP/christofascists want to prevent pregnant women from traveling out of state for abortions.
A travel ban like that makes pregnant women into prisoners and slaves.
Freedom to move about is a fundamental freedom.
With our current defective Supreme Court, they may even get that travel ban.
Despite all that talk about Freedom, the GOP is on track to make the USA one of the most unfree countries in the world.
Will Roe decision lead to interstate travel bans?
Possible swing vote Kavanaugh suggests he opposes such restrictions, but his intent isn’t exactly clear
By Mike Damiano Globe Staff,Updated July 1, 2022, 6:28 a.m.
Will Roe decision lead to interstate travel bans? – The Boston Globe
Now that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, more than a dozen states over the next month are expected to begin enforcing partial or near-total bans on abortion within their borders. But some foes of abortion have proposed going even further — stopping women from their states from traveling to another where abortion is legal for the procedure.
Antiabortion groups and state legislators have discussed ways to restrict interstate travel for abortion, according to a Washington Post report. Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, which now bans abortion in almost all cases, said there “will be a debate” about how to handle cases of South Dakota women traveling out of state for the procedure.
Abortion rights supporters have long decried proposed travel restrictions as unconstitutional overreach. Now they may have an unlikely ally: conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who sided with the majority in eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.
In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health issued June 24, Kavanaugh seemed to tip his hand on the issue of traveling across state borders.
“Some of the . . . abortion-related legal questions raised by today’s decision,” he wrote, “are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter. For example, may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.”
Those three lines, buried within his 12-page opinion, have sparked a debate. Some liberal legal scholars believe he may be choosing his words carefully, staking out a narrow position on policies overtly restricting pregnant women’s freedom of movement. Some conservatives think he may be gesturing at a more expansive discomfort with the extension of abortion bans beyond state borders.
Kavanaugh’s feelings about the issue could prove consequential, because he now sits at the court’s center on many issues. He tends to exhibit more judicial moderation than the four other conservative associate justices. But he is typically less restrained than Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative known to be deferential to precedent and mindful of the court’s credibility with the public. (In Dobbs, for example, Roberts concurred with the other conservatives in upholding the Mississippi antiabortion law at the center of the case, but parted ways with the rest of the conservative bloc on the question of overturning Roe.)
So Kavanaugh’s stated opposition to abortion-related travel bans may mean that, with Roberts’s backing, the balance of power shifts in favor of striking down any such travel bans, legal experts said.
“If a state were to pass an interstate travel ban, I think there is definitely a majority to overturn that, now that Kavanaugh has made his reasoning crystal clear,” said Craig Collins, a lawyer who wrote a 2015 book arguing for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. That majority, he and other court observers said, would likely consist, at a minimum, of the three liberal justices, Roberts, and Kavanaugh.
The issue has taken on new urgency in the wake of the court’s decision, which could lead to an explosion in the numbers of women seeking abortions outside their home states. In Texas, after the Legislature passed an aggressive antiabortion law in 2021, the number of women traveling to nearby states for abortions increased tenfold, according to the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts has said its “doors are open” for women from out of state. Governor Charlie Baker issued an executive order that seeks to impede conservative states’ efforts to take action against Massachusetts residents, including abortion providers.
The prospect of a majority prepared to strike down interstate travel restrictions may come as a relief to supporters of abortion rights. But other threats to interstate access are on the horizon, cautions Greer Donley, a legal scholar who coauthored a paper on the subject that was cited in the Dobbs dissent signed by the three liberal justices.
The National Right to Life Committee has distributed model legislation that would criminalize as “trafficking” the act of transporting a pregnant minor to obtain an abortion without a parent’s consent. States with abortion bans could attempt to prosecute out-of-state abortion doctors for murder, said Donley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School.
The states also could target organizations that provide information and other resources to women seeking out-of-state abortions, said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a liberal think tank focused on reproductive rights. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he may pursue civil penalties against companies that pay to send their employees out of the state for abortions, as many corporations have pledged to do.
Borrowing from the Texas legislation, some antiabortion groups have proposed allowing private citizens to sue people who help a resident of a state that has banned abortion end a pregnancy outside of that state. Relying on such civil lawsuits instead of prosecutions could prove to be less constitutionally problematic and might not breach the bright line Kavanaugh seemed to draw in his concurrence.
The wide array of possible tactics to impede out-of-state abortions has left court observers, on both sides of the political divide, trying to parse Kavanaugh’s brief foray into the matter. Did he mean to say he had reservations only about travel restrictions? Or was he telegraphing a more generalized discomfort with attempts to extend abortion bans beyond state borders?
Liberals who distrust Kavanaugh, given his apparent about-face from statements during his Supreme Court confirmation vetting about overturning Roe, may be inclined to see gamesmanship in his wording.
“Justice Kavanaugh wanted to be perceived as being a voice of moderation” in this opinion, Donley said. “He does a lot of maneuvering to say, ‘Both sides have reasonable opinions and I’m not deciding this issue, I’m just returning it to the states.’ His including of that [language about interstate travel] was a little bit of a nod in that direction: Even if I am going to overturn Roe, I’m not going to rubber stamp everything the antiabortion movement does.”
“But when the rubber hits the road,” Donley said, “how will he actually vote?”
David Cohen, one of Donley’s coauthors, emphasized that Kavanaugh’s language is narrowly focused on policies that would impede pregnant women from crossing state lines to obtain an abortion. It says nothing of punishments for abortion providers or any helpers who might provide money or a ride.
But some conservative scholars think liberals may be overthinking the matter.
“I think [Kavanaugh] is leaving his options open, but it’s clear that he does not feel at ease about extensions [of abortion bans beyond states lines] of that sort,” said Charles Fried, a Harvard Law School professor who as solicitor general during the George H.W. Bush administration argued for the overturn of Roe before the Supreme Court in 1989.
Kavanaugh has said nothing further about the matter and a public information officer for the Supreme Court said of the justices, “They do not elaborate on their decisions,” which leaves the public, like legal scholars, to interpret Kavanaugh’s words for itself.
CHICAGO (CN) — A new University of Chicago poll found that over a quarter of a deeply alienated American public, particularly those who identify as Republican, believe that it may “soon be necessary to take up arms” against the government…..
In total, 28% of voters agreed with the statement “it may be necessary at some point soon for citizens to take up arms against the government.” That skewed heavily toward Republicans, with one in three Republicans and 45% of self-identified “strong Republicans” agreeing with the statement. The GOP doesn’t hold a monopoly on the sentiment, though – one in five Democrats agreed, as did 35% of self-identified independent voters.
The poll, a collaboration between Republican and Democratic pollsters Neil Newhouse and Joel Benenson, respectively, surveyed 1,000 registered voters around the U.S.. A slight majority of those, 56%, said they believed the government was corrupt and “rigged against everyday people like me,” with self-identified Republicans polling substantially higher on that question than Democrats…..
The belief in armed resistance was loosely correlated with actual gun ownership. About 37% of those who said they had guns in their homes also agreed with the “taking up arms” statement.
[…]
More at the second Twitter link, including charts showing “Industrial producer prices plummeting,” “Decline of Russia’s population due to Covid and also migration,” etc.
[…] The consequences for the nation—for the globe—are dire. On everything, from abortion to criminal justice to the environment to voting rights. The only way this centuries-long experiment in democracy will survive is by taking minority rule away from the Court and from the Senate which created it.
End the filibuster. Expand and reform the court. Or wave goodbye to every freedom that matters.
The bill for the Arizona fraudit is finally coming due. The recount (not an actual recount!) of the 2020 presidential ballots cost about $6 million, much of it funded by Trump supporters hoping to claw back Joe Biden’s electoral votes and falsely claim that Trump won the state. Since then, taxpayers have forked over another $5 million for expenses associated with this public act of onanism, including half a million dollars in legal fees and $3.7 million to replace the voting machines damaged by letting the Cyber Ninjas [have access to the machines].
Remember the Cyber Ninjas? That was the team of “auditors” hired by Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and her colleague Kelly Townsend to “prove” Trump actually won the state by aiming UV lights at Maricopa County’s ballots to figure out which ones were Chinese knockoffs made of bamboo. The team had zero election auditing experience, but chief ninja Doug Logan had already proved his bona fides by appearing in a film about the 2020 election called “Deep Rig,” so it was perhaps unsurprising that his team compiled lists of voters with the same last name, first initial, and birth year, then breathlessly announced they’d caught J. Smith (or some such) voting more than once. Wasn’t 2021 the best?
But it’s not over yet, because Uncle Merrick just entered the chat! And he brought presents.
The Arizona Mirror reports that the FBI just dropped subpoenas on Fann and Townsend for records related to their efforts to ratfuck the 2020 presidential election in Arizona in coordination with the Trump campaign.
“President Fann received a FOIA in the form of a subpoena by the FBI as part of the Biden Administration’s political theatrics as they look into ‘January 6,'” Kim Quintero, director of communications for Arizona Senate Republicans, told the Arizona Mirror. “Nonetheless, President Fann is fully cooperating in releasing whatever emails and text messages they are requesting.”
What the hell is a “FOIA in the form of a subpoena”? And in what universe is cooperation with a grand jury subpoena voluntary?
[…] in response to an email rebuking her for not supporting Trump, she wrote, “I have been in numerous conversations with Rudy Giuliani over the past weeks trying to get this done. I have the full support of him and a personal call from President Trump thanking us for pushing to prove any fraud.”
Yes, we are aware of the Trump campaign’s role in corralling these slates of cosplay electors. But thanks for confirming it in writing, brainiac.
In the past two weeks, the Justice Department has subpoenaed dozens of figures associated with the fake electors scheme in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and New Mexico. Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward and her husband got those grand jury love notes, as well as state Senator Mark Finchem, who coordinated with Giuliani as well as Rep. Mo Brooks, whose liaison characterized him as “leading the charge on the House side to object to the Electoral College certification in Joint Session on January 6th.”
It seems pretty clear that the DOJ is centering its investigation on the scheme to substitute fraudulent electoral certificates in an effort to overturn Biden’s victory. Which may sound like taking out Al Capone for tax evasion. But, at the end of the day, they did get Al Capone so … we’ll take it!
As we have been saying, Liz Cheney has been talking about witness tampering a lot, so we have been having a feeling it’s about to become a great big huge part of the House January 6 Select Committee’s investigation, and perhaps also the criminal investigation over at the Justice Department.
Cheney made a point at the end of the Cassidy Hutchinson hearing of showing statements from witnesses about how Donald Trump and Company had tried to tamper with their testimony, but she didn’t say who. And now here comes CNN reporting that oh yeah, Trump tried to fuck with Hutchinson’s testimony specifically. […] it had not been reported that they tried to witness tamper Hutchinson specifically.
Cheney explained during that hearing:
“We commonly ask witnesses connected to Mr. Trump’s administration or campaign whether they have been contacted by any of their former colleagues, or anyone else, who attempted to influence or impact their testimony,” Cheney said during the hearing, before showing snippets of how witnesses responded to that question.
You know, because of how witness tampering is a crime.
CNN adds that the committee was very worried about Cassidy Hutchinson’s safety before the hearing, which says so much about what kind of low-rent mafia criminals we are dealing with here.
And to be clear, this isn’t a story about, oh, Liz Cheney showed records of Trumpland witness tampering with two unnamed witnesses, so that means they did it twice. CNN says committee folk have been suggesting it’s looooooooootta fuckin’ witnesses, quoting Adam Schiff, who told them that “Certainly we’ve seen a history of the former President trying to influence witnesses or intimidate them.”
In case you missed it in the hearing, these are the examples Cheney showed at that hearing:
Cheney said [an] unnamed witness told the committee: “What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I’m on the right team. I’m doing the right thing. I’m protecting who I need to protect. You know, I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump world. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts.” The second example Cheney gave is a call a witness received saying, “Quote ‘a person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal. And you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.'”
And then on “Good Morning America” yesterday morning, Cheney just casually mentioned that she’s pretty sure the Justice Department takes shit like this pretty seriously, so …
So.
Oh, and as to the smear campaign the Right is trying to launch against Hutchinson, Cheney said she is “absolutely confident in her credibility.”
So.
Watch this space, or watch Liz Cheney’s space, yeah probably just watch Liz Cheney’s space, she’s going to fuck them all up and we get to watch.
ravensays
Looks like Belarus is going fast.
Cultural genocide can work. Speakers of the Belarussian language in Belarus are down to 20% of the population and Belarussian literature is being suppressed by the state itself. It’s getting difficult to be a Belarussian in…Belarus.
The Belarussian language isn’t all that close to Russian. It’s more similar to Ukrainian and Polish.
They still don’t like Russia though. Lukashenko, the dictator has a support level of 3%.
He is propped up by his army and the Russian army in Belarus.
Putin Says Russia and Belarus Moving Towards Unification
BY ISABEL VAN BRUGEN ON 7/1/22 AT 9:14 AM EDT Newsweek
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Western response to his war in Ukraine is pushing Russia and Belarus towards unification.
“Unprecedented political and sanctions pressure from the collective West is pushing Russia and Belarus to speed up the unification process,” Putin told a bilateral forum in the Belarusian city of Grodno on Friday.
“After all, it is easier to minimize the damage from illegal sanctions, it is easier to master the production of demanded products, develop new competencies and expand cooperation with friendly countries,” the Russian leader added.
In 1997, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty that sought to mend relations that disintegrated following the collapse of the Soviet Union six years earlier. Days after Putin invaded Ukraine, the neighboring countries reaffirmed their commitment to boost state cooperation amid Western sanctions.
Lukashenko and Putin
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, attend a meeting on October 24, 2013 in Minsk, Belarus. Putin has claimed that the Western response to the war in Ukraine is pushing Russia and Belarus towards unification.
“We are taking coordinated measures to protect our economic security and the technological sovereignty of Russia and Belarus,” Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said after meeting his Belarusian counterpart Roman Golovchenko in Moscow on March 14.
“Above all, we consider it necessary to strengthen integration in the union state,” he added.
Talks of possible unification between Russia and its ally Belarus gained momentum in late 2020 when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was supported financially and politically by Putin amid protests that broke out after allegations of voter fraud during the country’s presidential election.
Putin didn’t elaborate Friday on the possible unification process between the two countries.
ravensays
What is happening to Belarus is what Russia wants to do to Ukraine.
If they overrun Ukraine, in a generation or two, only a few old peasants will be speaking Ukrainian.
Someone once said, when a language dies, the culture dies.
That might be too simple but not by much.
My guess here is that Belarus is toast no matter what.
They are already heavily controlled by the Russians.
If Ukraine goes, Georgia and Moldova are toast as well.
Georgia might fight but Moldova doesn’t have much of an army.
Armenia is also all but gone. They are heavily dependent and heavily controlled by the Russians. At this point, a Russian invasion would be like you invading your back yard.
Republican Michigan congressional candidate John Gibbs is falsely claiming that the 2020 election results could not possibly be correct — and citing irrelevant statistical tidbits as his supposed evidence.
“I think when you look at the results of the 2020 election, there are anomalies in there, to put it very lightly, that are simply mathematically impossible,” Gibbs said during a televised roundtable […]
Gibbs has the endorsement of […] Trump. He is a former US Department of Housing and Urban Development official who is trying to unseat incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump after the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, in the Republican congressional primary in Michigan’s 3rd District.
To justify his “simply mathematically impossible” claim, Gibbs cited two pieces of supposed evidence that are not evidence at all.
First, like Trump has since 2020, Gibbs talked about Trump’s performance in so-called bellwether counties — the small list of counties that had for decades been won by the presidential candidate who also won the presidency. “A bellwether county,” Gibbs said, “is a county such that whichever candidate wins it, they won the election with 100% predictability. Well, President Trump won almost every single bellwether county but still ended up losing the election somehow, which is very anomalous to say the least.”
Next, Gibbs pointed to the fact that Trump got more votes in the 2020 election he lost than he did in the 2016 election he won.
“Usually — actually, always — if a presidential candidate gets more votes the second time than (the) first time, you always win,” Gibbs said. “But President Trump got something like 15-20% more votes than he got the first time yet still lost, which is probably mathematically impossible — certainly unprecedented in history.”
Gibbs has made this latter claim in even stronger language in the past, claiming in an April interview that it was “almost certainly mathematically impossible” for Trump to have lost in 2020 while improving upon his vote total from 2016 and that this “never” happens.
Facts First: Nothing in the 2020 election results was mathematically impossible. Losing the election while winning almost every so-called bellwether county is neither impossible nor a sign that something improper happened; in any given election, any particular county or group of counties can be less aligned with the nation than it had been in previous elections. It is also entirely possible mathematically for a president to legitimately lose a reelection race while earning more total votes than he did when he won his previous race. Trump was the fourth incumbent to have this happen, though the first in more than a century. […]
The list of ‘bellwethers’ is always changing
For decades, in the 19th century and early 20th century, Maine was seen as a bellwether state — “widely regarded as a political barometer for the nation,” as one 1932 scholarly paper put it.
Then it lost its bellwether status with a sudden thud. In the 1936 election, the Republican presidential candidate, Alf Landon, won Maine but only one other state, Vermont, while getting demolished by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
There is, clearly, nothing magical or permanent about being considered a bellwether state. Similarly, there is nothing magical or permanent about being considered a bellwether county. At any time, a county can fall out of step with the nation for an endless list of reasons — reasons that have nothing to do with fraud.
[…] “There is no such thing as a county that can show who won the national election with ‘100% predictability.’ There are over 3,000 counties in the US, and every single one of them has sometimes voted for the losing candidate in a presidential election.”
[…] Also, “bellwether” is an imprecise term that can be defined in different ways. For example, Washington Post journalist Philip Bump reported last week that, if you define bellwether as a county that was carried by the winner of the country’s popular vote in each presidential election from 1980 through 2016, rather than by the winner of the Electoral College, Biden won all six of the counties that were on that bellwether list as of 2020.
Trump got more votes in 2020 than in 2016. But Biden got more votes than him
It was not mathematically impossible for Trump to get more votes in 2020 than in 2016 but lose in 2020. In fact, it is not even particularly confusing how this happened. [LOL]
The population kept growing and kept getting more diverse, voter turnout spiked, third-party candidates earned a much lower share of the vote than they did in 2016 — and, critically, Biden improved on the Democrats’ 2016 vote total by even more than Trump improved on his own 2016 vote total.
[…] The result of Biden’s performance was that he beat Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College.
The end. There is just no valid reason to declare that there is some sort of statistical mystery here, let alone a statistical impossibility.
And contrary to Gibbs’ claim, there is precedent, too.
President Grover Cleveland lost the 1888 election despite earning more than 10% more votes than he did when he won in 1884; President Martin Van Buren lost the 1840 election despite earning more than 45% more votes than he did when he won in 1836; President John Quincy Adams lost the 1828 election despite earning more than 300% more votes than he did when he won in the messy 1824 election in which he was chosen as president by the House of Representatives.
All of this was a long time ago, under very different social and electoral circumstances. But it still disproves Gibbs’ statement that it was “certainly unprecedented in history” for Trump to lose with more votes than he earned four years prior.
[…] At the time, it wasn’t clear either who had sent the messages or who was on the receiving end. New information on those messages indicates that both [messages quoted by Liz Cheney] were directed at Hutchinson. And the name redacted from one message was that of her old boss: former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Since Hutchinson’s testimony, Republicans have been desperately racing to refute the deeply damaging things the former White House assistant had to say about Trump. Fox News and other right-wing sources have been flashing up chyrons claiming that Hutchinson has been “debunked” with the kind of persistence they usually reserve for Hunter Biden’s notebook.
Most of these “debunkings” seem to take the form of an anonymous source claiming that someone in one of the incidents Hutchinson relayed—members of the Secret Service, or other members of White House staff—will step up to deny her testimony. But when it comes to actual agreements to give sworn testimony before the committee, the ranks of Hutchinson refuters appears to be absolutely empty.
One person who isn’t even getting mentioned as a potential source in correcting the record is Meadows. As Hutchinson’s boss, and the person she spoke with multiple times on Jan. 6, he would seem to be the obvious go-to guy on anything having to do with either the facts she’s relaying or her character as a witness. But Meadows has remained notably silent.
Though it now seems the former chief of staff did a little talking in Trump circles before Hutchinson’s appearance. One of the two threatening messages shown at the hearing looked like this.
“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition,”
According to The Guardian, the “[A person]” in that message is Meadows.
Who actually sent the message hasn’t been revealed, but it’s clearly someone who was in close contact with Meadows and also someone with deep concerns about what Hutchinson might say. That’s a set of people that absolutely contains more than one named “Trump.”
When it comes to the message on the other slide …
“What they said to me is as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I’m on the right team. I’m doing the right thing. I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts.”
The target of the message also appears to have been Hutchinson. Who sent the message isn’t clear, but in this case, the author appears to be advising Hutchison to play along if she wants to avoid Trump’s ire. While Meadows’ name hasn’t been associated with this second message, it seems very much like a message that could be the ex-chief of staff advising his former aide.
Hutchinson has reportedly named the sources of both messages to the committee.
The two messages were examples of how witnesses speaking to the House committee had been subjected to threats and intimidation. The messages contained exactly the kind of language that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen spoke about when he was testifying during the investigation of Trump’s many connections to Russia. And in fact, Cohen himself was ordered to lie when testifying about Trump’s real estate deals in Moscow.
[…] Politico did manage to snag a statement from Meadows’ spokesman. “No one from Meadows’ camp, himself or otherwise, has ever attempted to intimidate or shape Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony to the committee. Any phone call or message she is describing is at best deeply misleading.”
There’s exactly one thing Mark Meadows could do if he wants to make that statement even slightly believable. He can raise his right hand and give sworn testimony before the committee.
The airstrikes followed the pullout of Russian forces from Snake Island on Thursday, a move that was expected to ease the threat to nearby Odesa, home to Ukraine’s biggest port.
Russian missile attacks on residential areas in a coastal town near the Ukrainian port city of Odesa early Friday killed at least 19 people, authorities reported, a day after Russian forces withdrew from a strategic Black Sea island.
Video of the pre-dawn attack showed the charred remains of buildings in the small town of Serhiivka, located about 31 miles southwest of Odesa. The Ukrainian president’s office said three X-22 missiles fired by Russian bombers struck an apartment building and two campsites.
“A terrorist country is killing our people. In response to defeats on the battlefield, they fight civilians,” Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s Security Service said 19 people died, including two children. It said another 38, including six children and a pregnant woman, were hospitalized with injuries. Most of the victims were in the apartment building, Ukrainian emergency officials said. […]
“The Supreme Court Tries to Overrule the Climate,” by Bill McKibben
[…] the Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling in West Virginia v. E.P.A. is the culmination of a five-decade effort to make sure that the federal government won’t threaten the business status quo.
[…] In essence, the ruling begins to strip away the power of agencies such as the E.P.A. to enforce policy: instead of allowing federal agencies to enforce, say, the Clean Air Act to clean the air, in this new dispensation, Congress would have to pass regulations that are much more explicit, as each new pollutant came to the fore. As West Virginia’s attorney general explained, “What we’re looking to do is to make sure that the right people under our constitutional system make the correct decisions . . . these agencies, these federal agencies, don’t have the ability to act solely on their own without getting a clear statement from Congress. Delegation matters.”
But, of course, the Court has also insured that “getting a clear statement from Congress” to address our deepest problems is essentially impossible. The decision in Citizens United v. F.E.C., in 2010, empowered corporations to game our political system at will. That explains, in part, why Congress has not passed a real climate bill in decades. The efforts that Democratic Administrations have made to try and control greenhouse gasses have mostly used provisions of the Clean Air Act because it is the last serious law of its kind that ever came to a President’s desk (Nixon’s, in this case).
A train of similar cases now approaches the high court—they would, for instance, make it all but impossible for the federal government to regulate tailpipe emissions or to consider the financial toll of climate change when deciding whether to approve a new pipeline. As the Times reported in a recent investigation, the plaintiffs in these cases “are supported by the same network of conservative donors who helped former President Donald J. Trump place more than 200 federal judges, many now in position to rule on the climate cases in the coming year.”
[…] Wall Street may be the only other actor large enough to actually shift the momentum of our climate system. The pressure on banks, asset managers, and insurance companies will increase precisely because the Court has wrenched shut this other spigot. Convincing banks to stop funding Big Oil is probably not the most efficient way to tackle the climate crisis, but, in a country where democratic political options are effectively closed off, it may be the only path left.
President Joe Biden will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people, including former Rep. Gabby Giffords, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and U.S. soccer player Megan Rapinoe, the White House announced Friday…. Biden will also awards medals to actor Denzel Washington; Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen Muslim U.S. Army captain; and Sandra Lindsay, a New York nurse who was among the first in the country to receive the Covid vaccine.
Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to, among others:
Antonin Scalia, the late conservative Supreme Court justice
Miriam Adelson, the wife a Republican megadonor
Orrin Hatch, the late Republican senator
Roger Staubach, an athlete and longtime conservative Republican
Arthur Laffer, a derided Republican economist
Edwin Meese, a highly controversial former Republican attorney general
Mariano Rivera, an athlete and Trump supporter
Roger Penske, a businessman and Republican donor
Rush Limbaugh, the late far-right media personality
Jim Ryun, a former Republican congressman
Lou Holtz, a former coach and longtime Republican who was chosen for the honor after attacking Biden’s faith at the Republican National Convention
Dan Gable, an Olympic gold medalist who campaigned with Trump in Iowa
Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman who did Trump’s bidding
Devin Nunes, another Republican congressman who did Trump’s bidding
Devin Nunes’ cow
Just kidding about that last one.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Before Trump, the honor traditionally wasn’t especially politicized, and presidents didn’t treat the medal as a reward for political allies.
But for Trump, the medal became a party favor for those who advanced his interests. The more Biden can make the Medal of Freedom great again, the better.
The United States Supreme Court’s decision to curtail the E.P.A.’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide has drawn a puzzled reaction from the nation’s fetuses.
A statement from the Association of American Fetuses expressed “bafflement” that the Court would issue a ruling that increased the amount of atmospheric carbon monoxide, which has been shown to have a damaging effect on fetal health.
“It’s impossible for us to see today’s ruling as anything but flagrantly anti-fetus,” the statement read. “To say that we fetuses are disappointed would be putting it mildly.”
The fetuses asked John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch to reconsider their ruling in the E.P.A. case. “It just doesn’t seem very pro-life to us,” the fetuses said.
According to a Secret Service source, Donald Trump “tried to lunge over the seat” on Jan. 6. Efforts to discredit Cassidy Hutchinson just got tougher.
There was no shortage of critically important revelations from Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony this week before the Jan. 6 committee. The former White House aide shed light, for example, on Donald Trump wanting to get rid of metal detectors so that armed supporters could hear him lie before they went to Capitol Hill. Just as importantly, the Republican was desperate to join the mob at his remarks.
Hutchinson similarly testified about Trump telling his team that then-Vice President Mike Pence “deserved” to be hunted by rioters, the warnings Trump received about the prospect of violence. We also learned about cabinet secretaries considering removing the then-president from office, requested pardons, possible witness tampering, and thrown ketchup on a White House wall.
But there was another part of this week’s hearing that wasn’t nearly as substantive or as legally significant, but which generated plenty of conversation: Hutchinson described a scene, which had been described to her by Tony Ornato, of Trump going a little berserk after his Secret Service agents told him he back to the White House after his speech at the Ellipse, not to the Capitol.
While the right has targeted this story in recent days, CNN published a report this afternoon […] that appeared to bolster the revelations from Tuesday’s hearing.
Then-President Donald Trump angrily demanded to go to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and berated his protective detail when he didn’t get his way, according to two Secret Service sources who say they heard about the incident from multiple agents, including the driver of the presidential SUV where it occurred.
[…] According to the version events that had been described to Hutchinson, Trump got into the backseat of a presidential suburban and said, “I’m the f’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now.” When that didn’t happen, again according to the version events that had been described to Hutchinson, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the Suburban he was riding in.
According to the former White House staffer’s understanding, Trump also reached toward the throat of Secret Service agent Robert Engel during the incident.
The former president has subsequently insisted that there was no such skirmish, but CNN’s sources said stories about the incident — including the details Hutchinson described in her sworn testimony — circulated among Secret Service agents early last year. From the network’s report:
While the details from those who heard the accounts differ, the Secret Service sources say they were told an angry confrontation did occur. And their accounts align with significant parts of Hutchinson’s testimony, which has been attacked as hearsay by Trump and his allies who also have tried to discredit her overall testimony. Like Hutchinson, one source, a longtime Secret Service employee, told CNN that the agents relaying the story described Trump as “demanding” and that the former President said something similar to: “I’m the f**king President of the United States, you can’t tell me what to do.” The source said he originally heard that kind of language was used shortly after the incident.
One of CNN’s sources said, in reference to Trump, “He had sort of lunged forward — it was unclear from the conversations I had that he actually made physical contact, but he might have. I don’t know. Nobody said Trump assaulted him; they said he tried to lunge over the seat — for what reason, nobody had any idea.”
CNN’s report added that the same unnamed source said he’d heard about the incident multiple times as far back as February 2021 from other agents, including some who were part of the presidential protective detail during that time period but none of whom were involved in the incident.
It would appear that the right’s desperate efforts to undermine Hutchinson’s credibility have just suffered another blow.
On Tuesday the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that Donald Trump incited held a previously unscheduled hearing. It featured jarring testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who Trump incredulously claimed he hardly knew. […]
Contrary to Trump’s repeated lying, the Committee’s televised hearings have been watched by millions of concerned Americans. And Hutchinson’s testimony drew even more viewers than all of the other sessions, with the exception of the first one that aired in primetime. In fact, it drew more viewers than all but the last of the NBA championship games.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
“Cassidy Hutchinson testimony set audience record for a daytime Jan. 6 hearing.”
“More than 13 million Americans tuned in to watch bombshell testimony from a former White House aide this week, making the Jan. 6 committee’s latest hearing its second-most-viewed thus far.
“The Tuesday afternoon hearing, which the committee announced just a day ahead of time, featured 25-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Her dramatic testimony attracted 13,231,000 viewers across all major networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC, according to numbers from Nielsen, a ratings firm. This total topped the previous four hearings, which won audiences of about 10 million to 11 million people. The first Jan. 6 hearing, on June 9, drew about 20 million viewers, but it aired in prime time.”
Notably absent from the list of networks above is Fox News. That’s because it barely contributed to the viewing totals. Fox’s audience is apparently so attached to the lies that shape their alternative reality, that they will even tune out Fox News – the source of the lies that shape their alternative reality. Then, when the frightening truth-telling is over, they stream back to watch Sean Hannity and the network’s other propaganda pushers.
The hearings are being closely followed by a majority (58%) of Americans. And they are having a noticeable impact on public opinion. When asked in a recent poll if “misleading Americans about the outcome of an election” is a crime, a massive majority of 69% said definitely/probably “Yes,” including 59% of Republicans. The numbers were almost identical when respondents were asked whether “the Department of Justice should bring legal action against” the offending elected officials.
What’s more, the L.A. Times quoted pollster Celinda Lake saying that…
“The support for the hearings has increased over time. And what is emerging very, very strongly from the hearings is not just that Trump was responsible, but there was a faction of the Republicans, Trump Republicans, who were responsible as well. And that this was about overturning the will of the people, overturning the elections.” […and that…]
“There is an evolving narrative. People see it as a crime, but they also see it as a criminal conspiracy. They demand accountability, and they’re very serious about what they consider accountability. And we are seeing these numbers increase quite dramatically over the course of the hearings.”
As for Trump, he has been behaving in precisely the deranged manner that is expected of such an emotionally stunted man-baby. Throughout the hearings the former reality TV game show host (who is psychotically obsessed with TV ratings) has flung flagrant falsehoods about the unprecedented audience the hearings have generated. His gaslighting lies included…
“Really BAD T.V. Ratings for the Unselect Committee.”
“…a total lack of interest leading to very poor television ratings.”
“…the T.V. Ratings are absolutely abysmal.”
“…the good news is a lot of people aren’t watching.”
It remains among the most puzzling aspects of the Trump era that he can so shamelessly foster such easily provable lies, and that there are still people so indoctrinated into his cult that they believe him.
And that’s what makes him so dangerous. What’s next? Will Trump merely continue with his grifting and the fleecing of his followers? Will he attempt to start a civil war? Will he pass out cups of “Kool-Aid” at his next rally? Unfortunately, there is no way to predict what depths Trump might sink to. Nor is there any way to calculate the bottom. After trying to violently overthrow the U.S. government, He is literally capable of anything.
[…] Nine educators, including a professor from University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, were behind the suggested language change.
The Tribune reported the proposal was struck down by the board unanimously. [Yay!]
While involuntary relocation isn’t an entirely unknown term in social studies, it often “has relationships to refugees and forced displacement due to violence or ethnic cleansing,” said Neil Shanks, clinical assistant professor of middle and secondary education at Baylor University.
In this case, Shanks added, the term appeared to be “intended to water down the issue of slavery.” […]
Pulitzer Prize-winning meathead Kathleen Parker wrote a very bad prediction back in 2018, after Anthony Kennedy retired from the Supreme Court. At the time, everyone in America who is not a dunderheaded Beltway idiot knew that Donald Trump would nominate some antiabortion fiend to replace him. Being antiabortion is a litmus test for GOP judges and has been for years, even if they blatantly lie about their position in confirmation hearings and everyone knows they are blatantly lying. And Trump, being too lazy to have any beliefs outside of believing that Donald Trump is the greatest human to ever walk the earth, was perfectly happy to let the Federalist Society, proctors of said litmus test, tell him whom to nominate.
Everyone knew this. Dogs knew it. Yr Wonkette knew it. Those weird deformed mutant fish that live at the bottom of the Marianas Trench knew it.
But Kathleen Parker didn’t know it. She wrote a column titled “Calm down. Roe vs. Wade isn’t going anywhere.” In that column, she predicted that no potential nominee would want to be “that person” who overturned a right approved of by better than half of the country. Perish the thought! She also condemned the “wild-eyed jackassery” of the Cassandras of the Left who were predicting the end of Roe.
Ahem.
So flash-forward nearly four years. Roe is gone, a result that Kennedy’s replacement Bret Kavanaugh — who Parker specifically predicted would replace Kennedy and specifically predicted would not want to overturn Roe — enthusiastically voted to turn America’s women into a bunch of broodmares.
Is Parker feeling any regret? Even a tingle? Her Post colleague Erik Wemple asked her if she had even the tiniest sliver of an iota of an inkling of feeling a bit chastened at having been so galactically, catastrophically wrong.
Parker, naturally, did not:
Asked whether she stands by her column, Parker responded, “One hundred percent. At the time it was written, it was accurate–it was on the nose.” Timing is critical to her point, she argues: The column appeared two years before Ginsburg’s death and Barrett’s confirmation.
This is absolutely absurd. Kavanaugh was the fifth vote to overturn Roe. He would not have been nominated to replace the swingy Kennedy otherwise. One does not get onto a Federalist Society judicial shortlist if there is any doubt. Barrett’s later confirmation just gave the conservatives a cushion.
“I have had excellent sources on the Supreme Court for many, many years,” said Parker, who sees Gorsuch, Roberts and Kavanaugh as incrementalists disinclined to undo important precedents in a single ruling.
Ha ha ha, okay. Please note that these same three justices voted for some very non-incremental rulings reversing a whole bunch of hot-button social issue cases besides abortion just in the last couple of weeks, which would seem to render this thesis a load of horse hockey.
Had the “jackals” of the abortion rights movement not protested at Kavanaugh’s house, Parker said, he might well have switched sides in the Dobbs case.
People who are not Kathleen Parker may remember that the abortion rights protests at Kavanaugh’s and other justices’ homes started after the draft of the opinion overturning Roe leaked. Brett Kavanaugh had signed on to that opinion.
In other words, Kavanaugh had already voted in favor of overturning Roe before the “jackals” showed up at his house. Now here comes Kathleen Parker to proclaim — in public! Where people can hear her! — that linear time does not exist.
This makes no sense. It’s an excuse. It’s the Supreme Court version of that old wingnut game, “Look What the Liberals Made Me Do!” It’s the sound of the rockets attached to Kathleen Parker’s career screaming out of the atmosphere towards deep space.
If there’s one thing that Donald Trump hates, it’s lying.
HAHAHAHA we are silly on Fridays, particularly when every goddamn thing is on fire thanks to the Supreme Court. But we can’t help but laugh at the guy who drew a dick on a weather map — and lied about literally everything his whole life — throwing a tantrum about Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the House January 6 Select Committee.
Mediaite reprinted that weirdo’s latest rant from his janky, knock-off social media platform:
Social Climber Hutchinson lied about my attack on our great Secret Service, lied about her writing the White House note, lied about my throwing food at a wall in the Oval Office, & lied about my wanting to be surrounded by “people with guns” during my “Go Peacefully and Patriotically” speech (how crazy is that?), yet no guns were found in the Capitol. These lies, among others, were made UNDER OATH. What is the Justice Department going to do about this? Do we have a two tiered system of Justice?
Cassidy Hutchinson also forgot to tell the Unselects that she was desperate to go to Florida with certain others of the Trump staff, long after January 6th had come and gone. If I was so evil, why did she fight so hard to stay a part of the MAGA TEAM? This is all documented in writing! Why did it take her so long to tell (make up!) these ridiculous and obviously Fake Stories, even after previously sitting for four long depositions? Was it, just maybe, her brand new lawyer? Lying under oath???
Wow! Really miss waking up to this shit every morning in life … said no one EVER. Good to know that lying to Congress is bad now. Heads up, Roger Stone!
President Crime Boss’s tighty-whities are in a bunch after Mark Meadows’s former top aide testified about all the insane shit he did trying to hold onto power after losing the election. But his rants about Hutchinson’s choice of lawyer are particularly reminiscent of the mafia don he fancies himself.
Because Hutchinson’s former counsel, Stefan Passantino, has represented Trump for a long time and in multiple capacities. Passantino was Trump’s White House ethics lawyer (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one). He fought to keep Trump’s tax returns from both Congress and prosecutors in Manhattan. He’s represented the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign. And not for nothing, but one of Trump’s many money groups was paying Passantino for his services. In fact, Trump has been footing the bill for a whole lotta witnesses here.
Tell us, New York Times!
According to financial disclosures, in May alone, Mr. Trump’s “Save America” political action committee paid about $200,000 to law firms. That including $75,000 to JPRowley Law, which represents Cleta Mitchell, a pro-Trump lawyer who has filed suit to try to block the committee’s subpoena, and $50,000 to Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, which has represented Stephen K. Bannon, a close ally of the former president who refused to meet with the panel and has been charged with criminal contempt. The managing partner at the firm representing Mr. Bannon declined to comment.
[…] Meanwhile, Trump’s not the only one whipping out the old checkbook. In the wake of news reports that Sidney Powell’s “charity” Defending the Republic is subsidizing lawyers for the Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy, prosecutors are now asking whether there’s anything hinky about the arrangement, specifically, if the defendants understand the potential conflicts here. Because the government really doesn’t want to score a conviction only to have these militia assholes turn around and appeal on the theory that they had ineffective assistance of counsel because their lawyers were serving two masters.
But how did Cassidy Hutchinson wind up with a new attorney? Turns out, her buddy Alyssa Farah, who worked alongside her in the Trump White House, put her in touch with alternative counsel after Hutchinson said, “There is more I want to share that was not asked in these settings, how do we do this?” [video at the link]
Farah connected Hutchinson with Rep. Liz Cheney, who led her to Jody Hunt, whom Trump himself nominated in 2018 to head the Civil Division at the Justice Department. Hunt is a longtime ally of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions (speaking of Trumpland roadkill) who cycled in and out of the DOJ for decades, eventually returning as Sessions’s chief of staff in 2017. In July of 2020, Hunt resigned from the Civil Division and returned to private practice. It’s not clear whether this resignation had something to do with Bill Barr’s attempt in June of 2020 to Saturday Night Massacre the Southern District of New York and make Geoffrey Berman, then the US Attorney at SDNY, the head of the Civil Division. But shortly thereafter, a relatively unknown environmental lawyer named Jeffrey Clark found himself in charge of the division … and the rest is history.
TL, DR? Trump’s pissed that a witness quit taking his money and started saying stuff he didn’t like. And he’s actually admitting it in public.
[…] This week, the Wisconsin high court ruled 4-3 that Republican political appointees can refuse to leave and hold their offices for as long as they want, at least until a Republican is elected governor.
Yes, quite literally. The outcome in Wisconsin v. Prehn is a rule that will only benefit the justices’ fellow Republicans.
In 2015, Scott Walker appointed Frederick Prehn (who owns a gun shop, because of course he does) to the state Natural Resources Board. Board members serve staggered six-year terms, and Prehn’s term was up in 2021. Prehn, however, just decided he was going to stay in his seat, because fuck you is why. And since the Republican state Senate refused to confirm any of the Democratic governor’s appointees in his place, the state supreme court let him.
This isn’t just about the NRB, though Prehn and his GOP buddies are pretty excited about continuing to use the board to do things like bring back wolf hunting. It’s part of a larger scheme by Republicans to stop Democrats from holding any power in the state, even when they win statewide elections. And now, that ratfucking has been heartily endorsed by the state supreme court.
So that’s just lovely, isn’t it?
Here’s the thing about Wisconsin: It’s almost a perfectly purple state, if you look at the voters. We’re a swing state in presidential elections, go back and forth in gubernatorial elections, and have both the lovely Tammy Baldwin and the Dumbest Republican in the Senate as our US Senators. But you wouldn’t know this from looking at our state legislature.
Can you guess why? CAN YOU?!
That’s right! Extreme gerrymandering that goes against the very principles of representative government!
Wisconsin has been called the most gerrymandered state in the country for good reason. In 2018, for example, Democrats received 54 percent of the popular vote for the state Assembly and won just 36 percent of the seats. Not great.
So, despite having a relatively moderate, swingy electorate, Wisconsin has an extreme rightwing legislative branch. And Republicans are gonna do what Republicans do, so the mega-gerrymandered Republican Legislature does everything in its power to obstruct Democrats who win statewide office. And since Governor Tony Evers beat that cretin Scott Walker in 2018, it has done just that. After Evers won his election but before he was sworn in, the Legislature held a special session specifically to strip him of some of his power.
Four years later, the Wisconsin GOP is continuing to do everything it can to stop the democratically elected governor from governing. […]
With the two appointments Governor Evers was set to make to the NRB, the balance of the board would have shifted to Democrats. (One might not think that the state natural resource board is a place likely to spark constitutional crises that strike at the heart of our republican system of government, but here we are.) So Republicans, who no longer believe in the most basic tenets of democracy, decided to simply take what they couldn’t win at the ballot box and stage a coup. Prehn refused to vacate his seat when his term expired and barred Evers appointee Sandra Naas from doing her job.
[…] Now, according to the state’s highest court, Republican appointees can serve for however long they want, in order to block any Democrats from ever assuming their appointed positions. The court’s conservatives used Senate Republicans’ blatant obstructionism as their excuse for the ruling, saying that no one can force the man whose term expired more than a year ago to leave his post until his replacement is confirmed by the Senate. Which the Senate has no intent of ever doing.
The court’s rightwing justices made this ruling knowing full well that there is no chance of it benefiting anyone but Republicans for the foreseeable future. This spring, it chose new legislative maps that are even more gerrymandered than the 2011 Scott Walker version. With these maps, Republicans in the supreme court secured Republican control over the state Legislature until at least 2031. And now, even when Democrats win statewide elections, Republicans know that they can simply throw a fit and refuse to leave the office with impunity. (Who does that remind you of?)
[…] Mirroring its federal counterpart, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has become the judicial branch of the Republican Party.
BUT!
Unlike the US Supreme Court, which is fucked beyond reason or belief for the foreseeable future, there is hope for the Wisconsin Supreme Court! The next supreme court election is April 2023, when rightwing Justice Patience Roggensack’s seat is on the ballot. The balance of the court will be decided in this election and an additional liberal justice would flip most of the court’s major decisions to the side of democracy.
Wisconsin’s April elections are for nonpartisan offices and tend to have very low turnout. Next April, the balance of the state’s highest court will depend entirely on getting out the vote.
Everything is terrible right now. But at least in Wisconsin, there is still a sliver of hope.
Vote like your life depends on it; it very well might!
In a chorus of derision, leading Republicans ripped the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposed freeze on handgun sales as an “insane” and “illogical” response to gun violence.
“With all due respect, Prime Minister Trudeau’s so-called solution to gun violence is misguided, at best,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said. “There is no verifiable link between guns and shooting.”
The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, shared McConnell’s view. “Canada’s solution to gun violence ignores the fact that people who shoot people inside buildings first have to enter those buildings,” he said. “The problem isn’t guns—it’s doors.”
Senator Ted Cruz, also of Texas, could barely contain his contempt for Trudeau’s plan. “So Trudeau thinks that you can reduce gun violence by reducing the number of guns?” Cruz said. “Earth to Justin!”
Biden predicts states will try to arrest women who travel for abortions
Women’s right to mobility is the next battleground between Red and Blue states.
If women can’t move about where they will, they are prisoners and slaves.
What the Red states want to set up is something we’ve seen often over the centuries.
A Police state.
With the target population being women, especially pregnant women.
It’s all there, repressive laws, lack of freedom, lots of police to enforce those laws, and lots of prisons and concentration camps for those who get caught.
Biden predicts states will try to arrest women who travel for abortions
By Jeff Mason and Rami Ayyub July 01, 2022
WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden predicted on Friday that some U.S. states will try to arrest women for crossing state lines to get abortions after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedures nationwide.
Thirteen Republican-led states banned or severely restricted the procedure under so-called “trigger laws” after the court struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling last week. Women in those states seeking an abortion may have to travel to states where it remains legal.
Convening a virtual meeting on abortion rights with Democratic state governors on Friday, Biden said he thinks “people are gonna be shocked when the first state … tries to arrest a woman for crossing a state line to get health services.”
He added: “And I don’t think people believe that’s gonna happen. But it’s gonna happen, and it’s gonna telegraph to the whole country that this is a gigantic deal that goes beyond; I mean, it affects all your basic rights”.
Biden is right that the Red states will try to extend their laws to the Blue states.
He is wrong that anyone is going to be surprised.
Those laws have already been passed.
StevoRsays
Today, many thousands of Aussies expressed their solidarity, empathy and support for American women’s rights to control their own bodies. Which is great but it shouldn’t be necessary in this day and age :
Supreme Court makes it clear there’s a red America and a blue America
Analysis by Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter Updated 12:08 AM ET, Sat July 2, 2022
and
Spurred by the Supreme Court, a Nation Divides Along a Red-Blue Axis
On abortion, climate change, guns and much more, two Americas — one liberal, one conservative — are moving in opposite directions.
NYTimes July 02, 2022
These are the headlines this morning.
The articles just point out that the USA is splitting into Red and Blue states and these two factions are fighting among themselves.
This isn’t really new though. It started before 1860 and has continued ever since.
What the Supreme court has done is make these conflicts even more severe.
It has set things up so there are more things for them to fight about.
The latest will be women’s right to travel and trying to make the abortion drugs illegal.
During Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony earlier this week before the House Select Committee, Trump used his scam app, Social Truth, to complain that “She changed lawyers a couple of days ago, and with it, her story totally changed! SHOCKER???”
How would Trump have known that Hutchinson’s “story” changed? He might just be lying. Or, maybe her former lawyer has some ’splainin’ to do.
Hutchinson sat for the Select Committee four times (not counting her live testimony). During the first three interviews, she was represented by Stefan Passantino, a formerTrump White House lawyer now in private practice. According to the NY Times, Passantino was recommended to Hutchinson by Trump aides and his fees were being covered by Trump’s political action committee.
Recently, Hutchinson fired Passantino and hired Alabama lawyer Jody Hunt. Hunt is a long-time DOJ attorney; he was AG Jeff Session’s Chief of Staff, served in the Office of Legal Policy, and was Trump’s pick to head DOJ’s Civil Division. Hunt is a conservative Republican, but he is not a whacko (for example, he represented the State of Georgia against Texas’s frivolous effort to overturn Georgia’s election results). Hutchinson was represented by Hunt for her fourth Committee interview and live testimony.
The Committee did not release transcripts of Hutchinson’s interviews. So, how did Trump know what “story” she changed? It is unlikely that the Committee leaked her testimony. Would Hutchinson have disclosed her testimony to Trumpworld? It’s possible.
But, let’s circle back to the facts that Passantino was recommended to Hutchinson by Trumpworld and that he was paid by Trump’s PAC. The reason such arrangements are considered problematic is because there is a risk that the lawyer’s loyalty to his or her client could be compromised—in this case, perhaps both for ideological and pecuniary reasons.
So, unless Hutchinson disclosed her closed-door testimony herself, it would seem that Passantino is a conduit to Trump.
An activist-turned-soldier whose fingers were mangled by metal tools. Women photographed naked and forced to hold their hands above their heads or be beaten. Hospitalized prisoners of war mocked, threatened and left to die.
The Hill spoke to a half dozen former prisoners of war and their families this month about what life was like for those captured by Russian forces since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine more than four months ago.
Thousands of Ukrainians have been detained during the war, with many being exchanged for Russian prisoners of war and set free. Among them was Igor Kurayan, a 55-year-old Ukrainian activist who joined the fight against Russia and was captured in April
.
He said Russian soldiers discovered that he had been running supplies to Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines since 2014, when Russia took over Crimea, and accused him of financing terrorist organizations and preparing a terrorist attack on Russian soldiers.
During weeks in Russian captivity, Kurayan said soldiers beat and electrocuted him for information, and twisted and cut his fingers using pliers and metal scissors. Other prisoners were beaten so badly they died, he added.
“Every day he would be called out for the torturing and they wanted him to hand over his friends,” said a translator with PR Army, an organization that helped connect the former POWs to The Hill and translate interviews.
“They even offered for him to become mayor of Kherson but he refused all their offers,” he added.
The Russian forces also allegedly took Kurayan’s phone and used his social media accounts to post previous photos he took with Ukrainian forces, but adding captions making it appear that he was advocating for Ukrainian forces to surrender to Russia.
Kurayan’s daughter, Karina, provided screenshots of some of the posts Russian soldiers made on her father’s account […] Kurayan deleted all the posts as soon as he was exchanged and free from Russian captivity.
While Russian forces kept some captured Ukrainian soldiers in Ukraine, others were transported to Russia.
Anzhelika Todorashko, 32, said her mother, a Ukrainian soldier, and her sister, a civilian, were captured by Russian forces shortly after the invasion began.
Russian soldiers were able to quickly take over her small village near the Russian border, cutting off all supplies to the town and encouraging residents to take a bus to Russia, where they would be sent to a “filtration camp,” according to Todorashko, who spoke English.
She said her mother, 52-year-old Viktoria, was captured in February for her work with the Ukrainian army, then taken to Russia where she said she was electrocuted, photographed naked, given little food and water, and heard screams from other prisoners asking for death.
Todorashko said the Russian soldiers would humiliate prisoners, with her mother telling her that prisoners had to hold their hands above their head for hours a day, and if they dropped their hands they would be beaten. Soldiers also shaved the heads of the women and suffocated others.
“[Russia] had all their people in masks. You will never see their faces,” Todorashko said.
[…] The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to questions from The Hill about the abuse and torture described by former Ukrainian prisoners.
Twenty-five-year-old Hlib Stryszko told The Hill he was defending a bomb shelter in Mariupol shielding women and children when he was wounded by Russian forces.
He said he was standing on a third-floor balcony when he saw a Russian tank approaching the building. The tank fired at him, causing him to fall from the third floor with debris collapsing on top of him.
Stryszko was taken to the hospital where he found out he broke his pelvis, was unable to open his eyes and injured his jaw. He said he received treatment for his injuries, but two days later Russian forces took over the hospital and he was transferred to another hospital where doctors refused to treat anyone speaking Ukrainian.
Even after speaking Russian, Stryszko said he was hardly treated for the injuries he sustained during the blast.
“He said that he spent about a week in the hospital without receiving the necessary help or treatment,” Natasha Sennett, another translator from the PR Army, said of Stryszko. “Basically, they were kind of sarcastically coming up to him every morning, saying ‘Hey, hang in there soldier, maybe something will come up for you.’”
Along with the limited treatment, Stryszko said music would be blasted at the soldiers, and Chechen fighters, notorious for their ruthlessness, would come into the hospital and taunt the injured.
“They will take out their knives and take the knife and start grazing the knife on the wounded soldiers’ bodies,” Sennett said.
Stryszko said he was eventually transported to Russia, where authorities realized he couldn’t be sent to prison due to his condition. He was eventually transported to Russian-controlled Crimea, where he was exchanged and brought to a Ukrainian hospital, where he is still recovering.
Family members, meanwhile, went weeks not knowing whether their loved ones were dead or alive
“It was hell on earth,” Karina, the daughter of Kurayan, said in an interview, assisted by translator Natsya Popandopulos, another member of the nonprofit PR Army, which works to share the stories of Ukrainians with the world.
Only Karina, who is currently in the United Kingdom, could speak out about her father’s captivity, with family members fearing their own freedom and livelihood if they spoke out.
Todorashko, whose mother and sister were captured, said she was unaware her mother was captured by Russian forces until she was released and able to contact her. She only learned of her sister’s captivity because her younger brother, who was in the village with her sister, was able to hide a phone and message her.
Todorashko’s brother had to hide the device because Russian soldiers would go into homes and take anything they wanted, including phones and laptops, according to Todorashko.
“It was terrifying. It was terrifying,” Todorashko told The Hill of not being in communication with her mom and sister for so long amid the war.
For Ukrainians in Russia-annexed Crimea, the fear and abuse was nothing new.
Volodymyr Balukh, a 51-year-old activist, said he saw his home in Crimea overrun by Russian forces in 2014. He refused to obey orders by the soldiers, continuing to fly his Ukrainian flag and switching from speaking Russian to Ukrainian.
He said he was running food and supplies to the Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines for years as he was arrested multiple times by Russian forces, who eventually planted ammunition and explosives at his house in an attempt to frame him as a terrorist.
Balukh then spent three years in prison from 2016 to 2019, where he says Russian soldiers waterboarded him, stripped him naked, electrocuted him, threatened him with rape and gave him limited food.
“In captivity, there is a struggle for modesty to preserve your honor and dignity every second, 24 hours,” said Popandopulos, one of the translators, relaying Balukh’s words. “The Russian system is built to push everything, every human being from yourself and feel only fear.”
Today, Balukh is still trying to assist Ukraine’s war efforts and has been working to raise money for vehicles needed to defend its territory.
After his time in Russian captivity, he had some advice to share for Ukrainians who find themselves under Russian control.
“Endurance, faith and steadfastness are very important in captivity,” Popandopulos said for Balukh. “It’s important to know, what are you fighting for? What are you living for?”
Whiplash of news concerning access to abortion in Texas:
Legal wrangling over abortions in Texas took a further twist late Friday, after the state Supreme Court blocked a lower court order issued just days earlier that had temporarily allowed the procedures to resume.
The Texas Supreme Court in Austin granted an “emergency motion for temporary relief” that was filed Wednesday by the state’s attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, staying a temporary restraining order that had been granted earlier this week by a judge in Harris County. A further state Supreme Court hearing is scheduled for later this month.
Texas has left a nearly century-old abortion ban on the statute books for the past 50 years while Roe v. Wade was in place. With Roe struck down, Paxton had advised that prosecutors could now enforce the 1925 law, which he called a “100% good law” on Twitter. However, the claimants have argued that it should be interpreted as repealed and unenforceable. […]
On Tuesday, a Harris County judge granted a temporary restraining order until at least July 12 to allow clinics to offer abortions for at least two weeks without criminal prosecution, days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to end a constitutional right to abortion.
Clinics that had sued the state stopped their abortion procedures after the ruling but raced to take advantage of a fleeting reprieve Tuesday after elected Judge Christine Weems (D) ruled that a pre-Roe ban enforced by Paxton and prosecutors would “inevitably and irreparably chill the provision of abortions in the vital last weeks in which safer abortion care remains available and lawful in Texas.”
Paxton then asked the state’s highest court, which is stocked with nine Republican justices, to temporarily put the lower court order on hold, which they did in Friday’s decision. The state Supreme Court order allows civil, but not criminal, enforcement of the ban.
The flurry of litigation has thrown abortion clinics and patients in Texas into disarray, with many people rebooking and canceling appointments and travel plans as they scramble to navigate the new legal landscape.
“These laws are confusing, unnecessary, and cruel,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights advocacy group, said in a statement following Friday’s ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union, also a party to the legal proceedings, said it “won’t stop fighting to ensure that as many people as possible, for as long as possible, can access the essential reproductive health care they need,” according to staff attorney Julia Kaye. […]
[…] Ukraine called on Turkey to detain a Russian-flagged cargo ship, loaded with stolen Ukrainian grain, that it said had sailed from the Russian-controlled Berdyansk port bound for Turkey’s Black Sea coast. Millions of metric tons of grain await export from Ukraine, as Russia blockades shipping lanes and poorer countries bear the brunt of shortages and rising prices. […]
In the months since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called the invasion of Ukraine a “denazification” mission, the lie that the government and culture of Ukraine are filled with dangerous “Nazis” has become a central theme of Kremlin propaganda about the war. [chart showing the sharp rise in Russian articles about Ukraine that mention Nazism, going from about 100 or less per day to more than 2,000 per day on February 24, 2022]
A data set of nearly eight million articles about Ukraine collected from more than 8,000 Russian websites since 2014 shows that references to Nazism were relatively flat for eight years and then spiked to unprecedented levels on Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. They have remained high ever since.
The data, provided by Semantic Visions, a defense analytics company, includes major Russian state media outlets in addition to thousands of smaller Russian websites and blogs. It gives a view of Russia’s attempts to justify its attack on Ukraine and maintain domestic support for the ongoing war by falsely portraying Ukraine as being overrun by far-right extremists.
News stories have falsely claimed that Ukrainian Nazis are using noncombatants as human shields, killing Ukrainian civilians and planning a genocide of Russians.
[…] Multiple experts on the region said the claim that Ukraine is corrupted by Nazis is false. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who received 73 percent of the vote when he was elected in 2019, is Jewish, and all far-right parties combined received only about 2 percent of parliamentary votes in 2019 — short of the 5 percent threshold for representation.
“We tolerate in most Western democracies significantly higher rates of far-right extremism,” said Monika Richter, head of research and analysis at Semantic Visions and a fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.
The common Russian understanding of Nazism hinges on the notion of Nazi Germany as the antithesis of the Soviet Union rather than on the persecution of Jews specifically said Jeffrey Veidlinger, a professor of history and Judaic studies at the University of Michigan. “That’s why they can call a state that has a Jewish president a Nazi state and it doesn’t seem all that discordant to them,” he said.
Despite the lack of evidence that Ukraine is dominated by Nazis, the idea has taken off among many Russians. […]
“I think many Russians actually believe this is a war against Nazism.”
[…] Mr. Putin alluded to that history in a speech on May 9 for the Russian holiday commemorating victory over Nazi Germany. “You are fighting for our motherland so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II,” he said to a parade of thousands of Russian soldiers. “So that there is no place in the world for torturers, death squads and Nazis.”
A key feature of Russian propaganda is its repetitiveness, Ms. Richter said. “You just see a constant regurgitation and repackaging of the same stuff over and over again.” [Reminds me of Trumpism.]
Experts say linking Ukraine with Nazism can prevent cognitive dissonance among Russians when news about the war in places like Bucha seeps through. “It helps them justify these atrocities,” Dr. Doroshenko said. “It helps to create this dichotomy of black and white — Nazis are bad, we are good, so we have the moral right.”
The tactic appears to work. Russians’ access to news sources not tied to the Kremlin has been curtailed since the government silenced most independent media outlets after the invasion. […]
Part of what makes accusations of Nazism so useful to Russian propagandists is that Ukraine’s past is entangled with Nazi Germany.
“There is a history of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis, and Putin is trying to build upon that history,” Dr. Veidlinger said. “During the Second World War there were parties in Ukraine that sought to collaborate with the Germans, particularly against the Soviets.”
Experts said this history makes it easy for the Russian media to draw connections between real Nazis and modern far-right groups to give the impression that the contemporary groups are larger and more influential than they are.
The Azov Battalion, a regiment of the Ukrainian Army with roots in ultranationalist political groups, has been used by the Russian media since 2014 as an example of far-right support in Ukraine. Analysts said the Russian media’s portrayal of the group exaggerates the extent to which its members hold neo-Nazi views. […]
Russia’s false claim that its invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to “denazify” the country has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and dozens of scholars of Nazism, among others.
“The current Ukrainian state is not a Nazi state by any stretch of the imaginiation,” Dr. Veidlinger said. “I would argue that what Putin is actually afraid of is the spread of democracy and pluralism from Ukraine to Russia. But he knows that the accusation of Nazism is going to unite his population.”
One of the many tragic turns the politicization of COVID-19 and our country’s response to it has been the deleterious effect it has had on public health consensus. […] the public’s trust in medicine and science as entities above politics and money has dwindled. The novel coronavirus pandemic, as it did with everything else, expedited the trend of deteriorating public trust.
One of the places that has seeped into is the annual, and for some demographics semiannual, flu shot. Polling has shown that this past fall, 4 in 10 Americans said they weren’t planning on getting the flu shot, regardless of their feelings about—or whether or not they had received—the COVID-19 jab. Unfortunately, what many Americans continue to take with them is the age-old wisdom that getting the flu and building up a natural immunity to whatever specific strain you may catch, is preferable to either immunizing yourself from catching it at all, or simply blunting the severity of suffering infection.
The fact is that the flu shot helps save tens of thousands of people’s lives every year, while also preventing millions of hospital visits, and millions more from ever getting seriously ill. It is a win-win, considering that the cost is mostly an uncomfortably sore arm for a few hours. Now researchers out of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have added another reason to look forward to getting your flu shot.
Combing through a large nationwide sample of U.S. seniors (65 and older), including 935,887 flu-vaccinated patients and 935,887 non-vaccinated patients, researchers found that a single flu shot provided a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease “for several years.” That is not all. Avram S. Bukhbinder, MD, a recent alumnus of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston explained in a statement that the “strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine—in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year.”
During four-year follow-up appointments, about 5.1% of flu-vaccinated patients were found to have developed Alzheimer’s disease. Meanwhile, 8.5% of non-vaccinated patients had developed Alzheimer’s disease during follow-up.
The fact of the matter is that it is unlikely the flu shot itself is the determining factor. What is known is that there is link between various vaccinations and the flu shot with reduced Alzheimer’s outcomes. Researcher Paul Schulz explained in a statement:
“Since there is evidence that several vaccines may protect from Alzheimer’s disease, we are thinking that it isn’t a specific effect of the flu vaccine. Instead, we believe that the immune system is complex, and some alterations, such as pneumonia, may activate it in a way that makes Alzheimer’s disease worse. But other things that activate the immune system may do so in a different way — one that protects from Alzheimer’s disease. Clearly, we have more to learn about how the immune system worsens or improves outcomes in this disease.”
Researchers say that testing whether or not immunizations like the flu shot may also help slow or lessen the progression of Alzheimer’s disease is one of the next steps that need to be undertaken. For many Americans, getting immunizations from contagions is an important community responsibility in helping protect those around you. As someone who believes in stopping the communal spread, I can also tell you, having caught the flu about 8 years ago, it is preferable not to get the flu at all.
During World War II, the folks back home could read about the progress of the conflict in daily papers, listen to the voices of journalists in Europe or the Pacific coming to them over the radio in the evening, and visit the local movie theater for a glimpse of the action on the latest newsreel. Over the course of more than a decade in Vietnam, Americans got used to the bizarre nightly ritual of the official body counts, magazines loaded with searing photographs, and reporters bringing news footage showing a war that never seemed far from chaos. In both cases, the action reports the public was receiving were heavily filtered and optimistic, but they at least gave a sense of how things were moving.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, most of the major media seems to be providing … not very much, really, especially when it comes to answering questions about the tactical or strategic progress of the war. […]
Anyone seeking an answer to “yes, but, what’s actually happening in Ukraine?” is forced back to the one place that it seems holds all answers these days: social media, where actual news has to be sifted from tens of thousands of propaganda accounts. At the start of the war, Twitter made a concerted effort to purge Russian bot accounts, but any dip in those accounts was purely temporary (India seems to be the current server location of choice). It’s debatable whether Russia even needs these one-note accounts, since more than half the U.S. right wing, as well as right-wing accounts from Brazil to Hungary, seems to be regularly “explaining” how Ukraine is corrupt, the war was started by Joe Biden, and they’re excited to announce that Russia is win-win-winning. Some of these accounts have tens of thousands of followers, all eager to sign on and give a big cheer for Vladimir Putin.
[…] The same rules apply on social media as apply on any other source of news: Beware of finding any report that is too friendly to your own deeply held hopes.
Can Russia win the war in Ukraine? No. There’s no way for Russia to come out on top economically, militarily, or diplomatically. By any measure, Moscow is much weaker now than when this war began. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has turned his country into an international pariah, revealed the Russian military as an ugly parody of what many believed, derailed Russia’s chief source of revenue, permanently impoverished the Russian populace, and placed the nation in a position where it can not determine its own fate.
Putin cannot even determine when this war ends—not unless he’s willing to hand every inch of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea, back to Kyiv. […] Putin can declare victory tomorrow, and every day thereafter. No one will listen. This war ends when Ukraine says it ends.
Can Russia’s ongoing effort to simply crush Ukrainian cities and towns into rubble using artillery, then camp conscripts on the rubble be halted? The answer appears to be “not yet.”
All of this was a very long prelude to this question: So, what’s happening over around Kherson?
Well, what’s happening, and what’s been happening over the last two weeks, is that Ukraine has been very, very quiet about Kherson. […] they’ve been working hard to stop the flow of chatter from their forces. The last two weeks have seen few pictures of Ukrainian troops in the area and many fewer reports of detailed action in the midst of a declared “blackout.”
That doesn’t mean nothing has been going on there. Russian (and some Ukrainian) soldiers have continued to talk s#it on Telegram, making the usual claims that are 80% just intended to intimidate the other side. […]
However, in the last 24 hours, there has been a little light let into this blackout. What’s happening in Kherson? As best I can tell, this is where things stand. [map at the link]
[…] quite a few things have changed, though it’s not all that easy to see them on a map. Ukraine is still fighting to take the same key locations at Kyselivka, Snihurivka, and Vysokopillya. The front line of forces are still about 15km out of Kherson proper. But just looking at those locations disguises a lot of action—so much so, that I’ve actually pulled out a new crayon to illustrate the changes.
As has happened so often on the Kherson front, Ukraine has made advances in between the major points of Russian occupation. […] the action seems to be in the zone from Kyselivka to Snihurivka. The light blue area on this map indicates a zone of villages and towns that Ukraine has either flipped from Russian occupied, or from disputed, to Ukrainian controlled in the last two weeks. It’s … quite a lot, actually. It represents, if nothing else, a significant solidification of Ukrainian positions.
Note that several sources are still placing that whole wedge along a line from Novopetrivka down to Zahoryanivka under Russian control. However, there are good reasons to believe that the lines of control indicated on the map above are a fairly accurate representation of current conditions.
[…] At the north end of the line, there has been very little news on what’s happening near Vysokopillya, which still represents a major distribution and command center for Russia. There have been continued reports of fighting at Arkhanhel’s’ke, which would seem to represent an opportunity for Ukrainian forces to isolate the Russian troops at the extreme north of the Kherson front. But there is no confirmation of progress.
After two weeks of very limited news out of Kherson, the dam is starting to break. Ground sources are talking again. Soldiers are posting videos. It’s unclear if the Ukrainian MOD is in favor of bringing light to the situation, but the news is certainly appreciated by those of us who have been anxiously waiting for an update.
Videos of Russian stuff blowing up are available at the link.
StevoRsays
Major flooding and evacuation in parst of Sydney :
The end of Roe v. Wade raises fear of more prosecutions for pregnancy loss
Women are already being prosecuted and jailed for miscarriages and stillbirths.
That is going to continue and get worse for sure.
Doctors can’t tell the difference between a miscarriage and a medical abortion so women who show up in the ER with a miscarriage are already suspects.
Also, the cops are busy and many of them probably aren’t that interested or capable of being the Zygote Police. So they will just wait until some unfortunate woman ends up in the hospital and then arrest her.
In the case below, Chelsea Becker was ratted out by the hospital itself. In Red states, they may make health care workers into mandatory reporters for suspected abortion. It is the kind of thing they do in police states.
The end of Roe v. Wade raises fear of more prosecutions for pregnancy loss
July 3, 20225:27 AM ET Robert Baldwin III NPR
Chelsea Becker spent 16 months in a California jail awaiting a murder trial after her pregnancy ended in a stillbirth. “I was prepared to just stay at least for the next 15 years in prison,” she told NPR.
Becker’s 2019 arrest drew national attention. With the backdrop of the Supreme Court blocking a Louisiana law that would shutter nearly all abortion clinics in that state, advocates warned that Becker’s arrest would empower more prosecutions for pregnancy outcomes.
As Roe falls, criminal defense lawyers sound the alarm about mass incarceration
In less than three years, a radically reconstituted Supreme Court ruled again on an anti-abortion law — this time using a Mississippi law to abolish federally protected abortion rights. And advocates, again, warn that pregnant people will be prosecuted for pregnancy loss — including miscarriages and stillbirths.
“What we have seen in cases where we have provided legal defense, mothers who experience a stillbirth or a miscarriage are blamed for that loss,” Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), tells NPR.
“Because of behavior or exposure of an alleged risk of harm to the fetus, they are then blamed for causes the pregnancy loss,” Sussman says.
Prosecuting pregnancy loss is not new
Prosecuting pregnancy loss has been a quiet, but upward trend across the nation — to such an extent that organizations like the NAPW have emerged to provide legal defense for people who have been charged due to their pregnancy outcomes. That is how Sussman’s organization came to represent Becker.
In 2013, NAPW partnered with Fordham University to track the arrests and prosecutions of pregnancies. They found just over 400 cases where pregnancy, including pregnancy loss, was used in a criminal investigation or prosecution from the time Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 until 2005. But from 2006-2020, that number nearly quadrupled. While this research is ongoing, Sussman suspects 200-300 cases in this range will involve pregnancy loss.
Abortion-rights advocates in the 13 trigger law states refuse to give up post-Roe
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN AMERICA
Abortion-rights advocates in the 13 trigger law states refuse to give up post-Roe
There is one striking detail that stands out for legal experts: States are using laws to target pregnant people that were originally used to protect them.
At least 38 states have laws that makes it a crime to harm a fetus, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Legal experts say that these laws were originally intended to stop violence against pregnant people.
These so-called “fetal harm” laws enhance penalties for crimes against a pregnant person. By treating a fetus as a separate crime victim, these laws recognize crimes against pregnant people as two separate crimes. But, in practice, they have been used to investigate and prosecute different forms of pregnancy loss, including miscarriages, stillbirths and self-induced abortions.
Fetal personhood, anti-abortionist’s argument that the fetus deserves the full rights and protections as people, are at the heart of these fetal harm laws and other traditional murder laws being applied to pregnant people.
Applying these laws in this manner criminalizes a pregnant person’s behavior during the course of their pregnancy. And now that federal abortion protections have been abrogated, more people can be at risk of criminal charges for what they do — or don’t do — while pregnant.
For doctors, abortion restrictions create an ‘impossible choice’ when providing care
SHOTS – HEALTH NEWS
For doctors, abortion restrictions create an ‘impossible choice’ when providing care
In Becker’s case, the prosecution attributed her stillbirth to her use of methamphetamine during pregnancy. She admittedly struggled with addiction during pregnancy. Although, California’s primary murder law makes it a crime to kill a fetus in many circumstances, mothers are explicitly exempted from prosecution.
Nevertheless, the state argued that what Becker did during her pregnancy caused her stillbirth. This line of reasoning is widely rejected in the medical field.
Experts say women aren’t responsible for their losses
“There is no biological basis for that opinion, specifically with methamphetamine,” says Dr. Harvey Kliman, the director of the Reproductive and Placental Research Unit at Yale School of Medicine.
Kliman attributes prosecutions of pregnancy outcomes based on drug use to a misunderstanding about pregnancy.
“One has to have something called biological plausibility,” he says. “And methamphetamine has no biological pathway to lead to the end of a pregnancy. It just doesn’t.”
He says that pregnancy outcomes are determined by the health of the placenta, and there are no mechanisms for meth to harm the placenta.
This Texas district attorney is one of dozens who have vowed not to prosecute abortion
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN AMERICA
This Texas district attorney is one of dozens who have vowed not to prosecute abortion
Twenty percent of pregnancies in the U.S. end in a loss, according to Kliman, who has worked as an expert witness with NAPW on several cases. He says over 90% of these losses are caused by genetic abnormalities, which are often undiagnosed.
Sussman adds that, though the science does not support it, data shows that drug use makes up the most prosecuted pregnancy losses. But Kliman says that’s because prosecutors and pathologists misinterpret drug use as a causation, instead of a mere association.
Pregnant people are charged for ordinary conduct
Still, people using illicit drugs are not the only ones at risk of criminal charges for pregnancy outcomes. Sussman adds that she has worked with people who have been prosecuted for prescription medication such as legal medical marijuana, painkillers for preexisting conditions, or Adderall, which is medication commonly used to treat ADHD.
“We’ve had cases where a woman has fallen down a flight of stairs while light-headed during pregnancy and charged with attempted feticide because they suspected she did it on purpose,” Sussman adds.
Yveka Pierre is the senior litigation counsel at If/When/How, a reproductive justice nonprofit that in part provides legal defense for people charged with crimes stemming from pregnancies.
Alabama Prosecutors Dismiss Charge Against Woman Indicted In Death Of Her Own Fetus
LAW
Alabama Prosecutors Dismiss Charge Against Woman Indicted In Death Of Her Own Fetus
Pierre points to the case of Marshae Jones, an Alabama woman who was indicted for manslaughter in 2019 after being shot in the stomach while five months pregnant. Police said Jones started the fight that led to the shooting and failed to remove herself from harm’s way. But the district attorney later dropped the charge after a groundswell of national support.
“When someone wants to punish a group of people, they will get very creative in the ways that they try to effectuate a punishment,” Pierre tells NPR. Experts agree that confusion around what actions or inactions are punishable creates untenable legal ground for pregnant people.
Pierre says that before abortion rights were overturned in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last month if prosecutors could not charge someone for an abortion, they would charge them with murder. “But it’s a murder case that’s kind of imbued in the stigma of abortion,” she adds.
“So it’s not an abortion case, but they need to be able to put in front of the jury that this person considered an abortion or this person took pills to end their pregnancy, even though that has nothing to do with the facts they need to prove,” Pierre says.
Prosecuting losses in the Dobbs era
Pregnancy loss prosecutions were already rising under the protections of Roe, Sussman says. Now that the Supreme Court has stripped away the constitutional right to abortion, legal experts expect that prosecutions may continue to increase.
“Without Roe and Casey pushing back the line on fetal person, we are about to see the full re-imagination of criminal and civil codes in this country in the states that have already redefined fetuses and fertilized eggs and embryos as children or as human beings,” Sussman says. “Our data shows 1,700 cases [involving pregnancy loss] since 1973 and a rapid acceleration in the past 15 years.”
With Roe overturned, state constitutions are now at the center of the abortion fight
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN AMERICA
With Roe overturned, state constitutions are now at the center of the abortion fight
Pierre agrees that the Dobbs decision could portend more criminal charges for pregnancy outcomes, but she stresses that there are resources to help.
“I want folks to understand that just because someone is being prosecuted does not mean that the law actually supports that prosecution,” Pierre says, as she points to state constitutions and case law that can work in defense. She also points to organizations like hers which help highlight the various laws surrounding pregnancies.
But even if a person is able to obtain a lawyer and mount a successful defense, it may already be too late.
By the time NAPW successfully convinced a California judge to dismiss the murder charge against Becker, the penal system already owned 16 months of her life. But there are other costs associated with battling the criminal legal system.
The criminalization — and the participation of medical providers in the investigation — of pregnancy loss may dissuade people from seeking medical care. That leads to worse outcomes for pregnant people, mothers and babies, experts say. Sussman points to Tennessee’s 2014 fetal assault law, which was allowed to expire two years later. Medical officials have warned that this law discouraged women from being forthcoming about their pregnancies.
Becker says her experience discouraged her from another pregnancy. But she is inspired to advocate for reform measures to ensure no one else endures her experience. In partnership with the NAPW, Becker submitted testimony in support of a California bill that would, in part, remove the requirement that a coroner investigate deaths surrounding known or suspected abortions.
or a similar group managed to get onto the Silverstone track at the start of the British F1 GP. Theer could easily have been been multiple fatalities although that was avoided.The race was red flagged (stopped ) on the first lap but already due to a massive crash at the start. Nobody hurt. But risky as fuck. Race restarted now..
We’re going to have to pay attention to the details:
In the last three weeks, Dr. Anthony Fauci tested positive for COVID-19 using an at-home test after experiencing mild symptoms. Within the next day, the symptoms grew slightly worse and Fauci took the recommended step, obtaining a prescription for the anti-viral drug Paxlovid and taking a five day course of treatment. During this treatment, he reportedly felt well, did not experience any serious side effects, and at the end of the treatment he tested negative for COVID-19. Case closed.
Only not so much. Because within the next few days, Fauci began to experience symptoms again. On taking a second test, he found that he was once again COVID-19 positive. In an remote appearance at the Global Health Forum, Fauci described his symptoms as “much worse” than at the time of his initial test. He launched into a second round of treatment with Paxlovid, and at the time of the interview on June 28 reported that he felt “reasonably good” though he still had symptoms.
Taking a second course of Paxlovid is controversial, as it is currently not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (though it has been suggested by Pfizer, the drug’s manufacturer). However, the more interesting thing here is that the 81-year-old Fauci experienced something that until recently has been a rare phenomenon: rebound COVID.
Rebound COVID is generating a buzz that Paxlovid is ineffective, or that it somehow makes things worse. Don’t you believe it.
When COVID-19 first appeared, the version that circulated through China, Europe, and then around the globe appeared to very rarely cause reinfection. For most people with a healthy immune system, the response to this initial version of COVID-19, and to the alpha and beta variants, provided a response that, while less powerful than the response generated by vaccines, was still broadly effective in preventing reinfection over a period of weeks to months. Researchers combed carefully through the initial wave of cases in China, looking for possible reinfections, and they did find a few. But “few” was the defining term.
That changed somewhat with the delta variant, where those who had been infected with past variants found that their previous illness offered little protection against the just-different-enough newcomer. Even so, infections with delta seemed to provide good protection against another infection with delta, so while those who had already suffered with a previous variant found themselves vulnerable a second time, it wasn’t the start of an endless round-robin.
With omicron, that’s changed again. Almost from the first appearance of the variant, there have been reports that not only were those who had previous forms of COVID-19 more open to infection by omicron, but that reinfections from omicron were much more common than with previous variants. There were frequent accounts of people being reinfected weeks, or even days, after their first experience with omicron.
Some of this remains true—omicron is more capable of causing reinfection, even among those who have had previous infections from omicron—but there was another factor that wasn’t initially recognized. On Dec. 20, 2021, the CDC first noted that omicron had become the dominant variant of COVID-19 in the United States, accounting for about three-quarters of new cases. On Dec. 22, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided an emergency use authorization to Paxlovid as an oral treatment for those already infected by COVID-19.
One of the things that was happening wasn’t that omicron was so much better at causing reinfection. It was Paxlovid rebound.
As with many antiviral drugs, Paxlovid can rapidly drive down the viral load to an undetectable point. Researchers saw, and continue to see, this same phenomenon with HIV. But with the end of the five-day treatment, a small number of remnant viruses can come roaring back, generating a rebound infection.
Please note: It’s not that Paxlovid is causing the second infection. It’s that the infection never went away. The treatment merely masked the fact that some virus remained in system, and that the immune system response was not strong enough to fight it off when treatment ended. This doesn’t change the recommendation that Paxlovid be taken to address COVID-19 infections. In fact, those people experiencing rebound infections are likely to be those who benefited the most from the anti-viral treatment, as their immune systems were unable to suppress even a low level of SARS-CoV-2 infection. [As was probably the case with Dr. Fauci. The reason being quite simple: he is 81 years old.]
[…] Paxlovid continues to be an effective treatment with good outcomes. A clinical study in preprint shows that “there was no evidence of severe disease or impaired antibody and T-cell responses in people with rebound symptoms.” A report from earlier this month conducted the first broad review of outcomes from Paxlovid and found that “Among 5,287 persons over 12” who received Paxlovid in the last six months, 39 were treated in emergency departments and just six were admitted for hospitalization.” That’s well under 1% of patients treated with Paxlovid. That report concluded just what the CDC and FDA have said from the beginning:
When administered as an early-stage treatment, Paxlovid might prevent COVID-19–related hospitalization among persons with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 who are at risk for progression to severe disease.
In fact, the original studies on over 1,000 patients showed that “Paxlovid significantly reduced the proportion of people with COVID-19 related hospitalization or death from any cause by 88% compared to placebo among patients treated within five days of symptom onset.”
So, Paxlovid drastically cuts the incidence of severe illness or death. Less than 1% of patients experience rebound symptoms strong enough to seek treatment. Less than 0.1% of patients in rebound following Paxlovid were hospitalized.
Wonkette: “Republicans Still Pretty Sure All Those January 6 People Were Secret Liberals”
For a year and a half now, conservatives have been absolutely outraged by all of the January 6 arrests, some even finally figuring out that our prison system is horrific and solitary confinement is torture now that it’s happened to people they like. They’ve cried for Ashli Babbitt, declared her a martyr. They’ve desperately tried to compare the events of that day to normal protests that don’t call for literally hanging anybody, and they’ve claimed these other protests were the real “insurrections.” The background information on those who have been arrested is widely available and many of those who participated were already well-known right-wing trolls and extremists.
And yet.
According to a recent Yahoo/YouGov poll, many of them are still quite sure that the blame for the events of January 6 lies with “left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad.” As if any of us have to get out of bed to do that.
When asked who was to blame for January 6, the largest total share of Republicans — 43 percent — said it was these definitely not imaginary left-wing protesters. Comparatively, only 9 percent blamed Trump, 4 percent blamed Republican elected officials who said the election was stolen, 8 percent blamed Trump supporters who had gathered at the US capitol, 13 percent blamed right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and 19 percent said they just weren’t sure.
When restricted to just those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, that number went up to 55 percent (with 82 percent saying they were at least somewhat responsible), and it went up to 68 percent when restricted to Fox News voters. Granted, given the influence of Trump and troll culture on the Republican party, we can’t exactly count on these people to be sincere. Part of right-wing culture now is insisting that obviously untrue things are true for the purposes of “owning the libs.”
[…] Strangely, despite an incredible amount of footage from that day and over 840 arrests, there has been only one self-identified leftist who was even there — a guy who has been kicked out of several activist groups across the US because everyone thought he was shady, whose brother was one of the people organizing the “Stop the Steal” event.
Is it that they think these people are so good at what they do that between Fox News, InfoWars and every other right-wing outlet and the incredible “researchers” of the QAnon movement, they haven’t been able to find and identify any of them? That is impressive. Hell, they’ve barely even bothered to just make something up, as they so often do in these situations. And mind you, they’ve still been very upset about the arrests and about the conditions of the DC jail where many of the insurrectionists have been held.
This is nothing if not one of the most impressive feats of cognitive dissonance our nation has ever witnessed.
ravensays
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said during an interview aired Sunday that “I don’t believe” the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would stand for long.
I’m posting this not because I agree with it but because I don’t.
It sounds more like wishful thinking than anything likely to be helpful.
The overruling of Roe versus Wade by the Supreme Court is going to stand for decades. This court isn’t going to reverse itself. It might be reinstated but by that time, I’ll be long dead.
The Democrats could pass a nationwide law making abortion legal. In theory anyway.
They probably don’t have the votes right now to do that though. They need 60 and might not even get 50. They should try anyway so at least the GOP senators are on record as supporting criminalizing abortion.
HHS secretary: ‘I don’t believe’ Roe will be overturned for long
by Caroline Vakil – 07/03/22 9:00 AM ET theHill.com
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said during an interview aired Sunday that “I don’t believe” the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would stand for long.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that nothing’s ever totally safe. But remember, we still haven’t even been able to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. And so this country has a way to go. But certainly I don’t believe this decision by this court and Dobbs is going to stand long. This is just not America,” Becerra said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The Supreme Court last month ruled it would be overturning Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. Some Democrats have voiced frustration over leaders of their party and the president for not taking more forceful action in the wake of the high court’s ruling or for their immediate response to the decision.
President Biden on Thursday did call for an exemption to be made to the filibuster for codifying abortion rights.
“Well I tell them, ‘Give us some good ideas.’ We’re going to explore everything we can,” Becerra replied when he was asked by “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd about what he would tell Democrats who feel that the party is not fighting hard enough.
“And I also would ask them to please pass a law. They have it in their power, if they can find the votes to actually codify the Roe decision, which is what we need more than anything else … We will find what we can and do as much as we can,” he continued. “But when you are stripped of a right, as the Supreme Court has just done to every woman of childbearing age, it is tough to overcome. It took 50 years for us to get as far as we did. Now we have to figure out how to do this. It will not be easy.”
The Health and Human Services secretary explained that while proposals have been offered, it does not necessarily mean the Biden administration can readily act on them.
“We have to make sure, Chuck, that we stay within the confines of the law, and that we have the resources to do it, and that our authorities allow us to do it,” he responded when he was asked to elaborate on one idea of transporting women to other states to receive abortions.
Becerra’s comments come as a patchwork of states across the country have quickly rolled back abortion access, though some state laws are now paused amid legal challenges that were soon filed after the Supreme Court’s decision.
The data privacy risks associated with abortion aren’t hypothetical. Cases in Mississippi and Indiana could preview how digital evidence could be used post-Roe.
[…] “Lots of people Google about abortion and then choose to carry out their pregnancies,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, a spokeswoman for Fisher. “Thought crimes are not the thing. You’re not supposed to be able to be indicted on a charge of what you thought about.” Fisher declined to comment.
Despite mounting concerns that the intricate web of data collected by fertility apps, tech companies and data brokers might be used to prove a violation of abortion restrictions, in practice, police and prosecutors have turned to more easily accessible data — gleaned from text messages and search history on phones and computers. These digital records of ordinary lives are sometimes turned over voluntarily or obtained with a warrant, and have provided a gold mine for law enforcement. […]
Seeking an abortion? Here’s how to avoid leaving a digital trail.
Everything you should do to keep your information safe, from incognito browsing to turning off location tracking.
[…] A Google search for a reproductive health clinic, online order for abortion pills, location ping at a doctor’s office and text message about considering ending a pregnancy could all become sources of evidence. People constantly share data about their fertility online, privacy advocates say — even if they don’t realize it. Other obvious sources of health data include period-tracking apps and digital check-in forms at hospitals.
“People should not be responsible for doing everything perfectly, when they’re in a stressful situation, to protect our own privacy,” said India McKinney, director of federal affairs for the privacy advocacy organization Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Privacy is a fundamental human right, and it should be protected in law and statutes.”
[…] Limit who you tell
[…] “The biggest vector for criminalization is the health-care system,” […] When someone goes to a health provider with medical issues related to an abortion, medical professionals can report them to the police, who can then seize their phones or computers. With a device in hand, police can just look through the browser and text messages directly.
Diaz-Tello recommends being judicious about what information you share in an emergency room or doctor’s office. A miscarriage and a self-managed abortion using pills will look identical to most health-care providers and require the same treatment, she said.
Limit who you tell in your own life as well, including friends or family. If you’re experiencing intimate partner threats, take these steps to protect your communications and devices.
Chat on a secure, encrypted messaging app
When you do discuss your situation, use private messaging apps that use encryption. Apple’s iMessage, Meta’s WhatsApp and Signal are all end-to-end encrypted by default, which means messages are obscured from everyone except the sender and receiver.
Signal may be the most secure option. Apple has the key to decrypt iMessages that are backed up using its iCloud service, and law enforcement could ask it to do so. WhatsApp, for its part, leaves room in its privacy policy to share data with Facebook parent company Meta. Depending on what data it shares, that could raise privacy problems.
Protect your devices
Don’t turn your phone or laptop over to law enforcement without a warrant, privacy experts advise, and turn off biometric authentication such as Face or Touch ID if you’re worried about someone pressuring or forcing you to unlock them. Make sure your phone, tablet and computers all require a passcode or password to use them. Avoid wearing any health-tracking wearables while managing your health.
Browse the internet securelyAlways use incognito or private browsing mode on your browser to avoid leaving a trail on your own devices. When choosing a browser, go with Safari, Firefox or Brave, which all have robust privacy features. Make sure any options to prevent cross-site tracking are turned on, and instead of Google, use a search engine such as DuckDuckGo or Brave.
To minimize what is recorded about your browsing, use a VPN or Apple’s iCloud Private Relay, which acts like a more secure VPN. Avoid using third-party apps for searches. If you want an extra layer of protection, use Tor Browser, a tool for anonymous internet use that cloaks both your identity and your location, Rescorla said. […]
Turn off location sharing, or leave your phone behind
Some apps collect your location throughout the day and night and share it with third parties including data brokers, who sell that data to whoever wants to pay. To turn off location sharing on an Apple device, go to Settings → Privacy → Location Services and toggle the slider so that it shows gray. (Note that this will make apps that depend on location, such as Uber or maps, stop working.) On an Android device, go to Settings → Location and toggle the switch to “off.”
Unfortunately, turning off location sharing won’t stop your cell carrier from collecting your location. Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said a Faraday bag, which blocks electromagnetic fields, could help in cases when a person wants to keep their phone on them but prevent location tracking from service providers. […]
Maximize your privacy settings
To make sure your phone or social media sites are collecting as little data as possible, lock down your privacy settings. You can find a list of the biggest app and device’s options in our Privacy Reset Guide.
Avoid period tracking apps
[…] Each period-tracking app has different privacy practices, and understanding the nuances can be tricky. A password-protected spreadsheet or paper calendar will serve you better. If you decide to delete your period-tracking app, consider sending a data-deletion request as well, said Alan Butler, executive director and president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Some companies only honor these requests from people in California because of the state’s privacy law, but others accept requests from anywhere.
Limit where you share health information
Your dentist and even your workout instructor may hand out forms asking whether you’re pregnant. If you’re not comfortable sharing, say so, and save that conversation for a doctor you trust. […]
Be cognizant of physical surveillance technology
In some cases, law enforcement may pull data from license plate readers or facial recognition software systems that have been strategically set up along state borders, said Granick of the ACLU. If you’re in need of reproductive services, you may want to consider taking alternate modes of transportation vs. driving your own car, for example.
“People should not give up, even though this is hard and may seem like a lot,” Granick said. “People should take advantage of what they can do while pushing the powers that be to do more.”
These are the kinds of things we have to think about when rightwing dunderheads turn pregnant people into criminals.
[…] Yes, abortion bans will disproportionately affect poor women and women of color in a country that already has appallingly high maternal mortality rates, no federal paid family leave and little support for parents who struggle to provide for their children financially. As Rebecca Traister pointed out in New York Magazine, this is nothing new: The Hyde Amendment and state restrictions have already made abortion effectively inaccessible to many women without means or mobility.
[…] we should not lose sight of the reality that the Supreme Court decision has created a crisis for all American women. Even the richest Americans — the one-percenters and the upper middle class — will not escape the effects.
Attenuating the rights of half of the population will have systemic effects akin to climate change. Just as no amount of investment in Mars-bound space colonization, air-conditioned bunkers and private firefighting services will save the rich from terrible outcomes if the planet becomes uninhabitable, the rich cannot avoid the effects of the overturning of Roe. Residents of blue states won’t be exempt. And men who think the ban won’t affect them are mistaken; it will affect women they know and love, and it will change the political economy in which they live and operate.
The persistent myth that the wealthy will be unaffected is predicated upon the vague notion that they’ll be able to access and purchase abortion pills by mail, travel to places where abortion is legal or get an abortion from a local provider willing to break the law.
And sure, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where a red state one-percenter has his daughter or wife airlifted to another state for an abortion — or, potentially, for in vitro fertilization, if it becomes illegal to terminate embryos. We are accustomed to different rules and privileges for the wealthy, and witness these injustices daily. People with more money and privilege conferred by race and class — people who have access to better lawyers — experience our justice system differently. They also get better health care and pay less in taxes as a share of income. We hold the rich to a lower, not higher, standard and tacitly accept that they will get away with cheating various systems.
But the wealthiest are in for some unpleasant surprises when it comes to abortion. The scenarios where a woman needs an abortion include medical emergencies where any delay in treatment can have severe, even fatal consequences — and in those circumstances abortion pills obtained by mail won’t help. […] ectopic pregnancies, for example, where a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. The embryo must be removed, and delaying that treatment can result in sepsis, internal bleeding and death. Placental abruptions must be addressed immediately to avoid extensive bleeding, renal failure and even, in some instances, death. Any woman who finds herself in either of these scenarios is not going to be able to pack her bags and go for a long drive. Even for someone with the means, an airlift to a medical facility in another state may not be quick enough to save her. She will need to be treated locally and immediately. Some of the bans going into effect around the country include medical exceptions for these situations, but if there’s any ambiguity about what the law allows, the time it takes a medical professional to consult a lawyer may be the difference between life and death.
Some states are expected to try to ban interstate travel for abortions. Bans in Texas and Oklahoma leave room for that possibility. Planned Parenthood’s Montana branch has reportedly decided that it will no longer provide medication abortions for patients from certain states where bans are in effect or in the works, citing the “rapidly changing” legal landscape. It’s also clear that many Republicans view the Roe reversal as an inroad to a total federal ban. If they gain electoral victories in 2024, this is a very likely outcome, and in that case there will be no blue state abortion clinics to travel to. Even now, the lines and waiting times at abortion clinics in safe haven states are likely to get very long. […]
The reality is that women from every demographic need abortions. Well-off conservative women are not immune to contraception failures, gynecological emergencies, miscarriages, incest or rape. Many women find that despite their beliefs, carrying a pregnancy to term is just not something they can go through with, for a range of reasons. Pregnancy itself can be life-threatening for women with certain pre-existing medical conditions, and even for women who don’t have those risks, it is life-altering. The kind of person who might need or want an abortion is, put simply, any person capable of getting pregnant.
Women will die because of this — disproportionately poor and middle-class women, but not just poor and middle-class women. Rich women could just as easily suffer and die too — even those who think they would never need an abortion, or that they would never be denied essential medical care in the United States of America in 2022. […]
So-called “crisis pregnancy centers”—organizations that try to lure people in by implying they provide medical care, only to pressure and harass and even lie in an attempt to prevent people from obtaining abortions at real clinics—are constantly innovating in their quest to be as wretchedly scummy as possible. Their new tactics include using social media to reach teenagers and then using all of the gaps in social media privacy policies to collect data. Still worse, crisis pregnancy centers are hoarding data on the people who get sucked in to contacting them by other means or visiting them in person, Bloomberg reports.
[…] A Florida 19-year-old who got a pregnancy test at a crisis pregnancy center before she realized it wasn’t a medical facility told Bloomberg that when she begged a receptionist for reassurance that her information wouldn’t be made public or used against her, “I remember her saying: ‘Well, honey, this is what happens when you have sex.’”
Crisis pregnancy centers bring sophisticated tools to terrorizing teenagers this way. There are digital marketing companies teaching them how to reach young people on Snapchat, and software companies offering products like “Next Level Center Management Solution,” which can store data on up to 20,000 people for just $100 per month. […]
The two Republican members of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), on Sunday said that new witnesses have come forward wanting to testify before the panel after explosive testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, last week. […]
After declining to go into details about the new witnesses, Kinzinger praised Hutchinson for “inspiring” more people to come forward.
“Every day, we get new people that come forward and say, hey, I didn’t think maybe this piece of the story that I knew was important, but now that you guys are talking — like, I do see this plays in here,” Kinzinger said.
Kinzinger added that the committee is set to hear from witnesses they did not expect to hear from. […]
At the beginning of May, Russian forces still occupied the ring of towns and villages just outside Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. From that position, they rained down a constant barrage of artillery into the city, damaging over half the apartment buildings and homes, reducing some neighborhoods to smoldering wreckage, and making anything that looked like normal day-to-day life impossible. It’s not clear that Russia had any intention of trying to capture Kharkiv, but the constant shelling killed dozens of civilians each day and made life there hellish … and that seemed to satisfy Vladimir Putin.
Then, in a period of just over two weeks, Ukrainian forces surged out of the city, capturing the ring of suburbs just outside the city, places like Bobrivka and Zutuzivka and Tsrykuny. Days later, those forces were up the road at Cherkaski Tyshky and Mykhailivka, another 5 km from the city. And days after that, locations like Shestakova, a full 15km from the city. In the next week, Ukrainian forces bypassed Russian-held positions north of the city to capture Staryi Saltiv. while also cutting up roads northwest of the city to capture Tsupivka.
This wasn’t the kind of wholesale withdrawal of Russian forces that was seen in areas around Chernihiv or Kyiv. This was active, daily fighting, with Ukrainian forces outflanking, outthinking, and simply outfighting Russian forces and conscripts from the Russian-controlled area of Luhansk.
When Ukrainian forces captured Ternova, right on the Russian border, in the second week of May, then somehow managed to cross the reservoir east of Staryi Saltiv to threaten Russian supply lines, it was tremendously exciting for everyone who had been waiting for the moment when Ukraine would strike back, make advances, and garner some measure of revenge against an invasion force that had been absolutely rampaging across their nation.
However, that was also around the time when Russia, finally aware of the danger at the northern end of the line, pulled back some battalion tactical groups that had been down near Izyum, as well as pushed across reserves from Belgorod. Those forces contended with the Ukrainian bridgehead on the east of the Siverskyi Donets River, pressed back at the town of Rubiznhe, and managed to shore up Russian positions around Lyptsi and Kozacha Lopan.
The daily excitement of seeing Ukraine liberate village after village, town after town, was over.
But that doesn’t mean the fight north of Kharkiv was over. Russia has a high regard for artillery, not just as means of grinding down forces in their front, so that their army can eventually advance across the rubble, but as a psychological weapon. For Russia, keeping the body count in Kharkiv ticking ever upward, and preventing the people of the city from returning to the kind of stability now seen in Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy, was important. So much so that when Russia hasn’t been able to generate their quota of destruction through dumb, cheap, artillery shells, they’ve supplemented with much more expensive rockets fired from GRAD systems. And when Ukraine has made using even those GRAD systems difficult, Russia has pumped in short range ballistic missiles fired from from across the border in Belgorod.
In Russia’s attempt to straight-up conquer Ukraine, the forces in and around Kharkiv forcefully repelled every Russian advance. The city also acted as a base from which Ukrainian forces were able to destroy columns of Russian hardware attempting to travel toward Kyiv from the east. Russia wants Kharkiv punished, it wants to beat the fighting spirit out of the city. It wants to make sure that the next time a column of Russian tanks appears, Kharkiv just lies down and surrenders.
Except … yeah, that’s not happening. And neither is the big Russian counterattack at Kharkiv. [map at the link]
Just over a week ago, Ukrainian forces finally managed to take Vesele, located along the road east of Lyptsi. This position was the last remains of a small Russian salient that jutted down along a chain of villages, and was one of the few remaining positions from which Russian forces could lob plain old artillery into Kharkiv, about 20km to the southwest.
In mid-June, Russia announced a counterattack in the Kharkiv area, and for days Russian sources have been insisting that their troops were “right back on the outskirts of the city” and had retaken almost everything Ukraine gained in the May counteroffensive. For days now, pro-Russian sources on Twitter have been claiming everyone would see proof that Russia was back in Staryi Saltiv, back in Shestakova, back in even the suburbs of the city. Except a lot of days have passed, and the Russian counterattack seems to have been limited to contesting Ternova (again) and Rubizhne (again).
Instead, there has come fresh evidence that the Ukrainian bridgehead on the east side of the river is still there, and is continuing to contest with Russian forces for the positions across from Rubizhne. Also, Ukrainian forces are fighting in Slobohanske, on the south edge of Lyptsi, as well as securing positions to the east.
About the only Ukrainian action that doesn’t seem to have translated into a gain was a move ten days ago in which Ukraine bypassed Lyptsi on the east and was said to be disputing control of Hlyboke. If anything more is happening up there, I haven’t been able to find it.
Looking at the same area on FIRMS, there are some interesting things to see. [map at the link]
In this image, I’ve colored blue the fire that is likely to be coming from Ukrainian artillery. What’s immediately obvious is: there’s more blue than red. Even if that block of “who knows?” hot spots north of Slobohanske actually originated from Russia, it’s the Ukrainian guns that are delivering more impact on Sunday. In particular, it’s interesting to see Ukraine apparently pushing hard in the area of Kozacha Lopan. Russian forces northwest of Kharkiv retreated to this area in the very early days of the Ukrainian advance, and reportedly began immediately preparing defensive positions. This is also the area that has been reportedly reinforced with reserves from Belgorod and with newer equipment — that brand new T-90M tank that Russia lost? it was right up there.
Exactly what Ukraine is doing up near Kozacha Lopan is unclear. The area doesn’t seem to be the source of Russian counterattacks, and its main goal seems to be to safeguard the highway crossing into Russia just to the east. Maybe that’s why Ukraine is going after it, to once again threaten Russian supply lines and push against the major route into the region. Maybe they just want those Russians off their land.
The other thing that may be most interesting about all this artillery fire is that essentially none of it is going into Kharkiv. There are still reports of random shelling into the city. But if there was a real Russian counterattack that had taken it to the edges of the city, this whole map would look very, very different. Mostly, it would look like a ring of fire, with Russian forces pumping shells into the streets of Kharkiv, as they did every day for two solid months.
One of those hotspots caused by Russian fire does appear to be significant—that one little spot north of Staryi Saltiv is reportedly a Russian air strike against a Ukrainian supply depot at Verkhnii Saltiv (Upper Saltiv). But it’s also significant that Russia is reporting this because it shows just how far their forces actually are from moving toward Kharkiv. They’re still way up there where even reaching Verkhnii Saltiv requires an air strike.
That doesn’t mean they’re not still causing misery in Kharkiv. [Tweet at the link]
Because Kharkiv has to suffer, not matter what the price tag.
BELGOROD
On Saturday, an explosion in Belgorod reportedly killed three people and injured four others, according to Russian sources. Those same sources tagged the center of this explosion in a civilian area of the city, and has blamed a Ukrainian missile for the attack.
For some Ukrainians, it’s safe to say that launching a single missile into a city that has hosted hundreds of Iskandar missile launches into Ukraine, as well as provided the base for MLRS systems making long-range strikes into Kharkiv, seems more than justified. However, Ukraine has previously been extremely careful in their attacks on Belgorod, such as the daring attack by two Ukrainian helicopters that cut across the city to take out Russian fuel supplies while firing no weapons into other areas.
Other Ukrainian sources have insisted that the point of attack actually was a military position, and not the civilian home that Russian officials have insisted was at the heart of the explosion. Meanwhile, angry Russian voices have insisted that this attack justifies “carpet bombing Kharkiv” because apparently killing three Russians is worse than the 10,000+ civilians Russia has already killed in Kharkiv. And honestly, if Russia could carpet bomb Kharkiv and come away with a surviving air force, they would probably be doing it already.
Go back to the Ukrainian side, and there are voices saying that the whole explosion in Belgorod was staged by Russia as an excuse for making a formal declaration of war and conducting a general mobilization and draft.
Honestly, I do not know.
However, the explosion in Belgorod — which seems to be pretty darned explosive for just a house … [video at the link]
Looks pretty similar to another explosion in Melitopol … [video at the link]
And followed explosions that took out a Russian command and control center in Izyum. [Tweet and images at the link]
It seems likely that, assuming the Belgorod explosion was caused by Ukraine, that it was also another strategic target.
In the occupied part of the #Kharkiv region, #Ukrainian symbols continue to be destroyed
Meanwhile, in the areas still under Russian occupation… “We are not vandals, we will change them for our, Russian symbols,” said the guy with Putin’s swastika on his T-shirt.
The chart includes:
Gift from God Rape
Legitimate Rape
Honest Rape
Emergency Rape
Easy Rape
Forcible Rape
Enjoyable Rape
Those categories come from statements made by actual Republicans. References for the Republican excuses for rape can be viewed on the chart.
ravensays
Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines
WashingtonPost July 03, 2022
Several national antiabortion groups and their allies in Republican-led state legislatures are advancing plans to stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere, according to people involved in the discussions.
The idea has gained momentum in some corners of the antiabortion movement in the days since the Supreme Court struck down its 49-year-old precedent protecting abortion rights nationwide, triggering abortion bans across much of the Southeast and Midwest.
Here is the next abortion war.
The Red states want to make pregnant women into prisoners and slaves.
Under our laws, state laws stop at state borders.
The Red states want to extend their laws into the Blue states.
This can’t be legal. Except with the current Supreme Court, they can make up any laws they want.
…advancing plans to stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere, …
FFS, how are they going to enforce this?
Put a collar around the necks of pregnant women and chain them up in the yard or a dungeon?
Set up pregnancy camps where pregnant women will be imprisoned until they give birth?
Put up an Iron Curtain fence at their borders with mine fields, dogs, and guard towers. Shoot any pregnant women who try to escape?
We’ve seen this movie before in places like the USSR, Serbia during the Bosnian genocide, and Romania under communism.
What they Red states want to do is set up Police States with pregnant women as their first victims.
ravensays
From the Washington Post article above.
Just because you jump across a state line doesn’t mean your home state doesn’t have jurisdiction,” said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society. “It’s not a free abortion card when you drive across the state line.”
Yeah it does.
The Thomas More society is a Catholic extremist legal organization.
They almost always lose their cases.
In relying on private citizens to enforce civil litigation, rather than attempting to impose a state-enforced ban on obtaining abortions across state lines, such a law is more difficult to challenge in court, because abortion rights groups don’t have a clear person to sue.
Like the Texas abortion ban, the proposal itself could have a chilling effect, prompting doctors in surrounding states to stop performing abortions before courts have an opportunity to intervene, worried that they may face lawsuits if they violate the law.
This is dumb.
Civil litigation at the state level is only enforceable in the state you live in or have some sort of ties to. If I get sued by someone in Georgia, it either goes Federal or it goes nowhere. I’m not under the jurisdiction of Georgia state courts.
California and several other states have already passed laws nullifying the Red states attempts to take over their legal systems.
Former President Trump on Monday swiped at Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who serves as vice chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, a day after she signaled that the panel is leaving the door open to possible criminal referrals of Trump to the Justice Department.
During an interview that aired on ABC News on Sunday, Cheney said the committee may make a criminal referral, or multiple criminal referrals, to the DOJ about the possible crimes it has found in its investigation.
“The Justice Department doesn’t have to wait for the Committee to make a criminal referral,” Cheney said. “There could be more than one criminal referral.”
A day after Cheney’s comments aired, Trump disparaged her in a post on his knockoff Twitter app TRUTH Social. The former president also, again, pushed his familiar and false claims that he was “cheated” in the 2020 election.
“Warmongering and despicable human being Liz Cheney, who is hated by the great people of Wyoming (down 35!), keeps saying, over and over again, that HER Fake Unselect Committee may recommend CRIMINAL CHARGES against a President of the United States who got more votes than any sitting President in history,” Trump wrote.
“Even the Dems didn’t know what she was talking about! Why doesn’t she press charges instead against those that cheated on the Election, or those that didn’t properly protect the Capitol?” the former president continued.
Trump went on to jab the committee by complaining that the panel is made up of the “same people” who were involved in both of his impeachment trials and the Russia probe— despite the fact that Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), both of whom are the only Republicans to serve on the committee, voted against impeaching Trump in his first impeachment trial. The former president also fear-mongered about a so-called “massive crime wave.” (Trump did not specify what he is referring to.)
Trump’s latest attack against Cheney comes a week after the panel’s explosive public hearing featuring Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among the damning revelations in her testimony, Hutchinson detailed Trump’s fury on Jan. 6 as he faced resistance from his inner circle when he demanded that he be able to march to the Capitol with his supporters after the rally on the Ellipse. Additionally, Hutchinson recalled Trump demanding the Secret Service remove metal detectors at the pre-insurrection rally on the Ellipse so that his armed supporters could attend and increase the crowd size.
In her interview with ABC News, Cheney noted that she found Hutchinson’s testimony to be “very chilling.”
Pressed on whether she was concerned about prosecuting a former president who could potentially launch a presidential bid in 2024, Cheney replied that she is more concerned about “what it would mean if people weren’t held accountable for what’s happened here.”
so he repeats the lie about winning the election again, mindbogglingly expanding his rotund ego into realms of claiming the highest popular vote in history
in so repeating the Big Lie, defying his advisors’ repeatedly proving he lost, he continues to make the Committee’s case
he’s joining the “Blame Pelosi” train? Mystifying trying to shimmy shake attention onto they who “failed to protect the Capitol”? “How dare you not stop the attack that I inspired, invited, kickstarted, directed, targeted, celebrated & congratulated!”
they who failed to protect the Capitol? Yam, you mean like you?
————————
He also got more impeachments than any sitting president in history.
—————————-
It is entirely true that Fat Donnie Two Impeachments received more votes in 2020 than any other incumbent president in history.
—————————
That bit is actually tightly constructed in the Kelkyanne fashion
It is intended to give the impression that he got the most votes of anyone ever but that is not actually what it says. What it says is that he got the most votes of anybody who was a sitting President at the time of the election. Totally accurate piece of information used to create a false impression.
———————–
He’s an out of control psychopath – totally incapable of self-management … so keep pinging his twisted brain … his going to relentlessly threaten & disparage any & every person that he deems to have offended him … until he strokes out
———————-
That’s a weird way to keep score. “Best Loser”
————————–
Well, Donald, on this Independence Day it sucks to be named “Trump”. Get used to it because it ain’t gonna change anytime soon.
You will be remembered in the history books along side Benedict Arnold. NOT George Washington, Abe Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt.
Those men were patriots and American icons. You were a traitor and a parasite to We the People
Ukraine wants to push Russia out from around Kharkiv in the north in order to spare the city incessant rocket and artillery attacks. Putting the Russian city of Belgorod, a military logistical hub, within artillery range would be a bonus.
Ukraine wants to stop Russian advances in the Donbas, because every inch of territory lost is an inch that will later have to be retaken, with a heavy cost in blood.
But the south? That’s the region that will make or break Ukraine. [map at the link]
Russia has held the Crimea and half of Donetsk Oblast since 2014, while it captured a swatch from Kherson to Mariupol in the early days and months of the war. A limited Ukrainian counteroffensive over the last couple of months has rolled back Russian advances around Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, and are within 15 kilometers of Kherson city itself. A second limited counteroffensive has clawed back some territory on that eastern chunk of land, north of Berdiansk. While Ukraine would love to retake Crimea and all of the Donbas, its more immediate wish would be to liberate the cities of Berdiansk, Kherson, Mariupol, and Melitopol.
That desire isn’t just a matter of wounded national pride, however. The very economic lifeblood of Ukraine flows through those cities—all but Melitopol important ports. The last two remaining port cities under Ukrainian control, Odesa and Mykolaiv, are effectively blockaded by the major Russian naval presence in Sevastopol. Ukraine needs all of these cities to export the mass of agricultural products that feed millions in Africa and the Middle East.
Rail can’t transport Ukraine’s harvest to its international customers. The country and its European partners are working on hacks to gets some out via rail, but that offers only a fraction of the capacity of ocean freight at much greater cost. Ukraine needs those ports back for the same reason Russia prioritized their capture—whoever controls those ports controls Ukraine’s economic destiny.
On Saturday night, HIMARS rocket artillery shelled the airpot at Melitopol, an aviation hub for Russian aircraft. [tweet and video at the link]
At $135,000 per guided MLRS rocket (GMLRS), Ukraine has to be judicious in what it strikes. One pod carries $810,000 worth of ordinance. They won’t be using those to hit armored conveys, better to save this long-range expensive stuff for ammo depots, concentrations of high-ranking officers, and airports. Anything that degrades Russia’s air capabilities will make Ukraine’s southern advances easier.
(This also shows why more MLRS/HIMARS launchers aren’t necessarily helpful, when each rocket salvo costs nearly $1 million. Ammunition will always be the greatest constraint in operating these.)
The use of at least two of Ukraine’s four HIMARS launchers on Melitopol shows a curious shift in tactics—all four had been reportedly been used, oftentimes in concert, against Donbas-front targets. But Russia has lost over a dozen major arms depots in the region over the past week, and defensive lines are moving to the Bakhmut-Sivers’k line, where M777s and other Ukrainian artillery can provide solid cover. That has clearly given Ukraine space to shift some of that precious HIMARS support south.
Russia now has to decide whether to remain all-in on the Donbas front, driving toward the twin fortresses of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, or reinforce the southern front to halt Ukraine’s slow advance. Regardless what they choose, Ukraine’s key priority seems obvious—liberate the port cities, and perhaps even make a move on Crimea (and the Russian naval presence supporting its economic blockade of Ukrainian sea trade), before looking toward a Donbas region that serves little strategic or economic purpose—particularly since many of those cities are rubble or impoverished from eight years of Russian occupation.
We’ve long detailed the cost of advancing on Kherson—the flat, open terrain is unforgiving to advancing forces, easy pickings for enemy artillery (from both sides). Ukraine will need more of the high-powered artillery to cover their advances, suppressing enemy defenses and artillery batteries. By all indications, very few of the modern western NATO-standard guns have made it to the Kherson front. Official Ukrainian forces and military analysts still says August-September is the most likely timeline for a real counter-offensive.
Yet despite those challenges, Ukraine continues to advance, daring Russia to either move forces out of the Donbas front, or continue losing territory that both sides consider critical to their strategic war aims.
–—
On the ground, Russia has captured all of Luhansk Oblast. [map at the link]
Vladimir Putin gets a big propaganda victory out of these developments, but it has zero effect on the broader strategic picture. Even Russian sources admit that they were unable to trap any significant number of Ukrainian forces—failing to deal Ukraine a strategic defeat. Losing any territory sucks, but this one is of little real value. The soldiers and their equipment? That would’ve been irreplaceable.
More videos and images at the link, including a photo that shows the flag of Ukraine flying again on Snake Island.
Breaking news at a 4th of July Parade in Highland Park, an affluent suburb of Chicago.
The shooter has NOT been apprehended. Multiple people were shot.
From The Hill:
[…] The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the parade began around 10 a.m. but was suddenly halted 10 minutes later after shots were fired. Several witnesses told the newspaper that they heard gunfire.
Hundreds of parade-goers — some visibly bloodied — fled the parade route, leaving behind chairs, baby strollers and blankets.
A Sun-Times reporter saw blankets placed over three bloodied bodies.
Police told people: “Everybody disburse, please. It is not safe to be here.”
Debbie Glickman, a Highland Park resident, said she was on a parade float with coworkers and the group was prepared to turn onto the main route when she saw people running away from the area.
“People started saying ‘There’s a shooter, there’s a shooter, there a shooter,’” Glickman told the Associated Press. “So we just ran. We just ran. It’s like mass chaos down there.” […]
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Monday said that former President Trump’s return to office would feed into the “national malady of denial, deceit, and distrust” that the senator said President Biden has not been able to break through.
In an opinion piece published in The Atlantic, Romney said that many Americans on both sides of the aisle are continuing to dismiss various threats against the country, including inflation, global climate change, illegal immigration and water insecurity in the West. He cited the reactions of “MAGA loyalists” to the recent congressional hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as another such example of Americans’ denial. [AAAARRRRGGGGHHH! Blatant both-sides-ism.]
“If we continue to ignore the real threats we face, America will inevitably suffer serious consequences,” Romney wrote.
The Republican senator called Biden a “genuinely good man,” though he said the president has not been able to resolve the nation’s dismissal of serious issues, then warned that the possible return of Trump could inflate that denial beyond repair.
[…] The Utah Republican has frequently criticized Trump since the 2016 presidential race, during which he called the real estate mogul and then-GOP hopeful “a fraud.” He voted to convict the former president following both of his impeachments.
In the article, Romney also called out Congress, saying it has been disappointing in its failure to take action. […]
The Washington Post is reporting that at least five people were killed at the Chicago-area parade.
At least five people were dead, 16 were hospitalized and a gunman was at large Monday afternoon in a mass shooting that targeted Fourth of July paradegoers in Highland Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb, authorities said.
Video from the scene appeared to show blood pooled on the sidewalk and police talking to people in downtown Highland Park.
Others showed the chaos while loud bangs could be heard on the downtown street where chairs, toys and blankets were strewn.
The City of Highland Park confirmed on its website that 16 people have been sent to hospitals and five are confirmed dead. Police are searching for the gunman, and the city advised residents to shelter in place as it remains an “active incident,” the website said. […]
False and misleading information about abortion is spreading online, and researchers fear it will only get worse in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs.
On TikTok, videos suggesting that people use herbs to self-manage an abortion have racked up thousands of views. Antiabortion activists have shared false information on Twitter about the supposed dangers of abortion. And the New York attorney general sent a letter to Google last week urging the company to point abortion seekers on Google Maps to valid health-care offices that offer the treatment, rather than to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which try to dissuade people from getting abortions.
Disinformation researchers, as well as reproductive rights advocates, are concerned that what abortion-seekers find online can sometimes leave them even more confused and point them toward options that may be misleading or even dangerous.
[…] One trend has been the posting of videos, tweets and images of herbs including mugwort, pennyroyal and blue cohosh. Those posts advise that these herbs “can be used to cause a miscarriage.” One video on TikTok, which has since been removed, showed a caption that read, “Herbs that can cause abortion since the gov. is being sus,” which means suspicious. It had racked up more than 23,000 views.
Abortion rights supporters are trying to help people access care, experts say, but their methods could be harmful.
“There are no safe, effective herbs or botanicals to cause abortion,” Jen Gunter, a gynecologist and author of “The Vagina Bible” said in her own TikTok video in response to the trend. “People might be spreading this with good intention, but they’re wrong.” […]
[Some pregnant] people can do this [self-managed abortion] now with medications like misoprostol.
The so-called herbal (or “natural”) remedies are being advertised by people who are making a lot money. Their products are ineffective or unsafe … or both.
The government has greenlit new vaccines to defend against the latest Omicron variants. But the shots won’t arrive until the fall, and cases are rising now.
[…] American regulators committed last week to updating the 2020 vaccine recipes for this fall’s booster campaign with new formulas meant to defend against the ultra-contagious Omicron subvariants […]
Vaccine updates are becoming more urgent by the day, many scientists said. The most evasive forms of Omicron yet, known as BA.4 and BA.5, appear to be driving a fresh surge of cases across much of the United States. The same subvariants have sent hospital admissions climbing in Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium and Israel.
Covid deaths in the United States, which had been hovering for months near their lowest levels of the pandemic, are rising again. In the worst case, epidemiologists have predicted some 200,000 Covid deaths in the United States within the next year.
[…] Many scientists believe that updated boosters will be critical for diversifying people’s immune defenses as subvariants eat away at the protection offered by vaccines. Catching up with a virus that has been so rapidly mutating may be impossible, they said. But it was far better to be only a few months, rather than a couple of years, behind the pathogen. […]
“Omicron is so different that, to me, it seems pretty clear we’re starting to run out of ground in terms of how well these vaccines protect against symptomatic infections,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. “It’s very important that we update the shots.”
Now, the question is whether those modified boosters will arrive in time. In a bid to match the latest forms of the virus, the F.D.A. asked vaccine manufacturers to tailor their new shots to the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, rather than to the original version of Omicron from last winter.
Virologists said that a subvariant vaccine would generate not only the strongest immune defenses against current versions of the virus, but also the type of broad antibody response that will help protect against whatever form of the virus emerges in the months ahead.
But building a fall booster campaign around vaccines at the forefront of the virus’s evolution could also come at a cost. Pfizer and Moderna said that they could deliver subvariant vaccine doses no earlier than October. Some F.D.A. advisers warned in a public meeting last week that the timeline could be slowed even further by any number of routine delays. […]
Now I get to find out if I live long enough to get a new, effective vaccine … or not.
The death toll is now up to six. The number of wounded is up to 26.
The “person of interest” is a 22-year-old white male.
NBC News:
The person of interest was identified by police as Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, 22, from the area. They’re looking for a silver, 2010 Honda Fit compact vehicle with Illinois plate DM80653.
He was described as armed and dangerous, and members of the public were warned not to approach him if he’s spotted.
Police wouldn’t reveal what led them to Crimo.
A high-powered rifle has been found, and police are searching for a gunman, described as a white man ages 18 to 20 with long black hair, who opened fire about 10:14 a.m. CT, Highland Park Police Cmdr. Chris O’Neill told reporters. […]
Jeansays
Re #98
It wouldn’t surprise me if they found the body of a member of his family killed before the mass shooting.
Jean @99, I see that law enforcement officials have now apprehended the “person of interest.” Still don’t know any more about him.
Akira MacKenziesays
Just like they right-wing initially blamed the Uvalde massacre on a “transgender illegal,” I wonder what marginalized groups they’re going to wrongly accuse this shooter of being affiliated with this time?
StevoRsays
On the recent British GP Climate protest here – some more details. It seems to have not had much publicity – deliberately ignored (?) by the mainstream media sources :
Plus an inteview with one of the ‘Stop Oil’ protest spokespeople – James Skeet here – nealy nine minutes long and with hostile interviewers but still gets to put their side of it with some notable facts cited.
blfsays
Lynna@100, Thanks! That was a unique, different, and effective rendition of a almost-unsingable song set to the tune of a olde British(?) pubdrinking tune. Here’s an HD link (including the short message at the end), Привітання до Дня Незалежності США / Greetings for the Independence Day of the USA (video). One of the commentators there put it quite nicely (quoted in full):
I usually don’t care about over the top patriotic stuff about USA, since I’m on the other side of the world.
But this was… Different. And amazing. USA, as weird, dramatic and internally divided as she is, is also a friend. And a protector. Not just for Ukraine, but also for all Eastern flank. And we can count on USA probably more than those two unsure and fearful European countries, of which Sauerkraut and Baguettes come 😁
Jokes aside, this was an epic and most beautiful arrangement of Star Spangled Banner I’ve ever heard. And I got tears. Friendship between nations.
Happy 4th of July!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
A Ukrainian mathematician who proved the best way to pack spheres in eight dimensions to take up the least space, and an Oxford expert who has solved conundrums in the spacing of prime numbers, are among the winners of the Fields medal, considered the equivalent of a Nobel prize for mathematics.
The winners of the prize, presented at the International Mathematical Union awards ceremony in Helsinki, have been announced as Prof James Maynard 37, from Oxford University, Prof Maryna Viazovska, 37, of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Hugo Duminil-Copin, 36, of the University of Geneva and Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, and June Huh, 39, of Princeton University.
While the first Fields medal was awarded in 1936, there was a hiatus until 1950, since when it has been presented every four years to up to four mathematicians who are under 40.
Viazovska, who was born and grew up in Kyiv, is only the second woman to receive the award, after the win by Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, who became a medalist in 2014. Mirzzakhani died of breast cancer in 2017.
A Russian-flagged ship carrying thousands of tonnes of grain is being held and investigated by Turkish authorities in the Black Sea port of Karasu over claims its cargo was stolen from Ukraine.
Turkish customs officials acted after Kyiv claimed the Zhibek Zholy was illegally transporting 7,000 tonnes of grain out of Russian-occupied Berdyansk, a Ukrainian port in the south-east of the country.
Officials in Karasu said the ship was waiting off port while inquiries were undertaken into the provenance of the shipment….
Russia’s parliament has approved the first stage of laws that would allow the country to move to a war economy.
The two bills would authorise the government to oblige businesses to supply the military with goods and their employees to work overtime to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports….
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he held further talks with Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, about the latest situation in Ukraine.
The call between the two leaders came as Johnson faces mounting pressure over his decision to appoint the former Conservative deputy chief whip, Chris Pincher, who resigned last week over allegations he groped two men at a private members’ club in London….
Finland and Sweden sign ‘historic’ Nato accession protocol
The 30 Nato member countries have signed accession protocols for Finland and Sweden, sending the membership bids of the two Nordic countries to allied parliaments for approval.
The protocol means Finland and Sweden can join in Nato meetings and have greater access to intelligence, but will not be protected by an alliance defence clause – that an attack on one ally is an attack against all – until ratification….
Michael Ellis has just confirmed Boris Johnson did know the details of the 2019 Chris Pincher complaint, but was “unable to immediately recall them”. Let that sink in. The Prime Minister’s defence for promoting Pincher despite the complaint is seriously that he forgot.
…Perched on an incline where the road splits the countryside as much as the community, Webster’s home on the island of Roatán is at the center of a battle over land rights and sovereignty that has galvanized Honduras.
It’s also symptomatic of a broader phenomenon throughout the region, where foreigners – often cryptocurrency enthusiasts, libertarians or both – have flocked in recent years, supporting controversial projects – such as the proposed “Bitcoin City” in El Salvador – threatening to displace local residents and drawing comparisons to colonialists.
Webster has a message for the ones who moved in next door: “Go home.”
When the new Honduran government repealed a pair of laws in late April that had allowed for the creation of semi-autonomous zones called a ZEDE, it sent a similar message. But investors in the ZEDE on Roatán, known as Honduras Próspera, have challenged the move.
…
The result is a standoff in which investors are gambling with millions, the government could be at-risk of a costly lawsuit and the fate of the affected communities hangs in the balance.
The controversy dates back roughly a decade, when the Honduran [illegitimate coup regime] reformed [LOL] the constitution and passed a law that paved the way for the creation of Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDE). The idea was ripped from economist Paul Romer’s proposal of charter cities, which the Nobel-prize winner theorized could promote development in areas plagued by poor governance.
Romer proposed that a foreign nation act as a guarantor for the governance of charter cities. But the Honduran law instead allowed corporations to build a private city.
The issue fell into the background until 2020, when word spread that the first charter city had been established in Crawfish Rock – to the surprise of the village’s residents. “We didn’t even know what a ZEDE was,” said Luisa Connor, president of the local community association.
Investors had first appeared in Crawfish Rock about three years before as a charitable foundation, opening a community center and talking about plans to build a tourist center nearby. Residents said they saw no reason to be suspicious.
“It’s not anything out of the way for people to come and start building around us or starting projects,” said Connor.
…
Representatives of Próspera have said that they informed the community of their intentions in June 2019, citing a document that was signed by a couple dozen residents that contains the word ZEDE, but doesn’t explain what it is. “They deceived us big time,” said Connor.
Further enflaming the situation, Própsera posted on its website drawings of three stages of expansion that appeared to include the center of Crawfish Rock within its jurisdiction, stoking fears that investors could invoke a legal clause that would allow for the expropriation of the land the community has lived on for generations. Representatives of Próspera promised that they would not go that route, but their words provided little comfort.
As the controversy spread across the nation, a movement was born that demanded the protection of land rights and decried the concession of sovereign territory to foreigners and corporations.
President Xiomara Castro, who was elected in a landslide in November, made the ZEDE a signature issue of her campaign. When Castro sanctioned the repeal in April, she called it the most important day in her presidency thus far.
For the people of Crawfish Rock, it most certainly was. “Words cannot describe how happy we were,” said Connor.
But the elation was short-lived. Just before the repeal, Próspera announced a new round of investments totaling $60m and the adoption of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender. In the weeks and months since, the company has continued to operate as if nothing’s changed, moving ahead with construction projects and clinging to their plan to build a libertarian oasis of sorts.
Government officials said that any ZEDE currently operating has one year to conform to another kind of legal framework. But investors cite a sunset clause in the ZEDE law that gives them a term of at least ten years, as well as other international trade agreements that they claim grants them decades more.
Legal analysts consulted by the Guardian suggested that in order to avoid a lawsuit, the government could either strike an agreement with investors, or challenge whether the ZEDEs were created in strict accordance with the now repealed law.
…
Meanwhile, the residents of Crawfish Rock remain vigilant. “We have our eyes open,” said Connor. “We don’t trust no one.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Americans are continuing to grapple with the supreme court’s ruling last month allowing states to ban abortion – including the founder of the country’s largest provider of the procedure. Jessica Glenza spoke to Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, about how the group plans to help women continue accessing abortions:
In the time after the US supreme court rescinded the constitutional right to abortion in America and thereby allowed nearly a dozen states to outlaw the procedure, the president and CEO of the US’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has worked feverishly with three goals in mind.
Alexis McGill Johnson wants to get women where they need to be to access abortion, whether that means helping patients cross state lines or flying doctors to states where abortion remains legal.
Then, she wants to win in state courts. Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed 11 lawsuits seeking to delay abortion bans or, perhaps optimistically, strike them down entirely.
“What we can see, essentially, is just a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion and a lot of concern for patients on the ground being able to get the care they need,” McGill Johnson told The Guardian. “What we’ve also seen is a significant amount of rage.”
That will power her third goal – to win at the ballot box.
“Our work right now is to maximize the care that we can in the states that we can, and also take this moment as an opportunity to maximize mobilization.”
Conservative MPs are escalting their campaign for second no confidence vote in Boris Johnson in the light of the latest developments in the Chris Pincher scandal, ITV’s Paul Brand reports….
When the global financial system went into meltdown in 2008, banks collapsed and governments around the world were forced to step in to prevent the entire financial system from collapsing. It cost billions of dollars and, as well as that, it proved a pivotal moment: it profoundly shook the confidence that many had in their governments.
As Alex Hern tells Nosheen Iqbal, this period also coincided with the rise of a new technology allowing a new type of currency: one that is not underwritten by governments but instead exists purely online: bitcoin was born. At first it was a novelty, useful for buying illicit goods on the dark web and not much more. But bitcoin grew and grew and despite some significant bumps along the way, it reached a peak of $69,000 per bitcoin. Anyone who’d invested in it, or a swathe of other competing cryptocurrencies, found themselves incredibly rich – in theory anyway.
But this year things took a dramatic turn. As the economies were buffeted by inflation fears and investors headed for safer bets, cryptocurrencies began to drop dramatically in value. Some – like Alex Koh, an investor and YouTube personality, found themselves all but wiped out after sitting on small fortunes. For those who have ridden out the storm so far, there is hope that this year is a blip. But can bitcoin bounce back?
Minister prompts laughter in House of Lords as he tells them of ‘robust system for upholding public standards’
The statement that Michael Ellis, the Cabinet Office minister, read out to MPs as he answered the urgent question about standards in public life… was particularly pompous and circumlocutionary. “We are fortunate in this country to have a sophisticated and robust system for upholding public standards,” Ellis told MPs. “That system is multi-faceted; it is made up of interlocking and complementary elements.” You can read the rest of it in its glory on the Hansard website.
After a UQ in the Commons, a minister in the House of Lords reads out the same statement, word for word, before taking questions. Lord True, a Cabinet Office minister, read Ellis’s statement to peers this afternoon and as he opened they responded by laughing. They seemed to find the line about “a sophisticated and robust system for upholding public standards” particularly amusing. Even Natalie Evans, the leader of the Lords sitting alongside True, seemed to see the funny side….
The Conservative MP Anthony Mangnall is urging cabinet ministers to mount a coup against Boris Johnson. Mangnall, MP for Totnes, voted against Johnson in the no confidence ballot.
[They link to his tweet: “It is time for cabinet colleagues to recognise the appalling damage that the Prime Minister is doing to the party, government and country.
It isn’t good enough and each day that passes those who sit in cabinet will be more complicit with this farcical situation.
Time4change.”]
There were a lot of Tories making similar appeals just after the two byelections defeats in Wakefield and in Tiverton and Honiton. They were ignored, but this time the mood is more ominous for the PM.
Kristina Karamo, the Trump-backed Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state, is on record describing abortion as a “satanic practice.” A CNN report on this added Karamo also said on a podcast that demonic possession is real and can be transmitted through “intimate relationships.”
[…] in a metaphor that was a little too on the nose, Georgia Republican Herschel Walker’s car broke down during a parade over the weekend. The Senate hopeful’s car certainly looked nice on the outside, but there were apparently some troubles below the surface.
Donald Trump’s media company was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in connection with a criminal probe, according to the company with which the former president’s firm plans to merge. Digital World Acquisition Corp. said in a filing Friday that Trump Media and Technology Group received a subpoena from the grand jury in Manhattan on Thursday. The Trump company also received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding a civil probe on Monday, DWAC said.
Commentary:
[…] It was last fall when the former president and his team launched the Trump Media & Technology Group, which appeared to have bold, multimedia ambitions: It said it intended to compete with both Twitter and Netflix. To that end, the operation even hired a high-profile CEO: Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, despite his lack of media experience, announced he’d resign from Congress to lead the nascent company.
It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. […] the Twitter-like Truth Social app was plagued by technical difficulties and missed deadlines. Some top executives’ resignations made matters worse.
But the most dramatic problem relates to the venture’s financing.
Because the former president has a history of bankruptcies and loan defaults, he couldn’t simply go to a major American financial institution to help bankroll his media venture. So, Trump agreed to merge his operation with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), called Digital World Acquisition. As The New York Times has reported, “To get his deal done, Mr. Trump ventured into an unregulated and sometimes shadowy corner of Wall Street, working with an unlikely cast of characters.”
[Trump] ended up working with a dubious Chinese operation, all of which apparently drew the interest of investigators at the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which typically investigates things like insider trading.
[…] the shell company that intends to merge with Trump’s company said its board of directors received subpoenas from a federal grand jury — and now that same federal grand jury, as part of the same criminal investigation, has subpoenaed Trump’s company, too.
[…] this isn’t the only criminal investigation surrounding [Trump], but it is one of the former president’s biggest headaches. As Axios recently reported, “Truth Social’s financial prospects are heavily reliant on investment tied to the merger.”
The more the investigations delay the merger being finalized, the more it’s an open question as to whether Trump’s venture will ever get the capital it’s looking for.
In June 2019, as a G-20 summit was poised to get underway, Russia’s Vladimir Putin echoed one of this favorite claims about Western-style liberalism: It’s “become obsolete,” the authoritarian leader declared.
Soon after, at the same international gathering, a reporter asked Donald Trump for his reaction. The problem was, the then-American president quickly made clear that he didn’t understand the question at a conceptual level.
“Well, he may feel that way,” the Republican said, referring to his counterpart in Moscow. “He says what’s going on. I guess you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look, and what’s happening in San Francisco, and a couple other cities which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people, I don’t know what they’re thinking…. We can’t continue to let that happen to our cities.”
In other words, Trump heard a reference to “Western-style liberalism” and immediately thought of Democrats in California. That’s because the Republican has probably never taken a political science class, which would’ve taught him that Western-style liberalism refers to free countries with advanced economies in Europe and North America.
When Putin dismissed the West as “obsolete,” he wasn’t referring to San Francisco; he was condemning the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, et al.
All of this came to mind late last week, after President Joe Biden connected Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to American consumers paying higher gas prices. Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, was asked about this on CNN. He responded:
“Well, what you heard from the president today was a clear articulation of the stakes. This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm. But at the same time, what I would say to that family and Americans across the country is you have a president and an administration that is going to do everything in its power to blunt those price increases and bring those prices down.”
The phrasing wasn’t especially unusual — Biden made nearly identical comments in March and May, generating effectively zero pushback — but Deese’s comments nevertheless caused a surprisingly robust freak-out on the right.
One Fox News personality declared, “That one sound bite should be in every commercial for every Republican campaign.” Donald Trump Jr. insisted that the phrase confirmed right-wing conspiracy theories. Pretty much every conservative outlet you can think of joined the outrage parade — the gist was that a White House official had “admitted” something nefarious — and as of this morning, the clip of Deese’s comments on CNN has been viewed nearly 4 million times on Twitter.
The apoplexy is misplaced. As Politico summarized:
For those not steeped in international relations jargon, the “liberal world order” (or the “liberal international order”) refers to the rules and norms that have governed global affairs since the end of World War II — and is not related to domestic American liberal politics. In other words, Deese’s answer basically boils down to “If the West doesn’t defend Ukraine, then democracy around the world is undermined and threatened.”
In fairness, it’s worth noting that some on the left weren’t altogether pleased with Deese’s phrasing, arguing that White House officials should use less sophisticated language that would be more difficult for Republicans to manipulate and exploit.
Maybe so. But let’s not pretend that Deese said something scandalous, when in reality, he stated a simple truth. For generations, Democrats and Republicans have both supported the liberal world order, and it’s likely that some of the conservatives who went berserk on Friday know that.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of two Republicans who serve on the Jan. 6 Select Committee, posted audio on Tuesday exposing the violent threats his office has received in recent weeks and months — graphic and disturbing threats that have been fielded by interns serving in his D.C. office.
In a tweet, Kinzinger shared audio that he described as a “new low” in terms of the attacks he’s received over the last few years. Kinzinger has faced backlash since he became a vocal critic of former President Trump following the deadly Capitol insurrection last year.
The video — which Kinzinger noted was compiled by his new interns, who are in high school or college — contains audio of voicemails and phone calls with profanities and ominous language threatening the lawmaker and his family’s safety. Some of the callers are heard attacking Kinzinger for his defiance of Trump. [Video containing foul & graphic language is available at the link]
Kinzinger has previously given stark warnings about the dangers he and others on the Jan. 6 Select Committee face as they expose evidence on Trump’s incitement of the insurrection, all while GOPers continues to push the Big Lie heading into the 2024 presidential election.
In an interview with ABC News last month, Kinzinger described a letter mailed to his house. The writer threatened to execute him, his wife and his five-month-old child at the time.
Kinzinger urged the public to take the threat of political violence seriously moving forward. He argued that kind of violence can only be avoided if his GOP colleagues “get a grip” and stop adhering to myths about a stolen 2020 election.
“There’s violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” Kinzinger said last month. “And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”
In fairness, it’s worth noting that some on the left weren’t altogether pleased with Deese’s phrasing, arguing that White House officials should use less sophisticated language that would be more difficult for Republicans to manipulate and exploit.
[…] One key piece of the American Rescue Plan was a prohibition on states using its funds for tax cuts. This money was about recovery from the COVID-19 economy, not about giving rich people and corporations yet another tax break. That’s the piece Republicans really want to unwind, because giving rich people and corporations yet another tax break is a very large chunk of the Republican agenda.
[…] Republicans have repeatedly prevailed in court in their insistence that they can use the federal money for something other than what it was allocated for. Rather than investing in public health, vaccinations, state or local government capacity to deliver services, or education—where staffing is a crisis, having dropped by nearly 5% since the beginning of the pandemic—Republicans are playing budget games where they claim they’re paying for a tax cut out of the state’s general coffers, then move federal relief money into said general coffers from the agencies that were supposed to be spending it on the purposes for which it was intended.
[…] At the urging of the Chamber of Commerce, more than a dozen states have spared businesses tax increases by pouring billions in federal money into replenishing their unemployment insurance funds, which had been drained by the early-pandemic jobs crisis. That $14 billion hasn’t gone to other priorities, all to protect businesses from fulfilling their responsibilities when they cause workers to become unemployed.
In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a plan paying for a $200 million pause in the state’s gas tax with COVID-19 relief money, a move that at least didn’t exclusively benefit the wealthy, but was nonetheless in violation of the federal law—and damaging to people in Florida, who will miss out on the investments the ARPA was supposed to cover.
[…] Tax breaks over services is a standard Republican move. What’s different right now is that Republicans are using federal money that came to their states with specific intentions, diverting the money from doing the work Congress allocated it for in order to slash taxes. That weakens the economy and will be a real liability if a recession hits. But Republicans don’t care—if anything, they embrace it.
Making it harder to remove children from abusive homes: Conservative lawmakers in both houses of Parliament have drafted amendments to Russia’s domestic relations code that would require a court order to remove children from a home, erasing the power of child services to make this decision independently in the event that they determine a child is in danger. The proposed reforms introduce “temporary child-protection measures” that prioritize transferring minors to the custody of relatives when parents are suddenly unable to care for their children for whatever reason. Most importantly, the legislation establishes “a presumption of parents’ good faith,” meaning that all parenting acts will be considered sincere (and legal) unless proven otherwise.
Russia models new youth program on Soviet past: Damir Fattakhov, the federal youth affairs official who will likely manage Russia’s revamped government youth program, says the state is “returning to past experience” and modeling its “Great Change” movement on the three stages of Soviet youth movements: Little Octobrists (grades 1–4), Pioneers (grades 5–8), and Komsomol members (grades 9–11). State Duma lawmakers adopted the first reading of legislation on June 7 that would make President Putin the chairman of the Great Change movement’s supervisory board.
Griner appeals to Biden on July 4: WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner sent a letter to President Biden on Monday from Russia, where she has been jailed since mid-February after airport security in Moscow found multiple cannabis oil vape cartridges in her luggage. She faces up to 10 years in prison for “importing narcotics.” “As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner told Biden in her letter.
The ELINT News Twitter account plotted HIMAR strike locations on a map and learned that the rocket artillery system has an actual range of around 85 kilometers, much longer than the 70 kilometers claimed on the system’s spec sheet. [map at the link]
This might explain Ukraine’s use of HIMARS almost exclusively at night, as it has been driving close to the front lines to hit targets well behind them. Now Russia will be forced to reassess the location of those supply depots, lengthening supply lines it already has a hard time maintaining.
I wrote yesterday that each guided MLRS (GMLRS) rocket cost $135,000 based on some news stories. I dug deeper to confirm, and the cost of GMLRS in 2000 was around $43,000 per rocket. But it’s 22 years later, and the latest contract with Lockheed Martin priced the rockets at $1.1 billion for 9,000 GMLRS rockets and 2,000 cheap practice rounds. Average price is $100,000 per rocket, but given the practice rounds are likely significantly cheaper, $135,000 per actual GMLRS makes sense. That means the bottleneck will continue to be hyperexpensive ammunition. One pod is $810,000, and supply is limited—only 50,000 of the rockets have been produced, not all of them delivered to Ukraine’s partners, some used up in Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and smaller operators won’t surrender their expensive and limited supply to Ukraine. Only 9,000 are produced per year. Older rockets have cluster munitions banned by international treaty, and there seems to be little appetite to deploy them. (Assuming those rockets still exist somewhere, unexploded cluster bombs would dramatically complicate post-war cleanup.)
HIMARS […]—a launcher costs $5.1 million, or just six rocket volleys. It’s the ammo that breaks the bank, which is why the allies have committed to just 15 launchers that fire those pods. Yet there’s a reason these rockets cost so much: They are satellite-guided. So while Russia’s equivalent MLRS systems have a margin of error of around half a mile (adequate, since they’re just leveling cities), a guided MLRS rocket will hit within 1 meter of its intended target.
That level of accuracy allows Ukraine to target Russian ammunition depots nestled in populated areas: [Tweet and video at the link]
One of the wonders of HIMARS is that each rocket can be individually programmed to hit a different target. You can see the trajectory vary in these rocket launches: [Tweet and video showing “Independence Day fireworks from HIMARS” available at the link]
It takes little time to reload a HIMARS, but given likely ammunition shortages and Russian desperation to take these systems out, it’s more important for HIMARS to stay mobile to increase its survivability. It likely won’t fire a second volley anywhere near a launch site. [video of Ukrainian forces reloading a M142 HIMARS in the field is available at the link]
Note how the HIMARS arrives at a location with a fresh pod already lying on the ground. Supply trucks will sprinkle pods at various locations, making them 1) nearly impossible for Russian drones to find, and 2) easy to limit the damage if they are found and targeted. Even if the HIMARS vehicle itself is found and targeted, the toll would be the single vehicle (which, remember, at $5 million is relatively inexpensive) and three crew members. [JFC, the cost of war, and the relatively blasé accounting, astounds me.] A typical artillery emplacement, with supply vehicles in tow, could easily lose 20 soldiers or more if successfully targeted.
HIMARS can drive 80 kilometers per hour (50 miles per hour), with a range of around 500 kilometers on a tank of gas. That means it can float freely between the Donbas and Zaporizhzhia fronts. (Sloviansk to Zaporizhzhia city is 330 kilometers, or four to six hours of driving depending on the condition of roads.) The Kherson front is too far, however, so it will need to be covered by some of the HIMARS or M270 MLRS launchers that will be arriving in country later this month.
The Kherson front is starved of modern artillery, per local reports. No HIMARS for sure, but also no M777 howitzers. Despite that, Ukraine continues to advance on that front. [map at the link]
Snihurivka, that pointy red area in the center of the map, has seen fierce fighting the last week as Ukrainian forces have been trying to displace entrenched Russians on the northern edge of the village. Ukraine seems to be having more luck on that northwestern approach to Kherson and has also been rolling back Russians from the Kryvyi Rih approach, the top-right corner of this map.
Look at NASA FIRMS fire data overlaid by territorial control. (Open in new window to see better details.) [map at the link]
Ukraine may not have the latest long-range artillery on this front, but that’s not stopping it from absolutely smacking the shit out of Russian positions. We have never seen this level of fire on this front before. Here it is without territorial control overlay: [map at the link]
Ukraine says a full-scale counteroffensive isn’t in store until August and September, but Ukraine is already working hard to “shape the battlefield.” [snipped details concerning Ukraine’s retreat from Severodonetsk and Lysychansk; and the controversy over the decision to defend those positions in the first place]
It could all be over for Boris Johnson – although quite how long it will take his enemies to finish him off is not at all clear and his defenestration does not look immediate. The two byelection defeats almost two weeks ago prompted calls for cabinet ministers to mount a coup against Boris Johnson, and it finally it seems to be happening.
We have not had confirmation yet, but it is impossible to believe that the resignations of Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak were not coordinated. Perhaps there are more to come.
The Sunak resignation is the most serious of the too. Since the spring statement, the chancellor has not been the obvious heir apparent he once was. But he is still a powerful figure in the party. The resignation of Nigel Lawson helped to bring down Margaret Thatcher, although it took just over a year for that to eventually play out.
Even if there are no more resignations, the mood in the Conservative party has already turned against Johnson – perhaps decisively.
Under current rules Johnson is safe from another leadership challenge until next summer. But the executive of the 1922 Committee can change the rules whenever it wants. A new anti-Johnson executive is expected to be elected next week, but even the current executive – more evently split between loyalists and critics – could act now if it felt there was a consensus in the party.
Johnson is famously stubborn, and he is unlikely to quit just because two ministers have decided to go. But increasingly Conservative MPs believe they have no chance of winning the next election under his leadership. Ultimately that assessment should prove decisive.
Meanwhile on Russian state TV: Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the Chechen detachment “Akhmat” fighting in Ukraine, tells state TV host Olga Skabeeva that Russian forces “already pinned down NATO and the U.S.” and are ready “to put all of Europe on its knees.” She’s thrilled.
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. Worth watching in full.
In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the fact checkers are at great pains to issue lectures on the subject of ectopic pregnancy treatment. Is it abortion or is it not? More importantly, should we be tut-tutting over viral social media posts describing it as abortion?
Here’s the reality: It doesn’t matter whether the fact checkers or the average layperson consider ectopic pregnancy treatment to be abortion. What matters is whether the treatment is available to people whose lives are endangered by ectopic pregnancy—and there’s a lot of evidence that abortion bans will restrict the availability of this lifesaving medical care.
[…] if you consider a procedure or spontaneous bodily event to be abortion only if the product of conception is expelled or removed specifically from the uterus, then termination of an ectopic pregnancy is not, by definition, abortion.
We can talk definitions all day long, but reality is being affected by laws sloppily written by people who do not care about how to properly define the terms associated with medical treatment. For instance, state abortion bans often refer to the “unborn child,” but “that’s a word that means nothing to me as an obstetrician, because I deal in the words of ‘embryo,’ ‘fetus,’ and perhaps ‘neonate,’” Louise Perkins King, director of reproductive bioethics at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Vox.
Fact checkers splitting hairs over the definition of abortion do not help if doctors and pharmacists (and hospital lawyers) are concerned about prosecution for treating an ectopic pregnancy. The reality that doctors and patients face is this: “I am worried that people will [delay treating] very sick, pregnant patients longer than they should, in fear of being prosecuted,” Jeannie Kelly, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, told the Kansas Reflector. “This isn’t just our licenses, this isn’t malpractice. This is a criminal felony charge with jail time.”
“When people are unclear about what these laws mean, and you’re talking large penalties for physicians, you know, loss of license, jail time, felony charges,” Amy Addante, an OB-GYN and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, […] “The delays that are occurring as they seek legal clarity to make sure that they can legally do what they know to be medically right, it’s really dangerous for that patient.” [!!!]
If you want to understand how easily the treatment of ectopic pregnancy can be twisted to imply that it’s something other than the removal of a nonviable conception causing serious risk of fatality, consider this trash New York Times op-ed, which argues, “From a pro-life perspective, delivering a baby who is ectopic is closer to delivering a baby very prematurely because the mother has life-threatening eclampsia.” There is, as many, many people pointed out on Twitter, no such thing as “a baby who is ectopic,” yet those words made it into The New York Times. While that piece is arguing that ectopic pregnancy treatment is acceptable in an anti-abortion framework, the existence and high-profile validation of language like “baby who is ectopic” is an active danger to people whose pregnancies are ectopic.
[…] there have already been cases under existing abortion bans where medical providers hesitated to provide ectopic pregnancy treatment out of fear of the legal consequences, waiting until the emergency was visible and undeniable enough that they were sure they wouldn’t get in trouble—despite the cost to person whose care was delayed. Your abortion ban can leave something officially legal, but if doctors are too frightened to provide it, the effect is the same as if the ban were explicitly written in the law.
These concerns about delayed care don’t just affect ectopic pregnancies. While many abortion bans have exemptions for cases where the life of the mother is endangered, they’re really unclear what that means.
A Texas abortion provider said, ”My lawyer told me, ‘Unless they are on that table dying in front of you, you cannot do an abortion on them or you are breaking the law.’”
Writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lisa Harris, a professor of reproductive health at the University of Michigan, asked, “What does the risk of death have to be, and how imminent must it be? Might abortion be permissible in a patient with pulmonary hypertension, for whom we cite a 30-to-50% chance of dying with ongoing pregnancy? Or must it be 100%?”
[…] ”What’s really important and sad is that you really can’t keep the patient’s best interest in mind,” sociologist and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California San Francisco Lori Freedman told Vox. […]
Abortion bans will kill—not just when people seek unsafe, unregulated care and pay the price, but when doctors look at patients whose lives are genuinely threatened by their pregnancies and … hesitate. Republicans are intimidating doctors away from providing lifesaving care, and “the law has a life-of-the-mother exception” is no defense against the real-world outcomes here.
What will Vladimir Putin be remembered for?
Turning the world’s second most powerful military into the second most powerful military in Ukraine.
———————
Vladimir Putin visits an elementary school in Siberia. After he gives a speech, the children have a chance to ask their leader questions.
Eventually, little Sasha raises his hand and says, “I have two questions.”
“1. Why did Russia invade Crimea?
2. Why are Russian soldiers currently in Ukraine?”
Before Putin has a chance to respond, the bell rings, and all the children run out for recess.
When they return, another child, Vova, raises his hand and says, “I have four questions.”
”1. Why did Russia invade Crimea?
2. Why are Russian soldiers currently in Ukraine?
3. Why did the bell ring early today?
4. Where is Sasha?”
—————————
A man is standing in Red Square in Moscow with a handmade sign that says:
“Stop the insanity! End the reign of the bloody madman!”
Two FSB agents walk up to him and get ready to arrest him.
Protesting, the man says: “Why are you arresting me? My sign is meant to be against Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky — the bloody madman!”
”Right, right,” says the FSB agent. “We all know who you’re referring to.”
——————————
Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen, Paul Manafort and Donald Trump all go out to a bar. Who picks up the tab?
Vladimir Putin.
Anti-Donald Trump jokes:
Did you hear the Trump Presidential Library burned down?
This was a tragedy, not only because both of the books were burned, but Donald had only colored-in one of them.
Why did the Pentagon change the U.S. nuclear code to 141 characters?
So that Donald Trump couldn’t tweet it.
What is the main difference between a chickpea and a kidney bean?
Donald Trump has never paid to have a kidney bean on his face.
And if anyone thinks it’s inappropriate to be telling jokes about Vladimir Putin in the midst of a brutal invasion, the only thing I can say in my defense is: if I know anything about Ukrainians, their soldiers are probably telling these very same jokes (or ones very similar) as they face down Russian artillery in the trenches. Slava Ukraini.
A Georgia grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election result in the state has issued subpoenas to a number of the former president’s attorneys and allies, including senator Lindsey Graham.
The special grand jury empaneled in Fulton county, where the capital and largest city Atlanta lies, issued the subpoenas today, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
In addition to Giuliani, among those being summoned are John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesbro and Jenna Ellis, all of whom advised Trump on strategies for overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s wins in Georgia and other swing states.
The grand jury also subpoenaed South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s top allies in the U.S. Senate, and attorney and podcast host Jacki Pick Deason.
The subpoenas, were filed July 5 and signed off by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury. Unlike subpoenas issued to Georgians, the summons were required to receive McBurney’s blessing since they are for people who reside outside the state.
Viewers of the January 6 committee’s hearings will remember Eastman, the lawyer who, according to testimony from witnesses before the lawmakers, worked with Trump on his plot to undermine the results of the 2020 election. Eastman is among those who asked Trump for a pardon before he left office.
Police said at a news conference Tuesday that the suspect in the Highland Park, Ill., shooting planned the attack for “several weeks” before killing six and wounding dozens more at a Fourth of July parade
.
Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, said Robert “Bobby” Crimo III brought a “high-powered rifle” similar to an AR-15 and accessed the roof of a local business through a fire escape ladder before he allegedly opened fire on the crowd.
He said that after Crimo stopped firing, he escaped into the crowd wearing women’s clothing to conceal his identity and tattoos.
Covelli said the suspect allegedly fired more than 70 bullets. He added that there are “no indications” that anyone else was involved in carrying out the attack.
Covelli said investigators are still reviewing leads and will meet with the state’s attorney to discuss charges to file against Crimo once they are ready to review the information gathered.
He said police are in discussions with Crimo but declined to share additional information. He said law enforcement is still working to determine a motive.
Thus far, officials have “no reason” to believe that the attack was motivated by race, religion or any protected minority group, according to police.
Highland Park has a significant Jewish population, with at least a third of the suburb’s residents identifying as Jewish, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Covelli said Crimo went to his mother’s house after the shooting and borrowed her car. Police do not believe he told his mother what happened.
[…] Crimo was arrested without incident after a short pursuit.
Covelli said police found a second rifle when they stopped him, and other firearms were recovered in Crimo’s home. He said his guns were legally purchased.
Covelli also noted that Crimo is 21 years old and will turn 22 in September. Law enforcement had previously announced that he was already 22.
A new omicron subvariant known as BA.5 now comprises a majority of U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to data released Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The data is a sign of the rise of the highly transmissible subvariant, which has prompted concern about a new increase in cases.
BA.5, along with a related subvariant known as BA.4, has mutations that have shown an increased ability to evade the protection from vaccines and previous infection.
Vaccines still offer important protection, especially against severe disease and hospitalization, and experts say the rise of the new subvariants make it even more important that people get their booster shots if they have not already. […]
Wonkette: “White GA Candidates Who Ratf*cked Black Lady’s School Job Lose Elections Like Big Old Losers”
You might recall that ProPublica story back in June about how rightwing activists in Georgia mobilized a bogus panic over “critical race theory” to drive a Black woman, Cecelia Lewis, out of an administrative job with the Cherokee County School District last year. Lewis had never actually heard of the rightwing moral panic over CRT at the time she took the job. But the position had “diversity, equity and inclusion” in the job title, so clearly, the astroturf groups insisted, Lewis had to be a communist trying to brainwash little white kids into hating America and themselves. Lewis resigned before even starting the job.
Then, when Lewis was hired to supervise social studies teachers in neighboring Cobb County, the same crowd of rightwingers howled even more, because why would the schools hire this known Marxist that they had driven out of a job by lying about her? The school district bravely knuckled under to pressure, gave Lewis busywork that had nothing to do with teaching, and she left that job, too.
And now, the Nice Time we promised you with our headline: Three of the white people who’d organized to force Lewis out of her jobs lost their election bids in Georgia’s June 21 primary runoff elections. Two lost elections for seats on the Cherokee County school board, and a third finally sort-of conceded Saturday that she’d lost a run for the Georgia House of Representatives, although she insisted the local board of elections had cheated her by not allowing a recount, even though she claimed to have evidence of serious “discrepancies” in the vote.
ProPublica reports that the two Cherokee County school board candidates, Sean Kaufman and Ray Lynch, were “defeated by wide margins” after running as part of a four-candidate slate that promised to make the school board much more conservative.[Yay! Defeated!] (The other two members of the “4CanDoMore” slate lost their primary runs outright May 24, without getting enough votes to force a runoff against the incumbents.)
The third losing candidate, Noelle Kahaian, was a key figure in the effort to smear Lewis; she lost her bid for the state House by just 23 votes, just a hair over the half-percent margin that would have allowed her to request a recount. In a video posted to Facebook Saturday, the day after the vote was certified, Kahaian complained that the elections board had completely ignored her requests for a recount on the basis of all the cheating she’s sure happened, although she somehow managed to leave out the little detail about how the vote wasn’t close enough to actually qualify for a recount. Instead, she suggested the elections board had “no intention of investigating” her evidence that she was ROBBED.
Curiously, Kahaian doesn’t appear to have sued to have her compelling evidence of fraud examined in court, where it might get a less credulous reception than on Facebook.
At a spring 2021 meeting for concerned white parents who were upset about all the diversity and inclusion, which are extremely divisive, Kahaian explained how to make a big fuss at school board meetings, and to make sure to get good video “in case Tucker Carlson wants to put you on air.” She also walked attendees through how they could harass schools by filing grievances against board members, and urged them to partner with “outside forces” to file public requests for emails and curriculum plans, in search of evidence of nasty nasty CRT and other “indoctrination.” […]
Following the primary election runoffs, Cherokee County School District’s chief comms officer, Barbara Jacoby, sent ProPublica a statement making clear that the rightwing activists who targeted Lewis
do not speak for our community, as was illustrated when their candidates failed in their recent attempt to win a majority on the School Board. We do not support hate, and we are deeply sorry for how Ms. Lewis and her family were treated by these members of our community.
Following June’s ProPublica story on the harassment campaign aimed at ousting Lewis, one parent in a private Facebook group fretted, “Looks like we should prepare for antifa here in Cherokee County. I’m genuinely concerned for those names listed in that piece.” As far as we can tell, none of those who hounded Lewis out of two jobs have received torrents of email calling them communists or accusing them of grooming kids. (No, we are not saying they should.)
And local parents who were sympathetic to Lewis are now cautiously optimistic that the bullies might keep losing. Mandy Marger, whose family moved to Cherokee County 10 years back, said, following the runoff,
The idea that groups who had such extreme views thought that they could grab a hold of our community was frightening […] They made it very clear that those of us who did not align with them were going to have to stand up, and I’m really, really proud of our community — especially today — that we did.
So hooray for the good voters of Cherokee County and of state House District 117 for saying no to the extremists. Now all good Georgians need to do is turn out in droves this fall to throw out the rest of the loonies.
The past few weeks we’ve been hearing a bunch about this documentary filmmaker named Alex Holder, who got just crazy access to Donald Trump and his democracy-murdering crime consortium in the months and weeks surrounding the election Trump tried to steal and the terrorist attack he successfully incited. And apparently Holder was given all this access without anybody ever really telling the Trump campaign about it.
Politico Playbook got a look-see at the trailer for the documentary series, which is called “Unprecedented” and will air on Discovery+. The House January 6 Select Committee already had all this footage. And now we all get to watch, hooray! [Trailer available at the link]
We all knew that there was footage of Ivanka Trump maybe not being the democracy-protecting single-teared bald eagle warrior she wants us to believe she is. But this trailer really captures the “Logan Roy’s Family But Stupider And Poorer” thing the Trump family has going on. (That is a reference to the well-known television program “Succession,” if you are not aware of all pop culture happenings.)
It’s got the dramatic classical music of Vivaldi, cut with Ivanka complaining about how her dress looks and asking her makeup artist if she could maybe hold their dog, to keep people from seeing how her dress is making a crease she does not like.
It’s got Donald Trump Jr. telling rally attendees, “We will make liberals cry again!” Because “MLCA” is the new “MAGA,” we guess. And then it’s got Donald Trump Jr. washing his hands, as his voice, breaking, explains that he’s “washing my hands after giving a bunch of fist-bumps, you know!”
Eric Trump is on the phone at one point, and he says, “For the sake of this country, we’re going to get these guys,” like a real patriotic action hero.
Donald Trump The Daddy worries that there is a glass of water in the camera shot with him, we guess because he hadn’t flung all his dishes at the wall yet that day. And then he worries about the water some more. And some more. Pretty much every clip in the trailer of Trump speaking is him worrying about the water on the table in the shot next to him. And then there’s Ivanka wanting to put the dog on her lap to cover up her dress again. And Donald Trump Jr. and Eric having those faces.
Jared Kushner is in the clip.
Oh yeah, and there is just some really good January 6 footage. It’s got clips of Trump’s Ellipse speech where he said, “Let’s all walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.” If you’ll remember from Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, he was obsessed with getting to go on a field trip to the Capitol that morning, even though everybody had told him no. And it’s got clips of the terrorist attack as it unfolded.
The Vivaldi really is a nice touch, though. Just really provides a nice contrast with the garbage on the screen.
Can’t wait to see the whole docu-series, either on Discovery+ or when Liz Cheney informs America she’s pre-empting all the channels to hold a surprise January 6 committee hearing that is basically just movie night.
Wonkette: “New York Times Back On Its Bullsh*t, Finds Some Young Women Who Hate Abortion”
In its continuing effort to raise everyone’s blood pressure, the New York Times on Saturday delivered a glowing profile of a hip new counterculture phenomenon: young women who see the end of constitutional protection for abortion rights as a really great thing. Sure, they may be vastly outnumbered by young women who would prefer the right to control their own bodies — but the Times not only reports what these young anti-abortion activists say; it headlines its story on their cause ‘”The Pro-Life Generation’: Young Women Fight Against Abortion Rights” before noting 11 paragraphs down that it’s not that at all.
Here, let us steal a chart for you, which the Times must have forgotten: [chart at the link]
Why yes, young people who make up “Pro-life generation” are in fact stridently pro-choice, and kids 18 to 29 have never been more pro-choice than today.
How bad is this Times article? We learn that activist Lauren Marlowe, the 22-year-old social media coordinator for “Students for Life of America,”
launched a small line of “trendy pro-life clothes” as an undergraduate at Liberty University. The line touts a T-shirt with the word “pro-life” spelled out in the “Friends” font, and a hoodie with the cheeky slogan “Just a clump of cells.”
And oh, how the libs were owned by having that line thrown back at them!
To be sure, the story does acknowledge that its subjects are outliers, among women overall and in their age range overall, noting a Pew survey from March finding that
Women ages 18 to 29 are significantly likelier than older women to say abortion should be generally legal, and that it is morally acceptable. Just 21 percent of young women say that abortion should be broadly illegal.
But then, citing Daniel K Williams, a historian of the anti-abortion movement, the story suggests that part of the reason these cool young women oppose women’s full citizenship is that it’s just so contrarian and rebellious, because the antiabortion movement is so darn good at framing itself as “countercultural” but also totally in favor of stuff young Americans really like, such as “broadly popular beliefs about the importance of justice and equality for the vulnerable” — the Times’s language, not a quote from Williams. Heck, in that sense, the story chirps, the effort to restrict women’s freedom regularly cites
Historical touchstones — commonplace within the movement and much-disputed outside it — include the Civil Rights movement and 19th and early 20th century suffragists.
Again, thanks for that “much-disputed” bit for at least the tiniest acknowledgement that most people find such comparisons odious. Similarly, before plunging headlong into fawning over these young rebels, the story does note that
For the majority of American women who support abortion rights, other women’s enthusiasm for stripping away their own constitutional rights can be baffling and enraging, a profound betrayal.
You can smell the “but” coming a mile off, can’t you? Turns out that these young women see themselves as “human rights activists — happy warriors on the right side of history.”
Isn’t that just charming? They’re the real feminists, they say, because women can have it all, as long as “it’ includes an unwanted pregnancy carried to term. One, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, explains that
“This is 2022, not 1962,” she said, observing that women’s legal rights to do things like secure loans have advanced dramatically since the pre-Roe era.
Not that we need to keep all those dumb rights, because most of these happy warriors also want to see the Supreme Court roll back the right to contraception, but not all of them do. Hawkins’s group only opposes contraceptives that it COMPLETELY INACCURATELY labels “abortifacients” (IUDs plus the Pill and any other hormonal methods), but it’s cool with condoms and the rhythm method, which it calls “natural family planning/green sex.” We thought that only involved Kermit/Pepe slash fiction.
The story takes great pains to suggest that these kids aren’t really all that extreme, either. Oh, sure, most favor a complete ban on abortion from the moment of fertilization, with no exceptions. But hardly any of them want to see anyone punished for seeking an abortion, just jail sentences for anyone else involved. How moderate!
To give a sense of just how diverse these young antiabortion crusaders can be, the story even suggests that not everyone in the Junior Anti-Sex League has to be a rightwing “Christian,” heck no! Again, the language is so bizarrely chirpy, claiming that non-religious anti-abortion activists “make up a small but boisterous niche.” Take, for instance, 20-year-old Kristin Turner, who is a fan of climate activism and Black Lives Matter, but is also the
communications director for Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, whose goals include educating the public about “the exploitative influence of the Abortion Industrial Complex through an anti-capitalist lens.”
She even started a “punk band band called the EmbryHoez” which did a song called
“The Hotties Will Dismantle Roe”:
They say it’s empowerment / They say it’s women’s rights / But all I see’s oppression / And might makes right.
Yr Wonkette sought comment from actual punk rock women, but they all died after hearing those lyrics, the end.
If it’s a day in America, chances are it’s the day after a grotesque mass shooting, or the day before one, or the day of one. This time it was in Highland Park, Illinois, outside of Chicago, where a gunman fired into the 4th of July parade and murdered six and injured dozens more. The suspect is in custody as of last night, and we don’t know a ton of details yet, but of course Democratic politicians are making it political by saying, if you can even believe it, that guns may have played a part — the gun was apparently bought legally — while Republican politicians are saying “mental health, mental health, mental health!”
But GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is taking it over and above, like she’s got some inside information about this massacre that happened in a state she doesn’t represent in Congress. To be fair, she could also just be hallucinating. Point is, she’s not just blaming it on mental illness, she’s blaming it on SSRIs and “Big Pharma” and asking totally sane questions like “Are we really going to keep pretending?” [Tweet at the link]
Does Marjorie Taylor Greene know something we don’t, and did she find out about it in a secret transmission from a Jewish space laser that only she can interpret? We are just asking, for journalism.
Because in case you were wondering, according to The Daily Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo, who is kind of a specialist in reporting on MTG/MyPillow types, “no one in any position of authority has said the man in custody, Robert Crimo, is a drug user or has a mental illness diagnosis, and his uncle said he knew of no such problems.” Nada. This, very shockingly, appears to just be MTG pulling things out of her butt and waving them around.
Ever since that first series of tweets last night, she’s been going and going and going, just running with it, spreading conspiracy theories, demanding his “prescription drug history” and “recreational drug history.” She’s wilding out, claiming that “they are erasing every bit of searchable history” on the suspect. She tweeted, “They always delete everything about these shooters off of any searchable database and hide the truth about these young men.” Who is she talking about? Who does she think is doing this? What does she see? How many fingers are they holding up? Unclear.
[…] So all of this is pretty much what we expect from Marjorie Taylor Greene. Thoughts and prayers for the squirrels who live in her brain, sounds like they’ve been banging around pretty hard the past few hours.
In related news, Darren Bailey, the Trump-endorsed GOP wingnut running for governor of Illinois, is now very sorry after saying during a prayer livestream yesterday, just a few hours after the massacre, that it was now time to “move on and celebrate the independence of this nation.” Yee haw, time to git back to fireworks, we guess. But again, he’s very sorry. That was very insensitive of him.
Satan’s transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no more than an “accuser” testing members of the human community, Satan, along with his demons, is presented by Jewish apocalyptic texts and the New Testament as a main source of evil in the world. In Satan and the Problem of Evil, noted scholar Archie Wright explores this dynamic in both its historical and theological trajectories.
Interactions with Zoroastrianism led Jewish and Christian writers of the Second Temple Period to separate God from responsibility for evil in the world. This led to the emergence of a heavenly being that is responsible for evil and suffering: Satan. Satan and the Problem of Evil charts the development of Satan traditions and the problem of evil from the Hebrew Bible and its various translations in the Greek Septuagint to Jewish literature from the Second Temple Period to the Greek New Testament. It concludes by examining the writings of the early church theologians, from the late first century through the fourth century CE. Wright argues that these latter writers present a shift in the understanding of Satan to one that is significantly different from the Jewish Scriptures, extrabiblical Jewish literature, and the New Testament.
Accessibly written and comprehensive in scope, Satan and the Problem of Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers (Fortress Press, 2022) offers researchers, scholars, students, and even the general reader a definitive treatment of a perennial question.
[There’s a lot of religiosity in the background here, and I can’t really critically evaluate the arguments (and haven’t read the book), but I found this worthwhile.]
This week we begin our journey into the totally true not at all made up diary that has been scaring America’s teens for fifty years. Digressions include Jell-O, magic mushrooms, and ironing your hair, and Sarah promises to trip with Carmen….
There are links to parts 2 and 3, which just became available, at the link. In part 3 they talk to Rick Emerson, who has a new book out: Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries. (It’s interesting that Beatrice Sparks was from Logan, Utah, which is also the hometown of Teal Swan, whose therapist Barbara Snow was also infamously involved in the Satanic Panic…)
The Buzz Lightyear origin movie LIGHTYEAR (2022) has become a cultural lightning-rod in the right-wing moral panic over “grooming.” We discuss this controversy (which is ridiculous, by the way), and then discuss the movie, in which we can learn a little bit about how the Disney Company views itself.
It’s a common cliché : Elections have consequences. Evidently, it’s going to need an addendum: Elections have consequences, except in Wisconsin.
At first blush, a fight over Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board will probably seem like an obscure and irrelevant controversy to a national audience, but don’t be too quick to look past this one.
[…] In 2015, then Republican-Gov. Scott Walker appointed Dr. Frederick Prehn — a dentist, a gun store owner, and former cranberry farmer — to a state board that sets Wisconsin policies related to wildlife, air and water resources, etc. It was a six-year appointment, which meant Prehn’s term ended in 2021.
Now that Wisconsin has a Democratic governor, Tony Evers, he had his own ideas about who should serve on state policymaking boards, and his plans didn’t include Prehn. The trouble is, when Prehn’s term ended last year, he said he didn’t want to leave — or more specifically, he’d only leave if his successor was confirmed.
Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be problematic, except Wisconsin’s state Senate has a gerrymandered Republican majority, which has decided it won’t even consider the Democratic governor’s nominees, leaving the defeated former governor’s team in place.
In other words, voters elected Evers, but Evers is stuck with some of his Republican predecessor’s appointees — who are pursuing policies the elected governor opposes — thanks to the intransigence of a gerrymandered legislative majority.
The good news is, this led to litigation. The bad news is, the Republicans’ allies on the state Supreme Court sided with the state Senate and the Walker appointee. The New York Times reported:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday effectively handed the Republican-controlled State Senate broad authority over the composition of state boards and commissions, three and a half years into the term of a Democratic governor whose duties include naming board members.
[…] It’s worth emphasizing that in an overly literal reading of state statues, board members are, in fact, supposed to serve until their successors are confirmed, so as to avoid vacancies. But state statutes also set a specific timeline for service.
In other words, when Wisconsin’s laws were created, policymakers didn’t envision a system in which state senators would simply refuse to confirm nominees in order to reward the appointees of a defeated former governor.
The state Supreme Court signed off on all of this anyway, endorsing a governing dynamic in which Walker appointees are now effectively squatting on state boards, despite their terms having ended.
It’s evidence of a state’s democracy suffering a serious setback, but it’s not the only evidence.
[…] Democrats had a good year in Wisconsin in 2018, with big wins up and down the ballot. As we discussed at the time, Wisconsin voters elected a Democratic governor, re-elected a Democratic U.S. senator, re-elected a Democratic secretary of state, and elected a Democratic state attorney general. Even in the state legislature, Democratic candidates easily won the most votes.
Republican officials in the state could’ve honored the results. Instead, they responded to the defeats in the most unhealthy way possible: They launched a radical power-grab to undermine the winning candidates’ governing options.
[…] In other words, GOP officials disagreed with the voters’ choices, so they felt justified in ignoring democracy. […]
Political scientist Seth Masket wrote at the time, “Wisconsin has been one of the best functioning democracies in the U.S. for at least a century. What’s going on in Wisconsin today shouldn’t be dismissed as just one state’s experience. If democracy can die there, it can die anywhere.”
Two years later, in 2020, Democrats had another good year in the Badger State — the party’s presidential ticket narrowly carried Wisconsin, reversing a defeat from four years earlier — at which point local Republicans grew even more brazen in their rejection of democracy, embracing the fake electors scheme and launching an utterly bonkers sham election “audit.”
[…] The GOP’s posture is based on an elitist arrogance that democracy is an annoyance that must occasionally be ignored. It’s a sentiment that effectively asks, “Who are the voters to tell us what to do with state government?”
Florida punishes public health officials for being right:
Ordinarily, when we learn of public health officials who’ve been removed from their positions, the first assumption is that they’ve done something wrong. In Florida, this dynamic is sometimes turned on its head: Public health officials are occasionally ousted for doing the right-but-politically-inconvenient thing.
Earlier this year, for example, Raul Pino, the then-director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, encouraged members of his team to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. State officials soon after put him on administrative leave. […] (He was reinstated months later.)
Last week, the state punished the president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, too. The Miami Herald reported:
Dr. Lisa Gwynn, a pediatrician with the University of Miami Health System who has been a visible advocate of vaccine access for poor young kids, was removed Wednesday from a state-appointed board for publicly criticizing Florida’s decision to delay access to the COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5. Gwynn received an email Wednesday afternoon from Susan Miller, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis’ deputy chief of staff, informing her she would be removed from her position on the Florida Healthy Kids Board of directors for making “some very political statements that do not reflect the CFO’s point of view.
t was just a few weeks ago when the public learned that 49 states had pre-ordered Covid vaccines specifically tailored for children — and Florida was the nation’s only exception. Though Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly defended the move, his administration, facing significant political pushback, ultimately agreed to let some health care providers — pediatricians and children’s hospitals, but not county health departments — order the vaccines.
Last week, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo delivered congressional testimony and conceded that the state’s decision, which he and the Republican governor made together, might end up limiting vaccine access to roughly 30,000 disadvantaged children.
[…] “Quite frankly, we’re just trying to advocate for things, for equitable access to the vaccine,” the pediatrician [Lisa Gwynn] told the Herald. “I’m not a politician, I’m a pediatrician. And there’s no other reason for me to do what I do other than to improve the health of children in our state.” […]
[…] the recent Granite State Poll from the University of New Hampshire spells even bigger trouble for Trump. The outfit has been polling top contenders for the GOP nomination since July 2021, when Trump led DeSantis among likely Republican voters, 47% – 19%. By October 2021, Trump’s hold on the GOP base appeared to be softening slightly, but he was still up over DeSantis, 43% – 18%. But Trump’s support looks to be collapsing in the most recent survey of likely GOP voters, conducted June 16 – 20, showing DeSantis now leading Trump, 39% – 37%.
Republican focus groups conducted by The Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell after the first several Jan. 6 hearings also suggest that while Trump voters still generally support Trump, they are weary of him making a 2024 presidential bid. As Longwell noted on her podcast The Focus Group, “In both of these focus groups, for the first time ever, I had two focus groups back-to-back where not a single person thought Donald Trump should run again.”
Looking at the totality of this new data, it’s hard not to conclude that Trump has at least sustained some damage with the GOP base in recent weeks and months. […] GOP voters (and donors too) may be embracing the idea of Trumpism without Trump’s baggage, i.e. DeSantis.
[…] If these recent trends hold over the next several months, Democrats stand a good chance of benefitting in November from the internal strife within the GOP. Republicans wanted their voters to be singularly focused on inflation and their disgust with President Biden.
Instead, GOP voters could be in the early stages of a divisive debate over wether the party should stick with Trump or throw him overboard in favor of a younger Republican whose star is on the rise.
[…] After three people were murdered by a gunman who opened fire at a shopping mall in Denmark over the weekend, Boebert [Rep. Lauren Boebert] went to her Twitter account to pretend she had a point.
Writing, “There was just a mass shooting in Denmark, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe. It’s time to admit that gun laws DO NOT stop mass shootings!”, Boebert was once again testifying to how utterly her existence is a waste of space in the world at large. It’s hard to imagine a less intelligent statement being blurted out by a public official. Boebert was roundly lambasted for her newest attempt at fundraising off of human misery.
Less than 24 hours later, six people were killed and 38 injured after a man opened fire during a July 4 parade in Highland Park, Illinois. […]
[Facts presented to Boebert via Twitter are available at the link, including this fact: “Colorado had 364 murders in 2021, Denmark had 39. We have the same population as they do.”]
[…] Boebert believes that Jesus would have made sure to carry an AR-15 and arm his apostles as well in order to overthrow who exactly? Spoiler alert: Boebert thinks the Jews, not the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate, killed Jesus of Nazareth. […]
There’s also Boebert and other Second Amendment fetishists’ proclivity for conflation of the American Revolutionary War with whatever it is they think they’re doing these days. [Examples at the link.]
There were some attempts at helping Boebert get to where she needs to go. [example at the link]
And some tried to remind Boebert and others how not scared of things Republicans and other gun-totting faketriots really are. [example at the link]
And here’s a way to remind you how the guy the traditional media likes to say has a good education and was on a “debate team” is rocking the same analysis of world events. [Tweet about Ted Cruz]
And finally, because regulating stuff like guns works.
[…] Katherine Stewart, who has been reporting on the religious right for over a decade, wrote a guest essay for the NY Times this morning that goes even further than I did: Christian Nationalists Are Excited About What Comes Next. She does not mince words:
[…]
[M]ovement leaders are already preparing for a new and more brutal phase of their assault on individual rights and democratic self-governance. Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project. [emphasis added]The shape of the Christian nationalist movement in the post-Roe future is coming into view, and it should terrify anyone concerned for the future of constitutional democracy.
[…] A good place to gauge the spirit and intentions of the movement that brought us the radical majority on the Supreme Court is the annual Road to Majority Policy Conference. At this year’s event, which took place last month in Nashville, three clear trends were in evidence.
First, the rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appeared to have increased significantly from the already alarming levels I had observed in previous years.
Second, the theology of dominionism — that is, the belief that “right-thinking” Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society — is now explicitly embraced.
And third, the movement’s key strategists were giddy about the legal arsenal that the Supreme Court had laid at their feet as they anticipated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
There is clear and growing evidence that Dobbs, far from satisfying them, has only whetted their appetites. They are going after medication abortions next, and explicitly targeting anyone anywhere who helps (eve inadvertently) someone to get an abortion — which creates a greater climate of fear that they will further exploit. Thomas was also candid enough to invite attacks on other rights the Christian Nationalists object to, such as contraception and same-sex marriage. (One has to wonder, as many have, how he would feel about an attempt to overrule Loving, which allowed interracial marriage. That is based on the same reasoning as Griswold, and also goes against the Bible, as they interpret it.)
I’m getting close to the fair use limits, but I need to add this quote:
Americans who stand outside the movement have consistently underestimated its radicalism. But this movement has been explicitly antidemocratic and anti-American for a long time.
It is also a mistake to imagine that Christian nationalism is a social movement arising from the grassroots and aiming to satisfy the real needs of its base. It isn’t. This is a leader-driven movement. The leaders set the agenda, and their main goals are power and access to public money. They aren’t serving the interests of their base; they are exploiting their base as a means of exploiting the rest of us.
[…] Stewart focuses on the desire for power and money — though I would add that the desire to tell everyone what to think is also high on their list. It’s the “hunger for dominion,” in Stewart’s words.
Europe, and later parts of the Americas, suffered for centuries under the dominion of the Catholic Church. What broke that dominion was a combination of factors ranging from Luther’s rebellion to the rise of the Enlightenment and the growing ability of secular powers to resist religious demands. […] Various American colonies were also established to empower one or another Protestant sect (Maryland was a Catholic colony), though their rule didn’t last as long as the Catholics’ did.
The difference this time, for what it may be worth, is that, in addition to the religious sects competing for dominion, we now have a large body of secularists and pluralists who don’t want to be dominated by any religion. That is the great majority of the country, but, as Stewart cautions us, we’ve been ignoring the religionists for too long.
In short, we may be looking at a multi-front civil war before too long.
Highland Park wasn’t only mass shooting yesterday. Also Boston (4 injured), Kansas City (4 injured), Richmond (6 injured), Sacramento (1 killed, 4 injured), and Chicago (5 injured).
Mass carnage is worsening.
KGsays
Meanwhile in the Yoo-Kay: two of Johnson’s most senior ministers, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid, have resigned, following the collapse of the latest series of lies from Johnson (about appointing Chris Pincher as Deputy Chief Whip, despite knowing about allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him). Their resignations have been followed by those of a string of junior government members, but so far no more of the cabinet. Johnson is clinging to power by his fingertips – he’s appointed one of his closest toadies, Steve Barclay, to succeed Javid.
A snap poll by YouGov this evening found that 69% of Britons say that Boris Johnson should resign.
This is 11pts higher than when the pollsters asked the same question on 9th June. The proportion who say Johnson should resign tonight includes a majority (54%) of 2019 Conservative voters. Overall among Britons just 18% say that Johnson should remain in his role, rising to a third (33%) of 2019 Conservative voters.
Gunfire at a park along the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis wounded eight people, some of them with critical injuries, officials said Tuesday.
The parents of a two-year-old toddler that was found at the scene of the Highland Park shooting have both died, authorities confirmed Tuesday.
At a press conference, Jennifer Banek, the coroner for Lake County, read names of six of the seven victims that died including, 35-year-old Irina McCarthy and 37-year-old Kevin McCarthy of Highland Park.
Their friends have since taken to social media to mourn the couple and express their grief. A GoFundMe page has also been created to raise money to support their orphaned son, Aiden McCarthy.
The organizer of the page said it was created on behalf of his family, and with their permission. Aiden McCarthy will be raised by his grandparents and shared that he “is left in the unthinkable position, to grow up without his parents.”
The GoFundMe page has so far raise more than $130,000 as of 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Aiden was rescued from the shooting after a woman and her companions saw him pinned under his father who was unconscious […]
The other victims identified by The Lake County Coroner’s Office include, Katherine Goldstein, 64, of Highland Park; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63, of Highland Park; Stephen Straus, 88, of Highland Park and Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico. […]
Russia: Russians secretly help Ukrainians ARTE Reportage
A network of 8000 Russian volunteers helps Ukrainian war refugees to leave Russia as soon as possible. These Ukrainians mostly came to Russia involuntarily via Russian escape corridors from the Donbass and prefer to leave for the EU.
The helpers risk their own heads and necks in the process; many of them have already been threatened, attacked or arrested.
Viktoria and her husband Vova from Mariupol now live in St. Petersburg. Viktoria lost her child while still in the womb, in a Russian bombing raid on her maternity clinic. She herself miraculously survived. Her husband lost a leg in the war. Both were evacuated via an escape corridor to, of all places, Russia. Now they count on the help of volunteers there.
This is a summary of a German video report on what happened to some of the 1.9 million Ukrainians deported to Russia.
They were deported to the farthest reaches of Russia and given very little help or support. It’s clear the Russians hope they get lost, die, or get forgotten.
This isn’t anything new.
They’ve done it to so many nationalities that it is hard to keep track. Russian Germans, Taters, Chechens, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Karelians, Polish, German Germans, and now it is the Ukrainians turn.
In Episode 113 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to dissect the cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism of Putin’s war propaganda, which portrays any expression of Ukrainian identity or national aspiration as “Nazism.” Much of this hinges on the legacy of Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II. Bandera is indeed viewed favorably today by some in Ukraine—just as some in India look favorably upon the Axis-collaborationist independence fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, and some Palestinians lionize the wartime Mufti of Jerusalem who similarly looked to the Axis for support against British imperialism (a reality eagerly exploited by Israel’s propagandists). But there is another tremendously important figure who fought the Russians and Germans alike a generation before Bandera, and is nearly forgotten by both “sides” in the current propaganda war—Nestor Makhno, the great Ukrainian anarchist leader of the period of the Russian Revolution. And there is now an anarchist armed resistance to the Russian aggression emerging in Ukraine, reviving the Makhnovist tradition.
In Episode 130 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his comparison of the two diametrically opposed exponents of Ukrainian armed resistance to Russian rule: the World War II-era right-wing nationalist Stepan Bandera and the World War I-era revolutionary anarchist Nestor Makhno. Contemporary left commentary in the West echoes Russian propaganda in portraying Bandera simply as a Nazi collaborator, while many contemporary anarchists (at least) glorify Makhno as a visionary of agrarian utopia. Much is left out of both narratives. Bandera was quickly betrayed by the Nazis and slapped in a concentration camp after he refused to renounce his declaration of Ukrainian independence. And while historians have had much to say about anti-Semitic pogroms by all factions in the multi-sided 1917-21 civil war in Ukraine, it is only recent scholarship that has brought to light atrocities by Makhno’s forces against Mennonite agricultural colonies.
In a series of brief interviews with vlogger and activist songster Geof Bard, CounterVortex producer Bill Weinberg dissects the sinister “tankie” phenomenon on the contemporary Western “left,” which paradoxically supports Russian imperialism in the name of a misguided “anti-imperialism.” This absurd double standard is enabled by the so-called “Chomsky Rule,” which holds that we are only permitted to protest the crimes of US imperialism—and thereby renders the crimes of rival imperialisms invisible to the activist-left milieu. The pseudo-left betrayal of Ukraine to imperialist aggression actually undermines our moral authority to oppose the crimes of the US and its client states in places like Gaza and Yemen….
On a bruising day for Boris Johnson, the Chancellor, the health secretary, four Parliamentary private secretaries, the Conservative vice chair, two trade envoys and the solicitor general all resigned this evening.
ravensays
It is clear that the Zygote Police in the Red states are going to go after pregnant women. It’s not yet clear exactly how but it is becoming clearer.
As are what the rules will be to remain a free person.
They always go after your communication devices for evidence.
That would be your cell phone, landline phone, and internet providers.
Plus all your credit card information.
I’m sure in a few months, comprehensive instruction manuals on how to travel out of state for abortions without getting caught will be available on the internet.
Search histories, location data, text messages: How personal data could be used to enforce anti-abortion laws
By Jennifer Korn and Clare Duffy, CNN Business Fri June 24, 2022 edited for length
Among the wide-ranging potential implications of the decision are concerns about the potential use of personal data to punish people who look for information about or access to abortion services online.
In some of the most restrictive states, digital rights experts warn that people’s search histories, location data, messages and other digital information could be used by law enforcement agencies investigating or prosecuting abortion-related cases.
For example, in states that make it a crime to help an abortion-seeker, data from women’s period-tracking or pregnancy apps could end up being subpoenaed as evidence against the person who helped them,
A growing number of US lawmakers have expressed alarm about the potential misuse of advertising data to prosecute abortion-seekers. In May, dozens of congressional Democrats wrote to Google saying that the company’s practice of collecting and storing vast troves of geolocation data from cellphones “will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care.” And on June 24, the same day the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, another group of US lawmakers wrote to the Federal Trade Commission saying Apple and Google should face an agency investigation over ad practices that they said could end up harming abortion-seekers.
“Data brokers are already selling, licensing, and sharing the location information of people that visit abortion providers to anyone with a credit card. Prosecutors in states where abortion becomes illegal will soon be able to obtain warrants for location information about anyone who has visited an abortion provider,” wrote the group, which included Sens. Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Rep. Sara Jacobs. “The FTC should investigate Apple and Google’s role in transforming online advertising into an intense system of surveillance that incentivizes and facilitates the unrestrained collection and constant sale of Americans’ personal data.”
Much has also changed in the reproductive health care landscape since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Self-managed abortions and online pharmacies that provide abortion medication are increasingly accessible options, especially for low-income people or those in rural areas or states that restrict access to in-person abortion services. The US Food and Drug Administration in December lifted a requirement for patients seeking abortion medications to pick them up in-person, instead allowing the pills to be sent by mail.
Although a number of states, including Texas, prohibit receiving medication abortions through telehealth, that does not necessarily stop online pharmacies and services in other countries, such as the European-based Aid Access, from mailing the medications to people in those states. Web traffic to online abortion resource site Plan C — which offers information on how to find abortion medications and how to use them — increased from 500 people per day to 25,000 per day immediately after Texas banned most abortions after six weeks in September, before leveling out to about 2,500 a day, according to Elisa Wells, Plan C’s co-founder and co-director.
“Most people go directly to our ‘Find Abortion Pills’ directory that we have,” Wells told CNN Business. “Disproportionately these people are from states that have laws on the books that restrict access.”
Various online behaviors could become part of investigations and court proceedings in states where helping to provide access to abortions is criminalized, including internet searches, location history, call and text logs, emails and financial records, according to Cynthia Conti-Cook, a civil rights attorney and tech fellow at the Ford Foundation. Any part of a person’s digital footprint is fair game once a device is in law enforcement’s possession, she said.
“As long as abortion and abortion-seeking related conduct is what is criminalized, all of that information can be totally fair game,” Conti-Cook told CNN Business. She added that law enforcement has the forensic tools at their disposal to view virtually everything a person does on their device — but only once the device is in their possession. Unless voluntarily handed over, a phone and all its data typically cannot be accessed without a search warrant.
Various state-by-state laws governing abortion care raise novel questions about what role an abortion-seeker’s internet usage might play.
In at least one case, search history data has already been used to prosecute people who seek information about abortion services. In 2018, Latice Fisher was indicted by a Mississippi Grand Jury for second degree murder after an at-home pregnancy loss. While the criminal charges against Fisher were ultimately dropped, law enforcement pointed to alleged internet search results such as “buy abortion pills, mifeprisone online, misoprostol online” to argue their case. (Mifepristone and misoprostol are the two pills frequently taken together by women performing self-managed abortions.)
In anticipation of the passage of more restrictive laws, advocacy groups are promoting education on digital privacy and sharing information on how to seek reproductive health services safely online.
The Digital Defense Fund created a guide for women on how to keep digital footprints protected when seeking information on abortions. It includes tips such as opting out of personalized ads on Google and social media sites to minimize tracking, turning off location sharing and using privacy-focused browsers like DuckDuckGo or Firefox Focus that do not save search data, collect personal information or allow third-party trackers.
When seeking abortion information, the guide also recommends using end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp to keep calls and messages private (these apps also offer timed auto-delete features for messages). Unlike a phone company with access to SMS text messages, the developers of such apps can’t access the content of encrypted messages, and therefore could not be compelled by a court to share them.
Other privacy steps individuals seeking abortion information can take to protect their internet browsing include using anonymous browsing service Tor or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and using incognito search windows, according to the Digital Defense Fund. While it is nearly impossible to completely hide digital history, experts say such methods can help to minimize risk and make it difficult for law enforcement to seize data.
StevoRsays
For those who haven’t seen it already, this is a disturbing bit of news :
Brace for the anti-trans hate because Robert Crimo wore women’s clothes during his shooting:
He is NOT transgender.
He was arrested in men’s clothes.
He attended Trump rallies and was active in fascist communities.
He’s likely trolling while engaging in mass murder.
Police have charged 12 members of a religious group over the death of an eight-year-old girl in southern Queensland earlier this year. Elizabeth Struhs died at her Rangeville home in Toowoomba on January 7, 2022 after she was allegedly denied medical care for type 1 diabetes for about six days.
The exact religious group is question seems not to be named annoyingly.
Plus on abortion locally (for me nyhow) :
South Australia’s new abortion legislation will come into effect tomorrow, but for these women removing the stigma is just as important as changing the law.It has been more than a year since the abortion reform’s bill passed State Parliament, but will become law tomorrow.
A group of Adelaide women have shared their experiences with the ABC, and say they hope the changes to the law – which will remove abortion from the state’s criminal code and allow people to access them via telehealth – will avoid unnecessary trauma.
The group believed it was important to speak in solidarity on the topic of abortion.
Bandera was quickly betrayed by the Nazis and slapped in a concentration camp after he refused to renounce his declaration of Ukrainian independence. – SC@153, quoting CounterVortex
Well, kind of. According to what I’ve read, Bandera was kept under good conditions (in the expectation that he might come in useful later), even being allowed external contacts, and in 1944 was released again. I haven’t listened to the podcast, so I don’t know if it covers Bandera’s pre-WW2 terrorism against Poles, and Ukranians who were prepared to accommodate to the Polish authorities (what is now western Ukraine was part of Poland between the wars), or the fact that he remained an unrepentant fascist to the end of his life (at the hands of a KGB assassin in 1959). The Ukranian ambassador to Germany recently caused unfavourable publicity by publicly praising Bandera – his words were repudiated by the Ukranian government, but AFAIK he is still in post.
I have a book on the Makhnovists not mentioned at your link – an English translation of History of the Makhnovist Movement 1918-1921 by Peter Arshinov, which I picked up second-hand somewhere; the text is now available online.
Here’s a link to the Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
At least two people have been killed and seven injured after “massive shelling” pummelled the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, officials say. City mayor, Vadim Lyakh, called on residents to evacuate after Russian forces struck a market and a residential area.
The governor of the Donetsk region has also urged 350,000 civilians to evacuate in light of an imminent Russian offensive. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that getting people out is necessary to save lives and to enable the Ukrainian army to better defend towns from the Russian advance.
Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk said on Wednesday that fighting continues in the villages around Lysychansk. Serhai Haidai said “some settlements have already been under one or another control twice”. He repeated that up to 15,000 civilians remain in Lysychansk and 8,000 in Sievierodonetsk, adding “today’s videos from Lysychansk are painful to watch”.
The battle for Sloviansk is likely to be the next key contest in the struggle for Donbas as Russian forces approach within 16km of the Donetsk town, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday. Russian forces from the eastern and western groups of forces are likely now around 16km north of Sloviansk as central and southern groups of forces also pose a threat to the town, according to the latest British intelligence report.
…
Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin is in Ukraine today, and has visited the Borodyanka area on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv. The Irish prime minister said: “The people of Ireland stand with Ukraine and its people in the face of Russia’s immoral and unprovoked war of terror. The bombardment and attacks on civilians are nothing short of war crimes.”
Austria has begun the process of ejecting the Russian energy company Gazprom from its major gas storage facility at Haidach….
…Chanel is one of a number of luxury brands now more explicitly courting the most super of the super-rich – the consumers who have the budget to actually buy couture clothes. Balenciaga will open a couture-only store in Paris this week, selling items including sunglasses for €3500 (£3009). Next year, Chanel will open a series of boutiques in Asia exclusively for its VIP customers, with China predicted to become the biggest global luxury market by 2025.
The brand remains a popular symbol of luxury throughout the world, so much so that luxury consumers continue to fuel demand for its famous bags despite six price rises since the start of the pandemic in 2020. When Chanel banned sales to Russian nationals in April, the country’s influencers were so upset that they took to social media to cut up their Chanel goods in protest. The revenue reflects this popularity. In 2021, it increased by 50% year-on-year, up 23% from pre-pandemic levels.
A new exhibition on Coco Chanel’s work, Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto, will take place at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum next year. It will feature over 180 designs, plus jewellery and perfume, showcasing her undeniably huge contribution to modern fashion (and skirting her associations with nazism).Sponsored by the brand, it will no doubt cement its impressive legacy – and likely provide yet another sales boost in the process.
Johnson privately criticised Tory MPs at Carlton Club for not stopping Pincher from drinking too much, MP reveals
Gary Sambrook (Con) says when Johnson toured the tearoom yesterday Johnson said there were seven Tory MPs at the Carlton Club last week. Johnson said they should have intervened to stop Chris Pincher drinking so much. Not only was that offensive to those who did intervene, it should [sic] an abdication of responsibility, he says.
That provokes applause from opposition MPs – which is highly unusual at PMQs.
Sambrook has not previously been a vocal critic of Johnson.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, reprimands them for clapping.
Johnson does not address Sambrook’s point, but says it is obvious why Labour MPs want him out.
The Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey witnessed this in PMQs earlier.
In response to the suggestion from the PM that he has “a plan”, Tory backbencher Alex Shelbrooke has just mouthed “bollocks” and performed a throat cutting gesture …#PMQs
David Davis (Con) says the ongoing leadership crisis is paralysing government decision making.
Johnson says he disagrees. He is getting on with his “active and energetic programme”, he says.
Three Tories have now used PMQs to tell Boris Johnson to resign, 5News’s Andy Bell says….
A YouTube channel with numerous videos featuring the suspect in Monday’s Highland Park shooting posted clips that telegraphed violence, including one that appears to show the parade route that was targeted and another showing an animated shooting.
The channel, “zerotwo,” has since been removed by YouTube, but archives of the channel and its videos remain online.
The suspect, Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, 21, ran a separate YouTube account called “Awake,” which was also the name under which Crimo performed as a rapper. That account has been independently verified by law enforcement officials as associated with Crimo.
…
The most recent video on the “zerotwo” channel, uploaded eight months ago, included a cartoon figure shooting people and a voice-over that implied violence.
One of those videos, titled “Robert Crimo Archive Footage: File XM058,” appears to show the site of the parade route that became the location of the deadly shooting that killed seven people and injured dozens more on Monday, during a Fourth of July parade….
…
Crimo was highly active on forums focusing on violent videos and extremism in the years before the attack. Crimo was also an active participant on a forum that exclusively aggregated videos of murders and violent incidents on the web, last posting in the week before the shooting. On the chat app Discord, Crimo railed against “commies” under his rap name Awake. The Discord channel, titled “SS,” was first discovered by researchers at the website Unicorn Riot, a nonprofit media group that tracks the far right….
Europe must prepare for complete cut-off of Russian gas, says Ursula von der Leyen
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU needs to make emergency plans to prepare for a complete cut-off of Russian gas.
The EU chief accused Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, of using energy as a weapon in an address to lawmakers in Strasbourg today.
The Commission is currently working on a “European emergency plan” with the first plans to be presented by the middle of the month, she said.
Von der Leyen said:
If worst comes to worst, then we have to be prepared.
She stressed the importance of having a European overview and coordinated approach “to a potential complete cut off of Russian gas”.
“BREAKING: Richmond police will hold a press conference at 2pm to address a tip, that they say prevented a mass shooting planned for July 4th. Multiple arrests made, weapons seized. Stay tuned.”
KG @169 (and previous).
Stick a fork in him, I think he’s done…
ravensays
Putin is recreating the old USSR.
They are now arresting anyone who is a dissident.
It’s all there, exile to Siberia, disappearances, the Gulag, the secret police.
Human life is cheap and meaningless in the new Soviet Union.
You can die any time someone with power and money thinks it is convenient.
Because the old USSR worked so well, so why not?
(IMO, Russia is turning into a failed nation.)
The New York Times In Putin’s Russia, the Arrests Are Spreading Quickly and Widely
Anton Troianovski Tue, July 5, 2022,
They came for Dmitry Kolker, an ailing physicist, in the intensive care ward. They came for Ivan Fedotov, a hockey star, as he was leaving practice with a film crew in tow. They came for Vladimir Mau, a state university rector, the week he was reelected to the board of Gazprom.
The message sent by these high-profile detentions: Nearly anyone is now punishable in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The flurry of arrests across the country in recent days has signaled that the Kremlin is intent on tightening the noose around Russian society even further. It appears to be a manifestation of Putin’s declaration in the early weeks of his war in Ukraine that Russia needed to cleanse itself of pro-Western “scum and traitors,” and it is creating an unmistakable chill.
“Every day feels like it could be the last,” Leonid Gozman, 71, a commentator who continues to speak out against Putin and the war, said in a phone interview from Moscow, acknowledging the fear that he, too, could be arrested.
None of the targets of the recent crackdown was an outspoken Kremlin critic; many of the loudest Putin opponents who chose to stay in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, like politicians Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, were already in jail. But each of the recent crackdown targets represented an outward-looking Russia that Putin increasingly describes as an existential threat. And the ways they were taken into custody appeared designed to make waves.
Kolker, the physicist, entered the hospital in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk last week for treatment for late-stage cancer, so weak that he was unable to eat. The next day, agents for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, arrived and, accusing him of treason, flew him to a Moscow jail. Over the weekend, he died in custody.
“The FSB killed my father,” his son Maxim, 21, wrote in all capitals on social media alongside an image of the three-line telegram sent by the authorities to notify the family of the death. “They didn’t even let our family say goodbye.”
Maxim Kolker, who is following in his father’s footsteps as a physicist in Novosibirsk, said Dmitry Kolker had been known for hiring students to work in his laboratory, helping persuade some budding Russian scientists not to seek work abroad.
Now, he said in a phone interview, the family has to return Kolker’s body from Moscow at their own cost.
It was unclear why the FSB targeted Dmitry Kolker, 54, a specialist in quantum optics. State media reported that he had been jailed on suspicion of passing secrets abroad. But critics of the Kremlin say it is part of a widening campaign by the FSB to crack down on freedom of thought in the academic world. Another Novosibirsk physicist who was also arrested on suspicion of treason last week, Anatoly Maslov, remains in custody.
The arrests came at the same time as the arrest on fraud charges of Mau, a leading Russian economist who is the head of a sprawling state university, the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
Mau, 62, was in no way a public critic of the Kremlin. He had joined more than 300 senior academic officials in signing a March open letter calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “necessary decision,” and he was reelected to the board of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, just last week. But he also had a reputation as what scholars of Russian politics call a “systemic liberal,” someone who was working within Putin’s system to try to nudge it in a more open and pro-Western direction.
His Kremlin ties were not enough, it turned out, to save Mau from a fraud case that has already ensnared the rector of another leading university and that critics said appeared designed to snuff out remaining pockets of dissent in Russian academia.
“A big enemy of the government and the stability of the government are people who carry knowledge,” said Gozman, who worked with Mau as a government adviser in the 1990s. “Truth is an enemy here.”
Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist who taught at Mau’s academy until April, called the institution “the educational hub for most of the country’s civic bureaucracy” and described his arrest as Russia’s highest-level criminal prosecution since 2016. It indicated, she said, that ideological purity was becoming an ever more important priority for Russian authorities, especially in education.
“In education, it is important that a person actively profess and share the values that he has to implant in the heads of his students,” said Schulmann, now a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. “Here, ambiguous loyalty may not be permitted.”
Putin has said as much himself. In the speech in March in which he railed about the traitors in Russia’s midst, he called out those who physically reside in Russia but live in the West “in their thoughts, in their slave-like consciousness.”
He is also increasingly asserting that truly patriotic Russians must be committed to living and working in Russia. He told an economic conference in St. Petersburg last month that “real, solid success and a feeling of dignity and self-respect only occurs when you tie your future and your children’s future to your Motherland.”
In that context, the news that Fedotov, the goalie of Russia’s silver-medal national hockey team at the Beijing Olympics in February, signed a contract in May with the Philadelphia Flyers was likely to have been seen as a challenge.
Fedotov, 25, one the hockey world’s up-and-coming stars, was planning to leave for the United States this month, according to Russian media reports.
Instead, on Friday, as he was leaving a practice session in St. Petersburg, he was stopped by a group of men, some in masks and camouflage, and taken away in a van, according to a television journalist who was filming a special report about him and saw the incident.
Fedotov’s alleged crime, according to Russian news agencies: evading military service. Russian men under 27 are required to serve for one year, although sports stars are typically able to avoid conscription. On Monday, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported that Fedotov had been taken to an unnamed Russian navy training base.
The elaborate detention was widely perceived as punishment for his having chosen to play in the United States rather than stay in Russia. “I won’t be surprised if they put him on some submarine and send him out to sea,” RIA Novosti quoted a Soviet sports veteran as saying. “He won’t go anywhere after that.”
To Gozman, the liberal commentator who remains in Moscow, a common thread running through the recent arrests was their seemingly gratuitous cruelty. In Putin’s system, he said, such behavior is more likely to be rewarded than censured by the state.
“The system is built in such a way that excessive cruelty by an official is rarely punished,” Gozman said. “But excessive softness can be. So any given official seeks to exhibit great toughness.”
Hope you didn’t get too rowdy on Independence Day — the Large Hadron Collider is about to zap us into another dimension, and July 4th partygoers will be left in the old universe. So goes the thinking in a new TikTok conspiracy theory. On this week’s Fever Dreams, host Will Sommer and guest host Andrew Kirell discuss what they’re expecting to get from the new dimension, and whether the Mandela effect is at play. Also on the podcast: MAGA supporters declare July to be “America Month,” and a Michigan secretary of state candidate gets into sexual demonology. 2020 election deniers build up their local infrastructure. Also: Reporter Baynard Woods joins to talk about his new book, “Inheritance,” an investigation of his family’s history in white supremacy.
Tory whips can’t find backbenchers to fill vacant ministerial posts, MPs say
Conservative MPs say that they have heard from party whips that there are now no MPs prepared to fill the vacant positions from those who have resigned en masse.
One former minister who has stayed loyal to Johnson told their whip that there were absolutely no terms they were prepared to accept and said the whip had agreed with them.
Another MP said they believed that message had been conveyed in “brusque tones” to Downing Street.
There’s also reporting that this morning Michael Gove told Johnson he should resign.
ravensays
Mystery as fifth Russian Gazprom-linked executive found dead in his swimming pool
Yury Voronov, head of a company that held Gazprom contracts, died from a gun shot wound to the head
Holly Bancroft Independent July 5, 2022
Another top Russian executive linked to energy giant Gazprom has been found dead at his mansion, local media has reported.
Yury Voronov, the head of a logistics company that held lucrative contracts with Gazprom, was found dead in a swimming pool at his home in a luxury suburb near St Petersburg.
Seems to be an internal conflict among the oligarchies in Russia.
Five Gazprom or Gazprom related executives have been found dead recently.
No one gets rich in Russia without being a friend of Putin.
And you can lose your fortune and your life any time it becomes useful to do so.
The whole trick to being an oligarch in Russia is to transfer your money out of Russia and then get out yourself and hope no one important decides to send the FSB after you to kill you.
Kolker, the physicist, entered the hospital in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk last week for treatment for late-stage cancer, so weak that he was unable to eat. The next day, agents for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, arrived and, accusing him of treason, flew him to a Moscow jail. Over the weekend, he died in custody.
The Justice Department filed suit yesterday, challenging a state law created by Arizona Republicans that requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
An attorney employed by the GOP-controlled state House had warned legislators that implementing the legislation, which applies to federal elections, would violate U.S. law.
[…] The law, scheduled to take effect in January, was passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. It puts the onus on election workers and voters to validate citizenship before registrants can vote in presidential elections or cast ballots by mail.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement that the law’s “onerous documentary proof of citizenship requirement for certain federal elections constitutes a textbook violation of the National Voter Registration Act” with provisions such as “requiring election officials to reject voter registration forms based on errors or omissions that are not material to establishing a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot.” […]
In the latest national Monmouth poll, Democrats and Republicans are tied on the generic congressional ballot, with each party garnering 47 percent support. A month ago, the same pollster showed the GOP ahead by four points, suggesting some shift in the Democrats’ direction. [summary from Steve Benen]
At the start of the Obama era, Guantanamo had 242 inmates. It’s now down to 36. Republicans are nevertheless determined to keep the prison open anyway.
The news didn’t generate a lot of headlines, but the Biden administration announced two weeks ago that it had transferred another prisoner from the Guantanamo Bay prison, shrinking the total number of detainees at the facility to 36.
[…] The Hill reported on renewed Democratic efforts to shutter the prison, which face long odds.
In the past month, House Democrats have advanced legislation seeking to close the facility in Cuba as part of a larger annual defense spending bill leaders are expected to bring to a vote in the full chamber, where the party holds narrow control, in the coming weeks. But in the Senate, where Democrats will need GOP support to pass the defense funding bill, the move faces a wall of opposition from Republicans.
“I’m sure it’s not going to happen,” Sen. James Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Hill. Rep. Mike Rogers, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, used nearly identical phrasing while making the same prediction.
Rep. Kay Granger, top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, added, “These detainees are the worst of the worst, and we need assurance that they will never be moved to the United States.”
To the extent that reality has meaning, Granger’s argument badly misses the point: Detainees weren’t sent to Guantanamo because they’re the “worst of the worst”; they were sent there because the Bush/Cheney administration wanted to hold the suspects without trial outside of the American judicial system.
As for moving them to the United States, American prisons on American soil already hold plenty of terrorists. The detainees at the facility often known as “Gitmo” don’t have superpowers. Our prisons have proven more than capable of locking up the “worst of the worst.” […]
Wonkette: “British POTUS Boris Johnson Betrayed By Bunch Of SPLITTERS! No Really All His Cabinet Split.”
Boris Johnson, the glitchy animatronic figure serving as the UK’s prime minister, wants everyone to know that his government is not in crisis and he has no plans to resign, just never you mind the sudden resignations of 25 members of his government in the last day or so. That would include two of Johnson’s top cabinet ministers, both of whom fucked off in protest of Johnson’s general incompetence and awfulness, as CNBC explains:
British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak resigned Tuesday evening, saying the government should be run “properly, competently and seriously.” Health Secretary Sajid Javid, likewise, resigned in protest against Johnson’s leadership, which has been beset by controversy and scandal in recent months.
As a number of senior Tories called for Johnson to quit, the government’s former Brexit negotiator, David Frost, also joined the fray, calling on the prime minister to step down without delay. In a newspaper column Wednesday, Frost echoed other critics of Johnson by stating emphatically that “it is time for him to go,” adding that “if he hangs on, he risks taking the party and the government down with him.”
CNBC, unfortunately, forgot how to do journalism, and hid the all-important sleaze parts of the story 14 paragraphs in, while the Washington Post properly mentions it right in the lede where it belongs: In addition to previous “partygate” scandals involving Johnson and other government officials partying during COVID lockdowns, there’s now a good old fashioned sexual misconduct scandal, too. That involves Conservative MP Chris Pincher, whom Johnson promoted to be “deputy chief whip” in the House of Commons — as the Post helpfully explains, that’s a “leadership role that involved keeping Conservative Party members voting in line with the government’s legislative agenda.”
Unfortunately for Johnson, Pincher resigned from that role last week after tabloids reported he had allegedly groped or attempted to grope multiple men at a bar while he was drunk off his ass. Pincher acknowledged as much in a letter to Johnson, saying he “drank far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people,” which is a hell of a self-serving way to admit to being a harassy peengrabber.
But wait there’s more!
Pincher had been accused of inappropriate behavior at least twice before. He resigned from his post as government whip in 2017 after a Conservative Party activist accused him of making unwanted advances toward him. And in 2019, after Johnson brought him back into government, Pincher was again accused of similar misbehavior.
Moral of the story to Conservatives: Don’t let a Pincher whip your members, or you might lose your Johnson, Lebowski.
There’s also a lot of stuff about what Johnson knew and when, but we’re not going to top that joke so we’ll move along.
Instead of resigning along with his 10s of cabinet members, Johnson “reshuffled the Cabinet.” Several remaining members of Johnson’s cabinet, perhaps a bit dizzy from all the jostling, nevertheless said they remain loyal and want him to keep on doing whatever it is he’s doing. But the number of faithful Tories keeps declining, and if Tori Amos and Tori Spelling jump ship, he’s toast.
CNBC notes that since at least some top ministers still support Johnson, it’s unlikely there would be snap elections anytime soon unless Johnson were to actually step down. He survived a no-confidence vote in June, though just barely, and unless his Conservative party changes its rules, there can’t be another such challenge for 12 months. Then again, that rule may be less sacred to the Conservatives than the filibuster is to some American senators, so … maybe?
The New York Times reports that Johnson “got a scathing reception in Parliament” early today, with Labour leader Keir Starmer mocking the resignations of several ministers who had initially said they’d stand by Johnson but then stepped down anyway:
“Anyone quitting now, after defending all that, hasn’t got a shred of integrity,” Mr. Starmer said, pointing a finger at Mr. Johnson. “Isn’t this the first recorded case of the sinking ship fleeing the rats?”
Mr. Johnson, looking embattled, apologized again for backing the lawmaker, Chris Pincher, but insisted that he as prime minister was delivering on behalf of the British people. “The job of a prime minister in difficult circumstances, when he’s been handed a colossal mandate, is to keep going,” he declared.
It appears that quite a few top Conservatives are more worried that Johnson himself is getting in the way of their program, however; the Times notes that the BBC reported later Wednesday that
Michael Gove, an influential cabinet member, had told the prime minister that it was time to go. Mr. Gove, the housing secretary, has long been seen as a key power broker in the Conservative Party and was noticeably absent from the frontbenches of Parliament during the tense exchanges earlier in the day.
All in all, it looks like Johnson may run out of defenders, especially since unlike certain American political figures, he lacks a cult of rabid assholes who might turn on anyone who dares threaten their Johnson. It’s not like he even tied the room together, man.
Russia is planning to scrap most of its covid-related foreign travel restrictions on 15 July. Finland, meanwhile, scrapped the last restrictions for people entering from non-EU/Schengen countries at the end of June.
Until now, non-Finns entering Finland from Russia have needed a demonstrable serious reason for their travel, unless they have a Western-approved covid vaccination (which Russians usually don’t have). Non-Russians entering Russia have needed a similar reason, and also a negative PCR test. In practice, most people who traveled back and forth during the pandemic were either dual citizens, or had citizenship in one country and residence/family in the other. It seems (this is somewhat unclear) that Russia will still require the PCR test after 15 July, but that’s it.
However, due to other reasons, no one is expecting the cross-border tourism to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.
Public transport across the border, which was already downscaled during the pandemic, was further cut shortly after Russia started the Ukraine war. There are still buses, in addition to personal car access, but no train or plane connection. Finnish authorities currently advise against all travel to Russia. Before the pandemic, many Finns hopped across the border to buy cheap gasoline from Russia, but this practice is unlikely to continue because a) continued PCR test requirement would make it impractical b) due to EU sanctions, you could only import what fuel fits in you vehicle’s own tank c) there is a greatly increased awareness to boycott Russian oil and Russian-owned fuel industry as much as possible.
Early in the war, there was a modest influx of Russians who traveled west (usually further than Finland), apparently without plans on returning soon. I got the impression these were relatively wealthy, cosmopolitan people with lots of connections abroad. Presumably, many of them had already previously arranged themselves Western covid vaccination for travel purposes. Others. according to a report I saw, were shopping fake papers for such vaccination. It seems many or most citizens of Western countries living in Russia also left.
Early in the war, some Ukrainian refugees reportedly started entering Finland via Russia. I haven’t seen updates on that recently, but in the light of Russian forced evacuations (see comment 172 upthread) one could expect a growing flux of Ukrainians entering the EU from Russia via Finland.
Wonkette: “GOP Will Investigate Jan. 6 Investigators For Investigating What GOP Did Jan. 6”
Axios reports this morning that congressional Republicans are promising to take revenge if they are fortunate enough to win/steal back control of one or both houses of Congress in November. Nobody can say Republicans don’t continually show us who they really are. They’re mad at Democrats and the two remaining honest House Republicans, both of whom sit on the House January 6 Select Committee, for investigating and exposing what happened that day and in the surrounding months, when Donald Trump attempted to overthrow America, and a whole shitload of his loyal asslickers — some of them in Congress! — tried to help.
So they’re gonna make ’em pay!
Key House Republicans are threatening to subpoena records of the Jan. 6 committee if the GOP retakes the majority next year — an escalation of the party’s effort to undercut the investigation’s findings.
They’re going to steal the evidence? Is that what they’re saying? Have House Republicans rented one of those big PODS or something? Are they going to put it in the driveway at Mar-a-Lago where Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger can’t get to it? Please ‘splain.
Ever since the Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed GOP members of Congress — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — Republicans have been threatening unspecified subpoenas in retaliation.
They don’t even know what they want to subpoena, do they? Probably any emails where somebody does Critical Race Theory or the committee makes plans to meet up for drinks at a drag show.
While Republicans have been eager to move beyond what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, many want to use a GOP-controlled majority to frame their own narrative of what happened that day — and also raise questions about the Jan. 6 committee’s work and spending.
Lotta funny words Axios used there when the verb “lie” would have sufficed. They want to lie to the American people, like their shithole savior Trump has been doing about the election he lost.
These are words:
“When Republicans retake the majority, we will exercise our oversight responsibilities including subpoena authority to review all transcripts and information that the committee has access to in order to identify the truth,” a senior GOP staffer on the House Administration Committee told Axios.
Sure, OK.
Axios mentions that some Republicans want to find ways to “prove” Cassidy Hutchinson is a liar — you know, Cassidy Hutchinson, who’s worked with all of them for years, who worked for Steve Scalise before she worked in the White House. It says GOP Rep. Jim Banks, a seditionist Kevin McCarthy wanted to put on the January 6 committee to make it more seditious, has fired off a letter to Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas asking for DHS to look at White House records to verify people were even where Hutchinson said they were during different times she referenced in her testimony. We’re sure that’ll go somewhere and Banks isn’t just wasting all our fucking time.
Axios also notes that if Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson doesn’t lose in November and if Republicans retake the Senate, he’ll probably do some real dumb fuckin’ shit in the Senate about “what Nancy Pelosi knew, when she knew it” regarding January 6. […]
As Johnson said to CNN back in January:
“There’s a larger story to be told about January 6. The House committee’s not interested in looking at it. I mean they’re not asking what Nancy Pelosi knew, when she knew it,” Johnson said, even though Pelosi does not oversee the day-to-day operations of the Capitol Police. “So, yeah, I think the American public needs a full accounting.”
Johnson, who has downplayed Trump’s role in the attack, said: “My questions by and large have not been answered.”
As the old expression goes, there are stupid questions and there are stupid senators, and the Venn diagram of all that is Ron Johnson’s stupid mouth.
Briefly, in other January 6 Select Committee news, it’s just been reported that former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone will go under the committee’s knife behind closed doors this Friday. It will be videotaped […]
Meanwhile, the committee will have its next public hearing on July 12. Dunno what that’s going to entail, but it was also reported yesterday that former Trump deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews was subpoenaed and has agreed to testify at some point.
So lots of things happening, and lots of things to make seditious House Republicans stew and rage and throw ketchup-smeared dishes at the wall, like their dumb fucking leader does.
KGsays
Johnson has now sacked Gove for “disloyalty”, but is still clinging on to power.
ravensays
Here is where the Red state Blue state abortion wars stand.
The Red states are going to try to keep their female slaves from fleeing out of state for health care.
The Blue states aren’t going to cooperate.
The various Red state fugitive pregnant female laws are going to be hard to enforce.
Even some of the local DAs in Red states aren’t going to prosecute.
States move to protect abortion from prosecutions elsewhere
by JENNIFER McDERMOTT, GEOFF MULVIHILL and HANNAH SCHOENBAUM | Associated Press Wednesday, July 6th 2022
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Democratic governors in states where abortion will remain legal are looking for ways to protect any patients who travel there for the procedure — along with the providers who help them — from being prosecuted by their home states.
In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order Wednesday to protect abortion providers and patients from extradition to states that have banned the practice. Abortions are legal in North Carolina until fetal viability or in certain medical emergencies, making the state an outlier in the Southeast.
“This order will help protect North Carolina doctors and nurses and their patients from cruel right-wing criminal laws passed by other states,” Cooper said in announcing the order.
The governors of Rhode Island and Maine signed executive orders late Tuesday, stating that they will not cooperate with other states’ investigations into people who seek abortions or health care providers that perform them.
Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Dan McKee said women should be trusted with their own health care decisions, and Democratic Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos said Rhode Island must do all it can to protect access to reproductive health care as “other states attack the fundamental right to choose.”
Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said she will “stand in the way of any effort to undermine, rollback, or outright eliminate the right to safe and legal abortion in Maine.”
Their offices confirmed Wednesday that they are preemptive, protective moves, and that neither state has received a request to investigate, prosecute or extradite a provider or patient.
Their attempts to protect abortion rights come as tighter restrictions and bans are going into effect in conservative states after last month’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the nearly half-century-old holding of Roe v. Wade that found that the right to abortion was protected by the U.S. Constitution. The issue reverts to the states, many of which have taken steps to curtail or ban abortions.
The specific fears of Democratic officials are rooted in a Texas law adopted last year to ban abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. The law lets any person other than a government official or employee sue anyone who performs an abortion or “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets” obtaining one.
The person filing the claim would be entitled to $10,000 for every abortion the subject was involved with — plus legal costs.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear challenges to the Texas law so far.
Bernadette Meyler, a professor at Stanford Law School, said it’s not clear whether judgments against out-of-state abortion providers would hold up in courts, especially if they are not advertising their services in states with bans.
But she also said it’s not clear that the liberal states are on firm legal ground to protect their residents from any out-of-state litigation.
“Probably, they assume that some of the laws that they’re passing won’t be upheld or may not be upheld, and they’re trying to come up with as much as possible in order to resist the effects of the Dobbs decision,” Meyler said.
The resistance to cooperating with abortion-related investigations could hold up, though, she said. Places that declared themselves “sanctuary cities” and refused to cooperate with federal immigration investigations during former President Donald Trump’s presidency were able to carry out similar policies.
Connecticut was the first state to pass a law to protect abortion providers, patients and others from legal action taken by other states. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont signed it in May, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“In accordance with Connecticut law, we will resist any attempt by another state to criminalize or intrude on a woman’s private and lawful healthcare decisions,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement last week.
The Democratic governors of Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, California and Washington and the moderate Republican governor in liberal Massachusetts all signed executive orders within days of the ruling to prohibit cooperation with other states that might interfere with abortion access.
“Residents seeking access will be protected, providers will be protected, and abortion is and will continue to be legal, safe and accessible, period,” said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has described the order as a preventative measure.
One of the largest abortion providers in Texas announced Wednesday that it’s planning to move its operations to the border of New Mexico. Whole Woman’s Health announced Wednesday that it is looking to establish a new clinic in a New Mexico city near the state line to provide first- and second-trimester abortions.
The Democratic-controlled Massachusetts House of Representatives approved a bill that aims to protect abortion providers and people seeking abortions from actions taken by other states. Delaware’s Democratic governor signed legislation expanding abortion access, with various legal protections for abortion providers and patients, including out-of-state residents receiving abortions in Delaware.
New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed two bills Friday that moved swiftly in the Democratic-led Legislature following the ruling. The new laws aim to protect the right of those from outside the state to get abortion services within its borders and bar the extradition of people involved in reproductive health care services should they face charges in another state.
Murphy said he was “overwhelmingly angry” that he had to sign the bills but equally as proud to do so.
“These laws will make New Jersey a beacon of freedom for every American woman,” he said during a signing ceremony in Jersey City, not far from the Statue of Liberty.
In Washington state, the governor prohibited the state patrol from cooperating with out-of-state abortion investigations or prosecutions, but he noted that he didn’t have jurisdiction over local law enforcement agencies. The executive in the county surrounding Seattle said Tuesday that its sheriff’s office and other executive branch departments will not cooperate with out-of-state prosecutions of abortion providers or patients.
Some progressive prosecutors around the U.S. have already declared that they won’t enforce some of the most restrictive, punitive anti-abortion laws.
In New Orleans, city council members have introduced a resolution calling on local police and prosecutors to make investigations and prosecutions of abortions “the lowest priority for enforcement.” City Council members in Austin, Texas, another liberal city in a conservative state, have called for a similar policy.
* The latest from Highland Park: “The man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade confessed in detail to the shooting — and revealed that he had considered a second attack, authorities said Wednesday.”
* On a related note: “Gun violence spiked over Fourth of July weekend, with shootings reported in nearly every U.S. state. [The violence] killed a total of at least 220 people and wounded close to 570 others, according to the Gun Violence Archive.”
* Political tumult in London: “A defiant Boris Johnson was battling to stay in power as prime minister Wednesday after his government was rocked by the resignation of several ministers who said they could no longer serve under his scandal-tarred leadership.”
* A good move from the FDA: “Pharmacists can prescribe the leading COVID-19 pill directly to patients under a new U.S. policy announced Wednesday that’s intended to expand use of Pfizer’s drug Paxlovid. The Food and Drug Administration said pharmacists can begin screening patients to see if they are eligible for Paxlovid and then prescribe the medication, which has been shown to curb the worst effects of COVID-19. Previously only physicians could prescribe the antiviral drug.”
* Another good move from the FDA: “The Biden administration is trying to help foreign makers of baby formula stay on the U.S. market for the long term, in an effort to diversify the industry after the closure of the largest domestic plant sparked a nationwide shortage. The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday announced plans to help overseas producers that have sent supplies to the United States, under emergency approval to address the shortfall, secure long-term authorization to market their formula in the U.S.”
* At the White House: “President Joe Biden spoke Wednesday with the wife of WNBA star Brittney Griner and also plans to send a letter directly to Griner, according to a summary of the call obtained by NBC News. The White House said that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called Cherelle Griner ‘to reassure her that he is working to secure Brittney’s release as soon as possible.’”
* Cushman & Wakefield: “A New York state judge on Tuesday held one of the world’s largest real estate firms — which appraised several of former President Donald J. Trump’s properties — in contempt of court in connection with a civil investigation into whether he falsely inflated the value of his assets.”
* Watch this space: “Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy press secretary in the Trump White House until resigning shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, has been subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the insurrection and has agreed to testify at an upcoming hearing, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. Matthews has been subpoenaed to testify at a public hearing as early as next week, sources tell CNN.” […]
David “Santa” Riddell, anti-vaxxer and leader of 1776 Restoration Movement, a spin-off of the People’s Convoy, is back in Washington, D.C., with a couple of big rigs to protest non-existent mandates.
The protest hit a major roadblock when he was arrested on a warrant for his July 4 escapades in Maryland. From The Washington Post:
The Maryland State Police charged Riddell, 57, a trucker from Ohio, with disobeying a lawful order from police and willfully driving a vehicle at a slow speed “impeding normal and reasonable traffic movement.”
The group had been called the “People’s Convoy.” But a small group spun off and rebranded as the “1776 Restoration Movement,” and drove on I-495 on the July Fourth holiday, slowing traffic.
For several hours on Wednesday morning, Riddell had been livestreaming on the National Mall. Although he was just out of sight when the arrest was made, you can see the commotion in the distance and someone gathered his belongings shortly afterward. The arrest appears to happen around the 2h 23 min mark of this livestream. [video at the link]
On a related note: “Gun violence spiked over Fourth of July weekend, with shootings reported in nearly every U.S. state. [The violence] killed a total of at least 220 people and wounded close to 570 others, according to the Gun Violence Archive.”
The United States had more mass shootings over the holiday weekend—11, to be exact—making us the Joey Chestnut of mayhem, in that no one can even hope to challenge us. Republicans insist the reason we have so many more gun killings than any other country can’t possibly be the guns […]. So when a shooting occurs, the intrepid Fox News team reaches into the past to pluck out tired, long-rejected explanations for our uniquely horrible, very American gun violence problem.
[..] Sadly, [Tucker’s] take comes straight from the ‘50s.
Ironically, most people need cannabis’ anti-nausea effects to get through even one episode of Carlson’s show, and so by the time they tune in they’re already well on their way to multiple murder sprees before he can even begin to warn them about modern reefer madness.
Hoo-boy, Little Choad Fauntleroy was in rare form on Tuesday.
From the July 5 edition […]: [video at the link]
CARLSON: “Would you sell a gun to that guy? Does he seem like a nutcase—of course he does. So why didn’t anyone raise an alarm? Well?
Maybe because he didn’t stand out. Maybe because there are a lot of young men in America who suddenly look and act a lot like this guy. It’s not an attack, it’s just true. Like [Highland Park shooting suspect Robert] Crimo, they inhabit a solitary fantasy world of social media, porn, and video games.
They’re high on government-endorsed weed. ‘Smoke some more, it’s good for you.’ They’re numbed by the endless psychotropic drugs that are handed out in every school in the country by crackpots posing as counselors.
And of course they’re angry. They know that their lives will not be better than their parents’; they’ll be worse. That’s all but guaranteed. They know that. They’re not that stupid.
And yet the authorities in their lives, mostly women, never [stop] lecturing them about their so-called privilege. ‘You’re male; you’re privileged.’ Imagine that. Try to imagine an unhealthier, unhappier life than that. So a lot of young men in America are going nuts. Are you surprised?”
Really, Tucky? That’s what you’re going with as the fuel for mass shootings? Weed and women?
Listen, you frozen fish stick fuck. Other countries have weed and “woke” women—as well as social media and video games—and they haven’t become killing fields. (Though they do tend to have stronger gun control laws and social safety nets—hint, hint.)
[Tweeted by Shannon Watts: It’s not SSRIs. Iceland: biggest user of antidepressants; low rates of gun violence. It’s not weed. Israel: biggest user of cannabis; low rates of gun violence. It’s the guns.]
I’ve debunked this spurious weed connection before […] but this “blunt” assessment from a 2017 University of Washington study bears repeating:
Results indicate that the legalization of marijuana, both recreational and medical, does not increase violent crime rates. In contrast, marijuana legalization could lead to a decline in violent crime such as homicide, robbery and aggravated assault.
The daily Fox News talking points for Tuesday appear to have been crafted specifically to scapegoat cannabis for gun violence. Laura Ingraham went out of her way to defame God’s perfect creation as well. [video at the link]
[…] Occam’s razor still applies. Is it possible that selling AR-15s to young people could be slightly more dangerous than selling them video games? Or that maybe, just maybe, white men are angry because Carlson and his peers keep conjuring phantoms for them to be angry at? Maybe tackling wealth inequality—a notion that gives Fox News and the GOP hives—would go a long way toward soothing the jangled nerves of a generation that increasingly feels left behind.
Then again, the folks at Fox News are not looking for real solutions. They’re just exploiting people’s already existing fears and biases for cash. It’s not that different than chasing a herd of gazelle into a net and then shooting them all in the head.
The Westminster farce continues! Now we have cabinet ministers (Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, and Nadhim Zahawi, the newly-appointed Chancellor) publicly calling for Johnson to resign without doing so themselves. This is unprecedented – we’re supposed to have something called “collective Cabinet responsibility”, which means that if a minister can’t support the Prime minister, they resign. Braverman (one of the most unpleasant even among the current crop of Tories) has even announced she wants to be the next PM!
It’s just this minute (literally) been reported that Johnson has agreed to resign, but wants to stay on until autumn, when a new Tory leader will be elected. They’d be fools to let him – there’s no knowing what crisis he might engineer to prevent that process being completed.
StevoRsays
Breaking / awaiting news here with Boris Johnson expected to resign & / or stay till October then resign somehow? See :
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog.:
At least one person has been killed and six injured by a missile strike on Kramatorsk which hit a residential area, according to Ukraine’s regional governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko….
US basketball player Brittney Griner has pleaded guilty to drugs charges in a Russian court, but said she had not deliberately broken the law….
Labour MP Chris Bryant has said Boris Johnson could put the “country’s security and economy at risk” if he takes too long to make way for a successor.
Bryant told the PA news agency:
He hasn’t resigned so far, he said he’s going to resign later on this year.
It’s now in the hands of the Conservative party to decide how long that is going to take, if it is going to be a few days, OK, maybe he can stay.
If it is going to be months he cannot stay, because that puts the country’s security and economy at risk because he will be a completely lame duck prime minister.
I think we either have a new prime minister by the end of next week or there will certainly be a vote of confidence in the House of Commons.
The whole of the Tory party are to blame for this, they put him in there and they took ages and ages to get to this point, even when he was clearly breaking every rule going.
Reactions by QAnon followers and influencers. More opsec fuckups. And Ron Watkins’ ghost campaign. Travis, Julian Liv and Annie explore the fallout from Q’s flimsy return.
While Boris Johnson boasted about “settling our relations with the continent” EU sources consider the relationship has reached a post-Brexit nadir.
“It would definitely be a low point,” one EU diplomat said. “It’s very difficult to see how things could be worse than they were under Boris Johnson. Trust has been eroded almost to the point where it is non-existent.”
“He is seen by the EU as being just an untrustworthy partner and someone who is willing to burn all relationships internationally for short-term political gain.”
Amid uncertainty about Johnson’s successor, the diplomat said: “If there is anything more positive coming from the UK side we will grasp it and run with it.”
A second diplomat said one of the big questions for the EU is who will succeed Johnson and what will be their approach to the protocol, adding: “Surely [Liz] Truss will make a run for it, which doesn’t bode well.”
“There’ll surely be quite a bit of schadenfreude going around [Brussels] today, but his ousting had very little to do with his Brexit approach,” the diplomat said.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has said Boris Johnson was “worse than Neville Chamberlain” and will be remembered as “the worst” prime minister “in our history”.
Davey told PA:
He is far worse than Chamberlain, Chamberlain didn’t break the law, whatever he did, and I’m no Chamberlain fan.
This prime minister will, I think, be remembered for the first prime minister in British history to lie on an industrial scale and to care more about himself than he did the British people.
He said Tory MPs had “failed to do their patriotic duty” by not getting rid of him sooner, adding “Boris Johnson wasn’t fit to govern our great country”, and calling him a “law-breaking, lying, incompetent prime minister, the worst in our history”.
In the aftermath of deadly mass shootings in May, Republicans and their allies scrambled to deflect attention away from guns. Prominent voices on the right ended up trying to blame, among other things, the multitude of doors at schools, abortion, video games, “secularization,” absentee fathers, and the [lack] of government-imposed school prayer.
Some of these clearly can’t be applied to the mass shooting in Highland Park — there are no doors to a July Fourth parade, for example, taking away one of Sen. Ted Cruz’s favorite talking points — but as The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman noted, the right is still getting creative.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson blamed the massacre on medication given to young people, bleak economic prospects, and women nagging young men…. Carlson’s colleague Laura Ingraham homed in on the real culprit: marijuana. “What can regular pot use trigger in young men in particular? Psychosis and other violent personality changes,” she said, blaming the media for “covering up the truth about the growing scourge of violent psychosis in our young people” created by weed.
Conservative media personality Mark Levin apparently preferred a broader and more traditional approach, blaming “cultural decay, the decay of the civil society, the war on cops, the way that human life is viewed, whether it’s abortion, infanticide, whatever the issue.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell added, “The core of the problem is not the Second Amendment.”
It’s tiresome for a reason: We keep experiencing the same debate, as if we were watching a dispute unfold in “Groundhog Day.” The right keeps looking for ways to avoid blaming the preponderance of guns, while the left keeps explaining that blaming conservatives’ culprits doesn’t make sense.
There are countries around the world where there’s access to marijuana, abortion, and video games, just as there plenty of international young people on anti-depressants. None of these countries is forced to deal with routine mass shootings — not because they have better societies or better people, but because those countries are not awash in deadly firearms.
Waldman added:
There won’t ever be a single factor that explains the psychology of every mass shooter. Some grew up in poverty while others didn’t. Some have diagnosable mental illnesses while others don’t. Some are motivated by a specific ideology of hate while others are driven by nebulous rage at the world. But there’s one thing every last one of them has in common, without exception, and it isn’t pot smoking or being nagged by women. It’s that they were able, with little difficulty, to get their hands on a weapon that they could use to kill as many people as they wished.
Those looking for “the core of the problem” should start here.
The name of the bill — the “United States Innovation and Competition Act” (USICA), though it’s gone by a few different titles — probably makes it sound boring, but it’s proving to be one of the most contentious legislative disputes of the current Congress.
At issue is a bill that lawmakers in both parties and both chambers have been working on for nearly a year. The point of USICA is relatively straightforward: It intends to bolster American competitiveness and counter China, in large part by addressing domestic semiconductor shortages. It’s not the sexiest of political fights, but it relates to everything from manufacturing to jobs, trade to national security.
With this in mind, the House and Senate already passed versions of the bill, sending the matter to a conference committee that began work in April on merging the competing measures into one final package. The plan has been to pass USICA before the fall elections.
Those plans were largely on track, right up until last week, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested he’d kill the bill unless Democrats gave up on an unrelated piece of legislation that Republicans don’t like. Yesterday, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas published a tweet suggesting he’s on board with McConnell hostage strategy.
“Looks like [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer giving up on USICA, including shoring up the vulnerable supply chain for high end semiconductors. Major chip makers will likely abandon their plans to build manufacturing facilities in the US. Body blow to US national security, economy, and well paying jobs.”
The Biden White House was not pleased, and when Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back against the Texan’s missive, Cornyn responded, “You people in the Biden administration are very confused.”
Perhaps. The GOP’s legislative strategies can get somewhat confusing. That said, perhaps I can help disambiguate the details.
Schumer is not “giving up on” the competitiveness bill. On the contrary, he and Senate Democratic leaders are enthusiastic proponents of USICA. They’re also working, meanwhile, on a separate budget reconciliation package, which is currently focused on lowering the cost of prescription medications.
Senate Republicans lack the wherewithal to stop the reconciliation bill — as a procedural matter, it cannot be filibustered — but they can derail the USICA legislation, which they ostensibly support, because it can be filibustered.
In other words, GOP leaders are effectively telling the Democratic majority, “Stop trying to make medication more affordable, or we’ll side with China on semiconductor shortages.”
Or to borrow Cornyn’s phrasing, Republicans don’t want to deliver a “body blow to US national security, economy, and well paying jobs,” but GOP senators will do this anyway unless Democrats abandon work on an unrelated bill.
Ironically, it was McConnell who declared last summer, “The president cannot let congressional Democrats hold a bipartisan bill hostage over a separate and partisan process.” Almost exactly a year later, McConnell and his allies are now effectively saying, “The president must let congressional Republicans hold a bipartisan bill hostage over a separate and partisan process.”
[…] At this point, it’s not at all clear how, or whether, this standoff will be resolved. That said, the Democratic majority has a few options, one of which is simply passing the Senate’s version of USICA through the House. It’s also possible Democrats could try to add USICA provisions to their reconciliation package, circumventing Republican tactics.
[…] Throughout his tenure, the British leader ignored norms and limits, acted as if he were above the rules, repeatedly lied, and then blustered his way through, awaiting the next controversy. By all appearances, Johnson fully expected to weather his latest storm, just as he’d done before.
But those plans were thwarted by his ostensible allies. As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes summarized last night, “What you are seeing now is what it looks like when a conservative party decides they have had enough — and that a leader is just too much of a menace to be tolerated.”
Quite right. Johnson didn’t announce his resignation as a result of intense self-reflection and an overwhelming sense of regret; he said he’d quit because Tories forced his hand. The prime minister ran out of friends, which in turn left him with no choices.
Indeed, in a scene reminiscent of congressional Republicans telling Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate that he no longer had the support he’d need to remain in office, senior cabinet members went to 10 Downing yesterday with the same message. A day later, Johnson grudgingly read the writing on the wall.
In other words, British conservatives, confronted with a scandal-plagued leader, concluded they could no longer tolerate the constant stream of disgraces and indignities.
They didn’t bite their tongues in the name of party loyalty; they didn’t keep their heads down fearing blowback from the leader’s followers and allied media. Rather, they concluded that their leader’s record of dishonesty and misconduct was something they could no longer even try to defend.
Imagine if Donald Trump’s cabinet and Republican allies on Capitol Hill were able to follow a similarly principled course.
As for the related parallels, I’ll hope that Johnson resists any urge to summon an armed mob to London, as part of a plot to launch a violent attack on parliament.
Peggy Nienaber, an executive director at evangelical organization Liberty Counsel, was caught on a hot mic claiming that some justices “will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them,” and that “we’re the only people who do that.”
Nienaber’s comments were made last week during a celebration evangelicals were holding in front of the Supreme Court over its dismantling of Roe v. Wade.
Nienaber bragged that she and other evangelicals “actually go in there” for the prayer sessions, not at her office or at the justices’ homes.
One of Nienaber’s prayer sessions with the justices happened the Monday after SCOTUS struck down Roe, the evangelical leader said.
Not only does Liberty Counsel frequently bring cases in front of SCOTUS, the conservative justices actually cited its amicus brief while striking down Roe. Which is probably why Nienaber insisted that her comments be “totally off the record.” Oops.
Nienaber didn’t identify the justices by name, but Rolling Stone noted that she’s taken pictures with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. She also referred to Thomas as a “friend” and praised the conservative justice for “passing by our ministry center to attend church and always taking time to say hello” in a Facebook post, according to Rolling Stone.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is either completely out of touch, or (more likely) he’s just decided that he can basically say anything and his base will believe it. His latest inane comment came via a speech Tuesday in Paducah, Kentucky, where he suggested that the nation’s labor shortage will come to a striking end when folks run out of stimulus money.
“You’ve got a whole lot of people sitting on the sidelines because, frankly, they’re flush for the moment,” the most loathsome GOPer said, via Business Insider. “What we’ve got to hope is, once they run out of money, they’ll start concluding it’s better to work than not to work.”
As The Root reports, between the Cares Act, the Coronavirus Relief Act, and the American Rescue Plan, Americans received around $3,200 in stimulus payments. […] But that treasure chest of money has long run out for most Americans, and it certainly isn’t behind the “Great Resignation.”
[…] If he and his cronies had had their way, Americans—and by Americans I mean those the GOP say are simply sucking off the hind tit of the government—wouldn’t even have had the much-needed $1,400 direct payments at all.
According to Business Insider, a few of the reasons behind the labor shortage include the ongoing fallout from a global pandemic—which is still raging, by the way. People are looking to change jobs and try to make a living wage, because $15 an hour won’t cut it. Jobs with more flexibility and those that offer better options for child care, such as working from home, are being prioritized. Stress is a factor. A desire to be your own boss comes into play for some. […] None of these real factors behind the Great Resignation include living off the high hog of a $1,400 stimmie check.
What the Republicans want is for poor people to stay poor, and to give corporations the opportunity to prosper without having to pay their employees a fair wage.
What the pandemic revealed to many working-class Americans is that these companies wanted them on the front lines, but had no intention of improving working conditions for them. The brunt of these failures fall on the already marginalized groups who historically make less money, have fewer benefits and resources, and are more vulnerable to the whims of corporate fuckery. To blame a labor shortage on a two-year-old check that was too small to cover a month’s rent in most cities is plainly an attack on poor people, and McConnell knows that.
McConnell and the party he leads don’t give two shits about American workers. Not about gun violence, bodily autonomy, campaign financing, or the environment. What they care about is staying in power and making money off the backs of workers. […]
“Last week saw the highest level of anti-LGBT+ activity since @ACLEDINFO started collecting data for the United States. Far-right groups like the Proud Boys targeted multiple LGBT+ events around the country, including in CA, IN, MI, NV, NC, and TX.”
According to a recent report by the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Russian troops have unsuccessfully stormed the Bohorodychne village, not far from Sloviansk.”
[1860 map at the link]
If some Russian officials had their way, Sarah Palin could some day actually see Russia from her house.
Russian parliament members can say the craziest things. Why stop at restoring the Soviet Union? Why not restore the Russian Empire to its former glory? After all Putin has compared himself to Peter the Great, the tsar who expanded the Russian Empire.
In 1725, Peter ordered navigator Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific for potential colonization. Under Catherine the Great, Russia established its first permanent settlement in Alaska in 1784, a year after annexing the Crimean Khanate.
And now Russian officials are going bonkers after Canada and some other Western countries indicated that they were ready to go along with a proposal by Ukrainian leaders to use seized Russian assets to help pay the estimated $750 billion bill to rebuild Ukraine.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that they were working on a “legal framework” that would allow the EU members to use assets from Russia and Russian oligarchs for Ukraine’s restoration.
[…] That didn’t sit well with Russia’s lower house speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, a Putin ally. He warned on Wednesday that Washington should remember that Alaska previously belonged to Russia when it freezes or seizes Russian assets. [Tweet and map at the link]
[…] citing a report from the pro-Russian publication RBC, quoted Volodin the State Duma Speaker, as saying:
“Let America always remember: there is a part of its (Russia’s) territory there – Alaska. So when they start trying to dispose of our resources abroad, before doing so, they should think about the fact that we have something to reclaim too …
We do not interfere in their internal affairs, and they have been saying for decades that everything that is happening to them, the elections of all their presidents, is because of Russia’s interference. That’s not how you respect your presidents. Well, what do you say? One of them was bad, now the other is falling off the bike. Well, here we are again.”
[…] State Duma Vice Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy proposed holding a referendum in Alaska, according to RBC. And in case you’re wondering, this Putin propagandist is the great-great-grandson of “War and Peace” author Leo Tolstoy.
But Alaskans shouldn’t lose any sleep over Volodin’s crazed threats. Russian forces, currently bogged down in Ukraine’s Donbas region, aren’t going to be assaulting Juneau anytime soon.
Steven Pifer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, had this to say about Volodin: “This is not a serious person.” [Tweet and map at the link]
In a deal ridiculed at the time as “Seward’s Folly,” Secretary of State William Seward reached an agreement with Russia in 1867 to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million. But now Russia apparently has seller’s remorse. [Tweet and image at the link]
Back in March, when another Russian lawmaker suggested that Russia wants Alaska back as reparations for U.S. sanctions, Alaska’s Gov. Mike Dunleavy tweeted: “Good luck with that! Not if we have something to say about it. We have hundreds of thousands of armed Alaskans and military members that will see it differently.”
When it comes to the Georgia Republican’s personal controversies, Herschel Walker apparently isn’t above lying to his own campaign team.
A few weeks ago, Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign ran into an unexpected problem. The Daily Beast reported on a“ secret son” whom the Georgia Republican hadn’t publicly acknowledged, and who “has apparently been estranged from his biological father since his birth a decade ago.”
Given Walker’s record of criticizing absentee fathers, the revelations were a problem. Nevertheless, the GOP candidate and his team acknowledged the accuracy of the report and issued a written statement that said Walker “had a child years ago when he wasn’t married.” The statement went on to dismiss the idea that “Herschel is ‘hiding’ the child.”
The problem quickly got worse — we soon learned about other previously undisclosed children — raising all kinds of questions about the candidate. But one thing stood out for me: Why did Walker’s team issue a written statement referencing “a child” and “the child”? Didn’t the Republican’s campaign team get the full story from the candidate?
As it turns out, that’s an interesting story. The Daily Beast had a follow-up report today:
When Herschel Walker’s campaign aides approached him this winter to discuss whispers that Walker had a secret child, the Georgia GOP’s Senate candidate told his campaign the rumors were false. Walker’s aides already knew he was lying. They had expected him to lie, and had obtained documents in advance of that conversation verifying that Walker did indeed have another child, The Daily Beast has learned.
According to the reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Walker, when confronted with evidence from his team, eventually conceded that he’d lied to them about the existence of his undisclosed son.
So, aides pressed him further about whether there were other kids. Walker said there were not. That wasn’t true, either.
In other words, when the Senate campaign issued its statement referencing “a child” and “the child,” it’s because members of Walker’s team had been led to believe — by the candidate himself — that there was only one other kid. They simply didn’t know that their candidate had deceived them.
It’s against this backdrop that the Daily Beast obtained communications from an adviser “closely connected” to the Walker campaign — which also have not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News — that appear to show members of the candidate’s team who “don’t trust Walker” and who and harbor concerns “that he isn’t mentally fit for the job.” [Not surprised.]
He spouts falsehoods “like he’s breathing,” this adviser said — so much so that his own campaign stopped believing him long ago. “He’s lied so much that we don’t know what’s true,” the person said, adding that aides have “zero” trust in the candidate. Three people interviewed for this article independently called him a “pathological liar.”
Those are clearly strong terms, but there’s no denying the degree to which Walker has a credibility problem. As regular readers know, the Georgia Republican has, for example, lied about having a background in law enforcement. And he lied about being a college graduate. And he lied about being his high school’s valedictorian. And he lied about being the founder of a charity for veterans.
His lies about his private-sector record are so outlandish that Walker appeared to be describing an entirely different person with little connection to himself.
It’s possible, of course, that the first-time candidate will win anyway, but in theory, Walker’s troubled relationship with the truth seems like the sort of thing that might give voters pause.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey held a campaign fundraising event at which he raffled off a Smith & Wesson AR-15, a weapon nearly identical to the type used in the Fourth of July parade massacre here this week.
[…] A 2019 video posted to Bailey’s campaign page on Facebook shows him standing before a raffle drum to pick the winner when he was a state representative.
“As promised, we have held a raffle for an AR-15, a Smith & Wesson, and I have possession of that,” he says on the video.
Bailey, who’s now a state senator, has held numerous raffles for guns over the years.
The raffle imagery, as well as Bailey’s longtime embrace of bills to expand and protect gun rights, is opening him up to more scrutiny nationally and in his home state when there is fresh momentum to ban assault-style weapons in the state — and nationwide. […]
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 216
I realize that the right doesn’t care about being accused of hypocrisy the same way Democrats seem to, but it should be obvious there is some incongruity between an ideology that has spent generations lecturing African-Americans about “the family,” the sacredness of “fatherhood,” and that they shouldn’t have sex until they are locked into a boring monogamous marriage and their rabid support for a man who has sired so many “illegitimate” child.
A group of nearly a dozen mostly former Republican leaders in Pennsylvania is breaking with their party to endorse Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro for governor.
The unprecedented move is a rebuke of the GOP gubernatorial nominee, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who is simply too extreme for the cohort of Republicans who have served the Keystone State in Congress, the state legislature and executive branch, and the state Supreme Court. Depending on one’s perspective, they are either establishment Republicans who lead the party before it lost its way or RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) by today’s Trumpian standards.
Mastriano is a right-wing radical who has referred to Pennsylvania as “our promised land,” took part in the Jan. 6 riots, and wants to ban abortions without exception in the state. In short, he has all the hallmarks of a Christian nationalist with the authoritarian instincts to match. Mastriano is also overtly running against the type of old-guard Republicans that once dominated the party and some of whom are currently lining up against him. […]
Wonkette: “Watch Joe Biden Give Medal Of Freedom To People Who Aren’t ‘Dead Rush Limbaugh’ Or Devin Nunes!”
Remember how garbage Donald Trump’s Presidential Medal Of Freedom winners were?
Remember how Rush Limbaugh got one? And Devin Nunes? And Jim Jordan? Dead Antonin Scalia? Political donors? Just fuuuuucking garbage.
President Joe Biden is giving out medals today, and you get to watch, and his list is fucking cool.
Simone Biles, Megan Rapinoe!
Gabrielle Giffords!
Khizr Khan, the gold-star father Donald Trump took so many public shits on.
Denzel Washington, come get a medal!
Even Meghan McCain’s father gets one, DO YOU KNOW WHO HER FATHER WAS? Well, he was one of Joe Biden’s best friends, so. Steve Jobs also gets a posthumous one.
It’s 17 medals total, and literally none of them are embarrassments to America like Trump’s were.
Enjoy!
Video at the link.
Denzel Washington wasn’t present because he tested positive for Covid. He will be given his medal at a later date.
Tethyssays
From #270
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell added, “The core of the problem is not the Second Amendment.”
True comment from the actual core of the problem. Corrupt POS and his wife are traitorous grift personified.
[…] Pfizer has told NBC News that it could have an updated vaccine targeting BA.4 and BA.5 ready to be distributed in October.
[…] The FDA estimates that omicron-specific boosters from Pfizer and Moderna will become available in early to mid-fall.
[…] experts stressed that there may not be a dramatic difference in protection between additional boosts of the current vaccines and omicron-specific shots. Current vaccines still work well to prevent severe illness and death.
“The virus is moving in a direction of escaping our vaccines more and more, but it has not found a way to escape the vaccines to a really significant degree,” Montefiori said.
For that reason, he added, people eligible for second boosters — those over 50 or the immunocompromised — may not want to wait.
“If your last boost was over six months ago, you might want to consider getting boosted again now with the current vaccine to keep your protection strong while we’re still getting through this pandemic,” Montefiori said.
In addition, Balloux said, it’s hard to predict whether BA.5 will still be dominant later this year.
“Given the uncertainty, there’s no right or wrong,” he said. “There are only trade-offs.” […]
Politics has exploded in Arizona with Initiative petitions due for turn-in today, grassroots activism growing rapidly, anger rising over the U.S. Supreme Court, a more clear-eyed assessment of how Trump tried to overthrow the government, […] and just the fact that it will soon be 117 in the shade.
Someone should warn those still bowing low to Trump that it is a bad idea to touch your forehead to the ground when the asphalt reaches 175 degrees. Oh, and we will keep our seats in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, and perhaps take one of the Houses of the Arizona Legislature as the Republicans devastate each other trying to cash in on Trump’s schtick.
The most exciting thing to watch today will be the turn-in for the petitions to place a codification of Roe onto the ballot. They need 500,000 signatures to do that. A few weeks ago, people were saying no chance. After a genuine explosion of activism, no one wants to be a naysayer, but the smart observers are saying that a half a million is a big number. […] We will know soon.
Meanwhile, we are scheduled to turn in the petitions for the Arizona Fair Elections Act after a noon news conference at the state capital. Our numbers have gone up dramatically with the pro-choice people coming out in droves, and we will have twice as many as the 238,000 signatures we need. […]
Having spent most of the signature gathering season in the ultra-rural reservations of northeast Arizona, I was overwhelmed to see the magnitude of intensity in the university city of Tempe. At the Brick Road Coffee Shop, the interior was given over to notaries grabbing piles of petitions from circulators as they walked in the door. Outside, people lined up at tables to sign.
Before I could step back from a table, a woman started to explain the Fair Elections Act in great detail. I eventually was able to tell her that I had written a large part of it. They quickly saddled me with 40 pounds of petitions to take to the next level of collection point.
The Arizona Fair Elections Act was endorsed Wednesday by the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Tohono O’odham, the San Carlos Apache, and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Tribe. The endorsements which will appear in a booklet mailed to every Arizona voter are all moving, but I’ll share the words of Fort McDowell President Bernadine Burnette:
Frank Harrison and Harry Austin, two Fort McDowell Yavapai men, were among many Native Americans who loyally and bravely served their nation in World War II. When they returned home after the war ended, the two men sought to register to vote at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. Their requests were denied, setting in motion events that eventually confirmed the right of Native Americans to vote in state elections.
After their request to register to vote was rejected, Harrison and Austin filed a lawsuit alleging that they were denied their constitutional right to vote in state elections. They lost in Maricopa County Superior Court but prevailed on appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, who found that the men were American and Arizona citizens and therefore had the right to vote. That 1948 decision affirmed Native Americans’ voting rights in Arizona and helped blaze the path for all Native Americans throughout the country to have the right to vote.
But even having the law on their side didn’t prevent state and local governments from erecting barriers to Native Americans’ exercise of their voting rights. Numerous laws and procedures have been adopted in recent years that have made it more difficult for Natives to vote. This is particularly true for Natives residing on large remote reservations.
Many bills were introduced in the just completed 2022 legislative session that make it harder for citizens to vote. These changes would disproportionately impact Native Americans and make it more difficult for them to exercise their hard-won constitutional right to vote.
Please vote ”Yes” for the Arizona Fair Elections Act.
It protects voting rights for all of us and honors the many sacrifices of our military veterans.
Republicans still scramble to proclaim they are the true lover of Trump, while trying to cast their Republican opponents as harlots who don’t know what true Trump love really is. Giant signs have sprouted up across the state showing Republican candidate and former Fox anchor Kari Lake in evening clothes with Obama. She is supposed to have given money to Obama, but a search of many pages of gushing coverage of the donation she made to Obama provides no amount. I am beginning to think the whole point of the signs is to suggest she took Obama to the prom.
Meanwhile, Trump is determined that Lake will defeat Karrin. Yes, an actual Karrin. She apparently has some additional names but they are too small on her signs to read. When Lake and Karrin finish their battle in the August primary, it’s hard to believe that either one will have momentum to keep a Democrat out of the governor’s seat. (Arizona does not have a governor’s mansion. I had to look it up.). […]
Man, I can’t stop cracking up. Nothing has more seriously dogged Mehmet Oz, the GOP’s candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, than the fact that he’s not actually from, you know, Pennsylvania. So serious props to whichever staffer for Democrat John Fetterman just nailed Oz for recording his latest campaign video in the library of his mansion in New Jersey […]
The Texas law making abortions illegal after six weeks of pregnancy (before many women know they are pregnant) is now fully in effect. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, though there is one for women at risk of “substantial impairment of major bodily function.” Goodness knows what that means and how doctors will calculate the odds that a medically advisable abortion will land them in prison.
The dreadful consequences that will follow the law’s implementation underscore the state’s blatant lack of respect for women’s lives and decisions. They might also be an indication that the forced-birth crowd has overplayed its hand.
Abortions are all but impossible to obtain in Texas now. Whole Woman’s Health, one of the largest abortion providers in the state, announced it is closing its four clinics in McAllen, Fort Worth, McKinney and Austin and decamping to New Mexico, where abortion is legal.
In New Mexico, existing clinics have experienced bedlam as women not only from Texas but Oklahoma and other Southwest states with abortion bans flock to get care, resulting in a backlog of four weeks for an appointment. So women will be having abortions later in pregnancies thanks to the forced-birth law.
The Texas Tribune reports that “those four weeks could mean they would become ineligible for abortion medication in lieu of a procedure, or they could have to spend two days at the Albuquerque clinic instead of one.” If one lives in, say, Houston, the drive may take more than 10 hours, and with the cost of gas spiking, it could be prohibitively expensive.
The Tribune captures the recent experience of women in Texas with snippets from the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health in Albuquerque:
“She’s under eight weeks, for an appointment at 8 a.m.,” one clinic employee whispered to her coworker while on the phone with a Texas patient. “But the latest flight out [of Albuquerque] is 5:25 p.m. — do you think she would make that flight?”
Another employee walked in to tell the receptionists not to count one woman who was supposed to be in the clinic about an hour earlier as a no-show. She was on the way, the staffer said, still driving in from Oklahoma. . . .
“If they’d just been able to go to Dallas, and they live near Dallas, they could go tomorrow,” said Dr. Amber Truehart, the clinic’s medical director. “But they have to figure out how to travel here and get child care and funding, and all of that stuff is delaying them.”
Considering that at least some patients have been victims of rape or incest or are otherwise suffering from medical complications, the ordeal seems even more barbaric.
The implications are profound for the most vulnerable women. If doctors and nurses are unsure about the legality of a medically advisable abortion, a woman carrying a nonviable fetus may have to go through the agony and emotional torment of giving birth. And given the statistics on maternal mortality and complications, Black and Hispanic women forced to continue their pregnancies will die in disproportionate numbers.
If forced-birth activists thought this situation would be popular, they have greatly miscalculated. A new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds only 37 percent of the state’s residents support the new law; 54 percent oppose it. Contrary to the new law, the poll reports, only 8 percent and 13 percent of Texas voters would ban access to abortion in the cases of rape and incest, respectively. […]
Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell also commented, “Let me thank my North Jersey constituent Dr. Oz for cutting his Pennsylvania campaign ads right in our North Jersey district. These commercials help showcase our beautiful Garden State.”
Investments in plant-based alternatives to meat lead to far greater cuts in climate-heating emissions than other green investments, according to one of the world’s biggest consultancy firms.
The report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that, for each dollar, investment in improving and scaling up the production of meat and dairy alternatives resulted in three times more greenhouse gas reductions compared with investment in green cement technology, seven times more than green buildings and 11 times more than zero-emission cars.
Investments in the plant-based alternatives to meat delivered this high impact on emissions because of the big difference between the greenhouse gases emitted when producing conventional meat and dairy products, and when growing plants. Beef, for example, results in six-to-30 times more emissions than tofu.
Investment in alternative proteins, also including fermented products and cell-based meat, has jumped from $1bn (£830m) in 2019 to $5bn in 2021, BCG said. Alternatives make up 2% of meat, egg and dairy products sold, but will rise to 11% in 2035 on current growth trends, the report said. This would reduce emissions by an amount almost equivalent to global aviation’s output. But BCG said meat alternatives could grow much faster with technological progress resulting in better products, scaled-up production and regulatory changes making marketing and sales easier.
“Widespread adoption of alternative proteins can play a critical role tackling climate change,” said Malte Clausen, a partner at BCG. “We call it the untapped climate opportunity – you’re getting more impact from your investment in alternative proteins than in any other sector of the economy.”
“There’s been a lot of investments into electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels, which is all great and helpful to reduce emissions, but we have not seen comparable investment yet [in alternative proteins], even though it’s rising rapidly,” he said. “If you really care about impact as an investor, this is an area that you definitely need to understand.”
Meat and dairy production uses 83% of farmland and causes 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, but provides only 18% of calories and 37% of protein. Moving human diets from meat to plants means less forest is destroyed for pasture and fodder growing and less emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane produced by cattle and sheep.
…
Scientists have concluded that avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet and that large cuts in meat consumption in rich nations are essential to ending the climate crisis. The Project Drawdown group, which assesses climate solutions, places plant-based diets in the top three of almost 100 options.
…
Malte said a move towards plant-based meats could also help alleviate food crises. “You are cutting out the ‘middleman’, whether it’s a cow, a pig or a chicken. It’s just mathematics: if instead of feeding all of these crops to animals, and then eating the animals, you just use the crops directly for human consumption, you need less crops overall and therefore alleviate the constraints on the system.”…
Britain’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.
A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, Cooper told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.
“There are also rumours that Alexander Lebedev was trying to arrange a phone call from the meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is that true? Did that phone call happen?” Cooper asked from the dispatch box.
In reply, Vicky Ford, a junior Foreign Office minister, said: “I take national security issues seriously” but failed to address the question substantively. She said ministers had introduced “world-leading sanctions packages” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Last month the Tortoise website reported that Lebedev had sought to set up an unmonitored line between Johnson, the then foreign secretary, and Lavrov to discuss the Salisbury poisonings that had happened nearly two months earlier. But the call never took place because Johnson overslept.
Later on Thursday, Lebedev denied he had sought to set up a call between the two politicians. “Both were utterly capable of calling each other at those time, and they surely did. Why would they need a phone operator?”
But he confirmed that met Johnson at the party, saying they had shaken hands. “Maybe we uttered a few words to each other at the table with the other guests, but who cares about truth in those times, especially as regards someone who is Russian,” Lebedev added.
The Russian president has warned Russia has not started its campaign in Ukraine “in earnest”. In a hawkish speech to parliamentary leaders, Vladimir Putin said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on.
…
Ukrainian forces are finally seeing the impact of western weapons on the frontlines of the war with Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. During his nightly TV address, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were advancing in two directions in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions on Ukraine’s southern front and dealing blows to Russia by hitting some of its logistics warehouses.
…
Resistance remains ongoing in villages around Lysychansk, where 15,000 civilians remain, according to Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Haidai. On Telegram, Haidai said: “Today’s videos from Lysychansk are painful to watch.” He accused Putin’s troops of engaging in a scorched earth policy, “burning down and destroying everything on their way”.
…
Investigators in Ukraine said they had foiled a criminal gang who forced women into sex work abroad after luring them with false adverts for legitimate employment. Authorities in Kyiv arrested the suspected leader of the gang after months of surveillance resulted in them stopping a woman as she was about to cross the border….
A Reuters exclusive report has revealed that Ukraine opposes Canada’s handing over a turbine to Russia’s Gazprom that Moscow says is critical for supplying natural gas to Germany. According to a Ukrainian energy ministry source, Ukraine believes that doing so would defy sanctions against Russia.
Images have emerged of fields of grain in Ukraine set on fire allegedly by Russian forces. According to Ukrainian serviceman Ihor Lutsenko, the “flame sometimes reaches a height of 5 meters, a strip of hundreds of meters in width. Black smoke flies up and spreads across the sky for many kilometers.” The dry stalks of grain are set ablaze “like matches” from incendiary munitions, he added.
Canada will send 39 General Dynamics-made armored vehicles to Ukraine later this summer in attempts to assist the war-torn country in its fight against Russian forces. On Thursday, Canadian defense minister Anita Anand said that the armored vehicles deal is on top of a separate multi-billion dollar contract for 260 vehicles for the Canadian armed forces which was negotiated with General Dynamics Land Systems in 2019.
A Russian prosecutor on Thursday requested a seven-year prison term for a Moscow city councillor accused of criticising Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Alexei Gorinov, a 60-year-old lawyer by training, was arrested in late April for spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army and is now on trial. Gorinov is the first elected member of the opposition to face jail for criticising Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine….
The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that it asked the Department of Treasury’s Inspector General to investigate the tax audits of former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, AP reports.
…The probe comes after the New York Times reported on Wednesday that both Comey and McCabe faced invasive IRS audits, which are rare and the agency says are random.
…McCabe, a fierce critic of former President Trump, told CNN that “referring it to the IG is the right step, but let’s see if the IG moves on it and then makes their findings public.”
…IRS spokesperson Jodie Reynolds maintained Thursday that the audits were random.
…”[It is] ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals for National Research Program audits,” Reynolds said, per AP. [That’s an odd sort of statement for an official spokesperson.]
…Out of nearly 153 million individual returns filed for 2017, the IRS targeted about 5,000 for audits, or roughly one out of 30,600, underscoring the unlikely nature that both Comey and McCabe would be selected, the Times notes….
The African Development Bank’s proposal to improve food security by investing $1bn (£840m) in growing wheat in Africa has been met with scepticism because so little of the continent is suited to growing the crop.
Russian propagandists plot to provoke unrest in the US, harming us in every way they can. They pine for Trump’s return and point out that—despite his looks & other causes for criticism—he is their best option. State TV host exclaims, “Trump, Trump, Trump!”
It is an almost everyday occurrence in the Russian-occupied parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Russia’s ammunition depots blow up, with large fires erupting as tons of ordnance detonate for hours. Some of these incidents cause giant blasts with a radius of hundreds of meters.
Now that Ukraine has acquired advanced Western artillery and rocket systems, it has gradually begun a campaign to take out Russia’s key military infrastructure. Over the last four weeks, nearly 20 Russian ammunition depots in Russian-occupied Donbas and Ukraine’s south, including some of the largest, have been hit or completely destroyed.
As Russia continues with its slow but steady advance in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas, Ukraine’s military is working to undermine Russia’s overwhelming artillery power and disrupt its logistics deep in occupied territories.
Devastating strikes upon Russian command posts have become increasingly frequent since mid-June when Ukraine began using the first of four M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. or HIMARS, provided by the U.S., nearly a week before their arrival in Ukraine was publicly announced.
…
Ukrainian strikes upon Russian facilities continue on a daily basis.
As a result, by July 7, Russia had lost most of its key ammunition depots, and many of its smaller depots in occupied Donbas. Notably, many key targets as much as 50-80 kilometers into Russian-controlled territory have been successfully destroyed.
This suggests that, along with Western-made rocket systems, Ukraine has also managed to improve its reconnaissance, situational awareness, and target indication, to the point of being able to identify targets even of medium importance deep in Russian-occupied areas.
According to Russian military bloggers, such as the notorious Russian ultranationalist Igor Girkin, these “unpunished” Ukrainian strikes have already forced the Russian military to be more conservative with its artillery rounds, in preparation for a possible Ukrainian counter-strike in Donbas….
…
On June 28, Ukraine’s top general Valeriy Zaluzhniy reported that Russia, just at the front line between Kharkiv Oblast and Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast, delivered 270 artillery strikes, firing nearly 45,000 rounds in one single day. The ongoing campaign in Donbas showed that artillery dominance compensates for the weak performance of Russia’s infantry.
As part of its tactics, Russian artillery devastates everything in its way, including dense urban areas, then allows infantry to advance through scorched ruins. And, as the Battle of Sievierodonetsk showed, Ukraine still has difficulty countering such concentrated artillery presence.
The arrival of HIMARS, even in such small quantities, has been much of a game-changer.
“Ukrainian forces are increasingly targeting Russian military infrastructure with indirect fire and U.S.-provided HIMARS systems deep in occupied territory,” said the Institute of the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based defense think tank, on July 4.
…
Due to the long effective range of HIMARS, Russia, severely dependent on railroad transportation, has to unload ammunition from trains much farther from the frontline, at a distance of nearly 100 kilometers in many cases.
…
“One must clearly understand that the Soviet Union produced munitions enough to wage a thousand years of war,” says Igal Levin, a Ukraine-born Israeli defense expert.
“But — if all those forwarded bases, depots, repair facilities, all of the logistics chains are destroyed — they will have to deal with the need to bring supplies from beyond the Ural Mountains, then be thinking how to store and distribute them, how to bring munitions to artillery.”
“So even if this does not shut up the Russian artillery completely, reducing its ability to deliver fire by 50%, to 3,000 rounds a day or even less, will be of a considerable effect on the battlefield.”
More at the link.
ravensays
Russia just managed to harm the world some more.
They halted 1 million barrels a day of oil going to Europe through the Caspian pipeline.
It didn’t hurt Russia at all because it isn’t even their oil.
It is mostly Kazakhstan’s oil.
This will hurt the world and Europe but it will really hurt Kazakhstan.
That country lives off of mostly oil exports and they live well with a per capital income higher than Russia.
IMO, after Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, Kazakhstan might be the next country the Russians invade and take over. Big, only 20 million people, full of resources, and not in any major alliances like NATO. Who would stop them?
Russia Targets Europe With a Commodity Weapon: Kazakh Crude
Halting flows through the CPC pipeline won’t hurt Russia
Europe could lose as much as a million barrels a day of crude
ByJulian Lee July 6, 2022, Bloomberg.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin has found another weapon to use against European countries supporting Ukraine — Kazakhstan’s crude — and it will cost him almost nothing, writes Bloomberg oil strategist Julian Lee.
While a grace period ticks down before European sanctions on Russian oil kick in on Dec. 5 and the G7 group of industrialized countries considers a price cap on Moscow’s crude exports, Putin is getting his retaliation in early. A court in the town of Novorossiysk has ordered the Caspian Pipeline Consortium to halt shipments from its Black Sea export terminal for a month as punishment for violating oil spill regulations.
The beauty of the move, from a Russian perspective, is that the flow that will be curtailed is not primarily Russian crude, which can be diverted elsewhere anyway, but output from neighboring Kazakhstan. Almost 1.5 million barrels a day of crude supply can be taken off an already tight market at virtually no cost to Russia.
Supplies to European markets, where about two-thirds of CPC crude ends up, already are being constrained by unrest in Libya, which has slashed the north African country’s exports by half and looks likely to send them even lower, as well as the shunning of Russia’s own barrels by former customers.
After operating relatively trouble-free for more than 20 years, the CPC pipeline has been hit with a series of outages in the months since Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine and European countries began sending aid and arms to the government in Kyiv.
March saw a storm damage two of the loading buoys, taking the entire terminal out of operation for several weeks and cutting flows well into April. After a quiet May, a seabed survey in June revealed a World War II mine that required the suspension of loading from two of the three buoys. No sooner were they back in operation than the port was hit again.
An audit of hazardous operation facilities, ordered by a deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation, revealed “a number of documentary violations under the Oil Spill Response (OSR) Plan,” according to a statement on the CPC website. Even though the company was given until Nov. 30 to rectify the violations, an application was made to the court to suspend operations as punishment for the offense.
The halt, if implemented, will have virtually no impact on Russia’s oil exports. Crude of Russian origin makes up only about 10% of CPC volumes and can be rerouted to alternative outlets. The bigger hit will be felt by Kazakhstan, which relies on the pipeline for almost 80% of its hydrocarbons exports and has little flexibility to reduce that dependence.
But losing what could be as much as a million barrels a day of light, sweet crude would be a hefty blow for Europe. By halting CPC flows, even if only briefly, Russia could punish its tormentors to the west by stoking already elevated crude prices, while potentially increasing state revenues from its own virtually undamaged exports.
ravensays
Heavily dependent on fossil fuels, Kazakhstan is reliant on Russian pipelines for oil exports to Europe. And how is that working out for Kazakhstan?
Their main source of revenue just got shut down by Putin.
Is anyone getting the idea that Russia is an unreliable trade partner?
July 7, 2022 Reuters After Russian move on pipeline, Kazakhstan says it needs other routes
Reuters
July 7 (Reuters) – Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Thursday told his government to diversify its oil supply routes, a day after a Russian court ordered the Caspian Pipeline Consortium to suspend activity for 30 days.
A halt to the pipeline, which carries oil from Kazakhstan’s vast Tengiz Field across Russia to the Black Sea, would strain the oil market just as it faces one of the worst supply crunches since the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s.
Tokayev, who has sought to balance relations with Russia, the West and China, ordered a study into building a pipeline across the Caspian Sea, a previously proposed project that would carry Kazakh oil to Europe while bypassing Russia.
Tokayev said that improving port infrastructure on the Caspian Sea was a “strategic task” for Kazakhstan’s government, the presidential website said. He did not mention the Caspian Pipeline Consortium according to the website.
Heavily dependent on fossil fuels, Kazakhstan is reliant on Russian pipelines for oil exports to Europe.
On Wednesday, a court in the Russian city of Novorossiisk ordered the CPC pipeline, which handles around 1% of global oil, to suspend operations, citing issues related to oil spills.
Their new oil pipeline doesn’t exist and no matter what, isn’t going to do anything for a whole lot of years.
They should build it anyway.
“Truth Social” was always an odd name for a company founded by an antisocial pathological liar, but as we all know, gaslighting is what the ocher abomination does best. […]
while Trump […] is keen to take credit when things go well, he’s just as keen to transfer blame (and liability) to others when things go sideways—which in TrumpWorld happens somewhere between infinity times and always.
So now that the gendarmes appear to be at the door of Trump’s Truth Social, Trump himself is preemptively eyeing the exits and cutting doily patterns in everyone else’s parachutes.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune:
Donald Trump removed himself from the board of his Sarasota-based social media company, records show, just weeks before the company was issued federal subpoenas by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and a grand jury in Manhattan.
Trump, the chairman of Trump Media and Technology Group, was one of six board members removed on June 8, state business records show. […]
The SEC served Trump Media and Technology Group with a subpoena on June 27, according to a regulatory filing. Trump’s media company owns Truth Social, an app similar to Twitter. Trump was banned by Twitter for inflammatory remarks concerning the insurrection.
In addition to Trump Sr., Don Jr. was removed from the board. Then, four days after the SEC served its subpoena, the Southern District of New York subpoenaed the company, signaling that a criminal investigation could be in progress as well.
[…] the really funny part in all this is who remains on the board: namely, the company’s CFO, Phillip Juhan, and its CEO, former California congressman and fake-cowcatcher Devin Nunes, who is about to discover that decoupling from Trump is a bit like yanking your tongue off a frozen flagpole with a team of shitfaced Clydesdales.
[…] So, yeah, throwing his business partners under the bus when things get rough is kind of his M.O. Not sure why people keep falling for his snake oil pitches, but here we are.
Of course, it’s possible that Trump removed himself from the board of a company that was about to be subpoenaed by two separate government entities for a totally normal reason. Who really knows? But, as with all things Trump-adjacent, it sure doesn’t smell right.
P.S. For the record, Truth Social, in a statement that sounds suspiciously like it was drafted by Trump himself, has denied that Trump was removed from the board. And since the denial was posted on Truth Social, you know it must be true.
The headline from the dopes at The Hill says “Tucker Carlson defends his commentary on race in fiery interview.” Oh golly! That almost sounds like Tucker Carlson did a fiery interview where he defended his commentary on race!
The headline at Media Matters says “There’s no point to interviewing Tucker Carlson.” That’s the ticket.
Ben Smith has some new goddamn thing called Semafor, because what the world was crying out for was another internet guy to have a new internet guy idea for a new internet guy news website. “Today, readers are overwhelmed by too many options and unsure of what to trust,” says its “About Us” page.
So of course they decided to [jump] into the discourse by doing a “hard-hitting” interview with Tucker Carlson, who is so much better at this than Ben Smith it’s really truly not funny. Because readers are overwhelmed by too many options and unsure of what to trust.
A lot of people are making fun of this thing Tucker said, but what you need to see, and what Media Matters does an excellent job of diagramming, is just how skilled Tucker Carlson is at completely stealing an interview from an interviewer. The video excerpt below shows Tucker saying he has never met a white supremacist. You can keep to yourself whatever snarky comments questions your brain is asking about if there are any mirrors in Tucker’s house or if he’s ever met any of his biggest fans, because if we are all thinking the same thing, there’s just no reason. [video at the link]
BEN SMITH (SEMAFOR FOUNDER): You keep having these sort of explicit white supremacists, who have on secret message boards, who work for you, and I know this has been very painful for you in some cases –
TUCKER CARLSON (FOX NEWS HOST): I’ve never had a white supremacist – I’ve never even met a white supremacist!
Tucker has never met a white supremacist. He probably doesn’t even know what the phrase means! That’s one of his gimmicks, like when he pretends he doesn’t know what “great replacement theory” is, even though he promotes it on his show all the time. It is one of his rhetorical tricks, and Ben Smith wasn’t ready for it.
SMITH: You have people who have posted, large numbers of people –
CARLSON: Wait, slow down, slow down.
Tucker needs you to slow down.
SMITH: Scott Greer, Blake Neff –
CARLSON: Hold on, hold on. [LAUGHTER]
Tucker is filibustering, Tucker is giggling like the Girl Scout who sold the most cookies the day of the cookie-selling awards ceremony.
SMITH: I’m just curious why you’ve been sort of –
CARLSON: This is fun!
Tucker is having fun! He likes to parry and ping-pong back and forth with an intellectual adversary!
SMITH: – flypaper for these people on your staff?
CARLSON: You’re giving me a lecture, you’re not asking me a question.
Tucker does not like format of this interview, it is not fun anymore :(
SMITH: That was the question, why have you been flypaper for these racists?
CARLSON: Deep breath, deep breath. I’ve never had a white supremacist work for me. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a white supremacist. Please, let me finish.
Oh no, Tucker is in danger of being silenced.
SMITH: And I don’t want to talk about labels.
CARLSON: Hold on, slow down. I’m not sure what that means.
He doesn’t know what “white supremacist” means. It is a very confusing term. He hasn’t ever had white supremacists work for him, except for all the times they did. He’s never talked to one, except for all the times he has.
Tucker Carlson is a liar. That’s another thing an important internet news guy like Ben Smith ought to have knownabout Tucker Carlson.
CARLSON: I know that it’s a slur, it’s the worst thing one can be. I don’t really understand the terms, but let me just say –
SMITH: You’ve had to let people go who have said objectionable stuff.
CARLSON: Whoa now, Ben. I believe that people are not defined by their race. Any race, Black, white, Asian, pick a race.
Tucker Carlson is a Benetton ad bareback fucking the It’s A Small World ride at Disneyland.
CARLSON: People are defined, their value derives, from a) the fact they were created by God – I believe that, maybe you don’t, I do – and b) by what they do, by the choices they make. By who they are, they have agency, they’re not part of some larger group, they’re individuals. I believe in the individual, and I say that virtually every night. Now if you don’t hear that, or if you for whatever reason want to claim that I’m some racist, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m stating my sincere views as reflected in my personal life and my professional life, as clearly as I can.
Oh shut the fuck up.
Isn’t that tiresome? We are tired just copy/pasting it.
We write about Tucker here, and we call him names that accurately describe him, and we call out his white supremacism and his lies, and occasionally a little bit sometimes we make fun of the masculinity issues he constantly wears on his sleeve.
But we would never ever be dumb enough to think a conversation with Tucker would be productive in any way, shape or form. And we guarantee we are better at this than Ben Smith, who literally begged at the beginning of the interview, “I’m just hoping you’ll let me ask questions and not steamroll me, because you’re a professional and I’m not.” Jesus! […]
Media Matters makes a very good point here, about how there is just literally no actual news value in interviewing Tucker:
The only revelatory Carlson interviews come when he is talking to someone he views as friendly. In interviews with radio host Bubba the Love Sponge unearthed by Media Matters, for example, he credited “white men” for “creating civilization,” called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys,” distinguished between underage marriage and child rape, and said he would “love” a scenario with underaged girls sexually experimenting.
Those are not statements he would make to the likes of Smith – his guard is up when he is being interviewed by professional journalists.
“That was fun!” Carlson exclaimed, laughing, at the conclusion of his interview with Smith. Reporters interested in explaining Carlson’s worldview and influence should take notice.
If Tucker is having fun, literally everyone else is losing. […]
Joel Greenberg is ready to be sentenced for his crimes—and has been cooperating in ‘ongoing investigations and prosecutions’ against ‘multiple individuals.’ Should Gaetz worry?
Details at the link. Looks like a developing story to me. Questions cannot be answered at this time.
This is a bold and interesting move: “Governor Gavin Newsom announced Thursday a plan to allocate $100 million in state funding to have the state make its own insulin.”
ravensays
More right wingnut/fundie xian terrorism.
Yeah, I know. Why is this news? It is another day that ends with a y.
The whole monument was destroyed.
Georgia prosecutor calls explosion at ‘America’s Stonehenge’ an act of domestic terrorism
July 7, 2022, 7:13 PM PDT
A Georgia prosecutor described the apparent targeting of a mysterious monument with an explosive device as an “act of domestic terrorism,” saying Thursday that the alleged crime was aimed at the county authorities that own the site.
“The destruction of a public building by explosive is inherently intended to influence the actions of the governing authority that owns the structure,” Parks White, the Northern Judicial Circuit district attorney, said in an email about the Wednesday explosion of the Georgia Guidestones.
“The use of violence to sway or alter the behavior of any government agency is terrorism,” said White, whose office would handle a potential prosecution.
The Elbert County Board of Commissioners is the site’s governing authority, he said.
No suspect has been identified in the case. In a statement Wednesday, White said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has “many” leads in its probe of the explosion and “a case is being made against the perpetrator.”
The agency released new surveillance video Thursday showing what it described as an unknown person leaving the device at the site in northeastern Georgia. The explosion occurred around 4 a.m. Wednesday.
The agency said one of five massive granite slabs — which are engraved with messages about the conservation of humanity — was destroyed in the explosion. The entire structure was demolished after authorities determined the weakened monument was unsafe for investigators, the agency said.
The monument — dubbed “America’s Stonehenge” — was unveiled on five acres of farmland in 1980. It was planned by an anonymous group that lived outside of Georgia and described themselves as a “loyal Americans who believe in God,” according to an account of the site’s origins on the Elbert County Chamber of Commerce’s website.
The group wanted to leave messages for future generations, the account says. According to a lengthy story about the site published by Wired in 2009, the Guidestones functioned as a clock, calendar and compass, and those messages — engraved in eight languages — were intended to function as a post-apocalyptic guide for survivors.
That guidance included keeping the planet’s population under 500 million “in perpetual balance with nature” and creating a “living new language” to unite humanity.
According to the Wired account, the site had previously been targeted with spray-painted messages, including “Jesus will beat u satanist” and “No one world government.”
A recent Republican gubernatorial candidate, Kandiss Taylor, pledged to turn the monument “to dust” if elected. She placed third in the state’s May 24 primary. In a tweet Wednesday, she said she believed God struck down “the Satanic Guidestones.”
In a separate video, Taylor said she didn’t support demolishing the monument through extra-legal means and added that the person behind the explosion “should be brought to justice.”
In his statement Wednesday, White said that “regardless of your feelings about the origin of the Guide Stones, their meaning, or the intention of the person who commissioned and erected them, they are a historical landmark, and this destructive act was an assault upon our community.”
The fundie xians kept on calling the site satanic, despite there being zero evidence for anything satanic and satan himself having the problem of not actually existing.
Wikipedia: The inscription read:[14]
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
Arguable but nothing particularly controversial.
Unless you call, “Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.” satanic.
Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died in hospital after he was shot at a political campaign event.
Mr Abe was shot at twice while he was giving a speech in the southern city of Nara on Friday morning.
Security officials at the scene tackled the gunman, and the 41-year-old suspect is now in police custody.
A search of the alleged gunman’s home uncovered what police believe are explosives, local media reported.
Speaking before Mr Abe’s death was announced, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the attack, saying: “It is barbaric [find a new fucking word, already] and malicious and it cannot be tolerated.”
“This attack is an act of brutality that happened during the elections – the very foundation of our democracy – and is absolutely unforgivable,” Mr Kishida said.
During a news conference at Nara Medical University Hospital, doctors said Mr Abe had sustained two bullet wounds to his neck, about 5cm (1inch) apart, and also suffered damage to his heart.
…
Mr Abe was giving a speech for a political candidate in Nara at a road junction when the attack happened.
Eyewitnesses said they saw a man carrying what they described as a large gun and firing twice at Mr Abe from behind.
Mr Abe did have a team of security police with him. But it appears the shooter was still able to get to within a few metres of Mr Abe without any sort of check, or barrier.
Security officers detained the attacker, who made no attempt to run, and seized his weapon which was reportedly a handmade gun.
The suspect has been identified as Nara resident Tetsuya Yamagami. Local media reports say he is believed to be a former member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, Japan’s equivalent of a navy. He is said to have left active service in 2005.
Officials have yet to comment on the suspect’s motives, but local media outlets reported that Mr Yamagami told police he was “dissatisfied with former Prime Minister Abe and aimed to kill him”. He is also reported to have told offices that did not hold a “grudge against the former Prime Minister’s political beliefs”.
Police also discovered several possible explosive devices during a search of his home, and NHK said bomb disposal technicians are preparing to carry out a controlled explosion on the premises.
Mr Abe’s speech came as part of a campaign for his former party, the Liberal Democratic Party, as upper house elections in Japan are due to take place later this week.
Ministers across the country were later told to return to Tokyo immediately, according to local reports.
On Japanese social media, the hashtag “We want democracy, not violence” was trending, with many social media users expressing their horror and disgust towards the incident….
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
A court in Moscow has sentenced an opposition councillor to seven years in jail for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first long-term prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war.
Alexei Gorinov, a deputy at Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district council and trained lawyer, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army.
According to the authorities, Gorinov committed the offence when he and a fellow opposition deputy, Elena Kotenochkina, spoke out against the council’s proposal to hold a children’s drawing contest and a dancing festival despite the war in Ukraine, where Gorinov said “children were dying”.
“I believe all efforts of [Russian] civil society should be aimed only at stopping the war and withdrawing Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine,” Gorinov said during the work meeting, which was recorded on video and is available on YouTube.
The charges against Gorinov fall under a series of new laws that have been introduced since the start of Russia’s invasion.
Gorinov’s long sentence will be perceived as harsh even in the current political climate in Russia, where authorities have embarked on an unprecedented crackdown on civil society and opposition since the invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February.
Human rights groups will worry that Gorinov’s case will be the first in a string of rulings against anti-war figures who are awaiting trial.
At least 50 people face long-term prison sentences or steep fines for “knowingly spreading false information” about the military, while about 2,000 people have received smaller fines for criticising the war, according to a human rights group that tracks cases nationwide.
The Russian foreign minister left the G20 meeting of leading economies early after telling his counterparts that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not responsible for a global hunger crisis and sanctions designed to isolate Russia amounted to a declaration of war.
The gathering on Friday was Sergei Lavrov’s first direct confrontation with leaders from the west since Russia mounted its attack on Ukraine, and he accused the west of frenzied criticism of what he claimed were Moscow’s justified actions.
In a stern if brief lecture at the meeting in Bali hosted by Indonesia, this year’s chair of the G20, Lavrov said: “If the west doesn’t want talks to take place but wishes for Ukraine to defeat Russia on the battlefield – because both views have been expressed – then, perhaps, there is nothing to talk about with the west.”
Lavrov, sitting at the meeting between Saudi Arabia and Mexico, also accused the west of pressuring Ukraine to “use its weapons” in the fighting. He walked out at the point the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, was starting to speak….
The situation in occupied Sievierodonetsk “is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster” and the city is being widely looted by Russian troops, according to Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, Serhai Haidai.…
The mantra right up to the grisly end was that he had got Brexit “done”.
Boris Johnson’s apparent double miracle was to break the parliamentary impasse that tormented his predecessor Theresa May when trying to pass her withdrawal agreement and then to successfully negotiate a trade deal with the EU in the following 10 months.
“This deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what has sometimes been a fractious and difficult relationship,” Johnson had said on Christmas Eve 2020 as the ink was drying on the new trade agreement.
Johnson certainly achieved a political feat in uniting his party after removing May from office and then forming an unlikely electoral alliance in the wider country – despite misleading the Queen, in the opinion of a Scottish court, as he sought to threaten recalcitrant MPs with a no-deal exit back in the dark days of 2019.
But recent polling suggests support for Brexit in the UK has collapsed – and the outgoing prime minister’s critics might confidently argue today that Johnson leaves a mess of issues behind rather than the “certainty and stability” that he claimed to have secured 18 months ago.
For all of the talk in 2019 of having struck a great deal, the government has in recent weeks threatened to unilaterally rip up a hard won and crucial agreement over the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland if the EU does not agree to a fundamental overhaul – despite the Conservative manifesto on which Johnson formed his government committing to no renegotiations.
The problem Johnson has found is that the withdrawal agreement has – as the government’s own impact assessment had said it would at the time, along with everyone else who understood the deal – drawn a regulatory border down the Irish Sea, making it more expensive to import from Britain to Northern Ireland.
…
But most worrying of all for those who are protective of Johnson’s Brexit legacy is the changing face of public opinion. The latest YouGov poll has found that every region of the UK now believes Brexit was an error, with 55% of those questioned believing that Brexit has gone badly compared with 33% who say it has gone well.
Few in Westminster, beyond the Liberal Democrats, are suggesting that the UK is poised to rejoin the EU. But the very manner in which Brexit was “done” appears to have left it brittle, the polls suggest. Britain’s relationship with the 27 EU member states remains a stubbornly open question. For those who believe that Britain’s destiny remains as free-wheeling country outside the EU’s single market and customs union, there can be little confidence that anything on that front has been settled.
The payoff for this autonomy from the EU’s rules and regulations was to be a welter of trade deals around the world that offered greater access for British goods in emerging markets, along with a bonfire of regulations in the City of London that would make it more competitive.
But such has been the lack of progress on such aims that Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Commons leader, felt forced during Johnson’s prolonged fight to stay in Downing Street to warn Tory MPs thinking of voting no confidence that Brexit might yet be thwarted. Perhaps more significantly, the lack of a Brexit dividend since 23 June 2016 has led others sympathetic to Brexit to reconsider whether the deals struck really are optimal….
Those who worked alongside Johnson in government, and in opposition to him at the negotiating table, point to the cause of this mess of issues being not only the substance of what was negotiated but that it was done with a misplaced boosterism….
The BA.5 version of Covid-19 has become the majority variant of the virus in America in a matter of weeks, in a troubling development that comes amidst what may already be America’s second-largest wave of the pandemic.
It also comes at a time when much of the US has relaxed nearly all Covid restrictions in public and life has largely returned to normal.
“Covid-19 is very clearly not over. We’re seeing dramatic increases in the number of cases and hospitalizations in many places throughout the United States,” said Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health.
As BA.5, one of the Omicron sub-variants, begins buffeting the US, “we’re headed in a bad direction”, Salemi said. “We’ve seen it coming for a while … We’ve seen it go pretty unabated.”
More than one in three Americans live in a county at medium risk from Covid, and one in five are at high risk, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) . That’s the highest proportion of the country facing risks since February, Salemi said.
There are now more than 100,000 new cases of Covid confirmed in the US every day – a rate that has been fairly steady for the past six weeks. While cases in the Northeast have slowed, surges are now hitting other parts of the country.
At the same time, hospitalizations have increased steadily since its lowest pandemic dip in April – though the rise has not been as sharp or the peak as high as previous waves.
“The older you are, the much more likely you are to be hospitalized,” said Salemi. “But hospitalizations are increasing for every age group.”
Hospitalizations tend to lag behind cases by a few days. But an apparently stable rate of cases with increasing hospitalization means something else seems to be at play, experts said – likely waning immunity in the face of a more contagious, immune-evasive, and pathogenic variant.
The virus is evolving to evade the protection from infection offered by vaccination or recovery from previous illness with Covid and it seems to be more transmissible as well.
The immune-evasive properties of the evolving variants makes new waves more likely, says Tulio de Oliveira, director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University and the lead of the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa.
…
But while immunity against infection seems low, prior immunity still holds up well against severe outcomes like hospitalization and death.
People who have been vaccinated and those who were previously infected “easily acquire BA.4 and BA.5, but they will develop very little disease,” de Oliveira said.
…
Even if variants are more pathogenic in the lab, high levels of immunity can help keep severe illness at bay. That’s why staying up-to-date on vaccination is key.
“The first and second booster are very important,” Salemi said.
Yet only 34% of eligible Americans – those above the age of 5 – have received booster doses as recommended by the CDC. While first booster uptake has been better among older Americans, the age group at highest risk, second booster uptake has been extremely low.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for waning immunity and waning protection from the vaccine, without those booster doses, to allow these new circulating variants with some maybe more concerning characteristics to do a little bit more damage,” Salemi said. Waning immunity coupled with a more immune-evasive variant means “you can start seeing a pickup in some of these indicators of severe illness”.
…
Pockets of the US with poor immunity levels – including those who haven’t recently been vaccinated or recovered from the virus – could see more severe illness. But places with high vaccination rates and recent surges will likely fare better when it comes to hospitalization and death, he said.
…
To keep the effects of a surge, including the risk of economic disruption and long-term issues like long Covid, to a minimum, Americans need to “bring the numbers down as expeditiously as we can”, Salemi said.
That includes taking the same measures that have proven to help manage the virus in the past: vaccines, masks, distancing, ventilation, tests.
“Please don’t think about mitigation as all or none,” Salemi said. “There are simple steps that we can take to dramatically reduce risks – not only for ourselves and our family, but for a lot of those members in our community who are very vulnerable.”
As each infection offers new opportunities for the virus to evolve and escape immunity, scientists and officials across the world must continue monitoring it, de Oliveira said.
“This virus has surprised us far too many times.”
KGsays
Lynna, OM@209 quoting Steve Benen,
Benen contrasts UK Tories favourably with US Republicans, but the former elected Johnson as their leader (and hence PM) and enabled his corruption and lies for 3 years; they’ve turned against him only because it’s become clear he’s now a massive vote-loser for them – which is not obviously the case for Trump.
Starmer says beergate resignation pledge shows how he can restore faith in politics
In his opening statement at the press conference Keir Starmer sought to link his pledge to resign if fined over beergate to a wider argument about restoring faith in politics. Here is the key passage.
Our country is stuck in a dangerous rut.
Everywhere you look things are broken.
And nothing gets fixed.
People say to me when they look at those running the country, they see a group of people totally detached from reality, whose words mean nothing, and who put their own interest first.
Who could blame them for concluding that politics doesn’t matter and doesn’t work.
This is not just about Boris Johnson.
This feeling that politics has failed hasn’t emerged in the last few months.
It’s been bubbling away for years.
And people have completely lost faith that this can be changed.
That politics can be a force for good.
The reason I made the promise that I did was to change their mind.
Because when politics is done well, when people can have faith that politicians’ words mean something.
When the power of government sits in the hands of those determined to serve the country,
Like when Labour created the NHS,
When we introduced the Equal Pay Act,
And when we brought people together to deliver peace in Northern Ireland,
Politics can change lives.
And that is what I will do as prime minister.
As an exercise in logic, this did not quite work. Starmer’s promise to resign if fined certainly did show that he was serious about thinking politicians should not be above the law. But, ironically, he would only have been able to use the promise to show beyond doubt that he was a politician who kept his word if he had been fined and resigned (even though that is what is people believe he would have done).
[Hm. I’m not sure I agree with this. What he wanted to do was create a contrast with Johnson’s endless empty apologies and promises that are always immediately belied by his actions by making a promise that tied his actions to his words. Had he been fined and not resigned, obviously that would have destroyed his reputation for sincerity; but not being fined and therefore not resigning doesn’t leave any doubt. Plus, part of the point of making the promise was to show that he was confident there *was* no case – that he knew that he hadn’t broken the rules, just like Johnson always knew that he *had* broken the rules.]
But that is not the same as showing that politics can be a force for good. There are politicians of impeccable integrity who have not be able to make policies that change lives for the better. And in the past some policies that have done just that have been implemented by scoundrels.
However, the beergate affair has enhanced Starmer’s reputation for personal integrity, and he made this point in the final passage of his speech.
I won’t get everything right.
I’m certainly not perfect, and I will make mistakes along the way.
But what you will always get from me is someone who believes honesty and integrity matter.
Someone who will work every day for the good of the country.
And someone who will not betray the faith that you place in me.
lumipunasays
(Vaguely related to my comment at 181)
Finnish parliament just passed a controversial law that allows increased security measures on the Russian border, particularly in a potential crisis situation where Russia tries to machinate a mass movement of (more or less legitimate) asylum seekers across the border, like Belarus did in an attempt to sabotage Poland and Lithuania last year. Of course, this sort of sabotage would be less effective if people in European countries were less prone to freaking out over large numbers of brown refugees.
For one thing, the law allows building real barrier fences at the border, as in overriding private landowners. This “build the wall” aspect of the law seems to be getting the most attention in international reporting. The Border Guard estimates that actually only 100-250 km of the 1340 km long border needs barrier fencing, in areas that are easily accessible by roads. Currently, there’s a livestock fence in many places, which is not a significant barrier for determined humans.
A more serious and controversial aspect is that in extreme circumstances, Finland could effectively stop accepting asylum seekers along the entire Russian border. Presumably that’d mean forcibly pushing people back across the border, which is exactly what Polish authorities were accused of doing last year. Whether this would violate EU law and international human rights treaties has been a subject of some handwaving. It’s said the EU itself is planning to revise the relevant laws in response to modern hybrid-type threats, so the issue is supposedly moot.
Personally, I hate to see Europe turning more and more into a fortress, with violent rejection of undesirables at its borders.
ravensays
Kazakh President Tokayev continues to destroy any form of interaction with Putin’s Russia. Kazakhstan withdraws from the 1995 CIS agreement on the Interstate Currency Committee.
twitter.com/nexta_…
The twitter comment is in cyrilic so the headline is going to be it.
It is clear that Kazakhstan is moving away from Russia as fast as it can. Which isn’t all that fast but it is the thought that counts.
I looked on a map. Kazakhstan has a long border with Russia. On the other side, it also has a long border with China. It is also obvious that Kazakhstan wants China as an ally to counterbalance Russia.
If Russia wins in Ukraine, sooner or later, it will fight a war and take over Kazakhstan.
Tokayev knows this.
Pentagon investigators found that Michael Flynn received nearly $450,000 from Turkish and Russian interests. The Army now wants some of that money back.
Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, Americans heard quite a bit about the once-obscure provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause. […] the clause prohibits U.S. officials from receiving payments from foreign governments.
This took on new significance while Trump was in the White House because the Republican appeared to benefit from a system in which foreign governments could spend quite a bit of money at a Trump-owned business. In one especially notorious instance, the then-president explored a scheme in which foreign governments would’ve been required to spend money at one of his properties.
But the Emoluments Clause doesn’t just apply to presidents; it also applies to servicemen and women in the military and White House national security advisors. Take Michael Flynn, for example. The Washington Post reported:
Michael Flynn, the retired Army general and onetime adviser to President Donald Trump, was cited by the Defense Department inspector general for failing to disclose lucrative speaking engagements and other business arrangements with foreign entities, prompting the U.S. government to pursue tens of thousands of dollars in penalties against him, according to documents.
Flynn was one of the most scandal-plagued members of Team Trump for a great many reasons, but among the most jarring was the money he received from foreign governments.
Indeed, Pentagon investigators found that Flynn received nearly $450,000 from Turkish and Russian interests in 2015, including compensation he received for an event celebrating RT — the Kremlin-run news agency — when Flynn sat next to Vladimir Putin.
It was soon after when Flynn began advising then-candidate Trump, and after the 2016 election, briefly served as White House national security advisor. (He was forced out after lying to the FBI about his covert communications with Russia. Flynn was ultimately the beneficiary of one of Trump’s most brazenly corrupt pardons.)
Part of the problem with the payments, however, was the inconvenient fact that Flynn didn’t seek government approval beforehand — which necessarily created an Emoluments Clause problem.
The Post’s report noted that Craig Schmauder, an Army lawyer, told Flynn in writing, “When there is a finding that a military retiree has violated the Emoluments Clause, the United States Government may pursue a debt collection.”
In this case, that means the Army wants to recoup $38,557.06 from the disgraced retired general.
This comes against a backdrop in which the public has learned that Flynn attended a December 2020 meeting in the Oval Office in which participants discussed declaring a national emergency as part of a scheme to keep Trump in power despite his defeat. The retired general also reportedly raised the prospect of deploying U.S. troops, seizing voting machines, and declaring martial law as part of an apparent coup attempt.
Months later, he sat down with the Jan. 6 committee and repeatedly pleaded the Fifth. Among the questions Flynn wouldn’t answer: whether he believes in the peaceful transition of power in the United States.
Wisconsin’s democracy was already in dire straits. A state Supreme Court ruling against ballot drop boxes won’t help matters.
It’s never been altogether clear why, exactly, Republicans grew to hate ballot drop boxes. They’re simply a matter of convenience: Many areas allow Americans to slip completed ballots into a secure box whenever they have the time.
At some point in recent years, however, Donald Trump convinced himself that drop boxes are a scourge on society. Nefarious schemers, the Republican insisted, “stuff” the boxes with illegitimate ballots, creating fraudulent results.
The claims have never made any sense, and there’s no evidence of any such thing happening in the United States, but GOP officials, candidates, and voters nevertheless became fixated on the boxes. In fact, in Wisconsin, Republicans and their conservative allies made the case that the boxes are illegal and shouldn’t exist at all.
This morning, as The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, their ideological allies on the state Supreme Court agreed.
Voters casting absentee ballots this fall for the highest state offices won’t be able to return their ballots in upcoming elections by using drop boxes following a ruling Friday by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority. The 4-3 ruling is a win for Republicans who now oppose the longstanding use of ballot drop boxes after their use proliferated during the coronavirus pandemic and was heavily criticized by […] Trump, who alleged with no evidence that absentee voting was rife with fraud and led to his re-election loss in 2020.
It’s worth emphasizing for context that in Wisconsin, state Supreme Court elections are technically non-partisan, but it’s painfully obvious which judicial candidates enjoy which parties’ backing — and in this case, it was the Republican-allied justices who sided with the Republican-allied plaintiffs against the drop boxes.
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, writing for the minority, said the majority’s ruling “blithely and erroneously seeks to sow distrust in the administration of our elections and through its faulty analysis erects yet another barrier for voters to exercise this ‘sacred right.’”
Bradley added, “Although it pays lip service to the import of the right to vote, the majority/lead opinion has the practical effect of making it more difficult to exercise it. Such a result, although lamentable, is not a surprise from this court. It has seemingly taken the opportunity to make it harder to vote or to inject confusion into the process whenever it has been presented with the opportunity.”
To be sure, absentee balloting still exists in Wisconsin, but in the wake of today’s ruling, voters will have to mail those ballots or return them in person, during office hours, to local clerks.
Or put another way, the new system will be less convenient and offer Wisconsin voters fewer options — which appears to have been the point of the legal dispute in the first place. […]
There’s also likely to be an upsurge in Coronavirus cases, (fueled by the Omicron variants), during the midterm voting season. Dropboxes help voters avoid crowds of people. This decision by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court is just stupid on many levels.
Overturning Roe v. Wade took decades. The White House has now started the process of undoing what Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices did.
[…] NBC News reported:
The order aims to safeguard access to reproductive health care services, including abortion and contraception; protect patients’ privacy and access to accurate information; and promote the safety and security of patients, providers and clinics, the White House said in a release.
To be sure, executive orders are often limited in scope, and as powerful as the American presidency can be, Biden can’t unilaterally snap his fingers and restore reproductive rights nationwide.
But according to a White House summary, Biden’s new order isn’t just a hollow, face-saving exercise of a Democratic president going through the motions. There are some worthwhile measures in the broader policy, including:
– The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will expand access to abortion care through medication.
– The White House and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office will convene “private pro bono attorneys, bar associations, and public interest organizations to encourage robust legal representation of patients, providers, and third parties lawfully seeking or offering reproductive health care services throughout the country.” This will apparently include protecting the right to travel out of state to seek reproductive care.
– The administration is prioritizing patient privacy, including taking new steps to prevent the transfer and sales of sensitive health data, and blocking digital surveillance related to reproductive health care services. This will apparently include enlisting the Federal Trade Commission to protect the privacy of people seeking information on abortion services.
Obviously, reproductive rights advocates will keep their celebrations in check in response to an order like this — it’s not as if anyone is going to say, “Whew, problem solved” — but for those who’ve pushed the White House for a more robust response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, this is certainly a start.
It’s also a foundation Biden seems prepared to build on, just as soon as Congress sends him legislation. To codify abortion rights, the president said before signing his executive order, “We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House.”
Biden added that the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices effectively dared the electorate to choose a Congress that would protect reproductive rights. “Vote, vote, vote,” the president said. “Consider the challenge accepted, court.”
The unemployment rate was 3.6%, unchanged from May and in line with estimates.
[…] Job growth accelerated at a much faster pace than expected in June, indicating that the main pillar of the U.S. economy remains strong despite pockets of weakness.
Nonfarm payrolls increased 372,000 in the month, better than the 250,000 Dow Jones estimate and continuing what has been a strong year for job growth, according to data Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The unemployment rate was 3.6%, unchanged from May and in line with estimates. An alternative measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons fell sharply, dropping to 6.7% from 7.1%.
“The strong 372,000 gain in non-farm payrolls in June appears to make a mockery of claims the economy is heading into, let alone already in, a recession,” said Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
June’s gains marked a slight deceleration from the downwardly revised 384,000 in May. April’s count was revised down to 368,000.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% for the month and were up 5.1% from a year ago, the latter number slightly higher than the 5% Dow Jones estimate and indicative that wage pressures remain strong as inflation accelerates. […]
Exhausted from its efforts to take Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, Russia has announced an operational pause. […]
“In units that performed combat tasks during a special military operation, measures are taking place to replenish combat capabilities. Servicemen are given the opportunity to relax, receive letters and parcels from home,” the Defense Ministry noted.
It was also noted that scheduled maintenance of combat vehicles is taking place at field points.
Ukraine still reported Russian attacks at several locations, but by all indications these were small-scale recon-type probes. Russia put a great deal of its combat capabilities into taking that last little slice of Luhansk Oblast, and those troops don’t just need to rest, but new logistical supply lines have to be built to support the next phase of Russia’s war: the push toward the twin fortresses of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, both already the targets of destructive shelling. This is Russia’s doctrine after all: Reduce target to rubble, march infantry forward to see if any defenders are left, then repeat if any are left.
Ukraine doesn’t care about any such “operational pause.” For one, Russia’s artillery isn’t taking time off, and they’re the biggest source of Ukraine’s misery. Thus, HIMARS (and M270s MLRS, reportedly) are in action targeting Russian supply depots to spectacular success—over a dozen so far.
Russian artillery hasn’t slowed any the last few days. Indeed, the entire front was on fire Thursday, as captured by NASA’s FIRMS fire-tracking satellites. [map at the link]
But with major supply depots exhausted, Russian artillery will eventually exhaust their local supply of ammunition. The hope is that we see a slowdown in Russian fires in the next seven to 10 days. In fact, the “operational pause” may be just as much a reaction to losing those supply depots as any “exhaustion” among Russian forces.
Meanwhile, Russia starved its southern front to feed the Severodonetsk push, and Ukraine is taking advantage.
Here’s Snihurivka, north of Kherson, which has been Russian-held and under severe Ukrainian assault for the past one to two weeks. [map at the link]
Ukrainian artillery has moved past the city to its south. That suggests that someone’s troops are down there, and it’s unlikely it’s Ukrainians. So Russian troops are probably pulling back from the city, and Ukraine is chasing them with fires. There’s a good chance Snihurivka will be declared liberated in the next couple of days.
And check this out: [map at the link]
Kherson’s airport in Chornobaivka has been the site of relentless Ukrainian artillery barrages. While Russia is no longer basing aircraft there, they had set up defensive positions to try and stop the Ukrainian advance on Kherson from that direction. Now we see fires targeting the airport move southwest in what little space is left between the airport and Kherson city itself (around 10 kilometers). This suggests Russian troops are falling back, and whether Ukraine has taken the airport yet or not, the artillery is following those withdrawing troops.
Ukraine has been tight-lipped about advances around Kherson. The terrain is just too hard to hold—flat, open, with few hiding places. Ukraine barrages Russian positions until they pull back. Ukraine moves forward. Russia barrages those new Ukrainian positions until Ukraine pulls back. Russia moves forward. Lather, rinse, repeat. It serves no one to make triumphant declarations of liberation only to lose the territory the next day. But as of now, the story of the fires, as captured by a NASA satellite, says Ukraine is on the advance.
ravensays
Biden issued an executive order on abortion rights.
It’s not a lot but there isn’t a lot he can do right now anyway.
Becerra has directed the HHS Office for Civil Rights to issue new guidance related to the HIPAA Privacy Rule to clarify that doctors and medical providers are in most cases not required — and in many instances not permitted — to disclose the private information of patients, including to law enforcement.
That is nice but probably won’t be too useful.
There are dozens of women in prison for miscarriages and stillbirths. They were all ratted out by the health care workers they saw for medical care. It just takes one fundie xian doctor or nurse in the ER and here come the cops. The standard advice is not to admit you committed a felony to people you don’t know under suspicious circumstances.
The office will also issue a guide for consumers on how to protect personal data on mobile apps.
Yes, we will all need guides on how to evade the abortion laws in Red States and be successful criminals.
Here’s what’s in Biden’s executive order on abortion rights
By Kate Sullivan, CNN Updated 2:24 PM ET, Fri July 8, 2022
President Biden calls on Americans to vote to protect women’s rights
(CNN)President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order aimed at protecting access to reproductive health services in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.
The executive order attempts to safeguard access to medication abortion and emergency contraception, protect patient privacy, launch public education efforts as well as bolster the security of and the legal options available to those seeking and providing abortion services.
“President Biden has made clear that the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law. Until then, he has committed to doing everything in his power to defend reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion,” the White House said in a statement on Friday.
There is no action the President can take to restore the nationwide right to an abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Biden has acknowledged publicly his options to expand abortion access remain limited, and has called on the American people to elect more members of Congress in November’s midterm elections who will support federal legislation protecting abortion access.
The White House has dismissed several progressive ideas to protect abortion access, including allowing abortion providers to work from federal property in states where the procedure is banned. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said using federal lands for abortion services would have “dangerous ramifications.” The White House has also reiterated the President does not support expanding the Supreme Court, as many progressives have pushed for.
Here’s what’s in the executive order that was signed Friday:
The President is directing Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to submit a report to him within 30 days on the actions his department is taking on the matter. The President is also establishing an interagency task force on reproductive health care access, which will include Attorney General Merrick Garland.
HHS will take action to expand access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices, or IUDs, according to the White House. The department is tasked with ensuring patients have access to “the full rights and protections for emergency medical care afforded under the law” and the President has directed Becerra to consider updating guidance that clarifies physician responsibilities and protections under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. Garland has also issued a statement saying states cannot ban Mifepristone — a medication used to end early pregnancy that has FDA approval.
The department will ramp up outreach and public education efforts on abortion “to ensure that Americans have access to reliable and accurate information about their rights and access to care.”
In preparation for expected legal challenges ahead, the attorney general and the White House counsel are convening private pro bono attorneys and organizations to provide more legal representation to those lawfully seeking abortions as well as those providing them.
The executive order also focuses on protecting patient privacy. The President is asking the chair of the Federal Trade Commission to consider taking steps to protect consumer privacy when seeking information about reproductive health care services. Biden has also directed Becerra, in consultation with Garland and the FTC, to consider options to address deceptive or fraudulent practices and protect access to accurate information.
The President is directing HHS to consider additional actions to safeguard sensitive information related to reproductive health care, including under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Becerra has directed the HHS Office for Civil Rights to issue new guidance related to the HIPAA Privacy Rule to clarify that doctors and medical providers are in most cases not required — and in many instances not permitted — to disclose the private information of patients, including to law enforcement. The office will also issue a guide for consumers on how to protect personal data on mobile apps.
The order also looks to ensure the safety of those seeking as well as providing abortion care, including by protecting mobile clinics that have been deployed to provide care for out-of-state patients.
ravensays
The White House has also reiterated the President does not support expanding the Supreme Court, as many progressives have pushed for.
It’s irrelevant right now anyway.
Biden and the Democrats don’t have the votes so this isn’t an issue.
I’d do it in a second if the votes were there.
The US Supreme court has destroyed its credibility and is now just a political football. Footballs are for getting kicked around.
Republicans in Oklahoma seem to be confused, but they are harassing Tulsa Public Schools anyway:
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) took to the Twitters yesterday to call for an audit of the Tulsa School District, to investigate “potential mishandling of public funds,” and also accused the school system — extremely vaguely — of having violated House Bill 1775, the state’s cookie cutter bill banning the teaching of “divisive content.” ([The bills] are all modeled, more or less, on one pile of model legislation crap from rightwing crank Stanley Kurtz. [Elected Republicans are too lazy to write their own bills.])
In the video, Stitt pledged the state would “get to the bottom of what’s going on at Tulsa Public Schools,” although honestly, even the state Board of Education hasn’t specified how exactly a training session for faculty allegedly broke the law.
But come on, the school district wouldn’t have been accused if it weren’t guilty, now would it? [/sarcasm]
Here’s Stitt’s video, in which the governor suggests something very nasty happened in the educational woodshed, whatever it may have been. [video at the link]
Also, whatever the CRT accusation is about, it appears to be completely unconnected to the alleged financial mismanagement, which the Oklahoma City Oklahoman explains involved something like $20,000 in “contract management irregularities.” Kind of important to keep that in mind, since in the video, Stitt complains about Tulsa schools having received $200,000 in federal pandemic aid, and hints — misleadingly, if you can believe it! — that somehow the entire grant was fraudulent because Tulsa’s schools remained closed for 300 days during the pandemic.
Golly, mister governor! We know you’re mad about that, but it really appears to have fuck-all to do with the “contract management irregularities” that two members of the Tulsa school board said they’d uncovered, and which they wrote to you about, requesting this investigation.
As the Oklahoman explains, the “special audit” Stitt requested would check “whether an entity complied with state law and internal control procedures.” So we’re talking bookkeeping here, not crazed liberals making up the pandemic, and not innocent children being indoctrinated to hate America.
As for the other part of Stitt’s accusation, state education officials have been remarkably — strategically? — vague about what exactly the offense was. The closest thing to an explanation we could find comes from Tulsa’s Oklahoma Eagle, which says there’s been a “veil of secrecy” around the alleged violation of HB 1775.
All that’s known is that it involved a complaint about “professional development training to school district employees” in March of this year, which was provided by a third-party vendor.
Oklahoma State Board of Education attorney Brad Clark said at a June 23 meeting of the state board that Tulsa Schools had somehow violated the law. But by golly, the unidentified offense was serious enough to put the school district’s accreditation at risk:
In the June meeting, Clark did not cite the specific provisions of the law the Tulsa Public Schools may have violated. Instead, he referred to the “spirit of the training or design of it.”
He further announced to the Oklahoma Board of Education he was recommending the district’s accreditation be downgraded to “accredited with deficiency.” The district has about 33,000 students, 23% of whom are Black – whose education will be affected by the Oklahoma Department of Education’s actions.
As of yet, the Eagle reports, the state board has not taken any action on the newspaper’s Open Records request. The school district was a bit more forthcoming, although even it still hadn’t been informed of the details of the alleged violation. In a statement, the district said it had contracted with a company called Vector Solutions to provide implicit bias training, to meet a state requirement that school districts offer training on “race and ethnic education.”
In March 2022, one individual made a complaint about this training, and the Oklahoma State Department of Education has made us aware of their finding of a deficiency related to that complaint. We anticipate receiving a written explanation of the deficiency within the next few weeks.
So yeah, the state requires annual “race and ethnic education” training, but such training also must not run afoul of the state’s extremely broad prohibition of any content that might be construed as teaching any of a number of divisive concepts such as the idea that “an individual … bears the responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”
As we always say, OF COURSE nobody would teach that, but the concepts are defined so broadly that the laws have been used to attack teaching about school desegregation, because if you point out white people did segregation in the ’50s, then all white children will be unable to handle being told they’re racist, even if you take pains to explain “past” and “present.”
In any case, nobody has any idea what happened in that training, but it was horrible and Tulsa schools are promoting CRT and maybe when the state board meets on July 28 we’ll finally find out what specifically this was all about. The materials probably said something really horrifying, like racism in the past still has effects today, and how dare you say all white people are racist, the end, fuck Oklahoma, fuck Kevin Stitt, and can we start drinking yet?
Wonkette: “Brett Kavanaugh Doesn’t Even Get To Enjoy His Tiramisu At Morton’s, Whaa Whaa Whaa”
Ladies and gentlemen and Wonkette readers, a grave injustice has been perpetrated this very week in the heart of our nation’s capital. Did the cops shoot an unarmed person, you might be asking? Did Congress pass a law decreeing that all left-handed people must have their left arm surgically removed, forcing them to use their right like normal humans who are not monsters? Did the Supreme Court declare women to be chattel breeding slaves?
Oh wait, they sort of did do that last one. And then one of the robed clerics who made that decision wanted to eat dinner at a fancy steakhouse in peace, which is when our tale of injustice occurred.
Take it away, POLITICO:
On Wednesday night, D.C. protesters targeting the conservative Supreme Court justices who signed onto the Dobbs decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion got a tip that Justice BRETT KAVANAUGH was dining at Morton’s downtown D.C. location. Protesters soon showed up out front, called the manager to tell him to kick Kavanaugh out and later tweeted that the justice was forced to exit through the rear of the restaurant.
Oh wow, so you’re saying that people showing up on a sidewalk and yelling at you about your life choices is bad now? That’s a shame, but at least Kavanaugh could choose another option to leave Morton’s and avoid the protesters.
While the court had no official comment […] on Kavanaugh’s behalf and a person familiar with the situation said he did not hear or see the protesters and ate a full meal but left before dessert […]
So Kavanaugh didn’t see or hear the protesters and managed to finish his steak and seventeen beers and presumably crush all the empties against his forehead in peace? Okay, what’s the problem?
“Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protestors while eating dinner at our Morton’s restaurant. Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner.”
Actually if yr Wonkette understands the Dobbs decision, if the all-seeing Founders did not specifically write into the Constitution that every American has the right to eat dinner, then no, Brett Kavanaugh does not have the right to eat dinner without protesters reminding him of his life choices. It’s a bummer, but we respect the Court’s authority.
Here is how Morton’s website describes its DC location:
The patio at the Connecticut Avenue location overlooks Washington’s infamous K Street Corridor, while the dining room caters to DC’s power elite. Mingle amongst the decision-makers of DC, indulging in Morton’s legendary steakhouse favorites for lunch or dinner.
Don’t advertise to the rabble that they can mingle with DC’s decision-makers such as Brett Kavanaugh while he chows down on his ribeye and side of creamed spinach, and then complain when said rabble take you up on it. That’s poor customer service.
Look, if public spaces are out, and public sidewalks in front of the justices’ homes are out, and the vast plaza in front of the Supreme Court building is out, where are the people supposed to go to express their displeasure with the decisions of the decision-makers? Brett Kavanaugh is not up for re-election ever and the decision-makers for obvious reasons don’t seem interested in changing that dumb system anytime soon.
Given all that, the people are going to look for new avenues to express their displeasure to the nation’s leaders. Even if it means that a Supreme Court justice has to scurry out of a restaurant before he can order Morton’s famed Hot Chocolate Cake.
[…] At least Kavanaugh can take solace in knowing he’s not the first unelected official with ridiculous amounts of power to leave a restaurant meal while protesters yelled at him. We’re betting he won’t be the last.
Wonkette: “Here, Have A Nice Round-Up Of Some Good Sh*t Our Elected Officials Are Doing!”
[…] Union Pensions Saved!
This week, President Joe Biden went to Ohio to talk about how his American Rescue Plan includes a provision that will ensure that union workers will get the pensions they earned, ensuring benefits will remain intact for two to three million workers and retirees across the country.
Multi-employer and single-employer pension plans are agreed to in contracts by organized labor and management and then insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. However, when those plans become insolvent, the PBGC historically only pays out a fraction of the benefits retirees were supposed to get. Also, in 2014, Republicans passed the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act that, for the first time in history, allowed companies that had guaranteed their workers a pension to appeal to the US Government to reduce benefits in order to remain solvent.
What this will do is fund the PBGC until 2051 — as it was projected to be insolvent itself by 2026 — and instead of applying to be allowed to reduce benefits, struggling multi-employer pension plans will be able to appeal to the PBGC for financial assistance to ensure that their workers get the benefits they earned and were promised. There are approximately 200 near-insolvent multi-employer pension plans that will be affected by this and millions of workers who now do not have to worry about what is going to happen to them when they retire. Yay!
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act!
Last week, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which President Biden signed in December, went into effect. There was little fanfare, what with everything else we had going on — but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. […] The new law will bar any imports from Xinjiang under the assumption that they are made with forced labor in the Uyghur internment camps there unless the manufacturer can prove otherwise. This is a big deal given the fact that one in five cotton garments is produced, at least in part, with cotton from Xinjiang.
Long story short, although the Chinese government has been oppressing the Uyghurs (and other ethnic minorities) for as long as I’ve been old enough to sign my name to Amnesty International letters, in 2014 they instituted the “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism” and started rounding hundreds of thousands of them up and throwing them in brutal prison camps they claim are “vocational training” centers. You know, where professors and doctors and artists all learn a new trade, like making clothes for fast fashion companies, so that they can find work once they are set free.
The Chinese government denies this, claims all of those who have escaped these prisons are “known liars,” and has gone on offense when companies and countries have made public statements about not using products made in Xinjiang, frequently deploying internet troll armies to attack critics. However, if the US and the rest of the international community can make their forced labor unprofitable, they may have no choice but to end it — even if they continue to insist it isn’t really happening.
Technically, the Tariff Act of 1930 bars all imports made with forced labor or convict labor into the US […] This Act goes further by making the companies literally prove that their products were not made by forced labor in any capacity, which quite frankly should be the norm for every product known to be frequently made by forced labor (or child labor).
[…] The unfortunate thing here is that even if it is properly enforced, it won’t solve the whole problem — given that a large part of the problem is Uyghurs being sent hundreds of miles from their homes to work in other areas of China and that cotton thread is frequently exported from Xinjiang and then used to manufacture clothing in other areas of the world. However, scientific testing now allows us to tell where fabrics originate, which could be used to determine if items are made using components made by slave labor in Xinjiang.
There’s also the fact that Xinjiang is sadly far from the only area where cotton is still being picked by forced labor or child labor and in fact it’s a norm for the industry that is only very slowly starting to change. Uzbekistan just had its very first cotton harvest without forced or child labor last year and a very big part of the reason for that was the fact that many countries instituted a ban on Uzbek cotton until this was rectified. It’s still a huge problem in India, where bonded child laborers are frequently forced to work off the debt of their grandparents in the cotton fields and elsewhere. The fact is, slavery, forced labor, child labor will always exist so long as someone can profit off of it — so it is incumbent to make sure they can’t.
We May Be On Our Way To Build Back Somewhat Better?
It was announced this week that Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin have been secretly working on a skinny version of a reconciliation bill that Manchin will be willing to accept. The new version of the bill includes provisions to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, increases taxes on the wealthy, and spends some money on climate change — because hey, we can’t do any of the stuff we really want without a planet to do it on.
Naturally, Mitch McConnell is throwing a hissy fit over even that and threatening to tank a bipartisan tech bill meant to make us more competitive with China if they dare go through with it. Because, you know, he’s gotta protect the wealthy, the pharmaceutical industry and … I don’t know, torch the planet for funsies?
It’s certainly not everything we want, but it’s enough of an accomplishment to give Democrats something to run on in November, and being able to negotiate pharmaceutical prices instead of being suckers who pay retail is a huge deal. It’s also extremely popular among practically everyone who is not a Republican elected official or pharmaceutical company. It will particularly appeal to seniors, who are known to be pretty good about voting, as well as to younger voters who overwhelmingly want single payer and will see this as a major step towards that goal.
Also, we will believe it when Joe Manchin doesn’t once again refuse to take yes for an answer and DQ all his own compromises. But this is a hopeful post, so we should have ended it elsewhere.
Elon Musk has withdrawn his $44bn bid to buy Twitter after a dramatic few weeks in the company’s corporate history.
“Mr Musk is terminating the merger agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect,” wrote lawyers for Musk to Twitter.
…
Musk announced 13 May that the deal was “on hold” while he awaited details supporting Twitter’s assertion that fewer than 5% of its users were spam or fake accounts. He has asserted the number is 20% and Twitter will need to show proof of the lower number for the purchase to go through.
Twitter chief executive, Parag Agrawal, attempted to address Musk’s concerns in a lengthy tweet thread but his efforts to explain the problem “with the benefit of data, facts, and context” were met with a poo emoji from the world’s richest person.
Musk later suggested he could seek to pay a lower price for Twitter because of the fake accounts issue. Speaking virtually at a conference in Miami, he said reducing his agreed $54.20 a share offer would not be “out of the question”. However, the terms of Musk’s takeover agreement with Twitter gave him only limited room for manoeuvre, legal experts said.
The Musk takeover had been controversial among Twitter employees, with consternation among staff growing after Musk engaged with tweets criticizing Twitter staff following the announcement of the agreement.
According to the 95-page acquisition agreement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk would have to pay Twitter $1bn if he walked away from the deal. Similarly, Twitter had agreed to pay a $1bn fee to the entrepreneur if, for instance, it accepted a higher bid from elsewhere….
The East India Company at Home, 1757–1857 explores how empire in Asia shaped British country houses, their interiors and the lives of their residents. It includes chapters from researchers based in a wide range of settings such as archives and libraries, museums, heritage organisations, the community of family historians and universities. It moves beyond conventional academic narratives and makes an important contribution to ongoing debates around how empire impacted Britain.
The volume focuses on the propertied families of the East India Company at the height of Company rule. From the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the outbreak of the Indian Uprising in 1857, objects, people and wealth flowed to Britain from Asia. As men in Company service increasingly shifted their activities from trade to military expansion and political administration, a new population of civil servants, army officers, surveyors and surgeons journeyed to India to make their fortunes. These Company men and their families acquired wealth, tastes and identities in India, which travelled home with them to Britain. Their stories, the biographies of their Indian possessions and the narratives of the stately homes in Britain that came to house them, frame our explorations of imperial culture and its British legacies.
The more we learn about how armed Jan. 6 insurrectionists were, the more we’re reminded of Republicans who pretended otherwise.
Among the key revelations from Cassidy Hutchinson’s recent testimony was what the White House aide heard Donald Trump say ahead of his pre-riot rally on Jan. 6. Backstage at the Ellipse, Hutchinson heard the then-president fuming about the crowd size who’d hear his remarks.
Told that some of his followers were armed, and could therefore not get past metal detectors, Trump rejected the concerns.
“I don’t f’ing care that they have weapons,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson’s sworn testimony. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f’ing [magnetometers] away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f’ing mags away.”
It was a striking revelation in large part because it meant the then-president deliberately dispatched his armed followers to Capitol Hill. Indeed, he desperately wanted to join them.
But it was also of interest to learn just how armed Trump’s followers were.
About a month after the attack, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson scoffed at the conventional wisdom about the riot. “This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me,” the Wisconsin senator said. “I mean ‘armed,’ when you hear ‘armed,’ don’t you think of firearms?”
Even at the time, it was a foolish comment — which was echoed at the time by many on the right — in light of what we knew about the weapons the Trump supporters brought with them to the Hill. But as the investigation into Jan. 6 continued, we’ve learned even more about just how armed these people were. The Washington Post reported today:
The full picture of how many among the crowd were armed before the riot occurred is unclear, but court records, trial testimony and accounts from police officers and rioters have supplied growing evidence that multiple people brought firearms to Washington for Jan. 6, 2021. Six men were arrested that day for having guns in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol, and a seventh who arrived after the riot ended was arrested the following day. Despite some instances in which alerts about people with guns turned out to be false alarms, accounts from police officers and rioters indicate that many firearms were spotted on Jan. 6 but were not seized as law enforcement focused more on defending the Capitol than on arresting gun-law violators.
The same report noted one Jan. 6 defendant explaining at his trial that from his vantage point on the west side of the Capitol, he counted eight firearms carried by five people.
Other rioters have been charged with taking guns onto the Capitol grounds.
What’s more, we’re not just talking about assorted handguns. The Post’s report highlighted an Alabama man named Lonnie Leroy Coffman.
The police said they searched Coffman’s truck and found 11 Mason jars filled with gasoline and Styrofoam, allegedly to create a napalm-type effect for a Molotov cocktail. In addition to the gasoline-filled Mason jars, which had holes in the lids, with rags and lighters nearby, investigators reported finding a 9mm handgun, a rifle, a shotgun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, large-capacity ammunition-feeding devices, a crossbow with bolts, machetes and camouflage smoke devices. Coffman also was carrying two handguns when he was arrested, authorities said. All the guns were loaded.
There have been related reports with information about Jan. 6 attendees carrying spears on flagpoles, stun guns, bear spray, and related weapons.
Despite all of this, Republican lawmakers such as Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene have, like Ron Johnson last year, questioned whether the insurrectionists had guns.
“What evidence do you have that a lot of people were armed that day?” Greene asked at a Rules Committee hearing last month.
“Oh, just wait for it,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 panel, responded.
The pandemic is a relentless race against Mother Nature. Waves of infection took millions of lives, and only highly effective vaccines prevented even more deaths. Now, the coronavirus is speeding up once again, mutating, evading immunity and still on the march. The arrival of subvariant BA.5 should be a reminder that the finish line in this race is nowhere to be seen.
…Johnson’s dark genius was to shape Britain in his own image. His roguishness has made it a rogue state, openly defiant of international law. His triviality has diminished it in the eyes of the world. His relentless mendacity and blatantly self-seeking abuse of power have ruined its reputation for democratic decency. His bad jokes made the country he professes to love increasingly risible.
…
This is the level to which Johnson has reduced Britain on the world stage, making it fair game for the taunts of tyrants. Even while Johnson was doing good by supporting Ukraine, he was simultaneously giving Vladimir Putin grounds to believe that the west only pretends to believe in the rule of law. This descent is not just bad for the UK. It is bad for the whole democratic world. Johnson turned one of the great historic democracies into a state in which his own cynicism, recklessness and lack of honour became official policy. In doing so, he has allowed every enemy of democracy to say that it is a hollow system whose rules and values are a sham.
It isn’t – and there are those who will continue to fight to defend and deepen it. The great question that faces Britain is whether it can rejoin that side of the fight, as an honourable, law-bound and serious presence in international affairs. It is very hard to see an answer coming from within the ranks of those who allowed Johnson to make such a mockery of their own country. The harm that Johnson has inflicted will not be undone quickly – or by those who found it intolerable only when it threatened their own immediate interests.
[…] As of Wednesday, Arizona has made it illegal for people to record police officials in close range. According to House Bill 2319, signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday, it is illegal to record law enforcement activities within eight feet. Those who continue to record after being warned to stop could face a misdemeanor charge.
Exceptions to the law include people considered to be at the center of an interaction with police, including anyone standing in an enclosed structure on private property where police activity is occurring, and occupants of a vehicle stopped by police. Recordings are allowed in these situations as long as they do not interfere with police actions.
Sponsored by former police officer and Republican state Rep. John Kavanagh, the law was introduced to protect officers from potential harm or distraction outside of the incident they are already involved in, Kavanagh wrote in an op-ed.
According to Jurist, earlier drafts of the legislation banned recording within 15 feet of police encounters. The 15-foot restriction was amended due to issues of constitutionality. But despite the amendments, the bill continues to be opposed because it still infringes on First Amendment rights.
Experts noted that it is not only unconstitutional at its core, but grants police too much discretion and does nothing to enhance transparency.
“Now I have no problem with people video taping police activity, when they’re a reasonable distance away,” Kavanagh said.
While the bill concentrates on an eight-foot radius, it gives law enforcement officials the ability to extend the radius if deemed necessary. However, what is considered “necessary” is not specified. […]
Echoing the “invasion” rhetoric used by a number of racist mass murderers, including in his own state, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order purporting to give state law enforcement the power to detain and return recently crossed migrants to the border.
Immigration enforcement is strictly the job of the federal government, but Greg Abbott knows that perfectly well, “testing the limits of state authority” and “stopping short of using state resources to expel migrants from the country,” The Texas Tribune reports. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas called the order “vicious and unlawful” in a statement received by Daily Kos.
“It will encourage the police and the National Guard to racially profile Black and Brown people in Texas and it could force migrants fleeing violence back into harm’s way,” the statement continued. “Justifying this effort by invoking the rhetoric of ‘invasion,’ which the governor knows fueled the 2019 El Paso shooting that killed 23 people, recklessly fans the flames of hate in our state.” […]
ravensays
Texts, web searches about abortion have been used to prosecute women
Washington Post July 08, 2022 edited for length
The 2017 case is one of a handful in which American prosecutors have used text messages and online research as evidence against women facing criminal charges related to the end of their pregnancies.
Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on June 24— opening the door to state bans on abortion from the moment of conception — privacy experts have warned that many more pregnant people and their abortion providers could find themselves in similar circumstances. While some fret over data maintained by period trackers and other specialty apps, the case against Fisher shows that simple search histories may pose enormous risks in a post-Roe world.
“Lots of people Google about abortion and then choose to carry out their pregnancies,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, a spokeswoman for Fisher. “Thought crimes are not the thing. You’re not supposed to be able to be indicted on a charge of what you thought about.” Fisher declined to comment.
Despite mounting concerns that the intricate web of data collected by fertility apps, tech companies and data brokers might be used to prove a violation of abortion restrictions, in practice, police and prosecutors have turned to more easily accessible data — gleaned from text messages and search history on phones and computers. These digital records of ordinary lives are sometimes turned over voluntarily or obtained with a warrant, and have provided a gold mine for law enforcement.
“The reality is, we do absolutely everything on our phones these days,” said Emma Roth, a staff attorney at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “There are many, many ways in which law enforcement can find out about somebody’s journey to seek an abortion through digital surveillance.”
Women have been punished for terminating pregnancy for years. Between 2000 and 2021, more than 60 cases in the United States involved someone being investigated, arrested or charged for allegedly ending their own pregnancy or assisting someone else, according to an analysis by If/When/How, a reproductive justice nonprofit. If/When/How estimates the number of cases may be much higher, because it is difficult to access court records in many counties throughout the country.
A number of those cases have hinged on text messages, search history and other forms of digital evidence.
Digital evidence played a central role in the case of Purvi Patel, …
Prosecutors also cited her web history, including a visit to a webpage titled “National Abortion Federation: Abortion after Twelve Weeks.” On her iPad, police found an email from InternationalDrugMart.com. Detectives were able to order mifepristone pills and misoprostol pills from that website without a prescription, according to court records.
Health-care workers and friends also are sometimes forced to provide evidence, McSherry added.
Activists (in Poland) also use virtual private networks, which can minimize data collected about browsing, and encourage Polish women to contact them on encrypted channels like Signal. They delete all online conversations after the person has had the abortion and caution the person not to post on social media about their experiences, after some faced online harassment. One organization that provides funds for Polish people to get the procedure in Germany pays abortion clinics directly, rather than providing funds to patients, to ensure there are no digital records.
And there is a fresh worry on European abortion activists’ minds: the introduction of what they describe as a “pregnancy register” in Poland. The Polish government approved a measure last month that requires doctors to save more patient information in a central database — including data on pregnancies.
Wydrzyńska was arrested after the woman’s partner reported her to the authorities. Police confiscated Wydrzyńska’s computer, as well as her children’s devices, during the investigation. Wydrzyńska couldn’t be reached for comment for this article but previously has told The Washington Post that the case has not dissuaded her from activism.
The Zygote Police will use digital data from phones and computers to arrest formerly pregnant women.
They already do so.
Use a burner phone from a drugstore and destroy it when you are done.
Poland is already setting up a pregnancy database.
I’m sure the Red States will do the same.
They may also make health care workers into mandatory reporters for pregnancies and pregnancy losses.
StevoRsays
A reasonable explanation at last suggested here for why many carnivorouous therapod dinosaurs may have had such small arms :
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
Luhansk’s governor says Russian forces are creating “hell” shelling the Donetsk region. Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces fired 8 artillery shells, 3 mortar shells and launched 9 rocket strikes overnight.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken expressed concerns about the China’s alignment with Russia, after meeting with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi in Indonesia. Blinken said they see no signs “at this moment in time” that Russia is willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy.
Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region was also shelled on Saturday, according to the region’s governor. Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote cities Druzhkivka, Slovyansk, Chasovoy Yar, Hirnyk and Svitlodar were attacked.
Russia is moving forces across the country and assembling them near Ukraine for future offensive operations, according to Britain’s ministry of defence. [Several people have talked about this on Twitter over the past few days.] The latest intelligence update said a large proportion of the new infantry units are “probably” deploying with MT-LB armoured vehicles taken from long-term storage.
The first cohort of Ukrainian soldiers have arrived in the UK to be trained in combat by British forces. The programme will train up to 10,000 Ukrainians over the coming months to give volunteer recruits with little to no military experience the skills to be effective in frontline combat. Around 1,050 UK service personnel are being deployed to run the programme, which will take place at Ministry of Defence sites across the the UK.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has asked all residents in the Russian-occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to “evacuate by all possible means”. “Please leave – our army will begin retaking these areas. Our determination is rock solid. And it will be very difficult later to open humanitarian corridors when children are involved,” said Iryna Vereshchuk, according to Ukrainian media.
From an earlier summary:
…Ukraine’s military says it has destroyed two Russian command posts near Kherson, according to Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the joint southern command of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The Ukrainian foreign minister criticised Russia at the G20 summit in Bali, saying it prefers to follow its own rules instead of cooperating multilaterally with the international community. “I am strong supporter of multilateralism,” Dmytro Kuleba said. “But it lacks tools to protect itself from those who disrespect other nations, who prefer to play with common rules instead of playing by the rules. We have such a country at this table today – Russia.”
The Ukrainian parliament adopted a set of new laws on Friday during its plenary session. The new laws include safety guarantees for journalists working in battle areas, improved social protection for rescuers, and postponed transitioning to keep records of the gas volumes in units of energy.
The US is sending four more Himars, or high mobility artillery rocket systems, to Ukraine, a US senior defence official said at a press briefing on Friday. The four additional Himars will bring the total number given to Ukraine to 12. According to the official, the first eight were especially useful as the fighting in Donbas against Russian forces evolved into an artillery fight.
…As a German, I am shocked at the ignorant tone of this public discussion, which often ignores Ukraine’s right to self-determination, or even completely denies that it is a fully formed nation state. It seems to me that with regards to Ukraine, the German Erinnerungskultur, the culture or politics of memory that has enabled the country to – up to a point – openly and honestly discuss the crimes and legacy of Nazi Germany, is failing. Instead of developing a deeper understanding of the complex history of Ukraine and its relationship to Germany, or learning more about the Holocaust on the territory of Ukraine and that the Nazi authorities treated the country as a colony to be exploited and eradicated, the discussion is dominated by platitudes, stereotypes and the regurgitation of Russian propaganda. On TV talk shows, German sociologist Harald Welzer stated that Germany’s history as a perpetrator enables us to understand the war better than Ukrainians and advised the Ukrainian ambassador to stop demanding support and instead listen to Germans. At the same time, political scientist Ulrike Guérot declared that there is no invasion but instead a civil war in Ukraine. Her colleague Johannes Varwick stated that Russia has “vital interests” in Ukraine that we need to respect. On social media, I have encountered claims made by politically active and well-informed acquaintances that as the situation is calm in Kyiv there cannot be a genocidal war; that the Euromaidan protests in 2014 were engineered and executed by the CIA; that Putin potentially targeting the Baltic states and Poland if he is successful in Ukraine is “American propaganda”.
Denying Ukraine democracy is to apply stereotypes and prejudice and puts a lack of knowledge on public display. This discussion is only taking place among Germans and displays a willingness to view the war in the most abstract and simplistic ways possible. Ukrainian voices from all parts of civil society are today as widely available as never before, in books, art exhibitions, podcasts and on social media. However, for some reason Germans have found it difficult to talk to Ukrainians, and there are hardly any Ukrainian voices in public discourse – even the pro-Ukrainian positions on talk shows are represented by Germans.
I was rightly brought up with the responsibility that the Nazi rise to power and Holocaust must never happen again. Now, Germany faces that responsibility in the need to support a European democracy against a genocidal attack aimed at eradicating the country and its culture. But somehow “never again” has become “no war” for many in Germany and I find it difficult to understand why. It seems the historical experience of a necessary military struggle for a just cause, the experience that violent resistance against a criminal opponent is not only morally imperative but can also be successful…is missing from the current debate….
Early in the pandemic, weight was named a risk factor for severe covid-19. But what if the greater risk is poor medical treatment for fat people? This week, On the Media dives into the fictions, feelings, and fraught history of fat. Including how sugar and the slave trade laid the groundwork for American beauty standards.
1. Dr. Yoni Freedhoff…, Associate Professor of Family Medicine at University of Ottawa, on what we do and don’t know about the relation of weight and the severity of a Covid infection.
2. Katherine Flegal…, epidemiologist and former senior scientist at the Centers For Disease Control, on our flawed understanding of the data around weight and death, and Katie Lebesco…, researcher focusing on food, pop culture, and fat activism, on why the “obesity epidemic” is a moral panic hiding behind a thin veil of scientific language.
3. Sabrina Strings…, sociologist at the University of California, Irvine, on how European attitudes about fat dramatically changed in the 18th century. and set the standards Americans still see today.
Earlier, we reported on allegations from Ukrainian officials that Russian forces are “purposefully” destroying crops in the Kherson region.
In a post on Facebook, local police forces have opened criminal proceedings after constant shelling and Russian forces not permitting the extinguishing of fires in occupied land.
Police said large-scale fires are a daily occurrence, burning through hundreds of hectares of wheat, barley and other grain crops, in addition to forests.
The post said:
Due to constant shelling, it is extremely difficult to extinguish such fires in the de-occupied territories, and in the occupied lands the Russians deliberately do not allow extinguishing the occupation, the immigrants destroy grain warehouses, agricultural machinery and solar power plants.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said sanctions against Russia were working, and echoed calls for more deliveries of high-precision Western weapons, Reuters reports.
“Russians desperately try to lift those sanctions which proves that they do hurt them. [Good point!] Therefore, sanctions must be stepped up until Putin drops his aggressive plans,” Kuleba told a forum in Dubrovnik by videolink.
Ukraine president Zelenskiy dismisses several foreign ambassadors
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany on Saturday as well as several other top foreign envoys, the presidential website said.
In a decree that gave no reason for the move, he announced the sacking of Ukraine’s ambassadors to Germany, India, Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary, Reuters reports. It was not immediately clear if the envoys would be handed new jobs. Kyiv’s relations with Germany, which is heavily reliant on Russian energy supplies and also Europe’s biggest economy, has been a particular sensitive matter. The two countries are at odds over a German-made turbine undergoing maintenance in Canada. Germany wants Ottawa to return the turbine to Russian natural gas giant Gazprom to pump gas to Europe. Kyiv has urged Canada to keep the turbine, saying that shipping it to Russia would be a violation of sanctions imposed on Moscow.
[…] The Eagle Nebula, also known as the Star Queen Nebula, is a cluster of young stars whose birth is lighting a region of gas and dust still involved in star formation. It’s about 5,700 to 7,000 light years away from Earth, and bright enough to be glimpsed by those with good eyesight in good dark sky conditions (that would be not me, not here, and not now).
It was first cataloged in 1746 by Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Cheseaux who included it in a short list of nebulas he had found. Like other astronomers at the time, de Cheseaux was mostly interested in cataloging nebula for a somewhat negative reason. Since he was obsessed with finding comets, he was always looking for fuzzy objects in the sky. And since nebula are fuzzy objects, keeping a list of them made sure he wasn’t constantly mistaking one for a comet.
But de Cheseaux did put the Eagle Nebula to another use … he used it to calculate the dates of Jesus’ crucifixion and the end of the world. […]
Looking at the stars was apparently not a great way to interpret your basic “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” but de Cheseaux did think things could be flipped around, so that the motion of stars and planets could be made to explain some passages of time mention in Daniel.
It can be frustrating that guys like de Cheseaux can at one moment be doing something that seems perfectly reasonable, and at the next be trying to twist their observations into making an object thousands of light years away say something about an obscure prediction of events on Earth. But even for the most stridently anti-religious people of the 18th century, which de Cheseaux was not, it was impossible to disentangle events in Biblical literature and attempts to date the past.
That’s because their world lacked depth. They had no concept of how old anything was. Or how far away the stars they were observing actually might be. Thanks to Danish Astronomer Ole Roemer, they did have some idea of the speed of light. But still … they had no deep space, and most importantly, no deep time. It would take Scottish geologist James Hutton to begin pushing back the scale of time at the end of the 18th century, giving room for theories of creation that didn’t involve a heavy load of miracles. Most people lived in a snapshot universe, one whose existence lacked the time or space for rational explanation.
For de Cheseaux, history was short, the stars were close, and even if the Earth was no longer at the center of the Solar System, it was surely the point of the universe. Suffice to say, de Cheseaux ultimately spent a lot more time calculating “measures of the great revolutions of the diurnal, and lunar and solar periods of the heavens” and trying to fit then into a system of “epoch cycles” than he did spotting additional nebula. It’s frustrating. But understandable.
But when it comes to the Eagle Nebula, creation does come up in more than a biblical sense. This is, after all, a “star factory.” New stars, and new stellar systems, are being born there. Some 4.6 billion years ago, it’s likely that our Sun came from such a place, born along with a large number of sibling stars, before being borne along to a more rarified location by time, gravity and the breath of the galactic winds. That’s pretty majestic in any book.
That section of the nebula that look pretty birdish, is also associated with one of the most famous images created by the Hubble Telescope. [“Pillars of Creation” image at the link]
This mosaic of images from the Hubble Telescope was stitched together by astronomers Paul Scowen and Jeff Hester, then both at Arizona State University. There is some concern that these structures, which are in constant motion from the birth and radiation of those new stars, may actually no longer exist. Nearby the star factory is another, even more violent phenomenon — the expanding wave of radiation from a supernova. Such waves can generation enough pressure to trigger the birth of new stars, but they can also erase these “cradles” leaving the resulting stars in a space where the clouds of dust and gas have been blown apart.
Whether […] we’re just seeing the ghosts of structures long gone, isn’t clear. However, the most recent evidence seems to suggest this is one cradle of creation that’s still up and running.
De Cheseaux would probably be confused … but pleased.
The first phase of the Putin’s War ended when Russia was unable to maintain supply lines to forces besieging Kyiv. The second phase shifted predominantly to the eastern Donbas front, where logistics were suddenly less important. [map at the link]
Russia was able to take Kreminna, Rubizhne, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk all within a few dozen kilometers of their main supply nodes—railheads. Note how the Izyum salient, with its longer supply lines, barely budged in three months. But to the east, not only could Russia avoid long, difficult lines of communication (supply), but they could literally send their tanks and artillery guns to nearby railheads to directly load up on ammo: [tweets and videos at the link]
Russia is so incompetent with logistics, that they literally sent their heavy equipment to get their own supplies and ammo, rather than do what every other army in the world does—use far more efficient trucks. I can’t even imagine how many of these tanks and artillery guns broke down trying to get their own supplies. These vehicles aren’t build for long road trips.
But as stupid as that might’ve been pre-HIMARS (and other western long-range artillery), it’s now literally impossible. With Ukraine’s ability to reach out and touch anything within 85 kilometers of the front lines, Russia is in serious need of 1) new supply depots, well to their rear, and 2) more trucks to ferry supplies. And they better hurry, because their existing depots are going “boom!” every single night. [tweet and video at the link]
One Donetsk People’s Republic blogger says his side is in a state of “panic” over such attacks, like the one at Shaktersk, Donetsk, which led to the evacuation of locals.
Shakhtersk. BC warehouse. Amazing people quite correctly (our army is not mistaken) placed it within the reach of the [Ukrainians] and controlled MLRS and eventually got a successful result. The one they expected. And amazing people kept fuel and lubricants at the tank farm in the frontline district of Donetsk, and also… And again and again […]
In the city, darkness and panic, ammunition is lost, the amazing person who did not move the stockpile further is unknown. And he won’t be known […]
[Ukrainians] will destroy everything on the territory of the DPR. Both military and civilian.
[I think “amazing people” is a euphemism for “fucking dunderheads.”]
This pre-war look at Russian logistics sketched out the exponential challenges of moving supplies over longer distances:
It is possible to calculate how far trucks can operate using simple beer math. Assuming the existing road network can support 45 mph speeds, a single truck can make three trips a day at up to a 45-mile range: One hours to load, one hour to drive to the supported unit, one hours to unload, and another hour to return to base. Repeating this cycle three times equals 12 hours total. The rest of the day is dedicated to truck maintenance, meals, refueling, weapons cleaning, and sleeping. Increase the distance to 90 miles, and the truck can make two trips daily. At 180 miles, the same truck is down to one trip a day. These assumptions won’t work in rough terrain or where there is limited/damaged infrastructure. If an army has just enough trucks to sustain itself at a 45-mile distance, then at 90 miles, the throughput will be 33 percent lower. At 180 miles, it will be down by 66 percent. The further you push from supply dumps, the fewer supplies you can replace in a single day.
Turns out, Russia’s lack of crates or forklifts means that loading and unloading their trucks takes far longer than one hour, more like 2-4x that time. Each Russian artillery shell weighs 114 lbs, and the crate with propellent is around 170 lbs. Each has to be loaded and unloaded by by hand. [photo at the link]
Imagine loading or unloading an entire truckfull of those crates, with nothing to grab on to, not even any handles. Yeah, that’ll take a while. Then multiply by the thousands of rounds Russian artillery consumes per day.
Meanwhile, roads close to the frontlines are cratered messes, requiring travel at dramatically slower speeds, mostly during daylight. All the while, Ukraine is doing everything to make those roads impassable. [tweets and map and image at the link]
The bridge had literally just reopened, rebuilt by Russia’s special railroad troops after retreating Ukrainian forces blew it. It was even blessed by an Orthodox priest. [video at the link]
But the bridge was within range of Ukrainian artillery, so an easy target. And it’s not the only one now within range thanks to newly arrived Western artillery and rocket systems.
[…] Thus, the war is entering a third phase. The Battle for the Donbas might be ongoing, but this is a new kind of war. Russia’s need to reach deeper into Ukrainian territory to contest the twin strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk will rekindle the same logistical challenges we saw early in the war. In fact, they’ll be much worse, because Russia will no longer be able to stockpile ammunition next to railheads for easy dispersion to the front. HIMARS will require Russia to multiply and disperse smaller stockpiles away from those railheads, much further from the front. If Ukraine eventually gets ATACMS rockets for their HIMARS as rumored, with their range of 300 kilometers, Russia’s woes will only multiply. And then there’s this: [tweet noting that Ukraine could attack Kerch Strait bridge which links mainland Russia with Crimea —attack using Harpoon missiles.]
Russian artillery is still burning through their local supply of ammunition. We should see a decrease in fire intensity over the next week if Ukraine is indeed crimping Russian logistics.
Take a look at the German/Dutch Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) self-propelled gun in action, there’s nothing like it: [video at the link]
The cannon can adjust so five rounds all land at the exact same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys were behind this wall of fire down in the Kherson front: [video at the link]
This certainly looks like Kherson Oblast: [video at the link]
[…] Meanwhile, the U.S. is sending more HIMARS and, for the first time, long-range Excalibur precision-guided artillery munitions.
[…] M982 Excalibur rounds cost $112.8k each (or $112 million in this package alone). HIMARS/MLRS rockets cost around $130,000 each. Don’t be surprised if Ukraine stops getting launchers and guns, and most of the remaining allocated aid package goes to paying for expensive munitions and spare parts. That’s not a bad thing. Odds are good that ammo supply is the current bottleneck, not artillery guns or MLRS launchers.
Missouri’s Senate race is heating up. The Republican Party has once again put its best foot forward by promoting Eric Greitens, best known for mowing down trees with a high-caliber assault weapon during his elections campaign ads and then being forced to resign after it turned out that he was a next-level scumbag. It turned out that Greitens was not simply having an extramarital affair, but he was accused by the woman he began the affair with of sexual assault, battery, kidnapping, and blackmail in his pursuit to cover that affair up. Donald Trump Jr. even cut an add where both he and Greitens shot weapons and threatened “liberals, RINOs, and the fake media.”
The Democratic Party has two front running candidates running for Senate, with the primary taking place on Aug. 2. On the one hand you have Anheuser-Busch heiress Trudy Busch Valentine, who is considered a front runner because of her financial resources. On the other hand you have former Marine Lucas Kunce, who has been catching up in the polls. Right now the main criticism facing Valentine is her refusal to appear in public and face off against opponents. […]
one thing that Kunce and Valentine have going for them is that they are not Eric Greitens. True to form, Greitens has been dealing with a brand-new slew of allegations about how abusive and appalling a person he is—this time from his estranged wife, who left him after he was forced to resign from being governor for being a dirtbag.
On Thursday, Kunce released a very effective ad that centers reproductive rights and women’s rights while also pointing out the hypocrisy of the archaic toxic masculinity promoted as a virtue by conservatives. This is the kind of messaging the Democratic Party needs to get on board for. [video at the link]
He opens with: “I’m Lucas Kunce and I have a message for America’s men: Step the hell up!” Throughout the advertisement, a hard “rock” guitar riff plays, reminiscent of penis-pill advertisements one sees and hears during sporting event broadcasts. It’s sort of superb. From there he talks about how reproductive rights and children’s rights are being taken away and conservative men are flexing their muscles by “standing on the sidelines, acting powerless.”
He also connects the fact that he was a Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq, being told how he was fighting for the human rights of women in other countries, only to come home to a far more tyrannous Republican-led movement at home.
The video even gives a nice visual shoutout to weak leaders like Sen. Joe Manchin, who has pretended he has no power as a sitting U.S. senator. Kunce also pounds home the middle-American masculinity fallacy implicit in the “pro-life” movement. “Real men fight for choice,” the screen reads as Kunce gives his very simple message to voters: “That’s why I’m running for Senate. In Washington I will kill the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade.” […]
Don’t ever accuse these morons of being criminal masterminds…
CNN
The Justice Department released new details Friday evening of the alleged extensive planning by the Oath Keepers to prepare for violence in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, including lessons to conduct “hasty ambushes,” a “death list” of Georgia election officials and attempts to acquire homemade firearms. […]
Among the new details in the government’s allegations is a document with the words “DEATH LIST” that the government says it found in Oath Keeper Thomas Caldwell’s home through a search warrant in the weeks after January 6
The handwritten list included the name of a Georgia 2020 election official and their family member who, according to the new court filing, were both targets of “unfounded conspiracy theories that they were involved in voter fraud.”
They left an enormous trail of evidence in their wake…
The Washington Post
The allegations came days before the Jan. 6 House committee is set to hold its next hearing Tuesday, which is expected to explore connections between extremist groups accused of playing key roles in the violence at the Capitol and former president Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election through false claims of voter fraud.
[…] “That Caldwell made and kept a ‘death list’ that includes officials involved in the presidential election process — contemporaneous with his preparation to travel to Washington, D.C. — illustrates his actions during the alleged conspiracy and intent to oppose by force the transfer of power,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy A. Edwards Jr. of Washington wrote, referring to the seditious conspiracy charge against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and eight others including Caldwell.
No wonder they want to delay their seditious conspiracy trial…
CBS News
A defense attorney for the Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes said Wednesday that members of the group accused of seditious conspiracy will seek a postponement of their upcoming criminal trials amid the Jan. 6 committee’s public hearings.
[…] An attorney for Rhodes, Phillip Linder, cited the expected focus on the Oath Keepers in seeking a postponement of the Sept. and Nov. 2022 criminal trials.
And tell their side of the story to the world…
WUSA9
Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes offered this week to testify publicly before the January 6th Committee – an offer with little chance of the committee taking it up, but potentially big downsides for Rhodes’ eventually trial.
Rhodes’ attorney, James Bright, confirmed to CBS News and other outlets Friday that he’d passed along an offer from his client to testify in a public hearing about his and other Oath Keepers’ roles on Jan. 6, when a mob of thousands of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building. Rhodes is one of nine members of the militia under indictment on multiple felony charges, including seditious conspiracy, for allegedly plotting to disrupt the joint session of Congress. […]
Rhodes, a graduate of Yale Law, has previously said he intends to testify at his own trial – currently scheduled to begin in late September. While any such testimony would be public, it would not offer the enormous reach of the January 6th Committee hearings, which have drawn millions of television viewers over the past month. Rhodes’ offer to testify was reportedly contingent upon the hearing being held publicly and broadcast by major television networks. The committee has rejected testimony offers with similar conditions from other potential witnesses, including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell.
Still waiting for their fearless leader, I guess…
Business Insider
When nine accused leaders of the Oath Keepers go on trial this fall to face seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, jurors in the government’s first big showcase trial will hear a defense argument that will sound outlandish to many.
Jurors will be told that the far-right extremists believed President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act as they gathered at the Capitol — 100 strong in their camo-colored tactical gear — and turn them into his own, ultra-loyal federal militia.
Their fantasy mission? To “Stop the Steal,” “Defend the President,” and “Defeat the Deep State,” according to since-deleted rhetoric from their website. A defiant Trump would officially be their commander in chief.
The FBI continues to seek the public’s assistance in identifying individuals who participated in unlawful conduct during the Capitol Insurrection. New images are added frequently… [Tweet and images at the link]
If you have information about individuals who participated in the largest assault on police officers in U.S. history at the Capitol Riot on January 6th, call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or leave a tip online at the FBI’s website. […]
[…] Politico reports how Rob Schenck, once head of the same bunch that are now bragging about their prayer sessions […] recruited a score of wealthy supporters to wine and dine Scalia, Alito and Thomas and their wives at Washington’s finest troughs.
Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who headed the Faith and Action group headquartered near the Supreme Court from 1995 to 2018, said he arranged over the years for about 20 couples to fly to Washington to visit with and entertain Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.
[…] Schenck said the goal was to create an ecosystem of support for conservative justices, as a way of making them more forthright in their views.
The previously undisclosed initiative by Faith and Action illustrates the extent to which some Supreme Court justices interacted with advocates for the religious right during a period when the court grappled with social issues such as abortion and gay rights.
The calculated nature of Faith and Action’s efforts shows how outside actors can use social activities and expensive dinners to penetrate the court’s highly sealed environment.
Ah, yes, “social activities and expensive dinners,” noshes enlivened with such sparkling bon mots as “It’s so important for a child to have a father and a mother” and “You were born for a time like this.”
[…] Prayer’s all well and good, but if you really want to bring some High Court souls to the altar rail, I suggest a stop by the Capital Grille first […]
If this all seems a bit, um, bribe-y, not to worry. The High Court, in its wisdom, exempts itself from the code of conduct imposed on all others in the federal judiciary, continuing its unbroken tradition since Marbury v. Madison that “the rules are whatever we say they are.”
Imagine, judges who not only have no rules, but literally decide what laws apply to them. […]
The extremist ”Patriot” movement is nothing if not adaptable: As a kind of pan-far-right insurgency, it has a history of attacking democracy on a broad range of fronts, from immigration to civil rights to abortion rights. That’s why you can find deranged activists like Jennifer Harrison of AZ Patriots, who made her bones harassing Latino immigrants and Muslims, showing up to a protest over the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade to do a drive-by pepper spray of participants.
Unsurprisingly, when police arrested her, Harrison claimed it was all in self-defense—a claim belied by video of the incident. Just as predictably, as David Gilbert at VICE reports, police in Tempe, Arizona, also arrested one of Harrison’s victims based on Harrison’s claims that she had been assaulted.
The incident occurred on Sunday night in Tempe, when Harrison and her frequent partner in her far-right escapades, Michael Pavlock, cruised slowly past a cluster of abortion rights protesters waiting to cross the street on the corner of Mill Avenue and University Drive with Harrison in the passenger seat. [tweet and video at the link, "Kids were hit with bear mace too."]
Videos and photos show that she rolled down her window with a can of bear spray in her hand and directed it twice at the protesters. After the first blast, while the victims were crying for water, they continued to roll slowly past the crowd; a woman standing with them, later identified as activist Vivika Lofton, reached toward the bear spray with a flag in her hand as if to deflect it. Harrison can then be seen unleashing a second blast in her direction.
Harrison later claimed in a press release (subsequently deleted) that Lofton had “aggressively rushed toward the vehicle, hands raised and flying around as she entered the street and reached her hand into the open window of the vehicle.” Video indicates that this description is at best a gross exaggeration, and that Lofton had not reached inside the car at any moment.
Lofton, who was briefly hospitalized, was charged with disorderly conduct. She adamantly denies Harrison’s claims. “I’m being charged with the same charges as [Harrison], which isn’t right, because I was the one that was injured and went to the hospital,” Lofton told Gilbert.
Victims of the mace attack were treated by emergency services at the scene. Some were transported for further treatment at a local fire station, including a 9-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. The mother of the two children set up a GoFundMe page in which she described their agony.
The pain of being maced is intense and burning, an incredibly strong stinging sensation that does not go away quickly. Additionally, mace reactivates every time it gets wet. This means that every time my children started to cry in reaction to the pain they were feeling, it only made the burning worse. Seeing my children in wailing in pain and unable to do anything about it was the most excruciating thing I’ve ever gone through.
Everything happened so fast and there was no time to prepare or run away for safety. We were taken away by ambulance to a near by firestation where I had to flush the mace from my children’s face in a decontamination shower.
On social media, Harrison said she “didn’t expect kids” among the anti-abortion protesters Sunday night. However, as Gilbert notes, she had berated the same group of protesters on Saturday night, acknowledging in her Facebook livestream that a child was there.
Harrison has a long history of notoriously ugly far-right activism. AZ Patriots (also known as the Patriot Movement of Arizona) won notoriety in 2018 for a Facebook video posted by a leading member of the group showing her entering a Muslim mosque and removing articles, leading eventually to a felony conviction for the woman. Harrison, who was sued by several churches for harassing immigrant children by posting videos of them arriving by bus, also faced a felony identity theft charge in Maricopa County that was later dismissed when she agreed to enter a federal diversion program.
In the wake of the November 2020 presidential election—which Democrat Joe Biden surprisingly won in Arizona—Harrison was one of the leading figures protesting outside election-counting centers. Harrison also led a small delegation inside the building in the early moments of one protest, where video showed her demanding to be permitted to observe the count and being denied.
Harrison also has a history of using bear spray to attack her political opponents. In June 2020, she made a video of herself and Pavlock at a Black Lives Matter protest march through downtown Phoenix. In the video, the pair were stopped by traffic police at an intersection to allow protesters to march past.
She could be seen using her megaphone to shout, “Black rifles matter,” and “Trump 2020,” which drew about six protesters who walked toward their car. Harrison yelled, “You’re going to get sprayed,” while Pavlock chimed in: “You’re going to get shot.”
Harrison could then be seen bear-spraying a girl, after which a Phoenix police officer told the pair to leave the area.
Harrison devoted much of her energy in 2021 to harassing border crossers as they entered Arizona, but more recently has turned her focus to counterprotesting at liberal events.
“I have one comment: This was self-defense. I have an attorney, and we are confident that we’ll see this through,” Harrison told the Arizona Republic.
Harrison is not the first right-wing extremist to harass Arizona abortion-rights protesters. In early May, a group of white nationalists showed up to try to commit violence at a Phoenix protest.
Harrison portrays herself as the victim. She is the perp.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry alleged that Ukrainian-born Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) is “trying to earn extra political capital” after she sent a letter to President Biden regarding the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak.
“Ukraine is deeply grateful to the United States of America for their unwavering support in the fight against Russia’s aggression. It’s hard to overestimate the political, military, and financial help Congress and President Joseph Biden’s administration provided to our country in four months of all-out war. We celebrate the personal role of the President of the United States in consolidating these efforts,” the spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said in a post on Facebook on Saturday.
“On this background of extensive support especially contrasts the recent actions and statements of US Congresswoman Victoria Spartz,” he continued. “They are an undisclosed attempt to bring back into American politics classic narratives of Russian propaganda about Ukraine’s leadership’s seemingly ties to Russia and to drag our state into US domestic politics.”
A Republican official in the USA repeating Russian propaganda. Surprise, surprise.
Nikolenko was referring to a letter that Spartz sent Biden on Friday in which she asked for his administration “to brief Congress on the performed due diligence and oversight procedures related to” Yermak and warned that people both in the U.S. and abroad had concerns about the top Ukrainian official.
“As President Zelensky works very hard to build alliances with the west and our country, it is our responsibility to inform him if we might have any concerns with key people around him. It is also our obligation to the brave Ukrainian soldiers and strong Ukrainian people fighting this fight for freedom and international order for all of us,” she wrote to Biden.
Nikolenko claimed that Spartz’s comments were “cynical” and “baseless speculation.”
In a statement on Saturday, Spartz responded to Nikolenko’s Facebook post, making a series of allegations against Yermak. She alleged he had not properly handled peace negotiations with Moscow prior to the war, sought to prevent Ukraine from properly preparing for the conflict and delayed urgent military equipment purchases. Among other accusations, she also claimed that Yermak caused a Ukrainian operation to fail by leaking information about it to Belarus and Russia.
“I encourage the Ministry to consider my statement with the kind of seriousness these questions about Mr. Yermak demand, instead of launching ad hominem attacks as they have thus far. Ukrainians and Americans will be better served by our governments responding with due diligence – not defensive platitudes,” she said.
Spartz’s comments come amid the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine, which has raged on for more than 100 days. The Indiana Republican has visited Ukraine a handful of times during the war. […]
I’m having a hard time getting through HB 1049, the North Carolina House Bill that basically demonizes electric vehicle charging stations because consumers aren’t getting free fossil fuels alongside them. [WF? !!!]
The bill was sponsored entirely by Republicans: Reps. Keith Kidwell, Mark Brody, George Cleveland, Donnie Loftis, and Ben Moss. It requires businesses to disclose the percentage of what they’re charging customers that is “the result of the business providing electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at no charge.” Businesses more than likely would be handing customers receipts showing 0%, given the Energy Department’s estimate that it costs just $6 for an EV with a 200-mile range and a 54kWh battery that is fully depleted to be completely recharged.
The bill also requires publicly-funded EV charging stations on state-leased or state-owned property to come with free gas and diesel pumps. The same goes for county and city property [LOL LOL LOL]. And if anyone in those groups with EV charging stations on their property can’t adhere to those terms, the bill requires the Department of Transit to develop a system to disperse $50,000 for the sole purpose of using that money to dismantle EV charging stations. Make it make sense. […]
EVs are significantly better for the planet, but the energy their charging stations receive isn’t being conjured from thin air. Charging stations receive power from local grids, which aren’t exactly the cleanest in this country. According to the Energy Information Administration, 61% of electricity generation in the U.S. came from fossil fuels last year. So if dirty energy is the concern, then rest assured that we’re doing just fine in that department. Plus, it’s not like one state throwing a tantrum over charging stations is going to magically change oil and gas output. CNN’s assessment of rising gas prices includes an industry unwilling to increase production due to fears of environmental rules actually working and demand for oil and gas plummeting. The bill was filed last month and passed its first reading shortly after, so it’s certainly got a ways to go before any North Carolinians should start worrying. This should hopefully give the lawmakers who sponsored the bill enough time to get a clue and drop the legislation altogether.
Gas and diesel fuel pumps would cost a lot more to install and maintain than EV charging stations.
[…] On Friday Trump delivered a campaign speech in Las Vegas for a couple of Republican candidates in Nevada. It was typically rife with lies and unbridled outrage triggered by figments of his overactive imagination. He regurgitated his delusional election fraud claims and flung infantile insults at his political foes. [Of course, you weren’t really thinking that would change, were you?]
In addition to his standard narcissistic rambling and psychotic sermonizing, Trump also unleashed the following hysterical observation pulled directly out of his asinine recollection of a warped version of the past:
“We have to stop fighting with each other and unify. That was happening during the greatest period, I believe, in our country’s history in many ways. Just before COVID came in from China – and that’s where it came from, Wuhan. It came from Wuhan. It can happen again. We were more unified just before that. Everybody was happy.”
Trump is right if what he means by “everybody” is his dimwitted followers and the rage-fueled voices in his head. However, a reality-based remembrance of the Trump years reveals a nation that was more unified in hatred of Trump than happiness. After all, there were unprecedented, massive protests from the very beginning of his term. He had record low approval ratings that never reached 50%. He lost the lost popular vote twice. He lost reelection by over seven million votes. And how could he forget that he was impeached twice? A recent poll shows that even 42% of Republicans don’t want him to run in 2024.
Does that sound like a nation that was happy and unified? Trump himself was never happy. He exhibited a constant state of outrage, throwing temper tantrums almost daily. And his animus was not reserved for Democrats. He regularly lashed out at Republicans who he deemed insufficiently worshipful.
Trump’s seething anger has never waned in the months since he was deported back to Mar-a-Lago. He is still spewing the furious tirades that embody the whole of his public life. […]
These are just two of the most recent examples of Trump’s descent into madness. Calling a Black Attorney General [New York Attorney General Letitia James] racist, and recalling his contentious term in office as a time of unity, are about as far removed from reality as one can get. The only worse mental afflictions would be the ones that infect anyone who continues to support Trump.
Wonkette: ‘Will No One Think Of How Elliot Page’s Abs Have Directly Hurt Poor Jordan Peterson?”
ordan Peterson first skyrocketed to medium fame by being a dick to trans students in his class, so it is hardly any surprise that he is still clutching onto that rickety ass door frame for dear life. He’s spent the last few weeks on Twitter [complaining] about women failing to comply with his attractiveness standards and also trans people existing. It’s really unfair to him! People just going around living their lives or feeling good about themselves without even asking him if that would be okay with him. Is that freedom? Is this the future liberals want?
In late June, Peterson was suspended from Twitter for a completely bananapants tweet in which he opined “Remember when “pride” was a sin?,” dead-named actor Elliot Page and raged against the “criminal physician” who removed his breasts. He was then informed that he could get his account back if he deleted the tweet, but Peterson refused, saying he would “rather die.” (he later deleted it, so perhaps that was not entirely true)
On Friday, Peterson doubled down again on this nonsense in an interview with Kyle Kulinski on the podcast Krystal Kyle and Friends. When asked by Kulinski how exactly he considered her physician a criminal when it is entirely legal to perform such a surgery.
“So my question is the physician really criminal? If you agree that adults can decide to transition, then why would the physician be criminal? Don’t adults have that right?” Kulinski asked.
“Not everything legal isn’t criminal,” Peterson explained, clearly not recognizing how words work. “And do they have that right. See, I would’ve left [Elliot] Page alone if [he] hadn’t been parading [his] new abs in a fashion magazine. How many kids do you think [he] convinced to convert? One? A thousand?”
The only possible answer here is “literally zero” because of how you can’t “convert” people to be trans.
The implication is clear, though — Elliot Page struck the first blow by posing in a magazine and just existing in public and having abs, and poor, pitiful Jordan Peterson was just doing self-defense. Perhaps the real question is “How many people are just going to pose for magazines without even bothering to ask Jordan Peterson if he is okay with them doing so? One? A thousand?”
This, by the way, would be what he was referring to: [image at the link]
Unless someone actually is transgender, they’re not going to look at that and go “Oh wow, that could be me!” any more than they’d look at any picture of any other man and go “Oh wow, that could be me!”
Kulinski then pointed out to Peterson that many years ago people believed that if gay people were publicly acknowledged that it would result in all of the children deciding to have same-sex relationships, “but really what happened is people are who they are.”
A very agitated Peterson interrupted him and said “That is what happened” while Kulinski continued saying that the reason more people came out was because it was safer to do so.
“No! That’s not what happened! You’re completely wrong! You’re utterly wrong! There’s nothing about that that’s right!” Peterson desperately cried.
He then went on a whole ass diatribe about how he knew from the very beginning when he was asked to use someone’s correct pronouns in a classroom that this whole thing was just going to be a “psychogenic” fad and it was going to lead thousands of vulnerable adolescent girls to decide they want to be trans and to go through with major surgery and yadda yadda yadda. He seemed most concerned about adolescent girls, perhaps due to his interest in “redistributing sex” in order to prevent incel murder sprees.
Jordan Peterson, I assure you, knows fuckall about teenage girls.
As someone who was once a teenage girl who went through multiple phases (one of which involved wearing butterfly wings on the regular, plus a few others that were even more deeply embarrassing than that), I will absolutely confirm that during adolescence, widely regarded to be the “age of obsession,” a lot girls do absolutely go through phases and get all “this is who I AM!” about personas they decided to adopt all of 12 minutes ago. I will not deny that. What I will vehemently deny, however, is that any of them last as long as would be necessary to convince psychologists and do everything it takes in order to qualify for any kind of gender affirmation surgery.
[…] The thread that ties all of Peterson’s absurd beliefs together is that he very much believes that he has a certain ownership over women’s bodies and, indeed, any body coded as female. He believes he should get to tell us how to look, whether or not we can feel good about ourselves and our bodies, who we should be allowed to (or forced to) have sex with and even what gender we are allowed to be. If a person who is assigned female at birth realizes they are male and wants to transition, he sees that as them taking something away from him.
What rang clear throughout this interview is that Peterson is truly a sad, pathetic, venomous creature. He has absolutely no interest in listening to anyone or having his beliefs interrogated, he just very desperately wants to believe he is right and for other people to simply take his word for it that he is right. If people were half as malleable in the way as Peterson claims they are, one would have to imagine that they would be more likely to just go along with the people like him who are pressuring them to fit into a particular mold instead of those of us who are saying “Hey, be whoever you are, that’s fine with us!”
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @281:
Gas and diesel fuel pumps would cost a lot more to install and maintain than EV charging stations.
The republicans in the NC Legislature are fucking idiots. Not only would forcing free gas and diesel pumps alongside EV charging stations be impractical because of the environmental regulations related to underground storage tanks, the retail fuel dealers in the area would (rightly) cry foul because it would collapse their sales of fuels to the general public. Just another attempt by republicans to throw a monkey wrench into anything that might be considered progressive. I HATE REPUBLICANS!!!
StevoRsays
Good ABC news article on the refugees who came to Oz seeking asylum here by boat – which is a legal human right :
Novisas, no or minimal access to any healthcare, no work, no future, just limbo living like ghosts..
KGsays
Back in the Yoo-Kay, there are now, I think, ten Tory MPs who have made clear their intention to stand for the leadership: Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Jeremy Hunt, Suella Braverman, Grant Shapps, Nadhim Badawi, Penny Mordaunt. They are all pretty repulsive, as one would expect; only Hunt and Tugendhat have not served in Johnson’s government. I’d have said a couple of days ago Tugendhat was perhaps the least unpleasant, but remarks by one of his main supporters about the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the programme of transportation to Rwanda for asylum seekers indicate that he’s joining the rest of the crew in pandering to the far right. Remarkably, five of the ten are people of colour, but this should not fool anyone into thinking they would try to do anything about the systemic racism deeply embedded in policing, legal, educational and other areas: all are of the “I made it, why can’t they?” school of thought (or they wouldn’t be Tories). Sunak, who was Chancellor before he resigned just after Javid at the start of the landslide that forced Johnson to declare he would leave, is the current bookmakers’ favourite, but Johnson and his remaining supporters will do their best to sabotage him, blaming him for Johnson’s downfall. It seems clear Sunak has been planning his campaign for some months, so accusations of disloyalty and hypocrisy will have purchase. The ultra-vile Priti Patel is also thought to be contemplating a run.
In related news, the Durham police have announced that the Labour leader and deputy leader, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, have “no case to answer” in regard to claims they had broken Covid regulations in 2020. Both had promised to resign if fined. I’d say this is good news for them, but bad news for Labour, who would have had a chance to elect a more effective leader if Starmer had resigned – he has so far relied on not being either Johnson, or Jeremy Corbyn, to propel him into No. 10 after the next election; in two years as leader, he has completely failed to set out any positive vision or plan for the country. His slogans are “Security, prosperity, respect” – which would have done equally well for the British Union of Fascists (Starmer likes to pose against a backdrop of Union Jacks) – and “Make Brexit work”, while ruling out rejoining the Single Market or Customs Union – at a time when disillusionment with Brexit is at a high (55% in a recent poll said it had gone badly, as opposed to 33% saying it had gone well).
[…] “We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy,” Biden said from the Roosevelt Room of the White House. “The choice we face as a nation is between the mainstream and the extreme, between moving forward and moving backwards, between allowing politicians to enter the most personal parts of our lives and protecting the right to privacy — yes, yes — embedded in our Constitution.”
“This is the moment,” he continued, “to protect our nation from an extremist agenda that is antithetical to everything we believe as Americans.”
Biden told the tragic story of a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio who had to travel across state lines to get an abortion because of Ohio’s 6-week abortion ban.
“She was forced to have to travel out of the state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life,” Biden recounted. “Ten years old — 10 years old! — raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state.”
Biden also gave a scathing critique of the high court’s ruling—a decision, he said, that wasn’t rooted in the Constitution or in history, but rather was a partisan power grab.
“What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment. It was an exercise in raw political power,” Biden charged.
He further criticized the court for playing “fast and loose with the facts” of the case and said the ruling was driven by a “deep, long-seething antipathy” towards Roe and broader privacy rights.
Quoting from the dissent offered by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Biden said, “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them.”
President Biden also got specific about what he needs from voters in order to pass a federal law guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide.
“We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe as federal law. Your vote can make that a reality,” Biden said, urging Americans to swarm the polls this fall and reverse the injustice the high court has visited upon the country.
Biden also called it “extraordinary” that the majority challenged women to register their rage at the polls. “Women are not without electoral or political power,” Biden said, quoting a passage from the ruling. Riffing off that thought, Biden offered, “It’s my hope and strong belief that women will, in fact, turn out in record numbers to reclaim the rights that have taken from them by the Court.”
Likewise, Biden reminded Americans that things could go the other way, with Republicans gaining power and imposing a national ban on the procedure.
“The Court’s decision has also been received by Republicans in Congress as a green light to go further and pass a national ban. A national ban,” the president repeated, noting that congressional Republicans are already discussing the prospect.
“That will mean the right to choose will be illegal nationwide if, in fact, they succeed,” he added, issuing a veto threat. “As long as I’m President, it won’t happen, because I’ll veto it.”
But ultimately, the president said the final verdict will rest with Americans. […]
[…] Prior to last night, there had been anywhere from a dozen to 18 ammo and C2 (command and control) targets hit by HIMARS and other Ukrainian long-distance rockets. But last night, the floodgates opened.
[Tweet and map at the link, showing at least 11 new missile strikes on Russian military targets by HIMARS]
This post will be a roundup of those attacks, demonstrating the culmination of years of pent-up Ukrainian frustrations—knowing where Russia kept its weapons stores and being unable to do anything about it. Until now.
Shakhtarsk [tweet and video at the link]
Alchevs’k [tweet and video at the link]
Chystiakove [tweet and video at the link]
[…] [A map showing how drastically Russian ranged artillery fire has been dialed back] […]
– New Kakhovka, Kherson region. – Yesterday’s attack on the command post of the 49th army, air defense, and warehouses with missiles for air defense. According to preliminary data, more than a hundred were destroyed, about 200 were wounded, half of whom were severe, some of whom would not survive.
Nova Kakhovka is east of Kherson, and is strategically important for two reasons: 1) it is the mouth of the canal that delivers water to all of Russian-occupied Crimea, and 2) is the location of a major “filtration camp,” Russia’s version of concentration camps.
Down in Kherson, the barracks of the Russian Rosgvardia national guard—Putin’s personal army—got hit by HIMARS overnight. […]
Igor has a point—remember when we worried about Russia interdicting arms supplies into the country? That never happened, and Russia has zero capability to do so. Their Air Force is afraid to fly more than a few kilometers from friendly territory, and certainly won’t push deep into Ukrainian airspace. And remember that Russian air strike against an unguarded Snake Island, attempting to destroy equipment they left behind? They dropped four bomb, three missed the island altogether and landed in water. Forget trying to hit anything accurately.
They lack precision-guided rockets, preferring to use their unguided trash against residential buildings, needing only to target the general vicinity of a neighborhood to accomplish their terrorism. Their vaunted Spetsnaz special forces units (akin to our Green Berets or Navy SEALS) are clearly incapable of operating behind enemy lines. So HIMARS and its ammo pods and 155 mm artillery shells and all that good stuff can be railed and trucked to the front lines with little impediment.
The same used to be true for Russia and their supplies, so long as units stayed close to their supply railheads. But that’s no longer the case.
HIMARS is having a notable and real impact on Ukrainian morale. […]
Man at the site of a vicious Russian attack sees a CNN reporter, and his response is a gleeful “HIMARS!” That certainly cuts across any language barriers.
It certainly looks like Ukraine has a long list of targets to hit, limited only by the $840,000 ammo pods the United States can deliver. At some point, however, when they’re closer to the big expected late-summer, early-fall counterattack, these strikes will start hitting Russia’s air defenses, preparing the way for drones and warcraft to pummel Russia’s front-line defensive emplacements.
We can really see why the U.S. Marines are ditching all their tube artillery in favor of HIMARS.
As one of the Capitol Police officers who defended the United States against the mob on Jan. 6, 2021, I felt it was important for me to be in the committee room on June 28 to hear the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony. Along with three colleagues, I went, even though I knew it would be difficult to relive the horrors I witnessed. Although I experienced firsthand the brutal onslaught of the insurrectionists, I was shocked to hear Ms. Hutchinson explain the extent to which former President Donald Trump incited the people who almost killed me.
I am an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, a U.S. Army veteran and a sergeant who has worked on the force for 16 years, but I’ve never witnessed anything like the Jan. 6 attack — even in combat in Iraq. I was sure I was going to die that day, trampled by the hordes of President Trump’s supporters trying to stop the official transfer of power on his behalf.
Ms. Hutchinson, the former aide to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that her boss said that things could get “real bad” on Jan. 6 and that Mr. Trump was warned that members of the crowd that had amassed were armed. Of course, I never would have imagined that an American president would not only not come to the aid of law enforcement officers defending the Capitol but encourage that crowd to march on it. Instead of being notified about the danger, my colleagues and I were kept in the dark, and thus walked into an ambush unprepared.
I don’t know what part of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony enraged me most: that Mr. Trump wanted to be driven to the Capitol to lead the vicious riot, that he’d spurred his supporters on knowing they were armed, or that he ignored some of his advisers and even his daughter who told him to call it off, allegedly fighting with his own Secret Service agent after he refused to let the president be driven there.
Or maybe it was the fact that Mr. Trump eventually told the rioters who’d criminally assaulted my colleagues and me while trying to bring down the U.S. government: “Go home. We love you. You are very special.”
Other disturbing details I heard at the hearing had to do with Mr. Trump’s apparent disregard for everyone but himself. Before Mr. Trump addressed his supporters on the Ellipse, ahead of the insurrection, he was told that those who were armed weren’t being let through security checkpoints and, according to Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, he said, “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”
Later, when rioters breached the Capitol, according to Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, the former White House counsel Pat Cipollone told Mr. Meadows that they had to go see the president about what was happening. Mr. Meadows’s response was that Mr. Trump “doesn’t want to do anything,” Ms. Hutchinson recalled. Mr. Cipollone replied, according to Ms. Hutchinson: “Something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood’s going to be on your effing hands.”
The nine people who died as a result of that horrific day — including the four officers who died by suicide after the attack — weren’t so lucky. Neither was I. At the West Front of the Capitol, I was attempting to hold a tactical police line along with about 60 members of my team, as we were taught at the academy, to keep the invaders at bay. We were savagely beaten and easily overpowered. I would later learn that the mob was estimated to be 10,000 strong.
It was like a medieval battleground. With our lives in peril, I would have been justified in using lethal force. But I didn’t want to spark a massacre. Over the course of the five-hour struggle, my hands were bloodied from being smashed by a stolen police baton. My right foot and left shoulder were so damaged that I needed multiple surgeries to repair them. My head was hit with such force with a pipe that I no doubt would have sustained brain damage if not for my helmet.
I have spent a year and a half in physical therapy for chronic pain that I have been told will never go away. My young son almost lost his father and my wife had to quit medical school, owing to the stress and demands of my ongoing recovery.
After the riot, I received a Congressional Gold Medal and was recently named a Great Immigrant by the Carnegie Corporation. After recently passing the lieutenant’s test, I hoped to be promoted. Instead, on the day of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, I was heartbroken to hear my doctors tell me that at 43, I should no longer work with the police force.
The physical and emotional damage I sustained on Jan. 6 not only cut short my career, it has upended my life. Five of my colleagues in law enforcement died and more than 850 rioters were arrested. So many families have been ruined because of one man’s lust for power.
Even more galling are the Republicans who still refuse to provide testimony under oath and instead dangerously downplay how close we came to losing our democracy. I applaud the courage of the witnesses who’ve come forward to tell the truth. I know from personal experience — I have given testimony several times about that day to Congress, to the F.B.I. and in court — how distressing it can be. I just wish we all had been able to testify sooner, right after Jan. 6, when we might have had more impact.
The enabling of Mr. Trump needs to stop now. He should not only be banned from running for any other government office, he should never be allowed near the White House again. I believe he betrayed his oath to defend the Constitution, and it was to the detriment of me, my colleagues and all Americans, whom he was supposed to protect.
Huffington Post: “Trump Is ‘Terrified’ His White House Counsel Is Cooperating With Jan. 6 Panel: Mary Trump”
“To say that Donald is terrified is accurate — and also an understatement,” Mary Trump told Katie Phang on MSNBC. “I think this might be the first time in his entire life that even he can’t deny that the walls may indeed be closing in.”
The “amount of evidence that we’ve seen coming out of these committee hearings is overwhelming,” she added. But what’s “even more troubling for him is the witnesses now coming forward are increasingly important … and they’re unimpeachable,” Trump said.
[…] Mary Trump believes “the motivating factor” behind any decision by her uncle to run for the presidency in 2024 would be an attempt to dodge prosecution for a lengthening list of potential criminal charges against him.
In the past “Donald has used two methods” to escape accountability, she said. “He’s run out the clock, or he’s outspent his opponents. That shouldn’t be allowed here. On top of those two things to use as an excuse that he’s running for office again? I think that [would] answer the question: ‘Is anybody above the law?’”
Commentary:
[…] Two points about this (though I think she’s right): First, Trump will charge any indictment as being political, and that’s not going to change regardless of whether he runs or not. Second, Trump may well have the crazy idea from his time in the White House that, if he is a declared candidate, no one will indict him any more than they would indict the sitting president. (His ego is that big, and his understanding is that small.) For all that he pretends otherwise, Trump is now a private citizen and answerable for his past actions in a court of law.
[…] Trump’s usual pattern is to attack any witness he thinks has given testimony against him. Trump has attacked the panel for subpoenaing Cipollone, but he has not said a single word that I can find about Cipollone himself, either before his closed-door testimony or even now that some of what Cipollone told the committee is starting to come out.
[…] The White House counsel is a lawyer for the White House (no scare quotes), not for the president. But Trump has always been a “l’etat c’est moi” kind of guy.
Lawrence O’Donnell talks about the Electoral College:
[…] “The founders’ obsession to avoid all things British in government led them to the creation of the most grotesque institution ever imposed on a so-called democracy, the Electoral College,” O’Donnell said. “The only reason to worry about the fairness of the next presidential election is the Electoral College. Without the Electoral College, no problem.”
He then enumerated the founders’ other antidemocratic constitutional deeds.
“The Electoral College is one of the founders’ many crimes against democracy,” O’Donnell continued. “Other crimes against democracy by the founders include two senators per state, not allowing anyone other than a small percentage of white men to vote, and not allowing anyone to vote for United States senators. The founders were experimenters in democracy, not true believers in democracy. They were dabblers in democracy. Many of their obstacles to democracy that they put in the Constitution have been removed. Women are now allowed to vote. Black people are allowed to vote. Everyone now at least has the right to vote — the theoretical right to vote — while Republicans continue to try to make that right more difficult to exercise.”
O’Donnell then returns to the Electoral College and notes Republicans’ exploitation of the constitutional flaw to institute minority rule by a party incapable of winning the vote of most Americans.
“But the unmovable roadblock to democracy in our presidential elections is the Electoral College, something that does not exist in any other country on the planet,” O’Donnell said. Republicans have completely given up the hope of ever winning more votes for president than the democratic candidate. It’s been 18 years since the Republican candidate for president won more votes than the Democratic candidate for president.”
We must use articles like these to enlighten Americans about the dangers that the defects in our Constitution can cause to usurp our power and democracy. We must deliver it with the urgency that entices Progressives and allies to the polls. More importantly, it should encourage support for the drastic moves that we must take to correct these aberrations.
More than four months into the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged Thursday that the conflict had only just begun. And he challenged Western countries supporting Ukraine to “try” to fight Russia on the battlefield.
In televised remarks to parliamentary leaders, Putin pushed back on the idea that Russia has let the invasion drag on for too long, saying it hadn’t “even really started anything yet.” He said negotiating peace is getting more and more difficult, then focused his ire on Western countries that have imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia while offering support and resources to Ukraine.
“We hear today that they want us to be defeated on the battlefield,” Putin said, according to state media outlet RIA Novosti. “Well, what can I say? Let them try.”
He added: “We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading toward this.”
Whenever you write, “the case for diplomacy,” regarding the war in Ukraine, please spell out in detail how you plan to convince or compel Putin to stop his invasion.
Washington Post:
[…] “The problem is this,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference on Saturday. “We see no signs whatsoever that Russia is prepared to engage in meaningful diplomacy.”
Some veteran diplomats say the lack of contact is a mistake given the United States’ wide set of interests involving Moscow. The war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, sent global food and energy prices soaring, and raised military tensions between Russia and NATO to new heights. The U.S. is also seeking the return of high-profile American detainees from Russia, including WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Paul Whelan. […]
Some U.S. officials argue that Lavrov’s relative weakness within the Russian system makes him an inconsequential negotiating partner. But advocates of engagement say they’re missing the purpose of talks.
“It’s true Lavrov is not a decision-maker but he is a conduit who faithfully reflects the position of the Kremlin,” Shapiro said. “You wouldn’t meet with Lavrov to close the deal, but if you want to understand where the Russians are or send a message discreetly to Putin, he’s your guy.”
Russia’s frustrations with being locked out of discussions seem apparent, though officials in Moscow are loath to admit it. Last month, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, was overheard by a Politico reporter bemoaning the lack of contact with U.S. officials […]
Jim Hacker (A district attorney):
I did not know Texas wanted to be a Soviet Republic [a reference to a Texas law that threatens law firm partners with criminal prosecution and disbarment for accommodating their employees in the wake of Dobbs —in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade] Ukraine is actually fighting for its life to be free of a Russian Soviet Style government imposed on it, and Texas is rushing headlong to become like Belarus.
KGsays
The most recent addition to the list of Tory MPs wanting to succeed Johnson, Penny Mordaunt* has had to reissue her initial campaign video after it was found to contain footage of convicted South African murderer Oscar Pistorius, and another Paralympian included asked her to take him out, saying “anything but Blue”**.
*Liz Truss, who I listed earlier, has apparently not yet declared her candidacy, but is expected to do so today or tomorrow.
**Recall that in the UK, as practically everywhere but the USA, blue is associated with the right, red with the left.
KGsays
We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. – Vladimir Putin, quoted by Lynna, OM@293, from a Washington Post article
What a coincidence! That’s exactly what we hear from Tankies (who of course hate being called Tankies) on this very site!
KGsays
Jim Hacker (A district attorney) – Lynna, OM@294
Amusing trivia: that was the name given to a fictional self-interested and self-regarding but hapless British politician, routinely outwitted by his (equally self-interested and self-regarding) top civil servant “Sir Humphrey”, in the 1980s BBC TV series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) on Sunday dismissed Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes’ offer to testify before the Jan. 6 Select Committee as a “pitch to be released” from jail.
Rhodes, who is currently behind bars while awaiting trial on seditious conspiracy charges for his role in the deadly Capitol insurrection, on Friday said he wants the panel to work with the U.S. Marshals Service to allow him to appear in person at the Capitol complex instead of testifying from jail, Rhodes’ attorney James Bright told Politico. Rhodes also asks that his legal counsel accompany him for his testimony.
Lofgren brushed off the possibility of Rhodes’ public testimony during an interview on CNN on Sunday. Lofgren said she views Rhodes’ offer as a “pitch to be released.”
Lofgren added that the panel already has information from Rhodes, but wouldn’t confirm whether he has testified before panel behind closed doors. Rhodes reportedly previously interviewed with the committee, but largely invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
“Well, I don’t want to go into all the details. But I think this is a pitch to get out of — get-out-of-jail-free card for Mr. Rhodes,” Lofgren said, referring to Rhodes’ push to testify publicly.
Ahead of the committee’s public hearing scheduled on Tuesday, Lofgren said the public can expect the panel to “connect the dots” between extremist groups and those in government circles who sought to overturn the election.
Asked whether Trump was aware that far-right militia groups were in the mob he urged to go to the Capitol hours before the insurrection, Lofgren replied said that “would be a logical conclusion” based on the events leading up to Jan. 6. […]
Leery of a national draft for the Ukraine war, the Kremlin is offering cash bonuses and employing strong arm tactics.
Four Russian veterans of the war in Ukraine recently published short videos online to complain about what they called their shabby treatment after returning to the Russian region of Chechnya, after six weeks on the battlefield.
One claimed to have been denied a promised payment of nearly $2,000. Another grumbled that a local hospital declined to remove shrapnel lodged in his body.
Their public pleas for help got results, but not the kind they were hoping for. Instead, an aide to Ramzan Kadyrov, the autocrat who runs Chechnya, berated them at length on television as ingrates and forced them to recant. “I was paid much more than they promised,” said Nikolai Lipa, the young Russian who had claimed that he had been cheated.
Ordinarily, these sort of complaints might be ignored, but the swift rebuke underscores how Russian officials want to stamp out any criticism about military service in Ukraine. They need more soldiers, desperately, and are already using what some analysts call a ‘‘stealth mobilization’’ to bring in new recruits without resorting to a politically risky national draft.
To make up the manpower shortfall, the Kremlin is relying on a combination of impoverished ethnic minorities, Ukrainians from the separatist territories, mercenaries and militarized National Guard units to fight the war, and promising hefty cash incentives for volunteers.
[…] The numbers of battlefield dead and wounded are closely held secrets on both sides. The British military recently estimated the number of dead Russians at 25,000, with tens of thousands more wounded, out of an invasion force of 300,000, including support units.
[…] Avoiding a draft for all adult males allows the Kremlin to maintain the fiction that the war is a limited “special military operation,” while also minimizing the risk of the kind of public backlash that spurred the end of previous Russian military debacles, like the one in Afghanistan and the first Chechen war.
The public outcry after Chechnya prompted Russia to ban the use on the battlefield of raw recruits, men aged 18-27 who are required to complete a year of mandatory military service. The revelations that hundreds were deployed in Ukraine anyway, including some of the sailors who died when the Ukrainians sank the Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, prompted the very outrage from parents that the Kremlin had sought to avoid.
Numerous analysts have raised doubts about how long Russia can sustain its offensive in Ukraine without a general mobilization. Igor Girkin, a military analyst and a frequent critic of the Ukraine strategy, has said that Russia cannot possibly conquer the entire country without one.
But the Kremlin seems determined to avoid taking such a drastic step. Instead, recruitment offices have resorted to calling reservists repeatedly to offer cash incentives for short deployments. Online want ads placed by the regional recruitment offices of the Ministry of Defense also overflow with thousands of postings for those with military specialties. Recent listings on global job sites like Head Hunter included units looking for combat engineers, anyone who could operate a grenade launcher and even the commander for a parachute squadron.
The salaries offered to some volunteers, which can range between $2,000 and $6,000 a month, are far more than the average monthly salary in Russia of about $700. Prewar contracts for privates sometimes were as paltry as around $200 a month.
Such piecemeal efforts sustain the war, but do not address the fundamental manpower deficit, analysts said. While Ukraine faces similar problems, what it lacks in professional soldiers it compensates for in enthusiastic volunteers, they said.
The online Russian ads avoid mentioning Ukraine, and the short-term offers, often three months, are meant to play down the risks of never coming home. “It may be that it is necessary to get them into the army, and when they are already in the army, figure out what to do,” said Mr. Galeev.
The high death toll among soldiers from poorer republics populated by ethnic minorities, like Dagestan in the Caucasus and Buryatia in southern Siberia, indicate that they fill the front ranks in disproportionate numbers. Statistics, compiled by MediaZona, an independent news outlet, from public sources, show 225 dead in Dagestan through June, along with 185 in Buryatia, compared to nine from Moscow and 30 from St. Petersburg.
Minority conscripts in particular are pressured to sign contracts. “They tell them that if they return to their hometown, they will not find any job, so it is better to stay in the army to earn money,” said Vladimir Budaev, a spokesman for the Free Buryatia Foundation, an antiwar group abroad for the Buryats, an Indigenous minority.
[…] A group of about 15 women from Buryatia recently posted a video online complaining that their male relatives and friends had been deployed without leave since January.
[…] The riskiest technical operations on the battlefield are often assigned to experienced mercenaries under contract to Wagner or similar private commercial operations, analysts said. […]
It too has reportedly been casting about for willing recruits. In St. Petersburg, Wagner convinced several dozen prisoners to sign six-month contracts to fight in exchange for about $4,000 and amnesty if they come back alive, according to the independent news outlet Important Stories.
Trumpian cult follower, Jenna Ellis, demonstrates that she lacks any sense:
Jenna Ellis is perhaps best known for conspicuously side-eyeing Rudy Giuliani as the last remnants of his eternal soul seeped from his sphincter into the blessed ether, leaving Twiddle-Knobs Nosferatu behind to imperil Western democracy. She’s almost as well known for being part of the Trump legal effort that grievously embarrassed the ex-pr*sident—and the world’s most powerful democracy—with a series of feckless court challenges.
But somehow stepping on the same rake over and over again in a long-shot bid to return a venal tub of suet to power makes you a “winner,” whereas being the best gymnast in the history of the sport lands you squarely in the “loser” category—as does winning a presidential election with the highest vote total in history.
So after President Biden presented Presidential Medals of Honor to 17 awardees, including Olympic and world champion gymnast Simone Biles and two-time Women’s World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe, Ellis decided it was the perfect time to shiv irony in the kidneys with her Big Lots participation trophy.
ELLIS: “Fittingly, Biden awarded his presidential medals to fellow losers, Biles and Rapinoe.”
Okay, define “loser.” Because I would think getting 7 million fewer votes than your opponent and then crying about it nonstop for 20 months would certainly put you in the conversation. As would filing more than 60 election lawsuits and losing all but one of them.
And, yes, people—including celebrated non-loser Martina Navratilova—noticed the irony. [tweets at the link]
Fred Wellman:
Simone Biles won 19 World Championship Golds, 4 Olympic Golds, and she is the most decorated gymnast in US history. Megan Rapinoe won 2 World cups, an Olympic Gold and was name Best Player in the World in 2019.
You lost 63 lawsuits and got forte on by Rudy Giuliani
[…] Meanwhile, Biles herself noticed Ellis’ floundering attempt to stick the landing and was not at all impressed. “Who is Jenna Ellis? Asking for everyone.” […]
[…] The hot and dry start to the summer in Yukon and Alaska has sparked record-breaking wildfires across the Taiga (Boreal Forests) and the tundra. Over 5000 lightning strikes from June 21 through June 30 have threatened indigenous villages in the far north with incineration and unhealthy smoke. Fire fighting resources are stretched thin in both Alaska and Yukon.
In the vast expanse of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the fires have created concern that tundra fires will be more common and more significant as climate change continues ravaging the Arctic.
[…] fires have consumed 2 million acres so far in 2022. That is ten times greater than all of 2021.
Lisa Phu writes in Alaska Beacon:
The current fires in Southwest Alaska are burning on a landscape marked by permafrost and small vegetation, as well as a lack of trees, Grabinski said.
Tundra fires have always happened, said Nancy Fresco, an associate research professor at the International Arctic Research Center within the University of Alaska Fairbanks, “but climate change is greatly increasing their frequency and severity.”
Historically, fires affecting the Southwest tundra were relatively small and infrequent, she said.
“The fires burning now really are unprecedented in that sense,” Fresco said.
That’s due to several factors. Statewide, Alaska is experiencing higher temperature trends that can cause drying, which in turn can spell more frequent and intense fires.
And on top of that, climate change is causing vegetation in the region to change. With warmer seasons, the soil thaws earlier, and different plants begin to grow there, Fresco said.
[tweets, maps and charts at the link]
Canada’s north has been seeing warm temperatures and wildfires. The situation is so extreme that the territorial government has issued a Yukon-wide travel advisory. Officials expect this fire season to be extraordinarily violent.
The Yukon has had extreme flooding due to a historic snowpack that has threatened several regions since the thawing began in April. The snow melt has threatened eleven river basins across the territory. In addition, ice break-up in combination with the snowpack melt is up to 400% higher than the historical median.
From the CBC:
A Yukon government hydrologist says there’s high flood potential for several communities in the territory.
“We are specifically highlighting high flood potential for Carmacks, Dawson and the Klondike Valley … Old Crow, Pelly Crossing, Ross River, Teslin and Upper Liard,” said senior hydrologist Holly Goulding.
She said the potential flooding is based on results from the May 1 snowpack survey, which shows record levels of snow across eight of 11 river basins across the territory, the same as it did in April.
She said the snowpack estimates based on the latest survey range from 150 per cent to 400 per cent of the historical figures for May 1.
“So that’s one and a half to four times the snow that we’ve had on average historically on May 1st,” she said.
[tweet and video at the link]
A few hours’ drive south of Anchorage, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is an Alaska in miniature. Larger than the state of Delaware, the refuge’s expanse includes snow-capped mountains, forests, lakes, vast wetland networks, and glacier-fed salmon streams that provide habitat to all of the state’s charismatic megafauna: grizzlies, black bear, moose, caribou, wolves, lynx, mountain goat, and bald eagles. First protected as moose habitat in 1941 by President Franklin Roosevelt, today the refuge remains a largely undeveloped, 2-million-acre wilderness that is a popular destination for angling, alpine hiking, paddling, camping, and hunting.
But like the rest of Alaska, which has warmed an average of 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 70 years — two to three times the U.S. average — the Kenai refuge is experiencing dramatic impacts from climate change. Rising temperatures and lower annual precipitation are making the region more susceptible to wildfires, which occur earlier in the season and now burn through wetlands and alpine tundra — habitats that used to serve as fire breaks. Over the last 50 years, the drop in precipitation has reduced the availability of water by 55 percent, resulting in smaller lakes and parched bogs.
Glaciers are thinning and shrinking, and salmon streams — which fuel lucrative commercial and sport fisheries — are heating up to the limits of fish survival. Trees and shrubs are invading alpine tundra at a rate of up to 10 feet per year, and woody plants are barging in on ancient peat bogs. Warming temperatures also have fueled successive outbreaks of spruce bark beetles that razed the region’s forests. And a native grass species — Calamagrostis canadensis, called bluejoint — is colonizing the ravaged forests and appears to be choking out trees and shrubs. Researchers forecast that by the end of the century, these grasslands might replace all of the refuge’s boreal woodlands.
‘Make America sacred again.’ Powerful rap from the Arctic. [video at the link, not strictly rap, it's a combination of musical styles.]
ravensays
A recipe for a lot of suffering’: How abortion bans may strain the red states
Analysis by Ronald Brownstein Updated 10:27 AM ET, Tue July 5, 2022 edited for length
(CNN)The central paradox of the abortion debate is that the red states racing to outlaw or severely limit the procedure may be the places least prepared to deal with the practical consequences of the new restrictions. And that, experts project, could mean significantly more infant and maternal deaths and childhood poverty in states that, as a group, already rank at the bottom on those critical outcomes for kids and families.
Among the most ominous outcomes is that social scientists project the number of women who die from complications in childbirth could increase by double digits in the states banning abortion.
“Lives will be lost, just from the death in and around pregnancy, but also those deaths of despair when you get another generation of people into poverty,” Goler Blount says.
No one can predict precisely how many additional births the states banning abortion will face. But the best evidence is that the number will be substantial.
In their paper, Stevenson and her colleagues reported that in 2020 just over 322,000 abortions were performed in the 26 states expected to eventually ban or restrict the procedure. If the abortion bans cause even about 180,000 or so new births a year, that would represent an increase of roughly 10% in the total number of births (about 1.8 million) these states currently experience.
What’s more, these births would be concentrated among the populations most at risk for adverse outcomes, both for mothers and children. Many experts agree that abortion bans will affect women of all income classes and in all states, in part as providers in blue states are strained to meet increased demand from the places where it is banned.
In addition, the brief noted, “unintended, and especially unwanted, pregnancy is strongly associated with preterm birth and low birthweight, linked outcomes that together are leading causes of child health problems and infant mortality. … Preterm birth and low birthweight can cause lifelong health and developmental challenges.”
It’s always possible that with Roe gone, the red states rapidly moving to ban or limit abortion will reverse generations of policies in which they have historically provided the least support to low-income families and the smallest investment in public services such as education and health care. But it may be more likely, as Stevenson says, that adding tens of thousands of new births in places where poverty is prevalent and the social safety net already so threadbare “is a recipe for a lot of suffering…that individuals and families are going to have to bear on their own without support of the state.”
I deleted most of this analysis. It was repetitious and didn’t have much new.
They ran some numbers and made an estimate of additional unwanted births in the USA.
It is 180,000 in the Red states.
My own estimate (based on the Romanian disaster and Polish experience) is that it will be lower at 100,000 or so. After a few years it may be even lower as alternate means of abortion become common.
The forced births here will be mostly poor, young, and nonwhite.
Maternal mortality will go up as will neonatal mortality and morbidity. The Red states aren’t going to spend any more money on the unwanted kids they forced into the world.
It is a source of pride to them not to spend money on poor people.
KGsays
UK Foreign Secretary and well-known numpty LIz Truss* has announced her candidacy for the Tory leadership, as has Rehman Chishti. If you haven’t heard of the latter, you’re in good company – neither has anyone else. Six out of the 11 candidates are now people of colour. Four of the 11 are women.
*Sergei Lavrov punked her in a meeting by asking if she recognised Rostov and Voronezh as sovereign Russian territory. Truss replied that, ‘we will never recognise Russian sovereignty there.’ The British ambassador to Russia had to tell her they are universally recognised as provinces of Russia.
blfsays
Apropos of less than the usual nothing, I had exploding gaspacho soup for lunch…
Several days ago I made a batch of gestapo soup, I mean gazpacho police, well, you know what I mean. Keeping in mind it’s basically “liquid (cold) salad” — that is, anything which works in a cold salad could work with gestapo — I added some radishes along with the usual (for me) tomatoes, cucumber, errant penguin feathers, onion, etc., albeit no chilies (didn’t have any), or bread (ditto), along with the requisite metric feckton of olive oil. Tasted rather good!
At the same time, I was dealing with a small explosive device: The c.4 year-old Lithium-ion battery in my mobile phone had begun to swell, which indicates dangerous outgassing and potential explosion / fire. Fortunately, I have a Fairphone, which is easily user-disassemblable with a trivially-removed / -replaced battery, so as soon as the problem was diagnosed, out came the battery, which is now buried (contacts taped to prevent shorting and loosely wrapped in paper) in a steel bucket of dry sand in a dry & cool(-ish) place far from all the exits. The smoke alarm is passing its tests, and the CO₂ fire extinguisher is at the ready (but not stowed too close). It will remain there until I can locate a responsible disposal- / recycling-centre which knows how to safely handle failed batteries.
Rather awkwardly, for totally unrelated reasons, I cannot order a replacement battery today. Upshot is that unless I obtain a “temporary” mobile, I will be sans phone at an awkward time for uncomfortably long — my second Covid booster is (almost-)available, and sans mobile, there is no track-and-trace Covid app, just when Covid cases are rising (albeit the last data I saw for France suggests the rise is leveling-off).
One of the amazing things about the Jan. 6 attack was the sheer volume of the documentarians involved in capturing the events on camera.
The Guardian reported late last week that Republican operatives Roger Stone and Ali Alexander didn’t just explore ways to keep Donald Trump in office after his defeat, they also allowed their efforts to be captured on film.
As Stone and Alexander mounted their political operation, their activities were recorded by two conservative filmmakers in the post-2020 election period and in the weeks before January 6. The access meant the filmmakers, Jason Rink and Paul Escandon, captured footage of the leaders of the Stop the Steal movement and their interactions with top Trump allies, according to a teaser for the documentary titled The Steal.
According to The Guardian’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, the documentarians filmed “key moments in the timeline leading up to the Capitol attack,” and caught “public and private moments at Stop the Steal events.”
Reading this, my first thought was that the news seemed familiar. Didn’t we already know about this documentary film crew?
[…] When the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack launched its series of hearings last month, for example, one of the first witnesses Americans heard from was Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who’d been given exclusive access to Proud Boys extremists.
That project was and is distinct from documentary filmmaker Alex Holder and his related project, which also included footage of interest to congressional investigators. The bipartisan committee ultimately subpoenaed Holder’s footage and he complied.
There was also a film crew following professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and those documentarians filmed Jones walking with Trump supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after the media personality attended Trump’s pre-riot rally outside the White House.
According to a Washington Post report in March, Christoffer Guldbrandsen, a Danish documentary filmmaker, also followed Stone as he worked to keep Trump in power. “The filmmakers shadowed Stone inside the Willard hotel in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rallies spilled into violence at the U.S. Capitol, and then as Stone lobbied for Trump to grant preemptive pardons to his high-profile allies and ‘the America First movement,’” the Post reported.
And now, according to The Guardian, there was yet another documentary crew in the mix.
As a Washington Post analysis joked last month, “Never before has a criminal event been so thoroughly recorded.”
Republicans use the word “Freedom” in an Orwellian way.
Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered his annual State of the State address, and the Republican took the opportunity to declare the Sunshine State the nation’s freest state.
Using the word “freedom” more than a half dozen times in his prepared remarks, the governor bragged to lawmakers, “While so many around the country have consigned the people’s rights to the graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard.”
It was a curious boast. After all, as regular readers know, this is the same DeSantis who made it harder for Floridians to vote. And made it easier to ban books from school libraries and classrooms. And new created restrictions on the right to peaceably protest. And signed an infamous anti-LGBTQ measure described by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay“ policy.
DeSantis and Florida Republicans also approved a new abortion ban — with more restrictions on reproductive rights on the way. This is also the same GOP governor who used the power of his office to penalize a baseball team for speaking out against gun violence in a way he found ideologically unsatisfying, after threatening to penalize the Special Olympics for trying to protect its athletes during a pandemic.
“Freedom’s vanguard”? Hardly.
In fact, for a growing number of Democrats, the more Republicans take aim at Americans’ freedoms, the more important it becomes to turn the rhetorical tables and make the case to voters that DeSantis and his cohorts have it backwards. The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein explained:
[T]he systematic drive by GOP state officials and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices to roll back seemingly long-settled civil rights and liberties, including the right to abortion, has provided Democrats with a unique opening to reverse the terms of this debate, particularly in races for state offices, where the rights battles are now centered. An array of Democratic governors and gubernatorial candidates are presenting Republicans as a threat to Americans’ freedoms.
Indeed, if it seems as if prominent Democratic voices have been referencing “freedom” more than usual lately, you’re not the only one who’s noticed.
Last weekend, for example, California Gov. Gavin Newsom aired an ad on Fox News, taking aim at DeSantis. “It’s Independence Day, so let’s talk about what’s going on in America,” the Democratic governor said in the commercial. “Freedom, it’s under attack.”
Newsom proceeded to point to DeSantis’ restrictions on free speech, voting rights, and abortion before urging Floridians not to let the Republican “take your freedom.”
[…] President Joe Biden signed an executive order on abortion access, the Democrat declared, “We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with the extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy.”
The president added, “Extreme Republican governors, extreme Republican state legislatures, and Republican extremists in the Congress overall — all of them have not only fought to take away the right — our rights — but they’re now determined to go as far as they can.” Referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Biden went on to say, “Now the most extreme Republican governors and state legislatures have taken the court’s decision as a green light to impose some of the harshest and most restrictive laws seen in this country in a long time.”
A few hours later, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, published a tweet that read, “What’s the Democrats’ message? I hear this all the time. Simple. We are the party of freedom. Freedom to make your own health care choices. Freedom from your fear of gun violence. Freedom to have your vote counted. Our message is our values. Freedom for all.”
[…] Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor, told The Atlantic, “It has frustrated me that Republicans love to cloak themselves in this blanket of freedom and feel as though they own it somehow, when in fact what they are selling to the people of Pennsylvania, or the American people, really isn’t freedom at all. It’s far bigger government and more control over people’s everyday lives.” […].
The forced births here will be mostly poor, young, and nonwhite. [Emphasis mine]
Given the right’s obsession with racial demographics (e.g. “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory) you’d think that they’d ban it only for “Real Americans” (read: white) and make it mandatory for the “undesirables.”
Then again, the private prison industry always needs new revenue sources guests, so I guess it stands to reason.
How strong have the U.S. job numbers been in recent months? Strong enough to leave Republican leaders literally at a loss for words.
[…] From Biden’s remarks [on Friday]:
“Today, the Labor Department reported that we added 372,000 jobs last month — 372,000. Here’s why it’s important: Our private sector has now have recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added jobs on top of that. We have more Americans working today in the private sector than any day under my predecessor, more today than any time in American history — today. In the second quarter of this year, we created more jobs than any quarter under any of my predecessors in nearly 40 years before the pandemic.”
[…] much of the public probably doesn’t realize that the job market has soared with unexpected and unpredicted strength under Biden, and the unemployment rate is lower now than at any point throughout the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s.
What’s more, as we discussed last week, the economy has created 2.63 million jobs so far in 2022, and the year is only half-over. By any fair measure, that’s an extraordinary total, more in line with what we’d expect to see in a full year. In fact, more jobs have been created in the last six months than in any full year of Donald Trump’s term.
It was against this backdrop that House and Senate Republican leaders said … nothing. The GOP has largely decided to pretend not to notice job growth at all.
[…] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ignored the economic news altogether: No press releases, no tweets, and no public comments. They literally found themselves speechless — just like last month and the month before that and the month before that.
[…] In April 2021, the economy created 269,000 jobs. Under normal circumstances, that would’ve constituted a great total, but with the country still climbing out of its pandemic-driven hole, the April 2021 report was a disappointment.
Republicans wasted no time in pouncing on the data, blaming Democrats for the shortfall. McCarthy released this press statement soon after the data was released: “Today’s disappointing jobs report confirms once again that President Biden’s tax-and-spend policies are bad for American workers, families, and small businesses…. Experts are calling this jobs report the ‘worst miss in 23 years’, and it was a direct result of President Biden’s counterproductive policies. So President Biden is not fixing a crisis, but creating new ones.”
[…] It wasn’t just McCarthy. The Republican National Committee connected Biden’s policies and job growth over and over and over again. McConnell’s Senate website blamed “persistent unemployment” on Democrats.
There was one important problem with this strategy: It was apparently based on the idea that the U.S. job market would continue to fall short for the indefinite future.
It did the opposite: The economy created over 6.7 million jobs in 2021, which was a record high that surpassed the total number of jobs created across each of Trump’s first three years in office combined. All told, we’re now up to over 9.37 million jobs since January 2021 […]
The political problem for Republicans is obvious: If a discouraging monthly jobs report is proof that the Democratic economic agenda is a failure, then several months’ worth of encouraging monthly jobs reports is necessarily evidence that the Democratic economic agenda is a success.
[…] When the unemployment rate reached 3.6 percent in the last administration, McCarthy was eager to celebrate. Does he care to explain why he has so little to say now?
Postscript: It’s important to note for context that the Republican National Committee did issue a press statement on Friday morning acknowledging the existence of the latest monthly jobs report. It credited “Republican-led states” for the good employment data. [LOL]
The conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that ballot drop boxes were illegal in the state, and it didn’t take long for right wing election lie evangelists to declare the decision proof of a fraudulent 2020 vote, and even to demand again that the election results be overturned.
The COVID-19 pandemic moved Wisconsin election officials, backed by a memo from the state’s Election Commission, to install hundreds of drop boxes across the state. Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote for the court’s 4-3 majority Friday that “Ballot drop boxes appear nowhere in the detailed statutory system for absentee voting.”
Donald Trump, whose campaign filed an unsuccessful 2020 lawsuit to overturn Wisconsin’s election results based on the use of drop boxes, was first in line: “This means I won the very closely contested (not actually!) Wisconsin Presidential race because they used these corrupt and scandal-ridden Scam Boxes,” he wrote in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.
During a rally in Alaska, Trump said Democratic officials in Wisconsin “systematically violated the law to rig the 2020 presidential election.” Separately, he wrote that other states were “looking at, and studying” the state court’s “amazing” decision.
“Speaker Robin Vos has a decision to make!” Trump said. “Does Wisconsin RECLAIM the Electors, turn over the Election to the actual winner (by a lot!), or sit back and do nothing as our Country continues to go to HELL?” He referenced a legally impossible resolution to overturn the election results that sounded like the one pushed by State Rep. Tim Ramthun (R), who’s also a GOP candidate for governor.
[…] A post on John Solomon’s right-wing “Just The News” website similarly asserted, “Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on drop boxes undercuts Democrats’ clean election claim.”
The article presented no evidence of the use of drop boxes leading to the counting of fraudulent votes — there is none. Instead, it argued that the decision was “evidence that a widely used mechanism for the 2020 election was illegal, undercutting Democratic claims that any irregularities in the contest were insufficient to sway outcomes.”
On the social media website Gettr, Steve Bannon commented on the ruling, “now DECERTIFY THE 2020 BIDEN ELECTORS.”
Tom Fitton, the heavily bicep’ed leader of the right-wing legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, said the court’s decision was “a historic vindication for Trump.” […]
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
At least 24 people have died and dozens more were injured after a Russian missile attack hit a five-storey apartment building in the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine. Emergency crews worked to pull people trapped in the rubble. The strike destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of the town, inhabited mostly by people who work in nearby factories.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused Moscow of purposely targeting civilians in the Chasiv Yar attack and promised “punishment is inevitable for every Russian murderer”. “Anyone who gives orders for such strikes, anyone who carries them out in ordinary cities, in residential areas, kills absolutely deliberately,” Zelenskiy said in his latest national address.
Zelenskiy has asked military chiefs to draw up plans to gather a “million-strong” fighting force equipped with western weapons to recapture its southern territory from Russia, the country’s defence minister said. Ukraine’s military has been ordered to recover occupied areas around the Black Sea coast that are vital to the country’s economy, Oleksii Reznikov said.
At least six people have died after Russian rocket attacks on Monday morning on Kharkiv in north-east Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general office. Among those killed were a father and his 17-year-old son, who were driving on their way to pick up a certificate for his university admission, Ukrainian regional police official, Serhiy Bolvinov, said.
Residents in southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have been urged to evacuate as Ukraine prepares to launch a counter-offensive to retake the area. The Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were occupied by Russian troops in late February after they crossed the bridge from Russia-annexed Crimea.
Serhai Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has said “a small part of the Luhansk region is still holding on, fierce battles are going on”. He accused Russian forces of sending out new recruits from the occupied areas of Ukraine as “cannon fodder”, who “are guaranteed not to survive even the first battle”, draw fire so that Russians can see where Ukrainian forces are based.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia made any territorial gains in Ukraine over the weekend, British intelligence suggests. In its latest briefing, the Ministry of Defence also identified long service stretches and possible combat fatigue as a risk for Russian forces deployed into Ukraine.
Ukraine’s heavy artillery is outnumbered roughly eight to one by Russian guns, putting Ukraine at a significant disadvantage, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s International Legion has said. M142 Himars multiple rocket launch systems supplied by the US were having an impact on the battlefield, the spokesperson said, but more arms from Ukraine’s western partners were needed to close the gap.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has signed a decree making it easier for citizens of Ukraine to acquire Russian citizenship. Previously, a simplified procedure for acquiring Russian citizenship applied only to residents of the self-proclaimed breakaway territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine, as well as the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Lithuania has expanded restrictions on trade through its territory to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, as phase-ins on earlier announced European Union sanctions begin. Goods sanctioned from Monday morning include concrete, wood, alcohol and alcohol-based industrial chemicals. The governor of Kaliningrad, Anton Alikhanov, has proposed a total ban on the movement of goods between the three Baltic states and Russia, in response to what authorities in the exclave have called a “blockade”.
Also from there:
Russia may expand ‘gay propaganda’ ban to include adults
Russian lawmakers have proposed extending a ban on so-called “gay propaganda”, broadening a law that rights activists say has put LGBT people at risk and led to increased discrimination and violence.
The ban on the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relationships to minors could be broadened to include adults as well, a senior legislator has said.
Russia’s existing “gay propaganda” law, passed in 2013, has been used to stop gay pride marches and detain LGBTQ rights activists.
Under the proposed changes, any event or act regarded as an attempt to promote homosexuality could incur a fine, Reuters reports.
The head of the State Duma’s information committee, Alexander Khinshtein, said on his Telegram:
We propose to generally extend the ban on such propaganda regardless of the age of the audience (offline, in the media, on the internet, social networks and online cinemas).
The current law envisages fines up to 1m roubles (£13,400) or up to 15 days in jail for propagating “nontraditional sexual relations among minors”.
The fetid smell of desperation lingers on.
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“Ballot drop boxes appear nowhere in the detailed statutory system for absentee voting.”
Neither does one’s driving to the polling place in a car, or taking Granny there to vote.
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these conveniences are enjoyed by all voters, in particular, the elderly who tend to swing GOP. After a time, there’s a law of diminishing return for these sorts of voter suppression tactics
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WOW! The method of collection of those votes made all of those votes illegal. The voters followed all instructions given to them by their local authorities, and that, by RW definition, means those votes don’t count. Then again, this is the decision of a RW court, so the consequences of their decision were never even considered, but the conclusion simply must be that Thump won because MAGA!
——————-
Pathetic, lame, desperate, yes, all that. But also rabid. Feral. Extremely dangerous
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So there will be no dropboxes and all ballots must be hand delivered by the voter.
So when does a suit start via the ADA since most disabled people will now be disenfranchised?
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If all the presidential votes were illegal so we’re all the votes for Wisconsin’s gerrymandered House membership
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I thought the main motivator (along with your points) was to give people a touchless way to vote that didn’t involve standing in long lines, in close proximity to others, before crowding into buildings and standing in more lines. There was an extremely catchy pandemic which the Rs are conveniently overlooking.
We grow weary of defending assaults on reason, logic, and the laws of Physics because we have much more important goals…they never tire and will never stop because it is their very existence wrapped up in denying truth and facts.
——————–
I keep waiting for a TV journalist to ask one of these election deniers to explain why Democrats stole the presidency but installed so many Republicans in state government, and in the Senate, too?
“Our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got we to clean that back up.” – Herschel Walker
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. It’s overwhelmingly concerned with the sad slew of rightwing candidates (see KG’s #s 286, 295, and 303 above) and their declarations and maneuvering.
And here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
The House January 6 select committee is expected to make the case at its seventh hearing Tuesday that Donald Trump gave the signal to the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol to target and obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win.
The panel will zero in on a pivotal tweet sent by the former president in the early hours of the morning on 19 December 2020, according to sources close to the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the forthcoming hearing.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump said in the tweet. “Be there, will be wild!”
The select committee will say at the hearing – led by congressmen Jamie Raskin and Stephanie Murphy – that Trump’s tweet was the catalyst that triggered the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, as well as Stop the Steal activists, to target the certification.
And Trump sent the tweet knowing that for those groups, it amounted to a confirmation that they should put into motion their plans for January 6, the select committee will say, and encouraged thousands of other supporters to also march on the Capitol for a protest.
The tweet was the pivotal moment in the timeline leading up to the Capitol attack, the select committee will say, since it was from that point that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers seriously started preparations, and Stop the Steal started applying for permits.
The select committee also currently plans to play video clips from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s recent testimony to House investigators at Tuesday’s hearing.
Raskin is expected to first touch on the immediate events before the tweet: a contentious White House meeting on 18 December 2020 where Trump weighed seizing voting machines and appointing conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate election fraud.
The meeting involved Trump and four informal advisers, the Guardian has reported, including Trump’s ex-national security adviser, Michael Flynn, ex-Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and ex-Trump aide Emily Newman.
Once in the Oval Office, they implored Trump to invoke executive order 13848, which granted him emergency powers in the event of foreign interference in the election – though that had not happened – to seize voting machines and install Powell as special counsel.
The former president ultimately demurred on both of the proposals. But after the Flynn-Powell-Byrne-Newman plan for him to overturn the election fell apart, the select committee will say, he turned his attention to January 6 as his final chance and sent his tweet.
House January 6 panel member and senior Democrat Zoe Lofgren has explained that the committee intends to present evidence “connecting the dots” about how different extremist groups rallied to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to form a violent mob that perpetrated the deadly insurrection as they sought in vain to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.
The panel is holding its next hearing tomorrow afternoon and the subsequent one is expected on Thursday evening.
“We are going to be connecting the dots during these hearings between these groups and those who were trying – in government circles – to overturn the [2020]election. So, we do think that this story is unfolding in a way that is very serious and quite credible,” Lofgren of California told CNN yesterday.
Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the right-wing group the Oath Keepers will reportedly testify tomorrow, KDVR of Colorado and CNN have said.
Panel member and Florida Democrat Stephanie Murphy told NBC yesterday about a vital tweet by Donald Trump in late 2020 and far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers that:
Without spoiling anything that comes this week and encouraging folks to tune in to the specifics, what I will say is that we will lay out the body of evidence that we have that talks about how the president’s tweet on the wee hours of December 19th of ‘Be there, be wild,’ was a siren call to these folks. And we’ll talk in detail about what that caused them to do, how that caused them to organize, as well as who else was amplifying that message.
Russian C400 anti-aircraft defense systems aren’t able to intercept HIMARS rockets – which Almaz-Antey corporation promised and charged billions for.
Russian Armed Forces, their ammunition and fuel warehouses are completely unprotected from the power of American weapons.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 312
Herschel Walker is an infant. He has no idea what he is talking about. I’m not even sure he knows where he is at any given point and time.
And yet, the last set of polls I’ve seen indicate that he’s either neck-and-neck or is leading his Democratic opponent. The fact that a Herschel Walker, MTG, or a Donald Trump can achieve political power in this country is irrefutable proof that democracy doesn’t work.
Michael Kofman joins Ryan once again to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War. In this episode, he discusses the looming battle for Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, two small cities near each other that are likely Russia’s next effort after the fall of Severodonestk. He also revisits the idea of a Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake Kherson and the prospects for when, whether, and how that could unfold. Mike and Ryan also talk about Ukraine’s challenges in mobilizing enough trained manpower at the front and keeping a diverse “petting zoo” of equipment from Western backers in the fight.
Nuanced analysis.
Jeansays
@315
It doesn’t prove anything about democracy because the US does not have a democracy but a ridiculous caricature of a democracy. I’m not saying that democracy works (or doesn’t work) but there are much better examples of what democracy could be around the world.
In a Sunday interview, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that President Volodomyr Zelenskyy had issued orders to prioritize liberating southern Ukraine, with the intention of reaching coastal cities that are critical to the nation’s shipping and economy. On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense. Ukraine needs to move grain, and despite the offers to take grain out by rail through other countries, it’s really not possible to get most of that commodity out of Ukraine except by sea. The idea of liberating southern Ukraine would also represent a threat to Russia’s recently created “land bridge” between the Donbas and Crimea, as well as a direct threat to the Crimean peninsula. And all of this might be seen as aligning to recent Ukrainian efforts in both Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
On the other hand, the biggest threat to Ukrainian shipping is actually the Russian Black Sea fleet, which is now hanging warily outside the range of shore-based missile batteries, ready to interact with any ship coming from a Ukrainian port. There are a number of deep-water ports from Odesa over to Mykolaiv, and it’s not as if international shipping is lining up to carry grain out of those locations. On Monday, Turkish President Recep Erdogan spoke with Zelenskyy about a plan to create “grain corridors” in the Black Sea. It’s not clear if this has any relation to Zelenskyy’s reported orders to capture the south.
So is this “southern push” a true statement of Ukraine’s intent, even as Russian forces continue to push in from the east in an attempt to secure the remainder of the Donbas, or is this being thrown out there in hopes of draining Russian forces away from the real effort, wherever that might be? Trying to figure that out could cause some serious brain strain. Hopefully it does the same for Vladimir Putin. [map at the link]
When it comes to what’s happened in the south over the last few days, there is not a lot of progress to report. Around the city of Kherson itself, Ukraine has bombarded the area of the airport and the town of Chornobaivka, site of a Russian command center, with reports of tremendous success in destroying supplies, buildings, and vehicles. The precision of the attacks has led many to suggest that a HIMARS system is working in this area, but it could easily be strikes from M777s or other long-range artillery supported by drones. Don’t expect Ukraine to be straight up about where to find those HIMARS.
When it comes to the actual taking and holding of territory, Ukraine seems to have taken a few villages near Soldatske, but on the other hand Russia has reoccupied a cluster of villages on the west side of the Inhulets River west of Baranivka. (Note: This apparently happened over a series of days last week, I just missed it in updates.)
To the north, Russia is reportedly making another run at eliminating the Ukrainian bridgehead on the east side of the Inhulets south of Davydiv Brid. […]
The artillery duel here continues to be lopsided in Ukraine’s favor, especially in the area near Kherson. But so far Ukraine doesn’t seem able to secure any of the key locations west of the city that would make it more difficult for Russian to guard the possible approaches. […] [map at the link]
As with the area around Kherson, there have been numerous reports of Ukrainian artillery at work in the south, with reports of storage facilities, command centers, and rail depots destroyed. However, over the last week, there doesn’t seem to have been a major exchange of territory in this region and on the early Monday FIRMS map, this whole area might as well be snoozing.
Ukraine had moved down to liberate a series of villages, especially in the area of Orikhiv to Hulyaipole. Most of those villages still seem to be under Ukrainian control a week later. […]
A number of towns and villages on the far east of this map, in the area of Donetsk, are listed as in dispute not because there is active combat in the area, but because I haven’t been able to find a good update on their situation since mid-June.
The next few days may tell us whether Zelenskyy’s orders to retake the south are a wish, a feint, or the opening round of a serious push.
[…] NORDSTREAM PIPELINE SHUTS DOWN
The Nordstream 2 pipeline was almost ready to begin operations when Putin invaded. It never will. Now Russia has taken down the Nordstream pipeline, claiming it will be out for one month “for maintenance.” However, European officials suspect Russia is trying to prevent them from filling reserve tanks and storage fields in advance of cooler weather and increased demand. [Yeah, that sounds likely to me.]
[…] Kherson news is actually a string of news:
– Ukraine rocket artillery units hit the Russian air defense system s-300’s launch positions near Oleshky Pisky.
– HIMARS eliminated Chief of Staff of the 22nd Army Corps of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Major General Nasbulin.
– HIMARS eliminated 150 Russian soldiers after a strike on a base. […]
Videos showing Russian stuff being blown up are available at the link.
Minneapolis residents Jess and John Pentz — a couple who’ve been married for 17 years — were traveling through Hayward, Wisconsin over the 4th of July weekend when Jess realized she’d forgotten to bring her birth control pills.
They pulled into the local Hayward Walgreens pharmacy, where Jess picked up a box of condoms from a shelf and handed them to the clerk manning the register.
[…] “John,” the Walgreens clerk, refused to ring them up.
Jess, confused, asked him why, pointing to the shelf where she’d picked up the condoms.
“We can sell that to you,” clerk “John” told Jess with a smirk, “but I won’t because of my faith.” […]
There’s no law in America against being an ass, so this Walgreens clerk was entirely within his rights to behave like one. But, because of five Republicans on the Supreme Court, it now is problematic — and soon could be against the law nationwide, if Clarence Thomas gets his way — for Walgreens to fire him for “exercising his faith” when working in a drugstore.
The vast majority of Americans, opinion research shows, think a situation like this is absurd. As Jennifer Brooks notes in an article about the Pentz’s experience for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
“When the Pew Research Center surveyed American attitudes about birth control, just 4% viewed contraception as morally wrong. Condoms protect us from disease and prevent unwanted pregnancies. What’s not to like?”
And what’s so astonishing about the entire situation is that we have reached this point not because the American public wants religious doctrine running our law, and not because most religious people agree with an arrogant prick working at Walgreens.
Instead, it’s because a small group of rightwing billionaires didn’t want to pay their taxes, wanted to get rid of their unions, and didn’t want regulation of the pollution from their refineries and other operations.
Seriously.
They put billions of dollars over five decades into a project to seize control of the legislatures of a majority of the states, jam up the US Congress, and pack the Supreme Court — and it was all about taxes, unions, and regulation.
So where did the religious nuttery come from?
The rightwing billionaires and the corporations and foundations aligned with them knew back in 1971 — when Lewis Powell laid out their strategy in his infamous Powell Memo the year before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court — that most Americans wouldn’t happily vote to lower billionaires’ taxes, end unions and regulation of gun manufacturers, or increase the amount of refinery poisons in our air.
So the strategy they came up with to capture control of our government was pretty straightforward:
*Convince Americans that taxes aren’t “the cost of a civil society” but, instead, a “burden” that they were unfairly bearing. Once Republicans were elected on that tax-cut platform, they’d massively cut the taxes of the morbidly rich while throwing a small bone to the average person.
*Convince Americans that regulations that protect consumers and the environment are also “burdens” from an out-of-control “nanny state,” even though such regulations save lives and benefit Americans far more than they cost.
*Convince Americans that unions aren’t “democracy in the workplace” that protect workers’ rights but, instead, an elaborate scam to raid workers’ paychecks to the benefit of “corrupt union bosses.”
To pull these off, they spent five decades and billions of dollars to subsidize think tanks and policy groups at both the federal and state level; there’s now an extensive network of them reaching from coast-to-coast, all turning out policy papers and press releases the way bunnies have babies.
But it wasn’t quite enough to get the political power they needed.
They sponsored rightwing talk radio to the tune of millions of dollars a year (just Limbaugh and Hannity’s shows got over a million a year each) and Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch rolled out Fox “News” to compliment the propaganda campaign. Later would come social media bots and trolls, along with thousands of new websites pretending to be local newspapers.
Still, that wasn’t quite enough to get them the political power they needed.
They hooked up with the NRA, which helped sponsor the Reagan Revolution and was richly rewarded with laws that forbade the federal government from compiling gun death statistics and gave complete immunity from lawsuits to weapons manufacturers and sellers for the damage their products cause (the only industry in America that enjoys such immunity).
And they finally got a lot of Americans to go along with their plan, because they’d added in a religious “secret sauce.” […]
Over the 40 years of the Reagan revolution, we’ve gone from having about the same gun-ownership density as Canada (around 15 guns per 100 people) to the most in the world (over 120 guns per 100 people). We’re now drenched in blood: guns kill more American children than drunk drivers or any other cause.
But hating on unions, taxes, and the environment — and loving on guns — wasn’t enough to reliably win elections over the long run. They needed a larger bullhorn, a way of reaching into the lives of additional tens of millions of American voters who really didn’t much care about those issues.
That’s where Jerry Falwell and his friends came into the picture.
Falwell was an inveterate grifter, hustling Jesus to build a multi-million-dollar empire while ignoring Jesus’ teachings about humility, poverty, and the need to care for others. A new, muscular Jesus — a Jesus who endorsed assault weapons and private jets for preachers — came to dominate much of America’s protestant Christianity.
This Jesus wanted you to get rich — riches, they said, are a sign of God’s blessing — and the “prosperity gospel” and all its perverted cousins were being preached on TV and in megachurches across the nation throughout the 1980s.
[…] The televangelists became multimillionaires, churches openly defied IRS regulations and preached politics from the pulpit, and millions of mostly non-political church-goers were suddenly evangelists not just for Jesus but also for the Republican Party.
As a sop to them, Reagan (who’d signed the nation’s most liberal abortion legislation as CA Governor) became “pro-life” as did his VP, GHW Bush, who — along with his wife, Barbara — had previously been big supporters of Planned Parenthood.
With this dramatically expanded base of voters, Republican politicians went on a 40-year spree of cutting taxes, deregulating polluting industries, hustling guns, and busting unions.
To keep the rubes coming to the churches where they’d hear that GOP message, Republicans on the Supreme Court had to throw them the occasional bone. Giving bakers the right to tell gay people wanting a wedding cake to screw off was one of them, setting up the “religious right” of pharmacists to refuse to sell condoms.
Churches kept getting richer and Republicans kept getting elected, but most people didn’t realize the symbiosis at work.
[…] Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v Wade, however, people are waking up to this unholy alliance between religious grifters in the White Evangelical movement, the Supreme Court, and the GOP.
[…] It’s no longer just a matter of that $50 trillion transfer of wealth from middle America to the top 1% through changes in tax law, or a few hundred thousand children downstream of coal mines getting permanent neurological damage, or workers thinking that maybe they’d have better wages and benefits if they had a union.
Now America is seeing clearly what the Republican coalition has brought us, from mass shootings to medical bankruptcies to student debt to homelessness.
Literally none of these things were major societal problems the year Reagan was elected; all are the direct result of Republican policies, and all were made possible, in part, by this unholy alliance of church and state that our nation’s Founders warned us against.
And now they’re coming for your birth control.
Will enough Americans finally wake up to this 40-year grift to put an end to it and return our country to sanity?
[Pete]Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation, was on Fox News today to talk about infrastructure, but Mike Emanuel just had to slip in a question about the protesters at Morton’s Restaurant, where Kavanaugh was eating dinner. He asked what Pete thought about his husband, Chasten’s tweet: “Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions.” LOL. Chasten rivals AOC in dry, sarcastic tweets.
Buttigieg began his answer by establishing that public officials should always be free of “violence, harassment and intimidation” in public locations, while adding that they will “never be free of criticism or peaceful protest” from individuals exercising their rights to freedom of speech.
“Remember, the justice [Kavanaugh] never even came in contact with these protesters. They reportedly didn’t see or hear them, and these protesters are upset because a right — an important right, that the majority of Americans support — was taken away. Not only the right to choose, by the way, but this justice was part of the process of stripping away the right to privacy.”
“As long as I’ve been alive, the seventh (settled)** case law of the Constitution protected a right to privacy, and that has now been thrown out the window by the justices, including justice Kavanaugh, who — as I recall — swore up and down, in front of God and everyone, including the United States Congress, that they were going to leave settled case law alone,” Buttigieg added.
Buttigieg said that peaceful protesters’ First Amendment rights are protected, contrasting that with the realities of the House investigative committee on the Capitol rioters and saying that the nation is “reckoning with a mob summoned by the former president … for the purpose of overthrowing the election and very nearly succeeded in preventing the peaceful transfer of power. I think common sense can tell the difference.”
Will enough Americans finally wake up to this 40-year grift to put an end to it and return our country to sanity?
They haven’t so far. Why should I think that the end of Roe is the last straw?
Sometimes, when the intersections of politics and faith has me feeling really low, I wish old Karl Marx had never mentioned religion in The Communist Manifesto. He may have been absolutely right, but sometimes I think the whole line about “the opiate of the masses” and the atheism of Leftist thought leaders only made the faithful more capitalist. After all if the commies are godless, then the godly ought to support free markets, right?
Russia’s troll king purges more search results: St. Petersburg oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin has again availed himself of Russia’s “right to be forgotten” (enacted in 2016 to allow Russian citizens to force Internet search engines to remove hyperlinks to “illegal, inaccurate, or irrelevant information”). Prigozhin is best known internationally for administering “troll factories” that attempt political manipulation, media groups that propagate pro-Kremlin messages, and the Wagner private military group (which has fielded mercenaries in Syria, Africa, and Ukraine). When searching for these connections today, Yandex warns users that some results have been hidden as required by the “right to be forgotten” law. Instead, the top hits redirect the public to Prigozhin’s interviews with the same propaganda outlets he controls.
Shutting down another pocket of Russia’s free press: Prosecutors have petitioned the Moscow City Court to dissolve the Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union, which represents roughly 600 independent reporters in 40 regions across Russia. On July 4, the court suspended the union’s operations because of misdemeanor charges alleging that the organization is responsible for “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces. (In May, prosecutors audited the journalists’ union, demanding financial statements and other documents. The authorities never shared the audit’s results.)
Illegal scare quotes: A court in Nizhny Novgorod has fined a local activist 30,000 rubles ($485) for writing the term “special [military] operation” inside quotation marks, when referring on social media to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Alexey Podnebesny says the court ruled against him on the basis that his use of quotation marks was deemed “ironic” and “derogatory.” (In the offending Internet post, Podnebesny complained that the daily cost of Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine is enough money to supply centralized hot water to all the homes in Nizhny Novgorod.)
Freedom of assembly denied in Moscow until pandemic’s end: Officials in Moscow have informed the opposition party Yabloko that mass public events will remain technically banned until the World Health Organization declares that the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. Russian health authorities have gradually lifted coronavirus-related restrictions, and some regions have canceled prohibitions on events, but a ban on all public assemblies remains in effect for Russia’s two biggest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg. (The unevenly enforced policy makes it essentially impossible to stage anti-war or anti-Kremlin protests, while President Putin managed without any permit problems to address tens of thousands of supporters gathered at a stadium in Moscow in mid-March.)
Justice Ministry endorses Chechnya’s crackdown on opposition group: Citing a ruling by the Chechen Supreme Court in May 2022, Russia’s Justice Ministry has designated one of the republic’s most prominent opposition groups, the so-called Adat People’s Movement, as an extremist organization. The group is known best for its popular Telegram channel, 1ADAT (which had more than 40,000 subscribers at the time of this writing). Since January, the mother of one of the movement’s founders has been held at a detention center in Grozny on dubious charges that she assaulted a police officer.
Ukraine’s richest man to hand over media assets: Billionaire Rinat Akhmetov has announced that he will give the state ownership of his media assets, including the television networks Ukraina and Ukraina 24. In a statement on Monday, he explained that the transfer is dictated by a new law against “threats” associated with the “excessive influence” of oligarchs. “I’ve repeated many times that I’ve not been, am not, and will not be an oligarch,” said Akhmetov, adding that the law’s short enforcement timeline and the ongoing Russian invasion make it impossible to sell his media business on market terms.
Defending the right not to fight: In April, the media reported that a Russian contract soldier who refused to fight in the war in Ukraine had been discharged from the service, receiving a stamp that read “prone to betrayal, lying, and deceit” in his service record. Lawyer Maxim Grebenyuk, who founded the online community Military Ombudsman, decided to challenge the soldier’s dismissal in court. He reported today that the Ryazan Garrison Military Court will begin considering the appeal on July 20.
[…] Bannon must have felt pretty good about his chances to turn his Contempt of Congress (for refusing to testify before the January 6th Select Committee) trial into a pro-Trump circus or having it delayed for several months when he appeared before Judge Nichols today.
That didn’t happen. Judge Nichols ruled against Bannon on virtually every motion made by Bannon’s defense team and the hearing ended with Bannon’s attorney David Schoen saying:
“What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?”
Specifically, Judge Nichols ruled against Bannon on the following motions:
– Prosecutors do not have to prove Bannon knew that refusing to testify was “illegal or wrong.” Prosecutors only have to prove Bannon “deliberately” and “intentionally” defied the subpoena issued by the Jan. 6th Committee. Much lower burden of proof.
– Bannon cannot hide behind internal Department of Justice opinions or assertions of executive privilege because they are not relevant to the decision to not comply with the subpoena. THIS IS THE PRIMARY DEFENSE BANNON HAS ASSERTED IN HIS COURT FILINGS!!! Bannon’s only remaining defense is misunderstanding the date of his required appearance or that he had reason to believe the deadline was extended.
– Nor can Bannon assert entrapment by estoppel or public authority as a defense — in other words, Bannon cannot say he is innocent because he believed Trump had asserted executive privilege.
– Even if Trump had asserted executive privilege — Trump is now a civilian, not a Federal official. But Trump did not instruct Bannon to defy the subpoena anyway.
– The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions on executive privilege are irrelevant — Bannon is only a former aide to a former president.
– Judge Nichols again affirms that the Jan 6th Committee is legally constituted and Bannon may not claim otherwise as part of his defence.
– Bannon may NOT grill witnesses about their political affiliations. [LOL]
– Bannon may NOT introduce evidence that Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino defied Jan. 6th Committee subpoenas and were not charged with contempt of Congress. Nor may Bannon introduce evidence related to the DOJ decisions not to charge these two with Contempt of Congress.
– BIG ONE: Bannon REALLY wanted to subpoena Nancy Pelosi and Jan. 6th Committee members to turn the trial into a circus. Judge Nichols ain’t having it […] [LOL]
And, to top off Bannon’s VERY BAD NO GOOD HORRIBLE DAY, Judge Nichols denied the motion to delay the trial noting that voir dire would remove jurors who had already formed opinions based on the news coverage of the Jan. 6th hearings.
One of the vilest things white conservatives do these days is when they play dumb about how they’re supporting straight up Nazi/white supremacist/eliminationist value systems. Sure, a case can be made once in a while that a person really did not know. But usually, you know, fuck off. It’s trolling.
This is absolutely a case of fuck off.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida is having to apologize for a real piece of shit it published from a woman named Melissa Radovich defending the Proud Boys, in which the author actually tried to convince us Proud Boys were just nice proud dads who were proud, and also concerned. To the paper’s credit, the piece has been fully removed, instead of there being some pablum excuse about why they had to leave it up for free speech reasons.
The message from the paper’s editorial board reads, in part:
The Herald-Tribune erred Sunday in publishing a guest column on our opinion page and website with the headline “Attacking Proud Boys does disservice to caring parents.”
Yeah, we are still having a hard time understanding how that headline passed the laugh test, especially at any time since the 2017 Charlottesville Nazi rally the Proud Boys co-starred in, but let’s not dwell.
[T]he Herald-Tribune opinion page will not provide a forum for support of the Proud Boys, an extremist group that promotes white nationalist views and which has been labeled a terrorist group by two countries and has top members under indictment on charges of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. To do so is antithetical to our values as an organization and is outside of our responsibility to provide a fair forum for different points of view.
Oh, you mean there aren’t two equal sides to every issue? Tell Chuck Todd the op-ed editors at a small paper in Florida are giving a free journalism clinic he might be interested in. Also they’re saying they’re sorry after doing a big journalism fuckup. Both of these things could be useful for Chuck Todd.
Anyway, when we say this thing is gone from the internet, we mean it is gone. So in order to find really disgusting quotes and make fun of them, we are having to resort to clicking on Mediaite, which notes just like everybody else is that the Sarasota paper also did not mention that Melissa Radovich is married to a Proud Boy. We can understand a number of reasons why Radovich might not have wanted to include that particular truth about her life, but an editor’s note at the bottom that said in italics something like “BT-dubs, she sleeps next to a Proud boy at night just FYI” might have been helpful.
The column itself was some local-ass shit, with Radovich responding to an earlier op-ed that made her mad, which called on candidates for the Sarasota school board to call out the Proud Boys, instead of being cowards who are overly cozy with them. Radovich clearly took this personally.
“When I think about the Proud Boys,” Radovich wrote, “I think of fathers, business owners and veterans. These fathers have spoken at many School Board meetings. They are concerned about the direction that their local schools are heading in, and I commend them for coming to School Board meetings.”
She accused [earlier op-ed writer Lisa Gialdini] Schurr of attacking the local Proud Boys because they are “opposed to abortion;” “stand for America and freedom, and against communist organizations;” “believe that discussions of homosexuality are best left to parents, and that this is an issue of parental rights;” and “stand against medical mandates, such as the illegal mask mandate in Sarasota County.”
And so on and so forth and bugfuck and batshit and blah blah blah blah blah.
We guess the Proud Boys are just an innocent white supremacist Nazi terrorist org that loves everything Melissa Radovich loves and hates everybody she hates. Bless all their vile little hearts.
[…] Prediction: This fucking terrible woman and/or her husband will be on Tucker within the next 72 hours, they will become overnight wingnut celebrities because they are now silenced martyrs, and Tucker will claim ignorance of what a “Proud Boy” even is, as he will have just heard the term for the very first time this afternoon. […]
In a blistering takedown of the President, Tucker Carlson accused Joe Biden of cynically leveraging the power of his office to lower gasoline prices.
“For weeks, Biden has been saying that he’d do something about the price of gasoline,” the Fox News host said. “Now, lo and behold, gas prices are lower. Joe Biden has been acting in plain sight.”
“The American people aren’t dumb,” Carlson continued. “When they fill up their tanks, they notice that it costs less. They can tell that something’s going on, and they’re not going to put up with it.”
After gas prices showed their biggest one-day drop in almost fifteen years, Carlson said, “It’s time to call out the man behind this conspiracy: Joe Biden.”
Carlson demanded that Congress “stop investigating January 6th and focus its attention on a real scandal: Joe Biden’s corrupt plot to lower gas prices.”
“This is worse than anything Hunter has done,” Carlson charged.
Judge Nichols ruled against Bannon on virtually every motion made by Bannon’s defense team and the hearing ended with Bannon’s attorney David Schoen saying:
“What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?”
Gas prices across the country have fallen over the past several weeks, with the national average dropping about 34 cents from nearly $5.02 last month.
Most states have seen prices drop more than a quarter since the national average peaked on June 14 and some states have witnessed nearly 50-cent declines […]
The drop in prices at the pump, which experts have linked to factors including lower oil prices that come with recession fears and reduced demand, haven’t spread uniformly across the country.
Since mid-June, the greatest declines have mostly come from the South and Midwest, according to an analysis conducted by The Hill using data from the American Automobile Association.
Prices in Indiana and Florida have dropped 48 cents per gallon since the middle of last month, followed by 47-cent drops from Ohio and Wisconsin and a 46-cent drop in Texas.
South Carolina experienced a 43-cent drop, while Michigan and Kentucky saw prices drop by 42 cents, and Delaware, Illinois and Virginia saw prices drop by 41 cents on average. […]
“Gas prices, still way too high, have fallen now 25 days in a row, and this week we saw the second-largest single-day decrease in gas prices in a decade,” the president said on Friday.
“There’s a lot more work to do. But I am suggesting we’re making progress. The program is working,” he added.
ravensays
The forced births here will be mostly poor, young, and nonwhite. [Emphasis mine]
Given the right’s obsession with racial demographics (e.g. “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory) you’d think that they’d ban it only for “Real Americans” (read: white) and make it mandatory for the “undesirables.”
The GOP/christofascists aren’t very bright.
Outlawing abortion will make their main fear, the Great Replacement, happen sooner.
It’s a simple point that the average person understands in seconds, while they will take a few years to figure it out.
They are like the dog that caught the car. Now what?
Their leaders that do understand the point already have a strategy to deal with this. The hope is that many of those unwanted nonwhite kids born into poverty either die or spend most of their life in prison. It is what happens right now anyway!!!
Some data.
24,000 children age out of the foster care system every year.
What does this mean?
These are kids that were never adopted for one reason or another. They were autistic. Disabled in some way. Low IQ. In many cases their “disability” was just being a nonwhite.
The followup.
After a few years on their own, 40% of these kids were either dead, addicted to drugs, living homeless on the streets, or in prison.
Teenage suicide isn’t that uncommon.
You here it often. Mom didn’t want me and said so often , so why shouldn’t I kill myself?
And that is why the Red states aren’t going to spend any more money on forced birth kids.
They don’t want them and could care less if they live and grow up to lead normal lives.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Chasiv Yar death toll rises to 34
The death toll from a missile strike on an apartment block in eastern Ukraine has reached 34, according to a Donetsk regional official.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional state administration, said:
Already 34 dead and 9 wounded have been retrieved by rescuers from the rubble of a multi-story building in the city of Chasiv Yar. One child was among the dead.
Kyrylenko added that as of 6.30am on Tuesday, employees of the state emergency service had cleared about 70% of the rubble, though the rescue operation is ongoing.
“The Russians will bear responsibility for every destroyed and mutilated life!” he added.
Russian president Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week, the Kremlin said, a day after the US warned that Tehran could provide Moscow with drones for its action in [?] Ukraine.
During a trip to Tehran next Tuesday, Putin will attend a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Iran and Turkey, the so-called Astana format of meetings for Syria-related talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Putin’s visit to Iran will follow US President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week, where Iran’s nuclear programme and malign activities in the region will be a key subject of discussion, the Associated Press reported….
Uber paid high-profile academics in Europe and the US hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce reports that could be used as part of the company’s lobbying campaign.
The Uber files, a cache of thousands of confidential documents leaked to the Guardian, reveal lucrative deals with several leading academics who were paid to publish research on the benefits of its economic model. The reports were commissioned as Uber wrestled with regulators in key cities around the world.
University economists were targeted in France and Germany where enforcement by the authorities was increasingly fierce in 2014-15.
One report by a French academic, who asked for a €100,000 consultancy fee, was cited in a 2016 Financial Times report as evidence that Uber was a “route out of the French banlieues”, delighting Uber executives.
Using techniques common in party political campaigns, Uber targeted academics and thinktanks to help it construct a positive narrative, namely that it created well-paid jobs that drivers liked, delivered cheap transport to consumers and boosted productivity.
Documents show how its lobbyists planned to use academic research as part of a production line of political ammunition that could be fed to politicians and the media.
The aim was to use the research to increase pressure for changing the rules Uber was evading. While Uber’s involvement in reports was mentioned, leaked files expose how it wanted to use academics’ work and their reputations to further its aims, and how much it was prepared to pay them.
In France, the €100,000 consultancy arrangement was negotiated with a rising star of university economics, Prof Augustin Landier of the Toulouse School of Economics. Landier agreed to produce a report that he described in emails to Uber’s policy and communications team as “actionable for direct PR to prove Uber’s positive economic role”.
Landier proposed collaborating with David Thesmar, another high-profile professor from France’s top business school, École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (HEC).
In discussions in February 2015, Uber executives noted that although the price was high, it was worth it, especially if they worked on the report’s messages “to ensure it’s not presented in a potentially negative light”.
The report came amid intense debate about job losses caused by Uber, with Emmanuel Macron, who was then France’s economy minister, trying to force through economic changes.
An Uber policy team member wrote at the time that “a quantified validation of the new type of work Uber creates in Europe, especially when conducted by an economist of Landier’s renowned stature, would help us tremendously”.
Scholars were excited about Uber’s data because it gave them rare real-time evidence about the effect of prices on markets – one of the key issues among liberal economists arguing for free markets.
In return for the consultancy fee, Landier also wanted to produce a separate unpaid study using Uber data. The leak shows Uber executives were concerned that would mean “we lose editorial control”, but a senior staffer concluded: “We see low risk here because we can work with Landier on framing the study and we also decide what data we share with him.”
The day before the publication of Landier and Thesmar’s report in March 2016, the FT story citing it appeared. “Ride-hailing apps have created jobs for Paris’s poorer youth, but a regulatory clampdown looms,” the article said.
Thesmar was quoted in the piece saying that Uber was a “social gamechanger”.
The report had a third co-author, Daniel Szomoru, an internal Uber economist. While his employment and the academic consultancy arrangement with Uber were acknowledged in a footnote, details of the fee were not. Neither Szomoru nor the fact the report was paid for by Uber were mentioned in the FT piece.
Some of the key qualifiers in the report did not appear in press coverage – including the academics’ conclusion that Uber drivers who did not make good money tended to drop off the platform.
The report detailed how these drivers received “payouts” on average of €19.90 an hour. But that did not factor in the substantial costs that drivers have to pay – such as car hire, insurance and fuel – that had to be deducted from this average “payout” before earnings could be calculated. In the FT’s story, which was retweeted by Landier and others, this became simply: “Most earn €20 an hour, more than twice the minimum wage.”
Uber was thrilled with the FT story. “Wow!” wrote one person, congratulating the team who “landed it”.
…
One of the first deals sealed by Uber with top academics was with Prof Alan Krueger at Princeton University in the US in 2015. Krueger had been Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser and was famous as an authority on raising the legal minimum wage, so held particular influence when it came to advocating for Uber’s impact on employment.
The Uber files reveal for the first time that he was paid about $100,000 for a study that was widely quoted in support of Uber as a creator of good jobs precisely because it operated outside the rules. Internal Uber emails note that he was “helpful with the press”.
The study subsequently attracted controversy. Krueger, who died in 2019, acknowledged his paid consultancy work for Uber but never said how much he had been paid. Other academics said its conclusions could not be peer-reviewed because its data was not openly shared….
Here’s a link to their Uber Files series, a “global investigation revealing how Uber broke the law, duped police and regulators, and secretly lobbied governments across the world.”
The apparent motive given by the man accused of assassinating Shinzo Abe has cast a spotlight on the Unification church and its ties to politicians.
Tetsuya Yamagami has confessed to killing the former Japanese prime minister during a campaign speech on Friday. He blamed the global religious movement – whose members are often referred to as Moonies – for bankrupting his family, and believed that Abe had championed its activities in Japan.
…
Often described as a cult motivated by financial gain, the church became known for conducting mass weddings in huge sports stadiums – involving thousands of couples who were meeting for the first time – and at one time claimed to have about 3 million followers worldwide.
But global membership of the church, whose teachings comprise new interpretations of the Bible, has fallen sharply to several hundred thousand from its 1980s peak, according to some experts.
Its connection to Japan is inseparable from the instability of the postwar years, when conservative politicians sought to build alliances that they believed would prevent the country from embracing communism.
They included Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who reportedly set up an organisation with ties to the church. It was Kishi’s decision to court Moon and his followers in Japan that reportedly drove Yamagami to target his grandson.
…
The Japan chapter was founded in 1959 – the penultimate year of Kishi’s three-year term as prime minister – as the church sent missionaries to Japan and the US to forge links with influential politicians and business leaders.
Last September Abe delivered a congratulatory address via video link at an event organised by an affiliate, the Universal Peace Federation. Donald Trump is among other conservative politicians who have publicly associated themselves with the church.
Abe had been criticised for speaking at events organised by church affiliates. Last year lawyers representing people who say they lost money because of the church filed a letter of protest after he delivered the video message. They also protested when Abe sent a telegram to a mass wedding in 2006.
Moon, who moved to the US in the early 1970s, had longstanding ties to Japan, having studied engineering at a high school in Tokyo. He was indicted on tax evasion charges in the US in 1981 and served 11 months in prison.
In 2008, Moon passed control of the church to his youngest son, Hyung Jin Moon, who later formed a breakaway organisation, the Sanctuary church, after falling out with his mother, Hak Ja Han. She now controls the Unification church.
The police have not publicly identified the group Yamagami blamed for his family’s financial troubles, and most Japanese media organisations refrained from naming it until Monday’s press conference.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Keir Starmer has said Labour is tabling a no confidence motion in the government for debate tomorrow so that Tory MPs can put the country first. He said:
The Tory party has at last concluded that the prime minister is unfit for office – that was blindingly obvious a very, very long time ago.
They can’t now let him cling on for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, until September 5. It would be intolerable for the country …
We’re challenging [Tory MPs] to put their constituents first, and put the country first.
I knew nothing about Kemi Badenoch before, but wow is she terrible:
She cited cutting the number of young people going to university, cutting support staff and extra-curricular activities in schools and stopping the police from investigating hate crime online as examples of how the state could save money….
She’s the equalities minister!
She said she was opposed to “protectionism, populism and polarisation”. She said:
Free markets, [limited government], a strong nation state – those are the Conservative principles we need to beat back protectionism, populism and polarisation.
She did not mention the fact Boris Johnson’s premiership championed populism and polarisation, and at times protectionism too.
She said Britain had had a “poor decade for living standards”. She said:
We have had a poor decade for living standards.
We have overburdened our economy.
There’s too much unproductive public spending, consuming taxpayers hard earned money.
Too many well meaning regulations, slowing growth, and clogging up the arteries of the economy.
blfsays
A follow-up sort-of <rant> to me@304, where, at the end, I whinged about an inability to immediately order a replacement battery. Today, over lunch, it dawned on me I probably could place an order by using a bank-to-bank transfer. At first this didn’t look promising as the site didn’t list France as a country from which bank transfers were accepted. That made no sense, so I decided to try anyways. No apparent problem (at the site), albeit my e-mail provider was having problems so I had some difficulty in obtaining the critical e-mailed transfer instructions.
The glitch here — which I knew — is that, for security reasons, I would have to go to my bank in person to initiate the transfer. I “carefully” checked the bank’s opening hours, and the bus “schedule”, and decided I could go to the bank this afternoon. First problem, the buses are now running on their Summer Schedule, not the “schedule” I checked, so of course the bus I was planning on catching was something like 30 minutes later. After stewing for awhile, I realised the stop I wanted was near a common one other buses stopped at, and so was able to catch a suitable bus a few minutes later. Ok…
Next problem, the bank was closed. WTF? It’s “only” open in the mornings (presumably due to the pandemic). After screaming in frustration (the mildly deranged penguin promptly advanced backwards at speed) and catching the return bus, I was just about to write a nasty letter about incorrect information on their site, but when double-checking, happened to notice a caveat in small print in the corner / bottom, (translated) “Open in the afternoons by prior appointment.” So their site wasn’t wrong, just misleadingly presented. Grrrrrrr…
Try again tomorrow morning since they will be closed this Thursday 14th July (La Fête Nationale (Bastille Day)). </rant>
The January 6 Committee holds its seventh public hearing on the attack of the U.S. Capitol with a focus on the Trump administration and its alleged ties to extremist groups who stormed the Capitol.
The hearing is set to begin at 1 PM ET (in about 45 minutes).
With a flowing mane of golden curls and an American-flag guitar signed by the 45th president, John Christopher “Sean” Feucht stands at the intersection of far-right Christianity and the MAGA movement. On stage, Feucht is a holy roller, leading rapt crowds in worship music. His services feature weeping penitents, minor “miracles,” and new followers of Jesus plunging into baptismal tubs. Online, Feucht is a holy troller, flaming his foes and bashing “woke” culture to delight his followers.
Feucht (pronounced Foyt) rocketed to prominence in MAGAworld with a combustible mix of godliness and grievance. Railing against pandemic restrictions on in-person religious services in 2020, Feucht mounted a national tour of “protest” revivals — drawing fervent crowds of worshipers and scathing rebukes from public-health officials. As Covid restrictions eased, Feucht pivoted seamlessly to raging against the alleged “groomers” at Disneyland.
Feucht’s fusion of own-the-libs rhetoric and Christian zealotry is resonating. Newly released IRS records reveal that the once-humble praise singer is not only raising his national profile, he’s raking in enormous amounts of cash. Capitalizing on the notoriety of his 2020 Covid-lockdown protests, Sean Feucht Ministry Inc. ballooned in revenue from $280,000 in 2019 to more than $5.3 million in 2020, ending the year $4 million richer than it started. (The accounting for this surge is curious: The ministry claims to have received zero dollars in contributions, despite Feucht avidly soliciting such gifts.)
Feucht — who, according to tax filings, is the sole employee of the ministry — also appears to have experienced a surge in personal wealth, raising eyebrows from ministry watchdogs. The preacher recently bought a pair of extravagant homes, one in a glitzy gated community in Southern California and another on five acres in Montana, valued together at well over $2 million, according to property records reviewed by Rolling Stone.
Warren Cole Smith, president of Ministry Watch, which vets religious organizations on behalf of donors, says that leveraging a ministry to live the high life, if that’s what Feucht is doing, is not just unseemly, it’s potentially illegal. “I’m not saying that Sean is guilty of private inurement,” Smith insists. “But if a guy that makes less than $200,000 a year is buying multiple, million-dollar properties, at a minimum that warrants additional questions.”
Calls to the ministry and its board members asking to speak about these financials were not returned. An email to Feucht with detailed questions was not returned.
With his newfound wealth and prominence, Feucht is making direct inroads in Washington, D.C. When the Dobbs draft decision leaked this spring, Feucht raced to the steps of the Supreme Court, joined by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boehbert [sic] in public worship meant to steel the court’s reactionary majority against advocates of reproductive rights.
Evangelicals have long hitched their fortunes to GOP political movements, most recently the Trump train. But Feucht is bald in his declaration that Christians, themselves, should seize the throttle of the nation’s politics. “People complain that Biblical truth should not spill over into political matters. I disagree,” he wrote in a recent open letter to church leaders, insisting it’s time for believers to “start dictating the terms of the fight!”
Feucht seeks to tear down the wall between church and state, says Shawn Schwaller, a history professor in California who studies right-wing extremism, including Feucht’s. “He wants to push a far-right Christian nationalist agenda,” he says. “Whether it’s anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-vaccine, anti-Black Lives Matter, he’s aligning himself with the biggest voices pushing that agenda in Washington.”
Feucht has also opened a beachhead for spiritual battle in the nation’s capital. In yet another eye-popping real-estate translation, his ministry purchased a brick row house on Capitol Hill in May for nearly $1 million, which Feucht is calling Camp Elah — named for the valley where “David met Goliath and was unafraid.” Feucht insists Camp Elah will be a hive of 24-hour prayer, mobilization, and ministry with legislators, to “prophesy God’s destiny and purpose on their life.”
But as Feucht seeks to transform the MAGA movement in Jesus’ name, he is also being transformed — in Trump’s. Fuecht’s own purpose these days seems to increasingly resemble the former president’s, involving a whirlwind of campaign-style events, relentless fundraising, and unabashed luxury.
Feucht is using Camp Elah, in turn, to raise more money. Its website looks less like the homepage for a house of worship than the donation page for a political candidate — with click-to-give buttons at amounts up to $2,000 and a toggle box to “make this a monthly recurring donation.” On Facebook, Feucht recently implored his nearly half-million followers to make gifts to meet “Our big May 31 FUNDRAISING DEADLINE!!”
…
Feucht is a relative newcomer on the national scene, and it’s possible these past few months will be his zenith. But if he finds staying power, he represents the potential next phase of MAGA evolution: one that combines Trump’s combative authoritarianism with Mike Pence’s hankering for theocracy — and a zealotry that could keep the movement going long after Trump is gone.
…
The belief in the power to harness God’s might is both seductive and pernicious, argues [D.L.] Mayfield. “The problem at the heart of charismatic Christianity, is that it’s obsessed with power,” she says. “They really spiritualize it — how to harness God’s power to make your life better. But then that obviously bleeds out into the political.”
These communities share the belief, [Adam] Perez adds, that “God has the power to do spiritual work — or even warfare.” In this worldview, legislative battles are understood as contests between spirits. “If [pro]-abortion legislation were passed, that would be a sign that demons are at work in Congress,” Perez says. The faithful see themselves, he adds, as using their “Christian weapon against the powers of darkness.”
To harness the passion stirred by his protests, Feucht called on his followers to sign a “petition” at ParentsFightBack[dot]com, and claims that tens of thousands have done just that. But that link doesn’t offer any petition text. Instead, it’s a portal to give your name, email, and mobile number to Feucht. A thank-you page prompts you to make a large donation. Move your cursor away and a popup window exhorts: “WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO … We can’t win this fight without you, we need your immediate support!”
Do such Trumpian cash-grab tactics reveal Feucht’s true character? “He’s just such an outright grifter,” argues Mayfield. “Seems like some people will catch on.”
…
Feucht has become especially tight with his frequent Instagram companion Boebert, who shares his vision for a religious takeover in Washington….
There are remarkably ignorant Republican candidates … and then there’s Mary Miller.
[…]
Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) was positively outraged on Sunday to hear about recent drug busts at the southern border, which is, as she claimed, somehow hard evidence that President Joe Biden’s administration is encouraging biological warfare on the U.S.
[…] Customs and Border Protection officials in Arizona seized tens of thousands of fentanyl pills from would-be smugglers. It was the sort of development that most Americans — other than drug dealers — would consider good news.
Miller nevertheless wrote on Twitter, “This is a terrorist chemical attack on our country and the Biden [administration] is encouraging it by keeping our border open. This is what an America Last agenda looks like, Biden is letting drugs flow into our country to kill our people.”
For now, let’s put aside the fact that drug smuggling and terrorist chemical attacks are not exactly the same thing. Let’s instead consider the logic of Miller’s pitch.
President Joe Biden, the Republican congresswoman would have us believe, is “letting drugs flow” into the United States. As proof, she pointed to an example of the Biden administration stopping drugs from flowing into the United States.
Hmm.
Miller also insisted that the White House is “keeping our border open,” and to bolster the point, she referred us to a story in which drug smugglers were stopped at the border.
In other words, Miller isn’t waiting for folks like me to debunk her talking points, she’s streamlining the process by debunking her own claims as she makes them.
[…] this is the same GOP lawmaker who last month thanked Donald Trump for delivering a “victory for white life,” though Miller said soon after that she misspoke.
[…] Republicans routinely complain in the wake of border seizures, which isn’t just strange, it also contradicts the party’s previous line. In early 2019, for example, when border officials seized a massive shipment of methamphetamine at a Texas port of entry, Sen. Ted Cruz celebrated the developments. For the Republican, this wasn’t proof of a “Trump border crisis,” it was instead simply evidence of the “great work” being done by Americans. Under Biden, Cruz is saying the opposite.
He’s not alone. Two years ago, the Republican National Committee pointed to drug seizures as proof that Donald Trump and his policies were helping “protect our nation.” Now, the RNC is trying to convince Americans that more recent drug seizures are evidence of “Biden’s open border.”
[…] Republicans keep complaining about U.S. successes, which should be a tough sell in an election year.
The photo that accompanies the article shows Trump standing in the background while Mary Miller speaks at a campaign event on June 25, 2022 (so recent!). Yep. She is a trumpian cult follower with a few extra doses of batshit crazy thrown in.
Feucht has become especially tight with his frequent Instagram companion Boebert, who shares his vision for a religious takeover in Washington….
Doug Mastriano also thinks the separation between church and state is a “myth.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert already had a reputation for radicalism, which was strengthened recently when she condemned the separation of church and state as “junk.” As part of the same public comments, the Colorado Republican added, “The church is supposed to direct the government.”
It was jarring rhetoric — and historical nonsense — but the far-right congresswoman isn’t the only Republican peddling rhetoric like this about the First Amendment and religious liberty.
In Florida, for example, as part of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Civics Literacy Excellence Initiative, high school educators are being told to tell students that the nation’s founders did not champion the separation of church and state, despite reality.
In Pennsylvania, The New York Times reported last week on Republican gubernatorial hopeful Doug Mastriano, who recently addressed a far-right conference that mixed Christian beliefs with conspiracy theories.
[…] he wove a story about what he saw as the true Christian identity of the nation, and how it was time, together, for Christians to reclaim political power. The separation of church and state was a “myth,” he said. “In November we are going to take our state back, my God will make it so.” [“my God” !!!]
It’s worth emphasizing that the separation of church and state is not a “myth”; it’s a bedrock principle of our system of government. In fact, I’d refer Mastriano to the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
According to Thomas Jefferson, those 16 words created a “wall of separation between church and state” […]
Stepping back, the problem is not just that Republicans like Boebert and Mastriano are making ridiculous comments about foundational principles of the American experiment. Rather, the larger concern is the broader context in which far-right radicals are going beyond the more mundane goals of the religious right movement. From the Times’ article:
Many dismiss the historic American principle of the separation of church and state. They say they do not advocate a theocracy, but argue for a foundational role for their faith in government. Their rise coincides with significant backing among like-minded grass-roots supporters, especially as some voters and politicians blend their Christian faith with election fraud conspiracy theories, QAnon ideology, gun rights and lingering anger over Covid-related restrictions. Their presence reveals a fringe pushing into the mainstream.
As a rule, any sentence that begins, “They say they do not advocate a theocracy, but…” is cause for concern. […]
Drawing insights from gender studies and the environmental humanities, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture (Oxford UP, 2022) analyze how ancient Christians constructed the Christian body through its relations to demonic adversaries. Through case studies of New Testament texts, Gnostic treatises, and early Christian church fathers, Travis W. Proctor notes that early followers of Jesus construed the demonic body in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways, as both embodied and bodiless, “fattened” and ethereal, heavenly and earthbound.
Across this diversity of portrayals, however, demons consistently functioned as personifications of “deviant” bodily practices such as “magical” rituals, immoral sexual acts, gluttony, and pagan religious practices. This demonization served an exclusionary function whereby Christian writers marginalized fringe Christian groups by linking their ritual activities to demonic modes of (dis)embodiment. The tandem construction of demonic and human corporeality demonstrates how Christian authors constructed the bodies that inhabited their cosmos – human, demon, and otherwise as part of overlapping networks or “ecosystems” of humanity and nonhumanity. Through this approach, Proctor provides new resources for reimagining the enlivened ecosystems that surround and intersect with our modern ideas of “self.”
Turkey, Russia and Ukraine military delegations to meet UN over grain exports
Military delegations from Turkey, Russia and Ukraine will meet with a United Nations delegation to discuss the safe export of Ukrainian grain tomorrow, according to Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar.
“Military delegations from Turkey, Russia and Ukraine and a United Nations delegation will be conducting talks in Istanbul tomorrow regarding safe transfer of grain waiting in Ukrainian ports to international markets via sea route,” Reuters reports he said.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, adding that the real toll was likely much higher.
OHCHR, which has dozens of human rights monitors in the country, said in its weekly update that 5,024 people had been killed and 6,520 injured. [That’s a strange proportion.]
SC @344: “The hearing has begun.” And interviewees who represent the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys readily admit that Trump’s tweet focusing on January 6 spurred them into planning mode for January 6. Those interviewees are proud of themselves, prefacing some of their statements with phrases like, “Of course.”
On Dec 18, 2020, Sidney Powell, Lt. Gen. Flynn, and others entered the White House for a meeting.
The meeting lasted multiple hours and included two groups of Trump advisers trading insults, accusations of disloyalty to the president, and even challenges to physically fight.
Significant that after it was made clear to Donald Trump that there was no legal avenue to overturn the election, he then changed course and tweeted to invite the mob to Washington. He very consciously chose to turn to mob violence as his next tactic. He knew what he was doing.
Yesterday’s update included a map of the Kherson area, so it may seem too early to be hitting it again. We’re hitting it again. That’s because on Monday, Ukrainian forces reportedly liberated the town of Kyselivka.
In the last census, Kyselivka had a population of just over 2,500. Compared to the Russian capture of a town like Severodonetsk (pop. 101,000 before the invasion), this may not seem like that big a deal. And it’s not—this isn’t the capture of a major city. However, Kyselivka is important because it was one of the points where Russian forces had dug in, fortified the area, and established a line that Ukrainian forces had been unable to budge in weeks of fighting. Now that line is broken.
Rather than being comparable to the capture of Severodonetsk, this is more like when Russia breached Ukrainian defenses at Toshkivka. It wasn’t the capture of a major city, but it set up that capture. Kyselivka wasn’t just one of Russia’s two hard points along the M14 road running into the heart of Kherson, it may be the first time in this part of the battlefield that Ukrainian troops have successfully dislodged Russian forces from a well-fortified position.
What happens in the immediate fall of Kyselivka isn’t clear. It’s extremely unlikely to lead to a rapid capture of Kherson. But it does bring Ukrainian troops and weapons closer to the city, as well as making it more difficult for Russia to hold positions north and south of Kyselivka. […]
Ukraine’s punching through the Russian lines at this point could represent a genuine change in the course of events for the Kherson region. [map at the link]
When it comes to the remainder of the region, Kyselivka may not be the only place where Russian lines are getting bent back. At the far northern end of the line, the positions of Vysokopillya seem more and more tenuous. In fact, some posts are claiming that Ukraine is largely in control of the area, with some of that wince-worthy euphemistic “mopping up” still underway. One Russian Telegram post described actions there as Russia attempting to “take back” the town from Ukrainian control. Both of these descriptions may be optimistic, and there is no doubt that fighting is still going on in the area, but Ukraine’s position seems to be improving.
There are a few other points worth noting before we leave Kherson:
Way up on the northeast corner of the map, Zolota Balka is listed as in dispute. For weeks I had it as liberated by Ukraine, then somewhere when I wasn’t paying close attention, it seems to have slipped back into Russian occupation. Now there does seem to be active fighting for control of the town.
When it comes to that bridgehead south of Davydiv Brid, in spite of many sites wiping it from their maps, multiple reports from Russian sources that it was completely destroyed, and more recent reports that Russia was “pushing those troops back across the Inhulets,” the only thing I can say is it’s not gone. It’s not even clear that Ukraine has lost control of the villages it secured after making the crossing.
Southwest of Snihurivka there’s a new bulge of yellow on this map, and several villages that had been marked as under Ukrainian control are now marked as in dispute. This doesn’t represent a fresh offensive by Russia. It’s another in the long line of reports that I missed from days/weeks ago. Russian troops are reportedly operating in this area with only limited Ukrainian presence, but they don’t seem to be attempting to occupy/fortify positions in this area.
Nova Kakhovka, which stands on the eastern side of one of the two critical bridges across the mighty Dnipro River, was the site of that absolutely spectacular explosion on Monday in which a HIMARS system took out a Russian ammunition depot with semi-apocalyptic results that seem to have made Russians very sad. At midday on Tuesday, there are still reportedly explosions going off at the site of this strike.
Ukrainian artillery has been absolutely hammering the area around Kherson airport for days, and reportedly took out the Russian base at Chornobaivka on Monday. This strike reportedly took down a series of warehouses, destroyed equipment on the ground, and killed over a dozen senior officers. Chornobaivka is that second “hard point” on the road to Kherson. It seems as if it may be a lot softer than it was a week ago.
Pundits who casually suggested that there were no HIMARS operating in the Kherson region should drop and give me 20. […]
As Ukraine solidifies their hold on the area, they’re now about 5 kilometers closer to the city of Kherson than they were on Sunday. And though “15 kilometers from Kherson!” may seem like something you’ve heard here before (because you have), the capture of Kyselivka, the destruction of the Russian base at Chornobaivka, the massive blast at Nova Kakhovka, and the pressure of Ukrainian forces all up and down the Kherson front suggests that this time, Ukraine is not backing off.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a statement over the weekend that liberating southern Ukraine was a priority. Kherson would be a great place to start.
Moving back to the southeast, in the area around Donetsk, a series of HIMARS strikes that were recorded on Monday show something of a similar pattern to what’s happening in Kherson oblast. These strikes also seem to be aimed at [Russian] resources: warehouses, ammunition depots, fuel depots, and command centers. In addition to HIMARS, Ukraine seems to have employed artillery in the area, but the HIMARS strikes were some 60 kilometers into territory occupied by Russia.
One of these strikes at Shakhtarsk also reportedly took out a number of senior officers in the area. [tweets, images and map at the link]
If the last few days have been marked by notable Ukrainian victories and strikes against military targets, that doesn’t mean that Russia hasn’t scored their own points … in what seems to be the primary way that Russia’s army now works.
For every ammo dump Ukrainians destroy we will respond by destroying apartment blocks full of civilians.
At Chasiv Yar alone, a Monday strike from a Russian missile left at least 30 dead (a revision from the tweet below as rescue workers are still attempting to find survivors beneath the rubble). [tweet and image at the link]
This attack was only one of many in which Russian missiles blasted into apartment buildings and business blocks across Ukraine. Russia forces may be taking some heavy blows in the field, but hey, they sure can slaughter innocent civilians.
As NPR reports, Russian officials have made “conflicting and at times ridiculously false claims” about these strikes. That includes claiming that the attack on the Amstor Mall, where at least 20 people were killed and 60 injured, actually hurt no one because “the mall was empty” and besides, Russia didn’t really hit the mall in the first place.
There are indications that Russia would like to actually hit some of the military targets. They just can’t. Their weapons are either not accurate enough to pick out the right target, or unable to get past air defenses. A reasonable leader might decide to hold off firing a missile that can’t possibly generate any military benefit, and the use of which is likely to only add to a growing list of war crimes.
But then, a reasonable leader wouldn’t have started this illegal invasion in the first place.
Are Ukraine’s targeted attacks on ammo depots having an unexpectedly strong effect? Take a look at this. [map at the link]
This withering level of fire is repeated on July 7, and July 8, and July 9. Then, on July 10 … something happens. [map at the link]
There is an abrupt drop off in the number of hotspots across the whole region. It would be easy to attribute this to weather — afterall, FIRMS goes quiet when there is heavy rain or overcast — but the whole area has been either sunny or partly cloudy over the last three days, also FIRMS data for other areas in Ukraine has barely flickered over this period.
Finally, you can look at either of the last two days and you get something like this. Which is just … eerie. [map at the link]
[…]
More details, more videos, more images, etc. at the link. This includes news that Sweden is considering sending Ukraine Archer systems. “This self-propelled gun is already in Ukraine. It fires three rounds, and is gone before the first round hits.”
When bad stuff happens for him, Trump goes on a posting spree, this time, he’s trying to spin attention from the J6 Select Committee. This is the truth of Trump’s Derangement Syndrome, only suggesting a more viable chance for a Trump indictment, and his stepping aside for that DeSantis/Cheney 2024 ticket. Everything else is a grift, because who doesn’t want to give this guy money for this rant:
“Isn’t it INCREDIBLE that the people who Cheated, Rigged, and Stole the 2020 Presidential Election, for which there is massive and incontestable evidence and proof… are totally protected from harm,” he wrote. “And the people that caught them cheating are being investigated. Someday soon this will change, or we won’t have a Country anymore!”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) said on ABC’s “This Week” program that, while the Justice Department has been looking into some of Trump’s actions, “there are certain actions, parts of these different lines of effort to overturn the [2020] election, that I don’t see evidence the Justice Department is investigating.”
The department needs to “make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s,” Schiff added. “But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”
Trump’s efforts to overturn the election began before Election Day, Schiff noted.
“The evidence is very powerful that Donald Trump began telling this ‘big lie’ before the election … that lie continued after the election and ultimately led to this mob assembling and attacking the Capitol,” he said.
The [deleted homophobe’s name] Space Telescope was more than a decade in construction. When it finally launched back on Christmas Day, the massive and complex structure faced what NASA called “344 points of failure” on its way to its new home at Lagrange Point 2 (L2), roughly 1,500,000 kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth.
Day by day, week by week, the telescope didn’t just pass those points of potential failure, it passed with flying colors. Even before the telescope was fully deployed, engineers at NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and European Space Agency were talking about how the instruments were actually exceeding what were already very high expectations.
For astronomers—and for everyone interested in the universe we live in—waiting for the first official images from Webb has been like waiting to open a present that has been out there traveling since Christmas. Today is that day. Come and see what NASAnta brought you.
President Joe Biden released the first Webb image on Monday evening, showing a deep field image studded with galaxies. [image at the link]
One thing you might notice is that some of the galaxies above seem to be stretched out. Some even show up twice. That’s because the image is being distorted, not by any issue with Webb’s instruments, but by the gravity of the many galaxies lying between Earth and these incredibly distant objects.
Join in and watch as NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, and all the people behind this project gift the world with not just knowledge, but heart-stopping beauty. [video at the link]
For anyone who remembers the Hubble Telescope image of “the pillars of creation” in the Eagle Nebula (which, hey, we talked about just this weekend on Daily Space), this is yet another of the “star nurseries” where stellar systems like our own get started.
The “Cosmic Cliffs” are part of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3324). In visible light telescopes, most of the detail here is completely lost, but Webb’s infrared instruments let it peer through the gas and dust to see the young stars illuminating the nebula. [image at the link]
All of the images seen here have just a fraction of the detail revealed by the full-sized, uncompressed originals. [embedded link available at the main link]
Compared to some of the other images released today, this chart [chart available at the link] may seem kind of … blah. But in a lot of ways this is the most exciting thing released today by the Webb team.
This is Webb’s instruments looking at an exoplanet orbiting a star 1,150 light years away, and telling us about the atmosphere of that individual planet. WASP 96-b is a gas giant, slightly larger (though less massive) than Jupiter. It orbits close to its star, making it much hotter than any of the planets in our own system.
On June 21, Webb turned both its Near-Infrared Imager and spectrograph on the WASP-96 system for 6.4 hours, watching as the planet transited across the face of the star. From that data it produced a curve that shows the components of the planet’s atmosphere. That atmosphere turns out to include water … well, steam, considering how beyond-boiling hot this place is.
But this is just a sampler of many planetary observations to come. […]
Brad speaks with Stanford scholar of religion Dr. Kathryn Gin Lum about her new book Heathen. They discuss how White American Christians have used the label “heathen” in order to name those they deem not only different, but in need of saving. In this context, “saving” often meant the occupation of native lands, the overtaking of entire cultures, and the exclusion of those “unassimilable” to the American way of life. Race continues to operate as a heathen inheritance in the United States, animating Americans’ sense of being a world apart from an undifferentiated mass of needy, suffering peoples. Dr. Gin Lum reveals a key source of American exceptionalism and a prism through which Americans have defined themselves as a progressive and humanitarian nation even as supposed heathens have drawn on the same to counter this national myth. This is not a past phenomenon – it continues today in debates about reproductive rights and the rise of anti-Asian hate during the COVID pandemic.
(The discussion of “sponsoring” children reminded me of some scenes in the Hulu documentary The Last Tourist.)
Zelenskiy: Russia ‘doesn’t have the courage’ to admit defeat
Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia “doesn’t have the courage” to admit defeat in Ukraine, and is warning the occupying military force that it is not safe “anywhere on our land”.
Ukraine’s president delivered the remarks in a blistering video address to the nation on Tuesday night, the 139th day since Moscow’s invasion, and posted to his official website.
Zelenskiy also mocked the Russian military’s apparent reliance on ageing weapons and Soviet-era tactics, and insisted the unity of his country’s citizenry, combined with the strength of Ukraine’s armed forces, meant the outcome of the war was “certain”:
The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is, and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land.
They have felt that the operations of our reconnaissance officers to protect their homeland are much more powerful than any of their ‘special operations’. Russian soldiers, and we know this from interceptions of their conversations, are truly afraid of our armed forces.
The so-called second army of the world is afraid of Ukrainians and is able to do something only on the basis of bottomless stocks of old Soviet weapons.
They no longer have strategic strength, character, or understanding of what they are doing here on our land. They also don’t have even an iota of courage to admit defeat and withdraw troops from Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine, he said, will “be able to defend itself, rebuild itself, and realise all its foreign policy goals”:
When millions of people work sincerely for this, each and every one at their own level, the result will be certain.
Zelenskiy’s remarks came as fierce fighting continues for control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and Russia appears to be stepping up its attacks on civilians, with at least 45 people now known to have died in a weekend missile strike on a block of flats in Chasiv Yar.
The president also revealed he had met Poland’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak in Kyiv on Tuesday, and discussed cooperation over defence.
He said: “It is important not only what we talked about, but also how we talked. With absolute confidence in the Ukrainian future, in the Ukrainian-European future”.
Zelenskiy added:
A really difficult road is ahead. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do otherwise when you are protecting your home from a terrorist assault. But it is also clear that what lies ahead is the success of our state.
In a preview of his testimony to the committee investigating January 6th, Steve Bannon claimed that he was busy washing his hair that day.
“Call me vain, but my hair’s appearance is very important to me,” he said. “I can spend all day washing it, and that’s what happened on January 6th.”
Bannon said that he stepped into the shower that morning to wash and condition his hair and “kind of lost track of time. I must have been in the shower for seven or eight hours.”
Emerging from the shower, Bannon then spent the better part of two hours combing out and drying his hair, he said.
“If the committee wants inside info on January 6th, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint them,” he said. “Anyone who knows Steve Bannon knows that my grooming always comes first.”
The day after an explosive Oval Office meeting in which a motley crew of outside advisers clashed with White House lawyers over a plan to seize voting machines, then-President Donald Trump turned his focus to riling up his supporters for the Jan. 6 push to stop the counting of electoral votes, according to evidence presented in Tuesday’s House committee hearing.
In other words, none of nutty things Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, et. al. were proposing would work. None. So Trump decided to rile up a mob to attack the Capitol on the 6th of January.
“Explosive” is a euphemism for shouting at each other at top volume, for Rudy Giuliani calling people like attorney Pat Cipollone “P-word, plural,” and for threatening to physically assault each other.
The White House on Monday said it believes Russia is turning to Iran to provide it with ‘hundreds’ of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, for use in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
House Jan. 6 Committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) made it clear that she and her committee will not be steamrolled by Trump or any of his allies’ efforts to try to interfere with the panel’s investigation or to try to intimidate witnesses. Today was the second time she’s publicly revealed that Trump and people close to him are clearly watching the hearings — and might be getting spooked.
“After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation — a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call and, instead, alerted their lawyer to the call,” Cheney said today, rounding out her closing remarks once again with bombshell revelations about what could qualify as witness tampering allegedly happening behind the scenes.
“Their lawyer alerted us, and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice,” she added. “Let me say one more time: We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously.” […]
In granular new detail, the Jan. 6 committee showed how a freshly enraged President Trump targeted his own vice president through a series of edits to his speech on the morning of the attack.
In previous hearings, the committee covered Trump’s repeated efforts to pressure Pence to reject Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, and, after the attack began, to single out Pence in a tweet that coincided with rioters calling for the then-vice president’s head.
On Tuesday, using documents provided by the National Archives and interviews with witnesses, the committee looked at specific edits and ad-libs Trump made to his speech that morning, showing how they coincided with his anger at being rebuffed by Pence and his desire for a confrontation at the Capitol.
After a Jan. 5 change to the draft speech accusing “emboldened Radical Left Democrats” of stealing the election, the rest of the changes focused on Pence and the march to the Capitol, Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) said.
That lines up with Trump’s obsession with attorney John Eastman’s proposal that Pence simply reject Electoral College slates from certain states Trump lost: A pitch that Trump had tried and failed for days to convince Pence was legitimate.
On the morning of Jan. 6 — after several unsuccessful attempts by Eastman to convince Pence’s attorney Greg Jacob that his plot was lawful — Trump added his first line about Mike Pence into the speech draft after a call with speechwriter Stephen Miller. The speech text urged Pence, as Eastman had, to reject Electoral College votes and send them back to the states.
The new Pence text was quickly edited out. White House attorney Eric Herschmann didn’t want to include the line, saying it would be counterproductive “to discuss the matter publicly,” Miller recalled. So the speechwriters removed it.
That didn’t last long. After a phone call that morning between Trump and Pence, in which Pence yet again refused to reject Electoral College votes and Trump called him a “[P-word],” Trump sent an all-caps email later obtained by the committee: “REINSERT THE MIKE PENCE LINES.”
Fears of what could happen on Jan. 6 spread among some White House staff — including, apparently, presidential daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump. Julie Radford, Ivanka’s chief of staff, recalled in a videotaped deposition that Ivanka had heard that her father had called Pence “an expletive word,” that she could tell he was “angry and upset” and thought she might be able to calm him down before his speech. (Ivanka denied this account to the committee.)
“She felt like she might be able to help calm the situation down, at least before he went on the stage,” Radford recalled.
Alas, not only did Trump keep the scripted line attacking Pence, he added several more provocations: While Pence was mentioned just once in the speech script, Trump ad-libbed seven more mentions of the vice president. The same went for Trump’s call to march to the Capitol: A single scripted mention became four mentions, including one pledge — later unfulfilled, despite what the committee has shown were Trump’s best efforts — that Trump would join the marchers at the Capitol.
Trump made additional changes, adding references to fighting and being strong, for example. After the Capitol attack, Trump and his supporters focused on his single use of the word “peacefully.” That, Murphy said, was scripted. [LOL, so “peacefully” was written by the speech writers … and all the threats, the attacks against Pence, and the rest of the rile-the-mob-up stuff—that was all Trump.
One of the ad-libbed changes appeared to closely echo a line Trump allegedly said the night prior.
According to former White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, Trump was in an unusually good mood the night before the attack, listening to the raucous rally at Freedom Plaza. Matthews said he looked to the staffers in the Oval Office and asked for ideas on how “we can make the RINOs do the right thing.”
The next morning, he appeared to have answered that question in one of the ad-libbed lines in his speech: “We’re going to try and give our Republicans — the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help — we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue!”
[…] Raskin said at the Tuesday hearing that the group “gain[ed] access to the building through a junior White House staffer,” and walked into the Oval Office to greet Trump.
To get there, Powell had to pass by Herschmann, the Trump adviser.
“How the hell did Sidney get in the building?” Herschmann asked at the time, according to an account published in Axios in February 2021. He called Cipollone.
In a recorded interview, Powell told the Jan. 6 committee through swigs of Diet Dr. Pepper that she and her entourage – including Flynn, a former general advocating for military intervention to keep Trump in power – only had around 10 or 15 minutes alone with Trump before Cipollone showed up.
“He set a new land speed record,” Powell deadpanned.
Powell began to lay out her argument: Trump needed to seize the voting machines, and he had the authority to do it. A 2018 executive order about sanctioning foreign actors for election interference would fit the purpose – all Trump needed to do was assert his authority, and, perhaps, appoint Powell herself special counsel.
In his own videotaped interview with the committee, Cipollone described walking in to the Oval Office and finding Powell, Flynn, and a character unknown to him sitting around Trump. The new guy was Byrne, the Overstock.com CEO who later wrote a blog post about the meeting and the “bottle cap-sized Swedish meatballs” that he and Trump shared during the meeting.
“The first thing I did was I walked in and I looked at [Byrne] and I said, ‘Who are you?” Cipollone recalled to the panel. “And he told me. I don’t think any of these people were providing the president with good advice and so I didn’t understand how they had gotten in.”
The brigade of the saner had arrived.
It was Cipollone, Trump adviser Derek Lyons, and Herschmann, who recalled asking Powell whether she was “claiming the Democrats are working with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelans, whoever else?”
“At one point, Gen. Flynn took out a diagram that supposedly showed IP addresses all over the world, who was communicating with who over the machines, and some comment about Nest thermostats over the internet,” Herschmann added in his interview with the committee.
That particular conspiracy theory – that the enemies of the United States threw the election for Biden via hacking Nest thermostats – burrowed its way into the DOJ via Jeffrey Clark, the Trump flunkie who mounted a failed attempt to enlist federal law enforcement in Trump’s attempt to stay in power.
From there, the meeting devolved into shouting and screaming. [Ha! Hard to imagine a “meeting” that was already off the reality train could devolve, but devolve it did.]
“You’re quitting! You’re a quitter! You’re not fighting!” Flynn screamed at Herschmann, per Axios, before adding to Trump: “Sir, we need fighters.”
Herschmann, Axios reported, at first tried to ignore Flynn, before losing his temper.
“Why the fuck do you keep standing up and screaming at me?” he shouted at the former general. “If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down.”
Byrne also joined in, telling Herschmann that he was a “quitter” and addressing Trump directly: “They’ve already abandoned you,” the Overstock CEO said, referring to Cipollone, Herschmann, and Lyons.
“Do you even know who the fuck I am, you idiot?” Herschmann told Byrne, per Axios.
“Yeah, you’re Patrick Cipollone,” Byrne reportedly replied.
To which Herschmann retorted: “Wrong! Wrong, you idiot!”
Rudy Giuliani had ambled in by that point, and recalled the exchanges to the committee.
“I’m going to categorically describe it as, ‘you guys are not tough enough,’” Giuliani said. “Or maybe I put it another way, ‘you’re a bunch of [P-word, plural].’”
Meanwhile, the three lawyers were pressing Powell as Trump looked on: If she was so certain, why had 60 judges – many of them Trump appointees – rejected her and Trump’s claims about fraud in the election?
“Where is the evidence?” Cipollone asked, describing Powell’s response as a “general disregard for the importance of backing up what you say.” [Nice understatement.]
Herschmann recalled Powell saying that “the judges are corrupt.”
“I was like, ‘every one? Every single case in the country that you guys have done in the country? That you have lost? Every one of them is corrupt?’” Herschmann asked Powell. “Even the ones we appointed?”
Flynn and Powell, per Axios, started attacking the DOJ and the FBI at that point, saying that they were corrupt and out to get Trump.
Herschmann, per Axios, brought it closer to home for Flynn, who undid his guilty plea as Trump’s DOJ intervened to try to exonerate him.
“Listen, the same people that you’re trashing, if they didn’t produce the Brady material to Sidney, your ass would still be in jail!” Herschmann reportedly said.
Powell, in her testimony, seemed hurt by the interaction.
“If it had been me sitting in [Trump]’s chair, I would’ve fired them all that night and had them escorted out of the building,” Powell whimpered to the committee, adding that the attorneys “showed nothing but contempt and disdain for the President.” [LOL. It was more they showed nothing but contempt and disdain for her … and she had earned it.]
Trump and his White House advisers migrated to the Yellow Oval Room – an upstairs room.
“At the end of the day we landed where we started the meeting at least from a structural standpoint which was Sydney Powell was fighting, Mike Flynn was fighting,” Lyons recalled. “They were looking for avenues that would enable and result in President Trump remaining President Trump for a second term.”
Trump was still pushing to name Powell special counsel. He, the committee said, asked Cipollone whether he had the authority to appoint her, whether she could get the needed security clearances.
Cipollone purportedly said yes, but told the committee that he wasn’t certain whether Powell thought she had already been appointed.
The committee was mostly silent on how Trump reacted to all this. Axios reported that he said of Powell, “At least she’s out there fighting.”
Powell, in turn, recalled Trump turning to her after being told that everyone would ignore Powell as special counsel.
“You see what I deal with? I deal with this all the time,” she recalled Trump saying.
Excerpts from Wonkette’s coverage of today’s hearing held by the January 6 Committee:
[…] Vice Chair Cheney gives her opening statement, says they finally bagged Cipollone as a witness and will show some of his testimony today as we discuss the events between December 14 and January 7.
“We have seen a change in how witnesses and lawyers approach this committee,” she says, since the hearings have now proved that there was no election fraud, and that Trump knew it. Trumpland lawyers have come up with a new strategy to scapegoat “the crazies,” like John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell.
“President Trump is a 76yo man, he is not a child,” she said, adding that “Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind,” particularly since he had better information than anyone.
[…] LOL, we’re getting video ofJustice Antonin Scalia’s son, who worked in the Trump White House, saying HELL NO THERE WAS NO FRAUD. Plus a cameo from Patsy Baloney saying he told Trump in December it was time to concede.
[…] Now we’re on to the December 18 meeting where Powell tried to get herself appointed Special Counsel.
COMMITTEE COUNSEL: Pat, what did you think about the plan to seize voting machines.
CIPOLLONE: Terrible idea! I don’t understand why I have to tell you that’s a terrible idea.
COMMITTEE COUNSEL: How about Special Counsel Krakenhead?
CIPOLLONE: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck no. [obviously, some paraphrasing by Wonkette, but the tone is spot on]
COMMITTEE COUNSEL: Any evidence of substantial election fraud?
CIPOLLONE: Bupkiss.
[…] Raskin shows an email from Giuliani’s “investigator” Bernie Kerik proving that he knew before January 6 that there was absolutely no evidence of election fraud. Then Jason Miller and Trump’s campaign lawyer Justin Clark, who still represents him today, saying that there was ZERO evidence, and they all told Trump that.
Of course, none of them said at the time PEACE OUT, I’M NOT GOING TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS CHARADE ANYMORE.
[…] Powell said Trump asked if he could make Sidney Powell Special Counsel and give her security clearance, and Cipollone said you can name her whatever you want, but no one is going to pay any attention to her.
“I don’t know what her understanding of what she had been appointed to, in my understanding she wasn’t appointed to anything,” Cipollone said. He concedes that there might have been a verbal order, but everyone just ignored it, and Trump was too dumb to realize that he had to, like, sign something.
LOL, democracy saved by paperwork!
And now we’re on to Sidney Powell invoking the “I’m full of shit defense” in the Dominion Voting defamation lawsuit.
[…] Raskin says that after Trump’s December 19 tweet, Women for America First moved their planned January 22 rally to January 6, and wackos like Alex Jones and Tim Pool started hyping the rally. Cool footage of Mike Bracken, a rightwing commentator, saying that “we know the rules of engagement, if you have enough people, you can push down any wall.”
[…] Day of the Rope? That’s some Turner Diaries shit directly sparked by Trump and his call for violence.
Not to distract from the fine Trump supporter calling to kill “every last Democrat down to the last man woman and child.”
Woof! Okay, ten minute recess. Barf amongst yourselves.
[…] We’re back, and the witnesses are here at the table. Looks like Van Tatenhove wore his good shirt for the occasion.
[He wore a Milo Goes to College shirt.
[…] Raskin introduces video testimony from Donell Harvin, former chief of DC office of DHS, showing that, immediately after the “wild protest” tweet, they started to see coordination between the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters to overturn the election results. [Wow!]
Raskin connects the militia groups to Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, shows video of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes calling for war, and video of the Proud Boys in DC in December promising “we will be back in January.”
[…] Former Oath Keepers lawyer Kelly Sorelle concedes that Stone, Alex Jones, and Ali Alexander were corralling the extremist groups. [Wow!]
Murphy calls out Trump and his advisors, who knew that they were bringing violent groups into DC.
Katrina Pierson, Trump’s longtime advisor, concedes that Trump “likes the crazies” because they would be “vicious in public defending him.”
We’re getting to the power struggle between Pierson and a faction led by Don Jr’s ladyfriend Kim Guilfoyle over letting “the crazies” like Jones and Alexander speak at the rally because of their demonstrated potential for violence.
Here’s a draft tweet calling for supporters to march on the Capitol. There was no permit for that march, but it’s clear that they were always planning to do it. [Wow!]
Here’s a message from Amy Kremer of Women for America First referring to it, swearing him to secrecy because otherwise she’d be in trouble with the Parks people who issued her the Ellipse permit.
She also makes reference to a December 21 meeting of multiple Republican Reps with the White House in which they referred to the march on the Capitol. This was ALWAYS the plan. [Wow!]
[…] Lots of testimony from Trump’s comms team, including Judd Deere, Nick Luna, and Shealeah Craighead about how psyched Trump was on the morning of January 6. Sarah Matthews quotes Trump wondering if they’ll be able to “make the RINOs do the right thing,” while Deere says Trump asked if the Republican members of congress will “be with him.”
Cut to footage of Roger Stone, Ali Alexander, and Alex Jones and the rest of the weirdos, who had been shunted to the January 5 rally.
“1776 is always an option,” Alexander screamed, promising that “these degenerates in this country are going to give us what we want, or we are going to shut this thing down.”
For the record, “1776 returns” was a plan floating around the Proud Boys and the militia groups, to occupy DC and take over the government.
[…] Stephen Miller says that attorney Eric Herschmann got them to take out language attacking Vice President Pence in his Ellipse speech. Trump put it back in.
ravensays
Elon Musk says more stupid stuff.
That is that the world is running out of people.
Meanwhile in realityland, the latest UN population projections have the world population growing by 2 billion more people to 10 billion by 2100.
Given that on a (rare) good day, our planning horizons in the USA are one election cycle of 2 years, 2100 might as well be forever.
And who can say that 10 billion people is better than 4 billion people? It was 4 billion people when I was growing up and no one noticed any lack of people. What we had was more opportunities and more wild spaces.
The world is under huge stresses right now in its ecology and quality of life at 8 billion. A century more of that doesn’t look too appealing to many of us.
One week after Elon Musk talked about an ‘underpopulation crisis,’ the UN says the world population is set to continue growing until 2100
Tristan Bove Mon, July 11, 2022, 10:28 AM PDT
Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that declining birth rates present “the biggest danger civilization faces by far.” But it looks like it will be a few decades at least before population collapse will begin posing a problem.
A new report by the United Nations released on Monday says that while the rate of new people being born around the world is certainly slowing down, the global population is expected to continue growing for many more decades.
That seems to contradict Elon Musk’s warnings that underpopulation and declining birth rates present an imminent existential threat to our civilization.
Musk is now reportedly the parent of nine known children from three women, after Insider broke news last week that he had secretly fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at his neurotechnology company Neuralink.
Musk seemed to confirm that the children were his with a tweet saying he was “doing my best to help curb the underpopulation crisis.” But the tongue-and-cheek response is just the latest in a long series of musings by the tech entrepreneur on the future of humanity’s population growth rate, and the risk of an imminent “population collapse.”
“The biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse,” Musk said in 2019, referring to evidence of multiple countries around the world experiencing an accelerating decline in birth rates.
Here’s what the United Nations has to say on global population growth’s prospects.
An underpopulation crisis?
Musk is right in that the global pace of population growth is starting to slow, and that fertility rates in several countries—including the U.S.—are dropping, but the world is hardly running the risk of having fewer people.
The UN expects the global population to reach 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050. By the end of the century, the organization estimates that there will be 10.4 billion people on the planet.
Last year, the U.S. birth rate fell to its lowest point in over a century, while recent census data suggests that the population of older adults could begin to outnumber children before 2040. Other countries, including Japan, China, and South Korea, have also seen record drops in birth rates in recent years.
But declining fertility rates—the average number of children a woman in a specific country is expected to have over her lifetime—are not necessarily a sign of coming population collapse.
“With roughly 83 million people being added to the world’s population every year, the upward trend in population size is expected to continue, even assuming that fertility levels will continue to decline,” the UN wrote about its 2017 population forecast report.
Birth rates are only part of the story
Musk has warned that declining birth rates and aging populations are some of his biggest concerns for the future of humanity, and several countries are indeed experiencing some important demographic shifts.
The 2022 UN report forecasted that 61 countries are likely to experience a 1% drop in population by 2050, largely in countries with developed economies seeing a slowdown in fertility rates.
But other countries are expected to see their population explode in the coming decades, according to the UN, eight of which will be responsible for more than half of the projected growth in global population from now to 2050: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania. India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country as soon as next year.
Elon Musk’s views on population have largely been at odds with those of the scientific community, who have pointed out that fast population growth in Africa and South Asia will likely exacerbate existing challenges surrounding food insecurity in these regions.
In 2020, the UN warned that 820 million people in the world experience hunger on a daily basis, and that growing populations in vulnerable regions could see higher rates of hunger in the coming decades due to climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and pollution.
Even in high-income countries with low fertility rates, immigration from parts of the world with much higher birth rates will likely make up for the fewer births, the report says.
“Over the next few decades, migration will be the sole driver of population growth in high-income countries. By contrast, for the foreseeable future, population increase in low-income and lower-middle-income countries will continue to be driven by an excess of births over deaths,” the UN wrote.
Chances are, most Americans have not heard of Steven Dettelbach, but for those concerned about enforcing the nation’s gun laws, his ATF confirmation vote yesterday was an important breakthrough. NBC News reported:
The Senate voted 48-46 on Tuesday to confirm Steven Dettelbach to be the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, making him the first permanent leader of the agency since 2015. Dettelbach, who was a U.S. attorney in Ohio during the Obama administration, will lead a law enforcement agency tasked with overseeing firearms in the wake of numerous high-profile mass shootings and a new federal gun violence prevention law.
During the confirmation process, Dettelbach received overwhelming support from law enforcement leaders, former ATF leaders, police organizations, and several dozen former federal prosecutors — including some from Republican administrations.
And yet, 96 percent of Senate Republicans voted against him anyway.
This was not a situation in which GOP lawmakers raised concerns about Dettelbach’s qualifications; this was a political dynamic in which nearly all Senate Republicans effectively said they’d oppose anyone nominated to lead the ATF, regardless of qualifications.
[…] Senate Republicans didn’t even confirm Donald Trump’s nominee to lead ATF — and GOP senators generally saw themselves as little more than rubber stamps for whatever Trump wanted.
The trouble, of course, is that Republicans feared Trump’s nominee might enforce the nation’s gun laws, and the party wasn’t prepared to let that happen. Indeed, practically every GOP senator for a decade and a half has opposed every nominee to lead the agency.
That’s the nub of the problem right there. Republican Senators were worried that any ATF director would enforce the nation’s gun laws. As inadequate as our guns laws are, Republicans still don’t want any of them enforced, though they sometimes claim they do.
They could not, however, derail Dettelbach’s nomination.
As for why you should care, having a rare, confirmed ATF director is likely to make a substantive difference. As The New Republic’s Daniel Strauss wrote ahead of yesterday’s vote, “the agency will finally be run by someone with full authority (and bipartisan blessing) to do things like distribute the agency’s resources to its inspection officers or tracing tools for tracking guns found at crime scenes. With Biden’s proposed budgetary increase to the agency, a Director Dettelbach could use those funds to focus more on gun dealers who are breaking the law. Nothing of what Dettelbach or any ATF director could do concerns taking guns away from lawful owners, as the gun lobby likes to allege. It just involves stopping lawbreakers with guns, something that is sorely needed right now.”
Last year, Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, the chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said in reference to an ATF nominee, “The first thing you’ve got to do is stop the guy that’s going to enforce the laws.” [saying the quiet part out loud!]
Yesterday, most GOP senators went along with this approach, but President Joe Biden’s nominee was confirmed anyway.
raven @363, I’m beginning to think that we should never quote Elon Musk about anything. He seems to be narrow-minded across a wide range of subjects.
In other news: The parts of the Jan. 6 plot Team Trump tried to keep under wraps
New York Times:
[…] Trump attempted to make the Jan. 6, 2021, march on the Capitol appear spontaneous even as he and his team intentionally assembled and galvanized a violence-prone mob to disrupt certification of his electoral defeat, the House committee investigating the attack showed on Tuesday.
Commentary:
The plan was for Trump to not only assemble the crowd, but also to deploy and join it. This simply wasn’t widely shared, however, even inside the White House.
The hearing highlighted a text from a Jan. 6 rally organizer, for example, who said Trump would have his followers march to the Capitol, though the then-president would pretend “to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”
The details, the organizer added, “cannot get out,” because other government agencies would object.
There was even a draft tweet, which documents show Trump personally saw ahead of Jan. 6, in which the Republican planned to tell his followers his rally would soon after be followed by a “march to the Capitol.”
The missive ultimately wasn’t published, but the point is that the then-president and his team planned to dispatch his summoned mob to the Capitol, and they were careful not to share this with others.
The Times’ report added, “For more than a year, Mr. Trump and his defenders have described the violence at the Capitol as a freewheeling peaceful protest gone awry. But the hearing on Tuesday laid out how the former president took a guiding role not only in bringing the mob fueled by his election lies to Washington that day, but also in the plan to direct it up to Capitol Hill, disregarding the advice of his closest aides.”
Indeed, this was a bizarre scenario in which the sitting president and members of his team had to keep parts of the federal government in the dark about his own plans precisely because he was acting against his own government’s interests.
Trump knew he was assembling a mob based on a lie. He knew the mob was armed. He knew he intended to dispatch the mob and have it descend on Congress. He knew top members of his own White House were vehemently opposed to all of this — fearing, among other things, being charged “with every crime imaginable.”
But Trump and members of his political operation quietly proceeded anyway.
Keep this in mind the next time someone on the right suggests the riot was simply a protest that spontaneously got out of hand.
Three days before the 2020 election, Steve Bannon explained that Donald Trump could not lose. Because if he did lose, Trump intended to declare victory anyway. Then Trump would use the power of his position to simply overturn the election results.
Mother Jones has laid their hands on more than an hour of audio recordings between Bannon and supporters of exiled Chinese oligarch and Mar-a-Lago member Guo Wengui. The recording was made on the evening of Oct. 31, 2020, at a point when the polls showed President Joe Biden about to easily defeat Trump.
In that recording, Bannon lays everything out neatly for the group of mostly Chinese immigrants. After explaining the electoral process and how Trump had worked to ensure that Republicans would use mail-in ballots less than Democrats, Bannon rolled straight into how that could be turned into a means of stealing the election.
“What Trump’s gonna do, is just declare victory,“ said Bannon. “Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”
[…] Bannon makes no claim at all that Trump will actually win. Instead, Bannon explains that using a momentary advantage Trump enjoys because early returns favor Republicans, he will simply claim victory at a point when he holds an advantage in key states.
“As it sits here today,” said Bannon, “at 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that.’”
That’s exactly what happened. Though the speed with which his edge disappeared seemed to throw Trump off the track and alter the timing. After tweeting claims of fraud and insisting “don’t believe the polls—Trump is winning,” he angrily stumbled onto the nation’s TV screens after 2 AM to declare that “frankly, we did win this election.” Except by that time it was clear that Biden was well ahead.
None of this plan was exactly secret. Trump spent months making it clear that he intended to attack the whole concept of mail-in ballots, even though he voted by mail-in ballot. Two months before the election, Trump was pushing stories of “Trump ballots being discarded in dumpsters” and claiming that trucks of Biden ballots were driving around the country. In fact, Trump had hit this idea so frequently that polls showed 78% of Trump supporters believed that mail-in ballots led to fraud.
[…] Trump wanted his people out in person, not voting by mail. That result was an actual decrease in requests for Republican mail-in ballots even as Democratic requests were reaching an all-time high.
That’s exactly as Trump wanted it. Get his people to the polls. Claim victory based on the early numbers. Declare the mail-in votes invalid.
The night after Bannon’s talk to the Chinese group, Axios reported that Trump had told his “confidants” that he would declare victory if there was a point in the evening when it looked like he was ahead “even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania.” Specifically:
Trump’s team is preparing to claim baselessly that if that process changes the outcome in Pennsylvania from the picture on election night, then Democrats would have “stolen” the election.
Bannon didn’t just explain to the group that Trump intended to steal the election, he explained how the work he, Trump, and Rudy Giuliani had done to raise doubts about Biden and to release salacious claims about Hunter Biden had undercut the ability of the electoral process to result in a peaceful transfer of power, saying that any chance “for a peaceful resolution of this is probably gone.”
Instead, Bannon listed three possibilities: Trump won, […] or “either Biden’s up slightly and Trump says he stole it, right, and he’s not leaving. Or it’s undefined and we can’t figure out who’s leading, and Trump’s saying he’s stealing it, and he’s not leaving.”
Trump’s secret plan to undercut the legitimacy of mail-in ballots and claim victory based on early results wasn’t exactly secret. He not only spent months doing it openly, he even did this when looking at the 2016 results. What’s important about Bannon’s statement is both the clear admission that Trump intended to steal the election, and that he had no intention of leaving the White House.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russian artillery and rockets pounded the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut overnight and into Wednesday morning in what some sources speculated was a reprisal for a Ukrainian attack using a US-supplied Himars missile system on a Russian air defence site in Luhansk.
Others suggested the shelling could signal a renewed Russian offensive aimed at cities in Donetsk province.
In one video posted on social video around midnight from outside Bakhmut, constant rocket strikes can be seen illuminating the night sky and a woman’s voice is heard saying: “My mother is there! Fuck, fuck, fucking hell.”
A man named Nikolai says: “Everything is on fire. They hit the power lines.”
As the woman speaks again, apparently wanting to borrow a phone to call her mother, the man interjects. “Your mum is fucked. It’s Stupky [that’s getting hit],” he says, referring to a northern area of Bakhmut.
Describing the situation on his Telegram channel, the Donetsk governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Russian forces were “constantly shelling the entire free territory of Donetsk region [with] Bakhmut district suffering the most”.
According to Kyrylenko, one person died and five more were injured in the town, which has largely been evacuated.
ST. PAUL —A district court judge declared a slate of Minnesota laws restricting abortions unconstitutional Monday morning, finding that the state’s constitutional protection of abortion prevented it from requiring minors to notify their parents or forcing patients to undergo a waiting period before getting an abortion.
The 140-page ruling, issued by Ramsey County District Court Judge Thomas Gilligan in a case brought by abortion providers and advocates in 2019, invalidates a number of state laws which Gilligan found restricted Minnesotans’ constitutional right to abortions, established by the state’s high court in the 1995 case Doe v. Gomez….
In recognizing Gomez, Gilligan glanced askew at the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which removed the constitutional right to abortion created by Roe v. Wade in 1973.
“Unlike the Dobbs Court, which threw out nearly fifty years of precedent, this court must respect the precedent set by the Minnesota Supreme Court in Gomez,” he wrote. “That precedent will guide the court’s decisions in this case.”
Among the challenged rules was what Gilligan called the “physician-only law” – which requires that abortion care be provided only by physicians and cuts out clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwifes and physician assistants – in addition to the “hospitalization law,” which requires that any abortions after the first trimester be conducted in a hospital or licensed abortion facility, for which no licensure mechanism currently exists.
The judge also invalidated rules requiring providers to alert both of a minor’s parents 48 hours before performing an abortion and to tell would-be abortion patients about the possible risks of receiving abortions, the gestational age of the fetus being aborted and whether anesthetic or analgesics would “eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child” at least 24 hours before the abortion as part of the informed consent process, along with informing them that fathers are liable for child support, that medical assistance benefits might be available to the patient and that the patient can examine information provided by the Department of Health on abortions.
“The current information in the Health Department’s informational booklet,” Gilligan noted, “contradicts the information included in the Mandatory Disclosure Law.” The law, for instance, required doctors to warn of a risk of breast cancer, which the booklet said was not supported by research.
[…]
… Shayla Walker, executive director of the abortion fund Our Justice, said in a statement. “In light of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, every piece of red tape matters for Minnesotans and people traveling to Minnesota for abortion care.”
Asked whether she believed Attorney General Keith Ellison, a vocally pro-abortion rights Democrat, would pursue an appeal, Toti [an attorney representing the plaintiff] declined to speculate.
Ellison himself said that his office had not yet made a decision on whether to appeal. “I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I also have the duty to defend Minnesota statutes,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
“We’re taking a good strong look at the decision,” Ellison said, adding that he didn’t believe that he was “duty-bound” to appeal.
Ellison has 60 days to decide whether to appeal the decision.
A Moscow court has ordered one of the last prominent opposition figures still in Russia, Ilya Yashin, to be detained for two months pending an investigation into the spreading of “fake information” about Russia’s army.
“Do not be afraid of these scoundrels! Russia will be free!” Yashin shouted in court after the judge ruled to keep him in prison until 12 September.
Yashin, a Moscow city councillor and an ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, was charged with “discrediting” the Russian army. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information” about Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
Navalny, who is able to post on Twitter through his lawyers and allies, demanded the immediate release of Yashin and said he had spoken the truth about what was going on in Ukraine.
Days before he was first detained, Yashin, 39, had vowed to stay in Russia despite the looming threat of arrest for his outspoken criticism of President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Sitting smiling in the defendant’s glass box, Yashin said:
This is a politically motivated case from the first to the last page.
Last week, an opposition councillor was sentenced to seven years in jail by a court in Moscow for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war.
Concerts et spectacles annulés, directions de théâtre limogées, amendes ou arrestations d’artistes engagés : la reprise en main du monde de la culture orchestrée par le Kremlin depuis le début de la guerre en Ukraine plonge les créateurs russes dans un cas de conscience : faut-il partir pour pouvoir s’exprimer librement ou rester coûte que coûte pour continuer à résister de l’intérieur ?…
Here are three takeaways from the first ballot numbers.
1) The results confirm that Rishi Sunak is the frontrunner amongst MPs. He had 55 publicly declared supporters, he has comfortably outperformed that total, and he is comfortably ahead of his nearest rival. He is also well placed to scoop up many of Jeremy Hunt’s votes, because he has (perhaps improbably) become the lead candidate for the Tory leftish/mainstream who were Hunt’s main backers.
2) But the real story is that these results firm up Penny Mordaunt’s credentials as the ‘Stop Sunak’ candidate. She had 38 publicly declared votes previously, and is now well ahead of Liz Truss. It is hard – but not impossible – to see how she does not get onto the final ballot for party members, and current polling suggests she would then win by a mile. (See 2.47pm.) That might change, of course; her campaign could implode over the next few weeks. But she looks like even more of a favourite than she was.
3) Liz Truss, who at one point was seen as favourite to succeeed Boris Johnson, is struggling. Her pitch has been that she was the candidate most capable of defeating Sunak. But she can no longer make that case on the basis of these results, and it is not even obvious that she should remain the lead candidate for the Tory right. Between them, Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman have more votes than she does. The pressure for the right to agree on a candidate who can get onto the final ballot will intensify. Braverman may be tempted to pull out before the ballot tomorrow (she probably won’t get any votes from Hunt supporters, and Nadhim Zahawi’s backers will want to transfer to someone more successful). But Badenoch may well decide to contest at least one more round.
The main focus over the next few hours will be on what the weaker performers still in the contest decide to do. Braverman will come under pressure to concede. Tom Tugenhat may stay in – he would pick up some Hunt votes – but he may decide that now it’s time to cut his losses, and endorse Sunak when he has maximum bargaining power. Badenoch is having a good run, and it would be surprising if she were to quit now.
Our guest today is sociologist and author, Doctor Andrew Scull. Andrew is a professor of Sociology and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and recipient of the Roy Porter Medal for lifetime contributions to the history of medicine and the Eric T. Carlson Award for lifetime contributions to the history of psychiatry.
The author of more than a dozen books, his work has been translated into more than fifteen languages and he has received fellowships from, among others, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies.
In this interview, we discuss his latest book, Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness, published by Harvard [University] Press in May 2022.
Dirk Wittenborn, the screenwriter and novelist, described the book as “A riveting chronicle of faulty science, false promises, arrogance, greed, and shocking disregard for the wellbeing of patients suffering from mental disorders. An eloquent, meticulously documented, clear-eyed call for change.”
Podcast and transcript at the link. From the end of the transcript:
Moore: Was there anything else that you felt important to share with the listeners?
Scull: I did talk a little bit about the disproportionate treatment of women, that’s also true along racial lines and that’s something we haven’t mentioned. You can see it across time. In the south, when mental hospitals were built pre-Civil War, black people were kept out. There was no reason to waste money on slaves.
When the hospital system expanded in the late 19th Century, either one of two things happened; black patients were segregated and separated or separate asylums were built for the “colored insane.” Separate but equal, of course, means nothing of the sort. It’s separate, all right, but it’s deeply unequal. If mental hospitals for white patients were often hellhole snake pits, for black patients they were even worse. One can trace this all the way to the present.
We’ve talked about the ejection of patients into a community with no real effort to supply the necessary social support and the cycling of patients into jails. That, again, disproportionately affects blacks and especially black males who are seen as distinctly threatening. In the LA County Jail, for example, in the county, about 11% of the population is African American. In the prisons, it’s about 30%. Of those diagnosed with serious mental health problems, it’s about 45%. You can see that historical trajectory that we’ve talked about being replicated again in the present.
Mark Meadows couldn’t substantiate conspiracy theories about election fraud, so decided it was time to get creative — and push the constitutional envelope.
When Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the Jan. 6 committee two weeks ago, she didn’t do Mark Meadows — her former boss — any favors. This was a televised event in which the former presidential chief of staff’s top deputy shared stunning revelations from inside Donald Trump’s White House.
Among the problems for Meadows was Hutchinson’s insights about his apparent indifference as the threat of violence grew, and Meadows’ alleged pursuit of a pardon ahead of Inauguration Day 2021.
Yesterday, however, things got a little worse for the former White House chief of staff.
We saw testimony from former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, for example, who told investigators that Meadows told him that Trump would “eventually agree to a graceful exit.” At the same time, Meadows was enabling Trump’s nonsense and fully expecting the opposite.
What’s more, as part of yesterday’s proceedings, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin explained that Meadows told associates that Trump should concede defeat around the time the Electoral College certified the results of the 2020 election — but that didn’t stop Meadows from moving forward with Trump’s larger scheme. The committee aired these previously undisclosed comments from Hutchinson:
“During this period, he — I perceived his goal with all of this to keep Trump in office. You know, he had very seriously and deeply considered the allegations of voter fraud. But when he began acknowledging that maybe there wasn’t enough voter fraud to overturn the election, you know, I witnessed him start to explore potential constitutional loopholes more extensively, which I then connected with John Eastman’s theories.”
In other words, according to his top deputy and investigators’ findings, Meadows couldn’t substantiate his boss’ wild-eyed conspiracy theories, and so, unable to prove election fraud, the then-chief of staff decided it was time to get creative and push the constitutional envelope.
For those making a list of Trump insiders who knew he lost, but who proceeded with the plot to keep Trump in power anyway, be sure to put Meadows near the top.
Of course, he wasn’t alone. Raskin also shined a light yesterday on a letter the committee received from Bernie Kerik’s lawyer (Kerik was Rudy Giuliani’s lead investigator in the post-election period). The letter conceded that Kerik found it “impossible” to collect actual evidence of fraud that would’ve changed the outcome of the election.
Or put another way, even Giuliani’s team knew they hadn’t collected evidence to prove their conspiracy theories — but like Meadows, they proceeded anyway. […]
Trump never had a moral center. All of the enablers around him lost what moral center they may have once had.
Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* In Michigan, a new poll commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV found Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer with a 55 percent approval rating and sizable leads over each of leading the Republican candidates vying to replace her. The News’ report on the results added the poll “raise doubts about whether a Republican wave will make landfall in Michigan.” [Yay! Good news.]
* On a related note, the poll found Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Democratic incumbent attorney general, and Jocelyn Benson, the incumbent Democratic secretary of state, also leading their GOP rivals, but by more modest margins.
* Though the latest New York Times/Siena College poll found President Joe Biden’s approval rating reaching new lows, the same survey found Democrats narrowly leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 41 percent to 40 percent.
* In Georgia’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Republican Herschel Walker didn’t just make bizarre comments about climate change once, he’s apparently repeating the ridiculous rhetoric over and over again at campaign events. [aiyiyiyi, I am so tired of this nonsense]
[…] * Election conspiracy theorists don’t just peddle ridiculous claims about Democrats: In Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial primary, Kari Lake told supporters this week that she suspects Karrin Taylor Robson, her GOP primary rival, might be trying “set the stage” to “steal” the election. [FFS]
A man in Minnesota was federally charged with fraud on Tuesday after he vandalized his own home, falsely claimed he’d been targeted for being a Trump supporter and then tried to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance for what he called an “Arson Hate Crime.”
According to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, 29-year-old Denis Vladmirovich Molla of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota set fire to his camper that was parked on his residence and spray painted “Biden 2020,” “BLM” (the acronym for Black Lives Matter) and an Antifa symbol on his garage door on Sept. 23, 2020.
Molla falsely told the police that “three unknown males were near his home when he heard an explosion” and saw that the camper had been set on fire “because,” he claimed, “it had a Trump 2020 flag displayed on it,” the indictment said.
“In reality, as Molla well knew, Molla started his own property on fire, Molla spray-painted the graffiti on his own property and there were no unknown males near his home,” the prosecutors alleged in the indictment.
Afterwards, Molla allegedly made a $300,000 claim to an insurance company identified in the indictment as “Victim Insurance Company A” to cover the damage to his garage, camper, vehicles and residence caused by the fire.
The indictment paints a picture of an alleged fraudster who was mighty confident about his scheme: When the insurance company denied some of his claims, not only did Molla allegedly file written complaints to the company accusing it of defrauding him, he also allegedly threatened to report the company to the Department of Commerce and the attorney general.
Molla ultimately collected about $61,000 from the insurance company, according to prosecutors.
Additionally, Molla allegedly solicited donations via two GoFundMe accounts he created to help pay for the damages caused by the so-called “hate crime.” He then allegedly deposited $17,135.94 from GoFundMe into his personal Wells-Fargo bank account in November 2020, the indictment said. […]
WTF? Why did the fraudster collect any money at all? One of the GoFundMe accounts for Molla’s fake hate crime is still up.
Rishi Sunak is discovering that hell hath no fury like the Daily Mail scorned, as the rightwing newspaper dedicates itself to destroying the former chancellor’s bid to be Tory leader.
In the week since Boris Johnson was deposed, the newspaper has remained steadfastly loyal to the outgoing prime minister – and steadfastly opposed to those such as Sunak who helped to force him out of office.
Friday’s front page asked the question “What the hell have they done?” and blamed a party “in the grip of collective hysteria” for forcing a leadership election.
The following day the 1.4 million people who buy the Mail’s Saturday print edition were informed that the MPs who had deposed Johnson – such as Sunak – were “Tory traitors” who had opened the door to Keir Starmer entering Downing Street as leader of “a coalition of chaos”. [LOL]
Boris Johnson’s ministers have “given up on governing”, opposition parties have charged after Priti Patel pulled out of an MPs’ questioning session with minimal notice, while a junior health minister was sent to explain a crisis in ambulance services.
Johnson’s role is now that of a caretaker prime minister, with a brief to implement existing policies but make no significant new decisions. However, there is concern that uninterest inside No 10 plus a huge turnover of ministers has created a power vacuum.
Patel, the home secretary, had been scheduled to update MPs from the Commons home affairs committee on Wednesday morning about policies including progress on deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
But late on Tuesday, Patel said she could not attend because of “recent changes in government”, without apparent elaboration.
tomhsays
Not satisfied with just anti-abortion and pro-guns.
From the first page of the hard-hitting report, available here, that Campaign Legal Center released today:
The time has come to talk about what the Supreme Court is doing to American democracy. For more than half a century—roughly during the second half of the last century—the Court played a pivotal role as a protector of democracy. Then came the Roberts Court, with the arrival of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito in 2005. The Roberts Court has turned on our democracy, choosing in every important case to reach results undermining popular sovereignty and equal voting rights. This behavior has accelerated and become increasingly extreme with the arrival of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The Court has greenlit laws that make it harder to vote, especially for people of color, the poor, and the young, and permitted unbridled gerrymandering to entrench political factions unable to win majority approval. At the same time, the Roberts Court has invalidated or critically weakened laws designed to protect voting rights and reduce the undue influence of money in politics. These decisions, taken together, form a stark and troubling pattern of distorting democracy at every opportunity.
The Court has greenlit laws that make it harder to vote, especially for people of color, the poor, and the young, and permitted unbridled gerrymandering to entrench political factions unable to win majority approval.
And they have made voting harder for disabled people.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, despite being sidelined by COVID-19, is working the phones from Brooklyn, New York, and pushing to finish a reconciliation bill that includes the remnants of President Joe Biden’s big economic agenda before the August recess. It needs to happen before Sept. 30, when the opportunity to use the currently available budget reconciliation measure expires. And still, Sen. Joe Manchin remains the obstacle.
[Joe Manchin] is now musing to the press about whether this is even a tool that should be deployed to pass an agenda because, of course, “bipartisan” bullshit. “[I]f I’m just doing something on one party line or the other party line, I’m not better than the rest.” He also says they’re really not close to a deal. “There’s a lot of talk and considerations going on and back and forth,” he told The New York Times, adding that the climate legislation they are considering—get this—has to increase the supply of fossil fuels to bring down gas prices.
So, no, he’s definitely not better than the rest. His main battle now appears to be stripping additional tax credits for electric vehicles out of the bill. The only explanation for doing so is because the American Petroleum Institute is vehemently opposed, and because Manchin is their favorite senator. He’s received more campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry than any other senator.
[snipped details about Josh Gottheimer, another reactionary “Democrat” trying to strip higher corporate taxes out of the bill!] Manchin is also holding up solving a crucial problem for Democrats ahead of the midterm: keeping Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance affordable for about 13 million people. West Virginians face some of the highest costs for insurance if Democrats don’t fix it. […] the premium costs insurance companies are setting for next year are going up in every state. The average premium increase thus far is about 10%, but it’s as high as 20.7% in Washington, D.C. [disdain for poor people, or indifference towards the suffering of poor people … again]
[…] The people it will hurt the most are those who, of course, can least afford it—the people making 150% of the federal poverty level, which is about $20,000 for an individual. Those are primarily people in the non-Medicaid expansion states that were able to purchase insurance, often at zero cost to them, because of the expanded ACA subsides that were created by the American Rescue Plan last year. Without an extension of those subsidies, they’re screwed. [!!!}
But it’s also going to hit the middle class, those at 400% of poverty and up. That’s about $50,000 a year for an individual, and $110,000/year for a family of four. They will have to start paying the full price of premiums if Congress doesn’t act. They’re going to be receiving notices of those hikes starting in September and throughout October ahead of the midterms. [!!!]
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Texas’s deregulated, isolated grid is stressed nearly to breaking by the excessive electricity demand during an extreme weather event because fossil fuel power plants are unexpectedly offline. Wind and solar make sure the light, and A/C stay on, but instead of being championed, they’re maligned as unreliable by fossil fools responsible for the uncertainty in the first place.
[…] ERCOT, for example, sent out a press release in which it asked residents to conserve electricity to keep the grid online during Monday’s heatwave, and blamed unexpectedly low wind power production for the need to reduce demand.
But it turns out that the (solar and) wind generation was exactly what should be expected. Instead, it was 12 gigawatts of oil, gas, coal and nuclear power that was unexpectedly offline, failing to provide power for some 2.4 million homes- two Houston’s worth of power!
Why blame wind power when it was doing fine? “They were trying to produce an excuse if the power went out” and “paint wind as the fall guy,” Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler told a local CBS affiliate.
Not that the unreliability of fossil fuels is solely to blame. Texas could also cut down on the demand placed on the grid with energy efficiency measures. For example, one of the reasons the grid was able to meet demand was because a bunch of Bitcoin miners paused the wasteful energy consumption required to manufacture the digital monopoly money for their Ponzi scheme. (So noble of them to not mine not-so-valuable digital fun money during a time when the cost to do so is through the roof, thanks to Texas’s deregulated energy market!)
That apparently saved a gigawatt of power, recovering approximately 200,000 of the 2.4 million homes worth of energy that fossil fuels failed to provide Texas.
And if they stopped them permanently, then they’d really be doing something good!
Last year, Donald Trump endorsed Alaska GOP Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka as part of his personal vendetta campaign against incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski. Trump has it out for Murkowski because she voted for his second annual impeachment and she’d previously helped stymie his efforts to deprive millions of Americans of healthcare.
Tshibaka, the former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, fully endorses Trump’s Big Lie that widespread voter fraud cost him the election he lost like a big loser. She’s not only rejected democracy but she’s also dismissed the separation of church and state, like such fringe right-wing figures as Rep. Lauren Boebert and the current Supreme Court.
During an appearance this May at the North Kenai Chapel in Kenai, Alaska, Tshibaka declared that God created government and perhaps personally sent Tshibaka to “the harvest field of government.” Her remarks were all pretty standard, really. [LOL]
Right Wing Watch reports:
“Do you know who created government?” Tshibaka asked rhetorically. “Here it is: Genesis 1:28. You got to know your Bible. It’s a story. If you read it the way I read it, it’s the best book ever. ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the Earth.’”
Sit down, please. You won’t believe where she’s going with this.
“‘Subdue’ and ‘rule’ are government words,” she added. “What are we ruling and subduing over? The fish, the birds, and every living thing. Guys, in government, what department is that? God created the Department of Fish and Wildlife Services! I didn’t make it up! It’s right there!”
President Theodore Roosevelt established the Fish and Wildlife Service, and according to our admittedly limited research, he was not God.
We’re not making this up. There’s video: [video at the link]
She goes on for a while:
Isaiah 9:6: “Unto us a child will be born, unto us a son will be given,” and what? “The government will rest on his shoulders.” Well, guys, again, where is God today? Is he in Jerusalem? In a temple? Where are his shoulders? His shoulders are your shoulders. So, if the government rests on his shoulders and we are not in government, helping government, influencing government, if we abdicate government and politics, are we living out Genesis 1 and Isaiah 9? No. So, we’ve got to put this into practice.
Tshibaka is your typical right-wing theocrat who sees religion as a blunt instrument. She skipped any Bible passages that reference compassion or love for one’s neighbor, even if they’re LGBTQ.
Trump held a rally Saturday on behalf of Tshibaka and Sarah Palin, who’s running for the state’s only House seat. A typical theme at these events is that Trump usually just talks about himself when not ranting against his enemies like a madman. He claimed he did more for Alaska than any president in history (Eisenhower might disagree), yet Murkowski, who he called a “piece of garbage,” still voted to impeach him after he incited an attack on the Capitol. He’s truly the victim of every scenario.
We shouldn’t sleep on the chances of Tshibaka winning this race. Fortunately, however, Alaska has ranked-choice voting, which should help Murkowski keep her seat. She won’t even have to bother with a write-in campaign. A recent poll showed Tshibaka leading Murkowski 43 to 35 percent during the first round of results. However, by the third round Murkowski prevails. She benefits from more voters ranking her their second and third choice.
It’s disturbing that Tshibaka is anyone’s first choice.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), determined to rescue her party from the MAGA cult, has gone out of her way to offer her fellow Republicans models of exemplary behavior to follow. Her argument: Don’t copy the example of defeated former president Donald Trump. Look instead to Republican officials who stood up to the defeated former president, such as former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers or even former vice president Mike Pence.
Not sure I agree that that is Liz Cheney’s goal. Might be related, though. She says her goal is to save democracy.
Two rather sad characters conveyed this “you don’t have to keep following Trump blindly” message at the House Jan. 6 select committee’s hearing on Tuesday. One was former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove; the other was Stephen Ayres, who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6. Both appeared deflated, diminished and embarrassed by their association with insurgents based on the “big lie” of a stolen election.
Still, they served two critical roles that those outside the MAGA world have not fully appreciated. First, they showed that a person can admit to being conned. Second, they warned that unless others break free from the violent cult, the United States will remain in deep trouble.
Given how many GOP politicians still spew the “big lie” or run from inquiries about the 2020 election, it was refreshing to see two ordinary Americans admit they now know the election was not stolen and that there was no way short of civil war to reverse the election results.
Ayres explained that he arrived in D.C. on Jan. 6 because of Trump’s invitation. “The president, you know, got everybody riled up,” he said. “So we basically just were following what he said. … I was already worked up, and so were most of the people there.” He now realizes the vast conspiracy theory to steal the election would have been impossible and acknowledges that he was immune to contrary logic because of social media.
Van Tatenhove likewise now recognizes members of the Oath Keepers as “straight-up racists” and he refuses to indulge in the Republican National Committee’s lie that the insurrection was “legitimate political discourse.” As he declared on Tuesday, “We need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths, and what it was going to be was an armed revolution.” He described Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes as “always looking for ways to legitimize what he was doing,” not unlike Trump.
It’s a message Cheney and other sane Republicans fervently want their party to adopt. It was a lie. Move on.
The two witnesses also warned about the consequences of following Trump’s mob. “It definitely changed my life, not for the good,” Ayres said. “Definitely not for the better.” He lost his job and had to sell his home.
Van Tatenhove expanded on some broader lessons: “I think we’ve gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because the potential has been there from the start,” he said. He added, “I do fear for this next election cycle because who knows what that might bring.”
The ongoing threat posed by Trump has not been stressed enough. […]
If more Americans take that message to heart, the hearings will have been well worth the time and effort.
Largely thanks to Donald Trump churning false hysteria about “stolen” elections, poll workers have experienced increased harassment and burnout in recent years. We already know working the polls during election season is fundamentally a labor of love. This is especially true for folks who were able to stay on during the COVID-19 pandemic. But harassment and threats against poll workers are not only scary: They’re also legitimately dangerous. They could also lead to fewer people wanting to take the risk, which could lead to fewer voting stations being open, which could lead to longer lines, which could lead to …. even more difficulty voting, if not fewer people voting outright. It’s a mess, and that’s before we even think about what poll workers in battleground states might face.
Luckily, leaders in at least some places are trying to protect poll workers. In a recent example, as reported by local outlet NBC 15, city leaders in Madison, Wisconsin, have proposed changing the penalty for people convicted of threatening election workers. This would involve increasing the fine for disorderly conduct against an election worker to up to $1,000 per offense.
[…] “The proposed ordinance would give us a more effective tool to catch offensive behavior and stop it before it becomes criminal,” said Haas.
“These are public servants that are just doing their job,” Haas [city attorney Michael Haas] added, per local outlet FOX 11, adding that it’s “unacceptable” to have them constantly dealing with “personal insults and threats.”
There’s considerable research to support the dire need for more protection for poll workers. It’s (obviously) the ethical thing to do, but this data is also important because it reinforces how pervasive the issues are. As covered by Reuters, for example, more than 850 such messages have been sent to election workers since 2020—and almost all of them used Trump’s falsehoods about the election being stolen. Per the outlet, more than 100 of these messages were bad enough to be considered “true threats,” meaning that they pass the federal guideline for criminal charges.
Threats included in this data were bad enough that the recipient could be reasonably afraid of bodily harm or even potential death. These particular threats included more than 40 workers plus their relatives in eight different states—all of which were battleground states.
Threats included in this data were bad enough that the recipient could be reasonably afraid of bodily harm or even potential death. These particular threats included more than 40 workers plus their relatives in eight different states—all of which were battleground states.
As reported by my colleague Aysha Qamar, Washington state, Vermont, and Maine have all introduced legislation to better protect poll workers since the release of that report.
As referenced in the proposal, polling from the Brennan Center for Justice found that about one in six local election officials reported receiving threats because of their job. About three in 10 said they knew someone who left their role because of said harassment and threats.
Again: This is bad and scary for individuals, and for our democracy as a whole. And especially so when we remember there have been kidnapping threats against folks like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And, obviously, the Jan. 6 insurrection. We need to do everything we can to combat voter suppression so people can actually vote and protect the people who keep these places open. It’s all connected, and it’s all a Republican effort to keep people silenced and afraid.
For the first time ever, the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall collection features a Black American.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and members of Congress celebrated the dedication of a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune.
“Dr. Bethune epitomizes the values we hold dear,” said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla). “We lift her up today at a time of competing ideologies to help heal and unify through her example.”
Bethune was born in 1875 in South Carolina, the 15th child of her enslaved mother and father. After her marriage, she moved to Florida, where she would go on to champion racial and gender equality.
In 1904, Bethune opened the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, now Bethune-Cookman University.
She also founded several organizations, including the first Black hospital in Daytona and the National Council of Negro Women. In 1940, she was elected vice president of the NAACP.
“I remember as a little girl listening to my mother and father talk about a Black woman; a woman who looked like us, who started a college, here in Florida. As I listened to the story, it seemed impossible. Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune made what seemed impossible, possible,” said Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) on Twitter.
Bethune’s work spread to the federal government as well. In 1936, she became the highest-ranking Black woman in government after then-President Franklin Roosevelt named her the director of the National Youth Administration’s Division of Negro Affairs.
Roosevelt was one of five presidents Bethune advised in her lifetime.
Lawrence Drake, president of Bethune-Cookman University, said the community “rejoices” in seeing its founder take her “rightful place” among the other distinguished American statues.
“No one could have predicted that this daughter of slaves would create a university, found a powerful political organization, advise presidents and inspire generations,” said Drake. “Her hopeful vision, her hard work, her generous spirit and her deep faith made a lasting and positive mark on our country and the world.”
The 11-foot statue of Bethune features her smiling in a cap and gown, a black rose clutched in her left hand.
All states donate two statues to the Capitol, but Florida requested a change to its donation of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith. Bethune’s statue is the work of Nilda Comas, the first Hispanic master sculptor featured in the hall.
Wonkette: “Republicans Who Want To Control Your Uterus Just Wondering If People Can Give Birth To Tacos”
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform had a hearing Wednesday about the impact of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and freed Republican-controlled states to pass and enforce horrific abortion bans. Unfortunately, Republicans were present so they quickly made this a sideshow where they displayed their medical ignorance and contempt for reproductive freedom.
Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney from New York had invited abortion providers to testify, but some have already become targets of violence and feared sharing their stories publicly. The Republicans who mourned Supreme Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s tragic separation from his dessert last week have expressed little sympathy for these medical professionals.
Maloney warned that Republicans “are not going to stop with Dobbs” and are “openly planning to impose a national ban on abortion.” Those are both facts, but ranking Republican James Comer has some other facts, such as “shut up!” He insisted that Dobbs didn’t “outlaw abortion” but returned the issue to the states. (You know, where gerrymandered GOP legislatures can outlaw abortion against the will of their own constituents. That’s how GOP governance works no matter what level of government it’s on!)
Corner suggested all this fuss over half the nation losing its bodily autonomy is some clever Democratic ruse to “draw attention away from the failures of the Biden administration — failures that have led to skyrocketing inflation, record-high gas prices, a frightening shortage of baby formula and the worst border crisis in the history of America.”
The baby formula shortage hasn’t improved, so that makes this an even worse time to pass forced-birth laws.
Not every Republican at the abortion hearing wanted to avoid discussing abortion, though. After National Women’s Law Center President Fatima Goss Graves testified about the “legal uncertainty and chaos” Mitch McConnell’s favorite Supreme Court unleashed with Dobbs, GOP Rep. Jody Hice asked Graves if people could give birth to turtles. […]
HICE: Are there any instance of a woman giving birth to something that is not a human being, a baby like a turtle, or as our first lady suggested, a breakfast taco.
Yep, they’re still talking about Dr. Jill Biden’s “controversial” breakfast taco remarks. The supposed complaint is that the first lady compared Hispanic people to tacos (she didn’t, actually), but if Hice thinks she did, what the hell is he talking about?
Oh wait, we get it. He’s trying to do a “gotcha” to “trick” panelists into “admitting” that recently fertilized zygotes are FULL HUMAN BEINGS. [video at the link]
Representative Hice’s mother gave birth to a fruitcake.
There was a back-and-forth about personal viability and when a fetus can survive outside the womb. Hice absurdly said, “There are many people who cannot live without insulin. Does that mean we should kill those people who cannot live without insulin?”
This makes me flames-on-the-side-of-my-face angry. No, we don’t summarily execute people who need insulin to survive, but Republicans have zero problem with people dying because they can’t afford insulin. Just a couple months ago, almost every House Republican — including this motherfucker — voted against the Affordable Insulin Now Act, legislation that would’ve capped the price of insulin at $35 a month.
RELATED: It was revealed during the January 6 hearings that Hice was coup-plotting with Trump and other Republicans in December 2020, so it’s somewhat twisted that he’s free to ask Graves insulting questions rather than hiding in Argentina.
But back to today’s witnesses!
Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow discussed the dire implications from a 1931 Michigan state law that makes abortion a felony “with no exception for age, rape, or incest.” She warned, “Not only would doctors and medical professionals be sent to jail, but so too would countless women and girls.” [tweet and video at the link]
She also said:
MCMORROW: I had women reach out to me afraid of even trying to get pregnant, knowing they’re at higher risk of a complicated pregnancy and devastated to think of what might happen.
As the midterms approach, Republicans want to pretend that forced-birth states won’t lock up people for exercising control over their own bodies. They not-so-subtly play to images of white women and children, who we might not imagine the full force of the law crushing. It’s only those naughty abortion providers.
However, Democratic Georgia state Rep. Renitta Shannon wasn’t shy about reminding us how the American justice system treats people of color. [tweet and video at the link]
SHANNON: Our criminal legal system is really good at locking up Black and brown folks and … will likely believe Karen, but not believe Keisha when she says she had a miscarriage.
That’s a sad yet undeniable fact.
Republicans claim to treasure life but they demonstrate little compassion for those who are already here.
StevoRsays
Article that people might find interesting here on the different Western legal systems :
Meant to post it in a comment in old thread ages ago. I do think we should question and look at improving and maybe changing our legal systems and think the issue of the side that has the better lawyers wins rather than the side that has truth and ethics on its side isoen that deserves to be considered and addressed as wellas the whole issue of why should the law presume anything -either innocence or guilt and why not just go onthe best evidence and most likley probabilities? Is it time more western nations switched from the current adverserial legal system to an investigatory one like say France’s? Is that worth considering? I’m not a lawyer and I don’t really know but I also think it shouldn’t be forbidden to ask that and could be worth doing and the law as it is isn’t delivering that much Justice all too often. (For a number of reasons not all of whch would be fixed by such a move but still.)
The Biden administration on Wednesday issued guidance to around 60,000 pharmacies telling them they can’t stop patients from accessing prescribed medication, and that such an action would be considered discrimination.
Some patients, particularly in states that have banned or restricted abortions, have been denied access to specific medication like cancer treatments because they can terminate a pregnancy.
There have been reports of pharmacists denying patients their prescriptions in fear of being prosecuted under state laws that restrict abortion access….
The Department of Health and Human Services has gotten requests from patients who claim their civil rights have been violated, a senior DHS official said on a call with reporters Wednesday….
“Under federal civil rights law, pregnancy discrimination includes discrimination based on current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential or intended pregnancy, and medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth,” an HHS press release reads.
The senior HHS official said federal law supersedes state law, and the department will evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether laws conflict with one another.
“We are committed to ensuring that everyone can access health care, free of discrimination,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in the statement. “This includes access to prescription medications for reproductive health and other types of care.”
ravensays
Another day, another Russian war crime.
Two million Ukrainians have been deported to Russia, including 300,000 or so children.
Very little is known about what happens to them.
They mostly end up in the remotest spots the Russians can find in the arctic and Siberia.
The Guardian July 13, 2022
Zelenskiy: Two million Ukrainians have been forcibly taken to Russia
Russia has forcibly removed nearly 2 million people from Ukraine, including several hundred thousand children, since its invasion of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian are being held in filtration camps in the temporarily Russian-occupied territories, Zelenskiy said in a video address to the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul.
In comments translated by Ukrinform, Zelenskiy said:
Just imagine this number – 2 million people. That’s how many of our people have already been taken to Russia.
Among those who had been forcibly removed from Ukraine and taken to Russia were “several hundred thousand children”, Zelenskiy said. He continued:
No one will name the exact numbers at the moment – all these deported people are deprived of means of communication, their IDs have been taken from them, they are being intimidated and taken them to remote areas of Russia, so that it will be as difficult as possible for them to return home to their Motherland.
Young women were among those being held in so-called filtration camps in occupied territories, he said:
Young women disappear there. I believe you all understand what’s happening to them there.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
Russian missiles have struck civilian buildings and a cultural centre in the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, killing at least 12 people – reportedly including a child [the death toll has now risen to 17, including two children] – and wounding up to 50 others, medics have said. The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s frontlines, occurred in mid morning when the streets were full of people. It appeared to have hit a business centre, setting cars on fire and sending plumes of thick black smoke over the city. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said of the strike, “What is this, if not an open act of terrorism?”
…
Russian forces achieved “no significant territorial advances” over the last 72 hours in Donbas, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. The latest British intelligence report reads: “In the Donbas, Russian forces continue to conduct artillery strikes across a broad front followed by, in some areas, probing assaults by small company and platoon-sized units. However, they have achieved no significant territorial advances over the last 72 hours and are in danger of losing any momentum built up following the capture of Lysychansk.”
A deal to resume exporting Ukrainian grain has been announced with the establishment of a coordination and monitoring centre in Istanbul. Turkey’s defence minister Hulusi Akar said Ankara will ensure the safety of shipments in transit and the parties will jointly check grain cargoes in ports after officials from Ukraine, Russia, United Nations and Turkey met for talks in Istanbul on Wednesday. UN chief António Guterres described the talks as a “critical step forward” but said more work was needed before a deal is set to be signed next week.
A traffic jam of more than 130 cargo ships loaded with Ukrainian grain is waiting in the Black Sea to pass into the Danube. The ships are waiting to access exit routes through the Sulina and Bystre estuary canals to reach a series of ports and terminals in Romania from where the grain can be transported on around the world.
Ukraine’s top war crimes prosecutor and European judicial authorities met to coordinate investigations into atrocities during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warning that a failure to do so would embolden autocrats.
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, has given a press briefing saying Nato was waging “hybrid warfare” on Russia by providing arms to Ukraine. Zakharova also criticised Britain’s decision to bring Ukrainian service personnel to the UK for weapons training.
Lithuania has said it will keep restrictions on Kaliningrad trade in place while it works out rules on how to resume the trade. The European Union executive said Wedensday that sanctioned Russian goods could transit through the bloc’s territory by rail, after tensions between Moscow and EU member Lithuania escalated over trade with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said representatives of President Vladimir Putin had no place at a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies, warning that the war in Ukraine was causing a negative spillover around the world.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Suella Braverman, the attorney general and Tory leadership candidate, has sought to boost her flagging campaign by highlighting her pledge to withdraw Britain from the European convention on human rights, and from the jurisdiction of the European court of human rights. In a campaign video she says:
There’s one big reason to keep me in the race, and that is fixing small boats. Both my experience as a barrister specialising in immigration law, defending the Home Office before I was an MP, and as the attorney general, have led me to the conclusion, that if we are serious about completing the Brexit promises, if we are serious about taking back control of our borders, then there is no alternative but for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights and permanently exclude the jurisdiction of the European court of human rights.
I’m the only candidate who has pledged this unequivocally … that if I am prime minister, I will do just that.
Of the candidates still in the race, Braverman is the one with least support yesterday, and she may well be out of the contest by 5pm. But she is still in government as its most senior law officer and for her to be saying unequivocally that the UK should abandon the ECHR is quite something. It is hard to see how a government could implement Braverman’s proposal without blowing up the Good Friday agreement and the Brexit trade deal with the EU, which both an ongoing UK commitment to the ECHR.
Kemi Badenoch has retweeted [a photo] this morning of her alongside Suella Braverman. Badenoch, the equalities ministers, and Braverman, the attorney general, are the two most rightwing candidates still in the contest and Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister who is running Braverman’s campaign, has described them as the future of the party.
In Episode 131 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out the ironically named Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) for openly spreading Russian disinformation. FAIR serially portrays the 2014 Maidan Revolution as a US-instrumented, Nazi-tainted, unconstitutional “coup.” FAIR commentators Luca Goldmansour, Gregory Shupak and Bryce Greene are all guilty of this. They do not bother to consult voices of Ukrainian civil society—academics, media watchdogs and human rights groups—that refute this notion. Glomming onto the notorious Nuland phone call to dismiss a grassroots pro-democracy uprising as a Washington “regime change” intrigue reveals chauvinistic contempt for the Ukrainians. And hyping the supposed “Nazi” threat in Ukraine (while ignoring the Nazi-nostalgist and neo-fascist elements on the Russian side) abets Putin’s ultra-cynical propaganda stratagem of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Rather than calling out Fox News for its propaganda service to Putin, FAIR instead joins them. How did a supposed progressive media watchdog become a de facto arm of Kremlin war propaganda?
When a UK prime minister resigns, we don’t automatically get a general election. It’s the ruling party and its members who decide on a replacement. Over the last week, MPs wanting the top job have been trying to persuade their colleagues to back them.
After the first round of voting on Wednesday, the six candidates left in the leadership race are Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat and Suella Braverman. Eventually, MPs will whittle the group down to a final two before a vote among the party membership.
The Guardian’s political correspondent, Peter Walker, tells Hannah Moore how the candidates’ campaigns are progressing and identifies the issues that members care about.
BMW, Volkswagen, Allianz and Dr. Oetker are all household names – but how did these German businesses get to be so wealthy? The reality of collaboration, collusion, and the active championing of Hitler and the Nazi regime – during World War II, and beyond – by corporations remains “happily ignored”. So how have global powers let them get away with it? Jelena Sofronijevic talks to financial journalist David de Jong, author of author of Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties.
…At the least, it should raise questions about the wealthy individuals and corporations that continue to bankroll this thuggery – among them, billionaires Peter Thiel, Rebecca Mercer, Charles Koch, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, ex-casino mogul Steve Wynn, and shipping magnate Richard Uihlein.
Funding is also coming from Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, General Dynamics, Toyota, AT&T, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, GM and FedEx.
In April alone, the most recent month for which data is available, Fortune 500 companies and trade organizations gave more than $1.4m to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results. AT&T led the pack, giving $95,000 to election objectors.
Toyota is even funding Trump ally Andrew Biggs, a fervent devotee of the big lie who refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify before the committee. Six congressmen who have refused to testify have raked in more than $826,000 from corporate donors since the assault on the Capitol.
Why are these wealthy individuals and corporations doing this? Presumably because they want to pay as little in taxes as possible and believe Trump and his Republicans will deliver even more tax cuts than they did before.
But how is this capitalist thuggery in pursuit of profits different from Uber’s thuggery? And is it more excusable than the political thuggery it’s enabling?
To state the question in historical terms, how different is their behavior from the wealthy European industrialists who quietly backed the fascists in the 1920s and 1930s?
These billionaire and corporate funders are as complicit as are the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in threatening American democracy.
Zelenskiy: 20 people killed in ‘act of Russian terror’ in Vinnytsia
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said 20 people were killed and many more wounded after Russian missiles hit the “ordinary, peaceful” city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine this morning.
In a video address to an international conference aimed at prosecuting war crimes in Ukraine, Zelenskiy said:
Today in the morning, Russian missiles hit our city of Vinnytsia, an ordinary, peaceful city. Cruise missiles hit two community facilities, houses were destroyed, a medical centre was destroyed, the cars and trams were on fire.
This is the act of Russian terror … 20 people died as of now.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, also said at least 20 people died in the attack.
The attack was carried out with Russian “Kalibr” cruise missiles that are launched from submarines stationed in the Black Sea, Tymoshenko added.
A top Russian official has said Ukraine must accept the “territorial realities” of the situation in order to resume peace negotiations with Moscow, Reuters reports.
Kyiv must provide a clear response to Moscow’s proposals that Ukraine accepts “non-aligned” and “non-nuclear” status in order to strike a peace deal, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrey Rudenko, was cited by Interfax news agency as saying.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, must also recognise Russia’s control over Crimea and the status of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian “people’s republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk, Interfax reported.
The war in Ukraine has featured prominently in Bastille Day celebrations in France today, with thousands of French troops marching in a traditional military parade in the capital alongside allies from Eastern Europe.
The parade on the Champs-Elysees opened with the presentation of the flags of nine guest countries, most of them neighbours of Ukraine or Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
The opening of this year’s Bastille Day parade was designed to show France’s commitment to Nato and to European allies touched most closely by the war in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
An official in President Emmanuel Macron’s office said:
The parade is marked by, and takes account of, the strategic context.
The idea is to “highlight the strategic solidarity with our allies”, the official said.
The parade also featured warplanes, military vehicles and a drone in a performance demonstrating France’s might and its efforts to support Ukraine.
Tory leadership contest will push UK government ‘even further to right’, says Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has said the Tory leadership contest will result in the UK government shifting “even further to the right”.
Speaking at the launch of the second in what will be a series of Scottish government papers making the case for independence, she said:
The change of Tory leader seems virtually certain to be accompanied by a shift even further to the right. That means a shift even further away from the mainstream of Scottish opinion and values …
We may be just a few days into this Tory leadership contest but it is already crystal clear the issues Scotland is focused on – tackling child poverty, supporting NHS recovery, building a fairer economy and making aa just transition to net zero – will be hindered not helped by who ever becomes prime minister in the weeks ahead.
Sturgeon also said that for most of her lifetime Scotland has been under Tory prime ministers, even though the Conservatives had never won a majority, or even a plurality, of seats in Scotland during that period. “That is not democracy,” she said.
The new paper argues that independence would make Scotland more democratic. It also says that the the proportional voting systems used in Scotland for local elections and Holyrood elections are fairer than the first past the post system used to elect MPs to the House of Commons. It says:
The voting system used at Scottish local and parliamentary elections is also fairer than at UK level, with the numbers of MSPs from different parties more representative of how people actually voted.
The current governing party at Westminster has six MPs representing Scotland and has not won an election in Scotland for almost 70 years. For 39 of the 77 years since the Second World War, Scotland has been governed by UK governments that were elected by fewer than half of Scottish constituencies.
ravensays
A rape, an abortion, and a one-source story: a child’s ordeal becomes national news
Updated July 13, 202210:28 PM ET David Folkenflik Sarah McCammon
A July 1 news report that a pregnant 10-year-old girl from Ohio sought an abortion in neighboring Indiana has drawn intense national attention in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month striking down Roe v. Wade.
and
Conservative politicians challenge the story’s veracity
Conservative media outlets, such as The Daily Caller, started to press Bernard for more details, as did more mainstream news organizations, including The Washington Post and NPR. Bernard repeatedly declined comment, texting an NPR reporter, for example, “I’m sorry, I have no information to share.” The Post’s “Fact Checker” columnist, Glenn Kessler, cautioned about accepting a one-source story as fact.
I’m sure everyone has heard about the 10 year old rape victim who had to go from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion thanks to the Supreme court.
The christofascists all called it a Fake story, a lie.
“On Monday night, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost told Fox News host Jesse Watters that there was “not a whisper” of evidence to support the claim an Ohio girl had been raped and had to go to Indiana.
So, how did that Fake story work out? The Indiana AG threatened to take away the medical license of one of the OB-GYNs.
As it turns out, the girl’s mother had reported the rape to Franklin County’s Children Services agency, which referred a complaint to Columbus police on June 22nd, according to Detective Huhn’s testimony today. According to Huhn, the abortion took place in Indianapolis on June 30 – the day before the article about her plight was posted by the Star.
The rapist has been arrested and charged.
It is relevant to note that a pregnancy in a 10 year old can easily be fatal.
We are going to be seeing incidents like this forever in the Red states.
Abortion is part of health care and girls and women are going to be dying often in the Red states.
KGsays
Suella Braverman is out of the Tory leadership contest. It’s a close thing, but I reckoned her the most batshit extremist in the contest – AFAIK, the only one to propose withdrawing altogether from the European Convention on Human Rights. Sunak still leads, with Mordaunt second and Truss third. The winner will almost certainly be one of these three. There will be TV hustings over the next few days, then votes (if no-one voluntarily drops out and there are no ties) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
raven @398, thank you for the thorough summary. I figured that the christofascists were lying, but had not yet sussed out all the details. And, yes, pregnancy can be fatal for a girl that young. And/or giving birth can cause permanent damage to a girl that young.
With Tory leadership contestants fighting like rats in a sack we pick apart the hopefuls vying to succeed Johnson. Is there a least worst candidate in this rotten bunch? And what policies might any winner actually push forward with? Our guest is Ali Milani, who was Labour’s candidate against Johnson in 2019 and is author of The Unlikely Candidate.
Guardian liveblog:
Second round ballot results – snap analysis
In an exhaustive ballot process like this one, a single result can sometimes dramatically shift the assessment of who is likely to win. That happened yesterday, when Penny Mordaunt achieved a breakthrough. Today’s result is harder to interpret, but here goes.
1) Penny Mordaunt still has the momentum with her, and that counts particularly at this stage of the contest. (That’s because MPs have a strong incentive jump aboard a winning bandwagon, of obvious career reasons. In a ballot of party members, that factor does not apply.) She has gained the most extra votes.
2) Tom Tugendhat will come under strong pressure to concede. He said earlier today that he would not (see 11.54am), and if he stays in he will get the chance to take part in the weekend TV debates. But the removal of Suella Braverman is going to release 27 Tory right votes which potentially could be very useful to Liz Truss. If Tugendhat were to pull out now, he would release 32 votes that would probably go to Rishi Sunak or Mordaunt – less rightwing candidates. Now is the time when that would be valuable. That’s because …
3) Sunak could pass the crucial 120 mark in the next round if Tugendhat were to pull out. Without Tugendhat pulling out, it would be much harder. Once a candidate has got 120 votes, which is just over a third of the electorate, as long as they do not lose support, they are mathematically guaranteed a place in the final two. And if Sunak were able to get to that point before any other candidate, he would go into the members’ ballot with some momentum. Potentially there will be three more rounds of voting before the shortlist of two is ready for the members’ ballot.
4) It is hard – but not impossible – to see how Liz Truss and Mordaunt both manage to overtake Sunak to make it onto the final ballot. To reach the 120 threshold, Mordaunt needs 37 more votes and Truss needs 56 more votes. That would be 93 in total. Assuming the next candidates to fall out are Tugendhat and Badenoch, with the Bravernman votes already released, that makes 108 votes potentially up for grabs. It is hard to imagine that Sunak won’t be able to get at least 19 of them (particularly the Tugendhat ones) which would get him over the line. If MPs were to decide that Sunak would have no chance in the final ballot, potentially those votes could stampede en masse to Mordaunt or Truss. But MPs are not abandoning Sunak yet, and even though some polling suggests Sunak would lose amongst the members to both Mordaunt and Truss, an effective campaign could turn that round. That is why MPs are cautious about putting too much reliance on that data.
5) So it still looks probable that the two names on the final ballot will be Sunak and Mordaunt.
On July 12, several outlets reported that a Minnesota man, Denis Molla, was accused by federal prosecutors of “faking a politically-motivated arson at his own property and filing false insurance claims.”
When the incident was first reported in September 2020, local media outlets like Minnesota’s CBS affiliate covered the “suspicious fire” which followed the family’s purchase of two Trump flags and unnamed people “driving by their house very slowly, some taking pictures.” The Star Tribune also repeated Molla’s claim of people taking photos, adding that “feces was later left at his vehicle when he went on a water break” at work. A local NBC affiliate also reported that “political graffiti” at the scene showed that the fire “might have been set by someone unhappy with the Trump 2020 flag hanging from the family’s camper in the driveway.”
Right-wing media were not far behind the trend. Fox News and the New York Post gave Molla supportive coverage online, but One America News Network produced an entire TV segment about the arson and vandalism, which it aired four times.
OAN reporter Daniel Kitchen reported that “the homeowners said they woke up to a loud boom, when husband Denis Molla saw roughly three people running away from the front of his home. Instead of going after the suspected arsonists,” Kitchen continued, “Molla stayed behind in order to rescue his wife and two younger children, along with four husky puppies,” complete with Molla’s dramatic footage of him throwing a dog out of the back door.
“Surveillance footage at the front door was able to capture moments before the homeowners were able to escape their house” — but apparently not the “roughly three people” whom Molla alleged set the fire. Instead, OAN reported that the family believed “their house was targeted by the radical left for their political beliefs.”
“It’s scary. It’s scary to know that my beliefs has created such an anger and such evil to somebody to do something like this,” Molla said during the report.
OAN said that “along with the blaze, graffiti was seen defacing the garage, with a pro-Biden and BLM message displayed. Additionally, the anarchy symbol, with the letter A and a circle around it, was also seen on the garage.” Prosecutors now allege Molla did the graffiti on his own garage.
The graffiti echoes multiple other instances of conservatives through the years faking their own political persecution, including a volunteer for the late Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign who carved a backwards B into her own cheek (for “Barack”) and claimed she was robbed, and a man who destroyed his own pickup truck with Black Lives Matter graffiti.
[That 2016 “firebombing” of a North Carolina Republican office seems totally legit, though, LOL.]
“Officials are still looking for suspects, with the investigation extremely active,” Kitchen reported. And two years later, they found one.
Jared Holt tweeted that these hoaxes remind him of the earlier local “Antifa buses are rolling into town” panics.
“Jim Jordan won’t take Merrick Garland’s possible impeachment off the table. The attorney general is actually part of a larger GOP impeachment list.” [Jim Jordan! That guy helped Trump and his lackeys plan the attempted coup.]
Periodically over the last year so, an unsettling number of congressional Republicans have raised the prospect of trying to impeach President Joe Biden if the GOP takes back control of Congress. As regular readers may recall, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas went so far as to suggest that such a move is actually likely if his party controls the House next year.
But it’s not just the president, there’s also his cabinet to consider.
On Fox News this week, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan — positioned to chair the House Judiciary Committee in the event of a GOP takeover of the chamber — was asked whether impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland is on the table. The Ohio congressman replied:
“Yes. Everything will be on the table. I want to stress: everything…. Of course it should be on the table.”
A day later, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — the would-be House Speaker — also appeared on Fox News and said investigating the attorney general would be part of the Republican agenda in the next Congress.
All of this comes on the heels of reports that House Republicans are “laying the groundwork“ to push for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Referring to Mayorkas, McCarthy said in the spring, “This is his moment in time to do his job. But at any time if someone is derelict in their job, there is always the option of impeaching somebody.”
This is not to be confused with the already pending resolution, introduced by Republican Rep. Ralph Norman, to impeach Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (The resolution has 14 co-sponsors.)
There’s also, of course, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s resolution to impeach Vice President Kamala Harris.
[…] there’s no guarantee that Republicans will take back the House. For another, even if Garland, Mayorkas, and/or others were eventually impeached as part of some kind of partisan stunt, it’s difficult to imagine the idea of 67 senators voting to remove them from office.
But when thinking about what a GOP majority might do with power handed to them by voters, it’s worth adding impeachment schemes to the list.
Postscript: For those wondering about the historical precedent, only one cabinet secretary has ever been impeached. In 1876, Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached — after leaving office — over alleged bribes. He was later acquitted by the Senate.
Search efforts continue Thursday for dozens of people unaccounted for after a torrential downpour inundated a rural Virginia county, tearing homes from their foundations and damaging roads and bridges.
Forty-four people had been reported missing as of Thursday morning, the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office said, as the death toll remained at zero.
Six inches of rain in just hours Tuesday caused extensive damage in Buchanan County, in western Virginia, CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford said. “Combined with the fact that the area is mountainous, rainfall is able to collect quickly, and dangerous runoff occurred,” he said.
Just because people are unaccounted for does not mean they are truly missing, officials have emphasized. Phone lines are down in the area, making it difficult to contact anyone affected by the flooding, Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller told CNN on Wednesday.
The tally of 44 reflects those whose loved ones haven’t been able to contact them and cases in which law enforcement is “attempting to reach and locate the person and check on their wellbeing,” the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday in a Facebook post.
The storm was swift and overwhelming, with widespread flooding and road closures reported in just a few hours. Radar estimates indicate 6 inches of rain fell in about four hours starting at 8 p.m. Tuesday, corresponding with a rain event with a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in a given year.
…
This region of Appalachia is among those most prone to flash flooding in the country, with many areas also most at risk because of the growing threat of heavy rain, according to a CNN analysis of a report last year from a nonprofit climate research group, First Street Foundation.
The climate crisis is exacerbating flash flooding, too, by increasing the rate of rainfall or the amount of rain that falls in a short period of time. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, making extreme rainfall events more likely….
It’s not unusual for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to offer public criticism of Republican ideas, but yesterday, President Joe Biden’s chief spokesperson targeted a specific proposal that hasn’t generated a lot of attention.
“The Republican Study Committee, which includes most House Republicans, endorses cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits,” Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.
For much of the public, which is probably unfamiliar with the Republican Study Committee, the missive may not have had much of an impact, but the press secretary’s point warrants some additional attention.
About a half-century ago, when there were still plenty of moderate and even liberal Republicans, a group of conservative lawmakers created the Republican Study Committee as a home exclusively for House members on the right. In the years that followed, as centrist Republicans became an endangered species, the Republican Study Committee became one of Congress’ largest caucuses — to the point that roughly three out of four House GOP members has joined the contingent.
With this in mind, when the Republican Study Committee releases a budget plan, it represents the views and priorities of most of the House GOP.[…]
A little-noticed budget document, the Blueprint to Save America, released in June by the Republican Study Committee, details the group’s priorities…. The 122-page manifesto, containing a laundry list of longstanding conservative desires, calls for significantly reducing the size of America’s social safety net, drastically limiting abortion access nationwide, effectively throwing in the towel on combatting climate change, raising the age requirement to receive full Social Security benefits, cracking down on transgender rights, and making it easier for Americans to carry concealed weapons.
Jean-Pierre included a link to the budget blueprint in her tweet, which was a good idea: This is a publicly available document that voters probably ought to be aware of.
[…] If the Republican Study Committee’s plan were implemented, Social Security and Medicare would be partially privatized, food stamps would be slashed, Head Start would be phased out, Medicaid funding would be decimated, the Affordable Care Act would be weakened, labor unions would be undermined, the EPA would be gutted, abortion would be banned, birthright citizenship would be eliminated, Donald Trump’s border wall would be funded, and even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would see its doors permanently closed.
Believe them when they tell you what they want to do.
[…] the Republican Study Committee, representing 75 percent of the overall House Republican conference, not only endorses these ideas, they put these ideas in writing and released them as the members’ official budget plan.
What’s more, they might not be in the minority for much longer.
[…] the Republican Study Committee has 157 members. Are they prepared to run for re-election while defending this radical policy blueprint?
At least 22 killed in Russian missile attack in Vinnytsia, says police chief
The death toll from a Russian missile attack in the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine has climbed to 22, including three children, according to the head of the national police in Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko.
Dozens of people are still unaccounted for, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. A further 52 people, including four children, have been hospitalised, it said. 34 are in serious condition.
Only six of the bodies have been identified so far, Klymenko said. The strikes damaged more than 50 buildings and more than 40 cars, he added.
The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s frontlines, occurred in mid morning when the streets were full of people. A Russian submarine in the Black Sea fired Kalibr cruise missiles at the city, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has signed into law tougher measures for individuals or entities considered “foreign agents” by Russia, as well as a new law equating defection with high treason.
The new bill, which will come into force on 1 December, will broaden the definition of “foreign agents” to anyone deemed to have fallen “under foreign influence” or receiving support from abroad – not just foreign money.
Putin also signed off on a bill introducing prison terms of up to seven years for calls to act against national security, as well as a law which expands criminal liability for defection to the side of an enemy during combat to high treason.
The Russian leader also signed a law allowing the government to introduce special economic measures to support the Russian armed forces during “counter-terrorism and other operations” outside the country.
ravensays
U.S., Israel sign joint pledge to deny Iran nuclear weaponry
Reuters 7/14/2022
Israel, US signal unity on approach to Iran
Biden says US won’t wait forever for Iran deal
Lapid suggests pledge is a way to avert open conflict
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons
JERUSALEM, July 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed a joint pledge on Thursday to deny Iran nuclear arms, a show of unity by allies long divided over diplomacy with Tehran.
This sounds good and all.
But how are we going to that?
The US/world has never stopped a nation from getting nuclear weapons that wanted them i.e North Korea.
It is meaningless.
It is another case of the story, “Who shall bell the cat?”
.1. The only reason for Iran to not make nuclear weapons is Saudi Arabia, their enemy.
The day after they test a nuke, the Saudi nuclear bomb program starts. Or they may just buy a few from Pakistan.
.2. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the utility of nuclear weapons.
No one invades a country with nukes.
The Ukrainians gave up several thousand nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the UK, USA, and Russia. And look what happened to them
There are now 44 million people literally fighting for their lives.
A Colleton County, South Carolina, grand jury has indicted Alex Murdaugh for the 2021 murders of his wife and son.
The once prominent, now disbarred, attorney was indicted Thursday morning on two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, according to South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel.
Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and their youngest son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found shot to death on the family’s property in Islandton, about an hour north of Hilton Head Island, the night of June 7, 2021. Alex Murdaugh placed the 911 call reporting the shooting, saying he had just returned home and discovered their bodies.
Murdaugh, a pillar of the South Carolina legal community, has denied involvement in the deaths, saying he had been visiting his mother at the time.
…
Murdaugh is being held behind bars in Columbia, South Carolina, on a $7 million bond, facing a slew of charges for alleged financial crimes.
Blood spatter found on Murdaugh’s clothing could place him at the scene of the killings, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
The blood spatter found could place Murdaugh in close contact with at least one of the victims when they were killed, the source said. High velocity spatter is associated with the use of a particular weapon, such as a rifle, and it creates a specific blood pattern, especially when used at close range.
In addition, a phone belonging to Paul Murdaugh was recovered on his body containing video and audio of Alex Murdaugh talking with his wife close to the time she and Paul were killed, the source said.
Alex Murdaugh is not seen on the video but is heard speaking with her, and that recording has a time stamp, the source said, which may prove key to the investigation.
The details were first reported by FITSNews.
Mandy Matney of FITSNews has been running the Murdaugh Murders podcast for the past year. They reported the news yesterday, noting “While the news this week is huge, this saga is far from over. We still need answers for all of the victims in this case.”
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is to resign hours after populist coalition partner Five Star withdrew its support in a major confidence vote.
The former head of the European Central Bank has led a unity government since February 2021.
In a statement, he said the pact of trust that had sustained the unity government had gone.
“I will hand my resignation to the president of the republic this evening,” he said.
The crisis in the EU’s third biggest economy was triggered when Five Star leader Giuseppe Conte refused to back the government’s €23bn (£19.5bn) package of economic aid for families and businesses, arguing Mr Draghi was not doing enough to tackle the cost of living crisis.
Even though the government comfortably won Thursday’s vote in the Senate, the prime minister had warned repeatedly that without Five Star’s support the government could not continue.
…
The 74-year-old former ECB chief was appointed last year by President Sergio Mattarella to save Italy from its endemic instability and lead the post-pandemic recovery.
Five Star was originally the biggest party in the coalition but has seen a string of defections and falling support. Former party leader Luigi di Maio accused the party of a cynical plan to bring down the Draghi government to revive its own support, while dragging Italy to economic and social collapse….
Petro Andriushchenko, an aide to the mayor of Russian-occupied Mariupol, published a video of Satellite, a sunflower oil refinery, on fire. He added that the Mariupol resistance is growing.“
The first and most important thing to recognize right now is that a heinous, violent crime was committed on a 10-year-old Ohio child, and thankfully justice has now found the alleged perpetrator.
A Columbus man was indicted Wednesday in a case that made national and international headlines about a 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion after Ohio’s abortion ban went into effect following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
The story is horrifying and tragic….
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his spokesman responded to the story by ignoring questions about whether children should be forced to have their rapists’ babies. Then DeWine allies contacted members of the press, asking how sure they were that the case of the pregnant 10-year-old even happened.
The Washington Post, the conservative Daily Caller and other media outlets published stories saying that the case was unverified. The Wall Street Journal Editorial page suggested the story was a “fanciful tale.” The National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty referred to the case as “a fictive abortion and a fictive rape.”
Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost went on Fox News Monday to raise further doubts. He said he works closely with law enforcement authorities and he’d gotten “not a whisper” about the case. “What I’m saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence,” he doubled-down to the Columbus Dispatch next on Tuesday.
Hamilton County Republican Party Chair Alex Triantafilou on Twitter called the case, “A garbage lie that a simple google search confirms is debunked.”
State Rep. Brian Stewart tweeted the Washington Post story saying he “wouldn’t trust an abortionist to tell me whether the sky is blue.”
Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted, “Another lie. Anyone surprised?”
None of them had the patience to verify for themselves with certainty the truth of the matter before going public on a massive, self-serving scale. Jordan deleted his tweet.
Columbus police said in court they were referred the case by Franklin County Children Services on June 22. On Monday, July 11, Fox News host Jesse Waters and Ohio AG Dave Yost were on national television questioning whether this case was real.
The propaganda erasing this 10-year-old’s existence was so swift it spread out over right-wing social media like a blanket. Those advocating the truth of her story — privately already confirmed for some of us, and crushing to hear about — were subjected to wild-eyed mockery and ridicule.
It’s incredibly disturbing that the default position of so many sick and twisted people — including Ohio’s most prominent Republican elected officials — is to very vocally and very publicly question whether the rape and impregnation of a 10-year-old child ever happened.
…
Yost offered no correction, no apology, and showed no contrition for going on national television to try to erase the lived experience of a child rape victim.
“Apologize for what? Questioning a newspaper story?” Ohio’s top law enforcement officer Dave Yost said about a case in his own county.
DeWine, Yost, and other Ohio Republicans hurt a traumatized child once by forcing her to flee the state in order to receive health care; then they hurt her again by peddling propaganda erasing her; now they’re hurting her a third time by refusing to acknowledge and apologize for their actions.
These powerful Ohio Republican politicians have thoroughly and completely shed themselves of any sense of shame or conscience.
They’re disgusting and disgraceful; callous, careless and cruel.
This is a matter of basic human decency, good faith and sensitivity on the most fundamental level of society.
If they are willing to try to erase the traumatic story of a 10-year-old rape victim, whose pain and suffering will they not try to ignore and erase?
They behave on a base level so repugnant and removed from the general good-heartedness of most Ohioans it’s almost unfathomable.
I honestly don’t know how they sleep at night, or look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.
The liberation of Crimea, Kherson and occupied territories of southern Ukraine is inevitable, says major general Dmytro Marchenko of Ukraine’s armed forces.
“We need to prepare very carefully for it, we need to conduct very good intelligence, we need to prepare artillery. It will not be quick, but it is an inevitable event, and sooner or later it will happen,” he said in an interview.
Marchenko added that the destruction of the Crimean Bridge is a necessary step since Russian forces transport reserves, equipment and weapons to the peninsula via the bridge.
The 10-year-old Ohio girl who crossed state lines to receive an abortion in Indiana should have carried her pregnancy to term and would be required to do so under a model law written for state legislatures considering more restrictive abortion measures, according to the general counsel for the National Right to Life.
Jim Bopp, an Indiana lawyer who authored the model legislation in advance of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, told POLITICO on Thursday that his law only provides exceptions when the pregnant person’s life is in danger.
“She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child,” Bopp said in a phone interview on Thursday.
…
“Unless her life was at danger, there is no exception for rape,” Bopp said. “The bill does propose exceptions for rape and incest, in my model, because that is a pro-life position, but it’s not our ideal position. We don’t think, as heartwrenching as those circumstances are, we don’t think we should devalue the life of the baby because of the sins of the father.”
It is currently legal to have an abortion in Indiana up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, though the state legislature is expected to hold a special session later this month to consider legislation that would ban abortion.
Republican legislative leaders have not shared details of the bill they plan to introduce, though abortion-rights proponents in the state are expecting the bill’s text to hew closely to Bopp’s model legislation.
Bopp said he believes it is “highly likely” Indiana’s legislature will pass a law during its special session that will “provide substantial protection to the unborn.”
“What the exact details of that are, I don’t know,” Bopp said.
ravensays
The Indiana AG is threatening the OB-GYN who cared for the Ohio ten year old pregnant girl.
It is not clear for what.
Abortion is still legal in Indiana.
And she is a mandatory reporter which is irrelevant.
The rape crime happened in Ohio and was already reported.
Guy is an idiot pandering to the lowest of his base, fundie xian child torturers and killers.
I’m also sure that this investigation will quickly disappear into nowhere.
Republican AG says he’ll investigate Indiana doctor who provided care to 10-year-old rape victim
Darron Cummings/AP Myah Ward Wed, July 13, 2022,
Indiana’s Republican attorney general said on Wednesday that his office planned to investigate the Indiana doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim who crossed state lines to have an abortion.
Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, has told multiple outlets that she provided care to the 10-year-old after a child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted her. The child was six weeks and three days into the pregnancy, Bernard said. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, a wave of state-level abortion restrictions took effect, including in Ohio, a state that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report,” state Attorney General Todd Rokita said on Fox News on Wednesday night. “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18 or really any woman is having abortion in our state. And then if a child is being sexually abused, of course parents need to know. Authorities need to know. Public policy experts need to know.”
Abortion in Indiana is banned after 22 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions for medical emergencies. There are strict reporting requirements in both Ohio and Indiana for abortions and rape allegations.
Ohio’s Republican attorney general, Dave Yost, said on Fox News Monday that there was no evidence of a report being filed for the 10-year-old’s case.
The account about the young girl has garnered national attention amid the fall of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States — and has become a key focus of the abortion debate. The account sparked intense dialogue in Washington, with some questioning the story’s validity, particularly after President Joe Biden cited the episode last week while slamming the court’s decision in a major speech on abortion policy.
“She was forced to have to travel out of the state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life,” Biden said in remarks at the White House last week. “Ten years old — 10 years old! — raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state.”
The speculation stopped on Wednesday when Gerson Fuentes, 27, was arrested and charged with the rape of the girl, a felony of the first degree in Ohio. Police say he confessed to raping the child at least twice. The Columbus Dispatch first reported the arrest.
The clean-up followed shortly after the news of the arrest. Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan deleted a tweet in which he had called the story “another lie.” The Wall Street Journal editorial page had to walk back on an editorial titled “An Abortion Story Too Good To Confirm” that called the case a “fanciful” tale. And Yost, who originally cast doubt on the story, tweeted on Wednesday that his “heart aches” for the child and that he was grateful for the arrest — not acknowledging his previous skepticism.
Even before Biden used the example in his remarks, the case was already receiving significant attention. The Indianapolis Star reported on July 1 that Bernard received a call from a child abuse doctor in Ohio three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. Bernard put out her own statement on Wednesday night.
“My heart breaks for all survivors of sexual assault and abuse. I am so sad that our country is failing them when they need us most,” Bernard wrote on Twitter. “Doctors must be able to give people the medical care they need, when and where they need it.”
Aside from Rokita’s warning, it’s not yet clear whether Indiana will actually prosecute Bernard. But abortion rights activists and legal experts have been warning for weeks of the unprecedented legal risks doctors face in the wake of Roe’s fall.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 415
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blockquote>We don’t think, as heartwrenching as those circumstances are, we don’t think we should devalue the life of the baby because of the sins of the father.
But the 10-year-old should? Let me guess, she’s just as responsible for her assault as her rapist? If she didn’t dress like a slutty 4th grader she wouldn’t have been raped?
Go fuck off and die, Bopp. Also, tell your god/Messiah that he can do the same.
ravensays
This is good news.
A lot of Red election officials and managers acted like they could tamper with the voting process and voting machines and nothing would happen to them.
Three of them in Colorado just got arrested. Finally.
Third arrest is made in alleged Colorado election security breach
July 13, 2022, 8:43 PM PDT / Source: Associated Press
DENVER — The former elections manager for a Colorado clerk indicted on charges of tampering with voting equipment has been arrested on allegations that she was part of the scheme, an official said Wednesday.
Sandra Brown, who worked for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, turned herself in Monday in response to a warrant issued for her arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and attempting to influence a public servant, said Lt. Henry Stoffel of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was first reported by The Daily Sentinel newspaper.
Peters and her chief deputy, Belinda Knisley, are being prosecuted for allegedly allowing a copy of a hard drive to be made during an update of election equipment in May 2021. State election officials first became aware of a security breach last summer when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website.
Peters, who has echoed former President Donald Trump’s false theories about the 2020 election and become a hero to election conspiracy theorists, lost her bid to become the GOP candidate for Colorado secretary of state last month. She first came to national attention when she spoke last year at a conference hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the most prominent election deniers in the country.
Peters is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, one count of identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
Knisley is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
SC @407, all signs of desperation on Putin’s part.
raven @408, I have the same concerns as you. It is still good news that the USA has some allies on their side. President Biden is talking about “diplomacy,” but it is hard to see how that will work. I am troubled by the fact that Iran and Russia are allied.
Text quoted by SC in comment 415:
The 10-year-old Ohio girl who crossed state lines to receive an abortion in Indiana should have carried her pregnancy to term and would be required to do so under a model law written for state legislatures considering more restrictive abortion measures, according to the general counsel for the National Right to Life.
Jim Bopp, an Indiana lawyer who authored the model legislation in advance of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, told POLITICO on Thursday that his law only provides exceptions when the pregnant person’s life is in danger.
“She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child,” Bopp said in a phone interview on Thursday.
She is not a “woman,” she is a 10-year-old girl. Look up the tragic occurrence of fistulas in girls who go through labor in order to give birth to children. The life of a ten year old girl is in danger if she is pregnant.
[…] An exchange between Rep. Eric Swalwell and “Americans United for Life” head Catherine Foster today was so surreal as to border on farce. Faced with the now provably true case of a 10-year-old child having to travel out of Republican-held Ohio to receive an abortion after she was raped, Foster simply lied her faux-Christian ass off rather than acknowledging the plain facts of the case.
If she had any moral ground to stand on, Foster wouldn’t need to resort to bullshitting during a public hearing of the U.S. Congress. Instead we get this: [video at the link]
SWALWELL: Do you think a 10-year-old should choose to carry a baby?
FOSTER: I believe it would probably impact her, her life, and so therefore it would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion.
SWALWELL: Wait. It would not be an abortion if a 10-year-old, with her parents, made the decision not to have a baby that was a result of a rape?
FOSTER: If a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape, and it was threatening her life, then that’s not an abortion. So it would not fall under any abortion restriction in our nation.
SWALWELL, to next witness: Miss Warbelow, are you familiar with disinformation?
There are of course multiple lies in Foster’s whatever-that-was, so even calling it “disinformation” is being too gentle about it. […] The Ohio law does not make exceptions for rape, or for the health of the mother, or for the life of the mother, which is why this child had to travel out of state. That is the whole. Damn. Point.
Foster at earlier points in Swalwell’s questioning had already called it an abortion and had claimed the Ohio attorney general would have permitted that abortion (yet another attempt at brazen bullshitting), before then going on to magically rewrite the very definition of the term “abortion” to include Not That One. […] Sen. Josh Hawley’s wife testified in a recent Senate hearing that in the case of ectopic pregnancies, “termination of a nonviable pregnancy” is “not an abortion.” Why not? Because you look like shit opposing a lifesaving treatment that everyone agrees is absolutely necessary, that’s why, and nobody wants to look like absolute shit on television. When the cameras are off, though, it’s a different story.
[…] the dodge is being used to try to skate through public hearings while the actual laws on the ground remain the same.
In fact, the anti-abortion movement’s fury over the 10-year-old child being able to receive an abortion despite Ohio banning it in all cases only continues to grow.
[…] Indiana conservatives are in fact pushing as we speak to write laws that would have blocked the 10-year-old from receiving care. They don’t want a new word that doesn’t mean “abortion.” They want raped 10-year-olds to have children or die trying. […]
[…] They’re gaslighting, bullshitting con artists with no more morality than a dull knife. They don’t care. And now they’re targeting the doctor who performed the abortion they say wasn’t an abortion so that the next raped small child will have no such access.
The far-right Supreme Court intended this. They put no language in, alongside the notes about what misogynistic witch hunters from the 1600s might have thought about all this, differentiating between abortions and “not-abortions.” […]
Fascism is built on such lies. It is premised on remaking history and words both so that whatever the far-right autocracy in charge does can be classified as good and all the things it opposes can be called bad. […]
the example of a far-far-right anti-abortion movement lying outright to all of America about whether a raped 10-year-old even exists, then declaring that the child could have gotten an abortion in a state that explicitly banned it, then declaring the child who received an abortion did not actually receive an abortion but received an unknown “something else,” then targeting the out-of-state doctor who did care for the child as the rest of these rat bastards went on with their vicious, cruel, lying lives—that’s what all of America will look like under fascism. […]
It’s a very different life when you wake up one morning and see that people are very publicly posting on the homepage of your organization’s website that they are going to murder you and those who support you as well as all those who happen to share your ethnicity, culture and/or religious faith.
I founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) in the early 2000s and, in so doing, became a thing that is called a “public figure.”
[…] It’s taken many, many years for me to get used to being in the public eye, and not all of it is bad. But a lot of it sure as hell can be. The constant hate is almost indescribable.
I get it.
As I’ve said many times before, my job as a national civil rights advocate is NOT to be the “pearl in the oyster.” Rather, my job is to be the IRRITANT in that oyster that causes the pearl to form.
When you start being such an irritant to the powers that be, especially where we do it in the U.S. armed forces, the VA, and the Intelligence Agencies, there WILL be perpetual backlash and much of it is personal, ugly, and hurtful. This blowback comes with the territory, and we all here at MRFF accept that fact and do our best to acclimate to it.
But over the last few weeks, and especially since the gruesome bloodbath at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 of this year, we have suddenly seen a new type of brazenly public hate attack. This new version is beyond what we’ve experienced in the past when such onslaughts of prejudice and bigotry usually arrived via phone, e-mail, or snail mail directly to me and some of our key MRFF staffers, or sometimes directly deployed at my residence.
Now the attacks are prominently posted on the MRFF website for everyone to experience (specific MRFF supporters named in these comments have been redacted): [screen grabs of the comments are available at the link]
(The phrase “anudda Shoah,” or another holocaust in a mocking Yiddish accent, is an anti-Semitic slur that became popular among white supremacists in 2014 and increasingly thereafter. […])
[…] nnumerable opinion editorials and countless daily media news stories have detailed our rapid descent into the abyss of bigotry, prejudice, and hatred wrought mainly by far-right, extremist Christian nationalism all too well.
But I just wanted to let you all see, reflect, and cogitate on EXACTLY what this precipitous fall looks like to one guy, his family, his civil rights foundation, and all who support us.
How would it make YOU feel to be told in a very public manner that you and yours have been specifically and deliberately targeted for murder?
What can we do, you may ask?
There is one thing above all others:
VOTE TO STOP THIS DISASTER IN NOVEMBER ’22 TO PROTECT OUR CHERISHED AMERICAN DEMOCRACY!
NEWT GINGRICH: You’re up against, as you’ve heard me say before — way back in 1972, Peter White wrote that the liberal ideology had become a liberal theology, and that’s what you’re up against.
OK.
This is now a religious cult.
Yes? And what do they believe?
And it’s a complicated cult,
They believe “It’s complicated.”
it’s a cult of environmentalism,
They believe “environment.”
it’s a cult of transgenderism.
They believe “pronouns.”
It’s a cult of income redistribution.
They believe in taxing the rich to feed the poor, or at least the rich paying their fair share, as opposed to other way around, as God intended.
You’ve got a whole list of things.
It’s a cult of anti-white racism.
They hate white people. Even the white liberals hate white people. How do we know? Because they don’t think white guys like Newt Gingrich should be able to make the rules for everyone. They laugh at guys like Newt Gingrich and they are extremely disrespectful. This is oppression of Newt Gingrich-type white people, for sure.
I mean, the things people now write and say that are just inconceivable, they’re just overtly racist.
See above what we just said about white people for an example, it was a vicious reverse racism, probably.
And I think that this is where we are. We have to recognize you have a militant minority that, if it can, will impose itself on the entire country.
What do they call that thing Newt Gingrich just did? There’s a word for it.
No, the word for it is not “cheating on your wife because you have such a boner for America.”
[…] wildfires in Siberia, which set a record in 2021, are double in the first six months of 2022 what they were the first half of last year. Throughout the Arctic, climate change is driving warming, increasing the number and intensity of wildfires. The scientific view has been that the speed of Arctic warming is about two times faster than the global average rise. Last December, however, a study concluded that warming is rising four times as fast as the global average. From Science:
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. But that figure, found in scientific studies, advocacy reports, the popular press, and even the 2021 U.N. climate assessment, is incorrect, obscuring the true toll of global warming on the north, a team of climate scientists reports this week. In fact, the researchers say, the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average.
“Everybody knows [the Arctic] is a canary when it comes to climate change,” says Peter Jacobs, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who presented the work on 13 December at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. “Yet we’re misreporting it by a factor of two. Which is just bananas.”
Researchers in a study published this month have come to the same conclusion.
“Thirty years is considered the minimum to represent climate change,” said Petr Chylek, a physicist and climate researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study in Geophysical Research Letters. “We decreased the time interval to 21 years. At that smaller time scale, and contrary to previous investigations that found the Arctic amplification index increases in a smooth way, we observed two distinct steps, one in 1986 and a second one in 1999.” […]
The study calculated the Arctic amplification index to be greater than 4 within the early decades of the 21st century, four times faster than the global mean and considerably more rapid than previous published research had determined using 30- to 40-year time intervals. …
“People are not only interested in long-term climate change, but they are also interested in 10 years ahead, 20 years, 30 years. For decadal prediction, our observation that the amplification index changed in the past in steps is quite important,” Chylek said.
Two decades ago, scientists worried about changes in the Arctic were afflicted by an unhelpful mainstream media that gave equal billing to climatologists and fossil-fueled climate science deniers. In 2004, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), the first comprehensive look at impacts of climate change in Arctic, was published. The four-year study was produced by an international team of 300 scientists. […] Its succinct conclusion: “The Arctic is experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on earth. The impacts of climate change on the region and the globe are projected to increase substantially in the years to come.”
[…] And yet, in spite of gigatons of blah blah blah, we are far from commensurate actions to ameliorate or prevent some of the worst impacts of what is clearly an emergency, whatever officials deign to call it. What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to all too many of our leaders. […]
Business Insider
Elon Musk’s 76-year-old dad says he’s had another child with his 35-year-old stepdaughter: ‘The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce’
Sarah Jackson Thu, July 14, 2022, 1:30 PM·2 min read
I’m starting to see what is wrong with Elon Musk and where he got it.
His father doesn’t seem to be all that good a person either or a very competent thinker.
There is no reason why we are on the earth.
We just are on the earth as a result of natural processes starting with the Big Bang.
Which doesn’t mean that our lives are meaningless and have no purpose.
We create our own reasons for being and our own purposes.
I’ve got a lot more things to do than reproduce i.e. cats to take care of, a garden, friends, family, hobbies, careers, jobs, rock festivals, etc.. Plus trying to leave the earth a better place for all the future generations.
There are 8 billion different versions of “what is our purpose on this earth”.
Elon Musk’s father just looks like a barely functioning and completely unimaginative mind.
Further to #500, a spokesperson for the Swedish government denies any substantive concessions to Turkey. We’ll see.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. :
Here’s a link to this week’s Meduza Ukraine/Russia liveblog. From there:
In sentencing news, Salah Abdeslam was sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 Paris terror attacks. Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years. R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years. Lev Parnas was sentenced to 20 months.
Guardian – “US supreme court hobbles government power to limit harmful emissions”:
Disgraceful.
From today’s Guardian US liveblog:
Bringing this ignominious and appalling term to an end.
Some good news for once.
Good news has been rare the last few years.
Russia is withdrawing from Snake island. They have moved in huge amounts of soldiers and weapons and lost them all to Ukraine. Not a smart decision since Snake island wasn’t defensible.
Russia is starting to show signs of stress here.
Since when have they ever made good will gestures to anyone for any reason.
Lately, all they’ve been doing is threatening to nuke everyone over whatever happened that they don’t like.
The sea mines Ukraine has put out have been bothering the Russians.
They just lost another ship to a mine.
“Whoa. Russian police have arrested Vladimir Mau, one of the technocrat economists who’s been unsuccessfully trying to reform Russia from within for decades.
Mau was just reappointed to Gazprom’s board today – which suggests this case has come from high up”
Moscow Times – “Top Russian University Head Vladimir Mau Detained on Fraud Charges”:
Michael McFaul tweeted: “If Mau can be arrested, anyone can be arrested.”
Re #s 2 and 6 – Guardian liveblog:
It’s been a few hours, and we’re already at like three different stories: goodwill gesture, mission accomplished, strategic withdrawal. Also, withdrawing because you’re under attack, finding it hard to hold territory, and wish to avoid further losses is…retreating.
Meduza liveblog:
Happy (if that’s the word for it?) Asteroid Day (30th June -the anniversary of Tyunmguska 1908) everyone. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Day
Plus official site here :
https://asteroidday.org/
As well as this one minute 20 sec summary of latest asteroid news with some great orbital visualisatiosn plus more including some music you may find annoying but can be easily muted with nothing lost.
Tunguska sorry.
John Fetterman:
Video at the (Twitter) link.
“Biden says Senate Democrats should create an abortion exception to the filibuster — and more broadly ‘a right to privacy’. That would be a second exception he backs, along with voting rights.”
Biden just tweeted:
TPM – “SCOTUS Will Hear Case Next Term That Could Transform Election Law”:
Why the Jan. 6 subpoena for Trump’s White House counsel matters
Well, this is dystopian:
Examples and links at the (Twitter) link.
Guardian liveblog:
Followup to SC’s comment #4.
Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative:
Commentary:
Link
Congratulations, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Followup to SC’s comment #2.
Russia Obeys Instructions, Abandons Snake Island.
Photos and satellite images at the link.
The Jan 6 Cmte has finally broken the dam – the GQP big money is deserting him
Wonkette: “Overturning Roe Already Threatens Women’s Health, To Surprise Of Nobody”
Supreme Court Kills Tribal Sovereignty Too In Case You Thought It Was Just ‘Women’ And ‘Classrooms Of Kids’
Here is what our new world will look like in the Red states.
El Salvador has been sentencing women who have miscarriages to 30 years in prison.
Not abortions but miscarriages. Because almost all the time, no one can tell the difference between a spontaneous abortion and a medically induced abortion.
Further to my #500 on the older comments page, and #1 above, Erdoğan says The agreement to allow Sweden and Finland into NATO won’t go ahead until they “meet their promises”, including legislative changes. So I’m sceptical about Swedish claims that they have not made substantive concessions – and if they haven’t, that Erdoğan will allow them in.
Re #24
It’s as if Kavanaugh and the other SC assholes wanted to prevent any future escape from abortion prosecution by going to a Native American land. It was not in the case but I’m sure they all discussed it behind the scene. I guess Gorsuch was not comfortable with trampling the rights of the Native Americans for some reason.
Clarence Thomas cites discredited claim about Covid vaccines
The Supreme Court’s credibility was already suffering. The more justices publish factual errors, the more it further tarnishes the court’s reputation.
Yep. Clarence Thomas is a dunderhead, and he is determined to prove that on a near daily basis.
I wonder if Clarence got that bit of discredited information from his wife.
Link
The disruption looks like it is part of a plan to disrupt similar events in libraries across the USA.
Jean @27, that’s an interesting take on the situation. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll be keeping on eye on this to see what develops.
In other news:
Link
More at the link.
More bad news courtesy of the conservatives on the Supreme Court:
Link
More at the link.
Sigh.
The Supreme Court hands Biden the smallest possible victory in its “Remain in Mexico” case
The Biden v. Texas decision rejects a Trump judge’s absurd reading of federal law, then sends the case right back to that same judge.
Some good news that may be temporary:
Link
LOL
Giuliani: ‘She was never present when I asked for a pardon’
KG#26
I wonder to myself when exactly the membership will be official, as in, when is the actual, binding vote? Until then, anything can happen.
On that point, poor fucking Kurds. Are they ever gonna get a break?
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
New York Times:
Rep. Zoe Lofgren drops new details hinting at Big Lie financial crimes and witness tampering
Video available at the link.
Re KG 26 and LykeX 35:
It’s been estimated that it should take between 4 and 12 months for all 30 Nato countries to ratify the membership bids of Finland and Sweden. After that, we in Finland can officially sign in, after having one final vote by our own parliament.
That is, unless Turkey actually tries to break a new record in obstruction. If I understand correctly, they can’t actually reject a new membership bid, they can only play time by not approving it. They probably can’t or won’t delay the matter infinitely. I hope our own politicians are ready to play the same game and wait patiently, no matter how long it takes.
Lynna, OM@35,
Yes, poor Kurds. People even here may not be aware of the extent of the genocidal repression and violence the Turkish state has meted out over decades to those in Kurdish-majority areas in south-east Turkey – as well as recently in parts of northern Iraq (in this case, with the connivance of the two dominant, highly corrupt Kurdish-led parties there, the PUK and KDP), and in north-east Syria.
lumipuna@39,
The government of Finland has now denied committing to any specific extraditions to Turkey. I don’t believe Erdoğan is going to agree to their membership of NATO, or Sweden’s, without getting his hands on some actual victims to torture from among those currently sheltering in those countries. While Erdoğan remains in power, no-one at all should be extradited from anywhere to Turkey, for any reason.
With Roe versus Wade dead, the battles between Red and Blue states will never end.
The GOP/christofascists want to prevent pregnant women from traveling out of state for abortions.
A travel ban like that makes pregnant women into prisoners and slaves.
Freedom to move about is a fundamental freedom.
With our current defective Supreme Court, they may even get that travel ban.
Despite all that talk about Freedom, the GOP is on track to make the USA one of the most unfree countries in the world.
Ukraine:
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1542722807548837888
Poll: Quarter of Americans open to armed rebellion against government
Andy Monserud / June 30, 2022
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1542461325586186241
Some data points: May 22 vs May 21
Cars: -96.7% (3,700 cars)
Trucks: -39.3%
ICE motors: -57%
Pass. train wagons: -59.8%
Freight wagons: -51.8%
Fiberglass cables: -80.8%
Fridges: -58.1%
Washing machines: -59.2%
AC electric motors: -49.9%
Elevators: -34.7%
Excavators: -60%
https://twitter.com/jakluge/status/1542220135305564160
More at the second Twitter link, including charts showing “Industrial producer prices plummeting,” “Decline of Russia’s population due to Covid and also migration,” etc.
https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1542511926537641984
Followup to comment 45:
Link
Merrick Garland Brought AZ Sen Prez Karen Fann A Present, It Is This ‘Fraudit’ Subpoena!
They Tried To Witness Tamper Cassidy Hutchinson SPECIFICALLY? Well Then! How Interesting!
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657594097
Looks like Belarus is going fast.
Cultural genocide can work. Speakers of the Belarussian language in Belarus are down to 20% of the population and Belarussian literature is being suppressed by the state itself. It’s getting difficult to be a Belarussian in…Belarus.
The Belarussian language isn’t all that close to Russian. It’s more similar to Ukrainian and Polish.
They still don’t like Russia though. Lukashenko, the dictator has a support level of 3%.
He is propped up by his army and the Russian army in Belarus.
What is happening to Belarus is what Russia wants to do to Ukraine.
If they overrun Ukraine, in a generation or two, only a few old peasants will be speaking Ukrainian.
Someone once said, when a language dies, the culture dies.
That might be too simple but not by much.
My guess here is that Belarus is toast no matter what.
They are already heavily controlled by the Russians.
If Ukraine goes, Georgia and Moldova are toast as well.
Georgia might fight but Moldova doesn’t have much of an army.
Armenia is also all but gone. They are heavily dependent and heavily controlled by the Russians. At this point, a Russian invasion would be like you invading your back yard.
Fact check: Trump-backed Michigan congressional candidate John Gibbs falsely claims 2020 election had ‘mathematically impossible’ anomalies
Followup to comment 48
Mark Meadows connected to messages attempting to intimidate Cassidy Hutchinson before her testimony
Russian missiles kill at least 19 in Ukraine’s Odesa region
The airstrikes followed the pullout of Russian forces from Snake Island on Thursday, a move that was expected to ease the threat to nearby Odesa, home to Ukraine’s biggest port.
“The Supreme Court Tries to Overrule the Climate,” by Bill McKibben
New Yorker link
More at the link.
NBC News:
Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to, among others:
Antonin Scalia, the late conservative Supreme Court justice
Miriam Adelson, the wife a Republican megadonor
Orrin Hatch, the late Republican senator
Roger Staubach, an athlete and longtime conservative Republican
Arthur Laffer, a derided Republican economist
Edwin Meese, a highly controversial former Republican attorney general
Mariano Rivera, an athlete and Trump supporter
Roger Penske, a businessman and Republican donor
Rush Limbaugh, the late far-right media personality
Jim Ryun, a former Republican congressman
Lou Holtz, a former coach and longtime Republican who was chosen for the honor after attacking Biden’s faith at the Republican National Convention
Dan Gable, an Olympic gold medalist who campaigned with Trump in Iowa
Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman who did Trump’s bidding
Devin Nunes, another Republican congressman who did Trump’s bidding
Devin Nunes’ cow
Just kidding about that last one.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Secret Service sources reportedly bolster Hutchinson’s testimony
According to a Secret Service source, Donald Trump “tried to lunge over the seat” on Jan. 6. Efforts to discredit Cassidy Hutchinson just got tougher.
WOW! Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony for the January 6th Committee Breaks TV Viewing Records
Texas board of education strikes down proposal to call slavery ‘involuntary relocation’
Well, thank goodness for that.
Kathleen Parker Colossally Wrong About SCOTUS And Abortion, Regrets Nothing, Should Retire
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657598797
Trump Pitches Tantrum After Cassidy Hutchinson Fires Lawyer He Assigned Her
What The Hell Is Happening In Wisconsin?
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657597653
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Biden predicts states will try to arrest women who travel for abortions
Women’s right to mobility is the next battleground between Red and Blue states.
If women can’t move about where they will, they are prisoners and slaves.
What the Red states want to set up is something we’ve seen often over the centuries.
A Police state.
With the target population being women, especially pregnant women.
It’s all there, repressive laws, lack of freedom, lots of police to enforce those laws, and lots of prisons and concentration camps for those who get caught.
Biden is right that the Red states will try to extend their laws to the Blue states.
He is wrong that anyone is going to be surprised.
Those laws have already been passed.
Today, many thousands of Aussies expressed their solidarity, empathy and support for American women’s rights to control their own bodies. Which is great but it shouldn’t be necessary in this day and age :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-02/australians-demonstrate-support-for-abortion-access/101203588
These are the headlines this morning.
The articles just point out that the USA is splitting into Red and Blue states and these two factions are fighting among themselves.
This isn’t really new though. It started before 1860 and has continued ever since.
What the Supreme court has done is make these conflicts even more severe.
It has set things up so there are more things for them to fight about.
The latest will be women’s right to travel and trying to make the abortion drugs illegal.
Link
Inside Russia’s war camps: Ukrainian POWs detail torture, abuse
Whiplash of news concerning access to abortion in Texas:
Washington Post link
Washington Post link
How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis
New York Times link
Researchers say flu shot connected to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
Ukraine update: Kherson news blackout lifts just enough to hint at Ukrainian progress
Videos of Russian stuff blowing up are available at the link.
Major flooding and evacuation in parst of Sydney :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/thousands-told-evacuate-greater-sydney-emergency-weather-event/101204030
& https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/weather-forecast-more-rain-sydney-hawkesbury-nsw-floods/101192228
Plus in better Aussie news :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/census-religion-christianity-no-religion-god/101201640
The end of Roe v. Wade raises fear of more prosecutions for pregnancy loss
Women are already being prosecuted and jailed for miscarriages and stillbirths.
That is going to continue and get worse for sure.
Doctors can’t tell the difference between a miscarriage and a medical abortion so women who show up in the ER with a miscarriage are already suspects.
Also, the cops are busy and many of them probably aren’t that interested or capable of being the Zygote Police. So they will just wait until some unfortunate woman ends up in the hospital and then arrest her.
In the case below, Chelsea Becker was ratted out by the hospital itself. In Red states, they may make health care workers into mandatory reporters for suspected abortion. It is the kind of thing they do in police states.
Well, it seems these protesters :
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/01/lives-at-risk-at-british-grand-prix-say-police-after-intelligence-about-protests
or a similar group managed to get onto the Silverstone track at the start of the British F1 GP. Theer could easily have been been multiple fatalities although that was avoided.The race was red flagged (stopped ) on the first lap but already due to a massive crash at the start. Nobody hurt. But risky as fuck. Race restarted now..
See also :
https://the-race.com/formula-1/protestors-invaded-british-gp-track-during-red-flag/
A more up to date story on this.
We’re going to have to pay attention to the details:
Link
Wonkette: “Republicans Still Pretty Sure All Those January 6 People Were Secret Liberals”
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said during an interview aired Sunday that “I don’t believe” the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would stand for long.
I’m posting this not because I agree with it but because I don’t.
It sounds more like wishful thinking than anything likely to be helpful.
The overruling of Roe versus Wade by the Supreme Court is going to stand for decades. This court isn’t going to reverse itself. It might be reinstated but by that time, I’ll be long dead.
The Democrats could pass a nationwide law making abortion legal. In theory anyway.
They probably don’t have the votes right now to do that though. They need 60 and might not even get 50. They should try anyway so at least the GOP senators are on record as supporting criminalizing abortion.
Texts, web searches about abortion have been used to prosecute women.
Washington Post link
The data privacy risks associated with abortion aren’t hypothetical. Cases in Mississippi and Indiana could preview how digital evidence could be used post-Roe.
Seeking an abortion? Here’s how to avoid leaving a digital trail.
Washington Post link
Everything you should do to keep your information safe, from incognito browsing to turning off location tracking.
These are the kinds of things we have to think about when rightwing dunderheads turn pregnant people into criminals.
New York Times link
Big data is making so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ more dangerous than ever
Good news: Jan. 6 Panel Members Say New Witnesses Have Come Forward After Hutchinson’s Testimony
Ukraine update: Russia’s big counterattack at Kharkiv has so far come to nothing
The Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart.
The chart includes:
Gift from God Rape
Legitimate Rape
Honest Rape
Emergency Rape
Easy Rape
Forcible Rape
Enjoyable Rape
Those categories come from statements made by actual Republicans. References for the Republican excuses for rape can be viewed on the chart.
Here is the next abortion war.
The Red states want to make pregnant women into prisoners and slaves.
Under our laws, state laws stop at state borders.
The Red states want to extend their laws into the Blue states.
This can’t be legal. Except with the current Supreme Court, they can make up any laws they want.
FFS, how are they going to enforce this?
Put a collar around the necks of pregnant women and chain them up in the yard or a dungeon?
Set up pregnancy camps where pregnant women will be imprisoned until they give birth?
Put up an Iron Curtain fence at their borders with mine fields, dogs, and guard towers. Shoot any pregnant women who try to escape?
We’ve seen this movie before in places like the USSR, Serbia during the Bosnian genocide, and Romania under communism.
What they Red states want to do is set up Police States with pregnant women as their first victims.
From the Washington Post article above.
Yeah it does.
The Thomas More society is a Catholic extremist legal organization.
They almost always lose their cases.
This is dumb.
Civil litigation at the state level is only enforceable in the state you live in or have some sort of ties to. If I get sued by someone in Georgia, it either goes Federal or it goes nowhere. I’m not under the jurisdiction of Georgia state courts.
California and several other states have already passed laws nullifying the Red states attempts to take over their legal systems.
Link
Nice to see the January 6 Committee getting under the skin of the orange man-baby.
Followup to comment 89.
Posted by readers of the article:
Ukraine Update: Whoever controls the south, controls Ukraine’s economic destiny
More videos and images at the link, including a photo that shows the flag of Ukraine flying again on Snake Island.
Cartoon: “Witching hour”
Mass Shooting erupts during a 4th of July Parade in Highland Park Ill. – a number of people shot
The shooter has NOT been apprehended. Multiple people were shot.
From The Hill:
Romney: Trump’s return would likely make ‘malady of denial, deceit and distrust’ in US ‘incurable’
Followup to comment 93.
The Washington Post is reporting that at least five people were killed at the Chicago-area parade.
Link
Disinformation concerning abortion:
Washington Post link
Fact:
The so-called herbal (or “natural”) remedies are being advertised by people who are making a lot money. Their products are ineffective or unsafe … or both.
“Updated Covid Shots Are Coming. Will They Be Too Late?”
New York Times link
The government has greenlit new vaccines to defend against the latest Omicron variants. But the shots won’t arrive until the fall, and cases are rising now.
Now I get to find out if I live long enough to get a new, effective vaccine … or not.
Followup to comment 95.
The death toll is now up to six. The number of wounded is up to 26.
The “person of interest” is a 22-year-old white male.
NBC News:
Re #98
It wouldn’t surprise me if they found the body of a member of his family killed before the mass shooting.
The Ukrainian Military Orchestra performs the US national anthem
https://twitter.com/KpsZSU/status/1543935076228124673
Video at the link.
Jean @99, I see that law enforcement officials have now apprehended the “person of interest.” Still don’t know any more about him.
Just like they right-wing initially blamed the Uvalde massacre on a “transgender illegal,” I wonder what marginalized groups they’re going to wrongly accuse this shooter of being affiliated with this time?
On the recent British GP Climate protest here – some more details. It seems to have not had much publicity – deliberately ignored (?) by the mainstream media sources :
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/motor-racing-stop-oil-protesters-invade-british-gp-track-after-crash
&
http://localnews8.com/news/2022/07/04/lewis-hamilton-backs-environmental-protests-but-not-their-methods-as-protestors-invade-british-gp-track/
Plus an inteview with one of the ‘Stop Oil’ protest spokespeople – James Skeet here – nealy nine minutes long and with hostile interviewers but still gets to put their side of it with some notable facts cited.
Lynna@100, Thanks! That was a unique, different, and effective rendition of a almost-unsingable song set to the tune of a olde British(?)
pubdrinking tune. Here’s an HD link (including the short message at the end), Привітання до Дня Незалежності США / Greetings for the Independence Day of the USA (video). One of the commentators there put it quite nicely (quoted in full):Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog (featuring l’affaire Pincher).
They share a tweet from David Lammy:
Guardian – “‘Go home’: Honduran islanders fights against crypto colonialists”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian podcast – “Understanding the cryptocurrency crash”:
Text quoted by SC @107:
Don’t trust Crypto dudes.
blf @104, glad you enjoyed that. The Ukrainian rendition of the song was one of the few things I enjoyed about July 4th.
Guardian liveblog:
They provide this (Twitter) link to the video. I don’t know why, but I’m struck by this. I felt nauseated watching it.
Summarized from a CNN report:
Yeah. That sounds about right.
Patron the Ukrainian bomb-sniffing dog has a Twitter account and it is CUTE.
Steve Benen’s commentary:
LOL
CNBC:
Commentary:
Link
Sad.
A White House reference to the “liberal world order” caused a massive freak-out on the right, but the apoplexy was wildly misplaced.
‘New Lows’: Kinzinger Posts Audio Of Violent Threats His Interns Have Had To Field For Him
News:
The Guardian liveblog has links to two tweets by reporter Dan Hodges:
Quoted in Lynna’s #117:
Oh, for the love of fuck.
Guardian liveblog:
Oh, FFS.
Link
From this week’s Meduza liveblog:
Another – Guardian liveblog:
A sixth guy linked to Gazprom has been killed. I haven’t found any reporting on it (yet?) in major outlets – I’m surprised these killings aren’t getting more coverage – but here’s an article in Metro: “Russian millionaire linked to Putin energy giant Gazprom found shot dead in pool.”
Ukraine Update: HIMARS has even longer range, thus more effective than its official specs
Guardian liveblog:
Julia Davis:
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. Worth watching in full.
Link
Anti-Putin jokes:
Anti-Donald Trump jokes:
Link
Guardian liveblog:
Police believe suspect planned Highland Park shooting for ‘several weeks’
Lynna @ #131, those are good!
New omicron subvariant BA.5 now a majority of US COVID-19 cases
SC @131, yeah. And it is good to laugh.
Wonkette: “White GA Candidates Who Ratf*cked Black Lady’s School Job Lose Elections Like Big Old Losers”
Trumps Basically Just Logan Roy’s Family But Stupider And Poorer, According To Jan. 6 Documentary Trailer
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657611611
Wonkette: “New York Times Back On Its Bullsh*t, Finds Some Young Women Who Hate Abortion”
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657610829
Some surprisingly related podcast episodes:
NBN – “Archie T. Wright, Satan and the Problem of Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers“:
[There’s a lot of religiosity in the background here, and I can’t really critically evaluate the arguments (and haven’t read the book), but I found this worthwhile.]
You’re Wrong About – “Go Ask Alice w. Carmen Maria Machado (Part 1)”:
There are links to parts 2 and 3, which just became available, at the link. In part 3 they talk to Rick Emerson, who has a new book out: Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries. (It’s interesting that Beatrice Sparks was from Logan, Utah, which is also the hometown of Teal Swan, whose therapist Barbara Snow was also infamously involved in the Satanic Panic…)
Michael and Us – “#344 – Socialism with Disneyan Characteristics”:
Wisconsin court delivers another setback to the state’s democracy
It’s a common cliché : Elections have consequences. Evidently, it’s going to need an addendum: Elections have consequences, except in Wisconsin.
Florida punishes public health officials for being right:
Link
Trump is seeming less alpha all the time, the potential beginning of the end
RAAAAAGE.
Link
Christian Nationalists are Plotting to Take Over the United States
Robert Reich:
Meanwhile in the Yoo-Kay: two of Johnson’s most senior ministers, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid, have resigned, following the collapse of the latest series of lies from Johnson (about appointing Chris Pincher as Deputy Chief Whip, despite knowing about allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him). Their resignations have been followed by those of a string of junior government members, but so far no more of the cabinet. Johnson is clinging to power by his fingertips – he’s appointed one of his closest toadies, Steve Barclay, to succeed Javid.
Guardian liveblog:
Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Link
This is a summary of a German video report on what happened to some of the 1.9 million Ukrainians deported to Russia.
They were deported to the farthest reaches of Russia and given very little help or support. It’s clear the Russians hope they get lost, die, or get forgotten.
This isn’t anything new.
They’ve done it to so many nationalities that it is hard to keep track. Russian Germans, Taters, Chechens, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Karelians, Polish, German Germans, and now it is the Ukrainians turn.
CounterVortex:
From March – “Ukrainian self-determination: Bandera or Makhno?”:
New – “Ukrainian self-determination: Bandera or Makhno? II”:
“Bill Weinberg slams ‘tankie’ pseudo-left on YouTube”:
Guardian liveblog:
It is clear that the Zygote Police in the Red states are going to go after pregnant women. It’s not yet clear exactly how but it is becoming clearer.
As are what the rules will be to remain a free person.
They always go after your communication devices for evidence.
That would be your cell phone, landline phone, and internet providers.
Plus all your credit card information.
I’m sure in a few months, comprehensive instruction manuals on how to travel out of state for abortions without getting caught will be available on the internet.
For those who haven’t seen it already, this is a disturbing bit of news :
Source : https://proxy.freethought.online/oceanoxia/2022/07/05/be-on-the-lookout-for-people-spreading-the-propaganda-of-a-fascist-terrorist/
In other news :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-05/religious-group-arrests-over-8yo-elizabeth-struhs-death/101208762
The exact religious group is question seems not to be named annoyingly.
Plus on abortion locally (for me nyhow) :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-06/sa-abortion-reforms-in-sa/101210338
Well, kind of. According to what I’ve read, Bandera was kept under good conditions (in the expectation that he might come in useful later), even being allowed external contacts, and in 1944 was released again. I haven’t listened to the podcast, so I don’t know if it covers Bandera’s pre-WW2 terrorism against Poles, and Ukranians who were prepared to accommodate to the Polish authorities (what is now western Ukraine was part of Poland between the wars), or the fact that he remained an unrepentant fascist to the end of his life (at the hands of a KGB assassin in 1959). The Ukranian ambassador to Germany recently caused unfavourable publicity by publicly praising Bandera – his words were repudiated by the Ukranian government, but AFAIK he is still in post.
I have a book on the Makhnovists not mentioned at your link – an English translation of History of the Makhnovist Movement 1918-1921 by Peter Arshinov, which I picked up second-hand somewhere; the text is now available online.
KG @ #157, I’m not sure if you think Weinberg is defending Bandera in some way but I can assure you he isn’t.
Here’s a link to the Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Some interesting bits in the Guardian’s review of the Chanel fall/winter show (I love the third evening dress in the photo):
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. It’s PMQs, which put on full display the corrosive effect Johnson’s had on politics.
(I had missed this completely.)
Kat Tenbarge and Ben Collins at NBC – “YouTube channel featuring Highland Park shooting suspect showed parade route and an animated school shooting”:
Too much to excerpt – Grid – “The insurrectionists’ clubhouse: Former Trump aides find a home at a little-known MAGA hub”: “Nearly two dozen alleged members of the Jan. 6 plot are connected to a single Capitol Hill address…”
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
You can keep track of the “GTFO Johnson” resignations here.
“BREAKING: Richmond police will hold a press conference at 2pm to address a tip, that they say prevented a mass shooting planned for July 4th. Multiple arrests made, weapons seized. Stay tuned.”
KG @ #166, the rate is about one every five minutes now!
SC@168,
Yes, the trickle is becoming a flood!
Badenoch, O’Brien, Burghart, Rowley and Lopez all quit as ministers in joint resignation.
KG @169 (and previous).
Stick a fork in him, I think he’s done…
Putin is recreating the old USSR.
They are now arresting anyone who is a dissident.
It’s all there, exile to Siberia, disappearances, the Gulag, the secret police.
Human life is cheap and meaningless in the new Soviet Union.
You can die any time someone with power and money thinks it is convenient.
Because the old USSR worked so well, so why not?
(IMO, Russia is turning into a failed nation.)
New Fever Dreams – “Multiverse Vibe Shift w/ Baynard Woods”:
Guardian liveblog:
There’s also reporting that this morning Michael Gove told Johnson he should resign.
Seems to be an internal conflict among the oligarchies in Russia.
Five Gazprom or Gazprom related executives have been found dead recently.
No one gets rich in Russia without being a friend of Putin.
And you can lose your fortune and your life any time it becomes useful to do so.
The whole trick to being an oligarch in Russia is to transfer your money out of Russia and then get out yourself and hope no one important decides to send the FSB after you to kill you.
Quoted in raven’s #171:
Despicable.
A delegation of cabinet ministers (including Nadim Zahawi, who Johnson just appointed Chancellor) are reportedly going to tell Johnson he must go.
The Justice Department filed suit yesterday, challenging a state law created by Arizona Republicans that requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Link
An attorney employed by the GOP-controlled state House had warned legislators that implementing the legislation, which applies to federal elections, would violate U.S. law.
More at the link.
In the latest national Monmouth poll, Democrats and Republicans are tied on the generic congressional ballot, with each party garnering 47 percent support. A month ago, the same pollster showed the GOP ahead by four points, suggesting some shift in the Democrats’ direction. [summary from Steve Benen]
As Biden shrinks Guantanamo’s population, GOP balks at closure
At the start of the Obama era, Guantanamo had 242 inmates. It’s now down to 36. Republicans are nevertheless determined to keep the prison open anyway.
Wonkette: “British POTUS Boris Johnson Betrayed By Bunch Of SPLITTERS! No Really All His Cabinet Split.”
According to this Finnish news story:
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12523881
Russia is planning to scrap most of its covid-related foreign travel restrictions on 15 July. Finland, meanwhile, scrapped the last restrictions for people entering from non-EU/Schengen countries at the end of June.
Until now, non-Finns entering Finland from Russia have needed a demonstrable serious reason for their travel, unless they have a Western-approved covid vaccination (which Russians usually don’t have). Non-Russians entering Russia have needed a similar reason, and also a negative PCR test. In practice, most people who traveled back and forth during the pandemic were either dual citizens, or had citizenship in one country and residence/family in the other. It seems (this is somewhat unclear) that Russia will still require the PCR test after 15 July, but that’s it.
However, due to other reasons, no one is expecting the cross-border tourism to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.
Public transport across the border, which was already downscaled during the pandemic, was further cut shortly after Russia started the Ukraine war. There are still buses, in addition to personal car access, but no train or plane connection. Finnish authorities currently advise against all travel to Russia. Before the pandemic, many Finns hopped across the border to buy cheap gasoline from Russia, but this practice is unlikely to continue because a) continued PCR test requirement would make it impractical b) due to EU sanctions, you could only import what fuel fits in you vehicle’s own tank c) there is a greatly increased awareness to boycott Russian oil and Russian-owned fuel industry as much as possible.
Early in the war, there was a modest influx of Russians who traveled west (usually further than Finland), apparently without plans on returning soon. I got the impression these were relatively wealthy, cosmopolitan people with lots of connections abroad. Presumably, many of them had already previously arranged themselves Western covid vaccination for travel purposes. Others. according to a report I saw, were shopping fake papers for such vaccination. It seems many or most citizens of Western countries living in Russia also left.
Early in the war, some Ukrainian refugees reportedly started entering Finland via Russia. I haven’t seen updates on that recently, but in the light of Russian forced evacuations (see comment 172 upthread) one could expect a growing flux of Ukrainians entering the EU from Russia via Finland.
Wonkette: “GOP Will Investigate Jan. 6 Investigators For Investigating What GOP Did Jan. 6”
Johnson has now sacked Gove for “disloyalty”, but is still clinging on to power.
Here is where the Red state Blue state abortion wars stand.
The Red states are going to try to keep their female slaves from fleeing out of state for health care.
The Blue states aren’t going to cooperate.
The various Red state fugitive pregnant female laws are going to be hard to enforce.
Even some of the local DAs in Red states aren’t going to prosecute.
lumipuna @ #181:
I agree with the Finnish authorities!
lumipuna @181:
Masterful understatement.
Bits of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
Convoy protesters hit a roadblock when leader was arrested during livestream
Quite right. Arrest the dunderhead.
Quoted in Lynna’s #187:
That’s insane.
Oh, Tucker, you do not have to prove to us that you are a dunderhead. We know already.
Tucker Carlson blames women and weed—but not guns—for mass shootings perpetrated by angry white men
“Punk Rock Loser.”
“Ain’t No Thief.”
“The Sky is Crying.”
“School / Bloody Well Right.”
“Pata Pata.”
“Funk Flex.”
The Westminster farce continues! Now we have cabinet ministers (Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, and Nadhim Zahawi, the newly-appointed Chancellor) publicly calling for Johnson to resign without doing so themselves. This is unprecedented – we’re supposed to have something called “collective Cabinet responsibility”, which means that if a minister can’t support the Prime minister, they resign. Braverman (one of the most unpleasant even among the current crop of Tories) has even announced she wants to be the next PM!
It’s just this minute (literally) been reported that Johnson has agreed to resign, but wants to stay on until autumn, when a new Tory leader will be elected. They’d be fools to let him – there’s no knowing what crisis he might engineer to prevent that process being completed.
Breaking / awaiting news here with Boris Johnson expected to resign & / or stay till October then resign somehow? See :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-07/boris-johnson-expected-to-resign-as-british-pm/101215472
Plus see live (Aussie) ABC news coverage here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-07/boris-johnson-government-cabinet-resignations-updates/101212040
Currently watching on ABC TV News 24.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog.:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog.:
New QAA – “Episode 194: New Q is Sus”:
Guardian liveblog:
“Remember Ivan Kulyak, the Russian gymnast who was disqualified for a year after competing in Doha with a Z on his chest?
Russia’s gymnastics federation has itself now banned him from domestic events for fear of all its other athletes being sanctioned”
LOL.
Keir Starmer tweeted:
Short video of him speaking at the (Twitter) link.
Guardian liveblog:
How are Republicans and their allies trying to deflect attention away from guns in the wake of the Highland Park shooting?
Senate GOP sticks to ugly hostage gambit on competitiveness bill
Link
Evangelical Leader Brags About Secretly Praying With SCOTUS Justices
“This is insane – the whole duration of the Ukraine frontline is just burning.
Pure living hell.”
Heatmap at the (Twitter) link.
Clueless GOP senator blames stimulus checks for the labor shortage
“Last week saw the highest level of anti-LGBT+ activity since @ACLEDINFO started collecting data for the United States. Far-right groups like the Proud Boys targeted multiple LGBT+ events around the country, including in CA, IN, MI, NV, NC, and TX.”
Event map at the (Twitter) link.
“General Staff: Ukraine repels Russia’s attempt to advance towards Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast.
According to a recent report by the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Russian troops have unsuccessfully stormed the Bohorodychne village, not far from Sloviansk.”
SC @211, that is impressive. Yikes!
In related news: Putin ally goes bonkers: Russia should reclaim Alaska if Russian assets seized to rebuild Ukraine
Herschel Walker reportedly lied to his team about his secret kids
When it comes to the Georgia Republican’s personal controversies, Herschel Walker apparently isn’t above lying to his own campaign team.
Perfect candidate for Trump to endorse.
NBC News:
@ 216
I realize that the right doesn’t care about being accused of hypocrisy the same way Democrats seem to, but it should be obvious there is some incongruity between an ideology that has spent generations lecturing African-Americans about “the family,” the sacredness of “fatherhood,” and that they shouldn’t have sex until they are locked into a boring monogamous marriage and their rabid support for a man who has sired so many “illegitimate” child.
Akira @218, I agree!
In other news: Group of ‘bedrock’ Pennsylvania Republicans break ranks to endorse Democrat for governor
Wonkette: “Watch Joe Biden Give Medal Of Freedom To People Who Aren’t ‘Dead Rush Limbaugh’ Or Devin Nunes!”
Video at the link.
Denzel Washington wasn’t present because he tested positive for Covid. He will be given his medal at a later date.
From #270
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell added, “The core of the problem is not the Second Amendment.”
True comment from the actual core of the problem. Corrupt POS and his wife are traitorous grift personified.
Link
Link
Link
Images, tweets, and video at the link.
“Texans are seeing what a post-Roe world looks like. The GOP may regret it.” The article is written by Jennifer Rubin for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/07/texas-abortion-ban-republicans-may-regret-it/"The Washington Post.
From the link @ Lynna’s #224:
Guardian – “Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds”:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Axios – “IRS asks for probe into James Comey and Andrew McCabe tax audits”:
Too much to excerpt – Guardian – “‘Fonio just grows naturally’: could ancient indigenous crops ensure food security for Africa?”: “Calls are growing to invest more in the continent’s traditional grains as a way to break its reliance on imported wheat, rice and maize…”
From the article:
Yes, that’s a terrible idea.
Julia Davis:
Stunning video at the (Twitter) link.
Illia Ponomarenko in the Kyiv Independent (support them if you can!) – “Ukraine targets Russia’s ammunition depots, undermining its artillery advantage”:
More at the link.
Russia just managed to harm the world some more.
They halted 1 million barrels a day of oil going to Europe through the Caspian pipeline.
It didn’t hurt Russia at all because it isn’t even their oil.
It is mostly Kazakhstan’s oil.
This will hurt the world and Europe but it will really hurt Kazakhstan.
That country lives off of mostly oil exports and they live well with a per capital income higher than Russia.
IMO, after Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, Kazakhstan might be the next country the Russians invade and take over. Big, only 20 million people, full of resources, and not in any major alliances like NATO. Who would stop them?
Heavily dependent on fossil fuels, Kazakhstan is reliant on Russian pipelines for oil exports to Europe. And how is that working out for Kazakhstan?
Their main source of revenue just got shut down by Putin.
Is anyone getting the idea that Russia is an unreliable trade partner?
Their new oil pipeline doesn’t exist and no matter what, isn’t going to do anything for a whole lot of years.
They should build it anyway.
Link
Wonkette
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657626171
Matt Gaetz’s wingman just filed ‘sensitive information’ under seal.
Joel Greenberg is ready to be sentenced for his crimes—and has been cooperating in ‘ongoing investigations and prosecutions’ against ‘multiple individuals.’ Should Gaetz worry?
Details at the link. Looks like a developing story to me. Questions cannot be answered at this time.
As summarized by Steve Benen:
More right wingnut/fundie xian terrorism.
Yeah, I know. Why is this news? It is another day that ends with a y.
The whole monument was destroyed.
The fundie xians kept on calling the site satanic, despite there being zero evidence for anything satanic and satan himself having the problem of not actually existing.
Wikipedia: The inscription read:[14]
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
Arguable but nothing particularly controversial.
Unless you call, “Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.” satanic.
BBC – “Shinzo Abe: Explosives found at shooting suspect’s home – reports”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Guardian – “Collapsing public support suggests Brexit is anything but done”:
Guardian – “‘Headed in a bad direction’: Omicron variant may bring second-largest US Covid wave”:
Lynna, OM@209 quoting Steve Benen,
Benen contrasts UK Tories favourably with US Republicans, but the former elected Johnson as their leader (and hence PM) and enabled his corruption and lies for 3 years; they’ve turned against him only because it’s become clear he’s now a massive vote-loser for them – which is not obviously the case for Trump.
Guardian liveblog:
(Vaguely related to my comment at 181)
Finnish parliament just passed a controversial law that allows increased security measures on the Russian border, particularly in a potential crisis situation where Russia tries to machinate a mass movement of (more or less legitimate) asylum seekers across the border, like Belarus did in an attempt to sabotage Poland and Lithuania last year. Of course, this sort of sabotage would be less effective if people in European countries were less prone to freaking out over large numbers of brown refugees.
For one thing, the law allows building real barrier fences at the border, as in overriding private landowners. This “build the wall” aspect of the law seems to be getting the most attention in international reporting. The Border Guard estimates that actually only 100-250 km of the 1340 km long border needs barrier fencing, in areas that are easily accessible by roads. Currently, there’s a livestock fence in many places, which is not a significant barrier for determined humans.
A more serious and controversial aspect is that in extreme circumstances, Finland could effectively stop accepting asylum seekers along the entire Russian border. Presumably that’d mean forcibly pushing people back across the border, which is exactly what Polish authorities were accused of doing last year. Whether this would violate EU law and international human rights treaties has been a subject of some handwaving. It’s said the EU itself is planning to revise the relevant laws in response to modern hybrid-type threats, so the issue is supposedly moot.
Personally, I hate to see Europe turning more and more into a fortress, with violent rejection of undesirables at its borders.
The twitter comment is in cyrilic so the headline is going to be it.
It is clear that Kazakhstan is moving away from Russia as fast as it can. Which isn’t all that fast but it is the thought that counts.
I looked on a map. Kazakhstan has a long border with Russia. On the other side, it also has a long border with China. It is also obvious that Kazakhstan wants China as an ally to counterbalance Russia.
If Russia wins in Ukraine, sooner or later, it will fight a war and take over Kazakhstan.
Tokayev knows this.
The Army seeks to recoup $38,557.06 from Michael Flynn
Pentagon investigators found that Michael Flynn received nearly $450,000 from Turkish and Russian interests. The Army now wants some of that money back.
Conservative justices in Wisconsin reject ballot drop boxes
Wisconsin’s democracy was already in dire straits. A state Supreme Court ruling against ballot drop boxes won’t help matters.
There’s also likely to be an upsurge in Coronavirus cases, (fueled by the Omicron variants), during the midterm voting season. Dropboxes help voters avoid crowds of people. This decision by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court is just stupid on many levels.
Following ruling, Biden takes new steps to protect abortion access
Overturning Roe v. Wade took decades. The White House has now started the process of undoing what Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices did.
Good news: Payrolls increased 372,000 in June, more than expected, as jobs market defies recession fears
The unemployment rate was 3.6%, unchanged from May and in line with estimates.
Ukraine Update: Russia announces ‘operational pause,’ but Ukraine isn’t slowing down
Biden issued an executive order on abortion rights.
It’s not a lot but there isn’t a lot he can do right now anyway.
Becerra has directed the HHS Office for Civil Rights to issue new guidance related to the HIPAA Privacy Rule to clarify that doctors and medical providers are in most cases not required — and in many instances not permitted — to disclose the private information of patients, including to law enforcement.
That is nice but probably won’t be too useful.
There are dozens of women in prison for miscarriages and stillbirths. They were all ratted out by the health care workers they saw for medical care. It just takes one fundie xian doctor or nurse in the ER and here come the cops.
The standard advice is not to admit you committed a felony to people you don’t know under suspicious circumstances.
The office will also issue a guide for consumers on how to protect personal data on mobile apps.
Yes, we will all need guides on how to evade the abortion laws in Red States and be successful criminals.
It’s irrelevant right now anyway.
Biden and the Democrats don’t have the votes so this isn’t an issue.
I’d do it in a second if the votes were there.
The US Supreme court has destroyed its credibility and is now just a political football. Footballs are for getting kicked around.
Republicans in Oklahoma seem to be confused, but they are harassing Tulsa Public Schools anyway:
Wonkette link
Wonkette: “Brett Kavanaugh Doesn’t Even Get To Enjoy His Tiramisu At Morton’s, Whaa Whaa Whaa”
Wonkette: “Here, Have A Nice Round-Up Of Some Good Sh*t Our Elected Officials Are Doing!”
LOL – Guardian – “Elon Musk withdraws $44bn bid to buy Twitter after weeks of high drama”:
Anything I could add to this would be…snobbish – Guardian – “‘Trump-like madness!’– our critic’s verdict on Boris Johnson’s £200,000 No 11 refurb.”
Related to #261, The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 is available for free.
Coming to terms with just how armed Trump followers were on Jan. 6
The more we learn about how armed Jan. 6 insurrectionists were, the more we’re reminded of Republicans who pretended otherwise.
Washington Post:
Thread favorite Fintan O’Toole in the Guardian – “Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe”:
More at the link.
Oh, FFS.
New Arizona law limits bystanders from recording police officers and law enforcement incidents
Greg Abbott signals to violent white supremacist extremists in latest anti-immigrant order
The Zygote Police will use digital data from phones and computers to arrest formerly pregnant women.
They already do so.
Use a burner phone from a drugstore and destroy it when you are done.
Poland is already setting up a pregnancy database.
I’m sure the Red States will do the same.
They may also make health care workers into mandatory reporters for pregnancies and pregnancy losses.
A reasonable explanation at last suggested here for why many carnivorouous therapod dinosaurs may have had such small arms :
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-rex-short-arms-lowered-frenzies.html
Including this newly found one :
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-giant-carnivorous-dinosaur-tiny-arms.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter
that wasn’t a close rellie despite its similar appearence.
Meanwhile a sneak peak of what the first JSWT images will be here:
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-nasa-reveals-webb-telescope-cosmic.html
With July 12th the day we’ll see the first images here.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
From an earlier summary:
New Eastern Europe – “Ignorance of history? Germany’s culture of memory and response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine”:
New On the Media – “The F-Word”:
Guardian liveblog:
Daily Space: The Eagle Nebula
Ukraine update:
Missouri Democrat wants men to ‘Step the hell up!’
DOJ Says The Oath Keepers Brought Explosives To DC Area Around January 6th And Had A “Death List”
Followup to comment 210.
Link
Arizona ‘Patriot’ leader bear-sprays abortion rights protesters, so Mesa police charge a victim
Harrison portrays herself as the victim. She is the perp.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry hits Rep. Spartz over ‘baseless speculation’ on Zelensky chief of staff
A Republican official in the USA repeating Russian propaganda. Surprise, surprise.
WTF?
North Carolina Republicans want the state to destroy free EV charging stations
Gas and diesel fuel pumps would cost a lot more to install and maintain than EV charging stations.
Link
Wonkette: ‘Will No One Think Of How Elliot Page’s Abs Have Directly Hurt Poor Jordan Peterson?”
re Lynna @281:
The republicans in the NC Legislature are fucking idiots. Not only would forcing free gas and diesel pumps alongside EV charging stations be impractical because of the environmental regulations related to underground storage tanks, the retail fuel dealers in the area would (rightly) cry foul because it would collapse their sales of fuels to the general public. Just another attempt by republicans to throw a monkey wrench into anything that might be considered progressive. I HATE REPUBLICANS!!!
Good ABC news article on the refugees who came to Oz seeking asylum here by boat – which is a legal human right :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-10/asylum-seekers-no-visas-can-t-work-no-medicare-rely-on-charity/101153320
Novisas, no or minimal access to any healthcare, no work, no future, just limbo living like ghosts..
Back in the Yoo-Kay, there are now, I think, ten Tory MPs who have made clear their intention to stand for the leadership: Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Jeremy Hunt, Suella Braverman, Grant Shapps, Nadhim Badawi, Penny Mordaunt. They are all pretty repulsive, as one would expect; only Hunt and Tugendhat have not served in Johnson’s government. I’d have said a couple of days ago Tugendhat was perhaps the least unpleasant, but remarks by one of his main supporters about the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the programme of transportation to Rwanda for asylum seekers indicate that he’s joining the rest of the crew in pandering to the far right. Remarkably, five of the ten are people of colour, but this should not fool anyone into thinking they would try to do anything about the systemic racism deeply embedded in policing, legal, educational and other areas: all are of the “I made it, why can’t they?” school of thought (or they wouldn’t be Tories). Sunak, who was Chancellor before he resigned just after Javid at the start of the landslide that forced Johnson to declare he would leave, is the current bookmakers’ favourite, but Johnson and his remaining supporters will do their best to sabotage him, blaming him for Johnson’s downfall. It seems clear Sunak has been planning his campaign for some months, so accusations of disloyalty and hypocrisy will have purchase. The ultra-vile Priti Patel is also thought to be contemplating a run.
In related news, the Durham police have announced that the Labour leader and deputy leader, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, have “no case to answer” in regard to claims they had broken Covid regulations in 2020. Both had promised to resign if fined. I’d say this is good news for them, but bad news for Labour, who would have had a chance to elect a more effective leader if Starmer had resigned – he has so far relied on not being either Johnson, or Jeremy Corbyn, to propel him into No. 10 after the next election; in two years as leader, he has completely failed to set out any positive vision or plan for the country. His slogans are “Security, prosperity, respect” – which would have done equally well for the British Union of Fascists (Starmer likes to pose against a backdrop of Union Jacks) – and “Make Brexit work”, while ruling out rejoining the Single Market or Customs Union – at a time when disillusionment with Brexit is at a high (55% in a recent poll said it had gone badly, as opposed to 33% saying it had gone well).
Legal Eagle has a disturbing new clip out here on what might be coming next post Roe vs Wade’s overturning.
Other news Antarctica has just one insect species – as this article explains :
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-simulations-antarctica-insect-due-global.html
But Global Overheating means it is in big trouble.
Whilst in better or at least rather fascinating Cambrian era news :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-07-09/brain-three-eyed-marine-predator-500-million-year-old-fossils/101217790
On a remarkable fossil of an ancestor of the arthropods – Stanleycaris hirpex – that’s recently been found and studied.
Link
Ukraine update:
Link
“I Was Betrayed by President Trump”
New York Times link
Huffington Post: “Trump Is ‘Terrified’ His White House Counsel Is Cooperating With Jan. 6 Panel: Mary Trump”
Commentary:
Link
Lawrence O’Donnell talks about the Electoral College:
Link
Video at the link.
Washington Post:
Michael McFaul:
Washington Post:
Jim Hacker (A district attorney):
The most recent addition to the list of Tory MPs wanting to succeed Johnson, Penny Mordaunt* has had to reissue her initial campaign video after it was found to contain footage of convicted South African murderer Oscar Pistorius, and another Paralympian included asked her to take him out, saying “anything but Blue”**.
*Liz Truss, who I listed earlier, has apparently not yet declared her candidacy, but is expected to do so today or tomorrow.
**Recall that in the UK, as practically everywhere but the USA, blue is associated with the right, red with the left.
What a coincidence! That’s exactly what we hear from Tankies (who of course hate being called Tankies) on this very site!
Amusing trivia: that was the name given to a fictional self-interested and self-regarding but hapless British politician, routinely outwitted by his (equally self-interested and self-regarding) top civil servant “Sir Humphrey”, in the 1980s BBC TV series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.
Lofgren Dismisses Oath Keepers Leader’s Offer To Testify As DOJ Issues New Allegations
Desperate for Recruits, Russia Launches a ‘Stealth Mobilization’ [New York Times link]
Leery of a national draft for the Ukraine war, the Kremlin is offering cash bonuses and employing strong arm tactics.
Trumpian cult follower, Jenna Ellis, demonstrates that she lacks any sense:
Smoke and debris from record-breaking fires in Alaska and Yukon head to Northern Greenland
I deleted most of this analysis. It was repetitious and didn’t have much new.
They ran some numbers and made an estimate of additional unwanted births in the USA.
It is 180,000 in the Red states.
My own estimate (based on the Romanian disaster and Polish experience) is that it will be lower at 100,000 or so. After a few years it may be even lower as alternate means of abortion become common.
The forced births here will be mostly poor, young, and nonwhite.
Maternal mortality will go up as will neonatal mortality and morbidity.
The Red states aren’t going to spend any more money on the unwanted kids they forced into the world.
It is a source of pride to them not to spend money on poor people.
UK Foreign Secretary and well-known numpty LIz Truss* has announced her candidacy for the Tory leadership, as has Rehman Chishti. If you haven’t heard of the latter, you’re in good company – neither has anyone else. Six out of the 11 candidates are now people of colour. Four of the 11 are women.
*Sergei Lavrov punked her in a meeting by asking if she recognised Rostov and Voronezh as sovereign Russian territory. Truss replied that, ‘we will never recognise Russian sovereignty there.’ The British ambassador to Russia had to tell her they are universally recognised as provinces of Russia.
Apropos of less than the usual nothing, I had exploding gaspacho soup for lunch…
Several days ago I made a batch of gestapo soup, I mean gazpacho police, well, you know what I mean. Keeping in mind it’s basically “liquid (cold) salad” — that is, anything which works in a cold salad could work with gestapo — I added some radishes along with the usual (for me) tomatoes, cucumber, errant penguin feathers, onion, etc., albeit no chilies (didn’t have any), or bread (ditto), along with the requisite metric feckton of olive oil. Tasted rather good!
At the same time, I was dealing with a small explosive device: The c.4 year-old Lithium-ion battery in my mobile phone had begun to swell, which indicates dangerous outgassing and potential explosion / fire. Fortunately, I have a Fairphone, which is easily user-disassemblable with a trivially-removed / -replaced battery, so as soon as the problem was diagnosed, out came the battery, which is now buried (contacts taped to prevent shorting and loosely wrapped in paper) in a steel bucket of dry sand in a dry & cool(-ish) place far from all the exits. The smoke alarm is passing its tests, and the CO₂ fire extinguisher is at the ready (but not stowed too close). It will remain there until I can locate a responsible disposal- / recycling-centre which knows how to safely handle failed batteries.
Rather awkwardly, for totally unrelated reasons, I cannot order a replacement battery today. Upshot is that unless I obtain a “temporary” mobile, I will be sans phone at an awkward time for uncomfortably long — my second Covid booster is (almost-)available, and sans mobile, there is no track-and-trace Covid app, just when Covid cases are rising (albeit the last data I saw for France suggests the rise is leveling-off).
Just how many documentary film crews helped document Jan. 6?
One of the amazing things about the Jan. 6 attack was the sheer volume of the documentarians involved in capturing the events on camera.
Republicans use the word “Freedom” in an Orwellian way.
Link
@302
Given the right’s obsession with racial demographics (e.g. “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory) you’d think that they’d ban it only for “Real Americans” (read: white) and make it mandatory for the “undesirables.”
Then again, the private prison industry always needs new
revenue sourcesguests, so I guess it stands to reason.GOP leaders are literally speechless about the good news on jobs
How strong have the U.S. job numbers been in recent months? Strong enough to leave Republican leaders literally at a loss for words.
Oh, FFS.
Followup to comment 251.
Trump And Co. Seize On Wisconsin Ruling As PROOF 2020 Election Was Rigged
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
Also from there:
Followup to comment 309.
Posted by readers of the article:
“Our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got we to clean that back up.” – Herschel Walker
https://twitter.com/stphnfwlr/status/1546476045112676352
video at the link
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. It’s overwhelmingly concerned with the sad slew of rightwing candidates (see KG’s #s 286, 295, and 303 above) and their declarations and maneuvering.
And here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Anton Gerashchenko:
@ 312
Herschel Walker is an infant. He has no idea what he is talking about. I’m not even sure he knows where he is at any given point and time.
And yet, the last set of polls I’ve seen indicate that he’s either neck-and-neck or is leading his Democratic opponent. The fact that a Herschel Walker, MTG, or a Donald Trump can achieve political power in this country is irrefutable proof that democracy doesn’t work.
New War on the Rocks – “Is the Most Important Battle of the War Coming?”:
Nuanced analysis.
@315
It doesn’t prove anything about democracy because the US does not have a democracy but a ridiculous caricature of a democracy. I’m not saying that democracy works (or doesn’t work) but there are much better examples of what democracy could be around the world.
@ 317
I’m just being my usual curmudgeonly self.
Ukraine update: Zelenskyy calls for recapturing the south, but is that really the plan?
Videos showing Russian stuff being blown up are available at the link.
Religious Nuttery
https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1546487217811783680
Excellent viol is available at the link.
Link
@ 320
They haven’t so far. Why should I think that the end of Roe is the last straw?
Sometimes, when the intersections of politics and faith has me feeling really low, I wish old Karl Marx had never mentioned religion in The Communist Manifesto. He may have been absolutely right, but sometimes I think the whole line about “the opiate of the masses” and the atheism of Leftist thought leaders only made the faithful more capitalist. After all if the commies are godless, then the godly ought to support free markets, right?
From this week’s Meduza liveblog:
Good news, as reported by NBC:
No more delays.
Follow up to comment 325.
Link
It’s not the democracy, it’s the demos.
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657648915
Satire by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Quoted in Lynna’s #326:
LOL.
Here’s where gas prices have dropped the most
The GOP/christofascists aren’t very bright.
Outlawing abortion will make their main fear, the Great Replacement, happen sooner.
It’s a simple point that the average person understands in seconds, while they will take a few years to figure it out.
They are like the dog that caught the car. Now what?
Their leaders that do understand the point already have a strategy to deal with this. The hope is that many of those unwanted nonwhite kids born into poverty either die or spend most of their life in prison.
It is what happens right now anyway!!!
Some data.
24,000 children age out of the foster care system every year.
What does this mean?
These are kids that were never adopted for one reason or another. They were autistic. Disabled in some way. Low IQ. In many cases their “disability” was just being a nonwhite.
The followup.
After a few years on their own, 40% of these kids were either dead, addicted to drugs, living homeless on the streets, or in prison.
Teenage suicide isn’t that uncommon.
You here it often. Mom didn’t want me and said so often , so why shouldn’t I kill myself?
And that is why the Red states aren’t going to spend any more money on forced birth kids.
They don’t want them and could care less if they live and grow up to lead normal lives.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Guardian – “Uber paid academics six-figure sums for research to feed to the media”:
Here’s a link to their Uber Files series, a “global investigation revealing how Uber broke the law, duped police and regulators, and secretly lobbied governments across the world.”
Guardian – “Shinzo Abe shooting: who are the ‘Moonies’ and why are they in the spotlight?”:
Guardian – “‘They couldn’t even scream any more. They were just sobbing’: the amateur investors ruined by the crypto crash.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
I knew nothing about Kemi Badenoch before, but wow is she terrible:
She’s the equalities minister!
A follow-up sort-of
<rant>to me@304, where, at the end, I whinged about an inability to immediately order a replacement battery. Today, over lunch, it dawned on me I probably could place an order by using a bank-to-bank transfer. At first this didn’t look promising as the site didn’t list France as a country from which bank transfers were accepted. That made no sense, so I decided to try anyways. No apparent problem (at the site), albeit my e-mail provider was having problems so I had some difficulty in obtaining the critical e-mailed transfer instructions.The glitch here — which I knew — is that, for security reasons, I would have to go to my bank in person to initiate the transfer. I “carefully” checked the bank’s opening hours, and the bus “schedule”, and decided I could go to the bank this afternoon. First problem, the buses are now running on their Summer Schedule, not the “schedule” I checked, so of course the bus I was planning on catching was something like 30 minutes later. After stewing for awhile, I realised the stop I wanted was near a common one other buses stopped at, and so was able to catch a suitable bus a few minutes later. Ok…
Next problem, the bank was closed. WTF? It’s “only” open in the mornings (presumably due to the pandemic). After screaming in frustration (the mildly deranged penguin promptly advanced backwards at speed) and catching the return bus, I was just about to write a nasty letter about incorrect information on their site, but when double-checking, happened to notice a caveat in small print in the corner / bottom, (translated) “Open in the afternoons by prior appointment.” So their site wasn’t wrong, just misleadingly presented. Grrrrrrr…
Try again tomorrow morning since they will be closed this Thursday 14th July (La Fête Nationale (Bastille Day)).
</rant>YT livestream link – “January 6th Committee Seventh Public Hearing”:
The hearing is set to begin at 1 PM ET (in about 45 minutes).
Rolling Stone – “MAGA Preacher Sean Feucht Scored Millions From His Trump-Loving Flock”:
Much more at the link.
There are remarkably ignorant Republican candidates … and then there’s Mary Miller.
Link
The photo that accompanies the article shows Trump standing in the background while Mary Miller speaks at a campaign event on June 25, 2022 (so recent!). Yep. She is a trumpian cult follower with a few extra doses of batshit crazy thrown in.
Text quoted by SC @340:
Doug Mastriano also thinks the separation between church and state is a “myth.”
Link
“Cause for concern” is putting it mildly.
Related to #340 – NBN – “Travis W. Proctor, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture“:
The hearing has begun.
Guardian liveblog:
SC @344: “The hearing has begun.” And interviewees who represent the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys readily admit that Trump’s tweet focusing on January 6 spurred them into planning mode for January 6. Those interviewees are proud of themselves, prefacing some of their statements with phrases like, “Of course.”
J6 Committee:
Video clip at the (Twitter) link.
Noah Bookbinder:
Ukraine update: The counteroffensive at Kherson is very, very real
More details, more videos, more images, etc. at the link. This includes news that Sweden is considering sending Ukraine Archer systems. “This self-propelled gun is already in Ukraine. It fires three rounds, and is gone before the first round hits.”
Link
Update regarding comments from Adam Schiff:
This news was posted by PZ and others, like StevoR @269. I am so delighted to be viewing the images that I’m adding my own post.
Daily Space: It’s Webb Telescope day! NASA releases the first batch of gorgeous images
More at the link.
@ 349
Where did this moron learn capitalization?
Related to #s 340 and 343 – new SWAJ – “Heathen: Christianity, Colonialism, and the Other”:
(The discussion of “sponsoring” children reminded me of some scenes in the Hulu documentary The Last Tourist.)
Guardian liveblog:
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
NBC News:
In other words, none of nutty things Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, et. al. were proposing would work. None. So Trump decided to rile up a mob to attack the Capitol on the 6th of January.
“Explosive” is a euphemism for shouting at each other at top volume, for Rudy Giuliani calling people like attorney Pat Cipollone “P-word, plural,” and for threatening to physically assault each other.
New Maintenance Phase – “Pete Evans Part 1: The Paleo Way”:
NBC News:
Seems highly likely.
Cheney Is Not Effing Around With The Witness Intimidation Stuff
Link
Followup to comment 356.
More details:
Link
Excerpts from Wonkette’s coverage of today’s hearing held by the January 6 Committee:
Elon Musk says more stupid stuff.
That is that the world is running out of people.
Meanwhile in realityland, the latest UN population projections have the world population growing by 2 billion more people to 10 billion by 2100.
Given that on a (rare) good day, our planning horizons in the USA are one election cycle of 2 years, 2100 might as well be forever.
And who can say that 10 billion people is better than 4 billion people? It was 4 billion people when I was growing up and no one noticed any lack of people. What we had was more opportunities and more wild spaces.
The world is under huge stresses right now in its ecology and quality of life at 8 billion. A century more of that doesn’t look too appealing to many of us.
Why the confirmation of a new ATF director is a big step forward
That’s the nub of the problem right there. Republican Senators were worried that any ATF director would enforce the nation’s gun laws. As inadequate as our guns laws are, Republicans still don’t want any of them enforced, though they sometimes claim they do.
raven @363, I’m beginning to think that we should never quote Elon Musk about anything. He seems to be narrow-minded across a wide range of subjects.
In other news: The parts of the Jan. 6 plot Team Trump tried to keep under wraps
New York Times:
Commentary:
Link
Bannon detailed Trump’s scheme to steal the election: ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that’
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Musk’s fears about population decline make sense if you take into account that he’s a racist.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Minnesota Abortion Restrictions Struck Down Under State Constitution
ANDY MONSERUD / July 11, 2022
Guardian liveblog:
France 24 (I haven’t been able to find it in English) – “Entre exil et silence, le dilemme des artistes russes opposés à la guerre en Ukraine”:
Guardian liveblog:
New MIA – “Andrew Scull—Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness”:
Podcast and transcript at the link. From the end of the transcript:
SC @368, good point.
In other news: Unable to find evidence of fraud, Meadows turned to ‘loopholes’
Mark Meadows couldn’t substantiate conspiracy theories about election fraud, so decided it was time to get creative — and push the constitutional envelope.
Trump never had a moral center. All of the enablers around him lost what moral center they may have once had.
Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Sheesh.
Minnesota Man Indicted After Setting Own Camper On Fire And Blaming BLM And Antifa
WTF? Why did the fraudster collect any money at all? One of the GoFundMe accounts for Molla’s fake hate crime is still up.
Guardian liveblog:
Not satisfied with just anti-abortion and pro-guns.
CLC on “The Supreme Court’s Role in the Degradation of U.S. Democracy”
Dan Tokaji / July 13, 2022
Text quoted by tomh in comment 378:
And they have made voting harder for disabled people.
Link
Renewables Kept Texas A/C On Through Heatwave While Fossil Fuels Failed
“Alaska GOP Senate Candidate Loon Thinks God Sent Her To ‘Subdue And Rule’ Some Fishes And Birds”
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657656274
“Ex-cultists deliver the most effective message for Republicans”
Washington Post link
Not sure I agree that that is Liz Cheney’s goal. Might be related, though. She says her goal is to save democracy.
Leaders consider $1,000 fine per offense in attempt to end threats, harassment against poll workers
First statue of Black American unveiled in National Statuary Hall
Wonkette: “Republicans Who Want To Control Your Uterus Just Wondering If People Can Give Birth To Tacos”
Representative Hice’s mother gave birth to a fruitcake.
Article that people might find interesting here on the different Western legal systems :
https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/4827/Whitman___Presumption_of_Innocence_or_Presumption_of_Mercy_Weighing_Two_Western_Modes_of_Justice.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
Meant to post it in a comment in old thread ages ago. I do think we should question and look at improving and maybe changing our legal systems and think the issue of the side that has the better lawyers wins rather than the side that has truth and ethics on its side isoen that deserves to be considered and addressed as wellas the whole issue of why should the law presume anything -either innocence or guilt and why not just go onthe best evidence and most likley probabilities? Is it time more western nations switched from the current adverserial legal system to an investigatory one like say France’s? Is that worth considering? I’m not a lawyer and I don’t really know but I also think it shouldn’t be forbidden to ask that and could be worth doing and the law as it is isn’t delivering that much Justice all too often. (For a number of reasons not all of whch would be fixed by such a move but still.)
Axios
Pharmacies can’t deny medication that terminates pregnancy, HHS warns
Oriana Gonzalez / July 13. 2022
Another day, another Russian war crime.
Two million Ukrainians have been deported to Russia, including 300,000 or so children.
Very little is known about what happens to them.
They mostly end up in the remotest spots the Russians can find in the arctic and Siberia.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Podcast episodes:
CounterVortex – “Podcast: against pseudo-left disinformation on Ukraine”:
Guardian – “The race for Tory leadership”:
The Bunker – “The Nazi Billions Hidden in Plain Sight”:
Related to this last one, Robert Reich in the Guardian today – “Boeing, GM, FedEx: these are as complicit as the far right in threatening US democracy”:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
GFY.
Twitter is down.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
I’m sure everyone has heard about the 10 year old rape victim who had to go from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion thanks to the Supreme court.
The christofascists all called it a Fake story, a lie.
So, how did that Fake story work out? The Indiana AG threatened to take away the medical license of one of the OB-GYNs.
The rapist has been arrested and charged.
It is relevant to note that a pregnancy in a 10 year old can easily be fatal.
We are going to be seeing incidents like this forever in the Red states.
Abortion is part of health care and girls and women are going to be dying often in the Red states.
Suella Braverman is out of the Tory leadership contest. It’s a close thing, but I reckoned her the most batshit extremist in the contest – AFAIK, the only one to propose withdrawing altogether from the European Convention on Human Rights. Sunak still leads, with Mordaunt second and Truss third. The winner will almost certainly be one of these three. There will be TV hustings over the next few days, then votes (if no-one voluntarily drops out and there are no ties) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
raven @398, thank you for the thorough summary. I figured that the christofascists were lying, but had not yet sussed out all the details. And, yes, pregnancy can be fatal for a girl that young. And/or giving birth can cause permanent damage to a girl that young.
New Oh God, What Now? – “Fight for the Right of the Party”:
Guardian liveblog:
More re Lynna’s #376 – Media Matters – “Local and right-wing media ran with “radical left” arson claim from a homeowner now accused of starting the fire”:
Jared Holt tweeted that these hoaxes remind him of the earlier local “Antifa buses are rolling into town” panics.
Republican dunderheads have an “impeachment list.”
How many cabinet secretaries are on the GOP’s impeachment list?
“Jim Jordan won’t take Merrick Garland’s possible impeachment off the table. The attorney general is actually part of a larger GOP impeachment list.” [Jim Jordan! That guy helped Trump and his lackeys plan the attempted coup.]
CNN – “Search efforts are underway in Virginia as more than 40 people are unaccounted for after severe flooding”:
Believe them when they tell you what they want to do.
[…] the Republican Study Committee, representing 75 percent of the overall House Republican conference, not only endorses these ideas, they put these ideas in writing and released them as the members’ official budget plan.
What’s more, they might not be in the minority for much longer.
[…] the Republican Study Committee has 157 members. Are they prepared to run for re-election while defending this radical policy blueprint?
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
This sounds good and all.
But how are we going to that?
The US/world has never stopped a nation from getting nuclear weapons that wanted them i.e North Korea.
It is meaningless.
It is another case of the story, “Who shall bell the cat?”
.1. The only reason for Iran to not make nuclear weapons is Saudi Arabia, their enemy.
The day after they test a nuke, the Saudi nuclear bomb program starts. Or they may just buy a few from Pakistan.
.2. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the utility of nuclear weapons.
No one invades a country with nukes.
The Ukrainians gave up several thousand nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the UK, USA, and Russia. And look what happened to them
There are now 44 million people literally fighting for their lives.
CNN – “Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh indicted for murders of wife and son”:
Mandy Matney of FITSNews has been running the Murdaugh Murders podcast for the past year. They reported the news yesterday, noting “While the news this week is huge, this saga is far from over. We still need answers for all of the victims in this case.”
BBC – “Italian PM Mario Draghi resigns as coalition collapses”:
“Official: Guerrillas set sunflower oil refinery on fire in Mariupol.
Petro Andriushchenko, an aide to the mayor of Russian-occupied Mariupol, published a video of Satellite, a sunflower oil refinery, on fire. He added that the Mariupol resistance is growing.“
Re raven’s #398 above – commentary in the Ohio Capital Journal – “Ohio Republicans’ attempted erasure of a 10-year-old rape victim is incredibly sick and disturbed”:
Guardian liveblog:
Update: “Oh boy…Italian President Mattarella Rejects Draghi’s Resignation Offer”
Politico – “National Right to Life official: 10-year-old should have had baby”:
The Indiana AG is threatening the OB-GYN who cared for the Ohio ten year old pregnant girl.
It is not clear for what.
Abortion is still legal in Indiana.
And she is a mandatory reporter which is irrelevant.
The rape crime happened in Ohio and was already reported.
Guy is an idiot pandering to the lowest of his base, fundie xian child torturers and killers.
I’m also sure that this investigation will quickly disappear into nowhere.
@ 415
<
blockquote>We don’t think, as heartwrenching as those circumstances are, we don’t think we should devalue the life of the baby because of the sins of the father.
But the 10-year-old should? Let me guess, she’s just as responsible for her assault as her rapist? If she didn’t dress like a slutty 4th grader she wouldn’t have been raped?
Go fuck off and die, Bopp. Also, tell your god/Messiah that he can do the same.
This is good news.
A lot of Red election officials and managers acted like they could tamper with the voting process and voting machines and nothing would happen to them.
Three of them in Colorado just got arrested. Finally.
SC @407, all signs of desperation on Putin’s part.
raven @408, I have the same concerns as you. It is still good news that the USA has some allies on their side. President Biden is talking about “diplomacy,” but it is hard to see how that will work. I am troubled by the fact that Iran and Russia are allied.
Text quoted by SC in comment 415:
She is not a “woman,” she is a 10-year-old girl. Look up the tragic occurrence of fistulas in girls who go through labor in order to give birth to children. The life of a ten year old girl is in danger if she is pregnant.
Jim Bopp is ignorant and cruel. Sociopathic?
Link
“I am going to murder Michael Weinstein and his supporters”
Trump’s first wife Ivana has died. She was 73.
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657673202
Climate Change update:
Link
Much more at the link.
I’m starting to see what is wrong with Elon Musk and where he got it.
His father doesn’t seem to be all that good a person either or a very competent thinker.
There is no reason why we are on the earth.
We just are on the earth as a result of natural processes starting with the Big Bang.
Which doesn’t mean that our lives are meaningless and have no purpose.
We create our own reasons for being and our own purposes.
I’ve got a lot more things to do than reproduce i.e. cats to take care of, a garden, friends, family, hobbies, careers, jobs, rock festivals, etc.. Plus trying to leave the earth a better place for all the future generations.
There are 8 billion different versions of “what is our purpose on this earth”.
Elon Musk’s father just looks like a barely functioning and completely unimaginative mind.