Not sure when this is going to be here timezones~wise but some folks might be able to & like to see this and good work by so many scientists and engineers making this wonderful if now routine~ish rocket launch happen. The things we take for granted now and the amount of work, science and effort and history that’s gone into making them happen and the good it brings us all.. :
Linking back to the previous chapter of this thread, comment 495 shows Rudi Giuliani in more hot water. “Giuliani hit with ethics charges by D.C. authorities over false election claims.” That’s good news.
One more link back to the previous chapter of this thread: comment 491. This is also good news: “Judge blocks Louisiana GOP’s attempt at gerrymandering away Black voters’ power.”
[…] This coming in the middle of Select Committee hearings helps drive home that we are facing a Radical Right who’s knee jerk response to a lot of cultural and demographic poutrages is violence. Evidently these homophobic bigots were intent on beating a lot of people.
It’s time for the federal Government to list the Patriot Front, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as domestic terrorist groups.
[…] Peter Navarro lied his ass off about his treatment by the FBI during his arrest. Instead of just letting Navarro’s accusations slide like water off a duck’s back, the FBI did release release an attachment to their arrest report showing that Peter Navarro lied like a cheap fuckin’ rug about his arrest.
I guess the FBI doesn’t like a big mouth to stand in front of a federal court house screaming to the Media about how awful the FBI is.
On the day of Peter Navarro’s arrest earlier this month, FBI agents read the ex-Donald Trump adviser his Miranda warnings and agreed to loosen his handcuffs, until he was no longer in pain. The arresting agents allowed him to call his attorney, but the self-represented Navarro did not have one…
“The Defendant has made numerous false statements in the press about his arrest—for example, that he was deprived of food and water,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda R. Vaughn wrote in a footnote to the motion. “In fact, when he asked, he was offered food and water, took it, then asked if he wanted more.”
Navarro was upset about his arrest for multiple reasons, but the greatest transgression was the FBI wouldn’t allow Navarro the chance to call the producer of a show he was supposed to be on that evening. When informed he could not call the producer, Navarro stated the following:
When the FBI informed him an attorney could handle such arrangement, Navarro called his arresting agents “kind Nazis.”
“How you could live with yourselves?” Navarro asked them.
Oh the horror. As bad as being tortured, or shot in the back of the head and fall into in a mass grave, or thrown into a gas chamber disguised as a shower. […]
For some reason, the FBI didn’t like the comparison to Nazis. And it is why they let the prosecutors know that Navarro was a whiny […]
Oh, and Navarro changed his mind about not accepting food or water. So what did those “kind Nazis” do to poor old Navarro?
“At 12:03 p.m., a bottle of water, chocolate, nuts, and dried fruit was provided to Navarro,” the FBI wrote. “Navarro was asked if he wanted anything else to eat or drink which he declined.”
Dried fruit is always how they break down a prisoner in custody.
And it also appears that Navarro didn’t impress the prosecutors either. Seems Navarro wants to get a lawyer NOW. But he wants 45 days to get a lawyer. And the lawyer is NOT for this current case. The lawyer would be for his civil suit AGAINST the Jan 6th Committee.
The presiding judge has not ruled on Navarro’s motion.
Navarro’s sense of Republican white privilege is bad enough. But what has always amazed me about Navarro is his blatant stupidity. I think Ari Melber has interviewed Navarro at least on two occasions. Melber has pointed out to Navarro that 1) he published a book about his role in the insurrection and 2) he is on Melber’s show spilling his guts. This has lead Melber to ask the obvious question of why Navarro simply will not talk to the Jan 6th Committe? And Navarro goes into shouting BS mode.
I agree about the “blatant stupidity.” It is astounding.
It got so bad that Melber had to basically say to Navarro, “You do KNOW that federal prosecutors can hear what you are saying?”
It seems federal prosecutors did watch Melber’s TV show.
Several of Kavanaugh’s drinking buddies, including his former roommate, were willing to testify under oath that Kavanaugh committed perjury during his confirmation hearings. Among other things, they all agree that Kavanaugh was frequently blacked out from drinking. They were denied the opportunity to do so by the FBI and the Republican-led confirmation hearings. […]
We each asserted that Brett lied to the Senate by stating, under oath, that he never drank to the point of forgetting what he was doing. We said, unequivocally, that each of us, on numerous occasions, had seen Brett stumbling drunk to the point that it would be impossible for him to state with any degree of certainty that he remembered everything that he did when drunk.
I Was Brett Kavanaugh’s College Roommate [James Roche]
He lied under oath about his drinking and terms in his yearbook.Brett Kavanaugh stood up under oath and lied about his drinking and about the meaning of words in his yearbook. He did so badly, without hesitation or reservation. In his words and his behavior, Judge Kavanaugh has shown contempt for the truth, for the process, for the rule of law, and for accountability. His willingness to lie to avoid embarrassment throws doubt on his denials about the larger questions of sexual assault… Brett was “frequently, incoherently drunk.”
I do not know if Brett attacked Christine Blasey Ford in high school or if he sexually humiliated Debbie in front of a group of people she thought were her friends. But I can say that he lied under oath. He claimed that he occasionally drank too much but never enough to forget details of the night before, never enough to “black out.” He did, regularly. He said that “boofing” was farting and the “Devil’s Triangle” was a drinking game. “Boofing” and “Devil’s Triangle” are sexual references. I know this because I heard Brett and his friends using these terms on multiple occasions.
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH BOOTY BUMPING (AKA BOOFING)?
Booty bumping, sometimes called boofing, is a way to consume drugs — usually methamphetamine, heroin, or cocaine — by way of your butt.— Healthline [Boofing ≠ Farting]
WHAT IS A DEVIL’S TRIANGLE?
A threesome with 1 woman and 2 men. It is important to remember that straight men do not make eye contact while in the act. Doing so will question their sexuality.— Urban Dictionary [Devil’s Triangle ≠ Drinking Game]
Who Is Bart O’Kavanaugh? […] 👉 BART O’KAVANUGH WAS ONE OF THE CHARACTERS IN “WASTED TALES OF A GEN X DRUNK!” 👈 […]
Why Hasn’t The Supreme Court Weighed In? […]
This isn’t “he said, she said”.
This is “he said, they said”.
The Supreme Court can’t impeach one of their own, but if they made it publicly known that they were in favor of furthering investigation, that would in effect be a vote of no confidence against Kavanaugh. Chief justice Roberts would gain some credibility back for his Court, without having to be the bad guy as it is the House of Representatives who would have to hold hearings. Undoubtedly, even a Republican-controlled House would be compelled to hold a hearing and call the witnesses to testify under oath. If they came off as credible, there is a chance that the House would impeach him. If they did, there is also a chance that the Senate would also follow suit, and ratify his impeachment…. if it originated with the sitting Justices on the Court. But, maybe I’m giving Republicans too much credit to do the right thing.
Our focus should be simple: Putin cannot win this war. He cannot even think he has won. There can be no return to “business as usual”. Only “no business at all.”
She was born under the Soviet occupation. She remembers the repression of life under Soviet rule and the same brutality of the same occupier and his renewed ideology we are witnessing today in Ukraine. Her mother was just six months old when she was deported to Siberia in 1949 together with her grandmother and great-grandmother, in a cattle car, a torturous journey which took three weeks. Their exile lasted ten years.
Her great-grandfather was one of the founders of the Republic Estonia in 1918 and the commander of the Estonian forces during the Estonian War of Independence. His son, her grandfather, too, was sent to Siberian prison camp. Her father, in turn, was one of the first MPs of the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament, following the restitution of Estonian independence in 1992 and later served as the 14th Prime Minister of independent Estonia.
Today, his daughter is called the Iron Lady of Estonia and considered one of the most hawkish voices among European leaders over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Estonia has given more military support to Ukraine per capita than any other country—for reasons that she voices very clearly. [Tweet and photo at the link]
On February 24—Estonia’s Independence Day—she woke up to a “very, very bad dream.”
So when the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas says that no matter what, Putin’s genocidal war in Ukraine must fail, we should seriously listen. [Tweet available at the link]
#Ukraine is not the victim of a one-time miscalculation by a madman. Instead, we’re seeing a long-planned campaign by the Kremlin to exert control over neighbouring countries by brute force, no matter the human cost.
Europe must ensure the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine fails or worse will follow. […]
No impunity for war crimes must form a cornerstone of our policies. Perpetrators must know that judgement day will come. The aggressor must pay. A special fund for victims could be one way, using Russian assets and central bank reserves frozen by sanctions. […]
I warned @hallbenjamin @FinancialTimes that premature peace is dangerous while pointing out the signs of genocide in Ukraine. Peace doesn’t mean an end to atrocities in occupied territory. We must speed up our help to Ukraine, they don’t have much time.
French, Italian and German leaders have recently called for a ceasefire and France’s Emmanuel Macron irked the Ukrainian government over the weekend when he said, for the second time, that it was important for the west not to “humiliate” Russia over the conflict.
“I’m very worried about premature calls for a ceasefire because peace doesn’t mean an end to [Russian] atrocities in occupied territory,” Kallas added.
She said she had discussed with Macron his point about humiliating the Russian leader, adding that it made no sense when Vladimir Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine met the UN definition of genocide. “Putin is not in a corner. He can very well go back to his own country.”
Ms. Kallas and leaders in other Baltic states, who were occupied by the Soviet Union, have long warned that Russia was increasingly emboldened by a lack of consequences for the red lines it already crossed. For example, in 2007 Estonia sustained 22 days of cyberattacks on its government websites, banks and news outlets, which were linked to the Kremlin.
Then came the 2008 invasion of Georgia, she said, and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Other Western leaders played down the warnings and now Estonia finds itself on the border of a country again waging war.
“What Russia learned from this is that they can take pieces and then you know, they have already gained and nothing really serious happens to them. So, they gain more confidence,” she said. In 2014, as a member of the European Parliament, she said she heard EU politicians dismiss the incursion into Crimea as an “internal conflict,” despite Crimea being part of a sovereign Ukraine.
[…]
One of the new European leaders, for example, is the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas. In simple, and therefore powerful words, she asks European leaders to stop talking to Putin. “Why are you talking to him? He is a war criminal. As long as you call him, he doesn’t realize he’s isolated. Don’t call him”, she said.
Can Macron and Scholz get a clearer message?
[…] With their attitude towards Putin’s Russia and its aggression against Ukraine, they opened a new era, ending a decade of the famous “lack of leadership” in Europe, as one of the main factors in its decline.
They do not come from large and influential centres of European decision-making, but they have enough authority to reset Europe to its peace-loving and liberal foundations. And they have already shown enough muscle to be able to defend what they believe in.
A bipartisan group of senators on Sunday announced a deal on framework of legislation aimed at reducing gun violence that includes funding for mental health and school security. Thus far, 10 Republican senators stated their support of the deal.
The agreement is currently in principle as legislative text has yet to be drafted. The deal comes in the wake of a series of mass shootings nationwide, including the tragic elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas late last month.
The deal includes enhanced background checks for buyers under the age of 21, funding for the expansion of mental health services and school security, and state grants to implement so-called “red flag” laws championed by Republicans that permit law enforcement to seek temporary removal of firearms from those who pose threats to themselves or others.
The deal closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” in order to prevent a domestic abuse from purchasing a gun if they are convicted of abusing their partner.
Additionally, it seeks to crack down on illegal straw purchasers and firearms dealers without a license.
Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), John Cornyn (R-TX), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) serve as lead negotiators on the proposal, which requires 60 votes to reach the Senate floor. The bipartisan group of senators were in talks throughout the weekend on securing a deal and have been in talks with a larger bipartisan group of negotiators.
If passed, the deal would become the most significant legislation in gun safety in decades, despite falling short of proposals backed by President Biden and congressional Democrats to increase the minimum age of the purchase of some rifles from 18 to 21.
The deal follows the House’s vote last week to pass a package of gun control legislation named the Protecting our Kids Act. The package based sales of many semiautomatic rifles to those under 21, banned high-capacity magazines and pushed red-flag laws in both state and federal courts. It is not expected to pass the Senate, however, amid GOP opposition to tighter gun control.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who serves on the Jan. 6 Select Committee, on Sunday said the panel plans to show evidence that GOP members of Congress sought pardons from former President Trump in light of their involvement with efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
During the committee’s first public hearing last week, vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and “multiple other Republican congressmen” sought presidential pardons for their roles in Trump’s election steal scheme. Cheney also suggested that the panel’s third public hearing scheduled for Wednesday will feature information about efforts by GOP lawmakers, including Perry, to secure a pardon for themselves after Jan. 6. Perry’s spokesperson Jay Ostrich denied Cheney’s allegation, telling reporters that the claim is a “laughable, ludicrous and a thoroughly soulless lie.”
Congressional investigators believe Perry was involved in a scheme to install Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general in an effort to weaponize the DOJ as a means to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss. Alongside four other Republican lawmakers, Perry was subpoenaed by the committee for testimony. They have all refused to comply.
Asked about Cheney’s remarks during an appearance on ABC News, Schiff said the panel is set to show evidence supporting that finding in their investigation.
“We will show the evidence that we have that members of Congress were seeking pardons,” Schiff said. “To me, I think that is some of the most compelling evidence of a consciousness of guilt.”
“Why would members do that if they felt that their involvement in this plot to overturn the election was somehow appropriate?” Schiff continued. “So we’ll present the evidence that we have, as the vice chair outlined, along with the evidence of other actions that were taken by members of the Congress.” […]
Committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also confirmed to CNN that the panel has evidence showing multiple Republican lawmakers seeking pardons from the then-President in the aftermath of the deadly Capitol insurrection.
“It is multiple members of Congress, as the vice chair said, at our opening hearing. And, all in due course, the details will surface,” Raskin said.
“Everything we’re doing is documented by evidence,” Raskin added. […]
Member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) similarly told CBS that the committee has evidence that backs up Cheney’s claim. Kinzinger declined to detail how many Republicans sought pardons, but stressed that more information would be released during public hearings this week.
“Why would you ask for a pardon? Let’s just say in general, if somebody asks for a pardon it would be because they have real concern that maybe they’ve done something illegal,” Kinzinger said. [video at the link]
My own admiration is for a guy [Schiff] whose deceptively mild-seeming appearance belies a steely determination and the intelligence to weaponize it. People like Trump who think it makes sense to call him charming things like “pencil-neck” don’t know what they’re dealing with.
——————
In addition to being a rightwing nut job Trumpy Republican, he’s [Representative Scott Perry is] basically the one who introduced John Eastman and John Eastman’s plan to Trump. He wanted to invalidate legal Pennsylvania votes, probably including mine. He is also refusing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee.
———————
According to justice.gov:
A pardon is an expression of the President’s forgiveness and ordinarily is granted in recognition of the applicant’s acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence. It does not signify innocence.
Before the Trump years, yes, it seems you had to admit your criminal behavior, for which you were convicted, during the Trump years, not so much.
ravensays
This is what cultural genocide looks like.
The Belarusian language is disappearing. In Belarus only 20% of the population speak it at home. The other 80% speak Russian. The two languages aren’t really all that similar.
The Russians have been suppressing the Belarusians for as long as they can. It’s always the same when they occupy non-Russian homelands. Identify the leaders and Intelligensia, politicians, business people, teachers, artists, writers etc.. Then deport and/or kill them.
“On the night of October 29, 1937, which is now remembered as the Night of the Assassinated Poets, more than a hundred Belarusian writers, poets, artists and scientists were executed in Minsk on the orders of Joseph Stalin and his associates. From 1937 to 1938, more than 100,000 Belarusians were repressed – arrested, jailed, sent to camps or killed. “ They are already doing this in the parts of Ukraine that they have invaded. They intend to get rid of the Ukrainian language.
The Belarusian language is under attack
Day after day, President Alexander Lukashenko is carrying out a cultural genocide of Belarusians.
Olga Loginova Belarusian-American documentary filmmaker and journalist based in New York
Published On 12 Jun 2022 aljazeera.com
The Knihauka bookstore in Belarus, which specialised in Belarusian language books, had unexpected visitors on the morning of its first day of operations on May 16.
Rygor Azaronak and Lyudmila Hladkaya, two journalists infamous for spreading state propaganda, visited the small shop and criticised it publicly for its alleged “nationalist ideology”.
A few hours later, the police arrived, searched the store, confiscated more than 200 books – including a translation of George Orwell’s 1984 – and reportedly sent 15 titles to an “expert” to determine whether they contained “extremist materials”.
During the operation, the shop’s owner, publisher Andrey Yanushkevich, and sales assistant, literary blogger Nasta Karnatskaya, were also arrested on “petty hooliganism” charges that are commonly used in politically motivated arrests in Belarus. They remain behind bars after their administrative sentences were extended.
This attack on Belarusian language publishing was not unique or out of the ordinary. Earlier in March, Andrey Yanushkevitch’s namesake publishing house was asked to vacate its office. A year earlier, its accounts were frozen and equipment confiscated.
Several other publishing houses specialising in books by Belarusian authors or in the Belarusian language – Halijafy, Limaryus, Knihazbor, as well as the printing house Medysont – were ordered to temporarily cease operations “for violation of regulations” earlier in the spring.
This wave of persecution in the book publishing industry rolled on top of another one the year before. “With the current government, I don’t see a future for book publishing [in the country],” a Belarusian publisher who was forced to shut his publishing house and a bookstore recently told me. He asked to remain anonymous out of safety concerns.
Belarus has historically been a multilingual, multiethnic state, with people speaking Belarusian, Polish, Russian, Yiddish (more common before World War II), and a number of local dialects.
When Belarus became part of the Soviet Union in 1918, its ethnic language and culture, just like the languages of many other Soviet republics, came under attack.
Belarusian intellectual and cultural elites were purged, books by Belarusian authors, as well as dictionaries were burned. On the night of October 29, 1937, which is now remembered as the Night of the Assassinated Poets, more than a hundred Belarusian writers, poets, artists and scientists were executed in Minsk on the orders of Joseph Stalin and his associates. From 1937 to 1938, more than 100,000 Belarusians were repressed – arrested, jailed, sent to camps or killed. Before Stalin’s death in 1953, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Belarusians were victimised. Russian became the dominant language.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Belarusian language experienced a brief renaissance, becoming the main language in schools and other institutions. In 1994-1995, at its peak, over 75 percent of middle schools had Belarusian as their main teaching language.
The abrupt transition was hard for many, and the newly minted President Alexander Lukashenko seized the opportunity. In May 1995, he held a referendum on the status of the Russian language, a new official flag and seal, further economic integration with the Russian Federation and the powers of Parliament. As a result, Russian received an equal status with Belarusian, and became the second state language in the country. Today, the enrolment in Belarusian-language schools is negligible – less than 4 percent – and less than 20 percent of the population speak Belarusian in their daily lives. It is officially an endangered tongue.
However, with the war in Ukraine entering its fourth nightmarish month, the language situation in Belarus has started to change. More and more Belarusians now choose to speak their mother tongue. More and more Belarusians are choosing to use the language in their everyday life. The transition is also palpable on social media, with Belarusian Twitter and Instagram becoming more and more dominated by the Belarusian language by the hour.
Recently, a close friend of mine has suggested we speak Belarusian, instead of Russian, between us. Soon another friend started texting me in Belarusian rather than Russian. No explanation was needed.
As Belarusian poet and Cornell University associate professor Valzhyna Mort told me, “[the] Belarusian language came to signify something more than just a system of signs.”
“Just saying a word in it, like ‘thank you’ or ‘hello,’ means more than just ‘thank you’ or ‘hello’ – it is also a political statement.”
As Russia continues its immoral war against our southern neighbour, Belarusians all over the world are coming to a conclusion that returning to our mother tongue is one of the few remaining ways for us to signal our protest against the Russian aggression in Ukraine, and in Belarus, and survive as a nation.
“Russians refer to us as their ‘younger brothers and sisters’; they say that we have a lot of similarities and we’re the same,” Mort told me. “From that position, it is just one step to say that we do not exist at all as a culture, which is not true. We see what happened in Ukraine.”
My attempts to speak Belarusian after speaking English and Russian for decades sound ill-equipped. My Belarusian limps on both feet, but I persevere, like many others.
With limited access to Belarusian language education and media, it is through reading Belarusian literature or translations that countless Belarusians like me try to remember the forgotten lexicon and grammar of their mother tongue. So it is not surprising that Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, which has effectively turned Belarus into Russia’s vassal state, assaults Belarusian language bookstores and publishing houses.
“We are not just in the crisis of censorship, but in the crisis of annihilation,” said Mort, as we discussed the recent decree signed by Lukashenko that allowed capital punishment for attempts at “terrorism”. In Belarus, where thousands have been persecuted on charges of extremism and terrorism for their acts of peaceful resistance, a death penalty for a book – for example, Alhierd Bacharevič’s novel Dogs of Europe is now considered “extremist material” – doesn’t seem far fetched.
Effectively, day after day Lukashenko is carrying out a cultural genocide of Belarusians which was first started by the Soviets. We hope that the international community will not avert their eyes.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
StevoRsays
Could advanced chatbot LaMDA actually be self aware?!
Brendan and Andrew welcome veteran journalist John Stoehr, editor of The Editorial Board, who has been studying and commenting on gun violence since the Sandy Hook school massacre a decade ago. They discuss a few of John’s recent posts on gun violence and white supremacy. He argues that white power is a driving force behind the proliferation of guns and gun massacres––even when the murderer is mentally unwell and has no overt political motive––and that gun control is a threat to white power. He and the co-hosts also discuss a number of related issues, including neo-conservative pundit Ben Wattenberg’s early mainstreaming of “great replacement” thinking, why the gun issue became crucial to Republican politics particularly after Obama became president, Democratic Party leaders and white liberals who blame the gun lobby for the explosion of gun violence while evading the links between guns and white nationalism, and race and class dimensions of the Uvalde school massacre and the ensuing cover-up.
Current-events segment: Live from DC: The Jan. 6 Committee. The co-hosts comment on Thursday’s opening session of the committee’s public hearings.
In Episode 127 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that the Kurdish-controlled Syrian city of Kobani, which became a global icon of resistance to ISIS in 2014, is now under threat of Turkish aggression. The Syrian Kurds were betrayed in 2019, when their autonomous zone of Rojava was greatly reduced by Turkey’s first thrust into their territory. Erdogan is now threatening to extinguish it altogether, and incorporate all of Rojava into his “security zone.” There is growing speculation that the US could “green light” this aggression in exchange for Turkey dropping its objections to Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Meanwhile, the Yazidis of northern Iraq, who were subjected to genocide and slavery at the hands of ISIS in 2014, are facing extermination of their hard-won autonomous zone Ezidikhan at the hands of Baghdad’s military—acting under pressure from Turkey. Great Power meddling in Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan alike is pitting the peoples of the region against each other, portending a potentially disastrous Arab-Kurdish ethnic war. How can activists in the West help break this trajectory?…
Books discussed: A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State by Meredith Tax; The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy by Yassin al-Haj Saleh; Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism by Rohini Hensman
In this News Brief, we examine two New York Times articles—one about Chesa Boudin and one about Eric Adams—and how they serve as object lessons in how liberal outlets repackaging 1990s-era Tough on Crime dogma as sophisticated, sanitized, and progressive.
The multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks has lost his libel action against the Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr, in a significant decision for public interest journalism.
Banks, who funded the pro-Brexit Leave[dot]EU campaign group, sued Cadwalladr personally over two instances in which she said the businessman was lying about his relationship with the Russian state – one in a Ted Talk and the other in a tweet.
In a written judgment handed down on Monday, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled the threshold for serious harm had only been met in the Ted Talk but that Cadwalladr initially had successfully established a public interest defence under section 4 of the Defamation Act.
…
If Banks had won the case, Cadwalladr faced being liable for his costs, estimated at between £750,000 and £1m, together with any resultant damages.
In a tweet, Banks said he was likely to appeal. His lawyers have been approached for comment.
The Observer editor, Paul Webster, and the Guardian News & Media editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, welcomed the verdict as “an important victory for free speech and public-interest reporting”, highlighting the online trolling, abuse and harassment Cadwalladr had faced. “We believe this case was an example of a powerful wealthy person targeting an individual journalist for their work,” they said.
“Carole Cadwalladr’s victory in this case is an important step in defending the rights of journalists to report in the public interest.”
Thank you to the judge, my stellar legal team & the 29,000 people who contributed to my legal defence fund. I literally couldn’t have done it without you…
I haven’t read the judgment yet but what I can say that the last 3 years have been extraordinarily difficult. Fighting this has been a crushing, debilitating, all-consuming experience that I sincerely hope no other journalist ever has to go through.
The fact that his case was brought clearly shows how our libel laws favour the rich & powerful. I was only able to defend myself because of the incredibly generous support of the public. But this judgment is a huge victory for public interest journalism.
My investigation into Brexit, Cambridge Analytica & Facebook triggered investigations on both sides of the Atlantic, record-breaking fines & findings of multiple breaches of the law, including by Mr Banks’s LeaveEU campaign. But I am the only person to ever face trial.
Fox News host Howard Kurtz corrected Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes on Sunday after he claimed that the conservative network “destroyed” MSNBC by not airing primetime hearings about the attacks of Jan. 6, 2021.
…
“To put this in primetime, the numbers were way down,” he opined. “So I don’t understand how these big corporations — I know it was spread across some 20 different networks — when you compare Fox News which didn’t which did not air that live, it just destroyed CNN and MSNBC in the ratings, right?”
Kurtz interrupted to correct Nunes.
“Networks like MSNBC did very well covering this hearing,” Kurtz noted. “Obviously, it would appeal to the liberal viewers of that network.”
According to TVLine, Fox News lost its traditional first place spot among cable news outlets on Thursday when the network did not air the Jan. 6 hearings.
“Amongst cable news networks, MSNBC led the pack with 4.2 million total viewers, followed by CNN’s 2.6 million viewers,” TVLine reported. “Fox News, which didn’t cover the hearing itself, averaged nearly 3 million viewers during the two-hour block.”
Arshak Makichyan is a Russian climate activist and Greta Thunberg ally. On the day the war began, Makichyan was getting married to fellow activist Polina Oleinikova; their wedding turned into a public statement against the war (Makichyan’s shirt had the words “Fuck the War” written on it) and the couple later left Russia. In May, Makichyan learned that the Russian authorities wanted to revoke his citizenship. He’s currently in Europe, where he continues to fight for a more sustainable planet and for Ukrainian sovereignty — but with a visa expiration date looming, his future is uncertain.
…We found that people living in counties that voted Democratic during presidential elections between 2001 and 2019 experienced lower AAMR [Age Adjusted Mortality Rates] than residents of counties that voted for the Republican candidate, a finding that was largely consistent across key subgroups. Declines in mortality over time were more pronounced in Democratic compared with Republican counties, resulting in an increasing gap between these areas, primarily related to changes in heart disease and cancer related deaths. These mortality patterns were similar when assessed by state governor election results. Further research is needed to better elucidate factors driving this widening difference in mortality rates between Republican and Democratic counties, to inform clinical, public health, and policy strategies to improve the health of all Americans.
…Political influence on US mortality rates became overt during the covid-19 pandemic, when public health policies, controlled by states, were heavily influenced by party affiliation. Republican politicians, often seeking to appeal to President Trump and his supporters, challenged scientific evidence and opposed enforcement of vaccinations and safety measures such as masking. A macabre natural experiment occurred in 2021, a year marked by the convergence of vaccine availability and contagious variants that threatened unvaccinated populations: states led by governors who promoted vaccination and mandated pandemic control measures experienced much lower death rates than the “control” group, consisting of conservative states with lax policies and large unvaccinated populations. This behavior could explain why US mortality rates associated with covid-19 were so catastrophic, vastly exceeding losses in other high income countries.
Observers of health trends in the US should keep their eye on state governments, where tectonic shifts in policy are occurring. While gridlock [sigh] in Washington, DC incapacitates the federal government, Republican leaders in dozens of state capitols are passing laws to undermine health and safety regulations, ban abortion, limit LGBT+ rights, and implement more conservative policies on voting, school curriculums, and climate policy. To understand the implications for population health, researchers must break with custom; although scientific literature has traditionally avoided discussing politics, the growing influence of partisan affiliation on policies affecting health makes this covariate an increasingly important subject of study.
Former Trump campaign manager to miss January 6 hearing
Bill Stepien, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump who was to be a main witness in today’s hearing of the January 6 committee, will not attend due to an [alleged] emergency.
The hearing is now delayed by 30 minutes to 10:30 am, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:…
MSNBC is reporting that Stepien’s lawyer says the emergency is that his wife is in labor, which if true is certainly a valid emergency. They’re going to read a statement from him into the record.
The committee has video of Stepien’s closed deposition that they plan to use instead, per multiple sources
Stepien has been released from his subpoena to tend to his wife who is in labor. The committee has video of its witnesses to prepare for such contingencies — if a witness backs out, is sick or has an emergency, I’m told
Since he was a reluctant witness to begin with, this could potentially be more effective than having him testify in person.
52 out of 90 members of Northern Ireland assembly sign letter rejecting protocol bill ‘in strongest possible terms’
A majority of MLAs (members of the legislative assembly) in Northern Ireland have signed an open letter to Boris Johnson saying that they reject “in the strongest possible terms” his “reckless” Northern Ireland protocol bill.
Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland and first minister elect (assuming power sharing ever resumes) has the lead signature on the letter which has been signed by all 27 Sinn Féin MLAs, as well as the 17 Alliance party MLAs and eight from the SDLP. They account for 52 of the 90 members of the assembly (58%).
Here are their main arguments.
A majority of MLAs, and a majority of people in Northern Ireland, are opposed to the government bill, the MLAs say. They say:
Our parties collectively represent a majority inside the Northern Ireland Assembly and received a majority of votes cast in the recent assembly election. We reject in the strongest possible terms your government’s reckless new protocol legislation, which flies in the face of the expressed wishes of not just most businesses, but most people in Northern Ireland.
The protocol is the only option available to protect Northern Ireland from the worst aspects of Brexit, the MLAs say. They say:
The protocol is itself a product of the hard Brexit you personally championed and a withdrawal deal you personally signed. Whilst not ideal, the protocol currently represents the only available protections for Northern Ireland from the worst impacts of that hard Brexit. The protocol also offers clear economic advantages to our region, and the opportunity for unique access to two major markets. The fact that you have removed this advantage from businesses in Great Britain, at a clear economic cost, does not justify doing the same to businesses in Northern Ireland.
The MLAs says it is “deeply frustrating” that their support for changes to the protocol has been presented by the government as support for its bill. It is not, they say. They say they just want “smooth implementation” of the protocol, and that the EU has shown it would agree to changes to facilite this. (When Liz Truss announced plans for the bill last month, she claimed 78% of people in Northern Ireland wanted the protocol changed. But that figure was arguably misleading because around half of that group only want relatively minor changes, of the kind backed by the Sinn Féin/Alliance/SDLP MLAs – not the kind of change proposed by Truss.)
The MLAs reject Boris Johnson’s claim that he is acting to protect the Good Friday agreement. They say:
Finally, we strongly reject your continued claim to be protecting the Good Friday agreement as your government works to destabilise our region. To complain the protocol lacks cross-community consent, while ignoring the fact that Brexit itself – let alone hard Brexit – lacks even basic majority consent here, is a grotesque act of political distortion. Your claims to be acting to protect our institutions is as much a fabrication as the Brexit campaign claims you made in 2016.
Threats against the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, have almost tripled over three years, amid a rise in conspiracy movements and a backlash against vaccination.
New data, released to Newshub under the Official Information Act, shows police recorded 18 threats in 2019. In 2020 it increased to 32, and in 2021 police dealt with 50 threats against the prime minister.
Ardern became a lightning rod for abuse, suspicion and threats among anti-vaccination groups, particularly during the weeks-long anti-mandate protests in February. The occupation of parliament and the surrounding streets descended into a violent riot, with multiple police officers assaulted and fires lit across parliament grounds. A number of protesters advocated for the public trial and execution of Ardern and other prominent politicians, public servants and scientists, alleging that their promotion of vaccination amounted to “crimes against humanity”.
While police could not determine motives for every individual threat, the documents showed anti-vaccination sentiment was a driving force of a number of threats, and opposition to legislation to regulate firearms after the 15 March mass shooting was another factor.
At least two men, both of whom were incensed by the country’s vaccination drive, have been arrested this year for repeatedly threatening to assassinate Ardern. This year has also seen incidents where protesters in a car chased the prime minister’s van, shouting obscenities, and at one point forcing it on to the footpath; and another where a group of shouting protesters chased the prime minister’s van down a driveway as she visited a primary school.
Researchers on the Te Pūnaha Matatini disinformation project, which monitors misinformation and online extremism, found that the level of violent rhetoric against the prime minister had risen exponentially in recent years, accompanying a parallel rise in New Zealand participation in online groups sharing misinformation, conspiracy theories and extremist language.
…
The threats against Ardern also reflect increased threats toward New Zealand politicians more broadly….
In late 2021, parliament stepped up security after reports from MPs that they were being targeted for harassment by anti-vaxxers.
StevoRsays
For people that do a lot of concern trolling and waffling about “politeness” LNP reichwing “Conservatives” sure are a vicious nasty bunch of bad losers :
Dan Goldman: “As someone who has been in the arena of major congressional hearings, I just want to say that the @January6thCmte’s ability to adjust on such short notice to playing Stepien’s deposition testimony in lieu of his live testimony is a remarkable feat.”
Chris Hayes: “One thing I find fascinating is the air of persistent exasperation and disbelief that the president can possibly keep getting snookered or misled, or confused or getting bad info. Did anyone realize that all of this was just predicate?”
This! He had been planning this even before the election! He’s a lifelong liar and conman! He settled a $25 million dollar fraud case during the 2016 transition! He’s currently in separate litigation and under investigation for fraud!
Another mass grave of civilians found in Kyiv region, says police
Ukrainian authorities said they have discovered a new mass grave of civilians near the Bucha in the Kyiv region.
The bodies of seven civilians were found near the village of Myrotske, many with their “hands tied and their knees shot”, according to Kyiv region police chief, Andrii Niebytov.
The victims had been tortured, he said in a statement on Facebook.
Work is currently under way to exhume the bodies at the site and to identify the individuals, he added.
blfsays
Stories of teh gazpacho police, I mean, gaspacho soup… France is now at the start of a major heatwave, unusual for this time of year (May!). The area I am in (S.France) may miss the worst of it (forecasts are for up to c.34℃ here-ish, elsewhere possibly exceeding 40℃). Today was something over 30℃, and in anticipation I made some gaspacho soup this morning — but too late for it to have chilled down sufficiently for lunch… plus, I forget to freeze a serving bowel. The process of making it turned in something of a comedy act. I first made some guacamole — but the avocado wasn’t sufficiently ripe — in the food processor’s small bowel. I’d intended to then make the gaspacho in the same bowl, so as to include the remnants of the guacamole in the gaspacho — why waste anything?
Problem: The small bowel is too small for gaspacho-making. Ok, transfer most of the remnants into a larger bowel. Then add the rest of the ingredients — in today’s version, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumber, etc. Including tonnes of olive oil, and some soya sauce with wasabi. In each case, I had very little left, so at one point there was two bottles of olive oil plus the bottle of soya sauce draining into the mix…
Then turn the food processor on. Nothing happens. Oops! Forget to install the whirling sharp cutting blade, so empty it all out into a temporary mixing bowel, install the whirling sharp cutting thingie, and start over…
End result is some gaspacho cooling, a bowel just starting to freeze, several empty bottles (including beer), some dubious guacamole, and a lot of “oily” dishes to wash.
Very compelling witnesses and evidence. I thought the part at the end of the hearing when they talked about the funds raised off the election lies and where the money went followed by clips of insurrectionists on January 6th describing how they were propelled by those lies was powerful.
Goverment publishes Northern Ireland Protocol bill
Liz Truss risked a trade war with the EU and accusations of lawbreaking as she published legislation that would allow exports from Britain to Northern Ireland to follow either UK or EU standards and checks.
Publishing the Northern Ireland protocol bill, Truss said the legislation would “fix” issues with the post-Brexit protocol by easing checks for firms selling goods from Britain destined for Northern Ireland rather than the EU. It would also scrap the European court of justice as the arbiter of trade disputes and move to an independent mechanism.
However, the EU, legal experts and even some Conservative MPs have warned that the move is illegal under international law as it gives ministers the powers to disapply parts of the protocol unilaterally, without the agreement of Brussels.
“In video deposition, Fmr. White House attorney Eric Herschmann said he told John Eastman he was out of his mind and that he only wanted to hear two words coming out of his mouth: ‘orderly transition’.”
“So Trump raised $250 million for post-election ‘defense fund’, he spent $7.2 million (including $200,000 on his own hotels), and where did the rest go?”
Committee ends for day after Trump official reveals post-January 6 thoughts: ‘Are you out of your effing mind?’
The January 6 committee has ended the day’s testimony by taking viewers back to the scene of the attack and showing how the people who broke in to the Capitol were believers in a conspiracy that many of Trump’s top officials told him was bogus.
“I know exactly what’s going on right now. Fake election!” a rioter said in video aired by the committee.
The hearing closed with the jarring words of Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer, who recalled a phone call with John Eastman, another of the president’s lawyers whom a judge has said conspired with Trump to overturn the election.
“I said to him, Are you out of your effing mind?” Herschmann recalled. “I said I… only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now on: orderly transition.”
Before the hearing ended, the committee’s senior investigative counsel Amanda Wick outlined one possible motivation for why Trump stuck with the fraud claims: they were a money-making opportunity.
“As the select committee has demonstrated, the Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false, yet they continue to barrage small dollar donors with emails encouraging them to donate to something called Official Election Defense Fund. The select committee discovered no such fund existed,” she said.
Wick goes on to say much of the $250 million raised for the supposed effort was funneled into a political action committee that made donations to pro-Trump organizations, as well as confidantes like his chief of staff Mark Meadows. The barrage of fundraising emails to supporters “continued through January 6, even as President Trump spoke on the ellipse. Thirty minutes after the last fundraising email was sent, the Capitol was breached,” Wick said.
The committee said to expect more testimony from Herschmann in the future. It reconvenes on Wednesday at 10 am.
Bill could threaten Northern Ireland’s firms’ access to single market
The European Commission vice president Maros Šefčovič has said that the EU views the latest plans from the UK with “significant concern”. Earlier on Monday he warned that if the UK followed through with the threatened bill it would “damage trust” between the two.
Speaking at the commission’s headquarters in Brussels, he said the EU would look at restarting “infringement proceedings” against the UK which have been on hold since September 2021.
“It is with significant concern that we take note of today’s decision by the UK Government to table legislation disapplying core elements of the protocol. Unilateral action is damaging to mutual trust.
“In particular, the protocol provides business operators in Northern Ireland with access to the EU single market for goods. The UK Government’s approach puts this access – and related opportunities – at risk.
“Our aim will always be to secure the implementation of the protocol. Our reaction to unilateral action by the UK will reflect that aim and will be proportionate.”
blfsays
Here in France, the first round of elections to Parliament were held yesterday (Sunday 12th), with the second round in a week’s time (19th). I haven’t been following the campaign or results at all (like most people in France — turnout seems to have been c.50% and possibly lower). The main results are Éric Zemmour himself has definitely not been elected (dunno about about of his zealots), and Macron’s mob and Méchancon’s messy coalition with some Greens and other left-leaning parties are tied (in number of votes, I believe Macron has a small lead in seats), meaning who — if anyone — will have a majority in Parliament is still to be decided. Méchancon’s plan is to become the PM (whilst the PM is the President’s choice, they must be approved by Parliament). Teh le penazis have some seats (including Le Pen herself), albeit I have no idea if they seem to be gaining or losing seats — nor do I have any idea what the local results are in my area (like I said, I’ve been all-but-ignoring this election).
Former education minister Blanquer — who was a disaster — has also definitely not been re-elected. A few minister’s seats are still being contested, and President Macron has apparently said any who are not re-elected are expected to resign (again, ministers are appointed by the President but must be approved by Parliament, there is no legal requirement they have a seat in Parliament, albeit I believe that is the convention).
(Apologies for this not too informative summary without references.)
Josh Marshall commented on the emphasis some people are placing on establishing mens rea and consciousness of guilt when it comes to Trump’s actions and statements made after he was informed many times that he had lost the election; (and after Trump was informed many times that various conspiracy theories he brought up claiming fraud in the election were bullshit):
[…] Someone like Trump doesn’t “believe” things in the way most of us do — which is that we “believe” things that we think did happen and vice versa. We’re human, so bias may affect our judgments at the margins. But that’s the model. For Trump, there is just what he wants. He “believes” whatever will get him what he wants.
Does he somehow convince himself of this? Like some kind of willed delusion? Stop it. You’re sticking too much to your linear way of thinking about belief. He hasn’t “convinced” himself. Why would he need to and what would that mean? He just says whatever will get him what he wants. Full stop. Any sense of asking, well … has he convinced himself these things are true? No! If you could actually get Trump to sit down and be straight with you this question would probably seem as ridiculous a question as if you’d asked Marlon Brando if he really thought he ran a crime family in New York. First, of course not, but also what does that even have to do with anything?
Trump doesn’t “believe” anything.
[…] It cannot be the case that someone can evade legal culpability for a crime by consistently claiming not to know things that are obviously true, that everyone around him says are true, that he has no basis for disbelieving. Just on logical principles, that cannot be the case. Otherwise, it’s a “get out of jail free” card for literally any crime. Just say consistently that you believe Mr. X threatened your life and you’re entitled to murder him without any legal consequences.
As we know from actual trials, you can’t just “believe” anything. You can’t just say I believed he was about to kill me and that’s the end of the discussion. Your belief has to be reasonable. It cannot be the case that your stated “belief” is an affirmative defense for your criminal behavior. Because the whole justice system can’t work in that case. Your belief must meet some level of reasonableness. Yet all of Trump’s statements are simply absurd on their face — both in their inherent logic and by the say-so of everyone around him. The only unifying logic is that he would say anything he had to to remain President.
What I think all of this means is that we don’t need to go down the rabbit hole of the inner workings of Trump’s mind. That’s his problem. Not ours. As long as we do, we’re chasing a figment where there is only one possible fact witness: him. That’s silly.
The mob boss who says he’s never been a member of the mob isn’t confused. He doesn’t have an unrealistically high opinion of himself. He’s lying because he doesn’t want to go to prison. That’s obvious. Just as this case is obvious.
[…]
Eldar Gadzhiev’s heart sank when he heard the sputtering from the engine of his Skoda one day in April. Gadzhiev, who owns a fleet of four cars that he leases as taxicabs in Moscow, knew it was a terrible and expensive time for a breakdown.
Prices for spare parts, if you even could find them, had spiralled out of control since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two months earlier. “I understood that I was in a bad situation,” he said. “I thought: the repairs are going to cost as much as the car.”
[…]
“It’s full-on speculation,” he said. “There are no more spare parts. So the prices are either way too high, you could almost {throw away} the car, or you think: is this illegal?”
He suspected that many of the parts he was offered had been stolen. “It’s the return of banditry,” he added.
Few sectors of the Russian economy are feeling the strain of the country’s near total isolation more than the automotive industry, where parts for new and used vehicles are in short supply.
Gadzhiev said he ended up paying eight times the old rate for his repairs. Others say prices have jumped tenfold.
Aleksei Atapov, the owner of a car repair firm, said: “We are in a pretty sad situation in terms of car repair and maintenance in Moscow. The central warehouses closed at the end of February, and even the custom parts that arrived were not given to us. They returned the money and took all the parts back abroad.”
[…]
While the Russian government has been promoting its policies of import substitution and “parallel imports”, which allow importers to ignore bans on sending spare parts to Russia, the plan has barely started to kick in and supply is unlikely to reach demand any time soon, analysts said. Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence suggests counterfeit and stolen parts are flooding the market.
[…]
The shortages are affecting new cars as well. Avtovaz, Russia’s largest carmaker, announced an extra week of furloughs for workers owing to a shortage of foreign parts, specifically semiconductors. Car sales in Russia plunged 83.5% in May […] and new car prices have risen by an average of 50%.
[…]
The situation may be even more worrisome in Russia’s aviation industry, where airlines are cannibalising their fleets for parts while seeking out whatever new sources for imports they can find.
[…]
Maxim Pyrkov, a pilot for the Russia’s Nordwind Airlines, posted a photo from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport showing the company’s recently leased 777s parked on the runway “awaiting better times, if they come, of course”.
He wrote: “According to my information, some {Russian} airlines in their warehouses have enough wheels and pads for another month maximum. Looks like we’ll have to look for some way into the black market for spare parts. Hey Chinese! Over here!”
[…]
Ohio’s permitless gun carry law for qualifying adults went into effect on Monday — a measure that would lift restrictions on school teachers, custodians and bus drivers from carrying firearms at work[, and lowers the required training hours for armed personnel from 728 hours to 24 hours].
[… T]he legislation no longer makes it a requirement for Ohioans aged 21 and older to complete eight hours of the handgun training course to carry and conceal a firearm. And it eliminates the requirement for gun carriers to tell police officers they have a concealed weapon on them, though they must say if they are asked.
[…]
KGsays
SC@37,
Worth noting that a majority of the recently elected Northern Ireland Assembly (52 out of 90) have written to Johnson strongly objecting to the attempt to pas legislation over-riding the Northern Ireland Protocol. Johnson has been pretending he has the support of the population in Northern Ireland for doing so – yet another of his barefaced lies.
Excerpts from live coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing that was aired publicly today:
[…] “It was completely nuts.”
That was the take by former White House attorney Eric Herschmann who told members of the probe on Monday that Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell pumped their wild conspiracy theories about stolen ballots to Trump.
A division emerged in the White House.
There was a “Team Normal,” according to ex-campaign adviser Bill Stepien and then there was everyone else.
[…] In its presentation today focusing on Trump’s Big Lie about voter fraud in the 2020 election, a clip from December 2020 is shown where the 45th president rattles of a host of conspiracy theories and lies about ballot harvesting and other theft.
In reality, former attorney general Bill Barr said the allegations were “amateurish” because the “evidence” presented was ultimately non-existent.
Timelines are important here. The excerpt above does not point out that Trump’s rant was aired on CNN after he had been given evidence of those conspiracy theories being false.
[…] the committee has [presented] a series of clips where high-ranking officials inside the Trump White House and administration testified about the united front they took to establish a simple fact: There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
In testimony played from former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, Donoghue told investigators that he repeatedly informed Trump the conspiracy theories just didn’t bear out under scrutiny.
When Trump raised claims that ballots had been transferred in suitcases, Donoghue would show him that video and exposed how on closer review, it wasn’t a suitcase, but a bin with wheels. When Trump claimed that trucks of ballots were being transported over state lines, like from New York to Pennsylvania, Donoghue told him he reviewed those allegations too.
Video evidence did not support that, interviews with truck drivers did not support that. There was simply nothing there.
Trump doubled and tripled down, becoming increasingly stubborn with the acting deputy attorney general.
When Trump claimed that dead people were voting, Donoghue said the research didn’t prove that. That was false.
Trump told Donoghue that “Indians” on reservations throughout the country were “getting paid to vote” against him.
“There’s a lot of fraud going on here,” Donoghue recalled Trump saying.
But Donoghue told investigators he was blunt with Trump, testifying that he informed the president “flat out” that the voter fraud claims just weren’t panning out.
In sum, the president was surrounded by people giving him bad information and he used it to justify his loss and moreover, his attempt to reverse that loss. [video at the link]
The key takeaways from the testimony delivered so far: Trump was surrounded by people who were showing him hard evidence from inside the nation’s intelligence apparatuses and its Justice Department that proved the claims of voter fraud were nothing more than a myth and being falsely ginned up by his attorneys. [not all of his attorneys, just the crazy ones]
Despite a total lack of evidence that would bear any of the fraud conspiracies out, Trump kept pushing ahead, advancing the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.
This ultimately led to the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, to the insurrection he incited by telling people to “fight like hell” and “take back” their country.
[…] During [an earlier] senate hearing, Giuliani only played a clip of them pulling out the box from table and said it was a smoking gun in Fulton County, but review of the entire video showed what it really was, [actually an official lockbox where ballots were kept safe]. The FBI interviewed everyone in that security footage who were allegedly “double counting” ballots. There was nothing irregular and the allegations by Giuliani were false.
[…] Trump sued in nine states and Washington, D.C. from Nov. 4, 2020, to Jan. 6, 2021, and lost 61 times. […]
Animal welfare campaigners, food policy experts and farmers have reacted with fury after the government watered down post-Brexit trade deal standards in its food strategy, released on Monday.
But the final version is stripped of this and merely commits to considering animal welfare and the environment when it comes to free trade agreements.
My initial though is this is pandering to the State’s notoriously lax regulations.
[…]
The government’s white paper, billed as the first such strategy in 75 years, rejected most of the food tsar Henry Dimbleby’s ambitious policies, which he outlined in a report released last year.
Dimbleby made a number of high-profile suggestions, including a significant expansion to free school meals, greater environment and welfare standards in farming, and a 30% reduction in meat and dairy consumption. None of these have made it into the final strategy.
[…]
Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International, said: “This smoke-and-mirrors approach to safeguarding animal welfare in imported products just won’t wash. Instead of adopting a rulebook of animal welfare core standards to govern trade, we are now waiting for a statement on animal health that will inform negotiations.
“This soft policy approach will make the UK a doormat in negotiations with major trading partners like the US, and in practice UK animal welfare trade barriers will be junked at the first sign of any objection.” […]
Yup! As per above, that was also my very first suspicion.
This is a thread on Republican messaging. The press doesn’t want to have a direct conversation with you about this. So as a former Republican who is now a consistent Democratic voter, I will.
Here is the Republican message on everything of importance:
1. They can tell people what to do.
2. You cannot tell them what to do.
This often gets mistaken for hypocrisy, there’s an additional layer of complexity to this (later in the thread), but this is the basic formula.
You’ve watched the Republican Party champion the idea of “freedom” while you have also watched the same party openly assault various freedoms, like the freedom to vote, freedom to choose, freedom to marry who you want and so on.
If this has been a source of confusion, then your assessments of what Republicans mean by “freedom” were likely too generous. Here’s what they mean:
1. The freedom to tell people what to do.
2. Freedom from being told what to do.
When Republicans talk about valuing “freedom”, they’re speaking of it in the sense that only people like them should ultimately possess it.
So with this in mind, let’s examine some of our political issues with an emphasis on who is telling who what to do. And hopefully there will be no ambiguity about what the Republican Party message is ever again.
Let’s start with the COVID-19 pandemic. We were told by experts in infectious diseases that to control the spread of the pandemic, we had to socially distance, mask, and get vaccinated. So, in a general sense, we were being told what to do. Guess who had a big problem with that.
All Republicans saw were certain people trying to tell them what to do, which was enough of a reason to make it their chief priority to insist that they will not be told what to do. Even though what they were told to do could save lives, including their own.
As you can see, this is a very stunning commitment to refusing to be told what to do. So much so that it is not in fact “pro-life.” But Republicans will nevertheless claim to be the “pro-life” party. That is because they recognize “pro-life” can be used to tell people what to do.
The reason they say they are “pro-life” when they are trying to tell women what to do with their bodies is not out of genuine concern for human life, but because they recognize that in this position, they can tell women what to do with their bodies.
That’s why when you use that same appeal—“pro-life”—when you ask Republicans to do something about gun violence in schools, it doesn’t work. Because you are now in the position of telling Republicans what to do. That’s precisely why they don’t want to do anything about it.
Anyway, gun violence in schools is not a problem, but their children having to wear masks in schools is. Because somebody is telling their children what to do. Dead children don’t bother them, but telling their children what to do? Only *they* should do that.
They claim to be for “small government”, but that really means a government that tells them what to do should be as small as possible. But when the Republican Party recognizes it has an opportunity to tell people what to do, the government required for that tends to be large.
The reason Republicans are so focused on the border isn’t because they care about border security, it’s because they recognize it as the most glaring example of when they can tell other people what to do. That’s why it’s their favorite issue.
You want in? Too bad. Get out.
If Republicans could do this in every social space—tell the people who aren’t like them too bad, get the fuck out—I’m here to assure that would be something resembling their ideal society.
Now, there are economic policies that we’ve proposed that we can demonstrate would be of obvious benefit to even Republican voters. So how do Republicans leaders kill potential support for these policies? Make the issue about who is telling who what to do.
They focus on the fact that Democrats may raise taxes. Even when it’s painfully obvious that Democrats aren’t going to raise taxes on everyone (or on very few people), what’s important here is that Democrats are the people telling certain people what to do.
What you didn’t understand from the very beginning is that Democrats should not ultimately be in the position to tell anyone what to do. Only Republicans should be in the position to tell people what to do.
On the issue of climate change, a lot of them don’t regard it as a serious issue to the extent that they think it is a hoax. This is because when you tell Republicans to do something for the sake of the planet, you are still ultimately telling them to what to do.
Furthermore, you are conceiving the planet as a thing that all human beings should have to share. I am here to assure you that the GOP’s main concern with the planet is to ensure that they don’t have to share it.
Now here’s where things get interesting: when you explain to Republicans you want them to do something and explain it’s on the basis of benefitting other people. Now you have really crossed a line. Not only did you tell them what to do, you told them to consider others.
The whole point of an arrangement where you can tell people what to do, but you can’t be told what to do, is precisely to avoid having to consider others. This is why this is their ideal arrangement: so they don’t have to do that.
As you can see, this is a very toxic relationship with the idea of who can tell who what to do. So much so that it seems like the entire point is to conceive of a “right” kind of people who can tell other people what to do without being told what to do. Yep, that’s the point.
So let’s add one more component to the system for who tells who what to do:
1. There are “right” human beings and there are “wrong” ones.
2. The “right” ones get to tell the “wrong” ones what to do.
3. The “wrong” ones do not tell the “right” ones what to do.
As you can see, I’ve just been talking about white male supremacy and the accompanying caste system structure it enforces all along. And I’m talking about this because the message of the Republican Party is that they quite like it.
But I realize that we are operating in an environment where white male supremacy is so entrenched that the press can’t even conceive of the Republican Party’s agenda of sorting the “right” human beings from the “wrong” ones as maybe presenting a “messaging problem.”
This is because the press has chosen to accommodate the Republican Party in a very specific way:
1. It normalizes the Republican agenda.
2. It normalizes framing the responsibility for stopping that agenda as ultimately being on Democrats.
Think about it: white supremacy is not allowed to be viewed as a “messaging problem.” Even when it’s a threat to democracy. Because if it’s a “messaging problem”, to Republicans, that sounds you’re telling them that’s a problem they have to solve.
Anyway, I made this thread mostly because I realize that the press has a “messaging problem.” Namely, in the sense that they seem extremely averse to explicitly identifying the message of the Republican Party. It’s called white male supremacy. Thanks for reading.
[…] Sunday’s vote does promise a significant boost for Le Pen’s party in parliament. The National Rally [teh le penazis] currently has just eight seats in the National Assembly, short of the 15 needed to form a parliamentary group — a prerequisite to having any real weight in the chamber. That is likely to change next Sunday, with the National Rally projected to win anywhere from 20 to 45 seats […]
[…] Sunday’s vote saw a new record low for electoral participation, with 52.49 percent of registered voters staying home. […]
[…] Macron’s coalition could win anywhere from 255 to 295 seats. NUPES [Méchancon’s messy coalition] is projected to win between 150 and 190. [majority is 289 seats (there are 577 in total)]
The goal for the left is to force Macron into “cohabitation” by winning a majority and forcing him to appoint members of the NUPES coalition as government ministers. Current projections make that scenario seem unlikely, but the left has a strong chance of imposing itself as the dominant parliamentary opposition and making it much harder for Macron’s group to pass laws unilaterally.
Only a handful of candidates won their seats outright in the first round: four for NUPES, and one for Macron’s coalition.
Marine Le Pen came close, winning an absolute majority (53.94 percent) in her run for reelection in the northern Pas-de-Calais region. She will still head to a runoff next week, however, because of low turnout: Candidates need the support of at least a quarter of a registered voters to skip the second round, a threshold Le Pen failed to clear [👏👏]. She will face NUPES candidate Marine Tondelier, who took 23.43 percent in the first round.
Perhaps the most notable loser on Sunday was far-right pundit Éric Zemmour, who attracted vast media attention in the presidential race but has so far flopped as a candidate. Zemmour failed to advance to the second round on Sunday in his bid for a seat representing Saint Tropez. Nationally, his Reconquest party won just 4.24 percent of the vote, and did not send a single candidate to the run-offs. [👏👏👏]
Senate hopeful Herschel Walker said he was a University of Georgia graduate, but that wasn’t true. The Georgia Republican said he was his high school’s valedictorian, but that wasn’t true. He said he was the founder of a charity for veterans, but that wasn’t true.
And as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, Walker has also said he had a background in law enforcement, and that apparently wasn’t true, either.
U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker regularly praises police officers. But was Walker in law enforcement himself? In at least three speeches delivered before he entered politics, Walker claimed he was, the AJC’s Shannon McCaffrey reports.
In one speech, Walker told a U.S. Army audience about a 2001 incident. “I worked in law enforcement, so I had a gun,” he claimed. In 2017, he specifically said, “I work with the Cobb County Police Department.”
There’s reason to believe otherwise. The Cobb County Police Department told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution it has no record of Walker working with the department. The Republican’s campaign said he was “an honorary deputy” — a point the Cobb sheriff’s office could not confirm — though a former DeKalb County district attorney said the title was meaningless, even if true.
Being an “honorary deputy,” a local prosecutor said, is like having “a junior ranger badge.”
As recently as 2019, Walker also told an audience, “I spent time at Quantico at the FBI training school. Y’all didn’t know I was an agent?”
Walker has never been an FBI agent. His campaign said he spent a week at an FBI school in Quantico, but a week does not an agent make. (He couldn’t have been an agent anyway, since agents are required to have college degrees, and Walker doesn’t have one, even though he’s claimed otherwise.) […]
…The key to understanding and responding to Trump’s statements is understanding that he simply doesn’t care what the truth is. What he says and tweets has a purely coincidental relationship to the world of fact and reason. He sees his statements only in terms of their effectiveness or usefulness.
Most of the rashest, most impulsive claims he makes on Twitter seek to achieve a perceived end: to exact revenge on an opponent, to discredit or instill doubt in a critical voice, to neutralize a threat, to incite fear or hatred, to self-promote, to confuse or misdirect, to “work the refs,” to rally his followers, to humiliate or destroy an enemy, and so on. Does Trump now or did he ever believe that Obama was born in Kenya, deliberately booby trapped the ACA, had him wiretapped,…? Practically speaking, it doesn’t matter, nor does it matter that he lashes out at people impulsively or via Twitter. Because even if he knew his impulsively tweeted early-morning assertions to be utterly false when he made them, or took the time to calmly consider his claims’ merits, it wouldn’t have the slightest impact on his decision whether or not to make them.
He’s not constrained by truth in the least – it’s simply not a consideration. That sort of constraint is for suckers. “Smart” – which Trump understands as self-servingly devious – people are not only not bound by the facts but know how to use language to advance their interests and vanquish their enemies. “Is this true or not?” is utterly irrelevant. The only question is “Is it effective?” – and winning decides.
It’s not the case that Trump’s mistruths stem primarily from an epistemic failure on his part. An oped in the LA Times argues that:
He has made himself the stooge, the mark, for every crazy blogger, political quack, racial theorist, foreign leader or nutcase peddling a story that he might repackage to his benefit as a tweet, an appointment, an executive order or a policy. He is a stranger to the concept of verification, the insistence on evidence and the standards of proof that apply in a courtroom or a medical lab — and that ought to prevail in the White House.
He’s not a stranger to the concept of verification, though. He’s aware of these standards and can deploy them when it suits his purposes, even using hyperskeptical language when he’s attacking an opponent or facing off against claims he sees as threatening. He’s just morally indifferent to them. He feels no obligation to adhere to these standards as such. Does embracing skepticism advance his perceived interests? If so, he’ll embrace it. If credulity seems more useful, that will be his choice (as the writers acknowledge with the phrase “that he might repackage to his benefit,” which suggests, correctly, that his credulity is selective and tactical)….
I provided examples back then not only of Trump openly operating this way but bragging about it to audiences.
The Trump campaign exploited its donors to raise millions of dollars off of claims of election fraud officials knew were false, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot argued Monday.
“Throughout the committee’s investigation, we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled voters as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for. So not only was there the big lie; there was the big rip-off,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said in a closing statement at Monday’s hearing. […]
SC @53, exactly. You presented the case” that he [Trump] simply doesn’t care what the truth is” very well. I’m glad you included the point that Trump thinks it is “smart” to be that way. He thinks people who do care what the truth is are weak and dumb. Trump is a fascist.
Also, as you know, we should stop trying to figure out what Trump “believes.” It doesn’t matter.
[…] in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 31 members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front, including founder Thomas Rousseau, were arrested for allegedly planning to riot at a nearby pride parade. As is their custom, the men were packed inside a U-Haul wearing matching outfits of polo shirts, khakis and white turtlenecks pulled up over their faces. They were pulled over after someone saw them and called 911, describing them as resembling “a little army.”
The chief of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said that the neo-Nazis were “en route to the Pride in the Park event with riot gear, a smoke grenade and paperwork police say resembled an operations plan.”
Patriot Front was planning on joining several other white supremacist and christo-fascist groups who harassed Pride attendees in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday, including members of Atomwaffen Division, Ammon Bundy’s group Ammon’s Army (AKA Peoples’ Rights Group), Groypers, Three Percenters, PDX Liberation and other neo-Nazis and extremists.
This, for the record, is what they missed (warning: there is some terrible singing in the video) [Video at the link of christo-fascists singing “My God, How Great Thou Art,” etc. There’s a moment at the end of the video when someone says, “Holy shit!” and I agree.]
Despite sharing most if not all of their beliefs, other right-wing extremists, such as Nick Fuentes, Jordan Sather, and Arizona GOP state senator Wendy Rogers, have decided for some time now to collectively insist that Patriot Front is made up entirely of federal agents. Many of them are citing this video of a cop saying he found out about the group’s plan because he has “informants,” to bolster this belief. [Tweet and video at the link]
This is of course, not especially plausible given that Thomas Rousseau himself is a known entity and has been since he led the Vanguard America contingent at Charlottesville when he was 16 years old. Several other members, including many of those who were arrested, are also known entities who have committed other crimes. While it would be easy enough for government agents to spy on the group considering that most of their organizing is done online in Discord chats, the group is by and large quite sincere about its terribleness. […]
At this point, it would be entirely impossible for government agents to invent a fake right-wing group that would be worse than what is already out there. And if they did, they’d probably end up with a whole lot of very sincere people wanting to join them.
Excerpts from Wonkette’s coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing:
10:47: And here we go! Bennie Thompson, who opens by explaining that if there is an actual problem with the numbers in an election, you go to Court, and if you lose, you lose. Because that’s how democracy works.
Donald Trump never had the numbers, and he ignored the will of the American people.
10:50: And then Liz Cheney gives her opening. Says today the focus is Trump’s campaign to convince Americans the election had been stolen from him via imaginary fraud. Says we’re going to hear a bunch more from Bill Barr’s recorded testimony.
10:52: Cheney notes that Trump very much knew beforehand that, because he had told his voters not to vote by mail, Biden mail-in votes would be counted late into the night and would take days to count. Says instead Trump decided to take advice from an apparently drunk Rudy Giuliani and just declare victory.
10:56: Cheney says they have more evidence than they can possibly show in one hearing, but they’re gonna sure get started.
Also there was just a mention of Dinesh D’Souza’s piece of crap movie 2,000 Mules, so if you’re doing a morning drinking game and that is part of it, then drink!
10:58: And now a highlight reel of Trump making up lies about how the only way he could lose would be if it was stolen, for months beforehand. Lest we all forget that he started telling that lie early and often.
11:02: Now the first witness begins, and it is Chris Stirewalt, the Fox News guy who called Arizona correctly and then became persona non grata forever, among people who don’t believe in democracy. […]
11:04: Now we are hearing videotaped testimony from assholes like Ivanka and Jared, about what happened that election night when Fox News (correctly) called Arizona for Biden so early.
11:07: Hahahaha, tiny-mouthed weirdo Jason Miller is the first one on tape to confirm that people were talking about how Rudy Giuliani was DRUNK.
11:09: Ivanka does not know if she had an opinion over whether her father should declare victory on election night even though he had not won.
11:13: Zoe Lofgren asks Stirewalt to explain what is “red mirage.” Remember, that is what we all knew was going to happen, as election day votes were counted, which looks good for Republicans, and then mail-in votes are counted, and that’s good for Democrats. If you count those election day votes first, then it might look like Republicans are winning, even when they are not.
Stirewalt notes that Trump had completely telegraphed that he was going to exploit that, so this former Fox News guy says they made sure to explain that over and over again to viewers.
Lofgren plays a clip of Bill Barr also talking about this very same thing.
11:16: Lofgren also plays clip of Stepien testifying that he had explained how “red mirage” worked to Trump. Trump knew.
11:21: Stirewalt says the Fox News team actually had better forecasting tools than competitors and it became clear that their models were performing beeeeeeautifully. And that’s why they were able to so confidently call it so early.
11:23: Stirewalt also says that once they knew Trump had lost Arizona, there was pretty much a zero percent chance Trump was going to win the election.
11:28: It’s amazing hearing these recordings of Stepien’s testimony how he, like so many people, sounds like he’s describing his interactions with a toddler when he talks about his interactions with Trump. Golly, he just hated it when people would fill the idiot’s head with all this nonsense!
11:32: Bill Stepien said in videotaped testimony that he didn’t have a problem being associated with “Team Normal,” AKA the Trump lawyers who weren’t led by Giuliani.
11:34: Now they’re just playing batshit clips of Giuliani and Sidney Powell, including the batshit they said out loud during their depositions with the committee. Sidney Powell told the committee that you could just TELL the election was stolen, using an analogy that if you see a gunshot victim on the ground, you don’t have to see the gun itself to know they were shot with a gun.
[…] 11:41: Bill Barr saying that his Justice Department was not an extension of Trump’s legal team is kinda fuckin’ wild, you know, considering every other thing Bill Barr did for Trump.
11:45: Oh my god, Bill Barr talking about going to the White House the day he did that AP interview where he said there was no significant fraud is just amazing. Barr talking about Trump having temper tantrums and crying that Bill is only doing this because he “hates Trump.”
11:48: How many times did Bill Barr tell Trump all the weird conspiracy theories about Dominion machines and so forth were “bullshit?” One million times, apparently.
11:50: Hahahahahahaha, Bill Barr and the entire committee openly laughing at Dinesh D’Souza’s shit movie is amazing. Barr calls basically the entire premise of it stupid and ridiculous.
[…] 11:59: Lofgren playing clip of former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, who also tried to explain to Trump like a toddler that everything he believed was wrong and people were lying to him […]
12:00: Trump thought there was a truck driver in Pennsylvania who had a bunch of ballots of something. Donoghue had to explain there was nothing there. Trump thought there was a special suitcase in Georgia that ran away with his votes, or something. Donoghue had to explain there was no suitcase. And apparently Trump would just come up with a new bullshit every time the last bullshit was debunked.
[…] 12:21: BJay Pak is telling the story of when he was US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia and he had to waste his time chasing Rudy Giuliani’s conspiracy theories […]
12:25: More video of Bill Barr, this time saying Trump was absolutely full of shit when he kept spreading the lie that there were more votes in Philly than there are registered voters. Barr says the fact that Trump ran weaker than the Republican ticket in some places doesn’t mean there was fraud. (It means Trump is a despised loser.)
12:29: Just a lot of people lightly insinuating that Rudy Giuliani might not be doing very well in a mental way, and that all of his things about thousands of dead voters in Philadelphia were imaginary.
12:33: Lofgren asks Benjamin Ginsberg just how bizarre and bad the Trump campaign’s election objections were compared to normal objections normal campaigns bring up. She notes Ginsberg is pretty much the most prominent Republican election lawyer out there. One thing Ginsberg reminds us is that the 2020 election was not close at all. Even Beltway media types buy into Trump’s lie that this election was somehow a nail-biter. It was not.
12:37: Any credible evidence of fraud ever found anywhere? Nope, says Ginsberg, while also calling the fraudit in Arizona “farcical.”
12:40: Lofgren goes through a scrolling list of hilarious things judges, including Trump judges, have written about Trump’s joke lawsuits. […]
Zoe Lofgren is giving a closing statement.
12:48: And then Liz Cheney and now Bennie Thompson, as they close out this hearing, which Cheney said was narrowly focused on Trump’s embrace and spread of the Big Lie. Thompson ends with clips of people at the Capitol to overthrow democracy, and the specific things they believed because of the Big Lie.
12:51: And now we are done. Please tip your bartenders […]
This week, Grace talks to David Adler, General Coordinator of the Progressive International, about the ongoing Colombian presidential election and what the results of its first round say about the role of social media platforms like TikTok in the global political discourse.
(I’m extremely hesitant these days to link to anything Jacobin related, and the dismal quality of the brief remarks on Ukraine here are a reminder of why; the insistence of some people on the left on seeing all world events through the same narrow lens is infuriating. But Blakeley is a talented interviewer and the discussion, aside from that nonsense, is informative.)
TikTok facilite la propagation de contenu haineux et de désinformation, au Kenya, à deux mois de l’élection présidentielle, selon un rapport de la Fondation Mozilla publié jeudi. C’est la première fois que le rôle du célèbre réseau social d’origine chinoise dans le débat politique en Afrique est analysé.
…
…Ce relativement nouveau réseau social – il a été créé en 2016 – a longtemps bénéficié d’une image de service utilisé quasi-exclusivement pour diffuser des vidéos musicales et de danse, alors “qu’en réalité il joue un rôle de plus en plus important dans le débat politique”, peut-on lire dans le rapport de la Fondation Mozilla.
Surtout, “c’est le réseau social qui a eu la plus importante progression depuis 2017 pour devenir l’un des plus utilisés au Kenya”, souligne Odanga Madung….
TikTok présente un autre avantage pour tout apprenti désinformateur : “Contrairement à Twitter ou Facebook, il n’est pas nécessaire de disposer de beaucoup d’abonnés à son compte pour réussir à produire du contenu viral”, note Odanga Madung. Une utilisation maligne des bons hashtags, qui vont plaire à l’algorithme TikTok…a ainsi permis à seulement 33 comptes de diffuser des contenus violents et de propagande à plusieurs millions de Kényans.
Et pas à n’importe quel internaute. TikTok est principalement peuplé, au Kenya comme ailleurs dans le monde, de jeunes qui n’ont pas encore ou viennent d’avoir l’âge légal pour voter – 18 ans. C’est une population dont la maturité politique est encore en devenir et qui sont, par conséquent, “d’autant plus influençables par la propagande sur leur réseau social favori”, résume Odanga Madung.
À cet égard, le scrutin présidentiel du 9 août “est, pour beaucoup, la mère de toutes les élections”, assure ce spécialiste de l’analyse des données et du paysage médiatique au Kenya. “Il n’y a jamais eu autant de jeunes électeurs, autant d’électeurs connectés et qui sont, en même temps, politiquement désabusés”, ajoute-t-il.
C’est pourquoi les rappels répétés dans ces vidéos aux violences passées et les tentatives de dépeindre l’un ou l’autre des candidats en monstre prêt à mettre le pays à feu et à sang sont des messages parfaitement adaptés à l’audience visée. Ces vidéos visent à créer un climat de peur afin de faire passer le message auprès des plus désabusés que c’est leur sécurité, voire leur vie, qui est en jeu….
A pithy McFaul: “Realists need to get real. Putin will only engage in negotiations with Zelensky when his army is no longer capturing (and later annexing) territory. The only way to stop Putin’s army is to better arm the Ukrainians. That’s the way the real world works.”
Russian force ratios and artillery remains important but Ukraine resistance continues. The materiel situation shouldn’t be so desperate as to require the crowdfunding of drones, but it is that collective spirit that may win the war.
The disinformation battle continues with Russian trolls spreading a rumor that Ukraine was going to mobilize all women for military service. This is the kind of authoritarian messaging in keeping with Aleksandr Dugin’s rebranded Eurasian fascist traditionalism all regurgitated by Putin. [map at the link]
Russian forces continue to struggle with generating additional combat-capable units. The UK Ministry of Defense reported on June 12 that Russian forces have been trying to produce more combat units by preparing to deploy third battalion tactical groups (BTGs) from some units over the last few weeks.[1] The UK MoD noted that Russian brigades and regiments normally can generate two BTGs, but doing so leaves the parent units largely hollow shells. The UK MOD concluded that these third BTGs will likely be understaffed and rely on recruits and mobilized reservists. Their deployment will likely adversely impact the capacity of their parent units to regenerate their combat power for quite some time. BTGs generated in this fashion will not have the combat power of regular BTGs. It will be important not to overestimate Russian reserves produced in this way by counting these third BTGs as if they were normal BTGs.
Pro-Russian sources are continuing to spread disinformation to sow anxiety and resentment among the Ukrainian population. Russian Telegram channels reportedly began spreading a fake mobilization order on June 12 that they falsely attributed to the Ukrainian General Staff. The fake order called for the mobilization of all eligible Ukrainian women to report for duty by “June 31” (sic).
[…] Key Takeaways
– Russian forces continued ground assaults in Severodonetsk and blew up bridges that connect Severodonetsk to Lysychansk across the Siverskyi Donets River in a likely attempt to cut Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) that run from Bakhmut to Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
– Russian forces made incremental gains to the southeast of Izyum and will likely continue attempts to advance on Slovyansk from the northwest.
– Russian forces continued efforts to push Ukrainian troops back from contested frontlines northeast of Kharkiv City.
– Russian forces focused on maintaining defensive lines along the Southern Axis. [maps at the link]
[…] Russian forces continued ground assaults in and around Severodonetsk under the cover of heavy artillery fire but have yet to establish full control of the city as of June 12. Ukrainian troops maintain control of the Azot industrial zone. Head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai stated that Russian forces destroyed two bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River between Severodonetsk and Lysychansk and are heavily shelling the third.
Russian forces should, in principle, be seeking to seize the bridges rather than destroy them, since Russian troops have struggled to cross the Siverskyi Donetsk River. They could hope to trap Ukrainian defenders in Severodonetsk by cutting off their retreat, but it seems unlikely that the benefit of catching a relatively small number of defenders would be worth the cost of imposing a contested river crossing on Russian troops. The Russians likely expect instead to be able to break out of their positions either around Toshkivka or from Popasna to the north and then encircle Lysychansk or attack it from the west bank of the Siverskyi Donets, thereby obviating the need to seize the bridges or conduct an opposed crossing. Russian troops conducted another unsuccessful attack on Toshkivka, which is likely an effort to renew their drive north toward Lysychansk on the west bank.
[…] Speaking from near the frontlines, Mykolaiv Regional Governor Vitaliy Kim called for more support from U.S. and European allies, VOA News reported. He also indicated that, at least in his region of Ukraine, forces are running low on ammunition.
“Russia’s army is more powerful, they have a lot of artillery and ammo. For now, this is a war of artillery… and we are out of ammo,” Kim said. “The help of Europe and America is very, very important.”
The Mykolaiv region is located in Southern Ukraine and features a small shoreline on the Black Sea. Most of the combat still playing out in the country is concentrated in the Donbas region far to the east, where separatist forces have attempted to align the area with Russia.
[…] Poland and Ukraine signed a deal for the joint manufacture of weapons and military equipment.
[…] Greece wants 100 Marder IFV first before passing their ancient East German BMP-1 on to Ukraine. It would defeat entire purpose or at least GER narrative, that useful capability would arrive quickly. Might just as well then deliver them straight to Kyiv.
This sounds like Greece wants to take advantage of the situation more than sincere multi-lateral cooperation.
[…] Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says UK providing Kyiv with ‘exactly’ the right weapons http://reut.rs/3mmn2Ss
[…] Norway details their delivery of 22 M109 SPH to Ukraine. Notably the training on guns was done in Germany, which continues to provide primary artillery training grounds for NATO forces generally.
[…] Ukrainian soldiers are now being sent abroad, to Norway in this instance, for additional medical care.
[…] The Story of Capitalism in One Family. The Lehman Trilogy proposes that the downfall of a financial dynasty is enough to tell the economic and political history of America […]
Ever since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated a global financial crisis, the bank’s dramatic reversal of fortune has been treated as an allegory of the history of American capitalism. It starts as a rags-to-riches fable of bootstrapping success, in which nineteenth-century German-Jewish immigrants thrive in the land of opportunity, a family of hardworking immigrants warmly welcomed to the growing nation, where they build a colossally successful business. But over the years, they lose touch with their mercantile roots, tempted by the lure of speculative wealth: instead of selling real things, they sell only abstracted numbers. The firm’s ruin, in this telling, may foreshadow the nation’s, as inequality and economic stagnation suffocate peoples’ dreams of prosperity; now the Trump administration builds walls to keep out immigrants like the Lehmans. A cautionary tale for our times: the rise and fall of the American Dream. […]
I continue to find this to be an indefensible governing dynamic, created entirely by congressional Republicans: “The Biden administration is shifting dwindling federal coronavirus funds toward securing another round of vaccines and treatments — rationing money and cutting back on other critical public health programs as Congress remains at odds over whether to spend more to battle the pandemic.”
Idaho police said they’ve received death threats since arresting 31 men affiliated with white nationalist group Patriot Front near an annual LGBTQ+ event over the weekend.
The irony is rich: Truth Social, Donald Trump’s Twitter copycat claiming it is ‘free from political discrimination,’ has reportedly banned users who posted information from Thursday’s congressional hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — in which the former president is a key focus. […]
Among Donald Trump’s worst qualities is the frequency with which the former president has tried to rip off those who’ve put their trust in him. [Trump] developed some expertise in this area, running both a fraudulent charitable foundation and a fraudulent “university” that was designed to rip off its “students.”
All of this came to mind this morning, as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack held its second hearing, which covered a lot of ground, including a review of how Trump and his team used their election lies to separate the then-president’s followers from their money. NBC News reported:
Committee investigators also traced the money Trump and his allies raised from small donors by stoking election fraud fears, which they said totaled more than $250 million. And while the money was billed as going to “The Official Election Defense Fund,” two Trump campaign staffers testified that the fund did not actually exist and was just a “marketing” tactic.
As one former Trump campaign staffer told the bipartisan congressional committee, “I don’t believe there is actually a fund called the ‘Election Defense Fund.'”
And where, pray tell, did this quarter of a billion dollars go? Some of the money helped pay for Trump’s pre-riot rally just south of the White House on Jan. 6, but the bulk of the money went to the former president’s new super PAC.
Part of what makes this jarring is the degree to which it’s a fraudulent scam wrapped in a fraudulent scam: Trump started with a lie [the Big Lie about the election] and then added another lie on top of it, by telling those who believed the first lie to go grab their wallets and contribute to Election Defense Fund that had nothing to do with defending elections.
It also created a perverse set of incentives: [If Trump] stopped lying […] donors would stop sending him money, which not surprisingly encouraged Trump to keep the con going.
But there’s also a legal dimension to this: Aren’t there laws against unscrupulous conmen launching fraudulent scams?
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic member of the Jan. 6 committee, was asked about this after this morning’s proceedings. “It’s clear that he intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what he said,” the congresswoman told reporters.
Lofgren added, “Now it’s for someone else to decide whether that’s criminal or not. That’s not the purview of a legislative committee.”
It was against this backdrop that Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed this morning that he’s watching the committee hearings. H added this morning, “And I can assure you that the Jan. 6 prosecutors are watching all the hearings.”
ravensays
It wouldn’t be Tuesday without a death threat from someone for something or another. While it is a generic low effort threat, it is at least dramatic. A high Russian official has threatened to kill me and a few tens of millions of my friends using nuclear weapons.
This time the head of their Russian parliament is threatening to nuke Poland, the Ukraine, and central Europe. ” In case his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe as well.” He hasn’t thought it through very far. Most of Russia’s population is…in Europe as well. Of course, Russia will also disappear.
Russia is what you get when internet trolls run a country.
From what I can see, most Polish people know a family member or friend or many of those, who have been imprisoned, disappeared, relocated, or killed by the Russians, when they invaded at the start of WW II and the subsequent occupation. One of them is my old friend whose father was taken away by Russian soldiers and never seen again. They really hate the Russians and they aren’t going to be killed, enslaved, and persecuted by the Russians again without a fight.
Dailyexpress (UK) 6/14/2022
Ukraine LIVE: ‘Cease to exist’ Kremlin warns Europe will ‘disappear’ in nuclear apocalypse
Viacheslav Volodin, head of the State Duma hit out after Poland’s former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called on the West to send more weapons to Ukraine. Writing on Telegram he said Mr Sikorski is “provoking a nuclear conflict at the centre of Europe”. He continued: “He doesn’t think neither about the future of Ukraine nor about the future of Poland. In case his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe as well. Sikorski and the like are the reason why Ukraine must not only be set free from the Nazi ideology but also be demilitarise, securing the nuclear-weapon-free status of the country.”
It comes as President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine needs more long-range weapons.
ravensays
express.com (UK)
6.5 million people reach EU after fleeing Ukraine
Over 6.5 million people have reached the EU after fleeing war in Ukraine, the European Commission has revealed.
The Commission has also revealed new guidance to help those leaving Ukraine access jobs, training and learning opportunities.
This is huge number of refugees.
Counting the 1.3 million that have fled or been deported to Russia, 18% of Ukraines population are refugees that no longer live in Ukraine.
It is costing NATO, the EU, and the USA a lot of money to keep Ukraine going.
OTOH, it would cost a lot of money if Ukraine collapses and gets overrun by the Russians. Those refugees would become permanent residents.
And there would be more.
If Ukraine goes, you can be sure Moldova and Georgia at the least will also go.
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been abruptly transferred from the prison where he is serving an 11-and-a-half year sentence to an undisclosed location, according to a post on the Telegram app by his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov.
Reuters reports that when Navalny’s lawyer arrived at Correctional Colony No 2, a prison camp in Pokrov, he was told: “There is no such convict here.”
“Where Alexei is now, and which colony he is being taken to, we don’t know,” Volkov said in the Telegram message.
Last month Navalny lambasted Vladimir Putin via video link in a Russian court, casting the president as a madman who had started a “stupid war” that was butchering innocent people of Ukraine and Russia.
Johnson floats prospect of UK pulling out of European convention on human rights to ensure Rwandan deportations can continue
Here is the full quote from Boris Johnson on leaving the European convention on human rights. He was asked whether, in light of all the legal challenges that the Rwanda deportation policy was facing, it was time for Britain to now leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) to reduce the government being obstructed by the courts. He replied:
It’s certainly the case that … the legal world is very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the government from upholding what we think is a sensible law.
We’re trying to make a distinction between illegal pathways to the UK, which we support – we want people to be able to come here in fear of their lives, but we want them to do it legally and safely, and that’s why we have all the safe and legal routes that are open to people. What we want to do is show the people traffickers that they’re breaking the law, they’re risking people’s lives and it won’t work anyway.
Now, will it be necessary to change some laws to help us as we go along? It may very well be. And all these options are under constant review.
This implies that the idea of withdrawing from the European convention on human rights is more of an option that Johnson is toying with at this stage than a proposal to which he is firmly committed. Johnson, like many politicians, is fond of floating ideas to see what reaction they provoke (particularly if they are likely to excite the Tory papers and infuriate the left).
The government is already committed to legislating this session for a bill of rights that would limit the extent to which decisions of the European court of human rights (which adjudicates on the convention) are automatically followed by UK courts. But withdrawing from the convention would be a much more radical, and provocative move.
Theresa May floated the idea in 2016, when she was home secretary (and angry about the way the convention limited her ability to deport foreign criminals). Her proposals was not adopted by colleagues, but Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, said the ECHR was “unfinished business” as Britain left the EU, and during the withdrawal negotations the UK was at one point reluctant to promise that it would remain party to the convention post-Brexit….
The January 6 committee has announced the postponement of its hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Zoe Lofgren said it’s for technical reasons: to give the people working with the videos more time to prepare.
Sometime soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, the supreme court will hand down a decision that could dismantle or greatly weaken abortion rights codified by Roe v Wade. If that happens, The Guardian’s Poppy Noor reports that prosecutors in a number of states are preparing to act to keep abortion accessible.
Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, never thought she would have an abortion. But after finding herself pregnant with triplets in 2002, she faced an unenviable choice: abort one, or miscarry all three. “I took my doctor’s advice, which I should have been able to do,” she says in a phone interview.
Nessel plans to protect that same right for residents of her state if Roe v Wade is overturned this summer, as a leaked supreme court draft opinion indicates is all but certain.
If the draft opinion stands, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortion. In Michigan, a 1931 law would be triggered, making abortion illegal in almost all cases except to save the life of the pregnant person.
Nessel says she won’t enforce the ban in Michigan, along with at least a dozen law enforcement officials across the country – a bold statement that sets the US up for a complex legal landscape with different enforcement regimes in different states, and even within them.
These officials are likely to face swift backlash from the right, including, in some cases, retaliation from state authorities who will demand they enforce the law as written. But they are determined to press ahead.
The postponed January 6 hearing will likely take place next week, committee member Pete Aguilar said.
Speaking at a press conference of the House Democratic Caucus Leaders, the California Democrat downplayed the impact of the hearing’s postponement.
“The schedule has always been fluid. So we’re going to move forward and have a Thursday hearing and then get ready for hearings next week as well,” he said, predicting the session originally set for Wednesday will “move to likely next week.”
He didn’t elaborate on the reasons for the change in schedule, but said, “We just want to make sure that you all have the time and space to digest all the information that we’re putting out there.”
The committee’s next hearing is scheduled for Thursday, June 16.
…It was the 14th day of a sit-in over the university’s policy prohibiting employee same-sex sexual activity….
The policy, students argue, is blatantly discriminatory and leaves the campus’s LGBTQ+ community without the support and mentorship they need.
“You’re going to charge me thousands of dollars every quarter to come here and to get an education, but you’re not going to provide me the education that I deserve as a queer person by having queer staff and faculty?” asked Leah Duff, 22, who has been camped out at the sit-in nearly every day. “You talk about being ecumenical, being so diverse. And it’s like, where is it?”
Duff, who grew up in Maryland in a church that supported the LGBTQ+ community, said she hadn’t been aware of the policy when she enrolled at the university.
In a statement last month, Cedric Davis, chair of the SPU board, described the decision to keep the rule as a “thorough and prayerful deliberation”.
He added: “The board made a decision that it believed was most in line with the university’s mission and statement of faith and chose to have SPU remain in communion with its founding denomination, the Free Methodist church USA, as a core part of its historical identity as a Christian university.”
The policy stands out in the liberal Pacific north-west city, where, according to the Pew Research Center, more than one-third of residents reported no affiliation with a religion. But the school is certainly not alone in the US.
Nearly one-third of US Christian colleges and universities have bans on such things as “homosexual acts” or “homosexual behavior”, according to a 2019 study published in Sociological Spectrum. The higher education association Council for Christian Colleges & Universities includes over 140 schools around the world that have agreed to support such policies as “intimate sexual relations … are intended for persons in a marriage between one man and one woman”.
These policies can exist thanks to religious exemptions under Title IX, the federal education law barring discrimination based on sex, and Title VII, the law prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex, among other things, explained Evan Gerstmann, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University.
Paul Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, a program working to empower LGBTQ+ students at religious schools, described the sit-in as “unprecedented” but said it seemed to fit into the broader trend playing out among college students.
“More and more of the current generation of students, more and more of them are identifying as LGBTQ+, or somewhere along the spectrum,” said Southwick. “And the attitudes of young people have shifted pretty dramatically, as has the wider culture.”
Last year, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project filed a class-action lawsuit against the US Department of Education, challenging the Title IX exemption. It names 46 plaintiffs, including a student who attended SPU.
The school has not filed for a religious exemption.
At SPU, students launched the sit-in after the board of trustees announced in May that it would not change its policy stating that the school’s employees are expected to refrain from “sexual behavior that is inconsistent with the University’s understanding of Biblical standards, including … same-sex sexual activity”.
It adds: “Employees who engage in any of these activities may face disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment with the University.”
Before the board announced its decision, the Free Methodist church USA warned that if the university changed its policy, it would lose its affiliation with the denomination.
The church does not have any legal control over the school but has contributed $324,000 “through its various entities” over the past 40 years, according to Tracy Norlen, a spokesperson for the university.
“We recognize a diversity of opinions within our community on the topic of sexuality, and we continually seek to honor differences and create space for all voices on our campus,” Norlen said in an email. “We seek to be a supportive community to all our members.”
The Free Methodist church USA declined to comment.
Earlier this month, the SPU faculty senate passed a resolution stating that it supported revising the school’s policy to allow same-sex sexual activity within the context of marriage.
…
As of Monday evening, the students were still camped out. It is clear they have no intention of leaving.
They have coordinated meals and sit-in shifts through Google sign-up sheets, making sure there are at least three students there at any given time. They’ve created a kitchen area filled with bins of donated snacks and two large coolers.
They have set up a line of cots and air mattresses, a lost and found and a bathroom converted to non-binary by way of a sign reading “It doesn’t really matter”. Taped on the wall was a list of “house rules”, including “Be clean, be safe, be kind, and be gay”. And they’ve even had alumni with protest experience give presentations on what to do if you’re arrested and how to coordinate jail support.
Chloe Guillot, 22, an organizer and senior at the school, said they planned to stay into the summer. They’ve given the school until 1 July to reverse the policy, or the students expect to file a lawsuit arguing that the board breached its fiduciary duty. As of Monday, they had raised over $26,000 for the lawsuit (they plan to donate the money to the school if the policy is changed by their deadline).
“By refusing to remove this policy, it is discriminatory and it is homophobic, but it also just really puts our university in jeopardy,” said Guillot, who is studying Christian theology and social justice and cultural studies.
But Guillot, who is Christian and non-binary, said it went beyond that.
“It’s really important to me to not let these Christian institutions continue to weaponize Christianity and use religion to hurt people.”
Some related recent episodes from the SWAJ series “It’s In the Code”:
A growing number of prominent Christian leaders are sounding alarms about threats to democracy posed by ReAwaken America rallies where Donald Trump loyalists Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and rightwing pastors have spread misinformation about the 2020 elections and Covid-19 vaccines, and distorted Christian teachings.
The falsehoods pushed at ReAwaken gatherings have prompted some Christian leaders to warn that America’s political and spiritual health is threatened by a toxic mix of Christian nationalism, lies about Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, and ahistorical views of the nation’s founding principle of the separation of church and state.
Several well-known Christian leaders, including the president of the Christian social justice group Sojourners and the executive director of a major Baptist group, have called on American churches to speak out against the messages promoted at ReAwaken America rallies that have been held in Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, California, South Carolina and other states.
Other tour rallies, some of which have been held in religious spaces, are slated for New York and Virginia this summer and some local Christian leaders are being encouraged to publicly voice concerns about the dangerous rhetoric and messages they convey.
…
The ReAwaken tour’s pro-Trump political messages mixed with Christian nationalism was [sic] on display at a two-day gathering in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in May that drew Flynn, Stone, Eric Trump and the rightwing pastor Mark Burns, who is running for a House seat in the state.
Stone revved up the crowd with at times bizarre conspiratorial claims. “There is a satanic portal above the White House, you can see day and night. It exists. It is real. And it must be closed. And it will be closed by prayer,” he said.
The “portal”, Stone told a rapt crowd, first appeared after Joe Biden “became president and it will be closed before he leaves”….
Burns, an ardent Trump backer, drew applause at the rally with blistering attacks on the LGBTQ community, top congressional Democrats, and even the GOP senator Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump ally.
Known for his penchant for mixing religious messages with politics, Burns told another ReAwaken meeting in Ohio in February that God would “raise up armies” to help conservatives “shut down” Democratic-run America.
“Are you ready to fight with me? Shout yeah!” Burns loudly exhorted the crowd. “Are you ready to stand with me? Shout yeah!”
But retired Lt Gen Flynn, a staunch ally of Trump’s who told the rightwing network Newsmax in December 2020 that Trump should deploy the military to “rerun the election” in swing states Biden won, is the tour’s most highly promoted draw.
At a ReAwaken event in Texas in November, for instance, Flynn sparked strong criticism by claiming that America should have just “one religion”.
“If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion,” Flynn said. “One nation under God and one religion under God, right? All of us, working together.”
At the South Carolina rally, Flynn proclaimed that the US has a “biblical destiny”, and posited that the US was built on a “set of Judeo-Christian principles”….
Pope Francis has said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “perhaps somehow provoked” as he recalled a conversation in the run-up to the war in which he was warned Nato was “barking at the gates of Russia”.
In an interview with the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, conducted last month and published on Tuesday, the pontiff condemned the “ferocity and cruelty of the Russian troops” while warning against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil.
“We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one,” he said. “Something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined.”
Francis added that a couple of months before the war he met a head of state, who he did not identify but described as “a wise man who speaks little, a very wise man indeed … He told me that he was very worried about how Nato was moving. I asked him why, and he replied: ‘They are barking at the gates of Russia. They don’t understand that the Russians are imperial and can’t have any foreign power getting close to them.’”
He added: “We do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was, perhaps, somehow either provoked or not prevented.”…
Russia has banned dozens of British journalists, media representatives and defence industry figures from entering the country.
In a statement, Russia’s foreign ministry said this was a response to Western sanctions and pressure on its state-run media outlets abroad.
The list of those banned includes 29 journalists and members of British media organisations such as the BBC, the broadcaster Sky News and the Guardian and Times newspaper.
More than a dozen British figures who Moscow said were linked to the defence industry [are they?] were also banned from entering Russia.
“Top Kremlin propagandists encountered some unexpected resistance from state TV pundits, irritated by ongoing attempts to scare the West with nuclear strikes [no one is buying it] and bluffing about manufacturing some version of the Cuban Missile Crisis [just a pipe dream].
Watch:…”
I wasn’t racing to visit Z-land Russia, but it is still a very strange/sad feeling to be put on their sanctions list along with other British colleagues. I lived in Russia for more than a decade and have been at least once every year since 2000.
Anyway I’m pleased with my first-placed finish and look forward to facing off against a sanctioned individual from another country in the next round
As far as I can tell, the only people on this list of 29 people banned from Russia who were actually travelling there regularly in recent years are me and @MarkGaleotti – it’s mainly a list of people covering Ukraine and editors in chief.
It is indeed sad. Russia is banning the very Westerners who have loved it the most and who best translated the country for a foreign audience. I hope the day comes soon when all these lists are worth less than the paper they’re written on.
In pushing back against the Jan. 6 investigation, Donald Trump released a rambling memo that referenced a debunked movie — 18 times.
Last week, NBC News highlighted a specific plan crafted by congressional Republican leaders: As the Jan. 6 committee’s hearings unfolded, the GOP would focus its attention on entirely different issues and treat the investigation as an irrelevant sideshow, unworthy of ferocious pushback.
Either Donald Trump didn’t hear about the plan, or he decided not to care about it.
We saw some of this last week, when the former president publicly took issue with Ivanka Trump’s committee testimony. Yesterday, as The New York Times noted, the Republican went even further: “He continued repeating his election conspiracies after Monday’s hearing, issuing a rambling 12-page response with a simple bottom line: ‘They cheated!’ he wrote.”
So much for treating the investigation as an irrelevant sideshow.
[…] There was, however, something a little different about the latest written tirade: This one included a bunch of footnotes. In fact, there were 15 footnotes that specifically referenced a movie called “2000 Mules” — described in Trump’s document as a “blockbuster documentary.”
The former president’s timing could’ve been better. Hours earlier, Bill Barr, his former attorney general, was seen literally laughing at the movie. NPR reported:
As NPR’s Tom Dreisbach reported, 2,000 Mules is a documentary film directed by Dinesh D’Souza that alleges it has “smoking gun” evidence of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election in the form of digital device location tracking data. For the film, D’Souza worked with True The Vote, which claimed to have purchased geolocation data from various electronic devices. The group said it used that data to track the movements of people in key swing states around the time of the 2020 election, alleging that the data shows thousands of people making stops at mail-in vote drop boxes. The “mules” in the title refers to the individuals they claim stuffed drop boxes with stacks of completed ballots.
Barr characterized the premise of the film as absurd.
“If you take 2 million cell phones and figure out where they are physically in a big city like Atlanta or wherever, just by definition, you’re going to find many hundreds of them have passed by and spend time in the vicinity of these boxes,” he testified. [Yep. Barr is right in this case.]
The former attorney general added, “The premise that if you go by a box, five boxes or whatever it was, you know that that’s a mule is just indefensible.”
He’s not alone in coming to this conclusion. The New York Times recently characterized the movie as “a Big Lie in a New Package,” noting that even some on the right have expressed discomfort with the project and its conclusions.
The Associated Press said the film is burdened by “gaping holes”; Washington Post analyses characterized its findings as “dishonest” and “misleading”; The Daily Beast said the movie is “stupid”; and Bulwark found it to be so bad that it’s unintentionally “hilarious.”
The Bulwark’s piece added that “2000 Mules” is a “tour de force exploring the limits of how many suckers there are willing to pay for fantasy.” [LOL]
And yet, when Trump wanted to make the case in support of his conspiracy theory, he referenced the film 18 times — 15 times in footnotes, and three additional times in the body of the text.
Alas, he’s not alone. Assorted far-right members of Congress, including Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have touted the movie’s claims, and even Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah — who occasionally presents himself as a GOP intellectual — recently voiced support for the conspiracy theories “2000 Mules” espoused. […]
I wonder if we can gauge Trump’s rage by the number of footnotes he bothers to include, or has his staff include, in one of his written rants?
Karen Amsden, the mother of one of the dozens of white supremacists who were arrested in a U-Haul in Idaho on Saturday, wasn’t thrilled to find out what her son was up to that day.
Amsden’s son, 27-year-old Jared Michael Boyce of Springville, Utah, was one of the 31 members of the neo-Nazi Patriot Front group who traveled in the back of a U-Haul truck to allegedly disrupt a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene. Law enforcement pulled over the truck and charged the men with conspiracy to riot.
Amsden told the Daily Beast that she forced her son to make a decision once he returned home after his arrest: His family, or the neo-Nazis.
“I told him, ‘Well, then you can’t live here. You can choose between Patriot Front and your family.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I can’t quit Patriot Front.’ I’m like, ‘Well, then you’ve just chosen. So pack your stuff and get out of my house,’” Amsden recounted.
[…] She also told the Daily Beast that she’s deliberately speaking out about Boyce in the hopes that Patriot Front, careful about maintaining members’ anonymity, ditches her son and he returns to his senses.
“I would love to do whatever I can to out him [as a Patriot Front member] so that he can’t be a part of it,” Amsden said. “And that they don’t want him to be a part of their group because his mom has loose lips and a big mouth and he’s never going to get away with anything.” […]
Posted by readers of the article:
Finally! A Karen I can like!
———————-
Times are hard and have been hard for awhile. It’s entirely reasonable for young adults to have challenges that make it necessary to live with their parents. This guy is a literal Nazi that was captured in a U-Haul full of Nazis. There’s plenty to laugh at him for without stuff like this.
———————–
I think one of the main points is a shared fantasy that includes hate, intolerance, threats, intimidation, violence and firearms. The fantasy includes using violence, especially using firearms, as the ultimate means to win, settle scores, or gain power.
———————-
Maybe we need a new maternal militia?
“Stop, Mom! You’re embarrassing me in front of the Quick Reaction Force!”
————————-
‘Well, I can’t quit Patriot Front.’
Sounds like a cult member to me.
———————
Ah yes, Montgomery County and Tarrant County: the deep red neighbors to the ever increasingly blue Harris County and Dallas County. [Seven of the Nazi wannabes were from Texas.]
Last year I moved from Harris to Montgomery. Love my house, have nothing in common with my neighbors’ politics.
Details on a specific part of Trump’s money-raising grift:
[…] Rep. Lofgren, like many of the members of the committee was non-committal about the committee’s ability to push for criminal charges, but did offer up criminal actions, saying “for example, we know that Guilfoyle [Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News person and present Donald Trump Junior girlfriend] was paid for the introduction she gave at the speech. I mean, on January 6, she received compensation for that.” Pressed on whether or not it was a crime, Lofgren explained that while she could not “say” it was a “crime,” she could call it a “grift.”
Why would Rep. Lofgren say getting a little compensation for introducing a grifter and insurrectionist to make his own speech is “a grift?” According to Lofgren, Guilfoyle received about “$60,000 for two and a half minutes.” That’s a lot of money to pay someone best known for shouting poorly written half-sentences at crowds. But that money came from somewhere, and it wasn’t from producing anything material or of value. “People were conned by the former president,” Lofgren said on CNN. “They were conned into believing that the election had been stolen and that they should go to the Capitol once the president asked them to. I think the average donation from those … false email requests was something like $17. These weren’t rich people. They were conned by the president. The Big Lie was also a big ripoff.”
One of the questions that the Department of Justice must answer in the coming days, weeks, and months is whether or not the promotion of a fraud, by people like Guilfoyle—who knew that the Big Lie about a stolen election was a lie—in service of profit is enough of a scam to prosecute. Guilfoyle definitely raised millions of dollars in service of the fake election fraud investigation that Trump and his conspirators used to pocket a lot of the money.
Guilfoyle’s exuberance in the Stop the Steal pageantry seems to only have been tamped down by Donald Trump’s own ego, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t participate enough to do a little time if the authorities see appropriate. […]
[…] Putin may be the only world leader who seems even more outraged about the investigation into January 6 than Trump. Russia’s state media has been drooling over every report that President Joe Biden’s popularity is down. Just as they have done for decades, they’ve been recycling Republican statements about inflation and immigration to “prove” to Moscow audiences that the United States is a hellhole tottering on the brink of collapse. And, of course, they’ve been using Republican statements about the LGBTQ community to show that Putin was absolutely right to persecute that community in Russia.
But for Putin, there’s one thing that really stands out as a disappointment—Jan. 6. After all, Trump may have been this close to becoming dictator for whatever remains of his life, but Putin was about to really win it all. If things had gone the other way on Jan. 6, it would have been a victory beyond Vladimir Lenin’s wildest dream. An authoritarian United States that breaks away from democracy, ditches NATO, and embraces an isolationist white nationalist leader with a fondness for big military parades?
[…] Putin was one moment away from hanging a Soviet banner over an endless empire. So it’s no surprise that the person most angry about the revelations being produced by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 may be all the way around the globe, at one end of a very long table, in the middle of Red Square.
However, what might be most interesting is not Putin pushing the MAGA line in calling for an investigation into the death of Ashli Babbitt, but the assumptions about where all this is going. Because now that Russian state media has been forced to notice the Jan. 6 hearings and the information they are producing, Russian experts seem to have come to one conclusion about Trump. That conclusion involves orange jumpsuits. Russian state television hosts reportedly believe that criminal prosecution of Trump is “all but inevitable.”
How Russia is presenting the Jan. 6 hearings shows what a threat they represent to Putin’s dreams. Criminal prosecution of Trump is being called “an obvious step towards a dictatorship.” [LOL]
[…] The biggest concern for Putin is that the hearings will throw off the most important plan in all of Moscow at the moment—waiting for the Republicans to help them win the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has been all-in on their support of Republican candidates in the House and Senate, fully understanding that with compliant Republicans in control of Congress, the flow of weapons and intelligence to Ukraine can be chopped back to the bone. With the Russian military making slow progress, suffering heavy losses, and facing more and more NATO weaponry, a Republican win is more important to Putin than it is to Kevin McCarthy’s ego.
Political scientists in Russia are counting on the higher gas prices caused in large part by restricting the sale of Russian gas to make dropping sanctions and surrendering Ukraine in exchange for relief at the pump to be a bargain Republicans can sell in November. And with Republicans in control, they expect weapon deliveries from the United States to fall to a trickle. A Republican win in November is an integral part of Putin’s war plan in Ukraine.
That’s the biggest thing making the Jan. 6 hearings super-scary to the Kremlin. “We need to understand what’s going to happen in the electoral sense,” said Dmitry Abzalov, Director of the Center for Strategic Communications. “The internal political component is extremely significant. The most important events on our political calendar are local elections in Great Britain as well as a very difficult situation in July and August, since the midterms in the U.S. actually start during summer months. Every Thursday they’ll be lynching Trump in prime time.”
Now Russian media is actively contemplating what they can do to save Trump. Because getting Republicans in charge of Congress is key to them winning Ukraine. […]
Link to the opinion at the link. I haven’t read it in full, but the basic reasoning appears to be that since the writ is for humans it therefore doesn’t apply to nonhumans, which seems pretty circular and unimaginative.
…Petitioner urges this Court to recognize its right on behalf of Happy, an elephant, to invoke the protections of the writ to challenge her confinement at the Bronx Zoo. However, despite the awesome power of the writ of habeas corpus and its enduring use throughout the centuries, no court of this State—or any other—has ever held the writ applicable to a nonhuman animal. Nothing in our precedent or, in fact, that of any other state or federal court, provides support for the notion that the writ of habeas corpus is or should be applicable to nonhuman animals. The selective capacity for autonomy, intelligence, and
emotion of a particular nonhuman animal species is not a determinative factor in whether the writ is available as such factors are not what makes a person detained qualified to seek the writ. Rather, the great writ protects the right to liberty of humans because they are humans with certain fundamental liberty rights recognized by law…
To be sure, as our dissenting colleagues observe, the writ of habeas corpus is flexible and has long existed as a mechanism to secure recognition of the liberty interests of human beings—even those whose rights had not yet been properly acknowledged through established law. That flexibility, however, is not limitless and the extension of the writ would far exceed its bounds here, where petitioner seeks its application to a nonhuman animal….
Patriot Front was born in 2017 after splintering off from the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America in the wake of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The group publicly attempts to eschew outright racism in favor of a focus on nationalism. A recent leak, however, shows the group is rife with white supremacy and its members have a fascination with neo-Nazism as well as shaming fellow members for their porn and junk-food habits.
It could just be ignorance on my part, but I don’t remember these groups in the US in the past attempting to exert this sort of control over sex and bodies. It seems like white supremacist movements are increasingly overlapping with high-demand cultish groups.
On the PM programme Dominic Casciani, the BBC’s legal correspondent, said that just seven asylum seekers are now expected to be on the flight to Rwanda due to leave this evening. He said the group comprised: three Iranians, two Iraqi Kurds, one Albanian and one person from Vietnam.
Stop Deportations protesters have blocked the road at Colnbrook immigration removal centre near Heathrow Airport in the hope of delaying this evening’s flight to Rwanda.
Two asylum seekers are believed to still be at the detention centre. Protestors locked themselves together with metal pipes and blockaded exits to the centre.
The Rwanda policy has been the subject of multiple legal challenges in the High Court and Court of Appeal in the last few days.
Judges refused to grant an injunction to stop today’s flight, pending a full hearing on the legality of the policy.
However, successful challenges have been made on behalf of some individuals due to fly on Tuesday evening.
One activist said:” “No one should be on this flight. No one should be deported under such racist and discriminatory policies. This flight represents the very worst of government legislation regarding refugees.”
During the afternoon, vans carrying asylum seekers with police escorts including outriders arrived at MOD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
Civilian police were posted at the main entrance of the base, a testing and evaluation site for aircraft featuring the longest military runway in the UK.
There were no protestors at the site but some local people expressed concern that their community was being used for such an operation.
Beth Almond, a teacher, who was picking up her four-year-old child from a nursery opposite the entrance, said: “It’s a travesty that this is happening in our community.
“It’s so awful that we’re doing this to people who need our help.”
A member the armed services, who asked not to be named, said it was a “shameful” day for the country he served. “It’s a cruel policy. As a country we’re better than this, or used to be. It’s typical of this government doing something like this in secret. I’m disgusted by it.”
There was some sympathy for the government’s policy. Dave, a 65-year-old retired delivery driver, said: “It’s harsh but it’s got to be done.
“We’ve got to stop people coming over from France in those little boats and we’ve got to stop the people smugglers.”
An Iranian ex-policeman threatened with deportation to Rwanda from the UK under a controversial plan has spoken of his relief after his ticket was cancelled.
The former commander had faced being flown to the African nation on Tuesday. He had said he feared being found and killed by Iranian agents there.
The man had previously given testimony in the UK to an investigation into alleged Iranian atrocities in 2019.
A handful of asylum seekers are still due to be deported on Tuesday’s flight.
On Monday, the Court of Appeal in London rejected a call by campaigners and migrants to block the flight.
“I have mixed feelings. I cannot be happy,” the former commander said on Monday, in a statement issued by UK-based Iranian human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr.
“My whole heart is with all the refugees who will be forced to take the flight to [the Rwandan capital] Kigali and seek asylum from the government of Rwanda and according to Rwandan laws.”
Despite the cancellation, he remains at risk of being deported to Rwanda.
“I am also still very stressed about what will happen next,” he said.
The former commander has been held at a detention centre near Gatwick Airport after arriving in the UK from Turkey in May.
…
The former commander, who is not being named in order to protect his identity, was sentenced by an Iranian military court to almost five years in jail and a demotion for refusing to shoot protesters during anti-government demonstrations in Iran in 2019 triggered by a sharp rise in petrol prices. He was in charge of 60 police officers at the time.
Amnesty International documented the cases of 304 men, women and children it said were killed by security forces over five days – most from gunshot wounds. Reuters said at least 1,500 were killed in less than two weeks. The Iranian authorities dismissed both figures.
When he was out on bail pending an appeal, the former commander escaped to Turkey, where in November 2021 he gave testimony via Skype to the Aban Tribunal, organised by three human rights groups in London.
He said he lived in hiding in Turkey for 14 months before arriving in the UK. Although his face was covered when he gave evidence, he said Iran’s security forces managed to identify him and persecuted his family. His father and his child were interrogated to find out his whereabouts.
“My family in Iran paid a heavy price and this [deportation] decision means all they went through was in vain,” he told BBC Persian by telephone from Brook House detention centre last week.
“They put pressure on my family so that I return and they can capture me.”
He arrived in the UK on a boat on 14 May and was immediately detained.
The former commander said he feared for his life if he is deported to Rwanda, saying: “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards operate in Africa”.
The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) is Iran’s most powerful military force and runs a shadowy overseas operations arm called the Quds Force.
In recent years, Iran has been accused of targeting dissidents in its neighbouring countries, including Turkey.
The former commander said he was recently given malaria pills in preparation for his scheduled trip, but he refused to take them.
“You can only send my dead body to Rwanda,” he said he had told officers at Brook House.
“Why Rwanda? I’d rather be sent to Iran,” he said. “At least, I know the consequences. I can’t live with uncertainty and in fear anymore.”…
The European Court of Human Rights has granted an injunction to stop one of the people on the Rwanda flight being deported tonight which brings the number down to six.
Now that the European Court for Human Rights has issued an injunction for one Rwanda flight passenger – it might be possible for each of the remaining six to apply for the same.
Was told decisions can come as late as when people are sitting in their seat moments before take off.
Also worth remembering that initially we were told there were 130+ people scheduled to be on this flight.
Legal challenges have already whittled it down a lot.
Ask yourself: How well are you going to sleep at night knowing that every five years Ted Cruz and other Congressional Republicans pushing ultra-MAGA policies are going to vote on whether you’ll have Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?
The European court of human rights has made a dramatic 11th-hour intervention into the government’s controversial plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda that could ground the inaugural flight to the east African nation.
Lawyers for one of the asylum seekers due to fly at around 9:30pm have made a successful emergency application to the ECHR after exhausting applications to UK courts.
In an initial decision, a letter from the court has stated that the asylum seeker should not be removed on Tuesday evening.
Sources have claimed that the grounds cited apply to all asylum seekers facing removal so all asylum seekers due to board the plane tonight can rely on this decision from the court.
blfsays
SC@72, Teh “U”K waltzing out of the ECHR is what Putin did after he invaded Ukraine. Londongrad is still tending to do — or at least “floating” the idea of still doing — Putin’s bidding.
I’ve been writing about how hard it is to ship, to use, to maintain, and to supply complex Western weapons systems. Those are all real challenges, yet there is another, perhaps bigger one: the amount of equipment Ukraine is demanding simply does not exist.
[…] Ukraine wants 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers to counter the increasingly bloody Russian offensive in Donbas
Oh boy. The United Kingdom’s entire tank force is 227 tanks. Germany has 266 total. France has 222. The United States has lots. 5,000 in active service, 3,000 in reserve. But maintaining and supplying those to Ukraine would be as difficult as aircraft—American tanks literally use jet engines, and mileage is around 3 gallons per mile (not a typo). Getting regular fuel to the front lines is hard enough. Adding jet fuel to the logistical requirements for such a thirsty vehicle would be nearly impossible, particularly as Ukraine prepares to field another thirsty weapons system—HIMARS rocket artillery (each pod with six rockets weighs 2.5 tons, and they’ll have to ship thousands to the front lines). […]
The entire active U.S. Army has 330 artillery pieces (M777 and M109 self-propelled guns). Ukraine is asking for 1,500.
Now, the National Guard has artillery as well. And the U.S. Marine Corps had 481 M777s—the source of the 108 guns Ukraine has gotten from the United States. Presumably, Ukraine will get more of those. But the United States, like all NATO countries, depend less on ground forces, and more on air power. And Western air power, for reasons we’ve discussed extensively, is not going to find its way to Ukraine for a long time.
France has sent 12 Caesar self-propelled artillery guns (SPG), and their superior range and power has gotten rave reviews. But France only had a total of 72. The similarly well regarded German Panzerhaubitze 2000 SPG is similarly restricted—the Dutch are sending 12 … of its total 35. Germany has sent seven of its 108, with hope that more will be sent. Ukraine has gotten 18 Polisk Crab SPGs, out of Poland’s fleet of 80.
Even if these European allies step up their commitments, NATO simply doesn’t have enough available guns to get Ukraine anywhere near the 1,000 it wants. NATO might be well-equipped enough to handle a Russian invasion thanks to its air power (and nukes), but it simply doesn’t have the heavy equipment available to donate to another country facing that invasion. Their land armies (outside of the United States) have been exposed as hollowed-out as Russia’s. […]
The disparity is even wider with rocket artillery. And yet it’s clear that Ukraine doesn’t need to have gun parity with Russia to have a similar effect. Take a look at NASA FIRES data, superimposed over Russia’s territorial control map, courtesy of George Barros, of the Institute for the Study of War: [map at the link]
There’s no doubt Russia is raining shells on Ukrainian defenses on the main contact points in the eastern Donbas front. But look at all the red dots in Russian-held territory, as Ukraine rains shells on Russian positions behind the front lines, presumably artillery locations and supply lines and depots.
Indeed, we have confirmation of one of those dots, northwest of Lyman, geolocated here, marking the demise of a Russian MLRS GRAD platoon and supporting vehicles: [tweets and videos at the link]
Furthermore, we know Ukrainian troops are under relentless artillery pressure, and estimate that they’re outgunned by that 10-1 ratio. But the Russian side complains about the same artillery pressure. This one Russian volunteer wrote extensively about his experience in Ukraine. Here are some snippets:
Ukrainian bombs and GRADs flew into our artillery which positioned 1 kilometer away from us. They also hit the 2nd company which was bigger than ours and more combat-ready […]
All this time [Russian unit] marched under heavy mortar and artillery shelling. Dead and wounded started appearing. When we reported to our battalion commander Major Vasyura about dead and wounded, he cussed: ‘leave them and keep advancing!!!’ […]
In May [Russia] brought the remnants of ‘Bars’ (trained reservists from all of Russia) – 14 people. They assaulted Dolgen’koye for a month and remained in the area. As I understand it, they were attached to the leadership of our wicked division. In total, 340 of them arrived to Ukraine. After a month of shelling only 57 remained. Moreover, half of the survivors were at the headquarters. Most of them were wounded. They never had a single firefight, all the losses came from Ukrainian artillery fire […]
Ukrainian army continuously shells our positions with mortars, artillery, Tochka-U’s. I have no idea where Ukraine got so many Tochka-U’s from.
He’s not the only one that has complained about Russian and proxy forces taking heavy casualties from accurate Ukrainian artillery. Heck, we see video after video of such strikes.
Ukraine has another major weapon in its artillery toolbox—its “Uber for artillery” app called Krapiva. Rather than routing targeting missions through individual units and their fire direction people, targeting units (whether drones or human spotters) punch in the coordinates and the app determines which guns are most efficiently located to handle the fire mission. [Clever!] This home-grown solution dramatically increases the efficiency of the nation’s artillery forces.
The average time required to deploy a howitzer battery has been reduced by a factor of 5 — to three minutes -; the time required to engage an unplanned target by a factor of 3, to one minute; while the time required to open counter-battery fire has been divided by 10, down to 30 seconds. In a nutshell, and combined with the systematic use of drones for fire correction, Kropyva has increased the effectiveness of Ukrainian artillery by an order of magnitude, acting as a force multiplier.
On top of that, Ukraine’s own ministry of defense acknowledges how much more effective NATO guns are, compared to the Soviet crap they’re phasing out (and Russia is stuck with), saying “these new [NATO 155 mm] shells are more effective than their Soviet equivalents, and hence their consumption is lower.” The accuracy is ridiculous. Russia can’t pull off stuff like this, because if they could, we’d see them release the drone footage. [Tweet and video at the link]
Finally, Ukraine is more efficient in its artillery use—it targets military targets. How much of Russia’s artillery tonnage is wasted on civilian targets in places like Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, done so out of spite and rage as opposed to any broader tactical or strategic goal?
None of this is to say that Ukraine has enough guns. They will never have enough. The more guns it has, the quicker Russia can be rolled back, the quicker the war can end. Ukraine needs as many as possible. But no, they’re not going to get 1,000 howitzers and 500 rocket artillery. That would empty out all of its Western allies’ artillery stocks, and none of them—out of their own national security concerns—are going to disarm to that degree. But if Ukraine can already create this much havoc with the guns it currently has, another 100-200 Western guns and rocket artillery should make a dramatic difference on the battlefield.
Kharkiv
Ukraine has hit a wall in Kharkiv—the closer it gets to the Russian border, the more exposed its forces are to artillery from inside Russian territory, where they sit safe and well-supplied. […]
Ukraine’s best artillery is at the Donbas front, and without it, it doesn’t have the range to hit Russian batteries on the other side of the border. What this means is that a strip of territory on the Ukrainian side of the border has become no-man’s land. If Ukraine can take Lyptsi, 20 kms north of Kharkiv, it would finally push most of Russian artillery out of range of the city, and put an end to the hate-shelling from which it suffers.
Izyum
Over the weekend, a pro-Ukraine Twitter account claimed two towns west of Izyum, Zavody and Spivakivka, had been liberated by Ukraine. Seemed too good to be true. But today additional sources confirmed, including a Ukrainian war journalist. Satellite imagery also confirm the presence of battle. There are a reported 20 Russian battalion tactical groups (BTG) in the area. As we often note, that is a gibberish measure, since Russia’s BTGs are woefully understrength. But if nothing else, that number suggests that 1/5th of Russia’s entire combat power is in that area, and its sputtering efforts to advance into the Donbas will take a hit with its western flanks under pressure. [map at the link]
Severodonetsk
Status quo—Ukrainan troops hole up at an industrial plant on the city’s northwestern quadrant, giving Russia “control” of 80% of the town. But the city center is no-man’s land, any Russian sticks his head out gets shelled to oblivion. Ukraine has artillery in the high ground of Lysychansk, next door across a river, that can reach into the city and far into Russia’s rear. Russia managed to destroy a Ukrainian M777 in town, which shows that Ukraine has committed its best guns to the city’s defense. At night, Ukrainian forces spread out from their hideout fortress, create havoc, then retreat at first light. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Russia had left one bridge to Lysychansk standing, hoping Ukraine would retreat and surrender the city. Given Ukraine’s stubbornness, Russia finally destroyed that bridge and claimed Ukraine surrounded. However, river levels are low, allowing for individuals to swim across, and presumably supplies can be easily barged across. Any Ukrainian heavy equipment left in Severodonetsk is likely lost for good, however.
Popasna
Russia’s gains in the Popasna salient, south of Lysychansk, have slowed to a crawl—victims of both their inability to sustain supply lines and Ukrainian artillery. Some pro-Ukrainian sources even claimed Ukraine pushed back Russian forces several kilometers from a key highway connecting Lysychansk to Bakhmut.
Ukrainian forces in this area are likely facing the worst of Russia’s artillery fury. If you look at the NASA fires map at the top of this post, Ukrainian artillery is concentrated in Russian territory within range of Severodonetsk. You see much less of that in Russian territory around Popasna.
Kherson
The fog of war is thick here. Ukrainian forces reportedly are advancing slowly. Some claim Ukraine is now with 10 kms of Kherson, but nothing even remotely official confirms it. NASA FIRMS fire imagery certainly doesn’t show any combat that close to Kherson, so I don’t buy it. But Ukraine is pushing from three different places on this front, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even claimed several communities were liberated in this evening video address (though no specifics were given).
It’s clear, overall, that Ukraine either can’t or won’t engage in a fully committed massed counter-offensive. It prefers to poke and prod in various places until Russian lines give somewhere, consolidates that territory, then resumes the poking and prodding. It’s slow going, but just like Russia, any massing of troops are subject to withering artillery barrage. Thus, just like Russia, Ukraine chips away at the margins, maintaining pressure, hoping for an eventual breakthrough. Ukraine needs their new heavy brigades to come online.
Where would you send them?
Kharkiv—The Kharkiv news above suggests Ukrainian General Staff will focus their best efforts and equipment elsewhere. It’s just too hard to deal with Russian artillery across the border. Still, would be great to take out key supply hubs to its east.
Kherson—The most significant city under Russian control. Liberate Kherson, and Russia’s entire Novorossiya (New Russia) dream, connecting the Russian mainland all the way through Odesa to Transnistria, crashes and burns. Kherson also opens up lines of attack toward Crimea proper, and Melitopol and Mariupol to the east. And let’s not forget Crimea’s water supply in nearby Nova Kakhovka.
Popasna—Russia’s ambitious goals to encircle the entire Donbas region are long dead. But retaking Popasna would shatter Russia modest goals to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Given the importance Ukraine is placing on defending that pocket, eliminating the Popasna threat would go a long way toward securing that territory.
Izyum—Same as Popasna, but from the other direction. I know people (including Russia) think this pocket can threaten Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two legitimately strategic Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbas, but no way their supply lines hold over that distance, not with their western flanks full exposed. Liberating Izyum would eliminate a significant chunk or Russia’s combat power in a location where it can’t mass its artillery as effectively.
Melitopol—It would be fun to see Ukraine push down from Zaporizhia to Melitopol, the center of Ukraine’s fiercest partisan resistance movement. Taking the city would cut Russian supply lines from Crimea to the south Donbas front. However, that front has been under-resourced by Russia since the fall of Mariupol, putting far less pressure on Ukrainian defenders holding the line.
If it was me, I’d be looking at Kherson. It would truly f’ up Russia’s plans to annex that region with a sham referendum. But Ukraine will likely prioritize artillery coverage for the Donbas front, and only make a serious move toward Kherson once it has excess artillery to devote to the effort. But that’s a guess. Russia’s moves to stage a sham referendum to annex Kherson might adjust Ukrainian priorities.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 92
The trouble is that Biden is preaching to the choir. The people he needs to reach are the denizens of the Red States who equate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid with “godless Communism;” programs that take from the “achievers” and give to the lazy, shiftless, and usually nonwhite “moochers”
A group of half a dozen demonstrators have gathered at the front gate of MOD Boscombe Down holding placards with slogans such as: “Stop racist deportation” and “Justice for Refugees.”
As soon as they arrived, three police officers were ordered to station themselves between the protestors and the gate.
One of the protestors, Hope, 25, an administrator from Wiltshire, said: “We’re here to let the government know that British people don’t stand for their racism.
“These people being deported are from countries like Iraq and Iran, they are being treated completely differently from, for example, the Ukrainian refugees.
“ It’s cruel and discriminatory. What is waiting for them in Rwanda is more suffering.
“There have been lots of rights violations happening there.”
Seven vans have now gone in.
A photo they just posted shows some people blocking the road there.
When the governor’s mother and a recently appointed 22-year-old senator get together to launch a political action committee (PAC) to collect signatures for an initiative based on the Big Lie, you know something’s up. That’s what’s happening in Republican politics in Nebraska, and things are getting pretty strange.
According to the Daily Beast, about half a dozen complaints have been lodged recently about petitioners working for the PAC called Citizens For Voter ID.
“Some of them are just flat-out lying about what voters are signing. The company, Vanguard, just got in trouble in Michigan. There is something obviously wrong with their signature-gathering and code of ethics,” John Cartier, voting rights director for Civic Nebraska, told Daily Beast about the PAC.
Citizens for Voter ID recently hired the Austin, Texas-based GOP firm Vanguard Field Strategies to help gather signatures. Vanguard was the firm behind a signature campaign for Michigan gubernatorial candidate James Craig—who, the Daily Beast reports, is unlikely to have his name in the running after it was discovered that thousands of signatures on his petition were faked.
Complaints of the petitioners in Nebraska include offering misleading information and not fully explaining the proposed ballot measure. The complaints have led to an investigation by law enforcement and have even reached Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson.
The PAC is hoping to have a voter ID requirement on the ballot by the November election, but must collect about 124,000 signatures by July 7 in order to do so.
Sen. Carol Blood, a Democratic gubernatorial nominee, claims she was approached by a petitioner who told her he worked with the state of Nebraska.
[…] “In Nebraska, it’s a crime to impersonate or pretend to be a representative of any organization for personal benefit. These circulators get paid by the signature.”
According to the Nebraska Examiner, former State Sen. Shelley Kiel said that when a circulator appeared at her home, she too was told that the person worked for the state. Kiel adds that another woman appeared at her front door, minutes after the first person left and told her husband that she worked for the “Secretary of State’s office.” Keil told her that she could be breaking the law by telling folks she worked for the state if she didn’t.
[…] The PAC was launched by Sen. Julie Slama, who was appointed by Gov. Pete Ricketts in 2019 after Sen. Dan Watermeier left the role to work in the state’s Public Service Commission. In 2018, Slama worked as Rickett’s press secretary during his reelection campaign.
[…] Gov. Ricketts supports the voter ID issue. “Nebraska stands with Georgia and supports their work to promote integrity and access in voting.”
[…] The PAC is being funded by Ricketts’ mother, Marlene Ricketts, who donated $376,000 to Citizens for Voter ID on July 13, 2021, Daily Beast reports. Ricketts is the co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and is married to John Ricketts, the former Ameritrade chairman.
“We have real fraud taking place in the streets in order to prevent fraud that is not happening in Nebraska. … It is a weird dichotomy,” Blood said.
There’s no way around it. In spite of taking heavy losses. In spite of an artillery exchange that at the moment seems to seriously favor Ukraine. In spite of bad organization, bad logistics, bad leadership, bad training, and bad maintenance … Russia is still putting enough forces into place in eastern Ukraine to slowly grind their way toward the objective of capturing critical sites in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukrainian troops have achieved fantastic things in pushing back Russian forces from Kharkiv. That effort isn’t just notable because it’s liberated dozens of Ukrainian towns and villages, but because pushing back Russian forces has greatly decreased the number of shells and missiles landing in Kharkiv each day, purely for the purpose of causing civilian casualties.
However, after an exciting and rapid initial push in the area, things have gone slowly for Ukraine. Some important locations have been recaptured in the past two weeks—especially Vesele—which help remove Russian artillery positions that were aimed at the city, but on June 14 Ukrainian troops are still engaged in trying to dislodge Russian forces from Lyptsi, a town they’ve been actively trying to capture since the first week of May.
At this point, Russian forces in the Kharkiv area are dug in to fortified positions and supported from across the border by both artillery and aircraft. Clearing Russia from that remaining strip above Kharkiv is going to take the one thing Ukraine needs everywhere—not more American artillery: more Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainian army is reportedly training as many as three new brigades using a combination of Ukrainian volunteers, foreign volunteers, and called-up reserves. Those troops, who have reportedly been trained to operate many of the new systems donated by NATO countries, are by far the most valuable resource Ukraine has to deploy.
This is the NASA FIRMS Fire Map for the Severodonetsk area as of noon ET. [map at the link] Those hot spots falling in areas thought to be under the control of Ukrainian forces have been recolored blue. Everything else on this map is being dropped on Russian occupation forces. As has been true for almost two weeks, not only are more shells falling on Russian-controlled territory than on the heads of Ukrainian forces, most of what is being directed at Ukrainian positions are those advanced positions in the city of Severodonetsk. When it comes to delivering counterbattery fire striking targets on the other sides of these towns and cities, Ukraine seems to be way ahead.
[…] It’s not enough. Russia has not taken all of Severodonetsk, but it has held off any attempted counterattack. Even more importantly, Russia is capturing more territory west of Severodonetsk, threatening both Ukraine’s ability to deliver those artillery shots and to safely supply, or withdraw, their forces.
[…] All of this makes it sound a lot “cleaner” than it has been. Russia has failed over, and over, and over in efforts to capture even small positions. And a premature push to the river resulted in a triple disaster that saw whole BTGs blasted apart on the river bank. As it has everywhere since the invasion began, Russia continues to employ “probing by fire” — also known as sending troops forward until they get shot. Then sending more forces forward so you can tell where the bullets are originating. Then sending more troops forward.
In the last day, the Russian advance from Izyum has reportedly reached the town of Bohorodychne on the west bank of the river. Some reports have Russia completely occupying this town, while others have the fighting still underway. But it does seem likely that Russia is about to occupy both sides of the river in the bend that includes both Bohorodychne and Tetyanivka. Assuming they can repair or replace the bridge in this area, that would allow them to move forces across the river at a point about 20km south of their current crossing point.
All of this positions Russian to mass its forces for an assault on the positions they regard as the real prize in the area: Slovyansk and neighboring Kramatorsk.
However, there is something else going on …[map at the link]
The area immediately west of Izyum is heavily wooded and crisscrossed by a series of logging roads. There are only a few settlements in the area. At one point, Russia was using this area to camp some of the 20+ BTGs that were deployed around Izyum. Ukrainian forces carried out a series of hit-and-run raids, attacking these forces without the apparent goal of taking and holding territory.
Now many of those BTGs are involved in the push south, and Ukraine seems to see an opportunity. On Monday, it captured the villages of Zavody and Spivakivka in this wooded area. In just the last hour as this article was being prepared on Tuesday, reports came in that Ukrainian forces had also completely occupied the village of Prudonetske—next stop, Izyum. In addition, a pair of Russian Ka-52 helicopters were reportedly shot down in the area as Ukrainian forces pressed to the outskirts of the city. (Note: Though the reports about Prudonetske are coming from multiple sources that have proven reliable in the past, consider this largely unconfirmed; even so, I’ve updated the map to reflect this change.)
At both Kherson and Izyum, Ukrainian forces now hold a village just 10km from the city proper. However, Russia has been heavily mining and fortifying the area around Kherson. This does not seem to be true at Izyum. There are reports on Tuesday that Russia’s latest attempts at moving southeast out of Izyum have failed, with more reports of heavy losses.
Ukraine has continued to hold on in Severodonetsk, and there’s no doubt that they have absolutely mauled various Russian units attempting to occupy that city […] But what they need only slightly less than those new brigades reportedly training in the west is a big win. Retaking Izyum would be a huge win. This one looks possible.
The biggest issue is that this wooded area is by its nature difficult to hold. There are roads traveling in all directions. What made it so easy for Ukraine to stick-and-move in this area earlier could make it very difficult for them to hold it as a base for an assault on the city.
KHERSON
There were multiple reports on Tuesday morning that Ukrainian forces had taken the town of Kyselivka and moved rapidly down the highway to attack Russian forces at Chornobaivka, right on the outskirts of Kherson. However, most of these reports seem to track back to a single source and there is absolutely zero chatter about this on Russian Telegram accounts. While it would be nice to believe, consider this Extremely Sketchy. […]
Tweets and videos of “RUSSIAN STUFF BLOWING UP THEATER” are available at the link.
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Lindsey Graham held a debate about the economy Monday at the the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Massachusetts, aired on Fox Nation. The event was supposed to be some kind of kumbaya bipartisan thing, bringing the two sides together for a discussion about the economy. Sanders, an independent from Vermont, gave a full-throated defense of the vision progressives have for America: a public health care system, a living wage, and tax fairness. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, reiterated his party’s dream of ending Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
“In the United States, Lindsey, we spend twice as much per capita on health care compared to the people of any other country, while major countries like Canada, the U.K., Germany manage to supply health care to all their people,” Sanders said. “Why is that?” he asked rhetorically. “Because they’re not having insurance companies ripping off the system.”
That’s socialism, said Graham. “And it’s not going to fix America. We are not a socialist nation. There is a better way, I promise you this.” His better way happens to be at the center of a big Senate Republican fight, and puts him at odds with his party leader, Mitch McConnell, who really does not want Republican members sticking their necks out right now and telling the American people that their vision is to do away with the decades-old programs that Americans revere, not to mention depend on.
If Republicans take over the Senate, Graham promised, they will start right in on the cuts. It’s not idle talk, by the way, as Graham is the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee—he’d take over in 2023 if Republicans win the majority. “Entitlement reform is a must for us to not become Greece,” he said in the debate. By “reform,” he means cutting benefits and disqualifying people. […]
In our post on Donald Trump having conniptions at former Attorney General Bill Barr over Barr’s House January 6 Select Committee testimony, we noted that Dinesh D’Souza is also blubbering like a beclowned fool. You see, Barr and the cool kids on the committee were caught on tape laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing at Dinesh’s total dogshit election-stealing movie 2,000 Mules, which has been debunked by pretty much everybody who’s bothered to look. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, it’s not even a good conspiracy theory. It’s just stupid.
If you want to witness the blubbering, check out Dinesh’s Twitter. He’s retweeting absolute nobodies, we guess to make himself feel better, and he’s just otherwise generally begging for attention. He called Barr fat, which was probably upsetting coming from such an Adonis.
As of this writing, this is his most recent, and perhaps most pathetic tweet: [Tweet at the link]
How to say this lightly.
Wonkette has perhaps been meaner to Bill Barr and insulted him with more glee than any other august literary journal on the planet. In that context, we must point out that there are no words to describe how beneath him debating Dinesh D’Souza would be for Bill Barr.
But sure, whatever, hardened pardoned felon Dinesh D’Souza is literally begging Bill Barr to PAYYYYY ATTENTION TOOOOOO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
And don’t worry, because he’s not alone in this fight. Riding in on a white steed, his matted shit hair probably not even blowing in the wind because it doesn’t move like that, is beknighted hero Steve Bannon, who is also blubbering about “Leave Dinesh Alone!” [Tweet and video at the link]
“We’re not going to be blown off by somebody like Bill Barr. Bill Barr, we’re coming for you, bro! You’re sitting there lying about this.”
Oh for heaven’s sake.
“If you had any decency whatsoever you would have reached out to Dinesh D’Souza before you smeared him!”
He didn’t “smear” Dinesh D’Souza. He laughed at him during a legal deposition in front of a congressional committee. And they all laughed too. Everybody was laughing, laughing, laughing.
One does not “reach out” before doing such things.
“We’re going to deconstruct this, and we’re going to rub your nose in it and then we’re going to come after you legally,” Bannon said. “We’re not just going to sit here anymore. The days of the deplorables and the days of MAGA just sitting there and our betters telling us what it is [are over].”
Just a reminder, this is Steve Bannon going after Bill Barr on behalf of Dinesh D’Souza, because these people are very much fighting right now, and they are upset, and it is personal.
Bannon, also a tour de force of sexual hotness, echoed D’Souza in calling Barr fat. [video at the link]
As Mediaite notes, Bannon’s guest here is Catherine Engelbrecht from True The Vote, which plays a starring role in Dinesh D’Souza’s very dogshit movie. Indeed, one of the greatest lies of the whole film was centered around True The Vote, where the film claimed the cell phone tracking that allegedly allowed the group to track “ballot mules” also enabled it to solve a murder.
If you haven’t had enough of Bannon’s blubbering, here he is after the first night of January 6 testimony. [Tweet and video at the link.]
Steve Bannon is fuming about a criminal indictment of Trump: “I dare Merrick Garland to take that crap last night and try to indict Donald Trump! Because we’re gonna win in Nov and we’re gonna impeach you and everybody around you! F*ck – screw the WH – we’re gonna impeach you!”
Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official, wanted Trump to name him attorney general in a plan aimed at potentially overturning the election.
Three days before Congress was slated to certify the 2020 presidential election, a little-known Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark rushed to meet President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss a last-ditch attempt to reverse the results.
Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade, had outlined a plan in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states Joe Biden won. It said that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve.
That part of this plot still stuns me. It is so blatant and so stupid.
In fact, Clark’s bosses had warned there was not evidence to overturn the election and had rejected his letter days earlier. Now they learned Clark was about to meet with Trump. Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen tracked down his deputy, Richard Donoghue, who had been walking on the Mall in muddy jeans and an Army T-shirt. There was no time to change. They raced to the Oval Office.
As Rosen and Donoghue listened, Clark told Trump that he would send the letter if the president named him attorney general.
“History is calling,” Clark told the president, according to a deposition from Donoghue excerpted in a recent court filing. “This is our opportunity. We can get this done.”
Donoghue urged Trump not to put Clark in charge, calling him “not competent” and warning of “mass resignations” by Justice Department officials if he became the nation’s top law enforcement official, according to Donoghue’s account.
“What happens if, within 48 hours, we have hundreds of resignations from your Justice Department because of your actions?” Donoghue said he asked Trump. “What does that say about your leadership?”
[…] After the New York Times reported in January 2021 about Clark’s actions, he said he engaged in a “candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president,” denied that he had a plan to oust Rosen, and criticized others in the meeting for talking publicly and “distorting” the discussion.
Now, however, key witnesses have provided Congress with a fuller account of Clark’s actions, including new details about the confrontation that took place in the Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting, which lasted nearly three hours.
A reconstruction of the events by The Washington Post, based on the court filings, depositions, Senate and House reports, previously undisclosed emails, and interviews with knowledgeable government officials, shows how close the country came to crisis three days before the insurrection.
The evidence, which fills in crucial details about Clark’s efforts, includes an email showing he was sent a draft of a letter outlining a plan to try to overturn the election by a just-arrived Justice Department official who had once written a book claiming President Barack Obama planned to “subvert the Constitution.”
All the best people, as usual.
[…] The House committee unanimously voted to hold Clark in contempt of Congress after he declined in December to answer most questions on grounds that his interactions with Trump were privileged. But Clark later appeared before the committee and asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination […]
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who participated in the Judiciary Committee’s investigation, said investigators should key in on whether Clark was working on behalf of others not yet identified. […] Clark “does not appear to have elections expertise or experience, which raises the question, did he really sit down at his computer and type it out or does somebody produce it for him?”
Clark, who attended Harvard and got his law degree from Georgetown, built a career focused on environmental law at the Washington law firm of Kirkland & Ellis and served in the George W. Bush administration’s Justice Department.
Clark arrived at Trump’s Justice Department in 2018 to head an office that enforces environmental laws and regulations […]
When Attorney General William P. Barr resigned as of Dec. 23 after declaring that the Justice Department had not found evidence of mass fraud in Trump’s election loss, Rosen became the acting attorney general. Trump, though, complained to Rosen that the Justice Department still wasn’t adequately investigating his claims of massive fraud. […]
Clark would soon emerge as someone interested in pursuing Trump’s claims. He found a key ally in Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), one of the earliest proponents of Trump’s voter fraud claims. […]
Shortly before Christmas, Clark and Perry met, according to the Senate report. […] Clark then met with Trump in the Oval Office, according to the Senate report. When Rosen found out Clark had talked privately with Trump, he was livid, telling Clark in a Dec. 26 phone call that, “You didn’t tell me about it in advance. You didn’t get authorization. You didn’t tell me about it after the fact. This can’t happen,” according to Rosen’s interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Clark was “somewhat apologetic” and promised he wouldn’t do it again without permission, according to Rosen. But Clark had already made an impression on the president. The next day, Trump told Rosen in a phone call that “people are very mad with the Justice Department” not investigating voter fraud and referred to having met with Clark.
Rosen told Trump that the Justice Department could not “flip a switch and change the election,” according to notes of the conversation cited by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I don’t expect you to do that,” Trump responded, according to the notes. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” The president urged Rosen to “just have a press conference.”
Rosen refused. “We don’t see that,” he told Trump. “We’re not going to have a press conference.”
A top Clark associate, meanwhile, prepared to send him a draft of the letter to state legislatures.
Kenneth Klukowski had arrived at the Justice Department just two weeks before the Oval Office meeting to become legal counsel to the civil division overseen by Clark.
He had long been an outspoken figure on the right, working as senior legal analyst for the conservative Breitbart website and co-writing a 2010 book about President Barack Obama titled “The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.” […]
At 4:20 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2020, he sent an email that has been a central mystery in the Clark episode. The email to Clark, obtained by The Post, has the subject line, “email to you,” and an attachment titled “Draft Letter JBC 12 28 20.docx.” The email text simply said “Attached.” The attached letter, which has been previously released, was titled “Pre-Decisional & Deliberative/Attorney-Client or Legal Work Product – Georgia Proof of Concept.”
[…] In an April court filing, a committee lawyer said there is evidence suggesting the letter “may have been drafted by Ken Klukowski.” Whitehouse said he wants to know if someone produced the letter for Klukowski. […]
Twenty minutes after Klukowski sent the document, Clark sent Rosen and Donoghue an email with the subject line “Two Urgent Action Items.” One was an attachment of the letter that Klukowski had just sent to him. At the bottom of the letter was a place for it to be signed by Rosen, Donoghue and Clark.
“I set it up for signature by the three of us,” Clark wrote. “I think we should get it out as soon as possible.”
The second item was Clark’s request for an intelligence briefing about an allegation that the Chinese were controlling U.S.-based voting machines via internet-connected smart thermostats, a theory that the Justice Department had dismissed as not credible.
Donoghue said in his deposition that he found Clark’s proposed letter to state leaders and request for the intelligence briefing to be “very strange” and “completely inconsistent with the department’s role …[and] with what our investigations to date, had revealed.”
“There’s no chance I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this,” Donoghue emailed Clark on the afternoon of Dec. 28, 2020. He stressed that the Justice Department investigations into possible fraud were so small that they “would simply not impact the outcome of the election.” Donoghue told Clark that asking the states to reconsider their certified election results “would be a grave step for the Department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political, and social ramifications for the country.”
Rosen summoned Clark to a meeting along with Donoghue. Clark explained that he been looking at allegations on his own and had concerns about the reliability of the election, according to Donoghue’s deposition. “He mentioned this smart thermostat thing,” Donoghue said, surmising that Clark had read information in lawsuits and “various theories that seemed to be derived from the Internet.”
Donoghue told Clark in the meeting that the proposed letter was “wildly inappropriate and irresponsible … nothing less than the department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election,” Donoghue told the Senate committee.
[…] Rosen told the Senate committee that he wondered “what’s going on with Jeff Clark. That this is inconsistent with how I perceived him in the past.” […]
With the meeting concluded, Rosen and Donoghue thought Clark’s effort was over. Clark told them, “I think they are good ideas. You don’t like them. Okay. Then, I guess we won’t do it,” according to Rosen’s Senate committee interview.
But Clark’s effort to woo Trump with his ideas was just beginning.
Several days later, Rosen learned that Clark had once again met with Trump — and once again without informing him in advance, Rosen told the Senate committee. Clark told Rosen that Trump wanted him to consider becoming attorney general. Rosen was livid. “He says he won’t do it again. He did it again,” Rosen recalled. But Rosen said he did not have the authority to fire Clark, as he would have liked to do, because Clark was a presidential appointee.
[…] Clark told Rosen that if he reversed his position and signed the letter to the Georgia legislature, then Rosen could remain attorney general, Rosen told the Senate committee. Rosen refused. Donoghue told Clark that “you went behind your boss’s back, and you’re proposing things that are outside your domain and you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rosen told the Senate committee.
The following day, Jan. 3, 2021, Clark told Rosen that he had just talked with Trump and that “the president had decided to offer him the position, and he had decided to take it. So that I would be replaced that Sunday, and the department would chart a different path,” Rosen told the Senate committee
.
“I don’t get to be fired by someone who works for me,” Rosen said he told Clark. Rosen then called and asked to meet with Trump.
[…] A meeting in the Oval Office was quickly arranged with Clark, Rosen, and other Justice Department and White House lawyers. Rosen found Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk, while other White House and Justice Department officials took their seats. […] The Post had just broken the news that Trump had a day earlier pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to find enough votes to win the state. Raffensperger had told Trump his allegations of fraud that could overturn the election were baseless.
While Donoghue was watching television coverage about The Post’s report, a White House official emerged and said, “The president wants you in this meeting.”
Around the time Donoghue entered, Clark was telling Trump that if he became attorney general he would “conduct real investigations that would, in his view, uncover widespread fraud,” Donoghue said in his House deposition. Clark vowed to send the letter he drafted to Georgia and other states and said that “this was a last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election, and that he could do it, and he had the intelligence and the will and the desire to pursue these matters in the way that the president thought most appropriate.”
Everyone else in the room told Trump they opposed Clark, Donoghue said.
Trump repeatedly went after Rosen and Donoghue, saying they hadn’t pursued voter fraud allegations.
“You two,” Trump said, pointing to the two top Justice Department officials. “You two haven’t done anything. You two don’t care. You haven’t taken appropriate actions. Everyone tells me I should fire you.”
Trump continually circled back to the idea of replacing Rosen with Clark.
“What do I have to lose?” the president asked, according to Donoghue.
“Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose,” Donoghue said he responded. “Is this really how you want your administration to end? You’re going to hurt the country, you’re going to hurt the department, you’re going to hurt yourself, with people grasping at straws on these desperate theories about election fraud, and is this really in anyone’s best interest?”
Donoghue warned Trump that putting Clark in charge would be likely to lead to mass resignations at the Justice Department.
“Well, suppose I do this,” Trump said to Donoghue. “Suppose I replace [Rosen] with [Clark], what would you do?”
“Sir, I would resign immediately,” Donoghue said he responded. “There’s no way I’m serving under this guy [Clark].”
Trump then turned to Steve Engel, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, whom Trump reportedly had considered for a seat on the Supreme Court.
“Steve, you wouldn’t resign, would you?” Trump asked.
“Absolutely I would, Mr. President. You’d leave me no choice,” Engel responded, according to Donoghue’s account. […]
“And we’re not the only ones,” Donoghue said he told Trump. “You should understand that your entire department leadership will resign. Every [assistant attorney general] will resign. … Mr. President, these aren’t bureaucratic leftovers from another administration. You picked them. This is your leadership team. You sent every one of them to the Senate; you got them confirmed. What is that going to say about you, when we all walk out at the same time?”
Donoghue then told Trump that Clark had no qualification to be attorney general: “He’s never been a criminal attorney. He’s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He’s never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury.”
Clark objected. “Well, I’ve done a lot of very complicated appeals and civil litigation, environmental litigation, and things like that,” Clark said, according to Donoghue’s deposition.
“That’s right,” Donoghue said he responded. “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.” [LOL]
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, told Trump that Clark’s proposed letter was “a murder-suicide pact,” according to Donoghue’s deposition. “It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter. I don’t ever want to see that letter again.” […]
Trump made his decision and turned to Clark. “I appreciate your willingness to do it,” Trump said, according to Donoghue. “I appreciate you being willing to suffer the abuse. But the reality is, you’re not going to get anything done. These guys are going to quit. Everyone else is going to resign. It’s going to be a disaster. The bureaucracy will eat you alive. And no matter how much you want to get things done in the next few weeks, you won’t be able to get it done, and it’s not going to be worth the breakage.”
Clark had yet another idea. He asked whether Engel could provide a formal opinion about what authority Vice President Mike Pence had “when it comes to opening the votes” of the electoral college result on Jan. 6, according to an excerpt of Engel’s deposition in a recent court filing
.
“That’s an absurd idea,” Engel said he responded, asserting it wasn’t the job of the Justice Department and noting only three days remained before Pence would perform his role. Trump interjected that he didn’t want anyone attending the meeting to talk to Pence about what to do on Jan. 6.
“Nobody should be talking to the vice president here,” Trump said, according to Engel. Instead, Trump would soon do that himself in an attempt to convince the vice president not to certify Biden’s election.
As the Justice Department officials filed out of the White House that night, one grave threat to American democracy had passed.
Three days later, after the president falsely said at a rally that “we won this election, and we won it by a landslide,” a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol.
No one will be deported to Rwanda from the UK tonight after the European Court of Human Rights issued last minute injunctions to stop the move.
The ECHR issued a series of last minute injunctions as the plane was about to take off from Wiltshire.
Flight to Rwanda will not be taking off tonight
No one will be deported to Rwanda from the UK tonight after the European Court of Human Rights issued last minute injunctions to stop the move.
The ECHR issued a series of last minute injunctions as the plane was about to take off from Wiltshire.
Yellowstone National Park will remain closed to visitors through at least Wednesday due to dangerous flooding conditions, which have prompted park evacuations and left some in surrounding communities trapped without safe drinking water, officials say.
A Montana helicopter company transported about 40 people on Monday and Tuesday from a community airstrip in the town of Gardiner in Park County, Laura Jones of Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.
“We haven’t ‘rescued’ anyone that was in danger, we have mainly been transporting people out of there,” Jones said via email. “We have also taken some passengers in who had pets they needed to get to or live there and needed to get home.”
The park announced Monday afternoon that all park entrances were closed to visitors, citing “record flooding events” and a forecast of more rain to come.
The abundant rainfall and rapid snowmelt combined to produce up to three-quarters of a foot of water runoff, which is similar to the area receiving 2 to 3 months of June precipitation in only three days, according to CNN Weather calculations.
“Our first priority has been to evacuate the northern section of the park where we have multiple road and bridge failures, mudslides and other issues,” Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement Monday.
The Park County town of Gardiner, located at the northern entrance to Yellowstone, is isolated and surrounded by water after heavy flooding washed out bridges and roads, county officials said on Facebook on Tuesday.
Sholly told reporters Tuesday evening that the road between Gardiner and Cooke City will likely remain closed for the remainder of the season….
…
Many roads and bridges are inaccessible, along with some railroad tracks. A few roads and bridges remain open to emergency traffic. The National Guard and local rescue groups were conducting evacuations, water rescues and airlifts.
Officials on Tuesday warned residents that displaced wildlife could traverse their properties, with bears, deer and domestic livestock [sic] already spotted.
…
The Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several Park County cities, swelled to a record high Monday due to recent heavy rainfall and significant runoff from melting snow in higher elevations, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.
The Yellowstone River gauge at Corwin Springs, Montana, reached 13.88 feet Monday afternoon, surpassing the historical high crest of 11.5 feet from 1918, NOAA river gauge data shows.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a “statewide disaster” on Tuesday “to help impacted communities get back on their feet as soon as possible,” according to a Twitter post.
Snow melt and rainfall across the Beartooths and Absarokas — which span the Montana-Wyoming border — have led to “flooding rarely or never seen before across many area rivers and streams,” the National Weather Service in Billings said on its on website.
The Montana National Guard had evacuated 12 people stranded from flooding in Roscoe and Cooke City, the governor said in a separate Twitter post. The National Guard said it also was responding to a search and rescue request in the East Rosebud Lake area.
Several roads and bridges are severely damaged in southern Montana and may be temporarily closed, according to an tweet from Montana’s Disaster and Emergency Services.
Across the nation in recent days, extreme weather events have battered communities, including thunderstorms that left nearly 300,000 customers without power in the Midwest, a tornado threat in Chicago, and a severe heat dome which has left more than a third of the US population under heat alerts….
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has provided a brief update on the fighting unfolding in Donbas, maintaining the region is key to determining the course of the war.
Over the past day no drastic changes have taken place in the battle in Donbas. The fiercest fighting is in Sievierodonetsk and in all cities and communities nearby – as before.
The losses, unfortunately, are painful. But we have to hold on. This is our state. It is vital to hold on there, in Donbas.
The more losses the enemy suffers there, the less power they will have to continue the aggression. Therefore, the Donbas direction is key to determining who will dominate in the coming weeks.
We also have painful losses in the Kharkiv region, where the Russian army is trying to strengthen its position. The battles for this direction continue, and we still have to fight hard for complete security for Kharkiv and the region.”
The flight to Rwanda, which cost an estimated £500,000, had already been paid for from the public purse, a government source confirmed.
The UK government has also paid £120 million as a down payment on the Rwanda deal.
The government has declined to say how much it has paid in legal costs and has not said how much it expects to pay for future flights, accommodation and living costs for everyone sent to Rwanda.
tuatarasays
Interesting news from the Australian energy market.
We are in the midst of an energy crisis we havr been told is the result of external fossil fuel prices and ageing coal power generators being offline. But as one would expect there is much more to it.
The main regulatory bodies have effectively read the riot act to Australia’s fleet of striking gas generators, warning them that their actions are against the rules, and that they may actually make more money if they actually followed the rules and stopped putting the energy system at risk.
The extraordinary intervention follows the massive market failure that has seen more than 7.5GW of gas and diesel capacity withdrawn from the market after the imposition of price caps in all mainland states.
The generators have effectively gone on strike, refusing to switch on their generators unless ordered to do so by the market operator. The assumption is that will be their shortest route to the biggest pot of gold in the circumstances.
But not only has it created grave risks of enforced blackouts, the regulator has pointed out that actions that cause the market operator to issue instructions is against the laws of the market.
And now the rule maker has pointed out that it may be economically dumb too, because there is money to be made by following the rules and being good corporate citizens.
Anna Collyer, the head of the Australian Energy Market Commission, says the price cap has a mechanism that compensates generators for any losses caused as a result of high input costs, such as the price of coal and gas.
She also points out that under the price cap mechanism – unlike the AEMO directions protocol currently being exploited – generators can appeal to recover so called “opportunity” costs, resulting in higher payments. And she promises that such claims will be processed as quickly as those processed under the AEMO directions.
The intervention by the AER and the AEMC underline the continuing farce of the current energy “crisis”, which is not a shortfall of capacity at all, but an outrageous act of gamesmanship by an industry that has lost perspective, if not the plot.
The generator owners – some of them the biggest utilities in the country – are now being treated like wayward children, reminded of the rules of the game, the need for fair play, and in this instance, the fundamental needs of the essential service they are effectively using as a form of blackmail.
It’s quite the most extraordinary situation, and as we have written previously, an act of such bad faith it will ultimately be self-defeating, as the utilities launch a new campaign for yet more subsidies and supportive rules to underpin their dying and decaying fossil fuel investments.
It now seems that the rule makers and regulators, so often seen as captured by the fossil fuel industry, have finally had enough – and the extraordinary sense of arrogance and self entitlement that the fossil fuel industry has built up over the last few decades is finally blowing up in their collective face.
In Western Australia, the government has had enough, and announced the imminent closure of the state’s last coal fired generators, in a $3.8 billion switch to renewables that it says will lead to a more dramatic cut in bills than if the state continued to rely on ageing coal.
That’s the sort of decisive planning that AEMO is pushing for under its Integrated System Plan, and which federal and state ministers in the main grid need to plan for too. One state, NSW, already is.
In the meantime, the AEMC issued this statement as various regulators, rule makers and market operators met with the companies themselves and energy ministers.
“Under the APC compensation arrangements, generators that bid into the market will be protected from losses through the arrangements,” the statement says.
The approach the AEMC will take factors in the direct costs of generators and opportunity costs. These arrangements are designed to ensure generators continue to bid into the market and provide protection for generators so they will not face losses through this process. This is a process run independently by the AEMC.
“AEMC Chair Anna Collyer said this process, which allows a participant to claim their direct and opportunity cost, differs from the directions process which provides compensation based only on direct costs.
“The AEMC is committed to processing compensation claims for losses during administered pricing periods as fast as possible,” Ms Collyer said.
“The rules, outlined in the APC compensation guidelines set out how participants can apply during an administered price period for direct costs and opportunity costs. Claims should be assessed in the timeframes that AEMO uses in its directions process.
The AEMC considers claims should be made at the end of an administrative pricing period, during which the APC applies. If the APC applies for an extended period then we will accept weekly claims from participants. This minimises the administrative burden while providing timely compensation to industry.
The process for opportunity costs is set out in the guidelines and requires consideration of appropriate methodologies for claims. This process will take longer than direct cost processes and will be a critical priority for us.
We would also point to correspondence from the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) which reminds market participants and scheduled generators of their obligations under the NER:
Market participants must not by any act or omission, whether intentionally or recklessly, cause or significantly contribute to the circumstances causing a direction to be issued, without reasonable cause.
It was the AEMC that put the last statement in italics, for greater impact.
In other words, the energy generators have been gaming the system to maximise profits by artificially creating a shortage of generation capacity!
Australian Energy Market Operator suspends spot market for wholesale electricity
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has taken the extraordinary step of suspending the spot market for wholesale electricity.
The electricity sector has been dealing with soaring costs, forcing AEMO to cap prices and compel generators to offer their services.
AEMO has now suspended the spot market entirely across the National Electricity Market, saying it is impossible to ensure reliable electricity supply under the current circumstances.
The suspension will be reviewed daily in each state.
AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman says suspending the market will simplify operations of the electricity market.
“In the current situation, suspending the market is the best way to ensure a reliable supply of electricity for Australian homes and businesses,” Mr Westerman said.
“The situation in recent days has posed challenges to the entire energy industry, and suspending the market would simplify operations during the significant outages across the energy supply chain.”
So because the generators haven’t been playimg by the rules, the regulators have basically compelled them to provide energy at what one would assume is a fixed price, but I havent seen if or what that is.
….Only one compensation regime, rather than two, will be in place, and generators will get paid the average price in their state over the past four weeks, meaning they are likely to get between $300/MWh and $500/MWh, rather than the flat rate of $300/MWh stipulated in the price cap.
AEMO believes this will be easier to manage. All generators are expected to make themselves available – they can still seek further compensation if the money is not enough to cover their costs….
Keir Starmer has urged his shadow cabinet to stop briefing the press that he is boring, warning them: “What’s boring is being in opposition.”
Stung by a series of negative stories about his leadership, Starmer angrily urged colleagues at Tuesday’s shadow cabinet meeting to focus on the job in hand, telling them it was “boring” to undermine Labour’s project of getting back into government.
Several of those around the table then echoed their leader’s calls for unity and discretion, in a lengthy exchange described by one shadow frontbencher as “ironically very boring”.
Starmer has been accused by senior colleagues in recent days of failing to articulate clearly what Labour stands for or to enthuse the public about his leadership.
An Opinium poll for the Observer on Sunday found that voters believe Boris Johnson still makes a better prime minister than Starmer would, by 28% to 26%, though Labour consistently leads the Tories when it comes to voting intention.
Of course Starmer could try not being boring… in two years he hasn’t managed to articulate any positive reason to vote Labour, spending most of his time attacking the left in his own party, and what remained attacking the Tories – usually in a rather boring fashion.
Suit was filed last week in a Florida state trial court by a Palm Beach County synagogue challenging Florida’s recently enacted 15-week abortion ban. The complaint (full text) in Generation to Generation, Inc. v. Florida, (FL Cir. Ct., filed 6/10/2022) contends that the law violates the free exercise, establishment, right to privacy, due process and equal protection provisions of the Florida Constitution. The complaint alleges in part:
40. Some women, such as the members, congregants, supporters of Plaintiff L’Dor Va-Dor and their families have an abortion because it is required by their religious faith. For Jews, all life is precious and thus the decision to bring new life into the world is not taken lightly or determined by state fiat. In Jewish law, abortion is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman, or for many other reasons not permitted under the Act. As such, the Act prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and thus violates their privacy rights and religious freedom…..
71. The Jewish people have often borne the brunt of the horrors that occur when the power of Christianity has merged with the power of the state. The result has been Inquisitions, Crusades, ghettoes and pogroms for the Jews and the eventual loss of freedom for everyone else….
72. The architects of the Act have taken a first step towards the dismantling of that wall and returning the state of Florida and our nation back to a time when the merger of Christianity and government produced genocide, slavery, misogyny, and the denial of equal rights and in many cases, any rights at all to those who did not share the gender, race or religion of those in power.
The Proud Boys are at the center of the January 6 committee hearings — but who are they? HuffPost editor Andy Campbell, the author of an upcoming book on the Proud Boys, joins Fever Dreams host Will Sommer and guest host Sam Brodey to give. [?] from their cereal-themed beat-in rituals and their varying self-love regiments. Sam, a congressional reporter for The Daily Beast, weighs in on the committee hearings. In other extremist news, Will and Sam discuss a botched appearance from Patriot Front white supremacists at an Idaho gay pride parade. And finally, Will takes us to a lower depth of “Fresh Hell” that was previously believed possible, exploring the right-wing manosphere’s belief that receipts somehow steal their masculinity.
“Identity politics” polarizes discourse about virtually every aspect of contemporary political life. But what exactly is it, and what role does “elite capture” play in how it has come to be understood? Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is a philosopher, assistant professor at Georgetown University and author of several books, including “Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)” and “Reconsidering Reparations,” both of which were published in 2022. He joins WITHpod to discuss the origins of identity politics, the problems with what he calls deference politics, and how elites have co-opted the language of social justice to their own ends.
An audio essay from Matthew about how anti-trans ideology can so curdle the soul that an otherwise progressive eco-activist—Derrick Jensen of Deep Green Resistance—can blow up his entire career over it, disrupting the very thing he says he lives for, and destroying the movement he spent years building up.
The story starts more than a decade ago, but comes to its peak absurdity, for Matthew at least, on Facebook. He posted some thoughts about Jordan Peterson freaking out over that woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And then Jensen visited his page.
This is just a 10-minute sample of an episode available to subscribers, so it doesn’t cover much ground (I didn’t even learn what the anti-trans laugh emoji is, but I’m saddened to know it exists). But there are several useful links at the link.
An article on conspiracy theorists in a dark triad personality trait context.
“Joe Uscinski, the political science professor, said that in most research, partisanship and ideology are less predictive of conspiratorial beliefs than are “dark personality traits.” People who embrace and defend “antisocial” conspiracy theories like Sandy Hook and QAnon often exhibit traits that psychologists call the “Dark Triad”: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, meaning the willingness to manipulate others to gain a certain result.”
The machiavellianism definitely stands out.
The Sievierodonetsk mayor, Oleksandr Stryuk, said Ukrainian forces still control the embattled eastern city’s industrial district and its perimeter, making it “possible to connect” with the neighbouring city of Lysychansk. The situation is “difficult but stable”, he said, adding that the city had not been completely cut off.
Thousands of civilians, including women, children and elderly people, are trapped in Sievierodonetsk with a diminishing supply of food, clean water, sanitation and electricity. An urgent situation is developing in the bunkers beneath the Azot chemical plant in the city, a UN spokesperson said. About 500 civilians believed to be trapped alongside soldiers inside Azot were preparing to flee the city through a possible humanitarian corridor this morning. British intelligence appears to have confirmed Ukraine’s claims that civilians are hiding in the plant.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged the EU to tighten sanctions on Russia and warned Moscow’s forces could attack other countries after invading his own. In an address to the Czech parliament, Zelenskiy said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine “is the first step that the Russian leadership needs to open the way to other countries, to the conquest of other peoples”.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said allies would continue to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons and long-range systems, with an agreement on a new package of assistance to Kyiv expected at the summit in Madrid later this month. The agreement will help Ukraine move from old Soviet-era weaponry to “more modern Nato standard” gear, he said. Stoltenberg was speaking before a meeting in Brussels of defence ministers from Nato and other countries to discuss and coordinate help for Ukraine.
At the meeting in Brussels, the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Ukraine was facing a “pivotal moment on the battlefield” in Sievierodonetsk, with Russian forces using long-range weapons to try to overwhelm Ukrainian positions. Austin urged America and its allies not to “let up and lose steam” and to “intensify our shared commitment to Ukraine’s self-defence”.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, spoke by phone where Xi said all parties should work towards resolving the crisis in Ukraine “in a responsible manner”, Chinese state media reported….
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, has given further details of a UN plan to create a sea corridor from Ukraine for grain exports, saying safe routes could be formed without needing to clear mines around Ukrainian ports. Çavuşoğlu said it would “take some time” to de-mine Ukraine’s ports, and that a safe sea corridor could meanwhile be established in areas without mines. His comments appeared to mark a shift from earlier proposals.
The US president, Joe Biden, announced that temporary silos would be built along the Ukraine border, including in Poland, in an attempt to help export more grain from the country and avert a global food crisis. Biden said he was working with European governments on a plan “to help bring down food prices” and that the grain could not “get out through the Black Sea because it will get blown out of the water”, referring to floating mines….
Igor Denisov, former captain of the Russian national football [team], has called on Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine.
[“Igor Denisov, the former captain of Russia’s football team has spoken out against the war. ‘These events are catastrophic. It’s horrific. I am not sure if I will be jailed or killed for this, but I am saying it as it is’.”]
No 10 revives prospect of UK leaving European convention on human rights, saying ‘all options on table’
Downing Street has refused to rule out the UK withdrawing from the European convention on human rights to allow it to implement the Rwanda deportation policy more easily. At the post-PMQs briefing, asked if the UK could withdraw from the ECHR, the PM’s spokesperson said:
We are keeping all options on the table including any further legal reforms that may be necessary. We will look at all of the legislation and processes in this round.
This is more or less word for word what Boris Johnson said about this in a TV interview yesterday. But the significance of No 10 saying this now, when it has had almost 24 hours to prepare a line, is that it shows Downing Street is serious about floating this as an option. If Johnson thought he went too far yesterday, and wanted to downplay the prospects of the UK leaving the ECHR, the spokesperson could easily have given a briefing stressing this was most unlikely.
(And, realistically, ECHR withdrawal is unlikely. The Good Friday agreement, which Johnson professes to support, is based on the UK remaining committed to the convention, and the UK eventually agreed to include ECHR commitments in its Brexit deal with the EU.)
The No 10 line also suggests that Guy Opperman and Thérèse Coffey, the two ministers who played down the prospect of the UK leaving the convention in interviews this morning (see 9.39am), were freelancing, not delivering a No 10 message.
June is Pride Month, and President Joe Biden’s administration announced today he had signed an executive order that would counter “legislative attacks” against LGBTQ+ children and adults.
“President Biden believes that no one should face discrimination because of who they are or whom they love. Since President Biden took office, he has championed the rights of LGBTQI+ Americans and people around the world, accelerating the march towards full equality,” the White House said.
Among the provisions of Biden’s executive order detailed by the White House:
– Addressing discriminatory legislative attacks against LGBTQI+ children and families, directing key agencies to protect families and children;
– Preventing so-called “conversion therapy” with a historic initiative to protect children from the harmful practice;
– Safeguarding health care, and programs designed to prevent youth suicide;
– Supporting LGBTQI+ children and families by launching a new initiative to protect foster youth, prevent homelessness, and improve access to federal programs; and
– Taking new, additional steps to advance LGBTQI+ equality.
The provision addressing “legislative attacks” is meant to deal with the more than 300 “anti-LGBTQI+ laws” the White House said were introduced in statehouses over the past year, many of which are targeted at transgender youth.
The order directs the federal health and human services department to “release new sample policies for states on how to expand access to comprehensive health care for LGBTQI+ patients.” The education department is also directed to release “a sample school policy for achieving full inclusion” of students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.
The alleged gunman who killed 10 people in a racist massacre at a Buffalo, New York supermarket last month could face the death penalty after prosecutors brought hate crimes charges against him….
(It’s weird that they still have to use “alleged gunman” even when he was arrested at the scene during the shooting, which he livestreamed.)
New Hong Kong textbooks will teach students that the city was never a British colony, after an overhaul of a school subject that authorities have blamed for driving the pro-democracy protests.
According to local reports, the new texts will teach students that the Chinese government didn’t recognise the treaties that ceded the city to Britain after the opium wars. They ended in 1997 when Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control, and therefore the texts claim Hong Kong was never a British colony.
The new books also adopt Beijing’s narrative that the 2019 protest movement was driven by “external forces”, South China Morning Post reported.
The four sets of textbooks for Hong Kong’s liberal studies subject were released online last week, for schools to choose materials for the new academic year in September. They are set to be used by fourth form students in “citizenship and social development” classes, which replaced the liberal studies course designed in 2009 to teach students critical thinking. In 2020 the liberal studies course was attacked by pro-Beijing authorities who blamed it for driving youth towards protests and pledged rectification.
The chief executive, Carrie Lam, said students needed protection from being “poisoned” and fed “false and biased information”.
A subsequent overhaul of the education system included an increased focus on national security and patriotism, with teachers encouraged to report students who breached the national security law.
“It is necessary for schools to teach students to think positively and to love their nation,” the head of Hong Kong’s education department said on Monday.
Several of the textbooks discuss the 2020 national security law – widely criticised as infringing on basic freedoms by outlawing acts of dissent as terrorism, secessionism, foreign collusion or sedition. One reportedly says the law was introduced in response to “violent terrorist activities” and illegal acts in 2019 which endangered national sovereignty and security.
Another mentioned “national security” 400 times across 121 pages, the report said.
China’s state-backed tabloid, the Global Times, said the changes would ensure “some teachers will no longer be able to convey their wrong and poisonous political views to students when teaching this course”.
…
The proposed new textbooks come just weeks before Hong Kong marks 25 years since the British handover. The territory was promised 50 years of semi-autonomy, but activists argue the post-2019 crackdown, national security law, electoral changes, and growing central government interventions in civil society and the media have in effect ended that autonomy already.
This year’s anniversary on 1 July will also mark the first day in office for the city’s new Beijing-anointed leader John Lee. Lee, the former security chief, will take over from Lam….
Republican Nancy Mace defeated Katie Arrington in one of South Carolina’s most hotly-contested primary congressional races Tuesday night, delivering another setback to Donald Trump’s primary endorsement record…. The Associated Press called the race for Mace at 11:13 p.m., showing Mace with about 53 percentage points to Arrington’s nearly 45%.
A defeat for Trump.
Commentary:
[…] As for how and why Mace became a Trump World villain, the congresswoman has been more idiosyncratic than most House Republicans, especially those in red states. […] the South Carolinian is a conservative who very rarely votes with Democrats — no one would think to call Mace a “moderate” — but she’s broken with her party’s orthodoxy on a handful of occasions.
The day after the Jan. 6 attack, for example, the congresswoman said Donald Trump’s legacy had been “wiped out“ by his role in the insurrectionist riot. She soon after complained, “We have allowed QAnon conspiracy theorists to lead us.” Months later, Mace also voted with the majority to enforce a subpoena against Steve Bannon.
Perhaps most notably, after Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert directed anti-Muslim rhetoric at a Democratic colleague, Mace denounced the Coloradan’s bigoted smear. This sparked a feud with Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Mace called a “bats— clown” by way of Twitter emojis.
The right-wing Georgian took her concerns to Trump directly, as if he were the grown-up teacher who’d help mediate a conflict among fighting children.
It had a lasting effect: In February, the former president announced his support for Arrington, calling the incumbent congresswoman “absolutely terrible” and “very disloyal.”
Mace maintained considerable support, however, from the GOP at the state and local level — former Gov. Nikki Haley, in particular, helped champion her candidacy […]
This was clearly not the outcome Trump wanted to see. To be sure, candidates backed by the former president fared quite well in plenty of primaries yesterday, but for those keeping score, Trump’s overall record suddenly looks a little worse.
As recently as three weeks ago, the former president’s team was still bragging about the potency of his endorsement. One of the Republican’s spokespersons told The New York Times, “The reality is, President Trump is already 82-3 with his endorsements, and there’s nothing stopping him from saving America in 2022 and beyond.”
As we discussed soon after, the use of the word “reality” was problematic. Trump has padded his win-loss record with support for GOP incumbents facing little-to-no opposition, creating an exaggerated picture.
[…] In addition to yesterday’s failed endorsement in South Carolina, four Trump-backed Republicans were easily defeated in Georgia in late May.
Those losses came on the heels of related defeats for Trump-backed candidates in Nebraska’s gubernatorial race, Idaho’s gubernatorial race, and a North Carolina congressional primary.
Earlier this year, the former president said his endorsement “is considered by the real pollsters to be the strongest endorsement in U.S. political history.” He added that his record is “almost unblemished.”
– The Biden administration is set to announce another $1 billion in weapons for Ukraine as it tries to defend cities in the east from Russia’s advance.
…
– Questions continue to swirl over the actions of Republican House representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, after the January 6 committee released video evidence of a man who accompanied the lawmaker on a tour taking photos of Capitol hallways and a security checkpoint the day before the insurrection.
– A special election in Texas ended with bad news for the Democrats when voters sent a Republican to represent their district for the first time.
US to send $1bn of weapons aid to help Ukraine in Donbas, says Biden
The United States will provide an additional $1bn in security assistance to Ukraine for its efforts in the eastern Donbas, President Joe Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during a call today.
The support package includes “additional artillery and coastal defence weapons, as well as ammunition for the artillery and advanced rocket systems,” Biden said in a statement from the White House after the call.
Biden added:
I reaffirmed my commitment that the United States will stand by Ukraine as it defends its democracy and support its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression.
Saudi officials have been seizing rainbow-coloured toys and clothing from shops in the capital as part of a crackdown on homosexuality, state media has reported.
The kingdom opened to tourism in 2019 but, like other Gulf countries, it is frequently criticised for its human rights record, including its outlawing of homosexuality, a potential capital offence.
Items targeted in the Riyadh raids include bows, skirts, hats and pencil cases, most of them manufactured for children, according to a report broadcast on Tuesday evening by the state-run Al Ekhbariya news channel.
“We are giving a tour of the items that contradict the Islamic faith and public morals and promote homosexual colours targeting the younger generation,” an official from the commerce ministry, which is involved in the campaign, says in the report.
Gesturing towards a rainbow flag, a journalist adds: “The homosexuality flag is present in one of the Riyadh markets.” The colours send a “poisoned message” to children.
The report did not detail how many shops were targeted or items seized, and Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The rainbow raids come as Saudi Arabia has banned films that depict, or even refer to, sexual minorities. In April, the kingdom said it had asked Disney to cut “LGBTQ references” from the Marvel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but Disney refused.
Saudi regulators objected to a 12-second scene in which one character refers to her “two mums”. An official said at the time the government was trying to work with Disney to find a solution but ultimately the film did not screen in Saudi cinemas.
Tuesday’s report showed stills of Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange and of “apparently foreign children waving rainbow flags”.
Disney’s latest animation, Lightyear, which features a same-sex kiss, has also been banned in Saudi Arabia and more than a dozen other countries, according to a source close to Disney.
Riyadh has not commented on that film but it has not appeared among the listings in large cinemas….
StevoRsays
Random, well, semi-random~ish trio o9f dinosuar braisn links here :
Although a bit misleadingly titled since you really need a long exposure camera and 30-40 centimetres in diameter telescope to observe it. Skychart included with this quasars position being roughly in a line with Gamma & Tau Centauri and Iota Antilae – or very approx a triangle with Gamma-Tau Cen and Pi Cen as base and this quasar – J1144 for short – roughly as the triangle’s point. It’s real luminosity is a staggering “.. around 7,000 times brighter than all of the light in the Milky Way” and its mass is an estimated three billion (yes with a ‘b”!) times our Sun’s.
A man who appears to be seen taking photos of security checkpoints and hallways in the U.S. Capitol during a tour led by Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk on Jan. 5, 2021, is also allegedly seen—and heard—in footage captured from January 6 where he is outside of the Capitol screaming threats at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Reps. Jerry Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The committee released segments of security footage from the tour on Wednesday morning, arriving fresh on the heels of an announcement by U.S. Capitol Police chief Tom Manger stating that the department found “no evidence” that Loudermilk led a “reconnaissance tour” of the complex with supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The man who appears to be taking photographs has not yet been identified publicly but according to multiple outlets including CNN, he has been interviewed by the select committee.
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson first asked Loudermilk to cooperate with the probe voluntarily this May, giving him an opportunity to discuss the video footage the panel discovered during its review of key Capitol surveillance video.
In a statement, USCP Chief Manger said footage reviewed by the department did show Loudermilk with a group of 12 people that initially ticked up to 15 as they walked through a number of office buildings around the U.S. Capitol. Manger said the guests did not “appear in any tunnels” leading to the Capitol itself.
The committee’s release appears to challenge that narrative, or at the very least, point out behavior it still deems highly suspicious.
“The foregoing information raises questions the Select Committee must answer,” Thompson wrote in a letter to Loudermilk on Wednesday morning.
“Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the U.S. Capitol as well as House and Senate office buildings in advance of January 6, 2021,” Thompson wrote. “For example, in the week following Jan. 6, 2021, members urged law enforcement leaders to investigate sightings of ‘outside groups in the complex’ on Jan. 5, 2021, that ‘appeared to be associated with the rally at the White House the following day.” […]
The individuals accompanying Loudermilk, the committee noted, “photographed and recorded areas of the complex not typically of interest to tourists, including hallways, staircases, and security checkpoints.”
Including an image in the letter of an individual appearing to photograph a staircase in the basement of the Longworth House Office Building, Thompson notes Loudermilk is just nearby talking to other members of the group in the background.
In the nearly three-minute-long video shared by the committee, the man believed to be part of the Capitol complex tour given by Loudermilk on the 5th is recorded by a friend on the morning of the 6th.
They are near the Washington Monument when his friend shows him a flagpole he’s carrying with a sharpened end.
“That’s for a certain person,” the companion tells the man.
“That’s right, that’s for somebody special, somebody special,” the man responds.
On the day of the Capitol assault, that same man taking photographs of the halls a day before is excitedly heard clamoring about “patriots” converging on the Capitol in a recorded video.
“There’s no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler, we’re coming for you. We’re coming in like white on rice for Pelosi, Nadler, Schumer, even you AOC. We’re coming to take you out and pull you out by your hairs.
How about that Pelosi? Might as well make yourself another appointment. When I get done with you you gonna need a shine up on top of that bald head,” he says.
The video also shows two photos obtained by the committee that appear to have been taken by the same person. One photo is of a nameplate for Rep. Jerry Nadler, something that would typically appear just outside of a lawmaker’s office. Another photo captured the physical directory of Democratic Majority members.
Before the video came out, on Tuesday, Loudermilk accused the committee of falsely accusing him of giving reconnaissance tours.
“To my knowledge, no one that visited my office on January 5 was involved in any illegal activity on Jan. 6, so if the committee has the evidence they should release it, not just make accusations,” Loudermilk told CNN.
[…] Loudermilk slammed the Democrat’s request for an investigation as a “stain” on Congress. He also voted to overturn the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6 after the attack.
During the riot, Loudermilk, according to texts obtained by the select committee, sent a message to Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows.
‘It’s really bad up here on the Hill. They have breached the Capitol,” he wrote.
Loudermilk has defended the tour he gave of the Capitol on Jan. 5 as something he did for “a constituent family with young children” merely eager to meet with their congressman.
A member of Democratic Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García’s staff, deputy communications director and digital director Ben Kamens, said on Twitter Wednesday that he saw the group identified by the committee in the Capitol Tunnel between the Longworth and Cannon and Capitol building between 1 and 2 p.m. on Jan. 5.
Kamens said they were unescorted. He has already provided this information to the committee and law enforcement. […]
“I approached one of them and asked them to put on a mask because people that work here have pre-existing conditions and it was before the wide availability of vaccines,” Kamens said.
Indeed, the Capitol building was closed to visitors and anyone on unofficial business.
“It was a group of mostly older women [in their] 40s to 50s and young men, late teens early 20s that I saw,” Rep. Garcia’s communications director said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t have gone that way if it wasn’t an intern’s first day and I wasn’t showing her how to get around on our way to get her ID badge.”
[…] Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has experienced routine harassment by the former president’s supporters and Republican members of Congress responded to the video release in a tweet on Wednesday.
On Jan 5th the Capitol was closed to the public. But surveillance video shows @RepLoudermilk bringing in an insurrectionist who was photographing member staircases + exits.
He stormed the Capitol the next day looking for us w/ those references.
[…] Today, the GOP has aimed its vitriol away from same-sex marriage and directly onto LGBTQ+ young people and their families.
Rev. Mark Burns was running for South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District, but about a week or so before his loss Tuesday [thank goodness he lost], with just 23.8% of the vote to incumbent and Trump-endorsed William Timmons, Burns took to the airwaves to suggest murdering LGBTQ+ folks.
Burns appeared on The Stew Peters Show and immediately began furthering the ongoing homophobic rhetoric by the GOP about LGBTQ+ people being “groomers,” an attack that accuses adults of building relationships with minors in order to manipulate and sexually exploit them. Burns also says gender-affirming health care for trans youth is “child abuse,”
[…] “That’s why, when I’m elected, I don’t want to just vote. I want to start holding people accountable for treason to the Constitution. I am going to push to reenact HUAC,” Burns said, referring to the House Un-American Activities Committee, a long-abolished group of lawmakers appointed to investigate the ties of private citizens to fascism and communism.
“We need to hold people for treason, start having some public hearings, and start executing people who are found guilty for their treasonous acts against the Constitution of the United States of America. … Just like they did back in 1776,” Burns added. [video at the link]
Burns isn’t alone in his hateful and violent hyperbole.
On Wednesday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio posited on Twitter that “Hispanic voters” are turning away from the Democratic party because they don’t want “schools trying to turn their son into a daughter.” […]
We’ve talked many times about the fog of war, but when action is underway—that’s when the fog really rolls in. If an area is stable for several days, enough calls to residents of the area, videos from soldiers at the front, snapshots, and geolocated scenes of destruction can merge together to give a fairly accurate idea of positions for forces on each side. That line of control can be sketched in neatly.
When forces are moving, villages are being captured and recaptured, and other locations are simply being bypassed on the way to a more vital target, that’s when the fog can become a real pea-souper. That’s especially true when accounts and sources that have previously seemed reliable and consistent in their information suddenly split and issue statements in direct disagreement about the current status.
All of this is a way of saying … welcome to Wednesday in Kherson Oblast. [Map at the link]
Everyone agrees that Ukrainian forces are engaged in an active counteroffensive at multiple points of the contact line with Russian-controlled territory. The great majority of sources agree that the focus of that counteroffensive has largely moved from the bridgehead near Davydiv Brid, where fighting continues, to the southern end of the line where Ukraine has recently captured a number of towns and villages closer to the city of Kherson. And that’s about the limit of agreement.
Beyond that, some are placing the principal area of advance near the town of Kyselivka, with reports of Ukrainian forces “driving for Chornabaivka” down highway M14. Others insist this is not the main area of battle, with the real fight south of that highway, near the village of Pravdyne. There is also disagreement about the whole line of control, along with the level of activity underway, along the line all the way from Kyselivka to Snihurivka—which means that the white dots in this area may represent both towns under active dispute and those whose current control is simply a big shrug.
I can confidently say I have never presented a map with less confidence in the absolute accuracy.
There is no doubt that Ukraine has made, and is continued to make, advances in Kherson oblast. A whole number of villages and towns near Soldatske are now “confirmed” as being liberated by Ukrainian forces. Farther up the line, Ukraine seems to secured a number of small villages in that bridgehead south of Davydiv Brid and have re-aimed the current effort to the east.
[…] Ukrainian forces have been extraordinary in their push to retake Kherson, but the situation is extraordinarily hard. […] this is an area that is about as flat, featureless, and free of cover as you will find anywhere. It’s no wonder that we keep getting reporting that people in Kherson can “hear the battle” or “see smoke on the horizon.” The horizon in the area is way out there.
Russia has made a huge—huge—deal, in Ukraine, and more importantly back in Russia, that Kherson is “Russia forever.” They are not going to simply walk away.
Ukraine is going to have to fight through a whole series of Russian-occupied villages and hard points, and they’re trying to do so without leaving a trail of absolute destruction.
It all adds up to a formula that is extremely unlikely to generate the kind of rapid, decisive results that would be so gratifying. However, there’s some extremely good news out of all this. Just two weeks ago, we were talking about Russia mounting another assault on Kryvyi Rih to the north, or sending a column to Zaporizhzhia to the northeast. Neither of those things materialized.
Because even if we’re not sure where Ukraine’s counteroffensive is being most effective, everyone agrees that Ukraine is on the offensive. And it’s being effective.
——————
Two U.S. volunteers have reportedly been captured fighting with Ukrainian soldiers. Based on treatment of British prisoners this week, there is a strong possibility Russia will declare them “soldiers of fortune” and condemn them to death. As with the British volunteers now being held, this holds the possibility of sparking a diplomatic incident. A direct confrontation remains unlikely.
Samuel Ramani:
Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin endorses the Donetsk People’s Republic’s death sentences against British and Moroccan fighters for Ukraine
This once again confirms that the Donetsk courts are mere extensions of the Russian system
[…] Riley Williams was the young woman who stole Nancy Pelosi’s laptop computer during the Jan 6th insurrection. And she uploaded a video online of her dancing while giving a Nazi salute. And this will not shock anyone, but she violated the terms of her pretrial home detention requirements by meeting with her boyfriend. By the way, he is a former marine who was convicted of planning a mass shooting at a synagogue.
Did I mention this lovely woman wants to have her home confinement requirements removed?
For those that have forgotten Nazi Girl, [there are] eight charges against her. And one of them is for assaulting a police officer, and another is for the theft for Nancy Pelosi’s laptop computer. It has been suggested that Nazi Girl was going to sell the laptop to the Russians.
Anyway, because she is a young white woman, she has been on home detention until her trial. Yes, she doesn’t want to try and make a plea deal. So the mean old judge made Nazi Girl’s mom in charge of keeping her in line until the trial. There is a set of requirements that Nazi Girl had to adhere to.
And they are all so “burdensome” and “excessive,” according to Nazi Girl’s lawyer.
[…] At-present, Williams is confined to her home at almost all times, wears an ankle monitor, is not allowed to travel outside central Pennsylvania, must submit to drug testing yet must maintain steady employment. […]
[…] Nazi Girl is also supposed to turn in a schedule of her appointments, and she is to check in when she gets back home. In other words, she has a probation officer checking on her. And here is a another lovely “burden” for Nazi Girl:
When watching TV on a Smart TV, Williams’s third-party custodian is supposed to monitor Williams’s use. Additionally, she was supposed to use a flip phone (or non-smart phone) for all other communication.
Now, Nazi Girl’s lawyer filed on Friday a motion to ease some of those restrictions.
Prosecutors have presented evidence to the judge that Nazi Girl repeatedly violated the terms of her home detention, and the whopper of all those violations was meeting with a man who was convicted of planning a mass shooting at a synagogue.
Prosecutors filed a motion Friday asking a judge not to loosen restrictions on suspected Capitol rioter Riley Williams because they say she recently met with a man who wanted to shoot up a synagogue and lied about it…
Prosecutors say Williams also got her mother to lie to her probation officer about the visit by the man in August 2021 to her mother’s home, where she is residing, according to the motion. […]
The man was convicted, kicked out of the Marine Corps, and sentenced to 19 months in prison. He told Williams about his prior arrest, according to court documents. The records contained a foot note that the government believes the man at some point became her fiancé…
Williams has been in video contact with the man since the fall of 2020 even though she is prohibited from video calls with anyone but her attorney or mental health services. Her mother allowed her to use the mother’s iPad to conduct the calls, even though it is not allowed by the court, according to the document.
OH looky there! Mom let her use her iPad to make calls! And Mom lied for her little love nugget! He’s such a nice young man that Nazi Girl was meeting! He hates Jews as much as Nazi Girl! It’s a match made in Hell!
Oh, and about those appointments and schedule she had to keep? She routinely violated those too! Her probation officer had to track her down.
On a more serious note, I knew this was going to happen. Anyone as sick as Riley Williams was not going to pay attention to any old rules. Her mom is her so called “jailer.” […]
What motherfuckin’ bullshit.
Anyone want to bet that the dumbass judge gives Nazi Girl another pass because she is a white woman?
Some good news concerning the effectiveness of the January 6 Committee’s public hearings:
[…] A new Politico/Morning Consult poll has found that the American people’s opinion of the attack on Congress by the StormTrumpers is already taking a decidedly anti-Trump turn. The Committee is doing an effective job of presenting the abundant evidence of Trump’s purposeful lying about election fraud, and his fleecing of his gullible cult followers with solicitations for his so-called “Election Defense Fund” that doesn’t actually exist.
As a result of the revelations produced in just the first two sessions, Trump and the Republican Party are taking a severe hit to the gut. Mediaite reports that:
In a poll taken after last week’s Jan. 6 hearing, a whopping 69 percent of Americans [say] it is a “crime” to try and overturn election results, and similar numbers say the Justice Department should prosecute.
When asked 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 same question on “officials attempting to overturn the results of an American election,” returned the same 69% affirmative, including 54% of Republicans.
The numbers were almost identical when respondents were asked whether “the Department of Justice should bring legal action against” the elected officials engaging in the crimes identified above.
For his part, Trump is clearly having a bad day. He has posted on his failing TRUTH Social Twitter clone website some truly bizarre rants. Such as:
Word out that the reason the Unselects have canceled Wednesday’s Kangaroo Court is a total lack of interest leading to very poor television ratings. Could this be so? Maybe they should try getting a more talented Hollywood producer than the former President of ABC Fake News. He didn’t do so well!
What Trump is referring to is that the Committee’s session for Wednesday has been postponed – not canceled. And the reason has nothing to do with a “lack of interest.” In fact, the first hearing that was held in primetime on Thursday drew more than 20 million viewers, which is twice what game three of the NBA Finals did. And MSNBC even beat Fox News, who refused to cover that hearing live.
MSNBC also shined during Monday’s hearings, beating Fox News and CNN combined. And while the Monday session was not in primetime, it still garnered about 10 million total viewers across several networks. Nevertheless, Trump threw an infantile tantrum whining that:
The T.V. Ratings for the January 6th Unselect Committee were absolutely awful. Perhaps the reason is that it is being ‘sponsored’ by Adam ‘Shifty’ Schitt and the same people that brought you the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, and that the Unselects are not interested in hearing from anyone saying the Election was Rigged and Stolen, despite the EVIDENCE being irrefutable!
Really? Adam “Schitt”? Has Trump ever advanced past the emotional maturity of a six year old, or is he regressing? And are his Deplorables really dense enough to believe his easily debunked lie about the “absolutely awful” ratings? Apparently so, After all, they believe his pitiful wailing about the “Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX,” […]. And that’s even after Tucker Carlson inadvertently conceded that it was never a hoax to begin with. […]
Sadly, for some time to come, the nation is going to have to deal with the deeply psychotic distortions of reality that Trump and his disciples are infected with. Hopefully they will either find a a way back to some sense of sanity, or crawl back under their rocks and stop spreading their diseased, dystopian fantasies.
Here’s more on the new $1bn US weapons aid package for Ukraine. The US defense department said the package includes shipments of additional howitzers, ammunition and coastal defence systems.
Pentagon spokesperson J. Todd Breasseale said in a statement:
The United States has now committed approximately $6.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $5.6 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion on February 24.
The latest package includes 18 additional howitzers with tactical vehicles to tow them, 36,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition for the howitzers, the department said.
The US will also send two Harpoon coastal defence systems, thousands of “secure radios” and thousands of night vision devices, thermal sights, and “other optics”, it said.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the west has “shot itself in the head” by trying to limit energy imports from the oil and gas fields of Siberia.
Speaking to reporters, Zakharova contrasted western sanctions against Russia with China, which has increased deliveries from Russia. She said:
Energy supplies are steadily increasing: China knows what it wants and doesn’t shoot itself in the foot. While to the west of Moscow, they shoot themselves in the head.
She said Moscow’s strategic partnership with Beijing had withstood attempts by the west to sow discord, adding that the EU was plotting a “suicidal” course by trying to diversify away from Russian energy….
One in a long list of reasons for an urgent shift to renewable energy is to remove leverage from these fascists.
This goes with my previous link at 115 to think about individual conspiracy theorists working as a group.
“The geometry of decision-making in individuals and collectives’ https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2102157118
Republicans keep trying to convince the federal courts that the Jan. 6 committee isn’t legitimate. They keep failing.
It was nearly two years ago when federal prosecutors first filed criminal charges against Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign strategist and White House aide. As regular readers may recall, the political operative was accused at the time of participating in an alleged wall-building scam.
On Jan. 20, 2021, with just hours remaining in his presidency, Trump pardoned Bannon before prosecutors could bring the case to trial.
Last fall, Bannon faced an entirely different set of charges, and this time, they’re not going away nearly as easily. NBC News reported this afternoon:
A federal judge on Wednesday declined to dismiss contempt of Congress charges against former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon. U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols issued his ruling immediately after hearing courtroom argument from federal prosecutors and Bannon’s lawyers. The move clears the way for Bannon’s trial to start July 18, but one member of Bannon’s team said he might seek to have it delayed. […]
To appreciate the significance of these developments, let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.
Bannon was indicted last November by a federal grand jury, charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions from the House Committee investigating the Capitol riot. One count accused him of refusing to appear for a deposition and the other was for declining to produce documents requested by the committee.
[…] he reportedly told the outgoing president, “[I]t’s time to kill the Biden presidency in the crib.”
The day before the attack, Bannon seemed to know quite a bit about what was likely to happen, telling his podcast listeners, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow…. [A]ll I can say is: Strap in. You have made this happen, and tomorrow it’s game day.”
[…] the bipartisan House committee investigating the attack issued subpoenas in September 2001, seeking information from key Trump insiders — and Bannon was at the top of the list.
When he refused to comply with the subpoena, the House approved a resolution finding the GOP operative in contempt of Congress. As part of the same process, the Democratic-led chamber referred the matter to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, and in November 2021, Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury, charged with one count of contempt and another involving his refusal to produce documents, despite a congressional subpoena.
Today, Bannon and his legal defense tried to make the case go away, arguing, among other things, that the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena wasn’t legitimate.
Judge Nichols — a Trump appointee who joined the bench in 2019 — didn’t buy it.
And that’s ultimately what stands out most for me: A variety of Republicans have gone to a variety of federal courts, trying to convince judges that the Jan. 6 committee isn’t a real committee, and its legal demands don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
Every such effort has failed. It’s a detail to keep in mind the next time GOP officials question the legitimacy of the panel and its investigation.
On Tuesday, south Texas set records for high temperatures. In many areas, this was not just a high-temperature record for the day, but an all-time record for any date before July. Add in extremely high levels of humidity, and Texas—along with a big chunk of the south and central U.S.—is suffering from a heat wave that’s bringing literally killer heat indexes to a broad area. It’s another example of the kind of extreme weather that is becoming more and more frequent as the world warms due to the human-induced climate crisis.
But there’s one thing Texas isn’t suffering: Power outages. That’s because […] Texas is being saved by the two most reliable forms of power in the state—wind and solar.
Even though the extreme heat and humidity caused Texans to crank up their air conditioners, bringing the electricity demand to a record 75 gigawatts on Sunday and Tuesday, which “smashed” the previous record, the state is not suffering widespread blackouts or brownouts. That’s because wind and solar kicked out 27 gigawatts of electricity on those dates. This not only kept Texas air conditioners humming, but it also saved Texas consumers literally billions of dollars.
Unlike other states, Texas has a standalone power grid that’s purposely designed to cut it off from its neighbors. That allows the lone-star state to set its own rules over how power is produced and regulated, and the result is a regulatory body known as ERCOT. Because ERCOT, by design, practices a form of extreme hands-off, let-the-market-decide practices, the result is simply this: The Texas power grid is designed to break.
It’s designed to fail because in failure there is wealth. Power providers in Texas have discovered that if they produce enough electricity to satisfy Texas consumers, the profit levels are low. What’s more, as solar and wind have become more common, old gas and coal plants can’t compete. The price of power is so low that there’s no margin for those plants at all.
What to do? Make sure that Texas has just barely enough power. That way, there will be failures whenever plants have a problem. Which generates shortages. If there’s not a shortage, companies can always take enough plants offline for “routine maintenance” until they create a shortage.
Texas’ formula is exquisitely sensitive to supply and demand; any shortfall of power can lead to instant spikes that drive the cost of a kilowatt up three orders of magnitude. That’s why many Texas power companies make more from two days of disaster than they do in a whole year of normal service. […]
For Texas power companies, a shortfall is “hitting the jackpot.” For consumers, it’s a financial disaster on top of what can be a physical, or even health, disaster.
When that blackout came in 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Mexican vacation king Ted Cruz were quick to blame wind and solar as the culprits. But the truth was that the state’s natural gas and coal-based power plants had taken no steps to protect their supplies against cold weather that can freeze coal in stockpiles or cause gas in pipes to become slush. The failures of the fossil-fuel plants caused a blackout that led directly to the deaths of at least 151 Texans.
While solar and wind were not to blame for the Texas blackout—both were producing more energy than had been predicted at the time of failure—they’re definitely responsible for what’s hitting Texas right now: a surplus of low-cost energy. The combination of good winds and relentless sunshine means that the heatwave is actually generating record levels of renewable power, more than offsetting any out-of-service fossil plants. In fact, solar and wind nearly tied natural gas as Texas’ biggest source of energy in 2021. In 2022, they’re likely to be the biggest source of Texas power.
There’s another factor also keeping costs down. Even as natural gas and coal prices have spiked, and fossil fuel companies have raked in record profits, the price of sunshine and wind is not subject to market manipulation. Not even in Texas.
Food and Drug Administration advisers voted Wednesday to recommend authorizing both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccines for young children, clearing one of the final hurdles to getting the youngest Americans vaccinated.
CNN:
he Biden administration is facilitating an additional shipment of infant formula on Thursday, the White House announced, transporting specialty formula from Switzerland to the US through ongoing “Operation Fly Formula” efforts as the federal government continues to work to address the shortage.
NBC News:
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is joining the Biden administration as a top White House aide, NBC News confirmed Tuesday.
blfsays
Follow-up to me@35, and still apropos of nothing… France is suffering from a heatwave (in May!), with — the most extreme prediction I’ve seen — temperatures in the shade of 40℃. The local council has activated it’s heat alert (which is routine, but perhaps a bit earlier than normal, and lasts (as is routine) until September-ish).
But… It’s all a bit confusing. The weather apps I use are predicating c.34℃ locally, similar to (as far as I can tell from the maps) France Metro (the weather service). Other areas of France… Yes, but not, it seems, here. The Mediterranean Sea presumably has a cooling effect, and the phenomenon which is leading to the heatwave is coming from the South via Spain, “missing” the local area. What’s confusing is the various headlines / reports say (paraphrasing) “S.France will suffer from extreme heat”. France Metro maps suggest that is true, albeit inland. Here on the coast, it isn’t (won’t be) as bad.
Anyways… It’s been hot (locally), and I’ve been staying in the lair (which is still relatively cool). Tonight I went out for dinner, and astonished myself by drinking an entire litre of water in perhaps 10 minutes — I hadn’t been drinking fluids much in the lair, but didn’t feel dehydrated. Obviously not the case…
The local council has also ordered the esplanade pedestrianised (in the evenings), starting today, until mid-September. It is evenings-pedestrianised during July–August for the tourist-trap(-ish) marché nocturne, but extending the days first started during the pandemic: It allows for better social distancing, and also allows restaurants & bars to extend their terraces to, or even slightly into, the street. Plus removes highly annoying (read: LOUD) traffic. Very popular measure.
blfsays
This is S.France. Mediterranean Sea. Mediterranean diet. Which includes lots and lots of olive oil. It’s probably illegal not to have enough olive oil — just like it’s illegal to be more than 100 metres from a pub in Ireland (500 metres in rural areas), or the illegality in the States of knowing (not not-knowing, but knowing) how to handle a Shooty McShootface, etc — so what did I do ? Ran out of olive oil ! There’s none at all in the lair (unless the mildly deranged penguin has a super-secret stash somewhere she’s sneakily silent… (–orry, have now al–o run out of that –nake –haped letter between r & t (or a & d on a qwery keyboard)). I’m waiting for a raid by the olive oil police, a branch of the gazpacho police…
When John Claro, an opposition councillor in the Colombian city of Bucaramanga, had a disagreement with the local mayor over a colleague’s misconduct, he was left with a red face and a ringing in his ear.
In a video of the incident, the mayor can be seen quickly losing his temper, rising to his feet and unleashing a stream of profanities. Then, he steps forward, and slaps Claro hard in the face.
That mayor was Rodolfo Hernández, and on Sunday he could be elected president of Colombia.
“It seems to me that he is not mentally well,” Claro told the Guardian. “I consider him to be a sociopath.”
Hernández, a 77-year-old businessman, likes to offend. He routinely releases foul-mouthed diatribes on social media, has admitted to not knowing much of Colombia, and once described Adolf Hitler as “a great German thinker”.
He has claimed that “the ideal would be for women to dedicate themselves to raising their children,” and called Venezuelan women “factories of poor children”.
He was initially written off as an oddball outsider, but last month shocked the country by making it through to Sunday’s run-off election, where he will face Gustavo Petro, a former urban guerrilla, and [in?] what has been portrayed as a battle of outsiders.
Hernández shares traits with the region’s growing gallery of personalist populists: like El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, he has used social media (in his case, TikTok) to reach undecided voters; like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro he revels in crass political incorrectness; like Donald Trump, he has a history in business, a dubious comb-over and a platform that is strong on emotion but lacking in detail.
…
While Petro was the frontrunner for most the campaign – and took 40% in the first round – many of his opponents are now expected to line up behind Hernández, giving the septuagenarian self-declared “king of TikTok” a strong chance of winning. Recent polling has found the two virtually tied.
Hernández was practically unknown when he won 28% of the vote, after a campaign on social media that was heavy on bashing “elites” but light on policies.
One of Hernández’s proposals on the campaign trail was to take any Colombian that had not been to either of its two coastlines to see the sea. He posted videos in which he posed shirtless with models brandishing a Catholic cross, or sprinkled salt over steak in the style of the internet sensation Salt Bae.
He has flip-flopped on a host of issues, walked out of interviews when they go where he doesn’t like, and promised an austere and protectionist state. He decamped to Miami at the height of the campaign, claiming he could be killed if he stayed in Colombia. And he is under investigation for corruption while campaigning on an anti-corruption platform.
But more than any particular policy, what may win the support of the Colombian establishment is the fact that he is not Petro.
…
In Colombia, one of the most unequal countries in the world…the politics of brute force have never seemed far away, especially when the poor cry for change.
During mass protests last year, dozens died and hundreds were injured by a police force let loose by the current president, Iván Duque, who is constitutionally prohibited from re-election. Colombia’s military and intelligence agencies have a long history of spying on enemies perceived and real.
A 2016 peace deal signed with the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) – which formally ended a war that killed more than 260,000 people and forced millions from their homes – has been haltingly implemented, for which the incumbent government has been blamed.
Violence continues to plague the countryside, where environmental activists and human rights defenders – collectively known as social leaders – are killed at rates higher than anywhere else in the world.
…
“Those kinds of comments he makes aren’t only awful and repulsive, but a reflection of a part of Colombian society that still thinks that women should stay in the kitchen,” said Ana Maria Villas, a street artist from Bogotá. “But I’m hopeful that the young population of Colombia will stop letting these sorts of people get close to power.”…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, French president, Emmanuel Macron and Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, have arrived in Kyiv on a symbolic joint trip to show their support for Ukraine as it struggles to resist Russian advances in the east of the country.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, said the visit of the French, German and Italian leaders to Kyiv is of “zero use”.
Medvedev tweeted that the visit by Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi “won’t bring Ukraine closer to peace”, and called the three leaders “European fans of frogs, liverwurst and spaghetti”.
And because everyone is determined to drive me to distraction:
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the heroism of Ukraine’s army and people and said that there were “traces of barbarism” from Russian forces after a visit to the Ukrainian town of Irpin which was the closest Russian troops got to Kyiv in the early stages of the war.
Britain has announced a fresh wave of sanctions against Russia aimed at people involved with the “barbaric treatment of children in Ukraine”.
Another ethics advisor to Johnson, one Lord Geidt, has now quit. From his resignation letter:
This week, however, I was tasked to offer a view about the government’s intention to consider measures which risk a deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code. This request has placed me in an impossible and odious position. My informal response on Monday was that you and any other minister should justify openly your position vis-à-vis the code in such circumstances. However, the idea that a prime minister might to any degree be in the business of deliberately breaching his own code is an affront. A deliberate breach, or even an intention to do so, would be to suspend the provisions of the code to suit a political end. This would make a mockery not only of respect for the code but licence the suspension of its provisions in governing the conduct of Her Majesty’s ministers. I can have no part in this.
This reportedly revolves around…maintaining tariffs on Chinese steel. From Johnson’s reply:
You say that you were put in an impossible position regarding my seeking your advice on potential future decisions related to the Trade Remedies Authority. My intention was to seek your advice on the national interest in protecting a crucial industry, which is protected in other European countries and would suffer material harm if we do not continue to apply such tariffs. This has in the past had cross party support.
But Geidt appears to have been on the verge of resigning for a while:
In his resignation letter…Lord Giedt says he finally decided to resign after being asked to approve a move that could be “a deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code”.
But he also says by that point he was close to resignation anyway, and he says he got to this point because he was unhappy about the letter Boris Johnson sent him on 31 May in response to the publication of Geidt’s annual report.
Geidt seems to be particularly angry about the suggestion in the PM’s letter that Geidt had not been clear enough in telling Downing Street that he thought Johnson should address the issue of whether he broke the ministerial code when he gave a statement to MPs about Partygate.
From my quick read of what’s happening, this is another example of Johnson’s pushing the project of exempting himself and his cronies from rules and from domestic and international laws and agreements. The longer this is allowed to continue, the worse it will get.
Russia’s foreign ministry announced new sanctions against 121 Australian citizens, including journalists and defence officials, citing what it calls a “Russophobic agenda” in the country.
Among those newly sanctioned are journalists from Australia’s ABC News, Sydney Morning Herald and Sky News, as well as various defence officials, it said….
No 10 refuses to confirm that Johnson will appoint new ethics adviser to replace Lord Geidt
The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished, and the prime minister’s spokeperson has refused to confirm that Lord Geidt will definitely be replaced as the PM’s ethics adviser.
The spokeperson said that having a process for ensuring standards are maintained by ministers was “vitally important”.
But he said that Geidt himself had raised a number of issues about how the independent adviser on ministers’ interests operated and he said Boris Johnson wanted to “carefully consider those and reflect on them”.
Asked if it was possible that Geidt would not be replaced, the spokesperson replied:
We have not made a final decision on how best to carry out that function, whether it relates to a specific individual or not, particularly given some of the issues that have been raised recently the prime minister alludes to in his letter. So he will carefully consider that before setting out next steps.
UK intelligence: Russian forces severely undermanned.
Russia’s combat force is operating in severely undermanned groupings, with some battalion tactical groups as small as 30 soldiers compared to the typical number of 600-800 personnel, the U.K. Defense Ministry said.
All the main bridges over the Siversky Donets River, which link Sievierodonetsk and Ukrainian-held territory, have likely been destroyed. As a result, Russia may have to conduct a contested river crossing or advance on its stalled flanks, according to the ministry.
Thursday’s hearing from the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection will be all about former Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the center of former President Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021.
Committee aides said the hearing would make the case that Trump’s pressure campaign against Pence had “directly contributed” to the violence on January 6, which placed Pence’s life in danger as rioters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Aides said the hearing would include new materials and documents about Pence’s movements on January 6 and what he was doing when the Senate chamber was forced to evacuate after rioters breached the US Capitol.
The hearing will focus on Trump attorney John Eastman’s theory that Pence had the authority to overturn the election results when Congress certified Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021. It was a theory that was rejected by Trump’s own White House attorneys, but Trump and his allies embraced it, pressuring Pence to help him subvert the election in the weeks leading up to January 6.
The committee teased testimony on Tuesday, with a clip showing Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann’s angry reaction to Eastman continuing to push the case the day after January 6.
The January 6 committee has obtained a trove of emails Eastman sent related to his efforts to overturn the election that could shed new light on the Trump attorney’s thinking in the days leading up to January 6. Eastman had tried to block the House from accessing many of his emails, claiming they’re protected as confidential attorney-client communications, but a judge has disagreed with him repeatedly and ordered them turned over.
Two witnesses will testify at Thursday’s hearing who advised Pence that he did not have the authority to subvert the election, former Pence attorney Greg Jacob and retired Republican judge J. Michael Luttig.
The focus on both Eastman and Trump’s effort to overturn the election and the ensuing violence on January 6 reiterates a theme the committee has emphasized in its first two June hearings: that Trump’s scheme to stop his election loss led to the attack on the Capitol.
…
Jacob was a lawyer for Pence and helped the vice president’s team articulate that the Constitution did not give Pence more than ceremonial authority when Congress certified Biden’s victory. Luttig helped provide public cover for Pence, tweeting out a thread at the urging of Pence’s team to explain why Pence could not do as Trump wished. Interestingly, Eastman is a former clerk for Luttig.
Pence cited Luttig’s statement in the letter released January 6 explaining why he would not stop the certification of the election.
Jacob also played a role behind the scenes on January 6 while he was being evacuated from the Senate with Pence, exchanging heated emails over what was transpiring, which were revealed in court filings.
“Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege,” Jacob wrote.
Eastman responded: “The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened.”
[Marc] Short, Pence’s former top aide, spoke to the committee via deposition, and committee aides said they expect to use portions of his interview during Thursday’s hearing. But there’s no indication the committee will call him to testify during the public hearings.
It’s not unlike how the committee featured former Attorney General William Barr’s deposition during Monday’s hearing but did not have him appear for public testimony.
…
The format of Thursday’s hearing will have a new wrinkle, according to committee aides: Committee counsel John Wood will do some of the questioning of witnesses.
The inclusion of a staff attorney harkens back to House Democrats’ impeachment hearings in 2019, when staff attorneys conducted lengthy questioning of witnesses before the more traditional five-minute rounds were used for House lawmakers.
The select committee has limited who has spoken at the hearings so far, with one member focused on leading each session. On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar in California will have that task.
The committee postponed its planned hearing on Wednesday, which was to have focused on the Justice Department. Now it will hold two hearings next week, and more are likely to come the following week, though the committee has yet to announce specific times or topics for those.
I believe today’s hearing is set to begin at 1 PM ET.
No 10 unable to explain why – in apparently unprecedented move – Geidt was asked to advise on legality of tariff policy
And here are some more lines from what was said at the Downing Street lobby briefing about the resignation of Lord Geidt.
– The spokesperson was unable to explain why Geidt was being asked to advise the PM on a matter relating to tariff policy. And he failed to give any precedent for Geidt, or his predecessors, giving advice on whether government policy broke internatonal law. One of the odd features of this story is that Geidt was being asked to advise not on the conduct of an individual minister, but on a decision taken by the government as a whole. Boris Johnson said it was a proposal to breach WTO trade rules…. But it is normally for the government law officers to advise on these matters, not the independent adviser on ministers’ interests. Sir Alex Allan was the ethics adviser when the government published its initial internal market bill in 2020, which it admitted would break international law. But there is no evidence Allan was asked if this would be in breach of the ministerial code. And there is no evidence that Geidt was asked about the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which is widely seen as being an even more egregious breach of international law (even though the government claims it is compliant with international treaties). Asked if Geidt had in the past been asked to advise on policies that could be against international law, the spokesperson was unable to answer that. But he also said advice to the PM was confidential.
– The issued that Geidt was asked to advise on did not relate to Johnson’s personal financial interests. The spokesman also said that, as far as he was aware, the personal finances of other ministers were not involved either.
– The spokesperson refused to confirm that the dispute between Johnson and Geidt related to tariffs on Chinese steel imports. But he did not deny reports either saying this was the key issue….
– The spokesperson said the government had not yet decided whether to go ahead with the tariff move that Geidt said could be seen as “a deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code”.
Did Boris Johnson deliberately provoke Lord Geidt into resigning? It is normally best to treat conspiracy theories such as this as fiction, but there is something very peculiar about the request from Johson to Lord Geidt that triggered his resignation…. In Downing Street they must have known that Geidt was already very close to resigning, because of Partygate. A Partygate resignation, of course, would be damaging to the prime minister. But, as the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope points out, a resignation by Lord Geidt in oppostion to a policy supported by the Labour party and designed to protect British jobs in the steel industry? Well, that’s not quite such a bad headline.
Here’s a bit more on Britain’s latest round of sanctions against Russia, which include Moscow’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
The UK foreign office said it had sanctioned Lvova-Belova for the forced transfer and adoption of Ukrainian children, while Kirill was targeted for “his prominent support of Russian military aggression in Ukraine”.
Four senior military officials from a unit “known to have killed, raped, and tortured civilians” in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were also sanctioned, it said in a statement.
The government said the sanctions also targeted Putin’s allies, military commanders and Russian and Myanmar arms dealers.
The Russian Orthodox Church has responded to British sanctions against its leader, Patriarch Kirill, describing the move as “absurd and counterproductive”.
Church spokesperson, Vladimir Legoyda, said on Telegram:
Attempts to intimidate the primate of the Russian Church with something or to force him to renounce his views are senseless, absurd and unpromising. […blah blah blah]
Police in the Brazilian Amazon have found the bodies of two men in the area close to where British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira went missing 10 days ago.
At a press briefing late on Wednesday, regional police chief Eduardo Fontes said one of the two men arrested in connection with the pair’s disappearance had confessed to killing them.
“On Tuesday he informed us the location where the bodies were buried and he promised to go with us today to the site so we could confirm where the bodies were buried,” Fontes told reporters.
The announcement brought a sad end to a 10-day search which has horrified the nation and underlined the growing dangers faced by those who dare to defend Brazil’s environment and Indigenous communities, which have faced a historic assault under the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
The location identified by the suspect was 1hr 40min by boat from the river town of Atalaia do Norte and another 3.1km (1.9 miles) by foot into dense forest.
After a day-long operation, involving the army, navy and police force, the Guardian witnessed the bodies being removed from that area, known as the Lago do Preguiça, under the cover of darkness.
Escorted by army troops, they were carried by boat back down the River Itaquaí to Atalaia do Norte, where Phillips and Pereira had begun their final journey.
Scores of locals flocked to the town’s port to watch as officers in camouflage gear loaded the two black body bags on to the back of a federal police vehicle, which set off in a blaze of red and blue lights.
“We are now going to identify the human remains with the most dignity possible,” Fontes said. “When the remains are proved to be those of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, they will be delivered to the families.”
The news was greeted with relief by Phillips’ wife Alessandra Sampaio.
“Although we are still awaiting definitive confirmations, this tragic outcome puts an end to the anguish of not knowing Dom and Bruno’s whereabouts,” she wrote in a statement. “Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love.
“Today, we also begin our quest for justice. I hope that the investigations exhaust all possibilities and bring definitive answers on all relevant details as soon as possible.”
…
The press conference was held in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, where a series of military and police officials congratulated themselves for the work done, before belatedly recognising the role played by Indigenous people who helped lead the search.
In Atalaia do Norte, Eliseio Marubo, an Indigenous lawyer and close friend of Pereira said: “I feel an indescribable pain because I have lost a brother, I have lost part of my story.”
Tears rolling down his cheeks, Marubo sent a message to the families of the two men who had both sought to champion the Indigenous cause. “You are not alone,” he said. “We will march on together.”
Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41 went missing on 5 June, at the end of a four-day trip down the Itaquaí river in the far west of Brazil.
Pereira was accompanying Phillips on a reporting trip for a book about sustainable development in the Amazon but their boat did not arrive as scheduled at Atalaia do Norte, not far from Brazil’s border with Peru.
However, when Pereira’s friends raised the alarm, Brazilian authorities were slow to respond and it was the Indigenous communities that made the first unsettling discovery on Saturday when they found rucksacks, clothing and personal items belonging to the two men.
…
The investigation was dogged by setbacks, from the sluggish response of the army and navy search teams, to the heavily criticised actions of the Brazilian embassy in London, who told Phillips’ family in the UK that his body had been found, only to retract the statement later.
It also comes amid widespread criticism of Brazil’s policies on the environment and the estimated 235 Indigenous tribes living in Brazil.
Deforestation has soared under Bolsonaro, and government agencies devoted to protecting the environment and Indigenous communities have been undermined.
Pereira was a senior figure in the state Indigenous foundation charged with protecting Indigenous communities but was removed from office in late 2019 after he led an operation to destroy illegal mines operating on Indigenous land.
He later began working with Indigenous rights organisations in remote areas of the rainforest to help them map their territories and protect them from invasions by miners, loggers, and drug-traffickers active in the area.
Late on Wednesday, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a statement that Wednesday’s news had prompted “pain and indignation” and linked the crime to the dismantling of policies to protect Indigenous people.
“Democracy and Brazil can no longer tolerate violence, hatred and contempt for the values of civilisation,” he said. “Bruno and Dom will live in our memory – and in the hope of a better world”.
ravensays
Long COVID may be behind mysterious child hepatitis – study
12 cases of unexplained acute hepatitis in children have been reported so far in Israel.
By TZVI JOFFRE Published: JUNE 14, 2022 22:24
Long COVID may be the cause of unexplained cases of hepatitis in children around the world in recent months, Israeli researchers from Schneider Children’s Medical Center, Rabin Medical Center – Beilinson Hospital, Rambam Medical Center and Tel Aviv University found in a study recently published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.
12 cases of unexplained acute hepatitis in children have been reported so far in Israel.
The Israeli scientists who conducted the study noted that liver injury has been recorded in adult patients with severe coronavirus infections and that children can be affected with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) as a result of COVID-19, which can injure the liver. Post-COVID-19 liver injuries have been increasingly reported among adults as well. continues
In the last few months, there have been a lot of cases of acute hepatitis in children, leading rapidly to death or liver transplantation.
The cause is still unknown despite a lot of work on it.
It is now looking like it is a form of long Covid-19 virus infection.
This virus is known to occasionally attack organ systems including brain, heart, kidney, and liver in adults so this is no surprise. It also causes Multi Inflammatory Syndrome in children.
I’ve seen something similar just recently.
A mid 70s antivaxxer came down with Covid-19 virus.
He was sick but not that sick.
Then his kidneys completely shut down. He is now on dialysis.
blfsays
Follow-up to me@135, and still apropos of nothing… The olive oil police raided the lair just before lunch — actually, the two officers knocked politely at the door — and during our discussion, I learned there is a range of penalties for not having any olive oil. But what was actually irking them the most is I referred to the olive oil police as “a branch of the gazpacho police”. That should have been, they very pointedly explained, “an olive branch of the gaspacho police”.
Anyways, it turns out that if the olive oil was used in a good (read: tasty) cause, or there are financial problems, etc., the fines are quite modest and possibly waived or suspended. I explained I’d used all of my remaining olive oil in the making of gaspacho (see @35) without realising it, and then invited them to taste the result. They — an Arabic-looking gentleman from Tunisia(?), and a Scandinavian-looking lady from Normandy — declared it delicious, at which point I invited them to lunch. The gentleman went to get some bread — explaining the cost would simply be added to the fine — and we had a nice lunch with a great local vin rosé, enjoying the gaspacho, baguettes, and wine. A breeze had sprung up, so it didn’t feel as hot as expected, albeit we were careful to sit in the shade.
I told them I knew there were some great olive oils from Tunisia but was puzzled about Scandinavia… The lady laughed and explained her ancestors were Vikings, who are believed to have done some raids in the Mediterranean in the 800s CE — her family’s stories claim that is how they came to know of, and appreciate olive oil — and then inquired about cheese.
Uh-oh.
Fortunately, the mildly deranged penguin was uncharacteristically silent and unseen, so the moment passed without untoward incident.
They had to run — er, stagger — off on an emergency call about then, before café, and left me with a suspended fine, provided I replenished my olive oil stock today. Which I did, with a locally-produced (right here in the village) organic model.
The mildly deranged penguin is still silent and unseen, which makes me wonder what she is up to…
(Some of the above is even true (for many definitions of “true”).)
We northerners never used to consume any olive oil — it just wasn’t our thing. Then a doctor recommend a change in our diet to a more Mediterranean menu, you know, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables, and LOTS OF OLIVE OIL. He told us we should aim for a liter or two EVERY WEEK. We sat there kind of aghast. Are we supposed to just gulp it down straight? How can we possibly ingest that much olive oil? It was inconceivable.
Then we started following various Mediterranean recipes, and now we are constantly running low on our olive oil supplies.
We’ve been tentatively exploring various cheeses, too, but I’m afraid to get too deeply into that, since we might get carried away again. I’ve been pushing for more fish, but my wife doesn’t care much for it. Would cheese be a compromise?
Netherlands says it foiled Russian spy attempt to infiltrate International Criminal Court
The Dutch intelligence service said it had uncovered a Russian military agent attempting to use a false identity to infiltrate the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is investigating accusations of war crimes in Ukraine.
Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov created an elaborate cover story dating back years to try and enter the Netherlands as a Brazilian national for an internship at the Hague-based ICC in April, the agency’s head told Reuters.
“This was a long-term, multi-year GRU operation that cost a lot of time, energy and money,” said Dutch intelligence agency chief Erik Akerboom.
The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) said in a statement that the man, who went by the alias Viktor Muller Ferreira, was picked up at a Dutch airport. He was declared an undesirable alien and put on the next flight back to Brazil, where he faces court proceedings, it added.
“It clearly shows us what the Russians are up to – trying to gain illegal access to information within the ICC. We classify this as a high-level threat,” Akerboom added, saying the ICC had accepted him for an internship.
ICC spokesperson Sonia Robla said the court was grateful to Dutch authorities for the operation and the exposing of security risks. “The ICC takes these threats very seriously and will continue to work and cooperate with the Netherlands,” she said.
There is yet to be any comment on the accusation by authorities in either Russia or Brazil.
French President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement during his June 16 visit to Kyiv. France has earlier sent six 155 mm Caesar howitzers to Ukraine which are already in use on the front line.”
John Pullinger, chair of the Electoral Commission, has said that the Elections Act that became law earlier this year is a threat to the independence of his organisation. The new legislation allows ministers to issue a strategy and policy statement giving directions to the commission and, in an interview with Prospect, Pullinger said this was incomptible with his organisation being independent.
Although he stressed he would continue to do his job independently and impartially, he said:
Most people would think that the government of the day has only one strategy and policy priority for the next election, and that’s to win it for themselves. Powers on the face of a bill like that are inconsistent with the Electoral Commission acting as an independent regulator.
The commission is in charge of ensuring that elections are carried out fairly, and that election spending rules are enforced.
[…] John Eastman […] played a central role in trying to help Donald Trump overturn his 2020 defeat; a White House lawyer told Eastman directly that he should hire a criminal defense attorney; and a federal judge has already concluded that Eastman and the former president appear to have broken federal laws.
But no one should assume the important revelations about his efforts have run their course. The New York Times reported overnight:
A lawyer advising President Donald J. Trump claimed in an email after Election Day 2020 to have insight into a “heated fight” among the Supreme Court justices over whether to hear arguments about the president’s efforts to overturn his defeat at the polls, two people briefed on the email said. The lawyer, John Eastman, made the statement in a Dec. 24, 2020, exchange with a pro-Trump lawyer and Trump campaign officials over whether to file legal papers that they hoped might prompt four justices to agree to hear an election case from Wisconsin.
[…] Eastman wrote an email to Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump lawyer involved in the fake elector scheme.
“So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Eastman reportedly wrote.
The article added that Chesebro replied that the “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”
On the surface, the substance of what the scandal-plagued attorney was describing is itself deeply alarming: Eastman thought it was at least possible the Supreme Court would consider hearing arguments related to Team Trump’s coup scheme, and his ally saw the threat of chaos — or more specifically, “wild” chaos, referencing the word Trump used to describe Jan. 6 in advance of the fateful day — as a way to pressure the justices into action.
But just below the surface, there’s a related question: <How would Eastman know about a “heated fight” among justices on the high court? At this point, that’s a difficult question to answer with confidence, but as it turns out, right around the time the Times was publishing its report, The Washington Post ran a related article.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has obtained email correspondence between Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and lawyer John Eastman, who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, according to three people involved in the committee’s investigation.
[…] At face value, the scope of Ginni Thomas’ lobbying efforts remains extraordinary: As we’ve discussed, the far-right activist played a role in the pre-riot Jan. 6 rally, had extensive communications with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, pressured congressional Republicans, reached out to Jared Kushner about legal options surrounding the larger offensive, and communicated with Republican state legislators about helping execute the plot.
[…] Thomas also corresponded with Eastman, who was helping lead the coup effort.
[…] we’re also learning that Eastman was privately sharing his impressions about “heated” interactions among Supreme Court justices — while he was in communications with a Supreme Court justice’s wife.
Maybe the dots shouldn’t be connected this way. Maybe Thomas and Eastman had conversations that had nothing to do with behind-the-scenes developments at the Supreme Court.
Or maybe Eastman had thoughts about what was going on among the justices because he had a reliable source.
blfsays
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 29th(!!) flight over the weekend, a short jaunt (amusingly, lasting 66.6 beasts, I mean seconds) to stay within range of the Perseverance rover. Since it obviously took off successfully, the patch to work-around the dead inclinometer sensor is presumably working — and the regime to charge up the batteries is working. The temperatures will get colder (Martian Winter Solstice isn’t until 21st July) — and presumably the atmosphere dustier — so there are significant challenges ahead.
Pence started January 6 out with a prayer with his staff, followed by what witnesses described to the committee as a nasty phone call from Trump.
“The conversation was pretty heated,” testified Ivanka Trump, who saw the president on the phone.
“I remember hearing the word wimp,” Nicholas Luna, an assistant to Trump, testified. “I don’t remember, he said you are a wimp. You’ll be a wimp. Wimp is the word I remember.”
Gen Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security advisor at the time, said Trump told the vice-president he was “not tough enough to make the call.”
The committee is now dealing with the storming of the Capitol, showing Pence working in what looks like a loading dock after evacuating the Senate chamber as the rioters approached.
“Make no mistake about the fact that the vice-president’s life was in danger,” Representative Pete Aguilar said, pointing to an FBI affidavit from an informant in the Proud Boys militia group.
“They said that anyone they got their hands on they would have killed including Nancy Pelosi,” the informant told the FBI, adding that “members of the Proud Boys said that they would have killed Mike Pence if given a chance.”
As for Trump, Jacob said the president never called Pence to check on him, which the vice-president reacted to “with frustration.”
Even after the Capitol had been stormed, Trump lawyer John Eastman continued to pressure Pence to try to overturn the election.
“I implore you one last time, can the vice-president please do what we’ve been asking him to do these last two days: suspend the joint session, send it back to the states,” Pence’s counselor Greg Jacob recalls Eastman asking, citing alleged violations of the Electoral Count Act during the joint session of Congress disrupted by the insurrection.
John Eastman himself has finally appeared, this time in a frosty videotaped deposition shown by the committee.
“I assert my fifth amendment right against being compelled to be a witness against myself,” Eastman said in the compilation of clips from the encounter, which shows lawyers from the committee asking Eastman a series of questions about his actions around January 6.
“Fifth,” he replies to each one….
(Just before this, they showed an email or text from Eastman asking to be included on the pardon list, which he wasn’t.)
Trump ‘clear and present danger to democracy’ top conservative lawyer warns
J Michael Luttig, a former US appellate court judge who is considered one of the top conservative legal minds in the United States, has warned the January 6 committee that Donald Trump poses a continuing danger to the country’s democracy.
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” Luttig said.
“That’s not because of what happened on January 6. It’s because to this very day, the former president and his allies and supporters pledge that in presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.”
“That’s what the former president and his allies are telling us,” Luttig said.
[… I]n Otero county, which sits along the New Mexico-Texas border and is home to about 70,000 people. Donald Trump overwhelmingly carried the county with nearly 62% of the vote in 2020. On Monday, the three-member county commission refused to certify the results of the state’s 7 June primary.
In their meeting, the commissioners, all Republicans, didn’t cite specific reasons for taking the extraordinary step of not certifying the contest. Two of the commissioners referenced generalized concerns about voting machines from Dominion, a company that has been the target of numerous conspiracy theories about the election. The third commissioner pointed to ineligible voters casting ballots, but didn’t cite a specific number of votes he was concerned about
[…] The county commissioned a review of the 2020 election by inexperienced people who wound up making inaccurate claims about the county’s voting machines. The county commission has since voted to get rid of all Dominion voting machines and count all ballots by hand, which experts warn is less reliable than a machine count. New Mexico law already requires a post-election audit, which the state completed in 2020.
I don’t trust Dominion, period, Vickie Marquardt, one of the county commissioners said during Monday’s meeting.
I don’t have specific examples that I can point to other than the recent audit and the canvass and the uncertainty of what that produced, said Couy Griffin, another commissioner. Griffin is the founder of Cowboys for Trump, who was convicted of a misdemeanor for entering the US Capitol complex on January 6 […].
[…]
“What we’re seeing in Otero county is a complete breakdown of the rule of law and the democratic process,” [New Mexico’s secretary of state, Maggie Toulouse] Oliver, a Democrat, said. “This isn’t just about one little county in a state of 2 million population. It’s about what happens as a result of this. What model are they setting for other similar entities around the state and around the country.”
[…]
Oliver’s office filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to force the county commissioners to certify the election. While state law allows for commissioners to seek clarifications about ambiguities or errors, it is clear that they don’t have discretion to refuse to certify an election. On Wednesday, the New Mexico supreme court ordered the county to certify the results no later than 17 June.
Mario Jimenez, a former election official in the state who now works as the campaign director for the New Mexico chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group, noted New Mexico law makes it a criminal offense to knowingly violate election laws.
“They were instructed by their county attorney on the things they can and cannot do … despite being notified by their own legal expert and this very experienced county clerk, they continue to wilfully break the law and not serve their community or their constituents.”
Oliver’s involvement underscores the kind of power that secretaries of state have to enforce election laws, including in the ballot counting process. Republicans running for secretary of state in many states have openly questioned the 2020 election results, and if they win this fall they could play a key role in blocking results from being certified. […]
[…]
During Monday’s meeting, the commission’s attorney advised commissioners that they could be forced by court order to certify the election if they refused. The commissioners were unfazed. And so then what? They’re going to send us to the pokey? Marquardt said.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 158
And so then what? They’re going to send us to the pokey? Marquardt said.
This is why there needs to be dire consequences for these Trumpist attempts to subvert our democracy. For far too long, the Democrats/liberals have backed down in the face of the far right under the misguided delusion of “national unity” a preventing greater conflict. Instead, they laugh in our faces and threaten to do it again.
Even if it means another civil war, an example must be made of these people from the rank-and-file Proud Boy street thug all the way up to Donald Trump himself.
blfsays
@159, Charging, etc., those people is a law enforcement function, not political action / inaction.
Or do you really want politicians to decide who to charge? Imagine what teh thugs what do if that were the case.
And please knock off that shite about needing or wanting a civil war. That’s straight out of, e.g., teh proud boys dreams — Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DC — and would absolutely delight Putin. You’re acting similar to a Russian troll, advocating perhaps the worse possible “solution” to a non-existent or misstated problem.
Hmmm, this is interesting. Beta O’Rourke is making some headway as he continues to campaign in the Texas race for Governor. Greg Abbott is still leading, but his lead is modest. 48 percent to O’Rourke’s 43 percent. Back in December, O’Rourke was behind by 15 points. He has really made a lot of progress.
Today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021 … Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That’s not because of what happened on January 6th. It’s because to this very day the former president, his allies and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024 if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way they attempted to overturn the 2020 election but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.
I don’t speak those words lightly. I would have never spoken those words ever in my life except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us. … The former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open and plain view of the American public. I repeat, I would have never uttered one single one of those words unless the former president and his allies were candidly and proudly speaking those exact words to America.”
A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.
America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other — over our democracy.
[…] January 6 was a separate war unto itself, a war for America’s democracy, a war irresponsibly instigated and prosecuted by the former president, his political party allies, and his supporters. […] raging to this day.
A peaceful end to these wars is desperately needed. The war for our democracy could lead to the peaceful end to the war for America’s cultural heart and soul. […] The settlement of this war over our democracy is necessary to the settlement of any war that will ever come to America, whether from her shores or to her shores. Though disinclined for the moment, as a political matter of fact only the party that instigated this war over our democracy can bring an end to that war.
[…] These senseless wars are of our own making, and they are now being waged throughout the land, in our city centers and town squares, in our streets and in our schools, where we work and where we play, in our houses of worship — even within our own families. These wars were conceived and instigated from our Nation’s Capital by our own political leaders collectively and they have been cynically prosecuted by them to fever pitch, now to the point that they have recklessly put America herself at stake.
America is now the stake in these unholy wars.
[…] We Americans no longer agree on what is right or wrong, what is to be valued and what is not, what is acceptable behavior and not, and what is and is not tolerable discourse in civilized society. Let alone do we agree on how we want to be governed or by whom, or where we go from here and with what shared national ideals, values, beliefs, purposes, goals, and objectives — if any at all.
America is adrift. We pray that it is only for this fleeting moment that she has lost her way, until we Americans can once again come to our senses.
The war on democracy instigated by the former president and his political party allies on January 6 was the natural and foreseeable culmination of the war for America. It was the final fateful day for the execution of a well-developed plan by the former president to overturn the 2020 presidential election at any cost, so that he could cling to power that the American People had decided to confer upon his successor, the next president of the United States instead. Knowing full well that he had lost the 2020 presidential election, the former president and his allies and supporters falsely claimed and proclaimed to the nation that he had won the election, and then he and they set about to overturn the election that he and they knew the former president had lost.
The treacherous plan was no less ambitious than to steal America’s democracy.
Called to Washington D.C. that day by the president, the president himself, and the president’s followers, supporters, and allies gathered near The White House for a “Stop the Steal” rally. The president maintained at that rally that the 2020 presidential election had been “fraudulently stolen” from him. The president addressed his faithful followers thus: “We’re going to the Capitol. . . . We’re going to try and give them [the Republicans in the Congress, presumably] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. . . . We will never give up. We will never concede.”
Inflamed, the gathered mob marched up the hill from The White House to the United States Capitol to protest, disrupt and prevent the counting of the electoral votes for the presidency, which the president falsely charged were wrongly about to be counted by the Congress in his political opponent’s winning favor and in his own losing favor.
Once staged at the Capitol, the mob soon erected gallows on the United States Capitol grounds, chanting that Vice President Mike Pence should be hanged. Hanged, the mob chanted, for “cowardly” refusing the president’s lawless entreaties that his Vice President declare their president reelected, against the will of the American People, though he had lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote for the presidency.
There were many cowards on the battlefield on January 6. The Vice President was not among them.
Soon thereafter, the rioters stormed the Capitol itself, breaching, occupying, and ransacking the temple of our democracy for seemingly endless wrenching hours — at the precise democratic moment when the Congress of the United States convened in Joint Session to begin the constitutional counting of the votes for the presidency of the United States.
Not until over three hours after the riot had begun, and then only after the siege had achieved what by that time was its truncated objective to interrupt and indefinitely delay the counting of the vote, did the president finally yield to the pleas and prayers from his own family, friends, and political allies, and grudgingly ask his supporters in a hastily forced video tweet to disperse and return to their homes.
The Nation wept during the evening of January 6, as the Capitol police began to clear and resecure the Capitol at day’s end. Finally, at 8:00 p.m. on January 6, seven hours after the siege on the Capitol had begun, Vice President Pence gaveled the Joint Session back into order with measured, understated resolve: “Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. . . . Let’s get back to work.”
January 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States, too.
It was not until the next day, January 7, 2021, at 3:42 a.m. in the morning — almost fifteen hours after the Joint Session had first been gaveled into session by Speaker Nancy Pelosi — that the Vice President finally declared that Joe Biden had been elected the 46th President of the United States.
On January 6, 2021, the prescribed day for choosing the American president, there was not to be a peaceful transfer of power — for the first time in the history of our Republic.
Over a year and a half later, in continued defiance of our democracy, both the former president and his political party allies still maintain that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him […] All the while, this false and reckless insistence that the former president won the 2020 presidential election has laid waste to Americans’ confidence in their national elections. More alarming still is that the former president pledges that his reelection will not be “stolen” from him next time around, and his Republican Party allies and supporters obeisantly pledge the same.
False claims that our elections have been stolen from us corrupt our democracy, as they corrupt us. To continue to insist and persist in the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is itself an affront to our democracy and to the Constitution of the United States — an affront without precedent.
Those who think that because America is a republic, theft and corruption of our national elections and electoral process are not theft and corruption of our democracy are sorely mistaken. America is both a republic and a representative democracy, and therefore a sustained attack on our national elections is a fortiori an attack on our democracy, any political theory otherwise notwithstanding.
Accordingly, if, and when, one of our national elections is actually stolen from us, our democracy will have been stolen from us. To steal an election in the United States of America is to steal her democracy.
As in all things, the essence of our participation in democracy is not knowledge, but judgment — studied, discerning judgment. No more so is this true than in the Constitution and in the Law.
Very few ever have the honor of counseling the President of the United States of America. That highest of honors carries with it the highest of obligations. Counsel provided to the President of the United States must be the product of not only exquisite, penetrating legal analysis but also profound, insightful legal judgment. These two combined are so far from mere technical legal competence as almost to be its polar opposite. The President and the country deserve nothing less from those who counsel the President, so consequential are the stakes for the Nation when the President acts upon the advice of his or her Counsel.
Whatever else, the President of the United States did not receive such counsel during his sustained effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. It is as much the former president’s fault as anyone’s that he did not.
[…] those efforts, by the former president were the product of the most reckless, insidious, and calamitous failures in both legal and politicl judgment in American history.
From their inception, the legal arguments that underlaid the efforts to overturn the 2020 election were, in that context, little more than beguiling and frivolous, perhaps appropriate for academic classroom debate, but singularly inappropriate as counsel to the President of the United States of America in his effort to overturn the presidential election — an election he had lost fair and square and as to which there was not then, and there is not to this day, evidence of fraud.
It is breathtaking that these arguments even were conceived, let alone entertained by the President of the United States at that perilous moment in history.
Had the Vice President of the United States obeyed the President of the United States, America would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.
The former president’s accountability under the law for the riot on the United States Capitol on January 6 is incidental to his responsibility and accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American People and thereby steal America’s democracy from America herself. This said, willful ignorance of law and fact is neither excuse nor defense in law. Willful ignorance, thus, is neither political nor legal excuse or defense available to the former President of the United States, his allies, and his supporters.
On January 6, 2021, revolutionaries, not patriots, assaulted America and American democracy. […] And almost two years thence, one of America’s two political parties cannot even agree whether that day was good or bad, right or wrong. Worse, it cannot agree over whether January 6 was needed, or not. Needed or not. Pause for a moment and reflect on that. The former president and his party cannot decide whether the revolt at the United States Capitol to disrupt and prevent the constitutional counting of the votes for the presidency was needed, and therefore whether another revolt might be needed at a future date to accomplish that which the previous revolt failed to accomplish.
[…] The former president’s party cynically and embarrassingly rationalizes January 6 as having been something between hallowed, legitimate public discourse and a visitors tour of the Capitol that got out of hand. January 6, of course, was neither, and the former president and his party know that. It was not legitimate public discourse by any definition. Nor was it a civics tour of the Capitol Building — though that day proved to be an eye-opening civics lesson for all Americans.
[…] America is not in constitutional crisis until and unless the Constitution and the institutions and instrumentalities of our democracy are under withering, unsustainable, and unendurable attack from within. Then, and only then, is the constitutional order in hopeless constitutional disorder. Only then is America in peril. Today, America is in constitutional crisis — and at a foreboding crossroads with disquieting parallels to the fateful crossroads we came to over a century and a half ago. […]
Will Stephen imagines “Leaked Mark Meadows Texts.”
marjorie taylor greene
Hey, Mark, I’m sure u have a lot going on and I don’t know on these things but maybe we could do the essplosion from “Independence Day?” Just throwing it out there. Maybe we essplode the Capitol like in “Independence Day” or something. But again, I don’t know on these things.
mark meadows
Asking POTUS.
marjorie taylor greene
Thank u, Mike.
————————–
mike lindell
TIRED OF SLEEPING ON THE SAME OLD PILLOW? CHECK OUT MYPILLOW.COM AND ENTER COUPON CODE “GREATPILLOW” FOR THIRTY PER CENT OFF!!
mark meadows
Thanks.
mike lindell
TROOPS MUST TAKE THE MEDIA NOW, MARK. AMASS BROWNSHIRTS, SEIZE TELEVISION AND RADIO TOWERS, AND ESTABLISH MARTIAL LAW IN CITY CENTERS BY SUNRISE. HIGH CASUALTIES VERY LIKELY. PREPARE FOR CIVIL WAR.
mark meadows
Got it. Thanks, Mike.
mike lindell
Happy to help. —Sent from MyPillow
————————-
ginni thomas
Please tell POTUS that the flood of hellfire destined for the wicked will cleanse his presence and restore his righteous power.
Lynna @ #s 162 & 163 – What on earth does Judge Luttig (ret.) think it gains him to so carefully avoid naming the political parties and persons that threaten and (mostly) fail to defend the Constitutional order?
Will some country club not allow him to play golf on its grounds any more if he explicitly calls out the Republicans, or Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy or any of their corrupt colleagues? He did at least manage to name Trump™ one time, but otherwise treated them all like a tribe of Voldemorts.
Refugee Rally coming up in a month or so’s time – 17th July 2022 – in Adelaide, South Australia for my fellow South Aussies here. Details :
Event by Adelaide vigil for Manus and Nauru
Tarndanyangga / Victoria Sq
19th July. This date is significant.
It is significant for the over 200 still (after 9 years) being ‘processed’ offshore in PNG and Nauru.
It is significant for the 1200+ in Australia on 6-month visas or in Community Detention, who are still told that you ‘will never be settled in Australia’.
It is significant for those who have found welcome in other countries and are still healing from the wounds of indefinite detention at the hands of Australia.
It is significant for many Australians who suffer with them, and who each July 19th think – surely not another year.
On Sun 17th July at 2pm we will gather at Tarntanyangga / Victoria Sq and walk to the Vietnamese Boat People Monument by the Torrens, where we will hear from speakers including those still suffering.
We seek for as many as possible of the people of Adelaide to join with us in standing with those still waiting on welcome, and to call on the new Labor Australian Government to finally bring to an end to the harm.
9 years ago Labor restarted the horror of sending people offshore. Will they now show courage in bringing welcome for these people they sent away 9 years ago?
(Yeah, sorry folks, facebook I know – it does have its uses at times.)
StevoRsays
Breaking news here :
The British government has ordered the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, but he still has a chance to fight the move.
Home Secretary Priti Patel made the decision after Mr Assange was denied a Supreme Court appeal back in March.
That case related to Mr Assange’s physical and mental health, and the US government won after offering assurances he would not be held in solitary confinement.
The Home Office said in a statement: “The UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange.
“Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the US he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health.”
The decision is a big moment in Mr Assange’s years-long battle to avoid facing trial in the US — though not necessarily the end of the tale.
A California doctor who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement was sentenced on Thursday to two months in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where she delivered speeches to rioters during the mob’s attack.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., also sentenced Dr. Simone Gold to 12 months of supervised release after her 60-day prison term and ordered her to pay a $9,500 fine. She can report to prison at a date to be determined.
Gold, a former emergency room physician, said she deeply regrets entering the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and didn’t intend to get involved in an event that was “so destructive to our nation.”
“It’s the opposite of who I am,” she told Cooper.
Gold founded America’s Frontline Doctors. a group known for purveying COVID-19 misinformation. The Beverly Hills-based doctor, a Stanford Law School graduate, has over 480,000 followers on Twitter. She has condemned COVID-19 lockdowns and promoted the use of unproven and potentially dangerous drugs as coronavirus treatments.
The judge told Gold that her anti-vaccine activism wasn’t a factor in her sentencing. Cooper said Gold wasn’t a “casual bystander” on Jan. 6.
The judge also said Gold’s organization has misled supporters into believing her prosecution was politically motivated and trampled on her free speech rights. Cooper called it “unseemly” that America’s Frontline Doctors has invoked the Capitol riot in raising money, including for her salary.
“I think that is a real disservice to the true victims of that day,” he said.
Gold pleaded guilty in March to entering and remaining in a restricted building, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.
More than 800 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot at the Capitol. Over 300 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and nearly 200 have been sentenced.
After the riot, Gold told The Washington Post that she followed a crowd into the Capitol, didn’t witness any violence and didn’t think she was breaking any laws.
“I can certainly speak to the place that I was, and it most emphatically was not a riot,” she said. “Where I was, was incredibly peaceful.”
But prosecutors say she entered the Capitol immediately after a law enforcement officer was assaulted and dragged to the ground in front of her. Gold also joined a mob that was trying to break into the House chamber and later ignored police commands to leave Statuary Hall so she could finish giving a speech, according to prosecutors.
…
Prosecutors said Gold hasn’t shown remorse or accepted responsibility for her actions. They accused her of trying to profit from her crime, saying America’s Frontline Doctors has raised more than $430,000 through its website for her legal expenses.
“It beggars belief that Gold could have incurred anywhere near $430,000 in costs for her criminal defense: after all, she pleaded guilty — in the face of indisputable, readily identifiable evidence — without filing a single motion,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Defense attorney Dickson Young said Gold has paid her lawyers “out of her own pocket.” Young said America’s Frontline Doctors has kept the donated money for itself.
Gold told the Post that she had traveled to Washington to speak at a “Rally for Health Freedom” on the East side of the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6.
Gold was charged with John Strand, the communications director for America’s Frontline Doctors. Prosecutors also described him as Gold’s boyfriend.
Strand has pleaded not guilty to the charges again him and has a trial scheduled to start on July 18. Prosecutors say Strand rejected their offer for a plea agreement.
Strand was filming as Gold gave a speech in Statuary Hall about her opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates and government-imposed lockdowns. After police escorted her out of Statuary Hall, Gold delivered another speech in the Rotunda using a bullhorn while standing on a statue of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Gold and Strand spent nearly an hour inside the Capitol before leaving.
The Medical Board of California’s database shows Gold remains licensed to practice medicine in the state. However, Gold’s lawyers say the board sent her a letter threatening to revoke her medical license for “an instance of misinformation.”
“My reputation has been utterly shredded,” Gold said Thursday….
She’s a former emergency room doctor, but in a situation of mass violence in which people needed urgent medical care she chose to climb atop a statue and rant about vaccines.
The head of the UK’s armed forces has said Russia has already “strategically lost” the war in Ukraine and is now a “more diminished power”.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Russia was suffering heavy losses, running out of troops and advanced missiles and would never be able to take over all of Ukraine.
“This is a dreadful mistake by Russia. Russia will never take control of Ukraine,” Tony Radakin told PA Media in an interview published on Friday.
The country’s highest-ranking military officer said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had lost 25% of Russia’s land power for only “tiny” gains and it would emerge a “more diminished power” while strengthening Nato.
“Russia has strategically lost already. Nato is stronger, Finland and Sweden are looking to join,” he said.
Radakin said that while Putin may achieve “tactical successes” in the weeks to come, it had come at the expense of a quarter of his country’s army power for “tiny” gains and was running out of troops and hi-tech missiles.
“The Russian machine is grinding away, and it’s gaining a couple of – two, three, five – kilometres every day,” the admiral said.
“And Russia has vulnerabilities because it’s running out of people, it’s running out of hi-tech missiles.
“President Putin has used about 25% of his army’s power to gain a tiny amount of territory and 50,000 people either dead or injured. Russia is failing.”
Radakin’s claims echo British intelligence reports, the latest of which said some Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) – typically established at about 600 to 800 personnel – have only been able to muster as few as 30 soldiers.
Although Russia is achieving tactical success in the Donbas, these recent successes have come at “significant resource cost” and by concentrating force and fires on a single part of the overall campaign.
“Measured against Russia’s original plan, none of the strategic objectives have been achieved. In order for Russia to achieve any form of success will require continued huge investment of manpower and equipment, and is likely to take considerable further time,” a report read….
Some quotes from a BBC interview with Lavrov at the link. He sounds fairly unhinged.
European Commission backs Ukraine’s EU candidacy status
The European Union’s executive commission has recommended that Ukraine and its neighbour Moldova be designated candidates for membership of the trade bloc.
The announcement by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, came a day after the the EU’s most powerful leaders visited Kyiv in a show of support.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has responded to the European Commission’s recommendation that it be designated a candidate for EU membership.
Zelenskiy tweeted that the move marks “the first step on the EU membership path that’ll certainly bring our Victory closer”.
He said he was grateful to European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, for the “historic decision”, adding that he expects a positive result from the Commission next week.
Leaders of the 27 EU member states are expected to discuss the Commission’s recommendation at a summit next week in Brussels.
A scheduled address by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has been delayed by an hour following a cyberattack, the Kremlin said.
Putin had been due to address the St Petersburg Economic Forum but the event has been hit by a denial of service cyberattack, it said.
Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that specialists were working to fix the problem.
The UK sanctioned the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, for his support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He “blessed” Russia’s conflicts abroad and has labeled Russia’s opponents in Ukraine “evil forces.”
The sanctions did not go over well in Moscow. Watch:…
Putin says Russia will “expand” its engagement “with everyone who is interested” despite the west’s desire for it to “choose the path of self-isolation”.
He says there are so many countries who want to work with Russia that he is not going to name them, but that this amounts to an “overwhelming number of people on Earth”.
Denmark summons Russian ambassador after warship violated Danish territorial waters
A Russian warship violated Danish territorial waters north of the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm where a democracy festival attended by senior lawmakers and business people was taking place, the Danish Armed Forces said.
Denmark called this morning’s actions an unacceptable provocation.
Reuters reports the Russian warship entered Danish waters without authorisation at 0030 GMT on Friday and again a few of hours later. The armed forces said in a statement that the warship left after the Danish navy established radio contact, it said.
“A deeply irresponsible, gross and completely unacceptable Russian provocation in the middle of #fmdk,” Denmark’s foreign minister Jeppe Kofod said on Twitter, referring to the Democracy Festival of Denmark.
The annual festival is attended by senior government officials, including Kofod and prime minister Mette Frederiksen.
“Bullying methods do not work against Denmark,” Kofod said. The Russian ambassador had been summoned, he added.
On June 11, 2022 31 alleged members of Patriot Front were arrested near the Pride celebration in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. Brad speaks with two people who were at the event–Alicia Abbott of The Idaho 97 and Chad Schobert, who was born and raised in the region. They talk about how even before Patriot Front arrived there were armed militia members circling the Pride event, how all of this fits into the radicalization of the region during the Trump years, and the experience of living in a Christian nationalist, anti-government, wannabe theocratic state.
The House committee that was tasked with scrutinizing the events surrounding the attack at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 is holding a series of public hearings.
Testimony from key figures has explored a campaign by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to subvert American democracy and cling to power by reversing an election. The panel has recounted how Mr. Trump’s actions brought the United States to the brink of a constitutional crisis.
Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times….
KGsays
StevoR@168,
I’m opposed to Assange’s extradition as a matter of principle, but my personal sympathy for him is pretty limited. He chose to break his bail conditions by taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy (costing those who put up the bail money considerable sums) rather than surrender to justice in Sweden, where he was wanted on rape and sexual assault charges (he called Sweden “the Saudi Arabia of feminism”), and whence he would almost certainly not have been extradited to the USA. If he had been found guilty, he would be out of jail by now, after serving his time in Sweden’s rather enlightened prison system – which would have been much better for his health than being cooped up in the embassy for years, let alone in the US prison system.
A couple of months after Jan. 6, Donald Trump sat down with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, who asked the former president some questions about the attack on the Capitol. Specifically, the reporter sought the Republican’s reaction to rioters chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” as they breached our seat of government.
Trump suggested to Karl that he didn’t much care. “Well, the people were very angry,” the former president said in March 2021, adding, “[I]t’s common sense.”
It quickly became clear that from Trump’s perspective, Pence was guilty of an unforgivable betrayal. But the scope of that belief came into much sharper focus yesterday during the Jan. 6 committee’s latest hearing. NBC News reported:
From previous leaks and reporting, the public already knew the general timeline of events on Jan. 6. But the committee Thursday offered details and testimony proving that Trump was aware of violence at the Capitol when he tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that day that Pence lacked the “courage” to overturn the election.
The committee showed testimony from some White House witnesses who acknowledged that Trump was told about the escalating violence on Capitol Hill. The hope was that the then-president would issue a public call to calm the waters.
Trump, once informed of the crisis, instead published another tweet accusing Pence of treachery. As one of the committee members, Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar, explained yesterday, it was at that point that “the crowds both outside the Capitol and inside the Capitol surged.”
White House press aide Sarah Matthews testified, “The situation was already bad, and so it felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that.”
Just hours earlier, Trump also delivered remarks to his enraged followers. Yesterday’s hearing introduced a previously undisclosed detail: The prepared remarks did not originally include mentioning the then-vice president, but Trump ad-libbed comments about Pence anyway.
The assembled crowd heard the then-president say that Pence needed to have the “courage” to refuse to certify the election results, adding, “I hope Mike is going to do the right thing…. [B]ecause if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.”
In the weeks leading up to that day, Trump was told that the scheme to overturn the election results was illegal, which was why Pence wasn’t going along. The outgoing president nevertheless demanded that the outgoing vice president cooperate with the illegal plot.
And when Pence didn’t budge, Trump grew comfortable putting his right-hand man in literal, physical danger.
Indeed, another new detail that emerged yesterday was the distance between the rioters and Pence. When the then-vice president was evacuated from his ceremonial office and directed to a secure location, investigators ultimately learned that, at one point, Pence and the mob were only separated by 40 feet.
“I could hear the din of the rioters in the building while we moved,” Pence lawyer Greg Jacob testified yesterday. “But I don’t think I was aware that they were as close as that.”
In the same hearing, Aguilar asked Jacob, “Did Donald Trump ever call the vice president to check on his safety?” The lawyer responded, “He did not.”
Soon after, the Democratic congressman pointed to comments from a Proud Boys informant who told the FBI that Proud Boys members attacking the Capitol “would have killed Mike Pence if given a chance.”
As Trump moves forward with his apparent intention to run another national campaign in 2024, it’s likely he’ll choose a new running mate. The contenders for that job should pause and take note now: If you put the rule of law above Trump’s personal interests, he’s willing to put your life in danger.
We know this for certain because he’s done it before.
…The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. It is Johnson’s second trip to Ukraine since the beginning of the war and follows a visit of leading EU leaders Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi earlier this week. Johnson offered to launch a major training operation for Ukrainian forces, with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days, his office said.
…
Ukraine’s navy has claimed it has struck the Russian rescue tug Spasatel Vasily Bekh, which it says was in the process of the “transportation of ammunition, weapons and personnel of the Black Sea Fleet to Snake Island.” Ukraine’s armed forces strategic communications directorate said the tug boat was hit with two Harpoon missiles. If so, that would mark the first time Ukraine has said it hit a Russian vessel with this type of western-supplied anti-ship rockets.
…
A third American volunteer fighting in Ukraine has been reported as missing amid concerns that all three may have been captured by Russian or pro-Russian forces. The family of the former Marine Corps officer Grady Kurpasi said he had been missing in the Kherson area since late April following the earlier disclosure that two other American military veterans had lost contact with their families….
Mark made this map a few days ago, showing NASA FIRMS fire data from around the Severodonetsk area. Red dots are artillery fires in Russian territory, blue ones in Ukrainian territory. [map at the link]
It’s been like that for days. There’s no doubt that Ukrainians in the direct line of Russian advance are getting pummeled and dying in droves. But Russians aren’t spared, as this phone intercept shows:
(Russian 1): So, what’s going on, tell me. Anything new?
(Russian 2): Our guys are losing their minds at the frontlines, it’s so f*cked up.
(R1): Why?
(R2): They’re being bombed every day, every day! I went there, to the boys at the very front, first of all they all have turned into old men now, secondly they are hiding like rabbits in their holes, you see? As soon as something whistles – bam they are in the holes, rabbits would be jealous of them.
(R1): So they aged, didn’t they?
(R2): For your understanding, they are losing their marbles… Just imagine for a second, 24/7 you are bombed. There are heavy fights where they are […] For the locals – no one is sure: who they are, what they do. They might be fighting us at night but in daytime they are civilian people driving around in cars. No one can be trusted here, no one at all. A grandmother might be walking around carrying pies, but at night she may turn out to be a Colonel, artillery adjuster.
It’s natural for someone under constant bombardment to think the deck is stacked against them. But Russians are just as likely to complain about enemy artillery as Ukraine is. And unlike Russian artillery, which is significantly spent on civilian infrastructure, every single Ukrainian shell is targeting Russian soldiers and equipment.
Regardless, more artillery is en route. Doing a quick scan, I counted 113 more 155 mm guns publicly committed and on the way, along with the 10 MLRS vehicles (and more will come). Everyone understands that regardless of the artillery ratio vis a vis Russia, Ukraine is going to need a lot more to retake its lost territory.
Let’s take a look at the various fronts.
Kharkiv [map at the link]
Speaking of civilian infrastructure, Russia hasn’t taken kindly to being (almost) pushed out of artillery range of Kharkiv, and launched an offensive Wednesday toward newly liberated towns north of the city. As of now, no territory appears to be changing hands, but Ukrainian positions in Rubizne and Ternova are under severe pressure. Ukrainian dreams of cutting off supply lines in Vovchansk and Kupiansk have been shelved for the moment. The Donbas and Kherson fronts are getting the most attention and resources.
The Donbas [map at the link]
Russia has crept forward a few towns southeast of Izyum. Their problem is the same problem we’ve seen before—their supply lines are stretching out, and look at all that yellow Ukrainian-held territory on their flanks. And what happens once their remnants reach the twin Ukrainian strongholds of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk?
Still, after wasting hundreds or thousands of lives trying to take the rubble at Dovhen’ke, pre-war population 800, they finally took it.
Over in Severodonetsk, Russia is apparently occupying the no-man’s land in city center. So … maybe not no-man’s land anymore. Ukraine is holed up in the industrial part of town, along with hundreds of civilians including dozens of kids. […]
Finally, some of the fiercest fighting in the war is around the Popasna pocket where Russia is trying to advance in 14 directions. [map at the link] […]
Kherson [map at the link]
I think it was presidential advisor Oleskyy Arestovych who said Ukraine’s goal in Kherson was merely to threaten Kherson and Crimea’s water supply at Nova Kakhovka to draw Russian reinforcements away from Donbas. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense insists it can’t make a serious bid for Kherson until Western gear arrives and is fielded. September is bandied about as the target date. And yet this supposedly limited counteroffensive continues to creep ever closer to Kherson. Some sources claim Ukraine is 10 kms away.
We’ll know Ukraine is making a serious push if they make a bid for the airport just northwest of Kherson city. Until then, I’d expect Ukraine is more interested in taking Snihurivka to cut the main supply line to Russian troops to the north […]
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday gave the green light to COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 5 and younger, a key step toward making the shots available for the youngest children.
The agency authorized the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech for kids ages 6 months to 4 years old, as well as a vaccine from Moderna for kids up to age 5. […]
kids under 5 are the last group eligible to be vaccinated. There are about 18 million of them eligible.
[…] With the authorization, vaccines can start being shipped to states and other jurisdictions that preordered the initial batch. [All states except Florida preordered the vaccine.]
[…]
[…] Vaccines will be distributed across thousands of different sites, but the administration will focus on front-line providers, including pediatricians and primary care doctors, as that is where they expect many families will want to go. The White House has indicated it recognizes the burden will be on pediatricians to help talk to hesitant families and explain the benefits of getting their kids vaccinated. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky could sign off on a favorable recommendation as early as Saturday. […]
I see Johnson has made another visit to Kyiv – in preference to appearing at a Tory conference in Doncaster, in the “Red Wall” area where pro-Brexit feeling and smears against Corbyn won the Tories seats in the 2019 election. Apparently local Tories are seriously pissed off, realising that Johnson could have gone to Kyiv some other day. He doesn’t want to visit the area because the Tories are set to lose a byelection nearby next Thursday – and because he’s a coward. But I wonder how Zelinsky feels about having to constantly stroke Johnson’s oversize but extremely sensitive… ego.
ravensays
Anastasiia Lapatina
@lapatina_
Russian occupants in #Mariupol prohibit children from speaking Ukrainian in schools, threatening that “there will be consequences” for them and their parents if they hear someone speak Ukrainian. That’s on top of removing all Ukrainian books, and introducing a Russian curriculum
4:42 AM · Jun 16, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
This is what genocide looks like up close.
Already, most of the population of Mariupol have been deported to Russia, fled as refugees to the west, or been killed (estimated 20,000 dead civilians). They are now going to prohibit the Ukrainian language in schools and teach only in Russian using Russian textbooks.
The Russians are imposing their language and culture on Ukrainians by force.
Following Russia’s unsuccessful assault on Kyiv and northern Ukraine, the Russian military has intensified its efforts in Ukraine’s east, particularly in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. But Russia’s military has not been alone as its soldiers have edged slowly forward in recent weeks. Groups of irregular troops and fighters have also been seen in the area, operating alongside the Russian military in the direction of Kharkiv Region.
Fighters from the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) have reportedly participated in the assault on the town of Popasna. The National Bolshevik “Borey” group, meanwhile, has posted about their participation in an offensive in the Donbas. The Cossack group, “Don”, is also reported to have been operating on the Izyum front in the southern Kharkiv Region.
Other social media footage and content from unofficial fighting groups showcased their presence and activities in Russian-occupied Ukraine and on the front lines. These include an operation headed by a Russian politician, who continues to serve in the country’s State Duma (Federal Assembly).
Many from these irregular fighting groups have been operating in the Donbas since 2014, when Russia first sought to capture territory in eastern Ukraine under the guise of patriotic, pro-Russian separatist rebels.
As the invasion grinds on, Russia has undertaken what some call a “shadow mobilisation” to address its manpower woes. Given that context, calling on irregular armed forces might make some tactical sense. But one expert told Bellingcat that manpower was only part of the motivation.
Pavel Luzin, a Russian political analyst, told Bellingcat that the Russian authorities do not only use mercenaries as “gun fodder” but also as a tool for preventing political threats within Russia. “The Kremlin has recruited and used mercenaries since 2014. There is no private initiative in this field, and all the mercenary groups are affiliated with branches of the law enforcement services”, said Luzin, who regularly writes on military issues for the independent website Riddle Russia.
“Mercenaries allow the Russian authorities to limit the losses among the regular forces and troops. Moreover, the authorities are interested in high losses among the mercenaries because the survivors will continue to be a domestic threat to the Kremlin”, Luzin continued.
Just how many of the most recent posts are propaganda and how much is representative of these groups actual exploits is, as always, hard to tell.
But a little investigation of the images and videos posted online by the groups themselves can provide some clues – as well as highlight their often poor operational security and penchant for bragging.
…
Pavel Luzin, the Russian military analyst, told Bellingcat that groups like the SDD [“Union of Donbas Volunteers”] – much like Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechen fighters – may be in Ukraine at least partly for PR reasons.
“All these mercenaries prevent the armed forces from increasing the popularity and political weight of the military within Russia. The war is conducted by unknown soldiers and officers, but the ‘volunteers’ are represented in official media, mercenaries are represented in their social media and Chechens are represented on TikTok”, said Luzin.
“So, the SDD together with other mercenaries are aimed to balance the armed forces and the officer corps from posing a potential political threat for the Kremlin”.
More at the link. At least one group is openly Nazi.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 180: … (FDA) on Friday gave the green light to COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 5 and younger… Vaccines will be distributed across thousands of different sites…
“There’s not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to, you know, get Covid jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns,” DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference in South Florida. (The Food and Drug Administration’s authorization would apply to children older than 6 months, not newborns.) “That’s not something that we think is appropriate, and so that’s not where we’re going to be utilizing our resources in that regard.”
DeSantis said Thursday that the “risks outweigh the benefits” of vaccinating young children. … The Florida Department of Health earlier this year became the first state to break with CDC guidance by advising against the vaccine for healthy children between 5 and 17, saying the risks outweighed its benefits.
ravensays
Fewer Americans believe in God than ever before, Gallup poll finds
by ZACHARY ROGERS | The National DeskFriday, June 17th 2022
WASHINGTON (TND) — According to the results of a Gallup poll released on Friday, the number of Americans who believe in a higher power has hit a historic low.
When asked “Do you believe in God?” by the poll, conducted from May 2 through May 22 of this year, a large majority of Americans, 81%, still say yes.
However, this is a six-point fall from the 87% mark Gallup consistently recorded when asking the same question from 2013 to 2017.
From 1944 to 2011, over 90% of Americans said they believed in God, the poll recalls, with that number reaching its highest peak, 98%, from 1944 until the 1960s.
This year, about 17% of Americans told Gallup they didn’t believe in God while another 2% claimed to be “unsure,” poll results show.
Broken down to demographics, poll results show younger Americans, liberals, and Democrats have lower rates of believing in God while conservatives and Republicans are more likely to say they believe in the Almighty.
The data reflects that “religiosity is a major determinant of political divisions in the U.S.,” Gallup says.
Gallup adds that, while the belief in God has only dropped a little bit over the years, and this year’s data is a sharper decline, the poll has also documented there are sharper, more significant declines in church membership, church attendance, and confidence in organized religion.
This suggests “that the practice of religious faith may be changing more than basic faith in God,” Gallup says.
Gallup also asked Americans a follow-up question in its new poll, asking if they believed God can hear prayers and intervene.
About half of those who say they believe in God, which makes up 40% of all Americans, believe God hears prayers and does intervene, poll results show.
It should be noted that nowhere in the poll is a type of religion mentioned, nor are poll-takers asked what religion they practice.
God, in the case of this poll, could be any higher power, although Christianity and the Abrahamic God are more likely to be the traditional American choice.
In a 2020 poll from the Pew Research Center, 65% of Americans identified as Christian.
After all the bad news lately, here is some good news.
The number of atheists in the USA is growing rapidly. It is now 17%.
This poll isn’t all that informative.
A lot of the god exists people are Deists, Higher Powers, and other nonxians.
Xianity is down to 65% of the population.
KGsays
This suggests “that the practice of religious faith may be changing more than basic faith in God,” Gallup says. – raven@185 quoting Zachary rogers
That’s the way secularization has proceeded in Europe – at different rates in different countries, but AFAIK, always in the same way: religious practice declines first, followed by explicitly Christian belief, then belief in any kind of deity.
KGsays
UK Covid infection rate rising, with more than a million cases in England. Practically all official attempts to reduce infection rates have been abandoned throughout the UK. We’re now “living with Covid” – or of course, in some cases, dying of it. All political parties, including my own, seem to have accepted this. Only a small minority of the population (I’m old enough to be among them, my wife and sister are not) are being offered another booster in autumn – this is purely to keep costs down, it has no medical justification. The evidence is that infection with the Omicron variant provides very little in the way of immunity, and there is some evidence that the latest sub-variants (BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1) are better at infecting lung cells than earlier Omicron subvariants. We have very little idea what recurrent infections with Omicron will mean – will immunity eventually build up, will there be cumulative damage, will better vaccines eventually be possible? It’s heads in the sand time according to the majority!
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 187: It’s heads in the sand time according to the majority!
An opportunity for a transatlantic study in effectiveness of sand as a filtering medium!
KG @181: “[…] I wonder how Zelinsky feels about having to constantly stroke Johnson’s oversize but extremely sensitive… ego.”
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Also, as SC noted: “Johnson offered to launch a major training operation for Ukrainian forces, with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days, his office said.” That sounds like bombastic hyperbole to me.
raven @182, the Russians are going to traumatize all of those Ukrainian children … if they haven’t done so already. Yet another good reason not to negotiate with Putin.
SC @183:
Fighters from the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) have reportedly participated in the assault on the town of Popasna. The National Bolshevik “Borey” group, meanwhile, has posted about their participation in an offensive in the Donbas. The Cossack group, “Don”, is also reported to have been operating on the Izyum front in the southern Kharkiv Region.
A bunch of extreme rightwing dunderheads. As you note, “At least one group is openly Nazi.” Yes, and some of the others are Nazi wannabes.
[…] For the past couple days, users of the Great Awakening message board have speculated that newly minted CNN CEO Chris Licht is a “white hat,” ie: someone who shares their beliefs and is working “from the inside” to make their dreams come true.
The evidence? For one, his last name is Licht.
“Licht means light. Could it be that the dark days of CNN are over? Dark to Light?” wrote one user, sharing a screenshot of the news that Licht is discouraging use of the term “The Big Lie” to refer to Trump’s insistence that he won the election on the grounds that it is “a Democratic Party catch phrase” that makes the network seem less objective.
The most popular response to that post argues that the “Q team” must be invading CNN for the purpose of reprogramming the rest of us:
This isn’t surprising to me. This is part of the Great Awakening in my opinion. I believe a huge Trump ally is a CEO at one of the conglomerates that now owns CNN. They are slowly but surely cleaning house and I’m betting that over the next 5 years CNN becomes a reputable news outlet. Think of how the lefty commies took over America – they started back in the 60’s on their quest to control the media, the education system, and the entertainment industry. They couldn’t implement their radical agenda overnight. It literally took decades but contrast where we are now with the 1950’s – they were VERY successful. Now, I believe the Q team is using their own gameplay against them. They are infiltrating CNN from the top down and slowly molding it into something better. I would bet similar plans are in place for the entertainment industry and educational system – the other 2 pillars that the commies identified as necessary for controlling a population. I think the whitehats are making the most progress in the media at the moment between CNN and Twitter (and Truth). Perhaps that is the spearhead of their attack. Will be interesting to watch it all unfold. Patience will be necessary as tides slowly change. I think the whitehats understand that infiltration is more effective than invasion. The sheep rail against Truth Social or OANN so why not take over their beloved CNN and Twitter and slowly reprogram them through those platforms instead?
Well that just seems true. [/sarcasm]
Another post today, titled in part “There will be no great awakening without MSM flipping,” suggests that between Trump’s demand for “equal time” and Licht’s reported plans to get rid of liberal commentators on the network in order to make things more centrist, that is close to happening.
I’ve long held that normies will never wake up until their chosen trusted news sources begin to reprogram them with the truth. CNN flipping and re-emerging to the right of Fox News would wake up sleeping Americans on both sides of the political Spectrum.
This would really only make any kind of sense if we were all somehow rendered unable to distinguish rightwing QAnon propaganda when we see it. While we cannot say for sure that Chris Licht is not a secret QAnon plant, it seems pretty likely that if CNN started reporting on nefarious Satanic pizza rings, the imminent arrival of a not-dead JFK or JFK Jr., or using gematria to interpret the news, someone might pick up on that.
Slack-jawed conservative pundit Noah Rothman remains unimpressed by that whole January 6 thing. As he put it in a blog post for MSNBC during the latest congressional hearing about the plot on Thursday:
This sequence of events is an indictment of Trump’s judgement, and a likely illegal subversion of the Constitution and U.S. law. But this doesn’t sound at all like a plan. It sounds like a harebrained scheme […]
Yes, harebrained. Like that time the Three Stooges had a brilliant idea to find a pretty girl’s jailed boyfriend by getting arrested themselves and tracking him down in the clink. Only it doesn’t work and they wind up breaking rocks on a chain gang, and at the end Moe and Larry are so mad at Curly that they break rocks over his head. Ha ha!
[…] A lot of failed plans seem “harebrained” in retrospect. French military doctrine leading into 1914. Signing Kyrie Irving. CNN+.
But harebrained and workable are not mutually exclusive. The nuts who stormed the Capitol reportedly came within 40 feet of Mike Pence. What if they had gotten into a running shootout inside the Capitol with his bodyguards? What if Pence had gone along with the scheme in the first place, obviating the need for the armed Oath Keepers to bum-rush his Secret Service detail?
Anyway, it was rude of us not to let Rothman finish his sentence, so here it is:
[…] one that evolved radically in response to the myriad obstacles it encountered along the way. If the committee’s goal is to establish a premeditated plot to overturn the election, this cabal’s improvisatory conduct suggests otherwise.
The dudes in Fargo had a harebrained scheme too, but that didn’t make it all not a crime. Somebody still ended up in the woodchipper.
Above all, what if the plot, goofy as it may sound to the Noah Rothmans of the world, had succeeded? That seems like the important question we should be contemplating here.
Anyway, let’s look at the rest of this garbage and wonder, not for the first time, how Noah Rothman has a punditry career:
Indeed, Trump and his allies acted in an ad hoc manner in pursuit of their objective –keeping Trump in power–which is entirely revolutionary. But that behavior also contradicts the committee’s effort to present to the public a contrived, muti-point plan to achieve that outcome.
On the contrary, this seems to have been a fairly thought-through plan that proceeded along multiple simultaneous routes. You had the paramilitaries (the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys) plotting how to physically disrupt the electoral vote certification by entering the Capitol under cover of a riot that they spent weeks instigating on social media.
At the same time, you had the brain trust — or in this case, “brain trust” — of John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Mark Meadows and a handful of other administration lickspittles working to find a legal justification for getting Vice President Mike Pence to declare himself El Jefe of the Senate and unilaterally decide to reject the electors from several states. The Eastman faction had the intellectual — or in this case, “intellectual” — plans, and the paramilitaries were the muscle to carry it out.
What the plan seems to have lacked is Blofeld explaining it all step-by-step from his volcano lair, and this absence of an obvious evil mastermind has Rothman confused to the point where one assumes he’s also confused by doorknobs.
Trump and his allies explored every avenue and, finding them closed, simply turned down another blind alley. As Eastman’s infamous memo attests, the conspirators invented a radically unconstitutional theory that rival slates of electors could be summoned into existence in “disputed” states, which the vice president would recognize and who would, subsequently, deliver the presidency to Trump.
Here Rothman seems to assume that the scheme was prima facie unconstitutional. Is there a guarantee that the courts would have agreed? There is not. Trump, at least, was sure the Supreme Court had enough conservative justices who would agree with his pitch to keep him in office.
And Eastman thought that the Supreme Court would simply refuse to take the case based on the fact that it was “political” and not criminal or unconstitutional. Not a safe bet. Even Eastman admitted that IF the Supreme Court took the case, Eastman would lose 9-0.
Now, Noah Rothman might think that’s ridiculous. We think it’s ridiculous. But again, that’s the wrong question. The correct question is: Might it have succeeded? Who knows! Lots of people underestimated Trump’s chances of winning the presidency, and look how that turned out.
Like so much else about the Trump era, this whole coup plot is funny. It’s also terrifying how close it might have come to succeeding, had just a handful of people made different choices.
Also Noah Rothman sucks, the end.
Even funny or ridiculous stuff can be scary, horrifying and horrifyingly effective.
Wonkette: “The Top 10 WTF Moments From Day 3 Of The January 6 Hearings”
Usually, congressional hearings are hours-long excuses for legislators to grandstand for their constituents or score cheap points. In contrast, the House January 6 Select Committee hearings have been extremely well-executed, with effective questioners, witnesses, and video displays. And even if you [are well-informed about] this crime spree since the first election challenge was filed (Hey-o!), there were still surprises.
So, here’s our top 10 moments from yesterday’s hearing.
10: Judge Luttig
Judge J. Michael Luttig is a superstar in the conservative firmament whom Republicans wanted on the Supreme Court. So it matters that he told Vice President Mike Pence in December that the plan to unilaterally reject Electoral College votes was total bullshit.
Everyone in the room knew when he said “It was my honor, Mr. Wood, to have you serve as my law clerk” to John Wood, the committee’s senior investigative counsel, that he was implicitly dinging his former law clerk John Eastman, whose coup plot was the topic of this hearing, and also Sen. Ted Cruz, another former law clerk he has criticized for participating in the plot.
Luttig published but did not read his opening statement, which was an amazing piece of rhetoric. So, let’s just pull one excerpt here:
False claims that our elections have been stolen from us corrupt our democracy, as they corrupt us. To continue to insist and persist in the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is itself an affront to our democracy and to the Constitution of the United States — an affront without precedent.
Those who think that because America is a republic, theft and corruption of our national elections and electoral process are not theft and corruption of our democracy are sorely mistaken. America is both a republic and a representative democracy, and therefore a sustained attack on our national elections is a fortiori an attack on our democracy, any political theory otherwise notwithstanding.
Accordingly, if, and when, one of our national elections is actually stolen from us, our democracy will have been stolen from us. To steal an election in the United States of America is to steal her democracy.
Thank you, Judge Luttig.
9: Jason Miller A Liar-Fuckin’-Liar? UNPOSSIBLE!
Yeah, don’t faint, kids. Turns out Jason Miller, who famously impregnated both his wife and a fellow campaign staffer in 2016, when he wasn’t catting around the strip club, wasn’t entirely on the up and up. The video of Miller testifying that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and every other lawyer in Trumpland knew that John Eastman’s plan for Pence to unilaterally reject electors was “nutty,” followed by footage of Miller on Fox urging Pence to “do the right thing” and reject the electors was … something else.
[…] and yet they never get tired of his ass in Trumpland. […]
8: Eric Herschmann Knifes Rudy Giuliani
White House lawyer Eric Herschmann is nobody’s idea of a sweetheart. His sharp elbows were prominently on display in the first impeachment hearing, and he famously instigated a breakup between Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani in order to derail their joint effort to get Trump spun up about fake election claims, daring Powell to “repeat to Rudy what you just told the president in the Oval Office — that he has no idea about the case and that he only just began to understand it a few hours ago.”
But it was pretty wild when he testified that Rudy privately admitted to him on the morning of January 6 that Eastman’s theories about the Electoral College were little more than mental masturbation and would never hold up in court. And of course the committee followed that up with footage of Rudy telling the mob at the Ellipse that Eastman’s legal reasoning was beyond question and that he was only following in Thomas Jefferson’s footsteps. [video at the link]
Don’t worry, guys, Rudy has a perfect response for that, and it is … [video at the link] LOL, did we say perfect? Maybe not exactly.
7: Eastman Also Knew His Legal Theories Were Horse Shit
You knew John Eastman’s legal theories were horse shit. And I knew his legal theories were horse shit. And every lawyer in Trumpland, up to and including Rudy Giuliani, knew his legal theories were horse shit. But would it shock you to find out that Eastman himself knew it, too?
Well, maybe you should sit down for a minute, because here’s Pence’s chief counsel Greg Jacob, one of the five times he testified that, if you pushed Eastman, he’d admit that his theories would never pass muster in any court in the land and would get bounced out of the Supreme Court 9-0. [video at the link]
6: We’re Going To Have To Figure Out Who ‘Kenneth Chesebro’ Is? Ughh, Okay.
[…] On Wednesday, the New York Times reported on an email exchange between Eastman and an attorney named Kenneth Chesebro, who spearheaded the fake electors scheme in Wisconsin. […]
“So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Eastman wrote Chesebro on December 24, adding, “For those willing to do their duty, we should help them by giving them a Wisconsin cert petition to add into the mix.”
How does John Eastman, former Clarence Thomas law clerk and Ginni Thomas’s good buddy, have insight into internal Supreme Court deliberations? GOOD QUESTION.
Chesebro responded that they needed to up the pressure on the court by sending dangerous people out into the streets, writing, “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”
5: Trump Lied
Okay, yes, that is not breaking news on any day that ends in “Y.” But the ticktock of events on January 5 was pretty stark. It started with, according to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s account, a meeting in which Trump pressured Pence to go along with Eastman’s scheme. When Pence told him “It’s simply not possible,” Trump lost his shit and whined, “You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.”
The New York Times reported that Pence had said no, at which point the campaign put out a statement from Trump saying, “The New York Times report regarding comments Vice President Pence supposedly made to me today is fake news. He never said that. The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.”
Jason Miller testified that Trump himself dictated the statement. Then Marc Short testified that he called up Miller and reamed him out for telling lies about Pence. … Aaaaand scene.
4: The Oval Office Call On January 6
We’d all read before about Trump calling up Pence in the morning before they all went out to foment a riot. But the juxtaposition of the photo of his kids, the people who always held the real power in this administration, clustered around him as he called Pence a “wimp” and a “P-word” for refusing to mount a coup was pretty stark. [Photo at the link.]
Plus it got Jake Tapper to say “[P-Word]” live on CNN, which is hawhaw and also, maybe if the press had accurately reported the disgusting, vulgar, moronic things this asshole said every day, we wouldn’t have gotten in this mess in the first place.
3: Thanks to Your Bullshit, We Are Now Under Siege!
The emails between Eastman and Greg Jacob on January 6 weren’t new news — they appeared in the press approximately ten seconds after Jacob testified before the committee.[…]
“Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege,” Jacob wrote to Eastman at 12:14 as the mob overtook the building.
“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman responded at 12:25.
“The advice provided has, whether intended to or not, functioned as a serpent in the ear of the President of the United States, the most powerful office in the world. And here we are,” Jacob shot back at 1:05.
And even hours later, at 9:44 p.m., after everything we’d all witnessed, Eastman was still pressuring Pence to overturn the election results on the theory that the delay caused by the riot had already violated the Electoral Count Act, so why not violate it more with a little coup? MADNESS.
Jacob is very Christian/religous minded … kinda like Mike Pence. He quoted bible verses during his testimony. In fact, many of the conservatives that testified reported praying and referring to bible verses, but I will note that despite prayers being issued from Trump’s allies, and from those trying to stop Trump, God did not appear. Unlike Eastman and Trump, Jacob’s lawyerly mind apparently still functions well.
2: Trump Knew Pence Was In Danger, And He Did Not Give One Shit
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands truth!” Trump tweeted at 2:24 as the mob was flooding into the building.
It would have been shocking enough, juxtaposed with footage of the crowd surging forward and braying for Pence’s head as they learned of the President’s order.
But then we saw two of Mark Meadows’s aides testify that their boss had gone down to the Oval Office to tell Trump that the mob was inside the Capitol and Pence had been evacuated before he sent that message.
Yikes.
Looks to me like Trump may have wanted the mob to kill Mike Pence.
1: The First Rule Of Pardon List Club Is You Don’t Talk About Pardon List Club
Sometimes something is simultaneously so hilarious and so egregious that everyone on Twitter can laugh together as one. Eastman emailing Giuliani a few days after the Capitol Riot, “I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works” is one of those times.
It is so incriminating, so indicative of awareness of guilt, so injudicious … just MY GOD, MAN, YOU WERE A LAW PROFESSOR!
Immediately social media was flooded with pictures of Hannibal Lecter, Dante’s Inferno, Socrates taking hemlock, Sideshow Bob, and various naughty pets captioned with Eastman’s boneheaded phrase.
So, thank you for that, John Eastman. And good luck with your future endeavors. As your erstwhile colleague Eric Herschmann said, “Get a great f’ing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.”
* In Arizona, Donald Trump this week endorsed Abe Hamadeh in the crowded GOP primary to succeed state Attorney General Mark Brnovich. The former president said he’s backing Hamadeh, a Republican election denier, because the candidate “knows what happened in the 2020 election.”
* On a related note, Trump has also endorsed Ohio congressional hopeful J.R. Majewski, a Republican who participated in Trump’s pre-riot Jan. 6 rally and expressed sympathies for QAnon adherents.
Good news:
[…] in Maine, Republicans had high hopes this week about winning a competitive state Senate seat this week, as part of a special election in a swing district. Those hopes were soon dashed: The Democratic candidate won by 19 points.
“The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.”
“An abuser’s access to a firearm increases the risk of femicide by 1,000%.”
That’s from data compiled by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). The NCADV applauded “the bipartisan group of Senators negotiating the gun violence prevention framework for including provisions relating to firearm access by adjudicated abusers.” That was earlier this week, when there was premature news of an agreement on a framework for legislation at least nodding at gun safety.
According to their statistics, “most intimate partner homicides are committed by dating partners.” But they point out current federal law restricting gun ownership by convicted abusers “applies only to current/former spouses, cohabitants, and people who share a child in common: it leaves out people in dating relationships.” Senate Republicans, supposedly negotiating in good faith with Democrats on gun safety, apparently want to keep it that way. As The New York Times puts it, they’re arguing over “What counts as a boyfriend?”
[…] It really should be that simple, because we are talking about someone who has been convicted of violence against an intimate partner. Being convicted of violence should be enough in any context whatsoever to prevent someone from getting their hands on a gun.
With the prevalence of homicide by intimate partners, not to mention stalkers, it really shouldn’t be hard. After all, senators have been talking on this issue for years: The so-called boyfriend loophole kept the Violence Against Women Act from being reauthorized for over three years. It expired in December 2018 and was finally reauthorized this spring, when Democrats just let the gun loophole issue go.
The current stalemate suggests that the issue is far less about the difficulty of crafting the language than the “Cornyn Con” in action. […]
Republicans don’t want this provision—which is opposed by the NRA—to pass this time around, either. So they’re using the tactic McConnell and Texas Sen. John Cornyn have relied upon for years: Take an issue that’s extremely popular with the public—comprehensive immigration reform, for example—and put Cornyn in the lead on negotiating because he has credibility with Democrats and traditional media. God knows why.
Then let him slowly whittle away at whatever “agreement” was ostensibly made at the beginning of the negotiations—blaming Democrats all the while for refusing to compromise—until it’s done. And everyone can throw up their hands and blame “partisan gridlock.”
One Republican familiar with the talks is being far less cagey than Cornyn. […] they told a Politico reporter. “[E]ither the [D]emocrats accept what the Republicans are asking for on boyfriend loophole, or it will be dropped entirely.” Another tried to back away from that, saying that it’s still “under discussion.” The ultimatum part of the Cornyn Con doesn’t come quite yet in the negotiating sequence. [JFC]
It’s worth remembering that 10 Republicans signed onto the agreement that was announced Sunday. They agreed in principle to the inclusion of his provision. Then Cornyn moved the goalposts, saying he wanted at least 20 Republicans on board. He’s moved the goalposts and he’s moved the deadlines—every week since the shooting, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a floor vote by the end of the week.
Now with the Senate gone on a long weekend for the Juneteenth holiday, the Senate would have to work like lightning to get legislative language written and a bill on the floor by next week. Then they would have in essence three days to pass it before heading off for another two-week recess for the Fourth of July holiday. […]
At this point, Democrats should call the negotiations off. Schumer should bring the bill passed by the House to the floor first thing next week. Then he should follow up with votes on an assault-style rifle ban, universal background checks, and high-capacity magazine bans. He should make Republicans vote against every single thing American voters want.
Some people are taking strong exception to Colbert’s remarks about Judge Luttig — but he did play two clips without editing and his comment on his appearance is no harsher than what he had to say about Eastman or Jacob.
I get it — people are upset because he made fun of the way Luttig dragged out his words. The explanation is that Luttig had a stroke.
[…] I took his halting speech as evidence of profound distress at what he felt compelled to say. […]
The third hearing on the attack on the Capitol revealed that the Proud Boys would have killed the Vice-President “if given the chance.”
[…] the wooden gallows Donald Trump’s supporters erected on the Capitol lawn as rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!” The committee documented that those threats were real. According to an F.B.I. affidavit the panel highlighted on Thursday, a government informant said that members of the far-right militant group the Proud Boys told him they would have killed Pence “if given the chance.” The rioters on January 6th almost had that chance, coming within forty feet of the Vice-President as he fled to safety.
The malice of those in the crowd toward Pence, the holier-than-thou evangelical Christian who had spent the previous four years as Donald Trump’s slavishly loyal sidekick, was remarkable. [Trump made Pence the enemy.]
“If Pence caved we’re going to drag motherfuckers through the streets,” one rioter was captured on video saying. “He deserves to burn with the rest of them,” another said. A man with a bullhorn agitated the crowd. “Mike Pence has betrayed the United States of America,” he informed the already agitated mob. “Mike Pence has betrayed this President.” […]
For four years, Trump had tested and tried his sanctimonious No. 2, but Pence never broke. Not in public, not, as far as we can tell, in private, either. He was famous during the Trump years for doing and saying almost nothing that would make news. When he debated Kamala Harris during the 2020 campaign, his most memorable moment was when a fly landed on his impeccably coiffed white hair and he did not react for the full two minutes that it sat on his head.
But on January 6th, Pence finally did break with Trump, refusing to go along with the President’s absurd, illegal, and unconstitutional plot to have his Vice-President single-handedly overturn the will of the American people and block Congress’s confirmation of Joe Biden’s victory. On Thursday, the House committee devoted its hearing to attempting to explain Trump’s scheme to pressure Pence—which unfolded in a series of inflammatory Presidential tweets, angry phone calls, and bizarre White House meetings that were a mix of constitutional-law seminars and live reënactments of “The Godfather.” The committee introduced a new villain to a national television audience: John Eastman, the former law professor who concocted the absurd legal theory that Pence could unilaterally overturn the election […]
If the hearing was designed to eviscerate the professional standing of Eastman, it succeeded blisteringly well. He was shown to be inconsistent, not on the level, and legally and historically shoddy in his work. […]
But, of course, Americans don’t really care about John Eastman. Nor should they. It was President Trump who desperately seized on Eastman’s absurd argument that the Vice-President determines the winner of Presidential elections. It was Trump who brought this buffoon into the White House, Trump who demanded that Pence attend repeated meetings with him, and Trump who charged ahead with the plot.
Trump did not care what Eastman’s legal theories were. He just wanted him to provide one. His goal was to keep power by whatever means necessary. Once again, the January 6th panel presented compelling evidence that Trump personally orchestrated the campaign—inflaming the mob when Pence did not cave in […] In a dramatic phone call from the Oval Office on the morning of January 6th, with his family arrayed around him listening, the President berated and castigated his Vice-President. Trump called him a “wimp,” according to one witness. A former aide to Trump’s own daughter Ivanka recalled Ivanka telling her that Trump had called Pence a “[P-Word].” When Pence rebuffed him anyway, Trump, a few hours later, tweeted his anger at Pence’s lack of “courage”—even as the mob stormed the Capitol. “It felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire,” one of his White House officials, Sarah Matthews, testified regarding the tweet.
[…] Thursday’s hearing took place on the seventh anniversary of the day when Trump kicked off his Presidential campaign with that famous escalator ride down to the lobby of Trump Tower. Soon after the hearing ended, I received a fund-raising e-mail from Trump asking, “Do you remember this day 7 years ago?” and promising that if I sent him money by 11:59 p.m. I would both get my name on “the 2022 Trump Donor Wall” and have my gift “INCREASED by 600%.” (How, exactly, was not clear.) The Trump grift continues.
And that, really, was the bigger point of Thursday’s debates about the language of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and the powers vested in the Vice-Presidency. Trump remains not only an e-mail-fund-raising huckster but also the subject of historical inquiry. He continues to be what the retired federal judge Michael Luttig, a conservative legal icon who advised Pence, called him at Thursday’s hearing: a “clear and present danger” to the nation.
[…]
For the UK government, there is method behind the apparent madness of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. While so many across Ireland and the rest of the EU are outraged by the content, it is important not to lose sight of that apparent plan. Not least because it isn’t actually very good in so far as it relies on other parties thinking the prime minister of the UK is a man of his word, which is the last way he should be described.
Roughly, as can best be divined from the chaos of UK government operations under Boris Johnson, the intention is that by convincingly threatening to break an international treaty, they will force the Democratic Unionist Party to take their place in the Northern Ireland Executive, and the EU to change its mandate, ultimately accepting everything the UK wants. […]
The failure of others to play their role surely comes down to the differing value they would apply to the currency in use: the UK government threat. On the UK side this is seen as of grave importance, almost a command, which the EU and Ireland would be wise to follow, otherwise the consequences will be severe. For so many others this is becoming a running joke: when can we expect Johnson’s annual capitulation in negotiations?
Not that we should really joke about a UK government repeatedly threatening a treaty it signed, blatantly thinking only of one community in Northern Ireland, wanting to give ministers the powers to do anything they like without parliament, and using a legal justification so preposterous it might have come from President Putin. But this is the behaviour of the bluffer with the empty hand at the poker table, raising the stakes to mountainous levels in the hope and expectation others will fold.
[…] Brexit is failing because the Conservative Party’s anti-EU position has hardened to become ideological and visceral, even though any UK government wanting economic growth and international relations must deal with the neighbours. The search for Brexit regulatory divergence proceeds in the mistaken belief that the EU is uniquely overregulated, ignoring the failure in six years to find specific examples of how to reduce regulation, other than the widely derided return to imperial measures, and causing business considerable uncertainty as to potential future costs. It is becoming clearer than free trade agreements with distant countries cannot overcome UK businesses facing higher barriers than counterparts in 30 neighbouring countries.
[… T]he UK government’s plan for the protocol is just the same old madness, the continuation of the Conservative Party’s interminable debate as to what to do about relations with the EU, a flimsy plan to disguise this that is unlikely to survive contact with others, and growing collateral damage to the UK. In other words, the same old pattern seen since the referendum, which shows no sign of quick conclusion.
ravensays
More good news.
The Ukrainians sank a Russian tugboat carrying military supplies, anti-aircraft systems, to Ukraine. To call this a tugboat is an understatement, it is actually a large naval multi-purpose supply boat. It looked new, well made, and expensive.
They took it out with US made Harpoon cruise missiles.
Damaged Russian tugboat “The Vasily Bekh” has sunk Odessa Oblast Military Administration
Maksym Marchenko Ukrayinska Pravda Fri, June 17, 2022,
KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO — FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2022, 20:37
A support vessel of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, “The Vasily Bekh”, a tugboat, has sunk after being struck by the Ukrainian navy.
Quote: “This morning, our naval forces hit the Black Sea Fleet Support Vessel Vasily Bekh, which was installed with a Tor anti-aircraft missile system. Later we came to know that it sank.”
I’m not entirely good with cheering as people die violent deaths from war weapons.
In the morning of June 17, 2022, two enemy cruise missiles hit two districts of Mykolaiv. Apartment blocks, private cars, industrial and production facilities were damaged. Reportedly, one civilian was killed and six injured, including a child.
Except that at the same time, two Russian cruise missiles fired randomly took out a residential district in Mykolaiv, killing civilians.
ravensays
This is potentially huge.
Lithuania just prohibited a lot of Russian freight from transiting Lithuania to Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad was Konigsberg and is the city on the Baltic that isn’t attached to Russia.
.1. I’m not seeing that this is even legal. The Lithuanians are claiming it is against the EU sanctions.
But those sanctions probably don’t cover goods sent from Russia to…Russia.
.2. In any case, the Lithuanians are being both brave and aggressive.
They’ve been oppressed and persecuted by the Russians for centuries.
It is payback time.
KALININGRAD, June 17. /TASS/. The Lithuanian Railways notified Kaliningrad that from midnight the transit of a number of goods going to the region through the territory of Lithuania was stopped. This was announced in his Telegram channel by the Governor of the Kaliningrad region Anton Alikhanov.
“Lithuanian railways have notified Kaliningrad railways that from 00:00 tomorrow they will stop transiting a large list of goods from the Kaliningrad region and to the Kaliningrad region that fall under European sanctions,” Alikhanov wrote.
The governor noted that from 40 to 50% of the range of goods that were transported between the regions of the Russian Federation and the Kaliningrad region fell under the ban. “These are goods, including building materials, cement, metals, and a number of other important both for construction and for the production of finished products, which were exported from our territory,” he explained.
PS My old friend is a typical example of why people in the region hate the Russians.
After WW II, his family was moved from German Konigsberg to Poland along with all the other Germans there. One day Russian soldiers took away his father and they never saw him again. Then they deported the family to Germany.
ravensays
Russia is what you get when internet trolls end up owning and running a country.
The leadership and Russian media don’t see why we are so upset over them slaughtering a million or so people. The death count isn’t that high yet but it is heading in that direction. If the Russians win, it might be a lot higher than that.
This Russian major general turned State Duma Deputy Gurulyov predicts that there will be a huge war with NATO that might end up with nuclear weapons.
Strangely enough, I almost agree.
I don’t see that the EU and NATO will just sit back and watch 44 million Ukrainians get genocided on TV every night. That is the Russian goal and they say so often.
It would be like watching the mid-20th century Holocaust happen on the evening TV news in Real Time.
Russia Preparing for ‘Big, Colossal War’ With NATO, Says Major General
BY BRENDAN COLE ON 6/17/22 AT 7:23 AM EDT Newsweek
Russian state television has again pushed the idea that the war in Ukraine could escalate, with one guest warning that the world should be prepared for a “colossal” conflict involving NATO.
Programs on the channel Russia-1 have repeatedly promoted the prospect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine spreading beyond the country’s borders. On Wednesday, the host of Evening with Vladimir Solovyev revisited the theme, starting his show with a monologue in which he said he had a “feeling that we don’t fully understand the gravity of this moment.”
Solovyev questioned why a war, which while “intensive” is in “no way an extraordinary conflict” in global terms, “was causing “such a crazy reaction in the West?”
Ukrainian servicemen
State Duma Deputy Gurulyov warned on Russian state television that Russia is prepared for a “colossal” war with NATO.
“Now they’re contemplating getting directly involved,” Solovyev said, referring to the West. With western aid to Ukraine a pet peeve for the show’s guests over the last few weeks, Solovyev said that the Baltic states, Poland, and the United Kingdom comprised an “entirely new alliance” that will get involved in the war, “and the rest of NATO will follow.”
One of the show’s panelists spoke about “NATO’s involvement in a nuclear arms race” which could lead to a “potential nuclear conflict.” Andrey Gurulyov, the State Duma deputy and former deputy commander of Russia’s southern military district, then weighed in, criticizing former NATO commander Wesley Clark this week for saying that the war in Ukraine “cannot be stopped without NATO intervention.”
“It’s better not to react or respond to his statements. A dog barks and the wind carries the noise,” Gurulyov said as he boasted that Russia could use up to “100 missiles per day” in Ukraine by the end of the year.
When asked by Solovyov whether Russia was holding back on tapping its military resources because President Vladimir Putin was keeping them free for a potential fight with NATO, Gurulyov said “we’re obligated to consider such a possibility.”
“We have to consider every option up to a big colossal war and be ready for it.” When Solovyov asked if Russia was ready for such a scenario, Gurulyov replied, “We are ready.”
The video was tweeted by journalist and Russia-watcher Julia Davis, who wrote: “current mood in Russia: they are not interested in peace or negotiations…State Duma member, Major General Andrei Gurulyov says that Russia is ready for a big, colossal war.”
Pierce R. Butlersays
Re: my # 184 – maybe I should retract it, maybe not: chaos continues:
… by Friday, the governor had “reversed course and is now ordering vaccines,” according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. … Meanwhile, Florida Press Secretary Christina Pushaw claimed in a tweet that both the White House press secretary and the McClatchy news outlet in Washington, D.C., “are both spreading disinformation. NOTHING has “reversed” or changed. The State of Florida is not placing any orders of covid shots for 0-5 year old babies & kids.” … DeSantis on Thursday said that state government would not participate in vaccinating kids under 5 and claimed parents could get access to vaccines for young children through doctor offices and hospitals. … the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics … wrote:
“The COVID-19 vaccine distribution system is state-based and not designed to allow individual doctors or institutions to order directly from the manufacturer. As a result, if a state fails to pre-order an allotment of vaccines, as is the case in Florida, the vaccines will be available only to federally qualified health centers and certain pharmacies, not to hospitals, private practice pediatricians, or family practice physicians. Further, clinicians cannot administer vaccines formulated for older populations to younger children.”
Just another sunny day down here in DeSantisstan.
KGsays
Even funny or ridiculous stuff can be scary, horrifying and horrifyingly effective. – Lynna, OM@192
QFT! A notable feature of the current fascist revival is the ridiculous nature of many of its main characters (beyond the US you have Bolsonaro, Johnson, Farage, Duterte, Berlosconi…) and plotlines (pizzagate, QAnon, lizard people, George-Soros-as-evil-mastermind, microchips-in-vaccines…). How far this is a deliberate strategy to disarm opposition is an interesting question.
ravensays
Another day, another threat from the internet trolls that run Russia.
This major leader of Russia is going to take Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia away from NATO and force them back in the new USSR.
Needless to say, the Baltics aren’t too happy about this.
After a few centuries of Russian atrocities directed against them, they aren’t going back.
Lithuania just partly closed the transit corridor between Russia and Konigsberg/Kaliningrad.
Russia aims to boot former Soviet nations from NATO by relinquishing sovereign recognition: lawmaker
Caitlin McFall Wed, June 15, 2022 Yahoo News
A Russian lawmaker on Wednesday said Moscow will look to repeal its recognition of the independence of former Soviet nations like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in an attempt to revoke their NATO protections.
State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov told a Latvian news outlet that reversing Russia’s decision to recognize the Baltic States as sovereign would allegedly create legal grounds to force the alliance to divert to 1997 borders.
“The NATO Charter contains clause six, according to which the disputed territories cannot be included in the alliance. As soon as the territories of the Baltic countries are recognized as disputed, this will become the basis for the exclusion of the Baltic countries from NATO,” Fedorov said.
Last week Fedorov introduced legislation targeting Lithuanian sovereignty and claimed it illegally left the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.
Lithuania became the first republic to announce it would restore its independence from the collapsing USSR in March 1990 after being under Soviet control since 1940.
But the Russian lawmaker also said that other former Soviet states could be next.
“The Commander-in-Chief determined that our ‘red lines’ run along the borders of NATO in 1997. This means that we need, at a minimum, to push NATO beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union,” he said in reference to an era before eastern European nations were invited to join the alliance.
TOP RUSSIAN SECURITY OFFICIAL QUESTIONS WHETHER UKRAINE WILL ‘EXIST ON THE MAP’ IN 2 YEARS
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all of which share borders with Russia or Belarus – which has been described as a Russian puppet state – joined the NATO alliance in 2004.
The only nations to join between 1997 and 2004 were Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and Russia has repeatedly called for the disarmament of these nations – a move NATO has flatly rejected.
“If countries do not pose a threat, then we will not change anything with them – there will still be peace and friendship,” the state deputy claimed.
Fedorov threatened that should Russia decide to reverse its recognition of independent Baltic States then NATO should boot them from the alliance or accept that a “Third World War will begin.”
NATO has not publicly commented on Russia’s potential move to repeal its recognition of Baltic States’ sovereignty.
But in an address Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pledged to bolster security efforts within alliance and beyond.
“President Putin’s goals goes beyond Ukraine, and that’s the reason why we need to both provide support to Ukraine as we do, but also strengthen our deterrence and defense not least in the eastern part of the Alliance,” he told reporters.
“Just because a Russian Duma member suggests that Russia does not recognize them as independent nations, all the members of NATO do, so nothing changes,” he added.
Similarly, former intelligence officer for Russian doctrine and strategy with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Rebekah Koffler, told Fox News that this was another example of “Putin using his propaganda machine to scare the people of the Baltic States, to foment discord, and ratchet up the tensions with the West.”
“NATO will absolutely not consider kicking out the Baltics,” she added.
StevoRsays
Sad and worrying news from Kitt Peak Observatory here :
A wildfire in southern Arizona is threatening Kitt Peak and its many astronomical observatories. The Contreras Fire, burning outside Tucson, began with a lightning strike on June 11, 2022, in steep and rugged terrain. Hot, dry winds from the south-southwest pushed the fire toward Kitt Peak, which shut down and evacuated all staff on Wednesday, June 15. As of this morning, June 17, NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management website showed the fire on the flanks of Kitt Peak. The Kitt Peak webcams were working Thursday evening but were out of order by Friday morning.
The death toll from a shooting inside a church near Birmingham, Alabama, rose to three on Friday, authorities announced, hours after they said the suspected gunman was an “occasional attendee of the church.”
Could have been even worse … the shooter had a handgun instead of an AR-15.
he suspect, identified Friday as Robert Findlay Smith, 70, was attending a “Boomers Potluck” gathering at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills on Thursday. At some point Smith allegedly “produced a handgun” and “began shooting,” said Vestavia Hills police Capt. Shane Ware.
“The suspect has previously attended services at this church,” Ware said.
Another attendee at the event subdued Smith and held him down until police arrived, Ware said. “The person who subdued the suspect in my opinion is a hero,” he added. […]
Former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro on Friday was ordered to stand trial in November on criminal contempt of Congress charges for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee after a judge denied his bid to delay the proceedings so he could promote his new book.
A Delaware judge on Thursday denied Newsmax’s motion to dismiss a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems alleging the network’s reporting about the voting software company following the 2020 election was false.
Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) deleted a tweet Thursday that accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of allowing CNN, or as Steube put it, the ‘Communist News Network,’ to build a TV set in Statuary Hall. CNN had actually used a green screen displaying that section of the U.S. Capitol.
[…] casualty numbers have varied all over the place depending on who is talking. Several weeks ago, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said 50-100 Ukrainian dead per week, then a week later someone else said it was 100-200, and then this week it was 200-300. […]
The only number I might believe is Zelenskyy’s 50-100 figure. Maybe.
Meanwhile, on the ground, NASA FIRMS fire imagery shows heavier artillery fires inside Russian-held territory, Russia’s advances grind to a crawl, and Ukraine is gaining territory around Kharkiv and Kherson.
For example, Russia took Popasna over four weeks ago. Time flies, huh? In that time, as they push out in 14 different directions (see my last update), the most Russian forces have managed to extend in any direction is 15 kilometers (10 miles). They’re averaging about half a kilometer a day. 500 meters. Given that Ukraine still holds around 5,000 square miles of territory in the Donbas, someone else can do the math on how long it might take to conquer it all. No one should bother, it ain’t happening.
If Russia really had a 10-1 advantage in artillery (British intelligence said 20-1 yesterday!), things would look seriously different, no matter how many shells the invaders waste on civilian infrastructure. No doubt Ukraine has suffered severe losses. But I read that tweet [tweet available at the link] above and my brain sees it as “Please send more stuff!” For context, the Oryx list of visually confirmed Russian losses is currently 781 Russian tanks, 1,402 armored infantry vehicles, and 204 artillery systems (which are destroyed behind enemy lines, so hard to document until territory is liberated).
Ukraine has clearly decided that pleading poverty is the best way to jump-start flagging European support. And maybe it worked, given the visit this week of the heads of state of France, Germany, and Italy. But Ukraine looks better when playing to its strengths—its resilience, its refusal to bend or give up territory easily, the bravery of its soldiers and strength of its civilians. They are Europe’s (and Central Asia’s) bulwark from Russian aggression. And if we want some realpolitik, they are fighting the war NATO was designed to fight […]
I am deeply triggered by people whining about the pace and quantity of equipment sent. These logistical challenges aren’t insurmountable, but they’re serious and take time to work out. Looks like I’m not the only one.
Take the American Brigade Combat Team (BCT), the basic deployable combat unit for the U.S. (It used to be the much larger divisions until 2013.) Unlike a Russian Battalion Tactical Group (BTG), which is 10 tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), and around 600-800 soldiers, the BCT is much larger. The exact composition of a BCT depends on the specific type of unit (armored, light infantry, mechanized infantry, etc), but an armored BCT is around 4,400 soldiers, 87 tanks, 152 IFVs, 18 artillery guns, and 45 M113s armored troop carriers for various support roles.
Now here’s the thing—the cost to move this BCT is $66,735 per mile. Per mile!
That’s fuel, parts, food, etc. That’s the cost of logistics. People looked at the latest U.S. aid package and its billion dollar price tag, and had all sorts of comments about how little it seemed to deliver. Some Harpoon anti-ship missiles (already in action) and 18 M777 artillery guns. Yet one of the bullet points for that aid package was “and parts.” Ukrainian brigades won’t be as expensive as American ones for one major reason—they don’t need to move jet fuel for their tanks, like American ones need (the biggest reason Ukraine won’t be getting American tanks). But it’s still incredibly expensive and logistically complex to move an army.
In fact, this is the likely reason Ukraine is getting older M113s armored personnel carriers, cost per mile $58, instead of more modern Bradley M2 infantry fighting vehicles, $162 per mile. And don’t think it’s just about tripling the cost of operation, that it’s about money. A big part of that cost is fuel, and every extra gallon of fuel needed to move a vehicle requires that many more tankers ferrying that fuel to the front lines. And if there’s one thing Russia has done correctly this war, it’s target Ukrainian fuel depots.
Just like HIMARS and MLRS are useless if Ukraine and its allies can’t ferry enough rocket pods to the front, armored vehicles are useless if Ukraine can’t get fuel to them. In fact, a big part of Ukraine’s army is former Russian vehicles that simply ran out of gas in the early weeks of the war.
On the diplomatic front, Russia is hosting an international “economic forum” in St. Petersburg to pretend everything is business as usual (literally). Problem is, not many nations showed up, with only the likes of the Taliban and Kazakhstan making appearances. The latter made for a particularly awkward moment, as two dictators, Vladimir Putin and Kazakh strongman Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took shots at each other while sitting on stage together. […]
Putin has made it overtly clear that Ukraine is just the beginning, not the end goal. But don’t worry, no one fears Russia anymore, and Tokayev got his punches in later:
Kazakh president Tokayev just roasted Putin in front of him, LMAO.
He said “If any nation that wanted freedom got it, it would be like 500 countries – total chaos. And we will apply that principle to quasi-states, which, in our view, Luhansk and Donetsk are”.
Kazakhstan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a NATO-style alliance among Russia and several of its former Central Asian Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan (Turkmenistan and Mongolia are “observers”). These countries haven’t just ignored Putin’s demands for military assistance, only Belarus voted with Russia when the United Nations rebuked Russia’s invasion in early March.
[…] it’s not exactly a harmonious “alliance,” and Russia plays favorites, like backing Armenia against Turkey-backed Azerbaijan, both locked in a bloody border dispute. Now, a CIS country is actively arming Ukraine.
#Ukraine: The list of countries whose weapons were spotted in Ukraine continue expanding – an Azerbaijani 🇦🇿 20N5 82mm mortar was spotted in use by the Ukrainian army in #Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Previously Azerbaijan didn’t announce any military aid to Ukraine.
[Photos at the link.]
The list of nation’s still friendly with Russia continues to shrink.
The latest conspiracy theory making the rounds among the right-wing Trumpist crowd is a classic combination of fearmongering and scapegoating: A recent rash of fires at food-processing plants across the U.S., the conspiracists claim, signals a concerted attack on the nation’s food supply, abetted by the Biden administration. Unsurprisingly, the torchlight-and-pitchfork brigade is being led by none other than Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. [Oh FFS]
Carlson has been promoting the theory since late April, but returned to it this week to suggest that the recent deaths of 2,000 cattle in Kansas during a heat wave were part of the pattern. But he’s hardly been alone: The theory is gaining momentum in right-wing social media, thanks to its avid promotion by sites like Gateway Pundit, Infowars, Zero Hedge, and other far-right conspiracy-mongers. [Oh FFS again]
As Mike Rothschild explains at Daily Dot, like many conspiracy theories, this one is a blend of core nuggets of facts woven together with fantastic suppositions. The fires and other incidents (including a couple of plane crashes near food facilities that didn’t affect the plants themselves) are all factually real.
In reality, industrial/agricultural fires are quite common in the United States—about 38,000 of them annually, according to the most recent statistics—and the people who monitor them say there has been no noticeable spike. Moreover, there is zero evidence that any one of the incidents was anything other than an ordinary accident.
However, as Rothschild notes, the recent spate of fires attracted people who believed they saw in them a pattern indicating a conspiracy, and began creating lists that went viral on social media. “Google Trends data shows that search traffic for related terms spiked from virtually nothing on April 19 to growing into a huge trend by April 20,” he reports.
That date appears to have been a kind of watershed for the theory’s spread, and may well explain why it attracted Carlson’s interest. Rothschild found that the earliest food-plant post to go truly viral was tweeted early that day by an account for “Dr. Benjamin Braddock” that observed: “Several very large food processing plants in the US have blown up/burned down in the past few days.”
It then began spreading on Telegram, where a post later on April 20 by a user named “Thuletide” acidly observed: “Nothing to see here, just every food processing plant, pantry, and distribution center in America ‘randomly’ catching fire and exploding within the space of a few weeks.” Thuletide’s bio claims the account covers “anti-White hate” and “race realism”—both common white-nationalist tropes.
The post attracted nearly a quarter of a million views on Telegram, and was shared over the next few days major QAnon influencers such as Patrick Byrne, Jovan Pulitzer, QAnon John, and Jordan Sather. [video at the link]
The theory was launched into the mainstream the next night, April 21, by Carlson on his nightly Fox News show. With Seattle talk-radio host Jason Rantz—who had been promoting the theory on his KTTH-AM show—as his guest, Carlson launched into a narrative focusing on a plane crash near a Georgia food facility (which did not actually affect its production at all).
[…] Rantz then made the case that a conspiracy might be afoot:
Accidents happen. But when you’ve got well over a dozen processing plants and warehouses getting destroyed or seriously damaged in just the last few weeks, when the food supply is already vulnerable, it’s obviously suspicious. It could lead to some serious food shortages. That’s why people are wondering, well, number one, what’s going on? And you’ve got people speculating that this might be an intentional way to disrupt the food supply.
[Dunderheads ranting in order to improve their ratings.]
[…] And then on Thursday, he returned to the subject in the context of the Kansas cattle dieoff […]
He brought on reporter Matt Finn, on the scene in Kansas, who explained that the unanimous view of ranchers and veterinarians was that the 100-plus-degree heat wave in the state was responsible. He interviewed one rancher who explained that the cattle were unable to cool down enough at night—but still ended his report on a conspiratorial note.
“Now, that farmer says there are theories out there about the cattle being poisoned, and he said that every possibility should be investigated,” Finn said.
Added Carlson: “This of course taking place in the wake of a massive poultry killoff that wasn’t reported in many places, but it was huge.”
[…] The 37 million animals who have died this year on poultry farms are the victims of an outbreak of avian flu; it’s the worst outbreak recorded in the U.S., but it is caused by the virus spreading from wild populations to domesticated pens. There was a similar outbreak in 2015.
Carlson’s […] been the most visible source of its spread.
[snipped examples of other dunderheads ranting and spreading conspiracy theories]
Conspiracist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, jumped in on the action too. She appeared on Infowars with Jones claiming that Democrats are intentionally starting the fires so they can deprive the nation of food, which she argued would be advantageous for them: “The Biden administration and the Democrats … are destroying the very important, most critical part of the fabric of America, and that is our farmers,” Greene said. “They’re doing it on purpose. They want to be the global economy. They want to be completely involved. And here we have these ‘random,’ supposedly accidental fires at food processing plants.”
Possibly the most prolific has been Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit, who has been running food-supply fearmongering stories almost daily for the past month. He also cobbled together a list of all the “suspicious” recent incidents—some 97 of them so far—describing them as “Food Manufacturing Plants Destroyed Under Biden Administration.”
The theory, of course, has been thoroughly debunked and discredited. Snopes examined the theory and found it utterly groundless:
Almost all of the fires on meme lists involved explainable causes, and we found no examples of suspected arson. One of the included examples involved an abandoned building, while another involved a butcher shop (not a large food processing facility). Most importantly, this “trend” is not new. When we searched for news stories about fires at food processing plants in 2021, 2020, and 2019, we found that such fires are relatively commonplace, and that there has not been any conspiracy-worthy upticks.
[…] FactCheck.org came up with identical results […]
[…] food-supply experts see no reason to be concerned about the food-supply chain in the United States, where there is consensus view that there are no looming food shortages here for the foreseeable future—though the war in Ukraine will obviously affect that issue elsewhere in the world.
As for the Biden administration’s supposed inaction, it seems to have escaped the notice of Carlson and his anti-Biden cohorts that, in fact, the administration announced a framework for shoring up the nation’s food-supply chain at the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month.
What’s driving the conspiracy theory, it seems—beyond right-wingers’ eagerness to find any kind of stick with which to beat the Biden administration—is the tendency among conspiracists to see patterns where they do not exist, particularly among random and otherwise perfectly explicable events and phenomena. […]
“It’s true that many of these conspiracy theorists are actually quite analytical,” she [Dr. Jan-Willem van Prooijen, an associate professor in social psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and author of Psychology of Conspiracy Theories] added. “But I do think that they actually start with an emotion, with a sense that something must be wrong. They then start rationalizing it and looking for evidence to support that emotion.”
Mike Pence survived the Jan. 6 insurrection, but Donald Trump isn’t done with him yet. At an evangelical political conference in Nashville on Friday, Trump used a keynote speech to once again disparage Pence’s lack of “courage” to overturn the 2020 election. [An “evangelical political conference”??]
“Mike Pence had a chance to be great,” Trump told attendees of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference. “He had a chance to be, frankly, historic, but just like Bill Barr and the rest of these weak people, Mike did not have the courage to act,” Trump said, also taking a swipe at his one-time attorney general whose candid deposition has made him a star witness in the Jan. 6 hearings.
Trump also predictably blasted the Jan. 6 investigation as a “one-sided witch hunt” and said the House select committee investigating the attack was spinning a “ludicrous narrative” about his involvement.
“There’s no cleaner example of the menacing spirit that has devoured the American left than the disgraceful performance being staged by the ‘unselect’ committee,” Trump charged. “They’re con people. They’re con artists. Every one of them is a radical left hater, hates all of you, hates me even more than you, but I’m just trying to help you out.”
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of witnesses have been stalwart Republicans, particularly loyalists from Trump’s inner circle who held top positions in both his administration and his 2020 reelection campaign.
But amid his rambling hour-long diatribe Friday, Trump devoted a good amount of energy to trashing his former vice president, calling him a “robot” and a “human conveyor belt” for accepting the legal advice that he did not possess the sole authority to overturn the election.
One of the biggest bombshells from the Jan. 6 hearings has been Donald Trump’s contemptuous disregard for the physical safety of his own vice president.
[snipped examples of Trump’s disregard for Pence’s safety]
In fact, the Jan. 6 committee revealed this week that none of the early drafts of Trump’s speech even mentioned Pence. Trump had simply taken it upon himself to extemporaneously pit the crowd against Pence.
After the crowd had breached the Capitol and Pence failed to take action, Trump sent another tweet
Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. […]
Within minutes, the pro-Trump terrorists were inflamed as they repeated Trump’s tweet over bullhorns and concluded Pence’s betrayal was now punishable by death.
So when they finally broke out in death chants and Trump suggested they “had the right idea,” he was simply congratulating himself on a job well done.
Based on his remarks to the evangelicals Friday, it appears Trump’s only regret is that his supporters didn’t finish the job.
Jon McNaughton, the Sage of Salt Lake City and creator of the Greatest Patriotic Painting of All Time, “Jesus Hands George Washington the Constitution While Lincoln, Adams, Madison, and Everyone from the Sgt. Pepper’s Album Cover Sing Barbershop,” has shared a new work of art with America […]
The new work is titled “Politically Incorrect,” and like every other McNaughton painting, we suspect it’s meant to be a savagely bold affront to liberal sensitivities. We’d say we were “triggered” by this thing, but we’re fairly sure that isn’t supposed to involve quite this much giggling.
The racially ambiguous fellow with the AR-15 there — McNaughton says he’s “neither black not white,” […] is adorned with all sorts of messages we suppose are intended to make libs wail and gnash their teeth. Let us catalogue these many artifacts of the Kitscher wars.
– Big scary gun that scares liberals, who are all afraid of freedom and guns, which are the same thing.
– MAGA hat, because you libs all just LOSE IT when you see those.
– American Flag print bandana — not an actual flag because that would be blasphemous.
– Confederate flag belt buckle, because liberals hate the real history of America and want to erase it.
– Patch with a cross that says “faith,” because liberals hate God Almighty and the nation He founded.
– Patch with the Gadsden Flag, because Patriots will not be trod upon.
– Patch reading “2A” [for Second Amendment] because McNaughton wasn’t sure he could paint the NRA logo that small and have it still be recognized, and what if they sued him? […]
– Patch that appears to be the Union Pacific logo, because liberals … hate trains?
– “All Lives Matter” T-shit […]
– Holy Bible, because obviously that makes libs cry. […]
– Tiny American Flag lapel pin […]
– Republican party elephant logo patch, which I can’t imagine any actual rightwing gunmilitia loony wearing, but McNaughton can.
– “Secure the Border” patch, based on a real design you can google it yourself
– “Straight Pride” patch, which is not based on a real design as far as we can tell. McNaughton also includes what’s purported to be a “straight pride” flag on our dude’s jacket, a bit of iconography I’d never seen until just now. McNaughton apparently doubted his customers would recognize it, so he added that other patch with the words spelled out. [images at the link]
But wait! At McNaughton’s website, you can also read a poem that McNaughton wrote about this transgressive character […] Jon McNaughton is a multi-talented artist whose way with words makes his paintings look pretty darn competent. […]
No, I am not going to reproduce that so-called poem. Sheesh. You can read it at the link. Excerpt:
He wore a red MAGA hat,
And a Martin Luther King mustache.
From the “conservatives threatening librarians with death” category:
Melissa “Missy” Bosch is a mom for liberty. In fact, she is such a mom for liberty that she is the head of communications for a group calling themselves Moms for Liberty. As such, she would like to ban a whole lot of books from the library. Specifically books about Martin Luther King Jr., Native Americans, and LGBTQ people. What says liberty more than a good old fashioned book burning?
But books are not the only thing Bosch wants to destroy! In leaked audio of a recent Moms For Liberty meeting in Lonoke County, Arkansas, Bosch is heard complaining about a school librarian she felt did not offer her enough deference when she came in to complain about books. “I’m telling you, if I was — any mental issues, they would all be plowed down with a freaking gun by now,” Bosch said, before describing herself as a patient person.
Bosch was particularly outraged that this librarian was paid $85,000 a year and was not interested in answering her questions on “the policy” for allowing books into the library.
After this, she and her cohorts had a good laugh about the hypothetical unfairness of the fact that if she, a conservative Republican, were to have “one moment of weakness where you flip” and say “the F word” or perhaps innocently gun down a school librarian, no one would ever let them live it down.
[…] Media Matters has the full audio of the conversation including the relevant conversation afterwards, making it incredibly clear that the threat was made in the exact context in which it was presented. [Bosch complained that her threat was taken out of context and was, therefore, not a threat.]
Bosch went on to complain, with what we can assume was a straight face, about the “Karens” who are “backwards and sideways in their thinking” and judged her simply for talking down to and threatening a worker, and because they hate charter schools, then accusing everyone of bullying her and eventually capping it off with “Turning my cheek is getting harder and harder.”
The school district has not yet responded directly but instead has referred reporters to a statement on their website published days after the incident, reading “The Cabot School District considers the safety of students and staff its highest priority. Alleged threats shall be submitted to law enforcement for investigation. Likewise, the District will take appropriate action to ensure the safety of our students and staff.”
“We do have an active investigation,” Cabot Police Sgt. Kevin Marty told the Arkansas Times. “We will release more information when it becomes available.”
The Punchiest Punchlines (Covid Finally Caught Up to Fauci Edition)
“Dr. Anthony Fauci tested positive yesterday for a breakthrough case of the coronavirus. Wow, Fauci is like Covid’s final boss. This is — this is like hearing that the coyote caught the roadrunner.” — SETH MEYERS
“Also, you caught it now? You made it through all that time in the maskless Trump White House and you caught it now? That’s like running a triathlon with no problems and then throwing your back out petting a dog.” — SETH MEYERS
“That’s right, Dr. Fauci has Covid, which feels a little like finding out Smokey Bear got trapped in a forest fire.” — TREVOR NOAH
“I will say though, what a big moment for Covid as well, huh? To finally infect Dr. Anthony Fauci? I bet Covid was really star-struck when it got in his body.” — TREVOR NOAH
“And you know the saddest part, Dr. Fauci, and yes I’m talking to you, Dr. Fauci, I know you watch the show, is the fact that you didn’t come to the White House Correspondents Dinner, yeah. The president was there, Kim Kardashian was there, but you didn’t come because you said you didn’t want to catch Covid and then you caught Covid anyway. Yeah, probably from some boring government meeting.” — TREVOR NOAH
StevoRsays
On the off chance that anyone else in SA (or if they screen nationally Oz wide?) sees this here in time and is interested :
TV DOCOS ALERT : On tonight from 8.30 pm, SBS C3 ‘Mesoptamia 3D’ & ‘Alhambra – Secrets of the Ancient Builders’ at 9.40 pm SA time or approx just under 2 hours from now. Details :
.***
Mesopotamia 3d
Sunday, 19 Jun
8:30 PM – 9:40 PM [70 mins]pg
During the war, Jawad Bashara, Iraqi writer exiled in France under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, decides to return to his country to rescue the treasures of Mesopotamia targeted and destroyed by Isis. Along with a team of archaeologists from all over the world, he embarks on a hazardous quest for our origins. Sumer, Babylon, the epic of Gilgamesh and the legendary Tower of Babel. today, all these names still resonate. They embody Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers – Tigris and Euphrates. It is in this land that our civilisation was born and where humanity organised itself into a society of tens of thousands of people, invented writing and developed agriculture and architecture. What does this history really tell us? Why has a terrorist group with worldwide influence decided, among other crimes, to erase its traces forever? This is what Mesopotamia 3D. The Future of our Origins reveals.
&&&
Alhambra Secrets Of The Ancient Builders
Sunday, 19 Jun
9:40 PM – 10:40 PM [60 mins]pg
In Southern Spain, in the heart of Andalusia, lies an extraordinary treasure – The Fortress of Alhambra. Built more than 800 years ago by the Nasrids – an Arab dynasty that ruled over the region – it was erected as a military stronghold, surrounded by 2,000 meters of ramparts, and protected by 29 towers. But behind its austere facade, Alhambra conceals sumptuous palaces, patios embellished with fountains and basins, and above all, extremely refined decorations that cover almost every part of the buildings. In this arid region, you will discover the engineering treasures that the builders had to develop to face the heat of suffocating summers, as well as the impressive hydraulic network with many unique devices to provide the city with water.
.***
Details cut’n’pasted from ABC online TV guide.
SBS on Demand has this page for the Alhambra one if that’s of use :
Montana’s governor, Greg Gianforte, was vacationing in Italy during that state’s historic flooding, which caused Yellowstone national park to close, his office confirmed on Friday.
As the state suffered record flooding and rockslides, Gianforte’s office had initially declined to say where he was or when he might return, citing “security concerns”, even as a statewide disaster was declared.
…
Floodwater – a mix of heavy rain and snow melt in the south-western corner of the state – wiped out numerous bridges and washed out miles of roads and closed the park earlier this week.
The damage is still being assessed, but repairs to damaged infrastructure in the 2.2m-acre park could run as a high as $1bn and could take years to perform given the short season between snowfall that allows for construction.
“This is not going to be an easy rebuild,” Cam Sholly, park superintendent, said this week. “I don’t think it’s going to be smart to invest potentially, you know, tens of millions of dollars, or however much it is, into repairing a road that may be subject to seeing a similar flooding event in the future,” he added.
The US Geological Survey said that flooding along the Yellowstone River was a one-in-500-year event, with the river reaching record stage between Sunday and Monday.
By the time Gianforte made the disaster declaration he was already vacationing, leaving Montanans to wonder why the lieutenant governor, Juras, had signed off on a formal request for federal disaster relief “on behalf of” Gianforte.
The Montana Free Press ran a headline that read, “Where is Greg Gianforte?”, while the state’s [D]emocrats knocked him for being on “a mysterious international vacation during an emergency flooding.” Gianforte’s office said only that he was out of the country and would be “returning early and as quickly as possible’”.
Newsy reported it had obtained a photograph of the governor dining in a restaurant in Tuscany on Wednesday.
Eric Austin, a professor who teaches government leadership and ethics at Montana State University told the Free Press: “His office has just been pretty recalcitrant about where he is and what’s going on.”
Gianforte, however, portrayed himself on social media as engaged with the flood response without spelling out where he was. He did not surface, at least not in Montana, until Friday, when he joined Senator Steve Daines at a spot in Gardiner overlooking the Yellowstone River….
When a combine harvester burns down in Henderson, Nebraska, who’s to blame? The machine’s hot, residue-covered engine compartment parked next to a dry cornfield, or Antifa? The Henderson community thinks it’s the latter, the New York Times reported on Sunday….
The Belgian government will return a tooth of Patrice Lumumba to his family this week, hoping to draw a line under one of the most brutal and shameful episodes in the country’s bloody exploitation of central Africa.
The relic is all that remains of Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under its earlier name Republic of Congo, and an icon of the struggle against colonialism in Africa, who was murdered by separatists and Belgian mercenaries in 1961. His killers dissolved his remains in acid, though some kept teeth as macabre mementoes.
Lumumba’s son Roland said the return of the tooth meant his family could finally “finish their mourning”.
“I can’t say it’s a feeling of joy, but it’s positive for us that we can bury our loved one,” he said. “His soul will be able to rest in peace. It’s important for us.”
…
After a military coup, Lumumba was overthrown, jailed, tortured and shot dead by a hastily assembled firing squad. Forty years later, Belgium acknowledged that it bore “moral responsibility” for his death. The CIA had also laid plans to kill the 35-year-old politician.
But it took decades for the truth about the circumstances of Lumumba’s murder to emerge.
In 2000 the Belgian police commissioner Gerard Soete confessed that he had dismembered Lumumba’s body and dissolved the remains in acid. In a documentary screened on German TV, Soete showed two teeth which he said had belonged to Lumumba.
In 2016, a Belgian academic, Ludo De Witte, filed a further complaint against Soete’s daughter after she showed a gold tooth, which she said had belonged to Lumumba, during an interview with a newspaper. The tooth was then seized by Belgian authorities. [That is some sick shit.]
Senior officials will formally hand it over to the family in a specially made casket at a ceremony attended by the prime ministers of Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lumumba’s relatives will also be received by King Philippe of Belgium.
Belgium has recently begun to address the legacy of its exploitation of Congo’s rubber, ivory and timber. As many as 10 million people died from starvation and disease during the first 23 years of Belgium’s rule from 1885, when King Leopold II ruled the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom. Others were murdered, or deliberately maimed to encourage others to work harder to fulfil impossible quota of lucrative resources.
Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo described “a turning point” in diplomatic relations between Belgium and its former colony.
The present Belgian king travelled to the DRC for the first time this month, where he expressed “deepest regrets for the wounds of the past”, describing a “regime …. of unequal relations, unjustifiable in itself, marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism”, that “led to violent acts and humiliations”. But King Philippe did not apologise, prompting anger.
…
In a collective editorial published by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, activists and organisations campaigning for Lumumba’s memory to be honoured more widely, also described a “historic turning point”.
“Lumumba will bring back with him his noble political struggle: the defence of national interests, fair distribution of wealth, peace for all, the memory of the past, and the light of the flaming torch of Africa shining across the world,” it read.
An investigation for “war crimes” related to Lumumba’s murder is ongoing, but only two of the accused officials are still alive.
“We hope that there will be a result before they die,” said Roland Lumumba.
Two years ago, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, said the return of the tooth was a symbolic gesture, since there was no “absolute certainty” that the tooth was Lumumba’s. “No DNA test has been carried out; it would have destroyed it,” he said.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The US has transferred 1,400 anti-aircraft Stinger systems and 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems to Ukraine, the leader of the Ukrainian political party Golos [Kira Rudik] has said.
It comes after the US department of defence announced a further $1bn in weapons aid for Ukraine earlier this week….
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said “Ukraine will definitely win” during a working trip to the southern city of Mykolaiv, as relentless fighting in the country’s east continued.
The president handed out medals and posed for selfies with the servicemen in what appeared to be an underground shelter, according to a video posted to his official Telegram account.
“Our brave men. Each one of them is working flat out,” he said. “We will definitely hold out! We will definitely win.”
Russian forces reached the outskirts of Mykolaiv in early March but were then pushed back to the eastern and southern edges of the region, where fierce fighting continues.
“The president inspected the building of the Mykolaiv regional state administration which was destroyed as a result of a missile strike by Russian forces,” Zelenskiy’s office said.
A Russian missile blasted a hole through the building in late March, killing 37 people.
Ukraine has made slow gains in its aim to liberate Kherson, one of Ukraine’s most strategically important Black Sea cities, which is located less than 70 miles from Mykolaiv.
On Saturday morning, Ukrainian media reported that a car blast in Kherson injured the prisons head, in what appears to have been an attack conducted by Ukrainian partisans operating in occupied Russian territory.
There has been an increase in Ukrainian partisan warfare, particularly in the country’s south around Kherson.
During his nightly national address on Friday, Zelenskiy announced that the celebrated medic nicknamed “Taira”, Yuliia Paievska, whose footage was smuggled out of the besieged city of Mariupol by an Associated Press team, was released by Russian forces three months after she was taken captive there….
The UK military must be prepared to “fight in Europe once again”, the new head of the British army has said.
Prime minister Boris Johnson has ruled out sending British troops in aid of Ukraine, but warned this weekend that the country would have to show support for “the long haul”.
Patrick Sanders, who took command of the British army this month, is quoted in the i newspaper to have told troops:
We are the generation that must prepare the army to fight in Europe once again. There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle.
I am the first Chief of the General Staff since 1941 to take command of the Army in the shadow of a land war in Europe involving a continental power.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core purpose – to protect the UK by being ready to fight and win wars on land.
The Russian military has said more than 307,000 children have been deported from Ukraine to Russia since the start of the war.
Source: Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defence Management Centre of the Russian Federation, quoted by Interfax
Details: According to Mizintsev, a total of 1,936,911 Ukrainians have been deported to Russia since the beginning of the war; 307,423 of whom are children.
The Russians claim to have received more than 2.7 million applications from those wishing to move to Russia from more than 2,000 settlements in Ukraine.
So far this morning, the Russians haven’t threatened to nuke me and my cat. OTOH, it is early, only 7:00 AM and I’m not really paying attention any more.
So we have the latest Russian atrocity instead.
The Russians now claim to have deported 1.9 million Ukrainians to Russia, including 300,000 children. This has been their tactic since the time of the Tsars. Conquer a people, deport the population, and then move in Russians. It’s ethnic cleansing, in this case with the ultimate goal of genocide.
“The Russians claim to have received more than 2.7 million applications from those wishing to move to Russia from more than 2,000 settlements in Ukraine.” I don’t know what to make of this Russian claim though. I’m having a hard time imagining anyone in Ukraine wanting to move to Russia any more.
The regions they have occupied are rapidly becoming uninhabitable. Their strategy is to just level the cities with artillery and then occupy them. There is nothing left but rubble. No food, water, electricity, or stores.
This could be a case where the refugees have to end up somewhere or die of starvation and cold. This is in fact likely. All these wannabe Russian citizens could have just moved to Russia any time they want in the last few decades. There is a right of return for ethnic Russians and the Russians have a falling population and are desperate for people.
Or, it could be something the Russians made up.
When a combine harvester burns down in Henderson, Nebraska, who’s to blame? The machine’s hot, residue-covered engine compartment parked next to a dry cornfield, or Antifa?
LOL
SC @222:
During his nightly national address on Friday, Zelenskiy announced that the celebrated medic nicknamed “Taira”, Yuliia Paievska, whose footage was smuggled out of the besieged city of Mariupol by an Associated Press team, was released by Russian forces three months after she was taken captive there.
Oh, good! That is good news. She is alive and she has been released.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) became law in 1977. It was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic president, Jimmy Carter. America needed that law to address the long-standing harm caused by a racist policy known as redlining, as well as broader discrimination in the housing market that hit Black households especially hard, preventing them from gaining generational wealth and exacerbating racial wealth gaps in America.
In the 45 years since the CRA’s passage, much has changed in the financial industry, and so the law needed to be updated in order to fulfill the purpose its progressive authors and supporters intended. Unfortunately, the twice-impeached former guy who became president after 2016 did not, shall we say, care much for that progressive purpose. He and his lackeys sought not to update the law, but instead to undermine it. The Biden-Harris administration has already succeeded in undoing Donald Trump’s changes. Now, the executive branch has begun the process of fundamentally reforming the law so that it works properly going forward.
[…] There’s no better primer on that history than Ta-Nehisi Coates’ masterful presentation on the topic, which he included in a larger essay laying out the case for reparations.
Whites employed every measure, from “restrictive covenants” to bombings, to keep their neighborhoods segregated. Their efforts were buttressed by the federal government. In 1934, Congress created the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA insured private mortgages, causing a drop in interest rates and a decline in the size of the down payment required to buy a house. But an insured mortgage was not a possibility for [Black Americans]. The FHA had adopted a system of maps that rated neighborhoods according to their perceived stability.
On the maps, green areas, rated “A,” indicated “in demand” neighborhoods that, as one appraiser put it, lacked “a single foreigner or Negro.” These neighborhoods were considered excellent prospects for insurance. Neighborhoods where black people lived were rated “D” and were usually considered ineligible for FHA backing. They were colored in red. Neither the percentage of black people living there nor their social class mattered. Black people were viewed as a contagion. Redlining went beyond FHA-backed loans and spread to the entire mortgage industry, which was already rife with racism, excluding black people from most legitimate means of obtaining a mortgage.
Coates also quoted an expert with firsthand knowledge:
“A government offering such bounty to builders and lenders could have required compliance with a nondiscrimination policy,” Charles Abrams, the urban-studies expert who helped create the New York City Housing Authority, wrote in 1955. “Instead, the FHA adopted a racial policy that could well have been culled from the Nuremberg laws.” [Tweet and maps showing redlining in Baltimore]
Unsurprisingly, the neighborhoods where residents could obtain FHA-insured mortgages saw real estate values climb steadily over time, thus increasing the overall wealth of those who owned homes there. Other neighborhoods—which grew overwhelmingly Black—struggled, and their residents fell further behind economically. Many African Americans were, as Coates documented, unable to buy and keep a home as a direct result of redlining and other forms of housing discrimination.
[…] The homeownership gap right now is jaw-dropping. While 76% of white households own a home, only 46% of Black households do—roughly the same percentage as when the Fair Housing Act became law in 1968. In largely Black neighborhoods, the average home is worth $48,000 less than in mostly white neighborhoods. Adding that disparity up nationwide produces a figure of $156 billion (that’s with a “b”), a good chunk of the existing wealth gap between Black and white Americans.
[…] a full 74% of the residential areas the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC)—the federal agency that birthed redlining—deemed “hazardous” back in the 1930s are still “low-to-moderate” income now. Furthermore, just about 64% of those are predominantly “minority neighborhoods.” […] systemic racism.
Even the discovery in 1976 of the HOLC maps that brought redlining into sharp relief was itself an accident. Historian Kenneth T. Jackson found them when he was looking for something else. Who knows if the CRA, which passed a year later, would have even become law if not for this accidental discovery, which one scholar called “the smoking gun” providing evidence that our government directly discriminated on the basis of race.
The CRA, along with a number of related laws passed in the decade that led up to it, represented the federal government’s multi-pronged effort to bring equality to the mortgage lending industry. [Chart and definitions]
[…] thanks to new technology, i.e., “fintech,” that allows the financial industry to operate more and more virtually, geography is no longer an effective way to measure compliance. There is a real need to update the CRA for today’s world.
[…] In December 2019, Trump-appointed bureaucrats proposed reforms that would have basically gutted the law by significantly reducing the authority regulators possessed to enforce its provisions. […]
The long story short is that […] banks would gain “new flexibility” from Trump’s proposed changes in how they could show they were complying with the law’s requirements. If implemented, the rules would have been “potentially another big win for the banking industry.” Rep. Maxine Waters made clear where she stood just after the proposal was released: [tweet and video]
At the time, only one member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) […] stood against it. Martin J. Gruenberg argued that the new rules were “deeply misconceived” and would “fundamentally undermine and weaken the Community Reinvestment Act.” He’s the guy President Biden ended up appointing to run the FDIC after taking office, and who is leading the effort now to make real and positive reforms to the CRA.
[…] The Biden-Harris administration has been undoing the damage done by the former guy’s people. First, they reversed the previously issued rule, and now we have the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller, and the FDIC working together on a proper modernization and updating of the CRA. […] The proposal contains the following elements:
Expand access to credit, investment, and basic banking services in low- and moderate-income communities.
Adapt to changes in the banking industry, including internet and mobile banking.
Provide greater clarity, consistency, and transparency.
Tailor CRA evaluations and data collection to bank size and type.
[…] It is vitally important that the administration worked with the “critical stakeholders” Cleaver [Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri] cited. It must continue to do so going forward. The Trumpers, on the other hand, completely ignored community groups and civil rights organizations. […]
Updating the CRA to finally put an end to redlining is an issue of profound importance to Black and Latino households in particular, and to marginalized communities more broadly, including those in rural areas. The actions Democrats are taking—and the commitment to fighting racism, helping close racial wealth gaps, and holding corporations accountable that underlies them—stand in direct contrast to those of Trump.
[…] here’s another example of how the Democratic Party, despite its faults, remains far superior to the alternative.
The month of June is packed with plenty of events to celebrate. It’s Black Music Appreciation Month, and also the month that now has a federal holiday, Juneteenth. Plus, of course, there’s Father’s Day, and for those who follow seasonal celebrations, this coming Tuesday is summer solstice.
A Juneteenth-Father’s Day combo guarantees that there will be gatherings in the Black community across the nation laced with the scent of spare ribs broiling on the grill. I don’t know how many of you are BBQing or doing something special today, but if you are, here’s a musical melange to add to your soundtrack for the day’s activities. If not, just sit back and enjoy! […]
Videos, lyrics, and other information available at the link. “It’s electric!” There’s even a Juneteenth poem and a Juneteenth song.
[…] What you could not know, and did not know, but I will tell you now, is that I believed I had an obligation to the Select Committee and to the country, first to formulate . . . then to measure . . . and then . . . to meter out . . .
every . . . single . . . word . . . that I spoke . . . , carefully . . . exactingly . . . and . . . deliberately, so that the words I spoke were pristine clear and would be heard, and therefore understood, as such.
I believed Thursday that I had that high responsibility and obligation — to myself, even if to no other. Also please bear in mind that Thursday was the first time in 68 years, to my knowledge, I had ever been on national television, let alone national television like that.
And though not scared, I was concerned that I do my very best and not embarrass myself, as I think anyone who found themselves in that frightening circumstance would be.
I decided to respond to your at once astute and understanding tweet finally this afternoon, because I have been watching the tweets all day suggesting that I am recovering from a severe stroke, and my friends, out of their concern for me and my family, have been earnestly forwarding me these tweets, asking me if I am alright. Such is social media, I understand. But I profoundly believe in social media’s foundational, in fact revolutionary, value and contribution to Free Speech in our country, and for that reason I willingly accept the occasional bad that comes from social media, in return for the much more frequent good that comes from it — at least from the vastly more responsible, respectful speech on those media.
That is why, 16 years after my retirement from the Bench, even then as a very skeptical, curmudgeonly old federal judge, I created a Facebook account and then a Twitter account — slowly . . . very slowly . . . one account first . . . and then . . . followed . . . by the other.
All of this said, I am not recovering from a stroke or any other malady, I promise. Thankfully, I have never been as sick or as so debilitated as that ever in my life, and would not want that for anyone. Knock on wood, I have never even been really sick a day in my life.
I was more ready, prepared and intellectually focused (I had thought) during Thursday’s hearing than I have ever been for anything in my life. I gather my face appeared “too red” for some on Twitter, betraying to them serious illness. The explanation was more innocent than that.
At the last minute, I had been able during the weekend preceding my testimony to help my daughter get settled into her new home, where the temperatures were in the upper 90s, and where I was appreciatively, though unwittingly, to get just a little bit of needed suntan!
What I will say, though, is this. And I think it explains it all. All my life, I have said (as to myself, and at times, by way of sarcastic prescription for others) that I never . . . talk . . . any . . . faster . . . than . . . my . . . mind . . . can . . . think.
I will proudly assure everyone on Twitter that I was riveted, laser-like as never before, on that promise to myself beginning promptly at the hour of 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon.
What is more, as consciously as one can be aware of something subconsciously, I was, in your poetic words of which I was, and am myself, incapable even of conjuring, Mr. Hagan, supremely conscious that, if I were chiseling words in stone that day, it was imperative that I chisel the exact words that I would want to be chiseled in stone, were I chiseling words in stone for history.
So, in all sincerity, thank you, all of you on Twitter, who are genuinely concerned about me. I can assure you that on last Thursday, June 16, I had never felt, or been, better in my life. And now, two days later, I feel better, still!
For better or worse, I was as compos mentis as I have ever been last Thursday, June 16, 2022. But please keep checking on me from time to time! You just never know these days!
LOLOL: Tucker Carlson Rants INSANELY that Stephen Colbert’s Staff ‘Committed Insurrection’ 🤪
Holy Shih Tzu! When Fox News Senior Bullshucking correspondent, Tucker Carlson, devolves into unbridled hysteria he really holds nothing back. And on Friday night he was so incensed by late breaking news that he interrupted his regularly scheduled schizophonic schtick to report on a matter that would surely alter the course of humanity.
As usual for Fox “News,” they were regurgitating a story that they picked up other from credible news organizations. Fox doesn’t actually do journalism. The story that titillated Tucker on this occasion was one that has international consequences. ABC News reported that several staffers for Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on CBS had been arrested for being in a congressional office building without proper authorization:
“In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS said the production team was at the Capitol Wednesday and Thursday to record a comedy segment featuring Triumph [the Insult Comic Dog].
“‘Their interviews at the Capitol were authorized and pre-arranged through Congressional aides of the members interviewed,’ the network said. ‘After leaving the members’ offices on their last interview of the day, the production team stayed to film stand-ups and other final comedy elements in the halls when they were detained by Capitol Police.'”
So this was essentially a case of having stayed beyond the period of time that had been previously approved. But to Tucker Carlson it was the same sort of domestic terrorism that was committed by Donald Trump’s shock troops on January 6, 2021. Carlson raged that…
“This is almost beyond belief, but just before this show aired we learned that last night producers for Stephen Colbert’s show on CBS committed insurrection at the United States Capitol. Adam Schiff, the congressman from California who spent the last year and a half telling you that unauthorized violations of Capitol space are a coup – Adam Schiff illegally gave producers from CBS access to the Capitol.
Then the group, which includes the show’s senior producer, director, comedian and writer, remained in the Longworth House office building after hours. And the point of them being there was for them to harass sitting members of congress. […] It’s exactly like what happened on January 6th, So, we’ll take a close look at what the punishments are.””
[video at the link]
WOW! that is one heck of a deranged outburst, even for Carlson who is known for them. For him to equate what these seven comedy professionals were doing with the deadly insurrection by hundreds of hostile thugs incited by Trump is spectacularly preposterous. Colbert’s crew did not break through barricades and, in the process, injure more than 140 police officers […] They did not shatter windows or bust through locked doors. They never threatened to kill or hang anyone. They didn’t vandalize the premises causing $30 million dollars in damages.
Carlson’s tirade also accused Rep. Adam Schiff of “illegally” giving producers from CBS access to the Capitol. That’s a lie. Carlson claimed that the purpose of the visit was “to harass sitting members of congress.” That, too, is a lie. The only thing that Carlson accomplished with his histrionics is to reveal that he doesn’t know the difference between a violent insurrection and a harmless overstay of a permitted visit by a few funny people.
Then again, it is never Carlson’s intent to provide honest accounts of anything. He works overtime to disinform his already dimwitted viewers with blatant falsehoods covering a wide array of subjects. [snipped examples and links]
There’s much more where that came from. But listing every asinine thing Carlson has said would break the Internet. It will be fun to see what Colbert has to say about this on Monday.
Offensive or defensive, some brand of realism is setting into the war situation, even as Russia continues to replace generals. Ukraine has been more open about the possible casualty numbers and the situation has begun to firm up boundaries in the east much like 2014. An argument about the importance of the Southern offensive near Kherson [can be made]. Disinformation continues including reports on materiel deliveries and the disposition of armor resources. Any end to the fighting still looks to be months away. [Tweet from Ursula von der Leyen regarding Ukraines path to joining the European Union is available at the link]
[maps and additional tweets available at the link]
Russian forces made marginal gains on the outskirts of Severodonetsk on June 18 but have largely stalled along other axes of advance. Russian troops are likely facing mounting losses, and troop and equipment degradation that will complicate attempts to renew offensive operations on other critical locations as the slow battle for Severodonetsk continues. As ISW previously assessed, Russian forces will likely be able to seize Severodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the cost of concentrating most of their available forces in this small area. Other Russian operations in eastern Ukraine—such as efforts to capture Slovyansk and advance east of Bakhmut—have made little progress in the past two weeks. Russian forces are continuing to fight to push Ukrainian troops away from occupied frontiers north of Kharkiv City and along the Southern Axis, but have not made significant gains in doing so, thus leaving them vulnerable to Ukrainian counteroffensive and partisan pressure.
The Russian military continues to face challenges with the morale and discipline of its troops in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate released what it reported were intercepted phone calls on June 17 and 18 in which Russian soldiers complained about frontline conditions, poor equipment, and overall lack of personnel. One soldier claimed that units have been largely drained of personnel and that certain battalion tactical groups (BTGs) have only 10 to 15 troops remaining in service.
[…] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops had partial success while attacking Metolkine, (just south of Severodonetsk) where they have been fighting for the last few days, though ISW cannot independently confirm what areas of the town Russian forces seized. Russian forces likely intend to capture the southern suburbs of Severodonetsk and advance to the bank of the Severskiy Donets river before assaulting the center of Ukrainian resistance in the Azot chemical plant. Russian forces are additionally fighting for control of Syrotnye, another nearby suburb of Severodonetsk. […]
[photos of Zelensky meeting and praising fighters]
Russia’s war in Ukraine could take years, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” he said. “Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.”
Russia was sending a large number of reserve troops to Sievierodonetsk from other battle zones to try to gain full control of the besieged eastern city, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region said on Sunday. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will throw in all the reserves they have … because there are so many of them there already, they’re at critical mass,” Serhiy Gaidai said on national television.
[…] Several Russian missiles hit a gasworks in the Izium district in eastern Ukraine, Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said on Saturday. “A large-scale fire broke out, rescuers localised the fire,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters reported him adding that some other buildings had also been damaged.
Russian missiles destroyed a fuel storage depot in Novomoskovsk, a town in eastern Ukraine, on Saturday. According to the head of the regional administration, three people have been sent to the hospital.
[…] Russia and Ukraine have carried out a prisoner exchange, the Kyiv Independent reports. Five captured Ukrainian individuals were returned to Ukraine on 18 June in exchange for five captured Russian individuals, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate. […]
Current situation in Izyum filmed by Russian forces, burned out buildings, little civilian traffic, and roving Russian patrols. [video at the link]
[…] Seems the Russian government wants the narrative that Ukraine is on the ropes in Donbas – because it causes people who should know better to start saying stuff like ‘Ukraine should sue for peace and give up territory’. These people paint themselves as realists, but the Ukrainians—ultimate realists—know that concessions now will embolden Putin, or the next leader, to come and have another go.
The only option for Ukraine is complete defeat of Russia within Ukrainian borders.
They know—like the Finns do after 1941—that the only way to ensure peace from Russia is to hand them their arses on a plate.
Back to Kherson:
It’s not clear what will happen here, but it is fairly clear to me that the Ukrainians are taking advantage of Putin’s focus on the Donbas to bleed them dry there (reports of civilians being conscripted and sent to front without training), in order to make militarily significant gains in the south.
Who knows whether the Ukrainians will make it to Kherson. Performance so far in the war (and Russia’s) suggests that the Ukrainians will make it. The Ukrainian government has warned civilians to leave Kherson in light of the coming assault – they know what happened to civilians in Bucha just before the Russians pulled out.
They are obviously confident of taking it.
[…] Artillery is fine and useful and will enable the Ukrainians to do counter battery fire against the Russians. But artillery isn’t that much use I reckon in taking Kherson – why would you want to shell your own city?
[…] I would also be asking for stuff for the next stage of the war, not this stage of the war.
If Donbas grinds to a halt into a slugfest, but Kherson opens up – then where are the vehicles for the Ukrainians to make advances?
I mean asking for artillery now, when its going to arrive in a month seems a bit stupid. But as with most of these things, what is said in the media and reality are two different stories.
In Russian-occupied Mariupol, the war that destroyed the city is being glorified. [image at the link depicts Russian soldiers as saviors, stomping on Ukrainian supposed Nazis, all while holding toys for chilren]
[…] In modern war and with somewhat equal technology, success is not sudden, it’s achieved through slow persistent progress. UK assistance on training is also intended in long term. Ukraine is preparing for long war. Western attitudes will be corrected, depending on battlefield changes.
Wonkette: “GOP Holding Up Gun Bill To Ensure Abusive Ex-Boyfriends Can Have Guns”
I find it hard to believe that anyone could look at a guy who beat up a woman they were dating and say “Is that really all that bad? Are we gonna say he’s a bad guy now? It would be one thing if he was married to her, but they were only dating for a few months! Totally different thing.” I do not think that happens. I have an incredibly low bar for the cruelty of which I believe humans are capable, and yet I cannot imagine that happening.
And yet.
Remember last week when the Senate announced they had agreed on a “bipartisan gun bill” that wasn’t a very good bill but was at least “something?” Well, the main thing that is holding up discussions on the bill are the teeny tiny steps it would take towards closing the “boyfriend loophole.”
As it currently stands, those found guilty of domestic violence are barred from gun ownership — but only when the victim is a former spouse, live-in partner or parent to their child. So basically, unless you choose to marry, live with or have a child with your abuser, that person is more than free to get a gun to murder you or the next person they hook up with. For years, Democrats have been trying to close that loophole, understanding that there is no real difference between someone who abuses someone they are married to and someone who abuses someone they are dating. They would also like to broaden the language to ensure that those abusers charged with assault rather than “domestic violence” are also not being given guns.
Republicans? They’re just not so sure. They’re reportedly very concerned that a guy who just punched a girlfriend in the face (not a wife!) might not be able to get a gun years later. After all, who doesn’t have a few “punching women in the face” youthful indiscretions under their belt?
[…] This is not just meant to punish men who abuse women (or anyone who abuses anyone). 68 percent of mass shooters have a history of domestic violence. Nearly all of them, at the very least, have issues with women and a history of misogyny. Practically every time there is a mass shooting, we end up getting stories about how the shooter was violent towards an ex-girlfriend or wife, how they stalked a woman, how they were notoriously creepy or predatory towards women or how they flipped out after being rejected by a woman.
May I just point out by the way that there are a lot of non-violent offenses that can lead to someone not being allowed to own a gun. Drug offenses, being addicted to drugs, literally any kind of felony conviction including financial crimes or importing counterfeit cassette tapes or having been dishonorably discharged from the military can all prevent you from being able to legally own a gun. But violently assaulting a woman you haven’t moved in with, married or had a kid with yet? Ooh, not so sure about that!
[…] The Right keeps wanting to blame these shootings on “mental illness,” because apparently the only way they can bring themselves to address the problem is by getting to stigmatize a group of already vulnerable people. But the vast majority of those who commit these crimes do not have any kind of diagnosable mental illness. [snipped James Holmes exception and details. “It should also be noted that one impetus for Holmes’ rampage was that his girlfriend broke up with him.”]
No one is saying mental health care is not important or that it is not beneficial to those without diagnosable conditions. Many of these shooters have a history of childhood trauma and other situational issues and mental health treatment could certainly be helpful there. But the desire to blame these shootings on mental illness is really just a way of shifting the blame away from access to guns, and now away from violent misogynists. Because hey! A lot of violent misogynists vote Republican.
[…] The things that would actually help are clear. Unfortunately, what’s also clear is that Republicans would rather see people die in mass shootings on a regular basis rather than do any of them.
It wasn’t the call Oleg Buryak expected.
He was hoping to hear that his 16-year-old son, Vlad, had safely escaped the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, where Moscow’s forces were quickly closing in. Instead, it was a Russian military man on the other end of the line.
They had taken his son, the soldier said, and he was being kept in an undisclosed location.
Almost overnight, Buryak, head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, was thrust into a frantic, detective-like pursuit, scrambling for clues, trying to figure out where Russian soldiers were holding his son, and how to get him back.
Soon, Vlad found a guard who allowed him to make occasional calls. The teenage boy was growing desperate, his father said. At home, Vlad loved computer games. In his cell, he was surrounded by the constant, terrible sound of other prisoners being tortured.
“What are you doing to get me out of here?” Vlad asked his father.
For nearly four months, the world has watched in horror as Russian forces flattened Ukrainian cities, with images of slaughtered civilians in Bucha and Mariupol attracting international outrage and prompting Western powers to increase their military aid. But all the while a less visible phenomenon was taking place in homes, at checkpoints, during street protests: Russian soldiers were detaining and abducting hundreds — perhaps thousands — of civilians.
[…] Authorities and human rights advocates say these cases are part of a larger pattern of Russian abductions and disappearances, a military tactic meant to terrorize communities and demoralize civilian resistance.
Many among the missing are victims of forced disappearance — detainment followed by silence, the captor refusing to even acknowledge they’ve taken someone captive. Others are locked in Russian-controlled jails, sometimes used to barter for Russia’s captured soldiers, or extract information.
For many more, their whereabouts are unclear: Some are simply incommunicado, others are likely dead. […]
The Ukrainian government has recorded at least 765 cases […] of what they call forced disappearances, an umbrella term to describe different forms of illegal deprivation of liberty. […]
Experts and officials agree the real number is almost certainly much higher. How much higher? No one really knows, but Ukraine’s national police have fielded more 9,000 missing person reports since Russia invaded. […]
despite Buryak’s desperate pleas, Vlad refused to leave his grandfather, who was bedridden and battling stage-four cancer. “I will stay with grandpa until the end,” Vlad told his father.
Roughly one week later, his grandfather died. Still mourning the loss, Vlad was ready to leave.
[…] Buryak found his son a seat in a car with two women and three children, all trying to escape the city. They left early and made it roughly 45 miles north to the city of Vasylivka, where they ran into the last Russian checkpoint. Soldiers went car to car, interrogating the passengers.
Vlad was in the back seat looking at his phone when one of the Russian guards took his device and soon after learned his father was a government official. The car’s other passengers were released, but Vlad was detained.
[…] The scale of atrocities has prompted international organizations, including the International Criminal Court and the International Commission on Missing Persons, to help document the reported cases.
[…] In recent history, scholars trace the tactic of forced disappearances to Nazi Germany, when Adolf Hitler’s “Night and Fog” decree ordered the seizure of anyone in occupied territory who was “endangering German security.” They were transferred to Germany and effectively vanished without a trace.
[…] After weeks of frantic efforts and sleepless nights, Buryak recently managed to orchestrate a plan he thinks will get Vlad home. He said the Russian counterparts have agreed to it, but declined to offer more details, fearing it could endanger his son and the negotiation process.
Vlad, who has been transferred to a different location, has slowly recovered his optimism and is “holding up strong.”
Buryak is hopeful, but with uncertain days ahead, he said emotion is a luxury he can’t afford.
“Vlad needs me like this: coldblooded, rational and wise,” he said. “I have no right to get into my feelings right now. […]
KGsays
Russia aims to boot former Soviet nations from NATO by relinquishing sovereign recognition: lawmaker
Caitlin McFall Wed, June 15, 2022 Yahoo News
A Russian lawmaker on Wednesday said Moscow will look to repeal its recognition of the independence of former Soviet nations like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in an attempt to revoke their NATO protections.
State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov told a Latvian news outlet that reversing Russia’s decision to recognize the Baltic States as sovereign would allegedly create legal grounds to force the alliance to divert to 1997 borders.
“The NATO Charter contains clause six, according to which the disputed territories cannot be included in the alliance. As soon as the territories of the Baltic countries are recognized as disputed, this will become the basis for the exclusion of the Baltic countries from NATO,” Fedorov said. – raven@205 quoting unidentified source
StevoR@218,
The Alhambra is indeed an amazing place – particularly the beautiful mosaics. (Amusingly, “Al” is the Arabic definite article, so “The Alhambra”, as it’s called in English, is “The the red one”.) My wife, son and I spent most of a day there, and still hadn’t seen it all.
Rob Grigjanissays
KG @235: The Spanish also use a technically superfluous definite article; la Alhambra. As in Recuerdos de la Alhambra (with some Les Dawson thrown in!).
The Texas Republican Party will have a new party platform soon, thanks to a convention that saw over 5,000 delegates show up to boo the archconservative Republican Sen. John Cornyn while otherwise ironing out just how devoted to seditious conspiracy the party wants to be. Cornyn was booed for working on a “bipartisan” proposal to modestly tighten some gun rules so that Americans who have a history of violence or making threats of violence can’t get one, aka “red flag” laws—a negotiation Cornyn almost certainly intended as a do-nothing feint to begin with […]
Cornyn wasn’t the only one to receive a hostile reception. The far-right Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw and his staff were physically assaulted by a crowd calling him “Eyepatch McCain”—a Tucker Carlson-produced insult, in case you needed further evidence of Tucker’s role in far-right violence. A crowd member demanded that he “be hung for treason!” The exact impetus for the assault remains unclear, but seems to include anger at the same “red flag” laws that riled the crowd against Cornyn.
[…]. The state party will go into the midterms with an official declaration that President Joe Biden is not the legitimate President of the United States.
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” says the Texas Republican Party.
Congratulations, Texas Republicans. You’re officially a seditious conspiracy cult.
[…] The party produced a document fully in tune with its fascist base; declaring non-allegiance to the elected leader of the United States is only the capper in a Texas Republican platform riddled with conspiracy and brazenly fascist rhetoric.
The party again asserts that Texas has a right to secede from the United States, because of course it does. It also demands a new Constitutional convention to rewrite the founding documents of the nation it demands the right to leave.
Other far-right elements of the Texas platform are familiar callbacks to decades of John Birch-era conspiracy crankitudes. Abolishing the Federal Reserve and repealing the federal income tax are oldies but goodies. A section frothing about policies that would prioritize pedestrians traffic and mass transit over cars is a warmed-over version of past conspiracy theories claiming that the United Nations was going to come take our roads and replace them with bike lanes.
But the new platform is also meaner than the old one, and is especially heavy on the indoctrination (sorry, grooming of Texas students). There are planks specifically asserting homosexuality to be “abnormal” and a “lifestyle choice,” another that looks to punish gender-affirming medical care in the state through civil mechanisms similar to what the state has already used to effectively ban abortions, and another one prohibiting the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” in Texas.
A party explicitly banning the teaching of an academic theory is Not Normal, in non-fascist, non-authoritarian countries, and the move is not rendered any less dangerous by the fact that the theory simply isn’t taught in Texas schools, being a narrow legal topic that requires far more advance education than any Texas Republican could tolerate, or the complete inability of anyone in the Texas Republican Party to so much as correctly define what it is they’re banning.
The platform also demands that the teaching of “sex education” or “sexual health” in public schools be made a state crime. You’re simply not allowed to teach a child what to expect in puberty, or why they might be bleeding profusely into their underwear. You’re not allowed to teach them what molestation is, because Republicans (and, we imagine, the Proud Boys) do not want Texas children learning about consent.
Not to worry, though. The Texas Republican platform will ensure Texas students are indoctrinated properly according to the beliefs of the fascist cult that produced it. It requires schools to teach that life begins at conception and, according to the Tribune, requires students to “listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.”
When it comes to guns and the state’s notable indifference to constant mass murders, the official Texas Republican Party platform goes full free-for-all. The party demands that the state constitution itself be amended to strip from the legislature the power to enact any gun restrictions [….] There will be Zero rules on buying or carrying guns in Texas.
Yes, the Texas Republican Party has gone QAnon With Guns, and the party document imagines a pseudo-religious fascist government that teaches the state’s children which citizens are worthy of respect and which are “abnormal” or suffering from “mental health” problems. It explicitly rejects the legitimacy of the current government based on a conspiracy premise bleated out by a Dear Leader figure who is provably lying, and demands a new state referendum to determine whether the state should simply leave the United States entirely.
To you, this might sound like a document produced by child molestation advocates in conjunction with seditionists to encourage mass murders before turning full traitor, but this is just what Texas Republicans are now. Yes, even the ones that claim to be against these things while voting for the Republicans that support them. It’s a party of conspiracy freaks and treason, a party in which even the most far-right members aren’t safe from attack in their own convention if they dare, even for a moment, go against the militant seditionist base.
If there’s anything that’s an “abnormal lifestyle choice” or a “mental health condition,” it’s willingly remaining a Texas Republican as the party slid into QAnon-styled conspiracy cult. The state’s Republican leaders are riddled with actual seditionists from top to bottom, people whose only devotion to the country and to their fellow citizens is a desire to dominate. Bike lanes are tyranny; claiming the sitting president is illegitimate because some drunken idiot told a delusional narcissist that foreign satellites were out to get him, though, now that’s a movement that can get the Republican base riled up.
A bunch of creepy-ass child groomers, that’s what they are.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that former President Trump intended to “accelerate the violence” against his vice president, Mike Pence, during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
“You know, when he sent out the tweet attacking his vice president, he already knew that the violence was underway,” Lofgren said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” of Trump, who tweeted that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary” just after the attack began.
“The only conclusion you can reach is that he intended to accelerate that violence against the former vice president,” she continued. […]
Pierce R. Butlersays
Apparently, sanity has prevailed for the moment, and Florida’s state government will not block vaccination of the six-month-to-five-years cohort:
But none of us should be lulled into thinking that the state came to its senses of its own accord or because of some gradual dawning of responsibility to children. It wasn’t until the public outcry from doctors, parents and a congressional panel on COVID response grew to a roar that even our resolute governor couldn’t ignore. … this was no honest mistake. It was a political calculation that backfired.
Colombia has elected a former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro as president, making him the South American country’s first leftist head of state.
Petro beat Rodolfo Hernández, a gaff-prone former mayor of Bucaramanga and business mogul, with 50.47% of the vote in a runoff election on Sunday and will take office in July amid a host of challenges, not least of which is the deepening discontent over inequality and rising costs of living. Hernández had 47.27%, with almost all ballots counted, according to results released by election authorities.
Petro’s election marks a tidal shift for Colombia, a country that has never before had a leftist president, and follows similar victories for the left in Peru, Chile and Honduras.
“Today is a party for the people,” tweeted the victorious candidate on Sunday night after results came in. “May so many sufferings be cushioned in the joy that today floods the heart of the homeland.”
During his victory speech, Petro issued a call for unity and extended an olive branch to some of his harshest critics, saying all members of the opposition will be welcomed at the presidential palace “to discuss the problems of Colombia”.
“From this government that is beginning there will never be political persecution or legal persecution, there will only be respect and dialogue,” he said, adding that he will listen to not only those who have raised arms but also to “that silent majority of peasants, Indigenous people, women, youth”.
The outgoing conservative president, Iván Duque, congratulated Petro shortly after results were announced, and Hernández quickly conceded defeat.
“Today the majority of citizens have chosen the other candidate. As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of this election,” Hernández said in a video posted on social media. “I sincerely hope that this decision is beneficial for everyone.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, congratulated “the people of Colombia for making their voices heard in a free and fair presidential election”.
…
Petro’s vice-president will be Francia Márquez – a prize-winning defender of human and environmental rights – marking the first time that a black woman fills the post.
“Today all women win,” tweeted Márquez as polls closed on Sunday afternoon. “We are facing the greatest possibility of change in recent times.”…
Allies of French President Emmanuel Macron started working Monday to cobble together a working parliamentary majority to salvage his second term, after his alliance crumbled in the election against surges from the left and far-right.
Macron’s Ensemble (Together) coalition emerged as the largest party in parliamentary elections but was dozens of seats short of keeping the parliamentary majority it had enjoyed for the last five years.
It will now begin work to try and find a majority by forming deals with other parties on the right, stirring up turmoil unprecedented in French politics in recent years.
Macron, 44, now also risks being distracted by domestic problems as he seeks to play a prominent role in putting an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as a key statesman in the EU.
The election saw a new left-wing alliance make gains to become the main opposition, while the far-right under Marine Le Pen posted its best legislative performance in its history.
“This situation constitutes a risk for our country, given the challenges that we have to confront,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said in a televised statement Sunday, vowing: “We will work from tomorrow to build a working majority.”
The outcome severely tarnished Macron’s April presidential election victory when he defeated the far-right to be the first French president to win a second term in over two decades.
“It’s a turning point for his image of invincibility,” said Bruno Cautres, a researcher at the Centre for Political Research of Sciences Po.
The options available to Macron, who has yet to publicly comment on the result, range from seeking to form a new coalition alliance, passing legislation based on ad hoc agreements to even calling new elections.
Le Monde daily headlined on its website “Macron faces the risk of political paralysis”, while the right-wing Le Figaro daily said the results raised the spectre of a “stillborn new mandate”.
Left-leaning Liberation’s Monday edition said the results represented the “fall” of Macron’s way of governing….
…We may feel like we are the masters of our planet, having mapped every inch of its landmass and stared into the guts of an atom, but when it comes to understanding what it’s like to be a songbird using the earth’s magnetic field to navigate across continents, we barely know where to start.
Yong is up for giving it his best shot, not least because he understands how damaging it can be to disregard other creatures’ perspectives. When we unthinkingly flood the world with light and sound, we wreak havoc on bird and turtle migrations and disrupt owls and orcas in their search for food. Even scientists who have spent years working with a single species can botch research by failing to fully consider their point of view. But Yong also relishes stepping into other Umwelts just for the sheer fascination of it. “We don’t have to look to aliens from other planets,” one scientist tells him. “We have animals that have a completely different interpretation of what the world is right next to us.”…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there (update to raven’s #201):
Russia has demanded that Lithuania immediately lift a ban on the transit of some goods to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Russia’s foreign ministry summoned Lithuania’s top envoy in Moscow to warn that unless the transit was swiftly restored, Russia would respond to protect its interests.
Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, described the situation as “more than serious”, telling reporters:
This decision is really unprecedented. It’s a violation of everything. [LOL]
Lithuanian authorities have banned the transit of goods sanctioned by the EU across its territory, which includes the only rail route between mainland Russia and the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea. Banned goods include coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology.
Kaliningrad’s governor has estimated that the ban could affect up to half of all goods that are brought to the region by rail.
Russia’s foreign ministry demanded Vilnius reverse what it cast as an “openly hostile” move immediately. It said:
If cargo transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the Russian Federation via Lithuania is not fully restored in the near future, then Russia reserves the right to take actions to protect its national interests.
Lithuania said it was merely implementing EU sanctions. Its foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, told reporters:
It’s not Lithuania doing anything: it’s European sanctions that started working from 17 of June.
blfsays
Yesterday, Sunday 19th June, was, of course, Juneteenth in States (albeit I believe, as is States practice, today Monday is the holiday). Congratulations! Yesterday was also the 2nd round of the French Parliamentary elections. The results:
● Macron’s mob lost their majority, albeit they are still the single largest group, now at 245 seats (289 is a majority), a lost of about 100 seats, down from about 60% to 40% of the seats, 44 seats short of a majority.
● Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s messy coalition won 131 seats, less than the expected 150; however, there are 22 other seats won by leftwingers not officially part of that messy coalition who are generally expected to (or have said that they usually will) vote with the messy coalition.
● The traditional conservative party won 61 seats, very possibly making them “kingmakers”; i.e., whichever of Macron’s and Mélenchon’s blocks can gain their support will be more able to set the agenda and obtain ministerial seats.
● The big surprise, doing vastly better than polling suggested, was Putin’s acolytes teh le penazis, winning an unheard-of 89 seats (up from a mere eight). This means they can now form a official Parliamentary group, obtain state funds, etc.
● Locally, teh le penazi candidates won, with over 55% against Mélenchon’s messy coalition candidates. I’m uncertain, but I think this is the first time the village (and surrounding area) has ever actually elected any le penazi, and certainly the first time “my” legislative representative is a fascist.
This is the first time under the current French constitution (the so-called Fifth Republic) that there hasn’t been a majority party in Parliament. There have been three periods of cohabitation where the President’s party and the Parliamentary majority’s party are different, but there has always been a majority party.
Turnout was lower than in the first round, but not quite a record low.
Locally, teh le penazi candidates won, with over 55% against Mélenchon’s messy coalition candidates. I’m uncertain, but I think this is the first time the village (and surrounding area) has ever actually elected any le penazi, and certainly the first time “my” legislative representative is a fascist.
Defense Ministry: ‘Decisive battles’ near Sievierodonetsk as Russia aims to reach borders of Luhansk Oblast by June 26.
According to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, Russia has gathered almost all its forces to storm the settlements near Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk Oblast.
Russians seek to break through Ukrainian forces’ defenses and surround them.
“Our troops are doing everything possible to hold these territories and prevent the encirclement,” Maliar said as quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda media outlet.
‘The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice…There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country’.”
…Russia’s blockade of the export of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain is a war crime, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said. “We call on Russia to deblockade the ports … It is inconceivable, one cannot imagine that millions of tonnes of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world people are suffering hunger,” he said.
Palaces, yachts and vineyards reportedly provided to Vladimir Putin by friends and oligarchs can now be linked to what appears to be an informal network holding assets worth more than $4.5bn (£3.7bn). A digital paper trail appears to suggest that an array of holiday homes and other assets reportedly used by the Russian president are linked through a common email domain name, LLCInvest[dot]ru.
…
The editor of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta is auctioning his Nobel peace prize medal, with the proceeds to go to helping children displaced by the war in Ukraine. Dmitry Muratov, whose 23-karat gold Nobel medal will go on sale in New York on Monday, said the sale was “an act of solidarity” with the 14 million Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion, which he called “a tragedy”.
Just the evidence presented so far by the J6 committee shows that Trump aimed the mob specifically at his vice president. There’s been a lot of discussion here about his reasoning:
He wanted to frighten Pence into carrying out Eastman’s coup.
He wanted to get Pence away from the Capitol so that Grassley would preside and (presumably) carry out Eastman’s coup.
Now Trump’s niece suggests a third possible reason: He wanted Pence killed so he would have an excuse to declare martial law.
“We need to be very blunt about what happened,” [Mary Trump] told Katie Phang on MSNBC Friday. Trump “wasn’t just stirring up his insurrectionists to create chaos,” she said. “He handed down a death sentence to Mike Pence.”
Trump said that once Pence defied the former president and refused to overturn the election, her uncle had few options left to stay in power, and may have considered something as “absolutely radical” as “declaring martial law,” which witnesses have indicated. The “death of his vice president” could have paved the way for that, she noted.
[…] Seen in this light, Trump’s incendiary tweet to the rioters in the middle of the riot, before Pence had been moved to his secure location, takes on a much more sinister tone. He was telling his followers to kill his vice president so he could then declare martial law and shut Congress down, leaving the election uncertified.
Given Trump’s transactional attitude, it’s doubtful he’d worked out what to do with the country under martial law, whether the military would go along with it, how he could stay in power past the end of his term anyway, and so on. Trump was never much for the hard work of details (except, oddly enough, in his coup plot, and even there he screwed up). But that’s not the point, really.
The point is what Mary Trump had to say about her uncle:
“What people need to understand is that Donald doesn’t believe he should be denied anything he wants.” [italics in original]
The demented orange shitgrubber is going to run again. And this time, he won’t care who he kills to win. He might even try to shoot President Biden on 5th Ave — and lest you think that’s a joke, remember that he showed up for one debate already sick with Covid, and knew he was sick with Covid, to debate a man he knew was vulnerable.
KGsays
Last week I took part remotely in an academic “workshop” on modelling social-ecological systems in the Netherlands. Almost all the other participants attended in person (the exceptions had a recent positive test for Covid, in some cases just a day or two before the workshop started). The organisers assured me (a few weeks ago) that local infection levels were low, and everyone would be tested immediately before the initial meeting. Three of the attendees have tested positive since the workshop ended on Friday. I’ll be surprised if they’re the only ones. With luck, no-one will be seriously ill, or develop long Covid – as I certainly hope. But I’m certainly glad I didn’t go, although inevitably I missed out on some aspects of the event, both workwise (although the organisers made great efforts to include me and the other onliners) and social.
@SC #241
Oh, praise be to the FSM! I was really worried that Hernandez (despite everything) would get in, which would have been un desastre!
I have visited people in Bogatá and the surrounding area a couple of times, and found them to be some of the nicest, most level-headed people I’ve ever known – to think of that beautiful country (admittedly, with all its problems) in the hands of a Duterte/Bolsanaro/Hair Furor wannabe was too hideous to contemplate. I thought that outcome was unlikely, but then I thought 2016 was very unlikely too, so…
Big “whew” here. No doubt president-elect Petro will run into all kinds of roadblocks, but things could’ve turned out so, so much worse.
[…] In an uplifting Father’s Day message Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted 10 photos of parents and children set against the grim backdrop of war, praising fathers who “protect and defend the most precious.” […]
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday shared a death threat his family received over his participation in the House select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Kinzinger took to Twitter to share the letter that was mailed to his home and addressed to his wife, Sofia Boza-Holman.
The letter threatened harm to the Illinois Republican as well as his wife and child.
He warned of the possibility of “violence in the future” but told ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos that he isn’t worried about the threats to him.
“I’m not worried personally. … It threatens to execute me as well as my wife and 5-month-old child,” he said.
“I’ve never seen or had anything like that. It was sent from the local area. I don’t worry, but now that I have a wife and kids it’s a little different. There are people that — there’s violence in the future, I’m going to tell you. And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”
Kinzinger, who along with Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) is one of two Republicans who serve on the Jan. 6 select committee, also alluded to his belief that the Republican National Committee is encouraging threats against lawmakers.
“The Darkness is spreading courtesy of cowardly leaders fearful of truth,” he said in his tweet linking to the letter.
[…] Kinzinger shared the death threat a day before Missouri Senate candidate Eric Greitens (R) posted a controversial video urging his supporters to go “RINO hunting” and renewed the conversation around violence and threat against elected representatives. Greitens has been criticized for alluding to hunting humans in the video. […]
A review of emails and memos shows that lawyers advising the former president knew the plan was baseless but pursued it anyway
The convening of the electoral college on Dec. 14, 2020, was supposed to mark the end of the wild, extended presidential election that year.
But when the day arrived, a strange thing happened. In seven swing states won by Joe Biden, when the Democrat’s electors assembled to formally elect him president, Trump supporters showed up, too, ready to declare that their man had actually won.
“The electors are already here — they’ve been checked in,” a state police officer told the group in Michigan, according to a video of the encounter, as he barred the Republicans from the Capitol in a state Biden won by more than 154,000 votes.
In Nevada, a state Biden had won by about 33,600 votes, a photo distributed by the state Republican Party showed Trump supporters squeezing around an undersize picnic table dressed up with a bit of bunting, preparing to sign formal certificates declaring that they were “the duly elected and qualified” electors of their state.
At the time, the gatherings seemed a slapdash, desperate attempt to mimic President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede.
But internal campaign emails and memos reveal that the convening of the fake electors appeared to be a much more concerted strategy, intended to give Vice President Mike Pence a reason to declare the outcome of the election was somehow in doubt on Jan. 6, 2021, when he was to preside over the congressional counting of the electoral college votes.
The documents show Trump’s team pushed ahead and urged the electors to meet — then pressured Pence to cite the alternate Trump slates — even as various Trump lawyers acknowledged privately they did not have legal validity and the gatherings had not been in compliance with state laws.</b?
In a public hearing Thursday, the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 explored the end of the story — the pressure campaign placed on Pence to accept the Trump electors as somehow legitimate.
[…] “We’ll show evidence of the president’s involvement in this scheme,” committee member Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We’ll also, again, show evidence about what his own lawyers came to think about this scheme. And we’ll show courageous state officials who stood up and said they wouldn’t go along with this plan to either call legislatures back into session or decertify the results for Joe Biden.” […]
In Georgia, a group of so-called electors took seats around a U-shaped conference room table in a hearing room at the state Capitol, a printer nearby hastily installed by a Trump campaign aide in case new certificates needed to be run off on the spot.
The Trump campaign had instructed them in advance to tell no one of the plan — not even Capitol security guards.
“Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” a campaign official wrote to the group the day before they met. […]
At last week’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, the public learned brutal information about how Trump targeted Pence. A day later, he targeted Pence again anyway.
[…] It was extraordinary on Thursday to see evidence that Trump seemed to deliberately put his vice president in harm’s way. A day later, [Trump] thought it’d be a good idea to talk publicly — about his efforts to pressure Pence to participate in an illegal scheme to overturn the election. The New York Times reported:
A day after the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault illustrated the serious danger that rioters posed to Mike Pence, former President Donald J. Trump unleashed a new attack on the man who had served him as vice president, criticizing him for refusing to interfere with the Electoral College certification of the 2020 presidential contest.
It was striking to see just how little the former president’s rhetoric has changed. During the Jan. 6 riot, Trump said Pence lacked the “courage” to ignore the law. During his Friday remarks at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority conference, [Trump] again said, “Mike did not have the courage to act.”
It was fresh evidence that the former president is unfamiliar with the concept of shame.
Indeed, watching the speech, it was as if Trump had somehow been locked in time, unaware of the revelations the rest of us learned. One day earlier, for example, during a Jan. 6 committee hearing, a lawyer for Pence explained that officials easily dismissed the nonsensical claims about Thomas Jefferson pursuing a related scheme two centuries ago. On Friday, the president echoed the absurdity anyway.
Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the 1801 certification of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential victory — a process that Jefferson, then the vice president, oversaw — to argue that Mr. Pence should have used that model to keep Mr. Trump in office.
As for whether or not it was wise for the former president to publicly rail against the former vice president the day after a devastating public hearing, lawyer George Conway added on Friday, “I’m so glad he doesn’t know that he has the right to remain silent and that anything he says can and will be used against him in a court of law.”
ravensays
Our daily threat from the Russians.
No nukes for the cat. They are going to start a war with Lithuania. ‘RIA Novosti is also claiming that this blockade is a casus belli for war. “
Twitter Samuel Ramani June 20, 2022
Russian Senator Andrei Klishas has accused Lithuania of violating Russia’s sovereignty through a blockade on Kaliningrad
RIA Novosti is also claiming that this blockade is a casus belli for war. Major rhetorical escalations between Russia and Lithuania underway.
A few days ago, Lithuania blockaded Kaliningrad, the part of Russia on the Baltic sea not connected to Russia. It’s not a complete blockade, only for EU sanctioned goods, about 50%.
This was a brave act that wasn’t going to go over well with Russia.
Which it didn’t.
They are now threatening to start a war with Lithuania, population 2.65 million.
And NATO, population 948 million.
Russia seems to have ignored that they are blockading Ukraine on their main connection to the world, the Black sea ports. Russia is now also threatening to do something horrible to Poland for some reason.
Strangely enough, no one right now is too worried.
Russia has made so many extreme threats to just about everyone in the world, that no one is paying attention any more.
I have no idea what will happen next here. I doubt any one knows right now.
Paul Ksays
I’m just de-lurking for a moment to make my periodic statement of praise for all the regular commenters here on the Endless Thread. I’d be pretty lost without this continuing dedication to posting truth. Thanks so much for your daily — multiple times daily for several of you — explaining, linking, quoting, and analyzing the sometimes good, but sadly mostly bad, stuff going on around the world. I cannot afford to get behind the paywalls that many of the sources understandably put up, so having the excerpts here is very important to me.
I thrive on knowing how others are thinking and feeling about what is happening out there, and I do my best to make the world at least a tiny bit better by sharing what I learn with others, and by being involved with local politics and social justice activities. I wish I could do more, and will when I can. Thanks so much for keeping me informed, and, often, enraged enough to keep pushing as hard as I’m able to. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. What all of you do is vital.
Conversation between a Russian soldier and a woman. Language used in the conversation triggers PZ’s filters for this thread, so rather than posting an excerpt, I will just provide the link. You have to replace the word “rtrd*d” with an offensive word meant to describe people who are mentally challenged.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office announced Monday that his weakened coalition will be disbanded and the country will head to new elections.
NBC News:
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman would not guarantee that two American military veterans captured in Ukraine won’t face the death penalty in an exclusive interview with NBC News on Monday.
Wall Street Journal:
Russian forces have conducted a series of operations against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria this month, including one this week at a strategically located base in the southern part of the country, U.S. military officials said. The Russian actions have alarmed U.S. military officials, who are concerned that a miscalculation might escalate into an unintended conflict between the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria.
John Eastman has announced that he is “seriously considering” going to law school, in what he described as the pursuit of a lifelong dream.
The embattled Eastman said that the idea of applying to law school first occurred to him while being deposed by the January 6th committee.
“As I was taking the Fifth Amendment a hundred times, I realized there must be at least four other amendments, and possibly more than that,” he said. “I started wondering what those amendments were.”
Eastman said that attending law school would “be a ton of work” but would probably make him a better lawyer. “Everything I know about law I learned at Trump University,” he revealed.
Not satisfied with shelling a nuclear power plant, Russian troops are interrogating, torturing & shooting its staff. “On many days, several employees are handcuffed and driven off for questioning…More than a dozen have disappeared altogether”
and
“They patrol the plant with handguns and grenades dangling from their belts, reprimanding workers who speak in Ukrainian rather than Russian and screening their cellphones for evidence of allegiance to Kyiv”
The Russian occupation of Ukraine is brutal and their main tools are murder and terrrorism.
They’ve been disappearing the staff of the nuclear power plant they control.
Speaking Ukrainian in Ukraine is now a serious offense.
Disappearing people is a very old terrorist tactic of the Russians. In times past, the disappeared were mostly just taken somewhere, killed, and buried.
Stalin-era mass graves unearthed in Ukraine – France 24https://www.france24.com › live-news › 20210830-stali…
Aug 30, 2021 — The remains of up to 20,000 people have been found in Ukraine’s southern city of Odessa as excavations continue at a site believed to be a …
There are mass graves all over Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet Union from Stalin’s purges before WW II.
There are now more mass graves any where in Ukraine where the Russians have been.
ravensays
Surviving Russia’s ‘filtration camps’: Russian troops have sent hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to so-called filtration camps, where Ukrainians have been interrogated and then forced to resettle in remote locations around Russia. Some Ukrainians escaped to Estonia. They told us their stories
nytimes.com/video/…
1.9 million people have been deported to Russia including 300,000 children.
It isn’t too well known what has happened to them but it is becoming clearer.
.1. A lot of them end up in Russian concentration camps.
.2. A lot of them have been taken to the most remote parts of Russian and just dumped there.
The high arctic, Siberia, and the Pacific coast, far from Ukraine and next door to Japan.
Social services in Russia on a good day aren’t very good.
A lot of these people are given no to minimal help and will have a hard time surviving.
It’s possible they will just suffer from the cold, hunger, and lack of medical care and end up dead, sooner rather than later.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russia threatens ‘serious negative impact’ on population of Lithuania over goods blockade
Russia has threatened consequences that will have “a serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania” as the row over restrictions of goods transiting the Baltic state to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad worsened.
Hosting a meeting in Kaliningrad, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation said:
Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions. Appropriate measures are being worked out in an interdepartmental format and will be taken in the near future. Their consequences will have a serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania.
The RIA Nostovi Russian news agency quotes him saying that “the blockade by Lithuania, at the suggestion of Western countries, in violation of the norms and principles of international law, of the transit through its territory to the Kaliningrad region of a large group of goods … shows that one cannot trust not only the oral statements of the west, but also written ones.”
At the same time as Patrushev was in Kaliningrad, the European Union ambassador to Russia was summoned to the foreign ministry in Moscow.
After the meeting, Reuters reports Markus Ederer said he had asked Russia to resolve the issue through diplomatic means. He said it was not a blockade by Lithuania, as the transit of non-sanctioned goods continues. Lithuania argues that it is only preventing the shipment of goods across its territory in accordance with new EU sanctions that came into force at the weekend.
Reuters notes that their report of Ederer’s meeting was produced in Russia, where the law restricts their coverage of Russian military operations in Ukraine.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
January 6 committee to investigate pressure campaign on state officials as search for evidence continues
Good morning, US politics live blog readers. At 1pm eastern time, the January 6 committee will be holding its fourth hearing into last year’s attack on the Capitol, with this session focusing on former president Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on state officials to throw the 2020 election in his direction. The committee is meanwhile continuing its search for evidence. Politico reports that it has subpoenaed a documentary film-maker who had access to Trump’s inner circle around the time of the insurrection.
Here’s what else to expect today:
– Democrats and Republicans in Congress are scrambling to find agreement on gun control legislation and an innovation bill as time runs out to pass the legislation before an upcoming two-week recess.
– The supreme court will release another batch of opinions at 10 am eastern time. Among these could be their opinions on closely watched cases dealing with abortion, gun rights, environmental regulation and other controversial issues.
– Voters will head to the polls (or cast mail-in ballots) in Virginia and Washington DC, while run-off elections are being held in Alabama and Georgia.
– President Joe Biden announced he will appoint Marilynn Malerba as treasurer of the United States. She is the chief of the Mohegan Tribe and would be the first Native American in the position that oversees the US Mint, among other responsibilities.
In its hearings thus far, the January 6 committee has focused on the circumstances leading up to the attack in Washington, particularly Trump’s baseless claims that the election was stolen.
Viewers will be taken farther afield in today’s hearing [?], which will feature testimony from state officials about how Trump pushed them to interfere with their election results for his benefit.
Among its guests will be Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who last month fended off a Trump-backed attempt to oust him from office. He will be joined by Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers and Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
The hearing will also feature an appearance by Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a Georgia poll worker who, along with her mother, was accused of rigging the vote in a number of conspiracies promoted by Trump supporters. She is now suing Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, rightwing One America News Network and several of its senior executives for defamation, saying the claims put them in physical danger.
Expect to hear more about just what she endured at the hearing today.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Labour whip joins parliamentary aides in defying order from Starmer not to join RMT picket lines
Some leftwing Labour MPs have joined RMT picket lines today – despite Keir Starmer’s office saying frontbenchers should stay away… – and posting pictures on Twitter….
Momentum, the Labour group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn and his agenda when Corbyn was party leader, says Keir Starmer’s attempt to ban fronbenchers from RMT picket lines… shows the party has “lost its way”. A spokeperson for Momentum said:
The Labour party was founded to represent the interests of workers. But under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the party has lost its way. Instead, it is Socialist Campaign Group MPs out there on the picket lines with rail workers who refuse to accept cuts to their pay and conditions, in a time of spiralling inflation. That’s the basic solidarity that the Labour name demands.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has made a surprise visit to Ukraine, expressing support for the country’s effort to prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes following Russia’s invasion….
A senior Ukrainian government official and a business leader have been detained on suspicion of being part of an alleged Russian spy network, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said.
It did not name the two suspects but identified them as a senior official in the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers and a department head at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Reuters reports.
The suspects were detained as part of a “multi-stage special operation” to neutralise the alleged spy ring, the SBU said in a statement on Telegram.
The statement went on to say that the pair had “passed on various intelligence information to the enemy: from the state of our defence capability to arrangements at the state border and personal data of Ukrainian law enforcement officers.”
The SBU said Russia paid the suspects from $2,000 to $15,000 per task, depending on the level of secrecy and the importance of the information.
Now Trump’s niece suggests a third possible reason: He wanted Pence killed so he would have an excuse to declare martial law.
One of the most damning bits of evidence is the statement he released shortly after meeting with Pence, lying that Pence agreed with him about what the VP could do. It was partly intended to put more pressure on Pence to change his mind and go along; but also, since Trump was well aware this was almost certainly not going to happen, it was meant to prime his followers to see Pence’s planned actions as a last-minute caving and betrayal of what he’d promised Trump, which would be sure to heighten their rage.
“What people need to understand is that Donald doesn’t believe he should be denied anything he wants.” [italics in original]
These hearings are really putting into relief how he functions as an abuser and sexual predator – the intimidation, manipulation, isolation, triangulation, deception, defamation, gaslighting,…
“This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build,” Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent.
At first blush, a legal fight over education subsidies in Maine might seem like an inherently dry subject. But today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Carson v. Makin is actually an important matter that blasts a hole in the wall of separation between church and state. NBC News reported:
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state programs providing money for public school tuition cannot exclude schools that offer religious instruction. The 6-3 decision relaxed long-standing restrictions on using taxpayer money to pay for religious education, further lowering the wall of separation between church and state.
[…] There are areas in rural Maine in which there are no public schools. Families in those areas are given taxpayer subsidies from the state — money that would ordinarily go to schools themselves — which they can use at public or private schools of their choice.
But under Maine’s program, the money can’t go toward religious education. The underlying principle is obvious: In the United States, we have a First Amendment that separates church and state. People can give money to religious institutions for faith-based education if they want to, but the government shouldn’t force taxpayers to subsidize religious lessons.
Some families in Maine didn’t quite see it that way and challenged the state’s policy in court, claiming discrimination. Today, the Republican-appointed justices agreed, ruling that Maine taxpayers will be required to fund religious education.
That’s a pretty radical move, as Justice Stephen Breyer seemed eager to point out in his dissent. “We have never previously held what the Court holds today, namely, that a State must (not may) use state funds to pay for religious education as part of a tuition program designed to ensure the provision of free statewide public school education,” the retiring center-left jurist wrote.
Remember, during oral arguments in this case, Breyer declared, “We don’t want to get into a situation where a state will pay for the teaching of religion.”
[…]Justice Sonia Sotomayor was even less reserved in her own dissent this morning. “[…] Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”
She added that she has “growing concern for where this Court will lead us next.”
[…] Maine officials filed a brief with the justices, highlighting the policies at Bangor Christian School and Temple Academy — the two schools that would be in a position to receive taxpayer subsidies if the Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs. From Stern’s article:
Bangor Christian School expels all students who identify as gay or transgender, or who display any gender-nonconforming behavior, on or off campus. Children who profess to be gay are expelled even if they swear to remain celibate.
BCS compels all teachers to affirm that they are a “Born Again” Christian and an “active, tithing member of a Bible believing church.” It will not hire teachers who are gay, transgender, or gender-nonconforming.
BCS explicitly denounces non-Christian faiths; in social studies class, for example, ninth grade students are taught to “refute the teachings of the Islamic religion with the truth of God’s Word.” All students are instructed that men serve as the head of the household.
Temple Academy has a “pretty hard lined” rule against accepting non-Christian students. It will not admit students who are gay or transgender. Every student’s parents must sign a “covenant” affirming their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Students must sign a “covenant” promising to glorify Jesus Christ and attend weekly religious services.
TA rejects any student with same-sex parents, even if the student is not LGBTQ.
To work at TA, instructors must acknowledge “homosexuals and other deviants” are “perverted.” The school only hires born-again Christians, even for custodial positions, and openly discriminates against LGBTQ applicants.
The point is not that these schools should be prohibited from espousing such beliefs or adopting such employment practices, offensive as they are. The schools are part of private religious institutions, and these policies are protected under the First Amendment.
The point, rather, is that taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to subsidize such religious institutions. Thanks to the high court’s new ruling, taxpayers will have to do exactly that.
KGsays
I’ve long considered Slavoj Žižek a pretentious, deliberately obscure numpty, but in this article:Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine, he is absolutely clear, and in my view, largely right. I say “largely”, because I’m not convinced what we need is, as he says, “a stronger NATO”. NATO and the EU are currently the only possible source of arms for Ukraine, but NATO is inevitably seen by much of the world as a tool of western/American imperialism (the EU’s image is not a lot better), and what we need above all is the widest possible alliance against recrudescent fascism – as well as climate disruption and SARS-CoV-2. Žižek actually wants Europe to become “an autonomous agent”, primarily becuase of the danger of Trump returning to power in the USA, but NATO was designed, and still functions, to prevent Europe becoming independent of the USA (and conversely, to keep the USA committed to Europe). Moreover, NATO includes Turkey, which is almost as fascist as Russia (the Turkish opposition does appear to have more autonomy, but I’m not at all confident Erdoğan would allow himself to lose an election).
It’s ironic to hear Donald Trump suggest that Americans are only hearing from one side in Jan. 6 hearings: We’re hearing from members of his own party.
[…] The House select committee is hearing testimony from a great many people, but those looking for Democrats will have a surprisingly difficult time.
NBC News highlighted some of the high-profile witnesses who’ll appear before the bipartisan panel today.
Witnesses appearing live before the panel will describe how they were hounded and harassed for doing their jobs and upholding Biden’s rightful victory in their states. One witness will be Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, who stood firm when Trump implored him in a recorded phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in the state.
Sitting alongside Raffensperger will be Georgia’s Gabriel Sterling, the Republican who served as the state’s voting system implementation manager, and Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the House in Arizona.
[…] This comes on the heels of the most recent committee hearing, which featured two witnesses: Greg Jacob, a Republican lawyer from former Vice President Mike Pence’s team, and retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, a leading figure in conservative jurisprudence who also advised Pence.
In the hearing before that, the witnesses included Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor; Benjamin Ginsberg, a prominent Republican elections attorney; BJay Pak, a Republican U.S. Attorney in the Trump administration; and Al Schmidt, a former Republican city commissioner in Pennsylvania. […]
During the hearings themselves, viewers have also heard previously recorded testimony from several members of Trump’s campaign team and former administration officials, including those who worked in his White House.
As political scientist Dan Drezner joked the other day, “For a committee that Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan have labeled as ‘partisan,’ they’re sure doing a good job of getting lots of Republicans to go on the record about Trump’s felonies.” […]
[…] those who’ve spoken Trump about Eastman in recent months [say he] has repeated an excuse he often uses when backed into a corner, as investigators confront him with an associates’ misdeeds: He has privately insisted he “hardly” or “barely” knows Eastman, despite the fact that he counseled Trump on taking a string of extra-legal measures in a bid to stay in power and wrote the so-called “coup memo,” which laid out the facsimile of a legal argument for reversing Trump’s election defeat.
Behind closed doors, Trump will occasionally ask questions about Eastman’s fortunes, including bluntly inquiring: “Is [John] going to jail?” according to a source who has heard the former president say this. But publicly, Trump has stayed silent. Over the past several months, Trump has been strongly advised by lawyers and several associates not to openly discuss Eastman or his work — and to personally avoid the man altogether, according to three sources familiar with the matter. At this time, Trump, his legal advisers, and various political counselors would prefer to cut ties with Eastman and keep their distance, in a perhaps vain attempt to build a firewall between the lawyer who enthusiastically pitched strategies for delegitimizing the 2020 election outcome and the ex-president who repeatedly sought his help. […]
Ukrainian sources confirmed that Russian forces control all of Severodonetsk with the exception of the Azot industrial zone, and further advances continue, however slowly. Some increase in Russian naval operations is being reported. [map at the link]
[…]
[Julia Davis tweeted] Head of RT Margarita Simonyan emerged out of secretive meetings with Putin & spread the new theme on state TV: there is no war in Ukraine, nor is there a special operation. There is a “civil war” between Russians & “anti-Russians.”Russia is “just helping.”
[Video available at the link]
[…] A food warehouse in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa was destroyed by a Russian missile attack on Monday, according to the Ukrainian military. The military said Russian forces fired 14 missiles at southern Ukraine during a three-hour barrage “in impotent anger at the successes of our troops”. No civilians were killed, it said.
[…] Ukrainian officials are emphasizing that the coming week will be decisive for Russian efforts to take control of Severodonetsk. Deputy Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Russian leadership has set June 26 as the deadline for Russian forces to reach the Luhansk Oblast administrative border, which will likely result in intensified efforts to take full control of Severodonetsk and move westward towards the Oblast border. Head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai reported that Russian forces control all of Severodonetsk except for the industrial zone as of June 20, which is the first explicit Ukrainian confirmation that Russian forces control all of Severodonetsk with the exception of the Azot plant. Russian forces will likely continue efforts to clear the Azot plant and complete encirclement operations south of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk by driving up the T1302 Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway.
[…]
“All our hope is in the famine”, says lead Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan. She openly admits that Russia doesn’t want to resolve the food crisis. On the contrary, Russia is interested in it, deliberately starving people in Africa and Asia to achieve its political goals.
The saga of Gore-Tex heir Susan Gore is a parable of the dark turn the Republican Party has taken.
Nate Martin always thought there was something a little off about the new couple in town. Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca had shown up in Wyoming in 2019 with thin resumes and few references and quickly began immersing themselves in the state’s small but dedicated community of progressive activists. Maier, a burly Army veteran, expressed interest in a cannabis legalization effort supported by Better Wyoming, the advocacy group where Martin served as executive director. LaRocca, the new executive director of a group called Wyoming Progress, which sought to flip the nation’s reddest state, hoped to land a job with Martin’s then-fiancée, Karlee Provenza, who was running for a seat in the state legislature.
There was the way Maier and LaRocca seemed to mimic them—claiming to own a Belgian Malinois, just like them; getting engaged, just like them. And there were their wild ideas, schemes that seemed more at home in the world of black ops than grassroots organizing. In private, Martin and Provenza joked that their new acquaintances were moles. But they were friendly enough. And besides, who would want to spy on Wyoming Democrats?
“I just kind of thought they smoked a lot of weed,” Martin told me.
Then one afternoon in the spring of 2021, Provenza, now a state representative, was walking down Grand Avenue in downtown Laramie when she got a call from her husband.
“Do you remember Beau and Sofia?” Martin asked. It had been months since they had heard from the couple, who had disappeared from Wyoming’s Democratic scene just before the 2020 election.
“You mean the spies?” Provenza replied.
“Yeah,” Martin said. “They’re actually spies.”
Martin had called because he’d just heard that the New York Times wanted to get in touch about a big scoop. Yes, Maier and LaRocca really had gotten engaged (they have since gotten married). And they really were dog owners. But they weren’t trying to turn Wyoming blue. They were undercover conservative operatives, the paper discovered, who had been trained at a ranch belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince by a former MI6 officer with ties to the right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe. Maier’s mother worked for Prince. His uncle was Glenn Beck. Alongside other moles, Maier and LaRocca had been attempting to collect dirt on Wyoming’s Democrats—and certain Republicans—for a couple years.
While the news jolted Martin and other activists who’d once welcomed Maier and LaRocca into their homes, the identity of the woman who had allegedly financed much of the operation was less surprising.
Susan Walton Gore, an 83-year-old scion of the Gore-Tex waterproof-fabric fortune, was both a ubiquitous and reclusive presence in her adopted home state—a prolific donor whose network of political organizations picked big fights, but who shirked the spotlight herself. For more than a decade, Gore had embodied a familiar genus of American power: the big fish in a small pond who had learned just how far a dollar can go the farther you get from Washington. An effort to block Common Core science standards from being implemented in state schools? Gore, a onetime backer of the Libertarian Party, led the fight. Stopping tax increases, blocking Medicaid expansion, and reforming the state’s asset-forfeiture laws? Gore’s think tank, the Wyoming Liberty Group, led the way. The legislature’s rightward creep? Gore helped bankroll dozens of candidates.
[…] Gore’s transition from dark money to dark arts was, in part, the story of the Trump era: As the party grew increasingly unmoored from democratic processes and ethical norms, and ensconced in its own paranoia, it was not enough to rely on the familiar tools of political advocacy. The opposition had to be exposed and defeated by any means necessary. Donors—some wealthy, many not—poured tens of millions of dollars into shadowy and unorthodox projects, and such schemes took on increasing prominence in conservative circles.
[…] For years, she [Gore] had shown how much influence one committed, wealthy individual could have on a state’s civic institutions; now she was demonstrating just how much damage someone red-pilled by Trump could do to a state’s political culture.
[…] Trump’s movement was full of people whose worst fears drove them to empty their wallets for lost causes—from the Publix heir who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the January 6 rally, to the supporters of the fraudulent GoFundMe border wall, to the people still desperately giving money to a billionaire so he can spend it at his private club. There was never a better time in conservative politics to be a hustler, and never an easier time to be a mark.
[…] A onetime Transcendental Meditation activist, she [Gore] spent millions on businesses and philanthropic ventures that drained her inheritance and left her on the brink of bankruptcy. In a scheme too strange for Succession, she had once legally adopted her ex-husband in a bid to gain advantage in an estate dispute. Underpinning this new scandal was an echo of a more personal story. Wyoming, it turned out, was not the first state Susan Gore tried to transform. And it was not the first time her plans had gone wildly awry. [snipped lots of history, including the invention of Gore-Tex. And I snipped details of Gore’s Transcendental Meditation projects. I also snipped the sometimes mind-boggling details of how Susan Gore went from TM to Libertarian politics.]
[…] Gore launched the Wyoming Liberty Group in 2008. Because of the state’s size and proclivities, she would later tell a local paper, “Wyoming offers a real opportunity to be a real center of liberty.”
[…] In the early years, Susan and other WLG staffers and board members participated in an annual gathering at her sons’ ranch called Liberty Fest, where attendees convened to shoot guns, talk policy, and rant about the government from atop a soapbox. Her middle son, Joel Otto, who ran for US Senate in 2012 as the nominee of Wyoming’s right-wing Country Party, and whose views had been hardened by his experience with regulators (secession was not a “terrible idea,” he said in a soapbox rant, before complaining about bureaucrats who wouldn’t let him sell goat milk), sat on the group’s board.
[…] Gore’s group, which received funding from the Koch brothers-linked Donors Trust, hired lobbyists, published white papers, hosted forums, and filed lawsuits. To draft WLG’s brief in support of Citizens United, she enlisted an attorney named Benjamin Barr. Gore and Barr would eventually launch a spinoff legal organization called the Pillar of Law Institute, with another attorney, Steve Klein, that focused on challenging campaign finance rules they considered onerous. Klein and Barr also took on another client during this time: Project Veritas, the organization formed by James O’Keefe that conducts hidden-camera stings on journalists and campaigns. [All the best people.]
[…] Now devoted to Catholicism, in 2014 she spoke by video to a conference put on by the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a conservative Catholic organization based in Italy. (A few years later, the outfit would join forces with Steve Bannon to establish a training academy for right-wing European politicians at a converted 13th-century monastery near Rome […]) The institute credited the Wyoming Liberty Group with providing “generous support” for its Vatican City conference. In her speech, Gore warned that “collectivism” and government attacks on private property rights would ultimately “maim the mystical body of Christ, so as to destroy the very possibility of the salvation of man.” She was developing a worldview in which political adversaries were existential threats. [All the best people, with added religious flavor.]
[…] she ultimately embraced Trump. After he took office, his demand of loyalty began to ripple back to Wyoming. […]
By that point [2019], the secret operation Gore was funding to spy on elected officials, organizers, and donors in Wyoming had been underway for months. Prince, whose company was banned from doing business in Iraq after its contractors killed 17 civilians in Nisour Square […], had grown deeply involved in domestic politics during the Trump era. His sister, Betsy DeVos, served as Trump’s education secretary, while he forged a close relationship with Bannon, the president’s chief strategist.
[…] Prince urged the Trump […] administration to embrace the “dark arts,” including “covert action, sabotage, [and] information war,” […] The dark arts weren’t so dark anymore; they were celebrated by the White House itself. [snipped details of Erik Prince’s many nefarious actions, and how he was involved in advising the Trump administration.]
[…] Prince invited O’Keefe and a group of Project Veritas trainees to his family’s ranch, where they were joined by an acquaintance from Prince’s Blackwater days—a former MI6 officer named Richard Seddon. […] With an actual spy on board—Seddon eventually served as Project Veritas’ interim field director, according to court records—Project Veritas took on more ambitious projects in Washington, including an operation to collect dirt on “deep state” officials. […] The people he’d trained, however, were less proficient. When conservative operatives Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca began infiltrating Wyoming’s small circle of Democrats in 2019, their behavior often raised eyebrows. […] a group calling itself “Wyo RINO Hunters” posted a secretly recorded video of a Better Wyoming meeting
[…] “It’s kind of funny—not funny ‘haha,’ but funny ‘sad,’” one Wyoming-based Republican lobbyist told me. “There’s so much fear, there’s so much concern about maintaining their power, that it shows up as paranoia and anger. And it doesn’t need to be this way—not in a state this small.”
“We have to live and work with each other all the time,” says Tom Lubnau, a former Republican speaker of the House. “There’s not a lot of room for subterfuge or lying. Everybody knows what everybody else is doing. You’ll lose your credibility very, very quickly.” His judgment of the operation Gore funded: “I just thought it was a fundamental misunderstanding about the state of Wyoming.”
[…] This was a common refrain among conservatives in response to the scandal: Politics is messy, deal with it. But it’s not what spies might have unearthed that has their targets freaking out. Progressives in Wyoming, after all, don’t exactly feel pressured to self-censor. What’s shaken them is the invasiveness of it all, the projection behind the premise—that an increasingly paranoid notion of what politics is supposed to be has caused some irreparable fracture to what politics in their state actually is.
[…] Gore, who got into GOP politics to promote a new age of liberty, who exalted privacy and the autonomy of the home and local control and transparency as her group’s core principles, managed, by backing one keystone-cops operation, to challenge all those things. “Everything that we had done was sort of shattered at that point,” says Larson, adding he felt “betrayed” when he read about the operation. In the process, Gore accomplished something more profound than any of her previous political work has: She was so afraid of a plot to change her state that she didn’t stop until she’d funded one herself. […]
Craziness, weirdness, gullibility, paranoia … and way too much money.
Tethyssays
In todays Jan 6th hearing, we learned that the senator from Wisconsin is in need of some criminal charges:
The House select committee on Tuesday unveiled new information showing the role that Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson played in pushing “fake” electors for Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
A Johnson aide texted a staffer to former Vice President Mike Pence that the Wisconsin Republican wanted to hand-deliver “fake” electors to Pence just before the start of the Jan. 6 congressional session to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
The committee showed text messages Johnson aide Sean Riley sent to Pence aide Chris Hodgson, saying that Johnson “needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.”
“What is it?” Hodgson asked.
“Alternate slates of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Riley responded.
“Do not give that to him,” Hodgson said.
After the hearing, Johnson told CNN he has “no idea” who tried to get him to share the fake electors from Michigan and Wisconsin to Pence and he acknowledged he was aware of the ask on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.
Really?! Some stranger gave him a package of documents, briefed him on the contents, and told him to hand deliver them to the VP? Yet he has ‘no idea’ who that was?
Tethyssays
My quote @281 is from CNN. The links aren’t linking today, but it’s trending on Google at the moment.
A door to a classroom where the Uvalde school shooter was holed up was unlocked while police searched for a key to get in, a top Texas official said Tuesday, describing law enforcement’s response to the rampage as an “abject failure.”
[…] Police officers with rifles and at least one ballistic shield were in a hallway at Robb Elementary School around 19 minutes after a gunman entered classrooms there, according to reports from Texas news organizations Monday.
The Biden administration will ban the use of land mines by the United States across most of the globe, in a decision that reverses Trump-era rules allowing greater employment of the weapons that are blamed for killing thousands of civilians a year — the majority of them children.
The January 6 Committee laid out new details in the fake elector scheme at its Tuesday hearing, providing a look at how senior Trump officials tried to limit their own involvement in the plan while allowing it to go forward.
In November 2020, Trump was searching for a way to stay in office.
His efforts, the committee showed on Tuesday, coalesced around a plan to swear in alternate slates of pro-Trump electors in states that Joe Biden had won. GOP-controlled state legislatures could then declare the election invalid and approve the pro-Trump electors by January 6, at which point Vice President Mike Pence would reject the legitimate, Biden votes. Or that was the plan.
It’s a wild scheme, and the committee showed on Tuesday two things: that senior Trump officials knew it was insane, and possibly illegal — and that they did nothing to stop it.
The panel played a video interview with Justin Clark, a Trump campaign attorney.
Clark testified to the committee that he was uncomfortable with helping the alternate elector scheme.
Clark recalled a conversation he had with Ken Chesebro, a Trump attorney representing the campaign in Wisconsin.
“You just get after it. I’m out,” Clark recalled telling Chesebro. “I don’t think this is appropriate. This isn’t the right thing to do.”
Chesebro, released memos show, first advocated internally that the campaign take the alternate elector route, though a hodgepodge of conservative voices had also encouraged Trump to pursue that plan. The effort is now reportedly under federal investigation […]
Testimony released by the committee suggested that Clark did nothing to stop Chesebro — he only limited his own involvement. As an attorney, Clark has continued to represent Trump. Last year, he sued the committee in a bid to stop it from obtaining records held by the National Archives that were created during the Trump administration.
Per other testimony released by the committee, the order to move the alternate elector scheme forward came from the very top: Trump himself.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel testified that Trump called her and connected her with attorney John Eastman, directing the two to coordinate false slates of electors.
“My understanding is the campaign did take the lead and we were just helping them,” McDaniel said.
The committee played testimony from another campaign attorney, as well: Matt Morgan.
Similarly, Morgan shifted responsibility away from himself while indicating he still allowed the plan to go forward.
“This is your task,” he recalled directing another campaign official to tell Chesebro. ” You are responsible for the Electoral College issues moving forward.”
To Morgan, that was his “way of taking that responsibility to zero.”
For the country, however, that direction appears to have helped keep the scheme alive.
The panel delved into the scheme along with testimony from two of its victims: Georgia elections worker Shaye Moss, and Speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives Rusty Bowers.
Moss found herself the target of false election conspiracy theories propagated by Rudy Giuliani and Trump himself. Bowers was on the receiving end of intense pressure from White House officials and Trump attorneys to enact the fake elector scheme in Arizona.
But unlike Clark and Morgan, Moss and Bowers lacked the luxury of removing themselves from the situation.
“A lot of threats wishing death upon me,” recalled Moss, who is Black. “Telling me that, you know, I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”
Bowers recalled multiple conversations with Giuliani, other Trump attorneys, and Trump himself.
“You are asking me to do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath,” he recalled telling Giuliani and Trump during a conversation about the alternate elector scheme.
Giuliani purportedly replied: “Aren’t we all Republicans here? I would think we’d get a better reception.” […]
Excerpt from Talking Points Memo’s coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing that was aired today:
The committee aired audio of the call between Trump and Georgia secretary of state investigator Frances Watson, including Trump telling her she would be “praised” if she uncovered fraud in the battleground state’s election results.
Committee member Schiff then revealed that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows contacted Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger’s office 18 times before successfully setting up the infamous call between Trump and Raffensperger.
Schiff said the committee obtained text messages indicating that Meadows wanted to reward Georgia election investigators with a “shitload of POTUS stuff,” which includes commemorative coins and autographed MAGA hats, if they found fraud.
Bowers Describes Menacing Visits After Defying Trump:
Since he defied the Trump effort to assist in the theft of a second term in office, Rusty Bowers told the Jan. 6 Committee “it is the new pattern, or a pattern in our lives, to worry what will happen on Saturdays.”
On Saturdays, he said, groups have come by his house with screen-paneled vehicles and loudspeakers, declaring him to be a pedophile and leaving literature on his property and threatening him and his neighbors. He recounted one instance in which an armed man “with the three bars on his chest” (perhaps a reference to the “Three Percenters” militia group logo) threatened his neighbor.
Bowers described his daughter — who died last year — “who was gravely ill, who was upset by what was happening outside, and my wife — that was a valiant person, very strong, quiet, very strong woman… ” He trailed off. [tears in his eyes]
“So, it was disturbing.”
Bowers: Eastman Asked Me To Take A Vote To Decertify:
Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers testifies that conservative attorney John Eastman called to ask him to “to overthrow — I shouldn’t say overthrow, that we would decertify the electors and that because we had plenary authority to do so.”
Bowers said he refused Eastman’s request.
“Just do it and let the courts sort it out,” Eastman said, according to Bowers.
Bowers’ recollection of Eastman’s remarks follows his claim earlier that Giuliani said during a meeting with Arizona lawmakers that he and associates insisted they have “lots of theories, we just don’t have the the evidence.”
Afterwards, “we kind of laughed about it,” Bowers said.
LARRY KUDLOW [Fox Business host]: “Have you ever seen a president who refuses to accept blame and, I want to add to that, commits so many falsehoods—I’m being very polite here calling it falsehoods—falsehoods. On any given day, he’s [President Biden is] out there saying stuff that just ain’t true. You ever seen anything like that?”
PENCE [former Vice President Mike Pence]: “Never in my lifetime. I said today that there has never been a time in my life where a president was more disconnected from the American people.”
Commentary on the clown show excerpted above:
[…] The Washington Post had to invent a new rating for its fact checks—The Bottomless Pinocchio—just to accommodate Trump’s outsized dishonesty. Or the fact that Trump told 30,573 public lies during his four-year term—an average of 21 per day. Or, gee, I don’t know, how about the fact that Trump’s biggest, boldest, and most pernicious lie—the Western democracy-endangering Big Lie—came within 40 feet of getting Pence brutally murdered.
The next person who calls Mike Pence a hero for simply doing his job on Jan. 6—when he’d explored every possible avenue for not doing his job—needs to watch this clip. Does Mikey still think he’s gonna be president? Sorry, Mike. Your kiss-ass routine was perfectly executed right up to the end, but you really fucked up the dismount. Who exactly do you think will vote for you? […]
[video showing Trump saying that he does not take responsibility for conornavirus deaths] And remember when Trump basically told the nation’s governors to go full Highlander in their quest for medical supplies early in COVID-19 the pandemic?
Of course, it would be easy to cite far more examples of Trumpian blame-shifting and lies, but even on the solstice, there just aren’t enough daylight hours to do a thorough enough job. […]
Republicans always rely on the public’s short memory to win elections, even though their White House misadventures invariably end in gruesome disaster. But man, this shit is really brazen. Sadly, it will likely work wonders with the preprogrammed drones who tune in to Fox Business for tips on what to do after their crypto coins go kerflooey. Then again, lies are the only currency Republicans really care about these days.
We’re reminded in the Select Committee hearings of the extent of the hate and harassment campaign waged by trumpists. Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman were election workers targeted by Trump and trumpists in the pre-1/6 period after the 2020 election.
A publicist for Kanye West pressured a Georgia election worker to confess to unfounded election fraud claims.
Trevian Kutti paid a visit to Ruby Freeman, warning that she’d be arrested in 48 hours if she didn’t.
Bodycam footage obtained by Reuters shows Kutti offering to “move” and “secure” Freeman.
Weeks after the 2020 election, a Chicago publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West traveled to the suburban home of Ruby Freeman, a frightened Georgia election worker who was facing death threats after being falsely accused by former President Donald Trump of manipulating votes. The publicist knocked on the door and offered to help.
The visitor, Trevian Kutti, gave her name but didn’t say she worked for West, a longtime billionaire friend of Trump. She said she was sent by a “high-profile individual,” whom she didn’t identify, to give Freeman an urgent message: confess to Trump’s voter-fraud allegations, or people would come to her home in 48 hours, and she’d go to jail. [This was two days before January 6!]
[…] Trump called Ruby Freeman a “professional vote scammer and hustler” and Giuliani said she was passing around USB ports “as if they were vials of heroin or cocaine.” [Textbook racism against the two black election workers]
[…] A special grand jury could hear from Kutti and a number of other witnesses as early as this week. Several current and former officials in the Georgia secretary of state’s office have been subpoenaed to testify. […]
[Tweeted by Daniel Dale] The lies about the Fulton County elections workers were among the most odious of the entire deception campaign — the president, his allies and famous right-wing media people subjecting a couple of average workers to all manner of awfulness.
[…]
Kanye West’s publicist, and a person to whom she had Ruby Freeman speak on the phone, pressured Ruby to admit to committing election fraud. In a weird and roundabout way, (pretending to be her friend, and offering her “safety”), they threatened Ruby with incarceration. They threatened her with unspecified physical damage to both herself and to her family if she did not confess to fraud. She did not confess. She was braver and more sensible than all of Trump’s lackeys.
Excerpts from Wonkette’s live coverage of the January 6 hearing:
[…] Wow, they have clips of Trump campaign lackey idiots reading scripts and telling state officials they have the right to stab democracy in the [genitals] because Donald Trump’s ego was bruised. Just amazing how all these people have permanently destroyed their reputations for the sake of such a loser.
Video includes clip of Nick Fuentes just lightly suggesting that state legislators should be killed. Identifies him simply as a “conservative activist.” […]
BENNIE THOMPSON: Rusty Bowers, did you want Trump to win?
BOWERS: Yes.
THOMPSON: Did he win?
BOWERS: No, big loser.
Schiff reading statement from Trump today to Rusty Bowers, claiming that Bowers told Trump the election was rigged and that he won. “I did have a conversation with the president. That certainly isn’t it!” Bowers says if anybody ever says he said the election was rigged, “that would not be true.”
So Bowers is just confirming Trump is a liar.
[…] Bowers explaining how Giuliani asked him hold Committee hearings based on this fake evidence nobody would be able to give to him. He said fuck off. [Just to be clear, that’s all obviously a paraphrase by Wonkette. Bowers is highly religious and does not cuss.] Bowers said they told him they could just remove Joe Biden’s electors, and they should have a hearing on that. Bowers told them WOW, so that’s against the Constitution and my oath of office, Jesus Christ, holy shit.
Bowers confirms that Rudy Giuliani leaned on him to do all these things partly because “we’re all Republicans.” Party above country, in other words.
Bowers just saying over and over again how often these awful people asked him to violate his oath of office, and just how beyond the pale that was for him.
[…] “No one provided me EVER” any significant evidence of fraud, says Rusty Bowers.
Bowers confirms that some of the same people who attacked the Capitol also have illegally entered the Arizona legislature and called his name, like they were looking for him, the way they did Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and others.
[…] Did these assholes know the White House counsel’s office was pretty sure having fake electors meet to cast fake electoral votes was illegal? Oh yeah says Cassidy Hutchinson [Mark Meadows aide]. Who knew? Meadows, Giuliani, Eastman, all of ’em.
[…] Schiff playing clips of Sterling on December 7, 2020, explaining that magic ballots in secret suitcases were bullshit, and that Trump’s lawyers knew it and they were all just lying about it.
Sterling says it’s been really hard to debunk Trump’s lies about the election, because (our words) these morons are so brainwashed that even when Sterling would show them that these claims of fraud were bullshit, and even when they’d accepted that, people would still say, “I just know in my heart that they cheated.” They know. In their hearts. […]
Schiff says Meadows called/texted 18 TIMES to get the infamous “find me 11,780 votes” call set up.
Talks about Meadows going down to breathe heavily all over Georgia election workers, and Trump’s perfect call with Raffensperger’s chief investigator Frances Watson, where he told her how “praised” she’d be if she stole the election for Trump.
[…] SCHIFF: Is it accurate that, like Trump says, 10,315 dead people voted in Georgia?
RAFFENSPERGER: We investigated, it was four people.
Basically Raffensperger says they chased every late night bowel gas hallucination Trump and Giuliani and Eastman ever had, and every one was bullshit.
[…] batshit Kraken lawyer Lin Wood was saying Trump was going to have to put Raffensperger in jail, and Trump was retweeting that.
On the call, Trump then told Raffensperger to find him the 11,780 votes, then bullied him like a loser mafia boss some more.
Raffensperger now talking about the harassment and violence they’ve dealt with from regular Trump supporters throughout all this. [Trump’s cult followers even broke into Raffensperger’s daughter-in-law’s house. She is a widow, with children. Raffensperger’s son is dead. Trump’s cult followers threatened Raffensperger’s wife with all manner of sexual violence.]
[…] Those officials — representing Arizona and Georgia, where Trump won handily in 2016 but lost in 2020 — told the select committee that they had supported Trump’s reelection bid but refused his demands to “find” votes or decertify President Biden’s victory for a simple reason: It would have broken state and federal laws. […]
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Tuesday said that witnesses testifying before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol are laying out a “huge, stunning and clear moment” showing a lack of evidence to support former President Trump’s claims of an unfair election in 2020. […]
“… a couple of the TV people claimed that my puppet squad had “committed insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol building. First of all…What? Second of all…Huh? Third of all, they weren’t in the Capitol building. fourth of all – and I am shocked that I have to explain the difference – Insurrection involves the lawful actions of Congress and howling for the blood of elected leaders all to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. This was first degree puppetry. This was hijinks with intent to goof.” […]
“Drawing any equivalence between rioters storming the Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots, and a cigar-chomping toy dog is shameful and a grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died. And it obscenely trivializes the service and courage of the Capitol Police showed on that terrible day. But who knows. Maybe there was a vast conspiracy to overthrow the United States with a rubber Rottweiler.”
StevoRsays
Thank the Tongan volcano – but with a twist here :
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
…Dramatic footage has emerged from Russia of what appears to be a drone crashing into an oil refinery and setting off a fiery explosion in what could be an attack inside Russia’s borders. Video shared on social media showed the unmanned aerial vehicle crashing into the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, in Rostov, in what would be an embarrassing penetration of Russia’s air defence systems in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
…
Ukraine’s army said it launched airstrikes on Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake Island, causing “significant losses” to Russian forces. The military’s southern operational command said it had undertaken “aimed strikes with the use of various forces” and the military operation was continuing.
…
Finland’s armed forces chief, Gen Timo Kivinen, said his country was prepared for a Russian attack and would put up stiff resistance in the event that one should occur. Finns are motivated to fight and the country has built up a substantial arsenal, Kivinen said, adding: “The most important line of defence is between one’s ears.”
Europe needs to prepare immediately for Russia to turn off all gas exports to the region this winter, according to the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol. He called on governments to work on reducing demand and keeping nuclear power plants open.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its staff has seen evidence of a “shocking level” of “indiscriminate violence” being inflicted on civilians in Ukraine. The medical charity, which set up a hospital train in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, said more than 40% of its wounded train patients were elderly people and children. More than 10% of the war-trauma patients had lost at least one limb.
A Ukrainian photojournalist and a soldier who was accompanying him were “coldly executed” when they were killed in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion, according to Reporters Without Borders. Maks Levin and Oleksiy Chernyshov were reportedly searching Russian-occupied woodlands for the photographer’s missing image-taking drone, the agency said, citing its findings from an investigation into their deaths.
Also from there:
Vladimir Putin has called for a strengthening of ties with countries from the BRICS group of emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China South Africa– in the wake of western sanctions over Ukraine.
On the eve of a BRICS summit, the Russian president said Moscow is in the process of rerouting its trade towards “reliable international partners, above all the BRICS countries”….
[…] As part of the same testimony, Bowers spoke with great eloquence about his disappointment with Trump’s illegal scheme and its consequences. In fact, the Republican lawmaker shared painful details of Trump’s rabid followers, fueled by the former president’s lies, going after Bowers, his family, and even his neighbors.
He spoke of video panel trucks with videos that accused him of being a pedophile. Trump followers blared loudspeakers in his neighborhood. An armed man, fueled by conspiracy theories, threatened a neighbor. His gravely ill daughter, who died early last year, was distraught by the drama unfolding outside their family home.
Bowers, however, stood firm. He wrote in his diary, “I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.”
[…] something Bowers said after the hearing that also seemed relevant. The Associated Press reported:
[W]hile Bowers said the efforts by Giuliani and other Trump backers have been hurtful, he does not levy any criticism on Trump directly and would support him if he were on the ballot. “If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again,” Bowers said.
[WTF]
He wasn’t kidding.
Just so we’re all clear, Bowers knows that Trump hatched an illegal scheme that threatened our democracy. Bowers knows that Trump pressed him directly to ignore the law and help him cheat. Bowers knows that Trump lied. Bowers knows that Trump’s lies led radicalized Republicans to harass him and his own family. Bowers knows that Trump’s lies have hurt the nation. Bowers knows that Trump lied yesterday morning about Bowers personally as part of a clumsy effort to undermine his credibility.
But Bowers would still vote for Trump anyway.
This comes three months after former Attorney General Bill Barr also said Trump lied and orchestrated an illegal scheme to claim illegitimate power — but he’d vote for him again, too.
What’s wrong with Republican politics in 2022? Let’s put this near the top of the list.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
The supreme court has added a second upcoming decision release day to its calendar: Friday. The justices had already [planned?] to issue their latest opinions on Thursday, and the additional day will give them more time to work through the backlog of cases they have yet to publicly announce rulings on.
The court is expected to continue its rightward streak in its upcoming decisions, which could deal with some of the must contentious issues in American society, including abortion, gun access and environmental regulation. Indeed, an unprecedented leak of their draft opinion on an abortion access case before them shows the conservative majority ready to overturn Roe v Wade entirely. They are also viewed as leaning towards rolling back restrictions on carrying concealed weapons and weakening the government’s ability to enforce regulations.
“It’s quite clear that Donald Trump has no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself,” Mo Brooks said.
[…] When launching his Senate candidacy in March 2021, his opening pitch to voters, made alongside Stephen Miller, couldn’t have been Trumpier: “In 2020, America suffered the worst voter fraud, and election theft, in history.”
A Trump endorsement soon followed. The pieces were in place. The far-right congressman was on track to become a senator.
Or so it seemed at the time. NBC News reported overnight:
Katie Britt, a former top aide to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has defeated Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama’s Republican Senate primary runoff […]
It was not close. With nearly all of the votes tallied, Brooks trailed by 26 points. Alabama has 67 counties, and the congressman appears to have lost 66 of them.
The turning point in the race came in March, when Trump un-endorsed Brooks. The former president concocted a literally unbelievable pretext, but the political calculus was obvious: Trump became convinced that Brooks would eventually come up short, and he thought he’d look bad if another one of his preferred candidates lost.
Instead he looked bad by abandoning an ally who’d done everything possible — up to and including delivering radical remarks at Trump’s pre-riot Jan. 6 rally — to make him happy.
Down in the polls and with the writing on the wall, Brooks said last week, “It’s quite clear that Donald Trump has no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself.”
[…] As we’ve discussed, it’s no secret that Trump has long been preoccupied with a twisted approach to loyalty: He’s skeptical, if not hostile, toward those who fail to genuflect around him to his satisfaction.
But Brooks is the latest Republican to learn a valuable lesson: Trump sees loyalty as something he’s supposed to receive, not bestow.
The congressman isn’t the first to have this experience with the former president, and he very likely won’t be the last.
[…] Ukraine is now down to one slice of Severodonetsk and its final retreat is imminent. Meanwhile, Russian forces finally punched through Ukrainian defenses north of Popasna and are approaching Lysychansk from the south. [map at the link]
Unlike Severodonets, Lysychansk is absolutely defensible. Russia is blocked from its eastern approach by the Donets river, and currently safe from its western approach because of the same river. (Russian attempts to cross it have met with unmitigated large-scale disaster thus far.) Thus, Russia’s only approach at the moment is from the south. And look at what that looks like on a relief map: [map at the link]
[…] I added emphasis to the series of heights that overlook the approach into town. Let’s take a closer look at that approach: [map at the link]
There are two entrances into Lysychansk from that southern approach. The one on the east is a narrow corridor between bluff and river. Not only is it a natural ambush point, but might even be blockadable. It will certainly be mined to high heaven, requiring Russia to de-mine under fire. Here is a Google Maps street view from the foot of the hill with a nice, clear view of that road heading up north. Note the ample human infrastructure along the highway, allowing for harassment of Russian forces all the way into town.
The wider western approach runs between two sets of bluffs, natural ambush points, and there is plenty of this kind of infrastructure on the way into town: [Google Maps view at the link]
Yes, Russia will level that. But that will take time, and Russia will pay with blood for every meter it advances. […] Ukrainian counter-battery fire can continuing harassing Russian artillery, and doubly so as HIMARS rocket artillery arrives imminently.
And we haven’t even entered Lyschansk proper, a city with a pre-war population of 100,000. It has taken Russia three weeks and counting to take a city on an isolated salient, at the very end of Ukrainian-held territory. Lysychansk is much easier to defend, reinforce, and resupply (no blown bridges).
And you know what? Even Lysychansk doesn’t matter strategically! Russia can crow all it wants about conquering all of Luhansk Oblast, but the Donbas also includes Donetsk Oblast, and Ukraine holds thousands of square miles of it. And Russia can’t conquer it without going through Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. [map at the link]
Staring at map closeups skews perspective, so let’s put those two cities in their broader context: [map at the link]
Small circle on the right is the Severodonetsk/Lysychansk pocket. The small circle to the left is Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and the big circle is pretty much the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the Donbas. At current pace, featuring frightening losses, that’ll only take Russia … still not doing the math. A long f’n time. And that’s assuming they somehow figure out how to fix their logistical issues. Heck, logistics might even hamper Russia’s southern approach toward Lysychansk. I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia’s “flatten it, then march into the rubble” strategy doesn’t give them Lysychansk in a month or two, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Ukraine holds on. All because of logistics.
Ukraine has been targeting Russian supply and ammunition depots over the past week to spectacular effect. Much of that is credited to longer-range artillery like M777 howitzers from Australia, Canada, and the United States, and Caesar self-propelled guns from France. Yet several of these strikes are extra long range, using Soviet-era Tochka-U rockets […].
We knew Ukraine had them, but the fact that they’re still firing them this deep into the war is surprising. Either they have ungodly patience in using them, or they’ve been getting resupplied by former Soviet states (Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Poland, and East Germany all had them but were retired, and Bulgaria had a handful remaining in service).
If they had these rockets all along, why not hit these ammo dumps sooner? One possibility is partisan activity. Reports are spreading of partisan acts in occupied territories, with Russian soldiers and Ukrainian collaborators being assassinated by ambush or improvised explosives. Many also suspect these partisans are uncovering the location of these ammo dumps and passing coordinates to the Ukrainian army. Some of the results have been spectacular, like this one: [video at the link]
The on-the-ground footage is apocalyptic: [video at the link]
[…]
In the early 1960s, Massachusetts writer and homemaker Clara Park and her husband took their 3-year-old daughter, Jessy, to a specialist after noticing that she avoided connection with others. Following the conventional wisdom of the time, the psychiatrist diagnosed Jessy with autism and blamed Clara for Jessy’s isolation. Experts claimed Clara was the prototypical “refrigerator mother,” a cold, intellectual parent who starved her children of the natural affection they needed to develop properly.
Refusing to accept this, Clara decided to document her daughter’s behaviors and the family’s engagement with her. In 1967, she published her groundbreaking memoir challenging the refrigerator mother theory and carefully documenting Jessy’s development. Clara’s insights and advocacy encouraged other parents to seek education and support for their autistic children. Meanwhile, Jessy would work hard to expand her mother’s world, and ours.
Drawing on previously unexamined archival sources and firsthand interviews, science historian Marga Vicedo illuminates the story of how Clara Park and other parents fought against medical and popular attitudes toward autism while presenting a rich account of major scientific developments in the history of autism in the US. Intelligent Love: The Story of Clara Park, Her Autistic Daughter, and the Myth of the Refrigerator Mother (Beacon Press, 2021) is a fierce defense of a mother’s right to love intelligently, the value of parents’ firsthand knowledge about their children, and an individual’s right to be valued by society.
In this week’s January 6th committee hearings, a documentary selling election conspiracies was laughed off by the likes of Bill Barr. But myths about a stolen election are no joke. On this week’s On the Media, hear about a pundit’s efforts to revitalize and repackage The Big Lie. Plus, one man’s escape from the conspiracy theory machine.
1. Philip Bump…, national correspondent at The Washington Post, on debunking election myths made for the silver screen.
2. Nina Jankowicz…, former head of the Disinformation Governance Board, on the lessons learned from government-led attempts to counter disinformation.
3. Josh Owens…, former staff member at InfoWars, on what made him leave, and how he’s come to terms with his past role in dangerous movement.
Will Sommer and Sam Brodey chat with Jessica Huseman, editorial director for Votebeat, about how folks who actively tried to subvert the 2020 election are now vying to get on ballots for positions that could allow them to influence the next presidential race. Elsewhere on the podcast, the hosts discuss the “kerfuffle at the GOP convention in Houston over the weekend” in which a “YouTube prankster” staged a dramatic confrontation with Congressman Dan Crenshaw, and wonder how many British documentarians are going to come out of the woodwork at the January 6 committee hearings. And finally, the hosts note how a drag queen named Barbara Seville busted apart Kari Lake’s anti-LGBTQ hypocrisy, and discuss how Texas Republicans are terrified that the woke are now coming for the Alamo.
A popular Arizona drag queen is blasting Kari Lake — the front-runner in the state’s Republican primary for governor — as a “hypocrite” for targeting drag performers, saying she was a frequent attendee of his shows.
Rick Stevens, who has performed as Barbra Seville in the state for decades, said he felt compelled to speak out against his former friend after she latched onto a right-wing campaign against drag queen story hours, in which drag queens read to children in public spaces.
“They kicked God out of schools and welcomed the Drag Queens. They took down our Flag and replaced it with a rainbow. They seek to disarm Americans and militarize our Enemies,” Lake said in a tweet last week. “Let’s bring back the basic: Gods, Guns & Glory.”
Stevens fired back on Facebook, saying that since Lake “waded in to the war on drag queens, know she is a complete hypocrite.”
“I’ve performed for Kari’s birthday, I’ve performed in her home (with children present,) and I’ve performed for her at some of the seediest bars in Phoenix,” Stevens wrote.
Stevens also posted pictures of himself in character with Lake over the years, including one where she was dressed as Elvis Presley.
Seville has also made an appearance on Lake’s Instagram page, according to The Washington Post. A 2014 post showed them hugging, with Lake captioning, “Half of what I learned about makeup I learned from watching friends like @barbraseville.” The newspaper said the post was deleted after it inquired about it. [LOL]
…
In a Twitter post, Lake’s campaign acknowledged she was once friends with Stevens, but said he had “become radicalized in recent years” and resorted “to public attacks on Lake for her political views.”
The statement said Lake “is serving Mr. Stevens a defamatory lawsuit and is happy to do the same to Media outlets that report these lies as truth.”
In the same post, the Donald Trump-endorsed candidate’s campaign said, “Media is the Enemy of the People. And frankly — the right hand of the Devil.”
It also continued the criticism of Drag Queen Story Hour…
…
Stevens told The Associated Press that despite the harassment, drag isn’t going away.
“The fact is, drag has existed forever,” Stevens said. “I’ve been doing drag longer than Kari has been a Republican. But if you want to outlaw drag in front of kids, you better free up your calendar because it’s ingrained in our culture. The first drag queen I saw was Bugs Bunny.”
[…] the American right’s anti-LGBTQ hysteria is whipping up violence: A Whidbey Island, Washington, man who had been making threatening remarks to his gay neighbors, and posting comments on social media talking about his desire to kill gays and to attack a nearby Pride parade with his semiautomatic rifle, was arrested on Friday by Oak Harbor police on a $1 million warrant, the day before the event.
It shortly emerged that not only was 27-year-old Tyler Dinsmoor a Navy veteran who had settled into the community after serving at Whidbey Island Naval Station, but is a devoted member of a western Washington church where the pastor, Aaron Thompson, regularly demands the death penalty be levied and enforced against the LGBTQ community. [video at the link]
Oak Harbor police and prosecutors said they arrested Dinsmoor less for his threats against the Pride event—which they had deemed too vague to constitute a “direct threat”—but chose to charge him with malicious harassment (Washington’s version of a hate crime) for the threats he directed against his neighbors.
The charging documents indicated the basis of the arrest was remarks he directed against the neighbor on June 14. She had been returning home from the grocery store with her wife when he yelled at them: “It used to be legal to kill gay people!”
The woman, who lived next to a rental property that Dinsmoor owns, said she said nothing in response, but instead just went inside with her wife and told her children not to go outside. A few days later, she said that Dinsmoor returned to the neighboring property, this time carrying a handgun on his hip.
Prosecutors said those remarks placed “that group of persons in reasonable fear of harm,” and were motivated by bias against their sexual orientation, both of which violate Washington’s malicious-harassment law.
But when police went to arrest Dinsmoor on Friday, they descended in full force: With two federal agencies, multiple armored vehicles, a negotiating team and a police helicopter. Oak Harbor Police Chief Kevin Dresker told the Whidbey Island News-Times that the massive show of law enforcement was primarily due to the nature of Dinsmoor’s social-media output—as well as the fact they knew he was well-armed.
Over the previous month, Dinsmoor’s online homophobia had grown increasingly violent, particularly his posts on Gab, the white-nationalist-friendly chat forum where he spent most of his social-media time. He posted memes demanding “Death Penalty for [slur that begins with ”F”]” and warned early in June that he “was 9mm away from fedposting [shooting] two [slur that begins with ”F] at home depot yesterday.” He added: “Pray for me bros, I might not make it through this [slur that begins with ”F] month.”
According to the warrant issued in the case, Dinsmoor in May started focusing on last Saturday’s Pride Parade in Anacortes, about 20 miles from Oak Harbor, and asked his friends on Gab to “talk me out of it.”
On May 2, Dinsmoor posted a Photoshopped picture of a white man pointing a handgun at a group of people waving and holding a Pride flag.
A few weeks later, he laid out his range of far-right views, including his underlying antisemitism:
I am Tyler and the Jews are responsible for just about every bad thing in this world, they are agents of Satan and deserve severe punishment for their nefarious deeds. They will go to hell. All homosexuals are child-rapists in wait, and all (every single one) should be put to death immediately. They will go to hell. Adulterers should be put to death, with no exceptions. White people are not responsible for the bad behavior of blacks, and the best case scenario is that we live separately, in our own nations. There is nothing more useless that a ‘career woman’—it’s an abomination.
The detective investigating the June 14 incident wrote that she believes Dinsmoor is “an extreme risk to the public, especially the upcoming Pride events in the area.” She recommended Dinsmoor be ordered to submit to a psychological evaluation if he’s released.
It soon emerged that Dinsmoor’s radicalization was a product of an evangelical church he attends that preaches that homosexuality is a capital crime—namely, Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Vancouver, Washington, which is led by Pastor Aaron Thompson. Podcast Hemant Mehta found that was Dinsmoor such an ardent member that he was willing to make the five-hour drive to Vancouver to attend services, camping overnight at a nearby state park with his family the night before and then driving back the next day.
Sure Foundation is part of the New Independent Fundamental Baptist (New IFB) network, a rabidly anti-LGBTQ Baptist offshoot founded by hate preacher Steven Anderson. […]
Thompson, as Mehta has documented, tells his flock that teachers who encourage “the filth of sodomy” should be “shot in the back of the head.” But he insists that he only wants the executions to occur at the hands of government officials. He clarifies that if any Christian acts on this outside the law, “they didn’t get that idea from me.” [bullshit]
Thompson’s hardly the only New IFB pastor preaching this kind of openly eliminationist hate. His son-in-law, Dylan Awes, recently told a congregation in Texas: “Every single homosexual in our country … should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head!” (Awes is married to Thompson’s daughter Jassamyn.)
[…] After police arrested Dinsmoor, right-wing activists exploded in outrage. [One post] included the police captain’s phone number. [snipped details of VDare’s support, and of other rightwing support, for Dinsmoor]
In reality, Washington law is quite strict about making threats. Its harassment law makes it illegal to threaten to hurt someone, say you will damage someone else’s property, or threaten to restrain or confine anyone. Intent is not the issue; the laws specify that there has to be a reasonable belief on the part of the alleged victim that the accused would have or could have actually carried out the threatened action.
Its malicious-harassment law stiffens the penalties for anyone engaging in such conduct with a bias motivation—including bigotry against the LGBTQ community.
The Democrat Bee Nguyen easily won her primary runoff in Georgia last night, and will now face off against Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who has attracted praise for his refusal to endorse Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
Raffensperger was among witnesses who testified at the January 6 committee hearing on Tuesday, about Trump and his allies’ pressure campaign on state officials.
Raffensperger explained how Trump leaned on him to “find” enough votes to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, but he refused to do so. As a result, he and his family members were subjected to violent threats from some of Trump’s supporters.
Nguyen, however, wants to dispel any notion that Raffensperger is a moderate just because he stood up to Trump.
“The reality is Brad Raffensperger is a conservative Republican with a long track record of undermining our voting rights,” Nguyen said on a Wednesday press call.
Nguyen, who currently serves in the Georgia house, noted that Raffensperger endorsed SB 202, the 2021 state law that imposed sweeping new restrictions on voting access.
“That is not the pro-democracy secretary of state that Georgians deserve,” Nguyen said.
I don’t think Trump ever had any “reasonable” options, but okay.
As the House select committee on Jan. 6 unfolds the conspiracy Trump launched to overturn the results of a democratic election, Republicans are sweating over just how compelling the testimony and presentations have been so far. Sure, Fox News has done their best to keep the Republican base ignorant, but with every other channel dropping hearing clips on top of Judge Judy and the afternoon session of Wheel, it’s inevitable that some of their people are going to catch a glimpse of what’s being said. Which could have the disastrous side effect of making people curious about the truth. [LOL, too true.]
So far, the hearings have concentrated on the violence that happened on Jan. 6, including how Donald Trump and his team recruited white supremacists and militia members to attend the Jan. 6 event, and how the Proud Boys and others worked to agitate the crowd as they initiated assaults on police. The latest hearing focused on the pressure applied to state and local officials—including threats made against their careers, their persons, and the lives of their families—to persuade them to go along with what seems, at first, to be a highly esoteric scheme: sending slates of false electors to Washington D.C. in time to interfere with the Jan. 6 announcement of electoral results.
[…] The truth is that Jan. 6 was never intended to hold even the slightest bit of importance. It’s not even the day on which the electoral votes are officially counted. It’s intended to be purely ceremonial.
But Republicans have a habit of taking apart society by looking for ways that the rules can be subverted (see: McConnell, Mitch). That means that any situation in which “tradition” and “the public good” have smoothed over past disruptions, as they did when Al Gore presided over the session in 2000, are quickly identified as soft targets in the effort to break the system.
That Jan. 6 was being mentioned when Trump was pressuring election officials, secretaries of state, and state legislators gives the impression that the date had some great significance, but that was only late in the game. The real significance came only because that was the weak point on which Trump’s team had agreed to pounce when other plans failed.
It wasn’t until Dec. 19 that Trump sent his tweet promising a “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.” That was the tweet that finished with “Be there, will be wild!” The reason for that tweet, and for setting the whole plot in motion that would make Jan. 6 a day that merited more than thirty seconds’ mention at the end of a newscast, was simple: […] Trump had exhausted every possible avenue for legally challenging the election.
Every state that could be forced into a recount had made no difference. Sixty-plus trips to state and federal courts had yielded nothing. Even the previous plot—back heavily by disgraced Gen. Michael Flynn—to get a slate of false electors to Washington, D.C., in time for the actual enumeration and certification of the vote on Dec. 14, had led to nothing.
[All that remained was] something was called “the Pence card.”
In what should be a hilarious example of just how messed up this whole idea really was, the original version of the Pence card claimed that a provision of the U.S. legal code explaining what to do if certificates of electors weren’t submitted by Dec. 14 allowed Pence to sub in Trump electors to fill the gap. As Snopes pointed out, the code never said what Trump supporters claimed.
This provision does not give the vice president the authority to reject votes certified by the states. It only says that the vice president shall attempt to expedite the process if states fail to deliver their certification of votes on time.
[…] after the Dec. 14 date had passed, Trump’s team began pushing #ThePenceCard on right-wing social media.
That was when attorney John Eastman fished the Pence card out of the “sovereign citizen” toilet, dressed it up, and wrote a pair of memos that were intended to give this turdball a patina of respectability. They also presented Trump with a step-by-step for translating it into something he could use to plant a knife solidly between lady liberty’s shoulder blades.
Almost nine months after the assault on the Capitol, the first of the memos created for Trump by Eastman was revealed. The name of that privileged and confidential memo was simply this: “January 6 scenario.”
What Eastman laid out was a six-point plan for what would happen that day:
Pence would launch the ceremony and start opening the ballots.
When Pence got to Arizona, he would declare that there were “multiple slates of electors,” then announce that he was skipping over AZ until the remaining states were done.
When he did reach the end, Pence would declare that “because of the ongoing disputes” the votes in seven states couldn’t be counted. […] Pence would declare Trump the winner with 232 votes.
Eastman predicted there would be “howls, of course, from the Democrats” who would foolishly insist that it takes 270 electoral votes to win (Democrats might also have complained that you can’t arbitrarily disenfranchise voters in seven states, but Eastman doesn’t mention this), Pence would then declare that neither candidate had 270 votes and kick the election to the House, where each state would get one vote and Republicans have a one-state advantage.
Assuming someone insisted on following the actual law as defined by the Election Count Act, Eastman had another fallback. Someone—Ted Cruz and Rand Paul were named—could filibuster that request, blocking certification of the count.
“The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court.”
What Eastman was spelling out here was that the reasons didn’t matter. They could get Pence to call the winner. Or they could throw the election to the House. Or they could just have Cruz or Paul filibuster the procedures. It didn’t matter. It also didn’t matter that none of it would hold up in court. Because piss on the courts.
[…] Eastman had a one-page summary of a constitutional argument that they could throw out there, and which they expected the media to dutifully both-sides if necessary. […]
The remainder of Trump’s Jan. 6 planning wasn’t just about pressuring Mike Pence into going along with steps 1 through 3, and convincing all Republicans that they had better stay loyal to Trump on steps 4 and 5. The assault on the Capitol was intended to be frightening. It was intended to generate chaos. It was intended to justify Trump taking additional steps.
After all, something had to be done … about Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Jan. 6 was supposed to be a nothing day. One of those dates on the Congressional calendar when reporters can sleep in and aides catch their breath before starting the next campaign season. That it ever became the center of an insurrection came because Trump was out of every even halfway plausible option. So he turned to Eastman for something implausible, then backed it up with personally delivered threats and carefully arranged violence to give the impression there was a there there.
Shaye Moss, a true profile in courage, is the Fulton County, Georgia, elections worker whose life Rudy Giuliani callously endangered with his slander. He publicly accused Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of election fraud and deliberately rigging the outcome for Joe Biden, who objectively won the most votes.
Moss had to go into hiding from Donald Trump’s thuggish supporters. Anyone with a human soul would’ve been gutted by her story, but Senator Tim Scott had his soul surgically removed decades ago. And if there was any chance that the gaping hole that remains might still respond to what Moss and Freeman experienced, he simply ignored the whole proceedings. […]
Last night on Fox News, Bret Baier asked the junior senator from South Carolina, “Have you learned anything new, is [the January 6 hearing] troubling, and can you support Trump if he runs for president?” His response was shameful, even for Scott’s established record of shamelessness.
SCOTT: I have not taken the time to watch the hearings. I feel like the best use of my time is fighting the inflationary effects and looking for ways to push back for the American consumer. I spent my time talking about the gas prices and ways that we can reduce it.
Oh, sorry, we didn’t know Scott was busy drafting the Gas Is Now Magically $1 A Gallon Again Like In The ‘90s bill. Normally, this should take precedence over anything else, but we are talking about an attempted coup whose ringleaders are still at large. Scott should try to fit that into his schedule. We know it’s the summer and all, but Scott could skip that second viewing of Top Gun: Maverick and watch the damn January 6 hearings.
However, Scott insists he doesn’t need to see anything more about January 6, he’s already lived it.
SCOTT: I was actually in the Senate when it happened. I don’t need an education on what actually happened.
Scott was presumably running for his life from an unhinged mob. That doesn’t make him an objective observer. He also should at least understand the events that led to the attack. This was a criminal conspiracy to overturn a free and fair election.
SCOTT: I do think what we’re seeing is made for TV. What we haven’t seen is any cross-examination. So, we’re having people lay out stories without having the cross-examination.
Cross-examine this, asshole. [video of Ruby Freeman testifying; and video of Shaye Moss testifying]
Even the legal counsel for the scuzziest defendant on “Law & Order” would watch this and say, “I got nothing.”
Scott’s “made-for-TV January 6 episode” dig is especially cynical and odious. He’s framing Moss and Freeman’s very real pain and suffering, for which Trump and Giuliani are wholly responsible, as a performance worthy of Elizabeth Olsen. Fuck him.
I’ve seen it argued that Scott, who’s Black, should care at least a little about these brave Black women who were the victims of Trump’s illegal power grab. But Scott’s a Republican. He only cares about maintaining his proximity to power, and Shaye and Lady Ruby have none. They only have honor and decency.
It’s depressing but hardly a surprise that Scott said he’d support Trump in 2024. […] Sometimes gas prices are so high and the threat of socialism so damn non-existent that you have no choice but to back the guy who swung a sledgehammer at our democracy.
In the past 24 hours, there has been an uptick in the number of violent threats against lawmakers on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and all lawmakers on the committee are likely to receive a security detail, according to three people involved with the investigation.
The committee on Tuesday held its fourth hearing, which focused on efforts by former president Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the resulting political violence and harassment experienced by many of those who resisted.
Over the weekend, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) revealed a letter addressed to his wife that threatened to execute them and their 5-month-old baby. He warned that the political violence of Jan. 6, 2021 was not an aberration but a consequence of his party’s repeated lies. [… letter available at the link]
Committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has been flanked with a security detail since last year, and has been unable to hold large, publicized campaign events, in part due to security concerns, according to aides.
During Trump’s second impeachment trial, which was held shortly after the insurrection, security details were provided to all nine impeachment managers.
“For safety reasons, the USCP does not discuss potential security measures for Members,” a spokesperson for the United States Capitol Police said in a statement. […]
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, said Wednesday that significant new streams of evidence have necessitated a change to the panel’s hearing schedule, including the potential for additional hearings.
After the committee’s Thursday hearing — which will focus on former President Donald Trump’s effort to deploy the Justice Department to help overturn the 2020 presidential election — House investigators will resume hearings in July, Thompson said.
Thompson (D-Miss.) cited newly received footage from documentarian Alex Holder, who had access to Trump and his family before and after Jan. 6; new documents from the National Archives; and a flood of new tips received during the committee’s first four public hearings.
…The House is scheduled to leave town for two weeks beginning Friday and to return on July 12. Thompson said the panel’s hearings would likely resume “after the recess.”
However, Thompson cautioned that the hearings couldn’t be pushed back much further because the panel has to write its final report, which members expect to release in the fall.
Thompson said he has already viewed some of the footage provided by Holder, who is slated to privately speak with the select committee Thursday, though he hasn’t seen all of it yet. He described Holder’s footage as “important” but declined to elaborate.
Awwww, Republicans were duped? What did they expect?
What the fake electors scheme and Donald Trump’s post-election fundraising have in common: People who put their trust in Trump were shamelessly exploited.
Those who went into yesterday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing assuming that they wouldn’t be surprised quickly learned otherwise. When it came to the fake electors scheme hatched by Donald Trump and his allies, we knew the basics, but we nevertheless learned some amazing new details.
We learned, for example, that the then-president was directly involved in the plot. We learned that Team Trump knew the scheme was illegal because the White House counsel’s office told them so. We learned, by way of Ronna McDaniel’s deposition, that the Republican National Committee helped put the slates of fake electors together. We learned some Trump campaign lawyers distanced themselves from the scheme because it was so obviously dubious.
In an oddly funny moment, we learned that some fake electors in Michigan were so determined to be inside the state Capitol on the designated day that they considered hiding in the building overnight. […]
But one of the things that surprised me most was the Republicans who felt like they’d been duped. The Detroit News highlighted an especially memorable quote:
“We were kind of useful idiots or rubes at that point,” said Robert Sinners, a former Trump campaign staffer, adding he now feels he was misled about the effort. “I’m angry because I think, in a sense, no one really cared if people were potentially putting themselves in jeopardy.”
Asked if he would’ve volunteered to be a fake elector, knowing what he knows now, Sinners added, “I absolutely would not have.”
A Detroit News reporter added that one local Republican insisted that she was asked to sign her name to the materials without being shown one of the pages that included multiple false statements.
A committee investigator also noted the concerns one local Republican raised about whether the Trump campaign would pay the fake electors’ legal bills.
Of course, there’s little to suggest Team Trump was particularly concerned with the fake electors’ fate. […]
It was hard not to think of the recent revelations about the Trump campaign’s “Election Defense Fund,” which did not exist, but which raised millions of dollars from unsuspecting Republican donors.
The common thread is how the former president and his team perceive his loyalists as suckers: People who put their trust in Trump were exploited without shame or hesitation.
* In Georgia’s congressional runoff primaries yesterday, Donald Trump supported Jake Evans and Vernon Jones in their respective races. They both lost anyway.
* Speaking of Georgia, state Rep. Bee Nguyen won her primary yesterday and is now the Democratic nominee for secretary of state. If she defeats Republican incumbent Brad Raffensperger in the fall, Nguyen would be the first Asian American elected to statewide political office in Georgia.
[…] * Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt was asked yesterday for his reaction to Eric Greitens’ unsettling ad about “RINO hunting.” The retiring Republican said it’s “another example of poor judgment” on the part of the former governor, but Blunt didn’t comment on whether he’d support Greitens anyway after the GOP primary.
* On a related note, Greitens appeared on Steve Bannon’s program yesterday and was asked if he thought the ad was excessive. “We’re 100% proud of this ad,” the Missouri Republican replied.
* Alaska’s congressional special election got a little more complicated yesterday when independent Al Gross ended his candidacy — an announcement that came on the heels of Gross qualifying in the state’s new Top 4 election system. Gross’ move appears to have been motivated by a desire to stop former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin’s Republican campaign.
* And on Capitol Hill, Texas Republican Mayra Flores was sworn in yesterday as the newest member of the U.S. House, on the heels of her recent special election victory. As of today, the Democratic advantage in the chamber is 220 to 210, with five House vacancies.
Akira MacKenziesays
On a related note, Greitens appeared on Steve Bannon’s program yesterday and was asked if he thought the ad was excessive. “We’re 100% proud of this ad,” the Missouri Republican replied.
Of course he would be proud. The average rank-and-file Republican voter–especially in a rural crap-hole like Missouri–LOVES this sort of threatening tough-talk. If he were to apologize, his voters would take it as a sign of weakness. Always better to double, triple, and quadruple down.
Does Trump know that his boyfriend, Mehmet Oz, is breaking up with him? Does OZ really believe he can wash the Trump stain off now?
When TV huckster Mehmet Oz secured Donald Trump’s endorsement in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, Trump became the dominant feature of nearly every ad created by the Oz campaign.
Oz peppered his campaign literature and TV spots with either Trump’s picture or the words “endorsed by Trump.”
On Twitter, Oz’s account invoked Trump more than 70 times in a little over month between the April 9 endorsement and May 17 primary […]
Oz’s Twitter and Facebook pages also displayed a picture of Trump with “ENDORSED BY TRUMP” in big block letters just below the “OZ” campaign logo.
But that’s all changed since Oz eked out a primary win following a recount.
Trump has been unceremoniously edited out of Oz’s social media accounts. On Twitter, Trump no longer appears anywhere in Oz’s bio, and Oz hasn’t mentioned Trump in a single tweet since May 17.
[…] the play is obvious. Trump is a drag in the general election even if he animates GOP base voters. Much like Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin kept Trump at arm’s length during his successful gubernatorial bid, Oz doesn’t want noxious Trump dragging him down among a potentially decisive slice of suburban voters.
The good news for Democrats is twofold: 1) It appears that Oz, who barely prevailed in the GOP primary with roughly 31% of the vote, isn’t exactly beloved among Trump base voters; 2) Democratic nominee Lt. Gov. John Fetterman swept the primary with nearly 59% of the vote and appears to have some appeal even among Trump base voters, according to recent polling.
Anecdotally, never-Trumper and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell said in a recent Focus Group podcast that Fetterman is basically the only Democrat she has seen in years attracting any interest whatsoever from GOP base voters in her focus groups. Some GOP voters are at least Fetterman-curious, which is nothing short of a total Trump-era anomaly.
So by offloading Trump in the general, Oz may be attempting to make himself more appealing to suburban base voters, but he doesn’t exactly have the Trump vote in the bag either.
And remember, this seat would be a pick up for Democrats if Fetterman were to prevail.
In an absolutely nightmarish turn of events, Republicans in the House and the Senate are introducing legislation to allow adults who received gender-affirming care as youths to potentially sue those physicians later in life.
The legislation includes a 30-year statute of limitations and would apply to care given after the bill goes into effect. The bill, which is expected to be formally introduced on Wednesday, is misleadingly titled the “Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act” and is being introduced in the Senate by Tom Cotton of Arkansas and in the House by Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana and Doug LaMalfa of California.
This inflammatory legislation also seeks to ban federal health funds from going to states that allow health care workers to perform gender-affirming health care. Notably, it permits patients or their legal guardians to sue those physicians after the patient turns 18. […]
The end goal? Continue to demonize vulnerable trans folks and scare physicians away from providing this safe, age-appropriate, and necessary health care by criminalizing it. It’s evil, it’s hateful, and we should all be ashamed this is even a conversation our nation is humoring.
The bill defines “gender-transition” procedures as social affirmation (like pronouns and names) and hormonal therapies and puberty blockers. It defines “biological sex” on the basis of “genetic classification” via sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth. It specifically notes that this does not include the “subjective sense” of identifying the person in question has for themselves.
Terrible.
“Radical gender-changing ideologies ignore scientific evidence and put children in harm’s way,” LaMalfa said in part, per Newsmax (of course), claiming that “every time” a physician offers gender-affirming care to a minor, they’re “potentially” sterilizing them “for life” and violating their oath to do no harm.
[…] LaMalfa went on to describe gender-affirming care as “experimental procedures” and frame the federal government as trying to “force” physicians to offer this care. Again, buzzwords and hysteria.
Unsurprisingly, Cotton took a similar approach when speaking to Fox News (again, of course) by incorrectly declaring that gender-affirming care isn’t “safe or appropriate” for youth and describing physicians who offer this life-saving care as “radical” doctors who perform “dangerous” and “experimental” procedures. Cotton also suggests all of this care is “sterilizing” and that these procedures are being performed on “young kids.” […]
No one, (including children), is being forced or pressured into surgeries. Gender-affirming care for youth often involves using the correct name and pronouns, supporting gender expression in appearance and clothing, and sometimes hormonal therapy and puberty blockers. It just depends. In many states, people under 18 cannot receive gender-affirming surgeries at all.
At the end of the day, these are personal medical decisions that should happen between the patient and their medical providers, not the rest of us. There is no right or wrong way to be trans and there is no right or wrong way to transition, but everyone should have the basic dignity of accessing safe and age-appropriate health care with the respect and help of their physician.
[…] A ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth in Alabama has already gone into effect.
We know gender-affirming care is life-saving care. We know acceptance can literally save lives. We know trans youth know who they are.
The hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection incited by Donald Trump have been effectively exposing the role of Trump and his confederates in politics and the press. It is now an inescapable fact that they knew that their attempts to undermine democracy and overturn the election were illegal and they just didn’t care.
On Tuesday a judge confirmed that Fox News was among those who knowingly spread lies and disinformation regarding the 2020 presidential election. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems who allege that Fox News (and Newsmax and One America News Network) defamed them with blatantly false reports of election fraud. The ruling rejected Fox’s motion to dismiss the case, and explicitly cited the network’s owners as justification to allow the suit to proceed. According to Bloomberg News…
“Fox News’s parent company can be sued by a voting-machine maker because Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch may have acted with “actual malice” in directing the network to broadcast conspiracy theories alleging the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump. […]
“Dominion cited in its suit a report that Rupert Murdoch spoke with Trump a few days after the election ‘and informed him that he had lost,’ the judge noted.”
The judge further noted that…
“‘These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion.””
The evidence that Fox News purposefully maligned Dominion is overwhelming and irrefutable. The flagrant falsehoods promulgated on Fox include bizarre allegations that Dominion was created by deceased Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chaves; that their machines were rigged to switch votes from Trump to Biden; that Dominion was run by a George Soros associate; that Jewish space lasers operated by China altered the voter database.
Okay, that last one was not alleged in the lawsuit, but has been alleged by other Trump cult disciples. And the fact that it fits right in with the other real allegations says something all by itself.
In another defamation lawsuit filed by voting software company, Smartmatic, actual malice – exemplified by Tucker Carlson – was also cited when Fox’s motion to dismiss that case was rejected.
There’s a reason that these ruling keep going against Fox News. The network’s deliberate distortions of the truth have been a core part of their propaganda crusade to advance the “Big Lie” that Trump has been whining about for more than a year and a half. He has lost more than sixty cases challenging the election results, primarily because he has never produced a shred of evidence to support his charges.
Unfortunately, the efforts by Trump, aided and abetted by Fox News, have led to numerous episodes of violence, including the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill. And even that was predicted by a judge in a related case…
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is pressing pause on its hearings for next week and picking them up again in July.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee, told reporters Wednesday that the committee would hold off on the two final hearings it had planned for this month.
“We’ve taken in some additional information that’s going to require additional work. So rather than present hearings that have not been the quality of the hearings in the past we made a decision to just move into sometime in July,” Thompson said.
Thursday’s hearing will continue as planned.
“There’s been a deluge of new evidence since we got started. And we just need to catch our breath, go through the new evidence, and then incorporate it into the hearings we have planned,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) similarly mentioned a “mountain of new information.”
“I don’t think we’ve established a date yet, but we have a mountain of new information that’s come in that we have to go through,” Lofgren told The Hill.
The committee has recently received more information from the National Archives, and Raskin said it has also received information from other various sources — a comment that comes after the committee flashed its web address in the hopes of enticing new witnesses. […]
StevoRsays
Did many other people know Arabia has its own endangered magpie species the Asir or Arabian magpie?
As Congress looks for ways to address gun violence, Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices are pushing in the opposite direction.
In Congress, Democratic and Republican lawmakers are close to advancing new legislation intended to address gun violence in the wake of deadly mass shootings. With strong public backing, the bill represents a breakthrough possibility unseen in a generation.
Across the street from the Capitol, however, Republican-appointed justices are pushing in the opposite direction. NBC News reported:
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Constitution provides a right to carry a gun outside the home, issuing a major decision on the meaning of the Second Amendment.
The ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen was a 6-3 decision, with Republican-appointed justices voting in the majority.
In 2008, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on the Second Amendment in a case called District of Columbia vs. Heller. Writing for the majority, then-Justice Antonin Scalia concluded that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun in his or her home.
Today’s ruling in Breun goes much further, striking down a New York law that required residents to apply for a state permit and show “proper cause” to carry a concealed gun in public. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said such a restriction is illegal under the Second Amendment.
The Constitution, Thomas wrote, protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
This, by any fair measure, dramatically expands gun rights, and as the Associated Press noted, will “allow more people to legally carry guns on the streets of the nation’s largest cities.”
What could possibly go wrong.
Thomas proceeded to sketch out a new standard for firearm restrictions. “To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest,” the far-right justice wrote, dismissing concerns and evidence about public safety. “Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’” [WTF]
NBC News’ report added that today’s ruling “could affect the ability of state and local governments to impose a wide variety of firearms regulations,” most notably requirements for state-issued permits to allow carrying concealed guns in public.
As Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern put it, “Before today, about 83 million people — about one in every four Americans — lived in a state that strictly limited concealed carry to those who had a heightened need for self-defense. Now, zero people live in such a state.”
In his dissent, retiring Justice Stephen Breyer […]
“The dangers posed by firearms can take many forms,” Breyer wrote. “Newspapers report mass shootings occurring at an entertainment district in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (3 dead and 11 injured); an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas (21 dead); a supermarket in Buffalo, New York (10 dead and 3 injured); a series of spas in Atlanta, Georgia (8 dead); a busy street in an entertainment district of Dayton, Ohio (9 dead and 17 injured); a nightclub in Orlando, Florida (50 dead and 53 injured); a church in Charleston, South Carolina (9 dead); a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado (12 dead and 50 injured); an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut (26 dead); and many, many more.”
He added, “[M]ass shootings are just one part of the problem. Easy access to firearms can also make many other aspects of American life more dangerous. Consider, for example, the effect of guns on road rage.”
“New York’s Legislature considered the empirical evidence about gun violence and adopted a reasonable licensing law to regulate the concealed carriage of handguns in order to keep the people of New York safe,” he concluded.
This is the precise reasoning that the Republican-appointed justices rejected.
It’ll take some time to digest the details and the scope of the ruling, but at face value, it’s getting more difficult to imagine any firearm restrictions that would satisfy the high court’s reckless far-right majority.
Trump adds his bonkers, mindless blustering to the debate over gun regulations:
About a year ago, as a bipartisan infrastructure package started to take shape, Donald Trump made little effort to hide his outrage. The former president didn’t know what was in the bill, but he was sure he didn’t like it, and he expected Republicans to oppose it because he said so.
There was no great mystery as to his motivations: Trump wanted a bipartisan infrastructure package and failed to negotiate one. If he couldn’t have an infrastructure deal, President Biden shouldn’t get one either.
The current circumstances are nearly identical: As a bipartisan bill to address gun violence takes shape, Trump is outraged once again. He doesn’t know what’s in the bill, but he’s sure he doesn’t like it, and he expects Republicans to oppose it because he said so. Yahoo News highlighted the former president’s pitch:
“The deal on ‘Gun Control’ currently being structured and pushed in the Senate by the Radical Left Democrats, with the help of Mitch McConnell, RINO Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and others, will go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY. Republicans, be careful what you wish for!!!” Trump wrote on his social media platform….
As a factual matter, all of this was quite foolish. Twenty senators from both parties negotiated a compromise, and none of them could credibly be described as “radical left.” For that matter, Republican Sen. John Cornyn is obviously not a “RINO,” and the legislation he helped write is so incredibly modest, the idea that it would lead to widespread gun confiscations is plainly bonkers.
But for Trump, this isn’t about facts. This is about the fact that he tried to get a bill to address gun violence, too, and he failed. Just like with infrastructure, from the Republican’s perspective, if he couldn’t have success in this area, Biden shouldn’t either.
[…] in the wake of a mass shooting in a school, when [Trump] held a televised, hourlong discussion with a group of lawmakers from both parties about gun violence. As part of the conversation, then-Vice President Mike Pence raised the prospect of empowering law enforcement to take weapons away from those who’ve been reported to be potentially dangerous, though he added that he expected to see “due process so no one’s rights are trampled.”
As regular readers know, Trump wasn’t satisfied — and he instead voiced support for extrajudicial gun confiscations.
“Take the firearms first and then go to court,” Trump said. At the same event, the then-president endorsed a law enforcement model in which police officers confiscated some Americans’ guns “whether they had the right or not.”
When Republicans derailed those negotiations and nothing passed, there was another mass shooting a year later, at which point Trump again wanted a gun bill, including restrictions on assault rifles — one of his long-sought goals.
In other words, while in office, Trump sought ambitious gun reforms that went much further than the bipartisan compromise currently pending in the Senate. […]
Last year, plenty of GOP lawmakers ignored the former president and helped pass a worthwhile infrastructure bill. The odds are good the same thing will happen this year on addressing gun violence.
[…] As I write this, the little Ukrainian pocket around Zolote was being sewn up, with Ukraine retreating from those positions after a heroic three-week defense while nearly surrounded. North of that, Russian troops are single-digit kilometers away from the southern approach to Lysychansk, where Ukrainian defenders have used the town’s high ground to assist the Severodonetsk defense, shelling Russian positions in the city. Pretty soon, those defenses will have to turn inward to protect Lysychansk itself.
Ukrainian resistance in Severodonetsk is confined to the city’s industrial zone, akin to what we saw in Mariupol. Night time is supposedly a different story. If reports are true, Ukrainian special forces roam the city at night, when their night-vision gear provides an advantage over their blind Russian invaders, retreating to the industrial zone at daylight. It’s hybrid guerrilla warfare, holding a known, fixed position by day, but sniping and harassing at night. The situation in the industrial zone is surprisingly secure enough that Ukraine can take prisoners:
The Rashist cannon fodder in the Severodonetsk industrial zone chose their life and surrendered to the Ukrainian defenders. The exchange fund will be replenished.
[https://twitter.com/vik8867dn/status/1539704052287774720 video at the link]
These guys are chill and laughing, literally taking prisoners. Cornered, desperate soldiers don’t take prisoners.
Close-quarter urban warfare makes it hard for effective use of artillery—no one wants to hit their own troops. So as long as Russian forces are nearby, the fight becomes … more fair. More direct. For some curious reason, Russia isn’t doing their usual “level everything to the ground, then march into the rubble.” Perhaps they saw how long it took in Mariupol, and hope that direct assaults speed things up.
Note the lack of artillery shelling compared to videos you might see from other parts of the front (the occasional booms are likely mortar or tank fire). [video at the link]
Reports claim Ukraine isn’t overcommitting to the city’s defense, with only around 600-800. In this concrete jungle, where rubble doubles as defensive positions, it doesn’t take many defenders to extract a severe toll on advancing Russian troops. Even more so if those advancing forces lack competence.
See the POW video above? The prisoners are wearing the red armbands of Russia’s Donbas proxy forces. (Russian forces wear white armbands.) These are untrained proxy cannon fodder. Russia isn’t storming this maze of industrial buildings with professional forces well-trained in urban combat and building-clearing operations. They are shepherding meat to slaughter. That all likely feeds into Ukraine’s decision to continue the defense.
Ukraine has consistently said they won’t be in position for any full-scale counter-offensives until maybe August, most likely September. Severodonetsk thus serves two critical functions:
1. It thins the (Russian) herd. Russia’s Donbas proxies have exhausted their mobilization, having grabbed all men up to the age of 60. They may be Russia’s preferred source of cannon fodder, but they are an exhaustible supply. Once that cannon fodder runs out, Russia will have to risk more of its own men, and without full Russian mobilization (which Vladimir Putin is clearly loathe to do), that supply is also exhaustible. Reports from Russia claim that 60% of VDV forces have been destroyed—their supposedly “elite” airborne units. More and more of Russia’s troops are volunteer soldiers on thee-month contracts. Doesn’t seem sustainable. And no one is getting trained on a three month contract.
Meanwhile, Russia is also facing dire equipment shortages. Read this report from a Pro-Putin Russian blogger in Luhansk.
AF RF [Armed Forces Russian Federation] since the start of the SMO [special military operation] have lost the majority of the modern T-72/90 modifications and the majority of the BMP-3 fleet. Over a month ago the Belohirivka crossing demonstrated not only the monstrous situation with command’s incompetency in some places, but also the fact that RF AF are now fighting with second or third sets of equipment consisting of the same BMP-1 which the Ukrainian army is now receiving from the Eastern European allies. In fact, the UAF [Ukrainian Armed Forces] have all the chances to soon receive more modern equipment to replenish their losses, but the RF AF and LPR [Luhansk People’s Republic] People Militia’s corps have no chance of replenishing with modern produce of our military-industrial complex. It just does not produce enough to replenish, and it won’t be any time soon.
So going to the frontline are T-62s and BMP-1s taken off from storage, and, for example, the radio navigational equipment on these vehicles has either rotted away or is just missing, or represented by R-123 radio stations, meanwhile the UAF have have streamlined deliveries of digital “Motorola”s and GPS-receivers of a military grade. For understanding, if now in one of the tank battalions of the DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic] and LPR People’s Militia there is at least one fully combat-ready tank company (out of three or four it is meant to have), then this is a record and a reason for pride. In fact, the majority of the combat-ready vehicles consist of the trophied Ukrainian T-64s which have been captured in a more or less decent state compared to the own T-64 of the people’s militants.
2. It bogs down Russian forces away from other fronts
This heat map of Russian troop concentrations is almost a week old, but not much has changed, and not much will change so long as Ukraine is holding out in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. [map at the link]
That hottest spot, the largest Russian troop concentration, is in the Popasna salient, south of Lysychansk. It’s the Russian grouping that finally broke through Ukrainian defenses pushing their way north. The second largest concentration of Russian forces is at the Izyum salient. All of these troops are trying to finish the conquest of the entire Luhansk Oblast, while threatening the twin Ukrainian strongholds at Sloviansk and Kramatorsk—gateway to the rest of Ukrainian-held Donbas.
Now look at how thin Russians are everywhere else.
There’s a reason why Ukraine has been able to push forward around Kherson and Kharkiv, even before their reserves are trained and Western equipment has been fielded and operational. Ukraine is on the counteroffensive because Russia has hollowed out defenses in those areas, giving Ukraine the unexpected opportunity to jostle for positioning ahead of those big promised offensives a few months down the road.
As much as Ukraine talks about taking back Crimea and the entire Donbas, their real goal is to get back to the 2014 borders, after which they can reassess. That means pushing Russia away from Kharkiv and retaking Kherson, Melitopol, and Mariupol. Russia’s inability to lock those regions down is specifically because of Ukrainian resistance in the Donbas, and their continued hold on Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
Now, I still think Lysychansk is more defensible than Severodonetsk, but no one has taken Lysychansk off the board. At some point, inevitably, Ukraine will decide that Severodonetsk is no longer worth the lives and equipment to defend, and those troops will raft across the river to the other side. Lysychansk itself can then hold out for a few more months, further bleeding Russian forces, fixing them in this theater and leaving the rest of the front under-resourced, waiting for the day that Ukraine finally launches its full-scale liberation effort.
After the war we’ll learn Ukraine’s real toll in this defense, and military historians (and armchair generals) can argue whether that cost in lives was worth it.
Tucker Carlson has found a new threat to his masculinity, because that’s what Tucker does.
The Biden administration has announced that it intends to direct the FDA to develop new rules for maximum nicotine levels in cigarettes and certain cigarette substitutes, to reduce them and thereby make them less addictive. This would seem like a no-brainer. Anyone familiar with smoking knows it’s the nicotine, stupid. It’s a drug. People who smoke are addicted to a drug called nicotine. To reduce the levels of nicotine allowed in cigarettes, it would seem, would make the damn things less addictive, and if fewer people are addicted, fewer people develop smoking-related cancers, have heart attacks, and die young.
For Tucker, though, this is all part of the Biden administration’s war on his testicles.
Lie down on the couch and cry to us about your balls, Tucker: [video at the link]
TUCKER CARLSON: Yesterday the FDA announced it’s planning to remove virtually all nicotine from cigarettes. Now nicotine is not the thing that gives you cancer. Nicotine is the thing — it’s addictive but it also increases mental acuity but they’re taking that out. According to the Wall Street Journal, the agency will also ban Juul e-cigarettes. Now what happens when you get off nicotine? Well, your testosterone levels plummet and you gain weight, both of which the administration is for because you become more passive and easier to control.
Jesus Christ, where to begin.
JoeMyGod points out that according to a 2017 profile in the New Yorker, Tucker is a former smoker who eats nicotine gum “constantly.” That profile says he gets it “in bulk, from New Zealand, where it is sold in satisfactorily easy-to-open packaging.” It says he only stops chewing when he’s on TV or filming.
So that’s where he’s coming from.
[…] Nicotine isn’t just addictive, it is insanely addictive, and it is the thing that keeps people sucking on the damn cigarettes for life. But note that what Tucker is really worried about here is testosterone levels, because that is what he is alwaysworried about.
You can Google around to read about whether getting off nicotine really destroys testosterone levels or not — doesn’t really seem like it, and certainly not permanently — just as you can read up on what exactly causes weight gain after one quits. Hint: A big part of it is that people substitute snacky snacks for smokes when they quit, so they gain weight. Also, quite simply, nicotine/smoking correlates with a higher resting heart rate, which artificially keeps some people from gaining weight. Of course, such results are reversible for many, and most ex-smokers will tell you that after a while, their bodies get back into the equilibrium they had before they started smoking and nicotine started dictating what their equilibrium should be. (Fun fact: No one ever thought the human body required nicotine to survive before a person started smoking!)
[…] Tucker hosted some wingnut radio host called Vince Coglianese, who whined and spread conspiracy theories about how they were doing this while simultaneously “sending out crackpipes using federal tax dollars.” Also something about fentanyl, because America’s dumbest whites have a completely braindead conspiracy theory about Joe Biden intentionally sending fentanyl across the southern border to kill the white working class. [JFC]
Coglianese suggested that those who want to decriminalize pot are also doing so to make people more passive, saying, “So they’ve removed the drugs that make you sharper, and they’re importing the drugs that kill you and make you duller.”
Because these guys really think nicotine is making them smart. Bless their hearts.
Tucker whined that “[n]icotine is one of the few remaining pleasures for ordinary people, particularly working class men, and now they’re taking it away.”
Tucker, his voice fearfully shrieking into its soprano register, yelped, “Yeah, how about no? You can’t take my guns and you can’t take my nicotine. That’s a hard no on that! Sorry! I don’t care what the FDA says! Not gonna happen!”
And he wasn’t the only one either. Sean Hannity, in the very next hour, had his own “FUCK IT, WE’LL DO IT LIVE!” moment, where he swore to Jesus that he would vape on air if the FDA bans Juul. Because that’s the hill he’s gonna die on. Vaping.
Look, quitting smoking and getting off nicotine — or, in our personal experience, getting to the moment where you actually agree to quit — can be insanely hard. And nicotine is the stupidest, dumbest, most garbage drug. All it does is rewire your brain so that you think you need nicotine in order to feel “normal.” That’s why the cravings come like clockwork as the nicotine levels go down. That’s why nicotine is seemingly able to relieve stress and make you relax and make you able to concentrate and get you pumped up and one million other things that strangely seem to always coincide with whatever you need it for. Because all it’s doing is giving you the fix your brain thinks you need so you can handle whatever situation you’re in.
That’s it.
And that’s why we say yeah, definitely, regulate the nicotine levels so low you can drown them in a bathtub, then maybe people won’t be so hooked on the damn things.
Meanwhile Tucker is over here crying that you’ll have to pry the nicotine gum out of his cold dead balls.
The chair of the House Freedom Caucus contacted his home state’s House Speaker in the hopes that he’d help subvert the results of the 2020 election.
For months, Rep. Andy Biggs’ name has come up in connection with the Jan. 6 investigation, though this week, it was a bit of a surprise.
During Tuesday’s hearing of the Jan. 6 committee, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers was delivering sworn testimony about those who pressured him to help corrupt the election results. After talking about his difficult interactions with Trump attorney John Eastman, the line of questioning took a brief detour. The Arizona Republic’s EJ Montini explained:
Bowers was asked if he’d been contacted by Biggs and asked to decertify Arizona presidential electors. By this time Bowers was more convinced than ever that there was no legal justification for doing so. Bowers said of Biggs, “He asked if I would sign on both to a letter that had been sent from my state or that I would support the decertification of the electors, and I said I would not.”
At that point, the hearing moved on, but it was nevertheless a memorable moment: A prominent Republican congressman — the chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus — personally contacted his home state’s House Speaker in the hopes that Bowers would help subvert the results of a free and fair American election.
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, one of Biggs’ colleagues from the Arizona delegation, noted that the Republican congressman was the former president of the Arizona Senate — so he knew that Bowers couldn’t legally take such steps. […] “He was asking him to break the law.”
The Bowers/Biggs conversation in question was not an isolated incident. The state House Speaker also spoke with Biggs on a Dec. 21, 2020, videoconference, at which point the congressman reportedly pushed the idea that there was widespread election fraud — claims that have since been thoroughly discredited.
We also know about a strategy session then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows held — also on Dec. 21, 2020 — in which Biggs was in attendance.
Biggs was also sending politically provocative texts to Meadows as early in the process as Nov. 6, 2020 — three days after Election Day, but before the race was called — about state legislatures appointing their own electors.
What’s more, the committee has told Biggs, “[R]ecent information from former White House personnel has identified an effort by certain House Republicans after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon for activities taken in connection with President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Your name was identified as a potential participant in that effort.”
It was against this backdrop that the bipartisan select committee invited Biggs in May to voluntarily answer questions. He refused. Soon after, the panel subpoenaed the Arizona Republican, but at least for now, he’s refused to honor the legal summons, too.
When Biggs’ name came up on Tuesday, it was a reminder that these questions about what Biggs did, when, and with whom aren’t likely to go away anytime soon.
Campaign news, bits and pieces as summarized by Steve Benen:
* On Tuesday, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers told the Jan. 6 committee the truth about the pressure he received to corrupt his state’s election results. One day later, Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward endorsed Bowers’ primary opponent.
* In Wisconsin’s closely watched gubernatorial race, a new Marquette Law School poll found incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers with modest leads over each of his would-be Republican rivals. [Good news.]
[…] * As for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, the Marquette Law School survey showed incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson in some trouble: The Republican narrowly trailed Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson in hypothetical match-ups, but narrowly led Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry.
* In the wake of Missouri’s Eric Greitens releasing an unsettling ad about “RINO hunting,” The Washington Post reports that Republican operatives and donors “are privately working to undercut” the former governor’s U.S. Senate candidacy.
* On a related note, John Wood, one of the senior investigators on the Jan. 6 committee, is leaving his current position and taking a look at a possible independent Senate campaign. As the Kansas City Star noted, Wood is from St. Louis and served as U.S. attorney in Missouri during the Bush/Cheney administration.
* And in his latest unfortunate moment, Senate hopeful Herschel Walker suggested in an interview this week that he believes the U.S. has 52 states. A spokesperson for the Georgia Republican said he misspoke and knows how many states there are.
There are 50 states, plus the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.). The D.C. area wants to become a state so that it has proper representation in Congress.
Federal agents searched the home of former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark on Wednesday, bringing the focus of federal law enforcement squarely onto a high-ranking official who tried to help former President Donald Trump stay in office after losing the 2020 election.
[…] Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official who runs a foundation that employs Clark, tweeted that on Wednesday, more than a dozen “DOJ law enforcement officials” searched Clark’s home in a “pre dawn raid,” leaving the onetime pretender to the position of attorney general “in the streets in his pjs.” […]
Clark was the only senior DOJ official in 2020 and early 2021 who was willing to do what former President Trump wanted: wield the department as a tool to interfere in the certification of the election results.
Trump wanted to install Clark as acting attorney general, a role in which, according to Trump’s plan, the longtime environmental law practitioner would issue letters to multiple swing states that would inform them that the DOJ regarded the elections in their states as inconclusive due to massive fraud.
[…] there was no evidence ever presented of voter fraud in the 2020 election; Clark’s letter would have come with the recommendation that state legislatures certify new, pro-Trump electors for Congress to approve on Jan. 6, according to a report released last year by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Clark failed to investigate leads that other DOJ officials provided him, the report said, and instead demanded information about a debunked theory that “smart thermostats” had allowed the Chinese government to meddle with voting machines. […]
In other words, Clark is a Trump lackey, and he disembarked from the reality train a long time ago. Now he is in hot water.
Posted by readers of the article:
Guess all the treasonous Trump officials should start sleeping in their clothes—the FBI seems to prefer these pre-dawn raids.
———————-
I’m pretty sure, if you used to be a high ranking official in the Department of Justice, and the FBI shows up with a warrant to search your house, your career has taken an unfortunate turn.
Excerpts from Talking Points Memo’s coverage of the House Jan. 6 Committee’s fifth hearing, which was held today:
[…] Shortly after taped testimony of former Trump White House aides revealed the names of several GOP lawmakers who sought pardons after the Capitol insurrection, some of those Republican lawmakers were quick to react to the revelation. [snipped Marjorie Taylor Greene’s nonsense about “gossip and lies.”]
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) didn’t deny seeking a pardon. Brooks defended the request by attacking Democrats.
[…] there was a concern Democrats would abuse the judicial system by prosecuting and jailing Republicans […]
Republicans think that Democrats will use the judicial system the way that Republicans dream of using it.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) — whom Hutchinson testified had “talked about” a pardon, but did not ask for one — denied that he ever sought one.
[…] The GOP congressman that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) pointed a finger at earlier today, blaming for his aide’s involvement in trying to deliver fake Trump electors to Pence, vehemently denied that he had anything to do with it.
Earlier today, Johnson told a local radio station that fake elector documents were delivered to his office from Rep. Mike Kelly’s (R-PA) office. Kelly was among the GOP lawmakers who objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory after the Capitol insurrection.
In a scathing statement, Kelly blasted Johnson’s allegations as “patently false” and claimed that he had not spoken to him “for the better part of a decade.” [Fighting among themselves.]
[…] In a lengthy letter to the Jan. 6 Select Committee, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who recently lost the Alabama Senate GOP primary to Trump endorsee Katie Britt, said he would agree to testifying before the panel — but only if it meets all five of his terms.
Brooks demands that the committee:
* Allows a public testimony
* Keeps its questions related to Jan. 6
* Conducts questioning only by members of Congress, not staffers of the committee
* Disclose documents that would be used in questioning at least seven days before deposition so that he can “refresh my memory of its contents”
* Holds deposition date when House has floor votes
[Why does Mo Brooks think he gets to make demands?]
[…] Upon the conclusion of live testimony from witnesses, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) praised the former DOJ officials who testified today for preventing Trump’s “coup” from succeeding.
“He was willing to sacrifice our republic to prolong his presidency,” Kinzinger said. “I can imagine no more dishonorable act by a President.”
Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) told the former DOJ officials that their testimony shows how “difficult” it was to realize that Trump “abused your trust.”
“He deceived you. Many will invent excuses to ignore that fact, but that is a fact,” Cheney said. “I wish it weren’t true. But it is.”
Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) concluded that the panel has “shown the inner workings of what essentially was a political coup.”
[…] In taped testimony, several former Trump White House aides identified several Republican lawmakers who sought pardons after Jan. 6:
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)
Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) “talked about” a pardon, but didn’t ask for one. She said she had also heard that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was seeking one.
[…] Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue testified that he sternly warned Trump about dire consequences if he were to fire Rosen and replace him with Clark.
“Within 24, 48, 72 hours, you could have hundreds and hundreds of resignations in the leadership of your entire Justice Department because of your actions. What’s that going to say about you?” Donoghue claimed to have told Trump. [video at the link]
Witness Says ‘Incompetent’ Clark Had No Support At Oval Office Meeting Days Before Jan. 6.
Ex-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue testified that he told Trump that he has a “great deal to lose” if he were to replace Rosen with Clark.
Donoghue added that he told Trump that Clark was “clearly” too incompetent to run the DOJ. Donoghue said Clark had literally no support during the Oval Office meeting on Jan. 3.
[…] Trump White House Was Ready To Call Clark AG
On the day that Jeffrey Clark’s hopes of becoming acting attorney general went up in flames, he was in constant contact with the White House, according to call logs obtained by the Jan. 6 Committee.
On the logs, Rep. Kinzinger said, Clark was described as “acting attorney general.”
Followup to comment 323. More excerpts from coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing:
Deep in the recesses of the internet, Rudy Giuliani discovered “ItalyGate”: the theory that an Italian defense contractor stole the 2020 election for Biden by using military satellites to zap voting machines across the country.
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tried to have the DOJ investigate the theory via Rosen, who dismissed it as ridiculous.
Donoghue, who concluded that the theory was “pure insanity” after watching a 20-minute YouTube video that explained it, said that he received a phone call about it as well from Kash Patel, a former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) staffer who was appointed as chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller after the election.
Donoghue told Patel that the theory was absurd, after which, the committee said, Miller himself fielded calls from Meadows, who purportedly “wouldn’t let it go.”
Miller told the committee that he called the defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Rome to investigate the theory.
“You guys may not be following the Internet in the way that I do,” Trump purportedly told Donoghue and Rosen. [LOL]
Sidney Powell Says That Trump Wanted To Appoint Her As Special Counsel To Investigate The Election
After former DOJ office of legal counsel head Steven Engel testified the White House asked whether Attorney General Bill Barr could appoint a state attorney general as special counsel to investigate election fraud, the Jan. 6 Select Committee aired video testimony of Sidney Powell claiming that Trump wanted to appoint her to that role.
[…] Rep. Cheney gave some more info on Ken Klukowski just now, the Breitbart contributor and attorney who joined the DOJ on Dec. 15.
Cheney said Klukowski worked with Eastman, Trump’s lawyer, before and after he was appointed, offering to brief Vice President Pence and his team jointly in a Dec. 28, 2020 email.
“This e-mail suggests that Mr. Klukowski was simultaneously working with Jeffery Clark to draft the proposed letter to Georgia officials to overturn their certified election and working with Dr. Eastman to help pressure the Vice President to overturn the election,” Cheney said.
It’s another piece of evidence which ties the fake elector scheme to Trump’s pressure on the DOJ.
[…] Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who is leading today’s hearing, pointed to texts between Rep. Scott Perry and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Perry urged Meadows to get the White House to promote Clark within the DOJ in order to pursue claims of widespread election fraud.
[…] Former acting deputy attorney General Richard Donoghue testified that he wanted to “cut through the noise” during a Dec. 27, 2020 meeting with Trump by being “very blunt” that the then-President’s bogus claims of election fraud were “simply not true.”
After reiterating that Trump’s claims of massive election fraud lacked credibility, Donoghue noted that although there were “isolated incidents” of fraud, none of them were enough to question the results in any state.
Donoghue then claimed that Trump told him: “Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
[…] Ex-Trump Admin Witnesses Describe Aggressive Pushback Against Clark
Former Trump acting attorney general Richard Donoghue and former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann claimed in video testimony that they did not mince words when they spoke to Jeffrey Clark.
“I said, good fucking — excuse me, sorry, fucking a-hole, congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you would take as attorney general would be committing a felony and violating Rule 6(e),” Herschmann recalled telling Clark. [video at the link]
Donoghue claimed that he pointed out Clark is “not even competent” to serve as attorney general, citing Clark’s lack of experience as a criminal attorney and in conducting a criminal investigations.
Donoghue went on to claim that former White House counsel Pat Cipolllone called Clark’s never-sent draft letter that falsely declared the DOJ had found fraud a “murder-suicide pact” and said that he wanted nothing to do with it.
Cheney Draws Line From Fake Electors To Jeff Clark
Important moment just now: Rep. Cheney just drew a line between the last two hearings and today’s.
In her telling, the draft DOJ letter existed in part to prod swing states that Trump had lost to certify the pro-Trump electors as real, instead of the Biden ones.
The letter “indicates that a separate ‘fake’ slate of electors, supporting Donald Trump, has already been transmitted to Washington, D.C.” Cheney said.
That’s key: It draws a line between what Clark wanted to do, and what outside Trump attorneys like John Eastman, Ken Chesebro, and Rudy Giuliani were trying to accomplish. Two hands, potentially working together.
“Had this letter been released on official Department of Justice letterhead, it would have falsely informed all Americans … that President Trump’s concerns were likely very real,” Cheney added.
[…] Breitbart’s Ken Klukowski Authored Notorious Draft DOJ Letter
At the center of the plot being described today is a draft letter that Trump wanted the DOJ to send to swing states he had lost, starting with Georgia.
The letter declared that the DOJ had found fraud that would invalidate the election results, and that state legislatures should consider approving alternate, pro-Trump slates of electors.
From the Senate Judiciary Committee’s report on this last year, we knew that a little-known Breitbart contributor and attorney named Ken Klukowski had a role in drafting the letter.
But Cheney just now made it sound like Klukowski and Clark were essentially co-authors of this letter, which they wanted the real DOJ leadership — Rosen and Donoghue — to affix their names to.
Wonkette: “Let’s Listen To Trump’s Own Lawyers Tell Us How Insanely Illegal This Coup Plot Was!”
We’re back for a fifth day of the House January 6 Select Committee hearings to ‘splain Donald Trump’s plot to overthrow the government and stay in power after the American people told him in no uncertain terms to get the hell out. Today’s hearing will feature three of Donald Trump’s own lawyers: former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, who headed Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel.
All of these guys are dyed in the wool Republicans, and all of them were totally down with the crazy shit Trump did [earlier]
[…] They did head off an attempted coup at the Justice Department though, so props to them for that! […] long story short, Jeffrey Clark, the head of the Environmental Division, tried to get the Department of Justice to announce investigations of non-existent election fraud in the swing states as a pretext for Republican-dominated legislatures to claw back Biden’s electoral votes and recast them for Trump. Trump was only talked out of a plan to make Clark Attorney General — with 17 days left in his administration — and allow him to weaponize the DOJ after Rosen, Donoghue, and Engel, as well as many of their colleagues at the DOJ and in the White House Counsel’s Office, threatened to resign in protest.
And, oh, hey, right on time, looks like Jeff Clark, who pled the Fifth before the committee, got his electronic devices confiscated by the FBI this morning. Also it looks like people associated with Trump’s fake elector scheme in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, and New Mexico got grand jury subpoenas from Uncle Merrick this week. Looks like it’s fuck around and find out o’clock! […]
Let’s get after it!
2:58 Camera is all over actor Sean Penn sitting with Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone, but manages to tear itself away as witnesses Jeffrey Rosen, Rich Donoghue, and Steven Engel file in.
[…] Cheney refers to the “proof of concept” letter Jeff Clark tried to get Rosen and Donoghue to sign and send to the states announcing non-existent DOJ investigations of non-existent electoral fraud as a pretext to “recast” electoral votes for Trump.
And we’re back to AG Barr saying the fraud allegations were total bullshit. [earlier, during the Trump administration] Barr pretended there might actually be something to the screams of fraud.]
Now Adam Kinzinger, the other Republican on the committee is making an opening statement. He praises the witnesses for being willing to quit the DOJ to stop the coup. (But not willing to say anything about it publicly, LOL)
“Losing a job is nothing compared to losing your life,” Kinzinger says. Which is kind of poignant, since he’s been drummed out of congress and the GOP for his own integrity.
[…] Kinzinger is laying out the plan to weaponize the DOJ to keep Commander Crime Time in power.
We’re now getting testimony from Donoghue and Trump White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann, of the F-bombs and sharp elbows, about the infamous January 3, 2020 Oval Office meeting where Clark tried to get himself put in charge of the DOJ to investigate the claims of Chinese thermostat and Italian space laser election fraud. [January 3!]
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called Clark’s letter “a murder-suicide pact,” Donoghue told Clark, an environmental lawyer, to go back to his office and they’d call him if there was an oil spill.
Thompson is introducing the witnesses, who do NOT look happy to be here. [photo at the link]
[…] THOMPSON: Did Trump make you investigate these stupid lies about election fraud? [In case it is not obvious, Wonkette paraphrases testimony]
ROSEN: Ayup.
THOMPSON: How often?
ROSEN: Every damn day.
THOMPSON: Show us on the doll where Trump tried to molest the American people?
ROSEN: You don’t even want to know what he wanted to let Rudy Giuliani do to the DOJ.
Seriously, Rosen is describing a persistent campaign to get the DOJ to coordinate with the Trump campaign to bless Rudy’s wackass election fraud claims.
Donoghue is testifying about the lies that Dominion voting machines in Antrim County, MI had a 68% error rate. Incidentally, Trump and his allies ruined the clerk’s life in Antrim County, the way they did to Shaye Moss and her mother in Georgia.
Kinzinger is back with a video of Maria Bartiromo screeching on the phone with Trump about the DOJ being “missing in action.”
And now we’re getting footage of Republican Reps. Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, and Mo Brooks telling lies that there was a possibility of overturning the election result on January 6. Hi, traitors!
Donoghue testifies that the DOJ investigated every crackpot theory Trump put forward and told the president time and time again that there was zero merit to the allegations, “to correct him in a serial fashion as he moved from one theory to another.”
Donoghue notes that there was a hand recount in Antrim County which showed that there was ONE error in 15,000 ballots. Discusses the various conspiracy theories that they had to bat down, over and over again.
Donoghue is a hell of a good witness. Very sure, very clear, lot of gravitas.
Here are Donoghue’s notes of the December 27, 2020 phone call between Rosen and Trump in which they explained to Trump AGAIN that the DOJ did not have standing to intercede at, among other places, the Supreme Court.
This is where Trump asked them to “just say it was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
Kinzinger introduces the villain of the day: “What was going to help him? Jeff Clark.”
Rosen was Clark’s boss, and it was wildly inappropriate for Clark to being going behind his boss’s back to talk to the president — there should be no contact between the DOJ, a supposedly independent law enforcement agency, and the president. So when Trump mentioning Clark in passing to Rosen on December 24, Rosen knew shit was about to go sideways.
Kinzinger shows video of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green explaining to Sean Spicer on his show that there was a White House meeting on December 22 with freakshow Gippers about a plan to stop electoral certification. Rep. Scott Perry was at the meeting, and he came back the next day with Jeff Clark.
Oh, no, it’s Rudy! He says that they needed someone at DOJ who wasn’t “afraid” to investigate election fraud.
Mark Meadows’ aide Cassidy Hutchinson testifies that Perry was pushing hard to get Clark made acting AG.
Engel and Rosen are talking about how important it is for the Justice Department to be independent of the White House. Funny, they weren’t so worked up when Trump intervened to ratfuck the prosecutions of Roger Stone and Mike Flynn.
Ooh, we’re getting text messages between Perry and Meadows about getting Clark put in charge of the DOJ. […]
The next day Perry called Donoghue and told him to investigate the election results in Pennsylvania. Perry sent him a document purporting to prove there was fraud. The US Attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania, a Trump appointee, investigated it and found there was nothing there.
Perry told Donoghue that Clark was the right man to investigate the election fraud which did not exist.
[…] Now we’re back to Clark’s batshit letter to Georgia elected officials encouraging them to claw back electors.
Donoghue said that he sat down to draft an email shutting that shit down “promptly.”
Rosen and Donoghue hauled Clark into his office immediately to tell him how wildly inappropriate it was to put the DOJ in the middle of a political campaign. But Clark wasn’t deterred and spent the rest of the week “calling witnesses and conducting investigations of his own.” Clark even ordered up a briefing from the Director of National Intelligence on the harebrained Chinese thermostat election rigging theory.
No matter that his theories had been disproven, Clark kept insisting that it was okay for the DOJ to interfere in the election because “others” had interfered to rig it for Biden.
Hi, Ken Klukowski, Jeff Clark’s henchman imported after the election from the Office of Management and Budget. Klukowski drafted the Georgia letter, and was simultaneously working with John Eastman.
[…] Rep. Kinzinger is detailing the pressure campaign against the DOJ, asks Steven Engel to explain what the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) does for the DOJ. Engel explains that it is a legal advisor to the DOJ, sometimes providing legal opinions to the president. Like, say, if the president wants the DOJ to file a lawsuit at the Supreme Court contesting the election results, the OLC will tell say THAT’S NOT A THING, YOU GODDAMN BLOODY IDIOT.
Which is more or less what happened between Christmas and New Years in 2020, when one of the weirdo MAGA lawyers drafted a piece of crap lawsuit and tried to get the DOJ to put its name on it.
Trump also wanted to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate election fraud. First Trump wanted Krakenhead Sidney Powell, and then he wanted the Louisiana Attorney General. OLC said that the LA AG couldn’t simultaneously represent a state and the federal government. But besides that, Barr had already told Trump privately and announced publicly that there was no fraud to investigate.
[snipped some stupid Trump tweets, plus video details of Sidney Powell]
KINZINGER: You hear this shit about Trump wanting those goons from Homeland Security to seize the voting machines from the states?
ENGEL: Hear it? I was there, man!
KINZINGER: Was that legal?
ENGEL: Hell. No.
Oh, boy, we’re at the point where Mark Meadows started pressuring the DOJ about crazy shit, including the Italian Space laser theory, a theory being flogged by Rep. Perry […] Which is hilarious, but also the White House COS spamming the DOJ with campaign docs is wildly inappropriate.
Meadows asked Rosen on New Years Eve to meet with the weirdo behind the Italian Space Laser YouTube video, complaining that Rudy Giuliani and the weirdo were buddies, and it was insulting to send them to go bother some nobody in the FBI field office. Wouldn’t AG Rosen just sit down with them personally?
In fact, he would not. No, not even if Devin Nunes’s creature Kash Patel asked them, too.
LOL, Meadows made the Secretary of Defense harass the Italian embassy to investigate this space laser shit.
Clark told Rosen he’d done a lot of internet research, and he thought it would be best if he got put in charge of the DOJ to investigate those very convincing 8chan theories. On January 3, Clark told Rosen that Trump had offered him (Clark) Rosen’s job — with 17 days left until the inauguration.
Rosen swung into action, rounding up Cipollone, Engel, Donoghue, and Herschmann for a meeting later that day. And Donoghue warned the leadership at DOJ that shit was about to go down.
For background, Rosen had been Clark’s mentor in private practice at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. And Clark was stabbing him in the back — although he did offer generously to let Rosen stay on as his subordinate. [LOL]
Rosen was not down with this shit.
Donoghue got the assistant AGs on the line for a conference call to ask what they would do if Clark got put in charge. They all agreed that they would resign en masse, essentially decapitating the DOJ. […]
More at the link
ravensays
Today’s disaster is something different. We are going back a few thousand years to repeat an event that killed billions.
The Monkeypox Virus May Be Exhibiting ‘Accelerated Evolution’
ON THE SLY
A new genetic analysis reveals the current outbreak may have begun earlier than thought—and the rise in cases is only fueling opportunities for new mutations.
David Axe Published Jun. 24, 2022 5:00AM ET The Dailybeast edited for length
Now geneticists finally have enough data to begin getting a handle on how exactly the outbreak started—and where it might be heading.
It’s not good news. Monkeypox, a viral disease that causes fever and a rash and can be fatal in a small percentage of cases, is endemic in Africa. And now it’s running amuck on every other permanently inhabited continent—and evolving quickly.
“Our data reveals additional clues of ongoing viral evolution and potential human adaptation,” a team led by Joana Isidro, a geneticist with the National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge in Spain, wrote in the new peer-reviewed study published Friday in Nature Medicine.
Monkeypox first made the leap from monkeys or rodents to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970—and has frequently flared up in Africa in the decades since then. There are two main strains, one each in West and Central Africa. The milder West African strain can be fatal in up to 1 percent of cases. The more dangerous Central African strain can kill up to 10 percent of the people it infects.
“Because there are so many more copies of the virus than we first expected, each mutating separately, this new pox strain could evolve into dangerous new forms with disturbing speed.”
Isidro’s team found 50 single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, in the monkeypox strain behind the current outbreak. Each SNP is a change in the baseline DNA of a particular organism. Fifty SNPs “is far more (roughly 6-12 fold more) than one would expect,” the geneticists wrote. “Such a divergent branch might represent accelerated evolution.”
More likely, it’s changing at its current fast clip because there are so many more copies of the virus than we first expected, each mutating every chance it gets.
It’s all bad news, regardless—and it should stoke an even greater sense of urgency among health officials as they scramble to diagnose and contain a growing number of cases.
.1. Monkeypox isn’t really Monkeypox. It is Ratpox and the Monkeys are incidental hosts like humans.
.2. Ratpox is the most likely ancestor of smallpox.
.3. There has always been this idea that since smallpox is extinct, that it could re-evolve.
.4. And here we are. This current Monkeypox outbreak is starting to show evolution and adaptation to its new host, humans. With 7.9 billion humans on the planet, we are the largest target for newly evolved pathogens, a large ecological niche.
We need to jump on this epidemic and fast.
Experience shows that the way to defeat novel virus pandemics is to get them at the very beginning before they adapt to humans and spread too far. We’ve done it with SARS and Avian Flu. We missed with HIV and Covid-19 virus.
It’s possible, since we already have a good vaccine and two good antiviral drugs, because monkeypox is closely related to…smallpox.
A half-century after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade, establishing a right to an abortion, Republican-appointed justices reversed course.
When a Supreme Court draft ruling was leaked in early May, it immediately became obvious that the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. But in some circles, there was still a hint of uncertainty. Would the public outrage cause some justices to reconsider? Was there still a chance Chief Justice John Roberts would work out some kind of compromise that left the status quo partially intact?
The answer, we learned this morning, was no. Roe is no more. NBC News reported:
The Supreme Court on Friday overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion in a 6-3 vote, a momentous break from a half century of rulings on one of the nation’s most controversial issues. About half the states have already indicated they would move to ban the procedure.
[…] In case this isn’t obvious, it’s probably worth emphasizing that today’s ruling in Dobbs does not end abortion rights in the United States. What it does instead is end the constitutional right: States can now choose to impose restrictions on reproductive rights without concern for the Roe precedent.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
As a practical matter, abortion rights will now disappear in roughly half the country.
Quoting an earlier ruling, the Supreme Court’s three dissenters wrote, “Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court’s decision making.” Justices Stephen Breyer, Elana Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor added:
“Roe has stood for fifty years. Casey, a precedent about precedent specifically confirming Roe, has stood for thirty. And the doctrine of stare decisis — a critical element of the rule of law — stands foursquare behind their continued existence. The right those decisions established and preserved is embedded in our constitutional law, both originating in and leading to other rights protecting bodily integrity, personal autonomy, and family relationships. The abortion right is also embedded in the lives of women — shaping their expectations, influencing their choices about relationships and work, supporting (as all reproductive rights do) their social and economic equality. Since the right’s recognition (and affirmation), nothing has changed to support what the majority does today. Neither law nor facts nor attitudes have provided any new reasons to reach a different result than Roe and Casey did. All that has changed is this Court.”
They concluded with a word not usually seen in high court rulings.
“With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent.”
It’s been rather tidy to encapsulate conservative opposition to Roe as one decision gone way too far that marks a fork in the road of modern jurisprudence.
But Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Dobbs today makes clear that the true fork in the road for diehards came at least a decade before Roe, with a series of substantive due process cases that protected the rights to contraception and private sex acts and extended all the way to 2015 with the right to same-sex marriage. The entire line of substantive due process cases is now under attack. Or as Thomas puts it, what he calls the “legal fiction” of substantive due process is “particularly dangerous” and he favors “jettisoning the doctrine entirely.”
How explicit is Thomas? Very.
For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [contraception], Lawrence [sodomy], and Obergefell [same sex marriage]. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents.
[…] In the mind of Thomas, America is like Bugs Bunny. It made a wrong turn in Albuquerque 50 or 60 or 75 years ago and has been on the wrong track ever since. Today’s decision sends us backtracking through decades of jurisprudence, livelong decisions, and public policy choices to resume on a new uncharted path where there is no substantive due process.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the only Democratic senator who voted to confirm both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and who apparently believed the two conservative judges when they claimed to believe that Roe was settled legal precedent, had this to say about the betrayal, per CNN:
“I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans.”
Why does Joe Manchin trust Republicans? Why did Joe Manchin trust people chosen by Donald Trump?
So there it is. Entirely expected and yet still shocking to see in the full light of day. As I wrote last month here and reiterated in this Times oped earlier this month, this is the one path to reviving Roe’s protections. Get 48 Senators on the record clearly and publicly promising to pass a Roe law in January 2023 and change the filibuster rules to make that possible. That puts abortion rights and Roe protections clearly on the ballot. It’s not a certain path by any means. But it is certainly the only path available right now.
A very topical jab from the liberals at Kavanaugh, who claims this decision makes the Court “neutral” on abortion: “But would he say that the Court is being ‘scrupulously neutral’ if it allowed New York and California to ban all the guns they want?
David Hogg:
Trump packed the court. Now we pay the price.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal:
A friendly reminder that five out of six conservative Justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Presidents that lost the popular vote.
They were looking for power, for control, wherever they could find it.
In dissent, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan respond: “Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”
The U.S. has announced the next tranche of its weekly flow of military aid:
• Four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems;
36,000 rounds of 105mm ammunition;
• 18 tactical vehicles to tow 155mm artillery;
• 1,200 grenade launchers;
• 2,000 machine guns;
• 18 coastal and riverine patrol boats;
• Spare parts and other equipment.
Look at that, more HIMARS. All the people hyperventilating last week that four wasn’t enough … are now complaining that four isn’t enough. It doesn’t help when Ukrainian “military experts” are spinning fiction:
If we are talking about the Western-made M-270 and M-142, getting 300 is quite realistic. The public archives of Lockheed Martin for 2015 show that in the US, more than 1300 MLRS systems were produced, including 850 M-270 units. So I am not so sure about the data of the experts who claimed an insufficient number (600 MLRS) in the US. I have not verified these numbers at the US warehouses, of course. In addition, almost every NATO country and the US partners outside the NATO bloc have the M-270 and M-142 MLRS systems in service. We can get 300 MLRS systems if each partner country provides four units.
LOL, okay. First of all, “almost every NATO country and the US partners outside NATO bloc” do not have M270s or HIMARS. Two NATO countries field HIMARS—the United States and Romania. Seven NATO countries have MLRS—France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Turkey, UK, US, plus Finland. There are 30 countries in NATO.
300 divided by four is 75. So he thinks there are 75 countries with HIMARS and M270 MLRS. (The real number is 16). And as I’ve repeatedly noted, the issue isn’t launchers. Given their range and the size of the front, you could literally park a single unit in the three operational zones (Kharkiv, Donbas, Kherson) and fire a continuous stream of rockets as long as supply lines support it, and the launchers don’t break down.
But believe it or not, I’m not as frustrated this time, because thanks to Gens. Ben Hodges and Mark Hertling, people are finally starting to get it. […]
My message is getting through! […] As Ukraine develops new supply systems to keep these hungry beasts fed, more will likely arrive. But ultimately, Ukraine won’t need so many. Twenty-seven or so (three batteries, one for each theater), constantly supplied, will be more than enough, even assuming a significant portion are down at any moment for maintenance issues. (The M270s are a maintenance nightmare, so I’m really hoping the HIMARS are more dependable). As long as replacement units are made available for the inevitable combat losses, Ukraine will have itself dramatically upgrade artillery capabilities. [map at the link]
People also underestimate the last bullet point, “spare parts and other equipment.” That includes the things that keep all this stuff working, and is literally as important as fuel and ammunition. If you’re wondering whether “105mm munitions” is a typo, it is not. New Zealand and the UK are both sending these mini L119 howitzers to Ukraine, and the U.S. is chipping in some ammo for them. We can all question the wisdom of saddling Ukraine’s logistical chain with yet another caliber round to shuttle to the front, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these guns are tasked to territorial defense, freeing up bigger guns for the front.
Finally, “18 coastal and riverine patrol boats” seems … weird. Such boats would be no match for Russia’s navy and anti-ship missiles, and deploying them will be tough with the Bosphorus closed to military traffic (at Ukraine’s request, remember). Ukraine requested them for a reason, prioritizing them over other needs. I wonder what that reason is.
Ironically, HIMARS will be even better positioned to strike Russian forces as that Severodonetsk/Lysychansk pockets gets rolled up by Russia. [map at the link]
Ukraine has lost at least two, likely three M777 Howitzers by moving them up to Lysychansk to aid in the defense of Severodonetsk. That’s the problem with that pocket—it’s hard to supply and support with artillery. With more compact front lines, HIMARS can roam the triangle between Sloviansk/Kramatorsk, Sivers’k, and Bakhmut, blasting the shit out of anything trying to approach those cities.
Ukraine announced that the first HIMARS are already operational in country. Honestly, I wish they’d shut up about it, even hold back video of the first strikes. Why give Russia advance notice to start hunting these down? But Ukraine seems eager to show these off for both morale purposes, and to prove their worth as they lobby for more.
Meanwhile, I was blown away by this video: [video at the link]
Ukraine has been successfully pounding Russian supply depots well behind enemy lines with these Tochka-Us, like this apocalyptic hellscape caught on video.
Ukraine had around 500 of these ballistic missiles before the war, and it’s amazing that 1) Ukraine still has these after four months of war; and 2) Russia still can’t hunt these down. They had all that time to prepare for this war. Years. Russians blend in culturally and linguistically in Ukraine, and they had plenty of Ukrainian sympathizers who could’ve done the work for them. They couldn’t have shadowed these missile units pre-invasion, ready to transmit targeting data for the first wave of cruise missiles on February 24? Units like these have a home base and barracks. They were likely sitting ducks […]
At my MLRS unit back in the late 80s, early 90s, we assumed the Soviets were keeping an eye on us, ready to strike us within the first hours of any Warsaw Pact invasion. Heck, our post had signs with directions on where to find motor pools for the artillery, armor, engineering, and MLRS units. It’s impossible to hide a unit’s permanent home. Russia should’ve have all this mapped out, ready to strike at the very start of the war while Ukraine was scrambling to disperse its units to the field. [“We are lucky that they are so f*ucking stupid” image at the link]
I’m writing this at midnight pacific, for morning publishing. And just as I was signing off, I saw this:
Ukrainian troops left Sievierodonetsk in the night of 24 June – military journalist Butusov
“Leaving is bitter, but this decision is long overdue. 🇺🇦 soldiers fought bravely & did more than possible in very difficult conditions. We left,but we’ll return”
[…] States where abortion is now completely illegal:
Kentucky
Louisiana
Oklahoma
South Dakota
States where abortion becomes illegal as soon as the state legislature or state official issues a declaration recognizing the Court decision.
Alabama
Arkansas
Missouri
Mississippi
Utah
West Virginia
(Update: In the last hour, Attorney General Eric Schmitt has triggered the law in Missouri.)
States where abortion will become illegal as soon as the government officially recognizes the Court ruling.
Wyoming
States where abortion will officially become illegal in 30 days
Idaho
North Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
[…] Arizona will, for now, enforce its 15-day ban. But Republican legislators there have already moved to expand this into a total ban.
Technically, abortion is also now illegal in Wisconsin, based on a law that dates to 1849. However, Democratic state attorney general Josh Kaul says he will not enforce that law and has called on the governor and state legislature to repeal it in a special session.
Many of these states in this list have no exception for rape or incest. Some have no exception even for the health of the mother. The consequences to lives and cost to both individuals and the nation is inestimable. Local prosecutors have already charged a woman with murder for seeking an abortion even before this ruling was handed down.
Clinics in many states are expected to close immediately. That includes clinics that were giving vitally required health care unrelated to abortion care. Those who were scheduled for procedures in many of these states are now desperately in need of transportation to states where their rights as individuals are still respected.
As the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, Katyal just told Melber today, this FBI raid means AG Garland has an active investigation opened on Donald Trump.
When asked what the FBI agents (employees of the DOJ) could have been looking for in Clark’s residence, Katyal replied: The private communications between Clark and Trump; the communications between Clark and other coup plotters, like Giuliani and Eastman and others.
Why the timing today, before the Hearing that focused on Clark: to grab the evidence, before Clark found out what he had to delete or burn, from the revelations in today’s Hearing.
If Katyal’s expert conjectures are true, then the Clark raid is very good to see — it is the most visible signal to date, that the DOJ has the illegal crimes committed by Trump and his Lieutenants, directly in their accountability sights. […]
Important news that isn’t getting as much attention as it deserves.
Former President Obama has denounced the Supreme Court’s decision striking down Roe v. Wade, calling it an attack on the “essential freedoms” experienced by millions of Americans.
Obama said in a lengthy statement Friday that “the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”
He noted that across the U.S., states have moved to pass bills restricting abortion access.
In a joint statement with his wife Michelle, Obama said that “what Roe recognized is that the freedom enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution requires all of us to enjoy a sphere of our lives that isn’t subject to meddling from the state.”
The former president also said the decision is unlikely to significantly reduce abortions, which he noted have been going down over the past several decades as a result of better access to contraception and education.
Obama stressed that those without enough money, access to transportation and leave from work would be impacted the most. […]
He also urged people join with the activists and act by joining local protests, volunteering and voting in the mid-terms on Nov. 8.
“Because in the end, if we want judges who will protect all, and not just some, of our rights, then we’ve got to elect officials committed to doing the same,” he added.
[…] It’s very hard to not feel hopeless and hard not to wish horrible things on those who made this happen, to wish that they personally get fucked by this ruling in a thousand ways they had not previously considered, all because they were so busy getting excited about getting to force people they don’t even know to give birth against their will like chattel. I am giving myself five minutes to consider these vindictive fantasies before I slap myself and remember that these horrible things will be happening to other people and that as furious as I am, I actually don’t want people I despise to be forced to give birth against their will.
We knew it was coming. Not just because of the leak, we’ve known it’s been coming for years. We’ve been warning about it. […] I’ve seen a thousand smug faces telling me that we’re just overreacting, that this would never really happen because the Republicans need it to run on — as if they don’t do perfectly well running on other kinds of hate.
“We are not a few steps from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’,” Brian Stelter tweeted in 2018, “I don’t think this kind of fear-mongering helps anything.”
This morning, people in the 13 states with “trigger laws” (to ban abortion as soon as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade) were lined up outside of abortion clinics, waiting for their appointments, hoping to exercise their right (yes it is still a right) to control their reproductive futures, and the workers had to turn them away as soon as the ruling hit. The terror they must have felt is unimaginable.
The reason I am only giving myself five minutes of vindictiveness is because this means we have to work. We have to work to ensure those people in those lines are not forced to give birth. We have to work to get people out of these states. In the meantime, however — fuck Kavanaugh, fuck Barrett, fuck Alito, fuck Thomas, fuck Gorsuch, fuck Roberts, and especially fuck Susan Collins. [And fuck Joe Manchin.]
The assholes who wanted this have remained under the impression that the only people who are going to be affected by this are selfish [B-word, plural] they don’t know, who so rudely want more for themselves than a life of being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, who will be “cured” of this evil desire by being forced to give birth. They’re going to find that they are very wrong.
An important thing to consider is that this is not just terrifying and dangerous for those seeking abortion care. They are not the only people who will be affected. The states that have these trigger laws, the states that will otherwise outlaw abortion? They’re the states with the highest maternal mortality rates. They are the states with the biggest doctor shortages. It is already hard to get doctors to move to rural areas, in part because hospitals in those areas don’t pay them enough to be able to pay off their exorbitant student loans. The vast majority of doctors are pro-choice, the majority of ob-gyns are pro-choice. It’s going to be pretty fucking hard to get them to move to a place where they, their spouses, their children would have to forfeit their reproductive rights.
People are going to die as a result of this decision and that number will not be limited to those who need abortions.
There is nothing that can be done legislatively on a national level. As much as I would desperately love to pack the court, to establish a national right to abortion, that is not going to happen. At least not now. At least not with Manchin and Sinema hanging around gumming up the works.
This is something that, for now, will have to be handled with activism and civil disobedience, not electoral politics. Donate money to abortion funds, offer to let abortion patients from other states stay on your couch, work on figuring out how to get abortion medication to those in states where there is no access. That is what needs to be done now.
We can have five minutes of grieving, five minutes of vindictiveness, five minutes of whatever we need, but we have a lot of work ahead of us and we need to get started now.
[…] Yay! We get to sit around and wait to see what rights we’ll have at the end of the day, and which ones will go away because a bunch of partisan hacks decided their stupid garbage religious beliefs should supersede our right to live in a free society!
Democracy!
Anyway, yeah, those motherfuckers can eat shit, and according to new polling, America agrees.
A whopping 25 PERCENT of Americans have confidence in the Court, says Gallup, which notes that number is down from 36 percent last year. […] it’s really gone to hell now that it’s sunk in just exactly what these trolls — Alito, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, the Trump pick in Merrick Garland’s seat, the Trump pick who’s been credibly accused of sexual assault, and the Trump pick leaving a foul stench all over Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s office — plan to do with the majority that was given to them without America’s consent.
[…] When the Court overturned Roe, they did it against the wishes of a supermajority of the country. It remains to be seen how much respect that supermajority will have for that ruling. Clarence Thomas recently said Americans need to just learn to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with.” […]
Yesterday, the Court ruled to severely limit people’s Miranda rights. They also made sure to expand the federal government’s ability to protect the precious rights of guns, because of how states obviously are not able to decide for themselves if they want to severely regulate concealed-carry weapons. If Alito’s incel rub-and-tug abortion opinion stands, the Court will make the exact opposite argument, that states must be allowed to decide the legality of abortion for themselves, and they will do it with a straight face, because these are not real judges, they are ideologues and they are fucking clowns and no child should ever admire them.
Oh yeah, and also this term the Court has voted essentially to make “separation of church and state” a curse word, and has ruled that large companies aren’t allowed to require their employees to be either tested or vaccinated for COVID-19. […]
Oh, and we haven’t even delved into how much the Court has [damaged] Americans using its secretive “shadow docket,” where it makes rulings that hurt millions of Americans — like when it upheld Texas’s abortion bounty hunter law! — without so much as hearing an argument.
[…] Samuel Alito […] officially appoints himself the crossing guard of the nation’s uteruses […]
[…] The ruling will test the legitimacy of the court and vindicate a decades-long Republican project of installing conservative justices prepared to reject the precedent, which had been repeatedly reaffirmed by earlier courts. It will also be one of the signal legacies of President Donald J. Trump, who vowed to name justices who would overrule Roe. All three of his appointees were in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling. […]
Biden:
The press has gathered in the Cross Hall of the White House for President Biden’s remarks on Roe. Some of the president’s senior aides, including deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, are crowded on a staircase to the right of the president’s lectern.
Biden takes a deep breath before giving his remarks. “Today the Supreme Court expressly took away a constitutional right for the American people,” Biden says. “They didn’t limit it, they simply took it away.”
President Biden says the ruling is a result of a changing Supreme Court. He adds “it’s a realization of extreme ideology and a tragic error of the Supreme Court in my view.”
Biden says because of the ruling, the health of women in the United States “is now at risk.”
We are entering an era not just of unsafe abortions but of the widespread criminalization of pregnancy.
[…] “We won’t go back.” It has been chanted at marches, defiantly but also somewhat awkwardly, given that this is plainly an era of repression and regression, in which abortion rights are not the only rights disappearing. Now that the Supreme Court has issued its final decision, overturning Roe v. Wade and removing the constitutional right to abortion, insuring that abortion will become illegal or highly restricted in twenty states, the slogan sounds almost divorced from reality—an indication, perhaps, of how difficult it has become to comprehend the power and right-wing extremity of the current Supreme Court.
Support for abortion has never been higher, with more than two-thirds of Americans in favor of retaining Roe, and fifty-seven per cent affirming a woman’s right to abortion for any reason. Even so, there are Republican officials who have made it clear that they will attempt to pass a federal ban on abortion if and when they control both chambers of Congress and the Presidency. Anyone who can get pregnant must now face the reality that half of the country is in the hands of legislators who believe that your personhood and autonomy are conditional—who believe that, if you are impregnated by another person, under any circumstance, you have a legal and moral duty to undergo pregnancy, delivery, and, in all likelihood, two decades or more of caregiving, no matter the permanent and potentially devastating consequences for your body, your heart, your mind, your family, your ability to put food on the table, your plans, your aspirations, your life.
[…] The future that we now inhabit will not resemble the past before Roe, when women sought out illegal abortions and not infrequently found death. The principal danger now lies elsewhere, and arguably reaches further. We have entered an era not of unsafe abortion but of widespread state surveillance and criminalization—of pregnant women, certainly, but also of doctors and pharmacists and clinic staffers and volunteers and friends and family members, of anyone who comes into meaningful contact with a pregnancy that does not end in a healthy birth. […]
In the states where abortion has been or will soon be banned, any pregnancy loss past an early cutoff can now potentially be investigated as a crime. […] Even if prosecutors fail to prove that an abortion took place, those who are investigated will be punished by the process, liable for whatever might be found.
[…] Even if it remains possible in prohibition states to order abortion pills, doing so will be unlawful. […] Abortion pills are safe and effective, but patients need access to clinical guidance and follow-up care. Women in prohibition states who want to seek medical attention after a self-managed abortion will, as a rule, have to choose between risking their freedom and risking their health.
Both abortion and miscarriage currently occur more than a million times each year in America, and the two events are often clinically indistinguishable. As such, prohibition states will have a profoundly invasive interest in differentiating between them. Some have already laid the groundwork for establishing government databases of pregnant women likely to seek abortions. [….] hotlines are provided by crisis pregnancy centers: typically Christian organizations, many of which masquerade as abortion clinics, provide no health care, and passionately counsel women against abortion. Crisis pregnancy centers are already three times as numerous as abortion clinics in the U.S., and, unlike hospitals, they are not required to protect the privacy of those who come to them. For years, conservative states have been redirecting money, often from funds earmarked for poor women and children, toward these organizations. The data that crisis pregnancy centers are capable of collecting—names, locations, family details, sexual and medical histories, non-diagnostic ultrasound images—can now be deployed against those who seek their help.
[…] The theological concept of fetal personhood—the idea that, from the moment of conception, an embryo or fetus is a full human being, deserving of equal (or, more accurately, superior) rights—is a foundational doctrine of the anti-abortion movement. The legal ramifications of this idea—including the possible classification of I.V.F., IUDs, and the morning-after pill as instruments of murder—are unhinged […] the anti-abortion movement is now openly pushing for fetal personhood to become the foundation of U.S. abortion law.
[…] Fetal-personhood laws have passed in Georgia and Alabama, and they are no longer likely to be found unconstitutional. […] Even in states such as California, where the law explicitly prohibits charging women with murder after a pregnancy loss, conservative prosecutors are doing so anyway.
[…] A proposed law in Wyoming would create a specific category of felony child endangerment for drug use while pregnant, a law that resembles Tennessee’s former Fetal Assault Law. The Tennessee law was discontinued after two years, because treating women as adversaries to the fetuses they carry has a chilling effect on prenatal medicine, and inevitably results in an increase in maternal and infant death.
The mainstream pro-choice movement has largely ignored the growing criminalization of pregnancy […]
Pregnancy is more than thirty times more dangerous than abortion. One study estimates that a nationwide ban would lead to a twenty-one-per-cent rise in pregnancy-related deaths. Some of the women who will die from abortion bans are pregnant right now. Their deaths will come not from back-alley procedures but from a silent denial of care: interventions delayed, desires disregarded. They will die of infections, of preëclampsia, of hemorrhage, as they are forced to submit their bodies to pregnancies that they never wanted to carry, and it will not be hard for the anti-abortion movement to accept these deaths as a tragic, even noble, consequence of womanhood itself.
In the meantime, abortion bans will hurt, disable, and endanger many people who wanted to carry their pregnancies to term but who encounter medical difficulties. […]
Most miscarriages are caused by factors beyond a pregnant person’s control: illnesses, placental or uterine irregularities, genetic abnormalities. But the treatment of pregnant people in this country already makes many of them feel directly and solely responsible for the survival of their fetus. […]
[…] the movement is conservative, evangelical, and absolutely single-minded, populated overwhelmingly by people who, although they may embrace foster care, adoption, and various forms of private ministry, show no interest in pushing for public, structural support for human life once it’s left the womb. […]
In Texas, already, children aged nine, ten, and eleven, who don’t yet understand what sex and abuse are, face forced pregnancy and childbirth after being raped. Women sitting in emergency rooms in the midst of miscarriages are being denied treatment for sepsis because their fetuses’ hearts haven’t yet stopped. […]
We are not going back to the pre-Roe era, and we should not want to go back to the era that succeeded it, which was less bitter than the present but was never good enough. We should demand more, and we will have to. We will need to be full-throated and unconditional about abortion as a necessary precondition to justice and equal rights if we want even a chance of someday getting somewhere better.
In the wake of deadly mass shootings, it was easy to predict nothing would happen. This time, however, the skeptics had reason to be pleasantly surprised.
[…] There have been plenty of instances in which officials talked about doing something over the last 28 years, but their failures left many cynical and convinced that Congress would never pass a good bill on this issue again.
This time, however, the skeptics had reason to be pleasantly surprised. NBC News reported:
The House passed the most sweeping legislation designed to prevent gun violence in nearly 30 years on Friday, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. The bill passed the House 234-193 on Friday afternoon, with 14 Republicans voting with all Democrats to support it.
Today’s vote came roughly 14 hours after the Senate approved the same bill, 65-33, with 15 Republicans voting with the Democratic majority, including half of the Senate GOP leadership team.
The White House has already said President Joe Biden is an enthusiastic supporter of the legislation, and he will sign it into law.
As for the contents of the bill, as we discussed the other day, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, much of which was negotiated by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, includes plenty of worthwhile provisions:
* The legislation creates resources for red flag grants to every state. Those that choose not to approve red flag laws will get related funds for other crisis prevention programs.
* It closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” restricting the gun rights of non-spouse dating partners who are convicted of domestic abuse.
* It makes new investments in mental health services and school-safety measures.
* It brings new clarity to laws regarding licensed gun dealers, as a way to strengthen the existing background-check system.
* It expands the background-check system for gun buyers under 21, allowing up to three days to conduct checks, and an extra 10 days if there are signs of concern.
* It creates new criminal penalties for firearm straw purchasing.
To be sure, there are all kinds of popular ideas reformers support — universal background checks, the restoration of the assault weapons ban, bans on high-capacity magazines, et al. — that were never seriously considered in the Senate talks due to Republican opposition.
But this modest, narrowly focused, unbelievably moderate bill passed, it’s likely to save lives, and it’s a breakthrough unlike anything Americans have seen in a generation.
It was also a bridge too far for Republicans.
In the Senate, 70 percent of GOP members opposed this […] bipartisan bill, including Republicans such as Florida’s Marco Rubio and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson — incumbents in competitive battlegrounds who choose to ignore public demands for action.
In the House, 93 percent of GOP members also opposed this modest […] bill. In fact, the House has roughly four times as many Republicans as the Senate, but fewer “yes” votes on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
If GOP lawmakers saw this bill as excessive, there’s nothing that could meet their standards.
Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t agree with overturning abortion rights — but don’t look for his name among the dissenters.
In a mealy-mouthed concurrence, he bemoans that the Court didn’t just nix the viability line, but went all the way on abortion rights. Not because he disagrees with the content of the decision — he calls it “thoughtful and thorough” — but because, he says, demolishing Roe is unnecessary to decide the case centered on a 15-week abortion ban out of Mississippi.
“Here, there is a clear path to deciding this case correctly without overruling Roe all the way down to the studs: recognize that the viability line must be discarded, as the majority rightly does, and leave for another day whether to reject any right to an abortion at all,” he writes.
Roberts’ preference is clear: get rid of the viability line, which he spends many paragraphs attacking. Then, perhaps when a little time has passed, curtail abortion in some other ways.
[…] Why not slice away at women’s rights just a little bit? he asks.
“The law at issue allows abortions up through fifteen weeks, providing an adequate opportunity to exercise the right Roe protects,” he writes. “By the time a pregnant woman has reached that point, her pregnancy is well into the second trimester. Pregnancy tests are now inexpensive and accurate, and a woman ordinarily discovers she is pregnant by six weeks of gestation.”
He took the same tone during oral arguments, fixating on whether the viability line made sense, while his conservative peers took no pains to hide their intent to nullify abortion rights completely.
It’s another sign of Roberts’ loss of control over the Court. Chief in name, he has little power to rein in the other right-wing judges, who seem unconcerned about the Court’s plummeting legitimacy or the dangers of willfully ripping up precedents.
He spares no words for the plight of women now forced to give birth against their will, or of the dangers to other related constitutional rights. His uneasiness is linked solely to perception of the Court, and the shockwave the decision will send through the legal world.
“The Court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system—regardless of how you view those cases,” he writes. “A narrower decision rejecting the misguided viability line would be markedly less unsettling, and nothing more is needed to decide this case.”
Pompous Pilot washes his hands.
——————
Roberts is so shocked that his brethren abandoned all principles of judicial conservatism when they have access to the open bar.
——————
Kevin McCarthy suggests he’s open to some sort of national abortion ban, saying “we will continue to look wherever we can go to save as many lives as possible.”
—————-
where we’re at in America in 2022: the president just had to state publicly that he supports the right of women to travel across state lines
—————-
Western US states California, Oregon and Washington issue joint pledge to defend abortion rights
The creaky gears of Donald Trump’s primitive mental machinery have always made it simple to read his poorly veiled motives and fear driven objectives. What he is most afraid of invariably consumes his private thoughts and public outbursts. He is an open children’s book that consists mainly of stick pictures and infantile temper tantrums.
This has never been more apparent than in his reactions to the hearings being conducted by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that he invited. In just two weeks the Committee has exposed a multitude of ethical, moral, and legal breaches that would crush the career of any politician who hadn’t been transformed into a cartoonish cult messiah by a small but vocal congregation of crackpots. And the Committee is clearly having a profound impact on the American people.
Consequently, Trump has taken to his miserably failing social media debacle, TRUTH Social, to vent his outrage. And not surprisingly, his tirades are typically anti-social and utterly devoid of any “truth” He began by complaining that…
“The only thing not discussed by the Unselects, in any way, shape, or form, is the irrefutable evidence of massive and totally pervasive ELECTION FRAUD & IRREGULARITIES which took place during the 2020 Presidential Election. They refuse to go there.”
First of all, that’s blatantly false. The Committee’s mandate from the start has been to discuss Trump’s flagrantly fallacious claims of election fraud. And they have done so in every session. If they haven’t discussed any “irrefutable evidence” of such fraud, it’s just because there isn’t any. And if Trump wants more representation of his side, he might want to agree to testify, or stop ordering his minions not to do so. Then Trump continued to whine…
““What about the massive ballot stuffing shown, on Government Tape, by the highly respected and credible Patriots of Truth to Vote (2000 Mules)?”
Not only was there no evidence of any ballot stuffing, but Trump can’t even get the name of the highly disreputable and non-credible group right. (It’s “True the Vote”). And the crocumentary “2,000 Mules” by a convicted election fraudster, has been widely debunked. But Trump still wasn’t done yowling. He felt compelled to utter more falsehoods about the Committee, lying that…
“Their lead investigator just quit, they cancelled or postponed future hearings, the T.V. Ratings are absolutely abysmal, and Shifty Schiff continues his sanctimonious ‘interviews’ just as though he were talking about his first four failed hoaxes!”
Trump is trying desperately to malign the Committee with ludicrous assertions that he thinks will make it look bad. Let’s start with his charge that the lead investigator quit. To Trump that signals some sort of trouble. However, the investigator, John Wood, is actually a republican who is exploring a senate primary bid in Missouri to challenge the disgraced GOP candidate and “RINO hunter,” Eric Greitens, who even Republicans are embarrassed by.
Then Trump notes that future Committee hearings were postponed (not canceled). That’s true. But once again, it isn’t because of problems with the proceedings. In fact, it’s due to the Committee receiving so much new evidence against against Trump that they need more time to process it. Contrary to Trump’s phony fulminations, this will actually result in extending the hearings, and their devastating affect on Trump, into July.
Finally, Trump is deliberately lying about the TV ratings. Every session of the Committee’s hearings have garnered huge audiences. The first session, that aired in primetime, had higher ratings than the NBA championship game the night before. And the American people are paying attention. In a significant increase since the last poll, nearly 6 in 10 Americans say that Trump should charged criminally for his role in the Capitol Hill riots.
Making matters worse for Trump, even longtime conservative pollster, Frank Luntz, has noticed that “Trump is being damaged by the House Select Committee hearings.”
“Speaking on CNN, Luntz pointed to polling showing that Trump’s unfavorability among voters has spiked over the course of the hearings as evidence that they’re leaving a mark.”
The longer these hearings go on, the more proof of Trump’s criminality will be exposed, and the more people will be repulsed by his assault on democracy and the Constitution. And the only thing his petulant whining will accomplish will be to make him look all the more guilty, pathetic, and desperate. So … Please proceed, Donald.
In a heated confrontation today, Jamie Raskin asks Marge if she thinks people have a right to carry guns wherever they want, was it ok for J6 rioters to have guns. Marge says, “What evidence do you have that people were armed that day?” Raskin responds, “Oh, just wait for it.”
On Friday, while the world deals with the official decision by the Supreme Court to steal away the rights of more than 100 million Americans, a House Rules committee hearing took place to discuss gun safety legislation. One of the members of the House Rules committee is Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Another representative in the chambers today, but not on the House Rules committee, was Republican Tasmanian devil, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was serving as a witness. […]
There’s absolutely no doubt about it, America is exceptional. It’s exceptional in that as other developed nations are moving forward, so-called conservative forces are dragging America back. As the rest of the world is advancing toward an era in which they recognize the value of all people, embrace the role of government in moderating the inherent conflict between individual rights and societal benefits, and understand the importance of protecting what remains of the natural environment, the United States is—suddenly and unexpectedly—doing the exact opposite.
The United States is currently engaged in a project under which the number of people valued by society is being sharply curtailed. It’s engaged in a project to destroy the whole concept of a “general good” It’s determined to ignore consequences of environmental damage, of racism, and of gun violence even as those consequences are visible in fire and blood.
The extraordinary Supreme Court action this week, ending five decades of protection under Roe v. Wade, is a ghastly example of something of something that has more general implications—how the United States is become a dreaded and hated pariah. How the right wing has set out to undo the whole idea of “the American experiment.” And how the “shining city on the hill” is being replaced with a new, improved Jonestown.
As Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf puts it, America is experiencing a “concerted campaign” by the right wing, often with the assistance of those who claim to be “centrists” in both parties, whose goal is not simply to arrest progress, but to roll back the enormous gains that have been made since before World War II.
The gains made by women that have opened up more opportunities for individuals and infinitely enriched society aren’t just under assault, they are crumbling. The gains made by Black Americans have been massively undercut on every front from voting, to educational opportunities, to home ownership, to healthcare. The ability of the government to take any action that safeguards people in poverty, protects the aged, or defends those accused of a crime has all been sharply curtailed. […]
Republicans have spent decades eroding social progress at the state level. As those Republicans have gained control county-by-county, state-by-state […]
Call it the Great Regression. Or Jim Crow 2.0. Call it whatever you want. But it’s turning America into an a pariah state; one that represents ignorance, repression, and hate. One that is becoming an object of loathing around the world. One that has enemies drooling over what they can snatch in a post-America world, and has allies planning for the day when they have to sever that gangrened limb.
Sometimes the arc bends toward justice. But if that arc has to bend for too long, it can just snap. Repairing what’s happened won’t come in a moment. But it better start quickly, or it will never happen at all.
The terrorist wing of the the anti-abortion movement is busy:
[…] The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is expected to trigger a new wave of clashes as abortion is certain or likely to be banned in 26 states and the remaining open clinics will offer anti-abortion protesters and extremists fewer and clearer targets.
The US Department of Homeland Security has been on alert for an increase in political violence following the Dobbs decision, according to a leaked memo. It was already happening even before the court’s ruling: On May 25, an arson was reported at a building set to become Wyoming’s only clinic providing surgical abortions. On New Year’s Eve, a fire destroyed a Planned Parenthood in Tennessee. […]
[…] Some lawmakers have been heeding the warnings. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced that the state will dedicate $10 million toward security for abortion care providers and an additional $25 million to expand abortion access. Maine legislators passed a law in April that creates 8-foot “medical safety zones” around clinic entrances. […]
On Wednesday, the January 6 Select Committee revealed that Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson tried to pass fake electoral certificates from Wisconsin and Michigan to Vice President Mike Pence on the day of the Capitol Riot.
“Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS, please advise,” Johnson’s top aide Sean Riley texted Vice President Mike Pence’s legislative director Chris Hodgson at 12:37 p.m. as Congress was convening to certify Joe Biden’s electoral vote win.
“What is it?” Hodgson responded.
Upon being informed that Johnson was trying to fob off “Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Hodgson was unequivocal.
“Do not give that to him,” he shot back immediately.
Since then, we’ve gotten three versions of the story, all of which have people asking questions which Ron Johnson insists have already been answered by his “Not Involved in Mounting a Coup” T-shirt.
Version #1: Immaculate Conception
Immediately after the disclosure, Johnson insisted that he had no idea where the documents came from. It was a “staff to staff exchange” he repeated over and over, while insisting that it was “a complete non-story” that he’d tried to slip Mike Pence multiple fraudulent documents that would have invalidated the ballots of more than 8 million voters. [Tweet and video at the link.]
Version #2: It Was Ummm … That Dude From Pennsylvania!
On Thursday, Johnson told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna that he’d gotten the fake electoral certificates from Rep. Mike Kelly, a Trump-loving Pennsylvania Republican who filed a lawsuit to invalidate every one of his state’s mail-in ballots. [tweet and video at the link]
“We didn’t know what it was. We thought it was documents involved in the electors,” Johnson said indignantly, while distancing himself from the handoff, saying he was “probably already up in the senate, okay?”
Johnson seemed to think it was totally normal that a Pennsylvania congressman’s office would have fraudulent electoral certificates from Wisconsin, but found it “odd” that he’d have the Michigan slate, too. Nevertheless, he defended the plan to slip Mike Pence fake documents in an attempt to thwart the orderly transfer of power as “appropriate.”
Rep. Kelly, however, said he had no idea what that weirdo was talking about.
“Senator Johnson’s statements about Representative Kelly are patently false,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Mr. Kelly has not spoken to Sen. Johnson for the better part of a decade, and he has no knowledge of the claims Mr. Johnson is making related to the 2020 election.”
Ruh roh!
Version #3: Okay, Fine! It Was the MAGA Lawyers.
Having been caught out in yet another lie, Johnson trotted off to disgraced reporter John Solomon […] After lamenting the Democrats’ “smear tactics,” Johnson admitted that he’d been contacted by a lawyer in Wisconsin on the morning of January 6 “because he knew me, they wanted to deliver these because I’m the only guy that can really deliver these to Pence.”
According to Solomon, the Trump campaign contacted Rep. Kelly; who contacted Jim Troupis, a MAGA lawyer who’d filed multiple election LOLsuits in Wisconsin; who then contacted Johnson; who then handed it off to his staffer; who then reached out to a Pence staffer.
So … not really a “staff to staff” exchange after all, huh?
“I never tried to push, never talked to the vice president about this. I mean, my involvement literally, I can only assume probably took seconds. If not, you know, certainly no more than a minute or two. And this got blown into, like I was part of some vast rightwing conspiracy to undermine the election,” Johnson whined to Solomon. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Then Solomon dutifully reported that “texts showed his staff actually decided not to have the senator deliver an alternate slate of electors to Pence,” even though the supposed additional context supplied by Solomon shows nothing of the kind. [Image at the link]
When questioned about his ever-shifting stories, Johnson pointed to Solomon’s reporting and insisted that it confirmed his version of events, conveniently ignoring the fact that he’d supplied several versions and been caught lying in each and every one.
And not for nothing, but we’re scratching our head wondering how a lawyer from Wisconsin got his hands on the fugazi electoral certificates from Michigan? Because those were original, signed hard copies, and they had to come from somewhere. Maybe we’ll find out that detail in one of the inevitable revisions to Johnson’s story. Or if not, the federal grand jury investigating the fake electors scheme which dropped subpoenas in four states last week will probably be able to sort it out.
Wonkette: “The Absolute Last Thing We Needed: Q Is Back”
This whole week has been a steaming pile of hot garbage. People in many states across the country lost reproductive rights, the Miranda Warning got neutered, New York lost the right to restrict who can walk around with a concealed weapon, and California decided to keep involuntary servitude (aka slavery) around as a punishment for convicts. Thus, it only seems “right” that last night culminated with the return of “Q.” Like, QAnon Q.
Using the official “trip code” that identifies the user as the “real” Q rather than an impostor, whoever it is that is behind this nonsense wrote “Shall we play a game once more” on 8kun last night, following that up by answering a question about why they waited so long to return with “It had to be done this way.”
Finally, Q wrote “Are you ready to serve your country again? Remember your oath.”
As you may recall, Qanon acolytes “served their country” during the Trump years by, uh … hanging out on the internet and interpreting “Q drops” and accusing celebrities of wearing shoes made out of children? I guess?
Though who among us can forget the “oath” they took. It was literally the oath of office with “WWG1WGA” tacked on the end (if you forget, that stands for “Where we go one we go all”) which I think we can all agree remains hilarious.
So far it has been confirmed as “real” by a variety of QAnon celebrities, including 8Kun owner Jim Watkins, father of one of the most likely people to be behind Q, Ron Watkins (also an Arizona congressional candidate, because of course he is). Naturally, many people’s most annoying relatives are thrilled by this news, cheering on message boards like GreatAwakening.win about how it is Christmas in July and what have you.
Several of them are pretty sure, in fact, that Q was behind the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe and wanted to let them know that … by posting the “Shall we play a game post” at the same time (though not the same day) Q had posted a “drop” about abortion in 2019. [image and text at the link]
Really, the evidence is all there if you care to make it up.
[…] the attacks included over 40 missiles fired from Belarusian airspace and appeared to hit mostly military targets. They came hours before President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with Belarus’s leader.
From the skies above Belarus to the north and the waters of the Black Sea to the south, Russian forces unleashed a fusillade of cruise missiles across Ukraine on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, in one of the most widespread and coordinated aerial assaults in weeks.
Even as Russia pounded civilian and military infrastructure from the air, fierce fighting raged on the eastern front, where Russian forces pressed to cut off the supply lines for thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.
The Ukrainian military said that Russian warplanes had attacked Ukrainian positions near the eastern city of Lysychansk, the last urban stronghold still under Ukrainian control in the eastern Luhansk Province, as Russian forces pressed to encircle the city.
On Saturday, Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk of Sievierodonetsk, across the river from Lysychansk, said that Russian forces had occupied his city. Ukrainian forces withdrew from the city across the Siversky Donets River to the higher ground of Lysychansk this week.
The missile strikes on Saturday came hours before President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus in St. Petersburg. Belarusian forces were also once again conducting military drills near the border with the Kyiv region, in Ukraine’s north, raising tensions and putting the authorities there on high alert.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency called the Russian assault “a large-scale provocation of Russia for the purpose of further dragging Belarus into the war against Ukraine.” Western military analysts say it is unlikely that Belarus would join the Russian war effort, but Mr. Lukashenko’s hold on power is dependent on the Kremlin’s support, limiting his room for political maneuver.
President Biden was traveling on Saturday to Germany, where he would join the leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies — known as the Group of 7 — to bolster Western resolve in supporting Ukraine in the face of the growing economic toll the war is taking on their nations.
Even as Ukraine faces perhaps its toughest moment on the battlefield since the early weeks of the war, the commander of its military, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, released a slickly produced video to celebrate the first battlefield use of advanced multiple-launch rocket systems from the United States. He said the weapons were being used to hit “military targets of the enemy on our, Ukrainian, territory.”
But the Russian missile strikes offered a potent reminder of the vast destructive power of the arsenal at Moscow’s disposal, which has been directed both at military targets and at civilian areas of cities and towns.
The mayor of the embattled southern port city of Mykolaiv, which has been under attack from Russian forces since the start of the war, called for “everyone who wants to survive” to leave, because “it’s not clear when all this will be over.”
Speaking in an interview with Radio Liberty, he said that the city was being shelled daily, and that “around 80 percent of those munitions are cluster munitions” fired from Russian multiple-launch rocket systems.
Already, about half of Mykolaiv’s prewar population of 480,000 have fled. Among those remaining, many are older, and about 80 percent of them survive on food and clothes distributed by aid organizations.
The Russian strikes on Saturday also hit areas of the country that have been relatively quiet in recent weeks. Even in western and northern regions, where the wail of air alarms had become more sporadic, they rang out numerous times in less than 48 hours to signal that missiles had been fired within striking distance.
Dozens of the missile strikes were launched by Russian aircraft in Belarusian airspace overnight, according to a Belarusian monitoring group, Belarusian Guyun, which has been detailing Russian actions since the start of the war.
The crude reality of the political machinations involved in overruling Roe v. Wade makes it galling to read the Court’s self-portrayal as a picture of proper judicial restraint.
We have known for some time that this Supreme Court’s manifest destiny was to overrule Roe v. Wade. Now it has fulfilled it. In the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a five-Justice majority, eliminated the constitutional right to abortion and handed the states the power to restrict the procedure as they wish. There was little suspense, owing to a leak of the draft opinion last month, from which the Court’s final opinion is not substantially different, but the decision still came down as a surreal shock. The three liberal Justices dissented […]
As expected, Chief Justice John Roberts declined to join his conservative colleagues’ opinion, and concurred only in the judgment to uphold the challenged Mississippi law, which bans most abortions after fifteen weeks. […]
The difference between preserving and eliminating a long-held constitutional right involves a crude reality of political machinations and contingency in filling these seats—which makes it galling to read the Court’s righteous condemnation of Roe v. Wade as an exercise of “raw judicial power,” and its self-portrayal as a picture of proper judicial restraint. It is hard to imagine something more like an exercise of raw judicial power than the Court’s removal of the right to abortion, which is precisely what these Justices were put on the Court to achieve. As the dissent put it, the Court is “rescinding an individual right in its entirety and conferring it on the State, an action the Court takes for the first time in history.”
[…] “The Constitution neither outlaws abortion nor legalizes abortion,” Kavanaugh wrote. As a result, “this Court does not possess the authority either to declare a constitutional right to abortion or to declare a constitutional prohibition of abortion,” he proclaimed, and in so doing seemed to indicate that a possible future development—the eventual enshrining of a constitutional right of the fetus—is not something for which he would provide a fifth vote. […]
Justice Clarence Thomas’s separate concurrence made crystal clear that he would indeed do away with the entire substantive due-process doctrine on which the right to abortion rested, and that would mean eventually sweeping away the rights to contraception, same-sex intimacy, and same-sex marriage.
[…] The Dobbs ruling’s insistence that the Court should not impede states from making policies in which they weigh the interest in life for themselves, through their democratic processes, is tragicomic, even gruesome, coming the very day after the Court did just that in striking down a New York State gun-licensing law, based on the Court’s expansion of an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the plurality that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade wrote that “liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt”—meaning that, if the public is in doubt about whether constitutional rights are in danger of disappearing, that is not liberty. Dobbs leaves no doubt that the federal constitutional right to abortion is gone. And it ushers in an era of grave doubt about the status of liberty in the United States.
In the early days of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, members of the willfully obtuse community wondered why Vladimir Putin would choose this moment to strike. After all, the raft of sanctions the Biden-led coalition of Western allies had promised made Putin’s misadventure seem utterly foolhardy and borderline suicidal.
Many on the right speculated that Putin waited for Trump’s ouster because Putin was afraid of him. That is a weird thing to say, considering Putin did his utmost to get Trump reelected. If Trump was the one thing standing in the way of Putin’s long-awaited conquest of Ukraine, Putin would have thrown his support behind Joe Biden, not Trump. Putin also likely knew that Trump had hoped to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his second term—a move that would have allowed Putin to scarf down ex-Soviet republics like Trump crushes Hot Pockets.
No, it seemed obvious—to me, anyway—that Putin was taking a calculated risk. He knew his invasion would pose challenges for a Biden administration already buffeted by rising gas prices and other economic headwinds, and he likely figured he could wait out sanctions until the economic disruption he’d caused began to fray our alliances and—even better—return a weak-willed Republican (either Trump or someone equally as venal and shallow) to the White House.
Well, now there’s reporting to suggest that theory was spot-on. The Daily Beast has obtained a U.S. intelligence bulletin indicating that Putin is once again brain-fucking the U.S. populace to serve his own depraved ends. The only question: Will it work this time?
[R]ather than counting on exiting the political scene in dramatic fashion, Putin might be betting that he can somehow outlast his detractors as well as the Biden Administration, whose security assistance for Ukraine has been pivotal in keeping a Russian win at bay. And part of Putin’s plot to outlive the Biden administration is likely to include influence operations aimed at securing an American political environment that’s more favorable to his goals, former CIA and Department of Homeland Security officials told The Daily Beast.
That scheme will inevitably aim to influence voters participating in both the midterms and the presidential election in 2024 in an attempt to get candidates elected who are somehow more sympathetic to Putin, according to Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA Moscow chief of station. […]
“He’s trying to dilute U.S. support for [Ukrainian President] Zelenskyy.”
According to an intelligence briefing Daily Beast obtained, Moscow has been pursuing influence operations intended to undermine Americans’ support of Ukraine—in part by blaming Western actions (though, weirdly, not Putin’s illegal invasion) for a looming food crisis tied to disruptions in Ukrainian grain shipments. “Outlets claimed … that Western nations prolonged the conflict by sending military aid to Ukraine,” reads the brief. “Outlets claimed that Western actions were causing global food prices to soar.”
Of course, the battle for Ukraine’s sovereignty is far more consequential than a temporary spike in domestic gas prices. It’s nothing less than a fateful test of wills between the free world and the corrupt forces of tyranny, brutality, and kleptocracy. […] Putin has likely reasoned—perhaps correctly—that a country that could elevate a dyspeptic game show host and decades-old punchline to the highest office in the land might eagerly line up for another bracing dose of snake oil.
[…] so they might get someone who doesn’t think like Joe Biden … or any other lucid human, for that matter. Fortunately for Putin, America still has a glut of those characters and—well, lookee here!—they’re almost all Republicans. Meanwhile, J.D. Vance, the Trump-endorsed candidate for the Ohio Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman, has openly declared that he doesn’t really give a shit about Ukraine. And Fox News’ twerpy Goebbels, Tucker Carlson, has been a consistent favorite among Putin’s propagandists.
In fact, the Kremlin is already preparing to ratfuck the midterms with an eye toward further dividing our country. […]
the DHS expects Russia to continue using troll farms and other tools to further undermine our democracy: “We assess that Russia will continue to malign influence and interference activities designed to undermine U.S. global prestige, sow division among the American public, undermine faith in U.S. democratic institutions, and portray Russia as a global power.”
[…] It’s time for Americans to ask themselves “what would Putin do/want?” and then resolve to do the opposite. If not, the ruthless and corrupt Trump-Putin Axis will give Eastern Europe—and much of the rest of the world, no doubt—the ugliest makeover in history.
A gunman opened fire in Oslo’s nightlife district early Saturday, killing two people and leaving more than 20 wounded in what the Norwegian security service called an “Islamist terror act” during the capital’s annual LGBTQ Pride festival.
Investigators said the suspect, identified as a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, was arrested after opening fire at three locations in downtown Oslo.
Police said two men, one in his 50s and and the other his 60s, died in the shootings. Ten people were treated for serious injuries, but none of them was believed to be in life-threatening condition. Eleven others had minor injuries.
The Norwegian Police Security Service raised its terror alert level from “moderate” to “extraordinary” — the highest level — after the attack, which sent panicked revelers fleeing into the streets or trying to hide from the gunman.
The service’s acting chief, Roger Berg, called the attack an “extreme Islamist terror act” and said the suspect had a “long history of violence and threats,” as well as mental health issues.
He said the agency, known by its Norwegian acronym PST, first became aware of the suspect in 2015 and later grew concerned he had become radicalized and was part of an unspecified Islamist network.
Norwegian media named the suspect as Zaniar Matapour, an Oslo resident who arrived in Norway with his family from a Kurdish part of Iran in the 1990s.
The suspect’s defense lawyer, John Christian Elden, said his client “hasn’t denied” carrying out the attack, but he cautioned against speculation on the motive.
“He has not given any reason. It is too early to conclude whether this is hate crime or terrorism,” Elden said in an email to The Associated Press.
Upon the advice of police, organizers canceled a Pride parade that was set for Saturday as the highlight of a weeklong festival. Scores of people marched through the capital anyway, waving rainbow flags. […]
[…] one of the stupidest things ever written about Marilyn Monroe, courtesy of The Federalist […] the reason she is so iconic is because we all actually secretly lust after … 1950s morals.
This point is argued by Beth Whitehead, a journalism major at Patrick Henry college, known to conservative Christians as “God’s Harvard” and to the rest of the world as a hotbed of sexual assault (frequently by former members of Congress) where women are told they are to blame for making men “stumble” and accidentally rape them.
Ah, traditional American values.
Whitehead writes:
Our culture’s fixation with Marilyn Monroe flows largely from the dichotomy between her image and her era. Monroe was a sex symbol in a Hollywood wholly unknown to the modern viewer — one that condemned actors filming in the same bed, onscreen kisses of more than three seconds, foul or sexual language, etc. Studios didn’t drop the strict production code until 1968.
Yes, this sure is a woman who has seen a lot of Marilyn Monroe films. Fun fact, Monroe actually specifically requested a sex scene with Clark Gable in The Misfits (which would be the last film for both of them), and although it was filmed it did not become part of the movie. […] she thought 1961 audiences would be into it.
Hollywood of the ’50s marketed desire, not sex. And there’s something about this forbearance to a modern age with no modesty that attracts us. There’s something alluring about not baring all. Marilyn Monroe is a sex symbol, but only because we never watch her have sex.
I don’t know if I can post one of Marilyn Monroe’s many, many nude photographs in here, but Google image search exists. They are pretty famous. You know who was also famous in the 1950s? Jayne Mansfield. No disrespect to Mariska Hargitay, but her mom kind of invented the wardrobe malfunction.
The idea that Marilyn Monroe didn’t sell sex or was somehow more reserved than stars of today is patently ridiculous, and probably something that could only be said by someone who has yet to witness the cinematic train wreck that is Let’s Make Love, particularly the part with the the “My Heart Belongs To Daddy” baby-voice strip tease. As wonderful as Cole Porter is, it is so much less weird to just watch people have sex.
Modern sex symbols are harder to find. Women like Megan Fox, Rihanna, and Kim Kardashian are our modern equivalents but they blend in. They fade into a culture of sexual license and become known for their talents or wealth. Promiscuity is too general now to establish one in the hall of fame. They don’t compare with Marilyn Monroe, and everyone knows it.
Because they’re different people during a different era? It is unclear what is wrong with becoming known for their talent, or even their wealth, given how many men are allowed to be famous for their wealth.
What truly makes Monroe a sex symbol is the society of the ’50s.
As such, Monroe is the emblem of a community we secretly admire but don’t actually want. The one that looked down on divorce and sleeping around and drugs and had never heard of “trans.” We think we’ve liberated ourselves from this era’s moral limits, and yet when we look at many of our popular films and TV shows, we find ourselves going back to what we left.
Marilyn Monroe was a drug addict who got divorced twice. The first gender reassignment surgery was performed on Dora Richter in 1922 by the same man who would later go on to perform the same surgery on Danish artist Lili Elbe. Christine Jorgensen’s gender reassignment surgery was huge news in 1952. [image at the link]
Ed Wood came out with Glen or Glenda a year later in 1953 — and as notoriously terrible as it was, it was in many ways a plea for compassion for those who do not fit into society’s established notions about gender.
Marilyn Monroe also starred in a little movie called Some Like It Hot — and while the movie certainly plays on a lot of the typical “Oh no, it’s a woman who is secretly a man!” stuff, it literally ends with Jack Lemmon’s Jerry/Daphne confessing to a billionaire suitor that he is a man, and that suitor responding “Nobody’s perfect!,” with the clear implication that he would still like to get hitched. In retrospect, that’s pretty freaking awesome for the time. [video at the link]
But back to this shit.
Though we deny it, we find a community set of values appealing. It brings together instead of dividing like “your truth, my truth,” and it rewards patience, commitment, and hard work unlike the modern staples of social media, porn, and video games.
Yes, people like period pieces. They even sometimes like to combine the values and aesthetics of their own era with what it is they have romanticized or imagined about previous eras. [video at the link]
Notably, this is why everyone is super wrong about what people wore in the 1920s.
Whitehead continues on to explain that our society’s fixation on Marilyn Monroe is somehow caught up in our desire to live in a world with traditional 1950s values despite the fact that we are unwilling to “work” for it, because we also like things the way they are.
Community standards are appealing to us, yes, but not worth the work. We might want the effects of the ’50s community standards and of the rigid moral code of Jane Austen’s world and the purpose, respect, and chivalry of its inhabitants, but we also want overt sexualization. And desire trumps sex is a hard sell.
So, we replicate the community of conservative eras, and we think it’ll be better if we put some sex in it. We take the career of Marilyn Monroe, sprinkle in a lot of smut, and we get “Blonde,” the first original Netflix film to gain an NC-17 rating. We take the societal norms of Regency England, throw in obscene amounts of nudity and we get “Bridgerton.”
We think these hybrids will make us happy. And they do entertain — Bridgerton is the #1 most-watched English-speaking show on Netflix. And yet we betray ourselves with every nod to Marilyn Monroe. Something’s wrong, we feel it. We believe a house with no walls is no house, but we ditch the only thing that separates a man from an animal — his morals — and think we’ll be satisfied.
No. Just no. People are absolutely free to live by these moral codes if they choose to do so, or to go even further. […] What they can’t do, however, is force anyone else to live by them — which is what seems to be the real problem for Federalist writers all over.
If you will notice, however, all of the most enduring “sex symbols” of that era are those who transgressed what we think of as traditional 1950s values (one of which, notably, was racism). Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis, James Dean, Bettie Page, etc. No one is putting up posters of Barbara Billingsley or Doris Day on their wall.
And for the record, the Georgian Era (during which the Regency Era took place) was not nearly as uptight about sex as Whitehead would imagine. It was a period of social backlash against Puritanical values. Fanny Hill, the first pornographic novel and one of the most banned books of all time, was written during this period. People, including those in the upper classes, had illegitimate children all over the damn place. Casanova was alive and quite famous during this period, as was Madame de Stael. Prominent Whig leader Charles James Fox was a known man-slut who married a “courtesan” who was once the mistress of the Prince of Wales. There were famous courtesans all over the place, actually — Madame Du Barry, Harriet Wilson, and Marie Duplessis, the inspiration for Marguerite in La Dame Aux Camellias, remade several times as Camille, first starring famous Hollywood lesbian Alla Nazimova, known for having big ol’ gay sex parties at her mansion, aka The Garden of Alla and also for being Nancy Reagan’s godmother. The later talkie version starred another famous Hollywood lesbian, Greta Garbo.
Every time period is a hybrid. Every time period is simultaneously more conservative and more liberated than people now believe, and much like Marilyn Monroe, people place their own selves and values and ideals and hopes and dreams on these times in hopes of validating them. […]
The thing is, we are all at the same history buffet, but we’re eating entirely different meals. Whitehead looks at Marilyn Monroe and lusts after the traditional 1950s family values Monroe absolutely did not embody, others look at her and lust after her amazing rack, still others look at her as an inspirationally sexy train wreck who boned the President and said things like “If you don’t love me at my worst you don’t deserve me at my best” …. which she did not ever actually say.
And hey, there are those among us who are more simply inclined towards Jane Russell anyway. [video at the link]
It’s clear that Ms. Whitehead herself desperately wants to live in society with what she believes were “traditional 1950s values” (like racism and women not being allowed to have their own credit card), and she’s trying to believe that everyone else secretly wants that too. […] We all have hopes and dreams.
[…] Ukrainian forces began withdrawing from Severodonetsk on Thursday evening and as of Saturday all but a handful of troops are reportedly across the river in Lysyschansk. The last report still had Ukrainian forces holding out in the suburb of Borivske, but it can be expected—or at least hoped—that this force is small. [map at the link]
On the south of Lysychansk, Russian forces have reportedly moved into the edges of the city, but they’ll have to battle uphill through some closely spaced buildings if they want to proceed from that direction. On the west of the city, Russian forces have reportedly entered the area of the power plant at Verkhnokamyanka. That would be a threat to the power in Lysychansk … except it’s already out. The little pocket that extended down to Zolote a week ago is now extinguished.
To the southwest, Ukraine made an unexpected advance across a broad front, liberating a whole cluster of villages in the Donetsk region. [map at the link]
I’ve violated my own usual rules for coloring the map in leaving the whole area of advance as if in dispute, but I wanted to show just what a big slice of property was carved out in just two days. The top of that yellow area is where Russian control was on Thursday. Then came reports of Ukraine pushing down to the highway that runs from Zolta Nyva to Pavlivka. On Friday, the advance continued to three more villages 10km further south. Whether it is continuing at this moment is unknown, but there were no reports of serious Russian resistance.
Why Ukraine is pushing in this area isn’t clear. The closest position is still 75km from Mariupol, so this would currently not seem to be a threat to Russia’s “land bridge” between the Donbas and the Crimea. It may simply be a matter of Ukraine staying aware of the areas where Russia has drawn down troops to support the effort near Severodonetsk. If Ukraine can capture these areas with few losses, and without adding troops to the area … why not?
There were reports just three weeks ago that Russia was planning an advance in this same area, but this was followed by reports that some of the forces in this region had been drawn off by Ukrainian forces pressing toward Kherson. Ukraine may be engaged in a strategy of poking Russia in one place, grabbing territory that opens up, poking again elsewhere, etc.
In the Kherson area, most of the reports of activity on Saturday are at the north end of the line of battle. Ukraine has been pushing for some time to capture Vysokopillya, where Russia reportedly has stockpiled supplies and which had been their launching point for attacks to the north. [map at the link]
On Friday and Saturday, Ukraine went hard against two towns in the immediate vicinity of Vysokopillya. Russian forces reportedly fled the town of Olhyne after a Ukrainian bombardment, and in the village of Arkhanhel’s’ke, which Russia was reportedly using as a command HQ Ukraine … well, that’s over.
The Ukrainian military issued an image of the town … [image at the link]
And a video of Ukrainian forces at work on the Russian HQ. [video at the link]
Pushing back at this end of the line may not be as sexy as reports that Ukrainian troops are about to stroll into Kherson, but they’re important in reducing damage to Kryvyi Rih, which has been subject to repeated artillery attacks. Vysokopillya would now seem to be hanging out there in an extremely vulnerable position.
Further south, there has been no recent sign of activity from the bridgehead south of Davydiv Brid, and many reports have now made the assumption that Russian forces have eliminated the force on the east bank of the Inhulets River. However, there has been no confirmation of Russia recapturing villages that had been liberated by Ukrainian forces, so it seems early to be making that call. [video at the link]
StevoRsays
Well, this is disturbing Aussie news – a Climate action protest group finds camo-clad anonymous, undeclared trespassers that turn out to be cops on their land who try to flee when approached and asked to explain themselves & what happens next :
“All of these charges are utterly absurd, not just on the facts of what happened, but on the circumstances,” Mr Davis says.
“These officers did not identify themselves.”
Mr Rolles says the right to protest is more important than ever.
“We’re in the middle of a climate crisis and we need civil disobedience to help us have a safe future.
“Yesterday was an example of how the system that causes the climate crisis is going to protect itself.”
I was on House floor as decision striking Roe was announced. I realized it happened because I saw Marjorie Taylor Greene and others jump up and high five each other. I overheard what they said. One said he always dreamt of this day. Other said something that hit me hard.
One Republican congressperson said something like “let’s keep this going now.” The words reinforced that this has always been their plan. It’s only the beginning. Republican leadership is hell bent on transforming America by rolling back our rights. Rolling back out progress.
Next up it’s marriage equality, birth control, gay rights. It’s not speculation as Clarence Thomas made that clear in his published opinion yesterday. Right out in the open for all to see.
A Republican candidate for Rhode Island state Senate dropped out of the race on Saturday after a video that went viral allegedly showed him punching his Democratic challenger in the face during an abortion rights rally in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In a video filmed Friday night, Rhode Island Democratic state Senate candidate Jennifer Rourke is seen at a rally outside the State House protesting the Supreme Court’s ruling ending the right to abortion. The video shows tensions escalating, with people throwing punches at each other. Rourke alleged that her GOP challenger, Jeann Lugo, punched her in the face. Lugo is a Providence police officer who was off duty at the time.
I’m a reproductive rights organizer & State Senate candidate. Last night, after speaking at our Roe rally, my Republican opponent – a police officer – violently attacked me.
This is what it is to be a Black woman running for office. I won’t give up.
[Video at the link]
The Providence Police Department announced Saturday that it launched a criminal investigation and an administrative review of the “behavior of an off duty officer” during a protest on Friday night involving the assault of a female.
The Rhode Island State Police said Lugo was arraigned on Saturday. Following a joint investigation between the state police and the Providence Police Department, Lugo was arrested on a State Police affidavit and charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct. He was released on personal recognizance and assigned a re-arraignment date next month. He is suspended with pay from the Providence Police Department while the incident remains under investigation.
Speaking to the Providence Journal following the incident, Lugo claimed that Rourke had become physical with him, but did not deny punching Rourke.
“I’m not going to deny,” Lugo told The Journal of the punching allegation. “It was very chaotic, so I can’t really tell you right now. Everything happened very fast.”
In a since-removed tweet posted Saturday afternoon, Lugo announced that he is ending his bid for state Senate.
“I’ve decided now is the right time to seek office, therefore I will not be running for any office this fall,” Lugo tweeted, according to multiple reports.
Lugo’s account is no longer active.
According to CNN, Rourke filed a report with Providence police Friday night and with the state police on Saturday morning. Rourke was reportedly seen at a local hospital, and told CNN that she had a headache and ringing in her ears as a result of the altercation.
Early days of the war, the most videos showed anti-tank missiles like NLAWS, Stugna-P, and Javelins taking out Russian armor and vehicles. Then there was the “vehicles stuck in mud” phase. Eventually, that gave way to supply convoy ambushes. Then artillery strikes, and more artillery strikes. A handful of “commercial drone drops grenade” videos sneak through, but mostly artillery. Lots of artillery strikes. Until … now.
We still have plenty of artillery videos. This is an artillery attrition war, with the skies over Ukraine swarming with drones documenting it all. New Western artillery systems, like the M777, French Caesar, and Dutch/German Panzerhaubitze 2000 are treated like celebrities on the red carpet at the Oscars. But over the past few weeks, we’re seeing more and more dramatic destruction of Russian ammunition depots.
June 25, Izyum, Kharkiv Oblast [video at the link]
This was reportedly the headquarters of Russia’s 20th Army, and Russian Telegram channels reported multiple officer casualties. In the video, we see three pontoon bridging vehicles, at least two infantry fighting vehicles, a Tigr armored jeep-style infantry vehicle, and multiple requisitioned civilian vehicles. Not a bad haul for a single strike.
The lack of burn marks and shrapnel damage to the vehicles definitely points to HIMARS rockets. In my day, the rockets carried cluster munitions, now banned by international treaty (though the U.S. and Russia are not signatories). Instead, these rockets carry 180,000 small non-explosive tungsten balls, which detonate above the target and scatter the shots like a massive 360-degree shotgun. [photo at the link]
It works best against lightly armored vehicles and personnel. You can even see one of them here: [photo at the link]
In this case, a soft target, a single rocket with 180,000 of those tungsten balls likely did as much damage as an entire pod of six high explosive rockets would’ve managed. There’s a different role for those. (Hard targets, like hardened defenses, economic infrastructure like refineries, etc.)
June 25, Svatove, Luhansk Oblast, 68 kms from front lines [photo at the link]
We don’t know what hit this depot. GMLRS can fire accurately to 84 kilometers (beyond its official rated range), and can even reach further but not as accurately. This could also be Tochka-U ballistic missiles, Ukraine has been aggressively launching these past couple of weeks. […]
It’s almost as if Ukrainian high command decided they didn’t need to husband these long-range resources anymore with HIMARS in theater, and could blast off their remaining supply. These have a range of 120 kilometers.
June 23, Kadiivka, Luhansk Oblast, 40 kilometers from front lines [video at the link]
More Tochka-U missile handiwork. That is a serious cook-off. Kadiivka is east of Popasna, and this was likely supplying that entire advance. Reports claim that Russia has had to reposition its command and logistical hubs further away from the front.
June 22, Kyselivka, Kherson Oblast, on the front lines [photo at the link]
No need for long range munitions here. Kyselivka is right on the front lines, with conflicting reports over who controls it. The depot was likely struck as Ukrainian forces contested the settlement.
[I snipped a lot more examples. See the link for the details.]
It’s certainly curious—did Ukraine’s intelligence get that much better the last few weeks, suddenly adept at finding these supply depots, or is it truly a function of “HIMARS/MLRS are coming, we can now hit these targets with missiles we were saving for a rainy day.”
[…] Russia already struggles to advance more than a few hundred meters per day. Their challenges will only multiply as Ukraine systematically wipes out their logistical and command and control centers.
One last note, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense put out a video of HIMARS’ first mission: [video at the link]
The launch mechanism is the same as in the M270 from back in my day. The computer is far more advanced than whatever piece of crap 80’s era “computer” we had back then.
This is the second video we’ve seen of HIMARS launches and both of them were at night. Ukraine clearly values these too highly to risk having one spotted by Russian drones. So for now, it looks like they’ll do all their work at night. This will be fine when hitting supply depots, command and control centers, and static defenses. It’ll be less helpful when trying to hit Russian convoys on the move, which would be a fantastic use of these beasts. We’ll see if that changes down the road. […]
The right-wing “Federalist Society” is one of the most colossal scams ever perpetrated on the American people. An organization borne of of disgruntled right-wing extremists with Yale law degrees, apparently unhappy with the idea that people of a different class or skin color might enjoy the same privileges as their mommies and daddies who paid for their pricey educations, the Society grooms its fellow malcontents from tony and less-tony law schools, feeding them a contrived “jurisprudence” that just happens to fulfill every whim of its (mostly fossil-fuel oriented) deep-pocket donors. Then it churns them through its think-tanks and legislators until they can pop out untrammeled, like a legal abomination, into the welcoming arms of a Republican-dominated Judiciary Committee for automatic elevation to our federal courts.
Even their name is a crock. These people aren’t Federalists. Federalists — as in James Madison, for example — supported a strong central government in order to unify the country. These pretenders of the “Federalist Society” have, from the 1980’s onward, preached the doctrine of “state’s rights,” because they found that when the federal government did things that benefitted the American people as a whole — such as environmental or workers’ protection, for example — well, it just didn’t sit too well with the people writing their paychecks (That is the very definition of an Anti-Federalist, but I guess that name just didn’t sit right with their donors). […]
[Hamilton] couldn’t imagine sparsely populated states like “Wyoming,” “Idaho” or “North Dakota” exercising their will over the millions of people in the (reality-based) real [America], that is, those who lived in or adjacent to the country’s largest population centers.
Hamilton’s nightmare has become the reality of 21st-century America. We are living under minoritarian tyranny, with smaller states imposing their views on the larger through their disproportionate sway in the Senate and the electoral college — and therefore on the Supreme Court. To take but one example: Twenty-one states with fewer total people than California have 42 Senate seats. This undemocratic, unjust system has produced the new Supreme Court rulings on gun control and abortion.
As Boot points out, the American people by large majorities want some semblance of control over automatic and semi-automatic firearms. The American people want abortion to be available […]. They’ve wanted these things for a long time. But these “Federalists” on the Supreme Court have decided for us that whatever the public wants is less important than the people who put them into power, even if those people represented a minority of Americans.
That’s your “Federalism,” twisted into knots by the modern Republican Party.
The following point has been stated many times, but it bears emphasizing: this is not the way the Founders of this country believed things should be done. In fact they are probably rolling over in their graves at the way their legacy has been corrupted. Neither Madison nor Hamilton would have ever countenanced rule by a minority of the population, which is exactly the outcome we have with the current Supreme Court, a creature of the so-called “Federalist Society.”
As Boot writes:
[…] our perverse political system has allowed a militant, right-wing minority to hijack the law. As an Economist correspondent points out, “5 of the 6 conservative Supreme Court justices were appointed by a Republican Senate majority that won fewer votes than the Democrats” and “3 of the 6 were nominated by a president who also won a minority of the popular vote.”
It’s bad enough that these creeps and fanatics owe their positions to the fossil fuel industry and the white evangelical right, a population that does not represent any semblance of what America actually is.
But it’s doubly atrocious when they try to claim some mantle of historical authenticity. They have none. They’re just a group of extremists who found themselves in the right place at the right time, and found a whole lot of right-wing money to back them up.
No, red states aren’t going to suddenly adopt social programs to help caretakers. The goal has always been cruelty.
For a certain type of individual, the Supreme Court’s decision to erase the constitutional right to an abortion—reversing decades of precedent, and hurling catastrophe at untold millions—presents a unique opportunity.
See, for this brilliant mind, the end of Roe could encourage conservative states to install social programs, such as paid family leave and affordable daycare to help caretakers of all stripes, now that the long-awaited goal of destroying the law has finally been secured. Let’s take a look at how Ross Douthat, an opinion columnist at the New York Times, views this moment:
There are other possible futures. The pro-life impulse could control and improve conservative governance rather than being undermined by it, making the G.O.P. more serious about family policy and public health. Well-governed conservative states like Utah could model new approaches to family policy; states in the Deep South could be prodded into more generous policy by pro-life activists; big red states like Texas could remain magnets for internal migration even with restrictive abortion laws.
But Douthat’s thinking here, which misses the crucial point that abortion is health care, is willfully ignorant, if not delusional. In his fantasy, gutting Roe can be seen simply as a longstanding goal for Republicans, and now the party can begin embracing the benefits of helping caregivers, despite its fundamental allergy to social programs.
Here’s the truth: The GOP has never been serious about such matters—and that’s laid bare by the facts: States with the harshest abortion restrictions have long had the worst rates of maternal and child health outcomes, such as low infant birth weights and child poverty;
Many of these states have roundly and repeatedly rejected badly-needed Medicaid expansions that would have vastly improved such disastrous outcomes;
The same states also tend to refuse minimum wage increases and have nothing to say for family or paid sick leave;
Furthermore, people forced to carry out their pregnancies are pushed into economically dire situations at much faster rates than those who are able to obtain care.
The court’s liberal justices noted exactly this in their dissent. In Mississippi, they pointed out, a staggering 62 percent of all pregnancies are unplanned. But the state doesn’t require insurance companies to cover birth control and expressly prohibits educators from teaching proper contraceptive use. It also rejected Medicaid funds despite 86 percent of pregnancy-related deaths stemming from post-partum complications.
Douthat isn’t alone in this wistful image of the Republican party cracking out the knitting needles to stitch together a social safety net for women. […]
Perhaps they’re sincere in hoping their conservative allies will support strong social policies. But the glaring absence of such support isn’t by accident; it’s by intricate, carefully thought-out design. That’s because the fundamental goal of the conservative movement that killed off Roe has always been to eliminate the administrative state, not to expand it—and by doing so, create an unequal society. From my colleague, Pema Levy:
With this case, the court is poised to roll back what federal agencies can regulate, including threats as existential and enormous as climate risk. It’s a regular theme for this court […]
The six conservatives on the Supreme Court will go as far back as they have to—to the 13th century even—to peel away the rights and structures that underpin modern life.
The fear now is that far from expanding social protections, conservatives will go after them with more gusto, with efforts to target same-sex marriage, birth control, and so forth. Justice Clarence Thomas made that clear in his concurring opinion. And there’s a reason why neither he nor Samuel Alito mentioned anything about expanding social welfare. It’s time to stop hoping they ever will.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) on Sunday said doctors who perform abortions will be targeted for prosecution in her state after a new trigger law went into effect following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on Friday.
Noem told CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that while South Dakota would charge doctors who violate the abortion ban, the state will not prosecute mothers.
[…] South Dakota has a trigger law that immediately went into effect that banned abortions in the state following the lifting of the precedent. In South Dakota, abortions are illegal and performing the operation is now a felony unless it will save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.
Noem also said she would seek to ban telemedicine appointments for abortions, looking to stop abortion care providers from shipping abortion pills to women after an online consultation.
The governor on Sunday defended her state’s new restrictions on abortions, arguing “every life is precious” and that new technology showed how cruel the abortion procedure is for the unborn.
“We know so much more using technology and science than we did even 10, 15 years ago about what these babies go through and the pain they feel in the womb,” she said. “We’re putting resources in front of these women and walking alongside them, getting them the healthcare, the mental health counseling services they need.”
The part about providing “resources” is bullshit. See comment 362.
Wonkette: “‘Pro-Lifers’ Respond To Abortion Rights Protests With Violence, Misogyny And Trucks”
In much of the run-up to what we knew would be a whole lot of abortion rights protests following the death of Roe, right-wing pundits were clutching every pearl they could find and talking about how very terrified they were over how the left was probably going to end up burning the whole country down over a little thing like a whole lot of people losing their bodily autonomy. They love to be victims, particularly in the hypothetical.
That didn’t happen. If you want the truth, Republicans are about to destroy their own states without any help at all from us. It won’t be through protest or fire or anything we might do, but rather as a result of their own actions and inactions. With the lack of universal healthcare and subsidized education in this county (medical school costs a lot of money — doctors can’t afford to set up practices in rural areas, many of which are in red states), and the lack of subsidized childcare and parental leave? It’s going to be a trash fire for these states. An enormously expensive trash fire.
That being said, the violence and hatred we’ve seen this weekend has not come from our side.
In Rhode Island, Jeann Lugo, an police officer who was running for State Senate as a Republican has been arrested after being caught on tape punching his opponent, Jennifer Rourke, in the face at a protest. Lugo was off-duty at the time and pretty much just there to fuck with people.
“I’m a reproductive rights organizer & State Senate candidate. Last night, after speaking at our Roe rally, my Republican opponent — a police officer — violently attacked me,” Rourke wrote in a Twitter post. [See comment 359 for more details.]
The long version of the video shows a counterprotester named Josh Mello, who has had previous issues with violence, being asked to leave the protest and hit by someone in a green jacket as he leaves. Mello then starts hitting several women in the vicinity and then, at some point, Lugo pops in and punches Rourke (who was trying to break things up) in the face. [video at the link]
[…] On Friday, at a protest in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a truck driver with a license plate reading “WRAPTOR” purposely drove into a crowd of people protesting the overturning of Roe. Several protesters were injured and at least one, whose foot was run over by the truck, went to the hospital. [video at the link]
Video provided by Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker shows several victims — all women — trying to stop the driver as he careens into them
[…] Conservative pundits and politicians have long expressed great joy over the idea of left-wing protesters being run over by those who disagree with them, even going so far as to push for laws making it legal to do so.
[…] To cap things off, we’ve got not violence so much as a hefty dose of misogyny in the form of Jacob Fucking Wohl and his loyal sidekick Jack Burkman showing up to an abortion rights protest in Washington, DC.
Via The Independent:
While Burkman played police siren noises, Wohl repeatedly told women, “The protest is over, it’s time to go home.” He then said that “most of you here won’t have to worry about getting abortions anyway,” adding that he thought the women gathered were “ugly” and “morbidly obese”.
Pro-choice protesters chanted, “Goodbye” repeatedly in an effort to make the pair leave. One activist poured a bottle of water over Wohl’s head
Wohl circled the protest a number of times. He was escorted away from the scene by police and by anti-violence activists, only to return again. He told The Independent that women “belong in the kitchen” and that he had come to the protest to “educate people”. He added that he was a part of an organization called “Project 1599”.
Cute.
As you may recall, Project 1599 was the name of the fake civil rights organization Wohl and Burkman invented when they robocalled a bunch of Black people in several states in order to discourage them from voting by claiming that if one votes through mail-in ballots their “personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used for credit card companies to collect outstanding debts.”
The two have yet to be convicted for this, although if they are, they likely face up to 24 years in prison for the charges in Michigan alone. The FCC has also announced last year that they plan to fine the pair over $5 million for their scams. So really, they only have so much time to scream at women to “get back in the kitchen” and they seem to be making the most of it.
It’s more than obvious that the forced birth contingent has a bit of a screw loose — so be careful out there.
A Republican lawmaker called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the nationwide right to abortion established nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade a “victory for white life,” which was met with cheers at a rally held by former president Donald Trump.
“President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday,” Rep. Mary E. Miller (R) said at the rally Saturday night in Mendon, Ill.
She began clapping her hands as spectators, some clutching red “Save America” placards, also began to applaud….
Miller’s team swiftly issued an explanation for what it deemed to be “a mix-up of words.” Miller’s spokesman, Isaiah Wartman, told the Associated Press that the Illinois Republican misread her prepared speech and was supposed to declare the divisive court ruling a victory for the “right to life.”…
…many in the crowd seemed unfazed by Miller’s comment. “Whether it was a slip or not, the audience heard ‘white life’ and didn’t flinch. They applauded,” tweeted columnist Ahmed Baba, who writes for the Independent…..
This is not the first time Miller has been scrutinized for comments in her speeches. Last year, she was forced to apologize after quoting Adolf Hitler at a “Moms for America” event in Washington.
“Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future,’” Miller said during the rally.
ravensays
@Lynna 363
Noem told CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that while South Dakota would charge doctors who violate the abortion ban, the state will not prosecute mothers.
Noem is lying here. She does that a lot.
South Dakota will start prosecuting pregnant women for murder sooner or later. And probably sooner.
All the Red states are in a race to see who can execute the most women and how soon.
“We know so much more using technology and science than we did even 10, 15 years ago about what these babies go through and the pain they feel in the womb,” she said.
She is just making stuff up here. This is wrong. In fact, we know a lot more about what zygotes go through in the womb. They don’t feel anything because much of their nervous system isn’t hooked up and functioning.
ravensays
Noem
. “We’re putting resources in front of these women and walking alongside them, getting them the healthcare, the mental health counseling services they need.”
Noem is lying here again.
South Dakota is one of the few states with no income tax.
The state spends among the lowest per capital on education and social services.
They don’t have either the money or the interest in funding social services for pregnant women, babies, or children.
Lynna: The part about providing “resources” is bullshit. See comment 362.
You got it.
The Red states have no intention of dealing with any more single mothers, teenage mothers, and their babies and children.
Their attitude is that since you had sex, it is your problem not the state’s.
The other issue here is unsaid but also explains why they won’t spend more money. Most of those unwanted forced birth babies are going to be nonwhite. Latino and Black women have abortion rates 2-3 times higher than white women.
Teenage pregnancy is highly correlated and causal with life long poverty. There are going to be a lot of poor women in the Red states.
ravensays
“President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday,” Rep. Mary E. Miller (R) said at the rally Saturday night in Mendon, Ill.
Ms. Miller is cosmically stupid here.
The repeal of Roe versus Wade is going to be the worst nightmare of the white racists and white supremacists.
The nonwhite abortion rate is 2-3 times higher than the white abortion rate.
And also the nonwhite poverty levels are higher than white levels.
Most of those female slavery/forced birth babies are going to be nonwhite. White women are the ones with the knowledge and money to go elsewhere to obtain an abortion.
The white racists have just accelerated what they call their own Great Replacement.
These people are so dumb that they haven’t yet figured this out even though it is simple and obvious.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has virtually addressed the meeting of world leaders at the G7 summit in Germany. He told them he wants the war to be over by the end of the year before winter sets in, and asked for anti-aircraft defence systems, further sanctions on Russia and security guarantees, as well as help to export grain from Ukraine and for reconstruction aid.
Russian-backed separatists said they were pushing into Lysychansk, the last major city still held by Ukrainian troops in eastern Luhansk province. Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk fell on Saturday in a victory for Moscow’s campaign to seize the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk on behalf of pro-Russian separatists….
…
Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since 1998, according to reports, further alienating the country from the global financial system after sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine. The country missed a deadline of Sunday night to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments of $100m on two Eurobonds originally due on 27 May, Bloomberg reported….
…
Zelenskiy urged Belarusians to stand in solidarity with Ukraine. “Russian leadership wants to drag you into the Ukraine-Russian war because it doesn’t care about your lives. But you aren’t slaves and can decide your destiny yourself,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to Belarusians….
G7 pledges to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”
The G7 has published a statement on Ukraine. Here are the main lines:
– The G7 “will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes”.
– A reiteration of condemnation on Russia’s “unjustified use of nuclear rhetoric”.
– Ukraine must decide on its future peace settlement, “free from external pressure or influence”.
– Concern after the announcement by Russia that it could transfer missiles with nuclear capabilities to Belarus.
– Efforts will continue to provide Ukraine with military and defence equipment.
– The G7 is ready to reach arrangements with interested countries and Ukraine on sustained security commitments.
– Calls for the “immediate return” of Ukrainian nationals taken by force to Russia without their consent.
– Pledge to provide “safe passage” for Ukrainian nationals and to streamline immigration and visas.
– No impunity for war crimes and other atrocities.
– Russia must cease attacks on agricultural infrastructure and stop blocking shipping routes.
– Russia bears “enormous responsibility” for global food insecurity.
– G7 pledges “coordinated initiatives” that promote global food security.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with G7 leaders
The Guardian’s diplomatic correspondent, Patrick Wintour, has the full story on the meeting between the Ukrainian president and G7 leaders via video.
US government sources briefed that Washington plans to announce as soon as this week that it has bought a Norwegian advanced surface-to-air missile defence system for Ukraine,
The announcement of the Nasams purchase will meet one of the key requests from Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has been warning his key cities are defenceless against Russian missile strikes including those that rained down on the capital, Kyiv, on Sunday.
Zelenskiy’s meeting with the G7 leaders was not shown to the public – he could be seen on a television screen next to the round table where the leaders sat at the summit venue – but in his overnight address to the Ukrainian people he said the country needed a powerful, modern and fully effective air defence system that can ensure complete protection against such missiles.
The air defence system will be one of many pledges of military support including artillery ammunition due to be given to Ukraine either at the German-chaired G7 summit in Bavaria, or at the subsequent Nato defence summit in Madrid.
A US official said G7 leaders were set to pursue a price cap on Moscow’s oil revenues and raise new tariffs on Russian goods.
The young daughter of a Russian citizen was hospitalized in yesterday’s attack on Kyiv, the child’s father has confirmed.
June 26 saw the first Russian attack on Kyiv in three weeks, with at least 14 Russian missiles launched at the capital at around 6.20am.
The attack was launched from the Caspian Sea, Yuriy Ihnat, spokesman for the Command of the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed, adding that “[Kyiv’s] air defense system worked and some missiles were shot down. There is photo evidence of one shot down missile. We are looking for pieces of the others.”
However, missiles that managed to evade the air defense systems struck multiple locations, including a kindergarten and an apartment block building in the Shevchenkivsky District.
The same street had previously been hit by the Russian invaders on April 29, causing the death of Ukrainian journalist Vira Hyrych, who had worked for the U.S.-funded outlets Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The building hit yesterday was undergoing repairs from collateral damage received from the attack in April, leaving one person dead and several wounded.
Among the casualties is a seven-year-old girl, shown in harrowing scenes on numerous news channels being carried out of the rubble by local firemen and paramedics.
The child, who has not been named, was taken to a hospital where she is now said to be in a stable condition following surgery.
…
The girl’s mother, Ekaterina Volkova, was also seriously injured, and was rescued from under the rubble after being stuck under concrete slabs for almost three hours, Anton Herashchenko, adviser to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on Telegram.
In a video widely circulated on Twitter, the child’s father angrily shows members of the press his wife Ekaterina’s passport, confirming that she was born in Russia and holds duel-citizenship – stressing that the Russians are not only attacking Ukrainians, but also their own.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attacks were Moscow’s attempt to “intimidate” Ukraine ahead of this year’s summit of G7 leaders….
ravensays
Poll: Majorities oppose Supreme Court’s abortion ruling and worry about other rights
June 27, 2022 5:00 AM ET Domenico Montanaro npr.org
A majority are against the decision
By a 56%-to-40% margin, respondents oppose the court’s decision, including 45% who strongly oppose it.
A majority of men and women are against the decision, though a slightly higher percentage of women oppose it (59% vs. 54%).
Confidence in the Supreme Court is on the decline
Just 39% said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the Supreme Court; 58% said they have not very much or no confidence at all in the institution. That’s a low in the poll.
Polls show that most Americans support Roe versus Wade.
Polls also show that most Americans don’t like the US Supreme court. No surprise.
We now have a court that is taking our rights away, instead of protecting them. The Supreme court has decided to be the enemy of the American people.
Ukrainian TB2 UCAV footage showing Ukrainian strikes on Russian positions on Snake Island. They claim they destroyed a Russian Pantsir-S1. It doesn’t appear to be from an air strike.
These strikes may be from HIMARS since they have the range to target the island from the coast.
Video and link at the (Twitter) link.
ravensays
A historically unpopular Supreme Court made a historically unpopular decision
CNN Harry Enten Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN Updated 12:05 PM ET, Sun June 26, 2022
Forty-one percent of voters approved of the job the Supreme Court was doing, according to a May Quinnipiac University poll. The majority (52%) disapproved. That was the highest disapproval rating recorded by Quinnipiac since it started asking about the court’s approval back in 2004.
Quinnipiac isn’t the only pollster to show a major degradation in the court’s standing. The percentage of Americans (25%) who have great or quite a lot of confidence in the court is at the lowest level ever recorded by Gallup since 1973.
and
The aforementioned Quinnipiac poll showed that a mere 34% of voters believed the court is mainly motivated by the law. Most (62%) felt that the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics.
Polls are also showing that the Supreme Court has destroyed its credibility and legitimacy.
It is now highly unpopular with a majority of Americans.
They correctly see the Court as political rather than a legal body.
Are we going to let 6 unelected judges wreck a nation of 331 million people?
Yes, at this time we have to. That can change in the future in a number of ways.
Lithuanian state and private institutions have been hit by a denial-of-service cyber attack, the Baltic country’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement released by the defence ministry.
“It is very likely that attacks of similar or greater intensity will continue in the coming days, especially in the transportation, energy and financial sectors,” Reuters reports the centre said.
Secure networks used by state institutions were among those affected, it added.
The news agency is also reporting that Russian hacker group Killnet has claimed responsibility, saying that the attack is in retaliation for Lithuania preventing the transfer of Russian goods across its territory into the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Here’s a link to Women on Web, which was started by Rebecca Gomperts, the physician who organized Women on Waves (there’s a 2014 documentary about it called Vessel which I haven’t yet seen).
Who we are?
Women on Web is an international online abortion service, providing access to safe abortion services.
Founded in 2005 by Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, Women on Web is a team of medical doctors, researchers, activists, and help desk members. Women on Web advocates for and facilitates access to contraception and safe abortion services to protect women’s health and lives.
The mission of Women on Web is to provide safe, accessible and affordable online abortion care to women and people around the world. We work to catalyze procedural and legal change in abortion access through telemedicine, research, community outreach, and advocacy. We strive for a world where safe abortion care is accessible for all women and pregnant people, with respect and dignity.
People who need safe abortion or contraception can make an online consultation at Women on Web website. After being reviewed by medical doctors, medical abortion pills or contraceptives are provided via mail. Our help desk team accompanies women and pregnant people during all stages of the process and responds to any questions that may arise within 24 hours. Supervised by medical doctors, our help desk operates in 16 languages, including Arabic, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and Turkish.
Women on Web is available to all people who need help with preventing and ending unwanted pregnancies. We are committed to ensuring that everyone, including trans, non-binary, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people can safely access abortion and contraception without discrimination or alienation.
The Women on Web website is a source of reliable information and collects personal abortion experiences to allow and encourage women and pregnant people to openly explore and discuss their reproductive choices. Our online consultation is translated in 22 languages and we work to ensure that all women and pregnant people have access to scientific and evidence-based information on safe abortion and contraception.
They’re based in Canada. Here are links for getting around censorship of the site in several countries.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Supreme court rules in favor of coach fired for praying
The supreme court has started to release its next round of decisions, and the first case is Kennedy v Bremerton School District.
The case focuses on Joseph Kennedy, a football coach at a public high school who lost his job after repeatedly praying with some of his players after games.
In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservatives ruled that the school district had violated Kennedy’s First Amendment rights by terminating his employment.
“The Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion.
“The Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”
The supreme court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer — filed a dissenting opinion to conservatives’ decision in Kennedy v Bremerton School District.
In the dissent, Sotomayor argues that conservatives’ ruling for Kennedy, a football coach fired for publicly praying after games, ignores the establishment clause of the US constitution.
The establishment clause stipulates that the government cannot “establish” a religion in order to protect the separation of church and state.
“Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents, as embodied in both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Sotomayor writes.
“The Court now charts a different path, yet again paying almost exclusive attention to the Free Exercise Clause’s protection for individual religious exercise while giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause’s prohibition on state establishment of religion.”
Moldova’s president said during a visit to Ukraine that her country was “fragile and vulnerable” and needed help to remain “part of the free world”.
Four days after European Union leaders decided to accept Ukraine and Moldova as membership candidates, President Maia Sandu visited three towns where Ukraine suspects Russian forces of committing atrocities, Reuters reports.
“This shouldn’t happen. And, you know, it is heartbreaking to see what we see here and to hear the stories,” she said in Bucha outside Kyiv, calling for anyone found guilty of atrocities to be punished.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu listens to mayor of Bucha Anatolii Fedoruk at the town’s site of a mass grave.
Sandu said Moldova, a former Soviet republic of 2.6 million people that borders Ukraine, wanted to determine its own future.
“Moldova is a fragile and vulnerable country,” she said. “Ukraine and Moldova need help. We want this war to stop, this Russian aggression against Ukraine to be stopped as soon as possible. We want to stay part of the free world.”
The breakaway Transnistria region of Moldova has a garrison of Russian troops deployed to it, and is sandwiched between the east of Moldova and the south-west of Ukraine.
Sandu also visited the towns of Borodyanka and Irpin during her trip, and later held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Yesli Vega, the Republican nominee running against Democrat Abigail Spanberger for Congress, downplayed the possibility of becoming pregnant as a result of rape when asked about her stance on abortion at a campaign stop last month, according to audio obtained by Axios.
…At an event in Stafford County, Vega, a Prince William County supervisor and sheriff’s deputy, was asked what she thinks Congress should do if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
…After expressing support for new state-level restrictions, she said, “The left will say, ‘Well what about in cases of rape or incest?’ I’m a law enforcement officer. I became a police officer in 2011. I’ve worked one case where as a result of a rape, the young woman became pregnant.” [Imagine being a victim and having this assclown working the case.]
Vega was then asked, “I’ve actually heard that it’s harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’s been raped. Have you heard that?”
…Vega responded: “Well, maybe because there’s so much going on in the body. I don’t know. I haven’t, you know, seen any studies. But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me. Because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it. The individual, the male, is doing it as quickly — it’s not like, you know — and so I can see why there is truth to that. It’s unfortunate.”
Asked for comment on her remarks, which have not previously been reported, Vega told Axios in a statement, “I’m a mother of two, I’m fully aware of how women get pregnant.” [Apparently not.]
…The identity of the person asking the questions in the audio is unknown. Vega’s campaign did not dispute the audio’s authenticity to Axios….
Throughout Latin American history, as leftwing parties have taken power across the continent, one country has kept them out of office, very often through force: Colombia.
Last week that changed – and when Gustavo Petro formally takes over in August, Colombia will have its first leftist leader.
As Joe Parkin Daniels tells Michael Safi, the new president is promising to end the decades-long war on drugs, change Colombia’s relationship with the US, and shift the country’s economy away from gas and oil. It’s a tall order, especially as Colombia’s presidents are limited to a single term of four years.
And the challenges he faces are not just the political ones resulting from a slender margin of victory: after the result, he gave his speech from behind bulletproof glass, in a chilling reminder of the dangers that leftwing candidates face in Colombia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro discussed global food security and confirmed their intention to strengthen their strategic partnership, the Kremlin said on Monday.
Putin assured Bolsonaro in a phone call that Russia would fulfil all its obligations to supply fertilisers to Brazil, the Kremlin said in a statement.
In April, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found Republicans leading Democrats on the generic congressional ballot, 47 percent to 44 percent. In a new poll from the same outlet — conducted after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — Democrats now lead Republicans, 48 percent to 41 percent.
[…] On a related note, the same survey included this tidbit that stood out for me: “78% of Democrats say the court’s decision makes them more likely to vote this fall, 24 points higher than Republicans.”
* Speaking of post-ruling fallout, The New York Times reported over the weekend, “On the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue, donors gave nearly $6 million in the first few hours after the 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision came down.” That’s obviously a lot, but after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, ActBlue raised $6.2 million in the first hour after the announcement.
New York Times:
On the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue, donors gave nearly $6 million in the first few hours after the 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision came down.
raven @367, thanks for that additional information. We need to know the extent of the lies that the Governor of South Dakota is telling, and the depths of her ignorance.
Here is a bit more detail:
[…] The Republican governor [Kristi Noem], whose national ambitions are not a secret, said South Dakota would try to “coordinate” with churches and non-profit organizations — which would presumably be tasked with picking up the slack from the red state’s weak investments in family support — before Noem tried to change the subject to inflation.
It wasn’t much of an answer. Charities and houses of worship certainly deserve applause when they’re able to offer support to people in need, but it’s unrealistic to see well-intentioned volunteers and non-profits as the basis for a statewide safety net.
South Dakota wasted no time in ending reproductive rights the moment Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court gave the state the green light. Even women impregnated by rapists in South Dakota will either have to travel elsewhere — if they can afford it — or be forced by their home state to take the unwanted pregnancy to term.
But the Mount Rushmore State did not scramble to create new layers of support for families. South Dakota, for example, still hasn’t accepted Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act, which includes coverage benefits related to pregnancies. It also isn’t one of the states with paid family leave.
Indeed, among the many striking aspects of recent developments is precisely these common threads tying the anti-abortion states together.
Alabama, for example, has also banned abortion. It also hasn’t accepted Medicaid expansion through the ACA or approved paid family leave policies. The same can be said about Mississippi — the state that produced the Dobbs case in the place — where a sweeping state abortion ban will soon take effect.
And let’s not forget Florida — a state with the nation’s third-highest abortion rate — where Gov. Ron DeSantis has already imposed abortion restrictions, and where the Republican governor now intends to go even further, despite the absence of Medicaid expansion and family leave policies.
When officials in these states make the case that they’re banning abortion because they’re “pro-family,” it’s worth keeping these related details in mind.
A US federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to the board members of the company merging with Donald Trump’s social media company, Truth Social.
The disclosure, made on Monday by the blank cheque company Digital World Acquisition Corporation, is the latest blow to Trump’s plans to take Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the creator of Truth Social, public.
TMTG agreed to merge with Digital World last October and was expecting the deal to close by the second half of this year. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, are investigating the merger.
The news is likely to further delay the merger, which would provide Truth Social with $1.3bn in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.
Shares of Digital World fell 9% in morning trading after the company said in a regulatory filing that it had become aware that a federal grand jury in the southern district of New York had issued subpoenas to its directors.
Digital World is a special purpose acquisition company (Spac), a blank cheque company set up to go public and then find a company to merge with. Spacs are not supposed to have a deal lined up before they go public.
The SEC is investigating whether or not Digital World and Trump Media held serious discussions before the Spac went public last September and, if so, why those talks were not disclosed in regulatory filings.
Digital World also said Bruce Garelick, chief strategy officer of Rocket One Capital, a Miami-based investment firm, was resigning from the board. Some of the information requested by the grand jury was about communications with Rocket One….
Ukrainian MFA Dmytro Kuleba tweeted the video of the burning mall in Kremenchuk, writing:
Large shopping mall in Kremenchuk with hundreds of civilians inside has been hit by a Russian strike. Russia is a disgrace to humanity and it must face consequences. The response should be more heavy arms for Ukraine, more sanctions on Russia, and more businesses leaving Russia.
[…] Republicans generally don’t want to talk about any of this and see it for the political vulnerability that it is.
Ron Johnson’s reelection race in Wisconsin is almost certainly a race Democrats have to win to get their two additional senators. Johnson has had two responses. After the May leak of the draft opinion he said that overturning Roe wouldn’t be that big a deal since women could just drive to Illinois. After the decision was released he claimed that Wisconsin’s 1849 anti-abortion law, which goes back into effect with Dobbs, will certainly be changed to allow a lot of abortions. “I don’t think that will stand for long,” Johnson told reporters. “I think the democratic process in Wisconsin will have something other than the 1849 law.” This is absurd on its face. Wisconsin has a heavily gerrymandered state legislature which it is almost impossible for Democrats to take. In the years Dems win gubernatorial elections in the state, they struggle to prevent Republicans from getting a supermajority in the legislature. Johnson’s stance is revealing since he is one of the most right-wing and intemperate of Senate Republicans. He’s finding it impossible to come up with a position that works for the majority of his state’s voters and his Republican base.
Now there’s Adam Laxalt in Nevada. He’s challenging Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Here’s the statement he released. [available at the link]
When he was the state’s attorney general he used his office to join various lawsuits aimed at curtailing or ending abortion rights across the country. Here he lauds the decision as “a historic victory for the sanctity of life” and then goes on to say that Nevadans are way pro-choice and that’s not going to change. So none of this will ever affect us, he suggests. This is, to put it mildly, not a coherent position, especially since a GOP Senate majority will likely vote to ban abortion nationwide as soon as January 2025. Any Democratic candidate should be able to drive a truck through that ridiculous position.
Then there’s Ron DeSantis in Florida. A May poll showed that 67% of Floridians want abortion to remain legal in all or most cases. 85% of Democrats and 63% of independents say that. After the ruling came out DeSantis said he would “work to expand pro-life protections” in the state but refused to give any more details or answer any more questions.
It’s a given that Republicans are on the wrong side of public opinion on this issue. What you can glean from these statements is that they’re so far on the wrong side of public opinion that they’re not willing to say what their opinion is at all. There’s no bridging the gap between their core supporters and the majority of the electorate in these states. What Democrats have on their side here is not only that Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue. But they can harp for months on the fact that their challengers won’t even say what their position is or whether they will vote to ban abortion at the federal level altogether.
The hearing will share “recently obtained” evidence.
The Jan. 6 Committee announced on short notice that it will hold a hearing on Tuesday — tomorrow.
The hearing will address “recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony,” the panel said in a statement.
Tuesday’s hearing will start at 1 p.m., the panel said.
It’s not clear what that newly obtained evidence may be. The panel announced the hearing after co-chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said last week that the committee’s next public sessions wouldn’t take place until sometime in July. […]
The House Jan. 6 panel says it is calling a surprise hearing to present “recently obtained evidence.”
The hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. on Tuesday comes after Congress left Washington for a two-week recess. Lawmakers on the panel investigating the 2021 insurrection said last week that there would be no more hearings until July.
The subject of the hearings is so far unclear. A spokesman for the panel declined to comment on its substance.
The committee’s investigation has been ongoing during the hearings that started three weeks ago, and the nine-member panel has continued to compile evidence. Among other investigative evidence, the committee recently obtained new footage of then-President Donald Trump and his inner circle taken both before and after Jan. 6, 2021 from British filmmaker Alex Holder….
A new report by the New York Times on Sunday confirmed the role of a former pro surfer in compromising the security of election machines in Mesa County, Colorado — and added new details about the role of wealthy Trumpworld influencers in funding the effort to undermine the democratic process.
The surfer, Conan Hayes, has acted basically as an IT guy for the election conspiracy theory movement. Among other things, he helped put together the insanely shoddy “report” based on Antrim County, Michigan’s voting machines that falsely asserted “that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.” Donald Trump and others repeatedly used that report as evidence in their effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Here’s where the millionaires come in. […] ex-Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne said he’d paid Hayes $200,000 in 2021 to continue his work for a year. Byrne is an active funder of the election theft movement, helping pay for the effort in Antrim County, as well as other election denial projects across the country, including the phony Maricopa County, Arizona “audit.”
But that’s not all. The new Times report also confirms another item on Byrne and Hayes’ résumé: The breach of Mesa County, Colorado’s voting machines.
For the unfamiliar, a brief refresher: Tina Peters is the Trump-supporting county clerk of Mesa County and, now, a strong contender to be Colorado’s next secretary of state. She’s also facing federal charges for allegedly breaching her county’s election security protocols.
[…] somehow, copies of the county’s election machines made during a May 2021 in-person software update known as a “trusted build” were subsequently leaked publicly and shared widely at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium” in August 2021, creating more fodder for election deniers.
A grand jury indicted Peters on several felony counts in March 2022, accusing her of committing criminal impersonation by allowing someone else to access the county’s voting machines using a badge created for a local IT guy, Gerald Wood.
Reporters, including me, have suspected for months that the ID badge created for Wood was actually used to get Hayes in the room. Hayes and Byrne now seem to have confirmed that detail to the Times. Here’s the Times report:
According to an account from Mr. Byrne, and confirmed by Mr. Hayes, he attended the trusted build on May 25, 2021. Mr. Hayes called Mr. Byrne from inside the Mesa County election offices, speaking in a hushed voice and explaining that he’d been invited to make backup copies of machines by a government official who thought that a cover-up was underway, Mr. Byrne said. When the two spoke over FaceTime, Mr. Byrne saw Mr. Hayes was dressed like a computer “nerd” and wearing someone else’s identification tag, Mr. Byrne said.
That appears to be confirmation that Hayes, the Byrne-funded IT man and fellow veteran of the Big Lie ecosystem, was a key player in the breach of a county’s election machines. […]
In our coverage of the Republican Party’s attacks on voting rights and election integrity, we’ve tried to stress that this isn’t happening in a vacuum. High-powered and influential political forces, from the former denizens of the White House to influential conservative think tanks and even county sheriffs, are fueling the effort to undermine democracy.
Crucially, so are a coterie of obsessed millionaires.
Lindell, in addition to Byrne, has been a critical player in Mesa County: After Peters’ leaked voting machine data was aired publicly at Lindell’s “symposium,” the bedding magnate helped Peters go into hiding briefly as authorities investigated the breach. More recently, he has said he is funding Peters’ legal defense fund.
Byrne is also helping Peters out politically, the Times noted: A new super PAC in Colorado recently spent around $100,000 in advertisements attacking a primary opponent of Peters. The group also recently received a $100,000 donation from a group founded by… Patrick Byrne.
Russia managed to move 20 kilometers from Popasna to the southern outskirts of Lysychansk in six weeks. It managed that task by massing its artillery ahead of its lines of advance, then sending its best infantry (VDV airborne remnants and Wagner mercenaries) back and forth between Severodonetsk and the Popasna advance once artillery had reduced the next objective to rubble.
If Russia wanted to destroy Ukraine’s war-fighting capacity, it would try to surround Ukrainian defenses, choking off avenues of retreat. But earlier efforts to do just that failed, so now, Russia is happy to just push Ukrainian forces out of the way. Pulverizing the ground ahead of their advance has proven effective way to motivate Ukrainian defenders to pull back.
But it is slow going. Slooooow. Russia isn’t winning any war advancing an average of three kilometers a week, 400 meters per day. Manpower shortages are becoming more acute—Russia just approved a law allowing 17-year-olds to go straight from school to the front lines. Equipment is a serious problem, with obsolete T-62s being issued to front line units, and Russia begging Belarus for ammunition.
And even these meager advances have been greatly aided by being directly adjacent to long-held Russian proxy territory. [map at the link]
The push from Popasna toward Bakhmut, moving Russian forces away from their supply depots, hasn’t budged in this time. Russia still can’t extend far from its logistical hubs.
The scope of this small advance looks more impressive if you zoom in on a map, less so if you pull back. Meanwhile, look to the south, and Ukraine has picked up in a few days almost as much territory as Russia took around Popasna over the last six weeks. [map at the link]
We’ve mostly ignored this souther Donbas front, as it hasn’t budged much since the first two weeks or so of the war. This heat map of Russian troop concentrations gives us an idea how much Russia has neglected things down here: [map at the link]
Here’s another visualization: [tweet and map at the link]
Each one of those tank icons is a BTG or individual Russian unit, as both these accounts (collaboratively) track the presence of individual Russian units on the front line, offering the best (educated) guess as to what is where. (No one, however, can give us each unit’s combat effectiveness, as many, if not most, are severely understrength.)
You can see Russia has committed the bulk of its forces, over half, to the northern Donbas front (Izyum, Severodonetsk, and Popasna). Localized Ukrainian counteroffensives have forced Russia to reinforce Kherson and Kharkiv, leaving little left over for the southern Donbas. So Ukraine is pouncing: [map at the link]
The western advance is headed toward Polohy (pre-war population, 18,000), which has been getting get hit hard by Ukrainian artillery. Russia digging in to defend it. Both sides have decided this town is worth fighting for. Me, I’d use this offensive combat power to either push on Kherson or reinforce the Popasna advance. Ukraine disagrees, so let’s speculate why.
First, we can assume this is a target of opportunity. Fully defended, none of this would be happening.
To the right of Polohy, you see a Russian salient forming as Ukrainian forces simultaneously push down to the right of it. That approach is sparsely populated, so hard to say exactly where they’re trying to go. Maybe Volovakha?
The western prong is clearly headed toward Polohy, a key rail depot supplying a big part of this chunk of land. Earlier this month, Ukraine smashed a major ammo depot in town, proving its logistical importance to Russian forces in the area. [footage of Russian ammunition depot in Polohy cooking off]
(The bottom video is well produced, and shows the dramatic scale of destruction of that depot.)
Capturing Polohy would clearly complicate Russian resupply efforts and expose the flanks of that Russian salient to its east. Those are nice tactical reasons to push down. But what is the strategic goal? Let’s look at the map again, pulling back a bit: [map at the link]
Berdiansk, Mariupol, and Melitopol are three of the four biggest priorities (along with Kherson) on Ukraine’s liberation tour. Polohy is still about 100-125 kilometers to all three of these cities, but liberation needs a first step, and Russia’s inability to cover all fronts with the necessary manpower has given Ukraine a chance to take that first step.
Russia will certainly feel the pressure and need to reinforce this corner of the map. But where will those troops come from? The Izyum grouping hasn’t budged in a month, and it’s being threatened to its west by Ukraine. Still, Russia needs it if it has any hope of threatening Sloviansk and Kramatorsk—the gateway to the rest of Ukrainian-held Donbas. The Popasna grouping is focused on Lysychansk—Vladimir Putin needs his propaganda victory. Russia can’t pull from Kherson without weakening its defense. Pulling back from northern Kharkiv would put key Russian supply lines (and the Russian city of Belgorod) within range of MLRS/HIMARS rockets.
I may question Ukraine’s refusal to focus on a single avenue of counterattack, but the tactic is clearly creating serious difficulties for Russia. It must now decide where it is most comfortable losing ground.
This is Russia’s precious “land bridge” to Crimea. It will be loathe to see it at risk. So what front will Russia weaken as a result? Because if Russia moves enough troops to stop Ukrainian advances here, that just means Ukraine will get new opportunities somewhere else.
[more tweets and videos available at the link]
Ukraine is like Santa on Christmas—it’s already made a list, it’s checked it twice, and now it’s time to deliver.
[…] Russia’s obsession with sending stuff to get blown up at Snake Island is inexplicable.
!: “Aides refused to divulge what additional evidence they planned to present on Tuesday or who would be testifying, saying that the panel was concerned for the security of its witnesses.”
Bayraktar to donate drones Ukrainians wanted to buy after crowdfunding.
After Ukrainian comedian, politician, and volunteer Serhiy Prytula organized crowdfunding and raised $20 million to buy drones for Ukraine, Bayraktar refused to take the money, offering 3 drones for free.
A Russian missile attack has killed at least eight civilians and wounded 21 in Lysychansk, Reuters is reporting.
“Today, when the civilian people were collecting water from a water tank, the Russians aimed at the crowd,” Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk oblast said on Telegram.
“A truly bloody and deadly day in Ukraine as Russia fired missiles at cities across the country. Kremenchuk and Lysychansk bore the brunt of the attacks which targeted a shopping mall (13 civilians confirmed killed so far) and a water pipeline (8 killed).”
Lynna @ #395, I really appreciate the DK Ukraine updates – both the posts themselves and the comment threads.
Good to know. I didn’t know if I was overwhelming readers of the thread … or not.
In other news, this was a close call, as reported by The New York Times:
The House passed legislation on Friday to extend free meals and other food assistance for children, clearing it for President Biden’s signature one week before a series of pandemic-era waivers was set to expire. The bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate on Thursday night by unanimous consent, was a compromise that will prevent children from going hungry, creating a lifeline for families beleaguered by inflation and supply chain woes.
Justice Samuel Alito used his rewrite to take shots at Chief Justice John Roberts and liberal dissenters.
[…] Despite fierce lobbying from outside forces to pull back from the precipice of overturning Roe, Alito’s writing contains all 10 key passages POLITICO identified in early May as the critical pieces of the abortion ruling.
But Alito did add to his original opinion, with a fierce rebuttal of the court’s liberal dissenters, plus a direct shot at Chief Justice John Roberts in the final text. Roberts was the only conservative justice on the court to side with its three liberals, making the final vote 5-4 in the decision to strike down Roe and give states the green light to ban abortion.
Here’s what’s new in Alito’s final draft:
Roberts in his concurring opinion attempted to stake out a middle ground for the court, arguing that it didn’t need to end Roe in its entirety and instead could have upheld upheld Mississippi’s 15-week limit on abortion.
Alito in his final opinion takes issue with Robert’s reasoning — in which the chief justice supports leaving the constitutionality of tighter abortion restrictions to future cases — claiming there are “serious problems with this approach.”
Alito blasts Roberts for attempting to find a “middle way” in the contentious decision, which Alito claims will only “prolong” the “turmoil” of Roe. Alito argues that by only ruling that Mississippi’s 15-week law is constitutional, the high court would soon be called upon to decide the constitutionality of other states’ laws with shorter or longer deadlines for obtaining an abortion.
“The concurrence’s quest for a middle way would only put off the day when we would be forced to confront the question we now decide,” Alito writes. “The turmoil wrought by Roe and Casey would be prolonged. It is far better—for this Court and the country—to face up to the real issue without further delay.”
Alito also took aim at the argument Roberts laid out for giving people seeking an abortion a “reasonable opportunity” to obtain one, such as in Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Alito said there are no constitutional grounds for upholding that rule, and that since Roberts made no claim that the right to an abortion is constitutional, his proposal to uphold the Mississippi limit would also not be supported by the Constitution.
“If the Constitution protects a woman’s right to obtain an abortion, the opinion does not explain why that right should end after the point at which all ‘reasonable’ women will have decided whether to seek an abortion,” Alito writes.
[…] Alito also shot down the dissenters’ argument that Roe could be defended on prior court precedent, since none of the precedents the case was based on “involved the destruction of what Roe called ‘potential life.’”
The justice also argued that “adherence to precedent is not ‘an inexorable command.’” He went on in his opinion to name instances in which the court did overrule prior precedents, such as overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine in both Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson. […]
[…] Chuck Todd asked Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson about the trigger law bill he signed that banned all abortions except to protect the life of the mother, in the wake of Roe’s untimely death.
All Hutchinson had to offer was how sad he was about kids having to carry incest pregnancies to term.
TODD: So if a 13-year-old though in Arkansas is raped by a relative, that 13-year-old cannot get an abortion in Arkansas. Are you comfortable with that?
HUTCHINSON: I’m not – I would’ve preferred a different outcome than that. But that’s not the debate today in Arkansas. It might be in the future. But for now, the law triggered with only one exception.
Hutchinson sure wishes the abortion ban bill he signed included those provisions, but what was he supposed to do? Veto the bill? That would actually take courage! Can’t have that.
Todd correctly pointed out that whatever anyone thought about Roe, it never forced anyone to do anything they didn’t want to. He asked Hutchinson if he felt uncomfortable forcing people to do things they don’t want to. Hutchinson simply reiterated how comfortable he was with it.
HUTCHINSON: Well, no, I think it’s a very appropriate ruling. Obviously, when you’re looking at the government and the power of the government forcing someone to carry a child to term, you’ve got to think that through. And legislators are thinking that through.
The GOP hasn’t “thought this through.”
Here’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responding to Hutchinson’s bullshit: [tweet and video at the link]
“This decision and this policy will kill people no matter what their spin and what their talking points are.”
AOC listed actions the Democratic Party could take to protect abortion, like opening clinics on federal lands in red states or expanding access to abortion pills. And she underlined that this is “not just a crisis of Roe,” but a “crisis of our democracy.” [tweet and video at the link]
After Todd showed a quote from Democratic Senator Joe Manchin saying he was “misled” by justices who lied “under oath” about their intentions regarding Roe, AOC laid out what actions should be taken considering these abuses. [impeachment] [Tweet and video at the link]
[…] Or we guess they could just call bullshit on Collins and Manchin pretending to be stupid and just label them the pandering assclowns they are.
[…] On Fox News, Lindsey Graham said he just really doesn’t think the Supreme Court should take away people’s contraception and their marriages, but then he changed the subject and started blaming Ruth Bader Ginsburg for whatever is happening now.
[…] Meanwhile, Stacey Abrams smacked down conservatives using race to justify their taking away of reproductive rights. [Tweet and video at the link]
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has made what we have been warning about starkly clear: The GOP is an existential threat to democracy and freedom. […] AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Abrams and many others have stepped up to fight head-on since this happened. […]
The war between humans and gulls in Ocean City, N.J., reached a turning point in 2019. In the years leading up to then, the town’s populations of great black-backed, ring-billed, laughing and herring gulls had become increasingly comfortable snatching beachgoers’ French fries, potato chips and other finger foods. One day that spring, Ocean City’s mayor, Jay Gillian, watched as a gull swooped into a stroller on the boardwalk and stole a slice of pizza from a toddler’s hands. The mayor swears he saw blood on the little girl’s face, though he admits it may have been sauce. The town’s brand — its slogan is “America’s Greatest Family Resort” — was being sullied.
That was it for the mayor. “I’d seen too many attacks on seniors and kids,” Gillian told me earlier this year. He asked his business administrator, George Savastano, to find a solution. Savastano searched online for something like “how to deter sea gulls,” and, after skipping over links for spike strips, sound machines and netting — fixes that had already been tried with scant success by various businesses in Ocean City — he happened upon a video showing the use of raptors to deter gulls, crows, pigeons and other so-called nuisance birds from places like airports and garbage dumps. But, Savastano told me, “I couldn’t come across any situation exactly like ours.” He emailed an inquiry to a New Jersey-based outfit called East Coast Falcons anyway.
A few days later, its owner, Erik Swanson, showed up to assess the situation. “We get a lot of people that think they have a bird problem, and they don’t,” Swanson says. “And then I have a lot of people that say they have ‘a little bird problem,’ and I see this.” He returned a few days later in his Ford F-150 pickup with a lone, white-and-gray mottled gyr prairie falcon, an adolescent named Tilda. Swanson guided the raptor — a hybrid of the Arctic gyrfalcon and Western U.S. prairie falcon, which can dive at speeds of around 100 miles per hour — onto his leather-gloved fist and walked with Savastano and Gillian up onto the boardwalk. The mood in the sky suddenly changed. “You could hear the gulls start calling,” Savastano says. “Like, ‘Wa! Wa!’” “Guess what?” Savastano recalls Swanson telling him. “They know they’re now prey.”
Swanson was demonstrating for Savastano a modern version of one of the oldest known manipulations of nature by man: falconry, traditionally understood as the art of trapping and training wild raptors — predominantly falcons, hawks, eagles and owls — to fly to and from a human handler while hunting small game. Four-thousand-year-old petroglyphs in Iran depict horsemen with birds perched on their arms. Marco Polo’s chronicler, writing about the explorer’s travels through the 13th-century Mongol Empire, noted that while the women did all the household “buying and selling,” the men “all lead the life of gentlemen, troubling themselves about nothing but hunting and hawking.” In 1492, Columbus gave hawk’s bells, or falconry accouterment, to some Indigenous Americans. […]
Judges in Louisiana and Utah on Monday temporarily blocked prohibitions on abortion in their states following last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ends a national right to the procedure.
[…] A Louisiana judge on Monday issued a temporary restraining order against the state from enforcing its ban on abortions, leading to the immediate resumption of the procedure.
Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso granted the request of plaintiffs Hope Medical Group For Women and Medical Students for Choice.
Hours later on Monday, Utah Third District Judge Judge Andrew Stone halted that state’s trigger law-enabled abortion ban, effective immediately, under a 14-day temporary restraining order requested by the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
“There is irreparable harm that has been shown,” Stone said in granting the order. “Affected women are deprived of safe, local medical treatments to terminate pregnancies.”
Planned Parenthood lawyer Julie Murray argued that because patients had access to abortion for five decades, halting the procedure with such short notice had reverberating impacts for Utah women. […]
More at the link.
Looks like we are going to have a long, drawn-out fight on our hands.
Millions of American women and girls have declared themselves corporations in order to force the United States Supreme Court to grant them rights as people, legal observers have reported.
Attorneys across the nation indicated that they have been swamped by requests from clients seeking to incorporate as soon as possible.
“The Supreme Court decided in 2010 that corporations are people, so all we want is to be treated like corporations, ” Carol Foyler, who now goes by the corporate name FoylerCo L.L.C., said.
The decision by millions of women to incorporate sent shock waves through the Court’s conservative majority, who reportedly scoured the Constitution in vain for a means to circumvent the ingenious tactic.
Even the normally taciturn Clarence Thomas was moved to issue a rare public statement. “It’s a sad day in America when the nation’s highest court is forced to treat women like people,” he wrote.
Iran applies to join BRICS group of emerging countries
Iran has submitted an application to become a member in the group of emerging economies [sic] known as the BRICS, an Iranian official said on Monday.
Iran’s membership in the BRICS group, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, “would result in added values for both sides,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said, according to a Reuters report.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said separately that Argentina had also applied to join the group.
Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez, currently in Europe, has in recent days reiterated his desire for Argentina to join BRICS.
While the White House was thinking about what else to turn off in the world, ban or spoil, Argentina and Iran applied to join the BRICS,” Zakharova wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Looks like we are going to have a long, drawn-out fight on our hands.
This fight is just getting started. It is going to go on forever.
And, it is going to be as vicious and ugly as when the so-called pro-lifers assassinating MDs and bombing clinics.
The next wars will be to make the abortion drugs RU-486 and misoprostol illegal.
And to prevent pregnant women from traveling out of state.
The federal government, meanwhile, faces a choice over how to deal with states that seek to ban Food and Drug Administration-approved abortion medication, now used in about half of pregnancy terminations.
nbc.com June 27, 2022, 1:54 PM PDT
By Ken Dilanian
There’s another War Between the States coming over abortion
The Supreme Court’s abortion decision is likely to set off a wave of legal and political disputes among states and the federal government unlike anything seen since the years before the Civil War, legal experts say.
With some states allowing private lawsuits against out-of-state abortion providers — and other states prohibiting cooperation with abortion investigations — the abortion issue is likely to pit state law enforcement agencies and court systems against one another in dramatic fashion. The federal government, meanwhile, faces a choice over how to deal with states that seek to ban Food and Drug Administration-approved abortion medication, now used in about half of pregnancy terminations.
And whatever the Biden administration does, federal policy could change dramatically if the Republicans take the White House.
Experts say it is conceivable that a person could be wanted for a felony in an anti-abortion rights state but protected from extradition in a pro-abortion rights state. The governor of Massachusetts has already imposed rules forbidding state officers from cooperating in abortion investigations. California’s governor signed a bill seeking to protect from civil liability anyone providing, aiding or receiving abortion care in the state. Texas law, however, lets private citizens sue out-of-state abortion providers, and Missouri is considering a similar law.
“What we had in the years leading up to the Civil War was a failure of what lawyers call comity, the idea that states will respect other states’ laws” for reasons of courtesy, consideration and mutual respect, said Ariela J. Gross, a professor of law and history at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. “That starts to break down when you have these really stark differences over an issue involving a fundamental right, and that’s what happened in the years leading up to the Civil War.”
Blue states will begin to see ‘reproductive refugees’ because of ruling, says professor
June 27, 202205:50
After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, federal statutes required Northern states to assist Southern slave owners and their bounty hunters in capturing enslaved people who had escaped north to states that had banned slavery. But many Northern states passed laws to impede cooperation and enforcement.
The parallel to abortion is that “you literally are pursuing people across state borders for seeking medical care that is legal,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. “It’s a completely mind-blowing concept.”
Legal disputes between the states are not uncommon, even over big social issues. An example is cannabis — legal right now in some states, illegal in others. But no other recent issue of dispute among the states comes close in terms of its implications — and the passion on both sides of the argument — as abortion.
“It’s one thing to have states fighting with each other about a tax on interstate cargo or mudflaps on trucks,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of law and public policy at the Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. “It’s not the kind of thing that tens of thousands of people take to the streets over. … We certainly have not seen since the Civil War these kinds of conflicts between the states in a context of such heightened controversy and anger.”
Many pro-abortion rights states moved quickly after the Supreme Court decision.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, signed an executive order Friday that prohibits any executive agency from assisting another state’s investigation into a person or entity for receiving or delivering reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts.
The order also seeks to protect Massachusetts providers who deliver abortion services from losing their professional licenses or receiving other professional discipline stemming from out-of-state charges.
And it decrees that Massachusetts will not cooperate with extradition requests from other states pursuing criminal charges against people who received, assisted with or performed reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation Monday that shields providers and patients from civil liability in connection with abortion-related claims from out of state.
Her office said the legislation also prohibits state courts from cooperating in civil or criminal lawsuits stemming from abortions that take place legally in New York and prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with anti-abortion states’ investigations into New York abortions.
“Today, we are taking action to protect our service providers from the retaliatory actions of anti-abortion states and ensure that New York will always be a safe harbor for those seeking reproductive healthcare,” Hochul said in a statement.
ravensays
Here is an article analyzing the increase in women and children living in poverty in the Red states. Overturning Roe versus Wade is going to effect the people the most who are already under serious economic and social stress. They will be mostly poor, young, and nonwhite.
With Roe v. Wade defunct, a ‘poverty shock’ is coming
Rick Newman Fri, June 24, 2022, 8:58 AM· Yahoo Finance
On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had secured the federal right to obtain an abortion.
Now a political earthquake is likely to ensue.
Abortion protections have been in place since the court’s decision in 1973, and polls show roughly two-thirds of Americans think it should stay that way. Yet the explosive opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization invalidates Roe and leaves abortion laws up to states. About half of states plan to partially or fully ban abortions, which is bound to generate storms of protest.
There will also be stark financial implications for many women who want to end a pregnancy but find they can’t. “What we’re going to see is a shock to poverty and inequality for poor women, Black women, young women in the Deep South,” economist Caitlin Myers told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview, before the June 24 decision came down. “What we will see are poor, vulnerable women, many of whom are already parenting, having children that they do not feel prepared for and suffering financial shocks as a result.”
Myers organized more than 150 economists and other researchers who filed an amicus brief in Dobbs v. Jackson, which began in Mississippi in 2018 when the state legislature banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There were prompt legal challenges, and the Supreme Court heard the case last December. With the court overturning Roe, it won’t make abortion illegal everywhere, but will leave the decision up to states. Some states are ready to impose bans much stricter than the Mississippi law.
The economists’ brief summarized the findings of more than 60 studies from the last 50 years on how abortion access has affected the financial well-being of women and their families. About half of all women who get an abortion are already living below the poverty line, and many of the rest are lower-income people. More than half already have children, so they’re not seeking an abortion because they’re opposed to starting a family. Stressful economic circumstances are often their dominant concern.
While there are obvious moral arguments against abortion, it may also be morally dubious to ban abortions and effectively impose financial hardship on reluctant mothers. Research shows that abortion protections afforded by Roe have helped reduce teenage motherhood by 34% and teen marriage by 20%. That has allowed more young women to complete high school, attend college and establish professional careers. People who go further in school have higher lifetime earnings, in general. By most metrics, the improved outcomes are more pronounced for Black women than for whites, which suggests Black women would suffer more from a new set of bans than white women would.
“Some of the financial instability that these women experience, it is severe, it can last for years,” Myers told Yahoo Finance. “We do see some evidence of recovery, particularly at about five years out. But then there are other components of the shock, for instance, shocks to the probability that these women complete their desired education, that they finish high school, that they finish college, that they enter a professional occupation. Those shocks appear to be much more permanent. And they can have long run effects on the probability that women live in poverty.”
Doctors perform about 800,000 abortions in the United States each year. Despite the new abortion bans on the way, most women seeking an abortion in the United States will still be able to get one by traveling to a state that allows them if they live in one that doesn’t. But some women who live in an anti-abortion state won’t have the means to travel for the procedure, and researchers estimate that overall, 10% to 15% of women who want an abortion won’t be able to get one. So the total number of abortions might decline by 100,000 per year, or a little more.
That may not sound like a lot, but women who can’t afford to travel out of state are generally in tough financial circumstances already. They’re unlikely to be able to afford $10,000 or more per year for child care so they can work after the child is born. They’re at risk of falling into or remaining in the poverty trap Roe has helped some women avoid.
States that do enact abortion bans can put programs into place that would help keep new mothers afloat, such as child-care and health-care subsidies and more generous welfare programs. But they seem unlikely to, given that virtually all the states likely to enact bans have Republican governors or legislatures that tend to oppose well-funded social programs. Of the 12 states that have refused to expand Medicaid, as the Affordable Care Act allows them to do, for instance, 10 also have abortion bans on the books or in the works, including Florida and Texas, the most populous anti-abortion states. Abortion opponents who think they’ve won a historic victory should consider the women who will lose from the decision.
ravensays
I’m going to summarize the last two articles on female slavery and forced birthing.
The tl;dr version.
The battles between the female slavers and pro-choicers are just getting started.
.1. The GOP/christofascists are already attempting to outlaw the abortion drugs.
(It’s not clear to me that the Blue states could just make them nonprescription and over the counter.)
.2. The GOP states will attempt to limit the freedom of movement and travel of pregnant women.
This is slavery.
.3. They will also attempt to charge women who travel out of state for abortions with first degree murder.
This is going to be difficult because state laws end at state borders.
OTOH, with the current Supreme Court, they can make up any laws they want so who knows.
It’s clear that the Blue states aren’t going to be extradicting female abortion refugees to Red States.
.4. The forced birthers aren’t going to be all that successful no matter how many women they execute.
Most Red state women will travel out of state or go the DIY route.
Out of 800,000 abortions per year done in the USA, probably the number will decrease by 100,000, meaning 100,000 additional unwanted babies will be born to mostly young, poor, and nonwhite women.
.5. This is not as certain, but it is likely in the Red states that someone will look at the Gestapo, Stasi, and KGB and set up the Zygote Police, or ZyPos for short. A dedicated police force to harass and arrest young women. Because the GOP is all about freedom and rights.
ravensays
NATO just changed its alert level for the first time since the end of the cold war. The high alert level went from 40,000 to 300,000 soldiers. This is a huge increase.
So what does it mean?
Got me, NATO never bothers to keep me updated.
I’m getting the impression that there are a lot of scared and angry people who have gotten fed up with Russia. The Russians have stopped threatening to nuke me and my cat and are now threatening to nuke Germany. That is not going over very well.
NATO to dramatically increase forces on high alert to over 300,000 from 40,000 amid Russia threat
Units deployed across eight eastern and southeastern NATO countries to deter Russia hostilities will rise in size from 1,000-strong battlegroups to brigades, which comprise around 3,000-5,000 troops with more war-fighting equipment in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Deborah Haynes
Security and Defence Editor @haynesdeborah
Monday 27 June 2022 14:56, UK skynews
NATO will significantly increase the number of forces on high alert to over 300,000 from 40,000 as part of the biggest overhaul of the alliance’s defences since the Cold War.
With Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine changing the security environment across Europe, the head of the alliance also confirmed that allies will expand troop deployments in NATO countries that sit closest to Russia.
Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
The decisions will be set out at a landmark summit this week in Madrid.
“Together, this constitutes the biggest overhaul of our collective deterrence and defence since the Cold War,” Jens Stoltenberg said, in a briefing at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday.
He said the 30-member alliance is expected to consider Russia to be “the most significant and direct threat to our security”
looking for 18th/19th century ghost stories that play with Time, preferably by and/or about women.
There are a lot of recommendations in the comments and it reminded me that I haven’t been reading much fiction lately. I thought others might like some suggestions, too.
A few examples, for those without twitter:
A Phantom Lover by Vernon Lee rules so hard and is definitely about the layering of the present/past and collapse of time.
I was going to say Lee’s “A Wicked Voice” (which is more ghosts than time, but does some cool things with music and history and sexuality). It’s about men, but one of them is the ghost of a castrato, so there’s some interesting vocal ambiguity.
Oliphant’s “The Beleaguered City” is about the dead from the past taking over a city and expelling the present occupants. Her “Earthbound” is about a dead woman falling in love with a young man (who doesn’t know she’s dead) generations after she’s been alive.
Charlotte Riddell had a bunch of ghost stories. “A Strange Christmas Game” is about a card game that only appears in Christmas Eve.
three that come to mind immediately: “Afterward” and “All Souls’” by Edith Wharton and “The Hall Bedroom” by Mary Wilkins Freeman
Forty-six people were found dead and 16 others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, Texas officials have said.
The discovery may prove to be the deadliest tragedy among thousands who have died attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades.
A person who works at a building nearby was alerted by a cry for help shortly before 6pm on Monday, police chief William McManus said. Officers arrived to find a body on the ground outside the trailer and a partially opened gate to the trailer, he said.
Sixteen were taken to the hospital with heat-related illnesses, of which 12 were adults and four were children, said fire chief Charles Hood. The patients were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water or air conditioning was found in the trailer, he said.
“We’re not supposed to open up a truck and see stacks of bodies in there,” Hood told reporters. “None of us come to work imagining that.”
Mexico’s foreign minister said two people from Guatemala were among the hospitalized. Relaying information from the Mexican consul in San Antonio, Marcelo Ebrard said the survivors had been taken to four hospitals around the city.
Some of the dead were believed to be from Honduras, San Antonio’s Express-News reported, citing a Honduran immigrants organisation at the scene who said they had been told that some of the victims were wearing emblems or insignia from the country.
Guatemala’s president, Alejandro Giammattei, on Tuesday offered his condolences to the affected families, but did not address reports that Guatemalans were among the victims….
Three people were taken into custody, but it was unclear if they were connected to human trafficking, McManus said.
Those in the trailer were part of a presumed smuggling attempt, and the investigation was being led by US Homeland Security Investigations, McManus said.
The tragedy took place as San Antonio sweltered through June temperatures that ranked among the highest on record. A law enforcement official told the Texas Tribune that many of the people found inside the vehicle appeared to have been sprinkled with steak seasoning, in what may have been an attempt to disguise the smuggling effort.
…
The mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nirenberg, said the 46 who died had “families who were likely trying to find a better life”.
“This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy,” Nirenberg said.
The city has been the scene of previous mass deaths of migrants. Ten people died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck that was parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, 19 others were found in a sweltering truck south-east of San Antonio.
…
Last year saw at least 650 people die as they attempted to cross the US-Mexico border – the highest figure on record since the International Organization for Migration began documenting deaths in 2014.
…
Pope Francis expressed his sorrow on Tuesday over the deaths of dozens of people near the border between the United States and Mexico, and at the border between Spain and Morocco. At least 23 people died on Friday after some 2,000 migrants stormed the heavily fortified border of the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla….
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
At least 21 people are still missing after a Russian missile hit a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, Ukrainian prosecutors have told the Guardian. About 18 people are believed to have been killed. Military personnel, volunteers, firefighters and police have been working non-stop to recover bodies from the rubble. Authorities estimate there were between 200 and 1000 people inside the mall that afternoon.
Zelenskiy described the attack on Kremenchuk as “one of the most defiant terrorist attacks in European history”. “A peaceful city, an ordinary shopping mall with women, children, ordinary civilians inside,” he said. “Only totally insane terrorists, who should have no place on earth, can strike missiles at such an object. And this is not an off-target missile strike, this is a calculated Russian strike – exactly at this shopping mall.”
The leaders of the G7 said Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attacks aimed at civilians were a “war crime” and condemned the “abominable attack” in Kremenchuk. “We stand united with Ukraine in mourning the innocent victims of this brutal attack. Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitute a war crime. Russian president Putin and those responsible will be held to account,” a statement read. They said they would “continue to provide financial, humanitarian as well as military support for Ukraine, for as long as it takes”.
British government minister Chris Philp said that the strike was “terrorism” and illustrated there was “no end to Putin’s barbarity [sigh]”. He said it was “part of a consistent pattern of atrocities being committed by the Russian government”.
Russia’s ministry of defence has claimed that the fire in the shopping mall in Kremenchuk was caused by “the detonation of stored ammunition for western weapons”. No evidence was offered to back up the claim.
Russian shelling of a residential area in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, killed at least five civilians on Monday, the regional governor said. A further 19 people were wounded in the attack, Oleh Synehubov said.
A Russian missile attack also killed at least eight civilians and wounded 21 in Ukraine’s eastern Lysychansk region. “Today, when the civilian people were collecting water from a water tank, the Russians aimed at the crowd,” Serhiy Haidai, Luhansk governor, said on Telegram.
Russian forces are being increasingly hollowed out, have degraded combat effectiveness and only achieved tactical success at Sievierodonetsk despite fielding the core elements of six different armies, according to the latest UK Ministry of Defence intelligence briefing.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz said there can be no return to prewar ties with Russia. Scholz said after the G7 summit that with its attack on Ukraine, Russia had broken “all the rules, all the agreements we have made with each other on countries’ cooperation”. He said G7 leaders agreed that it had led to long-term changes “which will mark international relations for a very, very long time. So it is clear that, in relations with Russia, there can be no way back to the time before the Russian attack on Ukraine.”
The UN security council will meet on Tuesday to discuss Russia’s targeted attacks on civilians at the request of Ukraine.
…
Any encroachment on the Crimea peninsula by a Nato member-state could amount to a declaration of war on Russia that could lead to “world war three”, Russia’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, was quoted as saying on Monday. “For us, Crimea is a part of Russia. And that means forever. Any attempt to encroach on Crimea is a declaration of war against our country. And if this is done by a Nato member-state, this means conflict with the entire North Atlantic alliance; a world war three. A complete catastrophe,” Medvedev told the Russian news website Argumenty i Fakty.
The US is planning to buy and send more medium- to long-range missile systems to Ukraine, including Nasams, an advanced surface-to-air missile system, according to defence officials. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, confirmed on Monday the US is in the process of finalising a package that includes advanced air defence capabilities….
Fears over police violence and attacks by anti-abortion activists have been growing following a wave of incidents at demonstrations against the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which upheld the constitutional right to an abortion.
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered at protests objecting to the ruling. The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful but some have seen incidents of police violence – including attacks on protesters – and an incident of a car driving dangerously through marchers.
Law enforcement cracked down on protests in multiple states, wielding batons and forcibly removing protesters from public spaces and firing teargas in Arizona.
Over two dozen pro-choice activists were arrested in New York City as protests took place in Washington Square Park, Union Square and in front of the NewsCorp building in midtown, home to Fox News studios.
In Arizona, police fired rounds of teargas into protesters from inside the state Capitol building. Police later issued a statement saying they were concerned protesters would gain access to the building.
In Greenville, South Carolina, six protesters were arrested following a clash with police that left some injured. In one video widely circulated on social media, a police officer is seen threatening a woman with a Taser and throwing an elderly man to the ground.
Allen Chaney, a spokesperson for South Carolina’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Guardian: “The ACLU of South Carolina strongly condemns violence against peaceful protesters. It should be the case that you can show up and peacefully protest in this country without fear of violence or wrongful arrest.”
Meanwhile, a pickup truck ploughed through protesters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, hospitalizing one woman. The Cedar Rapids police department declined to comment on the incident. The state recently passed a law making it legal for drivers to hit protesters with vehicles in certain circumstances. Other states in the US have passed similar laws.
In Los Angeles, California, the Full House actor Jodie Sweetin was surrounded by police officers and pushed to the ground in front of fellow pro-choice protesters.
In a statement following the event, Sweetin said: “Our activism will continue until our voices are heard and action is taken. This will not deter us, we will continue fighting for our rights. We are not free until ALL of us are free.”
Journalists reporting in Los Angeles were also involved in violent incidents at the hands of police. Reporter Tina Desiree Berg was grabbed by a police officer, despite wearing a press badge around her neck. Samuel Braslow, another reporter for the Beverly Hills Courier, was also filmed being pushed by police….
#Russia’s ministryOfDefence claimed that the fire in the shopping mall in #Kremenchuk was caused by “detonation of stored ammunition for western weapons”.In response, #Ukrainian police have set up a table with fragments of Russian X-22 cruise missiles found inside shopping centre…
[The] FBI seized the phone of former President Donald Trump’s election attorney John Eastman last week, according to a new court filing from the conservative lawyer.
Eastman disclosed the search and seizure in federal court in a lawsuit that he filed in New Mexico on Monday, calling it improper.
The revelation highlights the aggressive steps the Justice Department has taken in recent weeks as part of its ongoing criminal probe.
Federal agents from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which is coordinating with the wider FBI and US attorney investigation into January 6, 2021, last week raided the home of former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, a source familiar previously told CNN. That search — during which the Justice Department inspector general’s participation had not been previously reported — came the same day as Eastman’s.
The inspector general investigates accusations of legal violations by Justice Department employees and has the ability to conduct searches and seizures. After investigating, the inspector general can refer possible criminal matters to prosecutors.
Eastman’s lawyers cited a reference in the warrant to the inspector general’s office potentially analyzing the phone’s contents, though it remains unclear to what extent the watchdog may be involved in his case.
…
Last Wednesday, about six federal investigators approached Eastman in New Mexico when he was exiting a restaurant after dinner with his wife and a friend, according to the court filings. He was patted down, and “forced to provide [facial] biometric data to open” the phone, Eastman’s court filing said.
Agents were able to get access to Eastman’s email accounts on his iPhone 12 Pro, the filings said.
…
Eastman contends the agents “forced” him to unlock his phone.
In court, he is asking a federal judge to force the Justice Department to return his property, destroy records they’ve obtained and put on hold investigators’ access to the phone.
Any encroachment on the Crimea peninsula by a Nato member-state could amount to a declaration of war on Russia that could lead to “world war three” […]
Another fucking threat. I am really fed up with Russia’s threats.
One thing I take from this is that Russia is deeply worried that Ukraine will indeed take back Crimea.
There was a heartbreaking report out of Texas overnight, where dozens of migrants were found dead in an abandoned big rig in San Antonio. As NBC News reported, it appears to be the deadliest human smuggling case in modern U.S. history.
The bodies of at least 46 people were initially found in the tractor-trailer in the sweltering Texas heat, officials said. Sixteen others, including four children, were hospitalized, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. On Tuesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the death toll had risen to 50. He said 22 of the dead were Mexican nationals, while seven were from Guatemala and two from Honduras. The nationalities of the remaining 19 people had yet to be confirmed.
The report added that following the discovery of the truck, three people were taken into custody.
It’s not surprising that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott commented on the developments. What was surprising was what the Republican had to say.
“These deaths are on Biden,” Abbott wrote on Twitter. “They are a result of his deadly open border policies. They show the deadly consequences of his refusal to enforce the law.” [JFC!]
Right off the bat, part of the problem with the GOP governor’s pitch is the failure in logic. If the Biden administration had “open border policies,” human smugglers wouldn’t have packed dozens of migrants into a truck as part of a scheme to enter the United States illegally. [Correct]
In other words, if there were an open border, the migrants would’ve taken advantage of that, rather than put their lives at risk. They wouldn’t have paid smugglers to pack them into a container. The tragic story serves as a reminder that Abbott’s principal talking point isn’t true, even as he brings attention to the evidence that discredits his own claim.
What’s more, incidents like these occurred long before President Joe Biden took office. During Donald Trump’s presidency, for example, there was a similarly deadly incident, also near San Antonio, in which 10 migrants died after being trapped inside a truck. I can’t find evidence of any prominent political figure, in either party, responding to their deaths by saying, “These deaths are on Trump.”
[…] Look, I realize it’s an election year. Abbott is running for re-election, there are rumors he has national ambitions, and there’s at least some evidence that the governor’s polling lead over former Rep. Beto O’Rourke is narrowing. The Texas Republican has an incentive to peddle red meat to his base and not worry too much about facts or propriety.
But that doesn’t make Abbott’s response any easier to defend.
After mass shootings, when Democrats recommend policies intended to prevent future deaths, Republicans routinely claim that Democrats are trying to “politicize” and “exploit” tragedies. Do those same Republicans have a problem with Abbott’s response to the deaths of 50 migrants?
US targets Russian gold and defence industry in new sanctions
The United States has banned the import of new Russian gold, the country’s biggest non-energy export, and imposed sanctions on over 100 targets.
Sanctions were imposted on 70 entities, many critical to Russia’s defence, in addition to 29 people, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.
In the statement, treasury secretary Janet Yellen said:
Targeting Russia’s defence industry will degrade (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s capabilities and further impede his war against Ukraine, which has already been plagued by poor morale, broken supply chains, and logistical failures.
Among those sanction was Russia’s state aerospace conglomerate, Rostec, and a maker of Russian fighter jets, United Aircraft Corporation.
The announcement comes as the U.S. Department of State imposes sanctions on an additional 45 entities, 29 individuals, and more than 500 Russian Federation military officers and on Russian Federation officials “involved in suppressing dissent”.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears to have misrepresented relevant details — and Sonia Sotomayor brought photographs to prove it.
There’s no shortage of obvious problems with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. This is, after all, a case in which six Republican-appointed justices ignored decades of precedent about church-state separation and effectively declared that a public school official, whose salary is paid by taxpayers, can lead public school students in religious worship at a public school event.
But less obvious is a different kind of problem: The high court’s conservative majority appears to have misrepresented highly relevant details about the case itself.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch insisted that coach Joseph Kennedy lost his job after offering “a quiet personal prayer” after football games. Gorsuch, whose rhetoric about church-state separation has echoed televangelists’ phrasing, added that the football coach simply wanted to participate in “a short, private, personal prayer.”
Pushing back, Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained that the conservative majority wasn’t just wrong in its judgment about religious liberty, it was also wrong about the basic factual details. From her dissent:
“To the degree the Court portrays petitioner Joseph Kennedy’s prayers as private and quiet, it misconstrues the facts. The record reveals that Kennedy had a longstanding practice of conducting demonstrative prayers on the 50- yard line of the football field. Kennedy consistently invited others to join his prayers and for years led student athletes in prayer at the same time and location. The Court ignores this history. The Court also ignores the severe disruption to school events caused by Kennedy’s conduct.”
For those who’ve never read a slip opinion from the Supreme Court, it’s worth emphasizing that they almost never include images: Justices write their opinions, concurrences, and dissents — and that’s it. There’s nothing but text.
But in her dissent yesterday, Sotomayor took the highly unusual step of including several photographs to prove her point: The images showed the high school coach engaged in public worship with public school student athletes — minors who were seeking their coach’s approval, and who needed to stay on his good side if they intended to play — at public school events
This is the same coach who, according to the public record, led Christian prayers in public school locker rooms with public school students before games.
And yet, there was Gorsuch, marveling at school officials objecting to a person engaging in “quiet,” “short,” “private,” and “personal” prayer.
In reality, if Kennedy had engaged in a “quiet,” “short,” “private,” and “personal” prayer, there wouldn’t have been a case since no one would’ve cared. Indeed, this is precisely what school officials asked Kennedy to do.
But for the coach, “quiet,” “short,” “private,” and “personal” prayers weren’t good enough. By all appearances, Kennedy went out of his way to pursue the opposite course, indifferent to the law, the school district’s policies, or the interests of students and their families who may not have been comfortable with these religious exercises.
The result was a Supreme Court case in which te justices not only disagreed over how best to apply the First Amendment, but they also appeared to be examining entirely different facts. The conservative majority settled on a conclusion that relied heavily on falsehoods.
Alas, there is no fact-checking follow-up process with the Supreme Court. It’s not as if lawyers could file an appeal, telling the Republican-appointed justices, “Since you appear to have been confused about basic details, we’d like you to take another look.”
Instead, we’re left to deal with the consequences of a case in which conservative jurists wanted to reach a specific outcome, while being about as honest with the relevant points as they were during their confirmation hearings when talking about their respect for precedent.
The horror that unfolded when a Russian missile struck a shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk was shown around the world. But if you were watching Russian television that day, you would probably have seen nothing about it.
The Russian media blackout on the attack, which left at least 18 people dead according to the Ukrainian government, is part of a playbook on how similar attacks have been handled as the Kremlin tries to present itself as a liberating force that does not harm civilians.
And with images of charred bodies emerging in the foreign press, Russian officials began to declare the strike a “Bucha-like provocation”, disregarding evidence of war crimes amid growing international isolation.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows whose video-taped testimony has been repeatedly cited by the Jan. 6 Committee, is set to testify publicly Tuesday in a surprise committee hearing that was announced only the day before.
The committee’s next hearing was scheduled for weeks away, but the panel said Monday that they would meet the following day to “present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.”
Who Is Hutchinson?
The top Meadows aide was a special assistant to Trump as the President worked to steal a second term. For Tuesday’s purposes, according to various White House reporters, she was “in the middle of almost everything that happened in the West Wing” and “a crucial witness.”
[…] What We’ve Learned From Her So Far
Hutchinson’s committee testimony popped up in several stories even before the committee began its public hearings: She reportedly heard and later recalled Mark Meadows’ description of Trump’s astoundingly enthusiastic reaction to chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6.
She also reportedly testified that Meadows set fire to documents in his office after meeting with the Big Lie-supporting congressman Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA). She reportedly testified that Meadows was warned of possible violence ahead of Jan. 6, and that he was deeply involved in the planning effort to steal a second term, including discussions with members of Congress about a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election results.
Her testimony has also been repeatedly played back during live committee hearings, including her accounts of efforts by several members of Congress to obtain presidential pardons and the effort to assemble fake slates of Trump electors in several states won by Joe Biden in 2020.
Why Is She A Key Witness?
Former Pence adviser Olivia Troye on Friday recalled Hutchinson being “very dedicated to her role while working for Mark Meadows.” Brendan Buck, who was counselor to House Speaker Paul Ryan for the first half of Trump’s term, tweeted Tuesday that “when Meadows was on the Hill he always insisted that she be in *every* meeting he had, no matter how small.”
The committee kept Hutchinson’s appearance as a witness secret due to concerns about her safety, unnamed sources told The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. […]
June 27: 20
June 26: 21
June 24: 4
June 23: 3
June 22: 8
June 21: 0
June 20: 19
June 19: 9
June 18: 3
[…] it’s reasonable to suspect these numbers. Combatants have an incentive to exaggerate the losses of their enemy. If you asked Russia, they’ve destroyed more tanks than Ukraine had at the beginning of the war, three times over. It’s hilarious. Ukraine’s numbers are more reasonable, but there’s no way to confirm. For context, Ukraine claims 1,440 total tank kills. Oryx’s list of visually confirmed kills puts the number at 789, and the guy is on vacation without updates for the past week. So we can confirm 55% to 60% of Ukraine’s claims, which is actually quite remarkable. It lends some credence to the numbers.
So assuming we can at least trust the trends, what’s going on these past two days? Combat isn’t any heavier than it has been for the past two weeks. Those lower numbers from previous days make sense given the current shape of combat operations: 1) Russia reduces ground to rubble, 2) Russia sends infantry to see if anything is left. If they die, then go back to one—otherwise, 3) proceed to next objective. There is zero “maneuver combat” in which armor columns face off against each other in open combat.
On the southern fronts—Kherson and southern Donbas—counterattacking Ukrainian forces are assaulting prepared entrenched defensive positions and Russian artillery, so again, little chance to destroy Russian armor. In that kind of environment, it makes sense that few Russian tanks meet their demise. The ones that do, more often than not, are hit by Ukrainian artillery. [video at the link]
Needless to say, artillery isn’t the most efficient way to kill tanks.
So if the shape of combat operations hasn’t changed these last two days (i.e., we haven’t seen the emergence of new maneuver combat), and the intensity remains the same, where did those 41 new claimed tank kills come from?
Ukraine ain’t specifying, but I bet it has something to do with Ukraine’s targeting of Russian supply and command-and-control centers. With the arrival of HIMARS long-range rocket artillery, Ukraine appears happy to blow through its remaining supply of Tochka-U ballistic missiles. Between those two systems, Ukraine has made short work of Russian depots, giving us spectacular pyrotechnic displays. (Click the link above for many examples.)
One of the fires was so dramatic that it was initially thought to have caused a secondary fire 10 kilometers away. [tweet and video at the link]
Yet as the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) crew dug in, they made a surprising discovery: [tweet and video at the link]
“Totally destroyed” is an understatement. What was once a series of roads, buildings, vehicles, and emplacements is now literally a dirt pit. […] This spot is about 65 kilometers (about 40 miles) from Ukrainian territory, well within HIMARS’ 85-kilometer range.
These strikes wouldn’t have provided the dramatic light and sound shows like the nearby ammo depot. This is near a small hamlet, not a major city, making it less likely to deliver cellphone footage from the locals. And since HIMARS is operating at night, any cell phone footage would merely be flashes of lights with no hope of geolocation. And while the ammo depot burned all day, leaving a smoke trail over 100 kilometers long, vehicles wouldn’t smolder much past morning.
Had this one OSINT guy not dug into those curious fires near a major depot strike, we would’ve never known this base even existed. Yet Ukraine knew the base existed and what was parked there. Their drones and access to military-grade satellite imagery would assure that. So while we may not have the evidence (yet) to tally whatever was destroyed at that site, Ukraine would know, and add them to their public tally.
Meanwhile, this guy apparently has insight into what was happening on the other side of the HIMARS delivery. (“ZSU” is Ukrainian army. This is from Russian Telegram.) [tweet and image at the link]
“Don’t Make the Russian Bear Angry”: “ZSU guys, bastards, have delivered the first 80 km strike using the US MLRS M142 HiMARS. Many warriors of ours were killed, i have no words. God, what for?” – No reason, just for fun of course.
What possible reason, indeed? Has to be sadistic “fun,” can’t be anything else. Why would “warriors” be struck in the middle of a war?
I’m really coming up empty here, guys … [tweet and video of the large shopping mall in Kremenchuk which was hit by Russia, causing hundreds of civilian deaths]
That mall was hit midday to maximize the number of civilian deaths. If Russia really thought it was a military facility, it would’ve struck at night, when vehicles would be stored for the night with soldiers sleeping near them.
Russia wanted to kill as many civilians as possible. They are terrorists.
That alone is good reason to strike Russian forces behind the front lines, and it’s just one of thousands of similar reasons.
A Harris County judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a pre-Roe abortion ban in Texas that was being enforced while the state’s “trigger” law is yet to take effect.
Abortion providers had sued state officials to stop the pre-Roe ban from taking effect, arguing it had previously been declared unconstitutional. With this temporary restraining order, abortions can continue in Texas up until the sixth week of pregnancy.
Texas’ trigger law is scheduled to take effect later this summer, after the Supreme Court’s judgment is officially issued, which is a separate order typically released at least 25 days or longer after the court’s opinion.
Following the high court’s overturning of Roe, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released an advisory saying that “abortion providers could be criminally liable for providing abortions starting today” based on the state’s “abortion prohibitions predating Roe.”
The providers said in their lawsuit that the pre-Roe ban, which was issued in 1925, “was expressly declared unconstitutional … and has been absent from Texas’ civil statutes for decades.”
Under the 1925 law, providers could face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion.
“It is a relief that this Texas state court acted so quickly to block this deeply harmful abortion ban,” said Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights….. Every hour that abortion is accessible in Texas is a victory.”
After Trump’s rally, when his security guy told him in the vehicle that he couldn’t go to the Capitol and had to return to the White House, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel and then… “lunged at” him. There was literally a physical altercation – Trump assaulted the guy.
Now she’s describing how Trump threw a plate of food at the wall because he was angry at Barr’s AP interview; this was one of many such episodes when he threw dishes or a whole table of dishes during tantrums.
“The President of the United States advocated for the removal of magnetometers at the Ellipse to allow an armed crowd to gather unimpeded so that he could direct them to march to the U.S. Capitol. ‘They’re not here to hurt me’, he said.”
Perhaps this was already known, since it’s old testimony, but Flynn being asked “Do you believe in the peaceful transfer of power in the United States?” and going “Fifth” is kinda stunning.
I’m going to try to summarize some of the things I’m doing on nextdoor. I won’t pretend it’s good in every situation but I’m trying to be responsive to what others here.
I’ve been trying to concentrate on being politically supportive to people in local politics. It’s nextdoor but it still counts. With the shift from the loss of Roe I’ve been watching to see where I can do something.
At the moment I’m:
*Supporting anger and making clear that anger fuels protest. Many have been attacking anger in substanceless terms and acting like it always goes to violence. But that is trying to take the tools of others away.
*Ruthlessly picking at anything that twists the reality of the situation. Focusing on states is ignoring that people are investing states with the power to force others to give birth.
*Characterizing the conceptus>fetus as spectral evidence that people must make up things about and speak for. No fetus speaks for itself and you can make one say anything like a hand puppet.
*Calling out every mislabeling of a stage of development as lying and deliberate calling of babies and more to mind when there aren’t any in the issue.
*Characterizing the situation outside of the constitution as much as possible. Abortion a social stabilizer that some creatures can do for themselves. It harms no one that isn’t using fetus puppetry.
*Inside the constitution I put abortion as an unenumerated right a forced-birther wants to give the state the power to prevent with literally nothing. This makes a mockery of standing and personhood.
*”Killing the next Rembrandt” is responded to with “But baby Hitler is going to get you first!”
More as I get it out in text.
To close out the hearing, Cheney’s providing examples of witness tampering, because of course they’re trying to coerce witnesses.
lumipunasays
(from the Nato summit currently ongoing in Madrid)
According to Finnish president’s press release, president Erdogan of Turkiye (close enough spelling) has agreed in a three-way meeting to stop blocking the Nato accession of Finland and Sweden. Unclear a) whether any concessions on human rights have been made by Finland or Sweden b) whether Erdogan is likely to flip again on this issue before ratification.
……..Speaking at a religious service Sunday in Colorado, GOP Rep. Boebert told worshipers: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.”
She added: “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter, and it means nothing like what they say it does.”
The Chief of Staff to the President … sought a pardon from the President.
[…] Looks like Trump needs an effing great lawyer.
[…] These transcripts show clear witness interference by people connected to Trump, a separate crime. And if Trump is directly involved in this witness intimidation, it’s a conspiracy. DOJ must investigate and prosecute.
[…] Trump’s assault on a Secret Service officer who is doing his job and who is sworn to defend him is 1000000x worse than the “assault” on Giuliani in a supermarket.
Sarah Matthews:
Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.
George Conway:
This is the most astonishing testimony I have ever seen or heard or read.
You could litigate or investigate for a thousand years and never see anything as mind-blowing as this.
Carol Leonnig:
As the violence rocked the Capitol & rioters chanted to hang VP, WH Counsel pleaded to see Trump.
“Trump doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,” Meadows said
“Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood will be on your f****** hands,” Pat Cipollone said
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three liberal Justices, #SCOTUS issues unsigned, unexplained shadow docket order putting Louisiana’s congressional maps (which a district court blocked) back into effect and adding the case to the merits docket for next Term:…
Order at the (Twitter) link.
Paul Ksays
I tried posting something a bit ago, and it seems to be stuck in moderation. I’m trying again; sorry if it ends up a double post. There’s a new article at the Guardian, Facebook and Instagram removing posts with mentions of abortion pills, and it blew me away. Here’s a quote:
On Monday, an AP reporter tested how Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.” The post was removed within one minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods”.
Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words “abortion pills” for “a gun”, the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail “weed” was also left up and not considered a violation.
In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy, including the ongoing issue of guns being sold openly on its platform.
I apologize for not knowing how to post a link, or do quotes, either. I just wanted to share this. The world is so messed up.
The Trump White House rejected Marjorie Taylor Greene’s e-mail request for a pardon after she spelled it “parton,” new reports indicate.
According to evidence obtained by the January 6th committee, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was perplexed by Greene’s entreaty, believing that it referred to the legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton.
Meadows reportedly could not understand how Parton, whose extensive catalogue of hit songs includes “Jolene” and “9 to 5,” could be of assistance to Greene, and therefore he deleted the e-mail.
Having received no response, a frantic Greene e-mailed the White House requesting clemency, which she spelled as “clementine.”
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, Greene flatly denied sending the panicked e-mails. “I was never worried about going to prism,” she said.
A former top White House aide described Donald Trump’s shocking behavior on Jan. 6, saying the former president wanted armed protesters at his rally, tried to forcibly steer his limousine to the Capitol and, when his bodyguards refused, reached for the throat of one of them.
A few more memorable tidbits:
“Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cass,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told Cassidy Hutchinson before the event. “We are going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”
“I don’t f’ing care that they [people attending the January 6 rally that later turned into an attack on the Capitol] have weapons,” Trump said, according to Cassidy 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.”
Some people attending the rally brought weapons, including: Glock-style pistols; AR-15s, pepper spray, knives, brass knuckles, Tasers and blunt objects that could be used as weapons … spears fastened to the ends of flagpoles
[…] Trump eventually sent a gushing video telling the rioters he loved them, and asking them to go home in “peace” after they’d spent several hours attacking Congress.
But Hutchinson’s testimony also shed light on the video Trump released the following day. According to discussions she overheard with White House lawyers and discussions she had with Meadows, she said Trump didn’t want to talk about the rioters being violent, or about criminal prosecutions of them. Rather, “he wanted to put in that he wanted to potentially pardon them,” she said. Giuliani and Meadows both indicated they were interested in pardons, Hutchinson said separately.
Ultimately, Trump did the Jan. 7 speech largely according to planned drafts — except “the President still could not bring himself to say, quote, that this election is now over,” Cheney noted.
[…] “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her.” That’s the response from Donald Trump to this testimony from Hutchinson. This is strange, because as Liz Cheney demonstrated during the hearing, she was so close to the action […] Cheney showed pictures of Hutchinson with congressmen like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and Steve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy, and then showed pictures with Meadows and other White House folks. You could see into the Oval Office from her office. […]
Trump’s, “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is …” made me laugh out loud. Several news hosts, comedians and pundits predicted he would say that. And then he said that.
More from Trump: “Her story of me throwing food is also false…and why would SHE have to clean it up, I hardly knew who she was?”
More from Wonkette:
[…] Michael Flynn pleaded the Fifth when asked if he believes in the peaceful transfer of power. […]
Everybody heard the terrorists screaming “Hang Mike Pence!” Meadows told Cipollone that Trump thought Pence deserved it, and that the rioters inside the Capitol were “doing nothing wrong.” Remember that tweet about “Pence didn’t have the courage”? Came after Trump found out about all the “Hang Mike Pence!”
Anybody else ask Trump for pardons after January 6? Oh just Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani. […]
[…] what about Fox News? How did they react in the immediate aftermath of former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday? […]
BAIER: “We always point out that there’s not a pushback, and it would have been great to hear Jim Jordan or some congressman say some other angle to this, but the testimony in and of itself is really, really powerful.”
[Stunned silence]
ROBERTS: “Sandra? Are you still here?”
SMITH: “Indeed, yes, I am here. You know, Bret, to your point, I just wonder for the country watching this in this moment, how much this changes what people believed or did not believe.”
[…] Just because Trump allegedly tried to strangle a member of his Secret Service detail after knowingly sending an armed mob—some with AR-15s—to the door of the U.S. Capitol building? We’re really gonna get in a twist over that?
Well, some of us will, anyway. But surely not one of his merry band of former White House chiefs of sta … oh, fuck …
Mick Mulvaney tweeted: I think I just figured out why we are having an unannounced hearing: if the President knew the protesters had weapons, and still encouraged them to go to the Capitol, that is a serious problem.
Things just got a lot more interesting.
When you’ve lost Mick Mulvaney …
[…] And now, right on cue, Trump is melting down on social media.
Do your worst, Grampa Rage Diapers. Everyone sees you now.
[…] Trump supporters quickly snapped back online that they’d found an obvious sign she [Cassidy Hutchinson] was lying: The presidential limousine, known as “the Beast,” is so heavily fortified that they argued it would be “physically impossible” for Trump to cross from the back cabin to the driver’s seat.
But Trump was not riding in the limousine that day; videos show he actually rode in a Secret Service SUV, where the seats are closer together.
Even if he had ridden in the Beast, the rear and front seats have a glass window the president can lower whenever he’d like — a detail noted even in the same infographic that Trump supporters shared as proof that Hutchinson’s story couldn’t be right.
Trump made the same argument on Truth Social, the Twitter clone his allies created after he was banned from Twitter following the Jan. 6 attack. “Her Fake story … is ‘sick’ and fraudulent,” he wrote, adding it “wouldn’t even have been possible to do such a ridiculous thing.”
But two Secret Service agents who have worked in the Beast told The Washington Post that such a move from the president might have been tough, given the limo’s interior equipment — but not impossible.
[…] The pro-Trump blog Gateway Pundit called Hutchinson “another grifter … using Tuesday’s show trials to audition for a spot on CNN or MSNBC.” The conservative media firebrand John Cardillo tweeted that she was “a glorified receptionist and coffee fetcher in Meadows’ office … relaying boring office gossip, acting as if she had more access and input than she ever actually did.”
But as she recounted stunning details on Tuesday, including in-the-room and previously unreported accounts of Trump’s and Meadows’s actions before and during the insurrection, Trump defenders tried a different tack, saying she was just a rumormonger — even though much of her testimony was supported by written notes and text messages, and all of it was made under oath. […]
Joshua Yaffa tweeted that you can buy the ebook of his Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia for $1.99 today. I’m sure I’ve recommended it here once or twice; that’s a great deal on a very timely book.
Journalist Edward Niedermeyer has been reporting on the automobile industry — and its blind spots — since 2008. He co-hosts the Autonocast podcast, focusing on the future of transportation. And he is the author of “Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors.” In his book, Niedermeyer chronicles the electric car maker’s rise and lays bare the disconnect between the popular perception of Tesla and the day-to-day realities of the company, its products, and its peripatetic, billionaire CEO Elon Musk. Musk, Niedermeyer argues, is a huckster with a particular genius for selling implausible products and making old ideas feel futuristic and new. But his overwhelming wealth, influence, and cult-like following is making him a danger to the rest of us.
Brendan and Andrew welcome back David Golumbia, whom they interviewed in Ep. 63 of Radio Free Humanity about his book The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism. In this new episode, they discuss the new wave of crashing cryptocurrency markets, including Bitcoin, Luna/Terra, and NFTs (nonfungible tokens). David explains what all of these things are—or were. The issues he and the co-hosts discuss include: the causes of the crash; the key role that Luna/Terra played in the crypto markets; who benefits and who loses from the crash; the role that fraud played and the relation between the fraud and cyber-libertarian ideology; whether the crash was surprising or something to be expected; and whether the prices of cryptocurrencies will bounce back, as the price of Bitcoin has in the past.
In the current-events segment, the co-hosts again discuss Congress’s January 6 committee hearings on the attempted and ongoing Trumpite coup: new revelations through June 21, the impact of the hearings, and “Team Normal” Trumpism.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian ( support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Nato: Russia ‘the most direct threat to security and stability’
Nato leaders have announced a new “strategic concept” in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine which has “gravely altered our security environment”, describing Moscow as “the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and stability”.
Nato has invited Sweden and Finland to become members of the military alliance, according to a communique published by the Nato summit in Madrid.
The statement reads:
The accession of Finland and Sweden will make them (the allies) safer, Nato stronger and the Euro-Atlantic area more secure.
The alliance pledged further help to Kyiv and agreed on a package of support aimed at modernising the country’s defence sector. Nato also said it had decided to significantly strengthen its own deterrence and defence.
The statement continues:
Allies have committed to deploy additional robust in-place combat-ready forces on our eastern flank, to be scaled up from the existing battlegroups to brigade-size units, where and when required underpinned by credible available reinforcements, prepositioned equipment, and enhanced command and control.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Republicans in Colorado rejected two prominent candidates whose political profiles were centered on election falsehoods, in a fresh reminder that fealty to former President Donald Trump’s lies about mass voter fraud is no guarantee of success with conservative voters, Associated Press reports:
Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who became nationally known after being indicted for her role in a break-in of her own county election system, lost her bid for the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state. Instead, Republicans selected Pam Anderson, a critic of Trump’s election lies and a former clerk in suburban Denver who is well-regarded among election professionals. She is now positioned to challenge Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
“I will continue my fight for restoring the confidence of Colorado voters against lies and the politicians or interest groups that seek to weaponize elections administration for political advantage,” Anderson said after her victory.
One of Peters’ top Colorado allies, state Rep Ron Hanks, lost his bid for the party’s Senate nomination to Joe O’Dea, a businessman who has repeatedly acknowledged that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. That was a sharp contrast with Hanks, who attended the January 6 rally in Washington, doesn’t believe Biden is a legitimate president and says he discovered a new, animating purpose fighting election fraud after 2020.
Colorado voters definitively rejected Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, and they weren’t the only ones.
In Utah Blake Moore, a first-term US congressman who voted for an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection, defeated his more extreme challengers.
John Curtis, a moderate Republican, also defeated a primary opponent from the right.
Stephanie Bice, a congresswoman Oklahoma from who – like Moore and Curtis – voted to form the January 6 commission, won her primary bid, as did Michael Guest, in Mississippi.
Still, there were some victories for Trump – particularly in Illinois.
Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in Illinois after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state.
The Nobel prize-winner Maria Ressa has said she will challenge an order shutting down Rappler, the news website she co-founded, vowing the outlet will not succumb to harassment and intimidation.
Rappler, which has been widely praised for scrutinising the administration of the outgoing Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, has faced relentless legal charges and investigations.
The latest case relates to an allegation that Rappler violated restrictions on foreign ownership in media – a claim that Rappler denies.
On Tuesday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a business regulator, affirmed an earlier decision to revoke Rappler’s certificates of incorporation over the matter. The decision, said Rappler, “effectively confirmed the shutdown” of the outlet.
The announcement comes just days before Duterte stands down and his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son and namesake of the late dictator, takes office.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Ressa said the news site would challenge the decision. “We continue to work. It is business as usual… [We] will follow the legal process, we will continue to stand up for our rights,” she said.
…
The media has faced intense pressure under Duterte’s presidency. In 2020, the country’s biggest broadcaster, ABS-CBN, was ordered off air. Last week the National Telecommunications Commission blocked access to 28 websites, including Bulatlat, a news site that focuses on human rights.
…
There are fears about the prospects for journalists under the administration of the incoming president, Marcos Jr. His father, Marcos Sr, who was ousted in 1986, was notorious for imposing martial law and shutting down all independent media. Marcos Jr has also been criticised for evading scrutiny during election campaigning, including by skipping presidential debates and dodging questions from journalists perceived to be unfriendly.
Ressa said she hoped for the best under the incoming administration, but added: “Given the track record of the [election] campaign. Given the track record of 36 years [since Marcos Sr was ousted] I think the burden of proof is actually on the incoming administration. I continue to appeal to the incoming administration to work with journalists. We’re here to help you give a better future for the Philippines, we’re not your enemies.”
Francis Lim, Rappler’s legal counsel, said Rappler strongly disagreed with the decision by SEC. “Fortunately for us, we have legal remedies available to question the decision before our courts of law,” he said.
Colombian leaders must recognize how drug trafficking has penetrated the country’s culture, economy and politics and how the global war on drugs is driving its internal armed conflict, Colombia’s truth commission said on Tuesday in a long-awaited report.
The commission, established as part of a 2016 peace deal between the government and the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, urged the country to reassess the role of drugs in its almost 60-year internal conflict.
Among the commission’s recommendations are calls to implement substantial changes in drug policy with a focus on regulation, and to lead a global conversation addressing policy changes.
Other recommendations included advancing peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), tackling corruption and guaranteeing quality of life and dignity for all communities.
President-elect Gustavo Petro attended the presentation and pledged to carry out the recommendations.
“These recommendations will become successful in the history of Colombia,” said Petro, a former member of the M-19 rebels, adding cycles of vengeance must end.
…
The commission was given three years to investigate the truth of what happened during the armed conflict and offer a broad explanation of how atrocities happened.
The more than 1,000-page report included hours of testimony at private and public hearings, where perpetrators and victims alike spoke in often emotional recountings.
…
Colombia, a major cocaine exporter, joined the war on drugs in the 1980s under pressure from the United States and continues to face constant U.S. pressure to eradicate coca, cocaine’s chief ingredient, and tackle trafficking, the report said.
Current President Ivan Duque, whose term officially ends in August, did not attend.
(The English-language articles I’ve read about this so far have been subpar. I’ll try to find something better.)
Colombia’s Truth Commission has estimated that over 450,000 people were killed in Colombia between 1985 and 2018 during a time when the United States was a key backer of the Colombian military and right-wing paramilitaries which targeted leftist groups, social justice leaders and union members. The Truth Commission’s report denounced the U.S.-funded war on drugs in Colombia, stating, “The consequences of this concerted and largely U.S.-driven approach [led to a] hardening of the conflict in which the civilian population has been the main victim.” This is Rev. Francisco de Roux, who led the Truth Commission.
Rev. Francisco de Roux: “To the government, public forces, political parties, entrepreneurs, churches, educators and other decision makers in Colombia: We ask you to recognize the drug trafficking penetration in our culture, in the state, politics and economy, and face it as a nation. We must develop investigative tools to face the alliances system and involved interests, and we must change the war politics that attack those who are the weakest link, the farmers.”
BBC Mundo has five takeaways from the Colombia truth commission report. From there:
…Más que establecer responsables, el informe busca establecer los factores de persistencia que hicieron de esta guerra una de las más largas de la historia y en la que el 80% de las víctimas fueron civiles no combatientes.
…
Estos son algunas de las conclusiones:
– El narcotráfico no solo fue financiador del conflicto, sino que fue una arraigada industria que permeó la economía y el sistema político.
– El conflicto no solo tuvo causas armadas, sino también no armadas, parte de un entramado económico, político e incluso cultural que fomentaron el alzamiento en armas de campesinos y líderes políticos excluidos.
– El modelo económico neoliberal que se implantó durante décadas, sobre todo después de los años 90, fomentó la exclusión y la desigualdad.
– El modelo de seguridad del Estado, en parte financiado por Estados Unidos e ideado en el marco de la guerra contra las drogas, puso a las Fuerzas Armadas en “modo guerra”. Eso impidió abordar el conflicto como un complejo proceso histórico en el que el Estado jugó, también, un rol como victimario.
– La exclusión no fue solo económica: los patrones de discriminación racial, étnica, cultural y de género jugaron un papel crucial en la persistencia del conflicto.
– El Estado desprotegió regiones y poblaciones vulnerables, sobre todo a jóvenes que, ante la crisis económica y las lógicas de guerra presentes en sus territorios, se vieron obligados a entrar a los grupos armados como una forma de vida posible.
…
4. ¿Por qué la entrega del informe fue simbólica?
No solo es la primera vez que se realiza un trabajo colectivo de tal magnitud y rigurosidad en Colombia, sino que también es la primera vez que quienes estuvieron por años ubicados en bandos contrarios han podido escucharse y, en muchos casos, reconciliarse.
Durante la entrega del informe se vio, por ejemplo, un video en el que algunos indígenas Embera escuchaban a Salvatore Mancuso, ex jefe paramilitar y narcotraficante, reconocer su responsabilidad y pedir perdon por el asesinato del lider de su pueblo Kimmy Pernía.
También se escuchó a Braulio Vázquez, excomandante de las FARC, hablar en nombre del “colectivo fariano” y reconocer su responsabilidad en los reclamos hechos por las victimas en el Cauca durante un encuentro que se llevó a cabo en 2021.
Por otro lado, se vio al exgeneral Oscar Naranjo, quien fue director de la policía, reconocer que la estigmatización es una forma de violencia y que él contribuyó a estigmatizar la universidad como institución.
En general ha sido un proceso en el que se reconoce la complejidad del conflicto armado y la responsabilidad colectiva.
También se ha desescalado el discurso de los enemigos y se ha identificado la responsabilidad no solo de los grupos al margen de la ley, sino también de las fuerzas armadas y de otros sectores de la sociedad que tienen responsabilidad en todo lo sucedido.
Pero esa lectura, justamente, resulta políticamente incómoda para algunos.
Fue muy significativo que al inicio del evento, De Roux contara que el presidente Ivan Duque había sido invitado por la CEV, pero que se había excusado porque tenía un viaje internacional. En su representación estuvo el Ministro del interior, Daniel Palacios.
Así que la entrega de las recomendaciones se le hizo al presidente electo, Gustavo Petro, quien asistió con Francia Márquez, la vicepresidenta electa.
…
5. ¿Qué más se va a publicar?
Además de la declaración y el capítulo de hallazgos y recomendaciones, durante los próximos meses se publicarán capítulos sobre la narrativa histórica de la guerra, las violaciones de los derechos humanos por parte del Estado y los fenómenos de resistencia al conflicto que recrudecieron la violencia, como el paramilitarismo.
Hay un capítulo dedicado a los testimonios de víctimas, otro sobre las poblaciones étnicas y jóvenes que se vieron afectadas por el mismo, uno acerca del exilio de millones de colombianos (se estima que casi uno de los cuatro millones que hay en el exterior huyeron por la violencia) y otro sobre la complejidad territorial del conflicto.
Todo el material estará disponible en un transmedia digital en la página de la CEV, en donde cualquier persona puede consultar no solo el informe, sino también el archivo y los diferentes contenidos en formato de audio, video y texto.
Durante estos dos meses se espera también que De Roux haga una gira internacional para divulgar el informe en escenarios como la ONU, la UE y el Congreso de EEUU.
The commission is part of a comprehensive transitional justice system that is designed to help the country move towards a path of reconciliation and peace. A peace tribunal is judging atrocities committed during the conflict and holding perpetrators accountable.
In its report, the Truth Commission urged the Colombian government to end its militarised approach to drug policy that for decades has prioritised prohibition over regulation.
The report showed that the local drug economy boosted armed groups and exacerbated the violence. While the United States flushed the Colombian government with millions of dollars under Plan Colombia [JFC – this was just two years ago], launched in 2000, to help combat a twin war against drug trafficking and armed rebels, the cultivation of coca, the base crop in cocaine, has continued unabated.
Under the peace deal, thousands of farmers were supposed to substitute coca with legal plants, such as cacao or coffee, but when the government subsidies to support the transition never arrived, farmers resorted once again to coca crops.
The report also criticised entrenched impunity in Colombia, saying there has been a lack of justice in cases related to the armed conflict. It said that the Attorney General’s Office had reported filing cases for 185,000 victims in 2018, a fraction of the 9 million victims registered in the official figures.
Addressing impunity will be crucial to ending the cycles of violence, the report argued, while also calling for the full implementation of the 2016 peace deal and continuing talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest remaining rebel group….
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss made a joke at Donald Trump’s expense, in the aftermath of Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony before the January 6 committee yesterday.
This morning, Beschloss shared a photo to Twitter on the last meal that Richard Nixon ate at the White House before he resigned as president. [The lunch looks like sliced pineapple with a scoop of cottage cheese and a glass of milk. WTF.]
“Nixon’s last lunch at White House, 1974,” Beschloss said of the photo. “Record shows that although he was leaving Presidency against his will, he did not throw this plate at the wall.”
That appeared to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Hutchinson’s claim that Trump had a habit of throwing food when he was angry.
That habit reared its head in December 2020, when the AP published an interview with then-attorney general William Barr, who said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
According to Hutchinson, she walked into the White House dining room that day to see a valet cleaning up a dirty tablecloth. She noticed ketchup dripping down the wall where a television was mounted, and a porcelain plate lay shattered on the floor.
Asked whether Trump often engaged in such behavior, Hutchinson said: “There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor.”
Summarized from an NBC News article: After a district court ordered Louisiana to create a less racially discriminatory district map, the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed justices yesterday blocked that order. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented.
[…] “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem,” the outgoing president said on Jan. 7, describing the riot as a “heinous attack.” Reading carefully from a prepared text, Trump added, “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy…. To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: You do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: You will pay.”
I watched that at the time. Trump was subdued and beyond strange. He read the text like a prisoner being forced to read a propaganda statement. You could tell that he didn’t believe what he was saying.
It was an odd message, delivered in an odd way, that was wildly at odds with everything [Trump] seemed to believe about the rioters and their attack. Indeed, in the months that followed, Trump rejected everything he’d said on Jan. 7, eventually telling the public that the rioters were great “patriots,” worthy of celebration, who “represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country.” [Yep]
So why exactly did the then-president deliver remarks to the nation that he clearly did not believe? Because as we learned yesterday, Trump felt like he’d be removed from office if he didn’t. The New York Times noted:
Members of the president’s Cabinet were distressed enough by the assault on the Capitol and the president’s encouragement of the mob and refusal to intervene that they quietly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, Ms. Hutchinson testified. The ignominious prospect of being the first president to be subject to the amendment was one of the reasons he agreed to record a video on Jan. 7 committing to a peaceful transfer of power.
There’s long been speculation about how close members of Trump’s cabinet were to trying to remove him from power in the wake of the attack on the Capitol, and Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony yesterday, and related revelations from the hearing, brought new clarity to the issue.
Indeed, Hutchinson testified that Trump told top members of his team he didn’t feel the need to say anything on Jan. 7, and when he saw a draft that had been prepared by others, the then-president rejected lines about “prosecuting the rioters or calling them violent.”
But Trump grudgingly delivered the remarks anyway because, as Hutchinson said in her sworn testimony, “there was a large concern of the 25th Amendment potentially being invoked.”
She added that Trump was told that his Jan. 7 speech would provide him with “cover” — not from the public, members of Congress, or the press, but from members of his own administration who were prepared to remove him from office. [So that’s why Trump looked like a sulking toddler as he read the speech.]
[…] Fox News’ Sean Hannity, effectively playing the role of a White House strategist, alerted Mark Meadows, the then-White House chief of staff, to the fact that the 25th Amendment threat was “real.”
[…] former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had reached out to Meadows, letting the White House know that cabinet secretaries had begun behind-the-scenes conversations about removing Trump from office.
[…] Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently told USA Today that in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, she thought it was at least possible she’d help remove Trump from office by way of the 25th Amendment. It was on Jan. 7 when she personally spoke with other cabinet members about this possibility — and even talked to then-Vice President Mike Pence about the process.
There have also been reports that then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, among others, was “personally involved“ in such deliberations.
This not only provides important context for Trump’s Jan. 7 speech, it should also be of interest to rank-and-file Republicans who remain skeptical of the investigation into the larger scandal: Members of Trump’s own cabinet — his handpicked cabinet secretaries, responsible for helping him govern — were actively involved in conversations about kicking him out of the White House.
Earlier this month, Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, made a big show of her willingness and desire to march right up to Capitol Hill and clear her good name before the Jan. 6th investigation committee. Yesterday, her lawyer said the committee just turns out to be too biased. So she won’t be testifying after all. [Scoff. I could see that coming.]
Two White House security officials who allegedly scuffled with the President in the presidential limousine are now denying through intermediaries what Cassidy Hutchinson said under oath in yesterday’s hearing. But Ginni Thomas’s switcheroo is a good reminder that talk — or rather claims through intermediaries — is cheap. People who claim they are just champing at the bit to testify usually end up refusing to testify.
Indeed, it’s fair to question the journalistic decisions behind some of these reports. Most of us had never heard of Cassidy Hutchinson until a few days ago. Her claims definitely deserve scrutiny. But testimony under oath is the price of entry to this conversation. Indeed, the two men in question, Tony Ornato and Bobby Engel, have been able to get denials into print without even agreeing to speak on the record. In other words, they’ve refused to call up reporters and say, “I never said what she claims and the incident did not happen.” They have been able to get reporters to report that people ‘familiar with their thinking’ say they will deny it. I assure you: They could get their on-the-record quotes into print at the drop of a hat. All it takes is a phone call.
It is worth noting that one of the men has already been accused of lying on Trump’s behalf and both had a reputation of working as Trump’s enablers during his presidency. Indeed, day two reports suggest that the purported denials are perhaps more semantic than substantive, denying that the President “assaulted” the lead Secret Service agent as opposed to denying that there was an irate confrontation in the limousine in which the President demanded to be taking to the Capitol.
Maybe these two will testify. Maybe the story is different than what Hutchinson claimed. But until the two are willing at least to speak on the record, it’s really all meaningless. And her claims are more credible until these two agree to testify about this incident under oath.
[…] There was nothing in NATO’s posture that threatened Russia’s territorial integrity. Canada and Denmark make up a great deal of that “encirclement,” yet neither was particularly concerned with Russia. The Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)? Their militaries each were around 15,000 strong, and no other NATO countries had a presence. Russia was buffered from Poland by Belarus, and Poland wasn’t invading Russia anytime soon. No one had a problem with the rump Russian territory of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, or its major Russian naval and nuclear presence. Turkey was more concerned with the Kurds to its south, and Armenians to its east. Its increasingly autocratic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was actually buying advanced air defenses systems from Russia.
As we’ve seen, European NATO militaries were hollowed out by complacency and a sense that Russia was more interesting as an economic partner (and energy supplier) than a military foe. […]
The problem wasn’t that Russia was threatened by NATO, it was that NATO just wasn’t scared of Russia anymore, depriving it of the respect and deference Putin thought it deserved. A peaceful Russia would’ve been free to continue grifting to the benefit of its oligarchs, making Putin and his entourage fabulously wealthy by heating and cooling the European continent for decades more. […] already worth hundreds of billions of dollars, Putin yearned for something more. He needed historical notoriety.
Now, four months into his failed blitzkrieg, NATO will soon be larger, accepting requests from historically neutral Finland and Sweden to join. What joy Putin, his supporters, and the tankies got from Turkey’s initial reticence (the alliance requires unanimous approval to accept new members) was hilariously snatched away yesterday as Turkey and the two Nordic nations signed a new treaty.
[…] Here are the things Turkey got:
• Sweden/Finland will lift its arms embargo
• Both will support Turkey on PKK, stop support to YPG
• They will amend their laws on terrorism
• They will share Intel with each other
• They will extradite terror suspects
With an 830-mile border with Russia, Finland nearly completes NATO’s encirclement of western Russia. It, along with Sweden, boasts some of the most capable air and ground forces in Europe. Russia blustered and threatened, but in the end, what can it do? In fact, all that empty blustering just further underscores how pathetic Russia has become.
Meanwhile, NATO’s 30,000-soldier rapid reaction force, which was deployed to the Baltic countries, Poland, and Romania in response to Russia’s aggression, is about to become a 300,000-strong presence. Additionally, the Baltic countries and Poland have all requested permanent NATO bases, and particularly an American presence (it comes with the bonus of a nuclear shield).
And when Ukraine wins this war? It too will become part of NATO before long, and it too will host NATO troops in its territory. The only thing that might prevent that would be a negotiated settlement that removes Russian troops from all occupied territories including Crimea in exchange for neutrality, and we know that’s not going to happen.
All that is already catastrophically bad for Russia, but it gets even worse.
After 50 years of “negotiations” over Russia’s occupation of the Kuril Islands, those efforts were abandoned at the start of the war (and they were going so well!). After decades of trying to play nice, Japan declared the islands “illegally occupied” and is ramping up anti-Russian rhetoric. With Russia’s military depleted in Ukraine, Russia now has to worry about an angry neighbor on its Pacific flank. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea are both attending the NATO summit in Madrid this week—a sign of greater integration between the Western alliance and Asia’s most economically powerful democracies. For Japan, particularly, this is a watershed moment given its constitutionally mandated pacifism. And while a NATO with Japan in it is unlikely for various reasons, even tighter integration has to be driving Putin crazy.
Looking to Russia’s south, the former Soviet republicans in Central Asia are getting antsy at Putin’s talk of empire. We saw Kazakhstan’s dictator Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, (literally propped up by Russian forces just last year during a popular uprising), directly tell Putin to his face that he wouldn’t recognize the independence of Russian proxy states in Ukraine. He hadn’t taken kindly to Putin saying to his face that his country didn’t deserve independence.
[…] Kazakhstan is about a third of Russia’s southern border, and that’s a long border spanning 11 time zones. Russia expected a pliant puppet regime. It no longer has that as countries that might have cowered at Russia’s belligerence just six months ago are thumbing their noses at their impotent neighbor. China is eyeing the situation hungrily, ready to fill a void.
This might be the most unmitigated foreign policy disaster by any one nation since … World War II? NATO has significantly enlarged its presence on Russia’s border, and now is just 250 miles from St. Petersburg. NATO’s military presence on Russia’s border is about to grow from nothing, to 30,000, to 300,000, and much of it will be permanent. Ukraine has shredded Russia’s military to the point that Belarus is providing military aid for the their war effort. Russia’s foes and neighbors are taking note. Japan and South Korea are playing footsie with NATO, while China increases its influence in Central Asia. Russia only got four supporting votes at the United Nations voting on the war: Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, and Syria. Even old allies like Cuba, Venezuela, and half of Africa turned their backs.
I truly wonder what Putin thinks of all that. His generals can lie to him about the battlefield situation, but this? There’s no way he can avoid this reality. […]
Worth repeating: “All that empty blustering just further underscores how pathetic Russia has become.”
Carol Leonnig, author of “Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service,” talks about questions raised by Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony about a Donald Trump freak out on his own security and how the ability of the Secret Service to do its duty has been compromised by some members[‘] allegiance to Trump.
[…] I didn’t know this—Poland tried to convince Donald Trump to create a permanent U.S. presence in their country by naming their home “Fort Trump.” Unbelievable that Trump didn’t immediately agree to that. […]
Turkey didn’t get F35s from the United States, but they got F16s, originally denied because of Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defense system.
BREAKING: @Potus announces new US military deployments to Europe:
1. Create permanent HQ for US 5th Army Corps in Poland
2. Deploy additional rotational brigade to Romania
3. Deploy 2 additional F-35 squadrons to the UK
4. “Enhance” rotational deployments in Baltics
5. Deploy 2 additional Navy destroyers to Spain, bringing total from 4 to 6
6. Deploy “additional” air defense to Germany, Italy
“At a moment when Putin has shattered peace in Europe… US and allies are stepping up, proving NATO is more needed than ever, and more important than ever”
Step by step. There were a few revelations but the most important reality is that Trump is closer to being prosecuted because his criminal intent has been further confirmed. The incitement in the insurrection now seems more like furtherance of multiple crimes. The usual suspects are trying to divert attention by seizing on peripheral elements of today’s hearings.
[Barb McQuade tweeted] Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony today was riveting. She helped confirm that Trump is unfit to serve as President. Important new facts: he knew the mob was armed when he urged them to the Capitol, he wanted to go with them, and then refused to call them off.
[…] Why did Meadows seem unsurprised by the weapons and Trump’s refusal to call off the mob? Why did Trump want to go there?
[…] And don’t be distracted by the controversy over whether Trump did or did not grab the steering wheel. Just like throwing his food, it Is a juicy fact, but not important to the plot line.
[…] DOJ can put all these people in the grand jury and grant immunity where necessary to find out whether Trump was coordinating with Proud Boys or Oath Keepers to use force to stop the count. If so, it may be possible to charge him with seditious conspiracy.
But even if not, there already appears to be strong evidence of conspiracy to defraud the United States or obstruction of an official proceeding based on Trump’s acts toward Pence and Raffensperger.
Teri Kanefield tweeted:
The Rand Corp. has a paper on how to combat the ‘firehose of falsehoods,’ a Russian propaganda technique.
(The technique is also used by Fox and America’s far right-wing. What a coincidence, right?)
The use of this method tells rapid and continuous stream of lies.
The user exhibits a “shameless willingness” to tell outrageous lies that lots of people know are lies.
The liar doesn’t care about consistency. He doesn’t care if it’s obvious he’s lying.
The goal is the “disruption of truthful reporting and messaging.”
While we must refute the falsehoods, “retractions and refutations are seldom effective.”
Therefore, “Don’t expect to counter the Firehose of Falsehood with a squirt gun of truth.”
Instead, the solution is to put raincoats on the population.
When people expect the lies from certain players, the lies more easily roll off.
[…] In Russia, the lies maintain fascism.
In the US, they are designed to destroy the “political establishment.”
Why do they want to do that?
[…] The people who want to destroy the “political establishment” believe that the government no longer represents people “like them” and thus lacks legitimacy.
[…] The modern Republican Party + Putin = true love because they have common goals.
[…] To connect all the dots: People who accept lies from people like Trump and Putin do so because the lies speak to what they think is an underlying “truth” such as “Ukraine is part of Russia” or “whites are the real Americans.”
[…] the committee is deliberately and intentionally laying out the building blocks for intent and premeditation. At Tuesday’s hearing, it showed:
— Meadows was told of intelligence ahead of Jan. 6 that the day could get very violent. He shared that with Trump. But Meadows rarely had any reaction or seemed surprised at all and was equally nonplussed by the violence on the day of the insurrection, according to Hutchinson.
— Meadows also participated, by phone — though he wanted to go in person — for a briefing with Roger Stone and retired Gen. Michael Flynn in the “War Room” they had set up on Jan. 5 in the Willard Hotel.
Stone and Flynn were intimately involved in the “Stop the Steal” movement. There are pictures of Stone with white supremacist militia functioning as his bodyguards on Jan. 6.
Flynn has been linked to the QAnon conspiracy and pleaded the Fifth, the right not to incriminate yourself, on multiple occasions before the Jan. 6 committee, including when asked simply if he believed in the peaceful transfer of power in the United States.
— Trump knew of violent people in the crowd, knew they were armed, didn’t want their weapons taken away and didn’t feel threatened.
[…] Instead, he was more concerned that the crowd wouldn’t look as big as he wanted it to in pictures and was firing them up, encouraging them to go to the Capitol after his speech.
— Trump resisted calls to tamp down the violence, and Hutchinson quotes Meadows saying Trump thought Vice President Mike Pence deserved to be hanged.
“He doesn’t want to do anything,” Meadows said of Trump, per Hutchinson. “These are his people.”
At another point, Hutchinson said she overheard Meadows telling Cipollone, who was urgently telling Meadows about the violence and that they even are chanting to hang Pence, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks he deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.” […]
“If you take it as a Venn diagram, the part of the circle that is about attacks on voting rights, the circle that is about the attacks against the LGBTQ community, and the circle that is the attacks on a woman’s right to choose, it’s really interesting to see the overlap of those circles.”
Commentary from Wonkette:
[…] Indeed! It’s like there’s a white supremacist Christian minority hellbent on stealing the country and democracy itself, and they don’t care who they have to destroy to achieve it. Somebody oughta do something about that. […]
More from Kamala Harris:
[…] “I never believed them. I didn’t believe them. That’s why I voted against them,” the vice president said in an interview on Monday when Bash, pointing to Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch’s previous statements underscoring Roe v. Wade’s long-held precedent, asked Harris whether she believed the two justices intentionally misled the public and Congress during the confirmation process.
“It was clear to me when I was sitting in that chair as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that they were … very likely to do what they just did. That was my perspective. That was my opinion. And that’s why I voted like I did.”
More commentary from Wonkette:
[Kamala Harris is] out there, and she’s talking. And this is just the beginning. And even though she didn’t say their names, she’s right that Susan Collins and Joe Manchin are a fuckin’ idiot if they didn’t understand that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were lying to their faces.
Wonkette: “Reviews Are In: Select Committee’s ‘Madness Of King Donald’ Was Boffo Hit!”
The New Yorker’s John Cassidy noted a sure sign that the Trumposphere was nervous about yesterday’s House January 6 Select Committee hearing: Much of Tuesday morning, leading up to Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, Trumpers managed to get “Hunter Biden” trending on social media. The bots were very worried.
And Oh, Golly was there a lot of upset over the testimony from Hutchinson, who had worked in the White House as a top aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. That’s probably not too surprising, considering all she had to say! [snipped details already presented in comments above]
[…] So yeah, Trump mad. He performed his usual denial ritual, saying he barely recognized Hutchinson, but he’d heard “very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’)” and suggested she was just trying to sabotage him because she hadn’t gotten a job at Mar-a-Lago. [LOLO LOL LOL]
[…] Sarah Matthews:
Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.
For those complaining of “hearsay,” I imagine the Jan. 6 committee would welcome any of those involved to deny these allegations under oath.
[Rightwingers online are saying, per Wonkette’s paraphrase:] Also too, while Trump may well have tried to get to the Capitol so he could march into the House chamber and declare himself dictator for life, have you noticed that gasoline is really expensive?
Random observation: the way the House Judiciary “GOP” Twitter account is responding to the January 6th hearings, and particularly yesterday’s, is reminding me of how the Kremlin (I think it was the account of the Russian embassy in the UK) responded to Carole Cadwalladr’s reporting.
The Associated Press is apparently branching out into the dark comedy business, and seems poised to give Yr Wonkette a run for its money (all of which is donated by our lovely smart readers) in the field of inspiring HOLLOW MORDANT LAUGHTER. See for example this alleged news/analysis piece about the post-Roe political environment, in which the AP reports on how Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) says it’s time for lawmakers to “do everything in our power to meet the needs of struggling women and their families so they can choose life.”
Yes, because if there’s one thing the Republican Party is known for, it’s helping families burdened with the costs of raising a family. Mostly the GOP helps by saying “family” a lot and attacking gay rights, which apparently are a huge burden on American families’ budgets.
The AP’s dark comedy set starts off with this hilarious riff:
Democrats suggest their rivals are eleventh-hour converts who would offer half-measures at best and voters should judge them accordingly.
“It’s pretty cynical to say you want to do it now,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash. “If it’s a priority, it should have always been a priority and actions really speak louder than words.”
[…] The story continues with the comedy humor. We’ve highlighted some of the funniest bits here!
GOP leaders have generally opposed Biden’s expansion of the child tax credit — saying it would discourage people from working, despite evidence to the contrary. Congressional Republicans said the Democrats’ paid family leave plan — which would put the U.S. on par with other wealthy nations — could limit choices for families and crush small businesses. In 2017, House Republicans voted to repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with measures that could have made maternity care optional.
Well look, if you want to support struggling women, you certainly wouldn’t give them money, you’d make them prove they’re not lazy. That’s just logic, so they’ll appreciate the value of hard work. […] And if they find some time to actually see the children they’re working so hard to feed, they can teach the babies that mama is tired all the time because she is a striver who will be rich just as soon as her employers get another tax cut.
The AP segues into another hilarious, if edgy, comic bit:
An Associated Press analysis earlier this year found that states with the strictest abortion laws — often led by Republicans — generally provide far less support to parents and children, usually leading to more poverty and worse health outcomes.
We LOVE observational comedy, especially when it’s backed by data.
Then, in the audience-participation part of the routine, the AP sought comment from pro-family, pro-women legislators! And wow, do they ever come through!
In response to AP’s findings, many conservative state lawmakers said women can give their newborns up for adoption and said they would support funding increases for foster-care programs.
Pregnant? Scared? (White?) If you really love your kids, you’ll give them to someone else!
A Scott spokesperson explained the senator would help out struggling parents by
removing work requirements for parents with children under the age of 6 who live in public housing and receive food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
And golly, that ought to take care of the problem! In another sharply satirical observation, the AP notes that Scott’s very own tax the poor plan
says that no federal program or tax laws should reward people for being unmarried and that the federal government should pay all costs for unwed mothers who put their children up for adoption, among other policies.
Families that adopt children are eligible for big tax credits, so that’s clearly a better deal than giving tax credits for slutty unmarried parents to raise their own children and probably do it wrong.
We’re really looking forward to the AP’s next comedy special, which with material like this may offer a nice PG-rated alternative to Wonkette, because we tend to say “fuck” too much, especially when reading about Republican plans to “help” poor families by disintegrating them entirely.
[…] Viewers saw Hutchinson during a previously recorded deposition, when she was asked whether other White House officials indicated what the then-president hoped to accomplish after arriving on the Hill. She responded:
“I remember hearing a few different ideas discussed with — between [then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows] and [Republican Rep.] Scott Perry, Mark and Rudy Giuliani. I don’t know which conversations were elevated to the president. I don’t know what he personally wanted to do when he went up to the Capitol that day. You know, I — I know that there were discussions about him having another speech outside of the Capitol before going in. I know that there was a conversation about him going into the House chamber at one point.”
That’s a rather striking detail. There were “conversations” — presumably in advance of Jan. 6 — involving the then-White House chief of staff, the then-president’s campaign lawyer, and a Republican member of Congress allied with the White House. They kicked around ideas about Trump, after arriving at the Capitol with his followers, giving another speech, possibly even inside the House chamber, to which he had not been invited.
[…] I get the impression speechwriters hadn’t exactly put together a draft — but presumably he’d try to use his powers of persuasion to convince members of Congress to ignore the election results and give him power he hadn’t earned.
Insiders such as Meadows and Perry, of course, could shed light on this, but so far, they’ve refused to do what Hutchinson has done: testify under oath.
Another thought to add to comment 484: If Trump had gone to the Capitol on January 6th and proceeded to the House chamber to give a dictator-for-life speech, the mob of his cult followers would have followed him in there. The mob probably would have zip-tied the legislators and then cheered Trump on to a successful coup.
[The] Trump-packed U.S. Supreme Court is not going to be satisfied it has owned the libs once it has done away with contraception, abortion, marriage equality, voting rights, and the federal government’s ability to regulate anything to protect citizens from guns to baby food to air and water […] Their list of grievances against 20th-century progress isn’t going to stop with our private lives. Not when their twin bugbears of the New Deal and Great Society still stand. Not until they’ve completed the Great Regression. Elected officials haven’t been able to get it done, so the unelected Supreme Court will take on the job.
Since the Social Security Act was enacted into law on August 14, 1935, Republicans have tried to tear it down. The thought of all that money being safely stored away by the government to help secure dignified and sustainable retirements for regular working people has rankled the Republicans all these decades. […] Case in point: Former President George W. Bush entered his second term in office with a radical “reform” plan to privatize Social Security. “I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” he declared after the 2004 election.
He really did try, and the people turned on him. “According to the Gallup organization, public disapproval of President Bush’s handling of Social Security rose by 16 points from 48 to 64% between his State of the Union address and June.” Democrats were united against his proposal and Republicans could see it was toxic, and used Bush’s post-Hurricane Katrina dive in public support to pull the plug. Even the Very Serious People involved in all those Very Serious commissions making all their Very Serious pronouncements about how Social Security has to be “reformed” […] have not been able to convince elected Republicans to finally do it. Because elections would be hard to win afterward.
So it will be down to the unelected Supreme Court to do it, just as the Federalist Society—which built this court with the enthusiastic assistance of Mitch McConnell, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump—has intended all along.
Erica Suares, policy adviser to McConnell made that very clear with the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the seat McConnell stole from President Barack Obama and his nominee, Merrick Garland. Trump Supreme Court nominees could “fundamentally change the country,” she said. The goal was “shifting the culture” toward a limited federal government, adding “with these lifetime appointments we can really change the country in a short period of time.” Will Dunham, then policy director for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and a Heritage Foundation alum, said they were aiming beyond undoing Obama’s achievements at going “even further back—all the way back to the New Deal.”
The New Deal, and after it, LBJ’s Great Society, are definitely on the chopping block once civil rights have been done away with. It’s been the plan for decades, as described in 2018 by People for the American Way’s Peter Montgomery.
Throughout its history, a central focus of Federalist Society members has been developing and promoting a pre-New Deal understanding of federalism. A 1998 student conference focused on the structure of the Constitution, including “undoing the New Deal.” In 2001, the society sponsored a conference called “Rolling Back the New Deal.” It featured a presentation by law professor Richard Epstein called “The Mistakes of 1937”—a reference to the Supreme Court adopting a more expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Epstein, an influential Federalist Society figure, has also promoted an extreme view of “takings” doctrine under the Fifth Amendment, which he admitted in a book on the topic would effectively invalidate most laws passed in the 20th Century.”
All of that built on the shaky foundations of “originalism,” now the prevailing constitutional theory of the Court. This “once […] fringe intellectual concept, confined to conservative legal circles,” has “achieved its ultimate ascendance,” writes Joshua Zeitz who will soon release Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House.
“The theory, which views jurisprudence as frozen in time, flatly rejects the idea of the Constitution as a living and evolving document and instead demands that we interpret its provisions exactly as the framers intended,” he explains, even though the execution of that theory in supporting radical decisions is at best sloppy and at worst a complete misreading of actual history and prevailing thought at the founding.
“Curiously, in the space of 24 hours, the court’s majority moved the goal posts—1790s for guns, 1850s or so, for abortion—in determining what historical standard should inform the boundaries of constitutional exegesis,” Zeitz writes. They also reversed themselves on the idea of states’ rights in that 24 hours—the state has no authority whatsoever when it comes to guns, all the authority when it comes to abortion. At least until a Republican Congress passes a national ban on abortion. That they’d uphold.
This is a court that will have absolutely no compunction about declaring Social Security unconstitutional—and with it, Medicare and Medicaid and most of the safety net. The foundation on what passes for intellectual thought in the far right to do so has been built. All it’s going to take is the right set of challenges, which Trump-packed federal courts will happily provide.
The far right pushback to the searing testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, before the Jan. 6 committee Tuesday kicked in immediately. And of course the traditional media fell for the diversion. Some in the media are seizing on the trivial, falling for an attempt from Trump hangers-on to distract from Trump’s attempted coup. Because even when faced with a violent attempted overthrow of the government, there has to be both sides.
First to fall was NBC’s Peter Alexander, who passed along a denial from an anonymous source “close to the Secret Service” who disputed the account from Hutchinson about what happened in the Suburban carrying Donald Trump away after his speech at his “Stop the Steal” rally. Hutchinson testified that Anthony “Tony” Ornato told her Trump was “irate” and “said something to the effect of I’m the f’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now.” When he was told by Secret Service Agent Bobby Engel that they had to return to the White House, Trump “reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel,” and when Engel held Trump’s arm away, Trump “used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And Mr.—when Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.”
Alexander’s source said that both men—Ornato and Engel—“dispute Trump grabbed the steering wheel or assaulted an agent.” Note that Hutchinson didn’t say that Ornato told her Trump actually grabbed the wheel or that he assaulted an agent. Just that he was attempting to do that. Also note that no one is disputing the fact that Trump was livid that he wasn’t being taken to the Capitol to lead the assault.
Not wanting to be left out of the bothsidesing on this one, Politico jumped in to report that the committee did not reach out to the Secret Service before this hearing. “[W]e were not asked to reappear before the Committee in response to yesterday’s new information and we plan on formally responding on the record,” Anthony Guglielmi, the service’s chief of communications told Politico in an email.
“We have and will continue to make any member of the Secret Service available,” Guglielmi said. Note that the agency is not disputing the content of Hutchinson’s testimony, just that the agency wasn’t contacted about it beforehand. And never mind that Engel already testified to the committee in private session and told it that Trump got into the vehicle with the intention of going to the Capitol. Whether he talked about what happened inside the armored Suburban isn’t public. But the headline from Politico: “Secret Service: Jan. 6 committee didn’t reach out before Hutchinson’s explosive Trump testimony.”
Meanwhile, here’s what else Hutchinson testified to and what the committee revealed, which no one is disputing but which is also being swept aside by reporters looking for some kind of “but her email” story:
Rudy Giuliani was in the White House in the days leading up to Jan. 6 for planning, and Hutchison said “I recall hearing the terms ‘Proud Boys’ and ‘Oath Keepers’ when [Rudy] Giuliani was around.” She also recalled her boss, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, telling her “things might get real, real bad on January 6” when she asked about what Giuliani was talking about.
The Secret Service informed Trump and his advisers at the rally that there were people with rifles, pistols, spears, and body armor outside the Ellipse and Trump’s response was that the Secret Service should take down the metal detectors to let them in. “I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the fucking [magnometers] away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.”
After White House counsel Pat Cipollone confronted Trump about the direct threat to Vice President Mike Pence during the siege of the Capitol, that the crowd was chanting “hang Mike Pence,” she heard Meadows tell Cipollone “You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it.” She said Meadows told the White House counsel, in her hearing, “He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
On January 7, 2021, Trump’s inner circle made him record a video condemning the riot. Hutchinson said Trump deleted references in the original drafts about prosecuting the rioters, and that he “wanted to put that he wanted to potentially pardon them,” because he “didn’t think that they did anything wrong.” She testified that “He thought … the person who did something wrong that day was Mike Pence by not standing with him.”
Hutchinson testified that Meadows wanted that pardon language included as well, but the White House counsel advised against it. Also, she testified that Meads and Giuliani sought pardons.
[…] The committee also provided evidence—and the promise of much more in follow up hearings—of ongoing attempts by the Trump inner circle to intimidate witnesses and tamper with their testimony.
None of this is being disputed by the anonymous sources or by the Secret Service spokesperson. Not one of them—anonymously or openly—has denied the testimony about Trump being informed about the weapons, demanding the metal detectors be removed, and telling people to go to the Capitol.
They’re also not talking about the fact that Tony Ornato, took leave from his job as detail leader with the Secret Service to become Trump’s deputy chief of staff in 2020. He was part of the team that planned Trump’s infamous Bible photo op in Lafayette Square after peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters were attacked with rubber bullets, flash bangs, and tear gas.
By the way, former White House communications direct Alyssa Farah told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “she has told the truth under oath” to the committee, about that incident, “only to have Ornato dispute her claim while NOT under oath.” Farah says she told Ornato and Meadows “to give a warning to the press that they’d be clearing the park so members of the press wouldn’t get hurt. He said on the record to reporters it was untrue.” But, Farah says, “half a dozen people heard it.”
Ornato is back with the Secret Service after that stint with Trump, and is now overseeing the Rowley Training Center. He’s actually training new Secret Service agents. So it is worth taking anything that the Secret Service says not under oath with a very large helping of salt.
And to demand better from the media by looking at the larger picture. None of the critical aspects of what the Jan. 6 committee has made public have been refuted, just the trivial—whether Trump got his hand on a steering wheel or an agent’s neck or not. That’s a distraction. It does nothing to refute the building case of Trump’s seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Update: The hospital system announced it is reversing its position from earlier today, and will in fact provide emergency contraception to patients who need it in Missouri. A victory!
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court dismantling reproductive health care and overturning Roe v. Wade, folks across the country are scrambling to figure out what this deep loss means for their communities. As we know, a number of states already had trigger bans established, effectively banning a form of safe, private health care. This reality is scary enough as it is, but as reported by local outlet KSHB 41, some hospitals are making the tough decision to no longer offer emergency contraception, either.
As covered by the outlet, the Saint Luke’s Health System said it will temporarily no longer provide emergency contraception (like Plan B) at its hospitals located in Missouri. Why?
The overturn of Roe triggered Missouri’s anti-abortion law, and according to a statement from a spokesperson for the health system, the law is actually so broad and vague that folks are worried it could be interpreted as including emergency contraception. [Sheesh. What a confusing mess.]
Now, to be clear, Plan B is not an abortion. Emergency contraception is not an abortion. It’s unclear if this health system will stop providing IUDs, Ella, and birth control pills or exclusively Plan B. Either way, it’s (obviously) a heartbreaking situation for all involved.
People deserve the right to safe, legal, and accessible health care including emergency contraception and abortions. One of these things is not “better” than the other. But parsing out the details here is important because emergency contraception is not an abortion.
And yet here we are.
Per the statement, the health system is concerned that clinicians could be put “in a position that might result in criminal prosecution” if they continue to provide emergency contraception.
As of now, in Missouri, physicians who induce or perform abortions that do not constitute a medical emergency (meaning the life of the person seeking an abortion is not at risk) may be charged with a Class B felony. In addition to losing their medical license, this can also result in up to 15 years in prison. […]
Wow. Working with Rudi Giuliani can cost you a lot of money … and it can land you in prison.
Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes.
Parnas, 50, had sought leniency on the grounds that he’d cooperated with the Congressional probe of Trump and his efforts to get the leaders of Ukraine to investigate President Joe Biden’s son.
U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken didn’t give Parnas credit for that assistance, which came only after the Soviet-born businessman was facing criminal charges. But the judge still imposed a sentence lighter than the six years sought by prosecutors.
[…] Giuliani, who was working at the time as a personal lawyer for then-President Donald Trump, has said he knew nothing about the crimes of Parnas and others.
[…] Parnas and a business associate, Igor Fruman, attracted attention from reporters after arranging big donations to Republican politicians, including a $325,000 donation to a political action committee supporting Trump.
An October conviction also supported a finding that he made illegal donations in 2018 to promote a new energy company.
During Parnas’ sentencing hearing, the judge also heard from other people who had lost money with him in failed business deals.
Dianne Pues said the businessman “destroyed my life” when he failed to repay money she and her husband had loaned him to produce a movie called “Anatomy of an Assassin.”
Parnas promised he would become a new person.
He made a special apology to Gucciardo, turning to face him as he spoke.
“I’d like to apologize to Mr. Gucciardo. Even though I never spent a dollar of his money. I lied to him and used our friendship. Charles, I am sorry,” he said.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will officially step down from his post on Thursday, ending a nearly three-decade tenure on the nation’s highest court, according to a letter from the White House.
The retirement paves the way for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, confirmed in April to fill Breyer’s forthcoming vacancy, to join Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the court’s left-leaning bloc. Jackson, the court’s first Black female justice, faced contentious confirmation hearings before being confirmed with a 53-47 vote by the Senate. […]
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) […] said during a Friday interview with NewsNation he would defend the law banning sodomy because the Supreme Court in the past has “stepped into issues that I don’t think there was any constitutional provision dealing with.”
When asked if he would have a personal issue with defending a law banning sodomy, Paxton said he would not.
“My job is to defend state law and I’ll continue to do that, that is my job,” the Texas attorney general said.
The Supreme Court ruled a Texas law banning two persons of the same sex from having sexual intercourse was unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
The justices said the law violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects an individual’s right to life and liberty without interference from the government.
[…] The landmark Lawrence v. Texas case eventually paved the way for Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which legalized same-sex marriage.
Last week, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade (1971), [Roe ruled that abortion was a constitutional right based on the Due Process Clause].
[…] Justice Clarence Thomas drew national headlines when he suggested the court reconsider other cases based on the Due Process Clause, including Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges.
Paxton on Friday said he would have to “take a look” at any statute Texas were to pass if the high court overturned Lawrence v. Texas. […]
The frequency of shelling on the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk is “enormous”, the regional governor of Lugansk said on Wednesday.
Lysychansk “is constantly being shelled with large calibres. The fighting is continuing at the outskirts of the city. The Russian army is trying to attack constantly,” governor Serhiy Haidai said.
“Now there is a peak of fighting. The frequency of shelling is enormous,” he said, adding that out of the population of nearly 100,000 prior to the war, the city has only about 15,000 civilians remaining.
Their evacuation “might be dangerous at the moment,” he said.
The Russians “brought in big numbers of vehicles, enormous number of people. Shelling and attacks do not stop,” Gaiday said.
Lithuania continues to be under a severe cyberattack by Russian hackers. Yesterday, a Russian official threatened Lithuanians with a “meat grinder.” The Russian war criminal regime is out of control and continues their escalation against a NATO country
And this is not over Kaliningrad. I did a thread the other day of some of Russia’s escalation against Lithuania since last fall. Russia also threatened Poland yesterday with a “meat grinder” which is what they are experiencing in Ukraine
Russia will respond in kind if Nato deploys troops in Finland and Sweden: Putin
Russia will respond in kind if Nato deploys troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the US-led military alliance, Vladimir Putin has said.
The Russian president told Russian state television after talks with regional leaders in the central Asian ex-Soviet state of Turkmenistan:
With Sweden and Finland, we don’t have the problems that we have with Ukraine. They want to join Nato, go ahead.
But they must understand there was no threat before, while now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in kind and create the same threats for the territories from which threats towards us are created.
Putin said it was inevitable that Moscow’s relations with Helsinki and Stockholm would sour over their Nato membership.
Everything was fine between us, but now there might be some tensions, there certainly will.
Tony Ornato sure seems to deny conversations he’s apparently had. First this one with Keith Kellogg in “I Alone Can Fix It” & now he’s denying the story he told Cassidy Hutchinson. Those of us who worked w/ Tony know where his loyalties lie. He should testify under oath.
Quote at the (Twitter) link.
Quoted in Lynna’s #486:
Ornato is back with the Secret Service after that stint with Trump, and is now overseeing the Rowley Training Center. He’s actually training new Secret Service agents.
Disputing Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the January 6th committee, Donald J. Trump claimed that ketchup would never have wound up dripping down the Oval Office wall if Rudy Giuliani had not ducked.
“Lyin’ Cassidy said that I threw my lunch at the wall,” Trump wrote on his social network, Truth Social. “I actually threw it at Rudy Giuliani, and he ducked.”
“It was a perfect throw,” he boasted.
Trump said that, had the former New York mayor not ducked, “ketchup would have been dripping down Rudy’s head like his hair die [sic] does.”
Trump expressed some surprise that Giuliani was able to evade the flying lunch. “When you consider how bombed he was, the guy had incredible reflexes,” the former President observed.
This explains why the Baltics are supporting Ukraine any way they can.
They’ve been there before and not so long ago.
…where more than 200,000 people were deported during the Soviet occupation and tens of thousands of others were executed and hanged in town squares in the 1940s.”
The Russians always eliminate the elites in the countries they occupy. That would be the educated, artists, poets, writers, scientists, business people etc.. The ones who create and keep a culture and society going.
A lot of those 200,000 people deported just disappeared and were never heard from again. The disappearances are a terrorist tactic.
Same thing happened to Poland, East Germany, and anywhere the Russians conquered.
Bloomberg Soviet Terror Made Sacrifice Second Nature for Baltics
Ott Tammik, Milda Seputyte and Aaron Eglitis Mon, June 27, 2022, 10:00 PM· edited for length
(Bloomberg) — When Kaja Kallas’s mother was six months old, she was forced into a Soviet cattle car and sent on a three-week journey to Siberia.
Tens of thousands of other deportees from the Baltic states never returned, but eight decades later, Kallas is prime minister of Estonia and the memories of occupation underpin her politics. Now she and her fellow leaders from the three small countries perched on Russia’s western frontier have made deep commitments to stand up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of a fellow ex-Soviet republic.
They’ve sent weapons to Ukraine, raised defense spending, and unplugged themselves from Russian energy sources. They’ve also berated their richer western partners in NATO and the European Union to do more to help prevent a repeat of the atrocities that the Kremlin-led occupation committed across the region last century.
The reports of summary executions in the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, allegations of rape and deportations of Ukrainians to Russia, the theft of resources including grain, coal and steel: For Kallas and others in the Baltics, it recalls the period when their countries were absorbed into the Soviet Union during World War II.
But their repeated hesitation and phone sessions with Putin have drawn scorn from leaders in the Baltics, where more than 200,000 people were deported during the Soviet occupation and tens of thousands of others were executed and hanged in town squares in the 1940s.
“If we get bogged down in only our own personal benefit, then we’re missing the big picture,” Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said at an EU summit last month where leaders banned the purchase of most Russian oil but didn’t discuss gas. “That’s only money. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives.”
ravensays
From the Bloomberg article I just posted.
““If we get bogged down in only our own personal benefit, then we’re missing the big picture,” Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said at an EU summit last month where leaders banned the purchase of most Russian oil but didn’t discuss gas. “That’s only money. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives.”
We are spending a lot of money on Ukraine.
It’s nothing when you look at what the Ukrainians are spending.
The lives of mostly their young people and their best and brightest at that.
Ukraine is quiet about their casualties but they are high.
This war of attrition inevitably results in high casualties for both the Russians and Ukrainians.
ravensays
Xpost from another thread today
This falls under the Deal With It strategy.
90 elected DAs have already pledged not to prosecute women who have abortions.
Including the DA for Austin, Texas.
Two thirds of the US population want to keep abortion safe and legal.
It is turning out that…we aren’t entirely powerless.
I keep saying, we outnumber those 6 Supreme Court judges by 55 million to 1.
This Texas district attorney is one of dozens who have vowed not to prosecute abortion
Updated June 29, 202210:40 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition RACHEL TREISMAN npr
District Attorney José Garza, pictured in Austin, Texas, in 2021. He is one of nearly 90 elected prosecutors from across the country who has publicly pledged not to prosecute those seeking or providing abortions.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade leaves decisions about abortion access up to states, many of which have moved swiftly to limit it.
And while dozens of states were prepared with trigger laws that would immediately ban or restrict abortions, some are now encountering obstacles in implementation and enforcement. The pushback is coming from within their own borders, in the form of legal challenges from abortion rights advocates and opposition from local prosecutors.
With Roe overturned, state constitutions are now at the center of the abortion fight
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN AMERICA
Judges in states including Louisiana and Utah have temporarily blocked abortion bans from taking effect in order to hear challenges against them. And dozens of local prosecutors across the country have publicly pledged not to prosecute people who seek, facilitate or provide abortions….
KGsays
Here are the things Turkey got:
• Sweden/Finland will lift its arms embargo
• Both will support Turkey on PKK, stop support to YPG
• They will amend their laws on terrorism
• They will share Intel with each other
• They will extradite terror suspects – Lynna, OM@476 quoting DailyKos
That is extremely bad news: NATO, Sweden and Finland appear to have caved in to Turkish fascism.
@ #499. D’oh. My apologies for the imbed.
Not sure when this is going to be here timezones~wise but some folks might be able to & like to see this and good work by so many scientists and engineers making this wonderful if now routine~ish rocket launch happen. The things we take for granted now and the amount of work, science and effort and history that’s gone into making them happen and the good it brings us all.. :
https://www.space.com/astra-nasa-tropics-hurricane-mission-launch-sunday
See also via NASA page :
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt/2022/nasa-to-launch-6-small-satellites-to-monitor-study-tropical-cyclones
Meanwhile in flu news from Oz but globally applicable apparently :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-12/flu-seasons-shaken-up-by-covid-restrictions-travel-vaccines/101134986
Well, that got off to a good start..
Also good advice hear I think :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-07/never-had-covid-how-to-improve-chances-of-avoiding-it/101018906?utm_campaign=abc_news_web
Covid uncatching~wise.
Linking back to the previous chapter of this thread, comment 495 shows Rudi Giuliani in more hot water. “Giuliani hit with ethics charges by D.C. authorities over false election claims.” That’s good news.
One more link back to the previous chapter of this thread: comment 491. This is also good news: “Judge blocks Louisiana GOP’s attempt at gerrymandering away Black voters’ power.”
Video of the Patriot Front bully boys being arrested.
https://twitter.com/DLamontJenkins/status/1535799711306612736
Commentary:
Link
Commentary from raven is in comment 500 in the previous chapter of this thread.
And here is the link to PZ’s post “Losers!” about the arrest of 31 white supremacists in northern Idaho.
Ah, yes, Peter Navarro lied.
FBI Calls Peter Navarro A Liar When It Comes To His Arrest On Contempt of Congress.
I agree about the “blatant stupidity.” It is astounding.
Kavanaugh’s Drinking Buddies Willing to Testify Under Oath: Brett Kavanaugh Committed Perjury During His Confirmation Hearing.
More at the link.
“I’m the PM of Estonia. We can’t allow Putin to think he’s won something”
Senators Reach Bipartisan Agreement On Modest Gun Restriction Bill
Bill Kristol commented on rightwing counter programming to the January 6 Committee Hearing that was aired in prime time:
Schiff: Jan. 6 Panel Will Show Evidence Of GOPers’ Requests For Pardons From Trump
Followup to comment 11.
Posted by readers of the article:
This is what cultural genocide looks like.
The Belarusian language is disappearing. In Belarus only 20% of the population speak it at home. The other 80% speak Russian. The two languages aren’t really all that similar.
The Russians have been suppressing the Belarusians for as long as they can. It’s always the same when they occupy non-Russian homelands. Identify the leaders and Intelligensia, politicians, business people, teachers, artists, writers etc.. Then deport and/or kill them.
“On the night of October 29, 1937, which is now remembered as the Night of the Assassinated Poets, more than a hundred Belarusian writers, poets, artists and scientists were executed in Minsk on the orders of Joseph Stalin and his associates. From 1937 to 1938, more than 100,000 Belarusians were repressed – arrested, jailed, sent to camps or killed. “ They are already doing this in the parts of Ukraine that they have invaded. They intend to get rid of the Ukrainian language.
Could advanced chatbot LaMDA actually be self aware?!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/google-ai-lamda-sentient-engineer-blake-lemoine-says/101147222
Wow. If that engineer is right..?
Some podcast episodes:
Radio Free Humanity – “Episode 70: The Gun Violence / White Power Connection (interview with John Stoehr)”:
CounterVortex – “Podcast: Rojava and Ezidikhan in the Great Game”:
5-4 – “Brett Kavanaugh – Unlocked Premium Episode”:
Citations Needed – “News Brief: Boudin Recall Coverage and how the NYT Sells ‘Tough on Crime’ Dogma to Squishy Liberals”:
Guardian – “Arron Banks loses libel action against reporter Carole Cadwalladr”:
Cadwalladr’s thread:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog.
Here’s a link to the ongoing Meduza Russia/Ukraine liveblog.
Support them if you can!
The second public hearing of the January 6th Committee will be at 10 AM ET today. It will be shown live on the cable channels, but you can also watch the C-SPAN livestream on YT here.
Raw Story – “Fox News host rebukes Devin Nunes for claiming Fox ‘destroyed’ MSNBC by not airing Jan. 6 hearings”:
Meduza – “‘A lawsuit against Russia’s non-Russian population’: The Russian authorities are threatening to revoke the citizenship of the country’s most prominent climate activist.”:
BMJ – “Political environment and mortality rates in the United States, 2001-19: population based cross sectional analysis”:
From the accompanying article by Steven Woolf – “Politics and mortality in the United States”:
In related news – The Underground Bunker – “Satanic Dumbocrats can have my block of Pepper Jack when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.”
Bill Stepien, who was to be the main witness in today’s hearing, has reportedly now said he won’t be testifying due to a “family emergency.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog.
MSNBC is reporting that Stepien’s lawyer says the emergency is that his wife is in labor, which if true is certainly a valid emergency. They’re going to read a statement from him into the record.
I imagine the Supreme Court will release some spectacularly horrific opinion shortly before the hearing begins…
Manu Raju, CNN:
Since he was a reluctant witness to begin with, this could potentially be more effective than having him testify in person.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian – “Threats against Jacinda Ardern nearly triple amid rise in conspiracy groups”:
For people that do a lot of concern trolling and waffling about “politeness” LNP reichwing “Conservatives” sure are a vicious nasty bunch of bad losers :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/monique-ryan-kooyong-teal-supporter-threatening-letters/101148526
Meanwhile :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/wikipedia-appeals-court-decision-remove-ukraine-war-information/101149268
Whilst in great news here in Oz :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/qld-first-indigenous-justice-crowley-sworn-in-supreme-court/101105448
Dan Goldman: “As someone who has been in the arena of major congressional hearings, I just want to say that the @January6thCmte’s ability to adjust on such short notice to playing Stepien’s deposition testimony in lieu of his live testimony is a remarkable feat.”
LOL. (Twitter link)
One more Aussie news story here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/rebel-wilson-sydney-morning-herald-andrew-hornery-column/101147322
Of the typically awful commercial media variety.
Guardian liveblog:
Chris Hayes: “One thing I find fascinating is the air of persistent exasperation and disbelief that the president can possibly keep getting snookered or misled, or confused or getting bad info. Did anyone realize that all of this was just predicate?”
This! He had been planning this even before the election! He’s a lifelong liar and conman! He settled a $25 million dollar fraud case during the 2016 transition! He’s currently in separate litigation and under investigation for fraud!
Guardian liveblog:
Stories of teh gazpacho police, I mean, gaspacho soup… France is now at the start of a major heatwave, unusual for this time of year (May!). The area I am in (S.France) may miss the worst of it (forecasts are for up to c.34℃ here-ish, elsewhere possibly exceeding 40℃). Today was something over 30℃, and in anticipation I made some gaspacho soup this morning — but too late for it to have chilled down sufficiently for lunch… plus, I forget to freeze a serving bowel. The process of making it turned in something of a comedy act. I first made some guacamole — but the avocado wasn’t sufficiently ripe — in the food processor’s small bowel. I’d intended to then make the gaspacho in the same bowl, so as to include the remnants of the guacamole in the gaspacho — why waste anything?
Problem: The small bowel is too small for gaspacho-making. Ok, transfer most of the remnants into a larger bowel. Then add the rest of the ingredients — in today’s version, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumber, etc. Including tonnes of olive oil, and some soya sauce with wasabi. In each case, I had very little left, so at one point there was two bottles of olive oil plus the bottle of soya sauce draining into the mix…
Then turn the food processor on. Nothing happens. Oops! Forget to install the whirling sharp cutting blade, so empty it all out into a temporary mixing bowel, install the whirling sharp cutting thingie, and start over…
End result is some gaspacho cooling, a bowel just starting to freeze, several empty bottles (including beer), some dubious guacamole, and a lot of “oily” dishes to wash.
Very compelling witnesses and evidence. I thought the part at the end of the hearing when they talked about the funds raised off the election lies and where the money went followed by clips of insurrectionists on January 6th describing how they were propelled by those lies was powerful.
Guardian liveblog:
“In video deposition, Fmr. White House attorney Eric Herschmann said he told John Eastman he was out of his mind and that he only wanted to hear two words coming out of his mouth: ‘orderly transition’.”
“So Trump raised $250 million for post-election ‘defense fund’, he spent $7.2 million (including $200,000 on his own hotels), and where did the rest go?”
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Here in France, the first round of elections to Parliament were held yesterday (Sunday 12th), with the second round in a week’s time (19th). I haven’t been following the campaign or results at all (like most people in France — turnout seems to have been c.50% and possibly lower). The main results are Éric Zemmour himself has definitely not been elected (dunno about about of his zealots), and Macron’s mob and Méchancon’s messy coalition with some Greens and other left-leaning parties are tied (in number of votes, I believe Macron has a small lead in seats), meaning who — if anyone — will have a majority in Parliament is still to be decided. Méchancon’s plan is to become the PM (whilst the PM is the President’s choice, they must be approved by Parliament). Teh le penazis have some seats (including Le Pen herself), albeit I have no idea if they seem to be gaining or losing seats — nor do I have any idea what the local results are in my area (like I said, I’ve been all-but-ignoring this election).
Former education minister Blanquer — who was a disaster — has also definitely not been re-elected. A few minister’s seats are still being contested, and President Macron has apparently said any who are not re-elected are expected to resign (again, ministers are appointed by the President but must be approved by Parliament, there is no legal requirement they have a seat in Parliament, albeit I believe that is the convention).
(Apologies for this not too informative summary without references.)
Josh Marshall commented on the emphasis some people are placing on establishing mens rea and consciousness of guilt when it comes to Trump’s actions and statements made after he was informed many times that he had lost the election; (and after Trump was informed many times that various conspiracy theories he brought up claiming fraud in the election were bullshit):
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-does-trump-believe
‘The return of banditry’: Russian car industry buckles under sanctions (Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):
New Ohio law allows teachers to carry guns in schools without a permit:
SC@37,
Worth noting that a majority of the recently elected Northern Ireland Assembly (52 out of 90) have written to Johnson strongly objecting to the attempt to pas legislation over-riding the Northern Ireland Protocol. Johnson has been pretending he has the support of the population in Northern Ireland for doing so – yet another of his barefaced lies.
Meanwhile, the vile, racist scheme to exile refugees arriving “illegally” in the UK to Rwanda appears to be going ahead, following the failure of an appeal to the Court of Appeal for an injunction to halt flights until a full trial of the scheme’s legality.
Excerpts from live coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing that was aired publicly today:
Timelines are important here. The excerpt above does not point out that Trump’s rant was aired on CNN after he had been given evidence of those conspiracy theories being false.
Link
In teh “U”K, Putin’s acolytes in Londongrad are desperate to (presumably) not even match Russian standards, Fury as government waters down post-Brexit food standards:
My initial though is this is pandering to the State’s notoriously lax regulations.
Yup! As per above, that was also my very first suspicion.
KG @ #46, I posted about it @ #26!
More re blf’s #42 – France 24 – “Takeaways from the first round of France’s parliamentary elections.”
This Ex-Republican Just Tweeted The Best Thread About What The GOP Is About.
The thread was written by Ethan Grey.
Follow-up to me@42, here is France24’s more informed synopsis of yesterday’s first-round French Parliamentary elections, Takeaways from the first round of France’s parliamentary elections. Some snippets (mostly corrections / clarifications to @42):
GA-Sen: Herschel Walker (R) Busted Lying Again, This Time About Having A Law Enforcement Background
To help elect Raphael Warnock instead of the serial liar Herschel Walker:
https://warnockforgeorgia.com
Lynna @ #43, I couldn’t agree with Marshall more. I posted something similar back in 2017 – “The aggressive neurotic: Trump’s cynical use of language”:
I provided examples back then not only of Trump openly operating this way but bragging about it to audiences.
Followup to SC’s comment 40.
Jan. 6 panel says Trump preyed on small campaign donors
SC @53, exactly. You presented the case” that he [Trump] simply doesn’t care what the truth is” very well. I’m glad you included the point that Trump thinks it is “smart” to be that way. He thinks people who do care what the truth is are weak and dumb. Trump is a fascist.
Also, as you know, we should stop trying to figure out what Trump “believes.” It doesn’t matter.
Wonkette:
Excerpts from Wonkette’s coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing:
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657500977
SC@49,
Yes, sorry! I was posting in a couple of minutes stolen from a Zoom call!
“‘I am asking everybody who can talk to people in the occupied South, in the Donbas, in Kharkiv region. Talk with them about Ukraine. Tell them the truth. Tell them that liberation will come’
Zelensky to the people”
Video (without subtitles) at the (Twitter) link.
Aaron Rupar has a Twitter thread with video clips from today’s hearing. (Link is to the first of the clips described @ #s 36 and 39 above.)
A World to Win – “A World to Win: The TikTok-ification of Colombia’s Election w/ David Adler”:
(I’m extremely hesitant these days to link to anything Jacobin related, and the dismal quality of the brief remarks on Ukraine here are a reminder of why; the insistence of some people on the left on seeing all world events through the same narrow lens is infuriating. But Blakeley is a talented interviewer and the discussion, aside from that nonsense, is informative.)
France 24 – “Au Kenya, TikTok fait le jeu de la désinformation à l’approche de la présidentielle”:
MSNBC has a two-hour special tonight analyzing the January 6th hearings. It’s just beginning now.
A pithy McFaul: “Realists need to get real. Putin will only engage in negotiations with Zelensky when his army is no longer capturing (and later annexing) territory. The only way to stop Putin’s army is to better arm the Ukrainians. That’s the way the real world works.”
Ukraine Invasion Day 110: Like the Lehman Trilogy with slavery and extra steps…
‘The Lehman Trilogy’ and Wall Street’s Debt to Slavery
Excerpt:
Wonkette: “Herschel Walker May Perhaps Not Be Junior Power Ranger FBI Policeman Superhero Astronaut”
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657502001
Steve Benen comments:
Comment based on this article from the Washington Post: White House shifts pandemic money to vaccines, cutting other programs
Followup to comments 5 and 56.
NBC News:
Variety:
Why it matters that Trump’s ‘Election Defense Fund’ didn’t exist
It wouldn’t be Tuesday without a death threat from someone for something or another. While it is a generic low effort threat, it is at least dramatic. A high Russian official has threatened to kill me and a few tens of millions of my friends using nuclear weapons.
This time the head of their Russian parliament is threatening to nuke Poland, the Ukraine, and central Europe. ” In case his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe as well.” He hasn’t thought it through very far. Most of Russia’s population is…in Europe as well. Of course, Russia will also disappear.
Russia is what you get when internet trolls run a country.
From what I can see, most Polish people know a family member or friend or many of those, who have been imprisoned, disappeared, relocated, or killed by the Russians, when they invaded at the start of WW II and the subsequent occupation. One of them is my old friend whose father was taken away by Russian soldiers and never seen again. They really hate the Russians and they aren’t going to be killed, enslaved, and persecuted by the Russians again without a fight.
This is huge number of refugees.
Counting the 1.3 million that have fled or been deported to Russia, 18% of Ukraines population are refugees that no longer live in Ukraine.
It is costing NATO, the EU, and the USA a lot of money to keep Ukraine going.
OTOH, it would cost a lot of money if Ukraine collapses and gets overrun by the Russians. Those refugees would become permanent residents.
And there would be more.
If Ukraine goes, you can be sure Moldova and Georgia at the least will also go.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog:
Zoe Lofgren said it’s for technical reasons: to give the people working with the videos more time to prepare.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian – “The students staging a sit-in for LGBTQ+ rights at a Christian university”:
Some related recent episodes from the SWAJ series “It’s In the Code”:
“It’s In the Code, Ep. 4: Cool Kid Church.”
“It’s In the Code, Ep. 5: Wherever You Are on Your Spiritual Journey.”
“It’s In the Code, Ep. 6: Open and Affirming.” (This one brings together the previous ones.)
Guardian – “Roger Stone and Michael Flynn under fire over rallies ‘distorting Christianity’”:
More at the link.
FFS – Guardian – “Pope Francis says Ukraine war was ‘perhaps somehow provoked’”:
Guardian liveblog:
“Top Kremlin propagandists encountered some unexpected resistance from state TV pundits, irritated by ongoing attempts to scare the West with nuclear strikes [no one is buying it] and bluffing about manufacturing some version of the Cuban Missile Crisis [just a pipe dream].
Watch:…”
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
Shaun Walker re the bans @ #77:
Julia Ioffe:
SC @75, all of that is so dangerous!
In related news: The problem(s) with Trump’s pushback against the Jan. 6 probe
In pushing back against the Jan. 6 investigation, Donald Trump released a rambling memo that referenced a debunked movie — 18 times.
I wonder if we can gauge Trump’s rage by the number of footnotes he bothers to include, or has his staff include, in one of his written rants?
U-Haul White Supremacist’s Mom Says She Kicked Son Out Of The House
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/u-haul-white-supremacist-mom-house
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comments 40 and 54.
Details on a specific part of Trump’s money-raising grift:
Link
Putin’s view of the January 6 Committee:
Link
Update to a comment in an earlier chapter of the thread – “New York’s highest court declines to extend habeas to a Bronx Zoo elephant.”
Link to the opinion at the link. I haven’t read it in full, but the basic reasoning appears to be that since the writ is for humans it therefore doesn’t apply to nonhumans, which seems pretty circular and unimaginative.
From the opinion @ #84:
Italics are doing a lot of work in this argument.
Related to several posts by Lynna above – Vice – “Neo-Nazis Are Trying to Dox the Cops Who Arrested Patriot Front Members”
From there:
It could just be ignorance on my part, but I don’t remember these groups in the US in the past attempting to exert this sort of control over sex and bodies. It seems like white supremacist movements are increasingly overlapping with high-demand cultish groups.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
BBC – “Rwanda asylum plan: Iranian ex-policeman’s relief as flight cancelled”:
Guardian liveblog:
Shehab Khan (via the Guardian liveblog):
Pres. Biden tweeted:
Guardian liveblog:
SC@72, Teh “U”K waltzing out of the ECHR is what Putin did after he invaded Ukraine. Londongrad is still tending to do — or at least “floating” the idea of still doing — Putin’s bidding.
Ukraine update: Ukraine won’t get all the artillery it wants, but it doesn’t need to
@ 92
The trouble is that Biden is preaching to the choir. The people he needs to reach are the denizens of the Red States who equate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid with “godless Communism;” programs that take from the “achievers” and give to the lazy, shiftless, and usually nonwhite “moochers”
Guardian liveblog:
A photo they just posted shows some people blocking the road there.
Dirty tricks in Nebraska:
Link
Hmmm. Republicans are perpetrating real fraud while claiming to be fighting fraud that does not exist. Sounds about right.
Ukraine update: As Russia surges toward Slovyansk, Ukraine moves on Izyum
Tweets and videos of “RUSSIAN STUFF BLOWING UP THEATER” are available at the link.
Graham confirms Republicans would go after Social Security, Medicare if they get a Senate majority
Followup to comment 80.
Wonkette: “Steve Bannon (Sob!) Not Gonna Let (Sob!) Bill Barr (Sob!) Bully Dinesh D’Souza (Sob!) Like That! (Sob!)”
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657507874
New details emerge of Oval Office confrontation three days before Jan. 6
Washington Post link
Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official, wanted Trump to name him attorney general in a plan aimed at potentially overturning the election.
That part of this plot still stuns me. It is so blatant and so stupid.
All the best people, as usual.
Guardian liveblog:
Flight to Rwanda will not be taking off tonight
No one will be deported to Rwanda from the UK tonight after the European Court of Human Rights issued last minute injunctions to stop the move.
The ECHR issued a series of last minute injunctions as the plane was about to take off from Wiltshire.
“‘Get a great f’ing criminal defense lawyer, you’re going to need it’, Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann says he told Trump coup lawyer John Eastman on January 7.”
Video at the (Twitter) link. (I’m fascinated by Herschmann’s space…)
CNN has a liveblog – “The latest on extreme weather in the US.”
CNN – “Dozens evacuated as unprecedented flooding forces Yellowstone National Park to close all entrances”:
More at the link.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Interesting news from the Australian energy market.
We are in the midst of an energy crisis we havr been told is the result of external fossil fuel prices and ageing coal power generators being offline. But as one would expect there is much more to it.
Firstly this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/dumb-and-illegal-regulators-read-the-riot-act-to-striking-generators/amp/
In other words, the energy generators have been gaming the system to maximise profits by artificially creating a shortage of generation capacity!
Then this happened today.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/101154054
So because the generators haven’t been playimg by the rules, the regulators have basically compelled them to provide energy at what one would assume is a fixed price, but I havent seen if or what that is.
Further to the above:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/impossible-to-operate-aemo-declares-suspension-of-electricity-spot-market/amp/
So, here we are….
Stop calling me boring, Keir Starmer tells shadow cabinet:
Of course Starmer could try not being boring… in two years he hasn’t managed to articulate any positive reason to vote Labour, spending most of his time attacking the left in his own party, and what remained attacking the Tories – usually in a rather boring fashion.
Follow up to a previously linked story here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-06-15/google-ai-chatbot-not-sentient-how-do-we-know-intelligence/101150090
Turns out LaMDA almost certainly isn’t self-aware after all. Even if it says it is..
Synagogue Sues In Challenge To Florida’s Restrictive Abortion Law
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
ReligionClause
Some podcast episodes:
Fever Dreams – “Proud Boys 101 feat. Andy Campbell”:
Why Is This Happening? – “‘How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics’ with Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò”:
Conspirituality – “Jordan Peterson, Derrick Jensen, and the Anti-Trans Laugh Emoji”:
This is just a 10-minute sample of an episode available to subscribers, so it doesn’t cover much ground (I didn’t even learn what the anti-trans laugh emoji is, but I’m saddened to know it exists). But there are several useful links at the link.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/06/shooting-school-texas-uvalde-sandy-hook-conspiracy.html
An article on conspiracy theorists in a dark triad personality trait context.
“Joe Uscinski, the political science professor, said that in most research, partisanship and ideology are less predictive of conspiratorial beliefs than are “dark personality traits.” People who embrace and defend “antisocial” conspiracy theories like Sandy Hook and QAnon often exhibit traits that psychologists call the “Dark Triad”: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, meaning the willingness to manipulate others to gain a certain result.”
The machiavellianism definitely stands out.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog:
(It’s weird that they still have to use “alleged gunman” even when he was arrested at the scene during the shooting, which he livestreamed.)
Guardian – “New Hong Kong textbooks ‘will claim city never was a British colony’”:
Good news, sort of.
The State newspaper in Charleston reported:
A defeat for Trump.
Commentary:
Link
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian – “Saudi authorities seize rainbow toys in crackdown on homosexuality”:
Random, well, semi-random~ish trio o9f dinosuar braisn links here :
https://proxy.freethought.online/stderr/2022/06/08/not-friend/#comment-61426
Meanwhile something pretty classic and funny from another FTB blog here :
https://proxy.freethought.online/geekyhumanist/2022/06/12/my-nonconversion-story-follow-up-resurrection-addendum/#comment-8871
Thankyou Dr Sarah.
Plus quasar discovery news here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-06-15/black-hole-fastest-growing-past-nine-billion-years/101149598
Although a bit misleadingly titled since you really need a long exposure camera and 30-40 centimetres in diameter telescope to observe it. Skychart included with this quasars position being roughly in a line with Gamma & Tau Centauri and Iota Antilae – or very approx a triangle with Gamma-Tau Cen and Pi Cen as base and this quasar – J1144 for short – roughly as the triangle’s point. It’s real luminosity is a staggering “.. around 7,000 times brighter than all of the light in the Milky Way” and its mass is an estimated three billion (yes with a ‘b”!) times our Sun’s.
Jan. 6 committee releases footage raising questions about Rep. Barry Loudermilk’s Capitol visitors
More dangerous rhetoric:
Link
Ukraine update: The Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson is driving Russia back along a broad front
Extremists being extreme: Riley Williams AKA Nazi Girl Insurrectionist Has A BF Who Planned Mass Shooting At Synagogue.
Some good news concerning the effectiveness of the January 6 Committee’s public hearings:
Link
:)
Guardian liveblog:
Oh, fuck off. At this point, Sweden and Finland should just focus on the “interim” security guarantees from the US and European countries.
Guardian liveblog:
One in a long list of reasons for an urgent shift to renewable energy is to remove leverage from these fascists.
This goes with my previous link at 115 to think about individual conspiracy theorists working as a group.
“The geometry of decision-making in individuals and collectives’
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2102157118
Why Steve Bannon’s latest legal setback matters
Republicans keep trying to convince the federal courts that the Jan. 6 committee isn’t legitimate. They keep failing.
Texas being roasted by record heat, but wind and solar are keeping electricity available and cheap
Bits and pieces of news, summaries.
NBC News:
CNN:
NBC News:
Follow-up to me@35, and still apropos of nothing… France is suffering from a heatwave (in May!), with — the most extreme prediction I’ve seen — temperatures in the shade of 40℃. The local council has activated it’s heat alert (which is routine, but perhaps a bit earlier than normal, and lasts (as is routine) until September-ish).
But… It’s all a bit confusing. The weather apps I use are predicating c.34℃ locally, similar to (as far as I can tell from the maps) France Metro (the weather service). Other areas of France… Yes, but not, it seems, here. The Mediterranean Sea presumably has a cooling effect, and the phenomenon which is leading to the heatwave is coming from the South via Spain, “missing” the local area. What’s confusing is the various headlines / reports say (paraphrasing) “S.France will suffer from extreme heat”. France Metro maps suggest that is true, albeit inland. Here on the coast, it isn’t (won’t be) as bad.
Anyways… It’s been hot (locally), and I’ve been staying in the lair (which is still relatively cool). Tonight I went out for dinner, and astonished myself by drinking an entire litre of water in perhaps 10 minutes — I hadn’t been drinking fluids much in the lair, but didn’t feel dehydrated. Obviously not the case…
The local council has also ordered the esplanade pedestrianised (in the evenings), starting today, until mid-September. It is evenings-pedestrianised during July–August for the tourist-trap(-ish) marché nocturne, but extending the days first started during the pandemic: It allows for better social distancing, and also allows restaurants & bars to extend their terraces to, or even slightly into, the street. Plus removes highly annoying (read: LOUD) traffic. Very popular measure.
This is S.France. Mediterranean Sea. Mediterranean diet. Which includes lots and lots of olive oil. It’s probably illegal not to have enough olive oil — just like it’s illegal to be more than 100 metres from a pub in Ireland (500 metres in rural areas), or the illegality in the States of knowing (not not-knowing, but knowing) how to handle a Shooty McShootface, etc — so what did I do ? Ran out of olive oil ! There’s none at all in the lair (unless the mildly deranged penguin has a super-secret stash somewhere she’s sneakily silent… (–orry, have now al–o run out of that –nake –haped letter between r & t (or a & d on a qwery keyboard)). I’m waiting for a raid by the olive oil police, a branch of the gazpacho police…
Follow-up to the first podcast @ #61 above – Guardian – “Colombian mayor who called Hitler ‘great German thinker’ could be country’s next president”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
And because everyone is determined to drive me to distraction:
Here’s a link to the Guardian’s UK liveblog.
Another ethics advisor to Johnson, one Lord Geidt, has now quit. From his resignation letter:
This reportedly revolves around…maintaining tariffs on Chinese steel. From Johnson’s reply:
But Geidt appears to have been on the verge of resigning for a while:
From my quick read of what’s happening, this is another example of Johnson’s pushing the project of exempting himself and his cronies from rules and from domestic and international laws and agreements. The longer this is allowed to continue, the worse it will get.
Guardian liveblog:
“The British govt has sanctioned Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, ‘for his support and endorsement of Putin’s war’.”
Guardian liveblog:
Kyiv Independent:
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas:
Video from the interview at the (Twitter) link.
CNN – “What to watch for at Thursday’s January 6 hearing focused on Mike Pence”:
I believe today’s hearing is set to begin at 1 PM ET.
Guardian liveblog:
J. F. C.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian – “Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira: Brazil police find two bodies in search for missing men”:
In the last few months, there have been a lot of cases of acute hepatitis in children, leading rapidly to death or liver transplantation.
The cause is still unknown despite a lot of work on it.
It is now looking like it is a form of long Covid-19 virus infection.
This virus is known to occasionally attack organ systems including brain, heart, kidney, and liver in adults so this is no surprise. It also causes Multi Inflammatory Syndrome in children.
I’ve seen something similar just recently.
A mid 70s antivaxxer came down with Covid-19 virus.
He was sick but not that sick.
Then his kidneys completely shut down. He is now on dialysis.
Follow-up to me@135, and still apropos of nothing… The olive oil police raided the lair just before lunch — actually, the two officers knocked politely at the door — and during our discussion, I learned there is a range of penalties for not having any olive oil. But what was actually irking them the most is I referred to the olive oil police as “a branch of the gazpacho police”. That should have been, they very pointedly explained, “an olive branch of the gaspacho police”.
Anyways, it turns out that if the olive oil was used in a good (read: tasty) cause, or there are financial problems, etc., the fines are quite modest and possibly waived or suspended. I explained I’d used all of my remaining olive oil in the making of gaspacho (see @35) without realising it, and then invited them to taste the result. They — an Arabic-looking gentleman from Tunisia(?), and a Scandinavian-looking lady from Normandy — declared it delicious, at which point I invited them to lunch. The gentleman went to get some bread — explaining the cost would simply be added to the fine — and we had a nice lunch with a great local vin rosé, enjoying the gaspacho, baguettes, and wine. A breeze had sprung up, so it didn’t feel as hot as expected, albeit we were careful to sit in the shade.
I told them I knew there were some great olive oils from Tunisia but was puzzled about Scandinavia… The lady laughed and explained her ancestors were Vikings, who are believed to have done some raids in the Mediterranean in the 800s CE — her family’s stories claim that is how they came to know of, and appreciate olive oil — and then inquired about cheese.
Uh-oh.
Fortunately, the mildly deranged penguin was uncharacteristically silent and unseen, so the moment passed without untoward incident.
They had to run — er, stagger — off on an emergency call about then, before café, and left me with a suspended fine, provided I replenished my olive oil stock today. Which I did, with a locally-produced (right here in the village) organic model.
The mildly deranged penguin is still silent and unseen, which makes me wonder what she is up to…
(Some of the above is even true (for many definitions of “true”).)
We northerners never used to consume any olive oil — it just wasn’t our thing. Then a doctor recommend a change in our diet to a more Mediterranean menu, you know, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables, and LOTS OF OLIVE OIL. He told us we should aim for a liter or two EVERY WEEK. We sat there kind of aghast. Are we supposed to just gulp it down straight? How can we possibly ingest that much olive oil? It was inconceivable.
Then we started following various Mediterranean recipes, and now we are constantly running low on our olive oil supplies.
We’ve been tentatively exploring various cheeses, too, but I’m afraid to get too deeply into that, since we might get carried away again. I’ve been pushing for more fish, but my wife doesn’t care much for it. Would cheese be a compromise?
Guardian liveblog:
“Now Macron, in Kyiv, declares Europe isn’t, in fact, demanding territorial concessions. It was all one big malentendu.”
“Macron: France, Germany, Italy, Romania in favor of immediately granting EU candidate status to Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron made the statement during his June 16 visit to Kyiv with other European leaders.”
“Macron: France to send 6 more Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement during his June 16 visit to Kyiv. France has earlier sent six 155 mm Caesar howitzers to Ukraine which are already in use on the front line.”
Guardian UK liveblog:
Why it matters that Ginni Thomas was in contact with John Eastman
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 29th(!!) flight over the weekend, a short jaunt (amusingly, lasting 66.6 beasts, I mean seconds) to stay within range of the Perseverance rover. Since it obviously took off successfully, the patch to work-around the dead inclinometer sensor is presumably working — and the regime to charge up the batteries is working. The temperatures will get colder (Martian Winter Solstice isn’t until 21st July) — and presumably the atmosphere dustier — so there are significant challenges ahead.
From today’s Guardian US liveblog:
(Just before this, they showed an email or text from Eastman asking to be included on the pardon list, which he wasn’t.)
‘Canary in the coalmine’: New Mexico clash hints at looming election crisis:
@ 158
This is why there needs to be dire consequences for these Trumpist attempts to subvert our democracy. For far too long, the Democrats/liberals have backed down in the face of the far right under the misguided delusion of “national unity” a preventing greater conflict. Instead, they laugh in our faces and threaten to do it again.
Even if it means another civil war, an example must be made of these people from the rank-and-file Proud Boy street thug all the way up to Donald Trump himself.
@159, Charging, etc., those people is a law enforcement function, not political action / inaction.
Or do you really want politicians to decide who to charge? Imagine what teh thugs what do if that were the case.
And please knock off that shite about or wanting a civil war. That’s straight out of, e.g., teh proud boys dreams — Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DC — and would absolutely delight Putin. You’re acting similar to a Russian troll, advocating perhaps the worse possible “solution” to a non-existent or misstated problem.
Hmmm, this is interesting. Beta O’Rourke is making some headway as he continues to campaign in the Texas race for Governor. Greg Abbott is still leading, but his lead is modest. 48 percent to O’Rourke’s 43 percent. Back in December, O’Rourke was behind by 15 points. He has really made a lot of progress.
NBC News link
Followup to SC’s comment 157.
Judge Luttig:
Followup to comment 162.
Judge Luttig:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22061497/jml-final.pdf
Will Stephen imagines “Leaked Mark Meadows Texts.”
New Yorker link
Lynna @ #s 162 & 163 – What on earth does Judge Luttig (ret.) think it gains him to so carefully avoid naming the political parties and persons that threaten and (mostly) fail to defend the Constitutional order?
Will some country club not allow him to play golf on its grounds any more if he explicitly calls out the Republicans, or Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy or any of their corrupt colleagues? He did at least manage to name Trump™ one time, but otherwise treated them all like a tribe of Voldemorts.
Heavy rain transforms the storm sewers into a geyser in Montreal and have manhole covers flying.
Refugee Rally coming up in a month or so’s time – 17th July 2022 – in Adelaide, South Australia for my fellow South Aussies here. Details :
Source : https://www.facebook.com/events/702432131059168/?ref=newsfeed
(Yeah, sorry folks, facebook I know – it does have its uses at times.)
Breaking news here :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-17/julian-assange-extradition-ordered-uk-united-states/101115392
BTW. Did anyone else see the two partIthaka doco on Assange and esp his father and partner’s attempts to (legally) free him broadcast on ABC recently?
CBS – “Beverly Hills anti-vaccine doctor sentenced to prison for Capitol riot”:
She’s a former emergency room doctor, but in a situation of mass violence in which people needed urgent medical care she chose to climb atop a statue and rant about vaccines.
Guardian – “Russia has ‘strategically lost’ war, says UK defence chief, as Lavrov says Moscow unashamed”:
Some quotes from a BBC interview with Lavrov at the link. He sounds fairly unhinged.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog:
Speaking of unhinged…:
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
Guardian liveblog:
LOL.
Guardian liveblog:
Podcast episodes:
SWAJ – “Special Episode: Patriot Front at Pride in Idaho”:
The Daily – “What the Jan. 6 Hearings Have Revealed So Far”:
StevoR@168,
I’m opposed to Assange’s extradition as a matter of principle, but my personal sympathy for him is pretty limited. He chose to break his bail conditions by taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy (costing those who put up the bail money considerable sums) rather than surrender to justice in Sweden, where he was wanted on rape and sexual assault charges (he called Sweden “the Saudi Arabia of feminism”), and whence he would almost certainly not have been extradited to the USA. If he had been found guilty, he would be out of jail by now, after serving his time in Sweden’s rather enlightened prison system – which would have been much better for his health than being cooped up in the embassy for years, let alone in the US prison system.
We had some sense that Donald Trump had put Mike Pence in harm’s way on Jan. 6. Fresh evidence makes clear that it was worse than we realized.
Link
From the latest summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine Update: Russians are suffering from artillery barrages too, and a battlefield overview
Link
I see Johnson has made another visit to Kyiv – in preference to appearing at a Tory conference in Doncaster, in the “Red Wall” area where pro-Brexit feeling and smears against Corbyn won the Tories seats in the 2019 election. Apparently local Tories are seriously pissed off, realising that Johnson could have gone to Kyiv some other day. He doesn’t want to visit the area because the Tories are set to lose a byelection nearby next Thursday – and because he’s a coward. But I wonder how Zelinsky feels about having to constantly stroke Johnson’s oversize but extremely sensitive… ego.
This is what genocide looks like up close.
Already, most of the population of Mariupol have been deported to Russia, fled as refugees to the west, or been killed (estimated 20,000 dead civilians). They are now going to prohibit the Ukrainian language in schools and teach only in Russian using Russian textbooks.
The Russians are imposing their language and culture on Ukrainians by force.
Bellingcat – “Meet the Irregular Troops Backing up Russia’s Army in the Kharkiv Region”:
More at the link. At least one group is openly Nazi.
Lynna @ # 180: … (FDA) on Friday gave the green light to COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 5 and younger… Vaccines will be distributed across thousands of different sites…
Not too many sites in The Sunshine State™, however: DeSantis defends Florida’s decision to be only state not to preorder Covid vaccines for kids under 5 –
After all the bad news lately, here is some good news.
The number of atheists in the USA is growing rapidly. It is now 17%.
This poll isn’t all that informative.
A lot of the god exists people are Deists, Higher Powers, and other nonxians.
Xianity is down to 65% of the population.
That’s the way secularization has proceeded in Europe – at different rates in different countries, but AFAIK, always in the same way: religious practice declines first, followed by explicitly Christian belief, then belief in any kind of deity.
UK Covid infection rate rising, with more than a million cases in England. Practically all official attempts to reduce infection rates have been abandoned throughout the UK. We’re now “living with Covid” – or of course, in some cases, dying of it. All political parties, including my own, seem to have accepted this. Only a small minority of the population (I’m old enough to be among them, my wife and sister are not) are being offered another booster in autumn – this is purely to keep costs down, it has no medical justification. The evidence is that infection with the Omicron variant provides very little in the way of immunity, and there is some evidence that the latest sub-variants (BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1) are better at infecting lung cells than earlier Omicron subvariants. We have very little idea what recurrent infections with Omicron will mean – will immunity eventually build up, will there be cumulative damage, will better vaccines eventually be possible? It’s heads in the sand time according to the majority!
KG @ # 187: It’s heads in the sand time according to the majority!
An opportunity for a transatlantic study in effectiveness of sand as a filtering medium!
KG @181: “[…] I wonder how Zelinsky feels about having to constantly stroke Johnson’s oversize but extremely sensitive… ego.”
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Also, as SC noted: “Johnson offered to launch a major training operation for Ukrainian forces, with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days, his office said.” That sounds like bombastic hyperbole to me.
raven @182, the Russians are going to traumatize all of those Ukrainian children … if they haven’t done so already. Yet another good reason not to negotiate with Putin.
SC @183:
A bunch of extreme rightwing dunderheads. As you note, “At least one group is openly Nazi.” Yes, and some of the others are Nazi wannabes.
FFS.
Wonkette:
LOL
Wonkette: “MSNBC Pays Conservative To Sniff That Coup Plan Was ‘Harebrained’ So Everyone Is Innocent, The End!”
https://www.wonkette.com/conservative-pundit
And Eastman thought that the Supreme Court would simply refuse to take the case based on the fact that it was “political” and not criminal or unconstitutional. Not a safe bet. Even Eastman admitted that IF the Supreme Court took the case, Eastman would lose 9-0.
Even funny or ridiculous stuff can be scary, horrifying and horrifyingly effective.
Wonkette: “The Top 10 WTF Moments From Day 3 Of The January 6 Hearings”
Jacob is very Christian/religous minded … kinda like Mike Pence. He quoted bible verses during his testimony. In fact, many of the conservatives that testified reported praying and referring to bible verses, but I will note that despite prayers being issued from Trump’s allies, and from those trying to stop Trump, God did not appear. Unlike Eastman and Trump, Jacob’s lawyerly mind apparently still functions well.
Looks to me like Trump may have wanted the mob to kill Mike Pence.
Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Good news:
Nicole Grohoski holds coastal Maine Senate district for Democrats
J.F.C.
Ten Republicans, led by Cornyn, renege on the gun safety agreement they made with Democrats
Stephen Colbert covered the highlights of the 3-hour January 6 Committee in ten minutes.
Video at the link.
Followup to comment 196.
Susan Glasser, writing for The New Yorker: What We Learned About Trump, Pence, and the January 6th Mob
The third hearing on the attack on the Capitol revealed that the Proud Boys would have killed the Vice-President “if given the chance.”
Snarking in the Irish Times about teh “U”Ks attempts to unilaterally rewrite the N.Ireland Protocol, What do you call Boris Johnson shamelessly bluffing at the poker table with an empty hand? The protocol Bill:
More good news.
The Ukrainians sank a Russian tugboat carrying military supplies, anti-aircraft systems, to Ukraine. To call this a tugboat is an understatement, it is actually a large naval multi-purpose supply boat. It looked new, well made, and expensive.
They took it out with US made Harpoon cruise missiles.
I’m not entirely good with cheering as people die violent deaths from war weapons.
Except that at the same time, two Russian cruise missiles fired randomly took out a residential district in Mykolaiv, killing civilians.
This is potentially huge.
Lithuania just prohibited a lot of Russian freight from transiting Lithuania to Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad was Konigsberg and is the city on the Baltic that isn’t attached to Russia.
.1. I’m not seeing that this is even legal. The Lithuanians are claiming it is against the EU sanctions.
But those sanctions probably don’t cover goods sent from Russia to…Russia.
.2. In any case, the Lithuanians are being both brave and aggressive.
They’ve been oppressed and persecuted by the Russians for centuries.
It is payback time.
PS My old friend is a typical example of why people in the region hate the Russians.
After WW II, his family was moved from German Konigsberg to Poland along with all the other Germans there. One day Russian soldiers took away his father and they never saw him again. Then they deported the family to Germany.
Russia is what you get when internet trolls end up owning and running a country.
The leadership and Russian media don’t see why we are so upset over them slaughtering a million or so people. The death count isn’t that high yet but it is heading in that direction. If the Russians win, it might be a lot higher than that.
This Russian major general turned State Duma Deputy Gurulyov predicts that there will be a huge war with NATO that might end up with nuclear weapons.
Strangely enough, I almost agree.
I don’t see that the EU and NATO will just sit back and watch 44 million Ukrainians get genocided on TV every night. That is the Russian goal and they say so often.
It would be like watching the mid-20th century Holocaust happen on the evening TV news in Real Time.
Re: my # 184 – maybe I should retract it, maybe not: chaos continues:
Just another sunny day down here in DeSantisstan.
QFT! A notable feature of the current fascist revival is the ridiculous nature of many of its main characters (beyond the US you have Bolsonaro, Johnson, Farage, Duterte, Berlosconi…) and plotlines (pizzagate, QAnon, lizard people, George-Soros-as-evil-mastermind, microchips-in-vaccines…). How far this is a deliberate strategy to disarm opposition is an interesting question.
Another day, another threat from the internet trolls that run Russia.
This major leader of Russia is going to take Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia away from NATO and force them back in the new USSR.
Needless to say, the Baltics aren’t too happy about this.
After a few centuries of Russian atrocities directed against them, they aren’t going back.
Lithuania just partly closed the transit corridor between Russia and Konigsberg/Kaliningrad.
Sad and worrying news from Kitt Peak Observatory here :
Source : https://earthsky.org/earth/kitt-peak-shuts-down-contreras-wildfire/
Yet another senseless shooting in the USA:
Link
Could have been even worse … the shooter had a handgun instead of an AR-15.
NBC News:
Good news, as reported by HuffPo:
Funny news, as reported by The Hill:
A real must-see video put together by reporters and researchers of the New YorkTimes: How the Proud Boys Breached the Capitol on Jan. 6: Rile Up the Normies
Ukraine Update: Ukraine pleads poverty, more on logistics, and Putin suffers diplomatically
Far right’s latest conspiracy fad ties ordinary food-factory fires to plot, with Tucker leading way
Trump isn’t done trying to get Pence killed: ‘Mike did not have the courage to act’
Yep. That was my conclusion as well.
God Help Us, Great American Artist Jon McNaughton Made One Fugly Painting
No, I am not going to reproduce that so-called poem. Sheesh. You can read it at the link. Excerpt:
From the “conservatives threatening librarians with death” category:
Link
Late Night Delves Into the News
New York Times link
Videos are available at the link.
Excerpts from the accompanying article:
On the off chance that anyone else in SA (or if they screen nationally Oz wide?) sees this here in time and is interested :
TV DOCOS ALERT : On tonight from 8.30 pm, SBS C3 ‘Mesoptamia 3D’ & ‘Alhambra – Secrets of the Ancient Builders’ at 9.40 pm SA time or approx just under 2 hours from now. Details :
.***
Mesopotamia 3d
Sunday, 19 Jun
8:30 PM – 9:40 PM [70 mins]pg
During the war, Jawad Bashara, Iraqi writer exiled in France under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, decides to return to his country to rescue the treasures of Mesopotamia targeted and destroyed by Isis. Along with a team of archaeologists from all over the world, he embarks on a hazardous quest for our origins. Sumer, Babylon, the epic of Gilgamesh and the legendary Tower of Babel. today, all these names still resonate. They embody Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers – Tigris and Euphrates. It is in this land that our civilisation was born and where humanity organised itself into a society of tens of thousands of people, invented writing and developed agriculture and architecture. What does this history really tell us? Why has a terrorist group with worldwide influence decided, among other crimes, to erase its traces forever? This is what Mesopotamia 3D. The Future of our Origins reveals.
&&&
Alhambra Secrets Of The Ancient Builders
Sunday, 19 Jun
9:40 PM – 10:40 PM [60 mins]pg
In Southern Spain, in the heart of Andalusia, lies an extraordinary treasure – The Fortress of Alhambra. Built more than 800 years ago by the Nasrids – an Arab dynasty that ruled over the region – it was erected as a military stronghold, surrounded by 2,000 meters of ramparts, and protected by 29 towers. But behind its austere facade, Alhambra conceals sumptuous palaces, patios embellished with fountains and basins, and above all, extremely refined decorations that cover almost every part of the buildings. In this arid region, you will discover the engineering treasures that the builders had to develop to face the heat of suffocating summers, as well as the impressive hydraulic network with many unique devices to provide the city with water.
.***
Details cut’n’pasted from ABC online TV guide.
SBS on Demand has this page for the Alhambra one if that’s of use :
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1989705283673/alhambra-secrets-of-the-ancient-builders-alhambra-secrets-of-the-ancient-builders
Plus there’s this trailer for the Mesopotamia 3D doco. As well as this 4 min 15 secs long Alhambra secrets video via the BBC too.
Guardian – “Gianforte was vacationing in Italy as Montana flooded, governor’s office says”:
Lynna @ #213, reading your comment, I flashed back to this piece in Vice (and Sarah Taber’s Twitter thread linked there) from right around the 2020 election – “So Did Antifa Light This Guy’s Combine on Fire or What?”:
Follow-up to #399 in the previous chapter – Guardian – “Belgium to return Patrice Lumumba’s gold tooth in bid to atone for colonial crimes”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
From yesterday – “‘Ukraine will definitely win’ says president on visit to Mykolaiv”:
Guardian liveblog:
So far this morning, the Russians haven’t threatened to nuke me and my cat. OTOH, it is early, only 7:00 AM and I’m not really paying attention any more.
So we have the latest Russian atrocity instead.
The Russians now claim to have deported 1.9 million Ukrainians to Russia, including 300,000 children. This has been their tactic since the time of the Tsars. Conquer a people, deport the population, and then move in Russians. It’s ethnic cleansing, in this case with the ultimate goal of genocide.
“The Russians claim to have received more than 2.7 million applications from those wishing to move to Russia from more than 2,000 settlements in Ukraine.” I don’t know what to make of this Russian claim though. I’m having a hard time imagining anyone in Ukraine wanting to move to Russia any more.
The regions they have occupied are rapidly becoming uninhabitable. Their strategy is to just level the cities with artillery and then occupy them. There is nothing left but rubble. No food, water, electricity, or stores.
This could be a case where the refugees have to end up somewhere or die of starvation and cold. This is in fact likely. All these wannabe Russian citizens could have just moved to Russia any time they want in the last few decades. There is a right of return for ethnic Russians and the Russians have a falling population and are desperate for people.
Or, it could be something the Russians made up.
SC @220:
LOL
SC @222:
Oh, good! That is good news. She is alive and she has been released.
Discrimination in mortgage lending persists due to Trump. Now Biden’s working to combat it
Black Music Sunday: Join our Juneteenth Father’s Day BBQ jamboree
Videos, lyrics, and other information available at the link. “It’s electric!” There’s even a Juneteenth poem and a Juneteenth song.
Followup to comment 197, and a correction.
Judge Luttig explains why he spoke slowly, carefully, exactingly and deliberately on Thursday
And he has a sense of humor.
LOLOL: Tucker Carlson Rants INSANELY that Stephen Colbert’s Staff ‘Committed Insurrection’ 🤪
Link
Ukraine Invasion Day 116: Zelenskyy travelled to the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv
Wonkette: “GOP Holding Up Gun Bill To Ensure Abusive Ex-Boyfriends Can Have Guns”
Followup to raven @224.
Hundreds of civilians missing, taken or simply gone: The untold toll of the Ukraine war.
Washington Post link
Russia aims to boot former Soviet nations from NATO by relinquishing sovereign recognition: lawmaker
Caitlin McFall Wed, June 15, 2022 Yahoo News
What a cunning plan!!! Next stage, claim Russia was cheated when it sold Alaska to the USA and thus force the USA to leave NATO! In fact Article 6 doesn’t say anything of the kind Fedorov claims, and (contrary to what I’ve said previously) there doesn’t seem to be an absolute prohibition on countries with ongoin territorial disputes joining, although the 1995 “Study on NATO Enlargement” noted “that on-going territorial disputes could be an issue for whether a country was invited”.
#233: Sorry – raven did identify the source @205!
StevoR@218,
The Alhambra is indeed an amazing place – particularly the beautiful mosaics. (Amusingly, “Al” is the Arabic definite article, so “The Alhambra”, as it’s called in English, is “The the red one”.) My wife, son and I spent most of a day there, and still hadn’t seen it all.
KG @235: The Spanish also use a technically superfluous definite article; la Alhambra. As in Recuerdos de la Alhambra (with some Les Dawson thrown in!).
This is sort of a followup to PZ’s post earlier today, The Texas GOP party platform — the madness continues
Commentary from another source: Fascism: Texas Republican platform rejects legitimacy of Biden’s election while pushing guns, hate
Trump meant to ‘accelerate the violence’ against Pence
Apparently, sanity has prevailed for the moment, and Florida’s state government will not block vaccination of the six-month-to-five-years cohort:
Today is World Refugee Day – see :
https://www.un.org/en/observances/refugee-day
Which deserves noting if not exactly celebrating.
Update! – Guardian – “Former guerrilla Gustavo Petro wins Colombian election to become first leftist president”:
France 24 – “Macron stripped of majority after crushing blow in parliamentary elections”:
I can’t wait to read this – Guardian – “An Immense World by Ed Yong review – the astonishing ways in which animals experience our planet”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there (update to raven’s #201):
Yesterday, Sunday 19th June, was, of course, Juneteenth in States (albeit I believe, as is States practice, today Monday is the holiday). Congratulations! Yesterday was also the 2nd round of the French Parliamentary elections. The results:
● Macron’s mob lost their majority, albeit they are still the single largest group, now at 245 seats (289 is a majority), a lost of about 100 seats, down from about 60% to 40% of the seats, 44 seats short of a majority.
● Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s messy coalition won 131 seats, less than the expected 150; however, there are 22 other seats won by leftwingers not officially part of that messy coalition who are generally expected to (or have said that they usually will) vote with the messy coalition.
● The traditional conservative party won 61 seats, very possibly making them “kingmakers”; i.e., whichever of Macron’s and Mélenchon’s blocks can gain their support will be more able to set the agenda and obtain ministerial seats.
● The big surprise, doing vastly better than polling suggested, was Putin’s acolytes teh le penazis, winning an unheard-of 89 seats (up from a mere eight). This means they can now form a official Parliamentary group, obtain state funds, etc.
● Locally, teh le penazi candidates won, with over 55% against Mélenchon’s messy coalition candidates. I’m uncertain, but I think this is the first time the village (and surrounding area) has ever actually elected any le penazi, and certainly the first time “my” legislative representative is a fascist.
This is the first time under the current French constitution (the so-called Fifth Republic) that there hasn’t been a majority party in Parliament. There have been three periods of cohabitation where the President’s party and the Parliamentary majority’s party are different, but there has always been a majority party.
Turnout was lower than in the first round, but not quite a record low.
blf @ #245:
Yikes. Sorry to hear that.
Kyiv Independent:
“This is an ad from MO-Sen candidate Eric Greitens about hunting human beings, played up completely in earnest.
‘The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice…There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country’.”
Ad at the (Twitter) link.
From the latest summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Followup to comment 238.
Mary Trump knows her uncle all too well: Donald Trump Could Have Used Pence’s Murder to Declare Martial Law
Last week I took part remotely in an academic “workshop” on modelling social-ecological systems in the Netherlands. Almost all the other participants attended in person (the exceptions had a recent positive test for Covid, in some cases just a day or two before the workshop started). The organisers assured me (a few weeks ago) that local infection levels were low, and everyone would be tested immediately before the initial meeting. Three of the attendees have tested positive since the workshop ended on Friday. I’ll be surprised if they’re the only ones. With luck, no-one will be seriously ill, or develop long Covid – as I certainly hope. But I’m certainly glad I didn’t go, although inevitably I missed out on some aspects of the event, both workwise (although the organisers made great efforts to include me and the other onliners) and social.
Boris Johnson admitted to hospital for routine surgery, leaving Raab in charge. It’s rumoured that he’s having the necrotic remains of a shrivelled conscience removed.
@SC #241
Oh, praise be to the FSM! I was really worried that Hernandez (despite everything) would get in, which would have been un desastre!
I have visited people in Bogatá and the surrounding area a couple of times, and found them to be some of the nicest, most level-headed people I’ve ever known – to think of that beautiful country (admittedly, with all its problems) in the hands of a Duterte/Bolsanaro/Hair Furor wannabe was too hideous to contemplate. I thought that outcome was unlikely, but then I thought 2016 was very unlikely too, so…
Big “whew” here. No doubt president-elect Petro will run into all kinds of roadblocks, but things could’ve turned out so, so much worse.
Zelenskyy Father’s Day post spotlights family ties amid war
See also: ‘Thank you, our heroes’: Zelensky issues Father’s Day message praising those who have taken up arms to defend Ukraine from invasion
Photos and video at the link.
Kinzinger shares threat to family
Trump campaign documents give inside look at fake-elector plan.
Washington Post link
A review of emails and memos shows that lawyers advising the former president knew the plan was baseless but pursued it anyway
At last week’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, the public learned brutal information about how Trump targeted Pence. A day later, he targeted Pence again anyway.
Our daily threat from the Russians.
No nukes for the cat. They are going to start a war with Lithuania.
‘RIA Novosti is also claiming that this blockade is a casus belli for war. “
A few days ago, Lithuania blockaded Kaliningrad, the part of Russia on the Baltic sea not connected to Russia. It’s not a complete blockade, only for EU sanctioned goods, about 50%.
This was a brave act that wasn’t going to go over well with Russia.
Which it didn’t.
They are now threatening to start a war with Lithuania, population 2.65 million.
And NATO, population 948 million.
Russia seems to have ignored that they are blockading Ukraine on their main connection to the world, the Black sea ports. Russia is now also threatening to do something horrible to Poland for some reason.
Strangely enough, no one right now is too worried.
Russia has made so many extreme threats to just about everyone in the world, that no one is paying attention any more.
I have no idea what will happen next here. I doubt any one knows right now.
I’m just de-lurking for a moment to make my periodic statement of praise for all the regular commenters here on the Endless Thread. I’d be pretty lost without this continuing dedication to posting truth. Thanks so much for your daily — multiple times daily for several of you — explaining, linking, quoting, and analyzing the sometimes good, but sadly mostly bad, stuff going on around the world. I cannot afford to get behind the paywalls that many of the sources understandably put up, so having the excerpts here is very important to me.
I thrive on knowing how others are thinking and feeling about what is happening out there, and I do my best to make the world at least a tiny bit better by sharing what I learn with others, and by being involved with local politics and social justice activities. I wish I could do more, and will when I can. Thanks so much for keeping me informed, and, often, enraged enough to keep pushing as hard as I’m able to. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. What all of you do is vital.
https://wartranslated.com/intercepted-call-we-are-the-most-%5B“rtrd*d]-unit/
Conversation between a Russian soldier and a woman. Language used in the conversation triggers PZ’s filters for this thread, so rather than posting an excerpt, I will just provide the link. You have to replace the word “rtrd*d” with an offensive word meant to describe people who are mentally challenged.
Thanks, Paul K, @259. Glad that you find the thread useful.
In other news, here is a public service announcement produced by the National Lawyers Guild:
Link to page on which the video is available.
I second Paul K’s motion @ # 259!
Thank you, Pierce @162.
Bits and pieces of news.
NBC News:
NBC News:
Wall Street Journal:
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Happy June (Winter here, Summer for those in that upside down Northern hemisphere) Solstice everyone!
Yup, its’ today already :
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-june-solstice/
Another day, another Russian atrocity in Ukraine.
The Russian occupation of Ukraine is brutal and their main tools are murder and terrrorism.
They’ve been disappearing the staff of the nuclear power plant they control.
Speaking Ukrainian in Ukraine is now a serious offense.
Disappearing people is a very old terrorist tactic of the Russians. In times past, the disappeared were mostly just taken somewhere, killed, and buried.
There are mass graves all over Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet Union from Stalin’s purges before WW II.
There are now more mass graves any where in Ukraine where the Russians have been.
1.9 million people have been deported to Russia including 300,000 children.
It isn’t too well known what has happened to them but it is becoming clearer.
.1. A lot of them end up in Russian concentration camps.
.2. A lot of them have been taken to the most remote parts of Russian and just dumped there.
The high arctic, Siberia, and the Pacific coast, far from Ukraine and next door to Japan.
Social services in Russia on a good day aren’t very good.
A lot of these people are given no to minimal help and will have a hard time surviving.
It’s possible they will just suffer from the cold, hunger, and lack of medical care and end up dead, sooner rather than later.
Happy Solstice, StevoR and all!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian UK liveblog. From there:
Thanks, Paul K and Pierce!
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Lynna @ #250, I completely agree with Mary Trump.
One of the most damning bits of evidence is the statement he released shortly after meeting with Pence, lying that Pence agreed with him about what the VP could do. It was partly intended to put more pressure on Pence to change his mind and go along; but also, since Trump was well aware this was almost certainly not going to happen, it was meant to prime his followers to see Pence’s planned actions as a last-minute caving and betrayal of what he’d promised Trump, which would be sure to heighten their rage.
These hearings are really putting into relief how he functions as an abuser and sexual predator – the intimidation, manipulation, isolation, triangulation, deception, defamation, gaslighting,…
Bad news: Conservative justices push taxpayers to fund religious education
“This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build,” Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent.
I’ve long considered Slavoj Žižek a pretentious, deliberately obscure numpty, but in this article:Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine, he is absolutely clear, and in my view, largely right. I say “largely”, because I’m not convinced what we need is, as he says, “a stronger NATO”. NATO and the EU are currently the only possible source of arms for Ukraine, but NATO is inevitably seen by much of the world as a tool of western/American imperialism (the EU’s image is not a lot better), and what we need above all is the widest possible alliance against recrudescent fascism – as well as climate disruption and SARS-CoV-2. Žižek actually wants Europe to become “an autonomous agent”, primarily becuase of the danger of Trump returning to power in the USA, but NATO was designed, and still functions, to prevent Europe becoming independent of the USA (and conversely, to keep the USA committed to Europe). Moreover, NATO includes Turkey, which is almost as fascist as Russia (the Turkish opposition does appear to have more autonomy, but I’m not at all confident Erdoğan would allow himself to lose an election).
What most of the Jan. 6 committee witnesses have in common
It’s ironic to hear Donald Trump suggest that Americans are only hearing from one side in Jan. 6 hearings: We’re hearing from members of his own party.
Same as it ever was …
Link
Ukraine Invasion Day 118
How a Former Transcendental Meditation Devotee Ended Up Funding America’s Wildest Right-Wing Spy Op
The saga of Gore-Tex heir Susan Gore is a parable of the dark turn the Republican Party has taken.
Craziness, weirdness, gullibility, paranoia … and way too much money.
In todays Jan 6th hearing, we learned that the senator from Wisconsin is in need of some criminal charges:
Really?! Some stranger gave him a package of documents, briefed him on the contents, and told him to hand deliver them to the VP? Yet he has ‘no idea’ who that was?
My quote @281 is from CNN. The links aren’t linking today, but it’s trending on Google at the moment.
NBC News:
Washington Post:
‘Team Normal’ Just Looked The Other Way While Alternate Elector Scheme Unfolded
Excerpt from Talking Points Memo’s coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing that was aired today:
Bowers Describes Menacing Visits After Defying Trump:
Bowers: Eastman Asked Me To Take A Vote To Decertify:
JFC
Commentary on the clown show excerpted above:
Link
A reminder that Lady Ruby’s ordeal included Kanye’s publicist threatening her
Kanye West’s publicist, and a person to whom she had Ruby Freeman speak on the phone, pressured Ruby to admit to committing election fraud. In a weird and roundabout way, (pretending to be her friend, and offering her “safety”), they threatened Ruby with incarceration. They threatened her with unspecified physical damage to both herself and to her family if she did not confess to fraud. She did not confess. She was braver and more sensible than all of Trump’s lackeys.
Excerpts from Wonkette’s live coverage of the January 6 hearing:
https://www.wonkette.com/january-6-hearing-live
Summary:
Link
Whoa, partial truth emanates from … Fox News!
Link
Stephen Colbert HYSTERICALLY Mocks Tucker Carlson’s ‘Comedy’ on the Arrest of His Staff in D.C.
Video at the link.
Excerpt:
Thank the Tongan volcano – but with a twist here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-22/tonga-volcano-eruption-causing-dazzling-sunrises-sunsets/101170012
@ Lynna, OM : Did you see the Cory Booker interview on that episode of Colbert too? Thought that was pretty interesting and powerful.. See here on his Jan 6th memories plus
on closing a deadly loophole in firearms sales as well as on the Juneteenth holiday.
StevoR @294, those were good interviews. Unlike some hosts, Colbert didn’t interrupt his guest, he let Booker make his points.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Also from there:
Followup to comment 286.
link
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Awwww. Sadness for Mo Brooks
Abandoned by Trump, Alabama’s Mo Brooks loses GOP primary
“It’s quite clear that Donald Trump has no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself,” Mo Brooks said.
Ukraine update: As Russia finally gains ground in eastern Ukraine, a reminder why it matters little
A few podcast episodes:
NBN – “Marga Vicedo, Intelligent Love: The Story of Clara Park, Her Autistic Daughter, and the Myth of the Refrigerator Mother“:
On the Media – “The Conspiracy Machine”:
Fever Dreams – “Woke Alamo feat. Jessica Huseman”:
Here’s the NBC report about the Kari Lake story – “Drag queen blasts Arizona governor candidate as a ‘hypocrite’ for drag digs”:
Once again, a gay-hating evangelical threatens neighbors, Pride parade, bringing police response
Guardian liveblog:
Trump exhausted every reasonable option, then every unreasonable option, and then he created Jan. 6
I don’t think Trump ever had any “reasonable” options, but okay.
Tim Scott Has No Time For Black Women Testifying Trump Sent Lynch Mob After Them
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657543690
Lawmakers on Jan. 6 committee ramp up their security as threats increase.
Washington Post link
Politico – “Jan. 6 panel revises hearing schedule, citing new evidence”:
Some Republicans felt ‘duped’ by Team Trump’s fake electors plot
Awwww, Republicans were duped? What did they expect?
What the fake electors scheme and Donald Trump’s post-election fundraising have in common: People who put their trust in Trump were shamelessly exploited.
Some campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Of course he would be proud. The average rank-and-file Republican voter–especially in a rural crap-hole like Missouri–LOVES this sort of threatening tough-talk. If he were to apologize, his voters would take it as a sign of weakness. Always better to double, triple, and quadruple down.
Oz suddenly trying to deep-six his Trump ties after winning Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary
Does Trump know that his boyfriend, Mehmet Oz, is breaking up with him? Does OZ really believe he can wash the Trump stain off now?
Republicans want adults to be able to sue doctors who gave them gender-affirming care as youth
JUDGE RULES That FOX News Acted With ‘Actual Malice’ By Spreading Trump’s Election Fraud Lies
Jan. 6 committee delays hearing schedule until July
Did many other people know Arabia has its own endangered magpie species the Asir or Arabian magpie?
I sure didn’t till tonight. See :
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1996911/saudi-arabia
& https://www.aramcolife.com/en/publications/the-arabian-sun/articles/2021/week-13/magpies-in-billahmer
& https://www.aramco.com/en/sustainability/minimizing-environmental-impact/biodiversity-and-land-use/promoting-biodiversity/protecting-the-asir-magpie
OMG, bad news.
Supreme Court: 2nd Amendment guarantees right to carry guns in public
As Congress looks for ways to address gun violence, Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices are pushing in the opposite direction.
Reckless, stupid and short-sighted.
Trump adds his bonkers, mindless blustering to the debate over gun regulations:
Link
Ukraine update:
Link
Tucker Finds New Reason To Worry About Balls Shrinking, It Is Nicotine Bans
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657551852
Testimony links Freedom Caucus’ Biggs to anti-election efforts
The chair of the House Freedom Caucus contacted his home state’s House Speaker in the hopes that he’d help subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Campaign news, bits and pieces as summarized by Steve Benen:
There are 50 states, plus the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.). The D.C. area wants to become a state so that it has proper representation in Congress.
Link
In other words, Clark is a Trump lackey, and he disembarked from the reality train a long time ago. Now he is in hot water.
Posted by readers of the article:
Excerpts from Talking Points Memo’s coverage of the House Jan. 6 Committee’s fifth hearing, which was held today:
Republicans think that Democrats will use the judicial system the way that Republicans dream of using it.
Link
Followup to comment 323. More excerpts from coverage of the January 6 Committee hearing:
Link
Wonkette: “Let’s Listen To Trump’s Own Lawyers Tell Us How Insanely Illegal This Coup Plot Was!”
More at the link
Today’s disaster is something different. We are going back a few thousand years to repeat an event that killed billions.
.1. Monkeypox isn’t really Monkeypox. It is Ratpox and the Monkeys are incidental hosts like humans.
.2. Ratpox is the most likely ancestor of smallpox.
.3. There has always been this idea that since smallpox is extinct, that it could re-evolve.
.4. And here we are. This current Monkeypox outbreak is starting to show evolution and adaptation to its new host, humans. With 7.9 billion humans on the planet, we are the largest target for newly evolved pathogens, a large ecological niche.
We need to jump on this epidemic and fast.
Experience shows that the way to defeat novel virus pandemics is to get them at the very beginning before they adapt to humans and spread too far. We’ve done it with SARS and Avian Flu. We missed with HIV and Covid-19 virus.
It’s possible, since we already have a good vaccine and two good antiviral drugs, because monkeypox is closely related to…smallpox.
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
A half-century after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade, establishing a right to an abortion, Republican-appointed justices reversed course.
More shoes are ready to drop:
Link
Joe Manchin is shocked:
Why does Joe Manchin trust Republicans? Why did Joe Manchin trust people chosen by Donald Trump?
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/and-there-it-is-4
Kate Riga:
David Hogg:
Rep. Pramila Jayapal:
They were looking for power, for control, wherever they could find it.
In dissent, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan respond: “Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”
Ukraine update: U.S. doubles HIMARS order for Ukraine as the first four get deployed
Link
Neal Katyal tells Ari Melber what the pre-dawn FBI Raid on Jeffrey Clark really means
Important news that isn’t getting as much attention as it deserves.
Obama denounces ‘devastating’ abortion ruling
Wonkette: https://www.wonkette.com/burn-it-all-down
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/-2657555238
New York times:
Biden:
We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse.
New Yorker link
We are entering an era not just of unsafe abortions but of the widespread criminalization of pregnancy.
More at the link.
Congress overcomes GOP opposition, passes bill on gun violence
In the wake of deadly mass shootings, it was easy to predict nothing would happen. This time, however, the skeptics had reason to be pleasantly surprised.
Roberts Tries To Wash Hands Of Overturning Roe While Joining Majority Judgment
Followup to comment 342.
Posted by readers of the article:
Trump is FREAKING OUT that the January 6th Hearings are So Effectively Illuminating His Crimes
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1540399689098579968
Video at the link.
Circumstances:
Link
Video also available at the second link.
The Great Regression, Jim Crow 2.0, and the end of the American Experiment
Much more at the link.
The terrorist wing of the the anti-abortion movement is busy:
Link
Turns Out Ron Johnson May Have Told One Or Two Wee Fibs About Those Fake Electoral Certificates
Actually, Johnson told three or more lies.
Wonkette: “The Absolute Last Thing We Needed: Q Is Back”
Russia Fires Barrage of Missiles at Targets Across Ukraine
New York Times link
The crude reality of the political machinations involved in overruling Roe v. Wade makes it galling to read the Court’s self-portrayal as a picture of proper judicial restraint.
New Yorker link
U.S. intelligence brief suggests Putin is waiting for another weak-willed Republican to be president
Norway shaken by attack that kills 2 during Pride festival
Link
Ukraine update: Counteroffensive in Donetsk area still advancing
Well, this is disturbing Aussie news – a Climate action protest group finds camo-clad anonymous, undeclared trespassers that turn out to be cops on their land who try to flee when approached and asked to explain themselves & what happens next :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-06-22/blockade-australia-climate-activists-police-raids-charges/101167102
Despite suffering from covid Sam Bee has this just under seven minute long clip on the SCOTUS Forced Birther verdict which I reckon is worth watching.
Andy Kim:
Full twitter thread
StevoR @356:
Scary thought, but true. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
In other news: GOP Candidate Drops Out After Alleged Assault On Dem Rival At Abortion Rights Rally
Ukraine Update: Russia’s supply and command and control hubs no longer safe from Ukrainian attack
Federalist Society:
States With Abortion Bans to Mothers: Drop Dead
No, red states aren’t going to suddenly adopt social programs to help caretakers. The goal has always been cruelty.
Doctors who perform abortions will be targeted for prosecution, South Dakota governor says
The part about providing “resources” is bullshit. See comment 362.
Wonkette: “‘Pro-Lifers’ Respond To Abortion Rights Protests With Violence, Misogyny And Trucks”
WaPo
GOP lawmaker calls Roe ruling ‘victory for white life’ as Trump rally cheers
Jennifer Hassan / June 26, 2022
@Lynna 363
Noem is lying here. She does that a lot.
South Dakota will start prosecuting pregnant women for murder sooner or later. And probably sooner.
All the Red states are in a race to see who can execute the most women and how soon.
She is just making stuff up here. This is wrong. In fact, we know a lot more about what zygotes go through in the womb. They don’t feel anything because much of their nervous system isn’t hooked up and functioning.
Noem is lying here again.
South Dakota is one of the few states with no income tax.
The state spends among the lowest per capital on education and social services.
They don’t have either the money or the interest in funding social services for pregnant women, babies, or children.
Lynna: The part about providing “resources” is bullshit. See comment 362.
You got it.
The Red states have no intention of dealing with any more single mothers, teenage mothers, and their babies and children.
Their attitude is that since you had sex, it is your problem not the state’s.
The other issue here is unsaid but also explains why they won’t spend more money. Most of those unwanted forced birth babies are going to be nonwhite. Latino and Black women have abortion rates 2-3 times higher than white women.
Teenage pregnancy is highly correlated and causal with life long poverty. There are going to be a lot of poor women in the Red states.
Ms. Miller is cosmically stupid here.
The repeal of Roe versus Wade is going to be the worst nightmare of the white racists and white supremacists.
The nonwhite abortion rate is 2-3 times higher than the white abortion rate.
And also the nonwhite poverty levels are higher than white levels.
Most of those female slavery/forced birth babies are going to be nonwhite. White women are the ones with the knowledge and money to go elsewhere to obtain an abortion.
The white racists have just accelerated what they call their own Great Replacement.
These people are so dumb that they haven’t yet figured this out even though it is simple and obvious.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Guardian articles I didn’t have a chance to share last week:
“Marseille, Alexandria and Istanbul prepare for Mediterranean tsunami.”
“How TikTok is turning a generation of video addicts into a data goldmine.”
(Speaking of surveillance capitalism, I recently read Oliver Bullough’s new book Butler to the World: How Britain Helps the World’s Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away with Anything. His chapter on offshore online gambling in Gibraltar is enlightening.)
Kyiv Post – “Mother of Girl Injured in Kyiv Attack Is Russian, Father Confirms”:
Polls show that most Americans support Roe versus Wade.
Polls also show that most Americans don’t like the US Supreme court. No surprise.
We now have a court that is taking our rights away, instead of protecting them. The Supreme court has decided to be the enemy of the American people.
Rob Lee:
Video and link at the (Twitter) link.
Polls are also showing that the Supreme Court has destroyed its credibility and legitimacy.
It is now highly unpopular with a majority of Americans.
They correctly see the Court as political rather than a legal body.
Are we going to let 6 unelected judges wreck a nation of 331 million people?
Yes, at this time we have to. That can change in the future in a number of ways.
Teri Kanefield (I’d never heard of her before):
Guardian liveblog:
Here’s a link to Women on Web, which was started by Rebecca Gomperts, the physician who organized Women on Waves (there’s a 2014 documentary about it called Vessel which I haven’t yet seen).
They’re based in Canada. Here are links for getting around censorship of the site in several countries.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
“Russian missiles hits a shopping mall with some 1,000 people inside in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, far away from any frontlines. Authorities say there are multiple fatalities. May be the deadliest Russian missile strike since the war began.”
Terrible video at the (Twitter) link.
Guardian liveblog:
Axios – “Scoop: Spanberger rival Yesli Vega doubts pregnancy after rape”:
I wholeheartedly endorse this meme. (Twitter link.)
Today’s Guardian podcast – “Can Colombia’s first leftwing president deliver change?”:
Guardian liveblog:
Here’s a link to Meduza’s new Ukraine/Russia liveblog/news feed.
Summarized from NPR:
New York Times:
raven @367, thanks for that additional information. We need to know the extent of the lies that the Governor of South Dakota is telling, and the depths of her ignorance.
Here is a bit more detail:
Link
Guardian – “Blow for Trump’s Truth Social as merger company hit by grand jury subpoenas”:
Ukrainian MFA Dmytro Kuleba tweeted the video of the burning mall in Kremenchuk, writing:
Josh Marshall:
Purple State GOPs Insist Everything’s Fine, Abortions for Everyone
Jan. 6 Committee Announces Surprise Tuesday Hearing
The hearing will share “recently obtained” evidence.
Yahoo! – “Jan. 6 panel calls surprise hearing to present new evidence”:
:) Shoulda refreshed.
Big Lie Millionaires Played A Key Role In Colorado Voting Machine Breach
SC @393, that was news worth repeating. :-)
In other news: Ukraine update: Low on troops, Russia plays whack-a-mole with frisky Ukrainians
Lynna @ #395, I really appreciate the DK Ukraine updates – both the posts themselves and the comment threads.
Scott MacFarlane, CBS:
!: “Aides refused to divulge what additional evidence they planned to present on Tuesday or who would be testifying, saying that the panel was concerned for the security of its witnesses.”
Kyiv Independent:
Statement at the (Twitter) link.
Guardian liveblog:
“A truly bloody and deadly day in Ukraine as Russia fired missiles at cities across the country. Kremenchuk and Lysychansk bore the brunt of the attacks which targeted a shopping mall (13 civilians confirmed killed so far) and a water pipeline (8 killed).”
SC @396:
Good to know. I didn’t know if I was overwhelming readers of the thread … or not.
In other news, this was a close call, as reported by The New York Times:
What changed from Justice Alito’s draft opinion to final ruling on Roe
Justice Samuel Alito used his rewrite to take shots at Chief Justice John Roberts and liberal dissenters.
More at the link.
https://www.wonkette.com/liars-and-leaders-after-the-fall-of-roe
New York Times link
Louisiana and Utah trigger laws banning abortions temporarily blocked by courts
More at the link.
Looks like we are going to have a long, drawn-out fight on our hands.
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
So some friends gave me some gummies.
Apropos of nothing here’s some Peter Tosh:
“Till Your Well Runs Dry.”
“Legalize It.”
“Johnny B. Goode (long version).”
“Reggaemylitis (2002 Remaster).”
Guardian liveblog:
Honestly wtf to this whole arrangement.
Update to #377 – Rachel Maddow is interviewing Dr, Gomperts right now.
Here’s the Aid Access link.
“Downpressor Man.”
This fight is just getting started. It is going to go on forever.
And, it is going to be as vicious and ugly as when the so-called pro-lifers assassinating MDs and bombing clinics.
The next wars will be to make the abortion drugs RU-486 and misoprostol illegal.
And to prevent pregnant women from traveling out of state.
The federal government, meanwhile, faces a choice over how to deal with states that seek to ban Food and Drug Administration-approved abortion medication, now used in about half of pregnancy terminations.
“Today, we are taking action to protect our service providers from the retaliatory actions of anti-abortion states and ensure that New York will always be a safe harbor for those seeking reproductive healthcare,” Hochul said in a statement.
Here is an article analyzing the increase in women and children living in poverty in the Red states. Overturning Roe versus Wade is going to effect the people the most who are already under serious economic and social stress. They will be mostly poor, young, and nonwhite.
I’m going to summarize the last two articles on female slavery and forced birthing.
The tl;dr version.
The battles between the female slavers and pro-choicers are just getting started.
.1. The GOP/christofascists are already attempting to outlaw the abortion drugs.
(It’s not clear to me that the Blue states could just make them nonprescription and over the counter.)
.2. The GOP states will attempt to limit the freedom of movement and travel of pregnant women.
This is slavery.
.3. They will also attempt to charge women who travel out of state for abortions with first degree murder.
This is going to be difficult because state laws end at state borders.
OTOH, with the current Supreme Court, they can make up any laws they want so who knows.
It’s clear that the Blue states aren’t going to be extradicting female abortion refugees to Red States.
.4. The forced birthers aren’t going to be all that successful no matter how many women they execute.
Most Red state women will travel out of state or go the DIY route.
Out of 800,000 abortions per year done in the USA, probably the number will decrease by 100,000, meaning 100,000 additional unwanted babies will be born to mostly young, poor, and nonwhite women.
.5. This is not as certain, but it is likely in the Red states that someone will look at the Gestapo, Stasi, and KGB and set up the Zygote Police, or ZyPos for short. A dedicated police force to harass and arrest young women. Because the GOP is all about freedom and rights.
NATO just changed its alert level for the first time since the end of the cold war. The high alert level went from 40,000 to 300,000 soldiers. This is a huge increase.
So what does it mean?
Got me, NATO never bothers to keep me updated.
I’m getting the impression that there are a lot of scared and angry people who have gotten fed up with Russia. The Russians have stopped threatening to nuke me and my cat and are now threatening to nuke Germany. That is not going over very well.
A bit random, but a Twitter user is:
There are a lot of recommendations in the comments and it reminded me that I haven’t been reading much fiction lately. I thought others might like some suggestions, too.
A few examples, for those without twitter:
Guardian – “At least 46 migrants found dead inside Texas trailer truck”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Guardian – “Fears of violence against pro-choice protests intensify amid wave of attacks”:
Lorenzo Tondo, Guardian:
Photos at the (Twitter) link.
Follow-up of sorts to Lynna’s #335 – CNN – “John Eastman searched and had phone seized by federal agents last week, he says”:
SC @421, Russians are such bad liars.
Text quoted by SC in comment 419:
Another fucking threat. I am really fed up with Russia’s threats.
One thing I take from this is that Russia is deeply worried that Ukraine will indeed take back Crimea.
Link
Guardian liveblog:
Followup to SC’s comment 378.
Sotomayor says Gorsuch flubbed prayer case facts (and she’s right)
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears to have misrepresented relevant details — and Sonia Sotomayor brought photographs to prove it.
Link
Guardian liveblog:
Who Is Cassidy Hutchinson? And Why Is She A Key Witness?
Ukraine update: Why are Ukraine’s claims of tank kills spiking so high? HIMARS might be the answer
The January 6th committee hearing has started. You can watch the livestream on YT here.
Wow. The first few minutes alone are pretty shocking.
Here’s a link to the Guardian’s liveblog of the hearing.
Abortions can continue in Texas after judge temporarily blocks pre-Roe ban
Oriana Gonzalez / June 28, 2022
Holy shit.
After Trump’s rally, when his security guy told him in the vehicle that he couldn’t go to the Capitol and had to return to the White House, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel and then… “lunged at” him. There was literally a physical altercation – Trump assaulted the guy.
Now she’s describing how Trump threw a plate of food at the wall because he was angry at Barr’s AP interview; this was one of many such episodes when he threw dishes or a whole table of dishes during tantrums.
“The President of the United States advocated for the removal of magnetometers at the Ellipse to allow an armed crowd to gather unimpeded so that he could direct them to march to the U.S. Capitol. ‘They’re not here to hurt me’, he said.”
“‘One of the most stunning offerings of testimony in American history’, Jake Tapper says of Cassidy Hutchinson’s time at the table, as the committee goes to recess for ten minutes.”
“Trump was told to take his hand ‘off the steering wheel’ and even lunged for a Secret Service agent’s neck.
This testimony from Hutchinson is WILD.”
And there’s a lot more.
Perhaps this was already known, since it’s old testimony, but Flynn being asked “Do you believe in the peaceful transfer of power in the United States?” and going “Fifth” is kinda stunning.
“He. Physically. Attacked. A. Secret. Service. Agent.”
Hearing Cheney say “shit” is not as stunning, but a little bit funny.
“Mark had responded something to the effect of, ‘You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.'”
Members of the cabinet discussed the 25th Amendment.
I’m going to try to summarize some of the things I’m doing on nextdoor. I won’t pretend it’s good in every situation but I’m trying to be responsive to what others here.
I’ve been trying to concentrate on being politically supportive to people in local politics. It’s nextdoor but it still counts. With the shift from the loss of Roe I’ve been watching to see where I can do something.
At the moment I’m:
*Supporting anger and making clear that anger fuels protest. Many have been attacking anger in substanceless terms and acting like it always goes to violence. But that is trying to take the tools of others away.
*Ruthlessly picking at anything that twists the reality of the situation. Focusing on states is ignoring that people are investing states with the power to force others to give birth.
*Characterizing the conceptus>fetus as spectral evidence that people must make up things about and speak for. No fetus speaks for itself and you can make one say anything like a hand puppet.
*Calling out every mislabeling of a stage of development as lying and deliberate calling of babies and more to mind when there aren’t any in the issue.
*Characterizing the situation outside of the constitution as much as possible. Abortion a social stabilizer that some creatures can do for themselves. It harms no one that isn’t using fetus puppetry.
*Inside the constitution I put abortion as an unenumerated right a forced-birther wants to give the state the power to prevent with literally nothing. This makes a mockery of standing and personhood.
*”Killing the next Rembrandt” is responded to with “But baby Hitler is going to get you first!”
More as I get it out in text.
To close out the hearing, Cheney’s providing examples of witness tampering, because of course they’re trying to coerce witnesses.
(from the Nato summit currently ongoing in Madrid)
According to Finnish president’s press release, president Erdogan of Turkiye (close enough spelling) has agreed in a three-way meeting to stop blocking the Nato accession of Finland and Sweden. Unclear a) whether any concessions on human rights have been made by Finland or Sweden b) whether Erdogan is likely to flip again on this issue before ratification.
Rick Wilson:
WaPo
GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’
By Adela Suliman and Timothy Bella / June 28, 2022
Neal Katyal:
Sarah Matthews:
George Conway:
Carol Leonnig:
Rep. Gallego tweeted:
Steve Vladeck:
Order at the (Twitter) link.
I tried posting something a bit ago, and it seems to be stuck in moderation. I’m trying again; sorry if it ends up a double post. There’s a new article at the Guardian, Facebook and Instagram removing posts with mentions of abortion pills, and it blew me away. Here’s a quote:
On Monday, an AP reporter tested how Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.” The post was removed within one minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods”.
Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words “abortion pills” for “a gun”, the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail “weed” was also left up and not considered a violation.
In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy, including the ongoing issue of guns being sold openly on its platform.
I apologize for not knowing how to post a link, or do quotes, either. I just wanted to share this. The world is so messed up.
Yeah, guns aren’t a problem at all: https://www.11alive.com/article/news/crime/two-people-shot-atlanta-subway/85-62585630-e5db-43ae-9cad-f7a1c2e0f044
Too much mayo will get you killed.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Summary, from NBC News:
A few more memorable tidbits:
“Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cass,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told Cassidy Hutchinson before the event. “We are going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”
“I don’t f’ing care that they [people attending the January 6 rally that later turned into an attack on the Capitol] have weapons,” Trump said, according to Cassidy 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.”
Some people attending the rally brought weapons, including: Glock-style pistols; AR-15s, pepper spray, knives, brass knuckles, Tasers and blunt objects that could be used as weapons … spears fastened to the ends of flagpoles
Link
Wonkette:
Trump’s, “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is …” made me laugh out loud. Several news hosts, comedians and pundits predicted he would say that. And then he said that.
More from Trump: “Her story of me throwing food is also false…and why would SHE have to clean it up, I hardly knew who she was?”
More from Wonkette:
Link
Link
Mick Mulvaney:
Washington Post link
Joshua Yaffa tweeted that you can buy the ebook of his Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia for $1.99 today. I’m sure I’ve recommended it here once or twice; that’s a great deal on a very timely book.
Some podcast episodes:
The War on Cars – “Tesla is a Fraud with Ed Niedermeyer”:
“Episode 71: The Cybercurrency Crash—Interview with David Golumbia”:
Maintenance Phase – “The Worm Wars”:
Behind the Bastards – “Part One: How The Southern Baptist Convention Was Taken Over By Republicans and Child Molesters”:
(They seem confused about the “Curse of Ham” nonsense.)
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian ( support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Guardian – “Nobel laureate Maria Ressa vows to fight Philippines order shutting Rappler site”:
CBC – “Colombia needs drug policy changes to end internal violence, truth commission says”:
(The English-language articles I’ve read about this so far have been subpar. I’ll try to find something better.)
From today’s DN! headlines – “Truth Commission in Colombia Documents 450,000 Deaths, Criticizes U.S. Role in Backing Violence”:
Here’s the link for Paul K’s #452 – “Facebook and Instagram removing posts with mentions of abortion pills.”
BBC Mundo has five takeaways from the Colombia truth commission report. From there:
From Al Jazeera, “Colombia Truth Commission presents final report on civil conflict”:
From text quoted by SC in comment 463:
That’s a good move, I think.
NATO is adding 300,000 troops to their quick reaction force, (in addition to other upgrades to their military readiness).
Guardian liveblog:
Summarized from an NBC News article: After a district court ordered Louisiana to create a less racially discriminatory district map, the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed justices yesterday blocked that order. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented.
Hmmm. Interesting details:
I watched that at the time. Trump was subdued and beyond strange. He read the text like a prisoner being forced to read a propaganda statement. You could tell that he didn’t believe what he was saying.
Link
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/talk-on-background-is-cheap
Followup to SC’s comment 463.
Turkey relents, Finland and Sweden to join NATO
Worth repeating: “All that empty blustering just further underscores how pathetic Russia has become.”
Very helpful, from MSNBC last night (YT video) – “Secret Service Episodes On Jan. 6 Show Complicated Mix Of Duty And Political Allegiance”:
Link
Nick Schifrin:
Two cardinal sins: speaking out against Trump and being a woman, cause firehose to burst [A reference to the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson breaking through the firehose of lies that Republicans use as a political tactic.]
Kamala Harris:
Commentary from Wonkette:
More from Kamala Harris:
More commentary from Wonkette:
Wonkette: “Reviews Are In: Select Committee’s ‘Madness Of King Donald’ Was Boffo Hit!”
Random observation: the way the House Judiciary “GOP” Twitter account is responding to the January 6th hearings, and particularly yesterday’s, is reminding me of how the Kremlin (I think it was the account of the Russian embassy in the UK) responded to Carole Cadwalladr’s reporting.
Comedy stylings of the Associated Press:
Link
SC @482, interesting observation. Carole Cadwalladr eventually came out on top. She was proven right, but only after much persecution by her enemies.
If Trump had gone to the Capitol, what did he intend to do there?
Another thought to add to comment 484: If Trump had gone to the Capitol on January 6th and proceeded to the House chamber to give a dictator-for-life speech, the mob of his cult followers would have followed him in there. The mob probably would have zip-tied the legislators and then cheered Trump on to a successful coup.
In other news: The Supreme Court will come for your Social Security. Count on it
A reminder for the D.C. media: Anonymous sources don’t equal public testimony delivered under oath
Link
Wow. Working with Rudi Giuliani can cost you a lot of money … and it can land you in prison.
Link
Link
Texas AG says he would back law banning sodomy if Supreme Court reconsiders landmark case
And so it begins. And so it will continue.
Guardian liveblog:
LOL. (Twitter link.)
Olga Lautman:
Guardian liveblog:
Olivia Troye:
Quote at the (Twitter) link.
Quoted in Lynna’s #486:
I remain astonished by this. It’s baffling.
Humor from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
This explains why the Baltics are supporting Ukraine any way they can.
They’ve been there before and not so long ago.
…where more than 200,000 people were deported during the Soviet occupation and tens of thousands of others were executed and hanged in town squares in the 1940s.”
The Russians always eliminate the elites in the countries they occupy. That would be the educated, artists, poets, writers, scientists, business people etc.. The ones who create and keep a culture and society going.
A lot of those 200,000 people deported just disappeared and were never heard from again. The disappearances are a terrorist tactic.
Same thing happened to Poland, East Germany, and anywhere the Russians conquered.
From the Bloomberg article I just posted.
““If we get bogged down in only our own personal benefit, then we’re missing the big picture,” Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said at an EU summit last month where leaders banned the purchase of most Russian oil but didn’t discuss gas. “That’s only money. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives.”
We are spending a lot of money on Ukraine.
It’s nothing when you look at what the Ukrainians are spending.
The lives of mostly their young people and their best and brightest at that.
Ukraine is quiet about their casualties but they are high.
This war of attrition inevitably results in high casualties for both the Russians and Ukrainians.
Xpost from another thread today
This falls under the Deal With It strategy.
90 elected DAs have already pledged not to prosecute women who have abortions.
Including the DA for Austin, Texas.
Two thirds of the US population want to keep abortion safe and legal.
It is turning out that…we aren’t entirely powerless.
I keep saying, we outnumber those 6 Supreme Court judges by 55 million to 1.
That is extremely bad news: NATO, Sweden and Finland appear to have caved in to Turkish fascism.